Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY [LINK | Article]
Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
I Can Reveal the Legal Advice on Drone Strikes, and How the British Establishment Works By Craig Murray
Global Research, September 11, 2015
Craig Murray 9 September 2015 Region: Europe, Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Law and Justice, Militarization and WMD
In-depth Report: PALESTINE
This may be the most important article I ever post, because it reveals perfectly how the Establishment works and how the Red Tories and Blue Tories contrive to give a false impression of democracy. It is information I can only give you because of my experience as an insider.
It is a definitive proof of the validity of the Chomskian propaganda model. It needs a fair bit of detail to do this, but please try and read through it because it really is very, very important. After you have finished, if you agree with me about the significance, please repost, (you are free to copy), retweet, add to news aggregators (Reddit etc) and do anything you can to get other people to pay attention.
The government based its decision to execute by drone two British men in Syria on “Legal Opinion” from the Attorney-General for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, a politician, MP and Cabinet Minister. But Wright’s legal knowledge comes from an undistinguished first degree from Exeter and a short career as a criminal defence barrister in Birmingham. His knowledge of public international law is virtually nil.
I pause briefly to note that there is no pretence of consulting the Scottish legal system. The only legal opinion is from the Attorney General for England and Wales who is also Honorary Advocate General for Northern Ireland.
So Jeremy Wright’s role is as a cypher. He performs a charade. The government employs in the FCO a dozen of the most distinguished public international lawyers in the world. When the Attorney-General’s office needs an Opinion on public international law, they ask the FCO to provide it for him to sign.
The only known occasion when this did not happen was the Iraq War.Then the FCO Legal Advisers – unanimously – advised the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, that to invade Iraq was illegal.Jack Straw asked the Attorney General to dismiss the FCO chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood (Goldsmith refused). Blair sent Goldsmith to Washington where the Opinion was written for him to sign by George Bush’s lawyers. [I know this sounds incredible, but it is absolutely true]. Sir Michael Wood’s deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned in protest.
In consequence Blair and Straw decided that, again for the first time ever, the FCO’s chief legal adviser had to be appointed not from within the FCO legal advisers, who had all declared the war on Iraq to be illegal, but from outside. They had to find a distinguished public international lawyer who was prepared to argue that the war on Iraq had been legal. That was a very small field. Blair and Straw thus turned to Benjamin Netanyahu’s favourite lawyer, Daniel Bethlehem.
Daniel Bethlehem had represented Israel before the Mitchell Inquiry into violence against the people of Gaza, arguing that it was all legitimate self-defence. He had also supplied the Government of Israel with a Legal Opinion that the vast Wall they were building in illegally occupied land, surrounding and isolating all the major Palestinian communities and turning them into large prisons, was also legal.Daniel Bethlehem is an extreme Zionist militarist of the most aggressive kind, and close to Mark Regev, Israel’s new Ambassador to the UK.
Daniel Bethlehem had developed, in his work for Israel, an extremist doctrine of the right of States to use pre-emptive self-defence – a doctrine which would not be accepted by the vast majority of public international lawyers. He clinched his appointment byBlair as the FCOchief legal adviser by presenting a memorandum to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in 2004outlining this doctrine, and thus de facto defending the attack on Iraq and the Bush/Blair doctrine.
A key sentence of Daniel Bethlehem’s memorandum is this
It must be right that states are able to act in self-defence in circumstances where there is evidence of further imminent attacks by terrorist groups, even if there is no specific evidence of where such an attack will take place or of the precise nature of the attack.
There is a fundamental flaw in this argument. How can you be certain that an attack in “imminent”, if you are not certain where or what it is? Even if we can wildly imagine a scenario where the government know of an “imminent” attack, but not where or what it is, how could killing someone in Syria stop the attack in the UK? If a team were active, armed and in course of operation in the UK – which is needed for “imminent” – how would killing an individual in Syria prevent them from going through with it? It simply does not add up as a practical scenario.
Interestingly, Daniel Bethlehemdoes not pretend this is accepted international law, but specifically states that
The concept of what constitutes an “imminent” armed attack will develop to meet new circumstances and new threats [EDIT: ie ARBITRARY]
Bethlehem is attempting to develop the concept of “imminent” beyond any natural interpretation of the word “imminent”.
Daniel Bethlehem left the FCO in 2011. But he had firmly set the British government doctrine on this issue, while all FCO legal advisers know not to follow it gets you sacked. I can guarantee you that Wright’s Legal Opinion states precisely the same argument that David Bethlehem stated in his 2004 memorandum. Knowing how these things work, I am prepared to wager every penny I own that much of the language is identical.
It was New Labour, the Red Tories, who appointedDaniel Bethlehem, and they appointed him precisely in order to establish this doctrine. It is therefore a stunning illustration of how the system works, that the only response of the official “opposition” to these extrajudicial executions is to demand to see the Legal Opinion, when it comes from the man they themselves appointed. The Red Tories appointed him precisely because they knew what Legal Opinion would be given on this specific subject. They can read it in Hansard.
So it is all a charade. Jeremy Wrightpretends to give a Legal Opinion, actually from FCO legal advisers based on the “Bethlehem Doctrine”. The Labour Partypretends, very unconvincingly, to be an opposition.
The Guardian, apparently the leading “opposition” intellectual paper, publishes articles by its staff neo-con propagandistsJoshua Rozenberg (married to Melanie Phillips) and Rafael Behrstrongly supporting the government’s new powers of extrajudicial execution. In summer 2012 Joshua Rozenberg presented a programme on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Secret courts, drones and international law” which consisted mostly of a fawning interview with … Daniel Bethlehem. The BBC and Sky News give us wall to wall justification of the killings.
So the state, with its neo-con “opposition” and mediaclosely in step with its neo-con government, seamlessly adopts a new power to kill its own subjects based on secret intelligence and secret legal advice, and a very weird definition of “imminent” that even its author admits to be outside current legal understanding. That is how the state works. I do hope you find that helpful.
This article has been updated to reflect the fact the Daniel Bethlehem is now retired from the FCO.
FCO *UNANIMOUSLY* Advised: ILLEGAL to INVADE IRAQ
advised: British Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith
Lord Goldsmith
= Peter Goldsmith (Baron Goldsmith)
= barrister & attorney-general
= announced resignation same day as Tony BLAIR stepped down
= currently works in private capacity Link | here
Jack STRAW
Sought Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith dismissalof FCO chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood
Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith
= refused to fire: FCO chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood
Tony Blair = Sent Goldsmith Washington
George Bush lawyers = write 'legal opinion' = for Lord Goldsmith, British Attorney-General to SIGN
Elizabeth Wilmshurst
Deputy
of Sir Michael Wood (ie the FCO chief Legal Adviser) = RESIGNS in protest
As result:
Jack STRAW + Tony BLAIR
decide to break with tradition
for first time EVER
FCO chief adviser to be appointed from OUTSIDE the FCO
(not from the FCO legal advisers, who had ALL declared war on IRAQ to be illegal)
Jack STRAW + Tony BLAIR
turn to:
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= Benjamin Netanyahu 'favourite lawyer'
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= extreme Zionist militarist
= extremist pre-emptive 'self-defence' doctrine
= such pre-emptive doctrine:
not accepted by vast majority of international lawyers
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= legal opinion that legal to build Wall built
= on ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED LAND
(surrounding& isolating all major Palestinian communities & turning them into large prisons)
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= close to: MARK REGEV Israel new Ambassador to UK
DOCTRINE
Daniel Bethlehem developed in work for Israel
= right of STATES to use PRE-EMPTIVE 'self-defence'
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= de facto defended attack on IRAQ & the BUSH-BLAIR DOCTRINE
(previously written by BUSH admin lawyers for Peter Goldsmith, Attorney-General, Britain)
KEY to DANIEL BETHLEHEM DOCTRINE
- STATES
- 'self-defence'
- 'further imminent attacks'
- 'IMMINENT'
[arbitrary & accepted on the go to fit whatever circumstances develop as 'new']
- no specific EVIDENCE
- no precise NATURE of attack
RESULT
no EVIDENCE required
arbitrary: make up definitions, as you will
Stretch definition of 'imminent' threat
legalise state extra-judiciary assassinations
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= was appointed to FCO
= by Jack STRAW & John BLAIR
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= leaves FCO, 2011
Britain's BETHLEHEM DOCTRINE
= firmly set British government doctrine
= all FCO legal advisers know to follow it or get sacked
JEREMY WRIGHT
= legal opinion PRECISELY SAME as DANIEL BETHLEHEM legal opinion
BETHLEHEM DOCTRINE
= not even accepted under international law
= what constitutes 'imminent armed attack' is arbitrary
*BETHLEHEM DOCTRINE attempts to "develop the concept of 'imminent' beyond natural interpretation of word"
DANIEL BETHLEHEM
= was appointed by New Labour (Red Tories) - ie Labour Party, UK
= appointed PRECISELY because they knew WHAT legal opinion would be given
JEREMY WRIGHT = pretends to give legal opinion = ACTUALLY from FCO legal advisers,
BASED on BETHLEHEM DOCTRINE
Labour Party UK ... PRETENDS to be in 'opposition'
Meanwhile:
PRESS | MEDIA IN DEMOCRACY
'OPPOSITION' PRESS THE GUARDIAN
= 'opposition' intellectual press outlet
= publishes articles by "its staff neo-con propagandists"
[see propagandists]
= strongly SUPPORT govt
NEW POWERS OF EXTRA-JUDICIAL EXECUTION
OTHER PRESS BBC
= wall-to-wall justification broadcast, for extra-judicial killings
Sky News
= wall-to-wall justification broadcast, for extra-judicial killings
MURRAY’S CONCLUSION
MEDIA
> closely in step with its neo-con government = seamlessly adopts new power kill state subjects = based on secret intel & secret legal advice
Assange Transnational Security Elite, Carving Up the World Using Your Tax Money London
September 3, 2015 Is Obama the Worst President Ever?
by Dave Lindorff
Obama is on track to go down in history as one of the, or perhaps as the worst and most criminal presidents in US history.
He started out, campaigning in 2008, as someone would would restore the rule of law in US international affairs and here at home after eight years of criminality during the Bush and Cheney administration, as saying he would end America’s wars and bring back an era of international cooperation and negotiation, and as saying that he would confront the dire threat of global climate change.
On the basis of that promise, he won a dramatic election victory, raising hopes across the country and across many voting blocks. On that basis, he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize — the first time the award was given before anything had been done by the laureate being honored. And on the basis of that promise, people expected action on climate change.
Instead, the president began backpedaling almost instantly. Instead of restoring the rule of law, he almost immediately announced that he would not permit his Justice Department to engage in any prosecutions of CIA, FBI, military of Bush/Cheneyadministration personnel for violations of international law or of US law. He introduced new secrecy rules, launched a record number of prosecutions of government whistleblowers, including an international manhunt to arrest or kill NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden which included the forcing down of a presidential aircraft carrying the president of Bolivia, wrongly suspected of flying Snowden from Russia to that Latin American country, and a secret espionage indictment against Wikileaks founder Julien Assange, who has thus been trapped for years in the little UK embassy of Ecuador which has granted him asylum. And most egregiously, Barack Obama, sabotaged the first international meeting on climate change held in Denmark, and has ducked every opportunity to have the US lead on reaching an international agreement to seriously reduce global carbon emissions.
During the three Congressional electoral cycles and his re-election campaign in 2012, Obama studiously avoided pressing on any of these key issues, and especially on climate change. His position: “all of the above”, for energy development, has seen the US move, not towards carbon emission reductions, but towards expanded production of gas, oil and even coal extraction, making the US the largest oil producer in the world, and a major provider of dirty coal to both US electric companies and large coal using countries abroad, including China.
Now we have this flimflam artist up in Alaska, talking about the crisis he has helped worsen, calling it an existential issue. And yeteven as he speaks, the Shell Oil Company is towing a giant oil drilling rig up to the Arctic Ocean, thanks to an Obama administration permit, to begin drilling for oil in the shallow waters north of Alaska — drilling for yet more oil, that is, even as the world is facing a glut of the stuff, in a delicate region that would be devastated by a well blow-out, because ice would make containment an impossibility.
Future generations of Americans will surely look back at President Obama as not just a con-man, but as someone who blew several trillion dollars on continued wars around the globe, as someone who terminally destroyed the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, instead of rescuing these documents as promised, and as the president who, when given the last real opportunity to reverse climate change, ducked the challenge and pandered to the corporations that selfishly wanted short-term gain over long-term survival for humanity and the biosphere.
There are plenty of other criminal acts by this president to consider. On his watch, this first African-American president allowed an increased national police to become a fully-armed occupying army across the country.No American today is safe from abusive police who make up crimes and ignore the law at will, but paying a uniquely terrible price are African-Americans and other people of color, who once gave this president 90% of their votes or more, but who now are being gunned down with a grim regularity by mostly white cops who fire at the slightest provocation, even at unarmed kids. On his watch too, young children, fleeing US-caused gang violence in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and elsewhere in Latin America, have been sent back to their home countries illegally, or held in prisons in this country in violation of direct court orders. He also ordered his Justice Department not to prosecute the criminal bankers who willfully destroyed the US and the global economy to profit themselves and their institutions.
This president, let’s be clear, has not just been incompetent and gutless. He has been a slick political fraud and both a common and a Constitutional criminal.In a just nation of engaged citizens, Obama would already have been impeached for any number of serious crimes, beginning with the failure to prosecute known war criminals of the Bush/Cheney administration, including the president and vice-president themselves.
That’s not going to happen, because this is not a just nation of engaged citizens.
But there will be a reckoning. History will judge this president harshly, as it has judged criminal leaders of the past, from Rome’s Nero to Italy’s Mussolini or Uganda’s Idi Amin. It may strike some as hyperbole to put President Obama in league with such universally acknowledged monsters as these, but when human beings begin dying by the millions because of climate-change caused famines, floods, droughts and international armed conflicts we will surely look back at the actions and inactions of this particular president, who had the opportunity to make a huge difference and chose not just to do nothing, but to make things worse, and will say his crimes perhaps exceeded theirs.
Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).
Obama admin: = violated & continues to violate the Bill of Rights and theConstitution
Obama admin: allowed militarised police to become a fully-armed occupying army across USA
"No American today is safe from abusive police who make up crimes and ignore the law at will"
Obama admin: introduced new secrecy rules
Obama admin: launched a record number of prosecutions of whistleblowers Obama admin: engaged in international manhunt for whistleblower Edward Snowden
Obama admin: forced down of a presidential aircraft carrying the president of Bolivia (wrongly suspected of flying Snowden from Russia to Bolivia} Obama admin: initiated a secret espionage indictmentagainst WikiLeaks founder, journalist-publisher, Julian Assange (trapped for 5 yearsin the confines of UK embassy of Ecuador, which has granted him politicalasylum)
Obama admin: = ordered his Justice Department not to prosecute criminal bankers who destroyed the US & global economy for own profits
Obama admin: = blew several trillion dollars on continued wars around the globe
Obama admin: = pandered to corporations out for short-term gain over long-term effects on environment
Obama admin: = expanded production of gas, oil and even coal extraction making the US the world's largest oil producer
Thanks to Obama admin: USA = a major provider of dirty coal to both US electric companies + large coal using countries abroad, incl. China.
Thanks to Obama admin: Shell Oil Company = towing a giant oil drilling rig up to the Arctic Ocean (Obama administration permit, to begin drilling for oil in the shallow waters north of Alaska)
NSA Violates Court Rule re Mass Surveillance of Phone Records ... & Gets Replacement Snooping Program
---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------
NSA Used Phone Records Program to Seek Iran Operatives
By CHARLIE SAVAGEAUG. 12, 2015
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has used its bulk domestic phone records program to search for operatives from the government of Iran and “associated terrorist organizations” — not just Al Qaeda and its allies — according to a document obtained by The New York Times.
The document also shows that a February 2010 order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for the program listed AT&T and Sprint as involved in it. A leaked 2013 court order for the program was addressed only to a Verizon subsidiary.
The inclusion of Iran and allied terrorist groups — presumably the Shiite group Hezbollah — and the confirmation of the names of other participating companies add new details to public understanding of the once-secret program. The Bush administration created the program to try to find hidden terrorist cells on domestic soil after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and government officials have justified it by using Al Qaeda as an example.
N.S.A. Inspector General’s Reports About Bulk Phone Records Program Are Released AUG. 12, 2015
The disclosure of the new details comes at a time of debates over a proposed agreement to drop sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, and about N.S.A. surveillance and the role of American communications companies.
In June, Congress enacted a law that will ban the systematic collection of domestic phone records after November, and create a replacement program for analyzing links between callers in search of associates of terrorism suspects without the government’s keeping the bulk data.
The document disclosing new information about the program is an August 2010 letter from the Justice Department to Judge John Bates, then the presiding judge of the intelligence court. It was included in about 350 pages of N.S.A. inspector general reports about the program the government provided to The Times late on Tuesday in response to a Freedom of Information Actsuit.
The letter, which alerted Judge Bates to an incident in which a court-imposed rule for the program had been violated, contained information the government usually redacts when declassifying such documents: the full name of the intelligence court order in place for the program at the time, which included the listing of Iran and the names of the companies. The release of the uncensored version of the letter was apparently a mistake.
The N.S.A. did not respond to a request for comment.
President George W. Bush originally directed the N.S.A. to begin systematically collecting Americans’ calling records in bulk based on a unilateral assertion of executive power. In 2006, the Justice Department persuaded the intelligence court to bless the program. It began issuing orders to phone companies to turn over their customers’ calling records.
Its orders were based on a secret interpretation of a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, known as Section 215, which permits the F.B.I. to obtain business records deemed “relevant” to a national security investigation.
The theory, accepted by the intelligence court but rejected in a recent appeals court ruling, is that everyone’s records are relevant to investigations hunting for terrorists because analyzing indirect links between callers can, in theory, reveal hidden relationships and sleeper cells.
After praising the program as crucial to preventing terrorist attacks, intelligence agency officials now say that it has never thwarted one. But the program’s proponents argue that it is still a useful investigative tool.
The program became public in June 2013 after Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor, disclosed a trove of the agency’s classified documents. The first of those published was the 2013 intelligence court order to a Verizon subsidiary requiring it to turn over all its customers’ calling records.
Although the Obama administration declassified the existence of the bulk phone records program, it has declined to confirm which other phone companies participated in it and which groups it could be used to search for.
The letter does not make clear how often the N.S.A. has used the program to search for Iran or Iranian-linked terrorist organizations. It also says nothing further about the companies listed in the case name.
There has been wide speculation that AT&T, which maintains a large database of calling records, was a participant in the program. And last year, when the government declassified documents about an aborted challenge to the program by a phone company in late 2009, it redacted the firm’s name, but officials said it was Sprint.
The Justice Department letter confirms that both of those companies have been participants.
But the document also contained a surprise. In addition to listing subsidiaries of Verizon Communications, the document lists Verizon Wireless, which was then a partnership with the British firm Vodafone.
The inclusion of Verizon Wireless was striking. In June 2013, The Wall Street Journalreported that Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile had not been part of the classified program because of their foreign ownership stakes. In 2014, The Journal, The Washington Post and The Times each reported, citing intelligence officials, that for technical reasons, the program consisted mostly of landline phone records.
However, it is not clear whether the inclusion of Verizon Wireless in the name of the court order means it was turning over customer records after all.
Ed McFadden, a Verizon spokesman, said he was not permitted to say whether that was the case. But he said that as a general matter, it has been the government’s practice to use broad language covering all of Verizon’s entities in headings of such court orders because it has a complex corporate structure, regardless of whether any specific part was required to provide information under that order.
Most of the inspector general reports, unlike the letter, contained redactions. They showed that the inspector general in 2006, shortly after the pre-existing program came under the intelligence court’s rules, called for greater procedural safeguards to make sure that the new rules were followed.
There were no reports included in the documents from 2007 to 2009, when it came to light internally that the N.S.A. had been accessing the call records in a way that systematically violated the court’s rules. In late 2009, the intelligence court stopped letting the N.S.A. access the bulk data for operational purposes while it built a new system and tested it. There were many reports from 2010 and 2011, when the court ordered the inspector general to conduct a series of audits.
One document also reveals a new nugget that fills in a timeline about surveillance: a key date for a companion N.S.A. program that collected records about Americans’ emails and other Internet communications in bulk. The N.S.A. ended that program in 2011 and declassified its existence after the Snowden disclosures.
In 2009, the N.S.A. realized that there were problems with the Internet records program as well and turned it off. It then later obtained Judge Bates’s permission to turn it back on and expand it.
Either I've gone completely brain dead, or this article is hard to follow.
Never mind what they used the mass surveillance of telephone records for: the fact is they've violated intelligence court ordered terms. Bulk telephone surveillance has also supposedly been shelved, as it's not constitutional.
Mass surveillance was a 2001 / 9-11 power grab, before being sanctioned by the US intelligence court in 2006.
Now there’s a post Snowden show of dropping the mass telephone surveillance (scheduled November), but the intelligence court gives NSA a 'snoophole': analysis of 'associates' of 'terrorist' groups - which can be anyone, if one is creative in terms of definitions etc.
That sounds a lot better than bulk collection of phone data ... but it can readily be abused. Also, does anyone really believe that a government which spies on entire overseas countries, corporations, world leaders and US allies, is going to give up bulk collection of its own citizen's phone records, just like that? lol No way. It's business as usual.
The bulk collection of telephone data took place pre Snowden and was subsequently been scrapped for constitution reasons, as I understand. Bulk collection took place even though:
officials say that it has never thwarted a terrorist attack
However, the program’s:
proponents continue to argue that it is still a useful investigative tool
Nobody likes to give up that kind of power. Only reason they are making out like they are dropping mass phone surveillance is they've been exposed by Snowden.
The issue isn't if the tool is 'useful' as an investigative tool - such tools are.
The real issue is, violation of privacy on a mass scale and imposition of state power over civil liberties - as well as the issue of breaching the court limits imposed on this practice.
Looks like costs (to free society) outweigh the benefits.
Noticed Verizon 'not permitted to say' ... hmmm, I'd take that as a 'yes'. lol
The claim is that overseas customers are not affected by the program:
2013, The Wall Street Journalreported that Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile had not been part of the classified program because of their foreign ownership stakes.
document lists Verizon Wireless, which was then a partnership with the British firm Vodafone.
Since when has the US been concerned about overseas customers? NSA spies on entire countries.
Some key bits of info:
[2001?] George W. Bush originally directed the NSA to collect bulk telephone records on basis of a unilateral assertion of executive power
2006 - DOJ - persuaded the intelligence court to bless the bulk telephone surveillance program
2006 - DOJ - starts issuing orders to phone companies to turn over customers’ calling records.
2006 intelligence court orders were based on a secret interpretation of Section 215 USA Patriot Act (s.215)
lets FBI obtain business records deemed “relevant” to a national security investigation
Give with one hand & take with the other:
2015, June - intelligence court bansBULK collection of domestic phone records after November.
intel court OKs replacement program for analysing links re callers / purpose of tracking associates of terrorism suspects (which can be *anyone* government designates, I guess, lol)
So the Bush administration exercises presidential powers (state of emergency or something, probably) in response to the events of 9/11, in order to extend powers of intelligence agencies, enabling mass collection of telephone records (2001?).
And then the Justice Dept. gets the Intel Court to OK this mass collection of phone records in 2006 (which probably wasn't hard to swing). The Intelligence Court does so, by SECRET INTERPRETATION.
Secret? Well, that's strange. Or maybe not. The 'need' for secrecy is always used as leverage to get things through that otherwise wouldn't be accepted by the community.
FBI got an extension of powers at the same time: FBI gets to pull business records.
NSA violates intelligence court imposed limits.
NSA - gets to run a replacement program. lol
Not sure what to think, apart from: there's a lot of power that rests in state hands.
---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------
[ Pretty sure I won't remember much of this, despite the droning, repetitive summary. More of brain dead than usual today. lol ]
"Karl Rove's career in U.S. President George W. Bush's administration began shortly after the first inauguration of George W. Bush in January 2001." [here]
"... authors of [book] Bush’s Brain produce material that underscores the fact that for the first time in modern history a president attained office through outright criminality." [WSWS]
Rise of Bush & Rove, apparently, coincided with therise of "semi-fascist elements from the Christian right," and Rove is said to "represents the rise of political gangsterism in the Republican Party." [below & here]
"In 2002 and 2003 Rove chaired meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), an internal White House working group established in August 2002, eight months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. WHIG was charged with developing a strategy "for publicizing the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States." [here]
Long-term friend of thenSwedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (prior PM, said to be the power behind the Sweden PM 'throne' - PM said to defer to him. Bildt exposed as US spy & in English (elsewhere) here (re Expressen's attempt at casting this as 'smear', see WikiLeaks press release - here.
Long-term friend & advisor of thenSwedish PM, Fredrik Reinfeldt
Julian Assange, journalist/publisher, WikiLeaks, who released:
the Collateral Murder video on 5th April 2010 (depicting US war crimes); and
the Afghan War Logs: 2004-2010 (comprising 91,000 US reports), on 25 July 2010);
before going on to release the Iraq War Logs (comprising 391,832 US reports) that same year: October, 2010.
EXTRACTS [this section - not strict order]
Bush’s hatchet man: two biographies of Karl Rove
Bush’s Brain and Boy Genius
By Joanne Laurier 19 July 2003
Both volumes are muckraking accounts of Rove’s career, but despite their varying levels of criticism, the journalist/authors cannot help but express admiration for him. At various moments, it becomes clear that the authors measure Rove by the standards of contemporary American culture: Rove is a success, a “winner” and not a “loser,” no matter how unattractive he is as a personality and political type.
Bush’s Brain begins by claiming that Rove is “something grander” than a presidential advisor. “His influence marks a transcendent moment in American politics: the rise of an unelected consultant to a position of unprecedented power,” which may “raise” constitutional questions. The book’s authors describe Rove as the “co-president of the United States.” This is a remarkable assertion, but even more remarkable is the failure of the authors to grasp that the rise of an unelected consultant takes place as the consequence of the rise of an unelected president! Rove’s prominence is one expression of the quasi-Bonapartist character of the Bush administration.
“Cabinet appointments were vetted through him [Rove], judicial nominations crossed his desk, as did the details of a proposed energy bill, administration policy on stem-cell research, steel tariffs, and health care policy. Nearly every speech was shown to Rove before it was delivered,” asserts Boy Genius.
This wide portfolio is all the more significant because Rove seems to have little interest in the substance of policy, outside of its impact on maintaining political office. He rose through the ranks of the Republican Party as a career political operative, concerned mainly with the process of manipulating public opinion to produce a desired electoral result.
While ahard-core right-winger, Rove is not a product of the Christian fundamentalists, the neo-conservatives, the Southern racists or other factions of the contemporary far right. He comes from a slightly earlier, but equally foul, political tradition—the McCarthyite red-baiter.
Born in Denver in 1950, Rove grew up in Colorado, Utah and Nevada. Beginning his political career as a die-hard Nixonite (from age 9), Rove “escaped the Vietnam draft, but loathed everything those anti-war protesters on TV stood for,” according to Boy Genius. “I came from a relatively conservative state, Utah, and it was hard to sympathize with all those Commies,” proclaimed Rove.
After dropping out of college, Rove’s first foray into dirty tricks campaigning was in Illinois in 1970.
The notion that Bush is unchallengeable, a quasi-mythical being, is patently absurd and, more than anything, demonstrates the political outlook of these supposed critics. The temporary success of the Bush-Rove team has less to do with their innate strength than with the historic collapse of liberalism and the prostration of the Democratic Party. The current crisis arising from the exposure of Bush administration lies about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction,” whatever its immediate outcome, demonstrates the fundamentally narrow social base of the present regime and its inherent political weakness.
Bush’s eventual victory was only due to the machinations of the Republican Party on election night and in Florida in the subsequent weeks, a conspiracy in which Rove was centrally involved, culminating in the anti-democratic ruling by the US Supreme Court that shut down vote-counting.
To help his clients win office, Rove conducted “whisper wars”—a genteel way of saying slander campaigns—against political opponents. Whispers of homosexuality in the Texas state government purportedly undermined the gubernatorial campaign of incumbent Ann Richards in her unsuccessful 1994 fight against Rove’s client George W Bush. The same tactic was used in the 2000 GOP primary against John McCain. Rumors were circulated that McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, had become mentally unhinged as a result of his imprisonment.
Although Bush was Rove’s premier asset—“the keys to the kingdom”—the latter maintained a list of private business clients who paid for his political advice. Among them was tobacco giant Philip Morris, which hired Rove to provide “political intelligence.” Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Angolan anti-communist guerrilla leader and mass murderer Jonas Savimbi also paid Rove to lobby for them.
The authors of Bush’s Brain produce material that underscores the fact that for the first time in modern history a president attained office through outright criminality. Documents released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) some 19 months after the election reveal that the Bush team flew an estimated 250 operatives to Florida to disrupt the vote recount. Dubbed the “Brooks Brothers Riots” (after the upscale clothing worn by the disrupters), a successful effort was organized to stop the recount in Miami-Dade county of the estimated 10,000 “undervotes”—ballots for which no presidential choice had been registered by the original machine count.
The authors of Bush’s Brain contend that “Rove represents a new species of advisor,” a “product of the permanent campaign, the co-president, whose relationship with Bush, and his faithful guidance, have put him at the heart of power in a manner unknown to previous political consultants and U.S. electoral history.” But Rove must be placed within the appropriate political context—the takeover of the Republican Party by semi-fascist elements from the Christian right. He represents the rise of political gangsterism in the Republican Party, and his current political “success” is the product of the alliance of these forces with the Christian fundamentalists, for which he has been a leading facilitator.
In general, the authors elevate Rove’s role at the expense of other members of the Bush administration, such as Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Both books tend to exaggerate his significance in order to avoid a more probing analysis of the present government and the political and social crisis in America.
Nonetheless, the ascent of this right-wing mediocrity, whose only apparent skill is manipulation and deceit, to the highest levels of power is telling. It is one expression of the decay of bourgeois democracy in the US and the degeneration of the ruling elite as a whole. In the final analysis, semi-criminal elements like Rove come out of the woodwork to attempt to rescue, by any means necessary, a fatally diseased American capitalism.
Richard Phillips: Can you comment on the latest details of the United States grand jury indictment and what happens if you’re extradited to Sweden?
Julian Assange: The new evidence that emerged from the Stratfor files—emails from a Texas-based private intelligence agency—show that the US government has obtained a secret grand jury indictment against me. The US ambassador to the United Kingdom, Louis Susman, stated in February 2011 that the US government would wait and see what happened with the current Swedish extradition case as to whether it would pursue extradition itself.
The US ambassador to Australia [Jeffrey L. Bleich], one week prior to Obama’s recent visit, also told the Australian media that the Australian government might have to consider its extradition obligations in relation to me, presumably in case I returned to Australia. And while WikiLeaks has many of its people under legal attack, the organisation itself is also under an extra-judicial financial blockade. There are some 40 people who have been swept up in operations by the FBI, Scotland Yard or other police forces.
... Even if we are successful in the Supreme Court, the situation will be similar because the United States is likely to unseal its espionage charges through the grand jury and apply directly for my extradition from Great Britain.
RP: Do you have any detailed information on direct collusion between Britain, the US and Sweden over your extradition?
JA: What we can say publicly is that on December 8, 2010, the Independent newspaper published a report about informal contacts that were already occurring at that stage between the US and Sweden in relation to my extradition. The Australian embassy in Washington also sent a cable to Canberra round this time, stating that the US intelligence and criminal investigation into WikiLeaks was of “unprecedented scale and nature.” It also said that the criminal prosecution in relation to me was “active and vigorous”. That material was the result of a Freedom of Information request and printed in the Sydney Morning Herald a few months ago.
The UK crown prosecution service has also refused a request under the Freedom of Information Act in relation to communications over potential extradition arrangements, stating that it would affect Great Britain’s diplomatic relations with other countries. In the middle of last year, the UK’s extradition reform panel, which was appointed by the home secretary, met with Eric Holder, the US attorney general, and a number of members of the Defence Department in the United States. In addition, there have beenother recent meetings between Carl Bildt, the Swedish minister of foreign affairs [and close friend of Karl Rove], and William Haig, the UK foreign affairs minister.
RP: Can you comment on the role being played by Australia’s Gillard government?
JA: The reaction by the Gillard government to WikiLeaks activities, in particular our release of the US diplomatic cables, was publicly the worst of any nation. Gillard falsely stated that our organisation was engaged in illegal activities. This was found to be false by an Australian Federal Police investigation.
Together with the attorney general, she initiated a “whole of government task force” against WikiLeaks, recruiting the Australian Federal Police, the external intelligence agency ASIS, the domestic intelligence agency ASIO, the defence department and the attorney general’s department. Publicly, Gillard has not issued a single statement of support and we are not aware of any private support.
The US government is trying to erect a new interpretation of what it means to be a journalist. It wants any communications with a source to be viewed legally as a conspiracy. In other words, it wants journalists to be completely passive receptacles for others. But this is simply not how national security journalism has been traditionally done. If they succeed, it will be the end of national security journalism in the West as we know it.
These attacks on us have also been picked up by other countries and used to legitimise their own crackdowns. For example, two Swedish journalists are currently being jailed in Ethiopia. They were investigating a Swedish oil company by the name of Lundin—Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildthad previously been a director of the company—but have been sentenced to 11 years jail in Ethiopia on terrorism charges. The Ethiopian prime minister says that it is perfectly acceptable to treat journalists this way and has pointed to my circumstances as justification.
The issues facing WikiLeaks are entirely political and therefore a matter of public concern. My message to people everywhere is: do not wait until WikiLeaks is bankrupted or its members extradited to the United States before acting. It will be too late then. If people act strongly now, then the organisation will succeed. WikiLeaks has a lot of support and we’re battle hardened now. We’re not going down without a fight and if everyone pulls together then we will win.
Rove Suspected In Swedish-U.S. Political Prosecution of WikiLeaks
EXTRACT
Rove has advised Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt for the past two yearsafter resigning as Bush White House political advisor in mid-2007.
Legal Schnauzer blogger Roger Shuler scooped me on the story about Rove's Swedish work in a Dec. 14 column, "Is Karl Rove Driving the Effort to Prosecute Julian Assange?" But a big part of our role as web journalists should be following up on each other's work.
Shuler is an expert on how Rove-era "Loyal Bushies" undertook political prosecutions against Democrats on trumped up corruption charges across the Deep South, including against former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, his state's leading Democrat. The Siegelman case has turned into most notorious U.S. political prosecution of the decade, as readers here well know. It altered that state's politics and improved business opportunities for companies well-connected to Bush, Rove and their state GOP supporters.
Is Karl Rove Driving the Effort to Prosecute Julian Assange?
EXTRACT
That Assange's legal troubles would originate in Sweden probably is not a coincidence, our source says. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has been called "the Ronald Reagan of Europe," and he has a friendship with Rove that dates back at least 10 years, to the George W. Bush campaign for president in 2000. Reinfeldt reportedly asked Rove to help with his 2010 re-election in Sweden.
On the hot seat for his apparent role in the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, Rove sought comfort in Sweden. "When [Rove] was in trouble and did not want to testify on the three times he was invited [by the U.S. Congress], he wound up in Sweden," our source says. "Further, it was [Reinfeldt] that first hired Karl when he got thrown out of the White House.
"Clearly, it appears that [Rove], who claims to be of Swedish descent, feels a kinship to Sweden . . . and he has taken advantage of it several times."
Why would Rove be interested in corralling Julian Assange? To help protect the Bush legacy, our source says. "The very guy who has released the documents that damage the Bushes the most is also the guy that the Bush's number one operative can control by being the Swedish prime minister's brain and intelligence and economic advisor."
PM's Biographer Sees Rove Influence In Swedish Politics
EXTRACT
George W. Reinfeldt: The art of making a political extreme makeover
Dr. Brian Palmer of Uppsala University in Sweden provided an illuminating interview on the Jan.13 edition of my Washington Update radio show regarding the influence of Karl Rove on Swedish politics as an advisor to the governing Moderate Party.
EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 