You may not know this, but the CIA has been recruiting in Dearborn for seven years, and the agency has been very successful, so far. But right now, they are looking to recruit more Arab and Muslim-Americans to help keep our country safe from harm.

The CIA is once again using commercials to recruit, but this time it’s a little different.

“This is the most ethnically rich and diverse Middle Eastern community in the United States,” said CIA Recruiter Henry Medina.

The CIA made a special trip to Dearborn, reaching out to the the Arab and Iranian-American communities and inviting and encouraging people to think about careers in the CIA.

There are hundreds of good jobs for good people from translators, nurses, engineers and more.

“To be able to provide the intelligence that our president needs to safe guard our country,” Medina said.

“We thought that it would be best to start here, develop a connection here,” said CIA Program Manager Zahra Roberts.

At this private screening in Dearborn, two new recruitment commercials were played on the big screen, both of them with one goal in mind.

“They’ll convey how much we value the community that we took the effort and the time to really focus on them and recruiting them,” Roberts said.

“I think it’s very important that the CIA does get involved and does do a great effort to reach out to the Middle Eastern and Muslim-American community,” said Suehaila Amen.

The first commercial acknowledged and focused on the love of family.

“That love of family and culture and bringing everybody together in a good way, which is important,” Amen said.

The second commercial was all about this. “It sends a stronger message. It appeals to the professionals in the community,” said Nabby Yono.

“We are people who come with a highly educated community and we’ve contributed greatly to this nation,” said Amen.

For many in the Arab-American communities, it’s refreshing to see the CIA’s focus on diversity and its commitment to making the agency a true representative of this country.

“Whether we are are Arabs, Chaldeans or any other nationality, we are Americans first,” Yono said.

The commercials are expected to start running in a few weeks and the hope is that they will help the CIA generate more qualified applicants from here in metro Detroit.

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Was Fort Hood really the target of a terrorist attack? The first clue to the real culprit emerged when Senator Joe Lieberman sought to blame this mass murder on the U.S. military. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, he promised hearings on how the Pentagon protects its personnel from domestic terrorists.
Will Lieberman, an avowed Zionist, use this incident to insist that the U.S. do more to protect Jewish nationalists? More importantly, what do his concerns mean for homeland security?

Joe Lieberman has an ally in Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security. In April, this former Arizona governor warned about potential terrorism from U.S. troops returning from deployment in the Middle East. Though roundly attacked, she defended her position, calling it an “assessment not an accusation.”

When Army Major Nidal Hasan killed U.S. troops on the nation’s largest military base, was this evidence of “militant Islam”? Or did this military psychiatrist snap under pressure while treating returning vets on a base averaging ten suicides a month? Is there an undisclosed agenda behind those seeking to portray this act as the work of “Islamo fascists”?

To answer these questions requires a grasp of how “assets” are deployed by those skilled at waging war by way of deception. An asset is someone who has been profiled in sufficient depth that-when placed in a pre-staged time, place and circumstance-the person can be relied on to behave consistent with their profile.

Best Story Wins

Since the end of the Cold War, the predominant geopolitical narrative has been The Clash of Civilizations and its military counterpart: The Global War on Terrorism. How better to advance that storyline than to kill American soldiers even before they leave the U.S.? What’s the motive?

Imagine if the intelligence that induced the U.S. to war was proven “fixed” around a preset goal. What if the common source of that treachery is poised to become transparent? If you were complicit in this deception (an act of treason), how would you obscure those facts? How would you sustain a “Muslim terrorist” narrative once the intelligence “facts” are exposed as pre-staged fictions meant to advance an undisclosed Israeli agenda?

For those marketing The Clash premise, Dr. Hasan’s psychotic break was a blessing. At Family Security Matters, President Carol Taber describes this incident as “the Ft. Hood terrorist attack” by an “Islamist gunman.” Editor Pam Meister promotes “the shocking TRUTH (sic) behind these attacks so that we might ward off those yet to come.” Executive Vice-President Linda Cohen, who also serves as a trustee of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), offers advice certain to appeal to Lieberman and Napolitano:

“No one is safe now. Not you, not the military, not your children, not office workers nor subway riders, nor anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Is there a precedent for combining aberrant behavior and a mass murder to advance a preset agenda? Do you recall the sniper attacks around Washington, D.C. in October 2002?

Those murders commenced one day before debate began on Senate Resolution 46 proposed by Joe Lieberman to authorize the use of U.S. forces in Iraq. In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Lieberman and Arizona Senator John McCain urged that the U.S. target not Al Qaeda but Iraq.

The nation’s capital became a city under siege when those attacks created insecurity and heightened anxiety as serial murders left ten dead and three wounded over a 10-day period. Those random shootings transformed the terror of 9-11 into a personal reality for Washington residents while Lieberman deployed phony intelligence to promote the invasion of a nation that had no hand in the mass murder of 9-11.

Assets and Sayanim

Once again: assets are profiled personalities catalyzed to act out known dysfunctions in ways that are advantageous based on the time, place and circumstances of their behavior. The totality of the facts suggests that Dr. Nidal Hasan may well have been such an asset.

Assets are typically identified, profiled and developed over lengthy periods of time. Their potential to act out a known personality disorder is held in reserve in the same way that a military commander holds troops in reserve for deployment at an opportune time.

How is an asset developed in plain sight and then tasked at the right moment? Only a careful investigation can identify those influences particular to Dr. Hasan, including what decisions led to his transfer to Ft. Hood and the circumstances there that triggered his behavior.

News reports to date are consistent with this analysis. For instance, his name appears as a participant for public briefings at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. As a registrant in the Obama presidential transition task force (”Thinking Anew-Security Priorities for the Next Administration”), he would have interacted with a team of nine “task force briefers.” Judging from their surnames, at least seven were Ashkenazim.

As a combat-stress psychiatrist, Dr. Hasan dealt daily with troubled vets at Walter Reed Hospital where the most grievously wounded are sent to recover, many of them amputees, disfigured or otherwise handicapped for life. While coping with that vicarious trauma, he was taunted for his Muslim beliefs and harassed for his Middle Eastern heritage even though he was born, raised and educated in the U.S..

Despite clear indications of internal turmoil, including repeated attempts to resign his commission, he was dispatched to a post known for its huge population of combat-stressed vets. He arrived anticipating orders to deploy to Afghanistan, realizing his worst nightmare. Meanwhile a commander-in-chief promising change made matters even worse in the region.

Israeli psy-ops rely on an extensive cadre of sayanim (Hebrew for volunteers) who are shielded from legal culpability by being told only enough to perform their narrow role when tasked to assist with operations on an as-needed basis. Otherwise, they gather and report useful intelligence. Thus the presence of sayanim throughout the U.S. government. A sayan may well have identified Nidal Hasan as a potential asset who could be developed and, as here, deployed.

At What Cost?

With evidence emerging that Israelis and pro-Israelis were the source of the sham intelligence that induced the U.S. to war, those responsible are scrambling to cover their tracks. Americans will soon realize what the facts confirm: Jewish nationalists deceived the U.S. in order to deploy our military to pursue Israel’s expansionist agenda for the Middle East.

Americans will soon awaken to the cost of this entangled alliance in blood and treasure. U.S. deaths in Iraq could top 4,300 this month with more than one million Iraqis dead from the war and from violence unleashed by those who manipulated this alliance to induce an invasion.

That brings us back to the uncomfortable but essential question: Was Homeland Security created to protect the U.S.? Or was it created to protect those who deceived the U.S.? Was this incident another example of the murderous misdirection deployed to pit Americans against Muslims to advance unacknowledged Zionist goals?

By shifting blame to the military, do Lieberman and Napolitano intend to use federal law enforcement to contain the outraged reaction of an informed public and an awakened military? Was Dr. Nidal Hasan a terrorist? Or was he a troubled pawn in an ongoing psy-ops campaign meant to revive a narrative that-like the fixed intelligence-was losing credibility?

Both the false intelligence and the anti-Muslim narrative feature a theme of fomenting hate and intolerance. On October 28th, President Obama signed into law ADL’s model hate crime legislation. Will that federal law now be deployed by Homeland Security to silence those who make transparent the common source of this deception?

How much longer before a long-deceived public-both in the U.S. and abroad-takes the steps required to ensure that never again is duplicity allowed to operate on such a scale?

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide; an adviser to policy-makers worldwide; former counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee; and author of numerous articles and books including his latest book “http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098213150X?ie=UTF8&tag=sabbahsblog-20&link
Code=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=098213150X” Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War

“http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=sabbahsblog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=098213150X”
Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution.
See “http://www.criminalstate.com” www.criminalstate.com

Also see:
“http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/07/17/how-the-israel-lobby-
took-control-of-u-s-foreign-policy/”

How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy
“http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=
article&sid=9000″

Dancing To Our Israeli Masters Veterans Today
“http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/11/09/todays-ancient-warfare-facts-vs-beliefs/”
“Permalink to Today’s Ancient Warfare: Facts vs. Beliefs” Today’s Ancient Warfare: Facts vs. Beliefs

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Over the years, the American Central Intelligence Agency has gained a reputation for being the most far-reaching, sophisticated, and effective government intelligence agency on the planet. At the same time, the CIA has also become known for its incredible paranoia and propensity to undertake costly, sometimes illegal, and often downright absurd projects in the name of gaining an edge on the competition. From spy cats to psychic hippies, the following are ten of the weirdest spy programs the government has proposed and funded over the years.

10. Acoustic Kitty

Most people wouldn’t think of the common house cat as being a potential master of espionage, but the CIA sure did. In the 1960s, American intelligence is said to have spent over $20 million on “Acoustic Kitty,” a top-secret project that used cats as recording devices. The project took a group of specially trained cats and surgically implanted microphones, antennae and batteries into their tails, and then set them loose near the Russian embassy. The idea was that an unassuming cat would be able to stride right up to groups of communist officials and listen in on their conversation, which it could then beam back to agents with its sophisticated radio equipment. The plan was eventually put into action, but the first cat sent into the field was supposedly run over by a taxi before it could make a recording, and operation ‘Acoustic Kitty” was abandoned shortly thereafter.

9. Operation Mockingbird

One of the most ambitious and downright insidious programs ever launched by the CIA was Operation Mockingbird, a propaganda project that was implemented in the early 1950s. It was a massive undertaking that saw as many as 3,000 CIA agents and collaborators attempt to gain some control of the free press by feeding select groups of reporters information and using newspapers at home and abroad to filter the kinds of stories that got to the public. At its height, the program included writers for the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time Magazine among its ranks, and was said to have a significant influence on as many as 25 major newspapers. The program had a major impact abroad, as well, as it served a major function in helping to sway public opinion in the run-up to the eventual overthrowing of Guatemala’s leftist president. Operation Mockingbird continued to have a major effect on worldwide media throughout the 50s, and it was not until the 60s that a series of reports by investigative journalists brought the program to light.

8. Operation Gold

The tapped telephone wires are presented to the press.

One of the most audacious intelligence operations of the Cold War was 1953’s Operation Gold, which was a joint effort between the CIA and the British MI6 to hack into the phone lines of the Soviet headquarters in East Berlin. This required the construction of a massive 450-meter long tunnel that would intersect with an underground telephone junction. Just preparing the tunnel took six months, and involved a substantial amount of risk and subterfuge. But when it was done, the CIA proceeded to carefully record as many as 50,000 telephone conversations over the course of nearly a year. The problem? A mole in British intelligence had tipped off the KGB about Operation Gold before the tunnel was even completed, and the Soviets had been feeding fake them information the entire time. In 1956, the Soviets raided the tunnel and shut it down, and the operation eventually caused a great deal of controversy for the American and British intelligence communities.

7. Operation Northwoods

In the early 1960s, when the Cold War was in full swing and fear of communism was rampant, a plan dubbed Operation Northwoods was proposed within the American CIA. In short, it called for the government to perform a series of violent terrorist actions in U.S. cities including bombings, hijackings, phony riots, and sabotage, all of which could then be blamed on Cuba. This would drum up support for a war against the communists and lead to an eventual military operation to remove Fidel Castro from power. The plan was drafted and signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and presented to President John F. Kennedy, who personally rejected it, and it was subsequently abandoned. For years after, Operation Northwoods existed as a rumor, but it was finally revealed to be true when top-secret documents describing the plan were made public in 1997 as part of a release of government papers relating to the Kennedy assassination.

6. Project Pigeon

One of the most seemingly preposterous military programs of all time occurred during WWII, when famed behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner was enlisted by the government to try and train pigeons for use in a missile guidance system. At the time, Skinner was known as one of the major practitioners of operant conditioning, a system that used reward and punishment as a means of controlling behavior. With these ideas in mind, Skinner placed a series of specially trained pigeons inside missiles. A camera on the front of the missile recorded its flight path, which was then projected on a screen for the pigeon to see. The birds were trained to recognize the missile’s intended target, and they would peck at the screen if it was drifting off course. This information was fed to the weapon’s flight controls, which would then be changed to reflect the new coordinates. Skinner was originally given $25,000 to get the project up and running, and he actually managed to make some minor progress with it. But government officials were never quite able to get past the obvious absurdity of the program, and it was eventually shut down. Image credit: http://www.psywarrior.com/

5. Operation Midnight Climax

In the early 1960s, the youth culture of America was first beginning to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs like LSD, and so was the Central Intelligence Agency. Operation Midnight Climax was one of the government’s most ridiculous and illegal attempts to test the possible uses of drugs like acid by administering them to unsuspecting citizens. The program was run out of a collection of safehouses in New York and California. Prostitutes were used to lure young men to the houses, at which point they were given food or drink spiked with LSD and other drugs and placed in a room with a two-way mirror where their behavior could be observed. Midnight Climax was essentially an experimental program designed to monitor the possible tactical uses of psychotropic drugs and sexual blackmail in the field, but even within the Agency it was controversial, and it was shut down after only a few years. Most of the files connected to the operation were destroyed, but a few survived, and in the early 70s the files regarding Midnight Climax and many other illegal CIA programs were brought to light in a famous story by the New York Times.

4. The Stargate Project

The $20 million Stargate Project was a blanket term used to describe a large number of psychic experiments and investigations undertaken by the U.S. government between the 70s and 90s. The biggest goal of the Stargate Project was to investigate the scientific probability of “remote viewing,” which is the psychic ability to witness events over great distances. The program, which also investigated psychic abilities like out of body experiences and clairvoyance, tested subjects on their ability to predict future events and read hidden documents. The Stargate Project usually enlisted the services of anywhere from 3 to 22 subjects at a time, many of whom managed to test with an accuracy rating as much as 15% higher than the norm. Still, although some participants claimed to have correctly predicted major world events like military attacks and hostage situations, the program found that remote viewers and so-called telepaths were still wrong nearly 80 percent of the time, and in 1995 the CIA cancelled the Stargate Project for good.

3. Operation Mongoose

In the early 60s, communist Cuba became one of the major battlegrounds of the Cold War, and its president Fidel Castro came to be considered one of the most dangerous political figures in the world. After early attempts to overthrow Castro by force failed, the CIA instituted Operation Mongoose, which was a secret war of propaganda and sabotage designed to remove the Cuban leader from power. Operation Mongoose had a remarkably wide scope, and included plans to fake attacks on Cuban exiles, provide arms to opposition groups, and destroy Cuba’s crop of sugarcane. It also included several attempts to either assassinate or discredit Castro in the press, each of which was more elaborate and ridiculous than the next. The Agency considered, among other things, poisoning Castro’s personal supply of cigars, planting explosives disguised as seashells in his favorite swimming spots, and injecting him with a deadly chemical from a hypodermic needle disguised as a pen. Even more bizarre were the plans to discredit Castro in the public eye, which included a proposal to spray a TV studio with hallucinogens prior to one of the leader’s televised speeches, and even planting chemicals in his clothes that would cause his famous beard to fall out. The near-disaster of the Cuban Missile Crisis put Operation Mongoose on hold, and following an agreement between Kennedy and the Soviets, it was more or less abandoned.

2. Project MKULTRA

One of the most downright creepy government programs and the fodder for countless conspiracy theories, Project MKULTRA was a sweeping and top-secret CIA program started in the early 1950s that included experiments in “chemical interrogation” and mind control. In short, MKULTRA was a plan that sought to use drugs, psychological stress, and bizarre interrogation methods to get information, control behavior, and even alter brain function. To this day, much of the information on the project remains classified, but what we do know is that the program involved the testing and interrogation of private citizens—often without their knowledge or consent—in the service of discovering whether or not certain drugs could be used as truth serums. This included giving subjects large doses of LSD, amphetamine, and mescaline, as well as shock therapy. In one case, subjects were supposedly dosed with acid for 77 days straight in an attempt to test the effects of long-term exposure to the drug. Conspiracy theories abide about the real goals of the project, with some saying it was a program to engineer zombie assassins through mind control and brainwashing. Some information about MKULTRA was finally brought to light in the early seventies, when news reports about CIA abuses of power led to a Congressional commission. The project was subsequently shut down, but many people claim that similar CIA programs still exist to this day.

1. The Bay of Pigs Invasion

For sheer absurdity, wastefulness, and infamy, few CIA projects compare to 1961’s failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. The program was one of the first and boldest attempts to overthrow communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but it was also the most disastrously unsuccessful. It started in 1960, when the CIA, under the authorization of the President, began planning an attempted overthrow of the Cuban government. In order to eliminate any link to the U.S., the attack was to be perpetrated by an army of Cuban exiles specially trained by the CIA. After a series of diversionary air strikes, on April 17, 1961, a group of amphibious troop transports landed on a beach in the Bay of Pigs and began unloading their cargo of 1,300 exile guerillas. The plan was for them to rendezvous with a smaller band of paratroops to be dropped soon after their arrival, but from the beginning their plan was tragically mistimed. For starters, Cuban intelligence was already aware of the planned invasion, and this meant that when the exile troops landed they were almost immediately under attack. To add to the force’s problems, bad weather, coral reefs, and the Cuban swamps quickly claimed most of their equipment. All told, an estimated 2,000 Cubans died during the invasion, while over 100 members of the exile army were killed in action. The remaining 1,200 were captured and imprisoned, and some were later executed on the orders of Castro. Over a year later, the rest were freed in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine for Cuban people. The effects of the Bay of Pigs were far reaching. Several American officials resigned over their involvement in it, and many have credited it with increasing the resolve of the Cuban government and encouraging a severe distrust of American foreign policy in the years that followed.

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CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough (.pdf). Instead, it suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other enemies of the state.

America’s military, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies already devote thousands of people and billions of dollars to tracking down top terrorists and insurgents. But even the most successful of these efforts — like going after Iraqi militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — have been “ad hoc” efforts, with units cobbled together from different corners of the government. Report author and retired Lt. Col. George Crawford instead would like to see a permanent group with clear authority, training, doctrine and technology to go after these dangerous individuals. These “manhunting teams would be standing formations, trained to pursue their designated quarry relentlessly for as long as required to accomplish the mission,” he writes.

Sometimes, that will mean operating “in uncooperative countries.” In those cases, the teams must be prepared “to act unilaterally, with no support or coordination with local authorities, in a manner similar to that employed by Israel’s Avner team in response to the Munich Olympics massacre.” (That was the controversial unit, fictionalized in Steven Spielberg’s movie, that allegedly roamed the world, assassinating Palestinian militants in response to the 1972 Olympic attack.)

The hit squads would only be one part of the manhunting agency, according to the Joint Special Operations University monograph, uncovered by Inside Defense. “Dedicated teams must be assembled, able to respond ‘on-call’ in the event of a raid on a suspect site or to conduct independent ‘break-in and search’ operations without leaving evidence of their intrusion,” Crawford notes.

Manhunting will also “require personnel who are experts at conducting surveillance of particular facilities, personnel, or activities without arousing suspicion or being detected,” he adds. “Picture in your mind a typical city street scene, with a little old lady walking her dog, the phone repair crew descending into a manhole, two little old men playing an innocent game of checkers, or the homeless person sleeping on the park bench, and you are on the right track.”

Such a group wouldn’t just go after terrorists. “Human networks are behind narcotics trafficking, arms proliferation, piracy, hiding war criminals from authorities, human trafficking, or other smuggling activities,” Crawford writes. “Human networks also lie at the core of national governments, offering an increased potential to nonlethally influence state actors with precision. A robust manhunting capability would allow the United States to interdict these human networks.”

Crawford, who says he served as the “lead strategist” for developing U.S. Special Operations Command’s “advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities for counterterrorism operations,” compares manhunting to “curling, the Winter Olympics sport. As a skater releases the heavy stone onto the ice, a few strokes from a broom can alter the speed and trajectory of the stone. Likewise, a small amount of precise influence or force employed at an early point in a developing situation might divert the trajectory of an event away from crisis or full-scale conflict.”

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Businesses are increasingly looking to social media to monitor and manage their brands online. U.S. intelligence agencies now have similar capabilities as part of their technology portfolios.

In-Q-Tel, the investment firm established by the CIA to support U.S. intelligence agencies, has invested in Visible Technologies, a start-up that monitors social media content on the Web.

Visible Technologies’ software-as-a-service apps are used by companies to monitor and manage their brands by observing and analyzing public opinion on the Web in real-time. Microsoft, Hormel Foods, Xerox, Panasonic, and marketing and public relations firms are among its customers.

U.S. intelligence organizations could use Visible Technologies’ service to monitor and analyze public opinion on the Web, much as private sector companies do.

Visible Technologies’ TruCAST engine “casts a net on whatever the client wants to know more about,” said senior VP Blake Cahill. TruCAST pulls information from blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, news sites, and Web forums, though it can’t reach into places like Facebook and MySpace where users have set privacy controls. Using that information, companies can run sentiment and relevancy analysis, look at a commenter or blogger’s level of influence, and search for posts based on defined criteria.

Visible Technologies has been focusing increasingly on the government sector, and it has done some work through the General Services Administration, according to Cahill. Concepts & Strategies, a consultancy that advises the Department of Defense, is one of its partners.

In-Q-Tel has invested in more than 175 companies, including ArcSight (security information management), Lucid Imagination (open source search), Endeca (search), Adapx (smart pens) and Keyhole, the developer of foundational technology used in Google Maps.

Visible Technologies has raised $23.5 million in funding since its inception in 2005, including $8 million since December. Terms of In-Q-Tel’s investment weren’t disclosed.

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I was sent the now notorious “police spotter card” through the post. It’s an official laminated card for “police eyes only” and labelled as coming from “CO11 Public Order Intelligence Unit”. The card contained the photographs of 24 anti-arms trade protesters, unnamed but lettered A to X. My picture appeared as photo H. You can imagine my reaction at finding I was the subject of a secret police surveillance process … I was delighted. I phoned my agent and told him I was suspect H. He replied: “Next year we’ll get you top billing … suspect A.”

The Metropolitan police circulated the card specifically for the Docklands biannual arms fair in London to help its officers identify “people at specific events who may instigate offences or disorder”. Which is such a flattering quote I am thinking of having it on my next tour poster. While being wanted outside the arms fair, I was legitimately inside researching a book on the subject, and uncovered four companies illegally promoting “banned” torture equipment. Questions were later asked in the Commons as to why HM Revenue & Customs and the police didn’t spot it. Though, in fairness, none of the torture traders featured on the spotter card.

What exactly was I doing that was so awfully wrong as to merit this attention? Today’s Guardian revelations of three secret police units goes some way to explain the targeting of protesters and raises worrying questions. The job of these units is to spy on protesters, and collate and circulate information about them. Protesters – or, as the police call them, “domestic extremists” – are the new “reds under the bed”.

Many of those targeted by the police have committed no crime and are guilty only of non-violent direct action. So it is worth reminding ourselves that protest is legal. Sorry if this sounds obvious, but you might have gained the impression that if three police units are spying on and targeting thousands, then those people must be up to something illegal.

The very phrase “domestic extremist” defines protesters in the eyes of the police as the problem, the enemy. Spying on entire groups and organisations, and targeting the innocent, undermines not only our rights but the law – frightfully silly of me to drag this into an argument about policing, I know.

Protest is part of the democratic process. It wasn’t the goodwill of politicians that led them to cancel developing countries’ debt, but the protests and campaigning of millions of ordinary people around the world. The political leaders were merely the rubber stamp in the democratic process. Thus any targeting and treatment of demonstrators (at the G20 for example) that creates a “chilling effect” – deterring those who may wish to exercise their right to protest – is profoundly undemocratic.

No police, secret or otherwise, should operate without proper accountability. So how are these three units accountable? Who has access to the databases? How long does information remain in the system? What effect could it have on travel and future employment of those targeted? How closely do these units work with corporate private investigators, and does the flow of information go both ways? Do the police target strikers?

A police spokesman has said that anyone who finds themselves on a database “should not worry at all”. When a spokesman for the three secret units will not disclose a breakdown of their budgets, and two of the three will not even name who heads their operations (even MI6 gave us an initial, for God’s sake), then the words “should not worry at all” are meaningless. Indeed, when the police admit that someone could end up on a secret police database merely for attending a demonstration, it is exactly the time to worry.

Spotter cards: What they look like and how they work

This kind of highly confidential document – pictured above – is rarely seen by the public.

These so-called “spotter cards” are issued by police to identify individuals they consider to be potential troublemakers because they have appeared at a number of demonstrations.

The photographs are drawn from police intelligence files. This card was apparently dropped at a demonstration against Britain’s largest arms fair in 2005.

H is Mark Thomas, the comedian and political activist. Asked why it was justifiable to put Thomas, who has no criminal record, on this card, the Metropolitan police replied: “We do not discuss intelligence we may hold in relation to individuals.”

Thomas had been acquitted of criminal damage after attaching himself to a bus containing arms traders at a previous fair.

The Met said: “This is an appropriate tactic used by police to help them identify people at specific events … who may instigate offences or disorder.”

The arms fair “is a biannual event that is specifically targeted by known protest groups, who in the past have stated their intention was to shut down or disrupt the event.” As the cards are “strictly controlled”, the officers who lost it were “dealt with”.

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Armed officers in full battle gear will be scattered throughout the Bay Area this weekend, rescuing hostages, fighting bank robbers and quelling terrorism at the Oakland Airport, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the NASA Ames Research Center and 22 other high profile sites.

There will be the sound of gunfire and blasts — all part of Urban Shield, one of the biggest domestic terrorism drills in the country. The $1 million, two-day event begins Saturday and will test the training of 27 crack teams from throughout the state, elsewhere in the country and the world.

For the first time in the three-year history of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department-sponsored exercise, there will be a foreign team of officers taking part and international observers. An eight-member team representing the French National Police’s Research, Assistance, Intervention, and Dissuasion unit will compete.

The exercise is a non-stop, 48-hour event meant to test a team’s endurance and equipment in high stress situations such as shootouts, nuclear facility threats and airline hijackings. Each team is graded on their performances and at the end of the weekend, the top three teams are recognized.

Amaury de Hauteclocque, chief of the French RAID team, said although there are opportunities in Europe to cross train with other countries’ forces, there is nothing like Urban Shield, with 25 realistic scenarios at on-site locations.

“There are situations in the States we don’t
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have in France, like a mass murder in a university,” Hauteclocque said. “Fortunately we don’t have them in France at this time, but we don’t have a reason not to expect this to happen.”

It’s also an opportunity to improve relations between the two countries, he said.

RAID is a highly specialized team. Only one in 20 applicants are chosen to become a member, he said, adding that applicants must have five years experience with the French national police and must pass physical and psychological tests to be accepted.

The visiting team members were each chosen for being the best in specialties required for the exercise, Hauteclocque said.

Romulad Muller, police attache with the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., who accompanied the team, described them as the French “Dream Team.” Members began training six months ago to learn how to combat the stress and fatigue they will face.

All 27 teams will run through each of the 25 scenarios. About 3,000 people are involved in the $1 million event, the cost of which is covered by Homeland Security grants and corporate sponsorships.

Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern said the excerise not only allows tactical teams to run through excerises it also allows them to practice disaster management coordination throughout the East Bay the Peninsula and the Silicon Valley.

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A hand-picked team from CO19 will carry Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns in gun crime hotspots Photo: PA

A hand-picked team from CO19, the Metropolitan Police’s elite firearms unit, will walk the beat in gun crime hotspots where armed gangs have turned entire estates into “no go” zones.

Local politicians and anti-gun campaigners have reacted with anger at the news that the officers will carry Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns – capable of firing up to 800 rounds-per-minute – and Glock semi-automatic pistols.

CO19 currently provides armed support in volatile situations like sieges and terrorist attacks, with its officers on constant call in vehicles around London.

But this is the first time that armed officers will be sent on permanent foot patrol anywhere in the country outside Northern Ireland.

“Historically, CO19 was only called out when someone rang up to report a gun crime,” said Inspector Derek Carroll, head of the new unit.

“But a lot of streets in London have young people in postcode gangs, aged 14 and upwards, and a lot of communities feel that they are controlling areas of estates.

“We are looking at gangs that have access to firearms and will be robust in dealing with them and disrupting and deterring them.”

The team of 18 constables, led by an inspector and two sergeants, will begin their patrols of Brixton, Haringey and Tottenham on Nov 9, following successful trial schemes.

The officers – some on motorbikes – will carrying out weapon “sweeps” of their neighbourhoods in an effort to deter gang members from carrying guns, and are also intended to be a reassuring presence for residents.

“My view is that just because you carry a gun, it should not affect the way you police,” Inspector Carroll added. “We chat to people and they love it.”

Unlike their counterparts in the United States, British police officers not routinely carry guns, although armed patrols are frequently deployed in the aftermath of shootings and to guard potential terrorist targets.

In October 2000 armed officers on the beat were temporarily introduced in Nottingham after a string of drug-related deaths.

Jennette Arnold, a Labour London Assembly member for northeast London constituency, said that the patrols threatened to tear up the contract between the community and the police.

“No one asked us or the people I represent if this was acceptable and when they do I shall tell them it isn’t. It isn’t acceptable to throw away the principle of policing by consent,” she said.

Gill Marshall-Andrews, chairwoman of the Gun Control Network campaign group, described the routine arming of officers as a “very retrograde step” and warned that it could lead to higher levels of gun crime.

“This is likely to raise the stakes and encourage more criminals, especially young criminals, to arm themselves,” she said.

“Gun crime in this country is very low by international standards and that’s largely because there aren’t many guns about. Arming police officers sends out all the wrong messages.”

The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, has long campaigned against attempts to arm a larger section of the force, but said it had no objection to the new scheme.

Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the national federation, said that although majority of his members did not wish be to armed, forces must be free to respond to particular threats.

“The ethos will always be that the British police are unarmed, but we need officers to be able to use firearms when appropriate,” he said. “My feeling is that the current balance is just about right.”

The Home Office declined to comment, saying that the operational use of firearms was a matter for local forces.

Officers from CO19, formerly known as SO19, have been involved in a number of high-profile incidents in the capital, including the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell station in 2005.

Gun-related crime is on the increase in London with 1,736 gun crimes reported in London between April and September this year – up 17 per cent on 2008.

The problem of turf violence between drugs gangs was highlighted earlier this month with a spate of shootings in north London linked to two Turkish gangs, the Tottenham Boys and the Bombacilar.

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A Springfield, Virginia man is facing an indecent exposure charge after a passerby spotted the man naked in his kitchen and reported it to police.

Regular Photo Size

Man Charged After Making Coffee Naked

By WILL THOMAS/myfoxdc

SPRINGFIELD, Va. – A Springfield, Virginia man is facing an indecent exposure charge after a passerby spotted the man naked in his kitchen and reported it to police.

Eric Williamson, 29, is a commercial diver who grew up in Hawaii and rents home with several co-workers. Williamson told FOX 5’s Will Thomas his roommates were not home and he walked into the kitchen to make coffee about 5:30 a.m. Monday.

“Yes, I wasn’t wearing any clothes but I was alone, in my own home and just got out of bed. It was dark and I had no idea anyone was outside looking in at me,” Williamson said.

The complaint came from an unidentified woman who was walking with a 7-year-old boy. A Fairfax County Police spokesman said officers arrested Williamson for indecent exposure because they believe he wanted to be seen naked by the public.

Officer Bud Walker said officers also consulted the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and they were given the green light to proceed with the charge.

Williamson, who is father of a 5-year old girl, said he feels like the victim.

“I am a loving dad. Any of my friends and anyone knows that and there is not a chance on this planet I would ever, ever, ever do anything like that to a kid,” he said. Williamson is meeting with a lawyer to fight the charge and may attempt to seek damages from Fairfax County Police. If convicted on the misdemeanor charge, he would face up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

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October 21st, 2009

Via: BBC:

A man who was arrested after he shone a torch at an Apache attack helicopter flying “10ft” above his garden will not be charged, police have said.

Torben Merriott, 63, of Stradbroke, Suffolk, was arrested on “suspicion of “acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft” on 18 September.

Police said Mr Merriott had been released from his bail conditions and no further action would be taken.

Mr Merriott said the experience had been “demeaning and humiliating”.

Mr Merriott, who runs a stage lighting firm, criticised police for being “heavy-handed” and “wasting resources”. He said he might complain.

‘Felt vibrations’

He said he was awoken by an “almighty noise and vibration” at 0100 BST on 18 September.

“My first reaction was that it was an earthquake,” he said.

“It was a clear night but pitch black and I could feel the vibrations beating against my chest – very frightening.

“That was when I realised it must be a helicopter really low and very close. I couldn’t see any navigation lights from the direction of the noise so I shone my torch.”

Mr Merriott said he found it hard to be believe the pilot would have lost control in the face of his torch.

“Don’t tell the Taliban that all they need is a 10-quid torch to bring down some of our finest young fliers in their multi-million pound, high-tech gunships,” he said.

The Ministry of Defence said the shining of any kind of light at a helicopter was dangerous because pilots could be dazzled.

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Mom Arrested for Washing Kid’s Mouth With Soap

A Florida couple is behind bars for some old school discipline

By TODD WRIGHT

Getty Images/Rubberball

A Palm Bay woman and her boyfriend were arrested Monday for child abuse after the couple went old school to punish their 8-year-old daughter for swearing.

They washed her mouth out with soap.

We don’t know about you, but we would petition President Obama and Congress to make it mandatory for every parent to carry a bar of Irish Spring in their back pockets with all the profanity kids use today.

Police claim Adriyanna Herdener and Wilfredo Rivera went too far by placing a bar of soap in the girl’s mouth and letting it stay for 10 minutes. Herdener did not intervene in the discipline.

WATCH

Dirty Mouth

The girl eventually vomited and Rivera took her to the local hospital, where hospital staff called police.

No one wants a child to be hurt or inhumanely punished, but parents’ discipline choices in this country have come down to calling Dr. Phil or hiding the joysticks to the Wii.

Next time your kid has a potty mouth, just give them some gum.

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Owning gold or firearms, donating to charity, finding out information about things all constitute suspicious activity to be reported to the authorities

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, October 7, 2009

A new video produced in association with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI and narrated by former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway urges people to report suspicious activity that could constitute terrorism, behavior that includes buying gold, owning guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, and all manner of mundane things.

The eight minute video was produced by the Colorado-based Center for Empowered Living and Learning (CELL) in conjunction with the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference to promote CELL’s $7 million dollar exhibit entitled “Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: Understanding the Threat of Terrorism,” which is currently on display at the Mizel Museum in Denver, Colorado.

The production was funded by a $30,400 grant from the Department of Homeland Security and made in association with the Colorado Information Analysis Center.

The video wastes no time in advancing the DHS agenda to single out average Americans as the new target of the war on terror, a process that we have exhaustively documented for years through all manner of official reports, from the infamous MIAC document to the DHS “Domestic Extremism Lexicon” memo that equates people who question authority with violent extremism and terrorism.

In every single instance portrayed in the CELL video, the terrorists are either white or black American citizens. As the Denver Westworld blog notes, in John Elway’s world, everything is suspicious and everything is indicative of “a world where average-looking white people want to murder you and everyone around you.”

“Anyone can become a victim of terrorism, any time, anywhere. Together, we can change this. Each of us has a responsibility to protect our community and we can do so by recognizing the signs of terrorism and taking proper action to stop it,” says Elway.

The clip characterizes all manner of mundane activities as potential signs of terrorism, splitting them into eight different categories, and shows other Americans reporting people to the authorities for such behavior.

Under the heading of “funding,” the video shows an image of U.S. Liberty Head gold coins, suggesting that people who buy or handle gold bullion are probable terrorists. In the same montage, an image of a handgun is flashed, implying that gun owners are also under suspicion.

Using a watch, a pair of binoculars, or donating to a charity are all potential Al-Qaeda behavior, the video implies.

Do you use e mail or the telephone to find out information about things? You’re probably a terrorist, according to the DHS, which classifies such behavior as “elicitation,” one of the eight signs of terror.

Do you occasionally monitor police radio, as thousands did during the recent G20 protests in Pittsburgh? You’re a terrorist.

Do you notice surveillance cameras or occasionally attempt to watch big brother back? You’re a terrorist.

Petty criminal behavior such as theft and trespassing is also flagged as a sign of terrorism.

“The success of defending our community’s safety depends upon our shared commitment,” says Elway at the end of the clip. “It’s a beautiful day here in Colorado and there can be many more like this with the help of people like you.”

In other words, report your neighbors for everyday activity otherwise you’ll be hit by another 9/11.

As we have continually highlighted, the entire apparatus of the war on terror has been shifted to target the American people. By defining mundane activities as potential terror, those in power want to create a society where everyone feels under suspicion and guilty even if they are a completely law-abiding citizen. Indeed, the implication is that only those who join the tyranny and become informers for the state can feel truly patriotic and avoid the glare of big brother.

As we discussed with the MIAC report and a whole host of others, the federal government apparently has very little concern for any perceived terrorist threat to America coming from the MIddle East or Al-Qaeda cells within the country, and indeed if any such threat existed we are only in more danger, because the feds have been busy training law enforcement and brainwashing the public that law-abiding American citizens who exercise their legal right to purchase firearms, who own gold, who take photographs, donate to charities or who attempt to find out information about things, are potential terrorists who should be grassed up to the authorities without delay.

Watch the CELL video below.

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The next step in the War on Terrorism?

Nervous flyers, beware: a Department of Homeland Security-funded project is investigating whether Wii Fit Balance Boards might be good ways to detect signs of tension or unease in airport security lines.

As somewhere over 20 million Wii Fit owners know, the Balance Board can detect your precise balance point, making it a perfect keep-fit tool — but the Future Attribute Screening Technology project hopes detecting physiological signs — including rapid shifts in balance — will help identify passengers who may have hostile intentions.

“Researchers took a Wii balance board…and altered it to show how someone’s weight shifts. Studies are now under way to determine whether there is a level of fidgeting that would suggest the need for secondary screening,” CNN said.

The Balance Board is just one of a suite of sensors the Boston-based project is trialing; others include eye trackers and devices that record respiratory and heart rates. Researchers say their goal is to have a system ready for field tests in 2011.

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Man who both approved and covered-up government slaughter of 76 people, including 20 children, will lead move to establish international model of law enforcement

UN and Interpol officials will meet today to discuss the formation of a “global police force” that would enjoy access to a worldwide database of DNA, biometric and fingerprint records. The effort will be spearheaded by a man known as “The Enforcer” who helped federal authorities both conduct and cover up the murderous Waco siege which killed 76 people in 1993.

“Interpol and the United Nations are poised to become partners in fighting crime by jointly grooming a global police force that would be deployed as peacekeepers among rogue nations riven by war and organized crime, officials from both organizations say,” reports the New York Times.

The emergence of a global police force is of course something that people like Alex Jones have been warning about for well over a decade. The global police force, just like the world army, is a key centerpiece of the march towards a dictatorial global government.

Those who were once called paranoid conspiracy theorists for claiming that the plan all along has been to centralize law enforcement into a global body run by the world government under the auspices of the UN and Interpol have been proven right once again.

For a taste of what Americans who aren’t so favorable to taking orders from foreigners on home soil can expect, consider the fact that the secretary general of Interpol, and one of the men at the forefront of setting up the global police force, is none other than Ronald K. Noble.

Noble, who is known as “The Enforcer,” has been instrumental in working with Chinese authorities to provide policing in the Communist country for major national events. However, his most notorious role was in ordering and then, in his position as Undersecretary for Enforcement of the United States Department of the Treasury, whitewashing the actions of the BATF following the federal government’s murderous siege on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco which killed 76 people including more than 20 children and two pregnant women in April 1993.

As Carol Moore writes, “Noble had approved the decision to go ahead with the raid,” and therefore, “had little interest in issuing a report that either would challenge significantly the BATF’s investigation or modus operandi or would admit these led to crimes against the Davidians.”

Noble ignored in his report more than a dozen eyewitness reports, along with photographic and video evidence, of a BATF helicopter firebombing the Waco church during the siege. He also ignored David Koresh’s July 1992 invitation to the BATF to inspect the Waco compound, which if it had gone ahead could have prevented the siege and the murder of 76 innocent people altogether.

“During the hearing, Friend-of-Bill Webster Hubbell denied repeatedly that he and Clinton had discussed the Waco situation informally, and improperly. However, an Associated Press article claimed Hubbell had revealed he was giving Clinton updates on Waco. And House staffers discovered a memorandum in which then-Treasury official Ron Noble asserted Hubbell would take the matter up with Clinton if the Treasury Department’s review did not downplay BATF errors. Clearly, Noble condones covering up government crimes against citizens,” writes Moore.

Noble was picked directly for the position of secretary general at Interpol by fellow Waco siege accomplice, former Attorney General Janet Reno.

During his September 2005 secretary general re-election acceptance speech in Berlin, Noble attributed Interpol’s ‘rebirth’ to the events of 9/11, saying that the terrorist attacks allowed the organization to go from being treated as largely irrelevant to setting it on the path to becoming an international police force.

Noble told the New York Times that one of the main roles of the global cops would be to stop people to check their identities against a global database.

“The police will be trained and equipped differently with resources,” Mr. Noble said. “When they stop someone, they will be consulting global databases to determine who they are stopping.”

As we previously reported, Interpol is setting up a huge biometric facial scan database of international travelers so they can cross-check everyone against a database of terror suspects, international criminals and fugitives. The database will hold the records of every citizen who has ever traveled in and out of the virtually every country in the world, representing intelligence agency style bulk interception of information.

According to the NY Times report, Interpol agents would be given special electronic passports that would allow them to speedily cross international borders.

“With the meeting of justice ministers on Monday, which coincides with a general assembly of Interpol police members, the group is expected to debate the global police issue and to craft a declaration that would lead to an action plan for international police peacekeeping within 12 months,” reports the Times.

The danger of having a global police force conducting law enforcement on U.S. soil under the control of Interpol and the UN is self-evident. Global cops who do not have to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution have no obligation to follow it. Operating outside of the realms of the U.S. legal system, global cops will have carte blanche to snatch, grab and intern citizens without recourse. A highly centralized system of policing guarantees hardly any liability whatsoever and therefore encourages rampant illegality and police brutality.

With many experts predicting a Soviet-style collapse of the United States within the next few years, the prospect of U.N. peacekeepers and Interpol global cops ordering Americans around is a harrowing possibility.

The fact that this move is all being spearheaded by a man known as “The Enforcer” who was instrumental in ordering the killing of 76 innocent people at Waco, including 20 children, and then covering it up, should send shock waves through the liberty movement and lead to intense scrutiny on Noble’s position at Interpol and his agenda to head up a global police force.

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(AP) George Lucas stands at Adam Clayton Blvd. and 148th Street in Harlem, New York, Friday Sept. 4,… Full Image

Ronnie Carr’s experience was typical: He was fumbling with his apartment door after school in Brooklyn when plainclothes officers flashed their badges.

(AP) Courtney Bennett, in a business suit, stands where he has been stopped and search by police in… Full Image

Police records indicate that officers are drawn to suspicious behavior: furtive movements, actions that indicate someone may be serving as a lookout, anything that suggests a drug deal, or a person carrying burglary tools such as a slim jim or pry bar.

(AP) Courtney Bennett, left, and George Lucas, stand at Adam Clayton Blvd. and 148th Street in Harlem,… Full Image

Street stops started to go up, and overall crime dropped dramatically in a once-dangerous city.

(AP) Graphic charts New York City stop and arrest data since Full Image

When officers make a stop, they are required to fill out a form, including the time and location of the stop and why police were suspicious. Age, race and whether the person was frisked are also recorded.

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