Exclusive: Rumsfeld Updated Army's Continuity of Operations Plan before 9/11

Nine months before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved an updated version of the U.S. Army's secret operational Continuity of Government (COG) plans.

A draft document published by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks entitled, "Army Regulation 500-3, Emergency Employment of Army and Other Resources. Army Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program," dated 19 January 2001, spells out changes in Army doctrine.

Issued by Headquarters, Department of the Army and signed off by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Secretary of the Army, the document is affixed with a warning: "Destruction Notice: Destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document." The restricted document as published by Wikileaks states:

History. This regulation is a revision of the original regulation that was effective on 10 July 1989. Since that time, no changes have been published to amend the original.

Summary. This regulation on the Army Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program has been revised to update Army COOP policy and extend the requirement for all-hazards COOP planning to all Army organizations. Classified information contained in the 1989 version of this AR has been removed and placed in a classified HQDA Operations Plan (OPLAN).

Applicability. This regulation applies to the Active Army, the U.S. Army Reserve (USAR), and when federalized to the Army National Guard (ARNG). In the event of conflict between this regulation and approved OSD or JCS publications, the provisions of the latter will apply. ("Army Regulation 500-3, Emergency Employment of Army and Other Resources. Army Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program," 19 January 2001, p. 3) [emphasis added]

"All-hazards COOP planning" is described as the means by which "the Army remains capable of continuing mission-essential operations during any situation, including military attack, terrorist activities, and natural or man-made disasters." While the Army stresses the updates described in AR 500-3 relate to chemical, biological, nuclear attacks, "natural disasters" and "technical or man-made disasters or accidents," current Army doctrine is also heavily weighted towards contingency planning for "civil disturbances."

Two national "civil disturbance" plans, Garden Plot and Cable Splicer have been operational since the 1960s. Researcher Frank Morales has detailed how,

Under the heading of "civil disturbance planning," the U.S. military is training troops and police to suppress democratic opposition in America. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, is code-named, "Operation Garden Plot". Originated in 1968, the "operational plan" has been updated over the last three decades, most recently in 1991, and was activated during the Los Angeles "riots" of 1992, and more than likely during the recent anti-WTO "Battle in Seattle." ...

Equipped with flexible "military operations in urban terrain" and "operations other than war" doctrine, lethal and "less-than-lethal" high-tech weaponry, US "armed forces" and "elite" militarized police units are being trained to eradicate "disorder", "disturbance" and "civil disobedience" in America. Further, it may very well be that police/military "civil disturbance" planning is the animating force and the overarching logic behind the incredible nationwide growth of police paramilitary units, a growth which coincidentally mirrors rising levels of police violence directed at the American people, particularly "non-white" poor and working people. (Frank Morales, "U.S. Military Civil Disturbance Planning: The War at Home," in Police State America, ed. Tom Burghardt, Toronto/Montreal: Arm The Spirit/Solidarity, 2002, P. 59)

AR 500-3 should be viewed in this context. Plans for Continuity of Government have been in place since the 1950s. Originally conceived during the Cold War when fears of a nuclear strike envisaged by atomic war-gamers at the RAND Corporation, believed that an immobilization of government functions and a breakdown of civilian rule would follow a nuclear attack. But from their inception, COG planning has been shrouded in secrecy.

In addition to constructing nuclear-proof underground facilities where the civilian leadership could escape a decapitation strike, other COG provisions included a series of executive orders designating which officials would assume Cabinet-level posts and other Executive Branch positions. Officials so designated would constitute a "shadow government" should office holders be killed in an attack "or otherwise incapacitated."

However, when these and other Pentagon "civil disturbance" plans surfaced in the 1980s during the Iran-Contra hearings, they were roundly criticized by members of Congress, civil liberties groups and the media before disappearing once again, down Orwell's "memory hole." The inherent dangers implicit in such plans are that unelected Executive Branch officers could assume the Presidency and other appointed offices subject neither to congressional scrutiny nor judicial oversight.

Exercising sweeping emergency powers buried within Presidential Decision Directives (PDDs), unelected officials could suspend the Constitution, declare martial law and create an Executive Branch dictatorship that rests solely on the power of the U.S. military.

Most troubling, Executive Branch officials under secret rules of a COG regime could suppress and usurp the lawful powers of Congress and the Judicial Branch (by force of arms if deemed necessary) as a means of ensuring "cooperation" under a "unitary executive."

As we have seen, the "unitary executive" theory has been a salient feature of Bushist rule since the December 2000 judicial coup d'état, when the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision handed a contested election to George W. Bush by stopping the vote count in Florida.

Since assuming office, the administration has ruthlessly wielded executive power in order to achieve their antidemocratic agenda: from the looting of the economy through "deregulation," massive deficit spending and tax cuts for their corporate "clients," to waging a preemptive war of conquest in Iraq, the "unitary executive" has systematically shredded America's constitutional system of checks and balances.

The Bush administration put COG plans into operation for the first time in U.S. history in the hours directly following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They have never been rescinded.

Their implementation involves a rotating staff of 75-150 senior government officials and others from every Cabinet department in two "secure, undisclosed locations" on the East Coast. However, key congressional representatives have been kept out of the loop and House and Senate leaders have said they were not informed the "shadow government" had "gone live."

So secretive are Bush administration plans that Peter DeFazio (D-OR), a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, was denied access in 2007 to the classified version of the COG plans contained in top secret Presidential Decision Directive annexes. This too, is unprecedented.

While the Bush administration admitted that COG was activated in 2001, their disclosure came only after The Washington Post broke the story based on confidential administration sources troubled by the scope of the program and its secretive implementation.

Since the late 1980s, Rumsfeld was a habitué of COG exercises along with Vice President Dick Cheney. Indeed early COG drills had been organized by the right-wing Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). As investigative journalist Andrew Cockburn revealed in his definitive political biography of the former Defense Secretary:

This highly secret program was known as Project 908, and among the individuals earmarked to take power when disaster struck was Donald Rumsfeld. ... There, for several days, he would be immured in artificial caverns, staring at electronic displays streaming data of disaster and confusion, sleeping on cots and subsisting on the most austere rations. ...

Insofar as the COG games gave the illusion of reality, they taught Rumsfeld and his fellow players some dangerous lessons, particularly when the fall of the Soviet Union induced some changes in the usual scenarios. Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million in the Clinton era, the vanished Soviets were now customarily replaced by terrorists. The terrorism envisaged however, was almost always state-sponsored. ...

There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the "shadow government" had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players' roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. (Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy, New York: Scribner, 2007, pp. 85-86, 88)

As researcher Peter Dale Scott revealed, in early 2006 the Department of Homeland Security awarded a $385 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, to provide "temporary detention and processing facilities." Scott wrote,

The contract--announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR--calls for preparing for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a natural disaster." The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when. ...

After 9/11, new martial law plans began to surface similar to those of FEMA in the 1980s. In January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on American streets. One month later John Brinkerhoff, the author of the 1982 FEMA memo, published an article arguing for the legality of using U.S. troops for purposes of domestic security. (Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps," Pacific News Service, February 8, 2006)

The DHS contract to KBR had been preceded by the April 2002 creation of the Pentagon's Northern Command (NORTHCOM), specifically empowered by the Bush administration for domestic U.S. military operations in direct violation of Posse Comitatus prohibitions forbidding the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. At the time, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld called NORTHCOM's launch "the most sweeping set of changes since the unified command system was set up in 1946."

Sweeping indeed! Last month Army Times reported that the Army's "3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team [BCT] has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they're training for the same mission--with a twist--at home." According to Army Times,

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. ...

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities. ...

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. ...

The 1st BCT's soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

"It's a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they're fielding. They've been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we're undertaking we were the first to get it."

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets. (Gina Cavallaro, "Brigade Homeland Tours Start Oct. 1," Army Times, September 8, 2008)

While senior Pentagon brass have downplayed the significance of deploying a BCT that has taken part in aggressive occupation duties to suppress the Iraqi people's resistance, Col. Lou Vogler, NORTHCOM's chief of future operations said in an interview that the military "will integrate with law enforcement to understand the situation and make sure we're aware of any threats." An article published by the Army News Service disclosed,

During the exercise, commanders and staff of the force will train, rehearse and exercise--from academic classes to making decisions and executing orders--all to help prepare them for the mission they will assume on Oct. 1, said Vogler.

"It's an opportunity for network building in an unprecedented assignment of forces," said [Marine Corps Lt. Col.] Shores. "DOD always had allocated contingency sourced forces--but this is precedent-setting network building with the forces that we ultimately will go out and execute with. It's an opportunity to get to know our forces, to see them in execution, to mission-orient them and be that much better--to be that much more responsive."

One goal of the exercise is to exercise with partners from the civilian agencies they would support. To that end, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other interagency representatives are participating to ensure integration with civilian consequence managers who would lead a response, said Vogler.

"The overall federal response builds on the local and state response in accordance with the incident command system and existing plans and processes that are out there," said Vogler. "The response force would supplement local efforts." ("Consequence Management Response Force to join Army Northern Command," Army News Service, September 15, 2008)

Vogler and Shores were discussing an exercise code-named Vibrant Response, that took place September 8-19 at Fort Stewart in Georgia. Three brigades form the core of NORTHCOM's Consequence Management Response Force: the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Army Division; the 1st Medical Brigade, Fort Hood, Texas, and the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. All three units participated in Vibrant Response.

As researcher and analyst Michel Chossudovsky comments:

The BCT is an army combat unit designed to confront an enemy within a war theater.

With US forces overstretched in Iraq, why would the Pentagon decide to undertake this redeployment within the USA, barely one month before the presidential elections?

The new mission of the 1st Brigade on US soil is to participate in "defense" efforts as well as provide "support to civilian authorities".

What is significant in this redeployment of a US infantry unit is the presumption that North America could, in the case of a national emergency, constitute a "war theater" thereby justifying the deployment of combat units.

The new skills to be imparted consist in training 1st BCT in repressing civil unrest, a task normally assumed by civilian law enforcement.

What we are dealing with is a militarization of civilian police activities in derogation of the Posse Comitatus Act. ("Pre-election Militarization of the North American Homeland. US Combat Troops in Iraq repatriated to 'help with civil unrest'," Global Research, September 26, 2008)

One scenario envisaged by Chossudovsky is that "civil unrest resulting from from the financial meltdown is a distinct possibility, given the broad impacts of financial collapse on lifelong savings, pension funds, homeownership, etc."

One might reasonably inquire, what "precedent-setting network" does the Army have in mind that would "ensure integration" with "civilian agencies" such as FEMA (a branch of Homeland Security)? As the World Socialist Web Site reports:

It is noteworthy that the deployment of US combat troops "as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters"--in the words of the Army Times--coincides with the eruption of the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Justified as a response to terrorist threats, the real source of the growing preparations for the use of US military force within America's borders lies not in the events of September 11, 2001 or the danger that they will be repeated. Rather, the domestic mobilization of the armed forces is a response by the US ruling establishment to the growing threat to political stability. (Bill Van Auken, "Army deploys combat unit in U.S. for possible civil unrest," World Socialist Web Site, 25 September 2008)

As the 2001 COOP planning document describes, a host of on-going Army plans and exercises have been revised by the Bush administration. In addition to Vibrant Response discussed above, they include: Plan EXCALIBUR, a COG Army training exercise; ADOBE, described by investigative journalist William M. Arkin as a "FEMA continuity of government special access program designation." Arkin describes special access programs or SAPs as,

Classified research and development, acquisition program, operation, intelligence activity, or plan that is so sensitive or critical that the value of the information warrants enhanced protection beyond that normally provided for access to Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret information. (William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World, Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 598)

The impetus for revising Army COOP was, according to AR 500-3 primarily because,

The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the former Soviet Union significantly reduced the probability of a major nuclear attack on CONUS but the probability of other threats has increased. Army organizations must be prepared for any contingency with a potential for interruption of normal operations. To emphasize that Army continuity of operations planning is now focused on the full all-hazards threat spectrum, the name "ASRRS" has been replaced by the more generic title "Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program." (p. 13)

Towards this end, the Rumsfeld-era document states that the Army's new "mission-critical" functions will be restructured so that, "Army COOP plans must ensure that the Army remains capable of continuing mission-essential operations during any situation, including military attack, terrorist activities, and natural or man-made disasters." (p. 13) The Army, following various contingencies analyzed in the document will "coordinate with mission-essential external organizations and agencies." (p. 14)

So sensitive are the political ramifications of these plans that under the heading, 3-12 Operational Security (OPSEC), the Army avers,

a. The success of COOP planning relies on denying access by unauthorized parties to information on COOP plans, procedures, capabilities and facilities.

b. Overhead imagery, signals intelligence, human sources, and exploitation of open literature during peacetime are threat capabilities used to gain knowledge of Army emergency plans, command and control systems, and facilities.

c. See Appendix B, Security Classification Guide, for guidance on the level of classification of COOP-related information. (COOP, op. cit., p. 20)

Appendix A of AR 500-3 lists relevant references for changes included in the COOP planning document. These include:

Section I
Required Publications

HQDA Operations Plan EXCALIBUR, 30 April 1999 (Being Revised)
HQDA Continuity of Operations Plan (cited in para 1-4.f)

Section II

Related Publications a related publication is merely a source of additional information. The user does not have to read it to understand this publication.

Executive Order 12656
National Security Emergency Preparedness (NSEP), 18 November 1988

DoD Directive (Dodd) 2000.12
DoD Antiterrorism/Force Protection (AT/FP) Program, 13 April 1999

CJCSM 3410.01
Continuity of Operations Plan for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (COOP-CJCS), 1 March 1999

Executive Order 12787
Prescribing the Order of Succession of Officers to Act as Secretary of Defense, 31 December 1991

DoDD 3020.26
Continuity of Operations (COOP) Policy and Planning, 26 May 1995

DoD 3020.26P
Continuity of Operations Plan, 21 June 2000 (Classified SECRET)

DoDD 3020.36
Assignment of National Security Emergency Preparedness (NSEP) Responsibilities to DoD Components, 2 November 1988

DoDD 3025.15
Military Support to Civil Authorities (MSCA), 18 February 1997

The Federal Response Plan, April 1999

Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 67, (Top Secret) Enduring Constitutional Government (ECG) and Continuity of Government (COG) Operations, Oct 21, 1998

Federal Preparedness Circular 65, Federal Executive Branch Continuity of Operations, (COOP), July 26, 1999

As Peter Dale Scott reported in CounterPunch, apparently members of Congress are considered "unauthorized parties" to be denied access "to information on COOP plans, procedures, capabilities and facilities." Congressman DeFazio had been denied access to the classified annexes of National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive (NSPD 51/HSPD 20) Scott wrote,

NSPD 51 contains "classified Continuity Annexes" which shall "be protected from unauthorized disclosure." Congressman DeFazio twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter cosigned by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney. It was these requests that the White House denied. ...

DeFazio's inability to get access to the NSPD Annexes is less than reassuring. If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.

To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority. (Peter Dale Scott, "The Showdown," CounterPunch, March 31, 2008)

With the stunning revelations published by Wikileaks, it is abundantly clear that top Bush administration officials were busily revising Continuity of Government plans, including "civil disturbance" contingencies for suspending the Constitution and imposing martial law, long before the 9/11 attacks.

Since that fatal and tragic day seven long years ago, we have been told repeatedly by the government and their media sycophants that 9/11 was the day "when everything changed."

We now know thanks to Wikileaks, that as with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the unprecedented and lawless surveillance of Americans, the illegal detention and torture of prisoners of war, that Bush administration assertions are no more than a pack of murderous lies.

One fact is abundantly clear from the mass of conflicting evidence and assertions made by proponents of various theories surrounding the 9/11 events: AR 500-3 demonstrates that from the very first moments after being installed in office, the Bush regime was involved in a "controlled demolition" of the U.S. Constitution.

Correction: An attentive reader discovered the math error that appeared when this piece was originally posted Monday. It has been corrected to read, "Nine months before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks..." The original post read "Ten months." Antifascist Calling regrets the error and gives a shout-out to the reader who caught it. Oops!

Homeland Security's Space-Based Spying Goes Live

While America's attention has shifted to the economic meltdown and the presidential race between corporate favorites John McCain and Barack Obama, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) "will proceed with the first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an independent review found the department hasn't yet ensured the program will comply with privacy laws."

As I wrote in June, NAO will coordinate how domestic law enforcement and "disaster relief" agencies such as FEMA use satellite imagery intelligence (IMINT) generated by U.S. spy satellites. Based on available evidence, hard to come by since these programs are classified "above top secret," the technological power of these military assets are truly terrifying.

Unlike commercial satellites that beam TV programs, forecast the weather or provide global positioning services, their military cousins are far more flexible, have greater resolution and therefore, more power to monitor human activity. By utilizing different parts of the light- and infrared spectrum, spy satellites, in addition to taking ultra high-resolution photographs to within a meter of their "target," can also track the heat signatures generated by people inside a building. ("Homeland Security's Space-Based Spies," Antifascist Calling, June 4, 2008)

In other words, when combined with illegal NSA and FBI domestic surveillance programs--from data-mining to the massive interception of telephone and internet communications--NAO will furnish DHS and outsourced corporate grifters who actually run the program, with the blanket coverage of American citizens long sought by securocrats. Aside from The Wall Street Journal and The Raw Story, not a single media outlet has disclosed this vital information to the public.

Despite the absence of rigorous oversight that would determine whether or not NAO complies with what's left of privacy laws, DHS is proceeding full speed ahead. The Journal reports,

A new 60-page Government Accountability Office report said the department "lacks assurance that NAO operations will comply with applicable laws and privacy and civil liberties standards," according to a person familiar with the document. The report, which is unclassified but considered sensitive, hasn't been publicly released, but was described and quoted by several people who have read it.

The report cites gaps in privacy safeguards. The department, it found, lacks controls to prevent improper use of domestic-intelligence data by other agencies and provided insufficient assurance that requests for classified information will be fully reviewed to ensure it can be legally provided. ( Siobhan Gorman, "Satellite-Surveillance Program to Begin Despite Privacy Concerns," The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2008) [emphasis added]

Reporting on the shocking absence of oversight features built into the program, Nick Juliano writes,

Essentially, the bill only requires the Homeland Security Secretary to assure lawmakers that NAO programs comply with exisiting laws. Congress also has required the DHS Inspector General to provide quarterly classified reports on how much information has been collected by the domestic satellite surveillance, although the bill required those reports be made to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, not the Homeland Security Committees that are traditionally in charge of DHS oversight. ("DHS satellite spy program going forward despite objections," The Raw Story, October 2, 2008)

The GAO's suppressed report is not the first to criticize the breathtaking scope of this repressive program. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a study in June raising critical questions about NAO's legality.

Members of Congress and outside groups have raised concerns that using satellites for law enforcement purposes may infringe on the privacy and Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. persons. Other commentators have questioned whether the proposed surveillance will violate the Posse Comitatus Act or other restrictions on military involvement in civilian law enforcement, or would otherwise exceed the statutory mandates of the agencies involved. Such concerns led Congress to preclude any funds in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (H.R. 2764, P.L. 110-161), from being used to "commence operations of the National Applications Office ... until the Secretary [of the Department of Homeland Security] certifies that these programs comply with all existing laws, including all applicable privacy and civil liberties standards, and that certification is reviewed by the Government Accountability Office." (Section 525.) Similar language has been included in FY2009 homeland security appropriations bills. (Richard A. Best Jr. and Jennifer K. Elsea, "Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues," Congressional Research Service, June 27, 2008)

But as the Journal reported, Congress' "partial funding" for the program in "a little-debated $634 billion spending measure," means that an operational NAO will now provide federal, state and local officials "with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery--but no eavesdropping--to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism."

Such hollow "no eavesdropping" assurances to Congress from quarterly classified reports from the DHS Inspector General fly in the face of the steady erosion of constitutional protections by the Bush administration.

What "other agencies" might the GAO have in mind when citing concerns over potential abuse of intelligence data supplied by the National Applications Office? Well, take your pick since the U.S. "intelligence community" is comprised of 16 different agencies under the operational control of the Office of National Intelligence (ODI) and the powerful Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Led by Michael McConnell, a ten-year veteran of the spooky Booz Allen Hamilton corporation, purchased this year by the sinister Carlyle Group, ODNI can truly be described as a "public-private partnership" in political repression. As CorpWatch reported in March,

McConnell ... spent more than 10 years as a Booz Allen senior vice president in charge of the company’s extensive contracts in military intelligence and information operations for the Pentagon. In that job, his official biography states, McConnell provided intelligence support to "the U.S. Unified Combatant Commanders, the Director of National Intelligence Agencies, and the Military Service Intelligence Directors." That made him a close colleague of not only Donald Rumsfeld, who ran the Pentagon from 2001 to 2007, but of Vice President Cheney, who has served President Bush as a kind of intelligence godfather since the earliest days of the administration. (Tim Shorrock, "Carlyle Group May Buy Major CIA Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton," CorpWatch, March 8, 2008)

Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock revealed last year, that the intelligence-sharing system to be managed by NAO,

...will rely heavily on private contractors including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). These companies already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies involved in foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets. Indeed, at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month, the titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance. ("Domestic Spying, Inc." CorpWatch, November 27, 2007)

NAO will utilize the military imagery and mapping tools of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). NGA maintains a symbiotic relationship with both the NSA and the ultra-secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), that builds and maintains America's fleet of spy satellites. Additionally, NRO operates the planetary wide network of ground stations where NSA's signals intelligence (SIGINT) and NGA's imagery intelligence (IMINT) are processed and analyzed.

Shorrock revealed that the program was kick-started in 2005 and the impetus came from veteran spooks with extensive ties to the military-industrial-security apparatus and corporate outfits such as Booz Allen Hamilton. The company was "tasked" with studying how "intelligence from spy satellites and photoreconnaissance planes could be better used domestically to track potential threats to security within the U.S." Completed in 2005, the Booz Allen plan became the basis for NAO.

Veteran spook Charles Allen told The Wall Street Journal in August 2007 that NAO is "an idea whose time has arrived." As DHS chief intelligence officer, Allen will head the new program.

Additionally, an "independent study group" appointed in 2005 by the Director of National Intelligence, tasked with reviewing the deployment of military reconnaissance assets in the "homeland" reached the desired conclusions. According to a press release by the Department of Homeland Security,

The study group unanimously recommended in its September 2005 report that the scope of the Civil Applications Committee be expanded beyond civil applications to include homeland security and law enforcement applications, and concluded that there is an urgent need for action. The study group concluded a new approach is needed to effectively employ Intelligence Community capabilities for civil applications, homeland security and law enforcement uses. ("Fact Sheet: National Applications Office," Department of Homeland Security, August 15, 2007)

How "independent"? You make the call! Shorrock reported that the group,

... was chaired by Keith Hall, a Booz Allen vice president who manages his firm's extensive contracts with the NGA and previously served as the director of the NRO.

Other members of the group included seven other former intelligence officers working for Booz Allen, as well as retired Army Lieutenant General Patrick M. Hughes, the former director of the DIA and vice president of homeland security for L-3 Communications, a key NSA contractor; and Thomas W. Conroy, the vice president of national security programs for Northrop Grumman, which has extensive contracts with the NSA and the NGA and throughout the intelligence community. (Shorrock, 2008, op. cit.)

From the start, the group's findings were "heavily weighted" toward corporations "with a stake" in both foreign and domestic intelligence. No surprise then, when the group's "contractor-advisers" called for "a major expansion in the domestic use of the spy satellites that they sell to the government."

A power-grab by the ODNI and DHS should raise serious alarms of further encroachments by a lawless "unitary executive" and serve as a warning that domestic law enforcement is rapidly coming under the purview of opaque Pentagon spy agencies.

While the creeping militarization of civilian policing is not a new phenomenon, the NAO launch represents a qualitative leap towards the surveillance society dreamed up by Iran-Contra felon and former DARPA administrator John Poindexter, before he was kicked to the curb when plans for the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program first gained notoriety in 2003.

And like the newly-launched NAO, TIA was managed by none other than Booz Allen Hamilton and their sidekicks at the San Diego-based Science Applications International Corporation! Small world (of open-ended contracts for giant Bush regime-connected multinationals).

The NAO will be overseen by the National Applications Executive Council (NAEC). In turn, NAEC will be "tri-chaired" by the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Principal Deputy of the Director of National Intelligence, a position held by Donald M. Kerr.

As with the vast majority of top securocrats, Kerr has served in a multitude of capacities inside and outside government. When he ended his tenure as Director of the National Reconnaissance Office in 2007, Kerr joined ONI. The one-time CIA and FBI employee was also a SAIC executive vice president during the 1990s.

Tim Shorrock reported in his essential book, Spies for Hire, that Kerr described how "ninety-five percent of the resources over which we have stewardship in fact go out on a contract to our industrial base. It's an important thing to recognize that we cannot function without this highly integrated industrial government team." Brutal honesty for brutal times.

Despite rigorous objections by members of Congress and civil liberties' groups to a program with the breathtaking potential to invade our privacy in newer and more lethal ways, NAO is now reality. America's headlong flight towards constructing a post-Constitutional "new order" just added another brick in the wall.

Top White House Officials Discussed and Approved Torture, Rice Admits

White House officials discussed torturing suspected "enemy combatants" early in 2002, according to a detailed questionnaire put to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by Senate investigators. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released a series of new documents that shed additional light on the origins of U.S. torture policies. The Washington Post reports,

The details of the controversial program were discussed in multiple meetings inside the White House over a two-year period, triggering concerns among several officials who worried that the agency's methods might be illegal or violate anti-torture treaties, according to separate statements signed by Rice and her top legal adviser. ("Top Officials Knew in 2002 of Harsh Interrogations," Joby Warrick, The Washington Post, Thursday, September 25, 2008; A07)

John Bellinger III, Rice's legal adviser at the State Department and during her tenure at the National Security Council (NSC), said in answer to written questions by Senate investigators, "I expressed concern that the proposed CIA interrogation techniques comply with applicable U.S. law, including our international obligations."

As The New York Times reported,

The documents provide new details about the still-murky early months of the C.I.A.'s detention program, when the agency began using a set of harsh interrogation techniques weeks before the Justice Department issued a written legal opinion in August 2002 authorizing their use. Congressional investigators have long tried to determine exactly who authorized these techniques before the legal opinion was completed. (Mark Mazzetti, "Bush Aides Linked to Talks on Interrogations," The New York Times, September 25, 2008)

In other words, as with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, indeed as with a host of other illegal White House programs across the entire "battlespace" of the "war on terror," legal niceties were supplied by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and then crafted, as with pre-war intelligence, "to fit the policy" (torture) already in place.

The Times reported that "Justice Department lawyers gave oral guidance to the C.I.A. before the secret memo was completed." Fearful of prosecution, CIA lawyers ordered the use of "harsh techniques" employed by CIA officers "suspended" until their formal authorization by White House proxies in the Justice Department.

Mazzetti reported that former National Security Council legal adviser Bellinger wrote "that during the White House meetings, Justice Department lawyers frequently issued oral guidance to the C.I.A. about the interrogation program. One who did was John Yoo, the principal author of the August 2002 memo, Mr. Bellinger said."

As ABC News revealed in April,

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News. ("Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'," Jan Crawford Greenburg, Howard L. Rosenburg and Ariane de Vogue, ABC News, April 9, 2008)

As chair of the National Security Council, Rice presided over the meetings but when the ABC News story first broke, the White House declined to comment on her participation. With good reason, as it turns out!

In 2002, the National Security Council's Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell as well as CIA Director George Tenet and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

According to ABC News "Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies." Discussions around specific techniques to be used by CIA interrogators were so detailed, ABC News reported, they "were almost choreographed" by high-level Bush administration officials.

The network also reported that at one meeting, Ashcroft famously complained: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly." Nor would federal prosecutors if America were a "normal" country.

Viewed as an exemplary means of expanding executive power, Cheney's shop instructed the Office of Legal Counsel to write a series of still-classified memos that gave the CIA formal legal authority to use what the administration and corporate media euphemistically call "enhanced interrogation techniques" on alleged al-Qaeda suspects.

The Bybee-Yoo memos, with major input from Cheney's legal adviser (now Chief of Staff), David Addington, are referred to as a "Golden Shield" for CIA repressors fearful of future prosecution as war criminals.

In her response to the question posed by Senate investigators, "Where did it [discussion of prisoner interrogation] take place (e.g., meeting at the Pentagon, etc)?" Rice confirmed ABC's report, "All of the meetings I attended on these matters occurred inside the White House."

When pressed by investigators: "Were you present at a meeting at which the OLC gave oral advice about the legality of interrogation techniques proposed for or in use by the CIA?" the Secretary of State replied, "I was present in meetings at which DoJ lawyers provided legal advice about the CIA program. I recall that John Yoo provided advice at several of these meetings. I do not recall if other members of OLC were also present. ... I do not know whether any oral advice provided by OLC attorneys differed from OLC's written advice."

But as congressional investigators and media reports have previously revealed, the OLC's "oral advice" most certainly did not differ from their "written advice" since it was supplied by torture-enabler Yoo who acted as a proxy for Cheney's legal adviser, David Addington.

SASC investigators then turned their attention to the Pentagon's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) programs. "On July 25, 2002 the Chief of Staff to the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) informed the DoD Office of the General Counsel [run by Addington protégé William J. Haynes II], that 'JPRA will continue to offer exploitation assistance to those governmental organizations charged with the mission of gleaning intelligence from enemy detainees.' Were you aware that JPRA was offering such assistance?" Rice replied, "I am unfamiliar with the JPRA and am unaware of whether it offered any assistance with interrogations."

Investigators then questioned NSC legal adviser John Bellinger III. Right from the start, Bellinger played the "Alberto Gonzales card" in his written responses: "The Committee's questions relate to events that occurred five and six years ago while I served as NSC Legal Adviser during an extraordinarily busy and taxing period. In many cases, I simply do not recall the specific details the Committee has requested." (emphasis added)

To the questions: "Was there any discussion(s) of specific interrogation techniques used or proposed for use in detainee interrogations?" And: "Was there any discussion(s) about physical and/or psychological pressures used in SERE training?" Bellinger replied: "I was present at meetings in 2002 and 2003 with some or most of the listed individuals at which specific interrogation techniques used or proposed for use in detainee interrogations by the CIA was discussed." And: "I was present in meetings at which SERE training was discussed. I recall being told that numerous U.S. military personnel had undergone SERE training without significant ill-effect."

But the policy on the use of reverse-engineered SERE tactics had already decided upon months earlier by Rumsfeld's Pentagon. Indeed, an April 16, 2002 email from Dr. Bruce Jessen, an outsourced psychologist employed by JPRA and the CIA, to Col. Randy Moulton, the Commander of the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) and copied to two other contractors, Christopher Wirts and Mike Dozier demonstrate JPRA's enthusiasm for the project. Entitled: "Draft Exploitation Plan," Jessen writes,

Sir,

My initial draft plan. If you decide to proceed with this I will have more details to add to this skeleton.

I am sending this to Mike and Chris so they can operationalize my draft into a CONOP [Concept of Operations] for your consideration.

Bruce

Jessen's "concept" has been conveniently redacted from SASC documents but Moulton's reply is significant in that JPRA's Commander whole-heartedly endorsed reverse-engineering SERE techniques for prisoner torture.

Doc,

We need to craft a 10-12 slide briefing to take up for approval to include what generated this requirement, why we (USG) need it, how it falls within our Chartered responsibilities (or if not, why we should do it) and then make a recommendation.

Colonel Randy Moulton
Commander JPRA

Jessen, as we've subsequently learned, supplied what JPRA and their Pentagon masters were looking for in spades. Along with partner James Mitchell, another outsourced psychologist employed by JPRA and the CIA, the duo's Spokane, Washington-based Mitchell, Jessen & Associates was located close to the Air Force's SERE school program. The pair, along with military psychologists, did the heavy-lifting to tailor SERE for CIA and Pentagon torture programs. According to investigative journalist Jane Meyer,

Soon, the former SERE psychologists were training CIA interrogators and advising the CIA on implementing a program that one knowledgeable source describes as "a Clockwork Orange kind of approach." As psychologists they were unusually well-equipped to understand the human psyche. (Jane Meyer, The Dark Side, New York: Doubleday, 2008, p. 163)

"Well-equipped" indeed. According to SASC Chairman Senator Carl Levin, in July 2002, Richard Shiffrin, a Pentagon Deputy General Counsel called Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Baumgartner, the Chief of Staff at the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) "and asked for information on SERE techniques." Baumgartner responded by drafting a memo with three attachments. According to Levin's June 17, 2008 statement and supporting documentation released by the SASC,

One of those attachments (TAB 3) listed physical and psychological pressures used in SERE resistance training including sensory deprivation, sleep disruption, stress positions, waterboarding, and slapping. It also made reference to a section of the JPRA instructor manual that talks about "coercive pressures" like keeping the lights on at all times, and treating a person like an animal. Another attachment (TAB 4), written by Dr. Ogrisseg, also a witness today, assessed the long-term psychological effects of SERE resistance training on students and the effects of the waterboard.

During SASC hearings last Thursday, Colonel Steven Kleinman, a senior officer at the Air Force Academy who supervised that service's SERE program said in testimony he was "shocked" when he witnessed use of the harsh physical and psychological tactics used to train combat pilots facing potential capture during hostile encounters, employed haphazardly on Iraqis in a U.S. prison camp.

Kleinman told Senate investigators that SERE training "had morphed into a form of punishment for those who wouldn't cooperate." He testified that he told the task force commander "that the methods were unlawful and were in violation of the Geneva Conventions."

But as we now know, SERE techniques were reverse-engineered on orders from the highest levels of the Defense Department and the Vice President's office precisely as a mechanism to break recalcitrant "al-Qaeda" and Iraqi prisoners stripped by White House lawyers of all rights under the Geneva Conventions.

Disingenuously however, Kleinman claimed that SERE tactics were adopted from torture methods used by "Chinese communists." While historically accurate up to a point, Kleinman failed to disclose their current provenance: the decades-long programs developed by both the CIA and U.S. Military Intelligence that refined crude Stalinist-era methods of psychological torture.

After the Korean war, the CIA embarked on a nightmarish program, MKULTRA. Indeed, as I wrote in April, the programs employed at Guantánamo Bay, CIA "black sites" in Europe and Afghanistan and at prisons across Iraq were a distillation of coercive techniques devised during the 1950s and 1960s by MKULTRA psychiatrists.

Indeed, as Scott Shane reported in The New York Times, a 1957 Air Force study titled "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War," written by Albert D. Biderman, a sociologist, served as one of the primary sources of the CIA's torture manual, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation."

CIA-Military Intelligence PSYWAR programs were further crystallized with the publication of the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual-1983" (HRE). The secret manual, compiled from sections of the KUBARK guidelines and from U.S. Military Intelligence field manuals were "written in the mid 1960s as part of the Army's Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program code-named 'Project X'," The National Security Archive reports.

In other words, while "Chinese communists" may have gotten the psychological torture ball rolling, the United States Government's intelligence apparatus picked it up and ran with it.

The "refined" methods described in KUBARK and HRE included: forced drugging, hooding, sexual humiliation, extended sensory deprivation, prolonged interrogation, environmental and dietary manipulation, beatings, stress positions and other methods of "self-inflicted pain." CIA officers and their Military Intelligence doppelgängers, at the urging of White House masters, systematically committed war crimes on defenseless prisoners in their custody.

In a major breakthrough that demolished the mendacious claims of the Bush regime, documents released by the Senate Armed Service Committee in June, provided irrefutable evidence that top Pentagon and CIA officials sought out military and "outsourced" mercenary personnel, including psychologists like Jessen and Mitchell, precisely to reverse-engineer SERE tactics for use on prisoners designated "enemy combatants" by the administration.

Psychoanalyst Stephen Soldz, Salon investigative journalist Mark Benjamin and Jane Meyer's reports in The New Yorker have all documented that moves by Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT) tasked to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, followed hot on the heels of explicit demands by the Bush torture team to "take the gloves off." At Guantánamo and elsewhere, BSCT psychologists held operational positions and did not function as mental health providers but rather, were present at Guantánamo for the purpose of instructing personnel in the use of "enhanced interrogation" tactics, torture.

While hearings by the Senate Armed Services Committee has provided solid evidence of widespread human rights abuses by the Bush administration and their minions, the Democratic-controlled Congress has systematically failed to bring these war criminals to justice.

There is no mistaking the pattern: given ample opportunity to purge the American political landscape of these miscreants, Congress has abnegated its legal right and moral duty to remove Bushist malefactors from power.

With "impeachment off the table," as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi infamously declared in 2006, from preemptive wars of conquest to warrantless wiretapping, and from the systematic looting of the economy to the heinous torture of prisoners of war, the Democratic Party is fully complicit with the Bush administration's high crimes and misdemeanors.

The cover-up continues...

Documents Reveal Massive DHS Border Spying Operations

New documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) revealed that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) subunit "reversed a two-decades-old policy that restricted customs agents from reading and copying the personal papers carried by travelers, including U.S. citizens."

After suing DHS under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the civil liberties organizations received 661 pages of heavily redacted files from the department and will be seeking withheld documents as well as the blacked-out material in federal district court this fall.

Antifascist Calling has reviewed many of these files; in some cases 50% or more of the documents have been censored. One might call it DHS' lame attempt at remaking the 1980 hit thriller Fade to Black!

In 2007, CBP quietly loosened 1986 federal guidelines restricting the examination of travelers' documents and papers. More than 20 years earlier a lawsuit, Heidy v. U.S. Customs Service, was filed by a group of solidarity activists targeted by the government after returning from Nicaragua. Their suit, charging the state with an illegal seizure of books, documents and personal papers led to the Reagan administration guidelines.

During the 1980s Nicaragua was a target of U.S. destabilization programs and a "dirty war" waged by the CIA and their drug-dealing Contra allies against the leftist Sandinista government. Reagan-era Customs agents claimed they had a right to seize "subversive literature" at the border.

Based on dubious legal authority, agents confiscated diaries, datebooks and other personal papers and photocopied the files. U.S. Customs then shared the activists' personal details with the FBI on the grounds that the government was engaged in a "counterintelligence operation" against a "hostile power." According to The Washington Post,

"Essentially they were using that as a pretext to do intelligence gathering on critics of our policies on Nicaragua," said David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who was then a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, representing the activists suing the government in Heidy v. U.S. Customs Service. (Ellen Nakashima, "Expanded Powers to Search Travelers at Border Detailed," The Washington Post, Tuesday, September 23, 2008; A02)

As the Center for Constitutional Rights documented, "Pretrial discovery revealed a broad pattern of Customs abuses, including the use of Customs authority to gather intelligence about returnees from Nicaragua and the entry of that information into a nationwide Customs computer."

The Heidy decision, in other words, specifically barred Customs officials from rifling through travelers files in pursuit of so-called "actionable intelligence." The state was specifically barred from sharing the spoils of these illegal searches with other federal agencies. Fast-forward 22 years. As EFF revealed,

The documents show that in 2007, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) loosened restrictions on the examination of travelers' documents and papers that had existed since 1986. While CBP agents could previously read travelers' documents only if they had "reasonable suspicion" that the documents would reveal violations of agency rules, in 2007 officers were given the power to "review and analyze" papers without any individualized suspicion. Furthermore, whereas CBP agents could previously copy materials only where they had "probable cause" to believe a law had been violated, in 2007 they were empowered to copy travelers' papers without suspicion of wrongdoing and keep them for a "reasonable period of time" to conduct a border search. The new rules applied to physical documents as well as files on laptop computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices. ("Internal DHS Documents Detail Expansion to Read and Copy Travelers' Papers," Electronic Frontier Foundation, September 23, 2008)

In keeping with an avalanche of rule changes governing the expansive reach of America's intelligence agencies, the "quaint" notion of "probable cause"--that a targeted individual is suspected of a crime--is now a thing of the past, replaced by the Orwellian concept of "thought crimes" where everyone is miraculously transformed into a "suspect" by securocrats.

Under the guise of "keeping America safe," counterterrorism is the new stand-in for what covert operators once referred to as countersubversive operations that targeted left-wing political groups for destruction. As America's constitutional guarantees circle the drain awaiting only the final flush into oblivion, the religious and political beliefs of citizens and legal residents re-entering the country are now considered "fair game" by Bushist spooks.

ALC staff attorney Shirin Sinar denounced these patently illegal moves by the administration saying, "For more than 20 years, the government implicitly recognized that reading and copying the letters, diaries, and personal papers of travelers without reason would chill Americans' rights to free speech and free expression. But now customs officials can probe into the thoughts and lives of ordinary travelers without any suspicion at all."

It appears that simply attempting to legally cross the border constitutes "suspicious behavior" and is an occasion for state security agencies to have access to all our personal details, regardless of their relevance to an "ongoing terrorism investigation." Or, as is more likely in America's "new normal" regime, border crossings now serve as a pretext for future "terrorism investigations."

In a further move to subvert the 1986 guidelines, ALC and EFF noted that "CBP's wide latitude to collect this data attracted significant attention from other law enforcement agencies that sought to access it." In other words, under cover of conducting "counterterrorist" border searches, dodgy outfits such as the CIA, FBI, and the NSA are now asserting a "right" to have access to data seized from travelers' cell phone directories, laptops, financial data or confidential business records stored in CBP databases "available" for their perusal.

DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told the Post "the updating of policies reflects an effort to be more transparent." Or cover DHS ass-ets since they were forced to release the files in the first place! The policy change according to Kudwa "reflects the realities of the post-9/11 environment," that is, an unaccountable Executive branch that has assumed "plenary" (unlimited) powers "during a time of war" (of their own choosing).

All is not well in Homelandia, however.

As The Washington Post reported two weeks ago, "In the five years since it was created, the Department of Homeland Security has overseen roughly $15 billion worth of failed contracts for projects ranging from airport baggage-screening to trailers for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, according to congressional data." Dana Hedgpeth wrote,

The contracts wound up over-budget, delayed or canceled after millions of dollars had already been spent, according to figures and documents prepared by the House Committee on Homeland Security. A panel of experts is to testify today before the House Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight on how to fix problems with the DHS acquisitions process. ...

The experts are to talk about a series of problem projects: About $351 million was wasted and not properly overseen in the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater program after ships were built and then scrapped, according to Homeland Security committee staffers and oversight agency reports. A $1.5 billion Boeing program to help secure U.S. borders with electronic sensors and other equipment is being shelved after it was over-budget, late and had technology problems. ("Congress Says DHS Oversaw $15 Billion in Failed Contracts," The Washington Post, Wednesday, September 17, 2008; D02)

While $15 billion may seem like chump change in today's climate of trillion dollar financial bailouts for Washington's favorite grifters in the banking and securities industry, neither Congress nor DHS have a "fix" for these wasteful programs, unless that is, the fix is already in and taxpayers not privy to information available to various "wise men" peacefully ensconced in their "secure, undisclosed locations" remains "classified."

But I digress...

Documents revealed that a July 11, 2007 email originating from CBP's New York office noted the "wide interest among other government agencies in CBP's ability to collect information." Indeed, the nameless CBP bureaucrat wrote, "As we all know, CBP's data collection capabilities have been widely discussed in the law enforcement community and we have been asked by many various agencies to copy and transmit documentation being carried by travelers for legitimate law enforcement reasons."

And under current rule changes enacted in July, DHS is allowed to share data obtained at the border with other agencies if there is a "suspicion" a law is being violated. Last year, documents revealed that the Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations wrote:

There may be situations where an agency or entity, in furtherance of its respective mission, wishes to retain or disseminate copies of the information provided to it by CBP for technical assistance. Any such retention and/or dissemination will be governed by that agency or entity's existing legal authorities or policies, including periodic reviews of retained materials to evaluate and ensure continued relevance. (Memorandum for: Directors, Field Operations, Office of Field Operations. From: Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations. Subject: Border Search/Examination of Documents, Papers, and Electronic Information, July 5, 2007)

What these "situations" are that might merit sharing personal information with the CIA, FBI or NSA (or the Main Core database for that matter) and what would constitute "continued relevance" is not specified by the Assistant Commissioner.

As the civil liberties groups noted, ALC received more than two dozen complaints from U.S. citizens, particularly those who were Muslim, South Asian, or Middle Eastern. Those illegally detained "were grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations when returning to the United States from travels abroad."

Since "traveling while Arab" is apparently an enforceable offense, these individuals had their books, hand written notes, personal photos, laptop computer files and cell phone directories scrutinized and copied. Indeed, as EFF/ALC averred "CBP appears to have no policy constraining agents from questioning travelers on their religious practices or political views, in spite of the fact that many travelers have complained about being grilled on such First Amendment-protected activities."

Nor will CBP agents be "constrained" from violating our constitutional rights. While some will chalk it up to America's "enhanced security environment" where Bushist cronies reap the spoils of their ill-gotten wealth, "business as usual"--as always--is standard operating procedure in post-Constitutional America.

Oh, and by the way, Welcome to the United States!

When Corporations Spy

As if illegal spying and dirty tricks by state agencies weren't threat enough to democratic institutions and grassroots activist organizations, hundreds of corporate spy outfits are doing their part--to defend the "homeland" and the bottom line--for the multinational grifters who plunder the world's wealth.

SourceWatch revealed that Hakluyt & Company, Ltd., a "British private intelligence agency ... staffed almost entirely by ex-intelligence services staff," was outed by a freelance journalist after the company sought to recruit her "services." The group reported in August:

Melissa Sweet, a freelance Australian health journalist, reports that she recently received an email from a staffer with Hakluyt. In it she was asked if she would like to become part of a "network of well-placed individuals around the world who are able to provide us, very discreetly, with intelligence on specific commercial or political issues that may arise." In particular, they were seeking her assistance for an anonymous "financial institution" client on "a new project on the new Australian government's healthcare policy--how realistic their reform ambitions really are", "the role of the private sector" and other matters. Sweet responded by pointing out that she was a journalist not a consultant. Undeterred, the Hakluyt staffer wrote back explaining that as a journalist she was likely to have "dozens of well-placed sources in the field" and that the company already has "a number of quality, usually specialist journalists that we deal with". In 2001 Hakluyt was outed for infiltrating Greenpeace in Europe. ("Hakluyt & Company Limited," SourceWatch, August 1, 2008)

The Sunday Times reported in 2001 that Hakluyt hired Manfred Schlickenrieder, a German foreign intelligence operative tasked by the firm to spy on Greenpeace at the behest of oil giants BP and Shell. According to The Sunday Times:

His political credentials seemed impeccable: he had once been chairman of the Munich branch of the German Communist party and the bookshelves of his office held the works of Bertolt Brecht, the Marxist playwright and poet.

Behind the facade, however, Schlickenrieder was a spy working for both the German secret service and for Hakluyt, a private intelligence agency based in London's West End and set up by former officers of MI6, the secret intelligence service. His codename was Camus after Albert Camus, the existentialist author of L'Etranger.

Hakluyt paid him thousands of pounds to inform on the activities of Greenpeace, Anita Roddick's Body Shop and other environmental campaigners. The BND, the German equivalent of MI6, allegedly paid him £3,125 a month living expenses. (Maurice Chittenden and Nicholas Rufford, "MI6 'Firm' Spied on Green Groups," The Sunday Times, June 17, 2001)

Also in 2001, after the Greenpeace scandal exploded, Christopher James, Hakluyt's Managing Director, wrote to the disgraced CEO of Enron, the convicted felon Jeffrey Skilling, bragging of Hakluyt's unique "services":

The range of deployments we have completed for core clients is wide. In all cases we guarantee complete confidentiality. And, although we work for divisional directors on tactical issues, we have found our most rewarding work in personal dealings with CEOs who wish--for whatever reason--to have a confidential agency at their own disposal. It was this, which prompted Phil Carroll to write to you about us in April as he has found our work of considerable value to him personally. We look at people and the issues, which often drive them to make the decisions or act as they do. All our work is unattributable.

To sweeten the pot, James told Skilling,

We also have an association with Kissinger/McLarty Associates for although our work is very different the services we both provide can be complementary. Our US client base is increasing well but at the same time we wish to remain small and discreet. (Confidential email from Christopher James to Jeffrey Skilling, posted by Enron Explorer, July 8, 2001)

Talk about a small (and very greedy) world!

But Hakluyt wasn't the only firm engaged in corporate espionage targeting green groups. As investigative journalist James Ridgeway reported last April,

A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided to Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected confidential internal records--donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos—from these organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and major corporations involved in environmental controversies. ("Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups," Mother Jones, April 11, 2008)

The firm, the now-defunct Beckett Brown International, provided a "range of services" for heavy-hitting corporate clients including Allied Waste, the Carlyle Group, Halliburton and Monsanto. Headquartered in Easton, Maryland, BBI "worked extensively" for public-relations firms Ketchum, Nichols-Dezenhall Communications, and Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin. According to Ridgeway,

At the time, these PR outfits were servicing corporate clients fighting environmental organizations opposed to their products or actions. Ketchum, for example, was working for Dow Chemical and Kraft Foods; Nichols-Dezenhall, according to BBI records, was working with Condea Vista, a chemical manufacturing firm that in 1994 leaked up to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride, a suspected carcinogen, into the Calcasieu River in Louisiana.

BBI was apparently good at what they did until the firm ran to ground in 2001, provoked by "infighting between the principals." But don't despair, Ridgeway tells us that "the firm's officials went on to work in other security firms that remain active today." Call it another prime example of keeping the "homeland safe"--and profitable--for the corporate grifters who ceaselessly labor to destroy "our way of life." Their dream, our nightmare.

Big Budgets, Global Reach

With global reach, seemingly limitless budgets and often staffed by ex-military and security operatives, the world of private spying is a big business with a huge growth potential, particularly when citizens revolt against the sordid schemes of corporate polluters, defense contractors and resource grabbers.

Indeed, as legendary researcher Frank J. Donner documented in his landmark books, The Age of Surveillance and Protectors of Privilege, "a more functional public-private linkage is often found on the urban and state levels" where connections amongst right-wing groups, corporations and the government abound.

Historically, this nexus included organizations such as the semi-official Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU), ultrarightist outfits such as the John Birch Society, Church League of America, the Minutemen, Legion of Justice, the American Security Council, and "legitimate" private detective agencies such Pinkerton, Kroll, Burns and Wackenhut.

But as the corporatist state totters on the brink of economic collapse, in no small part the result of greed and gross criminality by top-flight financial institutions, banks, investment firms and other corporate grifters linked to the Bush administration and the Republican and Democratic parties, the capitalist state will require a vast legion of private spooks to "keep the rabble in line."

There certainly are plenty of them.

In 2006, the World Socialist Web Site reported that high-tech powerhouse Hewlett-Packard was caught red-handed in a corporate spies-for-hire scheme to stanch leaks.

The spying campaign, launched by H-P board Chairwoman Patricia Dunn in response to leaks to the press of internal corporate discussions, included surreptitiously obtaining the phone records of H-P board members and employees, surveillance of board members and journalists, and the emailing of spyware to journalists in an effort to learn the identity of their sources within the company.

Private telephone records on hundreds of cell and home telephones were obtained by a method called "pretexting," in which investigators made repeated calls to telephone companies, pretending to be the individuals targeted, until they were able to convince a phone company employee to release the information. (Patrick Martin, "Hewlett-Packard spying scandal sheds new light on U.S. corporate 'ethics'," World Socialist Web Site, 2 October 2006)

The corporate spooks, their tradecraft acquired through years of practice as dodgy state operatives, were hired through a series of "cutouts" designed to provide top company officials with "plausible deniability" should their cover be blown.

Among the firms employed by H-P were the Boston-based Security Outsourcing Solutions (SOS). According to Martin, the "dirty work" was outsourced to Action Research Group (ARG) of Melbourne, Florida. A blurb on SOS's website claims that the company will "work with internal security departments that do not have the expertise and or resources to address all of their organization's security concerns."

That's rich, considering that H-P clocks in at No. 14 on the 2008 Fortune 500 list and recently agreed to pay $12.6 billion to buy out Electronic Data Systems! An additional subcontractor, Eye in the Sky Investigations, described itself as providing (as of 2004) "skip tracing services" for "the licensed private investigator, finance company, collection agency, recovery agency, bail bondsman, info brokers." A handy list of charges for company "services" was even listed on Webspawner.

While ARG's website is blocked, a simple Google search uncovered a "Complaint for Injunctive and Other Equitable Relief" filed February 14, 2007 by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in United States Federal District Court, Orlando Division, against ARG and Eye in the Sky Investigations.

The complaint against corporate officers of the firms charged the companies with gross violations of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for illegally obtaining "customer proprietary network information."

Indeed the FTC accused ARG and other defendants in the suit with engaging in an egregious "invasion of privacy" of confidential customer phone records "likely to cause substantial harm to consumers." According to court documents:

The account holders have not authorized Defendants to access or sell their confidential customer phone records. Instead, to obtain such information, Defendants have used or have caused others to use, false pretenses, fraudulent statements, fraudulent or stolen documents or other misrepresentations, including posing as an account holder or as an employee of the telecommunications carer [sic], to induce officers, employees, or agents of telecommunications carers [sic] to disclose confidential customer phone records. Defendants have sold the confidential customer phone records that they have obtained to their clients or others.

Sounds like business as usual to me!

The San Francisco Business Times reported in May that the named defendants agreed to pay some $600,000 to settle the case with the FTC for their role in the illegal H-P spying operation. Keep in mind, this is but one case in what must be a tsunami of illegal covert operations by American corporate behemoths!

Wal-Mart and Raytheon: Best Friends Forever!

While the hunt for "subversives," often under the direction of corporate associations such as the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Chamber of Commerce and related "defense" industry trade and lobby shops, occupied corporate spooks during the McCarthy period, by the late 1970s and down to the present moment, environmental, labor, antiwar, antinuclear, antiglobalization and increasingly, civil liberties and privacy advocates have entered the frame, often with a vengeance.

Indeed, according to Wal-Mart Watch, the retail giant's Threat Research and Analysis Group conducted extensive spying operations against critics and employees until it was revealed by a whistleblower. Bruce Gabbard told The Wall Street Journal,

Wal-Mart began beefing up its electronic call surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in response to government requests to employers in general to help find terrorist cells. Mr. Gabbard says he was directed by two former FBI agents working for Wal-Mart to set up a system that could track any calls to and from Syria, Yemen and Iran, among other countries. The search was unsuccessful, only flagging an apparent call from Iran that turned out instead to be from an Indian jeweler, according to Mr. Gabbard.

Later, he says, he used the same equipment to intercept and record calls from the New York Times. (Ann Zimmerman and Gary McWilliams, "Inside Wal-Mart's 'Threat Research' Operation," The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2007, Page B1)

Wal-Mart whistleblower Gabbard said the electronic surveillance "accelerated" in 2005 when leaked documents began appearing on the website of the pro-union group Wal-Mart Watch. One memo "suggested" that because of rising healthcare costs and criticism of the corporate giant's policies "the retailer should revise its policies by hiring healthier workers and requiring all jobs to perform physical activity, such as retrieving shopping carts."

According to the Journal, Wal-Mart began working with Oakley Networks Inc., a developer of "insider threat management" gear to surveil employee computer usage over the retail giant's network. Indeed, the Journal reports that one Oakley system is capable of recording an employee's keystrokes "and deliver a TiVo-like replay of his or her computing activities."

While confirming the "advanced capabilities" of its system, Oakley Networks refused to identify its customers "apart from the U.S. Defense Department." Zimmerman and McWilliams reported that "the system goes beyond keystroke capture products and email filtering packages" providing "a view of content" moving across a targeted network.

Oakley Networks Inc., now a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon (Raytheon Oakley), was founded in 2001 and "acquired" in 2007 by the defense giant. It is now a major component of Raytheon's "Intelligence and information Systems (IIS) business." According to a blurb on their website, "Raytheon Oakley protects 10 of the Fortune 100 banking, technology, manufacturing and other critical commercial infrastructure companies." Washington Technology reported "terms [of the deal] were not disclosed."

And with "security" in the heimat the latest frontier to be conquered by "war on terror" corporate profiteers, is it any wonder that private surveillance has become a lucrative growth industry. Indeed, there's even a trade association, the Homeland Security Industries Association (HSIA)! A Washington, D.C.-based lobby group, HSIA describes its mission as providing "a mechanism for government and the private sector to coordinate on a wide range of homeland security issues."

And do they ever coordinate!

Members include corporate heavy-hitters such as Bechtel, Fluor Corp., Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Textron and Washington Group International. Mid-sized firms such as E.J. Krause & Associates, Intelsat Government Solutions, Galileo International, Shaw Group, and Worldwide Security Associates. Additionally, smaller firms and universities include AR Challenges, Georgetown University, Intelliorg, the John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, and QED are saddled-up in HSIA's stable.

As USA Today reported back in 2006,

Without another major terrorist attack like those of 9/11, Homeland Security Research, the industry tracker, expects the market for security goods and services to increase to $178 billion in 2015, or triple its current value.

But a major attack in the United States, Europe or Japan could increase the global market in 2015 to $730 billion, more than a twelvefold increase, the company says.

Most of the growth this decade will come from building what Homeland Security Research calls "a homeland defense infrastructure." Growth areas are likely to include technology for surveillance and for detection of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. (Gary Stoller, "Homeland security generates multibillion business," USA Today, September 10, 2006)

As can be seen from this overview, corporate spying like "outsourcing" state security and intelligence functions to corporatist "partners" are another means of providing "plausible deniability," global reach and maximum capabilities in the subversion of democratic institutions in the service of imperialist Empire.

We can be certain of this: as the American economic house of cards continues its epochal collapse, a viper's nest of state and private intelligence operatives will be unleashed upon the American people.

Democracy or Police State? New Lawsuit Targets Bush, Cheney, NSA over Illegal Spying

On Wednesday, Antifascist Calling reported on moves by the Department of Justice to seek blanket immunity for AT&T under provisions of the disgraceful FISA Amendments Act (FAA).

If approved by Judge Vaughn Walker, the presiding magistrate hearing the landmark Hepting v. AT&T lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco, the giant telecommunications corporation and Bush crime family partner would walk away scott free.

The suit, brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers caught up in the state's illegal internet and telephone driftnet surveillance, is challenging unconstitutional spying on U.S. citizens and legal residents.

The shocking extent of the "public-private partnership" in political repression was first revealed in depth when former AT&T technician Mark Klein filed an affidavit in support of EFF's contention that AT&T had systematically violated their customers' right to privacy.

As Antifascist Calling has previously reported on many occasions, the telecommunications giant had constructed a secret room (SG3 Secure Room, room number 641A) for the exclusive use of the National Security Agency's spying operations at AT&T's Folsom St. office.

On Saturday, EFF reported that the government "started the formal process for retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies sued by EFF and others for their involvement in the warrantless surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans." That hearing is set for December 2, 2008 in San Francisco.

The state filed a secret "certification" by U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey with the court along with a public submission of its claim of limitless executive power "during a time of war."

However in a bold, preemptive move on Thursday, EFF filed a new lawsuit against the government. That suit, Jewel v. NSA, targets the National Security Agency, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's sinister chief of staff, David Addington, and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Filed "on behalf of AT&T customers," the civil rights organization has opened a new front against the government and their corporate partners. EFF declared:

The lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, is aimed at ending the NSA's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it. Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA. ("EFF Sues NSA, President Bush and Vice President Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance," Electronic Frontier Foundation, Press Release, September 18, 2008)

As in Hepting v. AT&T, the identical evidence of gross malfeasance on the part of well-heeled corporate lawbreakers who acted in concert with unaccountable secret state agencies, is central to Jewel v. NSA.

These covert intelligence operations arose as the result of secret Department of Justice memorandums written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). According to an unsigned and undated memo released by by the OLC, the Justice Department claims that President Bush has an "inherent right" to carry out "communications intelligence targeted at the enemy." Indeed, as the extent of these illegal programs have revealed, the "enemy" is none other than the American people themselves!

A January 19, 2006 Justice Department White Paper, Legal Authority Supporting the Activities of the NSA Described by President Bush, states:

The NSA's activities are supported by the President's well-recognized inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States.

Under color of the dubious theory of the "unitary executive," propounded by ultra-rightist outfits such as the Federalist Society, Americans' Fourth Amendment rights are flagrantly--and illegally--violated on a daily basis by the Bush administration. Such specious assertions represent nothing less than an open declaration of war on our rights and the framework for a limitless presidential dictatorship.

Senior EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston commenting on the intent of Jewel v. NSA averred,

"In addition to suing AT&T, we've now opened a second front in the battle to stop the NSA's illegal surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and hold personally responsible those who authorized or participated in the spying program. For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T's domestic networks and databases of customer records. Our goal in this new case against the government, as in our case against AT&T, is to dismantle this dragnet surveillance program as soon as possible."

By targeting the individuals responsible for these illegal programs, EFF intends to bring these felons to justice by holding them accountable for the destruction of our constitutional rights. The Fourth Amendment states in plain and simple language:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But in a perverse interpretation of the constitutional separation of powers, Bushist minions such as torture-enabler John C. Yoo, formerly an attorney with the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel and currently a tenured professor at the University of California's Boalt Hall Law School, stated publicly that the President, in his role as "Commander-in-Chief," has the authority to bypass, indeed subvert, laws passed by Congress.

Under this novel interpretation of the Constitution, the President has the right under the theory of the "unitary executive" to grab unlimited executive power to conduct foreign and domestic policy as he sees fit.

As limited as the Watergate-era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was, it represented an attempt by Congress after Nixon's resignation to curtail unchecked Executive branch surveillance of domestic dissidents under color of "national security." Indeed, Nixon's blatant and illegal surveillance of his political opponents was included in Article 2 of the impeachment articles against him.

In the view of miscreants such as Cheney, Addington and Yoo, congressional limitations on the president's power are "unconstitutional" maneuvers meant to strip the Chief Executive of his rightful power to act as he--and the corporatists setting policy--see fit. Under their reading, the Executive, particularly in his role as "Commander-in-Chief," must interpret laws on an equal footing with the courts, if he is to perform his "wartime" function. However, no such provision exists in the U.S. Constitution and in fact, the "unitary executive" is a fantasy.

Since 1803, U.S. constitutional tradition has recognized that the courts wield what Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall called "judicial supremacy," that is, the court is the final arbiter of what is and what is not the law. Bushist ideologues stand this principle on its head and transform a society based on law into a "managed democracy" predicated on the whims of corporations and the men who wield executive power in their "unitary" interests.

If such flagrant violations of democratic and republican norms go unchecked--either by the coequal branches of government or salutary direct action by the people themselves, the rights of citizens to determine the fundamental nature of society is replaced by a Führerprinzip, that is to say, a "leader principle" rooted in an antidemocratic hierarchy of warlords that resemble the military structures of the Nazi Party. In other words, a high-tech, panoptic police state.

Since September 11, 2001, the United States Government has launched systematic assaults against the constitutional rights of American citizens and legal residents. As the illegal aggression against the people of Iraq has revealed in all its ghastly horror, the "war on terror" is a war of terror against anyone who would challenge U.S. imperialism's claim to be undisputed "masters of the universe."

From warrantless wiretapping to torture, from preemptive wars of aggression and conquest to the plunder of the environment on behalf of corporate "friends," and from indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" to secretive plans for martial law, the Bush administration and their congressional enablers in both capitalist political parties demonstrate on a daily basis that the greatest threat to the American people comes, not from foreign terrorists or Islamic jihadists, but from neofascist fundamentalists here at home.