In 1991, following the apparently successful Swedish example and wishing to create an environment where new rail operators could enter the market, the European Union issued EU Directive 91/440. This required of all EU member states to separate 'the management of railway operation and infrastructure from the provision of railway transport services, separation of accounts being compulsory and organisational or institutional separation being optional', the idea being that the track operator would charge the train operator a transparent fee to run its trains over the network, and anyone else could also run trains under the same conditions (open access). Directive 91/440 requires the 'liberalisation' of railways within the EU and for them to operate in a 'competitive market'(see http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/closed/eurailpassengers/). The Directive provided the British government with a blueprint for the wholesale privatisation of the railway industry. As of 2004, Ireland and Greece have yet to comply with Directive 91/440 and its successor. Ironically, the United Kingdom has not fully complied with the directive, as no moves towards compliance were made to the state-owned Northern Ireland Railways, which has always been separate from British Rail.

In Britain, Margaret Thatcher was replaced by John Major as leader of the Conservative Party at the end of 1990. The Thatcher administration had already sold off nearly all the former state-owned industries, apart from the national rail network. Although the previous Transport Secretary and arch-Thatcherite Cecil Parkinson had advocated some form of privately or semi-privately operated rail network, this was deemed 'a privatisation too far' by Thatcher herself. In its manifesto for the 1992 General Election the Conservatives included a commitment to privatise the railways, but were not specific about how this objective was to be achieved.They unexpectedly won the election on 9 April 1992 and consequently had to develop a plan to carry out the privatisation before the Railways Bill was published the next year. The management of British Rail strongly advocated privatisation as one entity, a British Rail plc in effect; Prime Minister John Major favoured the resurrection of something like the old "Big Four" geographical railway companies that had existed before 1948; however, the Treasury, under the influence of the Adam Smith Institute think tank advocated the creation of seven, later 25, passenger railway franchises as a way of maximising revenue. In this instance it was the Treasury view that prevailed.

The Railways Bill, published in 1993, established a complex structure for the rail industry. British Rail was to be broken up into over 100 separate companies, with most relationships between the successor companies established by contracts, some through regulatory mechanisms (such as the industry-wide network code and the multi-bilateral star model performance regime). Contracts for the use of railway facilities - track, stations and light maintenance depots - must be approved or directed by the Office of Rail Regulation, although some facilities are exempt from this requirement. Contracts between the principal passenger train operators and the state are called franchise agreements, and were first established with the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF), then its successor the Strategic Rail Authority and now with the Secretary of State for Transport.

The passage of the Railways Bill was controversial. The public was unconvinced of the virtues of rail privatisation and there was much lobbying against the Bill. The Labour Party was implacably opposed to it and promised to renationalise the railways when they got back into office as and when resources allowed. The Conservative chairman of the House of Commons Transport Committee, Robert Adley famously described the Bill as "a poll tax on wheels"; however Adley was known to be a rail enthusiast and his advice was discounted. Adley died suddenly before the Bill completed its passage through Parliament.

...

The New Labour government (elected in 1997 once almost all of the privatisation process had been completed) did not fulfil its earlier commitment to keep the railways in the public sector. Instead, it left the new structure in place, even completing the privatisation process with the last remaining sales. Its one innovation in the early years was the creation of the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), initially in shadow form until the Transport Act 2000 was brought into force on 1 February 2001 and the SRA assumed its full legal powers.

...

In 2004, the Labour Party Conference voted by 2 to 1 in favour of a TSSA motion calling on the government to take the TOCs back into public ownership as franchises expired. The policy was however immediately ruled out by the then Transport Secretary Alastair Darling.

DEEP DT's PAGES

The new diary (early '99)

You've arrived here by self-selection so I'd better give you some proper reality cracking. Remember that your comments are welcome even, and perhaps particularly, if you disagree. I am actually quite honoured that you have decided to peruse this 'bottom ten thousand' site in preference to all the other distractions that the World offers.

I am not a politician. I am a Socialist. Call the pot black. He reads. He is a witch, a politician, a devil in disguise. Burn the witch. Burn the witch. Burn the witch.

You may disagree at any stage. The world is mostly organised under the economic system known as Capitalism. Capitalism is concerned, above all else, with the accumulation of private and corporate wealth. Capitalism is counter-democratic - individuals have never been asked nor given their consent to this system of economic and social organisation AND economically powerful organisations are powerful politically. Cap is above such matters. You cannot be credible or real in opposition to such a situation. It is above question the natural and god-given state. You cannot discuss cap. You cannot criticise cap. It is Natural. It is Real. It is Good.

I've been doing some web-based research for a friend's essay on post war British politics. These stats are for the U.K. and are shamelessly cut and pasted from www.jrf.org.uk. There are hundreds of sources available on the net. You don't have to be a politician to read these stats and they already know, it is their business.

• Average incomes grew by about 40 per cent between 1979 and 1994/95. For the richest tenth of the population growth was 60-68 per cent. For the poorest tenth it was only 10 per cent (before housing costs) or a fall of 8 per cent (after them).
• Income inequality was still greater in the mid-1990s than at any time in the forty years from the late 1940s. The exceptional rate of inequality growth took the UK near to the top of the international range by 1991.
• The number living on low incomes relative to the average is far higher than 20 years ago, with the numbers in households with below half average income rising from 4 million in 1982 to more than 11 million in 1992. Although the number fell in the mid-1990s, 1996/97 again showed a significant increase of over 9 per cent to 10.5 million individuals.

Prejudgice and arrogance stop learning. The politician is not concerned with truth, justice, reality or any such notions - he is concerned with maintaining his social standing, his ego, (uh-oh Freudian term) maintaining the adoration that feeds his megalomania. He does not realise that you cannot learn what you already believe to know and you cannot know what you have not learned. He does not even attempt to know or understand. To do so would recognise a failing, a flaw, that compromises the arrogance that is demanded. His social standing is important above all else. He will sell his grandmother and rationalise it and sleep well and rubbish his opponents in the process. He is not concerned with learning or knowing because he has an unshakable conviction in his own omnipotence and perfection.

Should we accept and adore and debase ourselves to this model - that there are Gods amoung us?

Well, it's quite simple. By incarcerating Le Pen in a ghetto, it is in fact the democratic left which becomes incarcerated and which affirms itself as a discriminatory power. It becomes exiled within its own obsession and automatically grants a privilege of justice to what it demonizes. And, of course, Le Pen never misses an opportunity to claim republican legality and fairness on his behalf. But it is above all on the imaginary but very pregnant figure of the rebel and persecuted soul that he establishes his prestige. Thus, he can enjoy the consequences of both legality and illegality. A victim of ostracism, Le Pen has an incredible freedom of language and can deploy an unmatched arrogance of judgement.

LINX
Baudrillard's Global Debt and Parallel Universe. Arthur and Marilouise Kroker's paper Yahoo! Capitalism .
The Ctheory site. Here's fravia+ 's reality cracking section, Tricky Mickey's, L.A.-Online and Plato's Republic.

• Festival of the god Pan in Ancient Greece
• Festival of Faunus in Ancient Rome

Chief constables will be forced to justify the legality of recording thousands of law-abiding protesters on secret nationwide databases, the government's privacy watchdog announced today.

Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, said he had "genuine concerns about the ever increasing amount" of personal data held by police.

Graham's move came after the Guardian revealed how police have developed a covert apparatus to monitor people they consider are, or could be, "domestic extremists", a term which has no legal basis.

Photographs and personal details of thousands of activists who attend demonstrations, rallies and political meetings are being stored on the databases. Surveillance officers are given so-called "spotter cards" to identify individuals who may "instigate offences or disorder" at demonstrations.

Alan Johnson, the home secretary, was today forced to defend the police for labelling protesters "domestic extremists". He said: "I haven't issued any guidance [to police] on the definition of that phrase. The police know what they are doing, they know how to tackle these demonstrations, they do it very effectively."

There were "far fewer" cases of animal rights extremism than in previous years, he said. "That's just one form of domestic extremism. If the police want to use that as a term, I certainly wouldn't fall to the floor clutching my box of Kleenex. [Eh? Have we got yet another insane Home Secretary?]

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, said that "an alphabet soup of agencies appears to have decided to put everyone in this country who protests about anything on a list of suspects".

"This is an example of mission creep, they have gone beyond their original intention of dealing with violent animal extremists"

Three units given the task of monitoring "domestic extremists" are run by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), including the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), which operates as a giant database of political activists.

David Smith, the deputy information commissioner, said: "We will raise this issue with Acpo and seek further information from them about the personal information the police are collecting.

"We do have genuine concerns about the ever increasing amounts of information that law enforcement bodies are retaining. Organisations must only collect people's personal information for a proper purpose. We will need to talk to Acpo to understand why they consider it is necessary to hold lawful protesters' details in this way, before considering whether this meets the terms of the Data Protection Act."

He also urged demonstrators who suspected they might be on a database to challenge the police. "Individuals have the right to request information that is held about them and can challenge organisations about whether, and for how long, the data should be retained."

One activist, Linda Catt, who has been told that footage of her protesting at last year's Labour party conference is being held on the NPOIU database, said she would lodge a complaint with the information commissioner about why her details are being held. Catt also discovered her vehicle was being tracked by a network of automatic number plate reading cameras at the roadside.

The development comes amid growing concern that police forces are accumulating detailed information about peaceful protesters without proper justification. The NPOIU database can access information collected and stored by individual police forces.

However, there is evidence that police forces supplying the data are not holding the information lawfully. In May, the court of appeal found against the Metropolitan police in a landmark ruling over the retention of photographs on a database run by its public order unit, CO11.

The court found the force had been unlawfully holding images of Andrew Wood, an anti-arms trade campaigner who was photographed leaving a public meeting. One judge said there were unresolved civil liberties questions about the way images were taken and retained in "the modern surveillance society".

The C011 database, which initially contained 2,500 images, has been reduced to around 1,500 images after an internal audit found that 40% of the those being held were not compliant with the ruling.

Speaking to the Guardian, the Met's assistant commissioner, Chris Allison, who is in overall charge of C011, admitted today that the Met had been forced to review its IT systems.

"The judgment made plain, and clarified for the police service, the circumstances under which we could retain images. It set down a clear set of standards for us, and as an organisation it is important that we live by those standards. Then we looked at what we could and couldn't do in light of that database."

He stressed the public order database was not – unlike another Met IT system used to log the movements of protesters named Crimint – accessed by rank and file officers. "The C011 database is just there to enable a few people within the public order branch intelligence squad to have access. This isn't routine access across the organisation."

A spokesman for the Acpo domestic extremism units said people on the database "should not be worried".

"There are lots of reasons why people might be on the database," he said. "Not everyone on there is a criminal and not everyone on there is a domestic extremist but we have got to build up a picture of what is happening. Those people may be able to help us in the future. It's an intelligence database, not an evidence database."

"Protesting is not a criminal offence but there is occasionally a line that is crossed when people commit offences."

Police forces around the country feed information about protesters into the NPOIU central database in London. Most of it comes from special branch and officers who record what people do and say at protests.

In an interview with the Guardian, Anton Setchell, the National co-ordinator of the Acpo units, gave a hypothetical example: "At such and such a time, I was on duty in whatever high street, there was this event taking place, and in amongst it I saw a man who I've known for the last three years called... He was wearing a blue shirt and at 3.05pm he stood on a podium and got a megaphone and gave a 20-minute address to the crowd." [and that means that he's treated as a potential criminal? It's domestic extremism to have political opinions? There is no reason to assume that somebody who addresses the public is in any way more likely to commit criminal acts. Acpo unaccountable political police limited company ought to respect the rights of expression and participation in the political process.]

Yesterday the Guardian revealed that a national apparatus has been created for dealing with so-called "domestic extremists", a category of political activist that has no legal basis. Working under the auspices of the Association of Chief Police Officers, three barely-known police units receive £9m to help monitor protesters across the country.

The postal workers' struggle is as vital for democracy as any national event in recent years. The campaign against them is part of a historic shift from the last vestiges of political democracy in Britain to a corporate world of insecurity and war. If the privateers running the Post Office are allowed to win, the regression that now touches all lives bar the wealthy will quicken its pace. A third of British children now live in low-income or impoverished families. One in five young people is denied hope of a decent job or education.

And now the Brown government is to mount a "fire sale" of public assets and services worth £16bn. Unmatched since Margaret Thatcher's transfer of public wealth to a new gross elite, the sale, or theft, will include the Channel Tunnel rail link, bridges, the student loan bank, school playing fields, libraries and public housing estates. The plunder of the National Health Service and public education is already under way.

The common thread is adherence to the demands of an opulent, sub-criminal minority exposed by the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and of the City of London, now rescued with hundreds of billions in public money and still unregulated with a single stringent condition imposed by the government. Goldman Sachs, which enjoys a personal connection with the Prime Minister, is to give employees record average individual pay and bonus packages of £500,000. The Financial Times now offers a service called How to Spend It.

Best of Britain

None of this is accountable to the public, whose view was expressed at the last election in 2005: New Labour won with the support of barely a fifth of the British adult population. For every five people who voted Labour, eight did not vote at all. This was not apathy, as the media pretend, but a strike by the public - like the postal workers are today on strike. The issues are broadly the same: the bullying and hypocrisy of contagious, undemocratic power.

Since coming to office, New Labour has done its best to destroy the Post Office as a highly productive public institution valued with affection by the British people. Not long ago, you posted a letter anywhere in the country and it reached its destination the following morning. There were two deliveries a day, and collections on Sundays. The best of Britain, which is ordinary life premised on a sense of community, could be found at a local post office, from the Highlands to the Pennines to the inner cities, where pensions, income support, child benefit and incapacity benefit were drawn, and the elderly, the awkward, the inarticulate and the harried were treated humanely.

At my local post office in south London, if an elderly person failed to turn up on pension day, he or she would get a visit from the postmistress, Smita Patel, often with groceries. She did this for almost 20 years until the government closed down this "lifeline of human contact", as the local Labour MP called it, along with more than 150 other local London branches. The Post Office executives who faced the anger of our community at a local church - unknown to us, the decision had already been taken - were not even aware that the Patels made a profit. What mattered was ideology; the branch had to go. Mention of public service brought puzzlement to their faces.

The postal workers, having this year doubled annual profits to £321m, have had to listen to specious lectures from Peter Mandelson, a twice-disgraced figure risen from the murk of New Labour, about "urgent modernisation". The truth is, the Royal Mail offers a quality service at half the price of its privatised rivals Deutsche Post and TNT. In dealing with new technology, postal workers have sought only consultation about their working lives and the right not to be abused - like the postal worker who was spat upon by her manager, then sacked while he was promoted; and the postman with 17 years' service and not a single complaint to his name who was sacked on the spot for failing to wear his cycle helmet. Watch the near frenzy with which your postie now delivers. A middle-aged man has to run much of his route in order to keep to a preordained and unrealistic time. If he fails, he is disciplined and kept in his place by the fear that thousands of jobs are at the whim of managers.

Subversive forces

Communication Workers Union negotiators describe intransigent executives with a hidden agenda - just as the National Coal Board masked Thatcher's strictly political goal of destroying the miners' union. The collaborative journalists' role is unchanged, too. Mark Lawson, who pontificates about middlebrow cultural matters for the BBC and the Guardian and receives many times the remuneration of a postal worker, dispensed a Sun-style diatribe on 10 October. Waffling about the triumph of email and how the postal service was a "bystander" to the internet when, in fact, it has proven itself a commercial beneficiary, Lawson wrote: "The outcome [of the strike] will decide whether Billy Hayes of the CWU will, like [Arthur] Scargill, be remembered as someone who presided over the destruction of the industry he was meant to represent."

The record is clear that Scargill and the miners were fighting against the wholesale destruction of an industry that was long planned for ideological reasons. The miners' enemies included the most subversive, brutal and sinister forces of the British state, aided by journalists - as Lawson's Guardian colleague Seumas Milne documents in his landmark work, The Enemy Within. Postal workers deserve the support of all honest, decent people, who are reminded that they may be next on the list if they remain silent.

New Statesman source

UK's shoot-to-kill policy #LAST UPDATED 19/09/05

socialist | 20.10.2005 13:40

Analysis and commentary on the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and subsequent events.

The author is experiencing difficulties [censorship] posting to usenet although this article has been posted previously.

regards,
socialist

UK's shoot-to-kill policy #LAST UPDATED 19/09/05

UK's shoot-to-kill policy

Twenty-seven year-old Jean Charles de Menezes was killed by
plain-clothed armed officers at Stockell tube station, south London
at 10.00 a.m. on Friday 22 July, 2005. Mr. de Menezes was shot seven
times in the head and once in the shoulder while a further three
shots missed.

de Menezes's violent death brought out the fact that UK police were
operating a "shoot-to-kill" policy. It was claimed that certain,
instantaneous death was necessary to "protect" the public.

On the day of the killing, there were many reports from eyewitnesses
giving the impression that de Menezes (although at that time he was
unnamed) had intended to detonate a suicide bomb. The reports claimed
de Menezes was wearing a heavy jacket that could hide a suicide-belt
of explosives, had run from the police, had jumped over the ticket
turnstile and had run onto a tube train before he was killed. There
were also reports that he was actually wearing a suicide-belt and
had wires coming from his clothing.

Jean Charles de Menezes was an innocent bystander, killed without
any involvement with the exposions that had taken place fifteen-days
and one-day before in London. It was not until the following evening
that Ian Blair [boss of the Metropolitan Police] announced that the
police had shot an innocent man. There are racist overtones to Jean
Charles de Menezes's killing e.g. surveillence reporting that de
Menezies had "Mongolian eyes". [e.g. see a "Mongolian eyes" reference
at  http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article307307.ece]

It is difficult to accept that the police did not realise until the
following evening that they had killed an innocent bystander. He was
apparently carrying identification when he was killed and they should
have learnt soon enough that he was Brazilian and Catholic instead
of Muslim.

It appears that the Metropolitan Police attempted to 'spin' and
take advantage of the earlier witness statements that had been
published. They claimed that de Menezes "clothing and behaviour"
added to their suspicions. [Scotland Yard releases a statement which
includes the line: "His clothing and his behaviour at the station
added to their suspicions."  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4159902.stm]

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigates
deaths by police shooting. Ian Blair [boss of Metropolitan Police]
tried to have the death investigated by his own force instead of
the IPCC. The IPCC investigation was delayed by Ian Blair and the
Metropolitan Police.

Details of the IPCC investigation was
revealed by ITN News, including a photograph
 http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40702000/jpg/_40702540_menezes_tube_afp_203.jpg.

The IPCC report reveals many differences to the impression that
had been formed through media reports. He didn't run away from
police, he didn't jump over the ticket turnstile, he didn't
refuse to follow police orders, he was detained before he was
shot. [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4158832.stm Police shooting -
the discrepancies]

It is clear from the photograph that, contrary to reports, de Menezes
was not wearing a heavy jacket and was instead wearing a light denim
jacket. Although it's not absolutely clear, it looks as though the
jacket is not fastened at it's front. It is claimed that rucksacks
were used in the London explosions. Yet de Menezes did not have a
bag of any sort.

de Menezes had sat down on the tube before he was shot. Wearing such
a light jacket, it should have been obvious that he was not wearing a
suicide-belt of explosives especially if it was open at the front. He
didn't have a bag of any sort. If the police were scared that he might
have exploded a suicide bomb, then where was the bomb supposed to
be? It is claimed that earlier bombs contained 5.5 kg of explosives
in huge plastic storage containers. So where was de Menezes supposed
to have a bomb?

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1550565,00.html

"...
The police were on a high state of alert because of the July 7 and
July 21 bombings, and had been briefed that they may be called upon
to carry out new tactics - shooting dead suspected suicide bombers
in order to avoid another atrocity.

The IPCC investigation report states that the firearms unit had
been told that "unusual tactics" might be required and if they
"were deployed to intercept a subject and there was an opportunity
to challenge, but if the subject was non-compliant, a critical shot
may be taken
..."


Note that this is not a shoot-to-kill to disarm suspected suicide
bombers policy. It is a shoot-to-kill people who do not comply with
demands from the police policy. The de Menezes killing seems to have
been executed even outside these Fascist 'kill them if they don't
do as you say' orders. According to the IPCC report de Menezes was
co-operating with the police.


 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706787.stm
Last Updated: Friday, 22 July 2005, 21:25 GMT 22:25 UK [The day of
the killing]

"Police have said they shot a man dead at Stockwell Tube station in
south London after he was challenged and refused to obey an order.

...

Sir Ian [Blair] told a press conference: "I need to make clear that
any death is deeply regrettable but as I understand the situation
the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions."

It looks like Blair is saying this in all seriousness. Doesn't
he realise that he can't kill people simply because they do not
jump to do as he commands? There is a serious issue here. The
most powerful policeman in Britain thinks that it is acceptable to
kill people that do not do as he says. We must obey the police or
get shot? Seems more like shot-to-kill-to-enforce-state-power or
we-can-kill-civilians-at-will than shoot-to-kill-to-protect.


Ian Blair is closely-associated with New Labour - he is widely
recognised as "New Labour's favourite policeman" and controlled by
what appears to be a New Labour dominated police authority. He enjoys
New Labour support.


 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article307445.ece

Prime Minister backs beleaguered Met chief
By Nigel Morris. Home Affairs Correspondent
Published: 22 August 2005

"Tony Blair and John Prescott gave their full backing to Sir Ian
Blair as the pressure built on the embattled Metropolitan Police
Commissioner over the shooting of a Brazilian electrician.

...

Downing Street indicated that the Prime Minister, who has been
briefed on holiday on the controversy, gave unqualified backing
to Sir Ian. Asked if he had full confidence in the commissioner,
a spokeswoman replied: "Yes."

...

Asked on BBC's News 24's Sunday programme if Sir Ian enjoyed his
"full and unqualified" confidence, Mr Prescott also replied: "Yes."


UPDATE 29 Aug 2005

Following the first publication of this article many commentators
claimed that the Jean Charles de Menezes campaign had been hijacked by
extremists or Marxists. While media commentators concentrated on George
Galloway's press secretary, it is suspected that the real target was
this author and that censorship prevents the media reporting this fact.

This group of International Socialists supports and shows solidarity
with the Jean Charles de Menezes campaign. The killing of Jean Charles
de Menezes raises serious concerns regarding the Metropolitan Police's
'Operation Kratos' shoot-to-kill policy.

It is this article which exposed the media lie that the Metropolitan
Police had merely not corrected media reports and that they had in
fact issued an untrue and misleading statement. It is this article
that suggested that the rules of engagement are that police can kill
when individuals do not respond to challenges regardless of whether
they are armed. That is martial law. It is this article that claims
that police shot Jean Charles de Menezes knowing full well that he
was not a potential suicide bomber since it was clear that he was not
carrying a bomb. The corporate media failed to adequately inform on
all these issues.



We will continue to show support and solidarity with the de
Menezes family and campaign and we will continue to oppose the UK's
shoot-to-kill policy.



#UPDATE 19/09/05

 http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/

Blair & BLunkett were consulted over shoot-to-kill-to-protect policy
Posted by: bedblogger on Monday, September 19, 2005 - 01:29 PM
[Topic:-Blair]

Very interesting interview
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_stevens_20050919.ram
with Lord John Stevens, on Radio 4 Today programe.
It emerged that although the change to the shoot-to-kill-to-protect
policy was "only" a Police operational issue, Tony Blair and David
Blunkett were involved in the decision to send gung ho armed police
on the streets.


It puts a different slant on how the shoot-to-kill-to-protect came
to our streets. Here is the transcript of John Humphries and Lord
John Stevens (11.45 minutes in on Listen Again):

JH: We did not know the policy had been changed. The politicians
apparently did not know the policy had been changed, certainly some
politicians did not know the poilicy had been changed.

JS: Well I think some did.

JH: Some did?

JS: Mmm

JH: But it was not discussed in Cabinet. It was not discussed with
the MPA, as far as we know.

JS: No, it wasn't discussed with the MPA as it was a change of
operational direction really, that's right.

JH: Is that right? Is that how it should have been?

JS: Maybe we should have discussed it, but I think at the end of
the day we have to keep some things quiet(his strike) secret about
because in fact if people know what we are doing then obviously they
can take action to stop it.

JH: So who did...? Well, precisely, that's what democracy is all
about - if people are concerned about something then they can do ...

JS: Indeed

John Humphries: Who did know? You knew it was your suggestion. Who
did know?

John Stevens: Well there was a Working Party on this...

JH: The Home Sec?

JS: Oh, certain Senior politicians, of course they knew. Yes

JH: So the Home Sec knew, without any question. Tony Blair would have
known then, without any question?

JS: Politicians, of course they know and they... these things are
discussed because we have to find the right ways of ······dealing
with them.

JH: But those specifically, the home sec and PM would have known?

JS: In terms of what the operational decisions, yes indeed.


*


So who else was in the loop? Who was consulted? Who was on the
"Working Party and does this form part of the IPPC'c inquiry into
Menezes murder?

How can it "only" be a Police operations issue, when the only logical
end point of shoot-to-kill-to-protect policy is the death of someone,
be they a prospective suicide bomber or an innocent Brazillian
electrician going about his day, and thus the killing needs to be
"legal" under UK law as it stands?

Blair and Blunkett and those in the Working Party decided to quietly
hide this important change of policy from Cabinet, Parliament, the
MET Police Authority and the public.

When innocents are killed "by mistake", will only the coppers take
any responsability in the courts? Or because the PM and Home secretary
kept a policy that was always going to be highly controvertial quiet,
not wanting to draw attention to it by drafting new legislation,
could this mean they have left themselves wide open to a conspiracy
to murder rap? [ http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/ QUOTE ENDS]


 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4261136.stm

Menezes death 'a state execution'

The shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes during a hunt for
terrorists amounted to "a state execution", a leading Liberal Democrat
has said.

Matthew Taylor, the party's former chairman, said the "fundamentals
of civil liberties" were under threat from government-led anti-terror
efforts.

Mr Menezes was shot dead at Stockwell tube station the day after
the failed 21 July bombings in London.

Mr Taylor said the government should not "surrender" the rule of law.

'Not convinced'

He told a fringe meeting at the Lib Dem conference in Blackpool:
"I'm not prepared to stand by in a country that takes the decision
to allow state execution on the basis of suspicion - even suspicion
of mass terrorism."

Mr Taylor said: "I would not be convinced if there were five dead
terrorists and one innocent man dead.

"We cannot defend the principles of this democracy and rule of law
and liberty on the basis that we surrender them - even in the case
of terrorist threats."
[QUOTE ENDS, article continues]

 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1573412,00.html

Met chief faces inquiry over statement on De Menezes shooting

Vikram Dodd
Monday September 19, 2005
The Guardian


Britain's most senior police officer is to face an official
investigation into whether he told the truth about the shooting dead
of an innocent man who was mistaken for a terrorist, the Guardian
has learned.

Witnesses have told the Independent Police Complaints Commission about
events inside the Metropolitan police on July 22, the day Jean Charles
de Menezes was killed at Stockwell tube station. It is believed their
testimony raises questions about a claim by Sir Ian Blair, the Met
police commissioner, that he did not know that the wrong man had been
killed until 24 hours after the shooting.

The Guardian has learned that a senior Met officer has told the
IPCC of his concerns that senior colleagues knew or suspected
on the afternoon of July 22 that the wrong person had been
shot. Investigators have also received the names of other officers
at the top of the Met who by the afternoon of the shooting feared
the force had made a mistake.QUOTE ENDS, ARTICLE CONTINUES


There is a serious problem with the notion that they did not know for
24 hours that Jean Charles de Menezes was not a suicide bomber. It is
that he was not a suicide bomber since he did not have a suicide bomb.

Ian Blair seems to be suggesting that it is acceptable to murder
suspected suicide bombers who do not have suicide bombs. Isn't
that the only conclusion? How can you be a suicide bomber without a
suicide bomb?

Jean Charles de Menezes was carrying identification in the form of
his Metro card which must be registered and which he had used to
enter the station. Is Blair seriously suggesting that they did not
identify a man they had just slaughtered - knowing that he was not
a suicide bomber - for 24 hours?

socialist

If there's one minister whose every action betrays the menace of the government's intent it is Jack Straw. His malicious drive against freedom and openness is phenomenal.

In the spring he gave every impression of retreating on the government's plans to hold closed inquests, without a jury, on grounds of national security. The cross-party feeling against what was clearly an attempt to increase secrecy was so strong that the justice department announced that it was abandoning the measure.

It pays not to relax when the government appears to make a withdrawal and indeed Liberty, doing an excellent job of scrutiny, has established that unnoticed clauses added to the coroners and justice bill will allow an inquest to be suspended and replaced by a secret inquiry. These amendments have exactly the same effect as the abandoned measures.

Following the precedents set out in the Inquiries Act, which granted vast powers to ministers over public inquiries with barely an objection in parliament, the coroners and justice bill allows for an inquiry to be instigated by a minister in order to protect the government. The minister could then restrict disclosure and the publication of documents, and remove evidence from final report, in other words they have total control over the proceedings and the verdict of what would have been a public inquest.

National security will be the pretext for triggering this secret inquiry but of course everyone appreciates that Straw is simply creating measures that protect government and the civil service from, for instance, allegations about soldiers being poorly equipped. For ministers like Straw the concept of national security is indistinguishable from their own protection.

These clauses capture all that it is rotten and deceitful about the government's attitude to the public. They place secrecy and ministerial power above the right of the public to know what is happened, especially in the case of deaths that may have been caused by the incompetence of the state.

Isabella Sankey of Liberty said,

It is thoroughly perverse for a government that has spent over a decade lecturing the public about victims' rights to attempt to exclude bereaved families from open justice. When will New Labour's obsession with secret courts and parallel legal systems end? There is no accountability without transparency.

I could not have put it better myself.

Mervyn King: 'Never has so much money been owed by so few to so many'

With City bonuses set to top £6bn this year, the Governor of the Bank of England echoes Churchill in devastating indictment of the banks

By James Moore

The Governor of the Bank of England launched a stinging attack on the behaviour of the banking industry last night, just hours before a leading economic think-tank prepared to publish figures showing the total bonus payouts to City workers in January will soar to £6bn.

Mervyn King described the £1 trillion of support given to banks by the taxpayer as "breathtaking" and "unsustainable". He said: "To paraphrase a great wartime leader, never in the field of financial endeavour has so much money been owed by so few to so many. And, one might add, so far with little real reform." Mr King argued that banks took huge risks because they knew they would be bailed out and because they were seen as "too big to fail". He called for sweeping reforms to the way they are supervised.

His words are poised to re-ignite the row over taxpayers' support for the sector and the way bankers are paid. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) will add fuel to the fire with its figures, which show a rise of 50 per cent in bonuses this year compared to last year's combined payout of £4bn across the industry.

King accuses bankers of 'playing with fire'

Labour's poor regulatory system 'ignited the fuel' that led to the credit crisis

By Sean O'Grady

In an extraordinarily outspoken speech last night, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, described the regulatory system framed by Gordon Brown in 1997 as "inadequate", claimed that wrongly incentivised bankers had been "playing with fire", and said that a central tenet of the Financial Services Authority's new approach was a "delusion".

Such failures had, suggested Mr King, meant that "we shall all be paying for the impact of this crisis on the public finances for a generation".

Close to £1 trillion of public money has been devoted to supporting the financial sector. Mr King called the sums "breathtaking" and "not sustainable in the medium term".

"Anyone who proposed giving government guarantees to retail depositors and other creditors, and then suggested that such funding could be used to finance highly risky and speculative activities, would be thought rather unworldly. But that is where we are now.

"It is important that banks in receipt of public support are not encouraged to try to earn their way out of that support by resuming the very activities that got them into trouble in the first place," he said.

The current "tripartite" system of regulation was framed by Gordon Brown when he became Chancellor in 1997, at which point banking supervision was transferred from the Bank to the FSA. The basic architecture of the system has been recently reaffirmed by the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, while the Conservatives have said that they will return oversight of banks to the Bank of England.

Despite the risk that the Bank itself is being politicised by this controversy, Mr King laid into the Brown-inspired "inadequately designed regulatory system", which, he said, "ignited the fuel" that led to the conflagration that has engulfed the nation. Mr King added that "the past two years have shown how dangerous it is to let bankers play with fire", adding that "it is a matter of the incentives they face", pouring fuel of his own on to the debate about bankers' pay and bonuses.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has endorsed a report into Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza in December and January, accusing Israel of war crimes.

Israel’s premier, Binyamin Netanyahu, predictably denounced the report as biased against Israel and unjust and insisted that he would not allow any Israeli officials to face trial for war crimes. The Obama administration echoed Israel, calling the report unbalanced, and said that its adoption would damage the possibility of resuming talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The talks are a necessary fig leaf for bringing the Arab regimes on side against Iran.

The report by South African Judge Richard Goldstone said the war was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

It recommended that the UN Security Council demand that Israel conduct an investigation into the military’s conduct, and that it refer the findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it fails to do so within six months. Some 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, including 400 women and children were killed, at least 5,000 people injured, and 21,000 homes destroyed, as well as much of the vital infrastructure. On the Israeli side only 13 people died, several as a result of “friendly fire.”

Goldstone also called on countries that are signatories to the 1949 Geneva Conventions to use their “universal jurisdiction” to search for and prosecute those responsible for war crimes.

With help from the White House, Netanyahu mounted an international campaign of bullying and intimidation to oppose the report, get the vote deferred until March and ensure that the Security Council—dominated by the US and the European powers that hold the power of veto—does not refer the case to the ICC.

wsws continues

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, acted in a way that was harmful to the rule of law by suppressing evidence about what the government knew of the illegal treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in a secret prison in Pakistan, the high court has ruled.

In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the foreign secretary's claims that disclosing the evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK's vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.

In what they described as an "unprecedented" and "exceptional" case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.

"The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. "Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy."

The summary is a CIA account given to British intelligence "whilst [Mohamed] was held in Pakistan ... prior to his interview by an officer of the Security Service", the judges said. The officer, known only as Witness B, is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for "possible criminal wrongdoing".

The seven-page document will not be released until the result of an appeal is known. However, the judges made clear their anger at the position adopted by Miliband, MI5, and MI6 in their hard-hitting judgment.

An explanation was needed, they said, about "what the United Kingdom government actually knew about what was alleged to be cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or torture, in particular what Witness B knew before he interviewed [Mohamed] ... in Pakistan". The judges added that it was important to explain what MI5 "and others knew when they provided further information to the United States to be used in the interrogation".

There was a "compelling public interest" to disclose what Miliband wanted to suppress, they said; there was nothing in the seven-paragraph summary that had anything remotely to do with "secret intelligence".

"In our view, as a court in the United Kingdom, a vital public interest requires, for reasons of democratic accountability and the rule of law in the United Kingdom, that a summary of the most important evidence relating to the involvement of the British security services in wrongdoing be placed in the public domain in the United Kingdom."

The judges sharply criticised the way Miliband and his lawyers tried to persuade the Obama administration to back the suppression of the CIA material. Lawyers acting for Mohamed, the Guardian and other media organisations pointed out that Obama had himself set up an inquiry into CIA practices and published details of their interrogation techniques.

In the end, Miliband had to rely for help on a CIA letter to MI6 claiming that disclosure of the document would harm the security of the US and UK.

The judges made it clear they did not believe the claim was credible. "The public interest in making the paragraphs public is overwhelming," they said.

...

Guardian continues

Binyam: 'People higher up involved'

By Channel 4 News

Responding to today's high court decision that US documents with details of his alleged torture can be released, Binyam Mohamed tells Channel 4 News "people higher up, maybe all the way to 10 Downing Street, involved themselves in this case".

Interviewed by Channel 4 News, Binyam Mohamed said: "We're trying to find justice and its becoming very hard especially when politicians are trying to cover for themselves or others.

"The way things are going I don’t see them being public. I'm not sure what is in the paragraphs but it must be something that is really scaring the American or the British government.

Mohamed asserted: "Today's judgement was really good because it shows that the struggle between the courts and the government has come to the point where justice actually prevails.

"And if the judges and the courts saw that there is no threat too national security as the government is saying then the questions remains - what's really interesting? What interests the government in not releasing information which has been classified as a non-threat.

"I'm pretty sure that in those seven paragraphs there is a way to find out who ordered the rendition flight and who ordered the interrogation which occurred.

"I don’t think its got anything to do with MI5 agents and even though MI5 agents are being blamed and will probably take the blame. I think really there's people higher up - maybe probably all the way to 10 Downing Street - who involved themselves in this case and they are trying to cover that up."

Channel4 source

The Department of Health has ordered NHS bosses across England to ensure that frontline staff get immunised against swine flu amid growing signs that many doctors and nurses intend to shun the vaccine.

Chief executives and boards who run hospitals, primary care trusts and strategic health authorities have been told to urgently maximise the number of workers having the jab. Leading DH figures including Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, have written to them six times in the last five weeks stressing the need for action before the second wave of the pandemic causes major problems.

Ian Dalton, the NHS's national director of flu resilience, last week warned that vaccination of nurses, doctors and other frontline staff was "absolutely critical" and that widespread take-up of the jabs "will help us to save lives".

The DH's letters stress that patients' health could be put at risk and the NHS left seriously short-staffed through virus-related absenteeism if senior managers do not overcome "perceived obstacles" to the vaccination of workers. Swine flu's threat is [allegedly] so great that the NHS must avoid only small numbers of personnel getting immunised, as usually happens with seasonal flu every winter, the letters add.

They stress that vulnerable patients could be endangered if staff decide not to heed repeated urgings from Donaldson and other senior figures to have the vaccine. There are growing signs that large numbers of workers will shun the jabs because they see them as unnecessary and potentially unsafe.

Dalton wrote to the chief executives of local NHS organisations in England on 10 September telling them: "We all know that uptake of the seasonal flu vaccine among NHS staff is traditionally low. It is an NHS board responsibility that we do not find ourselves in this position with the swine flu vaccine."

But hospital chief executives have told the Guardian that they expect as few as 10%-20% of their staff to get vaccinated and cannot fulfil the DH's demands because the jabs, which are due to begin within days, are entirely voluntary.

One chief executive of a busy urban hospital in one of the swine flu "hotspots" said: "At the moment in my hospital if nothing changes then it could be that 10%-20% of staff have the swine flu jab … Staff could have the virus and pass it on to patients, a proportion of whom will die, albeit a very small proportion."

A poll by Nursing Times magazine last week showed that the proportion of nurses who do not intend to get vaccinated has risen from 31% in August to 47%, while those who definitely will has fallen from 35% to 23%.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for “unsustainable” air-freighted food to be replaced gradually by homegrown produce from thousands of new allotments.

In an interview with The Times, Dr Rowan Williams said that families needed to respond to the threat of climate change by changing their shopping habits and adjusting their diets to the seasons, eating fruit and vegetables that could be grown in Britain.

He said that the carbon footprint of peas from Kenya and other airfreighted food was too high and families should not assume that all types of food would be available through the year. Dr Williams called for more land to be made available for allotments, saying that they would help people to reconnect with nature and wean them off a consumerist lifestyle.

The Archbishop was accused, however, of threatening the livelihoods of a million families in sub-Saharan Africa, who depended on exports of fresh produce to Europe.

He said that Britain had to get back in touch with the “natural rhythms of the seasons ... the fact that the Earth turns, things grow here and not there, now and not then”. He added: “More people ought to have allotments. It’s part of reconnecting — the sense of connectedness to natural processes.”

The Archbishop was playing his part, he said, by consuming vegetables from a plot in Lambeth Palace. His family also received regular deliveries of locally grown produce.

Dr Williams also said that the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions meant looking at attitudes to travel. He had tried to have a “flight-free year” last year, but tight schedules meant that he had had to fly back to London from Paris and make a day-trip with other faith leaders to Auschwitz.

He called on politicians to end their obsession with economic growth and recognise that a sustainable society could not be achieved by the relentless pursuit of material wealth.

“Consumerism treats each person as essentially a hole that you have to keep stuffing things into. But what’s it like to have a life that is balanced, that is at home with its material and human environment? That’s a question that has got to be asked.”

Britain and other rich countries should consider how a “proper regime of carbon taxes can funnel back into positive sustainable investment in poorer economies”, he said.

“I think there is a question of justice here. If you look at where most of the profit has gone and where most of the cost has been paid, there’s not very much difficulty in working out how that looks. Deforestation, desertification, rising water levels and so forth.

“I do think it is part of the moral cost that we should be asking how do we repair some of the damage.”

Timesonline source

All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true in itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

—Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X

Welcome to the New and Improved Police State

David McGowan
September 12, 2001

"We are going to see a great number of articles in the future from so-called experts and public officials. They will warn about more violence, more kidnappings, and more terrorists. Mass media, the armed forces, and intelligence agencies will saturate our lives with fascist scare tactics and 'predictions' that have already been planned to come true."
'Conspiracy theorist' Mae Brussell, 1974

I have a friend with whom I frequently disagree on matters of politics. He thinks that I am a crazed conspiracy theorist, and I think that he is a reactionary fascist. There was one thing that we agreed on though. 

        A few weeks ago, I told him that our fearless leaders seemed to be veering dangerously close to unleashing 'tactical' nuclear weapons upon the world. Although he seriously doubted that that was in fact the case, he readily agreed that such an action would be reckless and unconscionable. He stated that he couldn't envision any scenario under which such a strike would be justified and that we should avoid, at all costs, crossing that threshold. Opening that door, he believed, could only serve to escalate tensions and make this a much more dangerous world in which to live. 

        He was one of several people who called me yesterday to discuss the alleged terrorist attacks on America. During the course of that call, he stated flatly that when the perpetrators were identified, they and their backers should be nuked. When I reminded him of our conversation of just a few weeks before, he said that things have changed now. I asked him if he had considered whether that wasn't perhaps precisely the point of the attacks. Unfazed, he reiterated his belief that I am a crazed conspiracy theorist. 

        Excuse my cynicism here, but have we Americans completely lost our ability to think? Are we now so thoroughly brain-dead that we are completely reliant on our media outlets, with their endless supply of 'experts,' to make sense of events in the world? Are we really that stupid -- or do our leaders just think that we are? 

        The actions taken on the morning of September 11 were crimes – horrendous crimes against humanity, to be sure, but in the final analysis not so very different from any other crimes. The first step in solving any crime is to look at who had a motive and who had the means and opportunity to commit the crime. 

        As for motive, we are being asked to believe that a band of Islamic terrorists are the most likely suspects. But is that the case? Was it a state-sponsored terrorist group that had the most to gain by launching such an assault? Or was it our own political, corporate and military leaders? 

        While the people of the Palestinian territories may well be dancing in the streets today in celebration of the blow struck against the United States, they certainly won't emerge as the winners in this national tragedy. When the bombs begin to rain down upon them, as they certainly will, the loss of life, property and hope will be far more profound for them than it will be for the people of New York. Their short-term 'victory' will be a hollow one indeed. 

        This is certainly not to suggest that there are no governments, groups, or organizations around the world - or within these borders - that have legitimate grudges against the United States government. The numbers of such entities are legion. Two hundred years of imperialistic covert and overt military ventures have created a lot of enemies of the American ship of state, and a tremendous amount of residual bitterness. Yet none of these groups stood to gain by launching such an attack. 

        The United States, on the other hand, has much to gain in the aftermath of this chapter of American history. I am not talking here, of course, about the people of this country, who will pay a steep price for the carnage of September 11. Big Brother has assured us that we will be protected from future acts of this sort, and we will welcome with open arms the repressive, overtly fascistic 'reforms' that will be enacted. 

        The people, of this country and of the world, are always the ones to pick up the tab for acts of gross governmental malfeasance. The people of some hapless country (or countries) that is identified as the culprit will pay with their lives and the lives of their children. The people of America, and much of the Western world, will pay with the wholesale stripping away of their remaining human, civil and privacy rights. 

        Such a scenario only serves to benefit those who sit at the top of the food chain. Our elected leaders - who are elected only in the sense that every couple of years we are given a choice between two interchangeable candidates - will revel in the free reign they will be given to ram through legislation so appallingly reactionary that it would have been unthinkable just days ago. Military spending and the militarization of the country will escalate to a fever pitch. 

        Welcome to the new and improved police state – the largest, most powerful, and most technologically advanced the world has ever seen. With the much-lauded U.S. economy tanking, and unemployment figures hitting their highest levels in years, this will come in very handy for the 'powers that be.' 

        The ugly truth is that all 'anti-terrorist' measures are designed not to protect the American people from attack or to protect our 'freedoms,' but to protect wealth and power - specifically the unprecedented levels of wealth currently held by corporate America - and to restrict those very freedoms that threaten their hold on that wealth. 

        This American tragedy, in other words, plays directly into the hands of the corporate and military elite of this nation, who have for years been propagandizing for a more belligerent and imperialistic foreign policy and for more repressive legislation here on the home-front. Having been presented with a pretext to enact such measures, it is our leaders - elected or otherwise - who stand to gain the most from yesterday's bloodshed. 

        As for the question of who had the means and opportunity to commit these crimes, the official story holds that they were the work of a well-organized foreign terrorist organization. Officials have acknowledged that the operation was an exceptionally well-planned and well-coordinated series of attacks that required months of planning and a large network of co-conspirators to pull off. 

        So well-organized was the operation that government spokesmen and television talking-heads (which are really the same thing) have been at a loss to explain some of the day's events. Many questions have been left unanswered and some haven't been asked at all. Some of the answers that have been offered have strained credibility far past the breaking point. 

        One question that has gone unanswered is how a plane was able to penetrate so deeply into the Pentagon's airspace – after two other planes had already plowed into the World Trade Center towers, no less. Despite the ridiculous current claims, the airspace surrounding the Pentagon is perhaps the most tightly controlled, militarily secure airspace in the world. This would be all the more true in the immediate aftermath of a large-scale 'terrorist' attack on New York City. 

        Claims have been made that even if the approach of the aircraft had sounded an alarm, it would not have been targeted due to the fact that it was a commercial aircraft with many innocent lives on-board. Nonsense. Anyone who thinks that U.S. military/intelligence personnel would hesitate to target a commercial airliner, particularly in light of the fact that two such aircraft had already been used in suicide attack, is living in a media-induced fantasy world. 

        The question then of how this plane was able to 'elude' the Pentagon's formidable defenses is one that should receive close scrutiny from America's 'free' and 'independent' press. There is virtually no chance that that will happen. Another question that begs for an answer is how teams of presumably armed hijackers were able to breach the security measures of no less than three major airports and successfully hijack four separate flights. 

        Contrary to the claims now being made, security precautions currently in place in U.S. airports are anything but "lax." That fact was being implicitly acknowledged by this morning, as reports began to come in claiming that the hijackers had improvised weapons from razor blades and other items carried in their shaving kits. The network and cable news broadcasters reporting this story actually did so with straight faces. 

        This scenario would be laughable were this story not such a tragic one. According to the latest official stories, three to five terrorists boarded each of the hijacked aircraft. All of these terrorists, of course, were such religious fanatics that they had agreed to give their lives for the cause they believed in, and none of them presumably had second thoughts about that decision once the operation was underway. 

        Does anyone really believe that a few guys wielding toothbrush handles embedded with razor blades could quickly and efficiently gain control of a commercial airliner? I would think that such a group would have their hands full trying to hold-up a liquor store. How could, as has been reported, such a 'terrorist cell' possibly simultaneously overpower the flight crews and corral all of the flights' passengers into the rear of the planes? 

        I don't consider myself to be a particularly brave or heroic sort of guy, but I would not hesitate for a second to take on a couple of guys wielding toothbrushes, particularly if my life, or the life of my family, was on the line and if I knew that I had some sixty people (the average number of passengers on the flights) behind me who would back me up. Maybe that's just me, but somehow I think most Americans would rise to the occasion. 

        Nevertheless, these terrorist teams reportedly succeeded where so many other, better-armed terrorists have failed. The majority of hijacking attempts, as officials have acknowledged, end in failure. There hasn't been one to succeed in this country for a decade. And yet these teams succeeded, and on a spectacular scale, in four-out-of-four attempts and with only the most primitive of 'weapons.' To what are we to attribute that fact? Don't look to the media for answers. 

        Perhaps the most obvious question raised by the attacks, and one that officials have feebly attempted to answer, is how the planning for such an operation could have escaped the attention of the country's intelligence services. Whenever such an event occurs, the intelligence agencies rather predictably hang their heads, slump their shoulders and sheepishly grin as they explain their powerlessness to predict such things: "We did the best we could," they explain, "but our resources are limited, our adversaries formidable, and our sources not infallible." 

        That's a real nice story, but the reality is that the CIA - along with the FBI, ONI, DIA, NSC, NSA, DEA, and virtually every other three-letter acronym you could think of - constitutes the largest and most insidious intelligence network the world has ever seen. 

        Its agents have fully infiltrated every foreign government on the planet, as well as every significant 'terrorist' group and every domestic resistance movement that has ever posed even a remote threat to the goals of those who helm the American ship of state. It is simply inconceivable that such an ambitious attack could have been planned, coordinated and launched without the knowledge of numerous members of the national security state. 

        That is the inescapable reality that no amount of media and government spin can erase, though politicians and their media puppets will work overtime to do exactly that. One need only to turn their television set off and their brain on though to see how preposterous is the claim that these attacks took the intelligence community by surprise. 

        Perhaps the most disturbing question raised by the attacks is what exactly caused the twin towers of the WTC to collapse. The impact of the planes affected only the upper floors of the towers; their foundations were unaffected. The UK's Guardian acknowledged that the initial impact of the aircraft would result in less stress on the building than is normally caused by high winds. The buildings were specifically designed to handle such horizontal movement. 

        The Guardian and its expert consultants conclude that the collapse of the buildings was the result of secondary explosions, attributed to the delayed release of the large supply of jet fuel carried by the aircraft. How though could the ignition of the jet fuel have occurred as a delayed, secondary explosion? As the endlessly played videotapes of the attacks graphically illustrate, the initial impacts resulted in an enormous fireballs and the immediate engulfing of a portion of the buildings in flames. 

        It is inconceivable that the aircraft's fuel tanks would not have burst upon impact, with their contents then immediately ignited. Indeed, if that wasn't in fact the case, then how are we to explain the initial explosions and fireballs that were witnessed by the world? What exactly was it that created the spectacular initial blasts if it wasn't the jet fuel? 

        But if that was the case, what was it then that created the secondary explosions that appear to have occurred? These secondary blasts were acknowledged early in the day by an NBC newsman. The correspondent stated on the air that he had just talked with the fire department's public safety commissioner who verified that large secondary explosions precipitated the collapse of the towers. 

        A radio broadcaster on WLS in Chicago (according to a correspondent), whose former colleague* is a CBS journalist who was on the scene at the towers, said on the air that this colleague had witnessed an enormous fireball emanating from beneath one of the towers immediately before it came crashing down. What are we to make of these scattered reports, none of which received any follow-up coverage amidst the non-stop blizzard of media attention? 

        To be sure, the collapse of the towers, captured on tape for all the world to see, had the decided appearance of controlled implosions, facilitated by the precise placement of technologically advanced explosives. The world has never before witnessed such complete destruction of a targeted building by an act of war or a 'terrorist' assault. 

        We have seen the United States target many a building for destruction. In the most recent military venture, we saw an embassy building and a television studio, among many others, take direct and multiple hits from state-of-the-art bombs and guided missiles. The buildings were devastated, to be sure, but the damage didn't come close to matching the pile of rubble that the Twin Towers were reduced to. 

        We saw a highrise Israeli apartment building take a direct hit from an Iraqi Scud missile during the Gulf war ... actually, most of us probably didn't see that, except for those who happened to be tuned in to CNN for the brief few moments when the footage was aired. As it turns out, that Scud missile was actually safely intercepted by a trusty Patriot missile, or so it was claimed ... just as if the footage had never aired. 

        The point though is that the building was hit and did suffer extensive damage, and undoubtedly at the cost of many lives. But again, the building - though sheared nearly in half - was in considerably better shape than the WTC towers. It occurs to me then that perhaps America has invested entirely too much time and money in pursuit of creating ever more powerful and efficient weapons systems. 

        Who would have ever thought that the best weapon with which to reduce an entire tower to rubble was the plane itself. It doesn't even have to be a military plane – any old commercial aircraft will do. Someone obviously should have followed up on the early work done in this area by the Japanese during World War II. 

        In the final analysis, we must ask ourselves the following questions: Who had the means to get highly trained commando teams onto four commercial aircraft flying out of three separate airports? Who had the ability to violate the Pentagon's airspace,unmolested and unchallenged? What weapons were really used to commandeer those aircraft and who had the means to get them on the planes? Who had the ability to plan and execute such an ambitious, multi-pronged attack without the interference of the U.S. intelligence services? Who had the means to staff each of the four teams with at least one well-trained, and suicidal, pilot? Who had the means and opportunity to plant secondary explosive charges, if in fact these were used? 

        Finally, perhaps the most important question to be asked is: who stands to gain the most in the bleak aftermath? It is certainly not the American people, or any resistance movement within these borders. It's definitely not the still-to-be identified target(s) of the nation's wrath (which will likely include Iraq). That would seem to limit the remaining choices. 

        It is quite possible, indeed quite likely, that members of some 'extremist' group served as the foot soldiers of these attacks. But it is just as likely that they were used as pawns in the global chess game that serves as our collective reality. 

        It is also likely that these 'terrorists' were motivated by legitimately perceived grievances with the U.S. government. Those motivations weren't likely shared by their puppeteers, however, who cynically manipulated those belief systems to serve their own ends. Most of the participants probably did not know that they were embarking on suicide missions. Quite likely only the pilots knew that, and they may very well have received a little more 'training' than your average pilot. 

        All of this is, by necessity, just speculation at this point. The true facts of the case will emerge over time in bits and pieces, mixed in with a healthy dose of disinformation. It matters little though in which direction those facts point. The official story has already been written.

* It was previously mistakenly reported here that the woman making the call was the broadcaster's wife. She was actually a long-time colleague. The correspondent who alerted me to this report contacted the station to inquire about purchasing an audiotape of the broadcast for September 11, and received the following brief reply: "Legally, we're not allowed to provide program tapes."
 
 

by the same author Wagging the Moondoggie

ISRAEL HAS rejected the call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open up its atomic sites to international inspection.

The nuclear watchdog, meeting yesterday in Vienna, adopted a resolution expressing concern about “Israeli nuclear capabilities” and called on agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei to work on the issue.

The motion was adopted by 49 votes to 45, with 16 abstentions. Russia and China, both permanent members of the UN security council, voted in favour.

But David Danieli, deputy director of Israel’s atomic energy commission, said Israel deplored the vote for singling it out while many of its neighbours remained hostile to its existence. “Israel will not co-operate in any matter with this resolution which is only aiming at reinforcing political hostilities and lines of division in the Middle East region,” he said.

Israel is one of only three countries along with India and Pakistan, which is not a signatory to the NPT. According to foreign media reports, the Jewish state is widely believed to possess several hundred nuclear warheads, as well as the means to deliver them.

Under a decades-old policy of “nuclear ambiguity” Israel has never confirmed nor denied processing atomic weapons, maintaining that the country “will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East”.

The vote was a setback not only for Israel but also for the US and other western backers of the Jewish state. They had lobbied for debate on the issue without a vote.

Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters the passage of the resolution was “very good news and a triumph for the oppressed nation of Palestine”.

Western states said it was unfair and counterproductive to isolate one member state. They said an IAEA resolution passed on Thursday, urging all Middle East nations to forswear atomic bombs, included Israel and made Friday’s proposal superfluous.

Arab nations said Israel had brought the resolution on itself by having never signed the 40-year-old NPT.

Before the vote, US ambassador Glyn Davies said the resolution was “redundant . . . Such an approach is highly politicised and does not address the complexities at play regarding crucial nuclear-related issues in the Middle East”.

Irish Times source

Congress also condemned Israeli trade union federation Histadrut's statement supporting Israel's war on Gaza - which killed 1,450 Palestinians in three weeks - and called for a review of the TUC's relationship with Histadrut.

Delegates demanded a campaign for disinvestment by companies associated with the occupation or the building of the separation wall.

Palestinian supporters described the vote as a "landmark decision," targeting sales of products including dates, herbs, fruit and vegetables.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign chairman Hugh Lanning said the decision followed a wave of motions passed at union conferences this year because of "outrage" at Israel's "brutal war" on Gaza.

"We will be working with the TUC to develop a mass campaign to boycott Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank," he said.

The TUC ruling general council held lengthy talks in private prior to Thursday's final Congress session before agreeing a statement which was accepted by delegates.

The statement read: "To increase the pressure for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the removal of the separation wall and illegal settlements, we will support a boycott of those goods and agricultural products that originate in illegal settlements through developing an effective, targeted, consumer-led boycott campaign."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said that targeted action aimed at goods from the illegal settlements and at companies involved in the occupation and the wall was the right way forward.

The Fire Brigades Union had pushed for a stronger campaign, including encouraging trade unionists to boycott Israeli goods.

FBU president Mick Shaw told delegates there had been "unbelievable human suffering" in the attack on Gaza at the start of the year.

And he criticised the British government for refusing to condemn the attack and questioned the response of Histadrut.

The TUC already had a policy of calling for Israeli troop withdrawal, but Mr Shaw said it was time to go further.

"We have a history of supporting boycotts, such as the one against apartheid in South Africa. There is no doubt that had an effect," he said.

He added that a boycott would demonstrate to the Palestinian people that the rest of the world cared.

"We need to have a discussion with Palestinian trade unionists to identify where we can put most pressure on the Israeli government," he said.

Mr Shaw said after the debate that the decision was an "important shift" in TUC policy which he believed was in reaction to the military action earlier this year.

"We will now try to identify goods and products where the most pressure can be put on the Israeli government to persuade them to change their policies."

Morning Star

For the Afghan villagers blown to pieces in our name, one craven motion at Labour’s conference is too late 

by John Pilger

On the day Gordon Brown made his "major policy speech" on Afghanistan, repeating his surreal claim that if the British army did not fight Pashtun tribesmen over there, they would be over here, the stench of burnt flesh hung over the banks of the Kunduz River. Nato fighter planes had blown the poorest of the poor to bits. They were Afghan villagers who had rushed to siphon off fuel from two stalled tankers. Many were children with water buckets and cooking pots. "At least" 90 were killed, although Nato prefers not to count its civilian enemy. "It was a scene from hell," said Mohammed Daud, a witness. "Hands, legs and body parts were scattered everywhere." No parade for them along a Wiltshire high street.

I saw something similar in south-east Asia. An incendiary bomb had razed most of a thatched village, and bits of charred people were hanging on upended fishing nets. Those intact lay splayed and black, like large spiders.

I have never believed you need witness such a hell to comprehend the crime. A standard-issue conscience is enough for all but the morally corrupt and powerful. Fresh from another dysfunctional photo opportunity with troops in Afghanistan - a contrivance far from the impoverished suffering of that country - Brown "authorised" the Rambo-style rescue of Stephen Farrell, a journalist of British and Irish nationality, at the site of the Nato attack. It was a stunt that went wrong. A British soldier was killed and Farrell's guide, Sultan Munadi, an Afghan journalist, was abandoned and killed. Munadi's family now fully appreciates the different worth of British and Afghan lives.

During the 1914-18 slaughter, Prime Minister Lloyd George confided: "If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know and can't know." Have we not yet advanced over a century's corpses to a point where the likes of Brown are denied their mendacious subterfuge? The Afghan war is a fraud. It began as an American vendetta for domestic consumption in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which not a single Afghan was involved. The Taliban, who are Afghans, had no quarrel with the United States and were dealing secretly with the Clinton administration over a strategic pipeline. They offered to apprehend Osama Bin Laden and hand him over to a clerical court, but this was rejected.

The establishment of a permanent US/Nato presence in a resource-rich, strategic region is the principal reason for the war. The British are there because that is what Washington wants. Preventing the Taliban from storming our streets is reminiscent of President Lyndon B Johnson's plaint: "We have to stop the communists over there [Vietnam] or we'll soon be fighting them in California."

There is one difference. By refusing to bring the troops home, Brown is likely to provoke an atrocity by young British Muslims who view the war as a western crusade; the recent Old Bailey trail made that clear. He has been told as much by British intelligence and security services. Brown's own security adviser has said as much publicly. As with Tony Blair and the bombs of 7 July 2005, he will bear ultimate responsibility for bringing violence and grief to his own people.

More than MPs' fake expenses, it is this corrupting and trivialising of life and death that mark a fitting end to the "modernised" Labour Party, the party of criminal war. Do the delegates preparing for the party's annual rituals in Brighton comprehend this? It says enough that most Labour MPs never demanded a vote on Blair's bloodshed in Iraq and gave him a standing ovation when he departed. One timid motion proposed by the "grass roots" at Brighton might be allowed. This concludes that "a majority of the public believe that the war [in Afghanistan] is unwinnable". There is no suggestion that it is wrong, immoral and based on lies similar to those that led to the extinction of a million Iraqis, "an episode more deadly than the Rwandan genocide", according to one scholarly estimate.

This is largely why the game of parliamentary politics is over for so many Britons, especially the young. In 2005, a bent system allowed Blair to win with fewer popular votes than the Tories in their catastrophe of 1997. New Labour's greatest achievement is the lowest turnouts since universal voting began. Today, voters watch Brown give billions of public money to casino banks while demanding nothing in return, having once hailed their practices as an inspiration "for the whole economy". At the recent meeting of G20 leaders in London, Brown distinguished himself by opposing, and killing, a modest Franco-German proposal for a limit on bonuses and penalties for companies that broke it. The gap between rich and poor in Britain is now the widest since 1968.

New Labour's causes and effect extend from the one in five young people denied employment, education and hope to the £12m that Blair coins in a year, "advising" the rich and lecturing to them at £157,000 a time. For Blair's and Brown's more extreme mentors and courtiers, such as the twice-disgraced Peter Mandelson, this represents the most sought-after achievement of all: the positioning of Labour to the right of the Tories, though it is probably correct to say the two main parties have converged, competing feverishly with each other to threaten cuts in public services in order to pay for the bailing out of the banks and for the drug lords of Kabul. There is no mention of cutting the billions to be spent on replacing Trident nuclear submarines designed for the defunct cold war.

The game is over. Corporatism and a reinvigorated militarism have finally appropriated parliamentary democracy, a historic shift. For those Afghan villagers blown to pieces in our name, one craven motion at Labour's conference is too late. At the very least, the party's "grass roots" might ask themselves why.

The inquiry, led by the former South African judge Richard Goldstone, concluded that both the Israeli military and Hamas committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the three-week conflict, but singled out Israel and its policy towards the Palestinians of Gaza for the most serious condemnation. The inquiry rejected Israel's argument that the war was a response to Palestinian rocket fire and therefore an act of self-defence.

In a 575-page report (pdf), released tonight, the inquiry said Israel should be required to investigate the allegations raised and if it fails to do so the case should be passed to the prosecutor of the international criminal court. It accused Israel of "grave breaches" of the fourth Geneva convention and of a war crime for using Palestinians as human shields during the fighting.

Israel refused to co-operate with the inquiry, arguing that the UN human rights council, which commissioned the study, is biased against Israel. "Both the mandate of the mission and the resolution establishing it prejudged the outcome of any investigation, gave legitimacy to the Hamas terrorist organisation and disregarded the deliberate Hamas strategy of using Palestinian civilians as cover for launching terrorist attacks," the Israeli foreign ministry said.

But Goldstone, who is Jewish and has strong links with Israel, defended the work of the four-person team. "There should be no impunity for international crimes that are committed," he said. "It's very important that justice should be done."

He rejected any suggestion of bias: "To accuse me of being anti-Israel is ridiculous." He said it was in the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians for the truth to be established.

Goldstone's team looked in detail at 36 incidents during the war. It studied the deaths of 22 members of the Samouni family who, following instructions from Israeli soldiers, were sheltering in a house in Zeitoun, east of Gaza City. The house was then hit by Israeli fire. The killings were a grave breach of the fourth Geneva convention, the inquiry said.

It found seven incidents in which civilians were shot while leaving their homes, waving white flags and sometimes following instructions from Israeli soldiers.

A "direct and intentional attack" on the al-Quds hospital, in the south of Gaza City, which left the building seriously damaged and forced the evacuation of patients, may amount to a war crime.

The report was critical of Palestinian armed groups, saying their rocket fire did not distinguish between civilian and military targets in Israel, caused terror among civilians and amounted to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

It said Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured near Gaza more than three years ago, should be released.

Megrahi was framed

John Pilger

Published 03 September 2009

The trial of the “Lockerbie bomber” was worse than a travesty of justice. Evidence that never came to court proves his innocence

The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown's "repulsion" to Barack Obama's "outrage", the theatre of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. "But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?" whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. "What will you say to your constituents, then?"

Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he "pays" for his "heinous crime": the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose "compassion" allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to "face justice from a higher power". Amen.

The American satirist Larry David once addressed a voluble crony as "a babbling brook of bullshit". Such eloquence summarises the circus of Megrahi's release.

No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, in which 270 people were killed.

The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of "strategic interests".

“The endgame came down to damage limitation," said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, "because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi's] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice." New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft - he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognise him in the courtroom.

The new evidence would have shown that a fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, "discovered" in the Scottish countryside and said to have been in Megrahi's suitcase, was probably a plant. A forensic scientist found no trace of an explosion on it. The new evidence would demonstrate the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was "transferred" through two airports undetected to Flight 103.

A "key secret witness" at the original trial, who claimed to have seen Megrahi and his co-accused, al-Alim Khalifa Fahimah (who was acquitted), loading the bomb on to the plane at Frankfurt, was bribed by the US authorities holding him as a "protected witness". The defence exposed him as a CIA informer who stood to collect, on the Libyans' conviction, up to $4m as a reward.

Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in "neutral" Holland.

There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a "mass of conflicting evidence" and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer, found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance. Their 90-page "opinion", wrote Foot, "is a remarkable document that claims an honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice". (His report, Lockerbie - the Flight from Justice, can be downloaded from www.private-eye.co.uk for £5.)

Foot reported that most of the staff of the US embassy in Moscow who had reserved seats on Pan Am flights from Frankfurt cancelled their bookings when they were alerted by US intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. He named Margaret Thatcher the "architect" of the cover-up after revealing that she killed the independent inquiry her transport secretary Cecil Parkinson had promised the Lockerbie families; and in a phone call to President George Bush Sr on 11 January 1990, she agreed to "low-key" the disaster after their intelligence services had reported "beyond doubt" that the Lockerbie bomb had been placed by a Palestinian group, contracted by Tehran, as a reprisal for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US warship in Iranian territorial waters. Among the 290 dead were 66 children. In 1990, the ship's captain was awarded the Legion of Merit by Bush Sr "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer".

Perversely, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, Bush needed Iran's support as he built a "coalition" to expel his wayward client from an American oil colony. The only country that defied Bush and backed Iraq was Libya. "Like lazy and overfed fish," wrote Foot, "the British media jumped to the bait. In almost unanimous chorus, they engaged in furious vilification and open warmongering against Libya." The framing of Libya for the Lockerbie crime was inevitable. Since then, a US defence intelligence agency report, obtained under Freedom of Information, has confirmed these truths and identified the likely bomber; it was to be the centrepiece of Megrahi's defence.

In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case for appeal. "The commission is of the view," said its chairman, Graham Forbes, "based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

The words "miscarriage of justice" are entirely missing from the current furore, with Kenny MacAskill reassuring the baying mob that the scapegoat will soon face justice from that "higher power". What a disgrace.

Britain's extraordinary march towards a surveillance state is revealed today by shock new figures.

They show that one request is made every minute for officials to spy on someone's phone records or email accounts.

The number of Big Brother snooping missions by police, town halls and other public bodies has soared by 44 per cent in two years.

Last year there were 504,073 new cases - an average of 1,381 a day. It is the equivalent of one adult in 78 coming under state-sanctioned surveillance. [N.B. that is new cases.]

The snoopers are using a law originally aimed at terror suspects. But their targets include people suspected of storing petrol without a licence and bringing a dog into the country without quarantining it. 

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne said last night: 'It cannot be a justified response to the problems we face in this country that the state is spying on half a million people a year.

'The Government forgets that George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint. We are still a long way from living under the Stasi - but it beggars belief that is necessary to spy on one in every 78 adults.'

The requests to intercept email and telephone records were made under the hugely controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

A total of 653 state bodies, including 474 local councils, are allowed to use its surveillance powers.

The Daily Mail has discovered that Sandwell Borough Council checked phone records to locate a bogus faith healer, while Lewisham Council used the anti-terror power to pursue a rogue removal firm and a rogue pharmacist.

Kent County Council carried out 23 phone checks as part of probes into storing petrol illegally and breaking the law over importing a dog.

Other bodies authorised to carry out surveillance include the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and prison governors.

They are not allowed to find out the content of phone calls and emails, but can access details of when and to whom they were made or sent.

People who are found to have done no wrong have no right to know they were snooped on.

The figure for access requests in 2008 emerged in a report by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy.

In a previous report, based on nine months in 2006, the Commissioner said there had been 253,557 requests, the equivalent of 338,000 over a full year.

The Lib Dems said this shows a 44 per cent increase between 2006 and 2008. The vast majority are understood to have been approved, though no figures are available.

Mr Huhne said it made a mockery of a supposed crackdown on the use of RIPA by the Home Office.

He added: 'We have sleepwalked into a surveillance state but without adequate safeguards. Having the Home Secretary in charge of authorisation is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.'

Alarmingly, in 2008 there were 595 'errors' by public authorities and the private firms who supply them with phone and e-mail information.

One of the most common mistakes was typing in the wrong phone number when making a request - leading to details being disclosed about the wrong person.

Sir Paul said: 'Errors may result in catastrophic consequences for members of the public'.

He cited a police investigation into a paedophile ring in which an address for a suspect was obtained from internet records. It led to the arrest of an entirely innocent man.

Despite the huge number of requests, the Home Office says there is a need to go further than giving public bodies access to phone and internet records.

Under plans unveiled earlier this year, the police and security services would gain access to the public's every internet click and phone call.

This would include, for the first time, monitoring the use of social networking sites such as Facebook. Every internet and phone company would have to allocate an ID to each customer.

They would then have to store details of calls, text messages and internet sites for a minimum of 12 months. The actual content of calls and emails would not be kept.

As well as phone and email checks, councils and other public bodies have been using actual covert surveillance, though undecoveragents or hidden cameras.

Last year, councils and government departments such as benefits officials were given 9,894 authorisations for this, up from 9,535 a year earlier.

The police and the security services were given 16,118 direct surveillance authorisations, giving a total of more than 26,000, or 71 every day.

Daily Mail source

I have my own theories about the introduction of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and who (one individual) that the act was designed for and who was also - I suspect - the very first victim of the act. (It's the unsearchable one).

Ministers were today accused of a "cover-up" following the publication of a parliamentary report calling for an independent inquiry into allegations of security and intelligence agency complicity in torture.

In a stinging report, largely prompted by disclosures in the Guardian, the joint committee on human rights says that in view of the detailed allegations, ministers can no longer get away with repeating standard denials.

It says the government must immediately publish instructions given to MI5 and MI6 officers on the detention and interrogation of suspects abroad.

The report falls short of accusing the security and intelligence agencies of complicity in torture, which would breach British domestic and international law.

But today the Tory MP David Davis said he had "no doubts" that there had been "clear violations of the UK's international legal obligations".

Andrew Dismore, the committee's Labour chairman, said: "If the allegations are true, they amount to complicity. They have not been tested but given the scale and number simply to issue a blanket denial is not adequate. That is why we are calling for an independent inquiry."

Among a list of actions that it says would amount to complicity in torture, the report includes "the provision of questions to such a foreign intelligence service to be put to a detainee who has been, is being, or likely to be tortured".

It also includes "the systematic reception of information known or thought likely to have been obtained from detainees subjected to torture".

It adds: "For the purposes of state responsibility for complicity in torture ... 'complicity' means simply one state giving assistance to another state in the commission of torture, or acquiescing in such torture, in the knowledge ... of the circumstances of the torture which is or has been taking place."

The Guardian passed to the committee the names of seven out of 11 British or dual nationals detained in Pakistan where British agencies, it says, colluded in, or knew about, their torture or mistreatment.

The newspaper also alerted the committee to the case of Binyam Mohamed, a UK resident who, the high court has heard, was held incommunicado in Pakistan before being tortured in Morocco, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

In a judgment revised after the disclosure of fresh evidence from MI5, the high court said on Friday it was now clear that MI5 "knew the circumstances" of Mohamed's secret detention at "a covert location", now known to be Morocco.

In their judgment, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones also revealed that MI5 sent the "US authorities" – believed to be the CIA – questions to ask Mohamed. Over a period of more than two years, MI5 received five reports from the US about Mohamed and gave the US a list of 70 further questions to be put to him.

The high court judgment contains evidence that appears to come clearly under the complicity criteria spelled out in today's report.

Today's report says: "If the government engaged in an arrangement with a country that was known to torture in a widespread way and turned a blind eye to what was going on, systematically receiving and/or relying on the information but not physically participating in the torture, that might well cross the line into complicity.

"Our experience over the past year is that ministers are determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and accountability on these matters, refusing requests to give oral evidence; providing a standard answer to some of our written questions, which fails to address the issues; and ignoring other questions entirely.

"Ministers should not be able to act in this way. The fact that they can do so confirms that the system for ministerial accountability for security and intelligence matters is woefully deficient ... There is now no other way to restore public confidence in the intelligence services than by setting up an independent inquiry."

Today, responding to the report, Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis denied that the government was covering anything up.

"We don't have anything to hide, but what we do have to say is that this is incredibly complicated. It's very sensitive, and it's a balance between the highest standards of human rights – and Britain will always fight to protect those – and sometimes protecting the security of our citizens," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

But Davis, the former shadow home secretary, said, "telling the Pakistanis that an individual suspect is arriving, encouraging them to arrest him, providing information, providing questions" were clear violations of the UK's international legal obligations.

Davis said he was sure that both the prime minister, Gordon Brown, and his predecessor, Tony Blair, had seen the evidence of UK complicity.

"Of course they will have done. The intelligence and security committee actually wrote a letter to the current prime minister some months ago. The joint committee on human rights has asked for that to be published. He won't publish that.

"They've asked for them to publish the guidelines given to the intelligence agencies by ministers in the period between 9/11 and now. They've refused to do that either.

"All of this smacks of a cover-up. If they've got nothing to hide, why not publish the guidelines?"

Today a poll published by the PoliticsHome website suggests that 65% of voters think the UK's "moral authority on the international stage" has been weakened over the last 10 years by government foreign policy. That view is held by a majority of Labour voters, Conservative voters and Liberal Democrat voters.

Only 8% of respondents said foreign policy had enhanced the moral authority of the UK since 1999.

Guardian source

Torture report a 'security risk'

Britain's national security and the lives of its citizens will be put at risk if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened to former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed at the hands of the CIA.

That was the effect of letters from the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and CIA officials, two judges were told in London yesterday.

The letters warned that the US, even under the new Obama administration, will review its intelligence-sharing agreement with the UK if the court releases seven brief paragraphs about Mr Mohamed's treatment into the public domain. They are central to the former Guantanamo Bay detainee's claim that he was subjected to torture with the consent of UK authorities.

The hearing was adjourned after Lord Justice Thomas, who noted that the paragraphs themselves did not pose any threat to national security, ordered a transcript of the hearing to be given to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who lawyers said had assessed the US threat as having a "high risk threshold".

Hillary Clinton threatens to cut spy links with UK over 'torture'

Hillary Clinton has threatened to end intelligence sharing with Britain if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened to former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Letters from the U.S. Secretary of State and the CIA to the Government warn they will cease co-operation with British counterparts if two judges release details about Mr Mohamed's alleged torture.

Human rights campaigners yesterday claimed the threat - which could put British lives at risk - was merely a ' smokescreen', but Foreign Secretary David Miliband insisted it was serious.

As if to reiterate the matter last night Mrs Clinton, speaking in Washington, said intelligence sharing was 'critically important' to Britain and the U.S.

The details of the threat were revealed yesterday during a long-running - and increasingly bitter - court battle between the Foreign Secretary and former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mr Mohamed.

At the centre of the affair are seven paragraphs of a court judgment which Mr Mohamed claims prove that British agents colluded in the torture he endured after being arrested in 2002.

He has repeatedly claimed that British agents were complicit in his torture after he was arrested in Pakistan.

Lawyers for Mr Miliband told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones that the threat by America had been assessed as having a 'high-risk threshold'.

Yesterday, Lord Justice Thomas pointed out that the paragraphs in themselves did not pose any threat to national security. 

He said: 'So the U.S. has taken the position that this is so serious that it is prepared to reassess its relationship with the UK and put lives at risk?'

Mr Miliband's legal team said both Mrs Clinton and the CIA had written to him to insist the information remain secret.

By publicly acknowledging the threat to U.S./UK intelligence sharing arrangements, Mrs Clinton has 'ridden to the rescue' of Mr Miliband, human rights activists said.

They claimed that by 'hiding behind' the U.S. threat, Mr Miliband was able to continue concealing the 'ugly truth' about British involvement in torture abroad.

Mr Mohamed has claimed British intelligence agents knew about - and were complicit in - his torture in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Morocco. 

The contentious seven paragraphs are a summary of 42 CIA documents, which are said to confirm his claims.

While in detention, Mr Mohamed says he was hung up by straps, beaten and had his genitals mutilated with a scalpel to make him confess to a 'dirty bomb' plot.

Karen Steyn, appearing for the Foreign Secretary, said Mrs Clinton and the CIA had written official letters warning that under the new Obama administration, the U.S. would review its intelligence sharing agreement with the UK if the court releases the information.

Mrs Steyn went on to say that disclosure of the seven paragraphs 'could reasonably be expected to cause considerable damage to the national security of the UK'.

The only reason Mr Miliband opposes the disclosure of the seven paragraphs, she told the court, was to protect the national security and international relations of the UK.

However, Guy Vassall-Adams, representing the various media groups who are backing Mr Mohamed's battle to publish the information, argued that the Foreign Office's stance did not pass the 'common sense test'.

He said it was highly unrealistic to suggest that the publication of seven paragraphs would cause the U.S. authorities to be so 'upset and shocked' that they might refuse to share vital intelligence with the UK in the future. 

Mr Vassall-Adams said such a situation was 'unthinkable' in the light of the historical alliance between the two nations.

In previous hearings the judges have expressed frustration at not being allowed to release the information.

Both judges yesterday seemed unwilling to rely on Mrs Steyn's representations of Mr Miliband's opinion. 

Lord Justice Thomas insisted a transcript of the hearing be sent to Mr Miliband so that there was 'no wriggle room'.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed came to the UK as a 16-year-old asylum seeker and lived here for seven years. Shortly after September 11, 2001, he was picked up by the American secret service in Pakistan.

Accused of being a terrorist, he was held for six and a half years in U.S. custody.

Mr Miliband has repeatedly insisted Britain 'abhors' torture and never orders or condones it.

Speaking after talks with Mrs Clinton yesterday, he said not disclosing allies' intelligence was a 'fundamental principle'.

Mrs Clinton added: 'The issue of intelligence sharing is one which is critically important to our two countries and we both have a stake in ensuring that it continues to the fullest extent possible.'

Reports in the American press on Friday and Saturday reveal massive illegality in the US government and intelligence apparatus. They demonstrate not only routine violations of democratic rights through illegal spying and wiretapping both at home and abroad, but also disregard for legally required reports to Congress.

According to a report Sunday in the New York Times, the CIA kept the House and Senate intelligence committees in the dark for eight years about a “secret counterterrorism program,” on the instructions of then Vice President Richard Cheney. The Times account said that the current CIA Director Leon Panetta, a former Democratic congressman, recently told both the House and Senate intelligence committees about the existence of the program and Cheney’s role in concealing it.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday, citing an internal study by five intelligence agency officials, that the electronic surveillance under the Bush administration “went beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program ... encompassing additional secretive activities that created ‘unprecedented’ spying powers.”

This program, conducted by the National Security Agency and separate from the CIA program, “came to be known in the Bush administration as the ‘President’s Surveillance Program’,” the newspaper said. The study was conducted jointly by the Inspectors General of the Justice Department, Pentagon, CIA, Directorate of National Intelligence and National Security Agency. 

The unclassified version of the study, released Friday night, blacked out all details of the expanded surveillance program.

As in the case of the CIA program, the office of the vice president played a central role in enforcing secrecy and cover-up of the NSA operation. Cheney’s legal adviser and later chief of staff, David Addington, had to personally approve every government official who was to be “read in” to the program by the NSA. Addington refused to be interviewed by the Inspectors General, as did former CIA director George Tenet, former attorney general John Ashcroft, and John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer tasked with drafting legal guidelines for the secret surveillance.

The secret CIA counterterrorism program was first made public last Wednesday night, when the House Intelligence Committee released a letter to Panetta. The letter noted Panetta’s appearance before a closed-door session of the committee on June 24, where he announced that he had just discovered the existence of the secret counterterrorism program and was shutting it down, as well as notifying Congress as required by law.

The letter demanded that Panetta retract a statement he issued May 15, in response to criticism of the CIA by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, denying that the CIA had a policy of misleading Congress. This was contradicted, they wrote, by his admission that “top CIA officials have concealed significant actions ... and misled” members of Congress since 2001.

The ranking Republican member of the intelligence panel, Congressman Peter Hoekstra, made light of the program, saying, “It was on-again, off-again and never happened.” One committee Democrat, Anna G. Eshoo of California, responded, “The whole committee was stunned” by Panetta’s disclosure. “I think this is as serious as it gets.”

What was the CIA doing?

The blizzard of press reports and commentaries that have followed Panetta’s revelation—including the front-page “exposé” in Sunday’s New York Times—seem to be at least in part an exercise in damage control, if not outright disinformation, since they conceal the exact nature of the secret CIA program and downplay its actual significance.

The Times report asserts, “Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the CIA interrogation program [i.e., torture] and did not involve domestic intelligence activities.” It adds that the program, “never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.”

The Washington Post cited “two former agency officials who were familiar with the program” claiming that it “did not involve interrogations of detainees or surveillance of U.S.-based communications.” An earlier Post article (July 10) cited other unnamed “officials” declaring that the program “was an intelligence-collection activity run by the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center ... It was not a covert action, which by law would have required a presidential finding and a report to Congress.”

The Associated Press, in an interview with former CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden, quoted another “former official” declaring that CIA leaders were “‘very cautious’ in their handling of the program and that they made decisions to narrow its focus. The official said that the program fell on a continuum between foreign intelligence collection and covert action.”

It is not possible, on the basis of reports so far, to determine the exact nature of either the CIA or the NSA programs. But the close involvement of top officials of the Bush administration, including, in the case of the CIA program, Cheney’s personal role, suggests that these activities were significant and extensive.

A remark by Representative Hoekstra of Michigan, former chairman of the House intelligence committee and currently the ranking Republican, is suggestive, even chilling. He told the New York Times that Congress might have approved the secret CIA program immediately following the 9/11 attacks—“Maybe on September 12”—but not later on.

It takes some effort to imagine a counterterrorism program so invasive or extreme that the US Congress would balk. Congress approved a sweeping war powers resolution in October 2001, which effectively authorized the US invasion of Afghanistan in advance—a resolution employed by the Bush and Obama administrations as the legal justification for the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In November 2001, Congress approved the USA Patriot Act, with only a single senator voting “no.”

In subsequent years, Congress has passed laws ratifying the Bush administration’s rejection of habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo prisoners, authorizing a system of kangaroo-court military tribunals, legalizing Bush’s illegal spying operations and immunizing telecommunications companies that helped the US intelligence agencies spy on American citizens, and most recently, barring the release of photos of US torture victims. (Obama voted in the Senate for the telecom immunity provision and has pledged to issue an executive order if needed to keep the torture photos secret.)

Congressional Democrats and Republicans have rubber-stamped all manner of police-state measures in the name of the “war on terror.” It is therefore worth asking what kind of a program was so atrocious or politically dangerous that it had to be kept secret even from the House and Senate intelligence committees.

A “state within a state”

A remarkable aspect of the revelation of the secret CIA program, passed over virtually without comment in the media coverage, is that CIA Director Panetta was not informed of the program for more than four months after he assumed nominal control of the spy agency. He was sworn in as director on February 19, but his “subordinates” did not bother to tell him of the existence of the program that had been kept secret from Congress until June 23.

This means that throughout the so-called “debate” between President Obama and former Vice President Cheney over the release of Justice Department memos justifying torture, which took place in April, Cheney was in possession of information about secret CIA operations of which the new “commander-in-chief” was ignorant.

The military/intelligence apparatus operates according to its own rules, disclosing or withholding information from its supposed civilian superiors only when it is felt politically necessary. What is being revealed—or rather only hinted at, since the key details are still shrouded in secrecy—is the existence of a “state within the state,” a secret government that continues to function regardless of the individual who inhabits the White House.

The congressional Democrats and the Obama administration are active participants in the attack on democratic rights of both the American people and the people of the world. As political representatives of big business, they rely on this state apparatus to defend their class interests no less than the Republicans and Bush before them.

It has become a truism that there is more similarity than difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration in relation to the defense of the US intelligence apparatus and its ongoing attacks on democratic rights.

On Wednesday, Obama threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if it requires expanded briefings of Congress, beyond the so-called Gang of Eight, the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses and both intelligence committees. A White House statement said the veto would be necessary to prevent “restricting an important established means by which the president protects the most sensitive intelligence activities that are carried out in the national security interests.”

The congressional Democrats claims of concern are largely play-acting, however. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, deplored the concealment of the program but claimed that it represented no threat to civil liberties.

The struggle to defend democratic rights and to defeat the reactionary conspiracies of the US intelligence agencies must be taken up by the working class. Working people must raise the demand for the full exposure of all the covert operations of the CIA, NSA and other US intelligence agencies, and for the prosecution of all those officials responsible for authorizing and directing them.

This includes bringing to justice officials like Cheney, Bush and other top government officials who have been directly linked to crimes of spying, torture, kidnapping, and aggressive war.

Translated statement

Within hours after the attack, someone using the name "Nur al-Iman" and identified as a "new guest", posted a statement on the Qal3ah website which claimed responsibility on behalf of "The Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe". The following is a translation of the statement:

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and undaunted fighter, Prophet Muhammad, Allah's peace be upon him.

Nations of Islam and Arab nations: Rejoice, for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic Mujahideen [holy warriors] have carried out a blessed raid [ghazw] in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters.

We have repeatedly warned the British government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our Mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid.

We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who warns is excused.

Allah says: "If ye will aid (the cause of) Allah, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly"

The quotation at the end of the statement is from the Qur'an, in Sura 47:7. The translation of the quotation given here is by Abdullah Yusuf Ali.

The term ghazw, here translated as "raid", has historically often been used in Islamic contexts with the connotations of an attack on the enemies of an Islamic state seen as a meritorious act; those who carry out such attacks (ghazawat) are called ghazis.

This anonymous post has come under dispute as MSNBC TV translator Jacob Keryakes noted that the claim of responsibility contained an error in one of the Quranic verses it cited. That suggests that the claim may be phony, he said. "This is not something al-Qaida would do," he said.

Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades

A second claim of responsibility was posted on the Internet on 9 July, claiming the attacks for another Al Qaeda-linked group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. The group has previously falsely claimed responsibility for events that were the result of technical problems, such as the 2003 London blackout and Northeast Blackout of 2003.

Inquiries Act 2005

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Inquiries Act 2005 (c.12) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It came into effect in the United Kingdom on 7 June 2005. According to the British government, the Act "is designed to provide a framework under which future inquiries, set up by Ministers into events that have caused or have potential to cause public concern, can operate effectively to deliver valuable and practicable recommendations in reasonable time and at a reasonable cost." [1]. The British parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights has voiced concerns about certain aspects of the Act [2], as have the Law Society of England and Wales.

Amnesty International has asked members of the British judiciary not to serve on any inquiry held under the Act, as they contend that "any inquiry would be controlled by the executive which is empowered to block public scrutiny of state actions." [3]

The family of Pat Finucane, a solicitor killed by loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast in suspicious circumstances, have announced they will not be co-operating with a forthcoming inquiry into the events surrounding his death if it is held under the terms of the Act.

The Canadian Judge Peter Cory, who was commissioned by the British and Irish governments to investigate the possibility of state collusion in six high-profile murders, is also a critic. He recommended public inquiries into four of the killings, but has strongly condemned the legislation that quickly followed. In a letter read at a hearing of the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations Subcommittee while the legislation was pending, Cory stated:

The chairman of the hearing, Representative Chris Smith, declared that "the bill pending before the British Parliament should be named the 'Public Inquiries Cover-up Bill.'"[4]

Indeed, the Act repealed the entirety Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 which had allowed Parliament to vote on a resolution establishing a tribunal that had "all such powers, rights, and privileges as are vested in the High Court"[5] and placed the power solely under the control of a Minister.[6]

The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered ­guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers ­questioning detainees in Afghanistan who they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not "be seen to condone" torture and that they must not "engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners".

But they were also told they were not under any obligation to intervene to prevent detainees from being mistreated.

"Given that they are not within our ­custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this," the policy said.

The policy almost certainly breaches international human rights law, according to Philippe Sands QC, one of the world's leading experts in the field, because it takes no account of Britain's obligations to avoid complicity in torture under the UN convention against torture. Despite this, the secret policy went on to underpin British intelligence's ­relationships with a number of foreign intelligence agencies which had become the UK's allies in the "war against terror".

The policy was set out in written instructions sent to MI5 and MI6 officers in January 2002, which told them they might consider complaining to US officials about the mistreatment of detainees "if circumstances allow".

Blair indicated his awareness of the existence of the policy in the middle of 2004, a few weeks after publication of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

It was around this time, David ­Miliband, the foreign secretary, told MPs on ­Tuesday, that the policy was changed, becoming more "comprehensive and formal".

In a letter to the intelligence and ­security committee (ISC), the group of MPs and peers that provides political ­oversight of the UK's security and ­intelligence ­services, on May 24 2004, Blair said that rather than considering making a ­complaint, "UK intelligence personnel interviewing or witnessing the interviews of detainees are instructed to report if they believe detainees are being treated in an inhumane or degrading way".

The Guardian has learned from a ­reliable source that MI5 officers are now instructed that if a detainee tells them that he or she is being tortured they should never return to question that person.

It remains unclear what Blair knew of the policy's consequences. The Guardian has repeatedly asked him what role he played in approving the policy, whether he was aware that it had led to people being tortured, and whether he made any attempt to change it.

His spokesman said: "It is completely untrue that Mr Blair has ever authorised the use of torture. He is opposed to it in all circumstances. Neither has he ever been complicit in the use of torture.

"For the record, also, Mr Blair believes that our security services do a superb job of protecting our country in difficult ­circumstances and that it is not surprising following the attacks of September 11 2001 that there was a heightened sense of the dangers the country faced from terrorism. None of this amounts to condoning the use of torture."

When the Guardian pointed out to Blair that it had not suggested he had authorised the use of torture, but had asked whether he had played any role in the approval of a policy that led to people being tortured, his spokesman replied: "Tony Blair does not condone torture, has never authorised it nor colluded in it at any time." But there is growing evidence of MI5's ­collusion in the torture of British ­terrorism suspects in Pakistan, where officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence ­directorate (ISI), an agency whose routine use of ­torture has been widely documented, were asked by MI5 to detain British ­citizens and put questions to them prior to an ­interrogation by MI5 officers.

Two high court judges say they have seen "powerful evidence" of the torture of Binyam Mohamed, the British ­resident who returned from Guantánamo Bay in February, before he was questioned by an MI5 officer in May 2002.

In a separate case, a court has heard that MI5 and Greater Manchester police drew up a list of questions to be put to another man, Rangzieb Ahmed, who was detained by the ISI in August 2006, despite having reason to believe that he was in danger of being tortured.

By the time Ahmed was deported to the UK after a lengthy period of unlawful detention three of his ­fingernails were missing.

Several other men have come forward to say they were questioned by British intelligence officers after suffering brutal torture at the hands of Pakistani agents, and there have been similar allegations of British collusion in the torture of ­British citizens in Egypt, Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.

While a small number of the victims were subsequently tried and convicted in the UK, most were released without charge.

International concern about ­Britain's involvement in torture has been ­mounting for some time. In February Martin Scheinin, a UN special rapporteur on human rights, reported that British intelligence ­personnel had "interviewed detainees who were held incommunicado by the Pakistani ISI in so-called safe houses, where they were being tortured".

Scheinin added that this "can be ­reasonably understood as implicitly condoning torture."

In March, after the Guardian disclosed the existence of the interrogation policy, and reported on the growing number of allegations of British collusion in torture, Gordon Brown announced that the policy was to be rewritten by the ISC.

In what was seen at Westminster as an acknowledgement that the secret policy had been open to abuse, Brown also pledged that the rewritten policy would be made public and that a former appeal court judge would monitor the ­intelligence agencies' compliance with it, and report to the prime minister each year.

On Tuesday Miliband said the existing policy, as amended in 2004, would not be published.

But the discovery that Blair was aware of the secret interrogation policy appears certain to fuel the growing demand for an independent inquiry into aspects of the UK's role in torture and rendition.

So far, those who have called for such an inquiry include the Conservative and Liberal ­Democrat leaders David ­Cameron and Nick Clegg; Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions; Lord ­Carlile of Berriew, the government's ­independent reviewer of counter-­terrorism ­legislation; Lord Howe, who was foreign secretary between 1983 and 1989 in the Thatcher government; and Lord Guthrie, a former chief of defence staff.

Creating a database of the 11million adults who work with children could ruin the lives of innocent people, the privacy watchdog warns today.

Richard Thomas, who is stepping down after more than six years as Britain’s first Information Commissioner, says he has serious concerns about the system being launched in October for the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

The ISA computer will contain detailed files on all the adults who work with children, whether professionally or as volunteers.

But it will not only record criminal convictions, but also any so-called soft intelligence on individuals – which could include unfounded allegations, rumours or gossip passed to the police or social services.

An official working for the ISA will then decide whether or not someone is fit to work with children – without the person knowing what he or she is accused of.

Mr Thomas said the database would contain ‘allegations, some rumour, some speculation’.

He added: ‘If (officials) start making wrong decisions or allows the data to get into the wrong hands the scope for damage to be done both to individuals and the system as a whole is quite considerable.’

Mr Thomas said the combination of treating rumours as relevant and the power to ban an individual from a job had the capacity to damage an innocent person in their ‘career, financially and socially’.

Last month the government quietly published the latest measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, for the UK. The figure tells a story of growing exploitation and mounting poverty in Britain.

The Gini coefficient can range from 0 to 1 and provides an objective measure of income inequality, which allows every country to be ranked against others and against its own past performance. A coefficient of 0 would mean income is shared equally between all individuals, whilst a coefficient of 1 would mean one person within the population has all the income and everyone else none. So a higher Gini coefficient figure indicates a higher level of inequality.

Britain’s Gini co-efficient is now 0.36, beyond the normal bounds of inequality seen in developed countries. In the United States the figure is 0.408, putting the largest economy in the world on a par with Mexico in terms of income inequality. But by European standards, the UK figure is exceptionally high. Sweden has a Gini coefficient of 0.23, Germany 0.283 and in France the figure is 0.327.

For the last three decades the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has produced a report on the UK Gini coefficient. The latest IFS report shows that the figure has increased from 0.25 when Thatcher came to power. The report also notes that the number of those in relative poverty, which is defined as those with an income less than 60 percent of the median, has risen over the last three years. The figure initially fell when the Labour government came to power in 1997, but is now rising consistently year on year.

“Poverty for working-age adults without dependent children is now at its highest level since the start of our comparable time series in 1961,” according to the IFS report.

Median income was £394 a week. This represents a rise of just £1 on the previous year. Median income is the level which 50 percent of the population is above and 50 percent below.

For the last six years there has been only a slow average rise in take home pay. But the IFS predict “a bleak outlook for income growth in the near future,” because of rising unemployment and stagnant earnings. Income inequality has risen (on most measures) in each of the last three years and is now at its highest level since our comparable time series began in 1961.”

The contrast between rich and poor is even starker when the mean or arithmetical average is considered. The mean earnings figure for 2007-08 was £487 a week. It is calculated that 65 percent of the population earn less than this sum.

A small proportion of the population, 1.2 million, has earnings above £1,500 a week. The incomes of Members of Parliament range up to £1,100 a week, putting them above 91 percent of the population. Only nine percent of households in the UK have a higher income. If their expenses are included in the calculation they have a higher income than 96 percent of the UK population. If they have a working partner, their household income is in the very top income bracket.

Even before the government issued the latest Gini coefficient, a Joseph Rowntree Foundation Report concluded that the measures brought in by the Labour government to address inequality were stalling.

The report issued in February stated that “child poverty remains amongst the highest in Europe,” despite the fact that the government had focused on this area. Health inequalities continued to widen, as did the gap between the top and bottom of the income scale.

“The UK’s experience in the 1980s and 1990s showed that the strategy of hoping that growth in living standards at the top would ‘trickle down’ to those at the bottom did not work. The last decade has shown that a more interventionist ‘pump up’ strategy is hard in an unequal society.”

The author of the report, Professor John Hills, director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, said in a Financial Times article of February 25 that the report “will disappoint those who might have hoped that a Labour government in power for over a decade would decisively reverse the gaps in society that had widened over the previous two decades.”

In 1999 the Labour government set a goal to lift three million children out of poverty. Even the government acknowledges that this target will not be reached. “Meeting the 2010 target is very difficult,” Beverley Hughes, children’s minister told the Guardian. Asked about the likely impact of the recession she said, “It is very difficult to model the impact of the recession on child poverty.”

Even before the recession, charities specializing in child poverty were deeply concerned about the situation in Britain. “Ten years ago the government committed to eradicating child poverty but these figures show progress has stalled,” Hilary Fisher, director of End Child Poverty said. “In the previous two years, child poverty actually rose. Progress has been made on child poverty, but the UK is way off track on its targets. Budget 2009 invested less than a pint of milk per week per child in family incomes and did nothing to narrow the gap.”

The IFS report concludes, “Over the past three years, average living standards have continued to stagnate, though poverty and income inequality both rose. We expect that the current recession will again lead to a change in the course of poverty inequality and average living standards. Unfortunately, the only thing we can be near-certain of is that average living standards will fall, but we cannot be sure how this pain will be shared.”

Judging by past experience it is all too clear how the pain will be shared. It will be inflicted on working people and income inequality can only get worse. There will be even less attempt on the part of government, Labour or Conservative, to assist those in financial difficulties. Money used to bail out the banks has increased government debt levels. The demands are now coming from the representatives of the financial elite that wages must be cut and savage cuts in welfare provision and public services pushed through.

New Labour and the BNP are two sides of the same Zionist coin

Major General Doron Almog, ex-head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, faced private prosecution charges.

The Foreign Office says Mr Straw apologised to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom "as a courtesy".

"He was saying he was sorry if the incident had embarrassed the Israelis," said a Foreign Office spokesman.

Mr Straw also stressed the UK Government had not played a role in the arrest warrant - which Maj Gen Almog dodged after a tip-off from an Israeli official.

The apology came when Mr Straw met Mr Shalom at the recent United Nations summit in New York.

Lawyers acting for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said a UK court had issued a warrant for his arrest.

Solicitors Hickman and Rose said the 54-year-old had been due to be arrested on suspicion of committing a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949, which is a criminal offence in the UK under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.

Senior District Judge Timothy Workman had given the police authority to detain Maj Gen Almog during a hearing at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in central London, the law firm added.

The warrant relates to the bulldozing of more than 50 houses in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, when Maj Gen Almog was head of Israel's Southern Command.

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique?

28.05.2009 20:52

Jacob G. Hornberger
Homepage: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-05-26.asp

Censormedia source

Emails secured through an Freedom of Information Act request show exchanges between the British Home Office and Phorm, a highly controversial advertising company that secretly worked with British Telecom to illegally spy on users connecting to its Internet service.

Subsequently the EU has initiated legal action against Phorm for violating European privacy and consumer-protection laws.

The emails, which date back to August 2007, show that Phorm influenced the way authorities decided policy guidelines and that the company repeatedly asked the Home Office if it “has no objection to the marketing and operation of the Phorm product in the UK”.

A UK Home Office official also offered advice on how to skirt British law.

“My personal view accords with yours, that even if it is ‘interception,’ which I am doubtful of, it is lawfully authorized under section 3 by virtue of the user’s consent obtained in signing up to the ISPs terms and conditions,” an unnamed Home Office official said in an e-mail dated August 2007, talking to Phorm’s legal representative.

The Home Office wrote to Phorm again, asking: “I should be grateful if you would review the attached document, and let me know what you think.”

Another email from the Home Office stated: “If we agree this, and this becomes our position do you think your clients and their prospective partners will be comforted.”

Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on Home Affairs, Baroness Sue Miller, said: “My jaw dropped when I saw the Freedom of Information exchanges. The fact the Home Office asks the very company they are worried is actually falling outside the laws whether the draft interpretation of the law is correct is completely bizarre.”

My lecture is called “9/11: Time for a Second Look.” In suggesting that it is time for people to take a second look at 9/11, I have in mind primarily people who decided long ago that the attacks of 9/11 happened essentially the way the Bush-Cheney administration and the official reports about 9/11 said they happened, and who therefore decided that the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement, which disputes that account, is comprised of crazy conspiracy theorists with no capacity to evaluate evidence objectively. Having formed these views long ago, such people, including most journalists, have been impervious to any arguments presented by the Truth Movement. They simply roll their eyes and move on.

However, both the Truth Movement and the available evidence have changed dramatically in the past 3 years. Because of these changes, it is not rational to reject the claims of this movement out of hand, without taking a second look. If you are a person who has had such an attitude, you cannot, in the face of these changes, simply roll your eyes without exhibiting the very irrationality of which you accuse the people you dismiss as “conspiracy theorists.”

My lecture is also addressed, albeit indirectly, to fellow members of the Truth Movement. Some members have decided that, now that Bush and Cheney are out of office and the Obama administration has reversed some of their 9/11-based policies, getting the truth about 9/11 revealed is no longer so important. Other members of the movement, seeing that the Obama administration is still presupposing that al-Qaeda attacked America on 9/11, have concluded that there is no hope that this truth will ever be revealed, so we might as well give up. To such people, I suggest that getting the truth revealed is just as important as ever, because many 9/11-based policies, especially the war in Afghanistan, have not been reversed. I also suggest that, because of the changes in the political landscape combined with developments in the 9/11 Truth Movement, we now have, really for the first time, a realistic chance of getting a genuine investigation.

I turn now to my topic: Why official conspiracy theorists should take a second look at 9/11. I use the name “official conspiracy theorists” advisedly. Quite often, people who believe the official theory about 9/11 speak contemptuously of members of the Truth Movement as “conspiracy theorists.” But this is irrational. A conspiracy occurs whenever two or more people plan in secret to do something illegal, such as rob a bank or defraud a corporation’s customers. To hold a conspiracy theory about some event is simply to believe that it resulted from a conspiracy. According to the Bush-Cheney interpretation of 9/11, which became the official account, the attacks resulted from a conspiracy between Osama bin Laden and 19 members of al-Qaeda. This official account is, therefore, a conspiracy theory.

What this means is that everyone holds a conspiracy theory about 9/11. The debate about 9/11 is not, therefore, a debate between conspiracy theorists and anti-conspiracy theorists. It is simply a debate between those who accept the Bush-Cheney administration’s conspiracy theory and those who accept the alternative theory, according to which 9/11 resulted from a conspiracy within the Bush-Cheney administration.

Those who believe the official conspiracy theory, therefore, cannot rationally reject the alternative theory on the grounds that it is a conspiracy theory. To be rational, they must ask: Which theory is better supported by the relevant facts?

Let me make clear that I do not use the term “official conspiracy theorist” as a term of reproach. There’s nothing wrong with believing the official conspiracy theory. I accepted it at one time myself. It is only a problem if you are a “true believer,” meaning that you are so certain that the Bush-Cheney conspiracy theory is true that you cannot look open-mindedly at evidence that may contradict it.

Reasons to be Skeptical of the Bush-Cheney Conspiracy Theory

One reason why it is irrational to keep believing the Bush-Cheney conspiracy theory, without being willing to look at new evidence, is that there are now grounds for being skeptical of that theory that did not exist at the time this theory became imprinted on most minds.

At that time, for example, it was not known that the Bush-Cheney administration would tell enormous lies that would lead to millions of deaths, including thousands of American deaths. But we now know this. Besides the lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the White House after 9/11 ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to lie about the air at the World Trade Center site, saying that it was safe to breathe. As a result, about 60 percent of the people who worked in the rescue and clean-up operations are ill, if they have not died already, and the number of those who will die from these illnesses will probably exceed the number of people who died on 9/11 itself. In the face of this information, it would be difficult to claim that the Bush-Cheney administration would have been morally incapable of orchestrating 9/11 and its cover-up.

We also now have reasons, not widely known at the time, to be skeptical of the official reports.

Most people have assumed that the 9/11 Commission was run by its co-chairmen, former Republican governor Thomas Kean and former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton. They have thought of it, therefore, as an independent, non-partisan body. But the 9/11 Commission was actually run by Philip Zelikow. He controlled the 85-person staff and was in charge of producing of The 9/11 Commission Report. And yet he was essentially a member of the Bush-Cheney White House, being especially close to Condoleezza Rice, with whom he had co-authored a book. Thanks to a book about the 9/11 Commission by New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, we now know that Zelikow, in spite of promises to the contrary, remained in contact with Rice and also with Karl Rove, the ultimate political operator in the White House. Shenon also revealed that, before his staff had even begun its work, Zelikow had already written a detailed outline of the report that would be issued, complete with “chapter headings, subheadings, and sub-subheadings.” Shenon also revealed that Kean and Hamilton conspired with Zelikow to keep the existence of this outline a secret from the staff.

In a book they wrote about the 9/11 Commission, Kean and Hamilton criticized “conspiracy theorists” because, rather than forming their theories on the basis of the facts, they start with their theories and then look for facts to support them. By contrast, Kean and Hamilton claimed, the 9/11 Commission started with the relevant facts, not with a conclusion: We were “not setting out to advocate one theory or interpretation of 9/11 versus another,” they said. And yet, they admit, Zelikow assigned “the subject of ‘al Qaeda’ to [one of the staff’s teams],” which was told to “tell the story of al Qaeda’s most successful operation---the 9/11 attacks.” If that was not starting with a theory about 9/11, what would have been?

If the 9/11 Commission was not independent of the Bush-Cheney White House, what about NIST---the National Institute of Standards and Technology---which prepared the official reports on the destruction of the World Trade Center? NIST is an agency of the US Department of Commerce. During the years it was preparing its reports, therefore, it was an agency of the Bush-Cheney administration, run by an appointee of that administration.

Recently, a former employee of this agency has spoken out, saying that NIST had been “fully hijacked from the scientific into the political realm.” Scientists working for NIST, he says, “lost [their] scientific independence, and became little more than ‘hired guns.’”

Everything that came from the hired guns was [he added] routinely filtered through the front office, and assessed for political implications before release.

Moreover, he said, NIST’s reports on the World Trade Center also had to be approved by the National Security Agency and the Office of Management and Budget---“an arm of the Executive Office of the President”---which “had a policy person specifically delegated to provide oversight on our work.”

As a result, NIST’s reports, which say the Twin Towers and Building 7 came down without the aid of explosives, are political, not scientific, reports---as any serious examination of these reports will reveal. The authors, with their PhD’s in physics and engineering, could not possibly believe the things they have written.

The New Shape of the 9/11 Truth Movement

If reasons to take a second look at 9/11 are provided by new information about the Bush-Cheney administration and the official reports supporting its conspiracy theory, the same is true of the new shape of the 9/11 Truth Movement. At one time, it was dismissed as “a bunch of kids on the Internet.” Then after I joined the movement by publishing The New Pearl Harbor, it was dismissed as “a bunch of kids on the Internet plus an ageing theologian.” George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian, referred to members of the movement as “morons” and “idiots.” Alexander Cockburn, writing in Counterpunch, The Nation, and Le Monde Diplomatique, referred to the movement’s members as the “9/11 Conspiracy Nuts,” saying that they know nothing about the “real world,” especially about military history. Lacking “any conception of evidence,” he added, they represent “the ascendancy of magic over common sense [and] reason.”

Insofar as critics of the 9/11 movement, ignoring the fact that its early leaders included a pilot, a former police officer, a political economist, and a historian, could portray me as its head---Monbiot referred to me as its “high priest,” another left-wing critic called me its “guru”---they could somewhat plausibly portray it to the general public as a religious movement, comprised of people who know nothing about the real world. As one critic put it, “Griffin, being a theologian, is not qualified to talk about anything except myths and fairy tales.” I did reply that I should, therefore, be eminently qualified to discuss the official conspiracy theory about 9/11. Nevertheless, the 9/11 Truth Movement can be easily dismissed insofar as people retain an image of it that was formed several years ago, when it could be portrayed as led by people who have no expertise in the relevant fields.

Even if that caricature, like most caricatures, contained a grain of truth then, it is now completely false. The intellectual leadership of the 9/11 Truth Movement is now exercised by scientists and other professionals who definitely know something about the real world. Many of these professionals have formed organizations dedicated to discovering and publicizing the truth about 9/11.

A few years ago, some scientists formed the Scientific Panel for the Investigation of 9/11. Others, more recently, formed Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, the main work of which has been carried out by physicists and chemists. Shortly thereafter, detractors of the Truth Movement said that, if there were any validity to these scientists’ claims about the World Trade Center, they would be able to get papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Over the past year, scientists affiliated with Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice have published 3 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The lead author of the most recent of these papers, which appeared in the Open Chemical Physics Journal, is Niels Harrit, a chemistry professor at the University of Copenhagen. These scientists, who know something about the chemical constituents of the real world, report finding many elements in World Trade Center dust that should not be there if the official theory, according to which nothing but fire and gravity brought the buildings down, were true.

A few years ago, after some physicists and chemists had joined the movement, detractors said: “They don’t really count. The question of what brought down the World Trade Center buildings is a question for engineers, and your movement doesn’t have any.” That was true in 2005. The following year, however, architect Richard Gage formed Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and by now over 600 licensed architects and engineers have signed its petition calling for a new investigation. These are people who know about that part of the real world that consists of steel-frame high-rise buildings, and they know that the official story---according to which fires caused the Twin Towers and Building 7 to come straight down in virtual free fall---simply cannot be true. For example, Jack Keller, emeritus professor of engineering at Utah State University, who had been given special recognition by Scientific American, has said about the collapse of Building 7: “Obviously it was the result of controlled demolition.” A similar judgment has been offered by two emeritus professors of structural engineering at Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology, along with hundreds of other engineers and architects.

Firefighters also have expert knowledge that is relevant to what happened in New York City on 9/11, and this past year brought the formation of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, who point out, on the basis of their professional expertise, why the NIST reports about the World Trade Center should not be believed.

There is now, moreover, an organization of Veterans for 9/11 Truth, with several former military officers. They probably, I would venture to say, know more about the real world of military affairs than does Alexander Cockburn.

Another professional organization with relevant expertise is Pilots for 9/11 Truth, which includes in its ranks many former commercial and military pilots, who call incredible the official story about why the 9/11 airliners were not intercepted. This organization has also devoted much attention to the Pentagon attack, pointing out many reasons why the official account of that attack cannot be true.

The latest of the professional organizations to form is Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth. One of the first people to join was William Christison, a former senior CIA official. If you are one of the many people who “just knows” that the position of the 9/11 Truth Movement is too implausible to be worth a few days of your time to study its evidence, listen to what he wrote in 2006:

I spent the first four and a half years since September 11 utterly unwilling to consider seriously the conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks of that day. . . . [I]n the last half year and after considerable agony, I’ve changed my mind. . . . I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe.

The backbone of the 9/11 Truth Movement is now constituted by these professional organizations of scientists, architects, engineers, firefighters, military officers, pilots, and intelligence officers. And there are still more. The past year has witnessed the formation of Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, and, very recently, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, which already includes past or present members of the parliaments of Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, Europe, and the UK, and also a former United States governor. Accordingly, people who have thought of the movement as constituted by people who can be dismissed as conspiracy nuts, even morons and idiots, need to reevaluate---if they want their opinions to be based on the real world.

Here is the present situation---and if you are going to quote one sentence from my lecture, I would recommend this one: Among independent scientists and professionals in the relevant fields who have studied the evidence, the weight of scientific and professional opinion is now overwhelmingly on the side of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Whereas well over 1,000 such people have gone on record publicly questioning the official theory, there are virtually no scientists or professionals in the relevant fields who have gone on record in support of the official story---except for such people who are not independent, meaning that their whose livelihoods would be threatened if they refused to support the official theory. This caveat is important, because, as Sinclair Lewis famously observed: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Except for such people, virtually everyone who has expertise in a relevant field, and who has seriously studied the evidence, rejects the official conspiracy theory. It is time, therefore, for journalists and everyone else to take a second look.

New Evidence

Journalists often say that they cannot write about an issue that is considered “old news.” They must have new evidence. Another reason why it is time for a second look at 9/11 is the existence of a wealth of new evidence. There is so much that I can mention only a small portion of it.

New Evidence from the FBI: Some of this new evidence has, amazingly, been supplied by the FBI. Although the FBI was originally the main agency creating and protecting the official account, it has recently provided several revelations that undermine this account.

One example involves one of the central pillars of the official conspiracy theory: the claim that the attacks were authorized by Osama bin Laden. That claim is still used to support the American military effort in Afghanistan, which President Obama recently encouraged Europeans to support more wholeheartedly. But if you will go to the website labeled “Most Wanted Terrorists” and turn to its page on “Usama bin Laden,” you will find that, although he is wanted for various terrorist attacks, the 9/11 attacks are not mentioned. When a member of the 9/11 Truth Movement contacted FBI headquarters to ask why not, the FBI’s Chief of Investigative Publicity replied: “[B]ecause the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Another example involves the reported telephone calls from the airliners, through which people on the ground were told that the planes had been hijacked by Middle Eastern terrorists. Some 15 people reported that they had been called by loved ones using mobile phones. United Flight 93---the plane that reportedly crashed in Pennsylvania---was by itself said to have been the source of about a dozen of these mobile phone calls. Deena Burnett alone reported having received 3 or 4 such calls from her husband, Tom Burnett. She knew he was using his mobile phone, she told the FBI, because she looked at her Caller ID and recognized his number. Most of these calls were reportedly made when the airliners were flying at 35,000 or even 40,000 feet.

Pilots and scientists in the 9/11 Truth Movement, however, pointed out that, given the mobile phone technology available in 2001, successful calls from high-altitude airliners were not possible. Defenders of the official conspiracy, such as Popular Mechanics, argued that such calls could indeed be made. But while Popular Mechanics was making this claim, the FBI was pulling the rug out from under it.

In 2006, at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, the FBI was required to present evidence about the phone calls from all 4 airliners. Its report said that of the 37 phone calls from Flight 93, mobile phones had been used to make only two of them, which had occurred when the plane, being ready to crash, was at a very low altitude. The FBI, in other words, implicitly supported the Truth Movement’s claim that mobile phone calls from high-altitude airliners were impossible. Popular Mechanics was left with egg on its face.

For our purposes, however, the important point is that the FBI was now saying that people such as Deena Burnett, who were certain that they had been called from mobile phones, were wrong. But how could Deena Burnett have been wrong, given the fact that she had repeatedly recognized Tom’s number on her Caller ID? The FBI, which had taken her testimony on 9/11 without disputing it, did not answer this question. The only possible answer, in any case, seems to be that the calls to Deena were faked. The technology for faking such calls did exist. There are devices with which you can fake any phone number you wish. And the technology of voice morphing had progressed to the point where it was good enough to fool even the spouse of the purported caller. By changing the official story about these phone calls, therefore, the FBI implicitly admitted that the mobile calls had been faked. And if someone was prepared to fake all the mobile calls, then surely all the reported calls were faked.

The FBI contradicted the official story even more seriously in its report on phone calls from Flight 77. The most important of all the “phone calls from the planes” were those from Barbara Olson, a well-known commentator on CNN and the wife of Ted Olson, the Solicitor General at the Department of Justice. He was the attorney who argued successfully before the Supreme Court in 2000 that the Bush-Cheney ticket should be declared the winner of the presidential election in Florida. On 9/11, Olson told CNN and the FBI that his wife, Barbara, who was on American Flight 77---the one that supposedly struck the Pentagon---had called him twice, reporting that hijackers, armed with knives and box-cutters, had hijacked the plane.

This was a very important call. It was taken as evidence that Flight 77 was still in the air, rather than, as some thought, having crashed in Ohio or a nearby state. This meant that it could have been the aircraft that damaged the Pentagon. Most of all, the idea that Muslims had killed Barbara Olson, who was a favorite with the right-wing, was instrumental in creating enthusiasm for the so-called war on terror.

However, the FBI report to the Moussaoui trial did not support Ted Olson’s claim about these calls. In its report on phone calls from Flight 77, it did mention Barbara Olson. But it said that she “attempted” one call, that it was “unconnected,” and that it, therefore, lasted “0 seconds.” This is an amazing story. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice. And yet the FBI’s 2006 report declared, in effect, that the two phone calls reported by the former solicitor general of the Department of Justice never happened. This leaves only two options. Either Ted Olson simply made up this story, or else he, like Deena Burnett and several others, was duped. Either way, one of the official conspiracy theory’s foundational stories was based on a lie.

How many people would still believe this conspiracy theory if they knew about this and the other ways in which it has been undermined by the FBI? Not very many. This illustrates my point---that most people who continue to believe the Bush-Cheney conspiracy theory about 9/11 are unaware of the dozens of facts that contradict this theory.

Building 7 of the World Trade Center

For my final illustration of this point, I will discuss the collapse of Building 7 of the World Trade Center. The Truth Movement has long considered this collapse the official conspiracy theory’s Achilles’ Heel---its most vulnerable element---for several reasons: Building 7 was not hit by a plane; it had fires on only a few floors; and it came straight down in virtual free fall, looking every bit like the kind of controlled demolition known as implosion, in which the building folds in on itself and ends up as a rather compact debris pile. Defenders of the official story clearly did not want the public to focus on the collapse of this building. The 9/11 Commission did not even mention it. After the day of 9/11 itself, this collapse was seldom if ever shown on TV until 2008, when NIST finally issued its report on it. And NIST had delayed this report year after year, releasing it only when the Bush-Cheney administration was about to leave office.

My next book will be about NIST’s report on Building 7. It will show that this report inadvertently reveals that a plausible defense of the official theory about this building, according to which it was brought down by fire alone, is impossible. To attempt this defense, NIST had to ignore various kinds of physical evidence in the World Trade Center dust, such as the existence of particles that could have been formed only at extremely high temperatures---several times higher than could have been caused by fire. It also includes elements that seem explainable only as the residue from nanothermite, which is classified as a high explosive. The dust even includes active thermitic material, discovered by physicist Steven Jones, which appears to be unreacted nanothermite. This is the conclusion of the new paper, which I mentioned earlier, for which the lead author is Copenhagen’s Niels Harrit, who is an expert in nanochemistry.

When NIST was asked whether it had checked the dust for evidence of thermite, it said No. When a reporter asked Michael Newman, a NIST spokesman, why not, he said: “because there was no evidence of that.” This circular answer led the reporter to ask: “But how can you know there’s no evidence if you don’t look for it first?” Newman gave another circular reply, saying: “If you’re looking for something that isn’t there, you’re wasting your time . . . and the taxpayers’ money.”

NIST also ignored and distorted testimonial evidence that explosions had gone off in Building 7. The most important such testimony was given by Barry Jennings of the New York City Housing Authority. As soon as the North Tower was struck that morning at 8:46, Jennings rushed, as he was supposed to do, to the 23rd floor of Building 7, which housed Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management. But when he and Michael Hess, Giuliani’s corporation counsel, got there at about 9:00, they found that everyone had left. Calling to ask what they should do, they were told to leave the building immediately. Finding that the elevator would not work, they started running down the stairs. When they got to the 6th floor, however, a huge explosion blew the landing out from under them. Climbing back up to the 8th floor, Jennings broke a window to call for help, at which time he could see that both of the Twin Towers were still standing.

However, when Giuliani wrote about the 9/11 experience of his friend Michael Hess, he claimed that the big event, which Hess and Jennings had called an explosion, was really just some effects caused by debris from the collapse of the North Tower. It did not collapse until 10:28, so Giuliani put this big event at least an hour later than did Jennings. Giuliani’s version of this event became the official story. It was defended by NIST in its 2005 report on the Twin Towers and then, in 2008, by a BBC special on Building 7.

Jennings had told his story in an interview for the producers of Loose Change Final Cut. But before the film was released, Jennings, fearing that it would cost him his job, asked that his interview not be included, and the producers took it out. Later, however, Jennings told his story in an interview for the BBC. But the BBC placed Jennings’ story within the official timeline, making it appear as if the huge explosion he had reported was really, as the narrator put it, “just debris from a falling skyscraper.” The BBC even made it seem as if Jennings was all by himself, rather than accompanied by Hess, even though Jennings was repeatedly heard saying “we.”

This BBC program aired in July 2008. NIST, whose timeline the BBC had followed, released the first draft of its report on Building 7 the following month. Shortly before this release---evidently only two days before---Barry Jennings, who was 53 years old, died mysteriously. People who have tried to find out the details of his death have been unable to learn anything, beyond the fact that he evidently died in a hospital.

Whatever the cause of his death, it was certainly convenient. He was not around to be interviewed again, perhaps by the Loose Change producers, after the publication of NIST’s report. And the BBC was able to put out a second version of its program on the BBC, this time including Michael Hess, who since 2002 had been the vice chairman of former Mayor Giuliani’s consulting business. Hess, not surprisingly, supported the timeline defended by Giuliani, NIST, and the BBC, along with their claim that no explosions had gone off in Building 7.

To see the falsity of that timeline, however, one only has to look at the interview of Jennings by the Loose Change producers, which is now on the Internet as “Barry Jennings Uncut.” The timely and mysterious death of Jennings, moreover, may well indicate just how threatening the truth about Building 7 is to the official conspiracy theory about 9/11.

In any case, I will point out one more way in which Building 7 has proved to be the Achilles’ Heel of the Bush-Cheney administration’s conspiracy theory about 9/11.

I mentioned earlier that Building 7 came down in virtual free fall. In the first draft of its report, which was issued in August 2008 for public comment, NIST claimed that the collapse took far longer than would a free-fall collapse. It also explained why, given its theory, which is a theory of “progressive collapse,” absolute free fall would have been impossible. But David Chandler, a high-school physics teacher, produced a video showing that the building came down in absolute free fall for over two seconds. Besides putting it on the Internet, Chandler confronted NIST with his evidence at a public meeting, which was broadcast live. In its Final Report, issued in November, NIST, amazingly, conceded that Building 7 had come down in free fall for over 2 seconds. But NIST had not altered its theory. Its Final Report, therefore, NIST admitted free fall as an empirical fact while articulating a theory that simply does not allow for free fall.

This contradiction can well be seen as the ultimate self-destruction of the official conspiracy theory about 9/11, which says that Muslim terrorists brought down three buildings of the World Trade Center by flying planes into two of them.

Conclusion

I will conclude by addressing members of the 9/11 Truth Movement---both old members and any new members that this lecture may have created. Rather than letting up on our efforts to get the truth about 9/11 revealed, now is the time to work even harder. We have a new president in the White House. I suggest that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s efforts should now be directed primarily at him. He has promised to base his policies on good science and good intelligence. He is also a lawyer, a politician, and a religious man, so he may well be moved by learning that these types of people have all formed organizations calling on him to authorize a new investigation. So besides carrying forward our present activities, we should also do everything we can to bring more scientists into the movement and to build up the size of Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth, and especially Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth---because this is now what is most needed: Pressure from political leaders around the world to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation, through which the truth about 9/11 can be revealed, so that the policies based upon the Bush-Cheney conspiracy theory can be completely abolished.

source

The family of Ian Tomlinson, who died at the G20 protest this month, are planning to file a new complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). This will deal not with the events that led to his death but with the fog of media misinformation that followed it. It is a complaint that will go to the heart of the way in which the news media operate - to the frequently undeclared relationship between reporters and the press officers on whom they rely and, in turn, the officials on whom these spokesmen rely on for much of their raw material. And it will pose a question that both sides often prefer to ignore: can they trust each other?

There were six days of substantially false coverage about a man who apparently died of a heart attack as he walked home while a screaming mob of anarchists hurled missiles at the police officers who tried to help him. Any inquiry into this media misinformation will want to find out whether that was simply the hyperbole of ignorant reporters or the product of bad practice at the Metropolitan police, the City of London police or the IPCC.

It was the intervention of ordinary people with cameras who provided their own surveillance of the protest that first led to questions about that version of the truth. An investigation by the Guardian suggests that an inquiry may find evidence of officials giving an incomplete picture.

At 7.30pm on Wednesday 1 April, as Mr Tomlinson lay dying on the pavement near the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, was several miles away at a party at Peelers restaurant, on the fifth floor of New Scotland Yard, to mark the retirement of the assistant commissioner Alf Hitchcock.

According to one guest: "He kept going out into the corridor, on his mobile. He looked very unhappy, stressed."

Four hours later, at 11.36pm, Scotland Yard issued a press release (see over), that, we now know, was seriously misleading - not because it included a direct falsehood, but because it failed to include the most important part of the truth, that Mr Tomlinson died after apparently being struck and pushed to the ground by a police officer. This press release was the result of some intense argument in the Yard's press bureau, with an earlier draft having been rejected.

The final draft, we have established, was approved over the phone by a regional director at the IPCC. Both Scotland Yard and the IPCC say that the press release was the truth as they knew it that night, that nobody who was involved in producing it knew, or had reason to suspect, that Mr Tomlinson had had any contact with a police officer.

A key task for any inquiry will be to find out why, if that were so, Scotland Yard that night referred the incident to the IPCC at all. That was an unusual move, certainly not one that occurs whenever a man has a heart attack in the street and/or when police officers try to save a man's life.

The IPCC's statutory guidance, however, requires police to refer to them "incidents where persons have died or been seriously injured following some form of direct or indirect contact with the police and there is reason to believe that the contact may have caused or contributed to the death or serious injury". However, both the IPCC and Scotland Yard say there had been no allegation of contact at the time: "It was treated as an unexplained death within the area of a policing operation that would need to be properly investigated and, therefore, the IPCC were informed as is routine practice in these circumstances."

Yet senior figures at Scotland Yard last week insisted, on the condition of anonymity, that the apparent assault on Mr Tomlinson had been detected by the police control room at Cobalt Street, south London, as soon as it happened and also that it had been "phoned in" by a chief inspector on the ground. A spokesman for the Metropolitan police denied this and said that, in response to the Guardian's inquiry, they had checked with every chief inspector in the operation, none of whom said they had called in such a report. On Thursday morning, under IPCC direction, the City of London police began an inquiry into the death. They also began to brief reporters with a line that appears to have surfaced first on the day after Mr Tomlinson's death at a meeting of the Gold Command group of senior officers who had policed the G20 protest. They heard reports from officers who had visited Mr Tomlinson's family that he had been in a poor state of health.

Without waiting for a postmortem to check this, City of London police briefed reporters. "On the Thursday, their line was that the family were not surprised by the death," according to one, "and that we should stop probing because the family didn't want this. He had health problems. 'There's a history there,' they were saying."

We now know that on the following day, Friday 3 April, this idea was substantially challenged from three directions: independent witnesses told the IPCC that police had clashed with Mr Tomlinson before his death; the Guardian warned the IPCC that it had photographs of Mr Tomlinson on the pavement at the feet of riot officers, apparently remonstrating with them; and, late that night, the preliminary report of a postmortem found that Mr Tomlinson had probably died of coronary heart disease but also found a number of injuries and a substantial amount of blood in his abdomen.

On Saturday, City of London police released an account of the pathologist's report, which highlighted the heart attack, but not the injuries or the blood in Mr Tomlinson's abdomen. This reinforced the existing police narrative, with Sunday papers recycling the line that he had died of natural causes. A second postmortem has since suggested that he died as a result of an abdominal haemorrhage. The City of London police press office say that everything it gave journalists was based on the information available at the time.

That Sunday, a senior IPCC official called the Guardian to complain that a reporter had been "doorstepping" the church where the Tomlinson family had gone to mourn the dead man. This was based on information given to the IPCC by the City of London police and accepted on good faith but, on investigation, turned out to be wrong.

Two days later, on the evening of Tuesday 7 April, the Guardian posted on its website the crucial video of Mr Tomlinson being pushed to the ground, and agreed to hand over to the IPCC a copy of the video as well as printed statements from witnesses found by the newspaper.

However, when an IPCC investigator came to the Guardian, with a City of London police exhibits officer, he asked for the video to be removed from the website on the grounds that it could prejudice the police inquiry and would upset the family. The deputy editor-in-chief who met him declined and pointed out that the Tomlinson family at that moment were in another part of the building, talking to Paul Lewis, the reporter who had driven the story, and publicly thanking the paper for its help.

The IPCC was involved in a similar, but tougher, manoeuvre last week when its lawyers attempted to get an injunction to prevent Channel 4 News from using a new video of the incident. A judge refused to grant it. The IPCC last week claimed that there was a particular passage in the footage that caused them concern but declined to identify it.

The IPCC has some history of publishing misleading press releases, often apparently reflecting the police account of an incident.

In the case of a man who died in police custody in Essex in 2005, the IPCC published two press releases containing inaccuracies, which led lawyers to write to them warning that the dead man's family "can be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that those who may have something to fear from the truth are seeking to 'spin' it for public consumption in an exercise in which the IPCC is appearing to play a part". After lengthy correspondence, the IPCC published corrections to both press releases.

In another recent case, the IPCC was forced to scrap a draft press release about a man who had been shot dead by police after the family's solicitor threatened to go to court to challenge its contents as prejudicial.

The solicitor, Tony Murphy of Bhatt Murphy, said: "These reports not only risk prejudicing inquest juries, they also signal a lack of balance and a failure by the IPCC to treat the police account with a healthy degree of scepticism. The IPCC is quick to examine potential motives of the deceased but much slower to probe the police line. This is detrimental to the IPCC's independence and credibility."

The IPCC told us they have no plans to investigate media handling of the incident, whether by themselves or others, but would consider any complaint they received.

Now the home secretary wants private telecoms companies and internet service providers do the government's dirty work

ORIGINAL DOWNING ST SMEARS VICTIM RETURNS TO HAUNT NEW LABOUR

Thatcher Room
Portcullis House
Tuesday 28 April 1.45pm

Formal Evidence Session on UK Complicity in Torture

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights

Witness: Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan (currently Rector of the University of Dundee).

In 2004, Craig Murray told us that:

- The British Government was complicit in the most vicious forms of torture
- He had been the victim of a lurid smear campaign initiated by New Labour
- The government was lying about all this

In 2004, much of the public and media was not willing to accept that the government would cooperate with torture or with false allegations against an innocent man. Many still had trust in the basic honesty and decency of government.

The evidence that Craig Murray was telling the truth about torture has now become overwhelming, including from the case of Binyam Mohammed. The UK “benefited” continually from intelligence passed on from the CIA waterboarding programme and from torture in countries including Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Egypt.

Craig Murray suffered the most high profile sacking of any British Ambassador for a century. But in 2005 the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee refused to hear him in evidence, despite allowing Jack Straw to appear and attack him.

Astonishingly, this is the first time Craig Murray will ever have been allowed to give formal evidence in the UK on his grave allegations, and be questioned on the truth of his testimony.

As the Scotland Yard investigation proceeds into MI5 and MI6 collusion in 16 cases of torture, Craig Murray will argue that it is not the security service operatives, but the Ministers who set the policy – and specifically Jack Straw – who should be facing criminal charges.

Contact: Craig Murray on 07979 691085 or craigmurray@mail.ru

Transcript of Craig Murray's formal evidence statement is at

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03trying_again_my.html

� June 25, 2008 - 77: There were no explosives

� July 4, 2006 - Fake terrorism broadcasts planned for 7 July 2005

� January 20, 2006 - The London Tube Bombings Fantasy July 7, 2005

� July 3, 2008 - I have a few things to say

Nick Hardwick, chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, gives the first interview about the death of Ian Tomlinson to Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

Hardwick said of the assault:

"We don't have CCTV footage of the incident... there is no CCTV footage, there were no cameras in the location where he was assaulted."

Speaking to More 4 News, the IPCC confirmed Hardwick's comment, saying that the CCTV cameras overlooking the incident were not working.