The Patriot Act already gives government too much power to spy on ordinary Americans, but things could get far worse. Congress is considering adding a broad new investigative power, known as the administrative subpoena, that would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gain access to anyone’s financial, medical, employment and even library records without approval from a judge and even without the target knowing about it. Members of Congress should block this disturbing provision from becoming law.

The Senate is at work on a bill to reauthorize parts of the Patriot Act that are scheduled to expire later this year. In addition to extending those provisions, the Senate Intelligence Committee is proposing to add an array of new “investigative tools.” The administrative subpoena is not the only one of the new provisions of the current bill that would endanger civil liberties, but it is the worst.

When the F.B.I. wants access to private records about an individual, it ordinarily needs to get the approval of a judge or a grand jury. The proposed new administrative subpoena power would allow the F.B.I. to call people in and force them to produce records on its own authority, without approval from the judicial branch. This kind of secret, compelled evidence not tied to any court is incompatible with basic American principles of justice. It would also make it far easier for the F.B.I. to go off on fishing expeditions.

The bill would allow the F.B.I. to order that the subpoenas be kept secret. That means record holders, like banks or employers, would not be able to inform the person whose private information was being handed over. It would also make it difficult for Congress, and the public, to know whether the F.B.I. was abusing its enormous new powers.
Full:nytimes.com

by rootsie

The Innocence that Kills

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
U.S. Declaration of Independence

“No one can condone acts of violence aimed at working people going about their daily lives. They have not been a party to, nor are they responsible for, the decisions of their government. They are entirely innocent and we condemn those who have killed or injured them.
The loss of innocent lives, whether in this country or Iraq, is precisely the result of a world that has become a less safe and peaceful place in recent years.”
George Galloway, MP, June 7, 2005

The Declaration clearly states that the one and only purpose of any government is to safeguard the unalienable rights of its people, and that the only powers a government should have are the ones these people give it. This is the definition of democracy. In return, it is the people’s responsibility to keep a vigilant eye out to ensure that their government does not veer from this purpose.

What variety of ‘innocence’ is acceptable in a democracy? If its people are not ultimately responsible for the decisions of their government, then how can it be said that that government is democratic?

One of the most monstrous aspects of governments careening out of control is that they murder any possibility of innocence. If these governments are engaged in various heinous crimes across the globe, every citizen is fair game when retribution time comes. You can’t have it all ways, trumpeting the virtues of your democracy, enjoying the privileges bought off ‘the other’s’ back, and then protesting your innocence when the rubber hits the road. This is true even if it is deranged elements of your own government that have hideously attacked you.

“But we didn’t know!” That’s what the townspeople said at Auschwitz as the human ashes rained down on their heads.

On 9-11 I was sickened by that question, “Why do ‘they’ hate us?” I felt in that moment the gravity of this sin of ‘innocence.’ People in a democracy are supposed to know what their government is doing. A million Iraqi children dead and we ‘didn’t know.’ I realized in that moment that we’d lost it, lost any semblance of control over our government. The President smugly replied, “They hate us because we love freedom.” All I can say is tell it to Fallujah, where a captive population shuffles through checkpoints with optical scans. Tell it in the face of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and all the other gulags.

Of course, it can reasonably be argued that we in the West do not live in democracies and never have, that ‘democracy’ from the first has actually been about plutocracy, ‘democracy’ merely a rhetoric-laden vehicle used by vested interests to put the lockdown on the planet and its wealth. They bestowed relative privilege on some (largely white) as a great pacifier, while they raped the rest. The thing is, they gave us the words for humane governance, and not only the words but the ideas behind them. Young people have been manipulated by those words and into thinking it’s an ok idea to sacrifice their lives in service to a beast. Talk about suicide bombers.

I saw an article today about a conference being held in Washington to train teachers to teach about the Holocaust. Where are the conferences about the Holocaust of imperialism, about the Palestinian Holocaust, about the Congo Holocaust?

The Israeli government was ‘informed’ about the impending bombings in London; the police on the ground were not. The safety of Benjamin Netanyahu was deemed more important than the lives of thousands of Londoners.

Who benefits most from these bombings? That’s a question that could lead to something productive.

50 people blown to smears and pieces anywhere is a terrible thing. But innocence does not live here. I am a mother and a grandmother, and the pain it gives me to say this is great.

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

…The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

from “The Second Coming”, W.B.Yeats, 1921

France and other European countries are claiming, either officially or through historians, that colonialism was a positive thing.

In a law passed on Feb. 23, the French parliament, dominated by President Jacques Chirac’s right-leaning Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), demanded that teachers at schools all over the country and textbooks emphasise “the positive role (played by) France overseas, especially in the Maghreb region” in North Africa.

This move sparked debate among French historians, politicians, teachers, and representatives of former colonies, especially Algeria.

At first, the Algerian government considered calling a special joint session of the two chambers of parliament to discuss the issue and formulate a response to the French claims.

But President Abdelaziz Bouteflika decided against the special session. Instead, the two chambers will review the issue separately and adopt a resolution condemning “the crimes of colonisation.”

While this official reaction comes against a backdrop of Algerian efforts to normalise relations with the former colonial power and a plan to sign a special co-operation agreement with Paris, Algeria’s response to France’s attempt to rewrite history shows that the wounds provoked by colonialism in the Maghreb are still sore.
Full:allafrica.com

As can be seen by the responses to the London bombings, with raw power comes the presumption of the right to tell the story.

by Jeff Wells
Some time ago a crazy dream came to me.
I dreamt I was walkin’ into World War Three. – Bob Dylan

A few, brief thoughts about London.

I think, at this early stage, we should be cautious about all sweeping presumptions. We know false flag operations are not paranoid conjecture – that many have been conducted by governments against their own populations is no less true for its being hidden – but that doesn’t mean every flag is false. Synthetic terror exists, in part, because there is such a thing as unsynthesied terror: violence without stage management, perpetrated by unco-opted forces unpenetrated by its enemy’s Intelligence. Though naturally, that many more people today than four years ago would gladly give their lives to strike a blow against crusader nations is also by design, according to the neoconservatives’ rule-by-spiralling-chaos theory.

In the confusion, early reports detailing warnings of the attacks are being scrubbed from wire services, while security agencies are going into safe mode. An original story remains posted on Arutz Sheva, which quotes Israeli Army Radio as saying “Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred. The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion, a Liverpool Street train station, where he was to address and economic summit.”

Earliest reports spoke of six bombs. There only four detonations. Much later, two unexploded devices were found. A question: what was the media’s original source for there being six bombs?

“The Secret Organization of al Qaeda in Europe” has claimed responsibility, yet another “previously unknown” group. Though, since it has “al Qaeda” in its name, that will mean to most people, simply, that “al Qaeda” did it, as though it were a top-down outfit of villainy such as SMERSH or KAOS or the Legion of Doom. The forbidden knowledge that al Qaeda was subcontracted by Britain’s MI6 and paid £100,000 in 1996 for an assassination attempt upon Muammar Qaddafi is unlikely to be heard now over Blair’s tremulous turn at “They hate us for our freedoms.”
Full:rigorousintuition.com
(more…)

by Robert Thompson
Like every decent person, we must condemn the persons responsible for the bombings which have taken place today in London, but we must also condemn with equal vigour those who commit similar crimes every day in the Holy Land in the name of Zionism or in Iraq and elsewhere in support of Mr George W. Bush’s war against our civilisation.

The Statement put out by George Galloway, the Respect Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, is a helpful reminder of the interrelationship of all such hideous attacks on innocent people going about their ordinary daily lives.

We cannot let pass without comment any such violation of human values, and we must express without fear our disgust at the perpetrators of all attrocities whether or not they are among the supposedly “great and good” of this world or not. London is in the same situation as Falujah or Rafah or Jenin, or, if one goes back in time the Warsaw Ghetto or Sabra and Shatila.

Let us all show our horror at the terrorism constantly used by the followers of the current Triumvirate of Evil, Mr George W. Bush, Mr Ariel Sharon and Mr Oussama bin Laden. Also, it would be unfair to forget their Scottish lap-dog, Mr Anthony (call me “Tony”) Blair, currently welcoming his Fuehrer at the G8 Meeting being held in the Gleneagles Hotel.

Let us also all show our revulsion for all who use such reckless violence to achieve their aims, starting with the same Triumvirate, whose followers, when their leaders pretend to be in disagreement with one another, cleverly use this phoney hostility as a means towards the destruction of all peace and decency in this world while they endeavour to strengthen their ruinous joint grip on our lives and on our freedoms.

If only these three criminals (together, of course, with their pathetic acolyte Mr Blair) could be brought together before the International Criminal Court to face their crimes as defined so clearly in the Nuremberg Principles, then the world would be a cleaner place.

In the meantime, we must all express our sympathy for all who are suffering or have suffered from the evil attacks in London, from the evil invasion and occupation of Iraq and from the evil invasion and occupation of the Holy Land, whatever may have been the supposed justification for any such terrorist actions.
Full: axisoflogic.com

by Robert Thompson
Like every decent person, we must condemn the persons responsible for the bombings which have taken place today in London, but we must also condemn with equal vigour those who commit similar crimes every day in the Holy Land in the name of Zionism or in Iraq and elsewhere in support of Mr George W. Bush’s war against our civilisation.

The Statement put out by George Galloway, the Respect Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, is a helpful reminder of the interrelationship of all such hideous attacks on innocent people going about their ordinary daily lives.

We cannot let pass without comment any such violation of human values, and we must express without fear our disgust at the perpetrators of all attrocities whether or not they are among the supposedly “great and good” of this world or not. London is in the same situation as Falujah or Rafah or Jenin, or, if one goes back in time the Warsaw Ghetto or Sabra and Shatila.

Let us all show our horror at the terrorism constantly used by the followers of the current Triumvirate of Evil, Mr George W. Bush, Mr Ariel Sharon and Mr Oussama bin Laden. Also, it would be unfair to forget their Scottish lap-dog, Mr Anthony (call me “Tony”) Blair, currently welcoming his Fuehrer at the G8 Meeting being held in the Gleneagles Hotel.

Let us also all show our revulsion for all who use such reckless violence to achieve their aims, starting with the same Triumvirate, whose followers, when their leaders pretend to be in disagreement with one another, cleverly use this phoney hostility as a means towards the destruction of all peace and decency in this world while they endeavour to strengthen their ruinous joint grip on our lives and on our freedoms.

If only these three criminals (together, of course, with their pathetic acolyte Mr Blair) could be brought together before the International Criminal Court to face their crimes as defined so clearly in the Nuremberg Principles, then the world would be a cleaner place.

In the meantime, we must all express our sympathy for all who are suffering or have suffered from the evil attacks in London, from the evil invasion and occupation of Iraq and from the evil invasion and occupation of the Holy Land, whatever may have been the supposed justification for any such terrorist actions.
Full: axisoflogic.com

We extend our condolences to the families and loved ones of those who have lost their lives today and our heartfelt sympathy to all those who have been injured by the bombs in London.

No one can condone acts of violence aimed at working people going about their daily lives. They have not been a party to, nor are they responsible for, the decisions of their government. They are entirely innocent and we condemn those who have killed or injured them.

The loss of innocent lives, whether in this country or Iraq, is precisely the result of a world that has become a less safe and peaceful place in recent years.

We have worked without rest to remove the causes of such violence from our world. We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings.

We urge the government to remove people in this country from harms way, as the Spanish government acted to remove its people from harm, by ending the occupation of Iraq and by turning its full attention to the development of a real solution to the wider conflicts in the Middle East.

Only then will the innocents here and abroad be able to enjoy a life free of the threat of needless violence.
Full: respectcoalition.org

How can it be said that citizens in a self-proclaimed democracy are not responsible for the decisions of their government? This is the simple truth that Ward Churchill and others got crucified for. The actions of our governments in the UK and US dirty all of us, and willing or not, we are complicit. And furthermore, there is no evidence that this was an Islamist operation. The question must be, who benefits the most from this? If we could just hold that question in our minds, the horror of the answer might lead to a real confrontation with the beast that’s stalking the world. The carefully constructed illusion that these people care for the lives of ‘their own’ any more than they care for ‘the others’ is what has to fall away

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Islamic extremists have been using Iraq as a planning center for attacks around the world since losing Afghanistan as their base in 2001, the government’s chief spokesman said Friday.

Speaking about Thursday’s blasts in London that killed more than 50 people, Laith Kubba said “we don’t know exactly who carried out these acts but it is clear that these networks used to be in Afghanistan and now they work in Iraq.”

The spokesman said that insurgents in Iraq and those who carried out the London attacks “are from the same network. There are different groups in the world, but they all follow the same school.”

Kubba was referring to hardline Muslim extremists who label people that don’t agree with them as infidels.

“We don’t know exactly who enters Iraq then leaves to carry out attacks with explosives around the world,” he told The Associated Press.
Full:yahoo.com

o whatever whatever whatever. blame Iraq (and Syria)

Iraq’s government has accused Syria of allowing insurgents to cross its porous border into Iraq — a claim Damascus denies, saying it cannot fully control its portion of the frontier.

“…Africa should learn how to help itself. Speaking about help, do you see how America is actually helping Iraq? Is it good help? Killing them and sending medicine to them, is that good help? We have to help ourselves. Europe helps itself.

They even got help from Africa by enslaving Africans. If they didn’t take us as slaves, they wouldn’t be where they are today. History is why we are sitting here today. When we appreciate history, we begin to move forward. Africans should appreciate what their forefathers went through during the Slave Trade. Let us not abuse ourselves by saying that we sold ourselves…”
Full:allafrica.com

by Ken Kopka
MUCH CHEST-THUMPING will accompany this week’s announcement by the world’s wealthy (G8) nations of a new deal for African debt relief. According to British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown the $40 billion deal will mean 100% write-offs for fourteen African countries, covering their debts to the World Bank, African Development Bank, and International Monetary Fund.

More than a little Puritan guilt drove pre-summit negotiations and the expectation – soon shattered – that the agreement could mean a doubling of aid to Africa. There prevailed a sense, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair pressed United States President George Bush for additional funding, that in one gesture they might fix a sum that would relieve the white conscience of its African burden forever. The fantasy was further fostered by the non-governmental organisations (including Jubilee 2000) and pop stars pressing for the deal.

Like most acts of charity, however, the deal instead looked set to reinforce the symbolism of noble giver and pitiable recipient, and the racist suppositions on which the rich world’s dealings with the world’s poor have long rested. The question was who stood to profit the most by it.
Full: jamaica-gleaner.com
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