Part Four: History
Spying on Americans and on people in America is nothing new.
John Lennon was spied upon by the FBI. That's right -- that
John Lennon.
Many Americans were spied on during the so-called Red Scare of Communism in the
1950's, as were Japanese Americans during the 1940's. In the 1960's a
multitude of political groups were spied on, including the Black Panthers, the
Yippie Party, Dr. King, Malcolm X, and numerous musicians and movie actors and
actress and other celebrities in Hollywood, including Jane Fonda. The
FBI's COINTELPRO program in the 1960's spied on many civil rights activists in
addition to Martin King and Malcolm X, with some FBI infiltrating their groups
and other anti-war groups and demonstrators' organizations.
Furthermore, on July 3, 2008
an internal U.S.
government report found that hundreds of athletes and celebrities in America had
their passport records and files illegally looked at and uncovered
between September 2002 and March 2008. There was also
snooping in the
passport files of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama
early in 2008. Here's the
whole sordid
government report to prove it. The film
"Fahrenheit 9/11" documented that the anti-war
group
Peace Fresno had been
infiltrated by an undercover police officer who was
later killed in a motorcycle accident. And in the same film an Oakland,
California resident was turned in to the FBI for talking about the current
president and the war -- turned in by fellow gym workout patrons. Does
anyone remember the
Total Information Awareness surveillance program proposed by
John Poindexter, of all people, during George W. Bush's first term?
Spying was, and is, far from unusual where spying on Americans is concerned.
President Nixon spied on his political opponents in the Democratic party in the
Watergate Hotel break-in during the Democratic National Convention of 1972.
Spying also has taken place in other countries. England has more
surveillance cameras per square inch than the United States does. A film
called
"Look" earlier this year detailed surveillance in America.
Recently in Sweden and England surveillance and detention laws were passed (June
2008). Germany is just about the only major country in the European Union
and the Western hemisphere that does not spy on its own citizenry. After
the German Stasi secret surveillance police were abandoned in the late 1980's
there has since been no spy organization there. The Stasi was
examined in the Oscar-winning film of 2006,
"The Lives Of Others", directed
by
Florian Henckel von
Donnersmarck.
Anthrax was sent to several politicians including Tom Daschle a former senator,
as well as Tom Brokaw. The anthrax attacks in 2001, shortly after
September 11, were never solved, although a suspect, Dr. Stephen Hatfill,
recently reached a settlement for his lawsuit against the Justice Department.
Things aren't always a coincidence. Everything happens for a reason, even
if the reason makes little sense.
And last month
U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert Gates fired two Air Force top leaders on the same day after a
report detailed a series of disturbing faux pas (perhaps the wrong word)
including in August of 2007 when fighter jets flew from
Denver to Taiwan with four nuclear-tipped missiles on board -- supposedly without the
flight crew
even knowing the
missiles they carried were nuclear.
John Lennon was spied on by the F.B.I.
In America, as in nations around the globe, spying on citizens on people within
a country is hardly new, whether to prevent terrorism or just to spy for the
heck of it.
Regarding surveillance, when you re-read the
Radar story entitled
The Last Roundup,
with its mentions of spying on Americans, you realize that in its careful
documentation it is far from some conspiracy hooey. In light of the voter
machine manipulations in Florida
2000 and Ohio 2004, it can and has, happened.
(Have you been spied on? Do you feel like
Will Smith did in
"Enemy Of The State"? Are you Natalie Portman in "V For Vendetta"?
Is this -- and it -- all just one big paranoid jumble?)
And to think that H.R. 6304 doesn't authorize further spying on Americans
without a warrant. It does.
The president, in the wake of floods in the American Midwest in June 2008, said
this on June 17 during a briefing before cameras at the White House:
"We've got what we
call a disaster relief fund. There's enough money in that fund to take
care of this disaster but what we're concerned about is future disasters this
year". He then repeated the comment about future
disasters. Listen for the above quote at the 2:54 mark. The volume
is low, so you will need to turn it up.) Was the president signaling that
he fully expected a disaster would happen during the final six months of 2008?
Before the 2008 presidential election? During it? At the Democratic
National Convention in August? After it? Just before the
inauguration in January 2009?
[By the way, if the idea seems far-fetched that President Bush would remain in
the White House beyond January 2009 in the event of, God forbid, another
terrorist attack on U.S. soil, people should remember that
Rudy Giuliani wanted
to remain mayor of New York City for three months beyond his eight-year limit
following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. He wanted to govern
beyond January 2002 but didn't get his wish: at least one of the mayoral
candidates, Democrat Fernando Ferrer, said no to Mr. Giuliani's proposal.
Michael Bloomberg, then a Republican, became mayor of New York, and has been so
ever since early 2002. He will leave office in January 2010 after two
terms.]
Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (the victor in 105 of 106 criminal prosecutions) who
wrote a book declaring O.J. Simpson's guilt, also wrote a 2008 book called
The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder,
and had proclaimed that he would spend the rest of his life (he's now 73) trying
to prosecute the president for what he and the fired U.S. General Taguba, who in
a recent extensive report investigated torture under the U.S. military called
"war crimes" regarding the Iraq war and the deception of the country in going to
war. (You won't find Mr. Bugliosi invited to talk about his new book on
Bush on any mainstream media news television station in the U.S. You may
have better luck however, on some talk radio stations or in
newspapers, even if he
is relegated to the Business section under "media and advertising".)
It would perhaps be ridiculous to think that the president would intentionally
create or look to catastrophic distraction to avoid prosecution, although New
York University professor of media
Mark Crispin Miller
thought exactly this, and said such in not
just a first,
but
a second
video on You Tube in 2007. (Some said that President Bill Clinton's
bombing of Iraq and the Sudan in 1998 was a deliberate distraction in the wake
of the whole Monica Lewinsky mess.) Just yesterday,
a Federal judge in San
Francisco ordered Google, which had refused to turn over its Internet usage
records to the government, to turn over all user dater for You Tube,
which Google now owns. You Tube is the most used and visited website on
the Internet.
Conclusion: The mobility of America and
solutions to preserve
our great nation