Category Archives: Police State

Torture Pictures You Can See and Torture Pictures You Can’t…

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In the news last month, was a torture tape that implicates a UAE royal sheikh (who isn’t in the government) in acts of sadism. In it a uniformed policeman watches as the victim (who shortchanged the Sheikh in a grain deal) is whipped, beaten, electrocuted, and run over by an SUV).  From an ABC report on the tape:

“The Sheikh begins by stuffing sand down the man’s mouth, as the police officers restrains the victim. Then he fires bullets from an automatic rifle around him as the man howls incomprehensibly…..

He uses an electric cattle prod against the man’s testicles and inserts it in his anus. At another point, as the man wails in pain, the Sheikh pours lighter fluid on the man’s testicles and sets them aflame…….

The Sheikh then pulls down the pants of the victim and repeatedly strikes him with board and its protruding nail. At one point, he puts the nail next to the man’s buttocks and bangs it through the flesh.

“Where’s the salt,” asks the Sheikh as he pours a large container of salt on to the man’s bleeding wounds. The victim pleads for mercy, to no avail.

The final scene on the tape shows the Sheikh positioning his victim on the desert sand and then driving over him repeatedly. A sound of breaking bones can be heard on the tape.”

This is all pretty gruesome and horrific. The Sheikh is clearly a monster. But that torture exists in Arab countries is not new. Can there be more to explain the media highlighting of this tape? Remember, it took CBS several years before it got around to the Iraq torture story (it was first reported in the US in 2001. The CBS expose of Abu Ghraib was in 2004).

Could it have anything to do with a recent piece of legislation?

Barack Obama, is throwing his weight behind The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009,  passed on June 1, 2009. What this does is make the Secretary of Defense certify whether any images of prisoner treatment between September 11, 2009 and January 22, 2009 would endanger military personnel or US citizens, and at his discretion and without any possible review, prevent their disclosure. The certification lasts for three years and can be renewed indefinitely.

Here’s Glenn Greenwald on the subject:

“For decades, we had laws in place authorizing citizens to sue their telecommunication carriers if the telecoms allowed government spying on their communications in violation of the law, but when it was revealed that the telecoms did exactly this, the Congress simply changed the law retroactively so that it no longer applied.  For decades, we had laws imposing civil and criminal liability on government officials who engaged in or authorized torture, but when it was revealed that our government did that, the Congress just retroactively changed the law to protect the torturers.  And now that courts have ruled that our decades-old transparency law compels disclosure of this torture evidence, the Congress is just going to retroactively change the law — again — this time to empower the President to suppress that evidence anyway.”

Greenwald acts surprised, which is a bit funny. What did he think? That Obama was going to change things?

It makes you wonder if the Abu Dhabi tape was given airtime simply to provide enough impetus (as in, See, they do it too – and  so much worse ) to pass this horrible bill.

The CPJ’s Top Ten Worst Countries to Blog In

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In 2008, the Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ found that bloggers and other online journalists were the largest professional group being jailed. Earlier, that honor went to print and broadcast journalists.

Here’s a quick summary of their evaluation of the worst countries in the world for bloggers:

1. Burma

Monitoring, regulation of cybercafes, blocking. At least two bloggers in prison.

2. Iran

Monitoring, harassment, detention, pending legislation advocating death penalty for promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy. One blogger died in jail in unclear circumstances

3. Syria

Filtering, blocking, harassment, self-censorship, monitoring, detention.

4. Cuba

Blocking, harassment. 21 bloggers jailed

5. Saudi Arabia

Widespread blocking, self-censorship

6. Vietnam

Monitoring, harassment.

7. Tunisia

Electronic surveillance including email monitoring, electronic sabotage, content filtering, IP submission, imprisonment of at least 2 journalists

8. China

Blocking, monitoring of email, filtering of searches, deletion of objectionable material. Has a vibrant bloggin culture but maintains world’s most comprehensive online censorship program.  At least 24 bloggers in prison.

9. Turkmenistan

Blocking access to opposition sites. Monitoring of email accounts.

10. Egypt

Monitoring of sites, open-ended detention, sometimes imprisonment and even torture. But only a few sites are blocked. More than 100 journalists detained (usually for short periods).

All this seems very bad compared to what we have in the US.

Or, is it? Let’s see.

  • Email monitoring Check.   And note this program, ADVISE, in the works, supposedly scrapped in 2007, but status unknown is a better description. And if that’s been thought up for the citizenry at large, bloggers should expect quite a bit more attention.
  • Censorship Depends on what you define as censorship.  Wiki demonstrably manipulates  information in subtle and not so subtle ways. Sometimes there’s outright deletion of articles for no good reason besides content censorship. Google not only censors some material overtly, it’s been accused of manipulating the visibility of material. Facebook is reported to be impossible to leave. Finally, there’s probably far more disinformation in the US than in any other country, and it’s certainly the most sophisticated.
  • Website harassment/sabotage Check
  • Controlled mainstream media Check
  • Bloggers killed None that I know of, but I can think of at least two journalists (Gary Webb is the most famous) who died in mysterious circumstances.  And dozens of foreign journalists (and some foreign-born US journalists) were killed outside the country by the US military during the coverage of the Iraq war, as I noted in this piece in 2006.
  • Professional Sabotage Widespread
  • Ruinous litigation Widespread
  • Self-censorship Widespread
  • Verbal and physical threats  Check

Note: I’m not sure why countries like Malaysia and Morocco didn’t make this list.

Could it have something to do with encouraging foreign investments there? I notice that Malaysia has recently been taken off the list of foreign tax havens (Labuan, a small island off the Malatsian coast, is well-known as an off-shore haven).  But only last year,  an antigovernment blogger was jailed on sedition charges .

As for Morocco, when I was there in 2008, I was told repeatedly not to write about anything controversial (such as, Moroccan jails or torture) because it would land me in serious trouble (i.e. jail).  In September 2008, Just a month before I was there, a blogger was sentenced to two years in prison for failure to show respect to the king. The Tangier-Tetuan region in the north of Morocco is the target of  government investment and vast amounts of foreign real estate development and speculation.  I was told by knowledgeable people that a lot of the money pouring into the luxury apartments in Tangiers was drug money….

Judge Orders Chemotherapy for 13 Yr Old over Parents’ No

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In the news: a Minnesota judge has ruled that 13 year old Daniel Hauser, a cancer patient, has to undergo chemotherapy that he’s stopped in favor of American Indian medicinal therapies used by the Nemenhah Band, in which Daniel is said to be an elder. His father claims he (the father) was cured of cancer by the same methods. The teen-ager’s cancer is reported to have resumed growing after the chemotherapy was stopped.

“Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and stopped chemotherapy in February after a single treatment. He and his parents opted instead for “alternative medicines” based on their religious beliefs.

Child protection workers accused Daniel’s parents of medical neglect; but in court, his mother insisted the boy wouldn’t submit to chemotherapy for religious reasons and she said she wouldn’t comply if the court orders it.

Doctors have said Daniel’s cancer had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.”

US Ranks 6th in Private Report on Electronic Surveillance

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I don’t know how accurate this report from Cryptohippie.com (hat-tip to Sunni Maravillosa) is, but I thought it was interesting.

It ranks countries as police states, based on 17 factors:

1) Daily documents 2) Border issues 3) Financial tracking 4) Gag orders 5) Anti-crypto laws 6) Constitutional protection 7) Data storage ability 8)Data retention ability 9) ISP data retention 10) Telephone data retention 11) Cell phone records 12) Medical records 13) Enforcement ability 14) Habeas Corpus 15) Police-Intel barrier 16) Covert hacking 17) Loose warrants

At the top were the communist countries: China and North Korea.

Then came the former communist countries: Belarus and Russia

Next:  the UK, US, and Singapore

Please note:: I couldn’t find much about the privacy firm that created the report, Cryptohippie, and have no idea how authoritative the report is. Any further insights are welcome.

Massive Push to Criminalize Criticism of Israel (Links/Video added)

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Paul Craigs Roberts writes about H. R. 1913 (“Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009”), at Counterpunch:

“It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups.  For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel’s crimes are covered up and even praised.

Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper?  Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for “spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act”? ……….

A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel.  American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel.  Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California  (at Santa Barbara,) professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson’s crime:  his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying.  The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges.  Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison….”

My Comment (May 8, 2009):

H.R. 1913 was sponsored by Rep. John Conyers [D, MI-14] and voted on by the House on April 29, 2009 (passing 248-175 with largely Democrat support).

Complaints about the legislation have focused on several things.

  • The bill’s perceived fuzziness in defining the class of protected persons (“sexual orientation”) and in defining “bodily injury.” Both could make the legislation very elastic in application
  • The possibility that the legislation could be used to chill religious speech
  • The possibility that pastors who preach orthodox Christian views on controversial social issues could be prosecuted if an unstable person in their congregation later commits a “hate crime”
  • The granting of even more federal power to oversee, fund, direct, and intervene in local and state authorities
  • The redundancy of new legislation on “hate crimes” (since there are such laws already on the books)
  • The elusiveness of  the notion of “hate crime” and its inherent intrusiveness, since it claim to assess the state of mind of the perpetrator and the victim and of a whole class to which the victim belongs.

Christian groups have been particularly agitated by it, believing that it principally targets fundamentalist/orthodox Christian preachers.

That may well be so, but in the context of the financial scandal and ongoing Middle Eastern policies, I’d argue that the legislation has as much to do with criticism of the US government, especially of Zionist and Middle Eastern policies. For instance, see this effort at ending protests against US aid to Israel, at Muzzlewatch.

H.R. 1913, like H. R. 1955 before it, is meant for home-grown dissidents, a.k.a., people who object to federal government policies.

Action: Please call your  House or Senate representative at 1-877-851-6437 or toll 1-202-225-3121. and urge them not to vote for yet another thought crimes bill HR 1913.

Think of the two initiatives below as further context:

1. US Army Concept of Operations for Police Intelligence Operations, 4 Mar 2009 (see wikileaks)

2. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1955/S- 1959, a bill sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) in the 110th United States Congress. It was introduced in the House on April 19 2007, passing on Oct 23, 2007, was introduced to the Senate on August 2, 2007 as S-1959, declared dead on arrival there after a powerful grass-roots campaign against it,

but has since been referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means, April 2, 2009, according to wiki.

H.R. 1955

Guantanamo Detainees Are Not “Persons”

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From Raw Story, Friday, April 24, 2009

“A Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not “persons” according to it’s interpretation of a statute involving religious freedom.

The ruling sprang from an appeal of Rasul v. Rumsfeld, which was thrown out in Jan. 2008. “The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the constitutional and international law claims, and reversed the district court’s decision that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applied to Guantanamo detainees, dismissing those claims as well,” the Center for Constitutional Rights said….”

Greenwald Calls Out Right-Wing Amnesiacs

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From Salon, the tireless Glenn Greenwald calls out the amnesiacs on the right for double standards:

“Conservatives have responded to this disclosure as though they’re on the train to FEMA camps.  The Right’s leading political philosopher and intellectual historian, Jonah Goldberg, invokes fellow right-wing giant Ronald Reagan and says:  “Here we go Again,” protesting that “this seems so nakedly ideological.”  Michelle Malkin, who spent the last eight years cheering on every domestic surveillance and police state program she could find, announces that it’s “Confirmed:  The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real!”  Lead-War-on-Terror-cheerleader Glenn Reynolds warns that DHS  – as a result of this report (but not, apparently, anything that happened over the last eight years)  – now considers the Constitution to be a “subversive manifesto.”  Super Tough Guy Civilization-Warrior Mark Steyn has already concocted an elaborate, detailed martyr fantasy in which his house is surrounded by Obama-dispatched, bomb-wielding federal agents.  Malkin’s Hot Air stomps its feet about all “the smears listed in the new DHS warning about ‘right-wing extremism.'”

Amazing chutzpah.  Malkin’s, especially, considering that her magnum opus was a celebration of the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, precisely the kind of violation of liberties she’s exercised about now.

No. Libertarians have to wash their hands off the two-party system entirely and admit that both parties are too compromised by their records to pose as civil libertarians and constitutionalists at this hour. Give the mic to the people whose record holds up, please.

Or to anyone else but these folks.

Spy State: NSA Surveillance Wider Than Ever

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In the news:

“The New York Times revealed last night [April 15] that the National Security Agency has been illegally spying on legions of Americans’ email and phone calls. Congress vastly expanded the NSA’s surveillance purview last year – but the NSA has chosen to go much further.

The Times noted that the NSA may have spied on one congressman without a court warrant.

This is the only chance that this latest crime might get at least some fleeting attention on Capitol Hill.

The lack of response to these NSA spying outrages is a great example of how cowardly the media has become and how clueless many, if not most, Americans are. The media even refused to make a hubbub last year when it was revealed that the NSA had been wiretapping reporters without a warrant. Author James Bamford pointed out late last year that 2 Israeli companies are at the core of carrying out NSA surveillance on a subcontracting basis. But Bamford’s revelation have received almost no coverage in the print media. (Bamford is one of the most highly-respected critics of the NSA).”

More at Bovard.

In Advance of Tax Day

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 From Jake Towne:

Facts about the Federal Income Tax synthesized for an April 15th handout, available by email. Join your local Tea Party and Tax Day Coalition on April 15th!!

“In a Time of Universal Deceit, Telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act.” – George Orwell, author of 1984

1) The premise behind collecting the federal income tax is a complete farce. The IRS claims the tax is voluntary, whereas any sane American realizes that she or he will go to jail if the tax is not paid. This is evident from not only the legal code, but even from the latest 1040 instructions to the taxpayer!  (1A) (1B) (2) (3)

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman writes that the American taxpayer willing pays income tax “of their own free will” but laments “unfortunately, there will always be some that cheat their fellow citizens by avoiding the payment of their fair share of taxes.” Shulman then infers that IRS enforcement will be “prompt” and “strong” (read: ‘swift’ and ‘merciless’) for this voluntary tax. (4)

The Treasury calls it “our voluntary tax system.” The IRS claims it pursues “enforcement programs to promote voluntary compliance” and establishes “strategies to maximize voluntary tax law compliance by emphasizing customer satisfaction.” (5)

2) The federal income tax was originally a Marxist idea. Karl Marx wrote the 10 Planks of a Communist State in his Communist Manifesto. The second plank, right after the abolition of private property was “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.” (6)  In 1909, this Marxist idea was politically accepted by Americans as retribution against the “evil capitalists” who had caused the Panic of 1907. 100 years later, both political parties now scapegoat all those in the financial industry as “evil doers.” (7)  By claiming an ever-increasing amount of your income, the State literally owns your labor.

3) The federal income tax is unconstitutional. The 16th “Income Tax” Amendment of 1913 was likely never officially ratified, and even if it was, in 1916 the Supreme Court ruled “the Sixteenth Amendment does not purport to confer power to levy income taxes” in Brushaber vs. Union Pacific Railroad. (8, 9, 10, 11)  The income tax was first placed into circulation as a 1-7% tax on only the very richest Americans.  This top tax bracket grew to an onerous 92% in the 1950s.  While this receded, for the middle class this tax has grown 500% to 1000% from this time period. (12)

4) The income tax is mostly used for War-Making, the Welfare State, and the National Debt – not general government and law enforcement! The income tax amounted to $1.2 Trillion for 2008. (13)  Outlays were for $2.9 Trillion plus the $0.8 Trillion October bailout.  (14)  We spent just $0.067 Trillion for general government and law enforcement!  (15) Out of every tax dollar, the IRS estimates we spend about a quarter on defense, a dime on the national debt, two pennies on general government & law enforcement and the remainder on Social Security (a giant Ponzi scheme) and other welfare and social programs. (16, graph)

5) The $1.2 Trillion federal income tax is unnecessary. Cutting our overseas military empire spending of $1 Trillion per year would justify its elimination. (17)  Instead of bailing out the banks for $0.8 Trillion in October and $1.1 Trillion of the Obama stimulus plan, we could have bailed out the increasingly unemployed taxpayer for at least the 2008 tax bill as I argued in January. (18)

6) The federal income tax code is time-consuming, confusing and baffling for many Americans. No wonder – the code itself now consists of 3.4 million words and if printed would fill 7,500 pages. (1B)  The code and regulations together were 66,498 pages long in 2006. (19)  The taxpayer’s 1040 instructions are 161 pages long.  (4) Americans spent 6.4 Billion hours filing their taxes in 2006.  (19)

7) America’s “Tax Army” employs more people (1.2 million) than we have armed forces stationed in the United States (0.9 million). (20, 21) Collecting taxes is a completely non-value added task, adding nothing to our economy. Some of our brightest minds – lawyers, accountants, and computer experts – pound away at keyboards trying to figure out either how to plunder more money from others or find loops in the tax code to “save costs” for their clients. The total cost of collecting taxes is estimated at $63 billion, ironically just $4 Billion short of funding general government and law enforcement! (22) (15) The IRS employs 91,000 and will spend $11.6 Billion in 2009 collecting taxes. (23) (24)

Patriots willing to exercise their natural right to peacefully assemble at your closest local protest site (or just start a protest yourself) are encouraged to enlist with both the Tax Day Coalition (TaxDayCoalition.com) and Tax Day Tea Party (TaxDayTeaParty.com) as I have for events on both on and after April 15. If you would like to join me at a very peaceful protest in east-central Pennsylvania on 4/15, please email me or leave a comment below. [For any government officials reading this, I have paid my taxes every year because I do not want to be imprisoned at the moment, and the collective “you” has failed to intimidate or scare me.]
________________________________________________________________________

List of Sources

(1A) The IRS Tax Code. The IRS strangely recommends visiting Cornell University to view the code and they are correct, it’s easier to view.  http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0,,id=98137,00.html#irc

(1B) The IRS Tax Code.  Easier to search than the IRS or Cornell version. http://www.fourmilab.ch/uscode/26usc/

(2) The Great IRS Hoax, Chapter 5.   http://famguardian.org/Publications/GreatIRSHoax/GreatIRSHoax.htm

(3) America: Freedom to Fascism.  Recommended free movie.  http://freedocumentaries.com/film.php?id=199

(4)  IRS 1040 instructions p2/161,  http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf

(5) Edwards, Chris.  2003. “10 Outrageous Facts About the IRS.” Fact #7. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3063

(6)  Marx, Karl. 1848. “Manifesto of the Communist Party” p. 21/44.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/manifest.pdf

(7)  Armstrong, Martin.  2008.  It’s Just Time.  p. 12/77. Contemporary visit and extension of Kondratrieff cycles.  http://www.contrahour.com/ItsJustTimeMartinArmstrong.pdf

(8) The Constitution of the United States of America.  http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

(9) Benson, Bill. “The Law That Never Was.” http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com

(10) Tax Facts, #1 through #19.  http://www.voluntarytax.info/tax_facts1.htm

(11) Brushaber vs. Union Pacific Railroad. US Supreme Court, 1916. http://supreme.justia.com/us/240/1/case.html

(12) Quinn, James.  2009. “GRAND ILLUSION – THE FEDERAL RESERVE“ http://www.nolanchart.com/article6123.html

(13) White House. FY 2009 Budget. p. 35/342. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf

(14)  White House. FY 2009 Budget. p. 26/342. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf

(15) White House. FY 2009 Budget. p. 59/342. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf

(16)  IRS 1040 instructions p91/161,  http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf

(17)  Paul, Ron. March 2008.  “Intervening Our Way to Economic Ruin.”

http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=12519

(18)  Towne, Jake. January 2009. “Why Obama’s Stimulus Plan Will Fail… and a Better Alternative.” Idea #1.    http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=3

(19)  Edwards, Chris.  2007. Testimony to House Budget Committee. p. 4/6 http://budget.house.gov/hearings/2007/02.16edwardstestimony.pdf

(20)  Edwards, Chris.  2003. “10 Outrageous Facts About the IRS.” Fact #2. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3063

(21)  Towne, Jake. April 2009. “America’s Military Empire.” http://www.nolanchart.com/article6271.html

(22)  Angier, Chuck.  2008.  “Why a Fair Tax Won’t Happen.”  http://www.nolanchart.com/article2776.html

(23) Internal Revenue Service, Data Book. 2008. p. 72/81.  http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/08databk.pdf

(24)  Internal Revenue Service, Budget-in-Brief.  FY 2009. p. 2/14.

My Comment:

From deep love for the Federal  Government and with thanks for the care with which it’s consulted each and everyone of us before spending our money maiming and massacring civilians in countries we’ve never visited and don’t plan to and bailing out billionaires who don’t even live here,  I devote the whole of today and tomorrow to my favorite task of chasing paper and instructing the IRS in elementary math.

Surveillance State: UK Total Email Archive

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In the news:

“In a move that even the most nonchalant of privacy advocates is crying foul over, the UK has put into effect a European Union directive which mandates the archival of information regarding virtually all internet traffic for the next 12 months. The program formally goes into effect today.In the news:

“The data retention rules require the archival of all email traffic (the identities of the sender and receiver, but not the contents of the messages), records of VOIP telephone calls (traditional phone calls are already monitored), and information about every website visited by any computer user in the country. The rules are being pushed down “across the board to even the smallest company,” as every ISP large or small will be required to collect and store the data. That data will then be accessible — to fight “crime and terrorism,” of course — by “hundreds of public bodies” to investigate whatever crimes they see fit.

Technically the new directive applies to all countries of the EU, but individual nations appear to be complying with the rules to various degrees. Privacy-obsessed Sweden is reportedly ignoring the rule completely, for example….”

More here on the launching of a UK program to archive all email.

My Comment

My opinion of Swedish “socialism” rises by the day.  First, we found out they didn’t nationalize their banks; then they refused to bail out their auto industry; now they’re giving the finger to the latest mind-boggling intrusion into privacy….