Cogitamus

Documents Reveal TSA Research Proposal To Body-Scan Pedestrians, Train Passengers

From Forbes magazine:

Documents Reveal TSA Research Proposal To Body-Scan Pedestrians, Train Passengers

Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.

You can read the whole article here.

Thanks, America -- TSA Now Everywhere

As I've been saying for over a year now, these searches and gropefests were never going to stop at the airport.  They were always intended to be implemented at all transportation hubs, of all kinds, everywhere.  They were just "tested" at airports, to see how much crap people would put up with.  And the answer is in:  people will put up with anything.

Thanks, sheeple of America.  We are well and truly screwed.

(Here's another account, by National Geo and WaPo writer Christopher Elliott, this time of the TSA searching passengers after they got off the train.)

WikiLeaks: FBI Trained Egypt's Secret Police at Quantico

This, from Raw Story, reveals that some of Egypt's secret police, notorious for their brutality, were trained by the FBI at its base in Quantico, Virginia.  The source is a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks.  And who was in on the action?  Why, our very own John Pistole:

One cable, dated November 2007 and published by the Telegraph, describes a meeting between the head of the SSIS, Egypt's secret police, and FBI deputy director John Pistole, in which the secret police chief praises Pistole for the "excellent and strong" cooperation between the two agencies. (Pistole has since been appointed head of the TSA.)

SSIS chief Abdul Rahman said the FBI's training sessions at Quantico were of "great benefit" to his agency. The cables did not address what sort of training Egyptian secret police received at Quantico, or how many officers were trained there.

In another cable, dated October 2009, a US diplomat reported on allegations from "credible human rights lawyers" that the SSIS was behind the torture of terrorism suspects held in Egyptian jails.

The U.S., in its so-called extraordinary rendition program, sent at least 60 detainees to Egypt to be tortured.

As for Egyptian protesters in the recent uprising, hundreds of them are still missing.

Life in the USA - A Photo Album

Stupidity, Fraud, and National Security

Not only don't we know how much money our security overlords spend To Keep Us Safe -- and neither do they -- and not only are they wasting billions of dollars (while we're being told that we have to "Cut the Budget!" and "Bring Down the Deficit!" and "Blame the Unions!" but I digress), and not only are we allowing ourselves to be stripped, scanned, irradiated, and groped So The Terrorists Won't Win, and not only do we have legislation that proves they already have, but now we discover that Our Protectors also believe in counter-terrorism weapons on a par with secret decoder rings and tin-foil hats.

A con man extraordinaire named Dennis Montgomery has bamboozled our brilliant security know-it-alls, not once, but over and over again.

Freedom of Speech for Me, Not for Thee

*The slug on this video is incorrect.  Clinton was not "interrupted by a protester heckler" -- on the contrary, the protester was silent, as you'll see.  Even when he was grabbed by security, he remained silent.  It was only when they began to drag him away that he called out.

On Tuesday, February 15th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on the importance of freedom of speech in the Internet age.  She focused her attention on foreign countries and chided them for curtailing the speech of their citizens.

During that speech Ray McGovern, a veteran who also served for 27 years as a CIA analyst, exercised his freedom of speech by standing and silently turning his back on Secretary Clinton.  He was protesting the ongoing wars, the treatment of Bradley Manning, and the militarism of U.S. foreign policy.  He did not shout at the Secretary of State or interrupt her speech.  He merely stood in silence. 

McGovern’s action was a powerful one and it threatened the Secretary of State. Two police officers roughed him up, pulled him from the audience, and arrested him.  As you can see from the pictures, the 71-year-old McGovern, was battered and bruised, indeed his attorney reports he was left in jail bleeding. 

Spain: Please do what the U.S. won't. Prosecute torturers.

Bush just canceled a trip to Switzerland because he learned that the Center for Constitutional Rights and Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights were seeking an indictment of him for torture.  Since he -- and Cheney -- bragged publicly about condoning torture, he has something to worry about.

The Obama administration has used back-door dealings to persuade both Spain and Italy to drop plans to prosecute the Bush era war criminals.  Let's try to un-persuade them.  You can sign a petition to the Spanish people and contribute money to this cause here.

Napolitano Strikes Terror into Our Hearts

More predictable bullshit from the predictably incompetent Janet Napolitano and friends.  They must be getting ready to roll out some new abusive procedure.  Or mount another false flag operation à la Abdulmutallab the Crotch Bomber.  And the sheeple will fall into line.  Because they love it.  They love being terrified and they love to lick the authoritarian boot.

(Of course, if these were the boots, I might get on board.  But they don't sell these at Walmart.)

 

UPDATE:  Speaking of waste, fraud, and abuse . . . Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the TSA’s proposed budget for fiscal 2012, which raises spending 5.7 percent, to $8.1 billion. Much of the $459 million increase would go to hiring another 3,270 employees, for a total TSA work force of 58,401, most of them screeners.  As I keep saying, employment in a down economy -- TSA molester, DHS spy, or soldier of fortune -- jobs, jobs, jobs -- the benefits of a permanent state of war!

Stop Fast-Track Reauthorization of the Patriot Act

From the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition:

We’re joining with other groups like Get FISA Right to oppose HR514, a “fast track” bill that would extend some of the PATRIOT Act’s worst provisions set to lose authorization, such as Section 215 secret court orders allowing access to Internet and financial records, roving wiretaps, and “lone wolf” wiretaps weakening already flimsy restrictions on domestic surveillance.

How you can help:

1. Join us by contacting your Congressional representatives here, at our new POPVOX site.  (You can also monitor the bill’s status there, or read its provisions.)
2. Then share that action link with friends by…
   1. shouting it from your rooftop,
   2. using two cans and a string, or
   3. adopting more modern methods such as email, Facebook, or Twitter.  You can share this blog post with the “Share” button at the bottom of the post.

For more background on HR514, click here (BORDC); for a detailed critique of Section 215 and National Security Letters, click here(Constitution Project).

[Image via the fine Facebook group "Fix the PATRIOT Act and FISA"]

Kelley Williams-Bolar: Mom jailed for wanting to give kids a better life

This woman claimed a different address to get her children into a decent school, was found out, and now stands convicted of a felony.  Yes, she committed fraud; I get it.  But come on -- a felony?  And jail??  As many of the commenters note, falsifying residency is apparently a common practice, among all socioeconomic levels -- especially when an athlete is involved.  Other than that, I think it's impossible to ignore the racial aspect here.  Here's the link.

Against the Obscenely Titled Patriot Act

Congress is preparing to once again consider the infamous—and dangerous—USA PATRIOT Act. Since the PATRIOT Act was reauthorized by the Obama administration in February 2009, we've seen continued abuses of national security letters by the FBI, surveillance of peaceful activist groups, and entirely new forms of surveillance. Now, the government's power extends even beyond the PATRIOT Act's authorities to include virtual strip searches by TSA at the nation's airports. It's time for Congress to address these violations of our most fundamental rights and values—but we know from experience that won't happen unless We the People demand it.

Join us in Washington, DC, on Thursday, January 27, 2011 to meet with your members of Congress and encourage them to stand up for your rights.

Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich by Chris Hedges

. . . Either you are against war or you are not. Either you use your bodies to defy the war makers and weapons manufacturers until the wars end or you do not. Either you have the dignity and strength of character to denounce those who ridicule or ignore your core moral beliefs—including Obama—or you do not. Either you stand for something or you do not. And because so many in the anti-war movement proved to be weak and naive in 2004, 2006, and 2008 we will have to start over. This time we must build an anti-war movement that will hold fast. We must defy the entire system. We must acknowledge that it is not our job to help Democrats win elections. The Democratic Party has amply proved, by its failure to stand up for working men and women, its slavishness to Wall Street, and its refusal to end these wars, that it cannot be trusted. We must trust only ourselves. And we must disrupt the system. The next chance, in case you missed the last one, to protest these wars will come Saturday, March 19, the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Street demonstrations are scheduled in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. You can find details at Answer Coalition.

We are spending, much of it through the accumulation of debt, nearly a trillion dollars a year to pay for these wars. We drive up the deficits to wage war while we have more than 30 million people unemployed, some 40 million people living in poverty, and tens of millions more in a category euphemistically called “near poverty.” The profits of weapons manufacturers and private contractors have quadrupled since the invasion of Afghanistan. But the cost for corporate greed has been chronic and long-term unemployment and underemployment and the slashing of federal and state services. The corporations, no matter how badly the wars are going, make huge profits from the conflicts.

DOD Lawyer Jeh Johnson -- What Is He Smoking??

In remarks that surely had Martin Luther King, Jr. turning over in his grave, Pentagon lawyer Jeh (no, I don't know how to pronounce it either) Johnson claimed that if he were alive today, MLK would probably approve of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Yemen and Pakistan, but oops, we're not supposed to know about those).  It's really stomach-turning to read the DOD press release, trumpeting Johnson's speechlet and his "certificate of appreciation."

Thankfully, people all over the blogosphere are slamming this shameless PR stunt, including Justin Elliott and David Swanson, the latter who has just published a book called War Is A Lie.  I heard Swanson speak recently and was impressed, so I picked up the book; just started reading it last night.  Excerpt, by the way, of King's own words from his 1967 speech against the Vietnam War, in obvious opposition to the Orwellian nonsense spewed by Johnson:

"The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military ‘defense’ than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

3 Movies That Will Change Your Life

Okay, because we need some levity, and because I was reminded of one of these movies by tangential mention of the subject in news of the awful floods in Australia, which yes, are terrible, but they're a wealthy country and will come out of this just fine (is that a convoluted enough dependent clause?), here are Three Movies That Will Change Your Life.

Now I know we have an insufferably hip and sophisticated audience, many of whom may already be familiar with these magna opera, but for those of you who haven't been exposed to their beauties, subtleties, and life-enhancing properties, herewith this post.

I'm loath to include clips, because I'd hate to give anything in the, er, plots away, but this is the blabbosphere, after all, where YouTube embeds are de rigeur.  So I'll concede one only, and merely tell you the titles of the other two.

Reducing murder, reducing suicide - Six of one...

There's been a lot of predictable, ablist stuff in the media about how more access to mental health care may have helped prevent Gabrielle Giffords' shooting.  It's ablist because it concentrates on how to empower the already in-control "us" versus the mentally-ill and disempowered "them." Vaughan Bell addressed the assumptions about mental-illness-influenced-violence in Slate pretty well, but some are reacting extremely poorly, calling for it to be easier to involuntarily commit individuals, and not worry too much about individual rights.

A lot of this is couched in terms of how the availability of mental health care could reduce murder rates (It probably wouldn't by any significant measure).  I think we could safely predict that a reduction in death by suicide would occur with widespread access to mental health care.  And honestly, I think that's just as good. Interpersonal violence is terrifying, but so is mental illness.  It's not something you can avoid by keeping your nose clean and keeping to your gated communities, so I think it's really strange that people are drawing clear lines between the nutters and the regular people.  The wealthy white people who control the media narrative have a lot more to personally gain by destigmatizing and treating mental illness than they do by writing it off as a problem for the little people.  But then again, one of their own was suddenly horribly affected by a crazy plebe, so that's where the fear is currently focused.  

The other disability-related issue that I think will be interesting is how the brain-injured Giffords will be received by the general public and her colleagues once she recovers.  I predict that she won't be able to serve out the rest of her term, since there will be a lot of recovery to do.  But that doesn't mean she's out of the game forever.  Some are already preparing to write her off, but from my layperson's knowledge of brain injury (and optimistic medical predictions in the media), I doubt that's necessary.  She will have some effects to deal with, but who knows how severe they will be.

DynCorp, Sex Slavery, and Whistleblowing

On the air right now, on the public radio program The Diane Rehm Show, former DynCorp employee Kathryn Bolkovac talking about how blew the whistle on UN peacekeepers in Bosnia who were engaged in sex trafficking and prostitution rings.  Wherever you live, if your local public radio station carries the program, you can listen.  (Audio will be on-line at the link later, after broadcast.)  Readers of Cogitamus might remember litbrit's recent post that exposed more of DynCorp's criminal behavior.  Bolkovac was also threatened after she blew the whistle; she talks about her experiences in a new book.

PSA from DHS & TSA

Year-to-date statistics on airport screening from the Department of Homeland Security:

Transvestites 1,133
Hernias 1,485
Hemorrhoid Cases 3,172
Enlarged Prostates 8,249
Breast Implants 79,350
Natural Blondes 3 
Terrorist Plots Discovered 0 

(H/T Penny in sunny Florida)

Egypt's Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as "human shields"

Muslims standing together with Christians to protect the latter during worship at a Coptic church.  Can you imagine a similar scenario in the U.S., with, say, Christians defending the right of Muslims to build a non-mosque Not-at-Ground-Zero?  If only it were so.

These Egyptians are demonstrating the true meaning of religious -- and political -- tolerance.  The fact that this show of solidarity is coming so soon after a brutal attack on another Coptic church speaks volumes not only about their enlightened minds, but also their courage.  The Egyptian government doesn't take kindly to demonstrations in general, no matter the sentiments its citizens are demonstrating.  Here's another article that shows the risks Egyptians take by speaking out.

Bagel Crime, EPIC, and Ralph Nader

Florida Professor Ognjen Milatovic was removed from a US Airways flight this week for transporting a “suspicious bagel.”

Okay, okay, that's not entirely accurate.  One of Milatovic’s fellow passengers complained that his bag was emitting a “suspicious noise.”  But he was arrested and handcuffed for "disorderly conduct" and "interfering with the operation of an aircraft."  Those are the magic words, you know, no matter what you do, whether you behave like a dick or just have a hearing problem (Milatovic's father says he has a painful nerve condition and was trying to stand for as long as possible).  If you don't love, honor, and obey every command aboard an aircraft, you're outta there.

Here are three stories of the incident, so you can take your pick:

column from which I took opening line

Boston Globe

AOL travel news.

Gulet Mohamed Is An American Citizen

From Glenn Greenwald's harrowing article today, complete with audio, about an 18-year-old American held in a Kuwaiti prison:

. . . Mohamed was repeatedly beaten with a stick on the bottom of his feet and his palms, hit in the face, and hung from the ceiling.  They threatened him with both the arrest of his mother and electric shock, and told him that he should forget his family.

. . . Kuwait is little more than a subservient American protectorate, and the idea that they would do this to an American citizen without the American government's knowledge, if not its assent and participation, is implausible in the extreme.  

. . . All of this underscores the rapidly expanding powers the U.S. Government and law enforcement agents within the country are seizing without a shred of due process.  For the government to put an American citizen on the no-fly list while he's traveling outside the U.S. is tantamount to barring him from entering his own country -- a draconian punishment, involuntary exile, meted out with any due process.  In June, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of several citizens and legal residents who -- like Gulet Mohammed -- have been literally stranded abroad and barred from returning with no hearing, simply by being placed secretly on the no-fly list.  Add to that the growing seizures of the laptops and other electronic equipment of American citizens re-entering the country without any warrants -- or even yesterday's ruling from the California Supreme Court that police officers can search and seize someone's cell phone without a warrant when arresting them -- and (even leaving aside the administration's ongoing due-process-free prison camps and assassination programs) these are pure police state tactics . . . .

Gulet Mohamed is an American citizen.  He has committed no crime.  He is being imprisoned abroad and was tortured.  This is going on under the Obama administration, not Bush.  What is Obama going to do about it?

Bhutan and Penis Worship

Well, the world is a wild and wacky place.  Above is one of the more artful photos in this story from Truthdig, called The Land of a Thousand Penises.  Click through to read the fascinating story and see the best and brightest of phallic exemplars.

What, No Bible??!

Via Wonkette:

More From the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

From MSNBC:

The next time you're in California, you might not want to bring your cell phone with you. The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can search the cell phone of a person who's been arrested -- including text messages -- without obtaining a warrant, and use that data as evidence. 

The ruling opens up disturbing possibilities, such as broad, warrantless searches of e-mails, documents, and contacts on smart phones, tablet computers, and perhaps even laptop computers, according to legal expert Mark Rasch.

. . . Rasch, former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, pulled no punches in his reaction to the ruling.

"This ruling isn't just wrong, it's dangerous," said Rasch, now director of cybersecurity and privacy at computer security firm CSC in Virginia.  "It's remarkable, because it simply misunderstands the nature of these devices."

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley: "The Court has left the Fourth Amendment in tatters and this ruling is the natural extension of that trend."  Other lawyers weigh in in the comments section.  There's disagreement about whether this ruling will be overturned on appeal, and what will happen if it makes it to the Supremes.

Bag search opponents swamp DC Metro Riders Advisory Council meeting

The inane and abusive "random bag searches" in the Washington DC metro, about which I've written before, have prompted a backlash.  The Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition is on top of things, as you can see from their report about the Metro Riders Advisory Council meeting that just took place.  Many people in attendance nailed their objections with pithy, pointed comments about the worthlessness of these searches, the money being spent on them to the detriment of actual crime-prevention techniques, and the assault on our civil liberties.  Martine Zee was especially good.  Some info:

• Each hand-held Sabre 4000 trace detection unit used by Metro Police costs $25,000, and a GAO report suggests they have difficulty detecting several types of explosives.  (Gee, wonder who's making money on this? Answer: Smiths Detection)
• the Metro PD officers agreed that someone who refused a bag screening at an entrance to a Metro station would not be prevented from boarding a bus with the same bag
• the Metro PD officers implied at one point that those refusing bag screenings in Metro “free areas” would be scrutinized in other, unnamed ways.
• Police chief Michael Taborn and General Manager Sarles approved the new policy on their own authority without seeking WMATA Board approval — after their predecessors were turned down on prior occasions.

A woman named Sommer Gentry wrote a little playlet dramatizing the stupidity of these searches.  She also comments frequently at longtime consumer advocate Christopher Elliot's travel blog.

But the TSA and Metro Transit Police propaganda continues apace.

If you ride the DC Metro and come across one of these officious bozos who wants to root around in your bag, refuse.  They can't do it if we don't let them.  If we do, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

HR 6506 - Shield Act

Well, lookee here.  Congress is getting up to mischief in the First Amendment department.  This is exactly what Naomi Wolf has been warning about for months if not years.  No surprise that Lieberman is one of the guys behind it.  From Constitutional scholar Geoffrey Stone in the NYT, an excerpt:

The so-called Shield bill, which was recently introduced in both houses of Congress in response to the WikiLeaks disclosures, would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any person knowingly and willfully to disseminate, “in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States,” any classified information “concerning the human intelligence activities of the United States.”

Although this proposed law may be constitutional as applied to government employees who unlawfully leak such material to people who are unauthorized to receive it, it would plainly violate the First Amendment to punish anyone who might publish or otherwise circulate the information after it has been leaked. 

Stone's complete column, from which the NYT op-ed was taken, is at HuffPo, here.