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Posted September 9, 2007 News from September 7 to 9 |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 112
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FBI's phone record requests cast wide net
Analysis generated long lists of names connected to targets
Sunday, September 9, 2007
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/09/MNG3S20S3.DTL
(09-09) 04:00 PDTWashington - --
The FBI cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone calls of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.
The documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on individuals it saw as targets but also details on their "community of interest" - the network of people the target in turn was in contact with. The bureau stopped the practice early this year in part because of broader questions raised about its aggressive use of the records demands, which are known as national security letters, officials said.
The community-of-interest data sought by the FBI is central to a data-mining technique intelligence officials call link analysis.
Communities of interest
Typically, community-of-interest data might include an analysis of which people the targets called most frequently, how long they generally talked and at what times of day, sudden fluctuations in activity, geographic regions that were called, and other data, law enforcement and industry officials said.
The FBI declined to say exactly what data had been turned over. It was limited to people and phone numbers "once removed" from the actual target of the national security letters, said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a continuing review by the Justice Department.
In a statement Saturday, Mike Kortan, a spokesman for the FBI, responded to this article posted on the Web site of the New York Times by saying that "it is important to emphasize" that community of interest data is "no longer being used pending the development of an appropriate oversight and approval policy, was used infrequently, and was never used for e-mail communications."
The requests for such data showed up a dozen times, using nearly identical language, in records from one six-month period in 2005 obtained by a nonprofit advocacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it brought against the government. The FBI recently turned over 2,500 pages of documents to the group. The boilerplate language suggests that the requests may have been used in many of more than 700 emergency or "exigent" national security letters. Earlier this year, the bureau banned the use of the exigent letters because they had never been authorized by law.
The bureau declined to discuss any aspect of the community-of-interest requests because it said the issue was part of an investigation by the Justice Department inspector general's office into national security letters. An initial review in March by the inspector general found widespread violations and possible illegality in the FBI's use of the letters, but did not mention the use of community-of-interest data.
The government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the FBI recently stopped asking the telecommunications companies for the community-of-interest data. The exact time of and reason for the suspension is unclear, but it appears to have been set off in part by the questions raised earlier this year by the inspector general's initial review into abuses in the use of national security letters.
A federal judge in New York last week struck down parts of the USA Patriot Act that had authorized the FBI's use of the national security letters, saying that some provisions violated the First Amendment and the constitutional separation of powers guarantee. In many cases, the target of a national security letter whose records are being sought is not necessarily the actual subject of a terrorism investigation and may not be suspected at all. Under the Patriot Act, the FBI must assert only that the records gathered through the letter are considered relevant to a terrorism investigation.
Some legal analysts and privacy advocates suggested that the disclosure of the FBI's collection of community-of-interest records - extending the link even further beyond an actual suspect in a terrorism investigation - offered another example of the bureau exceeding the substantial powers already granted it by Congress.
"This whole concept of tracking someone's community of interest is not part of any established FBI authority," said Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided the records from its lawsuit to the New York Times. "It's being defined by the FBI. And when it's left up to the FBI to decide what information is relevant to their investigations, they can vacuum up almost anything they want."
"This sort of analysis of calling patterns and who the communities of interests are is the sort of things telephone companies are doing anyway because it's central to their businesses for marketing or optimizing the network or detecting fraud," said Blaze, who has worked with the FBI on technology issues.
Such "analysis is extremely powerful and very revealing because you get these linkages between people that wouldn't be otherwise clear, sometimes even more important than the content itself" of phone calls, he said. "But it's also very invasive. There's always going to be a certain amount of noise," with data collected on people who have no real links to suspicious activity, he said.
The FBI is Spying on You
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 9, 2007
The plain facts of the illegal searching situation are clear: the President has unleashed all the powers of the executive branch to spy on Americans without a warrant, let alone any proof of criminal behavior.
Both the FBI as well as the NSA have been given, and are following, illegal orders in direct contravention of the Constitution and laws of our country. The Executive Branch is conducting both general searches of the Nation's communications, and are targeting individual communications for comprehensive warrantless searches. As bad as this is, it is just one aspect of a massive consolidation of police state powers in the Executive Branch.
The President has claimed and exorcized the authority equal to one of the tin-plated third-world dictators our country has supported for over a century. From Bataista in Cuba to Marcos in the Fillippines, to the Shah in Iran, America has backed cruel and vicious dictators when they would do our bidding. Now the President is bringing the powers we have imposed on our victims back here, to the homeland of tyranny.
Our President, on the authority of his word alone, has claimed the same power for his office as he has granted to the Dictatorships we support around the world: Unlimited, unchecked authority to order kidnappings, construct a system of secret prisons dedicated to torture, and form Executive Branch kangaroo courts where guilt is predetermined by the process itself.
Today we support the ring of dictatorships which encircles Israel: Egypt to the South, Saudi Arabia to the North, and Jordan to the East. Musharraf in Pakistan rounds out the list of American supported dictators in the region, if you rate the Iraqi and Afghan governments as ineffective, and all the Emirates we prop up along the Gulf as politically and militarily insignificant.
Bush is claiming that holding the Presidency puts him, Bush the man, above the law and the Constitution itself, and is exercising the same authority as Mubarak claims in Egypt.
Even more troubling is the fact that both the Republican and the Democratic Congresses have passed illegal, unconstitutional laws which pretend to authorize the President's crimes as well as his claims to illegal powers.
The previous Repugnant Congress passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which pretended to give up habius corpus. The Current Democrapic Congress passed a law that pretends to void the 4th Amendment, giving the President what it has no power to give: unlimited searching power.
It is apparent to any citizen that our government has run well past its Constitutional Bounds. Our elections are farces financed and conducted by our corporate dominated parties, and they resemble auctions more than elections. This Congress, as the last, sits gorging itself at the trough of corruption as the President wages illegal war in Iraq and here, against our civil liberties.
This government is illegitimate by the terms of our Constitution.
It is time to make one small change to our democratic process that will swiftly return it to democracy: Let's stop all bribes and contributions from any source that is ineligible to vote in the election. No vote-No contribution.
To maintain the right of people to assemble in parties, and support their ideas and values by supporting their party's candidates, while preventing party money from dominating local elections, we will cap all party contributions to candidates at no more than 30% of the contributions collected from local qualified voters.
Until we curb the corruption and criminality that has subverted our democracy and captured our government, it will continue to be illegitimate by the terms of our own Constitution. As our government is presently constructed, it presents a continuing threat to the rights and welfare of Americans, as well as a clear threat to the people around the world who seek the freedom to define their own lives.
New Information, September 7, 2007
The Terror Presidency: ABC report on Jack Goldsmith's new book.
Goldsmith was head legal counsel in Justice, eventually resigning over criminal spying program.
NSA Domestic Spying
Mark Klein legal Deposition, pdf
Mark Klein, Transcript from Frontline, May 15, 2007
Frontline, homepage for Spying on the Homefront
The power of Naris surveillance, Wired, May 17, 2006
In the Hospital
Comey testimony before Congress, UTube, 20 minutes. Very informative.
Corruption Updates 70, 5th article on the page, Democrats May Subpoena N.S.A. Documents (Comey testified to Congress about the hospital assault, Congress wanted legal justifications for program, and his side of the episode from Gonzales)
Corruption Updates 95, 5th article on the page, Gonzales testifies in firings row: And Lied to Congress about the hospital assault
Corruption Updates 104, 1st article on the page, Mueller Notes Detail Pressure on Ashcroft Over Spying: Gonzales Caught Lying, yet Again
Background Links
Corruption Updates 88, 6th article on the page, Bush Authorized Domestic Spying: Bush is a Criminal, and an Enemy of our Constitution
Corruption Updates 88, 7th article on the page, Spying on the Home Front
Also See
Corruption Updates 23, 9th article on the page, "TIMES SOFTPEDALS PRESIDENTIAL WAR CRIMES AND DOMESTIC CRIMES"
Corruption Updates 25, 8th article on the page, "FBI CHIEF DEFYS CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT REFUSAL TO DISCLOSE ILLEGAL PROGRAM"
Corruption Updates 32, 3rd article on the page, "PRESIDENT TRIES END RUN AROUND CONSTITUTION: CLAIMS ACTIONS ARE SECRET, AND ABOVE THE LAW"
Corruption Updates 36, 5th article on the page, "White House Confirms Americans Have No Constitutional Protections"
Corruption Updates 41, 5th article on the page, "FBI Violations May Number 3,000, Official Says: HOW DO YOU SAY ILLEGAL SEARCH? “National Security Letter"
Corruption Updates 51, 9th article on the page, "Administration Seeks to Expand Surveillance Law"
Corruption Updates 97, 2nd article on the page, "Executive privilege touchy for presidential hopefuls: Just a Reminder of why Bush is Out of Control"
The Situation as of September 7, 2007
The final Solution: Congress passes illegal Domestic Spying law authorizing warrantless NSA searches within the US
New Illegal Domestic Spying Law gives President Unlimited Searching Powers
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Illegal Searches (42 Abstracts)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (7 Abstracts)
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2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Judge Invalidates Patriot Act Provisions
FBI Is Told to Halt Warrantless Tactic
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 7, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090601438_pf.html
A federal judge struck down controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act in a ruling that declared them unconstitutional yesterday, ordering the FBI to stop its wide use of a warrantless tactic for obtaining e-mail and telephone data from private companies for counterterrorism investigations.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York said the FBI's use of secret "national security letters" to demand such data violates the First Amendment and constitutional provisions on the separation of powers, because the FBI can impose indefinite gag orders on the companies and the courts have little opportunity to review the letters.
The secrecy provisions are "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values," Marrero wrote. His strongly worded 103-page opinion amounted to a rebuke of both the administration and Congress, which had revised the act in 2005 to take into account an earlier ruling by the judge on the same topic.
Although a government appeal is likely, the decision could eliminate or sharply curtail the FBI's issuance of tens of thousands of national security letters (NSLs) each year to telephone companies, Internet providers and other communications firms. The FBI says it typically orders that such letters be kept confidential to make sure that suspects do not learn they are being investigated, as well as to protect "sources and methods" used in terrorism and counterintelligence probes.
The ruling follows reports this year by Justice Department and FBI auditors that the FBI potentially violated privacy laws or bureau rules more than a thousand times while issuing NSLs in recent years -- violations that did not come to light quickly, partly because of the Patriot Act's secrecy rules.
"The risk of investing the FBI with unchecked discretion to restrict such speech is that government agents, based on their own self-certification, may limit speech that does not pose a significant threat to national security or other compelling government interest," Marrero said.
But Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit in the case, said the ruling "is yet another setback in the Bush administration's strategy in the war on terror and demonstrates the far-reaching efforts of this administration to use powers that are clearly unconstitutional."
Marrero's decision would bar the use of NSLs to demand data from electronic communications companies, a procedure that was the focus of the lawsuit. But the ruling appears to leave untouched the FBI's ability to demand bank records, credit reports and other financial data related to counterterrorism and other probes, because those authorities are covered by other statutes, according to legal experts. Marrero delayed enforcement of his order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal.
Yesterday's ruling marks the second time that Marrero has struck down the Patriot Act's NSL provisions. In 2004, after the ACLU filed suit on behalf of the same plaintiff -- an Internet service provider identified as John Doe -- he ruled similarly that the NSL provisions were unconstitutional because they silenced recipients and gave them no recourse through the courts.
While a government appeal was pending, Congress passed legislation in 2005 aimed at solving the problems identified by Marrero. But the judge ruled yesterday that the revisions were not adequate and that under the new law, "several aspects . . . violate the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers."
The new legislation essentially required the courts to go along with the gag orders as long as the FBI certified that the secrecy was justified.
Most lawmakers were quiet about yesterday's ruling. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001, said in a statement, "Congress needs to fix the mess it created when it gave the government overly-broad powers to obtain sensitive information about Americans."
Judge Throws Criminal "Patriot" Act back into President and Congress' Faces
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 10, 2007
The specific words of the Fourth Amendment of The Constitution are:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and No warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Corruption Updates 23, 9th article on the page, TIMES SOFTPEDALS PRESIDENTIAL WAR CRIMES AND DOMESTIC CRIMES
Corruption Updates 25, 8th article on the page, FBI CHIEF DEFYS CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT: REFUSAL TO DISCLOSE ILLEGAL PROGRAM
Corruption Updates 40, 10th article on the page, CONGRESS KNEW THEY WERE GIVING AWAY OUR RIGHTS&FREEDOMS WITH THE “PATRIOT” ACT
Corruption Updates 41, 10th article on the page, US Attorney Scandal, “PATRIOT ACT” OR ATTACK ON CONSTITUTION?
Corruption Updates 41, 5th article on the page, FBI Violations May Number 3,000, Official Says: HOW DO YOU SAY ILLEGAL SEARCH? “NATIONAL SECURITY LETTER"
Corruption Updates 77, 8th article on the page, Agents Are Warned in Terror Cases
Illegal searching links
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Patriot Act (6 Abstracts)
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Illegal Searches (44 Abstracts)
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Lawmakers Challenge Plan to Expand Spying
Concerns Focus on Domestic Use of Satellite Technology and How U.S. Will Protect Civil Liberties
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 7, 2007; A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090601128_pf.html
Senior House Democrats called on the Bush administration yesterday to delay a planned Oct. 1 expansion of the use of powerful satellite and aircraft spy technology by local and federal law enforcement agencies, challenging the plan's legality and charging that the administration is failing to safeguard the privacy of Americans.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and two Democratic subcommittee chairmen jointly asked the Department of Homeland Security to provide the legal framework for the domestic use of classified and military spy satellites, and to allow Congress to review privacy and civil liberties protections.
"You let this thing go, it may be another blank check to the executive. It may morph into things that will terrify you if you really understand the capabilities of satellites," said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), former ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
Their demand was made in a letter after DHS officials testified about the spying program at a hearing, and signaled that administration officials had not succeeded in quieting Democrats' concerns about the intrusiveness of the satellite technology -- which was created primarily for foreign surveillance -- and the novelty of its proposed use by state and local police officials.
Invoking the controversy over President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, which was kept secret from most lawmakers for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Harman contended that the administration gave incomplete or misleading briefings about that program and disregarded laws passed by Congress.
"Since we've been rolled, I intend not to get rolled again," Harman said, although she acknowledged the potential value of the new program.
The hearing was set after news reports in August said that beginning this fall, intelligence officials and DHS will allow broader domestic use of some of the nation's most secret and advanced spying technology.
Administration officials say the program can help domestic authorities deal with a variety of threats, from illegal immigration and terrorism to hurricanes and forest fires, by providing access to high-resolution, real-time satellite photos. Military sensors can peer through clouds and tree canopies, detect underground bunkers and penetrate buildings.
Charles Allen, Homeland Security's chief intelligence officer, told the committee that overhead satellite imagery has been used legally for decades to support domestic, federal, scientific, law enforcement and security uses. It has been used to create maps, monitor volcanoes and scout sports events.
Representatives of several civil liberties groups testified against the move. They said the government appears to be crossing a well-established line against the use of military assets in domestic law enforcement.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Military Satellites Used on to Spy on Americans
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
Soon Bush may rule from atop a tank. The scary revelation of the above article is that,
"overhead satellite imagery has been used legally for decades to support domestic, federal, scientific, law enforcement and security uses." (Homeland Security)
Our political leadership seems to believe that each advance in technology somehow erodes or voids our Constitution. The plain fact of the matter is that our government has stopped using the principals of our Constitution to guide or limit its actions. Ours is a government out of control.
New technology does not void our fundamental principals, but it challenges us, those who believe in our revolution and Constitution, to translate our fundamental rights and principals into these contemporary times, as our politicians have rendered themselves incapable of defending our rights.
Our politicians acceptance of corporate democracy-election by open bribery-has rendered them incompetent to defend our rights or Constitution. These creatures of corruption can only be depended on to serve their own selfish interests and those of their corporate sponsors.
See the links in #2, above.
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Illegal Searches
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4) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Traveler Assessments Little Altered
Sunday, September 9, 2007
(09-09) 09:52 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) –
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2007/09/09/national/w020912D69.DTL&type=printable
Rejecting a wave of criticisms, the government has agreed to only modest changes in the computerized system that assesses whether each American who travels abroad poses a terrorist threat.
The Homeland Security Department decided to keep the risk assessments for 15 years instead of 40 years and no longer will share them with federal, state and local officials who are deciding whether a person gets a job, a security clearance, a license to do business or a government contract.
Nevertheless, travelers still will not be allowed to see their actual assessments or the reasons for them. Federal agents still will be looking at an array of information about international travelers — Americans and foreigners; this includes even meal choices, the names of traveling companions and the number of hotel beds requested.
"The revisions are useful, but they don't go to the heart of the matter," said James Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group. "Why should the government keep massive databases about people it has decided are innocent?"
Privacy advocates and civil libertarians also condemn the remedies for people who believe they were wrongly detained, delayed or even denied the right to travel.
The department's decision to continue the Automated Targeting System with few changes took effect last Thursday.
Members of Congress, business travel associations, privacy and civil liberties groups and even European legislators protested after Homeland Security disclosed details of the system last fall for the first time; it had gone in service in 1999.
Some critics said the entire program was illegal; others wanted parts of it changed.
Government Keeps Secret Files on Millions of Americans
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
You are a number, and your number will be stored and cross referenced across your voice and digital communications. Your number will be located in relation to all the other numbers you call or email. Records of these communications will be secretly stored and inspected as political conditions require. The government has seized the ability to secretly store and inspect all of your social and business connections and communications.
That is not the final limit of the government's new, extended reach. Your most personal secrets are also vulnerable. Medical records and credit card purchases will be combined with your communication information to allow the government to secretly examine every aspect of your public and private live. Combine this with an overlay of your cell phone's GPS feature, and the government can create a record of your communications, your social connections, your consumption patterns, and your physical location.
And all of this power can be exorcized without a search warrant or legislative oversight, according to Bush.
Presently, the administration claims that this information only being used to secretly determine who may and may not fly. The program far exceeds the Administration's very limited definitions. It is arguably being used to harass political enemies.
Ted Kennedy is on the no fly list. In actuality it is apparent that the President has authorized a massive general search of the nation's citizens through our phones and computers, our business and medical records, satellites, and apparently every record we generate while living our lives,
The NSA is running an electronic fishing net through America's massive digital communications system, using powerful computers and software to track relationships between regular citizens, as well as monitor suspect domestic political and religious groups.
Expect this information, and the illegal authority behind it, to be constantly added to, and ultimately be used as a domestic political weapon by whichever party is in power.
You should not be surprised when "secret" information comes out that this massive government databases of illegal searches is being used as a political weapon in an important election. You should not be surprised when people are shot down for jobs, credit, and public office by threats of disclosing embarrassing conversations and connections gleaned from the President's illegal searches.
In truth, information, like political power, is only as secure as the ethics of the individuals who collect it. Our forefathers understood that individuals lacked ethics, and responded by severely limiting legitimate governmental power, and hedged it even further with cross-branch checks.
Our Constitution clearly denies the government exactly the same power Bush is claiming: to unilaterally inspect the private lives of our citizens.
In today's political climate of unbridled corruption, crooked politicians, parties, and elections, the President's open defiance of Constitutional limits and his open attack on our named Constitutional rights, patriotic Americans can clearly see just why our Founders denied the government, and all of its branches, unlimited power.
We may still have time to slam the door shut on these illegal governmental powers and the traitors who allowed them into our government, Unwarranted searches, secret prisons, and torture are un american, and all who helped establish these powers in our government must be severely punished, preferably in the countries where they committed these crimes.
But it may be too late; the alignment of economic, political and social power that has crushed our democracy and stolen our rights has transformed the duty of citizenship into obedience to the boss, rewarded by consumption.
Citizenship today is a reward for breaking our laws, and replacing responsibility to your country with obedience to the boss. We have few here who put their duty to our country above their addiction to consumption.
Trove of F.B.I. Files on Lawyers Guild Shows Scope of Secret Surveillance: Proof of Criminal Government Spans Seven Presidencies, NY Times, June 25, 2007
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Competing voices in GOP on immigrant laborers
By Susan Ferriss - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDTFriday, September 7, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/capolitics/v-print/story/365455.html
Republican activist Tom Hudson has fighting words for farmers and others who say they can't survive without hiring foreign workers.
"If the only way you can stay in business is to break the law -- or to import Third World workers to compete with American workers -- then you shouldn't be in business," said Hudson, 40, GOP chairman of the county that claims to be California's most Republican, Placer County.
"You should," Hudson declared, "go bye-bye."
Instead, Hudson, a tax attorney, will travel to the California Republican convention this weekend in Indian Wells. There, he said, expect to see a push for the state GOP to adopt a position of "no amnesty" for illegal immigrants as part of its platform.
That would be an aggressive step beyond the party's current stance favoring legal immigration. The push may fail, Hudson said, but he's convinced that hammering on illegal immigrants -- no earned legal status ever, no guest workers -- is the greatest issue the party can embrace to earn future votes.
Greater than no new taxes, said Hudson, tax counsel for the state Board of Equalization.
Some employers fed up
From GOP presidential hopefuls to state activists, many Republicans are savoring the defeat last spring of immigration overhaul legislation and continuing to wage rhetorical war on illegal immigrants.
The problem for the party is that the new attacks are being lobbed at some of the employers who have consistently been a strong base of GOP support -- and those employers are fed up with the party's toughening positions on immigration.
Business without State Subsidized Foreign Slaves? Wages will go UP!
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
Wow, it would be the first time in 30 years that either party put the quality of life of its own working class before the crimigrant subsidized profits of the Corporations. Wow.
Extensive list of Crimigrant Links
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Crimigrants
Economics
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GOP struggles with identity crisis
Sunday, September 9, 2007
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/09/BAEBS23R2.DTL
It is the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, but today there is an identity crisis roiling the Republican Party as it approaches the 2008 election - as GOP moderates and conservatives confronting the Iraq war, corruption and the declining profile of President Bush engage in a heated debate over just whose party it will be in the future.
The painful struggle for the soul of the GOP was played out here at the state convention of the California Republican Party, the nation's largest, in shockingly different speeches by two leading GOP governors this weekend.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has championed "post-partisan" cooperation, issued a bold call for a return to Reagan's "big tent" and moderation during the opening night of the GOP gathering of 1,400 Friday. He warned conservative party activists who dominate the GOP to take the conciliatory middle of the road - court independents and address issues such as global warming and health care - or watch their party "dying at the box office."
Minutes later, conservative Texas Gov. Rick Perry shattered that mood with an incendiary address deriding Schwarzenegger-style moderation and decrying California's "bankrupt, liberal political philosophy"- exhorting Republicans to stand their ground on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. And without ever mentioning the California governor's name, Perry launched a blistering attack clearly aimed at his direction.
"It's a sad, sad state of affairs when liberals campaign like Republicans to get elected, and Republicans govern like liberals to be loved," he said, getting whoops and repeated standing ovations from the 400 delegates at the opening dinner that put Schwarzenegger's polite reception to shame.
Repugnants Tearing Each Other Up
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
It's not just the Repugnants that are tearing themselves up. The Democraps have sold out to the vast wealth and corruption of the Corporate interests, causing progressives to tear their hair out and cry, "Why am I in this party of Corporate wealth and power?" Well, why?
The Repugnants are facing the same problem with their politicians. The corporate wing of the party can no longer hide their thievery behind religious and social camouflage. Their religion is power and wealth. Conservatives are tearing their hair out, crying "Why am I in this party of Corporate wealth and power?" Well, why?
We need a new basis of political organization for both parties that is based on the principals of the Constitution. The first principal is the rights of the citizen. If you like it or not, realize that we all have the right to keep and bear arms. If you like it or not, people have the right to marry and start-or terminate-pregnancies. Weather you like it or not, illegals have disgraced our country by claiming they, not us, decide who is an American.
The good Americans of both parties must rise above the corruption that has sunk our democracy, and agree to grant each other our due rights as citizens, if we like their choices or not.
If we want to survive as a free country we must promise each other that we will stop trying to tell each other what to do, and focus on the real job that sits before us: Driving the corrupt politicians and parties out of our government, restoring free democratic elections, and finally, restoring the right of individuals to pursue their own lives, liberties, and happiness.
Then we can focus on the real business of government, which is making laws and policies that assure our schools, hospitals, and infrastructure serve the needs of our country, rather than subsidizing the bloated profits of the multi-national corporations that have already betrayed our country, and sold our freedoms down the river.
Until then the parties will continue to be no more than the painted whores of Corporate Power who's lack of principals will continue to fuel meaningless arguments between the servants of corporate power, and those who want political power to illegally impose foreigners, religion, and wars upon us.
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Racism alive and well in S.F. schools - here's proof
Sunday, September 9, 2007
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/09/BAIFS1GE4.DTL
Last spring, Cal graduate student Mandy Johnson wrote a paper looking at why parents picked certain schools in the choice-based San Francisco district.
Working at Cal's Goldman School of Public Policy, Johnson analyzed the data from the 2006-07 school year. The two top factors correlated with high demand for a seat in a particular school were its academic performance and the availability of special classes like language immersion.
The top factors correlated with low demand were the prevalence of low-income students and - here's the really troubling one - race. Specifically, Johnson found, "as the percentage of African American students in the school increases, kindergarten demand decreases."
By the way, for those assuming this is something that can be explained away by the interplay of race and poverty, it isn't. Johnson said she used a statistical tool called regression analysis, which allowed her to isolate factors such as income and skin color. For example, the researcher found no correlation between school choice and the number of Latino students, who are disproportionately lower-income.
Chris Rosenberg, principal of ethnically diverse Starr King Elementary, laid it out for me in clear terms.
"The bottom line is that many people do not feel comfortable sending their kids to a school with a lot of African American students," says Rosenberg, who has been at Starr King for 12 years, four as principal.
In 1982, a federal consent decree required San Francisco Unified School District to fulfill racial ratios at each school. But in 1994, Chinese American families successfully sued to eliminate racial considerations. In 2005, the consent decree ended, and the district is now operating under a "choice-based" model, which allows families to rank their preferred schools and usually get one of their top two picks.
Which Threatens Blacks More, Mexican Cheap Labor, or Chinese Racism?
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
One kills wages, the other kindles racism. Between the two, the blacks have once again have their faces stepped on and pushed into the mud as foreigners strive to serve and enjoy the benefits of our corporate fascist state.
The lesson to the blacks, and the immigrants is clear: Obey and be rewarded, disobey and be punished. If the blacks could just learn to work like Mexicans, the Asians would hire them too!
If blacks learned to copy the justification of the illegals, "we work," they too would be rewarded with 3rd world living and wage conditions that we created in this last, massive, illegal immigration. Oh, the blacks already have that, without working like a Mexi-Slave.
But the blacks continue to insist on resisting the wisdom and power of our empire, and we will continue to push their faces further into the mud as we fill the country with people who's greed exceeds their honor, and will base their worth on how hard they work to serve the man.
Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on the page, "CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL:Poverty"
Corruption Updates 36, 9th article on the page, "HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION"
Corruption Updates 45, 8th article on the page, "Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows: US Main Products Poverty and Luxury"
Corruption Updates 53, 1st article on the page, "White House Floats New Immigration Plan"
Corruption Updates 57, 6th article on the page, "Flawed: Chronology of Immigration Laws"
Corruption Updates 59, 5th article on the page, "Graft Mars the Recruitment of Mexican Guest Workers"
Corruption Updates 62, 5th article on the page, "Immigration judges lack apt backgrounds"
Corruption Updates 63, 8th article on the page, "Hispanic Groups Reconsider Their Support for Gonzales"
Corruption Updates 65, 5th article on the page, "U.S. Data Show Rapid Minority Growth in School Rolls"
Corruption Updates 41 , 1st article on the page, "Study: Schools need billions, CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS IN A DEATH SPRIAL"
Corruption Updates 83, 3rd article on the page, "Schools: Illegals drain Public Services while Enriching Private Interests"
Corruption Updates 83, 4th article on the page, "Republicans use Illegal labor in the fields, and in their own office"
Corruption Updates 85, 8th article on the page, "Immigrant licenses off table; Let's fight Global Warming with Autos for Every Crimigrant"
Corruption Updates 87, 9th article on the page, "Arizona Governor Signs Tough Bill on Hiring Illegal Immigrants: 'bout Time"
Corruption Updates 89, 1st article on the page, "Tancredo rides high on illegal immigration"
Corruption Updates 102, 9th article on the page, Government Set for a Crackdown on illegal Hiring
Corruption Updates 112, 7 th article on the page, Rascism in SF Schools
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Education (22 Abstracts)
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8) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
STUDY: Black workers earn low wages, lack advancement
The Michigan Citizen - 2669 Bagley - Detroit - MI - 48216 � Phone: 313-963-8282
9-9-07
http://www.michigancitizen.com/print_this_story.asp?smenu=1&sdetail=4943
BERKELEY, Calif. (NNPA) — Just as America observed Labor Day with cookouts and recreation, a new report by the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education finds that more than half of Black workers in the United States have jobs that don’t pay well, provide retirement and health benefits, or offer avenues for advancement.
The report, “Job Quality and Black Workers: An Examination of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York,” analyzes low-wage jobs among Black workers, using data from the 2000 U.S. Census.
Steven Pitts, a labor policy specialist at the center and author of the report. “This is a two-dimensional problem that includes both the crisis of unemployment in the Black community and the crisis of low-wage jobs.” The report was released Aug. 29, the day after the U. S. Census Bureau reported that the median household income for Black families remained at $32,000 in 2006 — $5,800 less than Hispanic families, and $20,400 less than white families.While the Berkeley report analyzes the labor market for Black workers in 2000, Pitts said that the findings are relevant today.
“The year 2000 was the peak year of the 1990s expansion; while the recession was relatively short, the extremely slow recovery meant that average economic outcomes have barely improved since then,” he said.
While 22.5 percent of all Blacks in the United States lived below the poverty line in 2000, Pitts said that figure rose to 24.7 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which data is available.The Labor Center report’s main findings include: n 56.5 percent of Black workers in the country earn low wages – $12.87 per hour or less – with the proportions of low-wage Black workers ranging from 47.3 percent in Chicago to 53.8 percent in Los Angeles. n Some 56.5 percent of Blacks work in low-wage jobs, versus 43.9 percent of whites, 44.6 percent of Asians and 68.7 percent of Latinos.
Almost one-half of Black workers are employed in industries that face a reduced threat of being “off-shored,” meaning it is likely that these jobs will stay in the United States rather than being sent abroad.To transform low-wage jobs into higher quality jobs for all workers, the report recommends implementing various public policies including establishing minimum wage, living wage and industry wage laws; establishing community benefits agreements that feature local hiring mandates; requiring businesses to return government subsidies if promises about job creation aren’t kept; and linking workforce and economic development programs.
It also recommends unionization as an effective tool to improve job quality.
See Headline Above
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
8a) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Mexican leader criticized for comment on blacks
CNN, Sunday, May 15, 2005 Posted: 9:08 AM EDT (1308 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/14/fox.jackson/
Mexicans do jobs even blacks will not do. No. The flood of illegal and marginally legal Mexicans drive wages for American Jobs to 3rd world wage levels. No self-respecting American will work for the wages that a Mexican will accept.
Fox offered Americans the services of the permanently impoverished servant class that the Spanish elite in Mexico have brutalized since 1519.
Now it's our turn.
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Crimigrants
Economics
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9) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
'Criminal alien' cases provoke national debate
Immigration policies seen by some as part of the problem
By Dave Montgomery - Mcclatchy Washington Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDTTuesday, September 4, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-print/story/359127.html
Sheriff Jim Pendergraph first noticed the changes in his jail population early in the decade, as illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries poured into Charlotte and elsewhere in Mecklenburg County, N.C., to find jobs in the robust North Carolina economy.
In Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard K. Jones became so frustrated with the swelling population of undocumented suspects in his jail a couple of years ago that he symbolically billed the federal government for his incarceration costs and posted a big yellow sign near the jail reading: "Illegal aliens here."
Pendergraph and Jones are part of a growing national debate over how to handle undocumented criminals, a debate that's flared anew with the arrest of an illegal immigrant in the execution-style slayings of three college students in New Jersey.
Criminal aliens, as the federal government classifies them, constitute more than a fourth of the inmates in federal prisons. Those still at large often fall between the cracks of an overburdened and uneven enforcement system, escaping detection and deportation.
More than 300,000 criminal aliens are expected to be placed in state and local jails this year, according to a forecast last year by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. Most might remain in this country after serving their sentences because the federal government lacks the resources to identify, detain and deport them, the audit said.
The suspect in the Newark killings, Jose Carranza, is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bond on assault and child-rape charges. Authorities said they were unaware that Carranza was in the country illegally, largely because local policy prohibits officers from questioning suspects about their immigration status.
Newark is one of dozens of cities with "sanctuary" policies designed to keep local law enforcement officers from racially profiling suspects and intimidating immigrant communities, thus making them reluctant to report crimes and cooperate with authorities.
"Those policies represent a significant problem for ICE," said Deborah Achim, the ICE assistant director for detention and removal operations. "What we hope for is to improve our relationship with these local law-enforcement agencies."
The police departments of eight major cities -- including Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and Miami -- said in a joint statement last year that local police can't "even begin to consider dedicating limited local resources to immigration enforcement" until the federal government seals the border.
At the other end of the spectrum are state and local law-enforcement agencies that essentially team up with the federal government to enforce immigration laws under a program known as 287g.
The officers undergo federal training and can tap into federal immigration data.
At least a half-dozen states and 26 cities are participating in the program, created by a 1996 immigration law.
Pendergraph enlisted Charlotte-Mecklenburg in the program last year to respond to the growing number of undocumented offenders. Of 4,600 foreign-born inmates placed in the jail since May 2006, 2,580 have been put in removal proceedings.Don't Forget the Ruined Schools and Hospitals...
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
Cheap labor is a tool and a fuel. Cheap labor is a tool to steal wages and services from the American Working Class. Cheap labor is a fuel for the massive concentration of wealth at the top of American Society.
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Crimigrants
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10) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Investigative Report: U.S. ships unsafe products
Since long before China furor, federal agency has OK'd exporting goods banned in America.
By Russell Carollo - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDTSunday, September 9, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-print/story/368866.html
Ten days ago, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced another in a series of well-publicized recalls of Chinese-made goods: children's art sets containing crayons, markers, pastels, pencils, water colors -- and lead -- distributed by Toys "R" Us.
"Consumers should immediately take the products away from children," warned a news release from the federal government's watchdog for thousands of household items. "The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families."
But 13 months earlier, in July 2006, the CPSC, without a press release or corresponding media attention, authorized a Los Angeles company to export to Venezuela 16,520 art sets that violated the same CPSC standard protecting children from dangerous art supplies. The following month, the agency authorized a Miami company to export to Jamaica 5,184 sets of wax crayons that also violated the standard.
Though recalls coordinated by the CPSC of Chinese-made goods have made headlines recently, for decades the federal agency has allowed American-based companies to export products deemed unsafe here.
Those products can present an even greater danger in a country that has only a handful of government employees devoted to consumer protection, said R. David Pittle, a former acting CPSC chairman who spent 22 years as a senior vice president for Consumers Union.
"If the United States doesn't have very many inspectors, how many do you think there are in Honduras or Jamaica or Trinidad or Bulgaria?" Pittle asked.
Using the CPSC's database of exports of non-approved products and hundreds of pages of documents obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act, The Bee found that between October 1993 and September 2006, the CPSC received 1,031 requests from companies to export products the agency had found unsafe for American consumers. The CPSC approved 991 of those requests, or 96 percent.
...CPSC Commissioner Thomas Moore strongly objected to the policy.
"Our agency, through our governing statues, cannot claim much moral superiority over the Chinese, or any other foreign country, when it comes to our own export policy," Moore said in a list of his legislative proposals submitted to Congress in July. "Our export policy is based on a desire to see U.S. manufacturers be able to compete in foreign countries in terms of price and marketability, not safety.
"... It is somewhat hypocritical of us to berate any other country for not requiring their manufacturers to abide by the myriad U.S. mandatory and voluntary product safety standards."
Under current law, companies have to seek CPSC approval when they export products that violate mandatory standards or bans. But only about 13 percent of CPSC standards are mandatory.
American Product Safety Regulations Kill People Here, and Around the World
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
I don't know why people are making such a big deal about our corporations selling us poisons. That is exactly what we deserve to get for deregulating food safety, making oversight and regulation voluntary.
We have done almost the same thing with the Drug industry. The EPA and FDA are gutted, and worthless except as window dressing. We have done the same thing with about every law designed to assure our corporate masters do not kill us as they make themselves ever richer.
Responsibility is too expensive. Responsibility diminishes profits. It's much cheaper to pay the politicians rather than protect the public's safety.
The solution was simple: Bribe the hell out of the politicians and parties, and lo and behold, they removed all the legislation designed to protect our health and welfare. And after selling us down the river, our politicians get great jobs working for the corporations that are killing our democracy, our health, and are poisoning the world.
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China
Consumer Product Safety Commission
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