Monday, August 13, 2007

Communist Dictator Mugabe: A Big Fan Of Bush's Wiretapping Program

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, August 13, 2007


The Communist dictatorship of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe has sought to justify its draconian new wiretapping law by citing the US and the UK as bedfellow nations that also engage in domestic eavesdropping and surveillance. Should we be concerned, or should we instead just ignore it and talk to our friends about Lindsay Lohan's rehab?

"Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe said Zimbabwe is not unique in the world in passing such legislation, citing electronic eavesdropping programs in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, among other countries," reports VOA news.

Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe is widely renowned as one of the most corrupt, inhumane hellholes on earth, a total police state ruled with an iron fist amidst a backdrop of societal meltdown, 85% unemployment rates, life expectancy under 40, and widespread starvation.

Mugabe's regime was characterized by the infamous land redistribution campaign, which began in 2000, a genocide perpetrated against white farmers that caused a mass exodus and the crippling of the agricultural industry and access to basic commodities.

Mugabe himself, whose enforcers are ordered to make dissidents rape their own children at gunpoint, has been in power for no less than 20 years having rigged numerous elections and intimidated recalcitrants by force to vote for him.

Should we be concerned that the tyrannical regime of Zimbabwe, one of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet, cites the U.S. as a benchmark on how to conduct government policy on privacy of telecommunications?

Should we be concerned that the rhetoric they use to justify unchecked spying mirrors almost exactly similar pronouncements by the Bush administration?

Consider this statement from the Zimbabwe Defense Forces director for communications, Colonel Livingstone Chineka.

"The mobile service providers have their own international gateway system, and from a security point of view, this is dangerous to the state because we need to monitor traffic coming in and outside, but at the moment we can not."

Would that seem out of place if it had been said by Gen. Michael Hayden or George W. Bush?


Mugabe is warmly greeted by former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

As America and other western countries sink deeper into overt despotism, it should naturally follow that they will more closely resemble totalitarian autocracies that are already in existence.

A London Independent report today provides us with another example - though long denied, "Germany's Stasi archive has revealed one of the last dark secrets of the former Communist east: the politburo order to shoot to kill anyone attempting to breach the Iron Curtain to freedom," writes Allan Hall.

"The Stasi directive went: "Do not hesitate with the use of a firearm, including when the border breakouts involve women and children, which the traitors have already frequently taken advantage of." Dated 1 October 1973, the document is described as "explosive" by Andreas Schulze, a spokesman for the Magdeburg-based archive where it was found."

Though the report fails to mention it, the UK Metropolitan Police adopted a shoot to kill policy in 2003, a directive that came to the fore in July 2005, when innocent electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was brutally gunned down in London despite having no connection to terrorism, before a cover-up went into high gear to hide the real reasons for his assassination.

The UK has adopted a policy that is borrowed from the Communist Stasi while America is lauded by Communist dictator Mugabe for spying on its own citizens. Should this be a worry or is it safe to slump back on the couch, loosen our belts, crack open a 6-pack and watch America's Got Talent?

Should we be concerned?

Video Surfaces of Cheney, in 1994, Warning That An Invasion of Iraq Would Lead to 'Quagmire'

Editor & Publisher
Monday Aug 13, 2007

NEW YORK It's not the first time that citizen "investigative journalists" have uncovered some embarrassing, or telling, nugget from the past that apparently remained buried for years. But it has happened again with the posting of a now wildly popular video on YouTube that shows Dick Cheney explaining in 1994 that trying to take over Iraq would be a "bad idea" and lead to a "quagmire."

The people who put it up come from a site called Grand Theft Country, the on-screen source appears to be the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and the date on the screen is April 15, 1994. That looks right, by the age of Cheney.

Posted on Friday, it had received over 100,000 hits by this morning, after being widely-linked around the Web. The transcript of this segment is below.

Cheney had helped direct the Gulf War for President George H.W. Bush. That effort was later criticized for not taking Baghdad and officials like Cheney had to explain why not, for years. Some have charged that this led to an overpowering desire to finish the job after Cheney became vice president in 2001.

Here is the transcript. The YouTube address is at the end.
*

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

US doles out millions for street cameras

Charlie Savage
Boston Globe
Monday Aug 13, 2007

The Department of Homeland Security is funneling millions of dollars to local governments nationwide for purchasing high-tech video camera networks, accelerating the rise of a "surveillance society" in which the sense of freedom that stems from being anonymous in public will be lost, privacy rights advocates warn.

Since 2003, the department has handed out some $23 billion in federal grants to local governments for equipment and training to help combat terrorism. Most of the money paid for emergency drills and upgrades to basic items, from radios to fences. But the department also has doled out millions on surveillance cameras, transforming city streets and parks into places under constant observation.

The department will not say how much of its taxpayer-funded grants have gone to cameras. But a Globe search of local newspapers and congressional press releases shows that a large number of new surveillance systems, costing at least tens and probably hundreds of millions of dollars, are being simultaneously installed around the country as part of homeland security grants.

In the last month, cities that have moved forward on plans for surveillance networks financed by the Homeland Security Department include St. Paul, which got a $1.2 million grant for 60 cameras for downtown; Madison, Wis., which is buying a 32-camera network with a $388,000 grant; and Pittsburgh, which is adding 83 cameras to its downtown with a $2.58 million grant.

Small towns are also getting their share of the federal money for surveillance to thwart crime and terrorism.

Recent examples include Liberty, Kan. (population 95), which accepted a federal grant to install a $5,000 G2 Sentinel camera in its park, and Scottsbluff, Neb. (population 14,000), where police used a $180,000 Homeland Security Department grant to purchase four closed-circuit digital cameras and two monitors, a system originally designed for Times Square in New York City.

"We certainly wouldn't have been able to purchase this system without those funds," police Captain Brian Wasson told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald.

Other large cities and small towns have also joined in since 2003. Federal money is helping New York, Baltimore, and Chicago build massive surveillance systems that may also link thousands of privately owned security cameras. Boston has installed about 500 cameras in the MBTA system, funded in part with homeland security funds.

Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Homeland Security Department is the primary driver in spreading surveillance cameras, making their adoption more attractive by offering federal money to city and state leaders.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said that it is difficult to say how much money has been spent on surveillance cameras because many grants awarded to states or cities contained money for cameras and other equipment. Knocke defended the funding of video networks as a valuable tool for protecting the nation. "We will encourage their use in the future," he added.

But privacy rights advocates say that the technology is putting at risk something that is hard to define but is core to personal autonomy. The proliferation of cameras could mean that Americans will feel less free because legal public behavior -- attending a political rally, entering a doctor's office, or even joking with friends in a park -- will leave a permanent record, retrievable by authorities at any time.

Businesses and government buildings have used closed-circuit cameras for decades, so it is nothing new to be videotaped at an ATM machine. But technology specialists say the growing surveillance networks are potentially more powerful than anything the public has experienced.

Until recently, most surveillance cameras produced only grainy analog feeds and had to be stored on bulky videotape cassettes. But the new, cutting-edge cameras produce clearer, more detailed images. Moreover, because these videos are digital, they can be easily transmitted, copied, and stored indefinitely on ever-cheaper hard-drive space.

In addition, police officers cannot be everywhere at once, and in the past someone had to watch a monitor, limiting how large or powerful a surveillance network could be.

But technicians are developing ways to use computers to process real-time and stored digital video, including license-plate readers, face-recognition scanners, and software that detects "anomalous behavior." Although still primitive, these technologies are improving, some with help from research grants by the Homeland Security Department's Science and Technology Directorate.

"Being able to collect this much data on people is going to be very powerful, and it opens people up for abuses of power," said Jennifer King, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who studies privacy and technology. "The problem with explaining this scenario is that today it's a little futuristic. [A major loss of privacy] is a low risk today, but five years from now it will present a higher risk."

As this technological capacity evolves, it will be far easier for individuals to attract police suspicion simply for acting differently and far easier for police to track that person's movement closely, including retracing their steps backwards in time. It will also create a greater risk that the officials who control the cameras could use them for personal or political gain, specialists said.

The expanded use of surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism has proved controversial in other arenas, as with the recent debate over President Bush's programs for eavesdropping on Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a warrant.

But public support for installing more surveillance cameras in public places, both as a means of fighting terrorism and other crime, appears to be strong. Last month, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 71 percent of Americans favored increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent opposed it.

Still, some homeland security specialists point to studies showing that cameras are not effective in deterring crime or terrorism. Although video can be useful in apprehending suspects after a crime or attack, the specialists say that the money used to buy and maintain cameras would be better spent on hiring more police.

That view is not universal. David Heyman, the homeland security policy director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out that cameras can help catch terrorists before they have time to launch a second attack. Several recent failed terrorist attacks in England were followed by quick arrests due in part to surveillance video.

Earlier this month, Senator Joe Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, proposed an amendment that would require the Homeland Security Department to develop a "national strategy" for the use of surveillance cameras, from more effectively using them to thwart terrorism to establishing rules to protect civil liberties.

"A national strategy for [surveillance cameras] use would help officials at the federal, state, and local levels use [surveillance] systems effectively to protect citizens, while at the same time making sure that appropriate civil liberties protections are implemented for the use of cameras and recorded data," Lieberman said.

Iran: US supports terrorists in Iraq

Press TV
Monday Aug 13, 2007

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar has accused the United States of covertly supporting terrorist cells in Iraq.

Speaking at the monthly session of the Defense Diplomacy Committee, Mohammad Najjar dismissed the allegations made by the US that Iran is smuggling explosive devices into Iraq.

He blamed Washington for bomb attacks in the war-torn country, mainly in the capital, adding that intelligence suggests that the US government is supporting terrorist groups in Iraq.

The Iranian Defense Minister reiterated Iran's stance on Iraq, saying that the security of Iran depends on the security of Iraq and that stability and security in the country could help establish peace in the region.

" The only solution to the problem of instability in war-battered Iraq would be for the US to pull out its troops and withdraw support for terrorist groups, "said the Defense Minister.

He added the Iraqi people would achieve prosperity, security and progress with attempts of Nouri al-Maliki's government and in light of good relations with the neighboring countries.

Mohammad Najjar concluded that the Bush administration is not seeking peace and security in the Middle East since it will raise concern over its military presence in the region.