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December 10, 2002

Spies, Snitches and Eyes in the Sky  

by LINDA S. HEARD

Making headlines in the US in recent months: medical students 
incarcerated when a nosy co-diner thought they were planning 
terrorist attacks; a passenger on a plane thought to be a 
hijacker when he took out his comb, and now, a man who jokingly 
talked about 'burning bushes' in a bar has been sentenced to 
38 months in jail.  

What on earth is going on?

As speedily as Communism was dismantled in the former Soviet Union 
to be replaced with relative democratic freedoms, American citizens 
are willingly sacrificing many of their civil liberties, much of their 
privacy, while some are even prepared to become snitches--all on the 
altar of Homeland Security. Eat your heart out you former KGB bosses. 
George Bush is achieving what you did by force, using a heady mix of 
psychology, patriotism and paranoid poppycock.  

If, as President George W Bush is fond of saying 'they are jealous of our 
freedoms', whoever 'they' might be will certainly now be harbouring little 
envy for the rapidly diminishing freedoms enjoyed today by the average 
American.  

Such supine acquiescence by a fearful citizenry was, indeed, predicted 
by former President Nixon's National Security Advisor and Secretary of 
State Henry Kissinger during a 1992 speech given in Evian, France. 
"...the one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with 
this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the 
guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government," 
he said.  

Kissinger, a savvy elder statesman and a firm favourite of Washington's 
version of the 'old boy network', is, of course, the perfect choice to 
head a long overdue commission to investigate September 11--at least, 
from the point of view of the American president.  

George Bush, no longer able to resist pressure to authorise such an 
investigation, has nominated a man who believes that truth ranks way 
below the protection of national security. Indeed, the infamous Nixon 
tapes serve to show that Kissinger is a fervent protector of government 
secrets.  

But even if Americans may not be destined to discover just why their 
secret services and law enforcement agencies failed to protect them 
in the past, they can now look forward to a dynamic new integrated 
authority--The Department of Homeland Security to do just that.  

Biggest Bureaucracy

Ron Paul, M.D., who represents the 14th Congressional District of 
Texas, calls the new department "the biggest new federal bureaucracy 
since WW2".  

Paul not only worries about its effectiveness but is also deeply 
troubled by "searches without warrant, forced vaccinations of entire 
communities, neighbourhood snitch programmes, federal information 
databases, and a sinister new 'Information Awareness Office' at the 
Pentagon that uses military intelligence to spy on domestic citizens".  

The Pentagon's new Total Information Awareness program comes under 
the umbrella of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, 
known for its state-of-the-art technologies.  

Heading up the program is retired Admiral John Poindexter, formerly 
Ronald Reagan's national security adviser. In 1990, Poindexter was 
convicted for defrauding the government and destroying evidence in 
the Iran-Contra scandal. The sentence was quashed in 1991 in return 
for his testimony before a Congressional Committee.  

Now, Poindexter, thanks to Total Information Awareness, will have 
access to unlimited information about the American people. The 
scheme will use Genoa, a surveillance device that is a combination 
cutting edge search engine, sophisticated information harvesting 
programme and a file sharing system to glean as much information 
about both U.S. and . citizens as possible.  

Information gathered may include credit purchases, flight and telephone 
records, while the system will be able to intercept emails and maintain  
dossiers on any 'terrorist suspect'.

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Full article at CounterPunch / http://www.counterpunch.org/heard1210.html

Cheers, Steve..

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