Friday, December 3rd 2010
New York Daily News

All of a sudden, Senate Republicans have gone on the attack against providing medical care and compensation to the Forgotten Victims of 9/11 with gross and insulting distortions of the truth.

The biggest lie in the propaganda that Republicans are disseminating to kill the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act: “Congress strongly supports the 9/11 heroes.”

Were that the case, Washington long ago would have met the national obligation to the rescue and recovery workers who responded after the terror attack and suffered serious illnesses and even death as a consequence.

It didn’t happen, largely because the same Republican forces - George W. Bush and countless GOP members of the House and Senate – resisted efforts even to recognize that lung diseases and other ailments were epidemic among thousands of responders.

Now, the House has passed the Zadroga bill and Senate Democrats are pushing hard for a vote by the close of the lame-duck session. So, now, the Republicans, led by Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, are claiming falsely that the U.S. has done generous wonders for Ground Zero workers.

Worse, they intimate that those benefits that the Democrats managed to eke out are riddled with waste, fraud and abuse.

They should stand at the graves of all those whose lungs were fatally destroyed, starting with NYPD Detective James Zadroga, who labored for 450 hours at Ground Zero, and repeat the libel.

They should visit the clinics at Mount Sinai Medical Center where the wheezing sick come for treatment, and repeat the libel.

They should read the record of numerous House hearings that documented how soundly used all federal monies have been, and repeat the libel.

They dare not.

No, instead they distort the truth by pointing out that immediately after 9/11 the government established a compensation fund that paid out $7 billion. They leave out that the fund closed before all the illnesses now at issue became known.

And they torture decency by holding up the fact that some 10,000 responders and survivors will participate in a $625 million settlement of lawsuits. They leave out both that the settlements offered only part recompense and that the monies would be deducted from any payments awarded by a reopened compensation fund.

As for the thousands more who did not sue and are not party to the settlement, well, who cares about them?

Not Enzi and his Republicans.

By the latest head count, the 58 members of the Senate Democratic caucus are united behind the Zadroga bill. A lone Republican, Mark Kirk of Illinois, has joined in support, leaving the bill one Republican vote shy of passage. The lies are meant to give GOP members cover for betraying American citizens who volunteered in service to their country at a dark hour and paid dearly for it.

That is the disgraceful truth. It must not prevail.

Original article here.

via: Facebook

FEAL GOOD FOUNDATION RESPONSE TO NEWS THAT THE PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES DOES NOT SUPPORT H.R. 847

Dear Fellow First Responder:

As you may already know, today we have learned that President Barack Obama no longer supports H.R. 847, the Congressional bill that would guarantee funding for health care and research. While this news is stunning, and a complete reversal of his position on this bill during his 2008 presidential campaign, please be assured that the Feal Good Foundation alongside its friends in labor and the N.Y. Congressional Delegation will continue to fight for this bill and to advocate for full Presidential support. Our fight is not over.

Nearly eight and one half years ago we, the First Responder Community, demonstrated our strength, resilience and determination of spirit following September 11th. We must do so again. While the President’s current stance on H.R. 847 represents an obstacle, we have surmounted such obstacles before and will continue to overcome them now. “Never Forget” is more than a campaign slogan or bumper sticker to the men and women who bravely immersed themselves into the toxic Ground Zero air to save the lives of strangers and rebuild New York City and this country. We will “Never Forget” and today I tell all those opposed to H.R. 847 “We Will Never Give Up.”

H.R. 847 is about guaranteed health care treatment, monitoring and research; nothing more, nothing less. We have witnessed First Responder after First Responder fall victim to 9/11 illnesses over the past several years. Just this week another firefighter and friend perished as a result of his heroic actions. While the White House and detractors of H.R. 847 are quick to point out that treatment for First Responders currently exists at the Centers of Excellence, such arguments are missing the central mandate of the bill – guarantees!
The reluctance of the White House to support this bill merely 8 ½ years after the worst terrorist attack on United States soil merely solidifies the need for guaranteed care now. Shall we rely on “discretionary budgetary spending” twenty years from now when the World Trade Center attack is a distant memory to new administrations?
Are we to trust that presidents in the years to come will allocate sufficient funding for treatment and research when we are already being told that current administrations “don’t have the money to make us healthy? We cannot and will not give up hope that this government will recognize its moral imperative to care for the World Trade Center First Responders.

The Feal Good Foundation will not give up its efforts on behalf of the First Responders. It is our sincere hope that you will continue to join us in our quest for justice.

Sincerely,

John Feal

source: New York Daily News

by Michael McAuliff

Boiling Frogs Post is an online news, editorial, analysis, and Podcast interview site covering select but significant blacked out stories and issues, while defying blinded partisanship. Each one of our partner investigative journalists brings 20+ years of investigative journalism experience in reporting controversial and daring topics. Our weekly Podcast interview series, the Boiling Frogs Show, features in depth original interviews with well-respected and controversial guests.

This site has been set up to bring together members of the irate minority club: Those who have gotten tired of the very-dependent mainstream media & and the agenda-driven and partisan pseudo alternative fluff sites. We may be the irate minority out there, but over here we are the majority, so we rule. Together we hope to increase our numbers and take back our hijacked nation.

Sibel Edmonds is the founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers. She has appeared on national radio and TV as a commentator on matters related to whistleblowers, national security, and excessive secrecy & classification, and has been featured on CBS 60 Minutes, CNN, MSNBC,  NPR, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The American Conservative, and others. Her book, ‘Shooting the Messenger’, co-authored with Professor William Weaver, is forthcoming from Kansas University Press in the fall of 2010.

PEN American Center awarded Ms. Edmonds the 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for her “commitment to preserving the free flow of information in the United States in a time of growing international isolation and increasing government secrecy”. She is also the recipient of the 2004 Sam Adams Foundation Award.

Ms. Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI’s Washington Field Office. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her issues have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secrets Privilege”, and the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification issued by the Department of Justice.

Ms. Edmonds began her career in 1993 as Project Director for the Rostropovich Foundation, a non-profit humanitarian organization providing medical and food aid to children of the former Soviet Union. She re-located to St. Petersburg, Russia and managed correspondence, shipments, inventory and security precautions in the largest children’s hospital in St. Petersburg. Later, she worked as the Executive Director & Co-Founder of Edmonds Industries, a Consulting and Holding Company, investing in international business and residential real estate development. Ms. Edmonds also worked as a volunteer for the Alexandria CASA program (Court Appointed Special Advocate) for abused children, and as an instructor for the Alexandria Office on Women’s Domestic Violence Program.

Ms. Edmonds has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University, and AA degree in Science from NVCC. She is certified as a Court Appointed Special Advocate and as an instructor for the Women’s Domestic Violence Program. She is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani.

Exclusive Interview with FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
August 21, 2009

On April 23, 2007, I sat down in Washington, D.C. with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds for an extensive interview, which was published in the Armenian Weekly and on ZNet and widely circulated. On Aug. 18, 2009, I conducted a follow-up phone interview with Edmonds, who was visiting New Zealand. The interview is an overview of what has transpired in her case since 2007, with emphasis on her deposition in the Schmidt vs. Krikorian case in Ohio earlier this month.

Edmonds, an FBI language specialist, was fired from her job with the FBI’s Washington Field Office in March 2002. Her crime was reporting security breaches, cover-ups, blocking of intelligence, and the bribery of U.S. individuals including high-ranking officials. The “state secrets privilege” has often been invoked to block court proceedings on her case, and the U.S. Congress has even been gagged to prevent further discussion.Edmonds uncovered, for example, a covert relationship between Turkish groups and former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who reportedly received tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in return for withdrawing the Armenian Genocide Resolution from the House floor in 2000.

Born in Iran in 1970, Edmonds received her BA in criminal justice and psychology from George Washington University, and her MA in public policy and international commerce from George Mason University. She is the founder and director of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) and in 2006 received the PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. She speaks Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani.

Below is the full transcript of the follow-up interview.

***

Khatchig Mouradian—I asked you in 2007 what had changed during the five years since 2002, when you first contacted the Senate Judiciary Committee to reveal the story on Turkish bribery of high-level U.S. officials. You said, “There has been no hearing and nobody has been held accountable. We are basically where we started…” Two more years have passed, we have a new president, and I have to ask the same question again. Has there been any change?

Sibel Edmonds—Nothing has changed. As far as the Congress is concerned, the Democrats have been the majority since November 2006 and I have had zero interest from Congress on having hearings—any hearings—on this issue, whether it’s the states secrets privilege portion of it or the involved corruption cases. The current majority has been at least as bad as the previous one. At least the Republicans were gutsy enough to come and say, We’re not going to touch this. But the new majority is not saying anything!

Read the rest of this entry »

AE911Truth to Speak in Washington DC in Washington DC, July 14th-16th

AE911Truth flies to DC July 11th with a team of five to produce these events:
1. Sign Up Architects at Our AIA Booth

We will host a 10′ x 10′ exhibit booth at the DC Convention of the American Institute of Architects – July 14, 15, and 16. We will be speaking to several hundred architects over the three-day period and giving them DVDs and brochures. We hope to sign up at least one hundred more architects on our website! Consider flying/driving to DC and helping us in our booth if you are in the area. You would need to competently convey the essential points of the explosive evidence at the 3 World Trade Center high-rises – while wearing professional attire. To find out more or RSVP, contact Dave Slesinger at 410-499-5403 and/or davidslesinger (at) yahoo.com. We will also host room #141 in the Convention Center where our new 30-minute version of 9/11: Blueprint for Truth – Companion Edition will be playing every hour on the hour followed by live Q&A. We are making major inroads into the building professional community with these AIA conventions. The reverberations throughout the country, from San Francisco, where we started, to DC and beyond, have been and will be deep and penetrating. The AIA is already supporting us, though silently, by deliberately approving the AE911Truth booth at their events. We have also already been approved for the November AIA Richmond, Virginia event. We are all feeling that the dam of official denial might be about to break.

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SIBEL EDMONDS: In Congress We Trust…Not

The former FBI translator and whistleblower suggests blackmail may be at the heart of Congressional refusal to bring accountability and oversight to its own members – such as both Hastert and Harman – in matters of espionage and national security

Source: bradblog.com

Exclusive to The BRAD BLOG…
Guest Editorial by Sibel Edmonds
5/4/2009

I have been known to quote long-dead men in my past writings. Whether eloquently expressed thoughts by our founding fathers, or those artfully expressed by ancient Greek thinkers, these quotes have always done a better job starting or ending my thoughts – that tend to be expressed in long winding sentences. For this piece I am going to break with tradition and start with an appropriate quote from a living current senator, John Kerry: “It’s a sad day when you have members of Congress who are literally criminals go undisciplined by their colleagues. No wonder people look at Washington and know this city is broken.”

The people do indeed look at Washington and know that this city is ‘badly’ broken, Senator Kerry. The public confidence in our Congress has been declining drastically. Recent poll results highlight how the American people’s trust in their Congress has hit rock bottom. A survey of progressive blogs easily confirms the rage rightfully directed at our Congress for abdicating its role of oversight and accountability. Activists scream about promised hearings that never took place – without explanation. They express outrage when investigations are dropped without any justification. And they genuinely wonder out loud why, especially after they helped secure a major victory for the Democrats. The same Democrats who had for years pointed fingers at their big bad Republican majority colleagues as the main impediment preventing them from fulfilling what was expected of them.

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Following Bush lead, Obama moves to block challenge to wiretapping program
New administration wants case against NSA dismissed
source: Raw Story
by Joe Byrne

President Barack Obama invoked “state secrets” to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency’s warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed.

The move — which holds that information surrounding the massive eavesdropping program should be kept from the public because of its sensitivity — follows an earlier decision in March to block handover of documents relating to the Bush Administration’s decision to spy on a charity. The arguments also mirror the Bush Administration’s efforts to dismiss an earlier suit against AT&T.

The Friday brief involves a lawsuit filed by the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the NSA for the wiretapping program. The agency monitored the telephone calls and emails of thousands of people within the United States without a court’s approval in an effort to thwart terrorist attacks.

It also stands firmly behind the telecommunications giant AT&T. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed that the company allowed the agency to install network monitoring hardware to spy on American citizens.

The Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department says, “has set forth a more than reasonable basis to conclude that harm to national security would result from the disclosure of whether the NSA has worked with any telecommunications carrier.” AT&T is specifically mentioned. Public reports have fingered AT&T, Verizon, MCI and Sprint as participating in the government’s eavesdropping efforts.

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Americans Largely Silent as Their Nation is Systematically Destroyed

They watch Obamanation grow in unbridled power
By JB Williams
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Canada Free Press

After trillions in taxpayer debt has been foolishly poured into the bottomless black hole of leftist wealth redistribution programs, under the guise of economic “stimulus” or “stabilization” legislation, the new “ONE World” government running Washington DC announces; Geithner, Bernanke Call for New Wind-Down Powers After AIG… and the people still sit silent as they watch Obamanation grow in unbridled power.

Geithner Asks Congress for even Broader Power to Seize private Firms as the average American stumbles through their daily routine as if nothing is happening. Canada Free Press managing editor Judi McLeod writes No cheerleader for propping up greenback at G20 summit asking, “Is the table being set for One World Government rather than speeding the recovery of the worldwide recession at next week’s G20 London summit?”

Obamanation has taken the nation from a trillion in debt to over $4 trillion in debt in the first sixty days, with even more federal spending promised, which could put the nation $10 trillion in debt before the 2010 mid-term election cycle. Amnesty for illegals and ACORN led redistricting will make 2010 and beyond a moot point.

Still, beyond the movement to mail tea bags to members of congress or file another legal demand for proof of Obama’s constitutional eligibility for the office he holds, both of which are like whistling in the breeze, the people remain largely silent.

Threatened with a Soup Line Existence

The American people would never trade personal freedom for the false promise of federally redistributed free-stuff under some ill-fated socialist experiment, unless they were first threatened with a soup line existence.

And so it shall be…

50% of their life savings and 30% of their home values have already evaporated into thin air. National unemployment is driving towards double digits as home foreclosures continue to mound.

With their backs against the wall, confused by a daily diet of media manipulated headlines aimed at scaring the public into submission, convinced that our nation’s complex woes demand a solution far too complicated for the average peasant to comprehend, the people find themselves in a state of terminal paralysis.

Read the rest of this entry »

Court sides with ACLU, strikes down Patriot Act gag provision
by Stephen C. Webster
Published: Tuesday December 16, 2008

ACLU victorious as federal court declares Patriot Act provision a violation of the First Amendment

A federal appeals court ruling late Monday is the cause célèbre of the American Civil Liberties Union, as another provision of the Bush administration’s Patriot Act falls to the judicial system.

Until the ruling, recipients of so-called “national security letters” were legally forbidden from speaking out. The letters, usually a demand for documents, or a notice that private records had been searched by government authorities, were criticized as a cover-all for FBI abuses.

“The appeals court invalidated parts of the statute that wrongly placed the burden on NSL recipients to initiate judicial review of gag orders, holding that the government has the burden to go to court and justify silencing NSL recipients,” said the ACLU in a release. “The appeals court also invalidated parts of the statute that narrowly limited judicial review of the gag orders – provisions that required the courts to treat the government’s claims about the need for secrecy as conclusive and required the courts to defer entirely to the executive branch.”

Because of the ruling, the government will now be forced to justify individual gag orders before a court, instead of casually wielding the power of a blanket gag as the Bush administration has done since the blindingly fast passage of the Patriot Act in Oct. 2001.

In Sept. 2007, a federal judge ruled unconstitutional provisions within the Patriot Act which allowed the government to obtain search warrants without probable cause.

The ACLU’s complete press release follows.

####

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 15, 2008

NEW YORK – A federal appeals court today upheld, in part, a decision striking down provisions of the Patriot Act that prevent national security letter (NSL) recipients from speaking out about the secret records demands. The decision comes in an American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging the FBI’s authority to use NSLs to demand sensitive and private customer records from Internet Service Providers and then forbid them from discussing the requests. Siding with the ACLU, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the statute’s gag provisions violate the First Amendment.

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Source: http://stj911.org/press_releases/Misrepresentation.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Victoria Ashley, STJ911 committee member
Phone: 510-769-5109
Site: www.STJ911.org
Email: stj911@gmail.com

Scholars for 9-11 Truth & Justice Misrepresented in Draft Bill Sent to 8 House Members

Berkeley, CA, October 22, 2008 — On October 18, 2008, an OpEdNews article titled, “8 House Members View Draft Bill on Independent Science/Tech Probe of WTC 1, 2, 7 Collapses,” was published by four members of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice (STJ911.org). The authors of the article and draft bill are not spokespersons for Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, and therefore are individually responsible for it.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice does not endorse the draft bill due to the inclusion of numerous unscientific claims and misrepresentations, and condemns in the strongest of terms any associations between the organization and the claims presented by the authors of this bill. As stated at the front page of their website, Scholars for 9-11 Truth and Justice “take[s] care to present the strongest, most credible research available…”

While in agreement with the authors of this bill that a new investigation into the tragic events of September 11, 2001 is warranted, representatives of the Scholars group note that the draft bill and article lack basic scientific rigor and credibility, with statements such as, “the entire WTC [complex] was destroyed by directed energy weaponry (DEW),” and the ideas that “nuclear materials, missiles or DEW weapons were used.” The sister publication of the Scholars group, The Journal of 9/11 Studies (www.JournalOf911Studies.com), has numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles refuting such claims.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice believes that a much better bill can be crafted using the strong analysis in articles by its members, several of which are recently published in scientific journals, including The Open Civil Engineering Journal, The Environmentalist, and the Journal of Engineering Mechanics.

Kevin Ryan, a former Underwriters Laboratories (UL) manager who was fired in 2004 for publicly questioning the NIST report, and a committee member of the Scholars’ group, says the bill is harmful to the cause of exposing the truth. “Basically,” he said, “asking Congress to investigate many poorly defined, and highly implausible hypotheses minimizes the chances that Congress would be willing or able to investigate the actual evidence for the demolition of three WTC buildings.” In fact, the bill also omits any mention of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, which provided hundreds of questions left unanswered by the 9/11 Commission.

Scholars’ member Dr. Steven E. Jones, a Professor of Physics, also notes that statements attributed to him in the bill are “errors . . . misrepresenting my published statements.” Dr. Jones goes on to say, “It is unacceptable to misrepresent my views, as is done in this document by Ellis et al., and to ignore my published technical papers in established journals.”

Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice is a non-partisan organization of over 500 independent researchers analyzing the September 11, 2001 attacks with a strong emphasis on the scientific method.

For information: http://www.stj911.com or
Contact: stj911@gmail.com
Phone: 510-769-5109
# # #

4th Amendment: Rest in Peace
By Cindy Sheehan

4th Amendment
b. December 15, 1791
d. June 20, 2008

22/06/08 “ICH” — -

The 4th Amendment to the US constitution is just one more thing that has been murdered since bloody Emperor George took office in 2001: Over 4000 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; over one million Iraqis and Afghanis and many of our brothers and sisters in this country who have been either killed or devastated by catastrophic climate change and other violence that has become rampant.

Among the things that have been murdered in George’s quest to be the emperor of a vast US corporate-military empire are many aspects of our constitution.

The First Amendment has been obliterated with “free speech” zones; the arrests of thousands of activists trying to express their freedom of speech; the destruction of the “freedom of the press” clause began during the Reagan years and it’s untimely demise was hastened during the Clinton regime; the US technically has no state religion, but Christianity has been informally shoved down our throats with the Emperor getting revelations from his demented God that tells him to go on crusades against Muslim countries.

“Torture memos” written by law professors; torture camps; and extreme rendition slaughtered the 8th Amendment that prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishment. The Military Commission and Patriot Acts dealt the deathblows to the 8th Amendment.

When Congress gave Emperor George the power to invade sovereign countries without a declaration of war from Congress—the Emperor’s loyal and obedient servants destroyed two clauses of the Constitution: the Supremacy Clause (Art. VI, Clause 2) which states the treaties are the “Supreme” law of the land and the enumerated power of Congress to “declare war” (Art. I, Section 8).

Art. II, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to remove a criminal administration, but the Queen of the Imperial rubber stamp arm of the empire, Nancy Pelosi, took that clause “Off the table.” When I hear that phrase, I envision a long table with lords and ladies pigging out on a banquet while the peasants starve because justice is not on that table and economic equality is out of the question.

Now, with the new law granting immunity to telecom companies and granting the federal government wide discretionary powers in spying on our communications (which has become far simpler in this electronic day and age), the Imperial rubber stamp arm of the federal government has brutally murdered another of our precious rights: the 4th Amendment which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The centuries old right of habeas corpus which protected us from arbitrary state action through unlawful detention was also destroyed, so the US has returned to pre-Magna Carta “jurisprudence” and not one of us is safe from the arbitrary crimes of the police-empire that has replaced our representative republic.

Even thought the 4th Amendment was 217 years old, it died a violent and untimely death.

I am calling for a memorial service for the 4th Amendment on Tuesday, June 24th. We in San Francisco will be gathering at City Hall at 3pm and having a solemn funeral procession to the Federal building at 3:30 pm. We will then eulogize the 4th Amendment and give it a proper send off. It served us well. Many of our brothers and sisters have never felt its presence, though, even though they have been working for civil rights for generations.

Wear black. We are a nation in mourning for our rule of law.

If you can’t join us in San Francisco, please organize a memorial service of your own.

For more info: call 415-621-5027 or email: – contact@cindyforcongress.org

Legislating Tyranny
by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton

Posted at Lewrockwell.com

June 7, 2008

The George W. Bush administration responded to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon with an assault on U.S. civil liberty that Bush justified in the name of the “war on terror.” The government assured us that the draconian measures apply only to “terrorists.” The word terrorist, however, was not defined. The government claimed the discretionary power to decide who is a terrorist without having to present evidence or charges in a court of law.

Frankly, the Bush administration’s policy evades any notion of procedural due process of law. Administration assurances that harsh treatment is reserved only for terrorists is meaningless when the threshold process for determining who is and who is not a terrorist depends on executive discretion that is not subject to review. Substantive rights are useless without the procedural rights to enforce them.

Terrorist legislation and executive assertions created a basis upon which federal authorities claimed they were free to suspend suspects’ civil liberties in order to defend Americans from terrorism. Only after civil liberties groups and federal courts challenged some of the unconstitutional laws and procedures did realization spread that the Bush administration’s assault on the Bill of Rights is a greater threat to Americans than are terrorists.

The alacrity with which Congress accepted the initial assault from the administration is frightening. In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act passed by a vote of 98 to 1 in the Senate and by 357 to 66 in the House. The act was already written and waiting on the shelf before the 9/11 attack. Indeed, the FBI and Department of Justice have tried for years to introduce PATRIOT Act provisions into the law. That act was introduced immediately after the attacks, and few members of Congress read its contents prior to passing it.

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For Immediate Release:

Contact: Senator Karen S. Johnson (602-926-3160)

Senator Karen Johnson Blasts Congress for Failure to Defend U.S.

 In a formal Floor speech in the Arizona Senate tomorrow (Tuesday, June 10), Senator Karen S. Johnson plans to blast Congress for their failure to defend U.S. citizens who were killed on September 11, 2001, and their failure to properly investigate those attacks.

“It has been nearly seven years,” says Johnson, “and we are faced with new evidence that turns the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission upside down. We are fighting a war because of 9/11 – and we still don’t really know what happened. We have spent billions of dollars on the war, with an additional $340 million per day. Thousands of U.S. servicemen and women have lost their lives, not to mention the lives of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians.”

Johnson revealed in a committee hearing in April that she did not accept the official report of the 9/11 Commission and has since defended supporters calling for a new independent investigation of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “Ground Zero was treated like little more than the site of a building demolition – which, of course, is exactly what it was,” says Johnson. “Everyone who has studied it recognizes that the Twin Towers and Building 7 came down as a result of controlled explosions – not because of the airplanes and fires.”

Johnson has joined forces with local 9/11 activists who for more than two weeks have been staging a protest outside the Phoenix office of presidential candidate U.S. Senator John McCain. One protestor, college professor Blair Gadsby of Scottsdale, began a hunger strike on May 26 to bring attention to the need for Congress to re-open the investigation into 9/11. Gadsby plans to fast until Senator McCain agrees to meet with experts who will present evidence that the WTC buildings came down through controlled demolition. Tomorrow will be Day 16 of the Hunger Strike. Senator Johnson has invited Gadsby to the Senate to listen to her Floor speech.

“The U.S. government is constantly interfering with states in matters that are none of its business,” said Johnson. “Yet when it comes to the one really significant job the Constitution assigns to the government — defending our nation – the federal government failed miserably. Not only did they fail to put up any sort of a defense after the first plane struck the North Tower (Tower 1), but they failed to mobilize the air defense system, they failed to protect the President, who sat reading in a public school for 20 minutes while the attacks continued, and they failed to defend our most important military installation – the Pentagon. The public is sick to death of do-nothing politicians in Congress who forget what their job is the minute they arrive in Washington. Finding out what happened on 9/11 and bringing the perpetrators to justice is the job of Congress and the Executive branch. We need to know what happened to Building 7. We need to get answers to the many unanswered questions that still exist. We need an investigation – especially of the new evidence. It’s time for Congress and our President to act.”

ACLU: 900,000 Names on U.S. Terror Watch Lists

February 27, 2008
Justin Rood Reports

The FBI now keeps a list of over 900,000 names belonging to known or suspected terrorists, the American Civil Liberties Union said today.

If that number is accurate, it would be an all-time high, exponentially more than the 100,000 names on the list several years ago. But the number needs to be taken with a grain of salt: after all, the ACLU doesn’t keep the list, the FBI does, and the bureau doesn’t generally like to talk about it. (Indeed, the FBI has not yet responded to a request for comment for this post.)

But if the ACLU’s figure isn’t accurate, it’s also unlikely to be off by that much. Last September, the ACLU notes, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General reported the FBI watch list was at 700,000 names, and growing at 20,000 names per month.

The ACLU says they “extrapolated” from those figures to determine the list’s current size. ACLU’s Barry Steinhardt added that the group had spoken privately with people familiar with the watch list, who told them the 900,000 figure was not outlandish.

In the past, The FBI has told ABC News that the size of its watch list is classified. Despite that, both the bureau and the DoJ Inspector General have published the total figure in unclassified reports.

There’s no doubt the FBI’s list is growing: just last June, ABC News reported it was at 509,000 names, based on information in an unclassified FBI budget document.

But strangely, the list may be growing not because of swelling legions of foreign terrorists. Instead, it appears the FBI may be adding tens of thousands of names belonging to U.S. persons it suspects of being domestic terrorists — people who have no known ties to international terrorist organizations.

A separate entity, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), keeps a list of all names believed to belong to terrorists linked to international terror groups. That list, which was at 100,000 names in 2003, grew to 465,000 names by last June – but since then has grown only modestly, according to NCTC spokesman Carl Kropf. Today, Kropf said that list stands at roughly 500,000 names. (Unlike the FBI, the NCTC does not maintain that the size of its watch list is classified information.)

The FBI takes that list and adds to it a new collection of names which belong to U.S. persons believed to be domestic terrorists: people who have links to terrorism but not to any international group.

Last June, the NCTC was responsible for putting 465,000 names on the watch list, and the FBI appeared to add an additional 44,000. By September, extrapolating from the DoJ Inspector General’s report, the FBI’s contribution appears to have grown to somewhere north of 200,000 names.

Today – if the ACLU is to be believed – the FBI’s contribution may be as high as 417,000 names. Which would raise a new question: Where are so many domestic terrorists coming from? Or do they simply use more aliases than foreign terrorists?

Update: The FBI responded late Wednesday afternoon. Spokesman Chad Kolton did not dispute the ACLU’s figure, but noted that the watch list contains names, aliases and name variations for individuals. The number of people on the watch list, he said, was around 300,000, and only 5 percent are U.S. persons. Kolton noted that the list is “regularly reviewed for accuracy.” Last year the bureau removed 100,000 records “related to people cleared of any nexus with terrorism,” Kolton said.

Original article here.