Reportedly According to Apparently Informed Sources (Keith Olbermann)
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Inform Yourselves, People
NEW YORK ? As of early Friday evening, at least 60 viewers and readers had forwarded me cut-and-pastes of? or links to? an amazingly intricate conspiracy theory on-line piece that intertwines the Presidential election, Homeland Security, the FBI, $29,000,000 in payoffs, Enron, and the Saudi Royal Family? seemingly everybody except the Visiting Nurse Association of Skaneateles, New York.

Each e-mail has come with the same question: could this possibly be true?

To summarize the story, Wayne Madsen, a former naval officer and now self-styled investigative journalist, has written that ?according to informed sources in Washington and Houston,? computer experts were promised phenomenal amounts of cash, laundered via Saudi Arabia and the secret accounts of those who looted Enron, to pose as FBI and Homeland Security agents, infiltrate polling places around the country, and hack into electronic voting systems.

After Iran-Contra, nobody can discount the theoretical possibility of any international conspiracy to commit? well, to commit anything. But in the absence of verifiable facts, and in the middle of a sea of unidentified sources and usage of the words ?reportedly? and ?apparently,? it is often instructive to see if the writer, and the mere journalistic structure of what he?s written, can even maintain what artists like to call ?verisimilitude? - the mere appearance of truth.

And as a work of journalism, the Madsen piece has several glaring problems that make even a doubter like myself cringe.

Mr. Madsen?s only readily recognizable germ of truth comes in the third paragraph of his piece: ?There have been media reports from around the country concerning the locking down of precincts while votes were being tallied.? He then retells the still inexplicable walling off of the Administration Building in Warren County, Ohio, on the night of the election, on the pretext of a terror warning from the FBI that the FBI has since declared it never made.

But that has been the only such report of a ?lock down.?

Madsen does not offer, nor has the media or even the Internet reported, any other examples - even unverified ones.

The Palm Beach Post reported last month that 73 schools which doubled as polling places in Palm Beach County, Florida, were to belocked down during voting? locked down in the sense that kids were to be escorted by teachers from class to class, and even to the bathroom. Additionally, the Associated Press and several other news organizations reported that Florida?s State Election Headquarters in Tallahassee was evacuated on the morning of Monday, November 1st, due to a suspicious package, and workers not permitted to return? locked out? until just before noon.

But short of those two examples? neither of which Mr. Madsen cites? his ?media reports from around the country concerning the locking down of precincts while votes were being tallied,? are all the same: about Warren County. Journalistically, this is the equivalent of a news account of the unfortunate man who?s been hit by lightning six times, being inflated into ?media reports from around the country concerning people being hit by lightning six times each.?

If there are other lockdown cases, Mr. Madsen should verify and report them.

It is also useful in these situations to look at an author?s other work. On October 20th, in what to the best of my knowledge was Mr. Madsen?s previous jaw-dropper, he wrote ?Bush pre-election strike on Iran ?imminent.?? This time the piece began: ?According to White House and Washington Beltway insiders??

Mr. Madsen then told of a blood-curdling plan for the U.S. to strike top Iranian Islamic leaders, a series of mosques, nuclear research sites, and at least one nuclear reactor - all of it to be accomplished before November 2, thus making the President ?assured of a landslide win against Kerry.?

Now, I don?t claim to know everything in the news, but if we had bombed Teheran late last month, I think somebody would have mentioned it to me.

Returning to the current article, Mr. Madsen also strains logic in one very important area. It is his claim that ?the leak about the money and the rigged election apparently came from technicians who were promised to be paid a certain amount for their work but the Bush campaign interlocutors reneged and some of the technicians are revealing the nature of the vote rigging program.?

There?s a discouraging journalistic fact here. Mr. Madsen has distanced himself further from the purported original source of the information (his ?informed sources? ?reportedly? got this from the ?technicians?), to the point where this information is now, at best, third-hand.

And there is a hole in the center of this saga big enough to sink the plot of a Bruce Willis movie ? the means by which the information came to see the light of day.

If untold numbers of operatives really were dispatched to polling places around the country to enact the most nefarious political plot in this country?s history, why would the ring-leaders reveal to any of them any of the following:

The total amount spent on the plan (Madsen drops the $29 million dollar figure in the first sentence)?
The primary source of the carefully laundered cash (Madsen sites ?Five Star Trust?)?
The sources of ?other money used to fund the election rigging? (Madsen lists ?siphoned Enron money stored away in accounts in the Cook Islands?)?
Most importantly, having told their minions all of this damning information, having sent them out on an evil mission that if exposed could overturn an election and require the building of extra prisons just to hold all those who would be convicted in such an overarching scheme, why on earth would they try toget away with not paying them?

None of this is written to downplay the disturbing nature of the Warren County incident. Nor is it posited even to dismiss the many who see in the various failures of electronic voting around the country nearly four weeks ago not just incompetence, but malfeasance. Hell, if a shred of Mr. Madsen?s story is true, I?ll pay his expenses when he goes to pick up his Pulitzer Prize.

But in a time when serious investigations of what did or didn?t happen on November 2nd are vital to the sanctity of our voting process, reporting? in the mainstream media and on the Internet alike? has to be solid and reasoned.

I?d have to put Mr. Madsen?s story in the same category as the on-line report that I had been fired by MSNBC on November 12th for attempting to cover voting irregularities.

I might add as an additional caution that I just saw that report posted anew on another Website. And apparently I?m still standing.

Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Bill of Rights
Attorney general shows himself as a menace to liberty

LA Times 08/14/02: Jonathon Turley

Original Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-turley14aug14.story (members only)

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties.

The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.

This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The Justice Department has insisted that the judge must simply accept its declaration and cannot interfere with the president's absolute authority in "a time of war."

In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the arrest stopped a plan to detonate a radioactive bomb in New York or Washington, D.C. The administration later issued an embarrassing correction that there was no evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear is that Padilla is an American citizen and was arrested in the United States--two facts that should trigger the full application of constitutional rights.

Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy.

Perhaps because of his discredited claims of preventing radiological terrorism, aides have indicated that a "high-level committee" will recommend which citizens are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and sent to Ashcroft's new camps.

Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such camps for citizens. Of course, Ashcroft is not considering camps on the order of the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese American citizens in World War II. But he can be credited only with thinking smaller; we have learned from painful experience that unchecked authority, once tasted, easily becomes insatiable.

We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.

For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal, where security must precede liberty.

Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism, liberty has become a mere rhetorical justification for increased security.

Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution, encouraging citizens to accept autocratic rule as their only way of avoiding massive terrorist attacks.

His greatest problem has been preserving a level of panic and fear that would induce a free people to surrender the rights so dearly won by their ancestors.

In "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More was confronted by a young lawyer, Will Roper, who sought his daughter's hand. Roper proclaimed that he would cut down every law in England to get after the devil.

More's response seems almost tailored for Ashcroft: "And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast ... and if you cut them down--and you are just the man to do it--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

Every generation has had Ropers and Ashcrofts who view our laws and traditions as mere obstructions rather than protections in times of peril. But before we allow Ashcroft to denude our own constitutional landscape, we must take a stand and have the courage to say, "Enough."

Every generation has its test of principle in which people of good faith can no longer remain silent in the face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already lost what we are defending.

New School Democrat
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Bored Quizzes

You Are a New School Democrat

You like partying and politics - and are likely to be young and affluent. You're less religious, traditional, and uptight than most Democrats. Smoking pot, homosexuality, and gambling are all okay in your book. You prefer that the government help people take care of themselves.

Government Looking at Military Draft Lists
Topic: Impending Draft
Government Looking at Military Draft Lists
Brownsville Herald | November 17 2004
t?s taken one year, seven months and 19 days of combat in Iraq for the Lone Star State to lose 100 of its own.

Texas is the second state, after California, to lose 100 service members, according to The Associated Press.

With continuing war in Iraq and U.S. armed forces dispersed to so many other locations around the globe, Americans may be wondering if compulsory military service could begin again for the first time since the Vietnam War era.

The Selective Service System (SSS) and the U.S. Department of Education now are gearing up to compare their computer records, to make sure all men between the ages of 18 and 25 who are required to register for a military draft have done so.

The SSS and the education department will begin comparing their lists on Jan. 1, 2005, according to a memo authored by Jack Martin, acting Selective Service director.

While similar record checks have been done periodically for the past 10 years, Martin?s memo is dated Oct. 28, just a few days before the Nov. 2 presidential election, a hard-fought campaign in which the question of whether the nation might need to reinstate a military draft was raised in debates and on the stump.

Read More...

Doggett said one type of ?draft? was already being used by the military.

?I?m concerned that a very real form of the draft is there now for those already in the service,? Doggett said. ?People are being forced to stay in beyond their commitment, and that?s an indication of being overextended.

?I want us to pursue policies that don?t overextend us and involve more international participation, so that Americans don?t have to do all the dying and endure all the pain for these international activities,? Doggett said.

Flahavan said the computer records check would help Selective Service with its compliance rates.

?From 1999 to 2000, it was dropping about a percent a year,? Flahavan said. ?It?s now inching back up about a percent a year. Last year it was 93 percent.

?At the end of 2004 we anticipate about a 94 percent compliance rate,? Flahavan said. ?We?re pleased we?ve got it back on the rise and that?s where we want to keep it ? that?s our goal.?

Draft Gear Up?
Who Has To Register?
All male U.S. citizens and male aliens living in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 25
Dual nationals of the U.S. and another country, regardless of where they live
Young men who are in prison or mental institutions do not have to regsiter while they are committed, but must do so if they are released and not reached age 26
Disabled men who live at home and can move about indiependently.
Myths
Contrary to popular belief, only sons and the last son to carry a family name must register and they can be drafted.
What Happens In A Draft
Congress would likely approve a military draft in a time of crisis, in which the mission requires more troops than are in the volunteer military.
Selective Service procedures would treat married men or those with children the same as single men.
The first men to be called up will be those whose 20th birthday falls during that year, followed by those age 21, 22, 23,24 and 25.
The last men to be called are 18 and 19 years of age.
Historical Facts
The last man to be drafted was in June 1973.
Number of Drafted for WWI : 2.8 million
Number of Drafted for WWII: 10 million
Number of Drafted for the Korean War: 1.5 million
Number of Drafted for the Vietnam War: 1.8 million
Source: Selective Service System

Dictator Bush - The Time to Be Scared Is NOW
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Save Democracy
Mysterious ?George W. Bush: Our Leader? Clear Channel Political Public Service Billboard Graces Orlando Freeway



Raw Story | November 22 2004

A billboard recently put up in Orlando bearing a smiling photograph of President Bush with the words ?Our Leader? is raising eyebrows among progressives who feel the poster is akin to that of propaganda used by tyrannical regimes.

RAW STORY confirmed the billboard?s existence Monday evening. At our behest, a member of an Orlando media organization drove past the billboard on two occasions and verified that it was indeed the one pictured.

The billboard pictured, which is on I-4, says that it is a ?political public service message brought to you by Clear Channel Outdoor.?

The member, who declined to be named out of concern for their employer, discovered a second billboard bearing the same image along the same route, paid for by Charles W. Clayton Jr.

Clear Channel Outdoor Orlando said they could not respond to requests for comment this week because their press person was ?away.? They referred calls to their San Antonio corporate parent, which did not return two messages for comment.

One Orlando resident penned a concerned letter to the (registration-restricted) Orlando Sentinel on Saturday about the billboard. As the site is restricted to members, the letter appears below.

?The first thing I thought was, when was the last time I have seen a president on a billboard?? wrote resident Dianna Lawson. ?Didn?t Saddam Hussein have his picture up everywhere? What next, a statue??

Reporters at the Orlando Sentinel told RAW STORY they?d also seen the photograph.

Others said they?d seen a similar sign in Jacksonville along I-95.

?We don?t do political advertising,? said Clear Channel sales representative Brad Parsons in Jacksonville. He said the photograph was bogus.

A second Jacksonville rep acknowledged the company did political advertising but only when paid for by a third party. When asked if he would look at the picture for verification, he declined to give out his email address.

The posted was first noticed by the liberal forum Democratic Underground.

Developing? Additional photographs forthcoming?

The letter in the Orlando Sentinel:

Billboard message

On my way to work Wednesday morning, I looked up and saw a giant billboard with a picture of George W. Bush and the words ?OUR LEADER? under it. The first thing I thought was, when was the last time I have seen a president on a billboard? What is going on? Didn?t Saddam Hussein have his picture up everywhere? What next, a statue?

I am so concerned with our country and the division. I still stand by my vote, which was for John Kerry. George W. Bush has a lot of work to do to change the way I feel. Putting him up on a billboard does not make him a better president. His actions speak louder than words.

I wonder if anyone else finds the president?s picture on a billboard odd? I?m sorry, but it reminds me of countries with dictators, and it seems people are making him out to be the messiah, the savior of our world.

Fear, fear, fear. I?m tired of being afraid.

Dianna Lawson
Orlando

---------------------------

GUESS WHO ELSE HAS BILLBOARDS! THAT'S RIGHT! KIM JONG-IL AND SADDAM HUSSEIN!

Watch Out England, You're Next
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Privacy
The home secretary has outlined plans for more far-reaching measures to tackle terrorism.

The proposals include special anti-terror courts without juries and the use of phone-tap evidence in trials.

David Blunkett told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme that any new legislation would wait until after the next general election.

But human rights group Liberty accused the government of resorting to "draconian law and order measures".

The home secretary said new civil orders were being considered which could be imposed against people suspected of "acts preparatory to terrorism" even if they had not committed an offence.


He said the breach of such orders would be a criminal offence which could result in imprisonment.

"We'd be able to use civil law, like anti-social behaviour orders, to say, 'If you step outside what we've precluded you from doing, if you, for instance, use this particular banking network... then we can move you from the civil into the criminal law', and then we can use the normal criminal justice process, " he said.

Read More...

BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said legislation will also be announced to set up a system of identity cards.

There will also be more measures to crack down on binge drinking.

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Check This Video Out
Mood:  blue
Topic: Support Your Troops
Bush Won, Get Over It

Another Case of Intelligence - I am a Girlie Man apparently...
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Save Democracy
Anti-Schwarzenegger Website Gets Support

Los Angeles Times | November 29 2004

A week after a group set up a website to oppose changing the U.S. Constitution to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to become president, more than 3 million people have visited the site, and more than $10,000 have been pledged to the campaign.

The money will go toward a campaign by nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Alex Jones and his group Americans Against Arnold to air commercials on radio and cable television to rally opposition to the proposed legislation.

Jones, who lives in Austin, Texas, hopes to put the cable ads on television in California to counter commercials supporting a constitutional change that would allow foreign-born citizens, including Schwarzenegger, to seek the highest office in the country.

"I personally am against a foreign-born person being president," said Jones, a former Republican who is now a Libertarian. "People want their president to be born in this country."

He is also troubled by Schwarzenegger's past, which includes allegations that he groped women, used steroids and schemed about his eventual rise to power. "The guy has all of the classic symptoms of a megalomaniac," Jones said.

A Schwarzenegger spokesman declined to comment.

But Schwarzenegger supporters have sent e-mails to the anti-Arnold site to warn that they are messing with the wrong man.

Said one e-mail: "He will smash you like the girlie men you are."

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Web Won't Let Government Hide
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Save Democracy
Given the government keeps tabs on the world using armies of agents, algorithms and wiretaps, how can a citizen compete? Try a browser.

Governments at every level these days are providing less information about their inner workings, sometimes using fear of terrorism as an excuse. But it's precisely times like these that mandate citizens' rights to check the efficiency of their government and hold those who fail accountable, open government advocates say.

The government itself won't make it easy, so an increasing number of websites and data crunchers are stepping in to provide information about the inner workings of government.

For starters, there's Google's little-known government specific search engine. Those proficient with crafting search terms can find Attorney General John Ashcroft's office number, gee-whiz nanotechnology movies and NASA's Microgravity Man comic strip. One can even find homeland security alerts about truck bombs (PDF) and the intelligence needs of the FBI.

Another trove of information is George Washington University's National Security Archive, which contains thousands of documents acquired through patient Freedom of Information Act requests. And there's CoolGov, a blog devoted to ferreting out quirky tidbits such as videos of airline crashes.

Those interested in the nitty-gritty of how and why the government hides information can subscribe to Stephen Aftergood's Secrecy News listserv, which is part of his work as the director of Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

Aftergood, who publishes a couple times a week, has built up an archive of previously unpublished reports created for Congress and information about the CIA's ongoing opposition to the publication of its budget.

Chris Hoofnagle, a lawyer for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (which is known for its prowess with Freedom of Information Act requests), calls Aftergood's work a must-read for anyone interested in a "nuanced interpretation of government information policy."

Aftergood uses FOIA requests only sparingly though, calling them cumbersome, relying instead on contacts and tips.

"Information has gravitational properties," Aftergood said. "Over time, more and more information flows to me."

When asked what motivates him, Aftergood gives both a principled and pragmatic answer.

"Openness is essential to self-government," Aftergood said. "If we mean to be our own rulers, then we need access to information. What keeps me going, though, is that, fortunately, a lot of this work is fun -- it is fun to collect information and to share it with like-minded others and to discover that small groups of interested citizens can be more effective and agile than large government bureaucracies."

Aftergood is not the only one-man information bank on the internet.

Russ Kick keeps information alive at The Memory Hole, where he archives documents pulled from government websites. He is famous for successfully using FOIA to obtain and publish photos of American soldiers' coffins being unloaded at the Dover Air Force Base.

John Young, a New York City architect, has been running the encyclopedic Cryptome since 1996, when he was inspired by the Cypherpunk mailing list to start learning about dual-use government technology.

Since the terrorist attacks on his city in 2001, Young has been striving to post as much information as possible, including lists of intelligence agents and pictures of vulnerable gas mains in New York City, as well as satellite images and maps of government officials' residences.

Though he has been criticized for providing information that could help terrorists, Young said he is helping to debunk the idea that hiding information will keep the country safe.

"We aren't experts, so if we can find it -- these folks are much smarter than we give them credit for, they are almost certain to already have it," Young said. "They use the internet avidly and have a lot more time to do this than I do. If I can find it and not let it be known, it creates a greater hazard."

EPIC's Hoofnagle sees these efforts as part of an "overall system that has a skeptical worldview of government action."

"Our FOIA work has proven it pays to be skeptical," Hoofnagle said. "EPIC is perhaps best known for our FOIA requests into the Carnivore system, which the FBI described as a precise and surgical computer forensic tool that turned out to be more like a vacuum cleaner.

"Unless one can put their hands on the actual agency documents, the public has to rely upon representations that may be jaundiced."

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Federal Plan to Keep Data on Students Worries Some
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Privacy
November 29, 2004
New York Times
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 - A proposal by the federal government to create a vast new database of enrollment records on all college and university students is raising concerns that the move will erode the privacy rights of students.

Until now, universities have provided individual student information to the federal government only in connection with federally financed student aid. Otherwise, colleges and universities submit information about overall enrollment, graduation, prices and financial aid without identifying particular students.

For the first time, however, colleges and universities would have to give the government data on all students individually, whether or not they received financial assistance, with their Social Security numbers.

The bid arises from efforts in Congress and elsewhere to extend the growing emphasis on school accountability in elementary and high schools to postsecondary education. Supporters say that government oversight of individual student data will make it easier for taxpayers and policy makers to judge the quality of colleges and universities through more reliable statistics on graduation, transfers and retention.

The change would also allow federal officials to track individual students as they journey through the higher education system. In recent years, increasing numbers of students have been attending more than one university, dropping out or taking longer than the traditional four years to graduate. Current reporting practices cannot capture such trends; a mobile student is recorded as a new student at each institution.

Under the proposal, the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education would receive, analyze and guard the data. In making its case for the change, the center points to a history of working with student information and says it has never been forced to share it with law enforcement or other agencies. The proposal, first reported in the current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, is supported by the American Council on Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, but opposed by other education organizations, like the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

A department overview of the proposal insisted that data would not be shared with other agencies and that outsiders could not gain access. By law, the summary says in capitals, "Information about individuals may NEVER leave N.C.E.S.," the National Center for Education Statistics.

But Jasmine L. Harris, legislative director at the United States Student Association, an advocacy group for students, said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the balance between privacy and the public interest had been shifting. "We're in a different time now, a very different climate," Ms. Harris said. "There's the huge possibility that the database could be misused, and there are no protections for student privacy."

She pointed to the National Directory of New Hires, a register of people who re-enter the workforce, which began as an effort to track job trends. Since its creation, however, the database has also been used to track parents who fail to pay child support or who owe the federal government non-tax debt, she said. "The door is wide open," Ms. Harris said.

Luke Swarthout, higher education associate at the State PIRG for Higher Education, said his civic group, which has always monitored consumer issues and privacy rights, was of two minds about the plan. Improving the available data was important for Congress, policymakers and the public, who finance higher education through government loans and grants, Mr. Swarthout said. "But any time you're compiling a list of millions and millions of students, as they go through college, move and have Social Security numbers, we get concerns from a privacy perspective."

For colleges to hand over information on individual students, Congress would have to create an exemption to existing federal privacy laws, said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

"The concept that you enter a federal registry by the act of enrolling in a college in this country is frightening to us," Ms. Flanagan said.

She said that officials from some states had already announced they would like to match the data against prison records. In states where such data is already collected from public universities, she added, there has been pressure to check the school data on students against housing records, driver's licenses and employment records.

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