April 26, 2012 CNN

Trials Without Crimes Or Evidence - by Paul Craig Roberts

April 25, 2012

Andy Worthington is a superb reporter who has specialized in providing the facts of the US government’s illegal abuse of “detainees,” against whom no evidence exists. (Source) In an effort to create evidence, the US government has illegally resorted to torture. Torture produces false confessions, plea bargains, and false testimony against others in order to escape further torture.

For these reasons, in Anglo-American law self-incrimination secured through torture has been impermissible evidence for centuries. So also has been secret evidence withheld from the accused and his attorney. Secret evidence cannot be confronted. Secret evidence is distrusted as made-up in order to convict the innocent. The evidence is secret because it cannot stand the light of day.

The US government relies on secret evidence in its cases against alleged terrorists, claiming that national security would be threatened if the evidence were revealed. This is abject nonsense. It is an absurd claim that presenting evidence against a terrorist jeopardizes the national security of the United States.

To the contrary, not presenting evidence jeopardizes the security of each and every one of us. Once the government can convict defendants on the basis of secret evidence, even the concept of a fair trial will disappear. Fair trials are already history, but the concept lingers.

From The Toronto Hearings DVD.

Case Report: Lung Disease in World Trade Center Responders 
Exposed to Dust and Smoke: Carbon Nanotubes Found in the Lungs 
of World Trade Center Patients and Dust Samples
http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info:doi/10.1289/ehp.0901159

Kevin Ryan: Experiments with nanothermite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O66UyGNrmSI

See Harrit's presentation in full here:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17190055

In surreal reasoning, justice Anthony Kennedy explained that this ruling is necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How would strip searching him have prevented the attack? Did justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity?

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/05/us-sexual...

Media Roots Radio- The Anthrax Attacks, From The Memory Hole by Media Roots

MEDIA ROOTS — Abby and Robbie break apart the official government narrative of the Anthrax Attacks by discussing foreknowledge, government complicity, and gross inconsistencies regarding every aspect of the events on this edition of Media Roots Radio.  The episode is fully transcribed and sourced below.

By Russ Baker on Apr 10, 2012

Would covert operatives whose work involves subverting democratic governments abroad—including violent coups such as the one that brought down Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973—hesitate when ordered to participate in comparable activities at home?

We’re constantly told that no such thing could happen in the good ole USA (certainly not in the deaths of JFK, RFK, MLK, for example), if for no other reason than that it is impossible to keep such plots secret.

Or, in the common parlance: “Someone would have talked.”

The logic goes: since no one has come forward to describe their role in such plots, therefore no plot has existed.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. People are coming forward all the time to provide, if not the whole story, crucial bits and pieces that together would lead us to awareness of a variety of covert doings, some clearly nefarious. For example, scores, perhaps hundreds of credible eyewitnesses have cast doubt on the official “lone kook” scenario that is a staple of every domestic assassination.

But these whistleblowers are quickly discredited, suppressed, or worse. From time to time people even come out of the national security establishment to testify to such wrongdoing, but they almost always pay a heavy price –which of course discourages others from bearing witness.

By Kevin Ryan
Posted on April 8, 2012

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are among the leading suspects in the crimes of September 11, 2001.  Reasons for this include that they were in the most powerful positions in the U.S. that day, that there is evidence they had foreknowledge of the attacks, and that they did not respond effectively.  Other people who were closely associated with Dick and Don should also be investigated if they were in positions to be involved.  Richard Armitage and Frank Carlucci are two such people.  They both played important roles with respect to the events of September 11, 2001 and, prior to that, both had a colorful history of covert operations which intertwined and was aligned with the careers of Dick and Don.  Armitage and Carlucci both also benefited from the War on Terror by way of profits made after the attacks.

For the twelve years prior to the attacks, Frank Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with close ties to the most powerful members of the Reagan and Bush I administrations, and to the Saudi Arabian oil industry.  The two major operating subsidiaries of that company were BDM international, for which Carlucci was chairman, and the Vinnell Corporation.  Working for Carlucci at BDM from 1989 to 1996 was its vice president, Barry McDaniel, who left to become the Chief Operating Officer for a an alarmingly suspicious company.  That was Stratesec, the security company that had contracts for so many of the facilities associated with the 9/11 attacks.

On September 11, 2001, Carlucci was meeting with Carlyle investors at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC, along with the brother of Osama bin Laden.[1]  Former president George H.W. Bush had been meeting with them the previous day.  Today, McDaniel is business partners with one of Dick Cheney’s closest former colleagues, Bruce Bradley, whose business partner Alan Woods is mentioned below.[2]

A six-year-old memo from within the George W. Bush administration that came to light this week acknowledges that White House-approved interrogation techniques amounted to "war crimes."

"The Bush White House tried to destroy every copy of the memo, written by then-State Department counselor Philip Zelikow. Zelikow examined tactics like waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- and concluded that there was no way they were legal, domestically or internationally.

“We are unaware of any precedent in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, or any subsequent conflict for authorized, systematic interrogation practices similar to those in question here," Zelikow wrote. The memo has been obtained by George Washington University's National Security Archive and Wired's Spencer Ackerman".

In an e-mail exchange with Britain's The Guardian newspaper, Zelikow said he still believes the techniques approved under Bush were "wrong" and may have violated U.S. and international laws. He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice supported his position.

Please sign this petition. Just like the roundly defeated SOPA and PIPA this new bill seeks to strip us of Internet Privacy.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa/?vl

Over 100 Members of Congress are backing a bill (CISPA) that would give private companies and the US government the right to spy on any of us at any time for as long as they want without a warrant. This is the third time the US Congress has tried to attack our Internet freedom. But we helped beat SOPA, and PIPA -- and now we can beat this new Big Brother law.

[One assumes no one will ask how these folks could control NORAD, etc. --Student]

April 5, 2012 12:00 am
By Peter Finn / The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- A senior Pentagon official on Wednesday authorized a new trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a step that restarts the most momentous terrorism case likely to be held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The suspects were first charged in a military commission in 2008, but the case was suspended after the Obama administration came into office and later moved to have them tried in federal court in New York City. That effort collapsed in the face of congressional and local opposition.

In April 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he was reluctantly sending the case back to the military. Military charges against the five men were re-sworn in June, and retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, the official who oversees the commissions and is known as the Convening Authority, on Wednesday sent the case for trial after reviewing and approving those charges.

The men face multiple charges, including murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, hijacking aircraft and terrorism. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

Charged along with Mr. Mohammed are Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a Pakistani who is Mr. Mohammed's nephew; Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash, both Yemenis; and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, a Saudi. All are accused of playing key organizational or financial roles in the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, a plot that Mr. Mohammed has said he masterminded.

Prolific 9/11 researcher Kevin Ryan of the 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington joins The Corbett Report to discuss his recent article, “Secret Service Failures on 9/11: A Call for Transparency.” He outlines some of the unusual behaviours displayed by the secret service on 9/11 and points out discrepancies in the 9/11 timeline. We also discuss the Toronto Hearings on 9/11 which took place last year on the 10th anniversary of the events, a DVD of which is now available+for+purchase.

Listen to the interview:
http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2012-04-05%20Kevin%20Ryan.mp3

A Surreal Journey into the Heart of the Beast Called the Police State

In this startling new memoir, Sibel Edmonds—the most classified woman in U.S. history—takes us on a surreal journey that begins with the secretive FBI and down the dark halls of a feckless Congress to a stonewalling judiciary and finally, to the national security whistleblowers movement she spearheaded. Having lived under Middle East dictatorships, Edmonds knows firsthand what can happen when government is allowed to operate in secret. Hers is a sobering perspective that combines painful experience with a rallying cry for the public’s right to know and to hold the lawbreakers accountable. With U.S. citizens increasingly stripped of their rights in a calibrated media blackout, Edmonds’ story is a wake-up call for all Americans who, willingly or unwillingly, traded liberty for illusive security in the wake of 9/11

A Limited Time Exclusive BFP Package