Re: [CTRL] Failed to clean virus file document.zip
-Caveat Lector- Ugh ... well, the fact is that many worms/viruses spread by randomly copying email addresses from the infected machine's address book (if it's running MS and Outlook or Outlook Express), which are used to send the virus and also to spoof the From: header, so it looks like it came from someone who was never infected. It creates confusion because the messages often bounce back to the spoofed address, sometimes with the worm attached, which spreads it further. So, don't worry, chances are you didn't send anything, but if you really want to be safe then use a decent anti-virus tool and scan your machine, and also don't open attachments or read your email in HTML. - jt - Original Message - From: Jim S. [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 29 June 2004 11:36 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Failed to clean virus file document.zip -Caveat Lector- I did NOT sent ANY post/s or files to CTRL for many weeks! - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 12:37 PM Subject: [CTRL] Failed to clean virus file document.zip -Caveat Lector- The file you have sent was infected with a virus but InterScan E-Mail VirusWall could not clean it. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Bush nominates secretive archivist
-Caveat Lector- http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040423.html A Controversial Choice for the Position of Archivist of the United States: Part of the Bush Administration's Secrecy Strategy? By JOHN W. DEAN Friday, Apr. 23, 2004 On April 8, the U. S. Senate received the President's nomination for a new Archivist of the United States -- historian Allen Weinstein. For most Americans, this is an obscure post. But the Weinstein nomination has rightly been gathering increasing attention. Indeed, within the archival and historical communities, the nomination has sent sirens screaming and bells clanging. No fewer than nine professional organizations that deal with government records have expressed concern -- faulting Weinstein for his excessive secrecy. As I have argued in my latest book, President Bush has had a problem with excessive secrecy for quite awhile. As Governor of Texas, he made sure to block any later access to his gubernatorial records. As President, he has tried to seal off the government from scrutiny in numerous ways. Such secrecy is not a partisan matter. Rather, it is an issue of good government versus bad government -- and secrecy smells of bad government. Why is President Bush so eager to switch archivists? Bruce Craig of the National Coalition for History explains http://hnn.us/comments/33519.html that the Administration is likely motivated both by the sensitive nature of certain presidential and executive department records expected to be opened in the near future, and also by genuine concern in the White House that the president may not be re-elected. Craig also notes that in January 2005, the first batch of records (the mandatory 12 years of closure having passed) relating to the president's father's administration will be subject to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and could be opened. Finally, Craig (like many others) also reports that there is White House concern about the release of the 9/11 Commission records. Bush's Earlier Texas Trick To Hide His Gubernatorial Records Texas has one of the nation's strongest public information laws. But Governor Bush wanted to keep his papers secret anyway. Accordingly, in 1997, he sought and obtained a change in Texas law to help him do so. The new law allows the governor to select a site for his papers other than the Texas State Library -- as long as it is in Texas. But the governor must first consult with the state's library and archives commission to make certain any alternative arrangement satisfied the state's open access law. When Bush became president-elect, however, he simply sent his papers and records with no consultation whatsoever to his father's presidential library at Texas AM University -- known as the most secretive of all the existing presidential libraries. The result was, in effect, to federalize the papers and records, placing them in a legal limbo where no one could have access. Bush Senior's presidential library is run by the Federal Government -- specifically, the National Archives And Records Administration (NARA). But Peggy Rudd, Director and Librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, refused to accept Bush's designation of his father's library as the repository for his papers. Eventually, she procured a ruling by the Texas attorney general, making Bush's gubernatorial papers subject to the Texas Public Information Act -- whereupon they were sent to Austin for processing. Soon, however, Texas Governor Perry -- Bush's friend and hand-picked successor -- and the new attorney general found new exceptions in the state's information law that they claim give them the keys to the relevant filing cabinets. Good luck to those seeking access. Now it appears Bush is doing what he did in Texas, on a national level. Gutting the 1978 Presidential Records Act This effort began on November 1, 2001, when Bush issued Executive Order 13233. The Executive Order drew loud objections from not only historians http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20011128/ and archivists http://www.archivists.org/statements/stephenhorn.asp , but also members of Congress -- who were highly critical of the Order in hearings. In the end, however, the Republican leaders quelled the grumbling, and Congress took no action. The Executive Order gutted prior law -- specifically, the 1978 Presidential Records Act. The Order granted all former presidents, as well as any persons selected by them, an unprecedented authority to invoke executive privilege to block release of their records. In addition, it granted the power to invoke executive privilege to present and former vice-presidents as well. Moreover, it shifts the burden to the requester to establish why he or she seeks the presidential records. (In contrast, the 1978 law properly put the burden on the former president who seeks to withhold them.) And Bush's Order empowers a current president to block release of a former president's records even when the former president
[CTRL] California Bans E-Vote Machines
-Caveat Lector- http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html California Bans E-Vote Machines By Kim Zetter 03:53 PM Apr. 30, 2004 PT California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ended five months of speculation and announced Friday that he was decertifying all electronic touch-screen voting machines in the state due to security concerns and lack of voter confidence. He also said that he was passing along evidence to the state's attorney general to bring criminal and civil charges against voting-machine-maker Diebold Election Systems for fraud. We will not tolerate deceitful tactics as engaged in by Diebold and we must send a clear and compelling message to the rest of the industry: Don't try to pull a fast one on the voters of California because there will be consequences if you do, he said. Shelley said the ban on touch-screen machines would stay in effect unless and until specific security measures could be put in place to safeguard the November vote. Revelations regarding touch-screen machines have shaken public confidence in this voting technology, Shelley said, referring to four computer-science reports released in the last year that showed the machines to be badly designed and vulnerable to hacking. It is my foremost responsibility to take all steps necessary to make sure every vote cast in California will be accurately counted. At least four counties will not be able to use touch-screen machines at all in November because they purchased a type of Diebold machine that was never federally certified. But Shelley held out hope for 10 counties that currently own other types of touch-screen machines by saying the state would consider recertifying the machines on a county-by-county basis for November if the counties could meet a long list of stringent security requirements. County officials also must adhere to a number of directives for Election Day. If they don't meet the requirements, then they will have to use a paper-based voting method, such as optical-scan machines, which use a paper ballot that officials then scan into an electronic reader. Additionally, Shelley declared that no county or vendor would be able to make last-minute changes to voting systems. Such changes caused problems in at least two counties in the March primary where a malfunctioning Diebold device prevented hundreds of polling places from opening on time. That horrific process stops now. We saw what it resulted in on March 2nd, Shelley said. Finally, all counties will have to provide voters with the option of voting on a provisional paper ballot if they feel uncomfortable casting votes on the paperless e-voting machines. Shelley said that voting companies would bear the brunt of the estimated $1 million cost for providing extra provisional ballots to every county, indicating that the vendors caused the erosion in voter confidence, so they would have to pay for the solution. I don't want a voter to not vote on Election Day because the only option before them is a touch-screen voting machine. I want that voter to have the confidence that he or she can vote on paper and have the confidence that their vote was cast as marked, Shelley said. The state would bear the cost of some of the other changes, such as helping to replace touch-screen machines with optical-scan machines in counties that can't meet the stringent security requirements before November. Counties will not be able to purchase any new e-voting machines unless the machines can produce a voter-verified paper trail that voters can use to authenticate that their vote was recorded accurately. This pushes up a previous deadline Shelley put forth in December when he mandated that all new voting machines purchased after June 2005 would have to produce a paper trail. There will be a paper trail for every single vote cast in the state of California and it will happen on my watch as secretary of state, he said. To that end, Shelley announced that the state would have in place by May 30 a standard for a voter-verified paper trail on voting systems. He said the Federal Election Commission assured him that it would move immediately to create its own standards and testing procedures for such a function so that new voting systems that offer an audit trail could be put in place. There is currently only one vendor that manufactures such a machine that is fully certified. The Vote-Trakker http://www.aitechnology.com/votetrakker2/overview.html by Avante International Technology is certified by federal and state authorities. A second company, AccuPoll http://www.accupoll.com/ , just received federal certification for its system and is working on state certification. But federal certification authorities have never stipulated what standard such a function should follow. Speaking assuredly and forcefully, Shelley said that in taking these actions he was accepting and expanding upon recommendations made by his Voting Systems and Procedures Panel earlier this week
[CTRL] Voting machine maker attacked for California performance
-Caveat Lector- http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-04-21-diebold-flamed_x.htm?csp=15 Voting machine maker attacked for California performance By Jim Wasserman, Associated Press Posted 4/22/2004 12:00 AM SACRAMENTO - Embattled electronic voting machine maker Diebold Election Systems weathered new accusations Wednesday of computer glitches, last-minute software fixes and careless job performances that, in the words of the California secretary of state's office, jeopardized the outcome of the March election. A state voting systems panel is considering disciplinary action against the firm, which could bruise its standing nationally as states gear up to spend billions of dollars for new touch screen voting equipment. Diebold President Robert J. Urosevich apologized Wednesday to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, the eight-member voter systems panel that oversees California voting machinery and to 17 counties that use its varying electronic voting systems. We're not idiots, though we may act from time to time as not the smartest, Urosevich told the panel investigating its job performance in California. A report released Wednesday by the Shelley's office reported that Diebold sold new electronic voting equipment to Solano, San Diego, San Joaquin and Kern counties before it was state- or federally approved, didn't test it until shortly before the March 2 election, installed uncertified software in its equipment in 17 counties and still lacks federal approval for its newest voting machines for the November election. The Diebold investigation is part of a two-day hearing into touch-screen voting in California, where fears of another disputed presidential election have activists pressing for a ban on electronic voting this November. Though nearly half the state's voters vote in counties with touch-screen machines, many rallied Wednesday against casting votes without a verifiable paper trail. But advocates for the blind, disabled and those who speak languages other than English defended electronic systems as the only way for them to vote privately, while county voting officials also vigorously protested a possible ban as an invitation to chaos and $30 million in extra costs. The committee conducting the hearing is to make recommendations Thursday to Shelley regarding a statewide ban on electronic voting, but also on Diebold's fate, which could include fines or banning its equipment entirely in California. Shelley must decide by April 30 to ban Diebold's machines in California, and possibly those of all other manufacturers, as well, to give elections departments six months to make other plans for the Nov. 2 vote. If Shelley declines, state lawmakers have also introduced bills to ban electronic voting in the November election. Reports presented to the voting systems panel showed 573 of San Diego County's 1,038 polling places failed to open on time March 2 because of Diebold computer malfunctions, while many machines also failed during the day in Alameda County, requiring voters to use paper ballots. We were caught. We apologized for that, said Urosevich. We're sorry for that. We're sorry for the inconvenience it caused. A former Diebold computer technician, James Dunn, also told the panel he and a fellow employee weren't surprised to hear of problems in both counties after seeing machines shipped with low batteries and different kinds of software from a West Sacramento warehouse. I heard about it on the radio, said Dunn. We both looked at each other and laughed and said, 'Well, that was predictable.' Diebold consultant Marvin Singleton disputed Dunn's assertions, saying, It's our belief he's either confused or misguided on a number of points. Several county officials that use Diebold machines and those made by other manufacturers defended them as glitch-free, more reliable than paper ballots and popular with voters. You improve the software, fix the glitch and go on, said Kern County Registrar of Voters Ann Barnett, who uses Diebold machines. To decertify our touch screens would be a disservice to the voters of our county and the state. Urosevich, too, defended the performance of his company's machines used in California, Georgia and Maryland, contending that none has encountered security breaches or misreported vote counts. Diebold Election Systems, based in McKinney, Texas, is a subsidiary of Ohio-based Diebold, Inc., which reported more than $2 billion in sales last year, largely from ATM machines used in banks. Voting machines represent about 5% of its business, but could grow as states receive $3.9 billion in federal funds to update their voting systems. Read the bills to ban paperless electronic voting this November, SB 530 and SB1723, at http://legislature.ca.gov www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and
[CTRL] California votes against Diebold
-Caveat Lector- http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5197870.html California votes against Diebold By Paul Festa CNET News.com April 22, 2004, 1:06 PM PT SACRAMENTO, Calif.--California election officials on Thursday recommended banning some Diebold Election Systems voting machines and referred an investigation into the company to the attorney general for possible civil and criminal sanctions. California's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel unanimously voted to send its recommendations to the secretary of state in a second morning of contentious hearings http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5197192.html?tag=nl , during which Diebold's president apologized to the panel and admitted that the company's errors had prevented some Californians from voting. But panel members said Thursday morning that the company's apologies were insufficient, and they expressed frustration with and distrust of the electronic-voting vendor. I'm disgusted by the actions of this company, said panel member Marc Carrel, assistant secretary of state for policy and planning. And I think we should forward our recommendations to the attorney general, because I can't believe that a lot of the statements made yesterday were accurate. The panel could have decertified all of Diebold's equipment but opted instead to revoke only the conditional certification, issued in November, that allowed the company's TSx touch screen system http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ss.ca.gov%2Felections%2Fvoting_systems%2Fdiebold_tsx.htmsiteId=2oId=2100-1104-5197870ontId=11lop=nl_ex to be used in the March Super Tuesday primary election. The TSx, used in March by San Diego, Solano, San Joaquin and Kern counties, is the successor to Diebold's older TS machine, used in the election by Alameda, Los Angeles and Plumas counties. The TS version was not covered by the panel's vote. Diebold President Bob Urosevich said the panel's recommendation to decertify the TSx was unsurprising, given that it had been certified only for the March election. We have other combinations of equipment the counties can work with, Urosevich said in an interview with CNET News.com. This was somewhat expected, after the one-time certification the secretary of state was kind enough to give us. Like others at Diebold, Urosevich declined to comment on the recommendation to send the report to the attorney general. Diebold and its handful of competitors are under intense scrutiny, as states across the nation struggle to upgrade their voting systems in time for the November presidential election. After the 2000 election, which was decided by merely hundreds of votes and in which paper ballots proved impossible to decipher in many cases, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Ffecweb1.fec.gov%2Fhava%2Fhava.htmsiteId=2oId=2100-1104-5197870ontId=11lop=nl_ex to spur states into modernizing their equipment. Simultaneously, Diebold--which on Tuesday said its net income for the first quarter rose to 40 cents a share, up from 36 cents a share a year ago--finds its elections division under fire http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-5118160.html?tag=nl , after a series of voting glitches, public-relations messes and legal problems. Over the past year, the company's reputation has sustained a series of blows: Its chief executive was berated for promising in an August 2003 Republican fund-raising letter to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to President Bush. E-vote critics discovered the company's elections equipment source code sitting unprotected on a public FTP server. That code subsequently underwent analysis by security experts who called its security measures inadequate at best. And the company undertook--and later abandoned http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5112430.html?tag=nl , under public, legal and even congressional pressure--a copyright offensive against people who posted damaging internal Diebold e-mail correspondence online. Following the panel's vote, Diebold said it would respond in writing to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to clarify points of contention between the panel and the company. Diebold representative David Bear said the company is disappointed in the panel's recommendation and a little amazed and taken aback by the tone of some of the comments and the accuracy of the report. While the panel revoked only the TSx conditional certification, Diebold had little else to comfort it during Thursday's hearing. One after another, panel members excoriated the company for its actions, particularly for its testimony the day before. Panel chair Mark Kyle called parts of Diebold's testimony ludicrous and offensive and, like Carrel, suggested that Diebold had lied to the panel. Specifically, Kyle dismissed Urosevich's claim that he didn't know about a battery problem that caused more than one-third of San Diego's precincts, along with others in Alameda, to open late on election day. A former Diebold employee subsequently testified that
[CTRL] A Dangerous Form of Outsourcing
-Caveat Lector- http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1497 A Dangerous Form of Outsourcing by Grant M. Nülle [Posted April 22, 2004] Many of my fellow Austrians have shown the outsourcing of the production of goods and services in the marketplace to be beneficial to society at large.The same cannot be said, however, for subcontracting foreign policy. Indeed, the American government's propensity to outsource certain aspects of its military activities to regional governments or local non-state organizations has rendered Washington's already reckless and aggressive brand of adventurism all the more dangerous to the world and America itself. Hiring local agents to further the diplomatic or military objectives of expansionist states is not a new phenomenon; history is rife with ambitious imperial powers utilizing indigenous labor and intelligence to outmaneuver competing hegemonic rivals. Since Central Asia abuts India, that derided bastion of outsourcing, and Central Asia is the focal region (alongside the Middle East) of America's purported foreign policy endeavors, it will serve as a timely example of what is wrong with the wrong kind of outsourcing. The rebels and states that the US has funded and backed have become the US's biggest foreign-policy problem, even as the US adopts new friends and hypocritically averts its eyes to their violation of stated American values. The story beings in December 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, exploiting the trans-Afghan highway built by Moscow but financed by Washington to quickly establish a presence throughout the country. Eric Margolis's War at the Top of the World, an excellent account of the conflict, describes how beginning in the early 1970s the contending superpowers both realized the strategic importance of this Central Asian nation and subsequently vied for Afghan allegiance, much like the Kiplinger's aptly named nineteenth century Great Game, which pitted Imperial Britain and Russia in a struggle for regional preeminence. Margolis describes how a surprised and disoriented Carter Administration mulled employing tactical nuclear weapons to halt what was interpreted as the USSR's march through Afghanistan and Iran to the Persian Gulf, thereby obtaining a chokehold over Western oil supplies. The nearest American ground forces were located some 7,000 miles away, would take 30 days to assemble in theatre and would still confront overwhelming Soviet numerical superiority. Fortunately for the United States, an ally was available in neighboring Pakistan, namely President Zia ul-Haq. Convinced that the USSR was also intent on running roughshod over Pakistan en route to the Arabian Sea, the wily general planned to foment indigenous resistance to ensnare the Soviets in Afghanistan. Pakistan's vaunted Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) was tasked to arm, equip and train the Afghan mujahedin with Western and Arab largesse. Unable to confront the Soviets directly, the United States and its allies opted to subcontract the war fighting out to the mujahedin and its Pakistani patrons. In tandem with the U.S.-Pakistan condominium, individuals and organizations hailing from the ummah, or Muslim communities, from around the world began to directly or indirectly participate in the jihad against the godless Soviets. Afghan delegations fanned the globe in search of contributions for the religiously inspired undertaking. The staunchly anti-communist, Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood (among other entities) began to organize, raise and dispatch monetary aid and volunteers to Afghan mujahedin units via the Pakistani conduit. More than ten thousand Muslims comprised the Islamic International Brigade, one of the primary contingents that waged war against the USSR. Once in Pakistan, aspiring mujahedin received insurgency training from the ISI, America's CIA, Britain's MI6, and Saudi intelligence as well as fervently aggressive religious instruction from on-site Islamic preachers. According to Margolis, the CIA secretly collaborated with the Muslim Brotherhood to procure recruits, money and Eastern Bloc arms and introduced the Afghan resistance to the war's decisive weapon-the Stinger missile. Pakistan's logistical support ensured that the arms and other covert assistance provided by the United States and its Western and Arab allies, which by 1988 was exceeding $600m per annum, found its way into the hands of the mujahedin, including the Islamic International Brigade. The combination of Western aid and weaponry, Pakistani logistical prowess, and the indefatigable and motley array of mujahedin bogged Moscow's military machine down in the Afghan quagmire, prompting Mikhail Gorbachev to call for the Soviets to beat a retreat, which occurred by the middle of 1989. Revolving adversaries With the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean well beyond Soviet clutches and Moscow in a more amenable mood to diplomatic engagement, the United States abandoned its
[CTRL] Be careful what you say on campus
-Caveat Lector- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/167348_academic02.html Friday, April 2, 2004 Be careful what you say on campus By BESHARA DOUMANI PROFESSOR The most ominous threat to academic freedom in decades looms in a seemingly innocuous Senate bill expected to come up for vote shortly. A short but critical clause would rob our society of the open exchange of ideas on college campuses that is vital to our democracy. House Resolution 3077 passed last fall. It included a provision to establish an advisory board to monitor campus international studies centers in order to ensure that they advance the national interest. While the law would apply to all federally funded institutes with an international focus, the target is clearly the nation's 17 centers for Middle East studies. The driving force behind this provision is the same group of conservative ideologues who have long promoted the war on Iraq and who support the extreme right-wing politics of the Sharon government in Israel. Their aim is to defend the foreign policy of this administration by stifling critical and informed discussion on U.S. campuses. The Senate vote comes at a time in which conservative activists walk the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. They include Education Secretary Rod Paige, who in a moment of failed but revealing levity, recently described the National Education Association, with 2.7 million member teachers, as a terrorist organization. For professors like me, entrusted with teaching facts as well as critical thinking and the ability to analyze all sides of an issue, the pending legislation must be viewed against the backdrop of other recent and chilling developments. Be careful what books you buy or check out from the library. You could be monitored under the terms of the U.S. Patriot Act. A further provision of that law threatens criminal prosecution of anyone alerting you to government inspection of your selections. Be careful what readings you assign. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was sued by the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy for assigning a book on Islam for incoming freshman students. The university held firm, and, fortunately, the court of appeals dismissed the suit. Be careful what you say in or out of class. Campus Watch and other hawkish, pro-Israeli right-wing organizations have launched campaigns to pressure and discredit professors judged to be un-American for questioning U.S. policy in the Middle East. Some organizations openly recruit students to inform on their teachers. Students and faculty connected academically or culturally to Muslim and Middle Eastern countries have been especially targeted. Some have been subjected to hate mail blitzes and their institutions pressured to short-circuit their careers. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., announced his intent last April to introduce legislation cutting federal funding to institutions of higher learning where students or faculty criticize Israel, labeling such criticism -- regardless of its content or basis in fact -- as anti-Semitic. All of this will seem like child's play, though, if the attempt to stifle academic freedom is formalized through Congress. If the legislation before the Senate passes, an advisory board would monitor area studies programs that receive money from the U.S. government under the Title VI program. The Association of American University Professors, the ACLU and most professional organizations have raised alarms about this unprecedented government invasion of the classroom. Among their concerns are the board's sweeping investigative powers, lack of accountability and makeup, which would be composed in part from two agencies with national security responsibilities. Should such a government-appointed board be allowed to police the classroom by deciding what constitutes a diverse or balanced lecture or if a teacher's research is in the national interest? Yes, if HR 3077 is passed, because it will replace the professional standards of the academy with arbitrary political standards. These are dangerous times indeed when politicians and private interest groups are willing to sacrifice academic freedom in order to achieve their domestic partisan or foreign policy goals. A key supporter of the current Senate legislation, Campus Watch founder Daniel Pipes, shared his thoughts with Salon.com. In discussing MIT linguistics Professor Noam Chomsky -- recipient of numerous honorary degrees and scientific awards -- Pipes said, I want Noam Chomsky to be taught at universities about as much as I want Hitler's writing or Stalin's writing. These are wild and extremist ideas that I believe have no place in a university. Should academic freedom be effectively shelved in order to pursue a war against terror without end? Are these dark clouds hanging over U.S. campuses a passing storm or the harbinger of fundamental changes in the freedom to teach, learn, question, discuss and debate? How will
[CTRL] Fw: [vox] Moon crowned, calls himself Messiah, in Senate building
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 30 March 2004 12:56 PM I've seen a lot of fucked up things in my life, but this just about takes the cake. Last week a front group for Sun Myung Moon held a Peace Awards ceremony in the US Senate Office Building. Before giving his keynote address in which he declared himself to be the Messiah, Moon his wife were crowned wrapped in royal robes. Among the sponsors of the event were: Rep. Danny K Davis Rep. Harold Ford, Jr Rep. Roscoe Bartlett Rep. Curt Weldon Rep. Chris Cannon Rep. Sanford Bishop Sen. Lindsey Graham Rep. Philip M Crane Rep. Eddie B Johnson Sen. Larry Pressler (ret) Here are some pictures of the event: http://www.familyfed.org/board/uboard.asp?id=ffwpu_newsskin=board_urim_simplecolor=engpage=1u_no=510 Here's the money shot, Moon in full glory: http://www.familyfed.org/usa/photo2004/20040323_47.jpg And finally here's the text of the speech: http://www.unification.net/2004/20040323_1.html I am truly speechless. RA Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon Declaring the Era of the Peace Kingdom Address to the United States Congress March 23, 2004 The United States Capitol Washington, DC Respected members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, religious leaders from around the world, distinguished guests, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your presence here this evening in such a large number, in spite of your busy schedules. Ladies and gentlemen, The starting point to unravel the problems humanity faces today is the certain knowledge of God, the Father of all creation and, on that foundation, the building of true families that live in attendance to God. This calls us to establish and attend God in our families, not as a concept but as the substantial Parent of us all. To do this, we first must clarify the relationship between God and humanity. God is the original entity of true love, true life and true lineage, and He is the True Parent of all people. If human beings had not fallen, we would have reached perfection in God's true love as His true children and lived in attendance to Him as our Parent. God's plan was for perfected human beings to bond as true husbands and wives, bear and raise true children so that they would live in a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and then live together eternally in the heavenly world as families in the Kingdom of Heaven. Think about it for a moment. If your father went to hell and only your mother went to Heaven, what kind of Heaven would that be? If your parents were to go to hell and only you children went to Heaven, how could that be called Heaven? The Kingdom of Heaven is where the whole family lives together in an eternal peace kingdom. On earth as well, God will reside where a whole family has established a kingdom of heaven. In such a family, the world of God's original ideal, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, takes root. How, then, are we to bring about this family heaven on earth? First, each member of the family needs to complete his or her individual character. Each person has to shed the fallen nature that has passed from the fall down through the generations, and achieve the perfection of his or her character. In other words, each person must be victorious in the struggle between mind and body. Then the world of harmony will bear fruit in each individual's perfected character, a state of one heart, one mind and one thought. Fallen nature, which causes jealousy, envy, greed, hatred and all other evils, will never again take root in the person who has achieved this state. Shedding the fallen nature is not easy. The reality of fallen human beings is that we vacillate even when trying to break habits formed over the relatively short span of a few years or decades, like smoking or drinking alcohol. We cannot expect, then, that it will be easy to cast off fallen nature, which we inherit through lineages going back thousands, even tens of thousands of years. It is impossible by human effort alone. We need to stand on the foundation of absolute faith, establish God as our vertical axis, and struggle our entire life. Even then, it is a difficult fight. We cannot even think we will gain victory unless we enter a state of absolute love for God, loving Him even more than we love our own parents and children, and attending Him as our True Parent. We cannot hope to win this fight without a foundation of absolute obedience to God, following Him even at the cost of laying down our life. Herein lies the reason that religions place fasting, sexual abstinence, sacrifice and penance in the uppermost position. We must be born again, recast as new persons in whom Heaven can reside and with whom the spirit world can cooperate. We cannot betray an iota of shame even if our entire life and being is exposed before all God's creation. Our character should be like a high noon settlement, on the straight vertical line of God's
[CTRL] Alameda County (CA) calls out Diebold execs
-Caveat Lector- http://www.timesstar.com/Stories/0,1413,125%7E10859%7E2038407,00.html County calls out Diebold execs Registrar warns Texas company that it failed to perform under its contract for voting equipment By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER The oldest West Coast customer of Diebold Election Systems is calling company executives on the carpet today, citing disappointment and dissatisfaction with Diebold voting equipment. Alameda County, the first and, until recently, largest user of Diebold touchscreen voting machines in California, warned the McKinney, Texas, firm this week that it is not adequately performing its obligations. Voting industry observers say the warning marks perhaps the first time that a U.S. county has lodged a formal contract complaint with a manufacturer of electronic voting systems. After his phone inquiries to Diebold went unanswered, Alameda County Registrar of Voters Bradley J. Clark wrote a letter Monday invoking the performance clause of the county's $12.7 million contract. He demanded Diebold deliver within 10 days a written plan to correct multiple problems, foremost of which was forcing the county to use poorly tested, uncertified voter-card encoders that broke down in 200 polling places March 2. Diebold executives agreed to a meeting today. The company did not respond to inquiries Tuesday. Alameda County Counsel Richard Winnie shied from talk of legal action. We're going to take this step by step, he said. We're very serious about making sure we don't have problems like this in the future. Clark's letter revealed a greater array of problems with Diebold equipment and ballot-printing services than the county previously has acknowledged. The most serious and well-known -- the large-scale failure of electronic devices used to produce ballot-access cards for voters -- delayed Super Tuesday voting at 200 polling places in Alameda County and more than 560 in San Diego County. When paper ballots ran out, hundreds of voters were turned away. Diebold officials have blamed the encoder failures on drained batteries. Yet poll workers have told the Oakland Tribune and Clark's office that they kept the encoders fully charged only to see them fail for varying periods of time on the morning of the election. For the first time, Clark's letter suggests Alameda County also had unspecified programming problems in the Democratic and American Independent Party presidential primaries. The registrar did not respond immediately to inquiries Tuesday about those problems. Clark also made note of absentee ballot problems, a reference to a glitch in the Oct. 7 recall election that mysteriously awarded thousands of absentee votes for Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to Southern California Socialist John Burton. A Diebold technician changed the votes based on examination of the paper ballots and scanned ballot images. I am sure that it was fixed because of the hand counts that we did, Clark said in a recent e-mail, but I was not satisfied with the answers as to why it happened. Diebold's explanations have ranged from a corrupted candidate database to a bad vote-counting server. Contrary to its agreement with Alameda County, Diebold also has failed to supply certified software and hardware. State elections officials found uncertified voting software running last fall in Alameda and all other counties that Diebold serves. But it was the failure of the voter-card encoders that underscored Diebold's lapses in getting its systems tested, nationally qualified and state-certified. Diebold submitted its encoders too late, and with the primary days away, counties such as Alameda and San Diego had few other options but to use them despite the lack of testing for reliability and durability. We look forward to a candid and complete discussion of our concerns, Clark wrote. He demanded that company executives provide written assurances of Diebold's ability and honest commitment to this contract and to a prompt and comprehensive solution to the many problems we have experienced. Voting industry experts say contract disputes with voting system vendors are exceedingly rare. Elections officials and vendors largely have maintained a united front against critics of electronic voting, calling claims of poor security overblown. Together, vendors and elections officials have cautioned that those criticisms risk undermining the trust of voters. But more recently, state and local elections officials have begun to question whether the industry's top players -- Election Systems Software and Diebold Election Systems -- also are imperiling that trust by deploying untested, uncertified voting software and hardware in the 2004 elections. Two weeks ago, the Indiana Election Commission lambasted industry leader Election Systems Software for installing unapproved software in four counties' electronic voting machines. The panel required Omaha-based ESS to post a $10 million bond in case four Indiana counties
[CTRL] Group that called electronic vote secure got makers' aid
-Caveat Lector- http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8273865.htm Group that called electronic vote secure got makers' aid By LINDA K. HARRIS Philadelphia Inquirer The Election Center, which trains election workers and advises Congress and government agencies on election process issues, has taken donations from manufacturers of electronic voting machines even as it has issued strong statements supporting the security of the machines. The Houston-based nonprofit organization bills itself as a nonpartisan group representing election officials from throughout the country. Its executive director, R. Doug Lewis, confirmed this week that the center had taken donations from makers of electronic voting machines - Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. of Oakland, Calif., and Electronic Systems Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb. In addition, donations came from probably Diebold Inc. of North Canton, Ohio, Lewis said. The Sequoia donations came to light on the organization's latest 990 IRS filing, a copy of which was reviewed by The Inquirer. It inadvertently revealed donations of $10,000 per year from 1997 through 2000. The IRS usually removes such names before documents are made public. Meanwhile, the Sequoia voting machines, which in the Philadelphia region are used in Montgomery, Gloucester and Burlington Counties, will be tested by Montgomery County officials today after two complaints were lodged about the machines in the November elections. Lewis issued a report last year saying that well-intentioned people, some of them even highly educated and respected, scare voters and public officials with claims that the voting equipment and/or its software can be manipulated to change the outcome of elections. The report went on to say: Do not be misled into believing that elections are reliant upon technology which can be manipulated... . It may be possible to do many things, but like time travel (which is theoretically possible), it is highly unlikely at this time. Lewis said he did not think accepting donations from the manufacturers presented any conflict of interest or breach of ethics. I never approved a voting system anywhere in America, Lewis said. The systems were approved by independent testing laboratories. We train a lot of election officials, he added. Lewis said no voting system could be totally protected. What you look for is that people go to reasonable lengths to make sure that elections systems cannot be manipulated. We have said, and I think legitimately so, it is exceedingly difficult to try to manipulate an election and do so and remain undetected. Alfie Charles, vice president of business development for Sequoia, said the company donated the money to further the work of the Election Center in its training of officials. I don't think the Election Center has ever favored or done anything to benefit one company over another, nor would anyone expect them to do that, Charles said. Contact staff writer Linda K. Harris at 215-854-4417 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Great Idea
-Caveat Lector- On Thursday, 25 March 2004 4:05 PM -0800, Bill Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- On Mar 25, 2004, at 1:53 PM, Eric Hoffsten wrote: -Caveat Lector- I won't say that Enron was greedy, Enron was just flat out criminal. In the Los Angeles area of California the DWP which is municipally- held utility is being investigated for over charging their customers during the California electricity problem. A corporation that provides crappy service usually does not stay in business. The customer may get burned by them once, but they learn and take their business elsewhere. What if the corporation in question is tied to the vice president, and what if the regulatory agency in the government (FERC) refuses to take action? Yes, Bush said the free market would take care of the problem. It didn't, and it forced PGE into bankruptcy and the state into being a credit risk and insolvency. Now there are indictments (see below). It will be interesting to see if Cheney is called to the stand, but somehow I doubt that will happen. - jt http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0322-11.htm Published on Monday, March 22, 2004 by CommonDreams.org Company With Ties To VP Cheney's Energy Task Force Faces Criminal Indictment For Gaming California Electricity Market by Jason Leopold Three years ago, while California's energy crisis was spiraling out of control, Vice President Dick Cheney secretly met with half-dozen corporate executives of the country's largest energy companies to hammer out a national energy policy for President George W. Bush. Cheney appeared on a number of news programs in May 2001 to promote his new energy policy, which turned out to be a boon for the energy industries, but abandoned consumers and environmental groups. Naturally, during some of those interviews, Cheney was asked whether a handful of the energy companies that sold electricity in California and stood to benefit financially from the new policy were behaving like a cartel and manipulating prices in the state's deregulated electricity market. No, Cheney said in a May 17, 2001 interview with PBS' Frontline; a day after the final energy policy report was released. The problem you had in California was caused by a combination of things--an unwise regulatory scheme, because they didn't really deregulate. Now they're trapped from unwise regulatory schemes, plus not having addressed the supply side of the issue. They've obviously created major problems for themselves... California's electricity crisis wreaked havoc on millions of people in the state between 2000 and 2001, resulted in four days of rolling blackouts and forced the state's largest utility, Pacific Gas Electric, into bankruptcy. California was the first state in the nation to deregulate its power market in an effort to provide consumers with cheaper electricity and the opportunity to choose their own power company. The results have since proved disastrous. The experiment has cost the state more than $30 billion. For three years, California officials pleaded with federal energy regulators, President Bush and Vice President Cheney, to provide the state with some relief from soaring wholesale electricity prices and to investigate many of the energy companies that sold power to California for allegedly manipulating the market. Former Governor Gray Davis met with Bush a couple of weeks before Cheney's Frontline interview and asked for federal assistance, such as price caps, but Bush refused saying the free-market would sort out the mess. But Cheney's denials that his friends in the energy sector weren't to blame for the power crisis are sure to come back and haunt him and could hamper President Bush's reelection campaign. Later this month, the United States Attorney's office in the Northern District of California is expected to issue its first criminal indictment against an energy company for manipulating wholesale energy prices in California that could boost the state's claims that it's owed billions in refunds for overcharges. The company at the center of the probe is Houston-based Reliant Resources, Inc. Reliant said in a news release March 8 that it was notified by the US Attorney's office about the pending indictment, which stems from allegations that the company deliberately shut down its power plants in California for a few days in June 2000, creating an artificial shortage and causing wholesale prices to skyrocket. A spokesman for the US Attorney's office said he could not comment on pending cases, but he confirmed that his office is also seeking criminal indictments against several current and former Reliant employees whom he would not name. A Reliant spokesman said the actions that are the subject of the United States Attorney's investigation were not in violation of laws, tariffs or regulations in effect at the time and intends vigorously to contest any charges. The evidence the US Attorney's office will use against Reliant is a
Re: [CTRL] I AM A ILLUMINATI FREEMASON--YOU GUYS ARE IDIOTS (MUST READ)
-Caveat Lector- Do they not teach Freemasons how to use the caps lock? I, for one, think it should be required at some lower level. - jt On Wednesday, 17 March 2004 7:56 PM -0800, mark twain [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- I SEE A LOT OF POST ON THIS SITE ABOUT ILLUMINATI/FREEMASON THAT IS A BUNCH OF B.S. I AM A LEVEL 7 ILLUMINATI MEMBERAND I CAN ANSWER ANY QUESTION YOU HAVE ABOUT OUR ORGANIZATION PLEASE DIRECT ME TO A CHAT ROOM WHERE I CAN ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS OR WE CAN DO IT RIGHT HERE ON THE CTRL FORUM..EVERYONE ON THIS CTRL FORUM IS MISGUIDED!! YOUR FACTS ARE OFFILL BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO ANSWER ANYONES QUESTION ABOUT OUR ORGANIZTION THANK YOU LOUIS SYPHER www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] CA Legislators Urge E-Voting Halt
-Caveat Lector- http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,62627,00.html Legislators Urge E-Voting Halt By Kim Zetter 09:48 AM Mar. 11, 2004 PT SACRAMENTO -- California legislators said on Thursday they want to stop the use of all paperless electronic voting machines in the state, fearing the same type of fiasco that plagued Florida in the 2000 election. State Sens. Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate election committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley urging him to decertify all paperless touch-screen voting machines before the general election. The March 2 primary was a test-flight of widespread use of these machines. I think it's fair to say the test flight crashed and burned, said Perata. None of us want California to be the sequel to Florida. The senators cited malfunctions in e-voting machines during last week's primary that resulted in voters being turned away from the polls. They said the presidential election was too important to leave to the new machines. The decertification, if implemented, would force counties that use paperless touch-screen machines to use optical scan machines instead. Optical scan machines use a paper ballot that voters mark with a pencil or pen before they're scanned into an electronic machine. All counties using paperless systems are required to have backup print options, such as optical scan machines. Most counties, however, possess only one or two optical scan units, which they generally use to process absentee ballots. Large counties would probably have to purchase or rent additional optical scan units for the November election. The legislators said the secretary of state already has the power to decertify the machines but they said they would be willing to write emergency legislation specifically addressing the issue if Shelley thought it was needed. Tom Martinez, spokesman for Perata, said the need for the moratorium became apparent after malfunctioning machines in the March primary prevented many people from voting. In Orange County, poll workers using a new voting system gave about 7,000 voters the wrong ballots, which resulted in ballots being cast for the wrong legislative districts, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 21 precincts, more votes were cast than there were registered voters. Additionally, in San Diego, 36 percent of the precincts failed to open on time because of problems with the machines. It was 11 a.m. before all precincts were open. Perata added he is sure there are other problems that officials will probably never know about, since there is no paper trail to audit the election. Martinez said that Perata's office had received positive feedback on the moratorium from a lot of elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans. About 40 percent of California voters, in 14 counties, cast ballots on touch-screen machines in the March primary. People are entrusting that their votes are going to matter. You don't want to have malfunctions during a presidential election, Martinez said. The touch-screen machines in Orange County, manufactured by Texas-based Hart InterCivic, require poll workers to give voters a four-digit access code to vote. The code is different for every legislative district and determines which ballot the machine gives the voter. As a result of incorrect ballots, voters ended up voting for candidates and races that were not in their district. The error affected five congressional races, four state Senate races and five assembly races. The basic rule of working with poll workers is that if they can screw things up they will, said Tom Stanionis, data processing manager for Yolo County's election division. It's not their job to be able to do everything. It's your job to make it so they can't fail. The machine made it really easy to fail. Stanionis said vendors have done everything to make voting idiot proof for voters, but in the process have put too much work and responsibility on poll workers. The machine should be designed so the poll worker doesn't have the option of giving people the wrong ballot. The machine should have been programmed to only give out valid ballots for that precinct, he said. Yolo County does not use touch-screen machines, but Stanionis said they would like to as soon as a vendor comes up with one that works well. The existing generation of machines are no better than beta test machines, he said, adding that elections should not be a test-bed for vendors to work out problems with their machines. We only use these machines a few days a year. That means the time frame to discover problems with them is a lot longer than an ordinary computer that you use every day, he said. Stanionis noted that there were also problems with counting on election night in counties where touch-screen machines were used. One of the main selling points vendors give for touch-screen machines is faster results. But of 14 counties using
[CTRL] Easier Internet Wiretaps Sought
-Caveat Lector- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54512-2004Mar12.html Easier Internet Wiretaps Sought Justice Dept., FBI Want Consumers To Pay the Cost By Dan Eggen and Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, March 13, 2004; Page A01 The Justice Department wants to significantly expand the government's ability to monitor online traffic, proposing that providers of high-speed Internet service should be forced to grant easier access for FBI wiretaps and other electronic surveillance, according to documents and government officials. A petition filed this week with the Federal Communications Commission also suggests that consumers should be required to foot the bill. Law enforcement agencies have been increasingly concerned that fast-growing telephone service over the Internet could be a way for terrorists and criminals to evade surveillance. But the petition also moves beyond Internet telephony, leading several technology experts and privacy advocates yesterday to warn that many types of online communication, including instant messages and visits to Web sites, could be covered. The proposal by the Justice Department, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration could require extensive retooling of existing broadband networks and could impose significant costs, the experts said. Privacy advocates also argue that there are not enough safeguards to prevent the government from intercepting data from innocent users. Justice Department lawyers argue in a 75-page FCC petition that Internet broadband and online telephone providers should be treated the same as traditional telephone companies, which are required by law to provide access for wiretaps and other monitoring of voice communications. The law enforcement agencies complain that many providers do not comply with existing wiretap rules and that rapidly changing technology is limiting the government's ability to track terrorists and other threats. They are asking the FCC to curtail its usual review process to rapidly implement the proposed changes. The FBI views the petition as narrowly crafted and aimed only at making sure that terrorist and criminal suspects are not able to evade monitoring because of the type of telephone communications they use, according to a federal law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Lawfully-authorized electronic surveillance is an invaluable and necessary tool for federal, state and local law enforcement in their fight against criminals, terrorists, and spies, the petition said, adding that the importance and the urgency of this task cannot be overstated because electronic surveillance is being compromised today. But privacy and technology experts said the proposal is overly broad and raises serious privacy and business concerns. James X. Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy Technology, a public interest group, said the FBI is attempting to dictate how the Internet should be engineered to permit whatever level of surveillance law enforcement deems necessary. The breadth of what they are asking for is a little breathtaking, Dempsey said. The question is, how deeply should the government be able to control the design of the Internet? . . . If you want to bring the economy to a halt, put the FBI in charge of deploying new Internet and communications services. Jeffrey Citron, chief executive of Internet phone provider Vonage Inc., said the FBI is overreaching. He said that he and other providers cooperate fully with law enforcement, and that if the FBI has ongoing concerns, it should strive to change the law governing wiretaps. The FCC is in the midst of a wide-ranging review of how to regulate the fledgling Internet telephone industry. Chairman Michael K. Powell, responding to complaints from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, said last month that the FCC will also pursue a separate review of wiretapping rules. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), enacted in 1994, required telecommunications companies to rewire their networks so police could have access for wiretaps and other surveillance measures. But law enforcement officials and privacy advocates have argued fiercely in recent years about whether, and to what extent, the law should apply to such newer-generation technologies as Internet telephone and broadband services. The Justice proposal asserts that CALEA was intended to protect the capacity of law enforcement to carry out authorized surveillance in the face of technological change, and CALEA contains no exemption for telephony services provided through broadband access. Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer and former general counsel at the National Security Agency, said the petition ignores the intent and letter of the CALEA law, which specifically exempts persons or entities insofar as they are engaged in providing information services. The Justice Department and FBI argue that Congress nine years ago
[CTRL] The USA! USA! Network
-Caveat Lector- http://www.reason.com/re/current.shtml#3 The USA! USA! Network Rural America may soon get its news straight from the Pentagon, at least with regard to events in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military's express purpose will be to deliver unfiltered, happy news to outlets hungry for no-strings-attached video and camera-ready copy. The effort is being dubbed a military public affairs project, which is a bit of propaganda for the propaganda. The Pentagon has decided that the average American gets a slanted picture of what is going on in the current battle-zones, evidently feeling that soldiers not killed are as newsworthy as those who are killed. There is also an apparent belief that focusing on the public works projects completed in both countries will translate into a better understanding of the conflicts. But by beginning with the premise that they must deliver positive news, the Pentagon undermines the credibility of its effort. For example, would a feel-good story about the graduation day of a new crop of Iraqi or Afghan army recruits be followed up by a report of any casualties the unit eventually sustains? If not, why not? Either the unit is newsworthy or it isn't. The same with U.S. National Guard units. There could conceivably be real value in the Pentagon filing stories on Guard units for the benefit of communities back home. But it cannot be all barbecues and school-supply round-ups. That would just deceive the folks back home with a different slant. Or could that be the whole idea? -- http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=1675781 Iraq-Pentagon's News Pentagon to offer direct news service from Iraq and Afghanistan (Kuwait City, Kuwait -AP, Feb. 28, 2004 11:30 AM) _ The U.S. military will launch its own news service in Iraq and Afghanistan to send military video, text and photos directly to the Internet or news outlets. The $6.3 million project, expected to begin operating in April, is one of the largest military public affairs projects in recent memory, and is intend ed to allow small media outlets in the United States and elsewhere to bypass what the Pentagon views as an increasingly combative press corps. U.S. officials have complained that Iraq-based media focuses on catastrophic events like car bombs and soldiers' deaths, while giving short shrift to U.S. rebuilding efforts. The American public currently gets a pretty slanted picture, said Army Capt. Randall Baucom, a spokesman for the Kuwait-based U.S.-led Coalition Land Forces Command. We want them to get an opportunity to see the facts as they exist, instead of getting information from people who aren't on the scene. The project, called Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System or DVIDS, will also give the Pentagon more control of the coverage when calamities do happen. Army camera teams will be able to use their access to battle zones or military bases to film the aftermath of rebel attacks on U.S. troops _ or U.S. raids on insurgent targets _ then offer free pictures to news outlets within two hours. At times civilian media are kept away from such events. We have an unfair advantage, Baucom said. We're going to be able to get closer to the incident and provide better spokespeople to give the right information. The important thing is that we provide the public with accurate information. But media analysts argued that the military has a vested interest in making sure its viewpoint is heard. The Army wants to get their view across and they are using a technique as old as any public relations maneuver ever devised, said Aly Colon, an ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, the journalism research and education center in St. Petersburg, Fla. I would view the Army's decision, in the same way that I would view OPEC creating a communications system to help the American public understand what it means when prices go up, he said. This is the kind of news that people get in countries where the government controls the media. Why would anybody here want to buy into it? Mac McKerral, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, told The Associated Press. The Army is in the midst of contracting to outfit five Mobile Public Affairs Detachments with a suitcase-sized reporting kit containing digital video and still cameras, a laptop computer and a Norsat NewsLink 3200 satellite broadcast terminal. Four teams will be based in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Much of the effort is aimed at packaging and shipping locally focused stories to small and medium-sized newspapers and TV stations in the United States, said Army Col. Rick Thomas, who heads the effort. Most small U.S. media outlets can't afford to send a reporter to Iraq to cover a local military unit, Thomas said. Since the ongoing troop rotation involves several Army National Guard and Reserve units from communities across the United States, there are small media outlets who might never get news of their neighbors' work in Iraq. The
[CTRL] COINTELPRO in the 21st Century
-Caveat Lector- http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript310_full.html MOYERS: Welcome to NOW. While all eyes were on Super Tuesday, we were thinking about the eyes that may be on you when you least suspect it. This goes beyond President Bush's call this week to renew the Patriot Act giving the government broad powers to wiretap and investigate suspected terrorists. Going after suspected terrorists is not our subject tonight. Going after people exercising their right of free speech, is. BRANCACCIO: We all love a spy novel. But who knew that you could be plunged into the real world of espionage just by gathering to talk about a protest march? It's one thing to carry out a war on terror. But few realize that Justice Department rules now let FBI agents go undercover to monitor citizen gatherings...whether or not there is evidence or suspicion of criminal activity. And local police are doing the same thing. Our report was prepared by producer Brenda Breslauer. -- BRANCACCIO: March 2003, five days before the invasion of Iraq, outside Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado, what appears to be a garden variety antiwar protest is underway. But something in this picture is not what it appears to be. It's that woman in yellow. She looks like a protester, but she's not. PETERS: She sat with us, she chanted and sang with us. BRANCACCIO: Nancy Peters was one of the organizers of that protest- she and 18 others from the Colorado Coalition Against the War in Iraq were arrested that day. Including that woman in yellow. She'd first shown up at the group's planning meeting the night before. PETERS: We were taken away in handcuffs one by one. She was arrested, she was even given a summons just like the rest of us. But there was a mystery. Our attorneys couldn't find any police record of any arrest. There were 19 of us, they could only find 18. She was indeed an infiltrator. BRANCACCIO: The police would later confirm she was one of theirs. Call her what you want: infiltrator or undercover investigator. Government spying at peaceful protests was big during the sixties, waned during the intervening years, but now the practice is back. The Colorado protesters were disturbed by the government's use of its extraordinary powers to monitor their activities. But a month later, when it happened a second time, there were even more serious implications. Nancy Peters' group had notified police they'd be presenting a peace resolution at the Colorado offices of US Senator Wayne Allard. But take a look at this man. He's said his name was Chris, and he had joined up with the group the night before. The nonviolent group didn't know who he was, and Peters says they were taken aback by what he had to say. PETERS: Chris at one point, said, Well, I don't see why we don't just form a line of the people who are going to do this protest and just kind of march on past the police. Kind of like storm them. It was ridiculous. I mean, people said No, come on, you know, are you crazy? BRANCACCIO: He too was an undercover officer, and despite his apparent provocation, the protest stayed peaceful. As the others were being taken away, Chris was caught on camera chatting with his fellow officers. Nancy Peters put two and two together when she arrived to post bail and ran into him leaving the county jail. PETERS: I said Chris, you're out. Wow. What happened? And he said Well yeah, I've been, you know, I've been charged and I'm released. And I, Can I see your summons? He said, Oh, my summons. And he starts fumbling around in all his pockets. Then he said, Oh, you know, they didn't even give me one. BRANCACCIO: His real name was Darren Christensen, of the Arapahoe County Sheriff's department. In court testimony, he admitted he was working undercover but denied trying to provoke the group into violence. PETERS: It was surprising that we that one among us that we trusted and shared solidarity with was actually not one of us at all. But was spying on us. BRANCACCIO: And it's not just Colorado. Last September, members of the California antiwar group Peace Fresno, got a similar shock when the local paper printed the details of a tragic motorcycle accident. It turned out that a man who had been attending their meetings and protests for the past six months was in fact a local deputy sheriff. He had been assigned to the anti-terrorist team under the vice-intelligence unit. Police in Fresno and Colorado say it's all a matter of protecting the public from potential violence. But why are police or Anti-Terror Units infiltrating protest groups without evidence they plan to do anything more sinister than peaceful civil disobedience? Civil Rights attorney and activist Mara Verheyden-Hilliard says she knows. VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD: This is an effort to criminalize dissent. It's an effort from the Ashcroft Justice department specifically since September 11th, really, to intimidate people in the United States and to try and stifle dissent. BRANCACCIO:
[CTRL] Fw: Call to Assembly: Internet Commons Congress 2004
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: Seth Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Yorkers for Fair Use Call to General Assembly - Internet Commons Congress 2004 March 24-25, 2004, Outside Washington, DC Scheduled Sessions/Participants: http://www.internationalunity.org/schedule.html http://www.internationalunity.org http://www.nyfairuse.org/icc Please forward this call to any other concerned parties you might know. Please visit the above links to register to attend and join in the fight to preserve the Internet commons. Today our commons is under attack. The attack is wide and pervasive. Even our right to own and use computers inside our homes and offices, is under attack. The time has come to assemble and declare our rights. We call upon advocates and organizers, authors and cow-orkers, readers and singers, politicians and students, grandmothers and children of all ages, and all who support the right of free human beings to the free dissemination and use of information rendered to the commons for the benefit of the public, to join us at the Internet Commons Congress outside Washington DC on March 24 and 25, 2004. We live in a time of vibrant prospects and shameful travesties, brought on as we confront the implications of a new and broader and greater empowerment in furtherance of our common wealth and in engagement in our common governance. Today we possess: - The Internet: the means to disseminate and make use of published information flexibly and powerfully, on a worldwide scale - Computers: tools to process, select, combine, analyze and synthesize information at the digital and logical level, and - Logical Freedom: the power to devise means of applying these tools through the free use and expression of logic in code But today we also confront: - attempts to create irrational and wildly artificial legal and regulatory trammels on new conventions, such as VoIP, in order to keep control of the world's communication channels in the hands of old oligopolies, monopolies, and tyrannical governments - an intransigent U.S. Federal Communications Commission, arrogating to itself an unprecedented authority to declare exclusive rights policy and to regulate the design of digital devices on that basis - consolidated mass media and entrenched communications monopolies that subvert principles of the public interest with the willing concurrence of complaisant regulators and legislators - elected representatives who have made plain their intention to enact a new exclusive right to factual information in databases - forceful attempts in Europe to subvert the law banning patents on software, by patent establishment professionals and the large companies they serve - specious arguments by public servants and privileged contractors for the supposed reliability of new voting technology - attempts by the Bio-Medical Cartel and others to seize the fruits of logical, biological, medical, and pharmaceutical researches carried out at publically financed institutions of science and learning - an already well advanced and well funded plan to impose a redesign of home computer hardware so that running software that you choose would be made impractical, and analyzing and processing information in the manner you choose would be made impossible; the new design, backed by laws such as the DMCA, would result in the emplacement of wiretap and remote control hardware and supporting software in every new low cost home computer sold in 2006 - massive ongoing and systematic violations of contract law and antitrust law and consumer protection law by Microsoft and its partners, by means of which most home users are left with no choice but to run Microsoft operating systems: most people are not offered any choice of operating system at point of sale of the hardware, and are therefore induced to employ systems that are difficult to use and easily parasitized, systems that are indeed so bad because Microsoft need not compete - a hundred million dollar campaign of barratry and red-baiting conducted by SCO, acting as agent for the convicted monopolist Microsoft, to induce businesses and individuals to steer away from exercising free control of their logic devices, away in particular from GNU/Linux operating systems; the assault led by SCO is only one of many of similar scale All these issues and more are part of a broad struggle by all the people, we who treasure our freedom and who wish to remain free to use our Net and our computers in all the ways that are both fit and just. We call all ready advocates and concerned constituencies to assemble at the Internet Commons Congress this March 24 and 25, 2004. Here we will forge a bond in our common cause of information freedom, detail our missions and callings and summon each other to join in common cause. Please click here for details regarding venue, schedule, logistics:
[CTRL] Fact-finding sidetracked by theology
-Caveat Lector- http://www.nwanews.com/adg/story_Editorial.php?storyid=57879 Fact-finding sidetracked by theology Gene Lyons Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2004 Pardon me, but is the United States electing a president this year or anointing a high priest? The 2004 campaign has hardly gotten under way and instead of debating political issues, everybody's bickering about theological abstractions. Religious disputation fills the air; everybody says God's on his side. A less useful way to handle the affairs of a democracy can hardly be imagined. On TV, the usual jokers are up to their usual tricks. Crackpot televangelist Pat Robertson, who like Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed that the 9/11 attacks were God's vengeance for America's sexual sins, now says God personally assured him that President Bush will win in a landslide. 60 Minutes wag Andy Rooney antagonized the faithful by joking that God told him that Robertson and actor/director Mel Gibson are a couple of nut cases. Exploiting hot button issues to drive up ratings and circulation, the mass media did all they could to help Gibson promote his calculatedly provocative film, The Passion of the Christ, and assisted San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to turn thousands of legally dubious gay marriages into a made-for-TV spectacle. This soon after an Alabama judge won nationwide notoriety by setting up a veritable altar inside a courthouse and defying a federal injunction to remove it. Newsweek asked Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, whose wife is a Jew, if he accepted Jesus as his savior. Not to be outdone were CBS News anchor Dan Rather and New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, who did their best to turn last week's Democratic presidential debate into a Sunday school class. Rather opened by demanding that the four participants complete in terms of your own spirituality, if you prefer religiosity... the sentence, 'This I believe' Bumiller subsequently closed the proceedings by asserting that Bush has claimed that God is not neutral in the nation's wars, adding: He's made quite clear in... speeches that he feels God is on America's side. Really quick: Is God on America's side? Really quick, no less. This from the representative of The New York Times, supposedly the nation's most serious newspaper. I'd have voted for anybody who had cited the least honored (by politicians) of Jesus' teachings about not making a public spectacle of your prayers. No Democrat was that quick-witted, although Sen. John Edwards thwarted the reporter's ecclesiastical grandstanding by citing Abraham Lincoln's answer to somebody who wanted him to join a prayer asserting that God sided with the Yankees during the Civil War. According to Edwards, Lincoln said, I won't join you in that prayer, but I'll join you in a prayer that we're on God's side. For Sen. John Kerry, the irony must have been paralyzing. Back in 1960, John F. Kennedy, the last Roman Catholic senator from Massachusetts to make a serious run at the presidency, had to contend with suspicions that he'd turn the White House into a tool of the pope. He dealt with them in a brilliant speech to Baptist clergymen in Houston, Texas, affirming his commitment to the First Amendment separation of church and state. Delivered today, the same speech likely would cause the gang on FOX News Sunday or Hardball to question the candidate's piety. Not that doing the pope's bidding would please FOX News theologians, understand. Pope John II opposes abortion, yes, but also the death penalty and the Iraq war. Elsewhere in the same debate, Bumiller badgered Kerry to state whether he's a liberal. When he objected to her repeated interruptions, she curtly reminded him, You're in New York. Really quick, Ms. Bumiller: Is the pope a liberal? My point's an elementary one. To anybody with a strong interest in the visible world, two huge issues surfaced last week that should figure prominently in the 2004 debate. Both are 100 percent secular; neither got raised during the Democratic debate. The first was Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's astonishing contention that Social Security benefits will require trimming to close huge deficits, the ones caused by Bush's millions-for-millionaires tax cuts. Astonishing because Greenspan chaired the commission that in the 1980s successfully raised payroll taxes to make the system fiscally sound at least through 2042. Also because three years ago, Greenspan testified that Bush's tax cuts would prevent the government from running excessive surpluses. He now urges that we loot the Social Security Trust Fund to cover his own fuzzy math. This isn't a matter of faith, it's a matter of arithmetic involving promises made to American workers over generations. Then there's the White House's failed attempt to run out the clock on its own 9/11 commission by staging a transparent farce in which House Speaker Dennis Hastert pretended to refuse the president's plea to grant it a two-month
[CTRL] RFID in US Currency Debunked
-Caveat Lector- Well, that didn't take long, did it? ;) Anyhoot, glad I didn't microwave any money in the meantime ... - jt http://www.savethemales.ca/ March 04, 2004 Hi Henry. I'm writing you in regards to a your letter published on prisonplanet.com. I've conducted extensive research into RFID privacy and security and wanted to make a couple of corrections to your letter: US banknotes are currently not labeled with RFID tags. US banknotes have had foil inlays in them for years. This of course would cause the bill to burn in a microwave and could possibly cause a theft detection gate to trigger. However, US banknotes do not have a transponder that broadcasts a unique ID. Even if they did, there are still many technical considerations that would prevent effective tracking of RFID-tagged currency. Namely, stacking tag antennae together, close to the human body can effectively render many RFID technologies inoperative. The reason I feel that it is important to correct this is that while US currency doesn't currently have RFID tags, there are plans out there to start tagging Euro notes. While I think it is important to consider the privacy and security threats of RFID tagging, I also think we should be as accurate as possible when discussing those threats. I feel that conducting an informed debate will better further the cause of consumer privacy and that making inaccurate, sensationalist claims only undermines and dilutes the argument. Thanks.. S. (MIT) also see: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/02/0535225mode=thread www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Stern Feels Bush-Whacked End Is Near
-Caveat Lector- http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=20252 Stern Feels Bush-Whacked End Is Near March 3, 2004 Howard Stern says the end of his career is closer than the two years left on his contract. I know that it's over for me, Stern said Wednesday morning. I have been really good at predicting my career and I know when I'm outmatched. It's over for me as a broadcaster. I'm checkmated. All they gotta do is fine us and then we're gone. And there's nothing we can do about it. But even with comments like that, Stern is not going down without a fight. For the past two days the syndicated morning man has been attacking those he feels are his oppressors - Clear Channel, the FCC and the Bush Administration. Yesterday (3/2), he was pondering the idea of a Million Moron March on Washington with a legion of his faithful fans. Can you imagine CNN having to cover this and putting the Million Moron March up on the screen? he joked when the idea was hatched. Stern has also started to question ties between Clear Channel and the Bush Administration and now suggests his change in heart about his support for President Bush is the real reason for him being suspended by Clear Channel. If you don't think me going after Bush got me thrown off those stations, you got another thing coming, said Stern. This has nothing to do with anything I said. Stern laughed and was miffed at the perception by the mainstream media that he wasn't on Clear Channel stations because of indecent content on his show. Discussing a clip from The Sharon Osbourne Show where she said Apparently the talk got very raunchy when Paris Hilton's boyfriend was on, Stern stammered: Wrong! It wasn't that raunchy. I mean, I asked some questions. I said, 'Did you ever have anal sex?' But that's nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that hasn't happened here every day for the last ten years, added Robin Quivers. My days here are numbered because I dared to speak out against the Bush administration and say that the religious agenda of George W. Bush concerning stem cell research and gay marriage is wrong, Stern continued. And that what he is doing with the FCC is pushing this religious agenda. And also the fact that the guy takes more vacation than any President ever. It's time for him to leave. Having said that pushed me off the air in six markets. Stern says the end game of him being thrown off the air is already set, predicting the FCC in a matter of weeks will come out with a trumped up list of things I said that they find offensive that Infinity will have to fire me. Later in the show Stern said he was tempted to shut my mouth about all of it, because it will go away. He then added I don't think we can stop it, short of me calling up President Bush and saying 'Look man, I'm going to support you, so don't do this.' Supporting President Bush's Democratic opponent isn't attractive to Stern either. Unfortunately, when they asked [John Kerry] about it, he completely skirted the issue, so it leaves me little recourse in terms of going to him. As for celebrity and media support of his free speech rights, Stern doesn't expect it. Most of Hollywood and most of the media will be happy to see me gone. They will not fight for my First Amendment rights, because they don't like me. I make fun of them. I goof on them. I'm dangerous to them. Everyone wants me to go down. They've been praying for this for 20 years. Stern lit into Clear Channel on a couple of occasions. For two days now he has been questioning why he was suspended over a caller using the N-word, and asking why the new zero tolerance policy wasn't used on Ryan Seacrest. How come the F-word and the S-word are going out on other shows? Don't they own KIIS-FM in Los Angeles? Didn't Ryan Seacrest's first day have the F-word and the S-word? Why was the guy not fired? Stern also brought up the hiring of Michael Savage at CC's KPRC/Houston. Savage was fired from MSNBC for saying a caller was a sodomite who should get AIDS and die. Clear Channel had no problem hiring him after comments like that, because he's pro-Bush, Stern alleged. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A
[CTRL] RFID Tags in New US Currency Notes Explode When You Try to Microwave Them
-Caveat Lector- I just tested this by looking at a new $20 backlit, and there is definitely something there in Jackson's left eye (on the right side, if you're looking atJackson'sface on the front of the bill - the black pupil is also larger on that side, probably to accomodate the chip without being obvious), at least on the bill I checked. It's easier to see if you look at it backlit from the back side. I'm not going to microwave it until I have a $20 bill to waste, or to hold onto until I can get it replaced at the bank, but I don't doubt this is true. If someone is brave or richenough to burn a $20, feel free to test it in a microwave,and if you doplease post the results. - jt -- http://www.infowars.com/print/bb/rfid_bills_explode.htm RFID Tags in New US Notes Explode When You Try to Microwave Them Adapted from a letter sent to Henry Makow Ph.D. Want to share an event with you, that we experienced this evening.. Dave had over $1000 dollars in his back pocket (in his wallet). New twenties were the lion share of the bills in his wallet. We walked into a truck stop/travel plaza and they have those new electronic monitors that are supposed to say if you are stealing something. But through every monitor, Dave set it off. He did not have anything to purchase in his hands or pockets. After numerous times of setting off these monitors, a person approached Dave with a 'wand' to swipe why he was setting off the monitors. Believe it or not, it was his 'wallet'. That is according to the minimum wage employees working at the truck stop! We then walked across the street to a store and purchased aluminum foil. We then wrapped our cash in foil and went thru the same monitors. No monitor went off. We could have left it at that, but we have also paid attention to the European Union and the 'rfid' tracking devices placed in their money, and the blatant bragging of Walmart and many corporations of using 'rfid' electronics on every marketable item by the year 2005. Dave and I have brainstormed the fact that most items can be 'microwaved' to fry the 'rfid' chip, thus elimination of tracking by our government. So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a carasoul. Do you know what exploded on American money?? The right eye of Andrew Jackson on the new twenty, every bill was uniform in it's burning... Isnt that interesting? Now we have to take all of our bills to the bank and have them replaced, cause they are now 'burnt'. We will now be wrapping all of our larger bills in foil on a regular basis. What we resent is the fact that the government or a corporation can track our 'cash'. Credit purchases and check purchases have been tracked for years, but cash was not traceble until now... Dave and Denise -- RFID Tags Already in Euro NotesPropaganda Matrix Steve Watson They told us they were going to do it by 2005 and now they have. Euro bank notes have RFID radio tags in them. If you were listening to the Alex Jones show on Monday 1st March you will have heard Paul Watson report the story that RFID tags have been found in the new US $20 bills. A letter sent to Henry Makow Ph.D. described how two citizens found alarms in shops being triggered by their wallets, curious and wise to the RFID proposals they chose to 'microwave' over $1000 in twenties in a stack. The right eye of Andrew Jackson on the new twenty was uniform in its burning. I remembered I had a couple of Euros in my wallet from my last visit to France and decided what the heck, I'll microwave them. After just three seconds the first note exploded into flame and fearing for my microwave's safety I quickly pressed the stop button. A fluke? Maybe, I tried with the second note, a five, again after precisely three seconds the same bright flash of flame. It was obvious to see where the tags had been as two perfectly round holes could be seen in my notes. I noticed that the holes lay precisely over the metal strip within the notes. I thought to myself that maybe it was just the metal in the strip that was reacting, so i tried again. Ten, twenty, thirty seconds went by and... nothing. The strip was completely unharmed. The fact is that my bank notes were tagged. Should I be suprised, well no, they said they were going to do this by 2005 Of course, the official line is that these tags are there "to protect us", they stop counterfeiting and enable security agencies to track illegal money. Why would illegal money come in five or ten Euro notes? Surely your classic suitcase with wads of cash consists of 200s or 500s not fives and tens, you would need a whole truck to transport large amounts. The truth is where ever we go are being tracked by our governments. RFID is the latest technology to be used in the ever-growing control grid that dictates the way we live our lives. Walmart has recently carried out
[CTRL] How to keep a secret
-Caveat Lector- http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-5167303.html How to keep a secret By Rupert Goodwins ZDNet (UK) March 1, 2004, 6:43 AM PT COMMENTARY--It's never been easier to be a spy. Students of the spooky arts may think fondly of the first Elizabethan era, when fantastic figures like Sir Francis Walsingham ran rings of agents across Europe and decrypted messages hidden in barrels of beer, but back then it was diabolically easy to keep a secret. You picked your trusted confidant, walked out of earshot of anyone else and plotted away to your black heart's content. Then some blighter discovered electricity and everything changed. For a while, things weren't too bad. You could have a microphone in your suspect's office and run wires to your listening post, or you could try and hide a radio transmitter nearby--but the combination of huge valves and crude transmitter technology made such exercises easy to detect. Along came the transistor, which shrank bugs to the size of a broad bean, and the spies were very happy. But not as happy as when integrated circuits arrived--not only could you make surveillance equipment as small as you liked, you could build in masking techniques that rendered them very hard to detect. A basic bug needs but two transistors: with modern chips packing upwards of a billion on each sliver of silicon, the only limit to surveillance technology is the imagination of the spies and their ability to physically place the devices. Even those ideas are out of date. Looking around my desk, I can see five devices that have microphones built in and attached to complex electronic circuitry. Three of them also have radio transmitters--a mobile phone, a cordless phone, and a Wi-Fi laptop--while the desktop computer is linked to the Internet via a permanent broadband connection. Any of these could be compromised by the addition of a tiny amount of software and made to relay everything in earshot to anywhere in the world: I even take two of them with me wherever I go. And in fact, there's no need for MI5 to go to even that much bother: like most of us, nearly everything of interest that I do is reflected in some way by my phone calls, e-mails and online activities. It's here that most espionage takes place, in our day-to-day use of IT equipment. The spies do have the use of tons of special space hardware with codenames like Lacrosse and Crystal, taking pictures and listening to every radio transmission they can, but unless you're using a walkie-talkie in the Hindu Kush, there are much easier ways for what you say and do to reach the eyes and ears of those who care. If you've got something to hide, if you're paranoid or if you're just an old-fashioned stickler for privacy and the basic human right to go about your business unobserved by the unaccountable, there are various ways you can protect yourself and your conversations. For starters, don't rely on any commercial, closed system that may claim to be secure: there is a long and well-documented history of undocumented flaws and deliberate weaknesses in such things. Take the humble mobile phone. The digital encryption in GSM phones was made deliberately weak to give the spooks a chance. It is good enough to stop casual scanners, but the amount of computational grunt needed to crack it has become steadily more affordable at the same time as the techniques available have got more sophisticated. It's not yet at the point where a hacker with a laptop can listen in--but give it a couple of years. And the security services have always been able to get at mobile-phone conversations through a variety of means. Make your communication tools as simple as possible. Even before my e-mails leave my computers, they've been through tens or hundreds of installed software components, none of which I fully understand, and spent time in a huge operating system whose details are a carefully guarded secret. If I were keen for this not to happen, I'd use a stripped-down Linux installation on as old a laptop as could run the basic software required. If I was really keen, I'd pick up an old portable device like a Tandy Model 100 or a Z88, something with unchangeable software in ROM that was written decades ago. I'd write a simple encryption program of my own that used random data I'd previously entered to code my messages--you can do this in ten lines of BASIC--and hand-deliver a copy of everything to my recipient. It's slow, painful and limited--but it's spookproof. Unless they get even keener and put video bugs in my front room. In the end, the only safe way to keep a secret is to pick your pal carefully, walk out of earshot of anyone else and plot away. Just make sure you're not carrying anything more modern than Sir Francis might recognize, and you'll be fine--remember American intelligence shamefacedly admitting that they didn't know much about what the Iraqis had been up to because these people did most of their work under roofs. But if, like U.N.
[CTRL] MP3 creators to add copy protection
-Caveat Lector- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns4731 MP3 creators to add copy protection 17:46 02 March 04 NewScientist.com news service A new version of MP3 - the digital music format that kicked off the online music sharing revolution - is being developed that will include technology to stop unauthorised copying and sharing. The two companies that own the patents covering MP3, Thomson and Fraunhofer, are working on a new version that will incorporate so-called digital right management (DRM) technology. DRM can be used in conjunction with software and hardware players to limit the number of copies of a music file a user can make, or to prevent forwarding. As yet, however, it is unclear how the new protection system will work. Eventually, digital distribution will be a significant mass market, Rocky Caldwell, director of technology marketing for Thomson, told CNET News. We think it will be served well by [digital rights management] that is based on standards. No one else seems to be proposing that. Human ear While the new measures reflect a shift towards the use of copy-controlled music formats, some observers believe uncontrolled standards will continue to dominate digital music. It's not going to spell the end of MP3 by any means, says Julian Midgley, a member of the UK Campaign for Digital Rights. Given that users are going to have the choice of lots of unencumbered formats, I can't really see [the new format] taking off. The MP3 scheme for compressing digital audio files, developed in the early 1990s, was crucial to the emergence of online music sharing. MP3 compression reduces CD audio files by around 90 percent without greatly impairing sound quality. This is achieved by stripping away audio signals are not audible to the human ear but which are included in the original file. Personal use But since MP3 first made its debut other compression formats have emerged. These include unrestricted schemes and DRM ones. Some DRM schemes, like the one used by Apple's successful online music store iTunes, have proven successful. But iTunes uses one of the least restrictive DRM schemes, permitting users to make as a small number of extra copies for personal use. The MP3 format has made it possible to send good quality music over the internet in a few minutes rather than hours. But it has also been blamed for an explosion in digital music piracy. Like other ordinary files, MP3s can be copied and forwarded an unlimited number of times. File-sharing networks such as Napster and then more recently Kazaa have made it possible for millions of connected internet users to scour each others' hard drives for MP3 music and then download them directly. Will Knight www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Free Speech Kept Off US Streets
-Caveat Lector- Zuukie, I was questioning your statement that some groups shouldn't expect any help when it comes to free speech because the groups you like had difficulties. This doesn't strike me as the statement of someone who favors free speech over promotion of their own ideology at any cost, including the detriment of others' rights. You don't have to prove yourself to me, but you have yet to clarify this statement; it seems you're backtracking a bit, which is probably a good thing. Perhaps you have me confused with the left, but in any case I don't play for any team. I am nearly an absolutist when it comes to free speech, however. But I must mention that certain activities promoted by some activist groups as free speech can also be classified as harrassment, and this is especially bothersome when someone with no interest in the debate is targeted. I don't really have any sympathy for people who engage in such activities. They have a right to speak, but if they harrass someone they can also be taken to court. - jt On Saturday, 01 November 2003 10:34 PM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- I don't have to prove myself to you either. I am for free speech for everyone, including Shannon. However, the left has made it a point to shut down everyone's free speech and as long as they were top dog, they were happy. Now that someone has tried to shut them off, they yell very loud. Just as conservatives on campus, in the papers and in the community have had to fight the good fight, it's time the left knew what the good fight was. Go to it. Fight the good fight for free speech. The campus establishment and the media coddled the left for a long time. I hope you work very hard for your free speech. Your battle will only help all of us. -Original Message- From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Tinnin Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 5:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [CTRL] Free Speech Kept Off US Streets -Caveat Lector- Zukkie, I've been a free speech advocate practically my whole life. I need not prove myself to you. Where are you now that someone else is losing their right to speech? All I see is your saying that, since your favorite groups had difficulties, then screw everyone else's right to speech. - jt On Saturday, 01 November 2003 8:16 AM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The pro-life movement, specifically the Pro-Life Action League and Joe Schiedler, did all the way to the Supreme Court where they won. It took many, many years, much personal sacrifice and much money. Many other groups came in as friends of the court when they saw their right to free speech could be affected. Get started. Where were you when the Rico case against them was started? -Original Message- From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Tinnin Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 8:12 AM Don't be absurd. That sounds rather like what you're suggesting, however, or maybe something more like sour grapes. I think a more honorable course of action, if your group or one you agree with is prevented from speaking, would be to work harder to see that everyone can speak freely, including people you disagree with, otherwise you're just a hypocrite when you talk about free speech. Of course there are hypocrites on both sides of issues who only scream free speech when it concerns them. Don't be one. - jt On Saturday, 01 November 2003 12:21 AM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you saying you believe in free speech except for ___(fill in the blank with whatever you oppose)? -Original Message- From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Tinnin Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 11:01 PM On Thursday, 30 October 2003 7:23 PM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- When it happened to pro-lifers, you said nothing. When it happened to protesters at the Democratic Convention, you said nothing. Let's see what happens to your complaints. That's productive. IOW, since your pet groups have been persecuted, nobody should be allowed to speak freely. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us
Re: [CTRL] Free Speech Kept Off US Streets
-Caveat Lector- Don't be absurd. That sounds rather like what you're suggesting, however, or maybe something more like sour grapes. I think a more honorable course of action, if your group or one you agree with is prevented from speaking, would be to work harder to see that everyone can speak freely, including people you disagree with, otherwise you're just a hypocrite when you talk about free speech. Of course there are hypocrites on both sides of issues who only scream free speech when it concerns them. Don't be one. - jt On Saturday, 01 November 2003 12:21 AM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you saying you believe in free speech except for ___(fill in the blank with whatever you oppose)? -Original Message- From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Tinnin Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 11:01 PM On Thursday, 30 October 2003 7:23 PM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- When it happened to pro-lifers, you said nothing. When it happened to protesters at the Democratic Convention, you said nothing. Let's see what happens to your complaints. That's productive. IOW, since your pet groups have been persecuted, nobody should be allowed to speak freely. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Free Speech Kept Off US Streets
-Caveat Lector- Zukkie, I've been a free speech advocate practically my whole life. I need not prove myself to you. Where are you now that someone else is losing their right to speech? All I see is your saying that, since your favorite groups had difficulties, then screw everyone else's right to speech. - jt On Saturday, 01 November 2003 8:16 AM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The pro-life movement, specifically the Pro-Life Action League and Joe Schiedler, did all the way to the Supreme Court where they won. It took many, many years, much personal sacrifice and much money. Many other groups came in as friends of the court when they saw their right to free speech could be affected. Get started. Where were you when the Rico case against them was started? -Original Message- From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Tinnin Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 8:12 AM Don't be absurd. That sounds rather like what you're suggesting, however, or maybe something more like sour grapes. I think a more honorable course of action, if your group or one you agree with is prevented from speaking, would be to work harder to see that everyone can speak freely, including people you disagree with, otherwise you're just a hypocrite when you talk about free speech. Of course there are hypocrites on both sides of issues who only scream free speech when it concerns them. Don't be one. - jt On Saturday, 01 November 2003 12:21 AM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you saying you believe in free speech except for ___(fill in the blank with whatever you oppose)? -Original Message- From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Tinnin Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 11:01 PM On Thursday, 30 October 2003 7:23 PM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- When it happened to pro-lifers, you said nothing. When it happened to protesters at the Democratic Convention, you said nothing. Let's see what happens to your complaints. That's productive. IOW, since your pet groups have been persecuted, nobody should be allowed to speak freely. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Free Speech Kept Off US Streets
-Caveat Lector- On Thursday, 30 October 2003 7:23 PM -0700, Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- When it happened to pro-lifers, you said nothing. When it happened to protesters at the Democratic Convention, you said nothing. Let's see what happens to your complaints. That's productive. IOW, since your pet groups have been persecuted, nobody should be allowed to speak freely. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] The New Diamond Age
-Caveat Lector- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond_pr.html The New Diamond Age Armed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel. Next up: the computing industry. By Joshua Davis Aron Weingarten brings the yellow diamond up to the stainless steel jeweler's loupe he holds against his eye. We are in Antwerp, Belgium, in Weingarten's marbled and gilded living room on the edge of the city's gem district, the center of the diamond universe. Nearly 80 percent of the world's rough and polished diamonds move through the hands of Belgian gem traders like Weingarten, a dealer who wears the thick beard and black suit of the Hasidim. This is very rare stone, he says, almost to himself, in thickly accented English. Yellow diamonds of this color are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15 thousand dollars. I have two more exactly like it in my pocket, I tell him. He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for the first time. I place the other two stones on the table. They are all the same color and size. To find three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails. These are cubic zirconium? Weingarten says without much hope. No, they're real, I tell him. But they were made by a machine in Florida for less than a hundred dollars. Weingarten shifts uncomfortably in his chair and stares at the glittering gems on his dining room table. Unless they can be detected, he says, these stones will bankrupt the industry. Put pure carbon under enough heat and pressure - say, 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit and 50,000 atmospheres - and it will crystallize into the hardest material known. Those were the conditions that first forged diamonds deep in Earth's mantle 3.3 billion years ago. Replicating that environment in a lab isn't easy, but that hasn't kept dreamers from trying. Since the mid-19th century, dozens of these modern alchemists have been injured in accidents and explosions while attempting to manufacture diamonds. Recent decades have seen some modest successes. Starting in the 1950s, engineers managed to produce tiny crystals for industrial purposes - to coat saws, drill bits, and grinding wheels. But this summer, the first wave of gem-quality manufactured diamonds began to hit the market. They are grown in a warehouse in Florida by a roomful of Russian-designed machines spitting out 3-carat roughs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A second company, in Boston, has perfected a completely different process for making near-flawless diamonds and plans to begin marketing them by year's end. This sudden arrival of mass-produced gems threatens to alter the public's perception of diamonds - and to transform the $7 billion industry. More intriguing, it opens the door to the development of diamond-based semiconductors. Diamond, it turns out, is a geek's best friend. Not only is it the hardest substance known, it also has the highest thermal conductivity - tremendous heat can pass through it without causing damage. Today's speedy microprocessors run hot - at upwards of 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, they can't go much faster without failing. Diamond microchips, on the other hand, could handle much higher temperatures, allowing them to run at speeds that would liquefy ordinary silicon. But manufacturers have been loath even to consider using the precious material, because it has never been possible to produce large diamond wafers affordably. With the arrival of Gemesis, the Florida-based company, and Apollo Diamond, in Boston, that is changing. Both startups plan to use the diamond jewelry business to finance their attempt to reshape the semiconducting world. But first things first. Before anyone reinvents the chip industry, they'll have to prove they can produce large volumes of cheap diamonds. Beyond Gemesis and Apollo, one company is convinced there's something real here: De Beers Diamond Trading Company. The London-based cartel has monopolized the diamond business for 115 years, forcing out rivals by ruthlessly controlling supply. But the sudden appearance of multicarat, gem-quality synthetics has sent De Beers scrambling. Several years ago, it set up what it calls the Gem Defensive Programme - a none too subtle campaign to warn jewelers and the public about the arrival of manufactured diamonds. At no charge, the company is supplying gem labs with sophisticated machines designed to help distinguish man-made from mined stones. In its long history, De Beers has survived African insurrection, shrugged off American antitrust litigation, sidestepped criticism that it exploits third world workers, and contended with Australian, Siberian, and Canadian diamond discoveries. The firm has a huge advertising budget and a stranglehold on diamond distribution channels. But there's one thing De Beers doesn't have: retired brigadier general Carter Clarke. Carter Clarke, 75, has been retired from the
[CTRL] PNAC.Info
-Caveat Lector- http://www.pnac.info/ http://www.pnac.info/blog/archives/01.html Welcome to PNAC.Info Welcome to PNAC.Info - an effort to investigate, analyze, and expose the Project for the New American Century* http://newamericancentury.org/ , and its plan for a unipolar world. In the coming days we will be compiling information and analysis geared toward exposing the big-picture plan behind the current war in Iraq, and other foreign policy decisions of the current administration. If you have any comments, links, or ideas, please feel free to post a comment below this message here. Thank you for your visit. Be well, be free, Lance M. Brown http://freedom2008.com/ *often referred to as the Project for a New American Century www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Suspected Terrorist
-Caveat Lector- http://www.reason.com/0308/fe.bd.suspected.shtml August-September 2003 Suspected Terrorist Multimillionaire John Gilmore is suing the government to remain anonymous. Is this the last stand for privacy? Brian Doherty It's January, and I'm entering the federal courthouse in San Francisco to attend the opening hearing in the case of Gilmore v. Ashcroft, et al. John Gilmore, a computer industry multimillionaire and libertarian activist, is suing the federal government and two airline companies because the airlines demanded to see his ID before they would let him on a plane. An affable courthouse guard asks me to show him an ID. I comply automatically. Did you see the ZZ Top-looking fellow who came through earlier? the guard at the door says to another one manning the X-ray machine. When I asked him to show me his ID, he asked me to show him one. Did you? I call back from the other side of the metal detector. Sure, why not?? Why not, indeed? The world does not indulge those who refuse to flash identification when asked. Earlier that week, I was purchasing my first cell phone. Bursting with bile over such intrusive requests because I'd been researching the Gilmore case, I frostily walked out of one Cingular store after the clerk demanded my Social Security number and couldn't even tell me why. She just blandly, coldly repeated: It's a necessary part of the form. After 40 more minutes of driving around Los Angeles and another such demand, I finally found an easygoing young man in a cell phone store who at least had an answer. We need it for the credit check. OK. They'd all probably have to do a credit check, right? Wouldn't want my own record mixed with some deadbeat Doherty. I just wanted a cell phone. I went through the familiar ritual: recited the number. Didn't even transpose a couple of digits like I sometimes do. After all, I'm asking them to give me a free phone and start trusting me to pay monthly bills for services already rendered. It doesn't really burden me, and it's necessary. Just like showing an ID to get on an airplane. At least that's what the federal government is trying to convince Federal District Judge Susan Illston today. Privacy Dogfight Gilmore enters the courtroom, exuding what they used to call positive vibes. He's wearing a bright color-splashed tie and Dr. Seuss socks in open-toed sandals. His hair and beard are long and wispy. He hugs some friends and greets the ZZ Top-looking fellow who puckishly challenged the guards. That would be Edward Hasbrouck, a professional travel writer also trying to sever the tightening data webs in which the government is planning to enmesh travelers. John Gilmore is here today because on July 4, 2002, representatives of Southwest Airlines in Oakland and United Airlines in San Francisco refused to let him board a plane to Washington, D.C., when he wouldn't show them an ID. He wished to fly, he says, in order to personally petition his elected representatives for a redress of grievances. Gilmore thinks the airlines' ID policy is based on a secret demand from the federal government. He committed his act of civil disobedience against the security state on July 4 explicitly for the symbolism. Gilmore can afford to be here because he made a great deal of money in the 1990s as employee No. 5 of Sun Microsystems and as a one-third owner of Cygnus Solutions, a company sold for what Gilmore vaguely remembers was around $675 million. (The vagueness comes across as oddly charming, not airily plutocratic.) Gilmore is used to quixotic fights against the legal system. A dedicated libertarian, he spends some of his free time and money agitating for medical marijuana rights, though he is a hardcore abolitionist about all drug laws. While Gilmore remembers 9/11, when 19 villains used airplanes to murder 3,000 innocent people, he maintains that showing ID before getting on a plane is just a way to make the rubes feel safer. Anyone can flash a card with his or her picture (or someone who looks like him) and a name and address. Real security, he believes, comes from making sure travelers don't have weapons or explosives on them and having people on planes ready to fight would-be hijackers. Thus, the ID demand -- apparently the result of the still-secret government mandate -- serves no necessary state purpose and violates his right to travel, his rights to peaceably assemble and to petition his government for redress of grievances, and his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches. The government wants the case thrown out of court. It wants to convince Judge Illston that the ID regulation in question is sensitive security information and must remain secret. It also argues that precedent has established that burdens on just one mode of transportation do not limit the constitutional right to interstate travel, and that ID requests aren't really searches under Fourth Amendment law. Judge Illston is exasperated when she
[CTRL] Reconstruction role for James Baker may herald return of the Bush old guard
-Caveat Lector- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=428185 Reconstruction role for James Baker may herald return of the Bush old guard By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 28 July 2003 Amid chaos and danger in Iraq and the admission of unexpected difficulties in countering guerrilla resistance, the Bush administration may ask the former secretary of state James Baker to go to Iraq to help with reconstruction. Mr Bush is considering asking Mr Baker, among his father's most trusted allies, to work alongside Paul Bremer, the head of the US-led civil authority. Mr Baker may be asked to concentrate on running Iraq's economy and the physical infrastructure while Mr Bremer focuses on developing an interim Iraqi administration. Mr Baker has been a loyal friend of the Bush family, most recently running the President's campaign during the torrid days of the Florida recount in November, 2000. He also headed the failed re-election campaign for George Bush Senior in 1992. Some officials have indicated that by turning to Mr Baker, 73, the White House is displaying its awareness of the need to gain more international support for its reconstruction efforts. It is anticipated that Mr Baker would use his stature and contacts to try to build an international coalition. He was Secretary of State during the 1990-91 Gulf War. Officials said Mr Baker, a senior figure along with Mr Bush in the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm, and a partner in a Texas law firm that represents US oil companies in the Caspian region, is among several high-profile names being considered for a role. It is not clear whether he would answer to Mr Bremer or vice versa, if he took the job. The mention of his name and the wider overhaul being undertaken, underlines concern in Washington about the pace of change in Iraq and the continuing unstable and dangerous conditions. Last week, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, finally appeared to admit what many had been saying for months, telling reporters after his visit to Iraq that the administration had underestimated the problem. He said some conditions were worse than we anticipated. Mr Wolfowitz insisted yesterday that the continuing casualties suffered by US forces would not undermine public support for the war. The battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terror, he said The reports of deaths are terrible. Any American death is a terrible thing. But I think the American public understand that when you're fighting a war against terrorists, when you're fighting for the security of this country, that sacrifice is something that you'd have to expect. He also predicted that the killing last week of Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, a 14-year-old grandson and one of the brothers' bodyguards, was encouraging Iraqi people to come forward with information helpful to the US forces. I think what happened last week with the death of those two miserable creatures, is encouraging more people to come forward, he said. In another part of the overhaul plan, revealed by The Washington Post, the White House has asked Reuben Jeffery, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, to take up a Washington-based position to co-ordinate the reconstruction effort. Mr Jeffery, who is also co-ordinating the federal plan to rebuild lower Manhattan after the 11 September attacks, would become the Washington face of the administration's rebuilding efforts. His job would involve lobbying Congress and liaising with other parts of the government machine. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Kosher Conservative Warns Mel Gibson's Movie May Be Undoing Of ADL
-Caveat Lector- CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial Except that which comes from Michael Hoffman and La Raza, apparently. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Kosher Conservative Warns Mel Gibson's Movie May Be Undoing ...
-Caveat Lector- On Saturday, 26 July 2003 3:27 PM -0700, William Shannon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- In a message dated 7/26/2003 5:04:13 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial Except that which comes from Michael Hoffman and La Raza, apparently. Where was there any holocaust denial in that piece? Denial? Holocaust DENIAL?? I didn't see that. I do believe there's a difference between denying that any Jews were killed by the Nazis and questioning whether 6 million were killed by a systematic program of genocide...don't you? Let me put it this way. I think Hoffman has some incisive analysis, until he starts talking about anything to do with Jewish people or history. La Raza is blatantly racist - in fact, both are. Holocaust revisionism is Hoffman's specialty. Is Holocaust revisionism anything but Holocaust denial? I hardly see any revisionist/denier claiming that the Holocaust never happened, just that it was hyped. I consider neither source to be reliable regarding Jewish people or anything to do with history regarding Jewish people - to give one example, La Raza's claim of the Kosher Nostra scam is a complete fabrication. Both have axes to grind, and their bias is obvious and ugly. Are there problems with the way Israel operates? Yes, in many ways. But these sources completely undermine the credibility of those who wish to put forth such arguments. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Kosher Conservative Warns Mel Gibson's Movie May Be Undoi...
-Caveat Lector- On Saturday, 26 July 2003 4:03 PM -0700, William Shannon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- In a message dated 7/26/2003 5:53:06 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Is Holocaust revisionism anything but Holocaust denial? I think it is. Is what? Substantially different in any way? I hardly see any revisionist/denier claiming that the Holocaust never happened, just that it was hyped. Wasn't it? You'll need better sources to prove that than those who simply hate Jewish people to make your case. La Raza's claim of the Kosher Nostra scam is a complete fabrication. Oh? How so? This has already been explained in earlier posts. In any event, here's another post from a different list outlining why: http://www.freedomsite.org/pipermail/fs_discussion/2002-April/002085.html Of course, this is from the ADL, so you have to keep that in mind. But this also is in the same sense that the Kosher Nostra scam idea is being promoted by the most virulent racist groups and people. La Raza provides no proof for their claims - it is ALL conjecture. Also, although I don't necessarily believe Snopes on everything, their analysis of this is pretty spot-on: http://www.snopes.com/racial/business/kosher.htm Their most salient point: Does certification add to the price of a product? Certainly, but the amount is miniscule, especially compared to the advertising, packaging, shipping, research, testing, admin and finance-related costs, and a myriad of other components that contribute to the process of bringing a product to market or making it better appeal to consumers. One might as well rail against the costs associated with selecting the ink colors and style of lettering used on a package - it's all legitimate business expense, even though no one ever rails against the Secret Red Ink Conspiracy or rants about the Helvetica Font Tax. As I said, there certainly are problems with the way that Israel operates. But this sort of propaganda is based on nothing but fear and hatred of Jewish people, and it smacks of the worst sort of racist smearing. I am seeing this more and more often with people who object to Israel's actions, who somehow find themselves believing all sorts of nonsense which is pushed by those who aren't so much concerned about the actual political problems, but who just plain hate Jewish people. It's a nasty trap, and what it ultimately does is to put people who have legitimate complaints about Israel into a position where it is accurate to describe what they promote as anti-Semitic - yes, sometimes anti-Semitism really exists, although I realize it has become a loaded phrase. IOW, it allows those who would defend Israel at any cost or for any reason to make an easy case against those who object to its actions, to disbelieve any other arguments coming from that person as discredited, considering the source. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Kosher Conservative Warns Mel Gibson's Movie May Be Undoi...
-Caveat Lector- On Saturday, 26 July 2003 4:56 PM -0700, William Shannon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- In a message dated 7/26/2003 6:27:15 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Is Holocaust revisionism anything but Holocaust denial? I think it is. Is what? Substantially different in any way? I think that bringing history into accord with the facts is a perfectly noble undertaking while denying an event for no reason, with no facts and simply to get a reaction is folly. To state that revisionism=denial is wrong. But your sources are far less than credible to me on this account. If accuracy is important, I implore you to find more objective sources. As for trusting the ADL as a source on the Kosher scam...never. They aren't worthy of it. But you have no problem trusting Michael Hoffman nor La Raza, both of which have obvious and blatant biases, and racist streaks a mile wide. I notice you said nothing about the Snopes article. It is a plain fact that we all pay this tax in order to please less than 3% of our population who, for reasons of religious ignorance, demand kosher products...that is the crux of the problem. No other religious group so tiny could demand and receive this massive consideration. If there were no demand for it by the public, then it wouldn't be used at all. Again, this is a case of market demand. What is the exact cost, Bill? It is miniscule, for what it's worth, amounting to a tiny fraction of the cost of general marketing used on packaging, such as different color inks and illustrations. And how are you being forced to pay for any of it? You could simply not buy food from companies which use Kosher labeling, if you so strongly object to any of your money going to anyone who would certify Kosher. I thought you were a libertarian. - jt www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Fw: Hot Potato - Don't Worry It Is Safe To Eat
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: Medialens Media Alerts [EMAIL PROTECTED] MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media July 15, 2003 GUEST MEDIA ALERT: HOT POTATO Excerpt From Dont Worry It Is Safe To Eat The True Story Of GM Food, BSE, And Foot And Mouth By Andrew Rowell As the UK government continues to wriggle over weapons of mass destruction, of sexing up dossiers and general spin, Tony Blair argues that there is no greater charge against a prime minister than for him to have personally falsified claims on which to take a country to war. That may be so, but another grave charge would be personally ordering the sacking of a scientist who was involved in some of the first independent tests on GM, especially if those tests showed evidence of harm, and also especially if the orders came from Monsanto, via the White House. This is what Dr. Arpad Pusztai, who raised concerns about GM food in 1998, claims happened to him. Part of the recent argument between the BBC and the government concern the claims by a single unnamed intelligence source that the government sexed up one of the dossiers on Iraq. In contrast five people have said that they were told that Tony Blair ordered the sacking of Dr. Pusztai. Here is Dr. Pusztais story. It raises many unanswered questions about new Labour, its link to the biotech industry and the safety of GM food. Dr. Arpad Pusztai As we witness the dawn of the biotech revolution, Dr Arpad Pusztai is a scientist who is convinced that he has uncovered vital evidence that shows there are potential major health risks with GM crops. Pusztai was catapulted from an unknown laboratory scientist based at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen to the forefront of a raging debate about the safety of GM foods, when he spoke on the World in Action TV programme in 1998. Overnight the Hungarian-born scientist, with some 35 years lab experience, found himself at the centre of an international media spotlight. The controversy would put him on a collision course with the UK and US governments, the biotech industry and the scientific establishment. His 150-second interview lead to Pusztai being suspended, silenced and threatened with losing his pension. His wife, Susan Bardocz, who also worked at the Rowett for 13 years, was eventually suspended too. Their research was locked up. Scientists and politicians alike vilified Pusztai. As we search for answers as to whether GM foods are safe, two questions stand out. Given such a huge controversy over Pusztais experiments, and the preliminary nature of their findings, why were the political and scientific establishments so intent on rebutting him? More importantly why have the experiments never been repeated? The saga has had very personal consequences. Pusztai has suffered two heart attacks and the saga has left him and his wife, Susan, needing permanent medication for high blood pressure. Pusztai is still angry about the whole affair. His only crime was to speak out, in his words, according to his conscience: I obviously spoke out at a very sensitive time. But things were coming to a head with the GM debate and I just lit the fuse, he says. I grew up under the Nazis and the Communists and I understand that people are frightened and not willing to jeopardise their future, but they just sold me down the river. His story begins in post-war communist Hungary. After the Hungarian revolution was crushed by the communists, the young Pusztai, a chemistry graduate, escaped to refugee camps in Austria and from there to England. By 1963, having finished his doctorate in biochemistry and post-doctorate at the Lister Institute, he was invited to join the prestigious Protein Chemistry Department at the Rowett Research Institute, which has become the pre-eminent nutritional centre in Europe. Dr Pusztai was put to work on lectins, plant proteins that were going to be central in the GM controversy years later. Over the intervening years, Pusztai became the worlds leading expert on plant lectins, publishing over 270 scientific studies, and three books on the subject. Two books were co-written with his wife, Susan. Pusztai became one of the Rowetts most senior and renowned scientists. In 1995, the Scottish Office Agriculture Environment and Fisheries Department commissioned a three-year multi-centre research programme under the coordinatorship of Dr Pusztai into the safety of GM food. At the time there was not a single publication in a peer-reviewed journal on the safety of GM food. The scientists primary task was to establish credible methods for the identification of possible human/animal health and environmental hazards of GM. The idea was that the methodologies that they tested would be used by the regulatory authorities in later risk assessments of GM crops. For the first time, independent studies would be undertaken to examine whether feeding GM potatoes to rats caused any harmful effects on
[CTRL] The BBC in the Cross Fire
-Caveat Lector- http://www.mediachannel.org/ http://64.224.42.246/weblog/dannylog.cfm By Danny Schechter, Jul 17, 2003 THE BBC IN THE CROSS FIRE BBC World covered Prime Minister Blair's visit this morning with its usual professional distance, far less cheerily than CNN and with less genuflection than on Fox. BBC News is usually that way. It is there to cover the news but now is in the middle of it. While I was in London last week, I got somewhat of an insider look at an emerging battle royale between Britain's best-known broadcaster and its embattled political leaders. What's at stake is as troubling as what is happening in America vis-à-vis the FCC, and not as well known. Your News Dissector is still investigating and shares a first in-depth report, hoping for comment and debate. THE BBC's NEXT WAR Why the Knives Are Out for Aunty LONDON: Politics here has become sport. And drama. Call it the Blair follies. Call it a lynching party. But don't call it boring. There is a daily dance underway between a probing media that seemed to have lost its spine in the fog of war only to find it in all the discrepancies in official pronouncements about missing weapons of mass destruction, and a public that grows more skeptical by the day. Meanwhile the government gets squirmier and testier by the hour, insisting it was right all along and that the media, especially the BBC, has got it wrong, wrong, wrong. Many believe that this trashing of the BBC emanates from the pique of a disgruntled politician like Blair's media advisor Alistair Campbell, or is meant only to shift attention away from the WMD controversy. The Times of London calls it a weapon of mass distraction. It isn't. The Iraq War may be over but the BBC is in the crosshairs of a new low intensity war. Most of the British press has yet to realize that this new battle of Britain is more than a case of shoot the messenger. If the BBC's credibility can be seriously damaged, its global power ands political impact can be circumscribed. So far most of the media coverage of this latest controversy is focused on the issues in the foreground, not the interests in the background. There is more at stake. WHY THE ATTACKS ON THE BBC? A week ago, a study came out from Cardiff University that found that the BBC, contrary to the impressions of some (especially those in the US who compared its war coverage with what passed for journalism on the tube here) was NOT in the bulk of its coverage anti-war but, rather, pro-government and tilted towards the war. That shouldn't surprise. Led by its effective manager Greg Dyke, a partisan of the New Labor movement headed by Blair, the BEEB is a vast corporation that usually functions as a member of the establishment in good standing. The BBC rarely goes to war against the government of the day. Despite the evidence in the new study, conservatives, as well as I am told on good authority, Labor politicians and elements of the British military, charge that the BBC was anti-war, hostile to the British forces, and one-sided. They seem determined to do something about it. While the opening shots in their attack are being pegged to a current issue, there is a longer-term strategy behind it that does not seem well understood. Like many conflicts, this one began with a news story and an incident. But that may only be a pretext for a more insidious strategy. THE CONFRONTATION BEGINS History, deceit and small-mindedness in high places has now cast the Beeb (or Aunty as it is known), the world's most respected and self-important broadcaster) into an adversarial role. The government's spinner-in-chief Alistair Campbell, (Tony wouldn't know what to do without me, he is quoted as saying) is accusing BBC of bias in general and falsely alleging that he was involved in sexing up a dossier that was used to justify and sell British involvement in the war. He demanded a retraction and apology. At issue is a report by BBC defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan who had a high-placed source confirming that information in the renamed dodgy dossier justifying the war had been doctored. The government, which denies the charge, demands to know Gilligan's source and insists in any event that one source should never a story make. A parliamentary committee has been grilling Gilligan, demanding he fess up. The BBC responds by standing by the story, and says that there would be no political journalism in the country if every story had to be based on several sources. The BBC says it believes their source was credible and could be trusted. A top BBC official told me he will not under any circumstance reveal his source. We don't do that, he said firmly. Others point out that many of Blair's claims in the dossier in dispute were only based on one source, if any. THE NEWS DEPARTMENT HANGS TOUGH The BBC's own Board of Governors, led by a former intelligence chief reviewed the issue and backed the judgment of BBC News, which prides itself in its
[CTRL] Body 'matches' Iraq expert Dr David Kelly
-Caveat Lector- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3076801.stm Last Updated: Friday, 18 July, 2003, 16:13 GMT 17:13 UK Body 'matches' Iraq expert A body matching the description of Dr David Kelly - the weapons expert at the centre of the Iraq dossier row - has been found at a beauty spot close to his home in Oxfordshire. The government says an independent judicial inquiry will be held into the circumstances of his death if the body is confirmed to be that of the MoD adviser. The discovery was made at 0920 BST by a member of the police team searching for Dr Kelly in a wooded area at Harrowdown Hill, near Faringdon. Dr Kelly, 59, had been caught up in a row between the BBC and the government about the use of intelligence reports in the run-up to the war with Iraq. On Tuesday he told the Foreign Affairs select committee he had spoken to BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan but denied he was the main source for a story about claims that a dossier on Iraq had been sexed up. Dr Kelly left his home in Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, at about 1500 BST on Thursday and his family reported him missing at 2345 BST the same day. The body was found lying on the ground, around five miles from Dr Kelly's home, a police spokeswoman said. Acting superintendent Dave Purnell said formal identification would take place on Saturday and the case was being treated as an unexplained death. We will be awaiting the results of the post mortem and also waiting while the forensic examination continues at the scene at Harrowdown Hill, he added. Attention The government announcement of an inquiry if the body is Dr Kelly's came from the prime minister's plane as he flew for a visit to Tokyo Mr Blair's spokesman said: The prime minister is obviously very distressed for the family. If it is Dr Kelly's body, the Ministry of Defence will hold an independent judicial inquiry into the circumstances leading up to his death. Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said Mr Blair should consider cutting short his trip to the Far East. Robert Jackson, the Conservative MP in whose constituency Dr Kelly lived, said the responsibility of the BBC should not go unmentioned in the case. The pressure was significantly increased by the fact the BBC refused to make it clear he was not the source, he said. A BBC spokesman said: We are shocked and saddened to hear what has happened and we extend our deepest sympathies to Dr Kelly's family and friends. Shock Whilst Dr Kelly's family await the formal identification, it would not be appropriate for us to make any further statement. Earlier this week, Dr Kelly denied being the BBC's main source for the story claiming Downing Street had sexed up the dossier about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee, which questioned Dr Kelly earlier this week, reacted with shock and disbelief at news of his disappearance. Huge media attention has been on Dr Kelly since the Ministry of Defence said he had come forward to admit meeting Andrew Gilligan, the BBC correspondent behind the controversial Iraq story. Mr Gilligan said a source had told him that the dossier on Iraq had been transformed by Downing Street. The BBC correspondent has refused to name his source, but the MoD said Dr Kelly had come forward to say it may have been him. Sensitive Government ministers have said they believe he was the source for Mr Gilligan's story. Supt Purnell said a police family liaison officer is with Dr Kelly's family. The official and wife Janice have three daughters, Sian, 32, and twins Rachel and Ellen, 30. Ann Lewis, a neighbour of Dr Kelly, told BBC News Online she was devastated for his family, especially his children. She said: He was a quiet man. He was a man who showed great care and concern for others. Craig Foster, 36, landlord of the Blue Boar public house in nearby Longworth, said Dr Kelly was a very well liked gentleman. Police say Dr Kelly is an avid walker and has good local knowledge of the many footpaths surrounding his home. A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: We are aware that Dr David Kelly has gone missing and we are obviously concerned. Rules The ministry said Dr Kelly had at no point been threatened with suspension or dismissal for speaking to Mr Gilligan. It was made clear to him that he had broken civil service rules by having unauthorised contact with a journalist, but that was the end of it, said a spokesman. Downing Street says normal personnel procedures were followed after Dr Kelly volunteered that he might have been the source of Mr Gilligan's report. It was made clear to Dr Kelly that his name was likely to become public knowledge because he was one of only a small number of people it could have been about, a spokesman said. After questioning Dr Kelly earlier this week, the Commons foreign affairs select committee said it was most unlikely he was the main source for the BBC story. And they said Dr Kelly, who has worked as a weapons
[CTRL] Articles of Mass Impeachment
-Caveat Lector- http://www.asticles.com/asticles/articles.htm David Marsden's Freshest asticle* of Tuesday, June 24, 2003. (Vol 03 No 74) Articles of Mass Impeachment 1. This nation considers the perjurious, false and misleading testimony in the Paula Jones/Monika Lewinski illegal extra-marital lustful and only partially successful invasion cases a tad more significant than perjurious, false and misleading testimony leading to the illegal invasion, demolition and successful unsanctioned occupation of Iraq. 2. This nation gives the president who obstructed justice in an effort to delay, impede, cover up and conceal the existence of phoney evidence related to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq a free pass while hounding the president who illegally dropped his pants for a quickie that allegedly never happened with Paula Jones. Resolution Impeaching the United States for high crimes and misdemeanours. Resolved, That the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanours and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate: Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the American People people against the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against same for high crimes and misdemeanours. Article I In its conduct the United States, in violation of constitutional oaths and to the best of its ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of its constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has wilfully corrupted and manipulated the judicial process of the United States, impeding the administration of justice, in that: In January 2001, George W. Bush swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the United States. Contrary to that oath, George W. Bush wilfully provided false and misleading testimony to the American People concerning one or more of the following: (1) the nature and details of his misuse of intelligence information on Iraqs non-existent Weapons of Mass Blah-Blah from any number of subordinate Government employees; (2) false and misleading testimony he gave in any number of speeches to the American People absolutely and positively guaranteeing that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Blah-Blah; (3) prior false and misleading statements he allowed his crack cronies to make repeatedly to the American People on the same matter. In doing this, the United States has undermined its integrity, has brought disrepute on the United States, has betrayed its trust as and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the American People. Wherefore, the United States, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification any high Government employees to hold and enjoy any office of honour, trust or profit by selling Weapons of Mass Blah Blah or Pumping Iron or Oil to or from Iraq and/or United States. Article II In its conduct the United States in violation of its constitutional oath to the best of its ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of its constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice, and has to that end through subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or scheme designed to sweep under the mat anything remotely related to events leading-up to and subsequent from, September 11, 2001 The means used to implement this course of conduct or scheme included one or more of the following acts: (1) On or about September 19, 2001, someone discouraged a witness to execute a sworn affidavit explaining why a plane crashed unimpeded into the Pentagon one full hour after the WTC crashes. (2) On or about September 21, 2001, someone discouraged a witness to give testimony about the still unsatisfactorily explained Pennsylvania crash. (3) On or about September 22, 2001 until June 24, 2003 someone discouraged any witness to give testimony about the events leading-up to and subsequent from September 11, 2001 and discouraged the establishment of a fair and impartial Investigation to inform the American People just who knew what and when. In all of this, the United States has undermined the integrity of the United States, has brought disrepute on the United States, has betrayed its trust as the United States and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the American People. Wherefore, the United States, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list.
[CTRL] Galloway papers deemed forgeries
-Caveat Lector- http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0620/p01s03-woiq.html Galloway papers deemed forgeries Iraq experts, ink-aging tests discredit documents behind earlier Monitor story. By staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor On April 25, 2003, this newspaper ran a story about documents obtained in Iraq that alleged Saddam Hussein's regime had paid a British member of Parliament, George Galloway, $10 million over 11 years to promote its interests in the West. An extensive Monitor investigation has subsequently determined that the six papers detailed in the April 25 piece are, in fact, almost certainly forgeries. The Arabic text of the papers is inconsistent with known examples of Baghdad bureaucratic writing, and is replete with problematic language, says a leading US-based expert on Iraqi government documents. Signature lines and other format elements differ from genuine procedure. The two oldest documents - dated 1992 and 1993 - were actually written within the past few months, according to a chemical analysis of their ink. The newest document - dated 2003 - appears to have been written at approximately the same time. At the time we published these documents, we felt they were newsworthy and appeared credible, although we did explicitly state in our article that we could not guarantee their authenticity, says Monitor editor Paul Van Slambrouck. It is important to set the record straight: We are convinced the documents are bogus. We apologize to Mr. Galloway and to our readers. Awash in documents After the fall of Hussein's Baghdad government, stories based on internal Iraqi documents appeared in many news outlets. They detailed everything from mundane aspects of control used by local Baath Party cells to the high living of Saddam Hussein and his sons. The name George Galloway figured prominently in one of the most explosive of these stories. On April 22, London's Daily Telegraph reported that papers retrieved by their correspondent David Blair from the ruins of Iraq's Foreign Ministry described alleged government payoffs to Mr. Galloway, a Labour Party MP and longtime critic of the West's hardline toward Mr. Hussein. The Daily Telegraph report received widespread attention in the European press and throughout the world. On April 25, the Monitor ran its own piece about papers detailing Galloway's alleged ties to Baghdad. The documents were purported to have originated in the Special Security Section, run by Saddam's second son, Qusay. However, the Monitor's documents were different in many details from those of the Daily Telegraph, and came from a different source. Monitor contract reporter Philip Smucker obtained them from an Iraqi general, who in turn said he had captured them after his men shot their way into a home once used by Qusay Hussein. Galloway has emphatically denied that he was ever the recipient of Iraqi largess, a denial the Monitor reported in its original story. He has denounced all stories to that effect, and threatened to sue both the Daily Telegraph and the Monitor for libel. On May 11, a report in the British paper The Mail on Sunday disputed the authenticity of documents obtained from the same source as the Monitor's documents. The Mail's article said its writer had purchased other documents from the general alleging payoffs to Galloway. Those documents, unlike the Monitor's, included purported Galloway signatures. Extensive examination of the documents by experts has proved they are fakes, bearing crude attempts to forge the MP's signature, said the Mail on Sunday's May 11 story. The Monitor did not identify the general in its April 25 story because he said he feared retribution from Qusay Hussein loyalists. The Mail on Sunday published his name: Gen. Salah Abdel Rasool. In light of this new information bearing on the credibility of the source of the Monitor's alleged Galloway papers, editors decided to consult document experts in the United States to see if the papers could be proved either false or genuine. The Monitor first consulted a Harvard graduate student in Arabic studies, Bruce Fudge, who had spent six months working on a Washington-based archive of captured Iraqi intelligence documents. Along with another graduate student, Omar Dewachi, an Iraqi who was a physician in Iraq until the late 1990s, Mr. Fudge could find no apparent problems with the documents. The offset-printed stationery of the oldest documents correctly reflected the pre-1993 Iraqi flag while the newer ones carried an emblem of the new flag. The rank of the signatories and the path of the documents through the bureaucracy seemed appropriate. The dates on two of the documents matched up to known visits of Galloway to Iraq. But these observations were not conclusive. Ultraviolet examination The second to examine the papers was Gerald Richards, a forensics document examiner. A former chief of the document operations and research unit at the FBI, Mr. Richards is now an independent
[CTRL] Electric shock weapons could go wireless
-Caveat Lector- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns3749 Electric shock weapons could go wireless 19:00 21 May 03 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition A weapon that delivers a debilitating electric shock to its victim without the need for wires is being developed in Germany. New Scientist has seen video stills of a prototype of the Plasma-Taser in action during firing-range tests. The pictures were shown at the European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons in Karlsruhe, Germany, two weeks ago. In the first image, a spray of dark gas is seen approaching a human-sized target. In the next, taken a fraction of a second later, there is a lightning-like flash of electrical discharge intended to incapacitate the targeted person. The Plasma-Taser, developed by defence company Rheinmetall WM in Ratingen, is similar to the Taser weapon used by US police forces. In an ordinary Taser, a pair of darts are fired at a target from a distance of about seven metres, and a high-voltage electrical pulse is delivered through lightweight metal cables to the darts. The 50,000-volt electric shock stuns the intruder by temporarily shutting down their nervous system. Pain and spasms The Plasma-Taser will not need any wires because it fires an aerosol spray towards the target, which creates a conductive channel for a shock current, claims Rheinmetall. The company refused to comment on exactly how the weapon works, but it says the aerosol material is non-toxic. Like Taser manufacturers, Rheinmetall describes the effects of its weapon as pain and spasms. The advantage? A Taser is a single-shot weapon of limited range: the Plasma-Taser can fire repeated shots over greater range. It certainly looks shocking and intimidating, says Brian Rappert of the University of Nottingham, UK. But there is a big difference between a lab demonstration and a working weapon. The history of non-lethals is littered with novel, widely praised but ill-conceived ideas. Steve Wright of the Manchester-based Omega Foundation, which monitors non-lethal weapon technology, is concerned about the potential misuse of electric shock weapons. Such new technologies enable systematic human rights abuses to be more automated, so that one operator can induce pain and paralysis on a mass scale, he says. David Hambling www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] U.S. Insiders Say Iraq Intel Deliberately Skewed
-Caveat Lector- http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNewsstoryID=2854519 U.S. Insiders Say Iraq Intel Deliberately Skewed Fri May 30, 2003 07:15 PM ET By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A growing number of U.S. national security professionals are accusing the Bush administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the $30 billion intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq. A key target is a four-person Pentagon team that reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terrorist groups. This team, self-mockingly called the Cabal, cherry-picked the intelligence stream in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence. The DIA was exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD, or weapons of mass destruction, he added in a phone interview. He said the CIA had no guts at all to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating U.S. foreign policy. Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorist operations, said he knew of serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up fraudulent intelligence, a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi. The INC, which brought together groups opposed to Saddam, worked closely with the Pentagon to build a for the early use of force in Iraq. There are current intelligence officials who believe it is a scandal, he said in a telephone interview. They believe the administration, before going to war, had a moral obligation to use the best information available, not just information that fits your preconceived ideas. CHEMICAL WEAPONS REPORT 'SIMPLY WRONG' The top Marine Corps officer in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James Conway, said on Friday U.S. intelligence was simply wrong in leading military commanders to fear troops were likely to be attacked with chemical weapons in the March invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam. Richard Perle, a Chalabi backer and member of the Defense Policy Board that advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, defended the four-person unit in a television interview. They established beyond any doubt that there were connections that had gone unnoticed in previous intelligence analysis, he said on the PBS NewsHour Thursday. A Pentagon spokesman, Marine Lt. Col. David Lapan, said the team in question analyzed links among terrorist groups and alleged state sponsors and shared conclusions with the CIA. In one case, a briefing was presented to Director of Central Intelligence Tenet. It dealt with the links between Iraq and al Qaeda, the group blamed for the Sept. 2001 attacks on the United States, he said. Tenet denied charges the intelligence community, on which the United States spends more than $30 billion a year, had skewed its analysis to fit a political agenda, a cardinal sin for professionals meant to tell the truth regardless of politics. I'm enormously proud of the work of our analysts, he said in a statement on Friday ahead of an internal review. The integrity of our process has been maintained throughout and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong. Tenet sat conspicuously behind Secretary of State Colin Powell during a key Feb. 5 presentation to the U.N. Security Council arguing Iraq represented an ominous and urgent threat -- as if to lend the CIA's credibility to the presentation, replete with satellite photos. Powell said Friday his presentation was the best analytic product that we could have put up. SHAPED 'FROM THE TOP DOWN' Greg Thielmann, who retired in September after 25 years in the State Department, the last four in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research working on weapons, said it appeared to him that intelligence had been shaped from the top down. The normal processing of establishing accurate intelligence was sidestepped in the runup to invading Iraq, said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security and who deals with U.S. intelligence officers. Anger among security professionals appears widespread. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group that says it is made up mostly of CIA intelligence analysts, wrote to U.S. President George Bush May 1 to hit what they called a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions. In intelligence there is one unpardonable sin -- cooking intelligence to the recipe of high policy, it wrote. There is ample indication this has been done with respect to Iraq. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not
[CTRL] WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz
-Caveat Lector- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=410730 WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz By David Usborne 30 May 2003 The Bush administration focused on alleged weapons of mass destruction as the primary justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force because it was politically convenient, a top-level official at the Pentagon has acknowledged. The extraordinary admission comes in an interview with Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, in the July issue of the magazine Vanity Fair. Mr Wolfowitz also discloses that there was one justification that was almost unnoticed but huge. That was the prospect of the United States being able to withdraw all of its forces from Saudi Arabia once the threat of Saddam had been removed. Since the taking of Baghdad, Washington has said that it is taking its troops out of the kingdom. Just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to the door towards making progress elsewhere in achieving Middle East peace, Mr Wolfowitz said. The presence of the US military in Saudi Arabia has been one of the main grievances of al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups. For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on, Mr Wolfowitz tells the magazine. The comments suggest that, even for the US administration, the logic that was presented for going to war may have been an empty shell. They come to light, moreover, just two days after Mr Wolfowitz's immediate boss, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, conceded for the first time that the arms might never be found. The failure to find a single example of the weapons that London and Washington said were inside Iraq only makes the embarrassment more acute. Voices are increasingly being raised in the US and Britain demanding an explanation for why nothing has been found. Most striking is the fact that these latest remarks come from Mr Wolfowitz, recognised widely as the leader of the hawks' camp in Washington most responsible for urging President George Bush to use military might in Iraq. The magazine article reveals that Mr Wolfowitz was even pushing Mr Bush to attack Iraq immediately after the 11 September attacks in the US, instead of invading Afghanistan. There have long been suspicions that Mr Wolfowitz has essentially been running a shadow administration out of his Pentagon office, ensuring that the right-wing views of himself and his followers find their way into the practice of American foreign policy. He is best known as the author of the policy of first-strike pre-emption in world affairs that was adopted by Mr Bush shortly after the al-Qa'ida attacks. In asserting that weapons of mass destruction gave a rationale for attacking Iraq that was acceptable to everyone, Mr Wolfowitz was presumably referring in particular to the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell. He was the last senior member of the administration to agree to the push earlier this year to persuade the rest of the world that removing Saddam by force was the only remaining viable option. The conversion of Mr Powell was on full view in the UN Security Council in February when he made a forceful presentation of evidence that allegedly proved that Saddam was concealing weapons of mass destruction. Critics of the administration and of the war will now want to know how convinced the Americans really were that the weapons existed in Iraq to the extent that was publicly stated. Questions are also multiplying as to the quality of the intelligence provided to the White House. Was it simply faulty given that nothing has been found in Iraq or was it influenced by the White House's fixation on the weapons issue? Or were the intelligence agencies telling the White House what it wanted to hear? This week, Sam Nunn, a former senator, urged Congress to investigate whether the argument for war in Iraq was based on distorted intelligence. He raised the possibility that Mr Bush's policy against Saddam had influenced the intelligence that indicated Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction. This week, the CIA and the other American intelligence agencies have promised to conduct internal reviews of the quality of the material they supplied the administration on what was going on in Iraq. The heat on the White House was only made fiercer by Mr Rumsfeld's admission that nothing may now be found in Iraq to back up those earlier claims, if only because the Iraqis may have got rid of any evidence before the conflict. It is also possible that they decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict, the Defence Secretary said. * The US military said last night that it had released a suspected Iraqi war criminal by mistake. US Central Command said it was offering a $25,000 (315,000) reward for the capture of Mohammed Jawad An-Neifus, suspected of being involved in the murder of thousands of Iraqi Shia Muslims whose remains
[CTRL] Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims
-Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,967548,00.html Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims Secret transcript revealed Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday May 31, 2003 The Guardian Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned. Their deep concerns about the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5. The meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source who has read a transcript of the conversation. The foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being made by Mr Blair and President Bush could not be proved. The problem, explained Mr Straw, was the lack of corroborative evidence to back up the claims. Much of the intelligence were assumptions and assessments not supported by hard facts or other sources. Mr Powell shared the concern about intelligence assessments, especially those being presented by the Pentagon's office of special plans set up by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Mr Powell said he had all but moved in with US intelligence to prepare his briefings for the UN security council, according to the transcripts. But he told Mr Straw he had come away from the meetings apprehensive about what he called, at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favour of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence. Mr Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not explode in their faces. What are called the Waldorf transcripts are being circulated in Nato diplomatic circles. It is not being revealed how the transcripts came to be made; however, they appear to have been leaked by diplomats who supported the war against Iraq even when the evidence about Saddam Hussein's programme of weapons of mass destruction was fuzzy, and who now believe they were lied to. People circulating the transcripts call themselves allied sources supportive of US war aims in Iraq at the time. The transcripts will fuel the controversy in Britain and the US over claims that London and Washington distorted and exaggerated the intelligence assessments about Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme. An unnamed intelligence official told the BBC on Thursday that a key claim in the dossier on Iraq's weapons released by the British government last September - that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of an order - was inserted on the instructions of officials in 10 Downing Street. Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, admitted the claim was made by a single source; it wasn't corroborated. Speaking yesterday in Warsaw, the Polish capital, Mr Blair said the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in the dossier was evidence the truth of which I have absolutely no doubt about at all. He said he had consulted the heads of the security and intelligence services before emphatically denying that Downing Street had leaned on them to strengthen their assessment of the WMD threat in Iraq. He insisted he had absolutely no doubt that proof of banned weapons would eventually be found in Iraq. Whitehall sources make it clear they do not share the prime minister's optimism. The Waldorf transcripts are all the more damaging given Mr Powell's dramatic 75-minute speech to the UN security council on February 5, when he presented declassified satellite images, and communications intercepts of what were purported to be conversations between Iraqi commanders, and held up a vial that, he said, could contain anthrax. Evidence, he said, had come from people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam is really up to. Some of the intelligence used by Mr Powell was provided by Britain. The US secretary of state, who was praised by Mr Straw as having made a most powerful and authoritative case, also drew links between al-Qaida and Iraq - a connection dismissed by British intelligence agencies. His speech did not persuade France, Germany and Russia, who stuck to their previous insistence that the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq should be given more time to do their job. The Waldorf meeting took place a few days after Downing Street presented Mr Powell with a separate dossier on Iraq's banned weapons which he used to try to strengthen the impact of his UN speech. A few days later, Downing Street admitted that much of its dossier was lifted
[CTRL] Official explodes key WMD claim
-Caveat Lector- http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,966208,00.html Official explodes key WMD claim Read the No 10 dossier in question http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2002/09/24/dossier.pdf Tom Happold and agencies Thursday May 29, 2003 Downing Street doctored a dossier on Iraq's weapons programme to make it sexier, according to a senior British official, who claims intelligence services were unhappy with the assertion that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were ready for use within 45 minutes. Despite a No 10 denial that not one word of the dossier was not entirely the work of the intelligence agencies, the revelations are likely to cloud Tony Blair's visit to Iraq today. Critics of the war are expected to claim that the document shows it was one of conquest, not pre-emptive self-defence or liberation. It is understood that the parliamentary intelligence and security committee is set to launch an enquiry into the claims made by the government about Iraq. And the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, who resigned over his opposition to the war, last night called for a more independent select committee to investigate the matter. The unnamed official told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: Most people in intelligence weren't happy with the dossier because it didn't reflect the considered view they were putting forward. Describing how it was transformed in the week before it was published to make it sexier, he added: The classic example was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes. That information was not in the original draft. It was included in the dossier against our wishes because it wasn't reliable. Most things in the dossier were double-source but that was single-source and we believe that the source was wrong. The unnamed official was, however, keen to state that he believed Iraq did have WMD. I believe it is about 30% likely that there was a chemical weapons programme about six months before the war and considerably more likely that there was a biological weapons programme, he said. The 50-page document drew on intelligence material from MI6, MI5 and GCHQ and outlined Iraq's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and to develop long-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel or British bases in Cyprus. It claimed that Saddam Hussien did not regard his WMD as weapons of last resort but was ready use them against his enemies and own people. The defence minister, Adam Ingram, today denied that Downing Street had ordered the doctoring of the dossier. There was no pressure from No 10, he told the Today programme. That allegation is not true. But he did admit that the claim that WMD could be used within 45 minutes was based on a single source. It wasn't corroborated. I think that has already been conceded. Mr Ingram also refuted suggestions that the war had been prosecuted on the basis of fanciful and unsubstantiated allegations. The war was fought on the basis of all of the allegations, much of which was substantiated, not just by a security document produced by our security services, not concocted by No 10 or under pressure from No 10 to produce it in a particular way, but their best knowledge and their best assessment of what they could declare into the public domain, based upon the knowledge of what was out there. The whole world knew what Saddam Hussein was up to in terms of weapons of mass destruction. That's why we prosecuted that war. That's why we were right, he added. And Mr Ingram echoed Mr Blair's claims yesterday about the doubtless existence of weapons of mass destruction, saying that extensive searching was under way to find the weapons, while a wide range of Iraqis with knowledge of the programmes were being interrogated. The jigsaw is now beginning to come into place, he said. The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, said today's claims corroborated rumours that the intelligence services were generally unhappy with the government's use of their information. What I think it demonstrates is that if you start to turn the intelligence into a means by which to achieve your political objective then of course it becomes propaganda and is no longer as reliable, he told Today. Today's allegations follow US defence secretary Donald Rumfeld's comments yesterday that Saddam Hussien may have destroyed his weapons before the start of war and that . They also follow the revelation that part of the government's February document on Iraq's intelligence network was cut and pasted from a PhD student's dissertation. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor
[CTRL] No Logs Network
-Caveat Lector- http://www.mondumo.com/nologs/ http://www.mondumo.com/nologs/faq.php FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS The NO LOGS NETWORK is composed of web sites, web hosting providers and systems administrators who have pledged to a particular web site log retention policy. We recognize that each individual administrator may have their own reasons for doing so. Our own reasons for organizing this program are outlined below: General Information Why is log retention an issue? "The usage logs generated by web servers contain much data that is useful for site owners, but the current default configurations can pose a threat to the privacy of individuals, and may also present a legal risk to corporations. Specifically, the IP addresses collected by web servers are becoming increasingly easy to associate with the identity of particular individuals."-- from the announcement of the Usage Log Data Management Working Group at CFP2003 Our own stand on minimizing log retention (and starting this network) rests on two particular ideas: That no true freedom of speech exists without the freedom of speaking anonymously. In particular, speech that is politically volatile, ideas that are politically unpopular, and information that is upsetting to some leads aggrieved parties to identify and attack the speaker. The right to anonymous speech has a long and colorful history in democratic societies, in particular the United States of America. There is no reason why this right should not extend to users of the Internet. That no true freedom of information exists without anonymous access to information. We do not recognize or accept the idea of thought crime - what you read, and what you think, are your business. Nevertheless, we understand that individual network members (see directory for current list) can have many reasons for implementing their own log retention policy. Their membership in this network should in no way imply their acceptance of or agreement with our own reasoning. Please consult with each member web site individually for their policies and goals regarding their membership here. Quite a few resources are emerging for those interested in this subject. Some are listed below - for others, we recommend that you consult the Resources category of the no://log. The default practice of long-term log retention gives those who would tread on those rights an easy tool for identifying and harrassing individuals. Even with respect to non-political speech and the dissemination of information, however harmless, there are those who consistently tread on individual privacy. Tyrannical governments and overzealous marketers are the first that come to mind. We're sure there are others. We seek to educate systems administrators and the public alike, about the dangers this practice poses to individual freedom and privacy. A must-read: EPIC's Data Retention information page. What about web site operators' property rights, malicious users, or the need to identify users for the purpose of defense? We fully recognize web site operators' right to defend their property, ISP's right to defend their hardware and networks, and so on. But identifying and dealing with one particular IP address or group of IP addresses is in no way related to long-term retention of those addresses. In most cases during an attack, even a few minutes later, the logging of an IP address is no longer useful. Scripting and the http protocol itself gives an operator easy access to a visitor's IP address as it is - certainly defensive measures can be put in place that identify a particular visitor without long-term storage of all visitors' data. What about my statistics reports? I need those! Great! Run your statistics programs more often, make sure your reports don't contain identifying information of particular users, and then once you've obtained the report, discard the logs! I'm just a web site visitor. What does this mean for me? If you've reached this page via a NO LOGS button link, then you know that the administrator of that web site has at least thought about these issues. Ultimately, we cannot guarantee that a web site operator follows the practices they've pledged to follow. We cannot verify their compliance with their pledge. We think their linking to our web site at least signifies that they are aware of these issues. How do I get involved? If you're a web site operator or hosting provider, we encourage you to figure out how to stop logging IP addresses, at least, then sign the pledge and get your button! If you're an end-user or aren't in a position to change logging practices yourself, we recommend you look at our Tools page for a method to e-mail your friends about us. Financial help is also sorely needed, to help defray the costs of maintaining this program - find a Paypal payment box at the bottom of each page. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL
[CTRL] Fw: FC: CIA's secret Phoenix Project documents on The Memory Hole
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 10:27 AM --- From: Russ Kick [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 11:03:41 -0500 Subject: Documents on CIA's Phoenix Project posted on The Memory Hole Hi Declan-- This might be of interest to readers of Politech -Russ- 27 May 2003 Russ Kick, pub-editor of the Memory Hole [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.thememoryhole.org/phoenix/ Created by the CIA in Saigon in 1967, Phoenix was a program aimed at neutralizing--through assassination, kidnapping, and systematic torture--the civilian infrastructure that supported the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam. It was a terrifying final solution that violated the Geneva Conventions and traditional American ideas of human morality. The CIA destroyed its copies of the documents related to this program, but the creator of Phoenix gave his personal copies to author Douglas Valentine. He, in turn, has given them to The Memory Hole. They have never previously been published, online or in print. These extremely rare and revealing documents are being posted at The Memory Hole, a Website dedicated to rescuing knowledge and freeing information. The site's publisher and editor, Russ Kick, says: I had worked with Doug before, and I knew that he had lots of documents on Phoenix, one of the CIA's most controversial and hushed-up programs. When I asked if I could post them, he immediately agreed. He was even kind enough to write introductions to each document and to Phoenix in general especially for the site. Kick continues: This is exactly the type of material I had in mind when I created The Memory Hole last July. The mainstream media is terrified of this story and won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. I think it was during a segment on Senator Bob Kerrey that '60 Minutes' made a hit-and-run reference to Phoenix, saying something like, 'The full story of this program has yet to be told.' Then the narration went on to other things. That was it--one or two sentences, and I'm yelling at the TV: 'Then why don't you tell the whole story?' The primary documents are available. A lot of the people involved are still alive. Several books about it have been written (of course, they've been published by independent publishers). This is obviously something that frightens the media, and the CIA has tried to erase it by destroying the documents. What better subject for The Memory Hole? Currently, the site contains fourteen multi-page documents, and more will be posted in the coming months. http://www.thememoryhole.org/phoenix/ - POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. - To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ - www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Free People Will Set the Course of History: Intellectuals, Democracy and American Empire
-Caveat Lector- http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/blecher_interv.html Interventions: A Middle East Report Online Feature "Free People Will Set the Course of History"Intellectuals, Democracy and American Empire Robert Blecher (Robert Blecher teaches history at the University of Richmond.) March 2003 As the Bush administration struggled to find a justification for launching an attack on Iraq, churning out sketchy intelligence reports about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links with al-Qaeda, Washington wordsmiths produced their own grist for the war mill: the prospect of a democratic pax americana in the Middle East. The importance of the pundits' contribution to the war machine should not be underestimated. As the task of swaying public opinion grew more difficult, rhetoric around freedom and democracy has become ever more central. In the weeks after September 11, 2001, George W. Bush did not talk of remaking the Middle East. But in successive State of the Union addresses, commencement speeches, press conferences and televised appeals to the nation, Bush showed increasing faith in the ability of the US to extirpate tyranny and implant freedom in this agonized region. Presidents did not always profess belief in the region's democratic potential, nor did the intellectuals who served them. At the time of the 1991 Gulf war, shapers of public opinion such as Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes toed the first Bush administration's line that Washington should not aim to democratize the Middle East. But by the leadup to the junior Bush's war on Iraq, the same thinkers and pundits had reoriented their policy prescriptions, in many cases directly contradicting their writings of a decade ago. Employing their prodigious skills to trumpet the golden age of democracy, they have set aside their former convictions to serve power. The push for American Empire has arisen from the convergence of diverse ideological streams. Reaganite neo-conservatives such as William Kristol and Robert Kagan leveraged the language of national security to ally themselves with unreconstructed Cold Warriors like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Yet given the lukewarm popular support for the war in Iraq, the march to war could not have succeeded without the assistance of Establishment academics and journalists such as Fouad Ajami and Thomas Friedman, whose mainstream credentials legitimized the administration's agenda among those who otherwise might have been opposed. Rooted in the language of national security and democracy, American Empire has been enabled by a convergence -- not the congruence -- of political agendas. Neo-conservatives, traditional conservatives and plain old-fashioned liberals have formed a coalition of Iraq hawks whose spilling of ink has been but a pale precursor to the spilling of Iraqi blood. Those Elusive Jeffersonians The first Gulf war was fought with little optimism and no sense of historical mission. Democracy: Saddam Hussein is a terrible person, he is a threat to his own people. I think his people would be better off with a different leader, but there is this sort of romantic notion that if Saddam Hussein got hit by a bus tomorrow, some Jeffersonian democrat is waiting in the wings to hold popular elections. (Laughter.) You're going to get -- guess what -- probably another Saddam Hussein. It will take a little while for them to paint the pictures all over the walls again -- (laughter) -- but there should be no illusions about the nature of that country or its society. And the American people and all of the people who second-guess us now would have been outraged if we had gone on to Baghdad and we found ourselves in Baghdad with American soldiers patrolling the streets two years later still looking for Jefferson. (Laughter.) Disarming his audience with jocular racism, Powell expressed his government's pessimism about bringing democracy to the Middle East. Eleven years later, on the eve of a new Gulf war, Powell would say that a US victory "could fundamentally reshape the Middle East in a powerful, positive way,"[1] but in the early 1990s, the US administration believed that democracy could be achieved only through mass popular action. President Bush called on Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands," encouraging them to do what peoples across Eastern Europe had done to topple their own undemocratic regimes. Prior: ; Nazir: "I saw the president the other day on Friday (June 7, [1991]) and he walked up to me in the White House and said: 'Listen, Mr. Ambassador, we didn't fight this war for democracy or those [war] trials. Don't be intimidated by what's going on."[2] Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Mack found himself turning verbal somersaults to avoid calling for democracy, instead calling upon Kuwait's rulers to "maximize internal political participation in accordance with all traditional institutions."[3]
[CTRL] Re-sent: Free People Will Set the Course of History: Intellectuals, Democracy and American Empire
-Caveat Lector- [A section of the article was omitted when I sent it previously. It's been restored here.- jt] http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/blecher_interv.html Interventions: A Middle East Report Online Feature "Free People Will Set the Course of History"Intellectuals, Democracy and American Empire Robert Blecher (Robert Blecher teaches history at the University of Richmond.) March 2003 As the Bush administration struggled to find a justification for launching an attack on Iraq, churning out sketchy intelligence reports about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links with al-Qaeda, Washington wordsmiths produced their own grist for the war mill: the prospect of a democratic pax americana in the Middle East. The importance of the pundits' contribution to the war machine should not be underestimated. As the task of swaying public opinion grew more difficult, rhetoric around freedom and democracy has become ever more central. In the weeks after September 11, 2001, George W. Bush did not talk of remaking the Middle East. But in successive State of the Union addresses, commencement speeches, press conferences and televised appeals to the nation, Bush showed increasing faith in the ability of the US to extirpate tyranny and implant freedom in this agonized region. Presidents did not always profess belief in the region's democratic potential, nor did the intellectuals who served them. At the time of the 1991 Gulf war, shapers of public opinion such as Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes toed the first Bush administration's line that Washington should not aim to democratize the Middle East. But by the leadup to the junior Bush's war on Iraq, the same thinkers and pundits had reoriented their policy prescriptions, in many cases directly contradicting their writings of a decade ago. Employing their prodigious skills to trumpet the golden age of democracy, they have set aside their former convictions to serve power. The push for American Empire has arisen from the convergence of diverse ideological streams. Reaganite neo-conservatives such as William Kristol and Robert Kagan leveraged the language of national security to ally themselves with unreconstructed Cold Warriors like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Yet given the lukewarm popular support for the war in Iraq, the march to war could not have succeeded without the assistance of Establishment academics and journalists such as Fouad Ajami and Thomas Friedman, whose mainstream credentials legitimized the administration's agenda among those who otherwise might have been opposed. Rooted in the language of national security and democracy, American Empire has been enabled by a convergence -- not the congruence -- of political agendas. Neo-conservatives, traditional conservatives and plain old-fashioned liberals have formed a coalition of Iraq hawks whose spilling of ink has been but a pale precursor to the spilling of Iraqi blood. Those Elusive Jeffersonians The first Gulf war was fought with little optimism and no sense of historical mission. Democracy: Saddam Hussein is a terrible person, he is a threat to his own people. I think his people would be better off with a different leader, but there is this sort of romantic notion that if Saddam Hussein got hit by a bus tomorrow, some Jeffersonian democrat is waiting in the wings to hold popular elections. (Laughter.) You're going to get -- guess what -- probably another Saddam Hussein. It will take a little while for them to paint the pictures all over the walls again -- (laughter) -- but there should be no illusions about the nature of that country or its society. And the American people and all of the people who second-guess us now would have been outraged if we had gone on to Baghdad and we found ourselves in Baghdad with American soldiers patrolling the streets two years later still looking for Jefferson. (Laughter.) Disarming his audience with jocular racism, Powell expressed his government's pessimism about bringing democracy to the Middle East. Eleven years later, on the eve of a new Gulf war, Powell would say that a US victory "could fundamentally reshape the Middle East in a powerful, positive way,"[1] but in the early 1990s, the US administration believed that democracy could be achieved only through mass popular action. President Bush called on Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands," encouraging them to do what peoples across Eastern Europe had done to topple their own undemocratic regimes. Prior: ; Nazir: "I saw the president the other day on Friday (June 7, [1991]) and he walked up to me in the White House and said: 'Listen, Mr. Ambassador, we didn't fight this war for democracy or those [war] trials. Don't be intimidated by what's going on."[2] Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Mack found himself turning verbal somersaults to avoid calling for democracy, instead calling upon Kuwait's rulers to
[CTRL] Inferno
-Caveat Lector- http://www.medialens.org/ MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media March 28, 2003 MEDIA ALERT: INFERNO Civilian Casualties, Censorship and Patriotism Niche Killing It's hard to believe that a little more than one week ago, the Iraqi regime, facing imminent attack, was meekly dismantling its al-Samoud missiles, presenting scientists for interview, and allowing hundreds of air strikes to deplete its forces without reply. US oil, 'defence' and other state-corporate interests had of course long since chosen war. Or, rather, they had chosen a cake walk a parade of the best firepower money can buy, a travelling arms fair ensuring that the latest killing machines would be suitably 'combat tested'. US generals talked of flexibility and responsiveness, British generals of niche combat roles. This sounded disturbingly like the Total Quality jargon of management consultancy. And now a giant snake of military equipment lies caked in dust, bruised and battered, its body wallowing in the blood of innocents. Suddenly Stalingrad feels like something that happened only sixty years ago. There is a palpable sense of the ghosts of ancient wars looking down grimly on a humbled leviathan. It's an old story: supply lines overstretched by overconfidence, state of the art power shaken by 'little people' who weren't supposed to matter, people who haven't read the script. Suddenly war seems about blood and courage again, not computers. But there is no glory here US and UK troops have been lead into a nightmare, they are dying for a cause that no one should be asked to die for. Can you imagine dying for Bush and Blair? Can you imagine killing for them? Michelle Waters, the sister of a Marine who died soon after the war began, says of her family: It's all for nothing. That war could have been prevented. Now, we're out of a brother. Bush is not out of a brother. We are. (Quoted, 'Media War: Obsessed With Tactics And Technology', Norman Solomon, ZNet, March 27, 2003) And the people of Iraq their soldiers, often conscripts, are people too - are being slaughtered in their thousands. Hell, we now know, is a bombed market place under an orange sky in a war fought for oil and power. Hell is an impoverished, speechless market trader trembling amid the body parts. Alas, cried Shantideva a thousand years ago, our sorrows fall in endless streams! Restraining Hands In some spiritual traditions compassion is described as the invisible protector of living beings. If this sounds like mere sentiment, consider that compassion is protecting the civilian population of Iraq in a very real way, right now. The millions of ordinary people who felt like insignificant ants marching in giant crowds in February and March have had this very real effect: they have placed an invisible restraining hand on the shoulders of the people throwing the Tomahawks, the MOABs and the JDAMs. The US military does not feel able to shed the blood of thousands of civilians by bringing its giant, fiery hammers down on urban areas they know the world is watching, they know the world will not tolerate it. They know this because you and we filled small areas of space with our bodies on the streets of our cities. It didn't feel like much at the time. Be in no doubt, if this had been Stalin or Churchill, if it had been Nixon or Reagan, Basra and Baghdad would now be rubble. This could well be changing when mighty armies start taking casualties the gloves tend to be mislaid and optimism must not stray into naivety, but we must be clear about one important point: the protests, the concern, the dissent, are absolutely vital. They have made a difference. The media is, of course, busy sanitising the horrors that are taking place in our names. Indeed the ability to overlook horrors committed by the West and its allies is a key job requirement for mainstream journalists. A Nexis database search showed that between 1990-1999 the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and Time used the word 'genocide' 132 times to describe the actions of Iraq against Kurds. Over the same period the same word was used 14 times to describe the actions of Turkey against Kurds. We all know what Iraq is alleged to have done to the Kurds at Halabja and elsewhere, but how many people know about the 50,000 Kurdish dead and 3 million refugees, victims of Turkish military assault? Who knows that 80% of the arms were supplied by the US, including M-60 tanks, F-16 fighter-bombers, Cobra gunships, and Blackhawk 'slick' helicopters? As Turkish commandos slip now across the border into Northern Iraq, the BBC's John Simpson comments: Of course the Kurds are very nervous about the whole thing. (BBC1, March 22) If an enemy and not a NATO ally had been involved, we might perhaps have been given a little information on the detail behind the jitters. Hiding the good guy horrors of course becomes seriously problematic in time of war. On
[CTRL] A think tank war: Why old Europe says no
-Caveat Lector- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/07/1046826528748.html A think tank war: Why old Europe says no ByMargo KingstonMarch 7 2003 This war came from a think tank by Jochen Boelsche, spiegel It was in no way a conspiracy. As far back as 1998, ultra right US think tanks had developed and published plans for an era of US world domination, sidelining the UN and attacking Iraq. These people were not taken seriously. But now they are calling the tune. German commentators and correspondents have been confused. Washington has tossed around so many types of reasons for war on Baghdad "that it could make the rest of the world dizzy", said the South German Times. And the Nuremburg News reported on public statements last week by Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer to an inner circle in the US that war can only be avoided if Saddam not only disarms, but also leaves office. Regime change is a condition that is in none of the barely remembered 18 UN resolutions. The Nuremburg News asked in astonishment whether Fleischer had made the biggest Freudian slip of his career or whether he spoke with the President's authority. It's not about Saddam's weapons So it goes. Across the world critics of President Bush are convinced that a second Gulf War is actually about replacing Saddam, whether the dictator is involved with WMD or not. "It's not about his WMD," writes the German born Israeli peace campaigner, Uri Avnery, "its purely a war about world domination, in business, politics, defence and culture". There are real models for this. They were already under development by far right Think Tanks in the 1990s, organisations in which cold-war warriors from the inner circle of the secret services, from evangelical churches, from weapons corporations and oil companies forged shocking plans for a new world order. In the plans of these hawks a doctrine of "might is right" would operate, and the mightiest of course would be the last superpower, America. Visions of world power on the Web To this end the USA would need to use all means - diplomatic, economic and military, even wars of aggression - to have long term control of the resources of the planet and the ability to keep any possible rival weak. These 1990's schemes of the Think Tanks, from sidelining the UN to a series of wars to establish dominance - were in no way secret. Nearly all these scenarios have been published; some are accessible on the Web. For a long time these schemes were shrugged off as fantasy produced by intellectual mavericks - arch-conservative relics of the Reagan era, the coldest of cold-war warriors, hibernating in backwaters of academia and lobby groups. At the White House an internationalist spirit was in the air. There was talk of partnerships for universal human rights, of multi-lateralism in relations with allies. Treaties on climate-change, weapons control, on landmines and international justice were on the agenda. Saddam's fall was planned in 1998 In this liberal climate there came, nearly unnoticed, a 1997 proposal of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) that forcefully mapped out "America's global leadership". On 28 Jan 1998 the PNAC project team wrote to President Clinton demanding a radical change in dealings with the UN and the end of Saddam. While it was not clear whether Saddam was developing WMD, he was, they said, a threat to the US, Israel, the Arab States and "a meaningful part of the world's oil reserves". They put their case as follows: "In the short term this means being ready to lead military action, without regard for diplomacy. In the long term it means disarming Saddam and his regime. We believe that the US has the right under existing Security Council resolutions to take the necessary steps, including war, to secure our vital interests in the Gulf. In no circumstances should America's politics be crippled by the misguided insistence of the Security Council on unanimity." (clintonletter) Blueprint for an offensive This letter might have remained yellowing in the White House archives if it did not read like a blue-print for a long-desired war, and still might have been forgotten if ten PNAC members had not signed it. These signatories are today all part of the Bush Administration. They are Dick Cheney - Vice President, Lewis Libby - Cheney's Chief of Staff, Donald Rumsfeld - Defence Minister, Paul Wolfowitz - Rumsfeld's deputy, Peter Rodman - in charge of 'Matters of Global Security', John Bolton - State Secretary for Arms Control, Richard Armitage - Deputy Foreign Minister, Richard Perle - former Deputy Defence Minister under Reagan, now head of the Defense Policy Board, William Kristol - head of the PNAC and adviser to Bush, known as the brains of the President, Zalmay Khalilzad - fresh from being special ambassador and kingmaker in Afghanistan, now Bush's special ambassador to the Iraqi opposition. But even before that - over ten years ago - two
[CTRL] Practice to Deceive
-Caveat Lector- http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html Practice to Deceive Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan. By Joshua Micah Marshall Imagine it's six months from now. The Iraq war is over. After an initial burst of joy and gratitude at being liberated from Saddam's rule, the people of Iraq are watching, and waiting, and beginning to chafe under American occupation. Across the border, in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, our conquering presence has brought street protests and escalating violence. The United Nations and NATO are in disarray, so America is pretty much on its own. Hemmed in by budget deficits at home and limited financial assistance from allies, the Bush administration is talking again about tapping Iraq's oil reserves to offset some of the costs of the American presence--talk that is further inflaming the region. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence has discovered fresh evidence that, prior to the war, Saddam moved quantities of biological and chemical weapons to Syria. When Syria denies having such weapons, the administration starts massing troops on the Syrian border. But as they begin to move, there is an explosion: Hezbollah terrorists from southern Lebanon blow themselves up in a Baghdad restaurant, killing dozens of Western aid workers and journalists. Knowing that Hezbollah has cells in America, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge puts the nation back on Orange Alert. FBI agents start sweeping through mosques, with a new round of arrests of Saudis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, and Yemenis. To most Americans, this would sound like a frightening state of affairs, the kind that would lead them to wonder how and why we had got ourselves into this mess in the first place. But to the Bush administration hawks who are guiding American foreign policy, this isn't the nightmare scenario. It's everything going as anticipated. In their view, invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction, though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East. Prior to the war, the president himself never quite said this openly. But hawkish neoconservatives within his administration gave strong hints. In February, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq, the United States would deal with Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Meanwhile, neoconservative journalists have been channeling the administration's thinking. Late last month, The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has in mind a world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism ... a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future. In short, the administration is trying to roll the table--to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism. So events that may seem negative--Hezbollah for the first time targeting American civilians; U.S. soldiers preparing for war with Syria--while unfortunate in themselves, are actually part of the hawks' broader agenda. Each crisis will draw U.S. forces further into the region and each countermove in turn will create problems that can only be fixed by still further American involvement, until democratic governments--or, failing that, U.S. troops--rule the entire Middle East. There is a startling amount of deception in all this--of hawks deceiving the American people, and perhaps in some cases even themselves. While it's conceivable that bold American action could democratize the Middle East, so broad and radical an initiative could also bring chaos and bloodshed on a massive scale. That all too real possibility leads most establishment foreign policy hands, including many in the State Department, to view the Bush plan with alarm. Indeed, the hawks' record so far does not inspire confidence. Prior to the invasion, for instance, they predicted that if the United States simply announced its intention to act against Saddam regardless of how the United Nations voted, most of our allies, eager to be on our good side, would support us. Almost none did. Yet despite such grave miscalculations, the hawks push on with their sweeping new agenda. Like any group of permanent Washington revolutionaries fueled by visions of a righteous cause, the neocons long ago decided that criticism from the establishment isn't a reason for self-doubt but the surest sign that they're on the right track.
[CTRL] The enterprising hawk
-Caveat Lector- http://onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/032903Leopold/032903leopold.html The enterprising hawk By Jason Leopold Online Journal Assistant Editor March 29, 2003-Richard Perle's resignation Thursday as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory group, is long overdue. Perle quit the board because he was hired to help bankrupt telecommunications firm Global Crossing win approval from the Department of Defense to sell the company to a Hong Kong billionaire and lawmakers questioned whether Perle's dual roles were a conflict-of-interest. Presumably, Global Crossing hired Perle, who served as assistant secretary of defense under former President Ronald Reagan, as a lobbyist because he wields an enormous amount of power around the Pentagon and would likely get the job done. Perle is a key adviser to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and a leading architect in the Bush administration's policies toward Iraq. The Pentagon and the Federal Bureau of Investigation objected to Global Crossing's sale to Asian investors last year because the government uses Global Crossing's fiber optics networks and a sale would put the networks under control of the Chinese government. Global Crossing said it would pay Perle $125,000 and an additional $600,000 if the deal went through. Perle denied Thursday that his unpaid advisory role on the policy board would have interfered with his lobbying on behalf of Global Crossing, which is mired in shareholder lawsuits as a result of its questionable accounting practices. But Perle has a long history of using his influential role as a government adviser to line his pockets. Richard Perle . . . has made a lucrative career out of some bald conflicts of interest, wrote Mark Crispin Miller, a New York University media professor, in the Free Press in 2000. As an Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security under Ronald Reagan, he got in some slight trouble when he wrote a memorandum urging the department to consider buying equipment from a company that had paid him a $50,000 consulting fee (as the New York Times noted back in 1984). As chairman and CEO of Hollinger Digital (owned by media titan Conrad Black), Perle maintains his close connections with the military industries. For example, as a non-executive director of Morgan Crucible, PLC (UK), which has done business with the Pentagon . . . Moreover, Perle was also a director of Memorex Corp., a defense contractor, in the 1990s while he was advising then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee during the first Bush administration. At the same time, Perle also was a paid consultant to a Turkish-hired lobbying firm in Washington and has been both an adviser to FMC Corp. and a director of an FMC-Turkish joint venture building military equipment. It should be noted that during Perle's tenure in the Reagan administration he was a fierce proponent of aid to Turkey's military. In 1987, the Pentagon's Office of General Counsel opened an inquiry into whether Perle's attempts to write a fictional novel based on classified intelligence information were a conflict-of-interest. At the time, Perle was offered a $300,000 advance for the novel, titled Memoranda. The proposal for the novel described an inside look at the bureaucracy and promised a plot that seemed a thinly veiled account of Perle's long-running internecine struggle with former Assistant Secretary of State Richard R. Burt. It promised an array of bureaucratic maneuvers recounted in the context of actual events altered only enough to make them publishable, to preserve the fiction in 'Memoranda.' In April of 1987, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the former ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote an angry letter to Reagan suggesting that Perle's book creates a climate encouraging disrespect for the protection of classified information and might have a chilling effect on the candor of [officials'] policy analysis and recommendations. Nunn also raised questions about the propriety of the sale of the book during Perle's tenure in office. In response to the inquiries, Perle resigned his post as assistant secretary of defense in April 1987 to write the book. The title was later changed to Hard Line. Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. He has written more than 2,000 news stories on the issue and was the first journalist to report that energy companies were engaged in manipulative practices in California's newly deregulated electricity market. Most recently, Mr. Leopold has reported on Enron. He was the first journalist to interview former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling following Enron's bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Mr. Leopold has broken numerous stories on the financial machinations Enron engaged in and his investigative pieces on the company have been published in The Nation, Salon, The
[CTRL] Advisors of Influence: 9 Members of the Defense Policy Board Have Ties to Defense Contractors
-Caveat Lector- http://www.publici.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=513L1=10L2=10L3=0L4=0L5=0 Advisors of Influence: Nine Members of the Defense Policy Board Have Ties to Defense Contractors By André Verlöy and Daniel Politi Data by Aron Pilhofer Of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board, the government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, at least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors. The board's chairman, Richard Perle, resigned yesterday, March 27, 2003, amid allegations of conflicts of interest for his representation of companies with business before the Defense Department, although he will remain a member of the board. Eight of Perle's colleagues on the board have ties to companies with significant contracts from the Pentagon. Members of the board disclose their business interests annually to the Pentagon, but the disclosures are not available to the public. The forms are filed with the Standards of Conduct Office which review the filings to make sure they are in compliance with government ethics, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Ted Wadsworth told the Center for Public Integrity. The companies with ties to Defense Policy Board members include prominent firms like Boeing, TRW, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen Hamilton and smaller players like Symantec Corp., Technology Strategies and Alliance Corp., and Polycom Inc. Defense companies are awarded contracts for numerous reasons; there is nothing to indicate that serving on the Defense Policy Board confers a decisive advantage to firms with which a member is associated. According to its charter, the board was set up in 1985 to provide the Secretary of Defense with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning major matters of defense policy. The members are selected by and report to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy-currently Douglas Feith, a former Reagan administration official. All members are approved by the Secretary of Defense. The board's quarterly meetings-normally held over a two-day period-are classified, and each session's proceedings are summarized for the Defense Secretary. The board does not write reports or vote on issues. Feith, according to the charter, can call additional meetings if required. Notices of the meetings are filed at least 15 days before they are held in the Federal Register. The board, whose list of members reads like a who's who of former high-level government and military officials, focuses on long-term policy issues such as the strategic implications of defense policies and tactical considerations, including what types of weapons the military should develop. Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at The Brookings Institution, told Time magazine in November 2002 that the board is just another [public relations] shop for Rumsfeld. Former members said that the character of the board changed under Rumsfeld. Previously the board was more bi-partisan; under Rumsfeld, it has become more interested in policy changes. The board has no official role in policy decisions. The agendas for the last three meetings, which were obtained by the Center, show a variety of issues were discussed. The Oct. 10-11, 2002 meeting was devoted to intelligence briefings from the Defense Intelligence Agency and other administration officials. One of the first items on the agenda was an ethics brief by the Office of the General Counsel. In December 2002, a two-hour intelligence briefing, strategy, North Korea, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency were on the agenda. In February 2003, the topics discussed on the first day included North Korea, Iran and Total Information Awareness, the controversial Pentagon research program that aims to gather and analyze a vast array of information on Americans. As the Center previously reported, research for the program is being conducted by private contractors. Richard Perle, who has been a very public advocate of the war in Iraq, resigned the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board after being criticized in recent weeks because of his involvement in companies that have significant business before the Defense Department. He did not return the Center's phone calls. In a March 24 letter, Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate Perle's role as a paid adviser to the bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd. The Hamilton, Bermuda-based company sought approval of its sale of overseas subsidiaries from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a government panel that can block sales or mergers that conflict with U.S. national security interests. Rumsfeld is a member of the Committee. Perle reportedly advised clients of Goldman Sachs on investment opportunities
[CTRL] US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush
-Caveat Lector- A search on In Touch Ministries' founder http://www.intouch.org/inside/about_us/biography_76833.html Dr. Charles F. Stanley, comes up with this page: http://store.falwell.com/store/bio.asp?cid=939 More below ... - jt http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s819685.htm US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush Last Update: Sunday, March 30, 2003. 2:55am (AEST) They may be the ones facing danger on the battlefield, but US soldiers in Iraq are being asked to pray for President George W Bush. Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called A Christian's Duty, a mini prayer book which includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying for Bush. I have committed to pray for you, your family, your staff and our troops during this time of uncertainty and tumult. May God's peace be your guide, says the pledge, according to a journalist embedded with coalition forces. The pamphlet, produced by a group called In Touch Ministries, offers a daily prayer to be made for the US president, a born-again Christian who likes to invoke his God in speeches. Sunday's is Pray that the President and his advisers will seek God and his wisdom daily and not rely on their own understanding. Monday's reads Pray that the President and his advisers will be strong and courageous to do what is right regardless of critics. Falwell sent this out (below) recently - being on that email list is interesting, definitely revealing. Falwell is also the owner of a Charles F. Stanley book store, the link found on an earlier search, the guy who founded the ministries who wrote and printed the pamphlets exhorting troops to pray for the president every day and send evidence of doing this in the form of a daily pledge back to command. I also notice that Falwell does not ask for prayers for the innocent Iraqi people who were brutalized under Saddam (with the tacit and sometimes outright approval of the US), and who are also currently being killed by errant and other munitions. I'm curious if the pamphlet effort was one of Bush's faith-based initiatives. I certainly don't have a problem with Christianity per se, as there are people who practice it with a stunning humility and compassion, but televangelists are about the scum of the earth as far as I'm concerned. Are these the people he hooked up with when Bush got sober and found God? We all knew it was some born-again thing, but is it connected to Falwell? I'm really curious now. - jt - Original Message - From: Jerry Falwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 1:14 PM FALWELL CONFIDENTIAL FROM: Jerry Falwell DATE: March 28, 2003 BIBLICAL GUIDELINES FOR NATIONAL PRAYER At this critical time in our nation's history, it is imperative that Christians join together in prayer for our troops who wage war against a merciless enemy. This column is designed to offer suggestions on how to effectively pray for our troops, our leaders and our nation during this time of war and social unrest. PRAYING FOR OUR TROOPS The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them (Psalm 34:7, NKJV). I often reflect on this verse when praying for our military personnel now fighting for the liberation of Iraq. It is comforting to know that God wants to guard and deliver those who trust Him. That is why it is so vitally important that Christians blanket our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in prayer. I was heartened to witness a variety of news reports documenting the many worship services that were taking place prior to the military campaign into Iraq. One very moving photo showed a young man being baptized in a modified pool there. Baptist Press also showed a young technician being baptized in a munitions crate aboard the U.S.S. Harry S Truman. Many of the men and women fighting to liberate Iraq are Christian brothers and sisters. In fact, several Liberty University students and graduates are now serving in the region as chaplains. I am confident that these individuals - and many others - are standing as outspoken representatives for Christ in the midst of battle. I have been praying that many American service members come to know Christ as Savior while serving their nation. Let us also continue to pray that the Lord will safely deliver our troops to their families and friends who await their return. And may our nation welcome them home as heroes when they return to us. PRAYING FOR OUR LEADERS Earlier this year, President Bush said, We pray for wisdom to know and do what is right and we pray for God's peace in the affairs of men. Since our nation's founding, many of our leaders have sought God's hand in human endeavors. We continue to call on Him to direct our leaders. In his A Prayer for America, author Max Lucado beautifully expressed his hope for the nation in the wake of September 11: Let your mercy be upon our President, Vice President, and their families. Grant
[CTRL] Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Buying the Right
-Caveat Lector- http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon3.html The Consortium Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Buying the Right By Robert Parry, 1997 On Jan. 28, 1995, a beaming Rev. Jerry Falwell told his Old Time Gospel Hour congregation news that seemed heaven sent. The televangelist hailed two Virginia businessmen as financial saviors of debt-ridden Liberty University, the fundamentalist Christian school that Falwell had made the crown jewel of his Religious Right empire. They had to borrow money, hock their houses, hock everything, enthused Falwell. Thank God for friends like Dan Reber and Jimmy Thomas. Falwell's congregation rose as one to applaud. The star of the moment was Daniel Reber, who was standing behind Falwell. Thomas was not present. Reber and Thomas earned Falwell's public gratitude by excusing the Lynchburg, Va., school of about one-half of its $73 million debt. In the late 1980s, that flood of red ink had forced Falwell to abandon his Moral Majority political organization and nearly drowned Liberty University in bankruptcy. Reber and Thomas came to Falwell's rescue in the nick of time. Their non-profit Christian Heritage Foundation of Forest, Va., snapped up a big chunk of Liberty's debt for $2.5 million, a fraction of its face value. Thousands of small religious investors who had bought church construction bonds through a Texas company were the big losers. But Falwell shed no tears. He told local reporters that the moment was the greatest single day of financial advantage in the school's history. Left unmentioned in the happy sermon was the identity of the bigger guardian angel who had been protecting Falwell's financial interests -- from a distance and without publicity. That secret benefactor was the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed South Korean messiah who is controversial with many fundamentalist Christians because of his bizarre Biblical interpretations and his brainwashing tactics that have torn thousands of young people from their families. Moon also has grown harshly anti-American in recent years. Covertly, Moon helped bail out Liberty University through one of his front groups which funnelled $3.5 million to the Reber-Thomas Christian Heritage Foundation, the non-profit that had purchased the school's debt. I discovered this Moon-Falwell connection while looking for something else: how much Moon's Women's Federation for World Peace had paid former President George Bush for a series of speeches in Asia in 1995. I obtained the federation's Internal Revenue Service records but discovered that Bush's undisclosed speaking fee was buried in a line item of $13.6 million for conference expenses. There was, however, a listing for a $3.5 million educational grant to the Christian Heritage Foundation. A call to the Virginia corporate records office confirmed that the foundation was the one run by Reber and Thomas. In a subsequent interview, the Women Federation's vice president Susan Fefferman confirmed that the $3.5 million grant had gone to Mr. Falwell's people for the benefit of Liberty University. It was Dan Reber, she said. But she could not recall much else about the grant, even though it was by far the largest single grant awarded by the federation that year. For details on the grant, Fefferman referred me to Keith Cooperrider, the federation's treasurer. Cooperrider is also the chief financial officer of Moon's Washington Times and a longtime Unification Church functionary. Cooperrider did not return several phone calls seeking his comment. Falwell and Reber also failed to respond to my calls. Secret Meetings The full public record strongly suggests that Falwell solicited Moon's help in bailing out Liberty University. In a lawsuit on file in the Circuit Court of Bedford County -- a community in southwestern Virginia -- two of Reber's former business associates alleged that Reber and Falwell flew to South Korea on Jan. 9, 1994, on a seven-day secret trip to meet with representatives of the Unification Church. The court document states that Reber and Falwell were accompanied to South Korea by Ronald S. Godwin, who had been executive director of Falwell's Moral Majority before signing on as vice president of Moon's Washington Times. According to Bedford County court records, Reber, Falwell and Godwin also had discussions at Liberty University in 1993 with Dong Moon Joo, one of Moon's right-hand men and president of The Washington Times. Though Reber was queried about the purposes of the Moon-connected meetings in the court papers, he settled the business dispute before responding to interrogatories or submitting to a deposition. He did deny any legal wrongdoing. But Moon's secret financial ties to Falwell raise some sensitive political questions, particularly amid congressional hearings on foreign money influencing U.S. politics: For instance, did the $3.5 million from Moon's front group give Falwell the means to become a national pitchman for The Clinton
[CTRL] Mystery of Life Solved
-Caveat Lector- http://www.nationalreview.com/shiflett/shiflett072402.asp July 24, 2002 8:45 a.m. Mystery of Life Solved It's unanimous! A wise man once told me he had no problem with God; it was His ground crew that sometimes gave reason for pause and trepidation. This was long before the Islamist Air Force attacked America, and before graffiti artists, responding to a well-known scandal, began scrawling Our Lady of Perpetual Buggery on some church facades. While there's been a great deal of discussion about the overall boost religion has received from the attacks, fairness dictates greater notice of the alternative view, which considers the ongoing war another example of faith-based mayhem that would not occur if humans would simply accept that they are born into a godless and ultimately meaningless universe, where they will struggle, suffer, and die, but perhaps see some good ballgames and eat delicious cheeseburgers in the interim, which makes the exercise all worthwhile. That view of course completely overlooks the incalculable good that religions do in the world, both in psychic terms and in providing relief to suffering humanity. One did not see 9/11 victims carried off to the Ayn Rand Memorial Hospital, for instance, but instead to hospitals dedicated to various saints. But there's not denying the religious component. The Islamist militants want to destroy our heathen culture. For their part, the brothers at the Southern Baptist Convention condemn Islam as a violent religion, adding that its prophet is a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, and his last one was a nine-year-old girl. All of which raises that age-old question: Will this greatest mystery of life - the true nature of God (if God) - ever be settled? As it happens, a definitive answer may be at hand. According to advertisements taken out in major papers around the country, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has been tapped as this world's King of Kings. That these particular advertisements were paid for by the reverend is perhaps worth noting, but only in passing. I have no objectivity on this matter, so let's turn to Jim Remsen of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who has reported on the ad campaign. According to Mr. Remsen, Moon is proclaiming that Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha - even God - have told him he is now 'the Savior, Messiah and King of Kings of all of humanity!' He also reports that Moon is paying $720,000 to place the ads in papers across the country, which makes him something of a saint in this time of falling revenues. That the ads run 7,000 words, outstripping the Sermon on the Mount by a fair distance, underscores the importance of the message. It appears Moon was informed of his new standing during a seminar in the spirit world for leaders of five of the great religions. Explains Mr. Remsen: 40 leaders of the five faiths, as well as Karl Marx and three other Communist greats, express their obeisance to Mr. Moon. At the celestial event, Mohammad is said to have led three cheers, while God submitted a letter stating, 'I believe in the True Parents.' Perhaps it should be mentioned here that Moon and his wife (his second, as memory serves) bill themselves at the True Parents. This is a stunning development, to put it mildly, though it does affirm various optimistic beliefs, including the belief that there are indeed Second Acts in America. As is well known, Moon was excommunicated from the Korean Presbyterian Church, which may have been miffed by his insistence that a failed Jesus had tapped him to finish his work here on Earth. After moving to America, Moon did a year and a half in the jug for tax evasion. His newspaper, the Washington Times, has gobbled up hundreds of millions of dollars, will not let him have any official role in editorial matters, and has a circulation hovering somewhere around the 100,000 mark, which is nothing to crow about. That he has now been named King of Kings - the top job on Earth and perhaps the Universe as well - only goes to show that Ronald Reagan was right: Hang around in America long enough and good things are bound to happen. It is also true that the presence of Karl Marx at this celestial event confirms the widespread hope that everyone goes to Heaven. As Moon and his anti-communist allies (ahem) were fond of pointing out, communism has been the most pernicious belief system in history, and may be responsible for 100 million deaths, give or take. Some of us will recall rallies of the Lunar Faithful during which thundering refrains of Victory Over Communism shook the very skies. Now it appears that Karl not only went to Heaven, but was given voting status. One can imagine the scene: God: I propose a resolution in which Sun is named King of Kings. What about it, Karl? Marx: I see absolutely no contradiction in this. Mohammed: Hip-hip-hooray! Whether this ad campaign will be good for recruiting remains an open question. And while one religion cannot be used to
[CTRL] The GOP's man on the Moon
-Caveat Lector- http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14455 The GOP's man on the Moon Unification Church leader and self-proclaimed Messiah builds legacy with support from the Bush administration For more than two decades he has been a powerful and influential political figure, despite being more than a bit out of step with mainstream America. Now, perhaps thinking of his own mortality, he has become more visible, staging and sponsoring numerous events and conferences. A revivified Rev. Sun Myung Moon is planting the seeds of his political legacy -- and he's getting help from his friends in the Bush Administration. On December 19, 2002, while many Americans were caught up in Trent Lott's troubles or trying to figure out what to get their mother-in-law for Christmas, the Corporation for National and Community Service announced the appointment of three managers to oversee AmeriCorps. David Caprara was appointed director of AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). Caprara comes to government service having served as president of the American Family Coalition, an organization many observers say is a front organization for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Caprara's appointment is the latest in a series of events signifying a close relationship between the Bush Administration and the Rev. Moon's Unification Church. On January 19, 2001, one day before George W. Bush was sworn in as President, the Rev. Moon sponsored a prayer luncheon that brought together some 1,700 religious, civic, and political leaders. In the crowd was a bevy of Christian Right luminaries including the Rev. Jerry Falwell; former National Evangelical Association President Don Argue; Trinity Broadcasting Network's Paul Crouch; and the Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) president, executive committee president, and CEO, as well as Richard Land, the president of SBC's Ethics Religious Liberty Commission. John Ashcroft, who had not yet been confirmed as Attorney General, dropped by and brought down the house... with a tale of amazing grace, reported a front-page story in The Washington Times. The Rev. Moon addressed the crowd and handed out free copies of one of his books and other Unification church materials. When SBC leaders discovered that the event had been sponsored by The Times -- the Moon-owned conservative newspaper that has lost money every year since its launch in 1982 -- they were surprised: We knew that it was going to be an interdenominational event, but we had no idea that the luncheon was hosted by the Moonies, claimed one SBC spokesperson. A few months later, the American Leadership Conference (ALC), a project of the American Family Coalition and The Washington Times Foundation -- both Moon-sponsored groups -- sent thousands of invitations to clergy and community leaders inviting them to attend local events called Faith-Based Initiatives For Family and Community Renewal. According to Church State's Rob Boston, The flyer promised that the 'cutting edge program' would 'provide the latest information on innovative policies and programs from the Executive and Congressional leadership in Washington; and build alliances for faith-based services at the state and community level.' Boston, assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, pointed out the faith-based summit was actually held in Washington, D.C. and down-linked by satellite to more than forty participating sites. The summit was organized by a number of leading GOP congressional figures including Bush's faith-based point-men, now former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK) and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). And, efforts to promote it at the grassroots level were turned over to a Moon organization, which Boston writes, gave them an official relationship with the Republican leadership and this enhanced status enabled him to do grassroots political organizing -- and religious recruitment -- with the apparent blessing of Bush and his GOP allies in Congress. On May 21, 2002, the Rev. Moon hosted a gala 20th anniversary celebration for The Washington Times at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The Times reported the following day that more than 3,000 congressmen, state legislators and business and religious leaders from across the country attended and heard country music singer Randy Travis and radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger, who delivered the keynote address. One of the highlights of the evening was the reading of a congratulatory message from President Bush, who called The Times a distinguished source of information and opinion and a forum for the debate of timely issues. The SBC's antipathy over the Rev. Moon's sponsorship of the prayer event and the Republican Party's dependence on its organizing skills are indicative of the longtime love/hate relationship Christian evangelicals and GOP operatives have had with the Unification Church. (Boston recently told me that the baggage associated with the Unification Church
[CTRL] From Team Moon to VISTA
-Caveat Lector- http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14471 From Team Moon to VISTA David Caprara's journey from Moonie front group to Americorps leader (Eds. note: Read part one of this story, The GOP's Man on the Moon, here http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14455 ) No mention of David Caprara's connection to Rev. Moon-controlled organizations was made in the mid-December news release announcing his appointment as director of VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). Prior to moving to AmericCorps*VISTA, Caprara was the president of a Moon front group called the American Family Coalition (AFC). According to its Web site, the organization is a national non-profit grassroots leadership alliance promoting family and community renewal through educational and faith-based initiatives. The efforts of AFC are made possible through the generous support of The Washington Times Foundation and other individual and corporate donors. In October, the American Family Coalition sponsored a seminar called Relationship Intelligence: Teaching Our Children in the Age of AIDS. The presenter was Richard Panzer, the founder of Free Teens USA, a Moon front group that has insinuated its abstinence-only sex education curriculum into a number of school districts. In its news release, AmeriCorps Director Rosie Mauk noted that she and Leslie Lenkowsky were very pleased to have David, John [Foster-Bey], and Wendy [Zenker] to lead our programs. Foster-Bey was named to run the AmeriCorps*State and National program, and Zenker was tabbed to head AmeriCorps*NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps). Their combined knowledge and experience will help us meet the President's goal of meeting our most pressing human needs through service and volunteerism, she added. President Bush has called for service volunteers to play a critical role in strengthening faith and community groups that meet social needs, as well as emerging needs in homeland security, Corporation Board Chair Stephen Goldsmith chimed in. The Corporation is pleased to have David, John, and Wendy to help meet the President's goal of engaging more Americans to be citizens, not spectators. According to the release, AmeriCorps*VISTA works primarily with faith-based and community organizations in low-income neighborhoods to develop lasting solutions to poverty in the areas of housing, health care, literacy, community development, technology, crime prevention, and hunger. The 6,000 AmeriCorps*VISTA members nationwide assist these groups by creating and developing projects, recruiting volunteers, raising funds, and otherwise building organizations' administrative, technological, and financial capacity. I salute the spirit of service and idealism of AmeriCorps*VISTA members as they contribute to empowering the poor and renewing our most impoverished communities, said Caprara. I look forward to helping build on AmeriCorps*VISTA's long record of success. Caprara's record David Caprara has a long history of service to the conservative community and right-wing causes. He served three years as deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush White House, and later he worked for Virginia's conservative Governor George Allen as executive director of the Governor's Commission on Citizen Empowerment, where he launched the Governor's welfare reform plan. Caprara was one of the founders and is the former president of The Empowerment Network (TEN), a resource hub for state legislators, grassroots organizations, and other civic leaders promoting American family and community renewal of civil society in the 21st century. According to its website, TEN's grassroots network provides the winning edge on policy initiatives that support youth character and family revitalization, entrepreneurship and the unleashing of faith-based initiatives and cultural remedies. (For more on TEN see, Team Bush funnels money to faith-based groups: Sens. Lieberman and Santorum's 'compromise' legislation in limbo.) According to a VISTA official, the director determines the priorities of the program and to a certain extent has discretion over how funds are dispersed. Will David Caprara use VISTA as a platform to boost the Unification Church's political and social agenda? Will Moon front groups play a more active role in VISTA programs and will they receive taxpayer money to do so? In a phone interview with Dr. Richard Land, the president of Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics Religious Liberty Commission, he told me that while he was unfamiliar with Mr. Caprara's qualifications, he believed that a person's religious convictions or religious beliefs should not qualify or disqualify a person for service. Land said government must not decide which groups are kosher and which aren't. There's no question that the Unification Church is a cult, Land said, and that many people acknowledge that it in no way shape or form is
Re: [CTRL] Bush's Secret Plan
-Caveat Lector- Yeah, they're getting better at it, too. For most of its life the Weekly World News was just outrageous and funny for being so silly and over-the-top. Now they are getting much more subtle, and it's interesting to see it evolve. I love this as it's so subversive. There are people who buy this thinking it's not satirical - it's sold alongside the other tabloids like The Enquirer and The Star. This is brilliant. I wish I had a job writing for them. It would be a blast. - jt - Original Message - From: Steve Wingate [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, a satire and a good one. Steve On 26 Mar 2003 at 22:30, Joshua Tinnin wrote: Oh, Weekly World News. Missed that part. It's almost like the Onion, except it isn't marketed as satire. It really is. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Occupied Texas, former US
-Caveat Lector- http://www.exile.ru/162/162010100.html Occupied Texas, former US By Derk al-KattabiEuroNews Now that UN troops have conquered the American homeland, ending a five-year reign of terror by the Bushites, the world can afford to catch its breath and try to understand how the nightmare started. How did America go from Superpower to rogue state, drawing down on itself the wrath of the entire world? "It happened so quickly!" That's the point UN historian Col. Doug McNammie (UN/Canada) makes when describing America's descent into savagery. McNammie stresses the fact that America was a happy, prosperous nation in 2000. McNammie sees the fall of America as having three distinct stages: First, the disputed election of 2000; then the disastrous Iraq expedition; and finally, the attacks of 2004, when the US seemed to strike out almost randomly at any country it considered "unhelpful." Yankee POWs greet their Finnish Blue Helmet liberators from Bushite tyranny In McNammie's view, it was this third stage which forced the UN to contain the American threat. When the "Bushies" resorted to nuclear weapons to punish humble Norway for refusing to vote with the US in a Security Council showdown, Europe and Asia united against the "rabid" Yankees. McNammie believes America fell prey to what he calls "The Liberian Scenario." "It happens to countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone all the time," he insists. "It's just that we didn't expect to see it in the US." The first stage of the "Liberian Scenario" is a disputed election which pits tribe against tribe. In McNammie's view, the 2000 election revealed an America starkly divided between inland Fundamentalists advocating "something like Sharia Law" and coastal urbanites who were in favor of modernization. At first these tribal forces were roughly equal in power; the inland fanatics won simply because they were more savage. "The crazies turned out to be...well, crazier," sighs McNammie, shaking his head. McNammie draws some provocative parallels to other nations' return to barbarism: "It's happened to many other 'civilized' countries, like Iran. Sometimes a country just seems to decide it wants to regress. That's what happened to the US in 2000." Haunted by the illegitimacy of their rise to power, the "crazies" looked for military adventures to cement their rule. "It's a classic West-African scenario," says McNammie. "Steal the election, then start a war next door." That first war was the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in March 2003. From the start, the Iraq campaign was a disaster. Bush, who had promised war in "weeks, not months," spent almost two years waffling. Many historians now share the view that the regime purposely delayed the attack on Iraq to "madden" Americans. "Every day the war was delayed, oil prices went up, and you have to remember the Bush clan owned a lot of that oil. Why should they have hurried?" Finally, in spring 2003, Bush was forced by his own logic to order the long-delayed Iraq strike. The invasion destroyed the fragile balance of power in the Middle East. Within a year, the Saudi regime had fallen and the "New Ottomans" remade Turkey, once a valued American ally, launching the "Counter-Crusade" which has seen the Balkans come under Turkish rule once more. Then-President Bush reacted savagely to the unexpected defeats. On February 7, 2004, Bush overruled his own commanders, ordering simultaneous attacks on Somalia, Malaysia and France. Even loyal "Bush-babies" were stunned and began to counsel "moderation." Bush reacted by retreating to his fortified Virginia bunker. From this point until his final surrender to female Danish troops, Bush never left the bunker. Yet while launching attacks on dozens of former allies, Bush was almost submissive toward one country: North Korea. Even when Kim Jong-Il launched a nuclear attack on Tokyo in 2004, Bush called for "understanding" of the North Korean action. One UN psychologist explains: "Bush and Kim Jong-Il understood each other. You have to remember, they were both weak sons, drunks, cowards who liked sending other people to their deaths. They saw eye-to-eye from the start." Norway, a loyal, inoffensive NATO ally, felt the wrath of the mad president. On May 20, 2004, Oslo and Bergen, the two largest cities in Norway, were completely annihilated by US nuclear weapons. No one yet knows how the deranged leader or his henchmen reached the terrible decision. Bush, now in custody, has said only that "those fjords were suspicious." The Norwegian genocide gave the anti-US coalition new resolve. UN forces took the war to North America, overcoming the Yankees in a cruel two-year war which is only now reaching an end. The UN plan was a classic pincer attack. While Chinese and Russian troops drove south from Canada, European troops pushed north from Mexico. When the UN troops reached Texas, the most bitter and costly battles of the
[CTRL] Dessert Storm - Iran, Iraq, Whatever
-Caveat Lector- http://www.lewrockwell.com/cummings/cummings11.html Dessert Storm - Iran, Iraq, Whatever by Richard Cummings October 9, 2002 One day, quite a few years ago, I was having lunch with my Iranian friend, Rudy Alam, who was attending the University of Pennsylvania, and who was the daughter of the then Prime Minster of Iran. It was a student hangout, and a waitress recognized her. Well, I guess you'll be going home to Iraq for summer vacation, she said amiably. Iran, Rudy said. To which the waitress replied: Oh well, whatever. Oh well, indeed. Rudy's father was prime minister of Iran because the Shah was on the Peacock throne thanks to Kermit Roosevelt, the CIA station chief in Teheran, who engineered the coup that deposed Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh, who had headed a secular, fledgling democracy that had the temerity to nationalize the oil fields that, up to that point, had been exploited by BP. Having sued in the World Court and lost, the UK turned to its ally, Uncle Sam, to get the oil fields back. Rent-a-Mobs appeared, the CIA paid off the military, and Mossadegh fled in his pajamas. Once in power, the Shah stifled all dissent, using the notorious SAVAK, his intelligence service, to torture his political opponents, all under the watchful and approving eye of the United States government. This was the first great regime change, which ultimately begat the fundamentalist Islamic revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who promptly re-nationalized the oil fields and took a whole bunch of Americans hostage. To free them, Jimmy Carter sent in troops in a stupid action that failed and which led Cyrus Vance to resign as Secretary of State, one of the few noble acts by an American cabinet member in the nation's history. Fear of the fundamentalist revolution spread to oil rich nations such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, with their entrenched, sybaritic royal families who paid lip service to Islam while they boozed and caroused from Beirut to Bangkok and beyond. Iran flexed its military muscle and threatened to take over the entire Middle East. Enter Saddam Hussein, Baathist dictator of Iraq, who was part of the movement that overthrew the British-backed puppet monarchy that came originally from Saudi Arabia, but which lost out to the House of Saud, which won because of its alliance with the fierce Ikhwan, or Brotherhood, the military arm of Wahhabism, that swept down on the royal opposition and decapitated them. The CIA had given its approval to Saddam's coup against his Baathist allies, without knowing, until much later, that his hero was Joseph Stalin. Oh, well, whatever. I was sitting in the rooms of a prominent Cambridge don, having drinks with him and a British intelligence officer when the monarchy first fell. After downing a stiff drink, the MI6 gentleman looked at me and said, Iraq is your baby now. You bet. Years later, I am attending a breakfast at the River Club, a swank bastion of New York exclusivity, hosted by Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke, in honor of the guest speaker, Tariq Aziz, Saddam's bag man. Lots of top brass, bankers, and intelligence types are present, devouring bacon and eggs, sipping coffee and listening in rapt attention. Tariq Aziz is cheered as he tells us that Iraq is prepared to take out Iran and stop the spread of its dangerous Islamic revolution. Give us the tools and we will do the job, he says, echoing Churchill. So we do, and Saddam Hussein stops the Iranians, until Oliver North gets the bright idea from the Israelis to sell arms to Iran, in violation of the embargo, so it can fight Iraq to a standstill, thereby neutralizing them both. We will make contact with the Iranian-backed terrorists who are holding Americans captive in Beirut to get their release (they knock off a CIA intelligence officer), and the proceeds of the sale will go to the Contras in Nicaragua, so William Casey can engineer a regime change there in violation of federal law. The current president of Nicaragua, heir to the Contra legacy, is on the way to the can for corruption. But Saddam starts to lose, so we ship him the ingredients to make chemical and biological weapons, which he uses on the Iranians, who back off. Saddam, who has figured out by now how America stabbed him in the back, asks the Al Sabas, the ruling royals of Kuwait, to forgive his debt to them that he took out to fight the war to save their necks. Bug off, they tell him. He asks the American ambassador what the US will do if he invades Kuwait. She makes a phone call, comes back and tells him, famously, Nothing. So he does it, and we get Desert Storm. But Bush Pear (as in Pere, but some sort of exotic desert fruit) decides to let Sadam stay in power, out of fear that Iran would march on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Saddam starts making weapons of mass destruction from the stuff we gave him. Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan (I used to have dinner, when the Afghan royal family still ruled, at the Afghan embassy in
[CTRL] Iran Regime Change Next?
-Caveat Lector- Regime Change in Iran? 08/05/2002 http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/509udwne.asp -- Rafsanjani: Rumsfeld will take hope of Iran regime change to hell 11/2/02 http://www.payvand.com/news/02/nov/1001.html -- regime change in Iran Recently there have been opinion articles about the potential of the current protest movement in Iran to change the regime and criticism of the Iranian theocracy by an Iranian . I am including the entire articles, instead of the url's because access is subscription (pay) based. http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/ipe/2002/msg00914.html -- But taking over Iraq and remaking the global oil market is not necessarily the endgame. The next steps, favored by hard-liners determined to elevate Israeli security above all other U.S. foreign policy goals, would be to destroy any remaining perceived threat to the Jewish state: namely, the regimes in Syria and Iran. "The War Won't End in Baghdad," wrote the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen in the Wall Street Journal. In 1985, as a consultant to the National Security Council and Oliver North, Ledeen helped broker the illegal arms-for-hostages deal with Iran by setting up meetings between weapons dealers and Israel. In the current war, he argues, "we must also topple terror states in Tehran and Damascus." http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2002/1201beyond.htm -- U.S. and Regime Change in Iran By Michael Rubin, adjunct scholarThe Washington Institute for Near East Policy Jerusalem Post, November 20, 2001 ... Eliminating the Taliban (and hopefully Saddam Hussein as well) will be fine in the short term. But, the US can no longer afford to have no long-term strategy in the Middle East; the terror of September 11 showed the danger of allowing policy vacuums to develop. Instead of feting Iranian diplomats, Washington should increase its isolation of Iran. The mullahs see their world crumbling -- Washington should provide no misguided hope. When the Islamic republic falls, a new, secular Iran would be a natural bulwark against threats from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. It is ironic that in its drive to bring almost any Middle Eastern regime into its coalition against terror, the State Department may very well prolong a hostile regime and stymie the emergence of a new and friendly democracy. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/rubin/rubin-regime.htm -- Wednesday, July 31, 2002 Defense Chief Says US not Seeking Regime Change in Iran, DPRK US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that although the United States is seeking a regime change in Iraq, it is not pursuing the same policy towards Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200207/31/eng20020731_100660.shtml -- http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:S.RES.82: Expressing the sense of the Senate concerning the continuous repression of freedoms within Iran and of individual human rights abuses, particularly with regard to women. (Introduced in Senate) SRES 82 IS 108th CONGRESS 1st Session S. RES. 82 Expressing the sense of the Senate concerning the continuous repression of freedoms within Iran and of individual human rights abuses, particularly with regard to women. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES March 12, 2003 Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself, Mr. WYDEN, Mr. COLEMAN, Mr. CORNYN, Mr. CAMPBELL, and Mr. KYL) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the Senate concerning the continuous repression of freedoms within Iran and of individual human rights abuses, particularly with regard to women. Whereas the people of the United States respect the Iranian people and value the contributions that Iran's culture has made to world civilization for over 3 millennia; Whereas the Iranian people aspire to democracy, civil, political, and religious rights, and the rule of law, as evidenced by increasingly frequent antigovernment and anti-Khatami demonstrations within Iran and by statements of numerous Iranian expatriates and dissidents; Whereas Iran is an ideological dictatorship presided over by an unelected Supreme Leader with limitless veto power, an unelected Expediency Council and Council of Guardians capable of eviscerating any reforms, and a President elected only after the aforementioned disqualified 234 other candidates for being too liberal, reformist, or secular; Whereas the Iranian Government has been developing a uranium enrichment program that by 2005 is expected to be capable of producing several nuclear weapons each year, which would further threaten nations in the region and around the world; Whereas the United States recognizes the Iranian peoples' concerns that President Muhammad Khatami's rhetoric has not been matched by
Re: [CTRL] Bush's Secret Plan
-Caveat Lector- If there is any truth to this, then I have no doubt that the wrath of the world and most, if not all, people in the US would come down on Bush like never before. He would be kicked out faster than you could say, Cheney did business with Saddam. Bad, bad PR. And their PR machine is spinning faster and faster. Even I doubt they'd be *this* foolish. Bush isn't suicidal. - jt - Original Message - From: flw [EMAIL PROTECTED] IRAQ LAND FOR EACH AMERICAN WEEKLY WORLD NEWS - A Super-secret White House initiative promises to take some of the sting out of the coming depression by giving every man, woman and child in America a piece of Iraq after we crush Saddam Hussein in the coming war. Sources confirm that President George W. Bush hit on the plan after polls showed increasing numbers of Americans are beginning to believe that bombing Hussein and his country into oblivion and then sending a U.S. governor to run the place might not be such a good idea. Details are sketchy. But a source familiar with the plan says Iraq is going to be divvied up like the cake at a child's birthday party. Every American will be deeded a small, postage stamp-sized plot of Iraqi soil as a memento of our victory, the insider confided to reporters in Washington. And thousands of Americans, those with the best contacts in Congress and the White House, will get larger, vegetable garden-sized plots. If by luck your deeded plot is in the vicinity of an oil well, you and your descendants will rake in a share of profits until the well runs dry. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Bush's Secret Plan
-Caveat Lector- Oh, Weekly World News. Missed that part. It's almost like the Onion, except it isn't marketed as satire. It really is. - jt - Original Message - From: Joshua Tinnin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 10:25 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Bush's Secret Plan -Caveat Lector- If there is any truth to this, then I have no doubt that the wrath of the world and most, if not all, people in the US would come down on Bush like never before. He would be kicked out faster than you could say, Cheney did business with Saddam. Bad, bad PR. And their PR machine is spinning faster and faster. Even I doubt they'd be *this* foolish. Bush isn't suicidal. - jt - Original Message - From: flw [EMAIL PROTECTED] IRAQ LAND FOR EACH AMERICAN WEEKLY WORLD NEWS - A Super-secret White House initiative promises to take some of the sting out of the coming depression by giving every man, woman and child in America a piece of Iraq after we crush Saddam Hussein in the coming war. Sources confirm that President George W. Bush hit on the plan after polls showed increasing numbers of Americans are beginning to believe that bombing Hussein and his country into oblivion and then sending a U.S. governor to run the place might not be such a good idea. Details are sketchy. But a source familiar with the plan says Iraq is going to be divvied up like the cake at a child's birthday party. Every American will be deeded a small, postage stamp-sized plot of Iraqi soil as a memento of our victory, the insider confided to reporters in Washington. And thousands of Americans, those with the best contacts in Congress and the White House, will get larger, vegetable garden-sized plots. If by luck your deeded plot is in the vicinity of an oil well, you and your descendants will rake in a share of profits until the well runs dry. 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! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'-with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds-is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Regime Change, Literally - Jordan's King May Rule Post-War Iraq
-Caveat Lector- http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/publications/Hashemite.htm Regime Change, Literally - Jordan's King May Rule Post-War Iraq Commentary, William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service, Feb 19, 2003 A recently revealed document suggests that until recently, regime change in Iraq was considered not as a U.S. security issue, but as an Israeli one. PNS commentator William O. Beeman looks at the ill-advised plan. In September 2002, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly suggested that a post-war Iraq be unified with Jordan into a Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Iraq. The story was dismissed by many Middle East experts as a wild rumor. However, the rumor has surfaced again, and it is given new credence by the revelation of a document written in 1996 by Bush White House policy makers now associated with Wolfowitz and Cheney. The possibility that Iraq could be ruled by the Royal Family of Jordan in the future gives new meaning to the frequently used term regime change. It is admittedly impossible to determine whether the Bush administration will ever adopt this improbable scheme, but the fact that it is seriously discussed in the corridors of power in Washington must make thoughtful Americans seriously question the competence of those conducting the war effort. In 1996, incoming Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu solicited foreign policy advice for his government from a group of U.S. policy-makers. The document, entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, recommended the incoming prime minister make a clean break with the past. The group saw Syria as the principal threat to Israel. The policy-makers wrote: Israel can shape its strategic environment in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq -- an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right -- as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions. The authors of the report included Richard Perle, now chairman of the Defense Science Board; Douglas Feith, now U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy; and David Wurmser, author of Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, and director of Middle East Studies of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The surprise in this report is the almost dismissive manner in which Saddam Hussein is mentioned. It is as if he poses little danger in comparison to the Syrian threat. The authors talk of his removal from power in an almost cavalier manner, and the idea that Iraq could be simply absorbed into Jordan is an offhand remark: Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq... The plan to redefine Iraq into a Jordanian province was revised by Wolfowitz and Cheney last year. After the death of King Hussein in 1999, they suggested giving Iraq to Hussein's brother, Crown Prince Hassan, who had been deprived of the throne in Amman on Hussein's deathbed in favor of his son Abdullah. This was discussed in July 2002 in a meeting between Hassan and Iraqi opposition leaders. Since King Faisal II of Iraq, who was deposed in 1958, was a Hashemite and the second cousin of King Abdullah, this move was seen as having some vague potential legitimacy with the Arab leadership. The Hashemite plan has numerous flaws. Most important, the Hashemites are a family rooted in what is now Saudi Arabia. They are descendents of the sharif of the holy city of Mecca, who was rewarded by the British for authorizing Arabs to fight their Muslim brethren in the Ottoman Empire in World War I by having his son made king of these two completely new nations, Jordan and Iraq. People in the region, even Jordanians, still consider them foreign interlopers. Apparently, the plan also paid no attention to the Kurds, Turkomen and Shiites of Iraq who would certainly reject rule by King Abdullah or Crown Prince Hassan completely, even if they were allowed autonomy or even separate states. Such a state would undoubtedly fail in a paroxysm of civil discord more dangerous than the current state of affairs. But the most serious political problem with the Hashemite scheme is how wildly different it is from current strategies used to sell the Iraqi war to the world. Far from presenting Iraq's destruction as a mere ploy in a strategy to weaken Syria, the White House team members now present Saddam Hussein as the chief evil in the region. White House rhetoric noticeably downplays those things that will not play well with the American public: nation-building, the creation of new monarchical rule instead of democratic institutions in the region and the fact that Israel reaps the primary advantages from Iraq's elimination. The Bush administration has never revealed or discussed
Re: [CTRL] Reality
-Caveat Lector- What do you mean, where was I when we were supporting Saddam? Well, I was saying it was wrong, as I have said about every brutal dictator we have supported. Where were you? I still don't understand what this has to do with the inherent problem. The actions happened regardless, and continue to happen, and what I did or did not do about it is inconsequential to the matter at hand. What is important is breaking the cycle. But enough people need to feel compelled to do something about the people who are perpetuating this cycle, and not fall into the trap of believing that hired assassins propped up as puppet leaders make great friends and allies, because there's some other evildoer, and the enemy of our enemy is our friend, and later believing that these supposed friends are now our greatest enemies because they did pretty much what would be expected of hired assassins. The people who are perpetuating this cycle are our leaders, and we allow them to continue with our silence or ignorance. But I am not sure that the people here in the US are ready to confront this problem, yet, although we will surely have to at some point, and probably not long from now. - jt - Original Message - From: Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] So where were you when we were supporting Saddam? Where were all of the knowledgeable leftist groups when this was happening? I know the political groups on the right weren't around either. Although I'm Jewish, I realize that only the Christian groups are reporting the brutality that is taking place around the world, even though it is brutality toward Christians that is being reported by them. We as a society seem to have gone past the point where Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You has any importance. We are into survival of the fittest barbarism now, and everyone is taking a part. -Original Message- From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joshua Tinnin Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 10:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [CTRL] Reality -Caveat Lector- You know, this would be a lot more meaningful if the US didn't support brutal dictators when it suits our purposes ... like Saddam Hussein. Today's friends and/or paid mercenaries and assasins are tomorrow's evildoers, Saddam included. This is incredibly convenient, as there is a never-ending flow of evildoers to conquer, as one more former friend suddenly becomes the enemy. It's funny how much we used to like Saddam, to the point of arming him with the same weapons we harp about him having now, during his cruelest moments, no less. Ah, the perils of empire. - jt - Original Message - From: Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] The following describes the enemy of the US in action. What they do to their own they would do to Americans if they had the opportunity.If you think this is just war propaganda, I would call your attention to a book titled Circle of Fear by Hussein Sumaida with Carole Jerome. 1991, Brasseys. From the dust jacket.Hussein Sumaida, the son of one of Saddam Hussein's principal lieutenants, was a member of the Iraqi elite. Underlying that cruelty of Ba'th Party members who used propaganda, torture, and murder to turn Iraq into a police state. Appalled, Sumaida began to work for Israeli intelligence, but he was soon discovered and awaited the worst. Surprisingly, Saddam spared his life in an unprecedented act of loyalty to Sumaida's father and put him to work as an Iraqi spy. Thus was the author drawn even deeper into Saddam's vicious system, into the circle of fear. Hussein Sumaida's compelling story takes the reader inside the bizarre inner workings of Iraqi society and the Iraqi intelligence service, and offers a unique firsthand look at Saddam Hussein's brutal rule. Sumaida's escape from the Ba'th dictatorship is the stuff of the best spy thrillers. He now lives in Canada under an assumed identity. The author is not kind to any of the intelligence services with whom he had dealings. But Saddam Hussein's cruel operations parallel those of Hitler. Yes it can happen in these enlightened times. March 18, 2003 See men shredded, then say you don't back war By Ann Clwyd There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders. This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by researchers from Indict - the organisation I chair - to provide evidence for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past two weeks. Another
[CTRL] Attack on Iraq Begins
-Caveat Lector- More breaking stories: http://news.google.com/news?num=30hl=enscoring=dq=baghdadbtnG=Search+News http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56752-2003Mar19.html By DAVID ESPO The Associated Press Wednesday, March 19, 2003; 10:13 PM The United States launched a military strike against Iraq on Wednesday night after President Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to surrender power passed unheeded. The opening stages of the disarmament of the Iraqi regime have begun, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. Bush planned to address the nation at 10:15 p.m. EST, little more than two hours after the deadline the president set for Saddam Hussein to flee his nation or face war. Fleischer spoke as anti-aircraft fire and explosions were heard across Baghdad after air raid sirens went off at the capital at dawn. An American-led invasion force of 300,000 troops awaited the order to strike. U.S. and British forces massed in the Kuwaiti desert close to the Iraqi border, giant B-52 warplanes were loaded with bombs and Tomahawk missile-carrying ships were in position, all awaiting an attack order from Bush. The deadline came at 8 p.m. EST, which was 4 a.m. Thursday in Baghdad, its population shrunken in recent days by an exodus of thousands of fearful residents. The disarmament of the Iraqi regime will begin at a time of the president's choosing, said his press secretary, Ari Fleischer, moments after 8 p.m. The American people are ready for the disarmament of Saddam Hussein. They understand what's at stake. The military is ready, the nation is ready and the cause is just. Just after the deadline, White House chief of staff Andrew Card informed the president that intelligence officials had no information that Saddam had left Iraq. Saddam's regime gave every appearance of digging in. In the minutes after the deadline, Iraqi TV showed footage of a pro-Saddam march Tuesday in Baghdad, with members of the crowd chanting pro-Saddam slogans, some brandishing rifles and carrying pictures of Saddam. We are dedicated to martyrdom in defense of Iraq under your leadership, a loyal Iraqi parliament assured the Iraqi dictator, and armed members of the ruling Baath party deployed behind hundreds of sandbagged defensive positions in Baghdad. Even so, 17 Iraqi soldiers surrendered to American GIs during the day, eager to give up before the shooting started. Bush met periodically throughout the day with his top aides at the White House and sent formal notice to Congress that reliance on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone would not suffice to counter the continuing threat posed by Iraq. Fleischer, said the nation ought to be prepared for the loss of American lives once the military effort begins to depose Saddam and recover weapons of mass destruction. Aides said the commander in chief would decide on timing based on the advice of his military commanders. More than 25 protesters were arrested outside the White House, part of a larger group of demonstrators that chanted, banged drums and carried signs that read, Stop the War on Iraq. It seemed unlikely in the extreme. Along with the U.S.-led force approaching 300,000 troops massed in the Persian Gulf region were 1,000 combat aircraft and five aircraft carrier battle groups. The United States claims the public and private support of 45 other nations in a coalition to topple Saddam. But only Britain, with about 40,000 troops, was making a sizable contribution to the military force. In a run-up to war, U.S. aircraft also dropped nearly 2 million leaflets over southern Iraq with a variety of messages, including, for the first time, instructions to Iraqi troops on how to capitulate to avoid being killed. Hundreds of miles away, at an air base in England, crews loaded bombs aboard giant B-52 combat aircraft. Apart from the desire to capture weapons of mass destruction, Bush's submission to Congress said a military attack could lead to the discovery of information that would allow the apprehension of terrorists living in the United States. An attack, it said, is a vital part of the international war on terrorism. Despite deep divisions at the United Nations, Bush also claimed the authority - indeed, given the dangers involved, the duty - to use force against Iraq to protect the security of the American people and to compel compliance with United Nations resolutions. The diplomatic wheels turned still at the United Nations where foreign ministers were meeting in the Security Council at the request of the French and Germans, prominent critics of the American military operation. This is a sad day for the United Nations, said the organization's secretary general, Kofi Annan said. I know that millions of people around the world share this sense of disappointment and are deeply alarmed. Bush abandoned diplomacy on Monday, and administration officials blamed French intransigence for the lack of consensus on a new Security Council
[CTRL] Top White House anti-terror boss resigns
-Caveat Lector- http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030319-040543-3049r Top White House anti-terror boss resigns By P. Mitchell Prothero From the Washington Politics Policy Desk Published 3/19/2003 5:37 PM View printer-friendly version WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- The top National Security Council official in the war on terror resigned this week for what a NSC spokesman said were personal reasons, but intelligence sources say the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism. Rand Beers would not comment for this article, but he and several sources close to him are emphatic that the resignation was not a protest against an invasion of Iraq. But the same sources, and other current and former intelligence officials, described a broad consensus in the anti-terrorism and intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq would divert critical resources from the war on terror. Beers has served as the NSC's senior director for counter-terrorism only since August. The White House said Wednesday that he officially remains on the job and has yet to set a departure date. Hardly a surprise, said one former intelligence official. We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel resources and the relationships with our allies. A Senate Intelligence Committee staffer familiar with the resignation agreed that it was not a protest against the war against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but confirmed that frustration is widespread in the anti-terror establishment and played a part in Beers' decision. Randy said that he was 'just tired' and did not have an interest in adding the stress that would come with a war with Iraq, the source said. The source said that the concern by the administration about low morale in the intelligence community led national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to ask Beers twice during an exit interview whether the resignation was a protest against the war with Iraq. The source said that although Beers insisted it was not, the tone of the interview concerned Rice enough that she felt she had to ask the question twice. This is a very intriguing decision (by Beers), said author and intelligence expert James Bamford. There is a predominant belief in the intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq will cause more terrorism than it will prevent. There is also a tremendous amount of embarrassment by intelligence professionals that there have been so many lies out of the administration -- by the president, (Vice President Dick) Cheney and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell -- over Iraq. Bamford cited a recent address by President Bush that cited documents, which allegedly proved Iraq was continuing to pursue a nuclear program, that were later shown to be forgeries. It is absurd that the president of the United States mentioned in a speech before the world information from phony documents and no one got fired, Bamford said. That alone has offended intelligence professionals throughout the services. But some involved in the fight on terror said that it was dangerous to look too far into one resignation -- particularly from an official who has not blamed the war on Iraq. I found his resignation shocking, said one official closely involved in the domestic fight on terror. And it might reflect a certain frustration over the allocation of resources. But I'm not positive that there's a consensus (among intelligence services) that deposing Saddam's regime is a bad idea for fighting terror. I think that there are serious concerns about resources and alienating allies, but some of us see an upside. But others point out that the CIA warned Congress last year that an invasion might lead to a rise in terrorism. This, they say, is evidence there's more than just ambivalence about the war among the spy community. If it was your job to prevent terror attacks, would you be happy about an action that many see as unnecessary, that is almost guaranteed to cause more terror in the short-term? said one official. I know I'm not (happy). Beers joined the NSC in August after heading the State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement branch, where he ran the Plan Colombia program to fight narco-traffickers in that country. Beers served both Bush administrations as well as serving in similar capacities with both the Clinton and Reagan administrations. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of
Re: [CTRL] leftist nuts
-Caveat Lector- Yeah, I think you forgot to mention that Ron Paul is against this war, and even GHWB has warned against unilateralism. I could list a number of other conservatives against the war, but why bother? Instead of listening to the neo-cons and thinking you're conservative, Ray, you might try listening to the *real* conservatives, who unfortunately number very few these days. Dubya campaigned on making the fed smaller and not intervening in foreign entanglements. But Cheney and his cabinet, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz among them, had other ideas. They want, and now have, a Wilsonian policy, and coupled with very weak and arrogant dimplomacy, it's become isolationist and expansionist at the same time. This is not conservative according to a lot of true conservatives. It's antithetical to the Constitution and to the Founders' intentions. It's imperialism. Remember how angry Eisenhower was at the British and the French for attacking Egypt in the '50s? Remember? - jt - Original Message - From: Euphorian [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3/18/2003 1:19:05 PM, Ray Boeche [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just don't be anxious to engage me in a battle of wits unless you're sure you are fully armed. With what? Wits? With fully? Engagement rings? This is beginning to sound serious ... But seriously, how does one become armed with wits anyway? Not all people who are adamantly against war as a means to an end are leftists, nor conservatives, nor centrists. Nor communists nor democrats, nor republicans nor Greens nor Browns nor Yellows, striped, polka dots, plaids, or pastels. It's usually the ones who can think independently and see the charade for the hologram for the sleight of hand compared to those with the slight of mind or reason. As far as leftist nuts are concerned, we need those! There are bolts with an opposite threading for which rightist nuts would be not up to the taks! A:E:R A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Reality
-Caveat Lector- You know, this would be a lot more meaningful if the US didn't support brutal dictators when it suits our purposes ... like Saddam Hussein. Today's friends and/or paid mercenaries and assasins are tomorrow's evildoers, Saddam included. This is incredibly convenient, as there is a never-ending flow of evildoers to conquer, as one more former friend suddenly becomes the enemy. It's funny how much we used to like Saddam, to the point of arming him with the same weapons we harp about him having now, during his cruelest moments, no less. Ah, the perils of empire. - jt - Original Message - From: Zuukie [EMAIL PROTECTED] The following describes the enemy of the US in action. What they do to their own they would do to Americans if they had the opportunity.If you think this is just war propaganda, I would call your attention to a book titled Circle of Fear by Hussein Sumaida with Carole Jerome. 1991, Brasseys. From the dust jacket.Hussein Sumaida, the son of one of Saddam Hussein's principal lieutenants, was a member of the Iraqi elite. Underlying that cruelty of Ba'th Party members who used propaganda, torture, and murder to turn Iraq into a police state. Appalled, Sumaida began to work for Israeli intelligence, but he was soon discovered and awaited the worst. Surprisingly, Saddam spared his life in an unprecedented act of loyalty to Sumaida's father and put him to work as an Iraqi spy. Thus was the author drawn even deeper into Saddam's vicious system, into the circle of fear. Hussein Sumaida's compelling story takes the reader inside the bizarre inner workings of Iraqi society and the Iraqi intelligence service, and offers a unique firsthand look at Saddam Hussein's brutal rule. Sumaida's escape from the Ba'th dictatorship is the stuff of the best spy thrillers. He now lives in Canada under an assumed identity. The author is not kind to any of the intelligence services with whom he had dealings. But Saddam Hussein's cruel operations parallel those of Hitler. Yes it can happen in these enlightened times. March 18, 2003 See men shredded, then say you don't back war By Ann Clwyd There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders. This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by researchers from Indict - the organisation I chair - to provide evidence for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past two weeks. Another witness told us about practices of the security services towards women: Women were suspended by their hair as their families watched; men were forced to watch as their wives were raped . . . women were suspended by their legs while they were menstruating until their periods were over, a procedure designed to cause humiliation. The accounts Indict has heard over the past six years are disgusting and horrifying. Our task is not merely passively to record what we are told but to challenge it as well, so that the evidence we produce is of the highest quality. All witnesses swear that their statements are true and sign them. For these humanitarian reasons alone, it is essential to liberate the people of Iraq from the regime of Saddam. The 17 UN resolutions passed since 1991 on Iraq include Resolution 688, which calls for an end to repression of Iraqi civilians. It has been ignored. Torture, execution and ethnic-cleansing are everyday life in Saddam's Iraq. Were it not for the no-fly zones in the south and north of Iraq - which some people still claim are illegal - the Kurds and the Shia would no doubt still be attacked by Iraqi helicopter gunships. For more than 20 years, senior Iraqi officials have committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This list includes far more than the gassing of 5,000 in Halabja and other villages in 1988. It includes serial war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war; the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in 1987-88; the invasion of Kuwait and the killing of more than 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians; the violent suppression, which I witnessed, of the 1991 Kurdish uprising that led to 30,000 or more civilian deaths; the draining of the Southern Marshes during the 1990s, which ethnically cleansed thousands of Shias; and the summary executions of thousands of political opponents. Many Iraqis wonder why the world applauded the military intervention that eventually rescued the Cambodians from Pol Pot and the Ugandans from Idi Amin when these took place without UN help. They ask why the world has
Re: [CTRL] AMERICAN MARINES OUTRAGED AFTER PLACED UNDER BRITISH COMMAND
-Caveat Lector- Drudge sometimes really doesn't know when to pounce and when not to. Unfortunately, he seems to like pouncing on stories which appear to have been fed to him from the current administration. He likes to include the tagline that he's reporting the stuff Washington doesn't want you to hear. I guess that only really applies when there's a Democrat in office. Otherwise he's just another shill. Developing ... O, we hang on your every word, Matt! Tell us, please, more about the indignant soldiers and this non-event. You sure have a nose for news! Nobody could have found this except good ol' Matt, telling us what matters ... phew. - jt - Original Message - From: William Shannon [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.drudgereport.com/command.htm X DRUDGE REPORT X SUN MARCH 16, 2003 20:12:37 ET X AMERICAN MARINES OUTRAGED AFTER PLACED UNDER BRITISH COMMAND **Exclusive** American marines camped in Kuwait are furious they have been put under British command, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal. I want to serve under my own country!, one angry marine communicated to the DRUDGE REPORT this weekend. MORE In several desert camps, American troops have been placed under the command of British officers, it has been revealed. With brutal weather conditions and the lack of familiar modern conveniences taking a toll, the issue has become a hot flash point -- even before the first bombs are dropped! This is bogus, if I die, it's for the United States... not the freakin' world, said the marine, whose identity, location and mode of communication was assured anonymity. I did not come here to take orders from the British. [We] already feel a big let down by this. A top Pentagon source would neither confirm nor deny that some American troops have been placed under British command. One well-placed White House source said late Sunday, Rest assured, when it comes time for battle, every American man and woman in uniform will be under the direction of U.S. Central Command and General Franks. Developing... A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Wake up, fellow travelers
-Caveat Lector- Have you not figured out that millions of people were not marching for Marxism? It doesn't matter what people involved with ANSWER might think, if the people who are marching will not support them in their communist ideals. This type of article attempts to gt people to abandon the anti-war movement by becoming disillusioned in the movement's leaders. But what I don't think you realize is that almost none of the people who marched even care who ANSWER is. They aren't marching for ANSWER, they are marching against the war. If ANSWER wants to have people march for communism, they will have to find other followers, and the people who marched for peace would do so with ANSWER or without them. - jt - Original Message - From: Ray Boeche [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace Rally Organizer Supports Terrorism By Chet Dembeck FrontPageMagazine.com | March 17, 2003 If you want to get a better fix on whos really behind todays anti-war movement, I urge you to take a hard look at the Workers World Party, a group that never saw a terrorist it wouldnt defend. This vintage Communist organizations website proves how wrong the big media is in charactering the antiwar coalition as a groundswell of soccer moms rising up against the foreign policies of President George W. Bush. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once you carefully peruse the pages of this shrieking Bolshevik tabloid, youll begin to quickly understand that the current antiwar movement is really an ensemble of perennial America haters. Like a troupe of washed-up actors fighting each other to get to an open casting call, these hardcore revolutionaries hope to stoke a fire against the United States using the camouflage of peace. Allying itself with enemies of the U.S. is a tactic Workers World has enthusiastically embraced since its birth in 1959. But today, instead of defending dictatorial Communist regimes because most of them are extinctit defends Middle-East terrorists and dictators. You can see this plainly by randomly reading articles from the publications archives. Once you get pass the orthodox, Marxist gibberish that fills every page, you quickly discover a strident pro-terrorist theme, which paints Palestinian suicide bombers as heroes and their terrorist leaders as oppressed victims of an imperial U.S. and Zionist Israel. Barbarism Equated With Heroism For example, a headline on an article about a recent Palestinian female suicide bomber reads, Why woman Israel calls terrorist is hero to many Palestinians. The piece then goes on to justify the womans deliberate murder of innocent Israeli civilians by giving an anecdotal account of how the suicide bombers witnessing of Israeli atrocities using weapons made in the U.S. drove her to this heroic act. How much can a person take? the piece asks. Is it really so surprising that, every time Idris saw a picture of a suicide attack, she reportedly told her sister-in-law, I wish I could do that. It is surprising to me that this article and its publisher, the Workers World, cant distinguish the difference between Israeli soldiers attacking and killing armed terrorists who are lobbing mortars at them from someone who purposely straps ball bearings and explosives to their waists then commits suicide by turning themselves into deadly shrapnel in the midst of a crowd of women and children. Unfortunately, both Israel and the United States have killed and wounded innocents during armed conflicts. But the difference in how these legitimate nations react to such tragedies speaks volumes. Both the U.S. and Israel apologize and often pay compensation to the relatives of the accidental casualties. For instance, when the U.S. mistakenly downed an Iranian airliner, it paid millions in retribution to Iranian citizens. Conversely, terrorists dance in the streets celebrating the deliberate slaughter of innocent U.S. and Israeli civilians and then pay compensation to the relatives of those who committed the atrocities. Another striking omission in this article is any mention that when U.S. and Israeli soldiers are accused of committing atrocities they can be tried and convicted of war crimes. Remember U.S. Army Lt. William Calley? Even Prime Minister Sharon came under investigation by his own government in 1983 for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre. When is the last time the PLO investigated Yasser Arafat for the massacre of innocent Israelis? Never. Mendacity Of Calling For Justice Another article in the Workers Worlds archives entitled Free, Free Palestine is a report covering a so-called 100,000-people strong pro-Palestine march on Washington, D.C. As usual, there is no independent verification of this number. Theres also more support for Palestinian terrorism expressed in a quote of one of the 17-year-old organizers, who is identified as an African American. It seems that the rest of the word is beginning to learn what the Palestinian people have proven through heroic resistance: that there will
Re: [CTRL] AMERICAN MARINES OUTRAGED
-Caveat Lector- Well, yes, I understand, but I think Drudge is just printing what he thinks will support the troops. This doesn't have anything to do with UN command of US troops. - jt - Original Message - From: Euphorian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tell us, please, more about the indignant soldiers and this non-event. You sure have a nose for news! Speaking of news, there's a young fellow named Michael New who's been in trouble for a while for refusing to submit to the UN patch and hierarchy when he only agreed to support nd defend the Constitution ... from this aspect, it will be interesting to see how this develops. This has also been a long-standing issue since the Patton days as well. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Wake up, fellow travelers
-Caveat Lector- So, you think ten million people will go bezerk? Seriously, the mass of support is in support of peaceful demonstration. Some are also in favor of non-violent civil disobedience, and that is an honored tradition. If some others have their own agendas which advocate violence or overthrow, they will be virtually alone in their missions. - jt P.S. Horowitz is a crock. - Original Message - From: Ray Boeche [EMAIL PROTECTED] Have you not figured out that millions of people were not marching for Marxism? It doesn't matter what people involved with ANSWER might think, if the people who are marching will not support them in their communist ideals. This type of article attempts to gt people to abandon the anti-war movement by becoming disillusioned in the movement's leaders. But what I don't think you realize is that almost none of the people who marched even care who ANSWER is. They aren't marching for ANSWER, they are marching against the war. If ANSWER wants to have people march for communism, they will have to find other followers, and the people who marched for peace would do so with ANSWER or without them. Wrong once more, O pawn of the pacifists. Ray The Fifth Column Left Declares War By David Horowitz FrontPageMagazine.com | March 17, 2003 We have long warned on these pages that the peace movement is not about peace, that it is a fifth column communist movement to destroy America and give victory to our totalitarian enemies. Now this Fifth Column is preparing to move into action to attempt to defeat America in its war against Saddam. On the day after the U.S. military action in Iraq begins, the Fifth Column is preparing to begin its own war at home. The plan is to cause major disruptions illegal in nature in cities across the country to disrupt the flow of normal civic life. These actions will tie up Homeland Security forces and create a golden opportunity for domestic terrorists. The Fifth Column left is also planning to invade military bases. Here is a report from Salon.coms Michelle Goldberg: [Camp] Vandenberg is about 50 miles north Santa Barbara, Calif. In a few days, activists will start converging on a nearby four-acre plot of land. They're going to camp there and train to breach the base's security and possibly vandalize some of its equipment. The [leader of the activists] describes the base as the electronic nerve center of the global-surveillance-targeting, weapons-guidance, and military-command satellites that will largely direct the war. The base is 99,000 square acres, with a perimeter running through rugged, wooded terrain. If people are committed and determined and in halfway decent physical shape, it is possible to get in, because it's enormous and much of the land is still fairly wild, he says. Within the base, [the action leader] says, are major off-limits security zones, that, when breached, set off a series of responses in their own security procedures which require disruption and partial shut down of regular activities, which means the base can't operate at full capacity. [1] Here is the Internet call to arms for New York City from a group calling itself No Blood for Oil (caps in original) The No Blood For Oil! Resistance Campaign is calling on all those who oppose the war, to join us in making the first day of concentrated US attack on Iraq an International Day of Civil Resistance! We'll be rallying in New York's Times Square at 5 p.m. that day - or 5 p.m. the next day, if the US assault begins at night - to inaugurate a campaign of civil resistance that will continue as long as U.S. aggression does. THIS MEANS NO BUSINESS AS USUAL! WE JOIN WITH MILLIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY WHO CALL FOR A 'WORK STOPPAGE' ON THIS DAY! NO WORK, NO SCHOOL, NO BUSINESS AS USUAL! (www.nbfo.net) Similar actions are planned for San Francisco (actagainstwar.com), Los Angeles (ainfos.ca/en/ainfos11175.html), and the nations capital, Washington DC (dc.indymedia.org) The DC plan calls for five different actions designed to cause major domestic disruption: These will be direct action oriented, unpermitted demonstrations to interrupt Business as Usual in the Capital of Capital and to raise the social costs of the US Government to Wage war on Iraq and the world... The above actions will be carried out by the main forces of the Fifth Column communist peace movement. The violence will be spear-headed by the anarchist Black Bloc. (www.dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=52540group=webcast). This is a collection of anarchist affinity groups (see War Room #5 for a description of affinity groups) who dress in black with faces covered to facilitate illegal actions. (A clearing house website for the Black Bloc is www.infoshop.org/blackbloc.html) These are the groups that caused massive disruption and damage during the anti-globalizations riots in Seattle, and have wreaked civil havoc in other American cities. There will also be larger law-breaking
[CTRL] With Friends Like These
-Caveat Lector- http://www.sierratimes.com/03/03/17/robinson.htm With Friends Like These By Lee Robinson Published 03. 16. 03 at 20:38 Sierra Time In a war you need to know two things; who are your friends, who is the enemy. Putting your life on the line in any situation where you cannot accurately answer those two questions is virtually suicidal. The inability to distinguish between friend and foe contributed greatly to America's defeat in Viet Nam and if we are not careful it will do the same in our new so-called War on Terrorism. First and foremost, your friends are the people you can trust. If you can't trust them they aren't your friends. If they aren't your friends, they are the enemy. We are being told by the government that we must fight a vague and open ended war against terrorism. We are told that our personal survival and the survival of our way of life are at stake. But we are told this by people who have shown themselves to be absolutely untrustworthy, the very people who pose the greatest threat to our personal survival and our once free way of life; it is not logical to start believing in compulsive liars just because they start telling lies about people even worse than they are. Let me give an example: They say on the news that a new terrorist training video has appeared. The video shows al Qaida lunatics rehearsing murderous attacks on schools, practicing drive-by shootings from pick up trucks and motorcycles, launching attacks on golf courses, staging the invasion of private homes and ambushing police officers. The spin being put on this so-called training film by the government, which the mainstream media will parrot into the living rooms of the great American herd (those living rooms not yet filled with swarthy terrorists), is that this is what we can expect to happen soon in the U.S.of A. I don't believe a word of it, hell I don't believe a syllable or even a single letter of it. It seems obvious to me that this is nothing but another cheap trick designed to further the infantile masses' dependence on Big Brother. In a week or so they will present us with another list of rights that are preventing the endless federal agencies from saving us from these dedicated terrorists. Surrender these rights, we will be told, and we can still protect you. They may even hint that it will only be temporary. The whole training film scenario is too preposterous and too obviously tailored to further frighten that certain juvenile segment of society. Why would any serious group make such a thing? Were they going to sell copies on e-Bay to recruit more Islamic nut bars? Maybe they planned a correspondence course in Destroying The Great Satan and this was to be a teaching aid. Is anyone so stupid that they have to watch a video to learn how to do a drive-by shooting? Are we really supposed to believe that al Qaida, who according to the government lived and plotted among us for years without being detected by our secret federal police, just left this revealing evidence in an abandoned house in Afghanistan? It is so obviously self-serving that it is beyond the day to day treason we have been seeing these last few years, it's just plain insulting. They can do better than that, or at least they always used to. They apparently think we are all so pathetic, frightened and foolish that we will now uncritically believe anything we are told. Another news story is claiming that terrorists have infiltrated various civil rights organizations and are shamelessly using them to subvert the wonderful new anti-terrorism laws that are so essential to protecting our freedom. J. Michael Waller, a senior writer for Insight Magazine states; Terrorists and their supporters are doing their best to weave themselves into the political fabric of American society, say specialists in homeland security. They are operating front groups and charities to finance their operations, and they are running influence operations to weaken federal antiterrorism laws under the guise of protecting civil liberties. One of their pet peeves, the article implies, is the new, blatantly unconstitutional practice of people being charged with crimes based on secret evidence. This evidence is so sensitive that the accused are not allowed to know what it is. If the defendants are allowed to view the evidence against them this will somehow be bad for the Fatherland and anyone who has a problem with this new policy must, at the very least, be a terrorist sympathisizer. (And by the way, just what is a specialist in homeland security? Whatever it is I'm sure it will make an important addition to some neo-Nazi's resume.) Referring to liberal civil-liberties groups, libertarians and small-government conservatives, Waller says that The same groups, an Insight investigation shows, worked after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda airliner attacks to gut the Bush administration's tough new antiterrorism package. Well, duh, Mike. Anyone believing in the
Re: [CTRL] George W Bush to Pope -- FU -- Well SAID!!!
-Caveat Lector- He still has to deal with his constituency, many of which are Catholic. If Dubya ignores the Pope, especially when the Pope is doing nothing more than urging peace, he does so at his own political peril. - jt - Original Message - From: David Sutherland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Well that's a thumbs up for Mr Bush! Why should any patriotic American cop the superstitious blathering gobshyte of a foreign dictator (a former Zyklon B salesman during WWII), that oversees a rapacious mob of unbridled paedophiles whose crimes against the innocent and defenceless are wilfully covered-up by his deceitful underlings. My potted Venus Fly Trap knows more about god than any phoney pope. David. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Listen Bozo, this is the White House. There are no clowns here
-Caveat Lector- http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_1889.shtml Listen Bozo, this is the White House. There are no clowns here By CHB Staff Mar 6, 2003, 07:43 The White House apparently believes it should not be the subject of satire and is trying to censor a web site that parodies Vice President Dick Cheney's wife. The residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue instructed the White House counsel's office to threaten a satirist and order him to remove pictures of Mrs. Cheney - complete with red clown noses - from his Web site. The New York Civil Liberties Union struck back Wednesday on behalf of John A. Wooden, 31, threatening a lawsuit to protect his First Amendment rights to parody the White House and Bush officials on his site, whitehouse.org. The official White House site is whitehouse.gov. Cheney counsel David S. Addington warned Wooden's Chickenhead Productions Inc. that Lynne V. Cheney's name and pictures - altered to show her with a red clown's nose and a missing tooth - could not be used to make money without her consent, and told Wooden to delete the photos and fictitious biographical statement about her. Instead, Wooden cautioned Web site visitors that the vice president wishes you to be aware ... that some/all of the biographic information contained on this PARODY page about Mrs. Cheney may not actually be true. And, it added, the editors of the Web site were confident that any rumors about Mrs. Cheney formerly being a crystal meth pusher are 100 percent likely to be absolutely untrue. Similarly, any stories about her penchant for licking brandy Alexanders off the hirsute belly of her spouse are all lies, lies, lies! NYCLU lawyer Chris Dunn wrote the office of the vice president that the material was fully protected by the First Amendment. With everything happening in the world, you'd think the office of the vice president would have something more important to do than sending letters to political satirists, Wooden said. A spokeswoman for Cheney's office, Jennifer Millerwise, confirmed the letter from Addington was authentic but said she otherwise had no comment. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Impeaching Bush
-Caveat Lector- http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-enrich030603.asp March 6, 2003, 9:00 a.m. Impeaching Bush Congressional Dems ready to avenge. By David Enrich Ever since President Bush's controversial victory in the 2000 election, die-hard Democrats have dreamed of revenge for the Clinton impeachment. Now, as the country braces for war, some liberal Democrats in Congress are preparing to introduce articles of impeachment against Bush and perhaps members of his Cabinet, according to lawmakers and congressional aides. Over the past few weeks, some of the most liberal members of the House have discussed the possibility of impeaching Bush. Talks have intensified this week, lawmakers say, largely because war with Iraq appears imminent. At least one senior House Democrat has produced a draft impeachment resolution. It accuses Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft of more than a dozen high crimes and misdemeanors, including bombing civilians in Afghanistan and constitutional violations in the domestic war on terrorism. The resolution also charges Bush with threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently proclaiming an intention to change its government by force while preparing to assault Iraq in a war of aggression. A congressional aide provided the resolution's text on the condition of anonymity. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said he had no comment on the impeachment resolutions that are being discussed. Rep. Danny K. Davis, a Chicago Democrat who has discussed impeachment with his colleagues in the congressional black and progressive caucuses, said a resolution probably would be introduced in the event of a full-fledged military effort that occurs without new congressional war resolutions. There are some [lawmakers] who obviously are more eager to jump hard, and then there are others who probably aren't even thinking this way at all about impeachment, Davis said. I'd probably be in the middle. Could Bush become the third president ever impeached? Not likely. Even some of the lawmakers and aides involved in the impeachment effort say they don't expect to actually impeach the president. Instead, they say their goal is to express their outrage with the administration's foreign and domestic policies. Lawmakers sometimes introduce resolutions outlining articles of impeachment for purely political reasons, said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution. This is more than frivolous. It's just political pap, Hess said. Impeachment is not the appropriate vehicle for political argumentation, and that's what this is. Among the most vocal proponents of impeaching Bush are former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Francis A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois. They both helped craft an impeachment resolution that was introduced in Congress against the elder President Bush on the eve of the first Gulf War. Clark, the founder of the far-left International Action Center, also once advocated the impeachment of then-President Ronald Reagan. Working independently, Clark and Boyle say they have distributed sample impeachment resolutions to small groups of antiwar Democratic lawmakers and their aides. They say they expect at least one lawmaker to introduce an impeachment resolution in the House. It's under active review by several members of Congress, Boyle said. It's going to take someone with courage, integrity and a safe seat to do this. Few Democrats involved in the impeachment discussions will talk about them publicly. Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles would say only that she and other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are considering a lot of different strategies ... by which to create a real voice of opposition to war. The evidence of an imperial presidency almost grows daily, said another Democratic lawmaker, who said he would vote to impeach Bush. But some of the war opposition's usual suspects have rejected entreaties to join the impeachment campaign. I'm not interested. I think it would be destructive for this country. This country needs healing, and that's why I'm running for president, said Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, the Progressive Caucus chairman. Boyle said Kucinich's refusal to be involved in the impeachment planning was politically motivated. I think Kucinich might have done it if he had not decided to run for president, Boyle said. I guess he concluded that might hurt his run for president. But Kucinich is not the only antiwar Democrat steering clear of impeachment. There have been people asking, and I have so far declined, said Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington, who was widely condemned last year for visiting Iraq. It's really premature until we go to war. Then we'll have to see. - David Enrich, a reporter at States News Service, covers Washington for several newspapers. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER
Re: [CTRL] How to Talk Texan
-Caveat Lector- At first I wasn't sure what this had to do with anything ... then I read the subject line. Ha! Good one ;) However, there are a few good Texans, including Rep. Ron Paul, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Willie Nelson. - jt - Original Message - From: Euphorian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Print this article | Close this window Something to drool over March 5 2003 Fashion-conscious teens who get their lips or tongues pierced may end up drooling like a St Bernard or speaking like a drunk, dental hygienists warned today. The Dental Hygienists Association of Australia said piercings could cause prolonged drooling, slurred speech, difficulty chewing and swallowing, damaged teeth, reduced taste sensation and permanent nerve damage. Many people were also unaware that smoking, drinking and oral sex should be avoided for up to six weeks after an oral piercing because of an increased risk of tissue damage and bacterial infections. Biting fingernails, putting your pencil in your mouth, kissing anyone, sticking your tongue in anyone's mouth, or anywhere else for that matter - oral sex is definitely out, spokeswoman Mary Beare told AAP. Meanwhile, the tongue could swell after piercing, causing the rings or barbells to become embedded in it and requiring surgery to remove the piercings. Damage to the oral nerves could also result in slurred speech or paralysis. The cool factor of a tongue or lip piercing is quickly lost when you're drooling like a St Bernard and sound like you've had 12 beers before you've opened your first, Ms Beare said. She said people who were considering getting an oral piercing should consult a professional first and go to a piercing salon that complied with infection control standards. But Scott Hemsworth, manager of a popular inner Sydney piercing studio, said Ms Beare was overstating the risks of oral piercing. If that was the case we'd be out of business, he said. He said his studio pierced about 10 tongues, two lips and ten labrets (the skin just beneath the lower lip) a week. Mr Hemsworth said oral piercings had become less popular over the past six months. So pierced teenagers could face a prospect even worse than the health risks outlined by Ms Beare - they may find they have become last season's fashion victim. AAP This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/05/1046826429118.html Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it. The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutra A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Man Arrested for Wearing Peace T-Shirt
-Caveat Lector- http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-mall-activists0305mar05,0,3556482.story?coll=ny%2Dlatestheadlines Man Arrested for Wearing Peace T-Shirt By DAMITA CHAMBERS Associated Press Writer March 5, 2003, 6:15 AM EST ALBANY, N.Y. -- A man was charged with trespassing in a mall after he refused to take off a T-shirt that said Peace on Earth and Give peace a chance. Mall security approached Stephen Downs, 61, and his 31-year-old son, Roger, on Monday night after they were spotted wearing the T-shirts at Crossgates Mall in a suburb of Albany, the men said. The two said they were asked to remove the shirts made at a store there, or leave the mall. They refused. The guards returned with a police officer who repeated the ultimatum. The son took his T-shirt off, but the father refused. 'I said, `All right then, arrest me if you have to,' Downs said. So that's what they did. They put the handcuffs on and took me away. Downs pleaded innocent to the charges Monday night. The New York Civil Liberties Union said it would help with his case if asked. Police Chief James Murley said his officers were just responding to a complaint by mall security. We don't care what they have on their shirts, but they were asked to leave the property, and it's private property, Murley said. A mall spokeswoman did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment. Monday's arrest came less than three months after about 20 peace activists wearing similar T-shirts were told to leave by mall security and police. There were no arrests. Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Birth of the Corporation
-Caveat Lector- Birth of the Corporation by Paul Hawkin The history of corporations goes back at least to the sixteenth century, and since then their essential nature has not greatly changed. Before corporations, debts were transgenerational, passed on to descendents, some of whom were placed in debtors' prisons to repay the monies. The early state-chartered corporations of Europe and England were established to sponsor exploration of the New World. Those who sailed forth from England to trade for spices in the East Indies took grave risks in the journey, and even graver ones should they lose their precious cargoes. If they did not sail under the charter of a state corporation, they and their families could be ruined for life if bad weather or piracy struck en route. By establishing the corporate form, limiting shareholders to liabilities no greater than their investment, Europeans were able to create a form of commerce that could absorb the hard knocks of trading and exploring, encouraging both risk-taking and speculative investment at the same time. Those early corporations negotiated their charters with the state, which outlined the terms of their rights as well as the monies that were to be repaid to the crown. As a social technology, this was a brilliant invention, releasing the vigor of enterprise in the world. The charter of limited liability distinguished a corporation from all other forms of enterprise, because it was (and is) actually a gift of the statea grant, a covenant, a form of permission that citizens, through their government, delegate to the corporation and its shareholders. In the early years of the republic, the citizens of the United States were keen to prevent any institution, foreign or domestic, commercial or religious, from dominating or suppressing their newly won rights. Early corporation charters were carefully drafted by states to ensure this subordination. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were only a few hundred corporations in the United States, and many of these were chartered expressly to build canals, turnpikes, or other public infrastructure. Even then, citizens openly and persistently expressed concern that corporations with specific rights granted under charters would nevertheless become so powerful that they could take over newspapers, public opinion, elections and the judiciary. Workers had similar fears about their own status within these new corporations. Thus early state charters were detailed and restrictive. They specified limits on profits, the amounts of indebtedness allowed, the overall capitalization, and how much land a corporation could own. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were not allowed, and in the case of public works projects, corporations were allowed to retain their original investments with predetermined percentages of profit. When profit projections were reached, the project was turned over to the state. It was the commonly held opinion at that time that corporations were a creature of the law and may be molded to any shape or for any purpose that the Legislature may deem most conducive for the general good. In many states, clauses of incorporation gave legislatures the right to annul or revoke a charter whenever they chose to, or after a certain period of time (often several decades). Some states even required public votes to continue certain charters. Despite these efforts, legislatures inevitably began to lose their control over big business, state by state. Government corruption became particularly rampant after the Civil War, and with it came a loosening of laws regulating interlocking trusts, factory towns and sequestered private fortunes. Child labor flourished, along with Pinkerton and other private armies that kept protests in check, workers in line. The Civil War had transferred great amounts of wealth to corporations, and with this concentration of power they began to clamor for equal rights and new simplified chartering laws that would treat every corporation equally (This is the means of incorporation we have today: anyone can do it, and for a nominal fee.) There quickly followed a wholesale reinterpretation of the Constitution by the judiciary, granting new powers and rights to corporations. The primary thrust behind these precedents was the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This amendment protected the rights of freed slaves, but it was subsequently interpreted to give corporations the same status before the law as that of a natural person. On that basis, judges reversed hundreds if not thousands of state laws controlling wages, working conditions, ownership and corporate tenure. In the wake of those decisions, American business was transformed. Unions could be interpreted as civil conspiracies and could be enjoined from striking. With the reduction of state power, incentives were
[CTRL] Fw: !b_a_Act: Censored from US commercial TV
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's one for those without sufficient reading time... Film archive: Censored from US commercial TV Category: US military action 1st) Frontline: The War Behind Closed Doors (Airs February 20th on Public Television) - 57 minutes http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/ 2nd) Metal of Dishonor - 50 Minutes http://www.konscious.com/films/clip5/MOD_56k.ram Expose of Pentagon use of depleted uranium weapons which have compromised the health of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the U.S. and Gulf region. Contains interviews with Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Michio Kaku and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. 3rd) Documentary segment: A Bill Moyers special, The Secret Government - 20 minutes http://www.peace.ca/moyersvideo.htm 4th) Documentary segment: The Panama Deception - 22 minutes http://www.peace.ca/panamavideo.htm 5th) Documentary segment: Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair - 20 minutes http://www.peace.ca/coverupvideo.htm 6th) Speech segment: Top CIA officer, John Stockwell - 6 minutes http://www.peace.ca/stockwellvideo.htm 7th) Documentary segment: School of Assassins - 14 minutes http://www.peace.ca/soavideo.htm Category: September 11th, 2001 1st) British television (BBC Newsnight) - 9 minutes http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram This Newsnight special delves into the Bush/Binladen family connection and features the award winning investigative reporter Greg Palast. 2nd) 6/10/02 news conference (audio only) - 1 hour each (MP3) Part 1) http://www.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/2002-06-11-part1.mp 3 Part 2) http://www.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/2002-06-11-part2.mp 3 Part 3) http://www.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/2002-06-11-part3.mp 3 At the National Press Club in Washington, DC, UPI, CNN, NHK: Japan TV, Philadelphia Inquirer, American Free Press, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, Intelligence Online (Paris), Accuracy In Media, International Currency Review, and numerous investigative journalists and researchers attended a press conference about the anomalous events of 9-11. Catherine Austin Fitts, former Secretary of Housing (HUD) in the first Bush Administration is the moderator. J. Michael Springmann, Esq., Fmr. Chief, Visa Section, US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, Attorney, 20 years in US Foreign Service (CIA Global Terrorism segment), and Dr. Stephen Camerado - Director of Research; Center for Immigration Studies, (Immigration and Terrorism segment), exemplify the speakers. Unlike the previous National Press Club event this video was censored from American television. 3rd) *Frontline: The Man Who Knew - 83 minutes http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/view/ This film represents the first attempt by an American documentary film crew to deal with the issue of government complicity surrounding the events of 9-11. It focuses on the death of FBI Special Agent John O'Neill (discussed in the fifth video), who was the Bureau's most outspoken critic of its internal politics. *Related articles about Public Broadcasting politics http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/21-3/kqed.html 4th) AfterMath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11 (parts 1 2) - 5 minutes each http://www.guerrillanews.com/after_math/ These video shorts are based on information revealed at the 6/10/02 news conference. With Aftermath, 9 people have been asked 11 of the most pressing questions that emanate from the terrible and, as yet, unexplained, events of that day. 5th) Documentary segment: 9-11 The Road to Tyranny (produced by a conservative American syndicated radio/TV host) - 48 minutes http://www.defendersoffreedom.org/videos/9-11.ram In this film the extremist producer's conclusions are tempered only by the intriguing data the film uncovers and the input of David Schippers, co-counsel for Judicial Watch -- the foundation representing FBI Special Agents against the FBI (it begins after a 7 min prologue). 6th) C-SPAN -- Booknotes - approximately 15 minutes http://booknotes.virage.com/vss-bin/vss_SR/cspan_booknotes/search/?template= search.tmplaccess=PrivateShowID=1668_query4=Entire%20Program Perspective on the producer of the fifth video. *Note: Once the video begins move the positioner to the halfway point. The segment begins with discussion of the Bohemian Grove. Why is this important information censored by mainstream American news corporations? These short video clips help explain: 1st) John Stauber on PR the US commercial media - 3 minutes http://www.guerrillanews.com/stauber/ Mr. Stauber is founder and executive director of the Center for Media Democracy, Madison, WI. founding editor of PR Watch quarterly. 2nd) Documentary clip: Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free? - 5 minutes http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/ProjectCensored This Sonoma State University project film, which aired on
[CTRL] Fw2: !b_a_Act: Censored from US commercial TV
-Caveat Lector- Links broken by word-warpping fixed ... - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's one for those without sufficient reading time... Film archive: Censored from US commercial TV Category: US military action 1st) Frontline: The War Behind Closed Doors (Airs February 20th on Public Television) - 57 minutes http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/ 2nd) Metal of Dishonor - 50 Minutes http://www.konscious.com/films/clip5/MOD_56k.ram Expose of Pentagon use of depleted uranium weapons which have compromised the health of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the U.S. and Gulf region. Contains interviews with Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Michio Kaku and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. 3rd) Documentary segment: A Bill Moyers special, The Secret Government - 20 minutes http://www.peace.ca/moyersvideo.htm 4th) Documentary segment: The Panama Deception - 22 minutes http://www.peace.ca/panamavideo.htm 5th) Documentary segment: Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair - 20 minutes http://www.peace.ca/coverupvideo.htm 6th) Speech segment: Top CIA officer, John Stockwell - 6 minutes http://www.peace.ca/stockwellvideo.htm 7th) Documentary segment: School of Assassins - 14 minutes http://www.peace.ca/soavideo.htm Category: September 11th, 2001 1st) British television (BBC Newsnight) - 9 minutes http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram This Newsnight special delves into the Bush/Binladen family connection and features the award winning investigative reporter Greg Palast. 2nd) 6/10/02 news conference (audio only) - 1 hour each (MP3) Part 1) http://www.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/2002-06-11-part1.mp3 Part 2) http://www.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/2002-06-11-part2.mp3 Part 3) http://www.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/2002-06-11-part3.mp3 At the National Press Club in Washington, DC, UPI, CNN, NHK: Japan TV, Philadelphia Inquirer, American Free Press, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, Intelligence Online (Paris), Accuracy In Media, International Currency Review, and numerous investigative journalists and researchers attended a press conference about the anomalous events of 9-11. Catherine Austin Fitts, former Secretary of Housing (HUD) in the first Bush Administration is the moderator. J. Michael Springmann, Esq., Fmr. Chief, Visa Section, US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, Attorney, 20 years in US Foreign Service (CIA Global Terrorism segment), and Dr. Stephen Camerado - Director of Research; Center for Immigration Studies, (Immigration and Terrorism segment), exemplify the speakers. Unlike the previous National Press Club event this video was censored from American television. 3rd) *Frontline: The Man Who Knew - 83 minutes http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/view/ This film represents the first attempt by an American documentary film crew to deal with the issue of government complicity surrounding the events of 9-11. It focuses on the death of FBI Special Agent John O'Neill (discussed in the fifth video), who was the Bureau's most outspoken critic of its internal politics. *Related articles about Public Broadcasting politics http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/21-3/kqed.html 4th) AfterMath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11 (parts 1 2) - 5 minutes each http://www.guerrillanews.com/after_math/ These video shorts are based on information revealed at the 6/10/02 news conference. With Aftermath, 9 people have been asked 11 of the most pressing questions that emanate from the terrible and, as yet, unexplained, events of that day. 5th) Documentary segment: 9-11 The Road to Tyranny (produced by a conservative American syndicated radio/TV host) - 48 minutes http://www.defendersoffreedom.org/videos/9-11.ram In this film the extremist producer's conclusions are tempered only by the intriguing data the film uncovers and the input of David Schippers, co-counsel for Judicial Watch -- the foundation representing FBI Special Agents against the FBI (it begins after a 7 min prologue). 6th) C-SPAN -- Booknotes - approximately 15 minutes http://booknotes.virage.com/vss-bin/vss_SR/cspan_booknotes/search/?template=search.tmplaccess=PrivateShowID=1668_query4=Entire%20 Program Perspective on the producer of the fifth video. *Note: Once the video begins move the positioner to the halfway point. The segment begins with discussion of the Bohemian Grove. Why is this important information censored by mainstream American news corporations? These short video clips help explain: 1st) John Stauber on PR the US commercial media - 3 minutes http://www.guerrillanews.com/stauber/ Mr. Stauber is founder and executive director of the Center for Media Democracy, Madison, WI. founding editor of PR Watch quarterly. 2nd) Documentary clip: Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free? - 5 minutes http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/ProjectCensored This Sonoma State
[CTRL] UPDATE - Protest coverage
-Caveat Lector- Final update ... I'm sure there are more, but some of these links will expire soon, and all I've checked are still good as of yesterday. I tried to find more about Latin America, but mostly found American and European coverage of South and Central America. Indymedia and Infoshop have a lot of photos and multimedia, and I included a few links to local Indymedia sites below. Almost all of these are unique stories, if not all. There are some wire stories in there, but I tried not to duplicate any which were published in multiple papers. - jt No War! http://www.uclick.com/client/nyt/jd/2003/02/17/index.html 101 slogans from today's peace rally (SF, CA) http://www.craigslist.org/sfo/sfc/com/8743118.html Indymedia coverage, streaming media and photos http://www.indymedia.org/ Infoshop coverage, streaming media and photos http://www.infoshop.org/inews/f15antiwar_news.html Protest coverage, streaming media and photos http://www.freespeech.org/ February 2003 Antiwar Demonstrations http://www.antiwar.com/feb03demos.html Iraq Protests http://www.protest.net/iraq_protests.html Photos -- l70 Pictures from over 110 Protests around the World on February 15/16, 2003 http://www.punchdown.org/rvb/F15/ A Day of Protest to War in Iraq (February 15, 2003) http://www.glo.org/modules.php?set_albumName=album01op=modloadname=galleryfile=indexinclude=view_album.php The World Says No to War - photos http://www.blah3.com/2-15/13.html Protest photos http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/protestphotos.html ANTI-WAR PROTEST MARCHES AROUND THE GLOBE http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1425.htm NYC http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/030215/168/3a6x9.html http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/030215/168/3a88t.html Washington, D.C. http://www.carolmoore.net/photos/dcpeaceprotests2003.html SF, CA: Aerial Photos of Feb 16 Anti-war March Rally http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/1575313.php SF photos http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/notpamgreen/lst?.dir=/f16.view=t Pictures of Sacramento Protest http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/1574353.php Peace March in San Jose 2/15 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/1574309.php 2/15 Los Angeles March Photos http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/29406.php images of Hollywood Protest http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/29385.php LA Demo Breakaway Attacked!!! http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/29308.php Minneapolis Peace March 2-15 http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/minnB2-15/index.html Feb. 15 in Seattle http://seattle.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=22398group=webcast More Seattle http://www.droppingbombsonyourmom.com/album_page.php?article_id=71 Indianapolis Rally http://www.indyaccess.org/library/peace_rally.htm Santa Fe, NM Peace March http://internet.cybermesa.com/~context/ Colorado Springs, 2/15/03 http://www.8days.com/august/colospgs.htm Halifax, Canada: Photos from our February 15th Peace Walk and Rally http://hfxpeace.chebucto.org/F15.htm http://homepage.mac.com/mrushton/PhotoAlbum4.html Faces at Victoria F15 http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/11756.php Calgary Peace Rally Photos http://alberta.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/5846.php Your pictures from Glasgow's protest http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2769607.stm In pictures: Glasgow protests http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2766141.stm In pictures: World rallies against war http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2765673.stm In pictures: UK's anti-war protests http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2766805.stm More of your protest pictures http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/world_more_of_your_protest_pictures/html/1.stm London Protest Photo Gallery http://www.channel4.com/news/gallery_20030215/index.htm The Mother of all Marches 15/02/03 http://www.derekwalstow.co.uk/demo/homepage.htm IN PICTURES: THE MARCH AGAINST WAR http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12646646method=fullsiteid=50143 Dublin Pic: A 280 degree montage from near the Parnell monument of part of the demonstration [See web version of report at http://struggle.ws/wsm/news/2003/FEB15.html ] Iceland photos http://www.fridur.is/motmaeli/index.htm The World Against War / Amsterdam http://www.wacc.org.uk/NoWar/frameset.htm Amsterdam 2-15 Peace March http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ams2-15/index.html Rome photos http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/179929.php Copenhagen Peace Demonstration http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/cop2-15/index.html Osaka War Protest http://homepage.mac.com/epallan/PhotoAlbum6.html Russian photos http://onlinephoto.ru/ Images from Brisbane No War Rally http://brisbane.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4512group=webcast Historic March in Newcastle http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=26341group=webcast Melbourne Protests for Peace http://www.users.bigpond.com/Takver/soapbox/peace/peace140203.htm Christchurch New Zealand Peace Demonstration
[CTRL] Protest coverage
-Caveat Lector- 101 slogans from today's peace rally (SF, CA) http://www.craigslist.org/sfo/sfc/com/8743118.html NOWAR - Photos Report (Toronto) http://citizensontheweb.com/ A Historic Day http://www.progressive.org/webex/wx021703.html http://www.indymedia.org/ Aerial Photos of Feb 16 Anti-war March Rally http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/1575313.php Anti-War Update: A roundup of opposition across the country http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=63_0_2_0_C Iraq Protests http://www.protest.net/iraq_protests.html Report From New York http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15196 A Day of Protest http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/2003/02/000326.html Personal Voices: Dissent and a Mayor's Betrayal http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15195 Texans Turn Out Against War http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15197 A Global Antiwar Movement http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15182 Day of Global Action for Peace http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20ItemID=3046 A People's Led Globalization Emerges http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41ItemID=3059 Photos -- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/030215/168/3a6x9.html http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/030215/168/3a88t.html Your pictures from Glasgow's protest http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2769607.stm In pictures: World rallies against war http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2765673.stm In pictures: Glasgow protests http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2766141.stm In pictures: UK's anti-war protests http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2766805.stm IN PICTURES: THE MARCH AGAINST WAR http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12646646method=fullsiteid=50143 - Original Message - From: ARON KAY [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2003 4:24 PM Subject: 2/15 protest pix please forward http://www.pieman.org/february15.html [NYC] -- - Original Message - From: David L. Moore Subject: McGovern Anti-War Speech Dear Pacifica Friends, The Peace Rally held outside yesterday, Sunday, here in Missoula, Montana was highlighted by an historic speech by George McGovern, and I've arranged to have it available for broadcast. All or parts of it might serve well for news broadcasts on the nationwide/global momentum for peace. The talk is about 22 minutes long, including rounds of applause from the crowd of several thousand peace marchers. Several moments in the speech are quite moving. (The incomplete introductory remarks are from Anita Doyle of the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center here in Missoula.) You can download it as an MP3 file at http://people.montana.com/~dritz/ for use on the air. McGovern and his wife have a retirement home nearby up the Bitterroot River valley, and he speaks from time to time at Montana events. Our local newspaper, The Missoulian, this morning characterized the speech as McGovern's first major anti-war speech in 30 years. You can look at this morning's newspaper coverage and highlights of the speech and the rally at http://www.missoulian.com I'm sending this to station managers and many others around the Pacifica network and affiliates. Hope you find this useful. Some of you might just want to download it and listen. Please let me know if you do broadcast some of it. Peace in the struggle for peace, David David L. Moore Associate Professor Department of English University of Montana [EMAIL PROTECTED] 406-243-6708 -- Human Peace Sign from Antarctica http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0119-02.htm Anti War protest at McMurdo http://www.70south.com/news/1045083908/index_html Antiwar movement awakens over Iraq http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0218/p01s04-woiq.html The Numbers Game The March That Was http://www.motherjones.com/news/warwatch/2003/08/we_301_01.html Walking Along Streets of Peace http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/columnists/nyc-bres0216,0,853433.column?coll=ny-li-columnists Police fire tear gas, rubber bullets at Springs war protest http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/america_at_war/article/0,1299,DRMN_2116_1748278,00.html ANOTHER BIG TURNOUT SF peace march draws an estimated 200K to protest war on Iraq. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/17/PROTEST.TMPnl=top VANDALS MAR PEACEFUL RALLY Splinter anarchist group wreaks havoc downtown; dozens arrested. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/17/BLACKBLOC.TMPnl=top 'WE CAN STOP THIS WAR' Activists, stars and religious leaders preach peace at rally. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/17/SPEAKERS.TMPnl=top PEACE COMES IN ALL COLORS Outreach efforts bring more minorities out for Sunday's march. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/17/DIVERSE.TMPnl=top S.F. march organizers condemn violence They disavow breakaway protest http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/18/PROTEST.TMP ChronBites: Protests, Diversity, Rosen, and Lazarus
[CTRL] More on YellowTimes.org shutdown
-Caveat Lector- latest post: http://nyc.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=46344group=webcast Spoke with them by Bob 10:26pm Mon Feb 10 '03 I spoke with the people at YT and they told me that they were shut down due to using up too much CPU resources on the hosts computers. Though here is the issue. CPU resources is not on any plans. Meaning, they didn't go over their allowed hard drive space or bandwidth. The host just told them that yellow times was causing other computers there to be too slow. When yellow times offered to pay more (they are already paying over $100 a month), they said that there was nothing they could offer yellow times unless they gutted the site and made it use up less resources. When asked what is using up resources, the company said they weren't sure, but that it was just using up resources! So yellowt times tried everything but the company said that there was nothign they could do and now the whole site was suspended. talk about bullshit. according to yellowtimes, a reputable site, everything was paid for and the reason for shutting them down was pretty ridiculous. And here is where it all plays in. Think about it. If the company wanted to shut down YT because they didn't like them, that would be illegal. Discrimination. So they would have to say something else. By doing this, the company is completely exempt from a discrimination lawsuit at least. See that? So nobody can do anything. The people at YT told me that they do not claim that the company shut them down for political reasons. They simply told what happened and most people realize that this could very well be true. Especially considering a lot of other sites have shut down for similar reasons (when they question the U.S. government). Ahh, the plot thickens! A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act
-Caveat Lector- http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=502L1=10L2=10L3=0L4=0L5=0 Special ReportJustice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism ActCenter Publishes Secret Draft of Patriot II Legislation By Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle (WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2003) -- The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information. The Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft, dated January 9, 2003, of this previously undisclosed legislation and is making it available in full text (12 MB). The bill, drafted by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft and entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has not been officially released by the Department of Justice, although rumors of its development have circulated around the Capitol for the last few months under the name of the Patriot Act II in legislative parlance. We havent heard anything from the Justice Department on updating the Patriot Act, House Judiciary Committee spokesman Jeff Lungren told the Center. They havent shared their thoughts on that. Obviously, we'd be interested, but we havent heard anything at this point. RELATED DOCUMENTS The draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (12 MB) The Office of Legislative Affairs control sheet which shows that a copy of the bill was sent to Speaker Hastert and Vice President Cheney Read the Justice Department's response to this report. Senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee minority staff have inquired about Patriot II for months and have been told as recently as this week that there is no such legislation being planned. Mark Corallo, deputy director of Justices Office of Public Affairs, told the Center his office was unaware of the draft. I have heard people talking about revising the Patriot Act, we are looking to work on things the way we would do with any law, he said. We may work to make modifications to protect Americans, he added. When told that the Center had a copy of the draft legislation, he said, This is all news to me. I have never heard of this. After the Center posted this story, Barbara Comstock, director of public affairs for the Justice Dept., released a statement saying that, "Department staff have not presented any final proposals to either the Attorney General or the White House. It would be premature to speculate on any future decisions, particularly ideas or proposals that are still being discussed at staff levels." RELATED LINKS For additional information, watch the PBS program "Now With Bill Moyers" tonight at 9 P.M. EST. (Check local listings.) The show will also air an interview with Charles Lewis. An Office of Legislative Affairs control sheet that was obtained by the PBS program "Now With Bill Moyers" shows that a copy of the bill was sent to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Vice President Richard Cheney on Jan. 10, 2003. Attached for your review and comment is a draft legislative proposal entitled the Domestice Security Enhancement Act of 2003, the memo, sent from OLP or Office of Legal Policy, says. Dr. David Cole, Georgetown University Law professor and author of Terrorism and the Constitution, reviewed the draft legislation at the request of the Center, and said that the legislation raises a lot of serious concerns. Its troubling that they have gotten this far along and theyve been telling people there is nothing in the works. This proposed law, he added, would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive suspicion, create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups. Some of the key provision of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 include: Section 201, Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information: Safeguarding the dissemination of information related to national security has been a hallmark of Ashcrofts first two years in office, and the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 follows in the footsteps of his October 2001 directive to carefully consider such interest when granting Freedom of Information Act requests. While the October memo simply
Re: [CTRL] THE REAL ACTION IS IN THE RE-ACTION
-Caveat Lector- Jesus fucking christ. This is pretty much a call to action against protesters. I'm sure that the John Birch Society will have things under control ... yeah, I fell better already ... Even if they're wrong about what the militant left is going to do, or what it attempts to do, the JBS will likely react as if it were happening anyway. Is this what it's coming to, militias fighting protesters? Has everyone lost their fucking minds? - jt - Original Message - From: William Shannon [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 3:54 PM Subject: [CTRL] THE REAL ACTION IS IN THE RE-ACTION -Caveat Lector- A HREF=http://etherzone.com/2003/burn020403.shtml;http://etherzone.com/2003/ burn020403.shtml/A THE REAL ACTION IS IN THE RE-ACTION LET'S PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER! By: Albert V. Burns This column is longer than normal because it is of paramount importance that this information be disseminated as rapidly and as widely as possible. Time is getting critically short to save this country and our freedoms. Please read this, absorb its significance and then forward it to everyone you know and treasure! If you are not willing to take the time to read six pages of vital information, you will be of little use in the fight for freedom- read no further! A month or more ago, we discussed a little book by former Czechoslovakian Communist leader, Jan Kozak. The book was titled: And Not A Shot Is Fired. It details the manner in which a free country can be subverted through the use of pressure from above and pressure from below. The pressure from below is brought about by organized mob action in the streets to ostensibly oppose some governmental procedure or policy. The action in the streets is made to appear much more pervasive than it really is by a controlled news media in order to convince the general populace that it is a majority campaign- even though it is being carried out by a very small number of highly trained agitators. These agitators are able to manipulate large numbers of innocent idealists, whom Lenin called useful idiots, to achieve their aims. Under this pressure from below, other activists who have been implanted in high government positions capitulate and pass into law programs which they had wanted to do all along. This is the pressure from above. The communists around the world have been HIGHLY successful in using this technique in virtually every country which they have taken over. In another column, we mentioned that testimony given by former Communist, Dr. Bella Dodd in which she testified of her amazement when the top leadership of the Communist Party, USA was given orders from Moscow telling them that if they needed a decision on short notice they were to contact one of three top financiers in New York City. She stated that in every case when they had done so, the decision from the financier was corroborated by Moscow. She was surprised to find that there were masters in the financial world who had more authority than the Communist leaders in Moscow. In that same column, we talked of the book Tragedy and Hope- A History Of The World In Our Time, by Carroll Quigley. In that book, Quigley exposed, for all the world to see, the conspiracy to rule the world which had taken shape in the late 1800s under Cecil Rhodes. He explained how Rhodes had fostered the Round Table Group in England. From that Round Table Group of top conspirators had come the Royal Institutes of International Affairs in the English commonwealth and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the United States. In the book, Quigley told how the Morgan firm (part of the CFR) had infiltrated the left-wing movements in the U.S. He explained that this had been very easy to do since these movements were always starved for funds and for a voice (media) to reach the public. Both of these, the CFR could provide in abundance. The purpose, according to Quigley, was not to destroy these groups, but to remain aware of their plans, to provide them with media exposure, and finally, to have a final veto on their publicity and on their actions. Here, again, we have evidence of the master conspiracy which was (and is) using the Communist conspiracy as one of its tools. In 1971, the little book None Dare Call It Conspiracy, was published by Gary Allen and Larry Abraham. Allen passed away a number of years ago. Larry Abraham is now publishing a monthly newsletter called, The Insider Report. I have known Mr. Abraham for over three decades. He has an absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of the conspiracy which is determined to rule the world. I have rarely known him to be wrong in his predictions of the future actions of the Insiders. In Abrahamâs latest alert, he explains how the recent mass demonstrations in major cities around the nation have been inspired and led by former and current members of the left-wing in this country. I have seen a dozen or so others who have reported the same
[CTRL] Fw: {attack} NASA chiefs 'repeatedly ignored' safety warnings
-Caveat Lector- This webpage is an information mechanism for solutions to NASA's human space projects problems. Members of the American aerospace community are encouraged to use this webpage as an instrument to openly express constructive concerns and solutions for the problems at NASA. No names will be used unless requested. Speak out... or forever suffer the consequences of remaining silent Don A. Nelson, Coordinator . Retired NASA Aerospace Engineer from: http://www.nasaproblems.com/ bios: http://www.celestis.com/04bios/Nelson.html http://www.spacefuture.com/cgi/glossary.cgi?gl=whoterm=Don%20A%20Nelson Other links which feature Nelson: NASA and President Bush's Space Policy - http://www.nasawatch.com/election.2000.html Money problems abound as NASA gears up for more construction - http://www.nctimes.net/news/2001/20010709/63849.html 15 years after Challenger disaster, NASA considering crew escape systems - http://archive.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500303851-500486534-503362269-0,00.html NASA Constructs, Cuts Station - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/09/tech/main300419.shtml NASA's Nelson makes security a frontline issue - http://www.gcn.com/20_27/news/17034-1.html Senate panel studying shuttle safety - http://www.aerotechnews.com/starc/2001/091401/shuttle_safety.html No Time To Waste - http://www.insync-watch.com/issues99/augsept99/timetowaste.html International Space Station key truss segment passes tests, but... - http://www.floridatoday.com/space/explore/stories/1999/010199a.htm - Original Message - From: spiker [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reminder - this list is available in digest form. Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] This message and all others are archived at http://www.topica.com/lists/USAttacked/read Rich Martin Moderator Source: The Observer - UK http://www.observer.co.uk/ NASA chiefs 'repeatedly ignored' safety warnings http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,887236,00.html Peter Beaumont Sunday February 2, 2003 Fears of a catastrophic shuttle accident were raised last summer with the White House by a former Nasa engineer who pleaded for a presidential order to halt all further shuttle flights until safety issues had been addressed. In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served with NASA for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote to President George W. Bush warning that his 'intervention' was necessary to 'prevent another catastrophic space shuttle accident'. During his last 11 years at NASA, Nelson served as a mission operations evaluator for proposed advanced space transportation projects. He was on the initial design team for the space shuttle. He participated in every shuttle upgrade until his retirement. Listing a series of mishaps with shuttle missions since 1999, Nelson warned in his letter that NASA management and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel have failed to respond to the growing warning signs of another shuttle accident. Since 1999 the vehicle had experienced a number of potentially disastrous problems: · 1999 - Columbia's launch was delayed by a hydrogen leak and Discovery was grounded with damaged wiring, contaminated engine and dented fuel line; · January 2000 - Endeavor was delayed because of wiring and computer failures; · August 2000 - inspection of Columbia revealed 3,500 defects in wiring; · October 2000 - the 100th flight of the shuttle was delayed because of a misplaced safety pin and concerns with the external tank; · April 2002 - a hydrogen leak forced the cancellation of the Atlantis flight; · July 2002 - the inspector general reported that the shuttle safety programme was not properly managed; · August 2002 - the shuttle launch system was grounded after fuel line cracks were discovered. Nelson's claims - which The Observer could not independently verify yesterday - emerged against a background of growing concern over the management of safety issues by Nasa. They followed similar warnings in April last year by the former chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory panel, Richard Bloomberg, who said: 'In all of the years of my involvement, I have never been as concerned for space shuttle safety as I am right now.' Bloomberg blamed the deferral or elimination of planned safety upgrades, a diminished workforce as a result of hiring freezes, and an ageing infrastructure for the advisory panel's findings. His warning echoed earlier concern about key shuttle safety issues. In September 2001 at a Senate hearing into shuttle safety, senators and independent experts warned that budget and management problems were putting astronauts lives at risk. At the centre of concern were claims that a budget overspend of almost $5 billion (£3bn) had led to a culture in NASA whereby senior managers treated shuttle safety upgrades as optional. Among those who spoke out were Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who warned: 'I fear that if we don't provide the space shuttle programme with
[CTRL] Fw: FC: More on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster earlier today
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 2:13 PM I don't know Dian, but Terry is a longtime and valued subscriber to Politech. NASA still has Dian's bio online, which says she was a propellant engineer: http://ltp.arc.nasa.gov/women/bios/dh.html Also, while it may be just a coincidence, remember that Columbia carried Israel's first astronaut and came as tensions in the Middle East are growing: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/258358.html Space agency officials feared his presence might make the shuttle more of a terrorist target... A senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been some intelligence that raised concerns about a previously scheduled flight of Columbia, which was to have carried the same crew... -Declan --- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 16:17:44 -0500 Subject: re: Challenger - Fw: I F-ING WARNED THEM. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dian is a naturist friend in Florida. She's one of the first two women in the country to have gone through US Marine EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal school. She also has some stories about being subjected to a made-for-TV arrest in the time since being fired by NASA for allegedly threatening a politician, a misuse of felony law a la Homeland Security trying to silence her political outspoken attitude and frequent directed criticism newspaper letters to editors. -- Terry Two years ago, I was a highly decorated NASA engineer. I was awarded their highest medal, for Exceptional Achievement -- something that is usually reserved for senior managers -- because of my expertise. I was a safety engineer. I was removed from my GS-13 position, as an internationally-recognized authority on hypergolic propellants and explosives, and forced off the Kennedy Space Center. At gunpoint. Their excuse was that I had abused government equipment. Because I sent a friend an e-mail joke. The reality was that I wouldn't play their political ball. I F-ING WARNED THEM. I told them that the technicians and engineers were overworked. I told them that there were too many managers and too many meetings and dog-and-pony shows. I told them that their senior face time play games, while they spent all their time plotting how to give each other pay raises, and left the guys on the floor to struggle day to day with obsolete and overpriced and unqualified equipment, was going to result in another Challenger. I was there for Challenger. I saw the same exact conditions happening again. Overpaid, lazy, irresponsible managers concerned solely with their climbing up their ladders. I told them they were skimping on inspections. I told them that the ground crews were asleep on their feet from exhaustion. I made as much noise as I knew how to make about the top-heavy bureaucracy sitting around in their fancy panelled offices, giving whorish press interviews in their smugness, while they did not have a clue what was going on in the real world where I was working. They fired me. They fired a GS-13 civil servant, with an Exceptional Service medal and ten dozen commendations. For sending an e-mail joke. In reality, for objecting to political fat-cats sitting on their fat rear ends and failing to do their jobs. Like Challenger, those who are most guilty are the ones who will attempt to make the most political capital out of it. But the blame for Columbia lies entirely and totally with the NASA administrators. They should all be investigated for their criminal negligence. They should all serve time in jail. I warned them. They did their best to destroy me, because I warned them. It's too bad that innocent astronauts paid with their lives for NASA managers greed and political ass-kissing. But I am not surprised. Two years ago, I warned them. Dian Hardison Cocoa, FL 32927 --- From: shayne oneill [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during descent today Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 03:26:25 +0800 This is a real tragedy Declan, As a kid growing up in Australia , I remember watching the Challenger tragedy at some wierdly early hour of the morning, waking up my father (jumping on bed!) and us both being traumatised at the tragedy of it all. This tragedy is also worthy of note and pause. Perhaps the saddest thing of it all, is that the Israeli Astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon was truly a representative of peace at a time when both the israeli and palestinian governments seem so keen on war. I'm sure I speak for most Australians when I express my dearest condolences to America, Israel and all those represented on this flight. Shayne. --- From: Dennis Dayman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during descent today Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 11:18:03 -0600 We saw it
[CTRL] Fw: [bizarronews] The Truth about Vox
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Special: The Truth About Vox Sander Hicks, January 31, 2003 ISLIP, Long Island- Lance Schotte works at night, so he wasn't quite awake when some three dozen Secret Service agents and Suffolk County police officers stormed into his apartment at 10 a.m. I woke up to this huge banging noise-it sounded like people were pounding on the back door, the front door and the side door simultaneously, recalls the Islip resident. I opened the door. I wasn't expecting what happened. It was December 13 when a handful of unmarked cars and a couple of cruisers pulled up in front of the house where Schotte, a computer programmer for a Nassau online retailer, rented a one-bedroom apartment. Not knowing what was up, he opened the door. Five or six of them got in my face. 'SHOW ME I.D.' is what they kept saying, says Schotte. I said, 'Who are you?' They just kept saying 'SHOW ME I.D.' Schotte asked for a search warrant. We don't need one, you let us in, was the reply. He was confined to his living room and hammered with a barrage of questions, while elsewhere agents rifled through his closets and drawers. The whole time, I was asking, 'What is this about?' They were extremely belligerent, they were hostile, in demeanor, in attitude, in intrusiveness. Schotte assumed the agents were looking for an escaped criminal, so at first he was cooperative. But when his I.D. didn't placate them, he began to suspect the search had something to do with his landlord, who owned the house but lived in various places. Right before they left, they said, 'We want to talk with Stuckey,' he says. That would be Mr. Harry Vox Stuckey, the 39-year-old founder of VoxNyc.com. Scion of a staunchly Republican New York family, Vox was once considered for grooming as a potential Republican congressional candidate. By his own account he made a mint working in commercials instead, renting out his equipment and creative expertise at high prices through the high-flying '90s. Pressed, he admits to creating a very successful advertising campaign for global financial house ING Barings. Although the money was good, he hated the work, and has been almost grateful at the plunge in advertising since 9-11 that helped nudge him to other endeavors. Vox had been writing wild exposés of the secrets of the Bush family under the pseudonym VoxFux since establishing his website devoted to leftist political theories and commentary in 2001. When the Associated Press published a report under the headline CIA Can Kill Citizens Who Aid Al-Qaida: Bush Doesn't Exempt Americans by John J. Lumpkin, on Dec. 4, 2002, Vox recoiled at the CIA's new powers. He published an article pointing out that by this logic, the Bush family could be worthy of an instant CIA hit themselves. Both Presidents Bush have had business dealings with Salem bin Laden, the now-dead, once-beloved older brother of Osama. They got to know Salem bin Laden through their Texas pal James Bath and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the now-busted Saudi front for buying political power in the United States. Although Vox's argument about Bush was adequately made in the article, he now admits he might have poked the hornet's nest by publishing it with the following sensationalist headline: By Bush's Own Policy, He Must Be Immediately Terminated: No Trial, No Explanation, No Warning-Just Immediate Obliteration: The text went on to read: By the administration's own policy, both Bushes must be immediately destroyed. No trial, no explanation, no warning - Just immediate obliteration. According to White House officials the President's policy is that association alone, with ANY suspected Al Queda or terrorist, is sufficient enough justification for immediate extermination by the CIA or US military. Yet there is NO other family in America today who has had closer ties with the Bin Ladens than the Bush family. And that bears repeating. THERE IS NO OTHER FAMILY IN AMERICA WHICH HAS HAD CLOSER ASSOCIATIONS AND SUSPICIOUS DEALINGS WITH THE BIN LADEN FAMILY THAN GEORGE BUSH SENIOR AND JUNIOR. NO OTHER AMERICANS! Period. Prove us wrong . . . by voxfux (The original photo accompanying the story is unavailable.) It's likely that the Secret Service was not interested in the nuances of Vox's argument about Bush, and interpreted his headline as a direct threat on the president's life. Brian Marr, official spokesman for the Secret Service, confirmed that the raid had happened but refused to discuss it on the record, since the investigation is still ongoing. The Long Island Press contacted the local office, and got a similar non-denial denial. I kind of have to give you a pat answer on this issue, explained Martin Walsh, resident agent of the Melville Secret Service office. We don't make a comment on issues of protective intelligence. In some ways, Vox shouldn't have been surprised. High-profile attorney Ron Kuby, who has taken up Vox's
Re: [CTRL] EMERGENCY POWERS
-Caveat Lector- And some people say it was Lincoln who did this ... But what I really wonder about is, even if both of these states of emergency were never lifted officially, how, exactly, is this apparent or evoked? I mean, I know that there are serious problems with the government and its un-Constitutional actions and have been for some time, but it seems to me that all of this could and would have happened no matter if the emergency states were set back to normal after the time of the actual emergencies had passed. After all, a lot of people in office are more than willing to acquiesce to whoever dangles the right carrot in front of them, and that's all it really takes, not some archaic and possibly irrelevant lack of dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. - jt - Original Message - From: Nakano Nakamura [EMAIL PROTECTED] Quoted from news report: After Saturday's disaster, President Bush invoked his EMERGENCY POWERS to authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to spend whatever federal funds are needed to help with debris recovery and otherwise pay expenses in Texas and Louisiana related to the incident. In fact, the United States has been under a continuous State of Emergency in which the president has Emergency Powers since Congress and Franklin Roosevelt declared a State of Emergency in 1933. (See Church Committee Report U.S. Senate) Nakano A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] [ctrl] IS AMERICA ABOUT TO BE PULSED?
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: RevCOAL [EMAIL PROTECTED] snip A more worthwhile track of speculation/discussion is just WHY have the PTBs declared it a FEDERAL LAW probibiting anyone to even TOUCH any of the debris? We're not talking about proscribing TAKING the debris for souveniers or to sell on EBAY (a media story yesterday which I suspect was a plant -- as are all the 'we have many sick people reporting to area hospitals who got too close to the debis' stories -- to help vilify anyone actually touching/taking debris), we're talking that if someone finds a piece of debris in the middle of their driveway and shoves it to the side so that they can get their vehicle out of their garage, then they have broken a federal law. -- A variety of opinions from the Politech list - I copied the most relevant part to the top of this post: From: CoolAl027 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 23:47:14 -0600 2/1/03 7:00:09 PM, Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [Legal question: If a piece of shuttle debris falls on my land, does it become my property? I assume not. --Declan] Declan, Throughout the numerous times that they advised the public about not touching debris due to the toxicity, CNN occasionally tossed in a line along the lines that not only is it dangerous but illegal as well. From what I found as well, it appears this happened with the Challenger a couple years ago ( http://www.space.com/news/challenger_wreckage_010128.html ) and from what they told Charles Starowesky, who tried selling it online, that it is illegal to own as well as sell the debris according to US Code Title 18 Sec. 641 ( http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/641.html) Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof; or... The reason being according to Space.com is that: As NASA never relinquished ownership of the spacecraft, possession of Challenger debris translates to theft of government property. All parts recovered today are interred with the original wreckage in two abandoned missile silos at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. So since they never severed ownership rights, it still is technically government property which is what the law applies to. Not only that, but like they said, since the Challenger investigation had been completed long before 2001, who knows what (if any) help this might have provided to investigators at the time. Probably the most sick and disturbing part is the intent of some individual (regardless of ignorance to the law) is that they would be profiting off of a national tragedy quite blatantly without any regard to life over money. Brian -- Complete Politech post: --- Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 19:58:01 -0500 (EST) From: Matthew G. Saroff [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: FC: Space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during descent today For what it's worth, I am a mechanical engineer, who has worked with SAMS and artillery rockets, but this is my assesment of the incicent, feel free to forward to politech: What I've heard at this point, along with the video of the breakup, indicates a failure of the thermal protection system. There were changes in the pressure of the left main tires consistent with heating, and the drop in hydraulic pressure is consistent with the fluid boiling. -- Matthew G. Saroff Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. --- From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: More on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster earlier today Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 07:10:13 +0530 Organization: -ENOENT On Sunday, February 02, 2003 3:43 AM [GMT+0530=IST], Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know Dian, but Terry is a longtime and valued subscriber to Politech. NASA still has Dian's bio online, which says she was a propellant engineer: http://ltp.arc.nasa.gov/women/bios/dh.html A previous crash (the Challenger) introduced me to one of my favorite poems - High Flight, by a world war II fighter pilot - John Gillespie Magee. It deserves a rerun now :) http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/276.html srs --- From: Bradford A. Patrick, Esq. [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Shuttle - legal. Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:45:47 -0800 RE: Falling shuttle debris A space shuttle, in whole or in part, is not exactly what you would call lost or abandoned property. Many people are looking for it. Finder's keepers doesn't work against Uncle Sam. -Brad Bradford A. Patrick, Esq. Preg O'Donnell Gillett PLLC 1800 Ninth Ave., Suite 1500 Seattle, WA 98101-1340 (206) 287-1775 wk
[CTRL] Fw: (en) Freedom 6401 25 Jan, 2003 - Behind the panic
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: Worker [EMAIL PROTECTED] A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/ http://ainfos.ca/index24.html The arrest of a number of Algerian refugees on 14th January for allegedly making the poison ricin, and the accompanying death of a Special Branch officer, have led to an ever-intensifying media panic. Strange that this should suddenly happen now, when Blair is having real difficulty selling Bush's oil war to his cabinet colleagues, let alone the public. There have been stories in the media since last year about random terrorists of north African origin. 'Terror attack on Tube planned' was one sensationalist headline in December, though the men arrested for it were later released without charge, like some of those arrested this time. But the releases haven't made it into most of the mainstream media while, with a couple of exceptions, journalists have remained silent on the nature of ricin. This has led people to believe a mass gas attack in the style of Winston Churchill may have been planned. The truth is that ricin is a lethal toxin. But it has to be delivered into the body to work, so it's a weapon of individual terror or assassination rather than the indiscriminate terror that an F-15, say, is capable of. The most infamous use of ricin was when Bulgarian secret police murdered dissident Georgi Markov in London in 1978, using a poisoned umbrella. It's perhaps worth speculating why police made such an elemental error when they arrested the men in Manchester. In my experience, they're not slow in handcuffing people. And this was an anti-terrorist operation, which implies they at least thought the men were dangerous. Did someone higher up in Greater Manchester Police tell the officers to go easy, or was it just a cock-up? It's unlikely we'll ever know the full facts, but it's certainly convenient for Blair if he can pretend these men have a link to Iraq. This, however, may prove difficult. The mainstream media have focused on the number of Algerians coming to Britain and claiming asylum, and how some of them may be terrorists. There's been precious little attempt to understand why Algerians might flee their homeland, why they might turn to terror and why they may not want to go to France. In 1991, the Algerian generals scrapped elections because the Islamic Salvation Front won them. Since then, over 80,000 people have been slaughtered. European, primarily French, intelligence services knew all about this, but guess what - Algeria has oil and gas, so they've kept schtum. In 1997, Observer journalist John Sweeney wrote, so why the silence? Let us not underestimate the power of the state of Algeria. It squats on huge oil and gas deposits worth billions. It supplies the gas that warms Madrid and Rome. It has a £1.8 billion contract with British Petroleum. No western government wants to make trouble with the state of Algeria. Its wealth buys silence, buys complicity. Since the military junta overthrew the country's democracy, 80,000 have been killed: Europe's gas bill. The sad truth is that the Algerian military behave in the same way Saddam Hussein does. They suppress all opposition, particularly working class, ethnic and Islamist groups. The only difference is that their paymasters haven't fallen out with them yet. Martin H. See the current issue of Black Flag for a report of the Kabylie revolt against the Algerian military government. Available from Freedom Press, price £1 plus 50p postage in the UK, £1 elsewhere. *** ** The A-Infos News Service ** News about and of interest to anarchists ** COMMANDS: [EMAIL PROTECTED] REPLIES: [EMAIL PROTECTED] HELP: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca/ INFO: http://www.ainfos.ca/org -To receive a-infos in one language only mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] the message: unsubscribe a-infos subscribe a-infos-X where X = en, ca, de, fr, etc. (i.e. the language code) A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at:
Re: [CTRL] Ezekiel 31 Shows There Were People In The Garden Of God Besides Adam And Eve
-Caveat Lector- Thanks for the overly-pedantic and patronizing explanation of the symbology in Genesis. It was amusing. Just goes to show that any nut with a book of religion can dream up that God said whatever they want to hear. Your posts reveal much more about you than they do of the Bible, and it's not a pretty picture. - jt A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] SBC Modems are a Trojan Horse
-Caveat Lector- This sounds totally bogus. I am an SBC ADSL customer, and, while there are other problems related to their service, this is completely uncorroborated and undocumented. As such, it can't be taken seriously. However, for your information, my modem is made by Westell, which also supplies ADSL modems to a number of other ISPs, and they can also be bought without subscribing to any ADSL service. The technical information you provide is inaccurate - that's not how the protocol which SBC uses (PPPoE) works, and they are not the only company which uses this protocol. Are you referring to the IOS of the Pacbell/SBC network? Are you referring to this problem? http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/largeent/issues/security/sbytes/v03i10_1101.html#vuln1 If so, you seem to have misunderstood what the problem actually is, as it deals with routers, and doesn't apply to people who have modems. Incidentally, if you are an SBC ADSL customer with a fixed IP, you can use a router, and there is no modem involved. - jt - Original Message - From: Shemuwel Antoine Moser [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cisco at www.cisco.com supplied all of SBC's (which now owns Ameritech) DSL modems. Cisco informed me that they supplied the ADSL modems to Quest Communications a division of SBC and this company modified the IOS (Internet Operating System) and would not disclose to Cisco how they changed the IOS so Cisco told Quest Communications and SBC that they could not support the modem and SBC did not care. SBC is pressuring small ISP's into buying their modified DSL modems and pass them on to their customers. SBC modems are a DANGEROUS Trojan Horse that insiders can use to get into your computer no matter what kind of firewall you use because since the back door is through the ISO itself the firewall will think it is normal traffic allow it. Do not use SBC or Quest Communications supplied modems. Use modems from Cisco. Insist that your small ISP use Cisco modems and thumb their nose at SBC. SBC and Quest Communications modems are a dangerous Trojan Horse so beware! A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] SBC Modems are a Trojan Horse
-Caveat Lector- I should add that I know a number of SBC ADSL subscribers, and they use a variety of different modems for their dynamic IP customers, Westell included. There is nothing special or especially different about these modems, except they support PPPoE, and you are free to buy your own from an unrelated third party and use that, as long as it supports PPPoE. Fixed IP ADSL customers who use SBC as their provider don't need a modem, which is also the case for most other fixed IP broadband services. - jt - Original Message - From: Joshua Tinnin [EMAIL PROTECTED] This sounds totally bogus. I am an SBC ADSL customer, and, while there are other problems related to their service, this is completely uncorroborated and undocumented. As such, it can't be taken seriously. However, for your information, my modem is made by Westell, which also supplies ADSL modems to a number of other ISPs, and they can also be bought without subscribing to any ADSL service. The technical information you provide is inaccurate - that's not how the protocol which SBC uses (PPPoE) works, and they are not the only company which uses this protocol. Are you referring to the IOS of the Pacbell/SBC network? Are you referring to this problem? http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/largeent/issues/security/sbytes/v03i10_1101.html#vuln1 If so, you seem to have misunderstood what the problem actually is, as it deals with routers, and doesn't apply to people who have modems. Incidentally, if you are an SBC ADSL customer with a fixed IP, you can use a router, and there is no modem involved. - jt - Original Message - From: Shemuwel Antoine Moser [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cisco at www.cisco.com supplied all of SBC's (which now owns Ameritech) DSL modems. Cisco informed me that they supplied the ADSL modems to Quest Communications a division of SBC and this company modified the IOS (Internet Operating System) and would not disclose to Cisco how they changed the IOS so Cisco told Quest Communications and SBC that they could not support the modem and SBC did not care. SBC is pressuring small ISP's into buying their modified DSL modems and pass them on to their customers. SBC modems are a DANGEROUS Trojan Horse that insiders can use to get into your computer no matter what kind of firewall you use because since the back door is through the ISO itself the firewall will think it is normal traffic allow it. Do not use SBC or Quest Communications supplied modems. Use modems from Cisco. Insist that your small ISP use Cisco modems and thumb their nose at SBC. SBC and Quest Communications modems are a dangerous Trojan Horse so beware! A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] SBC Modems are a Trojan Horse
-Caveat Lector- Whoops! Sorry, damn word-wrapping. - Original Message - From: Joshua Tinnin [EMAIL PROTECTED] I should add that I know a number of SBC ADSL subscribers, and they use a variety of different modems for their dynamic IP customers, Westell included. There is nothing special or especially different about these modems, except they support PPPoE, and you are free to buy your own from an unrelated third party and use that, as long as it supports PPPoE. Fixed IP ADSL customers who use SBC as their provider don't need a modem, which is also the case for most other fixed IP broadband services. - jt - Original Message - From: Joshua Tinnin [EMAIL PROTECTED] This sounds totally bogus. I am an SBC ADSL customer, and, while there are other problems related to their service, this is completely uncorroborated and undocumented. As such, it can't be taken seriously. However, for your information, my modem is made by Westell, which also supplies ADSL modems to a number of other ISPs, and they can also be bought without subscribing to any ADSL service. The technical information you provide is inaccurate - that's not how the protocol which SBC uses (PPPoE) works, and they are not the only company which uses this protocol. Are you referring to the IOS of the Pacbell/SBC network? Are you referring to this problem? http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/largeent/issues/security/sbytes/v03i10_ 1101.html#vuln1 If so, you seem to have misunderstood what the problem actually is, as it deals with routers, and doesn't apply to people who have modems. Incidentally, if you are an SBC ADSL customer with a fixed IP, you can use a router, and there is no modem involved. - jt - Original Message - From: Shemuwel Antoine Moser [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cisco at www.cisco.com supplied all of SBC's (which now owns Ameritech) DSL modems. Cisco informed me that they supplied the ADSL modems to Quest Communications a division of SBC and this company modified the IOS (Internet Operating System) and would not disclose to Cisco how they changed the IOS so Cisco told Quest Communications and SBC that they could not support the modem and SBC did not care. SBC is pressuring small ISP's into buying their modified DSL modems and pass them on to their customers. SBC modems are a DANGEROUS Trojan Horse that insiders can use to get into your computer no matter what kind of firewall you use because since the back door is through the ISO itself the firewall will think it is normal traffic allow it. Do not use SBC or Quest Communications supplied modems. Use modems from Cisco. Insist that your small ISP use Cisco modems and thumb their nose at SBC. SBC and Quest Communications modems are a dangerous Trojan Horse so beware! A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Brits Break Silence on UFO Sightings
-Caveat Lector- http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woufo1204,0,4993585.story Brits Break Silence on UFO Sightings Combined News Services December 4, 2002 London -- Criticized for keeping secret the files on a prominent UFO sighting, the British government posted them on the Internet this week, 22 years after the fact. The files, released under Britain's Freedom of Information Act, contain accounts by U.S. Air Force security men at an air base near Ipswich in eastern England, who saw a brilliantly lit object land in woods outside the base in December 1980. Investigating what they thought was a plane crash, the officers found a strange glowing object that was metallic in appearance ... approximately two to three meters [seven to 10 feet] across the base and approximately two meters [seven feet] high, reads a report by Deputy Base Commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering, or on legs. Skeptics say the witnesses were dazzled by the beam of a lighthouse on the nearby coast. But the report adds that the next day three depressions seven feet in diameter were found in the grass and that readings of beta and gamma radiation were 10 times the normal. Until last week, only around 20 members of the public had seen the file, which can be found by searching freedom of information documents at www.mod.uk. (found 'em) http://www.mod.uk/linked_files/publications/foi/ufo/ufofilepart1.pdf http://www.mod.uk/linked_files/publications/foi/ufo/ufofilepart2.pdf http://www.mod.uk/linked_files/publications/foi/ufo/ufofilepart3.pdf http://www.mod.uk/linked_files/publications/foi/ufo/ufofilepart4.pdf http://www.mod.uk/linked_files/publications/foi/ufo/ufofilepart5.pdf A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
