Ron Paul - HR 1955 (Now S. 1959) An Attack on Internet Freedom

12-6-7

Note also - Ron Paul was one of only TWO Congressmen who voted against this second enormous attack on internet freedom and your rights in general.

House OKs Draconian 'Illegal Images' Sweeps In WiFi Bill
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9829759-38.html?tag=nefd.top

The House Vote was 409 to 2. Not one Democrat opposed the ludicrously-named 'SAFE Act.' Two Republicans did: Rep.
Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning presidential candidate from Texas, and Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia. The 'Congress' still refuses to read, honor and obey the Constitution. -ed


'Homegrown Terror' Act An Attack On Internet Freedom?
By Rep. Ron Paul

Before the US House of Representatives, December 5, 2007

I regret that I was unavoidably out of town on October 23, 2007, when a vote was taken on HR 1955, the Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. Had I been able to vote, I would have voted against this misguided and dangerous piece of legislation. This legislation focuses the weight of the US government inward toward its own citizens under the guise of protecting us against "violent radicalization."

I would like to note that this legislation was brought to the floor for a vote under suspension of regular order. These so-called "suspension" bills are meant to be non-controversial, thereby negating the need for the more complete and open debate allowed under regular order. It is difficult for me to believe that none of my colleagues in Congress view HR 1955, with its troubling civil liberties implications, as "non-controversial."

There are many causes for concern in HR 1955. The legislation specifically singles out the Internet for "facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process" in the United States. Such language may well be the first step toward US government regulation of what we are allowed to access on the Internet. Are we, for our own good, to be subjected to the kind of governmental control of the Internet that we see in unfree societies? This bill certainly sets us on that course.

This seems to be an unwise and dangerous solution in search of a real problem. Previous acts of ideologically-motivated violence, though rare, have been resolved successfully using law enforcement techniques, existing laws against violence, and our court system. Even if there were a surge of "violent radicalization" ­ a claim for which there is no evidence ­ there is no reason to believe that our criminal justice system is so flawed and weak as to be incapable of trying and punishing those who perpetrate violent acts.

This legislation will set up a new government bureaucracy to monitor and further study the as-yet undemonstrated pressing problem of homegrown terrorism and radicalization. It will no doubt prove to be another bureaucracy that artificially inflates problems so as to guarantee its future existence and funding. But it may do so at great further expense to our civil liberties. What disturbs me most about this legislation is that it leaves the door wide open for the broadest definition of what constitutes "radicalization." Could otherwise nonviolent anti-tax, antiwar, or anti-abortion groups fall under the watchful eye of this new government commission? Assurances otherwise in this legislation are unconvincing.

In addition, this legislation will create a Department of Homeland Security-established university-based body to further study radicalization and to "contribute to the establishment of training, written materials, information, analytical assistance and professional resources to aid in combating violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism." I wonder whether this is really a legitimate role for institutes of higher learning in a free society.

Legislation such as this demands heavy-handed governmental action against American citizens where no crime has been committed. It is yet another attack on our Constitutionally- protected civil liberties. It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life.

$1B In Military Equipment Missing In Iraq

Exclusive: Report Shows Vehicles, Machine Guns And More Meant For Iraqi Forces Unaccounted For

(CBS) This story was written and reported by Laura Strickler of the CBS News Investigative Unit.

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Tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, crates of machine guns and rocket propelled grenades are just a sampling of more than $1 billion in unaccounted for military equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces, according to a new report issued today by the Pentagon Inspector General and obtained exclusively by the CBS News investigative unit. Auditors for the Inspector General reviewed equipment contracts totaling $643 million but could only find an audit trail for $83 million.

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Inspector General Report 1.95 mb.

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The report details a massive failure in government procurement revealing little accountability for the billions of dollars spent purchasing military hardware for the Iraqi security forces. For example, according to the report, the military could not account for 12,712 out of 13,508 weapons, including pistols, assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and machine guns.

The report comes on the same day that Army procurement officials will face tough questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding their procurement policies. One official, Claude Bolton, assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology has already announced his resignation on the heels of sharp criticism of army contracting. Bolton’s resignation is effective Jan. 2, 2008. The Army has significantly expanded its fraud investigations in recent months.

28 Women Miscarry After Receiving HPV Vaccine Gardasil; FDA Says No Reason to Re-Examine Approval

Thursday, December 06, 2007

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil is safe despite that 28 U.S. women who received the vaccination had miscarriages, CNSnews.com reports.

Clinical trials show the vaccine's miscarriage rate is consistent with that of women in the general population who were given placebos, and most of the miscarriages reported cannot directly be connected to Gardasil, the FDA said.

Click here to read the whole story at CNSnews.com.

A 24-year-old woman miscarried in May after being vaccinated with Gardasil and an investigator reported to the federal government that the miscarriage "may have been caused by Gardasil because the patient received the injection within 30 days of the pregnancy."

The vaccine is used to prevent the human papillomavirus — a sexually transmitted disease believed to be the cause of most cases of cervical cancer.

There have been 3,461 adverse reactions, including eight deaths, reported since the vaccine was approved for use in girls as young as 9 in June 2006. The FDA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have concluded most side effects are minor and believe there is no reason to re-examine the drug's approval.
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Poster Comment.

So after only a year and a half since its approval somewhere around 600 days, there has been 3,461 adverse reactions, and 8 deaths!

My advice, do not take this "vaccine", and further I would tell anyone who tries to convince you to take it, to do the research and dont be an idiot. This is dangerous, and you don't need the FDA to figure that out!

CIA admits destroying interrogation tapes

RadioNetherlands
Friday December 7, 2007

The CIA has admitted destroying video recordings of the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The US intelligence agency said the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of undercover CIA agents and because they were no longer relevant to the investigations.

The New York Times reported the destruction of the tapes on Thursday and said the recordings showed interrogation techniques being used which human rights organisations regard as torture. The CIA describes the interrogation techniques used as "lawful, safe and effective".

The tapes, which date from 2002, showed the interrogation of a number of terrorist suspects, including alleged al-Qaeda commander Abu Zubaydah. They were destroyed in 2005, the year in which the CIA came under fire for running secret detention centres abroad.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US intelligence services were given greater powers regarding the detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects. There is now increasing support in Washington to have these powers revoked.

Cartel Heads Greenspan and Welch Confronted Over Grossly Concentrated Power

Fmr Fed Chair quiet on private Fed and secret shareholders; Fmr GE CEO disconnected from motives of war-profiteering or the conflicts of a military-industrial complex reinforced by propaganda

JonesReport.com | December 7, 2007

Members of We Are Change confronted former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan for a second time as well as the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, about the very unbalanced axis of power ruling just behind the surface.

Greenspan had no comment about the secret shareholders of the Fed, which sources show include the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, nor its history of abuses (including its role in causing the Great Depression). Perhaps he has been shamed to silence when faced with members of the public ever since members of We Are Change "thanked" him for destroying the dollar.

Yet, there is no denying that the bank that admittedly serves the private shareholders and not the U.S. people wields unruly power. The central bank is deeply integrated with the global financial architecture-- which Tom Foti brings up in terms of the Swiss Bank of International Settlements-- and is undoubtedly manipulated at will (through control of money supply, interest rates and other critical variables) by the elite bankers and those who serve their agenda.

Similarly, behind General Electric sits enormously concentrated power. Ever since Bill Clinton passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act (enabling drastic consolidation), four media companies have owned and controlled nearly all of telecom. The fact that GE controls slices of the military-industrial complex and the media only makes the reinforcement of establishment values painfully obvious.

Yet, Welch, who was gracious enough to talk with reporters, denied that such an obvious conflict of interest exists. He seemed shocked, in fact, at the idea and vehemently shook his head, "No, no, no, no." He tried to explain that "defense is a very small piece of cheese," while putting forward that "NBC absolutely wants peace."

Welch was totally astounded at the fact that NBC, along with the rest of the MSM, have blacked out coverage of WTC 7's unexplainable collapse and refuse to cover the implications that the demolition apparent presents for 9/11 truth. As 9/11 was the pretext for a 'never ending war,' the relationship between a complicit media and support for a war is fairly obvious.

However, Jack Welch himself retired a curious four days before 9/11 and was no more connected to the attacks than Greenspan. He denied any knowledge of 'put options' prior to September 11, and rightly so, as there is no evidence (that has ever presented itself) to indicate that Welch had any prior knowledge or direct connections to the events.

But the point is that he had a very strange sense of disconnect from the mere idea that such behind the scenes manipulation and cooperation occurs at all-- that conflicts of interest and misconduct would even take place.

Yet, Welch is undoubtedly a knowing member of the establishment of power-- while he may or may not be in tune with the aims of the machine, there is no doubting his awareness of his firm's importance within that machine.

Jack Welch is well-known as a vocal defender of skyrocketing CEO compensation and believes people should stop complaining about the vast disparity between the salaries of the establishment's controllers and the rest of the world.

Also, it is interesting but intangible that Jack Welch has defined himself in recent years as a crisis manager with clearly laid out methods -- and an optimist who 'goes from the gut.' His OpEd piece 'The Five Stages of Crisis Management - Why Katrina will make us stronger.' clearly demonstrates that:

"One of the marks of good leadership is the ability to dispense with denial quickly and face into hard stuff with eyes open and fists raised. With particularly bad crises facing them, good leaders also define reality, set direction and inspire people to move forward. Just think of Giuliani after 9/11 or Churchill during World War II. Denial doesn't exactly come to mind--a forthright, calm, fierce boldness does."

(Here he compares leadership within a company and a country) "Companies typically go to extremes after a crisis. They throw up fortresses of rules, controls and procedures to fix what went wrong in the first place. In that way, they build a kind of immunity to the sickness that felled them."

The New York Times labeled George W. Bush's bold leadership after 9/11 as 'The Jack Welch War Plan' in an article from September 2002, stating that Bush "has always run the White House by the cardinal rules in their [CEOs Welch and Ken Lay] playbook... whether it is managing our money or managing a war."

"Now that we know that this model was a sham, with even Mr. Welch's General Electric under scrutiny for fiscal sleight of hand, you would think the Bush administration might revisit it. But instead it is following a discredited modus operandi more slavishly than ever, even as it prepares to fight a new war. ''There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence,'' said Mr. Welch in ''Jack: Straight From the Gut,'' his Bushian-titled memoir. ''Arrogance is a killer.'' Mr. Bush and the C.E.O.'s around him seem as oblivious to this maxim as the C.E.O. who coined it."

"But this administration no longer cooks the books merely on fiscal matters. Disinformation has become ubiquitous... It's when such dishonesty extends to the war on terrorism, though, that you appreciate just how much a killer arrogance can be. Even with little White House cooperation in its inquiry, this month's Congressional intelligence hearings presented a chilling portrait of the administration's efforts to cover up its pre-9/11 lassitude about terrorist threats."

The Times is right to use the word "oblivious"-- it aptly reflects the same attitude Mr. Welch demonstrated about the idea of "conflict of interests"-- as though the concept was completely abstract and bore no relationship to business as usual in the real world.

While there is certainly no reason to believe Jack Welch had prior knowledge of 9/11, it is fitting that a man who The Times suggests may have inspired the tone of leadership, character and conduct in the 'War on Terror' also raised up the monstrous conglomerate that GE become under his lead.

His firm all too well fits into Bush's war-- as it manufactures both the arms and propaganda of warfare-- and certainly stands to profit from a state of war meant to go on without end. The era since 9/11 has been one of a rashly dishonest leadership acting to bleed out the last vestiges of freedom and allow society's controllers to seize upon its holdings, the people and property of the U.S.

Prince Philip's top aide to be quizzed over 'murder' claims at Diana inquest

UK Daily Mail
Friday December 7, 2007

The Duke of Edinburgh's top aide is to appear at the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, next week, it has been announced.

Private secretary Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-Davis is certain to be asked about Harrods tycoon Mohamed al Fayed's claim that the Duke ordered Diana's "murder" in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

The Princess's close friend Rosa Monkton and her stepmother Raine, Countess Spencer, are also listed to give evidence as the inquest enters its 11th week.

In a key few days of evidence Alberto Repossi - the jeweller at the centre of claims that Dodi Fayed had bought an an engagement ring for the Princess - and MP Nicholas Soames, whom Diana allegedly "feared", will also be called.

Others listed include Philippe Doucin, a barman who says he sold drinks to driver Henri Paul at the Ritz Hotel in Paris on the night of the crash, and Dr Arnaud Derossi, who co-ordinated the medical response at the scene of the tragedy in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in the early hours of August 31, 1997.

Mohamed al Fayed, whose son Dodi was killed in the crash with Diana and Henri Paul, is convinced the couple were murdered in an MI6 plot which he believes was ordered by the Duke of Edinburgh.

He believes the couple were poised to announce their engagement when they died and that Diana was pregnant with Dodi's child.

Sir Miles is likely to be asked about the whereabouts of correspondence between the Duke and the Princess, which her former butler Paul Burrell claims existed - part of a box of correspondence dubbed the "crown jewels".

Full article here.

Another Shooter With A History Of Anti-depressant Use

Killer is latest in long line of young men with history of psychiatric drugs treatment for depression and ADHD.

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, Dec 6, 2007

Robert Hawkins, the 19 year old who killed himself and eight other people with an assault rifle last night in Omaha, Nebraska had a history of treatment with psychiatric drugs for depression and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and was on prozac according to press reports.

Of course the headlines will once again focus on how evil and dangerous guns are, how the second amendment should be reevaluated and will once again ignore the fact that this young man was subject to dangerous brain altering chemicals for a number of years prior to this tragic incident.

Hawkins is the latest in a long line of shooters all of which were on prescribed antidepressants before they suddenly snapped and decided to kill as many people as they could before taking their own lives.

Investigators believe that Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech murderer, had been taking anti-depressant medication at some point before the shootings last April, according to The Chicago Tribune.

Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, as well as 15-year-old Kip Kinkel, the Oregon killer who gunned down his parents and classmates, were all on psychotropic drugs.

Jeff Weise, the Red Lake High School killer was on prozac, "Unabomber" Ted Kaczinski, Michael McDermott, John Hinckley, Jr., Byran Uyesugi, Mark David Chapman and Charles Carl Roberts IV, the Amish school killer, were all on SSRI psychotropic drugs.

Antidepressant drugs have never been tested on children nor approved by the FDA for use on children, however, Scientific studies proving that prozac encourages suicidal tendencies in young people are voluminous and span back nearly a decade.

In 2005, it was revealed that Eli Lilly had full knowledge of a 1200% increase in suicide risk for takers of their Prozac. This evidence came in the wake of findings published in the British Medical Journal a year previously.

In 2006 a report was published outlining the fact that anti-depressant drug Paxil doubles the risk of violent behavior. Another study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry revealed that teens taking antidepressant drugs are more likely to commit suicide.

However, prescriptions of antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs among schoolchildren has more than quadrupled in that time, while use of behaviour-altering drugs, including Ritalin, for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Modafinil, for daytime sleepiness, has soared ten-fold.

It is a well known fact among the makers of these drugs that they are directly linked to behavioural disturbances including agitation, panic attacks and extreme aggression, yet their use is so commonplace that they have now even found their way into our drinking water.

Since these deadly drugs are prevalent in almost all mass shooting incidents, where is the call to ban prozac? Where is the investigation into these drugs and the big pharma corporations that are pushing them and gaining record profits? Why is the knee-jerk reaction always to attack the 2nd Amendment rights of Americans to self-defense, a right that was exercised in January 2002 when students subdued a shooter at another Virginia university before he could kill more than three people because they were allowed guns on campus?

Mountain Dew Ad Campaign Portends Fascist Future

Kurt Nimmo
TruthNews
Friday December 7, 2007

In a marketing strategy certainly in tune with the times, Mountain Dew envisions the not unlikely concept of a future fascist police state. An earlier Mountain Dew advert featured a hapless window puppeteer raided by a SWAT team in New York. Does Mountain Dew and PepsiCo know something the rest of us don’t?

Baer Suggests Saudis Could Stage Terror In America to Instigate Iran Attack

CIA veteran also has questions about why alleged masterminds were being protected before 9/11

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, December 7, 2007

Former CIA veteran Robert Baer has suggested that a withdrawal from the possibility of striking Iran could be reversed if a terror attack was to take place in America - and he fingered America's ally Saudi Arabia as the most likely perpetrator of any such attack. Baer also questioned why the U.S. and its allies continue to protect individuals who consorted with the alleged mastermind of 9/11 before the attacks.

Baer was labeled "perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East” by Seymour Hersh and his astounding career formed the script for the Academy Award winning motion picture Syriana.

Baer served as a clandestine CIA officer in Madras and New Delhi, India; in Beirut, Lebanon; in Dushanbe, Tajikistan; and in Salah al-Din in Kurdish northern Iraq. While in Iraq, Baer tried to persuade the Clinton administration to back a coup to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

During a June 2006 radio interview, Baer said that the evidence points to 9/11 having an inside job aspect.

Elaborating on this during an appearance on The Alex Jones Show yesterday, Baer pointed out that the alleged masterminds behind 9/11 were all being protected by the U.S. government and its allies before the attacks.

"There were several Americans that could have grabbed Khalid Sheik Mohammed in 1996 when he was in Dohar who are now working for that government (Qatar), there's been no explanation of how he got away....there's been no explanation of why these American officials went to work for the same man - the Minister of the Interior, including Rudy Giuliani, he has an enormous amount of contracts with Dohar today with the same guy who protected Khalid Sheik Mohammed," said Baer.

"I'd like to know what are those connections and why is the Minister of the Interior still in power, he's given us no explanation of why he tipped off Khalid Sheik Mohammed in 1996," he added.

Baer also agreed that questions need to be answered about the Pakistani financier of the alleged hijackers, ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad, visiting top U.S. government and intelligence officials in the week before and during 9/11.

Speaking about recent developments, Baer said that the Bush administration had "blown their credibility" by talking about world war three with Iran in October six weeks before the National Intelligence Estimate emerged saying Iran was a benign power.

Asked if some element of the Neo-Con camp could stage or provocateur an event to reverse the current climate of withdrawal from an attack on Iran, Baer said, "Yeah, the only way you're gonna get back in the game is to reimpose the draft," conceding that the only way to grease the skids for hitting Iran would be another terror attack.

Asked who would launch that terror attack, Baer said, "Well, use your imagination, whose interests is it in? It's in Saudi Arabia's interests for instance - who's gonna protect them against Iran unless there's an attack in this country?"

Click here to listen to the MP3 interview.