The Hollywood Liberal

When internal passport controls go into effect, will DHS “Behavior Detection Officers” profile us like DEA does now?

Corrente Wire

If so, it’s very simple to understand the new experiences Americans are about to have in their new, unfree country (internal passports; preventive detention; satellite surveillance; et cetera.)

Just mentally substitute “extremist” for “drug courier,” and use the working definition that “extremist” means anybody who wrote the wrong kind of book (or reads it), wears the wrong kind of T-shirt, or has the wrong color of skin—or, with the devilish cunning so typical of extremists, conceals extremism behind a facade of reading the right books, wearing the right T-shirts, and being white.

Here are a list of reasons the Government has used to determine that someone was a potential Drug Courier, (or Extremist)

Arrived late at night United States v. Nurse, 916 F.2d 20, 24 (D.C.Cir.1990).

Arrived early in the morning United States v. Reid, 448 U.S. 438, 441, 100 S.Ct. 2752, 2754, 65 L.Ed.2d 890 (1980); United States v. Millan, 912 F.2d 1014, 1017 (8th Cir.1990).

One of first to deplane United States v. Millan, 912 F.2d at 1015; United States v. Moore, 675 F.2d 802, 803 (6th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1068, 103 S.Ct. 1521, 75 L.Ed.2d 945 (1983).

One of last to deplane United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 547 n. 1, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1873 n. 1, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980); United States v. Sterling, 909 F.2d 1078, 1079 (7th Cir.1990); United States v. White, 890 F.2d 1413, 1414 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 825, 111 S.Ct. 77, 112 L.Ed.2d 50 (1990).

Deplaned in the middle United States v. Buenaventura-Ariza, 615 F.2d 29, 31 (2d Cir.1980).

Used a one-way ticket United States v. Johnson, 910 F.2d 1506 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1051, 111 S.Ct. 764, 112 L.Ed.2d 783 (1991); United States v. Colyer, 878 F.2d 469, 471 (D.C.Cir.1989); United States v. Sullivan, 625 F.2d 9, 12 (4th Cir.1980).

Used a round-trip ticket United States v. Craemer, 555 F.2d 594, 595 (6th Cir.1977).

Carried brand-new luggage United States v. Taylor, 917 F.2d at 1403; United States v. Sullivan, 625 F.2d at 12.

Carried a small gym bag United States v. Sanford, 658 F.2d 342, 343 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 991, 102 S.Ct. 1618, 71 L.Ed.2d 852 (1982).

Travelled alone United States v. White, 890 F.2d at 1415; United States v. Smith, 574 F.2d 882, 883 (6th Cir.1978).

Travelled with a companion United States v. Garcia, 905 F.2d 557, 559 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 986, 111 S.Ct. 522, 112 L.Ed.2d 533 (1990); United States v. Fry, 622 F.2d 1218, 1219 (5th Cir.1980).

Acted too nervous United States v. Montilla, 928 F.2d 583, 585 (2d Cir.1991); United States v. Cooke, 915 F.2d 250, 251 (6th Cir.1990).

Acted too calm United States v. McKines, 933 F.2d 1412 (8th Cir.1991); United States v. Himmelwright, 551 F.2d 991, 992 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 902, 98 S.Ct. 298, 54 L.Ed.2d 189 (1977).

Wore expensive clothing and gold jewelry United States v. Chambers, 918 F.2d 1455, 1462 (9th Cir.1990).

Dressed in black corduroys, white pullover shirt, loafers without socks United States v. McKines, supra.

*500 Dressed in dark slacks, work shirt, and hat United States v. Taylor, 917 F.2d at 1403.

Dressed in brown leather aviator jacket, gold chain, hair down to shoulders United States v. Millan, 912 F.2d at 1015.

Dressed in loose-fitting sweatshirt and denim jacket United States v. Flowers, 909 F.2d 145, 146 (6th Cir.1990).

Walked rapidly through airport United States v. Millan, 912 F.2d at 1017; United States v. Rose, 889 F.2d 1490, 1491 (6th Cir.1989).

Walked aimlessly through airport United States v. Gomez-Norena, 908 F.2d 497, 497 (9th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 947, 111 S.Ct. 363, 112 L.Ed.2d 326 (1991).

Flew in to Washington National Airport on the LaGuardia Shuttle United States v. Powell, 886 F.2d 81, 82 (4th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1084, 110 S.Ct. 1144, 107 L.Ed.2d 1049 (1990).

Had a white handkerchief in his hand United States v. Garcia, 848 F.2d 58, 59 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 957, 109 S.Ct. 395, 102 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988).

In our “Looking-Glass” world of drug enforcement, the DEA apparently seeks “to be master” by having “drug courier profile” mean, like a word means to Humpty Dumpty, “just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

NY Times
“Countdown With Keith Olbermann” the highly rated cable news program, will be shown on network television on Sunday before a preseason NBC football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Since Mr. Olbermann will have a regular role in NBC’s football coverage once the season begins — appearing as a co-host on the pregame show “Football Night in America” on Sundays — this weekend’s appearance of his cable show will give a wider audience a look at what he has been up for the last four years. “ ‘Countdown’ is rocketing right now over at MSNBC — its ratings are going through the roof,” said Phil Griffin, senior vice president of NBC News. (In July Mr. Olbermann’s show averaged 721,000 viewers, an increase of 88 percent over last July, according to MSNBC.) Mr. Griffin added, “The world has changed, and I think people have come in line with the smart, focused approach he has on the show.” No immediate plans for additional network appearances of “Countdown” have been made, but Mr. Griffen did not rule them out. “It may be the first of several times you see Olbermann on the network,” he said.

An Unconscionable Stain on the Fabric of American Democracy

OP-ED News
Soon after his arrest, Padilla was designated an “unlawful enemy combatant” for the sole purpose of allowing the Bush Administration to do what they wished to him without fear of oversight, reprisal or restriction. He was “disappeared” to a brig off the coast of South Carolina where he was kept for years without contact and without legal representation. Habeas Corpus was eradicated; a key lynchpin of democratic societies for over 800 years. In an attempt to break his will, Padilla was subjected to complete and abject isolation for years. He was tortured. Plain and simple; he was tortured. I do not care how many times Bush likes to say “we don’t torture”; Jose Padilla was routinely and purposefully tortured for a period of years. The result was not a broken will but a broken human being. He was essentially driven mad, as policy. No court was allowed to oversee or check the new unlimited power of the would be tyrant. Only when it became obvious to the administration that the Supreme Court would demand that Padilla be tried or released did Bush bother to take Mr. Padilla to trial. When the administration did, they took a shell of a human being to trial, not for the crimes they alleged when they arrested him for, but rather for activities that he and friends of his engaged in during the 1990’s.

Did you get that America? Do you fully comprehend what happened? A United States citizen was arrested for alleged crimes, was stripped of all rights as a citizen, dumped into isolation in prison for years with no legal representation, and only when the hand of the administration was forced he was brought to trial for completely different crimes, discovered after the fact and after years of being tortured. That is not due process. That is not even remotely just. It has been compared to governmental behavior found during the height of the Soviet Union. Even the conservative Cato Institute had to lament that “for those of us concerned about the rule of law, the Padilla episode is not the way America is supposed to work.”

Half the states are fighting the Real ID act, but of course Bush and his buddies won’t rest until they get what they want. At what point do people finally start to fight back. When we are all in concentration camps? Canada is looking better and better everyday.

Federal ID plan raises privacy concerns

CNN
He’s just looking out for your safety
Excerpt(CNN) — Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act. The act, signed in 2005 as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill, aims to weave driver’s licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The law sets baseline criteria for how driver’s licenses will be issued and what information they must contain.

The Department of Homeland Security insists Real ID is an essential weapon in the war on terror, but privacy and civil liberties watchdogs are calling the initiative an overly intrusive measure that smacks of Big Brother.

More than half the nation’s state legislatures have passed symbolic legislation denouncing the plan, and some have penned bills expressly forbidding compliance.

Several states have begun making arrangements for the new requirements — four have passed legislation applauding the measure — but even they may have trouble meeting the act’s deadline.

The cards would be mandatory for all “federal purposes,” which include boarding an airplane or walking into a federal building, nuclear facility or national park, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Conference of State Legislatures last week. Citizens in states that don’t comply with the new rules will have to use passports for federal purposes.

Ron Paul Wins Gaston County Straw Poll

Reality Check
Excerpt

Gastonia, NC — No, Gastonia is not a country in Eastern Europe. It’s actually a North Carolina town just west of Charlotte, and tonight they had a county GOP meeting that featured fantastic barbecue at Alfred & Charlie’s BBQ House as well as a presidential straw poll. These results are just in:

John McCain: 2.4%
Rudy Guiliani: 4.9%
Mitt Romney: 7.3%
Newt Gingrich: 7.3%
Mike Huckabee: 9.8%
Fred Thompson: 31.7%
Ron Paul: 36.6%

Given how much time and money the Ron Paul campaign has spent in North Carolina, I’m sure they’ll be pleased.

RON PAUL SUPPORTERS NOT ALLOWED AT TEXAS STRAW POLL!!

Reality Check
Excerpt
Here is the problem with Dr. Ron Paul having a good showing in his OWN STATE OF TEXAS. The only people who can vote in the Texas Straw Poll are people who have been delegates in the past!
IN other words, I, a Texas Republican cannnot go to Fort Worth on Sept 1 and vote for Dr. Ron Paul in my own state.
Doesnt everyone see a problem with this?? The straw poll will be attended by hard-core Neo-Con Republicans from past primaries and people who are just now jumping on the political bandwagon for Ron Paul have no opportunity what-so-ever to be involved in the Texas Straw Poll – So *please* do not get upset if CONGRESSMAN Ron Paul does not do well in his own home state of Texas

Billy Kristol, the publisher of that bird cage liner The Weekly Standard just got back from Iraq. You’ll never guess what he found out. That things are going very well over there. Jon Stewart, has a few questions. Check it out.

Former World Bank Chief Economist Predicts Global Crash

Infowars
Excerpt

Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months – unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded “no,” and also drew ominous parallels to the development of the NAFTA Superhighway and the North American Union Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing
out their economies.

The Columbia University Professor described how rampant privatization has crippled Mexico, in particular citing the sell-off of major infrastructure such as roads.
"They sold the roads to the private enterprise and the hope was that they would be more efficient but of course what happens is that they didn’t maintain the roads, they couldn’t generate enough revenue and they eventually had to default and give the roads back
to the government."

Stiglitz agreed that the process of hijacking and looting key infrastructure on the part of the IMF and World Bank, as an offshoot of predatory globalization, had now moved from the third world to Europe, the United States and Canada.

These sentiments are especially disturbing when we consider the current fast-moving quasi-secret agenda to sell-off major American highways to foreign corporations who plan to turn them into toll roads for tracking and taxation purposes – collectively known as the
NAFTA Superhighway. The program forms the framework for the advancement
of the North American
Union – a collective governmental, border and trading bloc
that President Bush has signed the U.S. over to under the Security and Prosperity
Partnership of March 2005.

As we previously
reported, US citizens will be forced to adopt a de-facto national
identification card and have their freedom of mobility defined by behavioral
fealty to the government under proposals set to derive from NAFTA superhighway
toll road systems and the implementation of the American Union.

This is a movement that’s gone on all over the world," said Stiglitz, "the movement of trying to turn over basic facilities – water, roads, to the private sector.

Last week we had a story about 190,000 US firearms that had been “lost” in Iraq. I talked about how this was not the first time that a large amount of US munitions had gone missing. A couple of years ago we had a story about how something like 400 pounds of plastic explosives like C4 had also been lost. I wrote that The Bush administration is arming the “enemy” so that the war will go on forever. Now comes a story about where all the weapons are going.

Iraq’s Arms Bazaar

MSNBC
Excerpt

On the afternoon of Feb. 5, 2006, at a small church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon, Father Andrea Santoro was kneeling in prayer when a bullet from an Austrian-made Glock 9mm pistol hit him in the back and pierced his heart. The soft-spoken 60-year-old Italian priest, who lived in poverty ministering to the city’s tiny Christian community, slumped to the floor, and the killer squeezed off another round. “Allahu akbar!”—”God is great”—said the shooter, a 15-year-old boy with a grudge against the West.
In May of last year, another Muslim fanatic, guns blazing, attacked Turkey’s supreme court in Ankara. Four justices were wounded and one was killed. The assassin’s weapons of choice were a pair of Glock pistols.

The attacks were no mystery. What puzzled Turkish police was the weapons’ origin….

So some of the weapons found their way into Turkey. I wonder if this could have anything to do with the Sibel Edmonds case, which I asked Henry Waxman about last week. The case involves and FBI whistleblower from the state department who uncovered a corruption scandal that involves The American Turkish Council, the biggest Turkish lobbying group in the US who incidentally recieves Billions in millitary aid from the US, the case involves Arms trading , drug running, selling on nuclear secrets and supposedly involves Israel, as well as Democrats and Republicans in congress. Not surprisingly no one in congress including Waxman want to touch the case with a 10 foot poll. The story continues…

More than 1,000 had been taken from criminals, guerrillas, terrorists and assassins all over the country, and authorities believed tens of thousands more had found their way onto the black market—but from where? The Austrian government repeatedly checked the serial numbers of the murder weapons. The manufacturer informed Ankara that the pistols were consigned originally to ” ‘US Mission Iraq’ [formerly the Coalition Provisional Authority], address: Republican Presidential Compound, Ministry of the Interior, Baghdad, Iraq.”

There are many more where those came from. At least three U.S. government agencies are now investigating the massive “disappearance” and diversion of weapons Washington intended for Iraqi government forces that instead have spread to militants and organized gangs across the region. The potential size of the traffic is stunning. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month showed that since 2004, some 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, bought with U.S. money for Iraqi security forces, have gone missing.

As I asked before, how do you lose 190,000 weapons, only the failure monkey could be behind this. It’s simply not possible to F**k up that badly unless you are doing it on purpose.

At retail prices in the United States, a Glock 19 costs about $500. On the black market in Turkey, it can fetch up to $3,500, according to the national police. A senior Turkish security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said his government estimates some 20,000 U.S.-bought Glock 9mm pistols have been brought from Iraq into his country over the last three years. “The problem on our side is that this corruption is so big they [the Iraqi and U.S. governments] cannot stop it,” said the official.

So $3000 profit for every Glock sold, not bad, someone is making a lot of money off this, just like someone makes a lot of money off everything Bush does.

The U.S. military has investigated the problem repeatedly—and the losses look more appalling every time. Major U.S. arms transfers began when Gen. David Petraeus was commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command—Iraq (MNSTC-I), better known as Minsticky. Its mission was to train, arm and organize Iraq’s military and police forces, but the Iraqis’ weapons came via the State Department, and the supply line was actually run by private contractors.

There are those pesky private contractors again. Did you know that there are now almost as many private contractors in Iraq, as there are actual soldiers. No one complains when Mercenaries get killed and Bush can continue to fight his war for profit with money coming in from both sides. This should be illegal.

One of Petraeus’s subordinates, Col. Theodore Westhusing, had taken leave from his position as a professor of ethics at West Point to serve a six-month tour as commander of the unit training counterterrorism and Special Operations Forces. By the spring of 2005, Westhusing had grown increasingly concerned about the corruption he thought he saw in the program. He was especially upset after receiving an anonymous letter on May 19, 2005, which claimed there was outright fraud by government contractors. Among the alleged problems: failure to account for almost 200 guns.

Westhusing passed the letter up the chain of command. A few days later he wrote a formal memo saying he thought the charges were off-base. But at the same time his conversations and e-mails with his family members became cryptic and he seemed concerned for his safety. Colleagues said he looked exhausted and preoccupied. On June 5, 2005, Westhusing was found dead in his temporary quarters at Camp Dublin near Baghdad airport, apparently having shot himself with his own pistol. “I cannot support a [mission] that leads to corruption, human rights abuses and liars,” he wrote in a note found near his body. “Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential—I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

So someone found about what was going on and they suicided him. Just another Bush story from the endless Bush war. Click through and read the whole thing.

“As I travel around America, I hear so many people say how they feel that they are invisible to their Government.”-Hillary Clinton. (Then why do you want to send their jobs overseas)

Nice sentiments, but the truth is a little different. See next story

Hillary claims she is for the American worker, but just like she promised she would never stop taking money from lobbyists. Apparently she will never stop taking money from India companies that want to take our jobs over there, and send their people over here to take even more of our jobs.

Clinton woos the outsourcers feared by U.S. workers

LA Times
Excerpt

BUFFALO, N.Y. To many labor unions and high-tech workers, the Indian giant Tata Consultancy Services is a serious threat — a company that has helped move U.S. jobs to India while sending thousands of foreign workers on temporary visas to the United States…..

The 2003 announcement had clear benefits for the senator and the company: Tata received good press, and Clinton burnished her credentials as a champion for New York’s depressed upstate region.

But less noticed was how the event signaled that Clinton, who portrays herself as a fighter for American workers, had aligned herself with Indian American business leaders and Indian companies feared by the labor movement.

Now, as Clinton runs for president, that signal is echoing loudly.

Clinton is successfully wooing wealthy Indian Americans, many of them business leaders with close ties to their native country and an interest in protecting outsourcing laws and expanding access to worker visas. Her campaign has held three fundraisers in the Indian American community recently, one of which raised close to $3 million, its sponsor told an Indian news organization.

But in Buffalo, the fruits of the Tata deal have been hard to find. The company, which called the arrangement Clinton’s “brainchild,” says “about 10” employees work here. Tata says most of the new employees were hired from around Buffalo. It declines to say whether any of the new jobs are held by foreigners, who make up 90% of Tata’s 10,000-employee workforce in the United States.

So Hillary brings an Indian company to NY promising 200 jobs out of the deal (but how many did they give away?) and it ends up that only 10 jobs are created. I guess those Indian companies are making huge donations to Hillary’s war chest just like Israel, and lobbyists are. Is this woman really a democrat? The story continues

Lou Dobbs, an outsourcing critic, pressed her on the Tata deal in 2004, Clinton responded: “Well, of course I know that they outsource jobs, that they’ve actually brought jobs to Buffalo. They’ve created 10 jobs in Buffalo and have told me and the Buffalo community that they intend to be a source of new jobs in the area, because, you know, outsourcing does work both ways.”

This month, she made a similar case to a conference of Indian workers in Silicon Valley, saying she supported an expansion of visas. “Foreign skilled workers contribute greatly to our U.S. technological development,” she told the group via satellite.

Clinton acknowledged the strains on American workers and called for more job-training programs. But her words seemed to distance her from those who would end outsourcing. Increased U.S. job losses, she said, could cause Americans to “seek more protection against what they view as unfair competition.”

So it’s ok for her to screw over the American workers, as long as she calls for more job training. Of course she never mentions anything about how that job training will come about. Besides what’s the point of training for a job that should be well paying, when an Indian is willing to do the same job for $2 an hour. The people doing the job training might as well be learning to say “Would you like Fries with that” The NAFTA deal was the worst thing Bill Clinton did as President and it needs to end.