-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 192 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send $$ to RadTimes!! --> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --America's Cutting-Edge Espionage Techniques at Risk --The other Cancun --Controversial Army School To Be Protested In Washington --Mexican Guerrillas Make Historic Congress Address --Thousands in Turkey demonstrate against government and IMF --Global Concentration: The Ownership Chart --New laws against ADB violence --Some Camera to Watch Over You --At The Mercy of Criminals --Massive Raids Aim To Cripple Hells Angels --Major Biker Bust Nets Drugs, Guns --Anti-WTO protesters already gearing up for Qatar summit =================================================================== America's Cutting-Edge Espionage Techniques at Risk <http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/spy_thomas.html> By Pierre Thomas March 24 Is America's top-secret spy tradecraft still secure? Miniature cameras placed in the headlights of vehicles of known Russian spies, to record their movements. Homing devices, and an extensive system of transmitters, to track them as they traveled throughout New York City. Slivers of metal and fiber optics, embedded in window seals and furniture, to serve as supersensitive listening equipment. Now, these surveillance techniques, among the best practiced by U.S. counterintelligence, may be lost. ABCNEWS has learned that suspected Russian spy Robert Hanssen was in a position to reveal the techniques, called tradecraft, to his Russian and Soviet handlers, when he worked for the FBI in New York from 1985 to 1987. At that time, Hanssen was a counterintelligence agent, supervising a squad targeting Soviet spies in the home town of the United Nations and international finance, the prime domestic location for American espionage efforts against the Russians. "Hanssen would have had access and knowledge of all of the techniques that would be used against the Soviets," said Harry Brandon, who once oversaw the FBI's counterintelligence program. "I would assume everything is gone. Assume the worst," he said. Secrets from the Playbook Among the secrets that Hanssen may have revealed is the location of a supersecret counterintelligence center in New York known as MEGAHUT. That knowledge would allow the Russians to closely monitor undercover FBI operations. He might have also revealed a large scale real estate program maintained by the United States, that bought properties in expensive areas throughout New York City so they could be used for surveillance. Other secrets from the tradecraft playbook include an FBI system for photographing passengers coming in from Russia to monitor for incoming spies. FBI officials are now reviewing failed covert operations from the period Hanssen was in New York, trying to see if the failures were because their tradecraft playbook had been given to the Russians. But the electronic snooping war continues to evolve, with more sophisticated devices that are increasingly difficult to detect. One new development is the airborne microphone. "Having no metallic content whatsoever makes it immune from X-rays," said surveillance consultant Martin Kaiser. "It makes it immune from known wire detection processes so it's really the ideal microphone." 'Exceptionally Strong' Evidence Meanwhile, a federal judge recently ordered Hanssen to stay in jail on the grounds that the government's evidence against him was "exceptionally strong." Hanssen was arrested Feb. 18, charged with selling secrets to Russia and the Soviet Union since 1985, including the names of double agents and U.S. surveillance methods. The counts against him say he "compromised numerous FBI counterintelligence investigative techniques, sources, methods and operations, and operational practices and activities targeted against" Soviet and Russian agents in the U.S. He faces life in prison or death if convicted. His lawyers have said he is planning to plead not guilty. =================================================================== The other Cancun <http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2001-03-08/news story3.html> Slum tour shames hotel industry By John Ross NOW | MAR 8 - 14, 2001 | VOL. 20 NO. 27 Cancun - Tuning up for expected mass demonstrations at April's Summit Of The Americas in Quebec City, where the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) will be set in motion, Mexican "globalphobes" and their international allies gathered here last week to manifest their displeasure at the first World Economic Forum to be held on Mexican soil. Based on a mountain in Davos, Switzerland, far from these tropical beaches, the WEF represents the cr=E8me de la cr=E8me of corporate globalization: its annual meetings ($12,000 U.S. registration fee) attract the world's wealthiest tycoons. As has become de rigueur at such controversial international events, police repression of anti-globalization activists bloodied this tony resort's pristine sands. Cancun is itself a snapshot of how corporate globalization operates in the underdeveloped world. Built by transnational capital and studded with posh international hotels, it caters almost exclusively to foreign tourists, mostly young North Americans. Meanwhile, far from the gleaming hotel district, tens of thousands of Mayan Indian maids and day labourers occupy swampland squatter settlements lacking city services. As a magnet for employment, Cancun draws its workforce from the surrounding Yucatan peninsula, shredding the social fabric of life in its Mayan villages as dramatically as it wreaks havoc upon a once paradisiacal Caribbean coastal environment. Among other protest events, activists staged a globalphobe tour of this other Cancun, to the undisguised disdain of local authorities, hotel operators and their riot-equipped police. This square-off marked Mexican authorities' first confrontation with worldwide resistance to the transnationalization of the planet, the so-called "globalization of resistance" that first grabbed headlines in Seattle. More than 2,000 police and military personnel converted the lush Westin Regina Hotel on Cancun's Gold Coast into a tightly barricaded bunker to keep demonstrators at bay. Buses ferrying protestors to the resort were stopped by federal and state authorities, who searched and fingerprinted the passengers. Local McDonald's restaurants were reportedly shuttered after the rumoured touchdown of Jose Bove, the French farmer who became a hero of the anti-globalization movement when he bulldozed a Big Mac dispensary in his hometown. Inevitably, violence erupted on the final day of the WEF, just as Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox, addressed the forum. Not far from the luxurious Westin, protestors began to disrobe on the beach, an action that generally sparks few objections in Cancun, where flashing flesh is a public passion. Calling the globalphobic striptease an affront to public morals, police waded in with batons flailing, bloodying dozens and arresting 60 demonstrators who were later released on condition that they get out of town. The Cancun summit attracted many non-Mexicans on both sides of the barricades. More than 300 foreigners, including corporate chiefs from 33 countries, came to laud Mexico's role in the global economy as a commercial bridge between the U.S. and Europe. Despite their good cheer, the impresarios and bankers were decidedly on the defensive after a year of intense attack by the globalphobes. Yes, conceded Bank of Mexico director Guillermo Ortiz, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing in Latin America. His solution: more free trade, through both the impending FTAA and "NAFTA plus," expanding maquiladoras (foreign-owned assembly plants) throughout southern Mexico. Mexican authorities have traditionally taken a dim view of foreigners who create political problems here. Article 33 of the constitution specifically enables the president to expel any foreign citizen perceived to be interfering in domestic politics, and in recent years more than 400 extranjeros who showed their support for the rebel Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) were deported. Neophyte president Vicente Fox has permitted their return, avowing that his government has nothing to hide. The Cancun junta attracted globalphobes (the word was popularized by former president Ernesto Zedillo at the first post-Seattle Davos summit) from Italy, France, the U.S. and Brazil. Indeed, the global nature of the conclave tied Mexican immigration authorities' hands: the international visitors argued that they were in Cancun to protest inequities caused by the process of globalization and not to interfere in domestic politics. Mexico's homegrown globalphobes spring from two distinct camps: trade unionists and leftist economists who have been battling globalization since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was first imposed on Mexico; and younger, mostly anarchist groups associated with the wildly radical 1999-2000 student strike at the National University. As in Europe and the U.S., where the labour umbrella AFL-CIO distanced itself from the anti-globalization movement after rebel youth resorted to violence at the battle of Seattle, distrust between young activists and Mexican unionists often outweighs solidarity. In Cancun, labour activists, many of whom attended the January World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, held parallel to the Davos summit, sought to stay aloof from globalphobic youth. But the need for rapprochement was clear. "We've got to find common ground or resistance is going to be ineffective," warned Hector de la Cueva, an official of Mexico's longest-lived independent labour federation, the Authentic Labour Front. "It will not be easy," cautioned Argentine economist Guillermo Almeyra. "Some of these kids have never had a joband probably never will." While the youthful activists, themselves split into peaceniks and those who support revolutionary violence, bore the brunt of the police assault, de la Cueva and other alternative forum representatives debated WEF officials on the evils of globalization in an elegant hotel salon. Inviting "reasonable" opponents to engage in debate has become a useful strategy for corporate globalizers at recent international protests in Washington and Prague. The day after Fox, in town to inaugurate a new Cancun Marriott, closed the WEF with a rousing endorsement of corporate globalization, those protestors who could still walk beat a hasty retreat to catch up with the historic march of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation to Mexico City. Since 1996, when the EZLN summoned thousands of activists to the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas to brainstorm on how best to battle neo-liberal economics, the Mayan Indian rebels have been in the vanguard of the "globalization of resistance." That resistance will be rejoined next month, when globalphobes descend on Quebec City for the 34-nation (Cuba is excluded) Summit Of The Americas. There, globalizers will continue talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a treaty they claim will create a market of 800 million consumers and spread the dubious joys of NAFTA from the North Pole to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. =================================================================== Controversial Army School To Be Protested In Washington This Week by Chris Strohm Inside The Army March 26, 2001 Activists and organizers are planning to converge in Washington, DC, this week for a series of protests and actions in an effort to close a controversial Army training center. Six days of actions set to begin this week will include a civil disobedience demonstration at the Pentagon, where activists will risk arrest in their efforts to close the Army's Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Ft. Benning, GA. The institute was opened Jan. 17; it replaces the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, which has come under fire for years by human rights activists and some members of Congress because graduates have gone on to commit human rights abuses and criminal activity in Latin America and South America. Jeff Winder, program director for SOA Watch, which is organizing the demonstrations, said the institute continues to focus on combat training even though its name has changed. "The first message is that this is not a new school," he said in an interview with Inside the Army. "The second message is that the atrocities of the school are not in the past." Protest events will begin on Thursday with a legislative workshop and vigil on Capitol Hill. The protest at the Pentagon is scheduled for Monday morning, Winder said. Winder added that SOA Watch plans to work with supportive members of Congress to introduce legislation to close the institute and conduct an independent investigation into training curriculum and what graduates have done after leaving. "There's no comprehensive study that's ever been done of SOA graduates to find out if they are going back to commit human rights abuses or not," he said. Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Joe Moakly (D-MA), have tried for years to shut down the school because of curriculum and training practices that he and others have blamed, in part, for atrocities allegedly committed by graduates. The school's alumni includes notorious figures like Panama's Manuel Noriega and El Salvador death squad leader Roberto D'Abuisson. Legislation has been introduced in previous years to close the school, and a bill came up 10 votes short last fiscal year. As a result of public pressure, the fiscal year 2001 Defense Authorization Act mandated that the school's name and charter be changed. The Army held a closing ceremony for SOA on Dec. 15 and opened the institute on Jan. 17. An official from the institute did not return a telephone call for comment by press time (March 23). According to an announcement released by the Defense Department last November, the new institute "will provide professional education and training to eligible personnel of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. It will focus its training on the democratic principles set forth in the charter of the Organization of American States (to which the United States is a signatory)." The institute will promote respect for democracy and human rights, the DOD statement added. Also, its operations and curriculum will be reviewed regularly by an independent "board of visitors" made up of members of Congress, the State Department, DOD and civilians. SOA Watch organizes annual demonstrations against the school, which was opened 54 years ago. Winder said this year's demonstrations last longer and include more activities than prior events. He said the demonstrations against the school this year will also address U.S. military aid to Colombia, which is embroiled in a war that includes leftist insurgents, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary units. Winder said Colombia is the "largest customer" for graduates of the school. "We're trying to represent the movement of people who are affected and suffer so terribly at the hands of the graduates of this school," he said. =================================================================== Mexican Guerrillas Make Historic Congress Address Wednesday, March 28, 2001 MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Masked Mexican Zapatista rebels made an unprecedented appearance before Congress on Wednesday to deliver an impassioned plea for Indian rights but most members of President Vicente Fox's party boycotted the historic session. ``We don't come to conquer, to supplant anyone...We come to be heard and to listen to you and to make dialogue,'' Commander Esther who spoke first, said in stilted Spanish against a backdrop of two enormous national flags flanked by plaques bearing names of illustrious personalities in Mexican history. The rebel's charismatic military strategist and spokesman, Subcommander Marcos, was noticeably absent from the motley rebel command seated in the front benches as Commander Esther, wearing a black knitted ski-mask and red and white embroidered shawl, spoke to the half empty chamber. Esther, who spoke for 25 minutes, said Marcos was absent because as a subcommander he was of lower rank and not the sole voice of the rebels. ``We gave Marcos and those who share our hopes and yearnings the mission to bring us to this tribune ... now is our hour.'' Four rebel commanders in all addressed senators and deputies from the podium of the Lower House -- a privilege normally reserved for Mexican presidents, foreign heads of states, ministers and lawmakers. The rebels' landmark appearance before Congress was aimed at convincing lawmakers to pass an indigenous rights bill giving greater autonomy to Indian communities -- a key rebel condition for resuming peace talks. The majority of deputies from Fox's conservative National Action Party (PAN) earlier said they would not attend in protest and that they oppose negotiating with people in masks. Indigenous braided women wearing colorful frilly skirts and shawls and men in white with red sashes and tasseled hats packed the public gallery to watch the high political drama. In response to frequently cited concerns that the Indian rights bill would fracture the nation's unity, Esther said Mexico was already deeply divided and that Indians lived in danger of extinction. ``In this fragmented country we Indians live with the shame of being the color that we are,'' said Esther. The Zapatistas, who rose up in 1994 in the name of Mexico's 10 million Indians, marched, unarmed, to the capital from their jungle hide-out in Southern Chiapas some two weeks ago, amassing grass-roots support during their 12-state trek. EARLY VICTORY FOR REBELS The event marks an early victory on the part of the rebels, who last week threatened to return to Chiapas if they were not allowed to speak before Congress. Fox, who was not invited to attend the session, said he hoped the rebels succeeded in convincing lawmakers of the importance of the indigenous bill, which is aimed at giving greater autonomy to indigenous communities. ``Today is not the point of arrival but the point of departure so that this, our dear Mexico, pays the enormous debt that it has with 10 million indigenous brothers and sisters,'' he said in a statement. Three other rebel chiefs spoke after Esther's address, urging lawmakers to approve the indigenous rights bill. Commander David said: ``For nearly 500 years, the sons and grandsons of the (Spanish) conquerors did everything possible to exterminate us ... They imposed their laws, their ideas, their politics, beliefs and their gods in order to make what was ours disappear.'' Commander Zebedeo said lawmakers had it in their power to right these wrongs and open the way for peace. ``If you want to win the confidence of the Mexican people, if you want to pay your debt, if you want to be loyal and faithful to your word that you gave during your campaigns, now is the moment to fulfill that, to settle accounts...,'' he said. Fox has continued this week to make concessions to the rebels who have said they will return to the negotiating table on condition troops are withdrawn from seven bases in the conflict zone, all rebel prisoners are freed and a law protecting indigenous rights is passed. Monday the government pulled out troops from the last two remaining bases of the seven in Chiapas. Fox, who is the first Mexican president in seven decades not a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), sent the indigenous rights bill to Congress within days of being sworn in last December. The Zapatistas' guerrilla war -- launched on New Year's Day 1994 -- and subsequent clashes between rebel sympathizers and PRI-back paramilitaries have claimed up to 200 lives. =================================================================== Thousands in Turkey demonstrate against government and IMF Saturday, 31-Mar-2001 ISTANBUL, March 31 (AFP) - Several thousand people, among them trade union and civil rights supporters, demonstrated in Istanbul Saturday with banners attacking the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the economic crisis. Estimates of the numbers varied between 3,000 and 5,000. The unauthorised demonstration passed off peacefully, without police intervention. One banner read: "Down with the government, lackey of the IMF!" Since February the country has been plunged into financial crisis after it allowed its currency, the lira, to float, causing it to lose some 30 percent against the dollar. Ankara is drawing up a new economic programme after it abandoned its pegged currency rate and floated the lira. The country appealed to the IMF in November for renewed help in a liquidity crisis which resulted in several financially unstable private banks being placed under strict state control. The economic crisis has forced the government to give up a stabilisation plan started in 1999 with IMF help, and also to abandon a programme to reduce inflation. The IMF said Tuesday its future financial assistance to Turkey would be determined by the content of the new economic reform package. Turkey's Economy Minister Kemal Dervis expressed optimism on Friday that Ankara would get foreign aid to overhaul its battered economy, and urged quick legislative action on a series of bills at the core of its recovery programme. =================================================================== Global Concentration: The Ownership Chart Thanks to the merger boom, media power is more concentrated than ever. A new online chart presents the global media overlords in vivid color. http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership =================================================================== Thursday, April 5, 2001 New laws against ADB violence <http://www.starbulletin.com/2001/04/05/news/story9.html> City Council OKs laws intended to discourage violence at ADB meeting Star-Bulletin staff The City Council approved a number of bills yesterday intended to provide security in the event of protests stemming from the Asian Development Bank's board of governors meeting in Honolulu May 7-11. The bills would ban "possession with intent to use" any device capable of emitting an "obnoxious substance;" prohibit the wearing of a mask or disguise "in order to conceal oneself while perpetrating a crime or to escape lawful detention or custody;" and allow police to arrest people "who deposit any glass, nail, tack, can or other substance that is likely to injure any person, animal or vehicle on a highway." Those who oppose the ADB's policies say the measures create an intimidating climate for those who may wish to protest the conference. The Council also approved a resolution accepting $518,000 from the Hawaii Tourism Authority that will allow police to purchase equipment related to security precautions related to the convention. =================================================================== [See website for embedded links.] Some Camera to Watch Over You <http://www.wired.com/news/business/0%2C1367%2C42794%2C00.html> by Julia Scheeres Apr. 5, 2001 If Scott Fry had his way, video surveillance would be as ubiquitous in the United States as it is in Britain, where you can't stroll down certain streets without having your movements shadowed by a dozen cameras. Fry is the president of Pedagog USA, a wireless application service provider that recently established a beachhead in California to promote its mobile surveillance systems on this side of the big puddle. Pedagog's software enables video images to be transmitted over wireless networks to portable devices such as Palm Pilots or laptops for a fraction of the price of traditional closed circuit television (CCTV) systems. The British government is so enthralled with the technology that it announced plans to increase the number of cameras in England to 2 million over the next three years, principally for law enforcement purposes. Fry says it's high time that Americans jumped on the surveillance bandwagon. "They're bloody everywhere in England," Fry said. "It's been working over there and we feel the technology has an application here as well. We're good at what we do and we're going after the markets." Like CCTV, open circuit television cameras (OCTV) track subjects remotely by tilting, panning, zooming and in some cases, using infrared and motion-detection technology. But the new surveillance systems cost 70 percent less than CCTV systems because they don't require pricey cable installation and dedicated monitoring rooms, Fry said. "Once it's installed, the system costs as much as it does to make a cell phone call," he said, adding that advances in wireless technology will bolster the market. "We're forecasting substantial growth. The faster the networks get, the faster we become and the more needed we are." Fry suggested multiple applications for mobile video monitoring: Restaurant patrons could dial into their favorite eateries to check who's there and how busy the joint is; transportation agencies could use it to analyze traffic bottlenecks; paramedics could use it in ambulances to beam images of trauma victims to physicians for guidance. But Pedagog's biggest market in the United States is probably the same as it is in England: law enforcement. "If we can get a major law enforcement agency interested in doing a trial, we'd be set," Fry said. In England, where the unblinking eyes of security cameras are as much a part of the landscape as Big Ben, police argue the systems are one of their best tools for controlling crime. Although the British Home Office (U.S. equivalent of the Justice Department) surveys say that surveillance cameras are widely accepted by the general public, some analysts disagree. Several studies by Jason Ditton, the director the Scottish Centre for Criminology and one of the few criminologists to research the effectiveness of CCTV, suggest that the cameras have neither the public support nor the crime-reducing power attributed to them. Furthermore, Ditton's studies reveal that camera operators routinely show bias by focusing on minorities, the homeless or young men in football jerseys. The introduction of the cameras into British society was gradual and deliberate, said Simon Davies, president of Privacy International. "There has been a very astute engineering exercise to introduce CCTV into all levels of society," Davies said. "It has nothing to do with crime control, it has everything to do with politics." English authorities have used a few widely publicized cases to convince the population that the systems are necessary for their safety. Perhaps the best known and most horrific, case is that of two-year-old James Bulger. James was abducted in 1993 from a shopping center in Northern England by two 10-year-olds who led the boy to a railway yard and bludgeoned him to death. A video camera captured footage of the toddler being led away, hand-in-hand with one of his attackers. The haunting image was broadcast repeatedly on the nightly news, Davies said. "The cameras were no assistance in stopping the crime, but the images were repeated so often that the average citizen linked cameras to stopping the murder of babies," Davies said. "They believed that if we have enough cameras and the cameras are better, next time we could have stopped this horrible crime. It's a hysteria here." Nevertheless, in the decade following James' death, the British government has spent an estimated $350 million installing 300,000 cameras around the country, making it the world leader in video surveillance use. "These systems are used more and more to police public morals and public order," Davies, including "anti-social" behavior such as littering, drunkenness, evading meters and underage smoking. Some boroughs have even linked the cameras to face recognition technology, so passersby can be automatically scanned and compared with known criminals. The only legislation regulating images taken by the cameras is the Data Protection Act, which allows citizens to get copies of video footage taken by the police, Davies said. One person who has taken advantage of the Act is British comedian Mark Thomas. Thomas, a strident opponent of surveillance, has performed Irish jigs in front of the cameras, then forced the camera operators to perform the expensive task of pixelating out third parties and giving him a copy of the tape. He's even launched a competition for the most creative film obtained under the Data Protection Act. But efforts to fire up the citizenry about privacy violations on a large scale have failed, causing one advocacy group to throw in the towel. "Big Brother has won, we have lost the fight for CCTV regulation, and the Campaign and this website will soon be retired," states the homepage of Watching Them, Watching Us. Based on his company's experience in England, Pedagog's Fry isn't too concerned about opposition to the technology in the United States. "Some people think it's an invasion of privacy, but my question is what about the civil liberties of the people being offended?" Fry said. "They have civil liberties and this equipment can protect them." =================================================================== At The Mercy of Criminals By JOHN R. LOTT JR. Los Angeles Times Hardly a day seems to go by without national news coverage of yet another shooting. Yet when was the last time you heard a story on the national evening news about a citizen saving a life with a gun? Few people realize that civilians use guns defensively to stop about 2 million crimes a year, five times more often than guns are used to commit crimes, according to national surveys. Last week, a police officer received national attention for stopping a school shooting in El Cajon. Where was the similar national news coverage when equally heroic civilians used their guns to stop other school shootings, such as the ones in Pearl, Miss., and Edinboro, Penn.? Some of this lopsided coverage is understandable. An innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than when a victim brandishes a gun and an attacker runs away with no crime committed. Unlike the crimes that are avoided, bad events provide emotionally gripping pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression that guns only cost lives. Even the rare local coverage of defensive gun use seldom involves more than very brief stories. Newsworthiness also dictates that these stories are not the typical examples of self-defense, but the rare instances where the attacker is shot. In fact, in 98% of the cases, simply brandishing a gun is sufficient to stop a crime. Research at Florida State University and at the University of Chicago indicates that only one out of 1,000 defensive gun uses results in the attacker's death. Here are some of the 20 defensive gun use stories that I found reported in their respective local media in a single week, March 11-17: * Clearwater, Fla.: At 1:05 a.m., a man started banging on a patio door, briefly left to beat on the family's truck, but returned and tore open the patio door. At that point, after numerous shouts not to break into the home, a 16-year-old boy fired a single rifle shot, wounding the attacker. * Columbia, S.C.: As two gas station employees left work just after midnight, two men attempted to rob them. The sheriff told a local television station: "Two men came out of the bushes, one of the men had a shovel handle that had been broken off and began to beat [the male employee] . . . about the head, neck and then the arms." The male employee broke away long enough to draw a handgun from his pocket and wound his attacker, who later died. The second suspect, turned in by relatives, faces armed robbery and possible murder charges. * Little Rock, Ark.: By firing one shot with a rifle, a 19-year-old man defended himself against three armed men who were threatening to assault him. One of them was treated for a flesh wound. * Detroit: A mentally disturbed man yelled that the president was going to have him killed and started firing at people in passing cars. A man at the scene, who had a permit to carry a concealed handgun, fired shots that forced the attacker to stop shooting and run away. The attacker barricaded himself in an empty apartment, fired at police and ultimately committed suicide. * West Palm Beach, Fla.: After being beaten during a robbery at his home just two days earlier, a homeowner began carrying a handgun in his pocket. When another robber attacked him, the homeowner shot and wounded his assailant. * Grand Junction, Colo.: On his way home from work, a contractor picked up three young hitchhikers. He fixed them a steak dinner at his house and was preparing to offer them jobs. Two of the men grabbed his kitchen knives and started stabbing him in the back, head and hands. The attackers stopped only when he told them that he could give them money. Instead of money, the contractor grabbed a pistol and shot one of the attackers. The contractor said, "If I'd had a trigger lock, I'd be dead." * Columbia Falls, Mont.: An ex-boyfriend is accused of entering a woman's home and sexually assaulting her. She got away long enough to get her handgun and hold her attacker at gunpoint until police arrived. * Salt Lake City: Two robbers began firing their guns as soon as they entered a pawn shop. The owner and his son returned fire. One of the robbers was shot in the arm; both later were arrested. The shop owner's statement said it all: "If we did not have our guns, we would have had several people dead here." * Baton Rouge, La.: At 5:45 a.m., a crack addict kicked in the back door of a house and went in. The attacker was fatally shot as he charged toward the homeowner. What advice would gun control advocates have given these victims? Should they have behaved passively? Unfortunately, by making it difficult for law-abiding people to get the most effective tool to defend themselves, gun control often puts victims' lives in jeopardy. -------- John R. Lott Jr. Is a Senior Research Scholar at the Yale University Law School and the Author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2000) =================================================================== Massive Raids Aim To Cripple Hells Angels URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n569/a05.html Pubdate: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Website: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/ Author: Zev Singer 138 Arrests Expected To Ease Ottawa Drug Traffic A police crackdown yesterday against Quebec's Hells Angels, which saw more than 100 bikers arrested and which left their leader Maurice "Mom" Boucher facing a 13 new murder charges, will put a dent in the Ottawa drug traffic, police say. The early-morning series of raids was carried out simultaneously in 77 municipalities across Quebec by more than 2,000 police, including local, provincial and RCMP officers. The co-operative police operation was an avowed attempt to "destabilize" the Hells Angels' crime empire. A total of 138 arrests were expected to follow yesterday's raids, and police seized $7.5 million in cash, 15 motorcycles, 35 cars, and seven buildings as well as a store of weapons and drugs. The crackdown, called Operation Springtime 2001 and intended as a form of spring cleaning, was the result of a two-year investigation into the biker gang's criminal activities. While new evidence was collected in yesterday's raids, police were calling this simply the "icing on the cake," claiming they have already lined up enough all the evidence needed to prosecute the bikers with Canada's still barely-touched anti-gang legislation. Among the six main parts of yesterday's crackdown was the Outaouais' Operation Bobcat, where police conducted 50 raids spread over 20 municipalities and, as of yesterday afternoon, had found and arrested 41 of the 44 people they were looking for. The hunt is ongoing for the remaining group members. Fifteen Ottawa-Carleton police officers were sworn in on the previous day as peace officers in Quebec so they could assist in the operation. There is no Hells Angels' clubhouse in the Outaouais, but the 44 Outaouais people arrested are almost all connected to a group called the Evil Ones, who are described as a type of minor-league operation for the Hells Angels. "In the biker world, they mentor these people. They are aspiring Hells Angels, who do the dirty work, the street work and work their way through the ranks," said Lieut. Yves Martel of the Hull police. At 5:30 yesterday morning, a swat team surrounded the Evil Ones' stronghold on Rue de Carrefour in Val-des-Monts, 20 kilometres north of Hull. Unsure of who would be inside or how heavily armed, police took no chances. "You don't knock, not at a bunker," said Lieut. Martel. Police avoided detection by the surveillance cameras outside the property and stormed the hilltop house, but found no one inside. A search of the house was done after a second wave of 35 officers arrived. Motorcycles and boxes of other items were removed. The members of the group were arrested in their homes. Among those arrested, police said, was one full-fledged Hells Angel, a man described by police a the "tutor" who nurtures the development of the would-be Hells Angels. Of the 41 arrested, 30 were expected to appear in court in Hull this morning, while the rest were conditionally released. RCMP Sgt. Marc Richer stressed that the bikers will be charged under the anti-gang law, C-95, introduced in 1997, which allows police to prosecute organized criminal gangs and seize gang assets. "These people are charged together and will be on trial together," Sgt. Richer said. "We have learned to use the new legislative tools. We've learned a new way to do business." Charges will include conspiracy to traffic drugs and conspiracy to murder. The operation is viewed as good news by Ottawa-Carleton police in terms of its impact on Ottawa's drug trade. "Effectively, the Evil Ones have been shut down," said Sgt. Richard Dugal. "They are very big players in the drug traffic in the Outaouais and Ottawa. The impact is probably going to be felt." The effect of the raids will certainly be felt by Quebec's Hells Angels boss, 47-year-old "Mom" Boucher. The investigations leading up to yesterday's arrests have produced 13 new murder charges against him and eight against his son, Francis, 25. Police yesterday raided and seized two homes on Montreal's South Shore belonging to Mr. Boucher, who is currently in jail awaiting a retrial for two other counts of attempted murder in the deaths of two prison guards. Quebec's Public Security Minister, Serge Menard, said yesterday in Quebec City that the anti-gang police initiative was "unprecedented, and we hope it will hurt them." While the operation concentrated on Quebec, arrests were also made in Ontario, New Brunswick and British Columbia. =================================================================== Major Biker Bust Nets Drugs, Guns URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n570/a07.html Pubdate: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB) Website: http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonSun/ Authors: Michael Wood and Mike D'Amour CALGARY - In the biggest bust of its kind in Alberta, a massive early morning raid netted cops $1 million in dope, scads of weapons and resulted in the arrest of dozens of people - including nearly half the membership of the Calgary Hells Angels. "Not only is it large by Calgary standards, but by national standards as well," said Calgary police Insp. Murray Stooke. The 11-month undercover operation ended yesterday when more than 200 Calgary police officers, Edmonton cops and Mounties executed 27 search warrants at separate locations, beginning about 4:30 a.m. "We laid about 200 drug-and-weapon-related charges," said Calgary police Chief Jack Beaton. Eight members of the 18-member strong Calgary Hells Angels and more than 30 club prospects and associates were charged with numerous drug and weapons charges following the nearly year-long investigation that saw undercover cops buying street drugs. During the course of the investigation - either through more than 80 undercover drug buys, search warrants or arrests - police seized 11 kilograms of cocaine, four kilograms of marijuana and smaller amounts of methamphetamine, Valium, morphine and ecstasy. They also nabbed several weapons including five handguns, an Israeli-made Uzi machine gun with a silencer, 11 rifles, a shotgun and a Taser stun gun. The $2.5-million probe, dubbed "Operation Shadow," took police to spots in Calgary, Chestermere and Turner Valley. Cops also hit one home south of Calgary where dozens of police, including TAC team members clad in bullet-proof vests, helmets and balaclavas, swooped down on a tiny farm house near Okotoks. The local raid came just two days after after similar raids in Quebec where 2,000 police officers swooped down on and arrested more than 100 Hells Angels. Many of those rounded up made their first appearances before a judge via a special video link from prison. They ranged from stereotypical tattooed, beefy bikers to a 77-year-old man who shuffled before the camera and told the judge he can't stay in jail because he's just had prostate surgery and is troubled by a hernia. Police said they had been biting their nails, wondering if the Quebec arrests would prematurely spook those targeted in yesterday's raid. The fact members of the local chapter - dubbed privately by some cops as The Apple Dumpling Gang - knew about the eastern raids but were still allegedly nabbed with drugs and guns baffled Beaton. "Yes, we were surprised, but that told us they didn't know we were coming," he said. Beaton said he had a mandate from the public to do something about the city's drug trade. "Calgarians have told us illegal drugs are one of their top concerns." =================================================================== March 27, 2001 Anti-WTO protesters already gearing up for Qatar summit GENEVA, March 27 (AFP) - With eight months still to go before the next meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Qatar, the anti-globalisation movement is already busy at work on new protest moves. But some of its leading figures are showing signs of a less confrontational approach. The latest non-governmental organisation (NGO) here to make its mark is the Global Citizen Initiative (GCI), launched at the weekend with the support of militant French farmers' leader Jose Bove. He was one of the leading figures in the huge and sometimes violent demonstrations which disrupted the 1999 WTO ministerial meeting in the US city of Seattle. The protests shocked the authorities and helped to ignite a worldwide movement against economic globalization. It has continued to grow, culminating in a huge operation in February by Swiss police to prevent thousands of demonstrators disrupting the World Economic Forum attended by world leaders in Davos. But Bove now appears to be changing tack in his anti-WTO campaign, reflecting a less confrontational approach. Instead of calling for the abolition of the WTO, Bove has now refined his demands to a call for major reform of the world trade body. He acknowledges that many of his supporters will not understand his new position but he says he now believes it is "much more important to negotiate within a multilateral organisation like the WTO than to have a free trade zone such as in the US". Bove added that it was not a question of having too many regulations but that there were not enough and that those that did exist were not necessarily good ones. In a launch statement, GCI said it recognised the regulatory role of the WTO, without which trade would operate according to the law of the jungle. The NGO, which is currently based in Lyon, says its primary objective is to bring expert advice on WTO rules to countries now in the process of joining the organisation, such as Vietnam and China, as well as French-speaking nations in Africa. According to Bove, this is to enable them to be fully aware of the consequences of signing certain WTO agreements. GCI also wants to be seen as a forum for debate between civil groups, governments and institutions, as well as making recommendations on, for example, the much criticised body which deals with disputes within the WTO. But the new initiative's declaration that the launch of a fresh round of multilateral WTO negotiations, maybe at Qatar, seems inevitable marks a significant departure from other anti-globalisation NGOs. These include Third World Network which believes a new round including talks on competition and investment would be "dangerous". It has called instead on the WTO to concentrate its efforts on renegotiating the agreements made in the Uruguay round covering agriculture, service industries and intellectual property. Third World Network believes these should be changed to meet the present needs of developing countries. =================================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. Krishnamurti ====================================================== "The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my religion." -Thomas Paine ====================================================== " . . . it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds . . . " -Samuel Adams ====================================================== "You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results." -Gandhi ______________________________________________________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe or for a sample copy or a list of back issues, send appropriate email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ______________________________________________________________ **How to assist RadTimes: An account is available at <www.paypal.com> which enables direct donations. If you are a current PayPal user, use this email address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, to contribute. If you are not a current user, use this link: <https://secure.paypal.com/refer/pal=resist%40best.com> to sign up and contribute. The only information passed on to me via this process is your email address and the amount you transfer. Thanks! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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