"...when Mr. Ng, who had overstayed a visa years earlier, went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan last summer for his final interview for a green card, he was swept into immigration detention and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.

In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.

On Tuesday, with an autopsy by the Rhode Island medical examiner under way, his lawyers demanded a criminal investigation in a letter to federal and state prosecutors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the detention system.

Mr. Ng’s death follows a succession of cases that have drawn Congressional scrutiny to complaints of inadequate medical care, human rights violations and a lack of oversight in immigration detention, a rapidly growing network of publicly and privately run jails where the government held more than 300,000 people in the last year while deciding whether to deport them."

Labels: corruption, new fascism

By Glenn Greenwald

"The FBI's lead suspect in the September, 2001 anthrax attacks -- Bruce E. Ivins -- died Tuesday night, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks. For the last 18 years, Ivins was a top anthrax researcher at the U.S. Government's biological weapons research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID).

The 2001 anthrax attacks remain one of the great mysteries of the post-9/11 era. After 9/11 itself, the anthrax attacks were probably the most consequential event of the Bush presidency. One could make a persuasive case that they were actually more consequential. The 9/11 attacks were obviously traumatic for the country, but in the absence of the anthrax attacks, 9/11 could easily have been perceived as a single, isolated event. It was really the anthrax letters -- with the first one sent on September 18, just one week after 9/11 -- that severely ratcheted up the fear levels and created the climate that would dominate in this country for the next several years after. It was anthrax -- sent directly into the heart of the country's elite political and media institutions, to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, and other leading media outlets -- that created the impression that social order itself was genuinely threatened by Islamic radicalism."

Labels: conspiracy, corruption

"The sex industry is booming, the rape conviction rate is plummeting, women's bodies are picked over in the media, abortion rights are under serious threat and top business leaders say they don't want to employ women. It all adds up to one thing ... an all-out assault on feminism. But why? And what's to be done about it, asks Kira Cochrane..."

Labels: corruption, feminism, gender

By Stephen Soldz

"...As a further indication of APA's connection to the CIA's torture firm, one of the five "governing people" on the torture firm's Board is former American Psychological Association President, Joseph Matarazzo. The APA is intensely disturbed by President Matarazzo's possible involvement in torture as can be gleamed from these ethically-principled quotes from APA leadership when Matarazzo's involvement was revealed last summer:

Then-APA President Sharon Brehm: "No comment."

APA Director of the Ethics Office and APA point man on torture and interrogations: "No comment."..."

Labels: corruption, torture, truth

"A Navy helicopter was using controversial sonar equipment off the Cornish coast days before 26 dolphins died in a mass stranding.

Officials at the Ministry of Defence admitted last night that the sonar "dipper", designed to hunt submarines, had been used by a Merlin helicopter on training exercise.

The mass dolphin stranding was the biggest in Britain for 30 years.

Four days later, the dolphins beached in the shallow Fal and Percuil rivers 60 miles away near Falmouth. The mass stranding last Monday was the biggest in Britain for 30 years.

Conservation groups want a full investigation. Marine wildlife and underwater acoustics experts said loud pulses from the sonar may have scared or confused the common dolphins into Falmouth Bay, where they became disorientated. An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph discovered that the sonar was being used as part of an exercise involving the nuclear-powered submarine Torbay and a number of surface warships."

Labels: corruption, environmental concerns

by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele

"Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination."

Labels: collusion, corruption, environmental concerns

"The use of torture to extract evidence from detainees held at the US military jail in Guantanamo Bay has tarnished the image of the US legal system and alienated allies in the war on terror, a human rights group says.

"The use of evidence tainted by torture and other inhuman treatment is pervasive and systematic in the cases of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, and has already infected legal judgments made there," Human Rights First said in a report titled 'Tortured Justice'.

By hearing testimony extracted under torture when trying Guantanamo detainees, the United States is "tainting the legitimacy of the proceedings, both at home and in the eyes of the international community; alienating US allies and empowering terrorists", it said.

'Tortured Justice' was released two days after US President George W Bush vetoed legislation on intelligence funding because it called for interrogation methods to be limited to techniques outlined in a US military manual.

That would have excluded waterboarding, a method of controlled drowning, widely seen as a form of torture.

In vetoing the bill on Saturday (local time), Mr Bush called hardcore interrogation methods "one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror", and praised them for preventing another attack on the United States, such as those on September 11, 2001."

Labels: corruption, George W Bush, torture

"Something is in the air these days because in two separate cases, federal court judges have issued rulings that do some damage to the First Amendment right to free speech. In the first case Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Federal District Court in San Francisco issued last week what the Citizen Media Project calls a "stunningly broad injunction" against web site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks says it's an "uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis," and has actively published a number of purloined documents submitted to it, including the secret censorship lists of Thailand's military Junta and files that purported to expose money-laundering by the former president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi.

This go-around Wikileaks published documents regarding a Cayman Islands bank Julius Baer Bank and Trust Company. Julius Baer asked first for a temporary restraining order against Wikileaks and then received a permanent injunction against the web site because, it argued, a disgruntled ex-employee has provided the site with stolen documents that violate a confidentiality agreement and banking laws. Judge White issued an order not to the site itself but to Wikileaks domain registrar Dynadot to disable the entire Wikileaks.org domain name and account and remove all DNS hosting records."

Labels: censorship, collusion, corruption

"On December 30th Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) announced the fifth death in custody of a Guantanamo captive.

The JTF-GTMO asserted that 68 year-old Abdul Razzak was a confirmed jihadist and military leader.

It is interesting to compare the JTF-GTMO claims with his testimony."

Labels: collusion, corruption, new fascism

"RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- The body of Pakistan's assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was being flown home Friday, as sporadic violence was reported in cities across the country. Bhutto was killed Thursday leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi. The Interior Ministry said she died from a gun shot wound to the neck, fired by an attacker who then detonated a bomb killing 22 other people.

Angry mobs took to the streets, blocking roads, torching cars and pelting rocks at police, local television footage showed.

Police fired on a crowd, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, GEO TV reported. In Peshawar, officers used tear gas and batons to break up a demonstration, the station said.

Authorities called for calm and police asked residents to stay inside.

Many obliged, shuttering shops or rushing home from work, and surrendering the streets to protesters who set fire to banks, shops, gas stations and more, Pakistani media reported."

Labels: assassination, corruption

by Glenn Greenwald

"There are several vital points raised by the new revelations in The New York Times that "the N.S.A.'s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before" and includes both pre-9/11 efforts to tap without warrants into the nation's domestic communications network as well as the collection of vast telephone records of American citizens in the name of the War on Drugs. The Executive Branch and the largest telecommunications companies work in virtually complete secrecy -- with no oversight and no notion of legal limits -- to spy on Americans, on our own soil, at will.

More than anything else, what these revelations highlight -- yet again -- is that the U.S. has become precisely the kind of surveillance state that we were always told was the hallmark of tyrannical societies, with literally no limits on the government's ability or willingness to spy on its own citizens and to maintain vast dossiers on those activities. The vast bulk of those on whom the Government spies have never been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong."

Labels: bush-is-a-tyrant, corruption

"Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise."

Labels: collusion, corruption, new fascism

"Early findings by the FBI on a September shootout in Baghdad involving private security firm Blackwater show that at least 14 Iraqis were killed for no reason, The New York Times reported.

In all, 17 people were killed when Blackwater private security guards opened fire in a crowded Baghdad neighbourhood as they protected a State Department convoy.

Blackwater said the guards came under attack.

At least 14 of the shootings broke rules for private security guards in Iraq regarding the use of deadly force, the Times reported, citing unnamed civilian and military officials briefed on the case.

US officials contacted by AFP declined to comment for this news story, citing the "ongoing investigation."

"Sorry, but given that this is an ongoing investigation, we are not in a position to comment at this time" said Dean Boyd, a Department of Justice spokesman.

Blackwater has been accused by its detractors of having a cowboy mentality and a 'shoot first, ask questions later' approach when guarding the steady stream of politicians, diplomats and other dignitaries who parade through war-torn Iraq."

Labels: corruption, war

By PAMELA HESS

"WASHINGTON (AP) - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.

The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA court order between 2001 and 2007."

Labels: corruption, privacy

by Drew Hemmett

"Hundreds of agencies in the UK will have access to phone records from
today, following new regulations which require telecoms companies to
retain for 1 year and share information on the calls people make
using mobile or landline phones and their location. This has been
quietly introduced by the Home Office under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and is justified as a vital tool to
combat terrorism. The government will also be able to require people
to hand over decryption keys under the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/20072199.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/20072196.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000023.htm
http://www.statewatch.org/eu-data-retention.htm"

Labels: collusion, corruption, UK

By Jacqui Cheng | Published: September 10, 2007 - 11:19AM CT

"The roughly 500 cybercafés in Mumbai, India, will soon have police-sanctioned keylogging software installed on their machines in the name of fighting terrorism. The software will track everything entered into web forms, chat rooms, e-mail, and more, and report it back to the government. Mumbai police say that cybercafé owners must agree to the installation of the software or else they will lose their licenses."

Labels: censorship, corruption

by Gerard Noonan

"THE reputation of Australian courts has slipped and its position as a bastion of free speech and human rights has eroded in recent times, says the human rights campaigner and prominent international barrister Geoffrey Robertson...He singled out recent legislation introduced by the Treasurer, Peter Costello, which introduces severe penalties for "secondary boycott" campaigners - including the media - campaigning on issues like child slavery or animal cruelty as the latest sign of restrictions on human rights and media freedom."

Labels: censorship, corruption, new fascism

US officer on trial over Abu Ghraib abuse

"Two of the most serious charges against US officer Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, who is charged over the 2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, were dropped after an investigator acknowledged that he failed to read Jordan his rights during a 2004 interview.

Jordan has been charged with illegally approving the use of dogs in interrogations and allowing the mistreatment of prisoners to continue.

He was charged after photographs surfaced showing US military guards abusing naked detainees at the Iraqi jail in 2003 and 2004.

Jordan is the only US officer charged in connection with the abuse scandal and is pleading innocent to the remaining charges, saying he is being used as a scapegoat.

Eleven soldiers have already been convicted of abusing Iraqi detainees at the prison in 2003 and 2004.

Jordan is the last of 12 defendants to be court-martialled."

Labels: corruption

by Joel Gibson and Debra Jopson

"HUNDREDS of millions of dollars which the Federal Government says it has spent on indigenous affairs have never been spent, have been used to benefit all Australians or have gone towards opposing Aboriginal native title claims.

A significant portion of the money the Government says it has spent since 2000 - which has risen annually and reached $3 billion last year alone - was either underspent or the result of creative accounting, a Herald investigation has found.

Over the past six years, at least $30 million of the money the Government promoted as being for Aborigines was used to oppose native title and compensation claims. Spending figures have also been bloated by money spent on services that benefit everyone - such as medical centres - but the money is nevertheless described specifically as the "black dollar".

Last financial year, for example, almost $50 million of the federal spending on indigenous people was for legal aid, which the courts have recognised as a right under common law. The $500,000 estimated to be the cost of Family Court disputes involving Aborigines has also been counted..."

Labels: corruption, cruelty, racism

'A Muslim civil rights advocate says the handling of the case of the Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef has confirmed the Muslim community's worst fears.

Dr Waleed Kadous from the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network says those fears date back to the introduction of the counter-terrorism legislation last year.

Dr Kadous says the Haneef case has left many thinking "there but for the grace of God go I".

"[It was] every Muslim's fear that this could happen to him," he said.

"They can imagine being in the same situation as Haneef was in, that they left a SIM card with a relative before leaving country and then something happens a year later.

"They can imagine borrowing money from someone and paying the loan back, these are not unusual things."'

Labels: collusion, corruption, new fascism