The National Emergency Crowbar and The War On Crime

“U.S. Army soldiers from Ft. Rucker patrol the downtown area of Samson, Alabama after a shooting spree March 10, 2009. At least 10 people including the suspected gunman and his mother were killed in the shooting spree and car chase in southern Alabama on Tuesday, authorities said. REUTERS/Mark Wallheiser (UNITED STATES CONFLICT SOCIETY IMAGE OF THE DAY TOP PICTURE)” (text and photo from Reuters, violation of Posse Comitatus from your government)

1998-Oct-31 23:50PST, Eugene, Oregon, environs of the University of Oregon: police with full riot gear and gas masks prepare to rush and tear gas youths engaged in noisy congregation and petty mischief.

1999-Dec-1, Seattle, Washington, environs of the WTO meeting: peaceful protesters are doused with chemical weapons

1999-Dec-1, Seattle, Washington, environs of the WTO meeting: officer fires less lethal weapon at peaceful protesters at close range

(The latter two pictures are from http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/4885/wto/.)

2000-Apr-22, Miami, Florida, inside the Gonzalez residence: INS agent about to force Elián from the arms of Donato Dalrymple

A great many of those who become police officers enjoy exerting authority over other people. Such people gravitate to this line of work because it provides opportunities for this, and is largely structured in terms of relationships of authority. Indeed, police work offers little beyond this that is appealing to most of those who might consider becoming police officers (excluding major crime detectives, whose work has the potential, and often the evident characteristic, of being quite noble). Police work is both dull and dangerous, and when an agent interacts with a member of the public, he can almost always sense fear or hostility - attitudes which are often subtle in their manifestations, of course, but which are nonetheless commonplace. Dedication to public service - an oft-cited rationale for entering government service - simply doesn't bring home the bacon, psychologically, particularly in so thankless a line of work. It is not unusual, of course, for police officers to consciously maintain this pretense even to themselves, so that the bona fide motivation for their career choice resides in their subconscious.

Since police officers can exercise authority only over criminals and at crime scenes, and since many of them enjoy exercising authority and are displeased and angered when their authority is not recognized, they will tend to support any policy or trend that increases the number and variety of crimes (thereby increasing the number of people considered by the state to be criminals), and the frequency and scope of crime scenes (for example, parole of violent criminals to make room for political prisoners of the Drug War).

A great many adherents of the principle of the total state in general (whether conscious or unconscious) vigorously support the principle of non-resistance: that is, the principle that ordinary citizens should under no circumstances be armed, and should always accede to the demands of an armed individual, whether the demand is to hand over money, hand over an automobile, raise hands, or lie prostrate. In particular, it is the demands of police officers and criminals that are at issue. This principle obviously amplifies the rewards of criminality, and dramatically reduces its perils. The result is that there are far more criminals than there would otherwise be - and concomitantly, more holdups, muggings, rapes, and homicides, in particular. An armed society is a polite society, whereas a disarmed society is a herd of sheep to be sheared, violated, or slaughtered, at the whimsy of the armed.

Those adherents of the principle of the total state who reject the principle of non-resistance embrace the principle that the state ought to permit only “reliable” citizens to have and carry weapons. A “reliable” citizen, of course, is one the state expects to further the state's interests, so that in effect the citizen is a de facto agent of the state. This is how firearms laws were structured under the National Socialist regime of Germany (following the non-resistance type laws of the Weimar Republic), and this is how firearms laws are structured in the present-day United States under discretionary concealed carry permitting regimes.

Finally, emergencies are situations in which whole communities are treated as crime scenes. Police officers and their superiors tend to support any policy or trend that increases the frequency and scope of emergencies (particularly, by a redefinition of the term “emergency”) because this creates more opportunities for them to exert authority. Of course, all of the above tendencies of state agents are predominantly subconscious, but this makes them more dangerous, since the subconscious is - by definition - not accountable to conscious reason.

Summary of Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in American Police Departments, Cato report #50, 1999-Aug-26, by Diane Cecilia Weber:

Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement.

The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament. According to a recent academic survey, nearly 90 percent of the police departments surveyed in cities with populations over 50,000 had paramilitary units, as did 70 percent of the departments surveyed in communities with populations under 50,000. The Pentagon has been equipping those units with M-16s, armored personnel carriers, and grenade launchers. The police paramilitary units also conduct training exercises with active duty Army Rangers and Navy SEALs.

State and local police departments are increasingly accepting the military as a model for their behavior and outlook. The sharing of training and technology is producing a shared mindset. The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an "enemy" but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights. Confusing the police func- tion with the military function can lead to dan- gerous and unintended consequences-such as unnecessary shootings and killings.

Here is the full report in HTML format.

Summary of Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, also from the Cato Institute, 2006-Jul-17, by Radley Balko:

Americans have long maintained that a man's home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they're sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.

This paper presents a history and overview of the issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides an extensive catalogue of abuses and mistaken raids, and offers recommendations for reform.

Botched Paramilitary Police Raids: An Interactive Map

Here is the full report in PDF format.

by Orville Weyrich, from http://www.weyrich.com/political_issues/reichstag_fire.html:

Reichstag Fire

They who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Recent events raise ghosts of the past.

---

January 30, 1933

Weimar Republic President Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolph Hitler Chancellor.

February 27, 1933

The German Parliament (Reichstag) burns down. A dazed Dutch Communist named Marinus van der Lubbe is found at the scene and charged with arson. [He is later found guilty and executed].

February 28, 1933

President Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler invoke Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which permits the suspension of civil liberties in time of national emergency. This Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State abrogates the following constitutional protections:

• Free expression of opinion
• Freedom of the press
• Right of assembly and association
• Right to privacy of postal and electronic communications
• Protection against unlawful searches and seizures
• Individual property rights
• States' right of self-government

A supplemental decree creates the SA (Storm Troops) and SS (Special Security) Federal police agencies.

Who Did It?

Historians do not agree on who is actually responsible for the Reichstag Fire: van der Lubbe acting alone -- a Communist plot -- or the Nazis themselves in order to create an incident. Writers such as Klaus P. Fischer feel that most likely the Nazis were involved.

But regardless of who actually planned and executed the fire, it is clear that the Nazis immediately took advantage of the situation in order to advance their cause at the expense of civil rights. The Decree enabled the Nazis to ruthlessly suppress opposition in the upcoming election.

March 5, 1933

National elections give Nazis 44% plurality in the Reichstag. Herman Göring [who later played a central role in the Nazi government and war effort] declares that there is no further need for State governments.

Over the next few weeks, each of the lawful Weimar State governments falls to the same ruse:

• Local Nazi organizations instigate disorder;
• The disorder is quelled by replacing the elected state government by appointed Nazi Reich Commissioners.

March 24, 1933

The Reichstag passes the Law for Terminating the Suffering of People and Nation , also known as the Enabling Law , essentially granting Adolph Hitler dictatorial power.

ANALYSIS

The events in 1933 can be summarized as follows:

• While it is not clear whether the Nazis intentionally set the Reichstag fire in order to create a national crisis, or whether the Nazis simply were opportunistic, the event was used as justification for a sharp curtailment in constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties.
• The Nazis took advantage of the additional Federal police powers to suppress opponents.
• It is clear that in other situations, the Nazis did use the tactic of creating a "law and order" crisis so that they could provide a solution which further eroded civil liberties and entrenched their power.
• The right-wing Nazis and the left-wing communists were cut from the same cloth -- the point is not that the far right destroyed civil rights. Rather, the point is that a democracy can be destroyed by creating a law-and-order crisis and offering as a 'solution' the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central authority.

Important reference material: special operations field manual library, including Civil Affairs Operations, An Infantryman's Guide to Combat in Built-Up Areas, and Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain.

from the Daily Times Herald of Carroll Iowa, 2009-Feb-17, by Butch Heman:

Guardsmen to conduct urban training at Arcadia in April

The Carroll National Guard unit will train on urban military operations by holding a four-day exercise at Arcadia.

The purpose of the April 2-5 drill will be to gather intelligence, then search for and apprehend a suspected weapons dealer, according to Sgt. Mike Kots, readiness NCO for Alpha Company.

Citizens, law enforcement, media and other supporters will participate.

Troops will spend Thursday, April 2, staging at a forward operations base at Carroll. The next day company leaders will conduct reconnaissance and begin patrolling the streets of Arcadia to identify possible locations of the weapons dealer.

The primary phase will be done Saturday, April 4, when convoys will be deployed from Carroll to Arcadia. Pictures of the arms dealer will be shown in Arcadia, and soldiers will go door to door asking if residents have seen the suspect.

Soldiers will knock only at households that have agreed to participate in the drill, Kots noted.

"Once credible intelligence has been gathered," said Kots, "portions of the town will be road-blocked and more in-depth searches of homes and vehicles will be conducted in accordance with the residents' wishes.

"One of the techniques we use in today's political environment is cordon and knock," Kots explained. "We ask for the head of the household, get permission to search, then have them open doors and cupboards. The homeowner maintains control. We peer over their shoulder, and the soldier uses the homeowner's body language and position to protect him."

During this phase of the operation, troops will interact with residents and media while implementing crowd-control measures and possibly treating and evacuating injured persons.

The unit will use a Blackhawk helicopter for overhead command and control, and to simulate medevacs.

The drill will culminate in the apprehension of the suspected arms dealer.

Alpha Company will conduct a review of the drill on Sunday, April 5.

A meeting to give residents more information and accept volunteers will be held 7 p.m. Monday, March 2, in the Arcadia American Legion hall.

Kots said the exercise will replace Alpha Company's weekend drill for April.

"We have a lot of extended drills this coming year," he added.

In addition to surveillance, searching and apprehension, the exercise will also give the troops valuable experience in stability, support, patrol, traffic control, vehicle searches and other skills needed for deployment in an urban environment.

"This exercise will improve the real-life operational skills of the unit," said Kots. "And it will hopefully improve the public's understanding of military operations."

The pre-drill work with residents is as important at the drill itself.

"It will be important for us to gain the trust and confidence of the residents of Arcadia," said Kots. "We will need to identify individuals that are willing to assist us in training by allowing us to search their homes and vehicles and to participate in role-playing."

"We really want to get as much information out there as possible, because this operation could be pretty intrusive to the people of Arcadia."

from the Examiner, 2008-Nov-6, by J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner:

Obama's chief of staff choice favors compulsory universal service

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, President-Elect Barack Obama's choice for chief of staff in his incoming administration, is co-author of a book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, that calls for, among other things, compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25. The following excerpt is from pages 61-62 of the 2006 book:

It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs.

Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist "this is not a draft," but go on to write of young men and women, "the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service." They also warn, "[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom," ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

As chief of staff, Emanuel will not be in a position to directly introduce public policy, but his enthusiasm for compulsory service, combined with Barack Obama's own plan to require high school students to perform 50 hours of government-approved service, suggest an unfortunate direction for the new administration.

SWAT Overkill: The Danger of a Paramilitary Police Force

In a guest editorial, law professor and instapundit.com blogger Glenn Reynolds argues that overagressive tactics and surplus military gear have turned some police units into a dangerous menace.

SOLDIERS AND POLICE are supposed to be different. Soldiers are aimed at enemies from outside the country. They are trained to kill those enemies, and their supporters. In fact, “killing people and breaking things” are their main reasons for existence.

Police look inward. They're supposed to protect their fellow citizens from criminals, and to maintain order with a minimum of force.

It's the difference between Audie Murphy and Andy Griffith. But nowadays, police are looking, and acting, more like soldiers than cops, with bad consequences. And those who suffer the consequences are usually innocent civilians. The trend toward militarizing police began in the '60s and '70s when standoffs with the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the University of Texas bell tower gunman Charles Whitman convinced many police departments that they needed more than .38 specials to deal with unusual, high-intensity threats. In 1965 Los Angeles inspector Daryl Gates, who later became police chief, signed off on the formation of a specially trained and equipped unit that he wanted to call the Special Weapons Attack Team. (The name was changed to the more palatable Special Weapons and Tactics). SWAT programs soon expanded beyond big cities with gang problems.

Abetting this trend was the federal government's willingness to make surplus military equipment available to police and sheriffs' departments. All sorts of hardware is available, from M-16s to body armor to armored personnel carriers and even helicopters. Lots of police departments grabbed the gear and started SWAT teams, even if they had no real need for them. The materiel was free, and it was fun. I don't blame the police. Heck, if somebody gave me a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to play with, I'd probably start a SWAT team, too—so long as I didn't have to foot the maintenance bill.

Thus, the sheriff's department in landlocked Boone County, Ind., has an amphibious armored personnel carrier. (According to that county's sheriff-elect, the vehicle has been used to deliver prescriptions to snow-bound elderly residents, and to provide protection during a suspected hostage situation.) Jasper, Fla.,—with 2000 inhabitants and two murders in the past 12 years—obtained seven M-16s from the federal government, leading an area newspaper to run a story with the subhead, “Three stoplights, seven M-16s.”

This approach, though, has led to problems both obvious and subtle. The obvious problem should be especially apparent to readers of this magazine: Once you've got a cool tool, you kind of want to use it. That's true whether it's a pneumatic drill, a laser level or an armored fighting vehicle. SWAT teams, designed to deal with rare events, wound up doing routine police work, like serving drug warrants.

The subtle effect is also real: Dress like a soldier and you think you're at war. And, in wartime, civil liberties—or possible innocence—of the people on “the other side” don't come up much. But the police aren't at war with the citizens they serve, or at least they're not supposed to be.

The combination of these two factors has led to some tragic mistakes: “no knock” drug raids, involving “dynamic entry,” where the wrong house has been targeted or where the raid was based on informants' tips that turned out to be just plain wrong.

On Sept. 23, 2006, a SWAT team descended on the home of a farmer and his schoolteacher wife in Bedford County, Va. “I was held at gunpoint, searched, taunted and led into the house,” A.J. Nuckols wrote to his local paper. “I was scared beyond description. I feared there had been a murder and I was a suspect.” When the couple's three children came home, the police grilled them, too. The family was held under guard for five hours as the SWAT team ransacked the place, seizing computers, a digital camera, DVDs and VHS tapes. Ten days later, the cops returned the belongings. It turned out that a special anti-child-porn police unit had made a mistake while tracing an computer address and sent the SWAT team to the wrong home.

Sometimes, homeowners are killed in these actions; other times, it's the officers. When a narcotics task force raided a duplex apartment in Jefferson Davis County, Miss., in 2001, they arrested one tenant, then burst into the adjacent apartment of Cory Maye. Thinking a burglar had broken into the bedroom he shared with his toddler daughter. Maye shot the officer fatally. Maye was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. However, his sentencing was overturned, and a motion for a new trial is still pending.

And, in a case that is now drawing national attention, 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, who lived in a high-crime neighborhood of Atlanta, recently opened fire on police when they broke down her door while executing a drug warrant. They returned fire, killing her. It's hard to believe any of this would have happened had the police taken a less aggressive approach in the first place.

It used to be that police came to the door, announced themselves and, once a homeowner responded, entered the premises. Most policemen still work this way. But an alarming number now break down doors first and ask questions later. Don't get me wrong: Police often do dangerous work and they need equipment that's going to protect them. And dynamic entry is valid when dealing with desperate criminals, but these tactics put ordinary citizens—and the police—at risk. And when they do, it's often hard to get redress. Lawsuits against police and supervisors face strict legal limits in the form of “qualified immunity,” and prosecutors, who work with the police on a regular basis, are unlikely to bring criminal charges against officers who negligently kill people. But homeowners confronted with tactics like flash-bang grenades and shouting that are intended to disorient targets, tend to be held to a much higher standard. The result, as in the Cory Maye case, is that people who do the laudable thing and defend their homes against unknown, armed intruders sometimes wind up being prosecuted for murder.

I discussed the issue with political commentator Radley Balko, who wrote a troubling report titled “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.” Balko said that the problem is more common than people realize. He suggests that accountability and transparency are what we need. I agree. Police raids should be videotaped, in an archival format that discourages tampering. And I think we need legal reform, too. Police who raid the wrong house, or who fail to give homeowners adequate warning except in truly life-or-death situations, shouldn't benefit from official immunity.

Our homes are supposed to be our castles. The police shouldn't treat them like enemy camps.

Railroaded Onto Death Row?

On Dec. 26, 2001, police in the small town of Prentiss, Miss., executed a marijuana search warrant on a small duplex.

On one side of the duplex lived Jamie Wilson, described in the search warrant and police affidavit as a "known drug dealer." When police pounded on her door, Wilson answered and surrendered. That, of course, is what you'd expect a small-time marijuana dealer to do.

On the other side of the duplex, 20-year-old Cory Maye had fallen asleep in an easy chair. His 18-month-old daughter lay asleep in the next room. Maye had only recently moved out of his parents' home. He had moved in with his girlfriend, because, he says, he wanted to be a father to his daughter. Maye was uncomfortable in his new home, and had expressed concerns to his mother about the seedy neighborhood surrounding it. Still, he promised to stick it out until after the holidays.

Late that night, Maye said he awoke to a furious pounding on his front door. According to his court testimony, he became frightened for his safety, and for the safety of his daughter. He ran back to the bedroom, where his daughter was asleep on the bed. He retrieved the gun he had for home protection, loaded it, chambered a round, and lay down on the floor next to her, hoping the noises and/or intruders outside would subside.

They didn't. Soon enough, Maye says, the door to Maye's bedroom flew open, and a figure entered from the outside. Scared, Maye fired his gun three times.

The figure was police officer Ron Jones, and one of Maye's bullets struck Jones in the abdomen, killing him. Worse for Maye, Jones also happened to be the son of the town's police chief.

The above is Cory Maye's version of events. As you might guess, the police offered a different account of the raid. They say they repeatedly announced they were police, and asked Maye to open up. They say an anonymous informant had told the investigating officer that there was a "large stash" of marijuana in the apartment Cory Maye shared with his girlfriend. And they say Cory Maye knew that Ron Jones was a police officer when he shot him.

A Mississippi jury believed the police. Last year, Cory Maye was found guilty of capital murder, or the intentional killing of a police officer. The same afternoon, he was sentenced to death. And today he sits on Mississippi's death row.

That Cory Maye is even in prison is an appalling failure of Mississippi's criminal justice system. Police had no reason to be in his home that night, much less to break down his door. His case is just the latest in a series of tragic consequences resulting from the overuse of paramilitary tactics when police serve drug warrants.

But it's the details of Cory Maye's case that make it particularly compelling:

Cory Maye had no prior criminal record. He had no history of violence. Police found one gram of ashen marijuana in Maye's apartment (that's about a sixth of a teabag's worth). There was no "large stash," and Cory Maye was no drug dealer. In fact, Maye's name appeared nowhere on the search warrant, only his address and the phrase "persons unknown."

Then there's the matter of the informant. We'll never know who that informant was, nor will we ever know what kind of corroborating investigation was done before securing the warrant. That's because the entire investigation leading up to the raid was conducted by the same Officer Ron Jones who was killed in the raid.

According to District Attorney Buddy McDonald, Jones kept no notes or documentation of his investigation of the Wilson-Maye duplex; and any investigation he may have done, in the words of McDonald, "died with Officer Jones."

Cory Maye may well have been a recreational pot smoker. But then, possession of a misdemeanor amount of pot doesn't justify an armed home invasion. Cory Maye may also have fired his gun too quickly. But what would you have done? You have no criminal record. You aren't a dangerous person. You have no reason to think police would break into your home in the middle of the night. You awake to find that your home is under attack. The door flies open. Do you wait to see who it is? Or do you defend your family?

Don't think it can't happen. There are dozens of examples of late night "no-knock" drug raids executed on the wrong home, or on people guilty of, at worst, misdemeanor offenses. Any gun owner willing to defend his family from intruders could well be in the same position Cory Maye was in four years ago.

At the very worst, Maye is guilty of recklessness. It's horrifying to think he could be executed for an error in judgment, an error compounded by volatile circumstances, a frightening assault, and high-stakes drama, none of which were of his making.

But it gets worse. For the last 10 years, Bob Evans has been public defender for the town of Prentiss. Late last year, Evans says he was warned by town officials not to represent Cory Maye in his appeal. Evans ignored the threats, and gave Maye representation. In January of this year, Prentiss made good on its promise, and fired Evans.

According to Evans, Prentiss Mayor Charlie Dumas told him point blank that he was terminated for representing Cory Maye. In a phone interview, Mayor Dumas confirmed having a conversation with Evans, but declined to go into specifics. Calls to the town's aldermen weren't returned, or were answered with "no comment."

If Evans version of events are true, the firing of Evans stinks. It's the kind of thing public officials do when they have something to hide. And it only adds to the already obvious notion that the town of Prentiss doesn't much care about giving Cory Maye a fair shake at justice.

Cory Maye should unite both liberal death penalty foes and conservative gun rights advocates. If Tookie Wilson's execution bothered you, Maye's should terrify you. And if you're troubled by Waco, you should be outraged by Prentiss.

I think Maye deserves an apology. He certainly doesn't deserve death.

Radley Balko is a policy analyst for the Cato Institute specializing in "nanny state" and consumer choice issues, including alcohol and tobacco control, drug prohibition, obesity, and civil liberties. Separately, he maintains the The Agitator weblog. The opinions expressed in his column for FOXNews.com are his own and are not to be associated with Cato unless otherwise indicated.

Baggage Claim
The myth of "suitcase nukes."

"It is the duty of Muslims to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God."

--Osama bin Laden, May 1998     

"Bin Laden's final act could be a nuclear attack on America."

--Graham Allison, Washington Post     

"One hundred suitcase-size nuclear bombs were lost by Russia."

--Gerald Celente, "professional futurist," Boston Globe     

---

Like everyone else rushing off the Washington subway one rush-hour morning, Ibrahim carried a small leather briefcase. No one paid him or his case much mind, except for the intern in the new Brooks Brothers suit who pushed past him on the escalator and banged his shin. "What do you have in there? Rocks?"

Ibrahim's training had taught him to ignore all provocations. You will see, he thought.

The escalator carried him up and out into the strong September sunlight. It was, as countless commentators would later say, a perfect day. As he walked from the Capitol South metro stop, he saw the Republican National Committee headquarters to his right. Two congressional office buildings loomed in front of him. Between the five-story structures, the U.S. Capitol dome winked in the sun. It was walled off in a mini-Green Zone of jersey barriers and armed police. He wouldn't trouble them. He was close enough.

He put the heavy case down on the sidewalk and pressed a sequence of buttons on what looked like standard attaché-case locks. It would be just a matter of seconds. When he thought he had waited long enough, he shouted in Arabic: "God is great!" He was too soon. Some passersby stared at him. Two-tenths of a second later, a nuclear explosion erased the entire scene. Birds were incinerated midflight. Nearly 100,000 people--lawmakers, judges, tourists--became superheated dust. Only raindrop-sized dollops of metal--their dental fillings--remained as proof of their existence. In tenths of a second--less time than the blink of a human eye--the 10-kiloton blast wave pushed down the Capitol (toppling the Indian statute known as "Freedom" at the dome's top), punched through the pillars of the U.S. Supreme Court, smashed down the three palatial Library of Congress buildings, and flattened the House and Senate office buildings.

The blast wave raced outward, decapitating the Washington Monument, incinerating the Smithsonian and its treasures, and reducing to rubble the White House and every office tower north to Dupont Circle and south to the Anacostia River. The secondary, or overpressure, wave jumped over the Potomac, spreading unstoppable fires to the Pentagon and Arlington, Va. Planes bound for Reagan and Dulles airports tumbled from the sky.

Tens of thousands were killed instantly. By nightfall, another 250,000 people were dying in overcrowded hospitals and impromptu emergency rooms set up in high school gymnasiums. Radiation poisoning would kill tens of thousands more in the decades to come. America's political, diplomatic and military leadership was simply wiped away. As the highest-ranking survivor, the agriculture secretary took charge. He moved the capital to Cheyenne, Wyo.

---

That is the nightmare--or one version, anyway--of the nuclear suitcase. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, this nuclear nightmare did not seem so fanciful.

A month after September 11, senior Bush administration officials were told that an al Qaeda terrorist cell had control of a 10-kiloton atomic bomb from Russia and was plotting to detonate it in New York City. CIA director George Tenet told President Bush that the source, code-named "Dragonfire," had said the nuclear device was already on American soil. After anxious weeks of investigation, including surreptitious tests for radioactive material in New York and other major cities, Dragonfire's report was found to be false. New York's mayor and police chief would not learn of the threat for another year.

The specter of the nuclear suitcase bomb is particularly potent because it fuses two kinds of terror: the horrible images of Hiroshima and the suicide bomber, the unseen shark amid the swimmers. The fear of a suitcase nuke, like the bomb itself, packs a powerful punch in a small package. It also has a sense of inevitability. A December 2001 article in the Boston Globe speculated that terrorists would explode suitcase nukes in Chicago, Sydney and Jerusalem . . . in 2004.

---

Every version of the nuclear suitcase bomb scare relies on one or more strands of evidence, two from different Russians and one from a former assistant secretary of defense. The scare started, in its current form, with Russian general Alexander Lebed, who told a U.S. congressional delegation visiting Moscow in 1997--and, later that year, CBS's series "60 Minutes"--that a number of Soviet-era nuclear suitcase bombs were missing.

It was amplified when Stanislav Lunev, the highest-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer ever to defect to the United States, told a congressional panel that same year that Soviet special forces might have smuggled a number of portable nuclear bombs onto the U.S. mainland to be detonated if the Cold War ever got hot. The scare grew when Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who served as an assistant secretary of defense under President Clinton, wrote a book called "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe." In that slim volume, Mr. Allison worries about stolen warheads, self-made bombs and suitcase nukes. Published in 2004, the work has been widely cited by the press and across the blogosphere.

Let's walk back the cat, as they say in intelligence circles. The foundation of all main nuclear suitcase stories is a string of interviews given by Gen. Lebed in 1997. Lebed told a visiting congressional delegation in June 1997 that the Kremlin was concerned that its arsenal of 100 suitcase-size nuclear bombs would find their way to Chechen rebels or other Islamic terrorists. He said that he had tried to account for all 100 but could find only 48. That meant 52 were missing. He said the bombs would fit "in a 60-by-40-by-20 centimeter case"--in inches, roughly 24-by-16-by-8--and would be "an ideal weapon for nuclear terror. The warhead is activated by one person and easy to transport." It would later emerge that none of these statements were true.

Later that year, the Russian general sat down with Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes." The exchange could hardly have been more alarming.

Kroft: Are you confident that all of these weapons are secure and accounted for?

Lebed: (through a translator) Not at all. Not at all.

Kroft: How easy would it be to steal one?

Lebed: It's suitcase-sized.

Kroft: You could put it in a suitcase and carry it off?

Lebed: It is made in the form of a suitcase. It is a suitcase, actually. You can carry it. You can put it into another suitcase if you want to.

Kroft: But it's already in a suitcase.

Lebed: Yes.

Kroft: I could walk down the streets of Moscow or Washington or New York, and people would think I'm carrying a suitcase?

Lebed: Yes, indeed.

Kroft: How easy is it to detonate?

Lebed: It would take twenty, thirty minutes to prepare.

Kroft: But you don't need secret codes from the Kremlin or anything like that.

Lebed: No.

Kroft: You are saying that there are a significant number that are missing and unaccounted for?

Lebed: Yes, there is. More than one hundred.

Kroft: Where are they?

Lebed: Somewhere in Georgia, somewhere in Ukraine, somewhere in the Baltic countries. Perhaps some of them are even outside those countries. One person is capable of actuating this nuclear weapon--one person.

Kroft: So you're saying these weapons are no longer under the control of the Russian military.

Lebed: I'm saying that more than one hundred weapons out of the supposed number of 250 are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia. I don't know their location. I don't know whether they have been destroyed or whether they are stored or whether they've been sold or stolen. I don't know.

Nearly everything Lebed told visiting congressmen and "60 Minutes" was later contradicted, sometimes by Lebed himself. In subsequent news accounts, he said 41 bombs were missing, at other times he pegged the number at 52 or 62, 84 or even 100. When asked about this disparity, he told the Washington Post that he "did not have time to find out how many such weapons there were." If this sounds breezy or cavalier, that is because it is.

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Indeed, Lebed never seemed to have made a serious investigation at all. A Russian official later pointed out that Lebed never visited the facility that houses all of Russia's nuclear weapons or met with its staff. And Lebed--who died in a plane crash in 2002--had a history of telling tall tales.

As for the small size of the weapons and the notion that they can be detonated by one person, those claims also been authoritatively dismissed. The only U.S. government official to publicly admit seeing a suitcase-sized nuclear device is Rose Gottemoeller. As a Defense Department official, she visited Russia and Ukraine to monitor compliance with disarmament treaties in the early 1990s. The Soviet-era weapon "actually required three footlockers and a team of several people to detonate," she said. "It was not something you could toss in your shoulder bag and carry on a plane or bus"

Lebed's onetime deputy, Vladimir Denisov, said he headed a special investigation in July 1996--almost a year before Lebed made his charges--and found that no army field units had portable nuclear weapons of any kind. All portable nuclear devices--which are much bigger than a suitcase--were stored at a central facility under heavy guard. Lt. Gen. Igor Valynkin, chief of the Russian Defense Ministry's 12th Main Directorate, which oversees all nuclear weapons, denied that any weapons were missing. "Nuclear suitcases . . . were never produced and are not produced," he said. While he acknowledged that they were technically possible to make, he said the weapon would have "a lifespan of only several months" and would therefore be too costly to maintain.

Gen. Valynkin is referring to the fact that radioactive weapons require a lot of shielding. To fit the radioactive material and the appropriate shielding into a suitcase would mean that a very small amount of material would have to be used. Radioactive material decays at a steady, certain rate, expressed as "half-life," or the length of time it takes for half of the material to decay into harmless elements. The half-life of the most likely materials in the infinitesimal weights necessary to fit in a suitcase is a few months. So as a matter of physics and engineering, the nuclear suitcase is an impractical weapon. It would have to be rebuilt with new radioactive elements every few months.

Gen. Valynkin's answer was later expanded by Viktor Yesin, former chief of staff of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces. Mr. Yesin was asked by Alexander Golts, a reporter at the Russian newspaper Ezhenedelny Zhurnal: "The nuclear suitcases--are they myth or reality?"

Let's start by noting that "nuclear suitcase" is a term coined by journalists. Journalistic parlance, if you wish. The matter concerns special compact nuclear devices of knapsack type. Igor Valynkin, commander of the 12th Main Directorate of the Defense Ministry responsible for nuclear ordnance storage, was absolutely honest when he was saying in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta in 1997 that "there have never been any nuclear suitcases, grips, handbags or other carryalls."

As for special compact nuclear devices, the Americans were the first to assemble them. They were called Special Atomic Demolition Munitions (SADM). As of 1964, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps had two models of SADM at their disposal--M-129 and M-159. Each SADM measured 87 x 65 x 67 centimeters [34 by 26 by 26 inches]. A container with the backpack weighed 70 kilograms [154 pounds]. There were about 300 SADMs in all. The foreign media reported that all these devices were dismantled and disposed of within the framework of the unilateral disarmament initiatives declared by the first President Bush in late 1991 and early 1992.

The Soviet Union initiated production of special compact nuclear devices in 1967. These munitions were called special mines. There were fewer models of them in the Soviet Union than in the United States. All of these munitions were to be dismantled before 2000 in accordance with the Russian and American commitments concerning reduction of tactical nuclear weapons dated 1991. [When the Soviet Union collapsed, Boris Yeltsin reiterated the commitment in January 1992.] Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said at the conference on the Nuclear Weapons Nonproliferation Treaty in April 2000 that Russia had practically completed dismantling "nuclear mines." It means that Russia kept the promise Yeltsin once made to the international community.

Mr. Yesin added that all "portable" nuclear weapons were strictly controlled by the KGB in the Soviet era and were held in a single facility on Russian soil, where they were regularly counted before they were dismantled. The special mines that the press calls "nuclear suitcases" are no more. American officials, including Ms. Gottemoeller, insist that there is no evidence that any are missing, stolen or sold. American experts charged with monitoring the destruction of these weapons have repeatedly testified to Congress that no special mines are unaccounted for.

What about the Russian army units trained to use the special mines? Is it possible that a few such weapons remain in their hands? According to Mr. Yesin, "they always used simulators and dummy weapons. Needless to say, the latter looked like the real thing--the same size and weight, the same control panel. Instead of nuclear materials, however, they contained sand."

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Despite Lebed's many changing accounts, his reputation for exaggeration, and the denial of nearly every Russian official with knowledge of Russian nuclear weapons, his tale lives on in breathless newspaper articles and Web posts. Perhaps the most amusing was an article in London's Sunday Express claiming that al Qaeda bought twenty "nuclear suitcases for 25 million pounds" (roughly $45 million) from "Boris" and "Alexy." What, not Natasha?

Still, Graham Allison puts his faith in Lebed's story. How does Mr. Allison account for the high-level rebuttals? He makes two brief arguments. "Moscow's assurance that 'all nuclear weapons are accounted for' is wishful thinking, since at least four nuclear submarines with nuclear warheads sank and were never recovered by the Soviet Union." (One was recovered by the U.S. in 1974.) This is true, but beside the point; the subs were carrying nuclear missiles, not nuclear suitcases.

Mr. Allison's more pointed rebuttal is this:

The Russian government reacted to Lebed's claim in classic Soviet style, combing wholesale denial with efforts to discredit the messenger. In the days and months that followed, official government spokesmen claimed that (1) no such weapons ever existed; (2) any weapons of this sort had been destroyed; (3) all Russian weapons were secure and properly accounted for; and (4) it was inconceivable that the Russian government could lose a nuclear weapon. Assertions to the contrary, or even questions about the matter, were dismissed as anti-Russian propaganda or efforts at personal aggrandizement.

Mr. Allison is unfairly summarizing the official Russian view. There is no contradiction between points (1) and (2) because (1) refers to suitcase nukes, a journalist term for a weapon that never existed. The portable nuclear devices--the special mines that filled three footlockers and weighed hundreds of pounds--were destroyed as required by U.S.--Russia treaties.

We don't have to take Russia's word for this; the disposal and destruction of these weapons were supervised by expert American officials like Ms. Gottemoeller. So point (2) checks out. As for points (3) and (4), Russia's claims have been independently verified by U.S. officials. If Mr. Allison has specific evidence of misplaced nuclear suitcases, he doesn't provide it in either the hardcover or paperback edition of his book or in his speeches to the Council on Foreign Relations or elsewhere.

What about the testimony of Soviet defector Stanislav Lunev? Certainly his tale is cloaked in high drama. Mr. Lunev entered the congressional hearing room in a black ski mask and testified behind a tall screen. He described a portable nuclear device that was "the size of a golf-club bag" and testified that "one of my main directives was to find drop sites for mass destruction weapons" that would be smuggled into the U.S. using drug routes and detonated by special teams. Mr. Lunev did not testify that he saw those weapons, only that, as a TASS reporter working in Washington (his cover as a military intelligence officer), his job was to scout for "drop sites."

I tracked Mr. Lunev down in suburban Maryland, where he is battling lymphatic cancer. Over the phone, he sounds like a bear of a man, with a charming Russian accent. He calls me "Riche," as in "Riche, you must switch off all recording devices." When I say I have no such devices, only a bad line, he agrees to call back. When he does, I ask him if he has ever seen a portable nuclear device. "No," he says.

Then he asks if I have ever heard of Albuquerque, N.M. There is a museum there, he explains, that displays America's portable nuclear device, the SADM. "The Soviet model probably looks similar," he says, adding that he is not an expert in such things.

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Finally, there is Graham Allison's book. It is a serious and valuable work, with many practical suggestions for arresting the spread of nuclear technology. Still, Mr. Allison's concerns about a nuclear suitcase-sized device rest on three shaky pillars: that Lebed was right about the missing suitcase nukes, that Stanislev Lunev's account is persuasive, and that Russian nuclear security is lax.

As we have seen, Lebed's changing story is highly questionable, and the nuclear mines have long since been dismantled. Mr. Allison himself concedes that nuclear suitcases might not be operative. Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations conference in September 2004, Mr. Allison said that the weapons Lebed referred to are now at least seven years old and that "many of these would be beyond warranty," requiring extensive refurbishing to function at full power.

Allison does not refer to Mr. Lunev by name, possibly because he does not know it. Mr. Lunev is not named in his congressional testimony and discovering his identity requires a bit of sleuthing. Mr. Allison does not cite Mr. Lunev's book or even acknowledge talking to him. (Mr. Lunev, a friendly and direct fellow, has never heard of Mr. Allison.)

As for Mr. Allison's contention that the Russians do not keep their nuclear weapons as secure as we do, he is quite right. But the Russians probably do well enough. Allison cites a number of cases in which nuclear material--though not bombs--was stolen from Russian reactors. Yet in each of the cases he cites, the thieves were caught before they could transfer the material. And the small amounts stolen could not have been, even if combined, converted into a single bomb. And there is no evidence that any of the Soviet Union's "special mines" have gone missing.

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No one seriously doubts Osama bin Laden's intense desire for nuclear weapons, suitcase-size or otherwise. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's bin Laden station (and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror), said that the CIA was aware of "the careful, professional manner in which al Qaeda was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons" since 1996. There is a plethora of human and documentary intelligence to support Mr. Scheuer's conclusion. Perhaps the most chilling is a fatwa that bin Laden asked for and received from Shaykh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd in May 2003. It was called "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels." The Saudi cleric concludes: "If a bomb that killed 10 million of them and burned as much of their land as they have burned Muslims' land were dropped on them, it would be permissible."

Fatwas are not enough. There are only three ways for al Qaeda to realize its atomic dreams: buy nuclear weapons, steal them or make them. Each approach is virtually impossible. Buying the bomb has not worked out well for al Qaeda. The terror organization has tried and, according to detainees, been scammed repeatedly. In Sudan's decrepit capital of Khartoum, an al Qaeda operative paid $1.5 million for a three-foot-long metal canister with South African markings. Allegedly it was uranium from South Africa's recently decommissioned nuclear program. According to Jamal al-Fadl, an al Qaeda leader later detained by U.S. forces, bin Laden ordered that it be tested in a safe house in Cyprus. It was indeed radioactive, but not of sufficient quality to be weapons-grade. One American intelligence analyst said that he believed the material was taken from the innards of an X-ray machine. It is not clear what it actually was, but the canister was ultimately discarded by al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda's next attempt to buy bomb-making material involved Mamduh Mahmud Salim, a nuclear engineer. He was captured in Germany in 1998, before he could obtain any nuclear material. In a third case, al Qaeda paid the Islamic Army of Uzbekistan for some radioactive material. It turned out that the uranium al Qaeda received was not sufficiently enriched to create an atomic blast, though it could be used in a "dirty bomb."

For what it is worth, there are actually no documented cases of the Russian Mafia or Russian officials selling nuclear weapons or material. Given that Russian gangsters have sold everything from small arms to aircraft carriers, this might seem surprising. Michael Crowley and Eric Adams, writing in Popular Science magazine, theorize that Russian security forces may be less tempted by money than is commonly assumed or that Russian mobsters find other illicit material more profitable than nuclear material. Whatever the reason, there is simply no known case of the Russian mob selling nuclear devices or parts to anyone, let alone to al Qaeda.

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What about theft? Stealing a bomb--or its component parts--is far more difficult than it sounds. The International Atomic Energy Agency maintains a detailed database of thefts of highly enriched uranium, the kind needed to make an atomic bomb. There have been 10 known cases of highly enriched uranium theft between 1994 and 2004. Each amounted to "a few grams or less." The total loss is less than eight grams, and even these eight grams, which have differing levels of purity, could not be productively combined. To put these quantities in perspective, it takes some 15,900 grams--roughly 35 pounds--to make a highly enriched uranium bomb.

Stealing highly enriched uranium is extremely difficult. Every nation with an active nuclear weapons program guards access to its breeder reactors and enrichment plants. Employee backgrounds are scrutinized and workers are under near-constant surveillance. Transporting radioactive material invites detection and is a constant danger to those moving it without shielding. If it were shielded, the immense weight of the small container would be a giveaway to authorities. Could terrorists storm a reactor and steal the radioactive material? Not likely. An investigation by Forbes magazine reveals the difficulties:

Assuming attackers could shoot their way past the beefed-up phalanx of armed guards, traffic barriers and guard towers that now surround every nuclear plant, they'd still have to fight their way into the reactor building through multiple levels of remote-activated blast doors--where access requires the right key card and palm print--to get to the spent-fuel pond, says Michael Wallace, president of Constellation Energy's generation group, which operates five nuclear reactors. The pond where highly radioactive used fuel rods sit in 14-foot-long stainless steel assemblies cooling under 40 feet of water. Terrorists couldn't just grab this stuff and run because, unshielded, it gives off a lethal dose of radiation in less than a minute. To avoid exposure, terrorists would have to force workers to use a giant crane inside the reactor to load the assemblies into huge transfer casks, then open the mammoth doors of the reactor building and use another crane to lift the cask onto a waiting truck--all the while being shot at by the National Guard. It may be easier to steal radioactive material outside the U.S.--but not much.

What about hijacking a plane and crash-diving it into a nuclear reactor? It would make a spectacular movie scene, but as Forbes explains, it would not cause much harm to those outside the plane:

Assume that terrorists could get past tightened airport security and fight off passengers to get through new, improved cockpit doors and take control of a plane. Even then they'd have to crash the jet directly into a reactor to have any chance of breaking containment. In 2002 the Electric Power Research Institute performed a $1 million computer simulation to assess such a risk. Conclusion: A direct hit from a 450,000-pound Boeing 767 flying low to the ground at 350 mph would ruin a plant's ability to make electricity but not break the reactor's cement shield. Reason: A reactor, smaller in profile than the Pentagon or World Trade Center, would not absorb the full force of the plane's impact. And, for all the force behind it, a plane, built of aluminum and titanium, has far less mass than the 20-foot-thick steel-and-concrete sarcophagus enclosing a nuclear reactor. It would be like dropping a watermelon on a fire hydrant from 100 feet.

Another problem with theft is fencing the goods. Most uranium thieves have been caught when they tried to sell the small amounts of radioactive material they have stolen. And the difficulties of theft do not end once al Qaeda gets its prize. Even if al Qaeda terrorists managed to steal a nuclear device or bought one from those standby villains of choice, Russian mobsters, they would still have to figure out how to break the codes and overturn the fail-safes. All Russian and American devices have temperature and pressure sensors to defeat unauthorized use. Since intercontinental missiles are designed to pass through the upper atmosphere before descending to their targets, the terrorists would have to find a laboratory facility that could mimic the environment of the outer stratosphere. Good luck. Council on Foreign Relations fellow Charles Ferguson told the Washington Post that "you don't just get it [a nuclear weapon] off the shelf, enter a code, and have it go off."

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So could al Qaeda make its own bomb? It appears that the terror network has tried and failed.

In August 2001, bin Laden was envisioning attacks bigger than what happened on September 11. Almost a month before the attacks on New York and Washington, bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri met with Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majeed, two officials once part of Pakistan's nuclear program. Mr. Mahmood had supervised the plant that enriched uranium for Pakistan's first bomb and later managed efforts to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Both scientists were arrested on Oct. 23, 2001. They remain under house arrest in Pakistan. At their meeting with bin Laden, they discussed plans to mine uranium from plentiful deposits in Afghanistan and talked about the technology needed to turn the uranium into bomb fuel. It was these scientists who informed bin Laden that the uranium from Uzbekistan was too impure to be useful for bomb making.

Al Qaeda will keep trying, no doubt. But there is no evidence that they are near succeeding. A wide array of documents and computer hard drives found in al Qaeda safe houses reveals a serious effort to build weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military also obtained a document with the sinister title of "Superbomb."

In addition, CNN discovered a cache of documents at an al Qaeda safe house that outlined the terror network's WMD plans. David Albright, a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, was retained by CNN to evaluate the al Qaeda documents.

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In "Al Qaeda's Nuclear Program: Through the Window of Seized Documents," a research paper for a think tank linked to the University of California at Berkeley, Albright concluded: "Whatever al Qaeda had accomplished towards nuclear weapon capabilities, its effort in Afghanistan was 'nipped in the bud' with the fall of the Taliban government. The international community is fortunate that the war in Afghanistan set back al Qaeda's effort to obtain nuclear weapons."

For now, suitcase-sized nuclear bombs remain in the realm of James Bond movies. Given the limitations of physics and engineering, no nation seems to have invested the time and money to make them. Both U.S. and the USSR built nuclear mines (as well as artillery shells), which were small but hardly portable--and all were dismantled by treaty by 2000. Alexander Lebed's claims and those of defector Stanislev Lunev were not based on direct observation. The one U.S. official who saw a small nuclear device said it was the size of three footlockers--hardly a suitcase. The desire to obliterate cities is portable--inside the heads of believers--while, thankfully, the nuclear devices to bring that about are not.

Mr. Miniter is author of "Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror" (Regnery, 2005), from which this article is excerpted. It is available from the OpinionJournal bookstore.

Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine

Valery Yarynich glances nervously over his shoulder. Clad in a brown leather jacket, the 72-year-old former Soviet colonel is hunkered in the back of the dimly lit Iron Gate restaurant in Washington, DC. It's March 2009—the Berlin Wall came down two decades ago—but the lean and fit Yarynich is as jumpy as an informant dodging the KGB. He begins to whisper, quietly but firmly.

"The Perimeter system is very, very nice," he says. "We remove unique responsibility from high politicians and the military." He looks around again.

Yarynich is talking about Russia's doomsday machine. That's right, an actual doomsday device—a real, functioning version of the ultimate weapon, always presumed to exist only as a fantasy of apocalypse-obsessed science fiction writers and paranoid über-hawks. The thing that historian Lewis Mumford called "the central symbol of this scientifically organized nightmare of mass extermination." Turns out Yarynich, a 30-year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff, helped build one.

The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn't matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defense ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched.

The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret. With the demise of the USSR, word of the system did leak out, but few people seemed to notice. In fact, though Yarynich and a former Minuteman launch officer named Bruce Blair have been writing about Perimeter since 1993 in numerous books and newspaper articles, its existence has not penetrated the public mind or the corridors of power. The Russians still won't discuss it, and Americans at the highest levels—including former top officials at the State Department and White House—say they've never heard of it. When I recently told former CIA director James Woolsey that the USSR had built a doomsday device, his eyes grew cold. "I hope to God the Soviets were more sensible than that." They weren't.

The system remains so shrouded that Yarynich worries his continued openness puts him in danger. He might have a point: One Soviet official who spoke with Americans about the system died in a mysterious fall down a staircase. But Yarynich takes the risk. He believes the world needs to know about Dead Hand. Because, after all, it is still in place.

The system that Yarynich helped build came online in 1985, after some of the most dangerous years of the Cold War. Throughout the '70s, the USSR had steadily narrowed the long US lead in nuclear firepower. At the same time, post-Vietnam, recession-era America seemed weak and confused. Then in strode Ronald Reagan, promising that the days of retreat were over. It was morning in America, he said, and twilight in the Soviet Union.

Part of the new president's hard-line approach was to make the Soviets believe that the US was unafraid of nuclear war. Many of his advisers had long advocated modeling and actively planning for nuclear combat. These were the progeny of Herman Kahn, author of On Thermonuclear War and Thinking About the Unthinkable. They believed that the side with the largest arsenal and an expressed readiness to use it would gain leverage during every crisis.

The new administration began expanding the US nuclear arsenal and priming the silos. And it backed up the bombs with bluster. In his 1981 Senate confirmation hearings, Eugene Rostow, incoming head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, signaled that the US just might be crazy enough to use its weapons, declaring that Japan "not only survived but flourished after the nuclear attack" of 1945. Speaking of a possible US-Soviet exchange, he said, "Some estimates predict that there would be 10 million casualties on one side and 100 million on another. But that is not the whole of the population."

Meanwhile, in ways both small and large, US behavior toward the Soviets took on a harsher edge. Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin lost his reserved parking pass at the State Department. US troops swooped into tiny Grenada to defeat communism in Operation Urgent Fury. US naval exercises pushed ever closer to Soviet waters.

The strategy worked. Moscow soon believed the new US leadership really was ready to fight a nuclear war. But the Soviets also became convinced that the US was now willing to start a nuclear war. "The policy of the Reagan administration has to be seen as adventurous and serving the goal of world domination," Soviet marshal Nikolai Ogarkov told a gathering of the Warsaw Pact chiefs of staff in September 1982. "In 1941, too, there were many among us who warned against war and many who did not believe a war was coming," Ogarkov said, referring to the German invasion of his country. "Thus, the situation is not only very serious but also very dangerous."

A few months later, Reagan made one of the most provocative moves of the Cold War. He announced that the US was going to develop a shield of lasers and nuclear weapons in space to defend against Soviet warheads. He called it missile defense; critics mocked it as "Star Wars."

To Moscow it was the Death Star—and it confirmed that the US was planning an attack. It would be impossible for the system to stop thousands of incoming Soviet missiles at once, so missile defense made sense only as a way of mopping up after an initial US strike. The US would first fire its thousands of weapons at Soviet cities and missile silos. Some Soviet weapons would survive for a retaliatory launch, but Reagan's shield could block many of those. Thus, Star Wars would nullify the long-standing doctrine of mutually assured destruction, the principle that neither side would ever start a nuclear war since neither could survive a counterattack.

As we know now, Reagan was not planning a first strike. According to his private diaries and personal letters, he genuinely believed he was bringing about lasting peace. (He once told Gorbachev he might be a reincarnation of the human who invented the first shield.) The system, Reagan insisted, was purely defensive. But as the Soviets knew, if the Americans were mobilizing for attack, that's exactly what you'd expect them to say. And according to Cold War logic, if you think the other side is about to launch, you should do one of two things: Either launch first or convince the enemy that you can strike back even if you're dead.

Perimeter ensures the ability to strike back, but it's no hair-trigger device. It was designed to lie semi-dormant until switched on by a high official in a crisis. Then it would begin monitoring a network of seismic, radiation, and air pressure sensors for signs of nuclear explosions. Before launching any retaliatory strike, the system had to check off four if/then propositions: If it was turned on, then it would try to determine that a nuclear weapon had hit Soviet soil. If it seemed that one had, the system would check to see if any communication links to the war room of the Soviet General Staff remained. If they did, and if some amount of time—likely ranging from 15 minutes to an hour—passed without further indications of attack, the machine would assume officials were still living who could order the counterattack and shut down. But if the line to the General Staff went dead, then Perimeter would infer that apocalypse had arrived. It would immediately transfer launch authority to whoever was manning the system at that moment deep inside a protected bunker—bypassing layers and layers of normal command authority. At that point, the ability to destroy the world would fall to whoever was on duty: maybe a high minister sent in during the crisis, maybe a 25-year-old junior officer fresh out of military academy. And if that person decided to press the button ... If/then. If/then. If/then. If/then.

Once initiated, the counterattack would be controlled by so-called command missiles. Hidden in hardened silos designed to withstand the massive blast and electromagnetic pulses of a nuclear explosion, these missiles would launch first and then radio down coded orders to whatever Soviet weapons had survived the first strike. At that point, the machines will have taken over the war. Soaring over the smoldering, radioactive ruins of the motherland, and with all ground communications destroyed, the command missiles would lead the destruction of the US.

The US did build versions of these technologies, deploying command missiles in what was called the Emergency Rocket Communications System. It also developed seismic and radiation sensors to monitor for nuclear tests or explosions the world over. But the US never combined it all into a system of zombie retaliation. It feared accidents and the one mistake that could end it all.

Instead, airborne American crews with the capacity and authority to launch retaliatory strikes were kept aloft throughout the Cold War. Their mission was similar to Perimeter's, but the system relied more on people and less on machines.

And in keeping with the principles of Cold War game theory, the US told the Soviets all about it.

Great Moments in Nuclear Game Theory

Permissive Action Links When: 1960s What: Midway through the Cold War, American leaders began to worry that a rogue US officer might launch a small, unauthorized strike, prompting massive retaliation. So in 1962, Robert McNamara ordered every nuclear weapon locked with numerical codes. Effect: None. Irritated by the restriction, Strategic Air Command set all the codes to strings of zeros. The Defense Department didn't learn of the subterfuge until 1977.

US-Soviet Hotline When: 1963 What: The USSR and US set up a direct line, reserved for emergencies. The goal was to prevent miscommunication about nuclear launches. Effect: Unclear. To many it was a safeguard. But one Defense official in the 1970s hypothesized that the Soviet leader could authorize a small strike and then call to blame the launch on a renegade, saying, "But if you promise not to respond, I will order an absolute lockdown immediately."

Missile Defense When: 1983 What: President Reagan proposed a system of nuclear weapons and lasers in space to shoot down enemy missiles. He considered it a tool for peace and promised to share the technology. Effect: Destabilizing. The Soviets believed the true purpose of the "Star Wars" system was to back up a US first strike. The technology couldn't stop a massive Soviet launch, they figured, but it might thwart a weakened Soviet response.

Airborne Command Post When: 1961-1990 What: For three decades, the US kept aircraft in the sky 24/7 that could communicate with missile silos and give the launch order if ground-based command centers were ever destroyed. Effect: Stabilizing. Known as Looking Glass, it was the American equivalent of Perimeter, guaranteeing that the US could launch a counterattack. And the US told the Soviets all about it, ensuring that it served as a deterrent.

The first mention of a doomsday machine, according to P. D. Smith, author of Doomsday Men, was on an NBC radio broadcast in February 1950, when the atomic scientist Leo Szilard described a hypothetical system of hydrogen bombs that could cover the world in radioactive dust and end all human life. "Who would want to kill everybody on earth?" he asked rhetorically. Someone who wanted to deter an attacker. If Moscow were on the brink of military defeat, for example, it could halt an invasion by declaring, "We will detonate our H-bombs."

A decade and a half later, Stanley Kubrick's satirical masterpiece Dr. Strangelove permanently embedded the idea in the public imagination. In the movie, a rogue US general sends his bomber wing to preemptively strike the USSR. The Soviet ambassador then reveals that his country has just deployed a device that will automatically respond to any nuclear attack by cloaking the planet in deadly "cobalt-thorium-G."

"The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret!" cries Dr. Strangelove. "Why didn't you tell the world?" After all, such a device works as a deterrent only if the enemy is aware of its existence. In the movie, the Soviet ambassador can only lamely respond, "It was to be announced at the party congress on Monday."

In real life, however, many Mondays and many party congresses passed after Perimeter was created. So why didn't the Soviets tell the world, or at least the White House, about it? No evidence exists that top Reagan administration officials knew anything about a Soviet doomsday plan. George Shultz, secretary of state for most of Reagan's presidency, told me that he had never heard of it.

In fact, the Soviet military didn't even inform its own civilian arms negotiators. "I was never told about Perimeter," says Yuli Kvitsinsky, lead Soviet negotiator at the time the device was created. And the brass still won't talk about it today. In addition to Yarynich, a few other people confirmed the existence of the system to me—notably former Soviet space official Alexander Zheleznyakov and defense adviser Vitali Tsygichko—but most questions about it are still met with scowls and sharp nyets. At an interview in Moscow this February with Vladimir Dvorkin, another former official in the Strategic Rocket Forces, I was ushered out of the room almost as soon as I brought up the topic.

So why was the US not informed about Perimeter? Kremlinologists have long noted the Soviet military's extreme penchant for secrecy, but surely that couldn't fully explain what appears to be a self-defeating strategic error of extraordinary magnitude.

The silence can be attributed partly to fears that the US would figure out how to disable the system. But the principal reason is more complicated and surprising. According to both Yarynich and Zheleznyakov, Perimeter was never meant as a traditional doomsday machine. The Soviets had taken game theory one step further than Kubrick, Szilard, and everyone else: They built a system to deter themselves.

By guaranteeing that Moscow could hit back, Perimeter was actually designed to keep an overeager Soviet military or civilian leader from launching prematurely during a crisis. The point, Zheleznyakov says, was "to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge. Those who attack us will be punished."

And Perimeter bought the Soviets time. After the US installed deadly accurate Pershing II missiles on German bases in December 1983, Kremlin military planners assumed they would have only 10 to 15 minutes from the moment radar picked up an attack until impact. Given the paranoia of the era, it is not unimaginable that a malfunctioning radar, a flock of geese that looked like an incoming warhead, or a misinterpreted American war exercise could have triggered a catastrophe. Indeed, all these events actually occurred at some point. If they had happened at the same time, Armageddon might have ensued.

Perimeter solved that problem. If Soviet radar picked up an ominous but ambiguous signal, the leaders could turn on Perimeter and wait. If it turned out to be geese, they could relax and Perimeter would stand down. Confirming actual detonations on Soviet soil is far easier than confirming distant launches. "That is why we have the system," Yarynich says. "To avoid a tragic mistake. "

The mistake that both Yarynich and his counterpart in the United States, Bruce Blair, want to avoid now is silence. It's long past time for the world to come to grips with Perimeter, they argue. The system may no longer be a central element of Russian strategy—US-based Russian arms expert Pavel Podvig calls it now "just another cog in the machine"—but Dead Hand is still armed.

To Blair, who today runs a think tank in Washington called the World Security Institute, such dismissals are unacceptable. Though neither he nor anyone in the US has up-to-the-minute information on Perimeter, he sees the Russians' refusal to retire it as yet another example of the insufficient reduction of forces on both sides. There is no reason, he says, to have thousands of armed missiles on something close to hair-trigger alert. Despite how far the world has come, there's still plenty of opportunity for colossal mistakes. When I talked to him recently, he spoke both in sorrow and in anger: "The Cold War is over. But we act the same way that we used to."

Yarynich, likewise, is committed to the principle that knowledge about nuclear command and control means safety. But he also believes that Perimeter can still serve a useful purpose. Yes, it was designed as a self-deterrent, and it filled that role well during the hottest days of the Cold War. But, he wonders, couldn't it now also play the traditional role of a doomsday device? Couldn't it deter future enemies if publicized?

The waters of international conflict never stay calm for long. A recent case in point was the heated exchange between the Bush administration and Russian president Vladimir Putin over Georgia. "It's nonsense not to talk about Perimeter," Yarynich says. If the existence of the device isn't made public, he adds, "we have more risk in future crises. And crisis is inevitable."

As Yarynich describes Perimeter with pride, I challenge him with the classic critique of such systems: What if they fail? What if something goes wrong? What if a computer virus, earthquake, reactor meltdown, and power outage conspire to convince the system that war has begun?

Yarynich sips his beer and dismisses my concerns. Even given an unthinkable series of accidents, he reminds me, there would still be at least one human hand to prevent Perimeter from ending the world. Prior to 1985, he says, the Soviets designed several automatic systems that could launch counterattacks without any human involvement whatsoever. But all these devices were rejected by the high command. Perimeter, he points out, was never a truly autonomous doomsday device. "If there are explosions and all communications are broken," he says, "then the people in this facility can—I would like to underline can—launch."

Yes, I agree, a human could decide in the end not to press the button. But that person is a soldier, isolated in an underground bunker, surrounded by evidence that the enemy has just destroyed his homeland and everyone he knows. Sensors have gone off; timers are ticking. There's a checklist, and soldiers are trained to follow checklists.

Wouldn't any officer just launch? I ask Yarynich what he would do if he were alone in the bunker. He shakes his head. "I cannot say if I would push the button."

It might not actually be a button, he then explains. It could now be some kind of a key or other secure form of switch. He's not absolutely sure. After all, he says, Dead Hand is continuously being upgraded.

Senior editor Nicholas Thompson (nicholas_thompson@wired.com) is the author of The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War.

listen to the following item as it originally aired on NPR, with expert interview clips not included in the transcript.

from NPR, 2001-Oct-22/23, by Daniel Zwerdling:

Bioterrorism: Civil Liberties Under Quarantine
Is the U.S. Legally Prepared for a Smallpox Epidemic?

Under Quarantine [link to Real Audio segment -AMPP Ed.]

Public health officials are trying to plan in detail how they would contain a contagious disease like plague or smallpox. They say the chances of an outbreak are small, but they warn that a disorganized response could overwhelm law enforcement agencies and threaten civil liberties. Daniel Zwerdling reports for All Things Considered. Oct. 22, 2001.

Oct. 23, 2001 -- As U.S. officials confront the current anthrax threat, they must also consider how they would contain a terrorist-directed outbreak of highly contagious and fatal diseases such as smallpox or the plague.

Public health officials say the chances of an outbreak might be small, but they warn that a disorganized response could overwhelm law enforcement agencies and threaten civil liberties. On All Things Considered, Daniel Zwerdling reports for NPR and American RadioWorks.

Health specialists are turning to history to try to learn how communities could contain an outbreak of smallpox -- one of the most contagious diseases. Anyone walking within six to nine feet of an infected person is likely to the contract the disease.

Natural occurrence of smallpox was eradicated nearly 25 years ago in a campaign led by the World Health Organization. One of the last major outbreaks hit Yugoslavia in 1972, and experts learned some of the most dramatic lessons about quarantine there.

Smallpox had been absent from Yugoslavia for four decades when a single case emerged in 1972. The virus quickly spread to infect more than 150 people. Yugoslavia?s authoritarian leader, Tito, imposed a sweeping quarantine, walling off the victims from the rest of the population. Those infected were isolated in hospitals, while another 10,000 people who had been in contact with the victims were vaccinated and isolated in hotels. Entire blocks were cordoned off with barbed wire and guarded by police -- essentially creating health prison camps.

America's leaders are in fact considering such drastic steps if an outbreak were to erupt. Just two weeks before Sept. 11, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a blueprint for fighting an outbreak: They call it the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response project. The CDC document specifically warns government leaders that in the event of such an outbreak, they should be prepared to take over private property and impose quarantines.

Researchers warn the United States would face many more hurdles if it tried to impose such restrictions than Communist Yugoslavia did. When smallpox hit Muncie, Ind., in 1893, officials tried to quarantine individual houses. Guards were posted outside the front door of each house to keep the family in and neighbors out. But the townspeople refused to have their freedom restricted, and neighbors simply used the back doors to visit.

As the epidemic spread, officials set aside an entire hospital. Some victims refused to go, using guns to protect themselves, while others had their doors knocked in and were dragged out.

More than 100 years have passed, but law enforcement specialists worry that they would have just as much trouble controlling panicky citizens today. Law enforcement agencies say most police aren't trained to deal with such situations -- treating the sick as prisoners -- and neither are current laws equipped to deal with the 21st century war on germs.

That's one of the touchiest issues: If terrorists did trigger a contagious outbreak, could federal and local officials contain it and also protect civil liberties? Larry Gostin, a lawyer and public health specialist at Georgetown University, says government officials could hurt America by overreacting in a panic. But he says it is possible to maintain tolerance, fairness and due process of the law during an epidemic.

Gostin has drafted a model law that all the states could pass to help them contain an epidemic and protect rights. For instance, if terrorists triggered a smallpox outbreak tomorrow, officials in many states wouldn't have the power to seize private buildings to ease crowding in hospitals. Under Gostin's proposed law, they could seize private property, but they would have to compensate the owners fairly.

Researchers do believe that if the government is really prepared to handle a major outbreak, they might not need such a heavy hand. Health officials say most people could live nearly normal lives during an outbreak if the public was alerted to watch for symptoms and then stay home the instant they saw them -- and if public health officials could keep on top of every potential case. But, say researchers, most government officials have a lot of planning to do before they're ready to handle an epidemic.

excerpt from How you became the enemy: America's Military Looks Inward, by Sam Smith, from The Progressive Review:

[...]

The admirals and generals have been gathering . . . to learn what enemy the visionaries from the Central Intelligence Agency see in their future. The answer, it turns out, is not Russia or China or Iraq. It's demographics. Global Trends 2010, a classified study by the CIA's National Intelligence Council, finds that growing populations, widening gaps between rich and poor, and continuing revolutions in communications will incite new ethnic and civil conflicts."

Another study, prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reports that "mass communications will vividly depict quality-of-life differences, leading to political instability in some places."

These studies tacitly admit what no politician will: that the policies of the past twenty years have been for the benefit of the few at the brutal expense of the many.

While little of such considerations creep into the Quadrennial Defense Review, this is largely because the means of containing alienated civilian populations are relatively inexpensive. The funds required to maintain a calming American presence in scores of countries would be hard to find on one of those DOD charts if placed next to, say, projected aircraft expenditures.

These funds support something the military calls "Operations Other Than War." OOTW covers a wealth of activities including policing urban areas, search and seizure, civil administration, peacekeeping, and supplying food.

According to an article in Commentary, in 1994 "Army units found themselves reacting to a host of OOTW and deterrence missions in Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Northern Iraq, Korea, Haiti, and even in California to fight forest fires."

Many of these activities are carried out by Special Operations, the command in charge of low intensity warfare and psychological operations. According to a report in the Tampa Tribune, Special Ops -- comprised of 46,000 personnel from all three services -- averages 280 missions a week in 137 countries.

Such skills can be easily transferred from Rwanda to, say, Watts. The current militarization of American civilian life is simply Operations Other Than War in a more familiar country. Let's review the bidding:

· The National Guard is now deeply involved in the War on Drugs, from flying helicopter missions to providing logistical support for police paramilitary operations in urban areas.

· JROTC courses are now found in more than 2,200 high schools involving some 310,000 students. These courses teach not only military behavior but inculcate military biases into subjects such as American history. In Washington, DC, students perceived to be discipline problems have been told they were required to join JROTC.

· The military is being used to train police officers, inevitably increasing the tendency of citizens to be regarded by these officers as "the enemy."

· The military is ready to provide "overflow facilities for incarceration of those convicted of drug crimes" and "rehabilitation oriented training camps" according to DOD documents. These facilities could be as easily used for incarcerating anyone else for any other reason as well.

· The century-old posse comitatus act, designed to keep the military out of civilian law enforcement, appears to be on its last legs.

· Eight-nine percent of the county's police departments, according to a recent study, have paramilitary units and some of these are used "proactively," deliberately creating fear in minority neighborhoods.

· The military is monitoring the Internet as a potential threat and is working on plans to use the Internet for psychological warfare.

· Plans by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the 1980s to take over the country in an ill-defined emergency appear to have been only partially dismantled after being exposed in the media (including TPR). Among the most striking aspect of these emergency plans was the absence of any provision for a legislature or judiciary. In any event, a long list of presidential directives provide for a massive transfer of political power to the executive branch under uncertain circumstances and even less certain constitutional protections.

Such steps have been prepared without any public debate about who should run the country in a genuine emergency. The Constitution does not address the matter directly, but since martial law is not one of the powers delegated to federal government, it seems clear that in a catastrophe -- say a nuclear attack on Washington -- the country should properly be run by the fifty states. Unfortunately, the governors of these states do not have the power to enforce this view. In fact, their state militias -- once a jealously guarded symbol that we were indeed "united states" -- have been greatly federalized

Occupying urban America

A study reported in the academic journal Social Problems found that 89% of the over 500 police departments it surveyed had fully functioning special operations units trained and modeled on military principles. For all practical purposes, these units represent a military force whose target is American communities and citizens. Not only has the number of paramilitary police units soared but the level of their activity has exploded as well. Between 1980 and 1995, the number of incidents involving paramilitary units has quadrupled.

The study, conducted by Peter B. Kraska and Victor E. Kappeler of Eastern Kentucky University, was carefully designed to elicit the cooperation of police departments. Some police officers spoke with brutal frankness:

"We're into saturation patrols in hot spots. We do a lot of our work with the SWAT unit because we have bigger guns. We send out two, two-to-four men cars, we look for minor violations and do jump-outs either on people on the street or automobiles. After we jump-out the second car provides periphery cover with an ostentatious display of weaponry. We're sending a clear message: if the shootings don't stop, we'll shoot someone."

But are these units really going after the truly dangerous? Out of all 1995 incidents, civil disturbances and terrorist events amounted to one percent each, hostage situations 4% and barricaded persons, 13%. Conducting what the police call "high risk warrant work" (overwhelmingly drug raids) accounted for 76% of the paramilitary operations.

Here are some of the other facts the researchers uncovered:

· Many paramilitary units conduct between 200 to 700 warrant or drug raids a year. These are almost exclusively no-knock entries.

· A paramilitary unit in Chapel Hill NC conducted a crack raid of an entire block in a black neighborhood. Up to 100 persons were detained and searched, all of whom were black (whites were allowed to leave the neighborhood). There were no prosecutions.

· Some 20% of the units regularly patrol just as a display of force, often dressed in extreme military garb, including ninja type uniforms. Police in Fresno CA refer to their patrol area as the "war zone."

· Such tactics are not limited to big cities. In fact, more and more smaller towns have their own paramilitary units. For example: "One mid-west police department that serves a community of 75,000 people patrols in full tactical gear using a military armored personnel carrier (termed a 'Peace Keeper' as their transport vehicle." Says the commander, "we stop anything that moves." Another town's paramilitary commander told the researchers, "When the soldiers ride in you should see those blacks scatter."

· Some of these police departments admit to using "community policing" funds for these military operations. In fact, 63% of those responding to a question on the matter agreed that the paramilitary units "play an important role in community policing strategies." One self proclaimed community policing chief said: "It's going to come to the point that the only people that are going to be able to deal with these problems are highly trained tactical teams with proper equipment to go into a neighborhood and clear the neighborhood and hold it; allowing community policing and problem oriented policing officers to come in and start turning the neighborhood around."

· The nation's capital is being turned into a Singapore on the Potomac as congressional appointees exercise plenary powers on behalf of corporate friends -- with total contempt for elected officials and the citizenry. The Washington DC school system is being run by a retired general of dictatorial inclinations and right-wing ideology. A buddy of Clarence Thomas and a man of no apparent competence in the field of education, Gen. Julius Becton commutes miles into the city and has provided high-paying jobs to old Army comrades, including the former director of the Department of Defense's only maximum security prison.

· An active duty military officer has been put in charge of a state National Guard unit for the first time in American history.

· Several active-duty special operations units have reportedly been quietly integrated into National Guard units.

· The FBI's deputy chief for domestic terrorism is an active duty colonel, despite the century-old posse comitatus act's prohibition on the military taking part in domestic law enforcement.

· Two hundred troops and nine helicopters invaded Pittsburgh the night of June 3, 1996, in what was later described as a routine training exercise but sure fooled a lot of the city's residents. They flooded 911, talk shows, and local media with worried calls. The exercise appears to have been part of an attempt to acclimatize citizens to an increasing military presence in civilian life. Similar exercises have taken place in at least 20 other cities.

· The Pentagon's manual on "domestic support operations" gives a chilling view of how the military sees its role in a post-Cold War America. Says the manual: "Today . . . is a new awareness of the benefits of military assistance to improve the nation's physical and social infrastructure." The role the military projects is extra-ordinarily broad including disaster assistance, environmental missions, law enforcement, and community action. In a section that may have been lifted from a guide to the Vietnam village pacification program, the Army notes that "domestic support operations provide excellent opportunities for soldiers to interface with the civilian community and demonstrate traditional Army values such as teamwork, success-oriented attitude, and patriotism. These demonstrations provide positive examples of values that can benefit the community and also promote a favorable view of the army to the civilian population."

· A remarkable article by military historian and strategist Martin van Creveld in the Los Angeles Times last July 30 gives the flavor of what's in store. Van Creveld argued that "the military systems built up over the past decades are proving useless in the face of the greatest security threat of the next century: terrorism." The reason: these forces "have discovered that their weapons are too cumbersome and their organization too complex for anti-terrorist and anti-guerrilla actions. . .

"In many countries, militaries originally designed for interstate warfare are already taking an active part in the struggle against internal opponents. Others are preparing to take the same road. In France on July 14, police units joined the army in marching down the Champs Elysees for the first time. In the peaceful Netherlands, the Marechausee, or riot police, now forms the fourth service besides army, navy and air force. . .

"As the 20th century draws to an end, it is time that military commanders and the policy makers to whom they report wake up to the new realities. In today's world the main threat to many states, including specifically the US, no longer comes from other countries. Either we make the necessary changes, or what is commonly known as the modern world will lose all sense of security and dwell in perpetual fear."

[...]

from Wired, 2001-Oct-26, by Declan McCullagh:

Terror Act Has Lasting Effects

WASHINGTON -- Legislators who sent a sweeping anti-terrorism bill to President Bush this week proudly say that the most controversial surveillance sections will expire in 2005.

Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said that a four-year expiration date "will be crucial in making sure that these new law enforcement powers are not abused." In the House, Bob Barr (R-Georgia) stressed that "we take very seriously the sunset provisions in this bill."

But the Dec. 2005 expiration date embedded in the USA Act -- which the Senate approved 98 to 1 on Thursday -- applies only to a tiny part of the mammoth bill.

After the president signs the measure on Friday, police will have the permanent ability to conduct Internet surveillance without a court order in some circumstances, secretly search homes and offices without notifying the owner, and share confidential grand jury information with the CIA.

Also exempt from the expiration date are investigations underway by Dec. 2005, and any future investigations of crimes that took place before that date.

On Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft vowed to publish new guidelines as soon as the president signs the bill, which is expected to happen Friday. "I will issue directives requiring law enforcement to make use of new powers in intelligence gathering, criminal procedure and immigration violations," Ashcroft said.

President Bush said this week that he looks forward to signing the USA Act, which his administration requested in response to the Sep. 11 hijackings, "so that we can combat terrorism and prevent future attacks."

During the Senate debate Thursday, the lone critic of the bill was Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin), who introduced an unsuccessful series of pro-privacy amendments earlier this month.

"We in this body have a duty to analyze, to test, to weigh new laws that the zealous and often sincere advocates of security would suggest to us," Feingold said. "This is what I have tried to do with this anti-terrorism bill. And that is why I will vote against this bill."

Feingold said the USA Act "does not strike the right balance between empowering law enforcement and protecting constitutional freedoms."

But not one of his colleagues joined him in dissent. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) seemed to speak for the rest of the Senate when saying "the homefront is a war front" and arguing that police needed new surveillance powers.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) did not vote.

Other sections of the USA Act, which the House approved by a 357 to 66 vote on Wednesday, that do not expire include the following:

• Police can sneak into someone's house or office, search the contents, and leave without ever telling the owner. This would be supervised by a court, and the notification of the surreptitious search "may be delayed" indefinitely. (Section 213)
• Any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system and record addresses of Web pages visited and e-mail correspondents -- without going to a judge. Previously, there were stiffer legal restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance techniques. (Section 216)
• Any American "with intent to defraud" who scans in an image of a foreign currency note or e-mails or transmits such an image will go to jail for up to 20 years. (Section 375)
• An accused terrorist who is a foreign citizen and who cannot be deported can be held for an unspecified series of "periods of up to six months" with the attorney general's approval. (Section 412)
• Biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners, will become part of an "integrated entry and exit data system" with the identities of visa holders who hope to enter the U.S. (Section 414)
• Any Internet provider or telephone company must turn over customer information, including phone numbers called -- no court order required -- if the FBI claims the "records sought are relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism." The company contacted may not "disclose to any person" that the FBI is doing an investigation. (Section 505)
• Credit reporting firms like Equifax must disclose to the FBI any information that agents request in connection with a terrorist investigation -- without police needing to seek a court order first. Current law permits this only in espionage cases. (Section 505)
• The current definition of terrorism is radically expanded to include biochemical attacks and computer hacking. Some current computer crimes -- such as hacking a U.S. government system or breaking into and damaging any Internet-connected computer -- are covered. (Section 808)
• A new crime of "cyberterrorism" is added, which covers hacking attempts causing damage "aggregating at least $5,000 in value" in one year, any damage to medical equipment or "physical injury to any person." Prison terms range between five and 20 years. (Section 814)
• New computer forensics labs will be created to inspect "seized or intercepted computer evidence relating to criminal activity (including cyberterrorism)" and to train federal agents. (Section 816)

Note: John Magaw was tossed out of government shortly after the federalization of the airport passenger screeners.

from www.sierratimes.com/, 2002-Jan-15, by Sean Finnegan:

Meet the New Magaw

While the country was riveted to the Enron mess few noticed that President Bush in a recess appointment placed John Magaw as his pick for Under Secretary of Transportation Security at the Department of Transportation created in the wake of 9-11, as undersecretary he will set standards for hiring and training airport screeners, supervise employees and develop plans to deal with threats to transportation. He also is given the power to bypass normal rule-making procedures if he "determines that a regulation or security directive must be issued immediately in order to protect transportation security. In addition the agency, taking shape following the aviation security bill, will oversee airport security screeners and air marshals, as well as security efforts at U.S. rail, bus and seaport operations.

Of course I took a look at the guy and what I found wasn't good. So rather than throw insults and innuendo at the guy I'll just let his record speak on his behalf.

John Magaw started his career as a trooper with the Ohio State Patrol in 1959. He made the jump to the fed meal ticket in 1967 as a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service. He eventually ended up becoming then Vice-president Bush's security detail head during the Reagan years. And when Bush Sr. was elected president he was given the nod to head the presidential detail.

Magaw was appointed director of the BATF after the Waco massacre in 1993 by Clinton. In a Washington Times article in November of that year he stated that he was determined that other religious "cults" not develop into "armed compounds." He said, "They're out there. They don't yet have the kind of weaponry that we saw in Waco. . .but they will develop if society allows them to." Magaw said BATF is keeping tabs on "cult-like organizations" in "three or four places around the country. . .We're trying to monitor way early in the game."

During the investigation it was discovered that prior to the 51 day siege that the BATF had ample time to incarcerate David Koresh but for reasons unknown chose to confront him at the home in Waco. The result of which was dead agents and a protracted engagement that ended with dead women and children who were roasted to death at the hands of federal agents. Magaw had certainly jumped in to the hot seat but he did well in protecting the government party line.

Not that Magaw wasn't used to holding the bag. He was just getting started. During the Ruby Ridge assault and the aftermath Magaw under the lights of Congressional hearings and following statements by BATF agent Herbert Byerly when confronted with allegations that the agency had made mistakes in the murder of Vicky Weaver Magaw defended the false information his agents provided other government officials as attempts "to ensure caution." Magaw was called out on his testimony more than once as "not correct." In 1995 a redneck from Alabama shot video of a traditional gathering known as the "Good Ol' Boys Roundup" which included racist's signs and slogans and skits that included simulated sex acts and torture between white and black faced participants. The problem was the participants were for the most part agents of the BATF, FBI, DEA, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service and other federal agencies. The media got a hold of the story and congress had a hearing and in July of that year and once again Magaw was in the hot seat. And eventually the story died.

During his tenure at the BATF John Magaw was in charge of the following activities by his agency:

" The aftermath of Waco and Ruby Ridge. " The 1994 investigation of David Scott and his neighbors who were grilled about his political views, weapons ownership, habits, etc. All because he had discharged a "spudgun." " The 1995 crackdown on Colorado FFL dealers and in particular the owner of a small dealership who dealt locally. Apparently he had not checked the form when a customer made the mistake of using the current date on the birth date line. When the BATF questioned him about the mistake they asked him about the mistake. He offered to have the customer come in to answer but the agents shifted tactics and informed him that he was operating his business in violation of local zoning laws. He was given the choice to give up his license or fight it in court. He gave up his license. " In 1994 Monique Montgomery was woken at 4:30 AM to the sounds of a no-knock search warrant. She did what anyone else would do and armed herself and for the trouble she was granted four shots. She survived and the facts surrounding the warrant were explained as "drug related." " In 1993 Janice Hart came home from grocery shopping to find her home being ransacked by federal agents looking for Janice Harrell. The only problem was they had the wrong house. Ms. Hart was taken to her basement and questioned for hours while her daughter Nina, 12, had her knee injured by an agent who slammed the car door when she tried to get out. Janice eventually proved her innocence but still has nightmares to this day. " 75 federal agents from the BATF stormed an Atlanta car parts store to recover and investigate some allegedly stolen tires. When questioned about the excessive use of force one of the agents responded, "Better safe than sorry."

In a congressional inquiry John Magaw claimed, "In the past decade, ATF agents have served over 10,000 search warrants. Not one of them has led to any finding of constitutional violations by an employee acting outside the scope or his or her authority."

During the aftermath of the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City Edye Smith remembers the day like few will. She had dropped her two children off at the day care on the second floor. And at 9:02AM she was blowing out the candles on her birthday cake at work a few blocks away when the building exploded. She ran to the destruction but as she came close to the building she knew, "our babies were gone."

She began to notice that no ATF agents were listed on the casualty list from the bombing. And she looked in to it. She asked U.S Attorney Pat Ryan about where were the ATF agents on the 19th. He brushed her off by saying they were playing golf in a tournament in Shawnee. May 23rd the same day the building was demolished she was on CNN and said, "Where the hell was the ATF, I want to know? All fifteen or seventeen of their employees survived, and they were on the ninth floor. They were the target of the explosion, and where were they? Did they have a warning sign? Did they think it might be a bad day to go in to the office?"

No ATF agents were harmed in the bombing just two clerical staff.

Lester Martz of the ATF Dallas office said in a press interview, "We were there and we were heroes." He went on to describe how Alex McCauley was trapped in an elevator at the time of the bombing. The problem is Edye checked up and found that Midwestern Elevator was involved in the search effort and they said that when they searched the elevators that they all were empty.

Edye was left wondering why the ATF was not harmed in the bombing and that they would lie about heroics that didn't exist but she wasn't prepared for John Magaw during a live television interview saying, "I was very concerned about that day (April 19) and issued memos to all our field offices. They were put on alert."

Another aftermath of the OKC bombing was the passage of Clinton's Anti-Terrorism bill in April of 1996.

The "Gun Free Zones Act" of 1996 was passed and the ATF was given the authority to enforce it but the act didn't stop the Columbine massacre in April 1999. But the bill did prevent home schooling parents from owning firearms as the home was now a school.

Magaw moved up from ATF to FEMA in 1999. He was appointed as the Senior Advisor to the Director of terrorism preparedness. In that role, he planned and coordinated FEMA's domestic terrorism preparedness efforts. He was scrutinized by many as the person to deal with possible unpleasantness in the 2000 rollover. He's also the one who was in charge of domestic terrorism when we were attacked on 9-11. So what does he get for his hard work? A promotion.

He was appointed by President Bush to the newly created position of Under Secretary of Transportation Security at the Department of Transportation. The appointment lasts longer than the term of the president and he will have daily access to the top U.S. intelligence and he will be empowered to issue emergency government regulations at will. His responsibilities will include the nation's skies, airports, highways, trains, buses, ports and waterways.

"I cannot think of anybody other than the president of the United States who has this much executive or rule-making ability on their own," said Representative John Mica, a Florida Republican who helped draft the "Aviation and Transportation Security Act" (PL 107-71). The law sets deadlines for improving aviation security: Jan. 18, 2002, for inspecting all checked baggage for explosives, and Feb. 17, 2002, for shifting responsibility for airport security checkpoints from the airlines to the federal government. The new office has until Nov. 19, 2002, to deploy 28,000 checkpoint screeners it has trained.

Among Magaw's responsibilities are appointing officers who can carry guns, seeking and carrying out arrest and seizure warrants, appointing security managers at each US airport, deploying security officers at airports, setting standards for cockpit security, and assigning armed air marshals to flights.

The law goes on to say, "If the undersecretary determines that a regulation or security directive must be issued immediately in order to protect transportation security, the undersecretary shall issue the regulation or security directive without providing notice or an opportunity for comment and without prior approval of the secretary."

Not bad for a guy who has been left holding the bag most of his career. President Bush, who it's rumored, likes to give his gang nicknames might want to call Magaw "Rainbow." He only shows up after the storm. But in this case I think he might be ahead of the storm. Pay attention.

In his new capacity Magaw will have dominion over all manner of transportation but specifically the manner in which identification is accepted. Specifically congress has delegated Transportation to develop a set of standards of its own. And since the National I.D. didn't go well they came up with driver's license standards for the states. More specifically the department was told by congress to develop, "model guidelines for encoded data on driver's licenses."

And what did the states have to say about this? The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators only asked for $70 million in funding to build the system. Jason King a spokesman for the group said, "There's no need to create a second national ID card. You already have one. We're just talking about making it better and more secure." Among the improvements are fingerprints and facial photo scans to get a license to drive.

King went on to say that state identification cards ought to come with biometric bar codes that contain various data and should be able to be linked to federal agencies such as the FBI, IRS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and others. National ID cards "are of little use unless they're connected with a centralized database," said Bob Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Washington D.C. based CATO Institute.

So there you have it. President Bush has put a guy who has dodged more bullets than Reagan and came out smelling like a rose all the while protecting the reputations of four presidents and now he's in charge of one of the most mysterious agencies ever created with more power than can be imagined. Who would have thought that when Dubya was elected that he would appoint a Clinton bag man with blood on his hands to a position that will outlast his current term with a pay scale higher than a cabinet position and a 30% bonus if he does a good?

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We won't get fooled again

No, no

The Who: "Won't Get Fooled Again"

What If Things Get Worse?

The surge of flag-waving unity in America has truly been remarkable to watch.

Still, amid the patriotic talk and the vows to get even with terrorists, one has to wonder: What happens if soldiers start coming home in body bags?

If there is a serious attack on countries such as Afghanistan, it's not going to be a video-game war like the Persian Gulf conflict a decade ago. The Soviets learned how hard such a war could be when the Afghans drove them out in the 1980s. But Americans have grown accustomed to clean, quick hits over the past generation: Grenada. Panama. Haiti. Iraq. This one could be different, with the casualties played up on the nightly news.

Not to mention the possibility of further terrorist attacks.

In such a situation, will the country flinch? Will Congress wobble? Will President Bush's approval ratings tumble? Will there be a temptation to bag a few Grade B terrorists and declare victory?

No one knows at this point. But a new poll suggests that the country is willing to pay a price in this new war against the Osama bin Ladens of the world.

The New York Times [see item above -AMPP Ed.] has the details: "Americans favor going to war even if that means thousands of casualties for the nation's armed forces, yet they say that the United States should wait to act until it is certain who is responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the latest New York Times/ CBS News Poll shows.

"The survey painted a portrait of a nation unsettled about the terrorist attacks -- and is expecting more of them -- at the same time it is worried about the state of the economy. For the first time since 1990, a majority of Americans say the economy is worsening. Six in 10 say the nation is in a recession and 2 in 10 saying the nation is near one.

"President Bush's ratings continue to soar, as is common for presidents in times of crisis, with people giving him impressive marks for his leadership and judgment under pressure. Eighty-nine percent approve of the way he is doing his job, up from 50 percent in late August.

"Yet there are suggestions in the poll that Mr. Bush is buoyed significantly because people hold a high regard for his advisers. Asked whether they had more confidence in Mr. Bush or his advisers, 70 percent said they had equal confidence in both. But of those who chose one or the other, 22 percent expressed greater confidence in Mr. Bush's advisers, and only 5 percent said they had more confidence in the president himself. . . .

"Despite security measures the government has taken, about one in three people say the attacks have made them less likely to travel by airplane any time soon. . . .

"The willingness of Americans to accept that there could be significant casualties among the military, as well as among civilians in other countries, underscores the public's determination to root out terrorists. During the gulf war, 4 of 10 people said the United States should not continue sending troops to the region if it cost many American lives.

"Now, if there is a war against terrorists, 28 percent say they expect fewer than 1,000 American soldiers to lose their lives; 28 percent put the number at 1,000 to 5,000, and 27 percent predicted higher casualties."

The Los Angeles Times looks at questions swirling around Bush's own safety:

"President Carter was a prisoner of the White House during the Iran hostage crisis, not traveling for half a year. During the buildup before the Persian Gulf War, President Bush decided business had to go on as usual. He drew criticism for playing golf in Maine while sending troops to Saudi Arabia.

"Now, the current President Bush's White House is wrestling with how and when he should move beyond the confines of Washington.

"The issue involves more than presidential restlessness or mere logistics. It goes to the heart of what impact the crisis will have on his presidency. It also speaks to how he can communicate his goals to Americans and, with an eye on locking up international support, to the rest of the world.

"During the first eight months of his presidency, Bush was on the road nearly half the time, if visits to his ranch near Crawford, Texas, are counted. Often, the trips were built around speeches on one facet or another of his domestic program. With the exception of two weekends at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland and a quick trip to New York City, he has remained in Washington since Sept. 11.

"Now, if he wants to dramatize his message with events beyond the Rose Garden, he has to find the right audience to match his agenda. Given extreme security concerns after the attacks two weeks ago when four hijacked airliners were turned into flying bombs -- with Air Force One a target, the White House has insisted -- officials also are suggesting that presidential travel now requires unusually tight secrecy."

The Washington Post gazes at the rocky road ahead: "President Bush enjoys the support of a broad international coalition and an extraordinarily united country as he launches a war against terrorism. But as the campaign unfolds, almost every decision he makes could risk unraveling that coalition and eroding his political support at home.

"As he moves from rhetoric to action, Bush faces an enormously difficult job managing the multiple aspects of the crisis, according to diplomatic, military and political analysts. They said he must balance the need to show progress in pursuing the terrorists with the patience required to preserve a coalition of countries with competing interests and their own internal pressures.

"The risks ahead include possible new terrorist attacks here at home, public reaction to U.S. casualties once military strikes begin and worldwide reaction to possible civilian deaths inflicted by U.S. forces as they attempt to root out the terrorists. Bush has warned that this war will be long, often invisible and may not have a clear end. That means the public will have only a fragmentary sense of whether the war is being won, requiring creativity on Bush's part in keeping the country rallied.

"Bush also faces likely resistance from other countries, particularly in the Muslim world, as the campaign expands beyond its initial targets -- the al Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

"The question of whether to target Iraq, which has been the subject of debate inside the administration, has major consequences for Bush. Attacking Iraq could alienate much of the coalition Bush is assembling, but ignoring Iraq while concentrating on the bin Laden network could leave Saddam Hussein freer to cause trouble down the road.

"The president's task is complicated by deepening economic problems at home, as the aftershocks of the attacks ripple through an already weak economy."

Bush took action on the financial front yesterday -- "W. Kicks Terror in the Assets" is the New York Post headline -- but there are complications, says the Wall Street Journal:

"The Bush administration announced it will seize the U.S. assets of any charity, individual or financial institution with links to terrorists and, perhaps more importantly, strong-arm other nations to do the same.

"On Monday morning, the administration ordered some 5,000 banks to freeze all accounts belonging to 27 individuals, groups or companies allegedly connected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. And the U.S. is preparing to add almost 90 more entities with suspected terrorist links to the list. . . .

"The freeze order was met with initial confusion in the financial sector, however. Bankers were easily able to check their client rolls for the names on the administration blacklist, but they struggled to figure out whether accounts might be indirectly connected to those identified."

Think airport security has now been beefed up? One man tried to test it, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Federal authorities have charged a Malvern man with carrying box cutters -- the same type used to hijack airplanes in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- past security at Philadelphia International Airport yesterday and onto a Northwest Airlines flight.

"Dennis Knaus, 59, told authorities he took the box cutters to the airport to convince his wife that it was not safe to fly and that she should cancel a trip to Ireland, according to an FBI affidavit on the case. After getting the box cutters past metal detectors at Terminal E about 11 a.m., Knaus called his wife and then the Federal Aviation Administration to tell officials what he had done, the affidavit said.

"Following instructions from an FAA official, Knaus asked to speak with a Northwest supervisor but was told one was not available. The affidavit says that Knaus then again passed through the security checkpoint and boarded Flight 687 bound for Minneapolis. He remained on board until he was taken off by Philadelphia police.

"Knaus, who was in federal custody last night, was charged with illegally carrying a weapon past the security checkpoint."

Josh Marshall looks at jockeying within the administration: "Is this town big enough for Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz? I'm not sure it is.

"There's been a back-and-forth over the last week between Powell -- as the point-man for slow and deliberate response -- and Wolfowitz as the rep for overwhelming military retaliation on the model of Michael Corleone's hit on all the family's enemies at the end of Godfather I. . . .

"I don't have the transcript yet, but on This Week this morning Sam Donaldson was interviewing Powell. And in the course of that interview Donaldson pressed the Secretary of State on these internal disagreements within the administration. Particularly, Powell made a point of saying that whatever their private views, everyone in the administration is united following the president.

"But he said everyone at the `cabinet level.' The clear target of that qualifier was Wolfowitz. So Powell wasn't denying the rift; he was affirming it. And hurling what amounts to a pretty weighty accusation against the Deputy Secretary of Defense."

Former Assistant Education Secretary Chester Finn, writing in National Review, unloads on the educational establishment: "It's been more than a little upsetting to watch the education community respond to the September 11 attack on the United States. The prize for greediest, most self-promoting, and solipsistic response goes to an outfit called the Public Education Network. Within 24 hours of the tragedy, they issued a statement that, after a few pieties, proclaimed that `access to a high-quality public education is the bedrock of our democracy' and urged that `as important calls for rethinking our commitment to our national defense and the war against terrorism are made, the Public Education Network asks policymakers and citizens to remember the important role that public education plays.'

"Translation: `We're so selfish that we think our stuff is more important than the security of a nation within which our stuff is possible.' Maybe they'd like to spend a little time experiencing `public education' under the Taliban. . . .

"The worst-lesson prize goes to the Maryland teacher, one of whose 12-year-old pupils offered this account to The Washington Post: `Why do some people hate America? Why did they do it? They wanted to bomb our symbols. That's what my mom said. Because we're bossy. That's what my teacher said. She said it's because we have all the weapons and we think we can boss other countries around. They're jealous of us.'

"America, in this rendering, has only itself to blame for the other guys' aggression."

Rudy Watch

With the New York mayoral primary under way today after a two-week delay, the Giuliani mayor-for-life movement seems to have sputtered out, the New York Post reports:

"Key legislators in Albany and New York City yesterday flatly rejected extending Mayor Giuliani's term -- even as members of the mayor's inner circle split over whether he should try to remain in office past Dec. 31.

"`I don't contemplate any circumstance that would get the Senate back to change the election process in New York state,' declared state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, the mayor's most reliable GOP ally in Albany. `It's too late,' Bruno added.

"A few hours later, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone -- a Democrat with close ties to the mayor -- said he's also in no mood to tamper with term limits. . . .

"Some in the mayor's inner circle, including Deputy Mayors Joseph Lhota and Bob Harding, have told Giuliani he can't leave office at this critical juncture -- despite the law that bars any city official from serving more than two consecutive terms.

"Sources said Judith Nathan, the mayor's girlfriend, shares that view."

We were wondering when someone would mention her.

"The adulation accorded Giuliani for his masterful leadership after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center provides the mayor with face-to-face evidence every day of the public's sentiment, said one insider. `I've never seen anything like this,' the source said. `I don't think he walks 10 steps before someone says to him, "You have to stay on." He's hearing the concern and panic in people's voice about the transition. I think it's had an impact.'

"But other close advisers are worried that any move to tamper with term limits so close to the Nov. 6 election will be viewed as an unpopular power grab."

from the San Francisco Chronicle, 2001-Feb-2, by Robert Salladay, Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writers, with contributions by Bob Egelko:

State OKs $10 Billion for Power
CONSERVE OR ELSE: $1000-a-day fines for stores that don't comply

Gov. Gray Davis invoked his emergency powers yesterday and ordered California's auto malls, shopping centers and other retail outlets to dim their lights after closing - or face $1,000-a-day fines.

Under an extraordinary executive order signed by Davis, law enforcement agencies and the Office of Emergency Services have the next week to figure out which businesses should cut their outdoor lighting without jeopardizing safety or increasing crime.

Davis gave county sheriffs and the California Highway Patrol the authority to penalize recalcitrant business up to $1,000 a day starting March 15, when the program becomes mandatory. The emergency order lasts "until the governor rescinds it," said a spokesman. Violators face criminal misdemeanor charges.

The order is part of a $404 million conservation effort that includes rebates for energy-saving appliances, money for businesses to install energy efficient roofs and more efficient lighting, and a TV commercial encouraging people to wash their clothes after 7 p.m. McDonald's will pay to print 4 million paper place mats with energy conservation tips.

Davis said the plans should save enough power to supply an estimated 3.7 million homes during the summer. Under the state of emergency Davis declared Jan. 17, California's vast bureaucracies were ordered to cut power 20 percent, and residents were asked to voluntarily cut usage by 7 percent.

"Yes, we have a power shortage," Davis said, "but we are far from powerless. Californians have enormous clout as consumers."

Democratic lawmakers have been asking Davis for three weeks to introduce conservation measures, not just negotiate for lower power prices or work to build more power plants. Davis' plan would double the amount California spends on energy conservation -- to $800 million.

"I mean, is it too much to ask for these auto malls to turn off the lights from midnight to 6 a.m.?" asked Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, who supports more conservation efforts but is leery of using law enforcement to monitor usage.

Although nearly every major business group in the state, including Silicon Valley and grocery store lobbyists, said they supported Davis' plan to cut outdoor lighting, not everyone running a business was enthusiastic about having their energy usage monitored by the state.

"Shouldn't the governor be worried about trying to get more power instead of running around fining people?" asked Juergen Frost, owner of a Pleasant Hill furniture shop.

Last week, a Chronicle report on nighttime electricity use by businesses noted that two dozen lamps burned brightly inside Frost's store at 10:30 p.m., a few hours after closing. Frost said his timer had malfunctioned -- the lights should be off before midnight. Still, he doesn't plan to begin turning his lights off when his store closes.

"My gas and electric bill is only $160 a month (for the 6,000-square-foot store)," Frost said. "Show me what the other big electricity users are doing. Since the economy is a little soft, we do have to show our lights."

Many details remain unwritten on Davis' plan to monitor power usage and issue fines. Davis' executive order simply asks the CHP and the sheriffs from nine major counties, including Alameda, to "develop a plan" by Feb. 9. The state Trade and Commerce Agency is in charge of notifying businesses of the orders.

That plan could require certain types of businesses, such as auto malls or grocery stores, to cut power by a certain percentage, or it could order specific businesses, block-by-block, to cut their lights during the early morning hours.

Businesses that fail to comply with an order following a warning from law enforcement can be charged with a misdemeanor and fined, the governor's executive order states. Officials in the governor's office said they had the power to implement the plan under the state's Emergency Services Act.

However, "the governor is reasonably confident people will voluntarily participate," said spokeswoman Hilary McLean.

Davis said he wanted to make sure that whatever the sheriff or CHP ordered, the retail outlets still had enough light to prevent crime. Indeed, legal experts warned that making it easier for criminals to trespass or break into a building could put the state in jeopardy.

"I would say that the state is liable for negligence if the state requires someone to underlight their premises so as to cause injury to somebody, including themselves," said Jesse Choper, a UC Berkeley law professor.

Shamrock Ford in Dublin turned off half the lights on its lot after it was featured in the same Chronicle story. In that time, two cars have been stolen, but the company still is trying to conserve energy.

"If you're asking if we're going to shut down to pitch black after we close, the answer is no. No way," said Gordon Giacomazzi, director of sales at Shamrock Ford, a beacon along Interstate 580 in Dublin. "If you had $14 million worth of cars on your property, would you feel safe with the lights turned off?"

Dublin Vice Mayor Janet Lockhart said that even if the city requested lights as part of an overall look of a development, it wasn't requiring businesses to keep them on now.

"I don't think it's my job to knock on someone's door and tell them how to run their business," Lockhart said. "I'm confident that Dublin businesses will be good corporate citizens and comply with the governor's order."

from TPDL 2000-Aug-7, from the Wall Street Journal, by William P. Kucewicz, editor of the global investment Web site GeoInvestor.com:

Too Much Regulation Keeps California in the Dark

What goes bump in the dark? The answer: California! Starting today, the state is almost certain to be hit by power blackouts, thanks to the administrative body charged, of all things, with ensuring reliable electricity service. Electricity prices in California are rising because power is in woefully short supply. And power is in short supply because of years of regulation. Yet as Californians swelter, they will have to endure politicians trying to blame this shortage on deregulation.

The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) has elected to halve the maximum price utilities can pay for electric power, despite warnings from suppliers that electricity and power-plant investors would shun the state if the wholesale price cap were lowered. California already imports a fifth or more of its power and relies on expensive "peaking" units to meet excess demand. In spite of that, Cal-ISO's board last week voted to lower the ceiling on wholesale power prices to $250 a megawatt hour from $500, effective today. This followed an earlier cut from $750 per megawatt hour.

The board said it was responding to calls from state officials, who fault deregulation for California's current electricity woes. But electricity decontrol is not the problem. Anyone who lived through the U.S. oil price controls of the 1970s would know that.

The root cause of California's electricity crisis is regulation, not deregulation. No major power plants were built for a decade, in part because regulators didn't anticipate the state's Silicon Valley-driven economic boom of the late 1990s. Stringent environmental rules and bureaucratic red tape made electricity-related construction nearly impossible. As a result, electric demand has risen by 25% in the past eight years, while in-state power generation has increased by a paltry 6%.

California's shortages of power-generating plants and long-distance transmission lines have left it vulnerable to any sizeable increase in electricity demand -- witness this year's heat wave. In fact, Cal-ISO has declared eight Stage Two emergencies already this year, requiring large power users to curtail consumption. In 1999, by contrast, there was only one such alert. The next step, Stage Three, entails "rolling blackouts." San Francisco had one of these in June.

Of the 42 states now moving toward electricity deregulation, California is procedurally furthest along. However, a more robust example of decontrol came recently from New York. Its independent system operator decided to reject a recommended $1,000 per megawatt hour price cap in favor of a $1,300 one. The New York board opted for a price cap that exceeds the limits in neighboring states and thus virtually guarantees the Empire State will be blackout-free this summer.

Californians, meanwhile, now face the worst kind of political demagogy. San Diego county officials have declared a "financial state of emergency," and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer has called on President Clinton to extend federal assistance to prevent "a financial problem" from becoming "a public health emergency."

Forces other than political pressure are also at work. Cal-ISO's decisions to lower the wholesale price cap on electricity amount to a bailout of California's utilities, which took a gamble on deregulation legislation that some are losing. In the decontrol debate in 1996, high on the utilities' agenda were so-called "stranded costs" -- i.e., the uneconomic capital expenditures and financial obligations incurred under regulation. The utilities therefore agreed to a 10% electric rate reduction for residences and small businesses in exchange for a refinancing of their stranded costs. They need to recoup these costs by March 31, 2002, or eat the rest.

San Diego Gas & Electric has already recovered its costs, thereby eliminating the mandated rate reduction, which is why its customers are receiving higher bills. Other utilities, notably Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, have not. Fearing they may not recoup all their stranded costs by the deadline, utilities have lobbied hard for lower price caps to help keep their costs down.

Appreciate, too, that the headline-making rise in electric bills has affected only SDG&E's 1.2 million customers, whose typical household electric bill has risen to $105 or so a month from about $55 this time last year. Consumers elsewhere in the state have seen no such increase, because they're still enjoying the 10% rate reduction mandated by the 1996 deregulation law. This has exacerbated California's woes, because these price controls offer no incentive to conserve electricity.

There's hope yet for California. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could overrule the Cal-ISO board. It has already launched a study into the "volatile price fluctuations" in the bulk power sales in the U.S. The findings are due in November, the same month all wholesale price controls on electricity in California are supposed to expire. Given the political climate, however, few expect the caps to vanish anytime soon.

The lesson of energy price controls and utility regulation seems lost on California. But it's one that state officials will likely ponder -- after the lights go out.

Current theory of the editor on Y2K, 1999-Oct-8: establishment media outlets have started and will accelerate a campaign in which audiences are made to wonder if "they" - which is to say, the Y2K alarmists and apocalypticoids - are right that Y2K will be a socioeconomic calamity of some sort. The establishment has no intention to make of it, or allow it to be, a calamity, because all discontinuities are fraught with uncontrollable risk. Instead, the purpose of the alarmist propaganda is to link Y2K alarmism with segments of society that the establishment perceives as threatening to their hegemony - particularly, survivalists and militias - thereby further discrediting and marginalizing them, when Y2K passes unaccompanied by socioeconomic calamity. Of course, the state and corporations are hedging their bets, taking survivalist measures of their own including food and fuel caching and backup power provisioning. Their preference is for Y2K to be a near non-event, so that their campaign of incremental consolidation of control is not jostled.

from The United States Conference of Mayors, from http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/news/publications/curfew.htm:

A Status Report on Youth Curfews in America's Cities
A 347-City Survey

Many cities have imposed youth curfews in recent years. A 1995 survey by The U.S. Conference of Mayors found that 272 cities, 70 percent of those surveyed, had a nighttime curfew. Fifty-seven percent of these cities considered their curfew effective.

Since that survey was done the trend toward establishing curfews—both nighttime and daytime—has continued and more is known about their impact. This report updates the 1995 survey and provides additional information on the effectiveness of those curfews.

The 1997 survey gathered information from 347 cities with a population over 30,000. Mayors and city officials were asked for information on:

1. the use of both daytime and nighttime curfews,
2. perceptions of whether curfew enforcement is a good use of police officers' time,
3. perceptions of whether curfews make streets safer at night, cut down on daytime truancy,
4. effectiveness of curfew enforcement in curbing gang violence or gang activities,
5. increases or decreases in crime rates since curfews have been in effect,
6. police department costs associated with curfew enforcement,
7. problems encountered in implementing curfews and
8. constitutional challenges to curfews.

Among the findings of the survey:

• Four out of five of the survey cities (276) have a nighttime youth curfew. Of these cities, 26 percent (76) also have a daytime curfew. Click here for a list of cities which have curfews.

• Nine out of 10 of the cities (247) said that enforcing a curfew is a good use of a police officer's time. Many respondents felt that curfews represented a proactive way to combat youth violence. They saw curfews as a way to involve parents, as a deterrent to future crime, and as a way to keep juveniles from being victimized. In addition, they commented that a curfew gives the police probable cause to stop someone they think is suspicious. Examples of city comments:

  • Tulsa: There is generally no useful purpose for a juvenile to be out late at night. Enforcement of curfews serves to protect them from being victimized by the criminal element.

  • Charlotte: This is a good tool to protect children. Most parents didn't even know their children were outside the home.

  • Jacksonville (NC): It provides officers with "probable cause" to stop the youth.

  • Claremont: It frees up officers' time during the curfew hours to do other police work. Kids don't go out because they know they will get in trouble.

  • Anchorage: Parents are contacted each time a juvenile is picked up, often eliminating repeat occurrences.

  • St. Peters (MO): It assists in providing a method of controlling juveniles when adult supervision is lacking. Less time is spent by officers in getting them off the street than responding to problems they create.

  • Toledo: It provides officers an opportunity to intervene with potential issues before problems develop. Periodic sweeps remind the public about the law officer. Curfew enforcement has, in large part, become a part of routine enforcement.

  Twenty-six cities (10 percent) did not feel that curfew enforcement is a good use of a police officer's time. They commented that police have higher priorities than chasing curfew breakers, and that there is too much paperwork involved, tying up a police officer's time when he or she should be using that time to pursue more serious offenders. Some suggested that random sweeps seem to be more effective in keeping offenders off balance, as they are never sure when the police will be around. Finally, several commented that there is nowhere to take the young people when they are picked up because many parents aren't home. Examples of city comments:

  • San Francisco: Offenses occur before curfew hours. Therefore, the curfew is ineffective.

  • Billings: There is no place to take the kids. Often the parents are not home.

  • Roanoke: There is no punishment for the law. The law is on the books but there is no punishment.

  • Freeport (IL): It ties up the police and keeps them "babysitting" all day long.

  • Richmond (CA): Curfews treat all youth as violators. It turns off good kids and is unfair to them.

• Ninety-three percent of the survey cities (257) said that a nighttime curfew is a useful tool for police officers. The city officials commented that curfews help to reduce the incidence of juveniles becoming victims by preventing "gathering," which also means more calls for the police. They said that a curfew compels parents to be more responsible and gives them a specific reason to tell their children they cannot be out after a certain time, and they said that curfews are a good prevention tool, keeping the good kids good and keeping the at-risk kids from becoming victims or victimizers. Examples of city comments:

  • Orlando: Since we have had the curfew we have seen dramatic declines in youth-related crimes.

  • Murray (UT): Prevention is nine-tenths of the cure.

  • Fresno: Because of the curfew there is less gathering. Less gathering means fewer calls for police.

  • South Bend: Few first time violators are repeat offenders.

  • Maui: It compels parents to be responsible.

  Nineteen cities said that a nighttime curfew was not a useful tool, explaining that it removes parental control as the city, in effect, becomes the parent. They also commented that more crime happens during non-curfew hours due to curfew enforcement. Examples of city comments:

  • Kauai: It causes more crime during non-curfew hours.

  • Richland (WA): All youth, not just delinquents, are affected by a curfew.

  • Wausau: We need to avoid harassment and need to avoid focussing on minorities or specific neighborhoods.

• All of the 72 cities which have a daytime curfew report that it has cut down on truancy. They said that it reduces daytime burglary, holds parents accountable and keeps kids in school. Examples of city comments:

  • Columbus (OH): Seventeen hundred truants have been processed, less than seven percent have been re-fined (as repeat offenders).

  • Allentown: Since the inception of our daytime curfew, students know there are consequences to their actions. It has had a favorable impact on school attendance.

  • Torrance: It discourages truants' trips en masse to "hang-outs." With this curfew, students must stay at home or risk detention.

  • Philadelphia: Daytime curfew enforcement causes the minor to attend school, which can only benefit the minor.

  • Roswell: It cuts down on graffiti, vandalism and truancy. It keeps kids at home or in school where they are safe.

• Eighty-eight percent (236) of the cities said that curfew enforcement helps to make streets safer for residents. The officials commented that there is less traffic late at night; residents feel safer; it is easier to find runaways; it is harder for criminals to hide from the police during curfew hours because there are fewer people to blend in with; graffiti and vandalism are reduced; and parents are helped to feel responsible. Examples of city comments:

  • Canton: Police find more runaways and missing juveniles, reducing the number of delinquencies.

  • Tulsa: The criminal element has to work harder to "hide" from cops.

  • Inglewood: It does, in fact, make it safer. There is less traffic at night.

  • Corpus Christi: The daytime curfew has cut down on the truancy problem considerably simply because school-aged kids observed wandering the streets or in locations away from school are easily detected, and they have come to know that.

  Thirty-three cities (12 percent) said that curfews have no impact on street safety, commenting that it is people over 17 who create the more serious crimes, and that they do not always enforce the curfew due to lack of funds or lack of interest. Examples of city comments:

  • Memphis: Most evening crimes are committed by adults.

  • Chillicothe (MO): Those over 17 are still out causing most of the trouble.

  • Tallahassee: Several studies have indicated that curfews displace crime to other times of the day without having any real impact over the long run.

• Eighty-three percent (222) of the cities said that a curfew helps to curb gang violence. City officials believe it is a tool to reach "wanna-be" gang members and keep recruitment to a minimum; it prevents gang members from gathering; it gives the police a legal reason to contact individuals or the group; it tells kids their movements are being monitored and lessens gang activities during curfew hours. They also said that curfews help the police to identify gang members and come in contact with them at an earlier stage, help to curb young peoples' activities before they become more violent, and help the police to seize the guns and drugs of gang members, thus impairing their ability to fight. Finally, the curfew helps to educate parents to the signs of gang membership and activity. Examples of city comments:

  • Moline (IL): Gang activity stops after curfew hours begin.

  • Dearborn: It curbs activities before they get to a more violent level.

  • Shaker Heights: If you address inappropriate behavior, you will minimize the opportunity for it to escalate into violence. In other words, if you catch youths early it is more likely they can become valuable members of society.

  • Napa: I have never seen a gang member who wasn't a truant first. Curbing truancy curbs gang violence.

  • Houston: We have had an increase in drug and weapons seizures from gangs. Seizing these things lowers gangs' ability to fight.

  Seventeen percent (46) of the cities said that curfews had no impact on gang-related activities. These cities said that most hardcore gang member do not pay attention to curfews; most gang activities occur before curfews go into effect; and gangs are not afraid of curfew laws because they know there will be no punishment. Examples of city comments:

  • Ogden: Curfews do little to curb activities of hardcore gang members.

  • Rochester (MN): Gangs aren't afraid of curfews because the punishment is little or nothing.

  • Memphis: Most gang activities happen before curfew hours.

• Fifty-six percent (154) of the survey cities have had a youth curfew in effect for 10 years or less. Officials in 53 percent of these cities have had a decrease in juvenile crime which they attribute to the curfew. Eleven percent have seen the number of juvenile crimes stay the same; 10 percent have had an increase in juvenile-related crimes. Because most of the remaining cities have had curfews in effect for a short time, no data on the impact on juvenile crime was available.

  Twenty-six cities with a nighttime curfew only were able to provide data on the percent reduction in juvenile crime. Juvenile crime was reduced by an average of 21 percent in these cities, ranging from a two percent decrease in Charlotte, three percent in Waterloo, five percent in Bloomington (IL) and Fort Worth and seven percent in Kileen (TX) to a 40 percent reduction in Inglewood and Idaho Falls, 42 percent in San Jose and 50 percent in Orlando.

  Twenty-two cities with both a nighttime and daytime curfew were able to provide data on the percent reduction in juvenile crime, which was reduced by an average of 21 percent in these cities. The percent reduction ranged from two percent in Richmond (GA), five percent in Lombard (IL) and eight percent in Fairfield (CA) to 50 percent in Hayward and 70 percent in Charleston (SC).

  Six cities reported that juvenile crime increased after their curfew was introduced, by an average of 14.5 percent across these cities. The increases ranged from three percent in Billings and Tulsa and 10 percent in St. Charles to 25 percent in Grand Forks and 26 percent in Fargo. It should be noted that many cities reported that when they initially implemented the curfew or began to rigorously enforce an existing curfew, the number of crimes increased for a period of six months to a year. Following this, however, they saw a significant decline in juvenile crime.

• Twenty-three percent (61) of the cities said there were increased costs related to curfew enforcement. These costs related primarily to increased police officer time and detention centers. Examples of city comments:

  • Chandler (AZ): There was an increase in costs in paperwork, court appearances and fees and officers' time spent processing and convicting the youth.

  • San Jose: We had to add $1 million in new police payroll to enforce our curfew.

  • Shreveport: We received a grant from the federal government to help defray the costs of a detention center, but the federal funds decrease each year, and after four years the city will have to pay all of the costs.

  • Upland (CA): Our gang task force has caused an increase in costs.

  • New Orleans: There have been cost increases associated with overtime for police in order to enforce the curfew properly.

  • Cleveland: The increase in enforcement of the curfew has caused more costs for police to appear in court.

• Twenty-three percent (62) also reported problems in implementing their curfew. These problems include concerns about violating young peoples' rights or targeting minorities, parental opposition, and officials within the criminal justice system not taking the curfew seriously. Examples of city comments:

  • Denver: In one of our middle class neighborhoods it was proposed that we put up a detention center, and this met with strenuous opposition.

  • Los Angeles: The problem is convincing liberal politicians that it doesn't violate kids' rights and convincing police officers that it is productive.

  • Chicago: The problem is getting judges to take curfew cases seriously.

  • Cincinnati: The curfew laws need to be monitored to make sure that African-Americans aren't targeted. You have to make sure you are trying to keep it fair and legal.

  • Plano: A small segment of our population feel it is the parents' responsibility to say when a child should be indoors.

  • Buena Park: Several home schooling groups challenged it as being unfair to their children.

• Five percent (14) of the cities said there have been constitutional challenges either to the curfew itself or to its wording. Those cities with a challenge are Allentown, Bellingham, Dallas, El Cajon, Escondido, Lompoc, North Miami Beach, Orlando, Philadelphia, Poway (CA), Santa Ana, Tulsa, Wenatchee (WA) and West Covina. In two additional cities—Fort Lauderdale and Rio Rancho (NM)—a challenge to the curfew has been threatened.

• For the 276 cities with curfews:

  • Five percent have had the curfew for less than one year.
  • Eight percent have had the curfew for one year.
  • Eleven percent have had the curfew for two years.
  • Eleven percent have had the curfew for three years.
  • Four percent have had the curfew for four years.
  • Eight percent have had the curfew for five years.
  • Nine percent have had the curfew for six to 10 years.
  • Forty-four percent have had the curfew for more than 10 years.

Survey Cities Which Have A Curfew

The 276 survey cities with a curfew are listed below. Those with an * have both a daytime and a nighttime curfew; the rest have a nighttime curfew only.

ALABAMA	Birmingham *	Gadsden
ALASKA	Anchorage
ARIZONA	Chandler Gilbert Glendale	Phoenix Surprise Tempe	Tucson Yuma
ARKANSAS	Fort Smith	North Little Rock *	Pine Bluff *
CALIFORNIA	Anaheim Antioch Bakersfield Brea Buena Park * Burbank * Claremont * Colton * Concord Covina * Culver City El Cajon * Escondido * Fairfield * Fontana * Fountain Valley Fresno	Gardena * Hayward * Inglewood La Habra * Lancaster * Lodi Lompoc * Long Beach * Los Angeles Manhattan Beach * Modesto Montebello * Monterey * Napa * Newark Oxnard * Pittsburg	Poway * Riverside * San Clemente San Francisco San Jose * San Ramon Santa Ana Santa Barbara * Santa Cruz Santa Rosa Stockton * Thousand Oaks Torrence * Tulare Upland * West Covina *
COLORADO	Aurora Denver	Loveland Pueblo	Thornton Westminster
CONNECTICUT	New Britain	West Haven
FLORIDA	Fort Lauderdale * Garden Grove Jacksonville	Miami Beach North Miami Orlando	Pembroke Pines Port Orange
GEORGIA	Augusta * East Point *	Macon	Roswell
HAWAII	Honolulu	Kaua'i	Wailuku Maui
IDAHO	Boise	Idaho Falls
IOWA	Cedar Rapids	Waterloo
ILLINOIS	Arlington Heights Aurora Bartlett Bloomington Bolingbrook * Buffalo Grove Carbondale Champaign Chicago Decatur	Elk Grove * Evanston Freeport Glencoe Highland Park Lansing * Lombard * Moline Mount Prospect Naperville	Normal Palatine Paris Park Ridge * Pekin * Rockford Schaumburg Waukegan * Wheeling
INDIANA	Carmel Columbia City Elkhart	Fort Wayne Marion Michigan City	New Albany South Bend
KANSAS	Hutchinson	Olathe	Witchita *
KENTUCKY	Frankfort	Lexington	Louisville
LOUISIANA	Houma Lake Charles	New Orleans *	Shreveport
MAINE	Augusta
MASSACHUSETTS	Chicopee Lowell	Lynn Malden	Methuen Revere
MARYLAND	Hagerstown
MICHIGAN	Allen Park Battle Creek Dearborn Dearborn Heights Detroit *	East Point Farmington Hills Holland Jackson Lansing	Livonia Midland Muskegon St. Claire Shores Wyoming
MINNESOTA	Blaine Brooklyn Park Burnsville	Maplewood Minneapolis *	Minnetonka Rochester
MISSISSIPPI	Biloxi * Greenville *	Natchez *	Tupelo *
MISSOURI	Chesterfield Chillicothe Kansas City	St. Charles St. Joseph	St. Peters University City
MONTANA	Billings	Great Falls
NEBRASKA	Bellevue
NEVADA	Las Vegas
NEW HAMPSHIRE	Nashua
NEW JERSEY	Elizabeth Gloucester	Jersey City *	Newark
NEW MEXICO	Rio Rancho *	Roswell *
NEW YORK	Buffalo Jamestown	Schenectady	Troy
NORTH CAROLINA	Charlotte	Jacksonville
NORTH DAKOTA	Fargo	Grand Forks
OHIO	Akron * Canton Chillicothe Cincinnati Cleveland * Columbus *	Elyria Euclid Fairborn Lima (Recently lost day) Mansfield	Parma * Shaker Heights Toledo University Heights Waynesville
OKLAHOMA	Lawton	Oklahoma City	Tulsa
OREGON	Beaverton
PENNSYLVANIA	Allentown * Erie Harrisburg	Lancaster McKeesport Philadelphia *	Pittsburgh * Wilkes-Barre
PUERTO RICO	Caguas	San Juan
RHODE ISLAND	North Providence	Pawtucket
SOUTH CAROLINA	Charleston	Columbia	Rock Hill
SOUTH DAKOTA	Rapid City
TENNESSEE	Chattanooga Germantown	Hendersonville Knoxville *	Memphis
TEXAS	Arlington * Austin * Corpus Christi * Fort Worth Galveston *	Houston * Killeen League City * Mesquite Plano	San Angelo San Antonio * Temple * Waco Wichita Falls
UTAH	Murray Ogden	Salt Lake City	Sandy
VIRGINIA	Cheasapeake Newport News	Norfolk Richmond *	Roanoke Virginia Beach
WASHINGTON	Bellingham	Longview	Wenatchee *
WEST VIRGINIA	Parkersburg
WISCONSIN	Beloit * Brookfield Green Bay	Greenfield Manitowoc	Sheboygan West Allis
WYOMING	Casper	Cheyenne

Survey Cities Which Do Not Have A Curfew

The 71 survey cities listed below do not have a youth curfew.

ALABAMA	Decatur	Huntsville	Mobile
ARKANSAS	Fayetteville	Hot Springs
CALIFORNIA	Dublin Livermore Oakland	Rancho Palos Verdes Richmond San Luis Obispo	Santa Clara Sunnyvale
COLORADO	Fort Collins	Greeley	Lakewood
CONNECTICUT	Middletown New Haven	Stamford	Wallingford
FLORIDA	Boca Raton Bradenton Clearwater Fort Myers	Holy Hill Miramar Palm Bay Port St. Lucie	St. Petersburg Sarasota Tallahassee Tamarac
ILLINOIS	Galesburg
IOWA	Des Moines
KANSAS	Topeka
MASSACHUSETTS	Attleboro Boston	Haverhill	Salem
MICHIGAN	Port Huron	Rochester Hills
NEBRASKA	Lincoln	Omaha
NEW JERSEY	Bridgewater Edison	Fort Lee	West Orange
NEW YORK	Freeport Mount Vernon	New Rochelle White Plains	Yonkers
NORTH CAROLINA	Greensboro Wilmington	Wilson	Winston-Salem
OHIO	Centerville	Kettering
RHODE ISLAND	Cranston	Providence
TEXAS	Abliene Denton	Longview	Lufkin
VIRGINIA	Alexandria	Lynchburg
WASHINGTON	Auburn Richland	Seattle	Spokane
WISCONSIN	Wausau

from TPDL 2000-Jun-10, from Insight Magazine, by Timothy W. Maier:

`Fed' Up Police

Uncle Sam has taken over police departments in Pennsylvania and Ohio on the grounds that local police are out of control. Your local department could be next.

It sounded like a gunshot as police kicked open the door of a Maryland apartment where 25-year-old Jeffery Gilbert lay sleeping. Gilbert would not remember a thing after the Prince George's County, Md.'s, T-70 special-weapons and tactics team slammed him to the ground in the early hours of April 28, 1995. But then again neither would the six T-70 squad members recall what happened when questioned later by federal authorities.

A few minutes prior to the bust, the T-70 squad was shown a photo of Sgt. John Novabilski, a fellow police officer whose body was riddled with bullets from a MAC-11 submachine gun. They were told Gilbert had been identified as the ``cop-stalker'' - the killer who also was responsible for wounding two Washington Metropolitan police officers.

What happened inside the apartment has been disputed for five years. The police insist Gilbert ``violently resisted'' arrest; Gilbert denies the allegation.

What is certain is that Gilbert nearly died after being battered by multiple injuries received in the raid, including a near-fatal brain injury. Medical reports indicate Gilbert had multiple contusions, swollen eyes and welts covering his body. Boot marks imprinted in Gilbert's back and chest could be seen in photographs taken after the incident. ``This is what I call justice - street justice,'' said a county officer after the arrest. ``It's like sharks when they hit a piece of meat on a feeding frenzy. He's a walking billboard.''

Police ransacked the apartment in search of the MAC-11 and Novabilski's service revolver, which the cop stalker had taken as a trophy, but found neither. Gilbert was charged with Novabilski's murder and talk of the death penalty began with what prosecutors called a ``slam-dunk case.''

But the case unravelled on Memorial Day when in Greenbelt, Md., a bloody gun battle took place in which Ralph ``Doody Doo'' McLean executed an FBI agent and then fatally shot himself - and Novabilski's service revolver and the MAC-11 used to kill the officer were found next to McLean's body. Red-faced prosecutors had no choice but to drop the charges against Gilbert when McLean's girlfriend said ``Doody Doo knew Gilbert was innocent because Doody did it.'' Now federal prosecutors from the Rodney King case against the Los Angeles police stepped in and the Justice Department launched a two-year probe. A grand jury probe ended when officers failed to turn on each other.

Angered by their code of silence, the Justice Department began to focus on what has been described as a pattern of civil-rights violations in Prince George's County. Since January, the county has paid in excess of $5 million in damages for police misconduct, not including what lawyers say may be dozens of other cases where deals have been sealed to prevent further lawsuits.

Attorney General Janet Reno this year launched a widespread probe concerning the county police department's use of police dogs allegedly to torture suspects. And they may not stop there. From Los Angeles to New York City, the federal government literally is trying to take over local police departments.

And that angers cops. Oversight that leads to second-guessing is something police don't want, whether it be from citizen review boards or Big Brother. Criminologists say cops sometimes have a double standard, employing cameras to stop traffic offenders while objecting to cameras during interrogations. While cops prefer local jurisdictions as watchdogs, critics say that never works because of an incestuous relationship between local prosecutors and police.

In the Gilbert case, the county police internal-affairs, or IA, unit just has begun its own investigation - five years after the fact. But the statute of limitations has run out and what IA finds now can't be used in a criminal prosecution against the officers. Local prosecutors didn't even look at the case. However, police point to cases such as New York officer Justin Volpe, who was convicted of ramming a broomstick into Abner Louima's rectum, as evidence they can police their own.

To cops, ``Reno's raiders'' are crossing territorial lines. ``When you bring in federal oversight you end up with broad and poorly considered policies that are not effective in dealing with local issues,'' says Dave Smith, a 23-year veteran of police work and director of education for the Law Enforcement Training Network in Chicago. ``The police department is concerned with public safety, but the federal government has demographic criteria'' that target white males.

Private eye Sharon Weidenfeld, who investigated the Gilbert case and dozens of other brutality complaints, disagrees. ``In the cases I've seen it is not a racial problem. It's a police problem. Police brutality is color-blind.'' She says it's almost a given that excessive force will be used when police charge suspects with the trilogy: resisting arrest, assault and disorderly conduct. Violently resisting arrest is the big tipoff, she says, that a suspect was beaten. ``I would like to see the Justice Department take over P.G. [the Prince George's County Police Department] because it's obvious the police can't police themselves,'' she says. ``However, I have very little faith in the FBI at this point because I have provided them with volumes of detailed information concerning acts of excessive force by the police in the last five years and in particular the last 18 months and I have yet to see Reno take any action. But who knows, maybe they will surprise us with an indictment soon.''

Smith counters that it makes no sense to have a federal government that has yet to answer for its own use of excessive force in Waco, the Elian Gonzalez seizure and Ruby Ridge telling police about excessive force. ``Congress expresses outrage but it never gets straight answers,'' he says. ``Where's the oversight? Why did they grab a cameraman in the Elian case and throw him down. What level of force is justified? Or why did the agents spray only the Hispanics?''

Ted Deeds, director of operations for the Law Enforcement Alliance of America in Falls Church, Va., says police are not against the Justice Department stepping in on a case-by-case basis, but are against being micromanaged by Washington. ``We got Hillary calling New York officers `murderers' before they are even charged,'' he says. ``This federal intrusion has become a very political thing - hugely political. I think we began to slip down this slippery slope as soon as the train left the station.

``It's a runaway train now. The feds have taken over local departments in Pittsburgh and Steu-benville, Ohio, and are threatening Columbus, Ohio, and at least a dozen more. Both Pittsburgh and Steubenville were forced to sign consent decrees, admitting their departments have participated in a pattern of civil-rights violations and vow to follow some strict federal guidelines.''

Of course, little of this is new. ``I grew up in Boston back in the forties,'' syndicated columnist Nat Hentoff tells Insight. ``I used to go to jazz clubs a lot and I knew the neighborhoods. The disproportion of police harassment against blacks was considerable.'' Hentoff grew up all right - to become one of the most uncompromising defenders of civil liberties in the media. As such, he says the increased federal role could be useful, but only to a point. ``It's okay as a short-term thing if the feds really know what they're doing,'' Hentoff says.

Hentoff has covered police off and on for years. Excessive force, like corruption, he says, can spread among colleagues. ``What happens, to use the cliché, is that there's a culture,'' he says. A young officer may come in wanting to make a positive contribution to the community, but if he witnesses corruption or brutality, his choice appears to be: Either conclude that everyone's doing it and join in, or else quietly accept it and keep his mouth shut. That is where the threat of outside intervention does some good. In Pittsburgh, Washington made a difference, albeit indirectly. ``The involvement was simply that they knew the feds were looking at them. What happens after they leave is something else again.''

The impression from the media is that excessive force is pandemic, yet no evidence exists to support such a conclusion. While police were mandated in the Clinton crime bill to track use of physical force, the federal government failed to provide funding to do so, Deeds says. In 1999 the Reno Justice Department attempted to assay the problem when it issued its report, Use of Force by Police: Overview of National and Local Data. The report concluded that police used physical force in less than 20 percent of some 7,512 arrests but could not determine if that force was excessive. More research needs to be done, the report says.

Nevertheless, the federal government is taking over on grounds that local police are out of control. And your local police department could be next.

To many minorities, putting the police under the gun is a welcome change, says Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in Washington. ``When people perceive there is a problem, then there is a problem because perception becomes reality. The federal government has to step in because there is a very close relationship with prosecutors and police at the local level. In Pittsburgh, for example, there have been long-standing complaints for 10 to 15 years and nothing has been done.''

At the same time, the number of fallen police officers continues to climb, with 1,533 dead in the line of duty during the last decade and an average of more than 23,000 injured annually. Texas Republican Gov. George W. Bush says the Justice Department shouldn't second-guess local authorities and only in rare circumstances should they order investigations into the police department's internal practices. Vice President Al Gore supports federal probes into civil-rights practices of local departments but favors local settlements. The National Fraternal Order of Police accepts both approaches but reportedly is leaning toward endorsing Gore for president.

Some wonder how the federal government can be taking the reins. ``Under federal law they can, because it was placed in Clinton's crime bill,'' says William Clark Harrell, executive director of the Texas affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and former director of the Police Accountability Project in New York City. He says their states often shy away from these cases because of the tremendous amount of political money that the police unions can generate for future politicians.

A case in point: When it came to the Gilbert case and the dozens of excessive-force complaints filed in Prince George's County, Maryland Democratic Gov. Paris Glendening walked away from ordering a state probe without ever offering an explanation other than to say the FBI would handle it.

Why didn't he do it? ``Good question,'' says Gilbert's attorney Terrell Roberts. ``The federal government did not want to step on what the Justice Department was doing.'' But Maryland State Police Superintendent David Mitchell, a former chief of Prince George's County police, might be one reason why he didn't, Roberts alleges. Even local prosecutors wouldn't touch the case, as Prince George's County State's Attorney Jack Johnson argued the FBI was better equipped to conduct the probe.

While Roberts welcomes Reno's probes into the county, he has mixed feelings about whether they will be successful. Civil-rights probes in the county have been a ``nonentity,'' Roberts says. ``They say they investigate these things. I am unaware of them talking to witnesses much. I question how thorough these investigations are. Nothing ever comes of them. They coddled the officers in the Gilbert case for five years. What they do is a joke. That's J-O-K-E.''

Not every police department is against federal interference. Harrell says, ``Washington asked the federal government to intervene because they wanted a sense of order. They were simply incapable of doing it themselves because there was no local authority.''

Other cities, however, are being forced to get in line. The Los Angeles Police Department continues to meet with the Justice Department, which has shoved a list of demands into its face, including a new system to investigate and discipline officers found guilty of using excessive force.

In Columbus, Ohio, however, they have refused to sign the consent decree. The decree limits an officer's right to use force to just five times in one period or else face disciplinary action, including termination. Force is defined as efforts by an officer against a suspect who uses more than minimal resistance, including the use of chemical spray or aiming a firearm. It does not include the use of police dogs, verbal commands, handcuffing, the brandishing of a firearm or aiming at a suspect when a supervisor orders guns drawn.

Deeds says, ``At the moment officers start drawing their guns they will start thinking, `Am I going to lose my job? Go to jail? Lose my house?' That is how it is going to be today with the Monday-morning quarterbacking from Washington. Officers will reduce their contact with the public.''

Smith says, ``Imagine working a graveyard shift on a hectic weekend and going to a few barroom brawls that require you to take-down and cuff some combatants. Then you go handle a felon stop, and then maybe a domestic quarrel where you wrestle a drunken abuser to the floor and escort him to jail. You'll write a report of each use-of-force incident (as defined by Justice) and after five such incidents your file will be flagged!''

In Columbus, the city would like to settle with the federal government, but its contract with the police union prohibits that. Reno has responded by filing a lawsuit against the city to recoup all federal grant money it has ever received. A similar tactic was proposed last year by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which advocated withholding federal grant money to departments with a high number of civil-rights complaints - even before the the complaints were proved.

Kenneth Adams, a criminologist at the Indianapolis School of Public and Environmental Affairs, a joint effort of Indiana and Purdue universities, sees it as a throwback to the 1960s when Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered the FBI into Southern states to enforce civil-rights legislation against states' wishes. ``The states are not as motivated to uncover these abuses as the federal government,'' says Adams. ``Remember in politics when something is unpleasant it always helps to blame the other guys. The state may acknowledge privately it has a problem but doesn't want to act, thinking let's get the feds to do it, and then we can blame the big bad federal government. If the localities are not able to address the problem then I think we would all agree that the federal government should step in. But the problem is how do we identify an extreme situation.''

In Columbus, that certainly seems to be the issue. James Phillips, an attorney for the Columbus Fraternal Order of Police says there have been only three cases of alleged police brutality that they have been aware of, although others maintain there have been about a dozen in the last seven years. That averages to less than two a year - hardly a pattern of widespread abuse to justify nationalizing the local police. In New York City, Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says cops use less physical force than other major cities, but critics point out New York paid nearly $300 million last year to victims of police brutality. Many activists in New York City want Reno to take over the police department in lieu of the recent acquittal of four NYPD officers in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo. The unarmed Haitian immigrant was shot at 41 times; of which 19 bullets hit him.

Will there be a federal takeover? ``It will never happen in New York,'' says Harrell. ``There is too much political resistance from Giuliani to allow the feds to come in.''

But don't count it out, says Deeds. ``If this Justice Department found it was in the best interest of Hillary Rodham Clinton they would be in there in a minute.''

Many observers, including conservatives, objected to Giuliani's decision to release juvenile records of another unarmed Haitian man, Patrick Dorismond, whom police also fatally shot under dubious circumstances. More than half of the voters in New York state disapproved of how Giuliani handled this latest police shooting.

``The right finally woke up,'' says Abraham Abramovsky, director of Fordham University International Criminal Law Center and a consultant for the police on the Louima case. James Cohn, who heads the Criminal Defense Clinic at Fordham University, adds that cases such as Louima's prompted some conservatives who initiated the 1960s-era ``Support Your Local Police'' campaign to take a hard look at the abuses. ``The political taint begins to drop off in some of those shocking cases,'' he says. ``There has been a ``heightened awareness among conservatives that there is a problem and that itself might facilitate some political solutions,'' he says.

Abramovsky advocates a national training program, similar to the military academies. Columnist Hentoff advocates changing the culture in the police academy. He says former New York City police commissioner William Bratton's ideas of thorough background checks and mentoring could help. Bratton has called for records of all police recruits to be checked thoroughly to weed out those with any history of violent tendencies, as well as a review after the first six months on the beat. Then, says Hentoff, the idea is ``to get a senior officer - preferably not a brutal one - to be a mentor.''

Criminologists say the new beat cop is not like cops of generations gone by. Former NYPD detective Dick Ward, who now is the dean at Sam Houston University in Texas, says: ``Many people coming into the department are younger. Today there are fewer military veterans and a lot of people don't have experience with violence.''

These newer recruits also are meeting a new kind of criminal - a more dangerous one - says University of Florida Levin College of Law criminologist Chris Slobogin. ``Crime has become more random and police are more suspicious and more likely to use force because more police officers are dying. You don't know if a suspect is going to turn on you or not. The public at large doesn't have a significant problem with these clean-up operations. They see it as a justifiable way of protecting the public.''

``Zero tolerance is not a bad idea, it's just a matter of being able to balance it,'' says a civil-rights attorney. ``But I don't know if you can have zero tolerance and good minority relations.''

For minorities, respect is difficult when officers honor their code of silence and refuse to cooperate with citizen review boards. ``The code of silence is very much with us today, no matter how egregious an incident may be,'' says Slobogin. ``One of the worst sins an officer can commit is to snitch. Their code of silence is as good as the Mafia's.'' This is understandable, he adds. ``If you are seen as a traitor you may not have anyone protecting your back. Police just don't think anyone understands their situation and they may be right. They believe they deserve to be respected.''

And respect is something, cops argue, that the federal government knows little about at a time when they say Reno's raiders have been running amok.

from The Miami Herald, 2001-Jan-24, by Jay Weaver:

Staff opposed Elián seizure
Backlash feared, INS e-mails reveal

In the weeks leading up to the seizure of Elián González, some local employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service expressed grave concerns about a raid on the boy's Miami home, saying it would be a ``black day for the nation,'' according to INS memos cited in a lawsuit against the federal government.

In one of the memos, an INS special agent implies that Miami Police were involved in the operation at least 11 days before the April 22 raid to reunite the 6-year-old Cuban boy with his father. The city's role was to provide ``outer security'' during the seizure, according to the e-mail.

Former Miami Police Chief William O'Brien said at the time that he was not aware of the exact timing of the raid on the Little Havana home of the boy's relatives until the afternoon before it was executed.

This new information came to light Tuesday as U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno issued an order requiring a labor attorney for some INS employees to reveal their names as part of the civil suit by Elián's Miami relatives against the government.

The attorney, Donald Appignani, works for the union representing the workers.

He had turned over two internal INS e-mails to lawyers representing Elián's Miami relatives.

Appignani said Tuesday night that he had not made up his mind whether to comply with the judge's order or appeal it.

He has cooperated with the González family's lawyers by providing the initial deposition that accused the INS of destroying sensitive Elián-related documents, e-mails and other information.

He also brought to light a post-raid INS souvenir, a coffee-cup holder, that was seen as derogatory toward the exile community.

The two April 12 e-mails -- all between INS employees who are members of the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1458 -- reveal that some Miami INS employees thought the raid might put district employees ``at risk of serious public reprisals,'' such as the public criticism following a 1998 INS raid on a West Dade flower warehouse.

In the e-mail to the union's national office, Jose M. Touron Jr., the Miami local's vice president, said the INS employees thought the boy should get an asylum hearing, contrary to the INS's official stand to reunite him with his Cuban father.

``If INS intentions against the child Elián González is carried out, it will be a black day for the nation,'' Touron wrote to the union's national officers, including President William King, based in Orlando.

He also copied then-INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, INS District Director Robert Wallis and other agency officials.

Touron, speaking on behalf of INS Special Agent David Wallace, the Miami local's shop steward, urged the union's national officers ``to speak up'' against any plan to take the boy by force.

SAFETY CONCERN

``You cannot remain silent on this issue,'' wrote Touron, an immigration inspector at Miami International Airport. ``If INS is still stubborn and still insist[s] on going down the path of political destruction, we should care for our employees and their security and security of their families.''

In another e-mail, Wallace told Touron that as of April 11, the plan to reunite Elián with his father would involve Miami Police, U.S. marshals and INS agents. He said the information was provided by his first-line supervisor, Phil Warfield, and confirmed with an agent from the U.S. Border Patrol office in Pembroke Pines.

``So far all of this plan has been verbal, no written plan has been provided,'' wrote Wallace, who Appignani said was demoted over the e-mail. ``All agents are expected to be at work on Thursday, April 13, 2000. No leave will be authorized for that day.''

The night before, Attorney General Janet Reno had met with the González family at the Miami Beach home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin to discuss turning over Elián peacefully. But Lázaro González, the boy's great-uncle, refused to budge on her request.

ORDER DEFIED

On April 13, the government gave official notice ordering González to surrender the boy at 10 a.m. at Opa-locka Airport. He defied that order as hundreds of Cuban exiles gathered outside his Little Havana home, including celebrities Gloria Estefan and Andy Garcia.

González family attorney Frank Quintero said the two INS e-mails show there was ``dissension'' among immigration employees about the government's planned raid and that the Miami Police were involved in its strategic planning earlier than first thought.

He also said the e-mails show the negotiations between the boy's Miami lawyers and the Department of Justice were a ``hoax.''

``They were buying time to finish getting ready for the raid,'' Quintero said.

from Salon, 2000-May-2, by Bonnie Bucqueroux:

When cops become combat troops
The controversial use of force to seize Elián González is just business as usual in the war on drugs.

In the debate over the federal government's use of force to return Elián González to his father, the left and right have magically swapped sides.

Liberals who protest the excessive use of police force under New York's Mayor Rudy Giuliani have been quick to defend ferocious INS agents in helmets, camouflage and ninja masks, brandishing assault weapons, arguing that the ends justify the means. Meanwhile many conservatives, some of whom never met a SWAT team they didn't like, are up in arms over the civil-liberties abuses suffered by the Miami González family.

The debate obscures one fact: The shocking images of combat-ready officers battering their way into a private home are routine in America's cities today thanks to the war on drugs, as well as the war on illegal immigration. All across the country, the SWATification of policing has led to a proliferation of special units trained to rely on aggressive tactics, barging into homes and swooping down on citizens with impunity.

The excesses of the New York Police Department are finally well known, thanks to the tragic killings of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond. Each was killed by a special police division -- Diallo by the notorious and now-disbanded Street Crimes Unit, and Dorismond by the controversial Operation Condor, charged with randomly confronting people on the street and pressuring them for drugs, hoping to identify repeat criminals.

Meanwhile, the CRASH unit in the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division battled gangs by becoming a gang itself, with its own violent initiation rites and "awards" for maiming and killing prey. CRASH has made the headlines, too, thanks to its members' record of murder, stealing drugs and setting up innocent people.

But all over the country, in small and midsize cities, police departments are adopting militaristic, SWAT-like approaches to crime. And thanks to an expanded mandate to combat illegal immigration, INS raids like the one in Miami are now fairly routine in neighborhoods populated by recent arrivals to the U.S.

It would be wonderful if one side effect of the González family tragedy was a new focus on the tendency of police to take a military approach to crime, creating new, hard-hitting special units to handle each new problem, whether it is drugs, guns or gangs.

Unfortunately, there seems to be little public enthusiasm for this debate. That's because few voters live in neighborhoods where gang units are likely to enter their kids' names and photos into the department database merely for wearing their hats backward. Nor do most of us lose sleep worrying whether the police might batter down our doors by mistake in search of drugs.

The tactics used in Miami to extract Elián were shocking to mainstream America, but they have long been commonplace in areas that serve as the battleground for the seemingly never-ending war on drugs. The educated and affluent seem to view policing like making sausage -- better not look too closely or you risk losing your appetite for the end product. As long as crime rates keep falling, who cares?

Yet there is good reason to question the wisdom of the SWATification of policing. Special units operate under the logic that tough problems require aggressive solutions - zero tolerance, undercover operations, intimidation, deception that borders on entrapment, even though such tactics and procedures make such units notoriously difficult to manage and restrain.

Just take the problem of gangs. The special-unit approach relies on documentation, intimidation, arrest and incarceration. A white sergeant in a major urban center once proudly told me how he had confronted an African-American youngster and demanded that he hand over his blue shoelaces, so that he could show him a "magic trick." "I hid the laces in my hand and cut them into little pieces. Then I threw them in his face and told him that if I caught him wearing gang colors again, he might disappear."

And then we're surprised when studies, like last week's report from the Youth Law Center, show that black and Latino youth are far more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and jailed than whites.

What's the alternative to the military approach to crime? In many cities it's community policing. In Boston, community policing has helped reduce crime even more dramatically than in high-profile New York.

This approach envisions generalist police officers as collaborative, community-based problem solvers. It stations officers on a neighborhood beat so they can distinguish the gangbangers from the wannabes. It brings together community leaders -- ministers, business owners, school principals -- to work on community problems, including gangs, recognizing that these ills require addressing the underlying dynamics that allow problems to persist.

Arrest is only one tool. But aggressive enforcement tactics that focus on arrest give officers nothing but a hammer, so it's no surprise that every problem begins to look like a nail -- even if it is a just a kid wearing blue shoelaces.

Taxpayers have good reason to demand a say in the kind of policing they will support. CRASH unit excesses in Los Angeles will cost the city an estimated $125 to $200 million, eating up all or most of the tobacco-tax money otherwise earmarked for public health and children's programs.

In contrast, Leroy O'Shield, founding member of the American Association for the Advancement of Community-Oriented Policing, saved millions of dollars during his tenure as chief of the Chicago Housing Authority Police Department. His dedication to involving the community, which included creating a civilian review board with real power, reduced annual liability claims from 27 lawsuits with a payout of $1.5 million to one lawsuit settled for $27,000 within two years. In Boston, too, police brutality complaints and claims have dropped dramatically, thanks to the new approach.

Yes, police must always maintain the ability to respond quickly to crises and to deploy a specially trained tactical unit to handle those rare instances when force and the show of force are the only safe solutions for citizens and police alike. But the pervasive problems of crime and violence also require officers who understand the context in which they occur and who have the department's support for exploring creative, collaborative solutions.

Republican critics of the raid on the González home have called for congressional hearings about the government use of force. If they were sincere in their concerns about civil rights, they'd hold hearings about police tactics in the war on drugs, too. Instead, they're playing politics, just like their liberal counterparts who blindly defend Attorney General Janet Reno's show of force, and ignoring the real threat to civil liberties that the military approach to policing represents.

About the writer
Bonnie Bucqueroux is executive director of Crime Victims for a Just Society. She was also associate director for the National Center for Community Policing at Michigan State University for almost a decade.

from Salon, 2000-Aug-14, by Jesse Walker:

War on protesters

The militarization of police strategies on display this convention season has cops fighting demonstrators, not crime.

Aug. 14, 2000 | LOS ANGELES -- The Democratic Convention may be taking the national stage this week, but those of us who live in Los Angeles have been hearing nervous hiccups about it for months. The local authorities, citing fears of riots, have tried, unsuccessfully, to confine the demonstrations to a tiny, distant protest zone. They have apparently been spying on the protesters' headquarters. And if things get ugly, there's been talk of bringing in the National Guard.

Smashed storefronts and flying rocks are bad things. But while the cops and Democrats warn of riots, a lot of us have started wondering if we shouldn't be even more afraid of repression -- especially in light of what some are saying happened at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia.

Marc Brandl of Washington attended those protests as an observer, not a marcher. In fact, he hoped to engage the marchers in debate. A devotee of free markets, Brandl had little sympathy with the causes represented in the Philadelphia streets. (I'm not wild for all of them myself.) There was a lot of vandalism on Tuesday of that week, he notes, almost all of it aimed at government property, and some demonstrators attacked some cops as well. That Tuesday was also the day most of the arrests were made.

But that doesn't mean the arrests matched the crimes. "Most of the people who committed the actual property damage and assaults on police officers, from my observation, got away with it," Brandl says. "The people they arrested -- it seemed it was random."

It might be worse than that. More than a week after the GOP closed its convention doors, ugly reports of police misconduct toward protesters are still trickling in. Imprisoned demonstrators have claimed that they were dragged, hogtied, beaten and denied medication for serious illnesses. One arrestee reports that a guard grabbed and wrenched his penis. The local authorities deny all those reports, and most of the allegations not been confirmed -- though some non-protesters caught in the dragnet have reported mistreatment as well, strongly suggesting that more than politically motivated exaggeration is at play. Human-rights groups are probing the prisoners' charges to sort the real crimes from the rumors.

One injustice is undeniable, though. When John Sellers of Berkeley, Calif., chief of the Ruckus Society, was arrested for a collection of misdemeanors -- which he denies committing -- his bail was set at an astonishing $1 million. Though a second judge later reduced the bail to $100,000, it's still hard to square that with the Eighth Amendment admonition that "excessive bail shall not be required."

Why was Sellers' surety set so high? He thinks it was to prevent him from protesting at the Democratic Convention this week. If that is so, the judges who set his bail are guilty of preventative detention, a policy most people associate with backwater military fiefdoms, not U.S. cities.

But then, many U.S. cities have been militarizing their police forces recently, with the feds' enthusiastic support. The number of paramilitary police units has taken off in the last 10 years, as has, naturally, the number of times they've been deployed. This has brought about an insidious change in police thinking, outside of the special units as well as within them. When you see yourself as part of a military force, you stop thinking in terms of individual crimes and start thinking in terms of containment.

The results were on international display last fall, with the Seattle cops' disastrous response to the protests at the WTO summit. There, officers were told to control a crowd, not to prevent actual wrongdoing. When the protests began, police actually ignored lawbreakers -- even when the vandals were at work right across the street -- because stopping them would have meant breaking with the day's containment strategy. After the mayor decided to get tough, the cops clubbed and arrested people regardless of whether they were breaking the law. Individual wrongdoing was beside the point.

Judging from reports of "random" arrests, the Philadelphia police did the same thing.

The containment strategy is not in itself new. I was an undergraduate when the University of Michigan won the NCAA basketball championship in 1989, and along with hundreds of other students, I ran into the streets to celebrate. The crowd was rowdy that night, but most of us were well behaved: There was cheering, hugging, hand-slapping, and, at worst, a willingness to climb onto other people's cars. Then a few celebrants turned vandalistic, destroying store awnings, breaking windows and in at least one case attempting to steal from a store. The would-be looter was captured by a security guard, who dragged him to one of the many lawmen lining the streets. Here, said the guard, I caught this guy trying to rob a shop. Arrest him.

"I can't," the officer replied, and gestured toward the revelers. "I have to keep this crowd under control."

But what was merely a poor priority in Ann Arbor, Mich., was downright poisonous in Philadelphia. At the GOP Convention, police weren't afraid that a celebration would get out of hand. They were, by their account, afraid of a deliberate conspiracy to start a riot. That doesn't call for "crowd control"; it calls for crime control.

Yet even when individuals were targeted -- as with the arrest of Sellers, or the city cops' earlier raid on a meeting hall where protesters were preparing puppets -- the prevailing attitude was military. Soldiers might conspire to capture an enemy leader or to shut down the other side's headquarters. But peace officers are not soldiers, and demonstrators are not an enemy army. Under American law, the police have no business arresting someone unless he has committed, or is planning to commit, a crime.

The authorities, of course, claim that the arrestees are criminals: that the puppet-makers were really making weapons and that Sellers is a political Professor Moriarty (the fictional nemesis of Sherlock Holmes). But to judge from what they've publicly stated so far, they have little convincing evidence to bolster those charges. Until they can do better, we're left with tales of gross abuse and illegal detention, and the bitter aftertaste of autocracy.

Meanwhile, the L.A. police have praised the Philadelphia cops' "preemptive" tactics. If I were an L.A. shopkeeper, I'd think about hiring a private guard.

from Salon 2000-Aug-8, by Anthony York, associate editor for Salon News:

Do not pass Go

Are the Philadelphia police using high bail to keep an activist leader away from the Democratic Convention?

Last week in Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area activist John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society, in Berkeley, Calif., was arrested on a series of misdemeanor charges including conspiracy and reckless endangerment. Bail for Sellers was set at $1 million. Activists and civil rights groups have decried the bail as astronomical. They claim that Sellers was picked out by police before the protests even began and is guilty of no crime.

While Sellers' attorney, Larry Frankel, said the bail figure was "absolutely ludicrous," Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Cindy Martell said the figure was warranted because Sellers "facilitates the more radical elements to accomplish their objective of violence and mayhem."

More than 300 people were arrested last Tuesday alone during traffic-stopping demonstrations and sometimes violent conflicts with police. Officers say they confiscated piano wire and gasoline-soaked rags tied to chains, which they believe protesters planned to use to injure them. Meanwhile, jailed activists have complained of abuse, including long periods of time without food, water, bathroom breaks or medical attention. There are 325 still in jail along with Sellers.

At a hearing on Monday afternoon, a judge reduced Sellers' bail to $100,000. Three other activists are also being held on high bail bonds ranging from $400,000 to $500,000 on misdemeanor charges. The judge rejected bail reductions for them during Monday's hearing.

Bail is designed to make sure defendants show up for trial. But civil liberties lawyers say Philadelphia authorities are using the high bail illegally as a tool to punish civil disobedience and to prevent the activists from attending the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, which begins Aug. 14.

Ever since mass protests in Seattle last November shut down the World Trade Organization conference and prompted embarrassing police retaliation, law enforcement across the country has been nervous about the potential of activists to shake things up. Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney recently called for a federal investigation into groups such as the Ruckus Society that demonstrate in major cities' streets during high profile conferences.

"There's a cadre, if you will," Timoney said Friday, "of criminal conspirators who are about the business of planning conspiracies to go in and cause mayhem and cause property damage." According to Timoney, Sellers is one of those people.

Critics of the police say Sellers isn't a conspiratorial mastermind. As director of Ruckus, he is simply one of many involved in the unprecedented cooperation between environmentalists, labor groups and other activists.

But interest in the Ruckus Society grew after the broadly organized WTO protests in Seattle. In addition, the group's Ruckus Camps -- which teach activists how to harness themselves to billboards, scale skyscrapers or form police-resistant human chains -- have received attention from activists, media outlets and law enforcement.

Founded in 1995 as a group to teach demonstration techniques to environmental groups such as Earth First! and the Rainforest Action Network, Ruckus has evolved into perhaps the best known group among protesters calling for a reduction in corporate influence in government.

Sunday, Salon spoke with Ruckus program director Han Sham, as Sellers awaited his bail reduction hearing Monday afternoon.

What do you think of the $1 million bail set for John Sellers?

It does seem pretty outrageous. One million bucks and he's being held on eight misdemeanors.

They're claiming that he shackled himself to a trash can, and all of these things that are just absolutely false. He has alibis for all day, every day that they accuse him of doing something illegal. Most of those alibis are his mom and a bunch of reporters whom he has been talking to. He spent the better part of Sunday and Monday with his mom. Monday and Tuesday he was with reporters with whom he had a rapport.

The police say that he was in the middle of the crowd Tuesday smashing things. Those charges are just false. They don't have any substance. When he was arrested he had a cellphone and a Palm Pilot on him. They're trying to show that he was behind the scenes as the puppet master, that he was the wizard behind the curtain telling people what to do via cellphone. They want to hold him responsible for everything that happened Tuesday. It's very troubling.

Has this made you or other people who have high-profile roles in the protest movement nervous?

Yeah, honestly. I'm not nervous because I've done anything wrong, I'm just worried about a misperception around Ruckus. A lot of that has been fostered by some of the powers that be in Los Angeles. I think John fell victim to Ruckus' popularity. There's a total misperception about us and our tactics. And there's definitely a misperception about how much we're responsible for as far as the strength of this new movement. I'm proud of this Ruckus family and all these people we consider to be in the Ruckus nexus, but this movement is a lot bigger than Ruckus. We're just identified so closely with these mass protests. Quite frankly, we're getting more credit than we deserve.

Is this simply an effort to keep John and other protesters off the streets in Los Angeles?

In the short term, I think that's the first goal. I believe they're trying to intimidate and scare us. They're sending a message that perceived organizers will be dealt with harshly.

There's only two gratifying points to this as far as I'm concerned. These actions belie a fear of a burgeoning strength of the movement suspicious of corporate influence over government. They're afraid of our ability to embarrass them. We embarrassed the IMF and WTO. Sure, we embarrassed ourselves in the process sometimes, too. But singling out John belies the authorities' fundamental misunderstanding of how this thing is going. If they think they can take out a couple of people and kill it -- just cut the head off and watch the body die -- they're misinformed.

How do you think Ruckus became a target for the Philadelphia police?

We cosponsored a training with the Philadelphia Direct Action Group and Philly ACT UP and the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. We had some trainers at it and helped to form the curriculum and give some input to it. I know the cops were there. We intentionally opened the training to the public. They said they infiltrated the training, but it's impossible to infiltrate a public venue. We invite the press to our action camps, we try to do things out in the open. We try to conspire in public. We try to do it all under the light of public scrutiny. It seems pretty clear that we're not going to win our case in a court of law, so we'd rather try our case in the court of public opinion.

We practice civil disobedience. We talk about nonviolent direct action practiced by heroes like Gandhi and King, people who we have streets named after in every major American city. They practiced civil disobedience and direct action, just as every movement for social change has. This is a grand American tradition. What we're doing is standing up as people of conscience against a system that is prioritizing corporate profits over everything else.

That is just as much of a human rights violation as "separate but equal" was. So again, they may think they have a case, but we're going to try our case in a different venue than they are. Our credibility depends on our honesty.

But by holding activists in jail, the Philadelphia police seem to have handed protesters an issue heading into Los Angeles.

It could also be a very distracting rallying cry. Certainly this has long-term ramifications. There are bigger picture things at stake than just "Free John Sellers." We don't want it to turn into cops vs. protesters as it always does or even some fight over the First Amendment. We'd much rather the protests stay focused on the corporate takeover of our democracy and a system of government that is prioritizing profits over people. That's what we want to focus on.

Certainly there are problems with the criminal justice system in this country as well. John was arrested on a day when the protests focused on injustices in the criminal justice system. But what we were talking about in Philadelphia and what we want to be targeting in L.A. is the way the criminal justice system targets people of color. It shouldn't be about an organizer being targeted for civil disobedience. This movement is bigger than just John and First Amendment violations.

That being said, I don't disagree that they've given us an issue. It raises some questions about our strength or potential as a movement.

How is John holding up?

I think he's doing all right. Essentially he's asked us to gather funds to bail him. There's a bail reduction hearing set for Monday and he's asked us to be prepared to bail him out. He's not being brutalized or anything. Frankly, I think they know better than to do that with John. He's been isolated from the other activists and general population, which may be a good thing for him.

from Salon, 2000-Aug-4, by Anthony York:

Taking it from the streets
Philly police face ugly allegations after hundreds of protesters are detained for more than two days.

Aug. 4, 2000 | PHILADELPHIA -- As George W. Bush formally accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination down the street, two young protesters were huddled in a downtown park across from police headquarters, comparing their rap sheets.

"It's not that bad," says one. "I got disorderly [conduct], resisting arrest, failure to disperse and obstructing a highway."

But if the two were nonchalant about their future court date, they were furious at the poor treatment they said they received during their two days in jail. They were among the more than 350 arrested by police during protests in Philadelphia since Monday, most of who were still incarcerated as of early Friday morning. "I just got released 20 minutes ago, and I'm taking off," said a visibly shaken protester who would identify himself only by his graffiti name, Hest. "I don't want to be around this jail any longer."

Both Hest and his buddy, freelance journalist Joshua Valocchi, offered eyewitness reports that back up stories of prisoner misconduct and police brutality that have been filtering out of Philadelphia for the last 36 hours. "There are 160 people on hunger strike inside," explained Hest.

When asked about the reasons for the strike, he said it was "a show of solidarity with the people who had been thrown out of their cells and stepped on," and otherwise mistreated.

At the time of the two protesters' testimonials Thursday night, officers were gathered outside the jail to monitor the group of 100 activists holding a vigil for the protesters still incarcerated inside. Among the accusations made by the protesters who have been arrested, and their advocates outside, are that prisoners are being denied bathroom privedges and medical care, and are being "physically brutalized" by police.

"We've been getting reports all night long of severe police brutality," said Amy Kwasnicki, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Direct Action Group, a coalition group of Philadelphia protesters. "Water has been cut off in two of the cell blocks. It's just ridiculous and incredible and frightening. Everyone who has called in from the jails has reported they've heard people screaming in pain, calling out for medical care and police medics are not giving them any care."

There, a police spokeswoman said the stories of misconduct are a mixture of exaggerations, half-truths and flat-out lies. Officer Williams, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Police Department, called the allegations of abuse "absolutely untrue," saying many of those who had been arrested were not cooperating with officers. "All prisoners are treated the same way -- with respect," she said.

Earlier in the day, Police Commissioner John Timoney said it was the protesters who were responsible for their prolonged incarceration. "There's been widespread removal of clothing by both sexes," added Deputy Police Commissioner Robert Mitchell. Mitchell also said that some of the protesters had bombarded jail guards with feces.

But Timoney said police had arrested a group of out-of-towners whom they have identified as the ringleaders of some of the violent protests. "I've never really experienced the intent to harm officers and the ferociousness of the intent, that I saw the other night,'' he said. "This is like the third or fourth city now, and L.A." -- [where the Democratic convention will be held in less than two weeks] -- "might be the fifth, where we've seen this.''

There was much speculation that the protesters would be released as soon as Republicans, and the media, pack their bags in the next day and head out of town. "We're not letting our guard down until the gavel sounds tonight,'' Timoney said Thursday.

Valocchi said he never had any intention of going to jail, or even protesting. He said he ended up in jail after being caught up in "a melee," and was just covering the protests as a journalist. "I was on my way down to the Shadow Conventions when we got caught up in it," he said. "Somehow, a cop got knocked down right in front of us, and my friend and I tried to get out of there. We turned around, and there were all these cops on horses there. The horses were going crazy. Next thing I knew, I was being thrown on the ground and cuffed."

When asked if some of the people arrested had refused to cooperate with police, Valocchi says there was "definitely some of that."

"They kept saying people who cooperated would be let go much faster," Valocchi said. "But people who cooperated got held longer."

Valocchi, still wearing a red jailhouse wristband, said he did not get food for 24 hours, and did not get access to a telephone for 48 hours, even though he cooperated fully with police. In all, he was held for 49 hours. "I hear my girlfriend's been looking for me for like three days," he said. He also said there was one man in a cell near him "vomiting profusely for at least an hour before he got any medical attention. And when he did, that medical attention was a cup of juice and a sugar pill."

Valocchi said he was not the only innocent bystander thrown into jail. "There was a jogger who got yanked in. He was just a scared mama's boy in running shoes and a security shirt. I heard him on the phone with his mom, and he sounded completely terrified, telling his mom they were treating us like pigs."

"As a journalist, I've always been a big defender of the Philadelphia Police Department in general," he said. "But no more. They were completely out of control."

Inside, he described the police bureaucracy as "a total paperwork nightmare." He said he was even thrown back in jail after being arraigned and released on his own recognizance.

"I was arraigned, released, taken back downstairs and put back in a cell," he said. "Some female officer just threw me back in there, she said she didn't know what had happened to me, if I had been released or what. She just yelled to this other cop, 'Just put him somewhere.'"

Valocchi's story does not quite measure up to some of the others that have been filtering out about alleged police mistreatment, such as postings on the Philadelphia Independent Media Center site that claim some protesters have been beaten into "a bloody mess."

Kwasnicki said protesters would keep a presence around police headquarters until all the protesters are released, and that two more rallies have been planned here for Friday. But, as the week comes to a close, the numbers of protesters are declining, too, returning back from where they came. When the remaining protesters are released, there may not be many people left to greet them.

from Reason, 2000-Feb, by Jesse Walker:

The Broken Blue Line
How to start a riot

You've heard of gun control? In December, the man who runs Seattle dreamed up the bright notion of gas mask control. With tear gas wafting through his downtown streets, Mayor Paul Schell declared a state of emergency, imposing not just a curfew and a no-protest zone but a ban on the private possession of gas masks.

This was no toothless restriction: Several people -- it's useless trying to get a precise count -- were actually arrested for breaking the rule. Far fewer people were arrested for smashing windows, looting stores, or otherwise breaking laws with a foundation more solid than a last-minute mayoral fiat.

The media love a simple story, and the prevalent account of the Seattle riots is simple indeed. Thousands came to Seattle, the tale goes, to protest the meeting of the World Trade Organization. Most of the marchers were peaceful, but there was also a handful of violent "anarchists," who started smashing store windows. Soon, local criminals joined the fray, looting the downtown shops. The police were poorly prepared and understaffed, and were unable to keep the looters from running wild. Under pressure from federal officials,  Seattle declared an emergency, called in the National Guard, and let the police cut loose. The next day, the cops went overboard, beating even peaceful marchers and innocent bystanders.

A straightforward narrative, but not an entirely accurate one. According to several witnesses -- demonstrators, delegates, journalists -- police violence broke out on the first day of the conference, not the second. It was directed not at the window smashers but at a knot of protesters blocking delegates from entering the Seattle Convention Center (a few of whom were also spitting on, and throwing things at, delegates and cops). Around 10:30 or 11 that morning, the police started using tear gas to disperse the crowd, which was pressed up against the police line. Unwisely, the cops threw the gas canisters into the crowd, over people's heads, thus putting those at the front of the mass in a double-bind: Run forward, toward the police, or run backward, toward the gas. Needless to say, the scene only grew more chaotic.

As for the vandals, they had been running unchecked all morning, with nary a peep from the police. "The cops thought their job was to watch the protesters," comments Jessamyn West of the Direct Action Network. "On day one, the cops were just sitting there like dorks. That created a sense of lawlessness: I think all the troublemakers saw the cops ignoring them and thought they could go to town."

This deliberate inaction was not limited to the protest area: According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, police ignored several calls for assistance from around the city, so focused were they on the events downtown. One woman, discovering someone had broken into her house, called 911 -- and was told to call back once the trade meeting was over. With the police unwilling to stop the vandalism, other protesters filled the breach, blocking shops and trying to restrain the window breakers.

The next day, of course, the cops were a lot more active: They gassed whole blocks, fired rubber bullets, and beat bystanders and peaceful protesters. This did not, however, stop the looting: Indeed, far from being more secure, some business owners were gassed in front of their own stores, according to their testimony at a post-WTO city council meeting. The police arrested people almost indiscriminately, with several journalists getting caught in the dragnets. In the evening, they chased a bunch of demonstrators out of the no-protest zone -- then kept chasing, crossing Interstate 5 and entering Capitol Hill, a hip neighborhood and shopping district. The result was chaos, with police attacking locals outside their homes and on their way home from work.

Why were the police even in Capitol Hill? No one seems sure. "From what I hear, there were only one or two windows broken at all on Capitol Hill," comments Rich Lang, a real estate agent who lives in the neighborhood. Lang is in a position to know: He's the president of the Capitol Hill Stewardship Council and a former president of the Capitol Hill Community Council, and he has been active in neighborhood affairs for about 10 years. He wasn't involved with the demonstrations downtown; he's mad at the police for local reasons.

"There were all these police across the street from Starbucks, and they weren't doing anything," he exclaims. "Why didn't they try to stop the people who were trashing the place instead of tear gassing the neighborhood?"

None of this is to excuse the violent fringe of the protests, let alone the apolitical thugs who joined and perhaps dominated the shop-smashing spree. (Of the handful of people arrested for looting, all were Seattle locals and all had criminal records.) It's also important, though, to make distinctions within the protest community. Many demonstrators joined local volunteer crews to clean up the damage. Two days after the last looting spree, local activist Troy Skeels notes,  "The city was turning away cleanup volunteers because there was nothing left to clean up."

Of course, some Seattleites didn't want anyone tying up the streets, whether or not they were peaceful. "I share the organizers' objection to the WTO's structure, purpose, and policies," one downtown worker told me. But, she added, "I think it was a big stupid to try and shut down the meeting.... By the time I'd spent 90 minutes trying to get to work Tuesday, I'd have fucking joined the WTO if they'd had open enrollment." Still other locals turned into riot tourists, coming downtown to watch the melee at closer range. "I kept seeing people I knew who weren't very political," comments West. "I'd ask them why they were there. They'd say, "We just wanted to check out the scene.'"

Nor is everyone upset with the police. Emily McGee, attending as a correspondent for CEI UpDate, got gassed along with everyone else. Nonetheless, she reports, "In general, the police behaved admirably.... The majority of them did a very difficult job as best they were able." She grants that there were "incidents of the police behaving in an atrocious fashion," but feels most of the blame lies further up the chain of command.

Indeed, the chief of police has resigned in the wake of the street battles, with the city promising to investigate just where things went wrong. With that report pending, two lessons already seem clear:

Beware of police preaching crowd control. It seems strange that the police would beat bystanders, lock up journalists, and gas whole neighborhoods, while leaving it to ordinary citizens to prevent vandalism and looting. But it actually makes a perverse sort of sense. The officers were told to guard the convention center and control the crowd, not to protect people and property. They were given virtually no flexibility to respond to other events: On the first  day of the conference, some police reportedly explained that they could not cross the street to stop some vandals because that would mean leaving their posts. On day two, the officers may have behaved differently, but they continued to treat civilians as little more than a crowd to be contained.

On day one, no one could get arrested. On day two, anyone could get arrested. The crowd was collectively innocent or collectively guilty; individual wrongdoing was virtually irrelevant. This is the logic of a police state.

Beware of boosters chasing cameras. "For months, we'd been getting news reports and FBI warnings about what to expect in Seattle," says Greg Conko, a delegate from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "If we all knew to expect rioting and the like, why didn't the Seattle government?" An Australian delegate posed exactly that question to a police officer toward the end of the meeting, with Conko present. The officer replied, "The mayor and governor just heard what they wanted to hear."

They sure did. Like many mid-sized metropolises, Seattle is cursed with an elite hell-bent on making the town a "world-class city"-- a code phrase for pouring public money into downtown amenities. Some Seattleites are upset with the cops, some with the protesters, some with the trade organization. Todd Matthews, managing editor of the biweekly paper Real Change, is mad at Mayor Schell and at Patricia Davis, the president of the Port of Seattle Commission. "I was pissed because they brought it here," he says -- "it" being the trade conference. "It was complete  ego that they brought it here, the chance to be on the cover of every newspaper as the mayor of the city that was hosting the WTO." By inviting the conference and dismissing the chances of violence, Matthews argues, "the commissioner and the mayor put the citizens at risk to advance their political careers. It's a personal snub to the citizens of Seattle."

That doesn't quite explain everything: The police certainly knew that violence might break out during the conference, and they issued warnings to that effect to the very same downtown stores they failed to protect. Together with the conference's other mysteries, that inconsistency has fueled a lot of conspiracy theories, mostly to the effect that the vandals, or their leaders, were agents provocateurs, and that police higher-ups wanted a riot to break out.

A likelier possibility, though, is that the city's political authorities simply ignored the police department's warnings. They just didn't want to think about riots, lest they spoil Seattle's militantly mellow image. In Matthews' words, "These guys put the ass back in world-class city."

With political leaders unwilling to think about their pet projects' consequences and police unwilling to make the most basic distinctions between guilt and innocence, the turmoil was almost inevitable. But neither the politicians nor the police seem to have learned their lesson. To this day, Commissioner Davis says she doesn't regret inviting the WTO to town. "Seattle is an international city," she has explained. "This is what we do."

And the police? The next time the WTO wants to hold a meeting, Assistant Chief Ed Joiner told reporters, it should do so in a city with a bigger police force. Or, he added, in a country with a military government.

from http://www.emperors-clothes.com 1999-Dec-2, via the the Slick E-Zine, 1999-Dec-4, by Jim Desyllas:

Collateral Damage in Seattle

Report from Portland student Jim Desyllas (posted 12-2-99)

Called-in from a pay phone outside Seattle. Wed., 7:30 pm Pacific time.

I just spent 4 days in Seattle. The "information" people are getting from the mass media is false. This was not, as Pres. Clinton claims, a peaceful protest marred by the actions of violent protesters. This was a massive, strong but peaceful demonstration which was attacked repeatedly by the police with the express purpose of provoking a violent response to provide photo opportunities for the Western media. I know because I watched it happening. I'll tell you how they did it.

As Michel Chossudovsky says in his "Disarming the New World Order" (See Note # 1 at end for link to that article) - the government put a lot of effort into making sure the protesters in Seattle were a "loyal opposition" who wanted to reform the WTO, not get rid of it. But the people in Seattle - American steel workers, Canadian postal workers, college kids from all over, environmentalists from Australia - you name it - were not for reforming the WTO. They were for getting rid of it.

And this wasn't just true of the protesters. I interviewed delegates. None of them had anything favorable to say about the WTO. Two delegates from the Caribbean were angry about job loss. One delegate from Peru took a bullhorn and got up on a car and spoke to the protestors against the World Trade Organization. He said it hurts the workers and farmers. I interviewed a Norwegian guy from Greenpeace. Totally against it. Even a delegate from Holland said it had hurt the farmers there. He said though it is supposedly democratic, that's actually a lie: the US, England and Canada and a few others get together and decide what they want to do. Then they ask the rest of the countries to vote and if they vote wrong they threaten,"You won't get loans," or whatever. They get them to do what they want by blackmailing them. The Italians we interviewed were upset too. I couldn't find any delegates who were in favor.

So the government instigated a "riot" to discredit the movement against the WTO because they couldn't dilute it. I am not guessing about this. I was there. I saw it happening. And I will tell you I am frankly shocked to see, close up, just how little our leaders care what happens to ordinary people. Clinton can pose and speak a lot of flowery stuff but the truth is - we are nothing to them. I saw this with my own eyes.

Sunday and Monday, there was no violence. None. The people were aggressively non-violent; they were self-policing. Up until Tuesday at 4pm there was one window broken in the whole city - a McDonalds window. This compares favorably to the typical rock concert, let alone a demonstration of people who were non-violently barring entry to the World Trade Center!

At this point, a new group of police - tactical police - moved in and started gassing people and shooting rubber bullets. Is it any surprise that people got mad? Of course, the young kids hit back by breaking some windows in retaliation for being gassed, sprayed with very painful pepper gas, and shot with dangerous "rubber" bullets. The police instigated these kids, plain and simple.

Sunday and Monday they had young cops, using them to block the streets. These were trainees. But Tuesday they had the real cops; none of them were young. They were trained to attack people. A small group, maybe 100 people total, struck back. Then these cops herded that group around the city, making sure there were plenty of photo ops of "violent protesters."

A number of times they had these 100 or so protesters caught between buildings and walls of police. They could easily have arrested and detained this small number of people and gotten it over with. Instead they would gas them and let them go. Then trap them again, gas them again, and again let them go. The cops made no arrests that I know of until late Tuesday night though the skirmishing was going on from three till 9:30. The cops would blockade three or five blocks of an area, give the angry kids room to operate, keep gassing them - when you gas a person, let me tell you, it gets them fighting mad.

Tuesday night the police gassed all of downtown. This was going on from 3 PM, till 6 PM.. Gas everywhere. The kids broke a few windows - McD's, Starbucks - small stuff - burned a few garbage cans. The police were using these people as extras. It was staged. I believe also the police had their own people in there, encouraging people to break stuff - if people think I may be exaggerating, I saw supposed protesters - they were screaming and so on - and then later, when everything was over, the same people tackled other protestors and put handcuffs on them.

At 6pm they issued a State of Emergency. At that point they had pushed the 100 people outside the city limits, so the police went outside the limits too, and they started gassing that area too, gassing the neighborhoods where the regular people live. I am not exaggerating. The police were relentless.

This was in an area from the city limits for about 10 blocks to the Seattle Central Community College. If you were alive, the police gassed you. People coming back from work, kids, women, everyone. People would go out of their houses to see what was happening because these tear gas guns sound like a cannon - and they would get gassed. A block away there was a Texaco gas station - they threw tear gas at gas pumps, believe it or not - they were like vandals. They gassed a bus. I saw it with my own eyes. A bus. The driver, the riders, the people just abandoned it .

I was sitting in a little coffee shop called Rauhaus, [Jim did not spell this - the spelling may be wrong.] They were shooting "rubber" bullets at the glass. I picked up a dozen of the things in a few square feet. They were also shooting this paint that you can only see with a florescent light. They would paint anyone and everyone and then go hunting them.

Anyway, because they were gassing everybody, the local people got mad too and they joined the 100 who had been herded out of the city. So soon there were 500 including the neighborhood people and all very angry. Naturally. Because they had been gassed and hit with pepper spray, that stuff does a number on you. And shot with these damn bullets. Then people set up barricades at Seattle Central Community College. The cops organized themselves for about an hour and then moved in and gassed that area.

Today they started mass arrests. That was because Clinton - the Greeks call him the Planitarchis, Ruler of the World - was coming. Weeping crocodile tears about how he just LOVES peaceful protest, which of course you'd have to be two years old to believe he had nothing to do with the police action. This whole thing, this police attack, this was US foreign policy, not some action decided by some bureaucrat in Seattle. This was the State Department. They wanted to discredit the people.

When things started on Sunday, there was a protest rally of solidarity involving people from different walks of life. Monday it got even bigger. Tuesday there was a big sort of carnival where people were doing different things, a band was playing music and people were blocking the World Trade Center. And about 3 PM the cops started throwing tear gas.

The thing that drove Clinton crazy was that on Tuesday the protesters had succeeded in making nonviolent human chains and had therefore stopped everyone from going into the World Trade Center. Only maybe 27 delegates got through, mostly US and British. There were what seemed like tens of thousands of protesters involved. So the police did their gassing number against these nonviolent people to break up the human chains and make the protesters look violent.

Today (Wednesday) I followed the union protest put together by the Longshoremen's Union. They went down to the docks and had a rally then marched to Third Avenue. As soon as they got there the cops started gassing them. There was an old lady there. She had gone downtown by bus to buy something. This lady was in her 70's and I saw her trying to run, but she couldn't breathe. She was in shock. I carried her to a building entryway. She was gasping, terrified. She had been in Germany, and it was like she was having flashbacks. The tear gas sounds like gunfire and there were helicopters overhead, sirens, cops on horses, everything.

They had clearly made a decision to destroy this movement.

So anyway there I was with her in this building and she wanted to go to the hospital but there was tear gas everywhere and I was afraid if I tried to move her she'd be gassed again. I went to this line of cops and begged - I mean begged - these riot police to help her. They ignored me. A girl told me later that a one year old had been gassed. And I myself saw a girl no more than 18 - a cop had busted her lip wide open - she was bleeding - and then they gassed everyone including her. After that she was kneeling on the ground crying like a baby and praying for 15 minutes, Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Over and over. She was in a state of shock. They just gassed these people who were sitting down non-violently and doing nothing. Nothing.

At one point the Seattle Mayor said his boys were not using rubber bullets. Miraculously, by then I had ten in my pocket. I could open a little market, sell the things. They are everywhere. I and other people started giving them to delegates and stuff. "See what they're doing? They're shooting "rubber" bullets and lying about it." We showed them to the media. I guess enough people and the media got the information because the Mayor made a new statement then that they were using them. As if he hadn't known.

They shot rubber bullets from four feet away into the face of a guy next to me, broke all his front teeth. When that happened I lost it. I forgot I was supposed to be getting the news for all of you and I started yelling at the cops, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you sick, man?" So this cop aimed his gun right at me. That was his answer. So I first put my hands in front of my face because I didn't want to lose my teeth. And then I thought, to hell with it. I was wearing my target shirt that said "Collateral Damage", you know? With a bullseye target, like they wore during the bombing in Yugoslavia. And I told this guy, "Go ahead, shoot! Here! Here's the target!" He didn't shoot me.

I want to emphasize, these protesters were NOT violent people. They were the most non-violent people I have ever seen. Even when I was screaming at the cop, this girl came up to me and said, "Do not scream. This is non-violent." These people were too much to believe. They must meditate all the time, I don't know.

Clinton said he supports nonviolent protest. That is baloney. Today (Wed.) the protesters were causing absolutely no "trouble". In downtown the cops had people running who weren't even protesters - like that old lady or just people going to work or shopping - everyone was getting gassed. The busses weren't running because of the gas. I was lucky to catch one with a driver who could still see. I begged him to drive the old lady home - the driver changed his route especially for her. If you want to find human decency, stay away from the Planitarchis. Go to the to regular people. They have some. The Planitarchis lost all his years ago. Now he wouldn't know human decency if it came up and bit him.

So now I have made personal acquaintance with the people who run this country, and they are quite simply scum. There were people at work, people with babies, they were all getting gassed because the government would not allow an assembly of people speaking their minds. It is the same as what happened in Athens. Clinton's requirements on the Greek government created the riot and he did the same thing here. And then he says he supports nonviolent protest? How? By shooting rubber bullets? And today they outlawed gas masks. They want to make sure everyone gets his money's worth.

Today, just like yesterday night, the police were in the residential neighborhoods. People in caf=E9s were getting gassed and shot at, you could hear it on the windows, bang, bang, bang. A guy trying to cross the street to go to his house got gassed. First a drunk guy outside a bar yelled at the cops "Get out of here!" so they gassed him. And then this other guys was just crossing the street to go home so the cops figured, might as well gas him too. People got gassed for coming out of restaruants and bars and coffeee shops. I'm amazed that nobody died who had asthma or something.

Or maybe somebody did die and they didn't talk about it. I mean after all, it's just collateral damage..

***

Note # 1 - For a critical look at the World Trade Organization, click on SEATTLE AND BEYOND: DISARMING THE NEW WORLD ORDER or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/seattle.htm

If you would like to browse articles from Emperors-Clothes.com, click here Or go to: http://www.emperors-clothes.com

Panel sees danger ahead for America
Domestic threats seen likely to increase

Over the next 25 years the U.S. will increasingly become less secure domestically against a range of terrorist attacks, forcing people to expand their "concept of national security" while testing individual political values, according to a report authored by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century.

The commission, headed by former senators Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman and staffed by business, academic and former military leaders, is currently studying the issue of national security in preparation of a three-part report to be completed by April 2001. Of their most significant findings, the panel believes that "America will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland, and our military superiority will not entirely protect us" over the next quarter century.

The first report, entitled, " New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century," concluded that the U.S. will remain "both absolutely and relatively stronger than any other state or combination of states." However, the panel said "emerging powers -- either singly or in coalition -- will increasingly constrain U.S. options regionally and limit its strategic influence." Consequently, the commission believes "(the U.S.) will remain limited in our ability to impose our will, and we will be vulnerable to an increasing range of threats against American forces and citizens overseas as well as at home."

"States, terrorists, and other disaffected groups," the report said, "will acquire weapons of mass destruction and mass disruption, and some will use them. Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." The commission also believes "rapid advances in information and biotechnologies" will also "create new vulnerabilities for U.S. security." And, the panel said, advances in communications and information technology will make national borders "more porous; some will bend and some will break."

The notion that American citizens will someday be subjected to varying forms of terrorism on their own turf is garnering increasing concern from military and political leaders as well. In February, Defense Secretary William Cohen even told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Americans might have to surrender some civil rights in order to gain more security in the fight against domestic terrorism.

"We need greater intelligence and that means not only foreign-gathered intelligence but here at home," Cohen said. "That is going to put us on a collision course with rights of privacy. And it's something that democracies have got to come to grips with -- how much are we going to demand of our intelligence agencies and how much are we willing to give up in the way of intrusion into our lives? That is a tradeoff that is going to have to come."

Already lawmakers are considering legislation that would enhance the use of military forces in domestic law enforcement capacities. The FY 2000 Defense Authorization Bill, already passed by the House, includes provisions that would provide local law enforcement agencies increased access to military assets without necessarily having to compensate the Pentagon for their use.

But critics have dismissed the idea as a blatant violation of the Posse Comitatus Act -- which prevents U.S. military forces from engaging in most domestic law enforcement activities -- as well as a recipe to invite more military involvement from civil authorities no longer concerned about "paying the government back."

Greg Nojeim, Washington legislative counsel for the ACLU, said, "The defense authorization bill promises more military involvement in civilian law enforcement at virtually the same time Congress is investigating the role of the military units at Waco."

"We're particularly concerned that the bill effectively removes any requirement that military units be relied on only in an emergency," he added.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., denied that, saying, "There is no Posse Comitatus exception contained in this provision. The fact is this provision specifically prohibits military personnel from engaging in 'search, seizure, arrest or similar activity.'"

Nevertheless, the panel's belief that more domestic terrorism will hit the U.S. over the next quarter century is a theme popular in the nation's capitol, and the most dangerous aspect of the report, others say, is that it will only serve to reinforce the notion among lawmakers that decreasing civil liberties to enhance security is the only viable solution.

The report -- the panel's second of four planned reports -- was released September 20 and provided supporting research and analysis of the commission's earlier predictions that the U.S. will eventually be attacked domestically, "the survival and security of the United States" remains a priority among national leaders.

The 151-page report also discusses the nature of global economics -- a contributing factor to potential unrest -- and how peoples and nations will be governed over the next quarter-century. The panel believes more "international and improved regulatory regimes" in the future may translate "into less capacity for states to manipulate national economic policy." The report said "ties that bind individual or group loyalty to a state can change and even unravel, and the next 25 years portend a good deal of unraveling."

"In all cases," the commission said, "the changes ahead have the potential to undermine the authority of states." Some experts cited by the panel, such as Wolfgang H. Reinicke, suggest that the principle of state sovereignty itself, "and the state system, is wasting away."

But the panel countered this view with supporting commentary from other experts who see inherent danger in losing sovereignty. In any case, the commission believes state sovereignty will survive the "next 25 years, and probably long after."

The Waco Before Waco

With the exception of Geraldo Rivera, most Americans seem to have grasped, by now, that responsibility for the Waco massacre goes all the way to the top. Even so, we cannot pin the blame solely on Bill and Hillary. The militarization of U.S. policing has proceeded unchecked through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Indeed, one of the earliest Waco-like incidents occurred on May 13, 1985, long before Bill Clinton was even a blip on the political radar screen.

That day, police emptied 10,000 rounds of ammunition into a house in West Philadelphia, in a ninety-minute period. They fired Uzis, shotguns, M-16s, ..50-caliber machineguns, Browning semiautomatic rifles and M-60 machineguns. A 20mm antitank gun was also on hand, though police claim they never fired it.

Later that day, a canvas satchel containing four and a half pounds of C-4 plastic explosive was dropped on the house by helicopter. The ensuing fire consumed not only that house, but sixty others, leaving the neighborhood a smoking ruin.

At whom was all this firepower aimed? The targets were four men, three women and six children - members of an anti-government, urban survivalist cult called MOVE. Police say the cultists shot first, after lawmen tried to arrest four of them.

But Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor inadvertently cast doubt on this claim when he testified that the first shots came from automatic weapons. MOVE had no such weapons - only two shotguns, two pistols and one .22-caliber rifle..

In any case, all MOVE members in the house were killed that day, except for one woman and one 13-year-old boy.

Back in 1986, I attended the trial of Ramona Africa - the lone adult survivor of the MOVE house - and wrote a cover story about the massacre for the East Village Eye. In that article, I suggested that the scorched-earth tactics used against MOVE were a trial balloon, designed to test public reaction to a new style of ultra-violent policing.

My theory rested partly on the fact that federal agencies had encouraged and facilitated the MOVE massacre behind the scenes. The FBI, for instance, provided C-4, a military explosive forbidden to civilian police. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms provided permission and tax waivers for other military weapons.

Most curious, however, were the "reforms enacted in the massacre's wake.. Arguing that the slaughter had resulted from random bungling by overzealous cops, Mayor W. Wilson Goode announced a sweeping reorganization supposedly aimed at increasing the professionalism of Philadelphia police.

Goode's proposals ranged from the creation of an elite counter-terrorist strike force, to the establishment of unprecedented liaisons with federal law enforcement agencies, to training for police at military facilities, and even to anti-terrorist schools and "crisis management training for city officials by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

In short, Goode called for more of the very same medicine that had caused the problem in the first place: outside meddling from federal goons.

Years later, in 1993, federal "crisis management once again made headlines, this time in Waco, Texas. Parallels between the MOVE and Waco massacres read like guidelines drawn from the same tactical handbook.

In both cases, last-minute offers to negotiate were ignored by lawmen. In both cases, fires were deliberately allowed to burn out of control. Both at Waco and at the MOVE house, people trying to escape the flames were forced back inside by gunfire.

Even more startling, lawmen in both cases claimed that the cultists had set fire to themselves. In the midst of a civil suit brought by MOVE survivors and relatives, Lt. Frank Powell suddenly anounced that the fire had been deliberately set by MOVE members, not by the bomb he dropped.

"They chose their own end," Powell told reporters on May 1, 1996. MOVE members had doused the roof with flammable liquid, then torched it, Powell said.

His claim - which contradicted the findings of the city Fire Marshal and the mayor's MOVE Commission - evidently did not impress the jury, which awarded Ramona Africa and relatives of two other MOVE victims $1.5 million in damages.

If the MOVE bombing really was a trial balloon, it was evidently a successful one. The media accepted the story of bungling, overzealous cops. Public outrage was confined to ineffectual liberal handwringing, much of it centered around the irrelevant fact that the MOVE victims were black.

Is Waco another trial balloon? Have the feds upped the ante this time, with a blatant use of Delta Force commandos, a higher body count, and a "whiter list of victims (about half the Waco dead were Anglo, the other half mostly black, with some Mexicans and Asians)?

Very likely. If we fail to challenge this latest atrocity, even ghastlier Wacos may lie ahead.

---

Richard Poe is a freelance journalist and a New York Times-bestselling author. His latest book is Wave 4 (Prima, 1999). Poe's Website can be found at RichardPoe.coM

from TPD 1999-Oct-4, from Etherzone, by Edward Zehr:

GOVERNMENT TERRORISM
From Ruby Ridge To Waco And Beyond

Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article by Dorothy Rabinowitz which summarizes the Wenatchee witch hunts, a series of lunatic persecutions that occurred in the state of Washington around the middle of the decade. Compared to what happened at Wenatchee, the Salem witch trials seem almost a model of evenhanded jurisprudence. Of the 19 people convicted of "child molestation" in this outbreak of mass psychosis, eight have already had their convictions reversed on appeal. Referring to the testimony of the state's star witnesses in one of the cases, Whitman County Superior Court Judge Wallis Friel, who had been appointed in 1998 by a state appeals court to look into the conduct of the investigation, remarked that "no rational trier of fact would believe these allegations."

That is putting it mildly. Compared to the bizarre fantasies hatched in the sick, twisted minds of social workers employed by the state's Child "Protective" Service, all those tales of witch's Sabbaths, broomstick-riding, etc. seem relatively mundane. The methods used by the prosecution at Wenatchee are remarkably similar to those used in the Salem trials, however. An arrogant, hysterical clique of mentally-ill adults bullied a bunch of defenseless children into giving false testimony against victims who seem to have been selected for their inability to defend themselves effectively. One of the defendants at Wenatchee could barely speak English.

But, of course, this was a local matter. What has it to do with Ruby Ridge or Waco? Well, for one thing, it is a product of the same sick society in which all of us must live, and to which any of us could fall victim. And, for another thing, it was made possible by a "justice" system that has been shaped by law enforcement, prosecutors and the courts for their own convenience, a system in which perjured testimony is routinely coerced by the state with threats of Draconian sentences. That is what set the stage for the tragedy at Ruby Ridge.

But hanging over it all is the poisonous smoke of Political Correctness. Earlier, "child abuse" had been one of the preferred evils of the PC crowd that dominates the academic scene in this country. The absolute fanaticism and hate-twisted irrationality with which the products of this indoctrination system set out to exorcise their demons once they had been turned loose on society and wormed their way into petty positions of power is a measure of the sickness that pervades our institutions of higher "learning." This is one of the factors that produced the Waco holocaust.

RUBY RIDGE REVISITED

Following the Republican sweep in the congressional election of 1994, conservative activist Jerry Pournelle asked Newt Gingrich, with whom he had "worked closely for more than a decade," about the Waco massacre, which he said would "haunt America until the truth, however ugly, came out." Newt brushed him off, indicating that he had more important things on his mind. Well, now Newt is gone, but Waco remains, burning deeper into the conscience of the nation (such as it is) than ever before.

The longer Waco remains an issue, the more the disturbing facts that are bound to come to light. One of the more appalling details that emerged from the shadows recently is a relationship between Waco and the slaughter that took place at Ruby Ridge, where a mother was shot to death by an FBI sniper in her own home while holding a baby in her arms. The incident was shrugged off by the agency as a minor, somewhat unfortunate "accident." But now we are told that the FBI commander at Waco, Richard Rogers, was also in command at Ruby Ridge. And the FBI's paid assassin, Lon Horiuchi, was there as well. It would seem that the FBI took Ruby Ridge very lightly indeed. Nobody of any consequence was hurt -- some "white trash" were eliminated, that's all. The militarized federal agents were merely "doing their job," policing up the area. On to Waco.

At the time of the Waco holocaust few were aware of what had happened at Ruby Ridge. Pournelle comments:

"This puts things in a far more sinister perspective. Not only do we have the man who changed the rules of engagement from return fire to shoot on sight, but we have with him, in a position of authority, armed with armed subordinates, West Point graduate Horiuchi, the man willing to carry out the shoot on sight order."

The point he is making here is that the rules of engagement had formerly prohibited FBI agents from firing at suspects unless their lives were in danger. The rules were relaxed at Ruby Ridge to permit the shooting of these "white separatists" in cold blood, even though the Supreme Court had previously ruled this to be unconstitutional. No doubt the PC power elite approved of the revised rules, if only off the record. After all, had they not been telling us what devils these "extremists" are? They are "racists." They belong to "hate groups." Na ja, recht untermenschen, was? Small wonder Mr. Horiuchi and the federal marshals leaped at the opportunity to mow them down. Some time ago a "conservative" columnist -- I forget which one - wept copious crocodile tears over the cruel opprobrium to which Mr. Horiuchi, the West Point grad turned hit man, had been subjected once word got around that he had blown Mrs. Weaver's brains out, suggesting that he is a person of exquisite sensitivity. You can sort of twig that he was all torn up about it from the way he jumped at the chance to augment his body count at Waco.

The state of Idaho brought involuntary manslaughter charges against Horiuchi for killing Vicki Weaver, only to have them dismissed by a federal court. (He was only following orders). Given what had happened at Ruby Ridge, Pournell asks why Rogers and Horiuchi were at Waco. After all, he points out, "they were already responsible for one of the most shocking incidents since Reconstruction." Pournelle avers that he does not really believe that agents of the U.S. government would massacre women and children en masse at Waco, and yet, says he, if such a thing happened these are the very people you would expect to be in charge.

The Ruby Ridge tragedy unfolded in August of 1992 as the result of an attempt by the BATF to coerce Randy Weaver into becoming an informant. Weaver was entrapped by a BATF undercover agent who offered to buy a shotgun from him provided that he would saw off the barrel to slightly less than legal length. Being desperately poor, with a wife and family to support, and badly needing the money the sale of the weapon would bring him, Weaver complied with the request. He was promptly charged with a firearms violation, obviously intended to entrap Weaver and force him to comply with the demand that he become an informant for the agency. Weaver refused to do so. "For that, he was treated like Saddam Hussein," Sen. Charles Grassley, (R- Iowa) observed at Senate hearings on the incident.

When Weaver failed to appear in court to answer the firearms charge a team of trained marksmen was sent to arrest him on the small, isolated plot of land in Northern Idaho where he lived with his family in a small cabin. But, according to a December 1995 report in Midwest Today, a deputy court clerk testified that he had informed Idaho Judge Harold Ryan that the date on Weaver's summons was erroneous. However, the judge simply ignored him and signed a bench warrant for Weaver's arrest, despite the fact that the summons ordered Weaver to appear six days later. Clearly the fix was in.

According to Weaver's attorney, Gerry Spence, writing in his book, "From Freedom To Slavery, The Rebirth Of Tyranny In America," the agents arrived at Weaver's property heavily armed, wearing camouflage suits. "They gave Randy no warning of their coming. They came without a warrant. They never identified themselves."

The intruders were first noticed by the family dogs. Alerted by their barking, Randy Weaver, accompanied by family friend Kevin Harris, and his 14-year-old son, Sammy, went to investigate. They all carried guns, as is common in that part of the country. The countryside is still untamed and it is not unusual to run across wild animals, such as bears. One of the government agents, U.S. Marshal Arthur Roderick, promptly shot the family's dog, Striker, who gave out a yelp, attracting Sammy to the scene just in time to see the dog, which had been shot in the spine, dragging itself around with its front legs, shrieking in pain before falling over dead. Presumably shocked by what he had just seen, the boy fired off a wild shot, whereupon one of the agents shot him in the arm, nearly blowing it off. Sammy turned and started to flee, screaming with pain, but one of the still unidentified agents shot him in the back with a submachine gun, killing him.

When Kevin Harris, who had seen the dog being shot, next witnessed Weaver's son being shot in the back as he turned and ran, he fired off a shot in the direction of the still unidentified intruders, killing one of them, marshal William Degan, who was concealed in the woods with marshals Roderick and Larry Cooper. The evidence clearly indicated that all three agents had fired at the Weavers and Harris. Harris later said he had assumed that if he attempted to flee, he too would be shot in the back. The federal agents ran for cover, giving Harris a chance to slip away to the Weaver cabin.

The intruders, who were all federal marshals, appear to have fled the scene in panic after Degan had been shot. In their frantic calls for assistance they reported being pinned down and fired at from several positions by "heavy weaponry," according to Midwest Today. Roderick told marshal Dave Hunt, who did not witness the incident, that although the agents had been ambushed they had not returned fire. All of these statements were shown to be false during the course of the subsequent investigation. The marshals were apparently attempting to disguise their actions with a concocted story.

State and federal law enforcement authorities quickly assembled a force of more than 400, equipped with armored personnel carriers, helicopters and sophisticated weaponry better suited to fighting a full-scale war than subduing a "family, including two children and an infant, huddled in a plywood shack," the newspaper observed.

Later that day, Kevin, Randy and his wife Vicki retrieved the boy's body and carried it to a shed near the cabin. When Kevin, Randy and his 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, went to the shed the following evening for a last look at the body, the federal agents opened fire on them, wounding Weaver in the shoulder. The three made a dash for the cabin, where Vicki stood with the baby cradled in her arm, holding the door open. As the three reached the house, Lon Horiuchi, firing from a hidden position, shot Vicki in the head, killing her instantly. When Weaver rushed over to take the baby from his wife's arms he lifted her head and saw that half her face had been blown away.

Vicki's body was covered with a blanket and remained on the floor of the cabin for the remaining 8 days of the siege. Kevin was also hit -- his arm was severely damaged and his lung sustained multiple puncture wounds. Weaver was finally persuaded to surrender by Bo Gritz, his former commander when both had been in the Army's Special Forces. Explaining in a letter to a friend what motivated him to represent Weaver, Spence wrote:

"It is pain that comes from the realization that we have permitted a government to act in our name and in our behalf in a criminal fashion. It is the pain of watching the government as it now attempts to lie about its criminal complicity in this affair and to cover its crimes by charging Randy with crimes he did not commit, including murder. It is the pain of seeing an innocent woman with a child in her arms murdered and innocent children subjected to these atrocities."

Weaver and Harris were both charged with first-degree murder -- and acquitted. Weaver was to serve 16 months for failing to show up in court, even though he had been given the wrong date on which to appear. The government eventually had to pay several million dollars to Weaver and his family in settlement of legal claims resulting from the siege.

Larry Potts, the FBI's high muck-a-muck in charge of the fiasco in Washington was later promoted to the rank of deputy director by FBI head Louis Freeh, a move that required the approval of Attorney General Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton. Freeh was subsequently forced to remove Potts in the face of public outrage after it was revealed that government officials had lied and covered up the role they had played during the siege and had subsequently destroyed official documents relating to it. Other high-ranking FBI officials were suspended or demoted.

Spence said of Weaver, after it was over, "He is just a little old guy who wanted to go up the mountain and be left alone."

WAITING IN WACO

Meanwhile, the wrongful death lawsuit filed against the government and Lon Horiuchi on behalf of survivors of the Waco holocaust has been postponed for an unspecified period, probably until after the first of the year. Details for the premiere of the impatiently awaited film by Mike McNulty, "Waco: A New Revelation" have not yet been announced, although it is believed that it will open in Washington. It is said that the film makers plan to invite to the first showing Attorney General Janet Reno and former Sen. John Danforth, recently appointed by Reno to run an "independent" investigation of the Waco holocaust.

Should these two worthies choose to attend the premiere of McNulty's film they will no doubt get an eyeful. Among the new revelations contained in the footage obtained under the Freedom of Information Act is infrared film from a surveillance aircraft showing figures crouching behind Bradley fighting vehicles, out of sight of the press. A series of bright flashes is seen, which analyst Edward Allard, formerly an Army expert on Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR), identifies as gunfire, some of which is aimed at the door of a concrete storage room where women and children had taken refuge. (This room is often referred to as a "bunker" by mainstream media propagandists who support the government's contention that the flimsy fire-trap at Mount Carmel was a formidable fortress). The figures are believed to be members of Delta Force, firing at the Davidians from concealed positions behind the armored vehicles. The FBI dispute that the flashes of light were caused by gunfire, but then they have also maintained that government personnel had remained inside the vehicles during this part of the operation.

The FBI's contention that the flashes of light were caused by sunlight reflecting off debris such as broken glass on the ground are disputed in the film by Allard and Maurice Cox, a retired mathematician-imagery analyst with a background in intelligence analysis. According to Karen Brooks, writing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Cox demonstrates in the film, using geometry, "That the FLIR plane would have had to circle the compound at a speed of Mach 1.8 to capture reflections in the manner in which the flashes appear on the tape."

Brooks also writes that the film alleges the FBI "used at least six Defense Technologies flash-bang devices -- which spew flames, smoke and heat -- inside the compound in the seconds before the fire broke out." Thus far, the FBI has admitted to firing two pyrotechnic tear gas grenades at a concrete "bunker" which agency spokesmen insist bounced harmlessly off the top of it. However, records found by McNulty in the Rangers' evidence locker indicate that at least three of the expended flash-bangs "were found at or near the places that officials said the fires started."

But the film makers say that they are withholding some of the best details until the film has been seen by the public. "We don't want to give any of them a chance to form their public positions before everyone sees it at the same time," said Aric Johnson, who is also the film's technical director. Janet Reno would seem to have formed an opinion already -- she denounced the conclusions drawn by the film makers a short time before appointing former Sen. Danforth to run the "independent" investigation.

Gregg Easterbrook, writing in the Sept. 10 New Republic, reveals that The General Accounting Office has reported that "the FBI obtained from the Army 250 high-explosive 40 mm rounds of the type fired from infantry grenade launchers." Noting that firing even one of these munitions could have killed innocent bystanders, such as Davidian children within the compound, Easterbrook wonders "what valid law enforcement purpose the FBI, supposedly managing a hostage situation (the children), could have had in mind for 250 high-explosive projectiles designed to cause general destruction."

The only purpose that comes readily to mind is mentioned by the New Republic writer: "to deal the Davidians some revenge for the four agents' deaths." Could that possibly be the reason why the federal government assembled an army of 400 or more at Ruby Ridge for a life-or-death struggle with a small family whom they had terrorized into resistance by the outrageously illegal, unconstitutional, murderous violence they inflicted upon them? Is that why the FBI commander at the scene, Richard Rogers, authorized his agents, including paid assassin Lon Horiuchi, to "shoot on sight," in clear violation of a ruling by the Supreme Court?

One other possible motive comes to mind upon reflection -- the destruction of incriminating evidence. John Culbertson, writing for "Frontline", finds the video of the helicopters, taken during the initial BATF assault on the compound, troubling as well. Although the press were told that the BATF agents in the helicopters were there as "air controllers" and "observers", Culbertson notes that they were armed with AR-15's, in addition to the sidearms they usually wore. It seems that government officials later attempted to deny that long guns were taken on the helicopters even though they are clearly visible in the BATF video. Culbertson also notes that in the segment taken while the helicopters were overflying the compound "there is a suspicious pop, pop, pop in the sound track that sound suspiciously like gun fire."

One of the points hotly disputed by the feds is the allegation that they fired on the Davidian compound from helicopters during the initial assault by the BATF. David Koresh can be heard remonstrating with a negotiator on one of the audio tapes that they had been fired on from the air. Lawyers who were later allowed to briefly visit the Davidian compound told of seeing bullet holes in the roof. What better way to efface such evidence than to burn the place down and bulldoze the wreckage ("losing" one of the front doors in the process)? Why is this point so important? After all, there is no question that the BATF agents directed heavy fire into the Davidian compound. One agent was observed crouched behind a vehicle, firing blindly into the building (that was full of women and children) -- a technique known in the trade as "pray and spray." The basic issue involved here is who started the shooting. As Culbertson notes, there was no shooting by either side as the BATF agents initially approached the building. It was only after three Texas Air National Guard helicopters appeared over the scene that the shooting started.

High-ranking officials of the BATF have testified before Congress that their agents were "ambushed" by Davidians who fired through the two front doors of the Davidian compound as the agents approached. Thus when BATF agents "returned fire" they were only defending themselves. They told Congressman Charles Schumer that the fusillade had been so intense that the doors had actually "bowed outward". In fact, the BATF officers maintained, they had videotapes that showed the first shots being fired through the doors from inside the building.

Since TV news footage had shown both doors being moved by a bulldozer, it should have been a straightforward matter to demonstrate the truth of the agency's claims. But nothing in the government's case ever seems to be straightforward. The BATF told Congressman Schumer's committee that the videotapes were "missing" (surprise, surprise) and that one of the front doors could not be found either. What's more, the single door that was recovered showed conclusively that bullets had penetrated it only from the outside. There was no evidence that the Davidians had returned fire through the door.

Ah, well it must have been the OTHER door that was bowed outward then, you know -- the one that's "missing." See, this was a highly segregated gun battle; the Davidians fired only through one door and the BATF "returned fire" only through the other one. The things one is required to believe these days in order not to be dissed as a "conspiracy theorist" boggle the mind.

Not to worry. With an ostentatious show of disdain, Chuckie Schumer dismissed the "missing" door as "irrelevant." Let's see now, the one door that was recovered indicates that the BATF agents fired into the building and the other door, the one that is said to be "bowed outward" due to the intense barrage of gunfire let loose by the Davidians, is "missing." Conclusion: the Davidians fired first, and the evidence of this is "irrelevant." Right, got it. Next case.

Michael Levine, who hosts the "Expert Witness" radio show commented in an OpEd piece in which he recounted the above details concerning the doors:

"I have spent 35 years in Federal and State courts testifying as an expert witness in many matters relating to Law Enforcement including The Rules of Engagement and will offer my testimony here: the questions of the missing door and videotape, the identification of individuals responsible for their disappearance and Congressman Schumer's logic and motivation in calling this key evidence "irrelevant" must be answered fully for there ever to be a true healing of the festering wound on America's soul called Waco."

As Levine points out, if the government agents fired first they violated the Rules of Engagement, and every subsequent act of theirs involving deadly force "was clearly both a Federal and Texas State felony." And that, gentle reader, is why the Danforth investigation must be yet another coverup. The government simply will not countenance having its law enforcement officers portrayed as lawless marauders, no matter how accurate such a portrayal may be. As the French general said in "explaining" why Capt. Dreyfus was "guilty" (in the movie version, anyway), "If Dreyfus is innocent, the Army is guilty. If the Army is guilty, France is defenseless." Court adjourned.

The FBI had described the siege as a "hostage situation." Theyseem to have resigned themselves to settling down for the long haul. Shining searchlights into the windows of the compound, playing tapes of animals being slaughtered, shutting off the power so that the Davidians were forced to use kerosine lamps for light in their tinder-dry fire-trap, and similar neat touches that raise serious questions as to which side of the fence the "loonies" were supposed to be on. Then, 51 days after the siege had begun, it ended abruptly in the final assault and holocaust that killed more than 80 people. Why?

Janet Reno said afterwards that she had received reports that "child abuse" was going on within the compound. Whenever the cry of "child abuse" is raised you can be certain that the PC witch- burners are about to make an appearance. Sure enough, they were right on cue this time. I wonder if Reno has seen photos of those children taken after the fire? I have. She accuses the Davidians of child abuse? It's difficult to imagine any abuse worse than being burned alive. The Justice Department later admitted that there were no reports of child abuse. No explanation of the contradiction has ever been forthcoming. It's just as well. Who could believe anything those people say at this point? Have they ever gotten ANYTHING right? Oh yes, Reno had another explanation as well: the agents were getting tired.

So they just moved in with their tanks one morning and started pumping the place full of CS gas. Gregg Easterbrook wrote: "Tear gas doesn't just produce tears; it causes choking and convulsions. It is far more dangerous to children, whose lungs are sensitive, than to adults; the children, it causes agony. And there was the FBI's armored vehicle, pumping tear gas for six hours into a compound full of children."

No doubt the federal agents who did this are all decent people who have families and maybe even go to church on Sunday. Is that so surprising? As much could just as likely be said of the security staff at Auschwitz. Throughout history "decent" people have done some truly awful things.

OKLAHOMA CITY TO THE END OF THE LINE

After watching films of preparations for the BATF raid on MountCarmel and footage from the helicopter used by the agency in that failed operation, wrote Culbertson, the former sheriff shouted in anger and disbelief, "If it wasn't for Waco, there wouldn't have been an Oklahoma City."

Law enforcement officers are sworn to uphold the law, protect the innocent and keep the peace, but here they were about to break the peace, playing soldier against a make-believe enemy in pursuit of "appropriations and glory." And the worst of it is, their "enemy" included a great many elderly and children, the very people they are supposed to protect. "The BATF," Culbertson observed, "had lost sight of the true law enforcement mission and had lost it's moral compass."

And so, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh, outraged at the excesses of the federal government and nursing their "conspiracy theories" set out to avenge the victims of Waco. "At one time conspiracy theorists may have been viewed as eccentrics far out on the fringe," warned Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, "but then Timothy McVeigh drove a truck full of explosives to Oklahoma City and we all discovered just how dangerous it can be when people stop trusting the government."

There you have it in a nutshell -- it's "dangerous" not to trust the government. First thing you know some nut goes out and buys a truckload of fertilizer and then, Ka-BLOOEY!

Could it really be that simple? Not really. As Christine Gorman noted in an article that appeared in Time magazine on May 1, 1995, a home-made ANFO bomb presents certain difficulties for the beginner. She quotes Jeffrey Dean, executive director of the International Society of Explosives Engineers in Cleveland, as saying that "ANFO is easy to make if you know how to do it, but it takes years of experience to work with it safely." It isn't just that a couple of tyros such as Nichols and McVeigh would have been more likely to blow themselves up than produce a workable 4800 pound ANFO bomb, though. The article notes that, "it is almost impossible for amateurs to mix thoroughly the ammonium nitrate with the fuel oil. (Commercial manufacturers use industrial-size blenders for the job.)"

Ammonium nitrate is mixed with fuel oil to make an ANFO bomb. (The FO in ANFO is the fuel oil). If the AN and the FO are not properly mixed the resulting batter will be lumpy with the consequence that clumps of ammonium nitrate will fail to detonate, being scattered instead about the site of the explosion. A case that occurred in California in 1990 is cited as an example of amateur bomb-making. It involved a "disgruntled engineer" who detonated a ton of his very best home made ANFO in a truck parked in front of the local IRS branch office. The article notes that "only a fraction of the compounds in the vehicle exploded, and no one was killed."

McVeigh and Nichols were even less successful when they tested a small ammonium nitrate bomb they had built in 1994. When they tried to set off the bomb in the desert near Kingman, Arizona, only the detonator went off strewing ammonium nitrate all over the place, according to Michael Fortier's testimony at the McVeigh trial. Nevertheless, the prosecution said, six months later they were able to build a two-ton bomb of the same type in less than a day.

It is significant in this context that only microscopic traces of ammonium nitrate were found at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing, indicating that the manufacture of the bomb had been done in a very professional manner. While Ms. Gorman mentions in her article that fertilizer would have to be treated in order to make it into an explosive, she tells her readers that "such information is available in books published by fringe presses and on the Internet." Just so, but one should not infer from her statement that it is easy to do. As she stated in her very first paragraph, "The act of terror that demolished the Murrah building and destroyed scores of human lives required a basic understanding of chemistry, skill at bombmaking and some technical know-how to jury-rig a few key component that are not easy to get."

The Department of the Army and Air Force Technical Manual No. 9-1910, titled "Military Explosives," tells us that ANFO requires a greater than 99% purity of ammonium nitrate, as well as a specific dryness, before it can be mixed with diesel fuel to create an explosive substance. According to the FBI, the OKC bomb was made from 50 bags of fertilizer. At 100 pounds per bag that would work out about right -- except for one detail, fertilizer has nowhere near the 99% purity of ammonium nitrate required for explosives. And although the literature to which Ms. Gorman referred does indeed give the information required to produce an explosive from fertilizer, without the proper equipment -- to which neither Nichols nor McVeigh had access -- the conversion would be a long and arduous process. But Nichols and McVeigh had only hours in which to complete the procedure which most experts agree would take days. Furthermore, detonating 25 containers of ANFO simultaneously, as McVeigh is alleged to have done, would require an expert's knowledge of explosives. Neither Nichols nor McVeigh had the expertise required to make such a bomb work.

But if neither Nichols nor McVeigh built the bomb, who did? Two witnesses, James Sargeant and Georgia Rucker, told of seeing a Ryder truck parked near the lake at Geary State Park, Kansas for three days from April 10, 1995, through April 12, just a week before the bombing of the Murrah Building. They also reported seeing several unidentified men climbing in and out of the cargo area of the truck. Is it possible that the bomb was constructed at the lake in Kansas? The prosecution had maintained all along that the bomb which destroyed the Murrah Building was built in this location. The reason the prosecution did not call these witnesses was given by Ryan Ross, a free lance reporter: "McVeigh was checked into a motel in Kingman, Arizona at the time. Prosecutors won't want to raise the possibility that someone other than McVeigh built the bomb." The prosecution did not call any witnesses who could have placed McVeigh at the location where they maintain the bomb was built. Had they done so these witnesses would have told of seeing a Ryder truck at that location almost a week before McVeigh is supposed to have rented it.

And why did the prosecution not call any of the almost two dozen witnesses who could place McVeigh at the scene of the crime on the morning of April 19, 1995? An FBI spokesman told one of the network talking heads that these witnesses had proven "undependable." Two dozen witnesses place a defendant at the crime scene and the prosecution finds all of them "undependable"? Are we really supposed to believe that? Or is the more likely reason that they all saw McVeigh at the scene of the bombing accompanied by somebody else -- a man who resembles the elusive suspect identified only as John Doe #2? Some witnesses told of seeing him with McVeigh in a store, at a bar, and at the truck rental shop prior to the bombing. Others said that they saw him fleeing from the scene of the crime.

In an effort to find John Doe #2, the FBI conducted the largest manhunt in the agency's history. But in August of 1995, the FBI suddenly decided that John Doe #2 did not really exist. It had been a case of "mistaken identity" -- or something. This suspect was said by the defense to tie the conspiracy to an extremist group located at Elohim City in Oklahoma and thereby to a failed government sting operation.

Another witness who was not permitted to testify at the McVeigh trial is former BATF informant Carol Howe. Judge Richard Matsch who presided at the trial ruled that her testimony "could confuse or mislead the jury." After permitting the endless barrage of sleazy, emotional, grossly irrelevant twaddle presented by the prosecution that was obviously designed to work upon the feelings of the jurors it would certainly be a shame to confuse them with facts.

Howe's attorney, Clark Brewster, said that Howe's testimony would have shown that "others had motive and opportunity to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building," according to Kevin Flynn of the Rocky Mountain News. Howe's testimony "would have allowed this jury to consider at least how some other people had not only the intent to bomb buildings but also the means to carry it out," he said.

Flynn described Howe as "a former debutante and daughter of wealthy Tulsa parents," who, in 1994, infiltrated a "white separatist compound" located at Elohim City in Eastern Oklahoma.

Howe's reports to her BATF handler indicated that "several people there were becoming more militant in their talk about taking action against the government," according to Flynn. Furthermore, the government's own evidence, introduced at the trial indicates that McVeigh "placed a call to Elohim City immediately after calling a Ryder truck rental agency in Arizona on April 5, 1995, two weeks before the bombing," Flynn reported.

Oklahoma State Rep. Charles Key, who took an intense interest in the case from its inception, said at the time of the trial that Howe's testimony is relevant, adding, "The government is shutting this case down fast, and it raises questions in a lot of people's minds. Let's not kid ourselves; they're covering up something very significant here." What could the government have wanted to cover up so badly? Did it have to do with the militants at Elohim City and their intent to take action against the government? Shortly before the McVeigh trial was to begin, Brewster deposed Angela (Finley) Graham -- who had "run" Howe as an undercover agent for the BATF -- regarding the intelligence project Howe had undertaken involving Andreas Strassmeir, Dennis Mahon and Elohim City. Strassmeir is a German national and the son of a prominent German political figure. A former Bundeswehr officer, he is believed to have been connected with the German anti- terrorist group, GSG-9. It appears that Strassmeir infiltrated the militants at Elohim City, where he acted as "chief of security," for a time. Dennis Mahon was a white separatist bigwig at Elohim City.

Regarding Strassmeir, Brewster asked Graham about "the kind of threats he made about wanting to blow up federal buildings, saying, "You were interested in that, weren't you?" After attempting to evade the question, Graham was forced to concede, "In general, yes." She also admitted that this had preceded the Oklahoma City bombing.

The Tulsa World reported on July 30:

"In a July 16 hearing in the Howe case, Brewster claimed that -- before the Oklahoma City bombing -- Howe had warned the ATF that residents of the far eastern Oklahoma religious compound known as Elohim City were talking of a "cataclysm" in the spring of 1995 and that federal buildings in Oklahoma City or Texas were being targeted."

Reporter J.D. Cash wrote in the McCurtain Gazette, "evidence is contained in government documents outlining plans in February, 1995, for Strassmeir's imminent arrest by agents of the Tulsa office of the ATF." But the arrest did not take place. Cash wrote, "For reasons yet to be explained, that arrest -- planned for two months before the Oklahoma City bombing -- was postponed, and in the wake of the bombing, apparently scrubbed."

Strassmeir had been living in this country illegally. But every time he seemed about to get into trouble, a government official would show up and his problem would just sort of go away. Cash wrote further: "The Gazette has also located evidence that Strassmeir was immediately fingered as a suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing, but was inexplicably allowed to live in this country for nine months following the tragedy, without being interviewed by the FBI."

The London Telegraph's Washington bureau chief, Ivo Dawnay wrote:

"What is most worrying for prosecuting attorneys is that Howe claims little knowledge of Tim McVeigh. Instead she identified from descriptions several other Elohim figures, including Mahon, Strassmeir and a bank robber, Michael Brescia, as likely bombers. But to date, although the FBI is said to have spoken to more than 20,000 individuals in America's most extensive criminal inquiry, Mahon has yet to be interviewed. Strassmeir, another suspect named by Howe, has been only cursorily interviewed in Germany by telephone."

That is the sort of thing that gives the Oklahoma City bombing case such a bad odor. Since the government and the press refuse to tell us what is going on it is inevitable that people are going to guess. Did Strassmeir act on his own? If so, why was he shown such deference by our government? Was he perhaps an agent provocateur? Was the Oklahoma City bombing a failed sting operation? This might seem far fetched, but why did so many witnesses such as Norma Smith, who worked at the Journal Record building across from the Murrah building, report that they had seen the police bomb squad milling around in the vicinity at about 7:30 on the morning the bombing took place? The bomb squad subsequently departed long before the blast occurred. When queried later about their appearance at the scene that morning they denied having been there prior to the bombing.

If the feds had set up and then bungled a sting operation that morning it wouldn't have been the first time. In the World Trade Center bombing that took place in New York, the FBI taught the terrorist group led by Omar Adbel Rahman how to make the bomb, provided them the materials required to build it (rejecting a suggestion by an undercover agent that he substitute a harmless material for the explosive), taught them how to drive the Ryder truck used to transport the bomb, and then in a spectacular display of incompetence, failed to prevent the bombing that killed 6 and injured more than a thousand. (At least one hopes it was incompetence). Incompetence (or worse) is the common thread that connects all of these incidents. Ruby Ridge resulted from a failed attempt to coerce an innocent man into becoming an informant for the BATF. Waco was a publicity stunt gone awry. Oklahoma City may have been a failed sting operation, or something much worse. In light of its subsequent use by the Clinton administration and the mainstream press to smear and demonize anyone holding views deemed politically incorrect by the power elite it resembles nothing so much as an attempted rerun of the Reichstag fire scenario. Some went so far as to suggest that Rush Limbaugh was somehow responsible for what had happened in Oklahoma.

It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to visualize the Oklahoma City bombing being used as a political ploy by a corrupt administration to recoup the losses sustained in the congressional elections of 1994, given the behavior of federal authorities described above. The "liberal" welfare state is the benign persona which our degenerate ruling class show the public. The incidents recounted here give us a glimpse of the grim reality behind the mask. Why would anyone suppose that a government which is prepared to torture children with noxious gas for six hours would hesitate to use force against the rest of us? The mainstream media have betrayed us by helping those responsible cover up the crimes they have committed. This could very well be the end of the line for individual liberty.

from TPD 1999-Oct-2, from Reason 1999-Aug-31, by Jacob Sullum:

Persecution, American-Style

"The Japanese believe that the United States often emphasizes individual rights at the expense of society as a whole," a front-page article in The New York Times reported last week.

This was by way of explaining Japan's crackdown on Aum Shinrikyo, which carried out a nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway four years ago, killing a dozen people and sickening thousands. Local governments have been refusing to grant followers of the sect residence permits, without which they cannot legally work or obtain driver's licenses, passports or public services. Children of Aum members have been turned away from public schools and parks. It appears that most Japanese do not object to these tactics.

The crackdown suggests a contrast with the United States, where unconventional religious groups presumably do not have to worry about this sort of persecution. But that take was undercut by another front-page article the same day, concerning the Federal Government's 1993 confrontation with the Branch Davidians near Waco, Tex.

That incident, the deadliest law enforcement operation in American history, was in the news again because the Federal Bureau of Investigation had finally admitted, after six years of denial, that it used "pyrotechnic" tear gas canisters against the Davidians on the day flames swept through their residence. The F.B.I. continues to insist that the fire -- after which 80 people, including 25 children, were found dead -- was started by the Davidians themselves.

Even if that's true, the Government created a situation where mass suicide was entirely predictable. Its actions -- including a gratuitous raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; a 51-day siege during which the F.B.I. used harassment techniques to unnerve the Davidians, and a final onslaught in which tanks rammed the group's home, Mount Carmel, while loudspeakers incongruously announced, "This is not an assault" -- seemed calculated to convince an apocalyptic sect that the end was indeed nigh.

It is sobering to recall that the justification for the initial B.A.T.F. raid was the suspicion that residents of Mount Carmel had illegally converted semiautomatic weapons to machine guns. For this victimless crime by a few of their members, scores of Davidians ultimately died.

Before the raid, the Davidians had not been charged with harming or threatening anyone, in contrast to members of the Aum Shinrikyo sect. And what has happened to Aum members pales in comparison with what happened to the Davidians. Yet I suspect that many Americans who disapprove of Japan's intolerance still believe that the Davidians basically got what they deserved.

The Davidians were stigmatized as a dangerous "doomsday cult" unworthy of respect, muting the public outcry about their mistreatment. They were tarred with unsubstantiated allegations of child abuse and accused of hostile intent because they owned guns. Their beliefs were depicted as utterly bizarre and alien, and the Davidians themselves were portrayed as mindless drones under David Koresh's spell, when in fact many of them were highly educated.

During its siege, the F.B.I. kept the press away and withheld a videotape from Mount Carmel that showed not a sinister collective but individual human beings with strong religious beliefs.

The vilification and isolation encouraged the Davidians to conclude that a peaceful resolution was impossible. And thus the perception that they were inclined to violence because of their beliefs became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

from the Houston Chronicle, via www.smh.com.au 2000-Jun-22:

Firing at shadows: the raid on Waco

Waco, Texas: Following the botched raid on the Branch Davidian compound, federal agents admitted to police that they fired blindly into windows without knowing what they were shooting at, a federal jury has been told.

Mr Michael Caddell, the lead counsel for the more than 100 Davidians and families suing the Federal Government over the raid, read the statements of more than two dozen agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to the jury.

They painted a picture of agents shooting at shadows and fluttering curtains after gunfire from the compound prevented them arresting the Davidian leader, David Koresh, on February 28, 1993.

Ten people, including four ATF agents, were killed in the hail of gunfire.

"A whole lot of shooting was going on in violation of instructions given to the agents," said Mr Jim Brannon of Houston, another lawyer for the plaintiffs. "You don't just shoot generally. You shoot at specific targets."

Mr Caddell said other key elements to the case were the FBI's deviation from a plan approved by the Attorney-General to end the stand-off, the FBI actions that caused the deadly fire, and the FBI's failure to have firefighting equipment on the scene.

The shootout led to a 51-day stand-off that ended on April 19 in an inferno that killed 80 Davidians, including 25 children.

In their lawsuit against the Government, survivors claim that ATF and FBI agents caused the deaths of innocent people both in the way the initial assault was conducted and in the way the siege was concluded.

Plaintiffs presented District Judge Walter Smith and the six-person jury with the statements ATF agents gave to Texas Rangers following the assault on the Mount Carmel compound.

"I didn't see anyone shooting at our people," one sniper, Mr Paul Smith, said. Mr Mark Murray, an agent, said: "At no time did I see any occupant, other than shadows moving."

Mr Caddell began the day with a video of children who died in the fire. As each child's image appeared on the screen, he gave the name, age and repeated, "never owned a gun, never fired a gun, never broke the law, never hurt anyone".

He also put forward a theory that militant Koresh followers may have started one of the three fires blamed in the deaths.

In his opening statement, Mr Mike Bradford, for the Government, told the jury that "the evidence will show that the responsibility [for the deaths] should not be placed on the shoulders of the brave men and women of the ATF and the FBI. David Koresh and the Branch Davidians themselves were responsible for those events."

from TPD 1999-Oct-9, from The Dallas Morning News, by Lee Hancock and David Jackson:

Siege tactics weighed by FBI detailed
Davidian files reveal plan to drug water

WASHINGTON - Thousands of recently disclosed internal FBI documents show that some bureau officials proposed drugging Branch Davidians' water supplies and faxed a formal assault plan directly to the White House in the first weeks of the 1993 siege.

The documents reveal intricacies of the FBI's 51-day operation never previously made public in the six years since the nation's most deadly law enforcement tragedy.

Among the thousand of pages of internal FBI tactical documents are notations indicating that tanks used by the hostage rescue team near Waco carried such military ordnance as high-explosive grenades, illumination rounds and pyrotechnic tear gas cannisters.

The=20notes also indicate FBI tactical experts in Waco asked for permission to shoot any unarmed Branch Davidians who left the compound and approached their armored vehicles. That proposal was rejected by FBI officials in Washington, who ultimately imposed rules authorizing deadly force only if the Branch Davidians fired 50-caliber rifles capable of piercing the armor of tanks.

House and Senate investigators are poring over the documents, some of which were not disclosed despite previous exhaustive congressional requests for detailed information about the government's handling of the siege near Waco.

They were discovered last month at the headquarters of the FBI's hostage rescue team in Quantico, Va., stacked in four boxes. They included infrared videotapes shot during the early hours of the FBI's April 19, 1993, tank-and-tear-gas assault on the Davidian compound. FBI officials had previously sworn in court that such tapes did not exist.

FBI officials said that the boxes - containing notes, sketches, cartoons, personnel rosters, interview reports and other information - were overlooked when bureau officials responded to previous inquiries or were not specifically sought by congressional investigators.

They came to light last month after a former senior FBI official acknowledged for the first time that the hostage rescue team had fired military tear gas on April 19. That reversed six years of government denials that anything capable of sparking fires had been used in the final assault.

Attorney General Janet Reno has said she expressly banned the use of any pyrotechnic devices in the tear-gas operation.

The compound caught fire that day, six hours after FBI tanks began inserting tear gas and dismantling the wooden building in an attempt to force the sect's surrender. Leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers died. Arson investigators later ruled that the fires were set by compound occupants.

FBI officials maintain that they fired only two military tear gas rounds, aiming them at an area next to the main compound hours before the fire erupted.

The FBI documents kept secret for years at Quantico indicate that agents had at least 60 of the military gas rounds, known as M-651 canisters, near Waco.

FBI spokesman John Collingwood said those devices and the high-explosive rounds deployed in FBI tanks during the siege are standard equipment for all of the bureau's SWAT teams as well as the hostage rescue team.

Military records indicate that the FBI obtained 250 of the high- explosive rounds from nearby Fort Hood.

"This is part of their normal ammo load," Mr. Collingwood said. "What I'm confident of is that none were used at any time during the entire standoff."

Consulting military

The documents also suggest that the FBI was consulting U.S. military experts regularly during the standoff.

One undated document stated an Army general with an extensive special-operations background had been given special permission to go to Waco despite questions about the military's authority to send him.

U.S. military special-operations lawyers had previously ordered Special Forces soldiers not to go to Waco even to watch the botched Feb. 28, 1993, raid that began the standoff. Four agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms died in a gunfight that broke out as they tried to search the compound and arrest Mr. Koresh on weapons charges.

Federal law prohibits any military involvement in domestic operations against U.S. citizens without authorization from the highest levels of government.

"No auth. for Gen. Shoomaker [sic] to go. Has been approved, but approved by SEC DEF," the note on stationery from an FBI commander in Waco. "SEC DEF" is an abbreviation for the secretary of defense, then Les Aspin.

The general, Peter J. Schoomaker, had once headed the Army's secret, anti-terrorist Delta Force unit and now is at U.S. Special Forces Command at Macdill Air Force Base in Florida. He was one of two senior military special operations officers who visited Waco during the standoff and then attended FBI briefings with the attorney general before she approved the final tear gas plan.

Another undated, handwritten note mentions that Delta Force commandos and intelligence experts should be "invited" to Waco, stating "Delta commo/intel guys - helpful in observation role."

A March 8 note states that a formal assault or "ops plan" had been faxed directly to the White House by FBI tactical officials.

An FBI official in Washington said that was done at the direction of Assistant Attorney General Webster Hubbell.

During 1995 congressional hearings, Mr. Hubbell said he often consulted with the White House counsel's office about the standoff. He said that the White House was not involved in decision-making during the FBI operation.

The compound fire ended a 51-day siege in which the FBI's tactical commanders steadily racheted up pressure on the sect. In the final weeks, agents disrupted the sect's nights with loud noises and lights, constantly circled their building with armored vehicles and fired flash-bang explosive devices at anyone who ventured outside to drive them back in their compound.

Chemical-use proposed

The documents - many marked "secret" and "confidential" - indicate that FBI agents considered and rejected a number of even more intensive tactics.

One undated, handwritten document indicates that agents briefly considered introducing a foul-smelling, nausea-inducing chemical known as ethyl mercaptan or ethane thiol in the compound's water supply.

Vapors from the chemical irritate eyes and skin and can induce headaches, and they would spread each time someone turned on water taps, according to a report from the Texas Poison Control Center.

Center officials said the chemical has caused death in rare cases. It is sometimes used by law enforcement to incapacitate subjects.

The FBI documents indicated that its use was rejected against the Branch Davidians because of the sect's children. "Young and smaller=3Dworse/more serious," noted one document bearing the name of an ATF agent.

At one point during the siege, FBI agents suspected that some reporters at the scene might be monitoring law enforcement cellular phone conversations, according to the documents. Justice Department officials proposed infiltrating reporters' ranks with undercover officers to check that report. The records include no indication that the plan was carried out.

Records show the bureau's tactics at the siege drew complaints from compound neighbors. One FBI log notes that a farmer near the compound wanted the FBI to stop blasting sounds of screaming and dying rabbits because it was disturbing his pregnant cattle.

Even after the standoff ended in mass death, the newly disclosed FBI documents indicate, FBI agents who led the bureau's efforts in Waco and Washington proposed rewarding members of the hostage rescue team with FBI medals.

One memo noted "there may be reluctance to award such a high number of shields of bravery, but the discipline and courage which was exhibited by the HRT for the seven-week siege . . . cannot be overstated."

The FBI Waco commanders also proposed cash awards for the hostage rescue team, its intelligence analysts and its clerical staff.

The proposed awards were ultimately rejected as inappropriate, an FBI spokesman said.

The military's new cowboys?
Heightened concerns
about Night Stalkers, Delta Force

A secret military organization took part in the raid at Waco, Texas, and has been training in civilian areas using live fire. It often ventures into civilian areas without permission from local authorities, according to a former member.

The Combat Applications Group is the secret organization within the Special Operations Command operating out of several military bases.

"Presidential Decision Directive 25 is the authority given to them to operate and to be not covered by posse comitatus. This is the Delta Force. It's also known as the CAG (Combat Applications Group). That's a cover name for their organization behind the fence at Ft. Bragg, (North Carolina)," explained a former Special Forces member who spoke to WorldNetDaily on condition of anonymity.

PDD 25 has been classified as top secret. All that is available to the public is an executive summary. Details of the document will be detailed in another article in this series.

Members of the elite Delta Force and Night Stalkers are carefully selected and screened from Special Forces and other groups in all branches of the military. The CAG is primarily run by the Rangers, according to a source, who has many years of experience with both the group, and with clandestine operations.

The Night Stalkers are actually the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment Airborne. Their job is to transport Delta Force troops to an area for a mission, then retrieve them. They are experts at flying black-painted helicopters just over treetops in the dark of night using special night vision equipment.

Their motto is "Death waits in the dark." They wear emblems that combine Greek mythology and occult symbols.

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him . . . to kill with sword and with hunger, and with death," reads the Night Stalkers creed, taken from Revelation 6:8 in the Bible.

The Night Stalkers have a website filled with occult symbols of death, Greek mythical symbols, and writings mocking the creation story of the Bible, among many references to killing and death. It is no wonder why so many military members have expressed concern over this group.

A source confirmed the Night Stalkers and Delta Force were involved in the raid at Waco. They considered it a great opportunity for training and experience.

Delta Force soldiers are handpicked and are trained killers. They are expert at rescuing hostages, SWAT operations and surprise raids to kill an enemy.

"Yes indeed, these are the same people that were at the back of the (Waco) compound -- not the FBI HRT (Hostage Rescue Team). They were at the back of the compound at Waco and were shooting the people coming out. I did see the FLIRS (special films) at SOCOM (Special Operations Command). The HRT is a clone of them. They work very closely with the HRT," explained a knowledgeable source who requested anonymity.

The equipment used by the FBI HRT is identical to that used by the Delta Force. Whenever an HRT deploys, they use the Night Stalkers to get them in and out.

The Night Stalkers and Delta Force were recently confirmed to be involved in Operation Last Dance, conducting live-fire raids on sites in civilian areas in parts of Texas. Army public affairs officers claim the civilian sites are used because the elite forces get bored using military bases for training.

"In a manner to justify their fairly large budget, they have been performing these exercises. Not that they just get bored. It's political empire type things. Pretty vainly in some respects. In order to justify their budgets, and in order to keep them alive," said one source.

The Night Stalkers left Texas ready to plan similar exercises in some other unsuspecting U.S. neighborhood. They left behind a storm of controversy and frightened residents who have not stopped complaining. Some are even planning legal action.

"They usually pay for all their damage by the way. They have a bag person there, and they usually pay for all their damage with cash. You just make a claim to them and they pay you off right there on the spot," claimed the source.

City officials in Kingsville, Texas, where Operation Last Dance began, confirm that the Army Special Forces Command from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has paid for the destruction of one building and the heavy damage to another.

Some military sources, too, are concerned with the way the CAG has evolved, and he is very concerned about the way the group has been granted authority to do just about anything with total immunity from the law, including the Posse Comitatus Act.

"They will follow and do whatever the president tells them to do. In that regard, they are somewhat dangerous," said one source of his concerns about PDD 25.

He claims the CAG forces were used by the FBI in the raid at Waco. He said he was repulsed when he personally observed films of the raid, known as FLIRS, in the U.S. SOCOM offices. Others watching were not affected in the same way.

"They (Delta Force) were shooting people who were coming out of the building," the source described. He said they considered Waco an opportunity for training.

"Everything is training for them. You train like you fight and you fight like you train. There's very little distinction between the two," he said.

The Delta Force wore the same black SWAT-style uniform as the FBI HRT agents, with the exception of a small insignia.

"The U.S. SOCOM released them and then they were under the direct control of the Department of Justice," explained the source. "Their orders did not come from U.S. SOCOM."

"I saw those FLIRS right after the action. There was no gasping, or anything like that, which I found to be somewhat repugnant."

"That's why I wanted to make a distinction between them (CAG) and the Special Forces, because the real Special Forces are really not into that activity of going in and rousting up people or hostage rescue. Special Forces still has a special operations mission, of course. They do fall under the posse comitatus act. They do not work here in the United States."

"There's the white side and the black side. Special Forces are generally on the white side and the CAG is on the black side," he explained.

This source is not a fan of Delta Force. He doesn't like the way it operates, the character of the people involved, or their commander-in-chief, President Bill Clinton. He says the Delta Force is made up of programmed soldiers who don't think for themselves.

"Delta Force is particularly screened. That's why they don't have many Special Forces people in there. Typically they are Rangers who are less thoughtful about what they are required to do and will fire when ordered to. Whereas the regular Special Forces guy is trained to think. He knows difference between a lawful order and an unlawful order.

"If they are told to shoot somebody they will shoot them, you know, without question," claims the source.

He says the Delta Force operations taking place around the country will continue because they are trying to create a need for their organization, and thereby justify their existence. He also says the actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco were also a test to see if the American public would tolerate such actions.

"We failed a test with Ruby Ridge and Waco. The American people failed miserably. These were obvious tests, in a manner of speaking. They wanted to see how the American people would react to this thing. Why in the world would you attack somebody like David Koresh? I mean with the forces that they did," he lamented.

Former Night Stalker, Sgt. Jeff Norgrove, a crew chief on one of the controversial black helicopters, confirmed what the source disclosed. He said live-fire exercises have taken place for many years and are on the increase. He also claims exercises often take place over U.S. cities with no permission from any local authorities.

Government plans for the worst in Y2K
Consultant cites preparations for martial law

Plans have been made for mass evacuations, government takeover of private industries, and the use of martial law, according to a Y2K consultant to the state of Michigan.

All the mechanisms have been put in place for mass evacuations of people to government shelters, government takeover of utilities and private industries, martial law, and a complete transfer of power from local governments to the federal government, according to Franklin Frith.

Frith is a consultant hired by Michigan to conduct workshops for state, city, and county agencies on how to prepare for contingencies related to the year 2000 computer bug, which is expected to cause disruptions. The extent of those disruptions may be anything from minor inconveniences to massive infrastructure failures.

Frith became alarmed when Michigan's many government agencies opened their documents to him. In them he claims he found compelling evidence that a greater problem exists than has been admitted publicly.

Frith conducted a workshop Feb. 11 at which Lt. Tom Mattioli, the emergency management coordinator for the Michigan State Police, gave a presentation.

Participants were given a handout which showed a FEMA/Red Cross checklist for Y2K preparedness which is available to assist the public. One of the items on the list mentions the need to store a three to five days supply of food and water.

Frith asked Mattioli if it was expected that Y2K disruptions would only last a few days.

"The three-to-five-day period for preparations is not the expected down time for essential services, rather it is the expected response time for emergency response personnel to arrive and evacuate people to shelters," Mattioli told the group.

Mattioli confirmed that he made the remarks in a phone interview with WorldNetDaily. He pointed out that the recommendation is a generic one for general disaster preparedness and has been part of the FEMA and Red Cross disaster planning for many years.

Frith is also concerned that most local cities and counties have not done anything in the way of remediation of Y2K computer problems.

"Local governments deliver essential services. Those essential services allow the industrial base and the civilian base to operate," Frith told WorldNetDaily.

"What has really thrown up a red flag for me is that these people are not ready. Many have not even begun the assessment phase. In these meetings, they're saying that there are no resources available to fix this, once they find out what is wrong. There's entire counties out here that haven't done anything," said a very concerned Frith.

He was further alarmed when the President's Council on the Year 2000 issued a report Dec. 3, 1998, which stated that the country was now moving from contingency planning to crisis management. Frith says this is further evidence that the government knows there will be severe problems because far too few computer systems will be repaired before the start of the new year.

Frith contends that the federal government knows local and state governments will not be able to deal with the problems which will occur because of the Y2K crisis. He says plans are under way for martial law and the use of mass shelters.

Some states have already begun plans to use the National Guard as part of their Y2K contingency planning; others have not yet done so.

"The bureau reported to the DoD (Department of Defense) in November (1998) ... some states are 'reluctant to become too dependent on the National Guard for disaster response because they believe that the National Guard might be pre-empted by national priorities,'" the report says, according to an article in the January issue of National Guard Magazine.

WorldNetDaily has completed an extensive series of articles about National Guard plans for Y2K. Plans include an extensive nationwide exercise on May 1 and 2.

The guard will assume that all telecommunications services are out and will use only battery and generator operated radios to communicate. They will simulate a full mobilization of the guard, something that has not been done since World War II.

Frith said the National Guard exercise is not the only evidence of plans to use the military for the Y2K crisis. He pointed out the recent Operation Last Dance training conducted by the Army Special Forces Command in some Texas towns.

Frith says the use of live ammunition and explosives in civilian areas, along with the name of the operation itself are sufficient reason for concern. He believes this "really is the last dance," before use of the military begins as a domestic SWAT team.

"Consequently, as this year progresses, we will become increasingly involved in DoD support to others," said Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre to a Senate Armed Services subcommittee recently.

Frith points out that Hamre is "the number two guy at the Pentagon, and the Pentagon's number one guy on Y2K."

"We are in the process of refining the list of assets that have utility in military support to civil authorities (MSCA). Because Y2K is a special case of MSCA, in that many concurrent emergencies may occur, special procedures may be required to ensure the most effective use of these resources," Hamre stated in a previous hearing.

Frith says he believes the federal government has plans to take control of many private resources, perhaps with the use of the military to ensure they get what they want. As evidence of this, he points to Executive Order 12919 and a statement by the president's Y2K guru.

"In a crisis and emergency situation, the free market may not be the best way to distribute resources... If there's a point in time where we have to take resources and make a judgement on an emergency basis, we will be prepared to do that," said John Koskinen in a Dec. 3, 1998, report of the President's Council on the Year 2000.

"The statements made by Hamre and Koskinen, along with the existing FEMA Federal Response Plan confirms the intention to invoke Executive Order 12919 and that the possibility of a national emergency being declared with the potential for martial law to follow is probable and should be planned for," warns Frith.

Among other things, EO 12919 delegates power and authority to various federal agency heads to take control of private property.

"(EO) 12919 gives FEMA coordinating power over all federal agencies and everything those agencies have jurisdiction over. They also have coordinating power over all free market resources," explained Frith.

"When you start looking at all these pieces, they are adding up. They are adding up," he stated.

Frith has an agenda to spread distrust of government and create fear, according to one Michigan Y2K emergency planning official.

"There's this tendency for people to think that there's something hidden somewhere in somebody's files, or some secret discussions going on," said Mike Prince, Michigan State Police Emergency Management Division, public affairs officer in a phone interview with WorldNetDaily.

"That's certainly not our feeling. Most of that is hype and most of that is people trying to generate mistrust, and people trying to generate fear, and people trying to profit or benefit from spreading misinformation and that kind of fear," he explained.

Frith pointed out that he does not sell anything. He is paid by Michigan as a consultant. He does not sell Y2K related books, or preparedness supplies.

from the Lowell Sun, 1999-Mar-4, by John Wolfson, Sun Staff:

Navy SEALs invade Lowell in night training session

LOWELL -- Four Navy Black Hawk helicopters thundered just hundreds of feet above the LaLacheur Park parking lot last night, churning up a torrent of dust before crossing the Merrimack River and dropping off about 30 elite Navy SEALs at the entrance to the Lawrence Mills.

The helicopters slipped off into the darkness and a sudden boom echoed through the night.

That explosion was the SEAL team breaching, or forcefully opening, a door into the mills as part of an urban tactical training exercise, according to Maj. Andy Lucas.

Hidden somewhere inside the mills was the team's target. Their goal was to secure the area, remove the target, call the helicopters back in and get out as soon as possible. Lucas didn't know what the SEALs' target was.

SEAL teams conduct two or three such training missions per year, Lucas said. Lowell was chosen this time because of the availability of the mills and because of the many obstacles it poses for the helicopters. "The high wires, towers, the infrastructure that's established in a place like this," Lucas said, his words punctuated by the pop-pop-pop of gunfire inside the mills. Live ammunition was not used during the exercise.

About an hour after dropping off ("inserting") the team, the Black Hawks returned, difficult to see for all their noise because of an almost complete lack of lights. They picked up their passengers and lifted off, noses pointed at the ground.

The SEALs (named for Sea, Air and Land) were formed in the 1962 during the Kennedy administration, when each branch of the armed forces created a counterinsurgency force. SEALs evolved from the Navy's combat swimmer and underwater demolition units.

The SEAL team planned to complete two training runs yesterday, but the afternoon exercise was canceled because of a mechanical problem.

This SEAL team, which has its headquarters in Virginia, spent a couple of days at Fort Devens planning the mission. They will now take their experiences back to Virginia and share them with other SEALs.

"This is like research and development," Lucas said. "You have to see what works and what doesn't."

Urban training has become increasingly important with the end of the Cold War, Lucas explained. America's military challenges are now more likely to come in the form of terrorism and require a tactical rather than a battlefield response, he said.

from WorldNetDaily 1999-Feb-15, by David M. Bresnahan, from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990215_xex_is_army_inva.shtml:

Is the Army invading Texas?
Officials, residents concerned
about rash of exercises

One Texas police chief has complained of attempts to bribe him into letting the Army Delta Force into his town for training exercises. Other Texas towns have seen recent exercises as part of Operation Last Dance, and complaints from citizens are numerous.

"End runs were done around various community leaders," San Antonio Chief of Police Al Philipus told Austin radio talk show host Alex Jones, on assignment from WorldNetDaily. He was asked to host the exercises last May, but refused.

"Once I said no, they went to various individuals in the community to bring pressure to bear to get me to change my mind," explained Philipus. "For example, there was a community leader who I have a great deal of respect for, and we have a very good relationship. I get a call from him and he says, 'Chief, there's some people in here. They're in town and it's part of their role here, they need to meet with the mayor and the police chief.'

"Of course, this gentleman, who I've worked very closely with on a number of projects, I told him to have them give me a call. Now I'd already said no. Well now I find out they're the same group. So they identified somebody that I know that's very high in the community to make an approach to me and get me to change my mind. Then when we said no, some elected officials were contacted to bring pressure to bear," said Philipus.

"Then offers were made to give money, cash money to elected officials' charities if they could get us to change our minds. As one of my deputy chiefs said, in some circles, that's called bribery."

Operation Last Dance began Feb. 8 with an explosive exercise in Kingsville, Texas, near Corpus Christi. Community leaders have come under heavy criticism from residents who were badly frightened when Night Stalkers fired live rounds and set off explosions very close to innocent civilians.

Army spokesmen have confirmed plans to continue with additional exercises in the Corpus Christi area until Feb. 20. Several reports of military activity throughout the area have been received by WorldNetDaily.

The town of San Augustine had an unconfirmed military exercise within the past few days. Residents report they were frightened by black helicopters at night. Further details were unavailable, and local officials could not be reached last night.

A confirmed exercise took place on Friday in the little town of Port Aransas. The mayor there claims he knew nothing of the exercise until it happened. Port Aransas Mayor Glenn Martin said he did not know what to say to the many angry residents who were calling to complain. Port Aransas is just outside Corpus Christi, and has a population of just over 2,000.

The soldiers involved come from Ft. Bragg Army Special Operations. Military sources told WorldNetDaily the specific group is called the Night Stalkers, an elite group from the Delta Force. They are a secret group trained to get into an area quickly, kill, and get out.

"It happened right at the ferry landing," explained Tomas Sanchez, the emergency management coordinator working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Kingsville. He said the ferry is a very busy area that operates 24 hours a day.

The local constable was upset that he had not been notified in advance of the exercise at the Port Aransas ferry. He had been on duty and observed the very brief exercise.

Black helicopters flew in low over the city and hovered over some large fuel tanks in the beach area. The tanks are enclosed in a fenced area. Soldiers dressed in black rappelled down ropes to the tanks, and within a few minutes took off again, and it was all over.

No one seems to know what it was all about.

"I just wonder how the mayor's going to handle this thing. They really caught him with his pants down. The police department was not really involved in this. None of the law enforcement was," explained Sanchez.

Sanchez lives in Kingsville, where the first and most dramatic exercise took place. As a highly decorated Navy veteran, wounded in Vietnam, Sanchez has many concerns about what is going on. He was personally involved in many special operations and top secret missions.

Sanchez is now a lieutenant colonel in the Texas State Guard military police. He is extremely concerned about Operation Last Dance because live rounds have been fired and explosives used in civilian areas.

"They pulled the same stunt in a little county south of us in a little town called Sarita, population 500," Sanchez disclosed. Black helicopters were reported hovering over a private residence with search lights. That incident happened prior to the start of Last Dance.

Another suburb of Corpus Christi was "attacked" by Army Special Forces. Residents in Calallen were badly frightened when Last Dance came to their back yard. This attack took place at an abandoned water plant on the Nueces River along route I-37. Houses and an apartment complex are located within a few hundred yards, according to residents.

More details are needed, but initial reports from witnesses claim the military used the water plant for practice bombing runs. Police had surrounded the area to keep bystanders away, and printed notices were placed on resident's doors about 30 minutes before it began. The notices did not disclose the nature of the exercise.

Residents who called 911 and asked for help were told they could not be serviced because they lived outside the response area.

Last Dance is not over, according to Carol Darby from Fort Bragg public affairs. She says to expect more activity in the same area until Feb. 20. She would not give details, and said the operation is secret. She also denied a request for a WorldNetDaily reporter to observe, saying it was not safe.

from WorldNetDaily 1999-Feb-15, by David M. Bresnahan, from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990215_xex_fear_and_loa.shtml:

Fear and loathing in Kingsville, Texas
Local residents fuming
over Army live-fire exercise

A group of Kingsville, Texas, citizens now plan to pursue action against their city for permitting the Army to use live ammunition during an exercise in their town known as Operation Last Dance.

Angry citizens are expected to crowd the next city council and county commission meetings, both scheduled to be held Feb. 22. At least one citizen is looking into legal action.

Back door to building blasted open.

Some residents said they were terrified when helicopters swooped into town from the Army Special Operations Command, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, last Monday night. One helicopter hit a telephone pole, which started a fire and horrified residents who saw it happen.

At least eight helicopters are reported to have participated in an assault exercise using live ammunition and explosives very close to innocent bystanders who were not warned of the planned action.

Fire officials confirmed that they responded to the resulting fire, but had no warning that the exercise would take place. They were also summoned to put out a building fire caused by explosions set off during the exercise.

It has since been learned from military sources that the actual group involved in the exercise is known as the Night Stalkers, an elite group from the Delta Force. They are trained to conduct assassination missions, according to several retired military officers who had served in various special operations assignments.

The Army Special Operations Command at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, has acknowledged that the event was the kick-off of a series of similar training operations going on in Kingsville, Corpus Christi and Fort Sam Houston, but would not confirm that the group was the Night Stalkers. Additional training events have been confirmed in the area.

Austin radio station talk show host Alex Jones went to Kingsville to investigate for WorldNetDaily. He arrived just in time to find work crews covering up the evidence of the extensive damage caused by the exercise.

A former police station and an old Exxon office building were nearly destroyed. Evidence of bullet holes in walls, explosions from grenades, and other explosive charges could be seen. Fire damage was also extensive in at least one of the buildings.

Lt. Judy Hayes, 3rd in command at Kingsville Police Department

"There was a joint training session between the United States Army and the Kingsville Police Department," Lt. Judy Hayes, third in command at the Kingsville police told Jones.

"The Army was doing some sort of extraction type thing. They used eight helicopters. Our training involved sealing off the area, as if we were involved in taking care of a hazardous materials type incident. We were rerouting traffic and making sure there was no civilian foot traffic in the area. So we got quite a bit of training in that area.

"The only participation on the part of the Kingsville Police Department was in a hazardous materials training session. We did not participate in any way with what the Army was doing," insisted Hayes.

Throughout the interview with Jones, two men in black SWAT team uniforms stood behind her. Jones believes it was an attempt to intimidate him.

The Kingsville Fire Department was not given notice of the exercise, and it was not invited to participate in the alleged hazardous materials training, even though it would be called in if there were a real even of that kind.

The fire department spokesman claimed officials were not aware of the event until they were called to respond to the telephone pole fire and the fire at the former police station.

An elderly lady who lives in an apartment across from where the exercise took place told Jones that she was frightened to death and crying. She was sitting on a bench in full view of the area where the helicopters first appeared and where all the shooting took place.

"I sit on the bench, and then I get scared because the noise. It was so terrible and too loud, you know. They were throwing some bombs. I think they were using some rifles too, and the other kind of rifles that go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, you know," said the elderly woman, identified only as Gracie.

She described seeing many black helicopters with men in black coming out of them. She heard explosions and apparently machine gun fire. She said it lasted at least two hours.

"I was so scared I went back to my apartment, but I could still hear the noise," Gracie said. She said she was so scared that she cried and her heart hurt. She said no one warned her or came to tell her what was going on.

Business owners are also complaining. The police claim they warned businesses in the area of the exercise in advance. If they did, WorldNetDaily was unable to find any that would confirm that. The businesses in the area that were open at the time of the exercise had no idea what was going on.

A former police chief and former city council member have expressed dismay over the incident and are contemplating filing an official complaint.

Police Chief Philipe Garza was appointed to his position even though he did not have the required training. He is currently under investigation for police brutality and abuse.

Police Chief Philipe Garza has been the object of a number of investigations lately. Currently the U.S. Department of Justice has been asked to investigate accusations of police abuse. Several residents, who did not wish to be identified, claim that Garza is very abusive with citizens and rules by intimidation.

Garza claims there are very few complaints from residents of Kingsville. He says the only complaints are coming from people in other parts of the country.

The head of emergency management for Kingsville is the Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinator Tomas Sanchez. He is a highly decorated Navy veteran, wounded in Vietnam and retired after 30 years of service. He now continues to serve as the head of the military police unit of the Texas State Guard, which is under the National Guard.

Sanchez has had extensive experience and training in special operations, and he expressed deep concern to WorldNetDaily about events in Kingsville. He was asked what was the purpose of the exercise. He said the plan involved a scenario that required military action because local police could not deal with civilians effectively.

"Martial law has been declared through presidential powers and war powers act, and some citizens have refused to give up their weapons. They have taken over two of the buildings in Kingsville. The police cannot handle it. So you call these guys in. They show up and they zap everybody, take all the weapons, and let the local P.D. clean it up," described Sanchez of the scenario the Night Stalkers were likely given.

Sanchez says the military exercise in his town was illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act, but he says that Presidential Decision Directive 25 has given an exception to Special Operations. He believes the men involved have total immunity from any legal action against them. Although PDD 25 is top secret, Sanchez has seen it because of his position with FEMA, and he has a security clearance. He would not provide a copy to WorldNetDaily.

"Some folks are talking about seeking some legal counsel. Some are asking for the crisis incident stress management counseling. They would like to see some of that," said Sanchez.

Shell casing used by Night Stalkers to blast their way through doors.

"When the helos are right above the rooftop, and the windows are vibrating, and people are ducking under the bed, and so on and so forth, they need that," he explained.

Sanchez was able to locate some of the helicopters and some of the soldiers used in Operation Last Dance. He decided to take a drive to the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station and the Corpus Christi Army Depot where all the helicopters are given maintenance.

"Parked between hanger 45 and 46 on the tarmac were four Blackhawk, no marking, helicopters. They've got it all blocked off with a chain link fence that says ID card required to gain access. No security guard. One can drive up close enough to look through the fence and see the Blackhawk helocopters. Only four of them were parked there," said Sanchez of his findings.

He said the men involved are most likely staying at the bachelor- enlisted quarters, which is a three-story barracks building. Some of the men have been observed eating in a fast food restaurant right near the bachelor-enlisted quarters.

"You can always tell these guys because even when they put on civilian clothes they still look like Army Rangers. White sidewalls we call it. Short crew cut," Sanchez explained.

from WorldNetDaily 1999-Feb-16, by David M. Bresnahan, from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990216_xex_bush_says_ma.shtml:

Bush says maneuvers not his business
It's a matter between Army, local officials, governor says

Gov. George W. Bush, R-Texas, says it is not his job to get involved in the concerns over Army Night Stalkers using live ammunition in a civilian area of his state.

The Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has confirmed Operation Last Dance began in Kingsville Feb. 8 and has been continuing in other small towns near Corpus Christi.

Little warning was given to civilians in Kingsville prior to the event that has prompted some to seek crisis intervention counseling.

Angry citizens are now calling for the dismissal of the police chief and his assistant.

The exercise involved the elite forces of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment -- the Night Stalkers. A specially trained helicopter regiment stationed in both Fort Campbell, Kentucky and Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.

Night Stalkers got their name because of their special training to fly just over tree tops at high speeds in the dark. They were on just such a training mission in Kingsville last week.

Eight black helicopters roared into town, with one nearly crashing as it hit the top of a telephone pole and started a fire near a residence. The soldiers on board staged a mock raid on two empty buildings, using real explosives and live ammunition in machine guns. The two-hour gun battle has residents and some officials furious -- and some scared to death by what they heard and saw.

Police Chief Felipe Garza and Mayor Phil Esquivel were the only city officials in Kingsville involved in approving the military training exercise. At least one other Texas Mayor turned the military away for a similar request and accused them of offering a bribe.

Both Garza and Esquivel have refused to provide details, insisting that they were sworn to secrecy by the Army.

Numerous attempts were made to find out the reaction of Bush. When WorldNetDaily contacted his office, aides were not aware of Operation Last Dance. On Monday an aide acknowledged that calls had been coming in about the event, but no statement had been issued by Bush.

Late on Monday a public relations spokeswoman called with a response.

"Apparently you need to contact Fort Bragg if you need more information about this," she said. "Apparently in these types of exercises the Army goes through local law enforcement and local officials and not through the state.

"So this really isn't an issue that would be dealt with by the governor's office. We're going to look into it further, but at this point all I can tell you is that you need to contact Fort Bragg for more information. According to the Army, they have notified local law enforcement in all the communities that they are doing these exercises in," she told WorldNetDaily.

Kingsville is not the only place to experience Operation Last Dance. Other Texas communities are also witnessing similar events.

Tomas Sanchez, emergency management coordinator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not pleased about what happened in his town. Yesterday he met with county commissioners in a special session to brief them on his own investigation.

Sanchez was not notified of the exercise in advance. The police claim they were engaged in a hazardous materials training drill with the Army; however the fire department and Sanchez were not included in that training. Sanchez does not believe the police department claims and told WorldNetDaily that there is a group asking for the removal of Garza and his assistant.

Sanchez is a highly decorated Vietnam veteran with 30 years service in Navy intelligence work. He has worked with Special Operations and knows how they operate. He was asked by WorldNetDaily to describe the nature of the training mission.

"I can tell you specifically. In my humble opinion, based on my background, the scenario if I were creating this ops plan," he described. He gave his belief as to the scenario the Night Stalkers were working under.

"Martial law has been declared through presidential powers and war powers act, and some citizens have refused to give up their weapons. They have taken over two of the buildings in Kingsville. The police cannot handle it. So you call these guys in. They show up and they zap everybody, take all the weapons, and let the local P.D. clean it up," he said.

"In urban warfare, the militarization of the police, this thing got out of order. The citizens did not comply with executive order so and so. They refused to give up their weapons," he re-emphasized.

Sanchez and other military experts questioned by WorldNetDaily all pointed to Presidential Decision Directive 25 as the document being used to authorize the military to participate in domestic police action. PDD 25 is classified as Top Secret, and even Sen. Orrin Hatch was unable to obtain a copy as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only a brief summary is available to the public.

Sanchez and others believe the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act has been eliminated by PDD 25. The posse comitatus act forbids the use of the military as a domestic police force.

"That was a big issue a few years ago, because when they set this thing up back a few years ago, the legal folks, the jack folks were saying, 'Hey, that may have applied one time, but no more. It doesn't apply anymore.' So that's the reason," explained Sanchez.

"They kind of give them the carte blanche where they can do what they want to do. They are guaranteed they will not be tried under the uniform code of military justice. They're exempt. There's no way to nail these guys. Even if we got them to court they would get presidential pardons," said Sanchez.

"It's a done deal. I think there's some U.N. folks involved in this thing too," he added.

Sanchez, 56, is now a lieutenant colonel in the Texas State Guard. He says that he takes the oath he raised his hand to very seriously.

"You know, we took an oath when we got sworn in to defend the country against foreign and domestic enemies. It doesn't say what kind of domestic enemies. It could include guys in black uniforms in the assassination squads and so on," he declared.

Sanchez was cleared for top secret clearance and was what he calls a "spook" for Naval Intelligence. One of the most decorated veterans of Vietnam, he was disabled and wounded in action. He survived two plane crashes and other close brushes with death.

In the Navy he was assigned the responsibility to find bad officers and bad military police. He says he is just continuing to do what he once did for the Navy.

from WorldNetDaily 1999-Feb-11, by David M. Bresnahan, from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990211_xex_shroud_secre.shtml:

Shroud of secrecy over urban war game
Police station torched in pitched grenade battle in Texas

When Operation "Last Dance" began in Kingsville, Texas, soldiers arrived in unmarked helicopters. Explosions were set off. A gunbattle ensued. One building burned and another was badly damaged.

It was all part of a secret training exercise that took place Monday night in a town of 25,000 not far from Corpus Christi. The local police were involved, as was the mayor, but almost no one will talk about it.

The Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has confirmed the event was the kick off of a series of similar training operations going on in Kingsville, Corpus Christi, and Fort Sam Houston. Additional training events will take place each day until Feb. 20.

Little warning was given to civilians prior to the event that startled many. The police first fibbed to local businesses early in the day, telling them that a police exercise would take place that night. One hour before the helicopters arrived they decided to go back to the businesses and tell them a military exercise would take place and not to be concerned.

A warning would have helped the many residents avoid panic, but they were not told in advance. The sound of the eight or more helicopters, explosions, and rapid gun fire caused hundreds of calls to the 911 dispatch center. Additional people were placed on duty to take the many anticipated calls.

City officials claim they were not permitted to warn residents. The Army wanted the exercise to be conducted in a realistic environment.

"The training has an emphasis on urban environment training and land navigation. Before we even rolled into Texas we did a thorough risk assessment and a safety study to ensure risks to the local population is minimized, as well as any risk to our soldiers," explained Carol Darby, a civilian public affairs officer for the Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.

An unidentified soldier involved in the exercise came from Kingsville and recommended the location. Planning began many months in advance, but the actual plans for the event by the soldiers involved began only hours before they carried out the mock mission.

The scenario was staged as a real event would be, with soldiers having to deal with a situation quickly and without preparation.

"The benefit that this kind of training has is having something that is done in a realistic time frame. A lot of times it's a very, very short notice (to the soldiers involved)," Darby told WorldNetDaily.

"We do this type of training in urban areas because of the increased urbanization of the world. Urban environments is one of the environments that we have to train in because of our deploy ability requirements to be able to conduct operations world wide.

"We look at different areas because of the characteristics in those areas and the challenges that those characteristics present to our training."

She said soldiers cannot always train just at the Fort Bragg facility. Soldiers need a real environment to train in, rather than the fake city used at Fort Bragg known as "Military Operations in Urbanized Terrain." The Marines have a similar training facility at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

She said there will be a different scenario for each part of the exercise with many soldiers participating. The number involved, and their nationality was not disclosed.

One witness to the exercise told WorldNetDaily that the soldiers appeared to be multi-national, but this could not be confirmed.

This exercise was not the first, nor will it be the last. Similar events are planned form many locations all over the United States, and a "peace training" exercise is taking place in Louisiana at the same time as Operation Last Dance.

"We look at different sizes of urban areas from a smaller area to a larger area because of those challenges that it presents, because we don't know where the next hot spots in the world will be," Darby explained.

Although the training takes place in many U.S. cities and towns, the troops involved could be called to respond to problems anywhere in the world.

WorldNetDaily requested permission to observe a future exercise. The request was turned down.

"The press cannot observe because of some of the tactics that we use. We do try to protect those. Another reason is safety," said Darby.

She was not aware of any coordination with other branches of the military, and she did not know if this had anything to do with President Clinton's recent proposal for a Homelands Defense Command.

The purpose of the training exercise also was not disclosed. She would not say if it dealt with terrorists, hostages, domestic, or foreign scenarios.

Witnesses described the exercise as extremely frightening.

The estimated eight helicopters landed one after another with soldiers jumping out quickly. The helicopters left as quickly as they arrived.

Explosions came from within a two-story former Exxon building, then rapid gunfire was exchanged between two warring factions. Extensive damage to the building was caused by grenades used in the explosions.

A vacant police station was used by the forces as well. They were using a welding torch for some undisclosed reason and accidentally set off a fire that gutted the inside of the building. The fire department, which was notified to be on standby, was able to extinguish the blaze before damage to other buildings took place.

The city has been promised it will be compensated for the damage to the old police station, which is considered to be destroyed. The Exxon building also suffered extensive damage.

When asked about the damage, Esquivel first denied that it even happened, then he explained that he had not yet received a report of damages but confessed he knew of the damage.

No one was injured, according to Police Chief Felipe Garza, who would not discuss the exercise. He and Mayor Phil Esquivel refused to give much information. They claimed they had been sworn to total secrecy.

Residents who spoke to WorldNetDaily complained, expressed fear, and did not want such an exercise in their town again. Several spoke harshly against their elected leaders for permitting the exercise.

from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 1999-Feb-18, by Novelda Sommers and James A. Suydam, Staff Writers, from http://www.caller.com/autoconv/newslocal99/newslocal417.html:

Old courthouse stormed in mock rescue
Special Forces use guns, explosives in practice operation

   Army Special Forces troops took the Old Nueces County Courthouse by storm Wednesday night in a mock-hostage rescue of an ambassador from one of the jail cells.
   The crack of gunfire and the low, loud boom of grenade explosions could be heard across the city.
   "All of a sudden, we saw cops blocking the streets and we heard gunshots," said Conrad DeLaPaz, 19, who pulled his minivan over and parked to watch the maneuvers.
   DeLaPaz said he was at first frightened by what appeared to be an assault on the city.
   The exercise by the Army Special Operations Command from Fort Bragg was the last in a series performed in the Corpus Christi area, Police Chief Pete Alvarez said.
   "It was really a neat exercise, something we'll probably never see again in Corpus Christi," Alvarez said.
   The soldiers' mission was to rescue an ambassador being held hostage by enemy forces, Alvarez said. In the process, they set up snipers outside the building whose mission was to kill guards, allowing soldiers access.
   The sharp crack of gunfire seemed to signal the beginning of the exercise. An instant later, several black helicopters without lights landed and dropped off soldiers.
   The soldiers used grenades and explosives to blow open doors, Alvarez said.
   A helicopter also landed on the Mann Building.
   The soldiers had to take out more than 60 bad guys - some real men, some plywood cutouts -in and around the courthouse before extracting the ambassador from the jail cell.
   They reached the hostage in about 10 minutes and finished the operation in about 25 minutes, he said.
   

`An awesome display'

   Mayor Loyd Neal, City Councilmen Ed Martin and John Longoria and City Councilwoman Melody Cooper witnessed the exercises from the driveway of Fire Station No. 1, just across the street from the courthouse.
   "It was an awesome display; those helicopter pilots were fantastic," said Neal, a former Airborne Ranger with 30 years of military service.
   One helicopter hovered inches above a crane at the worksite for the new federal courthouse, dropping off two snipers. The helicopter came back later in the exercise to pluck the men from the top of the crane.
   Two of the choppers landed on the roof of the courthouse. The others landed around the courthouse square. A large Blackhawk helicopter then settled in just to the north of the courthouse.
   "The pilot of that Blackhawk had more than 5,000 hours of flight time in that helicopters," said Neal, who had been briefed about the drill by Sam Joseph, an operations leader from Fort Bragg. "I've never seen anything as precise as what that guy was able to do under those conditions in the dark like that."
   

Smooth exercises

   Joseph said the urban warfare training exercise in Corpus Christi was one of the smoothest ever.
   "The cooperation from guys like your police chief was just fantastic," he said. "We really appreciate it. He's a hell of a guy."
   On Tuesday, Army representatives briefed the council on the operations and addressed concerns about citizen safety related to the exercises.
   During the exercises, helicopters have been seen swooping low over residential areas in Annaville, Kingsville and Port Aransas. The soldiers, wearing black face masks and night-vision goggles, use explosives and sometimes fire live rounds during the exercises, the soldiers said.
   In Kingsville on Feb. 8, explosions and rifle fire startled nearby residents, and the attack caused a fire that gutted an abandoned police building and blew windows out of another building nearby.
   Army officials have said that 50 to 60 soldiers were involved with the two-week exercise. The Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg had received permission from the city for the exercises.
   The unit has encountered problems in other cities where the times and locations of the operations were widely known, Joseph has said. In one case, he said, 200 people crowded onto the roof of an abandoned factory to watch the operation, threatening to collapse the roof and slowing the unit's vehicles.
   Dusty Durrill, owner of the company that owns the old courthouse, said he was approached by Army officials about six months ago. Durrill said he didn't receive any compensation for the exercise, but that Army officials agreed to pay for any damage.
   

Traffic disrupted

   Traffic was shut off on the I-37 overpass going toward Portland from 7:45 to 8 p.m. and again from 8:20 to 8:30 p.m. Traffic leaving Portland could enter Corpus Christi. The Harbor Bridge walkway also was closed.
   "We've had 10 times worse traffic jams during a major car accident," said Lt. Ken Ersland of the Corpus Christi Police Department. "Closing off the highway caused a minimal amount of inconvenience to the residents."
   Army officials asked for road closures so the helicopters wouldn't distract motorists or send debris onto cars, Ersland said.
   "The whole thing went off like clockwork, and I'm a Marine and I don't usually praise the Army," he said.
   Staff writer Stephanie L. Jordan contributed to this report. Staff writers Novelda Sommers and James A. Suydam can be reached at 886-3683 or by e-mail at sommersn@caller.com or suydamj@caller.com

from the Washington Post, some time around 1997-Jul-23, from http://www.techmgmt.com/restore/swat.htm:

FRESNO, Calif. -- Sgt. Wade Engelson is preparing his new recruits for war. Dressed in fatigues, sporting buzz hair cuts, the new men are being trained in the use of submachine guns, explosives and chemical weapons. They have at their disposal a helicopter and, soon, an armored personnel carrier.

Engelson's men are not Navy Seals or Army Rangers. They are members of the Fresno Police Department, whose enemy will not be found in faraway lands but in the neighborhoods where the police routinely patrol -- fully armed and in urban camouflage.

In their expanding strength and mission, the SWAT team in Fresno mirrors a growing trend in U.S. law enforcement -- the rise in the number of police para-military units across the country and a rapid expansion of their activities, a controversial trend that police scholars refer to as "the militarization" of civilian police.

The explosive growth and expanding mission of SWAT teams has, in turn, led to complaints that an occupying army is marching through America's streets -- that they are too aggressive, too heavily armed, too scary -- and that they erode the public's perception of police as public servants.

"It's a very dangerous thing, when you're telling cops they're soldiers and there's an enemy out there," said Joseph McNamara, former chief of police in San Jose and Kansas City who is now at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. "I don't like it at all."

In a new study, police researcher Peter Kraska and his colleagues have documented the explosive growth of SWAT, which stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. In a nationwide survey of 690 law enforcement agencies serving cities with populations with 50,000 or more, the researchers found that 90 percent now have active SWAT teams, compared to 60 percent in the early 1980s.

Even in rural communities and smaller cities, the researchers have found that two of every three departments now boast a SWAT team -- a phenomenon Kraska compares to "militarizing Mayberry," he said referring to the fictional small town in the Andy Griffith television show.

Yet more important than the raw numbers, Kraska says, the SWAT mission has expanded. Once limited to highly specialized actions, such as dealing with barricaded gunmen or hostage-takers, the SWAT teams are now increasingly engaged in more standard police work. There is a boom in "high risk warrant work," including "no-knock entries." The work is mostly related to the war on drugs, and by extension, "gang suppression."

"Where the SWAT teams were once deployed a few times a year, they are now used for all kinds of police work -- dozens of calls, hundreds of calls a year," said Kraska, a professor of police studies at Western Kentucky University. "In SWAT units formed since 1980, their use has increased by 538 percent." And some units, like those in Fresno, are being deployed full-time as roaming patrols.

The 30 members of Fresno's Violent Crime Suppression Unit now patrol crime- ridden neighborhoods day and night, serving warrants at homes of suspected drug dealers and criminals, stopping vehicles, interrogating gang members, showing a presence.

As they move through the city, they wear subdued gray-and-black urban camouflage and body armor, and have at the ready, ballistic shields and helmets, M17 gas masks and rappelling gear. More equipment is carried in a mobile command SWAT bus that roves the city. The deparment is purchasing an armored personnel carrier.

The tactical police here also carry an assortment of weaponry denied the normal beat cop -- battering rams, diversionary devices known as "flashbangs," chemical agents, such as pepper spray and tear gas, and specialized guns, including assault rifles and most famously, the Heckler and Koch MP5, the short, highly accurate 9mm, fully automatic submachine gun used by the Navy Seals.

While the phenomenal rise in SWAT work has drawn some fire, police officials say the change has been a necessary one that has made an impact on crime.

Fresno Police Chief Ed Winchester says that a highly armed and more violent criminal class requires an extreme response. Fresno formed its SWAT team in 1973, about a decade after the first such unit appeared in Los Angeles. Its creation occurred after an officer was shot and killed by a robbery suspect following a chaotic police response in which patrol officers fired hundreds of rounds at the suspect, borrowed an armored car and let fly canisters of tear gas, which then floated across the neighborhood.

"It was what we would call a fiasco," Winchester said, convincing everyone that a more highly trained, specialized and disciplined unit was required.

From 1973 until 1994, Fresno's SWAT team operated only in response to very specific call-outs, such as barricaded suspects. But by late 1994, Fresno was experiencing a crime wave. There were 55 shootings in five months, with 13 people killed, including three children. And so Fresno's traditional SWAT unit transformed itself into the Violent Crime Suppression Unit and took to the streets in constant patrols.

"The criminals aren't stupid," Winchester said. "They see eight guys surrounding them, all carrying submachine guns and wearing black fatigues, they don't want to get killed."

Fresno SWAT member C.D. Smith, writing in Police magazine in 1995, put it this way: "The streets of Fresno have become a war zone for cops, who find themselves in the heat of battle with the bad guys at least once a month."

Winchester credits the unit, in part, with reducing violent crime in Fresno by 8.7 percent in 1995 and 3.5 percent in 1996. Now, he is expanding the unit again -- for day patrols as well as night.

"Is there a downside? Sure there is," Winchester said. "It's a sad commentary -- sad when crime is so bad you got to put a SWAT unit on the street."

Yet critics warn the growing use of paramilitary-style police units threatens the very idea of a civilian police force -- just as many law enforcement authorities begin to apply a new technique known as "community policing," putting more beat cops on the street and letting them interact more with citizens to solve problems as well as crimes.

"Despite the conventional wisdom that community policing is sweeping the nation, the exact opposite is happening," said McNamara. "The police and their communities ought to think seriously about this. Is there a need for SWAT teams? Yes, for highly specialized functions. But the police love these units, and this is a disastrous image to project."

McNamara and other police scholars say that the positive impact of the SWAT teams on reducing crime is most likely short-lived -- and that the pressure must be maintained. They also fear that heavily armed, commando-style police -- if they remain in a neighborhood for long -- will eventually be seen as an occupying army.

Kraska said his research shows that the rise in SWAT activities has closely followed the increased resources applied to fight illegal drug use. "The drug war created the atmosphere for this kind of pro-active policing," Kraska said. "We have never seen this kind of policing, where SWAT teams routinely break through a door, subdue all the occupants and search the premises for drugs, cash and weapons."

Between 1980 and 1995, for example, Kraska found that SWAT units were employed in their traditional roles only for a minority of call-outs. Some 1.3 percent of their work was to quell civil disturbances; 3.6 percent for hostage situations; 13.4 percent for barricaded individuals. But 75 percent of their mission is now devoted to serve high-risk warrants, mostly drug raids.

Police chiefs and SWAT officers defend the practice, saying they are more aggressively rooting out and arresting drug dealers. And because of the more powerful weapons used by gangs and dealers, the work should be done by highly trained SWAT teams.

Fresno Police Chief Winchester says that the SWAT teams, because of their training and style of assault, actually fire fewer shots. "They overwhelm suspects," the chief said. "They don't need to shoot."

Kraska's survey of police departments finds many SWAT teams are instructed by active and retired U.S. military experts in special operations. The SWAT teams also receive training not only from the FBI, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and National Tactical Officers Association, but in classes organized by private companies.

One of the most popular courses is offered by Heckler and Koch, which trains hundreds of SWAT officers a year. The company also offers the units discounts on its popular weapons, such as the MP5. Kraska points to the private companies role in the encouragement of SWAT response as part of a new "crime control industry."

Larry Glick, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, said that some of the private training seminars are taught by "retired military personnel who don't know what they're doing." The training offered by Heckler and Koch is "very successful and credible, among the best," he said. "Their ultimate goal is to sell their guns."

Kraska and other police scholars said that even with the most community- sensitive training, the new weaponry and paramilitary-style tactics of the SWAT units attract a different kind of officer -- less the cop as social worker and more the cop as an elite special `ops' soldier. And most SWAT officers are paid a premium for the work.

"The SWAT teams love this stuff," Kraska said. "It's fun to fire these weapons.

It's exciting to train. They use `simmunition' -- like the paint balls and play warrior games. This stuff is a rush."

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

from a NetNews post by "Runway Cat" <Runway_Cat@hotmail.com>, January 24, 1999, downloaded from http://www.afn.org/~govern/weimar2.html:

In the March 1999 issue of Soldier of Fortune, there's an excellent overview of the merging and blurring of function between military and police in the US, which will apparently lead inexorably to a police state. Perhaps not news to this NG's regular readers, but worth perusing for discussion. Many of the developments noted are precise fulfillment's of Jacques Ellul's prophecies of about future technology state, from the 1950's. Some quotes below the line.
-RC

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) admits that it is no longer capable of protecting Americans from incoming nuclear missiles. Yet NORAD enjoys hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding, as part of a $1.8 billion systems upgrade, having convinced congress to assign NORAD the mission of tracking planes and ships that might be carrying drugs.

In 1986, the nation had 3,000 deployments of paramilitary police units. In 1996, it rose to 30,000.

The [black] helicopters, writes [Prof. David] Kopel, "are part of the National Guard's marijuana eradication program. They are flying over rural property as a result of 1981 and 1989 congressional amendments which created a partial drug exception to the Posse Commitatus Act."

These days it's not just the radical fringe types who warn of a police state. Rather it is quickly becoming a mainstream concern.

"Once the military is used for local police activity, however minor initially, the march toward martial law with centralized police using military troops as an adjunct force becomes irresistible." said Rep. Ron Paul R-Texas, addressing the United States Congress.

The reign of Hitler began with a mixing of police and military roles. "Modern societies are characterized by a rather neat separation between police and military forces; each maintaining very different principles of recruitment, training and organizational functioning and operating under completely different frameworks of legal rules and political supervision," writes Prof. Hans Geser, of the University of Zurich's Institute of Sociology, in a study of United Nations international policing.

"Law enforcement must serve persons who are guaranteed presumptions of innocence and right not appropriate when dealing with an enemy during times of war," Kopel writes. "Our citizens are not supposed to perceive themselves as subjects of an occupying force."

"A series of drug war amendments to Posse Commitatus during the 1980s under Presidents Reagan and Bush, has changed that and placed Marines on patrol at home," says Kevin B. Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, explaining why Marines who shot Zeke Hernandez were patrolling the Texas/Mexico border in the first place. Unlike a cop, the Marine's career isn't founded on two fundamental rights: assumption of innocence and Miranda rights. "Our soldiers are not trained to make arrests, Mirandize and bring to justice. They are trained to kill," says Mr. Zeese.

Defense Secretary William Cohen went so far as to suggest border states sign agreements to provide immunity to local criminal laws, similar to the "status of forces agreements" the department has with foreign governments.

With constant advancements in technology, however, police are becoming more capable of finding crimes - and therefore articulable suspicion - that would otherwise go undetected. Random enforcement is becoming a thing of the past. Today's police are like small armies that target groups in the name of social reform. Now and in the future, you'll have to watch out who your friends are. You can be targeted for who you associate with."

"There's an unsettling trend among police to view demonstrations as crime scenes," says Blewitt. "Police are beginning to view crowds of demonstrators as enemies of the state, to be controlled, rather than groups of people exercising their constitutional right the police should be working to uphold."

"It's all being done out in the open, and many people don't see it as frightening," says defense lawyer Blewitt. "That's because Americans have been conditioned to think it will affect only criminals. They've been convinced society if being destroyed by crime - even though violent crime has steadily decreased in recent years - and these military style police are our only hope. What they should worry about is an emerging police state that threatens the very fabric of free society."

more from the same URL, from "Nikoli Krushev" <doomsday@y2000.com>, January 25, 1999:

We became an official police state last year with the passage of Janet Renos' wish list of extended powers. These powers were tacked onto existing legislation completely bypassing Congress. Under this expanded powers act any phone ascribed to a suspect can be tapped without a warrant or court order. Justice dept. Alphabet agents now can get blanket search warrants without a specific address or search target, (i.e. drugs, guns, etc.) Confiscation of assets was expanded to include a multitude of crimes and is no longer dependent on conviction. You can be charged with a crime, with absolutely no proof you committed one, and they can take everything you own. Court proceedings to recover your property will take years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You cannot sue the government to recover court cost.

Now let's revisit that original power of wiretaps. Under this policy a government agency can move an undercover agent into a neighboring home or apartment. Using his clandestine cover as an enemy of the state they can then tap every phone surrounding his location including private residences without a court order or any evidence whatsoever that the owners of the phones are criminals. If one of the tapped lines belongs to a targeted person you now introduce an agent provocateur to either implicate the person in a crime or plant false evidence in his residence. The courts have also ruled that videotaping a person without their knowledge or consent is not a crime as long as there is no audio on the tape. Using a blanket search warrant they can enter your home while you are at work and install hidden surveillance cameras. These cameras can be placed in your bathroom, bedroom, anywhere they want them. Now if they have gone to this much trouble do you seriously believe they will not have a microphone installed separately? As long as it isn't an integral part of the camera this also would be legal.

Now this week Clinton proposes a completely new branch of the military to police the civilian population. We're not talking happy face national guard troops here, this is nothing more than an attempt to establish his own personal SS unit whose sole duty will be to smash any group that dares stand up to the nazification of America.

Bringing the War Home

BACKGROUND NOTE FROM PIR: "New Times" magazine was founded and published out of New York from 1973-1979 by George A. Hirsch, a Princeton-Harvard man who got his start in journalism at Time-Life International. Hirsch also published "New York" magazine and "The Runner."

New Times held its own during that brief window of serious journalism in America between Watergate and the Reagan years. At this time there were several Congressional committees investigating CIA misdeeds, revelations of political spying against 1960s activists by the police, military, and FBI, the final collapse of our Vietnam adventure, and a new JFK assassination investigation. All this was standard fare in the glossy pages of the biweekly New Times.

Ron Ridenhour died of an apparent heart attack on May 10, 1998 at the age of 52. A Vietnam draftee who in 1969 first disclosed the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers, Ron grew up in Phoenix, but in recent years lived in Louisiana. In 1988 he won a Polk Award for journalism for an investigation of a New Orleans tax scandal.

The Pentagon is training police and guardsmen to help the army crush any revolt in the streets of America. It's part of a detailed secret plan that could end up crushing our liberties.

Santa Luisa is burning. The power stations have been bombed. The local armories are in flames and the ammunition stocks have been destroyed. The riots began a day ago, after a policeman shot an antiwar demonstrator, and now thousands of people are milling in the streets, blocking off traffic, breaking plate glass windows, ambushing police cars. Sirens scream in the night as revolving red beacons spasmodically illuminate the glass-strewn streets. It looks like war in Santa Luisa, and the small college town is not unique: Riots are pulsating up and down California, spreading through several of the large Eastern and Midwestern states. Years of antiwar rhetoric reverberate in an ominous new note. The war has come home.

For it is a war: There is another side. As soon as the demonstrator is shot, before the first hint of public reaction, police forces have begun whirring up. They have checked their computerized lists of local radical troublemakers. They have telephoned to make sure that National Guard and Military Police forces are standing by. When the violence ignites. they are ready -- detaining local radicals, mobilizing searchlight-equipped observation helicopters, coordinating U.S. Army troops with the National Guard, rolling armored tanks through the city, evacuating civilians. In four days, they have blitzed through the town, shredded the radical movement, established a curfew and imposed martial rule. After four days of war, Santa Luisa is quiet.

Close observers of the antiwar movement will be surprised that they have never heard of the Santa Luisa riots. But that's not surprising at all: There never were any riots in Santa Luisa. In fact, there never was a Santa Luisa. It is just a nightmare -- a fictional creation of the Pentagon, the Justice Department and local police departments. It is their imaginative scenario of the revolution they thought would blossom from the race riots and antiwar protests of the late Sixties and early Seventies. As fiction, it would be merely an historical curiosity, except for one thing -- it was the spawning ground of another nightmare, this one fact, not fiction. The Santa Luisa scenario is a game plan used by an elaborate and insidious structure that has developed over the last seven years, an intermeshing of Army, National Guard and local police forces, led by the most right-wing public officials and military men, designed to decimate leftist dissent but capable of crushing anything.

Four years ago Senator Sam Ervin's Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights revealed that Military Intelligence had established an intricate surveillance system covering hundreds of thousands of American citizens. Committee staff members had seen a master plan -- Garden Plot -- that gave an eagle-eye view of the Army - National Guard - police strategy. But they weren't eagles, and the plan was too general to seem alarming. "We could never find any kind of unifying purpose behind it all," Britt Snider, who was then the subcommittee's main man on military intelligence, told a reporter four months ago. "It looked like an aimless kind of thing." The subcommittee issued a report condemning the Pentagon's monitoring of the "peaceful activities of non-violent citizens" whose only offense was "to stand on their hind legs and exercise the rights they thought the Constitution guaranteed." The subcommittee had seen the tail of the monster and they proclaimed it monstrous.

The subcommittee's problem was that although they had a copy of the Garden Plot master plan, they lacked any of the more detailed subplans. An investigation sponsored by New Times has now uncovered one of those subplans -- code name Cable Splicer, covering California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona, under the command of the Sixth Army. It is a plan that outlines extraordinary military procedures to stamp out unrest in this country. Developed in a series of California meetings from 1968 to 1972, Cable Splicer is a war plan that has adapted for domestic use procedures used by the U.S. Army in Vietnam. Although many facts still remain hazy behind Pentagon smoke screens, Cable Splicer, laid out in six loose-leaf binders holding several thousand pages of documents, reveals the shape of the monster that the Ervin committee was tracking down.

The story begins a decade ago. In 1965 Watts exploded in riots and, across the Pacific, Marines landed in South Vietnam. It was the opening of a long season of racial unrest and political turmoil. Four major ghettos suffered riots that year, leaving 36 dead and more than a thousand injured. The next year was checkered with 21 major riots and civil disorders fueled by racial issues, economic grievances and the Vietnam war. Seven times the National Guard was called in to restore order. In 1967 there were 83 incidents, 25 of which required the Guard. A third of the 83 were marked by sniping, over half of the 83 by looting.

The turning point was Detroit. The Detroit riots of 1967 were the most destructive civil disturbances of the decade. Forty-three died, several hundred were wounded and over 5,000 were left homeless. President Johnson sent trouble-shooter Cyrus Vance -- later the American representative to the Paris Peace Talks -- as his personal observer to Detroit. After the riot, Johnson appointed a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner. A week later, Harold K. Johnson, Chief of Staff of the Army, set up another task force to study "every aspect of the Army's role in civil disturbances." The Army task force assisted the Kerner Commission. It also issued its own report in early 1968. Acting on the report's recommendations, the Pentagon took a five-pronged approach to solving the civil disturbance problem:

• Following and expanding the suggestion of Cyrus Vance, Military Intelligence -- working with the FBI, local county and state police forces -- undertook and directed a massive domestic intelligence-gathering operation.
  
  
• To train senior military, National Guard and police officers, the Senior Officers Civil Disturbance Course (SEADOC) was instituted at the Military Police Academy in Georgia.
  
  
• Contingency plans, called "planning packets," were prepared for every city in the country that had a potential for student, minority or labor unrest.
  
  
• Security forces ranging from Army troops to local police were trained to implement their contingency plans.
  
  
• The Army task force that had designed this program took on a new name, the Directorate of Civil Disturbance Planning and Operations, and became a national coordinating center for these different efforts.

The Army task force's transformation into the Directorate occurred during the massive rioting that broke out in black ghettos of 19 cities after the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968. The Directorate's headquarters was in the Pentagon's basement, known as "the domestic war room." Surrounded by acetate map overlays, a fulltime staff of 180, including around-the-clock "watch teams," used teletype machines, telephones and radios to keep in constant communication with every state National Guard headquarters and all major military installations in the continental United States. Seven Army infantry brigades totaling 21,000 troops were available for riot duty. And a huge, sophisticated computer center kept track of all public outbursts of political dissent, thereby furnishing the first of the Army task force's prescribed remedies: intelligence.

Senator Ervin's Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights discovered the computer in 1971, a full year after beginning its admirable investigation of the massive domestic operations of Military Intelligence. "At no time," its staff report states, "during the first year of the Subcommittee's investigation did either the

The conservative congressman thumbed through the Cable Splicer documents: "Well, I'll be damned! This is what I call subversive."

Army or the Department of Defense admit that a computer on civilian political activity existed within the Pentagon's domestic war room." The subcommittee discovered computerized files on 18,000 of the celebrated and the obscure, on people such as Senator George McGovern and former Massachusetts Gov. Francis Sargent down to ordinary citizens who had, sometimes unknowingly, become "associated with known militant groups."

How does the Pentagon define "militant groups"? Documents from their war games sessions provide some idea. At the Cable Splicer III After Action Conference, held in California in May 1970, Los Angeles Police Department Captain Don Miller observed that militant groups are easy to identify since they "are normally organized according to political beliefs and/or ethnic backgrounds." Generalizations are accurate, noted Lynn "Buck" Compton, the Los Angeles prosecutor of Sirhan Sirhan, because there's "really very little difference between the Sirhans, the [Jerry] Rubins, the [Bobby] Seales, the [Abbie] Hoffmans, and the people of that stripe in that all resort to physical violence to achieve political goals." In a "revolutionary criminology" lecture listing activities that "require police action," Los Angeles Police Department Inspector John A. McAllister mentioned "loud, boisterous or obscene" behavior on beaches, "love-in type gatherings in parks where in large numbers they freak out," disruptions of "legitimate activities by gangs of noisy and sometimes violent dissidents," peace marches, rock festivals (where "violence is commonplace and sex is unrestrained") and "campus disruptions -- which in fact are nothing more than mini-revolutions." The guests at the Cable Splicer conference listened and learned.

Cable Splicer I was conducted in California in May 1968, barely a month after the Army task group became the Directorate. Held at the California National Guard's training academy at the San Luis Obispo Camp, the conference was attended by 307 law enforcement and military officials from all over the state. It was designed as a workshop seminar on civil disturbance control and as a prelude to Cable Splicer II.

Cable Splicer II was a bigger affair. It began on February 10, 1969, with the Governor's Orientation Conference, the kickoff for a series of joint military-police training sessions across the state of California. Before an audience of 500 -- including generals from the Pentagon, the Sixth Army and the National Guard, dozens of lesser officers, police chiefs and sheriffs from as far east as Washington, D.C., California state legislators, a dozen Military Intelligence officers and executives from telephone, utility and defense-contract companies -- Governor Ronald Reagan took the microphone. It was a week after he had promised to keep California's universities open at the point of a bayonet, if necessary. "You know," he began, "there are people in the state who, if they could see this gathering right now and my presence here, would decide that their worst fears and convictions had been realized -- I was planning a military takeover."

The Cable Splicer II war games, which were played a month later, would only have reinforced those fears and convictions. The games were organized around 23 existing political jurisdictions, usually at the city, county or regional level, across California. On the scheduled morning, the controllers, players, monitors and observers gathered in the emergency operations center," usually the radio room of the county sheriff or of the largest participating police department. In some cases, a National Guard armory was used. Among the participants were senior National Guard officers and their Army advisers, senior police and sheriff's officers and telephone and utility company executives. The soldiers always wore civilian clothing and took all precautions to disguise the military's cooperation with the police.

By the time the participants gathered in the emergency operations center, anywhere from six weeks to six months of preparation had already been invested in the game. Initial orders had been transmitted from the Army command to the state National Guard headquarters, where, with the help of Army advisers, the scenarios were drafted. On every level, in every way, military men worked closely with police officers. In California the Guard prepared two special intelligence documents, titled "Special Intelligence Summary" and "Organizations and Personalities." Although their content is unknown, apparently they supply intelligence data on California citizens and political organizations. Asked if that were true, Lt. Col. Frank Salcedo, public information officer for the California Guard and a Cable Splicer planner since 1969, answered rhetorically: "Well, how else could you do it?" Copies of both documents were sent to Cable Splicer planners to help them create realistic skirmishes. On their end, local policemen prepared their own special intelligence summaries featuring the "best described dissident activity" for their community, targeting either racial, student or labor unrest. Finally, over 1,200 preplanned intelligence reports on supposedly imaginary events, people and organizations, carefully pasted to IBM cards, were provided to help generate the make-believe war.

With everything ready, it's time to begin. The clock reads 0800 hours. The players listen to a special intelligence summary, learning the background of the civil disturbance that has led up to the current "emergency." At that point, the "controllers" -- usually the senior National Guard officers and their Army advisers -- begin play, feeding the IBM-card preplanned intelligence reports of dissident activity to the players. Seated at rows of desks dotted with telephones, facing a "situation map" of their community, the players respond to the unfolding scenario. They are the thin blue line standing between order and anarchy.

The situation escalates. In Phase I of the scenario possessed by New Times, an arrest and shooting provoke crowd unrest and threats against public officials. Fourteen hours later (not real time: he riot unfolds like a time-phased movie of a chicken hatching) a major incident" occurs -- a police car is ambushed and an officer is wounded, a minority group member is killed and two others are injured. This is followed by "minority group charges [that] police planned [the] shooting incident" and "threats of retaliation." A day passes. Intelligence reports indicate "probable widespread activity momentarily." Apparently the reports are accurate, for Phase I ends with the arrival of a "chartered flight" carrying "70 persons" -- apparently radicals -- who are picked up at the airport by friends in 20 separate automobiles.

Phase II begins two hours later with the ambush of several police cars, the attempted assassination of the mayor, the bombing of local armories, the destruction of vehicles and ammunition stocks and the gathering of thousands of people in the streets. County and state police and police from other cities are called in. Previous intelligence reports have proved prophetic, but within the next few hours "two distinct and conflicting intelligence reports develop." The players decide that the first, which indicates "widespread support for general insurrection, is unreliable and invalid." They rely on the second one, which identifies "limited but violent activity planned and executed by a relatively few individuals with virtually no popular support. There are soon reports of "scattered incidents of guerrilla activity."

As Phase III opens, intelligence reports pouring into the Emergency Operations Center disclose more fire-bombings, attempted assassinations of public officials, hoarding of water in certain areas and sniping at fire trucks. The streets remain filled with thousands of people, and the National Guard is called to active duty. Intelligence notes that the "crowds [are] not violent yet and should be dispersed before becoming sympathetic to guerrillas." But the police and National Guard aren't quick enough. Reports soon come in of window-mashing and looting. The crowds are now violent, and as Phase III ends the Guard is unable to deal with the riots.

What happens next is unclear. The scenario possessed by New Times says only, "It is now 96 hours later," followed by these cryptic entries: "Situation well under control. No major incidents last 24 hours. Intelligence: remaining loose militants cannot get support for further violence."

The question of secrecy Cable Splicer was conducted in secrecy, and even today the Pentagon cover-up continues. There was no attempt to hide the war games, according to Col. Anthony L. Palumbo, deputy controller of Cable Splicers II and III. But his statement is flatly contradicted by another participant, Lt. Col. Frank Salcedo. Asked last June if he regretted any aspect of the exercises, Salcedo said, "Yes, the secrecy." He confirmed that the entire operation had been conducted under wraps. The documents support Salcedo. The official plan forbids all advance publicity, and warns that if either the war games or the governor's pep rallies are discovered, the two are not to be connected. And if that defense line is breached, there's another line to fall back on: The role of the Sixth Army is to be concealed. Throughout the sessions, military participants are to dress in civvies "to prevent adverse publicity or misleading psychological effects." No cable splicer is to arrive at a local police department in a military vehicle. Finally, all participating troops are warned not to talk about their classified orders. As one former game-player recalled, some papers were "read and eat." "Strict document and information control" was urged at "all levels," particularly in regard to the "realistic problem areas and technical information contained in the scenario." So last week Col. Palumbo denied everything. (Palumbo, formerly chief of Police/Community Relations for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in Washington, returned this month to his job with the Guard after a six-month tour with the Army's Forces Command Center as an "action type" whose primary responsibility was implementing Garden Plot contingency plans.) He denied any connection between Cable Splicer and Garden Plot, between the governor's orientation conference and the war games, between the Army and Cable Splicer -- although he conceded that the Army donated some money ($95 million of the California National Guard's $100 million budget last year) and that Cable Splicer was run as a National Guard training exercise. The cover-up continues.

How has order been restored? We can only guess. It is known that during this period the U.S Army is called in to bail out the National Guard. At their disposal, according to the game plan, there are heavy artillery, armor, chemical and psychological warfare teams and tactical air support. "Complete coverage day and night" is offered by observation helicopters coordinated with ground patrols. To impress the populace, armored vehicles and "saturation of areas with police and military patrols" are two recommended tactics, Cable Splicer players are instructed to "evacuate civilians to preclude their interference with operation and/or to insure their safety." They are also coached in techniques of emergency relief supply, temporary shelters "for civilians whose homes have been destroyed," collection of privately owned weapons and other techniques useful for the rule of war-torn provinces.

Do the police detain radical leaders, leaving only some "remaining loose militants"? How do they extract the militants from the thousands of less committed supporters? At last the Military Intelligence domestic surveillance program begins to make some sense. In the winter of 1967-8, as Garden Plot and subplans such as Cable Splicer were developed, Military Intelligence sent domestic operatives countrywide to organize political intelligence units, compiling data eventually stored in the Pentagon domestic war room computer. Was that information the basis for the "hypothetical" war games? In the exercise directive's "security guidance" paragraph is the following order: "Names of real militant or dissident organizations will not be used. For development of problem play, fictitious names will be used." Are the directors of this secret military project worried about slander lawsuits? Or are they simply notifying local forces not to draw on the police or military intelligence lists of "real militant or dissident organizations?"

There are other questions surrounding these mysterious 96 hours. How can such military sweeps be justified legally short of a declaration of martial law? Cable Splicer scenarios provide for "an orderly progression from state to federal control." Perhaps it is not accidental that "martial rule" is the first subject discussed in a special training course on "Legal Aspects of Managing Civil Disorders" that is taught at the California National Guard's training academy. An off-shoot of one of the five prongs in the Army task force's original report on civil disorder, this course for senior officers fits with Cable Splicer.

The Senior Officers Civil Disturbance Course (SEADOC) was established at the Military Police Academy at Fort Gordon, Georgia (recently transferred to Fort McClellan, Alabama), to train high military and civil officers. Using identical language, the After Action reports for both Cable Splicer II and the later Cable Splicer III call for the creation of another school, offering a "long range training program" to provide "exchange of law enforcement officers and military officers" with the goal of establishing "a nucleus of officers (both law enforcement and military) at every level of government who were conversant with the doctrine, tactics, of each other." Their prayer was answered by the creation in May 1971 of the California Specialized Training Institute.

The Civil Emergency Management Course Manual at the San Luis Obispo school is a virtual handbook for the counterrevolution. Examining the motives behind "revolutionary activity," the manual author finds the causes legitimate, the frustration often well-justified, the "revolutionaries" basically sincere. That is exactly why the threat is so dangerous. The manual and the course describe how that threat should be met. The methods? Press manipulation, computerized radical spotting, logistical support from other agencies, martial rule. Three days of preparation lead up to a day-long game, Cable Splicer-style, based on a hypothetical riot in the mythical town of Santa Luisa. After seven hours of war, there is a critique and another work session. A last day is highlighted by discussions of "reduced lethality weapons" and student movement infiltrators.

Between September 1971 and May 1975, 4,063 officials of the National Guard, the Army, local police forces, fire services, city government, courts, legislatures, utilities, prisons and private corporations attended this course in San Luis Obispo. They are the "nucleus of officers ... at every level of government" called for in the Cable Splicer II and the Cable Splicer III After Action reports. They came from nearly every state west of the Mississippi and some east. Other officials, mostly from the East, take a very similar course given by SEADOC in Fort Gordon. And the teaching continues. Last September was the beginning of a new academic year in San Luis Obispo, the start of the first of 17 one-week Civil Emergency Management courses.

The San Luis Obispo school teaches soldiers as well as commanders. The most well-known alumni of this and similar programs are the law officers who systematically slaughtered the Symbionese Liberation Army cohorts of Patricia Hearst. That televised massacre occurred only six months after the November 1973 graduation of the first 40 students at the San Luis Obispo special weapons and tactics (SWAT) program. SWAT teams are the Green Berets of the ghettos. "If you know about LURP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol teams, the 'regular' Army version of the Green Berets]," says Commandant Louis O. Giuffrida, "then you know what SWAT is, adapted of course to domestic needs in an urban setting." Like LURP teams, SWAT teams consist of five men, including a sniper, a shotgun man, an automatic weapons man, a scout and a team leader. One California police official, begging anonymity, called them "the outlaws of the police." They are urban guerrillas. At San Luis Obispo, the name SWAT, with its unpleasant connotations, has been replaced by the more antiseptic SERT (Special Emergency Reaction Teams). SERT officers are the triggermen, the enforcers, for their higher-level colleagues who study at the same academy. They are taught not only how to act on the streets but how to defend their actions in a courtroom. For instance, SERT trainees are read two examples of testimony by a police officer who has choked a prisoner. The first explanation makes the act defensible, the other leaves the officer culpable.

It is not publicly known how many SWAT men have been trained since the various Garden Plot subplans created a pressing need for them. Over 1,400, including campus and utility company security police, have been instructed at the San Luis Obispo academy since November 1973. Another 15 or more classes of at least 50 students each are scheduled for the current academic year. In addition, the FBI has coached officers from at least 450 police departments across the country. In Los Angeles County alone, criminal justice authorities plan to train 10,000 police in a variation of SWAT (Disturbance and Riot Training) by 1977.

The Pentagon and California State officials all deny any connection between SEADOC in Fort Gordon, Georgia, and the San Luis Obispo academy. The facts contradict them. At the Cable Splicer III After Action conference, talking not to the hostile press but to a sympathetic audience, Col. Anthony L. Palumbo promised that the forthcoming California academy at San Luis Obispo would "duplicate" Fort Gordon's SEADOC facility. That was in late spring 1970. A year later, the staff of the California Specialized Training Institute at San Luis Obispo had assembled under Commandant Louis O. Giuffrida, a 30-year Army veteran who retired as a full colonel in the Military Police Academy at Fort Gordon to take his new job. Robert L. Wyngard, a SEADOC instructor, accompanied Giuffrida to San Luis Obispo as the director of instruction. No wonder the courses at the two academies are so similar. Another explanation for the similarity is their shared source of funding: The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration bankrolled SEADOC's expansion in May 1971 and planted a $425,000 seed in San Luis Obispo.

Thumbing through the pages of Cable Splicer last summer, Congressman Clair Burgener (R-Calif.) shakes his head in disbelief. Burgener is a staunch conservative who attended Governor Reagan's Cable Splicer II kickoff conference over six years earlier. He has never heard of Cable Splicer. "I've read Seven Days in May and all those scare books, and...." He hesitates, searching for words. "And they're scary!" He never knew that the brief public relations luncheon he barely remembers was connected to a series of military-police war games. "If this was going on in this spirit," he says, "they were certainly pulling the wool over the eyes of the invited guests." He reads for half an hour and then leans back in his chair. "Well, I'll be damned!" he exclaims. "This is what I call subversive."

In the office of the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, chaired by Senator John Tunney since Ervin's retirement last year, chief counsel Doug Lee devotes over four hours to the three big loose-leaf binders. First he chuckles occasionally, and then his chuckles turn to giggles of amazement. "Incredible," he mutters again and again. "Unbelievable." Giggle. "These guys are crazy!" Giggle. "We're the enemy! This is civil war they're talking about here. Half the country has been designated as the enemy." And in another Senate office, Britt Snider, who worked for Ervin on Military Intelligence and is now with Senator Frank Church's Select Committee on Intelligence, thumbs through the papers and observes, "If there ever was a model for a takeover, this is it."

It is hardly remarkable that government officials developed methods of dealing with the disorders that rocked the nation for almost a decade. What is shocking is the secrecy of the program, the deliberate and continuing cover-up, the disregard of the careful restraints on the military that are fundamental to democratic society, and the rabidly reactionary quality of the organization's leader. "We are in a revolution," California Chief Deputy Attorney General Charles O'Brien told his Cable Splicer III audience in May 1970. "Here in this room today," chipped in prosecutor Buck Compton, "we have at least a nucleus of people who should be able to, in some measure, contribute to the counter-revolution." In his opening address, Glenn C. Ames, Commanding General of the California National Guard, told the throng, "The avowed mission of these anarchists and revolutionaries is to bring America to its knees, to destroy our present system of government, to defeat 'the establishment' at every turn, and to replace this with absolutely nothing but irresponsibility, a drug culture, and permissiveness." The "one thing" everyone in the room had in common, declared John A. McAllister of the L.A. police, to the crowd of military officers, policemen, civilian officials and business executives, "is that we recognize that the nation is involved in a revolution."

Documents for Cable Splicer continue only through the sixth and apparently final session on December 16, 1972, and Cable Splicer covers only four Western states. But Brig. Gen. J. L. Jelinek, senior Army officer in the Pentagon's National Guard Bureau, said last July that he knows of "no state that didn't have some form of this [civil disturbance control] exercise within the last year" under different code names. Although the Army claims to have de-emphasized the program recently, there is strong evidence that they have merely decentralized it. Every National Guard headquarters now has an Emergency Operations Center, says Colonel Zane Kortum, recently retired deputy director of the Pentagon Directorate. Each EOC boasts a full-time staff using multiple lines of communication to the Pentagon's domestic war room, with access to the computerized intelligence systems. The Army told Senator Ervin that it destroyed those records, but now, apparently contradicting Einstein's law of the conservation of matter, these intelligence files have recently been discovered in the Pentagon's cavernous underground computer facilities at Mount Weather, W.Va.

The Cable Splicer III conference met just three weeks after National Guard troops shot and killed students at Kent State and Jackson State. A year later, other law enforcement officials staged mass sweeping arrests at the Mayday demonstrations in Washington, arrests that have recently been declared illegal. How are these and scores of other police actions related to Garden Plot and subplans like Cable Splicer? Congressional investigators are looking into it. Another unanswered question is the extent of White House involvement.

Bob Brower, a staff assistant to Congressman Ron Dellums, believes that some acts contemplated under Garden Plot scenarios may be violations of the law. The program's greatest danger, Brower says. is that it creates "a mechanism that could easily be used to abridge civilian, or at least democratic, control of the government."

The generals and their cohorts talk a great deal about constitutionality, but their version of the Constitution does not seem to include the Bill of Rights. At the Cable Splicer II conference, Chief Deputy Attorney General Charles O'Brien attacks the First Amendment repeatedly, arguing at one point that if the Constitution prevents the police from gathering political intelligence, then the Constitution goes too far. Deputy Attorney General Buck Compton declares that "free speech, civil rights, rights to assembly" have all become "cliches." "Dissidents and revolutionaries," he points out, "go beyond ... honest dissent, honest and proper use of the right of free speech."

The concept of "dishonest dissent is crucial to Cable Splicer and Garden Plot. This is a revolution, and anything goes. A civil disturbance anywhere in this state," says O'Brien, "is an attack on the state itself." Anyone who attacks the state, even verbally, becomes a revolutionary and an enemy, by definition. Speakers at Cable Splicer III condemned university administrators who demur at giving the police free rein on the campuses; parents of "would-be revolutionaries" who support their children; and legislators who investigate police actions. But their real venom is reserved for the demonstrators. These "guerrillas" are enemies of society," "vandals, visigoths, and huns of the twentieth century," "modern day barbarians," "Brown Shirts," "kooks and "VC." They are the enemy, and they will be destroyed. The streets may be quiet these days, but the Pentagon will not be caught napping. In communities across the country, a new generation of enforcers waits for the revolution that they have been taught to recognize and trained to crush.

Ron Ridenhour, the Tempe, Arizona, correspondent of New Times, spent several months gathering information for this article. The Fund for Investigative Journalism supported some of his research. Arthur Lubow is a free lance writer living in New York.

An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control, by Steve Wright, under the auspices of the European Parliament, is a much lengthier treatment of the subject. Also see Multiservice Procedures for the Tactical Employment of Nonlethal Weapons (528K, PDF), a 1998-Oct publication of the US Air-Land-Sea Application Center that is current authoritative US military doctrine.

from http://www.brotherblue.org/brethren/penguin3.htm:

Non-Lethality: John B. Alexander, The Pentagon's Penguin

By Armen Victorian

(from Lobster Magazine, which specialises in intelligence and conspiracy matters, and is published twice yearly.)

On April 22, 1993, both BBC1 and BBC2 showed on their main evening news bulletins a rather lengthy piece concerning America's latest development in weaponry - the non-lethal weapons concept. David Shukman, BBC Defence Correspondent interviewed (Retired) U.S. Army Colonel John B. Alexander and Janet Morris, two of the main proponents of the concept (1). The concept of non-lethal weapons is not new. Non-lethal weapons have been used by the intelligence, police and defence establishments in the past (2). Several western governments have used a variety of non-lethal weapons in a more discreet and covert manner. It seems that the U.S. government is about to take the first step towards their open use.

The current interest in the concept of non-lethal weapons began about a decade ago with John Alexander. In December 1980 he published an article in the U.S. Army's journal, MILITARY REVIEW, "The New Mental Battlefield," referring to claims that telepathy could be used to interfere with the brain's electrical activity. This caught the attention of senior Army generals who encouraged him to pursue what they termed "soft option kill" technologies.

After retiring from the Army in 1988, Alexander joined the Los Alamos National Laboratories and began working with Janet Morris, the Research Director of the U.S. Global Strategy Council (USGSC), chaired by Dr. Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA (3). I examine the background of Janet Morris and John Alexander in more detail below.

Throughout 1990 the USGSC lobbied the main national laboratories, major defence contractors and industries, retired senior military and intelligence officers. The result was the creation of a Non-lethality Policy Review Group, led by Major General Chris S. Adams, USAF (retd.) former Chief of Staff, Strategic Air Command (4). They already have the support of Senator Sam Nunn, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. According to Janet Morris, the military attache at the Russian Embassy has contacted USGSC about the possibility of converting military hardware to a non-lethal capability.

In 1991 Janet Morris issued a number of papers giving more detailed information about USGSC's concept of non-lethal weapons (5). Shortly after, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, VA, published a detailed draft report on the subject titled "Operations Concept for Disabling Measures." The report included over twenty projects in which John Alexander is currently involved at the Los Alamos National Laboratories.

In a memorandum dated April 10, 1991, titled "Do we need a Non-lethal Defense initiative?" Paul Wolfwitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, wrote to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, "A U.S. lead in non-lethal technologies will increase our options and reinforce our position in the post-Cold War world. Our Research and Development efforts must be increased."

HOW LETHAL IS NON-LETHAL?

To support their non-lethal weapons concept, Janet Morris argues that while "war will always be terrible... a world power deserving its reputation for humane action should pioneer the principles of non-lethal defense (6)." In "Defining a non-lethal strategy," she seeks to establish a doctrine for the use of non-lethal weapons by the U.S. in crisis "at home or abroad in a life serving fashion." She totally disregards the offensive, lethal aspects inherent in some of the weapons in question, or their misuse, should they become available to "rogue" nations. Despite her arguments that non-lethal weapons should serve the U.S.'s interests "at home and abroad by projecting power without indiscriminately taking lives or destroying property (7)," she admits that "casualties cannot be avoided (8)."

Closer examination of the types of weapons to be used as non-lethal invalidates her assertions about their non-lethality. According to her white paper, the areas where non-lethal weapons could be useful are "regional and low intensity conflict (adventurism, insurgency, ethnic violence, terrorism, narco-trafficking, domestic crime) (9)." She believes that "by identifying and requiring a new category of non-lethal weapons, tactics and strategic planning" the U.S. can reshape its military capability "to meet the already identifiable threats" that they might face in a multipolar world "where American interests are globalized and American presence widespread (10)."

THE POTENTIAL INVENTORY

Janet Morris' "White Paper" recommends "two types of life-conserving technologies":

ANTI-MATERIAL NON-LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES To destroy or impair electronics, or in other ways stop mechanical systems from functioning. Amongst current technologies from which this category of non-lethal weapons would or could be chosen are:

• Chemical and biological weapons for their anti-materiel agents "which do not significantly endanger life or the environment, or antipersonnel agents which have no permanent effects (11)."
• Laser blinding systems to incapacitate the electronic sensors, or optics, i.e. light detection and ranging. Already the Army Infantry School is developing a one-man portable and operated laser weapons system known as the Infantry Self-Defense System. The U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineer Center (ARDEC), is also engaged in the development of non-lethal weapons under their program called "Low Collateral Damage Munitions" (LCDM). The LCDM is trying to develop technolgies leading to weapons capable of dazzling and incapacitating missiles, armoured vehicles and personnel.
• Non-lethal electromagnetic technologies.
• Non-nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse weapons (12). As General Norman Schwartzkopf has told the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, one such weapon stationed in space with a wide-area-pulse capacity has the ability to fry enemy electronics. But what would be the fate of enemy personnel in such a scenario? In a join project with the Los Alamos National Laboratories and with technical support from the Army's Harry Diamond Laboratories, ARDEC are developing High Power Microwave (HPM) Projectiles. According to ARDEC, the Diamond lab has already "completed a radio frequency effects analysis on a representative target set" for (HPM).
• Among the chemical agents, so-called supercaustics -- "Millions of times more caustic than hydrofluric acid (13)" -- are prime candidates. An artillery round could deliver jellied super-acids which could destroy the optics of heavily armoured vehicles or tanks, vision blocks or glass, and "could be used to silently destroy key weapons systems (14)."

On less lethal aspects the use of net-like entanglements for SEAL teams, or "stealthy" metal boats with low or no radar signature, "for night actions, or any seaborne or come-ashore stealthy scenario" are under consideration (15). More colourful concepts are the use of chemical metal embrittlement, often called liquid metal embrittlement and anti-materiel polymers which would be used in aerosol dispersal systems, spreading chemical adhesives or lubricants (i.e. Teflon-based lubricants) on enemy equipment from a distance.

ANTI-PERSONNEL NON-LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES

• Hand-held lasers which are meant "to dazzle," could also cause the eyeball to explode and to blind the target.
• Isotropic radiators - explosively driven munitions, capable of generating very bright omni-directional light, with similar effects to laser guns.
• High-power microwaves (HPM) - U.S. Special Operations command already has that capability within their grasp as a portable microwave weapon (16). As Myron L. Wolbarsht, a Duke University opthalamist and expert in laser weapons stated: "U.S. Special Forces can quietly cut enemy communications but also can cook internal organs (17)."
• Another candidate is Infrasound - acoustic beams. In conjunction with the Scientific Applications and Research Associates (SARA) of Huntingdon, California, ARDEC and Los Alamos laboratories are busy "developing a high power, very low frequency acoustic beam weapons." They are also looking into methods of projecting non-diffracting (i.e. nonpenetrating) high frequency acoustic bullets. ARDEC scientists are also looking into methods of using pulsed chemical lasers. This class of lasers could project "a hot, high pressure plasma in the air in front of a target surface, creating a blast wave that will result in variable but controlled effects on material and personnel."
• Infrasound. Already some governments have used it as a means of crowd control - e.g. France.
• Very low frequency (VLF) sound (20-35 KHz), or low frequency RF modulations can cause nausea, vomiting and abdominal pains. "Some very low frequency sound generators, in certain frequency ranges, can cause the disruption of human organs and, at high power levels, can crumble masonry (18)." The CIA had a similar program in 1978 called Operation Pique, which included bouncing radio or microwave signals off the ionosphere to affect mental functions of people in selected areas, including Eastern European nuclear installations (19).

JOHN ALEXANDER

The entire non-lethal weapon concept opens up a new Pandora's Box of unknown consequences. The main personality behind it is retired Colonel John B. Alexander. Born in New York in 1937, he spent part of his career as a Commander of Green Berets Special Forces in Vietnam, led Cambodian mercenaries behind enemy lines, and took part in a number of clandestine programmes, including Phoenix. He currently holds the post of Director of Non-lethal Programmes in the Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Alexander obtained a BaS from the University of Nebraska and an MA from Pepperdine University. In 1980 he was awarded a PhD from Walden University (20) for his thesis "To determine whether or not significant changes in spirituality occur in persons who attended a Kubler-Ross life/death transition workshop during the period June through February 1979." His dissertation committee was chaired by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

He has long been interested in what used to be regarded as "fringe" areas. In 1971, while a Captain in the infantry at Schofield Barracks, Honolulu, he was diving in the Bimini Islands looking for the lost continent of Atlantis. He was an official representative for the Silva mind control organisation and a lecturer on Precataclysmic Civilisations (21). Alexander is also a past President and a Board member of the International Association for Near Death Studies; and, with his former wife, Jan Northup, he helped Dr. C.B. Scott Jones perform ESP experiments with dolphins (22).

PSI-TECH

Retired Major General Albert N. Stubblebine (Former Director of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command) and Alexander are on the board of a "remote viewing" company called PSI-TECH. The company also employs Major Edward Dames (ex Defence Intelligence Agency), Major David Morehouse (ex 82nd Airborne Division), and Ron Blackburn (former microwave scientist and specialist at Kirkland Air Force Base). PSI-TECH has received several government contracts. For example, during the Gulf War crisis the Department of Defense asked it to use remote viewing to locate Saddam's Scud missiles sites. Last year (1992) the FBI sought PSI-TECH's assistance to locate a kidnapped Exxon executive (23).

With Major Richard Groller and Janet Morris as his coauthors, Alexander published THE WARRIOR'S EDGE in 1990 (24). The book describes in detail various unconventional methods which would enable the practitioner to acquire "human excellence and optimum performance" and thereby become an invincible warrior (25). The purpose of the book is "to unlock the door to the extraordinary human potentials inherent in each of us. To do this, we, like governments around the world, must take a fresh look at non-traditional methods of affecting reality. We must raise human consciousness of the potential power of the individual body/mind system -- the power to manipulate reality. We must be willing to retake control of our past, present, and ultimately, our future (26)."

Alexander is a friend of Vice President Al Gore Jnr, their relationship dating back to 1983 when Gore was in Alexander's NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) class. NLP "presented to selected general officers and Senior Executive Service members (27)" a set of techniques to modify behaviour patterns (28). Among the first generals to take the course was the then Lieutenant General Maxwell Thurman, who later went on to receive his fourth star and become Vice-Chief of Staff at the Army and Commander Southern Command (29). Among other senior participants were Tom Downey and Major General Stubblebine, former Director of the Army Intelligence Security Command.

"In 1983, the Jedi master (from the Star Wars movie - author) provided an image and a name for the Jedi Project (30)." Jedi Project's aim was to seek and "construct teachable models of behaviorable/physical excellence using unconventional means." (31) According to Alexander the Jedi Project was to be a follow-up to Neuro-Linguistic Programming skills. By using the influence of friends such as Major General Stubblebine, who was then head of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, he managed to fund Jedi. In reality the concept was old hat, re-christened by Alexander. The original idea which was to show how "human will power and human concentration affect performance more than any other single factor (32)" using NLP skills, was the brainchild of three independent people; Fritz Erikson, a Gestalt therapist, Virginia Satir, a family therapist and Erick Erickson, a hypnotist.

JANET MORRIS

Janet Morris, co-author of The Warrior's Edge, is best known as a science fiction writer but has been a member of the New York Academy of Sciences since 1980 and is a member of the Association for Electronic Defense. She is also the Research Director of the US Global Strategy Council (USGSC). She was initiated into the Japanese art of bioenergetics, Joh-re, the Indonesian brotherhood of Subud, and graduated from the Silva course in advanced mind control.

She has been conducting remote-viewing experiments for fifteen years. She worked on a research project investigating the effects of mind on probability in computer systems. Her husband, Robert Morris, is a former judge and key member of the American Security Council.

In a recent telephone conversation with the author, Janet Morris confirmed John Alexander's involvement in mind control and psychotronic projects in the Los Alamos National Laboratories. Alexander and his team have recently been working with Dr. Igor Smirnov , a psychologist from the Moscow Institute of Psychocorrections. They were invited to the US after Janet Morris' visit to Russia in 1991. There she was shown the technique which was pioneered by the Russian Department of Psycho-Correction at Moscow Medical Academy. The Russians employ a technique to electronically analyze the human mind in order to influence it. They input subliminal command messages, using key words transmitted in 'white noise' or music.

Using an infrasound very low frequency-type transmission, the acoustic psycho-correction message is transmitted via bone conduction -- ear plugs would not restrict the message. To do that would require an entire body protection system. According to the Russians the subliminal messages bypass the conscious level and are effective almost immediately.
[...]
Alexander and C.B. Jones are members of the AVIARY, a group of intelligence and Department of Defense officers and scientists with a brief to discredit any serious research in the UFO field [UFO "field?" I guess this is like theology: a field that purports to be about one thing, but is actually about people's faith in that actually non-existent thing -Ed.]. Each member of the Aviary bears a bird's name. Jones is FALCON; John Alexander is PENGUIN.
[...]
Just before the publication of my first paper unmasking two members of the AVIARY, I was visited by two of their members (MORNING DOVE and HAWK) who had travelled to the UK with a message from the senior ranks advising me not to go ahead with my expose. I rejected the proposal.

Immediately after the publication of that paper, and with the full knowledge that myself and a handful of colleagues knew the true identities of their members, John B. Alexander confessed that he was indeed a member of the AVIARY, nicknamed PENGUIN. The accuracy of our information was further confirmed to me by yet another member of the AVIARY -- Ron Pandolphi, PELICAN. Pandolphi is a Ph.D. in physics and works at the Rocket and Missile section of the Office of the Deputy Director of Science and Technology, CIA.

In his book, Out There, the New York Times journalist Howard Blum refers to "a UFO Working Group" [PsyOp red flag -Ed.] within the Defense Intelligence Agency. Despite DIA's repeated denials, the existence of this working group has been confirmed to me by more than one member of the group itself, including an independent source in the Office of Naval Intelligence. The majority of the group's members are senior members of the AVIARY: Dr. Christopher Green (BLUEJAY) from the CIA, Harold Puthoff (OWL), ex-NSA; Dr. Jack Verona (RAVEN), DoD, one of the initiators of the DlA's Sleeping Beauty project which aimed to achieve battlefield superiority using mind-altering electromagnetic weaponry; John Alexander (PENGUIN); and Ron Pandolphi (PELICAN).

The mysterious "Col. Harold E. Phillips" who appears in Blum's Out There, is none other than John B. Alexander.

John Alexander's position as the Program Manager for Contingency Missions of Conventional Defense Technology, Los Alamos National Laboratories, enabled him to exploit the Department of Defense's Project Reliance "which encourages a search for all possible sources of existing and incipient technologies before developing new technology in-house" to tap into a wide range of exotic topics, sometimes using defense contractors, e.g., McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. I have several reports, some of which were compiled before his departure to the Los Alamos National Laboratories when he was with Army Intelligence, which show Alexander's keen interest in any and every exotic subject -- UFOs, ESP, psychotronics, --> -- anti-gravity devices [Can you say "fruitcake?" -Ed.], near-death experiments, psychology warfare and non-lethal weaponry.

John Alexander utilises the bank of information he has accumulated to try to develop psychotronic, psychological and mind weaponry. He began thinking about non-lethal weapons a decade ago in his paper, "The New Mental Battlefield." He seems to want to become a 'Master.'

If they ever succeed in this ambition, the rest of us ordinary mortals had better watch out.

[Footnotes here]

from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol. 2, No. 39, Nov. 23, 1998, from http://www.aci.net/kalliste/eye.htm:

The Eye of the Storm

by J. Orlin Grabbe

Those crises sure come and go quickly, don't they?

It was only in July that IMF deputy managing director Stanley Fischer along with the U.S. Treasury under Larry Summers had pushed the IMF--even over IMF managing director Michel Camdessus' objections--to agree to pour another $23 billion down that rathole called Russia. And Goldman Sachs was happily stuffing Russian bonds into its customer's portfolios--after all, they would be repaid with IMF funds, wouldn't they? And Queen of Maya Abby Cohen was dangling the magic Dow 10,000 before everyone's eyes and invoking the law of inertia (``an object in motion continues in motion in the same direction unless acted on by an outside force''). No-drag Queen Abby saw no outside forces worthy of note.

That was July. Then August and September intervened. By September we were in the midst of ``the worst financial crisis in 50 years.'' So said Bill Clinton, the supposed President of the U.S. So said presidential lapdog Larry Summers. So echoed Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who denied he was leaving the administration before the current crisis was safely repelled.

Well, Mr. Rubin, it's all been solved now. The fever is gone and the patient says he feels wonderful. So declare victory and get the hell out before you get your ass whipped. Alan Greenspan has ridden his mighty monopoly to the rescue. The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates three times now in only a matter of a few weeks. Stock market lows were reached on October 8, more or less, and have been on the upswing since. The smell of fresh new Federal Reserve notes has driven the world's money junkies into an orgy of stock buying. Specialists at the New York Stock Exchange have been marking up prices as rapidly as possible as they dump their inventories off on retail customers and hapless mutual fund managers. That way they'll be in a position to mark prices down twice as fast in the next sell-off.

Enjoy the illusion while it lasts. Alan Greenspan is God. Fnord. Abby Cohen is not the Queen of Maya. Fnord.

Then there's the political dimension. The election will not be a referendum on Bill Clinton, Clinton declared. Not a referendum on Clinton, many Democrats reiterated. Then came the election, in which the spineless Republicans managed to lose five House seats. Oh, now it was indeed a referendum on Clinton. The refrain of the spinmeisters: ``The electorate has spoken. They were angry at the persecution of Our Beloved Fuhrer Bill Clinton. Who cares if he's raped some grade B movie actresses (the sluts were just asking for it), had people killed, bribed Webster Hubbell, or engaged in wholesale money laundering through the Teamsters? Forget it. The happy voters are contented with their stock portfolios, and annoyed with your messing with the magic formula.''

Enjoy the illusion while it lasts. Bill Clinton is God. Fnord. Hillary Clinton is a noble human being. Fnord. Fnord.

In my article ``And Now, the Financial Apocalypse,'' posted on Sunday, August 2 (the Dow fell almost 100 points on Aug 3 and 300 points on Aug 4), I suggested there would be a correction, a relief rally, and then the massacre. Well, the relief rally has been going on since October 8. But the completely blind and irrational reaction to the Fed's little interest rate cuts (do you really believe ``the worst financial crisis in 50 years'' has been eliminated in the past five weeks by the Twelve Apostles of the Open Market Committee?) suggests to me the relief rally is just about over. Next comes the massacre. Watch the deity status of Greenspan and Clinton topple along with stock prices.

Why would anyone think things were different? Did anyone believe the worst financial crisis in 50 years would disappear within the ephemeral attention span of the average stock investor? Did anyone really think impeachment proceedings would be shoved aside on the basis of dim-witted Democrat PR ravings, or simply because some cowardly Republicans were vying for their own set of presidential kneepads?

Has Russia been saved yet? Is the Southeast Asian economic crisis over? Is Japan's economy undergoing resurgence? Has the yen-dollar exchange rate stabilized? Is the credit crunch over? Is Long Term Capital Management the only hedge fund casualty? Has Bill Clinton given up use of a private Gestapo to destroy his critics?

If your answers to the above questions are mostly Yes, then buy stock. Be my guest. If No, then get ready for the massacre.

Let the ruination begin.

(click here to skip past the description and index of presidential executive orders which follows)

One of the more rag tag players in this vicious game is the President of the US. Rag tag because he is, in fact, elected every four years (and since FDR, by law not more than twice), and hence almost never perfectly suited to the purposes of the unelected shadow elite (with the notable exception of George Bush, probably the most suited this century, who rode in on the coattails of Ronald Reagan, probably the least suited this century). Despite this (currently) necessary incoherence, a remarkable impression of cooperation, continuity, and monotonic evolution, is evidenced by the executive orders of Presidents stretching all the way back to FDR. The most alarming theme is the Emergency Powers theme, which was introduced in earnest by FDR with his internment of Japanese Americans by Executive Order. Subsequent administrations "refined" Emergency Powers policy, broadening the scope of the powers and the definition of emergency. John Kennedy introduced a dizzying array of Emergency Preparedness EO's that describe the emplacement of a command economy police state. Richard Nixon, with EO 11490, combined the above EO's issued by Kennedy into an omnibus Emergency Preparedness directive. Gerald Ford, with EO 11921, further refined and integrated Emergency Preparedness policy. Jimmy Carter, with EO 12148, created the modern day organization known as FEMA, and folded under its wings most of the responsibilities and authority it has today. Ronald Reagan, with EO 12656, reaffirmed the sweeping command authority of the Director of FEMA. However, in that EO, Reagan includes the sentence "All national security emergency preparedness activities shall be consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and with preservation of the constitutional government of the United States." This manifests the fact that Ronald Reagan was never really harmonized with the rest of the above Presidents. Reagan is the only one who was not a member of the CFR, and the only one since the advent of Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine to attempt to directly deprecate it. In EO 12333, "United States Intelligence Activities," he offered a similar motivation and ethic when he wrote "[...] in order to provide for the effective conduct of United States intelligence activities and the protection of constitutional rights, it is hereby ordered as follows: [...]" Reagan is a consistent constitutionalist, at least judging from his rhetoric and the cat's meow itself (his Executive Orders).

From EO 10976, as justification for ordering a work day for certain government (NASA et al) workers longer than 8 hours:

"by Proclamation No. 2914 of December 16, 1950, the President proclaimed the existence of a national emergency and that emergency still exists"

EO 10995, 10997, 10998, 10999, 11000, 11001, 11002, 11003, 11004, 11005, 11087, 11088, 11089, 11090, 11091, 11092, 11093, 11094, and 11095, are the initial description by Executive Order of the array of Emergency Preparedness assignments of responsibility and authority. They were ordered by John Kennedy on February 16, 1962 and February 26, 1963, with those EO's at or below number 11005 ordered on the earlier date.

These EO's are all superseded (and revoked) by EO 11490, except that EO 10995 is superseded (and revoked) by EO 11556.

EO 11037 (July 20, 1962) generally forbids a US national owning any substantial amount of gold bullion outside the country. This was justified based on Proclamation No. 2914. It was revoked on Dec. 31, 1974 by EO 11825.

EO 11490 is "Assigning emergency preparedness functions to Federal departments and agencies," Oct. 28, 1969. EO 11490 was revoked on Nov. 18, 1988 by EO 12656.

EO 11556 is "Assigning telecommunications functions," Sept. 4, 1970. EO 11556 is revoked by EO 12046.

EO 11825 is "Revocation of Executive orders pertaining to the regulation of the acquisition of, holding of, or other transactions in gold, " Dec. 31, 1974. EO 11825 revokes EO 6260, Aug. 28, 1933; EO 6556, Jan. 12, 1934; EO 6560, Jan. 15, 1934; EO 10896, Nov. 29, 1960; EO 10905, Jan. 14, 1961; EO 11037, July 20, 1962. It revokes parts of EO 6073, Mar. 10, 1933; EO 6359, Oct. 25, 1933; EO 10289, Sept. 17, 1951.

EO 11921 is "Adjusting emergency preparedness assignments to organizational and functional changes in Federal departments and agencies" June 11, 1976. EO 11921, except as amended by EO 12046, is standing policy.

EO 12046 is "Relating to the transfer of telecommunications functions" Mar. 27, 1978. EO 12046, except as Amended by EO 12148 and 12472, is standing policy.

EO 12148 is "Federal Emergency Management" July 20, 1979. EO 12148 is standing policy, except that section 3 is superseded by EO 12919 (see below).

EO 12472 is "Assignment of national security and emergency preparedness telecommunications functions," Apr. 3, 1984. EO 12472 is standing policy.

EO 12656 is "Assignment of emergency preparedness responsibilities," Nov. 18, 1988. EO 12656 is standing policy.

EO 12742 is "National security industrial responsiveness," Jan. 8, 1991. EO 12742 is standing policy.

EO 12775 is "Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to Haiti," October 4, 1991. Bush declares a national emergency nominally in response to the coup overthrowing Arastide's govt in Haiti. Marks the first instance of a frivolous declaration of National Emergency.

EO 12775 was revoked on Oct. 14, 1994 by EO 12932

EO 12958 "Classified National Security Information" signed April 17, 1995, as amended on February 27, 1996, is the standing policy for information secrecy in the Executive branch. There is a small revision.

President Clinton, with EO 12919 ("National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness") and EO 13010 ("Critical Infrastructure Protection"), made clearer the executive intention that nominally private industry cooperate in detail and in advance with Emergency Preparedness measures.

EO 12919 and EO 13010 are standing policy. EO 13010 has been amended, and its deadlines extended, by EO's 13025, 13041, 13064, and 13077.

With EO 13083 President Clinton ostensibly deprecated the tenth amendment, and explicitly revoked Ronald Reagan's legally conservative EO 12612. Read more on this.

http://4bypass.com/stories/fema1.html "FEMA: Blueprint For Tyranny" By Roland C. Eyears

Zbigniew Brzezinski, cofounder of the Trilateral Commission and National Security Council Advisor to President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, wrote the master plan together with NSC staffer Samuel Huntington. Four years earlier in Kyoto, Japan, Huntington had delivered a disturbing paper advocating the end to democracy and its replacement with a 'crisis management' form of government.

President Carter's Executive Order 12148, dated July 20, 1979, retroactively made effective July 15, gave FEMA life. That fiat revoked 13 previously issued Executive Orders, amended 19 others, and cited as authority 13 federal statutes.

In the words of Dr. Henry Kliemann, political scientist at Boston University:

"Those words enunciated by President Gerald Ford in Executive Order 11921, were understood by FEMA to mean that one day they would be in charge of the country. As these bureaucrats saw it, FEMA's real mission was to wait, prepare and then take over when some 'situation' seemed serious enough to turn the United States into a police state."

from http://emporium.turnpike.net/P/ProRev/fema.htm:

Mind wars: "X-Files"
gets it right;
Post gets it wrong

Posted June 1998

In "X-Files" one of the characters explains that "FEMA allows the White House to suspend constitutional government upon declaration of a national emergency. It allows creation of a non-elected government. Think about that, Agent Mulder."

The Washington Post's federal column made fun of the claim, and quoted FEMA public affairs guidance about the movie that essentially paints those concerned with the agency's potential role as kooks. Says the FEMA spinhead: "it is not realistic to think that we can convince them otherwise and it is advisable not to enter into debate on the subject." FEMA suggests that officials can "emphatically state that FEMA does not have, never has had, nor will ever seek, the authority to suspend the Constitution."

This is just plain untrue. Not only have there been past plans for FEMA and the military to assume an extra-constitutional role, but a recent presidential directive suggest that it is still a possibility not far from the Clinton administration's thoughts. Presidential Decision Directive #63 on "critical infrastructure protection" specifically assigns FEMA the task of "continuity of government" services, the precise term used in previous plans for a anti-constitutional takeover in a time of crisis. Further, as with previous plans, the Clinton order is stunningly silent on any role in such an emergency for the legislative and judicial branches or for state and local government.

A recent article in the Army War College's journal Parameters, expresses what appears to be the dominant administration attitude on the matter:

"Strategic leaders can take solace in the lessons learned from military participation in domestic disaster relief, for the record indicates that legal niceties or strict construction of prohibited conduct will be a minor concern. The exigencies of the situation seem to overcome legal proscriptions arguably applicable to our soldiers' conduct. Pragmatism appears to prevail when American soldiers help their fellow citizens."

SOME HISTORY: In a July 1983 series in the San Francisco Examiner, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Knut Royce reported that a presidential directive had been drafted by a few Carter administration personnel in 1979 to allow the military to take control of the government for 90 days in the event of an emergency. A caveat on page one of the directive said, "Keeping the government functioning after a nuclear war is a secret, costly project that detractors claim jeopardizes US traditions and saves a privileged few." According to Royce there was a heated debate within the Carter administration as to just what constituted an "emergency."

The issue arose again during the Iran-Contra affair, but even in the wake of all the copy on that scandal, the public got little sense of how far some America's soldiers of fortune were willing to go to achieve their ends. When the Iran-Contra hearings came close to the matter, chair Senator Inouye backed swiftly away. Here is an excerpt from those hearings. Oliver North is at the witness table:

REP BROOKS: Colonel North, in your work at the NSC, were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

BRENDAN SULLIVAN: Mr. Chairman?

SEN INOUYE: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch on that.

REP BROOKS: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

SEN INOUYE; May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I'm certain arrangements can be made for an executive session

With few exceptions, the media ignored what well could be the most startling revelation to have come out of the Iran/Contra affair, namely that high officials of the US government were planning a possible military/civilian coup. First among the exceptions was the Miami Herald, which on July 5, 1987, ran the story to which Jack Brooks referred. The article, by Alfonzo Chardy, revealed Oliver North's involvement in plans for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to take over federal, state and local functions during an ill-defined national emergency.

The Constitution does not directly address the question of what should happen in the midst of a major national catastrophe. But neither does it give the slightest support to notions of turning matters over to non-elected civilian or military officials with plenary powers. The best guide is to be found in Amendment Ten which states that the powers of the federal government are those delegated to it by the states and the people. The states and the people have not delegated the power of martial law. Thus in a true crisis (such as a nuclear attack) the answer seems quite plain: the country would be run as a loose confederation of fifty states until a legitimate federal government could be re-established. In the interim, the highest constitutional officials in the land would be the governors.

According to Chardy, the plan called for 'suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.' The proposal appears to have forgotten that Congress, legislatures and the judiciary even existed.

In a November 18, 1991 story, the New York Times elaborated:

"Acting outside the Constitution in the early 1980s, a secret federal agency established a line of succession to the presidency to assure continued government in the event of a devastating nuclear attack, current and former United States officials said today."

The program was called "Continuity of Government." In the words of a report by the Fund for Constitutional Government, "succession or succession-by-designation would be implemented by unknown and perhaps unelected persons who would pick three potential successor presidents in advance of an emergency. These potential successors to the Oval Office may not be elected, and they are not confirmed by Congress.

According to CNN, the list eventually grew to 17 names and included Howard Baker, Richard Helms, Jeanne Kirkpatrick James Schlesinger, Richard Thornberg, Edwin Meese, Tip O'Neil, and Richard Chaney.

The plan was not even limited to a nuclear attack but included any "national security emergency" which was defined as:

"Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."

This bizarre scheme was dismissed in many Washington quarters as further evidence of the loony quality of the whole Iran/contra affair. One FEMA official called it a lot of crap while a representative for Attorney General Meese described it as 'bullshit."

The problem is that there is a long history of compatibility between madness and totalitarian takeovers, Adolph Hitler being a prime but far from lone example. Further, there is plenty of evidence in this case that the planning was far more than simply an off-the-wall brainstorm. At least one report found that the US Army had even gone so far as to draft a legal document providing justifications for martial law.

Nor was the planning limited to crises involving the total breakdown of society as in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. Among the justifiable uses of martial law were "national opposition to a US military invasion abroad" and widespread internal dissent.

At least one high government official took the plan seriously enough to vigorously oppose it. In a August 1984 letter to NSC chair Robert McFarlane, Attorney General William French Smith wrote:

"I believe that the role assigned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the revised Executive Order exceeds its proper function as a coordinating agency for emergency preparedness . . . This department and others have repeatedly raised serious policy and legal objections to the creation of an 'emergency czar' role for FEMA."

FEMA was clearly out of control. Another memo, written in 1982 to then FEMA director Louis Giuffrida and given only tightly restricted circulation even within the agency, made this astonishing assertion:

"Over the long term, the peacetime action programs of FEMA and other departments and agencies have the effect of making the conceivable need for military takeover less and less as time goes by. A fully implemented civil defense program may not now be regarded as a substitute for martial law, nor could it be so marketed, but if successful in its execution it could have that effect."

The memo essentially proposed that the American people would rather be taken over by FEMA than by the military. When those are the options on the table, you know you're in trouble.

The head of FEMA until 1985, Giuffrida also once wrote a paper on the Legal Aspects of Managing Disorders. Here is some of what he said:

"No constitution, no statute or ordinance can authorize Martial Rule. [It commences] upon a determination (not a declaration) by the senior military commander that the civil government must be replaced because it is no longer functioning anyway . . . The significance of Martial Rule in civil disorders is that it shifts control from civilians and to the military completely and without the necessity of a declaration, proclamation or other form of public manifestation . . . As stated above, Martial Rule is limited only by the principle of necessary force."

Those words come from a time when Giuffrida was the head of then-Governor Reagan's California Specialized Training Institute, a National Guard school. It was not, for Giuffrida, a new thought. In 1970 he had written a paper for the Army War College in which he called for martial law in case of a national uprising by black militants. Among his ideas were "assembly centers or relocation camps" for at least 21 million "American Negroes."

During 1968 and 1972, Reagan ran a series of war games in California called Cable Splicer, which involved the Guard, state and local police, and the US Sixth Army. Details of this operation were reported in 1975 in a story by Ron Ridenour of the New Times, an Arizona alternative paper, and later exhumed by Dave Lindorff in the Village Voice.

Cable Splicer, it turned out, was a training exercise for martial law. The man in charge was none other than Edwin Meese, then Reagan's executive secretary. At one point, Meese told the Cable Splicer combatants:

"This is an operation, this is an exercise, this is an objective which is going forward because in the long run . . . it is the only way that will be able to prevail [against anti-war protests.]"

Addressing the kickoff of Cable Splicer, Governor Reagan told some 500 military and police officers:

"You know, there are people in the state who, if they could see this gathering right now and my presence here, would decide their worst fears and convictions had been realized -- I was planning a military takeover."

The Reaganites were not, however, the only ones with such thoughts. Consider this from a NSC directive written by Frank Carlucci in 1981:

"Normally a state of martial law will be proclaimed by the President. However, in the absence of such action by the President, a senior military commander may impose martial law in an area of his command where there had been a complete breakdown in the exercise of government functions by local civilian authorities."

Excerpts from the Parameters article:
http://emporium.turnpike.net/P/ProRev/pscoup.htm

Certain passages of the above article ring loudly in my ears.

"The plan was not even limited to a nuclear attack but included any "national security emergency" which was defined as: 'Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.'"

"technological or other emergency" sounds to me like the Y2K computer glitch, which is scheduled to paralyze the nation. Much more on this follows.

"[...] there is a long history of compatibility between madness and totalitarian takeovers, Adolph Hitler being a prime but far from lone example."

Barbara Marx Hubbard and others lunatics of her ilk have been sermonizing the shadow elite, for example at The State of the World Forum covered in the Trilaterals chapter.

"No constitution, no statute or ordinance can authorize Martial Rule. [It commences] upon a determination (not a declaration) by the senior military commander that the civil government must be replaced because it is no longer functioning anyway."

The scheduled Y2K debacle is a scenario in which the civil government is no longer functioning.

"Among his ideas were 'assembly centers or relocation camps" for at least 21 million American Negroes.'"

This is the sort of rounding up that Barbara Marx Hubbard's genocide requires. You will read about this in detail later in the compilation.

from WorldNetDaily, from Joseph Farah's Between the Lines of 1998-Dec-8, from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/19981208_xcbtl_y2k_and_ma.shtml:

WND Exclusive Commentary

Y2K and martial law

For those suspecting the federal government is making Y2K millennium bug contingency plans that include the suspension of civil liberties, fears were not allayed by the nation's Y2K czar at his first summit last week.

In answer to a question about electrical-power failures caused by embedded chip problems and other millennium bug breakdowns, John Koskinen, the chairman of President Clinton's Y2K council, said: "In a crisis and emergency situation, the free market may not be the best way to distribute resources. ... If there's a point in time where we have to take resources and make a judgment on an emergency basis, we will be prepared to do that."

Now what does that mean? These guys don't think the free market is the best way to distribute resources in the best of times. But this statement requires some explanation. This is a statement that should prompt congressional hearings -- out in public, not in executive session. This is a statement that brings to mind a history of executive orders mandating emergency presidential powers that would make our Founding Fathers spin in their graves.

Yet, I saw the chilling statement reported only by Wired News, which covered the Y2K council's first summit in San Francisco last Thursday. Nothing in the Associated Press. Nothing in the San Francisco papers. Nothing on the major networks.

Worse yet, even Wired News, which, thank heavens, saw fit to publish the quote, did not choose to lead its story coverage with it.

Now, I can understand government seizing an opportunity for more power in a crisis. It's the nature of government to do just that. What I don't understand is how we could receive so many warnings by government officials of their ominous plans for martial law beginning Jan. 1, 2000 without scrutiny by the press, civil libertarians and other so-called government watchdogs. Why am I like a voice crying out in the wilderness over this issue?

This is, by my count, at least the second major pronouncement by high-ranking members of the Clinton administration that preparations are being made to scrap the Constitution in the event of problems we know are coming on a date just over a year away.

The first, to refresh your memories, came in June, when Sen. Robert Bennett, chairman of the Senate's Year 2000 committee, was interviewing a top Pentagon official, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre. Here's how that exchange went:

Bennett: "In the event of a Y2K-induced breakdown of community services that might call for martial law," will the military be ready?

Hamre: "We've got fundamental issues to deal with that go beyond just the Year 2000 contingency planning. And I think you're right to bring that up."

Understand that Bennett, a Republican from Utah, wasn't suspiciously asking Hamre if the military was secretly planning a hideous martial law scenario. He was knowingly asking him, apparently hopeful that the military would be prepared to carry out it out.

I know it's too much to ask, but shouldn't the members of the House Judiciary Committee at least have all this in the back of their minds today as they consider articles of impeachment against President Clinton? Is this a leader the nation can trust on the brink of a potential national crisis? Is this a man America can trust with emergency powers?

Americans have come to believe their freedom is a permanent state. When people take their freedom for granted, it is most in peril. Is it not possible, with all we now know about the character of Bill Clinton, that he would attempt to turn such a crisis into a semi-permanent presidency -- one with imperial powers? And, with all we know about the character of the spineless Congress, is it unthinkable to imagine its members abdicating their authority and collaborating in such an insidious scheme?

Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. After all, it's not me who is raising the ugly specter of martial law in the context of the Y2K crisis. It is the United States government -- first in a public meeting between representatives of the legislative and executive branches and now in a public summit convened by the president's Y2K czar. This is not a hallucination, folks. It's reality. Hearings are being conducted. Plans are being made.

Further evidence of this plot comes in the form of Presidential Decision Directive 63, issued by Bill Clinton last May. It calls for the development of a plan to ensure "essential national security missions" as well as general public health and safety by, you guessed it, the year 2000.

The carefully worded directive emphasizes the preservation of order, the delivery of minimum essential services and the maintenance of a "national infrastructure protection system" involving the military, intelligence agencies, law enforcement and the mandatory participation of the "private sector."

Under the directive, the "National Infrastructure Protection Center," which includes the FBI, the Secret Service, other federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense and the intelligence agencies, calls the shots. To me, the cynic, all this sounds like code for martial law.

Not interested in the federal plans? You may have to be. The document states that "it is preferred that participation by owners and operators in a national infrastructure protection system be voluntary." Note that word "preferred." You may be drafted.

The first set of plans from federal agencies were due on Clinton's desk last month. You can bet he won't be holding any press conferences on those details any time soon. I can tell you this news agency will be filing Freedom of Information Act requests for those documents. But, don't hold your breath, this White House claims a broad exemption from the FOIA that none of its predecessors has claimed -- just one more reason for impeachment, if you ask me.

Of course, maybe Y2K will come and go with no major calamities. Would you like to bet your freedom on that possibility?

from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990106_xex_the_plan_mas.shtml:

1999-Jan-6

WND Exclusive

---

The plan for massive
military mobilization
National Guard exercises unprecedented
since World War II set for May Y2K test

---

Editor's note: This is the first of a series of investigative reports on this subject.

---

By David M. Bresnahan
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

The National Guard is planning its first national mobilization of troops since 1940 in preparation for civil unrest resulting from the Y2K millennium bug, WorldNetDaily has learned.

The National Guard Bureau in Washington is currently formulating plans for a mobilization test, in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If Y2K causes a complete shutdown of all communications, the National Guard will need a way to mobilize troops, according to several officers who believe their careers would be at risk if their names were made public.

These officers spoke separately with WorldNetDaily. Each is in a position to know about the plans at a national level within the National Guard Bureau.

"What's driving this thing are the folks underneath the senior leadership," said one officer. "Some of the IT guys and command and control guys are the ones who are driving this because they see what the problem is," one of the sources told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview.

The plan as it is now being designed, will be a mock mobilization of all 480,000 members of the National Guard in all 54 states and territories. Exercise COMEX/MOBEX will be conducted without telephone, radio, or television to get the word to all guard members.

"This will be a simulated COMM-Out," explained another member of the group. "In other words, the standard method of recall, the telephone, will not be an option. The driver for this exercise is Y2K," she added.

Concern about potential panic and unrest over Y2K failures of communications, power, and transportation has prompted the National Guard Bureau to plan for the worst. If such a scenario occurs, the guard will need to be mobilized through some means other than standard electronic communications.

Exercise COMEX/MOBEX will be a test, not an actual mobilization. Guard members will be contacted, but they will not actually have to report.

WorldNetDaily spoke with several full-time guard members who work at the national level. Each is an officer, and each is concerned that the public is not being properly informed of the extent and seriousness of problems -- including civil liberties issues -- associated with the Y2K computer bug.

"I've taken an oath, and I don't see some of the senior folks following through on their oath," explained one officer of his reasons for making this known. "Not only is my oath to the Constitution, but it's to the people. As far as I'm concerned, the faster and sooner people are educated on this stuff the less panic will ensue."

Another officer is equally concerned and agreed. He pointed out that people panic when they are caught unprepared and unaware. He says the Clinton administration should be doing more to prevent panic.

"No one with any leadership has stepped forward and said we need to take prudent steps," he explained. "The Canadians are way ahead on this. They've already told their folks. They're doing a good job of letting their people know what's going on."

WorldNetDaily has also learned that all military and civilian federal employees are scheduled to be paid a little differently in December 1999. Payroll for January 2000 will be paid a month early. One of the officers says that is to place guard members in a situation where they cannot refuse duty in the Y2K crisis because they will have already been paid in advance.

"Our guess is, we've been paid so if we don't show up we're defrauding the government. I think that's what the rationale is, although they'll tell us it's to keep the troops happy. Bull. People won't be able to get their money out of the banks anyway," predicted one of the officers.

The Defense Department is reported to be far behind in preparations for Y2K compliancy. It is working only on mission-critical systems, according to Sen. Bob Bennett, R-UT, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem. The National Guard is no exception.

"The field units are way behind," explained one source. "There's no way in hell we're going to be compliant by March 31, 1999 (the target date announced by the National Guard)."

A letter from the National Guard Bureau will soon be in the hands of every adjutant general. The letter will inform the guard leaders of each state about COMEX/MOBEX and how it will be conducted.

Although the exercise, tentatively scheduled for May 1 and 2, will be no secret, the various aspects of the exercise will be kept under wraps until the mobilization begins.

"Everyone knows it's coming, but there's going to be scenarios written into it," explained one officer. "There will be as many different things they can throw into it at once to see how the command-and-control structure handles it."

The test will do little to simulate the actual panic that may be involved in an actual Y2K mobilization.

"I think in a real situation, where you've got a guy standing there with his wife looking at him with tears in her eyes and two kids hanging on his leg, and he's being drug out the door by a couple MPs -- not that he doesn't want to serve -- but it's got to be absolute pandemonium at that point. I see that as a very difficult situation," said one of the sources.

Although the National Guard Bureau expects to be able to contact 95 percent of their troops for COMEX/MOBEX, far fewer will actually turn out in an actual Y2K emergency. General panic by the public will create a desire for many guard members to stay home and protect their families, said some.

The logistics of such a mobilization are significant. The Clinton administration will argue that the National Guard can be used as a national police force, in spite of the Posse Comitatus Act. FEMA and other federal agencies will also be involved in COMEX/MOBEX. Orders will be given without the use of standard communications. The country will be divided into seven different regions. Plans include imposing restrictions on civilian travel and limits on bank withdrawals, according to sources.

"I have no doubts about the bunker mentality of the Clinton administration," said one of the officers. "Let's put it this way, our civil rights are going to take a nosedive."

---

David M. Bresnahan, a contributing editor for WorldNetDaily.com, is the author of "Cover Up: The Art and Science of Political Deception," and offers a monthly newsletter "Talk USA Investigative Reports." He may be reached through email and also maintains a website.

from NBC News, ca. 1999-Feb-1, by Robert Windrem, from http://www.msnbc.com/news/236665.asp:

Does U.S. need anti-terror troops?

Pentagon, FEMA at odds over plans for Homeland Command
American tanks are deployed in the streets of New York City following a series of terrorist attacks in a scene from the upcoming action drama film 'The Siege.'

By Robert Windrem
NBC NEWS

A battle is looming over the issue of creating a Homelands Defense Command, a military unit responsible for managing a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The debate stems from the possibility that in a time of national crisis, a situation could evolve in which American military forces find themselves operating as a national police force patrolling the streets of U.S. cities, similar to the events portrayed in the movie ``The Siege.''

       THE IDEA OF a separate military command, first broached publicly by President Clinton in a New York Times interview on Jan. 22, was to be discussed at last year's conference of Pentagon commanders-in-chief. The proposal is being pushed by Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, the No. 2 person at the Pentagon.
       However, when Federal Emergency Management Administration Director James Lee Witt was briefed on the issue, he called Secretary of Defense William Cohen and asked that FEMA be removed from the agenda pending further review.
       Witt told Cohen he disagreed with the notion ``philosophically'' and does not believe the military should have primary responsibility for managing the consequences of a national crisis. Witt argued that the situation should remain a civilian responsibility.
       
ACTING ON ORDERS
       Under a presidential order issued in June 1995, FEMA has primary responsibility for ``consequence management'' after a domestic terrorist attack, while the FBI would be responsible for the investigation. Using its substantial operational and technical capabilities, the military would be called in to assist either or both agencies, and determine whether to evacuate a city, provide large-scale medical treatment, or assess the dangers of specific biological or chemical agents used in an attack.
       The secret order was signed in the months following not only the Oklahoma City bombing - the most significant act of terrorism ever on American soil - but three other events that raised fears of a domestic chemical or biological weapons attack:

• The Aum Shinryko cult sarin gas attack on a Tokyo subway in April 1995.
• A hoax at Disneyland the following weekend in which someone made a credible threat of a similar attack there.
• The admission by Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, that he had planned to include cyanide gas in the attack - but couldn't afford it.

       The position of the Pentagon's Hamre is that since the military will have to be called in to handle any such crisis, its role should be formalized and structured. In addition to either creating a Homeland Defense Command or renaming the Atlantic Command - another option - Hamre has talked about creating a bi-national command with Canada, a la NORAD. Since then, the proposal has been toned down to a joint task force under a four-star general, based in the Atlantic Command.
       But all options remain on the table.
       This weekend, FEMA's Deputy Director, R. Michael Walker, and Hamre are expected to meet to discuss the issue.
       
SENSITIVE TO CONCERNS
       FEMA believes that such a military intrusion into managing a national disaster would send the wrong message during a time of national crisis and that the military would not have the sensitivities needed during a crisis.
       An example: In 1997, the Marines wanted to send their Chemical Biological Incident Response Force into action along the Inaugural Parade route on Inauguration Day. The political types in the Pentagon stopped them, but FEMA worries that a four-star general might not understand the sensitivities.
       The concerns run deep among certain factions of Americans who fear any military involvement in civil defense. When the National Guard began planning a series of exercises designed to prepare its forces for the possibility of social breakdown related to computer failures at the century's turn on Jan. 1, 2000 - the so-called ``Y2K bug'' - extreme convervatives began warning that the exercises represented a ``New World Order'' plan to install martial law. The alarm went up on the Internet, particularly circulating among so-called ``Patriot'' or ``militia movement'' Web sites. [<GAG> -Ed.]
       The problems for the plan extend to other, more mundane bureaucratic turf wars as well. The first-responder program and a few others already funded have recently been moved from the Pentagon to the Justice Department's National Disaster Preparedness Office. There will be officials from various U.S. agencies working there, so Justice officials may oppose the plan as well.
       However, the plans clearly are intended to address a real need. While there is no intelligence on either a specific or immediate threat of domestic terrorism, the plans are an acknowledgement that such acts can happen. After all, the best [sic] intelligence did not detect the Aum Shinryko cult, the World Trade Center bombers or Timothy McVeigh. [<WHEEZE> -Ed.]
       

from the 1998-July-17 issue of Joseph Farah's 'between the lines' column from WorldNetDaily (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/btlines/980717.btl.clinton.y2k.bug.html):

Clinton and the Y2K bug

In June, House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized the White House for dropping the ball on the Y2K millennium bug issue, saying that the administration is presiding over "a large wreck" set to take place 17 months from now in what is scheduled to be Clinton's last year in office.

This week, Clinton attempted to set the record straight. He offered a bold plan to address the potential crisis that threatens to cripple the world's computers and hundreds of millions of embedded chips that might not recognize the year 00. What did the president do? He ordered the U.S. government to be fully Y2K-compliant by March 1999.

Now, anyone who has even taken a cursory look at this issue will tell you that it is impossible for the government to rewrite all the computer code by March 1999. It's not going to happen. And Clinton knows it.

Setting such a ludicrous goal -- even if it is just that, a goal -- can mean one of only two things: Clinton figures he'll only have one more year on the job when the bug hits and it will be somebody else's headache; or, he is secretly counting on the crisis as an excuse to declare martial law and remain in office -- indefinitely.

Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. Praising Clinton at his dog-and-pony show this week was Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who serves as chairman of the Senate's special committee overseeing Y2k issues. A couple weeks ago, Bennett was grilling a top Pentagon official during the course of a hearing on the millennium bug. He asked Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre the following question: "In the event of a Y2K-induced breakdown of community services that might call for martial law," will the military be ready?

"We've got fundamental issues to deal with that go beyond just the Year 2000 contingency planning," said Hamre. "And I think you're right to bring that up."

Understand that Bennett wasn't suspiciously asking Hamre if the military was secretly planning a hideous martial law scenario. He was knowingly asking him and hoping that the military would be prepared to carry out such a scenario. Bennett doesn't appear to be hoping for a calamity. But he does seem to believe that the end of American freedom as we know it is preferable to chaos.

I, for one, want to go on record as favoring chaos. Nothing is more precious to me than my freedom. And the Constitution of the United States says no government authority has the right to take it away. I have nothing but contempt for politicians who believe they have the right and the power to turn this country into a police state for any reason.

Is it not possible, however, with all we now know about the character of Bill Clinton, that he would attempt to turn such a crisis into an opportunity? And, with all we know about the character of the 105th Congress, is it unthinkable to visualize its members abdicating their authority and collaborating in such an insidious scheme?

Maybe I'm just cynical. But, as a journalist, trained to distrust government, I am paid to be skeptical of plots to preserve order at any cost. Indulge me in my nightmare. I think I'm having the same kinds of bad dreams that our Founding Fathers had. The day Americans start relying on the good intentions of a centralized bureaucracy for their welfare is the day their welfare -- and everything patriots have fought and died to preserve for 200 years -- is lost.

It's not me who raised the ugly specter of martial law in the context of the Y2K crisis. It was the United States government -- in a public meeting between representatives of the legislative and executive branches. This is not a hallucination. It's reality. Hearings are being conducted. Plans are being made.

If you doubt me, just check out Presidential Decision Directive 63, issued by Bill Clinton in May. It calls for the development of a plan to ensure "essential national security missions" as well as general public health and safety by, you guessed it, the year 2000.

The carefully worded directive emphasizes the preservation of order, the delivery of minimum essential services and the maintenance of a "national infrastructure protection system" involving the military, intelligence agencies, law enforcement and the mandatory participation of the "private sector."

Under the directive, the "National Infrastructure Protection Center," which includes the FBI, the Secret Service, other federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense and the intelligence agencies, calls the shots. To me, the cynic, all this sounds like code for martial law.

I'm not ready to panic, mind you. In fact, that would only play into the hands of those evil opportunists in government who might envision a worst-case scenario as a vehicle to maintain -- even consolidate -- power. But it's time to start facing up to the possibility that this crisis might just result in that "large wreck." It would be irresponsible to do anything else.

from WorldNetDaily 1999-Feb-1, by Jon E. Dougherty, from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_dougherty/19990201_xex_clintons_ree.shtml:

Clinton's re-election plans?
Bill to repeal 22nd Amendment introduced

The Internet and talk radio programs across the country are buzzing about presumably joking remarks made by White House press secretary Joe Lockhart regarding plans by President Clinton to seek re-election to a third term and legislation introduced in Congress that could facilitate such a bid.

Before taking questions during a Jan. 27 press briefing, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart and reporters exchanged some light banter about a proposed constitutional amendment that could have a lasting impact on the office of the presidency. The exchange went this way:

MR. LOCKHART: We'll do a couple of quick announcements before we get to questions.

Q: Is he (President Clinton) running for re-election?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I guess we buried the lead here. The president announced that he wants to undo the Constitution and repeal the 22nd -- 23rd Amendments?

Q: Sounds like gymnastics -- constitutional gymnastics you're talking about here. (Laughter)

MR. LOCKHART: Yes, there you go. (Laughter.) All's fair in constitutional gymnastics. This is our double flip in the pike position.

The bill, H.J. Res. 17, was introduced in the House by Rep. Jose E. Serrano, D-NY, and his lone co-sponsor, Rep. Christopher Shays, R-CT, on Jan. 6. The bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee for review, but, thus far, no floor action has been scheduled for it.

If the proposed repeal were to pass before Nov. 4th, 2000, then theoretically Bill Clinton could be the Democrat's choice for a third term in office. There is no language in the bill as it is currently written to bar the present commander-in-chief from running again.

The bill proposes "an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as president."

If H.J. Res. 17 were to be approved by both the House and Senate, then it would require three-fourths of the state legislatures to ratify it within seven years before the new amendment would be added to the Constitution.

However, few experts see much chance of passage.

Marshall Whitman, director of congressional relations with the Heritage Foundation, told WorldNetDaily it had "virtually no chance" of passing during the 106th Congress.

"It's dead on arrival," he said.

from Federal Computer Week, October 5, 1998, from http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1998/1005/fcw-newsy2kshort-10-5-98.html:

Coming up short on Y2K

Many agencies missed last week's OMB goal for having systems fixed and ready for testing

BY ORLANDO De BRUCE (orlando_debruce@fcw.com)

The first major Year 2000 milestone passed almost unnoticed last week.

Sept. 30 was a target date set by the Clinton administration for agencies to have all their mission-critical systems renovated, yet it slipped quietly past many federal agencies, which are still frantically fixing their computer systems, and past many critics.

In a quarterly report released in November 1997, the Office of Management and Budget asked agencies to complete the renovation of all mission-critical systems by September. OMB also set January 1999 as the deadline for agencies to complete testing the systems and March 1999 as the date to reinstall the systems.

Most of the seven agencies OMB identified as being the furthest behind in Year 2000 fixes, in the so-called Tier 1 category, did not meet OMB's goal for renovation.

Tier 1 agencies include the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, State and Transportation and the Agency for International Development.

Although most Tier 1 agencies fall short or do not have data to report current figures, it appears that nothing will be done by OMB in the short term to help those agencies catch up. An OMB spokesman said the targeted date was not a "deadline" but rather a "goal" that the chief information officers set and that OMB included in its August 1998 quarterly report.

He said the idea behind the goal was for "agencies to try and meet" the milestone and that OMB "will wait for the next quarterly report to come out'' before commenting further. The next report is scheduled to be released by late November or early December.

Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.), who has led the oversight of agencies' Year 2000 progress in the House, said OMB has few options to force agencies that did not meet the September goal to improve their progress. However, he said OMB should make Tier 1 agencies submit weekly reports on their Year 2000 efforts.

"If an agency has renovated 85 percent of its systems, that's not bad,'' said Horn, who admitted that he was not aware of the September goal. "But what can OMB do if the systems are not renovated? All we can do is bring it to light.''

Defense Department officials said they could not provide current data on how many mission-critical systems have been renovated since the August report because that data will not be collected until shortly before the next OMB quarterly report is released this fall.

In the recent quarterly report, DOD reported that 70 percent of its mission-critical systems have been renovated.

By contrast, some agencies have identified that more of their mission-critical systems have been renovated since the summer but still fall short of the September goal, and these agencies are not scheduled to finish the job until the end of this year or even later. The U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, is scheduled to have four of its five mission-critical systems renovated by January, with the remaining system renovated by March. John Streufert, a Year 2000 program manager at USAID, said only two of the agencies' mission-critical systems have been renovated.

Streufert said that if the agency had the funding, it could accelerate its Year 2000 efforts and have the mission-critical systems renovated much sooner. "It's feasible that we can speed things up if we had the funds,'' he said. "We are requesting Y2K supplemental funds to accelerate technical activity.''

Gay Morris, the Year 2000 manager at HHS, said HHS expects to receive data this week on how far along it has come in its renovation. The agency's internal systems, Morris said, are all renovated. External systems -- those run by contractors for functions such as medical billing under the Medicare program -- are causing concern, she said.

"I have no way of saying to vendors what they must get to me when they are not in my management structure,'' Morris said. "We are trying to verify the data that external companies have submitted. We're hoping to get the data by [Oct. 5].''

Olga Grkavac, senior vice president of the Information Technology Association of America's Enterprise Solutions Division, said she is not surprised that the Tier 1 agencies did not meet the Sept. 30 goal.

"I thought the date was not achievable for most of the agencies in view of where they are,'' Grkavac said. "This is not the only deadline many of the agencies will miss..... The concern is, time still marches on."

from The Washington Times, July 31, 1998, from http://www.washtimes.com/investiga/investiga2.html:

from http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/afternoon/0%2c1012%2c2038%2c00.html (June 4, 1998):

The Martial Plan

Think the Year 2000 problem means mere elevator snafus? Try dealing with a platoon of Marines who show up in your front yard to confiscate your hoarded lentils. Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) asked the deputy secretary of defense at a hearing this morning what plans the Pentagon has "in the event of a Y2K-induced breakdown of community services that might call for martial law." John Hamre replied carefully, but none too reassuringly, "We've got fundamental issues to deal with that go beyond just the Year 2000 contingency planning. And I think you're right to bring that up." Another distressing point that came up at the Senate Armed Services committee hearing was the fact that the military directs one quarter of U.S. air traffic. "You may be flying across the country and an air traffic controller may be a military guy in certain areas as opposed to it being an FAA person," Hamre said. Although the FAA's head Y2K guru assured us this afternoon that the agency will have its Y2K fixes complete by October 1998, the military appears to be in much worse shape. And other countries? "We can be sure that there will be social unrest in many parts of the world as a result of Y2K," Bennett said. For the record, though, Bennett did say, "I am not one of those who says that Y2K will automatically produce martial law," and blamed "alarmists, extremists out there on the Internet" for unnecessary scaremongering. --By Declan McCullagh/Washington

from http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/afternoon/0%2c1012%2c1990%2c00.html (May 13, 1998):

Boom, Boom, Out Go the Lights

The good news: Computers in securities firms and brokerages will survive the perilous transition to 1-1-00. The bad news? There may be no electricity to power them. At a breakfast briefing today, an industry representative assured about 80 congressional aides that securities companies were in excellent health. "There will be a successful conversion to Year 2000 in the United States in the securities industry," predicted Arthur Thomas, chair of the Securities Industry Association's Y2K committee. An industry-wide test is scheduled for March 1999, with a trial run this summer. As for the rest of the world, well, "when you get into emerging markets, there could be turmoil." Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, said this proves the U.S. government must show more leadership. (ITAA certifies companies as Y2K-OK for $7,700 to $9,250.) Speaking last was David Hall, an embedded-systems consultant at Cara Corporation, who warned of power outages. "Every test I have seen done on an electrical power plant has caused it to shut down. Period. I know of no plant or facility investigated to this date that has passed without Y2K problems," he said. Added Hall: "Things like this come out and the mass media gets ahold of it -- you're going to have shortages because of panic. How to communicate this to the public needs to be addressed." It's a little late now. --By Declan McCullagh/Washington