Category: Civil Rights

This is a Cover Up

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This is mighty convenient, they are dropping the most serious charges against the only officer charged in the Abu Ghraib affair.

They send a bunch of soldiers and non-coms to jail, but when it comes time to try a relatively senior officer, one who probably has the goods on higher ups, there are procedural issues.

Yeah Right.

A military judge on Monday dismissed two of the most serious charges against Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, 51, a reservist, after a general who investigated the scandal acknowledged he had not read Jordan his rights before interviewing him. The action left Jordan still facing four counts and a possible 8 1/2 years in prison.

Prosecutors on Monday amended one of those remaining counts, a cruelty and maltreatment charge, by narrowing its scope from three months to one day.

Is it just me, or has someone ordered these guys to throw the case?

…

In court Monday morning, prosecutor Lt. Col. John P. Tracy announced that Maj. Gen. George Fay had contacted prosecutors Sunday to say that he “misspoke” during a March 12 pretrial hearing in which he testified under oath that he had advised Jordan of his rights during an interview in 2004.

Tracy said Fay realized his error while preparing to testify at Jordan’s trial this week. Fay told government lawyers that “he indeed did not read Lt. Col. Jordan his rights,” Tracy said.

Does Fay have it right now? Or is he lying to keep things out of the public lie? If he did neglect to read him his rights, was it intentional, to provide a “get out of jail free” card for silence?

Jordan’s defense, led by Capt. Samuel Spitzberg contends that although Jordan was the titular head of the interrogation center, he spent most of his time trying to improve Soldiers’ deplorable living conditions at Abu Ghraib. The defense argued during an October hearing that interrogation conditions were set by two other officers: Col. Thomas Pappas, an intelligence brigade commander who was the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib, and Capt. Carolyn Wood, leader of a unit within the interrogation center called the Interrogation Command Element.

Neither Pappas nor Wood has been charged with crimes. Pappas was reprimanded and fined $8,000 for once approving the use of dogs during an interrogation without higher approval.

So, now that Jordan can roll over on regular army officers, and ones who do know how high it goes, suddenly, there are “procedural errors”.

Mighty convenient, that.

This is the Face of Terrorism: Disney World Edition

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It appearsthat a seven-year-old Muslim boy was flagged as a terrorist, and prevented from visiting the US.

Why?

A 39-year-old Pakistani man of that name was arrested in New York two months after the terror attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001.

He was never charged with any terrorism offences, although he was convicted of fraud for having false papers and deported.

He is seeking compensation from the U.S. government, claiming to have been beaten up by guards during more than a year in detention.

It’s reasonable for a name to be flagged. What’s is unconscionable is that they cannot distinguish between a 7 year old from with a British passport, and a 39 year old Pakistani.

Considering the nature of the 911 terrorists, they were all fairly well to do, one wonders if might have just created a future terrorist.

Bush To Seek New Powers to Spy on Political Opponents

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There is credible evidence that Bush’s illegal wireless surveillance activity targeted CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour in 2004.

Her husband is James Rubin, who served as Wesley Clark’s chief foreign policy spokesman, and then as a senior foreign policy adviser for John Kerry, so he would be included in any such surveillance. It’s unavoidable.

Does anyone believe that these intercepts did not get passed off to Karl Rove?

VOA News – Bush Seeks Changes in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

By Deborah Tate
Capitol Hill
05 July 2007

The Bush administration is seeking to update a law governing U.S. foreign intelligence surveillance. But members of the Democratic majority in Congress are signaling they may be reluctant to approve the proposed changes because they have concerns about a controversial administration wiretapping program. VOA’s Deborah Tate reports from Capitol Hill.

The Bush administration is asking Congress to approve changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The proposed modifications would give the government more power to gather foreign intelligence information. Supporters say the changes would bring the law up to date with changes in new technology, including e-mail and wireless communications.

….

Morons Who Get Elected:EU Edition

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Well, it looks like the US hasn’t cornered the market on stupid.

EC wants to suppress internet bomb-making guides
By Lewis Page
Published Wednesday 4th July 2007 13:49 GMT

The European Commission (EC) has announced plans to frustrate terrorism by suppressing online guides on bomb-making.

“It should simply not be possible to leave people free to instruct other people on the internet on how to make a bomb – that has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” EC vice president Franco Frattini said yesterday.
Mr Frattini is “responsible for Freedom, Security and Justice.”

If this guy were responsible for generating electricity from George Orwell spinning in his grave, he’d be doing his job well.

His current job? …. Not so much.

When asked how the EC planned to suppress web bomb manufacture instructions hosted outside EU borders, it appeared that officials planned to act at the level of ISPs in Europe.

The Times quoted a commission spokesman as saying: “You always need a provider here that gives you access to websites. They can decide technically which websites to allow. Otherwise, how would China block internet sites? There are no technological obstacles, only legal ones.”
….

Holding up China as a model of internet access????? Puhleeze.

These Weapons are For Use on Americans, not Brown and Black People

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Maybe I’m paranoid, but I can’t see either this administration, or the military being so concerned about the non white or non Christian people that they bomb.
This is intended for use against US Citizens.

Pentagon Struggles To Define Nonlethal Weapons Roadmap(subscription required)

Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/25/2007, page 55

Michael Bruno
Washington

Nonlethal weapons beckon, but Pentagon struggles to ascertain the way forward

Printed headline: Stunned Progression

The U.S. Defense Dept. has a bevy of high-end nonlethal weapon technologies being developed, but whether it can better exploit the seemingly endless possibilities that nonlethal weapons promise, even by the next major war, is still uncertain.

It’s not for lack of trying. There are still dreams of unmanned aircraft raining electromagnetic pulses or corrosive agents on alleged overseas weapons-of-mass-destruction sites to obliterate their navigation, guidance and detonation circuits—as one Naval War College paper once outlined—or UAV fleets dropping polymer foam agents to render an enemy facility temporarily useless without the collateral damage of lethal bombs.


The Active Denial System, heavily promoted by the U.S. Defense Dept. and even formally sought by combat command officials in the Middle East, continues to see deployment slip into the future as researchers try to fine-tune the nonlethal weapon.Credit: U.S. DEFENSE DEPT.

Take the Active Denial System, the Defense Dept.’s first nonlethal directed-energy weapon and the most prominent new-technology effort trumpeted by the Defense Dept. The ADS uses a gyrotron to generate a focused millimeter-wave radio frequency beam that, when directed at targeted humans, creates a subcutaneous heating sensation that is often described as feeling like one is being cooked alive. Assuming enemies flee the targeted beam or the weapon is disengaged, effects do not linger
….

Of course, they tested this on people with no change in their pockets, contact lenses, eyeglasses, etc.
And that guy with the artificial hip? fugget about it

Three Cheers for the Rule of Law

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Mr. Bush, L’état, ce n’es jamais tu. (The State is never you) My apologies for the high school French, but the use of the familiar form is intentional, and an insult.

Court Says Military Cannot Hold ‘Enemy Combatant’ – New York Times

In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held as an enemy combatant.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, “even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”

“We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.”

Why We Need A Bill of Rights.

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I’m not suggesting that all, or most, peace officers do this, but this guy busted someone for looking at his dog, and he won’t even get a suspension for this.

The blue wall of silence needs to be eliminated.

This is how people act when they can act with impunity.

Animal cruelty case yields ‘doggone’ dismissal: Rutland Herald Online
June 6, 2007

By Peter Hirschfeld Times Argus Staff

CHELSEA – A woman facing jail time for “staring” at a police dog had charges against her dropped Monday after an Orange County prosecutor viewed videotape of the alleged crime.

Jayna Hutchinson, now of Lebanon, N.H., was scheduled for a jury trial this week on a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to animals.

A Vermont State Police sergeant said Hutchinson was intoxicated and stared at his police dog in a “taunting/harassing manner” last July while officers were in the process of investigating a reported melee outside a West Fairlee establishment.

“Prosecuting a woman for staring at a police dog is absurd,” said Kelly Green, a public defender appointed by Vermont District Court in Orange County to represent Hutchinson. She likened the act to giving a police officer the finger – a form of expression protected by rights accorded under the First Amendment.

“After looking at the video, I did not think it was worthwhile proceeding,” Orange County State’s Attorney Will Porter said Tuesday.

He said it would be difficult to prove that Hutchinson’s behavior met the statutory standard for cruelty to animals, which in this case would have required that Hutchinson “intentionally torment(ed) or harass(ed) an animal owned … by a police department.”

According to an affidavit, Hutchinson approached Sgt. Todd Protzman on the night of July 31 as he and at least three other officers were investigating a fight. Hutchinson, who later registered a .218 blood-alcohol content, told Protzman she wanted to report that she had been beat up the night before by one of the men involved in the fight, according to Green.

Green said the video showed Protzman mocking Hutchinson’s appearance.

“I think his comment about Jayna’s looks revealed the real reason he arrested her,” Green said. “I’d venture a guess to say that if she’d been small and pretty and had been complaining of being assaulted, he may have done more to investigate her claims.”

Porter said he saw no indication of improper behavior by Protzman and that he was doing his best to deal with a very intoxicated person.

“Ms. Hutchinson was very intoxicated. Did he have some abrupt comments toward her? Yeah,” Porter said. “He had some curt responses to get her out of his hair so he could attend to what he was there for.”