The Great Bong:

“Arundhati Roy advanced yet another step towards her Nobel Peace Prize [Link] making it to the list of Forbes (evil capitalist alert) world’s most inspiring women  and  Wikileaks confirmed that the ship of government is the only ship that leaks from the top [Link]. As to the so-called classified information leak, while it may be big news in the US with Pakistan’s duplicity in the AfPak region being exposed for me it was more like “Tell me something I don’t know.” The day Wikileaks has the full Amar Singh transcripts [link] or the gory inconvenient truths behind all Al Gore globally warming shenanigans [link] or details of Zardari’s five female Turkish “guides” whose services were not compensated for by the Pakistanis [links], I would be mildly interested.  But not now”

Update (August 7, 2010)

Note: I’ve accepted this petition at my blog at the request of a libertarian outfit in Bavaria that is a staunch supported of Ron Paul.  It was the first to draw my attention to the work of Dr. Wolfgang Eggert, the author of the article that follows. Eggert, it seems, is a widely published scholar in the developing field of “deep politics” – which studies politics through the prism of secret clubs, cults, covert operations, and similar outfits. These kind of studies are long overdue, but they have to constantly battle the stigma of “conspiracism” – doubly unfair in their case because a researcher in this area is by definition a conspiracist. I don’t know Eggert’s work at first hand, let me admit, and accept the recommendation of the Bavarian outfit that it is not in its main thrust anti-Semitic. I don’t find anything in the piece below anti-Semitic myself. Controversial, yes. Politically incorrect, yes. Offensive to many, probably. But a critique in universalist terms of any kind of exceptionalism – no matter how politically favored – cannot by definition be anti-Semitic, since it grounds itself in the universal. As you can see, Eggert equally denounces the influence in the councils of power of Christian zealots and Islamicists.

But since one of my long-time readers has stated plainly that he finds this piece anti-Semitic, let me add (redundantly, in my opinion) that this writing isn’t intended to asperse Chabad across the board. Let me also add that I have over the years been a student of popular Kabbalism and do not consider the teachings of Chabad to be essentially obscurantist, which is the point of view of militant secularists and atheists. Quite the contrary. Rebbe Schneerson, might, for all anyone knows, be the greatest of saints…even an avatar. For aught I know, he is the Messiah…or at least, a Messiah.  My issue is not with Chabad in its teachings. My issue is with the nexus of Chabad with the state, the infiltration of the mechanism of government with the teachings of a religion. This is the danger.

Secondly, I should point out, that though I have no theological training in exegesis of the Talmud or of the Kabbalah, I can point out humbly to those who do that Bible codes are subject to interpretation. Numbers and their significations are mysterious and not fixed. That’s to say, even if something is prophesied in a text, the prophecy is dependent on the spiritual state of those who read it. Which is the reason Jesus admonished his followers, “Let him who has ears, hear.”

By this, he meant that each of his parables had many meanings and these meanings were available to the listeners according to their spiritual endowment….(more to follow)

Petition – Apocalypse NO

Please read the following petition and, if you agree, fill out the form at the top of the right column and submit it.
This petition will be submitted to national legislature and parliaments all over the world.

Not Another Holocaust!

IN THE NAME OF GOD?

How would you react if you became aware of the fact that extremist sects were gradually taking over key positions of international power? And what if these groups were doing so because they consider themselves the chosen ones of God? — chosen to bring global events into line with Biblical prophecy so that this would make possible the coming of the Messiah as predicted at the end of times? What if these fanatics, as the final step towards achieving their goal, are planning to provoke a Third World War starting in the Middle East, a Third World War that will first reduce the Holy Land to ashes and then the rest of the world? Frightening, but a sad reality – because this is exactly what is happening now.

Evangelical Pentecostal churches play a major role in this secret apocalyptic battle as well as the pseudo-judaic esoteric cult of Chabad Lubavich and Hardal – the radical representatives of “religious Zionism”. Each group today has succeeded in gaining alarming positions of power:

Estimating the worldwide budget of the american Kabbala-Church Chabad at “100 Million Dollar a year, to say the least” – which is no less than half of the sum the Vatican has to its disposal – the German Magazine “Focus” calls the late leader of the Cult, rabbi Schneerson, “the hidden ruler of Israel… No jewish statesman on a visit to the United States, no matter if likud or labor, could get around a private audience.” Moishe, son of the most intimate Schneerson-confidant Yehudah Krinsky and Press-Secretary, admits to the journal: “The Rebbe did participate in every Israli development.”On top of that during the last years Chabad was successfully seizing the majority of the jewish chief rabbinates all over the world. Supported from here and via Israeli diplomatic and intelligence channels as well as lobbying the sect (which was called a “mental disease” by the former Berlin Jewish community rabbi Walther Rothschild) promotes its political aims.

The most profound influence of Chabad and Hardal is exerted on the United States, where in the wake of George W. Bush, the spirit of Christian apocalyptic thinking has taken over. In 2003 chabadnik Paul Wolfowitz, an éminence grise of occult power, led the world into the Iraq war which was allegedly prophesied in the Bible. He was assisted by the following persons who were either allegedly inspired directly by the Bible or who had lent an ear to such whisperings: The US President, Vice-President Dick Cheney; National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, now Secretary of State; Minister of Justice John Ashcroft, the leader of the Republican Party in Congress, Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader (no. 1 and leader of his party), Bill Frist; his vice-secretary (and no. 2) Mitch McConnell, the Republicans’ no. 3, Senate Republican Conference Chairman Senator Rick Santorum, the no. 4 of the party; Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Jon Kyl; the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives and vice party spokesperson Dennis Hastert. Furthermore, several advisors of the US President and the chief of the Home Security Department. Each of the above persons had ideological and/or personal ties with the apocalyptic messianic network, some of them sort advice from obscure bible-code experts and doomsday gurus on the eve of the Iraq war.

Now this doomsday-cabal is promoting a war against Iran – with the clear intention of dragging Russia into the final battle of the Apocalypse “Gog versus Magog” and leading the battle towards its climax on the battlefield of Armageddon in the Middle East. We shouldn’t be surprised if President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Teheran joins in the last act of this Biblical drama, as he too is a believer in the coming of a heavenly Messiah, as are his supporters. Final precondition to this “heavenly liberation act”: the start of the Third World War. Prominent White House critics in the USA (amongst them Senators and Congressmen) already point to the danger of a staged nuclear attack which would provoke this war and initiate a process of mass murder.

WE SAY NO!

Bearing in mind the international silence before and during the murdering of Jews between 1942 and 1944 we are warning of a Second Holocaust in Israel and a mass bloodbath on a global scale. We oppose apocalyptical sectarianism which is reaching for the heart of our governments via non-elected think-tanks, elite networks and lobby groups worth billions in order that they may set the world on fire. We say this to the members of parliament representing the people who are responsible and accountable to their citizens and required to give information to them: if you allow yourselves to become part of or even influenced by this plot, you risk a catastrophe and …

YOU DO NOT ACT IN OUR NAME!

OUR CLAIMS

• We call for a ban on sects and networks, which have been proven guilty of undermining the separation between state and church, particularly if such groups are pursuing apocalyptical plans. Even in cases of doubt such groups should be kept under surveillance by the pertinent offices for the defence of the constitution and closely observed by official religious sect advisors. State benefits such as exemption from tax etc. must definitely be stopped until it has been proven beyond a doubt that the respective group does NOT fit into the described scheme.

• We call for the introduction of a law which bans members of government and government bureaucracy (including members of the state controlled media) from being members of such networks.

• We propose the intervention of inter/national commissions of inquiry to deal with the threat which may emerge from the above organisations and to inform the public about the results of their inquiry. Already existing subsidized institutions for peace and conflict research should be involved in this investigation.

• We urge the establishment of a permanent structure within a framework of international cooperation (UN, Council of Europe) to deal with this task and to exchange the results of these investigations across national borders. Alternatively or in addition to this we expect that an exchange of information be undertaken at an international level on the subject of Armageddon sects which includes legislative, executive (intelligence service and police) as well as judicial administrations and that this exchange of information be initiated at a government level and from there further down.

• The subject of an elitist apocalyptic Internationale has not yet been fully researched by historians. We consider it important for historians to attend to this issue and above all to include this subject in high school and university education.

• In the face of this existing threat we find it unacceptable that the media does not fulfil its public duty as a critical supervisory institution. Continued silence by the media gives credit to rumours that the “fourth pillar of democracy” is controlled by US-American and Israeli intelligence which has already been undermined by messianic networks or is at least cooperating symbiotically with them. (According to the former CIA head William Colby “the Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” David McGowan, “Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don’t Want You to See”, Common Courage 2000, p. 13).
  We request those resonsible in state broadcasting companys and in senior government departments to counter this alarming impression.Broadcasts immediately must discuss war preparations, which have their origin in so called armageddon-networks.

Background information

NOT ANOTHER HOLOCAUST!

A terrifying scenario

Please imagine the following scenario for just one moment:
A messianic sect, which sees itself as the right arm of God, undermines mainstream Judaism as well as key positions of international power. Supported by Christian fanatics it gains access to presidential palaces in America, Russia and Israel. From there both parties try to bring world events into line with Biblical prophecies – events that have to be pursued to their bitter end: Then only when the last prophecy has been fulfilled, will the longed-for Messiah descend to earth. It is exactly this vision which prepares the ground for the most devastating of all wars – Armageddon – starting with the Middle East.

It reads like the script for a James Bond film but may soon become reality even though the media ignores the subject totally. Neither is the pseudo-Judaic Chabad sect fiction nor are the highly political machinations of its omnipresent networkers; researchers of the scene have been pointing out for years that this doomsday-cult which is worth billions is about to put itself at the head of mainstream Judaism by a secretive as well as broad undermining manoeuvre. (Toby Axelrod, Chabad Broadens Reach, May 13th, 2005, Jewish News of Greater Phoenix and Philip Carmel, Chabad Within Europe, ibd., May 20th, 2005). The cult which actively supports radical right-wing settlers in the Holy Land is even now being courted by national policy in the heart of Europe: In 2006 newspapers reported the support of the German Minister of the Interior Schäuble as well as the Minister of Justice Zypries for the inauguration of the sect’s grandiose centre in the capital of Berlin. In 2007 the German Foreign Minister Steinmeier inaugurated the Chabad synagogue in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Jewish end time networkers have, as a result of clever power management, become even more influential within the Israeli establishment. Leading politicians such as Benjamin Netanjahu turn to it for advice before making serious decisions; President Katzav is also said to be a follower of the messianic sectarians headed by the rabbis Schneerson and Kook.

In the US, where books dealing with eschatological themes have been heading the bestseller lists for years, professed “Christian” fundamentalists have, in the wake of George W. Bush, taken over top positions in the state. Prominent representatives of the White House, amongst them the President himself, sympathize with apocalyptic Pentacostal churches. Equally strong is the influence of biblical inspired Scotch Rite Lodges and quasi-freemasonic orders who – apart from striving on their own to “fulfill the book” – support their members’ delusions of vocation and of being one of the chosen few.

There is evidence in abundance that this dangerous cabal constitutes a key element in the administration “gearbox” of the last superpower. From there it is exerting highly dangerous political influence – bypassing the peoples’ will and without any democratic legitimation whatsoever.

Power over the last superpower:

Chabad Lubavitch

The social position of Chabad Lubavitch in the United States is very impressive. In 1983 on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Schneerson, the sect’s messiah, the US Congress established his birthday as a National Day of Education (Education Day) and he was awarded the National Scroll of Honour. This is why millions of students are now “entitled” to remember a guru who is worshipped by a great part of his followers as an incarnate messiah. But wait for this: When rabbi Schneerson died in 1994 he was posthumously awarded with the highest civil honour of the US Congress, the Congressional Gold Medal, for his lifework and “for his extraordinary and incessant contribution to a global education, morals and deeds of kindness”. Never before has a religious person, whether Christian or otherwise, been honoured like this.

Chabad – a shining example? In the past leading chabadniks have on several occasions been taken to court and convicted of money laundering, mafia connections and drug trafficking. “Isolated incidences” and thus insignificant explains the sect’s leadership. However, the fact that the religious delusion of belonging to a chosen race has reached most alarming proportions within this cult, can not be regarded as insignificant. Rabbi Schneerson, according to the praise of several US presidents, an example for brotherliness and compassion, taught that “´the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all other nations of the world … A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity. It is written: And the strangers shall guard and feed your flocks. The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews.´” (Allen C. Brownfeld, Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel, Washington Report of Middle East Affairs, March 2000). This is an adaptation of the most important text of Lubavitch Chassidism, the book of HaTanya. Its author, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyadi, the founder of the Chabad movement, maintained “that Jewish and gentile souls are fundamentally different, the former ´divine´ and the latter ´animalistic´.” (Allan Nadler, Charedi Rabbis Rush To Disavow Anti-Gentile Book, Forward, December, 19th 2003). Zalman’s words are: “The souls of Goyim (Gentiles) are of a totally different inferior kind. All Jews are good by nature, all Goyim (Gentiles) are bad by nature. Jews are the pride of creation, the Goyim are its scum.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 11th, 1994).

In spite of this fact, according to Rabbi Schneerson, Judaism has to take care of the ones repudiated by God, so that they may fulfil their prophesied task and render support, respect and earthly riches to the chosen ones. As a means of achieving this goal Chabad draws upon the non-biblical Noachidic laws in order to tie the Gentiles to the Israelite god of the Old Testament. From the point of view of a Talmud follower Noachidism is the religion for the rank and file of mankind whereas the Jews in accordance with the laws of Moses perform the function of a superior “priest” above the others. Chief Rabbi Schneerson taught: “It is obvious and self-evident that in modern times we must carry out the Divine Command we received through Moshe: ´To compel all human beings to accept the commandments enjoined upon the descendants of Noach.´” (Shabbos Parshas Vayeishev, 21th Day of Kislev, 5745c in Sichos in English, vol. 24). By 1723 freemasonry had already incorporated the Noachidic statutes into its Consitutions… Charges & Regulations; freemasons have always called themselves “Noachids”. In 1991 when the first war on Iraq was started, George Bush sen. forwarded this peculiar “blessing” to the whole nation: The seven Noachidic laws were solemnly declared to be the foundation of the United States by the Congress and the President (Public Law 102-14, 102nd Congress).

This most probably explains the strong Chabad influence on American politics. Levi Shemtov, the chief representative of the sect, is called by influential newspapers “the unofficial rabbi of the Capitol”, which is the US parliament. (Bill Broadway, Hassidic Outpost in D.C., Washington Post. July 3rd, 1999). According to the Jerusalem Post Thomas Kahn, Staff Director of the Democratic Budget Committee in the Congress, added: “There’s nobody who is more widely respected and warmly received in Congress, the administration, and the diplomatic corps.” (Jerusalem Post, Internet edition, October 22nd, 2000). The Post further confirms this fact from its own point of view: In its internet edition the renowned Israeli paper casts its eyes over the events of the day in the Chabad “embassy” in Washington. We are informed that there are photos of associated politicians in Shemtov’s office “including former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a close personal friend. On the walls … a bipartisan array of other VIPs including President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.”

Furthermore we are told that Shemtov’s interests are also adopted by the National Security Council and the State Department and that the cult’s lobbyist is in regular contact with a few dozen ambassadors. “Twenty-five, he says proudly, came to the Habad building’s dedication, which was also attended by the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, Senator Lieberman, other members of Congress, the mayor of D.C., and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.” (Jerusalem Post, Internet edition, October 22nd, 2000).

When George W. Bush became president he brought three admirers of Rabbi Schneerson into the White House: His long term press officer Ari Fleischer, Vice-Chief of Staff (now Chief of Staff) Joshua Bolton and Vice-Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz. The latter is considered to be the driving force behind the neo-conservative movement, which in turn forms the link to the powerful Israel-lobby for imperialist US-geopolitics connected with oil interests. It was Wolfowitz who produced a strategic document one year before 9/11 in which he called for a militarization of the American energy policy which included foreign interventions. To achieve this, the study envisaged a catalytic catastrophic event such as a new Pearl Harbour as being helpful.

The timing of the 9/11 attack as well as the attendant consequences achieved the desired effect and also coincided with the prophetic timetable of Chabad. The same holds true for the war in Iraq with none other than Paul Wolfowitz identified by mainstream press as the main instigator and driving force. (Gregor Peter Schmitz, Weltbank-Präsident Zoellick: Der Bush-Mann, den alle lieben, Spiegel –Online, October 19th, 2007).

Chabad rabbi Naftali Estulin writes under the title “The rebbe’s revolution in 5762” (i.e. 2001 AD): “Providence had it that Bush’s son has become president and is now being given the opportunity to complete that which his father began: eradicating evil from the world as a beginning and foretaste of the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies…” “…What practical lessons can we derive from current events? The Rebbe gave us the job of bringing Moshiach [the messiah]. If we thought for a moment that we could get out of it, recent events have shown us otherwise. The previous President Bush also thought he could get out of fulfilling the role which the Rebbe said America has, but the Rebbe arranged things so that his son could complete the job. The world is waiting for us, for us to fulfill our role in preparing the world to greet Moshiach. The Rebbe is waging the wars of Moshiach on his own, but he gave the job of preparing the world to us.” (Beis Moshiach Magazine, Brooklyn/New York, Online-Edition, www.beismoshiach.org )

Power within the last superpower:

Evangelicalism

Bush’s advisor and speechwriter, David Frum, says: “To understand the Bush White House, you must understand its predominant creed.” This is a reference to “the culture of modern Evangelicalism.” (Matthew Rothschild, Bush’s Messiah Complex, The Progressive, February 2003).

It was Bush’s friendship with Dr. Tony Evans, pastor of a large Dallas church and founder of the Promise Keepers movement, that shaped Bush’s political understanding of how to deport himself in an apocalyptic era. S. R. Shearer, head of the messianic news service Antipas Ministries writes: “Most of the leaders of the Promise Keepers embrace a doctrine of ‘end time’ (eschatology), known as ‘dominionim.’ Dominionism pictures the seizure of earthly (temporal) power by the ‘people of God’ as the only means through which the world can be rescued…. It is the eschatology that Bush has imbibed; an eschatology through which he has gradually (and easily) come to see himself as an agent of God who has been called by him to ‘restore the earth to God’s control’, a ‘chosen vessel’, so to speak, to bring in the Restoration of All Things.” Shearer calls this delusion, “Messianic leadership”– that is to say usurping the role usually ascribed to the Messiah.(Michael Ortiz Hill, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. Bush’s Armageddon Obsession, Revisited, CounterPunch, January 4th, 2003:
The President obviously believes in it. In the summer of 2004 he concluded his meeting with a group of the Christian Amish sect with the following words: “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn´t do my job.” (Jack Brubaker, Bush Meets With Amish, Lancester New Era, July 16th, 2004).

However, which role will Bush have to play? Professor George Monbiot strings together the events of the Last Days of Mankind as follows: Foundation of the state of Israel. Occupation of the rest of “the biblical land.” Restoration of the Third Temple on the ruins of the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Raising up to Heaven of the 144.000 chosen ones. Final battle in the valley of Armageddon. Mass deaths amongst Israeli Jews. Second coming of Jesus Christ. Monbiot in his own words: “The true believers are now seeking to bring all this about” up to including the attempt “to provoke a final battle – with the Muslim world, the Axis of Evil … The people who believe all this don’t believe it just a little; for them it is a matter of life eternal and death. And among them are some of the most powerful men in America. John Ashcroft, the attorney general [who anointed himself with oil as an homage to King David before he was installed in office], is a true believer, so are several prominent senators and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay. (George Monbiot, Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power, The Guardian, April 20th, 2004).

Due to the fact that the doomsday-congregation is connecting its fundamentalist visions with broad ambitions for power, the collaboration between big politics and big evangelicalism is growing steadily. A successful exponent among these “operational Armageddon Lobbyists” is Timothy LaHaye. The evangelical Reverend has written best selling books – both fiction and non fiction – based on the apocalyptic Book of Revelations. In this world the Rapture is near at hand in which Christ’s faithful will be caught up in the clouds and given new, immortal bodies while the rest of the population faces the horrors of the last seven years of human history. Israel plays a key role in this theology, which posits that the Second Coming requires Israel to be reconstituted and the Jewish Temple, destroyed in 70 A.D., rebuilt.

Tim LaHaye is least known as the founder and first president of the secretive Council for National Policy. The CNP was formed in 1981 as an umbrella organization to advance an ultra-conservative, right wing Christian agenda. LaHaye’s particular agenda is a Middle East foreign policy that expedites the Second Coming.

According to the New York Times, the CNP consists of “a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country” who meet “behind closed doors at undisclosed locations…to strategize about how to turn the country to the right.” (David D. Kirkpatrick, Club of the Most Powerful Gathers in Strictest Privacy, New York Times, August 28, 2004) Though the membership of the CNP is a guarded secret, a list of those known to have been associated with it reads like a who’s who of Christian Zionists and neocon ideologues whose passion is to see the Middle East in flames and in chains.

Apart from the late Jerry Falwell, Chuck Missler and Pat Robertson a short list includes: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Deputy Director CIA Lt. General Daniel Graham, former special assistant CIA Deputy Director for Administration, and Deputy Director for Operations Max Hugel, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton.

Linking Americas dixie bible-belt to the vandalized Middle East, Monbiot concludes: “So here we have a major political constituency – representing much of the current president’s core vote – in the most powerful nation on Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation (9:14-15) maintains that four angels ´which are bound in the great river Euphrates´ will be released to slay the third part of men.” (George Monbiot, Their beliefs…, ibid).

Those responsible take this task seriously. Michael Lind writes in his Bush biography “Made in Texas”: “Regarding the situation in the Middle East there is a very important religious factor. As strange as it sounds, many of the Protestant right-wingers associated with George W. Bush interpret events especially in Israel and its neighbouring states in the light of Biblical prophecy. They believe that Armageddon will take place soon starting from the Middle East.”

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:

Iraq

Can you imagine the White House would manipulate Americas national politics in a way, that it matches with the mythologic script of Jewish and Christian prophets, wo have died thousands of years ago in remote Palestine? You probably should! Incredible, but yet the fact reamins that Washington is advised by Messianists when it comes to making the more serious decisions. “Bible code specialist” Michael Drosnin was consulted on the eve if the Iraq invasion. The occult summit which took place in the Pentagon on February, 21st 2003 according to well-informed sources was convened by none less than Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz. It was attended by a head of the Operations Directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whose name wasn’t published and seven leading representatives of military intelligence, amongst them the three-star general Lowell “Jake” Jacoby, Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency and Wolfowitz’ deputy Dr Linton Wells who manages the “nerve centre” of the Pentagon also known by the abbreviation 3CI (command, control, communication & intelligence). The conference which lasted more than one hour had only one item on the agenda: What does the Bible say about the present situation in the Middle East, terrorism and about the fate of Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden? It is said that a special interest was taken in decoding when devastation was expected to descend upon the Iraqi president. Result: the Jewish year of 5763 which corresponds to the year 2003 of the Christian calendar. The outcome of this conference is said to have been analysed immediately after by American and Israeli intelligence. The Americans “took it very seriously”, Drosnin later said. (Bill Keller, Is It Good For The Jews?, New York Times, March 8th, 2003). White House started the campaign “Iraqi Freedom” within the prophesied time frame.

The Chabad sect however has been predicting America’s second attack on Iraq for much longer – allegedly even to the exact date. Directly after September, 11th 2001 God’s self-appointed henchmen announced quite openly the “certain” coming of a new Iraq war. The Lubavitch rabbi had envisaged this war ten years before and indicated the Jewish holiday of Purim (on which the first Gulf War ended) as the crucial day for his prophecy. The sect’s magazine Emes News writes: “While the press doesn’t foresee such a move and while the US-State-Department is denying any plan of attack against Iraq, those who know about the Lubavitcher rebbe know quite well, that when he said, America would wage war against Basra [a city in Iraq], nothing in the world could stop such an event coming true.” (Emes News, October 24th, 2001). As we all know now the Iraq war actually took place one and a half years later. It was started on the 20th of March, the holyday of Purim. [For an “illuminating” Israeli reaction on this, see document annexed]

How could that happen? As we have already mentioned, the German journal Der Spiegel sees the machinations of the Chabad darling Paul Wolfowitz as the main cause for the outbreak of the war. The Biblical establishment however had organised “its” campaign above the level of party politics as per the motto “better safe than sorry”. This is the reason why, after the big game ended, the Democratic candidate for vice-presidency, Lieberman, was able to announce that the Iraqi conflict-based- strategy followed exactly that line which he himself together with his colleague Senator John McCain had imposed in the US Congress by pushing through the “Iraq Liberation Act”. (Rainer Apel, Eurasien ist gegen Irakkrieg, in: Neue Solidarität, February 6th, 2003). We must call to mind that Senator Joseph Lieberman is a devoted follower of the prophetic Chabad sect and calls rabbi Schneerson “the greatest Jewish religious person in my life”. McCain, who has already expressed his solidarity on several occasions with the messiah cult, is the Republican Party’s candidate for presidency in 2008. Lieberman is publicly supporting him.

The war was subsequently waged with the characteristic puns and personalities belonging to the Middle Ages or the ideological world of the Taliban – but not to a supposedly enlightened nation of the first world: Major General William Boykin for example regards his professional activities in the light of a service to religion and was appointed Secretary of State in the Department of Defence by the Pentagon towards the end of the Iraq war. His area of responsibility: intelligence information and war on terror, especially the capture of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Boykin declared publicly and in all conscience to be “serving in God’s army”. The fundamentalist further stated that the battle in Iraq was being waged for religious reasons: Satan wished to destroy the American nation and “God’s army”. During a speech in a Baptist church the general showed photos he had shot in Mogadishu shortly after a Black Hawk helicopter was brought down by Somali rebels. Whilst developing the photos he found a strange dark shadow over the city. Boykin’s comment: “This is our enemy. It is the principalities of darkness It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.” (William M. Arkin, The Pentagon Unleashes a Holy Warrior, Los Angeles Times, October 16th, 2003)

His President justified the decision to go to war against Iraq in the same spirit. According to the British BBC, Bush declared in the peace summit of Akaba, Jordania, in June 2003: “’I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ´George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.´ And I did, and then God would tell me, ´George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …´ And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ´Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.´ And by God I’m gonna do it.'” (BBC-Press Releases, God told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers, October 6th, 2005)

The military historian of the University of Cambridge, Prof. Corelli Barnett, consequently commented on this during the Iraq war: “ The regimes in Washington and London, now, are acting like the mirror-images of Bin Laden. They believe themselves to be ‘born-again Christians’ with a religious mission. This terrifies me.” (Mark Burdman, Top Military Historian: Iraq War Is Like 1938/39, EIR, March 28th, 2003).

The story goes on:

From Iran to Armageddon

At the same time, directly after the end of the war on Iraq the radical American TV pastor Jack “Apocalypse” Van Impe was asked: “Do you think that President Bush believes and knows he is involved in prophetic events concerning the Middle East and final battle between good and evil?”

“I believe he is a wonderful man,” Van Impe responded, and goes on to say, “I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I’ve spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it’s in his hands. He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.” (MSNBC, Is Bush Getting Apocalyptic Advice?, August 13th, 2003).

So far the author of books such as “Israel’s Final Holocaust”, and “The Great Escape: Preparing for the Rapture, the Next Event on God’s Prophetic Clock”. Van Impe predicts that the world’s last hour will come by 2012 at the latest. By then Russia and the Arab nations would have attacked Israel and would have been exterminated in Armageddon.

Van Impe is not the only doomsday pastor who was awarded the honour of advising the White House concerning world politics. Pastor Robert G. Upton met the President personally and boasts: “We’re in constant contact with the White House.” (Rick Perlstein, The Jesus Landing Pad, The Village Voice, May 11th /18th, 2004) Upton leads the Evangelical Union “Apostolic Congress” which describes its Messianic orientation as Christian-Zionist and maintains close contacts to Israeli leadership. On its Internet site the Apostolic Congress proclaims: “Today, as a direct result of Pastor Upton and his team, Christians are affecting policy in Washington, and bringing about real change in America.”

The present conflict in Iraq is only considered as a “warm-up” for the real “hot phase” which is to be ignited by the invasion of the neighbouring Iran.

The Texas TV pastor John Hagee welcomes the impending confrontation. In his bestselling book “Jerusalem Countdown” Hagee insists that the United States have to stand by the side of Israel in a pre-emptive strike against Iran in order to fulfil God’s plan for Israel and for the West. He argues that the strike against Iran will cause the Arab nations to unite under Russian leadership against Israel, as indicated in Ezekiel, chapter 38 and 39. This will escalate to an “inferno in the whole Middle East and plunge the world into Armageddon” [On Netanjahu advisor Joel Rosenberg´s similar stance, see http://www.joelrosenberg.com/ezekiel.asp] – a mass slaughter, that enables Jesus Christ to return and establish his millennium kingdom.

Shortly after the publishing of the book Hagee founded Christians United for Israel (CUFI). At CUFI’s kick-off banquet at the Washington Hilton, Republican support for both Hagee’s effort and his drumbeat for war with Iran were on full view. Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman told the group that “no regime is more central to the global jihad” than Iran. Just two days before, Newt Gingrich and John McCain made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to sound the same message, leading Benny Elon, a member of the Israeli Knesset, to comment to the Jerusalem Post that their remarks originated with Hagee. Republican senators Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback also addressed the group, and Bush sent words of support to the gathering. Republicans, and even some Democrats, spoke at CUFI events to show their “support for Israel.” Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a prominent Jewish associate of the Evangelical right, told the Prospect that Hagee “without question, yes, absolutely” has the ear of the White House. (Sarah Posner, Pastor Strangelove, in: The American Prospect, June 2006)

In order to justify the war on Iran the hawks of the military-religious complex of America need an appropriate bogey at the head of the Iranian government. Initially the situation did not seem too promising. After the millennium the Islamic Republic was, for the second time around, being led by President Mohammad Chatami. Chatami is a liberal-minded reformist who during the late 1970s had been director of the “Islamic Centre in Hamburg”. The ideal candidate of women and the younger generation won 70 percent of the vote in the 1997 elections and even 78 percent in the 2001 elections. That is why all observers assumed that the supporters of a policy of reform would clearly win once again when elections were due in 2005. But then a strange transatlantic electioneering in favour of the Islamic hardliners was started overnight. At first the Pentagon announced that it was sending fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan into Iranian airspace to ascertain “target data” for a future war. This caused an increasing storm of indignation which radicalized the atmosphere and put the pro-Western camp at a disadvantage. A similar effect was caused soon after, when the Iranians were called to boycott the elections “by a strange coalition, which ranged from the White House to ‘left-wing’ European circles” (Peter Philipp, Der Iran auf dem Weg zurück in die Isolation?, Deutscher Welle, DW-World-De, June 27th, 2005). Many liberal and reform-oriented voters followed this call whereas the Traditionalists went to the polls unanimously. So the strictly conservative Mahmud Ahmadinejad was elected as the new President – a mirror image of President George W. Bush and Moshe Katzav: Himself an adherent of messianism, he is currently awaiting the twelfth and last approved successor of the prophet Mohammed, who in the year of 873 went into a state of seclusion, will return as the “Mahdi” – the world ruler guided by God. According to Muslim prophecies this savior is believed to appear at the climax of a devastating global war …

Is Israel digging its own Grave?

The Israeli Messiah faction joyfully awaits the coming of this war as well. Thus Rabbi Elieser Waldmann who belongs to both of the leading cadres of “Gush Emunim” and “Temple Mount Faithful” writes that the late cabbala icon, Kook, demanded a holy war, as the only means of achieving the coming of the Messiah. “On the one hand,” Waldman wrote, “war is accompanied by destruction and death, on the other hand, it increases the power of the Messiah. . . . Unfortunately, it is still impossible to achieve the completion of Redemption by any means other than war.” (Jeffrey Steinberg, Temple Mount Fanatics Forment A New Thirty Years’ War, in: Executive Intelligence Review, November 3rd, 2000).

The problem, however: Israel is supposed to be the first victim of this doomsday battle. Its population begins to feel this impending threat. Thus Uri Avnery, the leader of the Israeli peace organisation Gush Shalom, stated when describing the theology of Evangelicalism: “Before the coming [of the Messiah], the Jews must convert to Christianity. Those who don’t will perish in a gigantic holocaust in the battle of Armageddon.”(Robert Fisk, A Strange Kind Of Freedom, The Independent, July 9th/10th, 2002)

In a special documentary the biggest US TV network CBS puts this in more concrete terms: “the final battle in the history of the future will be fought on an ancient battlefield in northern Israel called Armageddon. … And the Jews? Well, two-thirds of them will have been wiped out by now.” Gershom Gorenberg, author of “The End of Days”, a book about the Christian community of the last days, is presented saying: “The Jews die or convert. … If you listen to the drama they’re describing, essentially it’s a five-act play in which the Jews disappear in the fourth act.” (CBS, 60 Minutes, October 6th, 2002, Zion’s Christian Soldiers)

Furthermore Gorenberg quotes the Evangelical Chuck Missler stating “that Auschwitz was ´just a prelude´ to what will happen to the Jews in the approaching End of Days.” (Gershom Gorenberg, Unorthodox Alliance, Washington Post, October 11th, 2002) “The implications for Israel are very serious”, declared Richard Landes, director for the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. “We have fundamentalists who are very favorable to Israel who will also talk about the fact that in the [prophetic] battle of Armageddon, two-thirds of the Jews will be destroyed, and it will make the Holocaust look like a picnic.” (Eric J. Greenberg, Manic Christians, Millennial Panic, The Jewish Week, February, 5th 1999). Pastor Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Baptist Church, when asked whether he had any compunctions about unleashing a holy war that would lead to the possible extermination of millions of Jews and Muslims, replied, “Frankly, no, because it is all part of Biblical prophesy.” (Jeffrey Steinberg, Temple Mount … ibid.)

“Basically, we’re a doormat for them to get to their own eschatological culmination,” says Rabbi Richman, founder of the non-denominational apocalyptical network “Light to the Nations” . “It’s a pretty scary thing, because the whole rapture thing that is popular in some Evangelical circles, which calls for a fulfillment of the hard times for Jacob, is essentially an invitation to genocide.” (Lawrence Wright, Forcing the End, July 20th, 1998, The New Yorker)

But in spite of that – in spite of knowing about this – the rabbi builds a Jewish bridge to American Pentacostal churches which want to see Israel go up in flames. Why? …because Richman also considers mass death in the Holy Land necessary. However of course not in the service of the Second Coming of Christ but as a prelude for the first coming of the Jewish Messiah.

Thus Jewish Messiah activists are spreading the word that the days of Israel are numbered. They consequently oppose a state which they themselves brought into being as active Zionists. They are using the same “logic” today as 60 years ago when they spoke up for Zion: It is biblical prophecy that dictates their actions. As in the case of European Jewry which had to pass the cemetery of the first Holocaust in order to reach Israel and like the Zion State which was based on the ruins of the exile, so the Messianic kingdom is supposed to be founded on the sacrifice of the Israelites and on the ruins of their state.

Hard to believe, but true: Followers of the occult amongst highest representatives of the Israeli establishment are actually involved in this suicidal game. As a matter of fact the already mentioned Bible cabbalist Michael Drosnin advises the American government as well as the Zion state. When in the late nineties Drosnin found encoded remarks in the Bible about a catastrophic Third World War which would be started by a nuclear strike in present times (“nuclear holocaust”) he was promptly invited to official bureaus in the Holy Land. First he was received by the Israeli left-wing Prime Minister Shimon Peres, then he held a conference with the father of Peres successor Netanjahu, with Mossad head Jatom and with the security advisor of the head of government, Dore Gold. (Michael Drosnin, Der Bibel-Code, München, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag 1997, p. 66 ff, 90, 167, 267 ff, 220).

Benjamin Netanjahu, who “himself studies Rabbi Kook’s writings with some of the biggest rabbis in Merkaz HaRav, on a regular basis” (according to the leading Kook-devotee and Kook biographer Rabbi David Samson, as quoted by Steinberg, Temple Mount …, op.cit.) consulted Rabbi Schneerson in New York as did Ariel Sharon, his successor as head of the government. Moshe Katzav also asked for advice in the New York headquarters of Chabad long before he was in office “as did numerous less prominent politicians, diplomats, members of the military and media personalities.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Mendel_Schneerson)

A New Holocaust

The threat of an increasing influence of fundamentalism on the political scene is more and more apparent. Only recently Motti Golan, one of the most respected broadcasting commentators in Israel, expressed his concerns in a stage play, in which a Messianistic Jewish sect seizes control of the Israeli government, assassinates the prime minister, and then drops atom bombs on various Arab capitals. With the help of the resulting nuclear counterpunch they want to sacrifice the secularized part of the populace and thereby hasten the arrival of the Messiah.

This view is echoed in a book published by the Haaretz journalist Sefi Rachlevsky, which caused a sensation. The journalist proves that the Messianic networks in the Zionist state are indulging in a plan of sacrificing secular Israel in a horrific war as a means to establishing a theocracy, the prophesied New Jerusalem, on it ruins.

The historian Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former general, is worried that his compatriots are digging their own grave. He is especially alarmed by the current widely increasing practice of reviving not only the memory of the Bar Kochba revolt (which caused the Jews’ exodus from their native country) but also the memory of the mass suicide of Masada and the tendency to transform both events into myths of national importance. He calls this phenomenon the “Bar Kochba Syndrome” as it has the potential to drive Jews into insane behaviour and under certain circumstances even into deadly catastrophes. (Allan C. Brownfeld, Religious Zionism: A Growing Impediment To Middle East Peace, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2002).

Palestinian TV commentator and documentary film director Kawther Salam captures some of the end-time hysteria: “The last time I stayed at the house of my friend Anat Even (prize-winning producer and film maker) in Tel Aviv while we were working together she bought a new lock for the entrance of her house. She was scared and talking about a new Holocaust in the making. She said Israel was not a safe country for Jews, that in her opinion the practices of the government were preparing the Jews for new Holocaust, and it was important to find a safe place to live. She was talking with a deep pain, just as if a new Holocaust was happening right then. Anat told me that lots of Jews felt in the same way.” (Kawther Salam, What Are Israeli Army Reconnaisance Teams Doing in Patagonia?, Humanity 2000, edition 5/2004, April 2004).

There is a storm brewing and thus it is not surprising that members of the controlling “caste” are looking around for safe harbours. Kawther Salam reports that the Israeli government is carrying out huge purchases of land at the other end of the world, in the remote Southern tip of South America. Her report coincides with revelations on the Internet, allegedly originating from German Intelligence Sources (Bundesnachrichtendienst), stating that this is an Israeli-American joint venture safety manoeuvre. Financial head of this venture: Paul Wolfowitz. (http://thetruthseeker.co.uk/index.asp). The truth is that almost a sixth part of Patagonia – which means a territory as big as Austria and Switzerland together – is now owned by 350 foreign “investors”. Media baron Ted Turner (CNN) only recently purchased a huge property including a safe water supply provided by a private river. George Soros, the Hungary-born Billionaire residing in New York, is one of the biggest private land owners in this area. The same is true for his associate Eduardo Elzstain, the Argentine business magnate and great Chabad donor. In the North of the American continent investments in building projects of the better-informed-circles are meanwhile being moved into the bowels of the earth. The neo-conservative US Vice-President Dick Cheney only recently had a sophisticated private bunker system installed under his home. (The Guardian, December 8th, 2002).

This is indeed news which should rob us of our sleep.

Annex

ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS.COM
Federal News-Website of Israel
Published: 03/26/03, 3:19 AM

This War is for Us

by Ariel Natan Pasko

Of course this war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein is for us. … – i.e., the Jews and Israel. Chazal – our sages – throughout the ages have explained the Torah, telling us that everything that happens in the world is for the benefit of the Jewish People.

Simply put another way, if all the world is a stage, then the Jews – and especially those in the Land of Israel – are the lead actors on the stage of history, and the goyim – the nations, i.e. the gentiles – have supporting roles, while the evil-doers are props and background scenery. As our tradition states, G-D – the great playwright – created the world for the sake of the Jewish People, and it is our responsibility to implement the Torah … in it.

Stop and think for a moment: the last Gulf War in 1991 ended erev – just before – Purim. This Gulf War began motzei – just after – Shushan Purim. Get the picture? In between, “The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honor.” (Book of Esther 8:16)

Read the Purim story in Megilat Esther again, it is a rags to riches story on a national scale. Haman, the proto-typical anti-Semite, plans mass murder of the Jews and in the end pays with his life, the life of his ten sons – all hanged – and the Jews kill 75, 800 members of the anti-Semitic – i.e. Nazi – party of the time.

This is not so different from the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, when 23 Nazi war criminals were tried. Originally 11 were to have the death penalty imposed if found guilty. Everybody in those days thought that they would be shot – as is customary in military executions – or get the electric chair – as was common in the United States. But when the judges announced the verdict of guilty, they also said that hanging would be the method of execution. Two hours before the execution, they found Hermann Goering dead in his cell. He had committed suicide. That left only 10 Nazis to execute.

There is more to this story than meets the eye. In Megilat Esther (9:7-9), when it describes the execution of Haman’s ten sons, their names are listed in a vertical column. If you look at the Hebrew closely, you’ll notice extra-small letters in three of the names. The first name, Parshandata, has a small tav. The seventh name, Parmashta, has a small shin. The tenth name, Vayzata, has a small zayn. Hebrew letters are also used as numbers, as well as for dates in the Jewish calendar. Tav, shin, zayn numerically means 707, corresponding to the year 5707, which began with Rosh HaShanah – the Jewish New Year – on September 25, 1946. On October 16, 1946, as foreshadowed in the names of Haman’s ten sons, ten Nazi leaders were hanged as war criminals. And if that doesn’t impress you, out of nowhere, with the rope around his neck, Julius Schtreicher – editor of Der Sturmer, the Nazi propaganda newspaper – shouted out with flaming hatred in his eyes, just as the trap door opened, “Purimfest 1946!” It was reported in the international press of the day.

As I said earlier, of course this war is for the Jews and Israel, and instead of hiding from the accusation, … we should gratefully acknowledge what the Master of the Universe is doing to our enemies for us. Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Bashar Assad, Osama Bin-Laden, and the other dictators, terrorists and mullahs of the region, are the modern day Hamans and Hitlers.

Great things are yet to come. …

Ariel Natan Pasko is an independent analyst and consultant. He has a master´s degree in international relations und policy analysis. He also has degrees in economics, politics, Jewish history and Jewish thought. His articles of commentary & analysis appear in numerous news/views and think-tank websites, in newspapers, and can be read at www.geocities.com/ariel_natan_pasko.

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I blogged on 8/3/10 about Digg censorship, revealed in the Wikileaks documents. I’m more inclined to believe those sorts of revelations than anything about foreign policy, where I kind of doubt anyone would let out any really sensitive new information so cavalierly without some ulterior motive.

Now comes a lengthy Alternet piece – the result of a year-long investigation apparently – about a conservative cabal that manipulates Digg, the social media ratings site.  My own experience with Digg has been that, as with Wikipedia there is a group of extremist Zionists that downgrades criticism of Israel or analysis of 9-11 or of the elites (as it relates to the one-world project).

It’s possible, of course, that there are several cabals…

Strictly speaking, using the label censorship for these sorts of web manipulation isn’t correct, since Digg, like Wikipedia or Google, is a private outfit. But if the material being manipulated is political, if the manipulation is being done on behalf of specific interest groups or lobbies that do also have a strong influence on government policies, then, in effect, it is political censorship of a very sophisticated and psychologically coercive kind.

The result is that while racially inflammatory and politically useless forms of expression (like the photoshopped image of Michele Obama as a chimp that appears on the first page of a Google search of her name) is widely available..and this is considered a brave blow for freedom of expression…when it comes to political news of the most vital sort, we are kept deliberately in the dark.

In the same way, all those highly incendiary sites spewing vile epithets about Jewish people manage to stay afloat, while people engaged in responsible and dispassionate criticism are denigrated as anti-Semites and driven from respectable discourse.

Racism is abhorrent to the elites?  No. They love inflammatory hate-mongers and divisive stunts (like the building of the mosque at Ground Zero).

It’s serious and informed criticism that the elites fear…

Here’s the Alternet piece

“A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.

“The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives.”
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

Digg.com is the powerhouse of social media websites. It is ranked 50th among US websites by Alexa (117th in the world), by far the most influential social media site. It reached one million users in 2007 and likely has more than tripled that by this point. Digg generates around 25 million page views per month, over one third of the page views of the NY Times. Front page stories regularly overwhelm and temporarily shut down websites in a process called the “Digg Effect.”

The concept behind the site is simple. Submitted webpages (news, videos, or images) can be voted up (digging) or down (burying) by each user, sort of a democracy in the internet model. If an article gets enough diggs, it leaves the upcoming section and reaches the front page where most users spend their time, and can generate thousands of page views.

This model also made it very susceptible to external gaming whereby users from certain groups attempt to push their viewpoint or articles to the front page to give them traction. This was evident with the daily spamming of the upcoming Political section with white supremacist material from the British National Party (articles which rarely reached the front page). The inverse of this effect is more devastating however. Bury brigades could effectively remove stories from the upcoming sections by collectively burying them.

One bury brigade in particular is a conservative group that has become so organized and influential that they are able to bury over 90% of the articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours, regardless of subject material. Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content). This group is known as the Digg “Patriots”.….”

The Washington Examiner finds out just how effective the Obama stimulus bill has been:

“In Senator [Russ] Feingold’s [D-Wisc.] new ad, he features some footage designed to make the argument that his $787 stimulus bill created Wisconsin jobs.

One piece of footage features a nameplate being placed outside an office or cubicle, and it appears the person named does not exist – not in voter databases, nothing on Lexus-Nexus, no such person on Facebook or other social media.  In fact, the only Elizabeth Ackland that could be found in Wisconsin died in 1877.

Based on the administration’s repeated claims about how much worse things would be without the stimulus, we can only assume that Elizabeth Ackland would have died in 1876 or earlier if it hadn’t passed.”

From The Electronic Frontier Foundation a victory for the EFF and the ACLU in a case (US v. Maynard) before the DC appellate court:

“Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today firmly rejected government claims that federal agents have an unfettered right to install Global Positioning System (GPS) location-tracking devices on anyone’s car without a search warrant.

In United States v. Maynard, FBI agents planted a GPS device on a car while it was on private property and then used it to track the position of the automobile every ten seconds for a full month, all without securing a search warrant. In an amicus brief filed in the case, EFF and the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital argued that unsupervised use of such tactics would open the door for police to abuse their power and continuously track anyone’s physical location for any reason, without ever having to go to a judge to prove the surveillance is justified.

The court agreed that such round-the-clock surveillance required a search warrant based on probable cause. The court expressly rejected the government’s argument that such extended, 24-hours-per-day surveillance without warrants was constitutional based on previous rulings about limited, point-to-point surveillance of public activities using radio-based tracking beepers. Recognizing that the Supreme Court had never considered location tracking of such length and scope, the court noted: “When it comes to privacy…the whole may be more revealing than its parts.”

The court continued: “It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even to follow someone during a single journey as he goes to the market or returns home from work. It is another thing entirely for that stranger to pick up the scent again the next day and the day after that, week in and week out, dogging his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores that make up that person’s hitherto private routine.”

“The court correctly recognized the important differences between limited surveillance of public activities possible through visual surveillance or traditional ‘bumper beepers,’ and the sort of extended, invasive, pervasive, always-on tracking that GPS devices allow,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “This same logic applies in cases of cell phone tracking, and we hope that this decision will be followed by courts that are currently grappling with the question of whether the government must obtain a warrant before using your cell phone as a tracking device.”

“GPS tracking enables the police to know when you visit your doctor, your lawyer, your church, or your lover,” said Arthur Spitzer, Legal Director of the ACLU-NCA. “And if many people are tracked, GPS data will show when and where they cross paths. Judicial supervision of this powerful technology is essential if we are to preserve individual liberty. Today’s decision helps brings the Fourth Amendment into the 21st Century.”

Attorneys Daniel Prywes and Kip Wainscott of Bryan Cave LLP also volunteered their services to assist in preparing the EFF-ACLU brief.

For the full opinion:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/US_v_Jones/maynard_decision.pdf

For more information on the case, formerly known as U.S. v. Jones:
http://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-jones

Contacts:

Kevin Bankston
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org

Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy@eff.org

Related Issues: Locational Privacy, Privacy

“A most powerful group of banking families – a group that has run the West with merciless and pitiless efficiency during the past 100 years – has basically lost control of the conversation”

—   The Daily Bell

McClatchey’s Nukes & Spooks reviews the State Department’s Report on Terrorism for 2009:

“The State Department put out its annual Country Reports on Terrorism today, (three months late, we might add).

Here are a few of the highlights, some of them a bit surprising:

* While Osama bin Laden’s core al Qaida organization remains the most potent threat to U.S. interests at home and abroad, it wasn’t even in the Top Three terrorist groups when it comes to deadly attacks in 2009. Those slots were occupied by the Taliban; the Somalia-based al Shabaab group; and the al Qaida in Iraq “franchise.”

(Lila:  Wasn’t Wikileaks’ first leak about al-Shabaab (it was received with widespread disbelief)? And haven’t the Taliban and Iraq received prominence in its latest leaks?)

* There were just 25 U.S. noncombatant fatalities from terrorism worldwide. (The US government definition of terrorism excludes attacks on U.S. military personnel). While we don’t have the figures at hand, undoubtedly more American citizens died overseas from traffic accidents or intestinal illnesses than from terrorism.

* For the first time in the last five years, the number of terrorist incidents in South Asia (including Afghanistan and Pakistan), exceeded the number in the Near East (which includes Iraq).

(Lila: Doesn’t that suggest that attacks on foreign countries are the best recruitment posters for terrorism. We’re bombing Af-Pak now; no wonder terrorism is up there)

* Russ Travers, a top official of the National Counterterrorism Center, told a State Department briefing that media reports suggesting an increase in terrorist attacks in Iraq this year are not borne out by data for the first quarter of 2010.

* The number of attacks in Iraq decreased to 2,458 in 2009 from 3,256 in 2008. In terms of fatalities, the numbers were 3,654 in 2009 and 5,013 the year before.

* The number of attacks in Afghanistan nearly doubled, from 1,222 in 2008 to 2,126 in 2009. There was a smaller increase, of 30 percent, in neighboring Pakistan.

* The number of suicide bombings against noncombatants actually declined, by 25 percent, to 299. There were, however, more armed attacks in the style of the 2008 Mumbai, India attacks.

* Well over half of the world’s terrorist victims in 2009 were Muslim.

(Lila: So when the US prosecutes the global war on terrorism, it’s actually defending Muslims from themselves. US tax dollars well spent?).

* The idea that the United States was somehow immune from the radicalization that has taken hold in parts of some immigrant communities in Europe has proven over-optimistic.

The report says: “Not only have there been more cases of Americans becoming operatives for foreign terrorist organizations, we have also seen U.S. citizens rise in prominence as proponents of violent extremism. The most notable is al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula’s Anwar al-Aulaqi, who has become an influential voice of Islamist radicalism among English-speaking extremists.”

(Lila: the more we fight terrorism, the more we’re producing terrorists even among otherwise Westernized Muslims.).

* Finally, as it is every year, Iran was designated the “most active” state sponsor of terrorism. Which is why the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.”

(Lila: There we have it. Iraq was the bad war. Iran will be a good war, like Kosovo. There’s little antiwar sentiment these days, as Chossudovsky points out in the piece I cited previously. Iran is A-OK with the liberal establishment. So when Wikileaks leaks stuff about Iraq (the bad war), it suggests that it’s not about antiwar so much as anti-Bush. That may be why Assange talked such a lot about war crimes there.

What, Obama hasn’t committed any? And when Wikileaks leaks such a lot that’s negative about Iran, along with the anti-Bush stuff, you begin to wonder whether that wasn’t the point to begin with….)

“As an analogy, one might argue that everyone should have a loaded gun in the house to protect themselves against home invasions. This seems perfectly reasonable; however experience has shown that once the gun is in the house, it will find other targets.”
— Wikileaks

(Translation: Liberty, self-defense, and taking responsibility for your own security is good in theory; in practice it’s dangerous?)

I found this quote on the Wikileaks website and it again seems (repeat, seems) to suggest an anti-libertarian and authoritarian mind-set at variance with the stated goals of the outfit….