Constant's pations

If it's more than 30 minutes old, it's not news. It's a blog.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

DoJ Secret Report: They lied about 10,000 AlQueda in US

DoJ can't find AlQueda. So why did we ever need the Patriot Act? ABC News reveals they have reviewed a classified DoJ report where analysts report they were unable to find any sleeper cells in the United States.

Brilliant. What excellent timing! This will be a good issue to bring up at the 21-22 Mar conference at the "Emerging Issues in National and International security."

Time to have an open discussion at the American University, Washington College of Law: What’s been going on for the last 3 ½ years?

As in: Why all the public statements stating DoJ needed new tools to go after the “obvious threat," yet there being no evidence to back up that claim?

The American University is a distinguished institution. Perhaps we will have the opportunity to have a real public debate, one that should have taken place on the floor of Congress after 9-11.

But, they chose not to. Rather, Congress bowed down to DoJ-personnel who worked closely with the committees to draft legislation that destroyed the Constitution. Yet, each time DoJ is challenged, DoJ points to the invisible bogey man.

ABC's report reveals the truth. There is no bogey man. There are no sleeper cells. And DoJ has been lying.

It's now time to subject DoJ to the same intrusions and oversight that the civilian population has been subjected to.

I encourage participants at the "Emerging Issues in National and International Security" to really take the time to consider whether all this hoopla about terrorism warranted the Patriot Act; and why we should continue to believe DoJ in their public statements.

DoJ has a credibility problem. Their agents mistreat the public, refuse to take complaints. Now we know why. DoJ has known there were no sleeper cells, so there was no reason to take complaints.

Yet, Homeland Security continued to issue terror warnings. Changed the colors. Why are we still using this terror notification system, but there are no sleeper cells?

But that’s only the beginning. There’s a long list of questions which Congress needs to look into. And there need some straight answers.

Gone are the days of DoJ and the White House being able to say, “We can’t talk about that.”

The courts in Hamdii and Padilla have both found that the constitution does still exist, contrary to what Congress may have decided in passing the Patriot Act.

Yet, more immediately, we can only speculate as to why the current intelligence czar has to spend five [count them, 5] hours preparing each day to brief the President.

Surely, if there are no sleeper cells, what possibly could the President be asking questions about? Indeed, today’s revelation that the President now wants to go after the IRA in Northern Ireland should come as no surprise.

The President needs distractions. For if there are no AlQueda sleeper cells, then the question becomes: What was the basis to detain those peaceful bystanders at the RNC Convention?

What was the basis to take people on Gulf Streams and keep them off the Red Cross rolls?

What basis has there been to torture, kill, and cover up evidence of war crimes in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan?

What plausible explanation can we hear as to why domestic law enforcement refuses to take complaints about real problems?

Surely, DoJ and law enforcement talk to each other. Yet, why has the public been deceived for this many years about the “need to put up with intrusions” in order to keep the country free?

There is no need.

It is now time to clean up this mess. To have a full accounting. To get some straight answers:

  • Why was Sibel Edmonds treated the way she was? Why did DoJ say that the problems could not be discussed?

    The answer appears that DoJ wanted to delay public awareness of what would otherwise translate into greater oversight of DoJ at the very time DoJ was lobbying for an extension of the Patriot Act.

    Yet, why give more power to DoJ? They’ve had 3 ½ years to find things. Even been given carte blanche by an rubber stamping Congress to Commit war crimes, and the FBI is still unable to come up with evidence. Only allegations. And even those the courts can’t find anything.

  • Why has DoJ been given free reign to have greater FISA wiretaps? They’ve had all this time to put the pieces together, and now we find out there are no pieces.

    It’s time to take the oversight toys away.

  • Why is anyone to believe that “the wall” between CIA and FBI should not be re-erected? The communication problem prior to 9-11 had nothing to do with the wall, especially when there is no information that they can share.

    Rather, despite the wall, the President was given fair notice of the 52 FAA warnings, yet chose to do nothing about the fifty-two [count them, 52] FAA warnings.

  • What is to be said of the real domestic terrorists, those ones who attacked the RNC offices?

    Answer: If the FBI is saying there are no sleeper cells, then who within the RNC could possibly benefit by having an investigation into the attacks on the RNC?

    Put another way, if the FBI is saying that there are no sleeper cells, but we still have people running around who attack the RNC offices, then the reasonable person would ask, “Who within the RNC orchestrated these pre-election attacks on their own offices?”

  • Why is law enforcement getting a green light to continue to spew out non-sense about the excuses for not taking complaints?

    42 USC 1983 gives the US citizens the federally protected right to file complaints. Yet, all this time Americans have been told, “We can’t deal with these minor issues, because we have a greater threat to deal with.”

    Now the truth is known. There was no threat. DoJ, FBI, and local law enforcement simply created a ruse to justify doing what they always do: Bungle investigations, make excuses to do nothing, and blame those who are naïve enough to believe that local law enforcement has the requisite skills to do anything resembling professionalism.

    Rather, it is only through close public oversight, questions, and credible accountability that law enforcement can justify public confidence.

    Yet, it is with through the Patriot Act that law enforcement has been given a shield; and that the needed wall between CIA and FBI has been stripped.

    It is time to re-erect the wall between the CIA and FBI. There was nothing that stopped the President from learning about the 52 FAA warnings.

    It is also time for the public to bring forward 42 USC 1983 claims against law enforcement.

    It’s been 3 ½ years. And all this time the public has been lectured as to why they have to put up with intrusions, flight delays, non-sense questions, and huge databases under ChoicePoint.

    For what? What reasonable purpose did this support. Again, FBI reminds us that there are no AlQueda sleeper cells. Despite Echelon, heightened intrusions, and interrogating the public, DoJ has found nothing.

    There are no ghosts. There are only those who wish to use the threat of ghosts as an excuse to destroy the constitution.

    Remember what happened. Do not forget. How the nation was manipulated to give up their rights in order to chase the ghosts.

    The constitution still exists. There are no ghosts. It is time to have a full accounting for what’s been happening.

    Obviously the adult supervision from the White House has been wanting. Thus, we leave it to the courts to inject some semblance of sanity where it has been woefully lacking at the highest levels.

    The President said, “Bring it on.” Let’s hope he can stand up to the close questions about why his personnel leaked names, spewed forth lies, and provided no evidence to justify this reign of non-sense.

    But why would we expect anything else from a man who needs a wire in his ear to tell him what to say.

    This doesn’t look like Kansas, Toto. Let's hope the participants at the 21-22 Mar 2005 "Merging Issues in National and International Security" at the American University College of Law consider these concerns.

    It is hoped that the public discussion might spark some enterprising attorney to review who within DoJ has failed to adequately supervise the agents and has allowed to be issued false and materially misleading information in order to annoy the civilian population.

    There seems to be a credible basis to ask, given the non-existence of the sleeper cells, to ask whether there was an orchestrated plan to intimidate the civilian population.

    Such a charge, if proven true, would show the American public who remains a real threat: DoJ and their ruses to intimidate the public.