American Free Press News

While Congress has yet to decide if there will be a formal inquiry into the U.S. election of 2004, its preliminary investigation is exposing the most serious flaws in the system. But don't expect to hear about it in the mainstream media - it's part of the problem.

Rep. John Conyers of Detroit, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is investigating the possibility of computer vote fraud being perpetrated through remote access to the vote tabulators. He is also looking into how the media and pollsters use exit polling data on Election Day.

While the body of evidence that vote fraud occurred during the election is growing by the day and is easily found on the Internet, the mainstream media has largely avoided the story.

Asked by Tim Grieve of Salon.com if there were Democrats in Congress who support his investigation, but who won't come forward and say so publicly, Conyers said: "Well, there are Republicans who support what I'm doing who haven't been willing to come forward. Look, calling for fair elections is not the most radical thing in the world. We're not positing some revolutionary theory here. We're asking that the people who complained be given a fair hearing."

American Free Press journalists have investigated vote fraud for decades, but why has the subject of computerized vote fraud been ignored by the mainstream media? Why has it been left to the smaller independent media outlets, Internet journalists and bloggers to investigate?

"As the story develops," Gary Beckwith, an Internet journalist with The Solar Bus, wrote, "no one has been able to explain why the media is avoiding it like the plague."

Conyers investigation, however, has revealed why Americans are not hearing about vote fraud and the problems with exit polling data on the nightly news: the big news networks are deeply involved.

Immediately after the election, American Free Press reported that the Associated Press had direct access to the mainframe computer that tallied the votes in Chicago and Cook County - as it tallied the votes on Election Day. This provides evidence that the mainstream media consortium that replaced the disgraced Voter News Service (VNS) has remote access to the machines that count the votes.

This direct connection between AP and the vote counting computer system explains why the Associated Press repeatedly refused to answer AFP's questions during the summer about how they got their election results on election night.

As AFP reported from Chicago, this was something that the county clerk was well aware of and actively tried to prevent from being revealed. However, if it is done in Chicago, it is probably done in a similar manner across the nation.

Remote access to the computers counting the votes - who has it and how it is being used - is a subject that is finally being addressed by members of Congress. How far Conyers's investigation goes remains to be seen.

Conyers is interested in seeing the raw data of the exit polls. The disparity between exit polling data and election results indicate that something was seriously wrong with either the polling or the counting of votes in Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere.

Conyers has written to Warren Mitofsky, who owns the companies that provide exit poll data to the mainstream media, asking for the complete raw polling data.

"Mitofsky balked, saying that the TV Networks actually own it and he was not able to release it without their permission. Conyers then took his inquiry to the leaders of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox," Beckwith wrote, "And they promptly laid an egg. Through a spokesperson who spoke on behalf of all the media companies together, they said they are still analyzing the data and don't want to release it until they're done.

"Any objective investigator, or any concerned citizen for that matter, simply cannot accept their answer to Conyers," he wrote. "There is absolutely no precedent or moral ground for withholding this information from the American public. The bottom line is that raw data does not need to be analyzed. Conyers and the American people are not asking for the analysis. We're asking for the data."

Conyers has also written to Triad Governmental Systems, Inc., a small family-owned company in Xenia, Ohio, asking about their ability to access the computers that counted the votes in Ohio - remotely. Triad, founded by Tod Rapp, produces the software that is used to tabulate the votes in nearly half the counties in the Buckeye State.

Conyers' letter of Dec. 23 says: "It appears that officials in Fulton and Henry counties have confirmed that Triad had remote access to tabulating computers controlled by the Boards of Elections."

Triad had until Dec. 29 to respond to Conyers' letter. Conyers wants to know which Ohio counties' vote tabulating computers Triad could access remotely, which counties it did access, and what changes it made to the software or ballots.

"Did you use your remote access to inquire how machine votes would be counted in order to instruct the board how to manipulate the three percent hand count to avoid a county wide hand count?" Conyers asked Triad president Rapp in writing.

AFP interviewed Rapp at Triad's office shortly after the election. At that time Rapp told AFP that Triad personnel were not present or involved in any way with the vote tabulation done in the different counties.

Rapp, who is a generous donor to the Republican Party and George W. Bush, also told AFP that he was no longer part of the company that is now run by his sons.

When I called Triad GSI, however, and asked for Rapp, I was put right through to him. When I actually visited Triad, he was the only one available to discuss the company.

According to sworn testimony by the Hocking County Board of Elections deputy director, a technician from Triad illegally tampered with computers and instructed her on how to create a "cheat sheet" to make sure the recount matches the official results.

If Conyers intends to get to the bottom of computer vote fraud in the United States, similar letters and inquiries, like those sent to Triad GSI, will need to be sent to the larger voting machine companies, such as Election Systems & Software, Sequoia, and the Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems.
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President Bush extended holiday greetings to military troops this Christmas, but one gift he'll never open is the executive order he signed, which keeps sensitive documents secret about biological and chemical testing at Fort Greely near Fairbanks, Alaska.

The president, by sealing important documents, obviously feels military health concerns were of secondary importance to protecting the Department of Defense (DOD) against potential exposure for injuries resulting from chemical testing and dumping.

What little is known about chemical and biological testing at Fort Greely has surfaced from leaked documents, eyewitness accounts and other general information provided reluctantly by the DOD after health problems began to surface by those living near the base.

Other information, scratching the surface of what really happened, has also appeared in Seymour Hersh's book Chemical and Biological Testing: America's Hidden Arsenal, a historical account of the base by Norman Chase and a March 2003 article entitled "Northern Exposure" in The Nation magazine by Korey Capozza.

"The real story of what went on is in the classified documents kept secret by the DOD and President Bush," said Capozza, a critic of the recent executive order signed by Bush. "They have yet to give veterans a clear definition of possible causes of their health problems. The DOD also refuses to grant any of the veterans health care based on exposure to agents used in the secret site's experiments."

Records show that Fort Greely, as far back as 1952 and continuing to at least 1970, was used for the explicit purpose of testing chemical and biological weapons. The base, located 100 miles southwest of Fairbanks on 640,000 acres, originally began operating in 1942 as a staging area for planes ferried to the Soviet Union during World War II.

However, seven years later a nuclear reactor was built to serve as the military's power plant. Then in 1966, the Army began testing biological, chemical and various other weapons. The reactor was dismantled in 1973, and in 1995 the base was scheduled for closure.

But recently, under the Bush administration, the DOD proposed Fort Greely be used as a storage site for interceptor missiles in support of the space-based missile defense program.

However, what transpired on the base during the 1960s and 1970s is still heavily debated as veterans are now surfacing with what amounts to "chemical horror" stories.

According to several veterans who spoke to VA officials, between 1962 and 1967, the Army blasted hundreds of rockets and bombs containing sarin and VX nerve gas into the region which is densely populated by forests and wildlife.

Veterans recall canisters of VX nerve agents being indiscriminately buried approximately a mile from the Alaskan highway or tossed in a nearby frozen lake in the winter of 1966, where the canisters later sank to the bottom when the ice melted in the spring. Regular dumping expeditions were reportedly carried out until 1970, when the testing discontinued.

Now, 30 years later, veterans and civilians are coming forward with serious health concerns, but since no records are available due to Fort Greely's top-secret status, VA officials at first had a hard time believing the veterans' credibility.

After heavy pressure was applied by watchdog groups, the DOD has released some documents revealing the test site may have been operated with blatant disregard for human and environmental safety.

The documents also suggest that some of the deadly materials used may still be unaccounted for and buried somewhere beneath the pristine Alaskan wilderness.

Critics suggest the executive order signed by Bush was designed to protect the DOD against conclusive evidence, hiding a massive cover-up of illegal chemical and biological testing.
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In 2002 I asked my House colleagues a rhetorical question with regard to the onslaught of government growth in the post-Sept 11 era: Is America becoming a police state? The question is no longer rhetorical. We are not yet living in a total police state, but it is fast approaching. The seeds of future tyranny have been sown, and many of our basic protections against government have been undermined. The atmosphere since 2001 has permitted Congress to create whole new departments and agencies that purport to make us safer - always at the expense of our liberty. But security and liberty go hand-in-hand.

Members of Congress, like too many Americans, don't understand that a society with no constraints on its government cannot be secure. History proves that societies crumble when their governments become more powerful than the people and private institutions.

Unfortunately, the new intelligence bill passed by Congress moves us closer to an encroaching police state by imposing the precursor to a full-fledged national ID card. Within two years, every American will need a "conforming" ID to deal with any federal agency - including TSA at the airport.

Undoubtedly many Americans and members of Congress don't believe America is becoming a police state, which is reasonable enough. They assocate the phrase with highly visible symbols of authoritarianism like military patrols, martial law and summary executions.

But we ought to be concerned that we have laid the foundation for tyranny by making the public more docile, more accustomed to government bullying and more accepting of arbitrary authority - all in the name of security.

Our love for liberty above all has been so diminished that we tolerate intrusions into our privacy that would have been abhorred just a few years ago. We tolerate inconveniences and infringements upon our liberties in a manner that reflects poorly on our great national character of ruggeed individualism. American history, at least in part, is a history of people who don't like being told what to do. Yet we are increasingly empowering the federal government and its agent to run our lives.

Terror, fear and crises like 9-11 are used to achieve complacency and obedience, especially when citizens are deluded into believing they are still a freee people. The loss of liberty, we are assured, will be minimal, short-lived and necessary. Many citizens believe that once the war on terror is over, restrictions on their liberties will be reversed. But this war is undeclared and open-ended, with no precise enemy and no expressly stated final goal. Terrorism will never be eradicated completely, does this mean future president will assert extraordinary war powers indefinitely?

Washington provides a vivid illustration of what our future might look like. Visitors to Capitol Hill encounter police barricades, metal detectors, paramilitary officers carrying fully automatic rifles, police dogs, ID checks, and vehicle stops. The people are totally disarmed; only the police and criminals have guns. Surveillance cameras are everywhere, monitoring street activity, subway travel, parks and federal buildings. There's not much evidence of an open society in Washington, yet most folks do not complain - anything goes if it's for government-provided safety and security.

After all, proponents argue, the government is doing all this to catch the bad guys. If you don't have anything to hide, they ask, what are you so afraid of? The answer is that I'm afraid of losing the last vestiges of privacy that a free society should hold dear. I'm afraid of creating a society where the burden is on citizens to prove their innocence, rather than on government to prove wrongdoing. Most of all, I'm afraid of living in a society where a subservient populace surrenders its liberties to an all-powerful government.

It may be true that average Americans do not feel intimidated by the encroachment of the police state. Americans remain tolerant of what they see as mere nuisances because they have been deluded into believing total government supervision is necessary and helpful, and because they still enjoy a high level of material comfort. That tolerance may wane, however, as our standard of living falls due to spiraling debt, endless deficit spending at home and abroad, a declining fiat dollar, inflation, higher interest rates and failing entitlement programs.

At that point attitudes toward omnipotent government may change, but the trend toward authoritarianism will be difficult to reverse.

Those who believe a police state can't happen here are poor student of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.

The term "martial law" has very little practical meaning to most average Americans. It has very little significance since the term isn't used much in a democratic society. Never in America could martial law be imposed. Never could it interrupt our passions for important things like professional basketball, the Super Bowl, the Oscars or the Emmy Awards.

In fact, just try to tell an American that martial law will be imposed, and the first thing out of his mouth is: "Impossible, I have to go bowling Friday night." Tell an American he already has "one foot inside a gulag," and he'll look at you kind of funny and ask: "What have you been smoking"?

Nevertheless, while Americans are busy living life in general billions of taxpayer dollars have been quietly spent since the early 1970s to set up the tools and internal mechanisms necessary to institute martial law in the blink of an eye.

How? Enter the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) poised to pounce on Americans at the drop of hat or by a host of executive orders already signed into law unbeknownst to the public. What makes this so troubling is that all the internal arrangements have been made secretly, without public debate and without congressional oversight.

Essentially, the executive branch has been working since the early 1970s, even using illegal drug money at times, to establish a "shadow government' with the power to institute martial law. And, as the law is presently written, Congress cannot even intervene until six months after martial law has been instituted.

Though FEMA wields tremendous power, few people understand its true function. FEMA was originally conceived in the Nixon administration, refined under President Jimmy Carter and given considerable teeth under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

FEMA was originally created to endure survival of the U.S. government in the event of a nuclear attack. Also, it was given authority to be the federal coordinating body during domestic disasters like hurricanes, floods and earthquakes.

However, its awesome powers have grown over the years, first under the guidance of shady people like Lt. Col. Oliver North and Gen. Richard Secord who were the architects of the Iran-Contra scandal and were complicit in the looting of America's savings and loan institutions.

Unbelievable as it may sound, FEMA has even been given total control of state defense forces which constitute a loosely organized army intended to substitute for the National Guard if the guard is called to duty overseas.

Besides earthquakes and hurricanes, FEMA's vast authority extends to urban fires, forest fires, refugee situations, urban riots and emergency planning for nuclear incidents and other toxic disasters.

Since its inception, however, approximately only 6 percent of its budget has been used for natural disasters while the remaining billions have gone for secret underground facilities to ensure continuity of government in case of emergency, foreign or domestic.

FEMA's deceptive funding irregularities did not come to congressional attention until Hurricane Andrew drew public attention to the agency. What came out of a critical look at FEMA was that it was spending 12 times more for "black operations" than for disaster relief-related activities.

For example, it was uncovered that FEMA spent $1.3 billion for building secret, underground bunkers throughout the United States in anticipation of situations calling for martial law.

Critics contend these situations are too easily triggered and, in fact, can be manufactured by abusive executive authority. For example, under emergency plans already in existence, the power exists to suspend the Constitution, seize people's property and turn the administration of the country over to FEMA.

Once power is transferred to FEMA, it then has the authority to appoint military commanders to run state and local governments, order detention of any people considered dangerous and establish camps to hold citizens for undetermined periods without probable cause or the right to counsel.

And if you think it almost hasn't happened before, think again. Situations calling for martial law have occurred at least three times since 1984, once under President Reagan and twice under President Bush in 1990 and 1992. Although each time the situation fell short of martial law. Each time it came perilously close.

But these close calls, of course, took place in a pre-9-11 world. Now critics of the massive agency warn that America has been psychologically prepared to accept a complete government takeover in the name of a war on terrorism.

In fact, as early as 1987, The Miami Herald published reports on FEMA's underhanded goals to suspend the Constitution in the event of a national crisis or national opposition to a military invasion abroad. As opposition mounts to our recent invasion of Iraq, detractors warn that FEMA is prepared to counter any widespread dissent.

As noted by Harry Martin in a 1995 article discussing the potential abuses of FEMA's power, Diana Reynolds, of the Edward R. Murrow Center, added: "It was James Madison's worst nightmare that a righteous group would someday be strong enough to sweep away the constitutional restraints designed by the framers to prevent the tyranny of centralized power, excessive privilege and arbitrary government authority over the individual."
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Although most Americans have been told by the media that Israel is "America's best ally" - perhaps even America's "only real ally" - most folks find it hard to understand why Israel has what might be called a "grand tradition," even a bad habit of spying on the United States.

While there are those who have heard about Israeli intelligence operations on American soil they tend to believe - quite mistakenly - that Israel's one and only espionage venture against America was the Pollard spy case, first publicly revealed in 1985 when the FBI arrested American-born Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish-American Civilian employee of the U.S. Navy, on charges of spying for Israel.

Many Americans - Christian and Jewish alike - who are devoted to Israel because of religious reasons, said that what Pollard was doing was "a good thing - helping America's ally," even though Pollard was violating the law by taking classified U.S. defense information dn passing it on to elements in Israeli intelligence. However, many American intelligence and military officials felt otherwise, saying that Pollard did more damage to U.S. National defense than any other spy in American history.

In the end, Pollard was tried and convicted and sentenced to life in prison, although to this day extreme enthusiasts of Israel demand Pollard's release from prison so that he may emigrate to Israel where the government has set up a trust fund to help Pollard if he is ever released.

All during the Pollard affair, the government of Israel officially denied that Pollard was acting on behalf of the Israeli government. Israeli officials said that Pollard was acting only on behalf of "rogue" agents in the employ of Israel. However, no serious student of the Pollard affair ever believed the Israeli denials.

Although Polard is the only Israeli spy ever indicted and convicted in a U.S. courtroom, there are - as hard as it may be to believe - several additional well-known American-born supporters of Israel (including two top-ranking current Bush administration officials) who have been investigated for espionage on behalf of Israel.

Both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and his immediate deputy in the Pentagon, Douglas Feith, were investigated by the FBI on suspicion of having passed classified U.S. defense intelligence information to the Israeli Embassy in Washington. The allegations regarding possible treason by Wolfowitz go back to 1978. Feith was fired from the National Security council in the Reagan administration in 1982 after he, too, was suspected of espionage. No charges were ever brought against either individual.

Additionally, Wolfowitz's longtime friend and associate, Richard Perle, another leading Bush administration advisor, was investigated by the FBI during the mid-1970s. Perle - like Wolfowitz and Feith - was suspected of having passed classified information to the Israelis.

Stephen Bryen - another close longtime colleague of the Perle and Wolfowitz - was also the subject of a major FBI inquiry into his own dealings with the Israelis after Bryen was overheard passing U.S. defense information on to Israeli officials in a coffee shop at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C.

A Jewish-American prosecutor at the Justice department was convinced that he had a strong case against Bryen. However, heavy-handed pressure from supporters of Israel led to the intended indictment of Bryen being quashed.

Taking all of this into consideration, espionage by agents of Israel is clearly a grand tradition in official Washington. Still it has not hindered most spies for Israel from receiving positions of power and influence, despite the fact that there are American patriots in the FBI and CIA and in other government agencies who have tried (largely unsuccessfully) to root out the spies.

The fact that the mainstream media has, for the most part, failed to detail this highly controversial assessment makes it all the more important that this issue come to the forefront in light of the United state' increasing involvement in the Middle East.

This special report from American Free Press provides a brief overview of other evidence regarding Israeli espionage on American soil in recent years. It is not a pretty picture, by any means, but it is a story that Americans need to know about.
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Recent revelations of a year-long FBI probe into Pentagon insider Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency official, have startled the United States, revealing evidence that a mid-level official passed Classified documents about Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful lobbying group in Washington.

However, warnings about an Israeli spy in the Pentagon are not new. They were voiced in 1998 by then CIA Director George Tenet, but quickly ignored.

Tenet at the time was concerned that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, had a mole deep in the Pentagon and a concerted effort was needed to root out the traitor.

The CIA chief's recommendation fell on deaf ears despite the fact there was information showing that Israel had stolen America's nuclear secrets and in the mid 1980s had acquired U.S. naval nuclear codes.

Both the Israeli government and the committee have dismissed espionage charges, arguing that the information was not classified and it is regularly shared informally.

AIPAC, which boasts a membership of 65,000 is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington with allies in both the Democratic and Republican parties.

As far back as 1998, former CIA Director George Tenet warned to U.S. officials about the danger of Israeli spies operation in the Pentagon and their access to top U.S. military secrets. He even warned them of a deep cover Israeli mole who he believed might be stealing U.S. naval cades. He was ignored. Tenet stepped down from office in 2004. Insets: Paul Wolfowitz (left) and Douglas Feith (right), two of the most prominent of the "Israel first" neo-conservatist. In 1982, Feith was fired from his job at the National Security Council. He was accused of passing classified U.S. information to Israel.

Earlier this year, President George W. Bush praised AIPAC for highlighting the most dangerous and "greatest challenges of our times" and praised its role in exposing Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Nonetheless, the FBI probe raises important issues of how much U.S. policy is shaped publicly and perhaps secretly by Israel and its neo-conservative supporters in Washington.

Franklin is a former Air Force colonel who spent two tours of duty as a Defense Department staffer at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. Before the latest Iraq war, he acted as a liaison officer during meetings between Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and leading Iraqi clerical figures.

Franklin's supporters say that he is a mid-level Pentagon officer working on policy

deliberations that are often widely reported in the media and therefore not secret. Some of those deliberations center around arguments about whether the United States should finance Iranian dissidents in order to weaken the rule of the clerical leadership in Teheran. In that capacity he works under Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy.

As AFP has consistently reported, Feith, Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, calculatingly shaped a pro-Israel agenda in national security circles in Washington.

These neo-conservatives, among other things, promoted Ahmed Chalabi, the now disgraced former head of the Iraqi National Congress.

In December 2001, Franklin, the man at the center of the latest espionage claims, had a secret meeting in Rome in December 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifer, an Iranian with a complex history.

Ghorbanifer is a former agent of the late shah of Iran's notorious SAVAK secret police, which was infamous for its usw of torture.

In 1985, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Iran was losing its war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Ghorbanifer became a tool of the Israelis. At that time, Israeli policy advocated by David Kimche, a former head of Mossad, was to secretly supply Iran with weapons. Despite Israel's distaste for Khomeini and his clerical leadership, Israel wanted to keep Iran in the war with Iraq in order to weaken both its Islamic neighbors. As for the United States, the Reagan administration was fixated with getting hostages released from the clutches of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in Beirut, Lebanon.

Kimche saw an opportunity to get the United States secretly involved in an arms-for-hostages deal with the Iranian government, even thought the United States was providing support to Saddam.

It was not difficult for Israel to seduce the Reagan administration into a deal with Khomeini's regime, but a cut-out mechanism was needed to protect the U.S. weapons supply line and to hide the role of the Reagan administration.

The cut-out mechanism was provided by Kimche and Mossad in the form of a colorful cast of characters. Among them was Ghorbanifer, as well as Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi, a petro-billionaire, and Ya'atov Nimrodi, who had run agents for AMAN, the Israeli military intelligence agency, during his time as a military attaché in Teheran while the shah was in power.

Robert McFarlane, Reagan's national security advisor, did not approve of Ghorbanifer and the other cut-out characters and threatened to tell Reagan to pull the plug on the operation. As history has shown, it went ahead and became a political disaster when it was revealed how the United States had been suckered by Israel into negotiation with Iran.

It later emerged that Ghorbanifer had been used by the Israelis to convince the United States that his impeccable knowledge of Iran and his contacts within the leadership has shown a deal could be done for the release of the Beirut hostages. As it turned out, Iran took the weapons, and the hostages remained in Beirut.

Khashoggi later asserted that he had lost millions when the arms-for-hostages project collapsed. He had, he revealed, borrowed heavily from BCCI, the international bank that went bankrupt after it was discovered that it had been a vehicle for money launderers, drug dealers, intelligence services, terrorists, arms dealers and even Khomeini's Revolutionary Guard in Iran, as well as both the CIA and Israel's Mossad - an unusual conglomeration to say the least.

The question remains as to why Franklin, the mid-level Pentagon official at the center of an FBI probe, secretly met Ghorbanifer. Was it a meeting organized by Israeli intelligence?

Khashoggi's name also surfaced before the latest gulf war after it was revealed that he had lunch with Perle in France. With them was Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a billionaire Saudi industrialist. Perle later explained that the meeting was in his capacity as an executive of a company that provided defense and security services.

It has therefor come as no surprise to intelligence experts that Israel has been keen to track and secretly influence U.S. policy on Iran.

For Israel, Iran poses the greatest threat to its survival because of its determination to become a nation with nuclear weapons to rival Israel's arsenal.

Israel needs the United States to take a harder line with Iran and to encourage European allies to do likewise. If that requires an Israeli mole within the Pentagon to track and influence U.S. policy on Iran, every effort will have been made, and probably is being made, to recruit one.
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When two Israeli nationals were nabbed in the middle of the night near a West Coast military base and tested positive for TNT and plastic explosives, once again Israel's clandestine agents were given a convenient excpe rout - "visa violations."

On May 13, 2002, Carl Cameron of Fox News reported that local police in Oak Harbor, Wash., had arrested a pair of suspicious Israeli "movers" in a speeding rental truck after midnight on May 7, 2002, in the vicinity of Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

The truck and one of the Israelis tested positive for TNT and RDX plastic explosive.

Desppite the fact that the Israelis and their truck had apparently tested positive for explosives near a sensitive U.S. military base, the following morning mainstream news outlets were quick to reassure Americans that the Israelis were suspected of nothing more serious than speeding in the middle of the night around a sensitive military base without proper papers.

Border Patrol agents took custody of the two men, who claimed to be Israeli citizens, after it was determined that they were working in the United State illegally as movers. The Israelis were reportedly being held on immigration violations, including entering the country illegally and working without proper documentation, according to a spokesman at Seattle's INS office.

The Israelis' Budget rental truck tested positive in two different tests for TNT on the gearshift and RDX plastic explosive on the steering wheel.

Because the Israelis were pulled over "so close to the naval air station," military police took part in the initial arrest and naval intelligence ws involved in the investigation along with the FBI, the INS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and local police, Fox News reported.

The Israelis told the police that they were in Oak Harbor "delivering furniture from California" and were on their way "back home to Canada" although it was past midnight.

The police officer became suspicious when one of the Israelis produced an international driver's license and an expired visa and the other has no ID at all. During questioning the Israelis confessed that they were residing illegally in the United States.

Because of the early morning hour and proximity to the naval base, a bomb-sniffing dog was called in. The dog detected explosives on one of the men and inside the truck.

At 7:30 a.m., local police were notified that the BATF and FBI had tested the truck with high-tech equipment and found evidence of TNT and RDX plastic explosive on the steering wheel and gear-shift, according to Cameron.

Authorities said that Budget company records did not indicate that any recent rental had transported explosives, which requires a special permit.

A check of the national database of immigration records indicated that one of the men had entered the country illegally, and the other was in violation of his visa.

The Jerusalem Post reported that one of the Israelis was found to be carrying an altered Israeli passport while the other had no passport at all.

On May 14, 2002, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (SPI) claimed that the case of the Whidbey Island "terrorists" was a "dud." SPI reported that although Cameron's story "sounded explosive," an FBI spokesman had said that the case had simply been turned over to immigration officials.

Regarding subsequent test for explosives, FBI spokeswoman Melissa Mallon told SPI, "All were negative."

A spokesman for Whidbey Island Naval Air Station told AFP that the base had responded to the possible threat with an "appropriate level of security."

The vase is home to 15 squadrons of the electronic warfare Prowler jets and another five squadrons of the patrol and reconnaissance P3, and EP3 Orion aircraft.
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The key role that Israel and its prime minister, Ariel Sharon, play in the war on terrorism," acting as the Pentagon's main source of human "intelligence" from the Middle East and Central Asia was reported Oct. 15, 2001, in The Wall Street Journal.

Reports in the British and American press reveal that Sharon has been providing information to the U.S. military since early last summer concerning planned "imminent" terror attacks on the United States - and who Israel believes was behind it.

Senior Israeli military officers brief Pentagon officials on "Israel's counter-terrorism operations" and, nothing that the United states "lacks agents in key countries," Israel provides information it says comes "from its agents inside Muslim countries in Central Asia."

Israel claims to have inside information on the al qaeda group headed by Osama bin Laden, which rises questions about the level of Israeli infiltration and involvement in terrorist cells believed to be linked with bin Laden.

"Israel's intelligence assistance to the U.S. was directly linked to al Qaeda and its operations, contacts and financial support," an Israeli official told the Journal. "It's the kind of quality information you can't get with a KH-11 [spy satellite]. You have to be on the ground.

"The U.S.-Israeli intelligence talks were planned before the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, and are part of ongoing cooperation,'" the Israeli army said.

"Immediately after Sept. 11, Mr. Sharon ordered Israel's intelligence agencies to give the Americans everything, and around the dock,'" an Israeli official told The Wall Street Journal.

If Israel is now providing "everything" it knows, this would mark a significant departure from usual Israeli intelligence practices.

Military experts concede that Israel has been known to deliberately withhold or control the flow of information to the United States in order to gain political advantage and further its geo-political goals.

In 1982, in the aftermath of Sharon's invasion of Beirut and the massacres of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, Israeli intelligence knowingly withheld information from the United States of a planned truck-bombing of the American Marine barracks in Beirut. The result - hundreds of U.S. Marines killed and wounded - could have been avoided had Israeli intelligence shared "everything" they knew, as they now claim to be doing.
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the details of a massive Israeli spy ring that operated across the United states - employing intelligence agents posing as "art students" to gain access to sensitive U.S. government offices, defense companies, and the private homes of employees of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) - started to emerge in early 2002.

What has now become clear is that the agents and modus operandi of the ring were known by the highest levels of government and that policies were changed to counter the threat of Israeli surveillance through computer networks.

The explosive story of the Israeli spy ring, discovered operating in the United States in 2001, and the 61-page DEA task-force report that contained the details about this spy ring was first revealed in detail on March 4, 2002, by Intelligence Online (IO), a well-respected Internet news service based in Paris, France.

IO's story elaborated in some respects on earlier findings by Carl Cameron of Fox News who referenced the "Israeli art students" as part of his much larger story.

The IO story was picked up by the leading French daily, Le Monde, and, in some respects, by the Associated Press, but was just as quickly dropped.

Referring to the reports, the March 15, 2002, issue of Forward, one of the oldest and most respected Jewish newspapers in America, commented that: "Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned." Forward commented that:"Both the French and the Fox reports were dismissed by Israel and its supporters and received limited coverage in the American media."

Le Monde and Fox (as well as IO) suggested the likelihood that these Israeli operatives were spying on Arab terrorist cells operation in the United states and almost certainly had advance knowledge about the impending 9-11 attacks - a theory that inflamed Israel and its American supporters. The Associated Press was careful not to mention any of this aspect of the story.

A British intelligence and military analysis publication, Jane's Information Group, noted the peculiar absence of reporting in the American media on the "explosive story" of the huge network of Israeli spies that made headlines around the world:

"It is rather strange that the U.S. media...seem to be ignoring what may well prove to be the most explosive story since the Sept. 11 attack, the alleged breakup of a major Israeli espionage operation in the United states which aimed to infiltrate both the Justice and Defense departments and which may also have been tracking al Qaeda terrorists before the aircraft hijacking took place."

Reports of Israeli "art students" calling on DEA employees across the country began as early as January 2000 and continued through June 2001.

What is not clear is what the ring of more than 120 agents was up to and why some Israelis linked to the attacks in New York and Washington were allowed to flee or were sent back to Israel, after Sept. 11 on visa violations, rather than being charged and prosecuted.

The "art students" are reported to be active agents in electronic surveillance units of the Israeli military.

The Israelis covered the country in "organized" teams of eight to 10 people, with each group having a team leader. The DEA document lists the Israelis' military and intelligence specialities as "special forces," "intelligence officer," "demolition/explosive ordnance specialist," "bodyguard to head of Israeli army," "electronic intercept operator," and "son of a two-star (Israeli) army general.

American intelligence services have become worried by the dominance of Israeli companies in sensitive areas of telecommunications. One Israeli company, Comverse Infosys (now called Verint), has provided law enforcement agencies with computer equipment for wiretapping.

It is thought that the equipment came with "catch gates" that allowed the Israelis to listen in.

Software made by Amdocs, another Israeli outfit records virtually every call placed through the 25 largest U.S. telephone companies.

The relationship of these companies to the detained Israelis is detailed in the 60-page document.

The DEA document reveals that many of the Israeli operatives had addresses in San Diego, Little Rock, Irving (Tex.) and South Florida very close to the homes of Arabs suspected of involvement in the Sept.11 terror attacks.

A Justice Department official briefed on an ongoing multi-agency task force investigation the Israeli spy ring was quoted by newsweekly Insight as having said: "We think there is something quite sinister here but are unable at this time to put our finger on it."

Another law-enforcement official said: "The higher-ups don't want to deal with this and neither does the FBI because it involves Israel."

The DEA report found that several military bases also had experienced unauthorized entries by the Israelis including two bases from which Stealth aircraft and other super-secret military units operate.

Unauthorized photographing of military sites and civilian industrial complexes, such as petroleum-storage facilities also ws reported, the document confirms.

In great detail, the DEA document contains "scores of encounters" between federal agents and Israeli agents posing as art students. The seemingly innocuous cover was used to gain access to sensitive U.S. offices and military installations, such as MacDill Air force Base in March 2001, and Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City one month later, where "a special alert" was issued because of the aggressive Israeli agents. Tinker houses AWACS surveillance planes and repairs B-1 bombers.

The Oklahoman, prompted by the French revelations, reported that in 2001, four of the Israeli agents carrying military Ids were detained at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.

In virtually every incident reported by the DEA field offices the Israelis used the same methods: Israelis would attempt to enter secure buildings, take photographs, follow federal agents when they left buildings, show up at their homes and circle their neighborhoods, visit their houses and then depart. At a DEA agent's house in Chicago, Israelis were so aggressive the police were called.

One report, titled "Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Student at DEA Facilities," lists more than 180 documented-incident cases.

"The nature of the individuals' conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli organized crime, leads IS [DEA's Internal Security division] to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity," said one classified document quoted by Insight.

This is very odd behavior under any situation," says a DEA official who had heard but not yet seen the reports until Insight shared them. "The patterns are clear and they pose a significant danger to our officers in the field."

Guillaume Dasquie, of IO, told American Free Press that he had acquired solid evidence of the authenticity of the DEA document, and would reveal new evidence to counter claims made by the Department of Justice that there had been "no case of Israeli espionage" in the united States and that the matter was "an urban myth."

The Israeli spy ring was "examined at the highest levels of the Bush administration," according to Dasquie.

On March 13, 2002, IO was informed by an official at the Department of Justice that the report had been handed over to the department's Joint Terrorism Task Force. The same day, at a DEA press conference, the agency's administrator, Asa Hutchinson, said that he had passed the document along to "other agencies" working on the matter.

On March 14, 2002, IO said it has a copy of a memorandum dated March 4 and signed by Robert Diegelman, assistant attorney general for administration. The memo was addressed to officials in charge of the Justice department's information systems. It called on them to forbid information system access to all non-U.S. citizens and no longer use foreign=supplied computer and communication gear.

The memo referred to a warning entitled Department of Justice Order 2640.2D Information Technology Security and sent out on last July 12 which cautioned against using information technology sold by foreign firms.

The warning of July 12 confirmed that the DEA's report was a security concern at the highest level.

The DEA task force issued an initial report in June 2001 that listed the names of 125 Israeli nationals and described their activities in the United States. The document suggests that the ring had infiltrated federal buildings, according to IO, and that Israeli computer companies sell equipment to U.S. government departments.

The DEA purchased $25 million worth of interception equipment in September 1997 from a number of Israeli companies named in the report

An AP report from Washington on March 9 confirmed that the DEA document had been the joint work of a task force. The AP report confirmed that several of the Israelis had never enrolled in the art colleges they claimed to attend in Israel.

In addition, IO reported: "We've also obtained an internal document from the U.S. coast Guard, an Intelligence bulletin dated Jan. 17, 2002. Reserved for security bosses in America's biggest companies, the bulletin regularly tracks all attempts to penetrate protected sites recorded by the U.S. Coast Guard."

According to IO: The Jan.17 issue described the case of a man and woman "of Middle East origin" taking pictures of a refinery. When questioned they said they were "art students' even though they were able to discuss technical details concerning refineries.

A spokesman for Attorney General John Ashcroft initially attempted to dismiss the story as an "urban myth." However, the New York-based Forward exposed Ashcroft's prevarication when it admitted on March 15, 2002:

However, the warning added that there may be two groups involved, one with an "apparently legitimate money-making goal whole the second, perhaps a non-Israeli group, may have ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group."

The idea that two such groups were operation at the same time (and that one may have been a "non-Israeli group" presumably posing as Israelis) should raise questions. Some might suggest that a group of Israelis operating in the United States were actually posing as Arabs.

Forward rushes to the defense of Israel and suggests that "far from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities...the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism."

Attempting to put a positive spin on the revelations, Forward contends that tensions between the United States and Israel arise not from the fact that the United States believed the Israelis were spying on Americans, but because the Israelis had failed to advise the United States that they were engaged in spying against Arabs on American soil.
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The Russian military has made significant technological advancements in its ability to modify the world's weather, mostly for use as a weapon. This fact has become on of the most closely guarded secrets in the international intelligence community.

The Iron curtain of Communism has collapsed in Russia, but in the dark corridors of the Kremlin plans for influencing Earth's weather patterns persist.

For more than a decade, researchers have observed the massive radio antenna field in

Alaska, part of the American military and scientific communities' HAARP project, which some believe is meant to modify weather by blasting a hole in the ozone layer that surrounds Earth.

However, the HAARP project and American work in the field of weather control is rudimentary when compared to the Russians, experts have told American Free Press.

AFP readers are familiar with the so-called "Russian woodpecker," a powerful radio beam that started emanating from South-central Soviet Union in the 1960s and soon became a familiar sound to short wave radio listeners around the world, many complaining it interrupted regular short wave communications.

Experts said the "Russian woodpecker" has played a key role in Russian weather modification studies for decades. It is, however, only the tip of the weather iceberg.

Russia offered to clear the air of several Asian nations, including Malaysia and Indonesia, in the 1990s by weather manipulation. The clearing of land by burning down thousands of square miles of forest created a cloud of smoke over the region that endangered the health of the people.

For a price, the Russians told the countries of the area, they would create a massive typhoon that would blow the cloud layer away. They were turned down and the Russians went about their weather modification business undaunted.

The Russians are now deeply involved in what is known as scalar wave energy, which can alter weather anywhere on Earth from bases in Russia.

A retired air force officer, attached to the National Security Agency, told

Beginning in the early 1960s, a series of large satellite radio antennae in south-central soviet Union, known as "Russian woodpeckers," projected powerful radio beams that interrupted short wave radio listeners around the world and were believed to be able to modify the weather. Today, some weapons experts contend that the Russians have made significant technological advances in their weather modivication systems that could significantly alter the Earth's climate patterns and could be used for military purposes.

American Free Press that the Russians are capable of causing earthquakes, hurricanes or just changes in the rainfall over an American city, much of this through scalar wave energy.

In April 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen addressed the subject at a conference on terrorism: "Others are engaging in an eco-type of terrorism, whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electro-magnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work building ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations."

"It's real," the former defense chief said, "and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts. And that is why this is do important."
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Realizing that it will take years to match the military power of the United States - fighter jet to fighter jet, tank to tank - China is zeroing in on new technological advancements that could eventually even the playing field.

After widespread power failures that plagued the East Coast in August in 2003, defense experts contend that a number of hostile states or terrorist groups could wreak significant damage to the nation's electrical systems across the nation.

In fact, military officials have quietly concluded that a foreign power like china could with a few key-strokes on a computer, shut down the entire U.S. power grid.

A coordinated simultaneous attack on various section of the power grid could create havoc with wide sections of the country in the dark.

According to a recent report in Newsday, published in New York, two young colonels in the Chinese army wrote in 1999 tht the United States had become so powerful militarily that waging conventional warfare would be suicide.

Instead, they wrote in a book, Unrestricted Warfare, that in the event of war China should take the battle to the American home front and assault its critical economy and infrastructure.

"If you're charged with imagining that you are in the crosshairs of the United States and your job is to prepare some war plan, the logic these guys came up with is pretty compelling," said Steven Flynn, who directed an independent task force on homeland security.

"They say [the Chinese colonels], categorically, no way can we marshal resources or technology to conduct conventional warfare. We have to adapt, take it to the enemy, and target their critical infrastructure.

A retired Air Force officer, who was assigned for years with the top-secret National Security Agency, told American Free Press there is evidence that Chinese computer hackers have already been making hits on the power grid.

"Last year alone," the officer said, "60 percent of the country's power and energy companies experienced hacker attacks. A technology -rich country like China has the ability to marshal forces to shut us down.
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Only moments after an enormous blast blew away most of the facade and a full quarter of the eastern end of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) began to release evidence implicating two men, and two men only, who they claimed were solely responsible. The evidence later showed that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had confessed to the impossible.

At first, several independent investigators came forward to complain that there was an obvious cover-up. Now they call it the "ongoing cover-up of the cover-up." And now, even the new OKC museum contradicts the official theory of what happened on April 19.

Officials in charge at the time still refuse to discuss anything other than the manufactured spin: McVeigh and Nichols, as convicted by the courts, mixed up a large batch of ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO - a mild explosive used by farmers to blow out stumps) and demolished several square blocks of downtown Oklahoma City with a devastating blast that could be heard miles away.

In reality, the ANFO story was born only 10 minutes after the blast when a high-ranking BATF official by the name of Harry Everhart witnessed the blast from nearby and called the BATF office in Dallas to excitedly announce, "Someone has just blown up the federal building in Oklahoma City with a truckload of ANFO!"

Some reporters and investigators, who have looked objectively at the bombing, now argue that neither Everhart nor anyone else could have correctly deduced in such a short time exactly what caused the explosion.

According to government documents released later, Everhart was experienced in loading large amounts of ammonium nitrate fertilizer into a vehicle for use as a terrorist truck bomb, and his presence in the midst of the second worst terrorist attack in U.S. history looms suspicious to this day.

Records indicate that this ANFO explosives expert and his associates had destroyed at least eight vehicles in "test bombing experiments" at a secret range in the New Mexico desert in the 12 months prior to the OKC bombing.

Everhart and his fellow specialists even photographed and videotaped these truck bombs as they detonated.

Far from an anti government militia member, the vehicle bomb expert was Special Agent Everhart, an employee of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. And, according to federal government records obtained later, Everhart had been instrumental in obtaining the government funding to perform the ANFO bombing tests.

Everhart served on the National Response Team (NRT), a group of experienced bomb and arson investigators who respond to major bombing crime scenes throughout the United States.

He also served on a secret government project in 1994 that conducted tests using ANFO and C-4 to blow up cars and vans in a classified U.S. government experiment known as "Project Dipole Might."

According to files, reports and photographs obtained from the Department of the Treasury through a Freedom of Information Act request, the U.S. government initiated a "comprehensive ANFO and C-4 vehicle bomb testing program" about a year before the OKC bombing. Records show the project was supervised and administered by the BATF, but was actually funded through a National Security Council (NSC) directive.

The Department of Treasury has confirmed the project was initiated under President Bill Clinton's NSC staff shortly after he took office in 1993.

The intent of the Dipole Might experiments in 1994 includes making videos and computer models to "be displayed in a courtroom to aid in the prosecution of defendants" in vehicle bomb cases, according to government documents. The exact precedent and purpose of this activity is unclear. BATF agents started blowing up vans and cars in the spring of 1994 at the White Sands Missile Range in order to collect test data for post-blast forensics computer software packages to be issued out to National Response Team personnel when they respond to truck bombings.

Why the NSC would fund such a BATF project - despite the rarity of the crime - has not been explained.

Nor has it been explained as to what specific threat-assessment information the government had when it decided to engage in such a project, just a few months before officials claimed a Ryder truck laden with ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded in front of the Murrah building.

The only major ANFO vehicle bombing in U.S. history, prior to OKC, occurred in August 1970 at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wis.

Contrary to media reports, the World Trade Center bomb of February 1993 was composed of urea nitrate, not ANFO, according to the FBI.

Despite only one known case in almost 25 years, why did Clinton's NSC anticipate a need for detailed information regarding ANFO vehicle bomb attacks a few months prior to the Oklahoma City blast?

Treasury's own official documents reveal the intensity of interest. In fact, a brief summary of "Project Dipole Might" is featured in BATF's 1994 Annual Report to Congress.

There were enough clandestine characters hanging around Oklahoma City to fill a James Bond movie during the days prior to the crime.

BATF's paid informant Carol Howe had provided information that the Murrah building was one of three potential targets.

On April 6, Cary Gagan gave U.S. marshals in Denver the information that "a federal building would be blown up in either Denver or Oklahoma City within two weeks." He had not only personally delivered timers and blasting caps to a Middle Eastern group, but had sat in on a meeting where the blueprints of the Murrah Building were on display.

Then, 38 minutes before the blasts on April 19, the Department of Justice in Washington received an anonymous telephone call warning that the Murrah Building was about to be blown up but took no action.

After a morning of reporting that "multiple bombs" had been found in the Murrah debris - a report publicly confirmed by the Gov. Frank Keating - and that rescue operations had been halted for two hours while these unexploded bombs were removed, news people suddenly began to spin the government yarn about an ANFO bomb being responsible for the enormous damage.

One of the problems with that theory was the fact that the columns remained standing directly across the sidewalk from the truck as opposed to those that had collapsed more than 50 feet away. A retired air force brigadier general with 30 years experience compiled an irrefutable report on this subject, which showed exactly where the charges were placed inside the building.

It was so irrefutable that the prosecution refused to allow him to testify at the Denver trial as it would have destroyed any ANFO theory that the government had already sold to the American people.

On May 23, 1995, only 34 days after the explosions, the federal government stonewalled all attempts to examine the building's remaining structure and carried out an ordered demolition, destroying and burying forever what many believed contained the evidence of many explosions.

In its issue of Oct. 11, 19, as well as other issues, the now defunct weekly Spotlight newspaper fully covered the Oklahoma City incident and conclusively proved the accuracy of reporter Shannan's above story. The bombing was definitely a federal government operation; just why Nichols and McVeigh confessed is a mystery that forbids the closure of the case.
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Depleted uranium weapons, and the untold misery they wreak on mankind, are taboo subjects in the mainstream media. This exclusive report should break the media embargo imposed on the American people.

Despite being a grossly under-reported subject in the mainstream, there is intense public interest in depleted uranium (DU) and the damage it inflicts on humankind and the environment.

While American Free Press is actively investigating DU weapons and how they contribute to Gulf War Syndrome, the corporate-controlled press ignores the illegal use of DU and its long-lasting effects on the health of veterans and the public.

In August 2004 American Free Press published a ground-breaking four-part series on DU weapons and the long-term health risks they pose to soldiers and civilians alike. Information provided to AFP by experts and scientists, some of it published for the first time in this paper, has increased public awareness of how exposure to small particles of DU can severely affect human health.

Leuren Moret, a Berkeley-based geo-scientist with expertise in atmospheric dust, corresponds with AFP on DU issues. Recently Moret provided a copy of her letters to a British radiation biologist, Dr. Chris Busby, about how nanometer size particles - less than one-tenth of a micron and smaller - of DU once inhaled or absorbed into the body, can cause long-term damage to one's health.

Busby is one of the founders of Green Audit, a British organization that monitors companies "whose activities might threaten the environment and health of citizens."

Moret's writings were meant to assist Busby in a legal case being heard in the High Court in London where a former defense worker, Richard David, 49, is suing Normal Air Garrett, Ltd., an aircraft parts company now owned by Honeywell Aerospace, claiming exposure to DU on the job has made his life a "living hell."

David worked as a component fitter on fighter planes and bombers but had to quit due to health problems. He says he developed a cough within weeks of starting work.

Today, David suffers from a variety of symptoms like those known as Gulf War Syndrome, including respiratory and kidney problems, bowel conditions and painful joints. Medical tests reveal mutations to his DNA and damage to his chromosomes, which, he says, could only have been caused by ionizing radiation. He has also been diagnosed with a terminal lung condition.

Honeywell denies DU was ever used at the plant in Yeovil, Somerset, where David worked for 10 years until 1995. David claims that DU's existence at the plant was denied because it is an official secret.

David has asked the High Court for more time to gather evidence. The hearing is due to resume in April. "I don't have any legal representation," David said, "so I am representing myself. It is a real David versus Goliath case.

"I am confident I will win. I hope to set a precedent for other cases of people who have suffered from the effects of depleted uranium," he said.

Moret's letters on the particle effect of DU is based on research done by Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist and former scientist with the Manhattan Project and the National Laboratory at Livermore, Calif. Fulk, who has developed a "particle theory" about how DU nano-particles affect human DNA, donates his time and expertise to help bring information about DU to the public.

"DU is much more dangerous than they say," Busby added. "I've always said that it contributes significantly to Gulf War Syndrome."

When Moret's correspondence to Dr. Busby was posted on the Internet over the New Year's holiday under the title "How Depleted Uranium Weapons Are Killing Our Troops," some 6,000 people read the letter in the first two days. The following Monday, a producer from BBC's Panorama program contacted Moret to arrange an interview.

If the BBC follows up with an investigation on the health effects of DU, it may be hard for the U.S. media to maintain their cover-up. More than 500,000 "Gulf War Era" vets currently receive disability compensation, many of them for a variety of symptoms generally referred to as Gulf War Syndrome. Experts blame DU for many of these symptoms.

"The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse," Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in an article about DU weapons entitled "Silent Genocide."

"DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one's genetic code," Koehler wrote. "The Pentagon's response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator."

The U.S. government has known for at least 20 years that DU weapons produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are laden with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Department of Energy conference on nuclear airborne waste reported that tests of DU anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP.

DU is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: "Chemical toxicity, radiological toxicity and particle toxicity."

Particles in the nano-meter (one billionth of a meter) range are a "new breed of cat," Moret wrote. Because the size of the nano-particles allows them to pass freely throughout the organism and into the nucleus of its cells, exposure to nano-particles causes different symptoms than exposure to larger particles of the same substance.

Internalized DU particles, Fulk said, act as "a non-specific catalyst" in both "nuclear and non-nuclear" ways. This means that the uranium particle can affect human DNA and RNA because of both its chemical and radiological properties. This is why internalized DU particles cause "many, many diseases," Fulk said.

The military is aware of DU's harmful effects on the human genetic code. A 2001 study of DU's effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., indicates that DU's chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone, Moret wrote.

Dr. Miller requested that questions be sent in writing and copied to a military spokesman. She did tell AFP that it should be noted that her studies showing that DU is "neoplastically transforming and genotoxic" are based on in vitro cellular research.

Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size.

For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a University of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours.

"Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion," Moret wrote. "Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.

"When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain," she wrote. "Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain.

"Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the cells and nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's disease and Hodgkin's disease."
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There is a mysterious phenomenon going around that is known as NESARA. NESARA would be an acronym for the National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act, which is said to be a legislative proposal that merely reintroduces specie as a alternative currency to help combat anti-inflationary policies of the paper Federal Reserve note. It may originally have been a good idea, with a patriotic appeal, but sadly this proposal seems to have become a magnet for some dubious characters.

If you believe someone calling herself "Dove of Oneness" or more often just "Dove" (a pseudonym of course) or "Oliver," two of the shadowy figures involved with NESARA, the exact text of the proposal is actually a secret, thanks to the Supreme Court. Oliver attributes to "Dove" this bizarre statement:

By order of the Supremes, the full text of NESARA cannot be published till its announcement. By order of the Supremes, the docket numbers and congressional bill numbers were removed and held in secret, to be revealed only after NESARA's announcement.

In reality, there are two NESARAs: the fraudulent version pushed by con men and the real, original version.

Although the NESARA proposal has apparently been presented to many congresspersons over the years, and some have allegedly expressed interest in the proposal, the fact that it hasn't built up sufficient support for even introduction to committee.

Maybe someday the NESARA proposal will find support in Congress and may be presented for a vote, but that really isn't the point.

According to quatloos.com the web site of Financial and Tax Fraud Associates Inc., when certain scam artists claim that NESARA has been "enacted into law' by "secret act of Congress' they are lying because NESARA has never even been formally made into a bill nor presented for either a committee vote or a full vote in Congress. There are no secret acts of Congress, since it is all in The Congressional Record.

Scam artists often latch onto something that sounds good to relieve people of money. For example, scammers often set up boiler-room phone solicitations to supposedly seek charitable donations for firemen or children, which the con artists then pocket. The NESARA proposal is currently being used in just this sort of a scam.

Con men claim the "true NESARA law" (meaning their phony version) was actually adopted by Congress in 2001, but that Congress has been keeping it a secret, and that soon the law will be "announced."

"Dove" host a web site called "The four Winds" that spews a bunch of New Age hokum, such as "Lord Ari's Galactic Tales." Additionally, Dove has an "update line" (currently running about seven months out of date) that you can call at: (206) 781-3897 to hear the "latest" on the "True NESARA Law." These updates offer totally bizarre news events, such as that "100,000 bankers who would not accept the True NESARA Law have been eliminated" and that the spaceships of the "Galacticans' are regularly seen visiting Washington. (It is not stated what galaxy they hail from.) According to the "Dove" crown, somehow the 9-11 attacks were a conspiracy to cover up NESARA.

On the other hand, there is the real NESARA Institute, which is not to be confused with the scammer group. Some people have suggested the fraudulent NESARA was set up partly at least with the intention of discrediting the real NESARA. That may well be true, since many people, have encountered the "Dove" NESARA and recognizing it as a scam, simply assumed that is all there is to NESARA. The real NESARA people have received little publicity, while many people have heard of a "NESARA scam." Unfortunately, many people would find this believable.

Dr. Harvey F. Barnard is the author of the real NESARA. Barnard was born and raised in Louisiana. For more than 30 years he studied currency, banking economics, taxes, law, philosophy, history, sociology and politics. Barnard has a Ph.D. in applied science, specializing in systems philosophy.

After years of research and study, Barnard wrote the NESARA, first as a bill for monetary policy reform and, within a few months, adding a section for fiscal policy reform. He placed NESARA in the public domain so that any representative could sponsor the bill and receive full, unfettered credit.

The legitimate NESARA proposal is sponsored by the nesara Institute, which can be contacted at P.O Box 70, Greenwell Springs, Louisiana 70739 (225)634-3228. Their web site is nesara.org.
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You may have heard one UN official comment that America is being stingy with its offer of millions of dollars in aid for tsunami victims. His attitude toward your money is typical of globalist bureaucrats, who ultimately view the UN as a means for transferring wealth from America to other nations. Americans are very generous people, and undoubtedly will conate tens or even hundreds of millions to private organizations to help the victims of this terrible tragedy in Asia. We hardly need the UN to chide us about our supposed lack of generosity.

The oil-for-food scandal brewing in the UN also has provoked ling-overdue denunciations of the organization from several pundits and politicians on the right. Of course most of you didn't need a scandal to convince you that the UN is anti-American, or that it egregiously wastes our tax dollars. I'm glad more Republicans are finally catching on to what many constitutionalist, libertarians, Birchers, Goldwaterites and religious conservatives have been saying for decades: we should get out of the UN, and get the UN out of America. I certainly agree with these newly minted critics, having advocated getting out for 25 years.

This growing anti-UN sentiment provides an opportunity to make a larger point, namely that participation in the organization is fundamentally incompatible with American sovereignty and the Constitution.

Obviously, many of those now calling for the United States to withdraw from the UN resent its refusal to sanction our war in Iraq. Few Americans realize, however, theat the resolution passed by Congress cited various UN resolutions more than 20 times as justification for invading Iraq - in contrast to the media images of President Bush "going it alone" and disregarding the UN. So despite the anti-UN bluster from the right, a Republican president's stated reason for invading Iraq was that it failed to obey UN resolutions.

This approach give us the worst of all worlds. When we play along and cite UN resolutions as justification for our actions, we grant credibility to the ideas of international law and global government - signaling our willingness to surrender precious sovereignty in the bargain. Yet we gain little in exchange.

Other nations still consider us only to willing too ignore the international rules when it suits our purposes, and we remain deeply mistrusted by much of the envious world. America would be far better off simply rejecting global government as a concept, and openly embracing true sovereignty for every nation.

Rep. Ron Paul is a medical doctor and represents Texas' 14 district in Congress. See his web site, ronpaul.org for more commentaries and information.
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There has been a flurry of articles recently in the U.S. press about an executive jet used by "American intelligence agencies" to transport abducted "terrorist suspects" for interrogation to third countries that use torture. The mainstream media, however, largely omits essential details about "extraordinary rendition," a practice begun during the Clinton administration, and ignores the legal questions it raises.

The Sunday Times (UK) wrote about the mystery jet, a Gulfstream 5, on Nov. 14, saying it had obtained the logs of some 300 flights showing "the movements of the Gulfstream 5 leased by agents from the U.S. defense department and the CIA."

According to the Times, the logs indicate that the U.S. has used the plane to transport abducted "prisoners" to "countries with poor human rights records" where they have been turned over to the authorities for "torture by proxy."

During the past two years, the plane, which "always" departs from Washington, "has flown to 49 destinations outside America, including the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba and other U.S. military bases." Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan are among the foreign destinations of the "torture jet," which has the registration number N379P.

The Gulfstream made at least seven trips to Uzbekistan, a dictatorship allied with the United States in the "war on terror," where, the Times wrote, the "secret police are notorious for their interrogation methods, including the alleged boiling of prisoners."

"I have come across many cases of rape in front of family members who they wish to extract information from," Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said recently on Swedish television. "I have post mortem photos of a corpse," Murray said. "These show that the person was boiled to death."

The Washington Post, Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune all recently reported on the torture jet, but have focused on the phony companies with whom the plane is registered rather than on the serious crimes it is being used to commit.

Much of the information about the "torture flights" has come from a Swedish journalist, Fredrik Laurin, who has produced four television programs about the kidnapping of two Egyptians from Sweden in December 2001.

The four-part Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts) program about the "enforced disappearance" of the two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza, 39, and Muhammad Al Zery, 33, began on Swedish television on May 17, 2004, and can be viewed on-line. The most important details of the abductions, however, are not found in the U.S. press.

In the afternoon of Dec. 18, 2001, Ahmed Agiza was picked up by police on his way home from Swedish lessons in the western Sweden town of Karlstad. His wife and five children awaited him at home. Meanwhile in Stockholm, Swedish security police, the SÄPO, arrested Al Zery at his job. The two Egyptians were then driven to Bromma airport in Stockholm.

Paul Forell, a policeman with 25 years experience, was stationed at the police station at Bromma airport that night. Forell told Laurin what he observed:

"First came the security police. . . after five or 10 minutes two Americans arrived, in civilian suits, and we stood there for a while talking," he said. The Americans, he said, were about 35 years old, gave their first names and said they were from the U.S. Embassy.

"Well, then came this group with the arrested men into the station, and everything went very fast," Forell said. "The arrested men, wearing their own clothes, were shackled hand and foot."

Asked who brought the men into the station, Forell said: "The Americans. The Swedish policemen stayed behind in the outer, public premises," he said. "There were three to four men to each of the arrested." The Americans were "dressed in jeans and shirts, and wearing black masks."

Forell, a bystander, was the only uniformed policeman. "There was hardly room for me in my own station," he said.

Laurin described what happened next: The arrested men were placed in the station's changing-room and, while shackled hand and foot, their clothes were cut off in pieces. When the men were naked, "suppositories of an unknown kind were inserted into their rectums."

Dressed in diapers and dark overalls, blindfolded and hooded, the men were taken to the cars, Laurin reported.

The Gulfstream 5 with the registration N379P, "flying for the U.S. Department of Defense," waited several hundred yards away, Laurin said.

"One of the prisoners was placed lying on the floor with his hands and feet cuffed together behind his back. The other was strapped fast in the cabin, with his hands over his head."

The two arrested Egyptians, about eight Americans and two SÄPO police took off at 9:49 p.m., Kalla Fakta reported. "When the plane landed in Cairo at 3 a.m., the men were turned over to Egyptian intelligence officers."

"Disguised agents from an elite American military unit, answering directly to the White House, are allowed to take command on Swedish soil, contrary to Swedish law. In a secret and brutal operation, two Egyptians who have asylum in Sweden are kidnapped and brought to Egypt to be tortured," Kalla Fakta reported. "They are suspected of terrorism, but no evidence is presented."

After two and a half years of torture in an Egyptian prison, Al Zery was declared innocent and released. Agiza, in a military trial, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The Gulfstream 5 has completed at least 72 such operations in more than 30 countries, Laurin reported. And it always follows the same pattern. "After takeoff from its home base in Smithfield, N.C., it makes a short stop at Dulles International Airport, close to CIA headquarters and the Pentagon.

"It flies exclusively to countries that are allied with the U.S. in the fight against terror: Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan," Kalla Fakta reported, "countries where prisoners are kept and interrogated, far beyond the reach of American and international courts."

U.S. enforced disappearances from Sweden are nothing new, according to journalist Sven Anér. More than 10 years ago, on Sept. 28, 1994, nine Estonian survivors from the Estonia ferry disaster "disappeared" in a similar manner. The day after the sinking, nine crew members were removed from the lists of 146 reported survivors as a Gulfstream 4 (Reg. N971L), and a Boeing 727-200 (Reg. VR-CLM) left Stockholm's Arlanda airport carrying four and five unregistered passengers each.

Anér has the documents from the airport's archive that show that the fees for the two airplanes were paid by the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm.

"Enforced disappearance" and torture are "crimes against humanity," according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which the Bush administration opposes.

While inquiries at the Departments of State, Defense and Justice about the legality of "extraordinary renditions" went unanswered, a March 19, 2004, memo from Jack L. Goldsmith, assistant attorney general, clearly reveals the Bush administration's intent to defy international law.
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Detailed CIA report is ordered to be kept secret for fear that `prying eyes' may uncover truth

An internal CIA report, naming individuals who may have been responsible for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, has been kept secret despite public outcries and congressional demands to release the incriminating evidence. The delays began last July on orders from CIA's acting director, John McLaughlin, and have continued since Porter Goss took charge last September. Critics claim President George W. Bush has personally directed Goss, a Republican partisan, to keep the names from "prying eyes" in order to hide the truth exposing either government incompetence or outright complicity.

Ever since 9-11, the public has called for government accountability, but the Bush administration has been trying to block truth-seeking efforts at every corner. The lack of government cooperation began with obstructing justice at ground zero by FEMA's quick removal of hard evidence and continues now by keeping the CIA report secret.

In between, critics have compiled a laundry list of government cover-ups concerning 9-11, but answers have been slow in coming due to a complacent media and lack of government cooperation. The public clamor still remains hidden on cyberspace conspiracy web sites and in alternative publications, but recently two federal lawsuits surfaced, one concerning FBI whistleblower, Sybil Edmonds, and the other a RICO conspiracy action filed against Bush and 56 other defendants.

The Edmonds lawsuit has been dismissed by a partisan federal judge appointed by Bush, and the RICO action is still in the pretrial discovery stage.

"We are in the process of serving all the defendants, including President Bush, his father and many others. It's not going to be easy; expect a long hard fight," said Phillip Berg, the attorney who filed the federal action on behalf of William Rodriguez, a World Trade Center maintenance worker who claims to have evidence showing government complicity.

Besides the two lawsuits, a citizens petition has also been handed over to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer last November, demanding criminal action be taken against Bush and his cronies for complicity in 9-11.

An official spokesman for the attorney general's office said no action on the petition has been taken.

And regarding the recent CIA internal report kept secret from congressional leaders and the public, this week a CIA spokesman would not comment about the status of the report or when it would be released.

To date the names in the report remain unknown. They were compiled by the CIA's inspector general, who began an independent investigation in December 2002 after a joint 9-11 congressional task force sought answers for obvious intelligence irregularities surrounding the attacks.

The purpose of the report was to get the bottom of the intelligence breakdowns and to determine who should be held accountable for mistakes made. To date no one has been publicly held accountable or even reprimanded openly for obvious intelligence breakdowns.

Further, the CIA has not provided a reason for its reluctance to turn over the report, even after a letter was directly sent by top House leaders on the Intelligence Committee to former director McLaughlin, demanding accountability.

The letter, sent last September, has not been made public and has essentially been ignored by CIA officials.

Last October, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va), personally asked Goss to turn over names in the report, but his demand has also been ignored by the CIA.

Members of Congress expressed concern over the CIA's failure to cooperate, saying it was a "definite departure from normal procedure." House and Senate members are expected to further prod the CIA in turning over the sensitive report when the 109th Congress convenes.

This time help is expected to come from an outspoken critic, Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), who returns to the House after being ousted two years ago.

McKinney is one of the few elected officials who publicly claimed the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the events leading up to 9-11, saying the administration allowed the events to occur in order to reap huge profits from the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Political insiders claim McKinney, who was the first black woman ever elected to Congress from Georgia in 1992, was then targeted by the GOP for defeat in 2002 due to her anti-administration public expressions.

McKinney recently won re-election and is expected to fight hard for those involved in the 9-11 truth movement despite its unpopularity on Capitol Hill.

Greg Szymanski is a freelance investigative journalist and feature writer based in Ventura, California. A law school graduate from Glendale University College of Law, he also specializes in constitutional issues as well as judicial indiscretion and injustice. Bisit Szymanski's news web site at arcticbeacon.citymaker.com.
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The 9-11 attack has allowed the Bush administration to seize the unprecedented powers. Congress ratified the so-called "Patriot Acts," which purport to override many protections of the Bill of Rights. While Americans fight and die in Iraq, allegedly to impose "democracy," democracy has been drifting away in the United States.

However, determined and knowledgeable patriots throughout America are fighting against these unprecedented power grabs and are determined to take the republic back one town at a time - and they are making solid headway.

A nationwide umbrella group called the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), with numerous local chapters, says there are four states and 374 local governments that have already passed resolutions, ordinances and ballot initiatives against the Patriot Acts.

Together these "safe zones" boast a population of 56,077, 539 people. The newest "safe zones" are Pontiac, Mich., which joined the patriot rebellion on Dec. 16, 2004, and Multnomah County, Oreg., which signed up on Dec. 9.

Some of the other recent "safe Zones" are El Paso, Texas; St. Petersburg, Florida; Jacksonville, Mississippi; Albany County, New York, Lexington-Fayette County, Kentucky; Placer County, California; Des Moines, Iowa; Glendale, California; Mercer County, New Jersey; Lincoln, Nebraska; Huntington, New York; Westchester County, New York; and Passaic County, New Jersey - to list only the largest ones.

A total of 66 municipalities have signed up since Pittsburgh first took on April 26, 2004.

If your town or city or county has not yet joined the ranks of Americans who say "Yes" to liberty under law and "No" to federal tyranny, visit the web site of the BORDC at bordc.org, write 241 King St. Suite 216 Northampton, Mass. 01060 or call 413-582-0110.
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The following contains excerpts from a model resolution to preserve Americans' constitutional rights provided by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

1. [Location] affirms its strong opposition to terrorism, but also affirms that any actions to end terrorism must not be waged at the expense of the fundamental civil liberties, rights, and freedoms of the people of [Location], the United States, of the world;
2. [Location] and its employees and instrumentalities shall continue to preserve residents' freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and privacy; the right to counsel and due process in judicial proceedings; and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures; without regard to race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender, economic status, marital status, citizenship status, or disability;
3. To the extent legally possible, no [Location] resources, including law enforcement funds and educational administrative resources, will be used for unconstitutional activities in whatever manner or under whatever circumstances they may be presented;
4. [Location] urges our state representatives and senators, and United states representatives and senators to monitor the continuing implementation of the USA Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act, and related subsequent legislation, executive orders, and Department of Justice regulations, and actively work for the repeal of those provisions that are found to unlawfully infringe on civil rights and liberties.
5. Ay new security measures of [Location] should be carefully designed and employed to enhance public safety without infringing on the civil liberties and rights of [Location] citizens; AND
6. Copies of this resolution shall be sent to the president of the United States; the attorney general of the Untied States; the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; the Governor of [State]; and to each member of the [State] delegation in Congress.
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The Identity Theft Prevention Act, which I have introduced protects the American people from government-mandated uniform identifiers that facilitate private crime as well as the abuse of liberty.

The major provision of the Identity Theft Prevention Act halts the practice of using the Social Security number as an identifier by requiring the Social Security Administration to issue all Americans new Social Security numbers within five years after the enactment of the bill. These new numbers will be the sole legal property of the recipient, and the Social Security Administration shall be forbidden to divulge the numbers for any purposes not related to Social security administration.

Social Security numbers issued before implementation of this bill shall no longer be considered valid federal identifiers. Of course, the Social Security Administration shall be able to use an individual's original Social Security number to endure efficient administration of the Social security system.

Congress has a moral responsibility to address this problem because it was Congress that transformed the Social Security number into a national identifier. Thanks to Congress, today no American can get a job, open a bank account, get a professional license or even get a drivers license without presenting his Social Security number. So widespread has the use of the Social Security number become that a member of my staff had to produce a Social Security number in order to get a fishing license.

One of the most disturbing abuses of the Social Security number is the congressionally-authorized rule forcing parents to get a Social Security number for their newborn children in order to claim the children as dependents. Forcing parents to register their children with the state is more like something out of the nightmares of George Orwell than the dreams of a free republic that inspired this nation's founders.

Congressionally mandated use of the Social Security number as an identifier facilitates the horrendous crime of identity theft. Thanks to Congress, an unscrupulous person may simply obtain someone's Social Security number in order to access that parsons bank accounts, credit cards and other financial assets. Many Americans have lost their life savings and had their credit destroyed as a result of identity theft. Yet the federal government continues to encourage such crimes by mandating use of the Social Security number as a uniform ID.

This act also forbids the federal government from creating national ID cards or establishing any identifiers for the purpose of investigating, monitoring, overseeing or regulating private transactions among American citizens.

At the very end of the 108th Congress, this body established a de facto national ID card with provisions buried in the "intelligence" reform bill mandating federal standards for drivers licenses and mandating that federal agents only accept a license that conforms to these standards as a valid ID.

Nationalizing standards for drivers licenses and birth certificates creates a national ID system pure and simple. Proponents of the national ID understand that the public remains wary of the scheme, so proponents attempt to claim they are merely creating new standards for existing state Ids. However, the "intelligence" reform legislation imposed federal standards in a federal bill, thus creating a federalized ID regardless of whether the ID itself is still stamped with the name of your state.

It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane. Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free republics.

The national ID will be used to track the movements of American citizens, not just terrorists. Subjecting every citizen to surveillance diverts resources away from tracking and apprehending terrorists in favor of needless snooping on innocent Americans. This is what happened with "suspicious activity reports" required by the Bank Secrecy Act. Thanks to BSA mandates, federal officials are forced to waste countless hours snooping through the private financial transactions of innocent Americans merely because those transactions exceeded $10,000.

The Identity Theft Prevention Act repeals those sections of federal law creating the national ID, as well as those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier - an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans.

As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient's ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctors will be placed in a government accessible database?

By putting an end to government- mandated uniform IDs, the Identity Theft Prevention Act will prevent millions of Americans from having their liberty, property and privacy violated by private and public sector criminals.

In addition to forbidding the federal government from creating national identifiers, this legislation forbids the federal government from blackmailing states into adopting uniform standard identifiers by withholding federal funds. One of the most onerous practices of Congress is the use of federal funds illegitimately taken from the American people to bribe states into obeying federal dictates.

Some members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that, in a constitutional republic, the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the jobs of government officials easier. We are here to protect the freedom of the American people, not to make privacy invasion more efficient.

While I do not question the sincerity of those members who suggest that Congress can ensure that citizens' rights are protected through legislation restricting access to personal information, the only effective privacy protection is to forbid the federal government from mandating national identifiers.

Legislative "privacy protections" are inadequate to protect the liberty of Americans for a couple of reasons.

First, it is simply common sense that repealing those federal laws that promote identity theft is more effective in protecting the public than expanding the power of the federal police force. Federal punishment of identity thieves provides cold comfort to those who have suffered financial losses and the destruction of their good reputations as a result of identity theft.

Federal laws are not only ineffective in stopping private criminals. But these laws have not even stopped unscrupulous government officials from accessing personal information. After all, laws purporting to restrict the use of personal information did not stop the well-publicized violations of privacy by IRS officials or the FBI abuses of the Clinton and Nixon administration.

In one of the most infamous cases of identity theft, thousands of active-duty soldiers and veterans had their personal information stolen, putting them at risk of identity theft. Imagine the dangers if thieves are able to obtain the universal identifier, and other personal information, of millions of Americans simply by breaking, or hacking, into one government facility or one government database.

Second, the federal government has been creating proprietary interests in private information for certain state-favored special interests. Perhaps the most outrageous example of phony privacy protection is the "medical privacy" regulation that allows medical researchers, certain business interests and law enforcement officials access to health care information, in complete disregard of the Fifth Amendment and the wishes of Individual patients Obviously, "privacy protection" laws have proven greatly inadequate to protect personal information when the government is the one seeking the information.

Any action short of repealing laws authorizing privacy violations is insufficient primarily because the federal government lacks constitutional authority to force citizens to adopt a universal identifier for health care, employment or any other reason. Any federal action that oversteps constitutional limitations violates liberty because it ratifies the principle that the federal government, not the Constitution, is the ultimate judge of its own jurisdiction over the people. The only effective protection of the rights of citizens is for Congress to follow Thomas Jefferson's advice and "Bind the federal government down with the chains of the Constitution."

Those members who are not persuaded by the moral and constitutional reasons for embracing the Identity Theft Prevention Act should consider the American people's opposition to national identifiers. The numerous complaints over the ever-growing uses of the Social Security number show that Americans want Congress to stop invading their privacy.

Furthermore, according to a survey by the Gallup Company, 91 percent of the American people oppose forcing Americans to obtain a universal health ID.

Rep Ron Paul is a medical doctor and represents Texas's 14 district in Congress. See his web site, ronpaul.org for more commentaries and information.
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American Free Press January 24, 2005

Proposed New Homeland Security Czar Gave Free Pass to Foreign Spies in America

By Michael Collins Piper

American Free Press January 31, 2005

IRS OVERTAXED?

Growing Protest Movement Too Much for Revenuers

By John Tiffany

Great U.S. Toolmaker Bought Up, Sold Off

By Christopher J. Petherick

American Free Press January 31, 2005

Website Shows How to Buy American

By the Staff of American Free Press

American Free Press January 31, 2005

Blair, Bush Rejected Solid Iraqi Peace Offer; U.S. Mainstream Media Suppressed Story

High-ranking Iraqis approached leaders with olive branch but were snubbed.

By Greg Szymanski

American Free Press January 31, 2005

U.S./UK Special Forces Already in Iran

By Richard Walker

American Free Press January 31, 2005

`Torture Judge' Is Rewarded By President

Judge Jay S. Bybee's Odd Views On Cruel & Inhuman Punishment Get Him a Lifetime Appointment

By Greg Szymanski