Archive for October 2012
Fusion Centers Police People Without Plots to Blow Up the US
The US Senate subcommittee’s October 3rd report “Federal Support for and Involvement in State and Local Fusion Centers” indicates that federal intelligence agencies collaborating with state and local fusion centers “have not produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts”. After revelations by the 9/11 Commission that intelligence agencies at different levels were not “connecting the dots by sharing terrorism clues they had in their possession”, the Department of Homeland Security devised a new system. Fusion Centers were created to allow for the proper transmission of relevant terrorist information between all levels of intelligence and law enforcement. In effect, intelligence gathered on terrorists would be shared at the local, state and federal level.
Between 2003 and 2007 77 fusion centers were said to have been created. The US Senate subcommittee found that DHS officials’ public claims about the fusion centers were not always accurate. Five of the fusion centers listed as federal funding recipients did not in fact exist. Since their inception fusion centers have received a total of $1.4 billion in funding, a figure deemed “wasteful” in the Senate report.
Since taking office the Obama administration supported by DHS secretary Janet Napolitano have continued funding fusion centers despite the lack of evidence that they have improved national security. Fusion centers have not once been involved in discovering a terrorist plot. What fusion centers have succeeded at is producing an overwhelming amount of “irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence reporting to DHS.” As one DHS official told investigators the fusion centers “produce a bunch of crap”. Like all excrement, the crap produced by fusion centers is a dangerous byproduct.
In addition to finding the fusion centers to be a financial drain and inept at producing intelligence to thwart terrorist operations the Senate subcommittee found that intelligence gathering practices at fusion centers were done without oversight, leading to gross violations of citizens’ rights. The Code of Federal Regulations states that federally-funded surveillance projects may gather and maintain information on people “only if there is reasonable suspicion that an individual is involved in criminal conduct or activity and that information is relevant to that conduct or activity.” The Federal Regulations also provides that intelligence officers may not collect information on individuals or groups religious, political or social views nor may they monitor individuals or groups associations or activities unless their is a reasonable suspicion that the “subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct or activity.”
Assembling to protest war, demonstrate against inequality or convene to discuss grievances against the government have never constituted criminal activity, at least not legally or rather according to laws that the public can see. A suit brought against the Boston Police Department and the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) which serves as Massachusetts fusion center by the ACLU reveals that surveillance and intelligence officers have been gathering extensive information on peaceful protesters and political activists in the Boston area. Electronic records known as “intelligence reports” have been on file at BRIC since 2007. Despite department guidelines that require all intelligence that does not pertain to criminal activity to be destroyed in 90 days, BRIC maintained its files on non-criminals for as long as five years. Information on protesters and their activities is being collected by a consortium of local, state and federal officers. While no connection between the protest groups activities and criminal or terrorist conduct has been demonstrated intelligence amasses on dissenting individuals. According to the ACLU report Policing Dissent: “the BRIC files list the non-violent actions of peace groups and activists under the heading “Criminal Act”, with labels such as “Extremists”, “Civil Disturbance” and “Home-Sec Domestic” in reports that track groups and people not engaged in crime but merely exercising their constitutional right to peaceful dissent.”
The implications of such records existing are troublesome, especially considering the purpose that fusion centers were created for in the first place-to share intelligence across agencies at the local, state and federal levels. Not only is surveilling citizens unsuspected of crimes a flagrant violation of the Privacy Act and civil liberties, it puts innocent citizens at risk of becoming part of federal investigations. As I reported in a post earlier this week Leah Lynn Plante is being held in federal prison not because she committed a crime, but rather because she refused to provide information to a federal grand jury about the activities of the Northwest political activists. It is conceivable that any Boston activists ensnared in one of BRIC’s intelligence dossiers could later be subpoenaed before a federal court as a material witness. If investigators thought that person may be able to provide information about a suspected criminal or “domestic terrorist” there is nothing to stop them from pursuing their investigations.
The problem with fusion centers is not that they try to intercept terrorist plots but that in so doing they ensnare innocent citizens shopping at Home Depot (watch out when purchasing home use chemicals here, you may be a dot to connect in a home made explosives investigation), visiting the Statue of Liberty or attending an Occupy protest. Without vigilant oversight these centers are operating more and more as domestic surveillance entities with vast powers to track political dissidence. Peace activist Richard Colbath-Hess, who is represented by the ACLU in a lawsuit challenging the legality of intelligence gathering on him by BRIC said “people are scared. If the police are monitoring us, who wants to take the risk.” The possibility of winding up in some secret government intelligence database is daunting and enough to discourage many people from expressing their grievances about the powers that dominate today. The chilling aspect of arbitrary intelligence gathering has a way of quelling dissent. Hilary Davis of the Rhode Island ACLU noted the fine line fusion center straddle between counterterrorism agencies and local law enforcement, “Fusion Centers by their nature bridge a perceived gap between local law enforcement and national security/counterterrorism efforts, so the information obtained by Centers has been used a number of times to deal with issues which likely do not amount to terrorism.”
Despite the Senate subcommittee’s report that DHS funding for fusion centers wastes a “crap” load of money on a programs that have proven not only impressively inept at detecting terrorist activities but have in fact flooded operable counterterrorism agencies with erroneous information their funding continues unabated. It is hard to imagine why such a wasteful and ineffective program eludes the budget cutting axe especially during the spectacle of deficit reduction debates. I asked if Ms. Davis if local law enforcement agencies were benefitting from enhanced policing capabilities as a result of fusion center funding. She responded, “The opportunity certainly exists for local law enforcement to benefit, and if the Fusion Centers were hindering law enforcement in any way I do not believe they would be quiet about it.” But they have been quiet, too quiet as they gather intelligence on innocent citizens.
Policing dissent is prototypical police state behavior. When intelligence gathering centers designed to track terrorists begin tracking you “national security” suffers a lethal attack.
“Terrorist” Activists
“I never once considered co-operation and never would. It is against everything I believe in. On my right arm I have a tattoo reading ‘strive to survive causing least suffering possible.’ This is something I live by every single day and will continue to live by whether I am in a cage or not.” Leah Lynn-Plante was referring to the cage should would be locked in at the Federal Detention Center Sea Tac in Seattle.
On October 11th, Plante had been remanded to a federal prison for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigation. In grand jury investigations the accused Fifth Amendment right to remain silent is null. Plante had been subpoenaed to testify about political activists in the region, a group federal investigators have identified as “anarchists”. Salon reporter Natasha Lennard, wrote in July that the federal grand jury subpoenas were issued by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force. The two agencies were investigating “violent crime” that occurred at Seattle’s May Day protests. Although it is believed that the investigations pertain to “property damage” related to May Day. The FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted raids of activists homes and squats in Olympia, Seattle and Portland after receiving no-knock warrants. As Lennard reported, the searches targeted computers, black clothing, phones and “anarchist literature”.
Plante’s incarceration follows a disturbing trend of federal agencies jailing political activists. Jared Chase, Brent Betterly and Brian Jacob Church, three of thousands of activists who attended the Anti-NATO protests in Chicago on May 19th were arrested and are now facing charges relating to terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives.
“The individuals we charged are not peaceful protesters, they are domestic terrorists,” Attorney General Anita Alvarez said of the defendants. Officials of the Chicago Police Department began investigating the three “self-described anarchists” in early May. According to prosecutors the defendants had plans to construct a pipe bomb, possessed three Molotov cocktails and had plans to purchase assault rifles. Prosecutors say they found maps listing escape routes throughout the city for a planned attack on police stations. But the defendants lawyers are circumspect.
The National Lawyers Guild voiced their concerns that the arrest was a ploy to intimidate protesters, and send a chilling message to activists as if to say these are the consequences for demonstrating: arrest, grand jury testimony, federal prison. The lawyers guild considered the arrests a case of entrapment and stated that the plans were the work of an informant while the materials for the explosives were provided by an undercover agent.
In a statement to the Tribune, Occupy Chicago activist Natalie Wahlberg said, “The charges are utterly ridiculous. CPD [Chicago police department] doesn’t know the difference between home beer-making supplies and Molotov cocktails.” The defendants lawyer said the “bomb materials” were part of a brewing kit.
The climate of intimidation and fear resonates across the country. Law enforcement agencies have a vast repertoire of counterterrorism instruments at their disposal. Surveillance devices, datamining technologies and legal tools that have been critical for identifying foreign terrorists and uncovering their plots are now being routinely utilized against “domestic terrorists” like Plante, Chase, abetterly and Church.
As early as 2002 massive surveillance campaigns, were being conducted on American citizens involved in peaceful protests. An ACLU investigation revealed the extent to which the Denver Police cooperated with other local police departments, the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force to build 3,200 files on 209 protesters. Members of Amnesty International, Quaker Organizations and individual activists were horrified to discover that personal information including their names, addresses, telephone numbers, vehicle registrations in addition to descriptions of what they were doing at a series of protests had been added to the “spy files,” the name given to the files the police held on activists.Denver Mayor Wellington Web who sided with civil rights organizations in the aftermath stated he was unaware of his police department’s activities. This is an “overly broad interpretation of established policies for intelligence gathering and the reporting on organizations that do not pose a threat,” Weber stated at a press release.
Nearly a decade after the spy files scandal, eleven years after Bush declared war against terrorists and a year and half since Bin Laden was killed America continues to wage a war on terrorism. The dynamics of that war are different today. The enemy’s face is increasingly that of a U.S citizen. While drone strikes, special ops teams and foreign intelligence agencies are still hunting the phantom al-quedaDirector, another war is being waged from within national borders.
Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I., offers a profile of the war on terrorism’s internal targets. “Our highest domestic terrorism priorities” are catching and prosecuting “those who commit crime and terrorism in the name of animal rights or environmental issues.” The intelligence agencies have also expended countless resources to investigate what the FBI calls “black separatists” in a 2011 domestic terrorism training course.
Leah Lynn-Plante was incarcerated for her refusal to inform the federal grand jury about the activities of the Northwest activists, political activists who have been labeled by intelligence agencies black separatists. Daniel McGowan, the Earth Liberation Front activist sentenced to 7 years in federal prison on arson and conspiracy charges also highlights the FBI’s domestic priorities. Their incarcerations like the three activists jailed in Chicago demonstrates the kind of people intelligence agencies are targeting. Author and journalist Will Potter spoke about who the FBI’s practices in an interview with The Dissenter’s Kevin Gosztola : “the history of the FBI—Its existence has been about targeting. We see from the top levels of government the targeting of the environmental rights movement, targeting anarchists as terrorists, surveillance of the Occupy Wall Street movement.”
What “domestic terrorists” targeted by America’s intelligence agencies have in common is that they are political activists. They have rallied for social justice, shut down traffic, camped out in public and in extreme cases damaged property. Criminalizing political activists for challenging the structures of authority and power is a tactic commonly used in politically repressive states. From the domestic spying programs to the secret judicial procedures of the federal grand jury, political activists in America are discovering that they are not only dissenters but terrorists.
Hugo Chavez Still Defiant
And the president is…Hugo Chavez!
The fierce leader of Venezuela has been derided as a “populist dictator”, “drug-trafficker” and “tyrant”. Coverage of Venezuela’s recent elections have cast Chavez in a similar light. Outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick taunted, “Chavez’s days are numbered”. Barclay’s was prematurely overcome with joy calling the elections for center-right candidate Henrique Capriles. According to the western media the economy of Venezuela has been teetering on the brink of collapse for over a decade. Sound-bite after sound-bite someone is railing that Chavez is an enemy of freedom, a supporter of rogue states and a reckless squanderer of oil wealth.
Despite the notion propagated by the West and onanistic corporate elites that they would finally see Chavez displaced in a “too close to call” election, the reality is Chavez won by a substantial margin, 11 percent and for obvious reasons.
Before we go any further lets debunk once and for all that Chavez rigged the election. Venezuela boasts the reputation for having one of the fairest electoral systems. Canadian based Foundation for Democratic Advancement ranked Venezuelan elections number 1 in fairness (http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6336). The International Elections Report released by the Carter Center for Peace also found Venezuelan elections to be among the fairest in the world. Capriles himself conceded that the elections were “clean”. Although he lamented that Chavez’s state resources put him at an unfair advantage. Nevertheless there was no Palm Beach County “butterfly ballot controversy” going on here.
The Chavez story you don’t hear in the western press is that of a transformational leader who took a defiant stand against western imperial forces and turned the tides for a country that suffered immensely under the neoliberal policies dictated by the Washington Consensus.
Since Chavez first came to office in 1998 he has cut poverty in half in his country and deep poverty by over 70 percent. Nationalizing the oil industry was a boon that redistributed wealth to a perennial underclass. Revenue from oil sales were used to establish an expansive health care system that today provides millions with health care for the first time. Many patients are treated by world class Cuban doctors who have come to practice in Venezuela under an initiative Chavez spearheaded. College enrollment has more than doubled. Voters re-elected the President on Monday because they have experienced substantial improvements in their lives since he was chosen as leader 16 years ago.
This election invigorates the progressive wave rolling across the Latin world. Chavez, like the other leftist leaders in his hemisphere, have pulled their countries from economic stagnation, political instability and at times, war. No wonder why his popularity shined through at the polls. Chavez is among a group of Latin American presidents that have garnered overwhelming support for challenging neoliberal orthodoxy and implementing social programs that saved millions from poverty. NY Times reporter Mark Wesbrot published this list of popularly elected leaders:
“Rafael Correa, who was reelected president of Ecuador by a wide margin in 2009; the enormously popular Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who was reelected in 2006 and then successfully campaigned for his former chief of staff, now President Dilma Rousseff, in 2010; Evo Morales, Bolvia’s first indigenous president, who was reelected in 2009; José Mujica, who succeeded his predecessor from the same political alliance in Uruguay — the Frente Amplio — in 2009; Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who succeeded her husband, the late Néstor Kirchner, winning the 2011 Argentine presidential election by a solid margin.”
Less than a decade ago the Bush administration sought to oust Chavez for good. In a secretly backed coup, America threw its weight behind businessman Pedro Carmona. Carmona was installed. But the coup was reversed within 48 hours restoring Chavez to power. Washington’s ambitions to prop up a leader running on deregulation, privatization and hacking social programs (the typical conditions of securing US financed loans) would never materialize. Chavez bounced back bedeviling the Bush administration. Salivating foreign investors and oil tycoons lost their shot at bonanza in the resource-rich country.
Venezuela is not without it’s problems. Rampant crime plagues neighborhoods. Many complain of a lack of law enforcement. Inflation roils the economy. Poor infrastructure is also a long term economic issue that the country will have to confront.
Yet Venezuela’s economy has been growing for two and half years uninterrupted. Oil exports bring in soaring revenues. “The country has a sizeable trade surplus. Its public debt is relatively low, and so is its debt-service burden. It has plenty of room to borrow foreign currency and can borrow domestically as well at low or negative real interest.” Compared to anemic growth in the US and the financial crisises threatening the Europe, Venezeula is in outstanding shape.
In addition to economic growth Venezuela’s political influence has spread throughout the region. A financing partnership has been forged with China, priming the country for steady investment. Washington continues to isolate Venezeula, thus isolating itself from a hemisphere weary of America’s interests.The Obama administration has shown no signs of considering Chavez as anything but anathema. The threat that Chavez represents to western hegemony is real.
Lula da Silva was asked what Chavez’s re-election would mean for the country: “A victory for Chávez is not just a victory for the people of Venezuela but also a victory for all the people of Latin America … this victory will strike another blow against imperialism.”
Don’t be surprised when you hear about the other Chavez, a Chavez with pointy horns as American global influence continues to wane.
The twitter-sphere reflects public opinion. Instant response to political events whether they are they are unfolding at a presidential debate, in the streets at Occupy, in Tahir square, Benghazi wherever demonstrates the public hive evaluating the world in real time. If organized and filtered in the right way a serious analysis of public opinion could occur, an analysis I suspect that might empirically demonstrate the gulf between public opinion and state policy.
According to Twitter, the presidential debate in Colorado on Wednesday night generated a maelstrom of more than 10 million messages in less than two hours, making it the most tweeted-about event in U.S. political history, and one of the most tweeted-about events ever — close to the record set during the Super Bowl. Obviously Twitter is probably happy about that, and you could argue that those kinds of numbers show that large numbers of people were at least paying attention to the debate, for better or worse. But is the kind of instantaneous commentary and snap judgement that the social network specializes in a good fit with the political process, or does it just turn it into a sideshow?
In the past, any truly public analysis of the performance of the candidates had to wait until the event was over, when the usual political operatives and pundits like former…
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The Few & The 47 Percent
Romney’s callus admission “my job is not to worry about those people”, referring the 47 percent of government dependent victims who don’t pay income taxes echoes the tone of the Few at another series of private meetings held nearly 230 years ago.
During the Consitutional Convention 73 delegates selected by their state governments convened in Philadelphia. It was May 1787 when this well educated group of landholders, attorneys, plantation owners, merchants and securities speculators first gathered to draft the principles that would found a nation. That vision incarnated in the U.S. Constitution and garnished by lofty ideals was in actuality “constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” James Madison reasoned before his fellow delegates that a popular government could become the vehicle for the landless masses to appropriate the property of the rich. This would lead to an agrarian revolution threatening the long term commercial and political interests of the nation.
Hoping to establish a government less susceptible to the “turbulent and changing” masses, the Few delegates steered the convention to adopt a system more formidable against populist forces. This political force, the Few contended, was comprised of people who “seldom judge or determine right.”Alexander Hamilton was among the Few who lobbied for the protection of the venal interests of the propertied classes. Rebuking Jefferson’s appeal to the people and his faith in their “good sense…and the honesty of their leaders”, Hamilton ripped the 18th century equivalent to Romeny’s 47 percent gaffe, “Your people sir, is a beast”. Yet a major difference exists between these two contemptuous remarks about the majority of America (yesterday’s farmers and today’s lower income earners), the existence of electronic recording devices and the instantaneous worldwide spread of news, even if it comes from behind closed doors.
Romney’s private fundraiser in Boca Raton last month draws light on the shadow cast across society by elitists. The utter disregard and contempt with which elitists like Romney and his well-heeled supporters regard the masses is glaring. “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives”, Romney continued before the Few referring to Hamilton’s distrustful and Madison’s slothful people.
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At the secret meeting in Boca Raton there was no room for the Many. No Jeffersons were present. In fact the Many are excluded from such meetings by design. Admittance is too costly for this beastly social body. If you can’t afford your plate your shoulders aren’t worthy of being brushed to begin with. Yet attendance at such events, the breakfasts, luncheons and dinners where the money-access-power meetings unfold is where your voice is heard and your will is absorbed into the political agenda of the ruling elites. Whether you were vying for laws that would enhance the security of your property or protect your rights to own those tending your fields; whether you are pushing for approval of constructing a pipeline or having policies written to guarentee your tax break, a closed meeting cordoned off from the Many is required to elect representatives who run counter to the public interest. Insulating decision making in this fashion allows people like Romney to be considered for office let alone get elected by the 5 to 10 percent of the population that is “thoughtful” enough to vote against “the other, the mass of the people”. Capturing all the brazen statements and spiteful remarks in the world won’t change this. But recognizing that good sense and honest leadership may seems a starting point for a conversation open to the public.
The Danger of Safety
Last August a guy was hit by a car at a cross walk on A street. The Boston Transportation Department placed a Slow Pedestrian Crossing sign in the middle of the road where he was struck shortly thereafter. Apparently the victim’s reaction time was too slow to dodge the oncoming vehicle. In a literal sense the sign is accurate.
Farther down A street another reminder of life’s incipient dangers recently appeared. Large magnifying mirrors had been installed above several apartment doors. A resident had her purse snatched from her as she approached her apartment this past July. Frightened and outraged she complained to the landlord that she could have avoided the incident had she been able to see the thief encroaching from behind. Days later the landlord’s property management company fixed safety mirrors to the apartment. With the world now available in rear view she has no need to look ahead as she passes down A street.
In Manhattan a parent organization lobbied the city parks commissioner to rid playgrounds of high monkey bars and towering slides replacing them instead with “safety-first playground” equipment that is short, surmountable and boring. In a rush to mitigate exposure to lawsuits from broken bones, scraped knees and any number of other common playground injuries park commissioners have kowtowed to parents to placate fears and protect the city’s assets from the ever present specter of lawsuit. Now children can play in a riskless environment without having to confront their fear of heights on the monkey bars or put Band-Aids on booboos thanks to rubber mulch chips.
What these three safety measures have in common is not that they save anyone from life’s unforeseeable hazards but rather they diminish the sense of responsibility we have to face head on the unexpected risks we will encounter. Many drivers respond to large fluorescent signs shaped like people in the middle road by slowing down as they near. This may decrease the number of pedestrians struck by cars at cross walks no doubt. But at what point does one cross walk become more hazardous than the next, especially if every road in the city where they are placed experiences a high volume of traffic? The mother of two-year-old Cally Murray mourns her child’s loss a year after a driver ran through a cross walk marked with yield signs while texting. Did that slow pedestrian crossing sign make her any safer? Or is it possible it instilled a false sense of security that led her to believe she could cross the road safely protected by a sign.
While a safety mirror may give a mugging target a chance to see the perpetrator, possibly giving them that split second chance to yell for help, flee or react in a way more likely to escape the threat, so would simply being aware of your surroundings. Finally when will we realize the danger of keeping children incubator safe? One of the most important aspects of the playground is how children confront their fears of height on the monkey bars or of their anxieties of losing their balance on the elevated beam. The playground can function as an anti-phobic training center where children can explore and discover limits that they try to overcome. Instead it’s become an acrophobic’s dream come true.
Imagine a generation of children growing up guided by signs around every corner warning them of lurking threats, a generation that prefers to look behind than look ahead. A generation like this may have never experienced the thrill of jumping off swings to fly through the air even if only for a few short seconds. Perhaps they will also fear crossing the road without a helmet or entering through doors unguided by eyes in the back of their heads. At some point our dependance on the guiding devices, padding and myriad safety mechanisms will make us so distrustful of the instincts we developed throughout our evolution, the very instincts that preserve us from life’s real dangers, that we will render human instinct obsolete. In a world engineered to limit the doors humankind may dare open to step into the future we may be able to see with our own eyes the danger of safety.
Armed with Prevention Strategies Police Raid Bars
In cities and towns across the United States Police Departments are enforcing their zero tolerance policies. Part of zero tolerance is a joint effort between local police departments and organizations like MADD, the Parent Teacher Association and “community prevention partnerships” that combat substance abuse, underage drinking and drunk driving.
According to Nancy Devaney director of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Prevention Partnership, community prevention partnerships play a unique role in making the public health and safety policies. “They create healthy and safe environments by implementing and supporting prevention strategies”, Mrs. Devaney stated.
Prevention strategies is a general term for policies designed to thwart substance abuse, drunk driving and the social consequences they wreak on families and their communities. The strategies range from alcohol awareness education in classrooms and parent-youth coordinated activities to increased police monitoring of areas that serve alcohol.
But some like Yale University Student Mike who asked to keep his last name confidential, think that some of the prevention strategies “have gone over-the-top. These parents get together with the police commissioners at the town council and next thing you know they are imprisoning their own children for drinking a beer”.
Mike was referring to a strategy known in New Haven as police “compliance inspections” a measure that police departments have been implementing to monitor individuals in bars and ensure that bars remain safe places for patrons.
However students like Ben Schenkel and Jaya Wen who attended an off-campus party at Yale with Mike two years ago see these policies in a different light.
In 2010 students had gathered for a party at Elevate, a second floor club in New Haven. A dozen police officers including two outfitted in riot gear and wielding assualt rifles were accompanied by state liquor control agents as they burst into the party. In a coordinated effort both law enforcement agencies raided the club as part of Operation Night Life, a city initiative to crackdown on violence, underage drinking and overcrowding at bars, according to the New York Times.
Five students were arrested during the raid. Their charges ranged from disorderly conduct to simple assualt. An officer used a taser on one of the students arrested. The police defended their use of force. According to a statement released by the New Haven Police Department; the student had assaulted three officers.
“I’ve never felt any danger in New Haven before this event,” Ms. Wen stated to Lisa Foderaro of the New York Times. “It was the police action that caused our feeling of being unsafe – of terror.”
In another effort to enforce alcohol laws at a bar in Virginia a joint operation of Fairfax County police officers and officials from the Virgina Department of Alcohol Beverage Control stormed Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern in November 2003 to conduct a sting on bartenders who were potentially “overserving” patrons. During this sting operation which involved two other bars in Fairfax County nine patrons were arrested for public drunkenness after failing sobriety tests. None of the bartenders working at the establishments during the sting were cited for violating responsible serving laws.
Lt. Tor Bennett who participated in the Fairfax raid described it to the Washington Post as a “low key operation signed to stop drunks before they get behind the wheel”.
Other patrons saw it differently. Kevin O’Hare felt the police were being “antagonistic” and saw the whole event as “borderline harassment, a real issue”.
With Rhode Island’s Roger Williams students back to school the Town of Bristol anticipates increasing numbers of visitors at its bars and restaurants downtown. While restaurantaurs and bar owners welcome the business, the Bristol Police Department has been taking measures to ensure compliance with underage drinking laws and practice a widely supported preventative strategy, police bar patrols.
On August 28th, Roger Williams students flocked to the establishments along Bristol’s Harbour to enjoy their first Thursday night out. They were met by eight officers of the Bristol Police Department who swept through two bars in downtown Bristol conducting ID checks of patrons suspected to be underage.
“At first I saw them at Aiden’s making their way through the crowd, checking IDs. Later that night I saw them again at Gillery’s commanding patrons to present identification”, said Gino, a student at Roger Williams who was at two of the bars police monitored last Thursday.
While no arrests for possession of alcohol by a minor or possession of a false form of identification were made, officers did arrest one patron, citing him for disorderly conduct after he allegedly took a photograph of a police officer conducting an ID check.
A witness, who asked to remain unnamed for fear of reprisals recounted, “He was just standing there taking a picture with his phone when police officers began yelling at him. Five or six of them surrounded him and took him outside. I was shocked the way the whole thing happenend.”
When the police were later questioned about what prompted the arrest, Patrolman Greco stated that he became confrontational and began swearing at police officers while they were patrolling the bar, on the look out for underage drinkers.
A friend accompanying the man arrested that night who asked to remain unnamed, retold the event as he witnessed it.”He raised his camera to photograph the police as they surrounded patrons to conduct ID checks. Before he even snapped the pictures a group of cops rushed him, knocking the phone from his hand before twisting his arms behind his back. It was like a pack of rapid animals trying to cover something up by eating their threat”.
Kathy Sullivan, a town advocate of prevention strategies was asked to comment on the incident. “These police are risking their lives to keep the kids safe. How did they know whether or not a picture of them taken by some drunk college kid is going to prevent them from enforcing prevention strategies.”
More Inflammatory than YouTube: Obama’s Foreign Policy Falsely Dubbed Dovish
In the wake of Christopher Stevens’ murder in Benghazi the Romney camp has been striving to cast President Obama as the dovish milksop.
Romney took a recent jab at the Obama administration’s foreign policy, blaming the President for not pressuring Arab governments to reform, a preventative measure Romney argued that could have prevented the Arab Spring all together, let alone the fatal attack in Benghazi. “President Obama abandoned the freedom agenda” Romney chided before the newspaper Israel Hayom.
Yet the popular uprisings that have ousted dictators from Tunisia to Yemen, Libya to Egypt were an expression of freedom from tyranny regardless of how the power vacuum was filled in the aftermath. If the uprisings ousted tyrannical leaders like Ben Ali, Saleh, Qaddafi or Mubarak to make way for popularly supported governments throughout the Arab world we can hardly say that Mohammed Bouazizi’s public self-immolation was in vain or that the uprising were not yearnings for freedom.
Election year politics have a way of distorting the reality that events in the Middle East were something other than publicly supported popular uprisings.
The Benghazi attacks that occurred on September 11th were part of Arab world’s sustained protest against Western society and its contemptuous disregard for Middle Eastern people’s and the values they espouse. While the conception of freedom the protestors rallied for on September 11th, freedom from Western denigration of Muslim culture, may seem at odds with America’s conception of freedom of expression, the dynamics that led to the mass demonstrations are far more complex.
Reports of the attacks that occurred two weeks ago in Benghazi are already being spun by mainstream news outlets, casting the event into a national security prism. Such oversimplifications of international events benefit our politicians eager to rack up points in a heated presidential contest. The big debate unfolding in the mainstream media today is whether or not the attacks were a synchronized terrorist effort or a “spontaneous response” to a perverted Youtube video that turned the Muslim world on its head. Tailoring the debate to the classic false dichotomy provides leeway for President Obama and candidate Romney to eldue the real questions about what is happening in the Middle East.
The inflammatory Youtube video The Innocence of Muslims, was little more than a rallying call to unite the Muslim world against the West. What underlies the mass mobilizations that led to attacks at embassies across the Muslim world and culminated in the death of Stevens at the consulate in Benghazi is the unrelenting rage many Muslims harbor against the West and the American foreign policy that imposes it.
It’s one thing when your friend calls your mother fat. It’s another when a bully hurls the same insult. That’s why when the Romney camp exploited the recent events in the Middle East to win political points he was adding salt to a wound that has been festering for decades. Barack Obama “does not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth” Romney ejaculated, implying that Obama’s foreign policy has been too soft for a power wielding America.
However a closer look at Obama’s foreign policy tells a different story. The grievances Obama’s foreign policy has produced throughout the Muslim world may shed light on the underpinnings of the recent anti-American rallies that engulfed the region.
For starters the Obama administration has still not closed the Guantanamo prison facilities that have been anathema to sovereign nations worldwide. Despite effusive promises to shut down the scornful effigy of Bush’s War on Terror the Obama administration continues to violate Habeas Corpus detaining prisoners without charges, trial by jury, access to legal counsel or any due process rights enumerated in American and international law.
Secondly, America’s continuous presence in Afghanistan has exacerbated resentment towards the U.S. military occupation. Although American military operations have been reduced significantly and now serve more as training and personnel support for the fledgling Afghan National Army, the sustained U.S. presence has been mired in scandal. Abuse of Afghan military trainees by American superiors has soured relations between the joint military forces responsible for securing the war torn nation. The Koran burning by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan incited Taliban fighters to wage attacks on American installations and prompted outcry that resonated from the government in Kabul across the Muslim world. Making matters worse last January a video of U.S. soldiers urinating on dead Afghani bodies surfaced, enraging the country and reinforcing the perspective that America is callous, perverse and reckless towards the “unpeople” of the world.
Obama’s use of drone attacks has been rankled in controversy. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that since 2004 at least 2,347 people have been killed in Pakistan alone (http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/10/most-complete-picture-yet-of-cia-drone-strikes/). Of the 347 strikes that have occurred since Bush’s drone war began in Pakistan in 2004 Obama has been responsible for 295 of those strikes which have also resulted in up to 884 civilian deaths. That figure includes the 176 Pakistani children whose lives were also taken been drone blasts. While the exact numbers on total deaths by drone strike in Pakistan remain murky, even to the pentagon, those numbers elevate when the deaths caused by drone fire in Yemen and Somalia are also included.
That sovereignty is transgressed every time an American drone flies through foreign skies, scouring the lands below for Obama’s handpicked targets is bad enough for Muslim countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But the gross loss of innocent life is where the real outrage resides. Woman, children and innocents from all walks of life have been the murdered victims of Obama’s covert Drone War.
To top it all off a video produced in the United States that denigrates the prophet Mohammed goes viral at a time when anti-American anger had already been stewing. Obama’s foreign policy which includes the indefinite detention of foreign prisoners suspected of ties to terrorism, a more limited but sustained presence in Afghanistan and the heavy use of drone attacks to combat terrorism in the Middle East is more boss than Bush, at least in the tactical sense.
Romney’s saber rattling rhetoric on the campaign trail misconstrues Obama’s foreign policy undermining its fatal potency and ignoring the resentment it has stoked in the Middle East. It’s not so much that Obama “has abandoned the freedom agenda”. It seems rather that he never quite let it go. For much of the foreign policy agenda that the Obama administration has pursued was born out of the neo-conservative cauldron stirred by Bush II.
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