George Bush Wants your Mail Read

[gus danger]

United we stand!
Divided we fall!

GD

[SouthwestRanger]

GUS, CHERIE, & CO: PLEASE READ !!!! [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img]

Bloggers Who Criticize Government May Face Prison
Bill would allow rounding up and imprisoning of non-registered political writers

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, January 18, 2007



You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was some new restriction on free speech in Communist China. But it isn't. The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress in the latest astounding attack on the internet and the First Amendment.

Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, a website dedicated to fighting efforts to silence grassroots movements, states:

"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself."

In other words Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats may redefine the meaning of lobbying in order that political communications to and even between citizens falls under the same legislation.

Under current law any 'lobbyist" who 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report." quarterly to the government faces criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year.

The amendment is currently on hold.

This latest attack on bloggers comes hot on the heels of Republican Senator John McCain's proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards.

McCain's proposal is presented under the banner of saving children from sexual predators and encourages informants to shop website owners to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.

Despite a total lack of any evidence that children are being victimized en mass by bloggers or people who leave comments on blog sites, it seems likely that the proposal will become legislation in some form. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.

In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:

During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."

- The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.

- The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.

- In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

- A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.

- A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.

- The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda.

- The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.

- We have also previously exposed how moves are afoot to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a highly restricted new form of the internet known as Internet 2.


Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. All these moves mimic stories we hear every week out of State Controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

The phrases "Chinese government" and "Mao Zedong" have even been censored on China's official Web sites because they are "Sensitive phrases". Are we to allow our supposedly Democratic governments to implement the same type of restrictive policies here?

Under section 220 of the lobbying reform bill, Infowars.net could be required to seek a license in order to bring this information to you. IF we were granted a license we would then have to report our activities to the government four times per year in order to bring you this information. Does that sound more like free speech or more like totalitarianism?

http://infowars.net/articles/january...ers_Prison.htm

[gus danger]

<center>
GD</center>

[SouthwestRanger]

Even though we may not agree with Bush and his tactics, we must never take out our anger on our Brave Servicemen & Women...

Please send them a message of support....

Time to support our men and women in Military service to the USA!
http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/am...you/index.aspx

[gus danger]

According to scripture, from what I understand, America's armies will be spread thin through-out the world, so when the time comes to disarm America it won't be US servicemen kicking in our doors, it will be a coalition of the willing puppet regimes!

This makes sense because OUR troops would have a lot of problems with firing on American citizens and visa versa!

"We'll fight for our right to live in freedom!"
[img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/grrr.gif[/img]
Gus

[GlamUK73]

These are really scary proposals...shutting down the internet....forcing bloggers to register....what the **** is going on?

What this world is coming to?

my goodness......I am speechless and shocked

With regards to all this controversial state of control-freak attitude from politicians, It is safe to say that Philip K.Dick was a real prophet....
For those who read "Dr Futurity" and "The Bourne Identity" may know what I am talking about.

Lory

[tim52160]

wow! what's really scarey is now they are saying the latino illegal imigrant vote is who the politicians are courting because they have the power to sway the elections.

[SouthwestRanger]

Southern Iraqi Tribes Joining Armed Resistance

Inter Press Service | January 22, 2007
Dahr Jamail & Ali al-Fadhily




BAGHDAD -- Violence is spreading further across Iraq, as Shi'ite Arab tribes in the south begin to engage occupation forces in new armed resistance.

Resistance in the southern parts of Iraq has been escalating over the last three months, leading to increased casualties among British and other occupation forces.

In the last seven months, at least 24 British soldiers have been killed in southern Iraq, with at least as many wounded, according to the independent website Iraq Coalition Casualties. So far at least 128 British soldiers have died in Iraq, along with 123 of other nationalities. Most of these have been stationed in southern Iraq.

Casualties earlier were far lower.

Attacks against occupation forces appear to stem from a growing nationalism.

"This is not about vengeance," a former Iraqi army officer from Kut, 200 km south of Baghdad told IPS in Baghdad. "People have lost hope in the US-led occupation's promises, and they are thinking of saving the country from Iranian influence which has been supported, or at least allowed by the Multinational Forces."

British and US military leaders tend not to say who has been targeting their forces in the south. They simply call the resistance fighters "terrorists," or they point to the Mahdi Army led by Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as the only source of disturbance in the south.

While members of the Mahdi Army certainly carry out attacks against occupation forces in southern Iraq, other homegrown resistance seems to have taken root, fed also by earlier memories.

"People here have always hated the US and British occupation of Iraq, and remembered their grandfathers who fought the British troops with the simplest weapons," Jassim al-Assadi, a school headmaster from Kut told IPS on a recent visit to Baghdad.

Al-Assadi was referring to the Shi'ite resistance that eventually played a key role in expelling British forces from Iraq during the 1920s and 1930s.

Armed resistance against the occupation in the south was slow to begin with because religious clerics instructed their followers to give the occupation time to fulfill promises made by the Bush and Blair administrations, al-Assadi said.

"But now they do not believe any cleric's promises any more. They have started fighting, and that is that."

A political analyst in Baghdad, who asked to be referred to as W. al-Tamimi, told IPS that he believes occupation forces have been working in tandem with death squads. "We have been observing American and British occupation forces supporting those death squads all over Iraq, but we were still hoping for reconciliation."

Al-Tamimi said the sheikh of his tribe, which is both Shi'ite and Sunni, was "under great pressure by the tribe's young men to let them join the resistance."

The force of the growing resistance in the south has become more and more evident. Late last August 1,200 British soldiers known as The Queen's Royal Hussars abruptly evacuated their three-year-old base after taking continuous mortar and missile fire from Shi'ite resistance fighters.

The British military announced the move as part of a long-planned handover of security to the Iraqi government, but it was clear that the move was abrupt. Iraqi authorities were not notified.

"British forces evacuated the military headquarters without coordination with the Iraqi forces," Dhaffar Jabbar, spokesman for the local governor said at the time.

Looters promptly moved into the empty base and removed an estimated half a million dollars worth of equipment the British left behind in their hasty retreat.

In another significant event last August, Sheikh Faissal al-Khayoon, chief of the major Shi'ite Arab tribe Beni Assad, was killed by death squads with suspected Iranian backing. The killers are believed by men from the tribe to have been working for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior in Basra.

Khayoon's tribe members reacted immediately. They took over the streets and government offices, and set fire to the Iranian consulate in Basra. The protests continued until clerics and Iraqi government officials promised them a full investigation.

"It was another lie that some of us believed," a senior Beni Assad leader told IPS on condition of anonymity. "The Sheikh was killed by Iranian collaborators and we made a promise to his soul that his precious life will be avenged."

Beni Tamim is another tribe with both Sunni and Shi'ite members. Members say their Sheikh, Hamid al-Suhail, was killed Jan. 1 this year by the Mahdi Army, which they believe has Iranian support. He died in the northern Baghdad Shi'ite-dominated Shula Quarter.

"He was 70 years old, and brutally killed by Mahdi death squads by pushing him from a high building," one of the sheikh's nephews told IPS in Baghdad. "Iran is behind all this and we, Beni Tamim are well prepared to face their yellow winds that are blowing Iraq apart."

Leaders of the two tribes, among many other tribal chiefs in the south, are working to achieve unity between Sunni and Shi'ite groups.

SR: All right Boys and Girls...How do you say QUAGMIRE in Arabic ????

IRAQ !!!!

[IrishMick]

[SouthwestRanger]

The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry
Your Local Police Force Has Been Militarized

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | January 24, 2007



SUPPORT LAW AND ORDER !!!

In recent years American police forces have called out SWAT teams 40,000 or
more times annually. Last year did you read in your newspaper or hear on TV
news of 110 hostage or terrorist events each day? No. What then were the
SWAT teams doing? They were serving routine warrants to people who posed no
danger to the police or to the public.

Occasionally Washington think tanks produce reports that are not special
pleading for donors. One such report is Radley Balko's "Overkill: The Rise
of Paramilitary Police Raids in America" (Cato Institute, 2006).

This 100-page report is extremely important and should have been published
as a book. SWAT teams (Special Weapons and Tactics) were once rare and used
only for very dangerous situations, often involving hostages held by armed
criminals. Today SWAT teams are deployed for routine police duties. In the
US today, 75-80% of SWAT deployments are for warrant service.

In a high percentage of the cases, the SWAT teams forcefully enter the wrong
address, resulting in death, injury, and trauma to perfectly innocent
people. Occasionally, highly keyed-up police kill one another in the
confusion caused by their stun grenades.

Mr. Balko reports that the use of paramilitary police units began in Los
Angeles in the 1960s. The militarization of local police forces got a big
boost from Attorney General Ed Meese's "war on drugs" during the Reagan
administration. A National Security Decision Directive was issued that
declared drugs to be a threat to US national security. In 1988 Congress
ordered the National Guard into the domestic drug war. In 1994 the
Department of Defense issued a memorandum authorizing the transfer of
military equipment and technology to state and local police, and Congress
created a program "to facilitate handing military gear over to civilian
police agencies."

Today 17,000 local police forces are equipped with such military equipment
as Blackhawk helicopters, machine guns, grenade launchers, battering rams,
explosives, chemical sprays, body armor, night vision, rappelling gear and
armored vehicles. Some have tanks. In 1999, the New York Times reported that
a retired police chief in New Haven, Connecticut, told the newspaper, "I was
offered tanks, bazookas, anything I wanted." Balklo reports that in 1997,
for example, police departments received 1.2 million pieces of military
equipment.

With local police forces now armed beyond the standard of US heavy infantry,
police forces have been retrained "to vaporize, not Mirandize," to use a
phrase from Reagan administration defense official Lawrence Korb. This
leaves the public at the mercy of brutal actions based on bad police
information from paid informers.

SWAT team deployments received a huge boost from the Byrne Justice
Assistance Grant program, which gave states federal money for drug
enforcement. Balko explains that "the states then disbursed the money to
local police departments on the basis of each department's number of drug
arrests."

With financial incentives to maximize drug arrests and with idle SWAT teams
due to a paucity of hostage or other dangerous situations, local police
chiefs threw their SWAT teams into drug enforcement. In practice, this has
meant using SWAT teams to serve warrants on drug users.

SWAT teams serve warrants by breaking into homes and apartments at night
while people are sleeping, often using stun grenades and other devices to
disorient the occupants. As much of the police's drug information comes from
professional informers known as "snitches" who tip off police for cash
rewards, dropped charges, and reduced sentences, names and addresses are
often pulled out of a hat. Balko provides details for 135 tragic cases of
mistaken addresses.

SWAT teams are not held accountable for their tragic mistakes and gratuitous
brutality. Police killings got so bad in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for
example, that the city hired criminologist Sam Walker to conduct an
investigation of police tactics. Killings by police were "off the charts,"
Walker found, because the SWAT team "had an organizational culture that led
them to escalate situations upward rather then de-escalating."

The mind-set of militarized SWAT teams is geared to "taking out" or killing
the suspect-- thus, the many deaths from SWAT team utilization. Many
innocent people are killed in night time SWAT team entries, because they
don't realize that it is the police who have broken into their homes. They
believe they are confronted by dangerous criminals, and when they try to
defend themselves they are shot down by the police.

As Lawrence Stratton and I have reported, one of many corrupting influences
on the criminal justice (sic) system is the practice of paying "snitches" to
generate suspects. In 1995 the Boston Globe profiled people who lived
entirely off the fees that they were paid as police informants. Snitches
create suspects by selling a small amount of marijuana to a person who they
then report to the police as being in possession of drugs. Balko reports
that "an overwhelming number of mistaken raids take place because police
relied on information from confidential informants." In Raleigh-Durham,
North Carolina, 87% of drug raids originated in tips from snitches.

Many police informers are themselves drug dealers who avoid arrest and knock
off competitors by serving as police snitches.

Surveying the deplorable situation, the National Law Journal concluded:
"Criminals have been turned into instruments of law enforcement, while law
enforcement officers have become criminal co-conspirators."

Balko believes the problem could be reduced if judges scrutinized unreliable
information before issuing warrants. If judges would actually do their jobs,
there would be fewer innocent victims of SWAT brutality. However, as long as
the war on drugs persists and as long as it produces financial rewards to
police departments, local police forces, saturated with military weapons and
war imagery, will continue to terrorize American citizens.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial
page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Copyright 2007 Creators Syndicate.