Milk, the gateway drug

When the FBI comes to Capitol Hill peddling myths about marijuana, they are likely to meet young, knowledgeable representatives who aren't going to buy the bullshit anymore.

The demented state of state secrets

The down-the-rabbit-hole, switch-back logic, absurdity of it all is frightening.

Though it's against the law, and against your Constitutional rights, the government can spy on you with impunity. Because if you find out they are spying on you, you can't demand to make the evidence public, even if the government has mistakenly made the evidence public. And if you challenge the government, particularly this administration, they will claim it's a state secret so that it cannot be brought to justice before a judge, much less a jury.

Patrick Radden Keefe's article in the New Yorker documents the trail of a secret made public. A trail which inevitably leads to dead end after dead end.

Just pray they never throw you in an unmarked van and haul your ass off to some secret prison in Arkansas.

The implications of the Homeland Security and Terrorism industry, or did the FBI frame Briana Waters?

You have to look no further than the local "security" presence at any nearby corporation to understand that what began as a friendly guard at the reception desk ten years ago has grown to include scanners, id checks, electronic gates, holding pens and security armies. And that's just at the corporate level.

The attacks of 9/11 and the ensuing hysteria have created a homeland securities industry which has grown in much the same way as the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned about after World War II. In the "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" mode, security firms (you know some by name, like Blackwater) have seen opportunities to blossom and grow into dark armies of the night.

In the federal bureaucracy, the growth has been abetted by congressional acts which have redefined terrorism, and given intelligence organizations frightening new tools.

In a recent trial in Washington State, Briana Waters was convicted of eco-terrorism and faces up to 30 years in prison. However, she maintains her innocence in the face of evidence that the FBI coerced testimony and withheld evidence that may have proven her innocence to the jury (the FBI has demonstrated a considerable lack of restraint in using the new anti-terror tools provided to them - here in Connecticut they went after librarians). Waters, a mother, and a talented fiddler, has had her life torn apart as a result of associations with eco-protest groups in her college years.

The problem with secrecy is that we don't know the problem with secrecy

(image from Farmington Public Library Foundation, NM)

There's very little explicit in the documents on which this country was founded about state secrets, spying, executive privilege, intelligence organizations and redaction. For the current administration that has been an advantage which they have exploited to the maximum extent.

According to the Wall Street Journal today, the NSA, with the help of other intelligence agencies, has created a drift net system of intelligence gathering which guarantees that sooner or later, US intelligence agents will be spying on you, no matter your innocence.

Not worried? You've got nothing to hide? Think again.

Let's talk about librarians. Better yet, let's talk about Connecticut librarians.

A few years ago, a group of Connecticut librarians were issued national security letters which required them to provide information about library patrons to the FBI. These letters ordered them to inform on one - not family, not spouses, not their lawyers - that they had received the letters, but to comply, or be punished. Legal in America? In fact, yes. But not Constitutional. The brave librarians resisted, sued, and won a judgment in court (against Federal prosecutor Kevin O'Connor, currently up for a top Justice Department spot), that said they were not required to comply. By the way, these librarians are true patriots, and unheralded American heroes.

The FBI issued 47,000 of those letters in 2005. How many Americans resisted the threats issued by their government? Fortunately, the ACLU was on the case, but it doesn't seem to have solved the problem.

And while these secret agencies pry into our lives, we're assured that there is Congressional oversight. Congressional oversight? These are the lawmakers who couldn't be bothered to completely read Bush's act of war and agression against Iraq, or parse the Patriot Act. And we're to trust them to keep the FBI, CIA and NSA in check?

Even when Congress criticizes these agencies, or the intelligence programs they've created, the agencies simply rename the programs and move them to another department.

Sadly, most Americans don't care, yet. The House is about to hand the President more power in a revised Protect America Act that is laughably called a compromise.

And what do our Presidential candidates have to say about the erosion of our liberty? Sadly, very little.

Rest easy America. As Peggy Seeger wrote, deniability is within your reach:

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know

InfraGard, an ominous logo, a snappy slogan and a literal license to kill

A few years ago, political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt wrote an op-ed which listed his findings about the characteristics of a fascist state. He found fourteen similarities between all of the fascist governments he studied, from Mussolini to Pinochet.

It's frightening to read the list and to see how many of these fourteen items are evidenced in the Bush presidency. And with Halliburton and Blackwater, the intermingling of corporate power and government authority is an affirmation of Britt's ninth item on the list:

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

Now, there's even more reason to fear. Consider InfraGard, a quasi-public organization which links corporate entities to the FBI and the Homeland Securities, enlisting these entities as junior G-men in the "war on terror."

InfraGard is a bit of a private country club, where new members must be referred for membership by existing members, and where corporations receive alerts on potential threats even before state and municipal authorities. There's a chapter in your state. Here's the Connecticut website, but don't hope to find out too much, because you need to be a member to get the secure info. I did find out, to my dismay, that my bank is a sponsor. The next (and First Quarterly) meeting of Connecticut's InfraGard is February 28th at the New Haven Fire Academy. They're looking for a sponsor for their Continental Breakfast. If the Hartford Courant volunteers, does that mean they can attend and send a reporter?

I've walked my share of corporate corridors of power, and I can assure you that rampaging egos, ruthless sycophants, and power mad private security forces combine to create a potent and volatile mix which will only become more unstable when adding national security connections as an ingredient.

This is not good news for those of us who hoped our individual desire for freedom and liberty would eventually allow us to drive a wedge between corporations and government. But when politicians are funded by corporations, and when corporations are enlisted as part of a secret army, what hope do we have that we will hear the eventual knock on the door when the Blackwater chickens come home to roost.

It can't happen here? It is happening here.

But don't worry, they're only able to shoot on sight during a period of martial law.

Do I smell a pardon?

So, the FBI have determined that certain Blackwater mercenaries are bad guys. Murderers in fact. But prosecutors can't determine exactly how to prosecute them. You see there's not actually a law, and not actually, a functioning independent government or judiciary in Iraq (despite our great success in spreading Democracy there).

Gee, I'm so naive as to believe that murder is a crime, everywhere.

I say, invoke the Patriot Act. The Bush administration has used it before to throw suspects into dungeons without recourse. These guys were working against the interests of the United States. By killing innocent Iraquis, they turn the radical Islamists against us. They invite terrorism. They are terrorists. They are perfect candidates for extraordinary rendition.

Hey, if John Walker Lindh could be put away for bearing arms against the CIA, then these terrorists should get the same treatment.

I mean, Blackwater is far more trigger happy than say, Dynacorp.

Or maybe we should really punish Blackwater and award them a new government contract.

On the FBI most-wanted list: The FBI

According to the Washington Post, the FBI is riddled with lawbreakers. What's at stake? Nothing important, just your civil liberties.

Hard as it is to imagine, it's making me nostalgic for G-man Hoover. And back then, few of us realized what G-man really meant.

From the great Van Dyke Parks album, Discover America:

G-Man Hoover

(public domain/arr.& adapted VDP)

A B C D E F G G-Man G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-Man Hoover

Criminals come but they have one way to go
Gangsters are dumb for by now they ought to know
Stick with care or they gang you over there
Hoover will bring them to the electric chair
A B C D E F G G-Man G-Man Hoover
Young or smart, cruel
Had no heart, fool
You were bad he was smoother
What a lad G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-man Hoover
Stick up a bank grab the dough get out of town
Guess the cops come for your love to mow them down
Shave off your beard change the color of your hair
Step out the door there's hoover waiting there
G-Man G-Man Hoovee
You can go now
Don't dare go now
It's a frame you're a loser
To that game of G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-Man Hoover

Kidnap a child 'cuz to you he's just a brat
His mama's wild she's afraid you'll use your gat
Money's your aim then you'll take it on the lam
Mud is your name Hoover always gets his man
A B C D E F G G-Man G-Man Hoover