"...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

"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

"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

"AUSTRALIAN counter-terrorism authorities had no evidence that Mamdouh Habib had taken part in terrorist-related activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan before he was abducted by the US and taken to Egypt and Guantanamo Bay, an ASIO agent told the NSW Supreme Court yesterday.

The ASIO officer, who interviewed Mr Habib three times in Islamabad in 2001, was testifying yesterday in a defamation case involving Mr Habib and the News Limited columnist Piers Akerman.

Officer 1, as the ASIO officer is codenamed, told Justice Peter McClellan that, before conducting the interviews, he knew only that Mr Habib had been in Pakistan and Afghanistan about the time of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"He may have been in Afghanistan for a number of reasons," Officer 1 said. "What he was doing, I did not know … that was the purpose of the interview."

He was none the wiser after the interviews as Mr Habib's "failure to answer the questions did not illuminate [his activities]".

He said there were suspicions - unfounded, it later emerged - that Mr Habib was involved in the September 11 attacks.

"It was a possibility but by no means the only possibility," Officer 1 told the court.

Within a month of the interviews taking place, Mr Habib was abducted by Pakistani and US officials and flown to Egypt, which has a prison system notorious for using torture.

Mr Habib spent about six months there, and has detailed extensive mistreatment, including being regularly beaten, subjected to electric shocks, deprived of sleep and left in neck-high water for extended periods.

Officer 1 said he was aware now that Mr Habib had been taken to Egypt but he had had no role in the abduction and would have stopped it if he could."

Labels: new fascism, torture

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

by David Marr


"...Yet the Office of Film and Literature Classification will soon be hunting for men and women with the amazing ability to pick the books, films, symphonies, news broadcasts, sitcoms and sermons that "might lead a person (regardless of his or her age or any mental impairment) to engage in a terrorist act".

Philip Ruddock wants all such works banned. We are not defenceless now. For years this country has suppressed any works that "promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence" but the Attorney-General fears that formula is too slack. With his lawyer's mind he sees the risk of insidious material slipping through the net to inspire the naive and impressionable.

It's over a year since he first tried to persuade the state and territory attorneys-general to accept this new rule banning "advocacy" of terrorism. They jacked up, alarmed by the sweeping powers he wanted to give the censors.

When the attorneys meet again in Hobart at the end of this week, Ruddock will once more be insisting his new rule be adopted by the states and territories. If they don't - and several states are still holding out - he has a bill ready and waiting to override the nation's supposedly co-operative censorship arrangements. "I am not prepared," Ruddock told Parliament in June, "to wait indefinitely to address this problem."

But what is the problem, asked the Australian Press Council, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Law Council of Australia in submissions to Ruddock's department over the past few months? Promoting terrorism is already banned, so why do we need new rules to suppress urging, advocating and praising?"

Labels: censorship, new fascism

"THE crucial piece of evidence against the terrorism suspect Mohamed Haneef - that his mobile phone SIM card was found at the scene of a British car bombing - is wrong, the Australian Federal Police have admitted.

The revelation has cast a fresh cloud over police handling of the Haneef case, with scathing criticism coming from Peter Faris, a QC who has been an ardent supporter of anti-terrorism laws, and the Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, expressing concern.

Federal police sources said yesterday it had been confirmed the SIM card was not found at the scene of the Glasgow Airport attack, as prosecutors had alleged during Haneef's bail hearing last weekend.

It was found in the possession of one of Haneef's cousins, Sabeel Ahmed, hundreds of kilometres away in Liverpool. The sources said they had been aware of the error for some time, but no attempt was made to correct the public record.

In Britain, a source close to the investigation confirmed the SIM card was found in Liverpool, and said the Australian police were considered a laughing stock by Britain's Metropolitan Police for allowing "such a major cock-up" to happen. "Australian police have got their wires crossed. This is very embarrassing for them. The police here are laughing at the Australian police, saying, 'What on earth have they done?' [Haneef] is clearly more of a political case than a police case."

The Herald has learnt that the prosecutor at the Brisbane bail hearing, Clive Porritt, of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, even gave the court an explanation when defence lawyers asked why Haneef would have provided his SIM card if he knew it was planned to be used for the purposes of terrorism.

Mr Porritt responded that it had been intended the SIM card would be destroyed in the planned explosion when a Jeep Cherokee was rammed into the doors of at Glasgow Airport.

A spokeswoman for the DPP, asked if Mr Porritt had provided wrong information on the SIM card to the bail hearing, responded: "It is not appropriate for us to comment on matters before the court."

In Bangalore, India, Haneef's wife, Firdous Arshiya, was visited by a junior minister from the Ministry of External Affairs, who assured her the Indian Government would try to ensure that her husband received justice.

"Every day I hear of some new problem that my husband is facing in Australia," she said. "That is why I met the minister to ask that the Indian Government put more pressure on the Australian Government."

The Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, said yesterday none of the revelations would affect his decision to cancel Haneef's visa. That decision was made after Haneef was granted bail, with the minister ordering his indefinite incarceration in a detention centre.

"The minister is not reviewing his decision to cancel Dr Haneef's visa. Nothing that has been reported in the media alters his decision, which was made after advice from the AFP and was based on a broader range of information than was provided to the magistrate in the bail hearing."

However, there are suggestions Mr Andrews relied partially on other inaccurate information, contained in a federal police affidavit, when he cancelled Haneef's work visa.

The affidavit said that Haneef offered "no particular reason" for buying a one-way ticket from Brisbane to India.

However, a leaked transcript of a police interview shows Haneef explaining that his father-in-law had bought the one-way ticket for him because he had limited funds.

The affidavit also suggests Haneef admitted to having lived at a British address with the second cousins who are now being prosecuted there. But the interview transcript shows he denied living at the house at the same time.

The Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, said information given by the AFP and other sources to Mr Andrews was an "entirely separate matter" to the criminal prosecution of Haneef, with different grounds of evidence. Mr Keelty declined to answer a series of written questions from the Herald on the SIM card evidence, or the information provided to the minister.

He was asked: - Was the suggestion that the SIM card was found in the Jeep crucial to Haneef being charged? - When did police learn that the card was not in the Jeep? - Did that discovery alter his view on Haneef being charged? - If not, what evidence had police relied on? - Did he acknowledge that the bail magistrate and Mr Andrews were given incorrect information about Haneef; and - Would he consider dropping the charges?

The federal police came under ferocious attack from Dr Faris, a former head of the National Crime Authority.

The evidence mistake was a "shocking mess-up" that jeopardised the prosecution's case, he said

"You can't get something that's so central so wrong," Dr Faris told ABC radio.

"I think this is fast approaching the situation where there is not a reasonable prospect of a conviction unless there's some other evidence that we don't know about."

Dr Faris said the case showed the federal police were "way out of their depth".

Mr Keelty said Dr Faris should "keep his comments to himself". It was up to the courts to evaluate evidence.

"Submissions are made to courts every other day ... They are not evidence; they are submissions. And we need to let the court determine the value of what has been put before it."

But Mr Beattie said inconsistencies in official statements had not been properly explained, and he called on the Prime Minister, John Howard, to clarify the situation.

Until key questions were answered people would feel uneasy "and a little bit embarrassed" about the impact of the case on Australia's reputation.

"The reality is we are not mushrooms, and we shouldn't be treated like that."

Court documents released yesterday confirmed Dr Haneef would face up to 15 years imprisonment if convicted.

Labels: new fascism

'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

"Some of the details of a terrorism charge against Mohamed Haneef presented in court by the prosecution may have been incorrect, reports say.

A Brisbane court was told this week a mobile phone SIM card belonging to Haneef, a Gold Coast based doctor, was found in the Jeep that smashed into Glasgow Airport on June 30.

Haneef has been charged with "recklessly" supporting a terrorist organisation, after providing the SIM card to a relative later allegedly involved in plotting the botched car bomb attacks in the UK.

However, sources in the UK and Australia have told ABC Radio the SIM card was actually seized by police eight hours later when Haneef's cousin Sabeel Ahmed was arrested in Liverpool.

Ahmed allegedly had two phones on him at the time of his arrest, one of which contained Haneef's SIM card.

Police in Britain and Australia would not comment on where the SIM card was seized."

Labels: censorship, collusion, corruption, new fascism

"The publication of an anthology of works, composed on paper cups by detainees, provides a harrowing insight into the torments and fading hopes of prisoners. Leonard Doyle reports."

Labels: new fascism, united states of hypocrisy

by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker

"Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."

"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part."

Labels: collusion, corruption, new fascism

By Washington correspondent Michael Rowland

"The US plans to send some of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to a new jail in Afghanistan but denies it is on the verge of closing the detention centre.

Senior Bush administration officials have told US media outlets that the Government is nearing a decision to close Guantanamo Bay, because of concern about the damage it is doing to America's international reputation.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino is denying any action is imminent but has again spoken of the President's desire to shut down the unpopular facility.

"The United States should not be the world's jailers - those are his words," he said."

Labels: new fascism

"The Federal Opposition has demanded that Attorney-General Philip Ruddock explains claims that a secret taxpayer-funded political unit is operating out of his Sydney ministerial office.

Three Labor frontbenchers tried to move a motion to force Mr Ruddock to explain the unit in Parliament this morning.

Labor's Anthony Albanese said he wanted to know details of the alleged unit's funding and staffing arrangements.

The Government used its numbers to vote the motion down."

Labels: censorship, corruption, new fascism

"The Bush administration has released a directive called the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. The directive released on May 9th, 2007 has gone almost unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative media. This is understandable considering the huge Ron Paul and immigration news but this story is equally as huge. In this directive, Bush declares that in the event of a “Catastrophic Emergency” the President will be entrusted with leading the activities to ensure constitutional government. The language in this directive would in effect make the President a dictator in the case of such an emergency."

Labels: collusion, corruption, new fascism

"While U.S. officials and their mainstream media supporters have been fairly successful in immunizing Americans from the horrors of the war, death has an interesting way of forcing people to face reality. The increasing number of casualties among U.S. troops has caused Americans to confront the war in Iraq, like it or not. Moreover, since Bush undoubtedly wants to continue the occupation until he leaves office, Iraqi insurgents will have plenty of time over the next two years to ensure that Iraq stays on the minds of the American people with well-planned ambushes and sniper attacks.

The Iraq intervention might well be the dead end of the pro-empire, pro-interventionist, “super-power” foreign-policy paradigm that has held our nation in its grip for decades. If so, then as the death and destruction continue to mount, Americans might well begin looking for an alternative paradigm – one that not only is workable but is also consistent with the principles of morality, liberty, and limited government on which our nation was founded."

Labels: corruption, future, new fascism

While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious."

Labels: corruption, future, new fascism

"by Eternal Hope
Fri Nov 24, 2006 at 04:10:20 PM PDT

If we are to impeach, we must impeach both Bush and Cheney. It will not do any good for us to impeach Bush and have Cheney take the Oval Office and pick someone just as radical as he is. It will also not do any good for us to impeach just Cheney and allow Bush to groom John "I'm not knowledgeable" McCain for the 2008 election. Therefore, we must simultaneously impeach both of them so that the 3rd person in succession, Nancy Pelosi, would become the next President of the United States.

What remains to be done is for us to work out articles of impeachment against the President. Others may surface after the Democrats begin their job of investigating and getting to the bottom of the matter. If the Bush administration obstructs or lies to the Congressional Committee chairs, those could in and of themselves be grounds for impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney."

Labels: bush-is-a-tyrant, corruption, new fascism

"Retroactive immunity from prosecution is a beautiful thing if you're a major telecommunications provider in the US, and phone companies are about to receive it if the Bush administration gets its way. The administration's new appropriations request for intelligence agencies was recently disclosed at a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and it includes a massive gift to the phone companies who have been (can we drop the "allegedly" at this point?) helping the NSA and other agencies."

Labels: bush-is-a-tyrant, corruption, new fascism

"I’ve been meaning to post about Three Panel Soul, the new comic by Ian and Matt of MacHall fame- unfortunately I’ve got to do so under less-than-wonderful circumstances. I love this new strip because I’m finding it a lot more minimalist and relatable… also ridiculously funny.

Matt was working as a contractor for a branch of the government. He made the mistake of being interested in the hobby of paper target shooting at about the same time as the VA Tech shootings and talking to someone about this hobby at work. Keep in mind he wasn’t even talking about those shootings, in fact he was discussing how he wanted a gun which would make it difficult to kill someone.

He was promptly fired and not allowed back to work because people were scared of him."

Labels: new fascism

"Senior Bush administration officials said Tuesday that they believe the president still has the constitutional authority to continue his domestic wiretapping program without first seeking court approval.

"Senior U.S. administration officials have told the U.S. Congress that they could not promise that the Bush administration would fulfill its January pledge to continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program," reports the International Herald Tribune."

Labels: collusion, new fascism