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Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names

Posted by Charlie Kilo on July 15th, 2008

Absolutely ridiculous!

The nation’s terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government’s own reported numbers for the size of the list.

“Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ’suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon.”

Bush to close Guantanamo?

Posted by patriot on July 2nd, 2008

No doubt the enemy combatants will just be shipped to some black-ops secret location…

President Bush will soon decide whether to close Guantanamo Bay as a prison for al-Qaeda suspects, sources tell ABC News. High-level discussions among top advisers have escalated in the past week, with the most senior administration officials in continuous talks about the future of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay–and how it will be dramatically changed and/or closed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that gave detainees there access to federal courts.

Sources have confirmed that President Bush is expected to be briefed on these pressing GTMO issues–and may reach a decision on the future of the naval base as a prison for al Qaeda suspects–before he leaves for the G8 on Saturday. An announcement, however, is not expected before he leaves the country.

GAO says $6 BILLION given to Pakistan can’t be accounted for

Posted by patriot on June 24th, 2008

Oops, we lost some more money…

The United States has not accurately tracked about $6 billion it gave to help the Pakistani government fight terrorism since 2001, according to a report released Tuesday.

Pakistan is the largest recipient of payments from the Coalition Support Funds, which gives money to 27 partner countries to help combat terrorism.

The country, which the Department of Defense considers a key ally in the war on terrorism because of its proximity to large swaths of ungoverned tribal land, has received $5.56 billion of $6.88 billion given out since September 11, 2001.

But a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs said the Coalition Support Funds cannot prove that the money went to projects or operations specifically fighting terrorists.

Supreme Court restores habeas corpus, strikes down key part of Military Commissions Act

Posted by Charlie Kilo on June 13th, 2008

Glenn Greenwald’s commentary on yesterday’s Supreme Court victory:

In a major rebuke to the Bush administration’s theories of presidential power — and in an equally stinging rebuke to the bipartisan political class which has supported the Bush detention policies — the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision (.pdf), declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional. The Court struck down that section of the MCA because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas corpus — the means by which a detainee challenges his detention in a court — despite the fact that the Constitution permits suspension of that writ only “in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion.”

Read more here.

Al Qaeda WMD Prank

Posted by patriot on May 28th, 2008

Be sure to read comment #8 after reading the article.

Big Brother in the sky

Posted by patriot on May 25th, 2008

Next time you’re near a tourist attraction, lift your head up to the sky and smile—you might be on not-so-candid camera:

On a cloudless spring day, the NYPD helicopter soars over the city, its sights set on the Statue of Liberty.

A dramatic close-up of Lady Liberty’s frozen gaze fills one of three flat-screen computer monitors mounted on a console. Hundreds of sightseers below are oblivious to the fact that a helicopter is peering down on them from a mile and a half away.

“They don’t even know we’re here,” said crew chief John Diaz, speaking into a headset over the din of the aircraft’s engine.

The helicopter’s unmarked paint job belies what’s inside: an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates—or scan pedestrians’ faces—from high above the nation’s largest metropolis.

Police say the chopper’s sweeps of landmarks and other potential targets are invaluable in helping guard against another terrorist attack, providing a see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage against bad guys.

UK solidifying its Big Brother role

Posted by patriot on May 21st, 2008

“United” Kingdom? Perhaps united in its quest for fascist totalitarianism…

The Government wants to create the system to fight terrorism and crime. The police and security services believe it will make it easier to access important data as communications become more complex.

Telecoms firms and internet service providers (ISPs) have already been approached by the Home Office, which would be given customer records if the plans were realised.

The security services and police would then be able to access records for any individual over the previous 12 months by gaining permission through the courts.

We’re stuck with “enemy combatants”

Posted by patriot on May 21st, 2008

Ah, that pesky problem of illegally detaining a bunch of people, and then figuring out what to do with them when we’re done…

The United States is “stuck” with its war-on-terror detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba because it cannot figure out what to do with prisoners who cannot be charged or set loose, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

Gates told lawmakers that he still believes that the prison should be closed, but has not found a way to do it.

“Senator, I think the brutally frank answer is we’re stuck. And we’re stuck in several ways,” he told California Senator Dianne Feinstein.

He said the United States was prepared to send 60 or 70 prisoners home but either cannot persuade their countries to take them, or can’t trust them not to free them.

Keeping Secrets

Posted by patriot on May 21st, 2008

Shhh, don’t tell:

Sometime in the next few years, if a memorandum signed by President Bush this month ever goes into effect, one government official talking to another about information on terrorists will have to begin by saying: “What I am about to tell you is controlled unclassified information enhanced with specified dissemination.”

That would mean, according to the memo, that the information requires safeguarding because “the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure would create risk of substantial harm.”

Bush’s memorandum, signed on the eve of his daughter Jenna’s wedding, introduced “Controlled Unclassified Information” as a new government category that will replace “Sensitive but Unclassified.”

Rumsfeld: Terror Attack could help the Neocons

Posted by patriot on May 16th, 2008

Looks like the neocons are wanting another new pearl harbor:

Shocking excerpts of confidential recordings recently released under the Freedom of Information Act feature former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talking with top military analysts about how a flagging Neo-Con political agenda could be successfully restored with the aid of another terrorist attack on America.

The tape also includes a conversation where Rumsfeld and the military analysts agree on the possible necessity of installing a brutal dictator in Iraq to oversee U.S. interests.

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