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Banks Moved Billions to Shelter Income From Taxes
Thu Aug 7, 1:03 AM ET
[Just a side note before you dive in: Banks and corps who are indeed "babies of the state" DO owe tax...but they get away with all kinds of avoidance schemes..."individuals" also owe tax in many cases...organic natural born sovereign citizens are not subject to direct taxes on their income unless it is apportioned...]
Some of the nation's biggest banks have sheltered hundreds of millions of dollars from state taxes by creating investment funds that didn't sell shares publicly but paid tax-exempt dividends to the banks, Thursday's Wall Street Journal reported.
A review of Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) records shows that at least 10 major banks shifted more than $17 billion into such funds. Bank of America Corp. (BAC) alone transferred at least $8 billion into its fund, sheltering more than $750 million in income from 1999 through last May. The banks contend the funds were legitimate vehicles for raising investment capital, but many appear to have served little purpose beyond sheltering income. In effect, the funds converted interest income from the banks' loan portfolios into tax-exempt dividends.
All but one of the known funds -- 11 in all -- were set up with advice from KPMG LLP, an accounting firm whose tax shelter practices are under scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites). They were created in 1999 and 2000, but have been gradually shut down over the last two years, after the SEC and California revenue officials quietly began looking into the practice. It is not known if more such funds remain active. California officials, calling the maneuver " outrageous" and "egregious," are auditing several banks' tax returns in an effort to recoup lost revenues and looking as far back as 1993. The officials declined to identify the banks, citing tax-confidentiality laws.
[Note the use of term "tax returns"...]
"We do not believe this is appropriate," California controller Steve Westly said of the funds. "This is something we need to fix." New York State tax authorities also are examining the issue. It's unclear how many other states might be affected.
Exactly how much the strategy has cost cash-strapped California, where many of the banks have their headquarters, is unclear. Revenue officials said a sampling of tax returns from just a handful of banks showed that the maneuver trimmed those institutions' levies by a total of $46 million in 2000.
SEC records show that the following 10 institutions created investment fund subsidiaries under the federal law that governs mutual funds: Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE:WM - News) , the nation's eighth largest bank; Bank of America, the third largest; Summit Bancorp, now part of Fleet Bank ; Zions First National Bank, now Zions Bancorp , which had two funds; Cathay Bancorp ; East-West Bancorp; City National Bank Corp.; NBT Bancorp ; Imperial Bank, now part of Comerica Inc. (NYSE:CMA - News) ; and Chinatrust.
Each of the 10 banks registered a subsidiary with the SEC as a "regulated investment company" (also known as a "registered investment company") under the Investment Company Act of 1940, the federal law enacted to protect mutual fund investors. The banks then transferred some of their loan portfolios and other assets into the funds and used the interest and other income they generated to pay themselves dividends.
In California, the banks could contend that they didn't have to pay taxes on the dividends because the state exempts money transferred between subsidiaries and corporate parents. Many of the banks do a large portion of their business in California. But other states with favorable tax treatment for transfers between subsidiaries and parents, or for investment company dividends, also are vulnerable to the strategy. In New York, just 40% of such payments are taxed.
[Article set up to sound like we're talking about our old friend the income tax...observe:]
"What they're doing is they're creating this corporate structure that they're passing assets off to," said Michael Bucci, spokesman for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. "If it is not set up as a mutual fund, 100% of the dividends would be subject to taxes. Essentially, they're getting 60% of the income tax-free."
It's unclear how much, if any, federal tax benefit the banks also received. One bank fund, NBT Investment Co., said in an SEC filing that it was optimistic that its structure "will be sufficient to relieve it from all or substantially all federal and state income taxes."
[Were we talking about income taxes? You know, as the term is understood by the layman? Here comes the ringer:]
The investment funds themselves typically aren't subject to state or federal taxes, because individual investors are supposed to pay taxes on income generated by such funds.
[Do dat mean citizens?]
Spokesmen for the banks said the funds were legitimate vehicles for raising capital. City National's fund "was intended primarily to provide our company with capital enhancement opportunities [but it] also resulted in some tax- related benefits," said bank spokesman Cary Walker.
A spokesman for East West said its fund qualified for investment-grade interest rates on loans while the bank itself didn't. Washington Mutual, the largest savings and loan in the country, said "various tax, accounting and legal advisers" had approved the fund and that "neither the SEC nor any other governmental agency has contacted us." Several other banks had no immediate comment.
Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter Glenn R. Simpson contributed to this report.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/dowjones/20030807/bs_dowjones/200308070103000036
See also abridged version:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030807/bs_nm/financial_banks_shelter_dc_1
Bond Trader at Merrill Taps the Firm's Bank to Spin Gold
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
espite the recent management turmoil at Merrill Lynch, its profit from bond trading has been the envy of rival firms. Propelling the performance has been a group led by Barry Wittlin, a star derivatives trader who has quickly garnered attention as one of the top traders on Wall Street.
But Merrill's bond-trading successes can be attributed to more than Mr. Wittlin's technical mastery and steely nerves. Recently, Merrill's traders have also benefited from a new pool of capital from an unusual source: the firm's internal bank.
The bank was established in the late 1980's as a means for collecting deposits from Merrill's clients. In June 2002, Merrill announced the formation of a unit within the investment banking and global markets division that gave its star traders increased access to the bank's $68 billion in deposits. The unit reports to John C. Qua, who heads the bank, and Dow Kim, Mr. Wittlin's boss, who was promoted this week from his position as head of the firm's debt division to co-head of Merrill's institutional banking business.
The success of Mr. Wittlin and the creation of the unit underscore the extent to which Merrill Lynch has begun to rely more than ever on bond trading to drive its financial performance.
Such a high-risk, high-return strategy is common to many Wall Street firms, especially Goldman Sachs, which makes no bones of the fact that when the market trends are in its favor, it will support the big bond bets that its top traders make with fresh money. Merrill, however, has tended to be more hidebound in this respect. Unlike Goldman, its top management has historically come from the ranks of its brokerage and investment-banking businesses.
There has, in fact, never been much of a cult surrounding the trader at Merrill. Part of it comes from the elephantlike memory of top Merrill executives: in 1987, a bond trader lost $287 million on a series of trades. Then, in 1998, Merrill bond traders lost a bundle when the bond markets collapsed in the wake of problems at Long-Term Capital Management.
"In the fall of 1998, Merrill Lynch shrunk its bond business more than its competitors," said Richard Strauss, a stock securities analysts at Deutsche Bank. "Since then, the firm has made an impressive comeback in recent quarters by rebuilding its bond-trading business."
In the second quarter of this year, principal transactions, which are made up mostly of derivatives and debt trading, increased 51 percent, to $1.1 billion. Mr. Wittlin's prowess and the fresh source of capital coming from the bank have been the main contributors to this profit boom, Merrill bankers said.
Merrill executives say its approach to bond trading changed once Arshad R. Zakaria took control of the institutional-securities business. One of his first moves was to appoint Mr. Kim — who was a standout trader for the firm in Japan in the mid-1990's — to run the firm's debt division in November 2001.
Mr. Kim and Mr. Wittlin were also close associates, having worked together as derivatives traders at Manufacturers Hanover in the early 1990's. Mr. Kim was quick to give Mr. Wittlin some increased leeway, naming him co-head of the firm's global interest rates product group, which has now become a trading engine room for the firm. In February, Mr. Wittlin's responsibilities were expanded when he assumed sole authority for the group.
In recent months, Mr. Wittlin's trading successes have raised eyebrows across Wall Street, as has his salary. According to one banker who has worked with Mr. Wittlin, he was paid close to $10 million last year, making him one of the most highly paid executives at the firm. Merrill declined to comment on his salary.
"Barry is an extraordinary trader," said a former Merrill executive who has worked closely with him. "He makes bets and then cuts his position when they go wrong. He never lost money in any single month while I worked with him."
Mr. Wittlin declined to comment on his trading responsibilities.
An unassuming man with a professorial mien, Mr. Wittlin, who is 45, defies the classic picture of the Wall Street bond trader: described as a steely technician by his peers, he traffics in a wide range of complicated financial instruments, ranging from interest-rate swaps to Bermuda options. He graduated from Cornell and has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Many bond traders who take a multimillion-dollar position on a given day are notorious for releasing their stress by breaking phones or hurling objects, but Mr. Wittlin's demeanor is more reserved. Traders who have worked with him say he rarely shouts.
Traders say Mr. Wittlin made his reputation in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks when he made some big bets that interest rates would decline and booked considerable profits for the firm when they did.
While his trading exploits have been crucial to Merrill, just as important has been the decision to allow traders within the bank's institutional-banking unit to make more aggressive use of the bank.
In 1999, the bank became insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and by 2002 its deposits had grown to $68 billion. Traditionally, the bank's assets had been managed conservatively and the profits had gone to the private-client division.
However, in 2001, once Mr. Zakaria had been appointed to run the investment banking and global markets division, he lobbied to have the bank's assets be managed by traders within his division. Merrill bankers say that since 2002, the bank's portfolio of assets has been traded more aggressively, resulting in more profits for the unit. Merrill executives say that 50 percent of the bank's profits go to the institutional-securities business; the other half goes to the private-client division.
These bankers say that it was part of an attempt by Mr. Zakaria to increase the profitability of his division and thus enhance the prospect that he would be appointed president and the eventual successor to E. Stanley O'Neal, Merrill's chief executive. That part of his plan failed. He was forced out on Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/08/business/08WALL.html?ex=1061346638&ei=1&en=1b60c8c29e6b502...
Very much of interest regarding 911:
http://www.the-movement.com/air%20operation/Journey.htm
Awaiting response of someone who may have special insights due to the nature of their business...hopefully it will be worth posting...
Gold Bugs Send Index to 6-Year High
Friday August 8, 2:09 pm ET
By Alden Bentley
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seeking refuge from an imploding bond market and troubled dollar, investors are piling back into the gold sector, driving shares in pure-gold-play mining stocks Friday to their highest levels in more than six years.
[What imploding bond market? There was no news of an imploding bond market...whatever do they mean? Here on the JFSAG board there was news of it but nobody reads this board...where were all the reports of one of the LARGEST crashes EVER on Yahoo? Or CNBC for that matter...]
On the American Stock Exchange, the HUI Gold Bugs Index (AMEX:^HUI - News) -- comprised of mining companies that only sell gold as it is mined, instead of pre-selling to lock in future prices with forwards and options -- surged 3.3 percent to 174.33, its highest since March 1997.
The spot price of gold bullion and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange's more inclusive XAU Index (Philadelphia:^XAU - News) of gold and silver mining shares were also grinding higher but lagged the non-hedgers, which some small investors and portfolio managers see as a more liquid proxy for physical metal.
The XAU Index was up 2.5 percent at 84.73.
"The stocks are telling you that gold should do something," said Caesar Bryan, manager of the $210 million Gabelli Gold Fund. "People buying the equities clearly think that the gold price is probably going to make some progress."
The HUI is up 18 percent this year, doubling the 9.5 percent gain in the XAU and the 9.8 percent rise in the Dow Jones industrial stock average.
The XAU is considered the benchmark U.S. precious metals index. But the HUI has stolen some of the attention this year as miners re-thought long-time hedging programs under pressure from investors angered at companies that overhedged and could not benefit from rallying bullion prices.
Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE:NEM - News), the world's largest gold company, also set a new high at $38.24 on the New York Stock Exchange (News - Websites) Friday, continuing to capitalize on an anti-hedging policy.
Greg Weldon, publisher of Metal Monitor and Money Monitor, said "That same breakout is not being confirmed by the hedged XAU and some of the other blue chippers," specifying AngloGold Ltd. (ANGJ.J) of South Africa and Barrick Gold Corp. (Toronto:ABX.TO - News) of Toronto, both hedgers, which round out the top three producers.
"Is this simply money flow out of bonds and bond funds and into shares as we see the stock-bond ratio flip the other way toward stocks again?" he mused. "Since financial shares are on the ropes ... You are looking at cyclicals, and more specifically some of the base metal stocks have gotten a bid and some of the leading mining shares."
Newmont, with a market capitalization of $14 billion, rose from No. 2 to No. 1 in the industry last year after acquiring Australia's Normandy Mining in a three-way deal with Canada's Franco-Nevada Mining Corp. Ltd.
It immediately vowed to unwind some 10 million ounces of Normandy's hedges, a task it has nearly completed.
Gold was the winningest stock sector in 2002 and remained a darling this year, as nervous financial markets favored hard assets while the United States went to war in Iraq and the economy teetered on the brink of recession and deflation.
[Can I get yet another ITOLUSO?]
Bullion rose to its highest price since 1996 in February. While its current price around $357 is off some $31 from the $388 peak, there has been no sustained let-up in interest.
Ironically, mining companies last year turned into net buyers of gold as they unwound forward sales. For years gold bugs had complained that hedging was depressing the gold price.
This contributed to the about-face in sentiment since 2001. In the 1990s gold looked like a relic of the old economy and its price hit a 20-year low at $252 an ounce in 1999 before the stock market boom went bust. (Additional reporting by David Brinkerhoff)
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030808/markets_gold_index_1.html
Yeah, I'm tooting my own horn, so what?]
Who Counts the Votes?
Those slick new touch screen voting machines promise to get rid of hanging chads forever. But how do you know your vote was recorded as you intended? You might as well be handing it to a stranger who promises to deliver it to the polling place unchanged.
Maybe you thought that some computer wizard worked out some way to record those votes without errors. If so, you've been duped! Voting machines are just as subject to program bugs as other computers, and very tempting for computer hackers. Indeed, from the viewpoint of secure computing, voting is a uniquely hard problem: harder than flying airplanes, and harder than electronic banking.
This is why hundreds of computer experts, including many of the top experts in the world on electronic voting and computer security have signed our "Resolution on Electronic Voting," which calls for a "Voter Verifiable Audit Trail" that can be recounted by hand to check that the machines have recorded the votes properly. Almost no touch-screen machines have them, but there are many systems that do. For example, optical scan ballots (like standardized tests) that are scanned at the polling place are inexpensive and excellent for most voters, and the marked ballots are the "voter verifiable audit trail." Alternatively, touch-screen machines can be modified so that they print a copy of the ballot, which the voter can check for accuracy. That printed ballot is deposited in a locked ballot box in case a recount is requested.
We hope you will join us in pressing for these simple alternatives to the insidious threat to our democracy posed by the touch-screen machines that are now being purchased by the thousands around the country.
Understanding the Problem
How I Can Help?
ACTION ALERTS!
National: Join Martin Luther King III, ActForChange and over 38,000 voters to support the need for paper trail. All US voters please sign this National petition now.
National: Support Legislation HR 2239 requiring Voter-Verified Paper Trail for 2004 Elections All US voters please sign this National petition as well.
National: Help research where your Congressperson stands on HR 2239
About VerifiedVoting.org's Founder:
David L. Dill is a Professor of Computer Science and, by courtesy, Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He has been on the faculty at Stanford since 1987. He has an S.B. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1979), and an M.S and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University (1982 and 1987). He is on the California Secretary of State's Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force and travels around the Country speaking and educating on the inherent dangers of current DRE and voting machines. More
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/index.asp
How to Respond to Contempt in the Courtroom
Posted By: hobie
Date: Monday, 12 May 2003, 1:47 p.m.
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 08:07:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [SupremeLaw] Fwd: How to Respond to Contempt in the Courtroom - YES !!!!!!
--- Rob wrote:
From: "Rob"
To:
Subject: How to Respond to Contempt in the Courtroom - YES !!!!!!
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 20:30:50 +1200
I received this e-mail and thought you would find it
interesting. Enjoy!!!
How to Respond to Contempt in the Courtroom
Here it is - EVERYONE should keep this - it could save you - it
WORKS, we have used it in court many times and if used properly it will
back a raging dragon judge right back down in his chair docile.......
believe me it is not easy to do that ..... "KNOW RIGHTS OR NO RIGHTS
William Mayhar, How to Respond to Contempt of Court, Judicial Attack
We cringe for people going into court, dealing with the "sons
of vipers, offspring of serpents" in these outlaw courts today. So many
people write to us and call us, as they are being rendered in the money
machine every day, liquidated to the Funding Streams for the elite. The
rendering is in the PROCESS and most people do not have experience to
understand or recognize corrupt process when they are in the middle of
it.
Attorneys do - they created it and don't let everyone in on the
"secret" (wink wink) while you and your children are destroyed. To help
all the people in courts right now who are discovering Sui Juris
process and going in without attorneys, they need to know what to say
when the judge turns into a raging dragon because they dared to ask a
question or try to make the record, and to help keep from being
arrested. www.avoiceforchildren.com
If you know the right words, they back down right now - they
may still have you arrested, but you have said the right words on the
record to discredit him in his contemptuous acts against you, and you
will use this record in any appeal or future hearings as you go. The
main thing is you DISCREDIT HIM and IMPEACH HIM IN HIS OWN COURTROOM if
you say the right things. This can be used in any court in any setting,
at any level, all the same basic process. I think in any country, with
slight variations.
Sui Juris process is simple and common law, as "any reasonable
people would understand" and bridges all forms of courts or dealing
with public authorities. One of the main TOOLS they use to arrest you
in a courtroom is "CONTEMPT OF COURT." Contempt is an instant six
months in jail or a year sentence, potentially that is what you face.
They use this for any or no reason, mainly for intimidation, and this
is where they will (have already) use a stun belt or gun on a defendant
who "irritates" the court asking for our rights.
When they do this to you, and it happens so fast it makes
your head spin, if you have this written down, and can keep your wits
about you enough to remember to say it, (you should practice it! It is
THAT important!) here is what you say: "IS THAT CIVIL CONTEMPT OR
CRIMINAL CONTEMPT JUDGE?" , this LONG pause is on the record that he
cannot answer you) - the silence of a witness answering a question is
an admission of truth in a court record and the longer the pause the
better.
All you want on the record is to make them COMMIT and then you
go on, and now you have them caught in the permanent record) If he says
"CRIMINAL CONTEMPT" - you say "WHO MAKES THE CLAIM, WHAT IS THE CRIME
AND WHO IS THE INJURED PARTY?" and wait again as long as it takes for
him to say something. If he says, "CIVIL CONTEMPT" you say, "WHERE IS
THE CONTRACT BETWEEN ME AND YOU? I DON'T AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THE
CONTRACT," JUDGE.
NOW you have him acting CRIMINALLY OUTSIDE OF ANY LAWFUL
JURISDICTION AND OUT OF IMMUNITY in his own courtroom on the record and
heres why. And ONLY HUMANS CAN LAWFULY CONTRACT. Every citation, money
exchange, order, anything at all is an exchange - a contract - between
two humans. The constitution is a contract with the Children of a
Creator with Inherent Rights and the Constitutionally Sovereign People
in the state, bonded by the JUDICIAL OATH - their contract.
Anyway, when you say to him, "I don't agree to the terms of
the contract," he KNOWS he does not have a contract with you and if you
have committed no crime he has no authority to arrest you or even be
conducting the hearing - he is OUT of his lawful jurisdiction and OUT
of his IMMUNITY. Now, if he says, "CRIMINAL CONTEMPT", like one judge
did to me, judge Robert Walberg, with no lawful oath by the way, he
made a FOOL of himself! He said, "IF YOU ASK THAT AGAIN I AM HOLDING
YOU IN CONTEMPT OF COURT", I said, "IS THAT CRIMINAL OR CIVIL CONTEMPT
WALBERG?" and he raged and said, CRIMINAL. I said, "WHAT CRIME HAVE I
COMMITTED AND WHO MAKES THE CLAIM? WHO IS THE INJURED PARTY? He went
nuts and started yelling "THE STATE OF OREGON", "THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM",
"THE COURT"... I said "YOU KNOW THAT ONLY A HUMAN CAN MAKE A CLAIM AND
THERE IS NO CRIME AND NO INJURED PARTY - YOU KNOW THAT THE STATE OF
OREGON CANNOT MAKE A CLAIM." He backed down and sat there red faced (he
had already arrested me about three times for speaking before this
contempt attempt) and it shut him down.
This was on the third day of the battle in his
courtroom/sham jury trial last January - so after this confrontation
backed him down he sat WAY BACK in his chair for three hours and let me
make the record, while the jury waited in the back. MAKING THE RECORD
WAS MY ONLY GOAL ANYWAY TO UPDATE THE RECORD IN OUR CASE. Unfortunately
for us, the juries do not understand anything at all, and these
confrontations scare them, so all the knowledge of court process and
higher law goes right over their heads and they do EXACTLY what the
judge LETS them do by the way he manipulates the instructions. This
judge held his finger to his upper lip and looked like a cadaver for
three hours, listening to the record of the crimes of our evidence
against the state and his own treason as I outlined what has happened.
That is how you make the Record. You have to use another
trick called When they fight you and attack you, and rage, and say you
cant say anything in front of the jury, and the DA interrupts literally
EVERY sentence to stop you from speaking for days (I have gone through
this!)...You tell the judge, "I AM GOING TO MAKE AN OFFER OF PROOF FOR
MY APPEAL." He sometimes will go in the back room altogether and leave
the record on, or he will sit way back and listen while you make the
record of your facts without the jury present. Another trick process
word is "OFFER INTO EVIDENCE, they will let you go around for days and
be denied because you don't say it that way... they are insane, but if
you do use their words they know that they have to acknowledge that
this is their process and they use it so you have to be able to use it
too.
Another important phrase to use is RUSH TO JUDGEMENT. After
going around with them to a certain point and being blocked at all
points, you say, ARE YOU TRYING TO RUSH ME TO JUDGEMENT?" WOW - it
works - boy they sit back so fast and shut up you would not believe -
you would think they were shot -supposedly four times in a hearing
saying that gets a reversal, but with us they don't give us anything,
so I am not sure. But it is an important TOOL, you say this and it
means they are preventing you from putting on your evidence as a lawful
court and judicial due process requires, and for you to say this as
they are doing it is like shooting them in their chair.
I hope people will write these things down in front of them
when they are terrified in court - everyone is terrified in the court,
even the attorneys, especially when you are bringing truth of this
magnitude in there - we say where the truth meets the lie there is
fallout - like a neutron bomb, you definitely stir up the hornest nest
when you speak the truth in their courtrooms.
The rest of the Process for the People to Access the Courts
is in the book we wrote. We learned these tools more recently and they
are an "addition to the information in the Sui Juris Book. This is
what REALLY happens when you are in there, not what we think will
happen or hope will happen. And learning these tools, you are prepared
to meet this present evil face to face.
If you are not in court, save this information and pass it
on to friends who need it.....
Pamela Gaston
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/config.pl?read=32050
You've all seen this I just wanted to post here...
The "trading range economy" and the gold market
Cliff Droke
In my last commentary entitled "Inflation, Deflation, Reflation," we considered the possibility that the next 5-6 years will witness a continuing cycle of inflation, followed by deflation, followed by reflation, with trading ranges in the equities, currency, and bond markets. This also presupposes a "trading range" of sorts in the U.S. economy. But what would this "Inflation, Deflation, Reflation" (IDR) scenario mean for the gold market?
The trading range financial markets/economy over the next few years is a good possibility based on the fact that there are no two back-to-back up years between now and until around 2009 in the grand scheme of the 120-year Master Cycle (discovered by Samuel J. Kress). Greenspan and company have also made it clear through their actions that they will stop at nothing to keep the economy afloat to "sustainable levels."
Before examining the issue of how the gold market can be expected to perform in a trading range economy, I'd like to share some valuable insight from someone who read my previous article on this subject. He writes, "I feel we [will] get hyperinflation (i.e., the Weimer Republic-type 1922 style) FIRST. This is because the Fed can do nothing more now than print like crazy to keep the deflationary scenario away, which is obviously the worst outcome. However, after the wheelbarrow paper dollar thing, the buck is junk and then we go the other way with a vengeance. Then comes the dreaded deflation, lasting probably for years. I hope and pray the aftermath does not turn into violence and/or a civil war. Read history regarding the French Revolution. It's a duplicate and so are many other cases. I say we get both, one after the other. And who knows the timing? No one knows. It just seems obvious if you can understand the positions of the authorities and human nature. Let's hope for the best -- a peaceful outcome and a continuation of freedom and liberty for our beautiful country."
Another reader wrote the following response, "Your view of the trading range Greenspanian outlook for the economy has some upsetting implications. And I say this with regard to the move in gold that many of us have 'hoped' would gain some traction for a move higher than just the $400 level, so that some of these costs of production and currency transaction issues can be defrayed at the mines. I wonder if the picture you have painted should logically imply a sideways market for gold as well, since you are looking for these kinds of possible symmetry in stocks, bonds, and the dollar over the long view?"
Let me interject here and answer that a trading range stock/bond/currency market does not necessarily imply a "stuck-in-the-mud" gold market. Keep in mind that gold has always been the investment of choice during periods of financial and political uncertainty. Investors turn to gold when nothing else seems to be working and sustained capital appreciation isn't forthcoming in the traditional investing instruments (stocks, bonds, etc.) Bear markets are characterized by agony and frustration, and nothing is more agonizing than a seemingly endless trading range. When investors begin to figure out that "buy and hold" no longer applies as the "easy" way to wealth in the financial markets, they'll turn to precious metals. We've already gotten a small taste of this in the past two years. I'm firmly convinced the best is yet to come in the gold and silver markets.
What do the charts say? By examining the long-term gold chart we arrive at two upside targets over the next 1-4 years: $450-$460 and $650-$700. Both of these targets are derived from taking measurements from a simple (yet highly reliable) trend line measuring formula. But let's not stop there. Let's take our analysis of gold's long-term chart a step further by employing the extremely reliable form of chart analysis known as "parabolic analysis."
[Chart:]
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_03/droke080703.html
When a series of parabolic price cycles are drawn around gold's 22-year priceline, we see a bullish-looking parabolic bowl which has been gradually rounding over the past few years and has just started to push prices higher. The incline of this bowl is still rather shallow (relatively speaking), although with each passing year the "rim" of the bowl becomes steeper. The parabola in the long-term gold chart strongly suggests that gold has seen its price low for this decade.
Moreover, a series of bowls can be drawn in the long-term gold chart beginning with the late 1987 peak to the present and also from the 1996 peak to the present. All of these patterns combine to form a picture of increasing strength and momentum, and it suggests that the long-term accumulation process is nearly complete with the long-awaited mark-up process about to begin.
August 7, 2003
Clif Droke is the editor of the Bear Market Report newsletter, a 3-times weekly forecast and analysis of stocks, markets, gold stocks, and equity cycles. He is also the author of numerous books on finance and investing, including the top-selling "Moving Averages Simplified." Visit his web site for free samples of his analysis at www.clifdroke.com
Silver back over 5 bucks...
Still looking for the retrace, got it with gold expect it with silver...patience is the hardest part...
want 4.50 or so...
BAD INTENTIONS UNDOING AMERICA
By: Ted Lang
It is time for real Americans, the ones who realize that this country is being destroyed and trashed from within by certain un-American activists and activist organizations, to clearly identify those destructive entities and target them for nullification. This is not an invitation to violence; on the contrary, it is a challenge to each individual that’s genuinely concerned and that dejectedly asks: What can I do?
Just like the need for an alcoholic to first realize that he or she has a problem, until that self-realization takes place, nothing can be done. Until the problem is admitted to, followed by the realization that there is indeed something an individual can do to turn things around, any action is meaningless and futile. Whether individuals appreciate that they are indeed a force that can make a difference or not, time will march on whether or not anything is done. But taking action, and trying to bring about change, has its own reward, whether or not successful in terms of changing society for the better. It changes for the better the person within, and in the final analysis, that’s the only true measure of success any of us will ever experience.
Politics, politicians, and the media have desensitized us. They all support anti-American "equality." What is anti-American about their continual cacophony advocating "fairness" and equality of economic status? It is slavery! It denies basic human rights, as well as the need for each and every individual to perform at their very best. And those trying to better themselves, and attaining wealth and riches acquired through honest, hard work, do so not only for themselves, but for their families as well. People who acquire riches by hard work, creative thinking and planning, appreciate the goodness and opportunity God and His plan have provided, and are usually always generous with their wealth and have typically given much to charity for the betterment of the community-at-large.
Successful capitalists made so by societal and economic freedoms provide a positive or value-added dimension to society. Liberalism, socialism and communism are a negative or value-destroying drain on society, a drain that brings with it untold suffering, violence abuse and slavery. As De Tocqueville pointed out, the only common denominator in both these concepts is "equality:" the positive offers untold wealth and freedom by providing equal opportunity to achieve, the negative by condemning all to the equality of unearned outcome, the latter generating poverty and unparalleled suffering. Negative liberalism needs a "hard sell," and that is accomplished by back door judicial activism, organized radical activism to provoke anti-constitutional legislation by lesser government entities, and intense liberal propaganda from the media.
America is socialism’s toughest challenge. That’s because of our wealth, our tradition of individual, personal freedom, and the enjoyment of those freedoms through God, family and country. And of course, there is indeed an abundance of Lenin’s "useful idiots," even some notable ones such as Barbra Streisand, who simply have neither the education nor the intellectual capacity to realize the damage they are doing. But to write off the opposition as merely being "useful idiots" is a most grievous error! There are notable pockets of intellectuals, both professionally credentialed, as well as highly educated academicians and other theorists, who want America socialized and communized. These individuals take advantage of easily prostituted American politicians and the Marxist, big government-leaning media.
This force is usually identified as "The Left." But the Bush administration and its secret government cabals, currently identified as "neoconservative," the latter a corruption of the term "conservative," is vigorously and aggressively forcing their agenda on us all, an agenda that aligns itself as very complimentary to the socialization objectives of liberals and communists.
The challenge for socialism and private property-destroying communism, is therefore, predicated upon the moral destruction of our society. The destruction of family values via feminism, homosexuality, atheism and the neutralization of family relationships between parents and children by the schools, and the persecution and abolition of religious and moral values, are all key to this agenda.
Political legitimization of government according to our founding documents has been supplanted by party politics. Public officials are not evaluated in terms of their adherence to the principles of republican government established in these documents; political success is measured in terms of which political party or politician achieves a temporary victory over the opposition. Upsmanship is what it’s all about. And the judiciary has not only been swept up in this meaningless political party bickering for power and money, it actually leads the way in ignoring constitutional values rather than ensuring adherence to the Nation’s rule of law.
The weapon of choice of tyrannical government that seeks to enslave its people is of course "the law." And you can be sure tyrannical government’s laws have absolutely nothing to do with either liberty or justice. Criminal law is being taken over by the central federal government in violation of the Tenth Amendment, and civil law is being used in tort persecutions of businesses targeted by un-American liberals and their lawyers to destroy free-market capitalism. America’s greatest vulnerability is, therefore, an undue and unjustified respect and compliance with "The Law." And as regards the application of law, the intentions are bad, and not at all good.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
http://www.etherzone.com/2003/lang080703.shtml
Wolfowitz: Iraq Was Not Involved In 9-11 Terrorist Attacks, No Ties To Al-Qaeda
[Slanted but still interesting...]
By: Jason Leopold - 08/07/03
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the main architects for the war in Iraq, admitted for the first time that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks, contradicting public statements made by senior White House and Pentagon officials whose attempt to link Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda was cited by the Bush administration as one of the main reasons for launching a preemptive strike in March against Iraq.
In an interview with conservative radio personality Laura Ingraham, Wolfowitz was asked when he first came to believe that Iraq was behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
“I’m not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it,” Wolfowitz said in the interview, aired Friday, a transcript of which can be found at http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030801-depsecdef0526.html
Wolfowitz’s answer confirms doubts long held by critics of the Iraq war that the Bush administration had no evidence linking Iraq to 9-11 or al-Qaeda, but simply used the horrific terrorist attacks as a reason to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime.
“I think what the realization to me is -- the fundamental point was that terrorism had reached the scale completely different from what we had thought of it up until then. And that it would only get worse when these people got access to weapons of mass destruction which would be only a matter of time,” Wolfowitz said in the interview. “…What you really got to do is, eliminate terrorist networks and eliminate terrorism as a problem. And clearly Iraq was one of the country -- you know top of the list of countries actively using terrorism as an instrument of national policy.”
Since the United States invaded Iraq 111 days ago, no chemical or biological weapons have been found in the country.
A spokesman for Wolfowitz would not return repeated calls for comment.
During the buildup to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration successfully convinced the public and members of Congress that Iraq had played some role in the 9-11 terrorist attacks, according to numerous polls that showed a majority of the American public believe Iraq was involved in 9-11 attacks, despite the absence of evidence to support the allegations.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last year boasted that the Pentagon and CIA had “bulletproof” evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, although Rumsfeld refused to declassify any of the intelligence he had to support his claims. Shortly after the attacks, however, the administration claimed that Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the 9-11 attacks, met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in early 2001, suggesting a possible connection with Saddam Hussein.
Reports of the meeting were based primarily on accounts of Czech officials like Prime Minister Milos Zeman, who discussed it with officials in Washington in November. But
Federal law-enforcement officials concluded in May that no such meeting took place.
Since Bush declared in May an end to major combat in Iraq, Wolfowitz has given numerous interviews contradicting the administrations rationale for starting the war. Most notably, Wolfowitz told a reporter for Vanity Fair a few months ago that: “the decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons....”
But despite the obvious contradictions about the reasons cited for war and unanswered questions as to whether the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to build a stronger case for striking Iraq, the president and his senior staff maintains that the war was justified.
But Democrats in Congress, a majority of who supported a resolution authorizing the use of military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, said they are particularly interested in questioning Wolfowitz and other Pentagon officials about its use of intelligence information that critics claim the Pentagon hyped to show Iraq not only played a part in 9-11, but that the country had a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons that it planned to use against the U.S.
Republican lawmakers, however, in an attempt to protect the White House from further embarrassment about the accuracy of its use of prewar intelligence, are thwarting efforts by Democrats to launch such a probe.
At issue is a secret Pentagon committee headed by Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, that is widely believed to be responsible for gathering much of the erroneous intelligence information used by President Bush and senior White House officials on the so-called Iraqi threat, specifically, its ties to al-Qaeda.
The Pentagon unit, called the Office of Special Plans, was formed, according to published reports, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks to find links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It was disbanded late last year, Feith said during a briefing with reporters in May. About a dozen former CIA intelligence officials have been quoted as saying that the Office of Special Plans cherry-picked intelligence, much of which was gathered by unreliable Iraqi defectors, to make a stronger case for war and delivered directly to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice without first being vetted by the CIA.
Congressman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, is planning on writing a letter to the General Accounting Office sometime this week urging the agency to immediately launch an inquiry into the group to find out if Wolfowitz and his underlings in the Special Plans Office knowingly manipulated intelligence to help the White House win support for a war in Iraq.
Jason Leopold, a contributing writer for Liberal Slant, spent two years covering California’s electricity crisis as bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. He has written more than 2,000 news stories on the issue and was the first journalist to report that energy companies were engaged in manipulative practices in California’s newly deregulated electricity market. Most recently, Mr. Leopold has reported on Enron. He was the first journalist to interview former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling following Enron’s bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Mr. Leopold has broken numerous stories on the financial machinations Enron engaged in and his investigative pieces on the company have been published in The Nation, Salon, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, CBS Marketwatch, Time magazine, The New York Times, Forbes and numerous other national publications. Mr. Leopold is also a regular contributor to CNBC and National Public Radio and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two-dozen energy industry conferences around the country. Mr. Leopold left Dow Jones in April to write a book on California’s electricity crisis
Find more articles by Jason Leopold in the Liberal Slant Archives
http://www.liberalslant.com/jl080703.htm
Are American soldiers in Iraq dying due to depleted uranium?
By James Conachy
4 August 2003
[How bout we just call it SARS and move on..?]
The office of the US Army Surgeon General informed the media July 31 that teams of medical specialists have been dispatched to both Iraq and the Landstuhl military hospital in Germany to investigate why a pneumonia-like condition is striking down American military personnel who took part in the invasion of Iraq. At least 100 soldiers have been hospitalized with severe respiratory problems since March 1. Fifteen have been so ill they have required ventilator support to stay alive. Two have died, while three reportedly remain under close supervision at Landstuhl.
Three of the critical cases occurred in March, three in April, two in May, three in June and four in July. Fourteen were Army personnel and one was from the Marines. A localized epidemic has been ruled out. The troops who have fallen ill belong to diverse units and were operating in different areas of Iraq and in at least one case in Kuwait. An Army official told reporters: “It is pneumonia. The question is, what is the cause?” According to the Army, there is no evidence that any of the cases have been caused by exposure to chemical or biological weapons, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or environmental toxins.
It is not the number of cases that is concerning the military hierarchy. According to the spokesperson of the US Army Surgeon General, there are normally nine cases of pneumonia per 10,000 US soldiers per year that are serious enough to require hospitalization. Based on that statistic, 100 cases of pneumonia in five months among the several hundred thousand army and marine personnel who were involved in the war on Iraq are only slightly higher than average.
The dispatch of the experts therefore raises disturbing questions. There is clearly something about either the nature, or the severity, of the cases the Army Surgeon General feels warrants investigation.
On July 16, the News-Leader site operating out of Springfield, Missouri published a detailed report describing the symptoms of one of the soldiers who has died from the alleged pneumonia. Josh Neusche, a 20-year-old, fit and healthy Missouri National Guardsman, collapsed in Baghdad on July 2. He was evacuated to Landstuhl, Germany. His family was informed he was suffering from pneumonia caused by fluid in his lungs. According to his mother, his liver, kidneys and muscles then began to break down. He was placed on dialysis, but fell into a coma and died on July 12.
For anyone familiar with the research into the medical effects of exposure to depleted uranium, the details of Josh Neusche’s death would have to ring alarm bells. The 2001 World Health Organization report into the issue notes: “Brief accidental exposure to high concentrations of uranium hexafluoride has caused acute respiratory illness, which may be fatal.” [Full report available at http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/ir_pub/en/]
Scenarios that could cause a “brief, accidental exposure to high concentrations of uranium hexafluoride” definitely would include being in the vicinity of a vehicle or building struck by depleted uranium munitions; traveling in or being in the vicinity of a vehicle that is armored with depleted uranium and sustains damage; or being involved in the cleanup of such a vehicle. The organs most affected by exposure are the lungs and kidneys.
In a July 30 article on US casualties in Iraq, the World Socialist Web Site reported the unconfirmed allegation in the July 17 Saudi newspaper Al-Watan that three US servicemen had been evacuated from Iraq suffering symptoms of depleted uranium exposure.
The WSWS noted that if this proved true, it would not be surprising. Thousands of US troops in Iraq are likely to have been exposed to DU to some degree, absorbing it either by inhaling contaminated dust or ingesting it from contaminated water, food and soil. Initial estimates are that between 100 and 200 tons of DU munitions were used in Iraq and that at least 17 incidents took place during the combat phase that would most likely have resulted in US and British personnel being exposed to high concentrations of DU particles. [See http://www.antenna.nl/~wise/uranium/pdf/duiq03.pdf]
On July 28, as part of the research for the July 30 article, “America’s maimed come home from Iraq,” this WSWS correspondent submitted a list of questions to the US Department of Defense, addressed to media@defenselink.mil. One of the specific questions we asked of the Department of Defense was: “Have any US military personnel been medically evacuated from Iraq due to the possible side-affects of exposure to depleted uranium?” To date, the WSWS has received no reply.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/du-a04.shtml
Dam socialists who are they to report stuff like this anyway...and if our guys are suffering what of the Iraqis?
Companies Squeezing More Out of Workers
Thursday August 7, 1:40 pm ET
By Glenn Somerville
[Spin spin spin spin spin wonderful spin]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. worker productivity surged in the second quarter at more than twice the first-quarter clip, the government reported on Thursday, adding to hopes that the economy might be shifting to a higher gear that would generate more jobs.
[BS]
The Labor Department said productivity, a gauge of how much a worker produces per hour, accelerated at a 5.7 percent annual rate, more than twice the first quarter's 2.1 percent gain.
Unit labor costs, monitored as a sign of potential wage pressure, declined at a 2.1 percent rate during the second quarter after rising 2 percent in the first quarter this year.
The Labor Department report reflected an annual benchmark revision of data that showed national productivity, or output per worker, grew at the most vigorous rate in more than half a century last year.
The revised 5.4 percent increase in productivity in 2002 -- up from a previously reported 4.8 percent rise -- was the strongest for any year since a 6.7 percent jump in 1950 during the Korean War era.
Although strong productivity growth has actually been one culprit behind the job market's woes as wary executives extract more from existing work forces, economists hope it will ultimately foster profit improvements and encourage hiring.
In a separate report, Labor said new jobless pay claims remained below the 400,000 level for a third straight week during the week ended Aug. 2 at 390,000 -- the lowest level since 378,000 were filed in the week ended Feb. 8.
Bolstering an impression of moderate improvement in job prospects, Labor said the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which smoothes out weekly gyrations, also fell below the 400,000-a-week level to 397,250 -- the lowest since the week of Feb. 22.
Analysts said the figures supported the likelihood of a pickup in economic growth during the second half but cautioned against expecting a sudden upswing in hiring.
"It is interesting that we got the one-two punch: a report that shows very little rehiring, and a report that shows why -- companies don't need new labor when they can squeeze every last bit of productivity out of the operations they are already running," said economist Lara Rhame of Brown Bothers Harriman in New York.
ECONOMY HEALING
[Look everything's okay, remember the bond crash we didn't tell you about...well it's okay now...you're getting sleepy, sleeeepy...]
The Commerce Department separately said June wholesale sales climbed by 1.5 percent, the healthiest monthly gain since a 1.6 percent increase in April 2002. New cars, electrical equipment and gasoline sales all rose from May.
Financial markets responded cautiously to the data, with stock prices up modestly in early afternoon while bond prices eased.
Economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisers in Holland, Pennsylvania, said it appeared businesses were on the way to boosting earnings and output, but it will take time to assess.
"With earnings beginning to improve, the next logical step is for hiring to start picking up," Naroff said, adding: "We should see that in the next few months."
[Or the next few months after that...how many times have they said next few months..]
So far, the recovery from recession in 2001 has been largely a jobless one, with growth too slow to prompt businesses to invest or hire. There have been more reports of companies shedding workers and shifting jobs out of the United States to cheap-labor countries like India than of new hiring.
[No such thing as a jobless recovery.]
Consumers, by contrast, have so far held up their end of the economic bargain by shopping heavily.
[Debt.]
Reports on Thursday from big U.S. retailers showed sales in July exceeded expectations, as summer weather aided business.
Clearance sales and early back-to-school clothing demand lifted sales at department stores and specialty chains including J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE:JCP - News) and Limited Brands Inc. (NYSE:LTD - News).
Electronics retailer Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE:BBY - News), department store operator Federated Department Stores Inc. (NYSE:FD - News) and specialty stores AnnTaylor Stores Corp. (NYSE:ANN - News) and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE:ANF - News) all raised their quarterly earnings forecasts.
JOBS, JOBS, JOBS
Analysts said national unemployment -- which hit a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June before easing to 6.2 percent in July -- may be headed down.
[Or may not...]
"I think this latest report on state jobless claims is consistent with a mildly improving U.S. labor market and it very much supports the notion that the unemployment rate perhaps peaked for the cycle at 6.4 percent in June," said Moody's Investors Service (News - Websites) economist John Lonski in New York.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030807/economy_9.html
Your Cellphone is a Homing Device
[Cell phone and SSN...they have the slaves under perfect surveillance...all the while the slaves are sure they are free...]
Don't want the government to know where you are? Throw away your cell, stop taking the subway, and pay the toll in cash.
By Brendan I. Koerner
IF YOU PURCHASED A NEW CELLPHONE over the past 18 months or so, odds are that one of the features listed in small print on the side of the box was "E911 capable." Or, as in the case of my latest Motorola, "Location technology for piece [sic] of mind." Perhaps you asked the salesman to explain the feature, and he replied that it means that cops can home in on your phone in case of an emergency, a potentially important perk should you ever find your hand pinned beneath an immovable boulder in rural Utah, as Aron Ralston did recently. Assuming he could have gotten a signal, an E911-capable phone might have saved the young backpacker the pain of having to amputate his own arm.
What your salesman probably failed to tell you—and may not even realize—is that an E911-capable phone can give your wireless carrier continual updates on your location. The phone is embedded with a Global Positioning System chip, which can calculate your coordinates to within a few yards by receiving signals from satellites. GPS technology gave U.S. military commanders a vital edge during Gulf War II, and sailors and pilots depend on it as well. In the E911-capable phone, the GPS chip does not wait until it senses danger, springing to life when catastrophe strikes; it's switched on whenever your handset is powered up and is always ready to transmit your location data back to a wireless carrier's computers. Verizon or T-Mobile can figure out which manicurist you visit just as easily as they can pinpoint a stranded motorist on Highway 59.
So what's preventing them from doing so, at the behest of either direct marketers or, perhaps more chillingly, the police? Not the law, which is essentially mum on the subject of location-data privacy. As often happens with emergent technology, the law has struggled to keep pace with the gizmo. No federal statute is keeping your wireless provider from informing Dunkin' Donuts that your visits to Starbucks have been dropping off and you may be ripe for a special coupon offer. Nor are cops explicitly required to obtain a judicial warrant before compiling a record of where you sneaked off to last Thursday night. Despite such obvious potential for abuse, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, the American consumer's ostensible protectors, show little enthusiasm for stepping into the breach. As things stand now, the only real barrier to the dissemination of your daily movements is the benevolence of the telecommunications industry. A show of hands from those who find this a comforting thought? Anyone?
GPS tracking is already a staple of workplace surveillance, especially for those not bound to desks. Trucking companies have long outfitted their fleets' semis with devices that monitor how long and how frequently a driver stops to rest. Now the vogue is for smarter GPS versions, which can pinpoint exactly where each truck stops en route. A New York Times article reported on a Texas company that busted an employee whose vehicles had been spending on-the-job time in the parking lot of a strip club.
The difference between that and E911 tracking is the nature of the relationship between the tracker and the trackee. Private-sector employees are essentially at the mercy of their bosses, a power dynamic that the courts have affirmed again and again. When using company-issued equipment, there is no "expectation of privacy," perhaps the most important legal test in deciding whether incriminating data was obtained lawfully. That's why The Times was able to check the cellphone records of the disgraced reporter Jayson Blair, who was fired for fabricating interviews and facts. The records revealed that on days that Blair professed to be reporting from West Virginia or Maryland, his calls were routed through cellphone towers in New York—ironclad evidence that he'd never actually left home.
Obviously, Verizon and I have a vendor-customer relationship, not a boss-underling one. But the matter is complicated by the public nature of E911 information: It is designed to be shared with emergency services. So a police-friendly judge could easily decide that with this third, governmental player involved, no cellphone user should count on privacy, at least as far as location data goes. Which way the courts will lean, though, is anybody's guess; as of this writing, no criminal case involving E911 has yet materialized.
Handwringing over prickly privacy issues has, of course, inspired many books in recent years. The most popular viewpoint is that espoused in Jeffrey Rosen's The Unwanted Gaze: that electronic records are too accessible and that laws are needed to guarantee that certain data will rarely see the light of day. A smaller—and, frankly, geekier—crowd advances the thesis of David Brin's The Transparent Society, which amounts to the following: "Privacy is vanishing. Get over it." Brin, a sci-fi author, contends that the end of privacy as we know it needn't necessarily mean an Orwellian future, because technology will allow citizens to monitor the authorities, too.
Much of the academic discourse has focused on what can be termed "fixed surveillance": websites that track user preferences, bosses who covertly scrutinize employee performance, companies that leak employee medical records to insurers. Tracking a person's physical movement throughout the day is a new type of violation, one that naturally conjures up rather nasty comparisons to the East German Stasi and similarly thuggish outfits. It's one thing for Amazon.com to suggest that, judging by my past CD purchases, I may enjoy the new Mobb Deep album, and quite another for Amazon to spam my phone with a message beginning, "We notice you are standing in a Tower Records store. Did you know that Amazon is selling the new Mobb Deep album for $2 less than Tower?"
THE WIRELESS INDUSTRY HAS A NAME FOR SUCH CUSTOM-TAILORED HAWKING: "location-based services," or LBS. The idea is that GPS chips can be used to locate friends, find the nearest pizzeria, or ensure that Junior is really at the library rather than a keg party. One estimate expects LBS to be a $15 billion market by 2007, a much-needed boost for the flagging telecom sector.
That may be fine for some consumers, but what about those who'd rather opt out of the tracking? The industry's promise is that LBS customers will have to give explicit permission for their data to be shared with third parties. This is certainly in the spirit of the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999, which anticipated that all cellphone carriers will feature E911 technology by 2006. The law stipulated that E911 data—that is, an individual's second-by-second GPS coordinates—could only be used for nonemergency purposes if "express prior authorization" was provided by the consumer.
"But no one clearly understands what that means," explains David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has repeatedly petitioned the FCC for a clarification of the law's language—to no avail. " 'Express prior authorization' has never been fleshed out." Think about the consent process in the realm of software law, where a user must click "I agree" to a licensing agreement in order to install the program. A user irked by some aspect of the agreement can select "I do not agree," but that prevents the software from being installed, which makes the product essentially worthless. There's nothing stopping a cellphone carrier from instituting a telecom equivalent of the shrinkwrap license—when you break the seal on the box and activate the phone, you agree to abide by the company's conditions. One of those could easily be, "I authorize for my location data to be shared with third parties."
This could very well be the case with my Motorola, one of those spiffy picture phones advertised on TV every 60 seconds. The thick user's guide makes no mention of the GPS chip's privacy implications; Verizon Wireless's website is devoid of any specific language relating to location privacy. The technology industry's attitude toward end-user licenses seems to be "Don't worry, it's too complicated for you to understand." When I asked to be pointed in the direction of Verizon's E911 privacy policy, a company spokesman named Jeffrey Nelson told me, "We don't have a policy, because we're not offering any location-based services at this time." I pushed a little, pointing out that the phones are still GPS-enabled and thus remain able to collect data. "What I can say," Nelson responded, "is that in all of our internal discussions, we do acknowledge the importance of very healthy opt-in promises."
The libertarian counterargument would be that the market will ultimately favor privacy, since most consumers would balk at onerous privacy terms. Smart companies will eventually differentiate themselves from the pack by getting serious about privacy, and the advantage will go to the carrier that can honestly claim, "We're the ones who protect your data, unlike the folks at XYZ Communications, who sell your restaurant habits to the highest bidder." Governmental privacy laws, this line of logic goes, are an unnecessary burden on the private sector.
But laissez faire hasn't really worked as a way of protecting consumers online. Partly it's their own fault. Consumers do a poor job of reading and understanding the privacy statements of the websites they visit. Given the complexity of these sites, though, can you blame them? No one would shop online, or even surf, if it meant reading a long slab of legalese for each site. Cookies? Registration forms that ask for a home address, age, and income? Anything to get that cool Shockwave game a little faster. John Soma, a University of Denver law professor and the author of Computer Technology and the Law, explains that consumers are easily seduced into giving up their privacy: "If you were at a McDonald's in downtown Denver, and you agreed to give everyone three free Big Macs, fries, and a shake if they'd sign away their DNA, you'd have 200 people lined up." Since medical information is considered more sensitive than, say, mere web browsing habits—think of how your insurance company would love to factor your genetic predispositions into their actuarial tables—the inducements to obtain other types of data needn't be that lavish. And once signed away, privacy is hard to recoup.
Consumers may also be quite willing to accept an erosion in privacy in exchange for a sweet enough reward. Take the growth of wireless "communities," groups of cellphone users who swap text messages about The Lord of the Rings, pro basketball, or whatever interests they share. As a recent Marketplace report noted, these groups need corporate sponsorship to survive and grow, since most draw no revenue. If the choice eventually comes down to catching the latest Frodo Baggins gossip or staving off Kmart spam, many aficionados will accept the spam. Finnish hunters are already signing up in droves for "dog radar," which allows them to use their cellphones to pinpoint their wandering hounds, who bear GPS locators in their collars. It would take a cold heart to give up on protecting Fido merely because he gives away your location when you take him for a walk.
Then there are LBS companies like Calgary's Cell-Loc, which plans to pitch its location service to worried parents. "I have a daughter turning 16, and I know I'm getting her a cellphone for her birthday," one Cell-Loc employee told The Toronto Star. "She'll be like, 'Great, Mom, thanks for the phone.' I'll be like, 'No problem, I'm going to be tracking your every step.' "
Corporate data collectors do their best to present a trustworthy image, but they haven't always been entirely forthcoming about the details of their practices. Early adopters of the TiVo digital video recorder knew that the box somehow uses the Internet, since it needs to be plugged into a telephone jack. But it wasn't until the Privacy Foundation attached a "sniffer" to a test unit that TiVo's true nature was revealed. Every night, the recorder transmits the day's viewing records back to the company's servers—which channels were viewed when, when the volume was turned up and down, even the device's internal temperature. (That's not to mention TiVo's habit of recommending shows to viewers based on their past viewing habits, a feature that has famously vexed homophobes, who worry that a peek at a Miss America pageant will convince their box to recommend "gay" fare.) None of this was revealed in TiVo's brochure, which contained only a vague privacy pledge that records are stripped of identification markers—and a statement that the company's privacy policy was subject to change.
Despite Congressional testimony by Privacy Foundation founder Richard M. Smith, the TiVo revelation stirred only the barest of public outcries and did nothing to push forward privacy legislation. That's not a surprise, as Congress has always been slow to recognize the privacy implications of new technologies. Unauthorized wiretapping wasn't outlawed until 1967, 91 years after "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you," and 77 years after Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren's famous Harvard Law Review article on the importance of privacy as a legal concept. As Rosen writes in The Unwanted Gaze, "The politics of privacy tends to be largely reactive, fired by heartstring-tugging anecdotes that capture the public imagination." Not until after The Washington City Paper published Judge Robert Bork's video-rental records in 1987, for example, did Congress pass the Video Privacy Protection Act, which outlawed that kind of disclosure. At the intersection of privacy and technology, the legislative wheels require considerable grease to start turning.
There's also a substantial anti-privacy lobby, composed of industry front groups that view tough privacy laws as potential revenue killers. The Online Privacy Alliance and the Privacy Council may sound like muckraking Naderite organizations, but they're pure "Astroturf," fake grass-roots lobbies that hammer home the message that privacy restrictions hurt American business.
Law enforcement likewise views privacy laws as an impediment, especially now that it has grown accustomed to accessing location data virtually at will. Take the MetroCard, the only way for New York City commuters to pay their transit fares since the elimination of tokens. Unbeknownst to the vast majority of straphangers, the humble MetroCard is essentially a floppy disk, uniquely identified by a serial number on the flip side. Each time a subway rider swipes the card, the turnstile reads the bevy of information stored on the card's magnetic stripe, such as serial number, value, and expiration date. That data is then relayed back to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's central computers, which also record the passenger's station and entry time; the stated reason is that this allows for free transfers between buses and subways. (Bus fare machines communicate with MTA computers wirelessly.) Police have been taking full advantage of this location info to confirm or destroy alibis; in 2000, The Daily News estimated that detectives were requesting that roughly 1,000 MetroCard records be checked each year.
A mere request seems sufficient for the MTA to fork over the data. The authority learned its lesson back in 1997, when it initially balked at a New York Police Department request to view the E-ZPass toll records of a murder suspect; the cops wanted to see whether or not he'd crossed the Verrazano Narrows Bridge around the time of the crime. The MTA demanded that the NYPD obtain a subpoena, but then-Justice Colleen McMahon of the State Supreme Court disagreed. She ruled that "a reasonable person holds no expectation of confidentiality" when using E-ZPass on a public highway, and an administrative subpoena—a simple OK from a police higher-up—was enough to compel the MTA to hand over the goods.
What McMahon was advancing, in effect, was an extension of the rationale behind the rules governing "pen register" and "trap and trace" surveillance of phone lines. While police need a warrant to listen in on the content of calls, they do not need judicial warrants to monitor the phone numbers a person calls or is called from. The phone company already knows what numbers you are dialing, and their existence as a knowing third party means that you should not expect this data to be kept private—or so the logic goes. On the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, how could a toll transaction between a driver and the MTA be private, since the bridge is a public space with a zillion other drivers (third parties all) around to witness it? It doesn't take a genius to see how this argument could be extended to location data obtained through E911; if the emergency operator can get access to your GPS coordinates, how can you expect privacy? It's not like the cops are asking to know what you talked about, only where you were.
The 2002 Washington State case State v. Jackson is perhaps the only other instance of the use of location data being contested on appeal, and the conclusion was similar. In the absence of laws specifically addressing GPS, the court ruled that the police didn't need a warrant to attach a tracking device to a suspect's vehicles. The vehicle was in plain view, and the cops weren't intercepting any "communication"; in other words, the tracking conformed to the "trap and trace" standards. Never mind the obvious stretch of applying wiretap laws from the 1960s to such a novel technology.
Any time the police are allowed to act without obtaining a judicial warrant, it is natural to be concerned about whom they're accountable to. How much evidence must a detective present before he or she is given access to someone's subway habits? How easy would it be for the men and women of the 10th Precinct, right behind my apartment in New York City, to find out that I'm fond of taking the F train to East Broadway on Sunday mornings? How about the GPS data from my Motorola? The NYPD's lips are apparently sealed about this matter; despite repeated phone calls and a formal written request, spokesman Detective Walter Burnes did not respond to questions.
The Department of Justice is equally silent on the topic. I submitted a request to the organization's press office for information about the FBI's methods of obtaining location data from a target's GPS-enabled phone, but received no response. David Sobel was not surprised by my defeat, as his organization, EPIC, has been asking for the exact same clarification for well over a year now. Without a potentially precedent-setting case moving through the federal justice system, however, the Justice Department's silence is at least understandable. You get away with what you can.
If new laws aren't forthcoming, perhaps our location-data guardians will be those twin pillars of federal bureaucracy, the FCC and the FTC. Wireless communications are the former's responsibility, and the FCC's official mission, as set out in the 1934 act that created it, is to protect the "public interest." Yet under Bush-appointed chairman Michael Powell, an avowed fan of laissez faire, the FCC has shown little interest in employing its rule-making powers to take responsibility for protecting the privacy of cellphone users. Last August, the FCC turned down a request from the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association to draw up location-data privacy rules. (Though it is an industry group, the CTIA believes that federal rules—lenient ones, if it has its way—would convince consumers that LBS isn't as menacing as it sounds.) The commission explained that it did "not wish to artificially constrain the still-developing market for location-based services."
So all hopes rest with the FTC, charged with holding companies to their contractual word. This is exactly the sort of oversight that's required for the libertarian fantasy to come true. If a cellphone carrier is going to one-up its competitors by positioning itself as a stickler for privacy, there need to be consequences if it breaks its pledge. In Connecticut, the Department of Consumer Protection took a step in the direction of punishing privacy violations in February 2002 when it backed a suit against Acme Rent-a-Car for using GPS monitors installed in its autos to fine renters for exceeding the speed limit. The department successfully argued that Acme's contracts were not upfront about this monitoring, and the company discontinued its policy.
Optimistic that the FTC would confirm that, in lieu of federal statutes on the matter, it would take the lead in making sure no one finds out that I enjoy the occasional Taco Bell feast, I called the agency. Staff members seemed mystified at the prospect of scrutinizing a company's location-privacy policy. I started with a gruff Consumer Protection staffer, high in the hierarchy. He was obviously less than pleased to hear from me. "Never dealt with an issue like that . . . I don't have anyone that's readily available to talk to you," he said, before kicking me down to the Office of Public Affairs.
Despite my appeals to speak with an actual lawyer, an FTC spokeswoman rebuffed my every request—and, in true government style, passed the buck. "Talk to the F-C-C," she added, enunciating each letter to emphasize her irritation. Clearly, E911 is not an issue to which the FTC has given much thought.
Back to square one, then: no clear laws, no bureaucratic oversight, a permissive judiciary. Aside from saying "Trust us," industry's response is to push technological safeguards, like GPS phones equipped with "I AM HERE" buttons. If you don't want to be bothered, don't press that button when the handset starts flashing. Trouble is, this doesn't really shut off the GPS chip—the satellites still know where you are. They just won't remind you of that fact.
When it comes to consumer protections, technology simply doesn't have the teeth necessary for the job—especially when the safeguards in question are manufactured by the same folks who'd love to peddle your location data. But until some privacy Waterloo embarrasses the law into catching up, technology is what we're stuck with. The legendary hacker zine Phrack recently published a how-to guide on building a GPS-jamming device. Maybe I'll head to RadioShack this weekend and pick up the parts. And I'll leave the cellphone at home when I go—the only surefire way to opt out.
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2003/feature_koerner_julaug03.html
1984? We are there already...of course: it's 2003.
German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals
By Erik Kirschbaum
8-6-3
PIRMASENS, Germany (Reuters) - German computer experts are working round the clock to unlock the truth behind an unexplained surge in financial transactions made just before two hijacked planes crashed into New York's World Trade Center on September 11.
Were criminals responsible for the sharp rise in credit card transactions that moved through some computer systems at the WTC shortly before the planes hit the twin towers?
Or was it coincidence that unusually large sums of money, perhaps more than $100 million, were rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded?
A world leader in retrieving data, German-based firm Convar is trying to answer those questions and help credit card companies, telecommunications firms and accountants in New York recover their records from computer hard drives that have been partially damaged by fire, water or fine dust.
Using a pioneering laser scanning technology to find data on damaged computer hard drives and main frames found in the rubble of the World Trade Center and other nearby collapsed buildings, Convar has recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty doomsday dealings.
"The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start," said Convar director Peter Henschel.
"Of course it is also possible that there were perfectly legitimate reasons for the unusual rise in business volume," he told Reuters in an interview.
PROFITING FROM DISASTER?
"It could turn out that Americans went on an absolute shopping binge on that Tuesday morning. But at this point there are many transactions that cannot be accounted for," Henschel said.
"Not only the volume but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that. There is a suspicion that these were possibly planned to take advantage of the chaos."
Nearly 3,300 people were killed in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center.
Some 30,000 people in the buildings, symbols of America's financial might, were able to escape between the time the planes crashed and about an hour later when they collapsed -- even though many of the unmanned computers continued working.
The United States blames the al Qaeda group led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden for the attack and has since waged war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that sheltered them.
ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE OF ATTACK?
There are several data retrieval companies in the United States and Europe, but Convar said it has won the lion's share of the contracts from the World Trade Center because of its laser scanning technology.
Convar developed the laser scanner two years ago that made it possible to retrieve data from badly damaged computers.
With a staff of 30 in its high-security facility in Pirmasens near the French border, the firm has worked with the U.S. armed forces in Germany as well as German federal police for the last 15 years.
Its offices in Pirmasens, a town of 36,000 still suffering from the departure of some 4,000 American soldiers stationed here during the Cold War, are closely guarded behind high fences and monitored by dozens of security cameras.
Inside the building, an endless series of code-operated door locks keeps unwelcome visitors away. In the center of the facility is a 120 square meter (1,292 square foot), dust-free "clean room" where the damaged computer drives are coaxed back to life.
Citing client privacy, Henschel declined to say which companies Convar is working for, or provide details about the data retrieved so far. But he said the raw material, up to 40 gigabytes per computer hard drive, is sent immediately by satellite or courier back to New York.
MONEY TRAIL
Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at the company, said illegal transfers of more than $100 million might have been made immediately before and during the disaster.
"There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million," Wagner said. ""They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed."
The companies are paying between $20,000 and $30,000 for each computer recovered, Henschel said.
The high recovery costs are one reason why only a limited number of hard drives are being examined. Convar has turned down a request by one British newspaper to try to recover personal last hour e-mails sent by someone trapped in the doomed building.
Henschel said the companies in the United States were working together with the FBI to piece together what happened on September 11 and that he was confident the destination of the dubious transactions would one day be tracked down.
"We have been quite surprised that so many of the hard drives were in good enough shape to retrieve the data," he said.
"The contamination rate is high. The fine dust that was everywhere in the area got pressed under high pressure into the drives. But we've still been able to retrieve 100 percent of the data on most of the drives we've received.
"We're helping them find out what happened to the computers on September 11 as quickly as possible. I'm sure that one day they will know what happened to the money."
http://www.rense.com/general39/germanfirmprobes.htm
Occupied America
by Karen Kwiatkowski
There are some interesting differences between living in neoconservative occupied America and neoconservative occupied Iraq. Our neoconservatives came in under cover of presidential appointment and moved catlike from cozy American Enterprise Institute conference rooms into even cozier offices in the E-Ring of the Pentagon, to sunny floors of the State Department, and into the baroque curves and corners of the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House.
Iraq’s neoconservatives came to town smelling of diesel sucked in through the air conditioners of their Toyota LandRovers bumping up behind a line of U.S. Army tanks. If they moved catlike at all, it was to prevent the bulletproof vests from chafing their delicate skin in the short travail from military escort to the latest vacated palace.
The results have been much the same in both cases. Foreign and domestic policy for the respective countries must seem, to the average American as to the average Iraqi, to be designed and implemented by space aliens. A different species of political leader, from a different culture, with a new language. Jerry Bremer doesn’t know how to be polite in Iraqi or Arab culture or get the cell phones and power back on (subtle hint for the proconsul – step the hell aside, you socialist bimbo!). George Bush doesn’t seem to know the difference between the yellowcake you can’t make bombs from without high-tech–processing equipment not available in Iraq, and the stuff found in the baking aisle at the local grocery store.
No matter. There are some differences, and it is good news. It turns out that Iraqis are evolving into true news junkies, and beyond, into information connoisseurs. The New York Times reports that for suppliers of televisions, satellite dishes, newspapers, and access to the Internet, business is booming in many parts of Iraq. The only problem, according to the New York Times, is that Iraqis don’t know what to believe with all of the choices around them.
This is truly a "good news" story for what is left of Iraq, and God bless them every one. Ingenious, energetic people in an open marketplace are finding ways to get lots of information technology goods and services into Iraq, and the people in Iraq are profiting as entrepreneurs and as human beings. The Times goes on to say the "nascent Iraqi media offers evidence that a free market can thrive here."
Whoa! Offers evidence? A thriving free market is the natural state of human association and human action. It is people inspired and free to create, trade and preserve things that have value to themselves and others, through an unrestricted, often indirect, access to millions of other unique and valuable people. A free market is not, as the reporter’s sentence intimates, a cultural quality, somehow found in the soil or water or gene pool of a particular vicinity. It is not something we have to plant and nurture like some hypersensitive orchid. If it were, of course the statement becomes even more asinine, as the Tigris Euphrates basin could teach the rest of the world a few things about the free market, given they have been doing it for thousands of years minus some relatively short-term interruptions by external conquerors and domestic socialist tyrants.
A free market thrives when supplier and consumer are free to communicate with each other, through unfettered pricing and valuation. It works in proportion to the extent it is free from external interference, whether by mafias, governments, or in the case of Iraq, the Civilian Provisional Authority. Coercion looks the same no matter who does it, and Saddam and Jerry Bremer both have had a role in disrupting the Iraqi "free market" as surely as a boot disrupts the life of an industrious ant underfoot. The market despises war, and states for that matter; its healthy existence is antithetical to the physical destruction that precedes mass government theft, theft made possible only by the power of states to extract the gold and blood of it citizens.
The assumption of marketplace frailty, of the free market as unexpected and surprising in an Arab country as water suddenly flowing from a rock, or bit of shrubbery burning bright without being consumed, is mind-boggling in its mix of arrogance, naïveté and basic misunderstanding of economics and human behavior. That such a statement is made as part of a news story is appalling in itself, but the sin is multiplied a thousandfold when not questioned (and it won’t be) by millions of American readers.
America’s occupiers, the big government, war-oriented eunuchs who guard and watch over the Texas emperor’s global string of poor oil-producing countries, and others who facilitate oil and gas pipelines, have succeeded in America in a way they will never succeed in Iraq. This is because, as the Times points out with some concern, Iraqis are busy assessing, questioning, choosing and analyzing the wide variety of information now available to them. They are asking questions, becoming critical consumers, demanding valid information upon which to make decisions.
They can thank Saddam for this. Saddam taught just about every Iraqi how to tell if your government representatives, politicians, security workers, and co-opted neighbors are lying to you. You guessed it. Their lips are moving. I imagine that even Iraqi ventriloquists were caught up in this tendency to be disbelieved.
In occupied America, we have not yet been delivered into that Joplinesque freedom of having nothing left to lose. We still think that our government tells the truth, to the extent that if we observe the government lying, we – like abused women at the violent hands of some drunken boyfriend – make excuses. He didn’t really mean it, it was for my own good, he’s really a good man when he isn’t drinking or having a bad day.
Philip K. Dick’s greatest novel was The Man in the High Castle. He describes an America that lost World War II, divided into a Japanese two-tiered ethno-socialism on the west coast and German fascism on the East Coast. But there is a time in the story when the main character has a brief vision of an America as it might have been – prosperous, ethnically diverse, meritocratic, free – he thinks it might be drug induced, and the vision quickly disappears. For a moment, it is not clear which world is true and which is a dream.
Occupied Iraq is getting a glimpse of a rich future. Because they already know that their government, of Saddam before or Bremer and the CPA appointees after, lies, misleads and works at cross purposes to their free market, they have a real chance of creating a future themselves of prosperity, free markets, and limited government.
Occupied America, on the other hand, is still busy giving more flesh, more gold, and more honor to the power drunk, arrogant, pro-war, pro-spending, anti-freedom liars in Washington. While Leiberman accuses quasi-fiscally conservative Dean of being too far left, and Bush wonders if Colin Powell will really quit and what that does to his 2004 chances if the man starts talking about what really happened this year, occupied America cowers, hoping the beatings will stop soon.
August 7, 2003
Karen Kwiatkowski [send her mail] is a recently retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. She now lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley.
Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski31.html
[Wow, I can't believe a woman wrote this...<ggg>]
Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax
by George F. Smith
James Madison reminds us in Federalist No. 10 that natural differences in people lead to differences in the kinds and amount of property they will acquire. These differences create factions, presenting a challenge to a government founded on liberty. A strong faction could overpower a pure democracy. But a republic, in which representatives of the people serve as caretakers of their rights, could prevent one faction from asserting its will over the others.
The framers gave us a republic that held the government in check for over 100 years -- and Americans flourished like no other society in history. Then in 1913, we changed directions. Government teamed up with various factions and claimed ownership of our income, through the Sixteenth Amendment.
The income tax required a menacing collection agency, the IRS, through which we’ve lost not only our property but our privacy. For years, many people have clamored for fundamental reform, suggesting “remedies” like a flat tax or a national sales tax.
But reform is a politician’s game, argues Sheldon Richman in Your Money or Your Life. The only cure for the abuse is to abolish the income tax and replace it with nothing.
A pillar of big government
The income tax -- along with another 1913 creation, the Federal Reserve -- fuels government expansion. Thus, the Treasury Department has documented contingency plans to maintain revenue flow even if economic activity slows to a trickle. In the event of a nuclear holocaust, for example, the state wants to lend a hand by taxing “illegal gains made by speculators and black market operators.” (his emphasis) The people must never learn “they can get along without the bloated national state we labor under today.”
The income tax -- or any other draconian tax -- creates permanent antagonism between taxpayers and government. Knowing this, and “wanting to milk [taxpayers] to the maximum without setting off a revolt,” government tries to deaden the pain of theft through the ingenious device of tax withholding. For the past 60 years, withholding has helped drive home the idea that government owns our income -- what we never receive is not ours, right? It’s also prevented taxpayers from holding back their taxes as a way of protest.
Unjust and unfair
Richman points out that the coercive nature of taxation per se renders it immoral and unjust. Therefore, any discussion of “tax justice” is a sham -- how can there be a just injustice? People complain about tax loopholes, referring to income that’s not taxed. We should not object that some things escape taxation; we should object that everything else doesn’t.
People who supported passage of an income tax during the so-called Progressive Era saw the advantages of a state with confiscated wealth to dispense. A loose coalition of statist intellectuals, businessmen seeking government favors, people envious of the great wealth being created and wishing to see the rich brought down -- found salvation in the income tax. So did the politicians who used them for a constituency. As a cover, supporters frequently attacked the “prevailing distribution of wealth and income,” calling it unfair.
In a market economy, Richman counters, income is not distributed as if someone ladled it from a central pot. “Rather, it is obtained through countless voluntary transactions, each of which must be regarded as grounded in justice. Once that fact is grasped, the rhetoric of fairness in taxation is revealed as demagoguery.”
The author talks about how special interests “spend a great deal of time lobbying the tax-writing committees for favorable changes. That is one reason the [tax] code changes so often. The process is hardly a search for the tax code that will best serve the public.” The average taxpayer is forgotten. Most people are too busy earning a living and raising their families to keep up with arcane tax-law changes, let alone go to Washington and lobby tax committees.
Born in crisis
There’s nothing like crisis to expand state power, and there’s no crisis like war. Thus, it is no surprise that an income tax was first proposed during the War of 1812, and then not one, but six income tax bills passed during Lincoln’s war. “The tax quickly became an important revenue raiser,” Richman notes. “At its height in 1866 it raised 30 percent of internal revenues.”
An income tax was proposed often in succeeding years and finally passed again in 1894, but the Court killed it in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company. Between 1895 and 1909 the government fostered support for the tax through vote-buying schemes. Finally, in 1909, President Taft proposed a constitutional amendment to tax income from all sources, a move tax opponents favored, thinking it would die in ratification.
The states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment in February, 1913. Government told the people it needed the tax to advance its social policies and protect American interests abroad.
Congress enacted the first income tax law in October, 1913, with a top rate of 7 percent. It created a tax liability for only 2 percent of the population. But the top rate shot up to 67 percent in 1917 and 77 percent in 1918, the war years. The state’s haul during World War I was more than $1 billion, ensuring its longevity as part of the revenue system.
By World War II the income tax became universal. Fewer than 15 million tax returns were filed in 1940; by 1950, the number was over 53 million. “In 1939 the income tax raised $1 billion. In 1945 it raised $19 billion. The most lucrative revenue pool was not the wealthy -- there weren’t enough of them. Middle-class and working-class taxpayers represented the biggest potential for revenue.”
What began as a movement to rob the richest Americans has turned into a burden for anyone making a decent living. Isn’t it funny how government takes such a “noble” goal and corrupts it for its own purposes.
Richman believes we can eliminate the income tax. Abolishing it would leave enough revenue to keep government within Jeffersonian limits -- small and unintrusive. But people will need a new “unwritten constitution,” he says, before they’ll revolt against the tax. “What is needed is the orneriness about intrusions on their liberty that the colonists and first Americans exhibited.“
Take an ornery first step and read Your Money or Your Life.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/smith/smith7.html
More shrub fun:
http://www.thebushadministration.com/bush/
BIG BROTHER GETS BIGGER—Domestic Spying & the Global Intelligence Working Group by Michelle J. Kinnucan
With virtually no media coverage or public scrutiny, a major reorganization of the US domestic law enforcement intelligence apparatus is well underway and, in fact, is partially completed. The effort to create a new national intelligence collection, analysis, and sharing system has frightening implications for privacy and other civil liberties. Operating under the umbrella of John Ashcroft’s Department of Justice (DOJ), this monster-in-the-making is now the work of the intergovernmental Global Intelligence Working Group (GIWG) [it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=56].
ORIGINS
In the fall of 2001, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) held its annual conference in Toronto. Considering the events of September 11th, it was decided to organize an International Criminal Intelligence Sharing Summit in Alexandria, VA, March 7-8, 2002; the topic was “Criminal Intelligence Sharing: Overcoming Barriers to Enhance Domestic Security.”
The 100 Summit attendees comprised a select group of “criminal intelligence experts from local, state, Tribal and Federal law enforcement agencies, international law enforcement bodies, national and regional intelligence gathering and analysis organizations and academia.” Participants included Attorney General John Ashcroft and representatives from the DOJ, INS, DEA, FBI, Office of Homeland Security, National Reconnaissance Office, Secret Service, and the US military.
The Summit proceedings were compiled by the IACP in a report entitled, Criminal Intelligence Sharing: A National Plan for Intelligence-Led Policing at the Local, State and Federal Levels—Recommendations from the IACP Intelligence Summit (“IACP Report”). The Summit and IACP Report were both partially funded by the DOJ.
VISION
The GIWG’s intelligence reorganization effort is linked to the Homeland Security Act, but extends far beyond concerns about terrorism. Early on, the IACP Report quotes a White House statement: “The Department of Homeland Security would coordinate, simplify and, where appropriate, consolidate government relations on issues for America’s state and local agencies. It would coordinate federal homeland security programs and information with state and local officials.” The IACP Report then observes: “This element of the President’s plan is significant: non-federal agencies (local law enforcement, state police and regional law enforcement task forces) have both a great need for intelligence data and a great capacity to contribute to the process of intelligence generation.”
The envisioned reorganization is one of not only enhanced federal-state/local integration for two-way intelligence sharing but also a fundamental restructuring. Thus, according to the IACP Report the “Participants called for a strengthening of the local component … so that information flows along a flattened continuum of all types of law enforcement agencies, versus the traditional hierarchical flow.” State and local agencies are to be “founding partners of and driving participants in any organization that helps coordinate the collection, analysis, dissemination and use of criminal intelligence data in the U.S.”
A case might well be made that the terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001, were, in part, the result of a failure in intelligence sharing between the FBI and the CIA. Beyond bare assertions, however, no persuasive argument that better sharing between federal and state/local law enforcement agencies could have prevented 9/11 has been offered. Rather, one of the organizers and leaders of the IACP Summit, former New York City police intelligence division commander Daniel J. Oates, has undercut any such argument.
On September 20, 2001, the Ann Arbor News quoted him as follows: “ ‘Local law enforcement can do little to prevent an attack in the air,’ Oates said, adding that would fall under the jurisdiction of federal authorities.” (Oates became the Ann Arbor, MI police chief less than a month before 9/11.) Oates is later quoted as having “specific suggestions on how local law enforcement can work with federal government” on intelligence, but he offered no details. He did however note that the “first obvious measure” in response to 9/11 “is to make certain airplanes can’t be hijacked.”
In another related non sequitur, the IACP Report explicitly asserts “While September 11 highlighted urgency in improving the capacity of law enforcement agencies … to share terrorism-relevant intelligence data … [Summit participants] stressed that the real need is to share all – not just terrorism-related – criminal intelligence” (emphasis in original). A main selling point for the greater use of local police in domestic intelligence is the omnivorous spying potential of the widely adopted Community Oriented Policing Services or “COPS” model. The IACP Report asserts, “It is time to maximize the potential for community policing efforts to serve as a gateway of locally based information to prevent terrorism, and all other crimes, through the timely transfer of critical information from citizens to their local police agency and then across the intelligence continuum.” However, the IACP Report offers little or no justification for enhanced collection or sharing of any type of intelligence, let alone of non-terrorism intelligence.
As an aside, neither the Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS) nor the Neighborhood Watch Programs (NWP) is mentioned in the IACP Report. Still, it is noteworthy that months before Congress blocked funding for TIPS in late 2002, John Ashcroft announced a closely related initiative to be managed by the same organization--Citizen Corps--that would have run TIPS. The plan is to double the number of NWPs by 2004 and, according to the DOJ, expand their mission to make participants “a critical element in the detection, prevention and disruption of terrorism.” While TIPS has been derailed, perhaps temporarily, the Neighborhood Watch expansion has proceeded apace--there are now 10,000 programs nationwide.
DANGER
The GIWG vision—all US law enforcement agencies freely and systematically sharing all intelligence—is virtually unprecedented and poses a great danger to civil liberties. Another time that the federal government cooperated on an extensive basis with state and local police for intelligence purposes was in the era of the FBI’s notorious Counterintelligence Programs (COINTELPRO) and COINTELPRO-style operations. These operations are mostly known for the activities—assassination, false imprisonment, forgery, perjury, infiltration, etc.—undertaken by the FBI and police to neutralize dissident religious and political activists and organizations. However, collecting and sharing intelligence was essential and, in fact, “standard operating procedure” as Frank J. Donner noted in The Age of Surveillance.
The 2003 Consolidated Appropriations Resolution (H.J. Res. 2) included an increase of $181 million “to bolster counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities of the FBI” and the IACP Report asserts a state-local claim to information derived from COINTELPRO-type operations. While noting elsewhere that “counterintelligence ... is not motivated by the occurrence of criminal activity,” the IACP Report nevertheless declares “federal parties ought (to be able) to pass criminal intelligence information that surfaces during counter-intelligence activities ... to state, local and tribal police.” This is significant because it is tacit acknowledgement of current or anticipated domestic federal counterintelligence operations investigating legal activity.
The current US domestic intelligence apparatus already greatly exceeds COINTELPRO in its capacity to collect, analyze, and share intelligence and, thus, potentially to conduct counterintelligence. One important reason for this is the further breaking down of the division between levels of government.
The number of state and local police, put last summer at 650,000 by John Ashcroft, dwarfs the number of federal law enforcement agents. As the Supreme Court observed in Printz v. US, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), “The power of the Federal Government would be augmented immeasurably if it were able to impress into its service—and at no cost to itself—the police officers of the 50 States.” The separation of government power into “two spheres”—one national and one state-local—is one of the least recognized Constitutional “checks and balances.” The Printz Court noted:
This separation of the two spheres is one of the Constitution’s structural protections of liberty. “Just as the separation and independence of the [three] coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.”
Yet, on several fronts federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies are bringing about exactly what the Court warned against—”the police officers of the 50 States” functioning in the service of the federal government, albeit voluntarily and with funding from the DOJ. The method may be different from that considered in Printz but the danger remains the same or, probably, greater.
Laws and policies that the IACP Report and GIWG meeting minutes refer to as “barriers” and “impediments” were adopted in response to a well-documented history of egregious and systematic violations of the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans by local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, often working together. Despite these reforms, enacted mostly in the 1970s, widespread and serious abuses have continued to the present day.
For example, documents obtained by the ACLU of Colorado [www.aclu-co.org/spyfiles/fbifiles.htm] demonstrate that, as recently as 2002, the Denver police repeatedly collected intelligence on peaceful protesters with no connection to terrorism or any other criminal activity and passed it on to an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. This collection and dissemination occurred in apparent violation of the federal the Criminal Intelligence Systems Operating Policies (28 CFR 23), which prohibit the collection of “criminal intelligence information about … political, religious or social views, associations, ... unless such information directly relates to criminal conduct or activity.” Subjects included the American Friends Service Committee, Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace, and a man engaging in the “anti-government” activity of “handing out literature in front of the Federal building … promoting the movie Waco Rules of Engagement which depicts the FBI murdering over 80 individuals in Waco.”
IMPLEMENTATION
To fully comprehend the danger posed by the reorganization discussed here, it helps to understand the details of the implementation of the vision described above. The IACP Report sets two goals. The first is the establishment of “a coordinating council comprised of local, state, Tribal and Federal law enforcement executives ... to oversee and implement the National Intelligence Plan.” The second goal is to “Address the legal impediments to the effective transfer of criminal intelligence between enforcement agencies.”
The Global Intelligence Working Group
The first goal has already been partially achieved as an interim coordinating council became operational last fall. The December 2002 minutes of the first meeting of the Global Intelligence Working Group confirm that it was “formed to serve as the Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council” described in the IACP Report.
The GIWG’s Interim Report: Development of the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (“GIWG Report”) released in May of this year, in describing the GIWG, paraphrased the IACP Report: “the Council’s mandate would be to establish, promote, and ensure effective intelligence sharing and to address and solve, in an ongoing fashion, the problems that inhibit it.” The IACP Report continued, “In order to accomplish these tasks, the Council must be central, permanent, powerful and inclusive.”
The GIWG is now poised to become the “most central and enduring element of the National Intelligence Plan,” to quote the IACP Report. Indeed, the GIWG Report recommends that GIWG “evolve” into the coordinating council at the heart of the reorganization effort.
Legal Impediments To The Effective Transfer Of Criminal Intelligence
The second goal of the IACP Report’s national intelligence plan is to “Address the legal impediments to the effective transfer of criminal intelligence.” The February 2003 GIWG minutes and the GIWG Report take note of proposals by the Bush administration to weaken one key federal standard— Criminal Intelligence Systems Operating Policies (28 CFR 23).
The express purpose of 28 CFR 23 is to assure that “criminal intelligence systems ... are utilized in conformance with the privacy and constitutional rights of individuals.” The IACP National Law Enforcement Policy Center’s “Criminal Intelligence Model Policy,” which appears as an appendix to the GIWG Report, was revised in June 2003 to incorporate an anticipated change in 28 CFR 23. The relevant portion of the policy now says: “It is the policy of this agency to gather information directed toward specific individuals or organizations where there is a reasonable indication that said individuals or organization may be planning or engaging in criminal activities.”
28 CFR 23 currently requires a “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” Public notice of the proposed change is apparently scheduled for this August (see 68 FR 30545). If this change from “reasonable suspicion” to “reasonable indication” is adopted then the standard will be significantly weakened. The GIWG Report says, “The reasonable indication threshold for collecting criminal intelligence is substantially lower than probable cause. A reasonable indication may exist where there is not yet a current substantive or preparatory crime, but where facts or circumstances reasonably indicate that such a crime will occur in the future.” To understand the “reasonable indication” standard, then, think about the recent film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s The Minority Report because this is all about anticipated crimes that may (or may not) occur in the future.
The April 2003 GIWG meeting minutes record approval for the weakening of 28 CFR 23 and note that GIWG member Daniel J. Oates “indicated he was excited about the proposed changes to 28 CFR Part 23, specifically the area dealing with changing the reasonable suspicion collection criteria to reasonable indication. If the rule is passed, officers on the street can gather small bits of information that can be entered into an intelligence database. Under the old standard, this could not be done.”
Regarding other legal “impediments” to intelligence sharing, an FBI “War on Terrorism” web page [www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterrorism/analysis.htm] observes, “The PATRIOT Act and a federal court decision in November 2002 have broken down what has been known as ‘the Wall’ that legally separated law enforcement and intelligence functions”. The federal court decision reference is, apparently, to the opinion of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review that weakened Fourth Amendment protections against wiretapping and intrusive surveillance.
TWO TRACKS CONVERGE
The terrorist atrocities committed on September 11, 2001, greatly accelerated the creation of a single electronic information network that links every law enforcement agency in the country. However, as of March 26, 2002, according to Kathleen L. McChesney, the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director for Law Enforcement Services, in a Washington Post online discussion, there was still “no one, universal means of sharing information between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.” This is no longer quite true.
The Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) were created by Congress in 1974 to aid law enforcement agencies with multi-jurisdictional investigations. RISS members include over 6,000 federal, state, and local agencies in all 50 states. Although RISS is administered regionally, the information is shared nationally. In 1995, the FBI started Law Enforcement Online (LEO) to provide a secure, “interactive communications mechanism to link all levels of Law Enforcement throughout the United States by supporting broad, immediate dissemination of information.” In 2002, LEO had 32,500 members, about two-thirds were state and local law enforcement and the rest federal and foreign users.
On August 20, 2002, Federal Computer Week (FCW) reported on the linking of RISS and LEO, “Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies soon will have a single Web interface linking separate collaborative networks already in place to increase information sharing across all levels of government.” The GIWG Report notes that RISS and LEO were “connected September 1, 2002, as a virtual system” and its first recommendation is that they “should serve as the ... communications backbone for implementation of a nationwide intelligence sharing capability.”
According to the FCW article “One of LEO’s biggest advantages is the ability to offer a secure online space for specific interest groups to work and share information. On the other hand, RISS excels in providing Web access to multiple databases in local jurisdictions across the country, [George] March, [director of the RISS Office of Information Technology] said.” In fact, according to a RISS report, the RISSIntel/RISSNET II intelligence databases had 2.4 million records and fielded 1.6 million inquiries in 2001; this, before a $150 million funding boost in the USA PATRIOT Act.
The GIWG is set to become the organization that oversees the further integration and expansion of RISS and LEO. H.J. Res. 2 also funded a $459 million equipment budget for the DOJ’s Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP). The Conference Report directed ODP to use money the “to enhance State and local agencies’ ability to share intelligence information with each other and with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice” with the expectation that the Bureau of Justice Assistance and ODP will “continue to work with State, local, and Federal agencies through the Global Intelligence Working Group.” The Conferees also specifically noted their approval of the RISS-LEO linkage.
CONCLUSION
No doubt, GIWG members and their colleagues in other agencies believe their efforts are in the public interest, but they aren’t. Their efforts may not immediately result in increased COINTELPRO-like abuses but the risks to liberty are simply too great. Law enforcement officials have repeatedly shown themselves unable to abide by laws and policies designed to prevent them from acting like political or thought police. These abuses detract from their ability to combat real terrorist threats and further weaken the freedom of every American and other residents.
The risks to liberty are also unnecessary. If the goal really is security, then we must realize there are fundamental limits to a law enforcement strategy. For instance, the US has the world’s largest prison population, in both absolute and per capita terms; yet, we also have many of the world’s highest crime rates. If we seek safety, then, the US must significantly shift resources so that we can address the fundamental causes of crime and terrorism.
The USA PATRIOT Act, together with the Homeland Security Act, recent Executive Branch decisions, and the often overlooked Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, have already unduly expanded federal power and undermined essential American freedoms under the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments to the Constitution. These assaults on liberty must be rolled back but to that list the GIWG and its work must be added.
Copyright © 2003 by Michelle J. Kinnucan. All Rights Reserved.
About the author: Michelle J. Kinnucan is an independent scholar who served honorably in the US armed forces. Her work has previously been published in Agenda, CommonDreams.org, the Nonviolent Resister, PS: Political Science and Politics, and The Record. She is a Veteran for Peace and a co-coordinator of the Ann Arbor Bill of Rights Defense Committee. She can be contacted at: nopatriotact@agenda2.org or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabordc/
Links of Interest
ACLU of Colorado Spy Files
FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force Files
http://www.aclu-co.org/spyfiles/fbifiles.htm
Citizen Corps
http://www.citizencorps.gov
Dept. of Justice GIWG Website
http://it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=56
Institute for Intergovernmental Research GIWG Website
http://www.iir.com/giwg/
Institute for Intergovernmental Research RISS Website
http://www.iir.com/RISS/
Louisiana State University's Law Enforcement Online (LEO) Website
http://www.lsu.edu/leo/
Seattle Not In Our Name’s Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU) Facts
http://notinourname-seattle.net/LEIU.html
Insider fires a broadside at Rumsfeld's office
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - On most days, the Pentagon's "Early Bird", a daily compilation of news articles on defense-related issues mostly from the US and British press, does not shy from reprinting hard-hitting stories and columns critical of the United States Defense Department's top leadership.
But few could help notice last week that the "Bird" omitted an opinion piece distributed by the Knight-Ridder news agency by a senior Pentagon Middle East specialist, Air Force Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith until her retirement in April.
"What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline," Kwiatkowski wrote. "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam [Hussein] occupation [of Iraq] has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD]."
Kwiatkowski went on to charge that the operations she witnessed during her tenure in Feith's office, and particularly those of an ad hoc group known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), constituted "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-option through deceit of a large segment of the Congress".
Kwiatkowski's charges, which tend to confirm reports and impressions offered to the press by retired officers from other intelligence agencies and their still-active but anonymous former colleagues, are likely to make her a prime witness when Congress reconvenes in September for hearings on the manipulation of intelligence to justify war against Iraq.
According to Kwiatkowski, the same operation that allegedly cooked the intelligence also was responsible for the administration's failure to anticipate the problems that now dog the US occupation in Iraq, or, in her more colorful words, that have placed 150,000 US troops in "the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan".
Kwiatkowski's comments echo the worst fears of some lawmakers, who have begun looking into the OSP's role in the administration's mistaken assumptions in Iraq. Some are even comparing it to the off-the-books operation run from the National Security Council (NSC) during the Ronald Reagan administration that later resulted in the Iran-Contra scandal.
"That office [OSP] was charged with collecting, vetting, disseminating intelligence completely outside the normal intelligence apparatus," David Obey, a senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, said last month. "In fact, it appears that the information collected by this office was in some instances not even shared with the established intelligence agencies and in numerous instances was passed on to the National Security Council and the president without having been vetted with anyone other than [Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld]."
Little is known about OSP, which was originally created by Rumsfeld and his top deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, to investigate possible links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist group. While only a dozen people officially worked in the office at its largest, scores of "consultants" were brought in on contract, many of them closely identified with the neo-conservative and pro-Likud views held by the Pentagon leadership.
Headed by a gung-ho former navy officer, William Luti, and a scholarly national-security analyst, Abram Shulsky, OSP was given complete access to reams of raw intelligence produced by the US intelligence community and became the preferred stop, when in town, for defectors handled by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), led by Ahmed Chalabi.
It also maintained close relations with the Defense Policy Board (DPB), which was then chaired by Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Feith's mentor in the Reagan administration. Perle and Feith, whose published views on Israeli policy echo the right-wing Likud party, co-authored a 1996 memo for then-prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu that argued that Saddam's ouster in Iraq would enable Israel to transform the balance of power in the Middle East in its favor.
The DPB included some of Perle's closest associates, including former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey and the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, who played prominent roles in pushing the public case that Iraq represented an imminent threat to the United States and that it was closely tied to al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks.
In her article, Kwiatkowski wrote that OSP's work was marked by three major characteristics:
First, career Pentagon analysts assigned to Rumsfeld's office were generally excluded from what were "key areas of interest" to Feith, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, notably Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. "In terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political appointees; in the case of Israel, a desk officer appointee from the Washington Institute for Near Policy [a think tank closely tied to the main pro-Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee]."
Second, the same group of appointees tended to work with like-minded political appointees in other agencies, especially the State Department, the NSC, and Vice President Dick Cheney's office, rather than with those agencies' career analysts or the CIA. "I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel," Kwiatkowski wrote.
The CIA's exclusion from this network could help explain why Cheney and his National Security Advisor, I Lewis Libby, a long-time associate of Wolfowitz, frequently visited the agency, in what analysts widely regarded as pressure to conform to OSP assessments.
Third, this exclusion of professional and independent opinions, both within the Pentagon and across government agencies - according to Kwiatkowski - resulted in "groupthink", a technical term defined as "reasoning or decision-making by a group, often characterized by uncritical acceptance of conformity to prevailing points of view". In this case, the prevailing points of view were presumably shaped by neo-conservatives like Feith, Wolfowitz and Perle.
Kwiatkowski's broadside coincides with the appearance in neo-conservative media outlets, notably the Wall Street Journal, of defenses of Feith, who is widely seen as the Pentagon's most likely fall guy if it is forced to shoulder blame for bad intelligence and planning. The government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has pressed President George W Bush to fire Feith for several months, according to diplomatic sources.
In a lengthy defense published on Tuesday, the associate editor of the Journal's editorial page described Feith's policy workshop as "the world's most effective think tank".
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH07Ak01.html
What Is Happening In America?
Message From Germany
By Eliot Weinberger - Germany
8-5-3
In the Western democracies in the last fifty years, we have grown accustomed to governments whose policies on specific issues may be good or bad, but which essentially institute incremental changes to the status quo. The major exceptions have been Thatcher and Reagan, but even their programs of dismantling systems of social welfare seem, in retrospect, mild compared to what is happening in the United States under George Bush-- or more exactly, the ruling junta that tells Bush what to do and say.
It is unquestionably the most radical government in modern American history, one whose ideology and actions have become so pervasive, and are so unquestionably mirrored by the mass media here, that the population seems to have forgotten what "normal" is.
George Bush is the first unelected President of the United States, installed by a right-wing Supreme Court in a kind of judicial coup d'etat. He is the first to actively subvert one of the pillars of American democracy: the separation of church and state. There are now daily prayer meetings and Bible study groups in every branch of the government, and religious organizations are being given funds to take over educational and welfare programs that have always been the domain of the state.
Bush is the first president to invoke the specific "Jesus Christ" rather than an ecumenical "God," and he has surrounded himself with evangelical Christians, including his Attorney General, who attends a church where he talks in tongues.
It is the first administration to openly declare a policy of unilateral aggression, a "Pax Americana" where the presence of allies (whether England or Bulgaria) is agreeable but unimportant; where international treaties no longer apply to the United States; and where-- for the first time in history-- this country reserves the right to non-defensive, "pre-emptive" strikes against any nation on earth, for whatever reason it declares.
It is the first-- since the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II-- to enact special laws for a specific ethnic group. Non-citizen young Muslim men are now required to register and subject themselves to interrogation. Many hundreds have been arrested and held without trial or access to legal assistance-- a violation of another pillar of American democracy: habeas corpus. Many have been taken from their families and deported on minor technical immigration violations; the whereabouts of many others are still unknown. And, in Guantanamo Bay, where it is said that they are now preparing execution chambers, hundreds of foreign nationals -- including a 13-year-old and a man who claims to be 100-- have been kept for almost two years in a limbo that clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention.
Similar to the Reagan era, it is an administration openly devoted to helping the rich and ignoring the poor, one that has turned the surplus of the Clinton years into a massive deficit through its combination of enormous tax cuts for the wealthy (particularly those who earn more than a million dollars a year) and increases in defense spending. (And, although Republicans always campaign on "less government," it has created the largest new government bureaucracy in history: the Department of Homeland Security.) The Financial Times of England, hardly a hotbed of leftists, has categorized this economic policy as "the lunatics taking over the asylum."
But more than Reagan-- whose policies tended to benefit the rich in general-- most of Bush's legislation specifically enriches those in his lifelong inner circle from the oil, mining, logging, construction, and pharmaceutical industries. At the middle level of the bureaucracy, where laws may be issued without Congressional approval, hundreds of regulations have been changed to lower standards of pollution or safety in the workplace, to open up wilderness areas for exploitation, or to eliminate the testing of drugs.
Billions in government contracts have been awarded, without competition, to corporations formerly run by administration officials. In a country where the most significant social changes are enacted by court rulings, rather than by legislation, the Bush administration has been filling every level of the complex judicial system with ultra-right ideologues, especially those who have protected corporations from lawsuits by individuals or environmental groups, and those who are opposed to women's reproductive rights. It remains to be seen how far they can push their antipathy to contraception and abortion. They have already banned a rare form of late-term abortion that is only given when the health of the mother is endangered or the fetus is terribly deformed, and a large portion of Bush's heralded billions to Africa to fight AIDS will be devoted to so-called "abstinence" education.
Most of all, America doesn't feel like America any more. The climate of militarism and fear, similar to any totalitarian state, permeates everything. Bush is the first American president in memory to swagger around in a military uniform, though he himself-- like all of his most militant advisers-- evaded the Vietnam War. (Even Eisenhower, a general and a war hero, never wore his uniform while he was president).
In the airports of provincial cities, there are frequent announcements in that assuring, disembodied voice of science-fiction films: "The Department of Homeland Security advises that the Terror Alert is now . . . Code Orange." Every few weeks there is an announcement that another terrorist attack is imminent, and citizens are urged to take ludicrous measures, like sealing their windows, against biological and chemical attacks, and to report the suspicious activities of their neighbors.
The Pentagon institutes the "Total Information Awareness" program to collect data on the ordinary activities of ordinary citizens (credit card charges, library book withdrawals, university course enrollments) and when this is perceived as going too far, they change the name to "Terrorist Information Awareness" and continue to do the same things. Millions are listed in airport security computers as potential terrorists, including antiwar demonstrators and pacifists. Critics are warned to "watch what they say" and lists of "traitors" are posted on the internet.
The war in Iraq has been the most extreme manifestation of this new America, and almost a casebook study in totalitarian techniques.
First, an Enemy is created by blatant lies that are endlessly repeated until the population believes it: in this case, that Iraq was linked to the attack on the World Trade Center, and that it possesses vast "weapons of mass destruction" that threaten the world.
Then, a War of Liberation, entirely portrayed by the mass media in terms of our Heroic Troops, with little or no imagery of casualties and devastation, and with morale-inspiring, scripted "news" scenes-- such as the toppling of the Saddam statue and the heroic "rescue" of Private Lynch-- worthy of Soviet cinema.
Finally, as has happened with Afghanistan, very little news of the chaos that has followed the Great Victory. Instead, the propaganda machine moves on to a new Enemy-- this time, Iran.
It is very difficult to speak of what is happening in America without resorting to the hyperbolic cliches of anti-Americanism that have lost their meaning after so many decades, but that have now finally come true.
Perhaps one can only recite the facts, and I have mentioned only some of them here. This is, quite simply, the most frightening American administration in modern times, one that is appalling both to the left and to traditional conservatives. This junta is unabashed in its imperialist ambitions; it is enacting an Orwellian state of Perpetual War; it is dismantling, or attempting to dismantle, some of the most fundamental tenets of American democracy; it is acting without opposition within the government, and is operating so quickly on so many fronts that it has overwhelmed and exhausted any popular opposition.
Perhaps it cannot be stopped, but the first step toward slowing it down is the recognition that this is an American government unlike any other in this country's history, and one for whom democracy is an obstacle.
- Eliot Weinberger June 2, 2003
Functionally Insane Americans
By David McGowan
8-3-3
There have been many attempts made, by both the legal and mental health communities, to define "insanity." But it seems to me that that term can be most succinctly defined as: "a disconnection from reality." And the severity of any individual's insanity is a function of the degree of that person's disconnection from reality.
That definition, of course, is entirely dependent on how "reality" is defined. From the point of view of the state, "reality" is whatever the shapers of public opinion say it is. Anyone who disagrees with the voices of authority is, therefore, insane. From that perspective, people such as, for instance, yours truly, are completely bonkers.
But if we base our definition on a relatively objective reality, then most of the people that I know are, without question, insane. Most of my relatives are insane. Most of my friends are insane. Most of the people that I work with are insane. Damn near everyone in the country is at least mildly insane. A very large majority are moderately to severely insane. And according to polls, at least a third are stark raving mad.
These people hold beliefs that are clearly delusional÷that have absolutely no connection to reality. And they persist in holding these beliefs even when not a shred of evidence can be produced to support them. And no, I'm not talking about people who believe in UFOs, reincarnation, and the Loch Ness Monster. And I'm also not talking about people who believe in some supreme spiritual entity.
I'm talking about people who believe that 'weapons of mass destruction' have been uncovered in Iraq . . . who believe that 'weapons of mass destruction' were used against our troops over there . . . who even believe that 'weapons of mass destruction' is something other than a arbitrary term cooked up recently by Uncle Sam to describe weapons systems possessed by our 'enemies,' regardless of the actual destructive capability of those systems.
The functionally insane also believe that Iraqis were among the hijackers who allegedly commandeered the planes on September 11, 2001. It is difficult to fathom, but these people are so crazed that they have actually taken the government's already fanciful conspiracy theory, which is itself totally disconnected from reality, and they have made it even more ludicrous by adding some Iraqis to the mix. I'm betting that a few years down the road these same people will also believe that there were a couple of Liberians on one of the planes, as well as an Iranian guy, a couple of North Koreans, a Syrian, and perhaps a Cuban or two. Maybe even a French couple.
It's the damnedest thing, but in addition to holding these bizarre beliefs, these people can't even seem to see the walls going up. Perhaps that is the silver lining in being completely insane: when you are that thoroughly disconnected from reality, you don't even know that you are living in an asylum.
And so it is that we see the functionally insane behaving as though they still live outside the walls .. as though nothing has changed in their lives . . . as though their children haven't been stripped of any sort of meaningful future. You see these people everywhere, walking around without a care in the world, discussing who should have won the last American Idol, who the newest Bachelor should choose as his soul mate, whether a professional bodybuilder would make a better or worse governor than a professional wrestler, and whether Dr. Phil gives better relationship advice than Dr. Laura.
The beliefs of the functionally insane are not, by definition, based on objective facts, so it can be quite frustrating trying to communicate with one of them on anything other than a superficial level. Fully documented facts will either be dismissed out-of-hand or explained away using the exact same verbiage that spills from the cable 'news' programs÷as though these people's minds are mere tape-recorders, rather than tools for analysis. It is not uncommon for the most severely insane to greet inconvenient facts with a practiced look that seems to say, more or less: "What are you÷some kind of an idiot? Obviously you don't watch Fox News, 'cause if you did, we wouldn't need to have this conversation!"
One of the more bizarre ideas that seems to have recently taken root in the minds of the functionally insane is that the question of whether the Bush administration lied to the American people during the selling of the Iraq war hinges entirely on a mere 16 words inserted into the State of the Union Address÷overlooking the rather obvious fact that every official on the Bush team knowingly and quite deliberately lied pretty much every time they stepped up to the plate to offer some imaginary justification for the war.
Another strange belief that has taken hold is that if Team Bush÷at the very time that the media had actually called them on one lie out of thousands, and at the very time that the congressional 9ö11 committee had released a heavily whitewashed but still damaging report, and at the very time that U.S. troop morale had sunk to levels that could soon see the American people reintroduced to the term "fragging"÷suddenly announces that a band of its great and noble warriors have slain the sons of the evil one, then it must be true.
About the only thing that seems to be required for a fallacious fact to take root in the minds of the functionally insane is for a known liar in Washington and/or the media to have authoritatively uttered it. It matters not if the fallacious fact is later retracted and/or completely discredited. It matters not if the fallacious fact represents a brazen rewriting of history just weeks after that history was recorded. And it matters not if belief in the fallacious fact requires belief in a whole host of other fallacious facts that are internally inconsistent and completely lacking in logic.
Never mind, for example, that it is extremely unlikely that the Hussein brothers would be holed up in a Kurdish stronghold, where they are, according to Team Bush, universally despised. Never mind that it is equally unlikely that the pair would be holed up, together, in an unsecured location with no means of escape. Never mind as well that it is very unlikely that, between the two of them, they had just a single guard. Never mind that it is unlikely that the two would seek refuge in the home of a man who apparently sometimes claimed to be a relative, but actually was not. And never mind that that home has already been bulldozed, thus destroying all evidence of what happened there.
Never mind as well that neither Hussein brother was known to wear a full beard. That new look, according to U.S. officials, was part of their disguises. And that is a reasonable enough claim, I suppose, but is it also reasonable to assume that the two have been on a three-month feeding frenzy in order to pack on some extra pounds, also as part of their disguises? And never mind, I should add here, that the corpse identified as Uday appears to be sporting a beard that was created with a black magic marker. And never mind that we are left to conclude that the extra weight and facial hair enabled the two to live unrecognized in enemy territory, but will not prevent their corpses from being identified by the Iraqi people.
Never mind that officials at the scene of the firefight initially said that the recovered bodies were too badly damaged to be visually identified, which would be expected given the firepower that was unleashed upon them, but which was, nonetheless, directly contradicted by the release of the photos. And never mind that while Team Bush claims that captured Iraqi officials have positively identified the bodies, those same alleged officials have never been paraded before the Iraqi people, or the American people, despite claims that such displays are necessary to reassure everyone that the old regime is no longer in charge.
Never mind that no attempt was made to take the Hussein brothers alive, despite the fact that the real Uday and Kusai would be invaluable intelligence assets, since they presumably know where all the bodies are buried, and where all the mythical WMDs are hidden, and where all the fugitive Baathists, including their father, are in hiding. And never mind that live prisoners would have been far more convincing than photographic images of mutilated corpses. And never mind that it is decidedly more difficult to pass off a live impersonator than it is to falsely identify an altered corpse.
And never mind, finally, that there is something seriously wrong with the claim that it took 200 or more of Rummy's best fighting men÷armed with state-of-the-art missiles, grenades and guns, and accompanied by the world's most deadly helicopters, airplanes and tanks÷several hours and millions of dollars worth of munitions to defeat an enemy force of two able-bodied adults, one disabled adult and one young teenager, armed only with AK-47s and pinned down in what could hardly be described (and yet still was) as a fortified location.
Never mind all of that because the Bushmen do not lie, so if they claim to have slain a couple of dragons, then it must be true. And if they claim that doing so marked a major turning point in 'post-war' operations, then that must be true as well. Clearly, we are winning the War on Terr'ism. America is standing tall.
Never mind that nothing has really changed in Iraq. The 'diehard resistance' will continue to fight÷indefinitely. U.S. troops will continue to die. Troop morale will continue to plummet as it becomes ever more apparent to our soldiers that they have put their lives on the line and lost a part of their souls to serve not as liberators, but as occupiers.
In the asylum, it is now firmly ingrained in the national psyche that the Sons of Saddam are dead÷and that is cause for joyous celebration. This is not the time for doubts about what is in that congressional report on 9ö11. Nor about whether the Bushettes lied to sell their war. And pay no attention to those distracting little stories that sometimes pop up, usually only briefly, in the news. Who cares, for example, that some Brit whistleblower decided to kill himself? Or that Bush's nominee to head the Navy also decided to kill himself? Or that Guantanamo is morphing from a concentration camp into a death camp? Or that someone shot a councilman in council chambers despite elaborate post-9ö11 security measures? Or that the gunman was then picked off in a crowd by an uncannily accurate plainclothes officer who just happened to be on hand and who was able to immediately assess the chaotic situation and know within seconds exactly what to do?
In the asylum, none of that matters because nothing is real unless our masters tell us that it is, and then it only remains real until it becomes necessary to render a new reality. And the functionally insane nod their heads in agreement, their eyes never betraying a hint of confusion over the ever-shifting reality being created for them.
And the walls, meanwhile, get a little bit higher. Can you see them yet?
David McGowan is the author of "Derailing Democracy" and "Understand the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion."
<http://davesweb.cnchost.com/index.htm>
The Center for an Informed America
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4341.htm
How bout that PPT? e
Prewar statements by Cheney under scrutiny
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON -- Unlike CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who have taken responsibility and ex-pressed regret for allowing President Bush to make an erroneous claim in his State of the Union address, Vice President Dick Cheney in recent days has staked out an unapologetic defense of the war in Iraq.
Last week, the president took personal responsibility for the claim that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Africa, an assertion that rested partly on forged documents. But a day later, Cheney was basking in applause during a speech to conservative state legislators with a line suggesting little doubt about the war's justifications or results.
"In Iraq, a dictator with a deep and bitter hatred of the United States -- who built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction and cultivated ties to terrorists -- is no more," Cheney said.
As the White House fends off questions about whether the administration misused prewar intelligence, lawmakers and analysts are increasingly scrutinizing the role played by Cheney. Some are asking if Cheney, one of the most powerful figures in the administration and perhaps the most influential vice president in history, went too far in making the case for war.
Cheney has drawn attention for several reasons, among them his prewar visits to CIA analysts, which some say pressured those analysts to exaggerate the Iraqi threat; his involvement in the claim that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger; and his strong prewar statements, some of which are now in question, on Iraq's weapons programs.
Critics say Cheney's role may have helped mask significant disputes within the U.S. intelligence community. Those disputes have been raised anew given the failure to find chemical or biological weapons in Iraq or evidence of a reconstituted nuclear weapons program.
Officials at the CIA and the vice president's office have explained Cheney's personal visits to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., as a healthy indication of his attention to their work, and not an attempt to skew conclusions to fit a policy goal of toppling Saddam Hussein.
The vice president was accompanied by his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on the visits, which supplemented the daily intelligence briefings for Cheney and those he attends with Bush.
"He's got a deep interest in intelligence and engages actively with our folks on it," one CIA official said. "That is something which we welcome."
But Greg Thielmann, who retired in September as director of strategic, proliferation and military affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, said he saw no similar curiosity from Cheney about the State Department's intelligence shop, known as INR.
That agency was far more skeptical than the CIA about claims that Iraq possessed threatening weaponry.
"One would think if Cheney was on some sort of noble pursuit of the truth and really wanted to get into details, he would have noticed that INR had very loud and lengthy dissents on some critical pieces of Iraq intelligence," Thielmann said.
"You'd think he might want to hear from us," he added. "It never happened, of course, because Cheney wasn't engaged in an academic search for truth."
The State Department bureau concluded last October that there was no compelling evidence Iraq had rebuilt its nuclear weapons program, according to recently declassified portions of a National Intelligence Estimate, a top-level synthesis of U.S. intelligence reports.
INR also characterized as "highly dubious" claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Africa. "We thought the nuclear section of the estimate was so flawed that we thought we needed to have a whole special treatment of it to explain our views," Thielmann said.
An official in Cheney's office said CIA analysts offered the government's most authoritative information on Iraq and other intelligence matters, and dismissed the State Department's dissent as a small minority view in the intelligence community. Cheney's office also declined to specify how many times the vice president visited with analysts, or to describe what was discussed.
But some say Cheney's visits contributed to an atmosphere that pressured the CIA to conform with an administration policy bent on regime change in Iraq.
"These visits were unprecedented," wrote three Democratic members of Congress in a July 21 letter to Cheney. "Normally, vice presidents, yourself included, receive regular briefing from (the) CIA in your office and have a CIA officer on permanent detail. There is no reason for the vice president to make personal visits to CIA analysts."
Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said two weeks ago at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee that he knew of "at least three" intelligence analysts who said they felt pressured to draw dramatic conclusions about Iraq.
A senior intelligence official said Cheney may have not intended to apply pressure. "But whatever (Cheney) was saying, analysts certainly felt there was pressure," the official said. "There was an outcome, and they were being driven to get stuff to support that outcome."
In the year preceding the war, unclassified CIA intelligence assessments provided to Congress went from expressing low-level concern about Iraq's weapons capability to expressing the same information in "alarmist" terms, said Joseph Cirincione, director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
At the same time, officials including Cheney began voicing their views of Iraq's illegal weapons in more certain terms.
Regarding nuclear weapons, Cheney said in a speech last August to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." Yet that was a less-than-unanimous view in the intelligence community.
Cheney's role in the controversial uranium claim began in early 2002, when his aides acknowledge that he asked the CIA about sketchy intelligence reports indicating that Iraq may have sought the material from Niger for a nuclear bomb.
Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent by the CIA to check out the report and was told of Cheney's interest. He concluded that there was too much oversight from an international consortium for the sale to have occurred, and that is what he reported back.
"The vice president's office asked a serious question," Wilson wrote in a newspaper account last month. "I was asked to help formulate the answer."
Tenet and Cheney's office said the vice president was never briefed on the results of Wilson's trip, or even of the CIA's doubts about the claim.
Cheney also apparently did not know that Tenet had telephoned a Bush aide and sent two memos to White House officials asking them to remove the uranium reference from a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati on Oct. 7. The White House revealed the existence of the memos on July 22.
"I don't think he was aware the CIA had pulled that out of the Cincinnati speech," the Cheney aide said.
Cheney was among those who reviewed the president's State of the Union address before Bush delivered it Jan. 28. But Cheney knew nothing of the CIA's doubts about the uranium claim so it raised no red flags, the official said.
Some outside the administration find it hard to believe Cheney could be so deeply enmeshed in intelligence issues but be left out of the loop regarding the uranium claim, especially because it was a subject in which Cheney took interest.
"The vice president became very interested in this whole story of (uranium) coming from Africa to Iraq," said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. "I can't believe that the CIA did not provide to the vice president, since he was the one that requested it, all the information that they gathered about Niger."
Before the war, Cheney also emphasized as a "fact" that Iraq had imported high-strength aluminum tubes needed for a restarted nuclear weapons program. The same day last September that The New York Times ran a story on the tubes, attributed to unnamed Bush administration officials, Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press."
Citing the newspaper story, Cheney said: "It's now public that, in fact, (Saddam) has been seeking to acquire ... the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge" needed to enrich uranium for a bomb.
But according to information declassified last month, the State Department's INR cited technical experts at the Energy Department "who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment."
The "alternative view" expressed in a National Intelligence Estimate last year said it was "far more likely" the tubes were intended for the production of artillery rockets.
Cheney's backers say he never misled the public or went beyond the majority views of the intelligence community at the time of his comments. And they insist that the use or misuse of intelligence to justify war will likely fizzle as an issue with voters.
And Cheney has been adept in defending the administration politically. In a speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute two weeks ago, he emphasized the point that a murderous dictator had been stopped.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/08/06/build/world/46-cheney.i...
Stealing The Internet
Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for TomPaine.com.
Ever stop to wonder what is really happening to the Internet these days?
The crackdown by the music industry on illegal downloading tells just part of the story. Even with the dot-com bust, the digital boom is here, as high-speed connections, faster processors and new wireless devices increasingly become part of life. But the thousands of lawsuits are not just about ensuring record companies and artists get the royalties they deserve. They're part of a larger plan to fundamentally change the way the Internet works.
From Congress to Silicon Valley, the nation's largest communication and entertainment conglomerates -- and software firms that want their business -- are seeking to restructure the Internet, to charge people for high-speed uses that are now free and to monitor content in an unprecedented manner. This is not just to see if users are swapping copyrighted CDs or DVDs, but to create digital dossiers for their own marketing purposes.
Today, the part of the Net that is public and accessible is shrinking.
All told, this is the business plan of America's handful of telecom giants -- the phone, cable, satellite, wireless and entertainment companies that now bring high-speed Internet access to most Americans. Their ability to meter Internet use, monitor Internet content and charge according to those metrics is how they are positioning themselves for the evolving Internet revolution.
The Internet's early promise as a medium where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged and the public interest can be served is increasingly being relegated to history's dustbin. Today, the part of the Net that is public and accessible is shrinking, while the part of the Net tied to round-the-clock billing is poised to grow exponentially.
One front in the corporate high-tech takeover of the Internet can be seen in Congress. On July 21, the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing on the "Regulatory Status of Broadband." There, a coalition that included Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Disney and others, told Congress that Internet service providers (ISPs) should be able to impose volume-based fee structures, based on bits transmitted per month. This is part of a behind-the-scenes struggle by the Net's content providers and retailers to cut deals with the ISPs so that each sector will have unimpaired access to consumers and can maximize profits.
The industry coalition spoke of "tiered" service, where consumers would be charged according to "gold, silver and bronze" levels of bandwidth use. The days where lawmakers once spoke about eradicating the "Digital Divide" in America has come full circle. Under the scenario presented by the lobbyists, people on fixed incomes would have to accept a stripped-down Internet, full of personally targeted advertising. Other users could get a price break if they receive bundled content -- news, music, games -- from one telecom or media company. Anybody interested in other "non-mainstream" news, software or higher-volume usage, could pay for the privilege. The panel's response was warm, suggesting that the industry should work this out with little federal intrusion. That approach has already been embraced by the industry-friendly Federal Communications Commission.
Meanwhile, in the courts, there has been a rash of new litigation spurred by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s pursuit of people who have illegally shared copyrighted music. The music industry no doubt hopes to discourage file-swapping piracy, and some big telecom companies, such as SBC Communications, have counter-sued, saying they will protect their clients' privacy. While that's good public relations, there's more to this story as well. Telecoms, like most big corporations, don't want other businesses, let alone the government, interfering in their operations -- so there's plenty of reasons to counter-sue -- even if the record companies and telecoms have parallel stakes in privatizing the Net.
Users need to know what part of the Net will be public and accessible and what part will be billed to credit cards.
But there's also a technologically insidious element to this side of the story. The software now exists to track and monitor Internet content on a scale and to a degree that previously hasn't been possible. The RIAA is taking people to court because it has the technology to track illegal Internet file swapping. This level of content-tracking is the next-generation application of what's been developed to keep children and teenagers from viewing porn at the local library or home. Consider this typical bit of sales arcana from the Web site of Allot Communications, which says its software can track and filter Internet communications and use that analysis to bill consumers.
Allot Communications provides network traffic management and content filtering solutions for enterprises, IP service providers, and educational institutions... Allot's QoS [quality of service] and service-level agreement enforcement solutions maximize return on investment by managing over-subscription [unintended uses], throttling P2P [peer-to-peer, the music piracy software] traffic and delivering tiered classes of services.
This new world of metering, monitoring and monetizing Internet content has prompted new business ventures, such as cable firms exploring partnerships with the videogame industry, where there's plenty of money to be made in high-volume interactive uses. In fact, the reason Hollywood has delayed the deployment of next-generation digital television, besides their fear of digital piracy, is they have not yet figured out how to impose their pricing model -- to extend their current distribution and sales monopoly.
Of course, the last concern in corporate boardrooms and Congress is how the privatization of the Net will affect free speech and the public interest. Just as C-Span and public broadcasting were crumbs thrown to the public the last time new communications technologies were developed, there's been little talk about insulating public-interest uses from a more 'metered' Internet.
There is undoubtedly a legitimate business case to be made for having people pay for emerging high-bandwidth uses, but whether people will be charged to see streamed videos of political candidates or public meetings is another matter. Moreover, users need to know what part of the Net will be public and accessible and what part will be billed to credit cards -- and this is unclear.
While there needs to be a balance between private sector goals and public policy needs, that's hardly a topic of discussion on the Internet's frontline. Currently, America's media giants are planning the equivalent of a 19th-century land grab in cyberspace to ensure they will profit mightily in the 21st century. Metering data transmissions and monitoring content is how they will get there. And the tools and political climate to achieve this are here.
This century's new media giants are now working with Congress, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell and their industry partners to transform the Internet. The only open question is whether the public will influence this transformation before it's too late.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8528/view/print
Vote Fraud:
"When asked to comment on allegations by Bev Allen that the Diebold software may have been designed to facilitate fraud, Rubin described the claim as "ludicrous."Rubin could dismiss the allegation of deliberately fraudulent design in Diebold software, because his team never examined the Diebold software in question. Incredibly, this software keeps not one, but two Microsoft Access data tables of voting results. It's like a business keeping two sets of account books. The two tables are notionally identical copies of the votes collated from all polling stations. The software uses the first table for on-demand reports that might uncover alteration of the data --such as spot checks of results from individual polling stations. The second of the two tables is the one used to determine the election result. But the second table can be hacked and altered to produce fake election totals without affecting spot check reports derived from the first table."
Did the US Mainstream Media do an end run around the REAL scandal?
[Did the Pope Catholic?]
http://www.govsux.com/voting.htm
At a minimum, the federal requirements to "upgrade" voting machine technologies must be rescinded. The "hanging chad" scandal in Florida in the 2000 election seems, in retrospect, to have been an elaborate distraction from the deeper scandals of the way it was rigged (expelling voters from the voting rolls, behind-the-scenes manipulation of the judicial and political processes). Since the "chad" problem was "obviously" a defective technology - the States are now provided with Federal funds to solve it. The method being used is electronic computerized touch screen ballot machines -- which have zero credibility as a legitimate means to accurately count votes. No "evidentiary trail" is possible with these machines. Recounting of disputed elections (as provided by law) is not possible, since there is no physical evidence for the ballots. Several investigations have charged that the security of these machines is laughable and easily tampered with -- and likely the reason why the Republicans seized back control of the Senate in the 2002 Congressional Elections.
If the Democratic Party -- and the corporate media -- continue to sleepwalk through this scandal, then there will only be one state in 2004 that will actually conduct a certifiable election. In the 1990s, Oregon switched to state-wide vote-by-mail ballots, supposedly to make voting more convenient. While this poses its own problems (as described below), it blocks the Federal push for computerized ballot machines (since it is not possible to place these in every home!). While this, by itself, will not prevent the Republicans from stealing another election in 2004, it will provide for greater ability to certifiy that Oregon's state and local elections are accurately counted.
http://oilempire.us/ballot.html
Great one by ZEAL:
Excerpts:
Just like last time, there is no way that we can constructively discuss inflation and deflation unless we get the definitions out on the table up front to utterly annihilate any ambiguity. For some reason great confusion reigns today regarding the actual precise meanings of these words. Here are the real and true definitions, according to the massive Webster’s unabridged dictionary that keeps my desk from flying away.
Inflation … “A persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency.”
Disinflation … “A period or process of slowing the rate of inflation.”
Deflation … “A fall in the general price level or a contraction of credit and available money.”
There are two key points in these true definitions of inflation and deflation that every investor must understand.
First, note the key monetary nature of inflation and deflation. Both of these macro economy-wide forces are the result of changes in the underlying money supply relative to the available pool of goods and services on which to spend the money. If the money supply grows at a substantially different rate than the US economy, the inevitable result is inflation or deflation.
Second, inflation and deflation are economy-wide forces affecting general price levels. Rising or falling prices in particular narrow sectors of the economy often have absolutely nothing to do with inflation or deflation. Energy prices rising alone in isolation often have nothing to do with inflation. Conversely computer equipment prices falling alone in isolation have nothing to do with deflation. Inflation and deflation are only relevant across economy-wide general price levels.
edit
Before 1933 was the Age of Gold. Back then a dollar your grandfather saved in the early 1800s would buy the same amount of goods and services as a dollar you saved in the early 1900s! Can you imagine living in an environment where housing prices never skyrocketed, where grocery prices were always constant, where transportation and energy prices never rose, and where the value of money was as solid as the gold that fully backed it? Compared to today’s tragic environment where the prices of life’s necessities relentlessly rise every year and impoverish millions, the Age of Gold was financial paradise!
edit
Franklin Roosevelt was without a doubt the worst president in America’s history. After destroying the solid golden foundation of the US dollar he built the immoral foundations of the modern Welfare State which steals 50% of the income of the productive today to subsidize the lazy and unproductive in order to bribe them for votes. Almost all of the huge financial and debt problems America faces today would have never happened if Franklin Roosevelt hadn’t betrayed the very US Constitution that he swore to protect. May history curse him and his blighted memory forever.
edit
Since the end of 1998, the US Gross Domestic Product, or the total pool of available goods and services produced in the entire US economy, has grown by 17.5%. This is impressive in light of the immense financial pain felt in the States since 2000. But in comparison, over the same short period M3 has rocketed up by 46.0% and MZM by 59.8%! Money supply growth in the US, by the Fed’s own measurements, is currently outstripping US economic growth by 2.6 to 3.4 times! As relatively more money chases after relatively fewer goods and services, how can general price levels do anything but rise?
edit
So when bureaucratic Fed or government types like Greenspan ignore true monetary data and constantly publicly proclaim they are “fighting the threat of deflation”, odds are they are just stage-managing bond-market expectations. The sleight of hand is designed to draw the huge bond markets’ attention away from the real monetary growth that will lead to inflation and instead refocus it on the manufactured threat of falling general price levels. Unless someone nukes the Fed, it is hard to imagine general prices ever really falling in the States under this sad fiat-paper regime with which we have been saddled by the Keynesian socialists.
The long rates matter so much to the government and Fed because the only thing holding back the necessary Great Bear bust in the States is the mammoth wave of mortgage refinancings by American consumers. With general debt levels so high, stock-market valuations so extreme, and the economic situation so dire, any disruption of so-called “equity extraction”, which is really just digging deeper into debt using houses as collateral, will lead to much lower consumer spending in the States. Since businesses are not investing and their excess capacity remains so high from the bubble years, if consumers in the US substantially slow their spending a very long recession or Depression is virtually assured.
Higher long rates, the natural consequence of monetary inflation, are the greatest threat to the mortgage-refi boom in the US and hence the entire fragile basis for today’s consumer-driven US economic “recovery”. Our final graph shows the Long Treasury rates, the 30y mortgage rates, and the ballooning money supplies tossed in for good measure.
edit
While general deflation was possible in the early 1930s with a Gold Standard severely limiting monetary growth, it is all but impossible now in the Age of Fiat Paper when central bankers can print unlimited amounts of inherently worthless fiat currency which inevitably leads to steep rises in general price levels.
So what’s an investor to do?
Inflationary environments marked by rising long rates decimate bond portfolios and lead to horrible bear markets in equities. The US stock markets essentially traded sideways to lower for a decade in the 1970s until the early 1980s, the very inflationary time marked in the graphs above. Inflationary price rises spawned by fiat monetary excess are bad for all intangible paper assets, not a good omen for stocks or bonds.
The ultimate financial asset to own in times of excessive monetary growth and hence widespread inflation is gold.
edit
http://www.zealllc.com/2003/infdef2.htm
Anybody testing in the US?
If anybody was and they found something do you really think you'd hear about on Faux news?
Ever seen a soft drink commercial on TV?
Tests reveal pesticides in Coke, Pepsi, Mirinda
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, AUGUST 05, 2003 01:53:33 PM ]
NEW DELHI: After bottled water, it's aerated water that has plugged the purity test. In another exposé, Down To Earth has found that 12 major cold drink brands sold in and around Delhi contain a deadly cocktail of pesticide residues dangerous enough to cause, in the long term, cancer, birth defects besides damaging the nervous and reproductive systems.
[Don't worry it's only in india everthing is fine here in the USA...no mad cow either...your getting sleppy, sleeepy...]
The results are based on tests conducted by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). In February this year, the CSE had blasted the bottled water industry's claims of being pure when its laboratory had found pesticide residues in bottled water sold in Delhi and Mumbai.
This time, it analysed the contents of 12 cold drink brands sold in and around the capital. They were tested for organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides and synthetic pyrethroids - all commonly used in India as insecticides.
The test results showed that all samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides: lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos. In all samples, levels of pesticide residues far exceeded the maximum residue limit for pesticides in water used as food, set down by the European Economic Commission (EEC).
Each sample had enough poison to cause - in the long term - cancer, damage to the nervous and reproductive systems, birth defects and severe disruption of the immune system.
The tests also revealed that market leaders Coca-Cola and Pepsi had almost similar concentrations of pesticide residues. Total pesticides in all PepsiCo brands on an average were 0.0180 mg/l (milligramme per litre), 36 times higher than the EEC limit for total pesticides (0.0005 mg/l). Total pesticides in all Coca-Cola brands on an average were 0.0150 mg/l, 30 times higher than the EEC limit.
While contaminants in Pepsi were 37 times higher than the EEC limit, they exceeded the norms by 45 times in Coca-Cola. Mirinda Lemon topped the chart among all the tested brand samples, with a total pesticide concentration of 0.0352 mg/l.
The cold drinks sector in India is a much bigger money-spinner than the bottled water segment. In 2001, Indians consumed over 6,500 million bottles of cold drinks. Its growing popularity means that children and teenagers, who glug these bottles, are drinking a toxic potion.
PML also tested two soft drink brands sold in the US, to see if they contained pesticides. They didn't.
CSE found that the regulations for the powerful and massive soft drinks industry are much weaker, indeed non-existent, as compared to those for the bottled water industry. The norms that exist to regulate the quality of cold drinks are a maze of meaningless definitions. This "food" sector is virtually unregulated.
The Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act of 1954, or the Fruit Products Order (FPO) of 1955 - both mandatory acts aimed at regulating the quality of contents in beverages such as cold drinks - do not even provide any scope for regulating pesticides in soft drinks. The FPO, under which the industry gets its licence to operate, has standards for lead and arsenic that are 50 times higher than those allowed for the bottled water industry.
What's more, the sector is also exempted from the provisions of industrial licensing under the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951. It gets a one-time licence to operate from the ministry of food processing industries; this licence includes a no-objection certificate from the local government as well as the state pollution control board, and a water analysis report. There are no environmental impact assessments, or sitting regulations. The industry's use of water, therefore, is not regulated.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=113872
Ignorant Citizens Destroying Freedom
By Chuck Baldwin
August 5, 2003
Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying,
"Ignorant and free has never been and never will be."
He is right, of course. Furthermore, this simple proverb may best explain the cause of America's rush to moral and political destruction.
Under our form of government, an informed and educated electorate is essential. There can be no lasting freedom without it. All of our public and private institutions derive their shape and sustenance from people. Every single one of them.
People sit on court juries and staff government bureaucracies. They become our sheriffs, lawyers, and judges. They write our newspapers and magazines and man our television talk shows and news desks. They teach in our schools and in our Sunday Schools.
In America, "we the people" are the government; we are the authority! Nothing happens in this country except that "we the people" promote it, finance it, or at least, allow it to happen.
It's time then that "we the people" started taking responsibility for the mess we have made of our country! It's time to stop blaming the Democrats or the Republicans or anyone else in Washington, D.C. Our nation is exactly where the people have taken it.
Furthermore, the nation is exactly where the people want it to be. I'll say it again, the nation is exactly where the people want it to be. If it wasn't, the people would do something to change it. That they don't proves they are content with life as it is.
Americans today are content to be ignorant about the abuses committed by their elected leaders. They are content to be ignorant about what is really going on Iraq and in over one hundred other countries where American troops are putting their lives on the line to protect the elite's Brave New World. They are content to be taxed to the point of financial ruin. They are content to have their public schools deteriorate into elaborate (and dangerous) baby- sitting services. They are content to listen to the propaganda that emanates from both CNN and Rush Limbaugh.
Beyond that, the American people today are intoxicated with sports and recreation to the point that they have become slaves to it. The best that many of our husbands and fathers can do is to bury themselves in front of the television set all weekend and get drunk while rooting for their favorite sports celebrities. Some do more than that, of course.
Some people work all week so they can follow their favorite college football team to wherever they are playing. Understand that this goes on for as long as the season lasts. The time, money, and energy that goes into such fanaticism is incalculable.
Sports in America has become more than a past-time. It is a religion. It is a religion that demands countless hours and financial contributions from its worshippers. More than that, sports (and many other distractions) have become an excuse for freeborn men and women to acquiesce their God-given responsibility to be a knowledgeable and informed citizenry capable of self-government.
Liberty requires more than putting a flag on a car window! Liberty requires that people are willing to educate themselves regarding the pressing issues of the day. It requires that people are willing to hold themselves, their children, and, yes, their elected leaders accountable to the eternal principles of right and wrong.
In fact, with no million dollar organizations, with no nationwide media campaigns, and with no political pundits telling them what to do, the American people ON THEIR OWN could vote into office anyone they wanted to.
For example, The Constitution Party's Presidential Nominee, Howard Phillips, was on the ballot in some 40 states during the 2000 elections. If every person in those 40 states who only voted for G.W. Bush because he was the "lesser of two evils" would have ON THEIR OWN pulled the lever for Phillips, he could have won that election! Yes, he could have!
The American people do not need the major media or the Limbaughs, Hannitys, or O'Reillys telling them what to do! All they need to do is spend a little time studying the issues for themselves, forming their own opinions, and then acting independently and courageously upon their own convictions. That recipe worked pretty well back in 1776, and it would work pretty well again in 2004.
However, as long as the American people are content to be cheaply entertained, content to be deceived by conscienceless politicians and their collaborators in the propaganda press, content to remain personally ignorant of America's founding principles and constitutional requirements of government, the words of Jefferson will come to haunt this nation as an ominous and self-fulfilling prophecy.
© Chuck Baldwin
NOTE TO THE READER:
These commentaries are copyrighted and may be reposted or republished without charge providing the publication does not charge for subscriptions or advertising and providing the publication reposts the column intact with full credit given including Chuck's web site: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com. If the publication charges for subscriptions or advertising, the publication must contact chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com for permission to use this column.
Can I get an amen?
I find it displeasing that no one seems to talk very much, in the media that is, about the ugly side of any war which is testing weapon systems out...
Dirty, nasty, weapon systems as well as regular old "big bombs" like in Pipelineistan...
When McViegh talked about collateral damage he was a monster, when Faux News does it, it's expected. It's okay that we don't even try to count civillian casualties in this war...and most of the pictures of kids are on the net, not on the boob tube.
The story I just posted is but one example oif the stuff no one wants to talk about...
The other thing we are missing on the news is the actual number of troops getting dead over there...they under report that too...if they don't get blowed up we don't hear about it...
I have links but I think most here know what I'm talking about...
2004 should be interesting...
The Gulf War Story No One Would Publish
Operation Black Dog
http://www.rense.com/general39/op.htm
Silver back under 5.
Happy happy happy...
Buy it under 4.50 or as close to 4.50 as possible...
Back up the truck...a big one...
Take delivery...
Worse case you tie up funds and only get 10% best case you could get a 10 to 20 bagger...
Time is the teller of this tale.
All I can do is tell you what I see via the posts here...it ain't pretty kids we have time but the clock is now ticking...before it looked like we had years and years...now maybe we have years...but not many...
PPT should be back in effect tomorrow...e
The Gulf War Story No One Would Publish
Operation Black Dog
By David Guyatt
Deep Black Lies.co.uk
8-3-3
Source "B" was shaken but not stirred when we first met. The odour of fear and uncertainty was palpable - a fact that was no surprise in view of what I was about to be told. This wasn't my first 007 Bond-like covert rendezvous, but it would certainly be my most startling. We had agreed to meet in order that the source could tell me about a highly secret and even more highly sensitive US operation known as "Black Dog." Neither of us trusted electronic communication and, therefore, a face-to-face meeting was essential.
It was a sunny day and our encounter was in a seamy pub somewhere in the countryside of England. I had watched my back the entire journey - just in case. The meeting followed a story I had written on Gulf War Illness, when I had cautiously been told about a top secret US mission known as "Black Cat." This, I was told, involved a "black" US B52 bomber launching from Offut AFB in Nebraksa, and flying a round-trip to the Persian Gulf.
The hulking bomber carried one bomb packed with VX nerve agent, the most potent chemical weapon in the US CW armoury. The bomb was dropped on elements of the Republican Guard in Southern Iraq, I was informed. Heavy casualties apparently resulted. The operation, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, was a counter-strike, following an Iraqi Scud that fell on Israel. The missile had contained Sarin and drove the Israeli government almost apoplectic with rage. Fuming, the Israeli's had readied to detonate a nuclear warhead high above Baghdad. Only the swift intervention of President George Bush forestalled what would have been a cataclysmic move destined to unravel the carefully wrought Arab backed Coalition lined-up against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
To avoid any of the nerve agent being blown back towards coalition troops, the mission involved the launch, from Dhahran of a C130 Hercules carrying one, possibly two, massive five ton Fuel Air bombs. These were detonated above ground zero - the location of the VX chemical agent strike - to ensure all traces of the nerve agent were destroyed. Quite possibly, the Fuel Air Device destroyed all evidence of the illegal counter-strike too, by incinerating bodies. Cleansing by fire is as old as warfare itself.
This information led me to speak to various sources as I searched for corroboration. I was advised to contact Tim Sebastian, former BBC correspondent and well-known author. During a brief telephone call, Sebastian confirmed he also had the same information as I, as recommended I contact the Countess of Mar - a House of Lords representative with a special interest in Gulf War issues. I met Margaret Mar one evening in late summer 1997. A charming and honest individual, she confirmed she had taken Sebastian's information to the Ministry of Defence in private. They later informed her that following consultation with the US Department of Defense officials, no record of the mission had been found. Clearly this was no denial.
Moreover, their explanation didn't gel in other significant ways. The official who responded to the MOD enquiry was Bernard Rostker, the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illness. Hardly, I thought, the person one would expect to be privy to top secret information on a sensitive CIA operation. Besides, I was to later learn that Black Cat almost certainly was subject to a "compartmented" mission name. This simply means that at different levels of the command structure the mission would have been assigned a different name. This nifty device - not dissimilar from Admiral Horatio Nelson holding a telescope to his blind-eye and observing he "sees no ships," - caters nicely to instant deniability, but also helps to identify the level that leaks originate from. Clever. In any event, months later, in December 1997, Tim Sebastian told me that he had fully corroborated Black Cat during a month-long trip to the USA. This was good news but not surprising.
In any event, Source B was concerned not with Black Cat - which I learned he knew about in some detail - but a second, far more sensitive mission known as "Black Dog." This mission had occurred around 25 February 1991 and involved Biological weapons, I was told. Specifically the weapon was a bacterium that resulted in those contaminated drowning in their own bodily fluids. Black Dog involved an aircraft launched from a US carrier in the Red Sea that was targeted on an Iraqi CB weapons plant. The bomb was designed to spread its load via an aerosol spray. Source B provided additional information that cannot be revealed for fear of identifying the individual and other sources.
My first meeting with Lady Mar was predominantly to discuss this second mission. Both she and Tim Sebastian were aware of a second mission that they both knew as "Black Cat 11," but possessed no details. I was not surprised. Some weeks earlier I had contacted a senior US journalist, asking if he would collaborate on my story. I gave him a brief outline of Black Cat, hoping he may stumble on to Black Dog, too. He did, or at least got details of a mission remarkably similar.
Months of investigation resulted in the development of the following mission details:
Original source (B) states that Black Dog entailed the launch of a US Navy warplane from a US Carrier on station in the Red Sea. The source remains unable to identify which of two carriers the aircraft launched from (both the USS Saratoga and the USS Kennedy were on station in the Red Sea during this time-frame: 24/25 February 1991). Nor is source able to provide exact date of this mission. The source further stated that aircrew and ground-crew were CIA.
The source continued by stating that the aircraft dropped biological warfare munition(s) on an Iraqi chemical/biological weapons factory and that numerous deaths resulted. Source states the munition (s) contained a bacteriological agent with a life of no more than 48 hours. The bacterium was not communicable, and had no given name, only a batch number. Those attacked with this weapon drowned in their own bodily fluids, according to the source, who added that the bio-bomb was parachute deployed and its contents dispersed by aerosol spray.
US Sources state that a US Navy S3A Viking aircraft crash landed (presumably as a result of ground fire) behind enemy lines prior to the commencement of the ground war. It is unknown if the aircraft was outward bound on its mission or homebound afterwards. In any event, the spectre of a US "sanitised" aircraft heavily armed with chemical and possibly biological weapons, over-flying hostile territory during time of war logically excludes the possibility this was a training or any other "innocent" mission.
The Viking is used in a long-range recconassaince/anti submarine warfare role. It is thus only lightly armed for defence. In this instance, however, sources say the aircraft was heavily modified with stealth capabilities and was coloured a flat dark grey. The aircraft had no markings, insignia or other identification. Instrumentation was United States manufacture. Bombs were externally attached to wing pylons. The procedure of using unmarked military aircraft (known as "sanitised" i.e., plausible deniability) is known to be consistent with numerous other CIA "black" operations that have reached the public domain.
Sources additionally confirm the mission was conducted under the auspices of the Central Intelligence Agency and that the pilot was an Agency employee (presumably a "sheep-dipped" USN pilot). The aircraft carried, we are told, only two bombs due to "weight considerations." The downed aircraft had one remaining bomb attached to external pylons. This munition contained a deadly mixture of Tabun, Sarin and Cyclo-Sarin. However, US sources are unable to identify a target or confirm whether this aircraft launched from a USN carrier - giving rise to understandable caution that this was one and the same mission - although the mission profile is similar.
Meanwhile, US sources confirm that the crash site was approximately 60 kilometres behind enemy lines (exact co-ordinates 45.90E - 29.73N) - in a barren wilderness. There the aircraft remained for several days. In the interim, the pilot, who did not eject but came down with his aircraft, was recovered alive.
Following the launch of the Ground War (24 February 1991), US and French divisions swept Iraqi forces away from the general area (As Salman), thereby permitting intact recovery of the aircraft. Consequently, a US two man Black Ops "Search Team" were dispatched from Camp Four, in Saudi Arabia (co-ordinates 44.30E-29.00N) to locate the crashed aircraft and provide exact co-ordinates for recovery.
Camp Four was a large sprawling complex that housed mostly US forces, but some British elements too. It was a jump off point for the US 101 Airborne (Screaming Eagles) into Iraq on the night of 23/24 February 1991. The complex was extensively used to house and repair a variety of equipment.
The two man search team travelled North, into Iraq, by Jeep on or about 27/28 February 1991. Sources state the aircraft crashed approximately one week earlier and that the delay in commencing search and recovery operations was due to the imminent commencement of the ground war. Neither members of the two man search team were US Government employees. In fact, a private US company, almost certainly a CIA proprietary, employed both. Both individuals wore battle-dress but no insignia or other identifying patches - a fact that is again consistent with CIA black operations. An independent British military source has confirmed the presence at Camp Four, of a two man US "Spec Ops" team, in late February 1991. Source stated they were US SpecOps, no insignia or rank apparent and provided a physical description of one individual.
Some distance into Iraq, heading due north along the 45.90 East Latitude co-ordinate the search team observed the downed aircraft from a distance, we are told. Inspection via binoculars showed the right wing of the aircraft to be missing. The left wing was intact. Further observation revealed the presence of one remaining bomb located on the external pylon closest to the fuselage. The bomb was coloured a matt black with no visible marking. It was leaking.
Both team members donned CB protective equipment, we are informed, and approached. The bomb contained a German manufactured fuse designed to ignite the munition above ground. It was identified as a Mark Eleven Seven munition (MC 117) modified for liquid chemical usage and comprised of a steel body with a Mark 131 fin assembly and Central Bursting Tube - according to information made available.
A chemical weapons test with a field test kit (designated "Mary 256") was conducted and revealed the munition to contain a mixture of Tabun, Sarin and Cyclo-Sarin. It must be stressed that a chemical weapon field test kit would not, repeat not, be capable of detecting the presence of any biological weapon whatsoever. Field detection of biological organisms/bacterium is considerably more complex and requires specialist personnel and equipment. This point is stressed for obvious reasons. The presence of a bacterium as outlined by primary source is neither corroborated, nor ruled out, by these discoveries. However, it is significant that prevailing NATO and Soviet doctrine in the use of biological and chemical weapons, called the use of a "mixed load" - that is to say, munitions would typically carry a varied mixture of inter-acting chemical and biological agents/organisms.
The search team reported their discovery to base, and was ordered to withdraw immediately. Prior to departing the crash site, both team members were puzzled by the presence of a number of dead Iraqi soldiers. All wore face masks (possibly CB protective gear, but may also have been protection against wind-borne sand) and showed no apparent entry wounds or other manifestations of their fatalities. Both team members were said to be sufficiently perplexed by these bodies to take colour photographs of them, we were informed. These photographs and other details were later forwarded to a United Nations source for investigation.
Having left the crash site, the search team were replaced by a US Navy affiliated "Recovery Team." The latter team recovered the aircraft. The bomb was recovered and transported elsewhere. The damaged aircraft was airlifted - presumably by a Jolly Green Giant helicopter - back to Camp Four and temporarily housed in a compound surrounded with barbed wire. Here, a number of individuals managed to photograph the damaged aircraft on site. Copies of these and other supporting data were privately forwarded to the United Nations for investigation. Meanwhile, other military sources confirm the presence of the barbed wire compound at that location.
The two man Black Ops (search) team were in the Gulf acting under Army Command. Their mission, and, we are told, that of the latter recovery team, was conducted under the orders of General Fred Franks, commander of V11 Corps - the single largest unit in the Gulf war. Both the "Search" and "Recovery" teams formed part of a Special Unit with the designation "SCRSWA" operated under the direct command of Colonel Johnson (attached to AVSCOM - Aviation System Command, US Army). This unit has not been identified, despite a telephone call to the Pentagon library. A Pentagon employee told this writer, with a nervous laugh, that the unit designation is unknown. According to sources, there was a British involvement. This has yet to be identified and confirmed, but it thought possible the bacteriological weapon may have been of British manufacture. In any event, the remaining munition was placed in the custody of Colonel Johnson, sources say. Both members of the search team were specialists in placing, concealing and camouflaging surveillance devices, we were told. These included placing aircraft laser targeting packages.
In November 1997, at my request, the Countess of Mar, in the company of the former Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Howe, met with a senior Ministry of Defence official to discuss Operation Black Dog. The meeting was acrimonious. The result was that the MOD official could neither confirm nor deny the operation but, personally doubted the possibility that a Viking aircraft would be cast in such a role. If this remains the official's only qualitative doubt, I have some advice for him.
A phone call to the premier and highly respected publication, Janes Defence Weekly, will be rewarded with an informative discussion about the aircraft's capability and the US Navy's "Gung Ho" attitude when it comes to "black" operations. One of Jane's expert journalists told me - months prior to the MOD meeting - that there is nothing theoretically to stop a Viking from flying a mission as outlined. The journalist went on to describe other missions even more "apparently" unlikely, including the launch of U2 "spy-planes" from US Navy carriers - amongst other facts.
It remains to be stated that I was advised - from entirely unrelated sources and, in fact, an entirely unrelated story - that a special CIA team of flyers was stationed at Offut AFB during the Gulf war. One of these, a former Navy pilot, and senior team member, is alleged to have been posted to a US aircraft carrier to assume temporary duty (TDY) as Commander Air Group (CAG) during the same time-frame. For a variety of reasons, I now nurture some suspicions that this later information may have been artfully "planted" as disinformation in order to discredit this story. The identity of the senior team member, employed by the CIA and ONI, is known to me, as is his background, and somewhat adds to my concerns. However, I cannot rule out the possibility that this additional information might have reached my attention innocently and coincidentally and, could be accurate?
As our investigation of this story continued, we learned of a possible reason for Black Dog. In late February 1991, an Iraqi Scud had landed in Israel. Sources were able to confirm that the missile contained biological organisms that were "dead on arrival." Whether the organisms were meant to be dead or not wasn't clear, but Iraqi in-expertise in these matters is well-known. This clearly, in the light of the prevailing logic of Black Cat, to be sufficient reason to authorise Black Dog, I believe.
The foregoing, it must be said, is powerful evidence that the US may have engaged in at least two chemical and biological warfare missions during the Gulf war. It is not, however, proof positive. Caution is understandably a key-word amongst the journalistic fraternity. At the same time outside and perverse influence to "spike" or otherwise discredit highly sensitive news stories is increasingly a fact-of-life. Those who might doubt that the media could be so easily seduced need only focus their attention on the consequences of the Gary Webb/San Jose Mercury News "Dark Alliance Series," to witness media timidity.
Having personally worked on the foregoing story for almost nine months, and witnessed numerous editors, journalists and other media representatives shy-away from it for no good reason, I am inclined to conclude that this is one of those stories destined never to reach the light of day.
The hell with that.
http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/operation_black_dog.htm
Planned layoffs surge in July, report says
NEW YORK (Reuters) — The number of job cuts announced by U.S. employers surged 43% in July after a two-month decline, a report said Tuesday, suggesting a rebound in the job market may not happen until the end of the year.
[It was supposed to happen in the begining of the year then spring then summer they've skipped fall now it's the end of the year. Buy silver...it's hard to pay the mortgage when you ain't got a job...]
Planned layoffs at U.S. firms shot up to 85,117 in July from 59,715 in June, job placement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas said. Job cuts so far in 2003 total 715,649, only 12% lower than in the same period last year.
The report said job hunters can expect an average of 20 weeks to find a job that may not match their last salary.
"Employers have all the cards," said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger. "Not only are they sharpening their pencils, but the screening of candidates is probably the toughest it has ever been."
According to the report, the consumer goods industry announced the most layoffs last month.
[Jobless recovery: ain't no such animal; never has been never will be...]
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2003-08-05-challenger_x.htm
"Unemployment is soaring but let's keep this minor key unless some trouble breaks out over it. Justice has evidence of serious labor unrest, especially among ghetto minorities." (June 15)
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=1284467
HUH?
Dear InvestorPlace Member,
Alan Greenspan has been saying the ONE WORD that will always
cause the "nervous nellies" to wring their hands in fear. It's a
word that paralyzes uninformed investors.
So what's the one word?
Deflation. No matter how many times Greenspan says it, that
doesn't make it true.
Trust me, there is no deflation at all. No threat of falling
prices. And no reason to worry.
You see, Alan Greenspan really wants people to buy bonds -- badly
-- and it's not working as well as he'd like. There has been a
rally in bonds, but the smart money is now dumping bonds and
gobbling up stocks at a record rate.
That's going to continue. In fact, my research points to a big
bull move through the end of 2004 -- at least.
And if you're not fully invested now, you're going to kick
yourself later.
[But not in stocks kids...]
Get Ready to Blast Off!
[Up or down?]
We're truly entering a great era for investors.
Day after day, money continues to pour back into the market.
Growth stocks are rallying strongly in the wake of terrific
earnings results -- especially for the stocks we own at Blue Chip
Growth.
Not every day will be up, of course. But the trend is clear --
it's a virtual lock.
And I can honestly say that this is the BEST buying opportunity
of my lifetime!!!
[Him is smarter than me, but I disagree totally. I'm with buffet hedge your bets with silver...]
==========
In Our Favor
==========
1. Many hot stocks continue to gap higher on order imbalances, as
buyers overwhelm sellers. Growth stocks are the place to be.
Earnings results have been MUCH better than expected, nearly
across the board. And earnings for our Blue Chip Growth stocks
have been spectacular.
2. When dividend tax relief was first passed, I told
InvestorPlace members that it would be the catalyst for a new
bull run. I was RIGHT. As I said at the time, this tax cut
virtually guarantees that money will continue to flow out of
bonds (with interest taxed as high as 35%) into the stock market.
3. Of course, even I was surprised when the tax on capital gains
was cut to 15%, as well. That's another HUGE shot in the arm.
It richly rewards investors for taking on a little added risk.
4. The money flow is squarely in our favor. Right now investors
are pouring out of bonds and into stocks -- some $16-$18 billion
each month. And there's still a huge amount of CASH on the
sidelines -- enough fuel to drive prices higher for the next 18
months and possibly longer.
See why I'm urging you to be fully invested today? This is the
watershed event of our investing lifetimes -- one that can fully erase the pain of the last several years.
My Blue Chip Growth Letter subscribers and I are headed for big
profits in the months ahead. Please join us for the spectacular
ride: http://investorplace.com/order/?pc=3DS179
=========
Blast Off!!!
=========
Are we making money now? You bet!
*We're up 47% in eBay since we bought it in March.
*We're up 45% in conservative Teva Pharmaceuticals.
*We're 32% in Amgen since March.
*We're up 49% in Boston Scientific.
*We're up 68% in Lennar.
*We're up 51% in Nextel since we bought in May.
*We're up 49% in Nissan.
We've clearly passed the turning point for stock investors.
These are just a few examples. Some stocks haven't taken off
yet. They will. It's NOT too late to position yourself for what
I truly believe will be the investing event of a lifetime.
[Breath taking bear market rallies...I think this one is over and this email is really late...
More guts than brains is what it takes to be fully invested now...imnsho...]
Had an appointment for a couple hours...it were fun.
Sometimes, I are a teechur.
Important if true:
http://www.detik.com/peristiwa/2003/08/05/20030805-183447.shtml
Translation:
US Embassy cancelled the booking of Marriott Hotel 4.5 hours before the explosion. There was something interesting happened just hours before the explosion shocked the JW Marriott Hotel, Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta. The US Embassy cancelled the booking of 10-20 rooms in that hotel. The cancellation was on 8.00 West Indonesian Time, Tuesday, or only 4.5 hours before the explosion. This information is from employee of Marriot Hotel who refused to be identified. He explained that the booking was made several days ago. The US Embassy's guests were planned to stay for 3 days. And the ceremony was planned on Wednesday. For information, when there was the explosion, the security of US Embassy directly came to the Marriot Hotel in Mega Kuningan. JW Marriot Hotel is known to be used frequently by US Embassy. On 4 July 2003, the Independent Day of US was celebrated on this hotel. Last year, it was also celebrated there.
The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France
30 Summers Later, We Need To Remember The Lessons Of Watergate
By WARREN GOLDSTEIN
Published on 8/3/2003
This summer marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Watergate hearings, the riveting televised spectacle in which a series of aides and former aides to President Richard Nixon testified before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities about the Administration's wholesale attack on the American political system.
I lived in Washington that summer, and I loved Watergate. I couldn't wait to get the Washington Post each morning hoping for yet another biting, outraged column by Nicholas von Hoffman. Like everyone else, I hung on every minute of John Dean's week-long revelations of wrongdoing in the Oval Office. And I watched, fascinated, as the web slowly began to close in on Richard Nixon.
“What did the President know, and when did he know it?” U.S. Sen. Howard Baker asked of each witness. And once the tapes surfaced, the possibility of a “smoking gun” appeared—the key piece of evidence that would prove the President guilty.
Watergate has become the defining frame for all subsequent scandals; “-gate” even gets tacked onto such unlikely nouns as “Monica” or “travel.” But happy as I was that Watergate drove Richard Nixon from office, we can now see how we missed an opportunity to learn valuable lessons from the scandal.
For the real point of Watergate was not the final “smoking gun.” Nor was it Presidential approval of a bag man and hush money scheme worthy of Oliver Hardy, or Oliver North.
Watergate revealed the way the Nixon Administration targeted political opponents and put them on an “enemies list,” treating them like traitors or criminals. It exposed the Committee to Re-elect the President (remember CREEP?), which made campaign “dirty tricks” a way of life. It showed us how the Administration (not just Nixon) used the FBI and the IRS (and made the CIA violate its own charter) to harass American citizens exercising their constitutional rights.
In other words, Watergate revealed patterns of abuse of governmental power that were far more threatening to American democracy than the President's (or his henchmen's) lies. While the possibility of high-level corruption by a President or a Vice-president (which also happened in the Nixon Administration) gives us a special thrill, a government only becomes truly dangerous to its people when it engages in what the Declaration of Independence called “repeated injuries and usurpations.”
But most of us missed the forest for the biggest tree, and Americans still have difficulty thinking systemically. In crime as well as politics, we focus on individual guilt or innocence: Did O.J. do it or not? Did Bill Clinton do it or not? Who was “responsible” for those 16 words in President Bush's speech?
Because we still ask echoes of Sen. Baker's old question, though, we focus on a mystery, when the key issues are usually out in the open. The scandal in this administration is not who knew what when—it's the way our leaders remake reality all the time, and simply ignore inconvenient or contradictory facts.
For months they terrified us about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, including his nuclear program. No weapons? Whatever. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld refuses to accept the “G-word” (guerilla war) or the “Q-word” (quagmire)—as though his vocabulary can change the reality of American soldiers being killed in twos or threes every day. The “rebuilding” contract with the Vice-President's old firm Halliburton? No conflict of interest—not even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Because we say there isn't. After 9/11, The President and his advisors wanted to go to war, period, and would say anything to convince the rest of us. The smoking guns are in Iraq, in plain sight.
For all the fun I had with Watergate, I think my own delight in watching Nixon's men go to jail—and I know I had lots of company—exacted too high a price. Fortunately, not everyone missed the Watergate boat. The late Representative Barbara Jordan understood what was at stake when she spoke at the House Judiciary Committee considering the impeachment of President Nixon. “My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total,” she told the entire country, after having first pointed out that as an African-American woman, she was not included in the “We the People” of the original Preamble. Nevertheless, she declared, “I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”
She saw the pattern, and she named it. We could use her in Congress today.
Warre Goldstein teaches American history at the University of Hartford. His biography of William Sloane Coffin Jr. will be published next year by Yale University Press.
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/newstand/re.aspx?reIDx=820B806D-6088-4EC4-BC11-7B8A6EF98FAB
True, true.
Two heads one snake.
Got any picks?