The War on Freedom Marches Ahead

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 11 Oct 2001 12:00:00 GMT
John Bergstrom's Attack Cartoons - Fanatics - Contrasts public reactions to terrorist attacks in 1993 and 2001.

Muslim Student Association at Oregon State University - Ever Wonder? - a Flash presentation contrasting public opinion of activities when performed by Muslims and non-Muslims. Good points. My take: the difference is that when non-Muslims do these things, they do them voluntarily, whereas in some Muslim countries the law mandates them. [Ismael]

redhat - LEGISLATIVE ALERT: SSSCA - Security Systems Standards and Certification Act - redhat is collecting comments on Senator Hollings' proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act. As I said a while back, this act will create pre-ban and post-ban computers, much as the so-called "assault weapons ban" created pre-ban and post-ban guns and magazines. Basically, Disney has bought senator Hollings. Slashdot comments here. [/.]

Declan McCullagh at Wired - Snoop Bill Heads to Final Vote - the fascists continue their war on freedom. [cafe]

The Onion - Freedoms Curtailed in Defense of Liberty - as usual, The Onion hits the nail on the head. In case you've forgotten, The Onion is all fiction, though it tells the truth behind the news better than much of the mainstream media. [unknown]

"In this time of national crisis, a time when our most cherished freedoms are threatened, all Americans--not just outspoken talk-show hosts like Bill Maher--must watch what they say," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters. "Now more than ever, if we want to protect democracy for future generations, it is vital that nobody speak out about the issues of the day."

Gunowners of America - Legislative Action Center - GOA is highlighting legislation by Ron Paul in the House and Bob Smith in the senate that would allow airlines to arm their pilots. You can easily send email here to the FAA administrator, your senators, and your representative.

Robert Fisk at Independent Argument - Lost in the rhetorical fog of war - ain't it amazing how few western journalists give any air time whatsoever to the possibility that bin Laden actually has a reason to be angry? Of course this doesn't justify the killing of innocents, but do you think that our bombs and missiles are somehow distinguishing the innocent from the guilty in Afghanistan? "Collateral damage" my ass. Cold blooded murder. Kuro5hin discussion here. [kuro5hin]

President Bush says this is a war between good and evil. You are either with us or against us. But that's exactly what bin Laden says. Isn't it worth pointing this out and asking where it leads?

The Week Online with DRCNet - Politicians Exploiting Drug-Terror Link - instead of putting the blame on the war on freedom, er... some drugs, where it belongs, the drug warriors are blaming the users for giving money to terrorists. When will these guys get a clue? [anodyne]

H.R.3026, the "Office of Homeland Security Act of 2001", officially establishes Amerika's gestapo. The bill is currently in 6 different committees. [cryptome]

SEC. 8. REVIEW OF LEGAL AUTHORITIES.

(a) REVIEW- The Director of the Office of Homeland Security shall conduct a review of the legal authorities needed but not currently provided to prevent and respond effectively to terrorist threats, including legal authorities regarding the role of the Department of Defense in homeland security and the imposition of regulations on civilian populations and private entities during a state of emergency.
(b) REPORT TO CONGRESS- The Director shall submit to Congress a report of the results of the review under subsection (a). The report shall be submitted not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act and shall include recommendations for addressing shortcomings in current legal authority.

GW at Cryptome - Executive Order 13228 of October 8, 2001 - The house may not need to pass its bill. Here's an EO establishing the gestapo. Summary: do anything and everything to prevent and recover from terrorist attacks.

[[Page 51815]]...
k) Review of Legal Authorities and Development of Legislative Proposals. The Office shall coordinate a periodic review and assessment of the legal authorities available to executive departments and agencies to permit them to perform the functions described in this order. When the Office determines that such legal authorities are inadequate, the Office shall develop, in consultation with executive departments and agencies, proposals for presidential action and legislative proposals for submission to the Office of Management and Budget to enhance the ability of executive departments and agencies to perform those functions. The Office shall work with State and local governments in assessing the adequacy of their legal authorities to permit them to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, and recover from terrorist threats and attacks.

Jude Wanniski at SupplySideInvestor.Com - Israel and the Terrorist Attack - A letter to J.J. Goldberg, the editor of the Forward. Mr. Goldberg's editorial is currently on the front page there. Mr. Wannaski says that Israel's relationship with the Palestinians is central to bin Laden's hatred of the U.S. [lew]

If you get right down to it, the only reason U.S. troops are in Saudi Arabia is to protect Israel. And the reason the embargo has been kept on Iraq for the last decade has been the insistence of the Israeli Lobby in Washington. If the Israeli government this afternoon quietly passed the word to the American-Israel Political Action Committee that it would like the Iraq embargo lifted, you would see Senator Joe Lieberman [D-CT] announcing tomorrow afternoon that he thinks the Iraq embargo should be lifted. We know Saddam Hussein does not have any nukes and if he had bio-chem weapons he would only use them if threatened by Israel's nukes. If Israel were at peace with a friendly, neighborly Palestinian state, all of the reasons Osama bin Laden gives for his war against America and the West would be dissolved.

Carol A. Valentine at Laissez Faire City Times - Operation 911: Did Military Software Control the "Hijacked" Planes? - Ms. Valentine tries to convince us that the 9/11 airplane bombs were flown to their destinations by wire, controlled from the ground. Yep. And I've got a bridge to sell you. [grabbe]

Dave Winer at newhome.weblogs.com - RFC: Timeline for transition - weblogs.com will soon cease trolling weblogs and reporting updates. If you want to tell it about an update, you'll have to sent it an XML-RPC or SOAP message or visit a notification web site. Changes will be reported via an XML form, which will be displayed raw by a web page. The report page disappears on October 23. The crawler goes down on November 2. Hmm... I suppose I should modify BlogMax to send the XML-RPC message. Somehow this doesn't feel urgent. [script]

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