Attorney General Gonzales resigns: NY Times

Reuters
Monday Aug 27, 2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned from office, an official confirmed on Monday.

The Justice Department refused to comment on Gonzales' departure but has scheduled a press conference for 10:30 a.m. EDT.

Chinese officials predicted 9/11 attacks

dnaindia.com
Monday Aug 27, 2007

NEW DELHI: Imagine someone predicting the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in the US two years before the terror strike!

Such a forecast was part of an analysis of the weaknesses of the American military system by two Chinese military planners, who also identified Osama bin Laden as one of the likely perpetrators of a possible attack.

The officials, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, who were in service at that time, made the forecast in the book "Unrestricted Warfare" written in 1999, which has now beenpublished in India, several years after being translated into English for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other US national security departments.

The officials, who were then senior colonels, said, "Actually, with the next century having still not yet arrived, the American military has already encountered trouble from insufficient frequency bandwidth brought on by the above-mentioned types of enemies.

Whether it be the intrusion of hackers, a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by Osama bin Laden, all of these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidths understood by the American military.

The American military is naturally inadequately prepared to deal with this type of enemy psychologically, in terms of measures and especially as regards military thinking and the methods of operation derived from this," they said.

The US was an area of major focus in the book, which proposed tactics for developing countries like China and measures to compensate for their military inferiority vis-a-vis America in a possible hi-tech war.

US recession risk highest since 9/11: ex-Treasury secretary

AFP
Monday Aug 27, 2007

WASHINGTON: Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers said Sunday it was too early to declare the financial markets crisis over and said chances had risen sharply of an economic downturn in the United States.

Despite interventions by the US Federal Reserve last week which appeared to reverse heavy selling pressure over the collapsing US housing debt market, Summers said the risk of recession was its highest since the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"We certainly saw some repair and some return to normality this week, but I think it would be far premature to judge this crisis over for at least two reasons," Summers told ABC television.

"First, we can't yet know that there aren't more shoes to drop in the financial area," he said, referring to the massive loss of confidence in securitised housing loans as US real estate prices sag.

"Second, we haven't yet had the time to observe what all this is going to mean for the real economy and for the actual process of job creation in our economy.

"I do not think we yet have ... a basis of making a prediction that there will be a recession, but I would say that the risks of recession are now greater than they've been any time since the period in the aftermath of 9/11."

Summers, who headed the US Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and then was president of Harvard University until a year ago, criticised the administration for not using government-backed mortgage lenders to help homeowners facing default on their loans.

He said policy should not be targeted at protecting investors or corporate lenders in the risky "sub-prime" sector, which targets borrowers with patchy credit records.

"You know, the substantial majority of the firms that were in the sub-prime mortgage business have already gone out of business. Many of the firms that remain have seen their stock prices fall by half or more," said Summers, now with the New York investment bank DE Shaw & Co.

"But the focus shouldn't be on those firms. The focus should be on the homeowner. The focus should be on the guy who bought a mortgage," he said.

Activists Question If SPP Provocateur Orders Came From Prime Minister

Ben Russell
Raw Story
Monday Aug 27, 2007

Flashback: Canadian Police Caught Attempting To Stage Riots

A video recently posted on YouTube documents a strange occurrence at a recent protest during the recent Montebello Summit in Québec, Canada, which has activists questioning the motives of police, and suspicious that the orders came down from the Prime Minister's office.

Masked men were spotted near the riot police, who held back despite one man holding a large rock, himself and two others appearing to attempt an incitement to riot. The three were confronted by other attendees and eventually handcuffed and taken away.

During the confrontation, one of the three appears to be talking directly to one of the officers.

Union President Dave Coles at a recent news conference: "The Communications, Energy and Paper Workers Union of Canada believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and to provoke incidents."

In addition to the video footage, the three suspected plants wore the same brand boots, as evidenced by the soles, as the Sûreté du Québec riot police. Neither the SQ, nor the RCMP, commented; each initially denied planting agents provocateurs.

"Oops. Somebody took a picture," quips Coles.

Former police officer Doug Kirkland, who runs a private security, says that planting undercover police at protests is beneficial when used to root out true troublemakers, but, says Kirkland while viewing the video footage: "That's a very slippery slope."

Continues Kirkland, "I think you're stretching the bounds of proper police intelligence when you're doing that kind of work."

Sûreté du Québec later issued a press release confirming that the three men in question were indeed officers, there to maintain order rather than disrupt the protest, and that no crime was committed.

Long-time lawyer for activists Lawrence Greenspon calls for politicians to act.

"There's a serious issue about proper police conduct here," says attorney Lawrence Greenspon, a longtime defender of protesters.

"I think the people that represent us in the legislature should be looking at some form of legislation that says 'Wait a second. This is not proper use of police resources, and we should be setting guidelines.'"

"This is the face of it," says Dave Coles, "where people can't even ask a question without having to face these kind of goons," referring to riot police, who are said to attempt to incite violence with aims to suppress speech, even when the activity takes place in designated spaces.

"It's time that all the secrecy and backroom deals end."

Minister of Safety Stockwell Day deflects blame from the RCMP, encouraging utilization of the "complaints process" available through the SQ.

US Government, complicit in Iraq corruption, helps punish whistleblowers

Raw Story
Monday Aug 27, 2007

People who have brought war-related fraud and corruption to the attention of law enforcement suffer horribly as a result, reports the Associated Press Saturday.

The article profiles people who have filed lawsuits on behalf of the American taxpayer after witnessing misuse of funds and materials at the hands of private contractors. After blowing the whistle on his employer at the time, Shield Group Security Co., Navy Veteran Donald Vance, in his suit, says he and a colleague were held in an American military prison for over three months and subject to harsh interrogation tactics "reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants."

Employees of the Federal Government and private military contractors are shown to have faced demotion, detention, shunning by colleagues, and a destroyed family life as consequences of reporting corruption.

#
EXCERPTS:

“If you do it, you will be destroyed,” said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

“Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes people ask me, ‘Should I do this?’ And my answer is no. If they’re married, they’ll lose their family. They will lose their jobs. They will lose everything,” Weaver said.

“The only way we can find out what is going on is for someone to come forward and let us know,” said Beth Daley of the Project on Government Oversight, an independent, nonprofit group that investigates corruption. “But when they do, the weight of the government comes down on them. The message is, ’Don’t blow the whistle or we’ll make your life hell.’

#
The entire article can be read at MSNBC.com.

Evidence Suggests CIA Spiked Investigations

www.UnansweredQuestions.org
Monday Aug 27, 2007

Dear Members of the Press:

A grave miscarriage of justice is afoot. After years being withheld the Administration finally is forced to release the CIA's IG Report on 9/11. While earlier news accounts said the report would be released in early September it was released in the middle of a Congressional recess, in the middle of a Summer break, thus insuring it will not receive the attention it deserves. Worse still is the conclusion in most press reports since its release that bolsters the official narrative ie. that all the myriad failures were simply due to 'systemic failure' and/or incompetence.

The circumstantial evidence running contrary to this conclusion is compelling and convincing.

It appears that Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar were being protected by higher ups in the CIA. Respected author Joe Trento has reported that they were working for Saudi Intelligence. Others reported the two were removed from the watchlist two days before 9/11. I don't know if either was the case. It is clear however that there was a concerted effort to protect them similar in some respects to the way authorities in FBI HQ refused to allow Rowley and company in Minnesota to go into Mousaoui's laptop computer or how higher ups prevented Robert Wright in Chicago from going after the money trail of Yassin Al-Kadi (Qadi) who financed the software company Ptech and the terrorist group Hamas and who was later named a /Specially Designated Global Terrorist/ by President Bush in October of 2001.

There is a pattern here that cannot be adequately explained by charges of 'systemic failure' or incompetence. As Kristen Breitweiser http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/enabling-danger- par t-one_b_5951.html has suggested, something else is going on, and the repeated missed opportunities (She has documented 7) and blocked communications suggests something "purposeful" on the part of authorities. The IG Report says 60 agents reviewed the Intel about the two.

Please review the statement below made by 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser and by Investigative Journalist Michael Isikoff of Newsweek. These are merely jumping off points to following a trail few have had the courage to examine closely and relentlessly until answers to the questions raised by Kristen and others are answered. In the wake of 9/11, billions of dollars, the lives of soldiers and the Constitution are being sacrificed. Let not truth be sacrificed as well, not when it comes to what happened on September 11th, 2001.

Thank you.

Kyle F. Hence Co-Producer, 9/11: Press for Truth http://www.911pressfortruth.com

*Statement of Kristen Breitweiser, Co-Chairperson, September 11 Advocates Concerning the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Senate Select Committee on Intelligence House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence September 18, 2002 * [snip] Perhaps even more disturbing is the information regarding Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, two of the hijackers. in late August, the CIA asked the INS to put these two men on a watchlist because of their ties to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. On August 23, 2001, the INS informed the CIA that both men had already slipped into the country. Immediately thereafter, the CIA asked the FBI to find al-Midhar and Alhazmi. Not a seemingly hard task in light of the fact that one of them was listed in the San Diego phone book, the other took out a bank account in his own name, and finally, an FBI informant happened to be their roommate. [snip]*

Later after three more years of connecting dots, Kristen Breitweiser wrote in Huffington Post, August 20, 2005 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/enabling-danger- part -one_b_5951.html *

[snip] Additionally, when one carefully reads the 9/11 chronology and information provided in the public record, it becomes increasingly clear that the CIA´s repeated failure to share information with the FBI about two of the 9/11 hijackers-al Mihdhar and al Hazmi-- was purposeful. There exists at least seven instances between January 2000 and September 11th, 2001, that the CIA withheld vital information from the FBI about these two hijackers who were inside this country training for the attacks. Once, twice, maybe even three times could be considered merely careless oversights. But at least seven documented times? To me, that suggests something else. (To read about these instances, I suggest you read 9/11 materials relating to the "watchlisting issue" involving al Mihdhar and al Hazmi which is a story so detailed, that it deserves its own lengthy blog.) [snip]

*From an interview with Newsweek Investigative Reporter Michael Isikoff for the documentary, 9/11: Press for Truth http://www.911pressfortruth.com :*

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: The CIA learned about this meeting. It arranged for it to be under surveillance by the Malaysian special branch... The CIA subsequently learned within days that... Almihdhar and Alhazmi were headed for the United States. ...An FBI detailee who knew about this at the Counter Terrorism Center of the CIA drafted a cable to alert the FBI, and that cable was quashed by superiors at the CIA.

*************** STANDARD DISCLAIMER FROM UQ.ORG: UnansweredQuestions.org does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in the above article. We present this in the interests of research -for the relevant information we believe it contains. We hope that the reader finds in it inspiration to work with us further, in helping to build bridges between our various investigative communities, towards a greater, common understanding of the unanswered questions which now lie before us.

Outrage at 500,000 DNA database mistakes

Toby Helm
London Telegraph
Monday Aug 27, 2007

Civil liberties campaigners and MPs have raised doubts about the national DNA database after the Home Office confirmed it contained more than 500,000 false or wrongly recorded names.

Suspects arrested over any imprisonable offence, including rape and murder, can have their DNA held even if they are not charged or are acquitted.

The database, the biggest in the world, contains about four million names.

But it has been dogged by problems. Statistics released by the Home Office show it contains around 550,000 files with wrong or misspelt names.

Lynne Featherstone, a Liberal Democrat frontbencher, told The Daily Telegraph that she wanted a full parliamentary inquiry into the "shocking" number of errors.

"What lies behind these statistics? Is it the police just accept the 'say-so' of those whose DNA they are taking and don't check their names and addresses?" she said.

"While the use of DNA can obviously be vital in solving crimes, anything that raises questions about the credibility of the base is not acceptable."

It is understood that some of the errors have been caused by people deliberately giving someone else's name - or names of people who do not exist. The database, which police are determined to expand, also contains spelling errors and other inaccuracies.

Another source of concern to opponents, shown in the figures, is that the system has the DNA profiles of about 150,000 children, many of whom were arrested by police but found to be innocent.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of civil rights group Liberty, said the disclosure raised questions about police plans to expand the database to include information about those suspected of far less serious offences, such as dropping litter or dodging rail fares.

"It is bad enough that we have a DNA database stuffed with innocents not charged with any offence, containing too many children and too great a percentage of ethnic minorities," she said.

"Now it turns out we don't know the accuracy of the data. How many Postman Pats and Donald Ducks have entries on a system worthy of the Keystone Cops?"

Ministers accept the system is suffering teething problems but insist it is vital in solving crimes, some of which have remained open for decades.

In a case in November 2005, a 50-year-old builder was found guilty of a murder and rape that he committed in Essex 28 years ago.

He was stopped for drink- driving in 2004 and his DNA matched a sample taken from the original crime scene.

Safety fears over new register of all children

Francis Elliott
London Times
Monday Aug 27, 2007

Senior social workers have given warning of the dangers posed by a new government register that will store the details of every child in England from next year.

They fear that the database, containing the address, medical and school details of all under-18s, could be used to harm the children whom it is intended to protect.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ACDS) has written to officials outlining its “significant” concerns about the new system, called ContactPoint, The Times has learnt. Confusion over who is responsible for vetting users and policing the system “may allow a situation where an abuser could be able to access ContactPoint for illegitimate purposes with limited fear of any repercussions”, Richard Stiff, the chairman of the ADCS Information Systems and Technology Policy Committee, said.

The security fears are fuelled further by the admission that information about the children of celebrities and politicians is likely to be excluded from the system.

The database, which goes live next year, is to contain details of every one of the 11 million children in the country, listing their name, address and gender, as well as contact details for their GP, school and parents and other carers. The record will also include contacts with hospital consultants and other professionals, and could show whether the child has been the subject of a formal assessment on whether he or she needs extra help.

It will be available to an estimated 330,000 vetted users. Some of those allowed to check records, such as head teachers, doctors, youth offender and social workers, are uncontroversial, but critics have questioned why other potential users, such as fire and rescue staff, will have access to the database.

ContactPoint was set up after the official report into the death of Victoria Climbié. Lord Laming concluded that the eight-year-old’s murder could have been prevented had there been better communication between professionals.

Regulations governing the system, which is costing £224 million to build and a further £41 million a year to run, were rushed through parliament without publicity last month, despite the warning of a House of Lords committee. “The enormous size of the database and the huge number of probable users inevitably increase the risks of accidental or inadvertent breaches of security, and of deliberate misuse of the data (eg, disclosure of an address with malign intent), which would be likely to bring the whole scheme into disrepute”, the Lords’ Select Committee on Merits of Statutory Instruments concluded.

Now local councils have given warning that changes made to the rules after consultation could leave the system open to abuse. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services has written to Christine Goodfellow, the official in charge of the new database, to register its fears over security.

In addition to its warning over vetting, the body says that ministers are placing “unreasonable and perhaps undeliverable expectations on local councils” by asking them to guarantee the accuracy of data over which they have little control.

Private schools and children’s rights campaigners have already given warning that the database is open to misuse. “Unless the system is secure, the result will be that sensitive information will fall into the hands of potential abusers of children and traders of information,” a letter signed by the Independent Schools Council, Privacy International and the Foundation on Information Policy Research said.

Concerns have been intensified by the admission that, while every child under 18 in England will have a record, ministers have allowed some children to be given extra protection. The “shielding” mechanism will mean that information on the offspring of some politicians and celebrities could be left off the main database.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) said that shielding would be available for “children whose circumstances may mean that they, or others, are at increased risk of harm”. She added: “These decisions will be taken on a case-by-case basis and will be based on the level of threat posed if their information becomes more widely available.”

Children’s rights campaigners and computer security experts say that this amounts to an acknowledgment that the database will not be secure. “The Government acknowledges the risks by instituting these protocols on celebrity and vulnerable children but all children are potentially vulnerable,” Terri Dowty, of Action on Rights for Children, said.

Ian Brown, a computer security research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, said that the scale of the database posed huge risks. “When you have got more than 300,000 people accessing this database, it’s just very difficult to stop the sale of information.”

Lib Dems call for amnesty for illegal immigrants

Ben Russell
London Independent
Monday Aug 27, 2007

Up to 600,000 illegal immigrants should be given the right to "earn" full citizenship, the Liberal Democrats said yesterday. It is the first major party to lean towards advocating an amnesty for such migrants.

Nick Clegg, the party's home affairs spokesman, said a route to citizenship was the only way to deal with people who may have been in Britain - but outside the legal system - for many years. Under the plans, to be debated by the party's annual conference next month, people who have lived in Britain for a decade, have no criminal record and show a long-term commitment to the country could gain citizenship.

Applicants would have to show a good command of English, pass a public interest test and pay a fee, which could be waived if they undertake voluntary work. Mr Clegg said the proposal would free people from working in the "twilight world of illegality and exploitation" outside normal employment laws. An amnesty would work alongside tougher border controls, he added.

He said attempting to remove the backlog of failed asylum-seekers and people who had overstayed their visas was "the politics of the madhouse".

But the Conservatives attacked the plans, insisting they would attract illegal immigrants to Britain. David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "This is irresponsible because on the one hand it will encourage people to come here illegally as well as being unfair to those who have obeyed the law and tried to enter the UK legally.

"It will act as a green flag to a new future wave of illegal immigrants who will be told by their criminal handlers that if they remain in the UK long enough they will be allowed to stay permanently."

Last week ministers faced claims that the immigration system was "out of control" after figures showed a fall in the number of failed asylum-seekers deported this spring. Estimates suggest that there could be between 310,000 and 570,000 illegal migrants in Britain.

Last year a report by the Institute of Public Policy Research, a think-tank close to the Labour Government, said that an amnesty could be worth up to £6bn to the economy.

Market Crash Forecast Suggests New 9/11

Mystery trader bets on huge downturn that could only be preceded by catastrophe

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Monday, August 27, 2007

A mystery trader risks losing around $1 billion dollars after placing 245,000 put options on the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 index, leading many analysts to speculate that a stock market crash preceded by a new 9/11 style catastrophe could take place within the next month.

The anonymous trader only stands to make money if the market crashes by a third to a half before September 21st, which is when the put options expire. A put option is a financial contract between two parties, the buyer and the writer (seller) of the option, in which the buyer stands to benefit only if the price of the asset falls.

"The sales are being referred to by market traders as "bin Laden trades" because only an event on the scale of 9-11 could make these short-sell options valuable," reports financial blogger Marc Parent. Dow Jones Financial News first reported on the story.

The trader stands to make around $2 billion from their investment should an event trigger a market crash before the third week in September.

Such a cataclysmic jolt could only happen as a result of two factors, China dumping its vast dollar reserves in reaction to the sub-prime mortgage collapse, which it has threatened to do, or a massive terror attack on the same scale or larger than 9/11.

9/11 itself was foreshadowed by unprecedented put options that were placed on United and American Airlines. Though the Securities and Exchange Commission refused to reveal who placed the options, private researchers traced the investments back to the Deutsche Bank owned Banker’s Trust, which was formerly headed by then Executive Director of the CIA, Buzzy Krongard.

Put options on Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, two of the World Trade Center's most prominent occupants, also spiked in the days before 9/11.

News of the suspicious trades is dovetailed by the comments of Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers yesterday, who told ABC News that the risk of a recession in the U.S. was greater that at any time since 9/11.

Terror label 'paves way for air strikes'

Philip Sherwell
London Telegraph
Sunday, August 26, 2007

The White House's plans to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organisation are intended to give the Bush administration cover if it launches military strikes on the Islamic republic, according to a prominent former CIA officer.

Robert Baer, who was a high-ranking operative in the Middle East, said last week that senior government officials had told him the administration was preparing for air strikes on the guards' bases and probably also on Iran's nuclear facilities within the next six months.

The US is expected to list the guards as a terror group in the coming weeks. Washington accuses them of backing attacks on American and British forces in Iraq, as well as supporting the Hezbollah faction in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories

The designation will make it easier to target international financial transactions by the guards' lucrative business operations, which The Sunday Telegraph disclosed last week had made multi-millionaires of many senior commanders. It will also bolster American calls for tougher sanctions on Iran over its illicit nuclear programme at the United Nations next month.

But among President George W Bush's closest advisers, there is a fierce debate about whether to take unilateral military action independently of any UN security council moves.

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While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set on diplomacy, Vice-President Dick Cheney is understood to favour air strikes.

The justification for any attack, according to Mr Baer, would be claims - denied by Iran - that the guards are responsible for the sophisticated armour-penetrating improvised explosive devices that are exacting a heavy toll on US forces in Iraq.

Mr Baer said: "The feeling in the administration is that we should have taken care of the guards a long, long time ago. We won't see American troops cross the border. If this is going to happen, it is going to happen very quickly and it is going to surprise a lot of people."

The White House has publicly insisted there are no preparations for military action against Iran.

Globalist Meetings Secret No More

Jason Snow
American Free Press
Sunday, August 26, 2007

It was a wild and exciting August 20th in the small Quebec town of Montebello as GeorgeW. Bush, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico met in the town’s exclusive Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello resort.

With a protest expected, many residents closed shop for the day and some even boarded up their businesses. The leaders were meeting at the posh resort for secretive talks regarding the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (SPP—a Bilderberg linked initiative to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into one entity).

A massive fence was erected around the Chateau property and police on ATVs and motorcycles were abundant. A large turnout of anti-globalist protesters showed up around noon. I was there to document the impressive caravan of buses and cars that rolled into the tranquil town, most bus occupants chanting, “George Bush go home, George Bush go home…”

The buses and cars briefly stopped in front of a field area just outside of town designated by the police as the protest grounds. Apparently, the protest in the field was to be broadcast to the leaders in the far-off chateau. Not surprisingly, the protesters were not convinced.

It started quickly.A group of ironworkers began to walk toward Montebello and the buses, cars and others on foot quickly followed their lead. They made their way past the main entrance of the chateau (which the police had said was a prohibited area) to the center of town. The buses stopped at what looked like a community center and unloaded.

The number of people gathered had to be about 2,000 —maybe more. Others continued to arrive, music started to play on a loudspeaker and the anti-SPP chants began.

Earlier in the day, I heard one of the protest leaders talking to the police. He said in no uncertain terms that they were going to march right to the entrance of the hotel—avoiding the “suggested” field (called “the pen”). So it came as no surprise after a few angry speeches that the group moved down the road toward the hotel.

It was a diverse crowd—communists, nationalists, feminists, unionists and even some Ron Paul supporters. And it was people of all ages—from young children to the elderly.

I was taking pictures and filming the march, so I neglected to see the police in full-riot gear ahead until I almost stumbled upon them. The show of force was impressive—with more troops quickly being added to the initial line—marching in military formation to the entrance area.

The police did not secure the entire entrance immediately. I think that the speed of the march had surprised them somewhat, but it did not take long for it to be cleared.

And then it got really tense. The protesters were right in the faces of the fully equipped cops (helmets with face shields, full riot shields and batons). They yelled and chanted wildly at the stoic troops. A second wave of cops behind the main line put on their gas masks and soon yet another complement of troops came—many with plastic bullet guns. A police helicopter came quite close to the area, adding to the drama. It looked like things were going to get ugly fast. However, about 1 p.m., the situation calmed and the battle lines were drawn for the day.

From 1 p.m. until about 5 there was a strange kind of street party. People danced all over town, there were circus type performers entertaining the crowd—including a man with a Bush mask and suit holding a sign saying “Send Canada to Irak” and “Buy more gaz.”All of this was overshadowed by the presence of riot-police threatening chaos.

At around 5 p.m., the demonstration started to heat up again. It was a long hot day in Montebello, and tempers were flaring.

The more radical parts of the crowd (many with their own improvised shields and body armor and holding large pieces of lumber) began to throw whatever they could at the police who responded with pepper spray, tear gas and, finally, plastic bullets. The organizers called a retreat and the day was done.

Later, many media outlets claimed that there were only a couple of hundred people at the protest. Anyone stating this is a flat-out liar. The turnout was in the thousands. And the press showed up in force as well—with the result being extensive coverage of the event and the issues surrounding it. By the evening of that August day, this secret meeting was not so secret.

University of Massachusetts Professor Calls For New 9/11 Investigation

Patriots Question 9/11
Sunday, August 26, 2007

The 9/11 tragedy is the most successful and most perverse publicity stunt in the history of public relations. I arrive at this conclusion largely as the result of the research and clear writing by David Ray Griffin in his fabulous books about 9/11. I first met him when he was a speaker at a scholarly conference unrelated to 9/11. He immediately impressed me as a brilliant, outstanding philosopher - theologian - author, a Whiteheadian scholar motivated by an intense curiosity to know everything possible about the world.

On the plane home and for the next two days I did little else but read Griffin’s first book about 9/11, The New Pearl Harbor. From there I went on to read his even more disturbing account of the bogus 9/11 Commission Report, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, which provides overwhelming evidence that the official story is contradictory, incomplete, and unbelievable.

It is clear to me that David Ray Griffin and his fellow critics are correct: the 9/11 "new Pearl Harbor" was planned in astonishing detail and carried out through the efforts of a sophisticated and large network of operatives. It was more complex and far more successful than the Allende assassination, the US bombing of our own ship the "Maine" that began the Spanish-American war (and brought us Guam, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines), the Reichstag fire that was used to justify the suspension of most civil liberties in Germany in the 1930's, and even Operation Himmler, which was used by Germany to justify the invasion of Poland, which started World War II.

Whoever is responsible for bringing to grizzly fruition this new false-flag operation, which has been used to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as unprecedented assaults on research, education, and civil liberties, must be perversely proud of their efficient handiwork. Certainly, 19 young Arab men and a man in a cave 7,000 miles away, no matter the level of their anger, could not have masterminded and carried out 9/11: the most effective television commercial in the history of Western civilization.

I suggest that those of us aware and concerned demand that the glaringly erroneous official account of 9/11 be dismissed as a fraud and a new, thorough, and impartial investigation be undertaken."

• Bio: http://www.chelseagreen.com/authors/LynnMargulis

Lynn Margulis, AB, MS, PhD – Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts - Amherst. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983. Former Chair, National Academy of Science's Space Science Board Committee on Planetary Biology and Chemical Evolution. Recipient of the National Medal of Science, America's highest honor for scientific achievement, in 1999, presented by President William J. Clinton. The Library of Congress, Washington, DC, announced in 1998 that it will permanently archive Dr. Margulis' papers. President of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, from 2005 - 2006. Recipient of the Proctor Prize for scientific achievement in 1999 from Sigma Xi. Prior to moving to the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Margulis was a faculty member at Boston University for 22 years. Her publications span a wide-range of scientific topics, and include original contributions to cell biology and microbial evolution. Dr. Margulis is best known for contributions to evolution, especially the theory of symbiogenesis. For more information on Dr. Margulis' career, please visit http://www.chelseagreen.com/authors/LynnMargulis and http://www.sciencewriters.org.

Author of over 130 scientific works and numerous books. Recent publications include Mind, Life, and Universe (2007 with Eduardo Punset), Dazzle Gradually: Reflections on the Nature of Nature (2007, co-authored with Dorion Sagan), Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution (1998), Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (2002, with Dorion Sagan), Early Life: Evolution on the Precambrian Earth (2002, second edition with Michael F. Dolan), Luminous Fish: Tales of Science and Love (2006), What is Sex? (1997, with Dorion Sagan), What is Life? (1995, with Dorion Sagan), Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality (1991, with Dorion Sagan), Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution From Our Microbial Ancestors (1986, with Dorion Sagan), and Origins of Sex: Three Billion Years of Genetic Recombination (1986, with Dorion Sagan), Kingdoms and Domains: Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth (4th edition, co-authored by Michael J. Chapman, Academic Press, 2008 in press), Symbiosis in Cell Evolution (second edition, 1993).

‘Put CCTV in addicts’ homes to protect children’

LUCY ADAMS
UK Herald
Saturday, August 25, 2007

A controversial plan for CCTV to be used to protect children in the homes of chaotic drug-abusing parents has been proposed by one of Scotland's most eminent drugs experts.

Professor Neil McKeganey, head of the centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, believes radical measures are required to protect the estimated 160,000 children in Scotland living with an alcoholic or drug-addicted parent.

He believes the sheer scale of the problem, which was previously estimated as being far lower, makes it impossible for social workers to guarantee children's safety.

Recent figures suggest more than 50,000 children are estimated to have a parent with a drug problem and around 80,000 to 100,000 have a parent with an alcohol problem.

Social workers and children's charities last night agreed with the need for debate and further action to protect these children but disagreed with the proposal.

Mr McKeganey is known for his extensive research and controversial views. In 2004, he suggested female drug addicts should be paid to take long-term contraception to stop them having children.

"What price should we put on our privacy?" said Mr McKeganey. "The question is whether we are prepared to say the principle of the privacy of family life is more important than that of child protection. If we accept that privacy is the most important principle then there will be many more tragic cases.

"I am aware that this will be controversial but believe the debate needs to be had. We have become used to the proliferation of CCTV cameras within public spaces. We have also become used to the idea that those cameras are an effective tool in crime prevention. What we have not considered though is their possible use in private spaces."

Recent child abuse cases have highlighted the urgent need to tackle the problem.

Last year, in the wake of an 11-year-old girl collapsing in a Glasgow primary school suffering heroin withdrawal, Jack McConnell, the then first minister, announced the children of drug addicts would be more likely to be put into care.

In another case in December 2005, two-year-old Derek Doran died in East Lothian after drinking methadone in his parents' home.

Mr McKeganey added: "The response to this suggestion will be to say that it is the unacceptable extension of big brother' and a violation of individuals human rights. But the Human Rights Act was never intended to be a get out' clause for those committing crimes or harming vulnerable children."

Michelle Miller, the Association of Directors of Social Work spokeswoman on children and families, said: "This is an enormous problem and social workers by themselves are not going to fix it. It is a much wider issue than that and we need to have a detailed debate. This proposal, however, would be completely impractical."

Anne Houston, chief executive of Children 1st, disagreed with Mr McKeganey's suggestion. "The money would be better spent in increasing the resources needed to identify and support children affected by drugs and alcohol misuse."

Meanwhile, an investigation has revealed that young drug addicts in Aberdeen city without dependants are low on the priority list and may have to wait up to two years for help.

Smile, You're on Candid (Speed) Camera!

Wilton D. Alston
JBS
Sunday, August 26, 2007

It's a brave new world... in Arizona. In other news, George Orwell just phoned from Australia, and he wants his 1984 back.

Word has it that the State is embracing technology in ways that Orwell predicted quite some time ago. It's a veritable smorgasbord of Orwell's "big brother" come to life: fixed cameras that catch speeders as they go past "troublesome" locations; roaming cameras that record license plates to check for outstanding warrants; traffic light cameras that dispense tickets when people "crowd" the "box junctions" (all the rage in Scotland); car-based systems that warn the driver, or take more direct action, if he disobeys posted speed limits.

The latest innovation planned for Oz: a car-borne system that will actually prohibit the driver from speeding! As someone very familiar with the latest innovations in positive train control (PTC), I understand very well that safety is a concern worth having. Systems that monitor and impose speed restrictions are not at all uncommon in the transit world. It was just a matter of time, in my view, before the thinking behind these systems was applied to the much less controlled world of automobiles. That much is certain. And certainly any improvement in safety would be hard to argue with, even from the standpoint of individual freedom.

Still, something about all this makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I see wording related to these proposals that says things like: "...any law enforcement purpose as requested by the DPS (department of public safety) designee." One is reminded of certain provisions in the USAPatriot Act that allow for certain long-standing provisions of privacy to be usurped when law enforcement has a suspicion, and only a suspicion. Moreover, these technologies are often dependent upon vast databases and it is wise to remember that whenever a database is created and maintained for one purpose - no matter how innocuous that purpose might be - one can be sure that the data will be: a) used for other purposes; and/or b) compromised.

It's not that I want scofflaws and random speeders prowling the highway and byways unfettered by reasonable restriction. Far from it. I just don't want some database that was built for an ostensibly good purpose to find its way into the wrong hands. Call me paranoid, but I figure the hands of the State are always the wrong hands. The reason for this should be relatively obvious. In a free market, if a firm misuses data gathered from its customers, that firm suffers the consequences: lost credibility, leading to lost customers and therefore lost revenue. When a similar event happens to the State - and we know it will - we get an "oops!" at best. Then we end up paying even more money for additional bureaucrats to oversee the misanthropes. Such a deal.

The other problem I have is my impression that the motivation behind many of these "advances" is misplaced. Simply put, if the State can up its income from traffic violations by installing a camera, I believe they will do it, regardless of whether or not the cameras result in more safety. I base this assumption on the absolute fact that I would act in exactly the same way if I were in their position! The incentives clearly drive this action. So even when Governor Janet Napolitano cites reduced speeding and accident rates on a portion of the Arizona State Route 101 freeway in Scottsdale as the justification for traffic cameras, I still have my doubts. That said, who am I to argue with progress if it means more safety?

Maybe it is the fact that one of the nagging complaints about speed cameras is that they are "too objective" that drives my suspicions. Says retired state trooper turned professor Dennis Duane Bryde: "Off-duty law enforcement officers and even some elected officials pulled over for speeding often are accorded 'professional courtesy' and given informal warnings, but that wouldn't happen under an automated system." He thinks this issue would represent a short-coming of the new systems.

So if the systems catch every speeder but let the bureaucrats go free, we can all proclaim, "mission accomplished" huh? I should have known.

Bilderberg Pushes American Superstate

James P. Tucker Jr.
American Free Press
Saturday, August 25, 2007

Leaders of Bilderberg have gathered the appropriate flunkies at the Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello, about 50 miles outside Quebec, to accomplish a North American Union without congressional action.

Bilderberg met at the same site in 1983. The Aug. 20-21 session of the unknown Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) is struggling to define its goal of a borderless union of the United States, Mexico and Canada as something Americans will welcome, after it has been accomplished.

On the agenda is a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is being translated into Spanish and French so all three governments can celebrate it together. The report explains how “hemispheric integration” will be a blessing for all and not a surrender of sovereignty. It is to be presented to the three governments in September.

The trustees of CSIS who are attending this closed meeting include Henry Kissinger, Bilderberg and Trilateral; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Trilateral; and Harold Brown, former defense secretary and Trilateral. Also participating is Richard Armitage, Bilderberg. Other Bilderberg-Trilateralists may be attending but have not been identified.

The “North American Future 2025 Project” report stresses “economic integration” and “labor mobility.” It calls for the “international migration of labor” and “international movement not only of goods and capital, but also of people.” It stresses the “free flow of people across national borders.” It calls for action to “integrate governments.” The three nations are to work on “harmonizing legislation” and regulations.

Bilderberg is fighting back from severe setbacks in its long-range goal of dividing the world into three great regions for the administrative convenience of a world government under the United Nations. The European Union was to have been fully integrated into a single state by 2000, but seven years later, there is strong resistance in France, Germany and Britain.

NAFTA was to quickly expand throughout the Western Hemisphere with an “American Union” emerging. Now, there is great resistance to NAFTA itself among voters and, consequently, congressmen.

President Bush started the country on the road to integration on April 22, 2001, when he signed the Declaration of Quebec City in which he made a “commitment to hemispheric integration.” Participants claim it can be accomplished without legislation and their final agreement would not be a “treaty” requiring Senate ratification.

But when this “agreement” is sprung on the American people, Congress will feel compelled to react to the outrage.