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Human Rights News

August 14, 2012
 

A Giant Hospital Chain Is Blazing a Profit Trail

By and

During the Great Recession, when many hospitals across the country were nearly brought to their knees by growing numbers of uninsured patients, one hospital system not only survived — it thrived.

In fact, profits at the health care industry giant HCA, which controls 163 hospitals from New Hampshire to California, have soared, far outpacing those of most of its competitors.

The big winners have been three private equity firms — including Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate — that bought HCA in late 2006.

HCA’s robust profit growth has raised the value of the firms’ holdings to nearly three and a half times their initial investment in the $33 billion deal.

The financial performance has been so impressive that HCA has become a model for the industry. Its success inspired 35 buyouts of hospitals or chains of facilities in the last two and a half years by private equity firms eager to repeat that windfall.

HCA’s emergence as a powerful leader in the hospital industry is all the more remarkable because only a decade ago the company was badly shaken by a wide-ranging Medicare fraud investigation that it eventually settled for more than $1.7 billion.

Among the secrets to HCA’s success: It figured out how to get more revenue from private insurance companies, patients and Medicare by billing much more aggressively for its services than ever before; it found ways to reduce emergency room overcrowding and expenses; and it experimented with new ways to reduce the cost of its medical staff, a move that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over concerns about patient care.

In late 2008, for instance, HCA changed the billing codes it assigned to sick and injured patients who came into the emergency rooms. Almost overnight, the numbers of patients who HCA said needed more care, which would be paid for at significantly higher levels by Medicare, surged.

HCA, which had lagged the industry for those high-paying categories, jumped ahead of its competitors and was reimbursed accordingly. The change, which HCA’s executives said better reflected the service being provided, increased operating earnings by nearly $100 million in the first quarter of 2009.

To some, HCA successfully pushed the envelope in its interpretation of existing Medicare rules. “If HCA can do it, why can’t we?” asked a hospital consulting firm, the Advisory Board Company, in a presentation to its clients.

In one instance, HCA executives said a private insurer, which it declined to name, questioned the new billing system, forcing it to return some of the money it had collected.

The hospital giant also adopted a policy meant to address an issue that bedevils hospitals nationwide — reducing costs and overcrowding in its emergency rooms. For years, the hospital emergency room has been used by the uninsured as a de facto doctor’s office — a place for even the most minor of ailments. But emergency care is expensive and has become increasingly burdensome to hospitals in the last decade because of the rising number of uninsured patients.

HCA decided not to treat patients who came in with nonurgent conditions, like a cold or the flu or even a sprained wrist, unless those patients paid in advance. In a recent statement, HCA said that of the six million patients treated in its emergency rooms last year, 80,000, or about 1.3 percent, “ chose to seek alternative care options.”

“Many E.R.’s in America, particularly in densely populated urban areas where most HCA-affiliated facilities are located, have adopted a variety of systems to determine whether a patient in fact needs emergency care,” the statement said. “About half our hospitals have done so. Typically, our affiliated hospitals have two caregivers — usually a triage nurse and a physician — make that determination. It should be noted that other non-HCA affiliated hospitals are using similar processes to address E.R. issues.”

As HCA’s profits and influence grew, strains arose with doctors and nurses over whether the chain’s pursuit of profit may have, at times, come at the expense of patient care.

HCA had put in place a flexible staffing system that allowed it to estimate the number of patients it would have each day in its hospitals and alter the number of nurses it needed accordingly.

Several nurses interviewed said they were concerned that the system sometimes had led to inadequate staffing in important areas like critical care. In one measure of adequate staffing — the prevalence of bedsores in patients bedridden for long periods of time — HCA clearly struggled. Some of its hospitals fended off lawsuits over the problem in recent years, and were admonished by regulators over staffing issues more than once.

‘Through the Roof’

Many doctors interviewed at various HCA facilities said they had felt increased pressure to focus on profits under the private equity ownership. “Their profits are going through the roof, but, unfortunately, it’s occurring at the expense of patients,” said Dr. Abraham Awwad, a kidney specialist in St. Petersburg, Fla., whose complaints over the safety of the dialysis programs at two HCA-owned hospitals prompted state investigations.

One facility was fined $8,000 in 2008 and $14,000 last year for delaying the start of dialysis in patients, not administering physician-prescribed drugs and not documenting whether ordered tests had been performed.

Claiming he provided poor care, the other hospital did not renew Dr. Awwad’s privileges. Dr. Awwad is suing to have them reinstated. HCA declined to comment. HCA says it stands by its procedures, billing practices and level of care.

HCA says that more than 80 percent of its hospitals ranked among the top 10 percent in the country for federal quality measures, compared with 13 percent in 2006 when it went private. Last year, the company provided a $2.68 billion provision for charity care. And under the control of its private equity owners, HCA has invested around $8 billion in its hospitals in the last five years, according to Securities and Exchange Commission findings.

“You must know that we firmly believe that there is no sustainable business model as a health care delivery system that does not have at its core the provision of high-quality patient care and services,” HCA’s chief executive, Richard M. Bracken, wrote in an e-mail to The New York Times last year. Achieving a balance between profit and care is harder for investor-owned hospitals like HCA than for others, some experts say. “If you were a for-profit hospital with investors and shareholders,” said Paul Levy, a former nonprofit hospital executive in Boston unaffiliated with HCA, “there would be a natural tendency to be more aggressive and to seek more revenues.” Executives at profit-making hospitals are “judged in greater measure by profitability” than the administrators of nonprofit hospitals, he said.

Profit-making systems like HCA are often in a better position to invest in improving their hospitals and taking advantage of the latest in new technology. Their sheer size often allows them to negotiate lower prices for everything from X-ray machines to pharmaceuticals, which can, in theory at least, be passed onto consumers.

But some of HCA’s tactics are now under scrutiny by the Justice Department. Last week, HCA disclosed that the United States attorney’s office in Miami has requested information about cardiac procedures at 10 of its hospitals in Florida and elsewhere.

HCA’s cardiac business is extremely lucrative, and the Justice Department has requested reviews that HCA conducted that indicate some of the heart procedures at some of its hospitals might not have been necessary and resulted in unjustified reimbursements from Medicare and other insurers.

To analyze HCA’s business model, The Times examined federal and state hospital records, lawsuits and regulatory investigations, and interviewed dozens of current and former doctors, nurses and administrators. It also carried out an extensive data analysis based on statistics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and the American Hospital Directory, a private company that processes and resells federal health care data.

The story of HCA’s growth offers a window on the changing world of health care. Small and nonprofit hospitals are closing or being gobbled up by medical conglomerates, many of which operate for a profit and therefore try to increase revenue and reduce costs even as they improve patient care. The trend toward consolidation is likely to accelerate under the Obama administration’s health care law as hospitals grapple with what are expected to be lower reimbursements from the federal and state governments and private insurers.

HCA has a dynamic history and powerful political ties. It was co-founded in 1968 by members of the Tennessee family of Dr. Thomas Frist Sr., the father of the former Republican senator, William Frist, also a doctor.

Its boom years were in the mid-1990s when the hospital system, then called HCA-Hospital Corporation of America, merged with the Columbia Healthcare Corporation, a hospital group led by Rick Scott, now governor of Florida.

Columbia/HCA became the target of a widespread fraud investigation in the late 1990s, which led to one of the largest Medicare settlements ever. Mr. Scott was removed as chief executive by the board, but was never accused by regulators of wrongdoing.

After years of rebuilding, HCA’s earnings began to weaken in early 2006 as admissions for operations at its hospitals tumbled, according to documents filed with the S.E.C. The weaker earnings in turn drove down the stock of the publicly traded company.

That spring, a group of investment bankers from Merrill Lynch approached top HCA executives to discuss a buyout by private equity firms.

The Merrill bankers found a receptive audience. Thomas F. Frist Jr., a board member, co-founder and brother of Senator Frist, had been a longtime investor in Bain Capital’s buyout funds and contacted the firm to gauge its interest in acquiring HCA through a leveraged buyout and taking it private again, according to S.E.C. documents. A leveraged buyout is an acquisition of a company that is done with large amounts of borrowed money.

Other executives contacted Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, and the Merrill bankers brought the firm’s own private equity team to invest in the deal, according to S.E.C. documents.

That July, HCA said it was being acquired in a deal valued at $33 billion.

The buyout came with risks. The new owners, who now occupied the majority of seats on HCA’s board, contributed only about $1.2 billion apiece in equity outlay from funds they oversaw, borrowing around $16 billion and assuming $11.7 billion of HCA’s outstanding debt. The deal essentially doubled the amount of debt held by HCA hospitals to $26 billion by borrowing from banks and selling bonds.

The Frist family also invested, as did other Wall Street banks. Among the new owners were top managers, including Jack O. Bovender Jr., then HCA’s chief, and its president, Mr. Bracken, who became chief executive in January 2009.

In 2010, buoyed by robust growth in profit, HCA was able to issue billions of dollars in debt that was used to pay funds overseen by the three buyout firms nearly $1 billion in dividends — each. In the spring of 2011, in one of the most closely watched public offerings since the financial crisis, HCA became a public company once again. Its three buyout owners each sold another $500 million worth of stock, allowing them to recoup all their initial investment.

Last fall, HCA agreed to buy back the stake held by Bank of America, which had purchased Merrill Lynch in 2009, for $1.5 billion, giving the bank a return of two and a half times its initial investment. And earlier this year, HCA paid out $900 million in dividends, of which $360 million went to K.K.R. and Bain.

The 40 percent stake in HCA still held by K.K.R. and Bain is worth about $4.8 billion at current levels, giving them a potential profit, with the dividends they have received, of three and a half times their initial investment of $1.2 billion each.

Those returns caught the attention of other buyout firms. In 2010, Steward Health Care System, controlled by Cerberus Capital Management and based in Boston, bought the second-largest hospital group in Massachusetts, converting it to a profit-making system. That same year, Vanguard Health Systems, which is run for profit and still has Blackstone Group as its largest shareholder after going public in 2011, bought eight hospitals in Detroit.

HCA itself continues to grow, buying up hospitals and doctor groups across the country. Large hospitals “will be best positioned to deal with forthcoming changes. Size and scale definitely provides an advantage in terms of lowering our cost structure and sharing best practices,” said HCA’s chief executive, Mr. Bracken. All of which, he added, were “essential ingredients for success.”

Redefining Emergency Care

Several years ago, digital billboards began popping up along highways throughout Florida, featuring the image of a painter falling from a ladder and the message, “Accidents happen fast. Emergency care should too.” Like highway signs that list the travel times to various destinations, the billboards flashed in real time the emergency room wait times — 17 minutes, for example, or 45 minutes — at nearby HCA hospitals.

HCA wanted to attract more patients to its emergency rooms, and it did. Annual visits climbed 20 percent from 2007 to 2011.

But while emergency departments are often a critical source of patient admissions, they are frequently money-losers because many patients do not have insurance. HCA found a solution: it figured out how to be paid more for the patients it was seeing.

All hospitals use a system of codes to bill services to Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers. The codes, which require some subjective evaluation, are supposed to reflect how much care is being delivered. Hospitals can differ over which treatments require which codes. A patient who walks into the emergency room with a simple case of indigestion would be classified by the hospital as using very little of its resources. The hospital would be reimbursed just $50 by Medicare for its evaluation.

A patient who might be suffering a heart attack might require oxygen, be placed on a cardiac monitor and transported for a CT scan. The hospital would classify those services at the highest level, earning it a $323 reimbursement from Medicare.

At HCA in 2006, slightly more than a quarter of the payments it received from Medicare were for patients classified in the two highest-paying categories, far behind the 58 percent reported at other hospitals, according to an analysis of Medicare payments by The Times, using data provided by the American Hospital Directory.

During that time, HCA was still operating under a corporate integrity agreement resulting from its Medicare fraud settlement, and an independent reviewer was scrutinizing its billing.

By late 2008, however, just as the agreement with federal regulators was ending, HCA introduced a new coding system for its emergency rooms. HCA said the system, based on a method developed by the American College of Emergency Physicians, was less complicated and better captured the time and resources used by the hospital.

Nearly overnight, HCA’s patients appeared to be much, much sicker. By 2010, HCA had surpassed other hospitals, with 76 percent of its payments coming from the two most expensive classifications, versus 74 percent for other hospitals.

For individual HCA hospitals, the change made a big difference. At Riverside Community Hospital in California, Medicare reimbursements for the highest classifications surged to $949,000 in 2010, from $48,000 in 2006. Likewise, at Kendall Regional Medical Center in Miami, Medicare payments jumped to $1.5 million from $69,000. In a conference call in early 2009 with Wall Street analysts, HCA’s executives said that the change in the billing system had increased the company’s adjusted earnings by about 7 percent, or $75 million to $100 million, in a single quarter.

Behind the scenes, however, HCA executives said they realized the new system was causing too many of its patients to land in the highest-paying categories. HCA’s head of ethics and compliance, Alan R. Yuspeh, said in a telephone interview last year that the company had identified the problem shortly after introducing the system and changed it to bring the company in line with the national average.

Still, HCA reported similar results in the next quarter.

Medicare has not provided hospitals with clear guidance about what kind of coding system they should use, and Mr. Yuspeh said HCA had alerted the agency to its use of the new system. No one has accused HCA of up-coding, or billing for more expensive services that were not needed — one of the complaints made against it a decade ago.

Vicki Bryan at the research firm GimmeCredit began warning HCA’s bondholders who subscribe to her reports in the spring of 2009 that HCA’s model was bolstering short-term returns, but that the system could have potentially negative long-term consequences if Medicare balked and demanded reimbursements.

So far there is no indication Medicare has done so, and a spokeswoman declined to comment. The acting head of Medicare is Marilyn B. Tavenner, a former HCA executive who left there in 2005 to become the secretary of Health and Human Resources in Virginia.

Turning Away Patients

Changing billing codes wasn’t the only avenue HCA pursued in search of higher profits.

Like many hospitals, HCA said its emergency rooms were overcrowded with patients who had minor illnesses like the flu rather than emergencies that it was obligated under federal law to treat. The company was among the first hospital systems to impose a protocol to reduce the number of patients it treated who did not seem to have a true medical emergency and were either unwilling or unable to pay.

Patients whose ailments were not deemed urgent were told to go somewhere else, like a free clinic, or that they could be treated if they paid the co-payment for their insurance or around $150 in cash.

Several former emergency department doctors at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Fort Pierce, Fla., said they frequently had felt compelled to override the screening system in order to treat patients.

One doctor, who asked not to be identified because he still works as an emergency physician, recalled one episode in which he was told to turn away a young boy with a deep cut in his arm because it was not bleeding profusely and he therefore did not meet the criteria.

“Physicians had a really, really hard time with it,” said Dr. J. Patrick Pearsall, who worked for an emergency physician group based in Houston that worked in HCA hospitals. When the doctors failed to meet the hospital’s goals for how many patients should be considered emergencies, “they really started putting pressure on.”

One emergency room doctor who worked at an HCA Florida hospital said doctors had been told they had targets to hit. The doctors’ concerns about the screening policy were acknowledged in an e-mail reviewed by The Times that was sent to the doctors at the hospital in early 2008 by an outside company that worked in the emergency room.

The doctors were told HCA’s regional executives were “quite intent on pursuing this program at least for the time being and fully expects us to comply. Their expectations are that approximately 15 percent of all patients are to be screened and of those screened no more than 35 percent overridden.”

Regulators in several states have taken HCA hospitals to task over screening out patients too aggressively, including situations where the screening missed serious conditions.

In early 2010, an uninsured patient who entered HCA’s TriStar Skyline Medical Center in Nashville, complaining of “pain when breathing,” was sent away. An hour and a half later, at another hospital, the same patient was found to have pneumonia, according to the results of a Medicare investigation. Regulators cited Skyline for having “failed to ensure that an appropriate medical screening examination was conducted.”

This year, the Office of Inspector General fined HCA’s Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., $38,000 for sending home a feverish patient with an artificial heart valve. Two days later, the patient reappeared with the flu and severe respiratory problems. The following day, he died.

HCA officials say they instituted the screening system to reduce overcrowding in emergency rooms. The company said its hospitals were providing quality care to patients and attended to any patients with medical emergencies, fulfilling their obligations under federal law. “Our E.R.’s are designed to offer access to everyone who needs emergency care,” the company said in a statement this year. And HCA says it never instituted quotas.

Still, some executives at other hospitals say HCA’s screening process is troubling. “From a business perspective, if you’re in Nashville, you’re high-fiving each other,” said John Couris, chief executive of Jupiter Medical, a rival Florida hospital. “But from a public policy perspective, it’s the wrong thing to do.”

Bedsores are ugly, painful wounds that can easily become infected and lead to dangerous complications for patients in hospitals.

Bedsores are also fairly easy to prevent. If nurses check patients regularly and turn them or, in certain cases, put patients on air mattresses that redistribute pressure, many bedsores can be prevented or treated early.

A Matter of Staff Levels

Experts say there is often a direct correlation between bedsores and the quality of hospital staff levels. “Staffing is critical,” said Courtney H. Lyder, the dean at the UCLA School of Nursing and an expert on wound care. “When you see high levels of wounds, you usually see a high level of dysfunctional staff,” he said.

HCA owned eight of the 15 worst hospitals for bedsores among 545 profit-making hospitals nationwide, each with more than 1,000 patient discharges, tracked by the Sunlight Foundation using Medicare data from October 2008 to June 2010. HCA’s West Houston Medical Center and CJW Medical Center in Richmond, Va., landed near the top of the list.

HCA says it has increased its nursing staff at its hospitals each year over the last five years. But an examination of lawsuits shows bedsore problems have been persistent at several HCA facilities. In Portsmouth Regional Hospital in New Hampshire, a 60-year-old woman died in 2009 after her bedsores went untreated for three days and became infected, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in the spring of 2011 in federal court against the hospital. HCA denied the claims in court documents.

And bedsores were partly responsible for forever altering the life of George Clay Chandler, a lieutenant in the Clay County sheriff’s office in north Florida. Five years ago, Mr. Chandler decided to undergo weight-loss surgery. A mountain of a man at 6-foot-1 and 375 pounds, Mr. Chandler entered Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville for what seemed like a relatively simple operation.

But when Mr. Chandler emerged two months later, he was a changed man. He was unable to speak. His eyes were badly damaged, his limbs contorted, and he suffered from a large, painful bedsore on his buttock.

While some of Mr. Chandler’s injuries occurred at the hands of an inexperienced surgeon, according to a lawsuit in a county court, many more developed while he lay, virtually unattended, in the hospital’s critical care unit. One nurse, who quit Memorial after repeatedly warning executives about what she saw as a shortage of qualified nurses on staff, testified that Mr. Chandler’s bedsores could have been easily prevented.

Memorial was the focus of six civil lawsuits by former patients who claimed, among other things, that they had received poor care and suffered bedsores. Five of those lawsuits were settled for undisclosed sums.

The hospital was cited twice by Florida regulators, in 2008 and 2010, for having inadequate numbers of nurses on its staff to oversee wound care for patients. During the 2010 examination, regulators noted that Memorial had less than the equivalent of two full-time nurses who specialized in wound care to treat the 132 patients who required aid.

“The system of treatment for wound care places patients at risk for additional medical complications,” the examiners said.

The hospital said it had taken corrective measures in response to the shortfalls cited by Florida regulators.

HCA says its hospitals have improved and, citing its own internal analysis, says its rate of bedsores is now below the national average. “We recognize some hospitals within our company are achieving better results than others, and this provides opportunities to learn from our top performers and apply those lessons broadly,” the company said in a statement last year.

Earlier this year, a jury awarded Mr. Chandler and his family $178 million in damages. This month, Memorial and HCA, which had appealed the jury’s verdict, reached a confidential settlement with Mr. Chandler’s family.

Griff Palmer contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 14, 2012

An earlier version of this article imprecisely referred to the state of Mitt Romney’s candidacy. He is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee; he is not yet the nominee.

 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/business/hca-giant-hospital-chain-creates-a-windfall-for-private-equity.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Wisconsin Embraces Fascism
 Aspiring, Sticky-Sweet Authoritarian Dictator Remains Firmly in Power

June 6, 2012
Dr. Glen Barry, personal essay
Source: http://drglenbarry.tumblr.com/

Wisconsin is a less free and decent place this morning. The human right to freely and openly associate and organize with colleagues to negotiate the best price for your labor just barely exists, and people that form unions to do so are villainous thugs. Women are less equal. Gays and blacks are sub-human. Teachers, intellectuals, progressives, atheists, and other knowledgeable, free thinking peoples have less rights and prestige. A sticky-sweet taint lingers in the air.

Largely uneducated yet belligerent rural rednecks, out-of-state billionaires, and white suburban Milwaukee ghetto usurers are firmly in control. They are taking names, coming for what you have, and preparing to force their worldview upon anyone who has not yet drunk the corporatist kool-aid. The air, water, soil and vegetation Wisconsin's citizens depend upon for life now lie virtually unprotected. Corporations - which we are told are people - are firmly in control. God is in the government and regulates our bodies and bedrooms.

Right-wing, teabagger, nutjob politicians no longer have to campaign on the issues upon which they will actually govern, or even mention the policies they will pursue once in office. Money is speech and anything can be said, or even made up, and stated over and over again, until glassy eyed we fall into line behind the great leader. Our Governor's boorish past conduct and patterns of election fraud since youth have never mattered, never will, and will be erased along with fascist and illegal union busting tactics from our history.

Neighbors begrudge neighbors their modest health insurance, education and pension - rather than organizing and educating themselves to have them too.  People of all sorts that better themselves by banding together into unions and/or becoming educated are unworthy of deferred compensation they freely negotiated, earned and are owed. Teachers, firefighters, cops, government workers, and their unions caused 911 and the ongoing financial collapse; and they will be punished now and long into the future, until they repent of their socialist ways.

Being smart¸ and training your mind through a process called education, is dumb and no longer valued in Wisconsin. Funds for our formerly world-class schools and Universities have been returned to our state's elite absentee billionaire slumlords, where because of their great benevolent virtue, they rightly belong. Those who are educated are less than fully American, and their views, especially if fact, data, knowledge, or wisdom based; are not to be trusted. There are no experts on anything, just opinion. Truth comes from a tightened fist.

There will be no salvation from homegrown Wisconsin fascism. The national tea party is bent upon dumbing us down and enslaving us for god and greed. The great black hope and assassin in chief busies himself with nominating alleged terrorists - including American citizens - for the drone kill list in sovereign nations. Our economy was plundered by the elites, who are now the power behind the throne in Wisconsin, and also our commander-in-chief's top advisors and funders. No one has gone to jail.

Both Wisconsin's state and national leaders routinely permanently rollback civil liberties and ignore ecological collapse at great peril. Wisconsin's progressive leadership is overly focused upon preening, posing, celebrity journalist activists - who lead the protests, report upon them, and are followed by their own video crews. Whenever the party of Roosevelt rules it meekly fails to stand for much of anything but re-election. The party of Reagan - led now by a bullying uber-corporatist - overreaches and continually cheapens America's great democratic traditions.

Rarely are political, universal truths of justice, liberty, fairness, peace, equity, ecology, and human rights spoken courageously any longer - much less enacted. Sensibly caring for the well-being of others, sharing when you have enough, nurturing children and the land are thought to be quaint relicts of an over-taxed era. Others would consider this the price of democracy and civilization, such as it is.

Wisconsinites - like the rest of the nation - are left in the coming Presidential election with picking the lesser of two fascists. Freedom from fascist and corporatist rule - and the scapegoating, sexism, nationalism, militarism, propaganda lies; and gutting of unions, education, environmental protection and civil liberties this implies - is a precondition to living justly, fairly and well; and to sustaining global ecology and social well-being long-term.

The American dream of hyper-consumption for some is over because it couldn't be sustained ecologically or socially. America can't expect to reap the ill-gotten benefits - all too often seized at the point of a gun - of 4% of Earth's people consuming 25% of key global resources any longer. The 2.5 billion people globally living on $2 a day understandably want their fair share too. The natural and painful consequences of downsizing America's extreme lifestyles and unwinding horrific disparities is sadly leading to demagoguery, a decline in truth telling, and yes, the rise of fascism in the American heartland.

America has lost its way. Our ecosystems and economic system are collapsing, fascism rising, and conflict growing - do we want societal and ecological collapse to come as we are at each other's throats? Things are heading that way. We are becoming the terrorists we abhor. And all the reasons are evident in microcosm in Wisconsin. Decent, thoughtful folks in Wisconsin tried valiantly but ultimately failed for now to combat the John Birch, KKK, Tea Party inspired rise of hateful and destructive fascism.  But the battle to retake our great state and country from the fascists has just begun.

I hate fascism, and urge you to join together with others and myself to resist a corporate takeover and enslavement of America. Going forward, all thinking reasonable lovers of truth-based liberty, freedom, and the decent essence of America, must come together to form an Anti-Fascist League. Failure means an overtly fascist America, of the sort now destroying Wisconsin.


** In addition to Dr. Glen Barry's long-running Earth Meanders environmental essays, he will now be writing more frequently on other progressive issues, as a public intellectual in his personal capacity. If you don't want to receive these personal essays, but still want to receive the more ecological based materials, just let us know. This as of yet unnamed personal essay series is being posted for now at: http://drglenbarry.tumblr.com/

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328

Another woman sues west St. Louis County treatment center for alleged brainwashing

BY BLYTHE BERNHARD • [email protected] > 314-340-8129 | Posted: Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:29 am

ST. LOUIS COUNTY • A second woman is suing Castlewood Treatment Center in west St. Louis County, where she says she was brainwashed into believing she was in a cult and possessed by the devil.

Leslie Thompson of Minnesota spent two and a half years as a patient at Castlewood and other facilities associated with psychologist Mark Schwartz, who is also named in the suit filed Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court.

Castlewood and Schwartz were sued in November by Lisa Nasseff, also of Minnesota, who made similar claims of brainwashing when she stayed at the residential facility for 15 months between 2007 and 2009.

Both women are represented by attorney Kenneth Vuylsteke of Webster Groves.

The lawsuits say the women were treated for eating disorders at Castlewood and were implanted with false memories of sexual abuse and satanic cult activity.

Under the care of Schwartz, Thompson falsely believed she belonged to a cult, was involved in the sacrifice of a baby and had 10 multiple personalities including one named "Freddie" that represented the devil, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit says Schwartz told Thompson she would die if she left Castlewood, as if she had walked away "in the middle of surgery."

Thompson's medical bills at Castlewood reached $600,000, according to the lawsuit.

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/another-woman-sues-west-st-louis-county-treatment-center-for/article_7aec8dae-58c6-11e1-a0ed-0019bb30f31a.html?print=1
Does Forest Labs Case Signal New Era of White Collar Prosecution?  (Webmaster Note:  We can only hope so...) 

April 26th, 2011 (Received by HEAL on August 14th, 2011)

By Ashby Jones

All you white-collar defense lawyers should sit up and take notice of this story, by the WSJ’s Alicia Mundy, out in Tuesday’s paper.

The reason: because it hints at an interesting trend that just might be on the rise.

For now, a bit of background: Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services startle a lot of people when the agency said it would start invoking a little-used administrative policy under the Social Security Act against pharmaceutical executives.

The policy allows officials to bar corporate leaders from health-industry companies doing business with the government, if a drug company is guilty of criminal misconduct.

Well, HHS is keeping good on its promise. Earlier this month, the department notified Howard Solomon of Forest Laboratories that it, yes, intends to keep him from doing business with the federal government.

The “action against the CEO of Forest Labs is a game changer,” said Richard Westling, a corporate defense attorney in Nashville who has represented executives in different industries against the government.

The Forest case has its origins in an investigation into the company’s marketing of its big-selling antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro. Last September, Forest made a plea agreement with the government, under which it is paying $313 million in criminal and civil penalties over sales-related misconduct.

A federal court made the deal final in March. Forest Labs representatives said they were shocked when the intent-to-ban notice was received a few weeks later, because Solomon wasn’t accused by the government of misconduct.

Forest is sticking by its chief. “No one has ever alleged that Mr. Solomon did anything wrong, and excluding him [from the industry] is unjustified,” said general counsel Herschel Weinstein.

The move against Forest’s Solomon brings the campaign to a new level. Lawyers not involved in the Forest case said the attempt to punish an executive who isn’t accused of misconduct could tie up the industry’s day-to-day work in legal knots.

According to Westling, the campaign should not be seen “solely a health-care industry issue. The use of sanctions such as exclusion and debarment to punish individuals where the government is unable to prove a direct legal or regulatory violation could have wide-ranging impact.” An exclusion penalty could be more costly than a Justice Department prosecution.

He said that the Defense Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, have debarment powers similar to the HHS exclusion authority.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/04/26/does-forest-labs-case-signal-new-era-in-white-collar-prosecution/

US violates prisoner rights it wants other nations to observe
Deborah Dupre, Human Rights Examiner
July 13, 2011

 United States human rights actions must match its human rights talk

In yet another major United States human rights abuse issue raised this month, government's insistence on "monitoring" prisoner conversations about treatment in confinement with United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has resulted in his making a public statement Tuesday about United States violating prisoner rights and breaking UN's unfettered access to prisoners rule while the US is insisting other nations observe human rights.

The UN expert needs to determine whether or not the US treatment of its prisoners, including Prt Bradley Manning, constitutes "torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," an impossible investigation when prisoners' rights to privacy are violated during meetings with the torture expert.

"When a leading advocate for human rights like the United States bends the rules from time to time, it undermines the whole human rights apparatus," Mark Goldberg with the UN Dispatch stated Wednesday.

The high profile case of Pte Manning, 23 as he awaits trial in military prison is demonstrating US breach of human rights, international law, and UN obligations according to Goldberg.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture questions whether Obama and his military, refusing to allow unfettered access to Pte Manning might also be applied to other prisoners.

“The United States, as a world leader, is a strong supporter of the international human rights system," said Juan Méndez, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture.

"Therefore, its actions must seek to set the pace in good practices that enhance the role of human rights mechanisms, ensuring and maintaining unfettered access to detainees during enquiries."

“I am assured by the US Government that Mr. Manning’s prison regime and confinement is markedly better than it was when he was in Quantico,” said  Méndez,

“However, in addition to obtaining first hand information on my own about his new conditions of confinement, I need to ascertain whether the conditions he was subjected to for several months in Quantico amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Mendez said the U.S. military's insistence on monitoring conversations with Bradley Manning "violates long-standing rules" the U.N. follows for visits to inmates.

Mr. Méndez has formally asked the US Government several times for permission to visit Guantanamo Bay but government has not responded according to the United Nations.

After confined alone in a cell 23 hours per day in in Quantico detention facility in Virginia, Pte Manning was transferred to Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas in April where US officials say his treatment is better. Manning has been detained by the U.S. military for most of the past year in a case pitting US government against national human rights advocates. He is accused of being the source of sensitive documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars provided to Wikileaks.

"The United States should be leading by example," states Goldberg.

"Instead, the Obama administration seems to want it both ways: unfettered access for human rights monitors abroad while placing restrictions on them at home."

Continue reading on Examiner.com US violates prisoner rights it wants other nations to observe - National Human Rights | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/us-violates-prisoner-rights-but-wants-other-countries-to-adhere-to-rights#ixzz1S3wss0YE
Alliance for Human Research Protection
A Catalyst for Debate
 www.ahrp.org

In our era, psychiatry as a profession has suffered a significant loss of
credibility: the most influential  leaders and academics in psychiatry have
been shown to be agents for the drug industry, disregarding psychotropic
drugs' documented, severe, debilitating harmful effects for patients. The
American Psychiatric Association itself acknowledged -- under pressure from
Senator Charles Grassley's requests for its funding sources-- that over one
third of its funding came from the drug industry.

Dr. Allen Frances, MD, the subject of an illuminating interview and article
by Gary Greenberg in WIRED, chaired the American Psychiatric Association's
(APA) DSM-IV Task Force in the early 1990s but has recently become a
formidable critic of APA's revision process toward the DSM-5. His publicly
expressed criticism of psychiatry's grandiose ambition--demonstrated by its
ever expanding list of unvalidated disease designations and reliance on
demonstrably harm-producing chemical interventions--essentially validates
the criticism expressed by the Alliance for Human Research Protection for
more than a dozen years.

The DSM-5 revision process mirrors the disconnect between psychiatry's
grandiose ambition and the absence of scientific legitimacy to support its
diagnostic or clinical practices.

Dr. Frances confesses that the diagnostic concepts in the DSM "are virtually
impossible to define precisely.." Even Carol Bernstein, the current
president of the APA, acknowledges in this month's Psychiatry News the
absence of any validated diagnostic tools in psychiatry--they were invented
because of "the need to match patients with newly emerging pharmacologic
treatments:"

"It became necessary in the 1970s to facilitate diagnostic agreement among
clinicians, scientists, and regulatory authorities given the need to match
patients with newly emerging pharmacologic treatments and the associated
need to conduct replicable clinical trials so that additional treatments
could be approved."
"Indeed, even today objective tests and biomarkers for mental disorders
remain research goals rather than clinical tools."
 http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/5/7.full

Read more... http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/783/9/

Petraeus orders investigation after Rolling Stone reports on alleged use of psychological operations--February 24th, 2011 (Source: voices.washingtonpost.com)

 

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, plans to investigate allegations in a Rolling Stone article that psychological operations were used by the army on members of Congress, a statement from his office said.

Sen. Reed, told MSNBC's Chris Jansing that the accusations were "very serious and disturbing" and that the Pentagon should investigate.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. said in a statement that, "For years, I have strongly and repeatedly advocated for building up Afghan military capability because I believe only the Afghans can truly secure their nation's future. I have never needed any convincing on this point."

A lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army told Rolling Stone that he was asked to manipulate members of Congress visiting Afghanistan into providing more troops and funding for the war, a new article in the music magazine reports.  For complete story, click here.

 

For Some Troops, Powerful Drug Cocktails Have Deadly Results--February 12th, 2011 (Source: nytimes.com)

In his last months alive, Senior Airman Anthony Mena rarely left home 
without a backpack filled with medications.

He returned from his second deployment to Iraq complaining of back 
pain, insomnia, anxiety and nightmares. Doctors diagnosed post-
traumatic stress disorder and prescribed powerful cocktails of 
psychiatric drugs and narcotics.

Yet his pain only deepened, as did his depression. "I have almost 
given up hope," he told a doctor in 2008, medical records show. "I 
should have died in Iraq."

Airman Mena died instead in his Albuquerque apartment, on July 21, 
2009, five months after leaving the Air Force on a medical discharge. 
A toxicologist found eight prescription medications in his blood, 
including three antidepressants, a sedative, a sleeping pill and two 
potent painkillers.

Yet his death was no suicide, the medical examiner concluded. What 
killed Airman Mena was not an overdose of any one drug, but the 
interaction of many. He was 23.

After a decade of treating thousands of wounded troops, the military's 
medical system is awash in prescription drugs -- and the results have 
sometimes been deadly.

By some estimates, well over 300,000 troops have returned from Iraq or 
Afghanistan with P.T.S.D., depression, traumatic brain injury or some 
combination of those. The Pentagon has looked to pharmacology to treat 
those complex problems, following the lead of civilian medicine. As a 
result, psychiatric drugs have been used more widely across the 
military than in any previous war.

But those medications, along with narcotic painkillers, are being 
increasingly linked to a rising tide of other problems, among them 
drug dependency, suicide and fatal accidents -- sometimes from the 
interaction of the drugs themselves. An Army report on suicide 
released last year documented the problem, saying one-third of the 
force was on at least one prescription medication.  For complete story, click here.

Electroshock Treatment Status with FDA by VERACARE  (Statement Below from E-mail Received--

Click Title Link for More Information)

A divided FDA panel recommendeds that Electroshock machines should remain in
Class III--FDA's highest risk category for medical devices--and recommended
that ECT machines should undergo rigorous safety tests.

An eyewitness report about the hearing in the Washington Post, and the
comments by psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin on The Huffington Post, are
posted on the AHRP website. http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/763/9/

Panel Chairman Thomas G. Brott, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, said he
was amazed that essentially no research had been done on ECT's effects using
functional MRI imaging, repeated brain wave (EEG) studies, or autopsy
examinations of patients.

    "I tried to look and saw very little. I concluded that the evidence is
not there to decide either way," he said.

Dr. Brott's question is worth probing in light of the contentious battle
about ECT safety, between consumers who suffer the consequences, and ECT
stakeholders.

The failure to conduct--or perhaps, more accurately, the failure to
report--results from imaging studies and autopsy examinations, studies that
would provide replicable, hard evidence of ECT effects on the brian,
demonstrates, we believe, that ECT promoters have evaded such studies for
fear they would provide irrefutable documentation about ECT's brain damaging
effects.

 
Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
 [email protected]
212-595-8974

Victims Of Human Rights Violations Denied Access To Justice In U.S., Says New ACLU Report--December 10th, 2010  (Source: aclu.org)

December 10, 2010
On International Human Rights Day, Report Calls For Reform

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

NEW YORK – Access to justice for victims of civil and human rights violations has been severely curbed over the last decade, according to a report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The report shows how indigent defendants on death row, prisoners suffering abuses in prison, immigrants in unfair removal proceedings, torture victims, domestic violence survivors and victims of racial discrimination, among others, are consistently denied access to the courts and effective remedies as a result of recent laws and court decisions.

"Unfortunately, because of recent laws and court decisions, victims of human rights violations here in the U.S. are continually denied their day in court while those responsible for the abuses are protected," said Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher with the ACLU and author of the report. "Equal justice for all is a core American value and everyone deserves access to the courts to right wrongs done against them. The U.S. should amend restrictive laws and swiftly enact policies to restore access to justice for the most vulnerable among us."

According to the report, "Slamming the Courthouse Doors," the "[a]ctions of the executive, federal legislative, and judicial branches of the United States have seriously restricted access to justice for victims of civil liberties and human rights violations, and have limited the availability of effective (or, in some cases, any) remedies for these violations. Weakened judicial oversight and recent attempts to limit access to justice…are denying victims of human rights violations their day in court and protecting responsible officials and corporations from litigation."

The report details the many ways in which victims of human rights abuses are denied access to justice, including:

• individuals convicted of capital crimes who seek to present newly found evidence of their innocence or claims of serious constitutional violations being denied recourse in the courts because of federal legislation and recent court decisions;
• victims of rape, assault, religious rights violations and other serious abuses in prison having their claims thrown out of court because of a restrictive federal law;
• immigrants who may have legitimate claims to remain in the United States unknowingly waiving their opportunity to pursue these claims and being swiftly deported because of unfair procedures;
• torture victims, including survivors of the CIA "extraordinary rendition" program, being denied their day in court because the government has misused the "state secrets" privilege to shield their torturers from liability;
• victims of domestic violence being denied the opportunity to seek civil remedy under the Violence Against Women Act because of recent court decisions; and
• victims of racial or national origin discrimination, including victims of racial profiling, being shut out of court because their claims must be accompanied by proof of intentional discrimination, not just the disparate impact – however egregious – of certain laws and policies.

The report includes detailed recommendations and measures for the U.S. government to take in order to live up to the promise of equal justice for all and comply with international human rights obligations and commitments to guarantee access to justice and effective remedies. An annex to the report includes information on curtailing access to justice in over a dozen states.  For complete story, click here.

Psychologist in Terror War Is Subject of Complaint--November 14th, 2010 (Source: nytimes.com)

The decision about whether an architect of Bush-era interrogation tactics will keep his license as a psychologist is in the hands of a Texas government agency.

A complaint against Dr. James E. Mitchell is now before the Texas State Board of Psychologists, alleging that he violated the profession’s rules of practice in helping the C.I.A. develop “enhanced interrogation techniques” for use in its so-called black prison sites during the Bush administration’s war on terror. Along with Dr. Bruce Jessen, a fellow military psychologist, Dr. Mitchell was a primary developer of post-Sept. 11 C.I.A. interrogation methods that are currently under a criminal torture investigation by the Department of Justice.

Dr. Mitchell, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article, parlayed his experience in training American soldiers to survive as prisoners of war into a lucrative consulting business with the C.I.A. He orchestrated — and, according to the complaint, participated in — the harsh interrogation of terror suspects using sexual humiliation and the drowning technique called waterboarding.

Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor, and Dicky Grigg, an Austin lawyer, worked with a Texas psychologist, Jim L. H. Cox, to bring the complaint, which documents in lurid detail Dr. Mitchell’s role in the questioning of prisoners.

The complaint, which was brought in June, alleges that the doctor misrepresented his qualifications to the C.I.A., placing “his own career and financial aspirations above the safety of others” while designing a “torture regime” with a “complete lack of scientific basis.”

Mr. Margulies said he was pursuing the possibility of a similar action against Dr. Jessen, who is licensed in Idaho.

Mr. Margulies said Dr. Mitchell had never practiced psychology in Texas although through the years, he had maintained his license here and renewed it.

The severity of the accusations led the American Psychological Association to take the rare step of submitting a public comment to the Texas licensing board. The group’s letter said that if Dr. Mitchell were a member of the professional association — he is not — and if the accusations were true, he would be expelled.

The association’s ethics guidelines prohibit inhumane or abusive treatment of anyone, and there “are no circumstances in which that isn’t the case,” including wartime or threat of terrorism said Rhea Farberman, a spokeswoman.

A spokeswoman for the Texas board said she could not comment on the complaint, saying only that the board had yet to take disciplinary action against Dr. Mitchell, a process that typically takes about six months.

Mr. Margulies emphasized the board members’ importance in the process , calling them the “only gatekeepers” of the profession.  For complete story, click here.
Misguided Thinking--"Take your medication!" is probably the most common refrain in today's mental health field. After all, medication has been the cornerstone of psychiatric treatment for decades, so much so that it is considered 
unethical to treat many conditions without it. Yet a new book by award- winning journalist Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic,  effectively shows just how misguided this thinking is.

For most of the 30 years I have worked in mental health, I have been  alarmed by my observations that most psychiatric treatments seem to  produce more harm than good. I started off as a psychiatric orderly  and assisted with electro-convulsive therapy, otherwise known as shock  treatment. Most of the patients were middle-aged women from the  surrounding St. Louis suburbs but no one was immune. A 16-year-old boy  was shocked because he was considered "pre-schizophrenic." An 85-year- old woman had a heart attack during the shock procedure and died hours 
later. Shock treatment reduced all to a vegetative state from which  most recovered and some even improved. Tragically though, some never  recovered and I developed an enduring skepticism of psychiatric  treatment.  For complete story, click here. (August 12th, 2010)

New Jersey Is Sued Over the Forced Medication of Patients at Psychiatric Hospitals--August 3rd, 2010--

Patient advocates filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday charging that New Jersey psychiatric hospitals routinely medicate patients against their will without a review by an outside arbiter, a practice that is banned in most other states.

Twenty-nine states require a judge’s ruling for involuntary medication, according to the suit, including New York, Connecticut and other large states, like California, Florida and Texas. Five other states leave the decision to an individual or panel outside the hospital. Some states also provide an advocate to represent a patient in a hearing on forced medication.

But in New Jersey, state rules allow a patient in a state hospital to appeal medication decisions only to people in the hospital. The lawsuit contends that the internal appeal process is routinely ignored and that psychiatric patients in private hospitals lack any opportunity to appeal medication regimens at all.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Trenton by the group Disability Rights New Jersey, seeks a court order requiring the state to provide judicial review of involuntary medication. It notes that a prison inmate has more power to contest treatment decisions than a psychiatric patient. For complete story, click here.
Media release April 27, 2010
Mental patient challenges abuse

“The case of mental health patient Saeed Dezfouli shows an appalling abuse of power masked as health care," said JA Coordinator Brett Collins. "This degrades us all. I am proud to stand beside another vulnerable citizen subjected to government misbehaviour, even more embarrassing to the community than the Ferguson case.  I am now Saeed's Primary Carer and supporting his Supreme Court challenge.”
 
“Saeed presents no threat to the community. He needs support. When police ignored his distress for five months, he lit a fire in his workplace to draw attention – as he said he would. The fire escape was locked and a woman died of smoke inhalation. This would never have happened with proper health and police intervention” said Mr Collins.
 
“Despite being a non-violent patient, he has been held in the highest security cell for eight years. He is forcibly injected every fortnight, is refused a choice of psychiatrist, education and exercise, and is not permitted visitors who haven’t previously physically touched him. Compassion, the Mental Health Act s.68 rights and international treaties are ignored” said Mr Collins.
 
“The expenditure of $200,000 a year for his treatment and $1million a cell at the new Long Bay Forensic Hospital amounts to corruption. The lack of complaint from those around shows how widespread is the abuse and how compromised are those participating in the health system” said Mr Collins.
 
“We have a job and home for Saeed, and will continue the JA Mentoring relationship which is funded by Breakout DesignPrintWeb. We call on the Attorney General to support Saeed’s Supreme Court challenge on May 3” said Mr Collins.
 
Comments: Brett Collins 0438 705003.

More info http://tinyurl.com/ydplj5h  For original alert, click here.
Is practicing psychiatry a disorder in need of treatment?--February 21st, 2010--Psychiatrists are currently debating whether "sex addiction" should be added to the catalogue of psychological disorders that can be reliably diagnosed
and treated.

On the one hand, some are saying that sexual addiction, in the true sense of
a diagnosis, is a real disorder and anyone who works with sex addicts know
that they have a long array of behaviours. Others, however, believe the term
is simply used to excuse bad behaviour.

Next in line will be the Tiger Woods syndrome, along with catastrophic views
on the environment, an addiction to Starbucks, liking Barry Manilow and
singing the praises of Rush Limbaugh. Soon all of our lives will be illness
states, with some of us coping better than others in managing our daily
diagnostics and treating ourselves through counselling, psychiatry and
self-medication.

Everything is problematic

The quest to add sex addiction to the catalogue of recognized illness states
is just a part of the desire of psychiatrists to identify everything as
problematic. The handbook for diagnosis, known as the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), now in its 4th edition, is the
bible of mental illness.  A new edition, the fifth, is due in 2013.

The DSM itself is problematic. Diagnoses like "homosexuality", once
classified as an illness, come and go depending on societal pressures. By no
stretch of the imagination is it a scientific, evidence-based document. This
is not surprising. Freud was not a scientist who used evidence and data for
his treatment. Now Freud's ideas have been largely discounted and his
diagnostic category of "neurosis" is no longer used. Indeed, several forms
of therapy once popular have, on the basis of evidence, been sidelined. What
hasn't been revised is the approach to the definition of mental illness.  For complete story, click here.

Daylight Saving Time May Throw Off Internal Clocks--March 13th, 2010--

(March 13, 2010) -- On Sunday, thanks to daylight saving time, we are all due to lose precious time as we set our clocks forward an hour. Of course this is annoying on a number of levels -- who wants a shorter weekend? -- but there is also emerging scientific evidence that the change disrupts our natural rhythms.

 
Researchers have been trying to catalog the effects of daylight saving time for years, with conflicting results. 

 
A 1996 study in the New England Journal of Medicine claimed an 8 percent jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after the switch, but a follow-up report two years later suggested that figure was lower. In 2000, a group of Swedish researchers concluded that the change did not have any significant effects on the number of crashes in that country. Jump forward to 2009, though, and Michigan State University psychologists Christopher Barnes and David Wagner report that there are more workplace injuries on the Mondays following that lost hour.  For complete story, click here.
Supreme Court scales back 'Miranda,' eases rules for questioning suspects 25 Feb 2010 The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that investigators may resume questioning a suspect who invoked his Miranda right to a lawyer after the suspect has been out of police custody for 14 days. The 7-2 decision scales back a 1981 high-court decision intended to protest suspects from repeated police badgering to talk and to safeguard the rights established in the 1966 Miranda v. Arizona ruling.  For complete story, click here.
Monsanto 'faked' data for approvals claims its ex-chief 09 Feb 2010 Former managing director of Monsanto India, Tiruvadi Jagadisan, is the latest to join the critics of Bt brinjal, perhaps the first industry insider to do so. Jagadisan, who worked with Monsanto for nearly two decades, including eight years as the managing director of India operations, spoke against the new variety during the public consultation held in Bangalore on Saturday. On Monday, he elaborated by saying the company "used to fake scientific data" submitted to government regulatory agencies to get commercial approvals for its products in India.  For complete story, click here.
US waves white flag in disastrous 'war on drugs'--After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives--January 17th, 2010-- After 40 years of defeat and failure, America's "war on drugs" is  being buried in the same fashion as it was born – amid bloodshed,  confusion, corruption and scandal. US agents are being pulled from  South America; Washington is putting its narcotics policy under  review, and a newly confident region is no longer prepared to swallow  its fatal Prohibition error. Indeed, after the expenditure of  billions of dollars and the violent deaths of tens of thousands of  people, a suitable epitaph for America's longest "war" may well be  the plan, in Bolivia, for every family to be given the right to grow 
coca in its own backyard.

The "war", declared unilaterally throughout the world by Richard  Nixon in 1969, is expiring as its strategists start discarding plans  that have proved futile over four decades: they are preparing to  withdraw their agents from narcotics battlefields from Colombia to  Afghanistan and beginning to coach them in the art of trumpeting  victory and melting away into anonymous defeat. Not surprisingly, the  new strategy is being gingerly aired in the media of the US 
establishment, from The Wall Street Journal to the Miami Herald.  For complete story, click here.
Supreme Court drops key case on limits of immunity for prosecutors--January 4th, 2010--The US Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case over whether prosecutors who knowingly procure false testimony that leads to a 
wrongful conviction can later be sued for damages.

Lawyers announced that the parties in the underlying lawsuit had agreed to end the case in a $12 million settlement.
The two innocent men, Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee, had spent  nearly 26 years in prison for a murder they didn’t commit. After the  truth was discovered and they were released, they sued the  prosecutors in Pottawattamie County, Iowa.

An investigation revealed that the prosecutors helped assemble and  present false testimony that led to their convictions. Messrs.  Harrington and McGhee had been sentenced to life in prison at hard  labor with no possibility of parole.  For complete story, click here.
Drug giant General Electric uses libel law to gag doctor 20 Dec 2009 General Electric, one of the world’s biggest corporations, is using the London libel courts to gag a senior radiologist after he raised the alarm over the potentially fatal risks of one of its drugs. The multinational [GE Healthcare, a British subsidiary of General Electric] is suing Henrik Thomsen, a Danish academic, after he described his experiences of one of the company’s drugs as a medical "nightmare". He said some kidney patients at his hospital contracted a potentially deadly condition after being administered the drug Omniscan.  For complete story, click here.

Black leaders urge census to change how it counts inmates--December 17th, 2009--A coalition of African American leaders concerned about minorities being undercounted in the 2010 Census called Wednesday for inmates at
federal and state prisons to be tallied in their home communities instead of the towns where they are incarcerated.

Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League and chairman of a census advisory committee, said the practice now shortchanges communities in money and democratic representation. Census statistics are used to calculate the allocation of more than $478 billion in federal funds and to draw political boundaries.

Noting that about 1.2 million of the nation's 40 million African Americans are in prison, Morial said, "What we have in the prison population issue is a built-in undercount."

Morial and about a dozen other black leaders brought up the prison count during a meeting with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to discuss how to make the census more accurate, a perennial problem. In 2000, about 1.3 million people were overcounted, mostly because of duplicate counts of whites with multiple homes. In contrast, about 4.5 million people, mostly black and Hispanic, were not counted.  For complete story, click here.
Yahoo, Verizon: Our Spy Capabilities Would 'Shock', 'Confuse' Consumers By Kim Zetter 01 Dec 2009 Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies? That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public. Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter, that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it "to 'shame' Yahoo! and other companies -- and to 'shock' their customers." For complete story, click here.

Pfizer Broke the Law by Promoting Drugs for Unapproved Uses--November 9th, 2009--

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Prosecutor Michael Loucks remembers clearly when lawyers for Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug company, looked across the table and promised it wouldn’t break the law again.

It was January 2004, and the attorneys were negotiating in a conference room on the ninth floor of the federal courthouse in Boston, where Loucks was head of the health-care fraud unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. One of Pfizer’s units had been pushing doctors to prescribe an epilepsy drug called Neurontin for uses the Food and Drug Administration had never approved.

In the agreement the lawyers eventually hammered out, the Pfizer unit, Warner-Lambert, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of marketing a drug for unapproved uses.  For complete story, click here.
New US vaccine production techniques: Genetically modified insect cells, E. coli, caterpillar ovaries 24 Nov 2009 Spurred by $487 million in federal funding, a sprawling new vaccine factory is opening in North Carolina Tuesday that will produce shots using dog cells instead of chicken eggs. A Connecticut biotech company has also applied to sell a vaccine employing a radically different approach involving a genetically engineered virus infecting insect cells... Baxter International won approval last month to sell an H1N1 vaccine in Europe that uses a decades-old line of African green monkey kidney cells, and it is working on a vaccine for the United States. Protein Sciences of Meriden, Conn., has applied to the FDA for approval to sell a vaccine made by genetically engineering flu genes into a worm virus, which then infects cells from caterpillar ovaries to produce the necessary proteins to make vaccine. VaxInnate of Cranbury, N.J., for example, produced an experimental H1N1 vaccine using genetically engineered E.coli bacteria, and Vical of San Diego just won a $1.25 million contract from the Navy to develop an H1N1 vaccine that involves injecting DNA sequences from the virus directly into people.  For complete story, click here.

Students who question murder convictions under investigation--November 6th, 2009--

(CNN) -- It was two-and-a-half days before Illinois Gov. George Ryan was to leave office in 2003. I sat in a crowded auditorium in Northwestern University's Law School in Chicago, where Ryan was expected to make a major announcement on capital punishment.

"Half, if you will, of the nearly 300 capital cases in Illinois have been reversed for a new trial or for some re-sentencing." he said, his voice tired but clear.

Wrongful convictions had been all over the papers around that time -- the Anthony Porter case, the Ford Heights Four, Rolando Cruz.

"How in God's name does that happen? In America, how does it happen?" Ryan continued. "How many more cases of wrongful conviction have to occur before we can all agree that this system in Illinois is broken?"

On that day, the governor commuted the sentences of all death row inmates in the state and credited an unlikely source for helping him make his decision: Professor David Protess' undergraduate Investigative Journalism class at Northwestern University's Medill School.

In the previous decade, Medill students had uncovered some of the most high-profile wrongful convictions in the city. The class had worked to secure the release of 11 innocent prisoners, five of whom were scheduled to be executed.

As a wide-eyed journalism student at Northwestern, I remember feeling proud of my classmates, proud of my school and proud of the profession I was entering.

Today, six years later, Protess' class is far from the center of the same praise. Presented with evidence in a new case, the state attorney's office is questioning the motivations of the messenger -- the class itself. For complete story, click here.

Can Prosecutors Be Sued By People They Framed?--November 4th, 2009--Do prosecutors have total immunity from lawsuits for anything they do, including framing someone for murder? That is the question the justices of the Supreme Court face Wednesday.

On one side of the case being argued are Iowa prosecutors who contend "there is no freestanding right not to be framed." They are backed by the Obama administration, 28 states and every major prosecutors organization in the country.

On the other side are two black men — Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee — men who served 25 years in prison before evidence long hidden in police files resulted in them being freed.  For complete story, click here.
9yr-old boy tortured, says former Guantanamo detainee --'I was interrogated hundreds of times by the FBI, CIA and even MI5, beaten, and subjected to continuous torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging and religious persecution.' 30 Oct 2009 A British Muslim detained for three years at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison manned by the United States, revealed that the youngest detainee he knew of was a nine-year-old boy who was also tortured like the rest. Ruhal Ahmed’s story was among more accounts of atrocities committed against the detainees at Guantanamo, told before an open commission hearing which began Friday on the sidelines of an international conference to criminalise war. The testimonies before the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission Hearings will be submitted to a tribunal in conjunction with the Criminalise War Conference and War Crimes Tribunal 2009 spearheaded by former Malaysian prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Dr Mahathir said that the tribunal’s decision would be forwarded to the United Nations for further action. For complete story, click here.
California gives the poor a new legal right--October 17th, 2009--California is embarking on an unprecedented civil court experiment to pay for attorneys to represent poor litigants who find themselves battling powerful adversaries in vital matters affecting their livelihoods and families.

The program is the first in the nation to recognize a right to representation in key civil cases and provide it for people fighting eviction, loss of child custody, domestic abuse or neglect of the elderly or disabled.

Advocates for the poor say the law, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed this week, levels the legal playing field and gives underprivileged litigants a better shot at attaining justice against unscrupulous landlords, abusive spouses, predatory lenders and other foes.

Although some analysts worry that it could swell state court dockets or eat up resources better spent on other needs of the poor, the pilot project that won bipartisan endorsement in the state Assembly will be financed by a $10 increase in court fees for prevailing parties.

Anybody confronted with criminal charges has a constitutional right to an attorney, as set out in the landmark Supreme Court decision in Gideon vs. Wainwright in 1963. But such a right does not apply in civil court, and the majority of citizens fighting what can be life- altering civil actions now attempt to handle their cases without professional guidance.

An estimated 4 million people seek to represent themselves in California in civil matters each year, the state Judicial Council estimates, not because they want to but because they can't afford to hire a lawyer.  For complete story, click here.

Mystery 'Police' Force Has Small Montana City on Edge--October 8th, 2009--When two brand new, shiny black Mercedes SUVs bearing a "Hardin Police Department" logo drove through the main thoroughfare of Hardin, Mont., last week, people took notice.

“How many police forces have Mercedes?” said Charlene Warren, a local business owner who has lived in Hardin for more than half a century. “That threw up a red flag.”

And speaking of flags, it did not go unnoticed that the emblem on the sides of the SUVs bore a strong resemblance to the Serbian national flag.

Furthermore, those "police department" cars were rolling through Hardin, a small southeastern Montana town of 3,600 that just happens not to have a police department.

Click here for a video.

The luxury vehicles that rolled through town belonged to the American Police Force (APF), a California-based security firm that is drafting a contract that will give it control over a $27 million medium-security prison that was built in Hardin more than two years ago, but has never held any prisoners.

But that contract is now on hold as the Montana State Attorney General’s Office investigates APF and the Big Horn County Sheriff's Department enters preliminary talks about incorporating a real police department in Hardin so a similar episode doesn’t occur in the future.  For complete story, click here.
Schoolgirl dies after GlaxoSmithKline HPV vaccination --HPV vaccine batch quarantined as 'precautionary measure' --Vaccination part of [insane] national immunisation programme 29 Sep 2009 An urgent investigation has been launched after a 14-year-old girl died shortly after receiving a cervical cancer vaccination at her school. Natalie Morton was a pupil at the Blue Coat Church of England School in Coventry, where she was given the human papilloma virus (HPV) jab yesterday. She was taken to Coventry University hospital, where she died at lunchtime. Three other girls from the school are reported to have experienced possible side effects of dizziness and nausea after receiving the Cervarix jab, which was given to female pupils as part of a national immunisation programme against HPV.  For complete story, click here.
American Police Force Corporation Takes Over Small Town Police Force and Prisoner-Less Jail 29 Sep 2009 (MT) This is the strange story of how American Police Force, a little known company which claims to specialize in training military and security forces overseas, has seemingly taken control of a $27 million, never-used jail, and a rural Montana town's nonexistent police force. After arriving in this tiny city with three Mercedes SUVs marked with the logo of a police department that has never existed, representatives of the obscure California security company said preparations were under way to take over Hardin's jail, which has no prisoners.  For complete story, click here.

Lawyers, judges find Web can entangle--September 13th, 2009--

Sean Conway was steamed at a Fort Lauderdale judge, so he did what millions of angry people do these days: he blogged about her, saying she was an “Evil, Unfair Witch.”
Scott Dalton for The New York Times

Judge Susan Criss said a Facebook page said a lawyer was drinking, not grieving, after a funeral.

 

“When you become an officer of the court, you lose the full ability to criticize the court,” said Michael Downey, who teaches legal ethics at the Washington University law   For complete story, click here.
White House Backs Controversial Domestic Surveillance Provisions 16 Sep 2009 The Obama administration is urging lawmakers to extend three provisions of the controversial domestic surveillance law known as the USA Patriot Act. The U.S. Justice Department issued a letter Tuesday asking Congress to renew provisions of the law that allow authorities to conduct roving electronic eavesdropping, or wiretaps, access business records and track so-called "lone wolf" suspects with no known links to foreign powers or terrorist groups. The roving wiretaps would let agents track the communications of suspects who change their cell phones or other devices. The provisions are due to expire on December 31.  For complete story, click here.
"Capitalism is evil," says new Michael Moore film Capitalism is evil. 06 Sep 2009 That is the conclusion U.S. documentary maker Michael Moore comes to in his latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story," which premieres at the Venice film festival Sunday. Blending his trademark humor with tragic individual stories, archive footage and publicity stunts, Moore launches an all out attack on the capitalist system, arguing that it benefits the rich and condemns millions to poverty.  For complete story, click here.

Pfizer to pay record $2.3B penalty for drug promos--September 2nd, 2009--WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors hit Pfizer Inc. with a record-breaking $2.3 billion in fines Wednesday and called the world's largest drugmaker a repeating corporate cheat for illegal drug promotions that plied doctors with free golf, massages, and resort junkets.

Announcing the penalty as a warning to all drug manufacturers, Justice Department officials said the overall settlement is the largest ever paid by a drug company for alleged violations of federal drug rules, and the $1.2 billion criminal fine is the largest ever in any U.S. criminal case. The total includes $1 billion in civil penalties and a $100 million criminal forfeiture.

Authorities called Pfizer a repeat offender, noting it is the company's fourth such settlement of government charges in the last decade. The allegations surround the marketing of 13 different drugs, including big sellers such as Viagra, Zoloft, and Lipitor.

As part of its illegal marketing, Pfizer invited doctors to consultant meetings at resort locations, paying their expenses and providing perks, prosecutors said.  For complete story, click here.
Proposed bill would allow state authorities to forcefully quarantine people during pandemic 04 Sep 2009 (MA) A new proposed bill designed to combat the threat of the H1N1 virus would allow the state to forcefully quarantine people in the event of a pandemic. Anyone who refuses to comply with the quarantine order could face jail time or a $1000 per day fine. The "Pandemic Response Bill" would also force health providers to vaccinate people, authorize forcible entry into private homes, and impose fines or prison sentences on anyone not complying with isolation or quarantine orders.  For complete story, click here.
Aiding Torture: Health Professionals' Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 CIA Inspector General's Report (PHR) 31 Aug 2009 This 6-page white paper, published August 31, 2009, after the new release of the May 2004 CIA Inspector General's report, shows that the extent to which American doctors and psychologists violated human rights and betrayed the ethical standards of their professions by designing, implementing, and legitimizing a worldwide torture program is worse than previously known. A team of PHR doctors authored the white paper, which details how the CIA relied on medical expertise to rationalize and carry out abusive and unlawful interrogations. It also refers to aggregate collection of data on detainees’ reaction to interrogation methods. Physicians for Human Rights is concerned that this data collection and analysis may amount to human experimentation and calls for more investigation on this point. If confirmed, the development of a research protocol to assess and refine the use of the waterboard or other techniques would likely constitute a new, previously unknown category of ethical violations committed by CIA physicians and psychologists.  For complete story, click here.
CIA in human experimentation row --Watchdog says US interrogation doctors may have committed unlawful experimentation 02 Sep 2009 Doctors and psychologists the CIA employed to monitor its "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects came close to, and may even have committed, unlawful human experimentation, a medical ethics watchdog has alleged. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a not-for-profit group that has investigated the role of medical personnel in alleged incidents of torture at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other US detention sites, accuses doctors of being far more involved than hitherto understood. PHR says health professionals participated at every stage in the development, implementation and legal justification of what it calls the CIA's secret "torture programme".  For complete story, click here.
Doctors' role in CIA abuse 'approaches unlawful human experimentation' - rights group --Doctors had 'central role' in CIA abuse 31 Aug 2009 A US-based medical rights advocacy group on Monday blasted health experts for playing a "central role" in advising and implementing the CIA's abusive interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued its six-page white paper after shocking details about the range of techniques used by interrogators, including waterboarding, came to light one week ago with release of a 2004 CIA inspector general's report. "Health professionals played a central role in developing, implementing and providing justification for torture," PHR said in its report... PHR warned that such spy agency techniques -- and monitoring by doctors to gauge their effectiveness -- "approaches unlawful experimentation" on human subjects. The report's lead author, PHR medical advisor Scott Allen, said in a statement on the organization's website, "medical doctors and psychologists colluded with the CIA to keep observational records about waterboarding, which approaches unethical and unlawful human experimentation."  For complete story, click here.
The Secret History of Hurricane Katrina By James Ridgeway 28 Aug 2009 The Blackwater operators described their mission in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods," as if they were talking about Sadr City. When National Guard troops descended on the city, the Army Times described their role as fighting "the insurgency in the city." Brigadier Gen. Gary Jones, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force, told the paper, "This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control." ...And while the government couldn't seem to keep people from dying on rooftops or abandoned highways, it wasted no time building a temporary jail in New Orleans.  For complete story, click here.
Health-care workers steer clear of swine flu vaccine --Many health-care workers have made it obvious that they are unwilling to be vaccinated. 26 Aug 2009 A new study finds that the majority of health-care workers refuse to take the swine flu vaccine due to its possible side effects. According to a study published in British Medical Journal, more than half of health-care workers around the world are worried about the side effects of the new vaccine. Doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine are also reported as another main reason for them declining the vaccine.  For complete story, click here.
Exposed: The Swine Flu Hoax By Andrew Bosworth, Ph.D. 24 Aug 2009 If the current H1N1 swine flu virus does become abnormally lethal, there would be three leading explanations: first, that the virus was accidentally released, or escaped, from a laboratory; second, that a disgruntled lab employee unleashed the virus (as happened, according to the official version of events, with the 2001 anthrax attack); or third, that a group, corporation or government agency intentionally released the virus in the interests of profit and power. Each of the three scenarios represents a plausible explanation should the swine virus become lethal. The 1918 flu virus was dead and buried -- until, that is, scientists unearthed a lead coffin to obtain a biopsy of the corpse it contained. For complete story, click here.
Rendition of Terror Suspects Will Continue Under Obama 25 Aug 2009 The Obama administration will continue the Bush regime’s practice of sending terror suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but will monitor their treatment to insure they are not tortured, administration officials said on Monday. The administration officials, who announced the changes on condition that they not be identified, said that unlike the Bush administration, they would give the State Department a larger role in assuring that transferred detainees prisoners would not be abused. [See: Barack Obama: Change We Can Deceive In --A critique from the Left By Lori Price 19 Aug 2009.]  For complete story, click here.
Common Sense 2009 By Larry Flynt 20 Aug 2009 The American government -- which we once called our government -- has been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich. They are the ones who decide our fate. It is this group of powerful elites, the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "economic royalists," who choose our elected officials -- indeed, our very form of government. Both Democrats and Republicans dance to the tune of their corporate masters. In America, corporations do not control the government. In America, corporations are the government. This was never more obvious than with the Wall Street bailout, whereby the very corporations that caused the collapse of our economy were rewarded with taxpayer dollars.  For complete story, click here.
'The guard called a Homeland Security Officer who asked Thomas what he was filming.' Homeland Security cop arrests man for filming FBI building in NYC By Carlos Miller 20 Aug 2009 A 43-year-old man was jailed for six hours – and had his camera and memory card confiscated by a judge - after filming an FBI building from across the street in New York City Monday. Randall Thomas, a professional photographer, said he was standing on the corner of Duane Street and Broadway in downtown Manhattan when he used his video camera to pan up and down on the 42-story building at 26 Federal Plaza. He was immediately accosted by a security guard in a brown uniform who told him he was not allowed to film the building. For complete story, click here.
Police Taser use 'up nearly a third' 17 Aug 2009 Police use of Taser stun guns has increased by nearly a third, figures revealed today. Officers fired the electro-shock weapons 226 times in the first three months of this year - up from 174 in the last three months of 2008. For complete story, click here.
Second 9/11 Investigation Petition Moves Toward NYC November Ballot By Barbara G. Ellis for Portland 9/11 Legislative Alliance 20 Aug 2009 A second 9/11 investigation about the destruction of the World Trade Center and attack on the Pentagon--this one independent of the U.S. government--may start late this year if legal debris is cleared away for approval as a referendum issue on November 3 in New York City.   For complete story, click here.
Government's Tamiflu advice is wrong, says WHO 22 Aug 2009 Only seriously ill and vulnerable patients should be prescribed antiviral drugs to help them to get over swine flu, the World Health Organisation said yesterday, in advice which conflicts with the decision taken by the British Government to prescribe Tamiflu to everyone with swine flu. Most people will recover from swine flu within a week, just as they would from seasonal forms of influenza, the WHO said.  For complete story, click here.

Caregiver who raped disabled woman gets 8 years in prison--August 15th, 2009--A Kent man who raped a severely disabled woman in his care last year was sentenced Friday to 8 ½ years to life in prison for second-degree rape.

Joseph Thurura, 32, was arrested in June 2008 and charged with the rape of a 44-year-old patient at Integrated Living Services, where he was a caregiver.

The woman was impregnated but had a miscarriage.  For complete story, click here.
Mexico Legalizes Drug Possession--August 21st, 2009--MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.  The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.  For complete story, click here.
Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America 15 Aug 2009 A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter. The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins. It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine. The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.  For complete story, click here.
Sheriff's Office defies judge on order for system password--August 15th, 2009--A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Friday ordered that the Sheriff's Office divulge the password it forcefully installed on a county computer system linked to sensitive state and federal criminal- justice data.

But Chief Deputy David Hendershott later said he will refuse to share the password - even if it means he goes to jail.

During the Friday hearing, Judge Joseph Heilman said that if the Sheriff's Office doesn't divulge the password by Wednesday, he will "hold someone in contempt of court."

"I assume it's going to be someone seated at this table," he added, referring to Hendershott.

Hendershott said he could not reveal the password under federal law. And if he goes to jail: "I bet I get a pretty decent place. Something with a view of the dump."

Heilman would not comment on the remark.  (Webmaster Note:  Hiding something, are we?)  For complete story, click here.

Antidepressant use doubles in U.S., study finds--August 3rd, 2009--WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday.

About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.

"Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans," Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.  For complete story, click here.  (Webmaster Note:  Drugs are not the answer!)
Gulags we can believe in: AP sources: Military-civilian terror prison eyed --The facility would operate as a hybrid prison system jointly operated by the Justice Department, the military and the Department of Homeland Security. 02 Aug 2009 The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison. Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 prisoners now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. The administration's plan, according to three government officials, calls for: long-term holding cells for undetermined number of prisoners who will never face trial; building detention cells for prisoners ordered released by courts but still held behind bars.  For complete story, click here.

New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit--July 24th, 2009--by Bill Maher--

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.

 

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves ­-- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.

Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason --­ who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition you're going to have trouble with the tenants. But now prisons are big business. A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world;s largest prison population ­-- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it."

But maybe they aren't. Because unlike in Cronkite's day, today's news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate. That's why it wasn't surprising to see the CBS Evening News broadcast live from the Staples Center for two nights this month, just in case Michael Jackson came back to life and sold Iran nuclear weapons. In Uncle Walter's time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies.

And finally, there's health care. It wasn't that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.

But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.

Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years. For complete story, click here.
Whistleblower tells of America's hidden nightmare for its sick poor --When an insurance firm boss saw a field hospital for the poor in Virginia, he knew he had to speak out. By Paul Harris 26 Jul 2009 Wendell Potter can remember exactly when he took the first steps on his journey to becoming a whistleblower and turning against one of the most powerful industries in America. It was July 2007 and Potter, a senior executive at giant US healthcare firm Cigna, was visiting relatives in the poverty-ridden mountain districts of northeast Tennessee. He saw an advert in a local paper for a touring free medical clinic at a fairground just across the state border in Wise County, Virginia. Potter, who had worked at Cigna for 15 years, decided to check it out. What he saw appalled him. Hundreds of desperate people, most without any medical insurance, descended on the clinic from out of the hills... Potter took pictures of patients lying on trolleys on rain-soaked pavements. For complete story, click here.

Jimmy Carter Leaves Church Over Treatment of Women--July 20th, 2009--After more than 60 years together, Jimmy Carter has announced himself at odds with the Southern Baptist Church -- and he's decided it's time they go their separate ways. Via Feministing, the former president called the decision "unavoidable" after church leaders prohibited women from being ordained and insisted women be "subservient to their husbands." Said Carter in an essay in The Age:

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.
 

For complete story, click here.
More bodies go unclaimed as families can't afford funeral costs 21 Jul 2009 The poor economy is taking a toll even on the dead, with an increasing number of bodies in Los Angeles County going unclaimed by families who cannot afford to bury or cremate their loved ones. At the county coroner's office -- which handles homicides and other suspicious deaths -- 36% more cremations were done at taxpayers' expense in the last fiscal year over the previous year, from 525 to 712.  For complete story, click here.
Executives, other highly compensated employees receive more than one-third of all pay in U.S. 21 Jul 2009 The nation's wealth gap is widening amid an uproar about lofty pay packages in the financial world. Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries. Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total U.S. pay in 2007, the latest figures available. The compensation numbers don't include incentive stock options, unexercised stock options, unvested restricted stock units and certain benefits.  For complete story, click here.
CIA Supervisor Claimed He Used Fire Ants On Detainee By Aram Roston 16 Jul 2009 A recently released legal memo describing interrogation techniques showed that Bush Administration lawyers had approved the use of "insects" in interrogations. "You would like to place [Abu] Zubaydeh in a cramped confinement box with an insect," Jay Bybee, then a Justice Department lawyer and now a federal judge, wrote in 2002... A CIA supervisor involved in the "enhanced interrogation" program bragged to other CIA employees about using fire ants while during questioning of a top terror suspect, according to several sources formerly with the Agency. The official claimed to other Agency employees, the sources say, to have put the stinging ants on a detainee's head to help break him. The CIA insists, however, that no matter what the man said, it never took place.  For complete story, click here.
317 cars burned ahead of Bastille Day --Disaffected youths frustrated with high unemployment rates and their view of France's failure to integrate ethnic minorities 14 Jul 2009 French youths burned 317 cars and wounded 13 police officers overnight on the eve of the Bastille Day national holiday, police said Tuesday. By 6:00 am (0400 GMT), police headquarters in Paris had recorded 317 burnt out cars -- up 6.7 percent on 2008 -- and 240 arrests, almost double the total for the same period last year. These numbers were expected to increase as fresh reports came in.  For details, click here.
Some Guantanamo Bay Prisoners May Be Held Indefinitely --DoD lawyer: Any detainee, even if acquitted, could be held indefinitely 10 Jul 2009 An Obama administration official told Senators Tuesday that some detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will most likely be held indefinitely if they pose a threat. The official spoke at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing... At a Senate hearing, Defense Department lawyer Jeh Johnson described one group of prisoners that will remain behind bars. "There will be at the end of the review a category of people that we in the administration believe must be retained for reasons of public safety and national security, and they're not necessarily people that we'll prosecute," Johnson said. Johnson also said any detainee, even if acquitted, could be held indefinitely. "And we've gone through our review period and we've made through the assessment the person is a security threat....I think it's our view that we would have the ability to detain that person," Johnson said.  For complete story, click here.

Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable--July 12th, 2009--

That muttered curse word that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, a new study suggests.

Swearing is a common response to pain, but no previous research has connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience of pain.

"Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon," said Richard Stephens of Keele University in England and one of the authors of the new study. "It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain."

Stephens and his fellow Keele researchers John Atkins and Andrew Kingston sought to test how swearing would affect an individual's tolerance to pain. Because swearing often has an exaggerating effect that can overstate the severity of pain, the team thought that swearing would lessen a person's tolerance.

As it turned out, the opposite seems to be true.

The researchers enlisted 64 undergraduate volunteers and had them submerge their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice. The experiment was then repeated with the volunteer repeating a more common word that they would use to describe a table.

Contrary to what the researcher expected, the volunteers kept their hands submerged longer while repeating the swear word. For complete story, click here.  (Webmaster note:  Swearing is good for you.)
The Truth about the Flu Shot By Infowars 10 Jul 2009 If the government mandates a series of flu shots this fall -- so far they are only "recommending” the shots -- you can expect to get a dose of thimerosal (mercury), formaldehyde, detergent, MF-59 (an oil-based adjuvant), and other toxins. Incidentally, if you believe the government will not kidnap you at gunpoint and lock you in a concentration camp and possibly force you to take these toxins, check out Executive Order 13295 of April 4, 2003. It states that the government has the authority to establish "regulations providing for the apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of suspected communicable diseases," including diseases at that time "not yet isolated or named." Of course, the government will decide if you have a deadly disease or not.  For complete story, click here.

Philadelphia opens Mental Health Court--July 8th, 2009--

When Philadelphia police shot and killed a homeless man brandishing a utility knife Friday in the concourse near City Hall, it had special meaning for state Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery.

Twenty years ago, McCaffery told an audience of Philadelphia court and municipal officials, he was a police sergeant with the subway unit.

"I know what those officers are going through down there dealing with the homeless," McCaffery said. "That's the kind of tragedy that we don't want to happen. These are human beings that we as a society need to step up to the plate and help."

Yesterday McCaffery got that chance, joining Philadelphia court officials to announce the creation of the city's first Mental Health Court.

The court, which begins today with a pilot group of 15 individuals, is to take a group of nonviolent inmates about to complete their jail terms and make sure they have the necessary therapy and supervision lined up to successfully live in the community.  For complete story, click here.  (Webmaster Note:  The "therapy" utilized to modify behavior in and out of prison is not based on science and actually causes severe psychological distress and trauma.  Let's not jump from the frying pan (current prison/sentencing system) into the fire (pseudo-science and cult-like brainwashing of "offenders" aka our fellow citizens.)

Abu Ghraib Crucifixion Death Demonstrates Need for Independent Criminal Investigation into U.S. Torture Program--June 29th, 2009--Washington, DC -- A report published in the June 22nd issue of The New Yorker magazine that a prisoner had been crucified by the CIA at the Abu Ghraib prison highlighted the need to apply the rule of law to the U.S. torture program. This issue will be discussed at a press conference at 9:30 on Monday morning at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Kevin Zeese, who is filing complaints on Monday against three CIA lawyers who facilitated torture said: "The United States must face the reality of the extent of the torture program under the Bush-Cheney administration. War crimes were committed. The toxic poison of torture will not be removed from the body politic unless the rule of law is applied." Zeese said "the filing of complaints against CIA torture lawyers is a first step in ensuring an independent legal review of the U.S. torture program."

According to the New Yorker report authored by Jane Mayer "A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs. Military pathologists classified the case a homicide." Mayer further reports "No criminal charges have ever been brought against any C.I.A. officer involved in the torture program, despite the fact that at least three prisoners interrogated by agency personnel died as a result of mistreatment."  For complete story, click here.
Lawsuit accuses Xe contractors of murder, kidnapping, child prostitution 02 Jul 2009 A just-amended lawsuit alleges six additional instances of unprovoked attacks on Iraqi civilians by Blackwater mercenaries. Three people, including a 9-year-old boy, are said to have died. Also added to the suit is a racketeering count accusing Blackwater founder Erik Prince of running an ongoing criminal enterprise involved in, among other things, kidnapping and child prostitution. The latest charges, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, bring to more than 60 the number of Iraqis allegedly killed or wounded since 2005 by armed Blackwater mercenaries guarding U.S. diplomatic personnel in Iraq. The Moyock, N.C.-based security company, since renamed Xe, earned more than $1 billion under that contract before the State Department, under pressure from the Iraqi government, let it lapse in May. For complete story, click here.
Former Marine Claims Illness From Mystery Vaccine --Military Source Believes Experimental Shots May Have Been Given 08 May 2007 (Received July 2nd, 2009)  Clermont County, OH) Target 5 has discovered that an alarming number of U.S. troops are having severe reactions to some of the vaccines they receive in preparation for going overseas. "This is the worst cover-up in the history of the military," said an unidentified military health officer who fears for his job. A shot from a syringe is leaving some U.S. servicemen and women on the brink of death. "When the issue, I believe, of the use of the vaccine comes out, I believe it will make the Walter Reed scandal pale in comparison," said the health officer. For complete story, click here.
ACLU Says Government Used False Confessions 02 Jul 2009 The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation. "The government's continued reliance on evidence gained by torture and other abuse violates centuries of U.S. law and suggests the current administration is not really serious about breaking with the past," said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a lawsuit challenging his detention.  For complete story, click here.
White House Drafts Executive Order to Allow Indefinite Detention of Terror Suspects --Friday 26 Jun 2009 5:18 PM The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations. Such an order would embrace claims by former president [sic] George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Under one White House draft that was being discussed earlier this month, according to administration officials, detainees would be imprisoned at a military facility on U.S. soil but their ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review. U.S. citizens would not be held in the system.  For complete story, click here.
Agents say DEA is forcing them illegally to work in Afghanistan 21 Jun 2009 As the Obama administration ramps up the Drug Enforcement Administration's presence in Afghanistan, some special-agent pilots contend that they're being illegally forced to go to a combat zone, while others who've volunteered say they're not being properly equipped. In interviews with McClatchy, more than a dozen DEA agents describe a badly managed system in which some pilots have been sent to Afghanistan under duress or as punishment for bucking their superiors.  For complete story, click here.
Lilly Sold Drug for Dementia Knowing It Didn't Help, Files Show 12 Jun 2009 Eli Lilly & Co. urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for elderly patients with dementia, an unapproved use for the antipsychotic, even though the drugmaker had evidence the medicine didn’t work for such patients, according to unsealed internal company documents.  For complete story, click here.
Neo-Nazis are in the Army now --Why the U.S. military is ignoring its own regulations and permitting white supremacists to join its ranks. By Matt Kennard 14 Jun 2009 As the conflicts have dragged on, the military has loosened regulations, issuing "moral waivers" in many cases, allowing even those with criminal records to join up... The lax regulations have also opened the military's doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists and gang members -- with drastic consequences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the military, and others have been linked to recruitment efforts for the white right... Many white supremacists join the Army to secure training for, as they see it, a future domestic race war. Others claim to be shooting Iraqis not to pursue the military's strategic goals but because killing "hajjis" is their duty as white militants... Tom Metzger is the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and current leader of the White Aryan Resistance. He tells me the military has never been more tolerant of racial extremists. "Now they are letting everybody in," he says.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.)
Shooting Highlights Growth of [Rightwing] Hate Groups --Suspect James Von Brunn Railed Against Blacks, Jews, Found Allies On White Supremacist Web Sites 10 Jun 2009 Federal investigators in Washington, D.C. are scouring the troubled history of 88 year-old shooting suspect James Von Brunn - an anti-Semite with a lifelong grievance against the government who found allies on white supremacist Web sites. The Holocaust Museum shootings came 11 days after another hate crime, the murder of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller. The suspect in that shooting, Scott Roeder, is described as an anti-abortion rights radical terrorist.  For complete story, click here.
Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations --Around $6 billion or more will be spent to develop, produce, and stockpile vaccines and other drugs to counteract claimed bioterror agents. By Stephen Lendman 10 Jun 2009 At least three US federal laws should concern all Americans and suggest what may be coming - mandatory vaccinations for hyped, non-existent threats, like H1N1 (Swine Flu). Vaccines and drugs like Tamiflu endanger human health but are hugely profitable to drug company manufacturers. The Project BioShield Act of 2004 (S. 15) became law on July 21, 2004...The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act slipped under the radar when George Bush signed it into law as part of the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act (HR 2863). It lets the HHS Secretary declare any disease an epidemic or national emergency requiring mandatory vaccinations. [See: DoD to carry out 'military missions' during pandemic, WMD attack and DoD to 'augment civilian law' during pandemic or bioterror attack.]  For complete story, click here.
Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation's first 04 Jun 2009 It is legally permissible for police to zap a suspect with a Taser to obtain a DNA sample, as long as it’s not done "maliciously, or to an excessive extent, or with resulting injury," a county judge has ruled in the first case of its kind in New York State, and possibly the nation. Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza decided that the DNA sample obtained Sept. 29 from Ryan S. Smith of Niagara Falls is legally valid and can be used at his trial.  For complete story, click here.
Marines Train "Civilians" to Accept Coming Martial Law (Infowars) 01 Jun 2009 On May 23, the Staten Island Real-Time News reported on "mock raids at the public park to give civilians a feel for how soldiers operate in battle." Or maybe that should be "mock raids" to give civilians a taste of things to come and, of course, get them acclimated to the presence of uniformed and armed soldiers in their midst. It is interesting the Marines characterized Flushing Meadows Park as "enemy territory." In fact, according to our rulers and their military functionaries, the entire United States is "enemy territory" in need of martial law.  For complete story, click here.
Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape' --Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged. 28 May 2009 At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube... Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. [See: 'I saw ___ fucking a kid...' Source: The "Taguba Report" On Treatment Of Abu Ghraib Prisoners In Iraq, statement by Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, Detainee #151108, 1300/18 Jan 2004.]  For complete story, click here.

Court: Suspects Can Be Interrogated Without Lawyer--May 26th, 2009--WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a long-standing ruling that stopped police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer was present, a move that will make it easier for prosecutors to interrogate suspects.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is present. The Michigan ruling applied even to defendants who agreed to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.   For complete story, click here.
Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention For Suspects Deemed 'National Security Threat' --'The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.' 21 May 2009 President Bush Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a "preventive detention" system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said. One participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate [?] battlefield like Afghanistan.  For complete story, click here.
"Minnesota mental  health patient Ray Sandford forced into electro-shock therapy"--May 20th, 2009--Ray Sandford doesn't want to do this.  On a sunny yet cool mid-April morning, the pear-shaped 54-year-old  emerges from the front door of his ranch-style group home in Columbia  Heights. Wearing a black windbreaker and gray sweatpants, he grips the  handle of his four-pronged cane and plods begrudgingly toward the 
street. One of Sandford's caretakers, a large woman wearing all  purple, follows perfunctorily behind to see him to his destination.  He's told them repeatedly he doesn't want to do this.  He ambles forward. There's nothing he can do now. No sense in fighting  it. Not now.  A 20-passenger Anoka transit bus idles along the curb awaiting his  arrival. A short, swarthy driver assists Sandford. The bus slowly  pulls away and embarks on the 12-mile ride to Mercy Medical Clinic in  Coon Rapids.  Upon arrival, Sandford walks through the automatic sliding doors and  assumes his position in a wheelchair. He's whisked to a room on the  fifth floor where nurses poke an IV through his fleshy forearm. He's  given a muscle relaxant and general anesthesia. Within 30 seconds, the  room dissolves. He's out cold.  Assistants lay him out on his back. A doctor places electrodes on  either side of Sandford's cranium. Cords extend from the electrodes,  connecting to what appears to be an antiquated stereo set. A couple of  dials protrude from the machine's display. A physician flips an  unassuming switch.  A three-second burst of 140 volts blasts through Sandford's brain.  While he's totally unconscious, Sandford's torso jerks up and down.  His arms and legs writhe only slightly, steadied by muscle relaxants  coursing through his veins. Sandford's toes curl downward, as if his  feet were trying ball up into fists. He's experiencing a grand mal  seizure.  Two minutes later, it's over. Sandford will feel a bit woozy the rest  of the day, but there'll be no lasting pain. His short-term memory is  the only thing that will suffer.  But he'll still remember quite clearly that he never wanted to do this.  "They can literally tie me up, put me in ambulance, and bring me in to  get shock treatments," he says. "I don't fight it, because there's  nothing I can do by that time. You want to know how I feel? I don't  like it at all."  For complete story, click here.
KBR, Halliburton Accused in Investor Suit of 'Reign of Terror' 15 Mar 2009 KBR Inc. and Halliburton Co., two of the largest contractors to the U.S. military, were accused by a pension-fund shareholder of paying bribes, making false claims and operating as criminal enterprises. Executives of both companies engaged in a "reign of terror" that involved paying bribes in Nigeria, overcharging the U.S. government for services, accepting kickbacks, engaging in human trafficking and concealing a rape of an employee, according to the complaint filed yesterday by a pension fund. [Let us not forget what US troops had to endure from Cheney's KBR terrorists: Poisonings, electrocutions, spoiled food and pathogen-laden water.]  For complete story, click here.

 
Wisconsin court upholds GPS tracking by police 07 May 2009 Wisconsin police can attach GPS to cars to secretly track anybody's movements without obtaining search warrants, an appeals court ruled Thursday. However, the District 4 Court of Appeals said it was "more than a little troubled" by that conclusion and asked Wisconsin lawmakers to regulate GPS use to protect against abuse by police and private individuals.  For complete story, click here.
'A prisoner who started to drift off to sleep would tilt over and be caught by his chains. At one point, the agency was allowed to keep prisoners awake for as long as 11 days.' Memos shed light on CIA use of sleep deprivation --Though widely perceived as more effective and less objectionable than other torture methods, memos show it's harsher and more controversial than most realize. And it could be brought back. 10 May 2009 From the beginning, sleep deprivation had been one of the most important elements in the CIA's interrogation torture program, used to help break dozens of suspected terrorists, far more than the most violent approaches. And it is among the methods the agency fought hardest to keep. The technique is now prohibited by President Obama's ban in January on torture methods, although a task force is reviewing its use along with other interrogation methods the agency might employ in the future. For complete story, click here.

G20 police 'used undercover men to incite crowds'--May 10th, 2009--

An MP who was involved in last month's G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.

Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament's joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.

"When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, 'There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'" Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

Brake has produced a draft report of his experiences for the human rights committee, having received written statements from people in the crowd. These include Tony Amos, a photographer who was standing with protesters in the Royal Exchange between 5pm and 6pm. "He [one of the alleged officers] was egging protesters on. It was very noticeable," Amos said. "Then suddenly a protester seemed to identify him as a policeman and turned on him. He ­legged it towards the police line, flashed some ID and they just let him through, no questions asked."

Amos added: "He was pretty much inciting the crowd. He could not be called an observer. I don't believe in conspiracy theories but this really struck me. Hopefully, a review of video evidence will clear this up."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has received 256 complaints relating to the G20 protests. Of these, 121 have been made about the use of force by police officers, while 75 relate to police tactics. The IPCC said it had no record of complaints involving the use of police agents provocateurs. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We would never deploy officers in this way or condone such behaviour."

The use of plain-clothes officers in crowd situations is considered a vital tactic for gathering evidence. It has been used effectively to combat football hooliganism in the UK and was employed during the May Day protests in 2001.

Brake said he intends to raise the allegations with the Met's commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, when he next appears before the home affairs select committee. "There is a logic having plain-clothes officers in the crowd, but no logic if the officers are actively encouraging violence, which would be a source of great concern," Brake said.

The MP said that given only a few people were allowed out of the corralled crowd for the five hours he was held inside it, there should be no problem in investigating the allegation by examining video footage.  For complete story, click here.
Dole sued over links to Colombian death squads 07 May 2009 Dole Food Company is being sued by the families of 57 people allegedly murdered by paramilitaries hired by the US firm at its banana plantations in Colombia. A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles alleges that Dole hired the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) despite the fact that the group had been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department.  For complete story, click here.
Prison Awaiting Hostile Bloggers --The methods of communication where hostile speech is banned include e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages. --15 lawmakers signed on to H.R. 1966. By David Kravets 05 May 2009 Proposed congressional legislation would demand up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to "coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person." Instead of prison, perhaps we should say gulag. The proposal by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Los Angeles, would never pass First Amendment muster, unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing. Sanchez’s bill goes way beyond cyberbullying and comes close to making it a federal offense to log onto the internet or use the telephone. [We are so screwed that the *light* from screwed is going to take ten billion years to reach the earth.]  For complete story, click here.
Obama administration spearheads wage cuts for American workers --Chrysler, GM set the pace By Patrick Martin 05 May 2009 The wage cuts imposed on auto workers at Chrysler and General Motors at the insistence of the Obama administration demonstrate the class strategy that American big business as a whole is carrying out: to impose a reduction in the living standards of American workers on a scale unprecedented since the Great Depression. The White House has given the green light for nationwide wage-cutting with its demands on Chrysler and GM workers, who have seen wages for new-hires slashed by 50 percent, along with the abolition of cost-of-living raises and cuts in vacation pay.  For complete story, click here.
Thought police muscle up in Britain Hal G. P. Colebatch 21 April 2009 Britain appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely. There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent... In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness.  For complete story, click here.
Report: Two Psychologists Responsible for Devising CIA Torture Methods --Former military officers were paid by the CIA to oversee the waterboarding techniques used against high-profile prisoners 30 Apr 2009 Two psychologists are responsible for designing the CIA's program of waterboarding suspected terrorists and for assuring the government the program was safe, according to an ABC News report. Former military officers Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell had an "important role in developing what became the CIA's torture program," Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the ACLU, told ABC News... Associates say Jessen and Mitchell were paid up to $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the techniques used against high-profile prisoners to extract information in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.  For complete story, click here.
Involuntary quarantine an option if swine flu explodes into epidemic 28 Apr 2009 Quarantine may seem the stuff of mediocre melodramas, but if the swine flu explodes into an epidemic, involuntary isolation could become a reality for more than a few unlucky Americans... The federal government can declare a state of emergency. But the power to isolate or quarantine citizens, rests in the hands of the states, or in some cases, local governments. In a health emergency, people can be forced into isolation or quarantine without the government getting a court order first. [See CLG items: DoD to carry out 'military missions' during pandemic, WMD attack 08 Mar 2009 and DoD to 'augment civilian law' during pandemic or bioterror attack 11 May 2007.]  Click here for full story.

'Israel treated its soldiers as guinea pigs' --Experiments carried out in light of what was defined as 'strategic threat of a surprise biological attack facing Israel' 25 Mar 2009 Israel has admitted to developing an anthrax vaccine through a secret research project involving tests on unaware army soldiers. The Israeli Defense Ministry revealed on Wednesday that the vaccine was tested on 716 soldiers while they had not been fully informed about the study, Ynet reported.  For complete story, click here.
Pentagon exploring robot killers that can fire on their own --DoD financing studies of self-governing, armed robots that could find and destroy targets on their own 25 Mar 2009 The unmanned bombers that frequently cause unintended civilian casualties in Pakistan are a step toward an even more lethal generation of robotic hunters-killers that operate with limited, if any, human control. The Defense Department is financing studies of autonomous, or self-governing, armed robots that could find and destroy targets on their own. On-board computer programs, not flesh-and-blood people, would decide whether to fire their weapons. [Yeah, but one good hack and they could be re-programmed to fire upon themselves.]  For complete story, click here.
Ex-Bush admin official: Many at Gitmo are innocent 19 Mar 2009 Many prisoners locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush regime official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years." Wilkerson told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo prisoners were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a "mosaic" of intelligence.  For complete story, click here.
Obama quietly gave Blackwater (Xe) $70M in February: Blackwater still works for U.S. in Iraq 17 Mar 2009 The U.S. State Department re-signed the security mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater despite Iraq saying it didn't want the company there, records show. The State Department said $22.2 million deal signed with Blackwater, since renamed Xe, in February was a contract modification concerning aviation work, The Washington Times first reported. The contract expires in September, months after its contract for work in Baghdad was to have run out.  For complete story, click here.

Ten Wasted Years: UN Drug Strategy A Failure, Reveals Damning Report--March 11th, 2009--The UN strategy on drugs over the past decade has been a failure, a European commission report claimed yesterday on the eve of the international conference in Vienna that will set future policy for the next 10 years.

The report came amid growing dissent among delegates arriving at the meeting to finalise a UN declaration of intent.

Referring to the UN's existing strategy, the authors declared that they had found "no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced". They wrote: "Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially, among them a few large developing or transitional countries."

The policy had merely shifted the problem geographically, they said. "Production and trafficking controls only redistributed activities. Enforcement against local markets failed in most countries."  For complete story, click here.
CORRUPT JUDGES SERIES
Some wounded soldiers 'punished for injuries' --Authorities hold sick, disabled troops to same standards as the able-bodied 10 Mar 2009 About 10,000 soldiers have been assigned to the Army's Warrior Transition units, created for troops recovering from injuries. Instead of gingerly nursing them back to health, however, commanders at Fort Bragg's transition unit readily acknowledge holding them to the same standards as able-bodied soldiers in combat units, often assigning chores as punishment for minor infractions.  For complete story, click here.

This Revolting Trade In Human Lives Is An Incentive To Lock People Up--March 3rd, 2009--

It's a staggering case; more staggering still that it has scarcely been mentioned on this side of the ocean. Last week two judges in Pennsylvania were convicted of jailing some 2,000 children in exchange for bribes from private prison companies.

Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan sent children to jail for offences so trivial that some of them weren't even crimes. A 15-year-old called Hillary Transue got three months for creating a spoof web page ridiculing her school's assistant principal. Ciavarella sent Shane Bly, then 13, to boot camp for trespassing in a vacant building. He gave a 14-year-old, Jamie Quinn, 11 months in prison for slapping a friend during an argument, after the friend slapped her. The judges were paid $2.6m by companies belonging to the Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp for helping to fill its jails. This is what happens when public services are run for profit.

It's an extreme example, but it hints at the wider consequences of the trade in human lives created by private prisons. In the US and the UK they have a powerful incentive to ensure that the number of prisoners keeps rising.  For complete story, click here.
'Theory of presidential dictatorship' Bush administration memos on presidential powers stun legal experts --Congress had prohibited the use of torture by U.S. agents, and said "no citizen shall be imprisoned" in this country without legal charges. The memos said neither law could stand in the way of the president's power as commander in chief. 03 Mar 2009 Legal experts said Tuesday that they were taken aback by the claim in the latest batch of secret Bush-era memos that the president alone had the power to set the rules during the war on of terrorism. Yale law professor Jack Balkin called this a "theory of presidential dictatorship. They say the battlefield is everywhere. And the president can do anything he wants, so long as it involves the military and the enemy."  For complete story, click here.
FDA ignored debris in syringes --Complaints of filth came in 2005; plant's microbiologist was a teenage dropout 25 Feb 2009 (NC) Months before an Angier company shipped deadly bacteria-tainted drugs, the federal Food and Drug Administration received numerous complaints about sediment and debris in the medicine. The FDA received reports about AM2PAT as early as 2005, but not until December 2007 did the agency issue recall notices to pull the drugs off the market. AM2PAT, which is now the subject of a criminal investigation, sold tainted syringes of heparin and saline that have been linked to five deaths.  For complete story, click here.
Lawyer says Guantanamo abuse worse since Obama 25 Feb 2009 Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents prisoners. Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike.  For complete story, click here.
AP: Army charity hoards millions 22 Feb 2009 The biggest charity inside the U.S. military has been hoarding tens of millions of dollars meant to help put fighters returning from Iraq and Afghanistan back on their feet. An Associated Press investigation shows that between 2003 and 2007, the Army Emergency Relief grew into a $345 million behemoth. During those years, the charity packed away $117 million into its own reserves while spending just $64 million on direct aid.  For complete story, click here.
NYU Students Revoke the Property Destruction Clause By FluxRostrum 19 Feb 2009 Last night at 10 pm, NYU students barricaded themselves into a cafeteria in the student center and refused to leave until the administration met their demands. The students are seeking much more transparency, stabilized tuition and socially responsible investment among other things (details at takebacknyu.com). Although NYPD took up positions inside and outside the building, the NYU administration up until now declined to force the students to leave.  For complete story, click here.
Contractors, guardsmen say KBR knew of chemical exposure in Iraq 18 Feb 2009 Ten contractors hired by Houston-based KBR to make repairs at an Iraqi water plant in early 2003 say the company knowingly allowed them and dozens of National Guardsmen to be exposed to cancer-causing chemicals. The allegations from the workers, six of whom live in or near Houston, are documented in a federal arbitration complaint pending in Houston and a related federal lawsuit filed in December by the guardsmen in Indiana, the Houston Chronicle reported Sunday.  For complete story, click here.
Contractor Under Criminal Probe for Negligent Electrocution Deaths of U.S. Troops Should Be Denied Future Pentagon Contracts --McCollum (D) Urges DoD to Rescind Contract to KBR 18 Feb 2009 Amid reports that the Department of Defense has recently awarded a multimillion dollar contract to a company under investigation for the electrocution deaths of soldiers, Rep. Betty McCollum (MN-04) today joined Congressional colleagues in sending a letter to Secretary Robert Gates requesting an explanation for the latest award to Kellogg Brown and Root, Inc (KBR), in light of the existing criminal probes against them for the fatality of several U.S. soldiers in Iraq due to faulty electrical work.  For complete story, click here.
Judges: Torture, Abuses Undermine Values in U.S., U.K. 17 Feb 2009 An international group of judges and lawyers is warning that systemic torture and other abuses in the global "war on terror" have "undermined cherished values" of civil rights in the United States, Britain and other nations. "We have been shocked by the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counterterrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world," said Arthur Chaskalson, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, in a statement announcing results of a three-year study of counterterrorism measures since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.  For complete story, click here.
Kan. suspends income tax refunds, may miss payroll 16 Feb 2009 Kansas has suspended income tax refunds and may not be able to pay employees on time, the state's budget director said Monday. The state doesn't have enough money in its main bank account to pay its bills, prompting Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to suggest transferring $225 million from other accounts throughout state government. But the move required approval from legislative leaders, and the GOP [sociopaths] refused Monday.  For complete story, click here.
Obama administration seeks to block lawsuit over illegal wiretapping By John Burton and Marge Holland 16 Feb 2009 For the second time in less than a week, lawyers from the Justice Department headed by Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder have embraced the Bush administration's pseudo-legal argument that the "state secrets" doctrine bars civil lawsuits challenging the methods used in its so-called "war on terror..." The most recent intervention also occurred in San Francisco, with the filing of papers February 11 to block an order by United States District Judge Vaughn R. Walker reinstating the claim of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation that it was the target of government wiretapping.  For complete story, click here.
Report: U.S. "war on terror" seriously damages human rights --Report illustrated consequences of notorious counter-terrorism practices such as torture, disappearances, arbitrary and secret detention as well as unfair trials. 17 Feb 2009 The so-called "war on terror" launched by the United States following the 9/11 terror attacks has resulted in serious damage to the world's respect for human rights, according to a report released on Monday. The United States "has adopted measures to counter terrorism that are inconsistent with established principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law," said the report, which was released by an independent panel of eminent jurists. It warned that excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures adopted by the United States were having influence on other countries and causing them to follow suit.  for complete story, click here.
A fraud bigger than Madoff --Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq 'reconstruction' billions 16 Feb 2009 In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to 'reconstruct' Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme. In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in "pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money.  Unable to locate at time of archiving.  Source: www.independent.co.uk  
VA clinic warns of possible contaminant exposure 13 Feb 2009 Thousands of patients at a Veterans Administration clinic [Alvin C. York VA Medical Center in Murfreesboro] in Tennessee may have been exposed to the infectious body fluids of other patients when they had colonoscopies in recent years, and now VA medical facilities all over the U.S. are reviewing their own procedures.  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater Changes Its Name to Xe 14 Feb 2009 Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning the brand name that has been tarnished by its work terrorism in Iraq, settling on Xe (pronounced zee) as the new name for its family of two dozen businesses. Blackwater Lodge and Training Center, the subsidiary that conducts much of the company’s overseas operations and domestic training, has been renamed U.S. Training Center Inc., the company said Friday. The company’s rebranding effort grew more urgent after Blackwater guards in Baghdad were involved in a shooting episode in September 2007 that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.  For complete story, click here.
Missing civil liberties: Top Obama Aides Embrace Bush's War on Terror Rhetoric and Enemy Combatant Policy By Jonathan Turley 11 Feb 2009 This has been a uniquely bad week for civil libertarians. The Obama Administration appears to be rushing to dispel any notions that Obama will fight for civil liberties or war crimes investigations. After Eric Holder allegedly assured a senator that there would be no war crimes investigation and seemed to defend Bush policies, Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan, Obama’s Solicitor General nominee, reportedly told a Republican senator that the Administration agreed with Bush that we are "at war" and therefore can hold enemy combatants indefinitely. In the meantime, Obama himself seemed to tie himself in knots when asked about investigating war crimes and leading democrats are again pushing for a symbolic "truth commission."  For complete story, click here.
Fraud 'Directly Related' to Financial Crisis Probed --FBI Agents Could be Reassigned from National Security Due to Booming Caseload 11 Feb 2009 The FBI has opened investigations into more than 500 cases of alleged corporate fraud, including 38 that involve major firms and are "directly related" to the national economic crisis, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole told Congress today. The surge in white-collar investigations is putting such a strain on the FBI that Pistole said the bureau is considering reassigning agents from national security, which has been the bureau's priority since the [Bush] 9/11 attacks.  For complete story, click here.
Oops! Another (Fox) GOPedophile bites the dust. Fox Newser In Kiddie Porn Bust 10 Feb 2009 A Fox News producer who covered Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign for the cable network is facing child porn charges after federal agents discovered photos and videos on his computer depicting "children under the age of ten being sexually abused by adult men and women." Aaron Bruns, 29, was apparently nabbed after a Pennsylvania state police investigator conducting "pro-active undercover investigations" on an unnamed peer-to-peer network determined that Bruns's computer contained illicit images.  For complete story, click here.
Judge deals blow to families suing Blackwater 10 Feb 2009 The survivors of four Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries killed in a grisly ambush in Iraq five years ago have suffered yet another setback in their legal battle with the company. A federal administrative law judge ruled last week the children of one of the slain contractors should receive compensation through a government insurance program known as the Defense Base Act. It prohibits those eligible for benefits from filing lawsuits against companies covered by the insurance.  For complete story, click here.
"I believe that the probability that there are additional vials of BSAT [biological select agents and toxins] not captured in our … database is high." Fort Detrick Freezes Research on Dangerous Pathogens As Lab Can't Account For Them 07 Feb 2009 The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) has suspended research activities involving biological select agents and toxins. Army officials took the step on Friday after discovering apparent problems with the system of accounting for high-risk microbes and biomaterials at the Fort Detrick, Maryland, facility. The decision was announced by institute commander Col. John Skvorak in a 4 February memo to employees. The memo, which ScienceInsider has obtained, says the standard of accountability that USAMRIID had been applying to its select agents and toxins was not in line with the standard required by the Army and the Department of Defense. For complete story, click here.
Plague-Infested Mice Missing From New Jersey Research Lab 07 Feb 2009 The frozen remains of two mice infected with the bubonic plague are missing from a New Jersey bioterror research facility, and the facility waited seven weeks to report the incident to federal and state authorities. This is the same facility [University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark] where three live plague-inflected mice went missing in September 2005.  For complete story, click here.
KBR Gets Huge Contract Despite Electrocutions --KBR Inc., linked to soldiers' electrocutions, wins $35 million defense contract from Pentagon 07 Feb 2009 Defense contractor KBR Inc., which is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq, has been awarded a $35 million contract by the Pentagon to build an electrical distribution center and other projects there.  For complete story, click here.
A Hero Protects America's Children from Psychiatric Abuse--February 5th, 2009--Alaska attorney Jim Gottstein has taken the bull by the horns. It's a bull of many terrifying shapes and forms. First and foremost, it is the raging bull of the Psychopharmaceutical Complex that is goring America's children. It's also the rampaging state government bull that everywhere runs roughshod over the children in its custody and care. And then it's the "bull" handed out by drug companies and organized psychiatry to justify using drugs to suppress the behavior of children.  For complete story, click here.

HUMAN RIGHTS, IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS, RACIAL JUSTICE--February 5th, 2009--Sheriff Joe’s one-man circus has made headlines again in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

His latest taxpayer-financed media stunt involved the "forced march" of undocumented inmates who are serving out their criminal sentences. Sheriff Arpaio closed down the city streets so that everyone could witness their public humiliation as they walked in chain gangs from a "hard" jail to the infamous Tent City, where they will be forced to endure unsafe conditions including summer months with temperatures of upwards of 120 degrees.

Not only was this inhumane, but violated international human rights principles — not to mention American values — that require us to treat people who are incarcerated with dignity and respect. But Sheriff Arpaio has absolute contempt for the dignity of the people in his custody and demonstrates this by treating people like circus animals.

Though he claims otherwise, Arpaio wasn’t motivated by budgetary or security concerns to march shackled immigrants to the Tent City; he was motivated by the opportunity of self-aggrandizement and the promotion his anti-immigrant agenda. For those reasons, and for those reasons alone, he chose to re-route traffic and waste dwindling law enforcement resources.

Almost all of the people in the forced march were Latino and their humiliation struck one more blow to fairness and human decency in our community. And although the sheriff blatantly continues with his racial profiling practices in so-called "crime suppression sweeps" in Latino neighborhoods, the absence of significant protest from white officials in Arizona and from any federal agency allows the racial targeting to continue unabated.  For complete story, click here.
Proposed legislation in Congress would set up camps for US citizens By mcarl 31 Jan 2009 A bill proposed by Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings would set up a series of emergency centres on U. S. military installations. House Resolution 645 provides that no fewer than six such centres will be built and would give emergency aid, housing and relief services for citizens during a time of disaster or national emergency... Writing on this legislation, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says that the bill would supplement other 'emergency powers' granted to the federal government since 9/11 and be the mechanism for imposing martial law.  For complete story, click here.
Obama lets CIA keep controversial renditions tool 31 Jan 2009 Under executive orders issued by President Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S. The rendition kidnapping program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured. For complete story, click here.
Buckling Europe fears protests may spark a new revolution 29 Jan 2009 The French are revolting. Teachers, television employees, postal workers, students and masses of other public-sector workers will today be united in a hugely popular strike with car workers, supermarket staff, journalists and thousands of others in the private sector. One poll said that 75 per cent of the public supported the action, which has the backing of the large union groups and opposition socialists. It will be a big test for President Nicolas Sarkozy but, more importantly, the strike will mark the biggest protest so far in one of the world's largest economies against the grief and distress being caused by the catastrophic global downturn. A depression triggered in America is being played out in Europe with increasing violence, and other forms of social unrest are spreading.  For complete story, click here.
US Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations: overthrowing governments, sabotage, subversion, intelligence and abduction, FM 3-05.201, Apr 2003 (Wikileaks) 27 Jan 2009 FM 3-05.201: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations is current US military doctrine (policy) on the use of indigenous or surrogate forces to overthrow a foreign government and the use of sabotage, subversion, intelligence, extra-territorial abductions and similar activities, the most well known example of which is the US involvement in Nicaragua. There is also a section on legalities, including abductions ("The United States reserves the right to engage in nonconsensual abductions for three specific reasons..."). The 296-page manual was made doctrine in April 2003 by Army Headquarters, Washington DC. For complete story, click here.
NATO High Commander Issues Illegitimate Order to Kill 28 Jan 2009 A dispute has emerged among NATO High Command in Afghanistan regarding the conditions under which alliance troops can use deadly violence against those identified as insurgents. In a classified document, which SPIEGEL has obtained, NATO's top commander, US General John Craddock, has issued a "guidance" providing NATO troops with the authority "to attack directly drug producers and facilities throughout Afghanistan." According to the document, deadly force is to be used even in those cases where there is no proof that suspects are actively engaged in the armed resistance against the Afghanistan government or against Western troops. The directive was sent on Jan. 5 to Egon Ramms, the German leader at NATO Command in Brunssum, Netherlands, which is currently in charge of the NATO ISAF mission, as well as David McKiernan, the commander of the ISAF peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. Neither want to follow it. Both consider the order to be illegitimate and believe it violates both ISAF rules of engagement and international law, the "Law of Armed Conflict."  For complete story, click here.

Lax and corrupt – Indian Dr assesses clinical trials--January 21, 2009--An Indian doctor has slammed the nation’s clinical trials, claiming they use the vulnerable, the system is corrupt and that the country lacks high quality scientists.

The criticisms were made by Dr Amar Jesani in a short-film produced by Dutch non-governmental organisation Wemos. Jesani is a founding member of journals and research centres focused on medical ethics in India and has contributed in government committees on health.

India’s clinical trials came under increasing pressure last year following reports of infant deaths and Jesani’s comments show that some are still deeply uneasy about the current system.

The view held by Jesani, which echoes many who spoke out last year about the infant deaths, is that some drug companies are “compromising science and ethics in the pursuit of profit” and that flaws in the Indian system allow this.

Jesani said: “Unfortunately in my country there are laws but they are not very well implemented so the regulation over the trials, the oversight mechanism, the functioning of the ethics committee and the Drug Controller General of India all of them are so lax that it makes India a big destination for clinical trials.

 

“They don’t have good scientists; they don’t have enough inspectors to go all over the county. The worst thing in every developing country is corruption. There is too much corruption.”

One consequence of this is that clinical trials use the “desperate” and “most vulnerable” members if Indian society, according to Jesani. This alleged exploitation of India’s poor is what Jesani cites as bothering him most about the current system.

Jesani is a founder member of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME), the Centre for Studies in Ethics and Rights (CSER) and the Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT).

The short-film can be viewed here. For complete story, click here.
KBR Awarded Convoy Support Center Contract by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 28 Jan 2009 KBR today announced it has been awarded a $35.4 million contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Transatlantic Programs Center, Winchester, Va., for the Phase II design and construction of a convoy support center at Camp Adder in Iraq. The KBR team will design and construct a power plant, electrical distribution center, water purification and distribution system, waste water collection system, and associated information systems, along with paved roads at this site. Work on the project is expected to begin in February 2009. [OMG! After KBR just electrocuted a bunch of US soldiers? See: KBR must be accountable for Iraq deaths-US senators 27 Jan 2009 U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday raised concerns about the U.S. military's increased use of private contractors mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, and said KBR and other companies should be held accountable for the electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers and other mistakes crimes. Investigator: Soldier's electrocution 'negligent homicide' 22 Jan 2009. Halliburton Will Settle KBR Suit for $559 Million 27 Jan 2009 Halliburton, the huge oil services company in Houston, said yesterday that it has agreed to pay $559 million to settle corruption charges with the U.S. government linked to its former subsidiary KBR.]  For complete story, click here.
CIA chief in Algeria accused of drugging and raping Muslim women 28 Jan 2009 The CIA station chief in Algiers is under investigation after claims that he drugged and raped two Algerian women at his official residence, according to a report. Law enforcement sources told ABC News that the 41-year-old officer had been sent home in October. He could face charges as early as next month. Investigators from the Justice Department allegedly found more than a dozen secretly recorded videotapes of the officer performing sex acts with other women. An official said one woman appeared to be in a "semi-conscious state".   For complete story, click here.
Bill Will Establish 'National Emergency Centers' On Military Installations --FEMA Camps Mandated in H.R. 645 22 Jan 2009 A Bill to direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations. SECTION 1. This Act may be cited as the 'National Emergency Centers Establishment Act'. SECTION 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS. (a) In General - In accordance with the requirements of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations... (b) Purpose of National Emergency Centers... (3) to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations; and (4) to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security. For complete story, click here.
Halliburton Will Settle KBR Suit for $559 Million 27 Jan 2009 Halliburton, the huge oil services company in Houston, said yesterday that it has agreed to pay $559 million to settle corruption charges with the U.S. government linked to its former subsidiary KBR. Halliburton said it will pay $382 million on behalf of KBR over the next two years to the Department of Justice and will pay another $177 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. For complete story, click here.
A Loophole In the Rules --In a national-security crisis, Obama could deviate from his own rules. 24 Jan 2009 A day before President Obama signed executive orders closing Guantánamo Bay and banning torture, the White House's top lawyer privately indicated to Congress that the new president reserved the right to ignore his own (and any other president's) executive orders. In a closed-door appearance before the Senate intelligence committee, White House counsel Gregory Craig was asked whether the president was required by law to follow executive orders. According to people familiar with his remarks, who asked for anonymity when discussing a private meeting, Craig answered that the administration did not believe he was.  For complete story, click here.
Obama CIA choice won't call waterboarding torture 22 Jan 2009 President Barack Obama's choice to head the CIA declined on Thursday to call waterboarding "torture," only days after his attorney general nominee condemned the interrogation practice as precisely that. Retired Adm. Dennis Blair replied cautiously when pressed on the waterboarding question at a hearing on his nomination to be director of national intelligence. Torture is banned by U.S. and international laws. "There will be no waterboarding on my watch. There will be no torture on my watch," Blair said, refusing to go further. For complete story, click here.
Whistleblower: NSA Targeted Journalists, Snooped on All U.S. Communications --NSA analyzed metadata to determine which communications would be collected 22 Jan 2009 Just one day after George W. Bush left office, an NSA whistleblower has revealed that the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program targeted U.S. journalists, and vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic. Russell Tice, a former NSA analyst, spoke on Wednesday to MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. "The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications," he said. "Faxes, phone calls and their computer communications. ...They monitored all communications." For complete story, click here.
Plague kills 40 al-Qaeda operatives --Security source: "This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease." 19 Jan 2009 'Anti'-terror bosses last night hailed their latest ally in the war on of terror -- the Black Death. At least 40 al-Qaeda members died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages. The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. [Let's see... who has the technology to develop and disseminate plague as a bioweapon? See: Three genes can turn normal flu into a killer, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers find 30 Dec 2008 and Killer flu recreated in the lab 07 Oct 2004, etc.]  For complete story, click here.
'In some places, Washington will look like an occupied city.' High-tech security bubble wraps Washington --The military, supporting civilian authorities, is using sophisticated new surveillance systems developed for Iraq and Afghanistan wars 18 Jan 2009 As the multitudes arrive for the historic inauguration of Barack Obama, the most high-tech security bubble ever created is in place to protect the incoming president from any foreseeable act of God, nature or man [or Bush]. At least 150 multi-agency "intel teams" will deploy throughout the region so that undercover FBI agents and other behavior-analysis specialists can look for trouble. In some places, Washington will look like an occupied city. Sharpshooters will be on virtually every building. Law-enforcement and intelligence nerve centers and mobile command posts are sprouting. The FBI is deploying an armored assault vehicle and a weapons-of-mass-destruction response truck. The military, supporting civilian authorities, is using sophisticated new surveillance systems developed for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to monitor the mall...  For complete story, click here.
Democratic chairman to reintroduce military draft measure 14 Jan 2009 Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) likely will introduce his controversial legislation to reinstate the draft again this year, but he will wait until after the economic stimulus package is passed. Asked if he plans to introduce the legislation again in 2009, Rangel last week said, "Probably … yes. I don’t want to do anything this early to distract from the issue of the economic stimulus."  For complete story, click here.
Supreme Court loosens law on illegal searches--January 15, 2009--Reporting from Washington -- The Supreme Court pulled back on the "exclusionary rule" Wednesday and ruled that evidence from an illegal search can be used if a police officer made an innocent mistake.

The 5-4 opinion signals that the court is ready to rethink this key rule in criminal law and restrict its reach. It will also give prosecutors and judges nationwide more leeway to make use of evidence that may have been seen as questionable before.  For complete story, click here.
'His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case for prosecution.' Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official 14 Jan 2009 The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay prisoners to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition." "We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.  For complete story, click here.

A Record Year for the Pharmaceutical Lobby in '07--June 24, 2008 (Received January 11th, 2009)--Washington, June 24, 2008 – Washington's largest lobby, the pharmaceutical industry, racked up another banner year on Capitol Hill in 2007, backed by a record $168 million lobbying effort, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal lobbying data. Among the industry's successes: getting two controversial laws extended and thwarting congressional efforts to restrict media ads for prescription drugs.

 

The spending represents a 32 percent jump over 2006. Driven in part by a busy legislative calendar dominated by issues critical to the industry, the effort raised the amount spent by drug interests on federal lobbying in the past decade to more than $1 billion. Pharmaceutical, medical device, and other health product manufacturers, together, spent more than $189 million on lobbying last year, another record and nearly three times the $67 million they spent in 1998, the first full year for which complete records and totals are available.

More than 90 percent of the total was spent by 40 companies and three trade groups: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Advanced Medical Technology Association.  For complete story, click here.
Israel May Face Charges for War Crimes 07 Jan 2009 Israel has committed war crimes and should be prosecuted in an international court, says Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza. "The repeated bombing of clearly marked civilian buildings, where civilians were sheltering, crosses several red lines in regard to international law," Sourani told IPS. Palestinian Authority (PA) delegate to Britain Professor Manuel Hassassian has said the PA will launch legal proceedings against Israeli leaders it says are responsible for war crimes in Gaza, according to a Palestinian news report.  For complete story, click here.
US, Japanese Researchers Mix Samples of 1918 Flu Pandemic to Recreate Deadly Code --Compiled by Lori Price 30 Dec 2008 Why? And, why is no one *asking* why? The genetic code that made the 1918 killer flu so deadly has finally been cracked, claim US and Japanese researchers. The discovery, published in Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could also point to mutations that might turn ordinary flu into a dangerous pandemic strain. For complete story, click here.

RNC chairman candidate defends 'Barack the Magic Negro' song--December 26, 2008--CNN) -- A candidate for the Republican National Committee chairmanship said Friday the CD he sent committee members for Christmas -- which included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" -- was clearly intended as a joke.

"I think most people recognize political satire when they see it," Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman told CNN. "I think RNC members understand that."

The song, set to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon," was first played on conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh's radio show in 2007.

Its title was drawn from a Los Angeles Times column that suggested President-elect Barack Obama appealed to those who feel guilty about the nation's history of mistreatment of African-Americans. Saltsman said the song, penned by his longtime friend Paul Shanklin, should be easily recognized as satire directed at the Times.

The CD sent to RNC members, first reported by The Hill on Friday, is titled "We Hate the USA" and also includes songs referencing former presidential candidate John Edwards and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, among other targets. (Webmater Note:  Racists like Chip Saltsman do Hate the USA.)  For complete story, click here.

State pharmacist convicted of conflict of interest--December 24, 2008--A judge has convicted a former state pharmacist on felony conflict of interest charges for taking payments from drug companies and pocketing money for supervising pharmacy interns from Duquesne University.

Steven Fiorello, 61, of Palmyra could face up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines for each of two felony convictions. Dauphin County Judge Richard Lewis, who ruled in a nonjury trial, scheduled sentencing for Jan. 21.  For complete story, click here.
If Obama Is Pro-Science and Honest, He'll Put the Kibosh on the Drug War--December 23, 2008--One of the many things that made Barack Obama such a refreshing candidate was his frank and unapologetic admission of drug use. True, Anderson Cooper extracted curt "yeses" from some 2004 Democratic candidates when he asked them point-blank if they had ever smoked pot. But Obama has written openly and without prompting about his experiences, not only with marijuana, but cocaine, a "hard" drug. On the campaign trail he even joked about inhaling deeply -- "that was the point," he said more than once. Unlike George W. Bush, Obama didn't hide behind evasive murmurs about "irresponsible behavior," or turn his drug experiences into a setup for some maudlin born-again conversion story.  For complete story, click here.
Recently subpoenaed Bush/Rove IT expert, is Wellstoned: Pilot killed as plane crashes in Lake Twp. --Witness: 'It blew up and shook the ground a little bit.' 19 Dec 2008 (OH) A single-prop, private airplane crashed next to a vacant house on Charolais Street Northwest Friday evening, exploding into flames and killing the pilot. Michael Connell, 45, of Bath Township, was alone in the plane, according to State Highway Patrol Lt. Eric Sheppard. Connell was a prominent Republican political consultant. He founded New Media Communications in Richfield, which developed campaign Web sites for Republican presidential candidate John McCain and President [sic] George W. Bush.  For complete story, click here.
Ohio Attorneys Seek Protection for Mike Connell and his Family against Alleged Threats from Karl Rove 24 Jul 2008 Sources close to the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim sent us a copy of a letter that asks Attorney General Mukasey for protection for Michael Connell and his family who have been allegedly threatened by Karl Rove. Rove is believed to be the strategic mastermind behind the Bush 2004 re-[s]-election campaign and the possible Ohio election improprieties. The alleged threats appear to be the result of the re-opening, through the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim, of the stalled investigation into the 2004 Ohio Elections. For complete story, click here.
Stark Co. plane crash: Who was Michael Connell? 20 Dec 2008 Michael Connell was killed when the Piper Supercub he was piloting crashed three miles short of an Akron-Canton Airport runway. He leaves behind a wife and four children. Connell, of Bath Township, is considered to be one of the Republican Party's top computer experts. He led the companies that designed websites for the GOP and a virtual who's-who list of republican political leaders including President [sic] George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, as well as national organizations. Connell developed a host of federal government software and data management systems. Connell is also said to be a close confidant of the Bush family. Earlier this year, Connell was subpoenaed to testify in an Ohio federal court regarding voter fraud just days before the November presidential election. His alleged intimate knowledge of White House and Capitol Hill email systems has been a hot topic of conversation for Washington insiders regarding the Karl Rove/White House email scandal.  For complete story, click here.

Zimbabwe: Cholera brought by West--December 14, 2008--HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe on Saturday accused the West of waging biological warfare to deliberately start a cholera epidemic that has killed hundreds of people and sickened thousands.

The spread of the disease has focused the world's attention on the collapse of the southern African nation, which often blames its troubles on the West.

The claims by state media came the same day the government issued an official announcement detailing the constitutional amendment creating the post of a prime minister and setting out other changes necessary to go forward with a power-sharing agreement that has been stalled since September.

Saturday's unilateral step by President Robert Mugabe's government could raise political tensions in the battered southern African country.

The state-run Herald newspaper said comments by the U.S. ambassador that the U.S. had been preparing for the cholera outbreak raised suspicions that it was responsible.  For complete story, click here.
Yesterday's New Deal is today's Raw Deal. Things Are Not as They Seem --The Rec Report By Michael Rectenwald 18 Dec 2008 Liberalism will now do the workers a favor by offering concessions in their name. Thanks. Thanks for keeping afloat the system that oppresses us. Thanks for bailing out a system, using our tax money, our public funds, our wages, to screw us over further in the future. Thanks for "saving" a system that will serve to cut our wages, destroy whatever savings we may have by chance accrued, gut our retirement packages, and decimate our health care systems. Thanks. Yesterday's New Deal is today's Raw Deal.  For complete story, click here.

India's poor often test drugs bound for U.S. markets--December 11, 2008--Reporting a story on drug studies in India recently, I had plenty of interviews with people at the top. Doctors, government officials, entrepreneurs who make their living running clinical trials leaned over polished conference tables in modern, air-conditioned offices in some of India's biggest cities. They assured me that India is capable of running world-class studies on new medicines destined for the U.S. market. No problem.

But finding the people at the bottom rung, those testing the drugs or the experimental procedures, was more difficult. They are all around you, yet they are invisible. They are often poor and illiterate. If something goes wrong in a trial, they don't hire a lawyer, they just go home. They disappear into a haze of patient confidentiality.

Under international guidelines for clinical trials of new drugs and treatments, there are rules to protect these patients. Consent forms, oversight committees, ethics reviews. The people at the top in India reassured me those protections were rock-solid. But the people at the bottom, when I finally found them, said otherwise.  For complete story, click here.

The latest industry being outsourced to India: clinical drug trials--December 14, 2008--Two hours after opening, the pediatric waiting room at All India Institute of Medical Sciences is like the anteroom to hell. Families, anxious, restless, sweaty in the soupy air, cram into plastic chairs, crouch in corners, crowd doorways, clog up aisles. Cries jangle off the ceiling. Feces litter the floor. Signs in the corridor attempt to impose order on the chaos:

Don't spit.

Don't feed the monkeys.

Don't pay bribes.

This overstretched government hospital and medical college treats about 4-million people a year. It's also one of a growing number of Indian hospitals that use their patients to gather data on experimental drugs destined for Western markets. It recently was revealed that 49 children have died during clinical trials at the institute. Though the hospital blamed the deaths on underlying illnesses, the news triggered unease about a drug-testing phenomenon, propelled by mountains of money, that has swept India with little publicity. As the world flattens, India is not just answering our tech calls. Global drug companies are tapping its population of nearly 1.2-billion to test the safety and effectiveness of compounds that, if approved, will end up in medicine cabinets in the United States. The upshot: the distance has been compressed between a patient trying a new diabetes drug in New Delhi and the retiree who will buy that prescription in St. Petersburg.

"All the ingredients are there for a huge problem,'' said Dr. David Ross, a former FDA medical officer.

"First of all the data must be applicable to the U.S., where the population may differ in clinically significant ways," he said. "And the FDA has to have the capacity to go over and inspect the data. If not, you're asking for trouble."

In the past three years, the FDA has inspected just eight of the thousands of trial sites in India.

Poor oversight invites problems in an overseas drug pipeline, as Americans learned after deaths from Chinese-made blood thinners this year. In a rare proactive move, the FDA slammed the door on 30 generic drugs from one of India's biggest drug makers in September after finding problems at its factories.

Mary K. Pendergast, a former FDA deputy commissioner, said identifying a dangerous product is difficult enough. It's considerably trickier to find fraudulent clinical trial data, which could lead to the approval of dangerous drugs years later.

"It's much more time-consuming and extraordinarily tedious,'' said Pendergast, who plowed through such data when she was prosecuting doctors doing drug studies in the United States. "It's especially hard if the trial is taking place in a different country."

Particularly when that country has a reputation for cutting corners. In India, cops execute suspected criminals in so-called "encounters." Laws against selectively aborting female fetuses are ignored. And those "No bribes" signs in public hospitals? Bhupali Magare, whose uncle was recently hospitalized in Mumbai, just shrugged.

"Everybody pays bribes," she said.

In the burgeoning clinical trial business, says Amar Jesani, a doctor and medical ethicist in Mumbai, every layer of oversight is compromised by cash, and independent monitoring is nonexistent. He has resigned from supposedly independent ethics committees that rubber-stamp drug companies' proposals and overrule any objections.

Said Jesani: "We're sitting on a time bomb that may explode at any time."  For complete story, click here.
Bush shoe-thrower in hospital after beating: brother 16 Dec 2008 The Iraqi journalist who hurled shoes at US President [sic] George W. Bush is in hospital after being beaten up by security guards, his brother charged on Tuesday, as judicial authorities launched a probe into the incident. "He has been taken to Ibn Sina hospital because he has a broken arm and ribs and is also suffering injuries to his eye and leg," Durgham al-Zaidi said of his brother Muntazer.  For complete story, click here.
Rights group says filed 200 lawsuits against Rumsfeld, US security firms for torture --Group head: Around 30 lawsuits have been accepted; others still under consideration 16 Dec 2008 A Jordan-based Iraqi rights group said on Monday it has filed 200 lawsuits against US former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and American security firms for their alleged role in torturing Iraqis. Ali Qeisi, head of the group the "Society of Victims of the US Occupation in Iraq," said the cases, relating to torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners, have been recently filed in federal courts in Virginia, Michigan and Maryland. "The torture was systemic, and those responsible for it should be punished and the victims should be compensated," he said. Qeisi said he himself was tortured by US troops in Iraq during a six-month detention, though he refused to elaborate.  For complete story, click here.
200 lawyers offer to defend Bush shoe attacker --Detained journalist's employer calls for his 'immediate release' 16 Dec 2008 Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer said on Monday he was forming a team to defend the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at US President [sic] George W Bush during his farewell visit to Baghdad. "So far around 200 Iraqi and other lawyers, including Americans, have expressed willingness to defend the journalist for free," the Amman-based Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP. "I took the decision on Sunday night to defend the man after the incident. I am currently contacting Arab bar associations to form a defence committee."  For complete story, click here.

Musicians want U.S. to stop using their songs to torment prisoners--December 9, 2008--GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.

"Stains like the blood on your teeth," Trent Reznor snarled over distorted guitars. "Bite. Chew."

The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the U.S. military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal.

The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Senate report ties Rumsfeld to Abu Ghraib abuse 11 Dec 2008 Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to portions of a report released on Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The report's executive summary, made public by the committee's Democratic chairman Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and its top Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Rumsfeld contributed to the abuse by authorizing aggressive interrogation techniques torture at Guantanamo Bay on Dec. 2, 2002.  For complete story, click here.

KBDI refuses to delay airing of Guantanamo torture documentary--Even as Barack Obama has vowed one of the first acts of his presidency will be to shut down Guantánamo, and even as the topic has been raging in Congress, many Americans will have to wait until the day after George W. Bush leaves office to watch a documentary detailing the horrific policies of his regime.

Though PBS stations across the country have shied from airing “Torturing Democracy”, Colorado’s KBDI Channel 12 wants viewers to know it isn’t hesitating to share the provocative documentary with its viewers.

“The documentary is phenomenal; this is just pure journalism,” says Marcia Simmons, director of marketing and communications for Denver-based KBDI Channel 12. Simmons says she’s been floored by reports that other PBS stations haven’t found time to schedule it until the day after Obama is sworn in.

“We aired it the night before the election and we got good feedback and we got bad feedback — people either love it or they don’t love it, but this was a really good program,” Simmons says.

The station, which broadcasts all over Colorado, aired “Torturing Democracy” twice before the election and plans to show it again on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at 9 p.m .  For complete story, click here.
Halliburton accused of supplying rotten food to U.S. forces --Halliburton and KBR--the companies that were controlled by Dick Cheney until he became vice president [sic]--are facing a mountain of lawsuits over their past and present activities in Iraq and elsewhere. 08 Dec 2008 U.S military contractor KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton, is facing a number of lawsuits over its activities in Iraq, and elsewhere. KBR is the largest contractor for the United States Army and a top-ten contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense. In one class-action suit Joshua Eller, a civilian who worked for the U.S. Air Force in 2006 at the Balad air force base northeast of Baghdad, alleges KBR 'knowingly and intentionally supplied to U.S. forces and other individuals food that was expired, spoiled, rotten, or that may have been contaminated with shrapnel, or other materials'.  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater charges: 14 counts of manslaughter 08 Dec 2008 U.S. prosecutors say Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries used machine guns and grenade launchers in an attack on unarmed Iraqi civilians, some of whom had their hands up. Prosecutors unsealed a 35-count indictment against the five guards Monday for a 2007 shooting in Baghdad. The mercenaries surrendered in Utah, where they will argue the case should be tried. The Justice Department charged the men with manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and using a machine gun in a crime of violence. A sixth guard admitted in a plea deal to killing at least one Iraqi in the shooting.  For complete story, click here.
Slavery, American Style, Must Go!--December 5th, 2008--Who says there are no slaves in America? The greatest domestic issue facing President-elect Obama is not the bailout of the bankers and insurers but the task of lifting tens of millions of hard-working American wage-slaves out of dire poverty. These are the folks who hold one- and sometimes two or even three low-paying jobs, work their tails off 60 hours or more a week, and are still stuck in poverty on payday with no hope of climbing out.

Indeed, if enough workers were getting paid a living wage Wall Street and Detroit would not find themselves begging Washington for billions. Homeowners would have enough money to pay their mortgages and buy new cars. Today's crisis is the bitter payback for decades of corporate greed. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has written, "Most of what's been earned in America" in the past 35 years "has gone to the richest 5 percent." Result: 37 million Americans are said officially to live in poverty but Catholic Charities of Saint Paul-Minneapolis notes a more realistic accounting puts the poor at 50 million.

During the Bush regime, five million more Americans slid into poverty, and the unemployment figure, charitably put at 6.5% (but actually much higher counting discouraged workers,) hit a 14-year high in October. And at least five million people are working part-time because they can't find full-time jobs. What's more, those fully employed have seen their overtime pay disappear and their working hours shrink as demand tanks for their goods and services. Each day, thousands of pink slips are being handed out.

Poverty is so virulent, there are 18,000 children sleeping in homeless shelters in New York City every night and 1.7-million New Yorkers are eligible for food stamps. "Twenty-five percent of all families with children in New York City---that's 1.5 million New Yorkers---are trying to make it on incomes that are below the poverty threshold established by the federal government," writes Bob Herbert of The New York Times. In Albuquerque, N.M., the Democratic Party is asking for 2,500 coats for public school children sleeping in cars or under bridges. Nationally, 21 percent of U.S. Hispanics and 24 per cent of African-Americans subsist in poverty.

The great slide into poverty and ruin has long been underway. "The underlying problem has been building for decades," Reich says. "America's median hourly wage is barely higher than it was 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago."

Indeed, USA employs millions of wage slaves, whether illegal immigrants in the vegetable fields of Florida or native-born serfs in the needle trades of Los Angeles (currently reviving as their substandard wages are now comparable to what coolies earn in Chinese factories.) Few alien toilers, who are blatantly exploited and work under the sword of deportation, dare to protest their plight to Labor Department authorities that, under the Bush regime, are deliberately understaffed and commonly indifferent to workers' complaints.

As the New York Times editorialized, the Labor Department "has tilted toward employers and failed to properly enforce labor laws." The Government Accounting Office found Labor's Wage and Hour Division "failed to adequately investigate complaints that workers were not paid the minimum wage, were denied mandatory overtime or were not paid their last paychecks," the editorial said. Labor unions today can claim only 10 million members, a tiny fraction of the work force, and multitudes of workers have swallowed corporate propaganda that unions are bad for them even though union workers typically get paid 30 percent more!

Ever more Americans--- as mounting credit card debt figures reveal --- are unable to make ends meet at their minimum-wage jobs, and are, in fact, wage slaves drowning in a rising sea of red ink, with no prospect of good union jobs to rescue them. Organized labor has been trampled nearly to death on a rigged playing field that denies unions a fair chance to organize. The quickest way to get fired is to ask one of your co-workers to vote in a union. Tens of thousands have enlisted for the military sign-up bonus and job training because it's the only job and training package they can find. Military recruiters know of their plight and unashamedly concentrate their activities on the children of the poor.

Far from evincing a drop of "compassion," the AFL-CIO said the Bush 2008 fiscal budget "cuts more than one billion ($)in job training and employment programs," this "just a week after he (Bush) talked about the need for better training and assistance to help America's workers compete in a global economy." It noted, too, the Bush budget "eliminates current job training for unemployed adults and at-risk youths."

This has had particularly tragic consequences for African-American youth, pushing their jobless rate up in some cities up to about 50 percent. And let's not kid ourselves: a disproportionate number of the 2.3 million souls' in America's expanding prisons are African-American precisely because when people can't earn income they'll steal. As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in The Progressive magazine, "We are fast reaching the point, if we have not passed it already, where the largest public housing program in America will be our penitentiary system." Over two thousand years ago Aristotle said "Poverty is the parent of crime and revolution" and that's still true today.

In 1962, the National Urban League's Whitney Young called for a "Domestic Marshall Plan." It was a very good idea then but needs to be expanded to meet today's national emergency. Last January, economist Joseph Stiglitz said the downturn could be stopped in part by strengthening the unemployment insurance system, and that surely needs to be done. The focus must not be on bailing out the fat cats at the top but on making jobs and providing income for those whom FDR called the forgotten men and women at the base of the economic pyramid. And a good place to begin is to slash Pentagon spending for its morbid weapons system development and its endless wars. Imagine what might have been achieved here at home with the trillion bucks lavished on the illegal war in Iraq! (And the total bill may yet be $3 trillion!)

Urgently needed is a public-private sector partnership to refurbish our infrastructure, expand our moderate- and low-income housing supply, (renewing our inner cities, old-line suburbs and failing small towns,) to reinvigorate our mass transit, to retrain the unskilled, to tutor the unlettered, and to make college or vocational training available to every citizen. Let's put an end to wage slavery once and for all! If the Obama administration will only concentrate on nurturing the grass roots, every aspect of American life might one day bloom as a garden.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. military contractor in Iraq holds foreign workers in warehouses 02 Dec 2008 About 1,000 Asian men who were hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the U.S. military have been confined for as long as three months in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport without money or a place to work. Najlaa International Catering Services, a subcontractor to KBR, an engineering, construction and services company, hired the men who are from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. On Tuesday, they staged a march outside their compound to protest their living conditions.  For complete story, click here.

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death--November 29th, 2008--The throng of Wal-Mart shoppers had been building all night, filling sidewalks and stretching across a vast parking lot at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y. At 3:30 a.m., the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control, and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order. 

Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. Someone taped up a crude poster: “Blitz Line Starts Here.”

By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.

Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.

Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive Mr. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.

Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene “utter chaos” and said the “crowd was out of control.” As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. “I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”

But even with videos from the store’s surveillance cameras and the accounts of witnesses, Lieutenant Fleming and other officials acknowledged that it would be difficult to identify those responsible, let alone to prove culpability.

Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”  For complete story, click here.

Press and "Psy Ops" to merge at NATO Afghan HQ: sources --Psy Ops includes so-called "black operations," or outright deception. 29 Nov 2008 The U.S. general commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan has ordered a merger of the office that releases news with "Psy Ops," which deals with propaganda, a move that goes against the alliance's policy, three officials said. The move has worried Washington's European NATO allies -- Germany has already threatened to pull out of media operations in Afghanistan -- and the officials said it could undermine the credibility of information released to the public. U.S. General David McKiernan, the commander of 50,000 troops in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), ordered the combination of the Public Affairs Office (PAO), Information Operations and Psy Ops (Psychological Operations) from December 1, said a NATO official with detailed knowledge of the move. "This will totally undermine the credibility of the information released to the press and the public," said the official, who declined to be named. For complete story, click here.

Hearing on Cheney indictment turns chaotic--November 21st, 2008--RAYMONDVILLE, Texas: A county prosecutor who brought indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others asked on Friday for the judge to remove himself from the case.

 

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra pounded his fist and shouted at the judge, alleging he was giving special treatment to high-profile defendants. It sent the routine hearing into chaos.

Guerra, who is accusing the public officials of culpability in the alleged abuse of prisoners in a federal detention center, asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself. Guerra has complained about Banales' handling of the case.

Attorneys for the vice president and other defendants leapt to their feet in objection as Guerra pounded the table and accused Banales of giving the defendants special treatment in allowing motions to quash the indictments to be heard before the defendants were arraigned.

Banales called a recess to contact the chief justice of the state Supreme Court for suggestions on how to proceed. He also ordered Guerra, who had slipped out once before in the hearing, to remain in the courthouse.  For complete story, click here.
New Blackwater Iraq Scandal: Guns, Silencers and Dog Food --Ex-employees Tell ABC News the Firm Used Dog Food Sacks to Smuggle Unauthorized Weapons to Iraq 14 Nov 2008 A federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating allegations the controversial private security firm Blackwater illegally shipped assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in large sacks of dog food, ABCNews.com has learned. "The only reason you need a silencer is if you want to assassinate someone," said former CIA intelligence officer John Kiriakou, an ABC News consultant.  For complete story, click here.
More groups ask California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8 --Anti-discrimination groups and bar associations send letters to the court contending that the initiative, which bans gay marriage, is a sweeping revision of the state Constitution, not an amendment. 12 Nov 2008 Anti-discrimination groups and bar associations have joined 44 state legislators in calling on the California Supreme Court to overturn the anti-gay marriage initiative voters passed last week. In letters to the court, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups sided with lawsuits that said Proposition 8, which reinstated a ban on same-sex marriage, amounted to a sweeping revision of the state Constitution instead of a more limited amendment.  For complete story, click here.
Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs 10 Nov 2008 A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death. An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together.  For complete story, click here.
High Court May Consider Legality of Detention --Can the military indefinitely detain, without charge, a U.S. citizen or legal resident seized on U.S. soil? 09 Nov 2008 Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was whisked to a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., where he has spent more than five years. His case raises a question with vast implications for presidential power and civil liberties: Can the military indefinitely detain, without charge, a U.S. citizen or legal resident seized on U.S. soil? The Supreme Court is now being asked to consider the legality of Marri's detention, which is one of the broadest and most controversial assertions of executive authority since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Marri, said his client's detention "is the broadest and most radical assertion of detention power since September 11. That the president can order the military to seize someone from their home, their business, from the streets and lock them up in jail potentially forever, without trial, goes against 230 years of American precedent and the basic idea that this country was founded on."  For complete story, click here.
ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest 07 Nov 2008 When a Jefferson County deputy unleashed pepper spray at unruly protesters on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers. Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is questioning whether that staged confrontation by police pretending to be violent inflamed other protesters or officers during the most intense night of the four-day event.  For complete story, click here.
HHS Declares 'Health Emergencies' to Limit Legal Liability for Anti-terrorism Vaccines, Drugs --U.S. Declarations of 'Public Health Emergency' Extend Through 2015 By Lori Price 19 Oct 2008 October Surprises: The U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, Michael Leavitt, has declared a series of 'public health emergencies' -- due to risk of a bioterrorism attack -- that continue through 2015. The moves provide the manufacturers, distributors, and others of 'anti-terrorism' drugs and vaccines immunity from lawsuits, should injuries or deaths occur due to the drugs or vaccines.  For complete story, click here.

Bush Aides Say Religious Hiring Doesn’t Bar Aid--October 17th, 2008--

WASHINGTON — In a newly disclosed legal memorandum, the Bush administration says it can bypass laws that forbid giving taxpayer money to religious groups that hire only staff members who share their faith.

The administration, which has sought to lower barriers between church and state through its religion-based initiative offices, made the claim in a 2007 Justice Department memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel. It was quietly posted on the department’s Web site this week.

The statutes for some grant programs do not impose antidiscrimination conditions on their financing, and the administration had previously allowed such programs to give taxpayer money to groups that hire only people of a particular religion.

But the memorandum goes further, drawing a sweeping conclusion that even federal programs subject to antidiscrimination laws can give money to groups that discriminate.

The document signed off on a $1.5 million grant to World Vision, a group that hires only Christians, for salaries of staff members running a program that helps “at-risk youth” avoid gangs. The grant was from a Justice Department program created by a statute that forbids discriminatory hiring for the positions it is financing.  For complete story, click here.
Thousands Erroneously Tagged Ineligible to Vote --In New Databases, Many Are Wrongly Flagged as Ineligible 18 Oct 2008 Thousands of voters across the country must reestablish their eligibility in the next three weeks in order for their votes to count on Nov. 4, a result of new state registration systems that are incorrectly rejecting them. In Alabama, scores of voters are being labeled as convicted felons on the basis of incorrect lists. Michigan must restore thousands of names it illegally removed from voter rolls over residency questions, a judge ruled this week. Tens of thousands of voters could be affected in Wisconsin. Officials there admit that their database is wrong one out of five times when it flags voters, sometimes for data discrepancies as small as a middle initial or a typo in a birth date.  For complete story, click here.
Obama Demands Special Prosecutor Investigate GOP Voter Fraud Activities 17 Oct 2008 Charging that the FBI probe of ACORN represents an "unholy alliance" between Republican operatives and potentially illegal conduct by law enforcement targeting voter fraud, the Obama campaign demanded Friday that the U.S. special prosecutor looking into the U.S. attorneys scandal investigate the matter. General counsel Bob Bauer sent a letter to Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey charging that coordinated "misconduct" by McCain campaign representatives and GOP officials were relevant to the special prosecutor’s work, because the activities may relate to the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys in late 2006.  For complete story, click here.

Freedom of speech or pizza? Lesson gives students a choice--October 15th, 2008--

Free pizza won out over free speech Tuesday afternoon, but lunch in the Republic of Parkland included lessons in the loss of freedoms.

A portion of the Pacific Lutheran University campus called Red Square was taped off for the second annual First Amendment Free Food Festival sponsored by the student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Anyone who wanted a free lunch of pizza and soda could get a passport to visit the Republic of Parkland and eat their fill.

The one catch was that students had to sign away their First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, petition and religion. They had to carry a stamped passport and show it any time they were asked.

Around 170 students opted for lunch and quickly found out that sitting with more than one other person at a time was not allowed. That is illegal assembly, they were told.

“They yelled at me for having a camera,” said Jillian Buchanan, 17, one of a handful of Washington High School journalism students who came to the festival. “I almost got kicked out.”

Brown- and black-shirted enforcers for the Republic of Parkland circulated among the lunch crowd to make sure no one exercised any First Amendment rights. Those who did were warned and then escorted out or thrown out of the Republic.  For complete story, click here.
Ohio Files Appeal to Supreme Court on Voter Registration Data 16 Oct 2008 Ohio's attorney general filed an emergency appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court late Wednesday night seeking to block a lower court decision that could cost many thousands of Ohio voters a chance to cast a regular ballot Nov. 4. About 660,000 new voters have registered since January with an edge to Democrats. The filing on behalf of Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner contends that upholding a Tuesday decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit would create havoc on Election Day and cause many voters to cast "provisional" ballots that may or may not ultimately be tallied depending on judgments by local elections boards.  For complete story, click here.
Republicans challenge Ohio voters 16 Oct 2008 More than 200,000 registered voters in Ohio may be challenged over their right to vote in the presidential election. An appeal court has backed a complaint brought by the Ohio Republican Party, which argued the voters' details did not match federal records. Their concern is over registered voters backing Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama for president. A key Democratic official says she is concerned the move is a veiled bid to disenfranchise voters. For complete story, click here.
"This is," the report said, "a gross abuse of the public trust." White House Helped GOP Congressional Races 16 Oct 2008 When Karl Rove's office requested special help for beleaguered Republican congressional candidates in the months before the 2006 elections, the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy jumped to the task... Director John Walters's visits to Utah, Missouri and Nevada were among at least 303 out-of-town trips by senior Bush appointees meant to lend prestige or bring federal grants to 99 politically endangered Republicans that year, in a White House campaign that House Democratic investigators yesterday called unprecedented in scope and scale.  For complete story, click here.
Guantanamo Bay prosecutor quits over ethical issues 26 Sep 2008 A US military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay has resigned over ethical disputes with his superiors, claiming they suppressed evidence that could help clear a young Afghan prisoner of alleged war crimes. The prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, described the disagreements in a statement supporting a defence plea to dismiss the charges against Mohammed Jawad. "Potentially exculpatory evidence has not been provided," Lieutenant Colonel Vandeveld wrote, citing failure by the "prosecutors and officers of the court". The disclosure triggered new attacks on the integrity of the US military tribunal system, which has faced accusations from other insiders of ethical breaches and political interference.  For complete story, click here.
Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1 for deployment during 'civil unrest,' 'horrific scenarios' [The 'horrific scenario' of the 2nd American Revolution after a third stolen 'election?'] 08 Sep 2008 The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle. Now they’re training for the same mission -- with a twist -- at home. Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manBushmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. This new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom. They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.  For complete story, click here.
DNA Testing Expands to Lesser Crimes Sept. 7th, 2008--While unusual, here is a crime as alleged by Montgomery County police that joins the list of things harder to get away with in the era of DNA evidence:

Man walks into a Starbucks, says he wants to apply for a job. He's given an application and a complimentary cup of coffee. Minutes later, he walks around the counter and threatens a barista with a ballpoint pen. He flees with $204 from the cash register and keys to another barista's 1993 Nissan Maxima, leaving behind the partially consumed cup of coffee.

Dominic J. Wilson is scheduled to stand trial today in the Starbucks case.

"Saliva," said Ray Wickenheiser, director of Montgomery's crime lab, "is a good source of DNA."

DNA testing in the county is expanding from killings and rapes to less violent robberies, burglaries and drug deals. Prosecutors say this will lead to quicker convictions because defendants will cave and plead guilty. Defense lawyers worry that as more DNA samples are pushed through the county's crime lab, it will boost the odds of false matches.

"It runs the risk of turning the gold standard of evidence into fool's gold," said Stephen Mercer, a Montgomery lawyer who has taken on so many of these cases lately that one of this clients calls him "the DNA Dude."  For complete story, click here.
Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals 04 Sep 2008  A former colleague of the US Vice-President [sic], Dick Cheney, has pleaded guilty to funnelling millions of dollars in bribes to win lucrative contracts in Nigeria for Halliburton, during the period in the Nineties when Mr Cheney ran the giant oil and gas services company. Albert Stanley, who was appointed by Mr Cheney as chief executive of Halliburton's subsidiary KBR, admitted using a north London lawyer to channel payments to Nigerian officials as part of a bribery scheme that landed some $6bn of work in the country over a decade.  For complete story, click here.
Breaking: RNC 8 Charged with "Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism" 03 Sep 2008 In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism. Those charged face up to 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty. [The *actual* RNC 8 who should be charged in the "Furtherance of Terrorism:" John (Insane) McCain, Sarah Palin, Mitt (I have $250 million dollars in Bank of America, but I detest Northeast elitists) Romney, Rudy (unindicted 9/11 co-conspirator) Giuliani, Joe LieberBush (R-Israel), Fred Thomspon, George (live from satellite) Bush and Dick (hiding in bunker) Cheney. --LRP]  For complete story, click here.
Police Using G.P.S. Units as Evidence in Crimes--August 31st, 2008--Like millions of motorists, Eric Hanson used a Global Positioning System device in his Chevrolet TrailBlazer to find his way around.  He probably did not expect that prosecutors would use it, too -- to help convict him of killing four family members.

Prosecutors in suburban Chicago analyzed data from the Garmin G.P.S. device to pinpoint where Mr. Hanson had been on the morning after his parents were fatally shot and his sister and brother-in-law bludgeoned to death in 2005. He was convicted of the killings this year and sentenced to death.

Mr. Hanson's trial was among recent criminal cases in which the authorities used such navigation devices to help establish a defendant's whereabouts. Experts say such evidence will almost certainly become more common in court as the systems become more affordable and show up in more vehicles.

"There's no real doubt," said Alan Brill, a computer forensics expert in Minnesota who has worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service. "This follows every other technology that turns out to have information of forensic value. I think what we're seeing is evolutionary."  Using technology to track a person's location is nothing new, but the popularity of the Global Positioning System -- in cars, cellphones and other handheld devices -- gives the authorities a powerful tool to track suspects.

In September, a man in Butte, Mont., pleaded guilty to rape after a judge ruled that evidence from the global positioning unit in his car could be used against him at trial. Prosecutors planned to use it to show that the man, Brian D. Adolf, "prowled" in the town looking for a victim.

In New Brighton, Pa., a trucker's system led the police to charge him with setting his own home on fire. The system's records showed his rig was parked about 100 yards from his house at the time of the fire.

Critics, however, say the police should be allowed to acquire global positioning data only by getting a warrant. Renée Hutchins, a University of Maryland law professor, wrote an article recently suggesting Global Positioning System data was protected under the Fourth Amendment.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.nytimes.com  Date: August 31, 2008)
Amy Goodman Arrested at RNC--Sept. 1st, 2008--ST. PAUL, MN -- Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time.  Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.  For complete story, click here.

Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention.--August 30th, 2008--ST. PAUL, Minn. — On the weekend before the Republican National Convention, law enforcement agencies detained dozens of people and issued a series of search warrants aimed at groups believed to be organizing demonstrations while delegates and Republican officials are in town.

 

On Friday night the Ramsey County sheriff's department, accompanied by the St. Paul police, detained people inside a building here that was being used as a headquarters to plan protests.

“They handcuffed all of us,” said Sonia Silbert, 28, from Washington. “They searched everyone.”

People who had been in the building said that officers entered shortly after 8:30 p.m. with a warrant and instructed them to lie on the ground, adding that they had been questioned and photographed before being released.

Jordan Kushner, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, said the two-story brick building had been rented by a nonprofit organization and was being used by several groups planning protests.

People who had been inside said teach-ins and legal training had been conducted there, and that the space was also a repository for such items as computers and bicycles.

The R.N.C. Welcoming Committee, a group that has said it wants to block roads during the convention, issued a statement Friday night that was read aloud outside the meeting place by a woman who identified herself as Sarah Coffey.

Ms. Coffey said that the officers, citing fire violations as the reason for their visit, “detained over 50 people in an attempt to pre-empt planned protests.”

The sheriff's department continued the sweeps on Saturday morning, executing warrants for three houses in Minneapolis and two in St. Paul, detaining more than 50 people and arresting 4.

A copy of a warrant at one house said the police were authorized to look for a laundry list of items, including fire bombs, Molotov cocktails, brake fluid, photographs and maps of St. Paul, paint, computers and camera equipment, and documents and other communications.

Residents of the houses where the warrants were served denied having any unlawful or dangerous materials.

Attorneys for the National Lawyers Guild said the people who were detained and photographed included local residents as well as visitors in town to demonstrate at the convention.

Bruce Nestor, a lawyer at one house, said three people there were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit a riot.

“In my mind it's a classic preventive detention charge,” Mr. Nestor said.

He said the authorities were permitted to hold those they arrested without charging them for up to 36 hours -- excluding weekends or holidays -- in essence detaining them for the length of the convention.

On Saturday morning the father of one woman who was arrested said he was outraged.

“There is no cause for this,” said Dave Bilking, whose daughter, Monica Bilking, a 23-year-old student, had been removed in handcuffs.

The sheriff's department did not respond to a phone message requesting comment.  For complete story, click here.
'They already have a bracelet with a barcode.' --Evacuees wore special identification armbands, which were scanned and collected into a database to help keep track of their destination. 30 Aug 2008 (TX) Tyler will be a hub for several thousand Hurricane Gustav evacuees as city officials enact its emergency response plan, and so far, it seems as though early relief efforts have been fluid. Mayor Barbara Bass Saturday signed an official declaration of disaster/emergency condition during the second of two press conferences. Bass said preparations are specifically geared towards the evacuations of special needs evacuees from Beaumont. "They already have a bracelet with a barcode," Captain Akin said. "They will walk through the scanner and it automatically loads into the computers. We have a list of where they need to go." [Um, the last time a Bush-style regime tried this, people ended up . . . not so good. And so, when Bush or Blackwater henchmen instruct you to wear a 'special identification armband' so that a computer can 'tell you where to go' . . . tell (or show) them where to go. --LRP]  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater Issues Mercenary Call For Hurricane Gustav --Blackwater Worldwide: Security for Hurricane Gustav 29 Aug 2008 Blackwater is compiling a list of qualified security personnel for possible deployment into areas affected by Hurricane Gustav. Applicants must meet all items listed under the respective Officer posting and be US citizens. Contract length is TBD. [Email from Blackwater Worldwide disseminated 29 Aug 2008]  For complete story, click here.
Denver: Preparing for Democratic Convention or Martial Law? --In the local newspapers, Denver officials have outlined several worst-case scenarios. 24 Aug 2008 To the uninformed visitor, it has become difficult to tell whether Denver is preparing for a Democratic National Convention or the institution of martial law. Helicopters filled with armed commandos swooped over downtown in a training exercise earlier this summer. A warehouse was converted into a temporary jail with chain-link fences and signs threatening the use of electric stun devices. Downtown office buildings have hired extra security and rehearsed evacuation plans. The Secret Service established 18 working groups in Denver, with assignments to coordinate air security, crisis management and more.  For complete story, click here.
New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers --New guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps 'without any basis for suspicion.' 20 Aug 2008 A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations. Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.  For complete story, click here.
Pentagon can't find $2.3 trillion, wasting trillions on 'national defense' --'America's Outrageous War Economy!' By Paul B. Farrell 18 Aug 2008 We've lost our moral compass: The contrast between today's leaders and the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 shocks our conscience. Today war greed trumps morals. During the Revolutionary War our leaders risked their lives and fortunes; many lost both. Today it's the opposite: Too often our leaders' main goal is not public service but a ticket to building a personal fortune in the new "America's Outrageous War Economy," often by simply becoming a high-priced lobbyist.  For complete story, click here.
N.C. Patient Dies While Staff Plays Cards--August 19th, 2008--RALEIGH, N.C. (CBS News) ― Investigators say a North Carolina mental patient died after nurses at a state mental hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours and failed to feed him or help him to the bathroom, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Security video showed Steven H. Sabock, 50, as he died in April after he choked on medication at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro and a nurse stood nearby without helping, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.

The newspaper said the death was one reason federal officials said they might cut off funds for the facility. Hospital officials have about two weeks to develop an improvement plan and try to persuade federal officials to continue providing funds.

Video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards while Sabock was in the same room. One technician hugged and kissed another staff member and appeared to be dancing.

Investigators said in a report released Monday that Sabock, who had lived in Roanoke Rapids, sat in a busy day room during four work shifts.

When technicians couldn't get him to walk to his bed, the video showed that they stood him and slid a chair under him before sliding him down the hall to his room. A few minutes later, the video showed a cart of emergency equipment being pushed down the hall.

Sabock, who used to live in Roanoke Rapids in northeastern North Carolina, ate nothing the day he died, and very little during the three days prior, according to The News & Observer in North Carolina.

Investigators found no evidence that "the nursing staff had evaluated the patient's nutrition. The review revealed no nutritional consult was requested and revealed no evidence the physician was notified about the inadequate nutritional intake," according to the investigators' report.

Sabock's father told the newspaper he wasn't allowed to see his son after he was admitted to Cherry Hospital.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. May Ease Police Spy Rules --Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. 16 Aug 2008 The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years... Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases.  For complete story, click here.
USDA website 'help wanted' notice: US to fund Georgia scientists to research, clone deadly viruses for 'outbreak response' --Posed 01 Jun 2008, updated 15 Aug 2008 African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) has been identified by USDA and DHS as an emerging agricultural pathogen due to the 2007, outbreaks in Eurasia and is now a high priority for biological countermeasure research. Objectives: Identify and recruit a qualified scientist from the Republic of Georgia to come to ARS, PIADC for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of ASF, and development of molecular biology skill sets... [and] necessary for the successful ASF knowledge transfer in the future to other Republic of Georgia scientists. This scientist will be supported through USDA-DOE interagency agreement administered through ORISE. The identified Republic of Georgia scientist will be trained by ARS, PIADC in foreign animal disease molecular biology skills through on-going ARS Classical Swine Fever research. This training includes: vaccine discovery, inclusive of cell culture, virus titration, virus cloning, viral analysis, sequencing, tissue collection and necropsy. DHS, PIADC will coordinate ASFV related activities between ARS, PIADC and the Republic of Georgia, including access to viral samples and genomic sequencing support. The identified Republic of Georgia scientist, with assistance from ARS, PIADC and DHS, PIADC collaborators, will prepare and submit an ASF basic research and vaccine discovery proposal targeting the Eurasian outbreak response.  For complete story, click here.
'Gitmo On the Platte' Set As Holding Cell For DNC 13 Aug 2008 CBS4 News has learned if mass arrests happen at the Democratic Convention, those taken into custody will be jailed in a warehouse owned by the City of Denver. Investigator Rick Sallinger discovered the location and managed to get inside for a look. The newly created lockup is on the northeast side of Denver. Protesters have already given this place a name: "Gitmo on the Platte." Inside are dozens are metal cages. They are made out of chain link fence material and topped by rolls of barbed wire. Each of the fenced areas is about 5 yards by 5 yards and there is a lock on the door. A sign on the wall reads "Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility."  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: http://cbs4denver.com  Date: August 13, 2008)
Protesters: Holding pens unfit for voting machines --Dozen or so pens are made of chain link fencing with coiled concertina wire along the top 15 Aug 2008 Convention protesters said this afternoon that the "secret jail" the city has set up for people arrested during the upcoming Democratic National Convention used to house the city's voting machines until the building was declared unfit for the machines. At a press conference in front of the holding pens the city has built inside a dilapidated warehouse at 38th Avenue and Steele Street, protester Glenn Spagnuolo said the city stored its voting machines there until officials said the building was too hot for the machines and was without a fire sprinkler system. "The city pulled its voting machines from here because the building gets too hot. Yet now they'll put people in there who use those machines to vote," he told a small gathering of reporters. "There are no toilets there. There's no water, no fire suppression. The city should be ashamed. It needs to stop criminalizing protests."  For complete story, click here.
Lawsuit Filed Against Gonzales, DOJ Officials --Lawsuit: DOJ Officials Should be Held Accountable for Politicizing Hiring Practices 15 Aug 2008 Six attorneys rejected from civil service positions at the Justice Department filed a lawsuit today against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and three other top officials for allegedly violating their rights by taking politics into consideration in the hiring process. The suit is an attempt to hold top officials accountable for the hiring scandal that ultimately led to Gonzales' resignation last year, said Daniel Metcalfe, the attorney for the plaintiffs who is also executive director of its Collaboration on Government Secrecy at American University's Washington College of Law.  For complete story, click here.
Future (current) wars could see opponents attacking each other's minds, according to a report for the US military--August 14th, 2008--Landmines releasing brain-altering chemicals, scanners reading soldiers'
minds and devices boosting eyesight and hearing could all one figure in arsenals, suggests the study.

Sophisticated drugs, designed for dementia patients but also allowing troops to stay awake and alert for several days are expected to be developed, according to the report. It is thought that some US soldiers are already taking drugs prescribed for narcolepsy in an attempt to combat fatigue.

As well as those physically and mentally boosting one's own troops, substances could also be developed to deplete an opponents' forces, it says.

"How can we disrupt the enemy's motivation to fight?" It asks. "Is there a way to make the enemy obey our commands?" Research shows that "drugs can be utilized to achieve abnormal, diseased, or disordered psychology" among one's enemy, it concludes.

Research is particularly encouraging in the area of functional neuroimaging, or understanding the relationships between brain activity and actions, the report says, raising hopes that scanners able to read the intentions or memories of soldiers could soon be developed.

Some military chiefs and law enforcement officials hope that a new generation of polygraphs, or lie detectors, which spot lie-telling by observing changes in brain activity, can be built.

"Pharmacological landmines," which release drugs to incapacitate soldiers upon their contact with them, could also be developed, according to the report's authors.

The report, which was commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency, contained the work of scientists asked to examine how better understanding of how the human mind works was likely to affect the development of
technology.

It finds that "great progress has been made" in neuroscience over the last decade, and that continuing advances offered the prospect of a dramatic impact on military equipment and the way in which wars are fought.  For complete story, click here.
Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes 12 Aug 2008 Unlike the rest of us, most U.S. corporations and foreign companies doing business in the United States pay no federal income tax, according to a new report from Congress. The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, and about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: http://money.aol.com  Date: August 12, 2008)
NYPD's 'Operation Sentinel' to Track EVERYTHING --Radiation Sensors, Surveillance Cameras Used to Screen & Follow Every Vehicle Entering Lower Manhattan --Plan Aims to Provide Security Blanket 'Against' Terrorist Attack 12 Aug 2008 The NYPD is working on a high-tech, anti-terror plan to track every vehicle that enters Manhattan. It's called "Operation Sentinel," and it's already sparking a debate about the right to privacy. Every time a car, bus or truck drives into Manhattan on either a bridge or thru a tunnel its license plate would be screened and photographed. All part of the new multi-million dollar security plan proposed by the NYPD. "Operation Sentinel" also includes heavy security implementation at the new World Trade Center site.  For complete story, click here.
Bush Veterans Affairs Department bans voter registration drives at veterans facilities By Faiz 11 Aug 2008 This past May, the Veterans Affairs Department, led by Secretary James Peake, issued a directive prohibiting nonpartisan voter registration drives "at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans." In today’s New York Times, Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz writes, "What is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking?"  For complete story, click here.
Bush: Why don't you shut up? (Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey) 12 Aug 2008 Taking the words of the illustrious King of Spain, in his imbecillic retort to President Hugo Chavez, we use them not as a response to a diatribe but rather, a just retort to an imbecile. President [sic] George W. Bush, why don’t you shut up? President Bush, Why don’t you shut up? In your statement on Monday regarding the legitimate actions of the Russian Federation in Georgia, you failed to mention once the war crimes perpetrated by Georgian military forces, which American advisors support, against Russian and Ossetian civilians. Kinda embarrassing, eh? President Bush, Why don’t you shut up? Your faithful ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, was announcing a ceasefire deal while his troops, with your advisors, were massing on Ossetia’s border, which they crossed under cover of night and destroyed Tskhinvali, targeting civilian structures just like your forces did in Iraq. Kinda humanitarian, eh?  For complete story, click here.
FBI to newspapers: Sorry about your phone records 09 Aug 2008 FBI Director Robert Mueller has apologized to the editors of The Washington Post and The New York Times for improperly obtaining phone records of the newspapers' reporters while investigating terrorism four years ago. Mueller called Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on Friday to express regret that agents did not follow proper procedures in 2004 when they obtained the phone records of a Post reporter and a researcher and two Times reporters.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Attorney Scandal Probe Enters White House Circle By Murray Waas 07 Aug 2008 The Justice Department investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys has been extended to encompass allegations that senior White House officials played a role in providing false and misleading information to Congress, according to numerous sources involved in the inquiry. The widened scope raises the possibility that investigators will pursue criminal charges against some administration officials, and recommend appointment of a special prosecutor if there is evidence of criminal misconduct.  For complete story, click here.
Book Claims White House Forged War Intel --"The Way of the World" Alleges U.S. Faked Letter That Linked Iraq With 9/11 05 Aug 2008 A new book published Tuesday accuses the White House of trying to manipulate intelligence to support the war in Iraq, reports CBS News. The book, by author Ron Suskind, charges that the Bush White House faked a letter from Saddam Hussein's intelligence chief connecting Iraq with 9/11 and an ongoing nuclear program - neither of which was true. This letter, in the handwriting of Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, is dated July, 2001. It says that Iraqis hosted Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 'hijackers...' The letter goes on to suggest that Iraq was importing uranium from Niger for a nuclear program. The book alleges that Habbush, Saddam's intelligence chief, was in CIA protective custody after the 2003 invasion, that the White House ordered CIA officials to have Habbush write and backdate the letter, and paid him $5 million. The author quotes two former CIA officials who claim to have seen a draft of the letter on White House stationery. Suskind writes: "The idea was to take the letter to Habbush and have him transcribe it in his own neat handwriting on a piece of Iraqi government stationery to make it look legitimate. CIA would then take the finished product to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media [lapdogs]."  For complete story, click here.
"What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?" Justice Officials Repeatedly Broke Law on Hiring, Report Says 28 Jul 2008 Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general's report released today. Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party, said investigators, who interviewed 85 people and received information from 300 other job seekers at Justice. Sampson developed a system to screen immigration judge candidates based on improper political considerations and routinely took recommendations from the White House Office of Political Affairs and Presidential Personnel, the report said. Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs, "What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?" the report said.  For complete story, click here.
DOJ: Former Gonzales aide broke law --Politics influenced hiring of career prosecutors, report says 28 Jul 2008 A new Justice Department report concludes that politics illegally influenced the hiring of career prosecutors and immigration judges, and largely lays the blame on top aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Monday's report singles out the department's former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, for violating federal law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against job applicants who were not Republican or conservative loyalists.  For complete story, click here.

The New Reefer Madness: Arresting People In Pain--July 23rd, 2008--The police raid on Martin Martinez, a Seattle man who uses marijuana to dull the chronic pain from a motorcycle accident, made the page-one headline last Thursday: "Was Pot Raid Justified?" Martinez's lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, insists vehemently that it was not.

 
In Seattle, the topic of medical marijuana and the law leads quickly to Hiatt. A native Chicagoan, 49, this blue-jeaned barrister is vehement often, his deep voice rising quickly to indignant italics.

 
His cellphone rings. "I gotta take this," he says. "Hello? Yes ... No ... No, we're not going to do that! Look, this is my client ... Yes, I'll be there." Click.

 
Originally a public defender, Hiatt is now exclusively a medical-marijuana lawyer. It is not a lucrative practice. His clients are often broke, and typically they are merely trying to be left alone. Hiatt says he has been paid in salmon, and once in an organic pig.

 
His first client was an AIDS patient stuck in the King County Jail. Hiatt went to Dan Satterberg, then deputy prosecutor, for help — and it was Satterberg who smoothed things over after last week's raid on Martinez.

 
To Hiatt, King County's Republican prosecutor is "Good King Dan," who follows the law that 59 percent of Washington voters approved in 1998. Most prosecutors around the state don't, Hiatt says.

 
"It makes me crazy," he says.

 
For healthy folk who think of marijuana as getting stoned, "medical marijuana" may sound like a doper's deception. Hiatt shakes his head. His clients are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Typically, they are on disability. Many have cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease or Crohn's disease.

 
AIDS patients are using marijuana to control nausea, so they don't vomit up the 40-odd pills they have to take every day. In 2000, when a judge forbade writer and AIDS patient Peter McWilliams from using marijuana, he threw up his "AIDS cocktail," choked on his vomit and died.

 
The word "cocktail," makes Hiatt bristle. "It's not a damned cocktail. This is chemotherapy for life."

 
McWilliams had been ordered to use Marinol, a drug with one of marijuana's active ingredients. Hiatt says he has a client right now ordered by a judge to use Marinol.

 
"It makes my client really stoned, and he doesn't want that," Hiatt says. "It's expensive. It costs $10 to $20 a pill. Why use it when you can grow a house plant?"  For complete story,  click here.
'On that show ['24'], torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis.' Madness and Shame By Bob Herbert 22 Jul 2008 Very few voters are aware of Mr. [David] Addington’s existence, much less what he stands for. But he was the legal linchpin of the administration’s Marquis de Sade approach to battling terrorism. In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the president authorized in the fight against terror -- regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say -- was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it. This is the mind-set that gave us Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the C.I.A.’s secret prisons, known as "black sites..." When the constraints of the law are unlocked by the men and women in suits at the pinnacle of power, terrible things happen in the real world. You end up with detainees being physically and psychologically tormented day after day, month after month, until they beg to be allowed to commit suicide. You have prisoners beaten until they are on the verge of death, or hooked to overhead manacles like something out of the Inquisition, or forced to defecate on themselves, or sexually humiliated, or driven crazy by days on end of sleep deprivation and blinding lights and blaring noises, or water-boarded.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Rushes to Change Workplace Toxin Rules 23 Jul 2008 Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush regime a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins. The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and May. Instead, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao's intention to push for the rule first surfaced on July 7, when the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) posted on its Web site that it was reviewing the proposal, identified only by its nine-word title.  For complete story, click here.
CDC: Offline generators caused germ lab outage 19 Jul 2008 A critical germ lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost power last week because the agency had taken two backup generators out of service for upgrades, CDC officials said Friday... The backup power failure -- the second in 13 months -- is the type predicted years ago by some CDC engineers. And it has heightened concerns in Congress about lab safety at the Atlanta agency, which experiments on smallpox, Ebola, anthrax and other deadly germs. Last week's incident began when a bird shorted out a Georgia Power transformer about 5:40 p.m., cutting off power to... Building 17. Building 17 houses infectious disease labs, where scientists work with the H5N1 avian flu virus and other dangerous germs. Without power, the labs can't run negative airflow systems that help contain germs in Biosafety Level 3 labs, such as those in Building 17.  For complete story, click here.
Holding Accused Without Trial Is Upheld --Terrorism Suspect May Petition Civilian Court 16 Jul 2008 A federal appellate court issued a new setback to the Bush regime on the treatment of terrorism suspects yesterday, declaring that the only accused "enemy combatant" apprehended and held on U.S. soil can petition a civilian court to review the evidence against him. At the same time, the divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit affirmed the president's wartime power to hold accused combatants apprehended in the United States without trial, reversing a previous ruling by a panel of its own judges. Jonathan Hafetz, who represents Kahlah al-Marri, said that in ordering a new hearing on the basis for Marri's detention, the court's majority had significantly rejected the "president's most sweeping claims of unchecked and unreviewable executive detention power." But he said that victory was tempered by a ruling that "effectively allows the president to seize any person in the United States, a citizen or noncitizen, and detain them indefinitely without trial."  For complete story, click here.
Canadian teenager cries in Guantanamo interrogation video --"Help me, help me, help me," Khadr says in the video, weeping, holding his head in his hands. 16 Jul 2008 A sobbing Canadian teenager begs for help as he is interrogated at the US "war on terror" camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the very first video glimpse of any such questioning showed on Tuesday. The video was released by attorneys for terror suspect Omar Khadr, who is shown being questioned at the prison by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agents in February, 2003. Khadr has been held at the US facility naval since his arrest in 2002, when he was 15 years old, and faces an upcoming US military tribunal on terrorism charges.  For complete story, click here.
''Suspicious characters' are trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape.' Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names --ACLU launches online watch list complaint form --A September 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice Department reported that it was growing by 20,000 names per month. 14 Jul 2008 The nation's terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government's own reported numbers for the size of the list. "Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other 'suspicious characters,' with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon." For complete story, click here.
Plot to murder Morris Dees revealed in new book--A new book by an FBI agent and his informant details a previously undisclosed plot to assassinate Morris Dees. The would-be assassin, a member of the Aryan Nations, wrote, "White supremacist groups throughout the country hated Dees, and privately, many expressed the view that the assassination of Dees would be the greatest achievement any white supremacist could accomplish." Among the suspected plotters was Imperial Klans of America leader Ron Edwards, who is the target of a current SPLC lawsuit. For complete story, click here.
Detainee's Lawyers: Prisoner Deprived of Sleep for 50 Days 15 Jul 2008 Defense lawyers claimed on Monday that an accused prisoner might have been subjected to a program of systematic sleep deprivation that they said would constitute torture. The lawyers for the prisoner facing trial, Salim Hamdan, said that on Saturday prosecutors for the first time gave them information indicating Mr. Hamdan "entered Operation Sandman" on June 11, 2003, and remained in the program for 50 days. Operation Sandman has been described as an interrogation plan devised with military psychiatrists for systematically interrupting a prisoner’s sleep. "Sleep deprivation of that nature for 50 days would constitute torture," said one of Mr. Hamdan’s lawyers, Joseph M. McMillan.  For complete story, click here.
Torture: MPs call for inquiry into MI5 role --New torture claims spark inquiry call --New allegations that abuse of Britons was outsourced to Pakistani agencies 15 Jul 2008 MPs are calling for an investigation into allegations that British intelligence has "outsourced" the torture of British citizens to Pakistani security agencies after hearing accounts of people being abducted and subjected to mistreatment and, in some cases, released without charge. John McDonnell, the Labour member for Hayes and Harlington, and Andrew Tyrie, Conservative member for Chichester, say the allegations should be examined by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the Westminster body that oversees the Security Service, MI5, and the Intelligence Service, MI6. McDonnell says he wants to know whether British officials colluded in the abuse of one of his constituents.  For complete story, click here.
ARE OUR LEADING PEDIATRICIANS DRUG INDUSTRY SHILLS?--July 13th, 2008--Most parents have never heard of him, but Joseph Biederman of Harvard may be the United States' most influential doctor when it comes to determining whether their children are normal or mentally ill.

In 1996, for example, Biederman suggested that drugs like Ritalin might serve 10 percent of American kids for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. By 2004, one in nine 11-year-old boys was taking the drug.  Biederman and his team also are more responsible than anyone for a child bipolar epidemic sweeping America (and no other country) that has 2-year-olds on three or four psychiatric drugs.

The science of children's psychiatric medications is so primitive and Biederman's influence so great that when he merely mentions a drug during a presentation, tens of thousands of children within a year or two will end up
taking that drug, or combination of drugs. This happens in the absence of a drug trial of any kind - instead, the decision is based upon word of mouth among the 7,000 child psychiatrists in America.

That's why Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley's recent revelation that Biederman did not declare $1.6 million in drug company consulting fees is so important, scary and tragic. If true, this scandal is yet one more stake in the heart of American academic medicine's credibility with frontline doctors like me - and more importantly, with the parents of the patients I deal with every day.

American medicine, with psychiatry the most culpable, has fallen back to a time more than 100 years ago when doctor credibility was tantamount to the promotion of patent medicine. Subsequent reforms severed ties between medical school doctors and the drug industry - and for decades there was a much more ethical balance between the industry and physicians.

Now once again, drug company money is corrupting medical practice and the maintenance of our country's health. In a market economy, both doctors and the companies are motivated by profit. However, doctors' Hippocratic oath
and their personal/professional relationships with their patients attenuate the most crass aspects of a fee-for-service system.

In contrast, drug companies owe primary responsibility to their shareholders. Of course these companies must operate within legal business and Food and Drug Administration restraints, but the drive to push  such rules to the limit is implicit in any business. Such a strategy isn't always beneficial when our children's health is affected.

The Fortune 500 drug companies, by their sheer economic clout, have become the single most dominant influence in our health care system. The ambiguities of children's mental health and illness make child psychiatry the most vulnerable branch of medicine open to such influence.

In this climate, drug company research money, professional medical education and direct advertisements to parents tilt families and doctors to biologically brain-based solutions, rather than nondrug (e.g., parenting and education) approaches.

That's why we're seeing famous (or infamous) Newsweek cover boys like Max, a 10-year-old who has taken 38 psychiatric medications in his short, unhappy life.

Research funding must be directed to the needs of patients and their doctors - not to the bottom line of stockholders. Drug companies can still make money, but it's ethically immoral when stockholder profits trump children's
health needs (as in the cover-up of negative studies of antidepressants in children).  For complete story, click here.
12 Babies die during vaccine trials in Argentina--July 10th, 2008--Buenos Aires, Jul 10, 2008 (EFE via COMTEX) --  At least 12 babies who were part of a clinical study to test the effectiveness of a vaccine against pneumonia have died over the past year in Argentina, the local press reported Thursday.  The study was sponsored by global drug giant GlaxoSmithKline and uses children from poor families, who are "pressured and forced into signing consent forms," the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, or Fesprosa, said.  "This occurs without any type of state control" and "does not comply with minimum ethical requirements," Fesprosa said.  For complete story, click here.
'No one expected the British to be worse than Saddam Hussein.' [Oh, yes we did.] British soldiers accused of sickening sex assault on Iraqi boy, 14 --Just days after the MoD has to pay out millions to the father of a man UK soldiers beat to death, fresh claims of abuse rape emerge 13 Jul 2008 British soldiers forced a boy of 14 to carry out an act of oral sex on a fellow male prisoner in Iraq, according to shocking new allegations made about the behaviour of British troops. The Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday that the Royal Military Police (RMP) have launched an investigation. The victim, now 19, whom The Independent on Sunday has agreed to identify only as Hassan, says he was rounded up with a friend while trying to steal milk cartons from a food distribution centre. He was whipped, beaten and forced to strip naked. "They made us sit on each other's laps," he said. "They were enjoying humiliating and abusing us, I wished I was dead at this moment. Then they made me sit with Tariq... where I was forced to put Tariq's penis in my mouth. The other two were made to do the same."  For complete story, click here.
We've come to this ignoble moment.' --'We have become like Serbia.' 12 Jul 2008 'I never thought I would say this, but I think it might, in fact, be time for the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal. I never thought in my lifetime I would say that, that we have become like Serbia, where an international tribunal has to come to force us to apply the rule of law... So we've come to this ignoble moment, where we could be forced into a tribunal and forced to face the rule of law that we've refused to apply to ourselves.' --Constitutional Law expert Jonathan Turley, on MSNBC's Friday 'Countdown,' discussing accountability behind US war crimes at Guantanamo.  Video:

 
Law School Dean Calls Conference to Plan Bush War Crimes Prosecution 17 Jun 2008 The dean of Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is planning a September conference to map out war crimes prosecutions, and the targets are President [sic] Bush and other administration officials. The dean, Lawrence Velvel, says in a statement that "plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth." Other possible defendants, he said, include federal judges and John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who wrote one of the so-called torture memos. "We must insist on appropriate punishments," he continued, "including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war criminals in the 1940s."  For complete story, click here.
Review board orders AP journalist held --The arrest of Raziak was the latest in a series of arrests of journalists by U.S. forces in Iraq in recent years. 08 Jul 2008 An Associated Press television cameraman who was detained by U.S. and Iraqi forces in early June was ordered held for at least six more months Tuesday for "imperative reasons of security," [!] the U.S. military said. The decision came as a surprise to the AP, which had earlier been led to believe that the cameraman, Ahmed Nouri Raziak, was likely to be released because of lack of any evidence against him. Raziak, 38, who has worked for AP Television News since 2003, was detained by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers at his home in Tikrit on June 4. He was transferred last month to the U.S. military's detention facility at Camp Cropper near Baghdad International Airport. "We are shocked that another AP journalist is to be held for at least six months without charges, and are awaiting information that could shed light on this strange decision," said John Daniszewski, AP Managing Editor for International News. [Why hasn't anyone raided the detention facility and freed him?]  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.onenewsnow.com  Date: July 8, 2008)
Reuters seeks U.S. army video of staff killed in Iraq 11 Jul 2008 The U.S. military said on Friday it was still 'processing' a request by Reuters for video footage from U.S. helicopters and other materials relating to the killing of two Iraqi staff in Baghdad a year ago. Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in a U.S. helicopter air strike in eastern Baghdad on July 12, 2007. Reuters wants all the materials to be able to study what happened. For comlete story, click here.

Iraqis tortured by UK military settle case for $6M 10 Jul 2008 A major case involving the abuse and torture of 10 Iraqi civilians at the hands of the British military was settled Thursday, with lawyers for the victims saying the Ministry of Defense agreed to pay them just under $6 million. The settlement involves the family of slain hotel clerk Baha Mousa and nine others who suffered injuries while in the custody of British forces in southern Iraq, said the law firm Leigh Day & Co.  For complete story, click here.
'I am angered that the department (of defense) appears to lack the urgency and outrage that all of us in this room share today.' Former KBR electricians criticize contractors' work 11 Jul 2008 KBR Inc. used employees with little electrical expertise to supervise subcontractors in Iraq and hired foreigners who couldn't speak English, former KBR electricians told a Senate panel investigating electrocutions of 13 Americans. Experienced electricians who raised concerns about shoddy work and its possible hazards were often dismissed and told, "This is a war zone," the electricians said Friday. "Time and again we heard, 'This is not the states, OSHA doesn't apply here. If you don't like it you can go home,'" said Debbie Crawford, a journeyman electrician with 30 years experience.  For complete story, click here.
Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Captives: Book --'The abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.' 11 Jul 2008 Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level 'Qaeda' prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001. The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were "categorically" torture, which is illegal under both American and international law.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. military to patrol Internet 30 Jun 2008 The U.S. military is looking for a contractor to patrol cyberspace, watching for warning signs of forthcoming terrorist attacks or other hostile activity on the Web. In a solicitation posted on the Web last week, the U.S. Army's Fifth Signal Command said it was looking for a contractor to provide "Internet awareness services" to support "force protection" -- the term of art for the security of U.S. military installations and personnel. "The purpose of the services will be to identify and assess stated and implied threat, antipathy, unrest and other contextual data relating to selected Internet domains," says the solicitation. The solicitation says the successful contractor will "analyze various Web pages, chat rooms, blogs and other Internet domains to aggregate and assess data of interest."  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.upi.com  Date: June 30, 2008)
Breaking: Senate Approves Telecom Immunity and New Eavesdropping Rules 09 Jul 2008 The Senate has approved a bill overhauling the rules on secret government eavesdropping and granting immunity to telecom companies that helped listen in on Americans after Sept. 11. The Senate passed the bill Wednesday, 69-28. It turned back three amendments that would have watered down, delayed or stripped away the immunity provision demanded by President [sic] Bush. (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.nytimes.com  Date: July 9, 2008)
Want some torture with your peanuts? By Jeffrey Denning 01 Jul 2008 A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers. This bracelet would take the place of an airline boarding pass; contain personal information about the traveler; be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage and shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes. The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it's referred to as, would be worn by every traveler "until they disembark the flight at their destination." According to a letter from DHS official, Paul S. Ruwaldt of the Science and Technology Directorate, office of Research and Development, to the inventor whom he had previously met with, he wrote, "To make it clear, we [the federal government] are interested in…the immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal." Not only could it be used as a physical restraining device, but also as a method of interrogation, according to the same aforementioned letter from Mr. Ruwaldt.  For complete story, click here.
Prototype Remote-Activated Wrist Stun-Device Shocks You For Aeroplane Security 08 Jul 2008 An official in the Department of Homeland Security has "expressed great interest" in a wrist bracelet that can be remotely activated to stun the wearer. It works by taking the place of a boarding pass, which you then wear on your wrist so the flight attendants can know who you are, where you are, and even shock you if you're misbehaving.  For complete story, click here.
Files show US military planned nerve gas testing in Australia 06 Jul 2008 There are revelations the United States military was planning to test deadly nerve gas in north eastern Australia in far north Queensland rainforest in the 1960s. Australian Defence Department files obtained by Australian television station Channel Nine, show the US was planning to test Sarin and VX nerve gas on up to 200 Australian combat troops by aerial bombing areas around Lockhart River. The plan never went ahead, but American survey teams inspected the proposed testing site.  For complete story, click here.
'Germ warfare' fear over African monkeys taken to Iran 06 Jul 2008 Hundreds of endangered monkeys are being taken from the African bush and sent to a “secretive” laboratory in Iran for scientific experiments. An undercover inquiry by The Sunday Times has revealed that wild monkeys, which are banned from experiments in Britain, are being freely supplied in large numbers to laboratories in other parts of the world [such as the US and the UK]. Monkeys are commonly used to test vaccines for 'biological weapon' diseases such as anthrax and plague. Experimenting on monkeys caught in the wild was effectively banned in Britain in 1997. Only monkeys bred in captivity are now used for research -- America, Russia, China and Iran are among the countries still using wild monkeys. [Oh, so torturing animals in the US, UK, Russia and China is OK - because the  animals are wild instead of bred for a lab?] For complete story, click here.
'While the FBI was busy collecting fingerprints, the military was setting up its own biometrics database, adding in iris and facial data as well.' U.S. fingerprints insurgents, prisoners and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq 06 Jul 2008 In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting 'insurgents,' prisoners and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States... If Iraq and Afghanistan were a proving ground of sorts for biometric watch-listing, the U.S. government is moving quickly to try to build a domestic version. Since September 2006, Homeland Security and the FBI have been operating a pilot program in which police officers in Boston, Dallas and Houston run prints of arrestees against Homeland Security and State Department databases.  For complete story, click here.
Iraqi torture victims slam UK 'contempt' --Father of Baha Musa says MoD views lives as cheap, as he flies in for talks over his son's death 06 Jul 2008 Iraqi civilians who were tortured by British soldiers say the government is treating them with 'contempt' ahead of a potential multi-million-pound payout for the abuse they suffered. The eight Iraqis arrived in London yesterday for this week's long-awaited mediation into how much compensation the government is willing to pay to civilians who were tortured while held in British custody. The eight accused the Ministry of Defence last night of trying to block them from attending the high-profile meeting... Musa, 26, had suffered 93 identifiable injuries at the hands of British soldiers in Basra in September 2003. He had died after being subjected to 36 hours of beatings and abusive treatment, including being double-hooded with hessian sacks in stifling conditions.  For complete story, click here.
Indonesia seeks to shut Navy lab researching avian flu --Health Minister: Viruses shared with U.S. could be turned into biological weapons. Politicians say the U.S. facility doesn't benefit Indonesia and could be a cover for spying. 05 Jul 2008 Indonesia suspended negotiations with the United States over the fate of a U.S. Navy medical research lab here [Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2] last month after senior politicians said it didn't benefit Indonesia and could be a cover for spying. The biomedical research lab opened in Jakarta in 1970 and is used to 'study' tropical diseases, including malaria, dengue fever and avian flu, according to an embassy fact sheet... After announcing a ban on virus-sharing in January 2007, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari published a book in which she warned that any viruses shared with other countries could be turned into biological weapons. She also recounted a meeting in Geneva with John E. Lange, the U.S. special representative for pandemic flu, in which she told him, "It is not impossible that there will be a group of people in developed countries insane enough to reengineer the viruses to create an outbreak in the Third World." [See: Killer flu recreated in the lab 07 Oct 2004; Congress Set to Pass Law Eliminating Liability For Vaccine Injuries 19 Oct 2005; Rumsfeld's growing stake in Tamiflu 31 Oct 2005; DoD to 'augment civilian law' during pandemic or bioterror attack 11 May 2007.]  For complete story, click here.
AP: Race profiling, travel history eyed for FBI terror probes 02 Jul 2008 The 'Justice' Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups. The new rules would allow the FBI to consider those factors among a number of traits that could trigger a national security investigation. Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons -- like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated -- to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious. Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person's race or ethnicity. [Gee, shouldn't such profiling also be known as 'the last straw?']  For complete story, click here.
'Communist torture' used at Guantanamo Bay 03 Jul 2008 A chart outlining "coercive management techniques" for US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay was copied verbatim from a 1957 US Air Force study of Chinese communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions - many of them false - from US prisoners. The New York Times reported the chart listed techniques for use on prisoners including "sleep deprivation", "prolonged constraint" and "exposure". Reporting the origins of the chart, the paper said it was the latest and most vivid evidence of the way communist interrogation methods the US has long condemned as torture became the basis for interrogations by the military at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA is still authorised by US President [sic] George W. Bush to use a range of secret "alternative" interrogation methods. In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods for the CIA and the US military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, the officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware it was created as a result of concerns about false confessions by US prisoners.  For complete story, click here.
Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland 02 Jul 2008 Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus. The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus. Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug.  For complete story, click here.
'On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all.' Ex-Agent Says CIA Ignored Iran Facts 01 Jul 2008 A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb. The onetime undercover agent, who has been barred by the CIA from using his real name, filed a motion in federal court late Friday asking the government to declassify legal documents describing what he says was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency views at the time.  For complete story, click here.
US to carry on military trials at Guantanamo despite ruling 24 Jun 2008 Hearings for terrorism suspects before US military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay are going ahead despite a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the prisoners have a right to challenge their detention in a civilian court. Legal experts had described the high court's decision as the death knell of the special tribunals created by President [sic] George W Bush and his Republican allies in Congress to try "war on terror" suspects. But Justice Department chief Michael Mukasey said the controversial tribunals at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would continue their work and last week, two preliminary hearings were held as scheduled.  For complete story, click here.
Ex-Pentagon Lawyer Says He Researched 'Real Manchurian Candidate Stuff' 17 Jun 2008 A former Pentagon lawyer scheduled to testify today before the Senate Armed Forces Committee told the New York Times he researched psychological studies about the effects of interrogation after his superiors expressed frustration about Guantanamo detainees withholding information. The lawyer, Richard Schiffrin, said the information he obtained included studies of North Koreans’ [and CIA] attempted mind-control experiments on American prisoners during the Korean War. "It was real Manchurian Candidate stuff," he told the Times. The revelation comes amid disclosures that Pentagon lawyers played a more active and earlier role than previously disclosed in developing aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo, the story says.  For complete story, click here.
Pentagon blasts KBR's 'illegal' post-Katrina operation --Contract 'illegal,' Navy overcharged millions, work poor 19 Jun 2008 Pentagon investigative report alleges the firm KBR Inc. held an illegal contract, overcharged millions to the Navy and produced shoddy workmanship on its South Mississippi jobs after Katrina. A report released by the Department of Defense's Office of the Inspector General says KBR worked on Navy facilities in Gulfport, Pascagoula, at Stennis Space Center and in Pensacola, among other Gulf Coast sites after hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. The group holds a $500 million disaster-recovery contract with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic based in Norfolk, Va., which was struck in 2004. [Cui bono? KBR had 500 million reasons for Bush to blow the levies.]  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.sunherald.com  Date: June 19, 2008)
US asks to rewrite official evidence against detainees: AP 20 Jun 2008 The Bush regime wants to rewrite the official evidence against Guantanamo Bay prisoners, allowing it to shore up its cases before they come under scrutiny by civilian judges for the first time. The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes. At Guantanamo Bay, the traditional rules of evidence do not apply in 'trials' run by the military. In a Washington federal courtroom, they would. "It's a totally fishy maneuver that suggests that the government wants, at the 11th hour, to get its ducks in a row," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney representing several detainees. For complete story, click here.
Breaking: DemocRATs surrender (not really 'breaking news,' but:) House Approves Spy Bill Protecting Phone Firms 20 Jun 2008 House passes surveillance bill --The 'Compromise' allows for expansion of government powers -- wiretapping with out warrants in 'emergency' situations' -- and for telecom immunity for 'past and future' cooperation with the US government.  For complete story, click here.
Breaking: 'The lawsuits will be dismissed.' Deal reached in Congress: Expand govt powers on wiretapping, grant immunity to telecoms 20 Jun 2008 Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress struck a deal on Thursday to overhaul the rules on the government’s wiretapping powers and provide what amounts to legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in President [sic] Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program after the Sept. 11 attacks. The deal, expanding the government's powers in some key respects, would allow intelligence officials to use broad warrants to eavesdrop on foreign targets and conduct emergency wiretaps without court orders on American targets for a week if it is determined important national security information would be lost otherwise... Senator Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who pushed unsuccessfully for more civil liberties safeguards in the plan, called the deal "a capitulation" by his fellow DemocRATs.  For complete story, click here.
Ex-judge, family indicted on human trafficking charges--June 18th, 2008--A former Fulton County magistrate judge, along with his son, a Forsyth County deputy, and his son's wife, have been indicted by a federal grand jury on human trafficking charges involving a nanny from India.  William Garrett Jr., 72, an Alpharetta lawyer; deputy sheriff Russell Garrett, 43; and Malika Garrett, 42, were charged in a nine-count indictment.  For complete story, click here.
General Accuses White House of War Crimes 18 Jun 2008 The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability. In his 2004 report on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." He called the abuse "systemic and illegal." Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation. The new report, he writes, "tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual's lives on their bodies and minds... In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. . . . After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." [See: 'I saw ___ fucking a kid...' (Graphic) Source: The "Taguba Report" On Treatment Of Abu Ghraib Prisoners In Iraq, statement by Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, Detainee #151108, 1300/18 Jan 2004, as published by The Washington Post.]  For complete story, click here.
VA testing drugs on war veterans--June 17th, 2008--The government is testing drugs with severe side effects like psychosis and suicidal behavior on hundreds of military veterans, using small cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a Washington Times/ABC News investigation has found.  In one such experiment involving the controversial anti-smoking drug Chantix, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert its patients about severe mental side effects. The warning did not arrive until after one of the veterans taking the drug had suffered a psychotic episode that ended in a near lethal confrontation with police.  Veteran James Elliott arrives at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington for his scheduled substance-abuse class in April. Mr. Elliott, a chain smoker, served 15 months in Iraq as an Army sharpshooter and suffers post-traumatic stress disorder.  Iraq war veteran James Elliott opted for a government clinical trial for a smoking-cessation drug for $30 a month, starting in November. Two weeks later, the FDA informed the VA of serious side effects.  Iraq war veteran James Elliott smokes on his porch in Silver Spring as he talks about his experiences in war and dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. Mr. Elliott suffered a psychotic episode while taking the anti-smoking drug Chantix.  James Elliott, a decorated Army sharpshooter who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving 15 months in Iraq, was confused and psychotic when he was Tasered by police in February as he reached for a concealed handgun when officers responded to a 911 call at his Maryland home.  For complete story, click here.
Report: Exams reveal US electric shock torture of detainees --Report reveals medical evidence of torture, including beatings and electric shock --Study calls on U.S. government to issue a formal apology to tortured detainees 18 Jun 2008 Former terrorist suspects detained by the United States were tortured, according to medical examinations detailed in a report released Wednesday by a human rights group. The Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights reached that conclusion after two-day clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees, who had been held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The prisoners were never charged with crimes. In a 121-page report, the doctors' group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Torture of Detainees Caused Severe Pain, Long-Term Suffering 17 Jun 2008 A team of doctors and psychologists convened by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) to conduct intensive clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees held in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay has found that these men suffered torture and ill-treatment by U.S. personnel, which resulted in severe pain and long-term disability. The men were ultimately released from U.S. custody without charge or explanation. For complete story, click here.
Government "Strike Teams" Invade Homes, Harass Flood Victims --Cops break down doors, threaten residents who question them as part of martial law conditioning, authorities prevent people from re-entering their homes By Paul Joseph Watson 18 Jun 2008 Shocking footage out of Cedar Rapids Iowa shows cops and government employee "strike teams" breaking into houses of flood victims and threatening anyone who questions their actions in complete violation of the 4th amendment right that protects against unlawful search and seizure.  For complete story, click here.
Protesters clash with police in attempt to storm Whitehall 16 Jun 2008 Police wielding batons clashed with protesters last night when a demonstration against George Bush's farewell visit to Britain turned violent a few hundred metres from where the US President [sic] was dining with Gordon Brown. Within the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, officers dressed in riot gear skirmished with several hundred demonstrators who had been attending a rally organised by the Stop the War Coalition... Police drew batons and truncheons in an attempt to push back a crowd which at 6.20pm moved from the rally on Parliament Square to try to gain entry to Whitehall. A squad of riot officers and horses were later sent to reinforce the barricade as protesters chanting "George Bush, terrorist" and "Bush go home" repeatedly tried to break through the reinforced crowd barriers and concrete blocks. For complete story, click here.
Kristol: McCain and Graham Plan to Introduce Legislation Undermining Supreme Court Decision On Guantanamo --Post by Amanda 15 Jun 2008 Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts. Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wasted no time in publicly blasting the decision, saying they were "disappointed" in "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country..." Today on Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol revealed that "very soon" -- likely as early as next week -- McCain and Graham will be introducing legislation to undermine the Supreme Court decision by setting up a "national security court."  For complete story, click here.
Army Reserve teams with D.C. Police to boost employment 13 Jun 2008 The Army Reserve recruited the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in its new initiative to partner with public and private sector employers to jointly recruit, train and employ individuals. Either side can recruit an individual for the program, to let employees get Army training and enhance Army operations. D.C.'s police department, which hires 300 police officers per year, could be handed a solider who's graduated from military police school with security clearances... By this fall, they hope to have 400 to 500 companies signed up.  For complete story, click here.
Video: Alex Jones on The Death Of The Internet--June 12th, 2008--Alex explains why websites like Prison Planet, (HEAL) and Infowars will cease to exist if big corporations achieve their agenda of shifting the Internet over to a regulated, restricted pay-per-view format similar to a cable TV subscription.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.thealexjonesshow.com  Date: June 12, 2008)
Breaking: Blow to Bush: Guantanamo Prisoners Have Rights in Court --Supreme Court Says Foreigners at Guantanamo Have Constitutional Right to Challenge Detention 12 Jun 2008 The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. The justices handed the Bush regime its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices in the majority.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: http://abcnews.go.com Date: June 12, 2008)
Bush pushes biometrics for national security --Agencies are required by the directive to make available for sharing with other agencies... all biometric and associated biographical information for individuals about whom authorities have an "articulable and reasonable suspicion that they pose a threat to national security." 06 Jun 2008 The Bush administration has required agencies to increase their capability to share among themselves biometric information on people believed to pose a threat to national security. A presidential directive issued June 5 requires the increased compatibility of methods agencies use to collect, store and share fingerprints, face and iris recognition data and behavioral characteristics to identify and screen "known and suspected terrorists." The directive also applies to other categories of individuals the directive said would be identified soon who may also pose a threat to national security.  For complete story, click here.
U.K. rights group: U.S. has photographic evidence of torture 11 Jun 2008 The U.S. government has photographic evidence that a Guantanamo Bay inmate was tortured with a knife after being taken to Morocco by U.S. forces, a British human rights group said Tuesday. Reprieve said their client, Binyam Mohamed, had his genitals slashed repeatedly with a doctor's scalpel while in custody in Morocco after he was flown there from Pakistan by American officials in 2002. It also said his U.S. captors later took pictures of the torture to show authorities that his wounds were healing.  For complete story, click here.
'It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history.' BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions --A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. 10 Jun 2008 A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources. A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies... In the run-up to the invasion one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth seven billion that was given to Halliburton.  For complete story, click here.
'Now we are being asked to sign for our own occupation.' Iraqi lawmakers say U.S. demanding 58 military bases 09 Jun 2008 Iraqi lawmakers say the United States is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed "status of forces" agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely. Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another U.S. demand that would effectively hand over the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran. "The points that were put forth by the Americans were more abominable than the occupation," said Jalal al Din al Saghir, a leading lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. "We were occupied by order of the Security Council," he said, referring to the 2004 Resolution mandating a U.S. military occupation in Iraq at the head of an international coalition. "But now we are being asked to sign for our own occupation. That is why we have absolutely refused all that we have seen so far." For complete story, click here.
GOVERNMENT MANIPULATING DATA ON WORKERS INJURIES AT SLAUGHTERHOUSES--For over two decades, the meatpacking industry has held the undesirable position as America's most dangerous industry. The rate of injury among workers began escalating during the union-busting days of the 1980s. For example, the repetitive-motion-disorder incidence rate is 30 times higher for meatpacking workers than the average for all private industries. Disregarding worker's rights, government officials at the U.S. Department of Labor, appointed by President Bush, have dramatically altered laws that were originally designed to require industry to report worker injuries. As a result of the new law, government statistics now inaccurately indicate that worker's injuries have magically dropped by 50%, thereby taking the heat off the meatpacking industry to improve working environments. Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_12659.cfm  For complete story, click here.
'Baghdad-style' checkpoints in US capital --Police in Washington DC have set up vehicle checkpoints in the American capital in a controversial measure 09 Jun 2008 In a move that critics have compared to the security clampdown in Baghdad, police are stopping motorists travelling through the main thoroughfare of Trinidad, a neighbourhood near the National Arboretum in the city's northeast section. Drivers' identification are checked and those who didn't have a "legitimate purpose" in the area are turned away.  For complete story, click here.
Hidden Drug Payments at Harvard--June 10th, 2008--Three prominent psychiatrists at the Harvard Medical School and its affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital have been caught vastly underreporting their income from drug companies whose fortunes could be affected by their studies and their promotional efforts on behalf of aggressive drug treatments. Their failure to divulge their conflicts is striking proof that today's requirements for reporting payments from industry - essentially an honor system in which researchers are supposed to reveal their outside income to their institutions - needs to be strengthened.

What makes this case particularly troublesome is that the Harvard group's research has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic drugs to treat children, as was described in The Times on Sunday by Gardiner Harris and Benedict Carey. Although supporters praise the most prominent of the trio, Dr. Joseph Biederman, as a visionary who has saved many lives, critics complain that the Harvard studies have been too small and loosely designed to provide conclusive results. Critics say they also were subject to biased interpretation through use of a subjective rating scale.

The previously unknown payments to the researchers were pried loose by Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, whose staff reviewed what the researchers disclosed on
conflict-of-interest forms at their institutions and prodded the university to verify the data as accurate. Under pressure, two of the researchers acknowledged receiving $1.6 million apiece in consulting fees from drug companies between 2000 and 2007 and the third reported earning more than $1 million. That was far more than the researchers had originally reported, a number that Mr. Grassley pegged at a couple hundred thousand dollars apiece.  Even the updated numbers left out other payments that drug companies reported separately that they had made to the trio.

At this point, it is not clear whether the researchers inadvertently failed to comply with reporting rules or consciously sought to hide their sizable incomes from drug companies. But it is clear that relying on researchers to report their outside incomes and on universities and hospitals to police the disclosures won't suffice. Senator Grassley and Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, have introduced a bill that would require drug and device makers to report annually any payments to doctors that exceed $500 a year.  That is the best way to ensure that conflicts of interest are transparent to all.  For complete story, click here.
Breaking:  'President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.' Kucinich introduces Bush impeachment resolution 09 Jun 2008 Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich took to the House of Representatives floor on Monday evening to introduce a 35-count resolution to impeach President [sic] George W. Bush. Kucinich claimed Bush "fraudulently" justified the war on Iraq and misled "the American people and members of Congress to believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction so as to manufacture a false case for war." "President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office," Kucinich said.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  http://blog.cleveland.com  Date: June 9, 2008) Video:
Jailers at Guantanamo urged to destroy interrogation notes: lawyer --US interrogators may have "routinely destroyed evidence" that might have been used to defend prisoners 08 Jun 2008 US interrogators of "war on terror" prisoners were instructed to destroy handwritten notes that might have exposed harsh or even illegal questioning methods at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a lawyer for one of the prisoners said Sunday. Navy Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler said in a statement sent to reporters he considers the notes crucial to the defense of his client, Canadian Omar Khadr, during his upcoming 'trial' by a special military tribunal at the US naval base. Kuebler said the instructions were handed down to interrogators from the US Department of Defense as part of a standard operating procedure or "SOP" directive that he obtained from prosecutors last week.  For complete story, click here.
D.C. Police to Set Up Military-Style Checkpoint --Other checkpoints possible if requested by patrol commanders and approved by police chief --Hundreds of patrol officers to be armed with semiautomatic rifles, starting this summer 05 Jun 2008 D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area. Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers' identification and ask whether they have a "legitimate purpose" to be in the Trinidad area. If not, the drivers will be turned away. "In certain areas, we need to go beyond the normal methods of policing," Fenty (D) said at a news conference announcing the action... "My reaction is, welcome to Baghdad, D.C.," said Arthur Spitzer, legal director for the ACLU's Washington office. [Yeah, we also need an 'insurgency' to fight the Bush occupation. --LRP]  For complete story, click here.
Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control --Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors 05 Jun 2008 A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November. The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.  For complete story, click here.

New agreement lets US strike any country from inside Iraq --Sources: US army is completing the building of military facilities and runways for permanent bases 03 Jun 2008 A proposed Iraqi-American security agreement will include permanent American bases in the country, and the right for the United States to strike, from within Iraqi territory, any country it considers a threat to its national security, Gulf News has learned. Senior Iraqi military sources have told Gulf News that the long-term controversial agreement is likely to include three major items:

  • Iraqi security institutions such as Defence, Interior and National Security ministries, as well as armament contracts, will be under US supervision for ten years
  • Agreement is also likely to give US forces permanent military bases in Iraq
  • US is granted the right to move against any country considered to be a threat against world stability or acting against Iraqi or American interests  For complete story, click here.
Howard accused of war crimes over Iraq troop deployment 02 Jun 2008 A legal brief has been sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging former prime minister John Howard committed a war crime by sending troops to Iraq. A loose alliance of peace activists, lawyers, academics and politicians is behind the brief, organised by the ICC Action group in Melbourne. Organiser Glen Floyd says Mr Howard should be held accountable for sending troops to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations. "We have produced a 52-page brief of evidence which states to the chief prosecutor of the criminal court that we allege John Howard's actions are war crimes under article 8 of the Rome Statute," he said.  For complete story, click here.

Bugliosi Would Seek Death Penalty for Bush--May 31st, 2008--If Vincent Bugliosi were prosecuting George W. Bush for the murder of the more than 4,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq, he would seek the death penalty.”If I were the prosecutor, there is no question I would seek the death penalty,” Bugliosi told Corporate Crime Reporter in a wide-ranging interview.

Bugliosi is the author of the just published book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (Vanguard Press, 2008).

“I’m urging here that an American jury try George Bush for first degree murder. I want to see him on trial for murder before an American jury. And if they convict him, it will be up to the jury to decide what his punishment is. One of the options would be the imposition of the death penalty. If I were prosecuting him, absolutely I would seek the death penalty. As Governor of Texas, George Bush signed death warrants - 152 out of 152 - most of them for people who only committed one murder.”

Bugliosi said he is sending a copy of his book to all fifty state Attorneys General, offering his assistance in prosecuting Bush for homicide.

“I’m herein enclosing a copy of my book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,” Bugliosi writes in the letter to the Attorneys General. “I hope you will find the time to read it and that you will agree with its essential conclusion - that George W. Bush is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers who have died fighting his war in Iraq.”

Bugliosi said he’s also meeting with a high profile California District Attorney to urge him to bring the case.  For complete story, click here.
Prison ships, torture claims, and missing detainees --America may have held terror suspects in British territory, despite UK denials 02 Jun 2008 The controversy over prison ships was first highlighted in June 2005 when the UN's special rapporteur on terrorism spoke of "very, very serious" allegations that the US was secretly detaining terrorism suspects in various locations around the world, notably on vessels in the Indian Ocean. The US authorities have not denied that ships have been used to incarcerate detainees... According to a US Congress report, up to 14,000 people may have been victims of rendition and secret detention since 2001. Some reports estimate there have been twice as many. The US admits to have captured more than 80,000 prisoners in its "war on terror".  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater buys Brazilian-made fighter plane: Report 01 Jun 2008 A subsidiary of U.S. military security contractor [Bush's Waffen-SS] Blackwater Worldwide has purchased a fighter plane from the Brazilian aviation company Embraer, a Brazilian newspaper reported Sunday. The 314-B1 Super Tucano propeller-driven fighter -- the same used by the Brazilian military -- was bought for $4.5 million and delivered to EP Aviation at the end of February, according to the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper. The report included the plane's registration number with the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency, and the FAA website confirmed it is registered by EP Aviation.  For complete story, click here.
US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships --Report says 17 boats used --MPs seek details of UK role 02 Jun 2008 The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of prisoners. The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President [sic] George Bush declared that the practice had stopped. According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Prisoners are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.   For complete story, click here.
Judge critical of Guantanamo war crimes case is dismissed --Army Col. Peter Brownback III had threatened to suspend proceedings unless prosecutors handed over key records to the defense. 31 May 2008 A judge hearing a war crimes case at Guantanamo Bay who publicly expressed frustration with military prosecutors' refusal to give evidence to the defense has been dismissed, tribunal officials confirmed Friday. Army Col. Peter Brownback III was presiding over the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, in his role as chief judge at Guantanamo, ordered the dismissal without explanation and announced Brownback's replacement in an e-mail this week to lawyers in Khadr's case.  For complete story, click here.
Air Force Unit's Nuclear Weapons Security Is 'Unacceptable' 31 May 2008 The same Air Force unit at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota that was responsible for mishandling six nuclear cruise missiles last August failed key parts of a nuclear safety inspection this past weekend, according to a Defense Department report. The 5th Bomb Wing was given an "unacceptable" grade in security of nuclear weapons, according to the review by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. In another category, management and administration, it received a grade of "marginal..." Those are two areas where failures last summer allowed a B-52 at Minot to be loaded with six air-launched cruise missiles and flown to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana without the pilots, air or ground crews knowing they contained nuclear warheads. [See: Minot AFB Clandestine Nukes 'Oddities' 17 Sep 2007.]  For complete story, click here.
'The occupier is planting seeds of strife between the Muslims and Christians.' Iraqis claim Marines are pushing Christianity in Fallujah 28 May 2008  "They are trying to convert us to Christianity," said Muamar Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. Residents of Fallujah are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries. Residents said some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out coins [with a Bible verse] for two days in what they call a "humiliating" attempt to convert them to Christianity.  For complete story, click here.
Morris Dees Discusses Upcoming Klan Trial--We go to court in November against the Imperial Klans of America for the vicious beating of a 16-year-old boy at a county fair in Kentucky. We hope to put this hate group out of business, and our team is hard at work preparing for the trial. Watch the video.  For complete story, click here.
US residents in military prisons? Govt says it's war 24 May 2008 Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is a U.S. resident being held in a South Carolina military brig; he is the only enemy combatant held on U.S. soil. Al-Marri was captured six years ago. To justify holding him, the government claimed a broad interpretation of the president's wartime powers, one that goes beyond warrantless wiretapping or monitoring banking transactions. Government lawyers told federal judges that the president can send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a citizen and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely. Courts have gone back and forth on al-Marri's case as it worked its way through the system. If enemy combatants can be detained in the U.S., how long can they be held without charge? Without lawyers? Without access to the outside world? Forever? One judge questioned why there was such anxiety over the policy. After all, there have been no mass roundups of citizens [yet] and no indications the White House is coming for innocent Americans next. [See: KBR awarded $385M Homeland Security contract for U.S. detention centers 24 Jan 2006. See: DoD to 'augment civilian law' during pandemic or bioterror attack 11 May 2007.]  For complete story, click here.
Iran mosque blast plotters admit Israeli, US links: report 23 May 2008 Iran's chief prosecutor said bombers who caused a deadly blast at a mosque in Shiraz had confessed of links to Israel and the United States, the ISNA student news agency reported on Friday. They also admitted carrying out "one or two minor operations," the agency said. Earlier Friday, senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami said people had also plotted attacks in the holy city of Qom, 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Tehran, and at a book fair held in the capital.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: http://news.yahoo.com  Date: May 23, 2008)

Autopsy report suggests teen wasn't taking meds properly--May 16th, 2008--Coroner officials released an autopsy report Friday suggesting that a slain Roosevelt High School sophomore who attacked a campus police officer was not taking proper dosages of drugs prescribed to control his mental illness.

Dr. David Hadden, Fresno County coroner, said it's clear that Jesus "Jesse" Carrizales, 17, had a high dose of the antidepressant Lexapro in his blood that could have caused him to be paranoid.

But the teen's blood also revealed he was not taking antipsychotic drugs.

Carrizales' family has said he was taking Lexapro and Geodon, an antipsychotic medication, for depression.

Hadden said it's far too early to draw conclusions about Carrizales' use of prescription drugs. People react differently to drugs and have different tolerances to them.

"This picture is not complete," Hadden said.

On a night when family and friends held a vigil at Roosevelt High, the findings of his autopsy reveal new information about the special education student who was classified as emotionally disturbed.

At the Friday night vigil, family members said they still were waiting to see what the final police report on the incident says. They also said they had submitted a list of questions to Fresno Unified and had yet to receive answers.

"It hurts very much every day, and it doesn't get any easier," said Elisa Ortega, Carrizales' sister.

Said his uncle, Gilbert Abarca: "Something has to change."

Gloria Hernandez, a mental health patient advocate who came to the vigil in support of the family, said the Police Department needs to provide training to officers in how to deal with the mentally ill.

"They need to learn how to de-escalate the situation," she said.

Ben Benavidez, of the Mexican-American Political Association, said the group is seeking an inquiry from the FBI and the state Attorney General's Office.

Police say Carrizales was killed April 16 after he attacked Fresno police officer Junus Perry with a sawed-off bat. Police say Carrizales was standing over Perry, ready to strike again, when the officer fired in self-defense.

The autopsy report confirmed an earlier account that Perry's bullet entered Carrizales' right shoulder in a slightly downward angle and hit an artery, causing him to bleed to death in a few minutes.

Hadden said it is clear that Perry fired his weapon in self-defense, but he said his staff still needs to talk to witnesses and police detectives to explain the bullet's path.

"Everything happened very rapidly," Hadden said, noting that the coroner's staff doesn't have a clear picture of whether Perry was on the ground or about to get up when he shot Carrizales.

The autopsy report essentially states what Police Chief Jerry Dyer has said of the incident:

Perry was struck on the head with a sawed-off bat as soon as he left his campus office. When Perry fell to the ground, Carrizales raised the bat again, causing the officer to pull out his duty weapon. When the bullet magazine fell out of the gun, Perry grabbed another gun -- a 40-caliber Glock semiautomatic -- from his ankle holster. He then shot Carrizales once.

The bullet hit the clavicle -- or collarbone -- and then damaged an artery and the spinal cord before lodging in the spine, the autopsy report states.

The autopsy showed Carrizales' blood had a "lethal level" of Lexapro. His blood and urine were tested for Quetiapine and Risperidone -- two antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Neither drug was found in Carrizales' system, the report states.

In general, "lethal level" means that in some people, that amount would kill them, Hadden said. A toxic level of Lexapro also could cause paranoia in some people, but not everyone. The drug's effect would depend on whether Carrizales had built up a tolerance to the antidepressant, Hadden said.

The autopsy report shows that Carrizales' blood was not tested for Geodon. Hadden said his staff was told Carrizales was taking Quetiapine and Risperidone. But Carrizales' family said Friday night at the vigil that no one asked them what drugs Carrizales was taking.

Hadden said if it is confirmed that Carrizales was taking Geodon, another test will be requested.

The case is difficult, Hadden said, because neither he nor his staff are experts in prescription drugs. "We know a lot about heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs, but we know very little about therapeutic drugs," he said.

The staff plans to consult a psychiatrist to help them understand Carrizales' medication.

Police spokesman Jeff Cardinale said the findings in the autopsy report were "not unanticipated."

Police knew Carrizales was supposed to be on medication, but detectives have focused their attention on Carrizales' actions, as well as the actions of Perry, Cardinale said.

"Everything in the report we knew already," Cardinale said.

The report said Carrizales was shot at 11:53 a.m. April 16. Carrizales was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:07 p.m. The autopsy was performed from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. the following day.

These times can help determine when Carrizales last took his medication.

Fresno pharmacist Nancy Asai, who is not associated with the case, said Lexapro can stay in a person's blood much longer that the antipsychotic drugs Quetiapine and Risperidone.

Dr. Barry Chaitin, chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine, said in general, Lexapro is "pretty safe" even at high doses. The lack of antipsychotic medicine in Carrizales' system, however, is troubling -- those drugs are typically prescribed to help people cope with aggression, psychosis, hostility and hallucinations, he said.

Carrizales' behavior is difficult to explain, said Chaitin. On one hand, Carrizales' family has said that the medication helped him become more sociable. But police say Carrizales sneaked up on Perry from behind and attacked the officer without provocation.

"His conduct appears way out of the ordinary because the attack sounds premeditated," Chaitin said. "He must have had a misperception that the officer was a threat to him."  (Unable to locate story a time of archiving.  Source: www.fresnobee.com  Date:  May 16, 2008)
US says detains 500 juveniles in Iraq, 10 in Afghanistan --Civil liberties groups denounce detentions as abhorrent, and a violation of U.S. treaty obligations. 19 May 2008 The U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles suspected of being "unlawful enemy combatants" in detention centers in Iraq and has about 10 detained at the U.S. base at Bagram, Afghanistan, the United States has told the United Nations. A total of 2,500 youths under the age of 18 have been imprisoned, almost all in Iraq, for periods up to a year or more in President [sic] George W. Bush's anti-terrorism campaign since 2002, the United States reported last week to the U.N.'s Committee on the Rights of the Child.  For complete story, click here.
US attack on Baghdad media hotel no accident: rights group 19 May 2008 A media rights group called for a full probe into a 2003 US shelling that killed two foreign journalists at a Baghdad hotel, claiming that new evidence showed the incident was not an accident. The International Federation of Journalists said the United States should "tell the whole truth" about the incident at the Palestine Hotel on April 8, 2003, just a day before Baghdad fell to US invading forces.  For complete story, click here.
Iran busts CIA terror network 18 May 2008 The Intelligence Ministry on Saturday released details of the detection and dismantling of a terrorist network affiliated to the United States. In a coordinated operation on May 7, Iranian intelligence agents arrested the terrorist network’s members, who were identified in Fars, Khuzestan, Gilan, West Azerbaijan, and Tehran provinces, the Intelligence Ministry announcement said. The group’s plans were devised in the U.S., according to the announcement, which added that they had planned to carry out a number of acts such as bombing scientific, educational, and religious centers, shooting people, and making public places in various cities insecure. For complete story, click here.
U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan --Pentagon planning to use $60 million in emergency construction funds to build detention center to hold 600 prisoners - or as many as 1,100 in a surge 17 May 2008 The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre [KBR?] detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come. The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  For complete story, click here.
U.S.-trained forces reportedly helping Mexican cartels --U.S.-trained Mexican security personnel have 'became assassins and recruiters for the Mexican drug cartels.' 14 May 2008 As many as 200 U.S.-trained Mexican security personnel have defected to drug cartels to carry out killings on both sides of the border and as far north as Dallas, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, told Congress on Wednesday. The renegade members of Mexico's elite 'counter'-narcotics teams trained at Fort Benning, Ga., have switched sides, contributing to a wave of violence that has claimed some 6,000 victims over the past 30 months, including prominent law enforcement leaders, the Houston-area Republican told the House Foreign Affairs Committee... George Bush's blueprint calls for $1.4 billion in training, equipment and 'law enforcement' assistance to Mexico and Central America over three years. Bush also is seeking $500 million in emergency assistance for Mexico this year as part of the supplemental war spending measure.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source:  www.chron.com  Date: May 14, 2008)

Medical marijuana user who was denied liver transplant dies--May 2nd, 2008--A man who was denied a liver transplant largely because he used marijuana with medical approval to ease the symptoms of hepatitis C has died. 

Timothy Garon, 56, died Thursday at Bailey-Boushay House, an intensive care nursing center, said his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, and Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Medical Center, which operates Bailey-Boushay.

His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list. The team had previously told him it would not consider placing him on the list until he completed a 60-day drug-treatment class.

The case highlights an ethical consideration for those allocating organs for transplant: whether using dope with a doctor's blessing should be held against a dying patient in need of a transplant.

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation's transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.

At some, people who use "illicit substances" — including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it — are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months. Marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Dr. Brad Roter, who authorized Garon to smoke pot to alleviate nausea and abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite, said he did not know it would be such a hurdle if Garon were to need a transplant.  For complete story, click here.
Air Force Aims for 'Full Control' of 'Any and All' Computers By Noah Shachtman 13 May 2008 The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it "access" to -- and "full control" of -- any kind of computer there is. And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their "adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected." The government is growing increasingly interested in waging war online. The Air Force recently put together a "Cyberspace Command," with a charter to rule networks the way its fighter jets rule the skies. The Department of Homeland Security, Darpa, and other agencies are teaming up for a five-year, $30 billion "national cybersecurity initiative."  For complete story, click here.
Bush: Democratic presidency could lead to another terror attack on U.S. 13 May 2008 President [sic] Bush said on Tuesday he was disappointed in "flawed intelligence" before the Iraq war and was concerned that if a Democrat wins the presidency in November and withdrew troops prematurely it could "eventually lead to another attack on the United States." He acknowledged concerns about leaving the unfinished [lost] Iraq war to a Democratic successor. Bush said his "doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States."  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.chron.com  Date: May 13, 2008)
'I have determined that you pose a security threat.' Blunt Federal Letters Tell Students They're Security Threats 13 May 2008 A German graduate student in oceanography at M.I.T. applied to the Transportation Security Administration for a new ID card allowing him to work around ships and docks. What the student, Wilken-Jon von Appen, received in return was a letter that not only turned him down but added an ominous warning from John M. Busch, a security administration official: "I have determined that you pose a security threat." Similar letters have gone to 5,000 applicants across the country who have at least initially been turned down for a Transportation Worker Identification Credential, an ID card meant to guard against acts of terrorism, agency officials said Monday.  For complete story, click here.
FDA Scraps Helsinki Declaration on Protecting Human Subjects--In the mid-1990s, the National Institutes of Health ran a clinical trial in Africa testing whether a new antiretroviral drug to combat AIDS worked to prevent mother-child transmission. The trial created an ethical uproar because the control group received a placebo instead of an older anti-AIDS drug called AZT, which had already been proven successful in reducing the number of babies who contracted HIV from their mothers.

To critics, failure to provide a proven therapy to participants in this and similar trials was a basic violation of standards outlined in the Helsinki Declaration on protecting human subjects in research, originally adopted by the World Medical Association in 1964. But to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the drug industry, to which it had grown increasingly close over the course of the 1990s, it contradicted its longstanding policy of only requiring trials showing that a new drug was "better than nothing," i.e., better than placebo, to win regulatory approval. If the drug industry
were to closely adhere to the Helsinki Declaration, it would always have to run comparison trials if an effective drug were already available.

Rather than accede to international norms, the FDA and the U.S. government in the succeeding years lobbied hard to get the WMA to amend its rules. And it has, several times. For instance, it now allows use of placebo-controlled
trials for less serious illnesses. But the basic guidelines protecting human trial subjects' access to best available therapies remained intact.

Why is any of this relevant today? Last week, the FDA formally declared that it will no longer require that clinical trials submitted to the agency to get regulatory approval for a new drug adhere to the Helsinki Declaration.  The new rule, which goes into effect next October, was supported by the drug industry but opposed by numerous public interest, patient advocacy, and consumer groups. The new rule requires only that trials conducted abroad by drug manufacturers follow good clinical practices (GCP) and include a review and approval by an independent ethics committee. There's nothing in GCP guidelines that requires patients in the control arm of a trial get access to already proven therapies. They only need receive the standard of care in that country.

What will this mean for the concept of "informed consent" in a poor country?  Imagine for a moment that you live on $2 a day in, say, Zimbabwe, and have high blood pressure. Since the disease isn't life-threatening, you skip buying the available anti-hypertensives being sold in the village pharmacy because you can't afford them and none are on the national formulary. Hence, there is no local standard of care.

Now say you learn while visiting the village clinic that an international pharmaceutical company is recruiting patients for a clinical trial testing a new anti-hypertensive drug. If you join the trial, you may only get the placebo. But there's a 50-50 chance you will get the new drug, which hasn't been proven yet, but might work.

Are there risks associated with taking this new drug? Well, so far, none that the doctors think are serious enough to cancel the trial. But it says right on the form that something may turn up in the clinical trial in which you are being asked to participate. You sign up. After all, a 50-50 chance of getting a drug that has a good chance of working (the drug industry wouldn't be here testing it if it didn't, right?) is better than no drug at all. And how much risk could there be, anyway?

Is that really non-coerced, informed consent?

It's getting tougher and tougher to recruit patients in the U.S. to participate in clinical trials. It's also getting a lot more expensive for drug companies to run them here. The result is that 35 percent of all trials submitted to the FDA in new drug applications now take place abroad. This new rule will only make that number grow.

Moreover, many of those trials conducted abroad (or about 15 percent of all trials) aren't even be registered with the FDA. Unlike trials conducted in the U.S., companies do not have to submit an investigative new drug application (IND) to the FDA before beginning research in foreign countries.  The FDA estimates about 575 of the foreign trials submitted to the agency each year as part of new drug applications do not go through the IND process. In other words, the FDA has no record that they even exist.

The FDA is required by law to monitor clinical trials conducted under INDs to protect their human subjects. But an Inspector General's report released last September found that the FDA had no registry of trials (which was rectified by passage of the FDA reform law last October); no registry of the Institutional Review Boards that were supposed to be monitoring trials conducted under its auspices; and independently monitored fewer than one percent of the trials it knew about.

And now it has passed a rule that increases the likelihood that more trials will go abroad and that more of them will not even be registered with the FDA, which makes them all but impossible to monitor.

In the final rule published in the Federal Register, the FDA rejected the notion that adopting the self-regulating GCP standard and eliminating references to the Helsinki Declaration "will hurt subjects in developing countries or result in less protection for subjects in foreign studies." The agency noted that GCP requires trial sponsors closely monitor trial behavior and report adverse events. If I were a headline writer at the New York Daily News, the headline on that story would have been: FDA to Global Poor: Drop Dead.  For complete story, click here.
Up to 700 arrests estimated in Postville raid 12 May 2008 (IA) Four Homeland Security buses with U.S. Immigration and Customs tags on them have entered the Agriprocessors Inc. complex. The buses, along with a trail of SUVs and vans with Minnesota license plates, arrived at about 11:45 a.m. Tim Counts, a Midwest ICE spokesman, declined to confirm where people who are arrested will be detained. Federal officials have leased the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, but they declined to explain last week whether the property was being prepared for use as a detention center.  For complete story, click here.
DHS activity at Waterloo fairgrounds raises questions --ICE declines to say if whole area will be used as detention center --National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, Iowa, is prepared for a 'federal project.' 06 May 2008 Federal officials have imposed a news blackout at the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, where they have leased almost the entire property through May 25. The Waterloo Courier on Sunday reported that contractors have installed generators adjacent to many buildings at the fairgrounds. In addition, windows on many buildings have been covered up, blocking views inside. A number of mobile-home-size trailers have been transported to the privately owned grounds. Doug Miller, general manager of the Cattle Congress, declined Monday to release a copy of his group's rental contract with U.S. General Services Administration. He also indicated he was in the dark about what's happening inside the fairgrounds.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.desmoinesregister.com  Date: May 6, 2008)
'Some KBR managers groped Iraqi staff regularly, paid or otherwise rewarded them for sex and dismissed those who refused or spoke out.' Iraqis allege sex abuse at the British Embassy 08 May 2008 An Iraqi cleaner and two cooks claim that a culture of sexual harassment, abuse and bullying exists at the British Embassy in Baghdad. The middle-aged cleaner told The Times that a British contractor with KBR, the company hired to maintain the embassy’s premises, offered to double her daily pay if she would stay the night with him. When she refused, she said, her pay was cut and she was later dismissed. The Iraqis accuse the embassy of leaving the abuse unchallenged and failing adequately to respond to complaints against several British managers for KBR. The company was allowed to conduct its own inquiry, an arrangement criticised as a very serious conflict of interest. [See: KBR's Rape Problem By Karen Houppert 17 Apr 2008; KBR's Flawed Wiring Still Kills G.I.'s, Despite Alert 04 May 2008 Memo: Halliburton failed to purify GIs' water 16 Mar 2006; KBR awarded $385M Homeland Security contract for U.S. detention centers 24 Jan 2006; Contractor served troops dirty food in dirty kitchens 14 Dec 2003. Gee, it all kinda makes you want to stand up and cheer for Muqtada al-Sadr, doesn't it?]  For complete story, click here.
Breaking: House panel subpoenas top Cheney aide in torture probe 06 May 2008 The House Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to compel a top aide to Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney to testify to the committee about the Bush regime's interrogation practices. David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, refused to testify without a subpoena. No date has been set for his appearance before Congress.  For complete story, click here.
'Torture memo' author, former attorney general, to testify 06 May 2008 A former Justice Department lawyer [John Yoo] who wrote a now-repudiated memo allowing harsh interrogations torture of military prisoners has agreed to testify to Congress about those practices, say House Judiciary Committee officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the panel has not yet made the announcement.  For complete story, click here.
Military, DHS document lists who should live and die in pandemic --Nazi-style hospital blueprint lists those who will be left to die - elderly, sick, weakest 05 May 2008 An influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients who would be allowed to die during a [US-engendered] flu pandemic or other disaster. The suggested list was compiled by the military, Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, government agencies, prestigious universities, and medical groups. To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: http://news.yahoo.com  Date: May 5, 2008)
Taser International Wins Lawsuit In Cause-of-Death Decision 02 May 2008 Taser International has fired a warning shot at medical examiners across the country. The Scottsdale-based stun gun manufacturer increasingly is targeting state and county medical examiners with lawsuits and lobbying efforts to reverse and prevent medical rulings that Tasers contributed to someone's death. That effort on Friday helped lead an Ohio judge's order to remove Taser's name from three Summit County Medical Examiner autopsies that had ruled the stun gun contributed to three men's deaths. "It is dangerously close to intimidation," says Jeff Jentzen, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners. "At this point, we adamantly reject the fact that people can be sued for medical opinions that they make."  For complete story, click here.
KBR's Flawed Wiring Still Kills G.I.'s, Despite Alert 04 May 2008 In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors [KBR], the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted. American electricians who worked for KBR, the Houston-based defense contractor that is responsible for maintaining American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they repeatedly warned company managers and military officials about unsafe electrical work... A third electrician provided e-mail messages and other documents showing that he had complained to KBR and the government that logs were created to make it appear that nonexistent electrical safety systems were properly functioning. KBR itself told the Pentagon in early 2007 about unsafe electrical wiring at a base near the Baghdad airport, but no repairs were made. Less than a year later, a soldier was electrocuted in a shower there. [See: KBR first-quarter profit soars, shares climb 02 May 2008. See: KBR's first quarter exceeds expectations 02 May 2008.]  For complete story, click here.
D.C. Seeks Consent To Search for Guns--March 12th, 2008--D.C. police are so eager to get guns out of the city that they're offering amnesty to people who allow officers to come into their homes and get the weapons.  Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced yesterday the Safe Homes Initiative, aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said. The program is scheduled to start March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. Officers will go door-to-door seeking permission to search homes for weapons. Police later plan to visit other areas, including sections of Columbia Heights in Northwest and Eckington in Northeast.  "If we come across illegal contraband, we will confiscate it," Lanier said. "But amnesty means amnesty. We're trying to get guns and drugs off the street."  For complete story, click here.
Cheney lawyer claims Congress has no authority over vice-president --Cheney's conduct 'not within congressional committee's power of inquiry' 29 Apr 2008 The lawyer for US vice-president [sic] Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job. The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president's chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay. Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney's conduct is "not within the [congressional] committee's power of inquiry".  For complete story, click here.
Ex-Prosecutor Told By Pentagon 'There Could Be No Acquittals' of Detainees --Pentagon official insisted prosecutors use evidence derived from torture 29 Apr 2008 (Guantánamo Bay, Cuba) The former chief prosecutor here took the witness stand on Monday on behalf of a detainee and testified that top Pentagon officials had pressured him in deciding which cases to prosecute and what evidence to use. The prosecutor, Col. Morris D. Davis of the Air Force, testified that Pentagon officials had interfered with his work for political reasons and told him that charges against well-known prisoners "could have real strategic political value" and that there could be no acquittals. Testifying about his assertions for the first time, Colonel Davis said a senior Pentagon official who oversaw the military commissions, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann of the Air Force Reserve, reversed a decision he had made and insisted that prosecutors proceed with evidence derived through waterboarding of prisoners and other aggressive interrogation methods that critics call torture.  For complete story, click here.
Mahathir calls for war crimes tribunal for US, UK leaders 27 Apr 2008 Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad called on Friday for an international tribunal to try Western leaders for war crimes over the war in Iraq, a spokesman for the organizers said. In a speech at Imperial College, Mahathir called for a tribunal to try US President [sic] George W. Bush and former prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain and John Howard of Australia for their part in the conflict, said a spokesman for the Muslim group the Ramadhan Foundation, which organized the event. [Yeah! And, feel free to 'proceed with evidence derived through waterboarding of prisoners and other aggressive interrogation methods that critics call torture.' --LRP]  For complete story, click here.
CIA can bend torture rules to stop terrorists 28 Apr 2008 The US Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law. The legal interpretation, outlined in recent letters, sheds light on the still-secret rules for interrogations by the CIA.  For complete story, click here.
Letters Give C.I.A. Tactics a Legal Rationale 27 Apr 2008 The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law. The latest Justice Department letters show that Bush administration lawyers are citing the sometimes vague language of the Geneva Conventions to support the idea that interrogators should not be bound by ironclad rules.  For complete story, click here.
CIA Acknowledges it Has More Than 7000 Documents Relating to Secret Detention Program, Rendition, and Torture 23 Apr 2008 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must stop stonewalling congressional oversight committees and release vital documents related to the program of secret detentions, renditions, and torture, three prominent human rights groups said today. Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law (NYU IHRC) reiterated their call for information, following the CIA's filing of a summary judgment motion this week to end a lawsuit and avoid turning over more than 7000 documents related to its secret "ghost" detention and extraordinary rendition program.  For complete story, click here.
House GOP Candidate Spoke At Hitler Event 23 Apr 2008 A congressional candidate is defending his speech to Nazis celebrating the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, saying he appeared simply because he was asked. Tony Zirkle, who is seeking the Republican nomination in northern Indiana's 2nd District, stood in front of a painting of Hitler, next to people wearing swastika armbands and with a swastika flag in the background for the speech to the American National Socialist Workers Party in Chicago on Sunday.  For complete story, click here.
Prisoners allege forced drugging during US interrogations 22 Apr 2008 At least two dozen former and current detainees have alleged that they were either forcibly administered drugs or witnessed the forceful administration of drugs on other prisoners while in US custody, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The detainees, held at Guantanamo Bay and other sites, said in interviews and court documents that they did not know what drugs they were given, but that they believed they were intended to make prisoners more pliant during interrogation.  For complete story, click here.
Double number of ex-cons join the US army --Sex offenders, child abusers, arsonists, terrorists and thieves serving in US army 22 Apr 2008 The US army doubled its use of "moral waivers" for enlisted soldiers last year to cope with the demands of the Iraq war, allowing sex offenders, people convicted of making terrorist threats, and child abusers into the military, new records released yesterday showed. The army gave out 511 moral waivers to soldiers with felony convictions last year. Criminals got 249 army waivers in 2006, a sign that the demand for US forces in Iraq has forced a sharp increase in the number of criminals allowed on the battlefield [not to mention the criminal allowed in the White House, the Commander in Thief]. The felons accepted into the army and marines included 87 soldiers convicted of assault or maiming, 130 convicted of non-cannabis-related drug offences, seven convicted of making terrorist threats, and two convicted of indecent behaviour with a child. Waivers were also granted to 500 burglars and thieves, 19 arsonists and nine sex offenders.  For complete story, click here.
'There was a snafu and all was lost.' Torture victim's records lost at Guantánamo, admits camp general --No evidence of al-Qaida suspect's interrogation --CCTV automatically recorded over tapes 21 Apr 2008 The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an 'al-Qaida' suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers. Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared. The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost", Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantánamo.  For complete story, click here.
'The mere transmission of information and ideas could be considered a criminal act.' European Officials Agree on Framework for Outlawing Online Terror Recruiting 19 Apr 2008 European Union justice ministers agreed Friday to toughen laws across their 27-nation bloc to punish those who promote violence and recruit people for terrorist attacks. The new rules... underscore a growing consensus that in the campaign against terrorism, the mere transmission of information and ideas could be considered a criminal act. The agreement is intended to help the police find and arrest suspects in cross-border investigations, but also to prevent radicalization. It could make it easier for authorities to shut down Web sites disseminating terrorist propaganda 9/11 truth, revelations of Bush war crimes and 'bomb-making instructions,' and to identify and pursue proselytizers and recruiters. It could also help courts and administrative authorities demand that Internet service providers remove information considered dangerous.  For complete story, click here.
EU to Criminalize Internet-Based Incitement to Terrorism 19 Apr 2008 European Union justice ministers have agreed that using the Internet to publish bomb recipes or call for acts of terrorism to be committed should count as a criminal offence. The 27 member states agreed on Friday, April 18, to introduce as new offences "public provocation to commit a terrorist offence, recruitment, and training for terrorism" which would be punishable "also when committed through the Internet." The commission's proposal would also allow EU law-enforcement agencies to demand cooperation from Internet providers in order to identify the people making such calls and to ensure that the offending material is taken off-line.  For complete story, click here.
Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture --Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods 19 Apr 2008 America's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today. General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture. The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today's Guardian. For complete story, click here.
Stress hooding noise nudity dogs --It was the young officials at Guantánamo who dreamed up a list of new aggressive interrogation techniques, inspired by Jack Bauer from the TV series, 24. But it was the politicians and lawyers in Washington who set the ball rolling. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail right to the top 19 Apr 2008 On Tuesday, December 2 2002, Donald Rumsfeld signed a piece of paper that changed the course of history. That same day, President [sic] Bush signed a bill to put the Pentagon in funds for the next year... Elsewhere in the Pentagon, an event took place for which there was no comment, no fanfare. With a signature and a few scrawled words, Rumsfeld reneged on the tradition of valour to which Bush had referred. Principles for the conduct of interrogation, dating back more than a century to President Lincoln's famous instruction of 1863 that "military necessity does not admit of cruelty", were discarded. He approved new and aggressive interrogation techniques that would produce devastating consequences.  For complete story, click here.
Guantanamo eight to sue MI5 and MI6 over 'illegal abduction and interrogation' --Allegation: Eight were put on CIA "torture flights" to prison camp in U.S.-occupied Cuba 19 Apr 2008 Eight men freed from Guantanamo Bay are suing the British Secret Services for millions, the Daily Mail can reveal today. They have issued writs against MI5 and MI6 in a claim for damages that would fall on the taxpayer. One of the men said they will argue that Britain was complicit in their illegal abduction, treatment and interrogation.  For complete story, click here.
Three States Subjected To "Martial Law Sweeps"--April 18th, 2008--Federal law enforcement agencies co-opted sheriffs offices as well state and local police forces in three states last weekend for a vast round up operation that one sheriff's deputy has described as "martial law training".  Law-enforcement agencies in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas took part in what was described by local media as "an anti-crime and anti-terrorism initiative" involving officers from more than 50 federal, state and local agencies.  Given the military style name "Operation Sudden Impact", the initiative saw officers from six counties rounding up fugitives, conducting traffic checkpoints, climbing on boats on the Mississippi River and doing other "crime-abatement" programs all under the label of "anti-terrorism".  WREG Memphis news channel 3 reported that the Sheriff's Department arrested 332 people, 142 of whom were fugitives, or "terrorists" as they now seem to be known.  Hundreds of dollars were seized and drugs recovered, and 1,292 traffic violations were handed out to speeding terrorists and illegally parked terrorists.  The authorities even raided businesses and store owners, confiscating computers and paperwork in an effort to "track down possible terrorists before something big happens".  The Sheriff's Department is determining if and when they plan another round-up.  The operation, which involved police, deputies, the FBI, drug agents, gang units and even the coast guard, is just one example of how law enforcement at the state and local levels is being co-opted and centralized by the Department of Homeland Security via massive federal grants.  It also highlights how the distinction between crime and terrorism is becoming irrelevant.  For complete story, click here.
Drug Makers Push Easing Off-Label Rules--April 18th, 2008--WASHINGTON -- Drug-industry representatives are descending on the capital to protect their freedom to advertise their wares directly to consumers and to push for looser government restrictions on their ability to promote off-label uses of their medicines.  The industry has become worried about a potential regulatory backlash following recent scandals over the marketing of Vioxx and Vytorin, as well as voter concern about increasing drug prices. All three presidential candidates have been criticizing drug makers about pricing. Meanwhile, three congressional committees are pursuing investigations of drug-industry marketing practices.  "We have to be concerned that Congress will act too quickly in this atmosphere, without considering the problems they can cause the public by limiting the information flow to consumers," said Bob Hogan, chief executive of Cognito Communications, a Connecticut health-care marketing-strategy firm.  Ten major drug companies, including Pfizer Inc.; Bayer Corp., the U.S. unit of Bayer AG; AstraZeneca PLC; and Johnson & Johnson have formed a coalition to push for looser restrictions on off-label marketing. They will submit their arguments Friday to the Food and Drug Administration, which has been soliciting comments on its proposed off-label promotion guidelines. They are represented by former FDA Chief Counsel Daniel Troy, who is working with public-relations giant APCO Worldwide Inc.  Mr. Troy's group includes patient-advocacy organizations the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Organization for Rare Disorders.  The group supports the ability of companies to disseminate articles from peer-reviewed medical journals to physicians and hospitals to inform them of new conditions for which drugs already on the market could be used but which the FDA hasn't formally approved.  The FDA said it isn't loosening the rules for industry, but clarifying them.  Randall Lutter, the agency's deputy commissioner for policy, said the guidelines mandate full disclosure of any conflict of interest by journal authors in articles used in off-label promotion.  The push for off-label changes came just as the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested in two reports that Merck & Co. played down the potential risk to Alzheimer's patients of heart attack from its now-withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, and said the company had ghostwritten many academic articles favorable to that drug.  Drug-industry worries about new rules and a chilly climate in Washington were reflected at a conference here Thursday. More than 60% of participants polled during the annual conference sponsored by drug-marketing magazine DTC Perspectives said they think Congress may move to place limits on television advertising by pharmaceutical companies. Drug makers spend about $5.4  billion annually on TV ads, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.  One idea the drug marketers don't like: A proposal that ads contain a phone number that consumers can call to make complaints to the Food and Drug Administration.  Separately, the promotion of Vytorin, a cholesterol drug marketed jointly by Merck and Schering-Plough Corp., is under scrutiny by congressional investigators who have alleged the companies delayed release of a study that raised doubts about Vytorin's effectiveness. The companies have denied any strategy to withhold information, and said the delay in publishing the study was the result of efforts to resolve problems with certain data.  Drug manufacturers are concerned that marketing strategies could be trimmed after the 2008 elections if Democrats strengthen their control in Congress or take the White House. But there are indications that some politicians won't wait that long.  The chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Michigan Democrat John Dingell, plans to announce a hearing on direct-to-consumer advertising, to take place in a few weeks. Mr. Dingell's panel will look at Vioxx, Vytorin and an ad blitz for Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor that used medical inventor Robert Jarvik.  "Drug companies should know that they will be held accountable for inappropriate behavior and inaccurate representations made in their ads," Mr. Dingell said in a statement.  For more on this story, click here.
Top US general 'hoodwinked' over aggressive interrogation 18 Apr 2008 The US's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques torture for terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian can reveal. The development led to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture. The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington - who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date - is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts from which will be published in tomorrow's Guardian.  For complete story, click here.
Breaking: Feds to collect DNA from every person they arrest 16 Apr 2008 The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency. Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons.  For complete story, click here.
Polygamist sect gets millions from U.S. government 12 Apr 2008 U.S. taxpayers have unwittingly helped finance a polygamist sect that is now the focus of a massive child abuse investigation in West Texas, with a business tied to the group receiving a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts. The ability of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, to operate and grow is largely dependent on huge contributions from its members and revenue from the businesses they control, according to a former accountant for the church, and government officials in Utah and Arizona, where the sect is primarily based. One of those businesses, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, has been awarded more than $1.2 million in federal government contracts, with most of the money coming in recent years from the Defense Department for wheel and brake components for military aircraft. A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or "sole source" contracts because of the company's classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations.  For complete story, click here.
Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in U.S. --DHS has not stated what federal laws govern new National Applications Office, whose funding and size are classified. 12 Apr 2008 The Bush regime said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority. The administration in May 2007 gave DHS authority to coordinate requests for satellite imagery, radar, electronic-signal information, chemical detection and other monitoring capabilities that have been used for decades within U.S. borders for mapping and disaster response. But Congress delayed launch of the new office last October. Critics cited its potential to expand the role of military assets in domestic law enforcement, to turn new or as-yet-undeveloped technologies against Americans without adequate public debate, and to divert the existing civilian and scientific focus of some satellite work to security uses.  For complete story, click here.
Top Bush aides oversaw torture sessions 11 Apr 2008 According to an ABC report, top Bush aides, including Condi Rice, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement. Discussions on torture were so detailed, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group, The torture advisory group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft and Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney ABC's sources said.  For complete story, click here.
Cheney OK'd CIA Torture Tactics 11 Apr 2008 US Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney and his cohorts approved using harsh interrogation techniques against prisoners after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, the report said. The officials also took care to insulate President [sic] Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved. An anonymous former senior US intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday.  For complete story, click here.
Guantanamo defendant calls trial a 'sham' 10 Apr 2008 A Saudi prisoner Wednesday denounced the war crimes case against him as a politically motivated "sham" and had himself removed from the courtroom in symbolic protest. Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza Al-Darbi, whose brother-in-law was among the Sept. 11 hijackers [What hijackers?], informed the military judge hearing his terrorism conspiracy case that he wanted neither legal representation nor to be present at his trial. [See: At Least 7 of the 9/11 Hijackers are Still Alive.]  For complete story, click here.
'The whole world had a headache from your hypocrisy that you are the land of justice.' Detainee evokes bin Laden at Guantanamo tribunal 10 Apr 2008 A suspect at a US military hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison Thursday lauded Osama bin Laden saying the terror mastermind had exposed American "hypocrisy." "I think he has succeeded again enormously in exposing your hypocrisy ... that you are the land of justice and law," said Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al-Qosi, who is said to have been bin Laden's personal chauffeur. "The whole world had a headache from your hypocrisy that you are the land of justice," Qosi said. "Real justice and equality are great principles. Even children understand that." [Well said!]  For complete story, click here.
In US simulated 'Crimson Sky' disease outbreak, National Guard troops 'ran out of bullets.' Dangerous Animal Virus on US Mainland? 11 Apr 2008 The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak. Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic of the disease, foot and mouth, which only affects animals, could devastate the livestock industry. A simulated outbreak of the disease -- part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" -- ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals [people], so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.  For complete story, click here.
'Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner's eyes poked out?' Use of Mind-altering Drugs On Captives, Maiming Weighed In '03 Memo --In the sober language of footnotes, case citations and judicial rulings, the memo explores a wide range of unsavory topics, including the use of mind-altering drugs on captives. 06 Apr 2008 Thirty pages into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations in 2003, senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo asked: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner's eyes poked out? Or, for that matter, could he have "scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance" thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting? These assaults are all mentioned in a U.S. law prohibiting maiming, which Yoo parsed as he clarified the legal outer limits of what could be done to terrorism suspects as detained by U.S. authorities... But none of that matters in a time of war, Yoo also said, because federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief.  For complete story, click here.
Evidence Grows of US Drug Use on Terror Detainees --'The executive branch memos laid a comprehensive and reiterated policy foundation for the use of interrogational drugs.' --'03 Yoo memo advised top Bush officials that interrogators could employ mind-altering drugs on terror suspects 04 Apr 2008 There can be little doubt now that the government has used drugs on terrorist suspects that are designed to weaken their resistance to interrogation. All that’s missing is the syringes and videotapes. Another window opened on the practice last week with the declassification of John Yoo’s... 2003 memo [part one, part two] approving harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. Yoo advised top Bush administration officials that interrogators could employ mind-altering drugs if they did not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Extends Blackwater Contract While Shooting Probe Continues 04 Apr 2008 Amid investigations into fatal shootings of civilians and allegations of tax violations, Blackwater USA's multimillion-dollar contract to protect diplomats in Baghdad has been renewed, the State Department said Friday. A final decision about whether the private security company will keep the job is pending, the department said. Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater is one of the largest private military contractors, receiving nearly $1.25 billion in federal business since 2000, according to a House committee estimate.  For complete story, click here.
Army unsure if some body armor met safety standards --Contractors didn't 'perform most basic tests' 02 Apr 2008 The Army can't be sure some of its body armor met safety standards, partly because it didn't do proper paperwork on initial testing of the protective vests, a Defense Department audit said. Democratic Rep. Louise M. Slaughter of New York, who requested the department inspector general's report, on Wednesday demanded the firing of officials responsible. The inspector general reviewed $5.2 billion worth of Army and Marine Corps contracts for body armor from 2004 through 2006... "This report indicates that nearly half of the Army's contractors did not perform the most basic test on the body armor before it was sent to our troops fighting overseas," Slaughter said.  For complete story, click here.
'The Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause does not apply... Accordingly, the Eighth Amendment has no application here.' Torture Memo Gave White House Broad Powers 02 Apr 2008 The Justice Department's newly declassified torture memo outlined the broad legal authority its lawyers gave to the Bush White House on matters of torture and presidential authority during times of war. The March 14, 2003 memorandum, released Tuesday, determined that amendments to the U.S. Constitution do not apply equally to enemy combatants. "The Fifth Amendment due process clause does not apply to the president's conduct of a war," the memo noted. It also asserted, "The detention of enemy combatants can in no sense be deemed 'punishment' for purposes of the Eighth Amendment," which prohibits "cruel and unusual" forms of punishment... "Accordingly the Eighth Amendment has no application here."  For complete story, click here.
Intelligence Centers Tap Into Personal Databases --State Groups, Dozens of 'Fusion Centers,' Were Formed After 9/11 02 Apr 2008 Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA, the document shows, though it's not clear what information those systems contain. From 2004 to 2007, state and local governments received $254 million from the Department of Homeland Security in support of the centers, which are also supported by employees of the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies. In some cases, they work with the U.S. Northern Command, the Pentagon operation involved in homeland security.  For complete story, click here.
Laws, treaties and U.S. Constitution do not apply to U.S. interrogations: '03 memo --Document Granted Nearly Unfettered Presidential Power --Since rescinded, memo asserted numerous laws and treaties that forbid torture or cruel treatment 'would not apply' 01 Apr 2008 Federal laws prohibiting assault and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned 'al-Qaeda' captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander-in-chief overrode such statutes, according to a newly declassified March 14, 2003 Justice Department memo released today. The memo, rescinded nine months after it was issued, provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war, contending that numerous laws and treaties that forbid torture or cruel treatment should not apply to the interrogations of enemy combatants overseas. The memo asserts that domestic and international laws and treaties, as well as the U.S. Constitution, would not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers.  For complete story, click here.
Awareness of Drug-Induced Eye Toxicity Crucial for Patients, Physicians, Says Public Citizen--April 1st, 2008--WASHINGTON, D.C. – Physicians and patients should be aware of the slew of drugs that can cause eye disease and be diligent in identifying potential adverse effects, Public Citizen writes in a new March posting on its WorstPills.org Web site.  A recent paper published in Drug Safety identifies 62 drugs that can cause adverse reactions to the eye. Public Citizen summarizes the paper’s findings, highlights these reactions and describes how they relate to structures in the eye and certain eye conditions.  The eye is composed of a plethora of different types of cells, and drugs can affect each type. The 62 drugs can cause a host of different eye diseases, including cataracts, glaucoma, eye surgery complications, eyelid and conjunctival diseases, optic nerve diseases and retinal abnormalities. Loss of color vision, blurred and impaired vision, decreased night vision, skin lesions and blindness are just some of the symptoms people who develop these diseases can experience.  While people are aware of the undesirable effects drugs can have on organs in the body, they often don’t consider the potential risks to their eyes.  “The eye is a crucial organ, and it is important that physicians and patients understand the risks associated with certain drugs,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen.  For complete story, click here.
CDC bosses ignored warnings--April 1st, 2008--WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal scientist said Tuesday his bosses ignored pleas to alert Gulf Coast hurricane victims about formaldehyde dangers in government-issued trailers and told him last year not to write e-mails about his warnings of potentially widespread health problems.  Christopher De Rosa, a top scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's toxic substances agency, said his bosses told him that his warnings of a "pending public health catastrophe" could be misinterpreted if publicly released.  De Rosa's comments came Tuesday at a House Science and Technology subcommittee hearing on how the CDC and other agencies handled complaints about potentially high levels of formaldehyde in trailers issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  Committee Democrats have accused FEMA of manipulating scientific research to play down the dangers of high levels of formaldehyde found in the trailers.  They say the CDC and its Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry went along with misleading residents.  In mid-2006, FEMA enlisted the CDC's help in analyzing the results of air-quality tests on unoccupied trailers. But the CDC didn't start testing the air quality in occupied FEMA trailers - or study the possible health effects of long-term formaldehyde exposure - until late last year.  The CDC said in February that tests on hundreds of occupied FEMA trailers and mobile homes found formaldehyde levels that were, on average, about five times higher than what people are exposed to in most modern homes. The results prompted FEMA to step up efforts to move roughly 35,000 families still living in the trailers after the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  Formaldehyde can cause respiratory problems and has been classified as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  FEMA officials say the number of occupied trailers on the Gulf Coast, which peaked at more than 143,000 after the hurricanes, has dropped to about 34,000 as FEMA rushes to move people into safer housing.  For complete story, click here.
South Carolina Troopers Caught Bowling for Brothers 24 Mar 2008 The feds are investigating videotapes of highway patrolmen running over Black men. Dashboard cameras in police cruisers, designed to back up police accounts of traffic stops, have exposed a shockingly ugly practice by some South Carolina troopers – using cars to mow down black men. Federal investigators said late last week that they are reviewing videos showing South Carolina Highway Patrol officers ramming their vehicles into fleeing suspects. "You better run nigger," then-Lance Cpl. Daniel C. Campbell is heard saying as he pursues a perp. "I'm fixin' to kill you!" For that episode of displaced anger, Campbell was given a two-day suspension and told to undergo anger-management and diversity training!  For complete story, click here.

Cop faces Taser hearing--March 27th, 2008--A Cincinnati police officer faces a hearing that could lead to his firing after investigators found he violated policy by shooting a high school student with a Taser who he mistakenly thought was a robbery suspect.

Officers Andrew Mitchell and DeWayne McMenama have been under investigations since the Jan. 22 incident. The investigation report was made public Thursday.

The two officers were in the same cruiser in Westwood at about 7:30 p.m. that night when police received a holdup alarm at Jersey Mike’s, a restaurant at 5555 Glenway Ave.

• Read the internal report

Mitchell, driving the cruiser, and McMenama responded to the Glen Crossing shopping mall parking lot where they saw a man walking from the restaurant, his head down and his hands in his pockets.

Both officers said they repeatedly yelled at the man – who later turned out to be Chris Bauer Jr., 19, a Western Hills High senior – who didn’t responded to their commands to stop.

Mitchell was sitting in his cruiser, which may have been moving, when he fired his Taser, shooting electric current into Bauer, knocking him to the ground.

The first time, Mitchell zapped Bauer for seven seconds. The Taser delivers a shock equal to 50,000 volts of electricity

Because Bauer’s hands were in his pockets when he was first shocked, he fell face-first, landing with his hands under his torso.

Mitchell zapped Bauer again for five seconds when he didn’t respond to the officers’ commands to show his hands.

The pair quickly handcuffed Bauer and got him to his feet. That’s when they should have realized, Bauer’s attorney said, that his client wasn’t ignoring their commands to stop.

Bauer didn’t hear the commands because he was listening to his iPod with ear buds and couldn’t hear them, attorney John Helbling said Thursday.

“It was pretty outrageous for this poor kid,” Helbling, said.

Helbling is perhaps best known as the attorney for the estate of Roger Owensby Jr., the man killed in police custody in 2000. In that case, he sued on behalf of the Owensby family and estate and settled with the city for $6.5 million.

Bauer was unaware of any police officers’ presence much less their commands, Helbling said.

Because of the fall caused by the Taser – Bauer was hit in the back of the neck and a hand – he suffered a chipped tooth and cuts on his face

That was particularly painful, Helbling said, because Bauer was recovering from a hernia surgery the week before.

“He has loss of memory and other problems,” Helbling said. “He has difficulty trying to do simple tasks.”

Bauer, who was neither charged nor arrested, works at a video store in the same shopping plaza and lives five minutes away.

Supervisors for police District 3 – which generally covers the west side of the city – began an investigation that night that included their district commander, the assistant chief in charge of the patrol officers as well as Chief Thomas Streicher.

Streicher showed up at the scene and apologized to Bauer’s father, Helbling said.


Police later learned the initial report of a holdup at the restaurant was a false alarm.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: http://news.enquirer.com  Date: March 27th, 2008)
In part the Connecticut Zyprexa suit charges Eli Lilly with criminal activities--March 11th, 2008--"Eli Lilly allegedly corrupted physicians, pharmacies and administrators at nursing homes and youth detention centers as part of a massive illegal marketing campaign to promote Zyprexa for unapproved off-label uses, including for the treatment of children."  "'The illegal marketing campaign exploited children and senior citizens -causing severe weight gain, diabetes and cardiovascular problems,' Blumenthal said. 'This scheme involved payments to public officials, bogus educational events and ghostwritten promotional articles summarizing suspect studies. The drug was marketed for anxiety, depression and Attention Deficit Disorder in children when it was never approved for any use in children and caused serious side effects.  For complete story, click here.

One Drug, Many Tragedies: A doctor blows the whistle on a dangerous new drug that wrongfully received FDA approval --April 2008 Issue--The latest chilling report assessing FDA's performance, this one commissioned by the FDA's own advisory Science Board describes the FDA as an organization nearly out of control: "We were shocked at the appalling state of science at the FDA," says Garret FitzGerald, MD, chairman of the pharmacology department at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an advisor on the report. "The analogy is Katrina. But we have to fix this before the hurricane hits."  Even the department's champions are worried. "I don't think the FDA is at a collapse point yet, but it's getting close," says Hubbard, who retired in 2005 after 26 years at the agency. "In some places, regulation is so weak that there's nothing left."  It is clear that without Congressional action, the FDA is not likely to return to its mission of protecting the public health.  But Congress, no less than FDA officials, have become financially dependent on Big Pharma.  CNN reports (below) that Democratic senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the top recipients of donations from the pharmaceutical industry, according to The Center for Responsive Politics.  The size of Big Pharma's checks is determined by who's in driver's seat of power--not ideology: "Since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, money [from the pharmaceutical industry] has shifted away from Republicans, to the Democrats who hold the keys to the kingdom."   The following important recommendations are provided by The Readers Digest:


Be wary of new drugs.  All medicines come with risks. When a doctor prescribes one, he's making a judgment call that its benefits outweigh its dangers. But with newly approved drugs, the risks are not always well understood at first. That's why Drummond Rennie, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, advises sticking to meds that have been on the market for at least four or five years: "I never, ever take a new drug.

I want to see reports on the toxic effects after many thousands of people have taken it." The exception: A patient with a life-threatening condition may be more willing to accept risks. Check your meds at medlineplus.gov.

Report your side effects. As a consumer, you can (and should) report adverse reactions to drugs and medical devices directly to the FDA. You can submit a form online at www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 800-FDA-1088.  For complete story, click here.
What is the real death toll in Iraq? The Americans learned one lesson from Vietnam: don't count the civilian dead. As a result, no one knows how many Iraqis have been killed in the five years since the invasion. Estimates put the toll at between 100,000 and one million. 19 Mar 2008 The British polling firm Opinion Research Business (ORB) asked 1,720 Iraqi adults last summer if they had lost family members by violence since 2003; 16% had lost one, and 5% two. Using the 2005 census total of 4,050,597 households in Iraq, this suggests 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion.  For complete story, click here.
United States censors Guantanamo prisoner's sketch of force-feeding --Detainee is cameraman for Al-Jazeera 17 Mar 2008 The United States has censored a gruesome drawing by a Guantanamo Bay prisoner [Sami al-Haj] depicting him as a skeleton being force-fed at the military prison, the man's lawyers said Monday as they released a recreation of the sketch.  For complete story, click here.
Toxicity & Brain Damage--Take notice that also non SSRI anti-depressants (and even Ritalin) may interact (primary or secondary) with the serotonergic (or serotoninergic) system in the brain. SSRI/SSNRI-induced Toxicity & Brain Damage by disrupting the balance of Body & Brain Metabolism  SSRI's are "Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors." In contrast to the deceiving claim of the pharmaceutical companies that SSRI's or SSNRI's may correct some sort of "biochemical imbalance" of serotonin in the brain, all of these serotonergic agents actually cause major and dangerous imbalances in the brain and the body, evidenced by the many medical reports (below) of severe toxic neurological and physical side-effects. Neuronal re-uptake of neurotransmitters is metabolism. What serotonin re-uptake inhibitor actually means is that the SSRI-antidepressant interferes with ones ability to metabolise serotonin, so that can and will build up to toxic amounts after prolonged use. In other words, an SSRI-antidepressant impairs the ability of cells to metabolise serotonin, not only in the brain, but -since serotonin is widely distributed throughout the body- in the body as well! The greatest concentration of serotonin, around 90%, is not found in the brain, but is found in the gastrointestinal or digestive tract (human gut, intestines, bowels). Originally, the neurotransmitter serotonin -thought to be secreted by the Pineal Gland- is called a neurohormone, because of it's specific regulatory effect on the activity of the Endocrine Glands in the human body. (1),(2) Affecting serotonin thus means also affecting the Glandular Endocrine System. Next to it, serotonin affects the Cardiovascular System and the Respiratory System, under which, the lungs. Serotonin is also found in blood platelets and stimulates platelet aggregation (blood clotting). Furthermore, serotonin is known to affect contraction of smooth muscles (such as those of the gut) and blood vessel elasticity (vasoconstriction and expansion). More information:  Serotonin & the Pineal Gland A recent study (25 sept, 2004) shows us clearly that serotonin toxicity can even appear rapidly in a few hours after taking a single therapeutic dose of SSRI medication. In Bio-Psychiatry it is a common thought that SSRI's are believed to have their effect by inhibiting the re-uptake of serotonin (downregulation of transporters) and thereby gradually increasing serotonin outside the tissue cell wall (extracellular) in the synaptic gap between brain cells (neurons) in the brain. In this important study, Zoloft (Lustral, sertraline) was given to monkeys for 4 weeks to establish how long it would take before Zoloft would have it's effect on serotonergic neurons and thus elevation of serotonin. In contrast with the commonly accepted SSRI theory, it was observed that serotonin levels raised NOT gradually, but rapidly and dramatically and kept on raising during these 4 weeks, an effect that can NOT be ascribed solely to a "re-uptake inhibition" of serotonin!  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.antidepressantsfacts.com  Date: Unverified)

Antipsychotic drugs are doing harm--[It is essential to note at the outset that suddenly stopping or reducing psychiatric medications can be hazardous. Adjustments in medication are best done under the supervision of a medical professional.]  In the early 1990s, a new class of drugs promised to revolutionize the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. Known as atypical antipsychotics, drugs such as Clozaril, Zyprexa and Risperdal largely replaced older medications such as Thorazine, Haldol and Prolixin. Research and advertising sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry led to the widespread belief that the newer medications were indisputably safer, more effective and well worth additional billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Pharmaceutical  profits soared.  Since then, the life expectancy of those treated in community mental health centers has plunged to an appalling 25 years less than average. Life expectancy may have fallen by as much as 15 years since 1986. Indications are that the death rate continues to accelerate in what must be ranked as one of the worst public health disasters in U.S. history.  The toxicity of antipsychotic medications, also known as neuroleptics, is thoroughly documented. Atypical antipsychotics initially seemed less hazardous because they produce fewer movement disorders. We now know that the newer drugs lead to more cardiovascular disease, which is by far the leading killer of those in the public mental health system.  People who need mental health services already suffer from high rates of cigarette smoking, lack of exercise, substance abuse, poor nutrition, homelessness and poor access to health care. Adding medications pours gasoline on a fire. This lethal combination is almost certainly driving the spiraling death rate.  Advances in brain imaging techniques show that antipsychotic medications cause brain damage. Animal and human studies link the drugs to shrinkage of the cerebral cortex, home to the higher functions. One study of monkeys given either older or newer neuroleptic medication in doses equivalent to those given humans showed an 11 percent to 15 percent shrinkage of the left parietal lobe. Drugs that cause brain damage almost invariably reduce life expectancy.  Marketing campaigns for atypical antipsychotic drugs target new groups of patients, including the elderly and

children. Public television recently reported that as many as 1 million children have  been newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and thus may receive neuroleptic medication. This does not include children treated with antipsychotics for other disorders.  The damage to developing brains cannot be overemphasized. Years ago, the Soviet Union was condemned for giving neuroleptic medication to political dissidents. We now are giving a more lethal form of this medication to our children. Where is the outcry?  Recent studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere demonstrate that the newer drugs are no more effective than the older ones in reducing psychotic symptoms. Patients stop taking the new drugs at the same high rate as the old ones because they do not like the way the drugs affect their lives.  While medications are effective in relieving symptoms in the short run, research indicates that people suffering from psychosis recover more quickly and completely without medication. Incredibly, one study showed that those not taking medications had eight times the recovery rate of those who remained medicated. Research in Finland shows that immediate psychosocial interventions achieve far better results than those in this country. It simply makes sense that people recover better when not treated with medication that causes brain damage and shortens their lives.  Yet professionals and the public widely believe that it is unethical to treat serious mental disorders without antipsychotic medication.  The reasons for this are complex, but foremost is the enormous profitability of the pharmaceutical industry. In the early 1990s, the top 10 drug companies earned more profit than all the other Fortune 500 companies combined. The sheer volume of money corrupts medical research, and misinformation is fed to professionals, clients and the public.  The deplorable conditions at the Oregon State Hospital are, unfortunately, just one more indication of the failure of psychiatry as a whole. I know many of the psychiatric professionals in Lane County, and they are intelligent and compassionate people who want the best for their clients. There will always be a place for medication in the treatment of emotional disorders, yet there must be public acknowledgement that the long-term use of antipsychotic medication, particularly the atypicals, is a costly mistake. Silence truly equals death.  The Oregon Department of Addictions and Mental Health has the responsibility to confront the terrible inadequacies of the current system and to fund the development of alternatives. We owe this to the taxpayers, to society and especially to those who suffer from mental illness.  For complete story, click here.
Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history --MoD accused of sending propaganda to schools 14 Mar 2008 Britain's biggest teachers' union has accused the Ministry of Defence of breaking the law over a lesson plan drawn up to teach pupils about the Iraq war. Teachers will threaten to boycott military involvement in schools at the union's annual conference next weekend, claiming the lesson plan is a "propaganda" exercise and makes no mention of any civilian casualties as a result of the war.  For complete story, click here.
Homeland Security worker in sex bust 13 Mar 2008 A Homeland Security staffer was busted for promising to help an applicant get her immigration papers in exchange for sexual favors, prosecutors said Wednesday. Isaac Baichu of the Bronx allegedly forced a female applicant to perform oral sex on him in his car in Queens some time in December 2007, telling her, "Trust me, because I'm the one who can help you," prosecutors said. [Oops! MSNBC forgot to cover this one.]  For complete story, click here.
'We now know that... the government manufactured evidence to make it look like Omar was guilty.' U.S. falsely implicates Guantanamo prisoner: lawyer 13 Mar 2008 A U.S. military report on a battle in which a U.S. soldier died in Afghanistan was altered after the fact to falsely blame a young Canadian prisoner [15-year-old Omar Khadr], his lawyer said on Thursday.  For complete story, click here.
Iraqis bury 10 after blast U.S. says killed no one 12 Mar 2008 It was an incident that aptly summed up the fog of war in Iraq -- relatives burying nine women and a child they said were victims of a bomb attack on a bus in which the U.S. military said no one died. In Najaf, relatives gathered at a cemetery on Wednesday and accused U.S soldiers in the convoy of having shot at the bus, a charge U.S. military spokesman [prevaricator] Major-General Kevin Bergner denied at a news conference in Baghdad. [Yeah, this is where the GOP-owned media does the Pentagon's bidding and tacks on the obligatory 'despite a downturn in violence in recent months in Iraq.']  For complete story, click here.
National Dragnet Is a Click Away --Authorities to Gain Fast and Expansive Access to Records 06 Mar 2008 Several thousand law enforcement agencies are creating the foundation of a domestic intelligence system through computer networks that analyze vast amounts of police information to 'fight' crime and 'root out' terror plots... Those network efforts will begin expanding further this month, as some local and state agencies connect to a fledgling Justice Department system called the National Data Exchange, or N-DEx.  For complete story, click here.
FBI: Report to confirm privacy violations 05 Mar 2008 The FBI improperly used national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on Americans during terror and spy investigations, Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday. Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the privacy breach by FBI agents and lawyers occurred a year before the bureau enacted sweeping new reforms to prevent future lapses.  For complete story, click here.
FBI chief: Lack of legal shield won't halt telecom spy partnerships 05 Mar 2008 As Congress debates whether to wipe out lawsuits accusing telephone companies of allegedly illegal wiretaps, the Bush administration has argued such cooperation is key to keeping Americans safe from terrorists.  For complete story, click here.
Crimes by Homeland Security agents stir alert 05 Mar 2008 Bribery. Drug trafficking. Migrant smuggling. [GOPedophiles at Homeland Security arrested for molesting children.] U.S. Customs and Border Protection is supposed to stop these types of crimes. Instead, so many of its officers have been charged with committing those crimes themselves that their boss in Washington recently issued an alert about the ''disturbing events'' and the "increase in the number of employee arrests..." Other recent South Florida cases... have involved officers and agents accepting payoffs for migrant smuggling, drug trafficking, witness tampering, embezzlement and rape.  For complete story, click here.
Rule by fear or rule by law?--February 4th, 2008--"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." - Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943  Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."  Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.  According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."  Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?  Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."  The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.  Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.  U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it. According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a  native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping  investigative power to combat it.  A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal  Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment  rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author  Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of  roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by  20,000 per month.  What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make  contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens? The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power  under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to  use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.  For complete story, click here.

Civil rights cases at issue for FBI--March 5th, 2008--WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating 26 unsolved civil rights era cases out of nearly 100 referred to the bureau over the last year, Director Robert Mueller says in calling the protection of civil liberties one of his top priorities.   Mueller was set to testify Wednesday at an FBI oversight hearing before the Senate. Lawmakers were expected to press him about whether his agents violated the civil rights of U.S. citizens whose personal information was obtained secretly in terror and spy investigations.  In a prepared statement sent Tuesday to the Senate, Mueller vows "to protect the security of our nation while upholding the civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution to every United States citizen."  "It is not enough to prevent foreign countries from stealing our secrets — we must prevent that from happening while still upholding the rule of law," Mueller says. "It is not enough to stop the terrorist — we must stop him while maintaining civil liberties. It is not enough to catch the criminal — we must catch him while respecting his civil rights.  "The rule of law, civil liberties and civil rights — these are not our burdens; they are what make us better," Mueller says in his written remarks, which were obtained by The Associated Press.  Mueller's remarks offer the first details about the FBI's efforts to reopen decades-old civil rights cases since the successful prosecution last summer of a reputed Ku Klux Klansman for his role in the 1964 abduction and killing of two black teenagers.  Early last year, more than 100 unsolved cases were referred to the FBI. Mueller said 95 of them were sent to investigators in 17 field offices around the country. Ultimately, 52 cases were opened and 26 of those were being reviewed by the Justice Department "to determine if additional investigation is necessary," he said.  "For those cases in which we can move forward, we will," he said.

 

Democrats who control the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, were expected to focus on whether FBI missteps over the last year — in civil rights and other areas — have been corrected.  Senate aides for several Democrats said Mueller will probably be asked about the FBI's use of national security letters, which are used under the USA Patriot Act to pursue suspected terrorists and spies.  An audit last year by the Justice Department's inspector general found that FBI agents and lawyers, from 2003 to 2005, demanded personal data on people from banks, telephone and Internet providers, credit bureaus and other businesses without official authorization and in non-emergency circumstances.  The inspector general is expected to issue a follow-up audit at any time that will focus on the FBI's use of national security letters in 2006. Several Justice Department and FBI officials familiar with the upcoming report say it will conclude that the letters were wrongly used at a similar rate as during the previous three years.  But the officials noted that the new audit only examines national security letters that were issued before the FBI was notified of the problems in March 2007 and changed its system. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the audit publicly.  Senate aides said Mueller also probably will be asked about the FBI's failure to pay phone bills on time, prompting telephone companies to cut off wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals. In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," according to a January internal Justice audit.  FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.  For complete story, click here.
Pentagon to Test Invisible Gases In Crystal City --Test dubbed 'Urban Shield: Crystal City Urban Transport Study' 01 Mar 2008 (VA) The Pentagon is scheduled to release odorless, invisible and 'harmless' gases into Crystal City Thursday to test how quickly they spread through buildings, officials said. The data will help the Pentagon and Arlington shape their lockdown policies for [Bush's] chemical and biological attacks or accidents, and will also help them determine the most effective locations for sensors.  For complete story, click here.
US launches missile strike in Somalia 03 Mar 2008 Two U.S. missiles hit a house in southern Somalia on Monday, according to local officials, in an attack Washington said was directed at "known terrorists". A man in Kismayu, who said the house that was hit belonged to him, told Reuters in Kismayu his daughter was among the wounded and four of his cows had also been killed in the attack. [The "known terrorists"are Bush and Cheney, carrying out war crimes all over the world.]  For complete story, click here.
Antidepressant drugs don't work – official study--February 26th, 2008--They are among the biggest-selling drugs of all time, the "happiness pills" that supposedly lift the moods of those who suffer depression and are taken by millions of people in the UK every year.  But one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs has found that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they don't work. The finding will send shock waves through the medical profession and patients and raises serious questions about the regulation of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which was accused yesterday of withholding data on the drugs. It also came as Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, announced that 3,600 therapists are to be trained during the next three years to provide nationwide access through the GP service to "talking treatments" for depression, instead of drugs, in a £170m scheme. The popularity of the new generation of antidepressants, which include the best known brands Prozac and Seroxat, soared after they were launched in the late 1980s, heavily promoted by drug companies as safer and leading to fewer side-effects than the older tricyclic antidepressants.  The publication in 1994 of Listening to Prozac by Peter Kramer, in which he suggested anyone with too little "joy juice" might give themselves a dose of the "mood brightener" Prozac , lifted sales into the stratosphere. In the UK, an estimated 3.5 million people take the drugs, collectively known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), in any one year and 29 million prescriptions were issued in 2004. Prozac, the best known of the SSRIs made by Eli Lilly, was the world's fastest-selling drug until it was overtaken by Viagra.  In the study, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of all 47 clinical trials, published and unpublished, submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the US, made in support of licensing applications for six of the best known antidepressant drugs, including Prozac, Seroxat – which is made by GlaxoSmithKline – and Efexor made by Wyeth. The results showed the drugs were effective only in a very small group of the most extremely depressed.  For complete story, click here.
US Vets to Testify About War Crimes They Committed or Witnessed 28 Feb 2008 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries. "The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. [Let's get the betting pool going on what will dominate the mainstream media on March 13-16. I am thinking six school lockdowns, an explosion/shootup of an Illinois shopping mall, the release of a new 'bin Laden' videotape, or the 'killing' of the 548th 'al-Qaeda number two' in the 'restive Anbar province.' --LRP]  For complete story, click here.
ACLU: 900,000 Names on U.S. Terror Watch Lists 27 Feb 2008 The FBI now keeps a list of over 900,000 names belonging to known or suspected terrorists, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. Last September, the ACLU notes, the Department of Justice's Inspector General reported the FBI watch list was at 700,000 names, and growing at 20,000 names per month.  For complete story, click here.
Journalist for CTV labelled 'unlawful enemy combatant' by U.S. military 27 Feb 2008 The U.S. military has designated a journalist employed by CTV in Afghanistan as an unlawful enemy combatant. A military spokesman told the Associated Press that a review board has determined Jawed Ahmad, an Afghan national, is a danger to foreign troops and the Afghan government.  For complete story, click here.
Canada-U.S. pact allows cross-border military activity in civil emergency 23 Feb 2008 Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal. Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas. The U.S. military's Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation in a civil emergency. [See:U.S. Northern Command, Canada Command establish new bilateral Civil Assistance Plan 14 Feb 2008.]  For complete story, click here.
Anthrax tests on troops to be conducted 'strictly under supervision'--February 24th, 2008--Following deliberation on petition protesting IDF medical experimentation on soldiers, government announces Ministry of Health to supervise such experiments.  State officials reported to the High Court of Justice on Sunday that all medical experiments on IDF soldiers are to be conducted only under strict Health Ministry supervision and approval.  The State also reported to the court that the Health Ministry protocol for human experimentation is to be implemented in the IDF as standard command.  This announcement was made following a petition brought to the court by the human rights group Physicians for Human Rights, in conjunction with several Israeli Defense Force soldiers, protesting medical experimentation on active duty soldiers in the IDF.  Most prominently, petitioners protested the use of IDF soldiers in secret experiments testing Anthrax vaccines, codenamed "Omer 2".  Physicians For Human Rights petitioned the High Court three months ago, demanding that the IDF stop medical experimentation on soldiers, and demanding the establishment of a commission of inquiry on this matter.  The IDF soldiers petitioning the court demanded that they be compensated for pain and suffering endured during such experimentation.  The "Omer 2" Anthrax experiment that triggered this petition was held between 1999 and 2006, and included some 800 IDF soldiers. The experiment included a series of seven injections, some including an American Anthrax vaccine, and others a recently developed Israeli formula.  Physicians for Human Right has maintained that the experiment failed to uphold several ethical imperatives, including garnering the informed consent of the soldiers in question, as well as following up on their general health and well being at the conclusion of the experiment.  Israeli law regulates medical experiments on human beings through sub-ordinances rather than through major legislation. In the IDF, the legislative status of human medical experiments is even more uncorroborated.  FOr complete story, click here.
Inside the world of war profiteers --From prostitutes to Super bowl tickets, a federal probe reveals how contractors in Iraq cheated the U.S. 21 Feb 2008 (IL) A common thread runs through these cases and other KBR scandals in Iraq, from allegations the firm failed to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that it charged $45 per can of soda: The Pentagon has outsourced crucial troop support jobs while slashing the number of government contract watchdogs. The dollar value of Army contracts quadrupled from $23.3 billion in 1992 to $100.6 billion in 2006, according to a recent report by a Pentagon panel.  For complete story, click here.
UK troops accused of executions and torture in Iraq 22 Feb 2008 Lawyers for five Iraqis have accused British soldiers of mass executions and torture and called for a police investigation into an "atrocious episode" in British army history. Phil Shiner and Martyn Day produced statements on Friday from five men who say they were detained by British forces after a battle in southern Iraq in May 2004. The men, who were blindfolded and bound, said their captors repeatedly beat and abused them, including forcing them to strip naked. While detained, they said they heard the systematic torture and execution of up to 20 other prisoners.  For complete story, click here.
New Bill To Allow Police Misconduct Be Hidden From Public --February 14th, 2008--A new bill proposed at the legislature would allow for police to withhold misconduct reports from the public. Supporters of the bill believe that police misconduct should be kept secret from the public so to not discredit police testimony. Others say that a forthright police unit is essential to the community.  In September, Jared Massey was zapped with a taser by Trooper John Gardner. A video of the incident was recorded from Gardner’s patrol car. Gardner can be seen shocking Massey until he hits the ground while Massey’s wife screams from the side of their SUV.  More than a million people watched the video on “YouTube.” Massey was shocked to see his new found fame. The footage may have never been seen had Massey not made a records request to obtain the tape.  For complete story, click here.
Scalia: It is "extraordinary" to assume that the U.S. Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" also applies to "so-called" torture. Top court's Scalia defends physical interrogation 12 Feb 2008 Reichwing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said on Tuesday some physical interrogation techniques [torture] can be used on a suspect in the event of an imminent threat, such as a hidden bomb about to blow up. In such cases, "smacking someone in the face" could be justified, the outspoken Scalia told the BBC. "You can't come in smugly and with great self  satisfaction and say 'Oh it's torture, and therefore it's no good.'"  For complete story, click here.
Scalia says 'so-called torture' may not be unconstitutional 12 Feb 2008 US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Tuesday defended the use of harsh physical interrogation techniques, saying in an interview with Law in Action on BBC Radio 4 that they may be justified to deter an immediate threat. Scalia argued that "so-called torture" may not necessarily be prohibited by the US constitution, as he said the Eighth Amendment bar against "cruel and unusual punishment" was only intended to apply to criminal punishments... For complete story, click here.
VIDEO: Woman Calls Police for Help, Gets Violently Strip Searched--February 11, 2008--The victim was kept in a cell for six hours, was not allowed to make a phone call or to get medical assistance for cuts and bruises she received.   For complete story, click here.

Army quietly changed rules in '06 to allow military executions at 'other locations' --Muslim section of cemetery at Guantanamo has been dedicated by Islamic cultural adviser 12 Feb 2008 If six suspected terrorists are sentenced to death at Guantanamo Bay for the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. Army regulations that were quietly amended two years ago open the possibility of execution by lethal injection at the military base in Cuba, experts said Tuesday. Until recently, experts on military law said, it was understood that military regulations required executions to be carried out by lethal injection at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. But in January 2006, the Army changed its procedures for military executions, allowing "other locations" [such as KBR detention centers] to be used. The new regulations say that only the president can approve an execution and that the secretary of the Army will authorize the location. [The Army quietly changed its regulations to allow military executions at 'other locations' in January 2006. Guess who got a multi-year, no-bid $385 million contract to construct detention centers on US soil, the same month and year? See: KBR Awarded U.S. Department of Homeland Security Contingency Support Project For Emergency Support Services  For complete story, click here.   
'They have permission to 'shoot to kill' in the event of martial law.' The FBI Deputizes Business By Matthew Rothschild 07 Feb 2008 Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does--and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials... One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law... This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do... "Then they said when--not if--martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted," he says.  For complete story, click here.
AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Guantanamo 06 Feb 2008 Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to 'al-Qaida' and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded - a jailhouse so protected [hidden from human rights organizations] that its very location is top secret. For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.guardian.co.uk  Date: February 6, 2008)
Britney Spears Was Drugged, Controlled By Sam Lutfi, Parents Allege 'Mr. Lutfi has drugged Britney ... he claims to control everything,' singer's father wrote in petition for restraining order.--Feb. 1st, 2008--Britney Spears' parents allege that the singer's acting manager, Sam Lutfi, was drugging her to control her, according to the petition for the restraining order against him, released by Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday (February 5).  Lutfi, who already has had three other parties file requests for restraining orders against him, is ordered in this latest one issued on Friday to stay 250 yards away from Britney, her homes, her cars, her children's homes and child-care facilities, her sibling's homes, her parents' homes, and UCLA Medical Center, where she's currently hospitalized. The order was extended on Monday to include no contact with Spears by phone, e-mail or text message.  Since meeting the singer "in or about" October, Lutfi has "essentially moved into Britney's home and has purported to take control of her life, home, and finances," according to Jamie Spears, the singer's father, who has temporary conservator powers over the singer's person and estate. "Mr. Lutfi has drugged Britney," Jamie wrote. "He has cut Britney's home phone line and removed her cell-phone chargers. He yells at her. He claims to control everything - Britney's business manager, her attorneys and the security guards at the gate."  He asked for the restraining order "to avoid the risk of physical harm to Britney by Mr. Lutfi and to allow her to undergo necessary medical treatment without interference by Mr. Lutfi," according to the petition.  A declaration from Lynne Spears, the singer's mother, explained in more detail some incidents in late January that gave both parents cause for concern. Lynne wrote that she, her friend Jackie and Jamie went to visit Britney's home on January 28 because they heard on the news that their daughter had been in a big argument with Lutfi and that she was crying. When they arrived, they found Lutfi, who told them that Britney only wanted to see her mother and that she was frightened to see her father. The paparazzi were allowed inside - but not Jamie Spears.  For complete story, click here.
Lilly's $1 Billion E-Mailstrom--Feb. 5th, 2008--A secret memo meant for a colleague lands in a Times reporter's in-box.  When the New York Times broke the story last week that Eli Lilly & Co. was in confidential settlement talks with the government, angry calls flew behind the scenes as the drug giant's executives accused federal officials of leaking the information.  As the company's lawyers began turning over rocks closer to home, however, they discovered what could be called A Nightmare on Email Street, a pharmaceutical consultant told Portfolio.com. One of its outside lawyers at Philadelphia-based Pepper Hamilton had mistakenly emailed confidential information on the talks to Times reporter Alex Berenson instead of Bradford Berenson, her co-counsel at Sidley Austin.  With the negotiations over alleged marketing improprieties reaching a mind-boggling sum of $1 billion, Eli Lilly had every reason to want to keep the talks under wraps. It was paying the two fancy law firms a small fortune to negotiate deftly and quietly.  If and when it did settle the allegations that it had improperly marketed its most profitable drug, Zyprexa, for schizophrenia, it would certainly want to announce the news on terms carefully negotiated with the government.  "We usually try to brace for that [kind of] story," a Lilly staffer said.  So when the Times' Berenson began calling around for comment, and seemed to possess remarkably detailed inside information about the negotiations, Lilly executives were certain the source of the leak was the government.  As it turned out, one of Eli Lilly's lawyers at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia wanted to email Sidley Austin's Berenson, about the negotiations. But apparently, the name that popped up from her email correspondents was the wrong Berenson.  Alex Berenson logged on to find an internal "very comprehensive document" about the negotiations, the consultant said, and on January 30, Berenson's article, "Lilly in Settlement Talks With U.S." appeared on the Times' website. A similar article followed the next day on the front page of the New York Times.  Those who knew the real story must have had a chuckle-or shed some tears-over Lilly's statement to the Times that it had "no intention of sharing those discussions [with the government] with the news media and it would be speculative and irresponsible for anyone to do so."  When reached for comment, Alex Berenson told Portfolio.com, "I can't say anything. I just can't."  A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Philadelphia, which is spearheading the Zyprexa investigation, declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Eli Lilly.  However, the Lilly spokeswoman called back to add that the drugmaker would continue to retain Pepper Hamilton. Phone calls to Sidley Austin and Pepper Hamilton were not returned.  And sadly, no confidential emails with further scoops were received in error.  For complete story, click here.
Bush asserts authority to bypass defense act --Bush asserted four sections of bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, so executive branch is not bound to obey them 30 Jan 2008 President [sic] Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill. Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued late Monday after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008.  For complete story, click here.
Iraq conflict has killed a million, says survey 30 Jan 2008 More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain's leading polling groups. The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes.  For complete story, click here.
Halliburton Co. enjoys 46% income growth 29 Jan 2008 Net income of the American oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. in 2007 was $3,5 billion, up 46% from $2,4 billion of the previous year. Halliburton reported that revenue was $15,3 billion, an increase of 19% from $12,9 billion in 2006. Halliburton’s net income for the fourth quarter of 2007 was $690 million. This compares to net income of $658 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.  For complete story, click here.
Like FBI, CIA Has Used Secret 'Letters' 25 Jan 2008 Newly released documents shed light on the use of national security letters by the CIA. The spy agency has employed them to obtain financial information about U.S. residents and does so under extraordinary secrecy, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained copies of CIA letters under the Freedom of Information Act. The CIA's requests for financial records come with "gag orders" on the recipients, said ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman. In many cases, she said, the recipient is not allowed to keep a copy of the letter or even take notes about the information turned over to the CIA.  For complete story, click here.
Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told 22 Jan 2008 The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists. Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world". It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days.  For complete story, click here.
New Generation of Homeless Vets Emerges--January 20th, 2008--LEEDS, Mass. - Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran.  There was a happy homecoming, but then an accident - car crash, broken collarbone. And then a move east, close to his wife's new job but away from his best friends.  And then self-destruction: He would gun his motorcycle to 100 mph and try to stand on the seat. He would wait for his wife to leave in the morning, draw the blinds and open up whatever bottle of booze was closest.  He would pull out his gun, a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol. He would lovingly clean it, or just look at it and put it away. Sometimes place it in his mouth.  "I don't know what to do anymore," his wife, Anna, told him one day. "You can't be here anymore."  Peter Mohan never did find a steady job after he left Iraq. He lost his wife - a judge granted their divorce this fall - and he lost his friends and he lost his home, and now he is here, in a shelter.  He is 28 years old. "People come back from war different," he offers by way of a summary.  This is not a new story in America: A young veteran back from war whose struggle to rejoin society has failed, at least for the moment, fighting demons and left homeless.  But it is happening to a new generation. As the war in Afghanistan plods on in its seventh year, and the war in Iraq in its fifth, a new cadre of homeless veterans is taking shape.  And with it come the questions: How is it that a nation that became so familiar with the archetypal homeless, combat-addled Vietnam veteran is now watching as more homeless veterans turn up from new wars?  What lessons have we not learned? Who is failing these people? Or is homelessness an unavoidable byproduct of war, of young men and women who devote themselves to serving their country and then see things no man or woman should?  ---For as long as the United States has sent its young men - and later its young women - off to war, it has watched as a segment of them come home and lose the battle with their own memories, their own scars, and wind up without homes.  The Civil War produced thousands of wandering veterans. Frequently addicted to morphine, they were known as "tramps," searching for jobs and, in many cases, literally still tending their wounds.  More than a decade after the end of World War I, the "Bonus Army" descended on Washington - demanding immediate payment on benefits that had been promised to them, but payable years later - and were routed by the U.S. military.  And, most publicly and perhaps most painfully, there was Vietnam: Tens of thousands of war-weary veterans, infamously rejected or forgotten by many of their own fellow citizens.  Now it is happening again, in small but growing numbers.  For now, about 1,500 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been identified by the Department of Veterans Affairs. About 400 of them have taken part in VA programs designed to target homelessness.  The 1,500 are a small, young segment of an estimated 336,000 veterans in the United States who were homeless at some point in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.  Still, advocates for homeless veterans use words like "surge" and "onslaught" and even "tsunami" to describe what could happen in the coming years, as both wars continue and thousands of veterans struggle with post-traumatic stress.  People who have studied postwar trauma say there is always a lengthy gap between coming home - the time of parades and backslaps and "The Boys Are Back in Town" on the local FM station - and the moments of utter darkness that leave some of them homeless.  In that time, usually a period of years, some veterans focus on the horrors they saw on the battlefield, or the friends they lost, or why on earth they themselves deserved to come home at all. They self-medicate, develop addictions, spiral down.  How - or perhaps the better question is why - is this happening again?  "I really wish I could answer that question," says Anthony Belcher, an outreach supervisor at New Directions, which conducts monthly sweeps of Skid Row in Los Angeles, identifying homeless veterans and trying to help them get over addictions.  "It's the same question I've been asking myself and everyone around me. I'm like, wait, wait, hold it, we did this before. I don't know how our society can allow this to happen again."  For complete story, click here.
License, Registration and DNA, Please--January 19th, 2008--A brake light on Howard Blum’s car had burned out, a bit of news he learned when a police officer pulled him over one evening last year as he drove up Park Avenue in Manhattan. Mr. Blum, on his way home to Connecticut, produced his license and registration for the police officer, who returned to his patrol car to check on the documents.  A moment later, Mr. Blum said, the officer ordered him out of the car and handcuffed him. The computer in the police car showed that his New York State license had been suspended in 1998, although Mr. Blum’s Connecticut license was valid.  “I had been at a movie opening that night, and was wearing a cashmere coat I had just gotten, standing on the corner of 85th Street and Park with my hands cuffed behind my back,” Mr. Blum recalled Friday.  Mr. Blum spent the night and most of the next day in jail, the computer system showing paid tickets as unpaid, up-to-date insurance as lapsed.  And if a proposal by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg catches on, Mr. Blum would have had one more step in the process: submitting his DNA to a databank that would check to see if it matched evidence from any unsolved crimes.  This week, the mayor proposed that everyone arrested for any crime in New York City — before the case has been judged — should be required to provide a sample of DNA. The mayor wants a change in state law, which now requires DNA testing only after a conviction.  “ We’re going to have DNA testing for someone picked up for a busted taillight and computer error about tickets?” asked Mr. Blum, who had been a reporter for The New York Times in the 1980s and who wrote about his experience last April in the paper.  Well, yes, Mayor Bloomberg and his aides say. They argue that the more DNA the authorities have, the faster computers will be able to match the right people to crimes, and spare the wrong ones from punishment. “This will prevent future crimes,” said John Feinblatt, the city’s criminal justice coordinator. He acknowledged that some people would resist the proposal on privacy grounds, but said its adoption was “inevitable.”From the earliest days of his administration, Mr. Bloomberg has taken aggressive stances in weighing government authority against individual privacy. In 2003, police detectives questioned people arrested at antiwar demonstrations about their political viewpoints, their opinions on President Bush, and how they had heard about the demonstration; the information was put into a database. After a public outcry, the police announced that they would stop asking such questions and delete the information already collected. For 18 months, the police under Mr. Bloomberg conducted wide-ranging surveillance of groups that planned to protest at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Undercover officers traveled across the country, infiltrating groups, in some cases staying in the homes of activists.  Mayor Bloomberg has said this intelligence headed off violent disruptions during the convention.  The creation of an expanded DNA database also has the aim of greater public safety, Mr. Feinblatt said, citing a study done in Chicago that supported expanded testing as a way to prevent crimes. Indeed, had DNA testing been more widely practiced in 1989, the man who raped and nearly killed the Central Park jogger might have been stopped before he went on to murder another woman and rape two others; instead, five teenagers were sent to prison for the attack, and were not cleared until 13 years later.  No serious scholars of criminal justice dispute the power of DNA. Yet biological evidence is available only in a fraction of cases, and studies have shown that the main causes of wrongful conviction are eyewitness errors and false confessions. Mr. Feinblatt declined to discuss what steps, if any, the city had taken to minimize those kinds of errors.  In forcing people not convicted of a crime to surrender DNA samples upon their arrest, the city would extend the thread of government authority into the intimate warrens of individual genetic privacy.  Mr. Feinblatt said crime databases keep a portion of the DNA that currently does not reveal genetic traits. Moreover, he said, the city would automatically destroy the records of anyone not convicted.  If the new plan becomes law, it will net few people like Mr. Blum.  The fastest-growing area of arrests in New York has been for marijuana possession. Blacks are arrested for that offense at eight times the rate of whites, although pot is more widely used by whites, according to a study by a Queens College professor.  “You won’t see a lot of people on Park Avenue wearing cashmere coats in handcuffs,” Mr. Blum said.  For complete story, click here.
Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy--January 17th, 2008--Background Evidence-based medicine is valuable to the extent that the evidence base is complete and unbiased. Selective publication of clinical trials - and the outcomes within those trials - can lead to unrealistic estimates of drug effectiveness and alter the apparent risk-benefit ratio.  Methods We obtained reviews from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for studies of 12 antidepressant agents involving 12,564 patients. We conducted a systematic literature search to identify matching publications. For trials that were reported in the literature, we compared the published outcomes with the FDA outcomes. We also compared the effect size derived from the published reports with the effect size derived from the entire FDA data set.  Results Among 74 FDA-registered studies, 31%, accounting for 3449 study participants, were not published. Whether and how the studies were published were associated with the study outcome. A total of 37 studies viewed by the FDA as having positive results were published; 1 study viewed as positive was not published. Studies viewed by the FDA as having negative or questionable results were, with 3 exceptions, either not published (22 studies) or published in a way that, in our opinion, conveyed a positive outcome (11 studies). According to the published literature, it appeared that 94% of the trials conducted were positive. By contrast, the FDA analysis showed that 51% were positive. Separate meta-analyses of the FDA and journal data sets showed that the increase in effect size ranged from 11 to 69% for individual drugs and was 32% overall.  Conclusions: We cannot determine whether the bias observed resulted from a failure to submit manuscripts on the part of authors and sponsors, from decisions by journal editors and reviewers not to publish, or both.  Selective reporting of clinical trial results may have adverse consequences for researchers, study participants, health care professionals, and patients.  For complete story, click here.
How the Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story 15 Jan 2008 Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows. The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defence for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself.  For complete story, click here.
Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list: CTV --Canada's 'torture awareness' watch list includes Syria, Iran, China, Afghanistan, the United States, Guantanamo Bay, and Israel. 16 Jan 2008 Omar Khadr's lawyers say they can't understand why Canada is not doing more to help their client in light of new evidence that Ottawa has put the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on a watch list for torture. Khadr -- a Canadian citizen who was just 15-years-old when he was captured in Afghanistan more than five years ago and taken to Guantanamo -- has claimed that he has been tortured at the prison. Now, CTV News has obtained documents that put Guantanamo Bay on a torture watch list.  For complete story, click here.
ACLU Report: Government Must Abandon Misguided Approach to Pandemic Preparedness (aclu.org) 14 Jan 2008 As fears of a flu pandemic have grown, the Bush administration has pursued a misguided approach to pandemic preparation that relies on a law enforcement/national security approach, rather than a public health approach to the problem, and which exposes Americans to unnecessary risk. That is the finding of an expert report being released today by the American Civil Liberties Union at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.  For complete story, click here.

Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Women and Inmates (1845 - 2007)--December 14th, 2007-- Think U.S. health authorities have never conducted outrageous medical experiments on children, women, minorities, homosexuals and inmates? Think again: This timeline, originally put together by Dani Veracity (a NewsTarget reporter), has been edited and updated with recent vaccination experimentation programs in Maryland and New Jersey. Here's what's really happening in the United States when it comes to exploiting the public for medical experimentation:

 


(1845 - 1849) J. Marion Sims, later hailed as the "father of gynecology," performs medical experiments on enslaved African women without anesthesia.These women would usually die of infection soon after surgery. Based on his belief that the movement of newborns' skull bones during protracted births causes trismus, he also uses a shoemaker's awl, a pointed tool shoemakers use to make holes in leather, to practice moving the skull bones of babies born to enslaved mothers (Brinker).

(1895)
New York pediatrician Henry Heiman infects a 4-year-old boy whom he calls "an idiot with chronic epilepsy" with gonorrhea as part of a medical experiment ("Human Experimentation: Before the Nazi Era and After").

(1896)
Dr. Arthur Wentworth turns 29 children at Boston's Children's Hospital into human guinea pigs when he performs spinal taps on them, just to test whether the procedure is harmful (Sharav).

(1906)
Harvard professor Dr. Richard Strong infects prisoners in the Philippines with cholera to study the disease; 13 of them die. He compensates survivors with cigars and cigarettes. During the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi doctors cite this study to justify their own medical experiments (Greger, Sharav).

(1911)
Dr. Hideyo Noguchi of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research publishes data on injecting an inactive syphilis preparation into the skin of 146 hospital patients and normal children in an attempt to develop a skin test for syphilis. Later, in 1913, several of these children's parents sue Dr. Noguchifor allegedly infecting their children with syphilis ("Reviews and Notes: History of Medicine: Subjected to Science: Human Experimentation in America before the Second World War").

(1913)
Medical experimenters "test" 15 children at the children's home St. Vincent's House in Philadelphia with tuberculin, resulting in permanent blindness in some of the children. Though the Pennsylvania House of Representatives records the incident, the researchers are not punished for the experiments ("Human Experimentation: Before the Nazi Era and After").

(1915)
Dr. Joseph Goldberger, under order of the U.S. Public Health Office, produces Pellagra, a debilitating disease that affects the central nervous system, in 12 Mississippi inmates to try to find a cure for the disease. One test subject later says that he had been through "a thousand hells." In 1935, after millions die from the disease, the director of the U.S Public Health Office would finally admit that officials had known that it was caused by a niacin deficiency for some time, but did nothing about it because it mostly affected poor African-Americans. During the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi doctors used this study to try to justify their medical experiments on concentration camp inmates (Greger; Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).

(1932)
(1932-1972) The U.S. Public Health Service in Tuskegee, Ala. diagnoses 400 poor, black sharecroppers with syphilis but never tells them of their illness nor treats them; instead researchers use the men as human guinea pigs to follow the symptoms and progression of the disease. They all eventually die from syphilis and their families are never told that they could have been treated (Goliszek, University of Virginia Health System Health Sciences Library).


(1939)
In order to test his theory on the roots of stuttering, prominent speech pathologist Dr. Wendell Johnson performs his famous "Monster Experiment" on 22 children at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Davenport. Dr. Johnson and his graduate students put the children under intense psychological pressure, causing them to switch from speaking normally to stuttering heavily. At the time, some of the students reportedly warn Dr. Johnson that, "in the aftermath of World War II, observers might draw comparisons to Nazi experiments on human subjects, which could destroy his career" (Alliance for Human Research Protection).

(1941)
Dr. William C. Black infects a 12-month-old baby with herpes as part of a medical experiment. At the time, the editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Francis Payton Rous, calls it "an abuse of power, an infringement of the rights of an individual, and not excusable because the illness which followed had implications for science" (Sharav).

An article in a 1941 issue of Archives of Pediatrics describes medical studies of the severe gum disease Vincent's angina in which doctors transmit the disease from sick children to healthy children with oral swabs (Goliszek).

Researchers give 800 poverty-stricken pregnant women at a Vanderbilt University prenatal clinic "cocktails" including radioactive iron in order to determine the iron requirements of pregnant women (Pacchioli).

(1942)
The Chemical Warfare Service begins mustard gas and lewisite experiments on 4,000 members of the U.S. military. Some test subjects don't realize they are volunteering for chemical exposure experiments, like 17-year-old Nathan Schnurman, who in 1944 thinks he is only volunteering to test "U.S. Navy summer clothes" (Goliszek).

Merck Pharmaceuticals President George Merck is named director of the War Research Service (WRS), an agency designed to oversee the establishment of a biological warfare program (Goliszek).

(1944 - 1946) A captain in the medical corps addresses an April 1944 memo to Col. Stanford Warren, head of the Manhattan Project's Medical Section, expressing his concerns about atom bomb component fluoride's central nervous system (CNS) effects and asking for animal research to be done to determine the extent of these effects: "Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect ... It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor ... Since work with these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know in advance what mental effects may occur after exposure." The following year, the Manhattan Project would begin human-based studies on fluoride's effects (Griffiths and Bryson).

The Manhattan Project medical team, led by the now infamous University of Rochester radiologist Col. Safford Warren, injects plutonium into patients at the University's teaching hospital, Strong Memorial (Burton Report).

(1945)
Continuing the Manhattan Project, researchers inject plutonium into three patients at the University of Chicago's Billings Hospital (Sharav).

The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence and the CIA begin Operation Paperclip, offering Nazi scientists immunity and secret identities in

exchange for work on top-secret government projects on aerodynamics and chemical warfare medicine in the United States ("Project Paperclip").

(1945 - 1955) In Newburgh, N.Y., researchers linked to the Manhattan Project begin the most extensive American study ever done on the health effects of fluoridating public drinking water (Griffiths and Bryson).

(1946)
Continuing the Newburg study of 1945, the Manhattan Project commissions the University of Rochester to study fluoride's effects on animals and humans in a project codenamed "Program F." With the help of the New York State Health Department, Program F researchers secretly collect and analyze blood and tissue samples from Newburg residents. The studies are sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission and take place at the University of Rochester Medical Center's Strong Memorial Hospital (Griffiths and Bryson).


(1946 - 1947) University of Rochester researchers inject four male and two female human test subjects with uranium-234 and uranium-235 in dosages ranging from 6.4 to 70.7 micrograms per one kilogram of body weight in order to study how much uranium they could tolerate before their kidneys become damaged (Goliszek).

Six male employees of a Chicago metallurgical laboratory are given water contaminated with plutonium-239 to drink so that researchers can learn how plutonium is absorbed into the digestive tract (Goliszek).

Researchers begin using patients in VA hospitals as test subjects for human medical experiments, cleverly worded as "investigations" or "observations" in medical study reports to avoid negative connotations and bad publicity (Sharav).

The American public finally learns of the biowarfare experiments being done at Fort Detrick from a report released by the War Department (Goliszek).

(1947)
Col. E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) issues a top-secret document (707075) dated Jan. 8. In it, he writes that "certain radioactive substances are being prepared for intravenous administration to human subjects as a part of the work of the contract" (Goliszek).

A secret AEC document dated April 17 reads, "It is desired that no document be released which refers to experiments with humans that might have an adverse reaction on public opinion or result in legal suits," revealing that the U.S. government was aware of the health risks its nuclear tests posed to military personnel conducting the tests or nearby civilians (Goliszek).

The CIA begins studying LSD's potential as a weapon by using military and civilian test subjects for experiments without their consent or even

knowledge. Eventually, these LSD studies will evolve into the MKULTRA program in 1953 (Sharav).

(1947 - 1953) The U.S. Navy begins Project Chatter to identify and test so-called "truth serums," such as those used by the Soviet Union to interrogate spies. Mescaline and the central nervous system depressant scopolamine are among the many drugs tested on human subjects (Goliszek).

(1948)
Based on the secret studies performed on Newburgh, N.Y. residents beginning in 1945, Project F researchers publish a report in the August 1948 edition of the Journal of the American Dental Association, detailing fluoride's health dangers. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) quickly censors it for "national security" reasons (Griffiths and Bryson).

(1950)
(1950 - 1953) The U.S. Army releases chemical clouds over six American and Canadian cities. Residents in Winnipeg, Canada, where a highly toxic chemical called cadmium is dropped, subsequently experience high rates of respiratory illnesses (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).

In order to determine how susceptible an American city could be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of Bacillus globigii bacteria from ships over the San Francisco shoreline. According to monitoring devices situated throughout the city to test the extent of infection, the eight thousand residents of San Francisco inhale five thousand or more bacteria particles, many becoming sick with pneumonia-like symptoms (Goliszek).

Dr. Joseph Strokes of the University of Pennsylvania infects 200 female prisoners with viral hepatitis to study the disease (Sharav).

Doctors at the Cleveland City Hospital study changes in cerebral blood flow by injecting test subjects with spinal anesthesia, inserting needles in their jugular veins and brachial arteries, tilting their heads down and, after massive blood loss causes paralysis and fainting, measuring their blood pressure. They often perform this experiment multiple times on the same subject (Goliszek).

Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, later of MKULTRA infamy due to his 1957 to1964 experiments on Canadians, publishes an article in the British Journal of Physical Medicine, in which he describes experiments that entail forcing schizophrenic patients at Manitoba's Brandon Mental Hospital to lie naked under 15- to 200-watt red lamps for up to eight hours per day. His other experiments include placing mental patients in an electric cage that overheats their internal body temperatures to 103 degrees Fahrenheit, and inducing comas by giving patients large injections of insulin (Goliszek).


(1951)
The U.S. Army secretly contaminates the Norfolk Naval Supply Center in Virginia and Washington, D.C.'s National Airport with a strain of bacteria chosen because African-Americans were believed to be more susceptible to it than Caucasians. The experiment causes food poisoning, respiratory problems and blood poisoning (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).

(1951 - 1956) Under contract with the Air Force's School of Aviation Medicine (SAM), the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston begins studying the effects of radiation on cancer patients -- many of them members of minority groups or indigents, according to sources -- in order to determine both radiation's ability to treat cancer and the possible long-term radiation effects of pilots flying nuclear-powered planes. The study lasts until 1956, involving 263 cancer patients. Beginning in 1953, the subjects are required to sign a waiver form, but it still does not meet the informed consent guidelines established by the Wilson memo released that year. The TBI studies themselves would continue at four different institutions -- Baylor University College of Medicine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bethesda and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine -- until 1971 (U.S. Department of Energy, Goliszek).

American, Canadian and British military and intelligence officials gather a small group of eminent psychologists to a secret meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal about Communist "thought-control techniques." They proposed a top-secret research program on behavior modification -- involving testing drugs, hypnosis, electroshock and lobotomies on humans (Barker).

(1952)
At the famous Sloan-Kettering Institute, Chester M. Southam injects live cancer cells into prisoners at the Ohio State Prison to study the progression of the disease. Half of the prisoners in this National Institutes of Health-sponsored (NIH) study are black, awakening racial suspicions stemming from Tuskegee, which was also an NIH-sponsored study (Merritte, et al.).

(1953 - 1974) The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) sponsors iodine studies at the University of Iowa. In the first study, researchers give pregnant women 100 to 200 microcuries of iodine-131 and then study the women's aborted embryos in order to learn at what stage and to what extent radioactive iodine crosses the placental barrier. In the second study, researchers give 12 male and 13 female newborns under 36 hours old and weighing between 5.5 and 8.5 pounds iodine-131 either orally or via intramuscular injection, later measuring the concentration of iodine in the newborns' thyroid glands (Goliszek).

As part of an AEC study, researchers feed 28 healthy infants at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine iodine-131 through a gastric tube and then test concentration of iodine in the infants' thyroid glands 24 hours later (Goliszek).

(1953 - 1957) Eleven patients at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are injected with uranium as part of the Manhattan Project (Sharav).

In an AEC-sponsored study at the University of Tennessee, researchers inject healthy two- to three-day-old newborns with approximately 60 rads of iodine-131 (Goliszek).

Newborn Daniel Burton becomes blind when physicians at Brooklyn Doctors Hospital perform an experimental high oxygen treatment for Retrolental Fibroplasia, a retinal disorder affecting premature infants, on him and other premature babies. The physicians perform the experimental treatment despite earlier studies showing that high oxygen levels cause blindness. Testimony in Burton v. Brooklyn Doctors Hospital (452 N.Y.S.2d875) later reveals that researchers continued to give Burton and other infants excess oxygen even after their eyes had swelled to dangerous levels (Goliszek, Sharav).

A 1953 article in Clinical Science describes a medical experiment in which researchers purposely blister the abdomens of 41 children, ranging in age from eight to 14, with cantharide in order to study how severely the substance irritates the skin (Goliszek).


The AEC performs a series of field tests known as "Green Run," dropping radiodine 131 and xenon 133 over the Hanford, Wash. site -- 500,000 acres encompassing three small towns (Hanford, White Bluffs and Richland) along the Columbia River (Sharav).

In an AEC-sponsored study to learn whether radioactive iodine affects premature babies differently from full-term babies, researchers at Harper Hospital in Detroit give oral doses of iodine-131 to 65 premature and full-term infants weighing between 2.1 and 5.5 pounds (Goliszek).

(1955 - 1957) In order to learn how cold weather affects human physiology, researchers give a total of 200 doses of iodine-131, a radioactive tracer that concentrates almost immediately in the thyroid gland, to 85 healthy Eskimos and 17 Athapascan Indians living in Alaska. They study the tracer within the body by blood, thyroid tissue, urine and saliva samples from the test subjects. Due to the language barrier, no one tells the test subjects what is being done to them, so there is no informed consent (Goliszek).

(1956 - 1957) U.S. Army covert biological weapons researchers release mosquitoes infected with yellow fever and dengue fever over Savannah, Ga., and Avon Park, Fla., to test the insects' ability to carry disease. After each test, Army agents pose as public health officials to test victims for effects and take pictures of the unwitting test subjects. These experiments result in a high incidence of fevers, respiratory distress, stillbirths, encephalitis and typhoid among the two cities' residents, as well as several deaths (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).

(1957)
The U.S. military conducts Operation Plumbbob at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Operation Pumbbob consists of 29 nuclear detonations, eventually creating radiation expected to result in a total 32,000 cases of thyroid cancer among civilians in the area. Around 18,000 members of the U.S. military participate in Operation Pumbbob's Desert Rock VII and VIII, which are designed to see how the average foot soldier physiologically and mentally responds to a nuclear battlefield ("Operation Plumbbob", Goliszek).

(1957 - 1964) As part of MKULTRA, the CIA pays McGill University Department of Psychiatry founder Dr. D. Ewen Cameron $69,000 to perform LSD studies and potentially lethal experiments on Canadians being treated for minor disorders like post-partum depression and anxiety at the Allan Memorial Institute, which houses the Psychiatry Department of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. The CIA encourages Dr. Cameron to fully explore his "psychic driving" concept of correcting madness through completely erasing one's memory and rewriting the psyche. These "driving" experiments involve putting human test subjects into drug-, electroshock- and sensory deprivation- induced vegetative states for up to three months, and then playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements for weeks or months in order to "rewrite" the "erased" psyche. Dr. Cameron also gives human test subjects paralytic drugs and electroconvulsive therapy 30 to 40 times, as part of his experiments. Most of Dr. Cameron's test subjects suffer permanent damage as a result of his work (Goliszek, "Donald Ewan Cameron").

In order to study how blood flows through children's brains, researchers at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia perform the following experiment on healthy children, ranging in age from three to 11: They insert needles into each child's femoral artery (thigh) and jugular vein (neck), bringing the blood down from the brain. Then, they force each child to inhale a special gas through a facemask. In their subsequent Journal of Clinical Investigation article on this study, the researchers note that, in order to perform the experiment, they had to restrain some of the child test subjects by bandaging them to boards (Goliszek).

(1958)
The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) drops radioactive materials over Point Hope, Alaska, home to the Inupiats, in a field test known under the codename "Project Chariot" (Sharav).

(1961)
In response to the Nuremberg Trials, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram begins his famous Obedience to Authority Study in order to answer his question "Could it be that (Adolf) Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices? " Male test subjects, ranging in age from 20 to 40 and coming from all education backgrounds, are told to give "learners" electric shocks for every wrong answer the learners give in response to word pair questions. In reality, the learners are actors and are not receiving electric shocks, but what matters is that the test subjects do not know that. Astoundingly, they keep on following orders and continue to administer increasingly high levels of "shocks," even after the actor learners show obvious physical pain ("Milgram Experiment") .


(1962)
Researchers at the Laurel Children's Center in Maryland test experimental acne antibiotics on children and continue their tests even after half of the young test subjects develop severe liver damage because of the experimental medication (Goliszek).

The FDA begins requiring that a new pharmaceutical undergo three human clinical trials before it will approve it. From 1962 to 1980, pharmaceutical companies satisfy this requirement by running Phase I trials, which determine a drug's toxicity, on prison inmates, giving them small amounts of cash for compensation (Sharav).

(1963)
Chester M. Southam, who injected Ohio State Prison inmates with live cancer cells in 1952, performs the same procedure on 22 senile, African-American female patients at the Brooklyn Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in order to watch their immunological response. Southam tells the patients that they are receiving "some cells," but leaves out the fact that they are cancer cells. He claims he doesn't obtain informed consent from the patients because he does not want to frighten them by telling them what he is doing, but he nevertheless temporarily loses his medical license because of it. Ironically, he eventually becomes president of the American Cancer Society (Greger, Merritte, et al.).

Researchers at the University of Washington directly irradiate the testes of 232 prison inmates in order to determine radiation's effects on testicular function. When these inmates later leave prison and have children, at least four have babies born with birth defects. The exact number is unknown because researchers never follow up on the men to see the long-term effects of their experiment (Goliszek).

(1963 - 1966) New York University researcher Saul Krugman promises parents with mentally disabled children definite enrollment into the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, N.Y., a resident mental institution for mentally retarded children, in exchange for their signatures on a consent form for procedures presented as "vaccinations. " In reality, the procedures involve deliberately infecting children with viral hepatitis by feeding them an extract made from the feces of infected patients, so that Krugman can study the course of viral hepatitis as well the effectiveness of a hepatitis vaccine (Hammer Breslow).

(1963 - 1971) Leading endocrinologist Dr. Carl Heller gives 67 prison inmates at Oregon State Prison in Salem $5 per month and $25 per testicular tissue biopsy in compensation for allowing him to perform irradiation experiments on their testes. If they receive vasectomies at the end of the study, the prisoners are given an extra $100 (Sharav, Goliszek).

Researchers inject a genetic compound called radioactive thymidine into the testicles of more than 100 Oregon State Penitentiary inmates to learn whether sperm production is affected by exposure to steroid hormones (Greger).

In a study published in Pediatrics, researchers at the University of California's Department of Pediatrics use 113 newborns ranging in age from one hour to three days old in a series of experiments used to study changes in blood pressure and blood flow. In one study, doctors insert a catheter through the newborns' umbilical arteries and into their aortas and then immerse the newborns' feet in ice water while recording aortic pressure. In another experiment, doctors strap 50 newborns to a circumcision board, tilt the table so that all the blood rushes to their heads and then measure their blood pressure (Goliszek).

(1964 - 1967) The Dow Chemical Company pays Professor Kligman $10,000 to learn how dioxin -- a highly toxic, carcinogenic component of Agent Orange -- and other herbicides affect human skin because workers at the chemical plant have been developing an acne-like condition called Chloracne and the company would like to know whether the chemicals they are handling are to blame. As part of the study, Professor Kligman applies roughly the amount of dioxin Dow employees are exposed to on the skin 60 prisoners, and is disappointed when the prisoners show no symptoms of Chloracne. In 1980 and 1981, the human guinea pigs used in this study would begin suing Professor Kligman for complications including lupus and psychological damage (Kaye).


(1965)
As part of a test codenamed "Big Tom," the Department of Defense sprays Oahu, Hawaii's most heavily populated island, with Bacillus globigii in order to simulate an attack on an island complex. Bacillus globigii causes infections in people with weakened immune systems, but this was not known to scientists at the time (Goliszek, Martin).

(1966)
U.S. Army scientists drop light bulbs filled with Bacillus subtilis through ventilation gates and into the New York City subway system, exposing more than one million civilians, including women and children, to the bacteria (Goliszek).

(1967)
The CIA places a chemical in the drinking water supply of the FDA headquarters in Washington, D.C. to see whether it is possible to spike drinking water with LSD and other substances (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers inject pregnant women with radioactive cortisol to see if the radioactive material will cross the placentas and affect the fetuses (Goliszek).

The U.S. Army pays Professor Kligman to apply skin-blistering chemicals to Holmesburg Prison inmates' faces and backs, so as to, in Professor Kligman's words, "learn how the skin protects itself against chronic assault from toxic chemicals, the so-called hardening process," information which would have both offensive and defensive applications for the U.S. military (Kaye).

Professor Kligman develops Retin-A as an acne cream (and eventually a wrinkle cream), turning him into a multi-millionaire (Kaye).

Researchers paralyze 64 prison inmates in California with a neuromuscular compound called succinylcholine, which produces suppressed breathing that feels similar to drowning. When five prisoners refuse to participate in the medical experiment, the prison's special treatment board gives researchers permission to inject the prisoners with the drug against their will (Greger).

(1968)
Planned Parenthood of San Antonio and South Central Texas and the Southwest Foundation for Research and Education begin an oral contraceptive study on 70 poverty-stricken Mexican-American women, giving only half the oral contraceptives they think they are receiving and the other half a placebo. When the results of this study are released a few years later, it stirs tremendous controversy among Mexican-Americans (Sharav, Sauter).

(1969)
Experimental drugs are tested on mentally disabled children in Milledgeville, Ga., without any institutional approval whatsoever (Sharav).

Judge Sam Steinfield's dissent in Strunk v. Strunk, 445 S.W.2d 145 marks the first time a judge has ever suggested that the Nuremberg Code be applied in American court cases (Sharav).

(1970)
Under order from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which also sponsored the Tuskegee Experiment, the free childcare program at Johns Hopkins University collects blood samples from 7,000 African-American youth, telling their parents that they are checking for anemia but actually checking for an extra Y chromosome (XYY), believed to be a biological predisposition to crime. The program director, Digamber Borganokar, does this experiment without Johns Hopkins University's permission (Greger, Merritte, et al.).

(1971)
Stanford University conducts the Stanford Prison Experiment on a group of college students in order to learn the psychology of prison life. Some students are given the role as prison guards, while the others are given the role of prisoners. After only six days, the proposed two-week study has to end because of its psychological effects on the participants. The "guards" had begun to act sadistic, while the "prisoners" started to show signs of depression and severe psychological stress (University of New Hampshire).

An article entitled "Viral Infections in Man Associated with Acquired Immunological Deficiency States" appears in Federation Proceedings. Dr. MacArthur and Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division have, at this point, been conducting mycoplasma research to create a synthetic immunosuppressive agent for about one year, again suggesting that this research may have produced HIV (Goliszek).


(1973)
An Ad Hoc Advisory Panel issues its Final Report on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, writing, "Society can no longer afford to leave the balancing of individual rights against scientific progress to the scientific community" (Sharav).

(1977)
The National Urban League holds its National Conference on Human Experimentation, stating, "We don't want to kill science but we don't want science to kill, mangle and abuse us" (Sharav).

(1978)
The CDC begins experimental hepatitis B vaccine trials in New York. Its ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men. Professor Wolf Szmuness of the Columbia University School of Public Health had made the vaccine's infective serum from the pooled blood serum of hepatitis-infected homosexuals and then developed it in chimpanzees, the only animal susceptible to hepatitis B, leading to the theory that HIV originated in chimpanzees before being transferred over to humans via this vaccine. A few months after 1,083 homosexual men receive the vaccine, New York physicians begin noticing cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, Mycoplasma penetrans and a new strain of herpes virus among New York's homosexual community -- diseases not usually seen among young, American men, but that would later be known as common opportunistic diseases associated with AIDS (Goliszek).

(1980)
According to blood samples tested years later for HIV, 20 percent of all New York homosexual men who participated in the 1978 hepatitis B vaccine experiment are HIV-positive by this point (Goliszek).

The first AIDS case appears in San Francisco (Goliszek).

(1981)
The CDC acknowledges that a disease known as AIDS exists and confirms 26 cases of the disease -- all in previously healthy homosexuals living in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- again supporting the speculation that AIDS originated from the hepatitis B experiments from 1978 and 1980 (Goliszek).

(1982)
Thirty percent of the test subjects used in the CDC's hepatitis B vaccine experiment are HIV-positive by this point (Goliszek).

(1985)
A former U.S. Army sergeant tries to sue the Army for using drugs on him in without his consent or even his knowledge in United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669. Justice Antonin Scalia writes the decision, clearing the U.S. military from any liability in past, present or future medical experiments without informed consent (Merritte, et al..

(1987)
Philadelphia resident Doris Jackson discovers that researchers have removed her son's brain post mortem for medical study. She later learns that the state of Pennsylvania has a doctrine of "implied consent," meaning that unless a patient signs a document stating otherwise, consent for organ removal is automatically implied (Merritte, et al.).

(1988)
(1988 - 2001) The New York City Administration for Children's Services begins allowing foster care children living in about two dozen children's homes to be used in National Institutes of Health-sponsored (NIH) experimental AIDS drug trials. These children -- totaling 465 by the program's end -- experience serious side effects, including inability to walk, diarrhea, vomiting, swollen joints and cramps. Children's home employees are unaware that they are giving the HIV-infected children experimental drugs, rather than standard AIDS treatments (New York City ACS, Doran).

(1990)
The United States sends 1.7 million members of the armed forces, 22 percent of whom are African-American, to the Persian Gulf for the Gulf War ("Desert Storm"). More than 400,000 of these soldiers are ordered to take an experimental nerve agent medication called pyridostigmine, which is later believed to be the cause of Gulf War Syndrome -- symptoms ranging from skin disorders, neurological disorders, incontinence, uncontrollable drooling and vision problems -- affecting Gulf War veterans (Goliszek; Merritte, et al.).

The CDC and Kaiser Pharmaceuticals of Southern California inject 1,500 six-month-old black and Hispanic babies in Los Angeles with an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. Adding to the risk, children less than a year old may not have an adequate amount of myelin around their nerves, possibly resulting in impaired neural development because of the vaccine. The CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected into their children was experimental (Goliszek).


The FDA allows the U.S. Department of Defense to waive the Nuremberg Code and use unapproved drugs and vaccines in Operation Desert Shield (Sharav).

(1992)
Columbia University's New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine give 100 males -- mostly African-American and Hispanic, all between the ages of six and 10 and all the younger brothers of juvenile delinquents -- 10 milligrams of fenfluramine (fen-fen) per kilogram of body weight in order to test the theory that low serotonin levels are linked to violent or aggressive behavior. Parents of the participants received $125 each, including a $25 Toys 'R' Us gift certificate (Goliszek).

(1994)
President Clinton appoints the Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), which finally reveals the horrific experiments conducted during the Cold War era in its ACHRE Report.

(1995)
A 19-year-old University of Rochester student named Nicole Wan dies from participating in an MIT-sponsored experiment that tests airborne pollutant chemicals on humans. The experiment pays $150 to human test subjects (Sharav).

In the Mar. 15 President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), former human subjects, including those who were used in experiments as children, give sworn testimonies stating that they were subjected to radiation experiments and/or brainwashed, hypnotized, drugged, psychologically tortured, threatened and even raped during CIA experiments. These sworn statements include:

    * Christina DeNicola's statement that, in Tucson, Ariz., from 1966 to 1976, "Dr. B" performed mind control experiments using drugs, post-hypnotic injection and drama, and irradiation experiments on her neck, throat, chest and uterus. She was only four years old when the experiments started.

    * Claudia Mullen's testimony that Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (of MKULTRA fame) used chemicals, radiation, hypnosis, drugs, isolation in tubs of water, sleep deprivation, electric shock, brainwashing and emotional, sexual and verbal abuse as part of mind control experiments that had the ultimate objective of turning her, who was only a child at the time, into the "perfect spy." She tells the advisory committee that researchers justified this abuse by telling her that she was serving her country "in their bold effort to fight Communism."

    * Suzanne Starr's statement that "a physician, who was retired from the military, got children from the mountains of Colorado for experiments. " She says she was one of those children and that she was the victim of experiments involving environmental deprivation to the point of forced psychosis, spin programming, injections, rape and frequent electroshock and mind control sessions. "I have fought self-destructive programmed messages to kill myself, and I know what a programmed message is, and I don't act on them," she tells the advisory committee of the experiments' long-lasting effects, even in her adulthood (Goliszek).


President Clinton publicly apologizes to the thousands of people who were victims of MKULTRA and other mind-control experimental programs (Sharav).

President Clinton appoints the National Bioethics Advisory Committee (Sharav).

Justice Edward Greenfield of the New York State Supreme Court rules that parents do not have the right to volunteer their mentally incapacitated children for non-therapeutic medical research studies and that no mentally incapacitated person whatsoever can be used in a medical experiment without informed consent (Sharav).

(1996)
Professor Adil E. Shamoo of the University of Maryland and the organization Citizens for Responsible Care and Research sends a written testimony on the unethical use of veterans in medical research to the U.S. Senate's Committee on Governmental Affairs, stating: "This type of research is on-going nationwide in medical centers and VA hospitals supported by tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers money. These experiments are high risk and are abusive, causing not only physical and psychic harm to the most vulnerable groups but also degrading our society's system of basic human values. Probably tens of thousands of patients are being subjected to such experiments" ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").


The Department of Defense admits that Gulf War soldiers were exposed to chemical agents; however, 33 percent of all military personnel afflicted with Gulf War Syndrome never left the United States during the war, discrediting the popular mainstream belief that these symptoms are a result of exposure to Iraqi chemical weapons (Merritte, et al.).

President Clinton issues a formal apology to the subjects of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and their families (Sharav).

(1997)
In an experiment sponsored by the U.S. government, researchers withhold medical treatment from HIV-positive African-American pregnant women, giving them a placebo rather than AIDS medication (Sharav).

On Sept. 18, victims of unethical medical experiments at major U.S. research centers, including the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) testify before the National Bioethics Advisory Committee (Sharav).

(1999)
Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D. testifies on "The Unethical Use of Human Beings in High-Risk Research Experiments" before the U.S. House of Representatives' House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, alerting the House on the use of American veterans in VA Hospitals as human guinea pigs and calling for national reforms ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").

Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania inject 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger with an experimental gene therapy as part of an FDA-approved clinical trial. He dies four days later and his father suspects that he was not fully informed of the experiment's risk (Goliszek)

During a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of Propulsid for infant acid reflux, nine-month-old Gage Stevens dies at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh (Sharav).

(2000)
The U.S. Air Force and rocket maker Lockheed Martin sponsor a Loma Linda University study that pays 100 Californians $1,000 to eat a dose of perchlorate -- a toxic component of rocket fuel that causes cancer, damages the thyroid gland and hinders normal development in children and fetuses -- every day for six months. The dose eaten by the test subjects is 83 times the safe dose of perchlorate set by the State of California, which has perchlorate in some of its drinking water. This Loma Linda study is the first large-scale study to use human subjects to test the harmful effects of a water pollutant and is "inherently unethical," according to Environmental Working Group research director Richard Wiles (Goliszek, Envirnomental Working Group).

(2001)
On its website, the FDA admits that its policy to include healthy children in human experiments "has led to an increasing number of proposals for studies of safety and pharmacokinetics, including those in children who do not have the condition for which the drug is intended" (Goliszek).

In Higgins and Grimes v. Kennedy Krieger Institute The Maryland Court of Appeals makes a landmark decision regarding the use of children as test subjects, prohibiting non-therapeutic experimentation on children on the basis of "best interest of the individual child" (Sharav).

(2002)
President George W. Bush signs the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA), offering pharmaceutical companies six-month exclusivity in exchange for running clinical drug trials on children. This will of course increase the number of children used as human test subjects (Hammer Breslow).

(2003)
Two-year-old Michael Daddio of Delaware dies of congestive heart failure. After his death, his parents learn that doctors had performed an experimental surgery on him when he was five months old, rather than using the established surgical method of repairing his congenital heart defect that the parents had been told would be performed. The established procedure has a 90- to 95-percent success rate, whereas the inventor of the procedure performed on baby Daddio would later be fired from his hospital in 2004 (Willen and Evans, "Parents of Babies Who Died in Delaware Tests Weren't Warned").

(2004)
In his BBC documentary "Guinea Pig Kids" and BBC News article of the same name, reporter Jamie Doran reveals that children involved in the New York City foster care system were unwitting human subjects in experimental AIDS drug trials from 1988 to, in his belief, present times (Doran).


(2005)
In response to the BBC documentary and article "Guinea Pig Kids", the New York City Administration of Children's Services (ACS) sends out an Apr. 22 press release admitting that foster care children were used in experimental AIDS drug trials, but says that the last trial took place in 2001 and thus the trials are not continuing, as BBC reporter Jamie Doran claims. The ACS gives the extent and statistics of the experimental drug trials, based on its own records, and contracts the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct "an independent review of ACS policy and practice regarding the enrollment of HIV-positive children in foster care in clinical drug trials during the late 1980s and 1990s" (New York City ACS).

Bloomberg releases a series of reports suggesting that SFBC, the largest experimental drug testing center of its time, exploits immigrant and other low-income test subjects and runs tests with limited credibility due to violations of both the FDA's and SFBC's own testing guidelines (Bloomberg).

In October 2005, the American Chemistry Council gave the EPA $2.1 million to study how children ranging from infancy to three years old ingest, inhale or absorb chemicals. Like IG Farben was for the German pharmaceutical companies of Nazi Germany, the American Chemistry Council acts much like a front group for chemical industry bigwigs like Bayer (which was incidentally also a member of IG Farben), BP, Chevron, Dow, DuPont, Exxon, Honeywell, 3M, Monsanto and Procter & Gamble. Studies have already proven that the chemicals made by these companies have long-term effects on children and adults. A short, two-year study like CHEERS would of course fail to reveal these long-term effects and the American Chemistry Council could then publicize these findings as "proof" that its chemicals were safe.

2006 - 2007
Merck begins pushing U.S. states to mandate the vaccination of teenage girls with Gardasil, a vaccine they claim prevents HPV, a sexually-transmitted virus. In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- who was revealed to have financial ties with Merck, the vaccine manufacturer -- mandates the vaccine in teenage girls (see http://www.newstarg et.com/021572. html ). A key Merck lobbyist named Mike Toomey, it turned out, had served as Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff.

The Texas decision to mandate the vaccine was a notable and troubling milestone in public health policy because it is the first time a vaccine is mandated for a disease that cannot be contracted through casual contact in public schools. It also invoked "gunpoint medicine," or the threat of arrest at gunpoint for not agreeing to receive state-mandated injections.

The Gardasil vaccinations remain a grand medical experiment being performed on children because it is not yet known what the long-term side effects of the vaccination will be, nor whether the vaccinations will actually lower rates of cervical cancer as intended.

2007
Maryland's governor and public health officials, fed up with the unwillingness of over 2,000 parents to have their children vaccinated, invoke gunpoint medicine yet again by threatening the parents with arrest and up to 30 days of imprisonment if they don't submit their children to state-mandated vaccinations. The children and parents are later rounded up at a county courthouse, guarded by attack dogs and security personnel, while a district Judge oversees the mass injection of schoolchildren with vaccines that contain toxic mercury. (See http://www.newstarg et.com/022242. html )

Present day: New Jersey mandates the mass vaccination of all children with four different vaccines, stripping away the health freedoms of parents and unleashing a mass medical experiment that exploits the bodies of children and enriches pharmaceutical companies while criminalizing parents who refuse to participate.

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Willen, Liz and David Evans. "Doctor Who Died in Drug Test Was Betrayed by System He Trusted." Bloomberg. Nov. 2, 2005.

---. "Parents of Babies Who Died in Delaware Tests Weren't Warned." Bloomberg. Nov. 2, 2005.  For complete story, click here.
Iraqis resort to selling children 04 Jan 2008 Abu Muhammad, a Baghdad resident, found it difficult to let go of his daughter's hand but he had already convinced himself that selling her to a family outside Iraq would provide her with a better future. "The war disgraced my family. I lost relatives including my wife among thousands of victims of sectarian violence and was forced to sell my daughter to give my other children something to eat," he told Al Jazeera... Ruwaida Saleh, 31, a mother of three, is also praying for her eight-year-old daughter Hala’s safety. Saleh says her daughter disappeared in July 2007 and has not been heard from since. "The police told us to give up, but I cannot. I have nightmares she is being raped," she said. [Hollywood writers can stay on strike, because George W. Bush is providing all the scripts that the producers of Law & Order: SVU would ever need. --Lori Price]  For complete story, click here.
Drugs Offer No Benefit in Curbing Aggression, Study Finds--January 4th, 2008--The drugs most widely used to manage aggressive outbursts in intellectually disabled people are no more effective than placebos for most patients and may be less so, researchers report. The finding, being published Friday, sharply challenges standard medical practice in mental health clinics and nursing homes in the United States and around the world.  In recent years, many doctors have begun to use the so-called antipsychotic drugs, which were developed to treat schizophrenia, as all-purpose tranquilizers to settle threatening behavior - in children with attention-deficit problems, college students with depression, older people with Alzheimer's disease and intellectually handicapped people.  The new study tracked 86 adults with low I.Q.'s in community housing in England, Wales and Australia over more than a month of treatment. It found a 79 percent reduction in aggressive behavior among those taking dummy pills, compared with a reduction of 65 percent or less in those taking antipsychotic drugs.  The researchers focused on two drugs, Risperdal by Janssen, and an older drug, Haldol, but said the findings almost certainly applied to all similar medications. Such drugs account for more than $10 billion in annual sales, and research suggests that at least half of all prescriptions are for unapproved "off label" uses - often to treat aggression or irritation.  For complete story, click here.
Who's Behind the Bible of Mental Illness--Critics say that touted efforts against conflicts fall short--December 20th, 2007--In what is arguably the most important mental-health development since the early 1990s, the American Psychiatric Association will spend the next five years producing a new edition of the psychiatrist's "bible," the official guidebook for diagnosing mental problems. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as it is known, is hugely influential because it determines what is and is not a mental disorder. In turn, it is responsible for much of the sales growth in prescription drugs.  The most recent edition of the DSM, published in 1994, drew controversy because it turned what had once been a thin guidebook into an 886-page tome that significantly expanded the definition of mental illness. Traits once associated with shyness, for example, became symptoms of "social anxiety disorder." And drug companies went on to spend millions promoting medicines for those problems. Eyebrows were further raised in 2006 when a study showed that more than half of the researchers who worked on the manual had at least one financial tie to the drug industry.  Transparency. This time around, pledging to avoid even the appearance of conflicts, the APA has instituted screening procedures for the 27 members of its DSM task force, asking them for detailed financial information about stocks, honoraria, and consulting fees from drug interests. It calls the effort the "most transparent" in the medical industry. Yet the summaries of the disclosure statements that were recently released to the public are remarkably spare; they show only the existence of corporate connections, not their dollar amount or their duration. The result is a document that even an APA board member suggested is not very revealing. In a 2006 memo to the board obtained by U.S. News, William Carpenter wrote: "Simple listing of all relationships is not very informative and does not identify potential conflicts that may need to be resolved."  Critics say the limited information violates the spirit of disclosure.  "There is disclosure, and then there is disclosure," says Daniel Carlat, a psychiatrist and former consultant to drug companies. "There is a big difference between $500,000 and $500. It is one thing to disclose in a generic way, to say that a psychiatrist has had some consulting with a company, but that doesn't tell you a number of things."  Documents reviewed by U.S. News, including sec filings and patent requests, also show connections between doctors and drug companies that don't necessarily turn up in the disclosures. In general, the disclosures paint an incomplete picture of the degree to which the corporate and clinical worlds are increasingly enmeshed. In other cases, they simply reflect mistakes.  For complete story, click here.
Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan 29 Dec 2007 The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism. Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult. They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness." Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.  For complete story, click here.
CDC Tracking Down 44 Passengers In 17 States 29 Dec 2007 Health officials are trying to track down American Airlines passengers in 17 states for testing after a California woman flew while sick with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a California woman boarded an American Airlines flight in New Delhi, India, on December 13th. The flight stopped at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport before continuing on to San Francisco. CDC officials are working on tracking down 44 people who sat within two rows of the woman on the flight. She is being treated in isolation at a California hospital.  For complete story, click here.
Saddam Hussein Provided More Food Than the U.S. 27 Dec 3007 The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive. The government also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing system by five million by June 2008... The programme has continued into the U.S.-led occupation. But now the U.S.-backed Iraqi government has announced it will halve the essential items in the ration because of "insufficient funds and spiralling inflation."  For complete story, click here.
Reading the Mind Of the Body Politic--December 14th, 2007--During last Sunday's Republican presidential debate in Miami, Mitt Romney declared he was the only candidate who had stopped talking about universal health care and "actually got the job done." Across the country, in San Francisco, five volunteers watched the debate while wearing electrode-studded headsets that track electrical activity in the brain.  When Mr. Romney said the words "got the job done," there was a pronounced shift in activity in their prefrontal lobes. "They liked what they were hearing," said Brad Feldman, an analyst with EmSense Corp., the company that conducted the test.  This campaign season, the newest thing in presidential politics is neuroscience. Driven by new research that suggests monitoring voters' brains, pupils and pulses may be more effective than listening to what they say, EmSense is one of a cottage industry of neuromarketing firms across the country that are pitching their services to presidential campaigns. Seattle's Lucid Systems is trumpeting a biofeedback program that tracks brain waves, pupil dilation, perspiration and facial-muscle movements, while a Chicago company says it is talking to campaigns about its voice-analysis technology, which is used in insurance-fraud cases. Drew Westen, a clinical psychologist at Emory University who has used brain scans to study voters, recently launched Westen Strategies, a consultancy that promises to help clients understand the "neural networks" that govern political behavior. Earlier this year, staffers working for John Edwards flew Mr. Westen in to watch the candidate on the campaign trail and offer feedback (Mr. Westen and a campaign spokesman declined to elaborate). Campaign-strategy consultant, TargetPoint, which is working for Mr. Romney, has begun running Internet surveys that test voters' subconscious impressions and is considering conducting research with brain scanners.  The goal is to deploy the same techniques currently used to track the way consumers respond to cars, perfume, videogames, Web browsers and movie trailers. The information the researchers gather could help candidates make any number of adjustments, including which issues to discuss in which states, what specific terms to use in stump speeches and what cadence or facial expressions to use when delivering them. "Political marketing is a fairly pure analog to commercial marketing," says David Remer, chairman of Lucid Systems. "I'm looking at a package of shampoo the same way I'm looking at my next leader."  Some prominent scientists say neuromarketing firms may be promising more than they can deliver. Liz Phelps, the director of a neuroscience laboratory at New York University who has reviewed recent studies, is critical of the idea that images of brain activity can predict how people will behave -- especially when it comes to politics. Last month, the journal "Nature" criticized a study conducted by a neuromarketing firm this year that had used brain scans to measure people's responses to the 2008 presidential candidates. "Does anyone need a $3 million scanner to conclude that Hillary needs to work on her support from swing voters?" it said.  One reason these tactics are catching on is the increasing wealth of campaigns. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the candidates have spent $420 million in the first nine months of this year, which is more than double the $182 million spent in the first nine months of 2003. Jon Krosnick, a Stanford political scientist who works with the American National Election Studies, an academic research project that surveys voter attitudes and behaviors, says candidates may be more interested in measuring the deeper biases of voters in a campaign whose contenders include a Mormon, a woman and an African-American. "We need a tricky way to get into people's minds and find out who they're going to vote for instead of asking directly," Mr. Krosnick says.  For complete story, click here.
Vermont Town Seeks Bush, Cheney Arrests for War Crimes 28 Dec 2007 President [sic] Bush and Vice President [sic] Cheney may soon have a new reason to avoid Vermont: In one town, activists want them subject to arrest for war crimes. A group in Brattleboro is petitioning to put an item on the Town Meeting agenda in March that would make Bush - who's been to every state except Vermont as president - and Vice President Cheney subject to arrest and indictment if they visit the southeastern Vermont town.  (Unable to locate story ati time of archiving.  Source: www.montanasnewsstation.com  Date: December 28, 2007)
Polish Troops Face War Crimes Charges 28 Dec 2007 Reports that Poland's troops in Afghanistan may have committed a war crime against defenseless civilians has shocked the country's public, which remains sensitive to the performance of the Polish military abroad. In August... Polish reinforcements soon arrived and opened fire on a nearby village. The mortar attack on the village of Nangar Khel, close to the Afghan-Pakistani border, killed eight Afghani civilians and left three women crippled. A pregnant woman and a child were among the dead.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan 26 Dec 2007 Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning... Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.washingtonpost.com  Date: December 26, 2007)
Nigeria court seeks 3 arrests in Pfizer drug trial--December 24th, 2007--KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian court on Monday ordered the arrests of three of the defendants in a trial over a drug test conducted by Pfizer in 1996 which Nigerian authorities say killed 11 children and left others disabled.  The northern state of Kano is suing Pfizer for $2 billion in damages and pressing criminal charges over the testing of the antibiotic Trovan on children in Kano during a meningitis epidemic that killed 12,000 children in six months.  The federal government is suing for an additional $6.5 billion and also pressing criminal charges.  For complete story, click here.
FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics $1 Billion Project to Include Images of Irises and Faces 22 Dec 2007 The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad. Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here... In the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.  For complete story, click here.
Blood experiment disproportionate Cities had higher numbers of minorities--December 21st, 2007--A controversial clinical trial in which hundreds of people were unknowingly injected with an experimental blood substitute primarily took place in cities with a disproportionate number of minorities, including Detroit.  Thirteen of the 20 cities have higher minority populations than the national average, including the small Illinois town of Maywood, where 83% of the population is black.  In Detroit, at Detroit Receiving and Sinai-Grace hospitals, minorities accounted for 15 of the 16 people unknowingly experimented on, records obtained by the Free Press show.  Since urban areas with large minority populations tend to see more trauma cases, it's often easier to target those areas for research, said bioethicist Harriet Washington. But bioethicists argue that the tendency to choose those areas over an abundance of trauma centers in predominately white cities, including Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, is unfair.  Civil rights groups and bioethicists contend researchers are ethically obligated to capture a representative sample of the country because the products being studied are designed to benefit everyone.  In the study meant to combat a critical blood shortage, 13 cities combined for an average minority population nearly twice the national average. The blood substitute, Polyheme, is made by extracting oxygen-carrying hemoglobin from human red blood cells. In the event of shortages, it would replace the traditional treatment, a saline solution and blood.  People who unknowingly participated in the trial were unconscious because of trauma, such as gunshot wounds and car crashes.  "We are an African-American community that has been treated like guinea pigs," said the Rev. Charles Williams, president of the National Council for Community Empowerment, a civil rights group.  So far, studies have shown that recipients of the blood substitute faced higher health risks than those who received the traditional treatment.  Results of the trial, released last year, showed 46 of the 349 subjects who received Polyheme nationwide died. By contrast, 35 of the 363 patients given the traditional treatment died. Two of the 10 people in Detroit injected with Polyheme died. Both were black.  Martha Milete, who is Hispanic, received Polyheme while being rushed to the hospital after she was shot in the chest by an intruder in her Detroit home in January 2006. She said it's unfair that most subjects were minorities.  "Whether I survived or not, it was wrong," Milete said.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.freep.com  Date: December 21, 2007)
'We'll have procedures and we're not going to advertise what they are.' Next evacuees will face criminal checks, wear 'special wristbands' --'Certain people' to be put on 'special busses' during evacuations 15 Dec 2007 Texans seeking to escape the next hurricane or state emergency by evacuation bus will first be submitted to criminal background checks, the state's emergency management director says. Jack Colley would not discuss how thorough the background checks will be. Earlier this month, it was announced AT&T Inc. has contracted with the Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management to provide electronic wristbands for those residents 'wanting' them, before they board an evacuation bus... That person's name and their bus information would be sent wirelessly to the University of Texas Center for Space Research data center.  For complete story, click here.
"When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." --Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), quoting Sinclair Lewis regarding Mike Huckabee's subliminal 'floating cross' ad entitled, 'What really matters.,' on Fox & Friends 18 Dec 2007 (video) 

250 former Iraq prisoners claim torture in new US lawsuit 18 Dec 2007 More than 250 people once held in Iraqi prisons, including the notorious Abu Ghraib, have filed suit against a US military contractor for their alleged torture, attorneys said Tuesday. The Center for Constitutional Rights said a lawsuit was filed in US federal court on Monday asking for millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages against CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Virginia.  For complete story, click here.
'Within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans' phone usage.' Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry 16 Dec 2007 For months, the Bush regime has waged a high-profile campaign, including personal lobbying by President [sic] Bush and closed-door briefings by top officials, to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program... In December 2000, N.S.A. officials wrote a transition report to the incoming Bush administration, saying the agency must become a "powerful, permanent presence" on the commercial communications network, a goal that they acknowledged would raise legal and privacy issues... A lawsuit filed in federal court in New Jersey claims that in February 2001, the N.S.A. met with AT&T officials to discuss replicating a network center in Bedminster, N.J., to give the agency access to all the global phone and e-mail traffic that ran through it.  For complete story, click here.
U.N. rights envoy suspects CIA of Guantanamo torture 13 Dec 2007 A United Nations investigator said on Thursday he strongly suspected the CIA of using torture on terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, suggesting many were not being prosecuted to keep the abuse from emerging at trial.  For complete story, click here.
Secret U.S. Intelligence Court Intends to Keep Wiretap Rulings Under Wraps 12 Dec 2007 A secret U.S. intelligence court has issued its third public ruling in 30 years, declaring that while it agrees on the benefits of making its rulings on warrantless wiretapping public, it will keep them secret. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) cited the "vitally important need to protect national security" in rejecting a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to release documents on the Bush regime's warrantless wiretapping program.  For complete story, click here.
CIA photos 'show UK Guantanamo detainee was tortured' 10 Dec 2007 Lawyers for a British resident who the US government refuses to release from Guantanamo Bay [Binyam Mohammed] have identified the existence of photographs taken by CIA agents that they say show their client suffered horrific injuries under torture.  For complete story, click here.
Lawyers Reveal Existence of 'Camp 7' Secret Guantánamo Detention Unit --Prisoner says subjected to "state-sanctioned torture" in secret C.I.A. prisons 09 Dec 2007 The first of the so-called high value Guantánamo prisoners to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to "state-sanctioned torture" while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment. The request, in a filing by his lawyers, was made on Nov. 29, before officials from the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two 'Qaeda' operatives that current and former officials said included the use of harsh techniques torture. Lawyers for the prisoner, Majid Khan, claim he "was subjected to an aggressive C.I.A. detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture" to numerous detainees. The documents also suggest that Mr. Khan and other high-value prisoners are now being held in a previously undisclosed area of the Guantánamo prison he called Camp 7.  For complete story, click here.
Huckabee wanted to isolate AIDS patients 08 Dec 2007 Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk." As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. "If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," Huckabee wrote.  For complete story, click here.
'Homegrown Terror' Act an Attack on Internet Freedom?--Decemer 5th, 2007--by US Congressman Ron Paul--I regret that I was unavoidably out of town on October 23, 2007, when a vote was taken on HR 1955, the Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. Had I been able to vote, I would have voted against this misguided and dangerous piece of legislation. This legislation focuses the weight of the US government inward toward its own citizens under the guise of protecting us against "violent radicalization. "  I would like to note that this legislation was brought to the floor for a vote under suspension of regular order. These so-called "suspension" bills are meant to be non-controversial, thereby negating the need for the more complete and open debate allowed under regular order. It is difficult for me to believe that none of my colleagues in Congress view HR 1955, with its troubling civil liberties implications, as "non-controversial. "  There are many causes for concern in HR 1955. The legislation specifically singles out the Internet for "facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process" in the United States. Such language may well be the first step toward US government regulation of what we are allowed to access on the Internet. Are we, for our own good, to be subjected to the kind of governmental control of the Internet that we see in unfree societies? This bill certainly sets us on that course.  This seems to be an unwise and dangerous solution in search of a real problem. Previous acts of ideologically- motivated violence, though rare, have been resolved successfully using law enforcement techniques, existing laws against violence, and our court system. Even if there were a surge of "violent radicalization" – a claim for which there is no evidence – there is no reason to believe that our criminal justice system is so flawed and weak as to be incapable of trying and punishing those who perpetrate violent acts.  This legislation will set up a new government bureaucracy to monitor and further study the as-yet undemonstrated pressing problem of homegrown terrorism and radicalization. It will no doubt prove to be another bureaucracy that artificially inflates problems so as to guarantee its future existence and funding. But it may do so at great further expense to our civil liberties. What disturbs me most about this legislation is that it leaves the door wide open for the broadest definition of what constitutes "radicalization. " Could otherwise nonviolent anti-tax, antiwar, or anti-abortion groups fall under the watchful eye of this new government commission? Assurances otherwise in this legislation are unconvincing.  In addition, this legislation will create a Department of Homeland Security-established university-based body to further study radicalization and to "contribute to the establishment of training, written materials, information, analytical assistance and professional resources to aid in combating violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.  " I wonder whether this is really a legitimate role for institutes of higher learning in a free society.  Legislation such as this demands heavy-handed governmental action against American citizens where no crime has been committed. It is yet another attack on our Constitutionally- protected civil liberties. It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life.  For complete story, click here.
US says it has right to kidnap British citizens 02 Dec 2007 America has told Britain that it can "kidnap" British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the "extraordinary rendition" of terrorist suspects. The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington. Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate. [Well, Washington still believes that the "election" of George W. Bush --in 2000 and 2004 --is "legitimate." --LRP]  For complete story, click here.
American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq 25 Nov 2007 Members of the Baghdad Brigade receive $300 a man each month from the Americans, who also provide vehicles, uniforms and flak jackets. In return the brigade 'keeps out' Al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh], dismantles roadside bombs and patrols the area, a task performed with considerable swagger by many of its 4,000 recruits.  For complete story, click here.
US is 'worst' imperialist: archbishop 25 Nov 2007 The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday. Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by "clearing the decks" with a "quick burst of violent action" had led to "the worst of all worlds".  For complete story, click here.
Flight logs reveal secret rendition 25 Nov 2007 The secret flight plans of American military planes have revealed for the first time how European countries helped send prisoners, including British citizens, to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Despite widespread criticism of alleged human rights abuses and torture at the US base in Cuba, a Sunday Times investigation has shown that at least five European countries gave the United States permission to fly nearly 700 terrorist suspects across their territory.  For complete story, click here.
Firefighters taking new role as anti-terrorist eyes of the US government --Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel need no warrants to enter hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year. 23 Nov 2007 Firefighters in major U.S. cities are being trained to take on a new role as lookouts for terrorism, raising concerns of eroding their standing as trusted American icons and infringing on people's privacy. Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel need no warrants to enter hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, which puts them in position to spot behavior that could indicate terror activity or planning. There are fears, however, that they could lose the faith of a skeptical public by becoming the eyes of the government, looking for suspicious items like building blueprints or bomb-making manuals or materials.  For complete story, click here.
Arkansas AG Suing JNJ Over Anti-Psychotic Drug Marketing--November 21st, 2007--LITTLE ROCK (AP)--Drug companies improperly marketed an anti-psychotic drug, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel claimed Tuesday as he asked a state judge to force the firms to repay millions shelled out by the state's Medicaid program for unnecessary prescriptions.  McDaniel filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc., Janssen LP and Johnson & Johnson Inc. (JNJ). In the filing, McDaniel said the companies "engaged in a direct, illegal, nationwide program of promotion of the use of Risperdal for non-medically necessary uses."  New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson is the parent company of both Janssen Pharmaceutica and Janssen LP.  The lawsuit did not specify how much the state is seeking, but McDaniel has estimated that the state's Medicaid program spent about $200 million over eight years to pay for prescriptions for Zyprexa, Seroquel and Risperdal.  The lawsuit filed Tuesday focuses solely on Risperdal. Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for McDaniel's office, said the state will file similar complaints about the marketing of the other drugs. McDaniel has said other companies that will be targeted include Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) of Indianapolis and AstraZeneca PLC (AZN), a joint venture by a British firm and a Swedish firm.  McDaniel has said the drugs were prescribed for uses not approved by federal regulators or indicated in labeling. McDaniel accused the companies of deceptive marketing practices that pushed doctors to prescribe Risperdal much more than necessary.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: http://money.cnn.com  Date: November 21, 2007)
Cannabis compound 'halts cancer'--A compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer spreading throughout the body, US scientists believe.  The California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute team are hopeful that cannabidiol or CBD could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.  Unlike cannabis, CBD does not have any psychoactive properties so its use would not violate laws, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics reports.  The authors stressed that they were not suggesting patients smoke marijuana.  They added that it would be highly unlikely that effective concentrations of CBD could be reached by smoking cannabis.  "This compound offers the hope of a non-toxic therapy that could achieve the same results without any of the painful side effects"     -----Lead researcher Dr Sean McAllister  CBD works by blocking the activity of a gene called Id-1 which is believed to be responsible for the aggressive spread of cancer cells away from the original tumour site - a process called metastasis.  Past work has shown CBD can block aggressive human brain cancers.  The latest work found CBD appeared to have a similar effect on breast cancer cells in the lab.  For complete story, click here.
Secret Warrants Granted For Cellphone Tracking --Powers Granted On Request and Without Probable Cause 23 Nov 2007 Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of [alleged] criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers. In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime.  For complete story, click here.
US 'heat wave' gun may be used in Iraq --The US military directorate has invested more than a decade developing the Active Denial System (ADS). 21 Nov 2007 American commanders in Iraq are urging Pentagon chiefs to authorise the deployment of newly-developed heat wave guns to disperse angry crowds or violent rioters. Washington fears a barrage of adverse publicity in the suspicious Muslim world and is concerned that critics will claim the invisible beam weapons were being used for torture.  For complete story, click here.
How I was zapped by a heat wave gun By Philip Sherwell 21 Nov 2007 On a cold and rain-swept morning on a US marine base, I stood and braced myself to be zapped by the latest prototype weapon in the American armoury - an invisible heat beam from a high-powered ray gun. The non-lethal device is designed for crowd control and the scientists responsible for monitoring this Star Trek technology had just assured me that I would suffer no harm and only temporary discomfort.  For complete story, click here.
4 police brutality protesters arrested--November 18th, 2007--PLAINFIELD -- Four men protesting police brutality were arrested Saturday and charged with unlawful assembly.  Now leaders of the group that organized the event say they plan to hold a news conference at 3 p.m. today at City Hall to stand up for their constitutional right to assemble.  "This really is a question of the rights of citizens," said Lawrence Hamm, state chairman of the People's Organization for Progress, which led Saturday's demonstration. "Is the Bill of Rights still in effect?"  The demonstration began at 11 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of E. Front Street and Park Avenue. The group was protesting violence in the area, specifically recent murders in Plainfield and Elizabeth, and the fatal police shooting of an 18-year-old mentally ill man Monday in Brooklyn, N.Y.  The four protesters marched in a circle holding signs that read "Stop Police Brutality" and called for peace on the city's streets.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.c-n.com  Date: November 18, 2007)
Afghan children were deliberately shot after suicide attack, UN says --U.N. report describes gunmen's actions as "crimes" 19 Nov 2007 An internal U.N. report obtained Monday said lawmakers' bodyguards mercenaries fired indiscriminately into a crowd after a suicide bombing, and that school children suffered most from the "onslaught." The report also suggests some in the U.N. want legal action taken against the gunmen.  For complete story, click here.
Police with Dogs: Vaccinating Kids in Maryland By Barbara Loe Fisher 19 Nov 2007 I watched them bundled up against the cold winter air on Saturday, November 17, 2007, with their children and the letter from the State of Maryland threatening them with imprisonment or fines of $50 a day for failing to show proof their children had gotten a chickenpox or hepatitis B shot. Confused, angry or scared but mostly resigned, they were... trudging toward the courthouse to face the Judge ordering them to get vaccinated or go to jail. Patrolling the scene was a SWAT team of policemen with dogs. [See: DoD to 'augment civilian law' during pandemic or bioterror attack --Is Bush is getting ready to play the Bioterror Card?]  For complete story, click here.
Boston police to search homes without warrants --Officers to travel in groups of three, disguised in plainclothes 17 Nov 2007 Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in 'high-crime' neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms. In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe [?] teenagers might have guns.  For complete story, click here.
Intelligence official: U.S. must redefine privacy --Residents [!] need to adjust to loss of anonymity, government leader says 11 Nov 2007 As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy. Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Kerr’s comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [I think not. We'll adjust the Bush dictatorship, instead. And, speaking of residents, the *resident* occupying the White House needs to be arrested and tried for treason. --LRP] For complete story, click here.
Top US legal adviser refuses to rule out torture technique --Aide to Rice declines to denounce waterboarding 05 Nov 2007 The top legal adviser within the US state department, who counsels the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, on international law, has declined to rule out the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding even if it were applied by foreign intelligence services on US citizens. John Bellinger refused to denounce the technique, which has been condemned by human rights groups as a form of torture, during a debate on the Bush administration's stance on international law held by Guardian America, the Guardian's US website. He said he would not include or exclude any technique without first considering whether it violated the convention on torture.  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater to 'sniff out intelligence about natural disasters' --Blackwater's Owner Has Spies for Hire 03 Nov 2007 First it became a brand name in security for its work war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it's taking on intelligence. The Prince Group, the holding company that owns Blackwater Worldwide, has been building an operation that will sniff out intelligence about create 'natural' disasters, business-friendly governments, overseas regulations and global political developments for clients in industry and government. [Soon, we'll need an army to take on Blackwater. This terrorist group is growing faster than the Third Reich. --Lori Price]  For complete story, click here.
'USAF struck Syrian nuclear site' 02 Nov 2007 The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a suspected nuclear site under construction. The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.  For complete story, click here.
Gov't Recovered $2B in 2007 Fraud Cases--November 1st, 2007--WASHINGTON - The Justice Department said Thursday that it obtained $2 billion in settlements in fraud cases during fiscal year 2007, with most of the recoveries resulting from whistleblower lawsuits.  Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers can sue companies or individuals that they believe have filed fraudulent claims with the federal government.  If successful, they can receive from 15 percent to 30 percent of the proceeds, the department said.  Approximately $1.45 billion of the settlements resulted from whistleblower lawsuits in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, the department said. The individuals who filed suit were awarded $177 million.  Health care fraud accounted for the bulk of the settlements, with $1.54 billion stemming from cases involving programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.  The department said it is cracking down on various practices by pharmaceutical companies, such as inflating the price of drugs that are reimbursed by federal programs, paying kickbacks to physicians and pharmacists to induce drug purchases and promoting drugs for uses that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, also known as "off-label" marketing.  In one of the largest settlements, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and one of its former subsidiaries agreed in late September to pay $515 million to settle federal and state allegations that it illegally promoted its anti-psychotic drug Abilify for several off-label uses.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.chron.com  Date: November 1, 2007)
US accused of torture 31 Oct 2007 The United States's willingness to resort to harsh interrogation techniques in its so-called war on terror undermined human rights and the international ban on torture, a United Nations spokesman says. Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said the US's standing and importance meant it was a model to other countries which queried why they were subject to scrutiny when the US resorted to measures witnessed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison.  For complete story, click here.
Immunity Deal Hampers Blackwater Criminal Inquiry --Blackwater Bodyguards Given Immunity In Deadly Shooting 29 Oct 2007 The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards mercenaries immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned. The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident war crime that has infuriated the Iraqi government.  For complete story, click here.
Iran says documents show U.S. backing terrorists 28 Oct 2007 Iran has access to evidence of U.S. support for terrorist groups in the Middle East, a senior Iranian official was quoted as saying on Sunday. "Escalation of terrorism in the region is one of the direct results of the presence of occupiers in Iraq, particularly America," said Saeed Jalili, Iran's new chief nuclear negotiator, "And there are documents and information available proving America's support for terrorist groups in the region," he said, without giving details.  For complete story, click here.
Flu Lab Set to Open for 1918 Pandemic Virus Reconstruction --Ebola research may resume, pending outcome of appeal 28 Oct 2007 UW-Madison 's $12.5 million Institute for Influenza Viral Research, nearing completion at University Research Park, will have a collection of safety and security features the university hasn't seen before. Virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka plans to study several kinds of flu viruses in the institute -- including H5N1, the bird flu virus circulating in Asia, and a reconstructed version of the 1918 flu virus, which killed some 50 million people when it spread worldwide... Jan Klein, UW-Madison 's biological safety officer, said the university may appeal the NIH 's ruling halting Ebola work. [See: DoD to carry out 'military missions' during pandemic, WMD attack 23 Oct 2007 and Flu 'Oddities'.] (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source:  www.madison.com  Date: October 28, 2007)
Indian 'slave' children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap--October 28th 2007--Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant.  Speaking to The Observer, the children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.  Gap said it was unaware that clothing intended for the Christmas market had been improperly subcontracted to a sweatshop using child labour. It announced it had withdrawn the garments involved while it investigated breaches of the ethical code imposed by it three years ago.  The discovery of the children working in filthy conditions in the Shahpur Jat area of Delhi has renewed concerns about the outsourcing by large retail chains of their garment production to India, recognised by the United Nations as the world's capital for child labour.  According to one estimate, more than 20 per cent of India's economy is dependent on children, the equivalent of 55 million youngsters under 14.  For complete story, click here.
Breaking: Rights groups file French torture case vs Rumsfeld 26 Oct 2007 Human rights groups have filed a lawsuit in France alleging that former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld allowed torture at U.S.-run detention centers in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  For complete story, click here.
House Passes 'Thought Crime' Prevention Bill--October 25th, 2007--Lee Rogers The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution. First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill. The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below. `(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change. The definition of homegrown terrorism uses equally vague language to further define thought crime. The bill includes the planned use of force or violence as homegrown terrorism which could be interpreted as thinking about using force or violence. Not only that but the definition is so vaguely defined, that petty crimes could even fall into the category of homegrown terrorism. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below. `(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. Section 899B of the bill goes over the findings of Congress as it pertains to homegrown terrorism. Particularly alarming is that the bill mentions the Internet as a main source for terrorist propaganda. The bill even mentions streams in obvious reference to many of the patriot and pro-constitution Internet radio networks that have been formed. It also mentions that homegrown terrorists span all ages and races indicating that the Congress is stating that everyone is a potential terrorist. Even worse is that Congress states in their findings that they should look at draconian police states like Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom as models to defeat homegrown terrorists.  For complete story, click here.

DoD to carry out 'military missions' during pandemic, WMD attack By Lori Price 23 Oct 2007 On Thursday, the Bush administration issued a directive which 'establishes a National Strategy for Public Health and Medical Preparedness (Strategy), which builds upon principles set forth in Biodefense for the 21st Century (April 2004) and will transform our national approach to protecting the health of the American people against [with] all disasters.' HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-21 states that within one year of the directive's date, 'the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Defense, in coordination with the Secretaries of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, shall establish an academic Joint Program for Disaster Medicine and Public Health housed at a National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences... Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense authorities will be used to carry out respective civilian and military missions within this joint program.'  For complete story, click here.
Giuliani Defends, Employs Priest Accused of Molesting Teens 23 Oct 2007 Presidential candidate [GOPedophile] Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties. The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.  For complete story, click here.
State Dept. Can't Account For $1.2B Paid to DynCorp: Audit --Review identifies $29 million in overcharges by DynCorp in past year 23 Oct 2007 A government audit expected to be released Tuesday says that records documenting the work of DynCorp, the State Department’s largest contractor, are in such disarray that the department cannot say "specifically what it received" for most of the $1.2 billion it has paid the company since 2004 to train the police officers in Iraq... A review of DynCorp’s spending over the past year identified $29 million in overcharges by DynCorp, including $108,000 in business travel, according to a State Department letter in response to auditors. A separate review by the Defense Contracting Audit Agency found that DynCorp had billed for $162,869 of labor hours "for which it did not pay its workers." [See: DynCorp Disgrace By Kelly Patricia O'Meara 14 Jan 2002 Middle-aged men having sex with 12- to 15-year-olds was too much for Ben Johnston, a hulking 6-foot-5-inch Texan, and more than a year ago he blew the whistle on his employer, DynCorp, a U.S. contracting company doing business in Bosnia.]  For complete story, click here.
Seven Protesters Arrested at Blackwater’s Headquarters--October 21st 2007--Seven people were arrested Saturday at Blackwater Worldwide’s front entrance after protesters re-enacted the Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater contractors in which 17 Iraqis died.  It was the first protest at the 10-year-old private military company’s headquarters, a reflection of its heightened profile since the Baghdad shootings stirred Iraqi anger and created a diplomatic crisis for Blackwater’s client, the U.S. State Department.  The protesters drove a small gray station wagon, covered with simulated bullet holes and smeared with red paint, onto Blackwater’s property. One lay back in the driver’s seat and five others got out and lay on the ground, as if they had been shot.  The scene was intended to mimic that in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where an Iraqi doctor and her son died in a fusillade of gunfire as their car approached a Blackwater diplomatic convoy.  The protesters also smeared red handprints on two Blackwater signs.  Currituck County sheriff’s deputies, called to the scene by Blackwater guards, told the protesters they were on private property and asked them to leave. When they didn’t respond, they were handcuffed and placed in a sheriff’s van. Some went limp and had to be dragged.  A crowd of about 50 more protesters who had gathered along the adjacent public road cheered as the seven were driven away. The group carried signs with slogans such as “Bring Blackwater to Justice,” “Security Contractors are Unlawful Combatants” and “Blackwater: Shoot First, Ask No Questions.”  The six re-enactors arrested were Steve Baggarly of Norfolk; Beth Brockman of Durham, N.C.; Mark Colville of New Haven, Conn.; Peter DeMott of Ithaca, N.Y.; Laura Marks of Ayden, N.C.; and Bill Streit of Louisa County, Va. They were charged with second-degree trespassing, injury to real property and resisting arrest.  A seventh protester, Mary Grace of Madison County, Va., was arrested after the re-enactment when she walked onto Blackwater’s property and knelt on the pavement. She was charged with second-degree trespassing.  The protest was organized by the Norfolk Catholic Worker and Blackwater Watch, an activist group based in Durham, N.C.Christian Stalberg, a spokesman for Blackwater Watch, said the group’s aim is to “shut down Blackwater.”  “It’s an unmitigated disaster,” he said. “They’re irresponsible and totally unaccountable.”  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source:  www.commondreams.org  Date: October 21, 2007)
Pedophilia: Southeast Asia's sordid secret--October 21st 2007--HONG KONG--The arrest in Thailand of a Canadian man suspected of having sex with young boys has focused international attention on a sordid industry that peddles children to pedophiles across Southeast Asia.  Grinding poverty, poor policing and no shortage of demand ensure that exploitation of children for sex thrives throughout the region.  Despite some high-profile prosecutions of child sex abusers, experts say lack of cooperation among governments is hindering efforts to keep children safe from pedophilia.  The Friday arrest of teacher Christopher Paul Neil, 32, was the culmination of an unprecedented appeal from Interpol for public help in finding him.  Neil is accused of sexually assaulting 12 boys and posting 200 pictures of the crimes on the Internet.  His case is the latest to draw attention to the fact that children are readily available in Southeast Asia for sexual predators who travel from the West for the sole purpose of having sex with minors.  Probably the highest profile offender is former rock star Gary Glitter -- real name Paul Francis Gadd -- now in a Vietnamese prison convicted of committing obscene acts with two girls, then aged 11 and 12.  Campaign groups say much of the demand for child sex is homegrown and accuse authorities of often turning a blind eye, or even colluding in the abuse.  For complete story, click here.
Bush Quips He Might Stay in Power (Threat Level Plays Along) By Kevin Poulsen 17 Oct 2007 At a press briefing this morning that touched on issues like the White House's extrajudicial wiretapping program and torture policies, the president [sic] was asked a question about Vladimir Putin's plan to hold on to power when his term as Russian president runs out. Reporter: Mr. President, following up on Vladimir Putin for a moment, he said recently that next year, when he has to step down according to the constitution, as the president, he may become prime minister; in effect keeping power and dashing any hopes for a genuine democratic transition there ... Bush: I've been planning that myself. ...THREAT LEVEL doesn't believe that he's going to declare a state of emergency and cancel the 2008 election. But in July, we filed some FOIA requests anyway. We asked five Justice Department offices for documents produced or revised after August 2001 "addressing the feasibility, advisability or lawfulness of deferring, rescheduling or canceling a U.S. national election."  For complete story, click here.
Lawsuit: ICE forcibly injecting detainees with psychotropic drugs 12 Oct 2007 Former prisoners of Immigration and Customs Enforcement accuse the agency in a lawsuit of forcibly injecting them with psychotropic drugs while trying to shuttle them out of the country during their deportation. One of the drugs in question is the potent anti-psychotic drug Haldol, which is often used to treat schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said, "It would be torture to give a powerful anti-psychotic drug to somebody who isn't even mentally ill. ... But here, it's happening on U.S. soil to an immigrant the government is trying to deport."  For complete story, click here.
Carter: U.S. has tortured detainees and Bush approved it 10 Oct 2007 In an interview with CNN, former President Jimmy Carter said he believes that the United States has tortured prisoners and that President [sic] Bush has authorized the abuse, which he said violates international laws. Despite that, Carter said formal charges or a trial "would be inappropriate."  For complete story, click here.
Carter says U.S. tortures prisoners 10 Oct 2007 The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday. "I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN. "Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused." Carter also said President [sic] Bush creates his own definition of human rights.  For complete story, click here.
Ex-McLean chief admits sex with patient--October 10th, 2007--The former president of McLean Hospital in Belmont, who abruptly left his post last year without explanation, has admitted to "inappropriate sexual contact" with a patient that led to a personal crisis while he was running the prestigious psychiatric hospital, according to documents and an associate of the psychiatrist.  Dr. Jack M. Gorman had stunned the staff at the Harvard-affiliated hospital in May 2006, resigning after just four months on the job for undisclosed "personal and medical reasons." It turns out that Gorman was having such guilty feelings about his relationship with the patient that he quit his job, according to the Gorman associate. At about the same time, Gorman reported himself to medical regulators in his home state and attempted suicide, said the associate and a New York official.  In an astonishing fall from grace, Gorman, 55, signed a consent order last month with the New York Board for Professional Medical Conduct admitting that he had inappropriate sexual contact "on more than one occasion" with the patient, violating a cardinal rule in psychiatry. He surrendered his license to practice medicine indefinitely, effective yesterday.  "This is a very unusual case," said Claudia Hutton, spokeswoman for the New York Department of Health, which includes the medical board. "Dr. Gorman self-reported to us inappropriate sexual contact with a patient."  Gorman's admission was serious enough to warrant a harsher than usual punishment, Hutton said. Under the board's order, Gorman can request that his license be restored after six months, but, even if it is, he would face five years of probation under the supervision of another doctor.   For complete story, click here.
Funeral directors 'sold corpses for cash'--October 6th, 2007--America's bodysnatching trade was exposed in gruesome detail yesterday when three funeral directors were charged with selling corpses for $1,000 (£500) apiece so that their bones, tissue and skin could be transplanted into unsuspecting hospital patients around the world. The funeral directors are accused of forging death certificates to say that the cause of death was either a heart attack or blunt-force trauma, so that the body parts could be sold on.  At least one of the "donors" was HIV-positive and suffered from hepatitis C and cancer.  After a 16-month investigation, a grand jury in Philadelphia said that 244 bodies were sold to a former oral surgeon in Brooklyn, who allegedly ran a team of "cutters" to remove the most lucrative parts. The surgeon, Michael Mastromarino - whose former company was called Biomedical Tissue Services -is already facing charges in New York for plundering 1,077 bodies, including the 244 from Philadelphia.  Other funeral directors in New York have already pleaded guilty as part of the same investigation - including one man whose funeral home allegedly removed parts from the body of the late broadcaster Alistair Cooke and replaced them with plastic plumbing materials.  For complete story, click here.
FBI offered me $4m: Lockerbie bomb witness 06 Oct 2007 A witness in the Lockerbie case has claimed he was offered $4 million (£2 million) by American investigators to lie to the trial judges. Edwin Bollier, head of the Swiss company MEBO that was said to have manufactured the timer used to detonate the Pan Am bomb, claims he was offered the money by the FBI at its Washington HQ in exchange for making a statement that supported the main line of inquiry - that Libya was responsible for the bombing.  (Unable to locate article at time of archiving.  Source: http://news.scotsman.com  Date: October 6, 2007)
US appears guilty of torture: Pelosi 08 Oct 2007 The United States appears to be illegally torturing terror suspects contrary to denials by President [sic] George Bush, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday. Interviewed on Faux News Sunday, Pelosi said reported interrogation tactics such as simulated drowning, head slapping and exposure to extreme temperatures all amounted to banned torture.  For complete story, click here.
State Dept. Tallies 56 Shootings Involving Blackwater on Diplomatic Guard Duty 28 Sep 2007 The State Department said Thursday that Blackwater USA security personnel [terrorists] had been involved in 56 shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq so far this year. It was the first time the Bush regime had made such data public.  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater guard in Iraq said "stop shooting": media 28 Sep 2007 A Blackwater security guard screamed at colleagues to "stop shooting" in an incident that left 11 Iraqi civilians dead, enraged the government and sparked reviews of security firms in Iraq, U.S. media said on Friday. The Washington Post and The New York Times quoted unnamed U.S. officials saying they had been told at least one employee of the private American security firm pointed a gun at a fellow guard to try and curb the shooting in Baghdad on September 16.  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater Faced Bedlam, Embassy Finds --'First Blush' Report Raises New Questions on Shooting 28 Sep 2007 Separately, a U.S. official familiar with the investigation said that participants in the shooting have reported that at least one of the Blackwater guards drew a weapon on his colleagues and screamed for them to "stop shooting." This account suggested that there was some effort to curb the shooting, with at least one Blackwater guard believing it had spiraled out of control.  For complete story, click here.
Report: Blackwater skimped on security before Fallujah ambush 27 Sep 2007 Democrats in Congress released a scathing report Thursday on the 2004 massacre of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, charging that the company rushed unprepared into a sloppy  mission, skimped on security to save money and stonewalled when Congress tried to investigate.  For complete story, click here.
Blackwater guards killed 16 as U.S. touted progress 27 Sep 2007 During the ensuing week, as U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Army Gen. David Petraeus told Congress that the surge of more U.S. troops to Iraq was beginning to work and President Bush gave a televised address in which he said "ordinary life was beginning to return" to Baghdad, Blackwater security guards shot at least 43 people on crowded Baghdad streets. At least 16 of those people died.  For complete story, click here.
Hired Gun Fetish By Paul Krugman 28 Sep 2007 ...[T]he administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies. Tax farming — giving individuals the right to collect taxes, in return for a share of the take — went out with the French Revolution; now the tax farmers are back. ...[T]he Bush administration has tried to privatize every aspect of the U.S. government it can, using taxpayers’ money to give lucrative contracts to its friends — people like Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, who has strong Republican connections. You might think that national security would take precedence over the fetish for privatization — but remember, President [sic] Bush tried to keep airport security in private hands, even after 9/11.  For complete story, click here.
Denver Sheriff's Office Helps Private Companies Take Blood And Saliva At Checkpoints--September 20th, 2007--A Sheriff's office in Denver has been blasted by drivers after it engaged in the operation of what appeared to be DUI checkpoints but were in fact stops being carried out by a private non-profit research group.  The Gilpin County Sheriff's Office was hit with complaints earlier this week from motorists who say they were not properly informed of the nature of the stops and felt that they were non-voluntary. One Undersheriff even described the procedure as "like a telemarketer that you couldn't hang up on,".  The Denver post reported on the incident earlier this week: Sgt. Bob Enney said deputies assisted the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in stopping motorists at five sites along Colorado 119 for surveys on any drug and alcohol use. Surveyors then asked the motorists to voluntarily submit to tests of their breath, blood and saliva. At least 200 drivers were tested, Enney said. About five motorists later complained, he said.   The research is reportedly part of a nationwide study partly financed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  Some motorists told the Post that they repeatedly asked if the questioners were law enforcement officials and after stating that they were not interested in participating in the study, were still not given clearance to leave.  Describing the surveyors as being dressed in blue jumpsuits, others stated that they were "too persistent" and even offered $100 incentives to motorists in an attempt to get them to change their minds after they had declined to take part in the survey. Some even said that the surveyors then ridiculed the motorists for not taking the money.  For complete story, click here.
Details Emerge in 'Horrific' Torture Case--By JOHN RABY and TOM BREEN, AP Posted: 2007-09-12 11:11:59 Filed Under: Crime News BIG CREEK, W.Va. (Sept. 12) - Inside a shed on a remote hillside of this coalfield community, authorities say a young black woman was tortured for days, sexually assaulted, beaten and forced to eat rat droppings. Her captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her and made her drink from a toilet, according to criminal complaints.  It wasn't until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff's deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended and she was able to limp to safety, arms outstretched as she cried, "Help me!"  "I don't understand such a horrific crime being committed here," said Johnny Meade, pastor of the community's Apostolic Church of God in the Name of Christ Jesus.  The FBI is now looking into possible civil rights violations, agency spokesman Bill Crowley said, authorities in West Virginia said they were investigating the case as a possible hate crime.  At one point, an assailant cut the woman's ankle with a knife and used the N-word in telling her she was victimized because she is black, authorities said.  Investigators are still trying to determine how the woman ended up at the property and whether she knew any of the six people arrested or the two others, suspected of driving her to the home, who are being sought, said Logan County Chief Sheriff's Deputy V.K. Dingess.  Police tape now surrounds the entrances to the beige-and-brown mobile home where Megan Williams, 20, was found. An extension cord runs from the home to the cramped shed, which authorities say she was held in with a portable stereo, a locker and a power saw.  The Associated Press generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name. Carmen Williams said she wanted people to know what her daughter endured.  "I don't understand a human being doing another human being the way they did my daughter," Carmen Williams said Tuesday from her daughter's hospital room. "I didn't know there were people like that out here."  The suspects in the case have prior arrest records going back several years, according to records from Logan County Magistrate Court. Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said, "I have some familiarity with all those individuals. "  For complete story, click here.
Executive Order #11000: Authorizes the splitting up of family units--The Bush administration used the September 11 terrorist attack as an opportunity to implement a "shadow government," based on old plans prepared during the Cold War. More than 150 officials were initially evacuated by helicopter to different locations in mountainous regions of the eastern United States. In late October the temporary arrangement was made permanent, officially establishing the new regime. Since then Bush has added hand picked people from top levels of the civil service who will carry out his commands unquestioningly. Legal documents have been drafted to give these officials the full powers of government in the event of a catastrophe. The sinister and illegal "shadow government" consists entirely of executive branch officials. No members of the legislative and judicial branches of government are included in the secret plan. In television interviews Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, confirmed that neither he nor any other congressional leader had been consulted about the plan. When asked whether this constituted a secret government, he replied, "I don't know. I don't know what their role is, what their current authority is, because we haven't been informed." This is a flagrant violation of the concept of "Separation of Powers" as embodied in the Constitution. In the event that this "shadow government" seizes power, it will function as a dictatorship exercising military and police powers, without any legislative oversight or judicial control.  For complete story, click here.
CBS Early Show Removes Anti-War Protesters from View in Kansas City--Sept. 4th, 2007--On August 10, the CBS Early Show came to Kansas City, Missouri.  Using Liberty Memorial Park, the Early Show was featuring the country western band Big & Rich, which is famous for "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" and for leading audiences in the Pledge of Allegiance.  When the local peace community heard that the Early Show was coming to the park, activists hoped to get their message to a national audience.  "I received an e-mail about the event and a flier from the Early Show inviting people to attend," says Ira Harritt, Kansas City area program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). "I rsvp'd, saying some people from the AFSC would be there."  Harritt recruited people to come and carry some AFSC "Cost of War" banners.  These are seven feet long and three feet high, and they all give different answers to the question: "One Day of the Iraq War Equals." (Such as $720 million, or 84 elementary schools, etc.) "We started assembling the banners in the park," Harritt says, "and immediately, a CBS staff person said, 'You can't be here. You can't have those here.' "  Harritt and the other activists challenged her, saying, "This is a public park. We have a right to be here," he recalls. And the anti-war activists had a lawyer with them who defended their right to be there.  They reached a compromise. The CBS employee, along with security, allowed them to stay in the park so long as they did not get into camera view.  "I promise you the TV cameras will not span this area," the CBS employee said.  That's not exactly what the protesters had hoped for.  "I was very disappointed, " says Harritt. "CBS was censoring what messages Kansas Cityans were bringing to the Early Show."  For complete story, click here.

Kids forced into domestic servitude in Haiti--August 24th, 2007--PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Evans Antoine wakes at 7 a.m. and dusts himself off from his night on the floor. While other children in his middle-class neighborhood overlooking the Haitian capital head to school, the 15-year-old puts on toeless sneakers and gets to work washing dishes, scrubbing floors and running errands at the market. He also works in the yard and sometimes wields a scythe in the family's fields.  There is little reward for his toil, except for food and a roof over his head. And often, the quality of his work isn't good enough; his caretakers sometimes hit him with a switch or slap him on the back of the scalp. Once they tied his hands and put a bag over his head before beating him with a stick.  This has been his life for the past three years.  "They tell me that I'm useless," Antoine said, speaking softly at a meeting secretly arranged by a teacher who taught him briefly and who fears for his future. "They yell at me and tell me about all the things they do for me and how easy I have it."  During the interview, Antoine never smiled. He also kept looking away while answering questions, clearly uncomfortable with the subject: his unforgiving life.  Antoine is a restavek, a Haitian term derived from the French for "stay with." But, he would rather be described by the more genial-sounding Creole phrase meaning "one who lives with people." He is among 300,000 children, 10 percent of Haitians under 18, who serve as domestics for other families, a tradition in Haiti dating back to the country's independence more than 200 years ago.  Haiti revolted against French colonial rule and became the first "black republic" in 1804. With newly emancipated slaves in power, it also became the first nation to outlaw slavery. Dependent on coffee and sugar, however, Haiti kept the plantation system after the revolution, requiring "mandatory labor" of many citizens. The masters were no longer white, but working conditions improved only marginally.  Children were particularly susceptible. The sons and daughters of slaves remained house servants following the revolution, indentured to newly rich army officers who took over the plantations.  Today child workers remain an important part of Haiti's economy, a system that barely sustains a nation of 8.7 million that is wracked by poverty and lawlessness.  Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. A little over half of primary school-age children are enrolled in school, according to UNICEF, and less than 2 percent finish secondary school.  Children become restaveks in a variety of ways. Some, like Antoine, are orphaned and taken in by family friends. Others are runaways pulled off the street. Most are given up by parents from depressed rural areas who can't afford to care for them and hope that another family will do better and send them to school.  Antoine's case is an example of what so often goes wrong. His adoptive family promised to pay his tuition, but when it came time to do so, his adoptive father reacted harshly. "He said I was lying and he beat me," he said.  In fact, the majority of families are only slightly better off than restaveks' parents, despite living in the capital.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. puts former insurgents on payroll at Iraq front line 22 Aug 2007 Under a tree by a battlefield road in Iraq's "Triangle of Death", Lieutenant- Colonel Robert Balcavage meets his new recruits. The men are Iraqi Sunni Arabs who are about to join the U.S. military's payroll as a local militia. They want guns... Slowly but deliberately, U.S. forces are enlisting groups of armed men -- many probably former insurgents -- and paying cash, a strategy they say has dramatically reduced violence in some of Iraq's most dangerous areas in just weeks.  For complete story, click here.
White House Declares Office Off-Limits--August 23rd, 2007--Dan Eggen reports for The Washington Post: "The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers. The claim, made in a motion filed Tuesday by the Justice Department, is at odds with a depiction of the office on the White House's own Web site."  For complete story, click here.
White House Manual Details How to Deal With Protesters--August 22nd, 2007--Not that they're worried or anything. But the White House evidently  leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of  the president. As in, it doesn't want any.   A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential  advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of "deterring  potential protestors" from President Bush's public appearances around  the country.   Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets  tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in  case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who  manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads"  stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they  should be thrown out. But that does not mean the White House is against dissent -- just so  long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a  specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice  their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local  police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed,  preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route."   The "Presidential Advance Manual," dated October 2002 with the stamp  "Sensitive -- Do Not Copy," was released under subpoena to the  American Civil Liberties Union as part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of  two people arrested for refusing to cover their anti-Bush T-shirts at  a Fourth of July speech at the West Virginia State Capitol in 2004.   The techniques described have become familiar over the 6 1/2 years of  Bush's presidency, but the manual makes it clear how organized the  anti-protest policy really is.   The lawsuit was filed by Jeffery and Nicole Rank, who attended the  Charleston event wearing shirts with the word "Bush" crossed out on  the front; the back of his shirt said "Regime Change Starts at Home,"  while hers said "Love America, Hate Bush." Members of the White House  event staff told them to cover their shirts or leave, according to the  lawsuit. They refused and were arrested, handcuffed and briefly jailed  before local authorities dropped the charges and apologized. The  federal government settled the First Amendment case last week for  $80,000, but with no admission of wrongdoing.  For complete story, click here.
SPP Agent Provocateur Cops Caught Red Handed Attempting To Incite Violence--August 22nd, 2007--Peaceful protestors at the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit in Montebello have captured sensational video of hired agent provocateurs attempting to incite rioting and turn the protest violent, only to encounter brave resistance from real protest leaders.  A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand, reports the Canadian Press.  The three are confronted by protest organizer Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.  Notice how the "anarchists" begin to become uncomfortable when Coles and others accuse them of really being cops, while pulling at their face masks. They are seen to edge closer to the uniformed police and engage in some form of discussion. The police then let them pass through their line with very little resistance and "arrest" them in what is plainly a total charade.  More damning proof that the radicals were in fact cops was revealed with the release of photographs of the incident which show that the anarchists have exactly the same footwear on as the cops.  On the soles of their boots are yellow triangles, exactly the same as on the boots of a police officer kneeling beside the men.  While some have said the marks could represent Canadian Safety Industry seals, it seems very coincidental when placed in context with the way the rioters were "subdued".  To compound the evidence, police have stated that only 4 protestors in total have been arrested and charged, two of them being women. Veteran protest organizers have confirmed the identity of the four as genuine protesters.  So what happened to the rock wielding anarchists?  The few radical protestors at the summit have provided police with the pretext to use rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray on peaceful protestors.  Neither the RCMP nor the Surete du Quebec would comment on the video or even discuss generally whether they ever use the tactic of employing agents provocateurs, however it has been common practice at previous protests for authorities to employ police or special forces to intentionally infiltrate peaceful protests and cause violence.  In Seattle in 1999 at the World Trade Organisation meeting, the authorities declared a state of emergency, imposed curfews and resorted to nothing short of police state tactics in response to a small minority of hostile black bloc hooligans. In his film Police State 2, Alex Jones covered the fact that the police allowed the black bloc to run riot in downtown Seattle while they concentrated on preventing the movement of peaceful protestors. The film presents evidence that the left-wing anarchist groups are actually controlled by the state and used to demonize peaceful protesters.  At WTO protests in Genoa 2001 a protestor was killed after being shot in the head and run over twice by a police vehicle. The Italian Carabinere also later beat on peaceful protestors as they slept, and even tortured some, at the Diaz School. It later emerged that the police fabricated evidence against the protesters, claiming they were anarchist rioters, to justify their actions. Some Carabiniere officials have since come forward to say they knew of infiltration of the so called Black Bloc anarchists, that fellow officers acted as agent provocateurs.  (Webmaster Note:  COINTELPRO Lives on...)  For complete story, click here.
ACLU Report Exposes Ongoing Civil and Human Rights Violations on the Gulf Coast as Katrina's Second Anniversary Nears--August 20th, 2007--NEW ORLEANS - The American Civil Liberties Union today released a report revealing continuing incidents of racial injustice and human rights abuses on the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina devastated the area two years ago. In its report, Broken Promises: Two Years After Katrina, the ACLU exposes numerous civil rights violations that have occurred in Louisiana and Mississippi since the storm, including reports of heightened racially motivated police activity, housing discrimination, and prisoner abuse.  "Two years ago, Americans were glued to their television sets, outraged at the images of poor people of color cast aside in the aftermath of Katrina," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Politicians made promises, but they failed to fix the problems that Katrina's fury made painfully clear. The government must be held accountable for its mistakes rather than allowed to perpetuate the systemic racism and discrimination that only added strength to the storm."  In light of its findings, the ACLU calls on Congress to pass legislation to address post-Katrina injustices, including racial profiling, voter disenfranchisement, and the dearth of health care facilities and low-income housing. The ACLU also calls on the Department of Justice to investigate severe problems at Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), the New Orleans jail system where prisoners were abandoned during the storm. Today, OPP is plagued by inhumane and dangerous conditions, inadequate medical and mental health care, and lack of preparedness for possible future storms. The ACLU says that government officials must implement a thorough evacuation plan for OPP and provide funding to a severely understaffed public defender system.  Broken Promises poignantly describes personal accounts of people who were victimized in Katrina's aftermath. In one case, Steven Elloie, an African-American bar manager, was brutally beaten and tasered by New Orleans police officers after they illegally searched the premises and harassed patrons at his family-owned bar in Central City, a predominantly African-American neighborhood. Despite the fact that he suffered severe injuries, the police officers brought Elloie to the OPP where he was turned away and directed to the hospital to receive treatment for trauma to his head, body, and extremities. Charges against Elloie of resisting arrest and battery against an officer were eventually dropped, but Elloie's complaint against the police officers was "not sustained" despite numerous witness accounts that were consistent with Elloie's claims. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Elloie against the city of New Orleans in June 2007.  For complete story, click here.
Stop Australia's brutal grab of Aboriginal land--August 20th, 2007--Across the continent, Australians are rallying to oppose Prime Minister John Howard's racist military incursion onto the territories of Indigenous people.  For complete story, click here.
A modern tale Kafka would love: guilty of flying while rational--August 20th, 2007--Welcome to the post-PATRIOT Act Twilight Zone: some bewilderingly true stories of air travel, ice flows and NSA spying.  For complete story, click here.
The Seattle police: corruption and impunity--August 20th, 2007--Cop criminals lie, assault, plant evidence, misuse authority and sexually harass in the workplace. But the police internal investigations unit has no enforcement power and answers to the police chief. What's wrong with this picture?  For complete story, click here.
FBI and CIA Go Online to Edit Wikipedia--August 20th, 2007--WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program.  The changes may violate Wikipedia's conflict-of- interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said on Thursday.  The program, WikiScanner, was developed by Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and posted this month on a Web site that was quickly overwhelmed with searches.  The program allows users to track the source of computers used to make changes to the popular Internet encyclopedia where anyone can submit and edit entries.  WikiScanner revealed that CIA computers were used to edit an entry on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A graphic on casualties was edited to add that many figures were estimated and were not broken down by class.  Another entry on former CIA chief William Colby was edited by CIA computers to expand his career history and discuss the merits of a Vietnam War rural pacification program that he headed.  Aerial and satellite images of the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were removed using a computer traced to the FBI, WikiScanner showed.  CIA spokesman George Little said he could not confirm whether CIA computers were used in the changes, adding that "the agency always expects its computer systems to be used responsibly."  The FBI did not have an immediate response.  Computers at numerous other organizations and companies were found to have been involved in editing articles related to them.  For complete story, click here.
Thousands wrongly being treated for depression--August 17th, 2007--DOCTORS are over-diagnosing depression, resulting in thousands of people wrongly being prescribed drugs to treat it, an expert warns today.  Professor Gordon Parker says the current threshold for what is considered to be "clinical depression" is too low and he fears that it might lead to the condition becoming less credible.  He argues that the problem has been reduced to the "absurd" and we risk medicalising normal human distress and viewing any expression of depression as necessary of treatment.  Prof Parker, a psychiatrist based at Australia's University of New South Wales, says it is "normal to be depressed" and points to his own cohort study, which followed 242 teachers.  After 15 years of research, 79 per cent of respondents had already met the symptom and duration criteria for major, minor or very mild "subsyndromal" depression.  Anti-depressants have a range of side-effects. About 25 per cent of patients have problems when stopping them and studies have found that they can cause a rise in suicidal thoughts and actions. Patients also report a loss of libido.  Prof Parker blames the over-diagnosis of clinical depression on a change in its categorisation, in 1980, which saw the condition split into "major" and "minor" disorders. He says that the simplicity and gravitas of "major depression" gave it credit with clinicians, while its descriptive profile set a low threshold.  Criterion A required a person to be in a "dysphoric mood" for two weeks, which included feeling "down in the dumps". Criterion B involved appetite change, sleep disturbance, drop in libido and fatigue.  This model was then extended to include what Prof Parker describes as a seeming subliminal condition, "subsyndromal depression".  Writing in the British Medical Journal, Prof Parker said: "It is normal to feel depressed. A low threshold for diagnosing clinical depression risks treating normal emotional states as illness.  For complete story, click here.
NSA Judge: 'I feel like I'm in Alice and Wonderland' By Kevin Poulsen 16 Aug 2007 AT&T attorney Michael Kellogg has taken the podium, and, not surprisingly, insists the case has to be dismissed. He says AT&T customers have no actual proof or direct knowledge that their communications were forwarded to the government without warrants. "The government has said that whatever AT&T is doing with the government is a state secret," Kellogg says. He adds, "As a consequence, no evidence can come in whether the individuals' communications were ever accepted or whether we played any role in it..." Judge Hawkins wonders if the document is really that secret? "Every ampersand, every comma is Top Secret?," Hawkins asks. "This document is totally non-redactable and non-segregable and cannot even be meaningfully described," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Bondy answers.  For complete story, click here.
Homeland Security Enlists Clergy to Quell Public Unrest if Martial Law Ever Declared 15 Aug 2007 Could martial law ever become a reality in America? Some fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger just that. KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the government with potentially their biggest problem: Us. If martial law were enacted here at home... easing public fears and quelling dissent would be critical. And that's exactly what the 'Clergy Response Team' helped accomplish in the wake of Katrina. Dr. Durell Tuberville serves as chaplain for the Shreveport Fire Department and the Caddo Sheriff's Office. For the clergy team, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is the bible itself, specifically Romans 13. Dr. Tuberville elaborated, "because the government's established by the Lord, you know. And, that's what we believe in the Christian faith. That's what's stated in the scripture." ['Easing public fears and quelling dissent would be critical.']  For complete story, click here.

CNN: Americans May Need Passport To Have Picnic in a Park--August 16th, 2007--(CNN) -- Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.  The act, signed in 2005 as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill, aims to weave driver's licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The law sets baseline criteria for how driver's licenses will be issued and what information they must contain.  The Department of Homeland Security insists Real ID is an essential weapon in the war on terror, but privacy and civil liberties watchdogs are calling the initiative an overly intrusive measure that smacks of Big Brother.  More than half the nation's state legislatures have passed symbolic legislation denouncing the plan, and some have penned bills expressly forbidding compliance.  Several states have begun making arrangements for the new requirements -- four have passed legislation applauding the measure -- but even they may have trouble meeting the act's deadline.  The cards would be mandatory for all "federal purposes," which include boarding an airplane or walking into a federal building, nuclear facility or national park, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Conference of State Legislatures last week.  Citizens in states that don't comply with the new rules will have to use passports for federal purposes.  For complete story, click here.
Kidnapped workers build U.S. Embassy in Iraq--August 14th, 2007--...In March 2006, First Kuwaiti workers, mostly from the Philippines, boarded a plane they thought would take them to work in Dubai. However, once the flight took off, they discovered that their destination was Iraq. This news caused an uproar that was quelled after a security guard pulled out a submachine gun.  An American worker for First Kuwaiti, Rory Mayberry, was also on the flight. "I believe these men were kidnapped," Mayberry said at a July congressional hearing in Washington. He said First Kuwaiti asked him to escort the Filipino workers to the Kuwait airport and make sure they boarded the plane to Baghdad.  Mayberry said he later found out that the workers "were being smuggled into the Green Zone" in Baghdad. "They had no IDs, no passports, nothing."  The kidnapping of Filipino workers was a blatantly illegal move. The Philippine government has banned Filipinos from working in Iraq.  More than 10 percent of the Filipino population works abroad because there are few high-paying jobs in the Philippines.  When the workers arrived in Baghdad, they found a grim reality. They were thrown into jobs with terrible working and living conditions, poor sanitation, and no real health care. The current whereabouts of the Filipino workers is unknown.  John Owens, another American who worked for First Kuwaiti on the U.S. Embassy project in Iraq, quit after seven months. In his resignation letter, Owens said that managers beat construction workers and demonstrated little regard for worker safety.  First Kuwaiti and other private contractors in Iraq get away with these appalling human rights violations because their work is sanctioned by the U.S. occupation and the Iraqi puppet regime.  For complete story, click here.
Subscription seller accused of worker abuse--August 9th, 2007--ALBANY, N.Y. — A magazine-subscription company based in Gig Harbor, Wash., is accused of illegally recruiting and deceiving young workers into conducting door-to-door sales with little or no compensation, according to the New York attorney general.  Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday he has filed a lawsuit against Jaguar Sales in the state Supreme Court in Poughkeepsie.  The company is accused of transporting young recruits to locations far from home, including New York state, to sell subscriptions door-to-door for magazines including Rolling Stone, Architectural Digest and U.S. News & World Report. Potential salespersons were promised hundreds of dollars inwages, cash bonuses, free travel and paid training.  Employees were then forced to endure terrible working conditions, according to Cuomo's suit. The company is accused of requiring their salespersons to work six days a week for about 12 hours a day, with no guaranteed earnings and no bonuses or paid training. Former employees claim commissions were either not paid or were withheld.  Jaguar Sales is also accused of charging employees for hotels and supplies, and fining them for breaking rules such as curfews. Travel fare was not provided until the employees had worked at least 30 days, and was not always provided after that, Cuomo charged.  For complete story, click here.
Scammed: two parties, one agenda--August 9th, 2007--Cindy Sheehan and others are fed up with the "two-party" system that provides only the appearance of a difference. Read here why it's a mistake to support Democrats as the "lesser evil" and why it's fruitless to try to change that party from within.  For complete story, click here.
Chevron, Total sign Iraq oil contract for Majnoon Field (Dow Jones Newswire) 08 Aug 2007 Oil giants Total SA and Chevron Corp. have signed a services agreement that would lead to the two jointly exploring and developing hydrocarbons from one of Iraq's biggest oil fields once the country gets an oil law in place [!] and security on the ground improves, people familiar with the deal say. The two companies signed an agreement last year and are currently assessing above-ground conditions around Majnoon, Iraq's fourth biggest oil field, which sits near the border with Iran, and at least one other field in the south of Iraq, to see what development work is required, the people told Dow Jones Newswires.  For complete story, click here.
Iraq oil minister bans unions, discussions on US-backed oil law 05 Aug 2007 Iraq's energy ministry is using a Saddam-era decree to crack down on trade unions and stifle dissent against foreign exploitation of the country's vast oil reserves, the Basra-based oil workers' union claims. Hassan Juma'a, the union's leader, has been at the forefront of a public campaign against the signing of a controversial new oil law - demanded by Washington - that would lead to long-term profit-sharing contracts being signed with multinational oil giants. But Hussein Shahrastani, Iraq's oil minister, has now issued a directive banning unions from participating in any official discussions about the new law, 'since these unions have no legal status to work within the state sector'.  For complete story, click here.
Poll: Iraqis Oppose Oil Privatization (OneWorld) 08 Aug 2007 A new public opinion poll has found nearly two thirds of Iraqis oppose plans to open the country's oilfields to foreign companies. The poll found a majority of every Iraqi ethnic and religious group believe their oil should remain nationalized. Some 66 percent of Shi'ites and 62 percent of Sunnis support government control of the oil sector, along with 52 percent of Kurds.  For complete story, click here.
Labor Dept: 1,001 contractors have died in Iraq 08 Aug 2007 More than 1,000 mercenaries have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion more than four years ago, according to Labor Department records made available Tuesday. In response to a request from Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., the Labor Department revealed that 1,001 mercenaries had died in Iraq as of June 30, including 84 during the second quarter of the year.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Attack Kills 32 in Sadr City 09 Aug 2007 An American raid and airstrike killed 32 people in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Wednesday. Hospital officials in the Sadr City district of Baghdad said that the American airstrike had killed or wounded several civilians, including a child, though the military disputed that account. The American attack coincided with an expanded curfew across Baghdad.  For complete story, click here.
45 civilians, four US soldiers killed in Iraq 07 Aug 2007 At least 45 civilians and four US soldiers died during another bloody day in Iraq... Meanwhile, in a village in the north of Iraq, a suicide bomber blew up a truck packed with explosives, unleashing a huge blast that killed 30 people and destroyed a number of homes. 'Sectarian' fighting in other areas claimed the lives of at least 15 Iraqis.  For complete story, click here.
4 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraqi Capital 07 Aug 2007 Four more U.S. soldiers were killed in roadside bombings in the Baghdad area, including three in a single strike, the military said Tuesday, raising to at least 19 the number of American troop deaths in the first week of August.  For complete story, click here.
British Criticize U.S. Air Attacks in Afghan Region 09 Aug 2007 A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people. Other British officers here in Helmand Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area.  For complete story, click here.
Kill Or Convert, Brought To You By the Pentagon--August 7th, 2007--Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore's sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days.  Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future.  For complete story, click here.
The Timeline to Tyranny--August 7th, 2007--The top ten advances towards tyranny in the United States during the tenure of the Bush administration, from the Patriot Act to the latest expansion of the illegal eavesdropping surveillance program.  1) The USA Patriot Act--The party line often heard from Neo-Cons in their attempts to defend the Patriot Act either circulate around the contention that the use of the Patriot Act has never been abused or that it isn't being used against American citizens. Here is an archive of articles that disproves both of these fallacies.  The Patriot Act was the boiler plate from which all subsequent attacks on the Constitution were formed.  2) Total Information Awareness--"Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database," infamously wrote New York Times writer William Safire, announcing the birth of Total Information Awareness, a kind of Echelon on steroids introduced a year after 9/11.  TIA was not canned, it was simply removed from the newspaper, renamed and continues to operate under a guise of different programs.  3) USA Patriot Act II--The second Patriot Act was a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganized the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command.  The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.  Military Commissions Act--Slamming the final nail in the coffin of everything America used to stand for, the boot-licking U.S. Senate gave President Bush the legal authority to abduct and sexually mutilate American citizens and American children in the name of the war on terror in passing the Military Commissions Act and officially ending Habeas Corpus.  There is nothing in the "detainee" legislation that protects American citizens from being kidnapped by their own government and tortured.  The New York Times stated that the legislation introduced, "A dangerously broad definition of "illegal enemy combatant" in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted."  Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman states in the L.A. Times, "The compromise legislation. ...authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."  Similarly, law Professor Marty Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."  John Warner Defense Authorization Act--The Bush Junta quietly "tooled up" to utilize the U.S. military in engaging American dissidents after the next big crisis, with a frightening and overlooked piece of legislation that was passed alongside the Military Commissions Act, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which greased the skids for armed confrontation and abolishes posse comitatus.  Illegal Domestic Wiretapping Program--"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," reported the New York Times on December 16, 2005  The secret warrantless spying program was a complete violation of both the 4th Amendment and FISA.  Expansion of Illegal Domestic Wiretapping Program--Not content with now being lawfully allowed to force ISP's and cell phone companies to turn over data about customers without a warrant, the Bush administration is pushing for even more authority to spy on American citizens, and has already been handed a 6 month window within which to impose any surveillance policy it likes, and for that program to remain legal in perpetuity.  The administration has a 6 month window in which to impose any surveillance program it chooses and that program will go unchallenged and remain legally binding in perpetuity - it cannot be revoked. Under the definitions of the legislation, Bush has been granted absolute dictator status for a minimum of 6 months.  If he so chooses, and so long as it's implemented within the next half year, Bush could build a database of every website visited by every American - and the policy would be immune from Congressional challenge even after the "surveillance gap" legislation reaches its sunset Martial Law Presidential Decision Directive 51--New legislation signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.  The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which also places the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security", was signed earlier this month without the approval or oversight of Congress and seemingly supercedes the National Emergency Act which allows the president to declare a national emergency but also requires that Congress have the authority to "modify, rescind, or render dormant" such emergency authority if it believes the president has acted inappropriately.  Destruction of the Dollar-- Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months - unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded "no,".  Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies.  Stiglitz agreed that the process of hijacking and looting key infrastructure on the part of the IMF and World Bank, as an offshoot of predatory globalization, had now moved from the third world to Europe, the United States and Canada.  Amnesty & The North American Union--The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan American Union has long been a Globalist brainchild but its very real and prescient implementation on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations has finally been reported on by mainstream news outlets.  The framework on which the American Union is being pegged is the NAFTA Super Highway, a four football-fields- wide leviathan that stretches from southern Mexico through the US up to Montreal Canada .Coupled with Bush's blanket amnesty program, the Pan American Union is the final jigsaw piece for the total dismantling of America as we know it.  For complete story, click here.

Bush Confirms He Will Seek More Dictatorial Power--August 7th, 2007--While Constitutional experts and even sectors of the corporate mainstream media have denounced the latest power grab by the Bush administration as "unnecessary and highly dangerous", the President himself has confirmed that he will seek even more authority from Congress and will attempt to pass more legislation aimed at granting the government unquestionable power over the people.  Legislation signed Sunday gives the government the green light to install permanent backdoors in communications systems that allow warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, a blatant violation of the 4th amendment.  The administration has a 6 month window in which to impose any surveillance program it chooses and that program will go unchallenged and remain legally binding in perpetuity - it cannot be revoked. Under the definitions of the legislation, Bush has been granted absolute dictator status for a minimum of 6 months, dovetailing with a recent Presidential Decision Directive that also appoints Bush as a supreme dictator during an announced emergency.  The bill was passed on Friday after the president jawboned Congress, saying lawmakers could not leave for their August recess at the weekend unless they "pass a bill that will give our intelligence community the tools they need to protect the United States."  Despite these huge freedom crushing steps, Bush says he is not done: "While I appreciate the leadership it took to pass this bill, we must remember that our work is not done," Bush said in his Sunday statement. "This bill is a temporary, narrowly focused statute to deal with the most immediate shortcomings in the law."  The statement continues: "When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001."  This basically means that the administration will push for liability for ISP's and cell phone companies in order to head off court cases brought by the ACLU and others, including retroactive protection which would neutralize all attempts to challenge the administration' s wiretapping activities spanning back to 9/11.  Constitutional expert and Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin has slammed the statement and pointed out the use of Orwellian doublespeak by Bush whereby he effectively admits to breaking the law and illegally spying on American citizens without actually saying so: "Apparently 'allegedly helped us stay safe' is Bush Administration code for telecom companies and government officials who participated in a conspiracy to perform illegal surveillance. .. Because what they did is illegal, we do not admit that they actually did it, we only say that they are alleged to have done it."  For complete story, click here.
Rev. Jesse Jackson asks for jury trial in arrest over gun shop demonstration--August 6th, 2007--MARKHAM, Illinois: The Rev. Jesse Jackson asked for a jury trial on trespassing charges related to his June arrest outside a gun shop, where he was demonstrating in support of tougher gun laws.  Jackson and local priest Rev. Michael Pfleger, who also was arrested, have held several protests at Chuck's Gun Shop to call for stricter gun laws after nearly three dozen public school students were killed in Chicago during the past year. They say the shop's proximity to Chicago gives gang members and criminals easy access to firearms.  If convicted, the civil rights leader and Pfleger could face up to six months in jail, the Cook County state's attorney's office said.  A judge on Monday set a Nov. 26 jury trial.  Jackson told reporters after his court appearance that he plans to increase his protests against the gun industry and would not be deterred by the threat of jail.   For complete story, click here.
Working invisibility cloak created at last--October 19th, 2006--An invisibility cloak that works in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum has been unveiled by researchers in the US. The device is the first practical version of a theoretical set-up first suggested in a paper published earlier in 2006.  The cloak works by steering microwave light around an object, making it appear to an observer as if it were not there at all. Materials that bend light in this way do not exist naturally, so have to be engineered with the necessary optical properties.  Earlier in 2006, John Pendry, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London, UK, and colleagues showed how such an invisibility cloak could, in theory, be made (see Physicists draw up plans for real 'cloaking device'). Now David Smith and colleagues at Duke University in North Carolina, US, have proved the idea works.  In recent years, materials scientists have made rapid progress in making so-called "metamaterials" , which can have exotic electromagnetic properties unseen in nature. These are made up of repeating structures of simple electronic components such as capacitors and inductors.  In 2001, Smith built a metamaterial with a negative refractive index, which bends microwaves in a way impossible for ordinary lenses. Now he has gone one step further.  For complete story, click here.
Lawmaker Calls for Registry of Drug Firms Paying Doctors--August 4th, 2007--WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 - An influential Republican senator says he will propose legislation requiring drug makers to disclose the payments they make to doctors for services like consulting, lectures and attendance at seminars.  The lawmaker, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, cited as an example the case of a prominent child psychiatrist, who he said made $180,000 over just two years from the maker of an antipsychotic drug now widely prescribed for children.  Mr. Grassley is one of several lawmakers to propose a federal registry of such payments. Minnesota, Vermont and Maine already have similar registries, and other states are considering them.  The proposals are a response to growing concerns that payments from drug makers can affect doctors' prescribing habits, increase the cost of health care and, in some cases, endanger patients' health.  For complete story, click here.
Congress gives Bush administration more eavesdropping power 04 Aug 2007 The House late Saturday night approved the Republican version of a measure amending [voiding] the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by a vote of 227-183, with most Republicans and conservative Democrats supporting the bill. President [sic] Bush demanded Congress expand his surveillance authority before leaving for vacation. The White-House backed legislation closes what the Bush regime has called critical gaps in U.S. intelligence capability. Lawmakers have been scrambling to pass a bill acceptable to the White House [!] before they leave for a month long summer recess. President [sic] Bush had threatened to veto any bill that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said did not meet his needs. [That is the actual quote - 'did not meet *his* needs.']  For complete story, click here.
House OKs wider wiretap powers --DemocRATs concede to Bush regime on warrantless surveillance 04 Aug 2007 The House handed President [sic] Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States. The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. ['The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday.']  For complete story, click here.
Congress Enacts Bush's Anti-Terrorism Spy Measure 04 Aug 2007 The U.S. House completed congressional passage of 'anti'-terrorist legislation that gives President [sic] George W. Bush more power to conduct electronic surveillance for the next six months. The House voted 227-183 to let spy agencies intercept -- without a court warrant -- e-mails and telephone calls of foreign-based terrorists that are routed through U.S. telephone switching facilities.  For complete story, click here.
Gonzales Now Says Top Aides Got Political Briefings 04 Aug 2007 Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President [sic] Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released yesterday. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he did not believe that senior Justice Department officials had attended such briefings. But he clarified his testimony yesterday in a letter to Congress...  For complete story, click here.
House Forms Special Panel Over Alleged Stolen Vote [Where's the *special panel* formed over two STOLEN ELECTIONS?] GOP Assails Decision on Food Aid for Immigrants 04 Aug 2007 The House last night unanimously agreed to create a special select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican allegations that Democratic leaders had stolen a victory from the House GOP on a parliamentary vote late Thursday night. [The GOP is hungry to investigate people getting food, but not the theft on two elections, an illegal war and ten thousand other crimes against humanity perpetrated by the illegitimate regime. --LRP]  For complete story, click here.
Iraqi Power Grid Nearing Collapse --Iraq's National Power Grid Is Nearing Collapse, Causing Blackouts and Water Shortages 04 Iraq's power grid is on the brink of collapse because of insurgent [US] sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages [!] and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid [?], officials said Saturday. [Gee, what happened to the tens of *billions* of dollars US taxpayers gave to Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater USA - to rebuild that which they destroyed in Iraq (and New Orleans)? These predators are likely already salivating over the likelihood of billions of dollars in new no-bid Bush contracts to 'rebuild' the US infrastructure.]  For complete story, click here.
Baghdad Misery Index: 117 Degrees, No Water 03 Aug 2007 Much of the Iraqi capital was without running water Thursday and had been for at least 24 hours, compounding the urban misery in a war zone and the blistering heat at the height of the summer. It was 117 degrees in the capital Thursday. Residents and city officials said large sections west of Baghdad had been virtually dry for six days.  For complete story, click here.
The Secret Behind the Sanctions How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply By Thomas J. Nagy (September 2001, The Progressive) Over the last two years, I've discovered documents of the Defense Intelligence Agency proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway. The primary document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," is dated January 22, 1991. It spells out how sanctions will prevent Iraq from supplying clean water to its citizens.  For complete story, click here.
White House Seeks Warrantless Authority From Congress 01 Aug 2007 The Bush regime is pressing Congress this week for the authority to intercept, without a court order, any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States. The proposal, submitted by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to congressional leaders on Friday, would amend [void] the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for the first time since 2006 so that a court order would no longer be needed before wiretapping anyone "reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States."  For complete story, click here.
Doctors Blast Guantanamo Treatment as Unethical:  August 1st, 2007--Chicago, Illinois - Military doctors violate medical ethics when they approve the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, according to a commentary in a prestigious medical journal.  The doctors should attempt to prevent force-feeding by refusing to participate, the commentary's three authors write in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.  "In medicine, you can't force treatment on a person who doesn't give their voluntary informed consent," said Dr. Sondra Crosby of Boston University, one of the authors. "A military physician needs to be a physician first and a military officer second, in my opinion."  As of Tuesday, 20 of 23 fasting detainees at Guantanamo were being fed liquid meals through flexible tubes inserted through their noses and throats, said Guantanamo spokesman Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt.  The strikers are protesting conditions at the camp and their open-ended confinement.  A few physicians have declined to participate in force-feeding, although the specific number has not been tracked, Haupt said. The military does not punish doctors who won't participate in force-feeding, Haupt wrote Friday in an e-mail response to questions from The Associated Press.  A mass hunger strike began at Guantanamo in August 2005 and reached a peak of 131 detainees. Last year, the military started strapping detainees in restraint chairs during tube feedings to prevent the prisoners from resisting or making themselves vomit.  The restraint chairs constitute excessive force and coercion, Crosby said.  For complete story, click here.
Security hearings called "Kafkaesque" 30 Jul 2007 Terrorism suspects held under virtual house arrest in Britain suffer "Kafkaesque" treatment in special courts that review secret evidence against them, a committee of legislators said on Monday. The committee's report said "no right-minded person" would think the suspects had a fair hearing when they often had no idea of the case against them. It likened the system to the Star Chamber, a secretive and oppressive English court abolished in 1641. The law allows suspects who cannot be prosecuted in the courts to be held under a loose form of house arrest known as a "control order".  For complete story, click here.
Suspended Gene Therapy Test Had Drawn Early Questions:  July 28th, 2007--A gene therapy experiment that has triggered a federal investigation after the death of a patient on Tuesday raised a variety of concerns when it was first proposed to federal reviewers in 2003.  Unlike the vast majority of such proposals, all of which aim to treat diseases by giving patients new genes, the plan to inject trillions of genetically engineered viruses into the joints of patients with arthritis was flagged for a special public review by the federal Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, part of the National Institutes of Health.  At that Sept. 17, 2003, meeting, representatives of the sponsoring company, Targeted Genetics Corp. of Seattle, listened as a panel of experts wondered aloud why such a novel and possibly risky approach was to be offered to patients who were not especially ill, including some who had not even tried standard treatments.  Reviewers questioned the justification for the study, given that animal studies had found only a "limited correlation" between the treatment and any improvements in subjects' condition. And they asked for more assurance that the engineered viruses were not going to spread around the body or cause untoward immune system reactions in patients.  Some also expressed concern that the informed consent document the researchers planned to use to describe the risks and benefits to participating patients was not upfront enough about the fact that the study was unlikely to help them and was designed merely to test the new approach's safety.  For complete story, click here.
Martial Law Threat is Real: Lucky that the Military is Breaking Down:  July 27th, 2007--The looming collapse of the US military in Iraq, of which a number of generals and former generals, including former Chief of Staff Colin Powell, have warned, is happening none too soon, as it may be the best hope for preventing military rule here at home.  From the looks of things, the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way for a declaration of military rule, such that at this point it really lacks only the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government. They have done this with the active support of Democrats in Congress, though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last, Republican-led Congress.  The first step, or course, was the first Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed in September 2001, which the president has subsequently used to claim—improperly, but so what? —that the whole world, including the US, is a battlefield in a so-called "War" on Terror, and that he has extra-Constitutiona l unitary executive powers to ignore laws passed by Congress. As constitutional scholar and former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein observes, that one claim, that the US is itself a battlefield, is enough to allow this or some future president to declare martial law, "since you can always declare martial law on a battlefield. All he'd need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack inside the U.S."  For complete story, click here.
Drug makers must warn patients of risks, Justices rule:  June 28th, 2007--CHARLESTON - Drug companies cannot escape liability for harmful prescriptions in West Virginia by laying all responsibility on doctors, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled June 27.  Three of five Justices denied a writ that would have kept Marshall Circuit Judge Mark Karl from holding trial against Janssen Pharmaceutica.  They upheld Karl's rejection of a doctrine that would define a doctor as a "learned intermediary" between a drug maker and a patient.  Chief Justice Robin Davis treated the doctrine as a useless 82-year-old relic.  "When the learned intermediary doctrine was developed, direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs was utterly unknown," she wrote.  "Pharmaceutical manufacturers never advertised their products to patients, but rather directed all sales efforts at physicians."  She wrote that the law created an exception to the duty of a manufacturer to warn consumers directly of risks.  "For good or ill, that has all changed," Davis wrote. "... we now hold that, under West Virginia products liability law, manufacturers of prescription drugs are subject to the same duty to warn consumers about the risks of their products as other manufacturers."  For complete story, click here.
Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts:  June 26th, 2007--WASHINGTON, June 26 — As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.  How this money may be influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved.  Vermont officials disclosed Tuesday that drug company payments to psychiatrists in the state more than doubled last year, to an average of $45,692 each from $20,835 in 2005. Antipsychotic medicines are among the largest expenses for the state’s Medicaid program.  For complete story, click here.
FBI to restrict student freedoms:  June 27th, 2007--US university students will not be able to work late at the campus, travel abroad, show interest in their colleagues' work, have friends outside the United States, engage in independent research, or make extra money without the prior consent of the authorities, according to a set of guidelines given to administrators by the FBI.  Federal agents are visiting some of the New England's top universities, including MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, to warn university heads about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research.  FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls "espionage indicators" aimed at identifying foreign agents.  Unexplained affluence, failing to report overseas travel, showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, unreported contacts with foreign nationals, unreported contact with foreign government, military, or intelligence officials, attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know, and unexplained absences are all considered potential espionage indicators.  Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to monitor their colleagues for signs of suspicious behaviour and report any concerns to the FBI or the military.  For source and partial story, click here.
Drug, Food Risks Stay Secret as Inquiries to U.S. FDA Pile Up--June 19th, 2007--June 19 (Bloomberg) -- Claudia Krcmarik can't get documents about her father-in-law's death during a medical study. Meryl Nass keeps asking for records she thinks will show an anthrax vaccine is dangerous. The American Bakers Association's request for a paper on the safety of imported honey has languished.  All filed public information requests with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at least four years ago and have yet to receive what they asked for -- even though American law says agencies must release records ``promptly.''  The FDA's 20,365 unfilled requests for information exceed the totals for the departments of Defense and Justice. One company, FOI Services Inc., accounts for 44 percent of the backlog, according to the agency. Researchers, consumer groups and individuals say the delays limit their ability to alert the public to food and drug dangers and to hold the FDA accountable.  ``It is important information that we need to tell this story,'' said Krcmarik, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who wants to know how her father-in-law was given an overdose in an FDA- regulated clinical trial before he died in 2002. ``That information should be available, and it should be timely. What we wanted to avoid is this happening to anyone else.''  For complete story, click here.
Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps --Stand-In for Ashcroft Alleges Interference 07 Jun 2007 Vice President [sic] Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday. The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.  For complete story, click here.
Groups list 39 'disappeared' in U.S. war on terror 07 Jun 2007 Six human rights groups urged the U.S. government on Thursday to name and explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have been held in U.S. custody and "disappeared." The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they filed a U.S. federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the 39 people it terms "ghost prisoners" in the U.S. "war on terror."  For complete story, click here.
NGOs list CIA 'ghost detainees' 07 Jun 2007 A group of human rights organisations has named 39 people they say the US has held in secret CIA-run prisons and whose whereabouts are now unknown. The group has called on the US to end the programme of secret prisons for people detained in the "war on terror".  For complete story, click here.
Detainee Abuse Was Well Planned 31 May 2007 Many of the controversial interrogation tactics used against terror suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo were modeled on techniques the U.S. feared that the Communists themselves might use against captured American troops during the Cold War, according to a little-noticed, highly classified Pentagon report released several days ago. Originally developed as training for elite special forces at Fort Bragg under the "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" program, otherwise known as SERE, tactics such as sleep deprivation, isolation, sexual humiliation, nudity, exposure to extremes of cold and stress positions were part of a carefully monitored survival training program for personnel at risk of capture, all carried out under the supervision of military psychologists. This troubling disclosure was made in the blandly titled report, "Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse", which for the first time sets forth the origins as well as new details of many of the abusive interrogation techniques that led to scandals at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere.  For complete story, click here.
ACLU files lawsuit against county for treatment of TB patient:  May 30th, 2007--A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union alleges that Maricopa County officials have violated the rights of a quarantined tuberculosis patient for months by treating him as a criminal.  The U.S. District Court complaint on behalf of Robert Daniels alleges health officials and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have violated numerous constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act.  The suit asks that Daniels be housed in appropriate accommodations, rather than the severe and "inhumane" jail conditions.  "It's good news for me," Daniels said Wednesday evening. "I finally have a chance to get out of this black hole."  For complete story, click here.
CEOs vs. Slaves: May 29th, 2007--...According to a just-reported study by Carola Frydman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Raven E. Saks at the Federal Reserve, thirty to forty years ago, the CEOs of major companies earned 80 percent more, on average, than the third-highest-paid executives. By the early part of the twenty-first century, however, the gap between the CEO and the third in command had ballooned up to 260 percent.  Now take a look at what's happening at the very bottom of the economic spectrum, where you might have pictured low-wage workers trudging between food banks or mendicants dwelling in cardboard boxes. It turns out, though, that the bottom is a lot lower than that. On May 16, a millionaire couple in a woodsy Long Island suburb was charged with keeping two Indonesian domestics as slaves for five years, during which the women were paid $100 a month, fed very little, forced to sleep on mats on the floor and subjected to beatings, cigarette burns and other torments.  For complete story, click here.
Pfizer Faces Criminal Charges in Nigeria:  May 30th, 2007--Officials in Nigeria have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for the company's alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic.  Authorities in Kano, the country's largest state, filed eight charges this month related to the 1996 clinical trial, including counts of criminal  conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm. They also filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $2 billion in damages and restitution from Pfizer, the world's largest drug company.  The move represents a rare -- perhaps unprecedented -- instance in which the developing world's anger at multinational drug companies has boiled over into criminal charges. It also represents the latest in a string of public-relations blows stemming from the decade-old clinical trial, in which Pfizer says it acted ethically.  For complete story, click here.
Ex-China drug regulator to be executed:  May 29th, 2007--BEIJING - China's former top drug regulator was sentenced to death Tuesday in an unusually harsh punishment for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.  Seeking to address broadening concerns over food, the government also announced plans for its first recall system for unsafe products.  The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods - from pet food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with induso trial chemicals to tainted antibiotics.  For complete story, click here.
Medical experiments to be done without patients' consent 27 May 2007 The federal government is undertaking the most ambitious set of studies ever mounted under a controversial arrangement that allows researchers to conduct medical experiments without first getting patients' permission. The $50 million, five-year 'project,' which will involve more than 20,000 patients in 11 sites in the United States and Canada, is designed to improve treatment [the profit margin for the corpora-terrorists] after car accidents, shootings, cardiac arrest and other emergencies... George J. Annas, a Boston University bioethicist, said "I don't think we should use people like this." Annas was particularly disturbed that children as young as 15 might be included in the research.  (Webmaster Note:  Such experimentation on the U.S. public and U.S. children is not new.  It's been going on for over 50 years.  It must be investigated and stopped, now!)  For complete story, click here.
Bush Re-Authorizes Martial Law Provisions:  President George W. Bush has sparked much alarm by openly declaring himself to be a dictator in the event of a national emergency under new provisions that will effectively nullify the U.S. constitution, but such an infrastructure has been in place for over 70 years and this merely represents a re-authorization of the infrastructure of martial law.  New legislation signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.  The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which also places the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security", was signed earlier this month without the approval or oversight of Congress and seemingly supercedes the National Emergency Act which allows the president to declare a national emergency but also requires that Congress have the authority to "modify, rescind, or render dormant" such emergency authority if it believes the president has acted inappropriately. Journalist Jerome Corsi, who has studied the directive also states that it makes no reference to Congress and "its language appears to negate any requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists."  In other words the new directive excludes Congress altogether from governance in a state of emergency.  While alluding to the "enduring constitutional government", the directive actually ensures the end of constitutional government as each branch, the executive, legislative and judicial, are stripped of equal authority and must answer directly and solely to the President.  For complete story, click here.
U.N. barred from Texas detention center 21 May 2007 U.S. immigration officials blocked a U.N. observer from visiting a detention facility for illegal aliens in Texas, the ACLU reported. U.N. Special Rapporteur Jorge Bustamante is conducting a fact-finding mission to examine the status of migrants' rights in the United States, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prohibited him from making a scheduled stop at a family detention center in Taylor, Texas, the ACLU reported on Friday. The detention center, which was formerly a medium-security prison according to the ACLU, is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America through a contract with the Department of Homeland Security.  For complete story, click here.
Senators Who Weakened Drug Bill Got Millions from Industry:  May 14th, 2007--WASHINGTON - Senators who raised millions of dollars in campaign donations from pharmaceutical interests secured industry-friendly changes to a landmark drug-safety bill, according to public records and interviews.  The bill, which passed 93-1, grants the Food and Drug Administration broad new authority to monitor the safety of drugs after they are approved. It addressed some shortcomings that allowed the painkiller Vioxx to stay on the market for years after initial signs that it could cause heart attacks.  For complete story, click here.
Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs:  May 9th, 2007--Two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses.  The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes.  For complete story, click here.
USDA: 20 million melamine-tainted chickens cleared for sale 08 May 2007 Chickens that ate bird feed made with a small amount [!] of contaminated pet food are safe for human consumption and can be released for slaughter and sale, federal health officials said yesterday. That decision emerged from a government risk analysis completed over the weekend involving 20 million chickens that officials said Friday had inadvertently been fed the tainted feed in several states.  For complete story, click here.
Chinese Prisoner Sues Yahoo Under Torture Victims Act:  April 20th, 2007:  While several U.S. companies, including Cisco, Google, and Microsoft, have been criticized by human rights groups, which accuse them of helping the Chinese government monitor and censor the Internet in China , the lawsuit against Yahoo, filed under the Torture Victims Protection Act, may be the first of its kind against an Internet company.  A Chinese political prisoner and his wife have sued Yahoo in a U.S. court, accusing the company of abetting acts of torture by helping Chinese authorities identify political dissidents who were later beaten and imprisoned. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, may be the first of its kind against an Internet company for its activities in China .   Wang Xiaoning, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence in China , according to the lawsuit; his wife, Yu Ling; and other unidentified plaintiffs seek damages and an injunction barring Yahoo from identifying dissidents to Chinese authorities.  "I hope to be able to have Yahoo promise that in the future they will stop this kind of wrongdoing," said Yu, speaking through an interpreter by telephone from San Francisco . For complete story, click here.
PET FOOD CONTAMINATION MOVES INTO USA MEAT SUPPLY--The pet food poisoning scandal that has prompted the largest recall of pet foods in history has spread into the livestock and meat sector. This week, the USDA admitted that the contaminated food ingredients that have killed thousands of pets across the U.S. were also used to feed hogs and chickens that have already been processed and eaten by several million Americans. Over three million chickens and pigs have consumed the tainted food. Although there have been no government studies done on the toxicity of this contamination, the FDA claims the risk is low. It’s important to note that organic animal feed was not contaminated in this latest incident, underlining the obvious point that pet owners and meat eaters should give preference to safer, more nutritious organic products (find organic pet foods here).
 Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5017.cfm or click here.
Under Criticism, Drug Maker Lilly Discloses Funding: May 2nd, 2007-- Amid criticism that money from drug companies is overly influential in the practice of medicine, Eli Lilly & Co. for the first time plans to release a detailed report today on its grants to nonprofit groups and educational institutions... But critics argue grants curry favor with physicians and influential organizations, and allow companies to defend newer, more expensive medications against generic remedies and expand use of medicines for unapproved purposes.   For source and partial story, click here.
Inside Texas' For-Profit Immigrant Prison--The Horrors of Hutto:  "Help us and ask questions," read the note, secretly passed to a visitor from an immigrant child incarcerated in a Texas prison.  Based on their visits and interviews, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are calling for the immediate shutdown of the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas.  Local activists have brought national and international attention on this facility, owned by the Corrections Corporation of American (CCA), which imprisons children and their families for profit under the same horrendous conditions as when it was a prison for adults.   Approximately 400 immigrants are incarcerated in Hutto, and at least half of the prisoners are children, according to Texans United for Families. Many of the immigrants-- who are limited to countries other than Mexico--have made requests for asylum in the U.S. They await deportation hearings without any charges for months, and sometimes years.  For complete story, click here.
Four students arrested for heckling FBI director 27 Apr 2007 Police arrested four Harvard University students last night for heckling FBI Director Robert Mueller prior to his speech on the "Balance of National Security and Civil Liberties," witnesses said. Harvard spokesman Joe Wrinn confirmed that four Harvard students were arrested outside the John F. Kennedy School of Government.  For complete story, click here.
Ban All the Lawyers --Prisoners at Guantanamo don't really need them, or so says the Justice Department. (The Washington Post) 29 Apr 2007 The Bush administration is ruthlessly exploiting the perverted system of justice approved by Congress last year for foreign prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. By stripping the detainees of the ancient right of habeas corpus, Congress drastically limited their ability to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts. Now the administration is citing that limitation as an excuse to curtail the prisoners' access to the civilian lawyers who have been representing them. As first reported Thursday by the New York Times, the Justice Department has asked the federal appeals court charged with handling all appeals of the detentions to limit lawyers to three visits with their clients; allow their correspondence with prisoners to be opened and read; and give government officials the power to deny the lawyers access to evidence.  For complete story, click here.
Post-Katrina Foreign Aid Offers Went Unaccepted --Administration has used only fraction of allies' pledged donations in hurricane aftermath, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125B to date. 29 Apr 2007 Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil... In another instance, the Department of Homeland Security accepted an offer from Greece on Sept. 3, 2005, to dispatch two cruise ships that could be used free as hotels or hospitals for displaced residents. The deal was rescinded Sept. 15 after it became clear a ship would not arrive before Oct. 10. The U.S. eventually paid $249 million to use [Jeb Bush contributors] Carnival Cruise Lines vessels.  For complete story, click here.
82 Inmates Cleared but Still Held at Guantanamo:  April 29th, 2007--LONDON -- More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.  Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including  a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.  The delays illustrate how much harder it will be to empty the prison at Guantanamo than it was to fill it after it opened in January 2002 to detain fighters captured in Afghanistan and terrorism suspects captured overseas.  For complete story, click here.
Exclusive: ABC Told Rosie Not To Talk About Dead U.S. Troops--O'Donnell censored on The View right from the start:  Rosie O'Donnell was ordered by ABC not to talk about casualty figures of U.S. troops in Iraq on The View and was continually censored and blocked in her attempts to feature prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as guests on the show.  O'Donnell had met with 9/11 truth crusader and World Trade Center hero William Rodriguez before she went public with her comments on The View questioning the suspicious collapse of Building 7. Pictured above is Rosie holding the famous key that Rodriguez used in the twin towers during the rescue efforts.  Rodriguez was instrumental in arranging the appearance of 9/11 first responders on The View which is set to air Friday.  Rosie has attempted to get William Rodriguez on the show as a guest on numerous occasions over the last few weeks but was rebuffed by program directors every time due to Rodriguez's vocal stance that 9/11 was an inside job. O'Donnell again attempted to simply mention Rodriguez's today but was shouted down.  Rosie was told almost from day one that she could not mention U.S. troop casualty figures in Iraq and the cover-up of the real death count, despite the fact that Neo-Con panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck was given free reign and allowed to say what she liked, including referring to the Iraqi people as "animals."  The fact that O'Donnell was blocked from talking about dead U.S. troops feeds into the same censorship that bars the media from filming coffins of returning soldiers at Dover AFB and other locations.  For complete story, click here.
8 spas raided in prostitution sting--Dallas: Possible links to human trafficking suspected in case:  At 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dallas police, the district attorney's office and federal agencies raided Nagoya Body Bath and seven other businesses that authorities say were operating as brothels and have possible links to human trafficking.  Some of the spas have been linked to one another, but authorities declined to give further details.    At an afternoon news conference, District Attorney Craig Watkins said he expected to file first-degree felony charges in connection with the investigation.  We want to make the cost of doing business so high that these folks decide that they don't want to do this business," Mr. Watkins said. "We plan on vigorously prosecuting these individuals. We want to send a message to the community that we're not going to tolerate this in Dallas County."  Twenty-seven women were detained during the raids, and 19 have since been released.  One woman who was detained has been identified as a possible victim of human trafficking. Several women, all South Korean, were being held for immigration reasons.  Police said they were trying to determine if any of the other detainees were human trafficking victims." For complete story, click here.
Man Arrested For Crime He Didn't Commit is Held in Prison for More Than a Year Before Charges Are Finally Dropped:  Roberto Hernandez was arrested by Hartford police officers and accused of robbing a local McDonald's. Despite a lack of evidence linking Mr. Hernandez to the crime, his bail was set at $100,000.  Mr. Hernandez, who is indigent, and Hispanic, was unable to secure the $100,000 bail, and as a result was forced to sit in prison, awaiting trial for more than a year, on a crime he never committed.  Finally, on the eve of trial, all charges against Mr. Hernandez were dropped and he was released.  In an effort to preserve our constitutional rights and protect us from future incidents of Constitutional abuse, Attorney Paul Spinella has taken on Mr. Hernandez's case to vindicate his Constitutional rights and to fix a bail system that continually denies minorities and indigent members of society reasonable bail.  The lawsuit, Roberto Hernandez v. The State of Connecticut, et al, filed in the United States District Court in Hartford on January 25, 2007, docket number 3:03-cv-00121( MRK), asserts that Hartford police officers deprived Mr. Hernandez of his Constitutional and state law rights by arresting him for a crime they knew, or should have known, he did not commit.  The lawsuit also seeks to reform Connecticut' s broken bail system that deprives indigent and minority members of the community, such as Mr. Hernandez, of their constitutional rights to reasonable bail. For complete story, click here.
WSU Vancouver evacuated due to threat; Patriot Act forum rescheduled 18 Apr 2007 The Vancouver branch of Washington State University was evacuated Tuesday night because of threatening graffiti discovered in a campus restroom shortly before an evening conference on the Patriot Act and the war on [of] terror, authorities said. University officials decided to evacuate the campus about 6:30 p.m. after the graffiti was found, according to Sgt. Mike Cooke of the Clark County sheriff's office. The threat came on the same night that Brandon Mayfield, an attorney wrongly arrested by FBI agents after the 2004 Madrid terrorist bombings, was scheduled to appear on campus as part of a forum on civil liberties titled "Casualties of the USA Patriot Act and the War on Terror." His wife, Mona Mayfield, said they drove to the campus and were told to leave. Mayfield said she was told the event would be rescheduled.  For complete story, click here.
Lawyer outlines a broader conspiracy in search for FBI documents on Oklahoma City bombing 17 Apr 2007 A Utah attorney alleges informants gathering information on Timothy McVeigh or his associates warned the FBI about the plot to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building but the agency took no action to stop the 1995 attack. Jesse Trentadue also says there were others involved in carrying out the bombing besides McVeigh and Terry Nichols, despite investigators' conclusion that they were the only ones responsible for the crime.  For complete story, click here.
Virginia Tech Shooting 'Oddities' By Lori Price 16 Apr 2007 Updated!  Or, click here.
Guantanamo detainee's father says son tortured in secret CIA prison 17 Apr 2007 The father of a Guantanamo Bay detainee accused CIA officials of torturing his son - Pakistani terror suspect Majid Khan - after arresting him in Pakistan in March 2003, according to an affidavit released Monday.  For complete story, click here.
CIA torture claims 18 Apr 2007 Top terror suspect Abu Zubaydah told a US military tribunal he was tortured while in CIA custody, and now suffered seizures. He said these affected his ability to speak and write, according to a transcript released yesterday. In a lengthy March 27 hearing before the tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Zubaydah denied associating with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, despite having told interrogators that he had.  For complete story, click here.
UN calls on the West to help four million displaced Iraqis 18 Apr 2007 The Iraq war was supposed to spread democracy throughout the Middle East, but to date its most palpable result has been to spread Iraqis throughout the world. UNHCR, the United Nations' refugee agency, believes that up to two million have sought refuge outside the country since the war started, and 1.9 million have been forced to move within Iraq in fear of their lives.  For complete story, click here.
Sadr ministers walk out of Iraq government in protest at US 17 Apr 2007 The nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his ministers to leave the Iraqi government because of its refusal to set a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. soldier on trial in Italy for Iraq killing 17 Apr 2007 A U.S. soldier [Mario Lozano] went on trial in Rome on Tuesday accused of killing an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq but was being prosecuted in absentia because Washington has ruled out handing him over.  For complete story, click here.
'I cannot simply dismiss a relevant document because the US military refuses to let me see it.' Lack of US help over fatal helicopter crash in Iraq 'inexcusable', says coroner 17 Apr 2007 The coroner hearing an inquest into the deaths of eight servicemen in an American helicopter crash in Iraq has issued a list of demands for evidence he wants from the US. Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said the lack of help from America was "inexcusable" and he expected an American safety report into the incident to be on his desk tomorrow morning. Mr Walker was told by Ministry of Defence lawyer Wendy Outhwaite that the Americans had "expressly" forbidden release of the document.  For complete story, click here.
Basra violence threatens Iraq's oil 17 Apr 2007 Political and sectarian [US] fighting in Iraq's oil capital, Basra, intensifies, threatening most of Iraq's oil production and all its oil exports.  For complete story, click here.
Afghan blast kills five in U.N. vehicle 17 Apr 2007 A remote-controlled bomb blew up a U.N. vehicle in Afghanistan on Tuesday killing four Nepalese contractors and an Afghan driver, police and the United Nations said.  For complete story, click here.
Merck's Vioxx Troubles May Ebb:  A ruling from a Texas judge coming as soon as Monday is expected to undercut the legal foundation for all 1,000 Vioxx cases brought against Merck & Co. by Texas plaintiffs, providing a potentially significant boon to Merck's defense efforts.  The judge has informed both sides in a state-court Vioxx case that he will dismiss it based on a recently finalized Food and Drug Administration rule, according to a person familiar with the matter. He then told attorneys involved in some of the other 1,000 Vioxx cases in Texas state courts that his ruling could affect the whole group.   Separately, Merck late yesterday raised its first-quarter and annual profit forecasts for the second time since January, once again citing "strong performance" across the company's product lines.  Harris County District Court Judge Randy Wilson, who oversees all of the Texas Vioxx cases, told the attorneys he will suspend the lawsuits until the state's appeals court rules on his judgment. He said he would issue his written order as soon as next week, according to the person with knowledge of the matter.  Such communications aren't uncommon, lawyers say. A clerk for the judge said he had no comment.  Judge Wilson is overseeing a case brought by Ruby Ledbetter, who blamed her heart attack on Vioxx, which she took for more than a year. Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market in September 2004 following a study that linked the painkiller to an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.  Judge Wilson said he was granting Merck's motion to dismiss Ms. Ledbetter's case, citing an FDA policy rule issued in February 2006. That rule says the agency's approval process trumps state law in how manufacturers of health-care products must warn consumers about their potential risks. It hasn't been clear how or if the rule would apply to Vioxx, which was approved long before 2006, and this case could prove to be an important test.  For source info and date, click here.
Antidepressants Don't Help Bipolar Patients:  Antidepressants, which are widely prescribed with mood stabilizers to treat patients with bipolar disorder, do not work in relieving the depressive symptoms of the illness, a large federal study reported Wednesday.  The study in the New England Journal of Medicine narrows the already limited number of treatments for bipolar disorder, which affects 5.7 million adults in the U.S., experts said.  "A new generation of drugs is needed," said Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "It is clear from this data that antidepressants are not the answer."  For complete story, click here.
FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act:  Last week the Senate's Judiciary Committee had the opportunity to hear from the Justice Department's Inspector General  about as he put it "the widespread and serious misuse of the FBI's national security letter authorities. " Today we need to hear straight from the FBI Director how and why this abuse occurred, and why it was not caught earlier.  Had it not been for this independent audit, conducted carefully and thoughtfully by the Inspector General's Office, Congress and the American public might never have known how the National Security Letter, or NSL, authorities were being abused by the FBI. The NSL authorities operate in secret. The Justice Department's classified reporting on the use of NSLs was admittedly inaccurate. And when, during the reauthorization process, Congress asked questions about how these authorities were being used, we got empty assurances and platitudes  that have turned out to be mistaken as well.  Unfortunately, I believe that the FBI's apparently lax attitude and in some cases grave misuse of these  potentially very intrusive authorities is attributable in no small part to the USA Patriot Act.  That flawed legislation dramatically expanded the NSL authorities, essentially granting the FBI a blank check to obtain some very sensitive records about Americans, including people not under any suspicion of wrong-doing, without judicial approval. Congress gave the FBI very few rules to follow, and accordingly shares some responsibility for the FBI's troubling implementation of these broad authorities.  For complete story, click here.
Drug firms' funding of advocates often escapes government scrutiny:  Patient advocates like Brown regularly testify at FDA public hearings, packing an emotional punch as advisers vote on controversial drug and device approvals.  Congress has homed in on examples of excessive compensation to managers of some nonprofits that underwrite what Senator Charles E. Grassley , Republican of Iowa , has derided as "champagne lifestyles." And others have targeted conflicts of interest that taint medical research and creep into FDA advisory panels. But little attention has been paid to smaller nonprofits, especially patient groups that are largely funded by the drug industry.  Public Citizen's Peter Lurie , who testifies frequently before FDA panels, noticed a shift as public hearings "were becoming contaminated by people who didn't represent the public in any way. They represented particular moneyed interests." Lurie, deputy director of the consumer advocacy organization's health research group, said, "It's a fair question: Who represents patients and how they come to call themselves" patient representatives?  In 221 advisory committee meetings scrutinized, 32 of 44 speakers representing patients said they had received funding from a company that would be affected by the FDA's decision, according to a recent journal article that Lurie co authored about conflicts of interest on FDA advisory panels.  For complete story, click here.
Top Ten Myths About the Illegal NSA Spying on Americans (ACLU) 06 Feb 2006 MYTH: This is merely a "terrorist surveillance program." REALITY: When there is evidence a person may be a terrorist, both the criminal code and intelligence laws already authorize eavesdropping. This illegal program, however, allows electronic monitoring without any showing to a court that the person being spied upon in this country is a suspected terrorist. [Download a printable version of the full ACLU report.]  For complete report, click here.
CHEMICAL COMPANIES SUED BY THOUSANDS OF STERILE FARMWORKERS:  Over 5,000 Latin American banana plantation workers are suing U.S. companies for poisoning them with pesticides that caused them to go sterile. The complainants, all of whom worked on banana farms, accuse Dole, Dow and Amvac of negligence and fraudulent concealment while forcing workers to use the pesticide DBCP. According to the lawsuit, the transnational companies "actively suppressed information about DBCP's reproductive toxicity." This is the first time any case for a banana worker has come before a U.S. court.  Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6012.cfm  For complete story, click here.
Brazil's ethanol slaves: 200,000 migrant sugar cutters who prop up renewable energy boom:  March 9th, 2007--Behind rusty gates, the heart of Brazil's energy revolution can be found in the stale air of a squalid red-brick tenement building. Inside, dozens of road-weary migrant workers are crammed into minuscule cubicles, filled with rickety bunk-beds and unpacked bags, preparing for their first day at work in the sugar plantations of Sao Paulo.  This is Palmares Paulista, a rural town 230 miles from Sao Paulo and the centre of a South American renewable energy boom that is transforming Brazil into a global reference point on how to cut carbon emissions and oil imports at the same time. Inside the prison-like construction are the cortadores de cana - sugar cane cutters - part of a destitute migrant workforce of about 200,000 men who help prop up Brazil's ethanol industry.  Biofuels are mega-business in Brazil. Such has been the success of the country's ethanol programme - launched during the 1970s military dictatorship - that it is now attracting attention from around the world. Yesterday President George Bush arrived in Sao Paulo to announce an "ethanol alliance" with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva. The bilateral agreement has been touted by the Brazilian media as the first step towards the creation of an "ethanol Opec".  Last year sugar and alcohol were Brazil's second biggest agricultural export products, worth an estimated $8bn (£4bn). Producers, meanwhile, expect the country's sugar cane production to jump by 55% in the coming six years, largely because of growing demand from the US and Europe. They hope that closer trade ties with the US in particular will help accelerate the ethanol industry's growth, providing jobs and funding the construction of dozens of new processing plants in the region.  But drive to the outskirts of Palmares Paulista and a much bleaker picture emerges of what President Lula has dubbed Brazil's "energy revolution". On one side, thick green plantations of sugar cane stretch out as far as the eye can see; on the other lopsided red-brick shacks crowd together, home to hundreds of impoverished workers who risk life and limb to provide the local factories with sugar cane.  Economic refugees fleeing the country's arid and impoverished north-east, these men earn as little as 400 reais (£100) a month to provide the raw material that is fuelling this energy revolution. Palmares Paulista is both a burgeoning agricultural town and a social catastrophe. "They arrive here with nothing," said Valeria Gardiano, who heads the social service department in Palmares, a town of 9,000 whose population swells each year with the influx of between 4,000 and 5,000 migrant workers.  "They have the clothes on their bodies and nothing else. They bring their children with malnutrition, their ill mothers-in-law. We try to reduce the problem. But there is no way we can fix it 100%. It is total exploitation, " she said. Activists go even further. They say the "cortadores" are effectively slaves and complain that Brazil's ethanol industry is, in fact, a shadowy world of middle men and human rights abuses.  For complete story, click here.
Neo-Nazi Rally Was Organized By FBI Informant:  February 15th, 2007--A paid FBI informant was the man behind a neo-Nazi march through the streets of Parramore that stirred up anxiety in Orlando's black community and fears of racial unrest that triggered a major police mobilization.  That revelation came Wednesday in an unrelated federal court hearing and has prompted outrage from black leaders, some of whom demanded an investigation into whether the February 2006 march was, itself, an event staged by law-enforcement agencies.  The FBI would not comment on what it knew about the involvement of its informant, 39-year-old David Gletty of Orlando, in the neo-Nazi event. In court Wednesday, an FBI agent said the bureau has paid its informant at least $20,000 during the past two years.  "Wow," Gletty said when reached by phone late Wednesday. "It is what it is. You were there in court. I can't really go into any detail now."  Orlando City Councilwoman Daisy Lynum, whose district includes the march route west of Interstate 4, said she wants to know who was behind the march, the neo-Nazis or the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies...   For complete story, click here.
Lilly Fraudulently Marketed Zyprexa, Montana Claims:  March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co. was sued by the state of Montana over claims the company fraudulently marketed its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses and owes the state for prescription costs and harm to patients.  Lilly allegedly gave kickbacks to doctors and improperly promoted the drug to nursing homes as a sedative, Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath said in a complaint filed March 7 in state court in Helena. He claimed Lilly, the world's biggest maker of psychiatric drugs, bought off a ``disgruntled'' sales director to keep him from disclosing its marketing practices.  The drugmaker ``instructed its representatives to minimize and misrepresent the dangers of Zyprexa, affirmatively and consciously placing company profits above the public safety,'' according to the complaint. ``This failure to warn was designed and intended to maximize company profits.''  Zyprexa has been linked to excessive weight gain and increased diabetes risk. The lawsuit is the seventh state claim against Indianapolis-based Lilly over Zyprexa marketing, and the second this year. Pennsylvania sued Lilly and two other makers of similar drugs Feb. 26 on behalf of its Medicaid programs. Both states seek unspecified reimbursement for money paid on prescriptions and any harm caused by Zyprexa.  For complete story, click here.
Putting Science in the Dock:  On a chilly morning in November 2001, David Healy stood in a witness box in Kansas City, Kansas, and received a sobering lesson on the US legal system. A professor of psychological medicine at Cardiff University in Wales, Healy was an expert on serotonin, depression and the brain. He had served as secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology. Drug companies sought his advice. He was widely published in scientific journals.  Healy had crossed the Atlantic to testify in a lawsuit filed against the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer by the parents of a teenager who had hanged himself in his bedroom closet. Thirteen-year-old Matthew Miller had just started taking Zoloft, a drug that can ease depression by boosting serotonin levels in the brain. But the medication seemed to backfire. During his week on Zoloft, Matthew grew "more agitated than I had ever seen him," his mother, Cheryl Miller, later recalled. She and her husband, Mark, believed their son's suicide was a direct and gruesome side effect of the drug.  The Millers knew that psychiatrists had seen violent suicidal behavior in a handful of patients taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Zoloft. They invited Healy to testify about this rare phenomenon. Though he routinely prescribed SSRIs in his own practice, Healy had become increasingly outspoken about the dangers of these antidepressants. He believed the evidence showed that the drug could be largely blamed for Matthew's suicide.  Before the trial could begin, though, Pfizer used a tactic that has grown increasingly common in lawsuits involving scientific testimony: It filed a thirty-six-page challenge to block Healy from even appearing before a jury. "Dr. Healy's reports consist of personal beliefs, speculation, innuendo, unscientific claims and theories, and mere musings," Pfizer's lawyers argued. "He has avoided, rather than followed, scientific methods in this case.... He knew what he was hired to say and, without bothering to explore the facts, said it." Pfizer's challenge triggered a "Daubert hearing," a procedure judges use to evaluate the credentials of scientific witnesses and the quality of their work. Now, in the half-empty courtroom, Healy found his research ripped apart.  For complete story, click here.
Researcher blasts HPV marketing:  LEBANON, N.H. - A lead researcher who spent 20 years developing the vaccine for humanpapilloma virus says the HPV vaccine is not for younger girls, and that it is "silly" for states to be mandating it for them.  Not only that, she says it's not been tested for effectiveness in younger girls, and administering the vaccine to girls as young as 9 may not even protect them at all. And, in the worst-case scenario, instead of serving to reduce the numbers of cervical cancers within 25 years, such a vaccination crusade actually could cause the numbers to go up.  "Giving it to 11-year-olds is a great big public health experiment," said Diane M. Harper, who is a scientist, physician, professor and the director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire.  "It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11- to 12-year-old girls. There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue."  Internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field, Harper has been studying HPV and a possible vaccine for several of the more than 100 strains of HPV for 20 years - most of her adult life.  For complete story, click here.
Privacy Board Clears U.S. Spy Programs 06 Mar 2007 A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two of the Bush regime's controversial surveillance programs - electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking - and says they do not violate citizens' civil liberties. Democrats newly in charge of Congress quickly criticized the findings, which they said were questionable given some of the board members' close ties with the Bush administration. After operating mostly in secret for a year, the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is preparing to release its first report to Congress next week.   Experts Want New Definition of Torture:  Prisoners who endure poor or degrading treatment suffer much of the same long-term psychological distress as do captives who are tortured, suggests a study published Monday.  The study was based on interviews with victims of ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia, and experts said the findings underscored the need for a broader definition of torture.  "What is the basis for the distinction between torture and other cruel and degrading treatment? Science should inform this debate," the study's lead author, Metin Basoglu of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. The study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.  Steve H. Miles of the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, who was not involved in the study, said the findings "show that the severity of long-lasting adverse mental effects is unrelated to whether the torture or degrading treatment is physical or psychological."  For complete story, click here.
ACLU objects as two companies offer ‘mind reading’ technology to government:  The American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the primary American security agencies for information relating to the use of “cutting-edge brain-scanning technologies” on suspected terrorists, RAW STORY has learned.  Two private companies have announced that they will begin to offer “lie detection” services using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), as early as this summer. fMRI can produce live, real-time images of people’s brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli.  These companies are marketing their services to federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and to state and local police departments.  “There are certain things that have such powerful implications for our society — and for humanity at large — that we have a right to know how they are being used so that we can grapple with them as a democratic society,” said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project.  For complete story, click here.
Mind Games:  ...Concerns about microwaves and mind control date to the 1960s, when the U.S. government discovered that its embassy in Moscow was being  bombarded by low-level electromagnetic radiation. In 1965, according to declassified Defense Department documents, the Pentagon, at the behest of the White House,  launched Project Pandora, top-secret research to explore the behavioral and biological effects of low-level microwaves. For approximately four years, the Pentagon conducted secret research: zapping monkeys; exposing unwitting sailors to microwave radiation; and conducting a host of other unusual experiments (a sub-project of Project Pandora was titled Project Bizarre). The results were mixed, and the program was plagued by disagreements and scientific squabbles. The " Moscow signal," as it was called, was eventually attributed to eavesdropping, not mind control, and Pandora ended in 1970. And with it, the military's research into so-called non-thermal microwave effects seemed to die out, at least in the unclassified realm.  But there are hints of ongoing research: An academic paper written for the Air Force in the mid-1990s mentions the idea of a weapon that would use sound waves to send words into a person's head. "The signal can be a 'message from God' that can warn the enemy of impending doom, or encourage the enemy to surrender," the author concluded. In 2002, the Air Force Research Laboratory patented precisely such a technology: using microwaves to send words into someone's head. That work is frequently cited on mind-control Web sites. Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the research laboratory's directed energy directorate, declined to discuss that patent or current or related research in the field, citing the lab's policy not to comment on its microwave work.  In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed for this article, the Air Force released unclassified documents surrounding that 2002 patent -- records that note that the patent was based on human experimentation in October 1994 at the Air Force lab, where scientists were able to transmit phrases into the heads of human subjects, albeit with marginal intelligibility. Research appeared to continue at least through 2002. Where this work has gone since is unclear -- the research laboratory, citing classification, refused to discuss it or release other materials.  The official U.S. Air Force position is that there are no non-thermal effects of microwaves. Yet Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center, tagged microwave attacks against the human brain as part of future warfare in a 2001 presentation to the National Defense Industrial Association about "Future Strategic Issues."  "That work is exceedingly sensitive" and unlikely to be reported in any unclassified documents, he says.  Meanwhile, the military's use of weapons that employ electromagnetic radiation to create pain is well-known, as are some of the limitations of such weapons. In 2001, the Pentagon declassified one element of this research: the Active Denial System, a weapon that uses electromagnetic radiation to heat skin and create an intense burning sensation. So, yes, there is technology designed to beam painful invisible rays at humans, but the weapon seems to fall far short of what could account for many of the TIs' symptoms. While its exact range is classified, Doug Beason, an expert in directed-energy weapons, puts it at about 700 meters, and the beam cannot penetrate a number of materials, such as aluminum. Considering the size of the full-scale weapon, which resembles a satellite dish, and its operational limitations, the ability of the government or anyone else to shoot beams at hundreds of people -- on city streets, into their homes and while they travel in cars and planes -- is beyond improbable.  But, given the history of America 's clandestine research, it's reasonable to assume that if the defense establishment could develop mind-control or long-distance ray weapons, it almost certainly would. And, once developed, the possibility that they might be tested on innocent civilians could not be categorically dismissed.  For complete story, click here.
The Deadly Trade of Child Organ Trafficking Srinagar:  The horrific killings of 19 children and women in the Indian slum of Nithari, close to the affluent area  of Noida on the outskirts of India's capital, Delhi, has brought into focus the horrific trade of human organ trafficking that is claiming the lives of thousands of  children worldwide.  There is huge demand and a market for body parts especially eyes, hearts and kidneys belonging to children. Estimates indicate that at  least one million children have been kidnapped and killed in the past 20 years for organs. A kidney or eyes can fetch up to US $10,000 and a heart could cost  US $50,000 or more.  Estimates further indicate that money laundering in this deadly trade accounts for up to 10% of the world's GDP, or as much US  $5 trillion. As a result, the black market for children's organs is expanding and more and more children are kidnapped and killed.  While victims are  primarily from Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Latin America and Africa, trafficking also takes place in developed countries.  For complete story, click here.
McCain Bill Is Lethal Injection For Internet Freedom:  Republican Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards, effectively nixing the open exchange of ideas on the Internet, providing a lethal injection for unrestrained opinion, and acting as the latest attack tool to chill freedom of speech on the world wide web.  McCain's proposal, called the "Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act," encourages informants to shop website owners to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.  Comment boards for specific articles are extremely popular and also notoriously hard to moderate. Popular articles often receive comments that run into the thousands over the course of time. In many cases, individuals hostile to the writer's argument deliberately leave obscene comments and images simply to sully the reputation of the website owners. Therefore under the terms of this bill, right-wing extremists from a website like Free Republic could effectively terminate a liberal leaning website like Raw Story by the act of posting a single photograph of a naked child. This precedent could be the kiss of death for blogs as we know them and its reverberations would negatively impact the entire Internet.  For complete story, click here.
Bush's anti-terrorism law upheld 13 Dec 2006 A US court has upheld President [sic] George W Bush's new anti-terror law, agreeing that Guantanamo inmates cannot challenge their imprisonment in courts.  For complete story, click here.
Forced vaccines and quarantines are being signed into law as we 'debate' the solution to Bush's war in Iraq: Senate approves Burr's bioterrorism bill --Critics warn about the effects of 'secret vaccine production' 06 Dec 2006 The Senate passed a bill last night [S.3678] sponsored by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., that would create a new federal agency to combat [foment] bioterrorism. The bill to establish the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, commonly referred to as BARDA, passed by unanimous consent. Barbara Loe Fisher, the president of the National Vaccine Information Center, has been an outspoken critic of the bill. She was unaware that the bill had been passed by the Senate last night but said she's worried about the effects "secret vaccine production" could have on the American public. "This is an extremely dangerous precedent that is being set," she said. [Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by Senate)[S.3678.ES] --The Library of Congress, THOMAS]  For complete story, click here.
The House vote to approve BARDA could take place before Friday, 08 Dec. (National Vaccine Information Center) 06 Dec 2006 In the future, when the Secretary of Health and Human Services declares a public health "emergency" under Bioshield and other federal and state legislation passed since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans could be quarantined and forced to use experimental drugs and vaccines and have no recourse to the civil justice system if they are injured by them. Congress has already given complete liability protection to drug companies and those who order citizens to take drugs and vaccines during a declared public health "emergency." [Call the Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121 to express your views on BARDA; visit www.house.gov to locate your Congresscritters.] 
Student shocked, tortured for defending constitutional rights:  A horror video that wouldn't look out of place in Maoist China or Nazi Germany shows a student being repeatedly shot with a stun gun by UCLA police for the crime of not showing his ID. As similar cases begin to pile up how long will it be before  Americans are routinely tortured for noncompliance and refusing to have their 4th amendment violated?  "A cell phone captured video of a 23-year-old  student being administered multiple Taser shocks by UCLA police on Tuesday. The UCLA student was hit with the Taser shocks multiple times while he was  in the Powell Library Computer Lab. According to the paper, (Mostafa) Tabatabainejad did not show ID to community service officers who were conducting a  random check," reports NBC.  Watch the video above and witness as the cops bark at Tabatabainejad to get to his feet as simultaneously shock him over and  over until he begins crying and screaming for them to stop.  Police are given extensive training on the use of stun guns and in most cases that training  involves taking a taser shot and feeling the effects. Depending on each individual's physiology, it takes at least a minute to be able to even stand after a  single Taser shot. Over a hundred deaths have occurred in America as a result of taser shocks and Taser's own manual discourages repeated shocks, yet the  history of their use tells us that police simply administer repeated shocks until "compliance is gained." This is a euphemism for torture.  For complete story, click here.
Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse --A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the former Defense Secretary and other U.S.  officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. 10 Nov 2006 New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of former Defense Secretary [War Criminal] Donald Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses [torture] committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  For complete story, click here.
Toxic Sweatshops Exposed by Whistle-Blower:  Picture a stream of refuse, comprised of countless obsolete computers and electronic devices. That stream is what we frequently refer to these days as e-waste.  When e-waste is landfilled or incinerated, a host of toxic chemicals, including carcinogenic heavy metals, can be released into the ground, air, and water. A lucrative recycling industry has developed around harvesting valuable and reusable components from outdated electronics, but the problem of e-waste being processed by unprotected workers in unsafe conditions continues as so-called e-recyclers profit by selling components to developing countries (including China, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria, among others) with lax or absent environmental laws, rather than responsibly handling it here. But would you believe similarly unsafe e-recycling is happening throughout the U.S., using captive laborers, all within the purview of the federal government?  Last month, as 500 members of the nation's electronics recycling industry gathered in Austin for the annual e-scrap conference, a coalition of public interest and environmental groups – including Austin-based Texas Campaign for the Environment – released the report "Toxic Sweatshops, How UNICOR Prison Recycling Harms Workers, Communities, the Environment, and the Recycling Industry." Delivering the most incisive look yet at UNICOR, aka Federal Prison Industries –a $765 million-per-year company operated under the U.S. Department of Justice that has employed prisoners in various labor tasks since 1934– the report details how inmates are paid $0.23-$1.15 per hour to smash computer monitor glass, allegedly with inadequate tools and safety equipment, to access salvageable copper coils, releasing clouds of toxin-laced dust over workers and guards in the process UNICOR claims that its workers have access to a range of safety equipment and that air quality is periodically tested.  The report contains the accounts of corrections Officer Leroy Smith, a former safety manager in UNICOR's operation in Atwater, Calif., who became a federal whistle-blower in 2004, documenting the dangerous extent of the recycling operations and decrying efforts to cover them up.  "Daily, I receive calls from my colleagues working in computer recycling operations at other correctional institutions who describe coming home coated in dust. They had been told that there was no danger. Now, many have health problems, and others are scared about what lies in store for them," said Smith, who spoke at the E-Scrap conference. The one air-quality test performed at his facility in 2003, he said, showed three times the permissible levels of heavy metals, including lead, cadmium, barium, and beryllium, adding that prisoners were often lacerated by broken glass, that food was served in contaminated work areas, and that conditions were intentionally cleaned up immediately before safety inspections. He faulted the Justice Department, the Bureau of Prisons (who investigated and largely dismissed the allegations), and even the U.S. Office of Special Council, who gave him the 2006 Public Servant of the Year award for his whistle-blowing. And he claimed no one has adequately addressed the long-term medical effects of the toxic exposure or taken steps to demand reforms from UNICOR, which operates six prison operations similar to his – including one in Texarkana – four of which have never been investigated. For complete story, click here.
U.S. Plans to Screen All Who Enter, Leave Country --Personal Data Will Be Cross-Checked With Terrorism Watch Lists; Risk Profiles to Be Stored for Years 03 Nov 2006 The federal government disclosed details yesterday of a border-security program to screen all people who enter and leave the United States, create a terrorism risk profile of each individual and retain that information for up to 40 years. While long known to scrutinize air travelers, the Department of Homeland Security is seeking to apply new technology to perform similar checks on people who enter or leave the country "by automobile or on foot," the notice said... "They are assigning a suspicion level to millions of law-abiding citizens," said David Sobel, senior counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "This is about as Kafkaesque as you can get."  For complete story, click here.
U.S. seeks silence from CIA prisoners: W. Post 03 Nov 2006 The Bush administration is arguing that detainees held in secret CIA prisons shouldn't be allowed to describe in court how they were interrogated, the Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition. The government believes that interrogation methods used by the CIA are among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets, and that their release "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage," the Post said, citing recent court filings. For complete story, click here.

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law:  In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy  (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act  (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is  seeking to undo those prohibitions.  Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the  commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops 

anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress  public disorder."  President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006.  In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home,  preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the  term is "martial law."  For complete story, click here.
Cheney confirms detainees were subjected to water-boarding 25 Oct 2006 Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called "water-boarding," which creates a sensation of drowning. Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview. The U.S. Army, senior Republican lawmakers, human rights experts and many experts on the laws of war, however, consider water-boarding cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that's banned by U.S. law and by international treaties that prohibit torture.  For complete story, click here.

Lawyer to radicals may face prison term:  NEW YORK (AP) - She's already a grandmother of 14, a cancer survivor and a former civil rights lawyer who took on radical clients others considered toxic.  Lynne Stewart will soon find out if she will be forced to assume another role - prison inmate.  "I couldn't tell you I'm not stressed," Stewart said about her Monday sentencing in a Manhattan terrorism case. "I'm very concerned.  "Prosecutors have asked a federal judge to impose a 30-year term for what they described in court papers as Stewart's "extremely dangerous and devious" conduct to help an Egyptian terrorist leader communicate with followers.  Stewart, 67, recently responded by writing the judge a nine-page letter seeking leniency.  Mixed with her trademark defiance - "I am not a traitor" - was a measure of contrition. After some soul searching, she wrote, she had concluded that a careless over-devotion to her clients - "I am softhearted to the point of self-abnegation" - was her undoing.  The letter was an attempt to "look back at this disaster in my life and speak to the judge from my brain and my heart," she told The Associated Press in a recent telephone interview. "I think mercy is a great quality, but it's very hard to ask for it for myself."  She admits the plea may be too little, too late.  "I don't know whether it's the lawyer or the Irish in me that says, 'Prepare for the worst,'" she said. "I'm prepared to be led out of that courtroom in handcuffs."   For complete story, click here.

Psychoanalysis as a Weapon: Thomas Szasz is justly honored for his gallant and courageous battle against the compulsory commitment of the innocent in the name of "therapy" and humanitarianism.  But I would like to focus tonight on a lesser-known though corollary struggle of Szasz: against the use of psychoanalysis as a weapon to dismiss and dehumanize people, ideas, and groups that the analyst doesn't happen to like. Rather than criticize or grapple with the ideas or actions of people on their own terms, as correct or incorrect, right or wrong, good or bad, they are explained away by the analyst as caused by some form of neurosis. They are the ideas or actions of neurotic, or "sick," people: so if the people themselves are not to be incarcerated in institutions as "mentally ill," then their ideas or attitudes may be treated in the same manner.  The unspoken assumption, of course, is that ideas or actions congenial to the analyst don't need "explaining" by psychoanalytic or other psychodynamic theories. Since they don't need "explaining," the implication is that they are normal, correct, and good, though of course no analyst, in his role as the embodiment of "value-free science," would ever be caught dead using such terms. For if he did so, he would have to take the ideas or actions of his opponents seriously, and set forth an explicit moral theory in doing so. He would not be able to dismiss them as "sick" or as people who are uniquely in need of being "explained."  For complete story, click here.

American Prison Camps Are on the Way: The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear- mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.  Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed  that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."  Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to  deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism. Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed  the bill through Congress with little substantive debate.  Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or  who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.  The bill also strips habeas corpus rights from detained aliens who have been declared enemy combatants. Congress has the constitutional power to  suspend habeas corpus only in times of rebellion or invasion. The habeas-stripping provision in the new bill is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will  likely say so when the issue comes before it.  For complete story, click here.
FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS: Locations and Executive Orders:  There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general’s signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached. Ask yourself if you really want to be on Ashcroft’s list.  The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.  Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot are the two sub programs which will be implemented once the Rex 84 program is initiated for its proper purpose. Garden Plot is the program to control the population. Cable Splicer is the program for an orderly takeover of the state and local governments by the federal government. FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations. The Presidential Executive Orders already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this operation.  The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby. The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.  For complete story, click here.
Protesting Is Organized Crime In London:  At 1pm on Monday October 9th, up to one hundred and fifty angry and concerned people converged on the Palace of Westminster, to sack parliament. The plan was to surround parliament and cause parliamentary activities to cease. MPs, Lords and civil servants would be prevented from re-opening Parliament.  As soon as protesters started to arrive, police quickly moved in stop and search everyone that was considered 'suspicious' . Many people were turned away from reaching Parliament Square, others were singled out by police units and prevented from joining the protests. See 2pm update when around 100 protesters were surrounded by police. An NUJ photogapher was hospitalised by police after being violently thrown into a kerb.  Eventually the remaining demonstrators were left out the police pen, after having been searched, photographed and identified. There are reports of several arrests, but there is no confirmation of numbers as yet.  For complete story, click here.
Lloyd shot dead by US troops, inquest told 06 Oct 2006 ITN reporter Terry Lloyd was shot in the head by American troops as he was being driven to hospital, the inquest into his death was told today. An account by an Iraqi witness that was read out at the inquest in Oxford claimed Lloyd was still alive after the original attack on his car but was killed by US troops as he was driven from the scene... Deputy assistant coroner for Oxfordshire, Andrew Walker, said the witness also said he had seen Lloyd's press pass and described a white Kuwaiti pass clipped on a yellow short-sleeved shirt.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Navy medic admits role in Iraqi murder case 06 Oct 2006 A U.S. Navy medic [Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos] admitted on Friday to participating in the kidnapping of an Iraqi civilian but avoided murder charges in a plea deal in which he agreed to testify on his own role and that of seven Marines in the Iraqi's death. For complete story, click here.
US medic in Iraq kidnap plea deal 06 Oct 2006 A US Navy medic has pleaded guilty to helping kidnap an Iraqi civilian in Hamdaniya, while agreeing to testify about his comrades' roles in his death. Seven marines are at various stages of the military justice process over the kidnap and murder of Hashim Awad. The case is one of several in which US troops are accused of murdering civilians in Iraq.  For complete story, click here.
"Everyone in the group laughed at the others stories of beating detainees." AP learns Guantanamo guards brag of beatings 06 Oct 2006 Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.  For complete story, click here.
This fall, the Navy plans to open a new, $30-million maximum-security wing at its Guantanamo Bay prison complex, a concrete-and-steel structure replacing temporary camps. [See: Halliburton given $30m to expand Guantanamo Bay 18 Jun 2005 A subsidiary [KBR] of Halliburton, the oil services group once led by the US Vice-President [sic], Dick Cheney, has won a $30m (£16m) contract to help build a new permanent prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.]  For complete story, click here.
Leading Republican offers dismal view of Iraq 06 Oct 2006 The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a Bush loyalist offered his darkest assessment of Iraq yet on Thursday, suggesting the war there was "drifting sideways" without a firm commitment from its government to disarm militias and rebuild the country.  For complete story, click here.
As Jobs Leave America's Shores... The New Face of Class War: The attacks on middle-class jobs are lending new meaning to the phrase "class war". The  ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled. America, the land of opportunity, is giving way to ever deepening polarization between rich and poor. The  assault on jobs predates the Bush regime. However, the loss of middle-class jobs has become particularly intense in the 21st century, and, like other pressing problems, has been ignored by President Bush, who is focused on waging war in the Middle East and building a police state at home. The lives and careers  that are being lost to the carnage of a gratuitous war in Iraq are paralleled by the economic destruction of careers, families, and communities in the U.S.A.  Since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, the U.S. government has sought to protect employment of its citizens. Bush has turned his  back on this responsibility. He has given his support to the offshoring of American jobs that is eroding the living standards of Americans. It is another  example of his betrayal of the public trust.  "Free trade" and "globalization" are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle  class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, a three-time contender for the presidential nomination, put it well when he wrote that NAFTA and the  various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American  workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap.  For complete story, click here.
Fatal Vision: The Deeper Evil Behind the Detainee Bill: It was a dark hour indeed on Thursday when the United States Senate voted to end the constitutional  republic and transform the country into a "Leader-State, " giving the president and his agents the power to capture, torture and imprison forever anyone -  American citizens included - whom they arbitrarily decide is an "enemy combatant." This also includes those who merely give "terrorism" some kind of  "support," defined so vaguely that many experts say it could encompass legal advice, innocent gifts to charities or even political opposition to US  government policy within its draconian strictures.   All of this is bad enough - a sickening and cowardly surrender of liberty not seen in a major Western  democracy since the Enabling Act passed by the German Reichstag in March 1933. But it is by no means the full extent of our degradation. In reality, the  darkness is deeper, and more foul, than most people imagine. For in addition to the dictatorial powers of seizure and torment given by Congress on  Thursday to George W. Bush - powers he had already seized and exercised for five years anyway, even without this fig leaf of sham legality - there is a far  more sinister imperial right that Bush has claimed - and used - openly, without any demur or debate from Congress at all: ordering the "extrajudicial killing"  of anyone on earth that he and his deputies decide - arbitrarily, without charges, court hearing, formal evidence, or appeal - is an "enemy combatant."   For complete story, click here.
Slavery in North America can be hazardous to your health: If you find yourself consistently working long hours, it might be time to check in with a doctor. A  study published online last week by the journal Hypertension found that the more hours people work in a typical week, the more likely they are to have high  blood pressure.    For complete story, click here.
Fresno Homeless Attacked and Insulted by City Workers:  "The homeless people that live here are the luckiest homeless in Fresno." Surprised by the statement, I asked undercover Fresno Police Officer Ray Wallace what he meant. "They have maid service. We come out and clean up for them about every other week." The cleaning party today was particularly vigorous.The letter handed out by the Fresno Police Department, giving notice of the "clean up" said they would "start at 8:00am." I arrived at 7:50 AM and the destruction of property was already well under way. One homeless woman told me that everything she owned had been destroyed because she was a few minutes too late to save it. "I had paper work in there that can’t be replaced," she said.   For complete story, click here.
Judge Rules That U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain Noncitizens Indefinitely:  A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide  latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation.  The  ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the  government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims,  mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional.  Judge Gleeson's decision requires top federal officials, including former  Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, to answer to those accusations under oath.  This is the first time a federal judge  has addressed the issue of discrimination in the treatment of hundreds of Muslim immigrants who were swept up in the weeks after the 2001 terror attacks  and held for months before they were cleared of links to terrorism and deported.  The roundups drew intense criticism, not only from immigrant rights  advocates, but also from the inspector general of the Justice Department, who issued reports saying that the government had made little or no effort to  distinguish between genuine suspects and Muslim immigrants with minor visa violations.  For complete story, click here.
Minutemen Target Children: The Attack on Academia Semillas del Pueblo:  HATE-TALK RADIO AND THE BOMB THREAT AT ACADEMIA SEMILLAS DEL  PUEBLO-- When the bomb threat came that morning it targeted 250 Chicano children and their families in a deliberate act of political terror.  For a month, KABC in Los  Angeles had focused an unrelenting attack against their school - Academia Semillas del Pueblo. KABC is an ultra-right talk radio station that carries Bill O'Reilly and Sean  Hannity, one that specializes in xenophobia and a thinly disguised hate-talk format aimed at the paranoids who think George Bush is a sell out liberal and who accuse Sen.  James Sensenbrenner of not going far enough to rid the nation of Mexicans and other descendants of the indigenous peoples of North and Central America.  Let's make it  plain: these are minutemen with microphones, and with the billion-dollar backing of Disney.  Under the laws of hate, speech leads to action; it was only a matter of time until  someone took matters into their own hands. KABC knows it audience, and although the station's website continues to place a strong focus on the imagined sins of the  Academia, it breathes not a word of the bomb threat. To do so would be to implicate itself and its listeners.  KABC and its morning host, Doug McIntyre, are more than upset with the East LA school.  They want it shut down: if it were a book, they'd burn it.  One minutemen supporter wrote, "This BS pisses me of so much I'll die fighting it." 97% of McIntyre's listeners say they support Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist.  The imagined offense is, fundamentally, that the school exists. One can all but feel the shudders when one hears them denounce the existence of "La Raza's Own School in LA."  No one would or should think twice if Blacks had their own school, and, of course they do – not just elementary schools like the Academia, but a whole network of historically Black colleges which have produced the most important Black intellectuals of our times. And no one, not even the most openly racist elements, would publicly challenge the right of these schools to offer a Black-centered curriculum or to teach African languages, dance, religion and politics.  For complete story, click here.
US court backs government broadband wiretap access 09 Jun 2006 A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld the government's authority to force high-speed Internet service providers to give law enforcement authorities access for surveillance purposes.  For complete story, click here.
Police Arrest 22 in Wash. Anti-War Protest:  Following more than a day of demonstrations against Iraq-bound military shipments from the Port of Olympia, more than 20 anti-war activists were arrested when they tore down a gate to the port, lay down on the ground and refused to leave, authorities said.  Officers used pepper spray several times Tuesday night, including once when some in the crowd started hurling bottles and rocks at officers, said sheriff's Capt. Brad Watkins.  After the initial arrests, the crowd dropped to about 100 people, he said. Later, the remaining protesters headed off on a brief march but about three dozen returned for a late night vigil, Watkins said.  No one was seriously injured, he said.  Watkins said 22 people were arrested, including two for failure to disperse and the rest for criminal trespass.  On Monday night, at least three protesters tried to pry the gate open. Authorities fired the pepper spray after asking demonstrators several times to stop, authorities said.  For complete story, click here.
High court trims whistleblower rights:  WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote.  In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs.  Critics predicted the impact would be sweeping, from silencing police officers who fear retribution for reporting department corruption, to subduing federal employees who want to reveal problems with government hurricane preparedness or terrorist-related security.  For complete story, click here.
Block the Vote: In a country that spends so much time extolling the glories of democracy, it's amazing how many elected officials go out of their way to discourage voting.  States are adopting rules that make it hard, and financially perilous, for nonpartisan groups to register new voters. They have adopted new rules for maintaining voter rolls that are likely to throw off many eligible voters, and they are imposing unnecessarily tough ID requirements.  Florida recently reached a new low when it actually bullied the  League of Women Voters into stopping its voter registration efforts in the state. The Legislature did this by adopting a law that seems intended to scare away anyone who  wants to run a voter registration drive. Since registration drives are particularly important for bringing poor people, minority groups and less educated voters into the process,  the law appears to be designed to keep such people from voting.  It imposes fines of $250 for every voter registration form that a group files more than 10 days after it is  collected, and $5,000 for every form that is not submitted — even if it is because of events beyond anyone's control, like a hurricane. The Florida League of Women Voters,  which is suing to block the new rules, has decided it cannot afford to keep registering new voters in the state as it has done for 67 years. If a volunteer lost just 16 forms in a  flood, or handed in a stack of forms a day late, the group's entire annual budget could be put at risk.  In Washington, a new law prevents people from voting if the secretary of state fails to match the information on their registration form with government databases. There are many reasons that names, Social Security numbers and other data may not match, including typing mistakes. The state is supposed to contact people whose data does not match, but the process is too tilted against voters.  For complete story, click here.
FROM SOLDIER TO ANTI-WAR ACTIVIST: THE STORY OF TINA GARNANEZ:  LOOKING FOR A FUTURE  "I was a lost Native," Tina Garnanez reflected Tina grew up on the Navajo reservation and attended public school in Farmington, New Mexico. The only daughter of five children raised by a single mom, Tina enlisted when she was 17, to get money for college.  "I wanted to attend college, and I knew that between my family situation and being from the reservation, I had few options to get a college education."  Tina was stationed in Kosovo in March 2003 when U.S. planes bombed Baghdad. In July 2004, Tina was deployed to Iraq. Tina had already completed her tour of duty, but the Army can extend a soldier's enlistment through a policy known as stop-loss.  BEING IN A WAR-ZONE  As a medic in Iraq, Tina transferred patients from the ambulances to the hospitals were she saw the high cost of war. "I saw disfigured bodies, limbs blown off, soldiers lost their sanity."  She also traveled with convoys delivering medical supplies to bases. On one of these convoys, Tina barely escaped an explosion. A bomb exploded and dust, rocks, and shrapnel flew everywhere.  "I was so angry, angry at the reason I was there.  'For what?' I asked myself. My mom would have received a triangle-folded flag in exchange for her only daughter."  She knew at that moment she could no longer serve in the war. "I'm done," she said. "I am not fighting for anyone's oil agenda." For complete story, click here.
Secret FEMA Plan To Use Pastors as Pacifiers in Preparation For Martial Law:  A Pastor has come forward to blow the whistle on a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation.  In March of this year the Pastor, who we shall refer to as Pastor Revere, was invited to attend a meeting of his local FEMA chapter which circulated around preparedness for a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.  The FEMA directors told the Pastors that attended that it was their job to help implement FEMA and Homeland Security directives in anticipation of any of these eventualities. The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to "obey the government" when martial law is declared.  For complete story, click here.
END THE STATE AGGRESSION AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF ATENCO, MEXICO!:  Details slowly began to emerge this week of police violence in San Salvador Atenco, site of a police-initiated riot last week that left one 14-year-old dead, at least 50 seriously injured and more than 200 arrested. On Wednesday, the Miguel Augstin Pro Human Rights Center released video testimony from three state police officers confirming responsibility for the death of the 14-year-old.  “The youth saw an officer who was trying to hide. He shouted that there was a state police officer and (the officer) took out his gun and shot him,“ said the officers. The three policemen, whose identities were protected during filming, revealed that state police arrived in Atenco armed with R-15 caliber rifles and .38 and 9 millimeter pistols.  “We were under orders to beat anything that moved, but only out of sight of the media,“ said the police.  More than 3,500 state police participated in the operation in addition to Federal Preventative Police. Of the 47 women arrested in Atenco, 30 reported sexual abuse - having been violated with penetration of the penis, fingers or other objects - in formal complaints taken by the federal Attorney General and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH). Police used prophylactics during the abuse, a strong indication that they came to Atenco with the intention of committing rape.  Public education and non-violent civil pressure are central themes in the developing movement in support of Atenco. On Saturday, Marcos called the movement an ethical and moral commitment, and we are not going to stop until all the prisoners are set free.  The mainstream media, both in Mexico and internationally, hastened to discredit the residents of Atenco and Zapatista supporters, with a particularly negative focus on Marcos. This effort to hide the truth of massive and unrestrained police repression is slowly being reversed by a broadly based education campaign. The battle over freedom for Atenco political prisoners is turning into a decisive political battle, pitting the strength and resources of the Mexican government against the moral authority of the Other Campaign and the capacity of civil society organized as an anti-capitalist left to unite and defend itself. The participation of international civil society is crucial.    Story no longer found online.  Please use link associated with headline above and ask them to provide a copy to you.
Lawmaker: Marines Killed Iraqis "In Cold Blood" --Navy Conducting War Crimes Probe Into November Violence In Haditha 17 May 2006 A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday. From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children... The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.  For complete story, click here.
Dealing with the Rockefeller Drug Laws:  Albany County District Attorney David Soares is considered a hero by many for his bold stances and refreshing  approaches to delivering justice. He first laid claim to this title in 2004 when he ran on a platform that advocated dramatic change in the draconian  Rockefeller Drug laws that stood unchanged for 30 years. His victory over powerful incumbent Paul Clyne sent shock waves throughout the political  landscape in New York's capital.  Clyne was given a pink slip by voters for his vocal support of the Rockefeller Drug Laws and his staggering defeat triggered  fear within the Republican Senate that they too might lose their jobs for not supporting Rockefeller reform.  Unlike many political figures that bob and weave themselves into office only to step away from the original platforms that brought them to victory, Soares has stuck to his guns and continues to speak out  against inhumane and ineffective drug policies.  Recently, while speaking at an international harm reduction conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, he  told the audience that his advice to Canada is to "stay as far away from America's drug law policy as possible." His comments echoed the criticisms he made  of New York's strict Rockefeller Drug Laws during his election campaign two years ago by saying "the attempt to engage in cleaning the streets of Albany one $20 sale on the street at a time is a failed policy." He sticks by his view that more drug treatment, not more jail time, is the answer.    For complete story, click here.
Cheney Pushed U.S. to Widen Eavesdropping 13 May 2006 In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vice pResident Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants in the hunt for 'terrorists,' according to two senior intelligence officials.   For complete story, click here.
Air Force Officer Bullies Wrong Talk Show Host: ( San Francisco) Veteran Canadian 'X' Zone Talk Show Host Rob McConnell knows a threat when he sees one. When Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Roger Helbig of California threatened boycotts and retaliation against the popular world wide talk show host Rob McConnell did not think much of it. this was the morning of the show on Wednesday May 10, 2006 from Hamilton, Canada. Then another email came in from LtC Helbig that was traced to Vanderbilt University and a jointly operated communications program with the Oak Ridge Nuclear Weapons Lab.   For complete story, click here.
Going Public About Communist Concentration Camps  China's use of organs harvested from executed prisoners is "unethical" and "distasteful" and should be universally condemned by the international medical establishment, a leading physician said last week.  Professor Stephen Wigmore, chair of the ethics committee of the British Transplantation Society, called for support from other related health organisations and the UN to "send a powerful message to China that the rest of the world does not endorse their practice."  The statement follows increasing concerns that prisoners are executed and their organs extracted without prior consent. Dr Wigmore said that any written consent ostensibly from the executed prisoner should be treated with suspicion:  "The Chinese government claims that condemned prisons have given their consent to organ donation. We would consider this consent invalid because the power grading is so enormous between the state and a prisoner condemned to death," he told news channel NTDTV in an interview.  "It's impossible to accept that this is a voluntary, freely given consent."  Dr. Wigmore also stated that he had nagging doubts over whether the supply of fresh organs from recently executed prisoners was staged in response to demand from paying customers. He believed that the so-called 'efficiency' of the system advertised by Chinese donor websites was only made possible by the cooperation of the donor services with the judicial and prison systems.   For complete story, click here.
CIA Secret Prisons Exposed:  CIA officers soon learned one thing for sure—prisoners sent to Bright Light and [other CIA secret prisons] . . . were probably never going to be released. "The word is that once you get sent to Bright Light, you never come back," said the CIA's Counterterrorism Center veteran. James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.  May is the month that the United States has been summoned to Geneva by the United Nations Committee Against Torture to, as Reuters reported on April 18, "provide information about secret detention facilities and specifically whether the United States assumed responsibility for alleged acts of torture in them."  The committee also wants a list of all these secret prisons. So do I—along with every major human rights organization and some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. However, Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, rigidly keeps refusing to authorize an investigation into these "black sites," as they are called in CIA internal communications. (The United States is a faithless signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and is now being called to account.)  Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte said the prisoners in these hidden gulags will be there as long as "the war on terror continues." He added, in an April 12 Time interview: "I'm not sure I can tell you what the ultimate disposition of those detainees will be."As far as their families are concerned, these "detainees" have vanished from the face of the earth.  Time says that Negroponte's comments "appear to be the first open acknowledgement of the secret U.S. detention system" (authorized by the president soon after 9-11).  For complete story, click here.
Jury Awards $1.7 Million to Woman Spanked at Work:  FRESNO, Calif. (April 29) - A jury awarded $1.7 million Friday to a woman who was spanked in front of her colleagues in what her employer called a camaraderie-building exercise.  The jury of six men and six women found that Janet Orlando, 53, was subjected to sexual  harassment and sexual battery when she was paddled on the rear end two years ago at Alarm One Inc., a home security company in Fresno.  For complete story, click here.
Why We Fight for Immigrant Rights:  Many workers—union and nonunion—ask why unions support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Why, as one member puts it, are we fighting for the "illegals who have been taking our jobs"?  I remind them of a powerful statement from labor’s past that lives on today: An injury to one is an injury to all.  America’s broken immigration system has allowed employers to create a low-wage labor pool of immigrant workers that is easily exploitable. Employers can pay these workers less, force them to work in intolerable conditions, block their right to union representation and threaten to turn them in to immigration officials if they complain. That’s immoral.  And when employers drive down wages and working conditions for one group of workers, they harm us all. That’s not progressive rhetoric—it’s cold, hard truth. U.S.-born workers who work alongside immigrants and in the same industries suffer the same exploitation. The U.S. Department of Labor, for example, has found the poultry industry—with a workforce split about evenly between African Americans and immigrants—was 100 percent out of compliance with federal wage and hour laws. More than half of the country’s garment factories violate wage and hour laws and more than three- quarters violate health and safety laws, according to the department. If a workplace is dangerous for immigrant workers, it is equally dangerous for their U.S.-born co- workers.   For complete story, click here.
SOS over Iraqi scientists:  Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, an alarming number of the country's leading academics have been killed. A human rights organisation puts the number at about a thousand and has a documented list of 105 cases. These professors, it says, were not random casualties - they were assassinated.  The first documented case is that of Muhamad al-Rawi, the president of Baghdad University, who was killed on  27 July, 2003, when two men entered his private clinic, one of them feigned severe stomach pain and was doubled over. Concealed against his stomach was a gun with which he shot al-Rawi dead.  Assassination incidents continued after al-Rawi's shooting. Dr Majid Ali was assassinated in 2005, shot four times in the back. He had a PhD in physics and was one of the best nuclear energy experts in Iraq.  The Paris-based Arab Committee for Human Rights (ACHR), an international NGO which has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN, has issued an international appeal for help to protect Iraqi academics.  Al Jazeera.net spoke to ACHR's president, Dr Violette Daguerre, a human rights activist and psychology professor in France, and Dr Qais al-Azawi, director of the Committee for Protecting Iraqi University Professors. For complete story, click here.
The Missing Girls of Iraq:  The man on the phone with the 14-year-old Iraqi girl called himself Sa'ad. He was calling long distance from Dubai and telling her wonderful things about the place. He was also about to buy her. Safah, the teenager, was well aware of the impending transaction. In the weeks after she was kidnapped and imprisoned in a dark house in Baghdad's middle-class Karada district, Safah heard her captors haggling with Sa'ad over her price. It was finally settled at $10,000. Staring at a floor strewn with empty whiskey bottles, the orphan listened as Sa'ad described the life awaiting her: a beautiful home, expensive clothes, parties with pop stars. Why, she'd be joining two other very happy teenage Iraqi girls living with Sa'ad in his harem. Safah knew that she was running out of time. A fake passport with her photo and assumed name had already been forged for her. But even if she escaped, she had no family who would take her in. She was even likely to end up in prison.  What was she to do? Safah is part of a seldom-discussed aspect of the epidemic of kidnappings in Iraq: sex trafficking. No one knows how many young women have been kidnapped and sold since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, based in Baghdad, estimates from anecdotal evidence that more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in that period. A Western official in Baghdad who monitors the status of women in Iraq thinks that figure may be inflated but admits that sex trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam, has become a serious issue. The collapse of law and order and the absence of a stable government have allowed criminal gangs, alongside terrorists, to run amuck. Meanwhile, some aid workers say, bureaucrats in the ministries have either paralyzed with red tape or frozen the assets of charities that might have provided refuge for these girls. As a result, sex trafficking has been allowed to fester unchecked.  (Webmaster Note:  This horrible sex-slavery is happening worldwide.  Including in the US to American children.) For complete story, click here.

Gonzales calls for mandatory Web labeling law 20 Apr 2006 Web site operators posting sexually explicit information must place official government warning labels on  their pages or risk being imprisoned for up to five years, the Bush administration proposed Thursday... Attorney General Alberto Gonzales also warned that Internet service  providers must begin to retain records of their customers' activities to aid in future criminal prosecutions and indicated that legislation might be necessary there as well. For complete story, click here.
Anti-War grannies go to trial:  A gaggle of peace-loving grandmothers are on trial today in New York for disorderly conduct. Yahoo News explains: The trial opened in New York of 18 grandmothers arrested for disorderly conduct after they sought to enlist in the US Army as a protest against the war in Iraq.  The women, whose ages range from 50 to 91, have all entered not guilty pleas and some said they would ignore any court-imposed penalty if found guilty.  "Coming to this damn court is nothing compared to what is happening to people in Iraq," said Marie Runyon, 91.  [They] were arrested in October during a protest outside a military recruiting station in Times Square. They were charged on two counts of disorderly conduct, for blocking the recruiting station door and refusing to comply with a police order. For complete story, click here.
UN torture panel presses US on detainees:  GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations committee against torture has demanded that the United States provide more information about its treatment of prisoners at home and foreign terrorism suspects held in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.  In questions submitted to Washington, the panel also sought information about secret detention facilities and specifically whether the United States assumed responsibility for alleged acts of torture in them, U.N. officials said on Tuesday.  "It is the longest list of issues I have ever seen," Mercedes Morales, a U.N. human rights officer who serves as secretary to the U.N. Committee against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, told reporters. For complete story, click here.
Supreme Court rejects appeal from Guantanamo detainees 17 Apr 2006 The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from two Chinese Muslims who were  mistakenly captured as 'enemy combatants' more than four years ago and are still being held at the U.S. prison in Cuba... Previously, a federal judge said the detention of  the ethnic Uighurs in Guantanamo Bay is unlawful, but that there was nothing federal courts could do. For complete story, click here.
U.S. Plan For Flu Pandemic Revealed --Multi-Agency Proposal Awaits Bush's Approval 16 Apr 2006 Dictator Bush is expected to approve soon a national pandemic influenza response plan that identifies more than 300 specific tasks for federal agencies... the Bush administration would tap into its secure stash of medications [?!?], cancel large gatherings... National Guard troops could be dispatched to cities facing possible "insurrection," said Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security. [See: The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.]  For complete story, click here.
Government's control orders ruled unlawful 12 Apr 2006 The first British citizen to have a control order imposed on him has won a High Court declaration that the  Government's anti-terror laws are "incompatible" with human rights legislation. The court ruled that the terror suspect, referred to as MB, had been denied his right to a fair  hearing. For complete story, click here.
24 arrested at BYU:  PROVO — Brigham Young University police arrested 24 people, among them five current students, who participated Tuesday in a march and  demonstration by a national gay-awareness group.  For complete story, click here.
Lawyer pleads Fifth in dramatic hearing at Guantánamo Bay 07 Apr 2006 An Ethiopian 'terrorism' suspect who claims the United States outsourced his interrogation to torture in Morocco made a dramatic debut Thursday at his war-crimes trial. Within hours, the U.S. Air Force officer assigned to defend Binyan Ahmed Mohammad invoked her Fifth Amendment rights — three times — after declaring the Pentagon had created for her an ethical dilemma. Air Force Maj. Yvonne Bradley became the first person to plead the Fifth in the short history of Dictator Bush's disputed military commissions, now under review at the U.S. Supreme Court. Mohammad dominated the session [*yes*], declaring the rules unfair — and pointedly accusing the presiding officer, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, of perpetrating an American legal justice fraud on the world.  For complete story, click here.
Gonzales Draws Criticism From Panel Chief 06 Apr 2006 The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee [Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI] pointedly  criticized Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Thursday for "stonewalling" by refusing to answer questions about the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program.  For complete story, click here.
Man held as terrorism suspect over punk song 05 Apr 2006 British anti[pro]-terrorism detectives escorted a man from a plane after a taxi driver had earlier become  suspicious when he started singing along to a track by punk band The Clash, police said on Wednesday. For complete story, click here.
'Playing The Clash made me a terror suspect' 05 Apr 2006 A mobile phone salesman was hauled off a plane and questioned for three hours as a terror suspect -  because he listened to songs by The Clash and Led Zeppelin. Harraj Mann, 24, played the punk anthem London Calling and classic rock track Immigrant Song in a taxi  before a flight to London. The lyrics to both tracks made the driver fear his passenger was a terrorist.  For complete story, click here.
Expanded definition of terrorism is hurting many refugees:  In his second inaugural address, President Bush made a stirring commitment to oppressed people yearning to be  free: "When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."  For half a century, one of the best expressions of that bond has been the federal Refugee Resettlement  Program. This State Department-administered program seeks to offer a safe harbor to those fearing persecution by tyrannical governments. But thousands of people whose lives are at risk for standing up for freedom will this year be denied help because of a Kafkaesque interpretation of who is deemed a terrorist.  The laws governing eligibility for  refugee status have long denied it to anyone who commits a terrorist act or who provides "material support" to terrorists. These laws were strengthened after Sept. 11. The  problem was created by recent legislation that expanded the definition of terrorists. There are real-life consequences from such myopic "reform."  In Colombia, for example,  the leftist guerrilla group FARC often kidnaps civilians and demands ransom from their relatives. FARC also requires the payment of a "war tax" from Colombians in the  regions it controls, upon threat of serious harm. Nearly 2,000 Colombians who faced such circumstances as paying a ransom or "tax" — and who later fled the country and  were determined by the United Nations to be refugees — have been denied U.S. resettlement on the basis of the "material support" provision.  For complete story, click here.
Immigration: More Nickels than Dimes:  Economists treat immigration like any other phenomenon that generates costs and benefits. They ask the economist’s  one-size-fits-all question: What are the additional benefits and costs to Americans of admitting a few additional immigrants? This kind of marginal-change analysis applied to  all immigration is flawed for three reasons.  1. By looking at the benefits and costs only to today’s Americans, this analysis biases the discussion against immigration. “Will  the last one in please shut the door” is the message likely to emerge. Since virtually all Americans are descendents of immigrants, it is not reasonable to exclude the  welfare of today’s immigrants—tomorrow’s new citizens—from the analysis. Any discussion that requires a substantial net benefit for today’s citizens sets the bar  too high. Since it is obvious that potential immigrants are willing to leave family and friends, risking discrimination, detention, and even death, to come to  the United States, the net benefits to them must be very high. Impoverished relatives left behind benefit too, from the remittances immigrants send home. Such  remittances now exceed a billion dollars a month to Mexico alone.  2. The benefits of immigration to today’s Americans are more than the sum of changes in household  income from changing the supply of labor and skills. The creativity and dynamism of our economy that is so widely admired all over the world would not exist without  immigration. Where would today’s information technology industry be without immigrants from China, India, and Russia? More broadly, where would our leadership in  science and technology be without infusions of genius through immigration. Of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences since 1950, 28 percent of those who did their work in the  United States were born elsewhere.  3. Most fundamentally, America without a flow of new immigrants would be a much poorer place culturally and spiritually as well as economically. Those periods in our history when anti-immigrant sentiments were at their peak—in the 1870s and 1880s following the Irish immigration, in the interwar period  following the Italian, Eastern European, and Jewish immigration, and in the immediate post–WWII period—all benefited from contributions of earlier waves of immigrants. It is  hard to imagine an America that is not always changing, always adjusting to new Americans.  Those who would like drastically to limit new immigration are not fundamentally interested in the marginal economic effects of another immigrant household on American citizens (an effect which, by the way, experts agree is positive, if small). They resent the changes to the society they grew up in. What they fail to realize is that the society of their childhood—real or imagined—is no more “authentically American” than today’s America. This country is constantly changing, economically and culturally. Everyone alive today was born into a dynamic, mongrel culture and can expect it to change in surprising ways every year.  Immigration is part of authentic America’s soul.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Military Tribunals to Resume This Week at Guantanamo 03 Apr 2006 U.S. military commissions proceedings resume this week in the cases of four 'enemy  combatants' held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002.  For complete story, click here.
All Guantanamo prisoners to be named 04 Apr 2006 The Pentagon is releasing 2600 more pages of transcripts and defence summaries from reviews of cases of  prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a spokesman said today. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that with the latest release, the names of all 490 prisoners  at Guantanamo will have been made public. For complete story, click here.
Supreme Court won't review Bush's terrorism powers 03 Apr 2006 A divided Supreme Court declined on Monday to decide whether President [sic] George W. Bush  has the power in the war on terrorism to order American citizens captured in the United States held in military jails without any criminal charges or a trial. By a 6-3 vote, the  court sided with the Bush dictatorship and refused to hear an appeal by Jose Padilla, who was confined in a military brig in South Carolina for more than three years after  Bush designated him an "enemy combatant."  For complete story, click here.

Padilla Rejected by Supreme Court on Combatant Status 03 Apr 2006 The U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal from accused terrorism supporter Jose Padilla,  refusing to question the Bush regime's authority to capture American citizens on domestic soil and hold them as "enemy combatants."  For complete story, click here.
Puerto Rico sues FBI for stonewalling probe of independentista’s murder:  The government of Puerto Rico went to federal court last week, accusing the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Justice Department of obstructing justice by stonewalling a local investigation of the FBI’s killing of a leading figure in the island’s independence movement during a raid last September.   For complete story, click here.
'If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?':  At a press conference in a cavernous Alabama warehouse, banners and posters are  rolled out: "Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf coast!" A tall, white soldier steps forward in desert fatigues. "I was in Iraq when Katrina happened and I watched US citizens being  washed ashore in New Orleans," he says. "War is oppression: we could be setting up hospitals right here. America is war-addicted. America is neglecting its poor."  A black reporter from a Fox TV news affiliate, visibly stunned, whispers: "Wow! That guy's pretty opinionated." Clearly such talk, even three years after the Iraq invasion, is still rare. This, after all, is the Deep South and this soldier less than a year ago was proudly serving his nation in Iraq.  The soldier was engaged in no ordinary protest. Over five days earlier this month, around 200 veterans, military families and survivors of hurricane Katrina walked 130 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans to mark the third  anniversary of the Iraq war. At its vanguard, Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group formed less than two years ago, whose very name has aroused intense hostility at the  highest levels of the US military. For complete story, click here.
What you need to know about Bush's Big Brother policies--"They want to intimidate people from dissenting":  MICHAEL RATNER is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York City. A veteran attorney, he and the CCR have led the way in defending the victims of the U.S. "war on terror"--from the Arab and Muslim immigrants caught up in the witch-hunt that followed the September 11 attacks, to the detainees languishing in brutal conditions at the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  Here, Michael tells Socialist Worker's DAVE FLOREY what activists should know about the federal government's new police powers.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  SINCE SEPTEMBER 11, the state has gained a number of new surveillance and police powers through laws like the USA PATRIOT Act. Could you talk about these?  AFTER 9/11, I wrote an article at the end of October 2001 called "Moving Toward a Police State, or Have We Arrived?" And I was nervous about saying that then. I went back and looked at the article the other day, and what I said then is a lot worse. My most paranoid thoughts in that article were not even close.  The things I focused on were the Patriot Act, the detentions of non-citizens in the United States, and the lifting of the FBI guidelines on domestic surveillance. So let's go through those three, understanding that subsequently, in November 2001, we had the detention order from the President that allowed him to pick up people anywhere in the world and send them to places like Guantánamo Bay. We didn't know about torture, we didn't know about renditions, we didn't know about National Security Agency wiretapping. For complete story, click here.

Ecuador Quells Indian Trade Protest:  QUITO, Ecuador - Police fired tear gas at dozens of Indian demonstrators trying to reach the government palace Monday to protest free-trade talks with Washington this week that are expected to draw thousands of opponents to the capital.  The debate over the talks has already led to the resignation of Ecuador's interior minister, who stepped down after making comments that appeared to support the Indians' demands.  The left-leaning Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, Ecuador's main Indian movement, blockaded roads in 11 provinces with burning tires, rocks and tree trunks last week, tying up traffic and halting commerce across the highlands and much of the eastern jungle for several days.  Luis Macas, leader of the movement, said Monday that the protests would continue unless the government abandons a final round of negotiations — scheduled to start on Thursday — and puts the free trade pact to a national referendum.  The Indian movement has threatened a "takeover" of the capital to press its demands.  Cesar Umajinga, the Indian governor of the highland Cotopaxi province, said Monday that "some 7,000 comrades" from his region planned to head to Quito in the coming hours.  The Indian confederation accuses the United States of exercising too much influence in the region and contends that Ecuadorean farmers and small-scale Indian producers cannot compete with inexpensive U.S. agricultural imports.  President Alfredo Palacio's government, however, has strongly supported the free-trade agreement. Colombia and Peru have already signed similar agreements.  View complete story at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060321/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/ecuador_indian_protests;_ylt=AkN

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TQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA or for complete story, click here.

10,000 protest at water summit:  About 10,000 protesters have marched in Mexico City, where 11,000 delegates and representatives met at the 4th World Water Forum to discuss ways to improve supplies for the poor.  Opponents say that the seven-day forum, which began on Thursday, is a cover for privatisation.   Participants from 121 countries, debated topics including the developing world's growing reliance on bottled water bought from private companies, instead of on public water  systems, which some call a form of privatisation.  Cristina Hernandez, a protester, said: "We don't want privatisation because it will only serve as a business for someone.  Services get more expensive with privatisation, but not better."  Some protesters marched past rows of riot police chanting: "Governments understand, water is not for sale!" 

View complete story at: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/16D30D0D-916D-4484-9C3B-EA56CE20A7C0.htm  or for complete story, click here.
Court denies Puerto Rico US vote:  The US Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to give residents of the territory of Puerto Rico the right to vote in US presidential elections.  Judges threw out the appeal by a group of Puerto Ricans - the latest development in a long-running debate on the islanders' constitutional rights.  Puerto Rico, which is not a state, has been administered by the US since 1898.  Although residents cannot vote in presidential elections, they do elect a delegate to the US Congress. However their representative does not vote, except in committees.  Attorney Gregorio Igartua, who filed the appeal, said the citizens of Puerto Rico "have been unfairly treated" for more than a century.  He complained that residents have "an inferior type of American citizenship."  View complete story at:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4828116.stm   Or, for complete story, click here.
Guantanamo protest in SF halts traffic downtown, 17 arrested:  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Police arrested 17 protesters and pulled several others wearing orange jumpsuits from a makeshift prison cell Monday in the heart of the city's financial district.  The rally, organized by Act Against Torture, which advocates shutting down the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons, marked the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq and was held outside the office of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.   The demonstrators who blocked Market Street were arrested and will be cited for failing to obey police and blocking an intersection, said San Francisco police Sgt. Neville Gittens.  More than 100 protesters crowded behind police barricades in the rain. Several demonstrators carted the prison cell into the intersection and hopped inside, while others held banners and stood sentinel holding anti-torture and anti-Bush banners. Fresno Bee story of March 21st, 2006.  We were unable to locate story when updating site.  We apologize for any inconvenience.  Please contact www.fresnobee.com to request copy of full story.
Hotel U.S.A.:  The government's plans for an 'immigration emergency' include relocation and detention centers -- courtesy of Kellogg, Brown and Root.  This is part two of a  two-part series on new immigration and detention centers in the United States. Read part one of the series, "Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'," by Nat Parry.  http://www.alternet.org/rights/32647/  Some time between now and 2010, the U.S. government expects some uninvited guests -- a massive influx of undocumented  immigrants. In preparation for their arrival, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) backed the National Intelligence  Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which mandates 40,000 new beds and barracks for foreign-born refugees at four undisclosed locations over the next five years.  On Jan. 3, 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) expanded an existing contract held by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) and renewed it to accommodate up to 20,000 refugees from environmental and political disasters. A future expansion in 2008 calls for another 20,000 beds.  (Webmaster Note:  More information on Nazi America.  Concentration Camps.  Silencing of dissent.  Totalitarian Tyranny.  Etc. Etc…)   For complete story, click here.
U.S. to vote against new rights council:  UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States will vote against a proposal to create a new panel at the United Nations to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, Washington's U.N. ambassador said.  The U.N. General Assembly will take up the resolution Wednesday, and a vote is likely even though assembly president Jan Eliasson has insisted he wants the new Human Rights Council to be approved by consensus of the 191 U.N. member states. For complete story, click here.
Doctors attack US over Guantanamo:  More than 250 medical experts have signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  The experts, from seven nations, said physicians at the prison had to respect inmates' right to refuse treatment.  The letter, in the medical journal The Lancet, said doctors who used restraints and force-feeding should be punished by their professional bodies.  Some 500 terror suspects are being held without trial at Guantanamo Bay.  The US has argued that the Geneva Convention does not apply to prisoners at the camp, who, it says, are enemy combatants who continue to pose a threat to national security.  Doctors force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo are acting as an arm of the military and have abrogated their medical-ethical duties Dr William Hopkins Co-signatory Human rights groups and the UN have urged the US to close down the facility.  Amnesty International said the "troubling" accusations in the doctors' letter underlined the need for the "independent medical examination of the prisoners".  'Different person'  The open letter in the Lancet was signed by more than 250 top doctors from seven countries - the UK, the US, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands.  "We urge the US government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the letter said. For complete story, click here.
Human medical experimentation in modern times: How immigrants, poor people, minorities and children are modern-day guinea pigs for Big Pharma (part one)  http://www.newstarget.com/019193.html  (Webmaster Note:  Visit link to read entire article on the unethical experimentation on human subjects by the pharmaceutical industrial complex.) For complete story, click here.
Dallas Institutes New Laws on Homeless:  DALLAS - Panhandling banned. Shopping carts prohibited on city streets. The distribution of food to the homeless restricted to designated areas.  With a series of ordinances governing its growing homeless population, Dallas is gaining a reputation as a city uncharitable toward some of its neediest  citizens.  The National Coalition for the Homeless recently ranked Dallas sixth among the Top 10 "meanest" cities in the country. No. 1 was Sarasota, Fla.  Dallas officials  say they are trying to steer the homeless toward help and make the streets a little safer for them. But advocates for the estimated 9,000 homeless people in Dallas say the  city is pursuing a harsh and pitiless policy. For complete story, click here.
Guantánamo detainee told Geneva rights 'irrelevant' --Tribunal proceedings revealed in US documents --Transcript shows Briton's clashes with colonel judge 06 Mar  2006 A senior US military officer at Guantánamo Bay told a detainee that he did not care about international law and that the Geneva conventions did not apply to  proceedings at the military prison, according to thousands of Pentagon documents released over the weekend by the US government after a court action by the Associated  Press news agency.  For complete story, click here.
American Bar Association Testifies That U.S. Mandatory Minimums Raise Serious Human Rights Concerns: Saying that mandatory minimums are a "one-way ratchet upwards" and cannot "satisfy the basic dictates of fairness," Judge Patricia Wald, testifying on behalf of the American Bar Association, raised a host of concerns about such sentencing practices in testimony before an Organization of American States Commission that is examining the issue.  "There is no question that crimes must be punished and that prison serves a legitimate ... purpose, but only if it is proportionate," said Wald, adding "unduly long and punitive sentences are counter- productive, and candidly many of our mandatory minimums approach the cruel and unusual level as compared to other countries as well as to our own past practices." For complete story, click here.

Gulags For American Citizens In Final Planning Stages Halliburton sex slave trade criminals prepare camps for political dissidents:  Bush administration and  US army preparations to target American citizens and intern them in forced labor camps has vastly accelerated in the past month and commentators from all over the  political spectrum are sounding the alarm bells that the round-ups may begin soon.  Once the bane of the media's stereotypical 'tin foil hat wearing' caricatures,  concentration camps in America are now serious news and no one is laughing.  Following the news first given wide attention by this website, that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national  emergency, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims  after the next major terror attack in the US.  The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture supporting Attorney General  Alberto Gonzales to target, "Fifth Columnists" Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with "the enemy," whoever that enemy may be.  It is important to stress that  the historical precedent mirrors exactly what the Halliburton camp deal outlines. Oliver North's Reagan era Rex 84  plan proposed rounding up 400,000 refugees, under  FEMA, in the event of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the United States.  The real agenda, just as it is with Halliburton's gulags, was to  use the cover of rounding up immigrants and illegal aliens as a smokescreen for targeting political dissidents. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the "ADEX" list.  The current terrorist suspect list was recently revealed to contain the names of 325,000 people. The government claimed that only a tiny fraction were American citizens living in America but when compared to the potential terrorist list in the UK, which under section 44 of the terrorism act has ensnared at least 119,000 people, most of them innocent protesters, the number is likely to be far higher. Britain's population is only 60 million compared to the US at 295 million.   For complete story, click here.
Thousands of Filipinos Rally Against State of Emergency:  MANILA — Thousands of Filipinos took to the streets in protest Friday, hours after beleaguered President  Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide state of emergency and banned public rallies.  Arroyo also ordered the arrest of military officers who were allegedly plotting a  coup to oust her on the eve of a commemoration today of the "people power" protests that forced President Ferdinand Marcos to step down 20 years ago.  Former President  Corazon Aquino, an icon of the 1986 protests and a successor to Marcos, led a march of more than 5,000 people through Manila's Makati financial district Friday afternoon  and called on Arroyo to "make the supreme sacrifice" and step down.  Aquino, once a close ally, turned against Arroyo last year after revelations that she had sought to rig  the 2004 election. Arroyo survived impeachment in September despite the release of a tape-recorded telephone conversation in which she appeared to direct a top election  official to make sure that she won by a million votes.  For complete story, click here.
Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) Criticizes FBI For Cracking Down on Independence Movement in Puerto Rico:  Several members of Congress are calling for an investigation into recent raids conducted by the FBI targeting pro-independence activists in Puerto Rico. Last week, hundreds of members of the FBI's counterterrorism unit conducted six simultaneous raids targeting members of the pro-independence group known as the Macheteros. We speak with Jose Serrano, Democatic Congressmember of Puerto Rican origin and representing a major Puerto Rican district of the Bronx.  The FBI claimed it was attempting to thwart a possible domestic terrorism attack. At one of the raids, FBI agents beat and pepper sprayed journalists who attempted to conduct interviews. The raids come less than six months after the FBI shot dead Puerto Rican independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios…   For complete story, click here.
Judge orders U.S. to release Guantanamo detainee data:  SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities  of hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move which would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive  list yet of those who have been imprisoned there.  Some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terror being held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,  have been held as long as four years. Only a handful have been officially identified.  U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York ordered the Defense Department to  release uncensored transcripts of detainee hearings, which contain the names of detainees in custody and those who have been held and later released. Previously released documents have had identities and other details blacked out.  The judge ordered the government to hand over the documents by March 3 after the Defense Department said Wednesday it would not appeal his earlier ruling in the lawsuit filed by the AP.  For complete story, click here.
FBI Interrogators in Cuba Opposed Aggressive Tactics:  FBI officials who were interrogating terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002 and 2003 strenuously objected to aggressive techniques the military was using and believed they could be illegal, according to FBI memos released yesterday.  The agents wrote in memos and e-mails that they were at odds with interrogators working for a Defense Intelligence Agency human-intelligence group and with guidance from senior Pentagon officials.  The agents also repeatedly expressed their concerns to the senior military officer at the base, Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, and said that the less aggressive FBI-approved methods were more effective.  "Although MGEN Miller acknowledged positive aspects of this approach, it was apparent that he favored DHS's interrogation methods, despite FBI assertions that such methods could easily result in the elicitation of unreliable and legally inadmissible information," one FBI agent wrote to senior FBI officials in May 2003, referring to the Defense Humint Service. Miller later traveled to Iraq and oversaw all detention operations there…  For complete story, click here.
One Thousand A Month Tortured To Death In Iraq:  Proving that Abu Ghraib and Gitmo are the tip of the iceberg, the outgoing UN human rights chief dropped a bombshell when he told an obscure Maltese newspaper that as many as a thousand detainees a month are being tortured to death in Iraq.  Dr. John Pace told the obscure Times of Malta newspaper, "The Baghdad morgue received 1,100 bodies in July alone, about 900 of whom bore evidence of torture or summary execution. That continued throughout the year and last December there were 780 bodies, including 400 having gunshot wounds or wounds as those caused by electric drills."  Pace echoed previous estimates in stating that 80 to 90 per cent of those rounded up and taken to prison camps were completely innocent. As we have highlighted before, Iraqis are arrested for dastardly crimes such as not showing their papers at checkpoints, selling alcohol and shouting anti-coalition statements.  Footage of US army personnel seizing a taxi cab and destroying it with an Abrams tank was broadcast two years ago on PBS. The crime? Stealing firewood. For complete story, click here.
Nuremberg at 60: How The United States Is Turning Away from Its Proud History:  This past weekend in Seattle, Amnesty International USA convened a group of several hundred lawyers to assess the legacy of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, sixty years later. The meeting focused on the principles behind the Nuremberg project, and surveyed the state of international justice now.  The United States led the way in the Nuremberg trials - underscoring the need for strict, aggressive adherence to the rule of law in the face of mass lawlessness. And since then, adherence to the rule of law has proved not only to be the touchstone of Nuremberg, but also the United States' best foreign relations tool. The U.S. Constitution is taken as a model by other countries who are constitution-building; America's grants of asylum offer haven to those who are fleeing the persecution of lawless regimes.  Until now: Now, I will argue, the Bush administration has very significantly undermined the Nuremberg legacy, by departing from the rule of law, and openly flouting international law. For complete story, click here.
Baghdad Embassy Bonanza: Kuwait Company’s Secret Contract & Low-Wage Labor:  A controversial Kuwait-based construction firm accused of exploiting employees and coercing low-paid laborers to work in war-torn Iraq is now building the new $592-million U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Once completed, the compound will likely be the biggest, most fortified diplomatic compound in the world.  Some 900 workers live and work for First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting (FKTC) on the construction site of the massive project. Undoubtedly, they have been largely pulled from ranks of low-paid laborers flooding into Iraq from Asia's poorest countries to work under U.S. military and reconstruction projects.  Meanwhile, their boss, Wadih al-Absi jets back and forth to the United States, dreaming of magazine covers celebrating his rise to a global player in large-scale engineering and construction. For complete story, click here.
Guantánamo: Lives torn apart – The impact of indefinite detention on detainees and their families:  As the unlawful detentions of ‘enemy combatants’ at the US  detention centre at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, Cuba, enter their fifth year, Amnesty International is renewing its call for the detention centre to be closed and for all  those held to be released or given fair trial according to international law and without recourse to the death penalty on the US mainland. Four years since the first transfers to Guantánamo, approximately 500 men(1) of around 35 nationalities remain held at the detention facility unlawfully. Reports from the detainees and their lawyers suggest that  many have been subjected to torture or other forms of ill-treatment in Guantánamo or in other US detention centres. Some have embarked on a prolonged hunger strike,  among them those who have requested not to be force-fed in order that they may be allowed to die. There have been numerous suicide attempts and fears for the physical and psychological welfare of the detainees increase as each day of indefinite detention passes.  In this document, Amnesty International relates the continuing plight of the  detainees, and summarizes developments related to the ongoing hunger strike and further suicide attempts. The organization also assesses the situation of nine men who  remain detained despite no longer being considered ‘enemy combatants’ by US authorities.  For complete story, click here.

U.N. Report Urges Gitmo Shutdown:  GENEVA - The United States should shut down the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay and either release all detainees  being held there or bring them to trial, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday.  The report, summarizing an investigation by five U.N. experts, called on the U.S. government "to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center and to refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."  The  report's findings were based on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and a questionnaire filled out by the U.S. government.  The 

United States is holding about 500 men at the U.S. naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. The detainees are accused of having links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban  regime or the al-Qaida terror group, though only 10 have been charged since the detention camp opened in January 2001.  For complete story, click here.
The Reign of Toxic Terror:  The French are truly living up to the methods of their hymned revolution by seeking to force their lethal waste, Le Clemenceau, on India rather than treat the same on their own territory. The revolutionaries created the Reign of Terror, one of the most reckless massacres ever committed, and their descendents have created for us the reign of toxic terror.  It is not only in the application of violence that the current scenario evokes the lessons of the revolution but also in the glaring dichotomy of the values of the revolution. It was well after the terror laden French revolution that the country has massacred hundreds of thousands of people in Africa and the Caribbean for asking for freedom from occupation, for equality among all humans and for human liberty. The Clemenceau sailing to the Indian shores is a declaration that what is unsafe for the French is readily fit for a Third World country.  The west has transformed contemporary life into a sharp Orwellian irony by arguing war is peace and occupation is freedom. While France and allies keep lecturing down to the South, often with the aid of bombs, on the importance of respecting international laws, here are several international laws thrown into the waste bin on the strength of imperial might. The decision II/12 adopted by the Conference of Parties to the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, in 1994, banning the export of toxic waste by the countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, grouping of industrialized countries) to developing countries and its subsequent incorporation into the text of the treaty the next year stand out as tribute to the unusual political will and negotiation skill that developing countries have shown in a multilateral forum. This was something similar to the victory of the South in negotiating a fair and balanced Convention on Biological Diversity, though it has subsequently failed to defend the hard fought provisions of the treaty. For complete story, click here.
Congresswoman McKinney: American citizens could be put in forced labor camps:  Cynthia McKinney, the only House Representative to stand up to the Bush  White House crime syndicate, has gone further than ever before in her efforts to warn people about what the Neo-Cons' ultimate goals actually entail for freedom in America.   During a recent radio interview on the Alex Jones Show, McKinney illustrated the nature of a corrupt occupational government, stating that the administration was "stolen in  2000 and stolen again in 2004." McKinney said that it was doing the government a favor to describe them as a "criminal syndicate."  "It appears to me that our country is  literally being hollowed out....our economy is being hollowed out," said McKinney.  McKinney shared Alex Jones' fears and those previously voiced by Republican  Congressman Ron Paul, that Americans may be arrested and taken to forced labor camps in light of recent developments confirming Kellogg Brown and Root have  secured a government contract to build the camps.  (Webmaster Note:  Kellogg Brown and Root are a division of Halliburton.)  For complete story, click here.
Arrest made over Iraq abuse video:  A person has been arrested in connection with the release of a video apparently showing British soldiers beating Iraqi  teenagers in 2004.  A ministry of defence spokesman said the arrest was carried out on Sunday, but declined to give further details.  The video has been shown widely on  British television as well as Arabic news stations and shows a group of soldiers dragging Iraqi protesters behind a wall while a demonstration is under way, beating them  with batons and kicking them.  The News of the World newspaper, which released the footage, said it had been filmed from the roof of a building by another soldier who can  be heard egging on his comrades and mocking the Iraqis' pleas for mercy. For complete story, click here.
Voting Systems Lawsuit Reaches U.S. Supreme Court:  Washington DC, Jan 30 - A little-noticed voting rights lawsuit has made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court  (Docket No. 05-930). It constitutes the first legal challenge to the widespread use of nontransparent voting systems. Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the use of voting  machines and absentee voting in elections for public office.  The lawsuit was originally filed by freelance journalist Lynn Landes in July of 2004 in Philadelphia federal court  (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania). The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Landes on November 2, 2005.  In her lawsuit Landes claims  that, as a voter and a journalist, she has the right to direct access to a physical ballot and to observe the voting process unimpeded. Voting by machine or absentee,  Landes claims, introduces obstacles and concealment to a process that must be accessible and transparent in a meaningful and effective manner. For complete story, click here.
India on a slum demolition spree to benefit the rich:  India with its 7% GDP growth rate of last year and a target of 8% for this year has occupied the top position in a  global survey of business confidence by Grant Thornton International pushing behind not only G8 giants but also its nearest rival China. To sustain this position, providing infrastructure to local and foreign investors is on top of the Indian Governments priority list. Land acquisition on a large scale by the government in both rural and urban  areas and passing it on to industrial houses, builders at nominal price is at its historical peak.  The space is being cleared for building roads, flyovers, multiplexes, skyscrapers to house offices of IT and financial businesses, MNCs owned shopping malls and housing colonies for these few neo-rich. The construction industry is growing  at a rate of 5% and is at 12th position in the world. On the other hand, with high levels of automation in new investments and upgrading of previous industries, large scale closure of small scale industries and cities becoming the hubs of IT and Finance sectors, the requirement for manual, skilled and semi-skilled labourers is at its minimum in  the cities. So the local governments in all the major and minor cities and even towns are on a slum demolition spree.  Four hundred thousand slum dwellers were rendered  homeless within a period of two months just before heavy rainy season of this year in the city of Bombay alone. The exact figure for other cities is not available but demolition of slums is almost a routine affair in all the cities and towns and that too without giving any alternative place, with 7 days notice and with extreme brutality during these operations.  For complete story, click here.
NORTHCOM Prepares for Possible Pandemic 01 Feb 2006 U.S. Northern Command recently hosted representatives from more than 40 international, federal and state  agencies for an exercise designed to provoke discussion and determine what governmental actions, including military support, would be necessary in the event of an influenza pandemic in the United States. "NORTHCOM will not be running the show in the event of a pandemic," said Dave Wilkins, the NORTHCOM exercise facilitator. "We will be taking guidance and requests from other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, via the secretary of defense."  For complete story, click here.
Invasion Theories: Tool of the destruction for the Colonialists, Racists…:  The concept of Aryan Invasion theory being a handiwork of the British colonialists for the sake of  proving the superiority of the European Caucasian races is not an isolated case. There exist a similar theory in other part of the world, involving other nations and other  ethnicities and I wonder why hasn’t anyone yet given an attention over that.  If we see the map of middle Africa, we see two little countries named Rwanda and Burundi, bordering Zaire (or Democratic Republic of Congo). With the name Rwanda it suddenly flashes in our mind, the picture of ethnic violence, civil war, genocide and military  juntas.  For complete story, click here.
US plans to 'fight the net' revealed:    A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from  psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.  The document says information is "critical to military success"  Bloggers beware.  As the world turns  networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer.  From influencing public opinion  through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war.  The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap". It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act.  Officials in the Pentagon  wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it.  For complete story, click here.
Thousands of Students Detained in Ethiopia:  NAIROBI, Kenya - Thousands of school and college students have been detained over the past three months in continued  unrest in Ethiopia, an international human rights group said.  Separately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Tuesday that an Ethiopian reporter had become the  latest journalist in that country to be arrested.  Security forces arrested many of the students in the southern Oromiya region — which includes the Ethiopian capital city,  Addis Ababa — during demonstrations that began Nov. 9, Amnesty International's East Africa office said in a statement late Monday from London.  Amnesty said that the  arrests are believed to have occurred after the rebel Oromo Liberation Front called for demonstrations against the government. The rights group said that it had received  reports that some of the students had been shot dead, but it did not give details.  Officials in Ethiopia were not immediately available for comment.   For complete story, click here.
Capitol Police arrest antiwar activist Sheehan:  Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the antiwar movement, was arrested and removed from the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush’s State of the Union address, a police spokeswoman said.  Sheehan, who had been invited to attend the speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., was charged with unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor, Capitol Police told NBC News. Sheehan was taken in handcuffs to police headquarters a few blocks away and her case was processed as Bush spoke.  Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan to the speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.  The T-shirt bore the words “2,245 Dead — How Many More??” in reference to the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, protesters told NBC News.  Police handcuffed Sheehan and removed her from the gallery before Bush arrived. Sheehan was to be released on her own recognizance, Schneider said. For complete story, click here.

Who are opposing the Hindu initiative to end discrimination in California textbooks?:  Many Hindu American parents have been dismayed by the negative and  caricaturist description of our heritage that our school children in the United States are subjected to. A few Hindu organizations such as the Hindu Education Foundation  (HEF) and the Vedic Foundation (VF), as well as many individual Hindus, have been working with the California Department of Education (CDE) to end the derogatory and discriminatory portrayal of Hinduism in textbooks.  Other ancient traditions such as Jainism are also ignored in textbooks. HEF has received letters of support from Jain  groups, as well as Hindu American organizations representing immigrants from Nepal and the Carribbean. More than 100 world-class scholars of archaeology, history and  academic study of religion have written to CDE in support of HEF/VF efforts.  A group of academics led by Professor Michael Witzel of Harvard, has been opposing these 

reasonable changes. Interestingly, Witzel's group admitted that they were unaware of the nature of the proposed changes when they wrote their protest letter to CDE on  November 7, 2005'.  For complete story, click here.
Unfathomed Dangers in Patriot Act Reauthorization:  A provision in the "Patriot Act" creates a new federal police force with power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.  Go to House Report 109-333 -USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads:  "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division'."  This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security."  The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony."  For complete story, click here.
US government wants Google's search records 19 Jan 2006 The Bush dictatorship on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases. In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, inJustice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.  For complete story, click here.
Feds push dismissal of detainee cases:  WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department Wednesday asked a federal appeals court to dismiss lawsuits by Guantanamo  Bay detainees, arguing a law passed in December takes away the prisoners' right to bring their cases before the court.  The government filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals in  the District of Columbia is the third -- and presumably final -- such argument made by the Justice lawyers following similar documents filed in detainee cases at the U.S.  Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court. For complete story, click here.
5th Circuit 'Miranda' Case Muddies the Waters:  For nearly 40 years appellate courts have disagreed about whether police must tell defendants they have a right to counsel during interrogation, as well as before questioning, as part of the Miranda warning.  Four circuits require explicit advice to defendants that they are entitled to counsel during interrogation, while four other circuits do not.  In a recent Texas death penalty case, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has required since 1968 that the defendant be "clearly informed" of a right to a lawyer during interrogation, decided it wants it both ways.  The circuit court rejected the Miranda challenge in the habeas corpus appeal of Allen Bridgers, saying that detectives' advice that Bridgers had the right to consult an attorney "prior to" questioning was adequate to convey that he was entitled to have an attorney before questioning, "and that this attorney could remain during questioning," according to Judge Fortunado Benavides. Bridgers v. Dretke, No. 05-70020.   For complete story, click here.
Bush to criminalize protesters under Patriot Act as "disruptors":  Bush wants to create the new criminal of "disruptor" who can be jailed for the crime of "disruptive behavior." A "little-noticed provision" in the latest version of the Patriot Act will empower Secret Service to charge protesters with a new crime of "disrupting major events  including political conventions and the Olympics." Secret Service would also be empowered to charge persons with "breaching security" and to charge for "entering a restricted area" which is "where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting." In short, be sure to stay in those wired, fenced containments or free speech zones.  For complete story, click here.
Chinese Detainees' Lawyers Will Take Case to High Court:  Lawyers for a group of Chinese nationals held in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with no hope of release are taking the rare step of asking the Supreme Court to intervene immediately, saying only the high court can resolve the constitutional crisis their case presents.  Attorneys for the detained Uighurs, Muslim natives of western China who oppose their country's Communist rule, are scheduled to petition the court as early as today. They seek a break in the impasse created when U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled last month that the Bush administration's "Kafka-esque" detention of the Uighurs was illegal but he simultaneously determined that the court lacked the power to overrule the president and free them. For complete story, click here.
Translator's Conviction Raises Legal Concerns-- Trial Transcripts Show Lack of Evidence:  NEW YORK -- For three years federal agents trailed Mohammed Yousry, a chubby 50-year-old translator and U.S. citizen who worked for radical lawyer Lynne Stewart. Prosecutors wiretapped his phone, and FBI agents shadowed and interviewed him. They read his books and notepads and every file on his computer.  This was their conclusion:  "Yousry is not a practicing Muslim. He is not a fundamentalist," prosecutor Anthony Barkow acknowledged in his closing arguments to a jury in federal district court in Manhattan earlier this year.  "Mohammed Yousry is not someone who supports or believes in the use of violence."Still, the prosecutor persuaded the jury to convict Yousry of supporting terrorism. Yousry now awaits sentencing in March, when he could face 20 years in prison for translating a letter from imprisoned Muslim cleric Omar Abdel Rahman to Rahman's lawyer in Egypt. For complete story, click here.
Australia: Police use new powers to “lock down” rural housing estate:  Police in the rural New South Wales town of Dubbo activated the state Labor government’s newly legislated “lockdown” powers following a clash with about 100 Aborigines on New Year’s Eve. More than 60 officers erected roadblocks around the Gordon public housing estate and conducted random searches of individuals and vehicles. Non-residents were prevented access to the area, and police confiscated one vehicle after a knife was allegedly found.  For complete story, click here.
Erasing REALITY] Pill to Fade Trauma Memory Brain to be Wiped Clean of Sad & Traumatic Memory All Together Now, let Us SING the SONG:  Suppose you could erase bad memories from your mind. Suppose, as in a recent movie, your Brain could be Wiped Clean of Sad and Traumatic Thoughts. That is science fiction.   But real-world scientists are working on the next best thing. They have been testing a pill that, when given after a traumatic event like rape, may make the resulting memories less painful and intense.  For complete story, click here.
When the Poor Go to Court Across the nation, many indigents wind up being sentenced to jail time without ever seeing a lawyer:  Last July, a homeless man named Hubert Lindsey was stopped by police officers in Gulfport, Miss., for riding his bicycle without a light.  The police soon discovered that Lindsey was a wanted man. Gulfport records showed he owed $4,780 in old fines. So, off to jail he went.  Legal activists now suing the city in federal court say it was pretty obvious that Lindsey couldn't pay the fines. According to their complaint, he lived in a tent, was unemployed, and appeared permanently disabled by an unseeing eye and a mangled arm. But without a lawyer to plead his case, the question of whether Lindsey was a scofflaw or just plain poor never came up. Nor did the question of whether the fines were really owed, or if it was constitutional to jail him for debts he couldn't pay. Nobody, the activists say, even bothered to mention alternatives like community service. The judge ordered Lindsey to "sit out" the fine in jail. That took nearly two months.  For complete story, click here.
End the Shame of NSEERS:  Three years ago this week, thousands of Arab and Muslim men were called to report to local immigration offices across the US to be  registered, fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated.  This was the "domestic call-in" phase of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), a  program initiated by then Attorney General John Ashcroft and marketed as a "vital line of defense in the war against terrorism."  The January 2003 group of NSEERS  registrants were the second of four groups and the largest group of Arabs involved in the program.  NSEERS was so poorly conceived and badly managed that it created  chaos and fear.  Trust between the immigrant community and law enforcement was severely strained and, in the end, there was no evidence that any terrorists were  apprehended as a result of the effort.  For complete story, click here.
Inmates, staffers injured in San Quentin prison riot:  SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) - At least 23 inmates and two staff members at San Quentin State Prison were injured during a prison riot in a crowded dining hall, prison officials said Friday.  Officers armed with pepper spray and batons were able to quickly quell the riot, which started around 7 p.m. Thursday when about 260 inmates were in the dining hall, said prison spokesman Sgt. Eric Messick.  Inmates identified as being involved in the riot were removed from the general population as authorities continued to investigate what caused the fight, Messick said.  For complete story, click here.
U.S. Seeks to Avoid Detainee Ruling:  The Bush administration took the unusual step yesterday of asking the Supreme Court to call off a landmark confrontation over the legality of military trials for  terrorism suspects, arguing that a law enacted last month eliminates the court's ability to consider the issue. For complete story, click here.
Create an e-annoyance, go to jail:  Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.  It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a  prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.  In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a  mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name.  Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.  This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of  Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act.  For complete story, click here.
Hunger strikers are tied down and fed through nasal tubes, admits Guantánamo Bay doctor:  New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive.  They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer.'  Experience teaches us' that such symptoms must be expected 'whenever nasogastric tubes are used,' says the affidavit of Captain John S Edmondson, commander of Guantánamo's hospital. The procedure - now standard practice at Guantánamo - 'requires that a foreign body be inserted into the body and, ideally, remain in it.' But staff always use a lubricant, and 'a nasogastric tube is never inserted and moved up and down. It is inserted down into the stomach slowly and directly, and it would be impossible to insert the wrong end of the tube.' Medical personnel do not insert nasogastric tubes in a manner 'intentionally designed to inflict pain.'   For complete story, click here.

SWAT team, state police were positioned near W. Va. church 04 Jan 2006 In a stunning and heartbreaking reversal, family members were told early Wednesday that  12 of 13 trapped coal miners were dead - three hours after they began celebrating news that they were alive... International Coal Group Chief Executive Officer Ben Hatfield  blamed the wrong information on a "miscommunication.'' ..."There was no apology. There was no nothing. It was immediately out the door,'' said Nick Helms, son of miner  Terry Helms. Chaos broke out in the church and a fight started. About a dozen state troopers and a SWAT team were positioned along the road near the church because  police were concerned about violence. Witnesses said one man had to be wrestled to the ground when he lunged for mining officials. [The 'violence' is the violence that is  perpetrated on workers in the U.S. (and all over the world) every day, due to the Bush regime's expansion of predatory capitalism.] For complete story, click here.
Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place - by Newsnet5.com (read this story)  or click here.
Fake-lawyer ruse challenged:  The Washington State Bar Association is asking the state Supreme Court to ban police officers from posing as lawyers -- as officers did to  obtain DNA evidence in one recent case -- saying the practice is unnecessary and damages the credibility of attorney-client relationships. For complete story, click here.
Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest --Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel 21 Dec 2005 A federal judge has resigned from the court that  oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of pResident Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources. For complete story, click here.
Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls 21 Dec 2005 A surveillance program approved by pResident Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are  purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials  say. For complete story, click here.
The FBI's Secret Scrutiny In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau Examines Records of Ordinary Americans:  The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said.  Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow.  For complete story, click here.
Microwave Weaponry Used on Montana Carpenter and 9/11 Researcher for 'Getting Too Close to Who Knows What':  Dan Nelson says he's not sure exactly what piece 9/11 evidence he uncovered triggered the government assaults, but says once he tried to go public, 'all hell broke loose.'   For complete story, click here.

Ridin’’ The Bus With Deborah:  When Deborah Davis hit the news, I got hit as well – right in the pit of my stomach where terror hides, and panic lurks.. “Oh God, I mumbled, “It’s happening again”  And just exactly what had Deborah done to get this emotionally detached old lady into such a replay of emotions left over from 1938 Nazi Germany? It was the gut-wrenching realization that the Nazi Police State in which I was raised has come back to roost – in the United States.  Deborah, who commutes by bus in Denver, Colorado, had been asked to present her I.D. to a man in uniform. If she didn’t, she was told, it would mean walking several miles to her job. So, she complied, but, it rankled. Deborah knew that, unless she was being a danger to self or others, behaving irrationally, or drunk and disorderly, no one had the right to ask for her identification. As long as she was sitting quietly in her seat, she could not be arbitrarily asked for ID. (She’d learned that in her 8th grade Civics class, where she had 

also been taught about police states, and how casually they usurped the rights of their citizenry.)  For complete story, click here.

Racial Poverty Gaps in U.S. Amount to Human Rights Violation, Says U.N. Expert:  UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 (OneWorld) - Despite enormous wealth and various federal and social welfare schemes at work, the United States is failing to help millions of its people trying to get out of poverty, according to an independent United Nations rights expert.  For complete story, click here.
The Drugging of the American Mind:  In other words, fairly regular, mainstream Americans now take the most powerful mood-altering drugs in all of psychiatry. Last year,  23 million prescriptions were written for these drugs. Sales this year are expected to hit $10 billion, three times what they were in 2000. Atypicals are the fourth largest class of patented medications in America.  Patients aren't taking them for a few days or weeks, either. Doctors expect their bipolar patients to take these drugs for years, much the same as they've taken traditional mood stabilizers, like lithium, which tamp down mood swings. In fact, there's a growing rumble in the psych world that researchers would like to use atypicals to replace mood stabilizers altogether.  Yet there is no comprehensive scientific evidence to support this paradigm shift. Zero. The psychiatric industry says this isn't a problem because real-world treatment has always outpaced research. But if you happen to be a patient, it's a very big problem—atypicals have the worst side effects of any drugs used to treat bipolar disorder. As a patient, I've experienced this shift firsthand, sometimes as a willing test subject. So, I have a question: Without scientific evidence, why are doctors prescribing these meds so freely and expecting patients to take them for so long? For complete story, click here.
U.S. Holding at Least Twenty-Six "Ghost Detainees":  (New York, December 1, 2005) – The United States is holding at least twenty-six persons as "ghost detainees" at undisclosed locations outside of the United States, Human Rights Watch said today, as it released a list naming some of the detainees. The detainees are being held indefinitely and incommunicado, without legal rights or access to counsel…   For complete story, click here.
Indefinite Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus:  Perfidy loves company. George W. Bush instructed his British puppet, Prime Minister Tony Blair, to get moving on the detention issue so that he, Bush, would have company when he attacked the Constitution's guarantee of habeas corpus.  Habeas corpus prevents authorities from detaining a person indefinitely without charges; the guarantee of habeas corpus ensures that no one can imprison you without a trial.  The Bush administration wants the power to detain indefinitely anyone it declares to be an enemy combatant or a terrorist without presenting the detainee in court with charges. In England the power to arrest people and to hold them indefinitely without charges was taken away from kings centuries ago.  Bush apparently thinks he is the reincarnation of an absolute monarch.   For complete story, click here.
Misplaced outrage--Talk about missing the point.:  The CIA has been hiding al-Qaeda suspects and interrogating them at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and  elsewhere — essentially making them disappear, as South American and Soviet dictators once did.  So what are Republican leaders in Congress hot to investigate?   Whether the CIA is running shadowy operations that might violate international treaties signed by the United States? What damage this could do to U.S. interests abroad?  Who authorized such a dangerous policy? No, they want to know who leaked this information. For complete story, click here.
UN Human Rights Body to Scrutinise U.S. Abuses by Thalif Deen:  (Published on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 by Inter Press Service) UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Human Rights Committee,  scheduled to meet in Geneva next month, has written to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) calling for any available evidence of human rights abuses by the United States -- particularly in the aftermath of its global war on terrorism.  The 18-member committee, comprising of independent human rights experts, will take up "issues of specific concerns relating to the effect of measures taken (by the administration of President George W. Bush) in the fight against terrorism following the events of 11 September 2001," the day the United States was subject to terrorist attacks.  The primary focus will be "on the implications of the USA Patriot Act on nationals and non-nationals, as well as problems relating to the legal status and treatment of persons detained in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and other places of detention outside the USA."  The U.S. Congress adopted the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 in order to provide "appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism."  But virtually all human rights organisations, both domestic and international, have criticised the Act as seriously threatening civil liberties and freedoms in the United States. For complete story, click here.
Guantanamo Desperation Seen in Suicide Attempts One Incident Was During Lawyer's Visit:  Jumah Dossari had to visit the restroom, so the detainee made a quick joke with his American lawyer before military police guards escorted him to a nearby cell with a toilet. The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had taken quite a toll on  Dossari over the past four years, but his attorney, who was there to discuss Dossari's federal court case, noted his good spirits and thought nothing of his bathroom break.   Minutes later, when Dossari did not return, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan knocked on the cell door, calling out his client's name. When he did not hear a response, Colangelo- Bryan stepped inside and saw a three-foot pool of blood on the floor. Numb, the lawyer looked up to see Dossari hanging unconscious from a noose tied to the ceiling, his  eyes rolled back, his tongue and lips bulging, blood pouring from a gash in his right arm. For complete story, click here.
Cheney Fights for Detainee Policy As Pressure Mounts to Limit Handling Of Terror Suspects, He Holds Hard Line:  Over the past year, Vice President Cheney has waged an  intense and largely unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department from imposing more restrictive rules on the handling of terrorist  suspects, according to defense, state, intelligence and congressional officials.  Last winter, when Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, began pushing to have the full committee briefed on the CIA's interrogation practices, Cheney called him to the White House to urge that he drop  the matter, said three U.S. officials.  For complete story, click here.

 

 

 

Miscellaneous News Archive

Blackwater founder says he aided secret programs --CIA asset Erik Prince carried out secret missions as recently as two months ago 03 Dec 2009 The founder of Blackwater Worldwide acknowledged in an interview published Wednesday that he had helped the CIA with secret programs targeting top al-Qaeda leaders, a role he says was intended to give the agency "unattributable capability" in sensitive missions. Erik Prince, owner of the military contractor now known as Xe Services, told Vanity Fair magazine that he performed numerous "very risky missions" for the spy agency, some of which were improperly exposed in leaks to the news media. The magazine... said the former Navy SEAL had served a dual role for the CIA as both a contractor and an "asset," or spy, who carried out secret missions as recently as two months ago, when the Obama administration terminated his contract.  For complete story, click here.

Man killed in church after stone altar falls on him--September 10th, 2009--

Link, 45, died instantly as he was crushed under the ancient 860lb monument in the Weinhaus Church in Vienna, Austria.

Roman Hahslinger, a police spokesman, said: "He was a very religious man and had been scared when he was trapped in the lift and had prayed for release.

"A short while later he was pulled out of the elevator and he went straight to the church to thank God.

"He seems to have embraced a stone pillar on which the stone altar was perched and it fell on him, killing him instantly.  For complete story, click here.
Israel Makes Waves by Simulating an Earthquake --Experiment financed by DoD 25 Aug 2009 The Seismologic Division of the Ministry of National Infrastructure's Geophysical Institute will attempt to simulate an earthquake in the southern Negev on Thursday. The experiment, financed by the U.S. Defense Department, is a joint project with the University of Hawaii and is part of a scientific project intended to improve seismological and acoustic readings in Israel and its environs, up to a 1,000 km/621 mile radius.  For complete story, click here.
Records of Virginia Tech Gunman Discovered --Criminal investigation is underway to determine how the employee was able to take the records and why the documents were not uncovered during state investigations following the shooting 22 Jul 2009 Virginia Tech gunman Seung Hui Cho had been treated at the college's counseling center before the shooting rampage in which he killed 32 students, contradicting earlier accounts of his psychiatric history, according to newly discovered mental health records located in the home of the center's former director. According to a memo written by a university lawyer and obtained by The Washington Post, the former director, Robert Miller, had moved the records into his home more than a year before the April 16, 2007, massacre, during which Cho also took his own life. Word the records had been found first came from Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine during a Wednesday morning news conference. [See: Virginia Tech Shooting 'Oddities' --Seung-Hui Cho in U.S. Marines uniform, pulled from Wikipedia By Lori Price Iraq link to campus killer Cho 19 Apr 2007 The sister of the gunman responsible for the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees billions of dollars in American aid for Iraq.]  For complete story, click here.
Audit Finds U.S. Overpaid Blackwater By $55 Million 17 Jun 2009 A government audit found that the State Department overpaid the contract-security firm once known as Blackwater Worldwide by tens of millions of dollars because the company failed to properly staff its teams in Iraq. The report said the State Department should have withheld at least $55 million in payments to the company because of the shortfalls.  For complete story, click here.
Bats recognize individual voices: Study 08 Jun 2009 Scientists have found that bats are able to distinguish between different individuals by their echolocation calls or biological sonar. According to the study published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology, bats recognize the voice of other bats through the ultrasonic 'echolocation' calls that they make as they navigate.  For complete story, click here.
DARPA, Army fund 'telepathy' research --Goals include "user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals." By Steve Hammons 17 May 2009 A research program to develop mind-to-mind communication among U.S. military personnel will receive $4 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), according to published reports. The "Silent Talk" project seeks to create technologies that can read the "pre-speech" brain waves of individuals, interpret them and communicate them to other individuals. The new DARPA funding is in addition to a previous $4 million the Army provided to the University of California for what they call "computer-mediated telepathy."   For complete story, click here.
Governor Huntsman to resign and accept Obama appointment--May 16th, 2009--SALT LAKE CITY (ABC  4 News) - Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will resign and accept an appointment as ambassador to China, ABC 4 has confirmed.  For complete story, click here.  (Webmaster Note:  The only way this appointment makes sense is that Gov. Huntsman being an advocate of brainwashing and POW-style torture for America's youth can relate very well to the Chinese authorities and their disregard for basic human rights.) 
Stanford 'was informant for US anti-drug agents' --Authorities accused of turning a blind eye to financier's banking business 11 May 2009 Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire who ploughed millions of pounds into English cricket, may have been working as an informant for American anti-drug agents in return for official protection which gave him free rein to run his [illegal] banking empire, it emerged yesterday.  For complete story, click here.
The Army's Remote-Controlled Beetle--January 29, 2009--A giant flower beetle with implanted electrodes and a radio receiver on its back can be wirelessly controlled, according to research presented this week. Scientists at the University of California developed a tiny rig that receives control signals from a nearby computer. Electrical signals delivered via the electrodes command the insect to take off, turn left or right, or hover in midflight. The research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), could one day be used for surveillance purposes or for search-and-rescue missions.   For complete story, click here.
Drought 'Oddities' By Lori Price 01 Mar 2009 Suddenly, almost inexplicably and overnight - there's a newly discovered big water shortage in the US! Keep your eyes on the GOP prize. Under cover of the Bush Depression and (global warming-induced) drought, corpora-terrorist trolls may present a 'solution:' Privatize part of the US water supply. First, the inevitable state of emergency is declared.  For complete story, click here.
Fed indictments tell how H-1B visas were used to undercut wages 13 Feb 2009 Federal agents on Thursday said they arrested 11 people in six states in a crackdown on H-1B visa fraud and unsealed documents that detail how the visa process was used to undercut the salaries of U.S. workers. Federal authorities allege that in some cases, H-1B workers were paid the prevailing wages of low-cost regions and not necessarily the higher salaries paid in the locations where they worked. By doing this, the companies were "displacing qualified American workers and violating prevailing wage laws," said federal authorities in a statement announcing the indictments.  For complete story, click here.
Vice president, former AG, state senator indicted 18 Nov 2008 A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers. The indictment criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies. Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.chron.com  Date: November 18, 2008)
Grand jury indicts Cheney, former AG 18 Nov 2008 Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been named in a South Texas grand jury indictment on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners being detained in Willacy County federal detention centers, The Associated Press said. Willacy County is located in South Texas and includes the cities of Lyford, Raymondville and San Perlita.  For complete story, click here.
Fed refuses to identify recipients of $2 trillion in U.S. taxpayer loans --Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose 10 Nov 2008 The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.  For complete story, click here.
Sarah Palin blamed by US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama 08 Nov 2008 Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign. The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists." The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric. But it has emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further. The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.  For complete story, click here.
Campaign Volunteer Faces Charges In Attack Hoax--October 24th, 2008--PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― A campaign worker who claimed she was the victim of a politically-motivated attack in which she was beaten, kicked and cut, now admits that she made the whole story up.

According to Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard, Ashley Todd, 20, told investigators today that she "was not robbed and there was no 6'4" black male attacker."

Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield Wednesday night and that the suspect began beating her after seeing a John McCain bumper sticker on her car.

Todd claimed that the mugger even cut a backwards letter "B" in her cheek.

But today investigators say Todd confessed that the attack never happened.

At a news conference this afternoon, officials said they believe that Todd's injuries were self-inflicted.

Police investigating the report said Todd's story began to unravel early on and they administered a polygraph test.

Investigators asked Todd to return to the police station today for more questioning and to help them release a composite sketch of the suspect.

When she did, police say she admitted that she made the whole thing up and that it snowballed out of control.

Todd told investigators today that she "just wanted to tell the truth" – adding that she was neither robbed, nor attacked.

"She indicated that she has prior mental problems and that she does not remember how the backward letter B got on her face," Richard told reporters today.

Todd told police that while she did not remember how the backward "B" got on her face, she may have done it herself since she was the only one in the car.

According to police, Todd said she thought of Barack Obama when she saw the "B" in her rearview mirror.

Meanwhile, police and residents of Bloomfield say they had suspicions from the beginning about the validity of Todd's tale.

"Something seemed a little strange about the story to begin with," said Lisa Diulus.

"I think it's a shame," said Theresa Cherico. "She made Bloomfield out to be like an unsafe neighborhood."

"I don't know, McCain is down in the polls, maybe this is a boost to get him up a little bit," said Mark Billings. "I don't know, maybe she had some personal problems or something."  For complete story, click here.

Bush signs $600 billion stopgap bill 01 Oct 2008 US President [sic] George W. Bush signs a government expenditures bill topping 600 billion dollars after his economic relief plan fails. After Bush's banking bailout scheme failed, the president endorsed a budget bill of 600 billion dollars to fund his administration's activities for the next six months, AFP reported.  For complete story, click here.
Air Force says officers fell asleep with nuke code --July 12 incident was at Minot AFB, location of other incidents 24 Jul 2008 Three Air Force officers fell asleep [All three?] while in control of an electronic component that contained old launch codes for nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, a violation of procedure, Air Force officials said Thursday. It is the fourth incident in the past year involving problems with secure handling of components of America's nuclear weapons. The incident occurred July 12, during the changing out of components used to facilitate secure communications between an underground missile-control facility and missile silos near Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, according to Col. Dewey Ford, a spokesman for the Air Force Space Command in Colorado. [See: Minot AFB Clandestine Nukes 'Oddities' 17 Sep 2007.]   For complete story, click here.
Pentagon audit faults KBR's prices --Report alleges cases of post-hurricane overcharging 16 Jun 2008 KBR overcharged the U.S. Navy for providing meals to workers and service personnel in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to a Pentagon audit... It recommended the Navy demand a refund from KBR of at least $1.4 million. The overcharges were one element of mismanagement by Houston-based KBR, of three Navy contracts valued at $229 million for cleanup and restoration of Navy facilities damaged after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Katrina in 2005, the audit said. Altogether, the audit requested that the Navy seek refunds of at least $8.5 million for "inappropriate" payments to KBR.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source:  www.chron.com Date: June 16, 2008)
Ex-Army official says fired over KBR audit 17 Jun 2008 A former high-ranking civilian U.S. Army official says he was fired in 2004 when he questioned the Iraq war expenditures of military contractor KBR. The official, Charles Smith, said he was ousted from his position as the top civilian overseer of KBR's lucrative contract to supply services to U.S. troops when he refused to sign off on more than $1 billion in questionable spending, The New York Times reported Tuesday.  For complete story, click here.
House panel subpoenas FBI interviews of Bush, Cheney 16 Jun 2008 A House committee issued a subpoena Monday for FBI reports from interviews with President [sic] Bush and Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney in the CIA leak investigation. The subpoena to Attorney General Michael Mukasey from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is the latest move by Congress to shed light on Cheney's precise role in the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity.  For complete story, click here.
USA Military Officers Challenge Official Account of September 11 22 May 2008 Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They include former commander of U.S. Army Intelligence, Major General Albert Stubblebine, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Col. Ronald D. Ray, two former staff members of the Director of the National Security Agency; Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, and Major John M. Newman, PhD, and many others. "A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It's impossible," said Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret). With doctoral degrees in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering, Col. Bowman served as Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.  For complete story, click here.
U.N. Official Calls for Study of Neocons' Role in 9/11 10 Apr 2008 A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel [Richard Falk, Milbank professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University] is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The narrative that the attacks from 2001 were a "false flag" operation is a recurring theme in the literature challenging the consensus conspiracy theory that 19 al-Qaeda hijackers flew commercial jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. False flag refers to espionage or covert actions taken by one government made to seem like the work of another. The false flag thesis has it that the Bush administration is somehow responsible for the September 11 attacks as a pretext for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. [And so much more! See: CLG 9/11 Exposition Zone.]  For complete story, click here.
'To be sure, Cheney must be furious that Tehran torpedoed the entire US strategy for Big Oil.' Iran torpedoes US plans for Iraqi oil By M K Bhadrakumar 03 Apr 2008 What has happened is essentially that Iran has frustrated the joint US-British objective of gaining control of Basra, without which the strategy of establishing control over the fabulous oil fields of southern Iraq will not work. Control of Basra is a pre-requisite before American oil majors make their multi-billion investments to kick start large-scale oil production in Iraq. Iraq's Southern Oil Company is headquartered in Basra. Highly strategic installations are concentrated in the region, such as pipeline networks, pumping stations, refineries and loading terminals. The American oil majors will insist on fastening these installations.  For complete story, click here.
Breaking: Under criminal investigation, HUD secretary resigns --Top Bush official faces charges of cronyism and favoritism 31 Mar 2008 The Bush administration's top housing official is resigning at a time when the housing industry is embroiled in crisis. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced Monday he is quitting. His resignation will take effect on April 18. Jackson is under criminal investigation and has been fending off allegations of cronyism and favoritism involving HUD contractors for the past two years.  For complete story, click here.
Lawyer: Pentagon using Guantanamo trials to influence '08 election 28 Mar 2008 The Navy lawyer for Osama bin Laden's driver argues in a Guantánamo military commissions motion that senior Pentagon officials are orchestrating war crimes prosecutions for the 2008 campaign. The brief filed Thursday by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer directly challenged the integrity of President [sic] Bush's war court. Notably, it describes a Sept. 29, 2006, meeting at the Pentagon in which Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, a veteran White House appointee, asked lawyers to consider Sept. 11, 2001, prosecutions in light of the campaign. "We need to think about charging some of the high-value detainees because there could be strategic political value to charging some of these detainees before the election," England is quoted as saying.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.miamiherald.com Date: March 28, 2008)
US gave $300m arms contract to 22-year-old with criminal record --Old stock sent to Afghan forces battling Taliban --40-year-old ammunition had to be destroyed 28 Mar 2008 The Pentagon entrusted a 22-year-old previously arrested for domestic violence and having a forged driving licence to be the main supplier of ammunition to Afghan forces at the height of the battle against the Taliban, it was reported yesterday. AEY, essentially a one-man operation based in an unmarked office in Miami Beach, Florida, was awarded a contract worth $300m (£150m) to supply the Afghan army and police in January last year. The report on AEY was the latest instance of private firms securing lucrative defence contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush regime's policy of privatising growing aspects of the military. "Operations like this pop up like mushrooms after the rain," said Milton Bearden, a former CIA official who in the 1980s was in charge of arming Afghan rebel groups fighting the former Soviet Union.  For complete story, click here.
US cargo ship opens fire in Suez canal, 1 dead 25 Mar 2008 An Egyptian was shot dead and two others wounded in an incident involving a US-flagged cargo ship crossing the Suez Canal towards the Mediterranean Sea, reported security officials late Monday. For complete story, click here.
Lawmakers want probe of KBR role in accidental electrocutions in Iraq --Details sought about electrocutions of military and contract workers in Iraq and about KBR's role in making electrical repairs. 19 Mar 2008 At least a dozen soldiers and Marines have been electrocuted in Iraq over the five years of the war, and investigators now are trying to learn what role improper grounding of electrical wires played in those deaths. And Houston-based KBR -- which builds bases and maintains housing for U.S. troops in Iraq -- is at the center of the probe, with questions being raised about its responsibility to repair known wiring problems. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter today to Defense Secretary Robert Gates seeking details about electrocutions of military and contract workers in Iraq and about KBR's role in making electrical repairs.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.chron.com  Date: March 19th, 2008)
Breaking: 'When a member of the Bar is convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude, disbarment is mandatory.' Former Cheney Aide Libby Disbarred --Bush Commuted Libby's Prison Sentence Last Year 20 Mar 2008 A Washington, D.C., radio station reports that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney, has been disbarred. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Court of Appeals stripped Libby of his ability to practice law after he was found guilty last year of obstructing the investigation in the CIA leak investigation, WTOP radio reported.  For complete story, click here.
Bush officials: Congress irrelevant on Iraq 05 Mar 2008 The Bush dictatorship says the 2002 congressional authorization to go to war in Iraq gives it the authority to conduct combat operations in Iraq and negotiate far-reaching agreements with the current Iraqi government without consulting Congress. The assertion, jointly made Tuesday by U.S. Ambassador David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Mary Beth Long, drew an incredulous reaction from Democrats on a Joint House committee during a hearing on future U.S. commitments to Iraq. For complete story, click here.
Khadr lawyers allege Cheney linked to video release 03 Mar 2008 Omar Khadr's defense lawyers will try to find out whether U.S. Vice-President [sic] Dick Cheney's office secretly leaked a video of the imprisoned Canadian to an American media outlet -- an allegation that, if proven, would be a clear violation of court orders and further proof that the process by which Mr. Khadr is being tried is a political, not legal one, his military lawyer says.  (Unable to locate story at time of archiving.  Source: www.theglobeandmail.com  Date: March 3, 2008)
Lawyers for Canadian Gitmo Detainee Accuse Cheney of Leaking Video to '60 Minutes' 04 Mar 2008 Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney's office may have leaked an incriminating video of a Canadian terror suspect facing a war-crimes 'trial,' according to a claim filed by the suspect's lawyers in Guantanamo Bay military court. Lawyers for Omar Khadr say the video, which apparently shows their client making a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, may have been leaked to the television program "60 Minutes" to counter publicity that has focused on legal setbacks in the case and descriptions of Khadr as a child soldier. "60 Minutes" aired the tape in November. For complete story, click here.
White House blocks inquiry into construction of $736m embassy in Iraq 29 Feb 2008 The Bush administration is blocking an inquiry into the delay-plagued construction of the $736m US embassy in Baghdad, a senior Democrat in Congress said today. Henry Waxman, who is chairman of the oversight committee in the House of Representatives, asked US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice today to explain why her department certified the embassy as "substantially completed" in December despite inspections that reveal continued deficiencies in the facility's water, fire alarm and kitchen systems... In addition, two US state department employees who worked on the embassy project are now under criminal investigation.  For complete story, click here.
Obama staffer gave warning of NAFTA rhetoric 27 Feb 2008 Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned. Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources. The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value. For complete story, click here.
GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mails 27 Feb 2008 After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday. The move increases the likelihood that an untold number of RNC e-mails dealing with official White House business during the first term of the Bush administration -- including many sent or received by former presidential adviser Karl Rove -- will never be recovered, said House Democrats and public records advocates.  For complete story, click here.
Bamboozling the American electorate again --Bush-Cheney strategy involves GOP crossover voting to take out Hillary, marketing newcomer Obama, an "independent" ticket, and maybe even martial law By Rosemary Regello 18 Feb 2008 According to an article in Time Magazine, Republican party activists have been organized by the G.O.P. to throw their weight behind Barack Obama, the democratic rival of frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Early in Obama's campaign, top Republican fundraisers flushed his coffers with cash, something the deep pockets hadn't done for any candidate in their own party. With receipts topping $100 million in 2007, the first-term Illinois senator broke the record for contributions.  For complete story, click here.
In 2006, Barack Obama backed 'mentor' Joe LieberBush: Obama rallies state Democrats, throws support behind Lieberman 31 Mar 2006 U.S. Sen. Barack Obama rallied Connecticut Democrats at their annual dinner Thursday night, throwing his support behind mentor and Senate colleague Joe LieberBush. Lieberman, Connecticut's junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. Ned Lamont, a Democratic activist and anti-war candidate from Greenwich, is challenging Lieberman for the party's nomination this year. [Lamont eventually won the Democratic nomination, but lost the 2006 'election' due to Rove, The Hartford Courant and other Reichwing maggots backing LieberBush. MDR observes: Perhaps this is why the rightwing media is pushing Obama down our throats.]  For complete story, click here.
Happiness: Enough Already--The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.--The plural of anecdote is not data, as scientists will tell you, but consider these snapshots of the emerging happiness debate anyway: Lately, Jerome Wakefield's students have been coming up to him after they break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and not because they want him to recommend a therapist. Wakefield, a professor at New York University, coauthored the 2007 book "The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into Depressive Disorder," which argues that feeling down after your heart is broken-even so down that you meet the criteria for clinical depression-is normal and even salutary. But students tell him that their parents are pressuring them to seek counseling and other medical intervention-"some Zoloft, dear?"-for their sadness, and the kids want no part of it. "Can you talk to them for me?" they ask Wakefield. Rather than "listening to Prozac," they want to listen to their hearts, not have them chemically silenced.  University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener, who has studied happiness for a quarter century, was in Scotland recently, explaining to members of Parliament and business leaders the value of augmenting traditional measures of a country's wealth with a national index of happiness. Such an index would measure policies known to increase people's sense of well-being, such as democratic freedoms, access to health care and the rule of law. The Scots were all in favor of such things, but not because they make people happier.  "They said too much happiness might not be such a good thing," says Diener.  "They like being dour, and didn't appreciate being told they should be happier."  Eric Wilson tried to get with the program. Urged on by friends, he bought books on how to become happier. He made every effort to smooth out his habitual scowl and wear a sunny smile, since a happy expression can lead to genuinely happy feelings. Wilson, a professor of English at Wake Forest University, took up jogging, reputed to boost the brain's supply of joyful neurochemicals, watched uplifting Frank Capra and Doris Day flicks and began sprinkling his conversations with "great!" and "wonderful!", the better to exercise his capacity for enthusiasm. When none of these made him happy, Wilson not only jumped off the happiness bandwagon-he also embraced his melancholy side and decided to blast a happiness movement that "leads to half-lives, to bland existences," as he argues in "Against Happiness," a book now reaching stores. Americans' fixation on happiness, he writes, fosters "a craven disregard for the value of sadness" and "its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos." For complete story, click here.
Top-secret Livermore germ lab opens --Scientists developing 'countermeasures' for bubonic plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Q fever, tularemia, brucellosis or undulant fever; researching flu, tuberculosis and SARS 02 Feb 2008 A high-security laboratory where deadly microbes are being grown by scientists seeking defenses against terrorist attacks began operating in Livermore last week without public announcement, and opponents said Friday that they will go to federal court in an effort to close the facility down. The facility is known as a Biosafety-level 3 laboratory where... more than 40 potentially lethal disease-causing bacteria, viruses and fungi are stored inside.  For complete story, click here.
Oil Crisis As 308,000 Barrels Go Missing, According to Audit 10 Jan 2008 How do you not notice when 308,000 barrels of oil go missing? That's the question government auditors were asking after they looked into the Department of Energy's management of oil received for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a critical program to assure energy stability in the U.S. in case of an oil crisis.  For complete story, click here.
9/11 Panel Study Finds That C.I.A. Withheld Tapes 22 Dec 2007 A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of 'Al Qaeda,' and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had "produced or made available for review" everything that had been requested. In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission's inquiry.  For complete story, click here. 
"The man who murdered Osama bin Laden" Frost over the World - Benazir Bhutto - 02 Nov 07 --Sir David interviews former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. 03 Nov 2007 6:13 into this YouTube video, Benazir Bhutto declares, "Yes, well one of them is a very key figure in security. He's a former military officer. He's someone who's had dealings... and he also had dealings with Omar Sheikh [Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh], the man who murdered Osama bin Laden." [Did Bhutto mean to say Daniel Pearl? If that was the case, she did not correct herself.] 

Dennis Kucinich's brother found dead 19 Dec 2007 Perry Kucinich, 52, was found dead in his home in the 4100 block of East 71st Street. His brother Larry found him about 9 a.m. There were no signs of violence, officials said. The Cuyahoga County Coroner is performing an autopsy this hour. Their brother, Dennis Kucinich, is a U.S. Representative from Ohio's 10th District. He is running for president.  For complete story, click here.

Breaking: A federal grand jury has voted to indict ex-N.Y. City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on charges stemming from tax evasion and corruption allegations, sources tell ABC News. [See (flashback) Bush nominates Kerik for Homeland Security 03 Dec 2004 President [sic] Bush on Friday nominated former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to take over as secretary of homeland security. Kerik is a senior vice president of Giuliani Partners, the consulting firm founded by Rudy Giuliani, who as mayor of New York appointed him police commissioner in 2000. "His broad practical hands-on experience makes Bernie superbly qualified to lead the Department of Homeland Security," Bush said.]  For complete story, click here.
To Implement Policy, Bush to Turn to Administrative Orders 31 Oct 2007 The White House plans to try implementing as much new policy as it can by administrative order dictatorship while stepping up its confrontational rhetoric with Congress after concluding that President [sic] Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership, administration officials said. White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence overturn the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing 'administrative orders,' as he has in recent weeks... They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months.  For complete story, click here.
Split court says candidates can lie--October 5th, 2007--OLYMPIA — Government has no business trying to stop political candidates from deliberately lying about each other in campaign ads, a divided state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.  In the 5-4 decision upholding a lower-court ruling, the high court said a state law aimed at punishing political candidates for false advertising is an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.  "There can be no doubt that false personal attacks are too common in political campaigns, with wide-ranging detrimental consequences," Justice Jim Johnson wrote for the majority. "However, government censorship ... is not a constitutionally permitted remedy."  But in a sharply worded dissent, Justice Barbara Madsen called the majority's ruling "an invitation to lie with impunity. ... It is little wonder that so many view political campaigns with distrust and cynicism."  For complete story, click here.
Bush quietly advising Hillary Clinton, top Democrats--September 24th, 2007--President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.  In an interview for the new book "The Evangelical President," White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has "been urging candidates: 'Don't get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically. ' "  Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that "even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there."  "Especially if it's a Democrat," the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. "He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out."  To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008.  "It's different being a candidate and being the president," Bush said in an Oval Office interview. "No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East, particularly one trying to be created by al Qaeda, they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy." To that end, Bush is institutionalizing controversial anti-terror programs so they can be used by the next president.  "Look, I'd like to make as many hard decisions as I can make, and do a lot of the heavy lifting prior to whoever my successor is," Bush said. "And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I've been looking at, and come to their own conclusion."  As an example, Bush cited his detainee program, which allows him to keep enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay while they await adjudication. Bush is unmoved by endless criticism of the program because he says his successor will need it.  For complete story, click here.
White House preparing to stage new September 11 says Reagan official:  July 20th, 2007--WASHINGTON, July 20 (RIA Novosti) - A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship and launch a war with Iran within a year.  Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, blasted Thursday a new Executive Order, released July 17, allowing the White House to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies and giving the government expanded police powers to exercise control in the country.  Roberts, who spoke on the Thom Hartmann radio program, said: "When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order], there's no check to it. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule."  "The American people don't really understand the danger that they face," Roberts said,  adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party.  Old-line Republicans like Roberts have become increasingly disenchanted with the neoconservative politics of the Bush administration, which they see as a betrayal of fundamental conservative values.  According to a July 9-11 survey by Ipsos, an international public opinion research company, President Bush and the Republicans can claim a mere 31 percent approval rating for their handling of the Iraq war and 38 percent for their foreign policy in general, including terrorism.  "The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated. "  Roberts suggested that in the absence of a massive popular outcry, only the federal bureaucracy and perhaps the military could put constraints on Bush's current drive for a fully-fledged dictatorship.  For complete story, click here.
'Operation Noble Eagle' false flag operations underway: Florida Troops Deploy to Nation's Capital 24 Aug 2007 Members of the 1st Battalion 265 Air Defense Artillery have mobilized and are on a plane headed first to Ft. Bliss, then for federal active duty in the capital region. The troops will be deployed for a year. The 265th is part of Operation Noble Eagle. They are ordered by the president [sic] to the nation's capital, where they will operate high-tech weapons systems 'against' any potential air threat.  For complete story, click here.
Neo-Cons: Make Bush Dictator Of The World--August 17th, 2007:  If you thought Stu Bykovsky's call for a new 9/11 was the lowest the Neo-Cons could sink, think again. A right-wing foundation with links to Dick Cheney has called for Bush to be made lifetime president, ruler of the world, and for Iraq to be ethnically cleansed of Arabs by means of a nuclear holocaust.  The Family Security Matters organization masquerades as an independent "think tank" yet was highly influential in President Bush's re-election in 2004 and has links to top Neo-Con ideologues.  The outfit poses as an advocacy group for a new breed of goose-stepping brownshirts - so-called "security moms," who are noted for their blind obedience to neo-conservatism as a result of believing every ounce of fearmongering that emanates from the Bush administration on the inevitability of mass casualty terror attacks.  "In late 2004, Media Matters for America discovered that the phone number listed on FSM's website actually belonged to the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a rabidly hardline foreign policy outfit run by former Reagan administration figure Frank Gaffney," reports Right Web.  The Center for Security Policy is an umbrella organization that includes the National Security Advisory Council, whose members hold senior positions within the Bush administration itself. Former and current members include Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams and the organization has also given awards to Donald Rumsfeld.  The FSM foundation itself also has ties to the Anti-Defamation League, the International Women's Forum, numerous nationwide television and print media outlets, and includes on its board of advisors Neo-Con radio host Laura Ingraham and former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, James Woolsey.  Representatives of FSM also routinely appear as guests on Fox News and their website is a cesspool of anti-American fervor - acting as a cheerleader for the invasion of Iran, the warrantless wiretapping program (opponents of which are labeled "traitors") and lauds the Patriot Act as "An irreplaceable tool utilized by our Secret Service to keep us safe."  In an August 3rd article, contributing editor and philosopher Philip Atkinson penned a feverish diatribe that calls for the end of democracy, for Bush to be made ruler of the world as Julius Caesar was made emperor of Rome, for Bush to be made lifetime President in the U.S., and for Iraq to be ethnically cleansed by means of nuclear genocide and re-populated with Americans.  The comments are so fundamentally sick and twisted that the reader must absorb the following passages in full to recognize the true depravity of what the Neo-Con fringe truly embrace.  After calling democracy 'the enemy of truth and justice', Atkinson openly calls for genocide and mass slaughter.  The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth.  The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead.  Bush should be taking foreign policy tips from imperial dictator Julius Caesar, according to frustrated Neo-Cons.  He then cites Julius Caesar, the reviled dictator of the Roman Empire, as an example of how Bush should engage in rampant ethnic cleansing.  When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.  Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome.  If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.  Atkinson then concludes by stating such actions would allow Bush to declare martial law, become permanent President of the U.S. and eventually ruler of the entire world.  He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.  President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming "ex-president" Bush or he can become "President-for- Life" Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.  The sheer abhorrence of the diatribe could lead many to think that this was some kind of attempt at black humor, a faux article written by a liberal intended as a parody to ridicule right-wingers, but it's not, it's real - this is what many of the Neo-Cons actually embrace.  To the kind of people who think like this, carrying out a 9/11 style attack is like a walk in the park.  Though FSM chose to delete the article from their website after it started to get bad press, the cache is still available and Atkinson's previous articles betray the fact that he is a real columnist and he really believes this crap!  This is the philosophy guiding the people that are in control of the world's pre-eminent superpower - in comparison, they make Hitler look like the tooth fairy.  They are supported by a transfixed hardcore following of kool-aid drinkers, the kind that openly advocate putting anyone who criticizes Bush in gas chambers while praying for Fox News.  And don't for a second think that they won't try and make all this happen - the Neo-Cons are not playing games, yesterday we reported on the open admission of a plan on behalf of the feds to use clergy to "quell dissent" during a martial law takeoever scenario.  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are part of the same crowd and not part of the solution, this is a doctrine that has swallowed the entirety of the political system.  The extreme fringe of the Neo-Con belief system is increasingly attracting more adherents as Bush, Cheney and their warmongering administration becomes increasingly unpopular in the U.S. and faces more opposition in attempting to complete their agenda.  The true horror of what that ultimate agenda entails is the price we as humanity will pay unless we stop these madmen and their goal - a 4th Reich of the elite, the slaughter of millions, and a global totalitarian dictatorship.  For complete story, click here.
Cheney's Office Attempts To Memory-Hole Embarrassing Video--August 17th, 2007--A recently discovered video dating from 1994 featuring Dick Cheney warning against an invasion of Iraq has been shrugged off by the Vice President's office who say they cannot comment because at the time Cheney was not Vice President.  The video appeared earlier this week on YouTube and shows Dick Cheney explaining that trying to take over Iraq would be a "bad idea" and would lead to a "quagmire."  "How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our view was not very many, and I think we got it right," Cheney said.   The video was posted by alternative media site Grand Theft Country, the on-screen source is the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who conducted the interview with Cheney on April 15, 1994.  CBS 5 contacted the Vice President's press office Wednesday, where a spokesperson reacted to the video by saying: "He was not Vice President at the time, it was after he was Secretary of Defense. I don't have any comment."  For complete story, click here.
Dick Cheney Is Right--This weekend, we came across a pretty remarkable snippet of video online. You've really got to see it to believe it.  Just click here to check it out: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2879&id=10983-5425778-wy.VQD&t=2  And if you're as amazed, saddened, and angered as we are—pass it on to a friend, neighbor, or co-worker and help make sure people all over the country see it.    Video report.  Click above link.

Romney Jokes About Cheating in Poll By Garance Franke-Ruta 11 Aug 2007 at Last night, at the pre-Straw Poll "Ronstock" concert at the Bali Satay House in Ames, a Ron Paul volunteer played back a recording of competing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joking about cheating in a State Fair popularity contest, stuffing the ballot box in Ames, and dodging questions across the state... Romney also joked about stuffing the ballot box at today's Straw Poll. "At 7 o'clock they will count the ballots. We will stuff the ballot box, I hope," he said on the recording. And he joked about cheating in the Corn Poll, the bi-partisan State Fair popularity contest in which attendees are asked to "cast your kernel" by placing a kernel of corn in a jar for their favored candidate to show their support. "I was a little dismayed because I saw Barack Obama, he had a lot of corn in that Mason jar," quipped Romney. "But I was number one - so thanks for cheating!"  For complete story, click here.

Romney Leadership Team Member Overseeing Straw Poll By Birdlady 09 Aug 2007 The Iowa GOP is facing possible suit over their use of the same Diebold machines that were just de-certified. They are claiming of course, that there is nothing to worry about since the voting procedure will be conducted with the assistance and oversight of the Story County Auditor's Office. If we look here, we see the Story County Auditor is Mary Mosiman. Mary Mosiman also happens to be on Mitt Romney's "Romney for President [Story County] Leadership Team"... It's also worth noting that according to this article, Romney's Commonwealth PAC gave State Auditor David A. Vaudt $1,000 in 2004.  For complete story, click here.
"WATCH THIS BEFORE IT'S TAKEN OFF THE WEB!!"--August 3rd, 2007--"One impressive woman. Here is a powerful and amazing statement on Al Jazeera television.  "The woman is Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist from Los Angeles I would suggest watching it ASAP because I don't know how long the "link will be active. This film clip should be shown around the world repeatedly!"  CLICK HERE: http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=nul   Video download.
Why is the new Congress gridlocked?--August 3rd, 2007--Conservatives are working hard to spin this as the fault of a “do nothing Congress.” But that’s like someone mugging the postman and then complaining that the mail isn’t delivered. The fact is it’s the conservative minority’s own filibusters and vetoes that are systematically killing progress.  But now, our cameras have exposed the force orchestrating this obstruction.  See the right-wing mastermind -- caught on tape! -- and pass it on.    On YouTube, Check out the link.

House Panel Finds Bush Aides In Contempt --Committee Met Wednesday Morning 25 Jul 2007 The House Judiciary Committee voted contempt of Congress citations Wednesday against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and President [sic] George W. Bush's former legal counselor, Harriet Miers.  For complete story, click here.
BBC: Bush's Grandfather Planned Fascist Coup In America--July 24th, 2007--A BBC Radio 4 investigation sheds new light on a major subject that has received little historical attention, the conspiracy on behalf of a group of influential powerbrokers, led by Prescott Bush, to overthrow FDR and implement a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. based around the ideology of Mussolini and Hitler.  In 1933, Marine Corps Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler was approached by a wealthy and secretive group of industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush the current President's grandfather, who asked him to command a 500,000 strong rogue army of veterans that would help stage a coup to topple then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  According to the BBC, the plotters intended to impose a fascist takeover and "Adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression."  The conspirators were operating under the umbrella of a front group called the American Liberty League, which included many families that are still household names today, including Heinz, Colgate, Birds Eye and General Motors.  For complete story, click here.

White House Gets Defensive Over Accusation Bin Laden Is Dead--July 19th, 2007--White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend was asked at a press conference earlier this week what evidence she had that Osama Bin Laden was still alive, considering the fact that he has been gravely ill and on a kidney dialysis machine while traversing the harsh terrain of the Pakistani border region. Townsend's response was to refuse to discuss the matter and immediately leave.  (Definitely visit the link)  For complete story, click here.
Rep. compares Bush to Hitler, 9/11 attacks to Reichstag fire 15 Jul 2007 America's first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President [sic] George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks. Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted." To applause from his audience of 300 members of Atheists for Human Rights, Mr Ellison said he would not accuse the Bush administration of planning 9/11 because "you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you". [See: CLG 9/11 Exposition Zone.]  For complete story, click here.

Ron Paul warns of staged terror attack 13 Jul 2007 Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, said the country is in "great danger" of the U.S. government staging a terrorist attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation, as the war in Iraq continues to deteriorate. The Texas congressman offered no specifics nor mentioned President [sic] Bush by name, but he clearly insinuated that the administration would not be above staging an incident to revive flagging support.  For complete story, click here.

New study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon 21 Jun 2007 (PRWEB) Pilots for 9/11 Truth obtained black box data from the government under the Freedom of Information Act for AA Flight 77, which The 9/11 Report claims hit the Pentagon. Analysis of the data contradicts the official account in direction, approach, and altitude. The plane was too high to hit lamp posts and would have flown over the Pentagon, not impacted with its ground floor. This result confirms and strengthens the previous findings of Scholars for 9/11 Truth that no Boeing 757 hit the building.  For complete story, click here.
Mobile phones may soon be used on planes 22 June 2007 One of the last telephone-free environments on the planet, the airplane, is about to be connected, allowing travellers to make mobile phone calls at high altitude. Requests to switch off cellphones and fasten seatbelts are a familiar part of the take-off routine for airline passengers, but a European company has found a way to make dialling safe and link up people from above the clouds. [Apparently, the passengers aboard 'hijacked' United Airlines Flight 93 utilized a time machine, in order to make their calls. See: Alleged Oddities of Phone Calls from Doomed Flights and More Holes in the Official Story: The 9/11 Cell Phone Calls By Michel Chossudovsky 10 Aug 2004.]  For complete story, click here.

 

            

 

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