http://lnk.nu/wsws.org/6z5.shtml

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The execution of Stanley Tookie Williams

By the WSWS Editorial Board

13 December 2005

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The gruesome death watch set in motion by the refusal Monday of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency culminated shortly after midnight in the state murder by lethal injection of Stanley Tookie Williams.

The horrifying event, replete with television shots of the awaiting death chamber, was a testament to the backwardness of American society, and the degeneracy of the US ruling elite and its political and media servants. Williams, a founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles who was convicted of multiple murders in 1981, went to his death insisting on his innocence. More than a decade ago Williams, 51, renounced his gang past. From death row in San Quentin prison he wrote several books for children warning against the perils of street gangs.

His case was taken up by opponents of the death penalty, prominent Hollywood figures and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They appealed to Schwarzenegger to spare Williams’ life, on the grounds that he had renounced his past and sought to make a positive contribution to young people and society as a whole.

The Republican governor, who had only shortly before appointed a prominent Democrat to be his chief of staff, met with Williams’ lawyers and spent several days considering their appeal. But on Monday, shortly after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected Williams’ request for a stay of execution, Schwarzenegger issued a six-page statement turning down clemency and sanctioning the execution.

The governor’s decision, driven in large measure by the most cynical political calculations, met with no serious opposition from the Democratic Party leadership in California. With a few half-hearted exceptions, leading Democratic politicians maintained a deathly silence.

In the hours leading up to the execution, every level of the state and federal judiciary declined to intervene: the California state Supreme Court, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and finally, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who rejected the final legal effort by the attorneys acting for Williams.

The killing of Stanley Tookie Williams comes 45 years after the 1960 execution of Carol Chessman in the same prison. Chessman had been sentenced to death in 1948 for robbery and kidnapping. While on death row he wrote four books, one of which became a best-seller, and trained himself in law.

His case sparked a powerful movement to spare his life and put an end to the medieval relic of capital punishment. It involved such international figures as Albert Schweitzer, Aldous Huxley and Pablo Casals. Back then, it was argued that the very fact of Chessman spending twelve years on death row was proof of the cruel and inhuman nature of the death penalty.

Chessman went to his death protesting his innocence, but his ordeal fueled a movement against the death penalty that succeeded in achieving its abolition in the US for a number of years.

Now, 45 years after Chessman’s execution and nearly 30 years after the restoration of capital punishment in the US, Williams has become the 1,003rd person to be put to death. He was executed after spending nearly a quarter century on California’s death row.

Even if one were to assume that Williams was guilty of the terrible crimes for which he was convicted, there is no rational or humane justification for punishing him with 25 years in the shadow of the executioner, culminating in death by lethal injection. All the more so under conditions of growing popular opposition to the death penalty and increasing evidence of false convictions and a judicial system rigged against the poor and minorities.

There are currently 3,415 prisoners on death row across the US, including 54 women. California, with 648 people, including 15 women, has the largest death row population of any state in the union.

California has executed 12 prisoners since the state reinstituted the death penalty in 1977. Schwarzenegger refused clemency to two prisoners prior to Williams. His Democratic predecessor, Gray Davis, presided over five state killings during his nearly five years in office.

The fact that after all this bloodletting, virtually no section of the political establishment came forward to oppose the murder of Williams is a damning indictment of American society and those who administer it.

Schwarzenegger’s decision in the Williams case was carried out for the basest of motives—above all, to appease the most right-wing forces in state and national politics.

Less than 12 hours before the scheduled execution, Schwarzenegger’s office released its statement justifying the execution. The governor deliberately delayed issuing a final decision, not because he was genuinely in doubt, but in order to reduce the time between the decision and its implementation, and thus block further efforts to spare Williams’ life.

The time was also being used to make preparations to mobilize police and elements of the National Guard for use against any violent eruption in the streets of south Los Angeles.

In the end, the governor made a deliberate decision to appease the ultra-right base of the Republican Party, which combines anti-abortion fanaticism (misnamed defense of the “right to life”) with fervent support for capital punishment.

Williams remained defiant until the end, rejecting the traditional last meal for a condemned man, saying he did not wish any favors from those who were putting him to death. In an interview last week, he declared, “I don’t want food or water or sympathy from the place that is going to kill me. I don’t want anyone present for the sick and perverted spectacle. The thought of that is appalling and inhumane. It is disgusting for a human to sit and watch another human die.”

The decision to deny clemency was the governor’s first major action since his appointment of Democrat Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff, a selection that outraged leading California Republicans. Schwarzenegger chose Kennedy as an olive branch to the Democrats, in the wake of his humiliating failure in last month’s special election, when all four of the right-wing referendum propositions he had supported were voted down.

With the execution of Williams, Schwarzenegger is sending a signal to the ultra-right that whatever maneuvers with the Democratic Party may be necessary because it controls the majority in the state legislature, he can still be relied on to push for the realization of their political agenda.

In his statement rejecting clemency, Schwarzenegger made it a condition that the prisoner admit guilt: “Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologize or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case... Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption.”

Williams has steadfastly denied guilt for the 1979 murders of Albert Owens, Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang and Yu-Chin Yang Lin. His lawyers have attacked the evidence used in Williams’ 1981 trial, pointing out that it largely consisted of testimony by witnesses themselves guilty of other murders and hoping to win lighter sentences, and of a jailhouse informer who claimed to have been Williams’ confidante although he hardly knew him.

An additional political factor was Schwarzenegger’s desire to curry favor with the powerful prison guards union, which vehemently opposed the clemency bid and virtually demanded Williams’ execution. In this context, another part of Schwarzenegger’s statement rejecting clemency is particularly significant.

The California governor noted that Williams dedicated his 1998 memoir, Life in Prison, to “Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Ramona Africa, John Africa, Leonard Peltier, Dhoruba Al-Mujahid, George Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the countless other men, women and youths who have to endure the hellish oppression of living behind bars.”

There is nothing incriminating in such a list, naming prominent black nationalists and victims of police violence and frame-up. But Schwarzenegger singled out the mention of George Jackson, the Black Panther and prison activist killed by prison guards in 1971, declaring, “the inclusion of George Jackson on this list defies reason and is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems.”

The reference to George Jackson, accompanied by a long digression in the governor’s statement, might appear incomprehensible, referring as it does to an event that took place 34 years ago. But the state murder of Jackson in San Quentin came at the high point of the repression directed by the American government against black nationalists, antiwar activists and all political opponents of US imperialism. The state murder of Stanley Tookie Williams at the same prison is aimed at intimidating a new generation that is coming into struggle against war and repression.

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See Also:

Bush administration repudiates World Court jurisdiction in death penalty cases [11 March 2005]

Narrow majority on US Supreme Court bans juvenile death penalty [3 March 2005]

Execution Day in America [13 June 2001]

(Go to Source URL for Links)

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ALSO READ:

(Written Prior to the Execution)

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121205Z.shtml

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 The Death Penalty Is Not Pro-Life

    By Marjorie Cohn

    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Monday 12 December 2005

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    In 1960, Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown agonized about whether to grant clemency to death row inmate Caryl Chessman. Brown's refusal to commute Chessman's sentence haunted him for the rest of his life. He reversed 23 death judgments in the last 7 years of his term. Ronald Reagan, who defeated Brown in the 1966 gubernatorial election, used the death penalty as a weapon to unseat the incumbent governor.

    Twenty years later, Rose Bird, one of the greatest chief justices ever to serve on the California Supreme Court, lost her confirmation election largely because of the way she voted in death penalty cases. In all 64 capital cases that came before her during her tenure, Bird voted to overturn every one. Her court as a whole reversed 61. Some of Bird's supporters advised her to affirm just one death verdict in order to win confirmation. Bird refused. She said, "It is easy to be popular. It is not easy to be just."

    Republican Governor George Deukmejian and President Ronald Reagan both campaigned against Bird. "The defeat of Rose Bird was significant because it created a new danger in [California], the danger of politicizing a judicial branch that had not previously been subject to political pressures," Court of Appeals Justice J. Anthony Kline observed. Reagan's opposition to judges who "save the lives of killers" helped him in his bid for the presidency.

    The fate of Stanley Tookie Williams now rests in the hands of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't spare Williams's life. On the one hand, Schwarzenegger is under pressure from right-wing Republicans to refuse clemency. But there's also high-profile pressure on him in California to grant clemency and prove his campaign claims that he really is a moderate.

    When Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Donald Beardslee, the governor was the subject of a mighty backlash in his native Austria, which has outlawed the death penalty. And he must deal with his conscience, much like Pat Brown did in 1960. Schwarzenegger said the Beardslee decision was "the hardest day" of his life.

    If ever there was a condemned man who deserved clemency, Williams is the one. A co-founder of the Crips gang, Williams has undergone a remarkable transformation in the 24 years he has been in prison. The author of several children's books that decry gang violence (65,000 have been sold to schools and libraries), Williams has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    In 1993, Williams videotaped a message from death row supporting a truce between the Crips and the Bloods. He said, "Working together, we can put an end to this cycle that creates deep pain in the hearts of our mothers, our fathers, and our people, who have lost loved ones to this senseless violence." The videotape was shown during a peace summit meeting attended by over 400 gang members. If Schwarzenegger refuses Williams's plea, what message will it send to our children?

    By granting clemency to Williams, Schwarzenegger would affirm the ideal of rehabilitation he claims to favor. A governor's pardon of Williams would signal that people can be redeemed, that mercy, not just retribution, is a worthy goal. "I have a despicable background," Williams said. "I was a criminal. I was co-founder of the Crips. I was a nihilist. But people forget that redemption is tailor-made for the wretched."

    But even if Schwarzenegger pardons Stanley Tookie Williams, we must ask ourselves if we want to continue to engage in the state-sponsored killing of our people. "The reason to oppose capital punishment," the Los Angeles Times wrote in a recent editorial, "has to do with who we are, not who death row inmates are. The death penalty is inappropriate in all situations because it is unbefitting of a civilized society. Williams' case, though poignant, is irrelevant to this argument."

    As it deliberates the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, the Senate must also deal with what it means to be "pro-life." Alito, who claims to be pro-life when it comes to abortion, is pro-death when it comes to the death penalty.

    During his tenure on the Court of Appeals, Alito has shown little solicitude for death row inmates bringing habeas corpus petitions, particularly claims based on ineffective assistance of counsel and racial discrimination in jury selection. His positions in these cases run contrary to recent Supreme Court decisions emphasizing the importance of both race-neutral jury selection and constitutionally adequate counsel.

    In 2001, Alito voted to affirm the death judgment of an African-American man convicted by an all-white jury in Delaware. The prosecutor had struck all prospective African-American jurors from the jury pool. That same prosecutor had struck every prospective African-American juror in 3 other capital murder trials in the same county during the prior year. When Alito refused to infer racial discrimination from that pattern, he said, flippantly, "Although only about 10% of the population is left-handed, left-handers have won five of the last six presidential elections ... But does it follow that the voters cast their ballots based on whether a candidate was right- or left-handed?"

    A majority of the full court accused Alito of "minimiz[ing] the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants."

    Stanley Tookie Williams, an African-American, was also convicted and sentenced to death by a jury cleansed of all prospective African-American jurors by the prosecutor, based on the testimony of paid police informants. Williams maintains his innocence.

    If confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Alito would have a powerful influence over whether many of our citizens live or die. In the past 5 years, the Court decided only 3 cases concerning abortion, but over 3 dozen involving the death penalty.

    Capital cases are complex and often laden with error. A recent study at Columbia University found that 67 percent of death penalty cases had been reversed for serious constitutional error. Recurring features in these cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defense representation. There is a growing number of cases where DNA or other evidence has proved conclusively that death row inmates are factually innocent. In some cases, that evidence has surfaced too late - after innocent people have already been executed.

    The United States is the only Western democracy that still executes its citizens. In 2004, 97 percent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Vietnam and the United States. Several major international human rights treaties eschew the death penalty. None of the 3 international criminal tribunals - the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - permit the death penalty as a sentencing option for the most heinous of crimes over which they have jurisdiction.

    Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments, according to Amnesty International.

    "The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality," US Supreme Court Justice Arthur L. Goldberg wrote in a 1976 article in the Boston Globe. We must not be a society that rewards the meanest judges and elected officials. Let us choose and affirm life, not death.

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    Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, President-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. She writes a weekly column for t r u t h o u t.

http://lnk.nu/prisonplanet.com/6xn.htm

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Republican Congressman Says Totalitarian Regime a Danger
Bob Barr says military dictatorship close

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | December 11 2005

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Former Republican Congressman and CIA official Bob Barr says that there is a danger recent developments describe a trend of America slipping into a totalitarian society and that the Bush administration are doing everything in their power to see that this happens.

During a radio interview with host Alex Jones, Barr outlined where the country is heading.

"Basically, as long as you smile when you demand to see somebody's ID at gunpoint sitting on a bus I guess it's OK for the government, that's sort of the way they operate. It can be a totalitarian type regime."

"I think it's a real danger where we have the military becoming involved in all sorts of domestic matters and we have the government being able to seize very private personal records on people without any suspicion that they've done anything wrong. This is a dramatic turn of events that has accelerated greatly since 9/11."

Barr made comments very similar to those of current Republican Congressman Ron Paul in stating that natural disasters could be used by the government as a pretext to abolish posse comitatus.

"If we have the military involved whenever there's a windstorm, rain or tornado then what we are doing is that we are undermining the entire basis on what our constitutional representative democratic form of government was founded."

Barr said that legislation like the Patriot Act and its imminent re-authorization and expansion were more of a threat to the American way of life than any terrorist attack.



"Even when the leaders in Washington say we're not going to let the terrorists change our way of life, they are implementing policies that do precisely that."

Barr elaborated that the manipulation of fear was a key cornerstone in the government's coup de 'tat on constitutional liberties.

"They're using people's fear of another terrorist attack to move forward with various government programs that the government has wanted to gather and put in place for many many years. They're using the fear which is now driving public policy in this country which is very unfortunate and very un-American. Our leaders are shamelessly playing on that fear to implement and grab power."

Speaking on the topic of the second amendment, Barr said that his position as a board member on the NRA enabled him to judge the difference between how the Clinton and Bush administration's approached the issue. Barr echoed the sentiments of many other prominent conservatives in expressing his frustration about how the Bush administration was even more anti-second amendment than the Clinton office.

"it's my impression to be honest with you, and this is confirmed by a lot of folks who are involved very heavily in regulatory matters involving firearms, that it is more difficult dealing with this administration than it was dealing with the prior administration."

Barr is currently working with the ACLU and others in trying to prevent the sunset clauses of the Patriot Act from being renewed, which could happens as early as this week.

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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_325.shtml

(Supporting Links at Source URL)

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Cornered by the truth

By Sheila Samples

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Dec 12, 2005, 01:09

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Elwood Bush: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses!

Jake Blair: Hit it!

Elwood Bush: They're not gonna catch us! We're on a mission from God!

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It was bizarre at first, even amusing in a hideous little way. When George "Elwood" Bush and Tony "Jake" Blair scrambled up on the international stage shortly after 9-11 and broke into their frenzied Blues Brothers routine, I fully expected the US Congress, the UK Parliament and citizens on both sides of the Atlantic to snort in derision and get up and walk out of the theater. I mean, c'mon . . .

"Saddam's comin' after us! He's a grave and gathering danger -- a horror like we've never known before!" Elwood Bush yelled, while gandy-dancing across the stage. "Saddam's the evilest evildoer in the world. He's got smokin' guns 'n mushroom clouds 'n torture chambers 'n rape rooms 'n he hates our freedom! He has stacks and piles of WMD! They're scattered all over the desert -- Colin's got pictures of 'em. They --"

"--They'll be here in 45 minutes if we don't attack!" Jake Blair screeched, his knees hitting his chin. "Stand back! Stand back!" he cried, shaking a sheaf of papers at the audience. "I have a dossier -- and I'm not afraid to use it!"

"Yes! Yes!! Fuck Saddam! We're takin' him out! Remember September the 11th!" Bush roared before leaping high in the air, making a perfect "split" landing then, with one hand on the floor, skittered around in circles, smirking at the cheering mob.

"JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST!!!" Blair screamed as he rolled his eyes and moon-walked around the twirling Bush -- "I have seen The Light!! Let's do it!"

And so they did it. Spurred by hyper-imagination and carried aloft on the shoulders of a corporate media war machine, they thundered off on their great adventure -- a two-headed, modern-day Orson Welles -- whipping up mass psychological terror by relentlessly shrieking that a new, more horrible "War of the Worlds" is upon us. They did it by trashing legislative bodies, trampling legions of anti-war protesters, and twisting facts to fit a tangle of lies.

They did it because fear foments chaos and disorder. People either streaming into the streets in terror or cowering under their beds in anticipation of impending disaster are easily manipulated into a dysfunctional public mass which accepts death and destruction as the new norm. As Hermann Goering said, it is a simple matter to control the people in any country. "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger . . ."

Who knows what the truth is anymore? Each time the truth threatens to emerge, the dancing duo whomps it back into the shadows with a false-flag terror alert and, with the help of a treasonous media, we soon forget what it was that "almost" penetrated our consciousness. No truth has fought more valiantly to break free, nor sent Bush and Blair into more strenuous dancing spasms than what actually happened on 9-11. We know the truth, but cannot, or will not, wrap our minds around it lest we be forced to stare aghast at ourselves in the mirror.

But the truth of that disastrous day will out, because anybody with half sense and one eye who has seen video of the WTC buildings imploding knows their miraculous freefall could be nothing short of a controlled demolition. Truth is, controlled demolitions all look alike -- if you've seen one of those suckers, you've seen 'em all. That's the truth. Forget the bouncing Bushball tale that jet fuel turned massive chunks of concrete to powder and brought towering buildings to earth at the speed of light, including one that wasn't even hit by an airplane.

The truth is out there in plain sight, and we must come to grips with it or Bush is correct -- we're not gonna catch them. Bush believes he is on a genocidal mission from God, and Blair makes his political decisions only after channeling "The Light," and cleansing himself by journeying to Mexico's fake Aztec pyramid, stripping down to swim trunks, gazing at "phantom animals" in a stream before slathering melon, papaya and mud over his body and emitting a "primal scream of psychic rebirth."

What could be more terrifying than suddenly realizing these two madmen, driven by arrogance, lust for power and insatiable greed are waging war on anything that moves, including their own citizens, in order to achieve the unachievable goal of seizing control of the world and all its resources? One is a bloodthirsty bully who would rather destroy the world than admit he's wrong. The other, an ambitious fop -- in over his head -- has no recourse but to cling to their "special relationship" [*] and hope for the best.

The best they have to distract our attention from the truth and to whip us back into submission -- one of the two options left on the table -- is the false-flag terror weapon, which has evolved from startling announcements of terrorists moving freely among us with bombs in their shoes, to absurd calls for plastic sheets and duct tape, to more deadly attacks wherein many innocents are maimed and killed. To succeed, this option depends on the final one -- the willingness of a dishonorable and treasonous media to roil the bloody disinformation waters until truth is lost in chaos.

Later we will be asked -- will ask ourselves -- how two such raging mad, desperately absurd fools managed to get away with such carnage. The only possible answer is they did it because they could. Because we allowed it. They cannot turn back because they know, as do we, that invading Iraq was the mother of all war crimes, and they are the terrorists who will be brought to justice in the International Criminal Court.

The truth has them cornered and, unless they are stopped, they will keep doing their ghoulish dance of death until the mushroom cloud that so fascinates them covers planet Earth like an umbrella. The skulls and bones of the innocent will continue to pile up unless we shake free of the evil spell cast across this land.

We can combat the two-pronged onslaught of Bush and Blair's War on the World by waking up and paying attention to what they are doing, by remembering the lies and deceit of the warmongers that catapaulted us into this bloody mess. We can stop them if we resist as individuals -- a vast, outraged sea of individuals who are mad as hell and flatly refuse to take any more. As Samuel Adams once said, "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush-fires in people's minds."

And that's the truth.

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[*]The Special Relationship

The bombs go off
The legs go off
The heads go off

The arms go off
The feet go off
The light goes out

The heads go off
The legs go off
The lust is up

The dead are dirt
The lights go out
The dead are dust

A man bows down before another man
And sucks his lust

--Harold Pinter, August 2004

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© 2005 Sheila Samples

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.

Copyright © 1998-2005 Online Journal

http://lnk.nu/nytimes.com/6xb.html

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December 11, 2005

At F.B.I., Frustration Over Limits on an Antiterror Law

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 - Some agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been frustrated by what they see as the Justice Department's reluctance to let them demand records and to use other far-ranging investigative measures in terrorism cases, newly disclosed e-mail messages and internal documents show.

Publicly, the debate over the law known as the USA Patriot Act has focused on concerns from civil rights advocates that the F.B.I. has gained too much power to use expanded investigative tools to go on what could amount to fishing expeditions.

But the newly disclosed e-mail messages offer a competing view, showing that, privately, some F.B.I. agents have felt hamstrung by their inability to get approval for using new powers under the Patriot Act, which was passed weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

One internal F.B.I. message, sent in October 2003, criticized the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review at the Justice Department, which reviews and approves terrorist warrants, as regularly blocking requests from the F.B.I. to use a section of the antiterrorism law that gave the bureau broader authority to demand records from institutions like banks, Internet providers and libraries.

"While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from OIPR's failure to let us use the tools given to us," read the e-mail message, which was sent by an unidentified F.B.I. official. "This should be an OIPR priority!!!"

The bureau turned the e-mail messages over to the Electronic Privacy Information Center as part of a lawsuit brought by the group under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking material on the F.B.I.'s use of anti-terrorism powers. The group provided the material to The New York Times.

Congress is expected to vote early next week on a final plan for reauthorizing virtually all main parts of the law, including the F.B.I.'s broader power to demand records. President Bush, who has made renewal of the measure one of his top priorities, pushed again Saturday for Congress to act quickly.

"Since its passage after the attacks of September the 11, 2001, the Patriot Act has proved essential to fighting the war on terror and preventing our enemies from striking America again," Mr. Bush said in his radio address on Saturday.

While some Republicans and Democrats have attacked a brokered agreement reached Thursday because they said it does not go far enough in protecting civil liberties, the president hailed the agreement.

"Now Congress needs to finish the job," he said. "Both the Senate and the House need to hold a prompt vote, and send me a bill renewing the Patriot Act so I can sign it into law."

As part of the lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a federal court has ordered the F.B.I. to turn over 1,500 pages of material to the privacy information group every two weeks.

An earlier collection of F.B.I. documents, released by the group in October, showed numerous violations of internal procedure and sometimes federal law by the bureau in its handling of surveillance and investigative matters. In some cases, for instance, agents had extended surveillance operations and investigations for months without getting required approval from supervisors.

In the most recent batch of material, an F.B.I. memorandum sent in March 2004 said the process for getting the Justice Department to improve demands for business records would be "greatly improved" because of a change in procedure allowing the bureau to "bypass" the department's intelligence office, which normally reviews all such requests.

But officials at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. said they were unaware of any such change in procedure and that all bureau requests for business record were still reviewed and approved by the Justice Department.

A separate e-mail message, sent in May 2004 with the subject header "Miracles," mockingly celebrated the fact that the Justice Department had approved an F.B.I. request for records under the so-called library provision.

"We got our first business record order signed today!" the message said. "It only took two and a half years."

In its latest public accounting of its use of the library provision, which falls under Section 215 of the antiterrorism law, the Justice Department said in April that it had used the law 35 times since late 2003 to gain access to information on apartment leasing, driver's licenses, financial records and other data in intelligence investigations.

But the department has said that it had never used the provision to demand records from libraries or bookstores or to get information related to medical or gun records, areas that have prompted privacy concerns and protests from civil rights advocates, conservative libertarians and other critics of the law.

Michael Kortan, a spokesman for the F.B.I., said the frustrations expressed in the internal e-mail messages "are considered personal opinions in what employees believed to be private e-mails not intended for large, public dissemination."

Mr. Kortan added that "the frustration evident in these messages demonstrates that no matter how difficult or time-consuming the process, F.B.I. special agents are held to a very high standard in complying with the necessary procedures currently in place to protect civil liberties and constitutional rights when using the legal tools appropriate for national security investigations."

A senior official at the Justice Department, who was granted anonymity because many aspects of the antiterrorism law's use are classified, echoed that theme. "For all the hand-wringing over potential abuses of the Patriot Act, what these e-mails show is that it's still fairly difficult to use these tools."

But Marcia Hofmann, who leads the electronic privacy center's government section, said the e-mail messages "raise a lot of unanswered questions" about the F.B.I.'s use of Patriot Act powers and its relations with the Justice Department. Without fuller answers, Ms. Hofmann said, a reauthorization of the law by Congress "would seem premature."

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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

http://waynemadsenreport.com/

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December 11, 2005

SPECIAL REPORT.

Additional ties between southern Christian fundamentalists, Texas oil interests, and Russian-Israeli mobsters and weapons smugglers uncovered.

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According to informed Washington insiders, there is increasing evidence of financial links between key "Christian Right" GOP notables and an international ring of Russian-Ukrainian-Israeli mobsters tied to notorious Russian weapons smuggler Viktor Vasilevich (aka Anatoliyevich) Bout.

Bout, whose U.S. assets were frozen by the Treasury Department, continues to provide various contractor services in Iraq and is considered by Condoleezza Rice to be out-of-bounds for U.S. law enforcement authorities. When she was National Security Adviser, Rice pre-empted an attempt by Sharjah, United Arab Emirates authorities to arrest Bout. To U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Rice was very clear when it comes to Bout: "Look, but don't touch" was her direct order to the CIA and FBI. It appears that Bout has gone from arms smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban to arms runner for the Bush administration. Bout's British Gulf International Airline, registered in Sao Tome and Principe and Kyrgyzstan and based in Sharjah, is a regular visitor to Baghdad International and airports in the north of Iraq. Bout also made a financial windfall from contracts let to his airline companies by the former Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority led by L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer. Bout also benefited from contracts let to his Dubai-based Falcon Express Cargo by Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton.



Bout's British Gulf International contracted to U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. Bout once provided arms to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Federal prosecutors are already examining links between indicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Italian Mafia hit men who have been charged with murdering Florida businessman Gus Boulis, former Christian Coalition director and Georgia Republican Lt. Governor candidate Ralph Reed, and indicted Texas GOP Representative Tom DeLay. Abramoff associate Adam Kidan has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of Abramoff, especially deals involving the shake down of various Indian tribes in shady casino deals.

There is also now interest in the activities of Richard T. Hines, the head of the powerful Republican lobbying firm RTH Consulting, Inc. Hines, a South Carolina native and a protege of the late GOP dirty trickmeister Lee Atwater, was one of the architects of the dirty tricks campaign by Bush against John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. A confederate of Abramoff in the 1980s Reagan administration's covert support network for the Nicaraguan contras, Angolan UNITA guerrillas, and Afghan mujaheddin, Hines is active in various Confederacy resurgence organizations, many of which have clear racist agendas. However, that has not prevented Hines from becoming the lobbyist for Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh, a military officer who overthrew Gambia's democratically-elected President Sir Dawda K. Jawara in a 1994 military coup supported by the United States Navy.

Hines inherited the lobbying contract for Gambia from the eclectic Washington lobbyist Edward von Kloberg III, an individual who represented Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Liberia's Samuel K. Doe, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, Congolese leader Laurent Kabila, the exiled King Kigeli V of Rwanda, and Saddam Hussein. Last May, von Kloberg took a swan dive off of a castle in Rome, allegedly committing suicide after a spat with a gay partner.

The connections between Hines and Gambia are important since the small narrow West African country is also a major base of operations for notorious Russian international arms smuggler Viktor Bout. The Gambia is the headquarters for one of many of Bout's front companies -- companies that are used to smuggle everything from weapons to diamonds and mercenaries to international relief supplies. In fact, Bout was the character on whom fictional arms smuggler Yuri Orlov, played by Nicolas Cage in the movie Lord of War, was largely based.

Bout's connections with the Christian Right do not end with Gambia. Bout was Liberian dictator Charles Taylor's primary arms and diamond smuggler. Bout and his associates were given Liberian diplomatic passports and, with Taylor's blessing and protection, they registered a number of their front companies in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. Taylor, who is now in exile in Nigeria, was a business partner with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. Robertson's organization mentored both Ralph Reed and Richard Hines. According to British and Israeli intelligence sources, Taylor also enabled Al Qaeda to launder blood diamonds for cash through Liberia. Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone were where Israeli mobsters engaged in business with Israeli gangsters who operated under the full protection of the Israeli Likud government.

Before Likud began purging Mossad of experienced intelligence officers with ties to the Israeli Labor Party, the Israeli-Al Qaeda diamond financial connection in West Africa was being pointed out by those officers as suicidal for Israeli interests. However, Taylor and Bout had powerful interests in the United States: a combination of the Christian Right and pro-Likud organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), both of which ignored and continue to ignore Israeli organized crime connections to Al Qaeda and terrorism.

Robertson and Taylor were business partners in a Cayman Islands front company called Freedom Gold, Ltd. In fact, Freedom Gold bas headquartered at Robertson's CBN offices in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Robertson's African interests also crossed paths with Bout's in another country -- the former Zaire. Robertson's African Development Company used the cover of Robertson's tax-exempt "Operation Blessing" to ferry conflict diamonds out of civil war-ravaged Zaire (now Congo).



A rare photo of Viktor Bout, aka Butt, Bont, Butte, Boutov, and Vitali Sergitov, born January 13, 1967 and January 13, 1970. Passports: various Liberian diplomatic, two Russian, one Ukrainian.

A UN Security Council report dated November 30, 2005, lists Bout's Gambia New Millennium Air Company as having its address at the residence of Hines' client Jammeh: State House, Banjul, Gambia. The UN report states, "The Director of this firm is Baba Jobe, who is already listed on the Liberia Sanctions Committee’s assets freeze list. According to a commercial aviation database, the firm acted as a cover for Victor Bout’s operations. Its one aircraft, a Russian-made passenger jet, was acquired from Centrafrican Airlines."

It is noteworthy that Hines's client, President Jammeh, just took possession of the Russian-made VIP presidential passenger jet, an Ilyushin IL-62 (C5-GNM) [Gambia] (formerly CCCP-86511 [USSR], RA-86511 [Russia], 3D-RTI [Swaziland], TL-ACL [Central African Republic]). And also of interest is the owner of the presidential aircraft: it is none other than Gambia New Millennium Air, the Bout-owned company listed on the UN Security Council freeze list and which is headquartered at Jammeh's State House in Banjul, the Gambian capital. In fact, the plane had been previously registered to Bout front companies in Swaziland and the Central African Republic.



The Gambia: Joins Gabon and Swaziland as another African playground for the GOP Mafia

Bout, who flew arms and passengers from Dubai and other locations to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan prior to 9-11, is now providing air services in post-Taliban Afghanistan as well as U.S.-occupied Iraq. Bout's transactions with the Taliban were handled by Vial, Inc., a firm based in Delaware. One of Bout's closest associates is the Russian-Israeli Odessa-born crime boss Leonid Minin, an Israeli national who, according to the UN Security Council, travels on forged German passports as well as legal Israeli, Russian, Greek, and Bolivian passports under at least ten aliases.

It is also noteworthy that many of Bout's operations are based in Eastern European countries that have been mentioned in association with the rendition and transporting of CIA prisoners. Bout's numerous Russian-built cargo and passenger planes have been seen at the same airports used by CIA flights. For example, Bright Aviation, a suspected Bout front, is based at Sofia Airport in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is believed to be one of the countries used by the CIA to house secret prisoners. Another Bout front, Moldtransavia SRL, is based in Chisinau, Moldova, another suspected stopover point for CIA flights.

One Chisinau, Moldova-based Bout front company, Aerocom, which also does business as Air Mero, is contracted to fly for Kellogg, Brown & Root in Iraq and elsewhere. Aerocom has also been cited in UN and DEA reports for being involved in drug smuggling in Belize. Some law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe believe that the covert flights being operated by CIA contractors and Bout's companies in support of secret prisoner movement are also involved in smuggling drugs. After being subjected to news reports, Aerocom quickly  changed its name last year.



More ties that bind Bush cartel to Russian-Ukrainian-Israeli Mafia: Bush with Yahya Jammeh, dictator of the Gambia, the client of both GOP lobbyist and neo-Confederate Richard Hines and international arms smuggler Viktor Bout.

Bright's Antonov AN-12 planes were also sighted in Western European airports frequented by CIA aircraft suspected of transporting prisoners. One of the most interesting connections was the presence of Bright Aviation's AN-12V (LZ-BRP) on October 5, 2004 at Helsinki's Vantaa Airport. Just two days before, U.S. private military contractor Blackwater's CASA C212-CC Aviocar (N960BW) also landed at Vantaa.

Bright's LZ-BRP was also spotted at Budapest Ferihegy on October 26, April 30, and March 30, 2005; Marseilles on October 27, 2005; Toulouse in April 2005; Vigo, Spain on October 16, 2005; Amsterdam Schipol on September 17, 2005; Zurich on June 3, 2005; Plovdiv, Bulgaria on June 11, 2005; Lyons on January 24, 2005;  Madrid on January 27, 2005 and July 16, 2004; Recife, Brazil on November 20, 2004, Zagreb, Croatia on September 9, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands) on June 13, 2004; Ostend, Belgium on June 2, 2004; and Geneva on May 11 and 12, 2004 (first visit for this aircraft to Geneva). Another Bright AN-12 (LZ-BRC) was spotted in Glasgow Prestwick on October 14, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands), where AN-12 visits are extremely rare; Maastricht/Aachen on December 22, 2003; Lisbon on June 7, 2004; Ostend on September 6, 2002; Stockholm Arlanda on November 5, 2002; Helsinki Vantaa (with the name Heli Air painted on its fuselage) on October 18, 2005; Budapest Ferihagy on November 19, 2005 (as Heli Air); and St. John's, Newfoundland on November 15, 2005 (as Heli Air). Bright's LZ-BRV AN12 was seen at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion on May 25, 2005; Zurich, May 24, 2005; and Palma de Mallorca on February 18, 2005.

Bout's Air Bas and Irbis Air Russian-made transport aircraft were spotted throughout 2004 at Bilad airbase in northern Iraq. Bilad is the airfield near Camp Anaconda, one of the first detention camps set up by U.S. forces and the site of the first reported cases of U.S. prisoner torture. A Belgrade-based airline, Kosmas Air, also linked to Bout, is reportedly transporting weapons from Serbia to both Iraq and Afghanistan.



Bright Aviation AN-12 at Zurich airport in May 2005. Bout's aircraft crossed paths at numerous airports with CIA prisoner flights.

The firm and documented connections between Bout (the smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban) and Christian fundamentalists and Russian-Israeli mob interests provide yet more proof that the forces behind 9-11 and other terrorist attacks represented far more than a bunch of cave dwelling Islamist insurgents in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As 9-11 co-chair Thomas Kean recently said, if there was a wider conspiracy behind 9-11 it would be a "monstrous" act. Other than Wahhabi mosques and madrassas around the world, the monsters behind 9-11 and other attacks can also be found in mega-churches in the South, oil company board rooms in Houston, airfields in the emirates of the Persian Gulf, Hasidic-run "blood diamond" centers in Europe and New York, GOP lobbying firms on K Street, and dank and dark arms warehouses in Ukraine and Moldova.