Interview with Chris Hedges conducted at OWS
October 19, 2011
AmpedStatus.org

Chris Hedges recently gave an inspiring and very heartfelt interview on #OWS during the Times Square protest action. Be sure to watch the last minute, beautiful.

October 12, 2011
Contact: Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, 707.874.2695

Dr. Peter Phillips, President; Prof. Mickey Huff, Director

peter@projectcensored.org; mickey@projectcensored.org

Interviews: Contact Mickey Huff at email above.

Order the new book online at http://projectcensored.org or send check for $22.95 to

Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 571 Cotati, CA 94931

'Most journalists in the United States believe the press here is free. That grand illusion only helps obscure the fact that, by and large, the US corporate press does not report what's really going on, while tuning out, or laughing off, all those who try to do just that. Americans -- now more than ever -- need those outlets that do labor to report some truth. Project Censored is not just among the bravest, smartest, and most rigorous of those outlets, but the only one that's wholly focused on those stories that the corporate press ignores, downplays and/or distorts. This latest book is therefore a must-read for anyone who cares about this country, its tottering economy, and--most important--what's now left of its democracy." --Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media ecology, NYU

Our new book has arrived!

Censored 2012: The Sourcebook for the Media Revolution, The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010-2011 by Mickey Huff and Project Censored. In this volume, there are 500 pages of real news you can use, plus ample analysis that eradicates civil paralysis, and antidotes to our current Truth Emergency that will strengthen societal media literacy. Help celebrate the 35^th year of the oldest media research organization in the US by donating $35 for a signed copy of Censored 2012, or simply pick up a copy for yourself, friends, or a local library or school for only $19.95 each ($22.95 w/shipping).

Canadian Government Has Legal Obligation under UN Convention Against Torture to Prosecute Alleged Perpetrators of Torture, Rights Groups Say; Prominent Individuals and Organizations Sign on in Support

October 19, 2011, Surrey, BC--Tomorrow, four individuals who allege they were tortured during George W. Bush's tenure as president of the United States will lodge a private prosecution in Provincial Court in Surrey, British Columbia against the former president, who is due to visit Canada for a paid speaking engagement at the Surrey Regional Economic Summit on October 20. The four men will take this step after repeated calls to the Canadian Attorney General to open a torture investigation of George Bush went unanswered. Human rights groups and prominent individuals will sign on in support of the effort.

The four men, Hassan bin Attash, Sami el-Hajj, Muhammed Khan Tumani and Murat Kurnaz, each endured years of inhumane treatment including beatings, chaining to cell walls, being hung from walls or ceilings while handcuffed, lack of access to toilets, sleep, food and water-deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, sensory overload and deprivation, and other horrific and illegal treatment while in U.S. custody at military bases in Afghanistan and/or at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.While three of the plaintiffs have since been released without ever facing charges, Hassan Bin Attash still remains in detention at Guantanamo Bay, though he too has not been formally charged with any wrongdoing.

October 18, 2011

(Washington, DC) A faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard called the Quds Force (QF) is center stage in the War on Terror for the second time in five years. In 2007, President George W. Bush hauled out the group of middle and upper level Iranian government officials as a rationale for military action against Iran. The decisive shutdown of the Bush effort marks a critical turning point in recent history and will be discussed later in the article.

QF II began last Tuesday when FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder unified the terror storyline between the rabid neoconservatives of the Bush era and the low key loyalists to the national security state in the Obama administration.

Holder and Mueller accused, "elements of the Iranian government of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington," the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. In essence, this military faction allegedly hired an outsider to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States. With the full knowledge of the Iranian government, the outsider tried to hire a Mexican drug lord for the high level hit. Attorney General Holder announced that the United States is "holding the Iranian government accountable." Holder went on to state the official position of the government, namely that the Iranian government entity behind the plot was the Quds Force.

People power triumphs over Wall Street's bid to end the protests mayor bloomberg and Brookfield Inc. back down on eviction world prepares for day of action Saturday October 15 in 950+ cities in 82 countries. We Are Winning!

NEW YORK, NY -- Over 3,000 people gathered at Liberty Plaza in the pre-dawn hours this morning to defend the peaceful Occupation near Wall Street. The crowd cheered at the news that multinational real estate firm Brookfield Properties will postpone its so-called "cleanup" of the park and that Mayor Bloomberg has told the NYPD to stand down on orders to remove protesters. On the eve of the October 15 global day of action against Wall Street greed, this development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street.

"We are winning and Wall Street is afraid," said Kira Moyer-Sims, a protester from Portland, Oregon. "This movement is gaining momentum and is too big to fail."

Posted Oct. 14, 2011, 1:07 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Over the last 30 years, the 1% have created a global economic system - neoliberalism - that attacks our human rights and destroys our environment. Neoliberalism is worldwide - it is the reason you no longer have a job, it is the reason you cannot afford healthcare, education, food, your mortgage.
Neoliberalism is your future stolen.

Neoliberalism is everywhere, gutting labor standards, living wages, social contracts, and environmental protections. It is "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." It is a system that ravages the global south and creates global financial crisis - crisis in Spain, in Greece, in the United States. It is a system built on greed and thrives on destablizing shocks.
It allows the 1% to enrich themselves by impoverishing humanity.

This has to stop!

Graphic: Tom Kean, George Tenet, Richard Clarke. Inset: The Pentagon on fire after an aircraft crashes into it, Sept. 11, 2001. (Salon.com)

A growing number of former government insiders -- all responsible officials who served in a number of federal posts -- are now on record as doubting ex-CIA director George Tenet's account of events leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Among them are several special agents of the FBI, the former counterterrorism head in the Clinton and Bush administrations, and the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, who told us the CIA chief had been "obviously not forthcoming" in his testimony and had misled the commissioners.

These doubts about the CIA first emerged among a group of 9/11 victims' families whose struggle to force the government to investigate the causes of the attacks, we chronicled in our 2006 documentary film "Press for Truth." At that time, we thought we were done with the subject. But tantalizing information unearthed by the 9/11 Commission's final report and spotted by the families (Chapter 6, footnote 44) raised a question too important to be put aside:

September 30, 2011 was the day America was assassinated.

Some of us have watched this day approach and have warned of its coming, only to be greeted with boos and hisses from "patriots" who have come to regard the US Constitution as a device that coddles criminals and terrorists and gets in the way of the President who needs to act to keep us safe.

In our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, Lawrence Stratton and I showed that long before 9/11 US law had ceased to be a shield of the people and had been turned into a weapon in the hands of the government. The event known as 9/11 was used to raise the executive branch above the law. As long as the President sanctions an illegal act, executive branch employees are no longer accountable to the law that prohibits the illegal act. On the president's authority, the executive branch can violate US laws against spying on Americans without warrants, indefinite detention, and torture and suffer no consequences.

Many expected President Obama to re-establish the accountability of government to law. Instead, he went further than Bush/Cheney and asserted the unconstitutional power not only to hold American citizens indefinitely in prison without bringing charges, but also to take their lives without convicting them in a court of law. Obama asserts that the US Constitution notwithstanding, he has the authority to assassinate US citizens, who he deems to be a "threat," without due process of law.

In other words, any American citizen who is moved into the threat category has no rights and can be executed without trial or evidence.

On September 30 Obama used this asserted new power of the president and had two American citizens, Anwar Awlaki and Samir Khan murdered. Khan was a wacky character associated with Inspire Magazine and does not readily come to mind as a serious threat.

A report on terrorism prosecutions written by scholars at New York University's School of Law has set off an ugly fight, pitting the school against former Mayor Edward I. Koch and Representative Peter T. King in what one side calls a question of intellectual freedom, and the other says is a matter of intellectual honesty.

The report, focusing on three high-profile cases, accuses law enforcement agencies of luring young Muslim men into violent plots and makes broad assertions that the government stigmatizes Muslims. The charge is nothing new; defendants in many terrorism trials in the past decade have alleged entrapment, but juries have rejected that defense.

The report, "Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the 'Homegrown Threat' in the United States," was published in May but did not draw much notice until recently, when some prominent alumni of the law school brought it to the attention of Mr. Koch, a 1948 graduate.

Mr. Koch called on the school's dean, Richard L. Revesz, to disavow the report and distribute a rebuttal that Mr. King -- the Long Island Republican who has presided over contentious hearings on domestic terrorist threats -- wrote at Mr. Koch's urging. When the dean did not agree, the former mayor decided to take the conflict public, potentially giving the report a wider audience than it had gained on its own.

The fight illustrates how differently the political and academic worlds can view the same dispute, and how the same information can be used to support vastly different conclusions and agendas. [Story continues.]

Report: Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the "Homegrown Threat" in the United States

Center for Human Rights ane Global Justice, New York University School of Law, www.chrgj.org

Since the events of September 11, 2001, the United States government has been targeting Muslims by sending paid, untrained informants into mosques and Muslim communities throughout the country. This practice has led to the prosecution of more than 200 individuals in terrorism related cases. [More]

"In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act"
George Orwell

9/11, Rise of New Labour, 7/7, Death of David Kelly, global elites, nature of media control.

Meet global experts as they assess the evidence buried by the corporate media on these issues and more:

DATE: Saturday Oct 15th from 10.00am to 9.00pm

LOCATION: London 4th floor Studios 255 Commercial Road E1 2BT

ADMISSION: Purchase from conference sponsor Coffee Plant 0208 453 1144 (office hours)

SPEAKERS
Tony Hall, Professor of Globalisation Studies and author of Earth into Property, picked by the Independent as a book of the year.
David Halpin, key organiser of the David Kelly campaign. How Blair stitched up the courts and the incredible decisons of Lord Hutton.
Niels Harrit, emeritus professor and world nanothermite expert featured on the BBC's Conspiracy Files: the deadly evidence in the dust from the world trade centre and the failed character assassination.
Robin Ramsay, editor of Lobster magazine, long standing deep politics expert has written extensively on how a narrow group of millionaires took over the Labour Party.
Bridget Dunne and Tom Secker of the J7 campaign, the vanishing 7/7 ringleaders and other questions the 7/7 inquest refused to consider.
Ian Henshall, author 911 The New Evidence, commentator on Talksport and PressTV: The top level whistleblowers who hold the key to the 9/11 attacks and the news editors who don't want to know.
Tim Gopsill, editor of the NUJ's The Journalist for many years, now active in the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.
Scott Forbes, 9/11 survivor: The suspicious activities in the Twin Towers in the weeks prior to 9/11.
Martin Summers, lifelong activist and Oxford PPE graduate with many personal experiences of the intelligence underworld.
Tony Gosling, Internet activist and host of Bristol radio show, featured in BBC's Conspiracy Files.
Paul Warburton, Human Rights lawyer, 9/11 truth campaigner and independent Parliamentary candidate.
Organisers Fran Scott (researcher) and Noel Glynn (Quakers for Truth on Terrorism) are also available and will be chairing and speaking.

This is an evidence led event. The structure is normally panel discussions with a chair. The tone is respectful and not polemical. Panellists have varying opinions. We welcome short and relevant comments from the floor where there will be many people with relevant expertise.

This week GRTV talks to Sibel Edmonds, famed FBI whistleblower and the Editor of http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/ about the various ways that whistleblowers in the national security establishment are retaliated against, set upon by the establishment, and undermined by the very foundation-funded organizations that are supposed to be helping them.

CLICK HERE to download the audio of the full, unedited interview.

The Corbett Report provides a weekly podcast as well as interviews, articles and videos about current events and suppressed history from an independent perspective.

Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Last Friday, White House officials made at least two public references to Presidential Policy Directives (PPDs). PPD 1 was cited in a new executive order on computer security and PPD 8 was cited in a White House blog posting on disaster preparedness. Each Directive is a significant expression of national policy. Neither one is classified. And yet neither of them -- nor any other Obama Presidential Policy Directive -- can be found on the White House website.

The White House decision not to make these documents available is a stark reminder of the incoherence of the Obama Administration's transparency policy, and its inconsistent implementation.

"Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset," President Obama wrote in his January 21, 2009 memo on transparency and open government. "My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public."

According to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, Americans are never to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Constitution is not some aspirational statement of values, allowing exceptions when convenient, but rather, it is the law of the land. It is the basis of our Republic and our principal bulwark against tyranny.

Last week's assassination of two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, is an outrage and a criminal act carried out by the President and his administration. If the law protecting us against government-sanctioned assassination can be voided when there is a "really bad American," is there any meaning left to the rule of law in the United States?

If, as we learned last week, a secret government committee, not subject to congressional oversight or judicial review, can now target certain Americans for assassination, under what moral authority do we presume to lecture the rest of the world about protecting human rights? Didn't we just bomb Libya into oblivion under the auspices of protecting the civilians from being targeted by their government? Timothy McVeigh was certainly a threat, as were Nidal Hassan and Jared Lee Loughner. They killed people in front of many witnesses. They took up arms against their government in a literal way, yet were still afforded trials.

These constitutional protections are in place because our Founders realized it is a very serious matter to deprive any individual of life or liberty. Our outrage against even the obviously guilty is not worth the sacrifice of the rule of law. Al-Awlaki has been outspoken against the United States and we are told he encouraged violence against Americans. We do not know that he actually committed any acts of violence. Ironically, he was once invited to the Pentagon as part of an outreach to moderate Muslims after 9/11. As the US attacks against Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia expanded, it is said that he became more fervent and radical in his opposition to US foreign policy.

Mother Jones / By Trevor Aaronson

UPDATE: On September 28, Rezwan Ferdaus, a 26-year-old graduate of Northeastern University, was arrested and charged with providing resources to a foreign terrorist organization and attempting to destroy national defense premises. Ferdaus, according to the FBI, planned to blow up both the Pentagon and Capitol Building with a "large remote controlled aircraft filled with C-4 plastic explosives."

The case was part of a nearly ten-month investigation led by the FBI. Not surprisingly, Ferdaus' case fits a pattern detailed by Trevor Aaronson in his article below: the FBI provided Ferdaus with the explosives and materials needed to pull off the plot. In this case, two undercover FBI employees, who Ferdaus believed were al Qaeda members, gave Ferdaus $7,500 to purchase an F-86 Sabre model airplane that Ferdaus hoped to fill with explosives. Right before his arrest, the FBI employees gave Ferdaus, who lived at home with his parents, the explosives he requested to pull off his attack. And just how did the FBI come to meet Ferdaus? An informant with a criminal record introduced Ferdaus to the supposed al Qaeda members.