Trying to Get the Word out on the DC Madam case: Am I Being Hacked?

Ed.--This has been going on for more than a few months: I attempt to send an email to a journalist at one of their articles, say at The Telegraph, Disnfo.com, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo (this one took, no response--did it ever make it?), and numerous other progressive web sites and news publications. Either I cannot successfully send the filled-out form/message, or I get no replies, having no idea if they ever got the national security information about the DC Madam case I was apprising them of. I'm sure a few of them got it and reflected on their mortgages, sure. I've even had a semi-retired journalist who covered the intelligence beat who told me they contacted some of their other colleagues who are still working with no responses, no apparent interest. This, of course, is going on their word, a person I've never even spoken to on the phone, so there it is, I have only their word, and in these times, that ain't enough.

Do I know that I'm being hacked, can I prove it? No, but I was during the case and was surveilled, unquestionably, and it followed me onto Facebook and maybe now onto to Twitter, although it seems far more blunted. Now that we know Facebook was giving the NSA direct access, some of the harassment I was subjected to on there could be viewed in a new light. But like the victims of COINTELPRO and all the other government/private harassment programs targeting dissent in the US, I cannot prove it without herculean effort. We're talking numerous filings of FOIAs (Freedom of Information Act requests for documents on myself, whether I was being watched), but anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of this knows the Government isn't going to cough it up without one hell of a fight.

What I'm asking my readers is this: I need your help in sending out this form email that I'll paste-in below. I just attempted to send it to the journalist James Fallows at The Atlantic without any luck. It could be nothing, it could be a glitch on their part, there could be a cookie in my browser doing it, but I cannot get to the bottom of it, there seems to be no other solution then to have others send these emails on my behalf. There's nothing in this email message that I haven't written or published here on this blog, it's generalized. If you know a serious journalist covering national security issues, or you simply read on the subject a lot and have a reasonably secure email account, I need you to submit this letter to news sites, blogs, journalists, progressive web sites, and so on, I need your help and would appreciate it greatly. Thank you.

And without being too prolix, here's the text of the letter. Anyone who sends it off in my name, unredacted and unaltered has my full permission:  

Good day, I was a member of the DC Madam's defense team back in late 2007, early 2008. We were granted wide-ranging subpoena powers over the telecoms as well as the intelligence community by Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler, who, I might add, was shortly after that replaced without any explanation by a board of judges (a board she was on!) by former FISA Court judge James Robertson. He quashed all of that once on board for reasons that I think were obvious: the case involved surveillance, most likely of her escort service which had a large percentage of defense/intelligence contractors, military and intelligence officers, and a whole lot more. No one seems to want to touch this element of what was erroneously defined by the MSM as a simple sex scandal--it was not, it was far more. I don't expect you to answer because I'm always meeting a wall of silence on this.

I was hired as a general researcher by the late Ms. Palfrey in December 2007 and paid by the federal defender's office for my work, but I did far more pro bono after that month. Indeed, we were going through the subpoenaed phone records that had been provided by one of her carriers, Verizon, but AT&T and Sprint had yet to comply when Judge Kessler was abruptly replaced in the middle of the night in late November. But, we had the records that went much deeper into who had a phone number and a cell or landline--the whens and wheres--and came up with a stunning array that represented the national security state and their contractors and employees on both fronts. One of them was Ret. Col. Ron Roughead, brother to now-retired CNO Gary Roughead. The former worked for SAIC the last I knew and that firm came up in materials and outside of them so many times as not to be coincidental. I could go on and on with the very solid connections between players, but I will leave you with one example: there was one call, and one call only, from a former Verizon engineer with a Muslim name who was also an early war on terror arrest, in the DC area. I won't name him here, but his story was in the press and articles can be found online.

I should also add that we found some indications of intelligence activities in a hack of her email account going back to fall of 1998--yes, it could have been anyone, but they were being forwarded all of the ingoing and outgoing items in it, beyond the sophistication of the average internet user that year. It was a Yahoo.uk account. We got bounce-backs that I identified when the surveillance account was closed. Oddly, the bounce-backs contained the text of a 419 scam, a Nigerian one that's well-known, a fake barrister's note. This wasn't directed at us and was a clear glitch. It has been written that--and I cannot speak to the veracity of it--419 scams have been known to be used as covers for intelligence operations. And there is more, much more. I wrote an account on the case that's heavily-detailed and contains literally hundreds of emails between the late Ms. Palfrey, myself, and others, primary documents, court filings, etc., down to her autopsy report. The story's not cold, incidentally, since no one ever got to the real dynamics of it, other than myself and a few others. The press was ill-equipped to do so, or unwilling, but I cannot say decisively.

This NSA story, I believe, has a direct relation to what happened to Ms. Palfrey and her escort service. I've experienced strange online harassment, visits from contractors to my blog (http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com), hacking of accounts--you name it, outside of physical confrontation and/or shadowing. I implore you to at least consider this story in light of recent events, to look deeper, or to pass some of this along, and this is just the tip of the iceberg here.

Regards, Matt Janovic, writer and private researcher

media & prospective interviewers

As I've made clear in these past postings, I'm running the show. There will be review copies sent by request and no preview copies. I'm not concerned about your opinions on that either. This will be accompanied by an agreement not to illegally disseminate copies. I have a way of tracking this too, so don't think it's going to float if you have any weird ideas about that.

To sum it up: Any question I don't care to answer, I won't. If you push the issue, the interview is over, done, forever, don't contact me again. Serious inquiries only. Mainstream media--if any bother to cover this, which I doubt for reasons that are expanded upon in the book--will have to go buy a copy, unless they can give me a compelling reason why not. I have close to zero respect for any of that, like the rest of the public, I don't trust you, and go "balance" yourself to check yourself.

Not that I expect anyone to do their homework as I have on this subject, and we're talking five years running now,  how exactly can any of you accurately assess what I experienced? That comes down to who you trust and what you uncover. Yes, there are likely many more pieces of information I haven't, and there are other players in the event with their own opinions who were privy to other parts of the story, we know this. You're objective, neither am I, and don't insult my or anyone's intelligence trying to kid us that you are, or that you're more objective, you're not. I'm not a nihilist, but you're not going to find the ultimate truth of whole swaths of this case. With the state of journalism today, I'm on solid ground. Ever attempt has been made to corroborate what's in the book.

If you want to conduct interviews, I'm here, contact me via the profile page.

DC Madam book update

Things are wrapping up: Work is about to commence on a cover design as well as a stand alone website or the book, separate from this blog. At this point, the book is clocking in at 504 pages+ an  index and a table of contents. The length is based primarily on the fact that it's packed with primary information related to and from the case from correspondence, the public record, court documents, and more, much more. This is a view into the case that--other than in Montgomery Blair Sibley's Why Just Her--no one has ever seen. I was in a privileged position to experience, view and analyze information that few outside of the defense have ever seen let alone heard of.

The primary data isn't so much as explosive as my own own take, my analysis of it. While these are my opinions, they're the opinions of someone intimately involved in the case, therefore, this is a historical accounting as well as opinion and analysis. There will never be a book quite like it, rest assured, and it might just stand as a clear-eyed testament to this troubled era in ways that many of the observers of the case at the time never quite grasped, hindsight being everything of course. You would never want to experience what I and others did. While he's been quite reviled in relation to the case, I can only imagine the hell that counselor Sibley experienced. I was fortunate not to get too close and still got my wings singed.

 
The prosecution of Deborah Jeane Palfrey was a nightmare case if there ever was one. It was without any legal precedent in American jurisprudence. No one can recall anything like it ever happening, and I doubt there will ever be one quite like it ever again, power nailed that lid shut as thoroughly as possible. Incredible forces were marshaled to shut her down, to prevent more exposure of influence peddling related to defense/intelligence contracting by members of Congress, the executive branch, and yes, even the judiciary who enabled them. As this book should make clear, we're in a lot of trouble as a nation with no hope of actual reform. I believe we're headed in the same direction as the Soviet Union. Perhaps after that there can be a real chance at rebuilding American democracy. That's at least my hope. As it stands, under the current order, there can be no reform and we will continue to push towards the brink of what could be major catastrophe.

Ironically, only government can fix these things. This wasn't just a story about a sex scandal, it was about institutionalized corruption by officeholders who are in fact criminals. The media lied, and lied, and lied, and fulfilled their usual role of protecting power from public scrutiny. Small wonder no one wants to pay to be lied to anymore. More than a few institutions will be put under scrutiny in this account. The picture's not a pretty one and the myth of democracy is revealed as just that. It's one thing to assume, it's another to have your worst fears and cynicism confirmed. Expect a spring release.

Postscript: All of the important DC Madam entries from this blog have been extracted and archived. There have been some alarming clusters of activity around the blog and I'd neglected to create copies of some of them. This is no longer the case, and I suspect that some of them faced potential removal in the current political climate. Future editions of the upcoming text could possibly include a DVD-r containing them as well as other primary materials not included in the text from the case.

"Assassinated" Arizona congressional Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is UNDEAD

She has become Ligeia, every simultaneously living and dead character straight out of Poe's short stories. The press disagrees all over the place: She's alive, she's dead, she's in critical condition--no, no, wait, she's dead, really, we mean it this time, really.

Welcome to the (mis)information age. One story has it that she's alive one moment, the next, that she is dead. No one needs to be told to jump to conclusions when the press has already done it for them in this era of instant gratification.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted--under copyright law. Welcome to the 19th century, it's back, and everyone's an expert on anything you can name, regardless of whether they have any credentials or not.

Breaking News: Gabrielle Giffords is undead, undead, undead, undead...

http://news.google.com/news/story?hl=en&q=Arizona+congresswoman+dead&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dyWPwW5FGhNgspMMUxFOa5u4-U5_M&ei=vMkoTZ6OOISq8AahufT8AQ&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQqgIwAA

Misinterpreting events on purpose, so you don't have to!

The South Bend Tribune--and I'm not laying the blame entirely at their feet on this one--had an article today titled, "Teens taping fights: 'It shocks the conscience,' " a tale of teen bullying in South Bend (specifically between girls) and the recording of fights on cell phones and camcorders by other teens that are then uploaded onto the Internet for a variety of reasons that even the piece itself misses, or somehow ignores at its own peril. The reporting in the piece is generally very solid by all appearances and journalist Mary Kane Malone appears to have covered all of her bases, but as usual, the analysis and general thrust of it is all wrong, and that's the fault of a newspaper editor.

As a matter of fact, that's usually the case, but it also takes conglomerates reminding editors that they too have a mortgage to pay, so hyperbole it is.

I'm not going to name the names of the victims again and don't think that it was appropriate for the conglomerate-owned Tribune to list them but not their attackers. What is the precise hyperbole, or the hype of the article? This is incredible: the immorality of other kids standing by and recording the attacks/fights on their cell phones and posting them online, ostensibly to inflict more emotional harm and humiliation upon the victims. I'm certain most of these kids were acting in concert with the bullies, no argument there, but why is it a bad thing ultimately? The fact is that it's a good development regardless of the motives of most of the players.

Thirty years ago--and even as recent as fifteen--these acts of violence by children directed towards other children went unnoticed, they were rampant, and adults didn't want to deal with it anymore then than they do now--and that's the real heart of the article. People, especially authorities like principals, parents, police, and even juvenile professionals, don't want to deal with the issue of children inflicting violence upon each other. The trick is to change the subject or the focus:

The video of the fight had gone viral, the girl says, spreading from cell phone to cell phone. In less than a day, it seemed everyone in school had witnessed Chastity's humiliation. Teenage fights now include a new weapon: the camera phone. For parents, school administrators and law enforcement officials, the recorded fights provide a disturbing portrait of teenage violence that, until now, was only seen by those who witnessed it directly. "It shocks the conscience," said Capt. Phil Trent, spokesman for South Bend police. Parents of the victims say they are horrified at the gall of witnesses to flip out their phones and press "record" rather than intervene. But the kids? They call it entertainment. ... (The South Bend Tribune, 05.09.10)

This may or may not be true that it's "entertainment" and they're casting a blanket over the kids generally, as an entire demographic when there's no solid evidence--just a couple anecdotes--being proffered that the phenomena is widespread. Even if it were, how would they know why every kid recording an event was doing so?

But then, the article breaks down and admits that youth experts don't really know why the kids record the fights. Is that really the point? Again, from the article itself, this is the real point (my emphasis): "For parents, school administrators and law enforcement officials, the recorded fights provide a disturbing portrait of teenage violence that, until now, was only seen by those who witnessed it directly." Correct. Until very recently, the technology to record these events in a portable and easy manner was too expensive. Now, there's no running away from the problem since kids are unwisely (or very wisely) posting what is essentially incriminating evidence of children violently and criminally attacking other children. Before, this was impossible, and authorities could only rely on the hearsay of children, a morass of "he-said, she-said" recriminations that were once almost impossible to confirm, to corroborate. That's all changed now.

In short, many of these kids are doing the "right" thing, knowingly or unknowingly.

Some of these kids are alerting the rest of society that there are vicious sociopaths in our midst and showing us their actions. When it's done in the interest of society, of others, it's a very positive social act, a civic duty to report a crime. In the "wrong" hands they're also incriminating themselves and will probably be dragged into the tidal wave of civil suits that are likely to come out of these new technologies of easy dissemination, the power of the Internet writ large, as large as you can get.

"The (bullies) are basically making a recording of the evidence," providing a clear picture of who threw the first punch and how it ended, said William Bruinsma, director of the St. Joseph County Juvenile Justice Center. Police say a videotaped shoving match posted online might be handled differently than one that is not recorded. "The same shoving match, being turned into a form of entertainment by a third party on the Internet is enough to make parents, school administrators and law enforcement" take a second look, said Trent, the South Bend police spokesman. ... (ibid)

It's not about entertainment. It's about adults not wanting to deal with it, but knowing that they now have no choice in the matter. That's called fighting change. In the past it was easy because there was no way to document these behaviors. Now there is. So, yes, the kids have a "new weapon," alright: they can document acts of violence by other children, even under the guise of indirect participation. Indeed, St. Joseph County prosecutor Michael Dvorak "...said video can provide useful pieces of evidence when building a case." Yet, the Oklahoma state legislature has recently made moves that would make posting the footage online illegal and could likely pass it soon.

The article tries--vainly--to suggest through implication that there's an upswing in violence by American girls, something that it has to admit isn't the case from FBI statistics covering 1995-through-2008. You can almost hear the editor of the South Bend Tribune trying to argue their twisted logic and simply capitulating to the facts in the end since they were and are irrefutable, leaving the remnants of the their thought process (if you want to call it that) in the body of the piece. Missing the point is the entire point. Society-at-large has never wanted to deal with the fact that the genesis of bullying in many cases is child abuse, usually by adults, often by relatives. America is hardly the only nation with this problem, and denial is part-and-parcel of the behaviors surrounding the phenomena.

When the economy is already divesting adults of their rights, those of children don't figure highly either. However, children are a powerful moral symbol of the future, the canaries in the coal mine of where we're going wrong with the social contract and where we've been going wrong since time immemorial. Most importantly, the Tribune article commits the cardinal sin of blaming the victim: "But what might appear to be a clear assault on video could have an untold back story, he said: How can police be sure the victim was not the attacker a day earlier in an unrecorded fight?" They never care about that in other circumstances. The real issue is that they don't want to deal with the problem, the real heart of a very poorly-constructed article that carries a sadly commonplace logic in our culture, a culture in denial on most fronts. After all, nobody likes getting caught...

One last thought: should we embed journalists in our nation's schools? It's not necessary. Soon, very soon, the coverage of domestic violence will surpass that of the wars in the Middle East. Think about why.

http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20100509/News01/5090310/1129/News

Wikileaks releases what could be evidence of the murder of Reuters journalists as well as civilians in Iraq

WWW--This is a very big deal and gives some more context to possible harassment of Wikileaks by American military and/or intelligence personnel as well as of anyone trying to report the reality on the ground in American occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't even know how to put this into words, but I do recall this incident from July 12th, 2007 where Iraqi Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed by "friendly fire"...only now it appears that the fire was quite intentional and anything-but-friendly. There also seems to be an element of bloodlust and cowardice on the part of the crew of the Apaches. Did they know the two were journalists? This is unclear, but there is mention in the communications transcript from the copters that seems to connotate that they knew they were "civilians."Is this yet another "isolated" event?

Recall that in early April 2003, three Al-Jazeera journalists were killed by "friendly fire," and also calls to mind the "accidental" shooting of hostage and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena who was fired on by American troops just outside of the Baghdad International Airport and nearly killed. One of her Italian intelligence agent rescuers--Nicola Calipari--died of his wounds. Sgrena worked for the Italian Communist paper, Il Manifesto. One might think you're life might be in danger as a correspondent if you're not towing the line for the Pentagon.

A separate site from the main Wikileaks home has been created for the release, possibly for security measures to prevent its hacking:

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. (www.collateralmurder.com/index)

The military has been mostly silent on how the event occurred and how the slain died, but ruled in an inquiry that the rules of engagement at that time were observed. The whole story underscores the weakness of the FOIA as well, but whatever works, it's out now. Reuters demanded an inquiry and action in the aftermath in 2007, just as they've had to in obtaining the release of other Iraqi Reuters employees/journalists, from Iraqi prisons, and got very little from the Pentagon--at least not copies. They were shown the materials off-the-record. Criminals don't tend to indict themselves, especially when they're the ones in power.

There's no indication from any source of any combat or exchanges of fire immediately before the Apache helicopter gunner opened-fire on civilians and the two journalists, killing as many as eleven. One individual was viewed brandishing an RPG (soviet-designed rocket propelled grenade), but was seen after the event began and shots had already been fired. Two U.S. Army Apache helicopters were involved the 2007 incident with some ground forces nearby. Footage from one helicopter has been leaked to Wikileaks by a military whistleblower(s) and the activist site itself claims to have conducted interviews with other journalists, military personnel and other witnesses at the scene, including consulting with Reuters over the basic facts and timeline.

...WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work. (ibid)

Wikileaks makes a fine point that occurred to me almost immediately: if we're seeing what we think we're seeing (and hearing), the event could even be part of a pattern of violence, harassment, and intimidation against members of the press in American war zones, especially considering that Reuters has had other incidents of harassment directed against their personnel in Iraq. A few of these journalists were arrested under flimsy pretenses and ferried off to the palatial Abu-Ghraib prison where God knows how they were treated. Now is a time of scoundrels. It hasn't ended with the national elections of 2008.

Wikileaks appears to have done their homework and have even included photographs, a timeline, documents, and even the transcript of the communications between the helicopters, also very telling when taken with the rules of engagement at the time and the 38 minute video. This exchange is most galling and not honorable behavior for soldiers of any army, of any nation:

...17:46 Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.

17:48 That's right. ...

18:29 I think they just drove over a body.

18:31 Hey hey!

18:32 Yeah!

18:37 Maybe it was just a visual illusion, but it looked like it.

18:41 Well, they're dead, so. ...

(http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html)

After these comments, there were more shots fired by the crew of the main Apache helicopter and a missile was fired into a building filled with armed civilians. There's no indication that any shots had been fired at the military personnel at any point in the roughly 38 minute event. It should be noted that many Iraqis carry AK-47s into dangerous areas, which one can assume, is when occupying troops and militias are present. Johnny got his gun, was instilled with fear and trained to kill, and imbued with a hair-trigger mentality. This isn't how soldiers are supposed to behave, not at all. Yet, the Pentagon says that this was part of the rules of engagement at the time. Are they sure they want to stand by that one?

Contrary to popular belief, life isn't a videogame.

"BREAKING NEWS-LEAKED VIDEO FOOTAGE EXPOSES PENTAGON MURDER COVER-UP," The Elf Wax Times, 04.05.2010: http://www.elfwax.com/news/breaking-news-video-footage-to-expose-pentagon-murder-cover-up/

Wikileak's page on the 2007 slaughter: http://collateralmurder.com/en/download.html

Tyler Bass's blog: http://spectaclemonopolized.blogspot.com/

NYTimes article on original Baghdad attack in July 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html

"The war on Wikileaks and why it matters," Salon.com, 03.27.2010: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+salon%252Fgreenwald+%2528Glenn+Greenwald%2529

http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html

"U.S. Bombing Raid Kills Three Journalists in Bagdad," Fox News.com, 04.08.2003: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83503,00.html

Same as the old bawss: Obama continues to cling to Bush II intelligence policies, while The Times contradicts itself ad infinitum

Washington D.C.--The New York Times did an editorial on Sunday condemning President Obama for invoking the very same kinds of claims to national security as the administration of George W. Bush. On the face of it, they're right, but we're not a proactive culture, so they were nowhere to be seen in 2004. While the criticism is deserved, one should remember exactly who's stating it: The New York Times, the same people who bent over backwards for the Bush II administration's claims on national security again and again, depriving the American public of vital information, and they sat on this NSA wiretapping story for over a year that had been uncovered by journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen. We can assume there were others besides it and the Judith Miller doing the reverse for the same administration in the Plame scandal!

On Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, we got this anonymous editorial--so it can be assumed that the institution itself backs it--sternly titled "The Cover-up Continues," something that they're practiced hands at at the Times and would therefore know when they saw it:

...In that case [of the renditioned Ethiopian national Binyah Mohamed], the Obama administration has repeated a disreputable Bush-era argument that the executive branch is entitled to have lawsuits shut down whenever it makes a blanket claim of national security. The ruling rejected that argument and noted that the government’s theory would “effectively cordon off all secret actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the C.I.A. and its partners from the demands and limits of the law.” The Obama administration has aggressively pursued such immunity in numerous other cases beyond the ones involving Mr. Mohamed. We do not take seriously the government’s claim that it is trying to protect intelligence or avoid harm to national security.

Great, and again, they're right, but thanks to their practices surrounding the warrantless wiretapping program and other areas, they definitely affected existing lawsuits; it would be impossible for the suppression not to have. No, in 2004, the New York Times did just that--they took seriously the government's claim that it was trying to protect intelligence and that if they published, it would harm national security. Or, it's just their excuse and they conspired criminally or abetted or enabled them, or any number of unpleasant permutations.

Like most mainstream journalists, Risen and Lichtblau valued their careers and bank accounts over the common good when they should have held a press conference once it became clear that their editors were going to sit on the very explosive information of high crimes, and they kept quiet. The program itself was illegal under the 1978 FISA. The role of the Times couldn't be more crucial in this story since they bought criminals over a year to cover things up and to ready the legal obstacles to slow things even further. They say the wheels of justice grind slowly, especially when you put a wrench in the gears. There has been very little support in Congress to rein-in these practices or to hold anyone accountable for them, quite the opposite. Years passed as weak calls for investigations ensued and predictably went nowhere. Dueling court lawsuits went back-and-forth, and...

Then-Senator Barack Obama voted (as did the majority of the Senate) in the fall of 2008 in favor of granting the telecommunications corporations who aided-and-abetted the Bush II administration for a bill that granted them all retroactive immunity, a kind of oxymoron of the law. He was hardly alone in his "yes" vote, and it could be said with genuine shame that a Rockefeller was leading the charge. Lichtblau mischaracterized the behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Bush II administration last year at the expense of Salon, thankfully not me:

For 13 long months, we'd held off on publicizing one of the Bush administration's biggest secrets. Finally, one afternoon in December 2005, as my editors and I waited anxiously in an elegantly appointed sitting room at the White House, we were again about to let President Bush's top aides plead their case: why our newspaper shouldn't let the public know that the president had authorized the National Security Agency, in apparent contravention of federal wiretapping law, to eavesdrop on Americans without court warrants. ("The inside drama behind the Times warrantless wiretapping story, Salon, 03.28.2008)

Remember the wonderful national elections of 2004 and all the irregularities? No, not just the pandering to those who fear homosexuals and African-Americans, the problems at the polling places. Do I think that NYT journalist Eric Lichtblau is telling the whole truth here? Oh sure, I'd sit on a story for over a year, sit on the knowledge that high crimes had been committed by people under the color of authority. It's what all good apparatchiki do, both Lichtblau, Risen, and most of all, their editor, Bill Keller. The Times, Risen, and Lichtblau continue to be vague as to when exactly that first meeting occurred in 2004, but we can rest assured it was before the elections.

History isn't going to be kind to any of them in the intervening years, regardless of their lame attempts to paper over the pertinent questions of why exactly they sat on it. Another terrorist attack? A book deal? Give me a break, they were terrified in the editorial board that James Risen's book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, was going to expose that they decided to sit on the story for political purposes and ran it before it was published. They would have continued sitting on it had it not been the case. How much else of our history are they sitting on? We could be in real danger, and they wouldn't tell us. As a matter of fact, that's the case, and one has to assume that "the newspaper of record" is becoming about as reliable a source of information as a Wall Street banker. Somehow, I think they do lunch occasionally.

Licthblau's statements about the illegal program and his actions and attitudes surrounding it are a lie, a fabrication, and he's not a real journalist, and more like a stenographer. So is the Times' recent concern about being a government watchdog. It's a double-think like no other, as though they never sat on the story for over a year to help the Bush and the GOP through a tough election. That's what friends are for. Executive Bill Keller and the NYT showed considerably less concern about Bush over-reaching on national security than he does over Obama, and sat on the story for an incredible thirteen months.

But he's very careful in not being too specific as to how early they knew:

"A year ago, when this information first became known to Times reporters, the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country's security.

"Officials also assured senior editors of The Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions.

"As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time.

"We also continued reporting, and in the ensuing months two things happened that changed our thinking.

"First, we developed a fuller picture of the concerns and misgivings that had been expressed during the life of the program. ("N.Y. Times statement defends NSA reporting," CNN.com, 12.16.2005)

Right, it's the job of a free press to take elected officials and their appointees at their word. This is the behind-the-scenes line held by the New York Times during the administration of George W. Bush, but oddly, not so in the case under Barack Obama, even though he's essentially doing the very same things that Bush did and is attempting with considerable effort to continue these expansions of power in the executive branch in the areas of national security. What's it going to be, eh? Who are you guys? Really. Small wonder that neither Keller, Risen, or Lichtblau will speak with any specifics about 2004.

"The inside drama behind the Times warrantless wiretapping story, Salon, 03.28.2008: http://www.slate.com/id/2187498/

"N.Y. Times statement defends NSA reporting," CNN.com, 12.16.2005: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/12/16/nytimes.statement/

"The Scoop That Got Spiked-Times delay on wiretap story leaves questions unanswered," FAIR, 01.11.2006: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2798

The Cover-up Continues," New York Times, 10.25.2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/26mon1.html?_r=2

From today's OpEd News mailer: "OpEd news reporter arrested, jailed, charged with criminal conspiracy"

It's been a crazy weekend. Managing editor Cheryl Biren and I went to the Franklin Mills Mall where a demonstration opposing the Army Experience Center was taking place.

It was certainly an experience. We met up there with another OEN editor, Elaine Bower who was there as a demonstrator and protester.

Elaine and I participated in the demonstration. But Cheryl, the whole time, was there as a reporter and photographer.

When the time came when police began arresting protesters who refused to move, Cheryl was there shooting pictures to capture the event. She was the only member of the media there at the time. All others had left already.

That's where the important story begins. Read these two reports to learn more:

OpEdNews Reporter Arrested While Photographing Protest

By Rob Kall2

BAD IMAGE - images/comments.gif (must exist and begin with http)

OpedNews Journalist and Six Protesters Charged With Criminal Conspiracy After Arrest At "Army Experience Center"

This is a freedom of the press issue and story. Tell your local paper and TV news station to cover it. Contact your favorite MSNBC or Dailyshow or other host to cover it.

And support OpEdNews.com This is such a screaming example of how we cover the story that the mainstream media ignores. The Philadelphia Inquirer didn't even send a reporter to cover this. And the two mainstream media orgs that WERE represented hightailed out when the police said they were going to begin making arrests-- intimidated and bullied into not covering the story.

If you want to depend on weak, mainstream media, ignore this request. If you want to support a strong, independent progressive media, please send your contribution. I can't tell you how urgent our need for contributions is, in these hard times.
Please click here to make a donation today.

thanks,

Rob Kall

Does Fox News talking neck Chris Wallace covet the bum of Dick Cheney?

Faux Universe--He was preening, pawing, and only corrected the former VP once in the entire interview so as not to look like the obvious whore that he is, but nothing doing, Chris Wallace still came off like a whore to the powerful.

Worst of all: Wallace and Cheney were wearing virtually the same kind of pants and suit, just to let us know they're both of the same class, meaning privileged criminals. You'd think Wallace was interviewing his favorite pop star, and in-essence, he didn't even need to be there prompting Cheney's rehearsed statements to save his own ass and to keep the criminal programs he helped create and authorize going. Wallace was just a prop, a stool to stand on while Cheney used Fox News (the only news network he watches, just read a past rider) as his personal soap box.

Is there a word for this? Don't get me wrong, I stand for sexual freedom and have no issues or problems with homosexuals and people being who they are...well, until it impinges on the rights of others, and that's what we have going on here with these morons. Wallace was literally feeding Cheney his cues, it couldn't have been a more baldly-staged event, call it guerrilla theater since it's obvious Cheney never got over the 1960s-70s:

...WALLACE: Do you think this was a political move not a law enforcement move?

CHENEY: Absolutely. I think the fact is, the Justice Department has already reviewed the inspector general's report five years ago. And now they're dragging it back up again, and Holder is going to go back and review it again, supposedly, to try to find some evidence of wrongdoing by CIA personnel.

In other words, you know, a review is never going to be final anymore now. We can have somebody, some future administration, come along 10 years from now, 15 years from now, and go back and rehash all of these decisions by an earlier administration.

WALLACE: Let me follow up on that. The attorney general says this is a preliminary review, not a criminal investigation. It is just about CIA officers who went beyond their legal authorization. Why don't you think it's going to stop there?

CHENEY: I don't believe it. We had the president of the United States, President Obama, tell us a few months ago there wouldn't be any investigation like this, that there would not be any look back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration. Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and they're reversing course on that.

The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration. He's now saying, well, this isn't anything that he's got anything to do with. He's up on vacation on Martha's Vineyard and his attorney general is going back and doing something that the president said some months ago he wouldn't do.

WALLACE: But when you say it's not going to stop there, you don't believe it's going to stop there, do you think this will become an investigation into the Bush lawyers who authorized the activity into the top policymakers who were involved in the decision to happen, an enhanced interrogation program?

CHENEY: Well, I have no idea whether it will or not, but it shouldn't. ...

I wish to God it wouldn't stop there, but President Obama doesn't have the balls or the principles to do much about it--that is, without immense public scrutiny and pressure, and he's getting it. The reality is that this isn't really a criminal probe at all, but you can learn a lot of Cheney's fears and create a road map of what should happen out of his very foolhardy statements. If you know one thing about criminals, it's that they tend to give away everything if you're listening closely enough, they're perverse. To be sure, he's scared shitless, and this talk of it being "political" just shows his contempt of the public, the people who are keeping this alive because they don't want torture done in their names, and because they know full well none of Bush II's programs were making them any safer.

Wallace's very leading questions don't remotely constitute journalism on any planet in any known universe, but I do think the ass-lick has a yen for Dick. Fine, but be honest, admit you're a sycophant and that your parents beat you and touched you inappropriately, then we can move forward rather than all of this looking back (in anger). Here's to the demise of the mainstream media and news networks, the time of reckoning has come for these bastards and their ilk. Give the man a microphone...again, and again, and again, and again, until nobody ever wants to hear him ever again (too late).

Americans will continue to have their backs pushed up against the wall and there won't be any choice left but to confront these problems, and that means strikes, demonstrations, and rallying against the program that is rocketing us towards the abyss. It's time to muster the winter soldiers, and that's not a call to violence, it's a call to civic duty. The time has come, now. But look at Cheney and his preening apparatchik, his dog, Chris Wallace, and know the face of human tyranny. It's an ugly, pathetic picture of humanity, isn't it?

The suits, and the damage done:

http://www.foxnews.com/fns/

Accused Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich loses Homeland Security Clearance--what other accused politicians have?

Washington D.C.--There's no indication that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens lost his security clearance during the legal proceedings in his own case, so why the move on Blagojevich's? To hurt him, to make him appear "bad," to assassinate his character. Yes, yes, one was a senator, the other a governor--except that Stevens was under investigation for a very long time as Blagojevich has been (years), and there was every indication that he was guilty, just like the Governor of Illinois.

Great, they have a lot in common...except in how they're being treated. At least Ted Stevens is going to have a hard time practicing law in Alaska, but does it matter? He's in his eighties. Stevens got the kid-glove treatment for far longer. Yes, there have been "ongoing investigations" into Blagojevich for years, which is not simply odd but smells of someone gunning for someone.

On Stevens's last day in the Senate, he was given a standing ovation. It wasn't reassuring that anything was about to change in Congress anytime soon. This is an individual--not a man--who was convicted of seven felonies by a jury of his peers. You read that right if you didn't somehow know it already: seven felony convictions. Stevens was also on committees and subcommittees that dealt directly with the DHS.

There's no indication from the record that he was ever stripped of any of his security clearances at any point until it was clear he was convicted and leaving office.

That's not the case with Blagojevich, and yet, the Bush II administration must be behind some of it--they still have sixteen days left in office, not the Obama team. Surely, they requested it--someone did--and it's safe to assume that it was for political reasons that cross party lines into the realms of class loyalty and preserving a rotten barrel. By all appearances, Ted Stevens retained his DHS security clearance (and his general security clearance as a sitting representative) until he was indicted in July 2008. Blagojevich hasn't even been indicted yet, but the calls to move quickly in unseating him stand in stark contrast with the treatment of other politicians accused of criminal behavior.

That's a matter of procedure at that point, but it should have been stripped from Stevens much earlier than it was, but Republicans can do anything they want.

Somehow, a man with seven felony convictions deserves a standing ovation before the Senate of the United States, while a standing governor of Illinois deserves no presumption of innocence until proven guilty, including the removal of said clearance, and so on. If that's not a contemptible attitude for due process to serve political ends, then nothing is. Republican senators did their best to block stripping Stevens from holding leadership roles on committees for exactly one year after the FBI raided his home. His indictment forced their hand.

Governor Blagojevich hasn't even technically been indicted yet and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald is asking for "more time" to shore-up one. Curious, that--all of it. Perhaps we'll all be singing "The Wreck of the Patrick Fitzgerald" before long.

Revised 01.04.2008

"Obama bristles as the bubble closes in" --Politco.com

"Journalism is the one solitary respectable profession which honors theft (when committed in the pecuniary interest of a journal,) & admires the thief...However, these same journals combat despicable crimes quite valiantly--when committed in other quarters."
--Mark Twain, 1880.

WWW--Can you blame Obama? Is it really necessary for the press to come along every time the presidential motorcade goes out on a jaunt for an ice cream cone, or when the president-elect/president wants to take his kids to a park? Is it really relevant at all, is it newsworthy? Of course not, and the press are taking umbrage at President-elect Barack Obama for suggesting otherwise.

Yes, it's more about that ugly little troll in the room (not the GOP), the Holy of Holies, "access." Sounds lewd--I know--but there it is.

Yet, they've done very little bickering over following the most powerful man in America besides Karl Rove (whose constant whereabouts never concerned them much during his unfortunate tenure-by-appointment in the White House) these last eight years: that would be Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been hiding in "undisclosed locations" more often than not.

After ordering a tuna melt on 12-grain bread, Obama approached reporters and placed his hand on the shoulder of pool reporter Philip Rucker of The Washington Post, who was scribbling away in his notebook.

“You don't really need to write all that down,” Obama said.

All presidents and would-be presidents struggle with “the bubble” – the security detail and the always-there reporters that impose barriers to any spontaneous interaction with the outside world. ("Obama bristles as the bubble closes in," Politico.com, 12.28.2008)

Right, this is the most important thing in the world, getting down exactly what the president-elect ordered at a Chicago deli, that's wonderful and a great example of cutting-edge journalism. But what do you expect from a publication that did its best to protect George W. Bush and his administration as much as it humanly could for "access"?

"Press gaggle" has a derisive ring to it that's inevitably earned, and there are valid reasons (like the above and aforementioned) why the public invariably hates the press and journalists. This is because they're human, vulnerable to pressure from established power (making most of them traditional appendages of someone else's agenda), and because they tend to get their facts wrong, often knowingly.

A wonderful local example should do: A past acquaintance of mine was sleeping in the basement of his parent's home when a fire started, trapping him for a time, but he managed to escape the flames. Somehow, his dog also escaped on its own. Eventually, the fire trucks and the press belatedly arrived--the firemen extinguishing the blaze, while creatively took their notes. The next day we all sat reading the story that contended he had "run into the house to heroically rescue the family dog."

The problem? Nothing of the sort ever happened--not ever--and he hadn't even mentioned anything resembling the newspaper account to the journalist. He got out of the house and the dog was found wandering around by a fireman (they tend frequently to smoke pot and like hookers, just an FYI). The journalist and their editors just thought a rescue would read as more interesting, giving those blessed column inches that added "human element", ostensibly to sell more papers with ad-space. I could go on and on. When you cry wolf too often, people stop listening and reading, which they're doing-in-droves with the newspapers. Very soon, they will be gone and they won't be missed.

This harping over President-elect Obama wanting his own personal space implies that this desire somehow has sinister implications to it, which is a pretty silly reaction to someone asking logical questions--watch him when it counts. If only the same attention had been paid to the Bush II administration, although it's not as though Congress or the Courts were going to do anything, we already know this. No, get close to "inside sources," cultivate them, and act like we actually have a "Fourth Estate," a myth of that peculiar religion of journalism that worships falsehood with enough of a smidgen-of-truth so that they can sleep better at night. Adversarialism with the political class? Get real.

Look: monitor any given president's activities on the Hill, in the Oval office, in his choice of appointments, in the legality of his policies and his behaviors, but don't tell me he had a tuna sandwich on 12-grain bread. Nobody but the senile or the emotionally retarded care about that particular piece-of-information.

You can take your "access" and shove it. Journalism should never have become a profession, and today, it's a joke on the rest of us.

"Obama bristles as the bubble closes in," Politico.com, 12.28.2008: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081228/pl_politico/16882

RNC delegate sees whore, is robbed of $50,000, then whines to the police and press, both of whom take the bait...

Minneapolis, Minnesota--This must be why they're downsizing all these newspapers lately (as well as creating these kinds of stories as a result of no support-staff).

Do I think his story is straight? Nope. What it has is the appearance of a dorky Republican attorney who tried to get laid with a hooker, was ripped-off, and then concocted some dumb story to cover his ass so he could report the theft.

El cheap-a-dora:

The delegate gave police a detailed description, but investigators had no suspects, Palmer said. He stressed that investigators don't believe Schwartz did anything wrong.

"It's embarrassing to admit that I was a target of a crime," Schwartz said in a statement Tuesday. "I was drugged and had about $50,000 of personal items stolen."("Tryst turns in $50K robbery for RNC delegate, AP, 09.16.2008)

And it's also embarrassing to be caught having sex with a woman for money while intoxicated, because that's the only reason any of them ever would have had it with a schlubb like Schwartz anyway. Why the hell would it be embarrassing to "admit [you] were the target of a crime"?! Because he had to pay for sex, then to add-insult-to-injury to his monolithic but equally-fragile ego, he was finally ripped-off by a hooker. You're just jealous. It's true, I am. Wouldn't you be?

The story is utter crap and Schwarz is lying. He was drugged alright--by his member, and possibly a toot. But if some lady of the night actually did this to a Republican Party delegate, good show, they've got it coming from prostitutes this year and from everyone else. Somehow, somewhere, Deborah Jeane Palfrey has gotten her tiny piece of revenge in another woman. Who needs reincarnation when we keep making the same stupid mistakes over-and-over again? Why bother? I tip my hat to the woman in the story--if she exists--and I wish her well. With luck, Schwartz won't be able to write it off on his taxes, the stupid schmuck.

It's good to see that the Minneapolis Police Department has calmed down enough from their police riots against war protesters to investigate something as important as this. Their indefatigable will to protect the incredibly unpopular couldn't be more American, just not in a good way, and they went too far as American policemen have traditionally done. Don't spend it in one place, lady, but spend it soon, before it's devalued again. So much for Minnesota nice, it's officially dead.

"Tryst turns in $50K robbery for RNC delegate, AP, 09.16.2008: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20080916/48cf2f40_3ca6_1552620080916-725458355

JUNE ROUNDUP: THE BEARDED INTRUDERS ROCK YOUR WORLD

College Corner, O-hi-o--This is a band featuring my old friend Joe Duke (sorry girls, he's taken). Joe's on lead-vocals, does some of the writing and playing with his friends John, Rob, and someone else I'm forgetting. ;0) The sound is psychedelia, maybe infused with a little postpunk-ala'-mondo weirdo. I like it, and these guys have a sense of humor about themselves (and everything) that's to my liking, and the music itself is pretty solid. Peculiar, but very funny and very good psyche with an edge.

If you stay in the Midwest, you only get weirder and more radicalized from the boredom. I'd say "Raise your fist and yell!" but someone else already did (Steve Wilson, eat your heart out you mere journalist). Their myspace page is a bourgeois-hoot! What a month it has been, here at J-7. It just felt right ending it on this note: Put your hands on your head, and get out of the car, sir. That'll learn ya.'

Bearded Intruders: http://www.myspace.com/beardedintruders