moonbuggy

`The declassified document is called “Information Operations Roadmap”. It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act. [..]

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military’s psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.

“Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience,” it reads.

“Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public,” it goes on.’

`The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. “They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public,” he said.’

`Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today, justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but during the course of his speech the students in class did something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats and turned their backs to him.

To make matters worse for Gonzales, additional students came into the room, wearing black cowls and carrying a simple banner, written on a sheet.

Fortunately for him, it was a brief speech… followed by a panel discussion that basically ripped his argument a new asshole.’

`This is an incomplete selection of search results which Google.cn self-censors working together with the Chinese government. Google does not censor access to the site itself, it only censors the site within the search result; access to the sites is blocked by the Chinese government.’

`An alumni group dedicated to “exposing the most radical professors” at the University of California at Los Angeles is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of suspect faculty. [..]

News of the campaign prompted former Republican congressman James Rogan, who helped lead impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton in the U.S. House of Representatives, to resign from the group’s advisory board. [..]

At least two other members of the group’s advisory board, which consists of more than 20 individuals, also have quit over the group’s efforts to have students record their professors.’

‘Our mission is to provide the best possible search engine to you while at the same time, making sure the government is informed should you search for something obscure, illegal, or unpatriotic.

Instead of letting the government waste tax money by going through complicated procedures to get user and search data from Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves or Google, users of Patriot Search make sure their queries end up right where they belong — in the databases of the government and its various agencies.’

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

`The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc. to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases. [..]

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

The Mountain View-based search engine opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government’s effort “vigorously.”‘

`Police directives about what could and could not be photographed were an abuse of power and should be ignored, Liberty Victoria said today.

The civil liberties body made the statement after a report in a Melbourne newspaper today said a member of the Geelong Camera Club received a visit from police after he photographed gas storage cylinders at the city’s Shell oil refinery.

Club member Hans Kawitski was told not to photograph industrial installations and was ordered to inform members of the camera club to follow his lead.

Liberty Victoria said its advice to photographers would be to ignore the directive.

“The police have got no place making such warnings,” president Brian Walters SC said.’

`The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed lawsuits on Tuesday against the Bush Administration for conducting wiretaps of American citizens without judicial oversight. [..]

The lawsuits add to the controversy surrounding the Bush Administration’s contention that the United States is at war and that status gives the president the right to void legal and constitutional protections for U.S. citizens. [..]’

`If you’ve been watching TV, the latest political hoopla in Washington involves the NSA. President Bush has acknowledged ordering the NSA to conduct electronic surveillance on individuals inside the US. [..]

Few facts are known about the NSA except for the little bits of information made available to the public from time to time. Even their budget is classified.

One interesting thing about the NSA is Echelon.’

`Former Vice President Al Gore called on Congress and the public to resist what he called “a gross and excessive power grab” by the Bush administration amid the war on terrorism, declaring that “our Constitution is at risk.”

Gore said the use of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without court approval shows that President Bush “has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.”

“A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government,” he said.’

`By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge’s approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. [..]

The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:

“If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment.”‘

`The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA’s vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.’

`American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent and seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not yet been returned.

The director of the film, Callum Macrae, said yesterday: “The timing and nature of this raid is extremely disturbing. It is only a few days since we first approached the US authorities and told them Ali was doing this investigation, and asked them then to grant him an interview about our findings.’

`Children in Washington State are being given ‘Patriotism tests’ which are completely unrelated to their studies. The paper gauges whether or not the student shows fealty to the power of the state and whether the student believes in the right to overthrow a corrupt government. [..]

Considering the fact that this paper is a complete one off in that it is not part of any standard curriculum, we must question the motivations behind it.

Is the paper a means of gauging the level of obedience to the state amongst American teenagers?’

`As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.

Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are.’

`Thousands of airline passengers unexpectedly found themselves stranded in line at U.S. border checkpoints in August, after a Department of Homeland Security computer crashed. [..]

The holdups can be attributed in part to the Homeland Security Department’s antiquated computer systems. The agency’s mainframes do not share data and are accessible only by some offices. An upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows 2000 operating system failed because of application incompatibilities, which meant one division had to undertake a cumbersome reversion back to Windows 95. [..]

Not one of the systems can talk with another, according to government reports, and not all offices are equipped to log into the systems they need to update records.’

A long article by various artists discussing the new Australian sedition laws.

`Minister, if you do not intend further repression, may I ask you this? Why did agents claiming to be from the Attorney-General’s Department visit the filmmaker Carmel Travers, who had on her computer a manuscript from whistle-blower Andrew Wilkie, and smash the hard drives of her two computers with hammers, a process they referred to as “cleansing”? Four other Australians, including Robert Manne, were similarly dealt with.

The victims were warned it was an offence to tell anyone what had happened, even their partners, a form of bullying which, being accustomed to the traditions of free speech, they ultimately ignored. Most absurdly of all, Wilkie’s manuscript, Axis of Deceit, had already been published.’

`Messenger: Take care. Thou must not bring the government into disrepute.

Jester: A plague on both their houses!

Messenger: That be seditious as well – thou canst not bring either house of Parliament into disrepute.

Jester: Can its repute be more dis? The lower chamber is a bordello of harlots, pimps and coxcombs; the Senate nought but a braying stall of yea-sayers …

Messenger: Coz, I beg thee be silent! Sedition catches all – who can say that it not be soon against the law to bring pimps and coxcombs into disrepute?’

`This is but one horrific example of the tactics used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to stifle legitimate dissent and violate the civil rights of political groups that the administration dislikes. Along with the anti-war movement, the Nixon White House targeted the civil rights movement for disruption, using on-campus informants to infiltrate and in many cases to disrupt legal protests and activism.

This coloring book, which was purported to be from the Black Panthers, had actually been rejected by them when it was brought to them by a man later revealed to have intelligence connections. Not to be troubled by the fact that the Panthers found the coloring book revolting, the FBI added even more offensive illustrations, and mass mailed it across America. It so infuriated the white population that they stopped listening to the legitimate grievances of the black people.’

`The documents and photographs confirm that Jean Charles was not carrying any bags, and was wearing a denim jacket, not a bulky winter coat, as had previously been claimed.

He was behaving normally, and did not vault the barriers, even stopping to pick up a free newspaper.

He started running when we saw a tube at the platform. Police had agreed they would shoot a suspect if he ran.

A document describes CCTV footage, which shows Mr de Menezes entered Stockwell station at a “normal walking pace” and descended slowly on an escalator.’

`The website for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs has removed testimony from UK MP George Galloway from its website.

All other witness testimonies for the hearings on the Oil for Food scandal are available on the Committee’s website in PDF form. But Galloway’s testimony is the only document not on the site. [..]

“I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him,” Galloway told the Committee.

“The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns.”

Press representatives for the Committee had no comment.’

I’m suprised they even put it up in the first place. The censors were obviously busy covering up something else at the time. Followup to the Galloway video I posted earlier.

‘The Denver Police Department is investigating a sergeant who allegedly threatened to arrest the 26-year-old for displaying the bumper sticker.

Bates said she was told by the sergeant Tuesday that her bumper sticker was illegal because it was profane. She said he told her he’d arrest her if she didn’t remove it.

But City Attorney Cole Finegan said he doesn’t believe there’s any city ordinance against displaying a profane bumper sticker.’

You can’t let people get away with having bumper stickers. Next thing you know they’ll be wanting to smoke _and_ have jobs.

Updated. More here.

‘Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.

Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home. [..]

Chief Financial Officer Gary Climes estimated that 18 to 20 of the company’s 200 employers were smokers when the policy was announced in 2003. Of those, as many as 14 quit smoking before the policy went into effect. The company offered them help to kick the habit.

“That is absolutely a victory,” Climes said.’

An absolute victory for fascism, at least. 🙂

`An executive jet is being used by the American intelligence agencies to fly terrorist suspects to countries that routinely use torture in their prisons. [..]

Countries with poor human rights records to which the Americans have delivered prisoners include Egypt, Syria and Uzbekistan, according to the files. The logs have prompted allegations from critics that the agency is using such regimes to carry out “torture by proxy” — a charge denied by the American government. [..]

Witnesses described seeing the prisoners handed to US agents whose faces were masked by hoods. The clothes of the handcuffed prisoners were cut off and they were dressed in nappies covered by orange overalls before being forcibly given sedatives by suppository.’