Sun-Sentinel

12/15/05

South Florida's anti-war activists are few in number. Many are retirees, veterans or students. They carry puppets, wave placards or hand out pamphlets to potential military recruits. But these activities have been labeled a 'threat' by the Defense Department. Local peace-mongers, like many around the country, have come under surveillance by the Pentagon. 'I'm disabled, I'm 59 and if I'm a credible threat to the government of the United States, then either the government is terribly paranoid or terribly weak,' said Rich Hersh of Boca Raton, whose group, the Truth Project, has come under federal scrutiny. The military's domestic surveillance was disclosed this week in a report on NBC Nightly News, which obtained a 400-page Department of Defense document outlining the surveillance of peace groups...

http://tinyurl.com/a2jht


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

MSNBC

12/15/05

In Congress, where numbers are everything, the math on the Patriot Act suddenly seems to be moving in favor of Sen. Russell Feingold. He was a minority of one four years ago, when the Wisconsin Democrat cast the lone Senate vote against the USA Patriot Act in the traumatic weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. The law, he said then, gave government too much power to investigate its citizens. Ninety-nine senators disagreed...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10485860/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Indianapolis Star

12/15/05

President Bush embraced Sen. John McCain's proposal to ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terrorism suspects on Thursday, reversing months of opposition that included White House veto threats. Bowing to pressure from the Republican-run Congress and abroad, the White House signed off on the proposal after a fight that pitted the president against members of his own party and threatened to further tarnish a U.S. image already soiled by the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison...

http://tinyurl.com/9xkpn


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

BBC News [UK]

12/16/05

President Bush allowed security agents to eavesdrop on people inside the US without search warrants after 9/11, the New York Times has reported. Under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been monitoring international communications of hundreds in the US, the paper says. Before, the NSA had typically limited US surveillance to foreign embassies. Officials cited by the paper said the Bush administration saw the scheme as necessary to disclose terror threats. But some NSA officials familiar with the operation have questioned whether the surveillance of calls and e-mails has crossed constitutional limits on legal searches, according to the Times...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4534488.stm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Published on Friday, December 16, 2005 by the New York Times

by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau

WASHINGTON - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1216-01.htm


Informant: John Calvert

As Congress considers making parts of the USA Patriot Act permanent, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee hails the passage of the 400th resolution upholding its residents' essential liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121505E.shtml

The German government warned Washington on Wednesday to heed European concerns over allegations of CIA prisons and extra-judicial abductions, or "renditions," on the continent.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121505B.shtml

The Social Darwinists sitting atop the food chain in the wealthiest, most powerful nation in humanity’s history now have access to their own paramilitary force. They can unleash their private army on the "unfittest" when the need arises, whether it be within America's borders or otherwise.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11312.htm

The Pentagon's domestic intelligence gathering has been done through a secretive program called TALON which allows military bases and other defense installations to file reports of suspicious activity into a consolidated database.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/155219


From Information Clearing House