The Day We Fight Back

We are fighting back too at Antiwar.com. Please visit The Day We Fight Back for events in your area.

If you are in Los Angeles, please join us tonight at Casey’s Irish Pub at 613 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles, California at 7:30pm. Restore The Fourth Los Angeles is hosting an event featuring the Tenth Amendment Center and ACLU of Southern California. Nick Hankoff, Development Associate with Antiwar.com, will be representing the Tenth Amendment Center. Both the USA Freedom Act (Federal) and the Fourth Amendment Protection Act (California) will be discussed.

Events in Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany, and elsewhere can be found here.

Video: Glenn Greenwald on GCHQ, NSA, Snowden, and Spying

BBC reporter Kirsty Wark is taking heat today on social networks and blogs for the hostile questions in her interview with Glenn Greenwald. It’s unnecessary. Wark’s questions are perfect in their assumption of every obvious objection someone in power might have regarding the NSA revelation. Above is Greenwald slicing, dicing, filleting the conceits of journalism under empire.

Edward Snowden, Booz Allen Hamilton, “NATO 3”: Connecting the Dots

Today’s breaking news is that Edward Snowden – a Booz Allen Hamilton contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) who released internal NSA documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post – has fled to Latin America.

nsa-spying-logo

He’s been joined by Wikileaks employee Sarah Harrison. Missed in much of the hoopla surrounding Snowden’s “OJ Simpson in his White Bronco Take Two“: Booz Allen’s central role in Chicago’s “NATO 3” domestic terrorism case.

NATO 3” is shorthand for Jared Chase (29), Brent Betterly (25) and Brian Church (21), three Occupy activists who drove up to Chicago in late-April of 2012 before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit. Weeks later, they saw themselves faced with several domestic terrorism charges and many more serious felony charges.

NATO-3-mug-shots

Currently sitting in Cook County Jail – the most heavily populated prison in the U.S. and cited in a 2008 report by the U.S. Department of Justice for inhumane conditions – they face 85 years behind bars.

It’s the first time Illinois’ state terrorism statute has ever been utilized, with an official trial starting date set for Sept. 16, 2013 at Cook County Courthouse. That’s one day before the two year anniversary of the launch of Occupy Wall Street.

The Booz Allen Connection

Two undercover Chicago Police Department officers going by the names Mo and Nadia were instrumental to the eventual arrest and charging of the “NATO 3.” They were on a temporary 90-day assignment before the NATO Summit beginning in Feb. 2012 as part of Field Intelligence Team 7150 to keep an eye 0n any “criminal activities” of anarchists or Occupy Chicago.

A stack of  court records have come out during the pre-trial phase.

Some of those records show that members of the FBI’s Chicago Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory (RCFL) may be called to testify if the case goes to trial. A domain name search for Chicago RCFL’s web site shows that it was registered by Booz Allen.

Booz Allen Hamilton is referred to by its proponents as a “Digital Blackwater,” a reference to what Jeremy Scahill referred to as the “world’s most powerful mercenary army,” now going by the name “Academi.”

“[BAH] is one of the NSA’s most important and trusted contractors. It’s involved in virtually every aspect of intelligence and surveillance,” wrote investigative journalist Tim Shorrock in a recent article. “Among other secret projects, Booz was deeply involved in ‘Total Information Awareness,’ the controversial data-mining project run for the Bush administration.”

Booz’s Connection to the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System

As I wrote in my article on TruthOut, Booz Allen is also deeply involved in the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System and its Human Terrain Teams, which “map the human terrain” of communities abroad for the military and CIA as part of counterinsurgency warfare campaigns.

Booz Allen provides IT and logistical support for the HTS/HTTs. 

hts_logo_2

My piece further explained:

A career New York cop, Chicago Police Department (CPD) superintendent Garry McCarthy is no stranger to the Human Terrain System.

It wasn’t long he after formally assumed the mantle of CPD superintendent in 2011 that McCarthy drew fire for having allowed a spy ring tasked to “map the human terrain” of Newark, N.J.,’s Islamic community to operate there, where he served as police chief before taking the position as CPD’s top dog.

McCarthy also served as an NYPD commander when the police set up spy rings before the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City and during “CIA on the Hudson,” the joint NYPD/CIA project that was set up and run by former CIA Deputy Director for Operations David Cohen to “map the human terrain” of New York City’s Islamic community.

“Architecture of Oppression”

Snowden referred to the Frankenstein the NSA and its private contractors have created as an “architecture of oppression” in his exclusive interview with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras in The Guardian.

“Digital Blackwater,” as AlterNet‘s Tom Hintze pointed out, is but a tiny piece of the “architecture of oppression.” The architecture also includes the use of undercover officers, agent provocateurs, and paramilitary-style policing of protests, to name a few.

Snowden’s comments to Greenwald speak well to the “NATO 3” case, which revolves predominantly on things they said to Mo and Nadia and things they said to one another on Facebook before heading to Chicago. It’s what Roger Shuy referred to as “language crimes.”

“[E]ven if you’re not doing anything wrong you’re being watched and recorded. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call,” Snowden told Greenwald. “And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.”

Pardon Snowden Now!

Earlier today, Antiwar.com Editorial Director Justin Raimondo published this letter:

Dear Friend of Antiwar.com,

When darkness begins to fall, some curse the shadows – and others turn on the lights.

One man, a 29-year-old former spook and apparent libertarian, has stepped forward to reveal the truth about what our government is doing – and rescue our liberties from the warlords of Washington. One man had the courage to step forward and speak truth to power: in some dictionaries, that’s called “narcissism.” In mine, it’s called bravery.

Americans must send a message to Edward Snowden, one that will also be immediately noted and understood by our nervous rulers: Ed, we’ve got your back!

That’s why it’s so vitally important for you to sign the White House petition to pardon Snowden. It’s the least we can do for a man who has sacrificed everything so that Americans might be given one last chance wake up and restore the Constitution. The petition — started by an anonymous person from Rochester, New York, with the initials “P.M.” — immediately took off, with over 50,000 in the first 48 hours, but it is now stuck at around 90,000 – with until July 9th to reach a total of 100,000, and thus earn an official White House response.

Topping 100,000 – even after they raised the threshold from 25,000 – would score a huge public relations coup for the cause of civil liberties and force the White House to acknowledge the popularity of Snowden’s cause.

The success of the petition will also have a cascading effect on legislation – such as Sen. Rand Paul’s “Fourth Amendment Restoration Act of 2013” – designed to rein in Big Brother.

Please sign the petition now – every signature counts!

In peace and liberty,

Justin Raimondo
Editorial Director
Antiwar.com

The Danger from Politicizing “Terror”

By politicizing who is and who is not a “terrorist” – pinning the label on American adversaries and sparing purported American friends – the U.S. government created confusion at FBI headquarters that contributed to the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks, reports ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley. (originally posted on Consortium News)

Glenn Greenwald’s critique – regarding the recent U.S. indictment of 38-year-old Iraqi Faruq Khalil Muhammad Isa (currently in Canada) – is spot on about “terrorism” coming to simply mean opposing United States’ interests or resisting U.S. military invasions.

U.S. authorities have now dropped any requirement that the “terrorists” target or kill civilians as part of a political objective, the classic definition of terrorism. Isa stands accused of “providing material support to a terrorist conspiracy” because he allegedly backed a 2008 attack in Mosul, Iraq, killing five U.S. soldiers.
Continue reading “The Danger from Politicizing “Terror””