Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'

[coderman]

maybe the new detention centers are for journalists of insufficient loyalty...

[it's hard for me to be outraged or shocked by anything done by our
leaders at this point, but massive detention center build-out for 'new
programs' is raising the hair on the back of my neck.]

"""
"In the war against terrorists of global reach, as the Nation learned
all too well on Sept. 11, 2001, the territory of the United States is
part of the battlefield," Bush's lawyers argued in briefs to the
federal courts. [Washington Post, July 19, 2005]

    Given Bush's now open assertions that he is using his "plenary" -
or unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the
indefinite War on Terror, Americans can no longer trust that their
constitutional rights protect them from government actions.

    As former Vice President Al Gore asked after recounting a litany
of sweeping powers that Bush has asserted to fight the War on Terror,
"Can it be true that any President really has such powers under our
Constitution? If the answer is 'yes,' then under the theory by which
these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be
prohibited?"

    In such extraordinary circumstances, the American people might
legitimately ask exactly what the Bush administration means by the
"rapid development of new programs," which might require the
construction of a new network of detention camps.
"""


--cut---
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9869&sectionID=104
Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'
by Nat Parry; Truthout ; March 08, 2006

    Not that George W. Bush needs much encouragement, but Sen. Lindsey
Graham suggested to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a new target for
the administration's domestic operations - Fifth Columnists,
supposedly disloyal Americans who sympathize and collaborate with the
enemy.

    "The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my
opinion, to pursue Fifth Column movements," Graham, R-S.C., told
Gonzales during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Feb. 6.

    "I stand by this President's ability, inherent to being Commander
in Chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think
you need a warrant to do that," Graham added, volunteering to work
with the administration to draft guidelines for how best to neutralize
this alleged threat.

    "Senator," a smiling Gonzales responded, "the President already
said we'd be happy to listen to your ideas."

    In less paranoid times, Graham's comments might be viewed by many
Americans as a Republican trying to have it both ways - ingratiating
himself to an administration of his own party while seeking some
credit from Washington centrists for suggesting Congress should have
at least a tiny say in how Bush runs the War on Terror.

    But recent developments suggest that the Bush administration may
already be contemplating what to do with Americans who are deemed
insufficiently loyal or who disseminate information that may be
considered helpful to the enemy.

    Top US officials have cited the need to challenge news that
undercuts Bush's actions as a key front in defeating the terrorists,
who are aided by "news informers" in the words of Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld.


    Detention Centers

    Plus, there was that curious development in January when the Army
Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root
a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in
the United States, to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants
into the US, or to support the rapid development of new programs," KBR
said. [Market Watch, Jan. 26, 2006]

    Later, the New York Times reported that "KBR would build the
centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx
of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or
for new programs that require additional detention space." [Feb. 4,
2006]

    Like most news stories on the KBR contract, the Times focused on
concerns about Halliburton's reputation for bilking US taxpayers by
overcharging for sub-par services.

    "It's hard to believe that the administration has decided to
entrust Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars," remarked Rep.
Henry Waxman, D-California.

    Less attention centered on the phrase "rapid development of new
programs" and what kind of programs would require a major expansion of
detention centers, each capable of holding 5,000 people. Jamie
Zuieback, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
declined to elaborate on what these "new programs" might be.

    Only a few independent journalists, such as Peter Dale Scott and
Maureen Farrell, have pursued what the Bush administration might
actually be thinking.

    Scott speculated that the "detention centers could be used to
detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare
martial law."
    He recalled that during the Reagan administration, National
Security Council aide Oliver North organized Rex-84 "readiness
exercise," which contemplated the Federal Emergency Management Agency
rounding up and detaining 400,000 "refugees," in the event of
"uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the
United States.

    Farrell pointed out that because "another terror attack is all but
certain, it seems far more likely that the centers would be used for
post-911-type detentions of immigrants rather than a sudden deluge" of
immigrants flooding across the border.

    Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said, "Almost certainly
this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for
Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They've already done
this on a smaller scale, with the 'special registration' detentions of
immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo."


    Labor Camps

    There also was another little-noticed item posted at the US Army
Web site, about the Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This
program "provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian
inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army
installations."

    The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid
action revision" on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a "template
for developing agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities
for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.

    On its face, the Army's labor program refers to inmates housed in
federal, state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal
laws that govern the use of civilian labor and provide for the
establishment of prison camps in the United States, including a
federal statute that authorizes the Attorney General to "establish,
equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him" and "make
available ... the services of United States prisoners" to various
government departments, including the Department of Defense.

    Though the timing of the document's posting - within the past few
weeks - may just be a coincidence, the reference to a "rapid action
revision" and the KBR contract's contemplation of "rapid development
of new programs" have raised eyebrows about why this sudden need for
urgency.

    These developments also are drawing more attention now because of
earlier Bush administration policies to involve the Pentagon in
"counter-terrorism"
    operations inside the United States.


    Pentagon Surveillance

    Despite the Posse Comitatus Act's prohibitions against US military
personnel engaging in domestic law enforcement, the Pentagon has
expanded its operations beyond previous boundaries, such as its role
in domestic surveillance activities.

    The Washington Post has reported that since the Sept. 11, 2001,
terror attacks, the Defense Department has been creating new agencies
that gather and analyze intelligence within the United States.
[Washington Post, Nov.
    27, 2005]

    The White House also is moving to expand the power of the
Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), created three
years ago to consolidate counterintelligence operations. The White
House proposal would transform CIFA into an office that has authority
to investigate crimes such as treason, terrorist sabotage or economic
espionage.

    The Pentagon also has pushed legislation in Congress that would
create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI
and others to share information about US citizens with the Pentagon,
CIA and other intelligence agencies. But some in the Pentagon don't
seem to think that new laws are even necessary.

    In a 2001 Defense Department memo that surfaced in January 2006,
the US Army's top intelligence officer wrote, "Contrary to popular
belief, there is no absolute ban on [military] intelligence components
collecting US person information."

    Drawing a distinction between "collecting" information and
"receiving" information on US citizens, the memo argued that "MI
[military intelligence] may receive information from anyone, anytime."
[See CQ.com, Jan. 31, 2005]

    This receipt of information presumably would include data from the
National Security Agency, which has been engaging in surveillance of
US citizens without court-approved warrants in apparent violation of
the Foreign Intelligence Security Act. Bush approved the program of
warrantless wiretaps shortly after 9/11.

    There also may be an even more extensive surveillance program.
Former NSA employee Russell D. Tice told a congressional committee on
Feb. 14 that such a top-secret surveillance program existed, but he
said he couldn't discuss the details without breaking classification
laws.

    Tice added that the "special access" surveillance program may be
violating the constitutional rights of millions of Americans. [UPI,
Feb. 14, 2006]

    With this expanded surveillance, the government's list of
terrorist suspects is rapidly swelling.

    The Washington Post reported on Feb. 15 that the National
Counterterrorism Center's central repository now holds the names of
325,000 terrorist suspects, a four-fold increase since the fall of
2003.

    Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through
the NSA's domestic surveillance program, an NCTC official told the
Post, "Our database includes names of known and suspected
international terrorists provided by all intelligence community
organizations, including NSA."


    Homeland Defense

    As the administration scoops up more and more names, members of
Congress also have questioned the elasticity of Bush's definitions for
words like terrorist "affiliates," used to justify wiretapping
Americans allegedly in contact with such people or entities.

    During the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on the wiretap
program, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, complained that the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees "have not been briefed on the
scope and nature of the program."

    Feinstein added that, therefore, the committees "have not been
able to explore what is a link or an affiliate to al-Qaeda or what
minimization procedures (for purging the names of innocent people) are
in place."

    The combination of the Bush administration's expansive reading of
its own power and its insistence on extraordinary secrecy has raised
the alarm of civil libertarians when contemplating how far the
Pentagon might go in involving itself in domestic matters.

    A Defense Department document, entitled the "Strategy for Homeland
Defense and Civil Support," has set out a military strategy against
terrorism that envisions an "active, layered defense" both inside and
outside US territory. In the document, the Pentagon pledges to
"transform US military forces to execute homeland defense missions in
the ... US homeland."

    The Pentagon strategy paper calls for increased military
reconnaissance and surveillance to "defeat potential challengers
before they threaten the United States." The plan "maximizes threat
awareness and seizes the initiative from those who would harm us."

    But there are concerns over how the Pentagon judges "threats" and
who falls under the category "those who would harm us." A Pentagon
official said the Counterintelligence Field Activity's TALON program
has amassed files on antiwar protesters.

    In December 2005, NBC News revealed the existence of a secret
400-page Pentagon document listing 1,500 "suspicious incidents" over a
10-month period, including dozens of small antiwar demonstrations that
were classified as a "threat."

    The Defense Department also might be moving toward legitimizing
the use of propaganda domestically, as part of its overall war
strategy.

    A secret Pentagon "Information Operations Roadmap," approved by
Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for "full spectrum" information
operations and notes that "information intended for foreign audiences,
including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our
domestic audience and vice-versa."

    "PSYOPS messages will often be replayed by the news media for much
larger audiences, including the American public," the document states.
The Pentagon argues, however, that "the distinction between foreign
and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [US government]
intent rather than information dissemination practices."

    It calls for "boundaries" between information operations abroad
and the news media at home, but does not outline any corresponding
limits on PSYOP campaigns.

    Similar to the distinction the Pentagon draws between "collecting"
and "receiving" intelligence on US citizens, the Information
Operations Roadmap argues that as long as the American public is not
intentionally "targeted," any PSYOP propaganda consumed by the
American public is acceptable.

    The Pentagon plan also includes a strategy for taking over the
Internet and controlling the flow of information, viewing the Web as a
potential military adversary. The "roadmap" speaks of "fighting the
net," and implies that the Internet is the equivalent of "an enemy
weapons system."

    In a speech on Feb. 17 to the Council on Foreign Relations,
Rumsfeld elaborated on the administration's perception that the battle
over information would be a crucial front in the War on Terror, or as
Rumsfeld calls it, the Long War.

    "Let there be no doubt, the longer it takes to put a strategic
communication framework into place, the more we can be certain that
the vacuum will be filled by the enemy and by news informers that most
assuredly will not paint an accurate picture of what is actually
taking place," Rumsfeld said.

    The Department of Homeland Security also has demonstrated a
tendency to deploy military operatives to deal with domestic crises.

    In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the department dispatched
"heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private
security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, (and had them) openly
patrolling the streets of New Orleans," reported journalists Jeremy
Scahill and Daniela Crespo on Sept.
    10, 2005.

    Noting the reputation of the Blackwater mercenaries as "some of
the most feared professional killers in the world," Scahill and Crespo
said Blackwater's presence in New Orleans "raises alarming questions
about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity
in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here."

    US Battlefield

    In the view of some civil libertarians, a form of martial law
already exists in the United States and has been in place since
shortly after the 9/11 attacks when Bush issued Military Order No. 1
which empowered him to detain any non-citizen as an international
terrorist or enemy combatant.

    "The President decided that he was no longer running the country
as a civilian President," wrote civil rights attorney Michael Ratner
in the book
    Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. "He issued a military
order giving himself the power to run the country as a general."

    For any American citizen suspected of collaborating with
terrorists, Bush also revealed what's in store. In May 2002, the FBI
arrested US citizen Jose Padilla in Chicago on suspicion that he might
be an al-Qaeda operative planning an attack.

    Rather than bring criminal charges, Bush designated Padilla an
"enemy combatant" and had him imprisoned indefinitely without benefit
of due process. After three years, the administration finally brought
charges against Padilla, in order to avoid a Supreme Court showdown
the White House might have lost.

    But since the Court was not able to rule on the Padilla case, the
administration's arguments have not been formally repudiated. Indeed,
despite filing charges against Padilla, the White House still asserts
the right to detain US citizens without charges as enemy combatants.

    This claimed authority is based on the assertion that the United
States is at war and the American homeland is part of the battlefield.

    "In the war against terrorists of global reach, as the Nation
learned all too well on Sept. 11, 2001, the territory of the United
States is part of the battlefield," Bush's lawyers argued in briefs to
the federal courts. [Washington Post, July 19, 2005]

    Given Bush's now open assertions that he is using his "plenary" -
or unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the
indefinite War on Terror, Americans can no longer trust that their
constitutional rights protect them from government actions.

    As former Vice President Al Gore asked after recounting a litany
of sweeping powers that Bush has asserted to fight the War on Terror,
"Can it be true that any President really has such powers under our
Constitution? If the answer is 'yes,' then under the theory by which
these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be
prohibited?"

    In such extraordinary circumstances, the American people might
legitimately ask exactly what the Bush administration means by the
"rapid development of new programs," which might require the
construction of a new network of detention camps.

--end-cut--