[2056] in peace2
excerpt from Harper's weekly update
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jdu@MIT.EDU)
Thu Nov 14 01:24:41 2002
From: jdu@MIT.EDU
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Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 01:19:32 -0500
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noteworthy
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It was reported that Admiral John M. Poindexter, who was
convicted in the Iran-Contra affair in 1990 but later
acquitted on a technicality, joined the Bush Administration
earlier this year as head of the Office of Information
Awareness at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Poindexter is in charge of a new system called Total
Information Awareness, which would permit the military to
spy on the civilian population of the United States without
search warrants by scanning personal information such as
email, credit-card statements, banking and medical records,
and travel documents for patterns that suggest criminal or
terrorist activities. Deployment of the surveillance
technology would require new legislation, since the military
traditionally has not been allowed to spy on ordinary
American citizens. "This could be the perfect storm for
civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director
of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, "The vehicle
is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is Darpa, and
the agency is the FBI. The outcome is a system of national
surveillance of the American public." A British court
declared that the American detention of prisoners at Camp
X-Ray in Cuba, which it called "a legal black hole," is in
clear violation of international law and the concept of
habeas corpus. A judge in Michigan was
in trouble for smoking pot at a Rolling Stones concert.
Police in Racine, Wisconsin, cracked down on fans of techno
music and issued 445 tickets. "Rave parties," said a cop,
"are not going to be part of our community and are not going
to be tolerated." The White House was thinking about
abandoning its prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, which was
not going so well, and trying him instead before a military
tribunal, where victory would be assured.
