WHAT IS MODERN CENSORSHIP?

At Project Censored, we examine the coverage of news and information important to the maintenance of a healthy and functioning democracy. We define Modern Censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets. On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers and funders), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).

WHAT IS MEDIA ACCOUNTABILITY?

In our view, the only valid justification for declining a news story is that in a medium limited by time and space, another news story was simply more important to the people of the community, whether local, national or international. While admittedly a subjective process, it is nonetheless, a process to be undertaken by the news people themselves (the investigative journalists and editors), NOT by the managers and CEOs of their “parent company.” No professional journalist or researcher should ever have to face the destruction of his or her career (or life) simply because they wanted to tell the truth. While no two people will always agree on what story is more important than another, a system where the working reporters and editors run the newsroom would at least provide a fertile environment for debate, dissent and critical thinking.

The growth of independent media and journalism in recent years shows that people throughout the world yearn to hold not only their leaders accountable, but their media sources as well. For that reason, the Project Censored research program continues, in its small way, to support and highlight those who tell the truth about the powerful (no matter the consequences) and are relentless in their quest to hold Big Media accountable for their decisions.

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Researched by Kat Pat Crespan and Erica Elkington

Iraq Veterans Against the War brought together more than 300 war veterans on March 13-16, 2008 to discuss soldiers’ actions and the impact of the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. At the “Winter Soldier” event, dozens veterans publicly testified about crimes they committed during the course of battle — many of which were prompted by the orders or policies set down by superior officers. Some international law experts say the soldiers’ statements show the need for investigations into potential violations of international law by high-ranking officials in the Bush administration and the Pentagon. The event was designed to demonstrate that well-publicized incidents of US brutality, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha, are not isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the organizers said, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.” Though BBC predicted that this event would dominate international news, there was a near total back out on this historic news event by the US corporate media.

In June 2007 The Nation also published interviews of 50 Iraq vets in a comprehensive investigation into the effects of the occupation on Iraqi civilians.

“Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan— Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations”
Live Broadcast Pacifica Radio. March 14-16, 2008,
http://warcomeshome.org/wintersoldier2008

“US Soldiers ‘Testify’ About War Crimes” Aaron Glantz, One World.net, 3/19/2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/19/7763/

“Why Are Winter Soldiers Not News?” FAIR, 3/19/08
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3318

“The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness” Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, The Nation, 7/30/2007
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

#188 InfraGard

Researched by Chris Armanino and Sarah Maddox

More than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to collect information on individuals. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public, and at times before elected officials. In return they provide information to the government. The ACLU warns, “There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI.” Aside from information sharing, members are expected to assist the government when martial law is declared. “They’re very much looped into our readiness capability,” says DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa. According to more than one interviewed member they have permission to shoot to kill in the event of martial law without fear of prosecution. As of late January 2008, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that, “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have representatives in InfraGard.”

“Exclusive! The FBI Deputizes Business” Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, 2/7/2008
http://www.progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308

#104 Chertoff Waives All Laws for Border Construction

Researched by Josh Argyle

Outrage is mounting as construction of the US-Mexico border wall moves forward, destroying all homes, schools, businesses, ecosystems as well as family, social and business connections in its path. In response to protest and legal actions, Chief of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff is using the power granted him in the Real ID Act of 2005 to waive all laws that might slow barrier construction. According to the Congressional Research Service, this grant of phenomenal power is unprecedented: It gives an unelected, political appointee —Chertoff—sole discretion to ignore all federal laws. In 2005, when environmental groups opposed wall construction through a delicate San Diego estuary, Chertoff waived the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Clean Water Act, National Wildlife Refuge Act, the Federal Water Pollution Act, and other statutes. Chertoff again used his exemption in Yuma, Arizona, in January 2007. In October 2007 he suspended nineteen laws that stood in the way of a two-mile section of border fence through a national conservation area in Arizona. He is currently threatening the same in southern Texas. No judicial review of Chertoff’s decisions is permitted—except for alleged constitutional violation, a route lawyers say has yet to be tried.

“The Border Fence Will Wreck the Environment and Destroy Families” Mary Jo McConahay, Texas Observer, 10/27/2007
http://www.alternet.org/environment/62137/?page=entire

“A ‘Real’ Battle Over the Border Wall” Texas Observer, 11/8/2007
http://www.texasobserver.org/blog/index.php/2007/11/08/a-real-battle-over-the-border-wall/

#205 Holes in the Border Wall (link to #104)

Researched by Sarah Maddox

Department of Homeland Security is not answering questions of why the US-Mexico fence is bypassing properties of the wealthy and politically connected. As the DHS files eminent domain lawsuits to evict homeowners and public entities (such as City and State parks and universities), local residents are questioning the justification for their sacrifice, and just how secure this fence can be, given all the “gaps” for the affluent. One condemned property borders that of billionaire Ray L. Hunt, of one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world, and a major donor to some of Bush’s pet projects. The wall stops at Hunt’s 6,000-acre property of exclusive gated communities and a 1,800-acre business park.  At another point the wall stops at the edge a popular Winter retreat and golf course, and starts up again at its other side. The Secure Border Initiative contract awarded to Boeing (one of Washington’s biggest political contributors to both parties) is an “indefinite delivery” contract with little oversight and no maximum on how much they can spend. Residents argue that the fence’s construction has everything to do with politics and private profit, and nothing to do with stopping illegal immigration.

“Holes in the Wall” Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer Web Exclusive, 2/18/2008
http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2688

“Holes in the Wall: Texas Border Wall Bypassing Wealthy Residents with Bush Admin Ties” Democracy Now!, 2/27/2008
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/27/holes_in_the_wall_texas_border

#168 Japan Debates War on Terror and 9-11

Researched by Alan Scher and Bill Gibbons

Testimony in the Japanese Parliament, broadcast live nationwide on Japanese TV in January 2008, challenged the premise and validity of the Global War on Terror. Parliament members insisted upon an investigation into the War’s origin: the events of 9/11. Parliament Member Yukihisa Fujita pointed out that 24 Japanese citizens were killed on 9/11, yet the mandate of a Japanese Government criminal investigation never followed. “So far the only thing the government has said is that we think it was caused by Al Qaeda because President Bush told us so.  We have not seen any real proof that it was Al Qaeda.” Fujita went on to extensively ask “about the suspicious information being uncovered and the doubts people world-wide are having about the events of 9/11.” Fujita received support for concluding that the reason for participating in the US War on Terror needs to be investigated and analyzed. After the testimony, Fujita says that many of his fellow Parliament members thanked him for the bravery it took to publicly address 9/11. He also received a death threat.

“Transcript Of Japanese Parliament’s 911 Testimony” Benjamin Fulford, Rence.com, and Rock Creek Free Press, 1/14/2008,
http://www.rense.com/general80/testi.htm

#073 CARE Rejects US Food Subsidies

Researched by Cedric Therene

One of the world’s largest international aid organizations turned the food aid industry on its head recently by declaring they will not accept $46 million in food subsidies from the U.S. government. The report “White Paper on Food Aid Policy” explains US-based CARE International’s opposition to “monetization” —the food aid policy in which the US government buys crops from subsidized US farms and ships them around the world through aid organizations. Often food aid is driven by “the export and surplus disposal objectives of the exporting country.” CARE claims that the way the U.S. government distributes food hurts small farmers and undermines local food production in the very communities and countries the program is supposed to help. The system replaces self-sustainability with increased poverty and dependency. Meanwhile the powerful US agribusiness industry uses the concept of “charity” to justify blocking international demands to limit the import of destabilizing US farm subsidies.

“Mutiny Shakes U.S. Food Aid Industry” Ellen Massey, North American Inter Press Services, 7/23/2007
http://ipsnorthamerica.net/print.php?idnews=1008

“Starvation, Aid Agencies and the Benevolence of the Imperialists” Revolution Magazine, 10/1/2007
http://rwor.org/a/108/awtw-food-aid-en.html

#100 Tracking Billions Lost in Iraq

Researched by Bill Gibbons

One month after the Invasion of Iraq the United States Federal Reserve began shipping $12 Billion in U.S. currency (United Nations impounded funds dating back from the first Gulf war which belonged to the Iraqi People) to Iraq where it was to be dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority for reconstruction. Incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for because of mismanagement and lack of oversight. In a little over a year, the Fed shipped $12 Billion, in bricks weighing a total of 363 tons. There was no auditing arm established by the Pentagon to track the money. The Coalition Provisional Authority was literally a rogue agency within the US, with no formal documents establishing it. Run out of a home in La Jolla, California, it was a shell corporation with no certified public accountants on staff, its address of record a post-office box in the Bahamas where it is legally incorporated. That post-office box has been associated with shadowy offshore activities.

“Billions over Baghdad” Donald Barlett and James Steele, Vanity Fair 10/2007
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710

“Billions Over Baghdad: How Did $9B in Cash Airlifted From the Fed to Iraq Go Missing?” Democracy Now!9/12/2007
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/12/billions_over_baghdad_how_did_9b

“The Great American Swindle” Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, 8/23/2007
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle

#077 Hillary’s Faith Based Politics

Research by Sarah Maddox

Through all of her years in Washington, Hillary Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. The Fellowship’s long-term goal is “a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit.” The Fellowship’s “God-led” leaders have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia. Clinton’s religious talk is more deeply rooted than either fans or foes would have it. It reveals not just a determination to “out-Jesus” the GOP, but also a powerful religious influence behind her politics.

“Hillary’s Prayer: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics” Kathryn Joyce & Jeff Sharlet, Mother Jones, September 1, 2007
http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?
url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html

#002 World Bank Responsible for Theft of Congo Forests

Researched by Pat Stengle and Katie Ernest

The World Bank financed and encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world’s second largest forest, destroying the environment of up to 600,000 Congolese Pygmies, according to an independent inspection panel report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts. The report accuses the bank of drastically misleading the Congo government about the value of its forests, of deceptive and unethical business practice, and of breaking its own rules regarding protection of environments and alleviation of poverty. The report on the bank’s activities in Democratic Republic of Congo since 2002 follows complaints made by an alliance of 12 Pygmy groups. The groups claim that the legally-questionable World Bank system of awarding vast logging concessions to companies to exploit the forests causes “irreversible harm” to rainforests that nearly 40 million people depend on medicines, shelter, timber and food.

“World Bank Accused of Razing Congo Forests” John Vidal, The Guardian UK, 10/4/2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/04/congo.forests

“Vast Forests With Trees Each Worth £4,000 Sold for a Few Bags of Sugar” John Vidal, The Guardian UK, 4/11/2007
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041107EA.shtml

#053 CIA and FBI Edit Wikipedia

Researched by Pat Stengle and Elizabeth Allen

People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program. The changes violate Wikipedia’s conflict of interest guidelines. The tracing program, WikiScanner, was developed by Cal Tech graduate, Virgil Griffith, who traced numerous violations to FBI and CIA computers. According to spokesperson Sandy Ordonez of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia’s neutrality guidelines prohibit persons with close ties to an issue from contributing to or editing that entry.

“See Who’s Editing Wikipedia – Diebold, The CIA, A Campaign” John Borland, Wired, 8/2007
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker

“Wikipedia ‘ Shows CIA Page Edits” Jonathan Fildes, BBC News, 8/15/2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6947532.stm

The post Nominations for April 2008 appeared first on Project Censored.

Recent fires, floods, and oil spills have exposed a gutted and dismantled government disaster-response infrastructure despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security was established in the wake of 9/11 to secure the homeland and lead national disaster response efforts. American taxpayers have collectively funded $billions in DHS first-responder grants. For-profit disaster response contractors, whose job is to protect only those who can afford the luxury, are replacing under-resourced public firefighters, medical responders, and National Guard, whose jobs were to protect the nation as a whole. Privatization of core state functions is creating disaster apartheid as companies offer levels of private VIP disaster response insurance, and people are increasingly expected to take personal responsibility for their own safety in event of national disaster—rather than expect heroic “favors” from a less-than-functioning government. More importantly dangerous is the powerful vested interest in assuring that disasters are not avoided but instead welcomed as the ultimate market opportunity.

“Rapture Rescue 911: Disaster Response for the Chosen” Naomi Klein, the Nation, 11/19/2007
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/klein
“‘Shock Doctrine’ Author Naomi Klein on State-Sanctioned Torture and Disaster Response for the Chosen”Democracy Now! 11/7/ 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/07/156211&mode=thread&tid=25

#137 US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America

Researched by Erica Elkington and April Pierce

A resurgence of US-backed militarism threatens peace and democracy in Latin America. By 2005, US military aid to Latin America had risen to 34 times the amount spent in 2000.  In a marked shift in US military strategy, training that used to just take place at the School of the Americas—including torture and execution techniques—is now decentralized. The 2008 US federal budget includes $16.5 million to fund International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEA) —one in El Salvador, another in Peru. Each, with provision of immunity from charges of crimes against humanity, will train an average of 1,500 police officers, judges, prosecutors, and other law enforcement officials throughout Latin America per year in “counterterrorism techniques.” With many like training facilities, including Medical Readiness Training Exercises in Paraguay, the US is creating a wave of militarization across Latin America, aimed at internal populations opposed to the US neo-liberal agenda.

“Is George Bush Restarting Latin America’s ‘Dirty Wars’?” Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet, 8/31/07
http://www.alternet.org/audits/58605/
“Exporting US ‘Criminal Justice’ to Latin America” CISPES, Upside Down World, 6/14/07
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/774/1/
“ILEA Funding Approved by Salvadoran Right Wing Legislators” CISPES, 3/15/07
http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=178

#048 Water Privatization in El Salvador and the Global War on Terror

Researched by Andrea Lochtefeld

Salvadoran police violently captured community leaders and residents at a July 2007 demonstration against the privatization of El Salvador’s water supply and distribution systems.  Close range shooting of rubber bullets and tear gas was used against community members for protesting the rising cost, and diminishing access and quality of local water under privatization. Fourteen were arrested and charged with terrorism, a charge that can hold a 60 year prison sentence, under El Salvador’s new “Anti-terrorism Law,” which is based on the US Patriot Act.  While criminalization of political expression and social protest signals an alarming danger to the peace and human rights secured by Salvadorans since its brutal 12-year civil war, the US government publicly supports the Salvadoran government and the passage of the draconian anti-terrorism law that took effect October 2006.

“Salvadoran Activists Targeted with US-Style Repression” Chris Damon, Peacework, 9/07http://new.peaceworkmagazine.org/authors/chris-damon
“El Salvador: Water Inc. and the Criminalization of Protest” Jason Wallach, NACLA-Upside Down World 8/24/07http://news.nacla.org/2007/07/24/el-salvador-water-inc-and-the-criminalization-of-protest/
“El Salvador: Spectre of War Looms After 15 Years of Peace” Raúl Gutiérrez, IPS, 8/19/07http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/19/2636/
“GWOT: El Salvador” Wes Enzinna, The Nation, 12/31/07
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20071231&s=enzinna

#011 Presidential Directive For Dictatorial Power in Continuity of Government

Researched by Dan Bluthardt and Bill Gibbons

A New National Security Presidential Directive gives the President dictatorial powers when dealing with a “catastrophic emergency.” Under the plan Bush entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive branch and he gives himself the responsibility for ensuring “continuity of constitutional government.” National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51’ and “Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20” defines a “catastrophic emergency” in vague terms, which could include an event like a 911 attack or an earthquake in California, for the takeover of government by the Executive. The White House literally has given itself dictatorial power over the government, bypassing the US Congress and obliterating the separation of powers. The document hollowly emphasizes the need to ensure the Constitution, yet in clear breach of the constitution assurance of checks and balances, says the President shall lead all activities of the Federal government. The secretary of Homeland Security is also placed in charge of domestic “security.” This directive has been given no scrutiny by Congress and very little by the press.

“Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of the Constitutional Government in Emergency” Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, 5/18/2007
http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx051807.html
“National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive Establishes “National Continuity Policy” Larry Chin,Global Research, 5/21/2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewarticle&code=CHI20070521&articleId=5720

#171 NATO’s Nuclear Option

Researched by Stephanie Smith and Sarah Maddox

The West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the imminent spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new NATO by five of the West’s most senior military officers and strategists. In a 150-page blueprint for urgent, root-to-branch reform of NATO and Western military strategy and structures, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that, “The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.” The manifesto was presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to NATO’s secretary general in mid-January 2008. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a NATO summit in Bucharest in April.

“Pre-emptive Nuclear Strike a Key Option, Nato Told” Ian Traynor, Guardian, January 22, 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nato/story/0,,2244782,00.html

#032 Iraq Whistle Blowers Pay

Researched by Kat Pat Crespan

Those who have stepped forward to report corruption in the “rebuilding” of Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted. Navy veteran Donald Vance was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad for 97 days and subjected to harsh interrogation methods “reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants.” His only offense was telling the FBI about the common practice of guns, land mines, and rocket-launchers being sold for cash to buyers such as Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees—no receipts necessary.
“Steep Price Paid by Those Who Blew Whistle on Iraq Fraud” Deborah Hastings, AP, 8/25/07
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/25/3410/

#025 The Raytheon 9

Researched by Christina Long and Marie Daghlian

Nine members of the Derry Anti-War Coalition (the Raytheon 9) occupied and “decommissioned” offices of Raytheon in Derry, Ireland in August 2007, after evidence surfaced that Raytheon had produced military products on Irish soil, in breach of assurances to the contrary, and that Raytheon weapons had been used in the Israeli bombing of Lebanon. The Raytheon 9 plan to use their day in court to highlight US and UK war crimes involving Raytheon.

“Solidarity with the Raytheon 9” Shaun Harkin & Sandy Boyer, Z Magazine Online, July/August 2007
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2007/harkin.print.html

#061 Wal-Mart Evades 2.3 Billion in Taxes

Researched by Marie Daghlian

Wal-Mart evaded $2.3 billion in state income taxes from fiscal years 1999 to 2005 through a real-estate investment trust (REIT) loophole. According to a report released by Citizens for Tax Justice and labor coalition, “Change to Win,” Wal-Mart has used the REIT structure to set up the Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, which has enabled Wal-Mart to effectively double as both landlord and tenant, recycling real-estate funds to itself and then deducting that cost from its tax bill. Twenty states, including California and Illinois, have moved to close the REIT loophole by adopting so-called “combined reporting” laws.

“Loophole Let Wal-Mart Evade $2.3B in Taxes” Michelle Chen, The New Standard, 4/18/07
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/4700/printmide/true

#086 Soil Erosion Crisis

Researched by Cristina Wilson and Marie Daghlian

Soil erosion is the “silent global crisis” undermining food production and water availability, as well as being responsible for 30 percent of the greenhouse gases driving climate change. Every year, some 62,000 square miles of land loses its vegetation and becomes degraded or turns into desert.  A Cornell University study, which pulls together statistics on soil erosion from more than 125 sources, finds that the US is losing soil 10 times faster—and China and India are losing soil 30 to 40 times faster— than the natural replenishment rate. As a result of erosion over the past 40 years, 30 percent of the world’s arable land has become unproductive.

“Dirt isn’t so cheap after all” Stephen Leahy IPS, “Asheville Global Report, 8/30/2007
http://www.agrnews.org/?section=archives&cat_id=96&article_id=2751&rowx=0

#082 Starbucks in Ethiopia

Researched by Jennifer Routh and Marie Daghlian

Starbucks’ eco-friendly sales pitch masks the fact that its $26/lb box of Ethiopian coffee contains arabica beans grown on a plantation in a threatened mountain rainforest by workers who make less than a dollar a day. Starbucks, a master at marketing, won’t disclose what it pays for Ethiopian coffee, instead including it in its global average, which was $1.42/lb in 2006, 16 cents more than the Fair Trade minimum. Much of that money goes to middlemen while workers receive 77 cents to $1.10/day. Starbucks currently sources 6% of its beans from Ethiopia and plans to double production. While Starbucks gave the estate’s beans its own C.A.F.E. practices approval last year, signifying that the plantation protected the environment, paid workers fairly and provided them with decent housing, no one from Starbucks ever inspected the Gemadro plantation for C.A.F.E. certification compliance.
In May 2007 Ethiopia won a battle with Starbucks over trademark entitlement, which could help the country’s coffee growers to earn some $88 million more per year.

“Promises and Poverty” Tom Knudson, Sacramento Bee, 9/23/2007
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/393917.html
“In trademarking its coffee, Ethiopia seeks fair trade” Matthew Clark,The Christian Science Monitor, 11/9/07
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1109/p01s06-woaf.html

The post Nominations for March 2008 appeared first on Project Censored.

Text of Bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955
“Bringing the War on Terrorism Home” Jessica Lee, Independent.org, 11/16/2007
http://digitalhero7.blogspot.com/2007/11/bringing-war-on-terrorism-home.html
“Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” Lindsay Beyerstein, In These Times, 11/2007
http://www.inthesetimes.com/mobile/article/examining_the_homegrown_terrorism_prevention_act
“The Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007” Matt Renner, Truthout, 11/29/2007http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112907J.shtml

#050 Seizing Lebanon Protesters’ Assets

Researched by Eliana Chandler
On August 1, 2007 Bush issued an executive order entitled “Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of Lebanon or Its Democratic Processes and Institutions,” just two weeks after issuing the executive order entitled “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq.” While both orders give the Secretary of the Treasury authority to seize properties of those persons posing a risk of violence in opposing US agenda, the order regarding protest of agenda in Lebanon is more severe. The August 1st order states that any person who engages in any act—violent or nonviolent—against the government of Lebanon can now have his or her property frozen. The act further authorizes freezing the assets of “a spouse or dependent child” of any person whose property is frozen. The order regarding Lebanon also prohibits anyone from in any way coming to the aid of those whose assets have been seized—including “dependent children.”
“Bush’s Executive Order on Lebanon Even Worse than the One on Iraq” Matthew Rothschild, the Progressive, 8/3/2007 http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx080307
“Executive Order: Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of Lebanon or Its Democratic Processes and Institutions” White House Website, 8/2/2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070802-1.html

#057 New World Bank President, Robert Zoellick

Robert Zoellick, longtime neocon supporter and signer of the Plan for a New American Century, was appointed the World Bank president on May 30, 2007. Bush was able to crown another pro-globalization loyalist due to the increasingly contested US privilege of selecting the Bank leader. Zoellick was a lead player in the NAFTA negotiations during the elder Bush’s administration, calling for an aggressive trade policy led by “fast track” or trade promotion authority for the executive branch. As US Trade Representative under George W., Zoellick insisted on subsidy-laden farm bills and protectionist tariffs that repeatedly broke down WTO negotiations. After talks broke down in Cancun, Zoellick blamed the failure on the “won’t do” countries that obstructed the will of the “can do” countries, and warned, “We’re going to keep opening markets one way or another.” In his outline of a new Republican foreign policy, aimed at a US dominated world economy, Zoellick contends that social and environmental issues have no place in trade agreements— an ideology antithetical to the founding mission of the World Bank.

“World Bank Gets Another U.S. Crusader” Tom Barry, Center for International Policy, 7/6/2007
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4363

#103 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights

Researched by Elizabeth Allen

The first annual edition of the Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights to be published by year-old International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) documents enormous challenges to workers rights around the world. The 2007 edition of the Survey, covering 138 countries, shows an alarming rise in the number of people killed as a result of their trade union activities, from 115 in 2005 to 144 in 2006. Colombia is still the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists, where in 2006, 78 trade unionist were assassinated (eight more than in 2005). Many more trade unionists around the world were abducted or “disappeared.” Thousand were arrested during the year for their part in strike action and protests, while thousands of others were fired in retaliation for organizing. Growing numbers of trade union activists in countries in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific are facing police brutality and murder as unions are viewed as opponents of corporatist governments.
“2007 Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights” The International Trade Union Rights 9/2007http://survey07.ituc-csi.org/getcontinent.php?IDContinent=0&IDLang=EN

#102 Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity

Researched by Sarah Maddox and Bill Gibbons

A lawsuit was filed in federal court against the Pentagon, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a US Army Major, by a military watchdog organization, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq.  The nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed the complaint September 18th, 2007, charging the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused. Jeremy Hall, an active duty Army specialist in Iraq, claims his First Amendment rights were violated because of his atheist beliefs, for which he was threatened with the charge of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the blocking of his reenlistment in the Army.

“Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity” Jason Leopold, Truthout, 11/18/2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091807R.shtml

#149 Pelosi Knew About NSA Spying

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has admitted knowing for several years about the Bush administration’s eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat the House Intelligence Committee when Bush and Cheney took office. Pelosi, with a uniquely long tenure on the Intelligence Committee, acknowledged that she was one of the privileged handful of lawmakers who were briefed. Her explanation demonstrates a remarkably-and unconstitutionally-subservient attitude toward the Executive Branch:
“But when the administration notifies Congress in this manner, it is not seeking approval. There is a clear expectation that the information will be shared by no one, including other members of the intelligence committees. As a result, only a few members of Congress were aware of the president’s surveillance program, and they were constrained from discussing it more widely.”

“What Did Pelosi Know About NSA, and When Did She Know It?” Ray McGovern, CommonDreams.org, October 16, 2007
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/16/4561/

#067 Padilla Sues US Officials

Researched by Christina Long and Bill Gibbons

Jose Padilla, a US citizen, arrested on US soil and convicted (under extraordinary circumstances) of being an Al Qadeda operative, is seeking to hold former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and 59 other US officials responsible for physical and psychological abuse and unconstitutional tactics while being held as an ‘enemy combatant’ in military custody for 43 months. Early in 2007 a civil lawsuit was filed on behalf of Padilla in federal court in South Carolina over abuse he suffered from 2002 to 2006 in the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston Station South Carolina. Serious violations included sleep deprivation, stress positions, prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation and other extreme interrogation techniques calculated to profoundly disrupt his senses and personality and destroy his ordinary emotional and cognitive functioning. The government held Padilla for two years without any outside contact, including that of his lawyers. When that policy changed, government officials warned Padilla not to reveal any conditions of his confinement to his lawyers, the suit says. Padilla is left severely psychologically damaged.

“Padilla Sues US Officials Over Confinement” Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor 8/24/2007
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0824/p03s03-usju.html?page=2

#079 Livestock Extinction

Researched by Andrew Kochevar and Erica Haikara

A study, “The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources,” conducted by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), affirmed that an over-reliance on select breeds of livestock imported from the United States and Europe is causing the loss of at least one indigenous livestock breed a month. Since research for the report began in 1999, two thousand local breeds have been identified as at risk. In response to these findings, the first International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources met in Interlaken-Wilderswil Switzerland, September 3-7, 2007, to adapt a plan for the rapid development of gene banks and other technological fixes. Meeting in a parallel conference, representatives of 30 organizations of pastoralists, indigenous peoples, smallholder farmers and NGOs convened to discuss opposition to globalized industrial livestock production, which they identified as the fundamental cause of the current crises. They adopted a declaration of determination to reject the dominant industrial model of patented genetic technologies, land grabs, and structural adjustment, which they insist is destroying the health of both humans and livestock.

“Conference Agrees Steps to Safeguard Farm Animal Diversity” The International Centre fro Trade and Sustainable Development, Trade BioRes, 09/21/2007
http://www.ictsd.org/biores/07-09-21/story1.htm
“Wilderswil Declaration on Livestock Diversity” La Via Campesina, 9/11/2007
http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=441&Itemid=37

#058 NGOs Reject World Bank Water Privatization

Researched by Erica Haikara

More than 138 civil society groups and trade unions from 48 countries are urging donor governments to withdraw their support for an agency of the World Bank determined to privatize the supply and delivery of water. The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) has funded projects in many poor countries where international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund attach demands for water privatization to loans, debt relief and aid. PPIAF’s current donors include the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“NGOs Ask Donors to Drop World Bank Water Privatization” Environment News Service, 5/21/2007
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2007/2007-05-21-03.asp

#120 DHSs Secure Flight Plan

Researched by Bill Gibbons

The Transportation Safety Administration is planning on holding public hearings on their “Secure Flight Plan” according to the September 5th issue of the Federal Register. This presents American Citizens with a nightmare world where they will have to obtain written permission from the government before they can travel by air within the United States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection will implement their “Advanced Passenger Information System” beginning in February 2008. Travelers will need permission to travel via air or sea vessel that goes to, from or through the U.S. This applies to all passengers. How you get your permission to travel from the government is secret. The ‘Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act’ requires that the Department of Homeland Security to conduct pre-flight comparisons of airline passenger information with Federal Government watch lists. Passengers will not be allowed to verify if the person demanding their papers is actually authorized to do so. In addition airlines or their contractors (or even sub contractors) have the right to do anything they like with a passenger’s personal information.

“The Nightmare of DHS’s Secure Flight” Blue Patriot Woman, Daily Kos 9/17/2007
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/17/9846/64393

The post Nominations for February 2008 appeared first on Project Censored.

Senator Feinstein’s Iraq Conflict

In the November 2006 election voters demanded congressional ethics reform. Consequently the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own monumental ethical conflict of interest. As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband’s firms. As chair of Senate Rules, Feinstein will set her own limits on reform and opposes the creation of an independent congressional ethics watchdog. Peter Byrne exposes a frightening magnitude of corruption in Feinstein’s profitable position of public trust as she promotes and exploits the never-ending “global war on terror.”

“Senator Feinstein’s Iraq Conflict” Peter Byrne, Bohemian, 1/24/2007
http://www.bohemian.com/metro/01.24.07/dianne-feinstein-0704.html

UN Accused of Second Massacre in Haiti

Eyewitness testimony confirms killings executed by UN forces in Haiti’s Cite Soleil community on December 22. 2006, reportedly as collective punishment against the community for a massive demonstration of Lavalas supporters that began in Cite Soleil days earlier. About ten thousand people demonstrated for the return of president Aristide in clear condemnation the foreign military occupation of their country. According to residents, UN forces attacked their neighborhood days later in the early morning and killed more than 30 people including women and children. Footage taken by Haiti Information Project videographers shows unarmed civilians dying as they tell of indiscriminate gunfire from UN forces.

“UN in Haiti: Accused of Second Massacre” HaitiAction.net, 1/21/2007
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/1_21_7/1_21_7.html

KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India

Farmers’ cooperatives in India are defending the nation’s food security and the future of Indian farmers against the neoliberal invasion of genetically modified (GM) seed. As many as 28,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide over the last decade as a result of debt incurred from failed GM crops and competition with subsidized US crops, Yet when India’s Prime Minister met with President Bush last year to finalize nuclear agreements, they also signed the Indo-U.S. Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA), backed by Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and Wal-Mart. The KIA allows for the grab of India’s seed sector by Monsanto, of its trade sector by giant agribusiness ADM and Cargill, and its retail sector by Wal-Mart. (Wal-Mart recently announced plans to open 500 stores in India, starting in August 2007.) This is not about “free trade,” Vandana Shiva responds, “Today’s trade system, especially in agriculture, is dishonest, and dishonesty has become a war against farmers. It’s become a genocide.” Farmers are organizing to protect themselves against this economic invasion by maintaining traditional seed-banks and setting up exemplary systems of communal agrarian support. One farmer says, “We do not buy seeds from the market because we suspect they may be contaminated with genetically engineered or terminator seeds.”

“Vandana Shiva on Farmer Suicides, the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal, Wal-Mart in India” Vandana Shiva, Democracy Now! 12/13/2006 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/13/1451229
“ Genetically Modified Seeds: Women in India take on Monsanto” Arun Shrivastava, Global Research, October 9, 2006
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ARU20061009&articleId=3427

US Seeks WTO Impunity for Illegal Agricultural Subsidies

Canada has launched a dispute at the World Trade Organization over the use of “trade-distorting” agricultural subsidies by the US. The dispute singles out payments to American corn farmers but also challenges the total level of US agricultural subsidies. The case filed in Geneva on January 8th is the most significant legal challenge to the structure of US agricultural subsidies since a landmark WTO ruling in 2005 condemned ”trade-distorting” aid to American cotton farmers. Oxfam International analysis shows that at least 38 developing countries are suffering severely as a result of trade distorting subsidies by the EU and US. Meanwhile, the US is maneuvering to insert a special “peace clause” into trade negotiations that would make its illegal use of farm subsidies immune from prosecution, preventing WTO member countries from challenging destructive farm subsidies through the WTO dispute settlement process.

“US seeks “get-out clause” for illegal farm payments” Oxfam, 6/29/06
http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/pressreleases2006/pr060629_wto_geneva

Behind Blackwater Inc.

As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney commissioned Halliburton to study means of privatizing the US military bureaucracy. As Vice President he has ushered in the resulting groundwork for the post-9/11 corporate war profiteer bonanza. The company that most embodies this privatization of the military industrial complex (a primary part of the Project for a New American Century and the neoconservative revolution) is, not Halliburton, but the private security firm Blackwater. Blackwater is the most powerful mercenary firm in the world, with 20,000 soldiers, the world’s largest private military base, and a fleet of twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships. It is headed by a very rightwing Christian-supremacy activist, ex-Navy Seal named Erik Prince, whose family has had deep neo-conservative connections since the 1990s. Bush’s latest call for voluntary military corps to accommodate the “surge” will add to over half a billion dollars in federal contracts to Blackwater, allowing Prince to create a private army to defend Christendom around the world against Muslims and others.

“Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush’s Undeclared Surge” Jeremy Scahill,
Democracy Now! 1/26/07
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/26/1559232

Media Exagerates Threats from Iran

The quote attributed to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, “Israel must be wiped off the map” has been met by worldwide condemnation and alarm. Ahmadinejad’s actual statements, however, were significantly less threatening. In October 2005 Ahmadinejad expressed the belief that the West oppresses Muslims through an imposed Zionist regime. He quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini, “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise.” Clearly Ahmadinejad’s actual words call for regime change, not war. A similar statement by Ahmadinejad in December 2006, “As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated,” was once more altered by AP and Reuter to sound more threatening and sent around the world. Author Arash Norouzi calls this “media manipulation and propaganda in action.” In May of 2006 President Ahmadinejad published an open letter to President Bush clearly asking for peace and the mutual respect of human rights. He warns that Western media, through contrived and deceptive information, has intensified the climate of fear that leads to attacks on innocent peoples. That letter was not picked up by the US news wires.

“‘Wiped Off The Map’ – The Rumor of the Century” Arash Norouzi, Global Research, 1/20/2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20070120&articleId=4527
“ Full Text: The President of Iran’s Letter To President Bush” Translated by Le Monde, Information Clearing House, 05/09/06
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12984.htm

Vulture Funds: Devouring the Desperate

Vulture funds are companies that buy up the debt of poor nations cheaply when they are about to be written off and then sue for the full value of the debt plus interest – which might be ten times what they paid for it. In 1979 the Romanian government lent Zambia money to buy Romanian tractors. Zambia was unable to keep up the payments and in 1999 Romania and Zambia negotiated to liquidate the debt for $3m. Before the deal could be finalized a vulture fund stepped in and bought the debt from Romania for less than $4m. They are now suing the Zambian government for the original debt plus interest, which they calculate at over $40m and they expect to win. In 1996 the same company paid $11m for a discounted Peruvian debt and threatened to bankrupt the country unless they paid $58m. They got their $58m. Now they’re suing Congo Brazzaville for $400m for a debt they bought for $10m. Vulture funds have teams of lawyers combing the world for assets that can be seized. They raise most of their money through legal actions in US courts, where lobbying and political contributions hold influence.

“Vulture Fund Threat to Third World” Greg Palast, 02/14/2007
http://www.gregpalast.com/vulture-fund-threat-to-third-world/

Foreign Privatization of America’s Infrastructure

We will soon be paying Wall Street investors, Australian bankers, and Spanish contractors for the privilege of driving on American roads as more than 20 states have enacted legislation allowing public-private partnerships to build and run highways. Investment firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the Carlyle Group are approaching state politicians with advise to sell off extraordinarily valuable transportation infrastructure. When advising state officials on the future of this vital public asset, these investment firms fail to mention that their sole purpose is to pick up infrastructure at the lowest price possible in order to maximize returns for investors. Investors, more often than not foreign companies, are charging tolls and often insist on “noncompete” clauses that limit governments from expanding or improving nearby roads. Quiet plans are underway for the mega-project, NAFTA Super Highway, which would run a huge, privatized expressway from the Mexican border to the Canadian border to begin construction in 2007.

“The Highwaymen” Daniel Schulman with James Ridgeway. Mother Jones, 2/2007
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/highwaymen.html
“ Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway” Jerome R. Corsi, Human Events, 6/12/2006 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=15497

House of Death

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of the Department of Homeland Security, paid an informant more than $220,000 to work as a spy inside a Juarez drug cartel. In August 2003, that informant, known as Lalo, participated in the murder of Mexican lawyer Fernando Reyes while working on the ICE operation. On the day of Reyes’s murder Lalo told his ICE employers what had happened. They knew that if they were to continue using him as an informant, they would need high-level authorization, which they received from the Department of Justice. Reyes murder was just one of a dozen murders — some of those killed were victims of mistaken identity — uncovered at the Juarez ‘House of Death.’ Murders were allowed to continue as ICE and DoJ were assembling their case against drug trafficking. A web of cover-up stretches from top officials in Texas, including Johnny Sutton, US Attorney for Western Texas and ex-adviser to Bush, to top Washington officials, including John Ashcroft. Sandalio Gonzalez, Special Agent in charge of the DEA in El Paso, was forced to resign after placing formal complaints regarding the official handling of the House of Death case.

“The House of Death” David Rose, The Observer UK, 12/3/2006
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1962643,00.html
“ DEA’s national security claim in House of Death murders exposed as bogus”
Bill Conroy, Narconews.com, 1/6/2007
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2007/1/6/213919/8689
Article series: http://www.narconews.com/houseofdeath

Bush Regulates Regulation

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy. In an executive order issued January 18, Bush announced that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities. Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congressman Henry Waxman, remarked, “The executive order allows the political staff at the White House to dictate decisions on health and safety issues, even if the government’s own impartial experts disagree. This is a terrible way to govern, but great news for special interests.”

“Executive Order Expands Presidential Power Over Agencies” Michelle Chen, New Standard, Jan. 24, 2007
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/4173
“ Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation” Robert Pear, New York Times, 1/29/2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30rules.html?ei=5070&en=24f1170f12cae607&
ex=1172034000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1171914833-6lKwqTnW+2ni/k6dOjwyjw&pagewanted=print

Detonations in Puget Sound

The U.S. Navy sets off between 180 and 300 underwater explosive charges each year in some of the most sensitive waters of Puget Sound, a designated Essential Fish Habitat under the Sustainable Fisheries Act. Since 2002, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the two civilian agencies charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act, have urged the Navy to undertake alternative training practices to minimize damage to marine life or to conduct these detonations in less sensitive waters. Measures to comply have yet to materialize. “Why are taxpayers spending millions to preserve Puget Sound when another government agency is busy blowing it up?” asked Washington PEER Director Sue Gunn, noting that the Navy is resisting her document requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act for the Navy’s own studies. “National security does not demand that the Navy inflict maximum environmental damage in the waters it is supposed to defend.”

“Navy Continues up to 300 Detonations Per Year in Puget Sound” PEER, 7/3/2007
http://www.peer.org/news/print_detail.php?row_id=708

The post Nominations for April 2007 appeared first on Project Censored.

No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”

Researched by Julie Bickel

With the approval of Congress and no outcry from corporate media, the Military Commissions Act (MCA), signed by Bush on October 17, 2006, ushers in military tribunal law for US citizens and non-citizens alike. While media have given false comfort that we, as American citizens, will not be the victims of the draconian measures legalized by this Act — such as military roundups, torture, life-long detention without court trial— articles below disclose verbiage in the MCA that allows for the institution of a military alternative to the constitutional justice system for “any person” regardless of American citizenship. The MCA did away with habeas corpus rights for “any person” arbitrarily deemed to be an “enemy of the state.” The judgment on whom is deemed an “enemy combatant” is solely at the discretion of President Bush. “And once that happens,” says Thom Hartmann, “you no longer have the right to challenge your detention. You don’t have the right to a lawyer, or to a trial, or to a jury. You don’t have the right to talk to anybody; you have no rights whatsoever. That’s what no habeas corpus means. They can put you in prison and torture you for the rest of your life.”

“Who Is ‘Any Person’ in Tribunal Law?” Robert Parry, Consortium, 10/19/2006
http://consortiumnews.com/2006/101906.html
“ Still No Habeas Rights for You” Robert Parry, Consortium, 2/3/2007
http://consortiumnews.com/2007/020307.html
“ Repeal the Military Commissions Act and Restore the Most American Human Right” Thom Hartmann, Commondreams, 2/12/2007
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0212-24.htm
“The Facts About the Military Commission Act” Bob Avakian, Revolution, 10/8/2006
http://rwor.org/a/064/torturelaw-en.html

Bush’s Move Toward Martial Law

Researched by Julie Bickel

The Defense Authorization Act of 2007,” which was quietly signed by Bush on October 17th, 2006, the same day that he signed the Military Commissions Act, allows the president to station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.” By revising the two-century-old Insurrection Act, the law in effect repeals the Posse Comitatus Act and gives Bush the legal authority to order the military onto the streets of America, directing military operations against the American people under the cover of ‘law enforcement.’ The law facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention, transferring from the Pentagon to local militarized police units, the latest technology and weaponry designed to suppress dissent. Frank Morales asserts that “with the president’s polls at an historic low… and Democrats taking back the Congress… it is particularly worrisome that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.”

“Bush Moves Toward Martial Law” Frank Morales, Uruknet, 10/ 26/2006
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=27769 or http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/28/18324231.php

Human Trafficking Builds US Embassy in Iraq

Researched by Angela Purcaro

The enduring monument to US liberation and democracy in Iraq will be the most expensive and heavily fortified embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the 104-acre complex equal in size to Vatican City, is being built by forced labor trafficked from Asia. With a highly secretive contract awarded by the US State Department, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting has joined the ranks of Haliburton/KBR in Iraq by using bait-and-switch recruiting practices. Thousands of citizens from countries that have banned travel or work in Iraq are being tricked, smuggled into brutal and inhumane labor camps, and subjected to months of forced servitude—all in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone, “right under the nose of the US State Department.” The Pentagon has yet to announce any penalty for violation of US labor trafficking laws or contract requirements.

“A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad: Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World’s Largest Embassy” David Phinney, CorpWatch, 10/17/2006
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14173

Air America on Ad Blacklist

Researched by Jen Huss

An internal memo from ABC Radio Networks to its affiliates reveals scores of powerful sponsors have a standing order that their commercials never be placed on the liberal syndicated Air America programming that airs on ABC affiliates. The list, totaling 90 advertisers, includes some of largest and most well-known corporations in the U.S.: Wal-Mart, GE, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Bank of America, Fed-Ex, Visa, Allstate, McDonald’s, Sony and Johnson & Johnson. The U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Navy are also listed as advertisers who don’t want their commercials to air on Air America.

“Air America on Ad Blacklist. ABC document: Sponsors shun liberal network” FAIR, 10/31/06 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2983

The Scam of “Reconstruction” in Afghanistan

Researched by Julie Bickel

Reports reveal that much of the US tax money earmarked to rebuild Afghanistan actually ends up going no further than the pockets of wealthy US corporations. “Phantom aid” that never shows up in the recipient country is a scam in which paychecks for overpriced American “experts” under contract to USAID go directly from the Agency to American bank accounts. Additionally, 70 percent of the aid that does make it to a recipient country requires that the recipient use the donated money to buy US products and services. A former head of USAID cited foreign aid as “a key foreign policy instrument” designed to help countries “become better markets for US exports.” To guarantee that mission, the State Department recently took over the aid agency. USAID’s website boasts of its only infrastructure accomplishment in Afghanistan—a narrow and crumbling highway costing Afghanis $1 million a mile, projected to charge $20 per-month toll to lessen the US aid “burden.”

“Why It’s Not Working in Afghanistan” Ann Jones, Tomdispatch.com, 8/27/06
Tomdispatch.com, 8/27/06
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=116512
“ Afghanistan Inc: a CorpWatch Investigative Report” Fariba Nawa, CorpWatch, 10/6/06
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13518

Drugging Our Waters

Researched by Toni Faye Catelani

Pharmaceutical drugs are making their way into the US water supply through human waste. A wide range of pharmaceuticals and other human-caused waste compounds remain despite wastewater treatment and are discharged to receiving waters across North America. Many of these compounds are still bioactive and can enter the bioprocesses of aquatic organisms. Researchers have found abnormalities in fish and suspect that exposure to pharmaceutical hormones is the cause. While the effects of chronic low-level exposure to pharmaceuticals are unclear, it is certain is that the presence of these compounds will continue to increase as Americans age.
“ Drugging Our Waters: How An Aging Population and Our Growing Addiction to Pharmaceuticals May be Poisoning Our Rivers” Elizabeth Royte, Natural Resource

Defense Council’s ONEARTH, Fall 2006
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/06fal/waters2.asp

MEFTA: Wal-mart and Target Profit of Jordanian Slaves

Researched by Morgan Ulery and Mayra Madrigal

Major U.S. companies, including Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, Victoria’s Secret and L.L. Bean, are buying apparel from sweatshops in Jordan under a three-way trade deal that binds the Arab nation to Israel and the United States. A report by the New York-based National Labour Committee says that the U.S-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has descended into human trafficking and “involuntary servitude.” Part of the FTA, the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs) programme, launched by Washington in 1998 as an economic dividend for Jordan’s peace agreement with Israel, gives products from the zones duty-free and quota-free access to the U.S. market as long as the Arab nation sources at least eight percent of their content from an Israeli manufacturer. Both the United States and Israel are seeking to replicate this model in numerous trade deals with other countries in the Arab world, under Pres. George W. Bush’s plan for a Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA), which would tie all 22 Arab states with the U.S. and Israel in a trade deal by 2013.

“U.S., Israel, Jordan Pact Created Havens for Servitude” Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service 5/ 3/06
http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2006/05/us-israel-jordan-pact-created-near.html

Earth’s Loss of Biodiversity

Researched by Alex Rubin

The fabric of life on earth is facing a major crisis as thousands of species face imminent extinction. Nineteen of the world’s most eminent biodiversity specialists are calling on governments to establish a political framework to bridge the gap between science and policy by creating an international body of biodiversity experts. Due to human activity, the rate of extinction is now between 100 and 1,000 times higher than the normal “background” extinction rate. Research confirms that every group of animals and plants is experiencing an unprecedented loss of diversity. Scientists estimate that 12 percent of all birds, 23 percent of mammals, 25 percent of conifers, 33 percent of amphibians and more than half of all palm trees are currently threatened with extinction.

“Earth Faces ‘Catastrophic Loss of Species’” Steve Connor, The independent UK, 7/20/06 http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/072006EB.shtml

World Bank Study Reveals Its Failure to Reduce Poverty

Researched by Adrienne Magee

A study by the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) concludes that the World Bank’s strategies on trade does not deliver on increasing economic growth, exports, or employment, nor on the reduction of poverty. The IEG called the Bank “overly optimistic about the immediate and universal benefits of more open trade.”
“ These findings confirm our daily experience. Policies to open markets have benefited the world’s largest corporations, but have a devastating impact on millions of the world’s poorest people,” says Alberto Villarreal of Friends of the Earth Uruguay.
The 270-page report analyzes the World Bank’s trade work from 1987 through 2004, including lending and technical assistance. It concludes: “trade-related projects did not adequately attend to the poverty and distributional outcomes.”

“World Bank Trade Strategy Has Not Adequately Helped the Poor” Friends of the Earth International, Common Dreams, 3/23/06
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/newsprint.cgi?file=/news2006/0323-01.htm
“ World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group Issues Report Assessing Two Decades of Global Trade Programs” World Bank, 3/22/06
http://www.worldbank.org/ieg/trade/

Cable TV’s $100m Political Contributions

Researched by Morgan Ulery

A report by Common Cause follows cable’s $100 million investment in campaign contributions and lobbying. The return has been a 90 percent increase in cable rates since 1995, and industry friendly regulations that boost profits, coupled with even more consolidation among cable companies. Big cable has spent more than $92 million lobbying in Washington since 1998. The industry’s political spending increased dramatically in the past two years as it marshaled its forces to block congressional and regulatory interference with mega mergers, to halt any effort to curb cable rates, and to quash any attempts to permit families to pay for only the cable stations they watch. Common Cause President Chellie Pingree says, “American families are paying the price for public policies that favor the wealthy and powerful.”

“Why Are Cable Television Prices So High?” Mary Boyle, Common Cause, 10/11/06
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/1011-12.htm

US Relation to Death Squads in Iraq

Researched by Lauren Abruzzo

Death squads from the Ministry of the Interior posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever—1,536 bodies were brought to the Baghdad morgue in September. Dahr Jamail discusses the root of death squads in Iraq. “U.S. mainstream media is conveniently decontextualizing the situation. We’ll talk about what’s happening after, we’ll talk about death, ethnic cleansing, sectarian violence and the millions of refugees and then blame it on the Iraqis…but we won’t talk about who instituted the entire process and who’s behind it and that is the U.S. occupation.” Working under US ambassador to Iraq, June 2004-April 2005, John Negroponte—James Steel was in charge of the Iraq Security Forces, at precisely the time Pentagon chiefs were considering the “Salvador option,” the proposal to organize death squads from within the US-recruited Iraqi Security Forces to target Sunni resistance. Negroponte and Steele helped set up and facilitate the right wing death squads in Central America in the 1980s and did the same thing in Baghdad.

“ Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad” Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service, 10/19/06 http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000477.php
“ The Oil Factor in the Iraq Study Group: US Relation with Death Squads is Explored” Dori Smith Interviews Dahr Jamail on Talk Nation Radio, 12/13/06 http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=20872

Attack Dogs Used in State Prisons

Researched by Mayra Madrigal

Five state prison systems in the United States permit the use of aggressive, unmuzzled dogs to terrify and attack prisoners in efforts to remove them from their cells. A Human Rights Watch report reveals that while the entire world has seen the photo of an Abu Ghraib detainee crouched in terror before a snarling dog, the use of attack dogs against prisoners here in the U.S. has been a well-kept secret. Jamie Fellner, author of the 20-page report, “Cruel and Degrading: The Use of Dogs for Cell Extractions in U.S. Prisons,” which exposes Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota and Utah correctional systems, says, “We know of no other country in the world where officers use attack dogs to remove prisoners from their cells.”

“U.S.: Attack Dogs Used Against Prisoners” Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch, 10/11/06 http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/06/usdom14362.htm

Toxic Chemicals Damaging DNA

Researched by Michael Januleski

New evidence suggests that many industrial chemicals are more ominously dangerous than previously understood. Scientists have discovered that a “second genetic code,” which influences the way genes operate and can be passed on to successive generations, is vulnerable to exposure to toxic chemicals. Effects of toxic exposure can be passed on through generations. “This introduces the concept of responsibility into genetics and inheritance,” said Dr. Moshe Szyf, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal, “You aren’t eating and exercising just for yourself, but for your lineage.”
On average, 1800 new chemicals are registered with the federal government each year and about 750 of these find their way into products, all with hardly any testing for health or environmental effects. The European Union has responded to this situation by trying to enact a new law called REACH, which requires that chemicals be tested before they can be sold. The US chemical industry and the White House have, however, been working overtime to subvert the European effort to enact REACH.

“Some Chemicals are More Harmful Than Anyone Ever Suspected” Peter Montague, Rachel’s Democracy & Health News #876, 10/12/06
http://www.precaution.org/lib/06/ht061012.htm

The post Nominations for March 2007 appeared first on Project Censored.

Border Invaders: The Perfect Swarm Heads South

Researched by Erica Haikara

The number of Americans living in Mexico has soared from 200,000 to 1 million (one-quarter of all US expatriates) in the past decade. With more than 70 million American baby boomers expected to retire in the next two decades experts predict “a tidal wave” of migration to warmer—and cheaper—climates. Shrewd baby-boomers are not simply feathering nests for eventual retirement, but also increasingly speculating in Mexican resort property and gated communities, complete with Hooters, Burger King, and Starbucks. The land rush is sending up property values to the detriment of locals whose children are consequently driven into slums or forced to emigrate north, only to face “invasion” charges.

“Border Invaders: The Perfect Swarm Heads South” Mike Davis, TomDispatch.com 9/19/2006
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=122537

US Exceeds Water Pollution Limits

Researched by Adrienne Magee

More than 62 percent of industrial and municipal facilities across the country discharged more pollution into US waterways than their Clear Water Act permits allowed between July 2003 and December 2004. The states that allowed more than 100 violations of at least 500 percent are Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Texas, and Massachusetts. The average facility discharged pollution in excess of its permit limits by more than 275 percent, or almost four times the legal limit. The Bush Administration has repeatedly shortchanged the EPA’s budget and is undermining essential clean water programs. Today, more than 40 percent of U.S. waterways are unsafe for swimming and fishing activities.

“Factories, Cities Across USA Exceed Water Pollution Limits” Environment News Service 3/24/2006
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2006/2006-03-24-05.asp

US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Researched by Heather Moffett

In April, as the US and Colombia moved toward a militarized free trade agreement (FTA), the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) opened session in Colombia. The PPT accuses three US and Swiss multinational corporations, Chiquita, Coca-Cola and Nestle, of profiteering from civil war and extreme human rights violations, including murder waged against labor organizers by paramilitaries hired by invested corporations. US aid to Colombia between 2000 and 2004 totaled over $3 billion, 80 percent of which was for support of military and police with strong links to paramilitary groups responsible for killing thousands of trade unionists. Though vastly unpopular in Colombia, the FTA was ratified by Bush in August with provisions for increased militarization to “secure the environment for investment.”

“US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement” Trade Matters May 2006
http://www.afsc.org/trade-matters/trade-agreements/Colombia.htm
“ Coca-Cola, Nestle, Chiquita on Trial in Colombia” Constanza Vieira, IPS (AGR) 4/4/2006 http://www.agrnews.org/print.php?news_id=561

Community Watchdogs Gain Court Victory Against Germ Warfare Proliferation

Researched by Heather Leidner

Policy analysts point out that the profusion of biodefense labs being built at breakneck speed across the country since 9/11 may endanger rather than protect the public. A recent court victory for the Livermore Lab and Los Alamos Lab watchdog groups, Trivalley CAREs and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, may, however, help turn the tide. As the Bush administration has allocated more than $36 billion to germ warfare research, production and deployment exercises, the Livermore and Los Alamos labs were to be the first such facilities to operate inside nuclear weapons labs. The new legal ruling approves demands for stringent environmental review of bio-warfare research facilities before operation can begin. The halting of Livermore and Los Alamos germ warfare research sets precedent for facilities across the nation.

“… Court Grants Demand For Environmental Review Before Bio-Warfare Agent Research Facility Opens At Livermore Lab” Citizen’s Watch 11/16/2006
http://www.trivalleycares.org/pressRelease/pr2oct06.asp
“ Three new Bio-Warfare Research Facilities at Livermore Lab” Citizen’s Watch 9/2006 http://www.trivalleycares.org/newsletters/cwsep06.asp

Bolivia Rejects IMF and FTA
Is the US Free Trade Model Losing Steam?

Researched by Dylan Otero

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales confirmed his refusal to sign agreements with the International Monetary Fund or a free trade treaty with the US. In April Morales released the Bolivian Peoples Trade Agreement (PTA), an alternative to the neo-liberal free trade model being pushed by the IMF and World Bank. The PTA fosters an indigenous vision of development, emphasizing solidarity, national sovereignty, and well being of the whole population. Along with negotiating to recover state stock control of private enterprises, these actions reverse a situation in which foreign corporations defined policies and strategies of resource ownership, control,
and trade. This model is the fruit of a strengthening movement against corporate globalization, not only throughout Latin America, but across the globe.

“Is the US Free Trade Model Losing Steam?” American Friends Service Committee, Trade Matters May 3, 2006
http://www.afsc.org/trade-matters/trade-agreements/LosingSteam.htm

Super-Wealthy Campaign to Kill the Estate Tax

Researched by Adrienne Magee

Eighteen families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion. A report released in April by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy details the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax. If the families’ repeal bid succeeds, it will cost the US Treasury a trillion dollars in the first decade – roughly what it would cost to provide health insurance for every uninsured person in the US.

“Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy Expose Stealth Campaign of Super-Wealthy to Repeal Federal Estate Tax” Citizen.org, April 25, 2006
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2182

Oil in Darfur Stops US Charges of Genocide

Researched by Charlene Topliff

Discovery of huge oil reserves in North Darfur “coincides” with President Bush’s about-face in charges of genocide. The same industry that bankrolled Bush’s presidential campaigns and crafted his petroleum-driven energy policy is now pressuring his administration to normalize relations with Sudan. Though the US has stated it has no “vital interests” in Sudan, dealings of US firms show otherwise. Serving as a place-holder for large US firms until inconvenient sanctions against Sudan can be lifted, Foreign investors like Friedhelm Eronat, are at the heart of a deal to secure Darfur’s oil. As a result of the new Darfur discoveries, a contract Eronat signed with Sudan for drilling rights is now worth billions of dollars.
“ Appeasement Driven by Oil” David Morse, TomDispatch.com, 9/25/2006 http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=124232

Government Economists Declare Tax Cuts are Not Paying for Themselves

Researched by Heather Moffett
While Bush, Cheney, and key Congressional leaders have asserted that the increase in revenues in 2005 and 2006 prove that tax cuts “pay for themselves,” studies by the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the Administration’s current and former chief economists show that tax cuts do not come anywhere close to paying for themselves over the long term. Furthermore, a Treasury Department analysis finds the Bush tax cuts will pay for less than 10 percent of their actual cost. According to CBO’s official cost estimate, the Administration’s proposal to make tax cuts enacted since 2001 permanent would cost 1.4 percent of GDP annually, as it continues to concentrate wealth at the top.
“ Claim That Tax Cuts ‘Pay for Themselves’ is Too Good To Be True” Richard Kogan and Aviva Aron-Dine, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, July 27, 2006
http://www.cbpp.org/3-8-06tax.htm

Earth’s Rivers Are Running Dry

Researched by Lauren Abruzzo

The world’s great rivers are drying up at an alarming rate, due not only to global warming, but to the significant interference of dams. More than half the world’s 500 mightiest rivers have been seriously depleted. Some have been reduced to a trickle in what the United Nations warns in its triennial World Water Development Report is a “disaster in the making.” Some 45,000 big dams now block the world’s rivers, trapping 15 percent of all water that used to flow from the land to the sea. Reservoirs now cover almost 1 percent of the land surface. The report recommends that while demand for dams “will continue to increase” the world’s remaining “free-flowing” rivers should remain undammed.

“The Death of the World’s Rivers,” “Rivers: a Drying shame” Geoffrey Lean, the Independent UK, March 12,2006
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/031306EC.shtml

Lancet Study on Human Rights Abuses in Haiti

Researched by Erik Jilburg

A study published in the British medical journal The Lancet has found widespread and systematic human rights abuses in Haiti following the ouster of democraticaly-elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. New figures reveal that during the 22-month period of the US-backed Interim Government, 8,000 people were murdered in the greater Port-au Prince area alone. Thirty-five women and girls were raped or sexually assaulted, more than half of whom were children. Kidnappings, extrajudicial detentions, physical assaults, death threats, and threats of sexual violence were also common. Those responsible for the human rights abuses include “criminals,” the police, United Nations peacekeepers and anti-Lavalas gangs.

“Lancet Journal of Medicine on Haiti Human Rights Abuses” Dennis Bernstein interviews Athena Kolbe, Flashpoints, 8/30/2006
http://www.flashpoints.net/transcripts/aug_30_2006.html
“ Shocking Lancet Study…” Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! 8/31/2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/31/144231

Native Energy Futures

Reviewed by: Mayra Madrigal

The US government and energy industry intend to market the growing shift away from dependence on foreign energy by deregulating and stepping up their exploitation (“development”) of energy resources located on Native American reservations. To help sell the idea, public relations professionals will spin it as a way to produce clean energy while helping Native Americans gain greater economic and tribal sovereignty. The 2005 Energy Policy Act provides real incentives for energy companies to partner with Indian tribes in developing tribal resources. Largely free of regulation, oversight, and responsibility, tribal corporations have become a way for large corporations with no Native American ownership to obtain no-bid contracts, and a device for speeding up privatization.

“Native Energy Futures” Brian Awehali, Lip Magazine, June 5, 2006
URL http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featawehali_nativefutures.htm

The post Nominations for February 2007 appeared first on Project Censored.

Green Fuel’s Dirty Secret

Researched by Julie Bickel

While corn based ethanol, promoted by the Bush administration as the “green fuel of the future” has been exposed as “one of the dirtiest forms of energy,” author Sasha Lilley further exposes the real drive behind corn based ethanol’s major role in Bush’s Biofuels Initiative. Archer Daniel Midland, the largest U.S. subsidized producer of corn and ethanol, and 10th worst corporate air polluter, is also a major financial contributor to both Republican and Democrat parties with an extremely successful pattern of lobbying congress. Government largesse for this inefficient and extremely environmentally destructive form of energy is thus secured as ADM writes and sets both State and Federal policy around coal, corn and ethanol.

“ Ethanol: The Dirty Truth,” Sasha Lilley, CorpWatch, 6/1/ 2006
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13646

Korean Farmers Fight US Base and FTA

Researched by Angela Purcaro

U.S. military and economic might in South Korea are being called into question as villagers launched a hunger strike to protest a U.S. military base expansion that would force them from their lands and farmers’ unions demonstrated in Seoul against a proposed free trade agreement. In Daechuri village, Pyongtaek, the land to be used for the expansion of the US base, up to 130 people were injured after 13,000 riot police and 3000 troops were deployed against 700 campaigners and farmers protesting against the eviction of their village. Meanwhile Korean and US unionists protest an FTA that would cause plummeting rice prices, resulting in massive bankruptcies and land dispossession for Koreans.

“ Korean Farmers Protest U.S. Base Expansion, Free Trade Agreement” Aaron
Glantz, OneWorld US, 5/8/2006
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/134462/1/4536
“ South Korea: Thousands of riot police in bloody eviction for US base” Amnesty International, 5/4/2006
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/south_korea/document.do?id=ENGASA250042006

Border for Sale

Researched by Mayra Madrigal

Five major military contractors are competing to privatize the U.S.-Mexican border using high technology. Boeing, Ericsson, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon are designing systems to tackle up to two million undocumented immigrants a year in the United States, ignoring many conditions fundamental to the immigration issue. At each checkpoint along the path to citizenship or deportation (from desert wilderness to urban labyrinth) private contractors will be hired to detect, apprehend, vet, detain, process, and potentially incarcerate or deport people seeking economic and human rights asylum in the U.S.

“ Border for Sale: Privatizing Immigration Control” Joseph Richey, Corpwatch 7/5/06
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13845
Update: “Boeing Team Awarded SBInet Contract by Department of Homeland Security,” September 21, 2006, http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2006/q3/060921a_nr.html

Lockheed’s High Altitude Spy Ships

Researched by Erik Jilburg

The U.S. government has hired private defense contractor Lockheed Martin to design and develop an enormous unmanned airship housed with high-resolution cameras to spy on Americans. The High Altitude Airship, or HAA, is designed to float 12 miles above the earth, far above planes and weather systems. The HAA will be 17 times the size of the Goodyear blimp and can watch over a circle of countryside 600 miles in diameter. That’s everything between Toledo and New York City. With 11 ordered, that could mean constant surveillance of every square inch of American soil.

“ Big Brother’s new toy: Another bloated gas bag watching you from the sky” James Renner, Cleveland Free Times 5/30/2006
http://athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=25082

No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11

Researched by Morgan Ulery

Osama bin Ladin’s role in the events of September 11, 2001 is not mentioned on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” notice. Go to: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/fugitives.htm

Five years later Rex Tomb, chief of investigative publicity for the FBI explains, “The reason 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11… He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.” Among many questions, author Ed Haas starts with, “If the U.S. government does not have enough hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11, how is it possible that it had enough evidence to invade Afghanistan?”

“FBI says, ‘No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11” Paul V. Sheridan and Ed Haas, The Ithica Journal, 6/29/2006
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/OPINION02/606290310/1014

IMF Criticizes US Health Care

Researched by Sandra Karnes

The U.S. government issued a barbed riposte after the IMF suggested that Washington institute health insurance for all Americans and balance its budget faster than planned. Speaking at the launch of the Outlook report, IMF chief economist Raghuram Rajan said that the United States was not always the poster child for the policies long advocated by the Fund.
“ In a globally competitive economy, it is very important you insure the individual, you have a safety net for the individual, because they’re at serious risk of losing their job and so on,” Mr. Rajan said, “Which means you have to have some form of universal health care. It is very, very hard, in this competitive economy, for 40-million-plus Americans to be uninsured, of which eight million are children.”

“ U.S. Tells IMF to Butt Out of Health Care Issue” Jitendra Joshi, Agence France Presse, 4/21/2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0421-11.htm

New Jersey OKs 200 Contaminated School Sites

Reviewed by: Sandra Karnes

New Jersey government turns a blind eye to building schools on radioactive sites. A scheme to purchase land and build a high school on the highly contaminated former Manhattan Project site was not vetoed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Instead, the former uranium processing facility is one of as many as 200 contaminated sites that have been expedited for school construction under a secret “Memorandum of Understanding” between the DEP and the state’s Schools Construction Corporation (SCC). State officials have refused to disclose the list of all known contaminated school sites purchased by the SCC and reviewed by DEP under the Memorandum of Understanding agreement. The $8 billion program is one of the nations largest public works program.

“ Radioactive School Site is Tip of New Jersey Iceberg” PEER, 4/24/2006
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0424-11.htm
Update: “New Jersey Leaves Door Open for More Schools on Toxic Sites,” PEER, 10/5/2006. http://www.peer.org/news/print_detail.php?row_id=762

People of Nigeria vs. Big Oil

Researched by Christy Baird

Rebelling against Western oil operations in the Niger Delta, The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) kidnapped nine employees of US oil services working for Royal Dutch Shell. Three of these hostages were held for five weeks in order to draw the attention of the United States and Britain to the demands of the impoverished inhabitants of the Niger Delta. Many Niger Delta residents, who have no electricity or running water, feel cheated out of the oil wealth by Western oil companies and the government of Nigeria, the world’s eighth largest crude producer. MEND threatens to continue attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta, where such unrest has cut Nigeria’s daily oil exports of 2.5 million barrels by more than 20 percent.

“ Nigeria: Delta militants free remaining foreign hostages, vow fresh attacks”.
UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 3/27/2006
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52457&SelectRegion=West

World Wide Water Crisis

Researched by Michael B Januleski Jr

Worldwide water shortage, which leaves 1.1 billion people with no access to safe water and 2.6 billion people without basic sanitation, is steadily increasing. A newly released report from the UK relief and development agency Tearfund announces, “Governments are failing to tackle a crisis in which a child dies from dehydration from diarrhea every 14 seconds. Half the world’s hospital beds are taken up by people with water-borne diseases…6,000 children are dying every day from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water.” The $15 billion needed to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goal to “halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation” is, according to the report, “a small portion of the $100 billion that is spent each year on bottled water, mainly as a fashion accessory.” The New Yorker article sited below grapples with various controversial solutions to water distribution; from dams and desalination to agrarian reform and conservation.

“ Water crisis a main cause of mass suffering” Michael McCarthy, Independent UK, 3/22/06, Asheville Global Report, 3/26/06
http://www.agrnews.org/?section=archives&cat_id=20&article_id=510
“ The Last Drip” Michael Specter, The New Yorker, 10/16/06
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061023fa_fact1

Military Waste In Our Drinking Water

Researched by Julie Bickel

The U.S. military is poisoning the very citizens it is supposed to protect in the name of national security. Producing more hazardous waste annually than the five largest international chemical companies combined, U.S. military weaponry production generates over one-third of our nation’s toxic waste, and is one of the most widespread violators of environmental laws. In 2003 the Defense Department exempted the military from environmental laws, resulting in the pollution of our Nation’s air and water. Along with a host of toxic chemicals, metals and radioactive waste, trichloroethylene (TCE), a known carcinogen and the most widespread industrial contaminant in American drinking water, can be traced to the US Military. TCE is linked to kidney cancer, impaired neurological function, reproductive and developmental damage, and autoimmune disease. The Pentagon is responsible for the TCE contamination of over 1,400 properties.

“Military Waste In Our Drinking Water” Sunaura Taylor and Astra Taylor,
AlterNet 8/4/2006
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/39723/

UN Ignores 500,000 Chernobyl Deaths

Reviewed by Mayra Madrigal

The United Nations has ignored evidence of deaths, cancers, and mutations after the Chernobyl accident. A series of reports suggest that at least 30,000 people are expected to die of cancers linked directly to severe radiation exposure in 1986 and up to 500,000 people may have already died as a result of the world’s worst environmental catastrophe. Yet the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency and World Heath Organization say that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster, and that, at most, 4,000 people may eventually die from the accident on Apr. 26, 1986.

“ UN accused of Ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths” John Vidal, Asheville Global Report, 3/30/2006
http://www.agrnews.org/?section=archives&cat_id=20&article_id=507

FCC Suppresses Locality Studies

Reviewed by Sandra Karnes

A lawyer with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported that FCC managers ordered the destruction of the 2004 locality study. The study suggested that greater concentration of media ownership could hurt local TV news coverage. Also suppressed was a 2003 study documenting the intense concentration of ownership following the 1996 rewrite of telecommunications law that eliminated a 40-station nation-wide ownership cap. Conclusions of these reports are at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of media outlets a company could own in a single market.

“ Lawyer Says FCC Ordered Study Destroyed,” John Dunbar, CommonDreams, 9/15/06 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0915-01.htm
“ Senator Says Media Study Suppressed,” John Dunbar, CommonDreams, 9/19/06
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0919-07.htm

The post Nominations for November 2006 appeared first on Project Censored.

US Oil’s Human Rights Violations Continue in Niger Delta

Reviewed by Kristine Medeiros

Ten years after the execution of writer and human rights activist Ken Sarowiwa and eight fellow activists, new evidence shows that the peoples of the oil-producing Niger Delta continue to face death and devastation at the hands of security forces. A report by Amnesty International reveals how poverty-stricken communities risk collective punishment for protests against actions of the Chevron and Shell oil companies. Based on ten years of injustice, violence, and human rights violations that haunt the Oil Delta, Amnesty International is calling for independent inquiries into these allegations, with findings reported to the public, and those responsible for human rights violations brought to justice.

Nigeria: New Evidence of Human Rights Violations in Oil-Rich Niger Delta, ACLU, Common Dreams, November 2005
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/1103-14.htm

Thousands Killed by Death Squads in Iraq

Reviewed by David Abbott

More than 7,000 people have been killed by Iraqi interior ministry death squads in recent months, many showing signs of torture. John Negroponte was the US ambassador in Iraq from June 2004-April 2005—precisely the time Pentagon chiefs were considering the “Salvador option,” the proposal to organize death squads from within US-recruited Iraqi security forces, to target Sunni resistance and their sympathizers. (Negroponte was an interesting choice as ambassador to Iraq. While US ambassador to Honduras 1981-1985, he oversaw CIA recruitment of the infamous death squads from within the Honduran military. During his term civilian deaths soared into the tens of thousands.)

“ IRAQ: Thousands killed by government death squads” Doug Lorimer, GreenLeft, 03/15/06
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/660/660p19.htm

“ Negroponte’s ‘Serious Setback’” Dahr Jamail, Truthout 03/03/06
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030306Z.shtml

Panama Agriculture Minister Resigns Over US Free Trade Proposal

Reviewed by Lindsay San Martin

Panama’s Agriculture Minister Laurentino Cortizo quit his position in response to a proposed US Free Trade agreement to allow lowering of health standards in the flow of agricultural products into Panama. Although in previous talks both countries agreed to follow WTO inspection standards, the US wants to impose its own inspections. Cortizo fears that the lower health criteria would expose the Panamanian people to “catastrophic consequences of plagues and diseases.”

“ Panama agriculture minister resigns over US talks,” Reuters, 01/10/06
http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=3520

IMF Measures Lead to Economic Collapse in Iraq

Reviewed by Bailey Malone

Large scale rioting broke out in Iraq in December 2005 as a result of IMF insistence on lifting fuel subsidies and privatizing state-owned companies in exchange for loans. The immediate impact of IMF measures was a 500 percent rise in the cost of petrol, diesel, cooking gas and kerosene. The broader impact is soaring inflation on all consumer goods. The main cause of Iraq’s budgetary crisis is the collapse of oil exports. Oil production has dropped 50 percent since the US occupation. Iraq must now import oil at world market prices. Riots erupted in Iraq as a result of the IMF-induced economic collapse two months prior to the February bombing of the Shiite mosque.

“ IMF Measures Wreak Havoc on Iraqi People” James Cogan, World Socialist Web Site 02/21/06
http://gnn.tv/headlines/7750/IMF_Measures_Wreak_Havoc_On_Iraqi_People

“ IMF Occupies Iraq, Riots Follow” Matthew Rothschild, Progressive 01/03/06
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/imf/2006/0103riots.htm

EPA Library Axed

Reviewed by Isaac Dolido

Under Bush’s proposed 2007 budget, the EPA is slated to shut down its network of libraries that serve its own scientists as well as the public. EPA scientists use the libraries to research questions such as the safety of chemicals and the environmental effects of new technologies. EPA enforcement staff use the libraries to obtain technical information to support pollution prosecutions and to track the business histories of regulated industries. “How are EPA scientists supposed to engage in cutting edge research when they cannot find what the agency has already done?” asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.

“ Bush Axing Libraries While Pushing for More Research” PEER 02/10/06
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=643

Pentagon’s Database on Children

Reviewed by Charlene Jones

A $70.5 million database of over 30 million children and young adults is being used by the Pentagon for recruiting purposes. Parents cannot remove their children’s names from the database. The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to report data of children in secondary schools to military recruiters. The Pentagon purchases information supplied by private corporations, including General Motors and Hooked on Phonics.
“ Mining for Kids: Children Can’t ‘Opt Out’ of Pentagon Recruitment Database,” Kathryn Casa, Vermont Guardian, 01/17/06
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0117-12.htm

Iraqi Hospitals Under Siege by U.S. Forces

Reviewed by Charlene Jones

Hospitals that are lacking both medical supplies and staff struggle to save the lives of injured civilians despite regular raids by the US military. Medical personnel are apprehended, and hospitals are wrecked and damaged during the incursions. With faulty equipment, power outages, and a 7 p.m. curfew, medical personnel are forced to work in extremely poor conditions.

“ Hospitals Under Siege,” Dahr Jamail and Harb Al-Mukhtar, Z Magazine, 11/29/05
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=9225

Uncovered Documents Reveal Big Oil Ties to Ecuadorian Military

Reviewed by Isaac Dolido

Declassified contracts reveal that 16 multinational oil companies use the Ecuadorian military like a private army. Occidental Oil built a military base for Ecuadorian troops near a Quichua Indian community. Indigenous communities are being intimated, and have signed over land and future rights to sue in exchange for plates, cups, soccer balls, and modest allotments of food and medicine.

“ Exclusive: Selling the Amazon for a Handful of Beads,” Kelly Hearn, AlterNet, 01/17/06.
http://alternet.org/story/30657

Pulp Production in Uruguay Devastates Environment

Reviewed by Nick Ramirez

Mass harvesting of Eucalyptus trees are leeching resources and causing widespread pollution throughout Uruguay. Plantations are draining local wells, and the construction of two paper pulp factories near the Argentine border was postponed after being blockaded by activists. Processing mills have contaminated water and polluted the air. The World Bank and the Inter-American bank fund the pulp industry.

“ Uruguay: Pulp Factions: Uruguay’s Environmentalists v. Big Paper,” Raúl Pierri, CorpWatch, 01/16/06
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13111

“ Uruguay: Mixed Reactions to Truce in Pulp Mill War,” Gustavo González, Inter Press Service News Agency, 03/11/06
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13386

Peruvians Violated by Pipeline: Ruptured Pipeline in Peru Poisons Indigenous Communities

Reviewed by Nick Ramirez

A $1.6 billion pipeline stretching from the Amazon Jungle to the Peruvian coastline is devastating indigenous communities. Financed by various foreign investors, including Hunt Oil from Texas, shoddy construction has resulted in four ruptures, leaking gas into water resources. Contagious disease from foreign employees of gas companies—including influenza, diarrhea, and syphilis—is spreading into the indigenous population.

“ Rights of Isolated Indigenous Communities Violated by Amazon Pipeline” Ángel Páez, IPS, 03/02/06
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32355

“ Bank Rejects Rapid Review of Controversial Pipeline” Emad Mekay, IPS, 03/02/06
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32344

The post Nominations for August 2006 appeared first on Project Censored.

No Disclosure on $Billions for Homeland Security

Reviewed by Nick Ramirez

The details of how $8 billion in Homeland Security funds have been spent remain a mystery to the public. Many states do not reveal specifics on what has been purchased, providing only broad explanations. The purchase of defective equipment by taxpayer dollars is not reported. Colorado has spent $130 million, yet has no Homeland Security plan. State security laws are misinterpreted, says Sen. Hagedorn, resulting in a serious lack of accountability.

“Billions in States’ Homeland Purchases Kept in the Dark,” Eileen Sullivan, CQ, 6/22/05
http://www.cq.com/public/20050622A_homeland.html

Cola vs. the People in India

Reviewed by Charlene Jones

After drying wells, poisoning drinking water, and distributing toxic sludge as fertilizer, a Coca-Cola bottling plant in a remote village of India was shut down. The Kerala State Pollution Control Board order was the latest episode in a battle between Coca-Cola and impoverished residents since the company began its $25 million operation in 2001. Pollution control authorities, political parties, the High Court system, and environmental groups became involved as the dispute grew into a global symbol of peoples’ resistance to powerful trans-national corporations trying to snatch water rights.

“Everything Gets Worse With Coca-Cola,” D. Rajeev, IPS, 7/21/05
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29973

Dismantling the Internet

Reviewed by Zoe Hoffman

On June 27, 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled that giant cable companies like Comcast and Verizon are not required to share their cables with other Internet service providers. Federal government–from the FCC to the White House–and the media have worked cooperatively to quietly block open access to cyberspace. Mainstream media have censored and covered up Federal moves to commandeer, monopolize, and turn the Internet into an extension of itself. From Fox News to CNN, there has been dead silence as the greatest bastion of democracy in history is being dismantled – and resurrected in the image of AOL.

“Web of Deceit: How Internet Freedom Got the Federal Ax, And Why Corporate News Censored the Story,” Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D, Buzzflash, 6/18/05
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05238.html

Rumsfeld’s Tamiflu Stock

Reviewed by Charlene Jones

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld holds investments valued between $5 million and $25 million in Gilead Sciences, a biotech company he chaired from 1997 until 2001 and the company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the most sought-after influenza remedy in the world. Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, which holds the sole license to manufacture Tamiflu, last year refused to lift its exclusive rights and allow other drug manufacturers to produce the drug. Fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead’s stock from $35 to $47, making the Pentagon chief—already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet—at least $1 million richer.

“Rumsfeld’s growing stake in Tamiflu,” Nelson D. Schwartz, CNN, 10/31/05
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/?cnn=yes

“Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?” F. William Engdahl, GlobalResearch.ca, 10/30/05 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20EN20051030&articleId=1169

US Controls Colombian Reproductive Rights

Reviewed by Bailey Malone

In Columbia, women can be imprisoned for up to four and a half years for having abortions—300,000 to 450,000 illegal and sometimes fatal procedures take place every year. The US “Mexico City” policy, which denies financial aid to groups that support the right to abortion, is damaging a campaign to decriminalize abortion in cases of rape, risk to the mother’s life, or severe deformation of the fetus. Groups that once supported decriminalization are now silenced due to dependence on US funding.

“Colombian Abortion Law Campaign is Undermined by Washington,” Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, 11/13/05
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1013-05.htm

“Colombia: Women Face Prison for Abortion,” Human Rights Watch, 05/27/05
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/06/22/colomb11202.htm

KBR’s Gulf Coast Slaves

Reviewed by Lauren Powell

Authorities are keeping Katrina relief workers ill-informed and unprotected from the health risks of what has been described as a cesspool of toxic chemicals. No government regulations for Katrina responders exist. KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, holds the main contract for Katrina relief work, and while the company maintains it operates legally, hundreds of undocumented immigrants have been hired. Many have been denied promised wages, food and shelter. A period of relaxed labor standards following Katrina created lasting conditions for abuse of workers.
“Gulf Coast Slaves,” Roberto Lovato, Salon.com, 11/05
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111505A.shtml
“Relief Workers May Be Next Wave of Katrina Victim,s” Michelle Chen, The New Standard, 09/23/05
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2395

US Terror Watchlist 80,000 Names Long

Reviewed by Sarah Randle

A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks now consists of 80,000 names according to European air industry sources. The classified list carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name.

“US terror watchlist 80,000 names long,” Sweden.se, 12/08/05
http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/NewsML____12744.aspx?newsid=1312

Air War in Iraq

Reviewed by Sarah Randle

Due to diminishing approval ratings, the Bush administration has decided to reduce the number of soldiers serving in Iraq. A key element in these drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by US airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by US warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capabilities of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. While the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the overall level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase dramatically.

“Tomgram: Dahr Jamail on the Missing Air War in Iraq,” TomDispath.com, 1/06
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=42286

“Up in the Air,” Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 11/28/05
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/051205fa_fact

Power Plants Go Unregulated

Reviewed by Bailey Malone

In March 2005 the EPA took power plants off the list of sources of toxic pollutants, and instead has created a pollution trading scheme. A resolution challenging the EPA’s cutback of Clean Air Act requirements to reduce mercury emissions failed in the Senate in September. Despite the Senate vote against the resolution, many states continue to lead the way with plans to crack down on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.

“Six Senate Democrats Vote to Retain Bush Mercury Rule” BushGreenWatch 9/16/05
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000294.php

“Senate Vote Leaves Women and Children at Risk of Mercury Poisoning,” Sierra Club Press Release, 9/13/05
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0913-17.htm

Threat to Our Forests

Reviewed by David Abbott

The Bush administration has come under attack for dismantling Clinton-era restrictions on road building and logging in nearly 58.5 million acres of the country’s remaining backcountry and undeveloped forests. California, Oregon, and New Mexico have filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration, and a bi-partisan bill sponsored by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-WA) & Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) seeks to restore the rule. During its public comment period, the “Roadless Rule” generated the largest public response in US Forest Service history, with over 90 percent of comments supportive of the ban, while the repeal generated an even greater volume of comment, most of it critical.

“Threats to Our Forests,” National Environmental Trust, 9/05
http://www.net.org/forests/roadless.vtml

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