A fish rots from the head
Trials Without Crimes Or Evidence
April 25, 2012|
Andy Worthington is a superb reporter who has specialized in providing the facts of the US government’s illegal abuse of “detainees,” against whom no evidence exists. ( http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/ ) In an effort to create evidence, the US government has illegally resorted to torture. Torture produces false confessions, plea bargains, and false testimony against others in order to escape further torture.
For these reasons, in Anglo-American law self-incrimination secured through torture has been impermissible evidence for centuries. So also has been secret evidence withheld from the accused and his attorney. Secret evidence cannot be confronted. Secret evidence is distrusted as made-up in order to convict the innocent. The evidence is secret because it cannot stand the light of day.
The US government relies on secret evidence in its cases against alleged terrorists, claiming that national security would be threatened if the evidence were revealed. This is abject nonsense. It is an absurd claim that presenting evidence against a terrorist jeopardizes the national security of the United States.
To the contrary, not presenting evidence jeopardizes the security of each and every one of us. Once the government can convict defendants on the basis of secret evidence, even the concept of a fair trial will disappear. Fair trials are already history, but the concept lingers.
Secret evidence murders the concept of a fair trial. It murders justice and the rule of law. Secret evidence means anyone can be convicted of anything. As in Kafka’s The Trial, people will cease to know the crimes for which they are being tried and convicted.
Read full article here
April 26, 2012 CNN
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/27/images-osama-bin-laden-killing
A federal judge has refused to order Barack Obama’s administration to release pictures and video of the US military operation that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan almost a year ago.
The government watchdog group, Judicial Watch, had requested that the defence department and Central Intelligence Agency release any pictures or video footage of the operation on 1 May 2011 that killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The defence department said it had no pictures or videos sought by the group and the CIA said it had 52 such records, but refused to release them. It cited exemptions to the US freedom of information act for classified materials and other reasons.
Judicial Watch sued in federal court and the US district judge James Boasberg sided with the Obama administration.
“A picture may be worth a thousand words,” wrote Boasberg. “Yet, in this case, verbal descriptions of the death and burial of Osama bin Laden will have to suffice, for this court will not order the release of anything more.”
Read more here
Kevin Ryan was fired by UL, in 2004, for publicly asking questions about UL’s testing of the structural materials used to construct the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings as well as UL’s involvement in the WTC investigation being conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Listen to interview here
Silverstein laughs all the way to the bank
by Kevin Barrett
In today’s news, American Home Assurance has announced that it is capping payouts for WTC-demolition asbestos claims at a measly $10 million.
The announcement underlines just how much cheaper it is to demolish asbestos-laden skyscrapers without a permit, than to follow legal procedures.
Larry Silverstein, a reputed illicit-sex-industry mobster, purchased the World Trade Center in 2001, shortly after the New York Port Authority lost an asbestos lawsuit and was ordered to remove all asbestos from the Twin Towers. Cost estimates for that asbestos removal ranged from the low billions to the tens of billions – far more than the outdated, half-empty buildings were worth. (The City of New York had been desperately seeking a way to demolish the Towers since around 1990, but was prevented from doing so by asbestos issues.)
Read full article here
In this startling new memoir, Sibel Edmonds—the most classified woman in U.S. history—takes us on a surreal journey that begins with the secretive FBI and down the dark halls of a feckless Congress to a stonewalling judiciary and finally, to the national security whistleblowers movement she spearheaded. Having lived under Middle East dictatorships, Edmonds knows firsthand what can happen when government is allowed to operate in secret. Hers is a sobering perspective that combines painful experience with a rallying cry for the public’s right to know and to hold the lawbreakers accountable. With U.S. citizens increasingly stripped of their rights in a calibrated media blackout, Edmonds’ story is a wake-up call for all Americans who, willingly or unwillingly, traded liberty for illusive security in the wake of 9/11
Classified Woman website is now up & running. You can visit the site here: http://classifiedwoman.com
The US on Wednesday charged Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks, along with four alleged plotters, vowing to seek the death penalty in a much-awaited military trial.
The other four Guantanamo Bay inmates are Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.
They will face charges including terrorism, hijacking, conspiracy, murder and destruction of property. They could face the death penalty if found guilty, the Pentagon confirmed.
Read article here
The timeline of how we went from a nation of liberty to one of forced false confessions revealed in release of the key document the US used to justify torture.
Truthout | Report
By Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye
In May of 2002, one of several meetings was convened at the White House where the CIA sought permission from top Bush administration officials, including then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to torture the agency’s first high-value detainee captured after 9/11: Abu Zubaydah.
Read article here
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: Failures of the US Secret Service on the Morning of 9/11: A Call for Transparency
by Kevin Ryan
Global Research, March 25, 2012
Washington’s Blog
Guest Post by Kevin Ryan, former Site Manager for Environmental Health Laboratories, a division of Underwriters Laboratories (UL). Mr. Ryan, a Chemist and laboratory manager, was fired by UL in 2004 for publicly questioning the report being drafted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on their World Trade Center investigation. In the intervening period, Ryan has completed additional research while his original questions, which have become increasingly important over time, remain unanswered by UL or NIST.
The U.S. Secret Service failed to do its job on September 11, 2001 in several important ways. These failures could be explained if the Secret Service had foreknowledge of the 9/11 events as they were proceeding. That possibility leads to difficult questions about how the behavior of Secret Service employees might have contributed to the success of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Answering those questions will require the release of existing interview transcripts as well as follow-up questioning, under oath, of a few key people within the agency.
Read essay here
Richard Gage, founder and director of the group ae911truth.org sat down for a one-on-one interview with The Final Call’s Ashahed M. Muhammad following Minister Farrakhan’s intense Saviours’ Day 2012 keynote address on Feb. 26.
The visually striking collapse of the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001 is etched in the minds of most people spanning all ages, races, colors and creeds who witnessed it that day. The tragic events of 9/11 will hold a prominent place in the modern history of the United States. As with most historical events, over the years, many have begun to question the “official” version of what took place that fateful day. Some have even summoned the courage to call for an independent investigation, which could implicate the country’s own government. The group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth are at the forefront of the movement to thoroughly examine the established and accepted version of the events surrounding 9/11.
Link to transcript of interview here