With Liberty & Justice for 1%: America’s Three-Tiered Justice System

Oldspeak: “Big shots are above the law, the government now admits, but a three-tiered justice system has Congress churning out new bills to keep the prison industry booming. Our Congress, acting as an agent of Corporate America, is working assiduously to issue ever more novel and oppressive laws so as to keep the machinery of law enforcement operating.”- Mike Lofgren It’s no secret that inequality in the U.S. is at an all time high, surpassing the madness seen during the great depression. The top 1 percent of households by income captured 121 percent of all income gains between 2009 and 2011. This inequality concurrently permeates most every other system in our society. Education, employment, energy, social, environment, food production. And the justice system is no different.  We are living in a time where there are people for which “there is neither law nor redress. Where international treaties may apply, such as the Geneva Convention or treaties against torture, they are assumed not to exist for purposes of official US government conduct.” Where people disappear, indefinitely, based on secret charges made in secret courts. Where where Americans can be targeted for “disposition”, based on the judgment of one man. Where citizens can be constantly watched. All while the rich rape, pillage murder, and control. Above the law, free of empathy or conscience, with no fear of punishment. This status quo cannot continue to be so.

By Mike Lofgren @ Truthout:

Equal Justice under Law,” is the motto inscribed on the frieze of the United States Supreme Court building.

Sticklers for semantics say that the modifiers “equal” and “under law” in the Supreme Court’s motto are redundant, because justice by definition is equal treatment under a system of written and publicly accessible rules. Whether that is the case is precisely what is at issue in America today.

Tier I: The Great and the Good

Events since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 have provided plenty of fodder for the belief that there is one law for the rich and another for the common clay. Practical as opposed to explicit inequality before the law is common in societies all over the world; it usually boils down to how legal procedures are applied as opposed to what the letter of the law is on the statute books. Officials who are pledged to uphold the law will invariably protest that they are neutral and unimpeachable executors of justice and that it is unthinkable to suggest they are administering a rigged system. Honi soit qui mal y pense! (“Shamed be he who thinks evil of it.”) is their usual indignant attitude when the rabble becomes pushy.

It is unclear if there was a rare outbreak of candor among officials in Washington during the past two weeks, or whether they simply calculated that the system has so completely slipped from public control that it doesn’t matter if forbidden truths are spoken. On March 6, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.” Yes, well, that could explain it. When the banks hold a gun to the head of the economy, it is no longer the relationship between regulator and regulated, but a hostage relationship. A relationship made even more complex, no doubt, by the fact that the hostage-taker is also the principal corporate funder of the bosses of the putative hostage negotiators.

Apparently none of his senatorial interrogators had the wit to ask the following of the attorney general: Why would criminally prosecuting a handful of senior executives at a financial institution be more economically damaging than levying a civil fine? HSBC’s $1.9-billion settlement with the Justice Department for money-laundering is almost derisory in view of its $21.9 billion in global profits during the past year, but if anyone is going to suffer from that small subtraction from the bank’s revenues, it is likely to be shareholders and depositors who had nothing to do with the crime rather than the management who committed it. And even in an extreme situation, where most or all of a bank’s management were criminally involved, the government could seize the bank and operate it as a conservator in the manner of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Innocent stakeholders would be protected, thus nullifying Holder’s fear-mongering about endangering the world economy.

Thus it requires only a moment’s thought to conclude that it is not the size, complexity or fragility of the financial system that stays the hand of criminal prosecution, but the status of the persons within those institutions. Apparently, robbing a bank is a criminal activity depending which side of the teller’s window you are on and whether you are upper management or a $12-an-hour cashier. The Senate has given no indication of being overly concerned: After a perfunctory hearing, the Banking Committee favorably reported the Wall Street-connected Mary Jo White to the full Senate for confirmation as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The dead giveaway that the fix was in was the fact that committee Republicans, who ordinarily obstruct nominees purely out of habit, did not raise a peep of objection. White, like Holder, is not a fan of prosecuting the executives of big banks.

Tier II: The Great Unwashed

Perhaps the big shots are above the law. This does not mean, however, that the mighty wheel of justice does not turn in this country. Somebody must be getting prosecuted, given that the United States has more incarcerated people in its jurisdiction than any other country, including China, which has four times our population. The incarceration rate is no accident: The vast accretion of harsh punishments for essentially victimless crimes like drug possession, mandatory minimum sentences and “three strikes” provisions in many state laws virtually guarantee the highest rate of imprisonment since the days of Stalin’s gulags.

Our Congress, acting as an agent of Corporate America, is working assiduously to issue ever more novel and oppressive laws so as to keep the machinery of law enforcement operating. Even the right of possession and free use of an article legally obtained by legitimate purchase, a right celebrated by libertarian economists, can be nullified when corporations deem it necessary to extract rents. Pursuant to the Millennium Digital Copyright Act, it is now illegal to alter a cell phone that you bought and paid for if you are dissatisfied with the service provider that the phone manufacturer has an exclusive agreement with. How illegal? – a $500,000 fine and five years in prison (double for repeat offenders). Apparently citizens no longer have a freehold in this country; they are instead serfs dwelling on a feudal demesne at the sufferance of their corporate landlords.

State legislatures have kept up with Congress in this endeavor. One might think the exposure of animal cruelty and unsanitary conditions in the corporatized farming and food processing industries would cause lawmakers to be indignant against the perpetrators and desirous of protecting the safety of the food supply. But no, state legislatures have directed their fury against the citizen-activists who exposed the wrongdoing by levying heavy penalties against surreptitious photographing of the outrages.

With draconian sentences looming over defendants, it is no wonder that most criminal processes end in plea bargains rather than jury trials: Even an accused person believing himself innocent may plead guilty to lesser charges (charges that still land him in prison, albeit for a shorter term) rather than face either bankrupting legal fees or suffer an incompetent appointed counsel and the possibility of a sentence lasting decades.

Incompetent or not, even the constitutional right of counsel is not always provided, as the attorney general himself has admitted. The big banks, with their extensive in-house legal departments and endless reserves of cash, have no such worries. Their attorneys are skillful enough, and have sufficient resources, to file change-of-venue motions so as to escape the wrath either of unfriendly judges or – one of the worst engines of injustice since the Inquisition – demagogic district attorneys itching for higher office and lusting for juries to inflame. As a practical matter, ordinary citizens have no such protection.

Some officials have conceded the infeasibility of locking up more and more people, perhaps less because of the ethical issues involved than because of the fiscal drain attendant with incarcerating so many bodies. Traditionally a function of the state, prisons represent a large input of taxpayer dollars whose only output, other than license plates, is a social sense of safety and security (an intangible and hard-to-prove value). But Corporate America has come up with an answer to that as well: the private prison industry. In addition to promising security, the growing private prison lobby can offer a much more tangible benefit to politicians: campaign donations. We can be sure that consultants for this industry will invent more and more ingenious felony statutes for state legislatures to pass into law so as to keep their prisons full and profits flowing, as we have already seen happen in Arizona.

Tier III: The Untouchables

Thus far we have dealt with the law: law that is perhaps hatched with malign intent, corruptly enforced and unequally applied, but at any rate law that exists openly in the US Code or the state statutes. But justice for foreigners and discrete categories of American citizens enters the realm of the Wild West, where there is neither law nor redress. Where international treaties may apply, such as the Geneva Convention or treaties against torture, they are assumed not to exist for purposes of official US government conduct.

Should the plaintiff, a group like Amnesty International, say, argue on behalf of injured parties before a United State court, the plaintiff lacks standing because he is not an injured party. Should the injured party himself seek redress, he lacks standing because of his status at the time of the alleged crime. Should all else fail, and the court needs to avail itself of some excuse not to hear the case, it employs the state secrets privilege, a completely fictitious, made-up doctrine deriving from an incident whereby the executive branch, in asserting that classified information would be revealed, committed perjury. There was no classified information, but the rabbinical automatons of the federal judiciary have pretended for the past 50 years that the government’s having lied about whether a fatal plane crash involved classified information must henceforth and forever be twisted into a reason why the government’s assertions about classified information must always be taken as true, definitive and legally binding.

One suspects a similar morass of dishonesty lies behind the present administration’s policy on the use of drones for the purposes of assassination. For instance, in deciding to carry out assassinations, did President Obama or his predecessor go to the trouble of revoking Executive Order 11905, Executive Order 12036, or Executive Order 12333, all of which prohibit assassinations? Or were they merely reinterpreted to mean that a ban on assassination means “not unless you really want to?” Unquestionably the latter, because someone deemed it useful to keep the old executive orders on the books as sacred artifacts one could point to as examples of how virtuous we are – much in the same manner as the Roman curia, ever rife with corruption and intrigue, is charged with regulating the veneration of holy relics.

As for when the policy is to be implemented, the administration has done its best to keep that secret. It has maintained a close hold on the alleged documents describing the policy in detail, but has purposely leaked a white paper that supposedly summarizes the policy. Here one gets a sense of ad hoc improvisation: Since John Brennan and other administration officials had already publicly stated that drone strikes were only used to disrupt “imminent” threats of attack, the white paper appears to have been engineered ex post facto to prevent the administration from being constrained by Brennan’s words. In the paper itself “imminent” is gradually redefined over the course of several paragraphs so that it no longer means a criminal action is temporally nigh, but rather inheres in the status of the individual so targeted. Thus are certain persons beneath the law: Their status assumes their intended action, so they are fair game for assassination.

The white paper qualifies this startling legal theory (which is rather similar to the Commissar Order, albeit the shooting occurs at greater distance) by helpfully stating that such operations would not be conducted if civilian casualties would be “excessive.” One supposes the definition of the term “excessive” is as elastic as that of “imminent;” in any case unofficial estimates suggest civilian casualties in the thousands, including several hundred children.

One is tempted to conclude that there really is no administration-level drone policy, let alone one constrained by law, except a sham one, which is cobbled together after the fact to construct a plausible justification whenever complaints arise. At the lower level, drone employment is constrained neither by the military code, nor the laws of war nor by any other applicable treaty. It is probably just an intelligence-driven target set applied to a checklist: Does target X-ray fit “terrorist signatures” alpha, bravo, charlie and delta? If the boxes can be checked, the government operative (or contractor) hits the switch.

None of this should be surprising. Since the Moro uprising in the Philippines, American exceptionalism as it operates abroad has been built on hecatombs of corpses. That it doesn’t bother the American public should not be surprising given the human capacity for moral compartmentalization. But lawlessness abroad cannot be walled off from domestic life: impunity for oligarchs, draconian sentences and bulging prisons for those lacking privileged status, and casual death for those beneath the law and even innocent people in the vicinity, are at bottom inevitable and inseparable once the rule of law is compromised. Apocryphal perhaps, but the following exchange describes the present American dilemma:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Mike Lofgren

Mike Lofgren retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees.

 

Open Season On Young Black Men In America Continues: NYPD Cops Shot 16-Year-Old Kimani Gray While He Was On The Ground

Oldspeak: “Details are still emerging in this latest police shooting of a young black man in a poor neighborhood. Troubling details like the 2 cops involved have a notable history of violent civil rights violations, fabricating and falsifying evidence, and unconstitutional and aggressive stop-and-frisk practices.  Now this latest witness revelation that these violent and aggressive “peace officers” stood over and continued to shoot this frail, 5’6″, 100 pound child to death.  Then threatening the lives of witnesses asking why the officers shot the child so many times. This boy was shot to death after he  “adjusted his waistband in a manner the officers deemed suspicious.” According to friends, cops have been harassing  Kimami for some time and “were out for him“, even making fun of his older brother’s death in a car accident 2 years ago. The cops say they shot him because he pointed a .38 revolver at them.  All the news stories make a point of this and that the revolver he pointed was recovered at the scene. Yet NYPD has not as yet clarified the source of this claim.  “The scene” is a decent sized space. Was the gun recovered near Kimani’s body? It wasn’t fired. Did it have Kimani’s fingerprints on it?  Is it police protocol to shoot people before identifying themselves as police officers? Why after the child fell did the cops continue shooting, getting close enough stand over him while doing so, instead of tackling and subduing him physically? When analyzing a case where the officers have a history of excessive force, false arrests, illegal stop and search, falsifying and fabricating evidence, these are crucial questions that are not being asked? Why? I’m thinkin these crucial details are being left out for a reason.  This is a crystal clear example the unconstitutional  and racist practice of stop and frisk gone deadly wrong. Hot headed violent officers seeing suspicion where there was none, unidentified & aggressively approached a youth, who had a gun that no other publicly identified witnesses saw and fired on him repeatedly, ultimately close enough to be right on top of him while he was on the ground, without attempting to first identify themselves and diffuse the situation. This is ginormous lawsuit waiting to happen, on account of officers who’ve already cost the city 215,000 dollars in lawsuits. I’ll be very curious to see what this  investigation finds.”

Related Stories:

Voices from Brooklyn: Racial Profiling’s Part of Everyday Life Here

Oscar Grant, A Victim Of American Fear: Decades After The Civil-Rights Era, Cops Shooting Unarmed Black Men Is Barely A Crime

By Ryan Devereaux @ The Village Voice:

The only publicly identified eyewitness in the killing of a Brooklyn teen by two New York City police officers is standing by her claim that the young man was empty-handed when he was gunned down, and now says one of the cops involved threatened her life.

In an extended interview with the Village Voice Saturday night–one week to the day after 16-year-old Kimani Gray was killed–Tishana King, 39, provided new, vivid details about the 10th-grader’s final moments.

King said one officer stood “right over” Gray, continuing to shoot him while he was on the ground, and that neither cop identified himself as law enforcement when the incident began.

Read More:
- Tensions Mount After Police Fatally Shoot Brooklyn Teenager Kimani Gray
- Eyewitness “Certain” Kimani Gray Was Unarmed When Police Shot Him
- Police and Protesters Clash at Kimani Gray Vigil in Brooklyn

Sgt. Mourad Mourad, 30, and Officer Jovaniel Cordova, 26, were identified as the officers involved in the shooting. Both are decorated members of the NYPD who have been involved in prior non-fatal shootings and received awards for their actions. They have also been targeted in five federal lawsuits stemming from allegations ranging from illegal stop-and-frisks to physical abuse, costing the city $215,000. Both have been placed on administrative duty while the investigation continues.

The police department says the officers were patrolling in East Flatbush in an unmarked car around 11:30 p.m. last weekend when they spotted a group of young men, one of whom adjusted his waistband in a manner the officers deemed suspicious. According to the police, the individual broke away from the group as the officers approached.

In a statement last week, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said, “After the anti-crime sergeant and police officer told the suspect to show his hands, which was heard by witnesses, Gray produced a revolver and pointed it at the officers, who fired a total of 11 rounds, striking Gray several times.” A loaded .38-caliber Rohm’s Industry revolver was recovered at the scene.

Whether or not Gray had a gun, King said she never saw one pointed at the police. “I can’t say if they had one on them or not, but no one had a gun pointing at the cops,” she told the Voice.

King’s account, which contradicts the NYPD’s version of the events on key points, builds on what she first said in a New York Daily News article published last Tuesday. King told the paper she was “certain [Gray] didn’t have anything in his hands.” The article described a tape-recorded interview she gave to police investigators hours after the shooting. A police spokesman told the paper that when investigators asked King what she saw, she told them “she couldn’t see what the boys were doing ‘from the angle I was at.’”

But King told the Voice that from her third-floor vantage point, “I can see everything.” A street light illuminates the area where the incident took place.

Speaking to the Voice on her stoop Saturday evening, King made her first comments on the case since NYPD responded to her claims. She confirmed that she was interviewed by police–”about two hours after” the shooting–and says she has not been interviewed by the department since.

When asked if she saw a gun at any point during the incident, King told the Voice, “No. Not from the kids.”

An internal NYPD report cited by the Daily News stated that the officers wore badges around their necks. King said she didn’t see any: “No. No badges.”

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly has said the department has three “ear witnesses to the shooting,” two of who said they heard the officers say “Don’t move” and a third who claims to have heard an officer ask, “What do you have in your hands?”

King claims the officers said only one thing after stepping onto the sidewalk, “‘Don’t move.’ That’s it.”

Gray was shot “on the sidewalk” two driveways down from her building, King says, near the home of a pair of twins he often visited. The kids hadn’t been around much in recent months, she added. King said she was in bed when the sound of loud voices and laughter drew her to her window last Saturday night.

“That’s why I looked out,” she said. ” To just see, ‘Oh, hey, what’s going on?’ Then when I saw it was the kids visiting, I said ‘Oh, okay.’”

Peering out from the third-story of her brick building, King claims to have seen “about seven to eight” young people. She said they had only been gathered for “maybe a minute or two” before the police arrived. “There was no suspicious behavior. The worst they were doing, laughing out loud and, you know, talking loud. That’s about it,” King said.

When asked if she recognized any of the kids, Gray said, “Just a few. I know the twins because they’re my direct next-door neighbors.” In addition to the twins, King also claims to have been familiar with Gray, though prior to the shooting she says she knew him only by his nickname, “Kiki.”

“I know him from his friends and always being in the neighborhood and visiting the twins,” she said. “He’s always a frequent visitor.” King said she recognized Gray’s voice outside the night he was killed.

King could not confirm what direction Gray was facing at the time he was shot. “I’m not the shooter. I wouldn’t be able to tell you. If I had the gun and I was shooting at him I’d be able to answer that question,” she said. King said the officers “looked white, from what I was seeing.” News reports have indicated, however, that Sgt. Mourad is Egyptian.

After the gunfire subsided, King claims the officer who “did the most shooting” put his hands on his head “like, ‘Oh my God.’” She describes him as “the main shooter.”

“That’s the one I was focused on,” she explained. “He just kept shooting while [Gray] was on the ground.” When asked how close the officer was when he was shooting Gray, King said, “right over him.”

“I thought he was dead,” King said. That’s when Gray began to scream. “‘Help me. Help me. My stomach is burning. Help me. They shot me,’” she said the teen cried out. Friends have said Gray was approximately 5’6″ and weighed at most about 100 pounds. King described him as “frail” and said she was surprised he was not killed instantly. “I didn’t think anybody could take those amount of bullets,” she added.

“I just remember screaming out the window ‘Why?! Why so much?!” King recalled. She claims the “main shooter”‘s partner–”with the short haircut”–responded.

“He started waving his gun up at our windows, myself and my neighbor. ‘Get your F-ing head out the window before I shoot you.’” King said she and her neighbor “jumped back.”

“I told the authorities that,” she said. “You threatened our lives and we didn’t even do anything.”

King says a number of questions continue to bother her. “Why did they exit their vehicles? Why were they in our neighborhood? Why were they on our block? What was the reason? Why didn’t you follow protocol?”

“The scene just keeps replaying in my head,” she told the Voice, “over and over and over and over and over again.”

In 2009 Obama Administration Committed To Creating An Unprecedented Level Of Openness In Government. In 2012 Government Censorship & Secrecy Hit All Time High

Oldspeak:“In this weeks edition of “Doublethink Theater” We have a quote from President Obama’s First day in office, January 21, 2009 “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.“  Then this from his Memo on Transparency and Open Government: “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government. Government should be transparent.  Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.  Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.” Fast forward to 2013 and a quote from Alexander Abdo, ACLU National Security Project Attorney: “We’ve seen a meteoric rise in the number of claims to protect secret law, the government’s interpretations of laws or its understanding of its own authority. In some ways, the Obama administration is actually even more aggressive on secrecy than the Bush administration”  And this from Federal Judge Colleen McMahon after ruling against the New York Times and ACLU in its request to see government records providing legal justification for its assassination program: “I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules — a veritable Catch-22. I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.” Yes. YET ANOTHER instance of Senator Obama saying and doing one thing & President Obama saying and doing THE EXACT OPPOSITE. After authoring such transparency promoting law as The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act as a Senator, President Obama’s administration has censored & denied more requests for information than ever before, while taking much longer to respond to requests in general. Upholding “secret laws”. Flouting the constitution. Making legally unchallengeable secrecy claims. Prosecuting and jailing more government whistleblowers than any other President in history. While those who’ve engage in the fraud, waste, abuse and malfeasance whistleblowers have reported, continue to do so unmolested with no fear of reprisal;  in fact, in some egregious cases actually being rewarded with promotions.  Given these precedents, you can safely infer that next Administration will be even less transparent in its operations. Less responsive to the people.  America’s Inverted Corptalitarian Kleptocracy, will continue to grow, weakening representative democracy until the country collapses under the weight of rampant greed, criminality and corruption.  All in the name of “National Security”.
“2+2=5″.
“Ignorance Is Strength”.

By Jack Gillum & Ted Bridis @ The Associated Press:

The Obama administration answered more requests from the public to see government records under the Freedom of Information Act last year, but more often than it ever has it cited legal exceptions to censor or withhold the material, according to a new analysis by The Associated Press. It frequently cited the need to protect national security and internal deliberations.

The AP’s analysis showed the government released all or portions of the information that citizens, journalists, businesses and others sought at about the same rate as the previous three years. It turned over all or parts of the records in about 65 percent of all requests. It fully rejected more than one-third of requests, a slight increase over 2011, including cases when it couldn’t find records, a person refused to pay for copies or the request was determined to be improper.

The AP examined more than 5,600 data elements measuring the administration’s performance on government transparency since Obama’s election.

People submitted more than 590,000 requests for information in fiscal 2012 — an increase of less than 1 percent over the previous year. Including leftover requests from previous years, the government responded to more requests than ever in 2012 — more than 603,000 — a 5 percent increase for the second consecutive year.

When the government withheld or censored records, it cited exceptions built into the law to avoid turning over materials more than 479,000 times, a roughly 22 percent increase over the previous year. In most cases, more than one of the law’s exceptions was cited in each request for information.

The government’s responsiveness under the FOIA is widely viewed as a barometer of the federal offices’ transparency. Under the law, citizens and foreigners can compel the government to turn over copies of federal records for zero or little cost. Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas.

The AP’s review comes at the start of the second term for Obama, who promised during his first week in office that the nation’s signature open-records law would be “administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.” The review examined figures from the largest federal departments and agencies. Sunday was the start of Sunshine Week, when news organizations promote open government and freedom of information.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement that during the past year, the government “processed more requests, decreased the backlog, improved average processing times and disclosed more information pro-actively.” Schultz said the improvements “represent the efforts of agencies across the government to meet the president’s commitment to openness. While there is more work to be done, this past year demonstrates that agencies are responding to the president’s call for greater transparency.”

In a year of intense public interest over deadly U.S. drones, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, terror threats and more, the government cited national security to withhold information at least 5,223 times — a jump over 4,243 such cases in 2011 and 3,805 cases in Obama’s first year in office. The secretive CIA last year became even more secretive: Nearly 60 percent of 3,586 requests for files were withheld or censored for that reason last year, compared with 49 percent a year earlier.

Other federal agencies that invoked the national security exception included the Pentagon, Director of National Intelligence, NASA, Office of Management and Budget, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Communications Commission and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.

U.S. courts are loath to overrule the administration whenever it cites national security. A federal judge, Colleen McMahon of New York, in January ruled against The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to see records about the government’s legal justification for drone attacks and other methods it has used to kill terrorism suspects overseas, including American citizens. She cited an “Alice in Wonderland” predicament in which she was expected to determine what information should be revealed but unable to challenge the government’s secrecy claim. Part of her ruling was sealed and made available only to the government’s lawyers.

“I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules — a veritable Catch-22,” the judge wrote. “I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.”

The AP could not determine whether the administration was abusing the national security exemption or whether the public was asking for more documents about sensitive subjects. Nearly half the Pentagon’s 2,390 denials last year under that clause came from its National Security Agency, which monitors Internet traffic and phone calls worldwide.

“FOIA is an imperfect law, and I don’t think that’s changed over the last four years since Obama took office,” said Alexander Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney for its national security project. “We’ve seen a meteoric rise in the number of claims to protect secret law, the government’s interpretations of laws or its understanding of its own authority. In some ways, the Obama administration is actually even more aggressive on secrecy than the Bush administration.”

The Obama administration also more frequently invoked the law’s “deliberative process” exception to withhold records describing decision-making behind the scenes. Obama had directed agencies to use it less often, but the number of such cases had surged after his first year in office to more than 71,000. After back-to-back years when figures steadily declined, as agencies followed the president’s instructions, the government cited that reason 66,353 times last year to keep records or parts of records secret.

The Homeland Security Department, which includes offices that deal with immigration files, received more than twice as many requests for records — 190,589 new requests last year — as any other agency, and it answered significantly more requests than it did in 2011. Other agencies, including the State Department, National Transportation Safety Board and Nuclear Regulatory Commission performed worse last year. The State Department, for example, answered only 57 percent of its requests, down from 75 percent a year earlier.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services drove a dramatic increase in the number of times DHS censored immigration records under exceptions to police files containing personal information and law enforcement techniques. The agency invoked those exemptions more than 136,000 times in 2012, compared with more than 75,000 a year earlier. Even though USCIS is not a law-enforcement agency, officials used the exceptions specifically reserved for law enforcement.

Under the law, a citizen can ask the government to reconsider its decision to censor or withhold materials. In the roughly 11,000 such instances last year where that happened, the government prevailed just under half the time. In about 3,400 cases the government turned over at least some additional information. These administrative appeals took about five months each.

The only recourse after such an appeal is an expensive lawsuit or to ask the government’s FOIA mediator, the U.S. Office of Government Information Services, to intervene.

The AP’s analysis also found that the government generally took longer to answer requests. Some agencies, such as the Health and Human Services Department, took less time than the previous year to turn over files. But at the State Department, for example, even urgent requests submitted under a fast-track system covering breaking news or events when a person’s life was at stake took an average two years to wait for files.

Journalists and others who need information quickly to report breaking news fared worse last year. The rate at which the government granted so-called expedited processing, which moves an urgent request to the front of the line for a speedy answer, fell from 24 percent in 2011 to 17 percent last year. The CIA denied every such request last year.

Under increased budget pressure across the government, agencies more often insisted that people pay search and copying fees. It waived costs in 59 percent of requests, generally when the amount was negligible or the release of the information is in the public interest, a decline from 64 percent of cases a year earlier. At the Treasury Department, which faced questions about its role in auto bailouts and stimulus programs during Obama’s first term, only one in five requests were processed at no charge. A year earlier, it granted more than 75 percent of fee waivers. The CIA denied every request last year to waive fees.

The 33 agencies that AP examined were: Agency for International Development, CIA, Agriculture Department, Commerce Department, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Defense Department, Education Department, Energy Department, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Interior Department, Justice Department, Labor Department, State Department, Transportation Department, Treasury Department, Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Election Commission, Federal Trade Commission, NASA, National Science Foundation, National Transportation Safety Board, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Management and Budget, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Securities and Exchange Commission, Small Business Administration, the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Postal Service.

Follow Jack Gillum on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jackgillum

 

 

Attack Of The Clones: China Is Developing Its Own Drone Technology – For Its Own Use & For Sale Around The World

Oldspeak: “While U.S. Drone technology is highly restricted and expensive, China’s drone fleet is growing at a tenth of the cost. So these death machines are sure to proliferate as the world continues to militarize. Just as the U.S. has claimed the right to send remote controlled killing machines into foreign lands it has not declared war with, to kill enemies of the state, China has as well, with its recently planed hit on a drug boss in Myanmar. Just think, some time in the near future,  Americans will know the unique terror of being hunted and killed by foreign-made and operated flying deathbots!  Just as it started the nuclear arms race, with terrible results, the U.S. started the drone arms race. These armed robot chickens will one day come home roost in a really bad way.  It seems the global surveillance and control grid is slowly taking shape. “Skynet” soon come.

By Trefor Moss @ The Diplomat:

Unmanned systems have become the legal and ethical problem child of the global defense industry and the governments they supply, rewriting the rules of military engagement in ways that many find disturbing. And this sense of unease about where we’re headed is hardly unfamiliar. Much like the emergence of drone technology, the rise of China and its reshaping of the geopolitical landscape has stirred up a sometimes understandable, sometimes irrational, fear of the unknown.

It’s safe to say, then, that Chinese drones conjure up a particularly intense sense of alarm that the media has begun to embrace as a license to panic. China is indeed developing a range of unmanned aerial vehicles/systems (UAVs/UASs) at a time when relations with Japan are tense, and when those with the U.S. are delicate. But that hardly justifies claims that “drones have taken center stage in an escalating arms race between China and Japan,” or that the “China drone threat highlights [a] new global arms race,” as some observers would have it. This hyperbole was perhaps fed by a 2012 U.S. Department of Defense report which described China’s development of UAVs as “alarming.”

That’s quite unreasonable. All of the world’s advanced militaries are adopting drones, not just the PLA. That isn’t an arms race, or a reason to fear China, it’s just the direction in which defense technology is naturally progressing. Secondly, while China may be demonstrating impressive advances, Israel and the U.S. retain a substantial lead in the UAV field, with China—alongside Europe, India and Russia— still in the second tier. And thirdly, China is modernizing in all areas of military technology – unmanned systems being no exception.

New unmanned missions

Nonetheless, China has started to show its hand in terms of the roles that it expects its growing fleet of UAVs to fulfill. In a clear indication that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has an operational armed UAV capability in which it feels relatively confident, last week reports of a plan to send a UAV into Myanmar to assassinate a drug trafficker who had murdered 13 Chinese nationals came to light. The Chinese government ultimately rejected this tactic, but it is evidently tempted to follow Washington’s lead in reserving the right to use UAVs to target enemies of the state, even on foreign soil.

Territorial disputes in the East China Sea and the South China Sea have also persuaded Beijing to accelerate its deployment of UAVs, which are ideally suited to maritime surveillance missions. UAVs are already used routinely to monitor the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, a PLA general recently claimed. “[Both China and Japan] seem intent on establishing more presence in these disputed zones,” comments Peter Singer, Director of the Center for 21^st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution,“both to establish their own claims … and to watch what the other is doing. UAS are helpful in those aims, especially with their longer duration versus traditional manned platforms.” The PLA Air Force has also converted its obsolete J-6 fighters into UAVs; based in Fujian, the J-6s are apparently being used for Diaoyu surveillance, as well as being expendable strike assets in the event of an armed engagement.

Nor is China’s deployment of UAVs limited to the military realm. The government of Liaoning Province is reportedly using UAVs to monitor the North Korean border, and is also said to be establishing two coastal UAV bases from which it will oversee its areas of jurisdiction in the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Gulf. Meanwhile, the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) – one of China’s main maritime agencies – announced in August that it is setting up 11 UAV bases, one in each of China’s coastal provinces. It expects to have these bases up and running by 2015 (images of some of the SOA’s current UAVs can be seen here). It’s also worth recalling that all of China’s UAV advances have been enabled by the Beidou satellite constellation, which now includes 16 active satellites providing coverage across China and the Asia-Pacific.

If provincial governments and civilian law enforcement agencies plan to induct UAVs in tandem with the PLA, then that’s a large fleet of unmanned aircraft able to perform a variety of different functions that China will need to bring online over the next few years. But, there is no shortage of technology programs competing to make the cut.

China’s UAV programs

Dozens of Chinese UAV concepts have appeared over the years, most of which will never leave the laboratory, let alone the runway. However, the Chinese aerospace sector has clearly devoted a great deal of energy to producing a range of designs from which the PLA has been able to cherry-pick. Chinese engineers have also been able to draw on Israeli technology, having acquired Harpy UAVs from Israel Aerospace Industries in the 1990s. “They’ve gone in the last few years from having none in development to at least 25 different models displayed at arms shows,” says Singer.“So, it’s a very ambitious program. But again, it parallels their growth in capabilities and ambitions in many others beyond UAS, from jet fighters to missiles.” He warns against overhyping China’s UAV effort, noting that for now “we’re talking very small numbers [of Chinese UAVs] … and not yet near U.S. capabilities.”

If the example of the U.S military is anything to go by, the PLA should only have operational requirements for around six to ten UAVs. It appears closer to filling some of these operational niches than others.

The China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation (CATIC) has developed a number of ASN series UAVs, at least two of which appear to be in operational use. First is the ASN-15, a small intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) UAV similar to the U.S. RQ-11 Raven, a small, man-portable system able to perform basic battlefield ISTAR duties. Second is the ASN-209 medium altitude and medium endurance UAV comparable to the U.S. ScanEagle, a larger ISR asset than the Raven with up to 20 hours of flight time for longer-range battlefield and maritime surveillance. The ASN-209 is probably the same aircraft as the “Silver Eagle” which was widely reported to have taken part in naval exercises over the South China Sea in 2011.

Vertical takeoff UAVs (VTUAV), which are especially useful for naval ISTAR and fire control, are also beginning to enter service (though the U.S. Navy’s comparable MQ-8 Fire Scout is itself yet to receive operational clearance). A PLA Navy frigate was pictured in 2012 operating what was probably one of the 18 Camcopter S-100s China acquired from Austrian company Schiebel, supposedly intended for civilian use. Another VTUAV, the SVU-200, made its first flight late last year, while a third unmanned helicopter, the V750, recently entered civilian service. The PLA Navy is known to be exploring the possible applications of VTUAVs, including their use in anti-submarine warfare, and to be interested in the use of UAVs more broadly on its new and future aircraft carriers, not least because UAVs can significantly augment China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. “A2/AD places a premium on extending your range of monitoring and tracking targets from afar,” Singer says.“UAS are very helpful in that.”

Bigger, more advanced UAVs are also now breaking cover. Two in particular appear to be similar to the U.S.’s MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones, medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) UAVs best known for conducting lethal operations in Pakistan and elsewhere. These are the Yilong/Wing Loong “Pterodactyl”, built by the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute (CADI), and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation’s (CASC’s) CH-4. According to a recent Global Times report, the Yilong is primarily regarded as a Reaper-style strike aircraft, while the CH-4 is more of a multi-role aircraft that will be deployed by civilian agencies, as well as by the military, for surveillance purposes, though it can also be weaponized. These two UAVs appear to be in the same class as the CH-91, built by Aerospace Long March International (ALIT), an ISTAR system which is reported to have already entered production, and the more advanced CH-92, which is due to enter production in 2014. A similar class of UAV, the WJ-600, has been showcased by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), though this system – which is jet-powered, unlike the propeller-driven Yilong and the CH-4 – was not seen at the most recent China Air Show.

Finally, the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation is working on the Soaring Eagle, an analogue of the RQ-4 Global Hawk, Washington’s high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAV. Recent pictures of a Soaring Eagle on the runway suggest that its development is moving forward effectively. There are also hints that China is working on a stealthy UAV called the Wing Blade, which is reminiscent of the U.S.’s black-budget RQ-170 Sentinel, while a stealthy Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) called the Dark Sword – perhaps along the lines of the U.S. Navy’s experimental X-74B – may also be in development. Chinese technicians are also undoubtedly experimenting with a new generation of nano-UAVs, like the Black Hornet micro-helicopter now in action with the British Army.

China’s drone boom

The aerospace sector must now supply huge demand from both the PLA and civilian authorities. So it is not hard to envisage several of these seemingly competing UAVs, rather than just one winner, being produced in large numbers in order to help the defense industry meet its growing demand. In fact, last November a senior CASIC executive forecast that Chinese UAV sales would double in 2013.

Chinese firms also have high hopes for export sales. The Predator-style CH-4 in particular is being pushed for export, and was displayed at the recent IDEX defense expo in Abu Dhabi. The system is part of CASC’s CH “Rainbow” family of drones, and is understood to be an upgraded version of the CH-3 UAV, which China has already sold to Pakistan. The Yilong has also “already successfully entered the international market”, according to Chinese sources quoted by RIA Novosti at the recent China Air Show.

China has rightly identified a gap in the market, with relatively few countries having inducted UAVs so far, and few capable of building drones themselves, the low cost of Chinese systems will certainly be an advantage. A U.S. Predator costs around $4.5 million, while a Reaper is closer to $10 million for countries that manage to obtain clearance to buy them. Chinese sources have claimed that their equivalent UAVs cost less than $1 million, making them a highly affordable capability for a host of international customers, especially those unable or unwilling to source U.S. and Israeli technology.

So if there is an alarm bell worth ringing about the emergence of Chinese UAVs, it is probably not the threat they will pose to the U.S. or Japan in the Asia-Pacific – it is the proliferation to the developing world of armed, unmanned systems that China’s low prices, and even lower export barriers, may soon begin to drive.

House Passes CISPA (Another) “Big Brother” Internet Surveillance Bill; Garners Broad Support Among Internet/Telecom Corporations

Oldspeak:”Internet Privacy? What internet privacy?! CISPA would “waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity; allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on.”-Rep. Jared Polis, (D) Colorado “One of the biggest differences between CISPA and its SOPA predecessor is that the Web blocking bill was defeated by a broad alliance of Internet companies and millions of peeved users. Not CISPA: the House Intelligence committee proudly lists letters of support from Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, AT&T, Intel, and trade association CTIA, which counts representatives of T-Mobile, Sybase, Nokia, and Qualcomm as board members.”-Declan McCullagh Why did all these computer, internet and telecom corporations speak out against SOPA and PIPA, but are now falling over themselves to endorse a damn near identical threat to our civil liberties? PROFIT. They’re no longer subject to legal action and damages for sharing your private information with the military and surveillance state. (Which they have been doing unconstitutionally for some time now) “The bill immunizes ISPs from privacy lawsuits for voluntarily disclosing customer information thought to be a security threat. Internet companies are also granted anti-trust protection to immunize them against allegations of colluding on cybersecurity issues. The measure is not solely limited to cybersecurity, and includes the catchall phrase “national security” as a valid reason for turning over the data”-David Kravets. Even though in their earnest and sincere sounding “Privacy Statements” they promise not to.Reminds me alot of how the President uses “Signing Statements” where he’ll decide to veto or pass legislation and then draft a signing statement that expresses his intention to do the exact opposite of his publicly stated decision. Doublespeak par excellence. The internet is the last bastion of free, open, non-corporate controlled thought, news and information. Steps are being taken to change that, under the familiar pretexts of “National Security” and “Counter-terrorism” It must be controlled and surveilled constantly to eliminate potential threats to the Transnational Corporate Network. “Freedom Is Slavery”

Related Video

“We Don’t Live in a Free Country”: Jacob Appelbaum on Being Target of Widespread Gov’t Surveillance

we_do_not_live_in_a

Related stories

• Homeland Security Internet monitoring dropped from CISPA
• Opposition grows to CISPA ‘Big Brother’ cybersecurity bill
• White House takes aim at CISPA with formal veto threat
• How CISPA Would Affect You If It Passes

By Declan McCullagh @ CNET News

The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a controversial Internet surveillance bill, rejecting increasingly vocal arguments from critics that it would do more to endanger Americans’ privacy than aid cybersecurity.

By a vote of 248 to 168, a bipartisan majority approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which would permit Internet companies to hand over confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency and other portions of the U.S. government.

CISPA would “waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity,” said Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, during today’s marathon floor debate. “Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on.”

Americans’ confidential information that could legally provided to the feds would “include health records, it can include firearm registration information, it can include credit card information,” warned Polis, a former Web entrepreneur who was a leader in opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act as well.

CISPA wouldn’t formally grant the NSA or Homeland Security any additional surveillance authority. (A proposed amendment that would have veered in that direction was withdrawn.)

But it would usher in a new era of information sharing between companies and government agencies — with limited oversight and privacy safeguards. The House Rules committee yesterday rejected a series of modestly pro-privacy amendments, which led a coalition of civil-liberties groups to complain that “amendments that are imperative won’t even be considered” in a letter today.

CISPA Excerpts

Excerpts from the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a self-protected entity may, for cybersecurity purposes — (i) use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property of such self-protected entity; and (ii) share such cyber threat information with any other entity, including the Federal Government…

The term ‘self-protected entity’ means an entity, other than an individual, that provides goods or services for cybersecurity purposes to itself.”

That prompted some politicians, including House Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), to reluctantly oppose the bill. Schiff said that because his proposed amendments were rejected, he had to vote against CISPA “due to my concerns about civil liberties and the privacy of Americans.”

What made CISPA so controversial is a section saying that, “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” companies may share information with Homeland Security, the IRS, the NSA, or other agencies. By including the word “notwithstanding,” CISPA’s drafters intended to make their legislation trump all existing federal and state laws, including ones dealing with wiretaps, educational records, medical privacy, and more.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had predicted earlier in the week he had the votes. And it turned out he did, despite a last-minute surge of opposition that included Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul warning that “CISPA is Big Brother writ large,” a White House veto threat, and 18 Democratic House members saying it “does not include necessary safeguards.”

CISPA is “needed to stop the Chinese government from stealing our stuff,” Rogers said. They’re “stealing the value and prosperity of America.”

Rogers’ position paper on CISPA said the bill is necessary to deal with threats from China and Russia, and that it “protects privacy by prohibiting the government from requiring private sector entities to provide information.” During today’s floor debate, Rogers repeatedly referred to the need for the Feds to share attack signatures with the private sector — but never addressed the privacy criticisms directly, except to say they were invalid.

One of the biggest differences between CISPA and its SOPA predecessor is that the Web blocking bill was defeated by a broad alliance of Internet companies and millions of peeved users. Not CISPA: the House Intelligence committee proudly lists letters of support from Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, AT&T, Intel, and trade association CTIA, which counts representatives of T-Mobile, Sybase, Nokia, and Qualcomm as board members.

CISPA’s authorization for information sharing extends far beyond Web companies and social networks. It would also apply to Internet service providers, including ones that already have an intimate relationship with Washington officialdom. Large companies including AT&T and Verizon handed billions of customer records to the NSA; only Qwest refused to participate. Verizon turned over customer data to the FBI without court orders. An AT&T whistleblower accused the company of illegally opening its network to the NSA, a practice that the U.S. Congress retroactively made legal in 2008.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where related cybersecurity legislation has been stalled for years, and the threat of a presidential veto makes speedy approval unlikely.

“Once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there’s no going back,” Michelle Richardson, ACLU legislative counsel, said after the House vote. “We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity.”

Artist Sent To Jail Over A Pillow

Oldspeak:” While the individuals who conspired in the theft of TRILLIONS and crashed the global economic system roam free. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.The relentless and unyielding enclosure, comodificaiton and undue regulation of the commons, of creativity, of artistic expression, continues unabated. ““If they charge me, then for the rest of my life, it will be in my record as a misdemeanor that I tried to sell a pillow.” -See One, Artist. Our corporate overseers will not rest until they are able to extract profit from everything we do, see, say, make, wear, eat, smell, feel, etc, etc etc etc… “Profit Is Paramount”  This is what overcriminaliztion looks like. “Overcriminalization” describes the trend in America to use the criminal law to “solve” every problem, punish every mistake (instead of making proper use of civil penalties), and coerce Americans into conforming their behavior to satisfy social engineering objectives. Criminal law is supposed to be used to redress only that conduct which society thinks deserving of the greatest punishment and moral sanction. As a result of rampant overcriminalization, trivial conduct is now often punished as a crime.  Many criminal laws make it possible for the government to convict a person even if he acted without criminal intent (i.e., mens rea). Sentences have skyrocketed, particularly at the federal level.

Related Story:

After Creating 452 New Crimes In A 7 Year Period, Congress Looks At Laws That Criminalize Non-Criminal Behavior

By Bucky Turco @ Animal New York:

“If they charge me, then for the rest of my life, it will be in my record as a misdemeanor that I tried to sell a pillow.”

SEE ONE–also known as “Jamel”–an artist who sells his work on the street, is going to criminal court next week… over a painted pillow. The 31-year-old Brooklyn man was arrested in July for offering the decorative item for sale without a vendor’s license, one of three he had displayed on his sidewalk table on Prince Street in Soho alongside canvasses with similar designs. But it was the $35 pillows that “two football player-like dudes”–who turned out to be undercover NYPD officers–were interested in.

“They asked if I have a tax ID to sell my artwork, which I did,” said Jamel. “They told me the tax ID is cool for all my art, but didn’t cover the three pillows I made, even though I painted them.” Crafts such as pillows, now matter how custom and ornate, aren’t covered in the guidelines established after a key ruling against the city in 2001.

Jamel was placed in handcuffs and hauled away to a jail cell where he sat for nine hours. “They told me NYC only considers something that is a flat surface and painted on a piece of art. Since I wrapped raw canvas around a pillow form instead of stretcher bars they said it’s now a product, not art,” said Jamel. “I hand painted on raw canvas then mailed it to Long Island for my mom to sew together.” (That’s not only art, that’s collaboration!)

Jamel was eventually released on his own recognizance. Unable to afford a lawyer, the artist was assigned a public defender and proclaimed his innocence. He’s been to court three times; next week he’ll find out if the case goes to trial. “The prosecution is taking me to trial for the pillows unless I pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and take one day [of] community service and a misdemeanor charge on my record for a year.” [UPDATE: The NYPD didn't hit him with the disorderly conduct charge, the DA did.]

When asked about the merits of the case by email, the NYPD told ANIMAL that, “[Jamel] did not have a Consumer Affairs license to sell the pillows.” Which is true. And absurd.

Robert Lederman, an artist and president of vending watchdog group, A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics), is responsible for winning a landmark ruling against the city in 2001 that legally established their right to sell art work in the streets without a permit (read the guidelines here).

According to Lederman, who has been arrested 44 times and never convicted, “If the artwork is on something that has a functional purpose, then the city can still require a vending license.” If an artist paints an image on a canvas and then does the same to a t-shirts, garbage cans, TVs, or other “purely functional items,” such as a pillow, it is illegal to sell without a proper permit.

There is one workaround. Lederman says that those same goods are protected under a free speech provision if they contain a political reference, whether it be a slogan, message, or logo. For argument’s sake, had Jamel painted “Free Palestine” on one side of the pillow, selling it without a vendor’s license would have been perfectly lawful. “The ruling doesn’t mention a list of items. It’s purely up to the judge” explained Lederman. “Which of course opens it up to a tremendous amount of variety in rulings.”

Police Say They Can Detain Photographers If Their Photographs Have ‘No Apparent Esthetic Value’

A photograph shot by Sander Roscoe Wolff on June 30 before he was detained by Long Beach Police

Oldspeak:” In a police state, Photography is Terrorism. Thought Police moonlight as art critics. And if in their professional opinion, your work has “No apparent esthetic value” and you are not engaging in “regular tourist behaviour” they can arrest you for the offenses. Yes my pretties, the Police States of America is full-formed and hard at work depriving you of your rights to freedom, movement, assembly, protest, and now apparently to photograph. All in under the guise of “National Security”. This makes complete sense in a society where its government creates 452 new laws criminalizing non-criminal behavior over a 7 year period.  “Freedom is Slavery”

By Greggory Moore @ The Long Beach Post:

Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures “with no apparent esthetic value” is within Long Beach Police Department  policy.

McDonnell spoke for a follow-up story on a June 30 incident in which Sander Roscoe Wolff, a Long Beach resident and regular contributor to Long Beach Post, was detained by Officer Asif Kahn for taking pictures of a North Long Beach refinery.¹

“If an officer sees someone taking pictures of something like a refinery,” says McDonnell, “it is incumbent upon the officer to make contact with the individual.” McDonnell went on to say that whether said contact becomes detainment depends on the circumstances the officer encounters.

McDonnell says that while there is no police training specific to determining whether a photographer’s subject has “apparent esthetic value,” officers make such judgments “based on their overall training and experience” and will generally approach photographers not engaging in “regular tourist behavior.”

This policy apparently falls under the rubric of compiling Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) as outlined in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Order No. 11, a March 2008 statement of the LAPD’s “policy …  to make every effort to accurately and appropriately gather, record and analyze information, of a criminal or non-criminal nature, that could indicate activity or intentions related to either foreign or domestic terrorism.”

Among the non-criminal behaviors “which shall be reported on a SAR” are the usage of binoculars and cameras (presumably when observing a building, although this is not specified), asking about an establishment’s hours of operation, taking pictures or video footage “with no apparent esthetic value,” and taking notes.

Also listed as behaviors to be documented are “Attempts to acquire illegal or illicit biological agent (anthrax, ricin, Eboli, smallpox, etc.),” “In possession, or utilizes, explosives (for illegal purposes),” and “Acquires or attempts to acquire uniforms without a legitimate cause (service personnel, government uniforms, etc.).” Special Order No. 11 does not distinguish between how these behaviors should be handled and how (e.g.) photography should be handled.

McDonnell says that LBPD policy is “on-line” with all instructions contained in Special Order No. 11, “as is everyone else [i.e., other police departments] around the country.”

In response to Long Beach Post’s coverage of the incident, the National Press Photographer’s Association has written to Chief McDonnell expressing concern “about the misplaced beliefs that photography is in and of itself a suspicious activity.”

Deputy City Attorney Gary Anderson says that the legal standard for a police officer’s detaining an individual pivots on whether the officer has “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity”; and that whether taking photographs of a refinery meets that standard “depends on the circumstances the officer is confronted with.” For that information, Anderson says, we must know what is in the officer’s mind.

Officer Kahn did not reply to repeated attempts to contact him in order to determine what was in his mind when he allegedly detained Wolff; and the LBPD Public Information Office referred pertinent questions to Anderson.

According to Anderson, Kahn claims that Wolff complied with Kahn’s request to see his license, and that it was unnecessary for him to compel Wolff to do so — a version of events Wolff flatly contradicts. “I absolutely asked him if showing him my license was necessary,” Wolff says, “which is when he gave me his little spiel about Homeland Security [allowing Kahn to detain Wolff under the circumstances].”²

Anderson reports that Kahn asserts Wolff denied being a reporter, which Wolff says is untrue. “I never denied being a reporter,” Wolff says. “He never asked me about being a reporter. He asked me why I was taking pictures, and I told him that I was an artist.”

Regarding whether Kahn felt Wolff’s behavior gave him “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity,” Anderson initially replied, “I never asked [Kahn] that question.” Agreeing that “we can’t go any further in discussing [whether Kahn had 'reasonable suspicion of criminal activity'] without knowing what was in the officer’s mind in this specific instance,” Anderson agreed to follow up with Kahn on that matter.

However, when reached 10 days later, Anderson stated, “I’m not going to get into the officer’s subjective state of mind at this point. … That’s attorney-client privilege.”

As to why Anderson failed to cite attorney-client privilege initially, Anderson says only that he has “been thinking about it more”; and, “We have no further comment. Seriously.”

1 After running Wolff’s driver’s license, Kahn left the scene without ordering Wolff to desist.

2 Legally, a police detention has occurred when “a reasonable individual” in that circumstance would be believe he or she is not free to leave

As U.S. Economy Tanks, “New Normal” Police State Takes Shape

Oldspeak: ” Forget your rights. Under our current political set-up, “states of exception” and national security “emergencies” have become permanent features of social life. Entire classes of citizens and non-citizens alike are now suspect; anarchists, communists, immigrants, Muslims, union activists and political dissidents in general are all subject to unprecedented levels of scrutiny and surveillance. From “enhanced security screenings” at airports to the massive expansion of private and state databases that archive our spending habits, whom we talk to and where we go, increasingly, as the capitalist system implodes and millions face the prospect of economic ruin, the former American republic takes on the characteristics of a corporate police state. While the global economy circles the drain, with ever more painful cuts in so-called “entitlement” programs meant to cushion the crash now on the chopping block, the corporate and political masters who rule the roost are sharpening their knives, fashioning administrative and bureaucratic surveillance tools, the better to conceal the “invisible hand” of that bitch-slaps us all” -Tom Burghardt

By Tom Burghardt @ Dissident Voice:

Forget your rights.

As corporate overlords position themselves to seize what little remains of a tattered social net (adieu Medicare and Medicaid! Social Security? Au revoir!), the Obama administration is moving at break-neck speed to expand police state programs first stood-up by the Bush government.

After all, with world share prices gyrating wildly, employment and wages in a death spiral, and retirement funds and publicly-owned assets swallowed whole by speculators and rentier scum, the state better dust-off contingency plans lest the Greek, Spanish or British “contagion” spread beyond the fabled shores of “old Europe” and infect God-fearin’ folk here in the heimat.

Fear not, they have and the lyrically-titled Civil Disturbances: Emergency Employment of Army and Other Resources, otherwise known as Army Regulation 500-50, spells out the “responsibilities, policy, and guidance for the Department of the Army in planning and operations involving the use of Army resources in the control of actual or anticipated civil disturbances.” (emphasis added)

With British politicians demanding a clampdown on social media in the wake of London riots, and with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency having done so last week in San Francisco, switching off underground cell phone service to help squelch a protest against police violence, authoritarian control tactics, aping those deployed in Egypt and Tunisia (that worked out well!) are becoming the norm in so-called “Western democracies.”

Secret Law, Secret Programs

Meanwhile up on Capitol Hill, Congress did their part to defend us from that pesky Bill of Rights; that is, before 81 of them–nearly a fifth of “our” elected representatives–checked-out for AIPAC-funded junkets to Israel.

Secrecy News reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee “rejected an amendment that would have required the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to confront the problem of ‘secret law,’ by which government agencies rely on legal authorities that are unknown or misunderstood by the public.”

That amendment, proposed by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) was rejected by voice vote, further entrenching unprecedented surveillance powers of Executive Branch agencies such as the FBI and NSA.

As Antifascist Calling previously reported, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department “demanding the release of a secret legal memo used to justify FBI access to Americans’ telephone records without any legal process or oversight.”

The DOJ refused and it now appears that the Senate has affirmed that “secret law” should be guiding principles of our former republic.

Secrecy News also disclosed that the Committee rejected a second amendment to the authorization bill, one that would have required the Justice Department’s Inspector General “to estimate the number of Americans who have had the contents of their communications reviewed in violation of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 [FAA].”

As pointed out here many times, FAA is a pernicious piece of Bushist legislative detritus that legalized the previous administration’s secret spy programs since embellished by our current “hope and change” president.

During the run-up to FAA’s passage, congressional Democrats, including then-Senator Barack Obama and his Republican colleagues across the aisle, claimed that the law would “strike a balance” between Americans’ privacy rights and the needs of security agencies to “stop terrorists” attacking the country.

If that’s the case, then why can’t the American people learn whether their rights have been compromised?

Perhaps, as recent reports in Truthout and other publications suggest, former U.S. counterterrorism “czar” Richard Clarke leveled “explosive allegations against three former top CIA officials — George Tenet, Cofer Black and Richard Blee — accusing them of knowingly withholding intelligence … about two of the 9/11 hijackers who had entered the United States more than a year before the attacks.”

Clarke’s allegations follow closely on the heels of an investigation by Truthoutjournalists Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold.

“Based on on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and an interview with a former high-ranking counterterrorism official,” Kaye and Leopold learned that “a little-known military intelligence unit, unbeknownst to the various investigative bodies probing the terrorist attacks, was ordered by senior government officials to stop tracking Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s movements prior to 9/11.”

As readers are well aware, the 9/11 provocation was the pretext used by the capitalist state to wage aggressive resource wars abroad while ramming through repressive legislation like the USA Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act that targeted the democratic rights of the American people here at home.

But FAA did more then legitimate illegal programs. It also handed retroactive immunity and economic cover to giant telecoms like AT&T and Verizon who profited handily from government surveillance, shielding them from monetary damages which may have resulted from a spate of lawsuits such as Hepting v. AT&T.

This raises the question: are other U.S. firms similarly shielded from scrutiny by secret annexes in FAA or the privacy-killing USA Patriot Act?

Echelon Cubed

Last week, Softpedia revealed that “Google has admitted complying with requests from US intelligence agencies for data stored in its European data centers, most likely in violation of European Union data protection laws.”

“At the center of this problem,” reporter Lucian Constantin wrote, “is the USA PATRIOT ACT, which states that companies incorporated in the United States must hand over data administered by their foreign subsidiaries if requested.”

“Not only that,” the publication averred, “they can be forced to keep quiet about it in order to avoid exposing active investigations and alert those targeted by the probes.”

In other words, despite strict privacy laws that require companies operating within the EU to protect the personal data of their citizens, reports suggest that U.S. firms, operating under an entirely different legal framework, U.S. spy laws with built-in secrecy clauses and gag orders, trump the laws and legal norms of other nations.

Given the widespread corporate espionage carried out by the National Security Agency’s decades-long Echelon communications’ intercept program, American firms such as Google, Microsoft, Apple or Amazon may very well have become witting accomplices of U.S. secret state agencies rummaging about for “actionable intelligence” on EU, or U.S., citizens.

Indeed, a decade ago the European Union issued its final report on the Echelon spying machine and concluded that the program was being used for corporate and industrial espionage and that data filched from EU firms was being turned over to American corporations.

In 2000, the BBC reported that according to European investigators “U.S. Department of Commerce ‘success stories’ could be attributed to the filtering powers of Echelon.”

Duncan Campbell, a British journalist and intelligence expert, who along with New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager, helped blow the lid off Echelon, offered two instances of U.S. corporate spying in the 1990s when the newly-elected Clinton administration followed up on promises of “aggressive advocacy” on behalf of U.S. firms “bidding for foreign contracts.”

According to Campbell, NSA “lifted all the faxes and phone-calls between Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi Government” to gain this information. In a second case which came to light, Campbell documented how “Raytheon used information picked up from NSA snooping to secure a $1.4bn contract to supply a radar system to Brazil instead of France’s Thomson-CSF.”

As Softpedia reported, U.S.-based cloud computing services operating overseas have placed “European companies and government agencies that are using their services … in a tough position.”

With the advent of fiber optic communication platforms, programs like Echelon have a far greater, and more insidious, reach. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein noted on the widespread deployment by NSA of fiber optic splitters and secret rooms at American telecommunications’ firms:

What screams out at you when examining this physical arrangement is that the NSA was vacuuming up everything flowing in the Internet stream: e-mail, web browsing, Voice-Over-Internet phone calls, pictures, streaming video, you name it. The splitter has no intelligence at all, it just makes a blind copy. There could not possibly be a legal warrant for this, since according to the 4th Amendment warrants have to be specific, “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. …

This was a massive blind copying of the communications of millions of people, foreign and domestic, randomly mixed together. From a legal standpoint, it does not matter what they claim to throw away later in their secret rooms, the violation has already occurred at the splitter. (Mark Klein,Wiring Up the Big Brother Machine… And Fighting It, Charleston, South Carolina: BookSurge, 2009, pp. 38-39.)

What was Google’s response?

In a statement to the German publication WirtschaftsWoche a Google corporate spokesperson said:

As a law abiding company, we comply with valid legal process, and that–as for any U.S. based company–means the data stored outside of the U.S. may be subject to lawful access by the U.S. government. That said, we are committed to protecting user privacy when faced with law enforcement requests. We have a long track record of advocating on behalf of user privacy in the face of such requests and we scrutinize requests carefully to ensure that they adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying.” (translation courtesy of Public Intelligence)

Is the Senate Intelligence Committee’s steadfast refusal to release documents and secret legal memos that most certainly target American citizens also another blatant example of American exceptionalism meant to protect U.S. firms operating abroad from exposure as corporate spies for the government?

It isn’t as if NSA hasn’t been busy doing just that here at home.

As The New York Times reported back in 2009, the “National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year.”

Chalking up the problem to “overcollection” and “technical difficulties,” unnamed intelligence officials and administration lawyers told journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen that although the practice was “significant and systemic … it was believed to have been unintentional.”

As “unintentional” as ginned-up intelligence that made the case for waging aggressive war against oil-rich Iraq!

In a follow-up piece, the Times revealed that NSA “appears to have tolerated significant collection and examination of domestic e-mail messages without warrants.”

A former NSA analyst “read into” the illegal program told Lichtblau and Risen that he “and other analysts were trained to use a secret database, code-named Pinwale, in 2005 that archived foreign and domestic e-mail messages.”

Email readily handed over by Google, Microsoft or other firms “subject to lawful access” by the Pentagon spy satrapy?

The Times’ anonymous source said “Pinwale allowed N.S.A. analysts to read large volumes of e-mail messages to and from Americans as long as they fell within certain limits–no more than 30 percent of any database search, he recalled being told–and Americans were not explicitly singled out in the searches.”

Nor, were they excluded from such illicit practices.

As Jane Mayer revealed in The New Yorker, “privacy controls” and “anonymizing features” of a program called ThinThread, which would have complied with the law if Americans’ communications were swept into NSA’s giant eavesdropping nets, were rejected in favor of the “$1.2 billion flop” called Trailblazer.

And, as previously reported, when Wyden and Udall sought information from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on just how many Americans had their communications monitored, the DNI stonewalled claiming “it is not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority.”

Why? Precisely because such programs act like a giant electronic sponge and soak up and data mine huge volumes of our communications.

As former NSA manager and ThinThread creator Bill Binney told The New Yorker, that “little program … got twisted” and was “used to eavesdrop on the whole world.”

Three years after Barack Obama promised to curb Bush administration “excesses,” illegal surveillance programs continue to expand under his watch.

A Permanent “State of Exception”

Under our current political set-up, “states of exception” and national security “emergencies” have become permanent features of social life.

Entire classes of citizens and non-citizens alike are now suspect; anarchists, communists, immigrants, Muslims, union activists and political dissidents in general are all subject to unprecedented levels of scrutiny and surveillance.

From “enhanced security screenings” at airports to the massive expansion of private and state databases that archive our spending habits, whom we talk to and where we go, increasingly, as the capitalist system implodes and millions face the prospect of economic ruin, the former American republic takes on the characteristics of a corporate police state.

Security researcher and analyst Christopher Soghoian reported on his Slight Paranoia blog, that according to “an official DOJ report, the use of ‘emergency’, warrantless requests to ISPs for customer communications content has skyrocketed over 400% in a single year.”

This is no trifling matter.

As CNET News disclosed last month, “Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers’ activities for one year–in case police want to review them in the future–under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today.”

Declan McCullagh reported that “the 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall’s elections.”

Significantly, CNET noted that this is also a “victory” for Democratic appointees of Barack Obama’s Justice Department “who have quietly lobbied for the sweeping new requirements.”

According to CNET, a “last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses.”

However, by “a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.”

Consider the troubling implications of this sweeping bill. While ultra-rightist “Tea Party” Republicans vowed to get “the government off our backs,” when it comes to illicit snooping by securocrats whose only loyalty is to a self-perpetuating security bureaucracy and the defense grifters they serve (and whom they rely upon for plum positions after government “retirement”), all our private data is now up for grabs.

The bill, according to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who spearheaded opposition to the measure said that if passed, it would create “a data bank of every digital act by every American” that would “let us find out where every single American visited Web sites.”

To make the poison pill legislation difficult to oppose, proponents have dubbed it, wait, the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″ even though, as CNET noted, “the mandatory logs would be accessible to police investigating any crime and perhaps attorneys litigating civil disputes in divorce, insurance fraud, and other cases as well.”

Soghoian relates that the 2009 two-page Justice Department report to Congress took 11 months (!) to release under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Why the Justice Department stonewall?

Perhaps, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation disclosed last year, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security and presumably other secret state satrapies, ordered “an extra layer of review on its FOIA requests.”

EFF revealed that a 2009 policy memo from the Department’s Chief FOIA Officer and Chief Privacy Officer, Mary Ellen Callahan, that DHS components “were required to report ‘significant FOIA activities’ in weekly reports to the Privacy Office, which the Privacy Office then integrated into its weekly report to the White House Liaison.”

Included amongst designated “significant FOIA activities” were requests “from any members of ‘an activist group, watchdog organization, special interest group, etc.’ and ‘requested documents [that] will garner media attention or [are] receiving media attention’.”

Despite the appearance of reporting “emergency” spying requests to congressional committees presumably overseeing secret state activities (a generous assumption at best), “it is quite clear” Soghoian avers, “that the Department of Justice statistics are not adequately reporting the scale of this form of surveillance” and “underreport these disclosures by several orders of magnitude.”

As such, “the current law is largely useless.” It does not apply to “state and local law enforcement agencies, who make tens of thousands of warrantless requests to ISPs each year,” and is inapplicable to “to federal law enforcement agencies outside DOJ.”

“Finally,” Soghoian relates, “it does not apply to emergency disclosures of non-content information, such as geo-location data, subscriber information (such as name and address), or IP addresses used.”

And with Congress poised to pass sweeping data retention legislation, it should be clear that such “requirements” are mere fig leaves covering-up state-sanctioned lawlessness.

War On Terror 2.0.1: Looting the Global Economy

Criminal behavior by domestic security agencies connect America’s illegal wars of aggression to capitalism’s economic warfare against the working class, who now take their place alongside “Islamic terrorists” as a threat to “national security.”

Despite efforts by the Obama administration and Republican congressional leaders to “balance the books” on the backs of the American people through massive budget cuts, as economist Michael Hudson pointed out in Global Research, the manufactured “debt ceiling” crisis is a massive fraud.

The World Socialist Web Site averred that:

As concerns over a double-dip recession in the US and the European debt crisis sent global markets plunging–including a 512-point sell-off on the Dow Jones Industrial Average Thursday–financial analysts and media pundits developed a new narrative. Concern that Washington lacked the ‘political will’ to slash long-standing entitlement programs was exacerbating ‘market uncertainty’.

Leftist critic Jerry White noted that “in fact, the new cuts will only intensify the economic crisis, while the slashing of food stamps, unemployment compensation, health care and education will eliminate programs that are more essential for survival than ever.”

Indeed, as Marxist economist Richard Wolff pointed out in The Guardian, while the “crisis of the capitalist system in the US that began in 2007,” may have “plunged millions into acute economic pain and suffering,” the “recovery” that began in 2009 “benefited only the minority that was most responsible for the crisis: banks, large corporations and the rich who own the bulk of stocks. That so-called recovery never ‘trickled down’ to the US majority: working people dependent on jobs and wages’.”

And despite mendacious claims by political officials and the media alike, the Pentagon will be sitting pretty even as Americans are forced to shoulder the financial burden of U.S. imperial adventures long into an increasingly bleak future.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “warned Thursday of dire consequences if the Pentagon is forced to make cuts to its budget beyond the $400 billion in savings planned for the next decade,” The Washington Post reported.

The Post noted that “senior Pentagon officials have launched an offensive over the past two days to convince lawmakers that further reductions in Pentagon spending would imperil the country’s security.”

“Instead of slashing defense,” Panetta urged lawmakers to “rely on tax increases and cuts to nondiscretionary spending, such as Medicare and Social Security, to provide the necessary savings.”

But as Hudson points out, “war has been the major cause of a rising national debt.” After all, it was none other than bourgeois icon Adam Smith who argued that “parliamentary checks on government spending were designed to prevent ambitious rulers from waging war.”

Hudson writes that “if people felt the economic impact of war immediately–rather than postponing it by borrowing–they would be less likely to support military adventurism.”

But therein lies the rub. Since “military adventurism” is the only “growth sector” of an imploding capitalist economy, the public spigot which finances everything from cost-overrun-plagued stealth fighter jets to multi-billion dollar spy satellites, along with an out-of-control National Surveillance State, will be kept open indefinitely.

On this score, the hypocrisy of our rulers abound, especially when it comes to the mantra that “we” must “live within our means.”

As Wolff avers:

Where was that phrase heard when Washington decided to spend on an immense military (even after becoming the world’s only nuclear superpower) or to spend on very expensive wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya (now all going on at the same time)? No, then the talk was only about national security needed to save us from attacks.

“Attacks,” it should be duly noted, that may very well have been allowed to happen as the World Socialist Web Site recently reported.

Driving home the point that war, and not social and infrastructure investment fuel deficits, Hudson averred that “the present rise in in U.S. Treasury debt results from two forms of warfare. First is the overtly military Oil War in the Near East, from Iraq to Afghanistan (Pipelinistan) to oil-rich Libya. These adventures will end up costing between $3 and $5 trillion.”

“Second and even more expensive,” the economist observed, “is the more covert yet more costly economic war of Wall Street against the rest of the economy, demanding that losses by banks and financial institutions be passed onto the government balance sheet (‘taxpayers’). The bailouts and ‘free lunch’ for Wall Street–by no coincidence, Congress’s number one political campaign contributor–cost $13 trillion.”

“Now that finance is the new form of warfare,” Hudson wrote, “where is the power to constrain Treasury and Federal Reserve power to commit taxpayers to bail out financial interests at the top of the economic pyramid?”

And since “cutbacks in federal revenue sharing will hit cities and states hard, forcing them to sell off yet more land, roads and other assets in the public domain to cover their budget deficit as the U.S. economy sinks further into depression,” Hudson wrote that “Congress has just added fiscal deflation to debt deflation, slowing employment even further.”

While the global economy circles the drain, with ever more painful cuts in so-called “entitlement” programs meant to cushion the crash now on the chopping block, the corporate and political masters who rule the roost are sharpening their knives, fashioning administrative and bureaucratic surveillance tools, the better to conceal the “invisible hand” of that bitch-slaps us all.

And they call it “freedom.”

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His articles are published in many venues. He is the editor ofPolice State America: U.S. Military “Civil Disturbance” Planning, distributed by AK Press. Read other articles by Tom, or visit Tom’s website.

Deserving Neither Liberty Nor Safety: The Patriot Act & The FBI’s Long-Term Assault on Civil Liberties In America

Oldspeak:” In the wake of the Congress and Obama’s reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT ACT (sans Candidate Obama’s promised reviews and reforms, complete with ‘secret’ interpretations of the laws’ provisions) rest assured that violations of your 4th amendment rights will continue unabated.  ”This assault on the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unwarranted search and surveillance, has some startling ramifications. The FBI can not only search your home or business, but also listen to your phone conversations, monitor your computer and Internet use, and search your medical, financial, library, and academic records. All this without ever letting you know…Moreover, the FBI gets to label any group it wants as supporting terrorism. Did you give money to the African National Congress in its fight against apartheid in South Africa? Did you support CISPES, an organization trying to change U.S. policy in El Salvador and Central America? If you did and you are not a citizen, you could join the thousands who have been rounded up, questioned, and held in indefinite detention, without charges and without access to legal representation. Two U.S. citizens have also been imprisoned in this manner, establishing a chilling precedent for the future, no matter what their supposed crimes.” -Fred Nagel.  Yet another disheartening example of President Obama extending and unchanging an unconstitutional, anti-democratic, police state promoting Bush era policy. It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish these tactics, secret police, the spying, the intimidation, the warrantless searches, from those used by the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.   The “War On Americans” is still going strong, and Americans are losing. They’re losing HUGE.”

Related Story: FBI’s Counterterrorism Operations Scrutinizing Political Activists

 

Related Story: Spying on U.S Citizens — Uncle Sam turns his multi-billion dollar espionage network on U.S Citizens

By Fred Nagel @ Z Magazine:

Visiting Budapest in the early nineties, after the fall of the Soviet Union, I had a chance to talk to some Hungarians about their lives during and after the Soviet occupation. I was particularly interested in the secret police. Did they feel safer now that they couldn’t be taken away in the middle of the night for something they had said or written? One woman’s response was typical. “They would never
come for me,” she said. “They came for our writers, our intellectuals, but never for me; I was never scared.”

Perhaps the average American thought the same way about the USA PATRIOT Act, passed within a month after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Certainly members of Congress felt that way. The act was over 300 pages long, and most simply did not have time to read it in the rush for passage.

They should have. It gives our government the right to secretly investigate individuals and groups if they violate criminal laws and their actions “appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population…” Cutting a fence, throwing a stone, or crossing a police barrier in pursuit of civil rights, protecting the environment, or protesting the World Trade Organization would certainly qualify.

And only one member of a group needs to engage in this type of action for the whole group to be investigated. The USA PATRIOT Act does away with the need for a search warrant, the process that requires the government to show a judge some good reason for snooping in your house (reasonable cause that there is evidence relevant to a crime). This assault on the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unwarranted search and surveillance, has some startling ramifications. The FBI can not only search your home or business, but also listen to your phone conversations, monitor your computer and Internet use, and search your
medical, financial, library, and academic records. All this without ever letting you know.

As an example, librarians were put on notice that it is a violation of law to let any library user know that his/her records have ever been checked. And hundreds of libraries report that records have been checked, although they are forbidden to reveal the specifics. There can be little doubt that homes have also been searched, patient records copied, etc. since passage of this act. Could my house or
computer be searched simply because I wrote this article? In the brave, new world of the USA PATRIOT Act, anything is possible.

Indefinite imprisonment without charges and without evidence used to be unthinkable as well. But the USA PATRIOT Act allows this for non-citizens who are members of a designated “terrorist organization.” Moreover, the FBI gets to label any group it wants as supporting terrorism. Did you give money to the African National Congress in its fight against apartheid in South Africa? Did you support CISPES, an organization trying to change U.S. policy in El Salvador and Central America? If you did and you are not a citizen, you could join the thousands who have been rounded up, questioned, and held in indefinite detention, without charges and without access to legal representation. Two U.S. citizens have also been imprisoned in this manner, establishing a chilling precedent for the future, no matter what their supposed crimes. The line has clearly been crossed, and as a citizen of this country,
you can be locked up and denied your most basic rights, based on evidence you may never even find out about.

Secret military tribunals have been set up to try immigrants and other foreigners for terrorism, with the death penalty a distinct possibility. Even U.S. citizens who are allowed access to a lawyer may have their conversations monitored if the attorney general “suspects” that terrorist activity is involved. Good-bye to another very basic right we have come to expect, that of attorney/client
privilege. The Total Information Awareness database, organized as part of the Bush Era’s Department of Homeland Security, was a omonous step toward a police state. Masterminded by Admiral John Poindexter (criminally convicted in 1990 for lying to Congress, destroying official documents, and obstruction of justice), this database would have collected every bit of information that existed on
every citizen in this country. A massive public outcry stopped that program before it was put into place. But since then, the goverment’s surveillance programs have multiplied dramatically, especially under Obama, who signed the extension of the USA PATRIOT Act without any reforms at all. Currently, the Justice Department is trying to get a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling against planting GPS devices without a warrant.

“Big deal,” you reply. “The FBI has been doing all this stuff for years. Where have you been?” Well, it has been doing this since 1908, when Congress first refused to authorize the FBI (at that time the Bureau of Investigation), explaining that “a system of spying upon and espionage of the people, such as has prevailed in Russia” was unacceptable in a free society. The president then created the FBI
while Congress was not in session.

The clearest and most reliable source of FBI history is the Church Committee Report, a congressional investigation of the Bureau conducted in 1975. According to this report, the FBI was in trouble by the 1920s when agents carried out the “Palmer Raids” that eventually rounded up 10,000 citizens in what was termed “indiscriminate arrests of innocent with the guilty” as well as “unlawful seizures by federal detectives.” The Church Committee also cited reports by legal scholars that “found federal agents guilty of using third-degree tortures, making illegal searches and arrests, using agents provocateurs.” A young man, J. Edgar Hoover, joined
the Bureau in time to take part in these raids .

By the 1950s Hoover, as head of the FBI, was one of the most powerful men in the country. He used his investigators to collect information on a broad range of public figures and had no scruples when it came to using that information to influence congressional votes or presidential decisions. It was under Hoover that COINTELPRO was born, a comprehensive system of surveillance that the Church Committee found “had no conceivable rational relationship to either national security or violent activity. The unexpressed major premise of much of COINTELPRO is that the Bureau has a role in maintaining the existing social order, and that its efforts should be aimed toward combating those who threaten that order.” Combating the civil rights movement, the American Indian Movement, and the anti-Vietnam War movement to be specific. The FBI served as thought police of the 1950s and 1960s.

The mindless destruction caused by COINTELPRO is still coming to light. Martin Luther King Jr. was a particular target. Over several years, the FBI wiretapped King’s home and office phones and put bugs in his hotel rooms. At the same time, it worked to deny him awards and honorary degrees, and even tried to prevent an audience with Pope Paul VI. Hoover was quick to exploit the results of the wiretaps, proof of King’s illicit affairs that he then had his agents mail to King’s supporters and to the media. Finally, the FBI mailed copies of bedroom tapes to King himself, along with an anonymous letter suggesting he commit suicide rather than having his wife, family, and the nation know about his marital infidelity.

The FBI vendetta against other African-American and Indian groups was just as brutal. Leonard Peltier sits in a federal prison today, framed for a murder that most historians doubt he committed. The role of the FBI in his extradition from Canada and the withholding of more than 12,000 FBI documents from his trial is another low point in the violation of civil liberties. Among the documents withheld was a ballistic test that proved that the fatal bullets could not have come from the gun tied to Mr. Peltier at the trial. According to Amnesty International, he is a “political prisoner” who should be “immediately and unconditionally released.”

The Church Committee Report was released in 1976. Senator Frank Church told the nation at that time that the FBI’s COINTELPRO had been “a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association.” He also reassured U.S. citizens “that never again will an agency of the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers a threat to the established order.”  But by 1980, things were back to normal for the FBI, at least according to Frank Varelli, who infiltrated a CISPES office in Dallas for the Bureau that year. In an in-depth statement to Congress in 1987, he revealed a complicated but all too familiar pattern of surveillance, theft, and dirty tricks directed at this legal and nonviolent organization.

CISPES was founded to promote peace in El Salvador. Specifically, it worked to expose U.S. military aid that funded right-wing death squads operating there. Varelli was hired by the FBI as part of an “international terrorism investigation,” but his tactics included the familiar cameras and sound equipment in bedrooms, this time as part of an attempt to smear and blackmail the Dallas head of CISPES, a nun by the name of Sister Linda Hajak. Varelli also provided the Salvadoran National Guard with lists of U.S. citizens traveling there “who were not friendly to Reagan policies.” Just one year before Varelli supplied these lists, three nuns and one church worker, all U.S. citizens, had been raped and murdered in El Salvador by members of this same National Guard. The FBI has admitted to launching this investigation from 1981 through 1985 but has refused to reveal on what legal authority it did so. More than 50 CISPES offices were broken into during this period. In 1990, it was the turn of the environmental movement. Two activists, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, were arrested and accused of making and transporting bombs, a charge the FBI knew was false. Historian and writer,Howard Zinn’s testimony in a successful lawsuit against the FBI says it all. “It seems clear that the history of the FBI is consistent with the charges that it sought to discredit and ‘neutralize’ Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, and the environmental cause they were working for, by smearing them publicly with sensational false charges of possession of a bomb,
and that it did not hesitate to violate their constitutional rights to achieve its ends.”

The fact that the average U.S. citizen is unaware of all of this is a testament to the FBI’s skill at public relations. Of course, the FBI has done some excellent crime fighting in its history. But even its campaign against the Mafia has been exaggerated in the media. Anti-crime efforts in places like Boston are now being exposed for what they were. The FBI  allied itself with certain crime families to arrest and take the credit for convicting members of other families. It was a little crime fighting and a lot of PR, a Hoover legacy that extends into the 21st century. How many movies and TV shows were influenced by the Bureau over the last 40 years? That is where you and I learned about the FBI. The FBI, as well as similar federal law enforcement agencies, has done a much better job of protecting us from dissent than of protecting us from crime for all these years. And as for terrorists, in the entire history of the FBI there were precious few of those caught among the tens of thousands detained, bugged, discredited, falsely charged, and publicly humiliated. Looking at the history of the FBI, is it any wonder that 19 men were able to board four domestic airliners and fly them with such deadly accuracy into their targets? They learned to fly at U.S. flight schools while the Bureau was busy tracking down and playing dirty tricks on students protesting free trade and the World Bank. Police forces all across this land have followed the
lead of the FBI in snooping.

The Denver Police Department revealed a 40-year program of gathering and storing information on the usual suspects: Sister Antonia Anthony, a 74-year-old nun who taught destitute Indians, and Shirley Whiteside, who with her husband ran a community soup kitchen. These were the types of people labeled “criminal extremists” in the database developed by Orion, a software company with ties to the Pentagon. When asked how more than 3,000 Denver citizens ended up with this label, the police said that it was up to each officer to “use his own judgment” in characterizing people. The label “criminal extremist” was often used when a person didn’t seem to fit any other category. There just doesn’t seem to be much hesitation when it comes to spying on and labeling this country’s citizens. It is done from the FBI all the way down to the local police.

On Friday, September 24, 2010, the FBI raided seven homes and an antiwar office. Fourteen activist in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan were also handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury. The usual groups were targeted: the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. All had been involved in the antiwar marches at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
Tracy Molm was one of the activists targeted in the early morning raid.

“I heard a pounding on my door in my apartment complex; that was pretty bizarre. I opened the door and they shoved their way in saying ‘We are FBI agents and we have a warrant.’ I was in my bathrobe and they told me I had to sit on my couch, and they were going to search my apartment. They pulled my roommate and a friend out of her room and told them to sit on the couch too. They took my phone from me. And they took my computer. They proceeded to go through everything in our apartment. If we wanted to go to the bathroom, a FBI agent had to come with us. We were told we could leave, but couldn’t come back. “I was outraged and stunned. I never thought in my wildest dreams that this could happen. Everything I have ever done has been around peace and justice issues around the world, and particularly U.S. foreign policy. So it was really surprising. I was on a delegation to the West Bank, in the occupied territories in 2004, which is six years ago. And they said this is in regards to that.” I have never much liked Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote about civil liberties: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” It seemed a little elitist, suggesting that some people haven’t earned the right to enjoy freedom of expression. Perhaps they have no need for it, like the woman in Budapest saying that the secret police would never come for her. But maybe Franklin was simply saying he had done his part and the rest was up to us.

In many ways, we have failed Ben Franklin and we have failed ourselves. I like to think that there is still time to win back our basic civil liberties in the land of the free, home of the brave. To get involved, make a donation or find out more go to http://www.stopfbi.net.
Fred Nagel is an activist writer, filmmaker,and radio show host ; his website is classwars.org.

U.S. Supreme Court Expands Police Power, OKs Warrantless Searches Of Private Homes

Oldspeak: “Welp, so much for the 4th Amendment. ‘”How ‘secure’ do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and …forcibly enter?’ -Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It’s not enough that the government can conduct warrantless wiretapping on your phone calls or email on mere suspicion of  ’being a spy or terrorist’.  It’s not enough that police can use illegally obtained evidence to charge you with a crime. Now law enforcement can enter your home and conduct a warrantless search based on suspicious smells, sounds or manufactured “emergency”. As the Prison-Industrial Complex expands, your rights to privacy, individual freedom and due process are being obliterated. ‘There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” -Mario Savio. When will the time come to stop this odious machine?!

By David G. Savage @ McClatchy-Tribune:

The Supreme Court on Monday gave police more leeway to break into residences in search of illegal drugs.

The justices in an 8-1 decision said officers who loudly knock on a door and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Residents who “attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame” when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

In a lone dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she feared the ruling in a Kentucky case will give police an easy way to ignore the 4th Amendment. “Police officers may not knock, listen and then break the door down,” she said, without violating the 4th Amendment.

In the past, the court has said police usually may not enter a home unless they have a search warrant or the permission of the owner. As Alito said, “The 4th Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house.”

One exception to that rule involves an emergency, such as screams coming from a house. Police may also pursue a fleeing suspect who enters a residence. Police were attempting to do that in the Kentucky case, but they entered the wrong apartment, raising the issue of what is permissible in situations where police have reason to believe evidence is being destroyed.

It began when police in Lexington, Ky., were following a suspect who allegedly had sold crack cocaine to an informer and then walked into an apartment building. They did not see which apartment he entered, but when they smelled marijuana smoke come from one of the apartments, they wrongly assumed he had gone into that one. They pounded on the door and called “Police. Police. Police,” and heard the sounds of people moving.

At this, the officers announced they were coming in, and they broke down the door. They found Hollis King smoking marijuana, and put him under arrest. They also found powder cocaine. King was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

But the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned his conviction and ruled the apartment break-in violated his 4th Amendment right against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Police had created an emergency by pounding on the door, the state justices said.

The Supreme Court heard an appeal from state prosecutors and reversed the ruling in Kentucky v. King. Alito said the police conduct in this case “was entirely lawful,” and they were justified in breaking down the door to prevent the destruction of the evidence.

“When law enforcement officers who are not armed with a warrant knock on a door, they do no more than any private citizen may do,” he wrote. A resident need not respond, he added. But the sounds of people moving and perhaps toilets being flushed could justify police entering without a warrant, he added.

“Destruction of evidence issues probably occur most frequently in drug cases because drugs may be easily destroyed by flushing down a toilet,” he added.

The ruling was not a final loss for King. The justices said the Kentucky state court should consider again whether the police faced an emergency situation in this case.

Ginsburg, however, said the court’s approach “arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the 4th Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases.” She said the police did not face a “genuine emergency” and should not have been allowed to enter the apartment without a warrant.