'Citizen journalism' battles the Chinese censors

AFP
Monday June 25, 2007

In the strictly controlled media world of communist China, "citizen journalism" is beating a way through censorship, breaking taboos and offering a pressure valve for social tensions.
In one striking example this month, the Internet was largely responsible for breaking open a slave scandal in two Chinese provinces that some local authorities had been complicit in.

A letter posted on the Internet by 400 parents of children working as slaves in brickyards was the trigger for the national press to finally report on the scandal that some rights groups say had been going on for years.

The parents' Internet posting was part of a growing phenomenon for marginalised people in China who can not otherwise have their complaints addressed by the traditional, government-controlled press.

"The phenomenon of 'citizen journalism' suddenly arrived several years ago," said Beijing-based dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was one of the student leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.

"Since the appearance of blogs in particular, every blog is a new platform for the spread of information."

He cited the example of a couple in the southwestern city of Chongqing who became known as the "Stubborn Nails" in April because they refused to leave their home until they received adequate compensation from the property developer who wanted them out.

They quickly became household names in China -- and symbols of resistance against greedy land developers and corrupt local authorities -- mainly thanks to Internet postings.

"That case was first revealed through blogs," Liu said.

Also in Chongqing, parts of the city were this month set on fire following the beating of flower sellers by the "chengguan", city police charged with "cleaning up" the city's roads.

Witnesses to the beatings had appealed to local television journalists, but nothing was broadcast.

The incident only became known outside the city thanks to photos and stories published on the Internet, sparking anger among China's netizens.

"It's fascism," said one, while another mocked: "The inhabitants of Chongqing are truly naive, the Chinese media is all controlled by the Communist Party, they decide what people know."

Several days later, another blunder by the "chengguan" -- this time in Zhengzhou in central Henan province, again targeted at a street seller -- provoked further riots.

The image of protesters surrounding a police car, captured by a mobile phone, made its way round the world, after being posted on Chinese movie sharing site Tudou, then reposted on YouTube.

Elsewhere across China, protesters often seek to post photos or videos of unrest on the Internet to counter the versions from the state-run press and local authorities, who usually downplay or deny the events.

Recognising the threat of China's growing online community, Chinese President Hu Jintao called in January for the Internet to be "purified", and the government has since launched a number of online crackdowns.

"The department of propaganda has sent out regulations to try and control the opinions being spread on the Internet, but every citizen has the right to criticise or to take part in public affairs on the Internet," said Zhu Dake, a professor at Shanghai Tongji University.

"The government has to accept the criticisms of the people, it can no longer react crudely like in the past."

Julien Pain, who monitors Internet freedom issues for Reporters Without Borders, is less optimistic.

"One cannot truly say that the Internet in China is becoming more and more free, because at the same time as the development of citizen journalists, the government finds ways of blocking or censoring content," Pain said.

Reporters Without Borders, which labels the Chinese government an "enemy of the Internet," says about 50 cyber dissidents are currently behind bars in China.

U.S. military probes Afghan detainee abuse

Reuters
Monday June 25, 2007

The U.S. military in Afghanistan has began an investigation into a report that says U.S. and Afghan soldiers were involved in abusing a suspect, the military said.

The U.S. soldier in question has been temporarily removed from his post pending an investigation, it said in a statement.

Wolfgang Bauer, a correspondent with the German magazine Focus, reported this month that along with a magazine photographer he witnessed an incident by U.S. and Afghan soldiers he believed amounted to torture.

Focus reported that during a search of a village for Taliban fighters, a patrol apprehended a suspect in a house in Ghazni, southwest of Kabul.

When the suspect refused to talk, the magazine said, an Afghan platoon leader tied one end of a rope to the suspect's foot and the other to a vehicle and then threatened to drag the man unless he told the truth.

Focus reported that the platoon leader then had an American soldier start the motor. The magazine printed a picture of what it said was the prisoner tied to the vehicle, with a soldier standing nearby.

After idling for two minutes, the vehicle's motor was shut off. The man was not dragged, the magazine reported, and the suspect was set free.

The U.S. soldier, a "fighter against terrorism, is suddenly, according to international law, a criminal," Bauer wrote.

Additionally, the article said that family members of the suspect were threatened.

"U.S. military officials have initiated an investigation in response to an article," the U.S. military said.

"This alleged behavior goes against everything the U.S. military stands for and believes in," it said quoting Army Colonel Martin P. Schweitzer, a commander for foreign troops in the region of the incident.

The Afghan army has also initiated an investigation, the U.S. military said.

U.S. soldiers form the bulk of nearly 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. They are hunting Taliban and their al Qaeda allies and have arrested hundreds of militant suspects since the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001.

Many former detainees have made allegations of mistreatment or torture while in detention and there have also been a number of unexplained deaths.

Everyone we fight in Iraq is now "al-Qaida"

Glenn Greenwald
Salon
Monday June 25, 2007

Josh Marshall publishes an e-mail from a reader who identifies what is one of the most astonishing instances of mindless, pro-government "reporting" yet:

It's a curious thing that, over the past 10 - 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as "al-Qaida" fighters. When did that happen?

Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were "insurgents" or they were referred to as "Sunni" or "Shia'a" fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as "al-Qaida".

Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda.

That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term "Al Qaeda" to designate "anyone and everyeone we fight against or kill in Iraq" is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as "Al Qaeda."

But what is even more notable is that the establishment press has followed right along, just as enthusiastically. I don't think the New York Times has published a story about Iraq in the last two weeks without stating that we are killing "Al Qaeda fighters," capturing "Al Qaeda leaders," and every new operation is against "Al Qaeda."

The Times -- typically in the form of the gullible and always-government-trusting "reporting" of Michael Gordon, though not only -- makes this claim over and over, as prominently as possible, often without the slightest questioning, qualification, or doubt. If your only news about Iraq came from The New York Times, you would think that the war in Iraq is now indistinguishable from the initial stage of the war in Afghanistan -- that we are there fighting against the people who hijacked those planes and flew them into our buildings: "Al Qaeda."

What is so amazing about this new rhetorical development -- not only from our military, but also from our "journalists" -- is that, for years, it was too shameless and false even for the Bush administration to use. Even at the height of their propaganda offensives about the war, the furthest Bush officials were willing to go was to use the generic term "terrorists" for everyone we are fighting in Iraq, as in: "we cannot surrender to the terrorists by withdrawing" and "we must stay on the offensive against terrorists."

But after his 2004 re-election was secure, even the President acknowledged that "Al Qaeda" was the smallest component of the "enemies" we are fighting in Iraq:

A clear strategy begins with a clear understanding of the enemy we face. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists are by far the largest group. These are ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein -- and they reject an Iraq in which they are no longer the dominant group. . . .

The second group that makes up the enemy in Iraq is smaller, but more determined. It contains former regime loyalists who held positions of power under Saddam Hussein -- people who still harbor dreams of returning to power. These hard-core Saddamists are trying to foment anti-democratic sentiment amongst the larger Sunni community. . . .

The third group is the smallest, but the most lethal: the terrorists affiliated with or inspired by al Qaeda.

And note that even for the "smallest" group among those we are fighting in Iraq, the president described them not as "Al Qaeda," but as those "affiliated with or inspired by al Qaeda." Claiming that our enemy in Iraq was comprised primarily or largely of "Al Qaeda" was too patently false even for the President to invoke in defense of his war.

But now, support for the war is at an all-time low and war supporters are truly desperate to find a way to stay in Iraq. So the administration has thrown any remnants of rhetorical caution to the wind, overtly calling everyone we are fighting "Al Qaeda." This strategy was first unveiled by Joe Lieberman when he went on Meet the Press in January and claimed that the U.S. was "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy that we're fighting in Iraq today". Though Lieberman was widely mocked at the time for his incomparable willingness to spew even the most patent falsehoods to justify the occupation, our intrepid political press corps now dutifully follows right along.

Here is the first paragraph from today's New York Times article on our latest offensive, based exclusively on the claims of our military commanders:

The operational commander of troops battling to drive fighters with Al Qaeda from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Qaeda leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week. He compared their flight with the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004.

The article then uses the term "Qaeda" an additional 19 times to describe the enemy we are fighting -- "Qaeda leaders," "Qaeda strongholds," "Qaeda fighters," "Qaeda groups," the "Qaeda threat," etc. What is our objective in Iraq? To "move into neighborhoods cleared of Qaeda fighters and hold them."

In virtually every article from the Times now, anyone we fight is automatically designated "Al Qaeda":

* June 21 (by Michael Gordon and Alissa Rubin):

American troops discovered a medical aid station for insurgents -- another sign that the Qaeda fighters had prepared for an intense fight . . . In a statement, the American military said it had killed 41 Qaeda operatives.

* June 20 (by Michael Gordon):

The problem of collaring the Qaeda fighters is challenging in several respects. . . The presence of so many civilians on an urban battlefield affords the operatives from Al Qaeda another possible means to elude their American pursuers. . . . Since the battle for western Baquba began, Qaeda insurgents have carried out a delaying action, employing snipers and engaging American troops in several firefights.

* June 19 (by Michael Gordon and Damien Cave):

The Qaeda and insurgent strongholds in Baquba are strongly defended, according to American intelligence reports [though even that article described the enemy in Baquba as "a mix of former members of Saddam Hussein's army and paramilitary forces, embittered Sunni Arab men, criminal gangs and Qaeda Islamists"]

*June 17 (by Thom Shanker and Michael Gordon):

With the influx of tens of thousands of additional combat troops into Iraq now complete, American forces have begun a wide offensive against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia on the outskirts of Baghdad, the top American commander in Iraq said Saturday.

The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in a news conference in Baghdad along with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said the operation was intended to take the fight to Al Qaeda's hide-outs in order to cut down the group's devastating campaign of car bombings. . . .

The additional American forces, General Petraeus said Saturday, would allow the United States to conduct operations in "a number of areas around Baghdad, in particular to go into areas that were sanctuaries in the past of Al Qaeda."

From The Washington Post today:

The battle came Friday to the town of Khalis, about 10 miles northwest of Baqubah. U.S. forces saw a group of al-Qaeda in Iraq gunmen attempting to avoid Iraqi police patrols and infiltrate Khalis from the southwest, according to a U.S. military statement. . . . .

With those deaths, at least 68 suspected al-Qaeda operatives have been killed in the offensive, according to the U.S. military's tally.

And here is the headline from CNN's article yesterday:

Note that, in the sub-headline, CNN totals the number of "militants" killed as 68, which, in the headline, magically becomes "68 al Qaeda militants killed." That is because, in our media, everyone we kill in Iraq, and everyone who fights against our occupation, are all now "al Qaeda."

Each of these articles typically (though not always) initially refers to "Al Qaeda in Iraq" or "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," as though they are nothing more than the Iraqi branch office of the group that launched the 9/11 attacks. The articles then proceed to refer to the group only as "Qaeda," and repeatedly quote U.S. military officials quantifying the amount of "Qaeda fighters" we killed. Hence, what we are doing in Iraq is going after and killing members of the group which flew the planes into our buildings. Who could possibly be against that?

Are there some foreign fighters in Iraq who have taken up arms against the U.S. occupation who are fairly called "Al Qaeda"? Probably. But by all accounts -- including the President's -- they are a tiny part of the groups with guns who are waging war in Iraq. The vast, vast majority of them are Iraqis motivated by a desire to acquire more political power in their own country at the expense of other Iraqi factions and/or to fight against a foreign occupation of their country. To refer to them as "Al Qaeda" so casually and with so little basis (other than the fact that U.S. military officials now do so) is misleading and propagandistic in the extreme.

Making matters much worse, this tactic was exposed long, long ago. From the Christian Science Monitor in September, 2005:

The US and Iraqi governments have vastly overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and most of them don't come from Saudi Arabia, according to a new report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS). According to a piece in The Guardian, this means the US and Iraq "feed the myth" that foreign fighters are the backbone of the insurgency. While the foreign fighters may stoke the insurgency flames, they make up only about 4 to 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgents.

And in January of this year, the Cato Institute published a detailed analysis -- entitled "The Myth of an al Qaeda Takeover of Iraq" -- by Ted Galen Carpenter, its vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, documenting that claims of "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is "a canard that the perpetrators of the current catastrophe use to frighten people into supporting a fatally flawed, and seemingly endless, nation-building debacle."

What is always most striking about this is how uncritically our press passes on government claims. War reporting in Iraq is obviously extremely difficult and dangerous, and it takes a great deal of courage to be in Iraq in order to file these stories. There is no denying that.

But precisely because of those dangers, these reporters rely almost exclusively on the narratives offered by U.S. military officials selected by the Bush administration to convey events to the press. Almost every one of the articles referenced above is shaped from start to finish by accounts about what happened from American military commanders (with, in isolated instances, accounts from Iraqis in the area). That is inevitable, though such accounts ought to be treated with much greater skepticism.

But what is not inevitable is to adopt the patently misleading nomenclature and political rhetoric of the administration, so plainly designed to generate support for the "surge" (support for which Gordon himself admitted he has embraced) by creating the false appearance that the violence in Iraq is due to attacks by the terrorist group responsible for 9/11. What makes this practice all the more disturbing is how quickly and obediently the media has adopted the change in terms consciously issued by the Bush administration and their military officials responsible for presenting the Bush view of the war to the press.

UPDATE: Posts from other bloggers who previously noticed this same trend demonstrate how calculated it is and pinpoint its obvious genesis. At Kos, BarbInMD noted back in May that Bush's rhetoric on Iraq had palpably shifted, as he began declaring that "Al-Qaida is public enemy No. 1 in Iraq." The same day, she noted that Bush "mentioned Al-Qaida no less than 27 times" in his Iraq speech. As always, a theme travels unmolested from Bush's mouth into the unexamined premises of our newspapers' front pages.

Separately, Ghillie notes in comments that the very politically cognizant Gen. Petraeus has been quite noticeably emphasizing "the battle against Al Qaeda" in interviews for months. And yesterday, ProfMarcus analyzed the top Reuters article concerning American action in Iraq -- headline: "Al Qaeda fight to death in Iraq bastion: U.S" -- and noted that "al qaeda is mentioned 13 times in a 614 word story" and that "reading the article, you would think that al qaeda is not only everywhere in iraq but is also behind all the insurgent activity that's going on."

Interestingly, in addition to the one quoted above, there is another long article in the Post today, this one by the reliable Thomas Ricks, which extensively analyzes the objectives and shortcomings in our current military strategy. Ricks himself strategy never once mentions Al Qaeda.

Finally, the lead story of the NYT today -- in its first two paragraphs -- quotes Gen. Odierno as claiming that the 2004 battle of Falluja was aimed at capturing "top Qaeda leaders in the city." But Michael Gordon himself, back in 2004, published a lengthy and detailed article about the Falluja situation and never once mentioned or even alluded to "Al Qaeda," writing only about the Iraqi Sunni insurgents in that city who were hostile to our occupation (h/t John Manning). The propagandistic transformation of "insurgents" into "Al Qaeda," then, applies not only to our current predicament but also to past battles as well, as a tool of rank revisionism (hence, it is now officially "The Glorious 2004 Battle against Al-Qaeda in Falluja").

Putin: 'Soviet era less bleak than US history'

Glenn Greenwald
Salon
Monday June 25, 2007

THE history of the Soviet Union had fewer black pages in its history than certain other countries, not least the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in a speech.

"Regarding the problematic pages in our history, yes, we do have them, as does any state,'' Putin said at a social sciences conference, citing Stalin's purges during the 1930s.

"But other countries have also known their bleak and terrible moments,'' he said in comments published on the official Kremlin website.

"In any event, we never used nuclear weapons against civilians, and we never dumped chemicals on thousands of kilometres of land or dropped more bombs on a tiny country than were dropped during the entire Second World War, as was the case in Vietnam,'' he said.

Murdoch Said to Be Close to Terms on Journal

RICHARD SIKLOS and ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
NY Times
Monday June 25, 2007

The News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and advisers for Dow Jones and its controlling Bancroft family were close last night to agreeing on terms designed to protect The Wall Street Journal’s newsroom independence if the company accepts a takeover bid from Mr. Murdoch, according to several people briefed on the talks.

However, these people cautioned that a deal between Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts’ advisers did not mean that either the Dow Jones board or the family, which controls 64 percent of the shareholder votes, would approve the arrangement.

If an agreement on newsroom independence were to be made by the Dow Jones board, the News Corporation and the Bancroft family, the only barrier standing in the way of Mr. Murdoch’s control of The Wall Street Journal would be the selling price.

Mr. Murdoch has offered $60 a share for Dow Jones, which he has long wanted to add to his global media empire, and promises that he will not meddle in the news pages. But the Bancroft family, which has controlled the company for more than 100 years, is wary of his reputation for sensationalism and for interfering in the news operations of his media companies for his own political or financial ends.

Over the weekend, Mr. Murdoch responded to a proposal of editorial assurances the Bancrofts sent him on Friday, which his advisers described as wholly unacceptable and virtually identical to what the Bancrofts had proposed three weeks ago. Mr. Murdoch’s counterproposal closely mirrored Mr. Murdoch’s initial proposal, said one person with knowledge of the offer who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Under the proposal, the News Corporation would maintain a 16-member board of directors at Dow Jones and five of those directors would form a special committee charged with preserving editorial independence. The committee’s members would be mutually agreed on by News Corporation and the Bancrofts and would oversee the hiring of the managing editor and editorial page editor. Unlike the Bancroft’s proposal which Mr. Murdoch rejected, the committee would not also oversee budgets and the appointment of publisher.

The News Corporation proposal also offers a seat on its board to a Bancroft family member of its choosing, rather than two members of the family’s choosing as they had proposed. Whereas the Bancroft proposal entrusted the committee with oversight of Dow Jones brands, Mr. Murdoch’s counter-proposal does not. However, it does give the managing editor approval over any deal to use the Journal brand with any business not owned by News Corporation.

That plan resembles one put in place at The Times of London, which he bought in 1981. Some critics and former employees of The Times have accused Mr. Murdoch of reneging on his promises to not interfere in The Times’s news pages, though other editors have said he has maintained the paper’s independence.

Before agreeing to meet Mr. Murdoch on June 4, the Bancrofts had said they had “reached consensus that the mission of Dow Jones may be better accomplished in combination or collaboration with another organization, which may include News Corporation.”

However, since making that statement, no other strong competing bids have emerged. Without one, it is difficult to know how far Dow Jones can push Mr. Murdoch on price. The News Corporation is offering a premium of 67 percent over what Dow Jones shares were trading at when the offer first became public.

Giuliani Reps: Claim City At Fault For 9/11 Health Hazard "Ridiculous"

ANGELA MONTEFINISE
NY Post
Monday June 25, 2007

Flashback: Firefighters Urge "Peeling Of Guilliani's 9/11 Onion"

Flasback: Ground Zero Toxic Death Fumes Covered Up From Day One

Accusations by former Environmental Protection Agency head Christie Todd Whitman that the city is at fault for health hazards at Ground Zero are "ridiculous," according to representatives for former mayor Rudy Giuliani.

"This is revisionist history," said Giuliani's former deputy mayor Joe Lhota. "She's making this stuff up."

In an interview with Channel 4's News Forum set to air today, Whitman said the city - which was in charge of safety at Ground Zero - did not monitor workers properly, allowing them to work on "the pile" without respirators.

"We had some disagreements with some of the things that were occurring on 'the pile' . . . like not having people wear respirators. We wanted more emphasis on that," Whitman said in the interview.

Lhota said the city did everything it could to protect workers, and dismissed Whitman's claims the city ignored her warnings.

Whitman - who will be on the hot seat during a congressional hearing tomorrow - also claimed the city refused to allow EPA workers to wear hazmat suits when responding to an anthrax attack.

Lhota called the claims "completely untrue" and "baseless."

"Every effort was made by Mayor Giuliani and his staff to ensure the safety of all workers at Ground Zero in the aftermath of this unprecedented act of terror," Lhota said.

"No one from the city ever tried to block the Environmental Protection Agency."

But lawyers representing 10,000 sick 9/11 first responders in a class-action suit said Giuliani and the city are absolutely to blame.

"Whitman is no saint," said attorney Paul Napoli. "But when it came to responsibility for the workers, it was Giuliani . . . The responsibility falls squarely on his shoulders."

David Worby - another attorney for the 9/11 workers - agreed that Giuliani was "more at fault" than Whitman for a lack of respirators and monitoring.

"Really, they're both at fault," Worby said, adding the city "did not enforce anything."

Bush will use 9.11.2007 to extend surge, Rich says

Raw Story
Monday June 25, 2007

The Bush administration has a well established pattern of using the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to hype an often fictional "threat to America" and sell the war in Iraq, writes the New York Times' Frank Rich in his Sunday column. Rich expects this year to be no different.

"When the September 'snapshot' of the surge shows little change in the overall picture, the White House will say that 'the consequences' of winding down the war would be even more disastrous: surrender, defeat, apocalypse now. So we must stay the surge," says Rich.

Using the September anniversary to push the Iraq war is not a new strategy, according to Rich. On Sept. 8, 2002, three Bush cabinet members and the vice president fanned out across morning talk shows to warn of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his alleged nuclear program. That was the date of Condoleezza Rice's infamous "mushroom cloud" line.

"Like the war's rollout in 2002, the new propaganda offensive to extend and escalate the war will be exquisitely timed to both the anniversary of 9/11 and a high-stakes congressional vote (the Pentagon appropriations bill)."

If the administration wanted to give an accurate assessment of Iraq, they would not be withholding information about increased attacks in the Green Zone, says Rich. "Apparently the White House is working overtime to ensure that the September 'snapshot' of Iraq will be an underexposed blur."

By letting the White House get away with "falsifying reality, sliming its opponents and sowing hyped fears of Armageddon," a real debate on what to do in Iraq cannot not occur, he argues.

"The best way to honor the sixth anniversary of 9/11 will be to at last disarm a president who continues to squander countless lives in the names of those voiceless American dead."

Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship

Glenn Greenwald
Brussels Journal
Monday June 25, 2007

Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state.

Mr Bukovsky paid a visit to the European Parliament on Thursday at the invitation of Fidesz, the Hungarian Civic Forum. Fidesz, a member of the European Christian Democrat group, had invited the former Soviet dissident over from England, where he lives, on the occasion of this year’s 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. After his morning meeting with the Hungarians, Mr Bukovsky gave an afternoon speech in a Polish restaurant in the Trier straat, opposite the European Parliament, where he spoke at the invitation of the United Kingdom Independence Party, of which he is a patron.

An interview with Vladimir Bukovsky about the impending EUSSR

In his speech Mr Bukovsky referred to confidential documents from secret Soviet files which he was allowed to read in 1992. These documents confirm the existence of a “conspiracy” to turn the European Union into a socialist organization. I attended the meeting and taped the speech. A transcript, as well as the audio fragment (approx. 15 minutes) can be found below. I also had a brief interview with Mr Bukovsky (4 minutes), a transcript and audio fragment of which can also be found below. The interview about the European Union had to be cut short because Mr Bukovsky had other engagements, but it brought back some memories to me, as I had interviewed Vladimir Bukovsky twenty years ago, in 1986, when the Soviet Union, the first monster that he so valiantly fought, was still alive and thriving.

Mr Bukovsky was one of the heroes of the 20th century. As a young man he exposed the use of psychiatric imprisonment against political prisoners in the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1917-1991) and spent a total of twelve years (1964-1976), from his 22nd to his 34th year, in Soviet jails, labour camps and psychiatric institutions. In 1976 the Soviets expelled him to the West. In 1992 he was invited by the Russian government to serve as an expert testifying at the trial conducted to determine whether the Soviet Communist Party had been a criminal institution. To prepare for his testimony Mr Bukovsky was granted access to a large number of documents from Soviet secret archives. He is one of the few people ever to have seen these documents because they are still classified. Using a small handheld scanner and a laptop computer, however, he managed to copy many documents (some with high security clearance), including KGB reports to the Soviet government.

An interview with Vladimir Bukovsky

Paul Belien: You were a very famous Soviet dissident and now you are drawing a parallel between the European Union and the Soviet Union. Can you explain this?

Vladimir Bukovsky: I am referrring to structures, to certain ideologies being instilled, to the plans, the direction, the inevitable expansion, the obliteration of nations, which was the purpose of the Soviet Union. Most people do not understand this. They do not know it, but we do because we were raised in the Soviet Union where we had to study the Soviet ideology in school and at university. The ultimate purpose of the Soviet Union was to create a new historic entity, the Soviet people, all around the globe. The same is true in the EU today. They are trying to create a new people. They call this people “Europeans”, whatever that means.

According to Communist doctrine as well as to many forms of Socialist thinking, the state, the national state, is supposed to wither away. In Russia, however, the opposite happened. Instead of withering away the Soviet state became a very powerful state, but the nationalities were obliterated. But when the time of the Soviet collapse came these suppressed feelings of national identity came bouncing back and they nearly destroyed the country. It was so frightening.

PB: Do you think the same thing can happen when the European Union collapses?

VB: Absolutely, you can press a spring only that much, and the human psyche is very resilient you know. You can press it, you can press it, but don’t forget it is still accumulating a power to rebound. It is like a spring and it always goes to overshoot.

PB: But all these countries that joined the European Union did so voluntarily.

VB: No, they did not. Look at Denmark which voted against the Maastricht treaty twice. Look at Ireland [which voted against the Nice treaty]. Look at many other countries, they are under enormous pressure. It is almost blackmail. Switzerland was forced to vote five times in a referendum. All five times they have rejected it, but who knows what will happen the sixth time, the seventh time. It is always the same thing. It is a trick for idiots. The people have to vote in referendums until the people vote the way that is wanted. Then they have to stop voting. Why stop? Let us continue voting. The European Union is what Americans would call a shotgun marriage.

PB: What do you think young people should do about the European Union? What should they insist on, to democratize the institution or just abolish it?

VB: I think that the European Union, like the Soviet Union, cannot be democratized. Gorbachev tried to democratize it and it blew up. This kind of structures cannot be democratized.

PB: But we have a European Parliament which is chosen by the people.

VB: The European Parliament is elected on the basis of proportional representation, which is not true representation. And what does it vote on? The percentage of fat in yoghurt, that kind of thing. It is ridiculous. It is given the task of the Supreme Soviet. The average MP can speak for six minutes per year in the Chamber. That is not a real parliament.

Transcript of Mr Bukovsky’s Brussels speech
Listen to it here

In 1992 I had unprecedented access to Politburo and Central Committee secret documents which have been classified, and still are even now, for 30 years. These documents show very clearly that the whole idea of turning the European common market into a federal state was agreed between the left-wing parties of Europe and Moscow as a joint project which [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev in 1988-89 called our “common European home.”

The idea was very simple. It first came up in 1985-86, when the Italian Communists visited Gorbachev, followed by the German Social-Democrats. They all complained that the changes in the world, particularly after [British Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher introduced privatisation and economic liberalisation, were threatening to wipe out the achievement (as they called it) of generations of Socialists and Social-Democrats – threatening to reverse it completely. Therefore the only way to withstand this onslaught of wild capitalism (as they called it) was to try to introduce the same socialist goals in all countries at once. Prior to that, the left-wing parties and the Soviet Union had opposed European integration very much because they perceived it as a means to block their socialist goals. From 1985 onwards they completely changed their view. The Soviets came to a conclusion and to an agreement with the left-wing parties that if they worked together they could hijack the whole European project and turn it upside down. Instead of an open market they would turn it into a federal state.

According to the [secret Soviet] documents, 1985-86 is the turning point. I have published most of these documents. You might even find them on the internet. But the conversations they had are really eye opening. For the first time you understand that there is a conspiracy – quite understandable for them, as they were trying to save their political hides. In the East the Soviets needed a change of relations with Europe because they were entering a protracted and very deep structural crisis; in the West the left-wing parties were afraid of being wiped out and losing their influence and prestige. So it was a conspiracy, quite openly made by them, agreed upon, and worked out.

In January of 1989, for example, a delegation of the Trilateral Commission came to see Gorbachev. It included [former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro] Nakasone, [former French President Valéry] Giscard d’Estaing, [American banker David] Rockefeller and [former US Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger. They had a very nice conversation where they tried to explain to Gorbachev that Soviet Russia had to integrate into the financial institutions of the world, such as Gatt, the IMF and the World Bank.

In the middle of it Giscard d’Estaing suddenly takes the floor and says: “Mr President, I cannot tell you exactly when it will happen – probably within 15 years – but Europe is going to be a federal state and you have to prepare yourself for that. You have to work out with us, and the European leaders, how you would react to that, how would you allow the other Easteuropean countries to interact with it or how to become a part of it, you have to be prepared.”

This was January 1989, at a time when the [1992] Maastricht treaty had not even been drafted. How the hell did Giscard d’Estaing know what was going to happen in 15 years time? And surprise, surprise, how did he become the author of the European constitution [in 2002-03]? A very good question. It does smell of conspiracy, doesn’t it?

Luckily for us the Soviet part of this conspiracy collapsed earlier and it did not reach the point where Moscow could influence the course of events. But the original idea was to have what they called a convergency, whereby the Soviet Union would mellow somewhat and become more social-democratic, while Western Europe would become social-democratic and socialist. Then there will be convergency. The structures have to fit each other. This is why the structures of the European Union were initially built with the purpose of fitting into the Soviet structure. This is why they are so similar in functioning and in structure.

It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan. We used to have an organisation which was planning everything in the economy, to the last nut and bolt, five years in advance. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU. When you look at the type of EU corruption, it is exactly the Soviet type of corruption, going from top to bottom rather than going from bottom to top.

If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It has no KGB – not yet – but I am very carefully watching such structures as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB. They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes – two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this as a crime [this is not entirely true, as Belgium already does so – pb]. So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes. I think Patricia Hewitt said this publicly.

Hence, we have now been warned. Meanwhile they are introducing more and more ideology. The Soviet Union used to be a state run by ideology. Today’s ideology of the European Union is social-democratic, statist, and a big part of it is also political correctness. I watch very carefully how political correctness spreads and becomes an oppressive ideology, not to mention the fact that they forbid smoking almost everywhere now. Look at this persecution of people like the Swedish pastor who was persecuted for several months because he said that the Bible does not approve homosexuality. France passed the same law of hate speech concerning gays. Britain is passing hate speech laws concerning race relations and now religious speech, and so on and so forth. What you observe, taken into perspective, is a systematic introduction of ideology which could later be enforced with oppressive measures. Apparently that is the whole purpose of Europol. Otherwise why do we need it? To me Europol looks very suspicious. I watch very carefully who is persecuted for what and what is happening, because that is one field in which I am an expert. I know how Gulags spring up.

It looks like we are living in a period of rapid, systematic and very consistent dismantlement of democracy. Look at this Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. It makes ministers into legislators who can introduce new laws without bothering to tell Parliament or anyone. My immediate reaction is why do we need it? Britain survived two world wars, the war with Napoleon, the Spanish Armada, not to mention the Cold War, when we were told at any moment we might have a nuclear world war, without any need for introducing this kind legislation, without the need for suspending our civil liberaties and introducing emergency powers. Why do we need it right now? This can make a dictatorship out of your country in no time.

Today’s situation is really grim. Major political parties have been completely taken in by the new EU project. None of them really opposes it. They have become very corrupt. Who is going to defend our freedoms? It looks like we are heading towards some kind of collapse, some kind of crisis. The most likely outcome is that there will be an economic collapse in Europe, which in due time is bound to happen with this growth of expenses and taxes. The inability to create a competitive environment, the overregulation of the economy, the bureaucratisation, it is going to lead to economic collapse. Particularly the introduction of the euro was a crazy idea. Currency is not supposed to be political.

I have no doubt about it. There will be a collapse of the European Union pretty much like the Soviet Union collapsed. But do not forget that when these things collapse they leave such devastation that it takes a generation to recover. Just think what will happen if it comes to an economic crisis. The recrimination between nations will be huge. It might come to blows. Look to the huge number of immigrants from Third World countries now living in Europe. This was promoted by the European Union. What will happen with them if there is an economic collapse? We will probably have, like in the Soviet Union at the end, so much ethnic strife that the mind boggles. In no other country were there such ethnic tensions as in the Soviet Union, except probably in Yugoslavia. So that is exactly what will happen here, too. We have to be prepared for that. This huge edifice of bureaucracy is going to collapse on our heads.

This is why, and I am very frank about it, the sooner we finish with the EU the better. The sooner it collapses the less damage it will have done to us and to other countries. But we have to be quick because the Eurocrats are moving very fast. It will be difficult to defeat them. Today it is still simple. If one million people march on Brussels today these guys will run away to the Bahamas. If tomorrow half of the British population refuses to pay its taxes, nothing will happen and no-one will go to jail. Today you can still do that. But I do not know what the situation will be tomorrow with a fully fledged Europol staffed by former Stasi or Securitate officers. Anything may happen.

We are losing time. We have to defeat them. We have to sit and think, work out a strategy in the shortest possible way to achieve maximum effect. Otherwise it will be too late. So what should I say? My conclusion is not optimistic. So far, despite the fact that we do have some anti-EU forces in almost every country, it is not enough. We are losing and we are wasting time.

Number of Americans who believe Saddam-9/11 tie rises to 41 percent

Josh Catone
Raw Story
Monday June 25, 2007

A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America's knowledge of history and current events.

Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?"

That total is actually up 5 points since September 2004.

Further, a majority of people couldn't identify Saudia Arabia as the country of origin of most of the 9/11 hijackers, even given the question in multiple choice format. 20% answered Iraq, while 14% believed the hijackers came from Iran.

A majority (52%) believe the US is losing the war against al Qaeda, however Newsweek disagrees. In the magazine's reporting of the poll, they made judgment that the US is in fact not "losing the fight against al-Qaeda or radical Islamic terrorism."

Closer to home, 89% of Americans are unable to name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (John Roberts), though a majority of those polled were able to name Nancy Pelosi as the current Speaker of the House.

A large majority of people said they didn't know or didn't care who the winner of this year's American Idol competition was (or at least weren't willing to admit it).

The full results of the Newsweek poll are available here.

President Bush claims he's exempt from security oversight too, Los Angeles Times to report

Raw Story | June 23, 2007

"The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is exempt from a presidential order requiring government agencies that handle classified national security information to submit to oversight by an independent federal watchdog," the Los Angeles Times will report Saturday, RAW STORY has learned. Excerpts:

#
"The executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 covers all government agencies that are part of the executive branch and, although it doesn't specifically say so, was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said.

The issue flared up Thursday when Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., criticized Cheney for refusing to file annual reports with the National Archives and Records Administration, spelling out how his office handles classified documents, or to submit to an inspection by the archives' Information Security Oversight Office.

The archives, a federal agency, has been pressing the vice president's office to cooperate with its oversight efforts for the past several years, contending that by not doing so, Cheney and his staff have created a potential national security risk.

Bush issued the directive in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a way of ensuring that the nation's secrets would not be mishandled, made public, or improperly declassified.

Read the full story here .

When Computers Attack

JOHN SCHWARTZ
NY Times
Sunday June 24, 2007

ANYONE who follows technology or military affairs has heard the predictions for more than a decade. Cyberwar is coming. Although the long-announced, long-awaited computer-based conflict has yet to occur, the forecast grows more ominous with every telling: an onslaught is brought by a warring nation, backed by its brains and computing resources; banks and other businesses in the enemy states are destroyed; governments grind to a halt; telephones disconnect; the microchip-controlled Tickle Me Elmos will be transformed into unstoppable killing machines.

No, that last item is not part of the scenario, mostly because those microprocessor-controlled toys aren’t connected to the Internet through the industrial remote-control technologies known as Scada systems, for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. The technology allows remote monitoring and control of operations like manufacturing production lines and civil works projects like dams. So security experts envision terrorists at a keyboard remotely shutting down factory floors or opening a dam’s floodgates to devastate cities downstream.

But how bad would a cyberwar really be — especially when compared with the blood-and-guts genuine article? And is there really a chance it would happen at all?

Whatever the answer, governments are readying themselves for the Big One.

China, security experts believe, has long probed United States networks. According to a 2007 Defense Department annual report to Congress, China’s military has invested heavily in electronic countermeasures and defenses against attack, and concepts like “computer network attack, computer network defense and computer network exploitation.”

According to the report, the Chinese Army sees computer network operations “as critical to achieving ‘electromagnetic dominance’ ” — whatever that is — early in a conflict.

The United States is arming up, as well. Robert Elder, commander of the Air Force Cyberspace Command, told reporters in Washington at a recent breakfast that his newly formed command, which defends military data, communications and control networks, is learning how to disable an opponent’s computer networks and crash its databases.

“We want to go in and knock them out in the first round,” he said, as reported on Military.com.

An all-out cyberconflict could “could have huge impacts,” said Danny McPherson, an expert with Arbor Networks. Hacking into industrial control systems, he said, could be “a very real threat.”

Attacks on the Internet itself, say, through what are known as root-name servers, which play a role in connecting Internet users with Web sites, could cause widespread problems, said Paul Kurtz, the chief operating officer of Safe Harbor, a security consultancy. And having so many nations with a finger on the digital button, of course, raises the prospect of a cyberconflict caused by a misidentified attacker or a simple glitch.

Still, instead of thinking in terms of the industry’s repeated warnings of a “digital Pearl Harbor,” Mr. McPherson said, “I think cyberwarfare will be far more subtle,” in that “certain parts of the system won’t work, or it will be that we can’t trust information we’re looking at.”

Whatever form cyberwar might take, most experts have concluded that what happened in Estonia earlier this month was not an example.

The cyberattacks in Estonia were apparently sparked by tensions over the country’s plan to remove Soviet-era war memorials. Estonian officials initially blamed Russia for the attacks, suggesting that its state-run computer networks blocked online access to banks and government offices.

The Kremlin denied the accusations. And Estonian officials ultimately accepted the idea that perhaps this attack was the work of tech-savvy activists, or “hactivists,” who have been mounting similar attacks against just about everyone for several years.

Still, many in the security community and the news media initially treated the digital attacks against Estonia’s computer networks as the coming of a long-anticipated new chapter in the history of conflict — when, in fact, the technologies and techniques used in the attacks were hardly new, nor were they the kind of thing that only a powerful government would have in its digital armamentarium.

The force of the attack appears to have come from armies of “zombie” computers infected with software that makes them available for manipulation and remote command. These “bot-nets” are more commonly used for illicit activities like committing online fraud and sending spam, said James Andrew Lewis, director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The main method of attack in Estonia — through what is known as a digital denial of service — doesn’t disable computers from within, but simply stacks up so much digital debris at the entryway that legitimate visitors, like bank customers, can’t get in.

That is not the same as disabling a computer from the inside, Mr. Lewis stressed. “The idea that Estonia was brought to its knees — that’s when we have to stop sniffing glue,” he said.

In fact, an attack would have borne real risks for Russia, or any aggressor nation, said Ross Stapleton-Gray, a security consultant in Berkeley, Calif. “The downside consequence of getting caught doing something more could well be a military escalation,” he said.

That’s too great a risk for a government to want to engage in what amounts to high-tech harassment, Mr. Lewis said. “The Russians are not dumb,” he said.

Even if an Internet-based conflict does eventually break out, and the dueling microchips do their worst, it would have a fundamentally different effect from flesh-and-blood fighting, said Andrew MacPherson, research assistant professor of justice studies at the University of New Hampshire. “If you have a porcelain vase and drop it — it’s very difficult to put it back together,” he said. “A cyberattack, maybe it’s more like a sheet that can be torn and it can be sewed back together.”

That is why Kevin Poulsen, a writer on security issues at Wired News, said that he had difficulty envisioning the threat that others see from an overseas attack by electrons and photons alone. “They unleash their deadly viruses and then they land on the beaches and sweep across our country without resistance because we’re rebooting our P.C.’s?” he asked.

In fact, the United States has prepared for cyberattacks incidentally, through our day-to-day exposure to crashes, glitches, viruses and meltdowns. There are very few places where a computer is so central that everything crashes to a halt if the machine goes on the blink.

Russian space engineers struggled to fix crashing computers aboard the International Space Station that help keep the orbiting laboratory oriented properly in space — if they hadn’t been fixed, the station might have had to be abandoned, at least temporarily.

Down on earth, by comparison, this correspondent found himself near the Kennedy Space Center in a convenience store without cash and with the credit card network unavailable. “The satellite’s down,” the clerk said. “It’s the rain.” And so the purchase of jerky and soda had to wait. At the center’s visitor complex, a sales clerk dealt with the same problem by pulling out paper sales slips.

People, after all, are not computers. When something goes wrong, we do not crash. Instead, we find another way: we improvise; we fix. We pull out the slips.

IMF says US economy uncomfortably close to stall speed

25 Jun 2007

bbj.hu

The International Monetary Fund on Friday said that the growth of US economy was “uncomfortably close” to the 2% “stall speed” associated with past recession.

The fund, in its annual report on the United States, said it shared with the US authorities' view that the most likely scenario is a soft landing as growth recovers and inflation falls, “although both are subject to risks.” “The US slowdown has mainly reflected a drag from residential investment due to the ongoing housing market correction,” said the IMF report. “Consumption, by contrast, has remained strong, supported by solid employment and wage growth.” “Benign US financial conditions have minimized spillovers elsewhere and, with global activity supported by faster growth in the Euro area and Asia, the US current account deficit has stabilized, albeit at high levels,” it added.

Due to the slowdown, the IMF cut its forecast for US economic growth to 2% this year from the 2.2% estimate the fund issued in its World Economic Outlook two months ago. But the IMF predicted that the US economy would grow 2.75 % in 2008. “We, like the US authorities, expect a favorable outcome for US growth,” said John Lipsky, the IMF's leading deputy director, presenting the annual US economic report. “We expect to see a gradual reacceleration towards a sustained pace of around 3% by 2008,” he said.

The IMF said it has seen four main macroeconomic challenges facing the US economy: facilitating a soft landing for the economy; maintaining a sound and innovative financial sector; raising domestic savings and lowering the current account deficit, while resisting protectionism and tackling the key longer-term fiscal challenge of rising entitlement spending. The IMF also called on the US authority to resist protectionism and to make efforts to promote free trade. “The commitment of (US) policymakers to embrace globalization has ensured that these benefits are shared with the rest of the world,” said the report. “Even so, policymakers will need to come to grips with the need to maintain a robust financial system, eliminate the fiscal deficit, reform the tax system and, most importantly, make entitlement programs sustainable,” it added. (people.com.cn)

For Cheney, office's relocation out of executive is nothing new

raw story

While news of the re-location of the Vice President's office outside of the executive branch surprised many political observers Thursday, earlier news reports reveal that Dick Cheney and his staff have long maintained that for the purposes of certain laws, the Office of the Vice President is a unique part of the government that is not part of the executive or legislative branches.

In 2005, the Center for Public Integrity reported that Cheney's office has considered itself outside the executive branch since 2002 when it argued that it was exempt from disclosing trips taken by its employees paid for by non-federal sources.

"Instead of making disclosures like most of the White House, Cheney's office since March 2002 has periodically responded to [Office of Government Ethics] inquiries by stating that it is not obligated to file such disclosure forms for travel funded by non-federal sources," wrote Kate Sheppard and Bob Williams. "The letters were signed by then-Counsel to the Vice President David Addington...In the letters to the Office of Government Ethics, Addington writes that the Office of the Vice President is not classified as an agency of the executive branch and is therefore not required to issue reports on travel, lodging and related expenses funded by non-federal sources."

Tom Fitton of the group Judicial Watch went on to tell the CPI that for Cheney and his staff, "Their view is that the vice president is a constitutional office that is not subject to the laws that others in the executive branch are. They have been consistent in that."

Earlier this year, the blog Talking Points Memo also highlighted the Office of the Vice President's unwillingness to disclose the names of its staff-members in a resource known as the "Plum Book" that is published by the executive branch. In place of the Vice President's staff, the Office published an entry outlining Addington's constitutional argument.

"The Vice Presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch, but is attached by the Constitution to the latter. The Vice Presidency performs functions in both the legislative branch (see article I, section 3 of the Constitution) and in the executive branch (see article II, and amendments XII and XXV, of the Constitution, and section 106 of title 3 of the United States Code)," the section noted.

TPM contributor David Kurtz remarked at the time, "I've gone from being open to the idea of an Imperial Vice Presidency to being convinced that historians will debate whether something approaching a Cheney-led coup d'etat has occurred, in which some of the powers of the Executive were extra-constitutionally usurped by the Office of the Vice President."

While criticism mounted regarding the argument offered by Cheney's office, the White House deflected expressed concerns, saying that the story was not a newsworthy subject.

"This is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate...the Vice President has a unique role in our United States government," said Dana Perino Friday afternoon at the White House.

She went on to say that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had no standing to investigate the compliance of the Vice President's office with the activities of the Internal Security Oversight Office.

"The executive order is enforced solely by the President of the United States. I think this is a little bit of a non-issue," she added.

The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington instead suggested that a counterpart office in the Senate should probe the Vice President's office's activity with regard to classification and declassification of government documents, if Cheney's argument that his office is part of the legislative branch is to be believed.

"By claiming the Office of the Vice President is within the legislative branch does Mr. Cheney agree that he is subject to Senate security procedures?" asked Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director, in a Friday release. "To safeguard sensitive information, in 1987 the Senate created the Office of Senate Security, which is part of the Secretary of the Senate. The Security Office's standards, procedures and requirements are set out in the Senate Security Manual, which is binding on all employees of the Senate."

The office of Senator Harry Reid, Democratic Majority Leader, did not respond to RAW STORY's inquiries of whether it would call on the Office of Senate Security to look into whether it had oversight on the Office of the Vice President's activities

As far as constitutional debate goes, founding father Alexander Hamilton opined on the need for an 'extraordinary person' to be elected Vice President in no. 68 of the Federalist Papers. Hamilton made clear in the March 1788 essay, signed by 'Publius,' that there were distinctly separate legislative and executive branch responsibilities for the Vice President.

The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President," Hamilton wrote in March 1788

Immigration Bill: One More Shot

Monday, June 25, 2007; A02

washington post

An immigration overhaul -- the chief domestic initiative of President Bush's second term -- will take center stage a final time this year as the Senate returns to a bipartisan bill that stalled a few weeks ago. Bush is expected to discuss the bill on Tuesday.

After five months of negotiations, backers of the bill are confident they can get the 60 votes necessary to end debate and move toward a final vote. But passage is far from guaranteed.

Both parties will be allowed to submit about a dozen amendments; however, a number that are being considered may be "poison pills," designed primarily to kill the bill.

Republicans are focused on skepticism among many of the GOP faithful -- aired loudly on talk radio -- that the measure will accomplish anything in the way of border enforcement. Democrats are concerned about the bill's emphasis on job skills over family ties in deciding who gets residency priority.

Also on the Senate's schedule are the Employee Free Choice Act, which backers say would strengthen union workers' rights, and a defense authorization bill. The House will tackle the interior and environment appropriations bill. Both chambers will leave at week's end for a week-long July 4 recess.

2008 DASH: It will be an intense week on the presidential campaign trail, foremost because of Saturday's deadline on second-quarter fundraising. The big questions are whether Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) were able to raise respectable sums and whether Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) raised more than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Big Republican speeches are scheduled. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani will address Pat Robertson's Regent University tomorrow. It will be an important moment for Giuliani, a supporter of abortion rights and gay rights whose hope of winning the GOP nod rests partly on whether he can persuade Christian evangelicals to support him. Meanwhile, former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), perhaps planning to get into the race early next month, will speak to the South Carolina GOP on Wednesday.

PBS will host a debate of the Democratic candidates at Howard University on Thursday. The Democrats will speak to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on Saturday in Orlando; the Republican candidates declined to take part, the group says.

And -- don't forget him -- Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) will appear on "Late Show With David Letterman" on Friday.

TRAVELING WHITE HOUSE: Much of the White House's energy this week will be spent propping up the immigration bill, but also on Bush's agenda are remarks on the No Child Left Behind law today and a visit to the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., on Thursday. On Sunday, he will welcome President Vladimir Putin of Russia to Kennebunkport, Maine.

First lady Laura Bush will have a busy week of her own, with a trip to Mali, Zambia, Senegal and Mozambique to highlight the president's AIDS program. [See At the White House, Page A17.]

OPEN SEAT: California will hold a special election on Tuesday to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D). Top candidates in the staunchly Democratic district include state Rep. Laura Richardson; Valerie McDonald, daughter of the late congresswoman; and state Sen. Jenny Oropeza.

Teacher pleads for CCTV in classrooms

Cara Simpson
icCoventry
Sunday June 24, 2007

A TEACHER who was unfairly dismissed wants to see CCTV in classrooms - to protect teachers.

John Whitehead, aged 51, of Lime Tree Park, Coventry, was sacked from his job at Corley special school in 2004 because of claims he slammed a child's finger in a door.

Mr Whitehead, who had taught with an unblemished record for 24 years, was cleared of any wrong-doing by the police.

He took his case for unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal, which he won.

Governors at the school were criticised for the way they had handled the investigation into the incident and the way they had dealt with Mr Whitehead.

But the tribunal also felt Mr Whitehead should have handled the incident better, and therefore decided the compensation for losing his job should be cut by half.

But three years on, he is still involved in what he describes as a drawn-out legal battle with Coventry City Council, which he says refuses to offer him work, or give him references.

And even after signing up to 17 agencies, he has found it difficult to find teaching posts.

He has been forced to take any jobs going, including working as a chef, to make ends meet and pay mounting legal costs.

But although he now works part-time with disabled students at Henley College, the former senior manager's salary has plummeted from £36,000 a year to about £11,000. He has risked losing his house twice, and both he and his wife have received counselling for depression due to the trauma.

Now the father-of-two says he would like to see cameras installed in all classrooms to protect the rights of teachers wrongly accused of misconduct.

He said: "If CCTV was installed in classrooms it would solve a lot of problems."

He knows his plea will raise concerns over costs and loss of civil liberties. But he said: "Coventry City Council has spent well over £100,000 on my case. And what about my civil liberties? My career and my health have been taken away from me.

"Bankers and shop assistants work with CCTV around them all the time without any problems, so why shouldn't teachers?"

A city council spokeswoman said the council did not have the powers to install CCTV in schools and any decision would be up to an individual school.

FBI to restrict student freedoms

Press Esc
Sunday June 24, 2007

US university students will not be able to work late at the campus, travel abroad, show interest in their colleagues' work, have friends outside the United States, engage in independent research, or make extra money without the prior consent of the authorities, according to a set of guidelines given to administrators by the FBI.

Federal agents are visiting some of the New England's top universities, including MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, to warn university heads about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research.

FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls "espionage indicators" aimed at identifying foreign agents.

Unexplained affluence, failing to report overseas travel, showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, unreported contacts with foreign nationals, unreported contact with foreign government, military, or intelligence officials, attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know, and unexplained absences are all considered potential espionage indicators.

Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to monitor their colleagues for signs of suspicious behaviour and report any concerns to the FBI or the military.

"What we're most concerned about are those things that are not classified being developed by MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], Worcester Polytech [Worcester Polytechnic Institute] and other universities," Warren Bamford, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, told the Boston Herald. "It's to make sure these institutions receive training...[on] what spies look for. There are hundreds of projects going on that could be useful to a foreign power."

"My understanding is that what the FBI is proposing is not illegal, but it does raise questions about the chilling effect in regard to academia,"Chris Ott, Communications Manager of the ACLU of Massachusetts told WSWS. "What will it mean about feeling free to pursue information? People on the campuses will be afraid to ask questions or take on the investigation of certain areas, say, for example, nuclear energy. "

University administrators have expressed their appreciation of FBI efforts.

"It was a very nice offer," Robert A. Weygand, vice president for administration and a former Rhode Island congressman told the Boston Herald. "We are taking it under consideration."

Last year the FBI initiated the College and University Security Effort (CAUSE), in order to establish an "alliance" between the Federal agency and academic institutions.

According to the FBI, through CAUSE, Special Agents in charge meet with the heads of local colleges to discuss national security issues and to share information and ideas.

Secret SAS mission to Somalia uncovers British terror cells

JASON LEWIS
UK Daily Mail
Sunday June 24, 2007

Terrorist sleeper cells said to be planning attacks in the UK have been unmasked after the bodies of Britons killed in US bombing raids in Somalia were identified by a top-secret SAS mission.

The four British men were among an estimated 400 people killed in a series of American air raids on Al Qaeda training camps in the war-torn East African state in January.

In March, British and US special-forces troops were secretly sent back into the region to take DNA samples from the exhumed remains of more than 50 of those killed during the attacks.

The joint SAS and Delta Force teams spent a number of days in the former Al Qaeda strongholds of Hayo and the island of Lamu, trying to identify foreign terrorists. They were armed with profiles of wanted terrorists they believed had been hiding and training in the area.

The wanted list included people who were tracked from America, the UK and other European countries - notably France, Spain, Italy and Germany.

The British and American teams are now playing a key role in the war against terror and take their orders directly from the CIA.

The DNA samples were processed on a US aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea and the results sent to the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Washington DC.

MI5 is understood to have used the samples to identify four British men killed in the US attacks. Their relatives and friends have now been put under covert surveillance in the hope of identifying further terror cells in the UK.

"This was a very successful operation and has provided key intelligence about terrorists still planning attacks in the UK and elsewhere in Europe', said a source.

"Up to four UK-based terror cells may have been disrupted or destroyed because of the air strikes, as well as cells based in other European countries."

The attacks were mounted from the neighbouring state of Djibouti, where 2,000 US troops were stationed. They had been waiting to join a push by the Somali government against the Islamic Courts regime in Mogadishu, which forcibly took over much of the country in 2006.

Last night a senior Whitehall source would not discuss the operation, but added: "It is well known that the Islamic Courts issued an open invitation to foreign jihadists to go to Somalia."

Intelligence reports had long suggested many Western Muslims had taken up the offer and were receiving military training in the region.

Three Britons were arrested in Kenya after fleeing the US air raids on Somalia. All were interrogated but were finally allowed to return to the UK.

One of the men, Reza Afsharzadagen, 25, from North London, says he was in Somalia teaching computer programming.

He claims to have been accused of terrorism and interviewed by MI5, but he has faced no charges on his return to Britain.

CHANGE Confronts John McCain

You Tube
Sunday June 24, 2007

John McCain visits St. Paul for a "photo-op"

McCain didn't realize what was on the signs, until after the first picture.