Homeland Security Goon

Chertoff is a master of cover-up. He defended a financier of Osama bin Laden and kept him out of jail. He looked the other way during the investigation into the death of White House lawyer Vince Foster. Chertoff advised the White House and CIA on the legality of torture. No one said a word about any of this, and now Chertoff is in Bush's Cabinet as Director of Homeland Security. [read full article]

Prison Planet | December 6 2004

Political analyst Al Martin, who has in the past proven accurate in
getting ahead of the news curve, is reporting that Homeland Security
have hired former Stasi head, the 'Silver Fox' Markus Wolf.

Martin states,

"Wolf is the man that effectively built the East German state
intelligence operation’s internal directorate," Martin continues. "He
turned half the population into informants. That is his specialty, is
taking a population, constructing the various state divisions,
mechanisms of control, in order to organize informants within the
population. That is his real specialty. And that is precisely, as
Primakov has intimated, why Wolf is being brought in. The regime knows that once all of Patriot II is in law and they begin working on Patriot III, they will then begin to establish the internal mechanism to
coordinate, as an official function of state, a system of informants.
Wolf’s speciality was to turn East Germany into the greatest and most
efficient informant state ever created."

On a radio appearance earlier today Martin stated that the admission
that Wolf would be hired was made in a BBC radio interview given by the former head of the KGB, General Yevgeni Primakov.

Martin had previously reported that Primakov had been hired as a
consultant by the US Department of Homeland Security to implement CAPPS II and the national ID card system which he dubbed an 'internal passport'.

Sources close to Martin have told Alex Jones confidentially that the
appointment of Wolf was also confirmed by a US Congressman.

During his radio interview, Martin outlined the immediate agenda. The
remaining portions of the 9/11 Commission intelligence recommendations which include the introduction of a national ID card would be passed and subsequently 'Patriot Act 3,' which would include the formal establishment of a Stasi-like domestic spying organisation which would be similar in scope to the TIPS program.

TIPS, which was supposedly nixed by Congress, would have recruited one in twenty-four Americans as domestic informants, a higher percentage than was used by the Stasi in East Germany.

Government funding was cut but private funding continues and the same program was introduced under a number of sub-divisions including AmeriCorps, SecureCorps and the Highway Watch program.

After the passage of Patriot Act 3 Wolf and Primakov would be tapped for their expertise in further collapsing America into a surveillance grid
police state. Primakov has openly stated that they are working on behalf of Bush and Cheney to complete the 'Sovietization of America.

The Bush gang has asked long-time Giulianist hood Bernard Kerik to run the Department of Fatherland Security. He faces Senate confirmation hearings for the job that includes oversight of 22 federal agencies and a $37.7 billion budget. Kerik, a high-school dropout whose self-serving autobiography describes himself as the son of an alcoholic father and a mother who abandoned him to become a prostitute, delivered a speech on behalf of Bush on opening night of the Republican Convention last summer.

Kerik served in the US armed forces as military policeman in Korea in the mid-1970s, where he fathered a daughter with a South Korean woman. The baby, named Lisa, was born in 1975 and was abandoned by her father when Kerik left the country in February 1976. He later went on to work as a private security guard for King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.

Kerik was thrown out of Saudi Arabia for a scandal in 1984 involving abuse of power. According to reports, Kerik was using the authority of his position on behalf of the hospital's director, a man who wanted surveillance reports on some women employees at the hospital that he was romantically interested in learning more about. Former employees of the hospital told The Washington Post about Kerik's misconduct on behalf of his boss: "Kerik was a goon," said a former hospital manager was harassed by Kerik's security team. "They were Gestapo. They made my life so miserable." A doctor who had worked at the hospital at time but who now practices in Indiana told the Post that "Kerik used heavy-handed tactics in following single men around and keeping them away from some women."

Kerik left Saudi Arabia and joined the NYPD as an undercover narc cop. In 1987, Kerik filed for bankruptcy to default on credit cards, loans, and department store accounts. By 1991, he was working for the Giuliani mayoral election campaign won him the job of Commissioner of Corrections after Giuliani's election. "He couldn't run the Rikers commissary without getting greedy and making a mess," one correction veteran told a NYC newspaper columnist, referring to the nearly $1 million of tobacco-company kickbacks that were diverted into one of Kerik's shady charity foundations. At Corrections, Kerik organized a political party machine of city employees ready to "volunteer" for canvassing and fundraising for the Republican Party. Scandal also swirls around Kerik's friend and long-time chief-of-staff, John Picciano, who for a time was under investigation for having beaten up his girlfriend and for having pointed his gun at her.

Despite the fact that he lacked a college (and a high school) degree - a requirement that had been established in 1985 for anyone promoted above captain - Kerik was appointed Police Commissioner by Giuliani in August 2000 in the wake of the atrocities famously committed by NYPD cops against Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima. (Kerik was later awarded a college degree in 2001 from Empire State College, which awarded credits for "life or work experience.") While Commissioner, Kerik worked closely with Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney, another former Giuliani thug who has since become infamous as the architect of the "Miami Model" of police-state tactics against political dissidents. Kerik found himself in the middle of controversy when his publisher and work-out partner, Judith Regan, lost her cell phone in a Fox television studio. Suspecting theft, Regan contacted Kerik who in turn ordered a homicide lieutenant and his squad to conduct late-night visits to the homes of several Fox employees.

Kerik, a constant presence in front of media cameras focused on the ruins of the World Trade Center following the September 11 attacks, was accused of using photographs taken by detectives at the WTC site for his book, which was published that November 2001. (In the summer of 2003, Miramax bought the film rights to this autobiography.) After September 11, he left the NYPD for a job with the scandal-ridden Dyncorp; before his departure, Kerik rewarding close aides the coveted Medals of Valor for their 9/11 service, a number of whom are currently under investigation or in jail for corruption and administrative malfeasance. Sept. 11th Commission member John Lehman called Kerik's lack of leadership and NYPD communications failures after the terror attack "scandalous" and "not worthy of the Boy Scouts."

While employed by Dyncorp, he went to Baghdad to rebuild the Iraqi police force after the US invasion (his old pal Timoney worked a similar gig in Kirkuk). But three months into his $140,000 six-month contract, Kerik abruptly left Iraq for reasons never explained, leaving in his wake a corps of incompetent, corrupt and compromised police officers.

Since then, he has been employed by Giuliani Partners, a private security consulting group set up by the former NYC mayor, and he has served on the boards of several corporations and at least two charities which are currently under investigation for financial misconduct. In 2002, Kerik had joined the board of directors of Taser International, the leading manufacturers of the "less-than-lethal" stun guns used by police throughout the US. But just prior to the release of documentation on the dangers of weapons that can discharge between 50,000 and 625,000 volts, Kerik dumped his Taser stock and made more than $6 million.

Many question his qualifications to run the Department of Fatherland Security, but with his loathsome ethical standards, his foul narc/prison guard sensibilities, and his penchant for sketchy financial scams, sleazy opportunism and blindly rabid toadyism, Kerik seems perfectly-suited to serve in the Bush Cabinet.

Source: http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/110737/index.php

I have been watching John Ashcroft so long that it is getting to be a little boring. Promising to use all available means to "fight terrorism," prosecuting every violation of law "to the fullest extent of the law," desperately wanting the death penalty for every possible offense, and, according to his remarks last week before the Senate Judiciary committee, wanting laws changed to impose the death penalty for even more offenses. Ashcroft changes law and procedure by signing Executive Orders, and yes, he can get away with that unless a court stops him. So far, no court has. Some congressional members, damn few, express mild dismay at his tactics, such as locking up resident aliens after 9/11 and holding some of them for months without access to family or lawyers (or charges), then deporting many on the most technical visa violations (some of them the fault of INS, over which he has authority). It never ends-the Ashcroft watch. It only gets worse, and more frightening.

But now I have a new gremlin to watch, someone who is as intent on undermining the law and Constitution as Ashcroft. I am referring to the man behind the criminal prosecution of terrorists, Michael Chertoff. Chertoff, former chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, and a scary looking guy if ever there was one, has been elevated to the level of Court of Appeals judge--the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. What's so scary about Michael? Well, besides having no judicial experience and being a right-ring radical who does not believe in the Constitution and wants to rewrite federal law and rules of procedure on an ad hoc, case by case basis, as it suits him, nothing I guess.

A good place to look for Chertoff's legal philosophy is in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui , now taking place in the Eastern District of Virginia. Chertoff is not the prosecutor of course, Paul McNulty of the Eastern District is. But Chertoff is McNulty's boss and he is calling the shots. So Chertoff argued the government's case in the super secret hearing before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week. The government is trying to block trial judge Leonie Brinkema's ruling that Moussaoui and his lawyers have access to the government's star witnesses against him. The government has refused and appealed. Judge Brinkema, who still believes in the Constitution, rightly ruled that to deny Moussaoui that access is a blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses.

Brinkema indicates that she will not be a party to making exceptions to the Constitution on a case-by-case basis. She, in effect, suggests that maybe Justice better take Moussaoui to Guantanamo and try him there in secret, in the military tribunals they set up. Easy there to not only try him, but convict him, and execute him . So why is the government insisting on keeping him in federal court?

I have the answer, and it lies in Chertoff. Chertoff's goal, I believe, and the goal of Ashcroft and Bush in supporting this prosecution in federal court, is to subject federal trials, as they see fit, to ad hoc exemptions of whatever laws (be they constitutional, criminal code, or rules of procedure) that will suit their purposes. Their grand scheme is to ultimately cripple and dismantle the federal courts as we know them, one brick at a time.

Support for this theory of mine includes their prosecution of attorney Lynne Stewart, for, in effect, zealously representing her client; rules created by Ashcroft that subject attorneys and their clients to surveillance, be they under secret wiretaps issues by the secret FISA court or monitoring of all contacts in prison settings. These procedures came about by fiat from Ashcroft. They make any attorney who represents someone charged with an act of "terrorism" (and a terrorist crime is one defined by Bush and Ashcroft-that is an ad hoc determination, as well).

The Moussaoui case has many examples of legal changes. Moussaoui and even his attorneys (!) cannot receive all documents related to the case, because of "national security" interests. Witnesses may appear in court behind screens (!) so that they cannot be seen. And, the Fourth Circuit hearing last week was closed-closed-for the first time in history. Under Ashcroft we have had secret warrants (or no warrants), secret hearings denying bail, secret trials, and now secret appellate court arguments. Next, we can expect the Supreme Court to be closed, can't we?

The 4th Circuit hearing was close to all but those "screened" and approved by the Justice Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA. The judge presiding over the hearing told the "security" official to jump up if any attorney arguing the case said anything that would jeopardize national security-so that the room could be cleared! Then, as will happen in a trial, the government can proceed out of the presence of the defendant or his attorney. Oh, of course, Moussaoui was not allowed to be at the appellate hearing last week. How is that for a legal system.

Chertoff argued to the 4th Circuit that the Court could not order the government to produce its start witness against Moussaoui because (are you ready?) he, the witness, is out of the country at an undisclosed location. True, but the witness is in the custody of the federal government! The out-of-the country argument is a sham. This is similar to a ruling recently by the federal court that ruled that Guantanmo Bay prisoners had no access to federal courts for claims that they be charged or release because-they are out of the country!! Of course, in federal custody, but that does not matter.

The absurd arguments contrary to the letter and spirit of all that not only the Constitution, but current federal law provides, is appalling and shameful. Chertoff will be making those arguments for the government when they appear before his court (and if you think that appellate judges don't make arguments, you did not hear Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist make Bush's arguments for his attorney, not Solicitor General Ted Olson. And you have not read the rulings of the Fourth Circuit when it denied an American citizen, Yasir Hamdi, the right to see a lawyer. He is locked up in some military brig. He has not been charged with a crime and has been in custody for close to a year. The opinion was a political treatise, not a legal argument. And the treatise-opinion supported the government's argument that courts step back and not conduct meaningful judicial review or, heaven forbid, overrule the government in a time of "war." And that treatise said that the "war" on terror will only be over when the President says it is over, and that the "front" of the war may change from time to time. When the "front" changes, then the government may tighten up surveillance and arrests on that "battleground," which could be Alexandria, Virginia or any city in the country.

This same court will rule on Moussaoui's right to have access to a witness who, by all counts, may help his case and hurt the government. If the 4th Circuit rules that the witness may not be produced, federal law, procedure, and the Constitution will have been violated to support the Bush-Ashcroft agenda. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Michael Chertoff with hardly an argument (though they did conduct an "investigation" into charges that he engaged in some misconduct while at DOJ, which turned up nothing, or so we are told).

Keep your eye on Michael Chertoff. As bad for the law and Constitution as many of Bush's judicial appointees are, Chertoff has been the architect of prosecutions in the "war on terror." And he may have big changes in mind for you, me, the courts, and the Constitution.

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“It’s a game-changer,” says Sharla Rausch, division director for human factors