"Terror Suspect Is Charged With Plot to Use Bombs…"

posted by Bill Arnett @ 3:16 PM Permalink

…the newspaper says and from just a quick reading of the article I noticed some important points we, as Americans, should always remember and never again allow these things to slide from our memories just 'cause our government says we must not only forget, but we must sacrifice the rights that made America great.

Excerpt:

A Denver airport shuttle bus driver who was arrested there last weekend was charged in Brooklyn on Thursday morning with conspiring with others to make and use bombs.

The driver, Najibullah Zazi, 24, had been arrested with his father in Denver and accused of making false statements. But his indictment in Brooklyn on Thursday was far more serious. Mr. Zazi was charged with one count of conspiring with others, who are not named, to use one or more weapons of mass destruction, including bombs or other explosives.

The authorities said Mr. Zazi bought chemicals that could be used to make bombs from Denver-area beauty supply stores and had bomb-making instructions on his laptop computer. They said he had mixed chemicals in a suburban Denver hotel room in the weeks before his arrest. Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement saying that the government believed that “any imminent threat” from the case had “been disrupted.”

“We are investigating a wide range of leads related to this alleged conspiracy,” Mr. Holder said. “We believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted, but as always, we remind the American public to be vigilant.”

Notice that this announcement comes from the Department of Justice, makes no reference to special agents that arrested, held the subjects incommunicado, tortured them for information, or committed any other illegalities of the Great Liars bush and cheney who falsely asserted that America could not be kept safe unless we sacrificed our rights, our freedoms, and illegally tortured suspects as if we were medieval butchers recruited and trained to be such cruel and capable torturers as to be able to elicit a confession from anyone, innocent or not.

This single bust supports what I have said for years, and confirms the statements of several true statesmen, to include President Obama, that terrorism is, always will be, and alway should be a job for the law enforcement professionals of this country, as in other countries, without any need to foment hate, attack countries without cause, swat flies with 2,000-lb. bombs that kill and injure hundreds of innocents, and commit all the other war crimes that were committed in America's name and to America's eternal shame.

As a lifelong believer and active participant in law enforcement it has always been plain to me that the chickensh*t responses of bush and cheney were based on the guilty knowledge that they knew 911, or something similar, had been reported to them by intelligence agents and the skilled agents of the FBI that filed reports of middle eastern men learning to fly, but not land, large aircraft.

They knew, they did nothing, and they will have to forever live with the shameful knowledge that 9-11 happened on their, the Republican's watch, while w planned to get revenge against Saddam Hussein and stupidly, neglegently, and willingly refused to listen to the very experts to whom he should have been listening and taking heed of all the obvious warning signs reported by intelligence and the FBI.

Damn w and the big dick to that special place in the universe where the suffering of guilty knowledge is exclusive, omniscient, and never ending.

And to all our excellent law enforcement agent involved in this bust the only thing that hurts me is that I am no longer able to be out there side-by-side with you as you protect America.

Great job, guys, and when the names of the agents involved are ultimately released each of you should be personally awarded the Medal of Freedom, so as to restore the honor of the highest civilian award that was itself degraded by w awarding it to all the a$$holes that kept their mouths shut about w's perfidy and personal disgrace.

Labels: Barack Obama, bush hypocrisy, bush war doctrine, CIA, disinformation, distractions, FBI, fear mongering, GOP, propaganda, republican hypocrisy, republican lies, republican party

5 comments

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 10:34 AM Permalink

…[h/t to Reef]

Is it just me or have bush/cheney, king and queen aspirants, seemingly completely, entirely, and perhaps forever utterly discredited democracy, destroyed any faith people used to have in election results, so damaging the very ideals expressed in the U.S. Constitution that they have become meaningless.?

Look what's been happening in Minnesota ever since good ole boy Norm Coleman (R-Jerkoff) lost the '08 election to Al Franken but has yet to acknowledge defeat, despite being told by the courts there at least twice that he lost. He is willfully depriving the constituency of that state one of its two U.S. Senators. Is that democracy?

Think back to:

Illegal phone, internet, and mail invasions of every American without a court order.

Illegal spying on groups of American citizens guilty of no wrongdoing whatever and the compiling of dossiers on those groups.

Think about the Pentagon using some of its very most powerful spy satellites, not on foreign countries causing international concern, but instead using them to spy on American citizens.

Think for a moment of the fact that you no longer enjoy the right to travel freely using any means of public transportation if your name appears on some arbitrarily composed 'terrorist watch list' of millions of names, composed by unknown people using unknown criteria.

How 'bout all those acknowledged FBI abuses of 'National Security Letters' to obtain information unlawfully and without judicial review?

Know now that the government wants to regulate your travel to Canada for goodness sakes, a country that from jump street has been an ally to America. Now you need a passport to travel to the best neighbor and friend a country could have.

Think how abused has been the 'State Secrets Act' to deny persons or companies from pursuing a case just by the mere assertion of the act without any showing that states secrets would actually be revealed if the case proceeded?

The GOP, republicans, allegedly devout defenders of America and the Rule of Law are now using every means within their power to obstruct the Senate, to stop the implementation of ideas and legislation by the Democratic party at all costs, even though they might agree that the ideas or legislature are sound? Obstructing just to obstruct, damaging the American legislative process, denying their constituents effective stewards of their wants and needs, even if it means betraying America as well. They will, have, and will continue to deliberately obstruct and betray America as the cowards, loudmouths, blowhards, idiots, and traitors they have become as a political party.

But lest you think this diatribe is strictly anti-republican, look at how reluctant Obama has become to relinquish the ability to also claim 'state secrets' to stop court cases cold, his failure to completely restore the right of habeas corpus to our people, whom has taken advantage of republican malfeasance in office to secure tax payer dollars to shore up shipwrecked corporations that used the republican mantra of 'trickle down economics' and 'fewer regulations and regulatory agencies' to bend the Statute of Liberty right over and stick the high hard one to her without benefit of regulatory condoms to prevent the unwanted pregnancy which they will insist not be aborted even if Lady Liberty will otherwise die.

Why do Americans pretend to be gods on earth? We have bigger, more destructive power (to include nuclear weapons) than any country on earth – for now. Given our dire financial straits other countries are able to continue weapons development unabated and unswayed by the paper tiger threats of a bankrupt, both monetarily and morally, America. While Kim Jong Il provides comic relief and the magicians aids trained to distract your attention you can bet China continues steadily with their stealth submarine programs, negating their need to build long range missiles. Why bother when you can park hundreds of undetectable subs loaded for nuclear bear right off our shorelines. And in case you think that impossible, read this:

Two years ago, a Chinese sub shocked the U.S. Navy by surfacing within torpedo range of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier near the Japanese island of Okinawa. Beijing claimed the sub was in international waters and was not "stalking" the carrier, which was taking part in a naval exercise.

All of these things tend to point towards the end of democracy as a legitimate form of government, with the American government working just as hard, if not harder, than foreign countries seeking that goal. This is already NOT the America that I, or anyone else over 50, grew up in. It is unrecognizable as the beacon of hope and freedom it used to represent.

America, American government, democracy, and the freedoms and rights we formerly enjoyed are in grave danger, as much so from the inside as from the other countries threatening us all.

But these are only some of the thing about which I ruminate, there are many more, but hey, my mind shuts down twice a day so I could be wrong.

I just know that you don't look at bear footprints and say, "Oh! Look! Kitty went this way!"

Labels: bailouts, betrayal, China, civil liberties, civil rights, disinformation, FBI, GOP, liars, republican hypocrisy, republican lies

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And my nomination for the stupidest headline of the day…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 3:21 PM Permalink

… comes from WaPo…

FBI Tries to Bolster Case Against Anthrax Suspect

Pardon me, but didn't their "suspect" finally break under the pressure of years of accusations and commit suicide?

S-o-o-o-o, doesn't that obviously mean that they have no case to "bolster," and why do they want to spend a few million more taxpayer dollars on what should be a closed case?

Maybe they're not so confident that they caused the right guy to commit suicide?

Labels: anthrax, big brother, civil rights, FBI, fear mongering, snark

2 comments

Don't ask why, be glad they're too broke to pry…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:36 PM Permalink

From The Huffington Post we now find that the black hole known as Iraq is devouring so much money that the FBI is losing it's ability to spy on us:

Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

"We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

It must be rough trying to establish yourself as America's first King, as bush is, and not be able to pay the bills for your most likely illegal surveillance of those you wish to govern.

While bush is battling for immunity for the telecom companies the companies repay him by cutting off his surveillance for a lack of payment! Will they "forgive" the government's lack of payment if they are granted immunity? Is this a telecom power play or is America just to broke to pay its spying bills?

What sweet, rich irony.

Labels: bill of rights, Bush, conspiracy, disinformation, Economy, FBI, hypocrisy, irony, snark, spying, surveillance

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Ve haf a Dossier on You and No, You Can't See It

posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:01 PM Permalink

I just wrote the other day about "Terrorists Needles in Super-database Haystacks" (it's down just below Sailor's post on Doan) which was about the government collecting and storing information about practically everyone in America, and son-of-a-gun, here's another article about a new super-database the government wants that will contain BILLIONS of files and trillions of bytes of info on us all.

See this from Think Progress, titled "FBI Seeking To Create 6 Billion Record Database Similar To Total Information Awareness" and think about this:

In the name of fighting terrorism, the FBI is seeking to create a massive new data-mining program which “bears a striking resemblance” to the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program:

The FBI is seeking $12 million for the [National Security Branch Analysis Center] in FY2008, which will include 90,000 square feet of office space and a total of 59 staff, including 23 contractors and five FBI agents. Documents predict the NSAC will include six billion records by FY2012. This amounts to 20 separate “records” for each man, woman and child in the United States. The “universe of subjects will expand exponentially” with the expanded role of the NSAC, the Justice Department documents assert.

Concerned about the potential for abuse, House Science and Technology Committee members Brad Miller (D-NC) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) requested last week that the Government Accountability Office investigate the proposal.

I don't know how anybody else feels, but if a man I personally detest, like bush sycophant James Sensenbrenner, is "concerned," it's enough to make my skin crawl and make every hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Big Brother was a piker compared to these guys.

Oh! And I almost forgot! "Data mining" as they call it, has never worked and is almost certainly NEVER going work for finding and identifying terrorists, so why the need for these super-databases?

Labels: Bush, civil liberties, civil rights, FBI, orwell, police state, spying

2 comments

Terrorist Needles Hidden in Super-database Haystacks

posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:20 PM Permalink

I know that Sailor here at VidiotSpeak can vouch for the fact that I have long maintained that the government, collecting information on everyone through domestic spying to build a dossier on every citizen, would suffer the logical fate of attempting to find terrorist needles in government database haystacks.

In other words, they are so overloading these databases that they will soon be useless, after having spent billions and billions of dollars to gather so many names, so much useless info, so much inaccurate info, and just the sheer unwieldiness of searching through that info would permit many terrorists to go unnoticed amongst the millions and millions of bytes of information contained in the database.

I suffered much derision, provoked such vehement opposition to my position, and was ridiculed so badly that now, like most people, I am pleased to say, "I told you so," even though this bodes ill for America and is simply emblematic of the worst administration in American history.

See this posting in The Blotter by Justin Rood which confirms my theory.

Excerpt:

A terrorist watch list compiled by the FBI has apparently swelled to include more than a half a million names.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

The bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.

A portion of the FBI’s unclassified 2008 budget request posted to the Department of Justice Web site, however, refers to “the entire watch list of 509,000 names,” which is utilized by its Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force.

[…]

“It grows seemingly without control or limitation,” said ACLU senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani of the terrorism watch list.

“If we have 509,000 names on that list, the watch list is virtually useless,” he told ABC News. “You’ll be capturing individuals with no connection to crime or terror."

This list is growing rapidly out of control, but you can bet that the other databases being compiled will become just as unwieldy very quickly.

And think about that number: 509,000! 509,000 terrorists or so-called terrorist sympathizers. Ridiculous. Ludicrously so.

Most terrorism experts estimate that there are between 20,000-40,000 terrorists worldwide. Insufficient numbers to populate a small mid-western town, whereas the numbers on the no-fly list, 509,000, would populate a fairly large city.

Who's kidding whom here?

Labels: Bush, civil liberties, FBI, GWOT

0 comments

FBI Fibs Again

posted by The Sailor @ 6:57 PM Permalink

Police Log Confirms FBI Role In Arrests
Group Detained, Questioned During D.C. War Protest

A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show.

For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened. The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance.
[...]
The probable cause to arrest the protesters as they retrieved food from their parked van? They were wearing black -- a color choice the FBI and police associated with anarchists, according to the police records.
[...]
The revelations, combined with protester accounts, provide the first public evidence that Washington-based FBI personnel used their intelligence-gathering powers in the District to collect purely political intelligence. Ultimately, the protesters were not prosecuted because there wasn't sufficient evidence of trespassing, and their arrest records were expunged.

Similar intelligence-gathering operations have been reported in New York, where a local police intelligence unit tried to infiltrate groups planning to protest at the Republican National Convention in 2004, and in Colorado, where records surfaced showing that the FBI collected names and license plates of people protesting timber industry practices at a 2002 industry convention.
[...]
In response to the suit, D.C. police at first said that no police intelligence officials were involved in the arrests. Last year, city officials revealed under additional questioning that five members of the police intelligence unit were present.
[...]
FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said the agency stands by its assertion in court filings that it maintains no records of the incident.

I call BS. The DC police lied and the FBI lied about questioning peaceful protestors (and thereby violating the constitutional right to free speech and freedom of assembly) and only a fool would believe that they didn't keep records of it.

Labels: FBI, free speech

0 comments