Justice Department will stop medical marijuana raids, Attorney General says

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Justice_Department_will_stop_medical_marijuana_0226.html

John Byrne and David Edwards
Published: Thursday February 26, 2009

In a little-noticed remark Wednesday, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department will no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries established under state laws but technically prohibited by the federal government.

The decision marks a shift from the Bush Administration, which was more draconian in its approach to hunting those who sought to dispense marijuana for medical purposes.

Numerous states have decriminalized marijuana in recent years, and new fiscal pressures are turning more states toward being more lenient toward first-time drug offenders as the cost of keeping drug users in jail becomes untenable for state budgets.

The remark was caught by The Huffington Post's Ryan Grimm.

The Drug Enforcement Administration continued to carry out such raids after Obama's inauguration, Grimm says, despite an Obama campaign promise to cease the practice. But asked at a press conference Wednesday, Holder said it wouldn't be the Administration's policy going forward.

"No" it won't be Obama policy, Holder said. "What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing in law enforcement. He was my boss during the campaign. He is formally and technically and by law my boss now. What he said during the campaign is now American policy."

During the campaign, Obama told an Oregon newspaper that he agreed with the idea of medical marijuana. "I think the basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that's entirely appropriate," said Obama

At a campaign stop 2007 campaign stop in New Hampshire, Obama was specific about medical marijuana raids. "I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users."

This video is from C-SPAN, broadcast Feb. 26, 2009.

Injured good Samaritan ticketed for jaywalking

this is awful.....i hope this cop is crossing the road and there is no "jaywalker" around to help him out...what a duchebag

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090226/ap_on_fe_st/odd_good_samaritan_ticketed

DENVER – A good Samaritan who helped push three people out of the path of a pickup truck before being struck and injured has gotten a strange reward for his good deed: A jaywalking ticket.

Family members said 58-year-old bus driver Jim Moffett and another man were helping two elderly women cross a busy Denver street in a snowstorm when he was hit Friday night.

Moffett suffered bleeding in the brain, broken bones, a dislocated shoulder and a possible ruptured spleen. He was in serious but stable condition Wednesday.

The Colorado State Patrol issued the citation. Trooper Ryan Sullivan said that despite Moffett's intentions, jaywalking contributed to the accident.

Moffett had been driving his bus when the two women got off. In the interest of safety, he got out and, together with another passenger, helped the ladies cross.

Moffett's stepson, Ken McDonald, said the driver of the pickup plowed into his stepfather, but not before Moffett pushed the two women out of the way.

When he awoke in intensive care, he learned of the ticket. "His reaction was dazed and confused. I was a little angry," said McDonald.

The other man also was cited for jaywalking, while the pickup driver was cited with careless driving that led to injury. Sullivan said the two elderly women haven't been cited but the investigation is ongoing.

U.S. Out of Iraq & Afghanistan!

No Wars on Iran, Pakistan, Gaza! The world can’t wait! Come OUT to the first national protest of the wars under President Obama

http://www.worldcantwait.net/index....page&Itemid=289

THURSDAY March 19 leave work & school to PROTEST the 6th anniversary of the Iraq War.

SATURDAY March 21 at the Pentagon.
Barack Obama says he will.

* leave 80,000 troops, thousands of private contractors, and 17 permanent bases in Iraq;
* send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan , leading to more killings of civilians;
* keep sending robot drones over Pakistan, killing more civilians;
* deploy nuclear carriers with enough firepower to annihilate any country in the Mideast;
* support the Israeli siege on Gaza;
* keep in place the “secret rendition” program which Bush used to torture detainees;
* keep the government spying on citizens and continue Bush’s “state secrets” justification;
* increase the U.S. military by 92,000 troops, sending more to die for empire;
* refuse to investigate & prosecute the war and torture crimes of the Bush regime.

The election of the first black president is effectively re-branding preemptive and illegal wars of aggression to make us feel good about them, enlisting us to “serve and sacrifice” for horrors we have no good reason to support.

The U.S. war on Afghanistan is an unjust war of aggression—the supreme war crime, waged not to bring democracy and liberation to the Afghan people, but to control Afghanistan with the goal of permanent domination of the Middle East.

But, we don’t have to go along! It’s immoral to “wait and see” or hope for the best from Obama.

If you care about humanity, get in the streets to send a message to the world that there are millions of us who don’t want these crimes carried out.
It’s time now to take action & make our demands visible everywhere.

Find actions or organize one at www.worldcantwait.org

Wearenotyoursoliders.org(Veterans speaking at high schools to resist military recruiting)

The World Can't Wait - 866.973.4463 - info@worldcantwait.org

Cleveland considers anti-idling legislation

how far will this go?!?!?!? pretty soon we will all be paying a carbon tax and before you know it our fireplaces will be taxed also....our freedoms are slipping away because of a bunch of half truths....

http://www.wtam.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=122520&article=5054204

Many other cities in Cuyahoga County consider similar ban.
By Ted Klopp, Newsradio WTAM 1100
Check out Ted's personality page
Monday, February 23, 2009
Cleveland City Councilman Matt Zone talks with Newsradio WTAM 1100's Ted Klopp.

(Cleveland) – Cleveland City Councilman Matt Zone is introducing legislation at Monday night’s council meeting that would make it a minor misdemeanor for anyone to idle a vehicle for more than five minutes an hour. There are some exceptions including when the outside temperature gets below 32 degrees or above 85 degrees.

Zone says the issue isn’t just fuel consumption here – but more importantly, air quality. He points out the federal highway funding is tied to an area’s air quality and the quality here is not good. The feds have given the area about 18 months to improve it.

The ordinance would be enforced by police and the penalty would be a minor misdemeanor although Zone says the goal is to get people to stop idling – not write tickets.

He notes that nearly 30 other cities in Cuyahoga County are considering similar legislation. The Cleveland law would go into affect October 1st so he is working with clean air groups that have federal grants to do some public education campaigns before the law starts to let people know about the change.

(Copyright © 2009 Clear Channel. All rights reserved.)

Lawmaker warns of Obama's plans for national 'forced servitude'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/New_Hampshire_lawmaker_seeks_to_reaffirm_0223.html


David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Monday February 23, 2009

Don't call it slavery.

When New Hampshire state representative Dan Itse went on Fox & Friends Monday morning, it was under the auspices of talking about his co-sponsorship of a bill which seeks to assert the state's sovereignty from federal control under the 10th Amendment.

Fox host Brian Kilmeade interpreted that as meaning his guest wants to "secede from the Union" because of federal encroachment and President Obama's looming "forced servitude" programs.

With each news-hook, fellow host Steve Doocy gave a stony grimace. Rep. Itse, to his credit, immediately contradicted Kilmeade.

After thanking his constituents Itse said, "This is not about secession," as Doocy attempted to speak over him.

"There are 25 states now signed on to this," said Doocy. "You're saying that the federal government is going too far. They're now in the state government ... Department."

"Absolutely," said Itse. "But this is not about secession. It's about drawing the line in the sand and saying we've tolerated usurpations for so long, but we're not going to tolerate you violating the Constitution anymore. We're going to hold you accountable. It's about shifting the burden of responsibility."

One tactic being used to falsely stir up support for the legitimate and growing states rights movement -- a cause célèbre to fans of Congressman Ron Paul, grassroots conservatives and liberty-minded liberals alike -- is the claim that President Obama wishes to institute mandatory public service nation-wide.

Alleging that Obama had pitched this security force of-sorts -- or an "expeditionary workforce," depending on the author -- the line became a point of fear during the campaign and seems to have stuck around. Nevertheless, it remains "a badly distorted version of Obama's call for doubling the Peace Corps, creating volunteer networks and increasing the size of the Foreign Service," says non-profit consumer advocacy group FactCheck.org.

Specifics on the plan to encourage national service may be found on the president's Web site.

"You're talking about young people being made to serve community service?" asked Kilmeade.

"Exactly," said Itse. "I mean, if you are required to do a job against your will with a pay scale not set by you or not agreed to by you, that's involuntary servitude."

"Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, California, and Georgia have all introduced bills and resolutions declaring sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment," reported PrisonPlanet.com, which is run by radio host Alex Jones, a vocal proponent of the states sovereignty movement. "Colorado, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Nevada, Maine, and Illinois are considering such measures."

VIDEO AT SOURCE

Who Am I, And Why Am I A 9/11 Truther? (written by my friend jon)

Who Am I, And Why Am I A 9/11 Truther?

Jon Gold
2/22/2009

I see a lot speculation on the internet as to who I am, and why it is I do what I do. I've seen the idea that I work in a movie theater. I've seen the idea that I live in my mother's basement.

The truth is, I'm an American. My name is Jon Gold. I was born in Philadelphia in 1972. I am 36 years old. I'm a graphic designer and a web developer for a small company. I play the drums, I have a cat named after my Grandmother, I like comic books, I like music, I like movies, I like boating, I like eating out, I find things like Egypt (other ancient ruins), and history interesting, I live in an apartment, and I drive a reasonably nice car.

I was never political prior to 9/11. I had never even voted. After 9/11, I was glued to the TV set because I had to know what was going on. Unfortunately, I picked Fox News as my news source. I thought that the media would never lie. Not in this country, that's just unheard of. For a time, I had "right wing" thoughts. I remember going to a march in Washington D.C. in early 2003 making the argument that Saddam was a bad man, and we should take him out (a la Fox News). I thought that carpet bombing the Middle East was necessary. It wasn't until I saw over time that the Bush Administration was making it difficult to find out what happened that day, did I start to question things. I've mentioned a few things in the past. Cheney and Bush going to Tom Daschle and asking him to "limit the scope" of the investigation (depending on who you talk to, they may have asked him not to investigate the attacks at all). The release of the August 6th, PDB infuriated me. To think that Bush would have lied about any aspect of that day made me angry. The families rally in Washington D.C. I couldn't then, and I can't today understand why family members would have to fight for an investigation, and why someone like the President of the United States wouldn't want to know anything and everything about that horrible event so as to make sure it could never happen again.

Once I saw that the Bush Administration was covering up different aspects of 9/11, I started to read stories on sites like alternet.org, and truthout. I stumbled across an article called, "An Interesting Day" by Paul Thompson and Allan Wood. A good friend of mine and I went back and forth with regards to the information that was in that article, and neither of us could believe our eyes. I spent a good year and a half reading articles about things like the Iran Contra Affair, Daniel Pearl, and Sibel Edmonds. I read a book entitled, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" by Jack Herer after my friend showed me this article. The greatest man I ever knew, my Grandfather, passed away from Pancreatic cancer. When I heard that there may have been something out there that could have helped him, I became furious. It drove me to start contacting my representatives, and asking them to look into Dr. Guzman's research. I also started asking them about 9/11. Every time I would find an article, or gather a collection of articles, I would send it to my Reps, and each time, I would get a form letter in return. I would contact the media and beg them to cover this story, or that story, and they never would, and still don't today.

By the time June 2004 came around, I was addicted to C-SPAN. I would watch every session, and special I could. I used to stay up late to watch the 9/11 Commission hearings re-broadcasted. By chance, I stumbled across one of 9/11 CitizensWatch.org's press conferences. It was the first time I had seen other people question the official account (the media weren't doing their jobs surprise surprise). Immediately, I contacted Kyle Hence, and asked him if there was anything I could do to help. That was my first exposure to the 9/11 Truth Movement.

In September 2004, I went to the 9/11 People's Commission in Washington D.C. and helped John Judge with all of his materials. I also ran in and out to put change in the parking meter for him. Two days before that, the 9/11 Omission Hearings took place in New York City. Within days of both, audio was released of the New York Hearings. I heard this for the very first time. When I did, I cried, and cried. I knew what the anger was like from being lied to about 9/11, but I couldn't imagine having that knowledge on top of losing someone from that day. I swore that Bob and people like him would not have to go through this. From then on, I became extremely active in this cause, and have been to this day. Incidentally, Jenna Orkin also had an enormous impact on me.

When I decided I was going to do this, I dedicated my work to my Grandfather.

I don't want to be doing this. I wish I didn't have to. However, it is the right thing to do, and until this issue is resolved, I will continue to do my best.

I wish I had words of wisdom, or something that would inspire you. I don't. I just know that a great wrong has taken place, and it needs to be dealt with. If we don't, and allow the cover-up to continue, then in my opinion, we are no better than those who perpetrated the crimes of 9/11.

Ron Paul to Bill Maher: America's War on Drugs must end

David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Saturday February 21, 2009

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Ron_Paul_Dispose_of_drug_war_0221.html

Congressman Ron Paul is the most conservative, grandfatherly man to ever be admired by America's marijuana enthusiasts. On Friday night's episode of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, he reminded those who may have been suffering an impaired short-term memory at that late hour why, exactly, they should like him.

Speaking live from Clute, Texas, the libertarian-leaning Republican did what few other members of Congress will and openly called for the United States' War on Drugs to be abolished.

"What about when FDR came to office in '33," asked Maher. "One of the first things he did was repeal prohibition. He said we can't afford this anymore. Well, we have prohibition in this country. ... When he was making radical changes he said look, we're serious now. We're going to make serious changes and people like liquor."

"Well, in this country, people like pot," said Maher to a wave of cheers and applause. "If we ended that prohibition, that would be a giant pooling of money."

"I don't like pot," said the congressman. "But I hate the drug war, so I would repeal all of prohibition. But, I wouldn't even bother taxing it. People have the right in a free country to make important decisions on their own lives. If they want to make mistakes, they can. They just can't come crawling to the government to get bailed out or taken care of if they get sick.

"I believe in freedom of choice in all that we do, as long as the individual never hurts anybody else. So that means I would get rid of all the federal laws. I would dispose with the drug war. We're spending tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on this, then we march into places like California, override state law, arrest sick people and put them in prison."

"It makes no sense whatsoever," he insisted.

"Amen, stoner," joked Maher.

Despite rhetoric, Obama continues Bush policy on detainees: Indefinite detention, no legal rights

Bagram airbase flies under the radar but will continue to operate without US law

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama...fghan_0221.html

John Byrne
Published: Saturday February 21, 2009

In a stunning departure from his rhetoric on Guantánamo Bay prison, President Barack Obama signaled Friday he will continue Bush Administration policy with regard to detainees held at a US airbase in Afghanistan, saying they have no right to challenge their detentions in US courts -- and denying them legal status altogether.

"This Court’s Order of January 22, 2009 invited the Government to inform the Court by February 20, 2009, whether it intends to refine its position on whether the Court has jurisdiction over habeas petitions filed by detainees held at the United States military base in Bagram, Afghanistan," Acting Assistant Obama Attorney General Michael Hertz wrote in a brief filed Friday. "Having considered the matter, the Government adheres to its previously articulated position."

The move seems to be a reversal from Obama's much-trumpeted announcement to close the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba in January, in which he promised to return the United States to the "moral high ground" and "restore the standards of due process"

The US Supreme Court previously ruled that it was unconstitutional to hold detainees at Guantánamo Bay without giving them access to US courts. Following that ruling, more than 200 detainees filed suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia.

The Obama Administration announcement would appear to fly in the face of that ruling. The Court, while often supportive of previous Bush Administration terror policies, has strongly resisted efforts to curb its role in the legal aspect of US detention systems.

Bagram prison, where approximately 600 detainees are being held without charge or even term limits on their stay, is located about 30 miles north of Kabul in a coverted Soviet Union base. The US is mulling a $60 million plan to expand the facility, which would double its current size.

It's been closed to journalists and human rights activists, but open to lawyers. The lawyers, however, apparently have no recourse for their potential clients.

Bagram has added more than 100 prisoners since 2005, giving it a population more than double that of the current Guantánamo Bay (245).

It's uncertain whether the Supreme Court would uphold Obama's position. In the Guantanamo case, "the Court deemed the Bush administration's system for determining whether to continue holding detainees -- akin to a parole board -- was an inadequate substitute for habeas relief," Legal Times wrote Friday. "The Court also recognized that the United States exercised de facto sovereignty over the base, placing Guantánamo within its jurisdiction.

But "the Court did not address Bagram, but said in some circumstances noncitizens being held in territories under U.S. control may have limited constitutional rights," Legal Times added.

"Yesterday's announcement that the Obama administration has not even considered departing from the very same unjust and inhumane policies of his predecessor, is an ominous sign that human rights and the rule of law are simply not a priority of this administration," the International Justice Network, who is counsel in all the cases under review, said to Raw Story in a statement. "We expected more from this President when he promised that we would not trade our fundamental values for false promises of security. Unless there is a serious reconsideration of this issue at the highest levels of the Obama government, America will not be able to put this dark chapter of our history behind us."

Another detainee lawyer also bemoaned the filing.

"The decision by the Obama Administration to adhere to a position that has contributed to making our country a pariah around the world for its flagrant disregard of people’s human rights is deeply disappointing," the International Rights Clinic's Barbara Olshansky, who represents three Bagram detainees, told the paper. "We are trying to remain hopeful that the message being conveyed is that the new administration is still working on its position regarding the applicability of the laws of war -- the Geneva Conventions -- and international human rights treaties that apply to everyone in detention there."

Third trial of Sears Tower plot begins in Miami

http://www.reuters.com/article/dome...E51H63U20090218

By Jim Loney
Wed Feb 18, 2009 2:17pm EST

MIAMI (Reuters) - Six men plotted in a poor Miami neighborhood to join al Qaeda and wage war against the United States, a U.S. prosecutor told jurors Wednesday at the opening of the third trial of an alleged scheme to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and U.S. government buildings.

A defense lawyer countered that the men were set up in a crime "manufactured" by the FBI and two government informants she referred to as "The Muscle" and "The Little Thug."

Government prosecutors have tried and failed twice in the last two years to persuade juries that the men conspired with the Islamic militant group to wage holy war against the United States. The previous attempts ended in mistrials when the jurors could not decide guilt or innocence.

The failures were a blow to the Bush administration's war on terrorism and drew criticism that the government was guilty of overzealous prosecution.

When federal agents arrested the men from Miami's poor Liberty City neighborhood in June 2006, Washington officials touted the case as a major blow against terrorism and a breakthrough in efforts to dismantle domestic sleeper cells.

Prosecutor Jacqueline Arango told jurors Wednesday the group's alleged ringleader, Narseal Batiste, recruited soldiers who wore uniforms, marched together and engaged in "military-type training."

"They all agreed to sell out their country for money," she said.

She told the jurors they would see the men taking oaths of allegiance to the world's "deadliest terrorist organization."

"Each and every one of these men pledged, on videotape, their loyalty to al Qaeda," she said.

'A 100 PERCENT SET-UP'
Batiste's lawyer, Ana Jhones, called her client a dreamer who planned to create jobs in Miami's inner city and went along with the two FBI informants, who posed as Middle Eastern contacts, in order to extract money from them.

"This is a 100 percent set-up. This is a manufactured crime," Jhones said. "What this is about is a man who tried to do the right thing and got caught up in a web of deceit."

But prosecutors allege the men took photos of possible targets, scouting Miami's FBI headquarters and U.S. courthouse, surveying entry ramps, surveillance cameras and guardhouses. Arango said Batiste came up with the idea to blow up the Sears Tower, America's tallest skyscraper.

The government's case rests largely on some 15,000 wiretapped conversations but Jhones said jurors would never hear Batiste talking about bringing down the Sears Tower or waging war against the United States.

"You're not going to hear it because it doesn't exist," she said.

The six men face charges of conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda, conspiring to provide material support to an act of terrorism, conspiring to destroy a building and conspiring to wage war against the United States.

At the time of the arrests, federal agents said the group's plans were "aspirational rather than operational," and posed no real threat because they had neither al Qaeda contacts nor the means of carrying out attacks.

But Arango said that didn't matter.

"Whether or not they could actually wage war against the United States is irrelevant," Arango said, describing Batiste as a man who "believed in violence in his soul, in his core."

In addition to Batiste, the group included defendants Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin and Rotschild Augustine.

Don't Bleed Resources in Afghanistan

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/409287/don_t_bleed_resources_in_afghanistan?rel=hp_currently

posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 02/17/2009 @ 6:18pm


Today, President Obama announced the deployment of 17,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan.

Two decades and two days after the Soviet army withdrew from its disastrous occupation in Afghanistan, it saddens me that we're heading down a path that has ensnared the British empire and the former Soviet Union. What's especially troubling is that Obama, who wisely ordered a fundamental review of US options in that country, is sending troops without even waiting for the review process to conclude. Although Obama insisted in his statement of Tuesday that "this troop increase does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review," one has to ask : Why not wait for the results of a comprehensive review that, if conducted honestly, may well determine that the Administration should take military escalation off the table in favor of a non-military regional strategy to stabilize Afghanistan and strengthen Pakistan?

As Tom Andrews, National Director of Win Without War put it, "The first principle for someone who finds himself in a hole is to stop digging, The US policy 'hole' in Afghanistan is not of the new Administration's making. But it is important for the President to consider if adding new US combat forces in Afghanistan, without a new and comprehensive plan, for US policy there, might be digging an even bigger hole."

Escalating the occupation of Afghanistan will bleed us of the resources needed for economic recovery, further destabilize Pakistan, open a rift with our European allies, and negate the positive consequences of withdrawing from Iraq on our image in the Muslim world. Escalation will not secure a better future for the Afghan people or increase US security. How will additional troops help meet the "clear and achievable objectives in Afghanistan and the region" that Obama spoke of Tuesday afternoon? We have not received a clear answer to that fundamental question.

Those who support non-military solutions should affect the outcome of the Obama Administration's ongoing strategic review process ends. Write your Representatives. Go to GETAFGHANISTANRIGHT.COM to find ideas for how you might get involved and what you can do.

Tell your Representatives that the short and longterm costs of this conflict demand alternatives. Tell them that they should think twice before sending young men and women to die in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan. The people of this country deserve a national conversation --and oversight--before any decision is made, and before we know what the mission and strategy is.

The decision Obama makes in the coming weeks will tell us a lot about whether his presidency will succeed in restoring America --or, as Win Without War's Tom Andrews warns, dig us into an even bigger hole!

President Obama--don't make this your war!

Political rapper talks about 'dark side of revolution'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Political_rapper_talks_about_dark_side_0217.html

Felipe Coronel is, all at once, a Peruvian-born student of history, a thickly-accented New Yorker, a child of Harlem, and an incredibly well-read man. Better known by his stage name – Immortal Technique – he writes and performs some of the most politically saturated and emotionally charged music to appear in the work of any American artist since perhaps Bob Dylan, only darker and more raw.

Tech does not create music that is peace-oriented or anti-war. He does not create music about gang violence or the need for racial equality. Instead, he explores the history of all of these issues and shows, rather than tells, his listener why he believes we – humanity, America, African Americans, Latinos, et cetera – are where we are.

In a song called The 4th Branch from his second album, Revolutionary Volume 2, for example, Tech sings:

Media censorship, blocking out the video screens
A continent of oil kingdoms, bought for a bargain
Democracy is just a word, when the people are starvin'
The average citizen, made to be, blind to the reason

The song is an exploration of how the United States got into the Iraq war, rather than something as overly simplistic as a call for peace. Who is responsible? How could this war have happened? Tech places the blame for the selling of this war on the shoulders of the fourth estate, the press.

Tech expresses his frustration with the whole concept of "fair and balanced" reporting, telling Raw Story that facts don’t always have another side to them nor should two sides always be portrayed as equally balanced and equally legitimate.

"What if there is no other side of it?" he asks. "That is not enough for [the media]. They feel that they are supposed to present two sides of a story, which is great most of the time, or should be most of the time. But when it comes to the balance of those two sides, they take great care in making them equally balanced when they are not always equally balanced or even equally true. They give credence and legitimacy to ideas that deserve no legitimacy."

Tech was born in Lima, Peru in 1978 and first came onto the New York underground Hip-Hop scene as a battle rapper in 1999. In 2001, he released his first album, called Revolutionary Volume 1, and in 2002, his second album, Revolutionary Volume 2. With hardly any marketing campaign, he has become an underground international folk hero of sorts, from South America to the Middle East and, of course, on his home turf in Harlem.

Tech says that he uses imagery to explore complex issues.

"I think putting together historical facts to rhymes and metaphors helps people to understand what it is I am talking about and it gives people a direction if they want to look up something in a particular discipline. Like putting a bookmark into music and saying 'Look over here.'"

In a song called "Peruvian Cocaine," for example, Tech presents the narrative from the viewpoint of each of the participants along the route of drug trafficking, from the poor South American farmer, to a political leader, to a drug distributor, to an undercover cop, and so forth. Each point of view, each persona, shows the listener their motivations.

The Peruvian leader shows one face of this saga:

Yo, it don't come as a challenge
I'm the son of some of the foulest
Elected by my people...the only one on the ballot
Born and bred to consult with feds, I laugh at fate
And assassinate my predecessor to have his place
In a third-world fashion state, lock the nation
With 90% of the wealth in 10% of the population
The Central Intelligence Agency takes weight faithfully
The finest type of China white and cocaine you'll see

Tech's interview with Raw Story was wide-ranging, extending from the Ottoman Empire to European colonialism in South America. He brings off conversation with the ease of a professor in front of a graduate level history class.

"We still emulate the European oppressor in everything: In terms of the standards of beauty; in terms of governmental structure or even in terms of religion," Tech says. "Contemporary America would look at Aztecs as savages for sacrificing people to their God. But you would not look at Europeans in the same light, even though they used to burn people alive as heretics to honor their God."

Tech also speaks about the side of him that was involved in petty theft and assault, running with a rough crowd in Harlem and eventually doing time in Philadelphia.

While in college at Penn State, Tech was sent to jail for a year, after getting into a altercation with crack dealers. He was paroled to his father’s home, on the condition that he attend school at least part time and work. This time, he excelled, until his music career took him away from formal study. He says he read everything he could get "his hands on" as he joined the battle rap scene.

The complete Raw Story interview follows.

####

Larisa Alexandrovna: Where does the name Immortal Technique come from?

Immortal Technique: Originally I battled under the name Technique. But I always felt like a person’s spirit is immortal, you know?

LA: Yes

IT: … [It’s] not simply what we just do in this life, but how we are remembered, and how we affect the world around us. In that sense, some people enjoy a sort of immortality based on their contributions. Technique is what you need to accomplish anything. So the combination of the two can change the world, you know? Besides, I feel like a man who walks with God can walk anywhere.

LA: You were born in Lima, Peru. Are both your parents Peruvian?

IT: My mother’s father is black, from the Caribbean. His family bought their freedom from slavery and moved down to South America and lived there ever since.

LA: How did that affect you as a child?

IT: You know, I grew up with my mother being very honest and candid about that, and with some of our people had a certain amount of racism ingrained in them. You are going to find many Latino people who are in denial about their African blood.

LA: And you are not?

IT: No, I have never been like that. I look at my grandfather and by all means and standards he is more black than people that consider themselves black in America. They don’t consider themselves Black or “Indio” out there because they cling to nationalistic titles rather than embrace cultural and racial origin. An interesting way to discount a majority and create a Eurocentric ideology by not acknowledging that such a thing exists.

And the people in these countries didn’t want to maintain a relationship with their ex-colonial powers. The people who ran the countries were in themselves all European and not of any indigenous background until the late 1980’s early 1990’s.

LA: The cycle where the victim becomes the oppressor.

IT: Yeah. If you’re less than indigenous, it is because you are in some part African. So people avoid that like the plague. It’s terrible. We still emulate the European oppressor in everything: In terms of the standards of beauty, in terms of governmental structure, or even in terms of religion. Contemporary America would look at Aztecs as savages for sacrificing people to their God. But you would not look at Europeans in the same light, even though they used to burn people alive as heretics to honor their God.

LA: You don’t even have to go back to Europe. You can look at the Salem witch trials in America. Your family moves from Peru to the United States, Harlem in particular. Why do you move?

IT: The economy had collapsed. There was massive inflation. Of course there was a war going on between the Shining Path and the US-backed government [of Peru]. At this point it was violent, there were no jobs and my father was looking for opportunity.

LA: So why Harlem?

IT: [laughs] My father was trying to find a place less violent than Peru, right? So we move to Harlem, New York in the 1980s.
The Fourth Estate
LA: Let’s talk about "The 4th Branch," from Revolutionary Volume 2 (The song is available to listen to below). You take the 4th Branch – the media – to task for failing to do their job in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Do you think it is a matter of systemic corruption, a trade-off of truth for access, or do you think it is more based on wanting ratings and churning out sensational stories?

IT: Oh they did their job. They did their job.

LA: Do you think it is yellow journalism?

IT: It was their job to do what they did. That is their real job.

LA: When you say that is their real job, what does that mean?

IT: Their real job is to sell an agenda, not the news. I can see parts of the news on the news, you know? It is like when democracy is not fully a democracy. As soon as one aspect of it is betrayed, it stops being what it is. In this case it stops being the news.

LA: So once the ethics of it are violated, once a little is traded off for expediency or for ratings, it all becomes suspect?

IT: More like when I look at it from that perspective, it is as though I am capable of telling everyone what is going on, in telling 100 percent truth. I have that ability, right? But because I cannot present another side of it, for example, then I cannot tell any of it? What if there is no other side of it? That is not enough for them. They feel that they are supposed to present two sides of a story, which is great most of the time or should be most of the time. But when it comes to the balance of those two sides, they take great care in making them equally balanced when they are not always equally balanced or even equally true. They give credence and legitimacy to ideas that deserve no legitimacy.

And not just from the right either. They give people legitimacy from the progressive side who deserve no legitimacy, just to have out there as an example of how radically left someone is, when they don’t represent the left at all. Instead of finding someone logical enough to express themselves, they find people who are ignorant enough to just get by on the topic.

That bias really exists no matter what the topic is. We could be talking about Iraq, or we could be talking about the Israeli-Palestine conflict, you know?

LA: So where do you get your news?

IT: I am not saying that I don’t watch the news or read the news. It is just that I will see it or read it and supplement that with what I have read about the history of the country or issue and I will talk to people who are there. So if I want to hear something about Gaza, for example, I can call someone there. I know people there, I can call them or they can call me, you know? I can be in contact with them and be like yo, what is really going on over there?

LA: But what do you say to your listeners who do not have the benefit of knowing someone in Gaza or in any other place?

IT: Hopefully they could read stuff on The Raw Story.

LA: [laughs] Thank you for the plug. Who else?

IT: Democracy Now is a very good program. There is also the Real News.com. There is plenty of independent media and although they may not have maybe the legitimacy in the market of a CNN or something like that, I think they are a lot less filtered.

Religion vs. spirituality
Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna: On religion – many today seem to frame it as faith vs. belief. Do you have faith or do you believe?

Immortal Technique: I definitely have faith in myself, but I don’t think there is necessarily an applied balance to the universe. ... I think that you are on a path in some way, shape or form, and things are likely to happen if you do certain other things and you place your belief on a specific direction. But to answer your question, I am not an incredibly religious person. But there are some rituals I may observe, as we all do, without knowing necessarily where they come from. Like when you carry your wife over the threshold of your crib or you say grace or when you say "Our Father." Sure I may have said a prayer before I eat, but I believe that we pay so much attention to religion in itself, but we don’t pay attention to the history.

LA: Give me an example of this.

IT: I know people who can quote the Bible for days but don’t understand anything about the time when Jesus Christ was born of it, or the time of fledgling Christianity, when it was in its fetal stage. So when I look at that, I think of someone telling me, "Hey you know, I know what America is about because I read the Constitution. I never read American history, but I have read the American Constitution. So I know what America is all about." You know?

LA: Right. Yes.

IT: And I’m like, "No you don’t. You know what America is in theory. You know what America is in terms of what was written down 200 some odd years ago. You have no idea what America is about because you have never read about manifest destiny, about the Mexican American war, about the Louisiana Purchase, about World War II, The Civil War, slavery and so forth." You know?

LA: Sure. Of course.
Underground battle scene
LA: How are you getting across to your audiences? I mean your music is incredibly complex and involves topics that most Americans are unfamiliar with.

IT: I think I try to put things in a way that implies what I am talking about, you know? I think putting together historical facts to rhymes and metaphors helps people to understand what it is I am talking about, and it gives people a direction if they want to look up something in a particular discipline. Like putting a bookmark into music and saying "Look over here." I took some of these songs that I wrote as a young man, some in prison, and the majority of them I compiled into an album called Revolutionary Volume 1.

LA: Yes, I know. I have the album.

IT: Thank you.

LA: [laughs] I’m not sure if I mentioned this to you when we have talked before, but I approached Rolling Stone about me doing a piece on you and the music. Your metaphor structures, your use of imagery, the internal rhyme and the way you use it, and the passion and focus on politics. My contact there said that you were "too niche" and didn’t have mass appeal.

IT: Too niche?

LA: Yeah. You know, how niche can you be if I am digging your work, me – a refugee from the Soviet Union, a Jew, a white female in her mid thirties who studied literature and poetry? [laughs]. There is some hip-hop I like, but it is limited to people who have something to say, like 2 Pac. Not guys glorifying and sensationalizing their street cred and sexual prowess.

IT: Not surprising. If you do something [positive], they don’t want to hear nothing about it. You know, if I had been shot a few times [or] if I was promoting gang violence or something, then they would want to write about it.

I wanted to study the dark side of revolution. My music is really violent, but not violent without direction, you know?

LA: That is a really good way of putting it. Yes. And your music is not really about a political party or the simple way in which government and politics are viewed.

IT: Yeah. My music is not like "Okay, there is a right-wing authoritarian conspiracy." I’m like "Now don’t you understand that the same way American has colonized and used its influence the Caribbean, Central and South America, and parts of West Africa is the same exact thing that the USSR was doing to Eastern Europe?" It is two empires that are competing and if we consider one as a perversion of democracy, then the other is a perversion of socialism. That is not real socialism. That is not real communism. It is an ideology that is used to sell a specific interest. Look at early Christianity, where the faith was brought together and unified under a state religion and later, subsequent wars were justified by the religion, even though the religion did not teach this as just, right?

LA: Yes, but the perversion of democracy and the perversion of communism have a common thread: capital. The emphasis is not on human rights or a just social system, it is simply a matter of who controls the capital. Either way, there is no "we the people" in any of it. But because we are running short on time, can I ask you about a song or two?

IT: Yeah.
College and incarceration
LA: Why did you choose Penn State? Why not a school in New York?

IT: I think it’s 'cause we took a road trip to Pennsylvania and I saw the logo or something. [laughs]... I don’t know. It was something. I like the football team.

LA: How long did you attend?

IT: About a year.

LA: But you got arrested, right?

IT: When I was growing up in New York, I did really fucked up things that I look back on and think that was just fucking stupid. We were robbing people, breaking into motherfuckers’ cribs. And it was not because I was starving. I was by no means rich. I had the basics. I just wanted shit. I realized later that it was really selfish and childish. I realized that if I wanted something I could work for it instead of taking it from someone else. I was following the blueprint laid out for me by the colonizer. So at some point I realized I had to take personal responsibility for myself and stop blaming my situation on others.

LA: But that arrest was before that realization? What was the arrest and imprisonment for?

IT: I took that mentality I had to school with me. My first few months of school, I went to a party and me and my people from school got into a gigantic fight with a bunch of crack dealers and we beat the fuck out of them. And looking back at this as a young adult, as someone who was just crawling into adulthood at that time, I think to myself, you know what? You are lucky you did not get yourself killed with that bullshit. But I did get arrested on a gang of assault charges.

LA: So a year at school and a year in prison. Two different types of education.

IT: Yeah, it is weird, you know? A year and a year.

LA: You did not continue your education at Penn State?

IT: I was suspended for a year. But I don’t like the way they handled it. I highlight these things about me and my personality as a young adult to emphasize not how bad I was, but to show you how far I have come as an individual. I am so far from that now.

LA: So what did you do after you left Penn State? Did you continue your education in New York on your own or augmented that with classes?

IT: When I got out of being locked up, my dad allowed me to be paroled to his house, but he had one condition, that I go to school at least part time. So I went to Baruch College in New York for two semesters. It was interesting. When I was at Penn State, my GPA was like a 2.0 because I did not give a fuck about shit. I never clicked with the classes. You know, whenever there was something that had to be read for school, I would go into the library and I would find a book that was completely not related. You know, I would find a book like Tecumseh and the story of early Colonial years or some shit like that and I would be like fuck, this is so interesting, you know? So when I went to Baruch I took strictly political science classes and my GPA was like 4.0, 3.9 and I realized that this was what I wanted to do the whole time.

LA: Thanks for your time, Tech.

IT: Thank you, Larisa.

Spy chief: We risk a police state

Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has warned that the fear of terrorism is being exploited by the Government to erode civil liberties and risks creating a police state.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...lice-state.html

By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 6:08AM GMT 17 Feb 2009

Dame Stella accused ministers of interfering with people’s privacy and playing straight into the hands of terrorists.

“Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws which interfere with people’s privacy,” Dame Stella said in an interview with a Spanish newspaper.

“It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state,” she said.

Dame Stella, 73, added: “The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that. Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification.” She said the British secret services were “no angels” but insisted they did not kill people.

Dame Stella became the first woman director general of MI5 in 1992 and was head of the security agency until 1996. Since stepping down she has been a fierce critic of some of the Government’s counter-terrorism and security measures, especially those affecting civil liberties.

In 2005, she said the Government’s plans for ID cards were “absolutely useless” and would not make the public any safer. Last year she criticised attempts to extend the period of detention without charge for terrorism suspects to 42 days as excessive, shortly before the plan was rejected by Parliament.

Her latest remarks were made as the Home Office prepares to publish plans for a significant expansion of state surveillance, with powers for the police and security services to monitor every email, as well as telephone and internet activity.

Despite considerable opposition to the plan, the document will say that the fast changing pace of communication technology means the security services will not be able to properly protect the public without the new powers.

Local councils have been criticised for using anti-terrorism laws to snoop on residents suspected of littering and dog fouling offences.

David Davis, the Tory MP and former shadow home secretary, said: “Like so many of those who have had involvement in the battle against terrorism, Stella Rimington cares deeply about our historic rights and rightly raises the alarm about a Government whose first interest appears to be to use the threat of terrorism to frighten people and undermine those rights rather than defend them.”

In a further blow to ministers, an international study by lawyers and judges accused countries such as Britain and America of “actively undermining” the law through the measures they have introduced to counter terrorism.

The report, by the International Commission of Jurists, said: “The failure of states to comply with their legal duties is creating a dangerous situation wherein terrorism, and the fear of terrorism, are undermining basic principles of international human rights law.”

The report claimed many measures introduced were illegal and counter-productive and that legal systems put in place after the Second World War were well equipped to handle current threats. Arthur Chaskelson, the chairman of the report panel, said: “In the course of this inquiry, we have been shocked by the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world.

“Many governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights.’’

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government has been clear that where surveillance or data collection will impact on privacy they should only be used where it is necessary and proportionate. The key is to strike the right balance between privacy, protection and sharing of personal data.

“This provides law enforcement agencies with the tools to protect the public as well as ensuring government has the ability to provide effective public services while ensuring there are effective safeguards and a solid legal framework that protects civil liberties.”

In her interview, in La Vanguardia newspaper, Dame Stella also described the shock of her two daughters when they discovered she was a spy and told how she used most “gadgets” when she was in office except for “a gun’’.

Israel engaged in covert war inside Iran: report

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090217...DD1SLi sp34T0D

Tue Feb 17, 5:15 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – Israel is involved in a covert war of sabotage inside Iran in an effort to delay Tehran's attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Quoting intelligence experts and an unnamed former CIA agent, the newspaper said Israel's "decapitation" strategy had targeted members of Iran's atomic program, hoping to set back the country's nuclear ambitions without resorting to war.

The program has taken on extra emphasis with the election of President Barack Obama, who has adopted a more diplomatic line with Iran, quietening former Bush administration talk of a possible military strike against Iran to hit its nuclear assets.

"Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way they don't realize what's happening," the paper quoted a former CIA operative as saying.

"The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach.

"We certainly don't want the current Iranian government to have those weapons. It's a good policy, short of taking them out militarily, which probably carries unacceptable risks."

Asked about the newspaper report, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told Reuters: "It is not our practice to comment publicly about these sorts of allegations, not in this situation, not in any situation."

As evidence of Israel's reported strategy, Iran watchers have pointed to events such as the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a nuclear scientist at the Isfahan uranium plant who died at home from apparent gas poisoning in 2007.

Meir Javendafar, an Iran expert at Meepas, a Middle East analysis group, said there were also reports Iran was being sold faulty equipment for its nuclear program on international markets, and that there were attempts to disrupt the electricity supply to Natanz, a uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

"I think there is sabotage going on, it's a logical move and it makes sense in the game that is part of the overall struggle to disrupt Iran's nuclear ambitions," he told Reuters in London.

"In the absence of a diplomatic solution to resolve this problem, and the infeasibility of war for now, this is the best next solution," he said.

However, he said there were also indications that several more countries other than Israel were involved in attempting to infiltrate Iran to disrupt its nuclear program, and suggested much of the reported clandestine activity was more part of a psychological war than an actual one of sabotage.

"Numerous intelligence agencies are trying their best to do this. Not just Israel but the Americans and many European spy agencies -- there are even reports that neutrals such as Holland have been involved," he said.

"If it's true, then it's putting pressure on the Iranian program technically. If it's not true, then it's all just part of the psychological conflict.

"Since none of this is confirmed, we can't be sure. But even if there's no truth to it, it's part of what is a massive psychological war against Iran's nuclear program. That is a certainty. That is clear.

"It's also affordable, much more affordable than sabotaging equipment inside Iran."

The Reality Of FEMA Camps And The Martial Law Apparatus Published on 02-02-2009

http://www.roguegovernment.com/The_Reality_Of_FEMA_Camps_And_The_Martial_Law_Appartus/14096/0/13/13/Y/M.html

By - Lee Rogers

There is no doubt that the government is preparing a nationwide system of detention facilities under the guise of emergency management that could be used to house large quantities of Americans during a time of civil strife. Many think that it is a conspiracy theory, but it is not. It is a fact that the federal government has many facilities right now that can be used to house large numbers of political dissidents if the need arises. During World War II, the U.S. government through an executive order by FDR forced many Japanese-Americans to move into internment camps. In 2006, George W. Bush signed legislation to preserve these camps. Why would he do this unless there was a chance that they would be used in the future? In addition, KBR the engineering and construction arm of Halliburton was recently awarded a $385 million contract to build detention facilities under the guise that they would be used to house illegal immigrants. This news broke at a time in which outrage against illegal immigration was at an all-time high and covered extensively in the media which in essence made the announcement less controversial. There is also a great deal of anecdotal and video reports of detention facilities in many areas around the nation that have been posted on the Internet by concerned citizens. With all of this in mind, it is additionally disturbing that institutions like the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Northern Command have been incrementally moving this country into a militarized police state through a wide variety of initiatives and programs. With the economy unraveling on a day to day basis the possibility of civil strife becomes greater and greater and the possibility of the establishment needing these types of facilities continually increases.

Last week we were the first to break news of legislation proposed in Congress by Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL) that would legalize and authorize the construction of National Emergency Centers on open and closed military bases which would be run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency otherwise known as FEMA. It is already confirmed that infrastructure which could possibly be used in this capacity is already available to the U.S. government. So for all intents and purposes this bill will essentially provide the legal capacity for them to use already existing facilities as emergency centers. It also provides the government the authority to create additional facilities on closed and open military reservations so long as a minimum of 6 emergency centers are built to fulfill the needs of the FEMA regions designated in the bill. The language in the bill also authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to use these facilities for whatever purpose that the Secretary believes is necessary. So if the Secretary wanted to use them as concentration camps, death camps or torture facilities, the language in the bill authorizes that activity.

We also have a declassified U.S. Army document posted on the U.S. Army’s official web site outlining U.S. Army Regulation 210-35 which describes standard operating procedures on how to setup a Civilian Inmate Labor Program. Although the document focuses in on using individuals that are already in civilian prisons for the purposes of the program, the standard operating procedures included in this document could be used for political dissidents or anyone for that matter who are taken to National Emergency facilities on military reservations.

Additionally, in the 1980s it was reported that Oliver North had assisted FEMA in drafting preparations for civil defense. The plans included the suspension of the U.S. Constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, turning control of state and local governments to military commanders and giving dictator like powers to FEMA in the event of a national emergency including events such as nuclear war and widespread political dissent. This news was reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, the Miami Herald and other publications on and after July 5th 1987. North himself was questioned about this report during the Iran-Contra scandal by Congressman Jack Brooks but was stopped by the committee Chairman because it touched upon classified information.

In 2002, the Sydney Morning Herald ran an additional report, referencing these prior news articles and additional information stating that the conditions for martial law have been set in the United States.

With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Northern Command in 2002, the federal government has even more tools to use to quell dissent during a time of civil strife. U.S. Northern Command now has a full brigade of troops at their disposal to deploy domestically. Additionally, an agreement between U.S. Northern Command and Canada Command has been signed without any sort of Congressional approval allowing Canadian military troops to enter the United States during a number of declared civil emergencies. On top of that, the Department of Homeland Security is providing grants at the local level to militarize police forces and setup a technological infrastructure to provide additional capabilities to track and trace the American people.

Back in 2007, George W. Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 51 a continuity of government directive which is worded specifically to grant the President dictatorial powers over the executive, legislative and judicial branches during a declared catastrophic emergency.

FEMA according to a report from the Associated Press has even been looking into ways to expand their capabilities of transporting large quantities of people via train during emergencies. This is particularly disturbing since this was the preferred method of transportation used by the Nazis to transport Jews to the concentration camps during World War II.

It is simply impossible to dismiss all of these separate reports as pure coincidence. There is a definitive push to setup a fully functioning apparatus that will be used in a time of civil strife or any sort of national emergency to have the capability to round up large groups of people and put them in FEMA run detention camps. It is important to note that this is not some sort of left-wing conspiracy to round up people who don’t like Barack Obama as Family Security Matters believes. Both Republicans and Democrats have been behind this agenda for several decades, as all of this information indicates.

It is true that nobody knows with 100% certainty if the government will round up large numbers of political dissidents during a time of civil strife. However, they are certainly building the infrastructure to do it. With the global economy collapsing around the world, there will naturally be an increasing amount of dissent the worse the economy gets. The protests in Iceland, France, Greece and in other countries is evidence of this. As a result, all of this information should be of great concern to the American people. After all, it is doubtful that they are getting this infrastructure ready if they didn’t think that they might have to use it in the future.

Plane that crashed near Buffalo was on autopilot

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090215/ap_on_re_us/plane_into_home

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The commuter plane that crashed near Buffalo was on autopilot when it went down in icy weather, indicating that the pilot may have violated federal safety recommendations and the airline's own policy for flying in such conditions, a federal official said Sunday.

Steve Chealander, a National Transportation Safety Board member, said the company that operated the flight recommends pilots fly manually in icy conditions. Pilots are required to do so in severe ice.

"You may be able in a manual mode to sense something sooner than the autopilot can sense it," Chealander told The Associated Press in an interview, explaining why the NTSB also recommends that pilots disengage the autopilot in icy conditions.

The preliminary investigation indicates the autopilot was still on when the plane crashed, he said. That has not been confirmed by information from the plane's flight data recorder.

The pilots of Continental Flight 3407 discussed "significant" ice buildup on their wings and windshield just before crashing into a home Thursday night in a suburban neighborhood near the Buffalo airport. Forty-nine people aboard the plane were killed, as well as the homeowner.

The flight was run by Colgan Air, which operates a fleet of 51 regional turboprops for Continental Connection, United Express and US Airways Express.

In a December safety alert issued by the NTSB, the agency said pilots in icy conditions should turn off or limit the use of the autopilot to better "feel" changes in the handling qualities of the airplane.

Chealander also said Colgan, like most airlines, had begun following NTSB recommendations that pilots use deicing systems as soon as they enter conditions that might lead to icing.

He said it was not yet clear exactly when the pilot on Flight 3407 turned on the plane's advanced deicing system.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency advises pilots to disengage the autopilot when ice is accumulating, but the guidance is not mandatory.

She also said some planes are certified to be flown on autopilot in icing conditions because doing so "may actually keep the aircraft at a steadier speed and altitude than a pilot could flying it manually."

Brown said the agency considered making the guidance mandatory, but others in the aviation community argued against it, citing the capabilities of such advanced planes.

She did not know if the 74-seat Q400 Bombardier aircraft that crashed Thursday was certified to be on autopilot during icing conditions.

By Sunday, authorities had recovered the remains of 15 people from the wreckage as crews raced to finish their work before a storm arrives later in the week.

Erie County Executive Chris Collins said recovery efforts intensified after the arrival of additional federal workers. A forecast of snow for Wednesday added to the urgency.

The storm could hamper recovery efforts, but "the investigation will continue snow, rain or shine," said David Bissonette, the town's emergency coordinator.

Recovery crews could need as much as four days to remove the remains from the site. Chealander described the efforts as an "excavation."

"Keep in mind, there's an airplane that fell on top of a house, and they're now intermingled," he said.

DNA and dental records will be used to identify the remains, he said.

Once all the remains are recovered, the focus will turn to removing wreckage of the 74-seat aircraft from the residential neighborhood where it went down Thursday night near the end of a flight from Newark, N.J.

About 150 people were working at the site. The blue tail of the plane still stuck out from a mound of black ash and rubble.

The turboprop, flying through light snow and mist, crashed belly first into the house, with the aircraft's nose pointed away from the airport.

Investigators did not offer an explanation, but the orientation raised the possibility that the pilot was fighting an icy airplane. Possible explanations are that the aircraft was spinning or flipped upon impact.

According to the flight data recorder, the plane's safety systems warned the pilot that the aircraft was perilously close to losing lift and plummeting from the sky.

Moments before the crash, a "stick shaker" and "stick pusher" mechanism had activated to warn the pilot that the plane was about to lose aerodynamic lift, a condition called a stall. When the "stick pusher" engaged, it would have pointed the nose of the plane toward the ground to try to increase lift.

Indicator lights showed that deicing equipment on the tail, wings and propeller appeared to be working, Chealander said.

Investigators who examined both engines said it appears they were working normally at the time of the crash, too.

On Sunday, experts were also analyzing data from the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, including statements by crew members describing a buildup of ice on the wings and windshield, Chealander said.

The NTSB planned to use that data to determine whether the plane was in a flat spin before it crashed. Flight data indicated "severe" pitching and rolling before impact.

Other aircraft in the area Thursday night told air traffic controllers they also experienced icing around the time that the plane went down.

Icing is one of several elements being examined by investigators, Chealander said, adding that a full report will probably take a year.

One aspect of the investigation will focus on the crew, their training and whether they had enough time to rest between flights. Other investigators will review the weather and the mechanics of the plane.

R.I.P. Beverly Eckert (9-11 widower who was on the doomed newark to buffalo flight)

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20334

This is something she wrote back in 2003 ....i thought i would post it here in remembrance of a true patriot Rest in Peace Ms Eckert

My Silence Cannot Be Bought

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1220-04.htm

by Beverly Eckert
12/19/2003

I've chosen to go to court rather than accept a payoff from the 9/11 victims compensation fund. Instead, I want to know what went so wrong with our intelligence and security systems that a band of religious fanatics was able to turn four U.S passenger jets into an enemy force, attack our cities and kill 3,000 civilians with terrifying ease. I want to know why two 110-story skyscrapers collapsed in less than two hours and why escape and rescue options were so limited.

I am suing because unlike other investigative avenues, including congressional hearings and the 9/11 commission, my lawsuit requires all testimony be given under oath and fully uses powers to compel evidence.

The victims fund was not created in a spirit of compassion. Rather, it was a tacit acknowledgement by Congress that it tampered with our civil justice system in an unprecedented way. Lawmakers capped the liability of the airlines at the behest of lobbyists who descended on Washington while the Sept. 11 fires still smoldered.

And this liability cap protects not just the airlines, but also World Trade Center builders, safety engineers and other defendants.

The caps on liability have consequences for those who want to sue to shed light on the mistakes of 9/11. It means the playing field is tilted steeply in favor of those who need to be held accountable. With the financial consequences other than insurance proceeds removed, there is no incentive for those whose negligence contributed to the death toll to acknowledge their failings or implement reforms. They can afford to deny culpability and play a waiting game.

By suing, I've forfeited the "$1.8 million average award" for a death claim I could have collected under the fund. Nor do I have any illusions about winning money in my suit. What I do know is I owe it to my husband, whose death I believe could have been avoided, to see that all of those responsible are held accountable. If we don't get answers to what went wrong, there will be a next time. And instead of 3,000 dead, it will be 10,000. What will Congress do then?

So I say to Congress, big business and everyone who conspired to divert attention from government and private-sector failures: My husband's life was priceless, and I will not let his death be meaningless. My silence cannot be bought.
__________________

Continental Crew Didn’t Have Time to Warn Passengers of Danger

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aEqQ5NyGLLq4&refer=us


By Brian K. Sullivan

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The crew of Continental Airlines Inc. Flight 3407 didn’t have time to warn passengers the plane was about to crash three days ago as it tried to land at Buffalo’s Niagara International Airport.

“It was just a sudden catastrophic event that took place, and 30 seconds later they hit the ground,” said National Transportation Safety Board Member Steven Chealander at a press briefing yesterday in Amherst, New York.

All 49 passengers and crew and one person on the ground were killed in the crash, which was the first fatal U.S. airline disaster in more than two years.

The Bombardier Inc. Dash 8 Q400, operated under contract by Pinnacle Airlines Corp.’s Colgan Air unit, went down around 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) northeast of the airport at about 10 p.m. local time on Feb. 12. The flight originated in Newark, New Jersey.

The NTSB will begin a detailed examination of the “black boxes” recovered from the crash today.

Initial evidence shows the plane’s de-icing equipment and engines were working and that the so-called stall-protection devices had activated, Chealander said. The stall-protection devices warn the crew that the plane is about to fall out of the sky and it will actually try to keep the craft aloft, he said.

House, Plane Debris

Temperatures were about 33 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) at the airport at 9:54 p.m. with light snow and winds o 17 mph (27 kph) and gusts up to 26 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

Investigators found the plane pointed away from the airport and in a position that rules out a nosedive, Chealander said. Investigators don’t know what caused it to turn around.

Heaters had to be brought in to melt ice that was hampering efforts to recover the bodies from the scene, Chealander said. It will take three to four days to recover the victims.

The crash scene is further complicated because the contents of the house are mixed in with the debris from the plane, he said. Part of the plane fell into the cellar of the house. About 150 workers assisting in the recovery are at the site.

Police had sealed off the neighborhood around the crash and were letting residents in today to collect personal belongings before escorting them back out again.

Explosion

Paul and Michele Beiter were in their living room when they saw their neighbor’s house explode. They were going home for the first time yesterday, Michele Beiter said.

The crash killed their neighbor, 61-year-old Doug Wielinski, who was at home when the plane hit the house. His wife and daughter escaped.

Beverly Eckert, the widow of Sept. 11 victim Sean Rooney, was among those on the plane. She was heading to Buffalo for a celebration of what would have been her husband’s birthday and to start a scholarship fund in his name.

Also aboard was Alison Des Forges, one of the world’s foremost experts on the 1994 Rwanda genocide and its aftermath, said New York-based Human Rights Watch. Des Forges had served as a senior adviser to the organization’s Africa division for almost two decades.

Two members of jazz musician Chuck Mangione’s band --Coleman Mellett, who played guitar, and Gerry Niewood, who played saxophone and flute -- were on the flight. The group was scheduled to play with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Black Boxes

Chealander said he hoped the crash site could be cleaned up by Feb. 18, when forecasters are expecting a snowstorm to hit the area. He said after the bodies have been removed the plane will be moved to a still-undetermined location.

The black boxes, or cockpit voice and flight-data recorders, were recovered and sent to Washington for review. Cockpit voice recorders capture noises and what was said by the pilots, while the flight-data recorder tracks airplane movements and manipulation of flight controls.

The last fatal airline accident in the U.S. was Aug. 27, 2006, when a regional jet flown by Delta’s Comair unit crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49. The pilots erred in choosing a runway too short for a safe takeoff, the NTSB concluded.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net

Satellite TV Peddler to be Sentenced in New York for Letting Customers Get Station Run by Hezbollah

http://www.progressive.org/mag/wx021309.html

Javed Iqbal was born in Pakistan and moved to the United States when he was a teenager three decades ago.

He earned his living running satellite TV companies, including the HDTV Corporation, which he started in 2000. Through this company, he allowed some of his customers to get Al-Manar, a station run by Hezbollah.

On August 23, 2006, agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force came to his home on Staten Island before 6:00 a.m. and knocked on his door, and he let them in. His wife was home, and their three young kids were asleep. Some of the agents kept Mrs. Iqbal in a room away from her children for four hours.

The others started to interrogate Mr. Iqbal. He had been in the hospital just two days before for a panic attack, but they initially wouldn’t give him his medication.

They seized his computer and satellite equipment and then took him to his business office in Brooklyn, which they also searched.

Only then did they read him his Miranda rights, according to a filing by his lawyer.

From there, they took him to the FBI’s office, where “he was subjected to approximately eight more hours of uninterrupted interrogation,” the filing says. “Mr. Iqbal did not receive any food over this time and was held in handcuffs despite his protestations about his worsening health.”

He was taken into FBI custody and was charged with providing “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization, under Title 18, Section 2339B.

This prosecution “raises serious questions about how free our marketplace of ideas is,” said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, at the time.

Iqbal’s lawyer, Joshua Dratel, in pretrial documents, vehemently disputed the charges.

He made two main arguments.

First, he said, Iqbal was being accused of something that is “protected First Amendment conduct that is exempted from Section 2339B by explicit statutory language, by its legislative history, and the case law.”

That section was amended in 2004 with the proviso that: “nothing in this section shall be construed or applied so as to abridge the exercise or rights guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

Lawyer Dratel cited a House report on the legislation, which said: “The ban does not restrict an organization’s or an individual’s ability to freely express a particular
ideology or political philosophy.” (For the record, Dratel reported that Iqbal “has never practiced the Muslim faith and does not identify with, or believe in, any religion,” though the first paragraph of Iqbal’s indictment stresses Hezbollah’s goal of creating a “fundamentalist Islamic” state.)

Dratel argued that Iqbal was engaging in First Amendment activity. “Broadcasting the signal of Al Manar’s television programming falls squarely within First Amendment parameters,” he wrote. “It is beyond dispute that ‘core’ First Amendment values—speech and the right to publish news and information—are at stake.”

This broadcasting, therefore, is allowable under the statute itself, especially after the proviso added in 2004, he argued.

And if it wasn’t allowable under the statute, he added, then “the statute would be unconstitutional as applied.”

Dratel made a motion for summary dismissal.

The judge denied it.

Though Dratel felt he had a strong case and was prepared to take it to court, Iqbal entered a plea agreement with the government in late December 2008.

“There were strategic considerations that dictated this as the best course of action,” Dratel told The Progressive. He was reluctant to go into the details of the case.

“It’s a delicate time. I don’t want to impair his ability to get a lower sentence,” Dratel said. Though Iqbal could have gotten 15 years, his plea agreement was for 63 to 78 months, Dratel said. “We’re hoping for the low part of that, and the judge could give him lower.”

Sentencing is set for March 24.

G7 sets sights on 'new world economic order'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/G7_sets_sights_on_new_world_0214.html

ROME (AFP) – The world's richest nations called Saturday for urgent reform of global finance to save the world from the economic devastation that is dragging more and more countries into recession.

Italy's Finance Minister called for a "new world economic order" as he wrapped up the crisis meeting of finance leaders from the Group of Seven leading economies over which he presided here.

In a joint declaration, the G7 called for "urgent reforms" of the international financial system.

Tremonti said a so-called set of "legal standards" discussed in Rome would be presented at a meeting of 20 key advanced and emerging economies (G20) in London in April and a summit of the Group of Eight (G8) world powers in July.

"A new world economic order might seem rhetorical," he told reporters. "But it is a true goal we should be aiming towards... today right here in Rome we've embarked on a very significant journey, both technical and ethical."

The G7 delegates in a joint statement vowed to avoid protectionism as they seek to stabilise the tottering world economy and financial markets and said stabilisation of the world economy was their "highest priority."

The global crisis "has highlighted fundamental weaknesses in the international financial system and that urgent reforms are needed," the statement said.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed that his country, the biggest economy in the world and the source of much of the financial drama in recent months, would work with other nations for a consensus on reforms.

"We need to begin the process of comprehensive reform of our financial system and the international financial system, so the world never again faces a crisis this severe," Geithner said after the talks.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- the body coming to the rescue of some crisis-hit countries -- said restructuring banks damaged by the credit crunch was the main problem facing governments.

The Italian G7 presidency also said before the talks that it favoured measures that would target hedge funds and tax havens which have come under criticism in the crisis.

The G7 reiterated the view of several top delegates that protectionism -- when countries take measures that favour their own economies at the expense of others -- was a threat to stability.

"The G7 remains committed to avoiding protectionist measures, which would only exacerbate the downturn, to refraining from raising new barriers" to business across borders, the joint statement said.

The document hailed stimulus actions taken by other countries, singling out China which it also praised for its "continued commitment to move to a more flexible exchange rate."

The financial leaders met amid mounting warnings of the talks' grave economic stakes. Strauss-Kahn said advanced economies were in a "deep recession" ahead of the crisis talks.

Delegates came from the G7 grouping of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States plus Russia.

The G20 was due to meet in April to discuss financial reform -- an indication of the growing clout of rising economic powers such as China.

"We will work closely with our colleagues in the G7 and the G20 to build consensus on reforms that match the scope of the problems revealed by this crisis," Geithner said.

More grim data emerged on Friday showing that the eurozone economy slumped by 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. The European Union overall and several individual EU countries -- including G7 host Italy -- are also in recession.

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NTSB: Plane didn't dive, but landed flat on house

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090215/ap_on_re_us/plane_into_home

CLARENCE, N.Y. – An investigator says the plane that crashed on a house in New York state landed flat on it and was pointed away from the airport where it was supposed to land.

Steve Chealander (CHEE-lan-duhr) said Saturday that Continental Connection Flight 3407 did not dive into the house, as initially thought.

Chealander says the New Jersey-to-Buffalo flight was cleared to land on a runway pointing to the southwest. But the plane crashed with its nose pointed to the northeast.

He also says the catastrophic nature of the crash means it could take three or four days to remove human remains.

Forty-nine people on the plane and one person in the house died in the fiery crash late Thursday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

CLARENCE, N.Y. (AP) — Crash investigators picked through incinerated wreckage Saturday, gathering evidence to determine what brought down a commuter plane that plunged into a home and exploded.

It could take days to recover all human remains from the plot of land where a single-family home stood before Continental Connection Flight 3407 nose-dived into it late Thursday, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Steve Chealander said.

Experts were analyzing data from the black boxes, including statements by crew members about a buildup of ice on the wings and windshield of the plane, Chealander said.

But authorities have yet to pin that as the cause of the crash, which occurred during a light snow and mist, killing 49 people on the flight and one man in the home.

Ice on wings can cripple an aircraft and has been blamed for several previous plane crashes. Other aircraft in the area Thursday night told air traffic controllers it also experienced icing around the time that Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J., to Buffalo went down.

Icing is one of several elements being examined by investigators, who plan to remain in Buffalo for another week before shipping plane parts to locations around the country for study, Chealander said. A full report will likely take a year, he said.

"We're in the very early stages of the investigation," he said. "The icing and other things are just preliminary focuses."

One aspect of the investigation will focus on the crew, how they were trained and whether they had enough time to rest between flights. Other investigators focused on the weather, the mechanics of the plane and whether the engine, wings and various mechanics of the plane operated as they were designed to.

But recovery of the bodies will take priority over the investigation, Chealander said.

The remains-recovery effort was being led by Dennis Dirkmaat, a forensic anthropologist from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., and a nationally renowned expert who led the recovery effort after United Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001.

The crash site remained off limits Saturday, with police barring reporters and photographers from the neighborhood.

Authorities still haven't released a list of the victims of the nation's first deadly air crash in 2 1/2 years, but reminders of the disaster were visible all around the Buffalo area.

Flags flew at half-staff outside Buffalo Niagara International Airport and at Clarence Town Hall, the site of a command center set up by police.

Family members of the victims were sequestered in a hotel Saturday where they were scheduled to meet with representatives of Continental Airlines. Police turned away reporters.

The 74-seat Q400 Bombardier aircraft was operated by Colgan Air, based in Manassas, Va. Colgan's parent company is Pinnacle Airlines of Memphis, Tenn.

Iraq vet: We're losing 'more soldiers to suicide than to al Qaeda'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Rieck...han_0213.h tml

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Friday February 13, 2009

The Army's suicide rate is the highest it has been in three decades, and a week-long series of articles at Salon.com has been highlighting what it calls "habitual mistreatment behind the preventable deaths."

Paul Rieckhoff, the founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday, "In January, we lost approximately 24 soldiers in the Army to suicide. That's more folks than we lost in combat. ... We lost more soldiers to suicide than to al Qaeda."

"If we lost that many soldiers to an enemy weapon system, the entire country would be outraged," Rieckhoff continued. "The Pentagon would be scrambling to do something about it. We need the same level of urgency around these suicides."

Rieckhoff's group has been lobbying Congress this week to do more for veterans needs. "We took dozens of veterans from around the country," he told Maddow proudly. "We met with over a hundred lawmakers, we held two press events. ... We highlighted ... the need for mandatory mental health counseling and we called for advance funding of the VA."

Rieckhoff said that there's bipartisan support in Congress for such funding, which is critical because "every year the VA budget is late, and VA's around the country are forced to ration care." However, there's also a critical shortage of mental health counselors.

"This is a place where President Obama can step up," Rieckhoff remarked. "He could issue a national call to service and say, 'If you are a qualified mental health care professional, your country needs you. Help our soldiers, help our veterans. It doesn't matter how you stand on the war. You can step up and make a difference here.'"

"Troops alone are not the answer [to Afghanistan]," he added. "It's not an antidote to violence. You don't just drop 30,000 troops in, wave a magic wand and call it democracy, and make it look like New Jersey."

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Feb. 12, 2009.

Video At Source

Turley: Truth commission a 'shameful' way to avoid prosecuting war crimes

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Turley_pleads_for_prosecution_of_Bush_0211.html

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) called on Monday for a "truth and reconciliation commission" to investigate Bush administration abuses, describing it as a "middle ground ... to get to the bottom of what happened." However, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley believes that would be a terrible idea.

"There's no question that torture occurred here," Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. "There's no question that it was a war crime. And so the only reason to have a commission of this kind is to avoid doing what we're obligated to do under a treaty."

"It is shameful that we would be calling for this type of commission," Turley continued, calling it "incredible" that Leahy would be proposing an approach most associated with emerging democracies that lack a well-developed legal system.

"We're obligated to investigate," he insisted. "This whole discussion in front of the whole world is basically saying that we are not going to comply with the promise we made, not to ourselves, but to the world."

Olbermann noted that since the Bush administration itself claims that its actions were somehow above the law, "Does not using a special forum inherently validate the Bush claim that the regular rules did not apply to his presidency?"

"It absolutely does," Turley replied. "There is great love for President Obama, and I have great respect for him, but you cannot say that no one is above the law and block the investigation of the war crimes by your predecessor. It is a position without principle."

"At the end of the day," continued Turley, "no one believes that people will be prosecuted for a known war crime -- and when we do that then we will become accessories. Those crimes of President Bush will become our crimes. His shame will become our collective shame."

"The Democrats are going to have to decide whether they want to detach themselves from principle, start their control of this government with an act of the most unprincipled sort," Turley concluded. "You have to decide whether you are a statesman or just one more politician looking for the next election."


This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Feb 10, 2009.

VIDEO AT SOURCE

Pentagon sets sights on public opinion

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpre...public-opinion/

2/12/2009

WASHINGTON - As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls “the human terrain” of world public opinion. In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in violation of federal law.

An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That’s almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.

This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations — almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department.

“We have such a massive apparatus selling the military to us, it has become hard to ask questions about whether this is too much money or if it’s bloated,” says Sheldon Rampton, research director for the Committee on Media and Democracy, which tracks the military’s media operations. “As the war has become less popular, they have felt they need to respond to that more.”

Yet the money spent on media and outreach still comes to only 1 percent of the Pentagon budget, and the military argues it is well-spent on recruitment and the education of foreign and American audiences. Military leaders say that at a time when extremist groups run Web sites and distribute video, information is as important a weapon as tanks and guns.

“We have got to be involved in getting our case out there, telling our side of the story, because believe me, al-Qaida and all of those folks … that’s what they are doing on the Internet and everywhere else,” says Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who chairs the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. “Every time a bomb goes off, they have a story out almost before it explodes, saying that it killed 15 innocent civilians.”

Pumping out press releases
On an abandoned Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas, editors for the Joint Hometown News Service point proudly to a dozen clippings on a table as examples of success in getting stories into newspapers.

What readers are not told: Each of these glowing stories was written by Pentagon staff. Under the free service, stories go out with authors’ names but not their titles, and do not mention Hometown News anywhere. In 2009, Hometown News plans to put out 5,400 press releases, 3,000 television releases and 1,600 radio interviews, among other work — 50 percent more than in 2007.

The service is just a tiny piece of the Pentagon’s rapidly expanding media empire, which is now bigger in size, money and power than many media companies.

In a yearlong investigation, The Associated Press interviewed more than 100 people and scoured more than 100,000 pages of documents in several budgets to tally the money spent to inform, educate and influence the public in the U.S. and abroad. The AP included contracts found through the private FedSources database and requests made under the Freedom of Information Act. Actual spending figures are higher because of money in classified budgets.

The biggest chunk of funds — about $1.6 billion — goes into recruitment and advertising. Another $547 million goes into public affairs, which reaches American audiences. And about $489 million more goes into what is known as psychological operations, which targets foreign audiences.

Staffing across all these areas costs about $2.1 billion, as calculated by the number of full-time employees and the military’s average cost per service member. That’s double the staffing costs for 2003.

Recruitment and advertising are the only two areas where Congress has authorized the military to influence the American public. Far more controversial is public affairs, because of the prohibition on propaganda to the American public.

Pentagon can’t sell policy
“It’s not up to the Pentagon to sell policy to the American people,” says Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., who sponsored legislation in Congress last year reinforcing the ban.

Spending on public affairs has more than doubled since 2003. Robert Hastings, acting director of Pentagon public affairs, says the growth reflects changes in the information market, along with the fact that the U.S. is now fighting two wars.

“The role of public affairs is to provide you the information so that you can make an informed decision yourself,” Hastings says. “There is no place for spin at the Department of Defense.”

But on Dec. 12, the Pentagon’s inspector general released an audit finding that the public affairs office may have crossed the line into propaganda. The audit found the Department of Defense “may appear to merge inappropriately” its public affairs with operations that try to influence audiences abroad. It also found that while only 89 positions were authorized for public affairs, 126 government employees and 31 contractors worked there.

In a written response, Hastings concurred and, without acknowledging wrongdoing, ordered a reorganization of the department by early 2009.

Another audit, also in December, concluded that a public affairs program called “America Supports You” was conducted “in a questionable and unregulated manner” with funds meant for the military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.

The program was set up to keep U.S. troops informed about volunteer donations to the military. But the military awarded $11.8 million in contracts to a public relations firm to raise donations for the troops and then advertise those donations to the public. So the program became a way to drum up support for the military at a time when public opinion was turning against the Iraq war.

The audit also found that the offer to place corporate logos on the Pentagon Web site in return for donations was against regulations. A military spokesman said the program has been completely overhauled to meet Pentagon regulations.

“They very explicitly identify American public opinion as an important battlefield,” says Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University. “In today’s information environment, even if they were well-intentioned and didn’t want to influence American public opinion, they couldn’t help it.”

In 2003, for example, initial accounts from the military about the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch from Iraqi forces were faked to rally public support. And in 2005, a Marine Corps spokesman during the siege of the Iraqi city of Fallujah told the U.S. news media that U.S. troops were attacking. In fact, the information was a ruse by U.S. commanders to fool insurgents into revealing their positions.

‘Psychological’ spending doubles
The fastest-growing part of the military media is “psychological operations,” where spending has doubled since 2003.

Psychological operations aim at foreign audiences, and spin is welcome. The only caveats are that messages must be truthful and must never try to influence an American audience.

In Afghanistan, for example, a video of a soldier joining the national army shown on Afghan television is not attributed to the U.S. And in Iraq, American teams built and equipped media outlets and trained Iraqis to staff them without making public the connection to the military.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of strategic communications for the U.S. Central Command, says psychological operations must be secret to be effective. He says that in the 21st century, it is probably not possible to win the information battle with insurgents without exposing American citizens to secret U.S. propaganda.

“We have to be pragmatic and realistic about the game that we play in terms of information, and that game is very complex,” he says.

The danger of psychological operations reaching a U.S. audience became clear when an American TV anchor asked Gen. David Petraeus about the mood in Iraq. The general held up a glossy photo of the Iraqi national soccer team to show the country united in victory.

Behind the camera, his staff was cringing. It was U.S. psychological operations that had quietly distributed tens of thousands of the soccer posters in July 2007 to encourage Iraqi nationalism.

With a new administration in power, it is not clear what changes may be made. Obama administration officials have said they intend to go through the Department of Defense budget closely to trim bloated spending.

Rumsfeld’s Office of Strategic Influence
The emphasis on influence operations started with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In 2002, Rumsfeld established an Office of Strategic Influence that brought together public affairs and psychological operations. Critics accused him of setting up a propaganda arm, and Congress demanded that the office be shut down.

Rumsfeld has declined to speak to the press since leaving office, but while defense secretary he spoke bluntly about his desire to revamp the Pentagon’s media operations.

“I went down that next day and said, ‘Fine, if you want to savage this thing, fine, I’ll give you the corpse,’” Rumsfeld said on Nov. 18, 2002, according to Defense Department transcripts of a speech he delivered. “‘There’s the name. You can have the name, but I’m gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.’”

In 2003, Rumsfeld issued a secret Information Operations Roadmap setting out a plan for public affairs and psychological operations to work together. It noted that with a global media, the military should expect and accept that psychological operations will reach the U.S. public.

“I can tell you there wouldn’t be a single American disappointed with anything that we’ve done that might be out there, that they don’t know about,” says Col. Curtis Boyd, commander of the 4th PSYOP Group, the largest unit of its kind. “Frankly, they probably wouldn’t care because maybe they are safer as a result of it.”

In January 2008, a new report by the Defense Science Board recommended resurrecting the Office of Strategic Influence as the Office of Strategic Communications. But Congress refused to fund the program.

In February, the Army released a new eight-chapter field manual that puts information warfare on par with traditional warfare.

The title of an entire chapter, Chapter 7: “Information Superiority.