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Tuesday, October 9, 2007 |
Under Bush, one nation, on the one hand the winners - the chosen few, on the other the losers - the majority.
12:02:48 PM 
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Guardian: "A British man who was held in Guantánamo Bay has begun a civil action against MI5 and MI6 over the tactics that they use to gather intelligence.
The Foreign Office said: 'The UK unreservedly condemns the use of torture. The British government, including its intelligence and security agencies, never use torture for any purpose, including obtaining information, nor would we instigate actions by others to do so.' It said it could not comment on ongoing legal proceedings."
Nestmann: "Could you be the subject of a FBI inquiry because you checked out a biography of Osama bin Laden at your local library? Or if you requested a copy of Mao Tse Tung's Little Red Book (an infamous paean to the alleged glories of Communism) through an inter-library loan?
That's exactly the type of inquiries undertaken by the FBI under authority of the 'national security letters' (NSL) provision of the USA PATRIOT Act. This law, enacted by a panicked Congress only a few weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has numerous arguably unconstitutional components.
Among the most objectionable of these are the NSL provisions, which permit the FBI to demand virtually any record from a U.S. business or organization, without obtaining a warrant based on probable cause of wrongdoing.
However, on Sept. 6, a U.S. District Court ruled that the section of the Patriot Act that authorizes NSLs violates the free speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution and unreasonably curbs the authority of the judiciary. The court barred the FBI from issuing NSLs, but delayed the effective date of the prohibition until Dec. 6, 2007 to give the Bush administration a chance to appeal."
11:58:44 AM
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Israel's 'nuclear research center' is no longer a secret. The exact spot is on Google Earth (if you download the kmz file you can uncheck the box before the placemark which will remove the old overlay and show you the place in all detail, for as long as Google Earth will not be bombed, of course).
The place where Israel makes its nuclear bomb is south-east of Dimona, in the middle of the line between Oron and Zefa.
StarNewsOnline: "Up until recently, the satellite pictures of Israel on Google Earth had a particularly low resolution: every pixel was equal to 10-20 meters. Now, the satellite maps of Israel show great parts of the country with a resolution close to two meters per pixel.
American law prohibits showing satellite pictures of the State of Israel with a resolution higher than two meters per pixel, but Google argues they are not breaking the law."
Well, American law prohibits about anything to the law-abiding citizen, but it allows any illegal practice to the mob in power.
Craig Murray: "As the mad brinkmanship proceeds in the Middle East, it is worth bearing a few things in mind.
1) There is only one country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons, and it is a highly aggressive racist state that visits untold misery on its neighbours and illegally occupies their land. It is called Israel.
2) Making a nuclear weapon takes a lot of time and material. Both Syria and Iran are many years away, even if they are trying to produce a nuclear bomb - which they probably are. Given Israel's nuclear bomb, and given what the US did to Iraq, I can quite understand their desire to go nuclear for protection. Bombing them just makes this worse.
3) A nuclear free Middle East, including Israel, and a withdrawal of all US military forces from Iraq, is the path to peace and agreement. Everything else is a build up to a big war - which is what some people want, of course.
4) Bombing someone else's country is plain illegal outside of formal war. Even then, there are limits on what is legitimate.
5) My fellow University Rector, Glasgow's Mordechai Vanunu, is still effectively imprisoned for telling us about Israel's nuclear weapons programme. He should be released immediately."
11:45:01 AM
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© Copyright 2008.
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