By Joe Kay 7 January 2006

Over the past week, several new reports have emerged casting additional light on the vast extent of illegal spying carried out by the US government. It is becoming increasingly clear that the government has initiated a major project to collect and database the communications of US citizens and non-citizens, including opponents of the war in Iraq and other policies of the Bush administration.

Moves to initiate the program began before September 11, 2001. However, as with all the policies pursued by the government since then, the terrorist attacks have been used to justify the spying under the overarching pretext of the "war on terrorism."

James Risen, one of the authors of the original New York Times article exposing a broad program of spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) without legally required court-issued warrants, has published a book entitled State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. The book elaborates on what has already become clear from Risen's own articles and other reports that have emerged in the press: that the spying program is much broader than the administration has been forced to acknowledge, and includes surveillance on purely domestic communications as well as communications entering and leaving the United States.

Risen reports that the NSA has been able to gain access to telecommunications switches, which are routing stations run by a handful of giant companies that direct large quantities of telephone calls and e-mails. "Unknown to most Americans," Risen writes, "the NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries, according to several government officials. Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships or know about the willingness of the corporations to cooperate on intelligence matters."

These switches contain both international communications and communications entirely within the US. Because the US controls the Internet infrastructure, much of the world's e-mail traffic at some point passes through stations located within the United States. "With its direct access to the US telecommunications system, there seems to be no physical or logistical obstacle to prevent the NSA from eavesdropping on anyone in the United States that it chooses," Risen writes. The program established to allow the NSA spying is a highly secretive "special access program," with no oversight or accountability required from the NSA regarding the communications it decides to monitor and for what reason.

Washington Post correspondent Walter Pincus reported in an article on January 1 that the NSA has been sharing the data it collects with other US agencies, including the military's new command for North America, the Northern Command (Northcom). Citing current and former administration officials, the Post reported that the agencies that may have access to the information collected by the NSA include the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security.

According to Pincus, "At least one of those organizations, the DIA [the military intelligence arm], has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further."

While the officials insisted that the NSA tracks only individuals with apparent links to organizations that the US government considers to be terrorist, other agencies may be using it for more general purposes, the Post reported. "What data sets are included is a policy decision [made by individual agencies] when they involve other than terrorist links," the newspaper quoted one former administration official as saying.

The DIA databases are coordinated by Northcom, which collects information from the NSA as well as other intelligence and police agencies. According to an earlier report by Pincus, one of the databases run by the military included information on anti-war protestors. This database is shared with other organizations, including law enforcement agencies.

This sharing of names and information within intelligence agencies is widespread. A brief report in Newsweek on May 2, 2005, which has received little attention in the media since, noted, "According to information obtained by Newsweek, since January 2004 NSA received-and fulfilled-between 3,000 and 3, 500 requests from other agencies to supply the names of US citizens and officials (and citizens of other countries that help NSA eavesdrop around the world, including Britain, Canada and Australia) that initially were deleted from raw intercept reports." In total, the news magazine reported, the number of names provided by the NSA to other agencies during this period surpassed 10,000.

The danger that these steps pose to the democratic rights and personal freedom of the American people can hardly be overemphasized. The establishment of the Northern Command in 2002 was a critical step in the expansion of the role of the military in domestic affairs. In the summer of 2005, reports emerged of plans being developed within Northcom for the military to assume sweeping new powers, using a terrorist attack or natural catastrophe as the reason. (See "Pentagon devising scenarios for martial law in US")

Any databases or lists of names, culled from searches through e-mails and telephone conversations, could form the basis for mass round-ups and arrests of anyone considered to be a threat to "national security."

Such plans are hardly unprecedented. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration worked out a procedure for mass arrests of opponents of a US invasion of Nicaragua or El Salvador. The current director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, was US ambassador to Honduras during the time, and was closely involved with US actions in Central America, including the US-financed war against the government of Nicaragua.

Negroponte, now occupying a position tasked with coordinating the work of 15 different intelligence agencies, including the NSA and the DIA, is presumably a central figure in the coordination of the illegal spying operations currently being employed by the Bush administration.

A central component of the administration's policy since it came to office has been to erect the foundations for what would amount to a presidential dictatorship. The same officials who developed pseudo-legal arguments to justify the spying program have argued that the president has the constitutional authority as commander in chief to detain any individual, including any US citizen, indefinitely and without charges on the grounds that he or she may be a threat to national security.

The new NSA spying program was so blatantly in violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the NSA to obtain warrants for domestic spying from a special intelligence court, that it generated divisions within the Bush administration itself.

A New York Times article on January 1 noted that at one point in 2004, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, then acting as attorney general while John Ashcroft was recovering from surgery, refused to give approval to some aspects of the program. Ashcroft himself apparently indicated some reservations after an emergency intervention by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, now attorney general. That Ashcroft, who was closely associated with all the attacks on democratic rights of Bush's first term, had some concerns is indicative of the extraordinary breadth of the spying program.

The Bush administration continues to lie about the extent and purpose of the spying. In a speech on January 4 to the Heritage Foundation, Vice President Dick Cheney repeated the argument that the spying is authorized by the US Constitution and the congressional resolution passed following the attacks on September 11. He also repeated the line that the spying is necessary for the "war on terrorism" and is limited to "terrorist-linked international communications." If the surveillance had been in place prior to September 11, "we might have been able to pick up on two hijackers who subsequently flew a jet into the Pentagon," he said.

According to the arguments of Cheney, Bush and the administration as a whole, the "war on terrorism" grants unlimited powers, and anyone who opposes these powers is aiding and abetting terrorism. The claim that if the government had these powers before September 11, it would have been able to stop the attacks is absurd on two counts. First, it is by now well documented that the FBI and CIA had information on at least some of the hijackers but did not act on this information. There is considerable evidence that points to the complicity at some level of the government itself in facilitating the attacks, which provided a pretext for a major policy shift, including the introduction of new spying powers and a vast expansion of US military action abroad, including the implementation of pre-existing plans to invade Iraq.

Second, plans for the expansion of NSA spying powers began before September 11. Their aim is not to combat terrorism, but to monitor the activity of the American people.

According to a January 3 report in the online magazine Slate, the NSA's attempts to gain access to telecommunications switches began months before the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. "A former telecom executive told us that efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order," Slate reporters Shane Harris and Tim Naftali wrote. "The source, who asked not to be identified so as not to out his former company, reports that the NSA approached US carriers and asked for their cooperation in a 'data-mining' operation, which might eventually cull 'millions' of individual calls and e-mails."

A report written by the NSA in December 2000 for the incoming Bush administration argued that the agency had to develop new ways to exploit modern communications systems. While circumspect on specific proposals, the Transition 2001 report, made public after a Freedom of Information Act request by the non-governmental National Security Archives, called for much more expansive monitoring of telecommunications.

The report stated that under conditions in which communications are now "mostly digital, carry billions of bits of data, and contain voice, data and multimedia...senior leadership must understand that today's and tomorrow's mission will demand a powerful, permanent presence on a global telecommunications network that will host the 'protected' communications of Americans as well as targeted communications of adversaries."

A report written somewhat earlier, in June 1999, by Lieutenant General Jim Clapper of the NSA Scientific Advisory Board, argued for similar measures. While heavily redacted, the report, also made available by the National Security Archives, called for the development of "digital network intelligence," which it defined as "the intelligence from intercepted data communications transmitted between, or resident on, networked computers." Modern communications posed the problem of "manipulating huge volumes of heterogeneous complex data," it said.

Such large-scale data mining operations have now been implemented.

The Democratic Party is complicit in the implementation of these broad new spying powers. Leading members of the party were informed and repeatedly briefed on the NSA program, going back to at least October 2001.

A letter recently released by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, written on October 11, 2001, when she was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, demonstrates that the Democrats knew of the attempts to expand the powers of the NSA, even prior to an explicit and secret presidential authorization to begin the program.

The letter was written in response to a briefing given by the head of the NSA, Michael Hayden, to the House and Senate intelligence committees. In her letter, Pelosi does not object to the new programs as such, but rather raises concerns about "whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting."

In spite of the fact that the Democrats were informed of the illegal program, no attempt was made to inform the American people and oppose this illegal and unconstitutional violation of democratic rights. Even with the public exposure of the secret NSA program, and Bush's brazen assertion of his intention to continue its authorization, no leading Democrats have broached the possibility of impeachment. They are well aware of their own responsibility, and they have no disagreement with the administration's fundamental aim: the suppression of political opposition to the militarist and imperialist policies of the US ruling elite. WSWS

WASHINGTON (AP) - In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show.

The meetings between Abramoff's lobbying team and the administration ranged from Attorney General John Ashcroft to policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, according to his lobbying firm billing records.

Abramoff, a $100,000-plus fundraiser for Bush, is now under criminal investigation for some of his lobbying work. His firm boasted its lobbying team helped revise a section of the Republican Party's 2000 platform to make it favorable to its island client.

In addition, two of Abramoff's lobbying colleagues on the Marianas won political appointments inside federal agencies.

"Our standing with the new administration promises to be solid as several friends of the CNMI (islands) will soon be taking high-ranking positions in the Administration, including within the Interior Department," Abramoff wrote in a January 2001 letter in which he persuaded the island government to follow him as a client to his new lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig.

The reception Abramoff's team received from the Bush administration was in stark contrast to the chilly relations of the Clinton years. Abramoff, then at the Preston Gates firm, scored few meetings with Clinton aides and the lobbyist and the islands vehemently opposed White House attempts to extend U.S. labor laws to the territory's clothing factories.

The records from Abramoff's firm, obtained by The Associated Press from the Marianas under an open records request, chronicle Abramoff's careful cultivation of relations with Bush's political team as far back as 1997. In that year, Abramoff charged the Marianas for getting then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush to write a letter expressing support for the Pacific territory's school choice proposal, his billing records show.

"I hope you will keep my office informed on the progress of this initiative," Bush wrote in a July 18, 1997, letter praising the islands' school plan and copying in an Abramoff deputy.

White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Thursday that Bush didn't consider Abramoff a friend. "They may have met on occasion, but the president does not know him," she said.

As for the number of Abramoff lobbying team contacts with Bush officials documented in the billing records, Healy said: "We do not know how he defines 'contacts.'"

Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff, declined comment.

The Greenberg Traurig firm, where Abramoff worked between late 2000 and early 2004, is investigating Abramoff's work and cooperating with government investigations. "Greenberg Traurig accepted Jack Abramoff's resignation from the firm, effective March 2, 2004, after Mr. Abramoff disclosed to the firm personal transactions and related conduct which are unacceptable to the firm and antithetical to the way we do business," spokeswoman Jill Perry said.

Abramoff is now under federal investigation amid allegations he overcharged tribal clients by millions of dollars, and his ties to powerful lawmakers such as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay are under increasing scrutiny.

The documents show his team also had extensive access to Bush administration officials, meeting with Cheney policy advisers Ron Christie and Stephen Ruhlen, Ashcroft at the Justice Department, White House intergovernmental affairs chief Ruben Barrales, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles and others. Most of the contacts were handled by Abramoff's subordinates, who then reported back to him on the meetings. Abramoff met several times personally with top Interior officials, whose Office of Insular Affairs oversees the Mariana Islands and other U.S. territories.

In all, the records show at least 195 contacts between Abramoff's Marianas lobbying team and the Bush administration from February through November 2001. At least two people who worked on Abramoff's team at Preston Gates wound up with Bush administration jobs: Patrick Pizzella, named an assistant secretary of labor by Bush; and David Safavian, chosen by Bush to oversee federal procurement policy in the Office of Management and Budget.

"We have worked with WH Office of Presidential Personnel to ensure that CNMI-relevant positions at various agencies are not awarded to enemies of CNMI," Abramoff's team wrote the Marianas in an October 2001 report on its work for the year.

Abramoff's team didn't neglect party politics either: There were at least two meetings with Republican National Committee officials, including then-finance chief Jack Oliver, as well as attendance at GOP fundraisers.

In 2000, Abramoff and his team were connected enough to both political parties to boast of obtaining early drafts of the platforms each adopted at its presidential nominating convention.

"In the case of the Republican platform, the team reviewed and commented on sections dealing with insular territories to ensure appropriately positive treatment. This was successful," the Preston Gates firm wrote to Marianas. "In the case of the Democratic Party platform, the team assisted in drafting early versions of neutral language relating to the territories," the firm wrote. "However, heavy intervention by the White House eventually deleted positive references to the CNMI."

The access of Abramoff and his team to the administration came as the lobbyist was establishing himself as a GOP fundraiser.

Abramoff and his wife each gave $5,000 to Bush's 2000 recount fund and the maximum $1,000 to his 2000 campaign. By mid-2003, Abramoff had raised at least $100,000 for Bush's re-election campaign, becoming one of Bush's famed "pioneers." Money also flowed from the Marianas to Bush's re-election campaign: It took in at least $36,000 from island donors, much of it from members of the Tan family, whose clothing factories were a routine stop for lawmakers and their aides visiting the islands on Abramoff-organized trips.

Two Tan family companies gave $25,000 each to the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the 2002 elections. Greenberg Traurig, too, was a big GOP giver. Its donations included $20,000 to the Republican National Committee for the 2000 elections and $25,000 each to the GOP's House and Senate fundraising committees in 2000 and again in 2002.

The Marianas' lobbying paid off - it fended off proposals in 2001 to extend the U.S. minimum wage to island workers and gained at least $2 million more in federal aid from the administration.

Abramoff's team bragged to the cash-strapped Marianas government that the taxpayer money would cover its lobbying bill: "We believe that this additional funding - along with other funds we expect to secure by the end of the year - will make clear to even our biggest critics that we pay for ourselves," Abramoff teammate Kevin Ring wrote in October 2001, copying in Abramoff. - usa today

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 21 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Laura Bush predicted on Friday that the United States soon will have a female president - a Republican, and maybe even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "I think it will happen for sure," Mrs. Bush said about a woman in the Oval Office.

She made the comment in a CNN interview broadcast on Friday, the day before she leaves for Liberia to attend the inauguration of the first female president in Africa. "I think it will happen probably in the next few terms of the presidency in the United States," Mrs. Bush said

Rice has said she has no desire to be president when President Bush's second term expires, but Mrs. Bush said: "I'd love to see her run. She's terrific."

Mrs. Bush leaves Saturday night for Africa where she will visit Ghana and Nigeria to promote education and AIDS treatment after leading the U.S. delegation attending the swearing-in of Liberia's President-elect Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on Monday in Monrovia.

Rice is part of the delegation, as is one of the president's daughters, Barbara, who worked recently at a pediatric AIDS hospital in South Africa. "She's interested in the policy surrounding AIDS and what we can do in our country and in other countries around the world to really stop AIDS," Mrs. Bush said.

During the 13-minute interview in the Map Room of the White House, Mrs. Bush talked about how she and the president try to comfort the families of fallen U.S. troops by saying that their service in the armed forces is helping to establish a stable democracy in the Middle East.

In another gesture of consolation, Mrs. Bush said that on Thursday she called to offer encouragement to the wife of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who left her husband's testy Senate confirmation hearing in tears, eliciting sympathy from senators of both parties.

"I think it's very important for the Senate to have a very civil and respectful hearing for anyone that has been nominated for the Supreme Court or for the other jobs that require Senate confirmation," Mrs. Bush said. "But on the other hand, my family has been in politics for a long time and I think you do develop a thick skin. Does it ever not hurt? You know, not really." - news.yahoo.com

The Associated Press Feb. 28, 2005

TOKYO - Former President Clinton said Sunday that his wife, Hillary, would be an excellent choice as the first female leader of the world's most powerful nation. In an interview with Japan's TV Asahi, Clinton said he did not know whether his wife, the senator of New York state, has any plans to one day run for the presidency.

"I don't know if she'll run or not," he told the network, but added, "She would make an excellent president, and I would always try to help her."

Separately on Sunday, Sen. Joseph Biden said Senator Clinton would be incredibly difficult to beat if she decides to run for president. Clinton has said she plans to run for re-election as New York senator in 2006. Speculation has periodically surfaced, however, that the 57-year-old former first lady may have her sights set for the presidency in 2008. Results from a U.S. poll released last week showed that six in 10 American voters believe the United States is ready for a female president.

'Very, very good president'

Fifty-three percent thought Hillary Clinton should try for the job, according to the survey by the Siena College Research Institute and sponsored by Hearst Newspapers.

"If she did run and she was able to win, she'd make a very, very good president," Clinton said Sunday. "I think now she's at least as good as I was."

Clinton was in Japan on a three-day visit to attend an international forum organized by the Asahi newspaper and to promote a Japanese-language edition of his best-selling memoir "My Life." Biden, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," said all the Democrats need to worry about Clinton."I think she'd be incredibly difficult to beat," the Delaware Democrat said. "I think she is the most difficult obstacle for anyone being the nominee." He added, "She is likely to be the nominee. She'd be the toughest person and I think Hillary Clinton is able to be elected president of the United States."

Biden said he is himself is thinking about running again, 20 years after his first failed bid for the White House because "there's a lot at stake." MSNBC

Wed Jan 11

Bush wants to create the new criminal of "disruptor" who can be jailed for the crime of "disruptive behavior." A "little-noticed provision" in the latest version of the Patriot Act will empower Secret Service to charge protesters with a new crime of "disrupting major events including political conventions and the Olympics." Secret Service would also be empowered to charge persons with "breaching security" and to charge for "entering a restricted area" which is "where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting." In short, be sure to stay in those wired, fenced containments or free speech zones.

Who is the "disruptor"? Bush Team history tells us the disruptor is an American citizen with the audacity to attend Bush events wearing a T-shirt that criticizes Bush; or a member of civil rights, environmental, anti-war or counter-recruiting groups who protest Bush policies; or a person who invades Bush's bubble by criticizing his policies. A disruptor is also a person who interferes in someone else's activity, such as interrupting Bush when he is speaking at a press conference or during an interview.

What are the parameters of the crime of "disruptive behavior"? The dictionary defines "disruptive" as "characterized by unrest or disorder or insubordination." The American Medical Association defines disruptive behavior as a "style of interaction" with people that interferes with patient care, and can include behavior such as "foul language; rude, loud or offensive comments; and intimidation of patients and family members."

What are the rules of engagement for "disruptors"? Some Bush Team history of their treatment of disruptors provide some clues on how this administration will treat disruptors in the future.

(1) People perceived as disruptors may be preemptively ejected from events before engaging in any disruptive conduct.

In the beginning of this war against disruptors, Americans were ejected from taxpayer funded events where Bush was speaking. At first the events were campaign rallies during the election, and then the disruptor ejectment policy was expanded to include Bush's post election campaign-style events on public policy issues on his agenda, such as informing the public on medicare reform and the like. If people drove to the event in a car with a bumper sticker that criticized Bush's policies or wore T-shirts with similar criticism, they were disruptors who could be ejected from the taxpayer event even before they engaged in any disruptive behavior. White House press secretary McClellan defended such ejectments as a proper preemptive strike against persons who may disrupt an event: "If we think people are coming to the event to disrupt it, obviously, they're going to be asked to leave."

(2) Bush Team may check its vast array of databanks to cull out those persons who it deems having "disruptor" potential and then blacklist those persons from events.

The White House even has a list of persons it deems could be "disruptive" to an eventand then blacklists those persons from attending taxpayer funded events where Bush speaks. Sounds like Bush not only has the power to unilaterally designate people as "enemy combatants" in the global "war on terror," but to unilaterally designate Americans as "disruptive" in the domestic war against free speech.

(3) The use of surveillance, monitoring and legal actions against disruptors.

Bush's war against disruptors was then elevated to surveillance, monitoring, and legal actions against disruptor organizations. The FBI conducts political surveillance and obtains intelligence filed in its database on Bush administration critics , such as civil rights groups (e.g., ACLU), antiwar protest groups (e.g., United for Peace and Justice) and environmental groups (e.g., Greenpeace).

This surveillance of American citizens exercising their constitutional rights has been done under the pretext of counterterrorism activities surrounding protests of the Iraq war and the Republican National Convention. The FBI maintains it does not have the intent to monitor political activities and that its surveillance and intelligence gathering is "intended to prevent disruptive and criminal activity at demonstrations, not to quell free speech."

Surveillance of potential disruptors then graduated to legal actions as a preemptive strike against potential disruptive behavior at public events. In addition to monitoring and surveillance of legal groups and legal activities, the FBI issued subpoenas for members to appear before grand juries based on the FBI's "intent" to prevent "disruptive convention protests." The Justice Dept. opened a criminal investigation and subpoenaed records of Internet messages posted by Bush`s critics. And, the Justice Dept. even indicted Greenpeace for a protest that was so lame the federal judge threw out the case.

So now the Patriot Act, which was argued before enactment as a measure to fight foreign terrorists, is being amended to make clear that it also applies to American citizens who have the audacity to disrupt President Bush wherever his bubble may travel. If this provision is enacted into law, then Bush will have a law upon which to expand the type of people who constitute disruptors and the type of activities that constitute disruptive activities. And, then throw them all in jail. - dailykos

From correspondents in Tallahassee - January 15, 2006

A 15-year-old Florida student who was shot by police after aiming a weapon that turned out to be a pellet gun at a SWAT team remained on life support today and media reports said he was not expected to live.

Christopher Penley was being kept alive at a hospital so his organs could be harvested, the reports quoted family lawyer Mark Nation as saying. Nation and hospital officials could not be reached for comment.

Police said Penley, an eighth-grade student at Milwee Middle School in Longwood, Florida, near Orlando, was shot after he took another pupil hostage at the school, threatened to kill himself and aimed what appeared to be a handgun at police.

The gun wielded by Penley turned out to be a pellet gun made to look like a 9 mm pistol, police said. No one else was injured in the incident, officials said.

Police said Penley held another student hostage after that student spotted what looked like a gun in Penley's backpack. The hostage escaped and the student with the gun fled into a bathroom, where he held more than 40 law enforcement officers, including a SWAT team, at bay, according to police.

"The student displayed a black, semi-automatic handgun. SWAT members pleaded with the suspect to drop his weapon," the Seminole County sheriff's office said yesterday. When he aimed the weapon at a SWAT team member, "lethal force was used," the office said. - chicago tribune

BY DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star

It's not a scarlet letter. But it is a bunch of letters on a red tag stuck to someone's house - if the occupants have gotten into trouble with the law for such things as parties, noise or litter.

City leaders are floating the idea of slapping so-called "red tags" on disorderly houses to serve notice to inhabitants, neighbors and landlords that they're in trouble with the law.

And they'd better not get into trouble again any time soon.

The idea was suggested by Ed Caudill, a 21-year North Bottoms resident and neighborhood activist who hopes to reduce the parties, litter and noise in his neighborhood, where the many small, old rental houses are popular with University of Nebraska-Lincoln students.