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Kucinich Presents 35 Articles of Impeachment for George W. Bush

Organik — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:55:05 +0000

35 ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT

On June 9, 2008 – Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush in a dramatic presentation on the floor of the House of Representatives that lasted nearly five hours.

As of 9am the following morning – CNN has not yet reported on this event.

Article I

Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.

Article II

Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

Article III

Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.

Article IV

Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.

Article V

Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.

Article VI

Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.

Article VII

Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII

Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.

Article IX

Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor

Article X

Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes

Article XI

Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq

Article XII

Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation’s Natural Resources

Article XIIII

Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries

Article XIV

Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency

Article XV

Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq

Article XVI

Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors

Article XVII

Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives

Article XVIII

Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy

Article XIX

Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture

Article XX

Imprisoning Children

Article XXI

Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government

Article XXII

Creating Secret Laws

Article XXIII

Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act

Article XXIV

Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment

Article XXV

Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens

Article XXVI

Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements

Article XXVII

Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply

Article XXVIII

Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice

Article XXIX

Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Article XXX

Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare

Article XXXI

Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency

Article XXXII

Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change

Article XXXIII

Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.

Article XXXIV

Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001

Article XXXV

Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders

FULL TRANSCRIPT

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.

_____________

ARTICLE I CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ

The Department of Defense (DOD) has engaged in a years-long secret domestic propaganda campaign to promote the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This secret program was defended by the White House Press Secretary following its exposure. This program follows the pattern of crimes detailed in Article I, II, IV and VIII.. The mission of this program placed it within the field controlled by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a White House task-force formed in August 2002 to market an invasion of Iraq to the American people. The group included Karl Rove, I. Lewis Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Stephen Hadley, Nicholas E. Calio, and James R. Wilkinson.

The WHIG produced white papers detailing so-called intelligence of Iraq’s nuclear threat that later proved to be false. This supposed intelligence included the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger as well as the claim that the high strength aluminum tubes Iraq purchased from China were to be used for the sole purpose of building centrifuges to enrich uranium. Unlike the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, the WHIG’s white papers provided “gripping images and stories” and used “literary license” with intelligence. The WHIG’s white papers were written at the same time and by the same people as speeches and talking points prepared for President Bush and some of his top officials.

The WHIG also organized a media blitz in which, between September 7-8, 2002, President Bush and his top advisers appeared on numerous interviews and all provided similarly gripping images about the possibility of nuclear attack by Iraq. The timing was no coincidence, as Andrew Card explained in an interview regarding waiting until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action against Iraq, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

September 7-8, 2002:

NBC’s “Meet the Press: Vice President Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms.

CNN: Then-National Security Adviser Rice said, regarding the likelihood of Iraq obtaining a nuclear weapon, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

CBS: President Bush declared that Saddam was “six months away from developing a weapon,” and cited satellite photos of construction in Iraq where weapons inspectors once visited as evidence that Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.

The Pentagon military analyst propaganda program was revealed in an April 20, 2002, New York Times article. The program illegally involved “covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recruited 75 retired military officers and gave them talking points to deliver on Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and according to the New York Times report, which has not been disputed by the Pentagon or the White House, “Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.” According to the Pentagon’s own internal documents, the military analysts were considered “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who would deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.” In fact, they did deliver the themes and the messages but did not reveal that the Pentagon had provided them with their talking points. Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and Fox News military analyst described this as follows: “It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.’”

Congress has restricted annual appropriations bills since 1951 with this language: “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress.”

A March 21, 2005, report by the Congressional Research Service states that “publicity or propaganda” is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self- aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) “covert propaganda.”

These concerns about “covert propaganda” were also the basis for the GAO’s standard for determining when government-funded video news releases are illegal:

“The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the viewing audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual — the essential fact of attribution is missing.”

The White House’s own Office of Legal Council stated in a memorandum written in 2005 following the controversy over the Armstrong Williams scandal:

“Over the years, GAO has interpreted ‘publicity or propaganda’ restrictions to preclude use of appropriated funds for, among other things, so-called ‘covert propaganda.’ … Consistent with that view, the OLC determined in 1988 that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for ‘publicity or propaganda’ precluded undisclosed agency funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that ‘covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties’ would run afoul of restrictions on using appropriated funds for ‘propaganda.’”

Asked about the Pentagon’s propaganda program at White House press briefing in April 2008, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino defended it, not by arguing that it was legal but by suggesting that it “should” be: “Look, I didn’t know look, I think that you guys should take a step back and look at this look, DOD has made a decision, they’ve decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the things that we try to do in the administration is get information out to a variety of people so that everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something. And I don’t think that that should be against the law. And I think that it’s absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all of those military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk to people.”

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article II FALSELY, SYSTEMATICALLY, AND WITH CRIMINAL INTENT CONFLATING THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 WITH MISREPRESENTATION OF IRAQ AS AN IMMINENT SECURITY THREAT AS PART OF A FRAUDULENT JUSTIFICATION FOR A WAR OF AGGRESSION.

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into believing that there was and is a connection between Iraq and Saddam Hussein on the one hand, and the attacks of September 11, 2001 and al Qaeda, on the other hand, so as to falsely justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner that is damaging to the national security interests of the United States, as well as to fraudulently obtain and maintain congressional authorization and funding for the use of such military force against Iraq, thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress’s lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.

The means used to implement this deception were and continue to be, first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his direction and control, including the Vice President and the Vice President’s agents, and second, personally making, or causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, including the President’s Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and Iraq, on the one hand, and the September 11th attacks and al Qaeda, on the other hand, that were half-true, literally true but misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:

(A) On or about September 12, 2001, former terrorism advisor Richard Clarke personally informed the President that neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq was responsible for the September 11th attacks. On September 18, Clarke submitted to the President’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice a memo he had written in response to George W. Bush’s specific request that stated: (1) the case for linking Hussein to the September 11th attacks was weak; (2) only anecdotal evidence linked Hussein to al Qaeda; (3) Osama Bin Laden resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein; and (4) there was no confirmed reporting of Saddam Hussein cooperating with Bin Laden on unconventional weapons.

(B) Ten days after the September 11th attacks the President received a President’s Daily Briefing which indicated that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that there was “scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.” (C) In Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary No. 044-02, issued in February 2002, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein- Al Qaeda conspiracy: “Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.”

(D) The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate gave a “Low Confidence” rating to the notion of whether “in desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with Al Qaeda.” The CIA never informed the President that there was an operational relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein; on the contrary, its most “aggressive” analysis contained in Iraq and al-Qaeda- Interpreting a Murky Relationship” dated June 21, 2002 was that Iraq had had “sporadic, wary contacts with al Qaeda since the mid-1990s rather than a relationship with al Qaeda that has developed over time.”

(E) Notwithstanding his knowledge that neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq was in any way connected to the September 11th attacks, the President allowed and authorized those acting under his direction and control, including Vice President Richard B. Cheney and Lewis Libby, who reported directly to both the President and the Vice President, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, among others, to pressure intelligence analysts to alter their assessments and to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable information, to manufacture intelligence or reinterpret raw data in ways that would further the Bush administration’s goal of fraudulently establishing a relationship not only between Iraq and al Qaeda, but between Iraq and the attacks of September 11th.

(F) Further, despite his full awareness that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had no relationship to the September 11th attacks, the President, and those acting under his direction and control have, since at least 2002 and continuing to the present, repeatedly issued public statements deliberately worded to mislead, words calculated in their implication to bring unrelated actors and circumstances into an artificially contrived reality thereby facilitating the systematic deception of Congress and the American people. Thus the public and some members of Congress, came to believe, falsely, that there was a connection between Iraq and the attacks of 911. This was accomplished through well-publicized statements by the Bush Administration which contrived to continually tie Iraq and 911 in the same statements of grave concern without making an explicit charge:

(1) ” [If] Iraq regimes [sic] continues to defy us, and the world, we will move deliberately, yet decisively, to hold Iraq to account…It’s a new world we’re in. We used to think two oceans could separate us from an enemy. On that tragic day, September the 11th, 2001, we found out that’s not the case. We found out this great land of liberty and of freedom and of justice is vulnerable. And therefore we must do everything we can — everything we can — to secure the homeland, to make us safe.” Speech of President Bush in Iowa on September 16, 2002.

(2) “With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors.” March 6, 2003, Statement of President Bush in National Press Conference.

(3) “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men — the shock troops of a hateful ideology — gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the ‘beginning of the end of America.’ By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.” May 1, 2003, Speech of President Bush on U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

(4) “Now we’re in a new and unprecedented war against violent Islamic extremists. This is an ideological conflict we face against murderers and killers who try to impose their will. These are the people that attacked us on September the 11th and killed nearly 3,000 people. The stakes are high, and once again, we have had to change our strategic thinking. The major battleground in this war is Iraq.” June 28, 2007, Speech of President Bush at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

(G) Notwithstanding his knowledge that there was no credible evidence of a working relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and that the intelligence community had specifically assessed that there was no such operational relationship, the President, both personally and through his subordinates and agents, has repeatedly falsely represented, both explicitly and implicitly, and through the misleading use of selectively-chosen facts, to the citizens of the United States and to the Congress that there was and is such an ongoing operational relationship, to wit:

(1) “We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.” September 28, 2002, Weekly Radio Address of President Bush to the Nation.

(2) “[W]e we need to think about Saddam Hussein using al Qaeda to do his dirty work, to not leave fingerprints behind.” October 14, 2002, Remarks by President Bush in Michigan.

(3) “We know he’s got ties with al Qaeda.” November 1, 2002, Speech of President Bush in New Hampshire.

(4) “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.” January 28, 2003, President Bush’s State of the Union Address.

(5) “[W]hat I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network…” February 5, 2003, Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations.

(6) “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on. . . . [T]he liberation of Iraq . . . removed an ally of al Qaeda.” May 1, 2003, Speech of President Bush on U.S. S. Abraham Lincoln

(H) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:

(1) “Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al- Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.”

(2) “The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.”

Through his participation and instance in the breathtaking scope of this deception, the President has used the highest office of trust to wage of campaign of deception of such sophistication as to deliberately subvert the national security interests of the United States. His dishonesty set the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States service members; injuries to tens of thousands of soldiers, the loss of more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $527 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt and the ultimate expenditure of three to five trillion dollars for all costs covering the war; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq.

Article III

MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO BELIEVE IRAQ POSSESSED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, SO AS TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, executed instead a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into believing that the nation of Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress’s lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.

The means used to implement this deception were and continue to be personally making, or causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, including the President’s Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United States and Congress regarding Iraq’s alleged possession of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that were half-true, literally true but misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:

(A) Long before the March 19, 2003 invasion of Iraq, a wealth of intelligence informed the President and those under his direction and control that Iraq’s stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons had been destroyed well before 1998 and that there was little, if any, credible intelligence that showed otherwise. As reported in the Washington Post in March of 2003, in 1995, Saddam Hussein’s son-in- law Hussein Kamel had informed U.S. and British intelligence officers that “all weapons–biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.” In September 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a report that concluded: “A substantial amount of Iraq’s chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM actions…[T]here is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has-or will-establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.” Notwithstanding the absence of evidence proving that such stockpiles existed and in direct contradiction to substantial evidence that showed they did not exist, the President and his subordinates and agents made numerous false representations claiming with certainty that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons that it was developing to use to attack the United States, to wit:

(1) “[T]he notion of a Saddam Hussein with his great oil wealth, with his inventory that he already has of biological and chemical weapons . . . is, I think, a frightening proposition for anybody who thinks about it.” Statement of Vice President Cheney on CBS’s Face the Nation, March 24, 2002.

(2) “In defiance of the United Nations, Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons.” Speech of President Bush, October 5, 2002.

(3) “All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland.” Statement by President Bush from the White House, February 6, 2003.

(B) Despite overwhelming intelligence in the form of statements and reports filed by and on behalf of the CIA, the State Department and the IAEA, among others, which indicated that the claim was untrue, the President, and those under his direction and control, made numerous representations claiming and implying through misleading language that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger in order to falsely buttress its argument that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, including:

(1) “”The regime has the scientists and facilities to build nuclear weapons, and is seeking the materials needed to do so.” Statement of President Bush from White House, October 2, 2002.

(2) “The [Iraqi] report also failed to deal with issues which have arisen since 1998, including: . . attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it.” Letter from President Bush to Vice President Cheney and the Senate, January 20, 2003.

(3) “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003.

(C) Despite overwhelming evidence in the form of reports by nuclear weapons experts from the Energy, the Defense and State Departments, as well from outside and international agencies which assessed that aluminum tubes the Iraqis were purchasing were not suitable for nuclear centrifuge use and were, on the contrary, identical to ones used in rockets already being manufactured by the Iraqis, the President, and those under his direction and control, persisted in making numerous false and fraudulent representations implying and stating explicitly that the Iraqis were purchasing the tubes for use in a nuclear weapons program, to wit:

(1) “We do know that there have been shipments going . . . into Iraq . . . of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to — high-quality aluminum tools [sic] that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.” Statement of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 8, 2002.

(2) “Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003.

(3) “[H]e has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed. …By now, just about everyone has heard of these tubes and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for. Most US experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium.” Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations, February 5, 2003.

(D) The President, both personally and acting through those under his direction and control, suppressed material information, selectively declassified information for the improper purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower and presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from Iraq, facilitated the exposure of the identity of a covert CIA operative and thereafter not only failed to investigate the improper leaks of classified information from within his administration, but also failed to cooperate with an investigation into possible federal violations resulting from this activity and, finally, entirely undermined the prosecution by commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby citing false and insubstantial grounds, all in an effort to prevent Congress and the citizens of the United States from discovering the fraudulent nature of the President’s claimed justifications for the invasion of Iraq.

(E) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:

(1) “Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.”

(2) “The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.”

(3) Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Jay Rockefeller concluded: “In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.”

The President has subverted the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States service members and the injury to tens of thousands of US soldiers; the loss of more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt with a long term financial cost of between three and five trillion dollars; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq.

Article IV

MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO BELIEVE IRAQ POSED AN IMMINENT THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into believing that the nation of Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress’s lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.

The means used to implement this deception were and continue to be, first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his direction and control, including the Vice President and the Vice President’s agents, and second, personally making, or causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, including the President’s Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an alleged urgent threat posed by Iraq, statements that were half-true, literally true but misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:

(A) Notwithstanding the complete absence of intelligence analysis to support a claim that Iraq posed an imminent or urgent threat to the United States and the intelligence community’s assessment that Iraq was in fact not likely to attack the United States unless it was itself attacked, President Bush, both personally and through his agents and subordinates, made, allowed and caused to be made repeated false representations to the citizens and Congress of the United States implying and explicitly stating that such a dire threat existed, including the following:

(1) “States such as these [Iraq, Iran and North Korea] and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.” President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002.

(2) “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. He is amassing them to use against our friends our enemies and against us.” Speech of Vice President Cheney at VFW 103rd National Convention, August 26, 2002.

(3) “The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.” Address of President Bush to the United Nations General Assembly, September 12, 2002.

(4) “[N]o terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.” Statement of Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Congress, September 19, 2002.

(5) “On its present course, the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . it has developed weapons of mass death.” Statement of President Bush at White House, October 2, 2002.

(6) “But the President also believes that this problem has to be dealt with, and if the United Nations won’t deal with it, then the United States, with other likeminded nations, may have to deal with it. We would prefer not to go that route, but the danger is so great, with respect to Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps even terrorists getting hold of such weapons, that it is time for the international community to act, and if it doesn’t act, the President is prepared to act with likeminded nations.” Statement of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell in interview with Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News, October 30, 2002.

(7) “Today the world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations which love freedom.” Speech by President Bush to Prague Atlantic Student Summit, November 20, 2002.

(8) “But the risk of doing nothing, the risk of the security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a madman with weapons of mass destruction far exceeds the risk of any action we may be forced to take.” President Bush Meets with National Economic Council at White House, February 25, 2003.

(B) In furtherance of his fraudulent effort to deceive Congress and the citizens of the United States into believing that Iraq and Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States, the President allowed and authorized those acting under his direction and control, including Vice President Richard B. Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Lewis Libby, who reportedly directly to both the President and the Vice President, among others, to pressure intelligence analysts to tailor their assessments and to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable information, to manufacture intelligence, or to reinterpret raw data in ways that would support the Bush administration’s plan to invade Iraq based on a false claim of urgency despite the lack of justification for such a preemptive action.

(C) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:

(1) “Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.”

Thus the President willfully and falsely misrepresented Iraq as an urgent threat requiring immediate action thereby subverting the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States service members; the injuries to tens of thousands of US soldiers; the deaths of more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $527 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt and the ultimate costs of the war between three trillion and five trillion dollars; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq.

Article V. ILLEGALLY MISSPENDING FUNDS TO SECRETLY BEGIN A WAR OF AGGRESSION

The president used over $2 billion in the summer of 2002 to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. First reported in Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack, and later confirmed by the Congressional Research Service, Bush took money appropriated by Congress for Afghanistan and other programs and–with no Congressional notification — used it to build airfields in Qatar and to make other preparations for the invasion of Iraq. This constituted a violation of Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, as well as a violation of the War Powers Act of 1973.

Article VI. INVADING IRAQ IN VIOLATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF HJRes114.

(1) HJRes 114 contains several Whereas clauses consistent with statements being made by the White House at the time regarding the threat from Iraq as evidenced by the following: (A) HJRes 114 states “Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;”; and

(B) HJRes 114 states “Whereas members of Al Qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;”.

(2) HJRes 114 states that the President must provide a determination, the truthfulness of which is implied, that military force is necessary in order to use the authorization, as evidenced by the following:

(A) Section 3 of HJRes 114 states:

“(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.–In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that–

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”

(3) On March 18, 2003, President George Bush sent a letter to Congress stating that he had made that determination as evidenced by the following:

(A) March 18th, 2003 Letter to Congress stating:

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. (4) President George Bush knew that these statements were false as evidenced by:

(A) Information provided with Article I, II, III, IV and V.

(B) A statement by President George Bush in an interview with Tony Blair on January 31st 2003: [WH]

Reporter: “One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?”

President Bush: “I can’t make that claim”

(C) An article on February 19th by Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna states “I could find no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The documentation and interviews indicated that Al Qaeda regarded Saddam, a secular leader, as an infidel.” [InternationalHeraldTribune]

(D) According to a February 2nd, 2003 article in the New York Times: [NYT]

At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, some investigators said they were baffled by the Bush administration’s insistence on a solid link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s network. “We’ve been looking at this hard for more than a year and you know what, we just don’t think it’s there,” a government official said.

(5) Section 3C of HJRes 114 states that “Nothing in this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.”

(6) The War Powers Resolution Section 9(d)(1) states:

(d) Nothing in this joint resolution–

(1) is intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President, or the provision of existing treaties; or

(7) The United Nations Charter was an existing treaty and, as shown in Article VIII, the invasion of Iraq violated that treaty

(8) President George Bush knowingly failed to meet the requirements of HJRes 114 and violated the requirement of the War Powers Resolution and, thereby, invaded Iraq without the authority of Congress. In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article VII.

INVADING IRAQ ABSENT A DECLARATION OF WAR

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 (the War Powers Clause) makes clear that the United States Congress holds the exclusive power to decide whether or not to send the nation into war. “The Congress,” the War Powers Clause states, “shall have power…To declare war…”

The October 2002 congressional resolution on Iraq did not constitute a declaration of war or equivalent action. The resolution stated: “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he deems necessary and appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and 2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” The resolution unlawfully sought to delegate to the President the decision of whether or not to initiate a war against Iraq, based on whether he deemed it “necessary and appropriate.” The Constitution does not allow Congress to delegate this exclusive power to the President, nor does it allow the President to seize this power.

In March 2003, the President launched a war against Iraq without any constitutional authority. In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article VIII

INVADING IRAQ, A SOVEREIGN NATION, IN VIOLATION OF THE UN CHARTER AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

(1) International Laws ratified by Congress are part of United States Law and must be followed as evidenced by the following:

(A) Article VI of the United States Constitution, which states “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;”

(2) The UN Charter, which entered into force following ratification by the United States in 1945, requires Security Council approval for the use of force except for self-defense against an armed attack as evidenced by the following:

A) Chapter 1, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter states:

“3.All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

“4.All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

(B) Chapter 7, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter states:

“51. Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self- defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

(3) There was no armed attack upon the United States by Iraq.

(4) The Security Council did not vote to approve the use of force against Iraq as evidenced by:

(A) A United Nation Press release which states that the United States had failed to convince the Security Council to approve the use of military force against Iraq. [UN]

(5) President Bush directed the United States military to invade Iraq on March 19th, 2003 in violation of the UN Charter and, therefore, in violation of United States Law as evidenced by the following:

(A) A letter from President Bush to Congress dated March 21st, 2003 stating “I directed U.S. Armed Forces, operating with other coalition forces, to commence combat operations on March 19, 2003, against Iraq.” [WH]

(B) On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion, said, “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal.” [BBC]

( C ) The consequence of the instant and direction of President George W. Bush, in ordering an attack upon Iraq, a sovereign nation is in direct violation of United States Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 118, Section 2441, governing the offense of war crimes.

(6). In the course of invading and occupying Iraq, the President, as Commander in Chief, has taken responsibility for the targeting of civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, use of antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas, the use of white phosphorous as a weapon, depleted uranium weapons, and the use of a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs. Under the direction of President George Bush the United States has engaged in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations, including but not limited to blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing over orchards.

(A) Under the principle of “command responsibility”, i.e., that a de jure command can be civilian as well as military, and can apply to the policy command of heads of state, said command brings President George Bush within the reach of international criminal law under the Additional Protocol I of June 8, 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, Article 86 (2). The United States is a state signatory to Additional Protocol I, on December 12, 1977.

(B) Furthermore, Article 85 (3) of said Protocol I defines as a grave breach making a civilian population or individual civilians the object of attacks. This offense, together with the principle of command responsibility, places President George Bush’s conduct under the reach of the same law and principles described as the basis for war crimes prosecution at Nuremburg, under Article 6 of the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunals: including crimes against peace, violations of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity, similarly codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Articles 5 through 8.

(C) The Lancet Report has established massive civilian casualties in Iraq as a result of the United States’ invasion and occupation of that country.

(D) International laws governing wars of aggression are completely prohibited under the legal principle of jus cogens, whether or not a nation has signed or ratified a particular international agreement.

FAILING TO PROVIDE TROOPS WITH BODY ARMOR AND VEHICLE ARMOR

While engaging in an invasion and occupation of choice, not fought in self-defense, and not launched in accordance with any timetable other than the President’s choosing, President Bush sent U.S. troops into danger without providing them with armor. This shortcoming has been known for years, during which time, the President has chosen to allow soldiers and Marines to continue to face unnecessary risk to life and limb rather then providing them with armor.

Article X

FALSIFYING ACCOUNTS OF U.S. TROOP DEATHS AND INJURIES FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES

The White House and the Department of Defense (DOD) in 2004 promoted a false account of the death of Specialist Pat Tillman, reporting that he had died in a hostile exchange, delaying release of the information that he had died from friendly fire, shot in the forehead three times in a manner that led investigating doctors to believe he had been shot at close range.

A 2005 report by Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones reported that in the days immediately following Specialist Tillman’s death, U.S. Army investigators were aware that Specialist Tillman was killed by friendly fire, shot three times to the head, and that senior Army commanders, including Gen. John Abizaid, knew of this fact within days of the shooting but nevertheless approved the awarding of the Silver Star, Purple Heart, and a posthumous promotion.

On April 24, 2007, Spc. Bryan O’Neal, the last soldier to see Specialist Pat Tillman alive, testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he was warned by superiors not to divulge information that a fellow soldier killed Specialist Tillman, especially to the Tillman family. The White House refused to provide requested documents to the committee, citing “executive branch confidentiality interests.”

The White House and DOD in 2003 promoted a false account of the injury of Jessica Dawn Lynch, reporting that she had been captured in a hostile exchange and had been dramatically rescued. On April 2, 2003, the DOD released a video of the rescue and claimed that Lynch had stab and bullet wounds, and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated. Iraqi doctors and nurses later interviewed, including Dr. Harith Al-Houssona, a doctor in the Nasirya hospital, described Lynch’s injuries as “a broken arm, a broken thigh, and a dislocated ankle”. According to Al-Houssona, there was no sign of gunshot or stab wounds, and Lynch’s injuries were consistent with those that would be suffered in a car accident. Al-Houssona’s claims were later confirmed in a U.S. Army report leaked on July 10, 2003.

Lynch denied that she fought or was wounded fighting, telling Diane Sawyer that the Pentagon “used me to symbolize all this stuff. It’s wrong. I don’t know why they filmed [my rescue] or why they say these things…. I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees. And that’s the last I remember.” She reported excellent treatment in Iraq, and that one person in the hospital even sang to her to help her feel at home.

On April 24, 2007 Lynch testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

“[Right after my capture], tales of great heroism were being told. My parent’s home in Wirt County was under siege of the media all repeating the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting. It was not true…. I am still confused as to why they chose to lie.” The White House had heavily promoted the false story of Lynch’s rescue, including in a speech by President Bush on April 28, 2003. After the fiction was exposed, the president awarded Lynch the Bronze Star.

Article XI

ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT U.S. MILITARY BASES IN IRAQ

On January 28, 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 4986). Noting that the Act “authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, for military construction, and for national security-related energy programs,” the president added the following “signing statement”:

“Provisions of the Act, including sections 841, 846, 1079, and 1222, purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the President’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander in Chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.”

Section 1222 clearly prohibits the expenditure of money for the purpose of establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. The construction of over $1 billion in U.S. military bases in Iraq, including runways for aircraft, continues despite Congressional intent, as the Administration intends to force upon the Iraqi government such terms which will assure the bases remain in Iraq. Iraqi officials have informed members of Congress in May 2008 of the strong opposition within the Iraqi parliament and throughout Iraq to the agreement that the administration is trying to negotiate with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The agreement seeks to assure a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq of which military bases are the most obvious, sufficient and necessary construct, thus clearly defying Congressional intent as to the matter and meaning of “permanency”.

Article XII

INITIATING A WAR AGAINST IRAQ FOR CONTROL OF THAT NATION’S NATURAL RESOURCES

The White House and its representatives in Iraq have, since the occupation of Baghdad began, attempted to gain control of Iraqi oil. This effort has included pressuring the new Iraqi government to pass a hydrocarbon law. Within weeks of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the US Agency for International Development (USAid) awarded a $240 million contract to Bearing Point, a private U.S. company. A Bearing Point employee, based in the US embassy in Baghdad, was hired to advise the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up the new hydrocarbon law. The draft law places executives of foreign oil companies on a council with the task of approving their own contracts with Iraq; it denies the Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive rights for the exploration, development, production, transportation, and marketing of Iraqi oil, and allows foreign companies to control Iraqi oil fields containing 80 percent of Iraqi oil for up to 35 years through contracts that can remain secret for up to 2 months. The draft law itself contains secret appendices. President Bush provided unrelated reasons for the invasion of Iraq to the public and Congress, but those reasons have been established to have been categorically fraudulent, as evidenced by the herein mentioned Articles of Impeachment I, II, III, IV, VI, and VII.

Parallel to the development of plans for war against Iraq, the U.S. State Department’s Future of Iraq project, begun as early as April 2002, involved meetings in Washington and London of 17 working groups, each composed of 10 to 20 Iraqi exiles and international experts selected by the State Department. The Oil and Energy working group met four times between December 2002 and April 2003. Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, later the Iraqi Oil Minister, was a member of the group, which concluded that Iraq “should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war,” and that, “the country should establish a conducive business environment to attract investment of oil and gas resources.” The same group recommended production-sharing agreements with foreign oil companies, the same approach found in the draft hydrocarbon law, and control over Iraq’s oil resources remains a prime objective of the Bush Administration.

Prior to his election as Vice President, Dick Cheney, then-CEO of Halliburton, in a speech at the Institute of Petroleum in 1999 demonstrated a keen awareness of the sensitive economic and geopolitical role of Midde East oil resources saying: “By 2010, we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and national oil companies are obviously controlling about 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.”

The Vice President led the work of a secret energy task force, as described in Article XXXII below, a task force that focused on, among other things, the acquisition of Iraqi oil through developing a controlling private corporate interest in said oil.

ARTICLE XIII

CREATING A SECRET TASK FORCE TO DEVELOP ENERGY AND MILITARY POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO IRAQ AND OTHER COUNTRIES In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, created a secret task force to guide our nation’s energy policy and military policy, and undermined Congress’ ability to legislate by thwarting attempts to investigate the nature of that policy.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report on the Cheney Energy Task Force, in August 2003, described the creation of this task force as follows:

“In a January 29, 2001, memorandum, the President established NEPDG [the National Energy Policy Development Group] — comprised of the Vice President, nine cabinet-level officials, and four other

senior administration officials — to gather information, deliberate, and make recommendations to the President by the end of fiscal year 2001. The President called on the Vice President to chair the group, direct its work and, as necessary, establish subordinate working groups to assist NEPDG.”

The four “other senior administration officials were the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs.

The GAO report found that:

“In developing the National Energy Policy report, the NEPDG Principals, Support Group, and participating agency officials and staff met with, solicited input from, or received information and advice from nonfederal energy stakeholders, principally petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry representatives and lobbyists. The extent to which submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited, influenced policy deliberations, or were incorporated into the final report cannot be determined based on the limited information made available to GAO. NEPDG met and conducted its work in two distinct phases: the first phase culminated in a March 19, 2001, briefing to the President on challenges relating to energy supply and the resulting economic impact; the second phase ended with the May 16, 2001, presentation of the final report to the President. The Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) unwillingness to provide the NEPDG records or other related information precluded GAO from fully achieving its objectives and substantially limited GAO’s ability to comprehensively analyze the NEPDG process. associated with that process. “None of the key federal entities involved in the NEPDG effort provided GAO with a complete accounting of the costs that they incurred during the development of the National Energy Policy report. The two federal entities responsible for funding the NEPDG effort–OVP and the Department of Energy (DOE)–did not provide the comprehensive cost information that GAO requested. OVP provided GAO with 77 pages of information, two-thirds of which contained no cost information while the remaining one-third contained some miscellaneous information of little to no usefulness. OVP stated that it would not provide any additional information. DOE, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided GAO with estimates of certain costs and salaries associated with the NEPDG effort, but these estimates, all calculated in different ways, were not comprehensive.”

In 2003, the Commerce Department disclosed a partial collection of materials from the NEPDG, including documents, maps, and charts, dated March 2001, of Iraq’s, Saudi Arabia’s and the United Arab Emirates’ oil fields, pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals, and development projects.

On November 16, 2005, the Washington Post reported on a White House document showing that oil company executives had met with the NEPDG, something that some of those same executives had just that week denied in Congressional testimony. The Bush Administration had not corrected the inaccurate testimony.

On July 18, 2007, the Washington Post reported the full list of names of those who had met with the NEPDG.

In 1998 Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told a San Francisco audience, “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas, reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.” According to the GAO report, Chevron provided detailed advice to the NEPDG.

In March, 2001, the NEPDG recommended that the United States Government support initiatives by Middle Eastern countries “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” Following the invasion of Iraq, the United States has pressured the new Iraqi parliament to pass a hydrocarbon law that would do exactly that. The draft law, if passed, would take the majority of Iraq’s oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi Government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more. The Bush administration hired Bearing Point, a U.S. company, to help write the law in 2004. It was submitted to the Iraqi Council of Representatives in May 2007.

Article XIV

MISPRISION OF A FELONY, MISUSE AND EXPOSURE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE IN THE MATTER OF VALERIE PLAME WILSON, CLANDESTINE AGENT OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

(1) suppressed material information;

(2) selectively declassified information for the improper purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower and presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from Iraq;

(3) facilitated the exposure of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson who had theretofore been employed as a covert CIA operative;

(4) failed to investigate the improper leaks of classified information from within his administration;

(5) failed to cooperate with an investigation into possible federal violations resulting from this activity; and

(6) finally, entirely undermined the prosecution by commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby citing false and insubstantial grounds, all in an effort to prevent Congress and the citizens of the United States from discovering the deceitful nature of the President’s claimed justifications for the invasion of Iraq.

In facilitating this exposure of classified information and the subsequent cover-up, in all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article XV

PROVIDING IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION FOR CRIMINAL CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ

Lewis Paul Bremer III, then-Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq, on June 27, 2004, issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 17, which granted members of the U.S. military, U.S. mercenaries, and other U.S. contractor employees immunity from Iraqi law.

The Bush Administration has chosen not to apply the Uniform Code of Military Justice or United States law to mercenaries and other contractors employed by the United States government in Iraq.

Operating free of Iraqi or U.S. law, mercenaries have killed many Iraqi civilians in a manner that observers have described as aggression and not as self-defense. Many U.S. contractors have also alleged that they have been the victims of aggression (in several cases of rape) by their fellow contract employees in Iraq. These charges have not been brought to trial, and in several cases the contracting companies and the U.S. State Department have worked together in attempting to cover them up.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United States is party, and which under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution is therefore the supreme law of the United States, it is the responsibility of an occupying force to ensure the protection and human rights of the civilian population. The efforts of President Bush and his subordinates to attempt to establish a lawless zone in Iraq are in violation of the law.

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article XVI

RECKLESS MISSPENDING AND WASTE OF US TAX DOLLARS IN CONNECTION WITH IRAQ CONTRACTORS

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, recklessly wasted public funds on contracts awarded to close associates, including companies guilty of defrauding the government in the past, contracts awarded without competitive bidding, “cost-plus” contracts designed to encourage cost overruns, and contracts not requiring satisfactory completion of the work. These failures have been the rule, not the exception, in the awarding of contracts for work in the United States and abroad over the past seven years. Repeated exposure of fraud and waste has not been met by the president with correction of systemic problems, but rather with retribution against whistleblowers.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reported on Iraq reconstruction contracting:

“From the beginning, the Administration adopted a flawed contracting approach in Iraq. Instead of maximizing competition, the Administration opted to award no-bid, cost-plus contracts to politically connected contractors. Halliburton’s secret $7 billion contract to restore Iraq’s oil infrastructure is the prime example. Under this no-bid, cost-plus contract, Halliburton was reimbursed for its costs and then received an additional fee, which was a percentage of its costs. This created an incentive for Halliburton to run up its costs in order to increase its potential profit.

“Even after the Administration claimed it was awarding Iraq contracts competitively in early 2004, real price competition was missing. Iraq was divided geographically and by economic sector into a handful of fiefdoms. Individual contractors were then awarded monopoly contracts for all of the work within given fiefdoms. Because these monopoly contracts were awarded before specific projects were identified, there was no actual price competition for more than 2,000 projects.

“In the absence of price competition, rigorous government oversight becomes essential for accountability. Yet the Administration turned much of the contract oversight work over to private companies with blatant conflicts of interest. Oversight contractors oversaw their business partners and, in some cases, were placed in a position to assist their own construction work under separate monopoly construction contracts….

“Under Halliburton’s two largest Iraq contracts, Pentagon auditors found $1 billion in ‘questioned’ costs and over $400 million in ‘unsupported’ costs. Former Halliburton employees testified that the company charged $45 for cases of soda, billed $100 to clean 15- pound bags of laundry, and insisted on housing its staff as the five-star Kempinski hotel in Kuwait. Halliburton truck drivers testified that the company ‘torched’ brand new $85,000 trucks rather than perform relatively minor repairs and regular maintenance. Halliburton procurement officials described the company’s informal motto in Iraq as ‘Don’t worry about price. It’s cost-plus.’ A Halliburton manager was indicted for ‘major fraud against the United States’ for allegedly billing more than $5.5 billion for work that should have cost only $685,000 in exchange for a $1 million kickback from a Kuwaiti subcontractor….

“The Air Force found that another U.S. government contractor, Custer Battles, set up shell subcontractors to inflate prices. Those overcharges were passed along to the U.S government under the company’s cost-plus contract to provide security for Baghdad International Airport. In one case, the company allegedly took Iraqi-owned forklifts, re-painted them, and leased them to the U.S. government.

“Despite the spending of billions of taxpayer dollars, U.S. reconstruction efforts in keys sectors of the Iraqi economy are failing. Over two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, oil and electricity production has fallen below pre-war levels. The Administration has failed to even measure how many Iraqis lack access to drinkable water.”

“Constitution in Crisis,” a book by Congressman John Conyers, details the Bush Administration’s response when contract abuse is made public:

“Bunnatine Greenhouse was the chief contracting officer at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq. In October 2004, Ms. Greenhouse came forward and revealed that top Pentagon officials showed improper favoritism to Halliburton when awarding military contracts to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR). Greenhouse stated that when the Pentagon awarded Halliburton a five-year $7 billion contract, it pressured her to withdraw her objections, actions which she claimed were unprecedented in her experience.

“On June 27, 2005, Ms. Greenhouse testified before Congress, detailing that the contract award process was compromised by improper influence by political appointees, participation by Halliburton officials in meetings where bidding requirements were discussed, and a lack of competition. She stated that the Halliburton contracts represented “the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.” Days before the hearing, the acting general counsel of the Army Corps of Engineers paid Ms. Greenhouse a visit and reportedly let it be known that it would not be in her best interest to appear voluntarily.

“On August 27, 2005, the Army demoted Ms. Greenhouse, removing her from the elite Senior Executive Service and transferring her to a lesser job in the corps’ civil works division . As Frank Rich of The New York Times described the situation, ‘[H]er crime was not obstructing justice but pursuing it by vehemently questioning irregularities in the awarding of some $7 billion worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq to the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root.’ The demotion was in apparent retaliation for her speaking out against the abuses, even though she previously had stellar reviews and over 20 years of experience in military procurement.”

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reports on domestic contracting:

“The Administration’s domestic contracting record is no better than its record on Iraq. Waste, fraud, and abuse appear to be the rule rather than the exception….

“A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) cost-plus contract with NCS Pearson, Inc., to hire federal airport screeners was plagued by poor management and egregious waste. Pentagon auditors challenged $303 million (over 40%) of the $741 million spent by Pearson under the contract. The auditors detailed numerous concerns with the charges of Pearson and its subcontractors, such as ‘$20- an-hour temporary workers billed to the government at $48 per hour, subcontractors who signed out $5,000 in cash at a time with no supporting documents, $377,273.75 in unsubstantiated long distance phone calls, $514,201 to rent tents that flooded in a rainstorm, [and] $4.4 million in “no show” fees for job candidates who did not appear for tests.’ A Pearson employee who supervised Pearson’s hiring efforts at 43 sites in the U.S. described the contract as ‘a waste a taxpayer’s money.’ The CEO of one Pearson subcontractor paid herself $5.4 million for nine months work and provided herself with a $270,000 pension….

“The Administration is spending $239 million on the Integrated Surveillance and Intelligence System, a no-bid contract to provide thousands of cameras and sensors to monitor activity on the Mexican and Canadian borders. Auditors found that the contractor, International Microwave Corp., billed for work it never did and charged for equipment it never provided, ‘creat[ing] a potential for overpayments of almost $13 million.’ Moreover, the border monitoring system reportedly does not work….

“After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening equipment for the nation’s entry points, the Department of Homeland Security is now ‘moving to replace or alter much of’ it because ‘it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to operate.’ For example, radiation monitors at ports and borders reportedly could not ‘differentiate between radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile.’…

“The TSA awarded Boeing a cost-plus contract to install over 1,000 explosive detection systems for airline passenger luggage. After installation, the machines ‘began to register false alarms’ and ‘[s]creeners were forced to open and hand-check bags.’ To reduce the number of false alarms, the sensitivity of the machines was lowered, which reduced the effectiveness of the detectors. Despite these serious problems, Boeing received an $82 million profit that the Inspector General determined to be ‘excessive.’…

“The FBI spent $170 million on a ‘Virtual Case File’ system that does not operate as required. After three years of work under a cost-plus contract failed to produce a functional system, the FBI scrapped the program and began work on the new ‘Sentinel’ Case File System….

“The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General found that taxpayer dollars were being lavished on perks for agency officials. One IG report found that TSA spent over $400,000 on its first leader’s executive office suite. Another found that TSA spent $350,000 on a gold-plated gym….

“According to news reports, Pentagon auditors … examined a contract between the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Unisys, a technology and consulting company, for the upgrade of airport computer networks. Among other irregularities, government auditors found that Unisys may have overbilled for as much as 171,000 hours of labor and overtime by charging for employees at up to twice their actual rate of compensation. While the cost ceiling for the contract was set at $1 billion, Unisys has reportedly billed the government $940 million with more than half of the seven-year contract remaining and more than half of the TSA-monitored airports still lacking upgraded networks.”

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article XVII

ILLEGAL DETENTION: DETAINING INDEFINITELY AND WITHOUT CHARGE PERSONS BOTH U.S. CITIZENS AND FOREIGN CAPTIVES

In a statement on Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush declared that in the US fight against Al Qaeda, “none of the provisions of Geneva apply,” thus rejecting the Geneva Conventions that protect captives in wars and other conflicts. By that time, the administration was already transporting captives from the war in Afghanistan, both alleged Al Qaeda members and supporters, and also Afghans accused of being fighters in the army of the Taliban government, to US-run prisons in Afghanistan and to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The round-up and detention without charge of Muslim non-citizens inside the US began almost immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with some being held as long as nine months. The US, on orders of the president, began capturing and detaining without charge alleged terror suspects in other countries and detaining them abroad and at the US Naval base in Guantanamo. Many of these detainees have been subjected to systematic abuse, including beatings, which have been subsequently documented by news reports, photographic evidence, testimony in Congress, lawsuits, and in the case of detainees in the US, by an investigation conducted by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.

In violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions, the Bush Administration instructed the Department of Justice and the US Department of Defense to refuse to provide the identities or locations of these detainees, despite requests from Congress and from attorneys for the detainees. The president even declared the right to detain US citizens indefinitely, without charge and without providing them access to counsel or the courts, thus depriving them of their constitutional and basic human rights. Several of those US citizens were held in military brigs in solitary confinement for as long as three years before being either released or transferred to civilian detention.

Detainees in US custody in Iraq and Guantanamo have, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, been hidden from and denied visits by the International Red Cross organization, while thousands of others in Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, ships in foreign off-shore sites, and an unknown number of so-called “black sites” around the world have been denied any opportunity to challenge their detentions. The president, acting on his own claimed authority, has declared the hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to be “enemy combatants” not subject to US law and not even subject to military law, but nonetheless potentially liable to the death penalty.

The detention of individuals without due process violates the 5th Amendment. While the Bush administration has been rebuked in several court cases, most recently that of Ali al-Marri, it continues to attempt to exceed constitutional limits.

In all of these actions violating US and International law, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

ARTICLE XVIII

TORTURE: SECRETLY AUTHORIZING, AND ENCOURAGING THE USE OF TORTURE AGAINST CAPTIVES IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND OTHER PLACES, AS A MATTER OF OFFICIAL POLICY

In violation of the Constitution, US law, the Geneva Conventions (to which the US is a signatory), and in violation of basic human rights, torture has been authorized by the President and his administration as official policy. Water-boarding, beatings, faked executions, confinement in extreme cold or extreme heat, prolonged enforcement of painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, and the defiling of religious articles have been practiced and exposed as routine at Guantanamo, at Abu Ghraib Prison and other US detention sites in Iraq, and at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The president, besides bearing responsibility for authorizing the use of torture, also as Commander in Chief, bears ultimate responsibility for the failure to halt these practices and to punish those responsible once they were exposed.

The administration has sought to claim the abuse of captives is not torture, by redefining torture. An August 1, 2002 memorandum from the Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel Jay S. Bybee addressed to White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales concluded that to constitute torture, any pain inflicted must be akin to that accompanying “serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” The memorandum went on to state that even should an act constitute torture under that minimal definition, it might still be permissible if applied to “interrogations undertaken pursuant to the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers.” The memorandum further asserted that “necessity or self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability.”

This effort to redefine torture by calling certain practices simply “enhanced interrogation techniques” flies in the face of the Third Geneva Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which states that “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”

Torture is further prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the paramount international human rights statement adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly, including the United States, in 1948. Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is also prohibited by international treaties ratified by the United States: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).

When the Congress, in the Defense Authorization Act of 2006, overwhelmingly passed a measure banning torture and sent it to the President’s desk for signature, the President, who together with his vice president, had fought hard to block passage of the amendment, signed it, but then quietly appended a signing statement in which he pointedly asserted that as Commander-in-Chief, he was not bound to obey its strictures.

The administration’s encouragement of and failure to prevent torture of American captives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the battle against terrorism, has undermined the rule of law in the US and in the US military, and has seriously damaged both the effort to combat global terrorism, and more broadly, America’s image abroad. In his effort to hide torture by US military forces and the CIA, the president has defied Congress and has lied to the American people, repeatedly claiming that the US “does not torture.”

In all of these actions and decisions in violation of US and International law, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

ARTICLE XIX RENDITION: KIDNAPPING PEOPLE AND TAKING THEM AGAINST THEIR WILL TO “BLACK SITES” LOCATED IN OTHER NATIONS, INCLUDING NATIONS KNOWN TO PRACTICE TORTURE

The president has publicly admitted that since the 9-11 attacks in 2001, the US has been kidnapping and transporting against the will of the subject (renditioning) in its so-called “war” on terror–even people captured by US personnel in friendly nations like Sweden, Germany, Macedonia and Italy–and ferrying them to places like Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and to prisons operated in Eastern European countries, African Countries and Middle Eastern countries where security forces are known to practice torture.

These people are captured and held indefinitely, without any charges being filed, and are held without being identified to the Red Cross, or to their families. Many are clearly innocent, and several cases, including one in Canada and one in Germany, have demonstrably been shown subsequently to have been in error, because of a similarity of names or because of misinformation provided to US authorities.

Such a policy is in clear violation of US and International Law, and has placed the United States in the position of a pariah state. The CIA has no law enforcement authority, and cannot legally arrest or detain anyone. The program of “extraordinary rendition” authorized by the president is the substantial equivalent of the policies of “disappearing” people, practices widely practiced and universally condemned in the military dictatorships of Latin America during the late 20th Century.

The administration has claimed that prior administrations have practiced extraordinary rendition, but, while this is technically true, earlier renditions were used only to capture people with outstanding arrest warrants or convictions who were outside in order to deliver them to stand trial or serve their sentences in the US. The president has refused to divulge how many people have been subject to extraordinary rendition since September, 2001. It is possible that some have died in captivity. As one US official has stated off the record, regarding the program, Some of those who were renditioned were later delivered to Guantanamo, while others were sent there directly. An example of this is the case of six Algerian Bosnians who, immediately after being cleared by the Supreme Court of Bosnia Herzegovina in January 2002 of allegedly plotting to attack the US and UK embassies, were captured, bound and gagged by US special forces and renditioned to Guantanamo.

In perhaps the most egregious proven case of rendition, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was picked up in September 2002 while transiting through New York’s JFK airport on his way home to Canada. Immigration and FBI officials detained and interrogated him for nearly two weeks, illegally denying him his rights to access counsel, the Canadian consulate, and the courts. Executive branch officials asked him if he would volunteer to go to Syria, where he hadn’t been in 15 years, and Maher refused

Maher was put on a private jet plane operated by the CIA and sent to Jordan, where he was beaten for 8 hours, and then delivered to Syria, where he was beaten and interrogated for 18 hours a day for a couple of weeks. He was whipped on his back and hands with a 2 inch thick electric cable and asked questions similar to those he had been asked in the United States. For over ten months Maher was held in an underground grave-like cell 3 x 6 x 7 feet which was damp and cold, and in which the only light came in through a hole in the ceiling. After a year of this, Maher was released without any charges. He is now back home in Canada with his family. Upon his release, the Syrian Government announced he had no links to Al Qaeda, and the Canadian Government has also said they’ve found no links to Al Qaeda. The Canadian Government launched a Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, to investigate the role of Canadian officials, but the Bush Administration has refused to cooperate with the Inquiry.

Hundreds of flights of CIA-chartered planes have been documented as having passed through European countries on extraordinary rendition missions like that involving Maher Arar, but the administration refuses to state how many people have been subjects of this illegal program.

The same U.S. laws prohibiting aiding and abetting torture also prohibit sending someone to a country where there is a substantial likelihood they may be tortured. Article 3 of CAT prohibits forced return where there is a “substantial likelihood” that an individual “may be in danger of” torture, and has been implemented by federal statute. Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits return to country of origin where individuals may be “at risk” of either torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Under international Human Rights law, transferring a POW to any nation where he or she is likely to be tortured or inhumanely treated violates Article 12 of the Third Geneva Convention, and transferring any civilian who is a protected person under the Fourth Geneva Convention is a grave breach and a criminal act.

In situations of armed conflict, both international human rights law and humanitarian law apply. A person captured in the zone of military hostilities “must have some status under international law; he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, [or] a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention….There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law.” Although the state is obligated to repatriate Prisoners of War as soon as hostilities cease, the ICRC’s commentary on the 1949 Conventions states that prisoners should not be repatriated where there are serious reasons for fearing that repatriating the individual would be contrary to general principles of established international law for the protection of human beings Thus, all of the Guantánamo detainees as well as renditioned captives are protected by international human rights protections and humanitarian law.

By his actions as outlined above, the President has abused his power, broken the law, deceived the American people, and placed American military personnel, and indeed all Americans–especially those who may travel or live abroad–at risk of similar treatment. Furthermore, in the eyes of the rest of the world, the President has made the US, once a model of respect for Human Rights and respect for the rule of law, into a state where international law is neither respected nor upheld.

In all of these actions and decisions in violation of United States and International law, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article XX IMPRISONING CHILDREN

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, authorized or permitted the arrest and detention of at least 2500 children under the age of 18 as “enemy combatants” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of “protected persons” and the Optional Protocol to the Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, signed by the US in 2002 . To wit:

In May 2008, the US government reported to the United Nations that it has been holding upwards of 2,500 children under the age of 18 as “enemy combatants” at detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay (where there was a special center, Camp Iguana, established just for holding children). The length of these detentions has frequently exceeded a year, and in some cases has stretched to five years. Some of these detainees have reached adulthood in detention and are now not being reported as child detainees because they are no longer children.

In addition to detaining children as “enemy combatants,” it has been widely reported in media reports that the US military in Iraq has, based upon Pentagon rules of engagement, been treating boys as young as 14 years of age as “potential combatants,” subject to arrest and even to being killed. In Fallujah, in the days ahead of the November 2004 all-out assault, Marines ringing the city were reported to be turning back into the city men and boys “of combat age” who were trying to flee the impending scene of battle — an act which in itself is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which require combatants to permit anyone, combatants as well as civilians, to surrender, and to leave the scene of battle.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United States has been a signatory since 1949, children under the age of 15 captured in conflicts, even if they have been fighting, are to be considered victims, not prisoners. In 2002, the United States signed the Optional Protocol to the Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of children in Armed Conflict, which raised this age for this category of “protected person” to under 18.

The continued detention of such children, some as young as 10, by the US military is a violation of both convention and protocol, and as such constitutes a war crime for which the president, as commander in chief, bears full responsibility.

Article XXI MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THREATS FROM IRAN, AND SUPPORTING TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN IRAN, WITH THE GOAL OF OVERTHROWING THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT

The National Intelligence Estimate released to Congress and the public on December 4, 2007, which confirmed that the government of the nation of Iran had ceased any efforts to develop nuclear weapons, was completed in 2006. Yet , the president and his aides continued to suggest during 2007 that such a nuclear threat was developing and might already exist. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley stated at the time the National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran was released that the president had been briefed on its findings “in the last few months.” Hadley’s statement establishes a timeline that shows the president knowingly sought to deceive Congress and the American people about a nuclear threat that did not exist.

Hadley has stated that the president “was basically told: stand down” and, yet, the president and his aides continued to make false claims about the prospect that Iran was trying to “build a nuclear weapon” that could lead to “World War III.”

This evidence establishes that the president actively engaged in and had full knowledge of a campaign by his administration to make a false “case” for an attack on Iran, thus warping the national security debate at a critical juncture and creating the prospect of an illegal and unnecessary attack on a sovereign nation.

Even after the National Intelligence Estimate was released to Congress and the American people, the president stated that he did not believe anything had changed and suggested that he and members of his administration would continue to argue that Iran should be seen as posing a threat to the United States. He did this despite the fact that United States intelligence agencies had clearly and officially stated that this was not the case.

Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration’s attempts to portray Iran as a threat are part of a broader U.S. policy toward Iran. On September 30, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of overturning the regime in Iran, as well as those in Iraq, Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted in then- Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith’s book, “War and Decision.”

General Wesley Clark, reports in his book “Winning Modern Wars” being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of governments that Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz planned to overthrow included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia. Clark writes that the list also included Lebanon.

Journalist Gareth Porter reported in May 2008 asking Feith at a public event which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, to which Feith replied “All of them.”

Rumsfeld’s aides also drafted a second version of the paper, as instructions to all military commanders in the development of “campaign plans against terrorism”. The paper called for military commanders to assist other government agencies “as directed” to “encourage populations dominated by terrorist organizations or their supporters to overthrow that domination”.

In January 2005, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that the Bush Administration had been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since the summer of 2004. In June 2005 former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter reported that United States security forces had been sending members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) into Iranian territory. The MEK has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Canada, Iraq, and Iran. Ritter reported that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had used the MEK to carry out remote bombings in Iran.

In April 2006, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that U.S. combat troops had entered and were operating in Iran, where they were working with minority groups including the Azeris, Baluchis, and Kurds.

Also in April 2006, Larisa Alexandrovna reported on Raw Story that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) was working with and training the MEK, or former members of the MEK, sending them to commit acts of violence in southern Iran in areas where recent attacks had left many dead. Raw Story reported that the Pentagon had adopted the policy of supporting MEK shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in response to the influence of Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s office. Raw Story subsequently reported that no Presidential finding, and no Congressional oversight, existed on MEK operations.

In March 2007, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that the Bush administration was attempting to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni organizations, without any Congressional authorization or oversight. Hersh said funds had been given to “three Sunni jihadist groups … connected to al Qaeda” that “want to take on Hezbollah.”

In April 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran’s borders were understood by the Iranian government as a proxy war with the United States. Among the groups the U.S. DOD is supporting, according to this report, is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, known by its Kurdish acronym, PEJAK. The United States has provided “foodstuffs, economic assistance, medical supplies and Russian military equipment, some of it funneled through nonprofit groups.”

In May 2008, Andrew Cockburn reported on Counter Punch that President Bush, six weeks earlier had signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime. President Bush’s secret directive covers actions across an area stretching from Lebanon to Afghanistan, and purports to sanction actions up to and including the funding of organizations like the MEK and the assassination of public officials.

All of these actions by the president and his agents and subordinates exhibit a disregard for the truth and a recklessness with regard to national security, nuclear proliferation and the global role of the United States military that is not merely unacceptable but dangerous in a commander-in-chief.

Article XXII

CREATING SECRET LAWS

The OLC’s March 14, 2003, interrogation memorandum (“Yoo Memorandum”) was declassified years after it served as law for the executive branch. On April 29, 2008, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Chairman Jerrold Nadler wrote in a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey:

“It appears to us that there was never any legitimate basis for the purely legal analysis contained in this document to be classified in the first place. The Yoo Memorandum does not describe sources and methods of intelligence gathering, or any specific facts regarding any interrogation activities. Instead, it consists almost entirely of the Department’s legal views, which are not properly kept secret from Congress and the American people. J. William Leonard, the Director of the National Archive’s Office of Information Security Oversight Office, and a top expert in this field concurs, commenting that ‘[t]he document in question is purely a legal analysis’ that contains ‘nothing which would justify classification.’ In addition, the Yoo Memorandum suggests an extraordinary breadth and aggressiveness of OLC’s secret legal opinion-making. Much attention has rightly been given to the statement in footnote 10 in the March 14, 2003, memorandum that, in an October 23, 2001, opinion, OLC concluded ‘that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.’ As you know, we have requested a copy of that memorandum on no less than four prior occasions and we continue to demand access to this important document.

“In addition to this opinion, however, the Yoo Memorandum references at least 10 other OLC opinions on weighty matters of great interest to the American people that also do not appear to have been released. These appear to cover matters such as the power of Congress to regulate the conduct of military commissions, legal constraints on the ‘military detention of United States citizens,’ legal rules applicable to the boarding and searching foreign ships, the President’s authority to render U.S. detainees to the custody of foreign governments, and the President’s authority to breach or suspend U.S. treaty obligations. Furthermore, it has been more than five years since the Yoo Memorandum was authored, raising the question how many other such memoranda and letters have been secretly authored and utilized by the Administration.

“Indeed, a recent court filing by the Department in FOIA litigation involving the Central Intelligence Agency identifies 8 additional secret OLC opinions, dating from August 6, 2004, to February 18, 2007. Given that these reflect only OLC memoranda identified in the files of the CIA, and based on the sampling procedures under which that listing was generated, it appears that these represent only a small portion of the secret OLC memoranda generated during this time, with the true number almost certainly much higher.”

Senator Russ Feingold, in a statement during an April 30, 2008, senate hearing stated:

“It is a basic tenet of democracy that the people have a right to know the law. In keeping with this principle, the laws passed by Congress and the case law of our courts have historically been matters of public record. And when it became apparent in the middle of the 20th century that federal agencies were increasingly creating a body of non-public administrative law, Congress passed several statutes requiring this law to be made public, for the express purpose of preventing a regime of ‘secret law.’ “That purpose today is being thwarted. Congressional enactments and agency regulations are for the most part still public. But the law that applies in this country is determined not only by statutes and regulations, but also by the controlling interpretations of courts and, in some cases, the executive branch. More and more, this body of executive and judicial law is being kept secret from the public, and too often from Congress as well….

“A legal interpretation by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel … binds the entire executive branch, just like a regulation or the ruling of a court. In the words of former OLC head Jack Goldsmith, ‘These executive branch precedents are “law” for the executive branch.’ The Yoo memorandum was, for a nine-month period in 2003 until it was withdrawn by Mr. Goldsmith, the law that this Administration followed when it came to matters of torture. And of course, that law was essentially a declaration that few if any laws applied…

“Another body of secret law is the controlling interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that are issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. FISA, of course, is the law that governs the government’s ability in intelligence investigations to conduct wiretaps and search the homes of people in the United States. Under that statute, the FISA Court is directed to evaluate wiretap and search warrant applications and decide whether the standard for issuing a warrant has been met a largely factual evaluation that is properly done behind closed doors. But with the evolution of technology and with this Administration’s efforts to get the Court’s blessing for its illegal wiretapping activities, we now know that the Court’s role is broader, and that it is very much engaged in substantive interpretations of the governing statute. These interpretations are as much a part of this country’s surveillance law as the statute itself. Without access to them, it is impossible for Congress or the public to have an informed debate on matters that deeply affect the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans…

“The Administration’s shroud of secrecy extends to agency rules and executive pronouncements, such as Executive Orders, that carry the force of law. Through the diligent efforts of my colleague Senator Whitehouse, we have learned that OLC has taken the position that a President can ‘waive’ or ‘modify’ a published Executive Order without any notice to the public or Congress simply by not following it.”

Article XXIII VIOLATION OF THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT

The Act states:

“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

The Posse Comitatus Act is designed to prevent the military from becoming a national police force.

The Declaration of Independence states as a specific grievance against the British that the King had “kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures,” had “affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the civil power,” and had “quarter[ed] large bodies of armed troops among us . . . protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States”

Despite the Posse Comitatus Act’s intent, and in contravention of the law, President Bush

a) has used military forces for law enforcement purposes on U.S. border patrol;

b) has established a program to use military personnel for surveillance and information on criminal activities; c) is using military espionage equipment to collect intelligence information for law enforcement use on civilians within the United States; and

d) employs active duty military personnel in surveillance agencies ,including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In June 2006, President Bush ordered National Guard troops deployed to the border shared by Mexico with Arizona, Texas, and California. This deployment, which by 2007 reached a maximum of 6,000 troops, had orders to “conduct surveillance and operate detection equipment, work with border entry identification teams, analyze information, assist with communications and give administrative support to the Border Patrol” and concerned “…providing intelligence….inspecting cargo, and conducting surveillance.”

The Air Force’s “Eagle Eyes” program encourages Air Force military staff to gather evidence on American citizens. Eagle Eyes instructs Air Force personnel to engage in surveillance and then advises them to “alert local authorities,” asking military staff to surveil and gather evidence on public citizens. This contravenes DoD Directive 5525.5 “SUBJECT: DoD Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement” which limits such activities.

President Bush has implemented a program to use imagery from military satellites for domestic law enforcement through the National Applications Office.

President Bush has assigned numerous active duty military personnel to civilian institutions such as the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security, both of which have responsibilities for law enforcement and intelligence.

In addition, on May 9, 2007, President Bush released “National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51,” which effectively gives the president unchecked power to control the entire government and to define that government in time of an emergency, as well as the power to determine whether there is an emergency. The document also contains “classified Continuity Annexes.” In July 2007 and again in August 2007 Rep. Peter DeFazio, a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, sought access to the classified annexes. DeFazio and other leaders of the Homeland Security Committee, including Chairman Bennie Thompson, have been denied a review of the Continuity of Government classified annexes.

Article XXIV

SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS, WITHOUT A COURT-ORDERED WARRANT, IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

(1) The President was aware of the FISA Law requiring a court order for any wiretap as evidenced by the following:

(A)”Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.” White House Press conference on April 20, 2004 [White House Transcript]

(B) “Law enforcement officers need a federal judge’s permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist’s phone, or to track his calls, or to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of the tools we’re talking about.” President Bush’s speech in Baltimore Maryland on July 20th 2005 [White House Transcript]

(2) The President repeatedly ordered the NSA to place wiretaps on American citizens without requesting a warrant from FISA as evidenced by the following:

(A) “Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.” New York Times article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau on December 12, 2005. [NYTimes]

(B) The President admits to authorizing the program by stating “I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups. The NSA’s activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA’s top legal officials, including NSA’s general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it.” Radio Address from the White House on December 17, 2005 [White House Transcript] (C) In a December 19th 2005 press conference the President publicly admitted to using a combination of surveillance techniques including some with permission from the FISA courts and some without permission from FISA.

Reporter: It was, why did you skip the basic safeguards of asking courts for permission for the intercepts?

THE PRESIDENT: … We use FISA still — you’re referring to the FISA court in yourquestion — of course, we use FISAs. But FISA is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to detect. Now, having suggested this idea, I then, obviously, went to the question, is it legal to do so? I am — I swore to uphold the laws. Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely. As I mentioned in my remarks, the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress.” [White House Transcript]

(D) Mike McConnel, the Director of National Intelligence, in a letter to to Senator Arlen Specter, acknowledged that Bush’s Executive Order in 2001 authorized a series of secret surveillance activities and included undisclosed activities beyond the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005. “NSA Spying Part of Broader Effort” by Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 8/1/07

(3) The President ordered the surveillance to be conducted in a way that would spy upon private communications between American citizens located within the United States borders as evidenced by the following:

(A) Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the Electronic Fronteir Foundation’s FF’s lawsuit against AT&T. He testified that in 2003 he connected a “splitter” that sent a copy of Internet traffic and phone calls to a secure room that was operated by the NSA in the San Francisco office of AT&T. He heard from a co-worker that si ilar rooms were being m constructed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. From “Whistle- Blower Outs NSA Spy Room”, Wired News, 4/7/06 [Wired] [EFF Case]

(4) The President asserted an inherent authority to conduct electronic surveillance based on the Constitution and the “Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq” (AUMF) that was not legally valid as evidenced by the following:

(A) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing General Alberto Gonzales admitted that the surveillance authorized by the President was not only done without FISA warrants, but that the nature of the surveillance was so far removed from what FISA can approve that FISA could not even be amended to allow it. Gonzales stated “We have had discussions with Congress in the past — certain members of Congress — as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible.”.

(B) The fourth amendment to the United States Constitution states “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.”

(C) “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 unambiguously limits warrantless domestic electronic surveillance, even in a congressionally declared war, to the first 15 days of that war; criminalizes any such electronic surveillance not authorized by statute; and expressly establishes FISA and two chapters of the federal criminal code, governing wiretaps for intelligence purposes and for criminal investigation, respectively, as the “exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.” 50 U.S.C. §§ 1811, 1809, 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(f).” Letter from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06

(D) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated “Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.”

(E) The “Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq” does not give any explicit authorization related to electronic surveillance. [HJRes114]

(F) “From the foregoing analysis, it appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here under discussion, and it would likewise appear that, to the extent that those surveillances fall within the definition of “electronic surveillance” within the meaning of FISA or any activity regulated under Title III, Congress intended to cover the entire field with these statutes.” From the “Presidential Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic Surveillance to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information” by the Congressional Research Service on January 5, 2006.

(G) “The inescapable conclusion is that the AUMF did not implicitly authorize what the FISA expressly prohibited. It follows that the presidential program of surveillance at issue here is a violation of the separation of powers — as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever having studied.” Letter from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06

(H) On August 17, 2006 Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit, in ACLU v. NSA, ruled that the “NSA program to wiretap the international communications of some Americans without a court warrant violated the Constitution. … Judge Taylor ruled that the program violated both the Fourth Amendment and a 1978 law that requires warrants from a secret court for intelligence wiretaps involving people in the United States. She rejected the administration’s repeated assertions that a 2001 Congressional authorization and the president’s constitutional authority allowed the program.” From a New York Times article “Judge Finds Wiretap Actions Violate the Law” 8/18/06 and the Memorandum Opinion

(I) In July 2007, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, ruling the plaintiffs had no standing to sue because, given the secretive nature of the surveillance, they could not state with certainty that they have been wiretapped by the NSA. This ruling did not address the legality of the surveillance so Judge Taylor’s decision is the only ruling on that issue. [ACLU Legal Documents]

Article XXV

DIRECTING TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES TO CREATE AN ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL DATABASE OF THE PRIVATE TELEPHONE NUMBERS AND EMAILS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS

The President requested that telecommunication companies release customer phone records to the government illegally as evidenced by the following: “The Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA) prohibits the knowing disclosure of customer telephone records to the government unless pursuant to subpoena, warrant or a National Security Letter (or other Administrative subpoena); with the customers lawful consent; or there is a business necessity; or an emergency involving the danger of death or serious physical injury. None of these exceptions apply to the circumstance described in the USA Today story.” From page 169, “George W Bush versus the US Constitution”. Compiled at the direction of Representative John Conyers.

According to a May 11, 2006 article in USA Today by Lesley Cauley “The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth”. An unidentified source said’The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders’.

In early 2001, Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio rejected a request from the NSA to turn over customers records of phone calls, emails and other Internet activity. Nacchio believed that complying with the request would violate the Telecommunications Act of 1996. From National Journal, November 2, 2007.

Article XXVI ANNOUNCING THE INTENT TO VIOLATE LAWS WITH SIGNING STATEMENTS, AND VIOLATING THOSE LAWS

In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office reported that in a sample of Bush signing statements the office had studied, for 30 percent of them the Bush administration had already proceeded to violate the laws the statements claimed the right to violate.

Article XXVII

FAILING TO COMPLY WITH CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS AND INSTRUCTING FORMER EMPLOYEES NOT TO COMPLY

Subpoenas not complied with include:

1. A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for Justice Department papers and Emails, issued April 10, 2007; 2. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena for the testimony of the Secretary of State, issued April 25, 2007; 3. A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for the testimony of former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and documents , issued June 13, 2007; 4. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, issued June 13, 2007; 5. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White House Political Director Sara Taylor, issued June 13, 2007 (Taylor appeared but refused to answer questions); 6. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, issued June 26, 2007; 7. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White House Deputy Political Director J. Scott Jennings, issued June 26, 2007 (Jennings appeared but refused to answer questions); 8. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for legal analysis and other documents concerning the NSA warrantless wiretapping program from the White House, Vice President Richard Cheney, The Department of Justice, and the National Security Council. If the documents are not produced, the subpoena requires the testimony of White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Cheney chief of staff David Addington, National Security Council executive director V. Philip Lago, issued June 27, 2007; 9. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena for Lt. General Kensinger.

Article XXVIII TAMPERING WITH FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS, CORRUPTION OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE,

Toward this end, the President and Vice President, both personally and through their agents, did:

Engage in a program of manufacturing false allegations of voting fraud in targeted jurisdictions where the Democratic Party enjoyed an advantage in electoral performance or otherwise was problematic for the President’s Republican Party, in order that public confidence in election results favorable to the Democratic Party be undermined;

Direct United States Attorneys to launch and announce investigations of certain leaders, candidates and elected officials affiliated with the Democratic Party at times calculated to cause the most political damage and confusion, most often in the weeks immediately preceding an election, in order that public confidence in the suitability for office of Democratic Party leaders, candidates and elected officials be undermined;

Direct United States Attorneys to terminate or scale back existing investigations of certain Republican Party leaders, candidates and elected officials allied with the George W. Bush administration, and to refuse to pursue new or proposed investigations of certain Republican Party leaders, candidates and elected officials allied with the George W. Bush administration, in order that public confidence in the suitability of such Republican Party leaders, candidates and elected officials be bolstered or restored;

Threaten to terminate the employment of the following United States Attorneys who refused to comply with such directives and purposes;

1. David C. Iglesias as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico; 2. Kevin V. Ryan as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California; 3. John L. McKay as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington; 4. Paul K. Charlton as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona; 5. Carol C. Lam as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California; 6. Daniel G. Bogden as U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada; 7. Margaret M. Chiara as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan; 8. Todd Graves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri; 9. Harry E. “Bud” Cummins, III as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas; 10. Thomas M. DiBiagio as U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, and; 11. Kasey Warner as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.

Further, George W. Bush has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President conspired to obstruct the lawful Congressional investigation of these dismissals of United States Attorneys and the related scheme to undermine and tamper with the conduct of free and fair elections, and to corrupt the administration of justice.

Contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, George W. Bush has without lawful cause or excuse directed not to appear before the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives certain witnesses summoned by duly authorized subpoenas issued by that Committee on June 13, 2007.

In refusing to permit the testimony of these witnesses George W. Bush, substituting his judgment as to what testimony was necessary for the inquiry, interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, thereby assuming to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the checking and balancing power of oversight vested in the House of Representatives.

Further, the President has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President directed the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia to decline to prosecute for contempt of Congress the aforementioned witnesses, Joshua B. Bolten and Harriet E. Miers, despite the obligation to do so as established by statute (2 USC § 194) and pursuant to the direction of the United States House of Representatives as embodied in its resolution (H. Res. 982) of February 14, 2008.

Article XXIX CONSPIRACY TO VIOLATE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, willfully corrupted and manipulated the electoral process of the United States for his personal gain and the personal gain of his co-conspirators and allies; violated the United States Constitution and law by failing to protect the civil rights of African-American voters and others in the 2004 Election, and impeded the right of the people to vote and have their vote properly and accurately counted, in that:

A. On November 5, 2002, and prior thereto, James Tobin, while serving as the regional director of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and as the New England Chairman of Bush- Cheney ’04 Inc., did, at the direction of the White House under the administration of George W. Bush, along with other agents both known and unknown, commit unlawful acts by aiding and abetting a scheme to use computerized hang-up calls to jam phone lines set up by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters’ union on Election Day;

B. An investigation by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee into the voting procedures in Ohio during the 2004 election found “widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and the Ohio right to vote;”

C. The 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause guarantees that no minority group will suffer disparate treatment in a federal, state, or local election in stating that: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” However, during and at various times of the year 2004, John Kenneth Blackwell, then serving as the Secretary of State for the State of Ohio and also serving simultaneously as Co-Chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush in the State of Ohio, did, at the direction of the White House under the administration of George W. Bush, along with other agents both known and unknown, commit unlawful acts in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution by failing to protect the voting rights of African-American citizens in Ohio and further, John Kenneth Blackwell did disenfranchise African- American voters under color of law, by

D. Willfully denying certain neighborhoods in the cities of Cleveland, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio, along with other urban areas in the State of Ohio, an adequate number of electronic voting machines and provisional paper ballots, thereby unlawfully impeding duly registered voters from the act of voting and thus violating the civil rights of an unknown number of United States citizens.

E. In Franklin County, George W. Bush and his agent, Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell, Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign, failed to protect the rights of African- American voters by not properly investigating the withholding of 125 electronic voting machines assigned to the city of Columbus.

F. Forty-two African-American precincts in Columbus were each missing one voting machine that had been present in the 2004 primary.

G. African-American voters in the city of Columbus were forced to wait three to seven hours to vote in the 2004 presidential election.

H. Willfully issuing unclear and conflicting rules regarding the methods and manner of becoming a legally registered voter in the State of Ohio, and willfully issuing unclear and unnecessary edicts regarding the weight of paper registration forms legally acceptable to the State of Ohio, thereby creating confusion for both voters and voting officials and thus impeding the right of an unknown number of United States citizens to register and vote.

I. Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell directed through Advisory 2004-31 that voter registration forms, which were greatest in urban minority areas, should not be accepted and should be returned unless submitted on 80 bond paper weight. Blackwell’s own office was found to be using 60 bond paper weight.

J. Willfully permitted and encouraged election officials in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive partisan purge of registered voter rolls, eventually expunging more than 300,000 voters, many of whom were duly registered voters, and who were thus deprived of their constitutional right to vote;

K. Between the 2000 and 2004 Ohio presidential elections, 24.93% of the voters in the city of Cleveland, a city with a majority of African American citizens, were purged from the voting rolls. L. In that same period, the Ohio county of Miami, with census data indicating a 98% Caucasian population, refused to purge any voters from its rolls. Miami County “merged” voters from other surrounding counties into its voting rolls and even allowed voters from other states to vote.

M. In Toledo, Ohio, an urban city with a high African-American concentration, 28,000 voters were purged from the voting rolls in August of 2004, just prior to the presidential election. This purge was conducted under the control and direction of George W. Bush’s agent, Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell outside of the regularly established cycle of purging voters in odd-numbered years.

N. Willfully allowing Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell, acting under color of law and as an agent of George W. Bush, to issue a directive that no votes would be counted unless cast in the right precinct, reversing Ohio’s long-standing practice of counting votes for president if cast in the right county.

O. Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign, to do nothing to assure the voting rights of 10,000 people in the city of Cleveland when a computer error by the private vendor Diebold Election Systems, Inc. incorrectly disenfranchised 10,000 voters

P. Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign, to ensure that uncounted and provisional ballots in Ohio’s 2004 presidential election would be disproportionately concentrated in urban African-American districts.

Q. In Ohio’s Lucas County, which includes Toledo, 3,122 or 41.13% of the provisional ballots went uncounted under the direction of George W. Bush’s agent, the Secretary of State of Ohio, John Kenneth Blackwell, Co-Chair of the Committee to Re-Elect Bush/Cheney in Ohio.

R. In Ohio’s Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, 8,559 or 32.82% of the provisional ballots went uncounted.

S. In Ohio’s Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, 3,529 or 24.23% of the provisional ballots went uncounted.

T. Statewide, the provisional ballot rejection rate was 9% as compared to the greater figures in the urban areas.

U. The Department of Justice, charged with enforcing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and other voting rights laws in the United States of America, under the direction and Administration of George W. Bush did willfully and purposely obstruct and stonewall legitimate criminal investigations into myriad cases of reported electoral fraud and suppression in the state of Ohio. Such activities, carried out by the department on behalf of George W. Bush in counties such as Franklin and Knox by persons such as John K. Tanner and others, were meant to confound and whitewash legitimate legal criminal investigations into the suppression of massive numbers of legally registered voters and the removal of their right to cast a ballot fairly and freely in the state of Ohio, which was crucial to the certified electoral victory of George W. Bush in 2004.

V. On or about November 1, 2006, members of the United States Department of Justice, under the control and direction of the Administration of George W. Bush, brought indictments for voter registration fraud within days of an election, in order to directly effect the outcome of that election for partisan purposes, and in doing so, thereby violated the Justice Department’s own rules against filing election-related indictments close to an election; X. Emails have been obtained showing that the Republican National Committee and members of Bush-Cheney ’04 Inc., did, at the direction of the White House under the administration of George W. Bush, engage in voter suppression in five states by a method know as “vote caging,” an illegal voter suppression technique;

Y. Agents of George W. Bush, including Mark F. “Thor” Hearne, the national generalcounsel of Bush/Cheney ’04, Inc., did, at the behest of George W. Bush, as members of a criminal front group, distribute known false information and propaganda in the hopes of forwarding legislation and other actions that would result in the disenfranchisement of Democratic voters for partisan purposes. The scheme, run under the auspices of an organization known as “The American Center for Voting Rights” (ACVR), was funded by agents of George W. Bush in violation of laws governing tax exempt 501(c)3 organizations and in violation of federal laws forbidding the distribution of such propaganda by the federal government and agents working on its behalf.

Z. Members of the United States Department of Justice, under the control and direction of the Administration of George W. Bush, did, for partisan reasons, illegally and with malice aforethought block career attorneys and other officials in the Department of Justice from filing three lawsuits charging local and county governments with violating the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities, according to seven former senior United States Justice Department employees.

AA. Members of the United States Department of Justice, under the control and direction of the Administration of George W. Bush, did illegally and with malice aforethought derail at least two investigations into possible voter discrimination, according to a letter sent to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and written by former employees of the United States Department of Justice, Voting Rights Section.

BB. Members of the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC), under the control and direction of the Administration of George W. Bush, have purposefully and willfully misled the public, in violation of several laws, by;

CC. Withholding from the public and then altering a legally mandated report on the true measure and threat of Voter Fraud, as commissioned by the EAC and completed in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid- term election, but withheld from release prior to that election when its information would have been useful in the administration of elections across the country, because the results of the statutorily required and tax-payer funded report did not conform with the illegal, partisan propaganda efforts and politicized agenda of the Bush Administration;

DD. Withholding from the public a legally mandated report on the disenfranchising effect of Photo Identification laws at the polling place, shown to disproportionately disenfranchise voters not of George W. Bush’s political party. The report was commissioned by the EAC and completed in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but withheld from release prior to that election when its information would have been useful in the administration of elections across the country

EE. Withholding from the public a legally mandated report on the effectiveness of Provisional Voting as commissioned by the EAC and completed in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but withheld from release prior to that election when its information would have been useful in the administration of elections across the country, and keeping that report unreleased for more than a year until it was revealed by independent media outlets.

For directly harming the rights and manner of suffrage, for suffering to make them secret and unknowable, for overseeing and participating in the disenfranchisement of legal voters, for instituting debates and doubts about the true nature of elections, all against the will and consent of local voters affected, and forced through threats of litigation by agents and agencies overseen by George W. Bush, the actions of Mr. Bush to do the opposite of securing and guaranteeing the right of the people to alter or abolish their government via the electoral process, being a violation of an inalienable right, and an immediate threat to Liberty.

ARTICLE XXX MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DESTROY MEDICARE

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, pursued policies which deliberately drained the fiscal resources of Medicare by forcing it to compete with subsidized private insurance plans which are allowed to arbitrarily select or not select those they will cover; failing to provide reasonable levels of reimbursements to Medicare providers, thereby discouraging providers from participating in the program, and designing a Medicare Part D benefit without cost controls which allowed pharmaceutical companies to gouge the American taxpayers for the price of prescription drugs.

The President created, manipulated, and disseminated information given to the citizens and Congress of the United States in support of his prescription drug plan for Medicare that enriched drug companies while failing to save beneficiaries sufficient money on their prescription drugs. He misled Congress and the American people into thinking the cost of the benefit was $400 billion. It was widely understood that if the cost exceeded that amount, the bill would not pass due to concerns about fiscal irresponsibility.

A Medicare Actuary who possessed information regarding the true cost of the plan, $539 billion, was instructed by the Medicare Administrator to deny Congressional requests for it. The Actuary was threatened with sanctions if the information was disclosed to Congress, which, unaware of the information, approved the bill. Despite the fact that official cost estimates far exceeded $400 billion, President Bush offered assurances to Congress that the cost was $400 billion, when his office had information to the contrary. In the House of Representatives, the bill passed by a single vote and the Conference Report passed by only 5 votes. The White House knew the actual cost of the drug benefit was high enough to prevent its passage. Yet the White House concealed the truth and impeded an investigation into its culpability.

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, failed to take sufficient action to protect life and property prior to and in the face of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, given decades of foreknowledge of the dangers of storms to New Orleans and specific forewarning in the days prior to the storm. The President failed to prepare for predictable and predicted disasters, failed to respond to an immediate need of which he was informed, and has subsequently failed to rebuild the section of our nation that was destroyed.

Hurricane Katrina killed at least 1,282 people, with 2 million more displaced. 302,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged by the hurricane, 71% of these were low-income units. More than 500 sewage plants were destroyed, more than 170 point-source leakages of gasoline, oil, or natural gas, more than 2000 gas stations submerged, several chemical plants, 8 oil refineries, and a superfund site was submerged. 8 million gallons of oil were spilled. Toxic materials seeped into floodwaters and spread through much of the city and surrounding areas.

The predictable increased strength of hurricanes such as Katrina has been identified by scientists for years, and yet the Bush Administration has denied this science and restricted such information from official reports, publications, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s website. Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, wrote in 2006 that “hurricane intensity has increased with oceanic surface temperatures over the past 30 years. The physics of hurricane intensity growth … has clarified and explained the thermodynamic basis for these observations. [Kerry] Emanuel has tested this relationship and presented convincing evidence.”

FEMA’s 2001 list of the top three most likely and most devastating disasters were a San Francisco earthquake, a terrorist attack on New York, and a Category 4 hurricane hitting New Orleans, with New Orleans being the number one item on that list. FEMA conducted a five-day hurricane simulation exercise in 2004, “Hurricane Pam,” mimicking a Katrina-like event. This exercise combined the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies, resulting in the development of emergency response plans. The exercise demonstrated, among other things, that thousands of mainly indigent New Orleans residents would be unable to evacuate on their own. They would need substantial government assistance. These plans, however, were not implemented in part due to the President’s slashing of funds for protection. In the year before Hurricane Katrina hit, the President continued to cut budgets and deny grants to the Gulf Coast. In June of 2004 the Army Corps of Engineers levee budget for New Orleans was cut, and it was cut again in June of 2005, this time by $71.2 million or a whopping 44% of the budget. As a result, ACE was forced to suspend any repair work on the levees. In 2004 FEMA denied a Louisiana disaster mitigation grant request.

The President was given multiple warnings that Hurricane Katrina had a high likelihood of causing serious damage to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. At 10 AM on Sunday 28 August 2005, the day before the storm hit, the National Weather Service published an alert titled “DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED.” Printed in all capital letters, the alert stated that “MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. … POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS. … WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.”

The Homeland Security Department also briefed the President on the scenario, warning of levee breaches and severe flooding. According to the New York Times, “a Homeland Security Department report submitted to the White House at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, ‘Any storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching.’” These warnings clearly contradict the statements made by President Bush immediately after the storm that such devastation could not have been predicted. On 1 September 2005 the President said “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”

The President’s response to Katrina via FEMA and DHS was criminally delayed, indifferent, and inept. The only FEMA employee posted in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Marty Bahamonde, emailed head of FEMA Michael Brown from his Blackberry device on August 31, 2005 regarding the conditions The email was urgent and detailed and indicated that “The situation is past critical…Estimates are many will die within hours.” Brown’s reply was emblematic of the administration’s entire response to the catastrophe: “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?” The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, did not declare an emergency, did not mobilize the federal resources, and seemed to not even know what was happening on the ground until reporters told him.

On Friday August 26, 2005, Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana and Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi followed suit the next day. Also on that Saturday, Governor Blanco asked the President to declare a Federal State of Emergency, and on 28 August 2005, the Sunday before the storm hit, Mayor Nagin declared a State of Emergency in New Orleans. This shows that the local authorities, responding to federal warnings, knew how bad the destruction was going to be and anticipated being overwhelmed. Failure to act under these circumstances demonstrates gross negligence.

ARTICLE XXXII MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, SYTEMATICALLY UNDERMINING EFFORTS TO ADDRESS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.

President Bush knew the expected effects of climate change and the role of human activities in driving climate change. This knowledge preceded his first Presidential term. 1. During his 2000 Presidential campaign, he promised to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

2. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global body of hundreds of the world’s foremost experts on climate change, concluded that “most of observed warming over last 50 years (is) likely due to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activities.” The Third Assessment Report projected several effects of climate change such as continued “widespread retreat” of glaciers, an “increase threats to human health, particularly in lower income populations, predominantly within tropical/subtropical countries,” and “water shortages.”

3. The grave danger to national security posed by global climate change was recognized by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Planning Research Projects Agency in October of 2003. An agency- commissioned report “explores how such an abrupt climate change scenario could potentially de- stabilize the geo-political environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints such as: 1) Food shortages due to decreases in net global agricultural production 2) Decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions due to shifted precipitation patters, causing more frequent floods and droughts 3) Disrupted access to energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess.”

4. A December 2004 paper in Science reviewed 928 studies published in peer reviewed journals to determine the number providing evidence against the existence of a link between anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and climate change. “Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.”

5. The November 2007 Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report showed that global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses have increased 70% between 1970 and 2004, and anthropogenic emissions are very likely the cause of global climate change. The report concluded that global climate change could cause the extinction of 20 to 30 percent of species in unique ecosystems such as the polar areas and biodiversity hotspots, increase extreme weather events especially in the developing world, and have adverse effects on food production and fresh water availability.

The President has done little to address this most serious of problems, thus constituting an abuse of power and criminal neglect. He has also actively endeavored to undermine efforts by the federal government, states, and other nations to take action on their own.

1. In March 2001, President Bush announced the U.S. would not be pursuing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, an international effort to reduce greenhouse gasses. The United States is the only industrialized nation that has failed to ratify the accord.

2. In March0f 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote to EPA Administ ator Stephen Johnson: “In r August 2003, the Bush Administration denied a petition to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles by deciding that CO2 was not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. In April 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled that determination in Massachusetts v. EPA. The Supreme Court wrote that ‘If EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles.’ The EPA then conducted an extensive investigation involving 60-70 staff who concluded that ‘CO2 emissions endanger both human health and welfare.’ These findings were submitted to the White House, after which work on the findings and the required regulations was halted.”

3. A Memo to Members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on May 19, 2008 stated “The record before the Committee shows: (1) the career staff at EPA unanimously supported granting California’s petition (to be allowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, consistent with California state law); (2) Stephen Johnson, the Administrator of EPA, also supported granting California’s petition at least in part; and (3) Administrator Johnson reversed his position after communications with officials in the White House.”

The President has suppressed the release of scientific information related to global climate change, an action which undermines Congress’ ability to legislate and provide oversight, and which has thwarted efforts to prevent global climate change despite the serious threat that it poses.

1. In February, 2001, ExxonMobil wrote a memo to the White House outlining ways to influence the outcome of the Third Assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The memo opposed the reelection of Dr. Robert Watson as the IPCC Chair. The White House then supported an opposition candidate, who was subsequently elected to replace Dr. Watson.

2. The New York Times on January 29, 2006, reported that James Hansen, NASA’s senior climate scientist was warned of “dire consequences” if he continued to speak out about global climate change and the need for reducing emissions of associated gasses. The Times also reported that: “At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.”

3. In December of 2007, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a report based on 16 months of investigation and 27,000 pages of documentation. According to the summary: “The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming.” The report described how the White House appointed former petroleum industry lobbyist Phil Cooney as head of the Council on Environmental Quality. The report states “There was a systematic White House effort to minimize the significance of climate change by editing climate change reports. CEQ Chief of Staff Phil Cooney and other CEQ officials made at least 294 edits to the Administration’s Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science Program to exaggerate or emphasize scientific uncertainties or to de-emphasize or diminish the importance of the human role in global warming.”

4. On April 23, 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote a letter to EPA Administ ator Stephen L r Johnson. In it he reported: “Almost 1,600 EPA scientists completed the Union of Concerned Scientists survey questionnaire. Over 22 percent of these scientists reported that ‘selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome’ occurred ‘frequently’ or ‘occasionally’ at EPA. Ninety-four EPA scientists reported being frequently or occasionally directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from an EPA scientific document. Nearly 200 EPA scientists said that they have frequently or occasionally been in situations in which scientists have actively objected to, resigned from or removed themselves from a project because of pressure to change scientific findings.”

Article XXXIII REPEATEDLY IGNORED AND FAILED TO RESPOND TO HIGH LEVEL INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS OF PLANNED TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE US, PRIOR TO 911

The White House’s top counter-terrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, has testified that from the beginning of George W. Bush’s presidency until September 11, 2001, Clarke attempted unsuccessfully to persuade President Bush to take steps to protect the nation against terrorism. Clarke sent a memorandum to then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on January 24, 2001, “urgently” but unsuccessfully requesting “a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack.”

In April 2001, Clarke was finally granted a meeting, but only with second-in-command department representatives, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who made light of Clarke’s concerns.

Clarke confirms that in June, July, and August, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned the president in daily briefings of unprecedented indications that a major al Qaeda attack was going to happen against the United States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. Yet, Clarke was still unable to convene a cabinet-level meeting to address the issue.

Condoleezza Rice has testified that George Tenet met with the president 40 times to warn him that a major al-Qaeda attack was going to take place, and that in response the president did not convene any meetings of top officials. At such meetings, the FBI could have shared information on possible terrorists enrolled at flight schools. Among the many preventive steps that could have been taken, the Federal Aviation Administration, airlines, and airports might have been put on full alert.

According to Condoleezza Rice, the first and only cabinet-level meeting prior to 9/11 to discuss the threat of terrorist attacks took place on September 4, 2001, one week before the attacks in New York and Washington.

On August 6, 2001, President Bush was presented a President’s Daily Brief (PDB) article titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The lead sentence of that PDB article indicated that Bin Laden and his followers wanted to “follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and ‘bring the fighting to America.’” The article warned: “Al-Qa’ida members–including some who are US citizens– have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.”

The article cited a “more sensational threat reporting that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft,” but indicated that the CIA had not been able to corroborate such reporting. The PDB item included information from the FBI indicating “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” The article also noted that the CIA and FBI were investigating “a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.” The president spent the rest of August 6, and almost all the rest of August 2001 on vacation. There is no evidence that he called any meetings of his advisers to discuss this alarming report. When the title and substance of this PDB article were later reported in the press, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice began a sustained campaign to play down its significance, until the actual text was eventually released by the White House.

New York Times writer Douglas Jehl, put it this way: “In a single 17-sentence document, the intelligence briefing delivered to President Bush in August 2001 spells out the who, hints at the what and points towards the where of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that followed 36 days later.”

Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the joint congressional committee investigating the performance of the US intelligence community before September 11, 2001, reported in mid-September 2002 that intelligence reports a year earlier “reiterated a consistent and constant theme: Osama bin Laden’s intent to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States.”

That joint inquiry revealed that just two months before September 11, an intelligence briefing for “senior government officials” predicted a terrorist attack with these words: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”

Given the White House’s insistence on secrecy with regard to what intelligence was given to President Bush, the joint-inquiry report does not divulge whether he took part in that briefing. Even if he did not, it strains credulity to suppose that those “senior government officials” would have kept its alarming substance from the president.

Again, there is no evidence that the president held any meetings or took any action to deal with the threats of such attacks.

Article XXXIV OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

Following September 11, 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney took strong steps to thwart any and all proposals that the circumstances of the attack be addressed. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced to renege on his public promise on September 23 that a “White Paper” would be issued to explain the circumstances. Less than two weeks after that promise, Powell apologized for his “unfortunate choice of words,” and explained that Americans would have to rely on “information coming out in the press and in other ways.”

On Sept. 26, 2001, President Bush drove to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia, stood with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and said: “My report to the nation is, we’ve got the best intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women of the C.I.A.” George Tenet subsequently and falsely claimed not to have visited the president personally between the start of Bush’s long Crawford vacation and September 11, 2001.

Testifying before the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004, Tenet answered a question from Commission member Timothy Roemer by referring to the president’s vacation (July 29-August 30) in Crawford and insisting that he did not see the president at all in August 2001. “You never talked with him?” Roemer asked. “No,” Tenet replied, explaining that for much of August he too was “on leave.” An Agency spokesman called reporters that same evening to say Tenet had misspoken, and that Tenet had briefed Bush on August 17 and 31. The spokesman explained that the second briefing took place after the president had returned to Washington, and played down the first one, in Crawford, as uneventful.

In his book, At the Center of the Storm, (2007) Tenet, refers to what is almost certainly his August 17 visit to Crawford as a follow-up to the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US” article in the CIA- prepared President’s Daily Brief of August 6. That briefing was immortalized in a Time Magazine photo capturing Harriet Myers holding the PDB open for the president, as two CIA officers sit by. It is the same briefing to which the president reportedly reacted by telling the CIA briefer, “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.” (Ron Suskind, The One-Percent Doctrine, p. 2, 2006). In At the Center of the Storm, Tenet writes: “A few weeks after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to make sure that the president stayed current on events.”

A White House press release suggests Tenet was also there a week later, on August 24. According to the August 25, 2001, release, President Bush, addressing a group of visitors to Crawford on August 25, told them: “George Tenet and I, yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went right up the canyon.”

In early February, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney warned then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that if Congress went ahead with an investigation, administration officials might not show up to testify. As pressure grew for an investigation, the president and vice president agreed to the establishment of a congressional joint committee to conduct a “Joint Inquiry.” Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the Inquiry, opened the Joint Inquiry’s final public hearing in mid-September 2002 with the following disclaimer: “I need to report that, according to the White House and the Director of Central Intelligence, the president’s knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains classified, even when the substance of the intelligence information has been declassified.”

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was created on November 27, 2002, following the passage of congressional legislation signed into law by President Bush. The President was asked to testify before the Commission. He refused to testify except for one hour in private with only two Commission members, with no oath administered, with no recording or note taking, and with the Vice President at his side. Commission Co-Chair Lee Hamilton has written that he believes the commission was set up to fail, was underfunded, was rushed, and did not receive proper cooperation and access to information.

A December 2007 review of classified documents by former members of the Commission found that the commission had made repeated and detailed requests to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and had been told falsely by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.

Article XXXV ENDANGERING THE HEALTH OF 911 FIRST RESPONDERS

The Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) August 21, 2003, report numbered 2003-P-00012 and entitled “EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement,” includes the following findings:

“[W]hen EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was ‘safe’ to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement. At that time, air monitoring data was lacking for several pollutants of concern, including particulate matter and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Furthermore, The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) influenced, through the collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.”

“As a result of the White House CEQ’s influence, guidance for cleaning indoor spaces and information about the potential health effects from WTC debris were not included in EPA- issued press releases. In addition, based on CEQ’s influence, reassuring information was added to at least one press release and cautionary information was deleted from EPA’s draft version of that press release. . . . The White House’s role in EPA’s public communications about WTC environmental conditions was described in a September 12, 2001, e-mail from the EPA Deputy Administrator’s Chief of Staff to senior EPA officials:

“‘All statements to the media should be cleared through the NSC [National Security Council] before they are released.’

“According to the EPA Chief of Staff, one particular CEQ official was designated to work with EPA to ensure that clearance was obtained through NSC. The Associate Administrator for the EPA Office of Communications, Education, and Media Relations (OCEMR) said that no press release could be issued for a 3- to 4-week period after September 11 without approval from the CEQ contact.”

Acting EPA Administrator Marianne Horinko, who sat in on EPA meetingswith the White House has said in an interview that the White House played a coordinating role. The National Security Council played the key role, filtering incoming data on ground zero air and water, Horinko said: “I think that the thinking was, these are experts in WMD (weapons of mass destruction), so they should have the coordinating role.” In the cleanup of the Pentagon following September 11, 2001, Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws were enforced, and no workers became ill. At the World Trade Center site, the same laws were not enforced.

In the years since the release of the EPA Inspector General’s above-cited report, the Bush Administration has still not effected a clean-up of the indoor air in apartments and workspaces near the site.

Screenings conducted at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and released in the September 10, 2004, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) of the federal Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), produced the following results:

“Both upper and lower respiratory problems and mental health difficulties are widespread among rescue and recovery workers who dug through the ruins of the World Trade Center in the days following its destruction in the attack of September 11, 2001.

“An analysis of the screenings of 1,138 workers and volunteers who responded to the World Trade Center disaster found that nearly three-quarters of them experienced new or worsened upper respiratory problems at some point while working at Ground Zero. And half of those examined had upper and/or lower respiratory symptoms that persisted up to the time of their examinations, an average of eight months after their WTC efforts ended.”

A larger study released in 2006 found that roughly 70 percent of nearly 10,000 workers tested at Mount Sinai from 2002 to 2004 reported that they had new or substantially worsened respiratory problems while or after working at ground zero. This study showed that many of the respiratory ailments, including sinusitis and asthma, and gastrointestinal problems related to them, initially reported by ground zero workers persisted or grew worse over time. Most of the ground zero workers in the study who reported trouble breathing while working there were still having those problems two and a half years later, an indication of chronic illness unlikely to improve over time.

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007

Organik — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:47:10 +0000

from ProjectCensored.org

1 – Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media

2 – Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran

3 – Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger

4 – Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US

5 – High-Tech Genocide in Congo

6 – Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy

7 – US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq

8 – Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act

9 – The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall

10 – Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians

11 – Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed

12 – Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines

13 – New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup

14 – Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US

15 – Chemical Industry is EPAâ€™s Primary Research Partner

16 – Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court

17 – Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda

18 – Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story

19 – Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever

20 – Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem

21 – Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers

22 – $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed

23 – US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe

24 – Cheneyâ€™s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year

25 – US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media

Sources:

Buzzflash.com, July 18, 2005

Title: â€œWeb of Deceit: How Internet Freedom Got the Federal Ax, and Why Corporate News Censored the Storyâ€

Author: Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D.

Student Researchers: Lauren Powell, Brett Forest, and Zoe Huffman

Faculty Evaluator: Andrew Roth, Ph.D.

Throughout 2005 and 2006, a large underground debate raged regarding the future of the Internet. More recently referred to as â€œnetwork neutrality,â€ the issue has become a tug of war with cable companies on the one hand and consumers and Internet service providers on the other. Yet despite important legislative proposals and Supreme Court decisions throughout 2005, the issue was almost completely ignored in the headlines until 2006.1 And, except for occasional coverage on CNBCâ€™s Kudlow & Kramer, mainstream television remains hands-off to this day (June 2006).2

Most coverage of the issue framed it as an argument over regulationâ€”but the term â€œregulationâ€ in this case is somewhat misleading. Groups advocating for â€œnet neutralityâ€ are not promoting regulation of internet content. What they want is a legal mandate forcing cable companies to allow internet service providers (ISPs) free access to their cable lines (called a â€œcommon carriageâ€ agreement). This was the model used for dial-up internet, and it is the way content providers want to keep it. They also want to make sure that cable companies cannot screen or interrupt internet content without a court order.

Those in favor of net neutrality say that lack of government regulation simply means that cable lines will be regulated by the cable companies themselves. ISPs will have to pay a hefty service fee for the right to use cable lines (making internet services more expensive). Those who could pay more would get better access; those who could not pay would be left behind. Cable companies could also decide to filter Internet content at will.

On the other side, cable company supporters say that a great deal of time and money was spent laying cable lines and expanding their speed and quality.3 They claim that allowing ISPs free access would deny cable companies the ability to recoup their investments, and maintain that cable providers should be allowed to charge. Not doing so, they predict, would discourage competition and innovation within the cable industry.

Cable supporters like the AT&T-sponsored Hands Off the Internet website assert that common carriage legislation would lead to higher prices and months of legal wrangling. They maintain that such legislation fixes a problem that doesnâ€™t exist and scoff at concerns that phone and cable companies will use their position to limit access based on fees as groundless. Though cable companies deny plans to block content providers without cause, there are a number of examples of cable-initiated discrimination.

In March 2005, the FCC settled a case against a North Carolina-based telephone company that was blocking the ability of its customers to use voice-over-Internet calling services instead of (the more expensive) phone lines.4 In August 2005, a Canadian cable company blocked access to a site that supported the cable union in a labor dispute.5 In February 2006, Cox Communications denied customers access to the Craigâ€™s List website. Though Cox claims that it was simply a security error, it was discovered that Cox ran a classified service that competes with Craigâ€™s List.6

court decisions

In June of 1999, the Ninth District Court ruled that AT&T would have to open its cable network to ISPs (AT&T v. City of Portland). The court said that Internet transmissions, interactive, two-way exchanges, were telecommunication offerings, not a cable information service (like CNN) that sends data one way. This decision was overturned on appeal a year later.

Recent court decisions have extended the cable company agenda further. On June 27, 2005, The United States Supreme Court ruled that cable corporations like Comcast and Verizon were not required to share their lines with rival ISPs (National Cable & Telecommunications Association vs. Brand X Internet Services).7 Cable companies would not have to offer common carriage agreements for cable lines the way that telephone companies have for phone lines.

According to Dr. Elliot Cohen, the decision accepted the FCC assertion that cable modem service is not a two-way telecommunications offering, but a one-way information service, completely overturning the 1999 ruling. Meanwhile, telephone companies charge that such a decision gives an unfair advantage to cable companies and are requesting that they be released from their common carriage requirement as well.

Legislation

On June 8, the House rejected legislation (HR 5273) that would have prevented phone and cable companies from selling preferential treatment on their networks for delivery of video and other data-heavy applications. It also passed the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act (HR 5252), which supporters said would encourage innovation and the construction of more high-speed Internet lines. Internet neutrality advocates say it will allow phone and cable companies to cherry-pick customers in wealthy neighborhoods while eliminating the current requirement demanded by most local governments that cable TV companies serve low-income and minority areas as well. 8

Comment: As of June 2006, the COPE Act is in the Senate. Supporters say the bill supports innovation and freedom of choice. Interet neutrality advocates say that its passage would forever compromise the Internet. Giant cable companies would attain a monopoly on high-speed, cable Internet. They would prevent poorer citizens from broadband access, while monitoring and controlling the content of information that can be accessed.

Notes

1. â€œKeeping a Democratic Web,â€ The New York Times, May 2, 2006.

2. Jim Goldman, Larry Kudlow, and Phil Lebeau, â€œPanelists Michael Powell, Mike Holland, Neil Weinberg, John Augustine and Pablo Perez-Fernandez discuss markets,â€ Kudlow & Company CNBC, March 6, 2006.

3. http://www.Handsofftheinternet.com.

4. Michael Geist, â€œTelus breaks Net Providersâ€™ cardinal rule: Telecom company blocks access to site supporting union in labour dispute,â€ Ottawa Citizen, August 4, 2005.

5. Jonathan Krim, â€œRenewed Warning of Bandwidth Hoarding,â€ The Washington Post, November 24, 2005.

6. David A. Utter, â€œCraigslist Blocked By Cox Interactive,â€ http://www.Webpronews.com, June 7, 2006.

7. Yuki Noguchi, â€œCable Firms Donâ€™t Have to Share Networks, Court Rules,â€ Washington Post, June 28, 2005.

8. â€œLast week in Congress / How our representatives voted,â€ Buffalo News (New York), June 11, 2006.

UPDATE BY ELLIOT D. COHEN, PH.D.

Despite the fact that the Courtâ€™s decision in Brand X marks the beginning of the end for a robust, democratic Internet, there has been a virtual MSM blackout in covering it. As a result of this decision, the legal stage has been set for further corporate control. Currently pending in Congress is the â€œCommunications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006â€(HR 5252), fueled by strong telecom corporative lobbies and introduced by Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX). This Act, which fails to adequately protect an open and neutral Internet, includes a â€œTitle IIâ€”Enforcement of Broadband Policy Statementâ€ that gives the FCC â€œexclusive authority to adjudicate any complaint alleging a violation of the broadband policy statement or the principles incorporated therein.â€ With the passage of this provision, courts will have scant authority to challenge and overturn FCC decisions regarding broadband. Since under current FCC Chair Kevin Martin, the FCC is moving toward still further deregulation of telecom and media companies, the likely consequence is the thickening of the plot to increase corporate control of the Internet. In particular, behemoth telecom corporations like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T want to set up toll booths on the Internet. If these companies get their way, content providers with deep pockets will be afforded optimum bandwidth while the rest of us will be left spinning in cyberspace. No longer will everyone enjoy an equal voice in the freest and most comprehensive democratic forum ever devised by humankind.

As might be expected, none of these new developments are being addressed by the MSM. Among media activist organizations attempting to stop the gutting of the free Internet is The Free Press (http://www.freepress.net/), which now has an aggressive â€œSave the Internetâ€ campaign.

#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran

Source:

Global Research.ca, August 5, 2005

Title: â€œHalliburton Secretly Doing Business With Key Member of Iranâ€™s Nuclear Teamâ€

Author: Jason Leopold

Faculty Evaluator: Catherine Nelson

Student Researchers: Kristine Medeiros and Pla Herr

According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iranâ€™s largest private oil companies.

Additionally, throughout 2004 and 2005, Halliburton worked closely with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Iran-based Oriental Oil Kish, to develop oil projects in Iran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iranâ€™s nuclear development team. Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July 2005 for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iranâ€™s nuclear secrets. Iranian government officials charged Nasseri with accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton for this information.

Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, â€œwas winding down its work due to a poor business environment.â€

However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, â€œHalliburton Products and Services Ltd., works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is â€œnon-American.â€ But like the sign over the receptionistâ€™s head, the brochure bears the companyâ€™s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.â€ Moreover mail sent to the companyâ€™s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.

In an attempt to curtail Halliburton and other U.S. companies from engaging in business dealings with rogue nations such as Libya, Iran, and Syria, an amendment was approved in the Senate on July 26, 2005. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Susan Collins R-Maine, would penalize companies that continue to skirt U.S. law by setting up offshore subsidiaries as a way to legally conduct and avoid U.S. sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

A letter, drafted by trade groups representing corporate executives, vehemently objected to the amendment, saying it would lead to further hatred and perhaps incite terrorist attacks on the U.S. and â€œgreatly strain relations with the United States primary trading partners.â€ The letter warned that, â€œForeign governments view U.S. efforts to dictate their foreign and commercial policy as violations of sovereignty often leading them to adopt retaliatory measures more at odds with U.S. goals.â€

Collins supports the legislation, stating, â€œIt prevents U.S. corporations from creating a shell company somewhere else in order to do business with rogue, terror-sponsoring nations such as Syria and Iran. The bottom line is that if a U.S. company is evading sanctions to do business with one of these countries, they are helping to prop up countries that support terrorismâ€”most often aimed against America.

UPDATE BY JASON LEOPOLD

During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Vice President Dick Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships, a statement that, in hindsight, is completely hypocritical considering the Bush administrationâ€™s foreign policy.

â€œLet me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,â€ Cheney said. â€œI think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know whatâ€™s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.â€

Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iranâ€”in violation of U.S. lawâ€”in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

It was Halliburtonâ€™s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.

If the U.S. ends up engaged in a war with Iran in the future, Cheney and Halliburton will bear the brunt of the blame.

But this shouldnâ€™t come as a shock to anyone who has been following Halliburtonâ€™s business activities over the past decade. The company has a long, documented history of violating U.S. sanctions and conducting business with so-called rogue nations.

No, whatâ€™s disturbing about these facts is how little attention it has received from the mainstream media. But the public record speaks for itself, as do the thousands of pages of documents obtained by various federal agencies that show how Halliburtonâ€™s business dealings in Iran helped fund terrorist activities thereâ€”including the countryâ€™s nuclear enrichment program.

When I asked Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, a couple of years ago if Halliburton would stop doing business with Iran because of concerns that the company helped fund terrorism she said, â€œNo.â€ â€œWe believe that decisions as to the nature of such governments and their actions are better made by governmental authorities and international entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual persons or companies,â€ Hall said. â€œPutting politics aside, we and our affiliates operate in countries to the extent it is legally permissible, where our customers are active as they expect us to provide oilfield services support to their international operations. â€œWe do not always agree with policies or actions of governments in every place that we do business and make no excuses for their behaviors. Due to the long-term nature of our business and the inevitability of political and social change, it is neither prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy.â€

Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.

An executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in March 1995 prohibits â€œnew investments (in Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other assets.â€ It also bars U.S. companies from performing services â€œthat would benefit the Iranian oil industryâ€ and provide Iran with the financial means to engage in terrorist activity.

When Bush and Cheney came into office in 2001, their administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies that invest in those countries. The sanctions imposed on countries like Iran and Libya before Bush became president were blasted by Cheney, who gave frequent speeches on the need for U.S. companies to compete with their foreign competitors, despite claims that those countries may have ties to terrorism.

â€œI think weâ€™d be better off if we, in fact, backed off those sanctions (on Iran), didnâ€™t try to impose secondary boycotts on companies . . . trying to do business over there . . . and instead started to rebuild those relationships,â€ Cheney said during a 1998 business trip to Sydney, Australia, according to Australiaâ€™s Illawarra Mercury newspaper.

#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger

Source:

Mother Jones, March /April, 2006

Title: The Fate of the Ocean

Author: Julia Whitty

Faculty Evaluator: Dolly Freidel

Student Researcher: Charlene Jones

Oceanic problems once found on a local scale are now pandemic. Data from oceanography, marine biology, meteorology, fishery science, and glaciology reveal that the seas are changing in ominous ways. A vortex of cause and effect wrought by global environmental dilemmas is changing the ocean from a watery horizon with assorted regional troubles to a global system in alarming distress.

According to oceanographers the oceans are one, with currents linking the seas and regulating climate. Sea temperature and chemistry changes, along with contamination and reckless fishing practices, intertwine to imperil the worldâ€™s largest communal life source.

In 2005, researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory found clear evidence the ocean is quickly warming. They discovered that the top half-mile of the ocean has warmed dramatically in the past forty years as a result of human-induced greenhouse gases.

One manifestation of this warming is the melting of the Arctic. A shrinking ratio of ice to water has set off a feedback loop, accelerating the increase in water surfaces that promote further warming and melting. With polar waters growing fresher and tropical seas saltier, the cycle of evaporation and precipitation has quickened, further invigorating the greenhouse effect. The oceanâ€™s currents are reacting to this freshening, causing a critical conveyor that carries warm upper waters into Europeâ€™s northern latitudes to slow by one third since 1957, bolstering fears of a shut down and cataclysmic climate change. This accelerating cycle of cause and effect will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.

Atmospheric litter is also altering sea chemistry, as thousands of toxic compounds poison marine creatures and devastate propagation. The ocean has absorbed an estimated 118 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, with 20 to 25 tons being added to the atmosphere daily. Increasing acidity from rising levels of CO2 is changing the oceanâ€™s PH balance. Studies indicate that the shells and skeletons possessed by everything from reef-building corals to mollusks and plankton begin to dissolve within forty-eight hours of exposure to the acidity expected in the ocean by 2050. Coral reefs will almost certainly disappear and, even more worrisome, so will plankton. Phytoplankton absorb greenhouse gases, manufacture oxygen, and are the primary producers of the marine food web.

Mercury pollution enters the food web via coal and chemical industry waste, oxidizes in the atmosphere, and settles to the sea bottom. There it is consumed, delivering mercury to each subsequent link in the food chain, until predators such as tuna or whales carry levels of mercury as much as one million times that of the waters around them. The Gulf of Mexico has the highest mercury levels ever recorded, with an average of ten tons of mercury coming down the Mississippi River every year, and another ton added by offshore drilling.

Along with mercury, the Mississippi delivers nitrogen (often from fertilizers). Nitrogen stimulates plant and bacterial growth in the water that consume oxygen, creating a condition known as hypoxia, or dead zones. Dead zones occur wherever oceanic oxygen is depleted below the level necessary to sustain marine life. A sizable portion of the Gulf of Mexico has become a dead zoneâ€”the largest such area in the U.S. and the second largest on the planet, measuring nearly 8,000 square miles in 2001. It is no coincidence that almost all of the nearly 150 (and counting) dead zones on earth lay at the mouths of rivers. Nearly fifty fester off U.S. coasts. While most are caused by river-borne nitrogen, fossil fuel-burning plants help create this condition, as does phosphorous from human sewage and nitrogen emissions from auto exhaust.

Meanwhile, since its peak in 2000, the global wild fish harvest has begun a sharp decline despite progress in seagoing technologies and intensified fishing. So-called efficiencies in fishing have stimulated unprecedented decimation of sealife. Long-lining, in which a single boat sets line across sixty or more miles of ocean, each baited with up to 10,000 hooks, captures at least 25 percent unwanted catch. With an estimated 2 billion hooks set each year, as much as 88 billion pounds of life a year is thrown back to the ocean either dead or dying. Additionally, trawlers drag nets across every square inch of the continental shelves every two years. Fishing the sea floor like a bulldozer, they level an area 150 times larger than all forest clearcuts each year and destroy seafloor ecosystems. Aquaculture is no better, since three pounds of wild fish are caught to feed every pound of farmed salmon. A 2003 study out of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia concluded, based on data dating from the 1950s, that in the wake of decades of such onslaught only 10 percent of all large fish (tuna, swordfish) and ground fish (cod, hake, flounder) are left anywhere in the ocean.

Other sea nurseries are also threatened. Fifteen percent of seagrass beds have disappeared in the last ten years, depriving juvenile fish, manatees, and sea turtles of critical habitats. Kelp beds are also dying at alarming rates.

While at no time in history has science taught more about how the earthâ€™s life-support systems work, the maelstrom of human assault on the seas continues. If human failure in governance of the worldâ€™s largest public domain is not reversed quickly, the ocean will soon and surely reach a point of no return.

Comment:

After release of the Pew Oceans Commission report, U.S. media, most notably The Washington Post and National Public Radio in 2003 and 2004, covered several stories regarding impending threats to the ocean, recommendations for protection, and President Bushâ€™s response. However, media treatment of the collective acceleration of ocean damage and cross-pollination of harm was left to Julia Whitty in her lengthy feature. In April of 2006, Time Magazine presented an in-depth article about earth at â€œthe tipping point,â€ describing the planet as an overworked organism fighting the consequences of global climate change on shore and sea. In her Mother Jones article, Whitty presented a look at global illness by directly examining the ocean as earthâ€™s circulatory, respiratory, and reproductive system.

Following up on â€œThe Last Days of the Ocean,â€ Mother Jones has produced â€œOcean Voyager,â€ an innovative web-based adventure that includes videos, audio interviews with key players, webcams, and links to informative web pages created by more than twenty organizations. The site is a tour of various ocean trouble spots around the world, which highlights solutions and suggests actions that can be taken to help make a difference.

UPDATE BY JULIA WHITTY

This story is awash with new developments. Scientists are currently publishing at an unprecedented rate their observationsâ€”not just predictionsâ€”on the rapid changes underway on our ocean planet. First and foremost, the year 2005 turned out to be the warmest year on record. This reinforces other data showing the earth has grown hotter in the past 400 years, and possibly in the past 2,000 years. A study out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research found ocean temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic in 2005 nearly two degrees Fahrenheit above normal; this turned out to be the predominant catalyst for the monstrous 2005 hurricane seasonâ€”the most violent season ever seen.

The news from the polar ice is no better. A joint NASA/University of Kansas study in Science (02/06) reveals that Greenlandâ€™s glaciers are surging towards the sea and melting more than twice as fast as ten years ago. This further endangers the critical balance of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which holds our climate stable. Meanwhile, in March, the British Antarctic Survey announced their findings that the â€œglobal warming signatureâ€ of the Antarctic is three times larger than what weâ€™re seeing elsewhere on Earthâ€”the first proof of broadscale climate change across the southern continent.

Since â€œThe Fate of the Oceanâ€ went to press in Mother Jones magazine, evidence of the politicization of science in the global climate wars has also emerged. In January 2006 NASAâ€™s top climate scientist, James Hansen, accused the agency of trying to censor his work. Four months later, Hansenâ€™s accusations were echoed by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as by a U.S. Geological Survey scientist working at a NOAA lab, who claimed their work on global climate change was being censored by their departments, as part of a policy of intimidation by the anti-science Bush administration.

Problems for the oceanâ€™s wildlife are escalating too. In 2005, biologists from the U.S. Minerals Management Service found polar bears drowned in the waters off Alaska, apparent victims of the disappearing ice. In 2006, U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center researchers found polar bears killing and eating each other in areas where sea ice failed to form that year, leaving the bears bereft of food. In response, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources revised their Red List for polar bearsâ€”upgrading them from â€œconservation dependentâ€ to â€œvulnerable.â€ In February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would begin reviewing whether polar bears need protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Since my report, the leaders of two influential commissionsâ€”the Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policyâ€”gave Congress, the Bush administration, and our nationâ€™s governors a â€œD+â€ grade for not moving quickly enough to address their recommendations for restoring health to our nationâ€™s oceans.

Most of these stories remain out of view, sunk with cement boots in the backwaters of scientific journals. The media remains unable to discern good science from bad, and gives equal credence to both, when they give any at all. The story of our declining ocean world, and our own future, develops beyond the ken of the public, who forge ahead without altering behavior or goals, and unimpeded by foresight.

#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US

Sources:

The New Standard, December 2005

Title: â€œNew Report Shows Increase in Urban Hunger, Homelessnessâ€

Author: Brendan Coyne

OneWorld.net, March, 2006

Title: â€œUS Plan to Eliminate Survey of Needy Families Draws Fire â€œ

Author: Abid Aslam

Faculty Evaluator: Myrna Goodman

Student Researcher: Arlene Ward and Brett Forest

The number of hungry and homeless people in U.S. cities continued to grow in 2005, despite claims of an improved economy. Increased demand for vital services rose as needs of the most destitute went unmet, according to the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors Report, which has documented increasing need since its 1982 inception.

The study measures instances of emergency food and housing assistance in twenty-four U.S. cities and utilizes supplemental information from the U.S. Census and Department of Labor. More than three-quarters of cities surveyed reported increases in demand for food and housing, especially among families. Food aid requests expanded by 12 percent in 2005, while aid center and food bank resources grew by only 7 percent. Service providers estimated 18 percent of requests went unattended. Housing followed a similar trend, as a majority of cities reported an increase in demand for emergency shelter, often going unmet due to lack of resources.

As urban hunger and homelessness increases in America, the Bush administration is planning to eliminate a U.S. survey widely used to improve federal and state programs for low-income and retired Americans, reports Abid Aslam.

President Bushâ€™s proposed budget for fiscal 2007, which begins October 2006, includes a Commerce Department plan to eliminate the Census Bureauâ€™s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The proposal marks at least the third White House attempt in as many years to do away with federal data collection on politically prickly economic issues.

Founded in 1984, the Census Bureau survey follows American families for a number of years and monitors their use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Social Security, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, child care, and other health, social service, and education programs.

Some 415 economists and social scientists signed a letter and sent it to Congress, shortly after the February release of Bushâ€™s federal budget proposal, urging that the survey be fully funded as it â€œis the only large-scale survey explicitly designed to analyze the impact of a wide variety of government programs on the well being of American families.â€

Heather Boushey, economist at the Washington, D.C.â€“based Center for Economic and Policy Research told Abid Aslam, â€œWe need to know what the effects of these programs are on American families . . . SIPP is designed to do just that.â€ Boushey added that the survey has proved invaluable in tracking the effects of changes in government programs. So much so that the 1996 welfare reform law specifically mentioned the survey as the best means to evaluate the lawâ€™s effectiveness.

Supporters of the survey elimination say the program costs too much at $40 million per year. They would kill it in September and eventually replace it with a scaled-down version that would run to $9.2 million in development costs during the coming fiscal year. Actual data collection would begin in 2009.

Defenders of the survey counter that the cost is justified as SIPP â€œprovides a constant stream of in-depth data that enables government, academic, and independent researchers to evaluate the effectiveness and improve the efficiency of several hundred billion dollars in spending on social programs,â€ including homeless shelters and emergency food aid.

UPDATE BY ABID ASLAM

As of the end of May 2006, hundreds of economists and social scientists remain engaged in a bid to save the U.S. Census Bureauâ€™s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Ideologically diverse users describe the survey as pioneering and say it has helped to improve the uptake and performance of, and to gauge the effects on American families of changes in public provisions ranging from Medicaid to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and school lunch programs.

A few journalists took notice because users of the data, including the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which spearheaded the effort to save SIPP, chose to make some noise.By most accounts, the matter was a simple fight over money: the administration was out to cut any hint of flesh from bureaucratic budgets (perhaps to feed its foreign policy pursuits) but users of the survey wanted the money spent on SIPP because, in their view, the program is valuable and no feasible alternative exists or has been proposed.

That debate remains to be resolved. Lobbyists expect more legislative action in June and among them, CEPR remains available to provide updates.But is it just an isolated budget fight? This is the third time in as many years that the Bush administration has triedâ€”and in the previous two cases, failed under pressure from users and advocatesâ€”to strip funding for awkward research. In 2003, it had tried to kill the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Mass Layoff Statistics report, which detailed where workplaces with more than fifty employees closed and what kinds of workers were affected. In 2004 and 2005, it had attempted to drop questions on the hiring and firing of women from employment data collected by the BLS. Hardly big-ticket items on the federal budget, the mass layoffs reports provided federal and state social service agencies with data crucial for planning even as it chronicled job losses and the so-called â€œjobless recovery.â€ The womenâ€™s questionnaire uncovered employment discrimination.

In other words, SIPP and the BLS programs are politically prickly. They highlight that, regardless of what some politicians and executives might say, economic and social problems persist and involve real people whose real needs remain to be met. This calls to mind the old line about there being three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. To be convincing, they must be broadly consistent. If the numbers donâ€™t support the narrative, something simply must give. With the livelihoods, life chances, and rights of millions of citizens at stake, these are more than stories about arcane budget wrangles.

#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo

Sources:

The Taylor Report, March 28, 2005

Title: â€œThe Worldâ€™s Most Neglected Emergency: Phil Taylor talks to Keith Harmon Snowâ€

Earth First! Journal, August 2005

Title: â€œHigh-Tech Genocideâ€

Author: Sprocket

Z Magazine, March 1, 2006

Title: â€œBehind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congoâ€

Authors: Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski

Faculty Evaluator: Thom Lough

Student Researchers: Deyango Harris and Daniel Turner

The worldâ€™s most neglected emergency, according to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, is the ongoing tragedy of the Congo, where six to seven million have died since 1996 as a consequence of invasions and wars sponsored by western powers trying to gain control of the regionâ€™s mineral wealth. At stake is control of natural resources that are sought by U.S. corporationsâ€”diamonds, tin, copper, gold, and more significantly, coltan and niobium, two minerals necessary for production of cell phones and other high-tech electronics; and cobalt, an element essential to nuclear, chemical, aerospace, and defense industries.

Columbo-tantalite, i.e. coltan, is found in three-billion-year-old soils like those in the Rift Valley region of Africa. The tantalum extracted from the coltan ore is used to make tantalum capacitors, tiny components that are essential in managing the flow of current in electronic devices. Eighty percent of the worldâ€™s coltan reserves are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Niobium is another high-tech mineral with a similar story.

Sprocket reports that the high-tech boom of the 1990s caused the price of coltan to skyrocket to nearly $300 per pound. In 1996 U.S.-sponsored Rwandan and Ugandan forces entered eastern DRC. By 1998 they seized control and moved into strategic mining areas. The Rwandan Army was soon making $20 million or more a month from coltan mining. Though the price of coltan has fallen, Rwanda maintains its monopoly on coltan and the coltan trade in DRC. Reports of rampant human rights abuses pour out of this mining region.

Coltan makes its way out of the mines to trading posts where foreign traders buy the mineral and ship it abroad, mostly through Rwanda. Firms with the capability turn coltan into the coveted tantalum powder, and then sell the magic powder to Nokia, Motorola, Compaq, Sony, and other manufacturers for use in cell phones and other products.

Keith Harmon Snow emphasizes that any analysis of the geopolitics in the Congo, and the reasons for why the Congolese people have suffered a virtually unending war since 1996, requires an understanding of the organized crime perpetrated through multinational businesses. The tragedy of the Congo conflict has been instituted by invested corporations, their proxy armies, and the supra-governmental bodies that support them.

The process is tied to major multinational corporations at all levels. These include U.S.-based Cabot Corp. and OM Group; HC Starck of Germany; and Nigncxia of Chinaâ€”corporations that have been linked by a United Nations Panel of Experts to the atrocities in DRC. Extortion, rape, massacres, and bribery are all part of the criminal networks set up and maintained by huge multinational companies. Yet as mining in the Congo by western companies proceeds at an unprecedented rateâ€”some $6 million in raw cobalt alone exiting DRC dailyâ€”multinational mining companies rarely get mentioned in human rights reports.

Sprocket notes that Sam Bodman, CEO of Cabot during the coltan boom, was appointed in December 2004 to serve as President Bushâ€™s Secretary of Energy. Under Bodmanâ€™s leadership from 1987 to 2000, Cabot was one of the U.S.â€™s largest polluters, accounting for 60,000 tons of airborne toxic emissions annually. Snow adds that Sonyâ€™s current Executive Vice President and General Counsel Nicole Seligman was a former legal adviser for Bill Clinton. Many who held positions of power in the Clinton administration moved into high positions with Sony.

The article â€œBehind the Numbers,â€ coauthored by Snow and David Barouski, details a web of U.S. corruption and conflicts of interest between mining corporations such as Barrick Gold (see Story #21) and the U.S. government under George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, as well as U.S. arms dealers such as Simax; U.S. defense companies such as Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Northrop Grumman, GE, Boeing, Raytheon, and Bechtel; â€œhumanitarianâ€ organizations such as CARE, funded by Lockheed Martin, and International Rescue Committee, whose Board of Overseers includes Henry Kissinger; â€œConservationâ€ interests that provide the vanguard for western penetration into Central Africa; and of course, PR firms and news outlets such as the New York Times.

Sprocket closes his article by noting that itâ€™s not surprising this information isnâ€™t included in the literature and manuals that come with your cell phones, pagers, computers, or diamond jewelry. Perhaps, he suggests, mobile phones should be outfitted with stickers that read: â€œWarning! This device was created with raw materials from central Africa. These materials are rare, nonrenewable, were sold to fund a bloody war of occupation, and have caused the virtual elimination of endangered species. Have a nice day.â€ People need to realize, he says, that there is a direct link between the gadgets that make our lives more convenient and sophisticatedâ€”and the reality of the violence, turmoil, and destruction that plague our world.

UPDATE BY SPROCKET

There are large fortunes to be made in the manufacturing of high-tech electronics and in selling convenience and entertainment to American consumers, but at what cost?

Conflicts in Africa are often shrouded with misinformation, while U.S. and other western interests are routinely downplayed or omitted by the corporate media. The June 5, 2006, cover story of Time, entitled â€œCongo: The Hidden Toll of the Worldâ€™s Deadliest War,â€ was no exception. Although the article briefly mentioned coltan and its use in cell phones and other electronic devices, no mention was made of the pivotal role this and other raw materials found in the region play in the conflict. The story painted the ongoing war as a pitiable and horrible tragedy, avoiding the corporations and foreign governments that have created the framework for the violence and those which have strong financial and political interests in the conflictâ€™s outcome.

In an article written by Johann Hari and published by The Hamilton Spectator on May 13, 2006, the corporate media took a step toward addressing the true reason for the tremendous body count that continues to pile up in the Democratic Republic of Congo: â€œThe only change over the decades has been the resources snatched for Western consumptionâ€”rubber under the Belgians, diamonds under Mobutu, coltan and casterite today.â€

Most disturbing is that in the corporate media, the effect of this conflict on nonhuman life is totally overlooked. Even with a high-profile endangered species like the Eastern lowland gorilla hanging in the balance, almost driven to extinction through poaching and habitat loss by displaced villagers and warring factions, the environmental angle of the story is rarely considered.

The next step in understanding the exploitation and violence wrought upon the inhabitants of central Africa, fueled by the hunger for high-tech toys in the U.S., is to expose corporations like Sony and Motorola. These corporations donâ€™t want protest movements tarnishing their reputations. Nor do they want to call attention to all of the gorillas coltan kills, and the guerrillas it feeds.

It is time for our culture to start seeing more value in living beings, whether gorillas or humans, than in our disposable high-tech gadgets such as cell phones. It is time to steal back a more compassionate existence from the corporate plutocracy that creates destructive markets and from the media system that has manufactured our consent.

It is not just a question of giving up cell phones (though that would be a great start). We must question the appropriation of our planet in the form of a resource to be consumed, rather than as a home and community to be lived in.

â€œHigh-Tech Genocideâ€ and other articles about cell phone technology are available by contacting the author: sprocket@riseup.net.

UPDATE BY KEITH HARMON SNOW

War for the control of the Democratic Republic of Congoâ€”what should be the richest country in the worldâ€”began in Uganda in the 1980s, when now Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni shot his way to power with the backing of Buckingham Palace, the White House, and Tel Aviv behind him.

Paul Kagame, now president of Rwanda, served as Museveniâ€™s Director of Military Intelligence. Kagame later trained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, before the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)â€”backed by Roger Winter, the U.S. Committee on Refugees, and the others aboveâ€”invaded Rwanda. The RPF destabilized and then secured Rwanda. This coup dâ€™etat is today misunderstood as the â€œRwanda Genocide.â€ What played out in Rwanda in 1994 is now playing out in Darfur, Sudan; regime change is the goal, â€œgenocideâ€ is the tool of propaganda used to manipulate and disinform.

In 1996, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni, with the Pentagon behind them, launched their covert war against Zaireâ€™s Mobutu Sese Seko and his western backers. A decade later, there are 6 or 7 million dead, at the very least, and the war in Congo (Zaire) continues.

If you are reading the mainstream newspapers or listening to National Public Radio, you are contributing to your own mental illness, no matter how astute you believe yourself to be at â€œbalancingâ€ or â€œdecipheringâ€ the code.

News reports in Time Magazine (â€œThe Deadliest War In The World,â€ June 6, 2006) and on CNN (â€œRape, Brutality Ignored to Aid Congo Peace,â€ May 26, 2006) that appeared at the time of this writing are being interpreted by conscious people to be truth-telling at last. However, these are perfect examples filled with hidden deceptions and manipulations.

For accuracy and truth on Central Africa, look to people like Robin Philpot (Imperialism Dies Hard), Wayne Madsen (Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993â€“1999), Amos Wilson (The Falsification of Consciousness), Charles Onana (The Secrets of the Rwanda Genocideâ€”Investigation on the Mysteries of a President), Antoine Lokongo (www.congopanorama.info), Phil Taylor (www.taylor-report.com), Christopher Black (â€œRacism, Murder and Lies in Rwandaâ€). World War 4 Report has published my reports, but they are inconsistent in their attention to accuracy, and would as quickly adopt the propaganda, and have done so at times.

It is possible to collect little fragments of truth here and thereâ€”never counting on the mainstream system for thisâ€”but one must beware the deceptions and bias. In this vein, the elite business journal Africa Confidential is often very revealing. Some facts can be gleaned from www.DigitalCongo.net and Africa Research Bulletin.

Professor David Gibbâ€™s book The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Case of the Congo Crises is an excellent backgrounder that identifies players still active today (especially Maurice Tempelsman and his diamonds interests connected to the Democratic Party). Ditto King Leopoldâ€™s Ghost by Adam Hocshchild, butâ€”exemplifying the expedience of â€œinterestsâ€â€”remember that Hocshchild never tells you, the reader, that his father ran a mining company in Congo. Almost ALL reportage is expedient; one needs take care their propensity to be deceived.

Professor Ruth Mayerâ€™s book Artificial Africas: Colonial Images in the Times of Globalization is a particularly poignant articulation of the means by which the â€œmediaâ€ system distorts and manipulates all things African. And, never forget www.AllThingsPass.com.

Also hoping to correct the record and reveal the truth, the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the Great Lakes of Africa (www.veritasrwandaforum.org), based in Spain, and co-founded by Nobel Prize nominee Juan Carrero Seraleegui, is involved in a groundbreaking lawsuit charging massive crimes against humanity and acts of genocide were committed by the now government of Rwanda.

#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy

Source:

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility website

Titles: â€œWhistleblowers Get Help from Bush Administration,â€ December 5, 2005

â€œLong-Delayed Investigation of Special Counsel Finally Begins,â€ October 18,2005

â€œBack Door Rollback of Federal Whistleblower Protections,â€ September 22, 2005

Author: Jeff Ruch

Faculty Evaluator: Barbara Bloom

Student Researchers: Caitlyn Peele and Sara-Joy Christienson

Special Counsel Scott Bloch, appointed by President Bush in 2004, is overseeing the virtual elimination of federal whistleblower rights in the U.S. government.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the agency that is supposed to protect federal employees who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse is dismissing hundreds of cases while advancing almost none. According to the Annual Report for 2004 (which was not released until the end of first quarter fiscal year 2006) less than 1.5 percent of whistleblower claims were referred for investigation while more than 1000 reports were closed before they were even opened. Only eight claims were found to be substantiated, and one of those included the theft of a desk, while another included attendance violations. Favorable outcomes have declined 24 percent overall, and this is all in the first year that the new special counsel, Scott Bloch, has been in office.

Bloch, who has received numerous complaints since he took office, defends his first thirteen months in office by pointing to a decline in backlogged cases. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Executive Director Jeff Ruch says, â€œ. . . backlogs and delays are bad, but they are not as bad as simply dumping the cases altogether.â€ According to figures released by Bloch in February of 2005 more than 470 claims of retaliation were dismissed, and not once had he affirmatively represented a whistleblower. In fact, in order to speed dismissals, Bloch instituted a rule forbidding his staff from contacting a whistleblower if their disclosure was deemed incomplete or ambiguous. Instead, the OSC would dismiss the matter. As a result, hundreds of whistleblowers never had a chance to justify their cases. Ruch notes that these numbers are limited to only the backlogged cases and do not include new ones.

On March 3, 2005, OSC staff members joined by a coalition of whistleblower protection and civil rights organizations filed a complaint against Bloch. His own employees accused him of violating the very rules he is supposed to be enforcing. The complaint specifies instances of illegal gag orders, cronyism, invidious discrimination, and retaliation by forcing the resignation of one-fifth of the OSC headquarters legal and investigative staff. The complaint was filed with the Presidentâ€™s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, which took no action on the case for seven months. PEER was one of the groups who co-filed the complaint against Bloch and Ruch wants to know, â€œWho watches the watchdogs?â€

This is the third probe into Blochâ€™s operation in less than two years in office. Both the Government Accountability Office and a U.S. Senate subcommittee have ongoing investigations into mass dismissals of whistleblower cases, crony hires, and Blochâ€™s targeting of gay employees for removal while refusing to investigate cases involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Department of Labor has also gotten on board in a behind-the-scenes maneuver to cancel whistleblower protections. If it succeeds, the Labor Department will dismiss claims by federal workers who report violations under the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. General Counsel for PEER, Richard Condit says, â€œFederal workers in agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency function as the publicâ€™s eyes and ears . . . the Labor Department is moving to shut down one of the few legal avenues left to whistleblowers.â€ The Labor Department is trying to invoke the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity, which says that the government cannot be sued without its consent. The Secretary of Laborâ€™s Administrative Review Board recently invited the EPA to raise a sovereign immunity defense in a case where a woman was trying to enforce earlier victories. Government Accountability Project General Counsel Joanne Royce sums up major concerns: â€œWe do not want public servants wondering whether they will lose their jobs for acting against pollution violations of politically well-connected interests.â€

UPDATE BY JEFF RUCH

With the decline in oversight by the U.S. Congress and the uneven quality of investigative journalism, outlets such as the U.S. Office of Special Counsel become even more important channels for governmental transparency. Unfortunately, under the Bush-appointed Special Counsel, this supposed haven for whistleblowers has become a beacon of false hope for thousands.

Each year, hundreds of civil servants who witness problems ranging from threats to public safety to waste of tax funds find that their reports of wrongdoing are stonewalled by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Consequently, these firsthand accounts of malfeasance are not investigated and almost uniformly never reach the publicâ€™s attention.

The importance of this state of affairs is that the actual workings of federal agencies are becoming more shrouded in secrecy and disinformation. Americans are less informed about their government and less able to be in connection with the people who actually work for themâ€”the public servants.

In a recent development, employees within the OSC have filed a whistleblower complaint about the Special Counsel, the person who is supposed to be the chief whistleblower defender. After several months delay, the Bush White House assigned this complaint to the Inspector General for the Office of Personnel Management for review. This supposedly independent investigation has just begun in earnest, nearly one year after the complaint was filed.

Also, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in May 2006 blasting the Bush-appointed Special Counsel for ignoring competitive bidding rules in handing out consultant contracts. GAO also recommended creating an independent channel whereby Office of Special Counsel employees can blow the whistle on further abuses by the Special Counsel.

In another recent development, PEERâ€™s lawsuit against the Special Counsel to force release of documents concerning crony hires has produced more, heavily redacted documents showing that these sole source consultants apparently did no identifiable work. Ironically, the PEER suit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act, a law that the Special Counsel is also charged with policing.

And in a new annual report to Congress, OSC (stung by criticism about declining performance) has, for the first time, stopped disclosing the number of whistleblower cases where it obtained a favorable outcome. Consequently, it is impossible to tell if anyone is actually being helped by the agency.

PEERâ€™s web page on the Office of Special Counsel has posted all developments since this story and also allows a reader to trace the storyâ€™s genesis.

# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq

Sources:

American Civil Liberties Website, October 24, 2005

Title: â€œUS Operatives Killed Detainees During Interrogations in Afghanistan and Iraqâ€

Tom Dispatch.com, March 5, 2006

Title: â€œTracing the Trail of Torture: Embedding Torture as Policy from Guantanamo to Iraqâ€

Author: Dahr Jamail

Faculty Evaluator: Rabi Michael Robinson

Student Researchers: Michael B Januleski Jr. and Jessica Rodas

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released documents of forty-four autopsies held in Afghanistan and Iraq October 25, 2005. Twenty-one of those deaths were listed as homicides. The documents show that detainees died during and after interrogations by Navy SEALs, Military Intelligence, and Other Government Agency (OGA).

â€œThese documents present irrefutable evidence that U.S. operatives tortured detainees to death during interrogation,â€ said Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU. â€œThe public has a right to know who authorized the use of torture techniques and why these deaths have been covered up.â€

The Department of Defense released the autopsy reports in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace.

One of forty-four U.S. military autopsy reports reads as follows: â€œFinal Autopsy Report: DOD 003164, (Detainee) Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right thyroid cartilage. Autopsy revealed bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right 4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries, predominately recent contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities. Abrasions on left wrist are consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural disease. Manner of death is homicide. Whitehorse Detainment Facility, Nasiriyah, Iraq.â€

Another report from the ACLU indicates: â€œa 27-year-old Iraqi male died while being interrogated by Navy Seals on April 5, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq. During his confinement he was hooded, flex-cuffed, sleep deprived and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his body and head. The exact cause of death was â€˜undeterminedâ€™ although the autopsy stated that hypothermia may have contributed to his death.â€

An overwhelming majority of the so-called â€œnatural deathsâ€ covered in the autopsies were attributed to â€œarteriosclerotic cardiovascular diseaseâ€ (heart attack). Persons under extreme stress and pain may have heart attacks as a result of the circumstances of their detainments.

The Associated Press carried the story of the ACLU charges on their wire service. However, a thorough check of LexisNexis and ProQuest electronic data bases, using the keywords ACLU and autopsy, showed that at least 95 percent of the daily papers in the U.S. did not bother to pick up the story. The Los Angeles Times covered the story on page A4 with a 635-word report headlined â€œAutopsies Support Abuse Allegations.â€ Fewer than a dozen other daily newspapers including: Bangor Daily News, Maine, page 8; Telegraph-Herald, Dubuque, Iowa, page 6; Charleston Gazette, page 5; Advocate, Baton Rouge, page 11; and a half dozen others actually covered the story. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Seattle Times buried the story inside general Iraq news articles. USA Today posted the story on their website. MSNBC posted the story to their website, but apparently did not consider it newsworthy enough to air on television.

Janis Karpinski, U.S. Brigadier General Commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, was in charge of seventeen prison facilities in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2003. Karpinski testified January 21, 2006 in New York City at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush administration. Karpinski stated: â€œGeneral [Ricardo] Sanchez [commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq] signed the eight-page memorandum authorizing a laundry list of harsh techniques in interrogations to include specific use of dogs and muzzled dogs with his specific permission.â€ Karpinski went on to claim that Major General Geoffrey Miller, who had been â€œspecifically selected by the Secretary of Defense to go to Guantanamo Bay and run the interrogations operations,â€ was dispatched to Iraq by the Bush administration to â€œwork with the military intelligence personnel to teach them new and improved interrogation techniques.â€ When asked how far up the chain of command responsibility for the torture orders for Abu Ghraib went, Karpinski said, â€œThe Secretary of Defense would not have authorized without the approval of the Vice President.â€

UPDATE BY DAHR JAMAIL

This story, published in March 2006, was merely a snapshot of the ongoing and worsening policy of the Bush administration regarding torture. And not just time, but places show snapshots of the criminal policy of the current administrationâ€”Iraq, like GuantÃ¡namo Bay, Cuba, Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and other â€œsecretâ€ U.S. military detention centers in Eastern European countries are physical examples of an ongoing policy which breaches both international law and our very constitution.

But breaking international and domestic law has not been a concern of an administration led by a â€œpresidentâ€ who has claimed â€œauthorityâ€ to disobey over 750 laws passed by Congress. In fact, when this same individual does things like signing a secret order in 2002 which authorized the National Security Agency to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by wiretapping the phones of U.S. citizens, and then goes on to allow the secret collection of the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans, torture is but one portion of this corrupted picture. This is a critical ongoing story, not just because it violates international and domestic law, but this state-sanctioned brutality, bankrupt of any morality and decency, is already coming back home to haunt Americans. When U.S. soldiers are captured in Iraq or another foreign country, what basis does the U.S. have now to ask for their fair and humane treatment? And with police brutality and draconian â€œsecurityâ€ measures becoming more real within the U.S. with each passing day, why wouldnâ€™t these policies be visited upon U.S. citizens?

While torture is occasionally glimpsed by mainstream media outlets such as the Washington Post and Time Magazine, we must continue to rely on groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International who cover the subject thoroughly, persistently, and unlike (of course) any corporate media outlets.

Since I wrote this story, there continues to be a deluge of information and proof of the Bush administration continuing and even widening their policy of torture, as well as their rendering prisoners to countries which have torturing human beings down to a science.

All of this, despite the fact that U.S. laws prohibit torture absolutely, clearly stating that torture is never, ever permitted, even in a time of war.

To stay current on this critical topic, please visit the following websites regularly:

http://www.amnesty.org/

http://www.hrw.org/

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp

#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act

Sources:

New Standard, May 6, 2005

Title: â€œPentagon Seeks Greater Immunity from Freedom of Informationâ€

Author: Michelle Chen

Newspaper Association of America website, posted December 2005

Title: â€œFOIA Exemption Granted to Federal Agencyâ€

Community Evaluator: Tim Ogburn

Student Researcher: Rachelle Cooper and Brian Murphy

The Department of Defense has been granted exemption from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In December 2005, Congress passed the 2006 Defense Authorization Act which renders Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) â€œoperational filesâ€ fully immune to FOIA requests, the main mechanism by which watchdog groups, journalists and individuals can access federal documents. Of particular concern to critics of the Defense Authorization Act is the DIAâ€™s new right to thwart access to files that may reveal human rights violations tied to ongoing â€œcounterterrorismâ€ efforts.

The rule could, for instance, frustrate the work of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other organizations that have relied on FOIA to uncover more than 30,000 documents on the U.S. militaryâ€™s involvement in the torture and mistreatment of foreign detainees in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and Iraqâ€”including the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Several key documents that have surfaced in the advocacy organizationâ€™s expansive research originate from DIA files, including a 2004 memorandum containing evidence that U.S. military interrogators brutalized detainees in Baghdad, as well as a report describing the abuse of Iraqi detainees as violations of international human rights law.

According to Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU attorney involved in the ongoing torture investigations, â€œIf the Defense Intelligence Agency can rely on exception or exemption from the FOIA, then documents such as those that we obtained this last time around will not become public at all.â€ The end result of such an exemption, he told The New Standard, is that â€œabuse is much more likely to take place, because thereâ€™s not public oversight of Defense Intelligence Agency activity.â€

Jaffer added that because the DIA conducts investigations relating to other national security-related agencies, documents covered by the exemption could contain critical evidence of how other parts of the military operate as well.

he ACLU recently battled the FOIA exemption rule of the CIA in a lawsuit over the agencyâ€™s attempt to withhold information concerning alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees. The CIAâ€™s defense centered on the invocation of FOIA exemption, and although a federal judge ultimately overrode the rule, Jaffer cited the case as evidence of â€œexemption creepâ€â€”the gradual stretching of the law to further shield federal agencies from public scrutiny.

According to language in the Defense Authorization Act, an operational file can be any information related to â€œthe conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations or intelligence or security liaison arrangements or information exchanges with foreign governments or their intelligence or security services.â€

Critics warn that such vague bureaucratic language is a green light for the DIA to thwart a wide array of legitimate information requests without proper justification. Steven Aftergood, director of the research organization Project on Government Secrecy, warns, â€œIf it falls in the category of â€˜operational files,â€™ itâ€™s over before it begins.â€

Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, adds, â€œThese exemptions create a black hole into which the bureaucracy can drive just about any kind of information it wants to. And you can bet that GuantÃ¡namo, Abu Ghraib-style information is what DIA and others would want to hide.â€

The Newspaper Association of America reports that, due to lobbying efforts of the Sunshine in Government Initiative and other open government advocates, congressional negotiators imposed an unprecedented two-year â€œsunsetâ€ date on the Pentagonâ€™s FOIA exemption, ending in December 2007.

Update by Michelle Chen:

The Defense Intelligence Agency, the intelligence arm of the Department of Defense, has been a source for critical information on the Pentagon’s foreign operations as well as the DIA’s observations of the conduct of other branches of the military. Its request for immunity from the Freedom of Information Act last year was not the first attempt to shield its data from members of the public, but it did come at a time that the governent’s anti-terror fervor was beginning to crest.

Open-government groups warn that such an exemption from FOIA requests, which the Central Intelligene Agency already enjoys, would close off a major channel for information in a government bureaucracy already riddled with both formal and informal barriers of secrecy. The Pentagon’s request alarmed groups like the ACLU, which has relied heavily on such data to build cases regarding torture and abuse of detainees in Iraq.

(http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/042005/).

Since the article was published, the language proposed for the Defense Department budget for FY 2006 was adopted. (The public print of the bill can be read at the GPO website here, buried on page 472: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:s1042pp.txt.pdf.)

The bill specifically refers to the immunity of “operational files,” though this is somewhat ambiguously defined.

Another development in this issue area over the past year is that secrecy and intelligence gathering have become intense domestic political issues. As a result, heightened public attention to the gradual rollback on open-government laws is beginning to stir some congressional action in the form of hearings and investigative reports, not just related to classified information per se but also the new quasi-classified categories that have cropped up since 9/11 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2006/index.html).

Earlier this year, the Pentagon initiatied a department-wide review of FOIA practices, though it is unlear whether this internal evaluation will lead to actual changes in how information is disclosed or withheld from public purview. (http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/DoD_FOIA_Review.pdf).

For more on this issue, see:

The Project on Government Secrecy, a watchdog group run by the American Federation of Scientists:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2006/index.html

The National Security Archives at George Washington University, which has an extensive collection of FOIA documents and has issued numerous reports and studies on government secrecy and FOIA policies:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/foia.html

#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall

Sources:

Left Turn Issue #18

Title: â€œCementing Israeli Apartheid: The Role of World Bankâ€

Author: Jamal Jumaâ€™

Al-Jazeerah, March 9, 2005

Title: â€œUS Free Trade Agreements Split Arab Opinionâ€

Author: Linda Heard

Community Evaluator: April Hurley, MD

Student Researchers: Bailey Malone and Lisa Dobias

Despite the 2004 International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision that called for tearing down the Wall and compensating affected communities, construction of the Wall has accelerated. The route of the barrier runs deep into Palestinian territory, aiding the annexation of Israeli settlements and the breaking of Palestinian territorial continuity. The World Bankâ€™s vision of â€œeconomic development,â€ however, evades any discussion of the Wallâ€™s illegality.

The World Bank has meanwhile outlined the framework for a Palestinian Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA) policy in their most recent report on Palestine published in December of 2004, â€œStagnation or Revival: Israeli Disengagement and Palestinian Economic Prospects.â€

Central to World Bank proposals are the construction of massive industrial zones to be financed by the World Bank and other donors and controlled by the Israeli Occupation. Built on Palestinian land around the Wall, these industrial zones are envisaged as forming the basis of export-orientated economic development. Palestinians imprisoned by the Wall and dispossessed of land can be put to work for low wages.

The post-Wall MEFTA vision includes complete control over Palestinian movement. The report proposes high-tech military gates and checkpoints along the Wall, through which Palestinians and exports can be conveniently transported and controlled. A supplemental â€œtransfer systemâ€ of walled roads and tunnels will allow Palestinian workers to be funneled to their jobs, while being simultaneously denied access to their land. Sweatshops will be one of very few possibilities of earning a living for Palestinians confined to disparate ghettos throughout the West Bank. The World Bank states:

â€œIn an improved operating environment, Palestinian entrepreneurs and foreign investors will look for well-serviced industrial land and supporting infrastructure. They will also seek a regulatory regime with a minimum of â€˜red tapeâ€™ and with clear procedures for conducting business. Industrial Estates (IEs), particularly those on the border between Palestinian and Israeli territory, can fulfill this need and thereby play an important role in supporting export based growth.â€

Jamal Jumaâ€™ notes that the â€œred tapeâ€ which the World Bank refers to can be presumed to mean trade unions, a minimum wage, good working conditions, environmental protection, and other workersâ€™ rights that will be more flexible than the ones in the â€œdevelopedâ€ world. The World Bank explicitly states that current wages of Palestinians are too high for the region and â€œcompromise the international competitivenessâ€ even though wages are only a quarter of the average in Israel. Jumaâ€™ warns that on top of a military occupation and forced expulsion, Palestinians are to be subjects of an economic colonialism.

These industrial zones will clearly benefit Israel abroad where goods â€œMade in Palestineâ€ have more favorable trade conditions in international markets. IPS reporter Emad Mekay, in February 2005, revealed the World Bankâ€™s plan to partially fund Palestinian MEFTA infrastructure with loans to Palestine. Israel is not eligible for World Bank lending because of its high per capita income, but Palestine is. Mekay quotes Terry Walz of the Washington-based Council for the National Interest, a group that monitors U.S. and international policy towards Israel and the Palestinians: â€œI must admit that making the Palestinians pay for the modernization of these checkpoints is an embarrassment, since they had nothing to do with the erection of the separation wall to begin with and in fact have protested it. I think the whole issue is extremely murky.â€1

Mekay goes on to note that this is the first time the World Bank appears ready to get actively involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Former World Bank president James Wolfensohn rejected this possibility last year. Neo-conservative Paul Wolfowitz was, however, confirmed as president of the World Bank on June 1, 2005.

In breach of the ICJ ruling, the U.S. has already contributed $50 million to construct gates along the Wall to â€œhelp serve the needs of Palestinians.â€

Linda Heard reports for Al-Jazeerah that the U.S. is currently pushing for bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with various Arab states, including members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as part of a vision for a larger Middle East Free Trade Agreement. President Bush hopes the MEFTA will encompass some twenty regional countries, including Israel, and be fully consolidated by 2013.

Many in the region are suspicious of the divisive trend of bilateral agreements with the U.S. and worry that the GCC will end up with small, fragmented satellite economies without any leverage against world giants. Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, stated, â€œIt is alarming to see some members of the GCC enter into separate agreements with international powers . . . They diminish the collective bargaining power and weaken not only the solidarity of the GCC as a whole, but also each of its members.â€

Note

1. Emad Mekay, â€œWorld Bank and U.S.: Palestinians Should Pay for Israeli Checkpoints,â€ IPS, February 25, 2005.

UPDATE BY JAMAL JUMAâ€™

â€œ Cementing Israeli Apartheid: The Role of the World Bankâ€ was written last summer as part of Stop the Wallâ€™s campaign efforts to widen attention of those horrified by the construction of the 700 km long wall around Palestinian cities and villages. It aimed to expose the vicious mechanism of control, exploitation, and dispossession devised by the Occupation, but moreover the activities of the international community in safeguarding the Wall and making Palestinian ghettos sustainable.

It opens a chapter in a story that no one wants to hear: the globalization of apartheid in the Occupation of Palestine. Zionism has its own racist interest in ghettoizing 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and securing the judaization of Jerusalem. It ensures a Jewish demographic majority and ethnic supremacy over as much of Palestine as possible, working against all UN resolutions and the recent ICJ ruling on the Wall.

Within this project it finds allies in the international community keen to exploit cheap Palestinian labor locked behind Walls and gates. The degree to which Zionism and the international communityâ€”headed by the World Bankâ€”work together with the aim of controlling every aspect of Palestinian life has become increasingly evident since the Left Turn article.

The Palestinian Authorityâ€™s (PA) role is reduced to the administrators of the Bantustans. The Palestinian people resoundingly said no to Bantustans at the ballot boxes last January.

While the Bankâ€™s initial responsibility was to devise economic policies for the sustainability of a Palestinian Bantu-State, the institution is now facilitating efforts to ensure that Palestinians cannot interfere in the plans of the Occupation and the international community. The World Bank is gearing up to take over the payrolls of various Palestinian institutions, should the PA not comply with Zionist and global interests.

While global IFIs meticulously plan the financial and material survival and political control of the ghettos, Ehud Olmert offers the slogan of â€œFinal Bordersâ€ to describe the project. In legitimizing the Wall, annexing Jerusalem, increasing the number of settlers, and denying the mere existence of the refugees, Olmert finds a willing accomplice in the Bank and its policy makers in Washington, who look to cash in on the Bantu-State.

The Palestinian people will never accept the plan, so it is hoped that they will be starved into it. But we will not kneel down. After dozens of massacres, killings, arrests, and almost sixty years of life in the Diaspora, surrender is too high a price to pay. We are not asking for outside institutions to provide us with bread, but to comply with their duties under international law and support our struggle for justice and liberation.

None of the horrific realities of life in Palestine are apparent in the headlines and doublespeak of mass media and international diplomacy, where our ghettoization is called â€œstate-building.â€ International complicity with Israeli apartheid is dressed up as â€œhumanitarian aid.â€ Palestinians are supposed to be grateful for gates in the Wall so they can be funneled between ghettos.

Just like Olmertâ€™s schemes with the White House, the media shuns and neglects the rights and voices of Palestinians. Neither the daily killing of our people, nor the destruction of our homes, the dispossession of our farmers, or the sufferings of 6 million refugees make headlines. The consumers of mainstream media outlets are left to discuss the diatribe of â€œpeaceâ€ and â€œborders,â€ disputed between the protagonists of our oppression, while the racism, ethnic cleansing, and ghettoization continue.

More information on the issue is to be found at our website: http://www.stopthewall.org

#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians

Sources:

The New Yorker, December 2005

Title: “Up in the Air”

Author: Seymour M. Hersh

Tomdispatch, December 2005

Title: “An Increasingly Aerial Occupation”

Author: Dahr Jamail

Community Evaluator: Robert Manning

Student Researcher: Brian Fuchs

There is widespread speculation that President Bush, confronted by diminishing approval ratings and dissent within his own party as well as within the military itself, will begin pulling American troops out of Iraq in 2006. A key element of the drawdown plans not mentioned in the Presidentâ€™s public statements, or in mainstream media for that matter, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower.

â€œWeâ€™re not planning to diminish the war,â€ Seymour Hersh quotes Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute, whose views often mirror those of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. â€œWe just want to change the mix of the forces doing the fightingâ€”Iraqi infantry with American support and greater use of airpower.â€

While battle fatigue increases among U.S. troops, the prospect of using airpower as a substitute for American troops on the ground has caused great unease within the military. Air Force commanders, in particular, have deep-seated objections to the possibility that Iraqis will eventually be responsible for target selection. Hersh quotes a senior military planner now on assignment in the Pentagon, â€œWill the Iraqis call in air strikes in order to snuff rivals, or other warlords, or to snuff members of their own sect and blame someone else? Will some Iraqis be targeting on behalf of al-Qaeda, or the insurgency, or the Iranians?â€

Dahr Jamail reports that the statistics gleaned from U.S. Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) indicate a massive rise in the number of U.S. air missionsâ€”996 sortiesâ€”in Iraq in the month of November 2005.

The size of this figure naturally begs the question, where are such missions being flown and what is their size and nature? Itâ€™s important to note as well that â€œair warâ€ does not simply mean U.S. Air Force. Carrier-based Navy and Marine aircraft flew over 21,000 hours of missions and dropped over twenty-six tons of ordnance in Fallujah alone during the November 2004 siege of that city.

Visions of a frightful future in Iraq should not overshadow the devastation already caused by present levels of American air power loosed, in particular, on heavily populated urban areas of that country. The tactic of using massively powerful 500 and 1,000 pound bombs in urban areas to target small pockets of resistance fighters has, in fact, long been employed in Iraq. No intensification of the air war is necessary to make it commonplace. Jamailâ€™s article provides a broad overview of the air power arsenals being used against the people of Iraq.

A serious study of violence to civilians in Iraq by a British medical journal, The Lancet, released in October 2004, estimated that 85 percent of all violent deaths in Iraq are generated by coalition forces (see Censored 2006, Story #2). 95 percent of reported killings (all attributed to U.S. forces by interviewees) were caused by helicopter gunships, rockets, or other forms of aerial weaponry.1 While no significant scientific inquiry has been carried out in Iraq recently, Iraqi medical personnel, working in areas where U.S. military operations continue, report that they feel the â€œvast majorityâ€ of civilian deaths are the result of actions by the occupation forces.

Given the U.S. air power already being applied largely in Iraqâ€™s cities and towns, the prospect of increasing it is chilling indeed. As to how this might benefit the embattled Bush administration, Jamail quotes U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski:

â€œShifting the mechanism of the destruction of Iraq from soldiers and Marines to distant and safer air power would be successful in several ways. It would reduce the negative publicity value of maimed American soldiers and Marines, would bring a portion of our troops home and give the Army a necessary operational break. It would increase Air Force and Naval budgets, and line defense contractor pockets. By the time we figure out that it isnâ€™t working to make oil more secure or to allow Iraqis to rebuild a stable country, the Army will have recovered and can be redeployed in force.â€

Note

1. Les Roberts, et al., â€œMortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq,â€ The Lancet, October 29, 2004.

UPDATE BY DAHR JAMAIL

Eleven days after this story about the lack of reportage in the corporate media about the U.S. militaryâ€™s increasing use of air power in Iraq, the Washington Post ran a story about how U.S. air strikes were taking an increasing toll on civilians. Aside from that story, the Washington Post, along with the New York Times, remain largely mute on the issue, despite the fact that the U.S. use of air strikes in Iraq has now become the norm rather than being used in contingencies, as they were in the first year of the occupation. Needless to say, corporate media television coverage has remained the same as it did prior to the publishing of this storyâ€”they prefer to portray a U.S. occupation of Iraq sans warplanes dropping bombs in civilian neighborhoods.

This story remains a critical issue when one evaluates the occupation of Iraq, for the number of civilians dying, now possibly as high as 300,000 according to Les Roberts, one of the authors of the famous Lancet Report, only continues to escalate. This is, of course, due in large part to U.S. war planes and helicopters dropping bombs and missiles into urban areas in various Iraqi cities.

It is also important when one looks at the fact that more than 82 percent of Iraqis now vehemently oppose the occupation, because one of the biggest recruiting tools for the Iraqi resistance is U.S. bombs and missiles killing the innocent. Years from now when a corporate media outlet decides to break down and acknowledge that the level of anti-American sentiment in Iraq is as high (or higher) than it is anywhere in the world, and asks the mindless question, â€œWhy do they hate us?â€ one will only need to look towards the indiscriminate use of air power on the Iraqi population.

This story was not difficult to write for two reasons: the first was that any reporter in Iraq with eyes and ears knows there is a vast amount of air power being projected by the U.S. military. Secondly, thanks to the Internet, statistics on sorties are readily available to anyone willing to look. Googling â€œCENTAFâ€ brings up several â€œAir Power Summaryâ€ reports, where one is able to find how many missions, and what type, are being flown each month in Iraq, as well as other countries.

To monitor the number of Iraqi civilians being killed by these missions, along with other deaths caused by the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Iraqi Mortality Survey published in the prestigious British Lancet medical journal, albeit eighteen months out of date and a highly conservative estimate by the authors admission, remains by far and away the most accurate to date.

One thing is for certain, and that is the longer the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq persists, the more U.S. air power will be usedâ€”a scenario that closely resembles that of the shameful Vietnam War.

#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed

Sources:

Independent/UK, May 22, 2005

Title: Revealed: â€œHealth Fears Over Secret Study in GM Foodâ€

Author: Geoffrey Lean

Organic Consumers Association website, June 2,2005

Title: â€œMonsanto’s GE Corn Experiments on Rats Continue to Generate Global Controversyâ€

Authors: GM Free Cymru

Independent/UK, January 8, 2006

Title: GM: New Study Shows Unborn Babies Could Be Harmedâ€

Author: Geoffrey Lean

Le Monde and Truthout, February 9, 2006

Title: â€œNew Suspicions About GMOsâ€

Author: Herve Kempf

Faculty Evaluator: Michael Ezra

Student Researchers: Destiny Stone and Lani Ready

Several recent studies confirm fears that genetically modified (GM) foods damage human health. These studies were released as the World Trade Organization (WTO) moved toward upholding the ruling that the European Union has violated international trade rules by stopping importation of GM foods.

Research by the Russian Academy of Sciences released in December 2005 found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed GM soy died within the first three weeks of life, six times as many as those born to mothers fed on non-modified soy. Six times as many offspring fed GM soy were also severely underweight.
In November 2005, a private research institute in Australia, CSIRO Plant Industry, put a halt to further development of a GM pea cultivator when it was found to cause an immune response in laboratory mice.1
In the summer of 2005, an Italian research team led by a cellular biologist at the University of Urbino published confirmation that absorption of GM soy by mice causes development of misshapen liver cells, as well as other cellular anomalies.
In May of 2005 the review of a highly confidential and controversial Monsanto report on test results of corn modified with Monsanto MON863 was published in The Independent/UK.

Dr. Arpad Pusztai (see Censored 2001, Story #7), one of the few genuinely independent scientists specializing in plant genetics and animal feeding studies, was asked by the German authorities in the autumn of 2004 to examine Monsantoâ€™s 1,139-page report on the feeding of MON863 to laboratory rats over a ninety-day period.

The study found â€œstatistically significantâ€ differences in kidney weights and certain blood parameters in the rats fed the GM corn as compared with the control groups. A number of scientists across Europe who saw the study (and heavily-censored summaries of it) expressed concerns about the health and safety implications if MON863 should ever enter the food chain. There was particular concern in France, where Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen has been trying (without success) for almost eighteen months to obtain full disclosure of all documents relating to the MON863 study.

Dr. Pusztai was forced by the German authorities to sign a â€œdeclaration of secrecyâ€ before he was allowed to see the Monsanto rat feeding study, on the grounds that the document is classified as â€œCBIâ€ or â€œconfidential business interest.â€ While Pusztai is still bound by the declaration of secrecy, Monsanto recently declared that it does not object to the widespread dissemination of the â€œPusztai Report.â€2

Monsanto GM soy and corn are widely consumed by Americans at a time when the United Nationsâ€™ Food and Agriculture Organization has concluded, â€œIn several cases, GMOs have been put on the market when safety issues are not clear.â€

As GMO research is not encouraged by U.S. or European governments, the vast majority of toxicological studies are conducted by those companies producing and promoting consumption of GMOs. With motive and authenticity of results suspect in corporate testing, independent scientific research into the effects of GM foods is attracting increasing attention.

Comment: In May 2006 the WTO upheld a ruling that European countries broke international trade rules by stopping importation of GM foods. The WTO verdict found that the EU has had an effective ban on biotech foods since 1998 and sided with the U.S., Canada, and Argentina in a decision that the moratorium was illegal under WTO rules.3

Notes

1. â€œGM peas cause immune responseâ€“A gap in the approval process?â€ http://www.GMO-Compass.org, January 3, 2006.

2. Arpad Pusztai, â€œMon863-Pusztai Report,â€ http://www.GMWatch.org, September 12, 2004.

3. Bradley S. Clapper, â€œWTO Faults EU for Blocking Modified Food,â€ Associated Press, May 11, 2006.

#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines

Source:

Inter Press Service, August 3, 2005

Title: â€œAfter 10-Year Hiatus, Pentagon Eyes New Landmineâ€

Author: Isaac Baker

Human Rights Watch website, August 2005

Title: â€œDevelopment and Production of Landminesâ€

Faculty Evaluator: Scott Suneson

Student Researchers: Rachel Barry and Matt Frick

The Bush administration plans to resume production of antipersonnel landmine systems in a move that is at odds with both the international community and previous U.S. policy, according to the leading human rights organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Nearly every nation has endorsed the goal of a global ban on antipersonnel mines. In 1994 the U.S. called for the â€œeventual eliminationâ€ of all such mines, and in 1996 President Bill Clinton said the U.S. would â€œseek a worldwide agreement as soon as possible to end the use of all antipersonnel mines.â€ The U.S. produced its last antipersonnel landmine in 1997. It had been the stated objective of the U.S. government to eventually join the 145 countries signatory to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which bans the use, production, exporting, and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines.

The Bush administration, however, made an about-face in U.S. antipersonnel landmine policy in February 2004, when it abandoned any plan to join the Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention. â€œThe United States will not join the Ottawa Convention because its terms would have required us to give up a needed military capability,â€ the U.S. Department of Stateâ€™s Bureau of Political-Military announced, summing up the administrationâ€™s new policy, â€œThe United States will continue to develop non-persistent anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines.â€

HRW reports that, â€œNew U.S. landmines will have a variety of ways of being initiated, both command-detonation (that is, when a soldier decides when to explode the mine, sometimes called â€˜man-in-the-loopâ€™) and traditional victim-activation. A mine that is designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity, or contact of a person (i.e., victim-activation) is prohibited under the International Mine Ban Treaty.â€

To sidestep international opposition, the Pentagon proposes development of the â€œSpiderâ€ system, which consists of a control unit capable of monitoring up to eighty-four hand-placed, unattended munitions that deploy a web of tripwires across an area. Once a wire is touched, a man-in-the-loop control system allows the operator to activate the devices.

The Spider, however, contains a â€œbattlefield overrideâ€ feature that allows for circumvention of the man-in-the-loop, and activation by the target (victim).

A Pentagon report to Congress stated, â€œTarget Activation is a software feature that allows the man-in-the-loop to change the capability of a munition from requiring action by an operator prior to being detonated, to a munition that will be detonated by a target. The Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Service Chiefs, using best military judgment, feel that the man-in-the-loop system without this feature would be insufficient to meet tactical operational conditions and electronic countermeasures.â€

The U.S. Army spent $135 million between fiscal years 1999 and 2004 to develop Spider and another $11 million has been requested to complete research and development. A total of $390 million is budgeted to produce 1,620 Spider systems and 186,300 munitions. According to budget documents released in February 2005, the Pentagon requested $688 million for research on and $1.08 billion for the production of new landmine systems between fiscal years 2006 and 2011.

Steven Goose, Director of HRW Arms Division, told Project Censored that Congress has required a report from the Pentagon on the humanitarian consequences of the â€œbattlefield overrideâ€ or victim-activated feature of these munitions for review before approving funds. Though production was set for December of 2005, Congress has not, as of June 2006, received this preliminary Pentagon report.

If the Spider or similar mine munitions systems move forward, a frightening precedence will be set. At best the 145 signatories to the Ottawa Convention will be beholden to the treaty, which forbids assistance in joint military operations where landmines are being used. At worst, U.S. production will legitimize international resumption of landmine proliferation.

Steven Goose warns, â€œIf one doesnâ€™t insist on a comprehensive ban on all types and uses of antipersonnel mines, each nation will be able to claim unique requirements and justifications.â€

UPDATE BY ISAAC BAKER

Landmines are horrific weapons. And, naturally, news stories about the terror they inflict upon human beingsâ€”mainly civiliansâ€”are gritty and disturbing if they are truthful. Especially when itâ€™s your own government thatâ€™s responsible.

And given the mainstream mediaâ€™s typical service to power, this story didnâ€™t make many headlines.

But the potential ramifications of the U.S. government resuming production of landmines are overwhelming. And since the average American canâ€™t depend on many media to inform them of the horrific things their government is doing, concerned people must take it upon themselves to put their government in its place.

We all must ask ourselves: Do we want our governmentâ€”the body that theoretically represents we, the peopleâ€”spending millions upon millions of dollars on these destructive weapons? Are we comfortable with sitting back and letting our government produce weapons that kill and maim civilians?

Or will we coalesce and let the powerful know that we will not stand for this gross disregard for human life and international opinion?

Itâ€™s our responsibility to stop the abuses of power in our country. And if we do not confront our government on this issue, I believe, the blood of the innocents will be on all of our hands.

For more information on how to get involved please visit: http://www.hrw.org and http://www.banminesusa.org or http://www.icbl.org

#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup

Sources:

Third World Resurgence, No. 176, April 2005

Title: â€œNew Evidence of Dangers of Roundup Weedkillerâ€

Author: Chee Yoke Heong

Faculty Evaluator: Jennifer While

Student Researchers: Peter McArthur and Lani Ready

New studies from both sides of the Atlantic reveal that Roundup, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, poses serious human health threats. More than 75 percent of genetically modified (GM) crops are engineered to tolerate the absorption of Roundupâ€”it eliminates all plants that are not GM. Monsanto Inc., the major engineer of GM crops, is also the producer of Roundup. Thus, while Roundup was formulated as a weapon against weeds, it has become a prevalent ingredient in most of our food crops.

Three recent studies show that Roundup, which is used by farmers and home gardeners, is not the safe product we have been led to trust.

A group of scientists led by biochemist Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini from the University of Caen in France found that human placental cells are very sensitive to Roundup at concentrations lower than those currently used in agricultural application.

An epidemiological study of Ontario farming populations showed that exposure to glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, nearly doubled the risk of late miscarriages. Seralini and his team decided to research the effects of the herbicide on human placenta cells. Their study confirmed the toxicity of glyphosate, as after eighteen hours of exposure at low concentrations, large proportions of human placenta began to die. Seralini suggests that this may explain the high levels of premature births and miscarriages observed among female farmers using glyphosate.

Seraliniâ€™s team further compared the toxic effects of the Roundup formula (the most common commercial formulation of glyphosate and chemical additives) to the isolated active ingredient, glyphosate. They found that the toxic effect increases in the presence of Roundup â€˜adjuvantsâ€™ or additives. These additives thus have a facilitating role, rendering Roundup twice as toxic as its isolated active ingredient, glyphosate.

Another study, released in April 2005 by the University of Pittsburgh, suggests that Roundup is a danger to other life-forms and non-target organisms. Biologist Rick Relyea found that Roundup is extremely lethal to amphibians. In what is considered one of the most extensive studies on the effects of pesticides on nontarget organisms in a natural setting, Relyea found that Roundup caused a 70 percent decline in amphibian biodiversity and an 86 percent decline in the total mass of tadpoles. Leopard frog tadpoles and gray tree frog tadpoles were nearly eliminated.

In 2002, a scientific team led by Robert Belle of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) biological station in Roscoff, France showed that Roundup activates one of the key stages of cellular division that can potentially lead to cancer. Belle and his team have been studying the impact of glyphosate formulations on sea urchin cells for several years. The team has recently demonstrated in Toxicological Science (December 2004) that a â€œcontrol pointâ€ for DNA damage was affected by Roundup, while glyphosate alone had no effect. â€œWe have shown that itâ€™s a definite risk factor, but we have not evaluated the number of cancers potentially induced, nor the time frame within which they would declare themselves,â€ Belle acknowledges.

There is, indeed, direct evidence that glyphosate inhibits an important process called RNA transcription in animals, at a concentration well below the level that is recommended for commercial spray application.

There is also new research that shows that brief exposure to commercial glyphosate causes liver damage in rats, as indicated by the leakage of intracellular liver enzymes. The research indicates that glyphosate and its surfactant in Roundup were found to act in synergy to increase damage to the liver.

UPDATE BY CHEE YOKE HEONG

Roundup Ready weedkiller is one of the most widely used weedkillers in the world for crops and backyard gardens. Roundup, with its active ingredient glyphosate, has long been promoted as safe for humans and the environment while effective in killing weeds. It is therefore significant when recent studies show that Roundup is not as safe as its promoters claim.

This has major consequences as the bulk of commercially planted genetically modified crops are designed to tolerate glyphosate (and especially Roundup), and independent field data already shows a trend of increasing use of the herbicide. This goes against industry claims that herbicide use will drop and that these plants will thus be more â€œenvironment-friendly.â€ Now it has been found that there are serious health effects, too. My story therefore aimed to highlight these new findings and their implications to health and the environment.

Not surprisingly, Monsanto came out refuting some of the findings of the studies mentioned in the article. What ensued was an open exchange between Dr. Rick Relyea and Monsanto, whereby the former stood his grounds. Otherwise, to my knowledge, no studies have since emerged on Roundup.

For more information look to the following sources:

Professor Gilles-Eric, criigen@ibfa.unicaen.fr

Biosafety Information Center, http://www.biosafety-info.net

Institute of Science in Society, http://www.i-sis.org.uk

#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US

Sources:

New America Media, January 31, 2006

Title: â€œHomeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Campsâ€

Author: Peter Dale Scott

New America Media, February 21, 2006

Title: â€œ10-Year US Strategic Plan for Detention Camps Revives Proposals from Oliver Northâ€

Author: Peter Dale Scott

Consortiium, February 21, 2006

Title: â€œBush’s Mysterious â€˜New Programsâ€™â€

Author: Nat Parry

Buzzflash

Title: â€œDetention Camp Jittersâ€

Author: Maureen Farrell

Community Evaluator: Dr. Gary Evans

Student Researchers: Sean Hurley and Caitlyn Peele

Halliburtonâ€™s subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) announced on January 24, 2006 that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps in the United States.

According to a press release posted on the Halliburton website, â€œThe contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.â€

What little coverage the announcement received focused on concerns about Halliburtonâ€™s reputation for overcharging U.S. taxpayers for substandard services.

Less attention was focused on the phrase â€œrapid development of new programsâ€ or what type of programs might require a major expansion of detention centers, capable of holding 5,000 people each. Jamie Zuieback, spokeswoman for ICE, declined to elaborate on what these â€œnew programsâ€ might be.

Only a few independent journalists, such as Peter Dale Scott, Maureen Farrell, and Nat Parry have explored what the Bush administration might actually have in mind.

Scott speculates that the â€œdetention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.â€ He recalled that during the Reagan administration, National Security Council aide Oliver North organized the Rex-84 â€œreadiness exercise,â€ which contemplated the Federal Emergency Management Agency rounding up and detaining 400,000 â€œrefugeesâ€ in the event of â€œuncontrolled population movementsâ€ over the Mexican border into the U.S.

Northâ€™s exercise, which reportedly contemplated possible suspension of the Constitution, led to a line of questioning during the Iran-Contra Hearings concerning the idea that plans for expanded internment and detention facilities would not be confined to â€œrefugeesâ€ alone.

It is relevant, says Scott, that in 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his desire to see camps for U.S. citizens deemed to be â€œenemy combatants.â€ On February 17, 2006, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the harm being done to the countryâ€™s security, not just by the enemy, but also by what he called â€œnews informersâ€ who needed to be combated in â€œa contest of wills.â€

Since September 11 the Bush administration has implemented a number of interrelated programs that were planned in the 1980s under President Reagan. Continuity of Government (COG) proposalsâ€”a classified plan for keeping a secret â€œgovernment-within-the-governmentâ€ running during and after a nuclear disasterâ€”included vastly expanded detention capabilities, warrantless eavesdropping, and preparations for greater use of martial law.

Scott points out that, while Oliver North represented a minority element in the Reagan administration, which soon distanced itself from both the man and his proposals, the minority associated with COG planning, which included Cheney and Rumsfeld, appear to be in control of the U.S. government today.

Farrell speculates that, because another terror attack is all but certain, it seems far more likely that the detention centers would be used for post-September 11-type detentions of rounded-up immigrants rather than for a sudden deluge of immigrants flooding across the border.

Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg ventures, â€œAlmost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next September 11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. Theyâ€™ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the â€˜special registrationâ€™ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with GuantÃ¡namo.â€

Parry notes that The Washington Post reported on February 15, 2006 that the National Counterterrorism Centerâ€™s (NCTC) central repository holds the names of 325,000 terrorist suspects, a fourfold increase since fall of 2003.

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSAâ€™s domestic surveillance program, an NCTC official told the Post, â€œOur database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA.â€

As the administration scoops up more and more names, members of Congress have questioned the elasticity of Bushâ€™s definitions for words like terrorist â€œaffiliates,â€ used to justify wiretapping Americans allegedly in contact with such people or entities.

A Defense Department document, entitled the â€œStrategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support,â€ has set out a military strategy against terrorism that envisions an â€œactive, layered defenseâ€ both inside and outside U.S. territory. In the document, the Pentagon pledges to â€œtransform U.S. military forces to execute homeland defense missions in the . . . U.S. homeland.â€ The strategy calls for increased military reconnaissance and surveillance to â€œdefeat potential challengers before they threaten the United States.â€ The plan â€œmaximizes threat awareness and seizes the initiative from those who would harm us.â€

But there are concerns, warns Parry, over how the Pentagon judges â€œthreatsâ€ and who falls under the category of â€œthose who would harm us.â€ A Pentagon official said the Counterintelligence Field Activityâ€™s TALON program has amassed files on antiwar protesters.

In the view of some civil libertarians, a form of martial law already exists in the U.S. and has been in place since shortly after the September 11 attacks when Bush issued Military Order Number One, which empowered him to detain any noncitizen as an international terrorist or enemy combatant. Today that order extends to U.S. citizens as well.

Farrell ends her article with the conclusion that while much speculation has been generated by KBRâ€™s contract to build huge detention centers within the U.S., â€œThe truth is, we wonâ€™t know the real purpose of these centers unless â€˜contingency plans are needed.â€™ And by then, it will be too late.â€

UPDATE BY PETER DALE SCOTT

The contract of the Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build immigrant detention facilities is part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of â€œall removable aliensâ€ and â€œpotential terrorists.â€ In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed similar emergency detention powers as part of a super-secret program of planning for what was euphemistically called â€œContinuity of Governmentâ€ (COG) in the event of a nuclear disaster. At the time, Cheney was a Wyoming congressman, while Rumsfeld, who had been defense secretary under President Ford, was a businessman and CEO of the drug company G.D. Searle.

These men planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any â€œnational security emergency,â€ which they defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: â€œAny occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.â€ Clearly September 11 would meet this definition, and did, for COG was instituted on that day. As the Washington Post later explained, the order â€œdispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans.â€

What these managers in this shadow government worked on has never been reported. But it is significant that the group that prepared ENDGAME was, as the Homeland Security document puts it, â€œchartered in September 2001.â€ For ENDGAMEâ€™s goal of a capacious detention capability is remarkably similar to Oliver Northâ€™s controversial Rex-84 â€œreadiness exerciseâ€ for COG in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary â€œrefugees,â€ in the context of â€œuncontrolled population movementsâ€ over the Mexican border into the United States.

UPDATE BY MAUREEN FARRELL

When the story about Kellogg, Brown and Rootâ€™s contract for emergency detention centers broke, immigration was not the hot button issue it is today. Given this, the language in Halliburtonâ€™s press release, stating that the centers would be built in the event of an â€œemergency influx of immigrants into the U.S.,â€ raised eyebrows, especially among those familiar with Rex-84 and other Reagan-era initiatives. FEMAâ€™s former plans â€˜for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation campsâ€™ added to the distrust, and the second stated reason for the KBR contract, â€œto support the rapid development of new programs,â€ sent imaginations reeling.

While few in the mainstream media made the connection between KBRâ€™s contract and previous programs, Fox News eventually addressed this issue, pooh-poohing concerns as the province of â€œconspiracy theoriesâ€ and â€œunfoundedâ€ fears. My article attempted to sift through the speculation, focusing on verifiable information found in declassified and leaked documents which proved that, in addition to drawing up contingency plans for martial law, the government has conducted military readiness exercises designed to round up and detain both illegal aliens and U.S. citizens.

How concerned should Americans be? Recent reports are conflicting and confusing:

In May, 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began â€œOperation Return to Sender,â€ which involved catching illegal immigrants and deporting them. In June, however, President Bush vowed that there would soon be â€œnew infrastructuresâ€ including detention centers designed to put an end to such â€œcatch and releaseâ€ practices.
Though Bush said he was â€œworking with Congress to increase the number of detention facilities along our borders,â€ Rep. Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he first learned about the KBR contract through newspaper reports.
Fox News recently quoted Pepperdine University professor Doug Kmiec, who deemed detention camp concerns â€œmore paranoia than realityâ€ and added that KBRâ€™s contract is most likely â€œsomething related to (Hurricane) Katrinaâ€ or â€œa bird flu outbreak that could spur a mass quarantine of Americans.â€ The presidentâ€™s stated desire for the U.S. military to take a more active role during natural disasters and to enforce quarantines in the event of a bird flu outbreak, however, have been roundly denounced.

Concern over an all-powerful federal government is not paranoia, but active citizenship. As Thomas Jefferson explained, â€œeven under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.â€ From John Adamsâ€™s Alien and Sedition Acts to FDRâ€™s internment of Japanese Americans, the land of the free has held many contradictions and ironies. Interestingly enough, Halliburton was at the center of another historical controversy, when Lyndon Johnsonâ€™s ties to a little-known company named Kellogg, Brown and Root caused a congressional commotionâ€”particularly after the Halliburton subsidiary won enough wartime contracts to become one of the first protested symbols of the military-industrial complex. Back then they were known as the â€œVietnam builders.â€ The question, of course, is what theyâ€™ll be known as next.

Additional links:

â€œ Reagan Aides and the Secret Government,â€ Miami Herald, July 5, 1987, http://fpiarticle.blogspot.com/2005/12/front-page-miami-herald-july-5-1987.html

â€œFoundations are in place for martial law in the US,â€ July 27, 2002, Sydney Morning Herald, smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/27/ 1027497418339.html

â€œHalliburton Deals Recall Vietnam-Era Controversy: Cheneyâ€™s Ties to Company Reminiscent of LBJâ€™s Relationships,â€ NPR, Dec. 24, 2003, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1569483

â€œCritics Fear Emergency Centers Could Be Used for Immigration Round-Ups,â€ Fox News, June 7, 2006, http://www.foxnews.com/ story/0,2933,198456,00.html

â€œU.S. officials nab 2,100 illegal immigrants in 3 weeks,â€ USA Today, June 14, 2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-14-immigration-arrests_x.htm

#15 Chemical Industry is EPAâ€™s Primary Research Partner

Sources:

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, October 5, 2005

Title: â€œChemical Industry Is Now EPAâ€™s Main Research Partnerâ€

Author: Jeff Ruch

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, October 6, 2005

Title: â€œEPA Becoming Arm of Corporate R&Dâ€

Author: Jeff Ruch

Community Evaluator: Tim Ogburn

Student Researcher: Lani Ready and Peter McArthur

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) research program is increasingly relying on corporate joint ventures, according to agency documents obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The American Chemical Council (ACC) is now EPAâ€™s leading research partner and the EPA is diverting funds from basic health and environmental research towards research that addresses regulatory concerns of corporate funders.

Since the beginning of Bushâ€™s first term in office, there has been a significant increase in cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) with individual corporations or industry associations. During Bushâ€™s first four years EPA entered into fifty-seven corporate CRADAs, compared to thirty-four such agreements during Clintonâ€™s second term.

EPA scientists claim that corporations are influencing the agencyâ€™s research agenda through financial inducements. One EPA scientist wrote, â€œMany of us in the labs feel like we work for contracts.â€ In April 2005, EPAâ€™s Science Advisory Board warned that the agency was no longer funding credible public health research. It noted, for example, that the EPA was falling behind on issues such as intercontinental pollution transport and nanotechnology.

Furthermore, in April 2005, a study by the Government Accountability Office concluded that EPA lacks safeguards to â€œevaluate or manage potential conflicts of interestâ€ in corporate research agreements, as they are taking money from companies and corporations that they are supposed to be regulating.

According to Rebecca Rose, the Program Director of PEER, â€œUnder its current leadership, EPA is becoming an arm of corporate R&D.â€ She also notes that the number of corporate CRADAs under the Bush administration outnumbered those entered into with universities or local governments, adding, â€œPublic health research needs should not have to depend upon corporate underwriting.â€

In October 2005 President Bush nominated George Gray to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development (ORD). At that time George Gray ran a Center for Risk Analysis at Harvard University where the majority of the funding came from corporate sources. Gray indicated upon nomination that he intends to continue and expand his solicitation of corporate research funds in his position with ORD.

PEERâ€™s Executive Director Jeff Ruch warns, â€œInjecting outside money into a public agency research program, especially when it is tied to particular projects, has a subtle but undeniable influence on not only what work gets done but also how that work is reported.â€ He adds, â€œAs what was one of the top public health research programs slides toward dysfunction, nothing about the background, attitude or philosophy of Mr. Gray suggests that he is even remotely the right person for this job.â€

In 2004 & 2005, EPA was plagued by reports of political suppression of scientific results on important health issues such as asbestos and mercury regulation (see Censored 2005, Story #3). In response ORD launched a public relations campaign, entitled â€œScience for You,â€ using agency research funds to clean up its image.

Comments: George M. Gray was sworn in as the Assistant Administrator of Research and Development at EPA on November 1, 2005, with unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.

UPDATE BY JEFF RUCH

This story illustrates how key environmental research is being diverted away from public health priorities in order to meet a corporate regulatory agenda. By enticing EPA into partnerships, entities such as the American Chemical Council (ACC), which is now EPAâ€™s leading research partner, can influence not only what EPA researches but how that research is conducted, as well.

For example, long-term health monitoring studies drop off EPAâ€™s list of priority topics because industry has no interest in funding such vital workâ€”if anything, industry has an incentive to prevent such research from being conducted. By the same token, the industry push to allow human subject experiments to test tolerance to pesticides and other commercial poisons is precisely the type of research the industry desires to entice EPA into conducting, and thus legitimizing, despite an array of unresolved ethical problems.

A few updates since October 2005 worthy of note: a) A leading proponent of industry research partnerships, George Gray, has been confirmed as EPA Assistant Administrator for Research & Development. b) President Bush has proposed further cuts to EPAâ€™s already shrinking research budget. (see http://www.peer.org/news/ news_id.php?row_id=661). This growing penury makes EPA even more interested in using corporate dollars to supplement its tattered research program. c) EPA is in the first weeks of its human testing program. A specially convened Human Subjects Review Board is now struggling to approve industry and agency studies in which people were not given informed consent or were given harmful doses of chemicals.

The EPA page of our website has several updates on this and related issues.

#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court

Sources:

Agence France Press News (School of the Americas Watch), June 22, 2005

Title: â€œEcuador Refuses to Sign ICC Immunity Deal for US Citizensâ€

Author: Alexander Martinez

Inter Press Service, November 2, 2005

Title: â€œMexico Defies Washington on the International Criminal Courtâ€

Author: Katherine Stapp

Faculty Evaluator: Elizabeth Martinez

Student Researchers: Jessica Rodas, David Abbott, and Charlene Jones

Ecuador and Mexico have refused to sign bilateral immunity agreements (BIA) with the U.S., in ratification of the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty. Despite the Bush administrationâ€™s threat to withhold economic aid, both countries confirmed allegiance to the ICC, the international body established to try individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On June 22, 2005 Ecuadorâ€™s president, Alfredo Palacios, vocalized emphatic refusal to sign a BIA (also known as an Article 98 agreement to the Rome Statute of the ICC) in spite of Washingtonâ€™s threat to withhold $70 million a year in military aid.

Mexico, having signed the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 2000, formally ratified the treaty on October 28, 2005, making it the 100th nation to join the ICC. As a consequence of ratifying the ICC without a U.S. immunity agreement, Mexico stands to lose millions of dollars in U.S. aidâ€”including $11.5 million to fight drug trafficking.

On September 29, 2005 the U.S. State Department reported that it had secured 100 â€œimmunity agreements,â€ although less than a third have been ratified.

â€œOur ultimate goal is to conclude Article 98 agreements with every country in the world, regardless of whether they have signed or ratified the ICC, regardless of whether they intend to in the future,â€ said John Bolton, former U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control and current U.S. ambassador to the United Nationsâ€”and one of the ICCâ€™s staunchest opponents.

The U.S. effort to undermine the ICC was given teeth in 2002, when the U.S. Congress adopted the American Servicemembersâ€™ Protection Act (ASPA), which contains provisions restricting U.S. cooperation with the ICC by making U.S. support of UN peacekeeping missions largely contingent on achieving impunity for all U.S. personnel.

The ASPA prohibits U.S. military assistance to ICC member states that have not signed a BIA.

Legislation far more wide-reaching, however, was signed into law by President Bush on December 2004. The Nethercutt Amendment authorizes the loss of Economic Support Funds (ESF) to countries, including many key U.S. allies, that have not signed a BIA. Threatened under the Nethercutt Amendment are: funds for international security and counterterrorism efforts, peace process programs, antidrug-trafficking initiatives, truth and reconciliation commissions, wheelchair distribution, human rights programs, economic and democratic development, and HIV/Aids education, among others. The Nethercutt Amendment was readopted by the U.S. Congress in November 2005.1

In spite of severe U.S. pressure, fifty-three members of the ICC have refused to sign BIAs.

Katherine Stapp asserts that if Washington follows through on threats to slash aid to ICC member states, it risks further alienating key U.S. allies and drawing attention to its own increasingly shaky human rights record. â€œThere will be a price to be paid by the U.S. government in terms of its credibility,â€ Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watchâ€™s International Justice Program, told IPS.\But criticism of the administrationâ€™s hard line has also come from unlikely quarters.

Testifying before Congress in March, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the commander of U.S. military forces in Latin America, complained that the sanctions had excluded Latin American officers from U.S. training programs and could allow China, which has been seeking military ties with Latin America, to fill the void.

â€œWe now risk losing contact and interoperability with a generation of military classmates in many nations of the region, including several leading countries,â€ Craddock told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Experts say it is particularly notable that Mexico, which sells 88 percent of its exports in the U.S. market, is defying pressure from Washington.

â€œItâ€™s exactly because of the geographic and trade proximity between Mexico and the United States that Mexicoâ€™s ratification takes on greater significance in terms of how isolated the U.S. government is in its attitude toward the ICC,â€ Dicker told IPS.

Notes

1. â€œOverview of the United Statesâ€™ Opposition to the International Criminal Court,â€ http://www.iccnow.org.

UPDATE BY KATHERINE STAPP

As noted by Amnesty International, the United States is the only nation in the world that is actively opposed to the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, more and more countries appear to be resisting pressure to exempt U.S. nationals from the courtâ€™s jurisdiction. Since the time of my writing, the number of â€œbilateral immunity agreements,â€ or BIAs, garnered by Washington has remained the same: 100, of which only twenty-one have been ratified by parliaments, while another eighteen are considered â€œexecutive agreementsâ€ that purportedly do not require ratification. Only thirteen states parties to the ICC (out of 100) have ratified BIAs with the United States, while eight others have reportedly entered into executive agreements. In the past two years, only four countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have signed BIAs, also known as Article 98 agreements.

Some key figures in the Bush administration have recently expressed doubts about the wisdom of withholding aid from friendly countries that refuse to sign. At a March 10 briefing, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice likened the BIAs to â€œsort of the same as shooting ourselves in the foot . . . by having to put off aid to countries with which we have important counter-terrorism or counter-drug or in some cases, in some of our allies, itâ€™s even been cooperation in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.â€

Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command, remains a vocal critic of the American Servicemembersâ€™ Protection Act (ASPA) sanctions, noting in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on March 16 that eleven Latin American nations have now been barred under ASPA from receiving International Military Education and Training funds. These include Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Mexico.

â€œDecreasing engagement opens the door for competing nations and outside political actors who may not share our democratic principles to increase interaction and influence within the region,â€ he noted.

And in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report published on February 6, the Defense Department said it will consider whether ASPA restrictions on â€œforeign assistance programs pertaining to security and the war on terror necessitate adjustment as we continue to advance the aims of the ASPA.â€

Meanwhile, a May 11 poll by the University of Marylandâ€™s Program on International Policy Attitudes found that a bipartisan majority of the U.S. public (69 percent) believes that the U.S. should not be given special exceptions when it becomes a party to human rights treaties. 60 percent explicitly support U.S. participation in the ICC.

Mexico has stood firm in its refusal to sign a BIA, with the Mexican Parliamentâ€™s Lower Chamber stating that immunity is not allowed under the Rome Statute that establishes the ICC. As a result, $3.6 million in military aid has been frozen, and further International Military Exchange Training aid cut to zero in the administrationâ€™s proposed 2007 budget request. The country also stands to lose more than $11 million from the Economic Support Fund (ESF).

Other countries currently threatened with aid cuts include Bolivia, which could lose 96 percent of its U.S. military aid, and Kenya, which could lose $8 million in ESF aid.

More information can be found at:

Citizens for Global Solutions (http://www.globalsolutions.org/programs/law_justice/icc/icc_home.html); Coalition for the International Criminal Court (http://www.iccnow.org/?mod=bia); The American Non-Governmental Organisations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (http://www.amicc.org/); Washington Working Group on the International Criminal Court (http://www.usaforicc.org/wicc/)

#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda

Sources:

Harperâ€™s in coordination with BBC Television Newsnight, October 24, 2005

Title: â€œOPEC and the economic conquest of Iraqâ€

Author: Greg Palast

The Guardian March 20, 2006

â€œ Bush Didnâ€™t Bungle Iraq, You Fools: The Mission Was Indeed Accomplishedâ€

Author: Greg Palast

Faculty Evaluator: David McCuan

Student Researcher: Isaac Dolido

According to a report from journalist, Greg Palast, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was indeed about the oil. However, it wasnâ€™t to destroy OPEC, as claimed by neoconservatives in the administration, but to take part in it.

The U.S. strategic occupation of Iraq has been an effective means of acquiring access to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). As long as the interim government adheres to the production caps set by the organization, the U.S. will ensure profits to the international oil companies (IOCs), the OPEC cartel, and Russia.

With the prolonged insurgency following the invasion, along with internal corruption and pipeline destruction, hard line neoconservative plans for a completely privatized Iraq were dashed. According to some administration insiders, the idea of a laissez-faire, free-market reconstruction of Iraq was never a serious consideration. One oil industry consultant to Iraq told Palast he was amused by â€œthe obsession of neoconservative writers on ways to undermine OPEC.â€

In December 2003, says Palast, the State Department drafted a 323-page plan entitled â€œOptions for Developing a Long Term Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry.â€ This plan directs the Iraqis to maintain an oil quota system that will enhance its relationship with OPEC. It describes several possible state-owned options that range from the Saudi Aramco model (in which the government owns the whole operation) to the Azerbaijan model (in which the system is almost entirely operated by the International Oil Companies).

Implementation of the plan was guided by a handful of oil industry consultants, promoting an OPEC-friendly policy but preferring the Azerbaijan model to the â€œself-financingâ€ system of the Saudi Aramco, as it grants operation and control to the foreign oil companies (the 2003 report warns Iraqis against cutting into IOC profits). Once the contracts are granted, these companies then manage, fund, and equip crude extraction in exchange for a percentage of the sales. Given the way in which the interests of OPEC and those of the IOCs are so closely aligned, it is certainly understandable why smashing OPECâ€™s oil cartel might not appeal to certain elements of the Bush administration.

According to the drafters and promoters of the plan, dismantling OPEC would be a catastrophe. The last thing they want is the privatization of Iraqâ€™s oil fields and the specter of competition maximizing production. Pumping more oil per day than the OPEC regulated quota of almost 4 million, would quickly bring down Iraqâ€™s economy and compromise the U.S. position in the global market.

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, profits have shot up for oil companies. In 2004, the major U.S. oil companies posted record or near record profits. In 2005 profits for the five largest oil companies increased to $113 billion. In February 2006, ConocoPhillips reported a doubling of its quarterly profits from the previous year, which itself had been a company record. Shell posted a record breaking $4.48 billion in fourth-quarter earningsâ€”and in 2005, ExxonMobil reported the largest one-year operating profit of any corporation in U.S. history.

#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story

Sources:

Deseret Morning News, November 10, 2005

Title: â€œY. Professor Thinks Bombs, Not Planes, Toppled WTCâ€

Author: Elaine Jarvik

Brigham Young University website, Winter 2005

Title: â€œWhy Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?â€

Author: Steven E. Jones

Deseret Morning News, January 26, 2006

Title: â€œBYU professor’s group accuses U.S. officials of lying about 9/11â€

Author: Elaine Jarvik

Faculty Evaluator: John Kramer

Student Researchers: David Abbott and Courtney Wilcox

Research into the events of September 11 by Brigham Young University physics professor, Steven E. Jones, concludes that the official explanation for the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings is implausible according to laws of physics. Jones is calling for an independent, international scientific investigation â€œguided not by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and calculations.â€

In debunking the official explanation of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, Jones cites the complete, rapid, and symmetrical collapse of the buildings; the horizontal explosions (squibs) evidenced in films of the collapses; the fact that the antenna dropped first in the North Tower, suggesting the use of explosives in the core columns; and the large pools of molten metal observed in the basement areas of both towers.

Jones also investigated the collapse of WTC 7, a forty-seven-story building that was not hit by planes, yet dropped in its own â€œfootprint,â€ in the same manner as a controlled demolition. WTC 7 housed the U.S. Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Mayorâ€™s Office of Emergency Management, the Internal Revenue Service Regional Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Many of the records from the Enron accounting scandal were destroyed when the building came down.

Jones claims that the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) ignored the physics and chemistry of what happened on September 11 and even manipulated its testing in order to get a computer-generated hypothesis that fit the end result of collapse, and did not even attempt to investigate the possibility of controlled demolition. He also questions the investigations conducted by FEMA and the 9/11 Commission.

Among the reportâ€™s other findings:

No steel-frame building, before or after the WTC buildings, has ever collapsed due to fire. But explosives can effectively sever steel columns.
WTC 7, which was not hit by hijacked planes, collapsed in 6.6 seconds, just .6 of a second longer than it would take an object dropped from the roof to hit the ground. â€œWhere is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum, one of the foundational laws of physics?â€ Jones asks. â€œThat is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floorsâ€”and intact steel support columnsâ€”the fall must be significantly impeded by the impacted mass.
How do the upper floors fall so quickly, then, and still conserve momentum in the collapsing buildings?â€ The paradox, he says, â€œis easily resolved by the explosive demolition hypothesis, whereby explosives quickly removed lower-floor material, including steel support columns, and allow near free-fall-speed collapses.â€ These observations were not analyzed by FEMA, NIST, or the 9/11 Commission.
With non-explosive-caused collapse there would typically be a piling up of shattered concrete. But most of the material in the towers was converted to flour-like powder while the buildings were falling. â€œHow can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives? Remarkable, amazingâ€”and demanding scrutiny since the U.S. government-funded reports failed to analyze this phenomenon.”
Steel supports were â€œpartly evaporated,â€ but it would require temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit to evaporate steelâ€”and neither office materials nor diesel fuel can generate temperatures that hot. Fires caused by jet fuel from the hijacked planes lasted at most a few minutes, and office material fires would burn out within about twenty minutes in any given location.
Molten metal found in the debris of the WTC may have been the result of a high-temperature reaction of a commonly used explosive such as thermite. Buildings not felled by explosives â€œhave insufficient directed energy to result in melting of large quantities of metal,â€ Jones says.
Multiple loud explosions in rapid sequence were reported by numerous observers in and near the towers, and these explosions occurred far below the region where the planes struck.

In January 2006 Jones, along with a group calling themselves â€œScholars for 9/11 Truth,â€ called for an international investigation into the attacks and are going so far as to accuse the U.S. government of a massive cover-up.

â€œWe believe that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on September 11,â€ the group said in a statement. â€œWe believe these events may have been orchestrated by the administration in order to manipulate the American people into supporting policies at home and abroad.â€

The group is headed by Jones and Jim Fetzer, University of Minnesota Duluth distinguished McKnight professor of philosophy, and is made up of fifty academicians and experts including Robert M. Bowman, former director of the U.S. â€œStar Warsâ€ space defense program, and Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist for the Department of Labor in President George W. Bushâ€™s first term.

http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf

#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever

Source:

The Independent/UK, October 21, 2005

Title: â€œRevealed: the True Devastation of the Rainforest

Author: Steve Connor

Faculty Evaluator: Myrna Goodman

Student Researcher: Courtney Wilcox and Deanna Haddock

New developments in satellite imaging technology reveal that the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed twice as quickly as previously estimated due to the surreptitious practice of selective logging.

A survey published in the October 21 issue of the journal Science is based on images made possible by a new, ultra-high-resolution satellite-imaging technique developed by scientists affiliated with the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University.

â€œWith this new technology, we are able to detect openings in the forest canopy down to just one or two individual trees,â€ says Carnegie scientist Gregory Asner, lead author of the Science study and assistant professor of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University. â€œPeople have been monitoring large-scale deforestation in the Amazon with satellites for more than two decades, but selective logging has been mostly invisible until now.â€ While clear-cuts and burn-offs are readily detectable by conventional satellite analysis, selective logging is masked by the Amazonâ€™s extremely dense forest canopy.

Stanford Universityâ€™s website reports that by late 2004, the Carnegie research team had refined its imaging technique into a sophisticated remote-sensing technology called the Carnegie Landsat Analysis System (CLAS), which processes data from three NASA satellitesâ€”Landsat 7, Terra and Earth Observing 1â€”through a powerful supercomputer equipped with new pattern-recognition approaches designed by Asner and his staff.1

â€œEach pixel of information obtained by the satellites contains detailed spectral data about the forest,â€ Asner explains. â€œFor example, the signals tell us how much green vegetation is in the canopy, how much dead material is on the forest floor and how much bare soil there is.â€

For the Science study, the researchers conducted their first basin-wide analysis of the Amazon from 1999 to 2002. The results of the four-year survey revealed a problem that is widespread and vastly underestimated, â€œWe found much more selective logging than we or anyone else had expectedâ€”between 4,600 and 8,000 square miles every year of forest spread across five Brazilian states,â€ Asner said.

Selective loggingâ€”the practice of removing one or two trees and leaving the rest intactâ€” is often considered a sustainable alternative to clear-cutting. Left unregulated, however, the practice has proven to be extremely destructive.

A large mahogany tree can fetch hundreds of dollars at the sawmill, making it a tempting target in a country where one in five lives in poverty. â€œPeople go in and remove just the merchantable species from the forest,â€ Asner says. â€œMahogany is the one everybody knows about, but in the Amazon, there are at least thirty-five marketable hardwood species, and the damage that occurs from taking out just a few trees at a time is enormous. On average, for every tree removed, up to thirty more can be severely damaged by the timber harvesting operation itself. Thatâ€™s because when trees are cut down, the vines that connect them pull down the neighboring trees.

â€œLogged forests are areas of extraordinary damage. A tree crown can be twenty-five meters. When you knock down a tree it causes a lot of damage in the understory.â€ Light penetrates to the understory and dries out the forest floor, making it much more susceptible to burning. â€œThatâ€™s probably the biggest environmental concern,â€ Asner explains. â€œBut selective logging also involves the use of tractors and skidders that rip up the soil and the forest floor. Loggers also build makeshift dirt roads to get in, and study after study has shown that those frontier roads become larger and larger as more people move in, and that feeds the deforestation process. Think of logging as the first land-use change.â€

Another serious environmental concern is that while an estimated 400 million tons of carbon enter the atmosphere every year as a result of traditional deforestation in the Amazon, Asner and his colleagues estimate that an additional 100 million tons is produced by selective logging. â€œThat means up to 25 percent more greenhouse gas is entering the atmosphere than was previously assumed,â€ Asner explains, a finding that could alter climate change forecasts on a global scale.

Notes

1. Mark Shwartz, â€œSelective logging causes widespread destruction, study finds,â€ Stanford University website, October 21, 2005.

#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem

Source:

OneWorld.net, February 5, 2006

Title: â€œBottled Water: Nectar of the Frauds?â€

Author: Abid Aslam

Faculty Evaluator: Liz Close

Student Researchers: Heidi Miller and Sean Hurley

Consumers spend a collective $100 billion every year on bottled water in the beliefâ€”often mistakenâ€”that it is better for us than what flows from our taps. Worldwide, bottled water consumption surged to 41 billion gallons in 2004, up 57 percent since 1999.

â€œEven in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasingâ€”producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy,â€ reports Earth Policy Institute researcher Emily Arnold. Although in much of the world, including Europe and the U.S., more regulations govern the quality of tap water than bottled water, bottled water can cost up to 10,000 times more. At up to $10 per gallon, bottled water costs more than gasoline in the United States.

â€œThere is no question that clean, affordable drinking water is essential to the health of our global community,â€ Arnold asserts, â€œBut bottled water is not the answer in the developed world, nor does it solve problems for the 1.1 billion people who lack a secure water supply. Improving and expanding existing water treatment and sanitation systems is more likely to provide safe and sustainable sources of water over the long term.â€ Members of the United Nations have agreed to halve the proportion of people who lack reliable and lasting access to safe drinking water by the year 2015. To meet this goal, they would have to double the $15 billion spent every year on water supply and sanitation. While this amount may seem large, it pales in comparison to the estimated $100 billion spent each year on bottled water.

Tap water comes to us through an energy-efficient infrastructure whereas bottled water is transported long distancesâ€”often across national bordersâ€”by boat, train, airplane, and truck. This involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels.

For example, in 2004 alone a Helsinki company shipped 1.4 million bottles of Finnish tap water 2,700 miles to Saudi Arabia. And although 94 percent of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is produced domestically, many Americans import water shipped some 9,000 kilometers from Fiji and other faraway places to satisfy demand for what Arnold terms â€œchic and exotic bottled water.â€

More fossil fuels are used in packaging the water. Most water bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate, a plastic derived from crude oil. â€œMaking bottles to meet Americansâ€™ demand alone requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year,â€ Arnold notes.

Once it has been emptied, the bottle must be dumped. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter. Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals tied to a host of human and animal health problems. Buried water bottles can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year. Of the bottles deposited for recycling in 2004, the U.S. exported roughly 40 percent to destinations as far away as China, requiring yet more fossil fuel.

Meanwhile, communities where the water originates risk their sources running dry. More than fifty Indian villages have complained of water shortages after bottlers began extracting water for sale under the Coca-Cola Corporationâ€™s Dasani label. Similar problems have been reported in Texas and in the Great Lakes region of North America, where farmers, fishers, and others who depend on water for their livelihoods are suffering from concentrated water extraction as water tables drop quickly.

While Americans consume the most bottled water per capita, some of the fastest collective growth in consumption is in the giant populations of Mexico, India, and China. As a whole, Indiaâ€™s consumption of bottled water increased threefold from 1999 to 2004, while Chinaâ€™s more than doubled.

While private companiesâ€™ profits rise from selling bottled water of questionable quality at more than $100 billion per yearâ€”more efficiently regulated, waste-free municipal systems could be implemented for distribution of safe drinking water for all the peoples of the worldâ€”at a small fraction of the price.

UPDATE BY ABID ASLAM

Consumer stories are a staple of the media diet. This article spawned coverage by numerous public broadcasters and appeared to do the rounds in cyberspace. Perhaps what seized imaginations was our affinity for the subject: apparently we and our planetâ€™s surface are made up mostly of water and without it, we would perish. In any case, most of the discussion of the issues raised by the sourceâ€”a research paper from a Washington, D.C.â€“based environmental think tankâ€”focused mainly on consumer elements (the price, taste, and consequences for human health of bottled and tap water), as I had anticipated when I decided to storify the Environmental Policy Institute (EPI) paper (in honesty, that is pretty much all I did, adding minimal context and background). However, a good deal of reader attention also focused on the environmental and regulatory aspects.

Further information on these can be obtained from the EPI, a host of environmental and consumer groups, and from the relevant government agencies: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for tap water and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for bottled water.

Differences in the ways these regulators (indeed, regulators in general) operate and are structured and funded deserve a great deal more attention, as does the unequal protection of citizens that results.

Numerous other questions raised in the article deserve further examination. Would improved waste disposal and recycling address the researcherâ€™s concerns about resources being consumed to get rid of empty water bottles? If public water systems can deliver a more reliable product to more people at a lower cost, as the EPI paper says, then what are the obstacles to the necessary investment in the U.S. and in poor countries, and how can citizens here and there overcome those obstacles?

Some of these questions may strike general readers or certain media gatekeepers as esoteric. Then again, we all drink the stuff.

#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers

Source:

CorpWatch.com, June 20, 2005

Title: â€œBarrick Gold Strikes Opposition in Southâ€

Author: Glenn Walker

InterPress Service, February 15, 2006

Title: â€œChile: Yes, to Gold Mine But Donâ€™t Touch the Glaciersâ€

Author: Daniela Estrda

Faculty Evaluator: Andy Roth

Student Researcher: Michelle Salvail

Barrick Gold, a powerful multinational gold mining company, planned to melt three Andean glaciers in order to access gold deposits through open pit mining. The water from the glaciers would have been held for refreezing in the following winters. Opposition to the mine because of destruction to water sources for Andean farmers was widespread in Chile and the rest of the world. Barrick Goldâ€™s Pascua Lama project represents one of the largest foreign investments in Chile in recent years, totaling $1.5 billion. However, some 70,000 downstream farmers backed by international environmental organizations and activists around the world waged a campaign against the proposed mine.

In the fall of 2005, environmental activists dumped crushed ice outside the local headquarter of Barrick Gold in Santiago. Thousands had marched earlier in the year shouting slogans such as, â€œWe are not a North American colony,â€ and handing out nuggets of foolâ€™s gold emblazoned with the words oro sucioâ€”â€œdirty gold.â€

In February 2006, Chileâ€™s Regional Environment Commission (COREMA) gave permission for Barrick Gold to begin the project, but did not approve the relocation of the three glaciers.

â€œThe mine will cause severe damage to the local ecosystem because it will pollute the Huasco River as well as underground water sources,â€ said Antonia Fortt, an environmental engineer with the Oceana Ecological Organization.

The Pascua Lama deposits are considered one of the worldâ€™s largest untapped sources of gold ore, with a potential yield of 17.5 billion ounces of gold. Barrickâ€™s removal of the gold will employ cyanide leaching for on-site processing of the ore. Cyanide is a chemical compound that is extremely toxic to humans and other life forms. Environmentalists are worried that the cyanide will leach into the water systems and contaminate entire ecosystems downstream. Construction of the mine will begin in 2006 and begin full operations in 2009.

Barrick Gold also succeeded in convincing both the Chilean and Argentine governments to sign a binational mining treaty, which allows the unrestricted flow of machinery, ore, and personnel across the border. Lawsuits against the treaty are pending in Chilean courts.

Barrick Gold has been accused of burying fifty miners alive in Tanzania and blatantly disregarding environmental concerns in operations all over he world. George H. W. Bush, from 1995 to 1999, was the â€œHonorary Chairmanâ€ of Barrickâ€™s international Advisory Board.

Barrick Gold is the third largest gold mining company in the world, with a portfolio of twenty-seven mining operations in five continents. Gold sales in 2005 were $2.3 billion.

The company is based in Canada, but U.S. directors include: Donald Carty, CEO of AMR Corp and American Airlines, Dallas, Texas; J. Brett Harvey, CEO CONSOL Energy Inc., Venitia, Pennsylvania; Angus MacNaughton, President of Genstar Investment Inc., Danville, California; and Steven Shapiro, VP Burlington Resources, Inc., Houston,Texas.

#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed

Source:

Congressional Quarterly, June 22, 2005.

Title: â€œBillions in Statesâ€™ Homeland Purchases Kept in the Darkâ€

Author: Eileen Sullivan

Faculty Evaluator: Noel Byrne

Student Researchers: Monica Moura and Gary Phillips

More than $8 billion in Homeland Security funds has been doled out to states since the September 11, 2001 attacks, but the public has little chance of knowing how this money is being spent.

Of the thirty-four states that responded to Congressional Quarterlyâ€™s inquiries on Homeland Security spending, twelve have laws or policies that preclude public disclosure of details on Homeland Security purchases. Many states have adopted relevant nondisclosure clauses to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The reason, state officials say, is that the information could be useful to terrorists.

Further hindering public demand for accountability, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Marc Short confirms, DHS will not release its records on state spending of funds.

â€œThese non-disclosure policies are troubling,â€ Steven Aftergood, director of the research organization Project on Government Secrecy, warns in an interview with CQ. â€œAccountability is the price we pay. Weâ€™re giving away the ability to hold public officials accountable. More than we value public oversight, we fear a nebulous terrorist threat, and this is changing the character of American political life.â€

New York is one of many states that will disclose broad categories of purchases, such as personal protective gear, but will not specify type of equipment, which company makes it, how much it costs, or where it is going.

Roger Shatzkin, CQâ€™s interviewee on the subject of New Jerseyâ€™s policy on Homeland Security spending disclosure, offered this example: â€œIf there was a potential flaw in equipment, that could be exploited [by terrorists], so the state would not want that information to become public.â€

Aftergood counters that taxpayers have the right to know if law enforcement is using defective equipment: â€œOne of the things that happens when you restrict information is that you reduce the motivation to fix problems and correct weaknesses.â€

Coloradoâ€™s secrecy provision was enacted in 2003, but State Senator Bob Hagedorn says the law has been misinterpreted, authorizing automatic denial of access to any and all information regarding Homeland Security. Hagedorn told CQ that this broad application had never been his intention when sponsoring the bill. He warned against the shroud of secrecy as, in early 2005, state lawmakers discovered that Colorado did not have a Homeland Security plan, yet had spent $130 million in Homeland Security funds. â€œHow the hell do you spend $130 million for homeland security when you donâ€™t have a damn plan?â€ Hagedorn asked. â€œAt this point, the public still does not have an official answer to that question,â€ he added.

CQ investigators confirm that federal lawmakers want to know more about how states are spending Homeland Security funds.

â€œThereâ€™s a delicate balance that needs to be struck between ensuring our security and not advertising our vulnerabilities, but also ensuring how our security money is being spent,â€ said a staff member for the House Homeland Security Committee who requested anonymity. â€œWeâ€™re spending billions of dollars every year on grants to state and local governments . . . there should be some expectation [of] accountability.â€

#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe

Sources:

The Guardian UK, December 8, 2005

Title: â€œOil Industry Targets EU Climate Policy

Author: David Adam

The Independent UK, December 8, 2005

Title: â€œHow America Plotted to Stop Kyoto Dealâ€

Author: Andrew Buncombe

Faculty Evaluator: Ervand Peterson

Student Researcher: Christy Baird

Lobbyists funded by the U.S. oil industry have launched a campaign in Europe aimed at derailing efforts to tackle greenhouse gas pollution and climate change.

Documents obtained by Greenpeace reveal a systematic plan to persuade European business, politicians and the media that the European Union should abandon its commitments under the Kyoto protocol, the international agreement that aims to reduce emissions that lead to global warming.

The documents, an email and a PowerPoint presentation, describe efforts to establish a European coalition to â€œchallenge the course of the EUâ€™s post-2012 agenda.â€ They were written by Chris Horner, a Washington D.C. lawyer and senior fellow at the rightwing think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has received more than $1.3 million funding from the U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil. Horner also acts for the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group set up â€œto dispel the myth of global warming.â€

The PowerPoint document sets out plans to establish a group called the European Sound Climate Policy Coalition. It says: â€œIn the U.S. an informal coalition has helped successfully to avert adoption of a Kyoto-style program. This model should be emulated, as appropriate, to guide similar efforts in Europe.â€

During the 1990s U.S. oil companies and other corporations funded a group called the Global Climate Coalition, which emphasized uncertainties in climate science and disputed the need to take action. It was disbanded when President Bush pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto process. The groupâ€™s website now says: â€œThe industry voice on climate change has served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming.â€

Countries signed up to the Kyoto process have legal commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Oil and energy companies would be affected by these cuts because burning their products produces the most emissions.

The PowerPoint document written by Horner appears to be aimed at getting RWE, the German utility company, to join a European coalition of companies to act against Kyoto. Horner is convinced that, with Europeâ€™s weakening economy, companies are likely to be increasingly ill at ease with the costs of meeting Kyoto mandates and thus could be successfully influenced to pressure their government to reject Kyoto standards, as the U.S. government has. Hornerâ€™s audiences have included several significant companies including Ford Europe, Lufthansa, and Exxon.

The document says: â€œThe current political realities in Brussels open a window of opportunity to challenge the course of the EUâ€™s post-2012 agenda.â€ It adds: â€œBrussels must openly acknowledge and address them willingly or through third party pressure.â€

It says industry associations are the â€œwrong way to do thisâ€ but suggests that a cross-industry coalition, of up to six companies, could â€œcounter the commissionâ€™s Kyoto agenda.â€ Such a coalition are advised to steer debate by targeting journalists and bloggers, as well as attending environmental group meetings and events to â€œshare information on opposing viewpoints and tactics.â€

#24 Cheneyâ€™s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year

Sources:

Raw Story, October 2005

Title: â€œCheneyâ€™s Halliburton Stock Options Rose 3,281 Percent Last Year, Senator Findsâ€

Author: John Byrne

Senator Frank Lautenbergâ€™s website

Title: â€œCheneyâ€™s Halliburton Stock Options Soar to $9.2 Millionâ€

Faculty Evaluator: Phil Beard

Student Researchers: Matthew Beavers and Willie Martin

Vice President Dick Cheneyâ€™s stock options in Halliburton rose from $241,498 in 2004 to over $8 million in 2005, an increase of more than 3,000 percent, as Halliburton continues to rake in billions of dollars from no-bid/no-audit government contracts.

An analysis released by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) reveals that as Halliburtonâ€™s fortunes rise, so do the Vice Presidentâ€™s. Halliburton has already taken more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney administration for work in Iraq. They were also awarded many of the unaccountable post-Katrina government contracts, as off-shore subsidiaries of Halliburton quietly worked around U.S. sanctions to conduct very questionable business with Iran (See Story #2). â€œIt is unseemly,â€ notes Lautenberg, â€œfor the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his administration funnels billions of dollars to it.â€

According to the Vice Presidentâ€™s Federal Financial Disclosure forms, he holds the following Halliburton stock options:

100,000 shares at $54.5000 (vested), expire December 3, 2007

33,333 shares at $28.1250 (vested), expire December 2, 2008

300,000 shares at $39.5000 (vested), expire December 2, 2009

The Vice President has attempted to fend off criticism by signing an agreement to donate the after-tax profits from these stock options to charities of his choice, and his lawyer has said he will not take any tax deduction for the donations. However, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded in September 2003 that holding stock options while in elective office does constitute a â€œfinancial interestâ€ regardless of whether the holder of the options will donate proceeds to charities. Valued at over $9 million, the Vice President could exercise his stock options for a substantial windfall, not only benefiting his designated charities, but also providing Halliburton with a tax deduction.

CRS also found that receiving deferred compensation is a financial interest. The Vice President continues to receive deferred salary from Halliburton. While in office, he has received the following salary payments from Halliburton:

Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2001: $205,298

Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2002: $162,392

Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2003: $178,437

Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2004: $194,852

(The CRS report can be downloaded at: http://lautenberg.senate.gov/Report.pdf)

These CRS findings contradict Vice President Cheneyâ€™s puzzling view that he does not have a financial interest in Halliburton. On the September 14, 2003 edition of Meet the Press in response to questions regarding his relationship with Halliburton, where from 1995 to 2000 he was employed as CEO, Vice President Cheney said, â€œSince I left Halliburton to become George Bushâ€™s vice president, Iâ€™ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and havenâ€™t had, now, for over three years.â€

Comment: A similar undercovered story of conflicting interest and disaster profiteering by those in the top echelon of the U.S. Government is of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeldâ€™s connections to Gilead Sciences, the biotech company that owns the rights to Tamifluâ€”the influenza remedy that is now the most-sought after drug in the world. This story was brought forward by Fortune senior writer, Nelson D. Schwartz, on October 31, 2005 in an article titled â€œRumsfeldâ€™s growing stake in Tamiflu,â€ and by F. William Engdahl for GlobalResearch, on October 30, 2005, in an article titled â€œIs avian flu another Pentagon hoax?â€

Rumsfeld served as Gileadâ€™s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to Federal Financial Disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

The forms donâ€™t reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but whipped up fears of an avian flu pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu sent Gileadâ€™s stock from $35 to $47 in 2005, making the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

Whatâ€™s more, the federal government is emerging as one of the worldâ€™s biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July 2005, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multibillion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for Tamiflu to total at about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.

UPDATE BY JOHN BYRNE

The media has routinely downplayed Cheneyâ€™s involvement and financial investment in Halliburton, one of the largest U.S. defense contractors that received supersized no-bid contracts in Iraq. Ultimately, the importance of the story is that the Vice President of the U.S. is able to use his position of power to reap rewards for his former company in which he has a financial investment. Halliburton may also benefit from a chilling effect in which the Pentagon is more likely to favor Cheneyâ€™s firm to seek favor with the White House.

Cheney continues to hold 433,333 Halliburton stock options, and receives a deferred salary of about $200,000 a year. According to Cheneyâ€™s most recent tax returns, he held $2.5 million in retirement accounts, much of which likely came from his former defense firm.

Cheney recently filed disclosure reports that show he is valued at $94 million.

Senator Lautenbergâ€™s disclosure, brought forward by Raw Story, received no mainstream coverage. While the press has often noted that Cheney was formerly Halliburtonâ€™s CEO, they routinely fail to mention how much money he accrued from the firm during his service there. They also fail to mention that he continues to receive a pension.

RawStory.com regularly reports on Halliburton and contracts awarded to the company. SourceWatch.org also has a good library of resources on Halliburton and other defense contractors as well as the Vice President.Another way to get involved is to contact your local senator or representatives about your concerns, and to ask them to push the Vice President to sell his stock options in Halliburton.

#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

Sources:

Upside Down World, October 5, 2005

Title: â€œFears mount as US opens new military installation in Paraguayâ€

Author: Benjamin Dangl

Foreign Policy in Focus, November 21, 2005

Title: â€œDark Armies, Secret Bases, and Rummy, Oh My!â€

By Conn Hallinan

International Relations Center, December 14, 2005

Title: US Military Moves in Paraguay Rattle Regional Relationsâ€

Sam Logan and Matthew Flynn

Faculty Evaluator: Patricia Kim-Ragal

Student Researchers: Nick Ramirez and Deyango Harris

Five hundred U.S. troops arrived in Paraguay with planes, weapons, and ammunition in July 2005, shortly after the Paraguayan Senate granted U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction. Neighboring countries and human rights organizations are concerned that the massive air base at Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay is potential real estate for the U.S. military.

While U.S. and Paraguayan officials vehemently deny ambitions to establish a U.S. military base at Mariscal Estigarribia, the ICC immunity agreement and U.S. counterterrorism training exercises have increased suspicions that the U.S. is building a stronghold in a region that is strategic to resource and military interests.

The Mariscal Estigarribia air base is within 124 miles of Bolivia and Argentina, and 200 miles from Brazil, near the Triple Frontier where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina meet. Boliviaâ€™s natural gas reserves are the second largest in South America, while the Triple Frontier region is home to the Guarani Aquifer, one of the worldâ€™s largest fresh water sources. (See Story #20.)

Not surprisingly, U.S. rhetoric is building about terrorist threats in the triborder region. Dangl reports claims by Defense officials that Hezbollah and Hamas, radical Islamic groups from the Middle East, receive significant funding from the Triple Frontier, and that growing unrest in this region could leave a political â€œblack holeâ€ that would erode other democratic efforts. Dangl notes that in spite of frequent attempts to link terror networks to the triborder area, there is little evidence of a connection.

The baseâ€™s proximity to Bolivia may cause even more concern. Bolivia has a long history of popular protest against U.S. exploitation of its vast natural gas reserves. But the resulting election of leftist President Evo Morales, who on May 1, 2006 signed a decree nationalizing all of Boliviaâ€™s gas reserves, has certainly intensified hostilities with the U.S.1

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Paraguay in August of 2005, he told reporters that, â€œthere certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways.â€

Military analysts from Uruguay and Bolivia maintain that the threat of terrorism is often used by the U.S. as an excuse for military intervention and the monopolization of natural resources.

A journalist writing for the Argentinian newspaper, Clarin, visited the base at Mariscal Estigarribia and reported it to be in perfect condition. Capable of handling large military planes, it is oversized for the Paraguayan air force, which only has a handful of small aircraft. The base is capable of housing 16,000 troops, has an enormous radar system, huge hangars, and an air traffic control tower. The airstrip itself is larger than the one at the international airport in Asuncion, Paraguayâ€™s capital. Near the base is a military camp that has recently grown in size.

Hallinan notes that Paraguayâ€™s neighbors are very skeptical of the situation, as there is a disturbing resemblance between U.S. denials about Mariscal Estigarribia and the disclaimers made by the Pentagon about Eloy Alfaro airbase in Manta, Ecuador. The U.S. claimed the Manta base was a â€œdirt stripâ€ used for weather surveillance. When local journalists revealed its size, however, the U.S. admitted the base harbored thousands of mercenaries and hundreds of U.S. troops, and Washington had signed a ten-year basing agreement with Ecuador. (See Chapter 2, Story #17, for similarities between the Manta air base in Ecuador, and the current situation unfolding in Paraguay.)

As Paraguay breaks ranks with her neighbors by allowing the U.S. to carry out military operations in the heart of South America, Logan and Flynn report that nongovernmental organizations in Paraguay are protesting the new U.S. military presence in their country, warning that recent moves could be laying the foundation for increasing U.S. presence and influence over the entire region. Perhaps the strongest words come from the director of the Paraguayan human rights organization Peace and Justice Service, Orlando Castillo, who claims that the U.S. aspires to turn Paraguay into a â€œsecond Panama for its troops, and it is not far from achieving its objective to control the Southern Cone and extend the Colombian War.â€

Note

1. â€œBolivian Gas War,â€ http://www.Wikipedia.org, May 2006.

UPDATE BY BENJAMIN DANGL

The election of Evo Morales in Bolivia in December of 2005 brought more attention to the U.S. military presence in neighboring Paraguay. Since his election, Morales has nationalized the countryâ€™s gas reserves and strengthened ties with Cuba and Venezuela to build a more sustainable economy. Such policies have not been warmly received in Washington. Responding to this progressive trend, on May 22, 2006 George Bush said he was â€œconcerned about the erosion of democracyâ€ in Venezuela and Bolivia.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, himself a victim of a U.S.-backed coup, said Bushâ€™s comments mean, â€œHeâ€™s already given the green light to start conspiring against the democratic government of Bolivia.â€ U.S. troops stationed in Paraguay may be poised for such an intervention. However, human rights reports suggest the U.S. military presence has already resulted in bloodshed.

Paraguay is the fourth largest producer of soy in the world. As this industry expands, poor farmers are being forced off their lands. These farmers have organized protests, road blockades and land occupations against this displacement and have faced subsequent repression from military, police, and paramilitary forces.

Investigations by Servicio Paz y Justicia (Serpaj), a human rights group in Paraguay, report that the worst cases of repression against farmers took place in areas with the highest concentration of U.S. troops. This violence resulted in the deaths of forty-one farmers in three separate areas.

â€œThe U.S. military is advising the Paraguayan police and military about how to deal with these farmer groups,â€ Orlando Castillo of Serpaj told me over the phone. He explained that U.S. troops monitor farmers to find information about union organizations and leaders, then tell Paraguayan officials how to proceed. â€œThe numbers from our study show what this U.S. presence is doing,â€ Castillo said.

The U.S. government maintains the military exercises in Paraguay are humanitarian efforts. However, the deputy speaker of the Paraguayan parliament, Alejandro Velazquez Ugarte, said that of the thirteen exercises going on in the country, only two are of a civilian nature.

This presence is an example of the U.S. governmentâ€™s â€œcounter-insurgencyâ€ effort in Latin America. Such meddling has a long, bloody history in the region. Currently, the justification is the threat of terrorism instead of communism. As Latin America shifts further away from Washingtonâ€™s interests, such militarization is only likely to increase.

Throughout these recent military operations, the U.S. corporate media, as well as Paraguayan media, have ignored the story. Soccer, not dead farmers or plans for a coup, has been the focus of most headlines.

For ongoing reports on the U.S. militarization of Paraguay and elsewhere visit www.UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America, and www.TowardFreedom.com. Benjamin Danglâ€™s book, The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (forthcoming from AK Press, January 2007), includes further investigations into the U.S. military operations in Paraguay.

Ideas for action include organizing protests and writing letters to the U.S. embassy in Paraguay (www.asuncion.usembassy.gov). For more information on international solidarity, email Orlando Castillo at Serpaj in Paraguay: desmilitarizacion@serpajpy.org.py

UPDATE BY CONN HALLINAN

My article was written in late November 2005 during the run-up to the Bolivian elections. That campaign featured indigenous leader Evo Morales, a fierce critic of Washingtonâ€™s neoliberal, free trade policies that have impoverished tens of millions throughout Latin America. The Bush administration not only openly opposed Morales, it charged there was a growing â€œterrorismâ€ problem in the region and began building up military forces in nearby Paraguay.

There have been a number of important developments since last fall. Morales won the election and nationalized Boliviaâ€™s petrochemical industry. In the past, such an action might have triggered a U.S.-sponsored coup, or at least a crippling economic embargo. Foreign oil and gas companies immediately tried to drive a wedge between Bolivia and other nations in the region by threatening to halt investments or pull out entirely. This included companies partially owned by Brazil and Argentina.

But Latin America is a very different place these days. Three days after the May 1, 2005 nationalization, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, Brazilian President Lula De Silva, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Morales met in Puerto Iguazu and worked out an agreement to help Bolivia develop its resources while preserving regional harmony. As a result, it is now likely that foreign petrochemical companies will remain in Bolivia, although they will pay up to four times as much as they did under the old agreements. And if they leave, the Chinese and Russians are waiting in the wings.

The situation is still delicate. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently compared Chavez to Adolph Hitler and linked him to Cubaâ€™s Fidel Castro and Morales. Aid is flowing to militaries in Colombia and Paraguay, and the White House continues to use private proxies to intervene in the Colombian civil war. While there is a growing solidarity among nations in the southern cone, some of their economies are delicate.

Ecuador is presently wracked by demonstrations demanding the expulsion of foreign oil companies and an end to free trade talks with the U.S. This is an ongoing story. While the alternative media continues to cover these developments, the mainstream media has largely ignored them.

A note on reading the mainstream: the Financial Times recently highlighted a Latinobarometro poll indicating that most countries in South America were rejecting â€œdemocracyâ€ as a form of government. But since free markets and neoliberalism were sold as â€œdemocracyâ€â€”economic policies that most South Americans have overwhelmingly rejectedâ€”did the poll measure an embrace of authoritarianism or a rejection of failed economic policies? Tread carefully.

To stay informed of developments in this area visit websites of School of the Americas Watch: http://www.soaw.org/new/ and Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/ or contact Conn Hallinan at connm@ucsc.edu

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006

Organik — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:18:41 +0000

from ProjectCensored.org

#1 Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government

#2 Media Coverage Fails on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Death

#3 Another Year of Distorted Election Coverage

#4 Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In

#5 U.S. Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia

#6 The Real Oil for Food Scam

#7 Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood

#8 Iraqi Farmers Threatened By Bremerâ€™s Mandates

#9 Iranâ€™s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency

#10 Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy

#11 Universal Mental Screening Program Usurps Parental Rights

#12 Military in Iraq Contracts Human Rights Violators

#13 Rich Countries Fail to Live up to Global Pledges

#14 Corporations Win Big on Tort Reform, Justice Suffers

#15 Conservative Plan to Override Academic Freedom in the Classroom

#16 U.S. Plans for Hemispheric Integration Include Canada

#17 U.S. Uses South American Military Bases to Expand Control of the Region

#18 Little Known Stock Fraud Could Weaken U.S. Economy

#19 Child Wards of the State Used in AIDS Experiments

#20 American Indians Sue for Resources; Compensation Provided to Others

#21 New Immigration Plan Favors Business Over People

#22 Nanotechnology Offers Exciting Possibilities But Health Effects Need Scrutiny

#23 Plight of Palestinian Child Detainees Highlights Global Problem

#24 Ethiopian Indigenous Victims of Corporate and Government Resource Aspirations

#25 Homeland Security Was Designed to Fail

Chapter 1

The Top Censored Stories of 2004 to 2005

#1 Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government

Source:

Common Dreams, September 14, 2004. Press release.

Title: â€œNew Report Details Bush Administration Secrecyâ€

Author: Karen Lightfoot

<http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0914-05.htm>

<http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/story.asp?ID=692&Issue=Open+Government>

Faculty Evaluator: Yvonne Clarke, MA

Student Researcher: Jessica Froiland

Throughout the 1980s, Project Censored highlighted a number of alarming reductions to government access and accountability (see Censored 1982 #6, 1984 #8, 1985 #3 and 1986 #2). It tracked the small but systematic changes made to existing laws and the executive orders introduced. It now appears that these actions may have been little more than a prelude to the virtual lock box against access that is being constructed around the current administration.

â€œThe Bush Administration has an obsession with secrecy,â€ says Representative Henry Waxman, the Democrat from California who, in September 2004, commissioned a congressional report on secrecy in the Bush Administration. â€œIt has repeatedly rewritten laws and changed practices to reduce public and congressional scrutiny of its activities. The cumulative effect is an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable.â€

Changes to Laws that Provide Public Access

to Federal Records

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives citizens the ability to file a request for specific information from a government agency and provides recourse in federal court if that agency fails to comply with FOIA requirements. Over the last two decades, beginning with Reagan, this law has become increasingly diluted and circumvented by each succeeding administration.

Under the Bush Administration, agencies make extensive and arbitrary use of FOIA exemptions (such as those for classified information, privileged attorney-client documents and certain information compiled for law enforcement purposes) often inappropriately or with inadequate justification. Recent evidence shows agencies making frivolous (and sometimes ludicrous) exemption claims, abusing the deliberative process privilege, abusing the law enforcement exemption, and withholding data on telephone service outages.

Quite commonly, the Bush Administration simply fails to respond to FOIA requests at all. Whether this is simply an inordinate delay or an unstated final refusal to respond to the request, the requesting party is never told. But the effect is the same: the public is denied access to the information.

The Bush Administration also engages in an aggressive policy of questioning, challenging and denying FOIA requestersâ€™ eligibility for fee waivers, using a variety of tactics. Measures include narrowing the definition of â€œrepresentative of news media,â€ claiming information would not contribute to public understanding.

Ten years ago, federal agencies were required to release documents through FOIAâ€“â€“even if technical grounds for refusal existedâ€“â€“unless â€œforeseeable harmâ€ would result from doing so. But, according to the Waxman report, an October 2001 memo by Attorney General John Ashcroft instructs and encourages agencies to withhold information if there are any technical grounds for withholding it under FOIA.

In 2003, the Bush Administration won a new legislative exemption from FOIA for all National Security Agency â€œoperational files.â€ The Administrationâ€™s main rationale for this new exemption is that conducting FOIA searches diverts resources from the agencyâ€™s mission. Of course, this rationale could apply to every agency. As NSA has operated subject to FOIA for decades, it is not clear why the agency now needs this exemption.

The Presidential Records Act ensures that after a president leaves office, the public will have full access to White House documents used to develop public policy. Under the law and an executive order by Ronald Reagan, the presumption has been that most documents would be released. However, President Bush issued an executive order that establishes a process that generally blocks the release of presidential papers.

Changes to Laws that Restrict Public Access

to Federal Records

The Bush Administration has dramatically increased the volume of government information concealed from public view. In a March 2003 executive order, President Bush expanded the use of the national security classification. The order eliminated the presumption of disclosure, postponed or avoided automatic declassification, protected foreign government information, reclassified some information, weakened the panel that decides to exempt documents from declassification and adjudicates classification challenges, and exempted vice presidential records from mandatory declassification review.

The Bush Administration has also obtained unprecedented authority to conduct government operations in secret, with little or no judicial oversight. Under expanded law enforcement authority in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department can more easily use secret orders to obtain library and other private records, obtain â€œsneak-and-peekâ€ warrants to conduct secret searches, and conduct secret wiretaps. In addition, the Bush Administration has used novel legal interpretations to expand its authority to detain, try, and deport individuals in secret. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush Administration has asserted unprecedented authority to detain anyone whom the executive branch labels an â€œenemy combatantâ€ indefinitely and secretly. It has authorized military trials that can be closed not only to the public but also to the defendants and their own attorneys. And the Administration has authorized procedures for the secret detention and deportation of aliens residing in the United States.

Congressional Access to Information

Compared to previous administrations, the Bush Administration has operated with remarkably little congressional oversight. This is partially attributable to the alignment of the parties. The Republican majorities in the House and the Senate have refrained from investigating allegations of misconduct by the White House. Another major factor has been the Administrationâ€™s resistance to oversight. The Bush Administration has consistently refused to provide to members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and congressional commissions the information necessary for meaningful investigation and review of the Administrationâ€™s activities.

For example, the Administration has contested in court the power of the Government Accountability Office to conduct independent investigations and has refused to comply with the rule that allows members of the House Government Reform Committee to obtain information from the executive branch, forcing the members to go to court to enforce their rights under the law. It has also ignored and rebuffed numerous requests for information made by members of Congress attempting to exercise their oversight responsibilities with respect to executive branch activities, and repeatedly withheld information from the investigative commission established by Congress to investigate the September 11 attacks.

Update Rep. Waxmanâ€™s companion bill, HR 5073 IH, the Restore Open Government Act of 2004, was not heard by Congress before the Winter Recess in December, and the bill was not reintroduced in the Opening Session in January 2005. However, on February 16, after the commencement of the 109th Congress, John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced a bill entitled the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2005, S. 394 (the Cornyn-Leahy bill), which according to their joint statement â€œis designed to strengthen laws governing access to government information, particularly the Freedom of Information Act.â€ On the same day, an identical bill, H.R. 867, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.).¹

For more information on Rep. Waxmanâ€™s legislation and work on open government, site, please visit www.democrats.reform.house.gov.

NOTE

1. St. Petersburg Times (Florida), February 18, 2005, â€œImproving access to information.â€

#2 Media Coverage Fails on Iraq:

Fallujah and the Civilian Deathtoll

part 1: Fallujahâ€”War Crimes Go Unreported

Sources:

Peacework, December 2004â€“January 2005

Title: â€œThe Invasion of Fallujah: A Study in the Subversion of Truthâ€

Authors: Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowell

World Socialist Web Site, November 17, 2004

Title: â€œU.S. Media Applauds Destruction of Fallujahâ€

Author: David Walsh

The NewStandard, December 3, 2004

Title: â€œFallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zoneâ€

Author: Dahr Jamail

Faculty Evaluators: Bill Crowley, Ph. D., Sherril Jaffe, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Brian K. Lanphear

Over the past two years, the United States has conducted two major sieges against Fallujah, a city in Iraq. The first attempted siege of Fallujah (a city of 300,000 people) resulted in a defeat for Coalition forces. As a result, the United States gave the citizens of Fallujah two choices prior to the second siege: leave the city or risk dying as enemy insurgents. Faced with this ultimatum, approximately 250,000 citizens, or 83 percent of the population of Fallujah, fled the city. The people had nowhere to flee and ended up as refugees. Many families were forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity, food or medical care. The 50,000 citizens who either chose to remain in the city or who were unable to leave were trapped by Coalition forces and were cut off from food, water and medical supplies. The United States military claimed that there were a few thousand enemy insurgents remaining among those who stayed in the city and conducted the invasion as if all the people remaining were enemy combatants.

Burhan Fasaâ€™a, an Iraqi journalist, said Americans grew easily frustrated with Iraqis who could not speak English. â€œAmericans did not have interpreters with them, so they entered houses and killed people because they didnâ€™t speak English. They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and shot people because [the people] didnâ€™t obey [the soldiersâ€™] orders, even just because the people couldnâ€™t understand a word of English.â€ Abu Hammad, a resident of Fallujah, told the Inter Press Service that he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. â€œThe Americans shot them with rifles from the shore. Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their head to show they are not fighters, they were all shot.â€ Furthermore, â€œeven the wound[ed] people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed.â€ Former residents of Fallujah recall other tragic methods of killing the wounded. â€œI watched them [U.S. Forces] roll over wounded people in the street with tanksâ€¦ â€¦This happened so many times.â€

Preliminary estimates as of December of 2004 revealed that at least 6,000 Iraqi citizens in Fallujah had been killed, and one-third of the city had been destroyed.

Journalists Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowell assert that the continuous slaughter in Fallujah is greatly contributing to escalating violence in other regions of the country such as Mosul, Baquba, Hilla, and Baghdad. The violence prompted by the U.S. invasion has resulted in the assassinations of at least 338 Iraqiâ€™s who were associated with Iraqâ€™s â€œnewâ€ government.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq, and more specifically Fallujah, is causing an incredible humanitarian disaster among those who have no specific involvement with the war. The International Committee for the Red Cross reported on December 23, 2004 that three of the cityâ€™s water purification plants had been destroyed and the fourth badly damaged. Civilians are running short on food and are unable to receive help from those who are willing to make a positive difference. Aid organizations have been repeatedly denied access to the city, hospitals, and refugee populations in the surrounding areas.

Abdel Hamid Salim, spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad, told Inter Press Service that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah three weeks after the invasion. Salim declared that â€œthere is still heavy fighting in Fallujah. And the Americans wonâ€™t let us in so we can help people.â€

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour voiced a deep concern for the civilians caught up in the fighting. Louise Arbour emphasized that all those guilty of violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws must be brought to justice. Arbour claimed that all violations of these laws should be investigated, including â€œthe deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons and the use of human shields.â€

Marjorie Cohn, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists, has noted that the U.S. invasion of Fallujah is a violation of international law that the U.S. had specifically ratified: â€œThey [U.S. Forces] stormed and occupied the Fallujah General Hospital, and have not agreed to allow doctors and ambulances to go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.â€

According to David Walsh, the American media also seems to contribute to the subversion of truth in Fallujah. Although, in many cases, journalists are prevented from entering the city and are denied access to the wounded, corporate media showed little concern regarding their denied access. There has been little or no mention of the immorality or legality of the attacks the United States has waged against Iraq. With few independent journalists reporting on the carnage, the international humanitarian community in exile, and the Red Cross and Red Crescent prevented from entering the besieged city, the world is forced to rely on reporting from journalists embedded with U.S. forces. In the U.S. press, we see casualties reported for Fallujah as follows: number of U.S. soldiers dead, number of Iraqi soldiers dead, number of â€œguerillasâ€ or â€œinsurgentsâ€ dead. Nowhere were the civilian casualties reported in the first weeks of the invasion. An accurate count of civilian casualties to date has yet to be published in the mainstream media.

part 2: Civilian Death Toll Is Ignored

Sources:

The Lancet, October 29, 2004

Title: â€œMortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraqâ€

Authors: Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi and Gilbert Burnham

The Lancet, October 29, 2004

Title: â€œThe War in Iraq: Civilian Casualties, Political Responsibilitiesâ€

Author: Richard Horton

The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 4, 2005

Title: â€œLost Countâ€

Author: Lila Guterman

FAIR, April 15, 2004

Title: â€œCNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths?â€

Author: Julie Hollar

Faculty Evaluator: Sherril Jaffe, Ph.D.

Student Researcher: Melissa Waybright

In late October, 2004, a peer reviewed study was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, concluding that at least 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since it was invaded by a United States-led coalition in March 2003. Previously, the number of Iraqis that had died, due to conflict or sanctions since the 1991 Gulf War, had been uncertain. Claims ranging from denial of increased mortality to millions of excess deaths have been made. In the absence of any surveys, however, they relied on Ministry of Health records. Morgue-based surveillance data indicate the post-invasion homicide rate is many times higher than the pre-invasion rate.

In the present setting of insecurity and limited availability of health information, researchers, headed by Dr. Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins University, undertook a national survey to estimate mortality during the 14.6 months before the invasion (Jan 1, 2002, to March 18, 2003) and to compare it with the period from March 19, 2003, to the date of the interview, between Sept 8 and 20, 2004. Iraqi households were informed about the purpose of the survey, assured that their name would not be recorded, and told that there would be no benefits or penalties for refusing or agreeing to participate.

The survey indicates that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is in reality about 100,000 people, and may be much higher. The major public health problem in Iraq has been identified as violence. However, despite widespread Iraqi casualties, household interview data do not show evidence of widespread wrongdoing on the part of individual soldiers on the ground. Ninety-five percent of reported killings (all attributed to U.S. forces by interviewees) were caused by helicopter gunships, rockets, or other forms of aerial weaponry.

The study was released on the eve of a contentious presidential electionâ€”fought in part over U.S. policy on Iraq. Many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines. â€œWhat went wrong this time? Perhaps the rush by researchers and The Lancet to put the study in front of American voters before the election accomplished precisely the opposite result, drowning out a valuable study in the clamor of the presidential campaign.â€ (Lila Guterman, Chronicle of Higher Education)

The studyâ€™s results promptly flooded though the worldwide mediaâ€”everywhere except the United States, where there was barely a whisper about the study, followed by stark silence. â€œThe Lancet released the paper on October 29, the Friday before the election, when many reporters were busy with political stories. That day the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune each dedicated only about 400 words to the study and placed the stories inside their front section, on pages A4 and A11, respectively. (The news media in Europe gave the study much more play; many newspapers put articles about it on their front pages.)

In a short article about the study on page A8, the New York Times noted that the Iraqi Body Count, a project to tally civilian deaths reported in the news media, had put the maximum death count at around 17,000. The new study, the article said, â€œis certain to generate intense controversy.â€ But the Times has not published any further news articles about the paper. The Washington Post, perhaps most damagingly to the studyâ€™s reputation, quoted Marc E. Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, as saying, â€œThese numbers seem to be inflated.â€ Mr. Garlasco says now that he hadnâ€™t read the paper at the time and calls his quote in the Post â€œreally unfortunate.â€ (Lila Guterman, Chronicle of Higher Education).

Even so, nobody else in American corporate media bothered to pick up the story and inform our citizens how many Iraqi citizens are being killed at the hands of a coalition led by our government. The study was never mentioned on television news, and the truth remains unheard by those who may need to hear it most. The U.S. government had no comment at the time and remains silent about Iraqi civilian deaths. â€œThe only thing we keep track of is casualties for U.S. troops and civilians,â€ a Defense Department spokesman told The Chronicle.

When CNN anchor Daryn Kagan did have the opportunity to interview the Al Jazeera network editor-in-chief Ahmed Al-Sheikâ€”a rare opportunity to get independent information about events in Fallujahâ€”she used the occasion to badger Al-Sheik about whether the civilian deaths were really â€œthe storyâ€ in Fallujah. CNNâ€™s argument was that a bigger story than civilian deaths is â€œwhat the Iraqi insurgents are doingâ€ to provoke a U.S. â€œresponseâ€ is startling. â€œWhen reports from the ground are describing hundreds of civilians being killed by U.S. forces, CNN should be looking to Al Jazeeraâ€™s footage to see if it corroborates those accountsâ€”not badgering Al Jazeeraâ€™s editor about why he doesnâ€™t suppress that footage.â€ (MediaWatch, Asheville Global Report)

Study researchers concluded that several limitations exist with this study, predominantly because the quality of data received is dependent on the accuracy of the interviews. However, interviewers believed that certain essential charcteristics of Iraqi culture make it unlikely that respondents would have fabricated their reports of the deaths. The Geneva Conventions have clear guidance about the responsibilities of occupying armies to the civilian population they control. â€œWith the admitted benefit of hindsight and from a purely public health perspective, it is clear that whatever planning did take place was grievously in error. The invasion of Iraq, the displacement of a cruel dictator, and an attempt to impose a liberal democracy by force have, by themselves, been insufficient to bring peace and security to the civilian population.

The illegal, heavy handed tactics practiced by the U.S. military in Iraq evident in these news stories have become what appears to be their standard operating procedure in occupied Iraq. Countless violations of international law and crimes against humanity occurred in Fallujah during the November massacre.

Evidenced by the mass slaughtering of Iraqis and the use of illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, napalm, uranium munitions and chemical weapons during the November siege of Fallujah when the entire city was declared a â€œfree fire zoneâ€ by military leaders, the brutality of the U.S. military has only increased throughout Iraq as the occupation drags on.

According to Iraqis inside the city, at least 60 percent of Fallujah went on to be totally destroyed in the siege, and eight months after the siege entire districts of the city remained without electricity or water. Israeli style checkpoints were set up in the city, prohibiting anyone from entering who did not live inside the city. Of course non-embedded media were not allowed in the city.

update: Since these stories were published, countless other incidents of illegal weapons and tactics being used by the U.S. military in Iraq have occurred.

During â€œOperation Spearâ€ on June 17th, 2005, U.S.-led forces attacked the small cities of Al-Qaâ€™im and Karabla near the Syrian border. U.S. warplanes dropped 2,000 pound bombs in residential areas and claimed to have killed scores of â€œmilitantsâ€ while locals and doctors claimed that only civilians were killed.

As in Fallujah, residents were denied access to the city in order to obtain medical aid, while those left inside the city claimed Iraqi civilians were being regularly targeted by U.S. snipers.

According to an IRIN news report, Firdos al-Abadi from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society stated that 7,000 people from Karabla were camped in the desert outside the city, suffering from lack of food and medical aid while 150 homes were totally destroyed by the U.S. military.

An Iraqi doctor reported on the same day that he witnessed, â€œcrimes in the west area of the countryâ€¦the American troops destroyed one of our hospitals, they burned the whole store of medication, they killed the patient in the wardâ€¦they prevented us from helping the people in Qaâ€™im.â€

Also like Fallujah, a doctor at the General Hospital of al-Qaâ€™im stated that entire families remained buried under the rubble of their homes, yet medical personnel were unable to reach them due to American snipers.

Iraqi civilians in Haditha had similar experiences during â€œOperation Open Marketâ€ when they claimed U.S. snipers shot anyone in the streets for days on end, and U.S. and Iraqi forces raided homes detaining any man inside.

Corporate media reported on the â€œliberationâ€ of Fallujah, as well as quoting military sources on the number of â€œmilitantsâ€ killed. Any mention of civilian casualties, heavy-handed tactics or illegal munitions was either brief or non-existent, and continues to be as of June 2005.

For additional information:

For those interested in following these stories, it is possible to obtain information by visiting the English Al-Jazeera website at http://english.aljazeera. net/HomePage, my website at www.dahrjamailiraq.com, The World Tribunal on Iraq at www.worldtribunal.org, Peacework Magazine at www.afsc.org/pwork/0412/041204.htm , and other alternative/independent news websites.

#3 Another Year of Distorted Election Coverage

Source:

In These Times, 02/15/05

Title: â€œA Corrupted Electionâ€

Authors: Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 26, 2005

Title: â€œJim Crow Returns To The Voting Boothâ€

Authors: Greg Palast, Rev. Jesse Jackson

www.freepress.org, Nov. 23, 2004

Title: â€œHow a Republican Election Supervisor Manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio Voteâ€

Authors: Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman

Faculty Evaluator: Ann Neel, MA

Student Researcher: Mike Osipoff

Political analysts have long counted on exit polls to be a reliable predictor of actual vote counts. The unusual discrepancy between exit poll data and the actual vote count in the 2004 election challenges that reliability. However, despite evidence of technological vulnerabilities in the voting system and a higher incidence of irregularities in swing states, this discrepancy was not scrutinized in the mainstream media. They simply parroted the partisan declarations of â€œsour grapesâ€ and â€œletâ€™s move onâ€ instead of providing any meaningful analysis of a highly controversial election.

The official vote count for the 2004 election showed that George W. Bush won by three million votes. But exit polls projected a victory margin of five million votes for John Kerry. This eight-million-vote discrepancy is much greater than the error margin. The overall margin of error should statistically have been under one percent. But the official result deviated from the poll projections by more than five percentâ€”a statistical impossibility.

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies hired to do the polling for the Nation Election Pool (a consortium of the nationâ€™s five major broadcasters and the Associated Press), did not immediately provide an explanation for how this could have occurred. They waited until January 19, the eve of the inauguration.

Edison and Mitofskyâ€™s â€œinauguralâ€ report, â€œEvaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004,â€ stated that the discrepancy was â€œmost likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters.â€ The media widely reported that this report proved the accuracy of the official count and a Bush victory. The body of the report, however, offers no data to substantiate this position. In fact, the report shows that Bush voters were more likely to complete the survey than Kerry voters. The report also states that the difference between exit polls and official tallies was far too great to be explained by sampling error, and that a systematic bias is implicated.

The Edison and Mitofsky report dismisses the possibility that the official vote count was wrong, stating that precincts with electronic voting systems had the same error rates as precincts with punch-card systems. This is true. However, it merely points to the unreliability of punch-card and electronic systems, both of which are slated for termination under the Helping America Vote Act of 2002. According to the report, only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots did the official count and the exit poll data fall within the normal margin of error.

Also, the report shows, the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count was considerably greater in the critical swing states. And while this fact is consistent with allegations of fraud, Mitofsky and Edison suggest, without providing any data or theory to back up their claim, that this discrepancy is somehow related to media coverage.

In precincts that were at least 80 percent for Bush, the average within-precinct error (WPE) was a whopping 10.0 percentâ€”the numerical difference between the exit poll predictions and the official count. Also, in Bush strongholds, Kerry received only about two-thirds of the votes predicted by exit polls. In Kerry strongholds, exit polls matched the official count almost exactly (an average WPE of 0.3).

This exit poll data is a strong indicator of a corrupted election. But the case grows stronger if these exit poll discrepancies are interpreted in the context of more than 100,000 officially logged reports of irregularities and possible fraud during Election Day 2004.

Bush campaign officials compiled a 1,886-name â€œcaging list,â€ which included the names and addresses of predominantly black voters in the traditionally Democratic Jacksonville, Florida. While Bush campaign spokespersons stated that the list was a returned mail log, they did not deny that such a list could be used to challenge voters on Election Day. In fact, the county elections supervisor says that he could see no other purpose for compiling such a list.

In Franklin County Ohio, Columbus voters faced one of the longest ballot lines in history. In many inner city precincts, voters sometimes had three-hour waits to get to the poll before being required to cast ballots within five minutes, as demanded by the Republican-run Board of Elections. Seventy-seven out of the countyâ€™s 2,866 voting machines malfunctioned on Election Day. One machine registered 4,258 votes for Bush in a precinct where only 638 people voted. At least 125 machines were held back at the opening of the polls, and another 68 were never deployed. While voters were rushed through the process, 29 percent of the precincts had fewer voting machines than in the 2000 election despite a 25 percent increase in turnout.

Taken together, these problems point to an election that requires scrutiny. Even if the discrepancy between exit polls and actual vote counts is simply a fluke, other flaws and questionable practices in the voting process make one wonder whether or not the peopleâ€™s voice was actually heard and if we are truly a working democracy.

Update by Josh Mitteldorf: Some news is too important to report. People might get upset, and the smooth functioning of our democracy would be jeopardized. Thus the media has collectively done the responsible thing, and refrainedâ€”at great cost to themselves, be assuredâ€”from publicizing doubts about the legitimacy of the 2004 election, in order to help assure the â€œorderly succession of power.â€

Unfortunately, some internet sites such as Commondreams.org and Freepress.org do not realize their obligations to the commonwealth, and have thus been less responsible in maintaining silence. And thereâ€™s an upbeat radio voice from Vermont, Thom Hartmann, who would be fun to listen to if only he didnâ€™t insist on relating so many discomfiting truths.

But so long as you stay away from these isolated derelicts, you will be gratified to receive a reassuringly consistent story line: George Bush won the 2004 election fair and square. Itâ€™s time to stop asking pointless questions. Get with the program!

Update by Greg Palast and Reverend Jessie Jackson: There are conspiracy nuts out there on the Internet who think that John Kerry defeated George Bush in Ohio and other states. I know, because I wrote â€œKerry Wonâ€ for TomPaine.com two days after the election.

â€œKerry Wonâ€ was the latest in a series coming out of a five-year investigation, begun in November 2000, for BBC Television Newsnight and Britainâ€™s Guardian papers, dissecting that greasy sausage called American electoral democracy.

On November 11, a week after TomPaine.com put the report out on the â€˜Net, I received an email from the New York Times Washington Bureau. Hot on the investigation of the veracity of the vote, the Times reporter asked me pointed questions:

Question #1: Are you a â€œsore loserâ€?

Question #2: Are you a â€œconspiracy nutâ€?

There was no third question. Investigation of the vote was, apparently, complete. The next day, their thorough analysis of the evidence yielded a front-page story, â€œVOTE FRAUD THEORIES, SPREAD BY BLOGS, ARE QUICKLY BURIED.â€

Hereâ€™s a bit of what the Paper of Record failed to record.

In June 2004, well before the election, my co-author of â€œJim Crowâ€ Rev. Jesse Jackson brought me to Chicago. We had breakfast with Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards. The Reverend asked the Senator to read my report of the â€œspoilageâ€ of Black votesâ€”one million African Americans who cast ballots in 2000 but did not have their votes register on the machines.

Edwards said heâ€™d read it over after heâ€™d had his bagel. Jackson snatched away his bagel. No read, no bagel. A hungry Senator was genuinely concernedâ€”these were, after all, Democrats whose votes did not tally, and he shot the information to John Kerry. A couple of weeks later, Kerry told the NAACP convention that one million African-American votes were not counted in 2000, but in 2004 he would not let it happen again.

But he did let it happen again. More than a million votes in 2004 were cast and not counted.

As a reporter, itâ€™s not my job to help the Democratic Party learn to tie its shoes. And, as a nonpartisan journalist, Iâ€™m not out to expose the Republican Partyâ€™s new elaborate campaign to prevent voters from votingâ€”but I must report it. However, editors and news producers in my home country, the USA, seem less than interested. Indeed, they are downright hostile to reporting this story of the shoplifting of our democracy.

America has an apartheid voting system, denying African-Americans, Hispanics and American Natives the assurance their ballots will count. Worse, America has an apartheid media which denies racial disenfranchisement a seat at the front of the news bus.

It was in November 2000 I first ran into the U.S. news lordâ€™s benign neglect of the â€œnew Jim Crowâ€ methods of denying citizens of color their vote. While working with the British Guardian papers just days before the 2000 presidential election, I discovered that Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katharine Harris, had wrongly purged tens of thousands of Black citizens from voter rolls as â€œfelonsâ€â€”when in fact their only crime had been V.W.B.: Voting While Black.

Nothing appeared in the U.S. press. However, I admit that the Florida purge story was picked up by the New York Times â€¦ fofur years later.

Just before the November 2004 election, BBC television Newsnight discovered new, confidential â€œcaging listsâ€ which we got our hands on from inside the Republican National Committee headquarters. These were rosters of thousands of minority voters targeted to prevent them from voting on election day: a violation of federal law. It was big news in Europe and South America. In the USA, there was nothing except an attack on BBCâ€™s report by ABCâ€™s web site. ABCâ€™s only listed source for their attack on the BBC was the Republican Party.

The story of the purge of Black voters, the million missing Black ballots cast but not counted, the caging lists, and other games used to deny the vote to the dark-skinned and the poor, would have been buried long ago if not for BBC Television, Harperâ€™s Magazine (may it last a thousand years), Britainâ€™s Guardian and Observer, The Nation, the op-ed editors at the San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer and, provocatively, Hustler Magazine. Even if ignored or actively â€˜dissed by U.S. â€œmainstreamâ€ media, the story will be continue to be reported, due to the passionate insistence of Reverend Jackson, from a thousand pulpits.

Thanks to GeorgeBush.com for capturing the â€˜caging lists.â€™ And bless the blogs, for they shall set the truth free: TomPaine.com, Buzzflash, Working-for-Change and other Internet sites carried the story over the electronic Berlin Wall.

Finally, my gratitude to our indefatigable investigative team, particularly Oliver Shykles and Matt Pascarella for their work on this storyâ€”on which they continue todayâ€”and to Meirion Jones, producer nonpareil at BBC televisionâ€™s Newsnight.

For Additional Documentation of Voter Fraud 2004 See Chapters 2 and 3.

#4 Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In

Sources:

Information Management Journal, Mar/Apr 2004

Title: â€œPATRIOT Actâ€™s Reach Expanded Despite Part Being Struck Downâ€

Author: Nikki Swartz

LiP Magazine, Winter 2004

Title: â€œGrave New Worldâ€

Author: Anna Samson Miranda

Capitol Hill Blue, June 7, 2004

Title: â€œWhere Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7â€

Authors: Teresa Hampton and Doug Thompson

Faculty Evaluator: John Steiner, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Sandy Brown, Michelle Jesolva

â€œWhile the evening news rolled footage of Saddam being checked for head lice, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 was quietly signed into law.â€1

On December 13, 2003, President George W. Bush, with little fanfare and no mainstream media coverage, signed into law the controversial Intelligence Authorization Act while most of America toasted the victory of U.S. forces in Iraq and Saddamâ€™s capture. None of the corporate press covered the signing of this legislation, which increases the funding for intelligence agencies, dramatically expands the definition of surveillable financial institutions, and authorizes the FBI to acquire private records of those individuals suspected of criminal activity without a judicial review. American civil liberties are once again under attack.

History has provided precedent for such actions. Throughout the 1990s, erosions of these protections were taking place. As part of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism bill adopted in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Justice Department was required to publish statistics going back to 1990 on threats or actual crimes against federal, state and local employees and their immediate families when the wrongdoing related to the workersâ€™ official duties. The numbers were then to be kept up to date with an annual report.2 Members of congress, concerned with the threat this type of legislation posed to American civil liberties, were able to strike down much of what the bill proposed, including modified requirements regarding wiretap regulations.

The â€œatmosphere of fearâ€ generated by recent terrorist attacks, both foreign and domestic, provides administrations the support necessary to adopt stringent new legislation. In response to the September 11 attacks, new agencies, programs and bureaucracies have been created. The Total Information Office is a branch of the United States Department of Defenseâ€™s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It has a mission to â€œimagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness.â€3 Another intelligence gathering governmental agency, The Information Awareness Office, has a mission to gather as much information as possible about everyone in a centralized location for easy perusal by the United States government. Information mining has become the business of government.

In November 2002, the New York Times reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was developing a tracking system called â€œTotal Information Awarenessâ€ (TIA), which was intended to detect terrorists through analyzing troves of information. The system, developed under the direction of John Poindexter, then-director of DARPAâ€™s Information Awareness Office, was envisioned to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of wrongdoing or a warrant.4 The â€œTotal Information Awarenessâ€ programâ€™s name was changed to â€œTerrorist Information Awarenessâ€ on May 20, 2003 ostensibly to clarify the programâ€™s intent to gather information on presumed terrorists rather than compile dossiers on U.S. citizens.

Despite this name change, a Senate Defense Appropriations bill passed unanimously on July 18, 2003, expressly denying any funding to Terrorist Information Awareness research. In response, the Pentagon proposed The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or MATRIX, a program devised by longtime Bush family friend Hank Asher as a pilot effort to increase and enhance the exchange of sensitive terrorism and other criminal activity information between local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. The MATRIX, as devised by the Pentagon, is a State run information generating tool, thereby circumventing congressâ€™ concern regarding the appropriation of federal funds for the development of this controversial database. Although most states have refused to adopt these Orwellian strategies, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Florida have all jumped on the TIA band wagon.

Yet, somehow, after the apparent successful dismantling of TIA, expressed concern by Representatives Mark Udall of Colorado, Betty McCollum of Minnesota, Ron Paul of Texas and Dennis Moore of Kansas, and heightened public awareness of the MATRIX, the Intelligence Authorization Act was signed into law December 13, 2003.5

On Thursday, November 20, 2003 Minnesota Representative Betty McCollum stated that, â€œThe Republican Leadership inserted a controversial provision in the FY04 Intelligence Authorization Report that will expand the already far-reaching USA Patriot Act, threatening to further erode our cherished civil liberties. This provision gives the FBI power to demand financial and other records, without a judgeâ€™s approval, from post offices, real estate agents, car dealers, travel agents, pawnbrokers and many other businesses. This provision was included with little or no public debate, including no consideration by the House Judiciary Committee, which is the committee of jurisdiction. It came as a surprise to most Members of this body.â€6

According to LiP Magazine, â€œGovernmental and law-enforcement agencies and MATRIX contractors across the nation will gain extensive and unprecedented access to financial records, medical records, court records, voter registration, travel history, group and religious affiliations, names and addresses of family members, purchases made and books read.â€7

Peter Jennings, in an ABC original report, explored the commercial applications of this accumulated information. Journalist and author Peter Oâ€™Harrow, who collaborated with ABC News on the broadcast â€œPeter Jennings Reporting: No Place to Hide,â€ states â€œâ€¦marketersâ€”and now, perhaps government investigatorsâ€”can study what people are likely to do, what kind of attitudes they have, what they buy at the grocery store.â€8 Although this program aired on prime-time mainstream television, there was no mention of the potential for misuse of this personal information network or of the controversy surrounding the issues of privacy and civil liberties violations concerning citizens and civil servants alike. Again, the sharing of this kind of personal information is not without precedent.

On November 12, 1999, Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which permits financial institutions to share personal customer information with affiliates within the holding company. The Intelligence Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2004 expands the definition of a surveillable financial institution to include real estate agencies, insurance companies, travel agencies, Internet service providers, post offices, casinos and other businesses as well. Due to massive corporate mergers and the acquisition of reams of newly acquired information, personal consumer data has been made readily available to any agency interested in obtaining it, both commercial and governmental.

With the application of emerging new technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification chips or RFIDs, small individualized computer chips capable of communicating with a receiving computer, consumer behavior can literally be tracked from the point of purchase to the kitchen cupboard, and can be monitored by all interested parties.

Update by Anna Miranda: The United States is at risk of turning into a full-fledged surveillance society. The tremendous explosion in surveillance-enabling technologies, combined with the ongoing weakening in legal restraints that protect our privacy mean that we are drifting toward a surveillance society. The good news is that it can be stopped. Unfortunately, right now the big picture is grim.â€”ACLU⁹

The PATRIOT Act

Fifteen â€˜sunsetâ€™ provisions in the PATRIOT Act are set to expire at the end of 2005. One amendment, the â€œlibrary provisionâ€ went before Congress in June. Despite President Bushâ€™s threat to veto, lawmakers, including 38 Republicans, voted 238 to 187 to overturn the provision, which previously allowed law enforcement officials to request and obtain information from libraries without obtaining a search warrant. Although inspectors still have the â€œrightâ€ to search library records, they must get a judgeâ€™s approval first.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales informed Congress in April that this provision has never been used to acquire information, although the American Library Association recently reported that over 200 requests for information were submitted since the PATRIOT Act was signed into law in October 2001.

The overturning of the library provision has been seen as a small victory in the fight to reclaim privacy rights. Rep. Saunders, who was responsible for almost successfully having the provision repealed last year, commented that â€œconservative groups have been joining progressive organizations to call for changes.â€¹⁰

The MATRIX

The fight to the right for privacy continues to wage on with more successes, as the MATRIX program was officially shut down on April 15, 2005. The program, which consisted of 13 statesâ€”and only had four states remaining prior to its closure, received $12 million in funding from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. By utilizing a system called FACTS (Factual Analysis Criminal Threat Solution), law enforcement officials from participating states were able to share information with one another and utilized this program as an investigative tool to help solve and prevent crimes. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, â€œBetween July 2003 and April 2005, there have been 1,866,202 queries to the FACTS application.â€¹¹ However, of these queries, only 2.6 percent involved terrorism or national security.

Although the MATRIX has been shut down, Florida law enforcement officials are pursuing continuing the program and rebuilding it. Officials have sent out a call for information from vendors beginning a competitive bidding process.

RFID Technology and the REAL ID Act

On May 10, 2005, President Bush secretly signed into law the REAL ID Act, requiring states within the next three years to issue federally approved electronic identification cards. Attached as an amendment to an emergency spending bill funding troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the REAL ID Act passed without the scrutiny and debate of Congress.

One of the main concerns of the electronic identification card is identity theft. The Act mandates the cards to have anti-counterfeiting measures, such as an electronically readable magnetic strip or RFID chip. Privacy advocates argue that RFID chips can be read from â€œunauthorizedâ€ scanners allowing third parties or the general public to gather and/or steal private information about an individual. Amidst growing concerns about identity theft, the REAL ID Act has given no consideration to this drawback.

Other privacy concerns regarding the electronic identification card is the use of information by third parties once theyâ€™ve scanned the cards and accessed the information. At this time, the Act does not specify what can be done with the information. A company or organization scanning your identification card could potentially sell your personal information if strict guidelines on what to do with the information are not mandated.

Inability to conform over the next three years will leave citizens and residents of the United States paralyzed. Identification cards that do not meet the federally mandated standards will not be accepted as identification for travel, opening a bank account, receiving social security checks, or participating in government benefits, among other things.

Notes

1. LiP Magazine. http://www.lipmagazine.org/.

2. The Washington Post December 01, 1997, Final Edition.

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness.

4. Electronic Privacy Information Center http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/. Information Awareness Office, See HR 2417.

5. Ibid.

6. Congressional Record: November 22,2003 pg.E2399.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/h112203.html.

7. LiP Magazine. http://www.lipmagazine.org/.

8. ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Primetime/story.

9. http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/PrivacyMain.cfm.

10. http://bernie.house.gov/documents/articles/20050406114413.asp.

11. http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/press_releases/20050415_matrix_project.html.

#5 U.S. Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia

Sources:

Janeâ€™s Foreign Report (Janeâ€™s Defence), February 15, 2005

Title: â€œU.S. Turns Tsunami into Military Strategyâ€

The Irish Times, February 8, 2005

Title: â€œU.S. Has Used Tsunami to Boost Aims in Stricken Areaâ€

Author: Rahul Bedi

Inter Press Service, January, 18 2005

Title: â€œBush Uses Tsunami Aid to Regain Foothold in Indonesiaâ€

Author: Jim Lobe

Faculty Evaluator: Tony White, Ph. D., Craig Winston, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Ned Patterson

The tragic and devastating power of 2004â€™s post holiday tsunami was plastered across the cover of practically every newspaper around the world for the better part of a month. As the death toll rose by the thousands every day, countries struggled to keep pace with the rapidly increasing need for aid across the Indian Ocean Basin.

At the same time that U.S. aid was widely publicized domestically, our coinciding military motives were virtually ignored by the press. While supplying our aid (which when compared proportionately to that of other, less wealthy countries, was an insulting pittance), we simultaneously bolstered military alliances with regional powers in, and began expanding our bases throughout, the Indian Ocean region.

Long viewed as a highly strategic location for U.S. interests, our desire to curtail Chinaâ€™s burgeoning economic and military might is contingent upon our control of this area. In the months following the tsunami, writes Rahul Bedi in The Irish Times, the U.S. revived the Utapao military base in Thailand it had used during the Vietnam War. Task force 536 is to be moved there to establish a forward positioning site for the U.S. Air Force.

During subsequent tsunami relief operations, the U.S. reactivated its military co-operation agreements with Thailand and the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines. U.S. Navy also vessels utilized facilities in Singapore, keeping with previous treaties. Further, the U.S. marines and the navy arrived in Sri Lanka to bolster relief measures despite the tsunami-hit islandâ€™s initial reluctance to permit their entry.

The U.S. also stepped up their survey of the Malacca Straits, over which China exercises considerable influence, and through which 90 percent of Japanâ€™s oil supplies pass. The United States has had trouble expanding its military influence in the region largely due to suspicions by Indonesia and Malaysia that the U.S. is disguising imperial aims under the goal of waging war against terror. The two countries have opposed an American plan to tighten security in the vital Malacca Straits shipping lanes, which might have involved U.S. troops stationed nearby.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that U.S. relief to the tsunami-affected region would assist the war against terror and introduce â€œAmerican values to the region.â€ The Bush Administration is also reviving its hopes of normalizing military ties with Indonesia, writes Jim Lobe for InterPress Service. The worldâ€™s most populous Muslim nation, its strategically located archipelago, critical sea lanes, and historic distrust of China have made it an ideal partner for containing Beijing.

During a January 2005 visit to Jakarta, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told reporters, â€œI think if weâ€™re interested in military reform here, and certainly this Indonesian government is and our government is, I think we need to possibly reconsider a bit where we are at this point in history moving forward.â€

According to an article in the Asheville Global Report, the following month the U.S. State Department made a decision to renew the International Education and Military Training (IMET) program for Indonesia, despite considerable human rights issues.

According to Bedi, Washington has long wanted a navel presence in Trincomalee, eastern Sri Lanka, or alternatively in Galle, further south, to shorten the supply chain from its major regional military base in distant Diego Garcia, which the British Ocean Territory leased to the U.S. in 1966 for the length of fifty years. The use of these bases would ring China, giving the U.S. added control over that countryâ€™s activities.

Diego Garciaâ€™s geostrategic location in the Indian Ocean and its full range of naval, military and communications facilities gives it a critical role supporting the U.S. Navyâ€™s forward presence in the North Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean Region. However, because of the basesâ€™ remoteness and the fact that its lease from Britain expires in 2016, the U.S. seeks an alternative location in the region. â€œClearly these new bases will strengthen Washingtonâ€™s military logistical support in the region,â€ says Professor Anuradha Chenoy at Delhiâ€™s Jawaharlal Nehru University. She went on to emphasize that an alternative to the Diego Garcia base must be found soon, as the lease from Britain will soon expire.

Long before the tsunami struck, an article dated April 21, 2003, by Josy Joseph on Rediff.com explained that a classified report commissioned by the United States Department of Defense expresses a desire for access to Indian bases and military infrastructures. The United States Air Force specifically wants to establish bases in India. The report, entitled â€œIndo-U.S. Military Relations: Expectations and Perceptions,â€ was distributed amongst high-ranking U.S. officials and a handful of senior members within the Indian government. It continues on about the Defense Departmentâ€™s desire to have â€œaccess closer to areas of instability.â€1

The report says, â€œAmerican military officers are candid in their plans to eventually seek access to Indian bases and military infrastructure. Indiaâ€™s strategic location in the centre of Asia, astride the frequently traveled Sea Lanes Of Communication (SLOC) linking the Middle East and East Asia, makes India particularly attractive to the U.S. military.â€

The report also quotes U.S. Lieutenant Generals as saying that the access to Indian bases would enable the U.S. military â€œto be able to touch the rest of the worldâ€ and to â€œrespond rapidly to regional crisis.â€ A South Asia Area Officer of the U.S. State Department has been quoted as saying, â€œIndiaâ€™s strategic importance increases if existing U.S. relationships with Asia fail.â€

Post-tsunami U.S. actions in the Indian Ocean illustrate its intention to move this agenda forward sooner rather than later.

Note

1. Joseph, Josy; â€œTarget Next: Indian Military Basesâ€; rediff.com, April 21, 2003; and Lobe, Jim; â€œSkepticism over renewed military ties with Indonesiaâ€; Asheville Global Report, March 10â€“16, 2005.

#6 The Real Oil for Food Scam

Sources:

Harperâ€™s Magazine, December 2004

Title: â€œThe UN is Us: Exposing Saddam Husseinâ€™s silent partnerâ€

Author: Joy Gordon

http://www.harpers.org/TheUNisUS.html

Independent/UK, December 12, 2004

Title: â€œThe oil for Food â€˜Scandalâ€™ is a Cynical Smokescreenâ€

Author: Scott Ritter

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1212-23.htm

Faculty Evaluator: Robert McNamara, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Deanna Murrell

The U.S. has accused UN officials of corruption in Iraqâ€™s oil for food program. According to Joy Gordon and Scott Ritter the charge was actually an attempt to disguise and cover up long term U.S. government complicity in this corruption. Ritter says, â€œthis posturing is nothing more than a hypocritical charade, designed to shift attention away from the debacle of George Bushâ€™s self-made quagmire in Iraq, and legitimize the invasion of Iraq by using Iraqi corruption and not the now-missing weapons of mass destruction, as the excuse.â€ Gordon arrives at the conclusion that, â€œperhaps it is unsurprising that today the only role its seems the United States expects the UN to play in the continuing drama of Iraq is that of scapegoat.â€

According to Gordon the charges laid by the U.S. accounting office are bogus. There is plenty of evidence of corruption in the â€œoil-for-foodâ€ program, but the trail of evidence leads not to the UN but to the U.S. â€œThe fifteen members of the Security Councilâ€”of which the United States was by far the most influentialâ€”determined how income from oil proceeds would be handled, and what the funds could be used for.â€ Contrary to popular understanding, the Security Council is not the same thing as the UN. It is part of it, but operates largely independently of the larger body. The UNâ€™s personnel â€œsimply executed the program that was designed by the members of the Security Council.â€

The claim in the corporate media was that the UN allowed Saddam Hussein to steal billions of dollars from oil sales. If we look, as Gordon does, at who actually had control over the oil and whoâ€™s hands held the money, a very different picture emerges. â€œIf Hussain did indeed smuggle $6 billion worth of oil in the â€˜the richest rip off in world history,â€™ he didnâ€™t do it with the complicity of the UN. He did it on the watch of the U.S. Navy.â€ explains Gordon.

Every monetary transaction was approved by the U.S. through its dominant role on the Security Council. Ritter explains, â€œthe Americans were able to authorize a $1 billion exemption concerning the export of Iraqi oil for Jordan, as well as legitimize the billion-dollar illegal oil smuggling trade over the Turkish border.â€ In another instance, a Russian oil company â€œbought oil from Iraq under â€˜oil for foodâ€™ at a heavy discount, and then sold it at full market value to primarily U.S. companies, splitting the difference evenly between [the Russian company] and the Iraqis. This U.S. sponsored deal resulted in profits of hundreds of millions of dollars for both the Russians and the Iraqis, outside the control of â€˜oil for food.â€™ It has been estimated that 80 percent of the oil illegally smuggled out of Iraq under â€˜oil for foodâ€™ ended up in the United States.â€

Not only were criminals enriched in this nefarious scheme, it also ended up sabotaging the original purpose of â€œoil for food.â€ Gordon explains, â€œHow Iraq sold its oil was also under scrutiny, and the United States did act on what it perceived to be skimming by Hussain in these deals. The solution that it enacted, however, succeeded in almost bankrupting the entire Oil for Food Program within months.â€

Harebrained Security Council policy not only succeeded in enriching the dishonest, it also virtually destroyed the program. According to Gordon, the U.S. and UK attempted to prevent kickbacks resulting from artificially low prices: â€œInstead of approving prices at the beginning of each sales period (usually a month), in accordance with normal commercial practices, the two allies would simply withhold their approval [of the price] until after the oil was soldâ€”creating a bizarre scenario in which buyers had to sign contracts without knowing what the price would be.â€ The result was â€œoil sales collapsed by forty percent, and along with them the funds for critical humanitarian imports.â€

What we have here, according to Gordon and Ritter, is a bare-faced attempt by criminals to shift blame to the innocent. Gordon concludes, â€œLittle of the blame can credibly be laid at the feet of â€˜the UN bureaucracy.â€™ Far more of the fault lies with policies and decisions of the Security Council in which the United States played a central role.â€

Update by Joy Gordon: The accusations against the Oil for Food Program have served as a springboard for general attacks on the credibility of the United Nations as a whole, as well as personal attacks on Kofi Annan. For the most part the mainstream media has seized on the accusations and repeated them, without doing any of the research that would give the discussion more integrity. For example, â€œthe United Nationsâ€ is criticized for â€œitsâ€ failures, and the Secretary General is then blamed because these events â€œhappened on his watch.â€ What was not mentioned at all for the first year of media coverage is that â€œthe UNâ€ is made up of several different parts, and that the part that designed and oversaw the Oil for Food Program was the Security Council, whose decisions cannot be overridden or modified in any way by the Secretary General. Not only that, while the most vitriolic accusations against the UN have come from the United States, the U.S. is in fact the most dominant member of the Security Council. The U.S. agreed to all the decisions and procedures of the Oil for Food Program that are now being so harshly criticized as â€œfailures of the United Nations.â€

The mainstream press, for the most part, has repeated that the Oil for Food Program lacked accountability, oversight, or transparency. What is most striking about this is that the elaborate structure of oversight that was in fact in placeâ€”and is never mentioned at allâ€”is so easily available. It is on the programâ€™s web site in complete detail along with huge amounts of information, making the program in fact highly transparent. Yet the mainstream press coverage reflects none of this.

Last fall we saw the beginnings of some acknowledgement of the U.S. responsibility for Iraqâ€™s ongoing smuggling, as some Democrats introduced evidence in hearings that all three U.S. administrations knew of and supported Iraqâ€™s illicit trade with Jordan and Turkey, two key U.S. allies. The press picked that up, but little else.

Since my article came out, there has been a good deal of press coverage from public radio stations and from foreign press. In addition, I have testified twice before Congressional committees, where the members of Congress were incredulous to hear that in fact the program operated very differently than they had been toldâ€”even though the information I provided them was obvious, basic, publicly available, and easily accessible.

For additional information:

Organizations actively addressing these issues include the UN Association and the UN Foundation.

Information about the accusations against the program can be found at the following sites: http://www.oilforfoodfacts.org/

UN web site on Oil for Food program: http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/

The Volcker Committee investigating the accusations: http://www.iic-offp.org/

#7 Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood

Sources:

www.truthout.org, Feb. 28, 2005

Title: â€œDead Messengers: How the U.S. Military Threatens Journalistsâ€

Author: Steve Weissman

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022405A.shtml

Title: â€œMedia Repression in â€˜Liberatedâ€™ Landâ€

InterPress Service, November 18, 2004

Author: Dahr Jamail

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26333

Faculty Evaluator: Elizabeth Burch, Ph.D.

Student Researcher: Michelle Jesolva

According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)1, 2004 was the deadliest year for reporters since 1980, when records began to be kept. Over a 12-month span, 129 media workers were killed and 49 of those deaths occurred in the Iraqi conflict. According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail, journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. When the only safety for a reporter is being embedded with the U.S. military, the reported stories tend to have a positive spin. Non-embedded reporters suffer the great risk of being identified as enemy targets by the military.

The most blatant attack on journalists occurred the morning of April 8, 2004, when the Third Infantry fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad killing cameramen Jose Couso and Taras Protsyuk and injuring three others. The hotel served as headquarters for some 100 reporters and other media workers. The Pentagon officials knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of journalists and had assured the Associated Press that the U.S. would not target the building. According to Truthout, the Army had refused to release the records of its investigation. The Committee to Protect Journalists, created in 1981 in order to protect colleagues abroad from governments and others who have no use for free and independent media, filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act to force the Army to release its results. The sanitized copy of the releasable results showed nothing more than a Commander inquiry.

Unsatisfied with the U.S. militaryâ€™s investigation, Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that works to improve the legal and physical safety of journalists worldwide, conducted their own investigation. They gathered evidence from journalists in the Palestine Hotel at the time of the attacks. These were eye witness accounts that the military neglected to include in their report. The Reporters Without Borders report also provided information disclosed by others embedded within the U.S. Army, including the U.S. military soldiers and officers directly involved in the attack. The report stated that the U.S. officials first lied about what had happened during the Palestine Hotel attack and then, in an official statement four months later, exonerated the U.S. Army from any mistake of error in judgment. The investigation found that the soldiers in the field did not know that the hotel was full of journalists. Olga Rodriguez, a journalist present at the Palestine Hotel during the attack, stated on KPFAâ€™s Democracy Now! that the soldiers and tanks were present at the hotel 36 hours before the firing and that they had even communicated with the soldiers.

There have been several other unusual journalist attacks, including:

â€° March 22, 2003: Terry Lloyd, a reporter for British TV station ITN, was killed when his convoy crossed into Iraq from Kuwait. French cameraman Frederic Nerac and Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman, both in the convoy, disappeared at the same time.2

â€° June, 2003: According to Dahr Jamail, within days of the â€˜handoverâ€™ of power to an interim Iraqi government in 2003, al-Jazeera had been accused of inaccurate reporting and was banned for one month from reporting out of Iraq. The ban was later extended to â€œindefinitelyâ€ and the interim government announced that any al-Jazeera journalist found reporting in Iraq would be detained. Corentin Fleury, a French freelance photographer, and his interpreter Bahktiyar Abdulla Hadad, were detained by the U.S. military when they were leaving Fallujah before the siege of the city began. They were both held in a military detention facility outside of the city and were questioned about the photos that were taken of bomb-stricken Fallujah. Fleury was released after five days but his interpreter, Bahktiyar Abdulla Hadad, remained.

â€° April 8, 2004: The same day of the attack on the Palestine Hotel, Truthout writes, the U.S. bombed the Baghdad offices of Abu Dhabi TV and Al-Jazeera while they were preparing to broadcast, killing Al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayyoub. August 17, 2004: Mazen Dana was killed while filming (with permission) a prison, guarded by the U.S. military in a Baghdad suburb. According to Truthoutâ€™s Steve Weissman, the Pentagon issued a statement one month later claiming that the troops had acted within the rules of engagement.3

â€° March 4, 2005: Nicola Calipari, one of ItalyÃs highest ranking intelligence officials, was shot dead by U.S. troops. He was driving with Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena, who had just been released from captivity and was on her way to Baghdadâ€™s airport. Sgrena survived the attack. She stated in an interview with Amy Goodman on KPFAâ€™s Democracy Now! that the troops â€œshot at us without any advertising, any intention, any attempt to stop us beforeâ€ and they appeared to have shot the back of the car.4

In all cases, little investigation has been conducted, no findings have been released and all soldiers involved have been exonerated.

At the World Economic Forum, on a panel titled: â€œWill Democracy Survive the Media?,â€ Eason Jordan, a CNN news chief, commented that the U.S. commanders encourage hostility toward the media and fail to protect journalists, especially those who choose not to embed themselves under military control. According to Truthout, during a discussion about the number of journalists killed during the Iraq war, Jordan stated that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops, but had been targeted. Jordan also insisted that U.S. soldiers had deliberately shot at journalists. After the forum, Jordan recanted the statements and was forced to resign his job of 23 years at CNN.

As a matter of military doctrine, the U.S. military dominates, at all costs, every element of battle, including our perception of what they do. The need for control leads the Pentagon to urge journalists to embed themselves within the military, where they can go where they are told and film and tell stories only from a pro-American point of view. The Pentagon offers embedded journalists a great deal of protection. As the Pentagon sees it, non-embedded eyes and ears do not have any military significance, and unless Congress and the American people stop them, the military will continue to target independent journalists. Admirals and generals see the world one way, reporters another; the clash leads to the deaths of too many journalists.

Update by Steve Weissman: When Truthout boss Marc Ash asked me earlier this year to look into the Pentagonâ€™s killing of journalists, many reporters believed that the military was purposely targeting them. But, as I quickly found, the crime was more systemic and in many ways worse. As far as anyone has yet proved, no commanding officer ever ordered a subordinate to fire on journalists as such. Not at Baghdadâ€™s Palestine Hotel in April 2003. Not at the Baghdad checkpoint where soldiers wounded Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and killed her Secret Service protector in March 2005. Andnot anywhere else in Iraq or Afghanistan.

How, then, did the U.S. military end up killing journalists?

It started with a simple decisionâ€”the Pentagonâ€™s absolute refusal to take any responsibility for the lives of journalists who chose to work independently rather than embed themselves in a British or American military unit. Despite repeated requests from Reuters and other major news organizations, Pentagon officials still refuse to take the steps needed to reduce the threat to independent journalists:

1. The military must be forced to respect the work that independent journalists do, protect them where possible, and train soldiers to recognize the obvious differences between rocket launchers and TV cameras.

2. Commanders need to pass on information about the whereabouts of journalists with a direct order not to shoot at them.

3. When soldiers do kill journalists, the Pentagon needs to hold them responsible, something that no military investigation has yet done.

4. When the military tries to forcibly exclude journalists and otherwise prevent â€œhostile informationâ€ about its operations, such as its destruction of Falujah, Congress and the media need to step in and force the Pentagon to back off.

One other problem needs urgent attention. Military intelligence regularly monitors the uplink equipment that reporters use to transmit their stories and communicate by satellite phone. But, as the BBCâ€™s Nik Gowing discovered, the electronic intelligence mavens make no effort to distinguish between journalistic communications and those of enemy forces. All the sensing devices do is look for electronic traffic between the monitored uplinks and known enemies.

In Gowingâ€™s view, this led the Americans to order a rocket attack on the Kabul office of the Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, whose journalists kept regular contact with the Taliban as part of their journalistic coverage.

To date, neither Congress nor the military have done what they need to do to protect unembedded journalists and the information they provide. More shamefully, the mass media continues to underplay the story.

But, for those who want it, reliable information is easily available, either from the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters without Borders, or the International Federation of Journalists.

NOTES

1. www.ifj.org.

2. â€œMissing ITN Crew May Have Come Under â€˜Friendly Fire,â€™â€ www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/ Story/0,2763,919832,00.html, March 23, 2003.

3. Democracy Now! March 23, 2005, Wounded Spanish Journalist Olga Rodriguez describes the U.S. Attack on the Palestine Hotel that killed two of her colleagues.

4. Democracy Now! April 27, 2005, Giuliana Sgrena Blasts U.S. Cover Up, Calls for U.S. and Italy to leave Iraq.

#8 Iraqi Farmers Threatened By Bremerâ€™s Mandates

Sources:

Grain, October 2004

Title: â€œIraqâ€™s New Patent Law: A Declaration of War against Farmersâ€

Authors: Focus on the Global South and GRAIN

TomPaine.com, October 26, 2004

Title: â€œAdventure Capitalismâ€

Author: Greg Palast

The Ecologist, February 4, 2005

Title: â€œU.S. Seeking to Totally Re-engineer Iraqi Traditional Farming System into a U.S.-style Corporate Agribusinessâ€

Author: Jeremy Smith

Faculty Evaluator: John Wingard, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Cary Barker

In his article â€œAdventure Capitalism,â€ Greg Palast exposes the contents of a secret plan for â€œimposing a new regime of low taxes on big business, and quick sales of Iraqâ€™s banks and bridgesâ€”in fact, â€˜ALL state enterprisesâ€™â€”to foreign operators.â€ This economy makeover plan, he claims, â€œgoes boldly where no invasion plan has gone before.â€

This highly detailed program, which began years before the tanks rolled, outlines the small print of doing business under occupation. One of the goals is to impose intellectual property laws favorable to multinationals. Palast calls this â€œhistoryâ€™s first military assault plan appended to a program for toughening the target nationâ€™s copyright laws.â€

It also turns out that those of us who may have thought it was all about the oil were mostly right. â€œThe plan makes it clear thatâ€”even if we didnâ€™t go in for the oilâ€”we certainly wonâ€™t leave without it.â€

In an interview with Palast, Grover Norquist, the â€œ capo di capi of the lobbyist army of the right,â€ makes the plans even more clear when he responds, â€œThe right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some democratic election.â€ No, these things were to be determined by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the interim government lead by the U.S.

Before he left his position, CPA administrator Paul Bremer, â€œthe leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority issued exactly 100 orders that remade Iraq in the image of the Economy Plan.â€ These orders effectively changed Iraqi law.

A good example of this business invasion involves agriculture. The details of this part of the â€œmarket make-overâ€ are laid out in the Grain website article called â€œIraqâ€™s new Patent Law: a declaration of war against farmers.â€

â€œOrder 81â€ of the 100 is entitled â€œPatent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety.â€ According to Grain staff writers, this order â€œmade it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law.â€ Plant Variety Protection (PVP)is the tool used for defining which seeds are re-useable and which are not. PVP â€œis an intellectual property right or a kind of patent for plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety. So the â€œprotectionâ€ in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually large corporations) claiming to have created the new plants.â€

Dovetailing with this order is a plan to â€œre-educate farmersâ€ in order to increase their production. As part of a $107 million â€œprojectâ€ facilitated by Texas A&M, farmers will be given equipment and new high-yielding PVP protected seeds. Jeremy Smith from the Ecologist points out that, â€œAfter one year, farmers will see soaring production levels. Many will be only too willing to abandon their old ways in favor of the new technologies. Out will go traditional methods. In will come imported American seeds.â€ Then, based on the new patent laws, â€œany â€˜clientâ€™ (or â€˜farmerâ€™ as they were once known) wishing to grow one of their seeds, â€˜pays a licensing fee for each varietyâ€™.â€

Smith explains that â€œUnder the guise of helping Iraq back on its feet, the U.S. setting out to re-engineer the countryâ€™s traditional farming system into a U.S.-style corporate agribusiness.â€ In that traditional system, â€œ97 percent of Iraqi farmers used their own saved seed or bought seed from local markets.â€ He continues, â€œUnfortunately, this vital heritage and knowledge base is now believed lost, the victim of the current campaign and the many years of conflict that preceded it.â€

Of course, this project will also introduce â€œnew chemicalsâ€”pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, all sold to the Iraqis by corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill and Dow.â€

As Grain staff writers point out, â€œover the past decade, many countries of the South have been compelled to adopt seed patent laws through bilateral treatiesâ€ with the U.S. The Iraqi situation, however, is different in that â€œthe adoption of the patent law was not part of negotiations between sovereign countries. Nor did a sovereign law-making body enact it as reflecting the will of the Iraqi people.â€ Essentially, the U.S. has reneged on its promise of freedom for the Iraqi people. The actions of the U.S. clearly show that the will of the Iraqi people is not relevant. Paul Bremerâ€™s 100 orders make sure it will stay that way. Grain argues â€œIraqâ€™s freedom and sovereignty will remain questionable for as long as Iraqis do not have control over what they sow, grow, reap and eat.â€ Palast says poignantly, â€œThe free market paradise in Iraq is not free.â€

Update by Greg Palast: In February 2003, White House spokesman Ari Fleisher announced the preparations for â€œOperation Iraqi Liberationâ€â€”O.I.L.

I canâ€™t make these things up.

Iâ€™m not one of the those people who believes George Bush led us into Iraq for the oil but, from the documents Iâ€™ve obtained, itâ€™s clear that we sure as hell arenâ€™t leaving without it.

At BBC Television Newsnight, which has granted me journalistic asylum from the commercially-crazed madhouse of the American news market, we ran Fleisherâ€™s announcement of operation O.I.L. (later corrected to Operation Iraqi Freedomâ€”OIF!). More importantly, we ran a series of storiesâ€”which I also developed for Harperâ€™s Magazine in the USAâ€”on the pre-invasion plans to slice up and sell off Iraqâ€™s assets, â€œespecially the oil,â€ in the terms of one State Department secret document.

After we got our hands on the confidential document to â€œMove Iraqâ€™s Economy Forwardâ€â€”i.e. sell off its oilâ€”we at BBC put General Jay Garner on the air. Garner, whom the president appointed as viceroy over the newly-conquered Iraq, confirmed the plan to sell off Iraqâ€™s oilâ€”and his refusal to carry out the deed. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fired him and smeared him for his dissent. This was big, big news in Europe where I reported itâ€”but in the U.S. the story was buried.

We later discovered that the plan to sell off Iraqâ€™s oil was replaced by another confidential plan. This one, 323 pages long and literally written by oil industry consultants, was obtained by BBC and Harperâ€™s after a protracted legal war with the State Department. We discovered, interestingly, that this industry plan to create a state oil company favorable to OPEC was first conceived in February 2001. In other words, invasion was in the works, including stratagems for controlling Iraqâ€™s oil, within weekâ€™s of George Bushâ€™s first inauguration and well before the September 11 attack.

The discovery of this plan for Iraqâ€™s oil, received exactly zero coverage by the U.S. â€œmainstreamâ€ press. Only Harperâ€™s Magazine gave it full play along with those wonderful internet sites (Buzzflash, Guerrilla News, WorkingForChange, CommonDreams, Alternet and more ) that cussedly insist on printing news from abroad not approved by the Powers That Be.

Bless them. They, Project Censored, and Harperâ€™s, have my deepest thanks for bringing my words back home.

Want to see the television youâ€™re not supposed to see? The British Broadcasting Corporation has graciously kept my reports available as Internet video archives. Go to www.GregPalast.com and click on the â€œWatch BBCâ€ buttons for the stories effectively censored by the U.S. news lords and the Bush Administrationâ€™s chorus of journalist castrati.

Finally, I must give special thanks to our teamâ€™s special investigator on Iraq, Leni von Eckardt, to brilliant BBC producer Meirion Jones, to the stalwart editors of Harperâ€™s Magazine who withstood legal threats to publish the story, and to TomPaine.com, which has always provided a refuge for the best investigative reporting American newspapers wonâ€™t print.

#9 Iranâ€™s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency

Source:

GlobalResearch.ca, October 27

Title: â€œIran Next U.S. Targetâ€

Author: William Clark

Faculty Evaluator: Phil Beard, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Brian Miller

The U.S. media tells us that Iran may be the next target of U.S. aggression. The anticipated excuse is Iranâ€™s alleged nuclear weapons program. William Clark tells us that economic reasons may have more to do with U.S. concerns over Iran than any weapons of mass destruction.

In mid-2003 Iran broke from tradition and began accepting eurodollars as payment for its oil exports from its E.U. and Asian customers. Saddam Hussein attempted a similar bold step back in 2000 and was met with a devastating reaction from the U.S. Iraq now has no choice about using U.S. dollars for oil sales (Censored 2004 #19). However, Iraq’s plan to open an international oil exchange market for trading oil in the euro currency is a much larger threat to U.S. dollar supremacy than Iraqâ€™s switch to euros.

While the dollar is still the standard currency for trading international oil sales, in 2006 Iran intends to set up an oil exchange (or bourse) that would facilitate global trading of oil between industrialized and developing countries by pricing sales in the euro, or â€œpetroeuro.â€ To this end, they are creating a euro-denominated Internet-based oil exchange system for global oil sales. This is a direct challenge to U.S. dollar supremacy in the global oil market. It is widely speculated that the U.S. dollar has been inflated for some time now because of the monopoly position of â€œpetrodollarsâ€ in oil trades. With the level of national debt, the value of the dollar has been held artificially high compared to other currencies.

The vast majority of the worldâ€™s oil is traded on the New York NYMEX (Mercantile Exchange) and the London IPE (International Petroleum Exchange), and, as mentioned by Clark, both exchanges are owned by U.S. corporations. Both of these oil exchanges transact oil trades in U.S. currency. Iranâ€™s plan to create a new oil exchange would facilitate trading oil on the world market in euros. The euro has become a somewhat stronger and more stable trading medium than the U.S. dollar in recent years. Perhaps this is why Russia, Venezuela, and some members of OPEC have expressed interest in moving towards a petroeuro system for oil transactions. Without a doubt, a successful Iranian oil bourse may create momentum for other industrialized countries to stop exchanging their own currencies for petrodollars in order to buy oil. A shift away from U.S. dollars to euros in the oil market would cause the demand for petrodollars to drop, perhaps causing the value of the dollar to plummet. A precipitous drop in the value of the U.S. dollar would undermine the U.S. position as a world economic leader.

China is a major exporter to the United States, and its trade surplus with the U.S. means that China has become the worldâ€™s second largest holder of U.S. currency reserves (Japan is the largest holder with $800 billion, and China holds over $600 billion in T-bills). China would lose enormously if they were still holding vast amounts of U.S. currency when the dollar collapsed and assumed a more realistic value. Maintaining the U.S. as a market for their goods is a pre-eminent goal of Chinese financial policy, but they are increasingly dependent on Iran for their vital oil and gas imports. The Chinese government is careful to maintain the value of the yuan linked with the U.S. dollar (8.28 yuan to 1 dollar). This artificial linking makes them, effectively, one currency. But the Chinese government has indicated interest in de-linking the dollar-yuan arrangement, which could result in an immediate fall in the dollar. More worrisome is the potentiality of China to abandon its ongoing prolific purchase of U.S. Treasuries/debtâ€”should they become displeased with U.S. policies towards Iran.

Unstable situations cannot be expected to remain static. It is reasonable to expect that the Chinese are hedging their bets. It is unreasonable to expect that they plan to be left holding devalued dollars after a sudden decline in their value. It is possible that the artificial situation could continue for some time, but this will be due largely to the fact that the Chinese want it that way. Regardless, China seems to be in the process of unloading some of its U.S. dollar reserves in the world market to purchase oil reserves, and most recently attempted to buy Unocal, a California-based oil company.

The irony is that apparent U.S. plans to invade Iran put pressure on the Chinese to abandon their support of the dollar. Clark warns that â€œa unilateral U.S. military strike on Iran would further isolate the U.S. government, and it is conceivable that such an overt action could provoke other industrialized nations to abandon the dollar en masse.â€ Perhaps the U.S. planners think that they can corner the market in oil militarily. But from Clark’s point of view, â€œa U.S. intervention in Iran is likely to prove disastrous for the United States, making matters much worse regarding international terrorism, not to mention potential adverse effects on the U.S. economy.â€ The more likely outcome of an Iran invasion would be that, just as in Iraq, Iranian oil exports would dry up, regardless of what currency they are denominated in, and China would be compelled to abandon the dollar and buy oil from Russiaâ€”likely in euros. The conclusion is that U.S. leaders seem to have no idea what they are doing. Clark points out that, â€œWorld oil production is now flat out, and a major interruption would escalate oil prices to a level that would set off a global depression.â€

Update by William Clark: Following the completion of my essay in October 2004, three important stories appeared that dramatically raised the geopolitical stakes for the Bush Administration. First, on October 28, 2004, Iran and China signed a huge oil and gas trade agreement (valued between $70 and $100 billion dollars.)1 It should also be noted that China currently receives 13 percent of its oil imports from Iran. The Chinese government effectively drew a â€œline in the sandâ€ around Iran when it signed this huge oil and gas deal. Despite desires by U.S. elites to enforce petrodollar hegemony by force, the geopolitical risks of a U.S. attack on Iranâ€™s nuclear facilities would surely create a serious crisis between Washington and Beijing.

An article that addressed some of the strategic risks appeared in the December 2004 edition of the Atlantic Monthly.2 This story by James Fallows outlined the military war games against Iran that were conducted during the summer and autumn of 2004.These war-gaming sessions were led by Colonel Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel who for more than two decades ran war games at the National War College and other military institutions. Each scenario led to a dangerous escalation in both Iran and Iraq. Indeed, Col. Gardiner summarized the war games with the following conclusion, â€œAfter all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers: You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work.â€3

The third and final news item that revealed the Bush Administrationâ€™s intent to attack Iran was provided by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. The January 2005 issue of The New Yorker (â€œThe Coming Warsâ€) included interviews with high-level U.S. intelligence sources who repeatedly told Hersh that Iran was indeed the next strategic target.4 However, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China will likely veto any U.S. resolution calling for military action against Iran. A unilateral military strike on Iran would isolate the U.S. government in the eyes of the world community, and it is conceivable that such an overt action could provoke other industrialized nations to abandon the dollar in droves. I refer to this in my book as the â€œrogue nation hypothesis.â€

While central bankers throughout the world community would be extremely reluctant to â€œdump the dollar,â€ the reasons for any such drastic reaction are likely straightforward from their perspectiveâ€”the global community is dependent on the oil and gas energy supplies found in the Persian Gulf. Numerous oil geologists are warning that global oil production is now running â€œflat out.â€ Hence, any such efforts by the international community that resulted in a dollar currency crisis would be undertakenâ€”not to cripple the U.S. dollar and economy as punishment towards the American people per seâ€”but rather to thwart further unilateral warfare and its potentially destructive effects on the critical oil production and shipping infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. Barring a U.S. attack, it appears imminent that Iranâ€™s euro-denominated oil bourse will open in March, 2006.5 Logically, the most appropriate U.S. strategy is compromise with the E.U. and OPEC towards a dual-currency system for international oil trades.

For additional information: Readers interested in learning more about the dollar/euro oil currency conflict and the upcoming geological phenomenon referred to as Peak Oil can read William Clarkâ€™s new book, Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar. Available from New Society Publishers: www.newsociety.com, www.amazon.com or from your local book store.

NOTES

1. â€œChina, Iran sign biggest oil & gas deal,â€ China Daily, October 31, 2004. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/31/content_387140.htm.

2. James Fallows, â€œWill Iran be Next?,â€ Atlantic Monthly, December 2004, pgs. 97-110.

3. James Fallows, ibid.

4. Seymour Hersh, â€œThe Coming Wars,â€ The New Yorker, January 24th-31st issue, 2005, pgs. 40-47. Posted online January 17, 2005. Online: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact

5. â€œOil bourse closer to reality,â€ IranMania.com, December 28, 2004. Online: http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?ArchiveNews=Yes&NewsCode=28176&NewsKind=BusinessEconomy.

#10 Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy

Source:

Earthfirst! Nov-Dec 2004

Title: â€œSee You in the Mountains: Katuah Earth First! Confronts Mountaintop Removalâ€

Author: John Conner

Faculty Evaluator: Ervand Peterson, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Angela Sciortino

Mountaintop removal is a new form of coal mining in which companies dynamite the tops of mountains to collect the coal underneath. Multiple peaks are blown off and dumped onto highland watersheds, destroying entire mountain ranges. More than 1,000 miles of streams have been destroyed by this practice in West Virginia alone. Mountain top removal endangers and destroys entire communities with massive sediment dams and non-stop explosions.

According to Fred Mooney, an active member of the Mountain Faction of Katuah Earth First!, â€œMTR is an ecocidal mining practice in which greedy coal companies use millions of pounds of dynamite a day (three million pounds a day in the southwest Virginia alone) to blow up entire mountain ranges in order to extract a small amount of coal.â€ He goes on to say that â€œThen as if that wasnâ€™t bad enough, they dump the waste into valleys and riverbeds. The combination of these elements effectively kills everything in the ecosystems.â€

Most states are responsible for permitting and regulating mining operations under the Surface Mining Control Act. Now MTR is trying to break into Tennessee, specifically Zeb Mountain in the northeast. Because Tennessee did such a poor job in the â€™70s, the state renounced control, and all mining is now regulated under the federal Office of Surface Mining. This makes Tennessee unique because activists have recourse in the federal courts to stop mountaintop removal.

The coal industry has coined many less menacing names for mountaintop removal, such as cross range mining, surface mining and others. But regardless of the euphemism, MTR remains among the most pernicious forms of mining ever conceived. Blasting mountain tops with dynamite is cheaper than hiring miners who belong to a union. More than 40,000 have been lost to MTR in West Virginia alone.

Ninety-three new coal plants are being planned for construction throughout the U.S. Demand for coal will increase as these new facilities are completed. Oil is starting to run out and there are no concrete plans for a transition to renewable resources such as wind and solar energy. Coal companies therefore will be well-positioned to capitalize on their growing market. Katuah Earth First! (KEF!) is one of several groups resisting MTR.

The coal taken from Zeb Mountain is being burned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, and continues to cause environmental damage. KEF! wants to raise awareness and direct attention to the perpetratorsâ€”TVA and the Office of Surface Mining (OSM). KEF! emphasized that â€œthe issue of mountain top removal is not just a local one. It is intertwined with many global issues such as corporate domination of communities, the homogenization of local cultures and the over consumption of our wasteful society.â€

Four federal agencies that review applications for coal mines have entered an agreement that would give state governments an option that could speed up the process. The Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and Office of Surface Mining said that the agreement was intended to streamline the procedures companies go through when applying for permits to start surface coal mines, including those that remove entire mountaintops to unearth coal.1

Environmental groups are beginning to challenge these policies in federal district court. The current program allows the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a general permit for a category of activities under the Clean Water Act if they â€œwill cause only minimal adverse environmental effectsâ€ according to federal regulation. Coal companies then also must seek individual â€œauthorizationsâ€ from the Corps for the projects for which they have received a general permit.2

According to the Bush Administration, the federal judge who blocked the streamline permitting of new mountaintop removal coal mines has overstepped his authority. Lawyers for the Army Corps of Engineers asked a federal appeals court to overturn the July 2004 ruling by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin. Industry lawyers criticized Goodwinâ€™s decision as the â€œlatest unwarranted and impermissible dismantlingâ€ of mountaintop removal regulations by federal judges in Southern West Virginia.3

Update by John Conner: The destructions of highland watersheds are a crime against the very future. The Appalachian Mountains are some of the most diverse in the world. Areas incredibly rich in biodiversity are being turned into the biological equivalent of parking lots. It is the final solution for 200 million-year-old mountains. Since dynamite is cheaper than people, MTR has broken the back of the mining unions in West Virginia, massive sediment dams threaten to bury entire communities, water tables are destroyed, and wells dry up. It is a form of cultural genocide driving a mountain people from their hillsâ€”then destroying the hills themselves.

There has been a direct impact on Marsh Fork Elementary, where a massive sediment dam looms above the elementary school. Over 18 people have been arrested for non-violent civil disobedience trying to protect the children of that school. Additionally, Mountain Justice Summer has begun a campaign modeled on Redwood and Mississippi Summers, where folks from all over North America have come to our region to help us defend our mountains.

When the Martin County coal impoundment burst, it released more than 20 times the waste volume into a community than the Exxon Valdez spillâ€”yet the coal industry successfully suppressed the story. The coal industry is incredibly powerful, and there exists a glass ceiling on how far our stories go. The story of the folks committing civil disobedience for the first time in history in West Virginia to resist Mountain Top Removal was placed on the APâ€”but virtually no outlets outside of West Virginia picked it up.

People can get more information on this issue at mountainjusticesummer.org.

This site has everythingâ€”links, pictures, and state-by-state activities. From there you can sign yourself up for our electronic newsletter and find out what is going on in all the states under attack by Mountain Top Removal.

NOTES

1. Inside Energy with Federal lands, February 7, 2005,â€Environmentalists sue to block process for Ky. Mountaintop mining operations.â€

2. Associated Press, February 11, 2005, â€œFederal agencies will work together to speed up mining permits.â€

3. Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), March 22, 2005, Tuesday, â€œBush, Industry seek reversal of mining ruling.â€

#11 Universal Mental Screening Program Usurps Parental Rights

Sources:

Asheville Global Report (British Medical Journal),No. 284, June 24-30, 2004

Title: â€œBush Plans To Screen Whole U.S. Population For Mental Illnessâ€

Author: Jeanne Lenzer

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/284/#2

Truth News, September 13,2004

Title: â€œForcing Kids Into a Mental Health Ghettoâ€

Congressman Ron Paul

http://www.truthnews.net/world/2004090078.htm

Faculty Evaluator: David Van Nuys Ph.D.

Student Researchers: John Ferritto, Matt Johnson

In April of 2002, President Bush appointed a 22 member commission called the Presidentâ€™s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in order to â€œidentify policies that could be implemented by Federal, State and local governments to maximize the utility of existing resources, improve coordination of treatments and services, and promote successful community integration for adults with a serious mental illness and children with a serious emotional disturbance.â€1 Members of this commission include physicians in the mental health field and at least one (Robert N. Postlethwait) former employee of pharmaceutical giant Ely Lilly and Co.

In July of 2003 the commission published the results of their study. They found that mental health disorders often go undiagnosed and recommended to the President that there should be more comprehensive screening for mental illnesses for people of all ages, including pre-school age children. In accordance with their findings, the commission recommended that schools were in a â€œkey positionâ€ to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adult employees of our nationâ€™s schools.2

The commission also recommended linking the screenings with treatment and support. They recommended using the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a model treatment system.3 TMAP, which was implemented in Texasâ€™ publicly funded mental health care system while George W. Bush was governor of Texas,4 is a disease management program that aids physicians in prescribing drugs to patients based on clinical history, background, symptoms, and previous results. It was the first program in the United States aimed at establishing medication guidelines for treating mental health illnesses.5 Basically, it is an algorithm that recommends specific drugs which should be used to treat specific diseases. Funding for TMAP was provided by a Robert Wood-Johnson Grant as well as several major drug companies. The project began in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from pharmaceutical companies, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas.6

Critics of mental health screening and TMAP claim that it is a payoff to Pharmaceutical companies. Many cite Allen Jones, a former employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General. He was fired when he revealed that many key officials who have influence over the medication plan in his state received monetary perks and benefits from pharmaceutical companies, which benefited from their drugs being in the medication algorithm. TMAP also promotes the use of newer, more expensive anti-psychotic drugs. Results of studies conducted in the United States and Great Britain found that using the older, more established anti-psychotic drugs as a front line treatment rather than the newer experimental drugs makes more sense. Under TMAP, the Ely Lilly drug olanzapine, a new atypical antipsychotic drug, is used as a first line treatment rather than a more typical anti-psychotic medication. Perhaps it is because Ely Lilly has several ties to the Bush family, where George Bush Sr. was a member of the board of directors. George W. Bush also appointed Ely Lilly C.E.O. Sidney Taurel to a seat on the Homeland Security Council. Of Ely Lillyâ€™s $1.6 million political contributions in 2000, 82 percent went to Republicans and George W. Bush.7

In November of 2004, Congress appropriated $20 million8 to implement the findings of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. This would include mandatory screening by schools for mental health illnesses. Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas introduced an amendment to the appropriations bills which would withhold funding for mandatory mental health screenings and require parental consent and notification. His amendment, however, was voted down by a wide margin (95-315 in the House of Representatives).9 Paul, a doctor and long-time member of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) states, â€œAt issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical treatment is appropriate for their children. The notion of federal bureaucrats ordering potentially millions of youngsters to take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin strikes an emotional chord with American parents.â€ Paul says the allegation â€œthat we have a nation of children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment is patently false,â€ and warns that mental health screening could be used to label children whose attitudes, religious beliefs, and political views conflict with established doctrine. Paul further warns that an obvious major beneficiary of this legislation is the pharmaceutical industry. The AAPS has decried this legislation, which they say will lead to mandatory psychological testing of every child in America without parental consent, and â€œheap even more coercive pressure on parents to medicate children with potentially dangerous side effects.â€

Update by Jeanne Lenzer: Whether itâ€™s the pills we take or the oil we use, it would be reassuring to know that the information used to develop new medicines or to utilize natural resources wisely is based on scienceâ€”not corporate spin.

But blandishments from Big Pharma to politicians and doctors have a profound effect on health care in the U.S., making medical research closer to propaganda than science at times.

One way drug companies, in collusion with doctors, increase their market share is to expand the definition of diseases. When diagnostic criteria were liberalized for attention deficit disorder in 1991, the number of children diagnosed jumped by about 60 percent.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) acknowledged in the July 2004 issue of Advocacy News that, â€œThe BMJ story has gained some traction in derivative reports on the Internet.â€ But, they boasted, â€œmainstream media have not touched the story, in part thanks to APAâ€™s work, for which the [Bush] Administration is appreciative.â€10

The APAâ€™s boast is curious. The article was the most downloaded article in the history of the BMJ. It clearly struck a nerve with a public wary of doctors and politicians whose pockets are lined with drug company money.

Given the interest in the BMJ story, it would seem that the APA, instead of attempting to keep the story out of the mainstream media, would be anxious to counter the widely circulated statements in the article. It would also seem that the mainstream press could provide the Administration and the APA the best possible vehicle to counter these supposed factual errors in the BMJ article.

But, the facts might prove difficult to square with the public. More than one in every 100 toddlers and preschoolers in the United States are on powerful psychiatric drugs, such as Ritalin and Prozac, according to a study published in the February 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Joseph T. Coyle, M.D., wrote in an accompanying editorial, â€œIt appears that behaviorally disturbed children are now increasingly subjected to quick and inexpensive pharmacologic fixes, as opposed to informed mutimodal therapy.â€ He concluded, â€œThese disturbing prescription practices suggest a growing crisis in mental health services to children and demand more thorough investigation.â€

But instead of issuing warnings about overmedication or inappropriate prescribing, the experts on the New Freedom Commission warn ominously that too few children are receiving treatment for mental illness. They cite escalating numbers of toddlers expelled from daycare as evidence of potentially serious psychological problemsâ€”problems to be diagnosed and cured with mental health screening and pills. Social and economic reasons for the rise in kiddie expulsions are left unexamined.

As bad as this is for those put on drugs and labeled â€œmentally ill,â€ the far bigger concern is the creation of a disease for every drug, a situation made possible by the hand-in-glove relationship between industry and the government.

NOTES

1. http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov/.

2. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.

3. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.

4. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.

5. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=3084.

6. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.

7. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.

8. http://www.truthnews.net/world/2004090078.htm.

9. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41606.

10. See Medicating Aliah: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/medicating_ aliah.html.

Alliance for Human Research Protection â€œhttp://www.ahrp.orgâ€ www.ahrp.org http://www.psych.org/join_apa/mb/newsletters/advocacy/AdvNewsJuly2004.htm#21.

#12 Military in Iraq Contracts Human Rights Violators

Sources:

Mother Jones, November/December 2004

Title: â€œDirty Warriors: How South African Hitmen, Serbian Paramilitaries, and Other Human Rights Violators Became Guns for Hire for Military Contractors in Iraqâ€

Author: Barry Yeoman

www.corpwatch.org, March 7, 2005

Title: â€œIntelligence, Inc.â€

Author: Pratap Chatterjee

www.law.com, May 11, 2004

Title: â€œUntested Law Key in Iraqi Abuse Scandalâ€

Author: Jonathan Groner

Faculty Evaluator: Rick Williams, JD

Student Researcher: Danielle Hallstein

The United States government is contracting private firms to recruit, hire, and train civilians to perform duties normally done by military personnel. These corporate employees are sent to fill empty positions as prison guards, military police, and interrogators at United States military bases worldwide, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba. Independent of the United States military, these employees are not held accountable by military law. Many of the recruits are citizens with prior experience as policemen or soldiers. However, a number of the employees have backgrounds as mercenaries and soldiers who fought for repressive regimes throughout the world, such as in South Africa, Chile, and Yugoslavia. Employees from some of these firms have recently been indicated in prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The Pentagon claims that it can no longer fight the war on terror without enlisting the help of private contractors. The reason for this inability is that the number of active troops in the United States military has dropped from 2.1 million to 1.4 million since the end of the Cold War. This puts a lot of pressure on companies to fill positions as quickly as possible. One negative consequence of this rushed hiring is the lack of in-depth background checks on applicants. Many recruits have been implicated in past human rights violations, including torture and killing. One of these ex-soldier-turned-United States employees was Gary Branfield, who was killed in a firefight with Iraqi soldiers in the spring of 2004. In the 1980s he was a covert operations specialist working for the South African apartheid government. Branfieldâ€™s mission was to track down and assassinate members of the African National Congress living outside of South Africa. Mysteriously, this information failed to appear during background checks performed by Branfieldâ€™s employer, Hart Group. Hart Group has been hired by the United States to guard Iraqi energy facilities and to protect the engineers rebuilding Iraqâ€™s electricity network. Retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa Richard Goldstone comments, â€œThe mercenaries weâ€™re talking about worked for security forces that were synonymous with murder and torture.â€

The Titan Corporation, which claims to provide â€œcomprehensive information and communications products, solutions, and services for National Securityâ€ (www.corpwatch.org), has a contract with the U.S. to supply translators for the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A 2004 military investigation into prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib concluded that â€œTitan employees actively participated in detainee abuse, including assault and possibly rapeâ€ (Mother Jones, 2004). However, the only legal action taken against Titan as of yet is in the U.S. district court for the Southern district of California, where the Abu Ghraib prisoners have filed a class action suit against the employees of Titan. Employees of California Analysis Center Incorporated (CACI) were also found to have participated in the abuse. Plaintiffs in this suit are demanding a jury trial, but the process is moving slowly. Jeffrey Ellefante, executive vice president at CACI, says that CACI has yet to be informed of the specific accusations against its employees. Oddly enough, the soldiers implicated in the abuse have already been court martialed under the Military Code of Conduct.

So why is there a discrepancy between the punishment of soldiers and that of independent employees for the same crime? The answer is legal ramifications. While United States military personnel are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, independent contractors working through the Pentagon as civilians are not. Because of this, Congress passed the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) in 2000 to enable the prosecution of civilians â€œemployed by or accompanying U.S. armed forcesâ€ (www.law.com). Unfortunately, MEJA can only be applied to civilian employees who are contracted through the Department of Defense (DOD), and to crimes committed overseas that would merit a minimum one-year sentence under Federal law. Currently there is an investigation into the deaths of Iraqi prisoners after having been questioned by private interrogators hired by the CIA. If found guilty, these interrogators may be let off on a technicality because they work for the CIA, not the DOD, like MEJA requires.

This begs the question, under whose jurisdiction do these crimes fall? In an attempt to answer this, the Defense Department proposed new regulation earlier this year that â€œwould require DOD contractors to make sure their employees comply with the Uniform Code of Military Justice where applicableâ€ (www.law.com.) Debate over this proposal will open on May 24, 2005. Critic Daniel Guttman, fellow at John Hopkins University, questions the â€œwhere applicableâ€ phrase saying, â€œit says the Uniform Code applies where applicable, but when is that?…They seem to be making policy on the runâ€ (www.law.com). As for now, the Pentagon claims that it, â€œis not in the business of policing contractorsâ€™ hiring practices,â€ therefore it may take many more cases like Abu Ghraib before the U.S. government steps in to regulate the unlimited power that these private contractors are brandishing.

Update by Barry Yeoman: This was the first major article to systemically link the issues of military privatization with human rights abuses. We explained how the recent growth of a private security industry, fueled by the invasion of Iraq, necessitated the hiring of former soldiers and police officers trained and experienced in assassination and torture in formerly repressive countries.

Numerous radio stations have interviewed me about this article. Among the radio shows are â€œPolitical Thought,â€ WMAR, Poughkeepsie NY; â€œThe Morning Zone,â€ KGAB, Cheyenne WY; and Ian Mastersâ€™ Background Briefing, KPFK-FM, Los Angeles CA. The last of these interviews can be accessed at http://www.barryyeoman.com/biography.html.

A column called â€œCoalition of Willing is Dwindlingâ€ in the Paradise Post (CA) quoted from it. I have done extensive interviews with a European television network, which is producing a documentary on the subject.

Amnesty International has a petition drive seeking accountability for private contractors at Abu Ghraib: http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/action/ index.asp?step=2&item=10897.

There are several excellent resources on the growth of this industry: Peter Singerâ€™s book â€œCorporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industryâ€ (Cornell University Press, 2003) and the Center for Public Integrityâ€™s 11-part investigation â€œMaking a Killing: The Business of Warâ€ http://www. publicintegrity.org/bow/ are but a few.

#13 Rich Countries Fail to Live up to Global Pledges

Sources:

Oxfam Press Release, December 6, 2004

Title: â€œPoor Are Paying the Price of Rich Countriesâ€™ Failureâ€

Author: Caroline Green

http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pr041206_MDG.htm

InterPress Service, OneWorld U.S., December 6, 2004

Title: â€œ45 Million Children to Die in Next Decade Due to Rich Countriesâ€™ Miserlinessâ€

Author: Jim Lobe

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/99063/1/

Faculty Evaluator: Maureen Buckley, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Paige Dumont

Forty-five million children will needlessly die between now and the year 2015, reveals the report by Oxfam, â€œPoor Are Paying the Price of Rich Countriesâ€™ Failure.â€ According to this report, 97 million more children will be denied access to an education by the year 2015 and 53 million more people will lack proper sanitation facilities. Ending poverty will require assistance on many levels. For third world countries, economic growth is undermined by unfair trade rules. Without finance and support, these countries will not be able to take advantage of global trade, investment opportunities, or protect basic human rights.

Wealthy countries such as the U.S., Germany, Japan, and the UK have promised to provide a very small fraction of their wealth to third world countries. By offering .7 percent of their gross national income, they could reduce poverty and end the burden of debt that makes low income countries pay up to $100 million per day to creditors. In the years 1960-65, wealthy countries spent on average 0.48 percent of their combined national incomes on official development assistance but by the year 2003 the proportion had dropped to 0.24 percent. Vital poverty-reduction programs are failing for the lack of finance. Cambodia and Tanzania are among the poorest countries in the world, yet they will require at least double the level of external financing that they currently receive if they are to achieve their poverty-reduction targets.

Global initiatives to enable poor countries to develop provisional education and combat HIV/AIDS are starved of cash. Despite the fact that HIV infection rates are rising in sub-Saharan Africa, the global fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is assured of only one quarter of the funds that it needs for 2005. Poor countries continue to spend more paying back their creditors than they do on essential public services. Low-income countries paid $39 billion in debt payments and interest in 2003, while they received only $27 billion in aid.

Wealthy countries can easily afford to deliver the necessary aid and debt relief. For wealthy countries such as the U.S. to spend merely 0.7 percent of gross national income on humanitarian aid is equal to one-fifth of its expenditure on defense and one half of what it spends on domestic farm subsidies. The U.S., at just 0.14 percent, is the least generous provider of aid in proportion to national income of any developed country. By comparison, Norway is the most generous provider at 0.92 percent. The U.S. is spending more than twice as much on the war in Iraq as it would cost to increase its aid budget to 0.7 percent, and six times more on its military program. Canceling the debts of the 32 poorest countries would be small change for the wealthy nations.

Millions of children are now in school in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, thanks to money provided by foreign aid and debt relief. Because of these relief funds, Ugandans no longer have to pay for basic health care. A policy was implemented that resulted in an increase of 50 to 100 percent in attendance at Ugandan health clinics and doubled the rate on immunities. History also shows that aid has been necessary in eradicating global diseases as well as rebuilding countries devastated by war.

The wealthiest of nations have continuously signed international statements pledging to increase foreign aid to 0.7 percent of their gross national income in order to eliminate the crippling debts of third world countries. Repeatedly, they have broken their promises.

#14 Corporations Win Big on Tort Reform, Justice Suffers

Sources:

Dollars and Sense, Issue #252, March/April 2004

Title: â€œSupremes Limit Punitive Damagesâ€

Author: Jamie Court

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/0304court.html

Democracy now! Feb 4, 2005

Title: â€œTort reform: The Big Payoff for Corporations, Curbing the Lawsuits that Hold Them Accountableâ€

Author: Amy Goodman et al (Juan Gonzalez interview with Joanne Doroshow)

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/04/1537236

Faculty Evaluator: Perry Marker, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Chris Bui

On February 18, 2005, President Bush signed into law the most sweeping federal tort reform measure in more than a decade. The Class Action Fairness Act puts into effect a tort reform that will take away peopleâ€™s access to the courts, undermining the constitutional right to trial by jury. These reforms weaken consumer and worker protections, denying due process of law in civil cases to all but the wealthiest in our society. The act will move many civil lawsuits from state to federal courts in an attempt to end so-called â€œforum shoppingâ€ by trial lawyers seeking districts most hospitable to multi-party suits against companies.

What has been lost in all the partisan rhetoric is the fact that class action suits are most often lawsuits brought by people who have been hurt by HMO abuses, civil rights violations, or workplace injuries and violations. These are the suits that allow for compensation when large numbers of people are hurt by companies in the pursuit of profit. Although, at times, individual injuries may be relatively small, they represent a pattern of behavior on the part of the defendant. While legal recourse may not be available on an individual level, by joining together at the state level, people have been able to affect responsible change in the conduct of corporations. Federal courts are not expert in these cases, are already overburdened, and are much smaller than state courts. Critics claim that the real intention of this law is to make sure these cases get buried quickly and are ultimately dismissed.

Attached to this bill is a mass tort section that will severely restrict large class action suits against pharmaceutical companies and paves the way for medical malpractice reform, effectively immunizing abusive or negligent corporations from liability.

The reform sets a cap of $250,000 per lawsuit while shielding drug companies from responsibility for punitive damages and lawsuits where the drug had been approved by the FDA. One woman who was taking the FDA approved drug Vioxx, for example, had a stroke and continued taking the drug because she wasnâ€™t warned of its major side effectâ€”stroke. She went on to have a second stroke. The new reform would limit her settlement to $250,000 for a lifetime of disabilities. Under this new legislation corporations will not be held accountable for their faulty products and will only be punished with a slap on the wrist in terms of financial payment.

Update by Jamie Court: The Supreme Court ruling in Campbell seems to be an eye-glazing experience for the mainstream media. For example, the press ignored the significance of the ruling in covering the Congressional debate over 2005 legislation signed into law by President Bush that created new hurdles to class action lawsuits. Given the Campbell rulingâ€™s limits, the new class action restrictions give a virtual guarantee to banks, insurers, drug makers, and other big industries that no matter how egregious their conduct, the penalty will always be financially manageable. Indeed if the media had taken more notice of the ruling, President Bushâ€™s campaign plank of limiting lawsuits of all kind would be seen in a far different light.

Read the State Farm v. Campbell case at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/.

#15 Conservative Plan to Override Academic Freedom in the Classroom

Source: The Nation

Title: â€œThe New PCâ€

Author: Russell Jacoby

Date of Publication: April 4, 2005

Student Researchers: Vanessa Dern, Theodora Ruhs

For centuries, the higher education classroom has been a haven for honest debate and protected academic freedom. The college professor, one of the last â€œrugged individualists,â€ had the freedom to teach a given subject in his or her own manner, as he or she saw it. The interpretation of the subject matter was the professors own, not a representation of a â€œliberalâ€ or â€œconservativeâ€ dogma.

The halls of academia have included a wide variety of perspectives, from Newt Gingrich and William F. Buckley Jr. to Noam Chomsky and Albert Einstein.

In his article â€œThe New PC,â€ Russell Jacoby addresses a new extremist conservative movement to bring what they say is â€œpolitical balanceâ€ to higher education. These conservatives see academia as a hotbed of liberal activity that is working to indoctrinate Americaâ€™s youth with leftwing ideology, citing studies that conclude that faculty of most universities are overwhelmingly liberal. They fear that these liberal faculty members are abusing students who profess conservative belief systems, and to remedy this they are pushing for regulation of the academic world to monitor professorsâ€™ _expression of theory and opinion.

At the forefront of this movement is David Horowitz and his academic watchdog organization, Students for Academic Freedom (SAF). SAF counsels its student members that, when they come across an â€˜abuseâ€™ like controversial material in a course, they are to write down the date, class and name of the professor. They are advised to accumulate a list of incidents or quotes, obtain witnesses, and lodge a complaint. Many in the academic world see these actions as a new McCarthy-ismâ€”an effort to sniff out those who do not subscribe to the â€˜dominantâ€™ belief structure of the nation.

Beyond his student watch group, Horowitz is also championing a â€œStudent Bill of Rights.â€ Ironically, this bill claims to protect academic freedom. It proposes some ideas that are commonsense, such as, â€œstudents will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs.â€1 But Jacoby warns that academic freedoms extended to students easily turn into the end of freedom for teachers. In Horowitzâ€™s society of rights, students would have the right to hear all sides of all subjects all the time. Principle #4 of Horowitzâ€™s academic bill of rights states that curricula and reading lists â€œshould reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge,â€ and provide â€œstudents with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate.â€ The bill does not, however, distinguish when or where dissenting viewpoints are, or are not, appropriate.

The SAF website has a section for students to post â€˜abusesâ€™ and complaints about their academic experiences. Perusing these postings, Jacoby found one student reporting an â€˜abuseâ€™ in an introductory Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution class, â€œwhere military approaches were derided. The student complained that â€˜the only studying of conflict resolution that we did was to enforce the idea that non-violent means were the only legitimate sources of self-defense.â€ Jacoby points out the irony, â€œpresumably the professor of â€˜peace studiesâ€™ should be ordered to give equal time to â€˜war studies.â€™ By this principle, should the United States Army War College be required to teach pacifism?â€ From this point the movement seems to be rendered ridiculous.

Several authors, including Jacoby, point out the hypocrisy of Horowitzâ€™s focus on the humanities and education in general. The conservatives who feel such an urgency to protect the freedoms of conservative students in the humanities and to balance out the ratio of liberal to conservative faculty are in no rush to sort out the inequalities in business schools where the trend often appears to be the opposite, with the liberals in the minority. And as Jacoby points out, â€œof course, they do not address such imbalances in the police force, Pentagon, FBI, CIA, and other government outfits where the stakes seem far higher and where, presumably, followers of Michael Moore are short in supply.â€

Despite the apparent circus, this movement poses a real threat to the academic world. Whether or not the Student Bill of Rights passes in any of the state legislatures, where it stands as of Spring 2005, is not as important as how it influences public opinion. Already this movement has led to attacks and firings of a number of professors for their left leaning viewpoints. Ward Churchill, from the University of Colorado, was threatened with termination for using the term â€œlittle Eichmannsâ€ to describe World Trade Center workers.2 Oneida Mernato, a political science professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver, was also harassed for her liberal bias in class.3 And more recently, self-proclaimed anarchist David Graeber was fired, he believes, for his personal political activity, and for standing up for a student organizer who he felt was being treated unfairly.4,5

Horowitz also aims to affect other areas of government involvement in academia, specifically funding. Proclaiming that academics are â€œa privileged elite that work between six to nine hours a week, eight months a year for an annual salary of about $150,000 a year,â€6 Horowitz further claims that he is â€œdedicated to exposing the cowards who run our universities to the alumni and taxpayers who pay their salaries. State Senator Larry Mumper argues, â€œWhy should we, as fairly moderate to conservative legislators, continue to support universities that turn out students who rail against the very policies that their parents voted us in for?â€7

NOTES

1. Students for Academic Freedom. â€œThe Student Bill of Rights.â€ http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/essays/sbor.html.

2. ibid.

3. ibid.

4. http://www.villagevoice.com/people/0523,interview,64691,24.html.

5. â€œEarly Exitâ€ http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/05/18/yale.

6. Mattson, Kevin.

7. Mattson. Kevin.

#16 U.S. Plans for Hemispheric Integration Include Canada

Sources:

Centre for Research on Globalisation, November 23, 2004

Title: â€œIs the Annexation of Canada Part of Bushâ€™s Military Agenda?â€

Author: Michel Chossudovsky

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO411C.html

Canadian Dimension, Jan/Feb 2005, Winnipeg: Vol.39, Iss.1; pg. 12

Title: â€œCanadaâ€™s Chance to Keep Space for Peaceâ€

Author: Bruce K. Gagnon

space4peace.org

Faculty Evaluator: Sherril Jaffe, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Christina Reski

The U.S. and Canada have been sharing national information since the creation of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) in 1958. This bi-national agreement to provide aerospace warning and control for North America is scheduled to expire in May 2006. In preparation for the renewal of this contract, the U.S. and Canadian commanders are proposing to expand the integration of the two countries, including cooperation in the â€œStar Warsâ€ program, cross-national integration of military command structures, immigration, law enforcement, and intelligence gathering and sharing under the new title of NORTHCOM, U.S. Northern Command.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to join NORTHCOM. To circumvent his decision, this â€œillusive transitional militaryâ€ (aka NORAD/NORTHCOM) formed an interim military authority in December 2002, called the Bi-National Planning Group (BPG.) The command structure is fully integrated between NORAD, NORTHCOM and the BPG. The BPG is neither accountable to the U.S. Congress nor the Canadian House of Commons. The BPG is also scheduled to expire in May 2006. Hence, the push for Canada to join NORTHCOM.

Donald Rumsfeld said that U.S. Northern Command would have jurisdiction over the entire North American region. NORTHCOMâ€™s jurisdiction, outlined by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), includes all of Canada, Mexico, parts of the Caribbean, contiguous waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans up to 500 miles of the Mexican, U.S. and Canadian coastlines as well as the Canadian Artic.

Under NORTHCOM, Canadaâ€™s military command structures would be subordinated to those of the Pentagon and the DoD. In December 2001, the Canadian government reached an agreement with the head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, entitled the â€œCanada-U.S. Smart Border Declaration.â€ This agreement essentially hands over confidential information on Canadian citizens and residents to the U.S. Department of Homeland. It also provides U.S. authorities with access to tax records of Canadians. The National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, currently debated in the U.S. Senate, centers on a so-called â€˜Information Sharing Networkâ€™ to coordinate data from â€˜all available sources.â€™â€

The BPG is the interim military for NORTHCOM. Part of the BPGâ€™s agenda is the Civil Assistance Plan (CAP) which supports the ongoing militarization of the civilian law enforcement and judicial functions in both the U.S. and Canada. Military commanders would â€œprovide bi-national military assistance to civil authorities.â€ The U.S. military would have jurisdiction over Canadian territory from coast to coast, extending from the St. Laurence Valley to the Parry Island in the Canadian Arctic.

It appears that some Canadian leaders are in full support of this program. In the summer 2004, Canada agreed to amend the NORAD treaty to allow sharing satellite and radar data with the ballistic missile defense program based in Colorado. This operation center will control the 40 interceptor rockets planned for Alaska, California and at sea.

On February 22, 2005, at the NATO summit in Brussels, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin declared that his people would not participate in the controversial Missile Defense Shield. Contradicting this message, Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. (and former board member of the Caryle Group) Frank McKenna, said â€œWe are part of it now.â€

On August 2, 2004, the U.S. Air Force quietly published a new doctrine called â€œCounterspace Operations.â€ The development of offensive counterspace capabilities provides combatant commanders with new tools for counterspace operationsâ€¦that may be utilized throughout the spectrum of conflict and may achieve a variety of effects from temporary denial to complete destruction of the adversaryâ€™s space capability. It has also been noted that Canadian Military personnel are taking part in large scale American space war games designed to prepare for combat in orbit.

Under an integrated North American Command, Canada would be forced to embrace Washingtonâ€™s pre-emptive military doctrine, including the use of nuclear warheads as a means of self defense, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate in December 2003.

Similar bi-national negotiations are being conducted with Mexico. U.S. military could exert strategic control over air space, land mass and contiguous territorial waters extending from the Yucatan peninsula in southern Mexico to the Canadian Arctic, representing 12 percent of the worldâ€™s land mass. The militarization of South America under the â€œAndean Trade Preference Actâ€ as well as the signing of a â€œparallelâ€ military cooperation protocol by 27 countries of the Americas (the so-called Declaration of Manaus) is an integral part of the process of hemispheric integration (see story #17).

Richard N. Haass, of the U.S. Department of State, said at the 2002 Arthur Ross Lecture, â€œIn the 21st century, the principal aim of American foreign policy is to integrate other countries and organizations into arrangements that will sustain a world consistent with U.S. interests and values, and thereby promote peace, prosperity and justice as widely as possible. Integration reflects not merely a hope for the future, but the emerging reality of the Bush Administrationâ€™s foreign policy.â€

#17 U.S. Uses South American Military Bases to Expand Control of the Region

Sources:

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan/Feb 2005

Title: â€œWhatâ€™s the Deal at Mantaâ€

Author: Michael Flynn

NACLA Report on the Americas, Nov/Dec 2004

Title: â€œCreeping Militarization in the Americasâ€

Authors: Adam Isacson, Lisa Haugaard and Joy Olson

Z Magazine, December 29, 2004

Title: â€œColombiaâ€”A Shill (proxy) Country For U.S. Intervention In Venezuelaâ€

Authors: Sohan Sharma and Surinder Kumar

Faculty Evaluator: Jorge Porras, Ph. D.

Student Researchers: Adrienne Smith, Sarah Kintz

The United States has a military base in Manta, Ecuador, one of the three military bases located in Latin America. According to the United States, we are there to help the citizens of Manta, but an article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says that many people tell a different story.

According to Miguel Moran, head of a group called Movimiento Tohalli, which opposes the Manta military base, â€œManta is part of a broader U.S. imperialist strategy aimed at exploiting the continentâ€™s natural resources, suppressing popular movements, and ultimately invading neighboring Colombia.â€ Michael Flynn reported that the military base in Ecuador is an â€œintegral part of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Colombiaâ€”and is a potential staging ground for direct American involvement in the conflict there. Ecuadorians worry that the U.S. could ultimately pull their country into conflict.â€ Flynn goes on to say that â€œthe base is also at the center of a growing controversy regarding the U.S. efforts to block mass emigration from Ecuador [to the U.S.].â€ Policy makers have diminished the difference between police roles and military roles, stating that a police force is a body designed to protect a population through minimal use of force and the military, which aims to defeat an enemy through use of force.

According to a ten-year lease agreement between Ecuador and the United States, â€œ… U.S. activities at the base are to be limited to counter-narcotics surveillance flights (the agreements for the other two Latin American Forward Operating Locations contain similar restrictions).â€ Ecuadorian citizens are not pleased with the lease or the way the U.S. has abused it. â€œA coalition of social and labor organizations has called for the termination of the U.S. lease in Manta on the grounds that the United States has violated both the terms of the agreement and Ecuadorian law.â€

The U.S., says Flynn, is intervening in Colombia through private corporations and organizations. Most of the military operations and the spraying of biochemical agents are contracted out to private firms and private armies. In 2003, according to the article in Z Magazine, the U.S. State Department said, â€œ…there are seventeen primary contracting companies working in Colombia, initially receiving $3.5 million.â€ One of these private American defense contractors, DynCorp, runs the military base at Manta. â€œThe Pentagonâ€™s decision to give DynCorpâ€”a company that many Latin Americans closely associate with U.S. activities in Colombiaâ€”the contract to administer the base reinforced fears that the United States had more than drug interdiction in mind when it set up shop in Manta,â€ says Flynn.

In addition, say Sharma and Kumar, DynCorp was awarded a â€œ$600 million contract to carry out aerial spraying to eliminate coca crops which also contaminates maize, Yucca, and plantains-staple foods of the population; children and adults develop skin rashes.â€ The chemical, the foundation for the herbicide Roundup, is sprayed in Ecuador in a manner that would be illegal in the United States.

According to the NACLA report, in 2004, the Pentagon began installing 3 substitute logistics centers (now under construction) in the provinces of Guayas, Azuay, and Sucumbios, and is currently militarizing the Ecuadorian police who are receiving â€œanti-terroristâ€ training by the FBI. The U.S. military is also aiding Colombiaâ€™s â€œwar on drugs.â€ Isacson, Haugaard and Olson write that, â€œincreased militarization of antinarcotics operation is a pretext for stepped up counterinsurgency action and extending the war against them by the U.S.â€ Washington also has seven security offices in Ecuador: defense (DAO), drug enforcement (DEA), military aid (MAAG), internal security, national security (NSA), the U.S. Agency for Internal Development (USAID), the Peace Corps, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). According to the Bush Administration they are mixing military and police roles to â€œ…govern its counter-terror efforts in the hemisphere.â€

Michael Flynn offers this quote from an Ecuadorian writer as another example of the United States intervening in the operations of another country to further its own agenda: â€œThe U.S. invasion of Iraq and the pressure on Ecuador to sign the interdiction agreement form part of a policy aimed at consolidating a unipolar world with one hegemonic superpower.â€

Update by Michael Flynn: I think one important aspect of my story about the Manta base is that it shows the arrogance that often characterizes U.S. relations with its southern neighbors. This arrogance comes with a heavy price, which the U.S. is paying now as South American leaders express an ever greater willingness to take an independent path in their affairs and reject the U.S. lead. This fact was clearly revealed recently when the Organization of American States soundly rejected a U.S. proposal to set up a mechanism to review the state of democracy in the Americas. Manta is a small part of this much larger picture. U.S. ambassadors, the head of Southcom, even representatives in Congress have shown a disregard for Ecuadorian concerns about operations at the Manta base, which has helped fan criticism of the base, and has turned into a lightning rod of criticism of U.S. policies. And this is only one of among dozens of similar bases spread out across the globeâ€”what impact are they having on U.S. relations?

An equally important issue touched on in my story is the U.S. reaction to the migration crises that has gripped several Latin countries in recent years. Manta is a sort of quasi-outpost of the U.S. southern border, which has shown remarkable flexibility in recent years. The fact is, the border itself ceased long ago to be the front line in the effort to stop unwanted migration. The United States uses military bases located in host countries as staging grounds for detention efforts. It has funded detention centers in places like Guatemala City, and it has teamed up with law enforcement officials from other countries to carry out multi-lateral operations aimed at breaking up migrant smuggling activities. Manta is one piece in this larger puzzle.

To my knowledge, the mainstream press has not picked up on the precise story lines covered in my article. On the other hand, the press has not altogether ignored these issues either. Ginger Thompson of the New York Times has tracked the plight of migrants in several Latin American countries, and last year she teamed up with an Ecaudorean journalist to produce a remarkable story about the harrowing experience of migrants who dare to board the smuggling vessels leaving Ecuadorean shores. They did not, however, scrutinize Mantaâ€™s role in interdicting these migrants, or address the many problematic aspects of U.S. overseas interdiction practices. Regarding U.S. overseas military bases, the recent turmoil in Uzbekistan has drawn the attention of the U.S. press to contradictions in U.S. policy that have emerged between its desire to have bases in strategic spots around the world and President Bushâ€™s promise to advocate democratic change across the globe. Also, Dana Priest of the Washington Post has done excellent work reporting on the role of U.S. bases and military commanders around the globe. See, for example, Priestâ€™s The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with Americaâ€™s Military (New York: Norton, 2003). Several alternative press outlets have also tracked this issue, including for example Mother Jones magazine, which ran a story by Chalmers Johnson on this issue, and the Nation Instituteâ€™s Tom Engelhardt, who has run a number of pieces in his TomDispatch touching on U.S. overseas bases.

For additional information: For those interested in following up on the Manta base, the best source of information online is the web site of the Ecuadorean daily: El Universo at http://www.eluniverso.com/.

I would also suggest looking at the studies about U.S. forward operation locations published by the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute at http://www.tni.org/.

To find out more about U.S. cross-border interdiction policies, a story that has been woefully under-reported in the United States, I suggest taking a look at other stories I have written on this subject, some of which are available on the web site of the International Reporting Project: http://www.pewfellowships.org/index.htm.

Finally, to get a global perspective of U.S. basing ambitions, I suggest perusing the May 2005 report of the U.S. Overseas Basing Commission, which is available online at http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/obc.pdf.

Update by Lisa Haugaard: While the nation is focused on events in Iraq and Afghanistan, 9/11 has also had a disturbing impact on U.S. policy toward Latin America. But the growth in U.S. military programs towards Latin America and the unfortunate emphasis by the United States on encouraging non-defense related roles for militaries is part of a more general trend that the Center for International Policy, Latin America Working Group Education Fund and Washington Office on Latin America have been documenting since 1997. Latin American civil society organizations, individuals and governmental leaders have struggled hard to strictly limit their militariesâ€™ involvement in civilian affairs, given that many militaries in the region had exercised severe repression, carried out military coups and maintained political control during several turbulent decades. After this painful history, it is troubling for the United States to be encouraging militaries to once again adopt non-defense related roles, as is the growing weight of U.S. military, rather than regional development aid in U.S. relations.

We are seeing a continuation of the general trend of declining U.S. development assistance and stable military aid to the region as well as the United States encouraging actions that blur the line between civilian police and military roles. We are also witnessing efforts by the Defense Department to exercise greater control over â€œsecurity assistanceâ€(foreign military aid programs) worldwide, which were once overseen exclusively by the State Department. This almost invisible shift-â€”by no means limited to Latin Americaâ€”is disturbing because it removes the State Department as the lead agency in deciding where foreign military aid and training is appropriate as part of U.S. foreign policy. It will lead to less stringent oversight of military programs and less emphasis upon human rights conditionality.

Our report, which we published in Spanish, received good coverage from the Latin American press. Mainstream U.S. newspapers regularly use our military aid database. The larger story about the general trends in U.S. military aid in Latin America and changes in oversight of foreign military programs, however, is one that has been covered by only a few major media outlets.

To see our military aid database, reports and other information (a collaborative project by the three organizations) see our â€œJust the Factsâ€ website, http://www.ciponline.org/facts. See also our organizationsâ€™ websites: Washington Office on Latin America, www.wola.org; Center for International Policy, www. ciponline.org; and Latin America Working Group Education Fund, www.lawg.org.

We welcome efforts by journalists, scholars and nongovernmental organizations to insist upon greater transparency and public oversight of U.S. military training programs, not just in Latin America but worldwide.

#18 Little Known Stock Fraud Could Weaken U.S. Economy

Sources:

San Antonio Express-Newsâ€”March 2, 2005

Title: â€œNaked Short Selling Is A Plague For Businesses And Investorsâ€

Author: David Hendricks

TheMotleyFool.comâ€”March 30, 2005

Title: â€œWhoâ€™s Behind Naked Shorting?â€

Author: Karl Thiel

Financial Wireâ€”Stockgate Today Series

Title: â€œSECâ€™s Donaldson Addresses Liquidity Fraud,â€ September 20, 2004;

â€œDateline NBC Cancelled and Attorney Accuses DTCC of Cheap Thuggery,â€ April 7, 2005

Author: Dave Patch

Faculty Evaluator: Wingham Liddell, Ph.D.

Student Researcher: David Stolowitz

The negligence of government regulatory agencies and the media is becoming worrisome as a major scandal, unknown outside the financial community, is bankrupting small businesses and investors and having a negative effect on the economy.

While the balance of supply and demand is a fairly well known principle of economic health, a related and similar relationship exists between liquidityâ€”the availability of liquid, spendable assets such as cash, stocks and bondsâ€”and securityâ€”the stability, endurance and trustworthiness of more long-term financial mechanisms.

A healthy economy requires both enough access to liquid assets to ensure a smooth and flexible flow of money and a system that guarantees enough stability, protection and security for investors to take a reasonable measure of risk without having excessive fears of losing their money. Unreasonable emphasis on the first requirement and not enough attention to the second is a trend that has developed in the last decade and may have more to do with ideology than sound economic policy. Liquidity fraud and naked shorting abuses as described in this article are a symptom of a greater problem within our economic culture. This lopsided philosophy of economic regulation is a significant factor in creating the kind of climate that has produced company scandals like Enron and WorldCom, as well as a careless attitude towards free trade and globalization that may create more costs than benefits in the name of â€œeconomic growth.â€

The scandal coined â€œStockgateâ€ by the Financial Wire involves the abuse of a practice called â€œshort selling.â€ As opposed to a traditional approach to investing in which stocks are researched and bought on the hope they will rise over the â€œlongâ€ term, going â€œshortâ€ involves a bet that a stock is about to go down in value. In a short sale, an investor sells stock that he or she technically doesnâ€™t own. The investor borrows these shares of stock from their broker, who in turn may likely borrow the shares himself from a financial clearinghouse like a brokerage firm or hedge fund. Hoping that the price of the stock will drop, the investor is obligated to eventually â€œcloseâ€ the short by buying back the sold shares at a hopefully lower price, thus making a profit from the fall of the stock. When the time runs out for â€œcoveringâ€ the short and the price hasnâ€™t dropped, the investor is forced to buy back the shares at a loss and take a financial hit. The short sale of stocks is a risky bet, usually not recommended except for speculation or hedgingâ€”to protect long-term financial positions with short-term offsets. As short-selling is a sale of stocks not owned, but loaned, it is an example of buying on marginâ€”a category of practices whose abuses stand out clearly in many peopleâ€™s minds as a significant factor in the Stock Market Crash of 1929 which ushered in the Great Depression.

Naked shorting is an illegal abuse of short selling in which investors short-sell stock that they have no intention or ability to ever cover. When allowed to occur, naked shorting drives the stock value of a company down by creating more stock shares flowing around the market than actual shares of stock that the company can back with their current earnings. Companies, their shareholders, and indeed the entire economy are hurt financially by naked shorting, as it reduces the money available to support economic growth. According to activist Dave Patch, â€Naked shorting steals some of the greatest ideas, products, and services in America. Small micro-cap companies are driven out of business by this abuse and we are left with the unknowns of what these companies and their employees had to offer our futures. The opportunities for the next Microsoft may never be felt as naked shorting snuffed out that creativity before it was ever brought to fruition. Ultimately, naked shorting steals from the very foundation of our nation as it steals the American dream of opportunity.â€

Patch and other investors hurt by or concerned about the consequences of naked shorting organized, petitioned and investigated the background surrounding the Stockgate scandal. What they found was not merely a series of noteworthy cases of extravagant abuse by individual investors and professionals, but a systemic pattern of negligence by regulators that allowed the abuse to go by largely unchecked. A whole series of checks and balances was originally designed to prevent abuses like naked shorting. Yet, as their research has shown, every regulator along the way has failed its duty and led to both widespread and high-figure abuse. While investors have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in savings, the Wall Street Firms responsible for the abuse saw negligible fines that had no appreciable impact on their stock values. Some executives were even given raises in the midst of their negligence and fraud!

As more pressure has been brought against regulatory agencies to stop the fraud and enforce rules, an opposition has come forth that actually favors allowing the illegal practice to continue unchecked. These critics argue that all short sales, including illegal naked shorts, help bust the hype that can surround micro-cap companies. Excitement over new but untried ideas can artificially inflate stock prices, causing eventual losses to companies and investors when the bubble bursts, as in the case of the dot-com boom of the â€™90s.

While it is true, as the critics argue, that removing naked shorting could in some cases allow hyped prices to climb further, such an effect is vastly overrated. The argument does not take many other financial factors into account, such as the increased efficiency in the flow of information and shares that eliminating naked shorting would create or the fact that legal short selling could provide the same protections. Many securities analysts say it is fallacious to assert that the only recourse to the adjustment in hype and price securities is to allow an illegal practice to continue.

The same enforcement of already existing rules by regulators could curb hype just as much as it curbs naked shorts. A proactive stance by the financial community in informing and educating the public could also prevent the pump and dump schemes that such critics say would be the consequence of ending naked shorting.

Often it is the very organizations that did little to stop the dot-com problem from getting out of hand while it was occurring that now cry out at the prospect of the SEC stepping up to protect small investors from naked shorting. Of particular interest is the fact that much of this criticism comes out of the Depository Trust Commission (DTCC), which takes a share of profits from every short sale and is currently fighting off lawsuits accusing it of impropriety in a number of areas. The DTCC is also alleged to have brought pressure to bear on media corporations such as General Electric to suppress the story from being reported. GEâ€™s NBC Dateline program obtained an exclusivity contract to cover the Stockgate scandal over a year ago, and then postponed the episode indefinitely. Officially, Dateline claims that a slew of more important stories than this widespread financial scandal have caused the delay. At the time of this writing, however, they are preparing to air an Al Roker interview with an American Idol finalist.

Additional References:

David Sedore, â€œHedge Fund Assets Frozenâ€: March 4, 2005; â€œHedge Fund Virtually Bareâ€: March 12, 2005; etc. The Palm Beach Postâ€”KL Financial fraud series.

PrimeZone Media Network, â€œFirst American Scientific Corp. Takes Counter Measures to Stop â€˜Naked Shortingâ€™ of its Stockâ€â€”December 17, 2004.

#19 Child Wards of the State Used in AIDS Experiments

Sources:

UK Observer

Title: â€œGlaxoSmithKline Allegedly Used Children as Laboratory Animalsâ€

Author: Antony Barnett

Barnett’s article is based on the original research of Liam Scheff which can be viewed at:

http://www.altheal.org/texts/house.htm

Democracy Now! December 2004

Title: â€œGuinea Pig Kids: How New York City is Using Children to Test Experimental AIDS Drugs.â€

Mainstream Media Coverage: Fox News Network, The Oâ€™Reilley Factor, March 10, 2004, CBS Morning News, February 2, 2005.

Faculty Evaluator: Jeanette Koshar, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Mike Cattivera, Kiel Eorio

Orphans as young as three months old were used as test subjects in AIDS drug trials in New Yorkâ€™s Incarnation Childrenâ€™s Center. The Center, which is run by Catholic Charities, specializes in treating HIV sufferers, and the drug trials were performed on children with HIV or who were born to HIV-positive mothers. The New York City Health Department is looking into claims that more than 100 children at Incarnation were used in as many as 36 experiments. Most of these experiments were sponsored by federal agencies such as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Documents obtained by the UK Observer have implicated British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKlineâ€™s involvement in at least four experiments conducted at Incarnation since 1995 using black and Hispanic children. Several trials were conducted to test the toxicity of AIDS drugs. In one trial, children as young as four received a high-dosage cocktail of seven drugs; another tested the reaction of six-month-olds to a double dosage of a measles vaccine. Other studies conducted on children included testing AZT, which can carry dangerous side effects, as well as testing the long term safety of anti-bacterial drugs on six-month old babies. GlaxoSmithKline also used children to â€œobtain tolerance, safety and pharmacokinetic dataâ€ for Herpes drugs.

These trials were conducted by Columbia University Medical Center doctors. A spokesperson for Columbia University said that there have been no trials at Incarnation since 2000, and that the consent for using the children as test subjects was provided by the Administration for Childrenâ€™s Services. Consent was based upon a panel of doctors and lawyers who decided whether or not the benefits of allowing the child to receive the drugs outweighed the risks (although it was unclear what recipient â€œbenefitsâ€ referred to). Though GlaxoSmithKline has acknowledged their involvement in the trials at Incarnation, they deny any wrongdoing. According to their spokesperson: â€œThese studies were implemented by the U.S. Aids Clinical Trial Group, a clinical research network paid for by the National Institutes of Health. Glaxoâ€™s involvement in such studies would have been to provide study drugs or funding but we would have no interactions with the patients.â€

The medical community has defended these studies, saying it enabled children, normally without access to treatment, the opportunity to receive AIDS drugs. However, many, outraged at these studies, argue there is a difference between providing children with the latest AIDS drugs and using them for experimentation. According to Antony Barnett, several experiments were considered to be Phase 1 trials, which are among the most dangerous. These drugs are similar to those used in chemotherapy and carry serious side effects. Critics also argue that it is difficult to test babies for HIV, and results are often incorrect; therefore many of these trials may have been conducted on babies or children not actually infected with HIV.

These trials at New Yorkâ€™s Incarnation Childrenâ€™s Center were part of a broader series of HIV and AIDS drug trials that were conducted in at least seven states on foster children. Some children died during the trials. However, government officials have so far found no evidence that their deaths could be directly connected to the experiments.1

NOTE

1. http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20050511-103959-2907r.htm.

#20 American Indians Sue for Resources; Compensation Provided to Others

Sources:

LiP, Winter 2004

Title: â€œTrust Us, Weâ€™re the Government: How to Make $137 Billion of Indian Money Disappear.â€

Author: Brian Awehali

News from Indian Country, March 8, 2004

Title: â€œDespite Wealth of Resources, Many Tribes Still Live in Povertyâ€

Author: Angie Wagner

Mainstream Media Coverage: New York Times, April 7, 2004, and the Washington Post, March 14, 2004

Community Evaluator: Keith Pike MA

Student Researcher: Kiel Eorio

Native Americans, after more than two centuries, are still being cheated by the government and U.S. companies. Oil companies operate at Montezuma Creek in Utah. Montezuma Creek lies on a Navajo Reservation. The companies have under-compensated the Native Americans for the right to their natural resources since the 1950s. District court-appointed invesigator Alan Balaran discovered that non-Native Americans in the same area received royalties that amounted to more than 20 times the amount of the Native Americans on the reservation.

Native American reservations are filled with natural resources, but the government has routinely allowed energy companies to short-change the tribes. In Balaranâ€™s findings it shows that the government owes Native Americans as much as $137.5 billion in back royalties. The issue of the government keeping funds from Native Americans dates back to the Dawes Act of 1887. The Dawes act created a trust fund for Native Americans over the years; since then the government has grossly mismanaged revenues from oil, timber and mineral leases on tribal land.

According to Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, many Native Americans depend on these royalty checks for the bare necessities. The Navajo Nation has more than 140,000 members and is the countryâ€™s largest tribe. It is also one of the poorest. More than 40 percent of its people live in poverty while the median household annual income is $20,000, less than half of the national median. Mary Johnson, a Navajo tribe member, who lives in a one bedroom stone house off the main highway, once received a royalty check for $5.30. These required checks are commonly paid out in sporadic intervals.

Johnson Martinez, a 68-year-old Navajo, lives out of a trailer that is pulled by his pickup truck. His â€œhomeâ€ is just yards away from where gas pipelines sit on the family land. He has no running water and sometimes no electricity. There are even times when he doesnâ€™t have any food. At night he builds a fire to keep him and his dogs warm. Sometimes he has received checks for only a few cents.

In 1994, Congress passed the American Indian Trust Reform Act. This required the Interior Department to account for all the money in the trust fund and clean up the accounting process. The Individual Indian Monies case, also known as Cobell V. Norton, is the largest class action suit ever filed against the federal government. Filed in 1996, Elouise Cobell is at the center of the suit that involves more than 100 years of revenues generated by government leases on Native American land held â€œin trustâ€ for mining as well as oil and gas exploration. For years she has tried to get an accurate accounting of funds held in trust by the U.S. Government for individual Native American land leased by the federal government for natural resource stripping. The defendant in the Cobell V. Norton case is Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton. She has been held in contempt by Federal Judge Royce C. Lamberth for ignoring his orders to account for the fund. Lamberth stated that he had never seen greater government incompetence than the Interior Department had shown in administrating the money and representing itself in court.

In early of 2001, Alan Balaran, the investigator in the case, made a surprise visit to the Governmentâ€™s warehouse. There he found papers from a shredder, which had records concerning the money paid out of the trust fund. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which resides under the Interior Department, stated that similar documents were being shredded every day.

In March of 2004, Lamberth ordered a shutdown for the Interior Departmentâ€™s internet connections due to security holes that could have allowed hackers to access hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties from Native American lands managed by the agency, according to Balaranâ€™s findings. This was the third internet shutdown in three years. This particular shutdown was ordered after the Interior Department refused to sign sworn certificates that it had fixed major security flaws. This is the same system that processes hundreds of millions of dollars annually for Native Americans.

In April of 2004, Alan Balaran resigned under pressure as the investigator in the case. He states that the Bush Administration has been pursuing his refusal to silence criticisms of the Interior Departmentâ€™s handling of individual Native American accounts. Balaranâ€™s findings show that the Bush Administration knowingly allowed energy companies to continue to pay Native Americans far less than non-Native Americans for natural resources. Judge Royce C. Lamberth has ordered the government to complete a historic accounting for all funds in the case by January 6, 2008.

References:

Rocky Mountain News, August 21, 2003 â€œIndians Underpaid for Land Leases, Official Charges; Appraisal Program Under Norton Targetedâ€ by M.E. Sprengelmeyer.

Bismarck Tribune, April 7, 2004, â€œInvestigator: Interior Favored Companiesâ€ by Robert Gehrke.

PR Newswire, February 24, 2005 â€œCobell Litigation Team: U.S. District Court Reissues Structural Injunction in Cobell V. Norton Indian Trust Case-Full Accounting to Be Complete by January 6, 2008.â€

Update by Brian Awehali: The Cobell v. Norton case is important because the government is colossally and obviously wrong. This is evident in light of the success of Eloise Cobellâ€™s team in successive court victories. The sheer scope of the case, its possible precedent-setting resolution, and the ways in which it highlights the current limitations of Native Americansâ€™ dependent-yet-sovereign status, all provide opportunities for real reform and long-term re-examination of the terms of U.S.-to-Native, government-to-government relations.

Media coverage of this story has largely suffered from two main challenges. The first challenge has been the massive bureaucratic complexities of the case, which I believe insulated it from quite a lot of daily news coverage. The second, and subtler, challenge is the average Americanâ€™s lack of understanding of Native sovereignty. Without a clear understanding of this, Americans literally have no meaningful framework to fit the story into, and it simply disappears.

Ongoing security flaws in the Department of the Interiorâ€™s trust accounting systems have continued for a ridiculously long time. Despite failure after failure to amend security flaws that allow for manipulation of records, and in spite of repeated documented instances of bureaucratic ill will resulting in massive theft and â€œlossâ€ from trust accounts, the Department of the Interior is still in charge of them. Another investigative story on SmartMoney.com (December 3, 2004) reported that â€œofficials in the Bush Administration had detailed knowledge of fraudulent practices that allowed energy companies to cheat impoverished Native Americans out of vast sums over dozens of years.â€

Indian Country Today also reported that behind the scenes negotiations might already be happening between the White House and Congressâ€”but not with the plaintiffs in the case. The piece also warns of the possibility of another â€œmidnight riderâ€ on an appropriations bill that would effectively defer justice for yet another year.

Because recent developments in this case have centered mostly around court motions and abstruse legal machinations, there hasnâ€™t been much hard â€œnewsâ€ for the mainstream press to grab onto. Without new and breaking â€œhooks,â€ I think the perception is that this is an old story, rather than the very urgent and pressing one that it is. I also believe the governmentâ€™s strategyâ€”stall, obfuscate and deceiveâ€”is a deliberate attempt to keep media attention largely surface and scattershot.

The best places to go for information about the case are the following sites: http://www.indiantrust.com, Indian Country Today: http://www.indiancountry.com, The Friends Committee on National Legislation: http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1266&issue_id=112

#21 New Immigration Plan Favors Business Over People

Sources:

Interhemispheric Resource Center IRC,

November 16, 2004,

Washington Free Press, Nov/Dec, 2004

Title: How U.S. Corporations Won the Debate Over Immigration

Author: David Bacon

www.washingtonfreepress.org/72/howUsCorporationsWon.htm

MotherJones.com, November 11, 2004

Title: â€œMigrants No Moreâ€

Author: Maggie Jones

www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/11/11_404

Faculty Evaluator: Francisco Vazquez, Ph.D.

Student Researchers: Joseph F. Davis

A bi-partisan effort from the Federal government is emerging to close the borders with Mexico by increasing barriers that keep â€œillegalâ€ immigrants from traveling to and from Mexico, and in turn creating a guest worker program with specific time limits for residency. Reminiscent of the defunct bracero program, the status of â€œguest workerâ€ has reappeared as the preferred name for Mexican nationals working in this country.

The leading organization behind the guest worker legislation is The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC), which was organized in 1999, while Bill Clinton was still president. The group quickly grew to include 36 of the countryâ€™s most powerful employer associations, headed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The National Association of Chain Drug Storesâ€”including Wal Mart (which was sanctioned for employing undocumented workers last year)â€”belongs, as do the American Health Care Association, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, the National Restaurant Association, and the National Retail Federation. Each of these associations represents employers who depend on a workforce almost entirely without benefits and working at (or below) minimum wage.

Edward Kennedy, Democrat, and John McCain, Republican, are promoting a bi-partisan bill that would create the designation of â€œguest workerâ€ for a three year period. About half a million workers would be eligible for the status if they are sponsored by American businesses and pay five hundred dollars. The over ten million undocumented workers residing in the United States who are not sponsored by businesses would be encouraged to come forward and pay a two-thousand-dollar fine to receive the new status. The guest worker category can be renewed after three years, or businesses could sponsor workers for green cards.

The proposed legislation does not address the growing problem of undocumented workers residing in the United States. Because of the nature of the work being offered under this program, most guest workers will be left with little more than minimum wage employment. There are no benefits or health care offered under the new program. The two-thousand-dollar price tag for uninvited potential guest workers means that most of the more than ten million undocumented workers will be unwilling to come forth. Historically, millions of Mexican laborers would return to Mexico during off-seasons to visit family. Today, with tighter border restrictions and the cost of paying a labor smuggler up to $300, few people return to Mexico, resulting in permanent under-class poverty communities spread out throughout the country.

There has been no serious discussion on Capitol Hill on realistically dealing with the undocumented worker situation in this country because U.S. corporations will continue to benefit from cheap labor sources from outside and inside the borders of the United States.

The official bracero program, negotiated in 1942 between the U.S. and Mexican governments was ended in 1964. Ernesto Galarza, a labor organizer, former diplomat and early hero of the Chicano movement, was its greatest opponent in Washington. But Cesar Chavez was also an early voice calling for abolition. Chavez later said he could never have organized the United Farm Workers until growers could no longer hire braceros during strikes. In fact, the great five-year grape strike in which the UFW was born began the year after the bracero program ended. According to the UFWâ€™s Mark Grossman, â€œChavez believed agribusinessâ€™ chief farm labor strategy for decades was maintaining a surplus labor supply to keep wages and benefits depressed, and fight unionization.â€

The organization of veterans of the bracero program, with chapters in both the U.S. and Mexico, was even more critical. â€œWeâ€™re totally opposed to the institution of new guest worker programs,â€ explained Ventura Gutierrez, head of the Union Sin Fronteras. â€œPeople who lived through the old program know the abuse they will cause.â€ One former bracero, Manual Herrera, told the Associated Pressâ€™s Julianna Barbassa, â€œthey rented us, got our work, then sent us back when they had no more use for us.â€ Thousands of former braceros are still trying to collect money deducted from their pay during the 1940s and 1950s.

Money that was supposedly held in trust to ensure they completed work contracts, but never turned over to them. Bushâ€™s proposal contains a similar provision. â€œIf we accept, then our grandsons and great-grandsons will go through what we went through,â€ ex-bracero Florentino Lararios told Barbassa. U.S. labor opposition focused on the lack of a real amnesty. Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, and one of the AFL-CIOâ€™s key policy makers on immigration, said, â€œBush tells immigrants you have no right to earn citizenship, but tells corporations you have the right to exploit workers, both American and immigrantâ€¦.â€ This proposal allows hard-working, tax-paying immigrants to become a legitimate part of our economy, but it keeps them from fully participating in our democracyâ€”making immigrants a permanent sub-class of our society.

Update by David Bacon: â€œHow Corporations Won the Debate over Immigrationâ€ broke a story of national importanceâ€”how the largest U.S. corporations, dependent on a steady supply of immigrant workers, got the President and Congress to introduce legislation giving them a vastly expanded guest worker program. This program, like the old â€œbraceroâ€ program of the 1940s and â€™50s, used a system of contract labor to exploit immigrant workers and deny them their rights, while creating an oversupply of labor to drive down wages for all workers, immigrant and non-immigrant alike.

The story was originally published in the fall of 2004. By the spring of 2005, corporate pressure for expanded guestworker programs had grown so strong that even bipartisan proposals for immigration reform included them. The word in Washington DC is now that no immigration reform is worth discussing unless corporate America gets what it wants. In mid-May, a new bill was introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy and John McCain, which includes a program even larger than that proposed by Bush.

The Presidentâ€™s program calls for 300,000 people to be given temporary visas for three years, renewable for another three. The Kennedy/McCain bill calls for 400,000 temporary visas. In addition, the bill calls for requiring the 9 million currently undocumented immigrants in the U.S. to enroll as guestworkers for six years to qualify for making application for a green card, and to pay a $2000 fine. Increased enforcement of employer sanctions, the law that makes it a federal crime for an undocumented worker to hold a job, would be used to force people into the program by making it even more risky to try to work without becoming a guest worker.

Despite these draconian provisions, the bill won the sponsorship of many Democrats, and almost no Republicans. In the meantime, Texas Senator Cornyn annouunced his intention to introduce an even more conservative bill in mid-July. The Cornyn bill is regarded as the legislative embodiment of the Presidentâ€™s program. It is a straight temporary worker bill, with no provisions for legalization.

No matter whether sponsored by Democrats or Republicans, the corporate lobby for temporary workers has legislation which corresponds to its program.

In the meantime, however, a much more liberal bill has been introduced by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Instead of increasing job competition and pitting one group of low-wage workers against another, the bill tries to balance the needs of all low-wage workers. African-American and other minority communities suffering high unemployment would receive job training and creation programs. The bill would set up a legalization program for undocumented immigrants based on their residency, rather than employment status. It has provisions to strengthen protection for the rights of immigrant workers, ends discrimination against immigrants from countries like Haiti and Liberia, and has no guest worker program.

Republicans and many Democrats have derided the Jackson Lee bill as incompatible with the atmosphere in Congress, which seeks both to reward corporations and increase punitive measures against immigrants, especially the undocumented. But a rising tide of protest in immigrant communities and other communities of color around the country has criticized the growing wave of anti-immigrant legislation, and is callling for a movement to defend their rights instead.

Generally, the story of corporate sponsorship of the guest worker proposals has been ignored by the mainstream media. Reports on the Kennedy-McCain and Bush proposals have treated them as â€œpro-immigrantâ€ because they would allow workers to cross the border legally. Theyâ€™ve ignored the actual conditions for immigrants under current guest worker programs, as well as the money and influence trail leading back from these proposals to the corporate lobby, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition. They have also ignored the Jackson-Lee bill, even though it presents the unprecedented political situation in which the countryâ€™s most progressive immigration legislation is being proposed by African-American Congress members.

Readers who want more information about the overall situation of immigrants and legislation which affects them can contact the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, at 510-465-1984, www.nnirr.org. More information on pending immigration legislation and the Jackson Lee bill is available from Nolan Rappaport, minority counsel to the House Immigration Subcommittee, 202-225-2329.

#22 Nanotechnology Offers Exciting Possibilities But Health Effects Need Scrutiny

Source:

The Chronicle of Higher Education September 10, 2004

Title: â€œThe Dark Side of Smallâ€

Author: Richard Monastersky

Faculty Evaluator: Scott Gordon, Ph. D., Jennifer Lillig Whiles, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Jason Piepmeier

The science of nanotechnology is rapidly advancing, but there is little research to show whether or not nano-sized molecules are safe for people and the environment.

Nanotechnology is the science of using molecules that are virtually impossible to see; one blood cell measures at 7,000 nanometers in width. Nanotechnology has virtually unlimited potential. Products such as stainless, wrinkle free pants use nanotechnology as well as transparent sunscreens and tennis balls that keep their bounce. The U.S. government spent close to $1 billion in 2004 on research and development in nanotechnology.

However, only 1 percent of it is going towards research for risk assessment, despite the fact that nanotechnology also has the potential to cause harm to people and the environment. The nano-sized molecules can damage, or kill, the skin cells of humans and also kill valuable bacteria in water. The reason little money is given to research the risks is nanotechnologyâ€™s huge upside; some estimates predict that the nanotech market will reach $1 trillion in a decade.

Thousands of papers have come out touting different developments in nanoscience, but fewer than fifty have examined how engineered nanoparticles will affect people and the environment. The studies that have been conducted to determine if nano-molecules are safe paint a grim picture for nanotechnology. In the spring of 2004, Eva Oberdorster, an adjunct scientist at Duke University, made headlines with potentially disturbing news about highly praised a nanoparticle called â€œfullerness,â€ named for the inventor R. Buckminister Fuller.

The â€œfullernessâ€ is made of 60 carbon atoms, bonded together like a molecular soccer ball. Oberdorster put a solution of â€œfullernessâ€ into a tank with large-mouthed bass and later examined different organs in the fish. She found signs of oxidative damage in their brains and speculated that the nanoparticles had stimulated the production of free radicals, highly reactive compounds that can cause cellular damage. â€œNormally,â€ she said, â€œparticles canâ€™t get into the brains of fish or people because a protective structure called the blood-brain barrier keeps out harmful materials.â€ But Oberdorsterâ€™s, and other experiments show that nano-size particles can slip through that barrier by traveling up nerve cells into the brain.

Oberdorsterâ€™s father also studies the effects of nanoparticles. Dr. Gunter Oberdorster, a professor of toxicology in environmental medicine at the University of Rochester, received a $5.5 million, five-year grant from the Department of Defense to study the effects of nanoparticles. Scientists at the University of Rochester looked at the titanium dioxide nanoparticles that are used as pigments in white paint. Rats and mice inhaled particles ranging in size from 12 nanometers up to 250 nanometers. The smaller particles were found to cause more inflammation than an equal amount of larger particles. â€œThe smaller particles react differently from the larger ones,â€ he says, â€œbecause nano-size materials evade the normal defense system in the lungs, the macrophage cells that gobble up the irritants and clear them out.â€ Once nanoparticles get deep into the lungs, they can cross over into the blood stream and from there can into any organ in the body. Inhaling the nano-sized particles in titanium dioxide, which is on the market now, is unlikely because they are captured in liquid substances. However, Dr. Oberdoester suggests that it may be possible for nanoparticles to cross over through the skin.

Another study, run by Anna A. Shevedova, an adjunct associate professor at West Virginia and a senior staff scientist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), found that carbon nanotubes generated dangerous free radicals in cultures of human skin cells. Her research team reported that the nanotubes caused oxidative damage that triggered the deaths of cells.

Almost everybody involved in nanotechnology says it is too soon to tell whether and how these materials might harm people or the environment. But early studies show that this is something that should be looked into more seriously. In a survey conducted by North Carolina State University, public perception of nanotechnology remains fairly positive. As has happened with new technologies in the past, this optimism may become accusations and lawsuits if the side effects of nanotechnology outweigh the benefits.

#23 Plight of Palestinian Child Detainees Highlights Global Problem

Sources:

Left Turn, December 2004

Title: â€œControl & Resistance: Palestinian Child Prisonersâ€

Authors: Catherine Cook, Adah Kay, Adam Hanieh

The Guardian, August 28, 2004

Title: â€œPalestinians Want an End to Their Solitary Confinementâ€

Author: Karma Nabulsi

Faculty Evaluator: Carolyn Epple, Ph. D. Maureen Buckley, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Shatae Jones

According to Catherine Cook, Adah Kay, and Adam Hanieh, approximately 350 Palestinian children ages 12-18, are currently being held in Israeli prisons. Over 2,000 children have been arrested since the beginning of the second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. This number corresponds with number given in a report by the human rights organization Defense for Children International, which adds that another 170 children are held in military detention centers.

Looking at the testimonies from hundreds of detained children, Cook et al found a pattern in the childrenâ€™s experience of arrest, interrogation, sentencing and prison conditions. The children overwhelmingly reported abuse during their experience in either prison or detention camp. The consistency of these reports reveals that these patterns of abuse are not just the actions of a few bad soldiers, but perhaps reveals a broader policy. Virtually every child interviewed describes a deliberate pattern of behavior by Israeli soldiers or police characterized by violence, physical and psychological threats, and overwhelming force, often in the middle of the night. Cook, Kay and Hanieh believe that the similarity in testimonies from child prisoners points to a systematic approach to child abuse, calculated to exploit childrenâ€™s vulnerability and create feelings of fear, intimidation and helplessness.

One testimony in their study states, â€œBecause there was no one I could talk to and I felt incredibly frightened and scared, I tried to commit suicide while being in solitary confinement. On October 12, 2003, I was moved to Ofer Military Prison Camp. When I arrived the soldiers asked me to take off my clothes. They used a metal detector on my naked body. One hand was holding the metal detector, while the other hand touched my naked body, concentrating mainly on my back and bottom.â€

Even without the abuses by personnel, the living conditions that children are put in are bad enough. The report by Karma Nabulsi tells us that children are â€œlocked in cells for hours on end with, in some cases, only 45 minutes outdoor exercise allowed every two days. Many are forced to sleep on the floor due to overcrowding. Windows are boarded up with iron panels, which block out the light and intensify the heat in the rooms.â€ Practices, such as these, have been well documented in other troubled areas around the world, but are only beginning to be documented within occupied territories.

Also noticeable is a lack of decent healthcare. Cook, Kay and Hanieh see the abuse of children during interrogation, the notoriously poor sanitary conditions within Israeli prisons, and denial of adequate medical treatment as ways to pressure child detainees into collaboration. When conducting a series of interviews with 60 ex-prisoners from Bethlehem in 1994, the authors found that â€œ90 percent of those interviewed claimed that the administration used the denial of medical treatment as a way of recruiting collaborators.â€ One former child prisoner asserted that prisoners were well aware that the prison hospitals were using the threat of withholding treatment to force detainees to collaborate.

According to the DCI report, â€œIn many areas, Israel does not reach the standards demanded by the minimum rules [of the UN Convention of the Rights of a Child]. For instance, it is not possible for a youth in detention to work, and there are no educational facilities. In the territories, the situation is even worse.â€ This statement implies that the rights of all children (Israeli as well as Palestinian) are not being attended to by Israeli authorities. It seems that in Israel there is a problem in the attitude toward child welfare in general. But, according to Project Censored evaluator Maureen Buckley, â€œthis story represents just a small piece of the larger picture of the ongoing, worldwide failure to protect the rights of children.â€

Reference:

DCI Israel Childrenâ€™s Rights Monitor, 2004 Report â€œInternational Standards.â€

Update by Catherine Cook, Adah Kay and Adam Hanieh: In the 15 months since this article was written in spring 2004, little has changed for child prisoners, and the issue has been largely boycotted by the mainstream press. But the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners, including children under 18, in Israeli detention centers and jails remain high on the political agenda. The Israeli government still uses prisoners as a key bargaining chip in the so called â€œpeace process.â€ But relevant human rights and international standards play no part in this ritual; Palestinian negotiators could not secure the unconditional release of all child prisoners as an issue separate from negotiations over adult prisoners. So the recent second tranche of prisoners released at the end of May included only 14 children. As in the past, most of the other 384 prisoners, had almost completed their sentences.

Last year saw the revelations of U.S. torture of Iraqi prisoners including children dubbed the biggest story of the Iraqi war by William Rivers Pitt in his article â€œTorturing Children.â€1 Like Israel, the U.S. administration and military attempted to present this as rogue practice, but the evidence pointed to systemic abuse. We and others tried at the time to highlight the striking similarities to the abuse meted out over decades to Palestinian prisoners including children.2 But again, these parallels largely escaped the mainstream press.

Currently, out of around 7,500 Palestinian detainees, about 280 are children (including 30 boy administrative detainees held indefinitely without formal trial or charge). DCI/PS,3 who represent the majority of child prisoners, report a dramatic increase in arrests of 12-14 year-olds, most for throwing stones last year. There has also been an increase last year in the numbers of children arrested from the northern West Bank (e.g.Nablus and Jenin), in part reflecting the continued use of mass arrests as a method of control. They also note harsher sentencing policies, such as doubling of sentences of more than three years compared with 2003â€”only partly due to some of the charges being more serious.

There has been no improvement in detention conditions with particularly poor provision in detention/interrogation centersâ€”bare cells and inadequate food served on bits of paper with no cutlery. In prisons,4 girls are still housed in cells with adult women prisoners with little natural light, and they get no formal education. Boys also receive no education, except in one of the prisons; many are still beaten and punished by having family visits refused or solitary confinement.

In August 2004, in protest against harsh prison conditions, Palestinian prisoners launched their largest hunger strike in decades. The Israeli prison administration did their best to undermine this by confiscating liquids and salts, setting up barbeques outside cells, raiding cells, beating up prisoners, placing them in isolation and refusing medical treatment until the strike ended. Eventually the strike petered out. As with so many other Palestinian issues, this action was largely ignored by the mainstream press.

This last year has seen Israelâ€™s position, tacitly supported by the U.S. government, strengthened against the Palestinians. Under cover of its promise of unilateral disengagement from Gaza, Israel continues to entrench itself in the West Bank and extends its system of suppression and control in which arrest and prison play such a key role.

For additional information:

Defence for Children International/Palestine Section, Research and International Advocacy Unit, RIA@dci-pal.org, www.dci-pal.org

Adameer Prisonersâ€™ Support and Human Rights Association, www.addameer.org, addameer@p-ol.com

Sumoud http://sumoud.tao.ca; Email sumoud@tao.ca

NOTES

1. William Rivers Pitt, â€œTorturing Children,â€ Truthout July 20, 2004.

2. Catherine Cook, â€œTorture of Iraqi Prisoners Spotlights Israeli Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners,â€ Information Brief # 106, May 11, 2004.

3. Defence for Children International (Palestine Section) Annual Review 2004.

4. DCI/PSâ€™s Legal department regularly visits prisons, detention and interrogation centres in the West Bank and in Israel to monitor prison conditions for children and intercede on their behalf with the Israeli prison administration.

#24 Ethiopian Indigenous Victims of Corporate and Government Resource Aspirations

Sources:

World War 4 Report, Issue 97, April 2004

â€œState Terror in Ethiopia: Another Secret War for Oil?â€

http://www.ww4report.com/97.html

http://www.allthingspass.com

Z Magazine Online, May 2004

Author: keith harmon snow

Faculty Evaluator: Tom Lough, Ph.D.

Student Researcher: Thedoria Grayson

According to a report by keith harmon snow, after conducting Field observations in January, the U.S.-based organizations Genocide Watch and Survivorâ€™s Rights International released a conclusive report on February 22, 2004. This report provides evidence that Ethiopian Peopleâ€™s Revolutionary Defense Front (EPRDF) soldiers and â€œHighlanderâ€ militias in the Anuak territory of Ethiopia have killed thousands of native civilians. The Highlanders are predominantly Tigray and Amhara peoples who resettled in Anuak territory in 1974. The Highlanders are on a quest to force the Anuak from the region. Ethiopia is the latest U.S. ally in the â€œWar on Terrorâ€ to turn its back on its own indigenous peoples. The Annuak territory is a zone coveted by corporate interests for its oil and gold. EPRDF soldiers and settlers from Ethiopian highlands initiated a campaign of massacres, repressions, and mass rape, deliberately targeting the Anuak minority.

According to Snow, the U.S. government was informed about the unfolding violence in the Gambella region as early as December 16, 2003. Massacres were reportedly ordered by the commander of the Ethiopian army in Gambella, Nagu Beyene, with the authorization of Gebrehad Barnabas, Regional Affairs Minister of the Ethiopian government.

According to Anuak sources relying on sympathetic oppositionists within the regime, the EPRDF plans to procure the petroleum of Gambella were laid out at a top-level cabinet meeting in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) in September 2003. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi chaired the meeting, at which the militant ethnic cleansing of the Anuaks was reportedly openly discussed. December 13, 2003 marked the start of a coordinated military operation to systematically eliminate Anuaks. Sources from inside the military governmentâ€™s police and intelligence network say that the code name of the military operation was: â€œOPERATION SUNNY MOUNTAIN.â€

The killing of eight UN officials and Ethiopian government officials whose van was ambushed on December 13, 2003 sparked the recent conflict. Although there is no specific evidence about the ethnicity of the killers, the targets of the attacks have been mainly Anuaks. After this attack, EPRDF soldiers used automatic weapons and hand grenades, then attacked the Anuak villages, summarily executing civilians, burning dwellings (sometimes with people inside), and looting property. Some 424 Anuak people were reportedly killed, with over 200 more wounded. Numerous sources report that there have been regular massacres of the Anuak since 1980. Discrimination against the Anuak has been detailed in six reports published in the Cultural Survival Quarterly beginning in 1981(see e.g.: â€œOil Development in Ethiopia: A Threat to the Anuak of Gambella,â€ Issue 25.3, 2001). There is no evidence of previous communal violence between the two indigenous groups (Anuaks and the local Nuer) as was claimed and reported by the NYT and other media, and by the EPRDF government.

As of November 4, 2004, at least 1,500 and perhaps as many as 2,500 Anuak civilians have died in the recent fighting. Intellectuals, leaders, students and other educated classes have been intentionally targeted. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for and many have mysteriously â€œdisappeared.â€ Thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of Anuak homes have reportedly been burned.

The Anuak men have been killed, arrested, or displaced, leaving thousands of women and children vulnerable. Anuak women and girls are routinely raped, gang-raped and kept as sexual slaves by EPRDF forces, often at gunpoint. Girls have been shot for resisting rape, and summary executions for girls held captive for prolonged periods as sexual slaves have been reported. Reports from non-Anuak police officials in Gambella indicate an average of up to seven rapes per day. Due to the isolation of women and girls in rural areas, rapes remain under-reported. Some 6,000 to 8,000 Anuak remain at refugee camps in Pochalla, Sudan, and there are an estimated 1,000 annual refugees in Kenya. In August 2004, approximately 25 percent (roughly 50,000 people) of Gambellaâ€™s population had been displaced.

To the Anuak and other indigenous peoples of southwestern Ethiopia, the government of Prime minister Meles Zenawi is a ruthless military dictatorship. Almost everyone links â€œthe problemâ€ to Gambellaâ€™s oil. â€œSince the problem, we are not able to farm or to fish,â€ said one Anuak survivor who was shot three times. He is shy, but he will show you where one bullet entered and exited his wrist. He was shot December 13, 2003â€”the day the EPRDF and local highlander militias launched their genocidal war on the Anuaks. â€œMany men ran away into the bushes and were killed since the problem began,â€ says one witness. â€œThey are raping many girls. They keep some women by force.â€ The violence has almost completely disrupted this yearâ€™s planting season, and people believe that famine in the coming winter months (October-March, 2005) will be exacerbated by the destruction of milling machines and food stores.

In August 2003, the U.S. committed $28,000,000 to international trade enhancements with Ethiopia. Beginning July 2003, forces from the Pentagonâ€™s Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) held a three-month bilateral training exercise with Ethiopian forces at the Hurso Training Camp, northwest of Dire Dawa. The U.S. Armyâ€™s 10th Mountain Division recently completed a three-month program to train an Ethiopian army division in counter-terrorism attacks. Operations are coordinated through the CJTF-HOA regional base in Djibouti, where the Halliburton subsidiary KBR is the prime contractor.

Because Ethiopia is considered to be an essential partner of the U.S. in its â€œWar on Terrorism,â€ the U.S. provided some $1,835,000 in International Military and Educational Training (IMET) to Ethiopia between 1995â€“2000. Some 115 Ethiopian officers were trained under the IMET program from 1991â€“2001. Approximately 4,000 Ethiopian soldiers have participated in IMET and Foreign Military Sales and Deliveries programs. The U.S. also equipped, trained, and supported Ethiopian troops under the Africa Regional Peacekeeping program. Ethiopia has remained a participant of the IMET program in 2000â€“2004. A U.S. AID representative asked Congress to approve some $80,000,000 in funding for Ethiopiaâ€™s programs in the Fiscal Year of 2005. Ethiopia was described as a â€œtop priorityâ€ of the Bush Administration.

In 2000, Texas-based Sicor Inc. signed a $1.4 billion dollar deal with Ethiopia for the â€œGazoilâ€ joint venture to exploit oil and gas in the southeast Ogaden Basin. Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, Texas is also involved in the Ogaden Basin through the subsidiary Ethiopia Hunt Oil Company. Hunt Oilâ€™s chairman of the board and CEO Ray L. Hunt is also director of Halliburton Company. U.S. Cal Tech International Corp. is also reportedly negotiating a joint venture with the China National Petroleum Corp. to operate in the same regions. The Anuak are also gold miners in the Gambella district. U.S. based Canyon Resources has gold operations in southern Ethiopia. The interest of multinational gold and oil corporations indicate alterior motives in the terror campaign against the Anuaks.

Anuak sources in Gambella state: â€œThe Anuak people have not been involved in the discussions about the oil, our leaders have not agreed on these projects, and they will not hire any Anuaks for these jobs. If any Anuaks say anything about the oil, he will be arrested.â€

Update by keith harmon snow: It is important to recognize that the U.S. public is subject to an ongoing institutionalization of â€œtruthâ€ and â€œrealityâ€ that is premised on total information warfare. This is nowhere so starkly evident as with the stereotypes, mythologies and deceptions doled out to the U.S. public on the subject of Africa (the Arab world, and all things Islamic, run a close second). This includes mainstream reportage, policy debates, scholarly journals, tabloids, radio shows, and print magazinesâ€”from WIRED to National Geographic. This is also evident in supposed â€œalternativeâ€ media sources like The Nation and films like Hotel Rwanda.

Alternative? To what? Virtually all available media fall on a spectrum that serves up topics and frameworks that are tolerated and allowed, where â€œhealthy debate,â€ â€œexposÃ©sâ€ and (perceived) â€œhostilityâ€ (to what people in other countries are calling EMPIRE), are even encouraged. Hence we have Seymour Hersh offering us revealing exposÃ©s on torture in Abu Ghraib, but saying nothing about the profits being made over the dead bodies due to U.S. sponsored covert operations and destabilization in Congo during and since the Clinton regime.

Nation editor Katrina Van de Heuvel will steer sharply away from any challenge to the â€œhumanitarianâ€ actions of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a strong proponent of military interventionâ€”allied with the other two big humanitarian agencies CARE and Refugees Internationalâ€”in the recent massive lobbying effort to â€œstop genocideâ€ in Darfur, Sudan. Is there genocide in Darfur? If so, or even not so, why has it received overwhelming press attention while the Anuak genocide has received none? What about nearby Congo? And Rwanda?

Van de Heuvel has ties with Henry Kissinger, a member of an IRC board, and one of the few U.S. officials to be publicly labeled as a war criminal. The IRC is a powerful faction in Congo, Rwanda and Sudan, and the Congolese accused them of espionage. CAREâ€™s â€œpartnersâ€ include aerospace and defense corporation Lockheed-Martin, who is also a major underwriter of Seymour Hershâ€™s regular print venue, the war advocacy journal Atlantic Monthly.

A truly â€œinvestigativeâ€ journalist might hack through the propaganda of Hotel Rwanda to get to United Artists parent company Metro Goldwyn Meyer, whose directors, not surprisingly, given what the film does not tell you about the U.S.-sponsored invasion of Rwanda (1990â€“1994), include current United Technologies director and U.S. General (Ret.) Alexander Haig. Recall that â€œIâ€™m in charge hereâ€ Al Haig served under a Hollywood actor named Ronald Reagan. Hotel Rwanda took off from the now celebrated but wholly mythologized book We Regret To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed by Philip Gourevitch, the New Yorkerâ€™s premier Africanist, and whose brother-in-law, Jamie Rubin, was Madeleine Albrightâ€™s leading man. The Nation runs the standard nonsense on Rwanda, usually by Victoria Britain. Another pro-military interventionist on Darfur, Samantha Power could surely satisfy The Nation, given her selective and patriotic journalism on Rwanda and the Balkans, for which she won a Pulitzer.

Behind the mass hysteria whipped up in the post-September 11th America are the dirty little and not-so-little but secret wars whipped up in defense of predatory capitalism and empire in â€œuncivilizedâ€ and â€œsavageâ€ places like Djibouti, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo and (Gambella) Ethiopia.

By February 21, 2002, the U.S. DOD had already purchased 79 RQ-1 Predators from General Atomics, for a per unit price of about $7 million, or some $553 million dollars. â€œState Terror in Ethiopiaâ€ was the first report, and WW4 Report the first venue, to illuminate the U.S. military alliance with the Ethiopian regime and the regional base of U.S. covert operations in Hurso, Ethiopia as well as the presence of RQ-1 Predator Drones being operated over the entire Horn region by the Central Intelligence Agency. Smith College students recently working to â€œstop genocideâ€ in Darfur held a letter-writing campaign demanding that George Bush authorize that unmanned Predator dronesâ€”impersonal, indiscriminate killing robotsâ€”be launched against Arabs on horses, and other â€œundefinedâ€ targets, in Darfur.

It takes more than one party to wage a war. From Chad, Uganda and Ethiopia come weapons and logistical support for the enemies of the Islamic regime in Khartoum. At the same time, the Bush gang has reportedly â€œalliedâ€ with the Sudan government in its â€œwar on terrorâ€â€”if we believe the Ken Silverstein â€œexposÃ©â€ in the L.A. Times (which is merely being expedient in its truth-telling). Off the agenda are any discussions of the U.S. regimes of terror in Uganda or Cameroon, for example, or U.S. support for the Sudan Peopleâ€™s Liberation Army and other warring militias and factions in Darfur, Chad, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Congo.

Like nearby Chad, Ethiopia has become a favored territory from which transnational corporate interests can be served by launching clandestine terror operations against Islamic governments, Al Queda phantoms, and other hostile enemies. The latter category, of course, includes Arabs on horseback, machete-wielding Hutus, Mai-Mai â€œwearing bathroom fixturesâ€ on their heads, innocent men, women and children all over Africa, and, of course, the Anuaks of Ethiopia who, like the Ogonis in Nigeria and the Fur of Darfur, have the audacity to be living over someone elseâ€™s oil.

Shortly after â€œState Terror in Ethiopiaâ€ appeared in WW4 Report and Z Magazine, Marc Lacey, Nairobi Bureau Chief for the New York Times, ran some damage control, and reported from Gambella with a nasty little blame-the-victims story that deflected attention from the undesirable details: â€œAmid Ethiopiaâ€™s Strife, a Bathing Spot and Peaceâ€ (New York Times, 6/11/04). There was hardly a word about oil or U.S. interests, and Lacey framed the story to suggest that peace had returned to Gambella, an area rife with ancient tribal animosity, he declared, where the Anuaks â€œonce went naked and ate rats.â€ (Curiously, not one New York Times link to this story is active today, perhaps because it has been widely noted for its racism, and so it is being electronically erased.)

Doug McGill of the McGill Report has done some wonderful and consistent work to report on the Anuak story. World War 4 Report also published a second follow-up story titled â€œEthnic Cleansing in Ethiopia.â€ Soon after this appeared, Human Rights Watch finally published a major report on the Anuak genocide based on the field investigations â€œToday is the Day of Killing Anuaksâ€ and â€œOperation Sunny Mountain?â€ (undertaken for Survivorâ€™s Rights International and Genocide Watch by this author, as an unpaid volunteer). While their researcher received a copy of â€œOperation Sunny Mountain?â€ several months prior to its formal release and before traveling to Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch never cited their sources or contacts.

The U.S.-supported regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia is going to fall, imminently, as widespread domestic dissent and protest, which remain underreported, further escalate. June 2005 saw massive government repression, troops firing on crowds, and torture spreading across Ethiopia after the people protested obvious election-rigging (sanctioned by Jimmy Carter and election monitors). Ethiopiaâ€™s secret U.S.-sponsored war (2000) against Eritrea has destabilized the border region, causing untold death and despair. Murder, extra-judicial execution, rape, disappearances, arrest and imprisonment of Anuaks, Oromos, Nuers and other indigenous Ethiopian people continue. What makes â€œState Terror in Ethiopiaâ€ so poignant is its sharp juxtaposition to the stories of genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur, which received widespread attention, and to Congo, which is mostly off the media agenda.

With Darfur, what is really at issue is not genocide, and it is not about â€œhumanitarianâ€ anything, or there wouldnâ€™t be so many people dead alreadyâ€”and still dying. It is about regime change, and some people will do anything to get us to support that. In Congo, the death toll has struck seven million since the U.S. invasion began, and the war rages on while both Clinton and Bush factions profit from diamond and gold and other hundreds-of-multimillion-dollars-a-month material thefts. Next to the holy wars of Congo and Darfur, the Anuaks are a mere thorn in the side of Empire. Such is the political economy of genocide.

#25 Homeland Security Was Designed to Fail

Sources:

Mother Jones, September/October 2004

Title: â€œRed Alertâ€

Author: Matthew Brzezinski

NPR, September 24, 2004

Title: â€œFortress America: On the Front Lines of Homeland Securityâ€ (an interview with Matthew Brzezinski)

Author Matthew Brzezinski

Faculty Evaluators: Greg and Meri Storino

Student Researcher: Joey Tabares

It was billed as Americaâ€™s frontline defense against terrorism. But badly under-funded, crippled by special interests, and ignored by the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been relegated to bureaucratic obscurity. Unveiled on March 1, 2003, the Department of Homeland Security had been touted as the Bush Administrationâ€™s bold response to the new threats facing America in the post-Cold War world of global terrorism. It is currently composed of 22 formerly separate federal agencies and it boasts 186,200 employees. Its operations are funded by a budget of nearly $27 billion.

There are 15,000 industrial plants in the United States that produce toxic chemicals. According to the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), about 100 of these plants could endanger up to a million lives with poisonous clouds of ammonia, chlorine, or carbon disulfide that could be released into the atmosphere over densely populated areas by a terror attack. Unprotected chemical plants are possible candidates for future attacks by terrorists. These are some of the most vulnerable pieces of infrastructure in America.

Following 9/11 there was a big push to increase security at all chemical plants in the United States. Democrats put forth a Chemical Security Act, the purpose of which was to codify parameters for site security, ensure safe transport of toxic materials, and prevent further accidents from happening. But Republicans defeated the bill after oil companies pumped millions of dollars into lobbying campaigns to stop it.

Matthew Brzezinskiâ€™s article in Mother Jones asserts that President Bush doesnâ€™t put much importance, if any at all, on Homeland Security reports. Security spending has risen just 4 percent since 9/11, and most of that increase was only to cover higher insurance programs. There are many chemical plants that have no fencing requirements, cameras, and no guards. The article points out the spending needed to insure the safety of U.S. citizens and compares it (unfavorably) to the amount spent in Iraq over the same time period.

Aside from being hamstrung by its reluctant architects, DHS simply has not been able to compete with Iraq in the battle for resources. With the Presidentâ€™s tax cuts trimming government revenues, and budget deficits reaching levels not seen since the Vietnam War, money is tight for programs the White House does not see as top priorities. The truth of the matter is that Homeland Security is very much a shoestring operationâ€”so much so that worried Democrats in Congress keep trying to throw more money at it.

Brzezinski, recent author of â€œFortress Americaâ€ and former Wall Street correspondent, suggests the Department of Homeland Security needs a serious reassessment of its goals and operations to better protect Americans. He says the White House has decided that the Homeland Security intelligence unit should rank lower than the FBI and the CIA. Seven Republican Senators that had previously endorsed the Chemical Security Act later withdrew their support. $5.7 million in contributions from the petrochemical campaign (led by the American Petroleum Institute) helped to ensure that Republicans took the Senate in the 2002 midterm elections and that the Chemical Security Act die out. People opposing the act emphasized the economic impact of the Security Act. The argument was that Chlorine and its derivatives went into products that account for 45 percent of the nations GDP, and reductions to its production would hurt the economy.

Three years after 9/11 almost anybody can still gain entry into thousands of chemical sites across the country. If a factory spends lots of money on security spending upgrades, its products canâ€™t compete with other factories that spend nothing. Only legislation can level the playing field.

The failure of the mainstream media to acknowledge the fact that Homeland Security has been a complete washout further signifies the cozy relationship it enjoys with the halls of power. Protection of the homeland has been an area where the president has received consistently high marks from the countryâ€”ostensibly because this is the one area where he has stayed strong and focused. It would have been helpful for the country to know if this wasnâ€™t true.

References:

Judy Clark, Oil and Gas Journal, June 23, 2003, â€œGovernment, Industry Forge Partnerships for Security Enhancement.â€

Primedia, August 1, 2003, â€œAn Overlooked Vulnerability?â€

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Project Censored – Sonoma State University

1801 East Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park, CA 94928

(707) 664-2500

censored@sonoma.edu

Ohioâ€™s 2006 Vote Count Now Includes A Higher Percentage Of Uncounted ballots than in 2004, And A Statistically Impossible Swing To The Republicans

Organik — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:57:44 +0000

by Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman and Ron Baiman

November 14, 2006

Original Article @ http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/2250

The percentage of uncounted votes in the allegedly â€œfraud freeâ€ 2006 Ohio election is actually higher than the fraud-ridden 2004 election, when the presidency was stolen here. A flawed voting process that allowed voters to be illegally turned away throughout the morning on Election Day may have cost the Dems at least two Congressional seats and a state auditorâ€™s seat.

The evidence comes directly from the official website of GOP Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell Blackwell website. But researchers wishing to verify the number of uncounted ballots from that web site should do so immediately, as Blackwell is known for quickly deleting embarrassing evidence. In 2004, Blackwell deleted the evidence of excessive uncounted votes after the final results were tallied.

Despite Democratic victories in five of six statewide partisan offices, an analysis by the Free Press shows a statistically implausible shift of votes away from the Democratic Party statewide candidates on Election Day, contrasted with the results of the Columbus Dispatchâ€™s final poll. The Dispatch poll predicted Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland winning with 67% of the vote. His actual percentage was 60%. The odds of this occurring are one in 604 million.

(Freepress has numbers matrix/chart in this area)

The final Columbus Dispatch poll wrapped up on Friday before the Tuesday election. This poll was based on 1541 registered Ohio voters, with a margin of error at plus/minus 2.2 percentage points and a 95% confidence interval. The Dispatch noted â€œThe surveyâ€™s 7-point variance from Democrat Ted Stricklandâ€™s actual percentage total broke a string of five straight gubernatorial elections in which the poll exactly matched the victorâ€™s share of the vote.â€

The hotly disputed central Ohio Congressional race between incumbent Deborah Pryce, a close friend of George W. Bush, and challenger Mary Jo Kilroy, a Democratic Franklin County Commissioner has not been officially resolved as of today, November 14. The Franklin County Board of Elections has postponed the official recount of this race until after the November 18 Ohio State-Michigan football game. Another bitterly disputed Congressional race, on the outskirts of Cincinnati, also awaits a recount.

The major news leaking from the Blackwell web site is the stunning percentage of uncounted votes still outstanding throughout the state. When John Kerry conceded the day after the 2004 election, there were some 248,000 Ohio votes still uncounted, out of 5,722,443 officially cast. This was an astonishing 4.3% of the votes.

George W. Bushâ€™s alleged margin of victory at the time was about 136,000 votes, which dropped to about 118,000 after a fraudulent recount. More than two years later, more than 100,000 votes from Ohioâ€™s 2004 election remain uncounted including 93,000 machine rejected ballots.

Today, in 2006, the percentage of the official total vote that remains uncounted is actually higher than in 2004. According to Blackwellâ€™s web site, there are 211,656 absentee and provisional ballots still uncounted in 2006, out of 4,177,498 votes officially cast. This is 5.1% of the total official vote.

The high percentage of provisional ballots is due mainly to new strategies used by Blackwell and the GOP legislature to eliminate votes in targeted areas. In Franklin County (Columbus), which is now heavily Democratic, there were 14,462 provisional ballotsâ€”2.7% of total votesâ€”cast in 2004. In 2006 the number soared to 20,679, a substantial jump constituting more than 6% of all voters, in an election in which fewer total votes were cast.

Provisional ballots are issued when poll workers challenge citizensâ€™ rights to a regular ballot. The provisional ballot will allegedly be counted later if proof of registration and proper residency are established. But to this day, some 16,000 such provisional ballots from 2004 have never been tallied.

According to Blackwellâ€™s site, in 2006, there are 46,458 uncounted ballots in Franklin County alone. According to Matt Damschroder, Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, some 19,524 are in Franklin County, where Kilroy is a Commissioner. Another 900 or so Kilroy-Pryce votes remain uncounted in the Madison and Union Counties.

The preliminary vote count finished election night gave Pryce a margin of some 3,536 votes. But Kilroy has refused to concede.

In 2004, Blackwell listed 788 precincts in Franklin Country, with 845,720 registered voters and some 533,575 votes cast, a 63.09% official turnout.

After the 2004 vote, the GOP-controlled board of elections purged some 170,000 Franklin County citizens from the registration rolls. The GOP claimed the right to eliminate those who had not voted in the previous two presidential election cycles. This is allowed by federal law not mandated. The impact has carried over to 2006.

For 2006, Blackwell has listed 834 precincts with 766,490 registered voters and 342,958 votes cast, an official 44.74% turnout. He lists 46,458 absentee and provisional votes cast in Franklin County. But much of the lower turnout and high provisional vote count may have to do with partisan restrictions imposed by Blackwell and the GOP, aimed at stealing elections precisely like the one between Pryce and Kilroy.

New voting requirements imposed by Ohioâ€™s HB 3, passed by the GOP legislature just after the 2004 election, led to the â€œflaggingâ€ of hundreds of thousands of voters in Ohio. Free Press reporters have observed a â€œStop Signâ€ icon next to the name of between 20-40% of the voters in inner city and campus precincts in Columbus.

The stop sign is outlined on page 50 of the Franklin County Board of Elections â€œPrecinct Elections Training Manual.â€ It is tied to a â€œ60-day election noticeâ€ sent to voters, but being returned as â€œundeliverable.â€ Ballots cast by voters with stop signs next to their names have been electronically recorded as provisional, according to the Training Manual, and many are likely to go uncounted because the voters were in the wrong precinct.

Traditionally, Ohioans have been able to cast a provisional ballot in any precinct in their home county. But Blackwell issued a directive in the lead-up to the 2004 presidential election ordering that citizens voting in the wrong precinct would not have their votes counted at all.

Free Press observers, and statements called into the Free Press, indicate that poll workers imposed large numbers of provisional ballots on voters in Kilroyâ€™s strongholds at the Ohio State University campus and elsewhere in Columbus. A single election observer with the Five Candidates Election Observer Project 2006 reported that 1000 complaints an hour were coming into the Franklin County Board of Elections. So many were logged early in the day that the phone lines set up for the precinct workers failed. The phones for the public had to be diverted to answer the deluge of questions from pollworkers.

The Kilroy race thus may hinge on how many provisional ballots were trashed at the polling stations or will be discarded during the recount. Because the vast bulk of the uncounted ballots are in Kilroyâ€™s strongholds, the she would normally be expected to pick up enough votes to eradicate Pryceâ€™s current margin. On election night, Fox News initially announced that Kilroy would win.

But Franklin Countyâ€™s Republican BOE Director Matt Damschroder has postponed the recount until after Saturdayâ€™s home game between number one-ranked Ohio State and number two-ranked Michigan. Rioting has traditionally broken out after this game, but the ballots are being stored at the BOE downtown, far from Buckeye Stadium.

The stunning number of uncounted, absentee and provisional ballots listed by Blackwell indicates that there may have been deeper problems with the 2006 Ohio election than widely believed.

Another Congressional race is being bitterly contested in three counties outside Cincinnati that of themselves gave George W. Bush his official margin of victory in 2004. In one of them, Warren County, an unexplained Homeland Security alert was declared just as the polls closed, with independent observers then banned from the vote count. This alert has yet to be explained by the HSA or FBI. In a special 2005 election this district, dubious computer glitches and scantron ballot problems resulted in a late night surge that gave a narrow and much-doubted margin to the Republican, Jean Schmidt, whose re-election by another narrow margin is now being angrily questioned. How many other tight races in Ohio may have been swung by dubious manipulations remains to be seen.

Though itâ€™s just a week since the votes were cast here, reports of parallel irregularities pouring in from around the country indicate that the Rove/Blackwell election theft machine was in high gear on November 7. Thousands of grass-roots volunteers who monitored procedures around the US clearly made a difference.

But the full story of what really happened in Ohio 2006 and elsewhere almost certainly wonâ€™t be known until well after this yearâ€™s college football season.

â€“

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors, with Steve Rosenfeld, of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO?, just published by the New Press. They are of counsel and plaintiff in the King Lincoln lawsuit which helped unearth many of the irregularities in the 2004 and 2005 election. Fitrakis was an independent candidate for governor in Ohio 2006, endorsed by the Green Party. Wassermanâ€™s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is available at www.solartopia.org. Ron Baiman is a statistician and researcher at Loyola University. Read more of their work at http://freepress.org.

Think the 2006 Mid-Terms were clean? Think again…

Organik — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:31:13 +0000

Now is certainly not the time to give up, or even back down the slightest bit in the election reform movement. This seemingly landslide victory by the Democrats would have been even larger had it not been for dirty tricks and suppression on the part of Republicans.

Greg Palast’s “HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION” states, “Two million legitimate voters will be turned away because of wrongly rejected or purged registrations. Add another one million voters challenged and turned away for ‘improper ID.’ Then add yet another million for Democratic votes ‘spoiled’ by busted black boxes and by bad ballots. And letâ€™s not forget to include the one million ‘provisional’ ballots which will never get counted. Based on the experience of 2004, we know that, overwhelmingly, minority voters are the ones shunted to these baloney ballots. And thereâ€™s one more group of votes that wonâ€™t be counted: absentee ballots challenged and discarded. Elections Assistance Agency data tell us a half million of these absentee votes will go down the drain. Driving this massive suppression of the vote are sophisticated challenge operations. And here I must note that the Democrats have no national challenge campaign. Thatâ€™s morally laudable; electorally suicidal. Add it all up â€” all those Democratic-leaning votes rejected, barred and spoiled â€” and the Republican Party begins Election Day with a 4.5 million-vote thumb on the vote-tally scale.”

Brad Friedman of the BRAD BLOG reported on several “irregularities” throughout the day, such as:

Also, many thousands of complaints were logged on the Election Incident Reporting System (1-866-OUR-VOTE). 5140 complaints to be exact, and growing.

There was also the last minute Republican dirty trick of the Rovian Robo-Call. According to TPMMuckracker.com, these calls (of which there appear to have been many thousand), have occured in at least 20 separate congressional districts, and were paid for by the RNCC. From TPMMuckracker: “In a letter dated Nov. 6, Michigan Reps. John Conyers and John Dingell ask attorney general Alberto Gonzales, FCC chairman Kevin Martin and FEC chairman Michael Toner to probe whether a sudden rash of last-minute phone calls paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee violated any of a number of federal and state laws and requirements. Conyers is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, while Dingell is the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.”

Then you have Laura Ingram suggesting right wingers jam the Democratic voter information line.

At this point you might be asking, “how did the Dems win?”.

Here’s how – the media started (albeit barely) to do their job!

HBO’s Documentary “Hacking Democracy” was aired prior to the election. Also, Lou Dobbs had been extensively covering e-voting insecurity for at least a couple months prior. The blogosphere (Democratic Underground and BradBlog in particular) has been more active than ever with this issue as well. Basically, if they had tried to swing this election too far, it would have been painfully obvious.

Also, the Dems just weren’t going to put up with it this time. There are at least a couple of congressional races that the Democratic candidate has NOT conceded, Clint Curtis’ campaign against Tom Feeney being one, with Curtis vowing to make sure every vote is counted. Francine Busby is another who is not conceding until all votes are counted. Why should she trust the official result, what with the machine “sleepovers” in her district. Also, election activist Bob Fitrakis is not conceding his Green Party gubernatorial bid in Ohio, he knows better than to just give up in that state.

Lastly, the turnout was considerably larger than expected, and the election protection presence on the ground was much more evident, both factors making fraud more difficult.

In conclusion, there were many problems that still occurred, and many that were prevented, but we CAN NOT rest on this victory. Now is the time, with a Democratic majority, to make major gains in the area of election reform. With Dennis Kucinich’s HR 6200 for hand counted paper ballots, with results posted at the precinct level, and with friend of democracy Congressman John Conyers Jr. the head of the House Judiciary Committee, we can definitely get some work done to repair our democracy.

by Organik for ElectionFraudBlog.com