121Contact

May 27 2012 Dept. of Homeland Security Forced to Release List of Keywords Used to Monitor Social Networking Sites

Forbes reports: Dept. of Homeland Security Forced to Release List of Keywords Used to Monitor Social Networking Sites

And 121Contact comments: Make no mistake, the DHSS word list is an attack on our domestic security. Whether or not it is a practice drill, this exercise by law enforcement is a toxic  intrusion and a threat to our security. This Homeland Security response marks an epidemic of paranoia that pervades the DHS, FEMA, USCG, CBP, USSS, NOC, ICE, CIA, DEA, SBI, FBI, ATF, CIS, FAMS, TSA, FAA, and the UN.

Are we to be taken hostage  by this breach of our constitution? We think the police would be focused on organized crime, gangs, looting, shootings, riots, and national security, not on the recovery  of certain words and phrases. We cannot recall an outbreak, or plague, of government intrusion in the name of emergency response that equals this plume of infection of our ‘free’ space.  

What’s next in this assassination of freedom? Is the agent/air marshall sitting next to me reporting me for saying, “This word screening makes for an explosive political standoff.”?

[The full list is on the Forbes site.]

May 8, 2012 NRA invades Iraq: New gun laws ensure peace and tranquility

In a startling development the U.S. National Rifle Association has successfully invaded Iraq.No American media has reported on the issue, nor have they reported on the the following:

CRI (1) reports that the Iraqi government on Sunday legalized the possession of one gun in each house in the country, as Iraqi army soldiers started the gradual handover of security control to the police, government officials said.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said in a statement that the Iraqi security authority "decided to license a rifle or a pistol in each house, on condition that the owner must register it (the gun) in the nearest police station."

Violence in Iraq has ebbed from its climax in 2006 and 2007 when sectarian conflicts pushed the country to the brink of a civil war, but sporadic shootings and bombings still occur across the country.

That Maliki's government decided the best way to still the violence is to arm each household can only be explained by a coordinated and evidently successful  attack by the NRA. 
No NRA spokesperson agreed to comment. (Actually, no NRA spokesperson was asked to comment.)

1) China Radio International , (CRI) is the only overseas broadcaster in the People's Republic of China. CRI was founded on December 3, 1941 and is owned and operated by the state. CRI is one of the "three central media organizations in China" along with China National Radio (CNR) and China Central Television (CCTV).

 

April 1 2012 Getting Rachel Maddow's "Drift", The Constitution, and you.

Rachel Maddow's "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power"  is a sometimes humorous look (she can't help it) at:

1-the depressing distance the American Government has put between itself (especially the Executive) and the Constitution,

2-the depressing extent to which the Military operates beyond the knowledge and control of the legislature (let's hear it for the Contractors, public and private), and

3-the depressing state of our Nuclear Arsenal and its attendant, uselessly rising, costs.

One of the first things many Iraqi refugees we met in New York said, with uniform incredulity, was "There's no war here." This book goes a long way to explaining why.

It is the unmooring of the American people from the realities of our foreign policy actions that is most worrisome to me.

Did you know that in the last 2 years there were 182 U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan? [New America Foundation] Some 1,280 people died in these dronings. Most of America knows nothing about this.

U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye the number of nations in which U.S. Special Forces will be operating in 2012 "will likely reach 120." [Nick Turse, Salon] This includes operations in which there are only Contractors with no legal accountability.

Unfortunately, Maddow's proscription for change fails to move me to more optimism. Her ideas are fine. "Let's do away with the secret military" is a good thought, but how? How can this trend of out-of-popular-control be reversed?

It will take a transformation of the American psyche. More facts will help. Exposing the truth of the extralegal, extraconstiturional, beyond oversight mechanisms [like Maddow's "Drift"] will help, but the change must be deeper than statistics. Our failure to act to oppose and change these systems is not just a deficit of information. It is a moral failure. I must admit that the solution eludes me.

 

March 26 2012 ...governmental infrastructure complicit in the growth of anti-muslim sentiment...?

Is the U.S. governmental infrastructure complicit in the growth of anti-muslim sentiment?  

An internal FBI investigation into its counter terrorism training has purged hundreds of bureau documents of instructional material about Muslims, some of which characterized them as prone to violence or terrorism. [wired.com] This spread of bias at the top of law enforcement cannot help but trickle down in the worst way.

New York City's Mayor ( M. Bloomberg)and its Police Commissioner (R.  Kelly) both defend the patently illegal spying on Mosques, Muslim Community and College groups, and individual Muslims in all walks of life without any other reason save that they are Muslim. [Huffington Post] This effectively plans the seeds of bias in the general population.

The difference in the speed of attention paid by federal law enforcement to the cases of Shaima Alawadi and Trayvon Martin emphasizes alack of concern about anti-Muslim violence. The former murder remains a local issue, while the latter has attracted Federal attention. Shaima's murder, as a hate crime requires, by the  1994 Federal law#103-322A, the same level of attention from the Feds.

The 50% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2011 alone [The Atlantic] would seem to indicate that the Feds, and New York City's self-appointed illegal spies, should focus a bit more on American terrorists who target Muslims.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 3 2012 Do you support Civilian Trials for terrorists? Open your eyes.

For those of you who so passionately support civilian trials of suspected terrorists I suggest two things:  1) a visit to FreeTarek.com, and 2) take a long hard look at our post-9/11 Justice system. You might try a visit to the Center for Consitutional Rights.

Bragging about the conviction rate of terrorists in civilian courts ignores the abolition of defendants' rights in this War on Terror that justifies so much, accomplishes so little, and alienates so many. It also has a high likelihood of putting innocent people in jail, or perhaps worse, in the endless limbo of indefinite detention.

We headed out to see Karen Malpede's Another Life at the Irondale Center last night. It'll be there until 3/24 and it's worth seeing; for the inspired writing, passionate performances, and sadly accurate skewering of America's pathetic, violent, and irrational response to 9/11.

Since October, 2009 Tarek Mehanna has been held in pre-trial 23-hour solitary confinement because he is a suspected terrorist.

Tarek's web site presents his case  quite clearly. His brother spoke after the play last night and we found him credible. Of course we haven't attended the trial, haven't read all the relevant documents, etc., and don't know if he is really guilty or not. But it is not hard to believe that he was set up, knocked down like a bowling pin, and stuck away for what could be the rest of his life. All this on what appears to be flimsy evidence at best, and possible a fabrication.

The sad state of the U. S. Constitution today:

• extraordinary rendition to make sure that torture is not done on American soil,
• the right of the President, without judicial oversight, to declare a person a valid target for assassination,
• the FBI's right to declare someone a terrorism suspect, and thereby negate his/her constitutional rights,
• the Government's, Federal and Local (e.g. New York City's Police Department) illegal surveillance and wiretapping,
• the classification of many First Amendment activities as “material support” to groups the U.S. has labeled as terrorist organizations.

Yes, the list is longer, and yes it is frightening. A whisper of fear rises at the thought of dark consequences for even mentioning his name.

Military trials for terrorists may be an abomination, but civilian trials aren't necessarily better if the interpretation of our Constitution is so distorted as to make the rights of defendants disappear.

March 4 2012 New York Times quote on Falling Man poster

Hoorah for Rita Lasar's NYTimes words about the Mad Men's Falling Man poster, “I am so worn out by you guys coming to us in order to create a kerfuffle where none exists,” wrote Rita Lasar, whose brother was Abraham J. Zelmanowitz [killed on 9/11]. “You may think you are being sensitive to our feelings, but in reality you are just using us so you can write a story that refers only to your own feelings.”

The media these days seems focused only on the sensational. When they can't find it they try to drum it up themselves. It reminds me of when a Mosque was proposed in the Ground Zero neighborhood. I got an email from the New York Post. It said that if I was opposed to the mosque, as a family member who lost Mitch Wallace on 9/11, they would be intersted in my comment.

Now they are poking around for anti-advert comments. For what? To stir up a bit of dust...to blind us to the real issues that face us.

Where are the stories about the people who toil in non-violent ways to move this world to more peaceful tomorrows...like Fatma Benli. Have you heard of her? Why not?

 

Nov 5 2011 Maliki's Shameful Attacks on Sunnis, and Sadaam's Attacks on Shiites

Maliki's Shameful Attacks on Sunnis, and Sadaam's Attacks on Shiites
November 5, 2011 by Bruce Wallace 121Contact

We don't disagree with the New York Times editorial of Nov. 5, 2011 titled, "The Prime Minister and the Sunnis" 

We do, however note that the sentence, "The majority Shiites were badly persecuted under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime" oversimplifies a complex situation, and marks history from an arbitrary and biased point.

Sadaam's greatest travesties against the Shiite population were not against 'the majority Shiia', but were focused attacks on particular groups of Shiia that he perceived as specific enemies of his government. In both the North and the South of Iraq there were groups of Shiia that were aiding the Iranians in the Iraq/Iran war. Sadaam sought to punish these groups with sadistic, broad attacks that killed many innocent people along with his perceived enemies, but they were not random aggressions motivated by religious concerns. We don't condone these attacks. They were a brutal part of his most brutal years in power. We do, however, wish to put them in a broader historical context.

On the other hand, Maliki's recent roundups of Sunnis, especially in Mosul and Baghdad, seem to target random groups based solely upon their religious beliefs. The perception of sectarian oppression is once again becoming widespread and this elevates the spectre of sectarian violence to levels unseen in years. Maliki also effectively banned Mosul's non-violent civil protests against these detentions by imposing a curfew the night before the planned events.

We call on Maliki to free those recently arrested without charges, allow non-violent civil demonstrations, and move a little closer to the Rule of Law which holds so much promise for the Iraqi people.

 

Aug 12 2011 US Police State in Action:

The Rule of Law in the Wrong Hands is the rule of despots

Shutting down cell service to prevent rumored protest

Posted by David Pescovitz on Friday, Aug 12th at 11:47am

Yesterday, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system had word that a protest in the system was planned to rally against a BART police shooting last month in which a man was killed. To nip any protest in the bud, BART shut down cell phone service on the train platforms. From the Bay Citizen:

The commute went on without a hitch, but no one could get cell phone service on the platforms or the trains. KTVU reported that BART's media relations department suggested cutting off the cell service during the protests.

BART police Lieut. Andy Alkire told Bay City News that while it was unusual to kill cell phone service, it was "a great tool to utilize for this specific purpose" with the agency facing a potentially volatile situation.

 

posted here Aug 12 2011 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

Dec 31 2011 All US forces withdrawn from Iraq

Is it too early to begin the campaign to fulfill America's promise to remove all forces from Iraq by the end of the year?

What shall we do to make this promise a reality? How can we ensure America's return to the Rule of Law?

Your comments are welcome.

 

 

Feb 11 2011 Iraq Corruption Protests: Now the Lawyers are in the Streets

Iraq's protests against the Maliki government corruption and policies continue in the streets around the country. Media representatives have already marched in protest of extravagant usage fees and now the countries lawyers are taking part. Will this movement spread to other areas? We don't know, but  think it is time that Maliki and his Iran-facing cohorts start facing the Iraqi people's demands.

From a blog post by by Nafia Abdul-Jabbar (AFP) – Feb. 11, 20111

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of lawyers took to the streets across Iraq on Thursday to protest against widespread corruption and unemployment in demonstrations inspired by anti-government uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

The demonstrations in Baghdad, Karbala, Kut, Ramadi and Amara came a day after Iraq's anti-corruption chief said ministers frequently covered up graft in their departments.

In the capital, around 500 people, mostly lawyers but also including some tribal sheikhs, called for the government to open up so-called "secret prisons" to scrutiny, give detainees access to legal counsel and take stronger measures to fight corruption and boost employment. [more]