'The Athens 2004 Olympics was used as a testing ground for the latest antiterrorist superpanoptic technology, which crucially failed to work'

International Criminal Justice Review, Vol. 17, No. 3, 220-238 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1057567707306649

Security and Surveillance in the Athens 2004 Olympics
Some Lessons From a Troubled Story
Minas Samatas

University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece

This article demythologizes the expedient and costly operation for a "superpanopticon" in the Athens 2004 Olympics, the first Summer Olympic Games after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The Olympic industry, reflecting international and interconnected political—economic, governmental, and corporate interests, exploited real and perceived terrorist threats to prescribe extremely high security requirements. The Athens 2004 Olympics was used as a testing ground for the latest antiterrorist superpanoptic technology, which crucially failed to work. The central surveillance integration security system (C4I), planned by Science Applications International Corporation, could not be implemented on time for the games; hence, the security of the last Athens Olympics was dependent on conventional means. Using primary and secondary sources, the article inquires into the interesting and troublesome story of the deficient electronic surveillance system, which became a technological nightmare. It raises serious skepticism about the real antiterrorist efficiency of high-tech surveillance systems.

~ SAGE Journals Online ~

'How did Hauer know that the Twin Towers would be so important?'

From 911 - They Let It Happen On Purpose! :

"...Why is Jerome Hauer not making national news yet?

He's becoming famous on the Internet. Not only for Republicans, who appreciate his long fight against bioterrorism, which he started three to four years ago.

Hauer is also controversial among those who are able to connect the dots between his person and shady business deals in biopharmacy since 1998.

More interesting, he seems to have had prior knowledge about both so called terrorist-attacks: September 11th and Anthrax.

But many private investigators claim since months, he let the attacks happen on purpose to continue his career.

Is Hauer LIHOP suspect No.1?

He started to work for the NIH under Tommy Thompson on September 10, 2001 as an adviser on national security. On September 11th, he told the White House to take Cipro, the antibiotic that works against the anthrax virus, without bothering to reveal his warning to the American nation.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/living/health/3020501.hym

The watchdog group JudicialWatch decided to file a lawsuit against the NIH, but also against the FBI, CDC and the White House, for the same reason: Prior Knowledge.

It is not known how long Hauer worked at the NIH before Sept. 11, but we can confirm that he was working on Sept. 10.
http://www.lauriegarrett.com/wtc_day12.html

But things get really interesting when we consider that Jerome Hauer was also the man who in August 2001 arranged a new job for John O'Neill - the resigning chief of the FBI Terror Task Force - as head of security at the World Trade Center.

How did Hauer know that the Twin Towers would be so important?

We would like to ask John O' Neill, but there is one problem: O'Neill died in the towers on September 11th, one day after he started his job officially, according to the New Yorker.

Disturbingly, O'Neill has never been received the same hero status in the mass media as has been accorded to the fallen New York firefighters and police officers. His death has gone without the same fanfare. For 11 months his story went untold, with two big exceptions.

The two French intelligence specialists Brisard and Dasquie (see: http://intelligenceonline.fr) published an interview with O'Neill taken before his death in their book, "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth." And articles on O'Neill were also published in the New Yorker and New York Magazine. Last week, TIME magazine also tried to remember him, but left out the most important angles.

This should change immediately.

There is obviously a lot which has been hidden from us, but for what reason?

This might have something to do with the FBI HQ (O'Neill complained about them), but also with Jerome Hauer - who is a friend of the current prime anthrax suspect, Stephen Hatfill, who was working for the military anthrax program USAMRIID at Fort Detrick and Battelle, a huge pharmacy company with many ties to the CIA.

Hauer and Hatfill worked together at the SAIC's Center for Counterterrorism Technology and Analysis in 1999. The SAIC (Scientific Applications International Corp) later received also a huge BioDefense budget in autumn 2001.
http://www.saic.com/news/nov99/news11-30a-99.html - (Hauer)
http://www.nandotimes.com/nation/story/455218p-3643441c.html - (Hatfill)

But first, more about Hauer:

In 1983, Hauer joined IBM where he was responsible for the company's Hazardous Materials Response and Crisis Management and Fire Safety programs. Hauer produced a series of hazardous materials training videos that earned him the International Film andTV Critics of New York Bronze award in 1986.

In the early 1990s, Hauer got his first contacts to military and biodefense.

Hauer received a master's degree in emergency medical services from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Then he became member of the Johns Hopkins Working Group on Civilian Bio Defense, where he wrote various articles about a possible bioterrorist attack.
http://iml.dartmouth.edu/ists/hauer.html

In 1998, he started working at the OEM (Office for Emergency Management) in New York.

In the same year, Hauer and anthrax suspect Hatfill both supported the CFR as experts in their respective fields. The CFR is an acronym for Council on Foreign Relations, one of the most important think-tanks advising the US government, as well as many other governments abroad.

CFR members include the Pentagon's top advisers, Richard Perle, Henry Kissinger, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, ex-CIA chief James Woolsey, biosciences specialist Joshua Lederberg, and many others.

On May 28, 1998, Hatfill and Hauer spoke together at the same CFR meeting about "Building a 'Biobomb': Terrorist Challenge"
http://www.cfr.org/public/resource.cgi?meet!102

Hatfill was at that time also Senior Research Associate at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (=USAMRIID)

Hauer seems to specialize in the art of holding down several different jobs at the same time. While he started to work for the NIH in September 2001, he remained a Managing Director at Kroll Associates - the official security and bodyguard company for all American presidents since World War II!

With Hauer's many sources of insider information (e.g. Kroll/President bodyguards) , it makes sense that he also knew about the CIA briefing for George Bush on August 6, 2001, about warnings of an imminent terrorist "attack with planes."

Hauer is still trying to save the world.

On November 6th, 2001 he participated in the "Independent Task Force on America's Response to Terrorism" at the CFR. Participants there included James J. Zogby (President of the Arab American Institute and Central Asian Enterprise Fund), Newton L. Gingrich (Chief Executive Officer, The Gingrich Group), Harold Brown (former secretary of defense and counselor at CSIS: the Center for Strategic and International Studies), Henry A. Kissinger (Senior Fellow in National Security and European Affairs), Richard C. Holbrooke (Counselor, CFR and Vice Chairman of Perseus, LLC) and Philip A. Odeen (Executive Vice President, Washington Operations of TRW, Inc. and CEO of Reynolds + Reynolds, Dayton).

Their agenda, eight weeks after the attack of Sept. 11, was strange indeed:
http://www.cfr.org/Public/publications/PubDiplom_TF.html

"....Release a White Paper explaining our goals and rationale for the war in Afghanistan, and outlining the evidence that the al-Qa'eda network was responsible for the 9/11 attacks....

...Disseminate stories of particular victims to convey the range of people killed in the 9/11 attacks-stress range of religions, races, income levels, etc...

...counteract myth that Mossad was behind the attacks by showing Jews killed, etc...

...Routinely monitor the regional press in real time to enable prompt responses..."

Hauer's deep connection to disinformation circles for his own purpose are well known. In 1998, he convinced New York Mayor Rudi Guilliani to develop a vaccine against the West Nile virus - almost one year before this virus broke out in New York.

To this end, Hauer introduced Col. Thomas Monath of Oravax (now Accambis) to Guliani and organised a business deal.

Hauer also continued giving bioterror lectures and writing terror scenario scripts. He organized a July 26, 1999, conference in New York for journalists and "thought leaders," on bioterrorism and "Reporting on Weapons of Mass Destruction - Responsibility, Reliability, Readiness." At the same time, he was heading the West Nile spray operation in NYC.

Bioterrorism and vaccines - a perfect payroll combination for Hauer?

Among the participants at this 1999 conference was Brigadier General Bruce Lawlor of the U.S. Army and the former FBI assistant director, Lewis Schiliro (NYC).

General Lawlor has in the meantime become the Senior Director for Protection and Prevention at the Office of Homeland Security:
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/bcsia/esdp.nsf/bios/lawlorbruce

Lawlor was the first commanding general of Joint Task Force - Civil Support (JTF-CS), located in Fort Monroe, Virginia. JTF-CS is a standing joint task force assigned to U.S. Joint Forces Command. Lawlor has taught at the U.S. Army War College and served as a consultant to the Defense Science Board.

Nothing is known about his further influence in preventing attacks on America..."

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The real hunger crisis

Robert Paarlberg reports for Foreign Policy :

Fluctuations in the world's hungry population are important to monitor, but full-time specialists pay far more attention to the underlying fundamentals. They know that most of the hunger in the world is caused neither by high food prices nor slower economic growth. There were 850 million people chronically malnourished around the world in 2007, at a time when food prices were low and global growth was high. This is a permanent food crisis that is more than four times as large as the temporary spike that began last year.

The underlying crisis derives primarily from persistent rural poverty in Africa and South Asia. Ironically, most of the world's hungry people are farmers who produce food for a living. More than 60 percent of all Africans, for example, work in the countryside, growing crops and herding animals, and earning less than $1 a day. These farmers' crop yields are only about 20 percent as high as in Europe and the United States because they lack access to all the basic necessities for productive farming: improved seeds, fertilizer, water, electrical power, education, and rural roads to connect them to markets. Most of these farmers are women, two thirds are illiterate, and one third are malnourished. When food prices fall, these farmers can actually be hurt because agricultural products are what they have to sell.

The United States' favorite response to global hunger in recent years has been to give away its excess food. In response to the 2008 price spike, the U.S government spent an additional $1.4 billion to ship domestically produced food abroad as aid. This move was generous, but it offered no solution to the problem of low farm productivity. What's more, free food arriving from Iowa or Kansas can actually hurt farmers in Kenya or Ethiopia by reducing demand for their own market sales.

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Greece beefing up repression

Greece to reorganize police force in wake of violent protests

Amelia Mathias
17 Mar, 2009

[JURIST] The Greek government announced Monday that it will seek to overhaul its police force in the wake of the December riots [BBC backgrounder] and last week's vandalism [Kathimerini report]. The Greek Interior Ministry [official website, in Greek] has enlisted the help of British police in order to streamline the Greek police force [Kathimerini report] and make it more effective. Both Scotland Yard and the City of London police force have promised aid, and former head of the London City policeIan Blair [BBC profile] and Scotland Yard official Christos Kalamatianos will lead the reorganization [UPI report]. The plan is to follow the model of British police forces by creating 30 rapid response teams of 12 officers each, with each team equipped with the latest technology and transportation.

The Greek police have been accused of being both ineffective and unnecessarily violent [JURIST op-ed], following the accidental shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in December 2008. The police were then unable to contain the riots that followed in the Athenian neighborhood of Exarcheia for over a week. Attempts to control the protesters, students who were quickly were joined by local anarchist groups, ended in isolating Exarcheia entirely [BBC report] until the demonstrations subsided. Police found it equally difficult to subdue a spree of vandalism on Friday in Kolonaki, another Athenian neighborhood, and Greek island Thessaloniki which ended with more than forty stores looted and several banks attacked. The youths responsible for the attacks dropped pamphlets [AP report] that pledged their allegiance to anarchist groups.

Rights-Australia: Parliament tightens protest ban at spy base

Stephen de Tarczynski reports for IPS News :

MELBOURNE, Apr 14 (IPS) - Despite ongoing community concerns over the highly secretive Pine Gap spy station in central Australia, the nation’s parliament has moved to effectively ban protest at the joint Australia-United States base.

"The right to protest is a political act which is directly linked to freedom of association and freedom of expression. It allows citizens to take democratic action without the threat of sanctions," said Dr Hannah Middleton of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition in a submission to a senate inquiry into changes in legislation related to Pine Gap.

Despite concerns expressed by Middleton and other Australian citizens, in addition to a dissenting report submitted to the senate committee by the Australian Greens Party, the defence legislation (miscellaneous amendments) bill 2008 was passed by parliament in mid-March.

It amends a 1952 defence act by defining the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap - the spy station’s official title - located 20 km south of the central Australian town of Alice Springs as a "special defence undertaking" and a "prohibited area" necessary for Australia’s defence.

This effectively closes a loophole in the legislation which was exploited by a group of four Christian peace activists in successfully appealing their convictions over a protest at Pine Gap in 2005.

The so-called Pine Gap Four had been facing up to seven years imprisonment for what they called a "citizens’ inspection" of the secretive base - the four had evaded security patrols to enter the facility and take photographs before being arrested - but were acquitted in 2008 after an appeals court ruled that a "miscarriage of justice" had occurred.

The four had been prevented from presenting evidence regarding the operations conducted at Pine Gap in a ruling prior to their 2007 trial. The appeals court upheld the group’s claim that they should have been entitled to challenge whether the area designated as "prohibited" was necessary for the defence of Australia.

One of the Pine Gap Four, Donna Mulhearn, says that the recently-enacted legislation is aimed at silencing further criticism of the facility.

"Now that the loophole has been closed it is a concern that any activist who decides to go to Pine Gap to make a protest may face court and seven years in prison without having the opportunity to put their case thoroughly and in its entirety," says Mulhearn, a former journalist and political adviser who volunteered as a "human shield" during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The controversial facility was established with the signing of the 1967 Pine Gap Treaty between the U.S. and Australia. Along with a similar site at the United Kingdom’s Menwith Hill air force base, Pine Gap is believed to play a key role in gathering signals intelligence for the United States, Britain and other allied nations.

But while Pine Gap’s eight radomes - the large, ball-like domes that protect the facility’s radar antennae - may be instantly recognisable to many Australians, the functions of the base remain highly secretive.

"Pine Gap is a ground receiving station for space-based intelligence gathering," said Greens senator Scott Ludlam just days before the legislation was passed.

"Its monitoring of radar, cell phone, radio and long-distance telecommunication enables it to provide targeting information for U.S. air and ground forces," added Ludlam.

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