February 27, 2008
Justin Rood Reports

The FBI now keeps a list of over 900,000 names belonging to known or suspected terrorists, the American Civil Liberties Union said today.

If that number is accurate, it would be an all-time high, exponentially more than the 100,000 names on the list several years ago. But the number needs to be taken with a grain of salt: after all, the ACLU doesn't keep the list, the FBI does, and the bureau doesn't generally like to talk about it. (Indeed, the FBI has not yet responded to a request for comment for this post.)

But if the ACLU's figure isn't accurate, it's also unlikely to be off by that much. Last September, the ACLU notes, the Department of Justice's Inspector General reported the FBI watch list was at 700,000 names, and growing at 20,000 names per month.

It’s amazing. Just when you think there are no new depths of shamelessness and betrayal of trust to which the Bush administration can sink, they manage to sink deeper into unchartered infamy. Hold on now, I’m not even mad yet. I’m talking about the seventy seven percent cut in the medical assistance for 9/11 first responders in the current federal budget. Gravely ill firemen, police, and other workers who labored at that site, workers who have come down with life threatening cancers and respiratory illnesses linked to their heroic efforts at ground zero are being shafted once again.

In the name of full disclosure, I am not writing this from some disinterested “good citizen” viewpoint. I have a young nephew, John McNamarra, a heroic fireman who worked as a first responder at that site and who later volunteered for rescue work after Katrina in New Orleans. For the past few years he has been suffering from various cancers resulting from that work for which he is currently under treatment at Sloan Kettering. Last weekend he called me to talk about the government’s new betrayal. As the father of a one year old son, Jack, John is fighting the battle of his life, and there is no godly reason why men such as John have to fight the government as well for proper medical care and compensation. One pill – yes one small pill that reduces the agonizing nausea of his chemotherapy costs as much as a thousand dollars. Okay, I can rail about the greedy drug companies and their obscene profits, but my first concern is our government’s ingratitude and cruelty, something which the congress must address and remedy to help all these men and women.

February 25, 2008
Asbestos and Mesothelioma Center

More than six years later, tragic realities resulting from the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks continue to reveal themselves. With many individuals developing similar health conditions, criticism has yet again resurfaced regarding the government’s assurance that the dust created from the fallen World Trade Center (WTC) towers was safe and posed no threat to human health. The first documented death caused by exposure to WTC dust was confirmed in May 2007 with New York City’s chief medical examiner directly linking the death of Felicia Dunn-Jones (a lawyer who fled her office a block away from the WTC) with her exposure to the toxic dust.

The dust cloud contained more than 2,500 contaminants and infiltrated the city. Stretching as far as New Jersey, the caustic dust was composed of harmful elements such as glass, construction debris, and poisonous compounds such as lead, mercury, and asbestos. Those who helped with the cleanup and individuals living and working near the WTC have been greatly affected by this contaminated dust. Countless individuals who came in contact with the dust are reporting distressing respiratory issues, ranging from a severe cough to various forms of cancer, the most common being lung cancer.

February 18, 2008
from Mesotheliomawatch.org

Those clouds of dust that enveloped thousands of New Yorkers who were near the World Trade Center’s destruction and who participated in the rescue efforts may be another large group of victims exposed to the cancerous effects of asbestos. Mesothelioma is a deadly form of lung cancer that is caused by exposure to asbestos, usually in the form of dust or tiny fibers that get into the respiratory system.

There was an enormous amount of asbestos in the debris left by the 9/11 disaster; moreover, it has become evident that the dust raised on 9/11 and during subsequent rescue and cleanup efforts was contaminated with asbestos. One citizen who participated in rescue efforts for 48 hours after the towers fell saved the shirt that he was wearing throughout that period. In April of 2006 the New York Post reported that when the shirt’s fabric was tested, it was found to contain 93,000 times the amount of asbestos normally found in American cities.

EU officials furious as Washington says it wants extra data on all air passengers

by Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian
Monday February 11 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday February 11 2008 on p1 of the Top stories section.

The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines.

The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as "blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's requirements.

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had "a security concern" with her. "I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight," she said.

by MICHAEL GOULD-WARTOFSKY

[from the January 28, 2008 issue of The Nation]

Free-speech zones. Taser guns. Hidden cameras. Data mining. A new security curriculum. Private security contractors. Welcome to the homeland security campus.

From Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism prevention"--as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives bill of the same name--have set out to reconquer that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university.

Building a homeland security campus and bringing the university to heel is a seven-step mission:

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." - Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

InfraGard started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats.

BY JOHN TOSCANO
February 6, 2008

New York lawmakers in Washington who have been persistently pressing the White House for increased funding for healthcare programs for ailing 9/11 World Trade Center workers were jolted last week when President George W. Bush's proposed budget slashed those programs by 77 percent.

Only last Wednesday, they pointed out, a White House spokesman had issued a statement that the president's 2009 budget would "reflect his continued commitment" to WTC workers. In reality, the budget issued appropriated a paltry $25 million, down from $108 million in the present spending plan.

"This dramatic and unwarranted cut flies in the face of common sense, compassion and just plain fairness," Senator Charles Schumer declared as he promised to "fight these cuts tooth and nail to ensure these heroes receive the health care they need and clearly deserve".

Ever since the President’s illegal warrantless eavesdropping program was revealed by the New York Times‘ Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau back in December, 2005, there has been a faction of neoconservatives and other extremists on the Right calling for the NYT reporters and editors to be criminally prosecuted — led by the likes of Bill Kristol (now of the NYT), Bill Bennett (of CNN), Commentary Magazine and many others. In May, 2006, Alberto Gonzales went on ABC News and revealed that the DOJ had commenced a criminal investigation into the leak, and then “raised the possibility [] that New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information.”

That was one of the more revealing steps ever taken by Bush’s DOJ under Gonzales: the administration violated multiple federal laws for years in spying on Americans, blocked all efforts to investigate what they did or subject it to the rule of law, but then decided that the only real criminals were those who alerted the nation to their lawbreaking — whistleblowers and journalists alike. Even Gonzales’ public musing about criminal prosecutions could have had a devastating effect — if you’re a whistleblower or journalist who uncovers secret government lawbreaking, you’re obviously going to think twice (at least) before bringing it to light, given the public threats by the Attorney General to criminally prosecute those who do.