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| News Archive #002 | |
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NEWS ARCHIVE ; This is a good place start following the news "We Will Stop These Monsters" - Harry Thomas , a founding member of People For A Better Future and Webmaster of PFABF.ORG !!!!!! PFABF NEWS ALERT !!!!!! Jan. 31, 2005 Insider Report from NewsMax.com
U.S. to Occupy Iraq Forever? China, EU Preparing to Challenge the U.S. Poll Results: Condi Can Win Republican Nod Johnny Carson Helped 'The Spike' The CIA and the Defense Department have both issued reports suggesting that the U.S. occupation of Iraq may last another four to five years. But a member of the Pentagon's Defense Advisory Board tells NewsMax that "it may be much longer than that." When asked how long, the member, who advises Donald Rumsfeld, responded, "We're still in Germany." Of course, U.S. troops have remained in Germany to prevent a Russian invasion -- not to maintain the German state as a democracy. But what is clear from our source: The U.S. is looking for a permanent U.S. placement in Iraq using military bases. You probably didn't see this on the nightly news ... But China is fast becoming the prime mover and shaker in challenging America's superpower status. The interesting development, we have from sources in Europe, is the new understanding between China and the EU that they must seriously work together to challenge the United States and her sole-superpower status. The goal of the two giants is to create "a multi-polar" world. "Multi-polar" is the new buzzword of the global elites who fear the U.S. The EU-China development was not lost at the meeting of the global elites this past week at the World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland. The International Herald Tribune days ago noted the new China dynamic: "High-profile diplomacy with the European Union, trade accords in Latin America, oil deals in Africa and a string of corporate acquisitions all over the world: China is on an offensive to take its economic miracle abroad, suggesting a gradual shift in the economic and political power in the world in the next decade." Unsaid but understood is that the shift in power is away from the United States. China, thanks to American trade, investment and the hundreds of thousands of Chinese students who have trained in the U.S., is fast becoming an economic tiger. Already, China and the European Union are each other's largest trading partners. And recently, China surpassed the U.S. as Japan's largest trading partner. The developments in China would not be so ominous if Beijing were a free country, but communists -- who believe that America remains their mortal enemy -- still dominate. NewsMax Magazine's recent cover story "Condi vs. Hillary" -- authored by Dick Morris -- has created a stir in Washington's political circles and on the Web.In his article, Morris asserts his belief that Hillary will be the Democratic nominee in 2008. Her White House ambitions can be stopped, he says. But only one candidate can win both the Republican nomination and the general election in 2008. Her name is Condoleezza Rice, Morris writes in his exclusive NewsMax column. NewsMax is still completing its online poll about a Condi vs. Hillary race. Already more than 60,000 respondents have voted and the results suggest that Morris may be on to something. Asked if Hillary will run for president, 91% said "yes."Asked if Condi would be the "best candidate" the Republicans could nominate in 2008, 44% said yes, while 56% said some other candidate would be better. Dick Morris reacted to the poll results. He tells NewsMax that Condi's 44% draw was great news for her because there are many other possible candidates and the race is still wide open. But the question is, will Condi run?Dick Morris tells that us he spoke with Condi about the matter during a Fox News Channel appearance.When Dick broached the subject off the air, Condi tersely replied, "But I am not running."Morris rejoined, with a smile, that he is going to make life difficult for her over the next few years. Morris has said Condi may have to be drafted to run. The passing of Johnny Carson this week brought fond memories to one journalist who owes his best-seller status to the great comedian.Arnaud de Borchgrave, the noted editor (and NewsMax Board member), tells us that it was primarily Johnny Carson who trumpeted his 1980 novel, co-authored with Robert DeMoss, onto the top of the New York Times best-seller list. Carson had invited de Borchgrave to "The Tonight Show" to talk about his Cold War thriller, which exposed American media complicity with the Soviets. But de Borchgrave recalls that Johnny enjoyed his jokes so much, he interrupted his guest to say, "Wait a minute, aren't I the one telling the jokes here?" Carson so enjoyed the program -- and apparently the book - that he brought de Borchgrave on for a second show. Bin Laden's family link to Bush 'A Dictatorship would be easier , so long as I'm the dictator' -- George W Bush Time To Forget About Figureheads Skeleton key to the White House William Safire: You are a suspect Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database." To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the FBI, your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen. This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks. Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support Contras in Nicaragua. A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing. This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-Contra. He heads the "Information Awareness Office" in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the "data-mining" power to snoop on every public and private act of every American. Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight. He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic "stovepiping." And he has been given a million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans. When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president. This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. In the past week John Markoff of The New York Times, followed by Robert O'Harrow of The Washington Post, have revealed the extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act. Political awareness can overcome "Total Information Awareness," the combined force of commercial and government snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear. The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads "Scientia Est Potentia "knowledge is power." Exactly: The government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy," this brilliant mind blandly assured The Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before.
Bush Orders an End to Hiring Columnists " I Don't Believe IT " (H.Thomas) Subverting the press with propaganda on the rise Commentator Paid By Bush Admin Admits Error Bush team scolded for disguised TV report LA Times: Bush administration’s fake ‘news reports’ on Medicare illegal Mainstream Media is Pentagon's Propaganda Arm Associated Press | January 26, 2005 ``This abuse by HHS is just another in a long list of similar incidents of paid policy advocates supporting Bush Administration policies,'' the senators wrote. Chicago Tribune | January 26, 2005 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A syndicated columnist, who has repeatedly supported the Bush administration's push for a million initiative to encourage marriage, also had a ,500 federal contract to help promote the proposal, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. Maggie Gallagher had a ,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services. It ran from January through October 2002 and included drafting a magazine article for the department official overseeing the initiative, the Post reported. "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it?" Gallagher was quoted as saying Tuesday. "I don't know. You tell me." Later in the day, Gallagher filed a column in which she said: "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers." The author of three books on marriage, Gallagher is president of the Washington-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, a frequent television guest and has written on the subject for such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard. Gallagher told the Post that her situation was "not really anything near" the recent controversy involving commentator Armstrong Williams. Earlier this month Williams apologized for not disclosing a ,000 contract with the Education Department, awarded through a public relations firm, to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind law through advertising on his cable TV and syndicated radio shows and other efforts. According to a report on Salon.com , another columnist has been paid to promote Bush administration initiatives. Salon claims that the Department of Health and Human Services paid conservative columnist Mark McManus ,000 to back the Bush marriage agenda. The full registration-restricted article can be found here. One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, “Ethics & Religion,” appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed. Responding to the latest revelation, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, announced Thursday that HHS would institute a new policy that forbids the agency from hiring any outside expert or consultant who has any working affiliation with the media. “I needed to draw this bright line,” Horn tells Salon. “The policy is being implemented and we’re moving forward.” LA Times | January 17 2005 President BUSH has repeatedly attributed the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and, for that matter, virtually all hostility directed toward the United States by the Islamic world — to their envy and resentment of our way of life, our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. "They … hate America because we love freedom," he said in Minneapolis 10 months to the day after 9/11. This is, of course, self-serving claptrap that ignores the reality that Islamic extremism is, to a great degree, a reaction to "several decades of specific policy disagreements with the U.S.," as James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly told me last year. But as appalled as I am by Bush's willful misreading of history, I'm even more upset by his hypocrisy. He seems determined to destroy the very foundations of American democracy that he insists are our bulwark against our enemies and the cause of our enemies' hatred of us. He launched a preemptive war against Iraq by lying to the American public. He helped create an atmosphere in which the torture of enemy prisoners in violation of the Geneva accords was tolerated, if not encouraged. And his administration has consistently tried to subvert our free press by masking government propaganda as legitimate news and opinion. The most recent example of the Bush administration's attempts to manipulate the media — and the American public — came to light about 10 days ago, when USA Today disclosed that the Education Department, working through a public relations firm, had paid an African American media pundit ,000 to promote the president's No Child Left Behind Act with minority groups. Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, promoted the law on his syndicated television program and in his syndicated newspaper column without disclosing that he was being paid by the Department of Education to do so. This violates the most basic journalistic ethics, and Tribune Media Services, which syndicated Williams' column (and which is a subsidiary of Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times), announced that it would stop syndicating his column. Because several federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayers' money to influence congressional action or polices of the U.S. government, prominent members of Congress are now demanding an investigation. In a week when the big media story has been the report on how CBS and "60 Minutes" screwed up a story on Bush's National Guard service, I've been surprised by the relatively little attention given to the Armstrong Williams story. This is not to minimize in any way the shamefully unprofessional behavior of CBS. But the Bush administration has behaved even more shamefully — consistently — and used our tax dollars to do so. Continuing illegal activity The Williams case was not the administration's first effort at covert propaganda. Shortly after 9/11, reports began to circulate that the administration's Office of Strategic Influence was planning to plant false news stories in the international media. In 2002, amid much controversy, the office was shut down. But as my Times colleague Mark Mazzetti subsequently reported, "much of OSI's mission — using information as a tool of war — has been assumed by other offices throughout the U.S. government." In fact, Mazzetti wrote last December, "a young Marine spokesman near Fallouja appeared on CNN [on Oct. 14] and made a dramatic announcement" signaling the beginning of "the long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city." But the Fallouja offensive did not start until three weeks later. The CNN announcement, Mazzetti said, was "an elaborate psychological operation … intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city." This, Mazzetti wrote, was "part of a broad effort underway within the Bush administration to use information to its advantage in the war on terrorism." Although using misinformation or disinformation to deceive one's enemies has long been an accepted military tactic, deceiving our own news media and the American public in the process is quite another matter. The Bush administration has not limited its use of propaganda to the battlefield. Early last year, several news stations around the country broadcast a story on plans for a White House advertising campaign on the dangers of drug abuse. But the "journalist" who reported this story was not a journalist, and his report was actually produced by the Bush administration. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, ruled that this amounted to illegal "covert propaganda." Last May, the GAO said the Department of Health and Human Services violated two federal laws when it created fake news footage to support the administration's Medicare drug benefit bill. Last week, the GAO criticized the Bush administration for distributing prepackaged "news" reports, including a "suggested live intro" for local anchors to read, interviews with Washington officials and what the Washington Post called "a closing that mimics a typical broadcast news signoff." TV stations knew these "stories" were put together by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but viewers didn't. "What is objectionable about these," said Susan Poling, managing associate general counsel at the GAO, "is the fact that the viewer has no idea their tax dollars are being used to write and produce this video segment." Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), calls it "particularly outrageous that the government continues to engage in this sort of illegal activity despite the fact that the GAO has said that it is illegal. "The question now is how extensively has the administration used propaganda to shore up its controversial policies," Sloan said. "Did it pay any commentators to speak out in support of the Patriot Act? Is it paying anyone now to convince the public that Social Security is in crisis?" Shaping the news In an effort to answer these questions, CREW last week filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with 22 government agencies, asking for copies of every contract they have with public relations firms. All administrations try to manipulate the news media and shape the nation's news agenda. They do it by controlling access to the president and other top officials, by timing their announcements, by leaking selectively and — like any other institution or agency, public or private — by trying to put the best face on everything they do. By the sheer force of his personality — and the prevailing mores of the time — President Kennedy was able to keep news of his philandering out of the media during his lifetime and well beyond. President Reagan used his charisma — and sophisticated Madison Avenue advertising and public relations techniques — to so cow the news media that when Mark Hertsgaard wrote his book on Reagan and the press, he titled it "On Bended Knee." But few administrations have actually tried to subvert the news media and use taxpayer dollars to mislead the American public as blatantly as has the Bush administration. When you combine those efforts with Bush's record of media avoidance — he had fewer news conferences in his first term than any first-term president since William Howard Taft — it becomes clear that for all his speechifying about American freedoms, he has no in WASHINGTON — Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams said Friday he should have disclosed that he was paid by the Bush administration to plug the No Child Left Behind Act. But the Marion native said he would not give back the ,000 he was paid by the U.S. Department of Education. USA Today reported the contract Friday, prompting a barrage of protests from Democrats, journalists and government watchdogs, who condemned Williams and the White House for co-opting the media. “The ethical issue is a failure of disclosure,” USC journalism professor Ernest Wiggins said. “He should have been more forthcoming in telling his readers and viewers that he has been contracted to promote the White House.” Williams conceded Friday that such criticism was “legitimate.” “It’s a fine line. Even though I’m not a journalist — I’m a commentator — I feel I should be held to the media ethics standard. My judgment was not the best. I wouldn’t do it again, and I learned from it.” Williams, 45, said he was caught in a “gray area” between the two parts of his business — being a media pundit and being the CEO of a media company. Tribune Media Services said Friday it would stop distributing his column to newspapers nationwide, including The State. “Readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party,” the company said in a statement. Brad Warthen, editorial page editor of The State, called the development “highly troubling. Our editorial board is going to discuss at its regular meeting Monday whether he has a future role on our op-ed page.” Williams also hosts his own nationally syndicated radio show, “The Right Side,” and is CEO of RightSide Productions, a public relations firm. Through Ketchum Communications, another public relations firm, Williams contracted in 2003-04 with the Education Department to produce a “minority outreach campaign.” The goal was to promote to blacks the federal No Child Left Behind program — the centerpiece of Bush’s education agenda. But Williams also personally touted No Child Left Behind on radio and television, hosted former education secretary Rod Paige several times on his show, and encouraged other radio hosts to interview Paige. A former aide to the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., Williams is a controversial figure in the black community. NAACP state president Lonnie Randolph said Williams’ failure to disclose the contract is consistent with his “one-sided” rhetoric. “If you listen to him and you’re anything other than a conservative Republican, it’s like you’re a bad person,” Randolph said. Because Williams is a pundit and not a journalist, Wiggins said, he should not be expected to strive for objectivity. Still, he said, when he praises the government over the airwaves, he should tell listeners he’s getting money from the government to make it look good. Criticism Friday focused equally on the Bush administration, for hiring a firm to surreptitiously promote its views. Three Democratic U.S. senators demanded the Bush administration recover the money. “There is no defense for using taxpayer dollars to pay journalists for fake news and favorable coverage of a federal program,” said Ralph Neas, president of the government watchdog group People for the American Way. “It’s a scandalous waste. It’s unethical, and it’s wrong. “It reminds me of the old payola scandals in radio. Armstrong Williams received ,000 of our tax money, yours and mine, to create propaganda for a government program. If that’s not illegal, it ought to be.” The White House deferred comment to the Department of Education, which released this statement: “The contract paid to provide the straightforward distribution of information about the department’s mission and NCLB — a permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures.” State Sen. Kent Williams, D-Marion, defended his brother, with whom he disagrees about the merits of the president’s education efforts. “My brother is of great integrity,” Kent Williams said. “His support of No Child Left Behind has nothing to do with the president.” WASHINGTON -- Shortly before last year's Super Bowl, local news stations across the country aired a story by Mike Morris describing plans for a new White House ad campaign on the dangers of drug abuse. What viewers did not know was that Morris is not a journalist and his ''report" was produced by the government, actions which constituted illegal ''covert propaganda," according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office. In the second ruling of its kind, the investigative arm of Congress this week scolded the Bush administration for distributing phony prepackaged news reports that include a ''suggested live intro" for anchors to read, interviews with Washington officials, and a closing that mimics a typical broadcast news sign-off. Although television stations knew the materials were produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, there was nothing in the two-minute, prepackaged reports that would indicate to viewers that they came from the government or that Morris, a former journalist, was working under contract for the government. ''You think you are getting a news story but what you are getting is a paid announcement," said Susan Poling, managing associate general counsel at the Government Accountability Office. ''What is objectionable about these is the fact the viewer has no idea their tax dollars are being used to write and produce this video segment." In May, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services violated two federal laws with similar fake news reports touting the administration's new Medicare drug benefit. When that opinion was released, officials at the drug control office decided to stop the practice, spokesman Thomas Riley said. ''Our lawyers disagree with the GAO interpretation," he said. Nevertheless, if the video releases were going to be ''controversial or create an appearance of a problem," the agency decided it was not worth pursuing, he said. The prepackaged news pieces represent a fraction of the antidrug messages distributed by the office, Riley said. Production and distribution of the video news releases cost about ,000. Riley said broadcast stations were fully aware they were receiving materials akin to printed press releases that producers could ''slice and dice it however they want." At least 300 news shows used some portion of the prepackaged news reports, though it was impossible to determine how many aired the full story or just portions such as ''sound bites," Riley said. If the videos had been identified as coming from the federal agency, that would have been legal, Poling said. But the television package looks like an authentic piece of independent journalism. American Assembler WASHINGTON — Mock news reports produced and distributed to local television stations by the Bush administration to promote the Medicare prescription drug program violated a provision of federal law that prohibits the use of taxpayer funds for “covert propaganda,” the General Accounting Office determined Wednesday. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, noted that the administration had labeled its entire “video news release” package so that the 126 television stations receiving it would know that it came from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services. But that fact was not apparent to the 41 million senior and disabled Medicare beneficiaries who were the target audience of the “purported news story,” which included the voices of off-camera production company employees identifying themselves as Washington reporters, the GAO said in a decision signed by General Counsel Anthony H. Gamboa. “Nothing in the story packages permit the viewer to know that Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia were paid with federal funds through a contractor to report the message in the story package,” the agency said. “The entire story package was developed with appropriated funds but appears to be an independent news story.” Ryan was the “reporter” for the English-language stories and Garcia for the Spanish-language version. The GAO also found that the department had violated a second law, the Antideficiency Act, against using federal money for unauthorized purposes. Since “covert propaganda” is illegal, the GAO said, there were no funds authorized to produce it. The packages cost ,000 to make. According to the GAO, that law requires agencies that violate it to report their actions to the president and Congress. But Bill Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, indicated that although top department officials were still reading the 16-page decision, it was unlikely the administration would comply. “GAO opinions are not binding on the executive branch,” he said. “This is the opinion of the GAO. We disagree with that opinion.” He also said it was the responsibility of the television stations’ editors and producers to inform viewers of the source of the material. “This was in no way covert, as they claim,” Pierce said. “This was overt, in every way…. We provided them with every technological ability to tell the audience who it was from,” he said. Asked if he could understand that a viewer might be angry about not being informed of the source of the mock news story, Pierce said, “If I’m a viewer, I’d be angry at my television station.” Forty television stations in 33 media markets, including Santa Barbara and Fresno, aired all or part of the Medicare video package at least 53 times in January and February, said Health and Human Services Department officials. The GAO decision was awkward for the administration, which has been promoting the new Medicare discount drug card in the face of complaints from seniors and consumer advocates that the program is confusing and offers only limited savings. Minutes before the GAO released to the media its decision on the Medicare video package, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a report that low-income Medicare beneficiaries could save between 29% and 77% on brand-name prescription drugs. The agency later announced that it had taken action to improve access to its toll-free information line and its website. The GAO finding also gave Democrats another opening to critique how the administration shaped and promoted the Medicare reform law, which Republicans had believed would help them gain support among older voters in this fall’s elections. In January, the administration revealed that its final cost estimate for the law was billion over 10 years, one-third more than the -billion maximum it told Congress to provide. Medicare’s top financial analyst said later that the then-Medicare administrator had threatened to fire him if he shared his cost estimates with Democratic lawmakers. The Congressional Research Service said recently that the administration’s withholding of the cost estimates probably violated federal law. The administration refuses to release its complete cost analysis to Democratic lawmakers, and this week 19 House Democrats filed suit to force the disclosure. “The new GAO opinion is yet another indictment of the deception and dishonesty that has become business as usual for the Bush administration,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). “It was bad enough to conceal the cost of the Medicare drug bill from the Congress and the American people. It is worse to use Medicare funds for illegal propaganda to try to turn this lemon of a bill into lemonade for the Bush campaign.” This year, several Democratic senators asked the GAO to investigate whether the administration’s commercials and fliers promoting Medicare constituted illegal propaganda. The GAO concluded that although those materials contained “notable omissions and errors,” they were technically legal. It was in that investigation that GAO officials discovered the administration’s “video news releases,” which had not previously been disclosed. The head of the GAO, Comptroller General David M. Walker, then made the decision to determine whether the Medicare video packages were legal. “We evaluated all of the reasons that [administration officials] thought it wasn’t covert, but what we saw was something that was running that the viewer had no idea was put together by [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services]. That’s the reason it was covert,” said Susan Poling, a managing associate general counsel at the GAO. Infowars.com | December 1, 2004 From the glossy coverage of Bush's obvious media stunts to the staged rescue of Jessica Lynch, it's obvious we are all targets of the media-industrial complex's propaganda war PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror LA Times / Mark Mazzetti | December 1, 2004 WASHINGTON — On the evening of Oct. 14, a young Marine spokesman near Fallouja appeared on CNN and made a dramatic announcement."Troops crossed the line of departure," 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert declared, using a common military expression signaling the start of a major campaign. "It's going to be a long night." CNN, which had been alerted to expect a major news development, reported that the long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Fallouja had begun. In fact, the Fallouja offensive would not kick off for another three weeks. Gilbert's carefully worded announcement was an elaborate psychological operation — or "psy-op" — intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city, according to several Pentagon officials. In the hours after the initial report, CNN's Pentagon reporters were able to determine that the Fallouja operation had not, in fact, begun. "As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to our viewers exactly what was going on in and around Fallouja," CNN spokesman Matthew Furman said. "As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to our viewers exactly what was going on in and around Fallouja," CNN spokesman Matthew Furman said. Officials at the Pentagon and other U.S. national security agencies said the CNN incident was not an isolated feint — the type used throughout history by armies to deceive their enemies — but part of a broad effort underway within the Bush administration to use information to its advantage in the war on terrorism. The Pentagon in 2002 was forced to shutter its controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), which was opened shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, after reports that the office intended to plant false news stories in the international media. But officials say that much of OSI's mission — using information as a tool of war — has been assumed by other offices throughout the U.S. government. Although most of the work remains classified, officials say that some of the ongoing efforts include having U.S. military spokesmen play a greater role in psychological operations in Iraq, as well as planting information with sources used by Arabic TV channels such as Al Jazeera to help influence the portrayal of the United States. Other specific examples were not known, although U.S. national security officials said an emphasis had been placed on influencing how foreign media depict the United States. These efforts have set off a fight inside the Pentagon over the proper use of information in wartime. Several top officials see a danger of blurring what are supposed to be well-defined lines between the stated mission of military public affairs — disseminating truthful, accurate information to the media and the American public — and psychological and information operations, the use of often-misleading information and propaganda to influence the outcome of a campaign or battle. Several of those officials who oppose the use of misleading information spoke out against the practice on the condition of anonymity. "The movement of information has gone from the public affairs world to the psychological operations world," one senior defense official said. "What's at stake is the credibility of people in uniform." Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said he recognized the concern of many inside the Defense Department, but that "everybody understands that there's a very important distinction between information operations and public affairs. Nobody has offered serious proposals that would blur the distinction between these two functions." Di Rita said he had asked his staff for more information about how the Oct. 14 incident on CNN came about. One recent development critics point to is the decision by commanders in Iraq in mid-September to combine public affairs, psychological operations and information operations into a "strategic communications" office. An organizational chart of the newly created office was obtained by The Times. The strategic communications office, which began operations Sept. 15, is run by Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, who answers directly to Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Partly out of concern about this new office, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, distributed a letter Sept. 27 to the Joint Chiefs and U.S. combat commanders in the field warning of the dangers of having military public affairs (PA) too closely aligned with information operations (IO). "Although both PA and IO conduct planning, message development and media analysis, the efforts differ with respect to audience, scope and intent, and must remain separate," Myers wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Times. Pentagon officials say Myers is worried that U.S. efforts in Iraq and in the broader campaign against terrorism could suffer if world audiences begin to question the honesty of statements from U.S. commanders and spokespeople. "While organizations may be inclined to create physically integrated PA/IO offices, such organizational constructs have the potential to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the public," Myers wrote. Myers' letter is not being heeded in Iraq, officials say, in part because many top civilians at the Pentagon and National Security Council support an effort that blends public affairs with psy-ops to win Iraqi support — and Arab support in general — for the U.S. fight against the insurgency. Advocates of these programs said that the advent of a 24-hour news cycle and the powerful influence of Arabic satellite television made it essential that U.S. military commanders and civilian officials made the control of information a key part of their battle plans. "Information is part of the battlefield in a way that it's never been before," one senior Bush administration official said. "We'd be foolish not to try to use it to our advantage." And, supporters argue, it is necessary to fill a vacuum left when the budgets for the State Department's public diplomacy programs were slashed and the U.S. Information Agency — a bulwark of the nation's anticommunist efforts during the Cold War — was gutted in the 1990s. "The worst outcome would be to lose this war by default. If the smart folks in the psy-op and civil affairs tents can cast a truthful, persuasive message that resonates with the average Iraqi, why not use the public affairs vehicles to transmit it?" asked Charles A. Krohn, a professor at the University of Michigan and former deputy chief of public affairs for the Army. "What harm is done, compared to what is gained? For the first year of the war, we did virtually nothing to tell the Iraqis why we invaded their country and ejected their government. It's about time we got our act together." Advocates also cite a September report by the Defense Science Board, a panel of outside experts that advises Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, which concluded that a "crisis" in U.S. "strategic communications" had undermined American efforts to fight Islamic extremism worldwide. The study cited polling in the Arab world that revealed widespread hatred of the United States throughout the Middle East. A poll taken in June by Zogby International revealed that 94% of Saudi Arabians had an "unfavorable" view of the United States, compared with 87% in April 2002. In Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid, 98% of respondents held an unfavorable view of the United States. The Defense Science Board recommended a presidential directive to "coordinate all components of strategic communication including public diplomacy, public affairs, international broadcasting and military information operations." Di Rita said there was general agreement inside the Bush administration that the U.S. government was ill-equipped to communicate its policies and messages abroad in the current media climate. "As a government, we're not very well organized to do that," he said. Yet some in the military argue that the efforts at better "strategic communication" sometimes cross the line into propaganda, citing some recent media briefings held in Iraq. During a Nov. 10 briefing by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, reporters were shown a video of Iraqi troops saluting their flag and singing the Iraqi national anthem. "Pretty soon, we're going to have the 5 o'clock follies all over again, and it will take us another 30 years to restore our credibility," said a second senior Defense official, referring to the much-ridiculed daily media briefings in Saigon during the Vietnam War. According to several Pentagon officials, the strategic communications programs at the Defense Department are being coordinated by the office of the undersecretary of Defense for policy, Douglas J. Feith. Pentagon chiefs condemned for launching propaganda war London Telegraph | February 20, 2004 AMERICA'S western allies reacted with concern yesterday to the creation of a Pentagon department of propaganda aimed at planting disinformation in the media of America's friends as well as its enemies. The organisation, which is headed by a brigadier and has about 15 staff reporting directly to the under secretary of defence for policy, is already working on ways to influence and mislead the media in a number of countries, mostly in the Islamic world, but also in Western Europe. A Pentagon source, who asked not to be named, said there were some European nations that "sometimes needed to be helped to see the light". The existence of the OSI was revealed in the New York Times. It was reportedly established to spread positive messages about the war on terrorism, but it would also use disinformation and misinformation to mislead friend and foe alike. Reaction among America's allies was universally negative. One Western official said: "This sort of thing might work in countries with no sophisticated media network, but not in Europe or any other mature democracy." A European diplomat said: "Everyone uses disinformation for military reasons, but I have never heard of using official sources to spread false information to the media of an ally." Another diplomat said: "The Pentagon is not exactly regarded as the fount of truth and justice now, so I don't know what sort of damage to its reputation this might do if it leaked out. "All I can see this sort of thing doing is giving a mighty good excuse to our enemies for dismissing all coalition claims as black propaganda." Media accused of aiding U.S. propaganda PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - It is one of the most famous images of the war in Iraq -- a U.S. soldier scaling a statue of Saddam Hussein in Senators to Introduce 'Stop Government Propaganda Act' Media Info | January 27, 2005 NEW YORK In response to continued revelations of government-funded "journalism" -- ranging from the purported video news releases put out by the drug czar's office and the Department of Health and Human Services to the recently uncovered payments to columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher,who flacked administration programs -- Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will introduce a bill, The Stop Government Propaganda Act, in the Senate next week. "It's just not enough to say, 'Please don't do it anymore,'" Alex Formuzis, Lautenberg's spokesman, told E&P. "Legislation sometimes is required and we believe it is in this case." The Stop Government Propaganda Act states, "Funds appropriated to an Executive branch agency may not be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States unless authorized by law." "It's time for Congress to shut down the Administration's propaganda mill," Lautenberg said in a statement. "It has no place in the United States Government." The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.). Formuzis told E&P that while the bill is being introduced by Democrats, its message and intent is something endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike. "We only have a few senators on the bill so far, but we hope and expect that we'll get a number of others to sign on to the legislation once we introduce it," he said. "This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an issue about an independent press, and I think that's something that will cross party lines." The act would allow citizens to bring qui tam lawsuits on behalf of the United States government when the Department of Justice does not respond. If the matter is taken to court, the bill proposes that the senior official responsible would be fined three times the amount of the "misspent taxpayer funds" plus an additional fine ranging from ,000 to ,000. And if a citizen's qui tam suit is accepted, the bill proposes that the plaintiff receives between 25 and 30% of the proceeds of the fine. "The President said that his cabinet agencies made a mistake when they paid commentators to promote his agenda," Kennedy said in a statement. "It's more than just a mistake, it's an abuse of taxpayer funds and an abuse of the First Amendment and freedom of the press. ... If the President is serious about stopping these abuses, he will support this legislation." According to a release, publicity or propaganda is defined in the bill as: news releases or publications that do not clearly identify the government agency responsible for the content; audio/visual or Internet presentations that do not identify the responsible government agency; any attempt to manipulate journalists or news organizations; messages created to aid a political party or candidate; messages with a "self-aggrandizing" purpose or "puffery of the Administration, agency, executive branch programs or policies or pending legislation"; and, finally, messages that are "so misleading or inaccurate that they constitute propaganda." Report: PR spending doubled under Bush USA TODAY | January 28, 2005 The administration spent at least million in fiscal 2004 on contracts with major public relations firms, the analysis found, compared with million in 2001, Bush's first year in office. In all, the administration spent million on public relations contracts during its first term, compared with million spent for President Clinton between 1997 and 2000. The analysis did not examine what the Clinton administration spent during its first term. The top-spending agency during the past four years, at million, was the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The biggest federal public relations contractor in that period was Ketchum, with million. "While not all public relations spending is illegal or inappropriate, this rapid rise in public relations contracts at a time of growing budget deficits raises questions about the priorities of the administration," said the report by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee. The administration's public relations efforts have been under scrutiny since USA TODAY reported that the Education Department, through a Ketchum contract, paid ,000 to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams for helping to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind program. Bush said Wednesday that he does not think taxpayer money should be used to promote administration policies in that way. "I expect my Cabinet secretaries to make sure that that practice doesn't go forward," he said at a White House news conference. Of the arrangement with Williams, Bush said: "We didn't know about this in the White House" and he noted that there is "new leadership" at the Education Department, where Secretary Rod Paige has been replaced by Margaret Spellings, a former policy aide to Bush at the White House. "We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet," he said. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher, an authority on marriage and family issues, had received two federal contracts totaling ,500 for writing brochures, a magazine article and a report and briefing government employees in support of the president's marriage initiative. That program called for redirecting welfare funds to pay for premarital counseling and abstinence education. While doing the work for the departments of Health and Human Services and Justice in 2002 and 2003, Gallagher also wrote several columns supporting Bush's plan. One called the proposal "a no-brainer" because it could help reduce the divorce rate and cut domestic violence. In a statement, Gallagher said her work for the government had no influence on what she wrote in her columns, which reflected her long-held beliefs about marriage. "It was a mistake on my part not to have disclosed any government contract," she wrote. "It will not happen again." British officials propose new anti-terrorism powers The Seattle Times World Digest The measures were designed to address legal challenges to a post-Sept. 11, 2001, law under which the government has kept 11 foreign nationals imprisoned without charges for up to three years for allegedly posing a threat to national security. Home Secretary Charles Clarke, the Cabinet minister in charge of internal security, told the House of Commons that the 11 detainees, all of them Arab Muslims, would either be deported to their home countries or subjected to the new measures once a new bill passes Parliament. Members of the two main opposition political parties cautiously welcomed the proposals. But David Davis, Conservative Party spokesman for internal security affairs, said he was concerned that the new measures would apply to British citizens and foreigners. Rome "Italian Unabomber" may have struck again A mysterious bomber who has injured 20 people in a decade may have planted a small device that exploded yesterday in Italy's northern city of Treviso, police said. There were no injuries from the explosion of a plastic candy container which went off as a group of middle-school students walked by, raising fears that the "Italian Unabomber" had struck again, police said. Other blasts believed linked to the same man were a 2003 explosion of a booby-trapped pen that injured a child's hand and eye during a family picnic in the Treviso area; an exploding soap-bubble jar that injured a 5-year-old boy in 2002; and a jar of a popular brand of hazelnut sandwich spread that went off when a woman opened it, though she escaped injury. Russia may seek arrest of Ukraine PM Ukraine's acting Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko faces criminal charges in Russia, but it is up to a court to decide whether to press forward with an arrest warrant, Russia's chief prosecutor said yesterday. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said Russian courts would decide whether to arrest her if she visits, referring to charges of bribery involving Russian military officials. Tymoshenko has denied charges of bribing Russian military officials when she headed the Ukrainian electric power system. She says the charges were politically motivated by enemies. Court spares life of Tibetan monk A Chinese court yesterday spared the life of a Tibetan monk convicted in a series of fatal bombings, commuting his death sentence to life in prison, the government said. The monk's conviction prompted protests by activists who said he was targeted because of his status as a community leader Drug-sniffing dogs can be used at traffic stops, high court rules WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court gave police broader search powers Monday during traffic stops, ruling that drug-sniffing dogs can be used to check out motorists even if officers have no reason to suspect they may be carrying narcotics. In a 6-2 decision, the court sided with Illinois police who stopped Roy Caballes in 1998 along Interstate 80 for driving 6 miles over the speed limit. Although Caballes lawfully produced his driver's license, troopers brought over a drug dog after Caballes seemed nervous. Caballes argued the Fourth Amendment protects motorists from searches such as dog sniffing, but Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed, reasoning that the privacy intrusion was minimal. "The dog sniff was performed on the exterior of respondent's car while he was lawfully seized for a traffic violation. Any intrusion on respondent's privacy expectations does not rise to the level of a constitutionally cognizable infringement," Stevens wrote. In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg bemoaned what she called the broadening of police search powers, saying the use of drug dogs will make routine traffic stops more "adversarial." She was joined in her dissent in part by Justice David H. Souter. "Injecting such animal into a routine traffic stop changes the character of the encounter between the police and the motorist. The stop becomes broader, more adversarial and (in at least some cases) longer," she wrote. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist did not participate in consideration of the case. The case is Illinois v. Caballes, 03-923. Findings may help protect humans in bioattacks SYDNEY - Australian scientists have identified the immune response that determines why some mice are infected with mousepox and others are not, a discovery that could lead to better protection for humans in a bioterror attack. Mice that are resistant to mousepox, a close relative of the smallpox virus, produce three regulatory proteins called cytokines that are absent in mice that become infected. The findings raise the possibility of identifying humans vulnerable to smallpox and targeting vaccination and treatment in the event of an outbreak, said Australian National University immunologist Gunasegaran Karupiah, who headed the discovery team. “This is an important step towards better protection from the threat of smallpox for health workers and the general community,” Karupiah told Reuters on Thursday. Threat of bioterrorism After the Sept. 11, 2001 airliner attacks on New York and Washington there have been fears that terror groups may develop smallpox as a biological weapon. “Smallpox was one of the biggest human scourges ... yet because it was successfully eradicated no one was interested in understanding how individuals recovered, but now the interest is back because of the threat of bioterrorism,” said Karupiah. Smallpox produces flu-like symptoms and a distinctive and disfiguring rash. It has an incubation period of around 12 days. Symptoms include tiredness, chills, fatigue and fever followed by pustules that erupt mainly on the face and limbs. Vaccine researchers exposed to anthrax SAN FRANCISCO - Anthrax vaccine researchers at a hospital near San Francisco have been exposed to the potentially lethal bacterium and are being treated with antibiotics, a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday. The five researchers have not shown signs of infection, said Bev Mikalonis, a spokeswoman for Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California. The hospital believes they were exposed because of a shipping error at the laboratory that supplied the anthrax, but is unclear how they acquired a live version of the bacterium instead of the dead version they ordered, said Mikalonis. The researchers had assumed they were handling a dead version in liquid form during experiments on mice. After mice injected with the anthrax began to die on Monday, California officials were contacted to investigate and they confirmed the mice had been injected with a live version. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s bioterrorism unit has removed the anthrax from the hospital’s vaccine research institute, and the Centers for Disease Control is investigating the incident, Mikalonis said. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5189023/ Could biotech be harnessed for bioterror? STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Biotechnology research used to find new cures for disease could instead be harnessed for use as a weapon of terror, a prominent European think tank warned. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in its annual yearbook, said that biotechnology, including advancements in mapping the human genome, could result in new biological weapons that could cause harm to a specific ethnic group or a large swath of a country’s population. “The free access to genetic sequence data for the human genome and a large number of other genomes, including for pathogenic microorganisms, is a great scientific resource, but it could pose a significant threat if misused,” said the report, which was unveiled in Stockholm Tuesday. Terrorist applications “There have been numerous claims that al-Qaida and the Taliban have demonstrated an interest in acquiring and using biological weapons, but such reports are ambiguous,” the report’s author, Roger Roffey, wrote. Experts said the risk is there. Last year, the National Research Council called for more oversight over biotechnology, in part to permit the continued study cutting-edge medicine and to keep developments in the academic and medical realm. The issue isn’t farfetched, said Barbara Rosenberg, chair of the Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. Genetic ethnic cleansing “Even though no populations are pure, there are groups that share a relative number of certain genes that are missing in other people,” she told The Associated Press by telephone. “There could be some selective use. It wouldn’t be perfect, but even if it only attacked a fairly small percentage of the population it could still cause major disruption in a society.” While the process may seem like something out of a science fiction story, Rosenberg said that’s not the case anymore. “We’re learning so much about the genetic differences between people and understanding what that those differences mean at a molecular level,” she said. “And that’s what you need to know if you’re going to try and change pathogens.” URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5182146/ January 25, 2005 By JOSHUA FRANK So when did the assault on Americans' civil liberties get jumpstarted? The current liberal establishment seems to deem 9/11 the chief catalyst. Many of the most loathsome specimens within the haughty club imply that drastic incursions on Americans' civil liberties only began after 9/11, while the Clinton Administration represented a civil liberties paradise. Take John Kerry partisan drone and stand-up comedian Margaret Cho, who at a MoveOn.org benefit, railed: "I mean, I'm afraid of terrorism, but I'm more afraid of the Patriot Act," even though her candidate of choice not only voted for the legislation but authored many of its components. Or how about Albert Gore, who in 2003 exclaimed: "They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, Big Brother-style government -- toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book '1984' -- than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America." With such a sour musk in the air, it is unsurprising that hysteria reigned supreme over how much George W. Bush's administration was to blame for the police conduct at the Republican National Convention last summer, where more than a thousand protestors were detained for up to 50 hours prior to being released. This infringement was indeed awful -- but hardly unique to the Bush years alone. In early 2002, more than 20 FBI agents raided the home of Southern California African-American anarchist Sherman Austin's mother and seized her son's computers, which he used to run a political website. Austin was later charged and sentenced to a year in prison for "distribution" of information about making or using explosives with the "intent" that the information "be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence." Austin did not author the information, which was housed on a section of the site he allocated to a teenager who then proceeded to upload the instructions. The obscure federal statute used against Austin, and which carried many implications for free speech, hit the books long before Bush in the late 1990s with the legislative shepherding of Dianne Feinstein, Democrat. Liberal sleeping pills like the American Prospect and The Nation said absolutely nothing about Austin's case. During the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, police arrested Ruckus Society founder John Sellers for walking down the street. At the 2000 Democratic National Convention in LA, police brutality easily exceeded anything seen at the New York City Republican National Convention, where an outdoor Rage Against the Machine concert came to an abrupt end when riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protestors and many non-participating bystanders. Going back a bit further to 1999, during the WTO protests in Seattle, riot police beat up marchers and sprayed tear gas and shot rubber bullets indiscriminately. Several downtown areas were locked out to protesters, as well as public parks, where individuals could not even wear anti-WTO paraphernalia. As Jeffrey St. Clair wrote in Five Days That Shook the World: "Tear gas canisters were unloaded and then five or six of them were fired into the crowd. One of the protesters nearest the cops was a young, petite woman. She rose up, obviously disoriented from the gas, and a Seattle policeman, crouched less than 10 feet away, shot her in the knee with a rubber bullet. She fell to the pavement, grabbing her leg and screaming in pain. Then, moments later, one of her comrades, maddened by the unprovoked attack, charged the police line, Kamikaze-style. Two cops beat him to the ground with their batons, hitting him at least 20 times." At the regional level, a May Day 2001 march in Long Beach, California ended similarly, with many activists having to enter the emergency room because of wounds inflicted by police officers, some of which left rubber bullets lodged under skins. May Day protesters amassing in Portland, Oregon in 2000 experienced similar acts when police violently corralled activists, forcing them to retreat for fear of being stampeded by mounted police horses. Then there's the racist and institutionalized police state that existed throughout the 1980s but really took new hold during the 1990s with the Clinton-era spike in so-called War on Drugs activity, which has led to record incarceration of African-Americans, Latinos, and women. Fraternities have long existed in major metropolitan police departments, wherein members ascend the ranks for beatings, flouting guidelines, and planting evidence. When one individual instance of this was exposed, as happened when police officers in LA's Ramparts district were found to have planted drug evidence, commentators preferred to describe it as a slight blight on an otherwise functioning system, whereas it actually represented an extremity of the norm. Racist profiling, harassment of black and Latino youth under the guise of "anti-gang" activity, and no-knock SWAT raids on the homes of non-whites supposedly in possession of drugs or illegal weapons, increased dramatically under Bill Clinton. In fact, what we are seeing today is a logical continuation of a foundation laid during the Clinton era. The anti-Bushites forget that the Patriot Act amended a series of existing laws, most notably the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which increased the number of capital crimes and severely curtailed right of appeal such that death penalty defendants only have six months to a year for preparing an appeal. Because of lax enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act and comparable state statutes, many defendants do not even receive necessary documents in time and are consequentially in danger of execution without a fair and thorough appeal. Michael Moore, hero of the liberal establishment and uninformed "activists" who view Bush bashing as social glue, claims to have read the Patriot Act in his film Fahrenheit 9/11. However, the two cases he cites in the film's segment on the Patriot Act have absolutely nothing to do with the legislation. Local law enforcement's infiltration of activist groups (Moore's first case) and law enforcement's questioning of the politically outspoken (case two) occurred during the 1990s, particularly after the WTO protests. For foreigners and immigrants on American soil as well as the Guantanomo prisoners, both egregiously skipped over in Moore's movie, post-9/11 legal changes have resulted in sweeping rights to detain, torture and harass. But this is not something that entirely rests with Bush Jr. In actuality the Democrats ushered in the legislation that made this possible, with Russ Feingold the only Senator to oppose the Patriot Act (but just happened to cross over and confirm John Ashcroft as Attorney General). The Democrats hardly have made it an issue since, and instead have gone ahead and condoned the appointment of Bush's "torture memos" guru Alberto Gonzales to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General. Democrat Patrick Leahy opined: "I like him." Were the Democrats actually to wage a fight beyond the current rhetorical ruses holding up Gonzales's "expected" confirmation for an extra week, they might actually force the Republicans to propose someone other than this monster. In short, ascribing all the civil liberties problems of this country to one date, September 11, 2001, and one administration, George W. Bush's, the liberal establishment has avoided any unpleasant analysis of our systemic civil liberties problems that might point back in its members' direction. Sorry, Al Gore, you faux defender of civil liberties, but your former Administration in fact left us balancing on a tightrope -- a tightrope the Bushites have now cut to send certain civil liberties plummeting to their deaths. Joshua Frank is the author of the forthcoming book, Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, to be released in early 2005 by Common Courage Press. He can be reached at: frank_joshua@hotmail.com Merlin Chowkwanyun is a student at Columbia University. He hosts a radio show on WBAR 87.9 FM (http://www.wbar.org/). He can be reached at mc2028@columbia.edu Attorney General Approved Despite Abuse Concerns By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general, rejecting Democratic complaints about his role in formulating administration policies blamed for contributing to the torture of detainees. "Additional allegations of abuse are being reported on a daily basis. Yet Mr. Gonzales can't remember any details of how it happened," Kennedy said. Deadliest day in Iraq 37 U.S. troops killed BAGHDAD, Iraq - Thirty U.S. Marines and a sailor were killed in a helicopter crash and six more troops died in insurgent attacks Wednesday in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in 15 years. Militants waging a campaign to derail Sunday’s election set off at least eight car bombings that killed 13 people and injured 40 others, including 11 Americans. The guerrillas also carried out a string of attacks nationwide against schools that will serve as polling centers. While al-Qaida warned Iraqis to stay away from the polls, saying they would have only themselves to blame if they were hurt in attacks, President Bush called on people to “defy the terrorists” and cast ballots in the crucial election. Crash kills all on board A search and rescue team was at the site. All but three of the Marines had been based in Hawaii, according to Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii. In three other incidents, four U.S. Marines were killed in action in western Iraq, a soldier was killed and two others were wounded when insurgents attacked an Army patrol near the northern town of Duluiyah, and a roadside bomb in the Baghdad area killed a soldier and wounded two others, the U.S. command said. The U.S. military has not experienced such a high loss of life in one day in 15 years, since an explosion ripped through a gun turret on the USS Iowa during a training exercise in the Caribbean in April 1989, killing 47 sailors. The helicopter crash occurred during severe weather, but its cause was still under investigation, said Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command. An Accuweather satellite photograph of the region taken Wednesday showed a sandstorm in the area where the Sea Stallion went down, two days after more widespread sandstorms grounded all air traffic in Iraq. Bush called the crash “very discouraging” in a news conference at the White House. The military gave no further details of the other incidents. Jim Dolan, a reporter for WABC-TV in New York who was embedded with the Marines in western Iraq, said the four Marines killed in the west died when insurgents ambushed a convoy leaving the town of Haditha, hitting a vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade. Bombings, fighting continue Copter losses Before Wednesday, the deadliest single incident involving U.S. troops in Iraq took place Nov. 15, 2003, when two Black Hawk helicopters crashed in Mosul after colliding while trying to avoid ground fire, killing 17 U.S. soldiers and wounding five. Earlier that same month, on Nov. 2, 2003, a Chinook transport helicopter was shot down by shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile near Fallujah, killing 16 U.S. soldiers and wounding 26 others. Last month, a suicide bomb exploded at a mess tent in a base near Mosul, killing 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers and three U.S. contractors. Bombs in Baghdad U.S. troops found at least six bombs at different locations around Baghdad early Wednesday, the military said. Iraqi police discovered two more bombs in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where turnout in the elections Sunday is expected to be high. “We’ve been very successful finding and destroying improvised explosive devices in Baghdad, limiting the insurgents’ ability to kill or injure innocent Iraqis,” said Maj. Philip Smith, a spokesman for the 1st Cavalry Division and Task Force Baghdad. Elsewhere, up to four mortar shells exploded Wednesday near a police station in the northern Baghdad suburb of Sabaa al-Bor, injuring at least one Iraqi. Residents of the insurgent-filled city of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, reported clashes Wednesday between U.S. troops and rebels. The fighting erupted when militants attacked a U.S. patrol with rocket-propelled grenades, the residents said. One Iraqi was killed and two others were wounded, doctors said. Prepare for life in a police state: Court allows drug dogs in all traffic stops The U. S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that narcotics-detecting dogs can be used for all routine traffic stops and you can bet that we, as students with varying degrees of other “incriminating” visual factors, are going to be the targets. The case involved John Caballes, an Illinois man who was stopped for doing only six miles over the speed limit, but narcotics-detecting dogs ended up finding 250,000 worth of marijuana while sniffing around his trunk. The fact that he was stopped for doing only six over is a sign that this ruling is going to open the door for more frivolous traffic stops with the officers hoping to find drugs. In a 6-2 ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens issued a statement saying that Caballes had no legal right to privacy concerning illegal narcotics, and since narcotics dogs are only trained to detect illegal drugs not money or any other lawful possessions constitutional search and seizure protections were not violated. Not only do narcotics-detecting dogs often make mistakes resulting in the unlawful rummaging through one’s personal possessions, but it’s commonly because they detect money with drug residue on it between 70 and 96 percent of bills are estimated to have residue from some illegal narcotic. According to the NPR report, another man was stopped by police using narcotics dogs and sent to jail because he had a large sum of money on him that dogs detected because of drug residue but they found no actual drugs. The man still had to post bail and pay for a lawyer in his court case. In the Supreme Court’s dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Ginsburg said that allowing narcotics-detecting dogs for routine traffic stops opens the door for using the dogs to survey parked cars, much like some schools do for students’ lockers, and having the dogs on street corners. She also made the point that the dogs are intimidating and will fundamentally change the police-driver encounter while also elongating it. Police are well known to profile drivers who they think might possess drugs based on visual factors such as race, age, piercings, dreadlocks, tattoos, the type of car being driven and the bumper stickers on it. Students on college campuses and low-income minorities are especially harassed because the officer figures that he or she can find other reasons to issue tickets if the apparent infraction is too minor, such as lack of registration, insurance or a license; drunk driving; or the jackpot infractions possession and drug trafficking. The Supreme Court decision is only giving the officers further incentive to make these harassing and predatory stops. Even if the victim doesn’t have any actual drugs on him, he can still be forced to go through the process of going to jail, posting bail and paying crippling lawyer fees if he has a large amount of money containing drug residue on him, or if a friend left trace marijuana in his car. Imagine driving home from work and being stopped for going only six miles over the speed limit, and then being carted off to jail because the in tips you made bartending happened to have some cocaine on it. This can very easily start being commonplace around inner cities and college campuses. “Innocent” bystanders aside, police applaud this ruling as a major step toward combating the war on drugs, and one can only imagine the zeal with which they will put it into practice. But this ruling really targets the recreational pot smoker since they are the most common, and we need to stop clogging up the courts and jails with small-time drug users. This is a waste of our tax dollars and a waste of our youth. Sending young people to jail and then forcing them to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees for possessing a small amount of marijuana a “mistake” many successful adults, such as our last two presidents, will have to admit to is really just unfair and unproductive. It’s not likely that the ruling will be overturned, at least in the next four years, so prepare yourself for life in a police state. Send all comments to this story to sryley@southend.wayne.edu In Middle East Iraq seizes Zarqawi's 'most lethal bomb ally' More Bogus Terrorist Reports Boston.com / News / Local / Mass. / FBI alerts Boston law enforcement about four suspects Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company CHICAGO (Reuters) - The owner of a Michigan company who forced his employees to either quit smoking or quit their jobs said on Wednesday he also wants to tell fat workers to lose weight or else. A ban on tobacco use -- whether at home or at the workplace -- led four employees to quit their jobs last week at Okemos, Michigan-based Weyco Inc., which handles insurance claims. The workers refused to take a mandatory urine test demanded of Weyco's 200 employees by founder and sole owner Howard Weyers, a demand that he said was perfectly legal. "If you don't want to take the test, you can leave," Weyers told Reuters. "I'm not controlling their lives; they have a choice whether they want to work here." Next on the firing line: overweight workers. "We have to work on eating habits and getting people to exercise. But if you're obese, you're (legally) protected," Weyers said. He has brought in an eating disorder therapist to speak to workers, provided eating coaches, created a point system for employees to earn health-related bonuses and plans to offer vouchers for health club memberships. The 71-year-old Weyers, who said he has never smoked and pronounced himself in good shape thanks to daily runs, said employees' health as well as saving money on the company's own insurance claims led him to first bar smokers from being hired in 2003. Last year, he banned smoking during office hours, then demanded smokers pay a monthly "assessment," and finally instituted mandatory testing. Twenty workers quit the habit. Weyers tells clients to quit whining about health care costs and to "set some expectations; demand some things." Job placement specialist John Challenger said Weyco's moves could set a precedent for larger companies -- if it survives potential legal challenges. "Certainly it raises an interesting boundary issue: rising health care costs and society's aversion to smoking versus privacy and freedom rights of an individual," Challenger said. So far no legal challenges have been made to Weyco's policies. Rice to be sworn in as secretary of state WASHINGTON Condoleezza Rice begins her new job Thursday as secretary of state, after critics of her role in the Iraq war mounted the strongest Senate opposition to a nominee for the job in 180 years. Rice was sworn in Wednesday night, hours after the Senate voted 85-13 to confirm her as the first African American woman ever to serve in the position first held by Thomas Jefferson. Her confirmation came over the objections of Democrats who assailed her role as an architect of the war in Iraq and the global anti-terrorism campaign during the four years she served as national security adviser to President Bush. Rice received more "no" votes in the Senate than any secretary of state nominee since Henry Clay drew 14 opponents in 1825, according to the office of the Senate Historian. The 12 Democrats and 1 independent who voted against Rice were the first senators of any party to vote against a secretary of state nominee since 1981, when 6 voted against President Ronald Reagan's choice, Alexander Haig. In a White House news conference, Bush defended Rice, an academic who has served as his foreign policy tutor and one of his most trusted confidantes since Bush first ran for the presidency in 1999. "Condi Rice is a fine, fine public servant, greatly admired here in America, and greatly admired around the world," said Bush. Rice takes office days before a critical moment for the administration's foreign policy: Sunday's national elections in Iraq, where 120,000U.S. soldiers are posted and more than 1,400 have died. Democrats used Senate hearings last week and floor debate on Tuesday to launch a critique of the war and the administration's handling of it, accusing Rice of misleading Americans over the threat Iraq posed in the run-up to war two years ago. Republicans countered that their opponents used the proceedings to wage a political proxy battle centered on Iraq, with Rice caught in the crossfire. "There was a certain amount of therapy going on," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind. "It was a forum, once again, to vent the Iraq situation." Rice and others on the president's national security team joined Bush in making the case to the country that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the United States and its allies. No such weapons have been found. Rice, 50, takes over as the nation's top diplomat amid war in Iraq, fresh hopes for Middle East peace and a daunting array of challenges to American security and influence abroad. Among her first tasks: shoring up ties strained by the war with U.S. allies in Europe, in advance of Bush's February trip to Belgium, Germany and Slovakia. Rice is also expected to press to jump-start long-stalled Mideast peace talks. Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials met publicly Wednesday, ending a two-week suspension of high-level contacts. A senior U.S. envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, was in the region meeting with Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Burns told reporters in Jerusalem this is "a very promising moment" for re-starting peace talks between the long-warring parties. After her contentious battle for Senate confirmation, though, Rice may well find that diplomacy begins at home, where she struggles to build her own relationships on Capitol Hill. As national security adviser, a slot that doesn't require Senate confirmation and has no budget for Congress to control, Rice reported only to Bush. As a cabinet member, Lugar told reporters, she's directly accountable to Congress and the public it serves. During Bush's first term, Rice played a behind-the-scenes role, while cabinet members like Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld answered to Congress. "But now," said Lugar, "it is her."
Bob Deans' e-mail address is bdeans(at)coxnews.com
Cable news dismissed and ridiculed inauguration protesters During January 20 inauguration coverage, hosts and commentators on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News ridiculed inauguration protesters; downplayed their numbers and significance; and implied that they posed a security threat. CNN host Wolf Blitzer seemed to ignore fellow host Judy Woodruff's point that parade watchers generally had to pay for seats (and therefore likely supported President Bush), asserting that in contrast with the protesters -- whom he called "angry, angry people" -- "there are a lot more people who have gathered along Pennsylvania Avenue who love this president." Later, Blitzer again downplayed the protesters' significance: "And we don't want to make too much of the protesters, because we don't know how many there were. Certainly, the nature of this business, the nature of television, we could over-exaggerate based on the images, and they might just be a tiny, tiny overall number." A January 21 New York Times article rebutted Blitzer's assessment, noting that the number of protesters in the protest-designated space alone was in the "thousands," and that there were also protesters interspersed with Bush supporters throughout the parade route: "The numbers of protesters along Pennsylvania Avenue might have been greater, but the swarm of people trying to pass through security checkpoints made it hard to reach the parade route quickly." As the Bushes' limousine passed the designated protester area, CNN guest and Harvard University historian Barbara Kellerman remarked: "I doubt very much they [the Bushes] are taking the protesters very seriously at this point. I think they are celebrating the moment. And I must say, who can blame them?" On FOX News, homeland defense correspondent Catherine Herridge also downplayed the number of protesters, stating that of those associated with the protest coalition Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) "only a few dozen people have shown up." But The New York Times reported that the ANSWER-led coalition "filled [the protest-designated space] with thousands of people who were as close to Mr. Bush as those who came to cheer him." HERRIDGE: This is the designated site for an anti-war group that's called ANSWER. That's an acronym for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. This has been billed as the largest demonstration. It's sort of early days, but you can see with your own eyes that only a few dozen people have shown up. ANSWER had told the park police they were expecting somewhere in the area of 10,000. While they're demonstrating against the administration's policies -- both domestic and foreign -- there are groups today that will be demonstrating in support of the president. The D.C. chapter of [conservative online forum] Free Republic will be here supporting the president and also our troops overseas, and they told the park police they were expecting somewhere around 1,000 people. Later, FOX News host, managing editor, and chief Washington correspondent Brit Hume, observing the presidential motorcade leaving the White House on its way to the Capitol, called the protesters not "very important": HUME: We'll keep an eye out as well for protesters along the way. They've been granted more access in some cases than is usual to the spots along Pennsylvania Avenue. So we'll keep an eye out for any of that. It isn't very important, but it's kind of interesting, and it's sort of typical of this country that you'd have this grand celebration of the second term of a new president, and dissenting voices have a spot in all of it. On CNN, national correspondent Bob Franken linked increased security to the protesters: Of course, the inauguration brings with it pageantry. But since September 11, 2001, it has met intense, unbelievable security and an angry nation. The protesters are set up in various spots. One of the authorized ones is right in back of me. ... The police forces are probably going to outnumber the demonstrators. They are part of a security effort -- most of which we're seeing, highly visible, some of which we're not -- which is designed to allow this to be a national security event that becomes a celebration, as opposed to something that would be unthinkable. On MSNBC, Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley ridiculed animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), calling them, "People Eating Tasty Animals." Blankley's comment came as he, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, and MSNBC contributor and analyst Monica Crowley discussed the fur coats some wore to inaugural events: MATTHEWS: I guess there's no -- what do they call it, PETA? -- they're not around. CROWLEY: And I like all the fur-lined Stetsons. BLANKLEY: PETA, isn't that People Eating Tasty Animals? MATTHEWS: I don't think so at all. I'd be very careful, Tony. N.C. Posted to the web on Friday January 21, 2005 at 4:01 PM EST Merck in hot seat over latest Vioxx report Merck & Co. forced one of its researchers to remove her name from a study linking Vioxx to heart attacks, then criticized the findings before ultimately pulling the arthritis drug from the market last fall, two of the scientist’s colleagues said. “Even after funding and agreeing with the design of the study, Merck publicly discredited our findings,” Drs. Daniel Solomon and Jerry Avorn of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital wrote in this week’s Archives of Internal Medicine. Merck spokeswoman Anita Larsen confirmed the company’s action, saying Merck believed the study’s conclusions “were not supported by the data.” The incident came about six months before another study prompted the drugmaker to withdraw Vioxx. The journal contains several studies about Vioxx and Celebrex, the once popular and heavily promoted painkillers advertised as stomach-friendly alternatives to aspirin. They are under congressional and regulatory scrutiny. One new report echoes previous data suggesting that in some older patients the drugs might not offer as much protection as thought against gastrointestinal problems. A separate study suggests they have been over-prescribed, frequently to patients at low risk for GI problems. And other research supports evidence that Vioxx increases some patients’ blood pressure. Vioxx was withdrawn Sept. 30 because of a study suggesting it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke. Celebrex maker Pfizer Inc. halted its ads last month after a study linked high doses with increased heart and stroke risks. Both drugs are in a class called Cox-2 inhibitors. The Archives reports, published Monday, come just weeks before a Feb. 16-18 Food and Drug Administration meeting on the safety of all Cox-2 drugs. Also Monday, the watchdog group Public Citizen petitioned the FDA to immediately remove from the market Celebrex and a related drug, Bextra, because of the potential heart risks. Merck suppressed risks, critics say The author-removal incident, mentioned in previous news reports, involved a Merck study of more than 50,000 patients age 65 and older taking Vioxx, Celebrex, traditional painkillers or none of the drugs. The results, published last year in the journal Circulation, showed Vioxx patients faced a higher heart attack risk than the other groups. When the results came in, “Merck required a co-author who was an employee of the company to remove her name from the article immediately prior to publication,” Solomon and Avorn said in an Archives editorial. Solomon identified the co-author as Merck epidemiologist Carolyn Cannuscio. She did not respond to e-mail and telephone requests for comment. Larsen said publication policies at Circulation and Merck allowed the drugmaker to remove the employee’s name “if the authors draw conclusions that are not supported by the data.” She said Cannuscio agreed with Merck’s decision. New study links drug to heart dangers The study links Vioxx to between 88,000 and 140,000 excess cases of heart disease in the United States a conclusion that has previously been disclosed. Dr. David Graham, who works in the FDA’s office of drug safety, claimed he was threatened with dismissal and said he asked the Lancet to withdraw the paper from publication in November. Earlier this month, the FDA agreed the study could be published. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6862553/ P&G will buy Gillette The merger, which must still be approved by regulators and shareholders, would create a company with revenue of more than billion that would have even greater clout against mass-market retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, which have been pressuring consumer product suppliers to keep costs low. Both companies' boards unanimously approved the deal. P&G Chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley flew to New York to discuss the deal with Wall Street analysts Friday, along with Gillette CEO Jim Kilts. They said the combination would bring together the marketing and distribution strengths of P&G, whose products are marketed largely to women, with Gillette's high-profit brands like razors, which are marketed to mainly men. As part of the cost-cutting that would follow the deal, executives said the merger would result in the elimination of about 6,000 jobs, or 4% of the combined work force of about 140,000. "We believe we can bring txese companies together and create a juggernaut," Gillette's Kilts said at the presentation. Kilts will become vice chairman of P&G and join its board. The combined company will be headed by Lafley and stay in Cincinnati, where P&G employs more than 10,000 people. Kilts, who has agreed to stay on for at least a year to lead the integration of the two companies, said the combination would give Gillette opportunities to sell its products in developing markets including China and East Europe. "I'm a great believer in scale," Kilts said. He said he would rather lead a consolidation in consumer products makers than "get stuck with the leftovers." The deal will add Gillette razors, Duracell batteries, Oral-B toothbrushes and Right Guard deodorant to P&G's current roster, which includes such consumer icons as Tide detergent, Crest toothpaste and Pampers diapers. Note from Webmaster; Gillette snaps your photo!?! Hidden cameras in GILLETTE spy shelves take mug shots of people who pick up their products! Consumers have asked Gillette to stop putting RFID "spy chips" in their products, but Gillette has ignored our concerns. Don't let Gillette spy on YOU next! http://www.boycottgillette.com/ www.gunowners.org You can help yourself and help GOA by using LifeLine. Call their toll free number and find out which plan will work best for you. That number is 1-800-800-7550. Or, go to http://www.lifeline.net/index_goa.cfm to sign up via the web. FED UP ? Complain To:
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