Ex-MI5 chief 'astonished' at how many organisations use anti-terror law

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) was passed in 2000 to regulate the way that public bodies such as the police and the security services carry out surveillance. Originally only a handful of authorities were able to use RIPA but its scope has been expanded enormously and now there are at least 792 organisations using it, including hundreds of local councils.

This has generated dozens of complaints about anti-terrorism legislation being used to spy on, for example, a nursery suspected of selling pot plants unlawfully, a family suspected of lying about living in a school catchment area, and paperboys suspected of not having the right paperwork.

Now those campaigning against the abuse of RIPA have got a new ally – Lady Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5. In a speech in the House of Lords yesterday, she said she was "astonished" when she found out how many organisations were getting access to RIPA powers.

When RIPA was introduced … I assumed wrongly that the activities authorised by that legislation would be confined to the intelligence and security agencies, the police, and Customs and Excise. The legislation was drafted at the urgent request of the intelligence and security community so that its techniques would be compatible with the Human Rights Act when it came into force in 2000. I can remember being astonished to read that organisations such as the Milk Marketing Board, and whatever the equivalent is for eggs, would have access to some of the techniques. On the principle governing the use of intrusive techniques which invade people's privacy, there should be clarity in the law as to what is permitted and they should be used only in cases where the threat justified them and their use was proportionate.

Apparently she also raised a laugh when she told peers how to pronounce the acronym for the act. "Those of us in the intelligence community call it 'Ripper', as in 'Jack the', and not 'Reaper', as in 'the Grim'," she said.

~ The Guardian ~

Australian SAS units function as death squads in Afghanistan

An Australian Defence Department (ADD) report published in October, and highlighted on November 26 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Lateline" program, provides a rare account of the shameful operations being performed by the Australian military as part of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan.

The units most involved are from the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) and the Fourth Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (4RAR), the Army's designated commando battalion. These are highly trained troops and their ostensible role in times of war is to carry out long range reconnaissance, surveillance, harassment or raids on enemy targets. In the so-called "war on terror", they are being used as little more than death squads.

The ADD report presents the findings of an inquiry into a September 17 Australian operation that resulted in the mistaken killing of Rozi Khan, the pro-occupation governor of Chora district in Uruzgan province and a long-time colleague of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. The intended target, codenamed "Musket" by the Australian military, was an alleged member of the Islamist Taliban movement. While much of the mission statement remains censored, it is apparent that a squad was sent out to storm into the man's house in the dead of night and execute him in cold blood.

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Rumsfeld responsible for torture, report says

A bipartisan Senate report released today says that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials are directly responsible for abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and charges that decisions by those officials led to serious offenses against prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere.

The Senate Armed Services Committee report accuses Rumsfeld and his deputies of being the principal architects of the plan to use harsh interrogation techniques on captured fighters and terrorism suspects, rejecting the Bush administration's contention that the policies originated lower down the command chain.

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the panel concludes. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

The report, released by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., and based on a nearly two-year investigation, said that both the policies and resulting controversies tarnished the reputation of the United States and undermined national security. "Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority," it said.

The panel's investigation focused on the Defense Department's use of controversial interrogation practices, including forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and use of dogs. The practices, some of which had already been adopted by the CIA at its secret prisons, were adapted for interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and later migrated to U.S. detention camps in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

"The Committee's report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody," McCain, himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, said in a statement. "These policies are wrong and must never be repeated."

White House officials have maintained the measures were approved in response to demands from field officers who complained that traditional interrogation methods weren't working on some of the more hardened captives. But Senate investigators, relying on documents and hours of hearing testimony, arrived at a different conclusion.

The true genesis of the decision to use coercive techniques, the report said, was a memo signed by President Bush on Feb. 7, 2002, declaring that the Geneva Convention's standards for humane treatment did not apply to captured al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. As early as that spring, the panel said, top administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, participated in meetings in which the use of coercive measures was discussed. The panel drew on a written statement by Rice, released earlier this year, to support that conclusion.

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U.S. collective dictatorship enlarges

Dictatorship is unlimited rule. Collective dictatorship is unlimited rule by an assembly. National government in the U.S. has tended toward collective dictatorship over its entire history.

No new alarm bell is rung when I say that the U.S. collective dictatorship is now enlarging, for that is its usual tendency. We recognize this tendency at the grass-roots level by the increasing control that government has over our personal lives. There is almost nothing that we do that is not touched by government rules and power. We cannot work, play, invest, obtain medical care, drive a car, eat, smoke, speak, gesture, wash, have a baby, buy or sell a good, or even have a bowel movement without encountering the government.

Yet the alarm bell needs now more than ever to be rung loudly and vigorously, for the most recent enlargement is coming in the area of financial control over the banking system and thus the economy. What is left of liberty in America faces an extremely dangerous threat. It is all the more serious because it is not widely recognized as a threat.

To understand what is happening now in the U.S., it is useful to compare the parallel developments that occurred in Nazi Germany. The German central bank, the Reichsbank, was far more restricted by law (before 1939) than our central bank, the Federal Reserve (Fed) in the kinds and amounts of loans it could make. The Fed, in this sense, is far more powerful than the Reichsbank was before 1939. The Reichsbank was, like the Fed, independent of the government. The German government could not order it to make loans to the government, for example. This situation changed in 1939 when the Nazi government needed more funds to finance its armament build-up. At that point, the government basically absorbed the Reichsbank.

It helps to read the words of Hjalmar Schacht, who headed the Reichsbank between 1933 and the time of his dismissal in early 1939. Schacht is something of a controversial figure in history. In 1946 he was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg where he testified. Dr. Schacht, who was acquitted, had ended up in a concentration camp. An extended discussion of Schacht's activities that brings out the negatives is contained here. A less critical account is here.

Here is some of what Schacht testified that is germane today:

"Consequently, when it became clear that Hitler was working toward a further increase in rearmament – and I spoke about that yesterday in connection with the conversation of the 2nd of January, 1939 – when we became aware of that, we wrote the memorandum which has been quoted here and is in the hands of this Tribunal as an exhibit. It indicates clearly that we opposed every further increase of State expenditure and would not assume responsibility for it. From that, Hitler gathered that he would in no event be able to use the Reichsbank with its present directorate and president for any future financial purposes. Therefore, there remained only one alternative; to change the directorate, because without the Reichsbank he could not go on. And he had to take a second step; he had to change the Reichsbank Law. That is to say, an end had to be put to the independence of the Reichsbank from governmental decrees. At first he did that in a secret law – we had such things – of 19th or 20th January, 1939. That law was published only about six months later. That law abolished the independence of the Reichsbank, and the president of the Reichsbank became a mere bank teller for the credit demands of the Reich or, that is to say, of Hitler."

Schacht makes crystal clear that the central bank was essential for the government to be able to arm the country and make war. Without the bank, Hitler "could not go on." He would not be able to use the bank "for any future financial purpose" such as paying for armaments. Furthermore, if the bank would not cooperate, then "an end had to be put to the independence of the Reichsbank from governmental decrees." That having been done by Hitler, the president of the bank "became a mere bank teller for the credit demands of the Reich or, that is to say, of Hitler."

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Bank of America's greed sparked the eye-opening worker's strike in Chicago

It seems like forever now that we have been hearing about the importance of the Wall Street "bailout", and how that was the only way that we as taxpayers could avoid an even worse financial crisis in the U.S. The idea was that if we gave the big banks and credit markets access to about $700 billion dollars (or so), they would in turn help small businesses to keep operating and keep U.S. workers employed.

At least that's what I thought it was supposed to be about.

Tell that to the 300 United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) members that, up until this past Friday, had jobs at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago.

Bank of America, our country's second largest bank, did indeed take $25 billion dollars of "bailout cash", then gave the shaft to that company and its workers by refusing to renew and extend it any operating credit to stay in business through the economic downturn. Just close the doors and throw the workers out onto the street without any notice in freezing temperatures right before the holidays, Bank of America said, and don't bother paying them any vacation or severance pay either. Oh, and just cancel everyone's health insurance while you're at it. Sorry about those pregnant workers, too.

Well, these UE members decided they were NOT going to be put out into the streets like animals, and they would just take over the factory until they got what they had coming to them. This is just simple fairness and self-preservation, but what is happening in Chicago needs to be talked about and actively supported by all working people in this country . Because you are next. We are all next, if we let Bank of America take our money and use it to fatten their profit margin and bottom line instead of what it was supposed to be used for: Helping regular hard working Americans like the sisters and brothers at Republic.

Ron Bender, a UE member and 14-year machine operator at Republic said it best . "We're doing this for the other working people in the country. What's happened to us can happen to anyone -- they could just close up and put you out and give you no severance pay."

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