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8.8.13

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Military Resistance 11H7

Bradley Manning: Another Day In The USA, Another Political Prisoner

The Documents He Released Expose A Vast Abyss Of Treachery, Lies, High Crimes And Murders Committed By US Civilian And Military Officials

Like The Rest Of The US Ruling Class, The Obama Administration Fears The Truth, Fears Justice And Above All, Fears The American People
The Obama Administration Is Deadly Intent On Covering Up Past Crimes, Committing New Ones On Their Foundation
07/31/2013 by Bruce A. Dixon, Black Agenda Report [Excerpts]. Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. ************************************************************************* Another day in the USA, another political prisoner. This week a military judge pronounced US Army Private Bradley Manning guilty of espionage and other offenses. Private Manning admitted turning over 700,000 diplomatic cables and other documents, including a video of bloodthirsty US troops murdering a dozen or so innocent Iraqis for the crime of meeting on a street corner, to Wikileaks, a legitimate international press organization with a track record of exposing corporate and government wrongdoing on six continents. Manning testified in open court that he did this because he believed that the American people and the peoples of the world had a right to know what was being done in their names, and in some cases, what was being done to them. Manning, who has already suffered more than two years in solitary confinement, now faces entombment in the federal gulag for two, three or four decades, under conditions which amount to torture in any civilized jurisdiction on earth. But espionage is the act of spying for an alien interest such as a competing greedy corporation, or a foreign power. Private Manning acted transparently in the public interest. The documents he released expose a vast abyss of treachery, lies, high crimes and murders committed by US civilian and military officials.

Clearly the Obama administration, just like all its predecessors, is deadly intent on covering up past crimes, committing new ones on their foundation, and handing off the ability to do the same to its corporate and governmental successors. Bradley Manning is probably President Obama's premiere political prisoner. He is the unwilling and undeserving captive of the planet's foremost police, prison and surveillance state, in the tradition of Mumia Abu Jamal, of Jamil Al Amin, of Leonard Peltier, of Romaine Chip Fitzgerald, of the Cuban Five, Oscar Lopez Rivera, Russell Maroon Shoatz and many, many others. Current US political prisoners run the gamut from old Black Panthers and Puerto Rican independistas under hatches for decades to newly framed environmentalists, government whistleblowers and persons exposing dangerous and inhumane practices in agriculture and food processing. Like the rest of the US ruling class, the Obama administration fears the truth, fears justice and above all, fears the American people. They won't let a single political prisoner go, and are determined to bury alive as many new ones as it takes to continue their crime spree. Even now, in state and federal prisons across the country, what used to be called common criminals are being converted to political prisoners, as they are confined to solitary for years at a time for possession of what benighted prison administrators deem to be radical political literature, or mere names, like those of Huey Newton or George Jackson. Thus the last shreds of the prison state's supposed legitimacy are crumbling before our eyes.. If the Obama administration's job is to make more political prisoners, then our tasks are equally clear. We must educate our churches, workplaces and communities about them, to organize local and national campaigns to correspond with and support them, and to demand amnesty and freedom for US political prisoners. A good place to start is the Jericho Movement at http://www.thejerichomovement.com/

TROOPS INVITED:
Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or email contact@militaryproject.org: Name, I.D., withheld unless you request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Soldier From Lagrange Killed In Afghanistan

(Facebook photo) Stefan Smith July 24, 2013 LaGrange News Stefan Smith, a former LaGrange High wrestling standout and a member of the U.S. Army, was killed in Afghanistan Tuesday morning. Smith and two other American service members were killed in the attack that was carried out by a suicide bomber on a donkey. According to wire reports, the three Americans and four Afghan soldiers were killed in the attack, which took place around 8:30 a.m. Smith graduated from LaGrange High in 2008, and he only lost one match as a senior on the wrestling team. One of Smiths teammates at LaGrange, Clayton Bryant, said joining the military was a natural fit for his friend. That wasnt any surprise to anybody, Bryant said. I think everybody knew that was what was going to make him happy. Archie Dudley, another former LaGrange wrestler, said Smith loved a challenge, and I think the military was his best challenge.

LaGrange wrestling coach Scooter Weathers, who has been in contact with Smiths family, said Smith died doing what he loved doing. He loved his country, he loved his friends, he loved his family. He loved the LaGrange wrestling program. Hes going to be missed tremendously. There arent many people like him.

5 German Soldiers Wounded In Konduz

Aug. 7, 2013 WNA KONDUZ: Five German soldiers sustained injuries in a roadside mine explosion in Chardara district of Kunduz province, a German officer said Tuesday. According to Colonel Marx, a German military official in Kunduz, five German soldiers injured and their vehicle destroyed. Confirming the incident, a witness said a roadside mine planted by Taliban insurgents along Chardara district road was exploded while the German soldiers were patrolling the area.

POLITICIANS REFUSE TO HALT THE BLOODSHED THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WAR

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nations ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose. Frederick Douglass, 1852

It is a two class world and the wrong class is running it. -- Larry Christensen, Soldiers Of Solidarity & United Auto Workers

Anthony Weiner Selected As Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention Chief

Weiner discusses the dangers of sexual assault, and mentors troops on how to better hide their indiscretions. July 24, 2013 by Frederick Benteen, The Duffle Blog ARLINGTON, VA The Air Force announced Wednesday they had selected former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner as the top civilian at the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) office. The disgraced former U.S. Representative from New Yorks 9th Congressional district was chosen after an exhaustive and expensive search because, according to the units director Maj. General Margaret Woodward, he seemed like a great fit for the position. Woodward explained that to combat sexual assault one needs to think like a sexual deviant as other SAPR chiefs have done and with Weiner, she thinks she has her man.

Aside from being named Weiner, the former Congressman earned his infamous reputation in 2011 after sending up to six women sexually explicit photos and messages, one of them via his Twitter account. My misdeeds are in the past, Weiner said, with reporters noticing a horrible bulge in his pants. I am looking to make a positive impact in an area Ive cared about for a long time. The dynamic sexual assault duo of Weiner and Woodward are now faced with the daunting prospect of changing a chauvinistic culture in the Air Force that glorifies sexual victories and the subjugation of women. When asked about this culture, Weiner explained that he has a unique viewpoint from which to attack the problem. I expect to be very hands on, said Weiner, I want to get out, meet all of those Air Force girls, and let them know that they are not alone. The Department of Defense has long been plagued with public and embarrassing events involving sexual assault going as far back as the 1991 Tailhook scandal. However, 2013 has proven to be a banner year in sexual assault starting when two airmen were given clemency by generals in their chain of command after being convicted of sexual assault. Soon after, among other scandals, the SAPR chiefs at Fort Hood and Fort Campbell were disciplined for sexual infraction. In fact, Woodward filled the vacancy as the SAPR director after her predecessor Lt. Col. Jeffery Krusinski allegedly groped a woman in the Pentagon parking lot while under the influence of alcohol. Many sexual assault advocates feel that Woodward was under the influence of alcohol when choosing Weiner as her right hand man, claiming that this is just one more example of the Air Force not taking sexual crimes seriously. Weiner has an extensive background in public service, said Woodward, and I look forward to working with him and continuing his ongoing research of sexual deviancy. Mary Hill of the National Center for Sexual Assault disagrees with the choice. While Weiner didnt break laws, the Air Force shows a basic lack of common sense with this selection, said Hill. When asked if the appointment would negatively affect his chances of being elected to mayor of New York City, Weiner told reporters it wouldnt be nearly as bad as when the rest of the goddamn texts come out. At press time, Weiner was seen on the Brazzers website searching for military and backdoor in uniform to get a better feel for military culture.

STUCK ON STUPID

Super-Stupid Turkish Dictatorship Tries To Prohibit Political Crowd Chants At Soccer Games!
Besiktas Fans See Little Chance Of Government Legislation Silencing The Their Rebellious Nature

Besiktas fans show their black-and-white colors during an antigovernment protest in Istanbul's Taksim Square in June. Reuters August 6, 2013 By EMRE PEKERand JOE PARKINSON, Wall Street Journal [Excerpts] ISTANBULThe Turkish government's many efforts to curb dissent following the mass protests that shook the country in June have reached an unlikely new terrain: the soccer field. The famously raucous fans of Besiktas, one of Turkey's three leading soccer clubs, must now sign a pledge when buying tickets for the season starting this month not to

participate in chants during matches that could "trigger mass, political or ideological events." Besiktas's fan group Carsi whose name is a homage to the bazaar at the workingclass Istanbul neighborhood where the club is based was at the forefront of demonstrations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and coined a number of colorful antigovernment slogans. During the demonstrations, Carsi fans hijacked a construction excavator to chase an armored police vehicle, turning them into heroes for some protesters and leading to the detention of 22 people. The new soccer curbs follow the broadest-yet popular challenge to Mr. Erdogan's decadelong leadership. In an effort to counter alleged plots since the secular-leaning protests against Mr. Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government, Ankara also has stepped up surveillance and court actions against people and placed major companies under investigation. Since June, dozens of journalists who criticized the government have lost their jobs. Now, after fans of the three leading soccer clubs embraced the mass antigovernment protests, the government is trying to head off the potential for more civil unrest in the stadiums where they gather. Turkish soccer fans, especially those of Besiktas's Carsi, generally voice opposition during matches on many issues, ranging from nuclear power to racism to regional conflicts. In a statement, Besiktas said it requires season-pass holders to take a pledge of civility every year, and declined to comment further. Yet, club documents show that this year is the first time fans have been required to refrain from any political discourse. The pledge requirement began after Ankara received intelligence that antigovernment protests could erupt at matches, Interior Minister Muammer Guler said last week. He said Mr. Erdogan's cabinet had begun drafting a bill to regulate chanting at sports events. "It is for certain that political and ideological chants don't match the spirit of sports," Mr. Guler said. "The clubs are collecting the necessary pledges on this matter during ticket sales. Of course, this is something we are tracking." For now, Besiktas fans see little chance of government legislation silencing the their rebellious nature. "Being opposed to the establishment was something that always worked in favor of Besiktas fans, and especially the Carsi group," said Inanc Isik, a 33-year-old longtime fan.

"I don't see anything changing going forward."

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Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the email address if you wish and well send it regularly with your best wishes. Whether in Afghanistan or at a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to injustices, inside the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or write to: Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

Heroic Zionist Soldiers Assault A Twelve-Year-Old Palestinian:

They Grabbed A Second Boy, Islam By The Hair And Kicked Him
Settlers Invade Family Rooftop In Occupied Hebron:
The Fact That They Had Entered A Private Home Without Consent Of The Family Did Not Concern Them, On The Contrary They Expressed That They Felt It Was Their Right
August 3, 2013 International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team [Excerpts] Hebron, Occupied Palestine Saturday August 3rd was not a peaceful Saturday for the Palestinians in Hebron. At approximately 16.30 two settlers invaded the roof of the Abu Shamsiya family in Tel Rumeida, whilst three soldiers attacked a twelve year old boy in the street nearby. When the settlers on the roof were approached by internationals and told that they were on private property and therefore had to leave, they refused and said they came there every week. The fact that they had entered a private home without consent of the family did not concern them, on the contrary they expressed that they felt it was their right. When asked to leave the settlers behaved aggressively by yelling and continuously refusing to do so. After having argued with internationals one of the settlers threatened to lie to the soldiers and say that they had been hit by the internationals. He argued that even though it was not true, the soldiers would believe him over the international activists. [I]n the meantime three Israeli soldiers assaulted three young boys just down the street.

The soldiers started by harshly pushing one boy, afterwards they grabbed a second boy, Islam by the hair and kicked him. Thereafter a third boy ran to his house chased by the soldiers. When internationals asked why the military was chasing the boy, they lied and said the boys had been throwing stones. The boy said that he had simply ran because he was scared after having seen his twelve-year-old friend, Islam being brutally attacked by soldiers for no apparent reason. These are not unusual events. The Abu Shamsiya family is often victim of settler and military harassment, the familys roof is on street level and settlers often go there to throw stones, harass the family and break their property. Saturdays are particularly violent in Hebron, only last week both Abu Shamsiya and his son Muhammed were attacked by settlers whilst the military was watching, with Abu Shamsiya then being arrested on false charges while the settlers were freed without charges. Hebron has large settlements in the middle of the city housing approximately 500 settlers some of whom are extremely aggressive and violent. Additionally there are 2500 Israeli occupation soldiers stationed in the city.

Zionist Occupation Soldiers Detain Palestinian Five-Year-Old In Hebron: The Soldiers Threatened The Child And His Parents, Handcuffed And Blindfolded The Father, And Handed The Boy Over To The Palestinian Police
Detaining A Child Below The Age Of Criminal Responsibility, Especially One So Young, Has No Legal Justification

It is particularly troubling that none of them apparently thought any part of the incident was problematic: not the fact that they scared a five-year-old boy out of his wits, nor threatening him and his parents to "hand him over" to the Palestinian Police, nor threatening to arrest the father on no legal grounds, nor handcuffing and blindfolding the father in front of his son.". 11 Jul 2013 B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories [Excerpts] B'Tselem has written urgently to the Legal Adviser in Judea and Samaria, demanding his response to a grave incident in which soldiers detained a five-year-old boy in Hebron for two hours, after he threw a stone. The soldiers threatened the child and his parents, handcuffed and blindfolded the father, and handed the boy over to the Palestinian Police. Detaining a child below the age of criminal responsibility, especially one so young, has no legal justification. On Tuesday, 9 July 2013, at around 3:30 P.M., seven soldiers and an officer detained Wadi' Maswadeh, who is five years and nine months old (his birthdate on his mother's ID card: 24 September 2007) close to 'Abed checkpoint, near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, after he threw a stone. B'Tselem field researcher Manal al-Ja'bari, who was present at the scene, recorded the entire event on video. After local residents who had gathered at the spot tried to intervene, the soldiers put the crying child into a jeep with another Palestinian resident and took him home. When they reached the house, the officer informed Wadi's mother that he intended to hand him over to the Palestinian Police. The mother refused to let them take the child before his father, Karam, came home. About half an hour after Wadi' was detained, Karam Maswadeh came home. The officer informed Maswadeh that he was arresting his son in order to hand him over to the Palestinian Police. Meanwhile, Wadi'a had spent the entire time hiding behind a pile of mattresses in the house and crying. The parents made it clear to the officer that the child is five years old, but the officer insisted on taking him to the DCO and threatened them, saying that the army would arrest the father if they did not comply. The soldiers then made Karam and his son leave the house and walk to the army camp on a-Shuhada street.

"When I got home, I saw several soldiers standing at the entrance to my house. An officer came up to me and ordered me to get my son, Wadi'a. Before I got home, the soldiers had tried to persuade my wife to hand Wadi'a over, but she had refused to do it until I came back. The officer told me that he was going to arrest Wadi'a and hand him over to the Palestinian Coordination. I asked him: Why arrest a five-year-old boy? A soldier standing next to the officer showed me a stone and claimed that my son had thrown it, and that it had hit the car of a settler who was driving north, near 'Abed checkpoint. I tried to persuade the officer not to take Wadi' to the DCO, but he said that if I didn't bring him, I'd be arrested. () I went inside the house and got Wadi', who was hiding there. He was crying." Wadi' and his father were taken to the army base, where they were detained for half an hour. Then, the soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded Karam and walked him, in full public view, together with his son, to the Policeman's checkpoint (56), where the soldiers detained them for another thirty minutes. At that point, a lieutenant colonel arrived whom the father, who speaks Hebrew, understood to be an Israeli coordination officer from the DCO. The officer questioned Wadi' and asked him why he had thrown stones. He also reprimanded the soldiers for arresting the father and son in the presence of video cameras, and complained that "you're harming our public image". The officer made it clear to the soldiers that, when detainees are held with cameras around, they must be "treated nicely". Then, one of the soldiers untied the father's hands, removed his blindfold and gave him water. A few minutes later, an officer from the Palestinian DCO and several Palestinian policemen arrived. The soldiers handed Karam and Wadi' Maswadeh over to them, and the two were taken to a Palestinian police station, where they were briefly questioned and released. In her letter to the Legal Adviser to Judea and Samaria, B'Tselem Director Jessica Montell stated: "The footage clearly shows that this was not a mistake made by an individual soldier, but rather conduct that, to our alarm, was considered reasonable by all the military personnel involved, including senior officers. It is particularly troubling that none of them apparently thought any part of the incident was problematic: not the fact that they scared a five-year-old boy out of his wits, nor threatening him and his parents to "hand him over" to the Palestinian Police, nor threatening to arrest the father on no legal grounds, nor handcuffing and blindfolding the father in front of his son.".

Based on B'Tselem's ongoing experience, there appears to be a procedure in which soldiers detain Palestinian minors suspected of stone throwing and transfer them to the Palestinian Police, at the Palestinian DCO. In the case at hand, the soldiers apparently acted according to that procedure, which does not, and cannot, have any legal grounds when the minor is below the age of criminal responsibility. In the military judicial system in the West Bank, the age of criminal responsibility is 12, as in Israel. The legal meaning is that the security forces are not allowed to arrest or detain children under that age, even when they are suspected of having committed criminal offenses, and the authorities must deal with the law breaking in other ways. Indeed, B'Tselem has documented many incidents in which Israel minors under the age of criminal responsibility threw stones at Palestinians, and no measures were taken against them. Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel signed, minors must be protected in criminal proceedings, especially when they are so young. [To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation commanded by foreign terrorists, go to: www.rafahtoday.org The occupied nation is Palestine. The foreign terrorists call themselves Israeli.]

CLASS WAR REPORTS

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

Obama Regime Traitors Direct Police Agents To Lie About Program Used To Investigate And Arrest Americans:
Law Enforcement Agents Have Been Directed To Conceal How Such Investigations Truly Begin - Not Only From Defense Lawyers But Also Sometimes From Prosecutors And Judges

Federal Agents Are Trained To Recreate The Investigative Trail To Effectively Cover Up Where The Information Originated

Aug 5, 2013 By John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke, Reuters [Excerpts] A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

"I have never heard of anything like this at all," said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers. "It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations." The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred. Today, much of the SOD's work is classified, and officials asked that its precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential. "Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD." A spokesman with the Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA, declined to comment. But two senior DEA officials defended the program, and said trying to "recreate" an investigative trail is not only legal but a technique that is used almost daily. After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as "parallel construction."

"It's just like laundering money - you work it backwards to make it clean," said Finn Selander, a DEA agent from 1991 to 2008 and now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which advocates legalizing and regulating narcotics. Some defense lawyers and former prosecutors said that using "parallel construction" may be legal to establish probable cause for an arrest. But they said employing the practice as a means of disguising how an investigation began may violate pretrial discovery rules by burying evidence that could prove useful to criminal defendants. "That's outrageous," said Tampa attorney James Felman, a vice chairman of the criminal justice section of the American Bar Association. "It strikes me as indefensible." Lawrence Lustberg, a New Jersey defense lawyer, said any systematic government effort to conceal the circumstances under which cases begin "would not only be alarming but pretty blatantly unconstitutional." Lustberg and others said the government's use of the SOD program skirts established court procedures by which judges privately examine sensitive information, such as an informant's identity or classified evidence, to determine whether the information is relevant to the defense. "You can't game the system," said former federal prosecutor Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. "You can't create this subterfuge. These are drug crimes, not national security cases. If you don't draw the line here, where do you draw it?" Some lawyers say there can be legitimate reasons for not revealing sources. Robert Spelke, a former prosecutor who spent seven years as a senior DEA lawyer, said some sources are classified. But he also said there are few reasons why unclassified evidence should be concealed at trial. "It's a balancing act, and they've doing it this way for years," Spelke said. "Do I think it's a good way to do it? No, because now that I'm a defense lawyer, I see how difficult it is to challenge." One current federal prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. In a Florida drug case he was handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor pressed for more information, he said, a DEA supervisor intervened and revealed that the tip had actually come through the SOD and from an NSA intercept. "I was pissed," the prosecutor said. "Lying about where the information came from is a bad start if you're trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court." The prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in the investigation, he said.

The DEA has long publicly touted the SOD's role in multi-jurisdictional and international investigations, connecting agents in separate cities who may be unwittingly investigating the same target and making sure undercover agents don't accidentally try to arrest each other. Since its inception, the SOD's mandate has expanded to include narco-terrorism, organized crime and gangs. A DEA spokesman declined to comment on the unit's annual budget. A recent LinkedIn posting on the personal page of a senior SOD official estimated it to be $125 million. Today, the SOD offers at least three services to federal, state and local law enforcement agents: coordinating international investigations such as the Bout case; distributing tips from overseas NSA intercepts, informants, foreign law enforcement partners and domestic wiretaps; and circulating tips from a massive database known as DICE. The DICE database contains about 1 billion records, the senior DEA officials said. The majority of the records consist of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. Records are kept for about a year and then purged, the DEA officials said. About 10,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agents have access to the DICE database, records show. They can query it to try to link otherwise disparate clues. As a practical matter, law enforcement agents said they usually don't worry that SOD's involvement will be exposed in court. That's because most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial and therefore never request to see the evidence against them. If cases did go to trial, current and former agents said, charges were sometimes dropped to avoid the risk of exposing SOD involvement. Current and former federal agents said SOD tips aren't always helpful - one estimated their accuracy at 60 percent. But current and former agents said tips have enabled them to catch drug smugglers who might have gotten away. "It was an amazing tool," said one recently retired federal agent. "Our big fear was that it wouldn't stay secret." DEA officials said that the SOD process has been reviewed internally. They declined to provide Reuters with a copy of their most recent review.

It May Have Taken The BushCheney Gang To Initiate The SoCalled War On Terror

Only A Black Democrat In The White House Could Make It OK In The Eyes Of Black And White Liberals To Bring That War Home In The Forms Of Border Walls, Universal Surveillance, And The Sharing Of That Surveillance Data With Local Cops Violations Of Due Process, Mass Incarceration, Vacuum Cleaner Surveillance Of The Digital Lives And Correspondence Of All Americans, Are Beneath The Notice Of Black And White Democrats

Black Agenda Report 08/07/2013 by Bruce A. Dixon, Black Agenda Radio Commentary. Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. **********************************************************************************

The racist and hypocritical and failed war on terror has something in common with the racist, hypocritical and failed war on drugs. I mean, something new, not merely that they're both based on lies to propagate public fear, or that they're both great white holes politicians of both parties can shove billions of dollars into, making contractors wealthy and their own jobs secure. A Monday morning Reuters news story confirms that the NSA shares unknown quantities of its vacuum cleaner surveillance of every American's electronic communications and whereabouts with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which duly passes it on to thousands of state and local police agencies in every jurisdiction. Just as the power-mad generals at NSA pretends that everything they do is perfectly legal, DEA spokespeople also assure us that no laws are broken, even though their own manuals counsel local police to lie about their sources of information, and instruct them, where possible to fogey up so-called reconstructive investigations to yield material usable in court and free from annoying exculpatory evidence. The information pipeline between the NSA, the DEA, your local police departments and assorted contractors is not overseen, even by legislators sworn to secrecy or clandestine courts. All oversight is in the hands of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a federal agency created for the express purpose of publicizing, politicizing and prosecuting the failed 40 years war on drugs. Given this complete lack of oversight, can we even begin to take seriously their declarations about the limits the information they pass on and the uses they put it to? If the Bush-Cheney gang were still in the White House, the assurances of NSA generals and DEA cops, along with purported inquiries into the legality of these practices by a Department of Justice which recently pronounced that being profiled at a White House Terror Tuesday meetings was all the due process required before summary execution by drone these assurances would be met with a relentless storm of disbelief and ridicule. But in the upside down universe of liberals in this, the age of Obama, violations of due process, mass incarceration, vacuum cleaner surveillance of the digital lives and correspondence of all Americans, and passing the results of this unconstitutional surveillance on to local police are beneath the notice of black and white Democrats, and unworthy of comment, even by black leaders who claim to oppose mass incarceration. It may have taken the Bush-Cheney gang to initiate the so-called War on Terror. But only Barack Obama., only a black Democrat in the White House could make it OK in the eyes of black and white liberals to bring that war home in the forms of border walls, universal surveillance, and the sharing of that surveillance data with local cops who conceal its origin at the same time they claim that everything they do is legal.

And nobody even laughs.

Vietnam GI: Reprints Available

[THEY STOPPED AN IMPERIAL WAR]

Edited by Vietnam Veteran Jeff Sharlet from 1968 until his death, this newspaper rocked the world, attracting attention even from Time Magazine, and extremely hostile attention from the chain of command. The pages and pages of letters in the paper from troops in Vietnam condemning the war are lost to history, but you can find them here. Military Resistance has copied complete sets of Vietnam GI. The originals were a bit rough, but every page is there. Over 100 pages, full 11x17 size. Free on request to active duty members of the armed forces. Cost for others: $15 if picked up in New York City. For mailing inside USA add $5 for bubble bag and postage. For outside USA, include extra for mailing 2.5 pounds to wherever you are. Checks, money orders payable to: The Military Project Orders to: Military Resistance Box 126 2576 Broadway New York, N.Y.

10025-5657 All proceeds are used for projects giving aid and comfort to members of the armed forces organizing to resist todays Imperial wars.

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