ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN, No. 687 Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 00:27:17 -0600 (CST) ________________________________________ ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN News * Analysis * Research * Action ________________________________________ - AFIB No. 687, January 15, 2006 - FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL! FREE LEONARD PELTIER! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS & PRISONERS OF WAR! END THE OCCUPATIONS! ISRAEL OUT OF PALESTINE! U.S. OUT OF IRAQ! >From the late forties continuously for three decades, the National Security Agency (NSA)--the most secretive, lavishly funded, and largest of all the agencies in the intelligence community--monitored international cable communications for intelligence date (Operation SHAMROCK). The targets were not confined to embassies and other foreign intelligence sources but included domestic political subjects without grounds for suspecting espionage. SHAMROCK was implemented by physically scanning the text of cables made available by the three major companies in the field, and by directly monitoring international telephone and cable traffic. The latter operation was initiated in the fall of 1967 when an Army intelligence chief (General William Yarborough) requested the NSA to provide information in support of the Army's civil disturbance responsibilities, pinpointing the role of foreign governments in fomenting domestic discord. [The CIA's] Operation CHAOS received 1100 pages of such ! material from the NSA. The FBI justified its extended submissions (950 names out of a total of 1200 in the "civil disturbance" category) on the theory that its listees were bent on destroying the government and hence were "natural allies of the foreign enemies of the U.S." -- Frank J. Donner, The Age of Surveillance: The Aims and Methods of America's Political Intelligence System [New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1980] p. 276. Contents: Number 687 01. CAPITOL HILL BLUE [Washington, D.C.]: Bush Could Seize Absolute Control of U.S. Government. 02. THE RAW STORY [Cambridge, MA]: National Security Agency Mounted Massive Spy Op on Baltimore Peace Group, Documents Show. 03. TRUTHOUT [Los Angeles]: Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11. 04. WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE [Oak Park, MI]: Florida College Professor and Wife Arrested as Cuban Spies. Covering up for US-backed terror. 05. THE NARCO NEWS BULLETIN [Latin America]: Leaked Memo: Corrupt DEA Agents in Colombia Help Narcos and Paramilitaries. 06. THE MOSCOW TIMES: Gag Reflex. * * * ________________________________________________________________ BUSH COULD SEIZE ABSOLUTE CONTROL OF U.S. GOVERNMENT ________________________________________________________________ CAPITOL HILL BLUE The Rant January 13, 2006 http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7986.shtml By DOUG THOMPSON Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue President George W. Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on American streets. This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances. Bush discussed imposing martial law on American streets in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by activating bnational security initiativesb put in place by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These bnational security initiatives," hatched in 1982 by controversial Marine Colonel Oliver North, later one of the key players in the Iran-Contra Scandal, charged the Federal Emergency Management Agency with administering executive orders that allowed suspension of the Constitution, implementation of martial law, establishment of internment camps, and the turning the government over to the President. John Brinkerhoff, deputy director of FEMA, developed the martial law implementation plan, following a template originally developed by former FEMA director Louis Gifuffrida to battle a bnational uprising of black militants.b Gifuffridabs implementation of martial law called for jailing at least 21 million African Americans in brelocation camps.bB Brinkerhoff later admitted in an interview with the Miami Herald that President Reagan signed off on the initiatives and they remained in place, dormant, until George W. Bush took office. Brinkerhoff moved on the Anser Institute for Homeland Security and, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, provided the Bush White House and the Pentagon with talking points supporting revised bnational security initiativesb that could allow imposition of martial law and suspension of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1978, the law that is supposed to forbid use of troops for domestic law enforcement. Brinkerhoff wrote that intentions of Posse Comitatus are bmisunderstood and misappliedb and that the U.S. has in times of national emergency the bfull and absolute authorityb to send troops into American streets to benforce order and maintain the peace.b Bush used parts of the plan to send troops into the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Quatrain. In addition, FEMA hired former special forces personnel from the mercenary firm Blackwater USA to benforce security.b Blackwater USA, in its promotional materials, describes itself as bthe most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world,b adding that bwe have established a global presence and provide training and operational solutions for the 21st century in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.b Blackwater is also a major U.S. contractor in Iraq and has a contract with the Bush White House to provide additional security work bon an as-needed basis.b The Department of Homeland Security established the bNorthern Command for National Defense,b a wide-ranging program that includes FEMA, the Pentagon, the FBI and the National Security Agency.B Executive orders already signed by Bush allow the Northern Command to send troops into American streets, seize control of radio and television stations and networks and impose martial law bin times of national emergency.b The authority to declare what is or is not a national emergency rests entirely with Bush who does not have to either consult or seek the approval of Congress for permission to assume absolute control over the government of the United States. The White House press office would neither confirm nor deny existence of Bushbs executive orders or the existence of the Northern Command for National Defense.B Neither would the Department of Homeland Security. But my sources within the White House and DHS tell me the plans are in place, ready for implementation when the command comes from the man who keeps telling the American public that he is a bwar time presidentb who will bdo anything in my powerb to impose his will on the people of the United States. And he has made sure that power will be absolute when he chooses to use it. Copyright B) 2006 by Capitol Hill Blue ***** ________________________________________________________________ NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY MOUNTED MASSIVE SPY OP ON BALTIMORE PEACE GROUP, DOCUMENTS SHOW ________________________________________________________________ THE RAW STORY Feature Story January 10, 2006 http://rawstory.com/news/2005/National_Security_Agency_spied_on_Baltimore_0110.html by Kevin Zeese The National Security Agency has been spying on a Baltimore anti-war group, according to documents released during litigation, going so far as to document the inflating of protesters' balloons, and intended to deploy units trained to detect weapons of mass destruction, RAW STORY has learned. According to the documents, the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a Quaker-linked peace group, has been monitored by the NSA working with the Baltimore Intelligence Unit of the Baltimore City Police Department. The documents came as a result of litigation in the August 2003 trial of Marilyn Carlisle and Cindy Farquhar. An NSA security official provided the defendants with a redacted Action Plan and a redacted copy of a Joint Terrorism Task Force email about the activities of the Pledge of Resistance activities. The NSA, established in 1952 by President Truman, is the largest and most secret of U.S. intelligence agencies. Headquartered between Baltimore and Washington, DC, the agency has two principal functions: to protect U.S. government communications and intercept foreign transmissions. However, the NSA's United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about "U.S. persons, entities, corporations or organizations" without explicit written permission from the Attorney General. The revelation that a Baltimore peace group was spied upon comes in the wake of a news reports that the agency has also been eavesdropping on Americans' international calls and raises new questions about the legality of NSA activities. The agency did not immediately return a request for comment. The Baltimore Pledge of Resistance is part of the national Iraq Pledge of Resistance, which works with the Baltimore Emergency Response Network and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) -- part of a national group committed to nonviolent civil resistance to stop the war in Iraq. The Pledge lobbies Maryland congressmembers via letters, phone calls, faxes, emails and face-to-face meetings; members of the group are periodically arrested for peaceable protests. Documents turned over by the NSA indicate that the group was closely monitored. In one instance, the agency filed reports approximately every 15 minutes from 9:30 AM to 3:18 PM on the day of a demonstration at the National Vigilance Airplane Memorial on the NSA Campus in Maryland. According to an NSA email dated July 4, 2004, the agency collected license numbers and descriptions and the number of people in each car and filed a report about them gathering in a church parking lot for the demonstration. NSA agents also logged their travel to the demonstration, including stopping as a gas station along the way. A canine dog unit was used to search a minivan when it was stopped on the way to the demonstration - nothing was found. NSA officials even reported on the balloons being inflated for the demonstration and the content of their signs. An entry made at 1300 hours on July 4. reads, "The Soc. was advised the protestors were proceeding to the airplane memorial with three helium balloons attached to a banner that stated, 'Those Who Exchange Freedom for Security Deserve Neither, Will Ultimately Lose Both.'" On the day of the demonstration three protesters were cited for "disturbances on government property" and released. A federal judge eventually dismissed the case before trial. Two of those demonstrators, Max Obuszewiski and Ellen Barfield, are still scheduled for trial in Baltimore federal court Jan. 25. The defendants have filed a motion for discovery and included the letter from the NSA acknowledging spying on the Pledge. The prosecutor has refused to release this information as part of discovery. The defendants plan to argue that the information is necessary for their defense. "The NSA confirmed, because of a FOIA request I filed, that indeed it has files on peace and justice groups," Obuszewiski said. "However, the Agency is refusing to release the information unless I pay $1,915. What might be in these files?" A second NSA document on the letterhead of the National Security Agency Police and authored by NSA Police Major Michael E. Talbert is dated Oct. 3, 2004. It is an action plan for the "threat of a demonstration hosted by a group known as Pledge of Resistance - Baltimore." They note the demonstration is part of the "Keep Space for Peace Week." The NSA action plan includes plans for four days, but six activities being planned by the NSA before the day of the demonstration have been redacted. Extensive plans are described for the day of the Oct. 4, 2004 demonstration. The letter shows that the NSA planned to have their Weapons of Mass Destruction Rapid Response Team on site, an officer with a shotgun, an increase in the number of officers, mobile units monitoring the highway and parking lot, roving patrols on bicycles in various areas, four K9 handlers, agents to provide counter-surveillance, aerial observations by the Anne Arundel, Maryland police and photography/video surveillance of the activities. "The NSA Weapons of Mass Destruction Rapid Response Team will have a limited staffing on hand to support the event," Talbert's memo reads. "...Anne Arundel County Police will be requested to provide aerial observations." "Shocking appalling and unnecessary," is how the Chair of the DC Chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild Demonstration Support Committee Mark Goldstone describes the NSA actions. Goldstone, who often represents activists who engage in non-violent civil disobedience, is not counsel in this litigation. "This surveillance is completely unrelated to even an expansive definition of 'national security.'" Maria Allwine, a protester arrested Oct. 4, 2004, recently described the events in an interview on Democracy Rising. "The NSA must be spying on us from the federal post office right across a small street from the AFSC," Allwine said. "It's the only place that gives them enough of a view to see our cars/license plate numbers." Allwine also discussed how the Pledge has been infiltrated. She described a March 20, 2003 demonstration in downtown Baltimore where "a provocateur (whom we had identified at our planning meeting the previous night) joined us. We'd never seen him before. . . during the die-in at the federal courthouse, he was taunting the police in a violent manner. We had to quiet him down, he then disappeared and we never saw him again - and, of course, he wasn't arrested with the other 49 of us." The monitoring is ongoing. Allwine says that at demonstrations the police "have had cookies and drinks set up for us (we don't partake!) and tell us they knew we were coming." Goldstone says the impact of NSA surveillance is worrisome. "People should not be afraid to speak out, and unfortunately evidence of domestic spying tends to chill people's interest in speaking out- thus chilling and limiting our precious First Amendment rights," he told RAW STORY. "Nothing that the Pledge does, either by their public advocacy against the war or their non-violent civil disobedience/resistance to war can be plausibly seen as a threat to United States national security, as the group is pledged to non-violence and non-property destruction guidelines." David Rocah, a staff attorney with the Maryland ACLU, adds, "There is obviously a well-founded concern of law enforcement monitoring of First Amendment activities. The ACLU and others have exposed such activities all over the country resulting in law suits." Goldstone says Congress must rein in the NSA. "Congress must investigate this, and get a handle on the issue of domestic spying by the NSA and other agencies against people exercising political speech," he said. Kevin Zeese is director of Democracy Rising and a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. Copyright B) 2004-06 Raw Story Media, Inc. All rights reserved. ***** TRUTHOUT 767 South San Pedro St. Los Angeles CA, 90014 Editor, Marc Ash Tel: 1.213.489.1971 E-mail: ma@truthout.com Web: http://www.truthout.com - Friday, 13 January 2006 - ----- ________________________________________________________________ BUSH AUTHORIZED DOMESTIC SPYING BEFORE 9/11 ________________________________________________________________ Perspective http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Z.shtml By Jason Leopold The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document. The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups. In its "Transition 2001" report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that "American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist." "Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says. However, it adds that "senior leadership must understand that the NSA's mission will demand a 'powerful, permanent presence' on global telecommunications networks that host both 'protected' communications of Americans and the communications of adversaries the agency wants to target." What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information. But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law. James Risen, author of the book State of War and credited with first breaking the story about the NSA's domestic surveillance operations, said President Bush personally authorized a change in the agency's long-standing policies shortly after he was sworn in in 2001. "The president personally and directly authorized new operations, like the NSA's domestic surveillance program, that almost certainly would never have been approved under normal circumstances and that raised serious legal or political questions," Risen wrote in the book. "Because of the fevered climate created throughout the government by the president and his senior advisers, Bush sent signals of what he wanted done, without explicit presidential orders" and "the most ambitious got the message." The NSA's domestic surveillance activities that began in early 2001 reached a boiling point shortly after 9/11, when senior administration officials and top intelligence officials asked the NSA to share that data with other intelligence officials who worked for the FBI and the CIA to hunt down terrorists that might be in the United States. However the NSA, on advice from its lawyers, destroyed the records, fearing the agency could be subjected to lawsuits by American citizens identified in the agency's raw intelligence reports. The declassified report says that the "Director of the National Security Agency is obligated by law to keep Congress fully and currently formed of intelligence activities." But that didn't happen. When news of the NSA's clandestine domestic spying operation, which President Bush said he had authorized in 2002, was uncovered last month by the New York Times, Democratic and Republican members of Congress appeared outraged, claiming that they were never informed of the covert surveillance operation. It's unclear whether the executive order signed by Bush removes the NSA Director from his duty to brief members of Congress about the agency's intelligence gathering programs. Eavesdropping on Americans required intelligence officials to obtain a surveillance warrant from a special court and show probable cause that the person they wanted to monitor was communicating with suspected terrorists overseas. But Bush said that the process for obtaining such warrants under the 1978 Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act was, at times, "cumbersome." In a December 22, letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote that the "President determined it was necessary following September 11 to create an early warning detection system. FISA could not have provided the speed and agility required for the early warning detection system." However, what remains murky about that line of reasoning is that after 9/11, former Attorney General John Ashcroft undertook a full-fledged lobbying campaign to loosen the rules and the laws governing FISA to make it easier for the intelligence community to obtain warrants for wiretaps to spy on Americans who might have ties to terrorists. Since the legislative change, more than 4,000 surveillance warrants have been approved by the FISA court, leading many to wonder why Bush selectively chose to bypass the court for what he said were a select number of individuals. More than a dozen legal scholars dispute Moschella's legal analysis, saying in a letter just sent to Congress that the White House failed to identify "any plausible legal authority for such surveillance." "The program appears on its face to violate existing law," wrote the scholars of constitutional law, some of whom worked in various senior capacities in Republican and Democratic administrations, in an extraordinary letter to Congress that laid out, point by point, why the president is unauthorized to permit the NSA to spy on Americans and how he broke the law by approving it. "Even conceding that the President in his role as Commander in Chief may generally collect 'signals intelligence' on the enemy abroad, Congress indisputably has authority to regulate electronic surveillance within the United States, as it has done in FISA," the letter states. "Where Congress has so regulated, the President can act in contravention of statute only if his authority is exclusive, that is, not subject to the check of statutory regulation. The DOJ letter pointedly does not make that extraordinary claim. The Supreme Court has never upheld warrantless wiretapping within the United States." Additionally, "if the administration felt that FISA was insufficient, the proper course was to seek legislative amendment, as it did with other aspects of FISA in the Patriot Act, and as Congress expressly contemplated when it enacted the wartime wiretap provision in FISA," the letter continues. "One of the crucial features of a constitutional democracy is that it is always open to the President - or anyone else - to seek to change the law. But it is also beyond dispute that, in such a democracy, the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable." Jeffrey Smith, the former General Counsel for the CIA under the Clinton administration, also weighed in on the controversy Wednesday. Smith said he wants to testify at hearings that Bush overstepped his authority and broke the law. His own legal opinion on the spy program was included in a 14-page letter to the House Select Committee on Intelligence that said that President Bush does not have the legal authority to order the NSA to spy on American citizens, aides to Congressman John Conyers said Wednesday evening. "It is not credible that the 2001 authorization to use force provides authority for the president to ignore the requirements of FISA," Smith wrote, adding that if President Bush's executive order authorizing a covert domestic surveillance operation is upheld as legal "it would be a dramatic expansion of presidential authority affecting the rights of our fellow citizens that undermines the checks and balances of our system, which lie at the very heart of the Constitution." Still, one thing that appears to be indisputable is that the NSA surveillance began well before 9/11 and months before President Bush claims Congress gave him the power to use military force against terrorist threats, which Bush says is why he believed he had the legal right to bypass the judicial process. According to the online magazine Slate, an unnamed official in the telecom industry said NSA's "efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a 'data-mining' operation, which might eventually cull 'millions' of individual calls and e-mails." Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a regular contributer to TruthOut. Copyright B) 2006 TruthOut ***** WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Web: http://www.wsws.org/ E-Mail: editor@wsws.org - Thursday, 12 January 2006 - ----- ________________________________________________________________ FLORIDA COLLEGE PROFESSOR AND WIFE ARRESTED AS CUBAN SPIES Covering up for US-backed terror ________________________________________________________________ News & Analysis: North America http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/miam-j12.shtml By Bill Van Aukenb( The arrest of a middle-aged Florida college professor and his wife as alleged spies for the Castro government has all the earmarks of a politically motivated prosecution aimed at diverting attention from Washingtonbs backing for terrorism directed against Cuba. Arrested by federal agents last Friday were Carlos Alvarez, 61, a professor in Florida International Universitybs education department since 1974, and his wife Elsa, 55, a counselor in the universitybs psychological services department. Federal prosecutors claimed that Alvarez had carried out espionage for Cuba since 1977, and his wife since 1982. Both are naturalized American citizens who came to the US from Cuba in their youth. The nature of this so-called spying, however, is far from clear. Justice Department officials acknowledged that there is no evidence that the pair passed any classified documents or information on US military or security matters to Cuba. They likewise admitted that there is no indication they received any money from the Cuban government. Rather, the information that the government alleged was provided to the Cuban government concerned the activities of the rabidly anti-Castro exile organizations that have carried out terrorist attacks against Cuba. Moreover, US Attorney Alexander Acosta indicated that the case is based largely upon voluntary statements that the couple gave to the FBI last summer. bWe believe the statements are, in fact, a confession,b Acosta told the Associated Press. This odd formulation suggests that the statements may well, in fact, be nothing of the kind. The actual federal indictment does not include any charge of espionage. Rather, the couple is accused of failing to register as bagents of a foreign government,b a charge that essentially amounts to failing to fill out a government form, and which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. This has stopped neither the government nor the south Florida media, however, from hyping the case as a dramatic apprehension of Cuban spies. US Attorney Acosta, for example, told the local press, bWhenever spies transmit some type of information to the government of Cuba there is a danger to the United States.b Citing the couplebs connection to the university, Acosta told the Spanish-language daily Nuevo Herald that bthese individuals were in contact with youth, they wanted to influence them at an age in which they are very impressionable.b This last scurrilous accusation has no basis whatsoever in fact and amounts to an attempt to whip up an atmosphere of hysteria against the couple within Miamibs right-wing Cuban C)migrC) circles. Other federal officials have admitted that the pair made no effort to convince students to support Cuba. A judge ordered the couple held without bond in the Miami Federal Detention Center. They have five children, including a 12-year-old daughter. Friends and colleagues interviewed by the Miami Herald expressed shock at the arrests, describing Carlos Alvarez as a pillar of the university. bCarlos is an excellent person, a dreamer, who sought national reconciliation for many years,b Maria Cristina Herrera, founder of the Institute of Cuban Studies, told the paper. bIbm sick over this,b she added. bMy concern is that people tend to be considered guilty before therebs any evidence,b said DamiC!n Fernandez, director of FIUbs Cuban Research Institute. bThese things tend to stick.b Meanwhile, Miamibs virulently anti-Castro Spanish-language mass media has seized upon the indictment, using it to intimidate Cuban-Americans who have advocated normalization of US relations with Cuba. The timing of the arrests provides ample grounds for suspicion that Washington has its own political motives in pursuing the case. The latest spy allegations come barely two weeks before a US immigration judge in El Paso, Texas is set to hand down a ruling on CIA-trained anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. It is widely anticipated that Posada, who has enjoyed the protection of US administrations for more than 40 years, will ultimately be released on parole. He is wanted in Venezuela for the 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which 73 people were killed. In the decades since, he has been implicated in numerous terrorist operations, including the bombings of hotels and tourist sites, in which an Italian citizen was killed in 1997, and in attempts on the life of Castro. While the government of Venezuela formally sought his extradition last fall to face murder charges in that country, the Bush administration has rebuffed this demand and has instead held him on a minor immigration charge of entering the US illegally. Ironically, US immigration authorities ruled out sending him to Venezuela, where Posada holds citizenship, after his lawyers claimed he would face torture in that country. Aside from the fact that there is no evidence to support the claim that torture is routinely practiced today in Venezuela, Posada himself has been accused of torturing prisoners when he worked for the Venezuelan secret police under a US-backed regime in the 1970s. Moreover, there is ample evidence that Washington is carrying out torture against benemy combatantsb and alleged terrorists in its worldwide network of CIA and military detention centers. The US administration has a powerful motive for protecting Posada and preventing his facing trial for his crimes. He worked for years as a paid agent of the CIA, and such a trial could well expose Washingtonbs decades-long involvement in terrorism against Cuba and other perceived opponents of US interests in Latin America. It was largely for this reason that Bushbs father in 1990 freed Orlando Bosch, Posadasbs co-conspirator in the airplane bombing and numerous other terrorist acts. Bosch today enjoys US permanent resident status and protection by the US government in Miami. The arrest of the Alvarez couple in Miami also come barely a month before a US appeals court in Atlanta is to hear oral arguments concerning the so-called bCuban Five,b who have been jailed since 1998 on charges of spying upon and infiltrating anti-Castro C)migrC) groups. After their conviction in a 2001 trial, Gerardo HernC!ndez, RamC3n LabaC1ino, and Antonio Guerrero were sentenced to life in prison. Two others, Fernando GonzC!lez and RenC) GonzC!lez, were given 19- and 15-year sentences, respectively. Last August, an appellate panel overturned the convictions, ruling that the trial judge had wrongly denied a defense motion to change the trialbs venue from Miami, out of concern that the anti-Castro exile groups had created a political climate in which a fair trial was impossible. Now the full 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals has taken the relatively rare step of reviewing the panelbs decision, hearing government arguments for the reinstatement of the convictions. The governmentbs determination to make the convictions stick found perverse expression at the end of last month when the US attorneybs office in Miami filed a motion to block the court from receiving amicus briefs filed by legal organizations raising democratic and human rights issues relating to the case. The three-judge panel that threw out the convictions found that a new trial was required due to a bperfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment and extensive publicity, both before and during the trial, merged with the improper prosecutorial references.b The court barred the defendants from introducing any evidence related to the terrorist violence carried out by the groups they were charged with spying upon. The bprosecutorial referencesb included a summation that branded Cuba as a terrorist nation and claimed that the defendants had been bsent to ... destroy the United States.b The real connections were precisely the opposite. As in the latest arrests, there was no evidence that the activities of the five Cubans involved any relay of classified information about the US to Cuba or had anything to do with a supposed breach of US security. Rather, the principal bcrimeb of which the five were accused was spying on groups given free rein in Miami to carry out violent attacks aimed at destroying Cuba. Speaking before a hand-picked audience in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday, George W. Bush repeated the mantra that he invoked to justify the US invasion of Afghanistan four years ago: bIf you harbor a terrorist, if you provide safe haven to a terrorist, youbre equally as guilty as the terrorist.b Bushbs assertion stands as a damning self-indictment. Washington protects and sponsors Posada, Bosch and other terrorists, while ruthlessly persecuting those charged with uncovering and foiling their murderous actions. An administration that has justified its every action in the name of a bglobal war on terrorismb is in reality one of the worldbs foremost practitioners of state-sponsored terrorism. Copyright 1998-2005 World Socialist Web Site All rights reserved. ***** THE NARCO NEWS BULLETIN Reporting on the Drug War and Democracy from Latin America Al Giordano, Publisher E-Mail: publisher@narconews.com http://www.narconews.com - Issue No. 40, January 9, 2006 - ----- ________________________________________________________________ LEAKED MEMO: CORRUPT DEA AGENTS IN COLOMBIA HELP NARCOS AND PARAMILITARIES ________________________________________________________________ Internal Justice Dept. Document Alleges Drug Trafficking Links, Money Laundering and Conspiracy to Murder By Bill Conroyb(Special to The Narco News Bulletin http://narconews.com/Issue40/article1543.html The drug war is supposed to follow a very clear script: According to the official screenwriters, the U.S. justice system is pitted against corrupt players in foreign countries who are trying to flood American streets with illicit drugs. The narco-traffickers, crooked cops, and thieving politicians in the drug war are always over there, in Latin America, and elsewhere, and U.S. law enforcers and government officials are always the good guys battling these forces of evil. But what happens when evidence surfaces that turns that script on its ear? What happens if proof emerges that it is the U.S. justice system that is corrupt? A document obtained recently by Narco News makes those questions more than hypothetical queries. In this document, Department of Justice attorney Thomas M. Kent claims that federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administrationbs office in BogotC!, Colombia, are the corrupt players in the war on drugs. (The DEA is part of the larger Justice Department.) The information in that document is also corroborated by a number of other sources that spoke directly to Narco News, including former government officials who are familiar with the DEAbs BogotC! operations. Kentbs memorandum contains some of the most serious allegations ever raised against U.S. antinarcotics officers: that DEA agents on the front lines of the drug war in Colombia are on drug traffickersb payrolls, complicit in the murders of informants who knew too much, and, most startlingly, directly involved in helping Colombiabs infamous rightwing paramilitary death squads to launder drug money. The memo further claims that, rather than being simply a few bbad applesb who need to be reported to their superiors, these allegedly dirty agents are being protected by an ongoing cover-up orchestrated by bwatchdogb agencies within the Justice Department. These charges blow away the smoke concealing the pretense of the war on drugs. If they are true, there will be no brushing them aside at pre-scripted press conferences; everyone who becomes aware of these allegations will be forced to consider where we go from here in that so-called war. The Kent Memo On Dec. 19, 2004, Thomas M. Kent, an attorney in the wiretap unit of the Justice Departmentbs Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs Section (NDDS), sent off a memo to his section chief. Law enforcement sources tell Narco News that a number of other high-level officials within Justice and the DEA soon received copies of the same memo. In it, Kent raised a series of corruption allegations centering on the DEAbs office in BogotC!. Kent says his claims are supported by a number of DEA agents in Florida who the agency muzzled and retaliated against after they tried to expose the corruption. Specifically, Kent contends that the DEAbs Office of Professional Responsibility (or OPR, essentially the agencybs Internal Affairs department) and elements of DOJbs Office of the Inspector General (OIG) have worked to keep a lid on the corruption charges. According to Kent, these offices b which are supposed to serve as watchdog agencies that investigate corruption b sabotaged investigations being carried out by the Florida DEA agents and by one of the OIGbs own agents. >From Kentbs memo: As discussed in my (prior) memorandum dated December 13, 2004, several unrelated investigations, including Operation Snowplow, identified corrupt agents within DEA. As further discussed in my memorandum, OPRbs handling of the investigations into those allegations has come into question and the OIG investigator who was actively looking into the allegations has been removed from the investigation. As discussed in my email, dated December 17, 2004, I want to speak directly with the (DOJ) Public Integrity Section because I want to ensure that the allegations are fully investigated and acted upon if true. As promised, I am providing you with further information on the allegations and evidence that is already in files at OPR and OIG. Agents I know were able to vouch for my credibility and several individuals close to the prior investigations that uncovered corruption agreed to speak with me. I had a limited time frame in which to speak with them and ask questions. They were able to provide me with some of the highlights, but certainly not all of the information that is sitting at OPR and OIG. Such a debriefing, based on what I learned in a few hours, would take days. Having been failed by so many before and facing tremendous risks to their careers and their safety and the safety of their families, they were understandably hesitant to reveal the information I requested, including the names of those directly involved in criminal activity in BogotC! and the United States. They agreed to reveal the names to me on the condition that I not further disseminate these for the time being. They are prepared to provide the Public Integrity Section with those names and everything in the files at OPR and OIG, and then some, if called upon to do so. Why is an attorney within Justice afraid to reveal the names of the DEA whistleblowers out of fear that it might jeopardize their law enforcement careers and the lives of their families? And why, as Kent contends, is it all being covered up? What do Glenn Fine, the head of the DOJbs OIG, and Rogelio E. Guevara, who currently oversees the DEAbs OPR, know about Kentbs charges, which were brought forth in his memo more than a year ago? A look at the nature of the alleged corruption may give us some clues. (Remember that all of these allegations come strictly from the Kent memo, though law enforcement sources have corroborated much of this information on condition of anonymity.) Money Laundering and Paramilitaries Kent alleges that one of the corrupt agents from BogotC! was caught on a wiretap some time in 2004 discussing criminal activity related to the huge right-wing paramilitary group known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC in its Spanish initials). The group is widely recognized to be involved in narco-trafficking and arms dealing at the highest levels. Working closely with various sectors of the Colombian military, it has fielded death squads responsible for murdering thousands of Colombians. The following is from a 2004 report prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service: The AUC targets real and perceived supporters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), as well as political activists, police officials and judges. The group is known for its brutality and has killed more civilians than the leftist insurgencies have killed: in 2001, the AUC killed at least 1,015 civilians, compared to the 197 civilians killed by the FARC. The AUC also committed over 100 massacres in 2001, a tactic it used to displace large portions of the peasant population in order maintain firmer control over the major coca-growing lands. Kent contends, in the memorandum, that during the wiretap, the corrupt BogotC! DEA agent bdiscusses his involvement in laundering money for the AUC.b But despite being caught on tape admitting to helping the most murderous political force in the hemisphere today to launder the money from their extensive drug trafficking operations, the agent faced no punishment. In fact, says Kent, the agent was essentially promoted: bThat call has been documented by the DEA and that agent is now in charge of numerous narcotics and money laundering investigations.b Kent, in the memorandum, also alleges that DOJ officials shut down a money laundering investigation because they discovered that it was linked to the alleged DEA corruption in BogotC!. He claims that the nail in that coffin was driven in by OPR after it discovered that an OIG agent was investigating the BogotC! corruption and related money laundering operation: bIn June 2004, OPR and DEA, the two agencies embarrassed by the prior allegations (involving the BogotC! agents) and likely to come under tremendous scrutiny for their own actions in response, demanded that my case agent turn all of the (investigation) information b& over to OPR,b Kent states in the memorandum. bOne week after submitting the (information) to OPR, the money laundering investigation was shut down.b Kent details three further cases of extreme corruption in his memo, all involving BogotC! DEA agents persecuting or conspiring to kill Colombian informants who threatened to bring down their activities. Sources told Narco News that these corruption allegations involve cases launched in 1999 or 2000, but which resulted in investigations that carried on for months or years. (Kent wrote his memo in late 2004 only after he became aware of the alleged corruption and then had exhausted other internal channels within DOJ for addressing the problems.) Allegation One: Corrupt DEA Agents In BogotC! Conspired to Murder Informants Who Betrayed Them During the course of an investigation into a Colombian narco-trafficking operation, a group of DEA agents in Florida had zeroed in on several targets, with the help of several Colombian informants. Once the targets were identified as being part of the drug ring, they began to cooperate with the Florida-based agents. bb& They made startling revelations concerning DEA agents in BogotC!,b Kent writes. bThey alleged that they were assisted in their narcotics activities by the [BogotC!] agents. Specifically, they alleged that the agents provided them with information on investigations and other law enforcement activities in Colombia.b The traffickers eventually gave the Florida agents copies of confidential DEA reports, which the BogotC! agents allegedly had handed over to the traffickers. After the Florida agents turned these documents over to the OPR and OIG, one of them was put on badministrative leaveb b the first sign that a cover-up was underway. While the Florida agent was out on leave, the BogotC! agents set up a meeting with one of the informants. bAs the informant left that meeting, he was murdered,b Kent states. bOther informants b& who also worked with the DEA group in Florida were also murdered. Each murder was preceded by a request for their identity by an agent in BogotC!.b Allegation Two: BogotC! DEA Agents Imprison and Possibly Conspire to Murder Informants to Prevent Their Travel to U.S. A separate DEA group, also based in Florida, ran into trouble with the same DEA office in BogotC! while investigating another Colombian narco-trafficking operation. Informants tipped off the Florida agents that that this drug ring had developed an ingenious method for smuggling cocaine into the United States, a method that seems to have been lifted right out of the script of the drug-war movie Traffic. bSpecifically, the narcotics traffickers in Colombia were infusing acrylic with cocaine and shaping it into any number of commercial goods,b Kent states. bThe acrylic was then shipped to the United States and Europe where, during processing, the cocaine was extracted from the acrylic.b Informants working for the Florida agents sent samples of the cocaine-laced acrylic to the DEA, but the agencybs chemists couldnbt figure out how to extract the cocaine. As a result, the Florida agents decided to have the informants come to the United States with a sample of the acrylic, so they could walk DEAbs chemists through the extraction process. bAgents contacted the BogotC! Country Office to discuss the informantsb planned travel and their bringing cocaine out of Colombia infused in acrylic,b writes Kent. bThey were advised that the best tact was for the informants to carry it out themselves.b But when the informants got to the airport to leave for the U.S., they were arrested. A DEA agent in BogotC!, it turns out, had told Colombian officials to block them (the informants) up and throw away the key,b according to Kent. The BogotC! agent then claimed that he had no idea the Florida agents had given the informants permission to transport the cocaine. bHis misrepresentations were backed by another agent in BogotC!,b Kent states. bThe informants were imprisoned for nine months while the accusations flew back and forth. Once it was determined that the agents in BogotC! were lying, the informants were released. One of the informants was kidnapped and murdered in BogotC! where he had gone into hiding.b Allegation Three: Informant Outed by Traffickers with Ties to BogotC! Agents In yet another case outlined in Kentbs memorandum, the second Florida DEA group was working with an informant in Colombia who claimed to have made contact with a FARC guerilla while in prison. Sources told Narco News that the informant is a wealthy Colombian businessman with investments in high-tech firms and ties to narco-trafficking. The FARC (Spanish initials for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest leftist insurgent group in that countrybs civil war, accused by U.S. officials of drug and arms trafficking) was supposedly interested in buying communications equipment from him. While this investigation eventually ended up in the hands of the National Security Agency, from the beginning it appeared to be related to drug trafficking and the Florida DEA agents decided to investigate. Agents from the BogotC! office promised to help, one of them assuring the Florida agents that the informantbs release from prison could be arranged. But when the Florida agents arrived in Colombia, another BogotC! DEA agent told them that the informant was going to stay in prison. The BogotC! agents seemed obsessed with stopping the informant from working with the Florida agents, and began doing everything in their power to prevent the investigation from moving forward. bAs the two sides argued back and forth, the informant was challenged by the BogotC! agents to prove his allegations,b the memorandum states. bHe did so by making a videotape of a conversation he then had with a member of the FARC in jail in which they discussed their desire for him to provide them with communications equipment. When confronted with the actual tape that confirmed the informantbs story, the agents in BogotC! complained that what the informant and DEA group from Florida had done was illegal and they would be unable to obtain the informantbs release (from prison).b The Florida agents kept trying to revive the investigation, but BogotC! agents continued to thwart it one way or another. Eventually, the informant was released from prison and tried to start working with the Florida agents again, but an agent from the BogotC! office traveled to Washington, D.C., and managed to convince DEA brass to derail the investigation. When the informant approached the DEA once again with information, writes Kent, bthe BogotC! agent that traveled to Washington, D.C., now claimed that the informant was a pedophile. The investigation was halted. The BogotC! agent was called on his claim and could not provide any evidence.b The agent then switched tactics, arguing that the DEA could not work with the informant because the FARC might end up with the communications equipment. He also claimed that one of the targets of the FARC-related investigation was not involved in narco-trafficking b even though the BogotC! office had previously identified that individual as a narco-trafficker. bThe (BogotC!) agent was unable to dissuade those involved in the investigation, and it finally took off with the assistance of the NSA,b the memo states. bThe investigation continued until the informant was faxed a document that identified him as a DEA informant on the FARC. The document mirrored information the DEA group in Florida provided the corrupt agents in BogotC! previously.b In other words, someone outed the Florida groupbs informant, making him into a target for many dangerous people including the FARC guerrillas, and the tool used to expose him was proprietary DEA information that appeared to have come out of the BogotC! DEA office. The DEA agents in Florida looked further into the source of that information and followed the trail to several other DEA informants. The Florida agents then set up a wiretap and recorded conversations between their own informants and the other DEA informants who were tied to the leaked DEA information. The recordings revealed that a narco-trafficker had indeed obtained the internal DEA information that was used to expose the Florida groupbs informant. bThat person (the narco-trafficker) is also a DEA informant,b the memorandum states, band is believed to have been controlled by the BogotC! Country Office. Among other things, it was alleged that the informant (the narco-trafficker) had several agents on his payroll who provided him with classified information. The agents were believed to work in Colombia and Washington, D.C.b The tape recordings that revealed this damning information were turned over to both the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of the Inspector General, Kent states in the memorandum. The agents in the Florida DEA office also tried to set up a sting targeting the allegedly corrupt agents from BogotC! and Washington, D.C. bThe meeting (the sting) was called off when it was learned the agents likely knew of the trap,b the memorandum states. bb& The informant who was identified b& as the narcotics trafficker with several agents on his payroll was eventually brought to Florida to take a polygraph test on the allegations that he was obtaining classified documents from agents in BogotC! and elsewhere.b Kent says that the narco-trafficker passed the lie detector test in Florida, at which he was asked whether agents had passed him classified documents and he claimed that they hadnbt. But the OPR mysteriously ordered the polygrapher not to report on the test: bHe was instructed (to say) that the test never took place.b The Deluge The corruption allegations raised in Kentbs memorandum are startling, but agents in the BogotC! DEA office are not the first to have been accused of participating in a narco-trafficking conspiracy. Similar tales of corruption involving overseas DEA agents have surfaced in the past. And although the charges raised by Kent in his 2004 memorandum have now passed before many eyes, they have still not been addressed in the light of day. Instead, as in similar past cases, they have been buried in the contorted layers of the Justice Department bureaucracy. Kent is no longer with the Washington, D.C.-based wiretap unit of NDDS. He has been transferred to Nashville, according to sources familiar with the memorandum. Ironically, the NDDS chief to whom Kent addressed the memorandum, Jodi L. Avergun, is now the chief of staff for DEA. In addition, Kentbs request to send the BogotC! corruption allegations to the Justice Departmentbs Public Integrity Section was denied, and his memorandum deep-sixed b until now. A full investigation of his allegations may well prove that the DEAbs BogotC! office is clean as a whistle. But if that is indeed the case, then why has Justice chosen to silence and punish the whistleblowers in this case rather than look into their claims? >From Kentbs memorandum: If we are unable to arrange for a sit-down between the reporting agents and those attorneys within the Department of Justice who are tasked with ensuring that corrupted agents and officials are held accountable, then I firmly believe that we will watch from the sidelines as the allegations play out in a courtroom, on the news, and/or on Capital Hill. The reporting agents have placed their trust in me. b& I have assured them that I will lay the issue before you with a much more detailed accounting of the allegations and how the DEA and OPR, and now seemingly OIG, have failed to fully investigate the allegations and hold those responsible accountable. If we can put them together with the Public Integrity Section, they assured me that other agents who have to this point remained silent for fear of retaliation will come forward. Those agents have additional evidence not in the files maintained by OPR and OIG. I believe, based on their representations, that that new evidence alone would put the corrupt agents in prison. Given the pretense that defines the war on drugs, Kentbs memorandum (which basically rewrites the script of that war) is not likely to be a hot seller in Washington, D.C., anytime soonbabsent pressure from a major media blitz. And what of the mainstream-media guardians of our liberty? Will they step up to the plate on this story, given their penchant for adhering to the standard drug-war script? The fact that Narco News is breaking this story first may tell us all we need to know on that front. But the truth, like water, always brings the scum to the surface. And in this case, the dam holding back the truth in the so-called war on drugs may be close to breaking. For how much longer will nations in Latin America and around the world accept U.S. drug warriorsb imposing presence in their lands, when those same agents and bureaucrats get neck-deep in the very drug trade they are supposedly trying to wipe out, with complete impunity and protection from their superiors back home? bThe agents who reported the b& allegations (of corruption) did so to correct wrongs committed by other members of the DEA and OPR,b Kent states in the memorandum. bTheir attempts to do so led to retaliation. b& The cracks in the lid DEA and OPR has attempted to place on this problem are getting bigger. bIt is only a matter of time before this thing explodes. b&b Narco News is funded by your contributions to The Fund for Authentic Journalism. Please make journalism like this possible by going to The Fund's web site, http://www.authenticjournalism.org, and making a contribution today. Copyright B) 2006 The Narco News Bulletin ***** ________________________________________________________________ GAG REFLEX ________________________________________________________________ THE MOSCOW TIMES Global Eye January 13, 2006 http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/158695/ By Chris Floydb( If President George W. Bush shows no qualms about violating the 217-year-old U.S. Constitution or the 791-year-old Magna Carta, why should we be surprised to find that he is now violating the 2,400-year-old Hippocratic Oath?b(b(And yet this week's revelation of how U.S. doctors are force-feeding captives on hunger strike in Bush's concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay still has the power to shock and sicken -- not just from the savage act itself, but also for the wider moral defeat it represents: another open embrace of raw brutality, another step in America's accelerating plunge into vicious despotism.b(b(News of the hunger strike has been trickling out from the ever-incurious U.S. media for months. Indeed, Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld even joked about prisoners "going on a diet." But the full scope of the strike -- and the unethical methods being used to quash it -- only emerged this week in The Observer, which obtained legal affidavits from the Army doctors involved in! this "torture lite." The strike, which began last August with a handful of captives, has now spread to 81 prisoners trying to starve themselves to death. Men driven to such desperation make bad PR for their captors -- especially a blustering pipsqueak who likes to pass himself off as a God-blessed beacon of goodness and freedom. So the strikers are being strapped down and force-fed by tubes shoved through their noses and crammed down into their stomachs. This daily process leaves them bleeding and retching, according to sworn testimony from the concentration camp's hospital chief, Captain John Edmondson.b(b(The good doctor defended the practice as humane, noting that his medicos grease the captives' nostrils with lubricant, and use only "soft and flexible" 3-millimeter hoses -- an amelioration of their previous technique: stuffing 4.8-millimeter hard-rubber tubes down nose and gullet in order to pump gruel into a prisoner's belly more quickly. Yet despite the Christ-like tenderness of this treatment, Edmondson is now being sued in California, his native state, for unprofessional conduct. It seems that U.S. doctors are legally! bound by the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which explicitly forbids force-feeding under any circumstances. b(b(Ah, but what are laws, treaties and oaths in our brave new world? There are of course no inherent legal protections or human rights in the Bushist philosophy of power. Like his brother in blood, Osama bin Laden, Bush recognizes no law beyond his own will. Anyone he designates an "enemy" -- without any charges or evidence whatsoever -- becomes sub-human, a piece of trash. And so it is with the Guantanamo captives. None of them has been charged with any crime, as The Observer notes; none has been shown any evidence justifying their imprisonment, or knows how long they will be held. Many of the hunger strikers have been chained in this agonizing limbo for more than four years, a living death guaranteed to induce torment, madness and fatal despair.b(b(Yet it has been thoroughly documented -- sometimes by the Pentagon itself -- that numerous "Terror! War" prisoners are innocent men (and children) who have! been fa lsely accused through incompetent intelligence work, or even sold into captivity by bounty hunters paid by eager Bushist agents, as The Washington Post reports. We know too, by the regime's own admission, that all "high-value" terrorist targets are held in secret CIA prisons hidden around the globe, not at Guantanamo.b(b(But last week Bush turned the screws even tighter on his Gitmo trash, signing a law that strips the captives of the ancient right of habeas corpus, which predates the Magna Carta. They are to have no access to the legal system, not even a simple declaration of why they are being held. What's more, last week Bush also asserted his right to ignore an anti-torture law he had just signed, The Boston Globe reports. Even as he reaped kudos for his apparent approval of the mild restraints on torture pushed by Senator John McCain, Bush simultaneously issued a "signing statement" -- an unconstitutional "presidential interpretation" of law -- declaring that he can set! aside the law if he feels it conflicts with his "authority as commander-in-chief" at any point. (Cries of "Amen, brother!" were immediately heard in that quadrant of hell where Hitler and Stalin sit gnawing on the anuses of rats.)b( No doubt any spot of legal bother about force-feeding captives will be dismissed under the rubric of this unbridled "authority," perhaps with the help of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, a longtime apologist for authoritarian rule by unrestrained presidents. After all, it was Alito himself who concocted the law-gutting device of the presidential "signing statement" when he was a legal factotum in the Ronald Reagan White House, The Washington Post reports. b(b(But just how far does the "Commander's" torture authority reach? To the crushing of an innocent child's testicles. So says John Yoo, the former deputy assistant attorney general who helped craft the official White House "torture memos" that justified any torture short of permanent maiming or death -- and even countenanced the latter if it was "unintentional." Yoo also helped devise the regime's crank philosophy of the "unitary executive" -- that is, dictatorship for a "war president." In response to a question at a p! ublic debate last month, Yoo declared that Bush could override any law or treaty and order his goons to crush the testicles of a prisoner's child in the name of "national security," commentator Andrew Sullivan reports. b(b(Crushed testicles. Torture. Tyranny. Aggressive war. Bush better start developing a taste for rat rectums right away. He's going to need it.b( Copyright B) 2006 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved. ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, material appearing in Anita Info-Bulletin is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes. For more info see: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Submissions are welcome. ** * * * ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN (AFIB) To subscribe: afib-subscribe-@igc.topica.com To unsubscribe: afib-unsubscribe-@igc.topica.com Inquiries write: afib@sbcglobal.net Order our book, Police State America: U.S. Military 'Civil Disturbance' Planning Distributed by Kersplebedeb Distribution. To order a copy, send $12 U.S./$18/Canada plus postage. E-mail: in-@Kersplebedeb.com for postage details. 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