Disinformation » Government

TV Presenter Gets Death Sentence for ‘Sorcery’

Raymond — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:27:33 +0000

Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for “sorcery.”In a statement released Thursday, the international rights group condemned the verdict and demanded the immediate release of Ali Hussain Sibat, former host of a popular call-in show that aired on Sheherazade, a Beirut based satellite TV channel.

According to his lawyer, Sibat, who is 48 and has five children, would predict the future on his show and give out advice to his audience.

The attorney, May El Khansa, who is in Lebanon, tells CNN her client was arrested by Saudi Arabia’s religious police (known as the Mutawa’een) and charged with sorcery while visiting the country in May 2008. Sibat was in Saudi Arabia to perform the Islamic religious pilgrimage known as Umra.

[Read more at CNN World]

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight

Raymond — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:07:49 +0000

From Newsweek:

Six billion dollars later, the Afghan National Police can’t begin to do their jobs right—never mind relieve American forces.

Mohammad Moqim watches in despair as his men struggle with their AK-47 automatic rifles, doing their best to hit man-size targets 50 meters away. A few of the police trainees lying prone in the mud are decent shots, but the rest shoot clumsily, and fumble as they try to reload their weapons. The Afghan National Police (ANP) captain sighs as he dismisses one group of trainees and orders 25 more to take their places on the firing line. “We are still at zero,” says Captain Moqim, 35, an eight-year veteran of the force. “They don’t listen, are undisciplined, and will never be real policemen.”

Poor marksmanship is the least of it. Worse, crooked Afghan cops supply much of the ammunition used by the Taliban, according to Saleh Mohammed, an insurgent commander in Helmand province. The bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sold by the cops are cheaper and of better quality than the ammo at local markets, he says. It’s easy for local cops to concoct credible excuses for using so much ammunition, especially because their supervisors try to avoid areas where the Taliban are active. Mohammed says local police sometimes even stage fake firefights so that if higher-ups question their outsize orders for ammo, villagers will say they’ve heard fighting.

[Read more at Newsweek]

Your Life Will Some Day End; ACTA Will Live On

Raymond — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:03:11 +0000

From Ars Technica:

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) isn’t just another secret treaty—it’s a way of life. If ACTA passes in anything like its current form, it will create an entirely new international secretariat to administer and extend the agreement.

Knowledge Ecology International got its hands on more of the leaked ACTA text this week, including a chapter on “Institutional Arrangements” that has not leaked before. The chapter makes clear that ACTA will be far more than a standard trade agreement; it appears to be nothing less than an attempt to make a new international institution that will handle some of the duties of groups like the WTO and WIPO.

Why bother? Well, from the perspective of countries like the US, the existing institutions have problems. For one, they feature a huge number of nations, some of whom have blocked some of the anti-counterfeiting provisions desired by the US and others. Call this the UN problem—getting much done with so many people in attendance can be tricky, and ACTA has become a “coalition of the willing” who have decided to go form their own club instead.

[Read more at Ars Technica]

LAPD’s Death Squad

Raymond — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:09:03 +0000

From the Examiner:

My grandfather was a hired gun for a rail road which has long since gone out of business. After returning from World War I, he found employment with the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1920’s.

Hired gun is an accurate description of law enforcement in those days. Most people “learn” their history from movies and television. Hollywood’s historical timeline seems to end with Westerns depicting the era of the great cattle drives of the later 1800s and pick up again with depression era gangster movies and the ubiquitous obligatory Irish cop.

Combine all that with most Hollywood writers being from New York and in the business to entertain and not inform and we have a very uninformed populace.

Contrary to the myth of the Wild West, which was never very wild, there were more gunfights in the twenty year run of the old television series “Gun Smoke” than there were in all of the Western states combined for the period depicted. And in Hollywood’s version of history, men stopped carrying guns at the end of the 1880s The only people who carried guns after that were cops and robbers.

[Read more at the Examiner]

Gay Soldier Arrested After Chaining Himself to White House Fence

Raymond — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:07:44 +0000

From the Raw Story:

A prominent gay rights advocate and soldier being discharged under the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring openly gay members of the military from serving openly was arrested after chaining himself to the fence of the White House Thursday.The Advocate notes:

Following a Human Rights Campaign rally for DADT repeal at Freedom Plaza in Washington, Choi and Pietrangelo led about 100 protesters to the White House, where the two then proceeded to handcuff themselves to the gates. Pietrangelo was discharged from the military under the gay ban, while Choi’s discharge is pending. Choi is the founder of Knights Out, a West Point alumni organization supporting LGBT soldiers.

United States Park Police spokesman Sgt. David Schlosser told The Advocate that both men were taken to Park Police’s Anacostia station for processing, where they were charged with failure to obey a lawful order. Choi and Pietrangelo will be held overnight and are scheduled to appear in D.C. Superior Court on Friday.

Choi told rally attendees, according to the report: “You’ve been told that the White House has a plan. But we learned this week that the president is still not fully committed. … Following this rally, I will be leading [the protest] to the White House to say ‘enough talk.’ … I am still standing, I am still fighting, I am still speaking out, and I am still gay.”

[Read more at the Raw Story]

Social Security to Start Paying Out More Than It Takes In (Again)

Ralph Bernardo — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:03:03 +0000

Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont received the first Social Security payment on January 31, 1940.

I have never had any expectations I that ever will collect Social Security … let’s see how Congress deals with this crisis (again). This entitlement system (from an accounting standpoint) sure does hope you die before you get old…

STEPHEN OHLEMACHER writes on the AP via Yahoo News:

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It’s time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds — which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg’s municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn’t be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

Another Gulf War Syndrome?

Raymond — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:46:47 +0000

From Mother Jones:

Burning trash on bases is sickening soldiers, but the Army refuses to extinguish the burn pits.

Before her last deployment, 31-year-old Staff Sergeant Danielle Nienajadlo passed her Army physical with flying colors. So when she started having health problems several weeks after arriving at Balad Air Base in Iraq, no one knew what to make of her symptoms: headaches that kept her awake; unexplained bruises all over her body; an open sore on her back that wouldn’t heal; vomiting and weight loss. In July 2008, after three miserable months, Nienajadlo checked into the base emergency room with a 104-degree fever.

She was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and learned she had been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-progressing form of the disease. She told her doctors and her family she had felt fine until she started inhaling the oily black smoke that spewed out of the base’s open-air trash-burning facility day and night. At times, the plume contained dioxins, some of which can cause the kind of cancer Nienajadlo had.

“She breathed in this gunk,” says her mother, Lindsay Weidman. “She’d go back to the hooch at night to go to bed and cough up these black chunks.”

[Read more at Mother Jones]

Why Punish Iran for What Israel Has Already Done?

Raymond — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:38:25 +0000

From Truthout:

As the Western powers continue to criticize Iran for its nuclear enrichment program, and while they try to pressure Russia and China to impose stiffer economic sanctions, maybe it would be an opportune time to remember that for decades Israel has developed nuclear weapons and has tried to keep its program a secret. In fact, Israel has produced more than 200 nuclear warheads, a number of which can be deployed on nuclear submarines, long-range aircraft and missiles.(1)

Starting in the 1950’s, Israel begin producing uranium for its nuclear missiles program. It is one of the few nations that has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it has never declared its nuclear weapons program publicly.(2) From the Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert to the complex nuclear facilities at Nahal Soreq, Rehovat and Yodefat – which is near the Syrian border – Israel has constructed a number of large-scale nuclear facilities, many of them underground.(3)

In one incident at Dimona, when American inspectors came to check on the use of their nuclear materials and technologies, the doors to the lower levels were bricked up. A false control room was displayed to suggest the reactor was operating at a lower level than the Israelis admitted.(4) Stories abound about how Israeli officials obtained nuclear materials and technologies from illegally diverted ships, by stealing uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation at a plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania.(5)

[Read more at Truthout]

Secret Document Calls Wikileaks ‘Threat’ to U.S. Army

Ralph Bernardo — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:20:57 +0000

David Kravets writes on WIRED’s Threat Level:

Wikileaks presents a “threat to the U.S. Army” and publishes “potentially actionable information” for targeting military personnel, according to a classified intelligence report posted on the whistleblowing site.

The 32-page report entitled Wikileaks.org — An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence Services, Insurgents, or Terrorist Groups? indicates the government’s concern that “current employees or moles” within the Defense Department or the U.S. government “are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.” To stop this, the 2008 report had suggested a campaign to expose and punish those who leak to the site, which was founded in 2007 by Chinese dissidents, journalists and mathematicians.

“Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the website that they will remain anonymous,” according to the report. “The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public.”

Experts Say the U.S. Pays Too Much to Fight Cancer

phunkychic666 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:15:17 +0000

Ellen Gibson writes on Bloomberg News via the Columbus Dispatch:

The rising cost of cancer research and care, which helped reduce death rates by 16 percent over 40 years, is straining the U.S. health system and needs to be restrained, commentators said in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Cancer research has cost the U.S. government $100 billion since 1971 and the price of care, accounting for inflation, has more than doubled to $90 billion since 1990, according to six journal reports that raise key questions about the past and future success of the U.S. “War on Cancer,” announced by then-President Richard Nixon in 1971.

The reduced death rates result from anti-smoking campaigns, early disease detection and new drugs, which can cost individual patients as much as $100,000 a year. The price of the drugs, and the care tied to their use, can be lowered by shifting to a system in which the cost of drugs, tests and other care are combined in a single provider payment, researchers said.

Such a system would push doctors to “shop carefully for the services” patients need, wrote the researchers from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, led by Elena Elkin, in a commentary that was among those included in the special issue.

Bush Officials Warned 9/11 Commission Against Probing Too Deeply

5by5 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:26:15 +0000

Some people ask, “Why do conspiracy theories get such traction in people’s minds?”

Perhaps because the arguments against them are not entirely dissuasive, but I have to say, if nothing else, it’s largely because of stories like this one, that actually lend credence to people’s suspicions by providing them with objective proof of the government’s attempt to obfuscate and withhold vital information.

Whether it is done in order to prevent embarrassment, or to protect themselves from prosecution, the fact remains, Bush officials in Washington were more concerned with covering their own butts, than publicly revealing an inconvenient truth. Even if it meant that national security might be improved and a similar event avoided.

As of today, it has been revealed via a FOIA request made by the ACLU, that Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet sent a letter dated January 16, 2004 to the members of the 9/11 Commission that there was an investigatory line it was “not allowed to cross.”

The line was in questioning the terrorist suspects that the Bush Administration was busy torturing, in violation of both U.S. and international law. In other words, the Commission was not allowed to question the accused.

Hardly a high point for American jurisprudence.

LINK to Raw Story article

Subsection #3 is perhaps the most obscene part of the letter, as it is quite pointedly, a bald-faced LIE. It claims that detainees are receiving “humane treatment”, at precisely the same time as they are being waterboarded over 180 times, subjected to sleep deprivation (or what torturers of the Middle Ages called “Tormentum Insomniae”), stress positions, sexual humiliation, beatings until several deaths resulted, etc., etc., etc…..

Personally, I don’t think these three Bush Administration officials should have feared any commission headed up by a man like Lee Hamilton: your go-to guy for worthless commissions that assign no responsibility, impose no accountability, and even hide inconvenient evidence if necessary. He does have a history of placing bipartisanship over truth, as he did during the Iran-Contra investigations where he literally shuffled off evidence into a Senate storage room in the Hart Office Building that proved Bush Sr. and other Reagan officials (like now SecDef Gates) went to Paris & made backdoor deals with the Iranians to keep the hostages incarcerated until after Reagan was inaugurated.

Between Hamilton and Bush insider Zelikow, there was basically no chance that anyone would have to face punishment for their actions (or lack thereof) on that day.

Because of all this, asking those critical questions, and the attempts to find answers to them, gets left up to the general public, as the compliant corporate press happily takes whatever the government feeds them, rather than acting like the Fourth Estate – the literal guardians of the truth, who should at a minimum, regard those in power with rational skepticism, not blind belief.

So the answer is to my initial question is simply this – conspiracy theories get traction because all the people who SHOULD be doing their jobs ferreting out the truth, AREN’T.

Obama Says Will Not Campaign for Any Democratic Congressmen Not Supporting Health Care Reform

Ralph Bernardo — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:57:07 +0000

Looks like the arm twisting is working, as one of the strongest critics of this current effort, Dennis Kucinich, just announced he will vote for the bill. Alex Spillius writes on the Telegraph:

The president will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill.

A one-night presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds which would otherwise take months to accumulate through cold-calling by campaign volunteers.

Mr Obama’s threat came as the year-long debate over his signature domestic policy entered its final week.

Mr Obama is personally telephoning congressmen who are still on the fence this week, in between several personal appearances devoted toward swinging public opinion.

Don’t Ask Me

Raymond — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:55:24 +0000

From the New Yorker:

“I do not see how permitting open homosexuality in these communities enhances their prospects of success in battle. Indeed, I believe repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” will weaken the warrior culture at a time when we have a fight on our hands.”

—General Merrill A. McPeak, former Air Force Chief of Staff, on the Op-Ed page of the Times.

My name is Marine Corporal Roger T., and I am one gay soldier who agrees wholeheartedly with General McPeak, although I think that he doesn’t go far enough. Because my staying closeted, in fact, makes me a better soldier, through what I term sublimation. For example: Right before heading out into a firefight with Iraqi insurgents, I always imagine myself at the beach with Merrill A. McPeak, both of us in helmets, camouflage-print Speedos, combat boots, and sunglasses. I picture myself rubbing sunblock all over the luscious, leathery hide of General McPeak, and the adrenaline rockets through my veins, and by the time I leave the Green Zone I’m ready to kill anything that moves, and then make savage, passionate love to its corpse. I’m at what I like to call my sensual, combat-ready McPeak.

As a gay man, I naturally spend much of my time debating casting issues involving the musical theatre, although, thankfully, I can’t share such thoughts with my unit. Instead, when I spot a potential suicide bomber, I think of him as someone who insists that Tyne Daly was the greatest Mama Rose of all time, even better than Merman. This makes me so enraged, and my aim grows so steady, that I can pick off the bomber with a single well-flung grenade, while shouting to myself, “Tyne was appealing, but she didn’t have a shred of Angela Lansbury’s esprit, or Patti LuPone’s thwarted fury! Anyone who ranks Tyne over Patti deserves to die! ” It’s called valor.

[Read more at the New Yorker]

Obama NASA Plans ‘Catastrophic’ say Moon Astronauts

Raymond — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:14:16 +0000

From BBC News:

Former Nasa astronauts who went to the Moon have told the BBC of their dismay at President Barack Obama’s decision to push back further Moon missions.

Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, said Mr Obama’s decision would have “catastrophic consequences” for US space exploration.

The last man on the Moon, Eugene Cernan, said it was “disappointing”.

Last month Mr Obama cancelled Nasa’s Constellation Moon landings programme, approved by ex-President George W Bush.

Nasa still aims to send astronauts back to the Moon, but it is likely to take decades and some believe that it will never happen again.

‘Moral leadership’

The astronauts spoke to the BBC at a private event at the Royal Society in London on Friday organised by the Foundation for Science and Technology.

They were joined there by the first man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong.

As the last astronaut to return to the Apollo 17 lunar module in 1972, Cernan was the last man to set foot on the Moon.

[Read more at BBC News]

Why Are We Afraid to Tax the Super-Rich?

Raymond — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:25:49 +0000

Talk about an elephant in the room… This article illuminates how the super-rich keep their wealth while you pay 30% to the tax man every week. They actually use the “American Dream” against us. Greed is the central motivator behind the Tea-Bagger movement and most current “Fair” Tax movements.

From Alternet:

Our nation is already deeply in debt. How can we possibly afford to invest in our infrastructure, renewable energy, health care, our schools — and create the millions of jobs that our unemployed desperately need?

We are told that we’re already living well beyond our means — that entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security will bankrupt us. Forget the solar panels, the smaller classes and the new jobs — we’ve got to cut back on government programs at all levels.

Meanwhile, the super-rich are still having a ball. In his annual shareholder letter, mega-investor Warren Buffett wrote, “We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.” And Forbes Magazine adds, “Many plutocrats did just that. Indeed, last year’s wealth wasteland has become a billionaire bonanza. Most of the richest people on the planet have seen their fortunes soar in the past year.”

Which brings us back to the federal budget. There are two sides to every ledger: the expenses…and the income. We need to start looking at the income side. With a fairer tax system, we could retrieve some of that money downpour that the elite has been siphoning away from us for decades.

[Read more at Alternet]

FEMA’s Sale of Katrina Trailers Sparks Criticism

phunkychic666 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:50:00 +0000

Spencer S. Hsu writes in the Washington Post:

In a giant auction, the federal government has agreed to sell for pennies on the dollar most of the 120,000 formaldehyde-tainted trailers it bought nearly five years ago for Hurricane Katrina victims. But the sale of the units, perhaps the most visible symbol of the government’s bungled response to the hurricane, has triggered a new round of charges that it is endangering future buyers for years to come.

Consumer advocates and environmentalists are outraged that the government resold products it deemed unsafe to live in, saying warning stickers attached to the units will not keep people from misusing them.

Besides formaldehyde, units might be plagued by mold, mildew and propane gas leaks, FEMA acknowledged.

“Proceed with caution, extreme caution, if you are tempted to respond to what appears to be an attractive offer for a travel trailer or manufactured home,” Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel wrote in a consumer alert. He and others cautioned that the FEMA units could be resold many times, including over the Internet, and that unscrupulous sellers could remove warning labels or withhold information about the dangers.

Could Hitler Serve in the United States Senate?

JacobSloan — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:54:10 +0000

Here’s what Hitler would look like minus his mustache and with a flag lapel pin added: basically, ready to sit in Congress next to Orrin Hatch.

NYC Schools Prohibit Sale of Home-Made Food and Allow Junk for Fundraising?!?

phunkychic666 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:37:36 +0000

From NYC Green Schools:

Regulation A-812 prohibits home-baked foods from being sold at school fundraisers, while permitting Doritos and Pop-Tarts instead! Yes, this regulation mandates that if we want to raise money for our schools, we have to buy and sell junk food to our children!

VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION TO REGULATION A-812!

— Our schools cannot become venues for big food corporations, like Pepsi Cola and Kellogg’s to advertise and sell their processed foods to our children!

— Our children must not receive the message that junk food is healthier for them than foods cooked at home!

— We, as parents, must be allowed to participate in the discussion about our children’s health and nutrition!

Join us at City Hall on Thursday March 18th. We will be setting up one table with the approved DOE items and another table with home-baked goods — with a list of ingredients for everyone to see.

Get More Info at NYC Green Schools

$650m Compensation Settlement for Heroes of September 11

phunkychic666 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:27:26 +0000

Nico Hines writes on the Times:

Rescue and recovery workers who were exposed to a toxic brew of smoke and dust in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks have been awarded $650 million in a compensation deal struck in New York.

Thousands of 9/11 heroes, including firefighters, police officers, construction experts and emergency workers, have filed lawsuits since 2003 but last night’s agreement is expected to put an end to years of legal battles.

The settlement, worth up to $657.5 million (£434 million), was reached after negotiations between lawyers representing more than 10,000 people exposed to the debris from the World Trade Center and New York City’s federally financed insurer.

Some workers are likely to receive payments of only a few thousand dollars. Others could be in line to get more than $1 million, depending on their injuries.

disinfoview: Jesse Ventura on ‘American Conspiracies’

majestic — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:12:30 +0000

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has a new bestselling book out, American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies that the Government Tells Us. Following my recent interview with June Sarpong, a member of the investigative team for his TV series Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura, Jesse agreed to meet with the disinformation® New York crew at the legendary Russian Tea Room.

I asked Jesse why he’s digging up dirt where other public figures fear to tread, what we should do with the information he’s revealing, who he thinks is really behind the myriad conspiracies in his book — from JFK to 9/11 — and much more. Enjoy the video — we’ll post some extra clips where we talk off the record about everything from surfing to rock & roll … soon!

New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Vermont Embrace Decriminalization of Marijuana

Raymond — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:47:17 +0000

From the Examiner:

With numerous states facing significant budget shortages, legislators and voters across the country this month have been giving overwhelming support to measures that would reduce the penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana to a civil fine.

Yesterday in New Hampshire, the state House voted 214-137 to pass H.B. 1653, a bill that would reduce the penalty for possession of up to a quarter-ounce of marijuana with a civil fine of up to $200.

In Hawaii, the state Senate voted 22 to 3 on March 2 to pass SB 2450, a bill that would eliminate criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and replace them with a civil fine of up to $300 for a first offense and $500 for a subsequent offense.

And in Vermont, 72% of voters in Montpelier approved a non-binding ordinance asking the state legislature “to pass a bill to replace criminal penalties with a civil fine for adults who possess a small amount of marijuana.”

[Read more at the Examiner]

Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest

Raymond — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:13:05 +0000

From Wired’s Threat Level:

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

[Read more at Wired's Threat Level]

The Government Can Take Your House and Land, Then Sell Them to Private Corporations

Ralph Bernardo — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:25:48 +0000

Here is another chapter from Russ Kick’s classic bite-size Disinformation book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003.

For more on Russ Kick, check out his website, The Memory Hole.

_____________________________________

It’s not an issue that gets much attention, but the government has the right to seize your house, business, and/or land, forcing you into the street. This mighty power, called “eminent domain,” is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment: “… nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” Every single state constitution also stipulates that a person whose property is taken must be justly compensated and that the property must be put to public use. This should mean that if your house is smack-dab in the middle of a proposed highway, the government can take it, pay you market value, and build the highway.

Whether or not this is a power the government should have is very much open to question, but what makes it worse is the abuse of this supposedly limited power. Across the country, local governments are stealing their citizens’ property, then turning around and selling it to corporations for the construction of malls, condominiums, parking lots, racetracks, office complexes, factories, etc.

The Institute for Justice — the country’s only nonprofit, public-interest law firm with a libertarian philosophy — spends a good deal of time protecting individuals and small businesses from greedy corporations and their partners in crime: bureaucrats armed with eminent domain. In 2003, it released a report on the use of “governmental condemnation” (another name for eminent domain) for private gain. No central data collection for this trend exists, and only one state (Connecticut) keeps statistics on it. Using court records, media accounts, and information from involved parties, the Institute found over 10,000 such abuses in 41 states from 1998 through 2002. Of these, the legal process had been initiated against 3,722 properties, and condemnation had been threatened against 6,560 properties. (Remember, this is condemnation solely for the benefit of private parties, not for so-called legitimate reasons of “public use.”)

In one instance, the city of Hurst, Texas, condemned 127 homes so that a mall could expand. Most of the families moved under the pressure, but ten chose to stay and fight. The Institute writes:

A Texas trial judge refused to stay the condemnations while the suit was ongoing, so the residents lost their homes. Leonard Prohs had to move while his wife was in the hospital with brain cancer. She died only five days after their house was demolished. Phyllis Duval’s husband also was in the hospital with cancer at the time they were required to move. He died one month after the demolition. Of the ten couples, three spouses died and four others suffered heart attacks during the dispute and litigation. In court, the owners presented evidence that the land surveyor who designed the roads for the mall had been told to change the path of one road to run through eight of the houses of the owners challenging the condemnations.

In another case, wanting to “redevelop” Main Street, the city of East Hartford, Connecticut, used eminent domain to threaten a bakery/deli that had been in that spot for 93 years, owned and operated by the same family during that whole time. Thus coerced, the family sold the business for $1.75 million, and the local landmark was destroyed. But the redevelopment fell through, so the lot now stands empty and the city is in debt.

The city of Cypress, California, wanted Costco to build a retail store on an 18-acre plot of land. Trouble was, the Cottonwood Christian Center already owned the land fair and square, and was planning to build a church on it. The city council used eminent domain to seize the land, saying that the new church would be a “public nuisance” and would “blight” the area (which is right beside a horse-racing track). The Christian Center got a federal injunction to stop the condemnation, and the city appealed this decision. To avoid further protracted legal nightmares, the church group consented to trade its land for another tract in the vicinity.

But all of this is small potatoes compared to what’s going on in Riviera Beach, Florida:

City Council members voted unanimously to approve a $1.25 billion redevelopment plan with the authority to use eminent domain to condemn at least 1,700 houses and apartments and dislocate 5,100 people. The city will then take the property and sell the land to commercial yachting, shipping, and tourism companies.

If approved by the state, it will be one of the biggest eminent domain seizures in U.S. history.

In 1795, the Supreme Court referred to eminent domain as “the despotic power.” Over two centuries later, they continue to be proven right.

References: Berliner, Dana. Government Theft: Top 10 Abuses of Eminent Domain, 1998-2002. Castle
Coalition (Institute for Justice), 2003. • Berliner, Dana. Public Power, Private Gain: A Five-Year, State-by-State Report Examining the Abuse of Eminent Domain. Castle Coalition (Institute for Justice), April 2003.

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Look for more 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know under the tag “50 Things” on disinfo.com.

Internet Freedom: Beyond Circumvention

Raymond — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:14:18 +0000

From Worldchanging.com:

Secretary Clinton’s recent speech on Internet Freedom has signaled a strong interest from the US State Department in promoting the use of the internet to promote political reforms in closed societies. It makes sense that the State Department would look to support existing projects to circumvent internet censorship. The New York Times reports that a group of senators is urging the Secretary to apply existing funding to support the development and expansion of censorship circumvention programs, including Tor, Psiphon and Freegate.

I’ve spent a good part of the last couple of years studying internet circumvention systems. My colleagues Hal Roberts, John Palfrey and I released a study last year that compared the strengths and weaknesses of different circumvention tools. Some of my work at Berkman is funded by a US state department grant that focuses on continuing to study and evaluate these sorts of tools and I spend a lot of time trying to coordinate efforts between tool developers and people who need access to circumvention tools to publish sensitive content.

I strongly believe that we need strong, anonymized and useable censorship circumvention tools. But I also believe that we need lots more than censorship circumvention tools, and I fear that both funders and technologists may overfocus on this one particular aspect of internet freedom at the expense of other avenues. I wonder whether we’re looking closely enough at the fundamental limitations of circumvention as a strategy and asking ourselves what we’re hoping internet freedom will do for users in closed societies.

So here’s a provocation: We can’t circumvent our way around internet censorship.

[Read more at Worldchanging.com]

Pentagon Shooting Yet Another Sign of Boiling Anti-Government Sentiment

Raymond — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:07:01 +0000

From Alternet:

The media are trying to find political affiliations for the Pentagon shooter, but they’re missing the big picture.

Another day, another violent anti-government kamikaze act. As the feds recover from Joseph Stack flying his airplane into an IRS building in Austin on Feb. 18 — leaving one dead and 13 injured — the media and government have another dead man to worry about.

Thursday night, after having driven cross-country from California to Washington, John Patrick Bedell walked up to a screening area at the Pentagon and starting firing his two semiautomatic weapons. In less than a minute, he’d wounded two police offers and received gunshot injuries that would later kill him.

Like Stack, Bedell was well-educated and left behind comprehensive material that outlined his longtime anger at the U.S. government. But his grievances are different from Stack’s.

While the deeply tortured manifesto Stack wrote detailed his frustrations with the tax system, it also centered around his concerns that the current economic recession was caused by an economic elite that gets away with financial crimes — even financial murder — every day. “Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes,” he wrote.

[Read more at Alternet]