2008 October 30

The £4billion card scheme is really part of Labour’s agenda to cut costs and bureaucracy by ensuring public bodies can share information, said Harvey Mattinson, a senior consultant at spy station GCHQ.

‘You cannot share information without identity authentication,’ he told the Society of IT Management’s annual conference. ‘We have got to get this right because it is stopping us doing our business.

‘We need biometric as well as biographical data. We will have to build up the information on the chip.’ Mr Mattinson was addressing repeated claims by home secretary Jacqui Smith that ID cards would help thwart terror attacks by making it harder for criminals to acquire multiple aliases.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: ‘Far from strengthening our security, ID cards are an expensive white elephant that risk making us less - not more - safe.’

The cards are to be introduced for foreign nationals from next month before a general roll-out.

How Safe Are Mobile Phones?

By Chanyut Phrukkumwong | Long-term exposure to electromagnetic radio waves at certain strengths does cause brain tumors. Just like in the case of cigarette smoking, which nobody realized could damage your health until the era where lung cancer caused by regular smoking showed up. Such warnings about the dangers from electromagnetic radio waves from cell phones have been around for some years now. But the reporting has not been very widespread because of the attempt to hide this truth from those who hold the stake, which is certainly the cell phone industry (manufacturers).

Dr. George Carlo is among the first scientists who warned the public about this danger. He refused a billion-dollar bribe from the cell phone industry who told him to keep quiet about the research results that he conducted. Take a look at his website, (http://www.safewireless.org) .

Other honest doctors and health advocates have helped this warning to become more widespread and more understandable by comparing such dangers with the ones associated to smoking. Everybody mistook, at first, that smoking was healthy but we have later come to know that it is dangerous.

We may notice that such warnings about the danger of cell phone is usually put out by honest doctors, health advocates, health-related people while hidden by cell phone industries or technology-related people. Until recently, this issue was mentioned about by the technology-related web site like CNET or ZD net.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/…
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5741203…
Even though an objection against the research finding is also there, we know that it is only a voice from cell-phone industry who has tried its best to conceal this fact and to protect itself from losing the profits. This shows that the industry itself has already realized this truth simply because there is no way to hide it.

So what’s the deal? Is it possible to stop using cell phone? No way. Cell phone has become part of our daily lives. It helps us in case of emergency or while being in the place where we need to talk and no other safe communication device is available. We should take action to minimize such risk and to be responsible for our own health. Simply be smart. Take moderate practice. Make use of it but do not let it harm us. Use headset, use handsfree feature, use it only when a wired phone is not available, do not go for a long conversation, send a message instead of talking. There are quite a number of techniques to minimize the risk.

Also, we can be selective by choosing a cell phone model that emits minimum strength of electromagnetic waves possible. Check out here http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/qa.html#6.

Details about the concentration of electromagnetic waves at home noted in the following article is also of interest http://www.naturalnews.com/023307.html.

Since cell phone has become a world-wide public issue, everyone in the world uses it while its long-term use does cause some diseases, there should be a public law that helps administer the marketing, selling, and the use of cell phone the same way as on cigarettes or sports drinks. The law that enforces the labeling of warning message on every cell phone and/or cell phone shop like “Long-term use of cell phone causes cancer”, “Cell phone causes autism”, that prohibits children under the age of 15 or so (whose physical development is still not so endured as adult) to buy a cell phone is strongly encouraged.

How the Government Spies on and Prosecutes Peace Activists

A First-Hand Account of the Ghosts of Iraq War Trial in Washington, D.C., October 20-24, 2008

Madison, WI — I was involved in a jury trial in Washington, DC October 20-24 for an action in the Senate gallery on March 12. In summary, five individuals, including me, were acquitted, and five people were found guilty. But what made this trial so unique was that the government attempted to hide illegally obtained and falsified evidence from us.

On March 12, 2008 at about 1:00 pm, ten activists went to the Senate gallery to again plead with our Senators to stop funding the war in Iraq. This action was organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (www.iraqpledge.org) The activists were Maria Allwine, Linda LeTendre, Max Obuszewski, Manijeh Saba, Tim Chadwick, Ellen Barfield, Judith Kelly, Eve Tetaz, Art Landis, and myself. We each wore a t-shirt that said, “WE WILL NOT BE SILENT” covered by a jacket or shirt and carried a small 12 inch square of cheesecloth. One-by-one, eight of us stood opened our jacket, put the cloth on head and proclaimed, “I am a ghost of the Iraq war. Innocent people have suffered and died as a result of the war. Stop funding the war.” We were immediately arrested, but the Senators did hear our message. Judith and Art were not able to speak. They were arrested, for no cause, as soon as they stood up because the police believed they were part of our group. We were taken to jail and processed. Eight of the activists were held until about 1:00 am. Four of us were held for more than 30 hours, with no food or water and with painful shackles around our ankles for the last 13 hours. All ten of us were arraigned at around 7:30 pm on March 13 and we were all released at that time.

We were charged with disrupting Congress which carries a maximum of 6 months in jail. When there is the possibility of 6 months in jail, the court is required to give us a jury trial. We had a trial date set for September 29 with Judge Robert Morin. Judge Morin has a reputation for being fair and a champion of human rights. When I arrived in DC for the September 29 trial I was told that it was postponed because of scheduling problems on the part of the judge and the prosecuting attorney. So I made an unnecessary trip to Washington, DC. I believe that this type of thing is one of the many things the government does to try to make it difficult and dissuade us from continuing our dissent.

The trial was rescheduled for October 20. So, again, I flew to DC. As usual, nine out of the ten defendants made thedecision to defend ourselves, pro se, with an attorney advisor working with us. We would divide up the roles of the trial among ourselves. By going pro se, we can say more about what we were doing and why than an attorney is allowed to say in the courtroom. Ann Wilcox was helping us as our attorney advisor, and Jack Barringer helped us all, though he was there primarily as attorney for Eve Tetaz. We had been corresponding by email to plan for the trial, and on the evening before the trial was to begin, October 19, we came together to continue our planning – a process that continued throughout the five days of the trial.

Our defense was that we did not have the intention (having intent is a part of the statute that we were being charged with) of disrupting Congress. We went there to practice our First Amendment right to petition our government for a redress of grievances and to fulfill our Nuremberg obligation of speaking out when our government is acting illegally.

On Monday morning, October 20, we took care of some pre-trial matters with Judge Morin and Mr. Warren, the government prosecutor. A few months before the trial began, we received “discovery” from the government. Discovery is information that the government has and will be using as evidence during the trial. They are required by law to provide this to the defendants before the trial. It can include police reports, statements from witnesses, videos of the action etc. In the discovery packet was a report from Capitol Police officers stating that they knew we were coming to the Senate gallery on March 12. For several weeks we had been trying to get additional discovery so we could find out how the police knew we were coming, but the government denied they had any more information for us. So on Monday morning, Max again filed a motion asking for additional discovery so we could understand how the Capitol Police received the information that we were coming.

There has been a recent national news story revolving around the Maryland State Police (MSP) spy scandal, with the MSP illegally spying on peace, death penalty, and environmental groups. A few of the defendants in this trial have also been involved in this incident, being illegally spied on by the MSP. Because of this, we were suspicious about how the Capitol Police were expecting us in the gallery on March 12.

As we filed motions for additional discovery weeks before the trial, the government denied they had any more information. When we filed the motion again on Monday morning, the government again denied that they had any additional discovery to give us.

We waited in the halls of the courthouse most of Monday for a murder trial to conclude, but at 3:00 pm we began jury selection for our trial. After questioning the jury on everything from whether they knew any of the parties involved in the trial to whether they felt so strongly about the war that they could not render a fair verdict, we had a jury selected by 5:00 pm. Each side was able to strike three people from the pool with no questions asked. We were fairly satisfied with the final jury.

We were set to begin the trial on Tuesday morning. Before the jury was brought in, Mr. Warren, the prosecutor, said that he had just received a 26-page intelligence report from the Capitol Police for March 12, the day of our arrest. He said that he had not had time to look at it, but that he was told that there were three pages relevant to our case that he could give us. He said the rest of document contained sensitive security information and we could not have access to it. He provided us with the table of contents for the document and two pages with information on possible protesters in the Capitol area that was completely irrelevant to our action.

The trial then proceeded with the government’s case after the opening statements by both sides. Linda LeTendre gave a powerful opening statement on behalf of the defendants, asking the jury how far we would allow the door of democracy to open. It was surprising that Mr. Warren raised no objections to any part of her moving statement.

The prosecutor called four witnesses. The first two witnesses were gatekeepers in the Senate gallery. The first witness, in particular, was not a credible witness at all. He didn’t clearly answer questions, went off on tangents for the prosecutor and during the cross exam by the defense, and was extremely nervous on the stand. He talked about how dangerous he thought we were.

The third witness was a Capitol Police officer who was able to identify two of the defendants, Eve and Tim. He was the arresting officer of Eve and Tim and he was able to describe what they were doing in the gallery on March 12. The next witness was also a Capitol Police officer and the arresting officer of the other 8 defendants. He was not at all a credible witness. He claimed he remembered arresting all of us and remembered exactly what we were doing, but he did not tell the truth on the stand. It would have been physically impossible for one man to arrest each one of us as he stated. He said all of us stood up and shouted, but two of the defendants, Judith and Art, stood up and begin taking out their gauze and were arrested before they even said anything.

After the four witnesses, the government rested its case and the jury was dismissed. It was almost the end of the day and Max renewed the motion for additional discovery. In looking at the table of contents from the security report, Max thought there might be additional information in the report that would help us to understand how the Capitol Police knew we were coming. Max asked for three specific pages from the report. Judge Morin said he would quickly look through the report and determine whether we should have access to any other pages.

Judge Morin decided that we should have two additional pages and when we saw the content of the pages we were stunned and called for a short break. What we realized is that a personal email that Max sent to a small group of people on the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) organizing list proposing the action on March 12 was in the hands of the Capitol Police. Not only that, but the document was falsified by adding a false url to make it look like it came from a public domain source.

We suspected that the Capitol Police could have received this information from the Maryland State Police. Because this was a personal email, the only way it could have been obtained was through an infiltrator being on the NCNR organizing list or through hacking into someone’s computer to gain access to personal email – both illegal activities. We held a brief meeting to discuss where to go with this, talking about asking for a dismissal, sanctions against the government, and our lack of opportunity to cross-examine government witnesses on the newly obtained documents because the government had rested its case. If we would have had the information while government witnesses were on the stand, we would have been able to question them about the documents.

We went back into the courtroom and Maria made a moving motion for judgment of acquittal noting that the government had not proved its case. The motion was denied. Court broke for the day and we had the evening to determine where to go with the surprising and chilling discovery of the illegally obtained documents.

On Wednesday morning both Jack Barringer, an attorney to Eve and advisor to the rest of us, and Max introduced a motion for dismissal based on the illegal and falsified evidence that we had received from the government the day before. The judge said that he would rule on this motion post-verdict and we would continue with the trial. It is extremely uncommon to wait until after the jury delivers a verdict to rule on a motion for dismissal. Judge Morin also gave us the option of recalling the government witnesses to cross-examine them about the document in question. After much discussion and some disagreement among defendants, we decided that we would not recall the government witnesses.

We proceeded with our case. Judith gave a beautiful opening statement, introducing our case to the jury. Under the advice of one of our attorney advisors, most of us took the stand to explain to the jury why we did what we did. The statements made by the defendants on the stand were incredibly powerful and moving and for me, helped to deepen my resolve to continue this work.

Max was our third witness and he clearly laid out the case for the jury. Under cross-examination, Mr. Warren, the prosecutor, introduced the illegally obtained document into evidence. He then questioned Max about a statement in the email where Max was discussing what “arrestees” would do after the action. Mr. Warren used this statement to try to show the jury that we knew we were breaking the law and we knew all along that we would be arrested.

Max was able to turn this around and explain that we never go to be arrested. Of course we know that we are risking arrest in our actions, but we do not believe that we are doing anything wrong and we never participate in our actions in order to be arrested. After the prosecutor brought this document to the jury, Max was able to explain to the jury exactly where this document came from and how it fell into the government’s hands in a surreptitious manner. I’m not sure if the jury totally understood the importance of this document.

Two of the defendants, Art and Judith, took the stand and testified that they did not say anything in spite of the government witness claiming they did. They both stood up in the gallery on March 12 and before they could take any action, they were arrested. Maria testified that she was not arrested by the officer who said on the stand that he arrested her.

I testified that I am a grandmother of five children, and that when you are a grandmother you think of all the children of the world. I think of how the children of Iraq are suffering and I have no choice but to do what I do. I also said that Bush is a war criminal, a statement I try to get into the court record every time I am on trial. Others made powerful statements about why they were in the Senate gallery and doing what they did. Several of us stated that it is our First Amendment right to petition our government for a redress of grievances and that it is also our Nuremberg obligation to speak out when our government is committing war crimes. Our intention was not to disrupt Congress, but to call attention to the suffering and death of so many innocent people and call on our Senators to stop funding this horrific war.

We rested our case. I gave a closing statement on behalf of the defendants and Mr. Warren gave a closing statement for the government. The judge gave instructions to the jury and they were dismissed. Maria made another motion for judgment of acquittal. Surprisingly, Judge Morin said he would also rule on this motion post-verdict. It was the end of a long day on Wednesday.

Thursday morning we gathered at the courthouse around 9:30 to wait for a verdict. The jury had a few questions throughout the day that we had to hash out between us, Mr. Warren, and Judge Morrin, but most of the day we sat and waited in the courthouse hallway.

I had been staying by myself at the Hotel Harrington. On Thursday night I woke up at 3:00 am and couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the trial and why I was there in DC, so far away from my family for such a long period of time. The war and occupation continue and so many people continue to suffer and to die. Sometimes it seems so hopeless, but we must continue to do everything we can to try to stop the war. I called my husband Steve at 2:00 am Wisconsin time and told him I was feeling very sad and lonely thinking about all the suffering that was happening in Iraq that brought me to be where I was. He lovingly listened to me, even though I woke him from a sound sleep. He let me know that he supported me in what I was doing, but I didn’t sleep much more that night.

We returned again to the courthouse on Friday morning. At 11:00 am we found out that the jury had reached a verdict. There is a lot of tension waiting for the jury to come in and announce the verdict. I remind myself that this is not about us. It is about the almost 4200 US soldiers and the million Iraqis that have died, and the uncountable, unbelievable numbers of people that are suffering extremely as a result of the war and occupation.

The jury came in and announced the verdict. We were surprised and dismayed when they read the verdict that five of us were acquitted and five were found guilty. We didn’t understand because we all did the same thing, except for Judith and Art.

A few of us who were not found guilty went into the hallway to see if any of the jurors would be willing to talk to us about the verdict. Four of the jurors gave us information. They said that we should not have taken the stand because some of us incriminated ourselves on the stand. Judith and Art were found not guilty because they testified that they did not do anything. Maria was found not guilty because she testified that she was not arrested by the police officer who said he arrested her. Linda was found not guilty because she did not testify and so did not incriminate herself. I was found not guilty because I talked about my grandchildren and why I do this work, but did not specifically say I was in the Senate gallery on March 12 and took part in the action. I did not do this intentionally and I would have liked to remain in solidarity and have been found guilty with the others. It did not feel like a victory to be acquitted when our friends were found guilty.

The jury knew that we were all in the Senate gallery on March 12 and that we acted or tried to act. In fact, in my closing statement I talked about being in the gallery and described what we did. But the closing statement is not evidence. The jury looked only at the facts of the case presented as evidence during testimony in reaching a final verdict.

After the jury left the courtroom, Max renewed his motion for dismissal based on the fact that the government had illegally obtained and falsified evidence that was withheld from us until the government rested its case. Judge Morin set a date for a hearing on this matter for November 7. He ordered the government to produce witnesses that can testify as to where this document was obtained.

We are guessing that the Maryland State Police illegally obtained this document either through an infiltrator or through hacking into someone’s computer. Again, this document was a personal email that Max sent to a limited group of people as a proposal for our action on March 12 in the Senate gallery. It was not posted publicly. However at the end of document was a source, a false url, to make it look like it was in the public domain.

We all know and kind of joke about the government spying on us. But it is very chilling and unnerving when you discover actual proof that it is happening. We shall see what happens at the November 7 hearing. The charges against the five who were found guilty may be dismissed that day.

As I go through an experience like this trial, as difficult as it is, my commitment to doing this work deepens and I know I can do nothing else. As difficult as this is for me, I know that what I am going through is nothing compared to what the people of Iraq are suffering because of the occupation of their land by US soldiers. I know that what I am doing is nothing compared to what the family members of dead US soldiers are dealing with. We must continue to speak out and resist the illegal actions of our government. In a few days we will be electing a new president, but no matter what happens our work will not be over. Both Obama and McCain are committed to continuing the occupation of Iraq and increasing the fighting in Afghanistan. If Obama wins, we may be able to sway him, but we must take to the streets and let the new administration know that we will tolerate nothing less than working towards peace in the world.

The t-shirt I wore on March 12, the day I was arrested stated “WE WILL NOT BE SILENT”. That has become my mantra as I continue the struggle against our imperialistic government. We cannot and will not be silent as our government is engaged in illegal actions.

I will return to DC on March 9. On March 10, there will be an action at the Department of Justice organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. In September we sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey asking him to meet with us to talk about indicting Bush and Cheney for war crimes. He has not replied to us and so on November 10 we will go to the Department of Justice and demand a meeting with Mukasey. If we are refused, some of us will be moved by conscience to take action in a peaceful manner that could lead to arrest. PLEASE JOIN US IN THIS ACTION AS WE CONTINUE TO SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER.

The “Dirty Little Secret” Of the US Bank Bailout

WSWS | In an unusually frank article published in Saturday’s New York Times, the newspaper’s economic columnist, Joe Nocera, reveals what he calls “the dirty little secret of the banking industry”–namely, that “it has no intention of using the [government bailout] money to make new loans.”

As Nocera explains, the plan announced October 13 by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to hand over $250 billion in taxpayer money to the biggest banks, in exchange for non-voting stock, was never really intended to get them to resume lending to businesses and consumers–the ostensible purpose of the bailout. Its essential aim was to engineer a rapid consolidation of the American banking system by subsidizing a wave of takeovers of smaller financial firms by the most powerful banks.

Nocera cites an employee-only conference call held October 17 by a top executive of JPMorgan Chase, the beneficiary of $25 billion in public funds. Nocera explains that he obtained the call-in number and was able to listen to a recording of the proceedings, unbeknownst to the executive, whom he declines to name.

Asked by one of the participants whether the $25 billion in federal funding will “change our strategic lending policy,” the executive replies: “What we do think, it will help us to be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling.”

Referring to JPMorgan’s recent government-backed acquisition of two large competitors, the executive continues: “And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way, and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.”

As Nocera notes: “Read that answer as many times as you want–you are not going to find a single word in there about making loans to help the American economy.”

Later in the conference call the same executive states, “We would think that loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit to fully reflect the high cost of pricing on the loan side.”

“It is starting to appear,” the Times columnist writes, “as if one of the Treasury’s key rationales for the recapitalization program–namely, that it will cause banks to start lending again–is a fig leaf…. In fact, Treasury wants banks to acquire each other and is using its power to inject capital to force a new and wrenching round of bank consolidation.”

Early this month, he explains, “in a nearly unnoticed move,” Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, put in place a new tax break worth billions of dollars that is designed to encourage bank mergers. It allows the acquiring bank to immediately deduct any losses on the books of the acquired bank.

Paulson and other Treasury officials have made public statements calling on the banks that receive public funds to use them to increase their lending activities. That, however, is for public consumption. The bailout program imposes no lending requirements on the banks in return for government cash.

Already, the credit crisis has been used to engineer the takeover of Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual by JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, Wachovia by Wells Fargo and, last Friday, National City by PNC.

What the Wall Street Journal on Saturday called the “strong-arm sale” of National City provides a taste of what is to come. The Treasury Department sealed the fate of the Cleveland-based bank by deciding not to include it among the regional banks that will receive government handouts. It then gave Pittsburgh-based PNC $7.7 billion from the bailout fund to help defray the costs of a takeover of National City. PNC will also benefit greatly from the tax write-off on mergers enacted by Treasury.

All of the claims that were made to justify the bank bailout have been exposed as lies. President Bush, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Paulson were joined by the Democratic congressional leadership and Barack Obama in warning that the bailout had to be passed, and passed immediately, despite massive popular opposition. Those who opposed the plan were denounced for jeopardizing the well being of the American people.

In a nationally televised speech delivered September 24, in advance of the congressional vote on the bailout plan, Bush said it would “help American consumers and businessmen get credit to meet their daily needs and create jobs.” If the bailout was not passed, he warned, “More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account…. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs … ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession.”

One month later, the bailout has been enacted, and all of the dire developments–banks and businesses disappearing, the stock market plunging, unemployment skyrocketing–which the American people were told it would prevent are unfolding with accelerating speed.

While Obama talks about the need for all Americans to “come together” in a spirit of “shared sacrifice”–meaning drastic cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other social programs–and the cost of the bailout is cited to justify fiscal austerity, the bankers proceed to ruthlessly prosecute their class interests.

As the World Socialist Web Site warned when it was first proposed in mid-September, the “economic rescue” plan has been revealed to be a scheme to plunder society for the benefit of the financial aristocracy. The American ruling elite, utilizing its domination of the state and the two-party political system, is exploiting a crisis of its own making to carry through an economic agenda, long in preparation, that could not be imposed under normal conditions.

The result will be greater economic hardship for ordinary Americans. The big banks will have even greater market power to set interest rates and control access to credit for workers, students and small businesses.

While no serious measures are being proposed, either by the Bush administration, the Republican presidential candidate or his Democratic opponent, to prevent a social catastrophe from overtaking working people, the government is organizing a restructuring of the financial system that will enable a handful of mega-banks to increase their power over society.

Big bankings’ military activities

The Government’s decision to take a controlling stake in some of the largest British financial institutions comes as a new War on Want report reveals how high street banks are complicit in the global arms trade. Our damning report exposes how Britain’s top five high street banks – Barclays, Halifax Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds TSB and the Royal Bank of Scotland – invest in, provide banking services for and make loans to arms companies. The Government must use its new say in lending behaviour to guarantee standards are put in place to ensure banks end their links with the arms sector.

Faith in the banking sector is already at an all-time low. The revelation that these banks are investing in weapons companies will add to this public mistrust. They are financing an industry that sells arms to countries committing human rights abuses, such as Israel, Colombia and Saudi Arabia. Money from our savings and current accounts is being used to fund companies that produce pernicious weapons such as depleted uranium and cluster bombs.

The arms industry profits from producing the machines that kill, maim and destroy. Britain has exported more than £30 billion in arms in the past five years. It last year had the dubious honour of topping the list of global exporters. With a record £19 billion in orders, Britain is the third largest exporter of arms to developing countries. The United Nations Development Programme has named military expenditure by developing countries as a major barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

War on Want launches its new report as UN Disarmament Week starts. Using databases which have not been seen before outside financial circles, the report exposes the fact that all five big banks have shareholdings in Britain’s largest arms companies. Four hold shares in all of this country’s leading arms companies. The Royal Bank of Scotland has a stake worth £36.4 million. Halifax Bank of Scotland and HSBC have vast holdings, worth £409.5 million and £483.4 million, respectively. With £717.5 million in shares, Lloyds TSB ranks as the British banking industry’s second largest shareholder. Barclays’ investments in the arms sector total £1.39 billion, the highest total among Britain’s banks. Barclays holds, by far, the largest amount of shares in the global arms sector, with £7.3 billion invested in total.

Both HSBC and Barclays invest in companies that produce cluster munitions and depleted uranium. With the exception of HBOS, all the banks have given loans to at least one cluster munitions producer in the past decade.

Most high street banks are violating their own corporate social responsibility statements. For instance, there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the Royal Bank of Scotland’s stated commitment to human rights and sustainable development and its support for the arms industry.

One bank, HSBC, has gone much further than just producing a corporate social responsibility (CSR) report. Since 2000, it has since stated publicly its commitment to “avoid certain types of business, such as financing weapons manufacture and sales” and to have had that policy “fully in place” for two years.

However, since 2000, there has been no significant downward trend in HSBC lending to the arms sector.

As a voluntary approach to good practice, CSR cannot make companies accountable for their actions. Government control of banks has given us a perfect opportunity to make them responsible for their behaviour. And we urge account holders to write to their bank, demanding that they stop financing the arms trade and call for transparency on all their investments.

CIA Can Hide Torture Allegations, Court Rules

The CIA can hide statements from imprisoned suspected terrorists that the agency tortured them in its set of secret prisons, a federal judge ruled Wednesday,

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the Washington D.C. Circuit Court declined to review the government’s assertions that the allegations of torture from men held in the CIA’s black site prisons — whether truthful or not — would put the nation at risk of grave danger if allowed to be made public.

“The Court, giving deference to the agency’s detailed, good-faith declaration, is disinclined to
second-guess the agency in its area of expertise through in camera review,” Lamberth wrote (.pdf), referring to a procedure where a judge looks at evidence in his chamber without showing it to the opposing side.

The ruling comes in a case where the ACLU filed a government sunshine suit to force the government to unredact allegations from statements from so-called High Value Detainees such as 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheihk Muhammed that the CIA kidnapped and tortured them.

The judge’s decision not to look at the blacked-out text to see if secrets are involved allows the Bush Administration to continue to hide its use of torture techniques, according to Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.

“The government has suppressed these detainees’ allegations of brutal torture not to protect any legitimate national security interests, but to protect itself from criticism and liability,” said Wizner. “It is unlawful for the government to withhold information on these grounds.”

Not surprisingly, the CIA disagreed — saying the enemy would be helped by knowing what kinds of torture and interrogation techniques it uses.

Obama’s Infomercial Hits Home

By Ruth Conniff | Barack Obama’s 30-minute, prime-time infomercial played on the heartstrings of stressed-out Americans. It all worked together. The violin music, the soft focus stories, the greatest hits from some of his speeches: “We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have, or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by . . . whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off and look after a sick kid without losing her job.”

The moving biographies of families struggling to afford their mortgages, health care, and other basic costs took campaign hobby horse of using real people to illustrate political points to a new height.

Forget Joe the Plumber. How about the Stuarts, who worked hard until they retired, only to find they couldn’t afford Juanita’s arthritis medicine, so Larry had to go back to work? Seeing this elderly couple, her crippled hands, and his shyness over his sales job, made it clear that this was no put-on. Nor was Juliana Sanchez, a teacher who works and extra job and still has to buy a half-gallon of milk at a time to stretch her wages.

The well choreographed stories tugged at your emotions. Then it was back to the H&R Block segments of Obama sitting at a desk and outlining his policy proposals.

Television is an all-emotion medium, and Obama put his populist points across better than Oprah Winfrey herself. It was a tour de force.

Only in reviewing the transcript is it clear that some of the points aren’t fully fleshed out. Obama sounds commanding, and certainly has a lot of applause lines when he criticizes the insurance industry (describing how his own mother had to fight her insurers, as she was dying of cancer, on her death bed), but how exactly will he guarantee health insurance? It doesn’t really matter, for the purposes of good T.V. You are swept right back into the biographical segment by the rising violins.

Biden’s testimony about seeing Obama question Condoleeza Rice as a freshman Senator, and saying “Whoa, this guy is good,” was a little awkward. As was the rest of the brief segment on is brief tenure in Washington.

It was fascinating to see how the campaign took the temperature of Americans and came up with this particular pitch.

Following hard on a segment on national security and an endorsement from a retired Brigadier General John Adams, was a picture of Obama hugging a young man as his voice intoned “I promise you this, I’ll always tell you where I stand. . . ” The father imagery was overwhelming, especially coming on the heels of a segment about his own devotion to his daughters.

Finally, there was the live bit from Florida, the speech that clearly was happening now, since he referred to the last six days of the election, asking people to “knock on some doors.” Stand with me, he said, and “we’ll change this country and change the world.” Big grins and handshakes with Biden. Sweeping music, like something out of Little House on the Prairie, and we’re out.

The desire for empathy, the feelings of injustice, the emotional pull of good people who’ve been done wrong, all speak to a country that is feeling insecure. What Obama offers, more than anything, is a kind of steady, benign father figure who will guide us through rough times. The emphasis on family and values underscore this. In this way he has completely stolen the thunder of the conservative, family values party, whose candidate appears sulky and flustered by turns. It’s pretty clear who the “steady hand on the tiller” really is.

There are plenty of people who take umbrage at Obama’s Bill Cosby-like invocation of good parenting as a slap in the face of black people–the government can’t turn off the T.V. or read to your child–etc. And clearly, this is something that white people love to hear a black man say. Personally, I don’t have a problem with it, and don’t hear it as racially coded. But I don’t think I’m the target audience.

Take this little tidbit from Chris Matthews who came on to spin the infomercial for Keith Olbermann as soon as Obama went off the air: “What do you want black people to do?” Matthews asked, referring to Obama’s model family life: read to their children, support their families, etc. etc. Matthews to voters: Vote for Obama, he’s a credit to his race.

Bush Missing Iraq WMD has Been Found in Iraq and One Million U.S. Soldiers are its Victims

No Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that Bush told us were in Iraq were found. Today, to the tragedy of over one million U.S. soldiers and countless innocent Iraqi civilians, there is a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Iraq. That weapon is the deadly radioactive Depleted Uranium (DU) that is used by the U.S. military.

Tuckahoe, NY (PRWEB) October 29, 2008 — Author Paul J. Landis has completed an enhanced web site and the new “Tribune Gazette” to support updates and an updated title to his book “A Real 9/11 Commission,” all of which provide dramatic evidence and information about the on-going tragic threat to over one million U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians: the radioactive Weapon of Mass Destruction - Depleted Uranium (DU).

There is significant new information and additional content covering a number of critical current issues, Landis told us, thus justifying the new title “A Real 9/11 Commission Will Help Free America, Now” (ISBN 0-9760408-2-4, April 2007; US $14.75, UK, £ 9.85.) The “Tribune Gazette” has been designed to provide an affordable newspaper format and mirrors the topics covered in the updated book and web site, www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com, all available now.

In the book, web site and Tribune Gazette, Landis explains, the issue of Depleted Uranium use by our military is put in the context of the ‘illegal’ Iraq War. For example, In 2005 the ASMFE recognized the illegality of the Iraq war and called for a ‘rapid return’ of our troops. See note 1 below. As stated in the 2008 AFSME Resolution 85, Bush made “false claims” about the presence of Weapons of Mass destruction (WMD) being in Iraq. See note 2 below. This 2008 Res 85 re-affirms the concerns and that our troops be “brought home as soon and as safely as possible”. As the illegal Iraq War continues, billions of dollars that could be used for U.S. infrastructure enhancements, education, housing and medical services for Americans are lost.

Also, Landis continues, the book, web site and “Tribune Gazette” develop a theme based upon the question: Is there a “New Iron Curtain Around the USA, A media Iron Curtain”. As evidence of this “New Iron Curtain”: How many Americans have been informed by our ‘mainstream’ media of 1) what is DU and what are the consequences of its use by the military, 2) informed about its use in Iraq and 3) informed that over one million U.S. soldiers and countless innocent Iraqi civilians, have been exposed to it and 4) one of the results of exposure to DU is the births of deformed babies, U.S. babies as well as Iraqi babies?

The pictures with this article graphically show that Depleted Uranium is a lethal, unconscionable, radioactive weapon and the extent to which it has and will continue to cause illnesses and the loss of life should be unacceptable.

Of the use of Depleted Uranium by our military, Dave Lindorff reports in his “Radioactive Wounds of War”:
“U.S. forces first used DU in the 1991 Gulf War, when some 300 tons of depleted uranium–the waste product of nuclear power plants and weapons facilities–were used in tank shells and shells fired by A-10 jets. A lesser amount was deployed by U.S. and NATO forces during the Balkans conflict. But in the current wars in Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq, DU has become the weapon of choice, with more than 1,000 tons used in Afghanistan and more than 3,000 tons used in Iraq. And while DU was fired mostly in the desert during the Gulf War, in the current war in Iraq, most of DU munitions are exploding in populated urban areas.” See note 3 below.

While most of us may not have the background to understand what the implications of 360 tons vs. 10 tons of DU is, we can grasp the clear message that 3000 tons of DU as reported above by Dave Lindorff and that the “DU munitions are exploding in populated urban areas” is a catastrophe.

HAVE DU WILL TRAVEL is the cover of the March 2006 edition of The Lone Star Iconoclast featuring a series of excellent articles about DU. See note 4 below.

In this edition in the interview of Leon Smith, Editor-in chief of The Lone Star Iconoclast, Schwartz states “They have exposed close to a million of our troops.”. That was in March 2006.

In the same interview Schwartz tells us “They put 425,000 Americans in Desert Storm and over 300,000 of them are having medical disability issues.” And “The Canadians told me, “Oh, for the record, the reason we didn’t go to Iraq is we are already seeing some huge health issues on the Canadian troops that participated in Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. We’re not going to be exposing our folks to this stuff anymore. We’re against it.” Now, they’re coming to grips in their own country with some very real and very tragic health stories, and our government is sitting on it.” See note 4 below, page 15

The implications of these numbers are numbing: there is huge potential of many Iraq War vets ill and dying and their wives vulnerable to becoming infected and to give birth to deformed offspring.

For the people of Iraq, living in areas of high DU concentrations, the effects are beyond tragic. Iraq babies are born so deformed that many are hardly recognizable as human babies.
See http://www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/children.htm.

The article summaries below highlight evidence that populations outside of Iraq are not safe from the effects of DU. Landis tells us, the tile of Chapter 23 in my book is “Un-Knowing Participants in the Story of Depleted Uranium” to help bring attention to this issue.

The March 2006 edition of The Lone Star Iconoclast also includes this Interview with Dr. Ernest Sternglass By W. Leon Smith”
“The issue of greatest concern is that Americans at home as well as the people in the UK and in many parts of the world are unwilling participants in this tragedy.

“… Measurements by the Weapons Establishment in England show that these fine particles travel thousands of miles around the world and, Leuren Moret has pictures that NASA satellites took showing the sand storms going across the Atlantic and all over the world so we have totally underestimated the very serious nature of the use of uranium as weapons.” See Note 3 below, page 7.

Landis introduces the article segment below, pointing out its disturbing consequences for Americans

African Dust Storms Bring Depleted Uranium to the Southern U.S.
by Richard Stenger CNN, June 18, 2001
“Dust storm plumes from northern Africa travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic transporting millions of tons of sand and dust with bacteria, viruses, pollen, pollution, and radioactive isotopes such as depleted uranium from the Middle East and Central Asia.1 The easterly trade winds carry the dust across the Atlantic in 5-7 days at about 10,000 feet.2 Almost all of it is rained out into the environment within two months, including the depleted uranium and other radioactive isotopes from the Sahara. In fact these atmospheric dusts are what make sunsets red. The seasonal African storms peak in July, contributing to a reddish haze across the U.S. Southeast. From June to October the Caribbean and Central America are targeted by the storms, but the Amazon Basin gets hit from February to April.”
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/06/18/dust.microbe
s/index.html

The harsh and unfortunate reality we must consider is that given the global movement of dust storms like these, no one, ultimately, anywhere in the world, is safe from the effects of Depleted Uranium.
Do these issues deserve and demand our considered attention?

Note 1
AFL-CIO Calls for Rapid Return of U.S. Troops July 27, 2005, 5:15 p.m. CDT

Chicago: In a major change of course, the AFL-CIO Convention delegates voted this afternoon in favor of a resolution calling for a “rapid” return of all U.S. troops from Iraq.
www.uslaboragainstwar.org

Note 2
AFSCME 2008 Convention
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
August 6th, 2008
38TH INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
RESOLUTION NUMBER 85
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=16697

Un-Knowing Participants in the Story of Depleted Uranium
From Chapter Twenty-three,
“A Real 9/11 Commission Will Help Free America Now!”
ISBN: 097604-0824

Anthrax scare empties Calif. congressman’s office

California congressman’s office evacuated after it receives package labeled ‘anthrax’

A state office of a California congressman has been evacuated after receiving an envelope labeled “anthrax.”

No one was hurt after the package was received Wednesday at the Modesto office of Rep. George Radanovich. Some staffers were sent to a hospital for precautionary examinations.

Radanovich spokesman Spencer Pederson says authorities have not confirmed what was in the package. A receptionist says it was addressed to Radanovich and contained a small envelope marked “anthrax.”

Anthrax mailed to congressional offices and others in 2001 killed five people and sickened 17.