The Patriot Act in Practice: Sen. Russ Feingold grills DoJ official over use of Patriot Act

Earlier this week, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) questioned Assistant Attorney General David Kris over the use of the special powers given under the Patriot Act to "sneak and peak." Kris confirmed that in 2008 only 3 of 763 cases, where warrantless powers were used, involved suspected terrorists. What is important here, and Feingold made mention, is that the Patriot Act was sold to Congress, and the American people, on the pretext of its use against so-called terrorists. What is illustrated here, and in many other cases since 2001, is that the government has been using the Patriot Act against its own citizens for purposes other than terrorism. What is shocking however, is the number of cases cited by Kris that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Besides the Patriot Act, and often overlooked, is the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act (AUMF). Like the Patriot Act it contained provisions for warrantless behavior (in addition to the use military commissions). Also, the Military Commissions Act (2006) added more fuel to the fire by labeling anyone who is against the US government, non-military, as a possible terrorist. As scholar Elliot Cohen has noted:

According to this Act, an "unlawful enemy combatant" is to be defined as:

"an individual engaged in hostilities against the United States who is not a lawful enemy combatant."
This basically means that if a person is not a soldier in the service of a foreign government, but is nevertheless engaging in "hostilities" against the United States, then this person is an unlawful enemy combatant. Notice that this definition does not require that such a person be an "alien," which accordingly leaves open the possibility that this designation could also be applied to an American citizen.

In Hamdan vs Rumsfeld (2006) the Supreme Court ruled against the use of military commission (which did not give the accused a right to habeas corpus). As a result, the Bush administration, and a compliant Congress, passed the Military Commissions Act. This egregious act gives the government the power to accuse one of terrorism, not actually committing any crime mind you, without ever coming before a court of peers to determine guilt. It is simply guilty before proven innocent.

Check out the article on Feingold and Kris here.

Click here to read the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Act.

New Book about WTC 7

David Ray Griffin, pioneer in 9/11 research, has released a new book entitled The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report About 9/11 Is Unscientific and False.

Recently, Griffin wrote an overview of the materials covered in this book available here.

World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7) is the a key part of the 9/11 story. WTC 7 was 47 stories tall, sharing the sturdy design characteristics of WTC 1 and 2, and collapsed symmetrically to the ground in roughly 6.5 seconds. WTC 7 was not hit by plane and its implosive destruction was considered by FEMA as not understood strictly from fire. (Besides Griffin, researcher Jim Hoffman also provides excellent material on WTC 7 at his website). In addition, WTC 7 housed the New York City Emergency Command Center and other Federal agencies as the CIA and Secret Service. According to FEMA's Building Performance Study: "The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time... Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue."

Griffin covers all of these important issues. An often overlooked issue of WTC 7 is the presence of two witnesses that were in the building 15 minutes after the first plane struck the North Tower at 8:46 am. Barry Jennings, was the deputy director of the Emergency Services Department of the New York City Housing Authority, and Michael Hess, was New York City’s corporation counsel (and now business partner of Rudy Guilani), were headed to the Emergency Command Center on the 23rd floor of WTC 7. Griffin discusses the cover-up and out right lies from NIST regarding what they saw. Jennings, who feared for his life, died mysteriously last September - and we still do not know how he died (or any of the circumstances of his death). Hess is still doing business and has changed his testimony here and there to not rock the boat of the government's official conspiracy theory. Jennings and Hess came into a a Command Center, which they expected to be bustling with people, and found it deserted. As Jennings said, it was as though everyone just stopped what they were doing and left. Jennings and Hess then experienced an explosion from the lower part of the building a little after 9am. Both men were trapped in a stairway for hours until they were let out around 11-11:30 (as both men gave interviews in the street closer to 12pm). Upon this rescue, firefighters warned them to not look at the ground they were walking on in the lobby area because it was filled with bodies. The only reason for dead bodies in the lobby is from the prior explosion. And remember, this building was not struck by an airplane, and only barely stuck with some debris from the collapse of the North Tower - which occurred well after the explosion that Hess and Jennings reported.

Griffin leaves no stone unturned. I'm sure this book will only add to the truth movement and help publicize the importance of WTC 7. Check out his overview and support his work.

The Beat of the Resistance

If a soundtrack could be created for the movement of truth, for the survival of liberty, it would have to come from Matthew Bellamy and the British band Muse.

Today Muse released their fifth album The Resistance with interesting tracks as "The United States of Eurasia," "Uprising," "Unnatural Selection," and "MK Ultra." The cover shows a man seeking to see the world from the kaleidoscope of images nearly blocking his view - struggling to find truth in a maze of smoke and mirrors.

I discovered Muse through hearing a track entitled "Take A Bow" from the album Black Holes and Revelations. "Take A Bow" possesses powerful lyrics clearly identifying Tony Blair (former British Prime Minister) and George W. Bush as wizards casting their "hex" over millions and ultimately facing God's judgment for their "crimes against the earth" and needless human sacrifices by war.

The Resistance contains both intriguing lyrics and electrifying sublimity. The first track, Uprising, could be called an anthem for the truth movement (or any movement, seeking the deconstruction of centralized police state governments world-wide). The lyrics are as follows (with grammatical emphasis placed by me here and there):

"Paranoia is in bloom, the PR transmission will resume. They'll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down, and hope that we will never see the truth around.

Another promise, another seed, another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed - And all the green belts wrapped around our minds and the endless red tape to keep the truth confined - So come on!

They will not force us! They will stop degrading us! They will not control us! We will be victorious!

Interchanging mind control, come let the Revolution takes its toll - If could flick the switch and open your third eye, you'd see that we should never be afraid to die - So come on! -

Rise up and take the power back , its time the fat cats had a heart attack - They know their time's coming to an end - We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

They will not force us! They will stop degrading us! They will not enslave us! We will be victorious! -- They will not force us! They will stop degrading us! They can not control us! We will be victorious!"

"Uprising" is the foretaste of great tracks as "The United States of Eurasia" where Bellamy sings:

"You and me are the same, we don't know or care who's to blame - But we know that whoever holds the reigns nothing will change, our cause has gone insane - And these wars they can't be won. Does anyone know or care how they began? They just promise to go on and on and on..."

This song speaks of the movement of NATO (at the command of the US and Britain) to surround and break up any unification of Russia with China, eastern Europe and eventually the whole of Europe. Zbignew Brezinski's chessboard geopolitical strategy of breaking up countries, making them divisible, is the target of this track.

"MK Ultra," the tracked named after CIA mind control program of the early 1950s, speaks of a "universe trapped inside a tear," of people desperately seeking freedom and happiness only to find a massive control grid: tagging each and every human on the planet like cattle. The MK Ultra program attempted to bring a person to the breaking point so that he could then be susceptible to total mind control through drugs and psycho therapy via the CIA masters. Muse bemoans this deconstruction of man which seeks to brings us to our knees by pumping an endless stream of images, evoking a variety emotions (especially aggression and sexual deviance), to bring out a neurosis in being: the loss of control and the creation of an ineffectual person led around by ever-changing emotions and desires. "How many lies they create? How long until you break? Your mind's about to fall - They are breaking through," sings Bellamy.

The importance here is that we must fight to take control of our minds or we'll end up being broken, lost and unfulfilled. The artificial environment creates artificial realities in the individual. If we don't wake up and see "the green belts wrapped around our minds" life will be a series of frustrations, confusion, hopelessness, and contradictions. Who benefits? Those that rule the world.

Boogie, Boogie, Boogie

I didn't take long for another installment of the bin Laden "I hate the infidel" saga. According to the our benevolent masters and their media whores, bin Laden passed along 11 minutes of himself ranting; conveniently just in time when US imperial wars are at an all time low in support. Maybe Usama should open a PR firm. Perhaps issuing this alleged bin Laden tape on last Friday would have caused an even greater distrust. It is amazing that any rational person could buy such garbage.

Where does the tape come? The CIA-linked Intel Center. It was the Intel Center who was caught inserting an Al Qaeda logo in one of their tapes at the same time their own logo was inserted. According to Steve Watson, "Intel center is run by Ben Venzke, who is an interesting character. A google search results in the revelation that he used to be the director of intelligence at a company called IDEFENSE, which is a verisign company. IDEFENSE is a web security company that monitors intelligence from the middle east conflicts and focuses on cyber threats among other things." Furthermore, video/audo tapes are sold by Intel Center to the government. Where does the Intel Center get them? From a company called As-Sahab: a company that is Al Qaeda's "production company." I'm sure it is not out of the realm of possibility that they simply manufacture them at times too (from my professional experience, with technology existing today, it is possible to create entire videos of computer generated images (CGI) indistinguishable from the real thing).

In case you don't know who the figures are the photo here, they are Zbignew Brezinski and Usama bin Laden. Best friends forever? Brezinski loves getting others to do his dirty work.

8th Anniversary of 9/11 come and gone

I was quite busy answering questions on 9/11 to curious friends that I neglected my blog. What is there to say about this anniversary? Namely, that the powers that be gear-up each September 11 to sweep the events of 9/11 under the rug of history; effectively burying dissenting voices, the swarming multitudes, on the subject. All the major corporate media outlets repeat and hammer into the ground the government blessed conspiracy theory of 9/11. Dissenters are regularly derided and slandered.

9/11 is now treated as a religious ceremony with all the trimmings of ritual. Obama pays homage to the dead with symbols and carefully crafted words meant to stir emotion, and above all, loyalty to the American wars of 9/11 (while firmly reinforcing the images which created the "official" lie of 9/11). Let us not forget, that the nearly 3,000 that died on 9/11 were just the beginning of the greater number that have died because of 9/11; and will continue to suffer.

The occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, CIA secret prisons, torture, renditions, rumors of wars, the growing police state, etc., go on and on. The truth of what happened on September 11, 2001 matter a great deal to the lives of posterity and the world.