Wednesday, January 31, 2007

American World Police or International Assholes?

Germany issues CIA arrest orders
Khaled al-Masri (file image)
Mr Masri is seeking damages from the CIA
Germany has ordered the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents over the alleged kidnapping of one of its citizens.

Munich prosecutors confirmed that the warrants were linked to the case of Khaled al-Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent.

Mr Masri says he was seized in Macedonia, flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan and mistreated there.

He says he was released in Albania five months later when the Americans realised they had the wrong man.

Mr Masri says his case is an example of the US policy of "extraordinary rendition" - a practice whereby the US government flies foreign terror suspects to third countries without judicial process for interrogation or detention.

Code names

Prosecutors in Munich said in a statement that the city's court had issued the warrants on suspicion of abduction and grievous bodily harm.

The suspects listed in the arrest warrants are believed to be so-called code names of CIA agents
Munich prosecutors' statement

The information on which the warrants were based came from Mr Masri's lawyers and a journalist and officials in Spain, where the flight carrying Mr Masri is thought to have originated.

The names and nationalities concerned were not released but prosecutors said the names identified were thought to be the code names of CIA agents.

"The investigation will now focus on learning the actual names of the suspects," they said.

Speaking at a news conference, Mr Masri's lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, said the arrest warrants were "a very important step in the rehabilitation of Masri".

"It shows us that we were right in putting our trust in the German authorities and the German prosecutors," he said.

German arrest warrants are not valid in the US but if the suspects were to travel to the European Union they could be arrested.

Italian case

Mr Masri says he was abducted by US agents in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, on 31 December 2003.

He is seeking to sue the US government over his detention, but in May a judge dismissed a lawsuit he filed against the CIA, citing national security considerations.

The US government is not assisting the German authorities with the case.

Meanwhile in the Italian city of Milan, court hearings to decide whether to indict 25 alleged CIA agents and several Italians accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric in 2003 are under way.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, or Abu Omar, says he was abducted from the streets of Milan and then tortured in Egypt.

If the case proceeds to trial, it would be the first criminal prosecution over America's rendition policy.

The practice has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups, legal experts and the international community.

But last week a European Parliament committee approved a report saying EU states knew about secret CIA flights over Europe, the abduction of terror suspects by US agents and the existence of clandestine detention camps.



* * * *

The above from the BBC found here

Click Here for

Beyond Ridiculous

Labels:

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Putting Polish on a Secret Police State

Added Jan. 31, 2007, 6:30 AM, Connecticut Public Safety Committee Legislators, please [click here]

A Nation under surveillance, complain and you'll be put on a Secret Police "Enemies List" for a take down, arrests, and confinement. Your life will never be the same. Your kids may never see or have respect for you again. It is modern reality in America.



If you complain to the Governor’s Office in Connecticut about police or the courts, expect to be arrested, have your kids taken away, and spending time in prison. Your picture and file will have been distributed to police, and you may never even know why your life ended as you once knew it.

You may never have a place to live in your own name again.

You may never have contact with your children again.

You may never have a decent job again as every job now does background checks.

Where is Freedom? Well, obviously not in Connecticut, the courts are fixed, the police are so arrogant and lazy they often will not even investigate a woman’s case of being raped. But if you complain about the arrogance and laziness of police in Connecticut, expect a take down.

Governor M. Jodi Rell is aware of the across the board corruption in official Connecticut. I believe if she didn’t have something to hide and wasn’t part of the corruption, maybe she do at least a little something for the people that are paying her salary.

-Steven G. Erickson aka blogger Vikingas


* * * *

CONNECTICUT NEWS
Report To Rell Defends Security Flier
January 30, 2007
By JON LENDER, Courant Staff Writer

The state public safety commissioner gave Gov. M. Jodi Rell a report Monday defending the state police's distribution of a security flier bearing color photos of political activist Kenneth Krayeske before his arrest Jan. 3 at the governor's inaugural parade.

Krayeske, who was charged with breach of peace and interfering with police after taking pictures of Rell, is scheduled to appear this morning in Superior Court in Hartford. Beforehand, he plans to hold a rally with supporters on the steps of the nearby state Supreme Court building to support free speech.

Critics of Krayeske's arrest have blasted it as unjustified.

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, said last week that the two-page security flier - which included two driver's license photos of Krayeske and mentioned his Green Party activism and political dissent - made it seem as if "Ken Krayeske was public enemy No. 1."

But Public Safety Commissioner Leonard C. Boyle in a four-page report said his department's actions, including preparation of the Krayeske flier, were consistent with the Bill of Rights and that "the Connecticut State Police do not maintain lists of `political enemies' of any public officials."

"All Connecticut Police Officers are trained to respect the First Amendment Rights of Assembly and Free Speech," Boyle wrote. "Providing officers with greater knowledge as to who might attend a particular event, and their intentions once there, simply gives the officers the tools needed to maintain lawful and peaceful assembly."

Boyle said Krayeske was mentioned at a pre-parade security briefing as one of "approximately ten persons who, because of prior actions or statements, warranted interest if they appeared at the day's events."

After Krayeske's arrest, Rell asked Boyle for the report on state police actions concerning Krayeske, whose Internet weblog has criticized Rell.

Boyle said state police reported at the pre-parade briefing "that there appeared to be no credible threats from known terrorist groups to the inauguration."

Boyle also placed responsibility for the arrest on Hartford police. "The Connecticut State Police played no role in the decision to arrest Mr. Krayeske nor in setting the terms and conditions of his bond."

Krayeske was held with bail set at $75,000 for about 12 hours after his 1:20 p.m. arrest before being released early Jan. 4 - too late to protest outside the inaugural ball. "All such decisions were made by the Hartford Police Department," Boyle wrote.

Boyle's written report reaffirmed comments he made at a legislative hearing last week. At last week's hearing, Hartford Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts took full responsibility for the arrest, saying it was not because of the state police flier, but because Krayeske "breached the parade route" - a claim that Krayeske and witnesses have disputed.

Rell spokesman Chris Cooper said "the report suggests that the Connecticut State Police acted appropriately." He declined to comment on the Hartford police.

Boyle's report included the wording of the police flier on Krayeske's 2006 political activity, his pre-inauguration Internet weblog entry inviting others to protest Rell's inaugural ball, and his past civil-disobedience arrest at an anti-war protest.

It said: "The above subject is the campaign Director for the Green Party in Connecticut. He had made an entry in the web page for `Connecticut Local Politics' asking: `Whose going to protest the inaugural ball with me.'

"No one had responded to his request as of 1/2/07 @ 1600 hrs. The above subject has a 1999 Volkswagen Jetta, 4 door Sedan.

"Groton P.D. arrested the above subject in 2004 for Obstruction of free passage. During the launching of the USS Jimmy Carter Nuclear Submarine."



Contact Jon Lender at jlender@courant.com

* * * *

Click Here for

Legislative Constitutional Armageddon

Labels:

Monday, January 29, 2007

“Insider” Larry A. Silverstein’s 9-11 Insurance Fraud?



Silverstein acquires the lease for the World Trade Center towers for $15,000 in the Spring of 2001. It was formerly under Port Authority Government control, which is suspicious in itself. Silverstein acquired “special” insurance coverage that the towers be insured for acts of terrorism with large policy limits. Silverstein successfully fought in a typical US rigged court and got the insurance companies to pay double the policy limits, because the loss of each tower was due to a “separate” loss, when there was only ONE terrorist act. WTC-7 contained nationwide amounts of “insider” trading and corporate scam investigation evidence for a massive amount of “insiders” to go down in probably the largest number of Organized Corporate White Collar Criminals ever to face arrests, trials, and mass imprisonment. The “Terrorist Attack” created a virtual news “Blackout”. Silverstein collected $7,000,000,000 on a $15,000,000 [click here for YouTube video] investment. How much did the other “connected” insiders make on their scams and where is this fraud really headed?

Loss of “White Control” of the US would be devastating for the Organized Worldwide Corporate Criminals. The percentages of ethnic concentrations is the Death Knell to the White Control. The policies to deny driver’s licenses, gun permits, the vote (labeling poorer whites and minorities as felons to deny the vote), limiting public transportation, and the isolating of “undesirable” populations in downtown “ghettos” can only stem the tide so long in the US. A new “fix” is in the works.

After Hurricane Katrina, possibly exclusively Caucasian “Special Police” were assigned sniper duties. They were dropped on the tops of buildings by helicopters during the news black out. National Guard Units, with large minority members, were pulled back and assigned duties that included confiscating ANY video tapes, digital photos, and any news reporters’ notes and materials in “the zone”. Chinook Helicopters used for heavy lifting dropped “refers”, which are tractor trailers equipped with diesel or gasoline refrigerators into “the zone”. Those being taken out in the covert genocide were placed in the “very abundant” body bags and frozen to keep down the smell and gore. The “refers” allegedly were flown over the ocean and dropped in to cover the dirty little “mini-genocide”. The “testing ground” would be used to figure out a more efficient “process”.

[Click Here and scroll down for video] of an almost exclusively Caucasian State Police Force, the marching, black and white clips morphed in with the color, and the yelling of “Hail, Hail!” is reminiscent of what? Complain to the Governor of that State in a letter about police, and you will be put on the State Police “Enemies List” and you will face arrest and imprisonment for getting in their way.

The BBC has been exposing new “Crowd Control” weapons being developed by Israel and the USA.

There is use of microwaves and other frequency transmissions, concentrated to disable vehicles, electronic equipment including cameras, and all systems related to sustaining a community such as phone, water, electricity, communications, medical, local government, Internet, and media. The transmissions in lower doses can cause a massive burning sensation all over one’s body causing temporary to possibly permanent blindness, for “humane” “crowd control”. Higher doses will cause victims to “Sizzle and Pop” like they are in a microwave oven, which they are, a huge open air, non-enclosed version. The satellite dish looking devices can be mounted on top of just about any military vehicle, or truck, and below helicopters. Those caught out in the open and with higher doses, anywhere, can’t get away.

Bodies could be scooped up, placed in standard international shipping containers, welded shut when filled to capacity with bodies of the “inconvenient”, and either dumped out in the deep open water of the ocean, or sunk “accidentally” aboard a container ship that could contain possibly millions of victims. Denial would be easy. This process is a lot cleaner and more covert than camps and cooking the victims individually in ovens. Genocide and ridding a population of the “mentally” inferior first met assembly line efficiency in the 1800's, early 1900's US. With Martial Law being declared, Bush could be the new “White Race King of the World”, no need for a “fixed” US election in 2008.

-Steven G. Erickson aka blogger Vikingas and "The Stark Raving Viking"

Click Here for The Sunshine Project

Click Here for a post on Martial Law

Labels:

From the Cool Justice Blog:

Government Enemies Lists: A Long Tradition In U.S.

An Ugly Precedent For Troublemakers List

By JEAN P. MOORE
Hartford Courant
www.courant.com

January 28 2007


On June 27, 1919, two immigrant brothers were hanged at the state prison in Wethersfield, now the site of the Department of Motor Vehicles. They were my great-uncles. They were accused of murder, but their real "crime" was being immigrants whose names were on a subscription list for an anarchist journal. The list was obtained by the Bureau of Investigation, forerunner to the FBI.

Our family to this day is mortified about the brothers - and, I suspect, still a little afraid of what a government can do when it starts compiling such intelligence lists. As in the recent case of Ken Krayeske.

Earlier this month, Krayeske, a law student and political activist, was listed as a possible threat by a state police intelligence unit for suggesting there be a protest at Gov. M. Jodi Rell's inaugural ball. He was arrested and held on $75,000 bond for merely taking pictures of the governor at her inaugural parade.

I wonder if any students of Connecticut history reading about the case were reminded of the political environment in Connecticut from 1917 to 1920, another time when fear of "enemies" in our midst caused significant repression of civil rights.

  • Complete Article


  • * * * *
    * * * *

    Click Here for

    Will this “Anarchist” be arrested for threatening and advocating the overthrow of the Government?

    Labels:

    "... what aren't they willing to play games with?"

    CONNECTICUT NEWS
    Author Takes On Civil Liberties Of 1812
    January 29, 2007
    By JULIE SHAPIRO, Courant Staff Writer

    NEW BRITAIN -- Matthew Warshauer is not entirely happy that his first book - a study of Andrew Jackson's suspension of civil liberties in wartime - has gotten national attention.

    On the one hand, he was excited to read the 5,000-word review in last week's New Yorker that calls his book "lucid and well-researched." On the other hand, Warshauer understands that his book's popularity is tied to post-Sept. 11 civil liberties violations.

    "The timing for my book couldn't be better," said Warshauer, a professor at Central Connecticut State University. "But I'd rather sell a few less books and give a few less talks and have the world not be quite so scary."

    Warshauer's book, "Andrew Jackson and the Politics of Martial Law," focuses on Jackson's decisions during the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. The well-trained British outnumbered the Americans, and Jackson's victory made him a national hero.

    But during the battle and its aftermath, Jackson seized emergency powers to suspend the right of habeas corpus - the right of a prisoner to have a judge review his or her case - and threw anyone who objected in jail.

    "It was the very first time civil liberties were suspended in United States," Warshauer said.

    The key precedent is not just that Jackson declared martial law, but that he got away with it, Warshauer said. President James Madison didn't want to confront Jackson, a popular war hero, and Jackson received only a fine for his actions - a fine that Congress later reversed.

    "I've been really interested in the degree to which nationalism influences politics," Warshauer said. When he started working on the book as his dissertation more than 10 years ago, he had no idea how relevant it would become after Sept. 11, 2001.

    "We're facing the same thing right now," Warshauer said, referring to the possible habeas corpus violations in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, which the Bush administration has defended as permissible during time of war. "In my view, it's completely unconstitutional," Warshauer said.

    As a student of Jackson and current events, Warshauer has learned that "you can violate the Constitution when broad nationalism exists," he said. Warshauer is preoccupied by the status of rights in today's society. "This is what this nation is truly founded on - the idea of civil liberty," Warshauer said. "If they're willing to play games with that, what aren't they willing to play games with?"

    Julie Shapiro can be reached at jshapiro@courant.com.

    Labels:

    Saturday, January 27, 2007

    MARTIAL LAW






    MARTIAL LAW

    The following guide will help you plan, prepare, and get ready in the event that martial law threatens you safety and well being. It is divided into two parts. The first part describes the framework for martial law and the second part the actions to take in preparing or the actual declaration of martial law.

    INTERESTING FACTS

    * Martial law is defined as: military rule or authority imposed on a civilian population when the civil authorities cannot maintain law and order, as in a time of war or during an emergency.
    * Hitler turned Germany into a Nazi dictatorship through executive orders.
    * Executive Order 10995: All communications media are to be seized by the Federal Government. Radio, TV, newspapers, CB, Ham, telephones, and the internet will be under federal control. Hence, the First Amendment will be suspended indefinitely.
    * Executive Order 10997: All electrical power, fuels, and all minerals well be seized by the federal government.
    * Executive Order 10998: All food resources, farms and farm equipment will be seized by the government. You will not be allowed to hoard food since this is regulated.
    * Executive Order 10999: All modes of transportation will go into government control. Any vehicle can be seized.
    * Executive Order 11000: All civilians can be used for work under federal supervision.
    * Executive Order 11490: Establishes presidential control over all US citizens, businesses, and churches in time of "emergency."
    * Executive Order 12919: Directs various Cabinet officials to be constantly ready to take over virtually all aspects of the US economy during a State of National Emergency at the direction of the president.
    * Executive Order 13010: Directs FEMA to take control over all government agencies in time of emergency. FEMA is under control of executive branch of the government.
    * Executive Order 12656: "ASSIGNMENT OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS RESPONSIBILITIES", "A national emergency is any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States. Policy for national security emergency preparedness shall be established by the President." This order includes federal takeover of all local law enforcement agencies, wage and price controls, prohibits you from moving assets in or out of the United States, creates a draft, controls all travel in and out of the United States, and much more.
    * Martial law can be declared due to natural disasters, Y2k Crisis, Stock Market crash, no electricity, riots, biological attack, .... anything leading to the breakdown of law and order.

    SURVIVING MARTIAL LAW

    * Prepare before any declaration of martial law by becoming self reliant. You may become subject to a bureaucratic system and be prepared to stay one step ahead of it which is easy to do if you are prepared and in a position to be self reliant. You may also face mob rule, chaos, panic, or a complete breakdown in law and order. Surival situations may be easier to handle in rural areas than urban.
    * Avoid areas of marital law. Can be imposed due to natural disasters or man caused events. Important to have a retreat or place in a rural area away from populated areas.
    * Create alliances with like minded neighbors or community members that share your views. Team work and numbers may help your situation.
    * Become transparent in the sense that you do not draw attention to yourself or your family. For instance, do not tell people that you are storing food just store food. Be prepared to render assistance to neighbors if need be. You never know when you will need them.
    * Remain calm! Do not panic.
    * Avoid areas of civil unrest if possible. If caught in civil unrest take appropriate action.
    * Get informed and stay informed. Understand martial law can be a temporary crisis or an extended one. In extreme cases the shape of a whole nation can change.
    * Declaration of martial law means your rights are suspended and it is government by decree. Your constitutional rights may no longer apply. This could mean a state of National Emergency.
    * People can be arrested and imprisoned indefinitely without charges.
    * Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly can be suspended, and censorship of the media imposed.
    * Gun ownership will also come under severe attack during marital law. We could see house to house searches by the military or National Guard looking for guns and seizing any they find along with stored food.
    * Take a stand on issues and make a choice that fits your beliefs and the situation. Do you believe as Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death?" Realize you may have some hard choices to make. Understand you may have to sacrifice your principles on trivial matters or take a hard stand. Always remember that you may have to come back and fight another day.

    The above found here

    * * * *

    The below found here

    Found a good "Civil Unrest & Rioting" link? Contact Us On-Line!

    Discussion Forum for this Topic

    Operation Garden Plot (United States Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2) Under this plan for the deployment of Operation Garden Plot, the use of CIDCON-1 will be mandatory. This direct support of civil disturbance control operations is to be used by the Army, USAF, Navy, and Marine Corp. with an airlift force to be comprised of MAC Organic Airlift Resources, airlift capable aircraft of all other USAF major commands, and all other aerial reconnaissance and Airborne Psychological Operations. This is to include control communications systems, aeromedical evacuation, helicopter and Weather Support Systems. If any civil disturbance by a resistance group, religious organization, or other persons considered to be non-conformist takes place, under Appendix 3 to Annex B of Plan 55-2 hereby gives all Federal forces total power over the situation if local and state authorities cannot put down said dissenters. Annex A, section B of Operation Garden Plot defines tax protesters, militia groups, religious cults, and general anti-government dissenters as Disruptive Elements. This calls for the deadly force to be used against any extremist or dissident perpetrating any and all forms of civil disorder. See also: US HAS BEEN PREPARING TO TURN AMERICA INTO A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

    Global Anarchy: North America Links to, or about, anarchists in Mexico, the USA, and Canada.

    JP 3-06. Doctrine for Joint Urban Operations. September 16, 2002. This publication addresses the planning and conduct of joint urban operations and explains how they differ from other operations. It focuses on the operational level of war and addresses issues across the range of military operations. It provides doctrinal guidance focused on capabilities and tasks that are unique to, or significantly challenged by, the urban environment at the operational level of warfighting. It does not attempt to replace or reiterate doctrine in overlapping areas; instead, it examines the special considerations required when conducting operations in the complex modern urban environment.

    John Stanton: Is Anarchy the Only Hope for America? The philosopher Plato was right when he opined that democracy ultimately leads to anarchy and then tyranny. But he was wrong to dismiss anarchy which, arguably, is the happy medium between failed democracy and treacherous tyranny. The USA has begun its flirtation with anarchy. But anarchy, like democracy, is anathema to the ruling classes and can't be tolerated for any length of time. As a result, the ruling classes will create a crisis and will attempt to implement a society as described in Plato's Republic - an alternative to representative government. The USA will transition from anarchy to a Platonic tyranny sometime during the second term (2004-2008) of George Bush II... That is, unless anarchy takes hold.

    Summary of Irregular Warfare Workshop (20 Sep 2005): Workshop Purpose: The US Special Operations Command and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict hosted an Irregular Warfare workshop on 20 September, 2005 for the purpose of reaching agreement on proposed Department of Defense (DoD) definitions for Irregular Warfare and Irregular Operations and a list of activities included in irregular warfare.

    Infantry Squad Tactics ~ Some Lessons learned during the Battle for Fallujah by Sgts EJ Catagnus, Jr. & BZ Edison and LCpls JD Keeling & DA Moon: [BIG PDF FILE] Historically speaking, military operations on urbanized terrain (MOUT) have created casualty figures that are extraordinary compared to similar operations conducted in different types of environments. The casualties in MOUT present a significant challenge to small unit leaders. Casualties in Fallujah hit Marine infantry squads and fire teams extremely hard because, generally speaking, the squads were already under TO&E standards... It is the small unit leaders' duty to accomplish the mission with the fewest casualties possible. In order for the small unit leaders to complete this task, they need tactics and techniques that will prevent casualties...

    The Assaultman in an Urban Environment by 1Lt Carin Calvin, Marine Corps Gazette; Jul 2005; Some lessons learned concerning the SMAW during the battle for Fallujah - Operation Al Fajr

    MISSIONS IN SUPPORT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT CHAPTER 7 FM 100-19 FMFM 7-10 DOMESTIC SUPPORT OPERATIONS 1 July 1993

    COMBAT IN CITIES: THE LA RIOTS AND OPERATION RIO William W. Mendel, Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS. July 1996

    Lessons in Command and Control from the Los Angeles Riots CHRISTOPHER M. SCHNAUBELT Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 88-109. "Police officers responded to a domestic dispute, accompanied by marines. They had just gone up to the door when two shotgun birdshot rounds were fired through the door, hitting the officers. One yelled `cover me!' to the marines, who then laid down a heavy base of fire. . . . The police officer had not meant `shoot' when he yelled `cover me' to the marines. [He] meant . . . point your weapons and be prepared to respond if necessary. However, the marines responded instantly in the precise way they had been trained, where `cover me' means provide me with cover using firepower. . . . over two hundred bullets [were] fired into that house."[1]

    FM 3-06, Chapter 1, Urban Outlook Modern urban operations span the full range of possible applications of military power. At the high end of the spectrum of conflict is major theater war (MTW) dominated by offensive and defensive operations that, when undertaken, will commonly include urban operations. At the lowest level are a multitude of urban peacetime military engagement (PME) activities. These activities foster and strengthen alliances and coalitions as well as deter aggression on the part of potential threats.

    FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The- Civil disorder- preparing for the worst - Cover Story Studies of the violent riots in Los Angeles and Miami, as well as a series of disturbances that took place in the Miami area throughout the 1980s, reveal a clear pattern in modern civil unrest. The seven elements of this pattern include...

    Civil Commotion, Civil Unrest Riots are a common facet of modern living everywhere. But what are the key exposures reinsurers should be aware of? Simon Sole, managing director of Exclusive Analysis, breaks these down and offers predictions for this year.

    The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 by CHARLES J. DUNLAP, JR.; From Parameters, Winter 1992-93, pp. 2-20.: The letter that follows takes us on a darkly imagined excursion into the future. A military coup has taken place in the United States--the year is 2012--and General Thomas E. T. Brutus, Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, now occupies the White House as permanent Military Plenipotentiary. His position has been ratified by a national referendum, though scattered disorders still prevail and arrests for acts of sedition are underway. A senior retired officer of the Unified Armed Forces, known here simply as Prisoner 222305759, is one of those arrested, having been convicted by court-martial for opposing the coup. Prior to his execution, he is able to smuggle out of prison a letter to an old War College classmate discussing the "Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." In it, he argues that the coup was the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992. These trends were the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses, the monolithic unification of the armed forces, and the insularity of the military community. His letter survives and is here presented verbatim. It goes without saying (I hope) that the coup scenario above is purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction. -- The Author

    Domestic Operations: The Canadian Approach by Sean M. Maloney; From Parameters, Autumn 1997, pp. 135-52.: The application of military force by a democratic government within the confines of its borders, and in some cases against its citizenry, has long been a controversial and politically sensitive topic. Though that is not a new type of operation for either the American or the Canadian military establishments, the nature of the threats each is being asked to confront has evolved. The threats now include (in addition to natural disasters and minor urban unrest) cult groups armed with weapons of mass destruction, agents of narco-parastates in Latin and South America, organized and armed urban unrest, and the violent potential of private paramilitary groups. It is safe to assert that threats to North American domestic security will increase in nature, scope, and number in the next century. This in turn will presumably prompt more debate on and calls for an increase in the military's role in containing and neutralizing those threats.

    Epochal Change: War Over Social and Political Organization by Robert J. Bunker: From Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 15-25.: The United States must remain prepared for war, but not one understood by traditional perceptions of security... Our most likely adversaries will emerge from a process of human advancement, a cyclical shifting between order and chaos... the cycle, which is the topic of this article, now may be shifting away from stability toward chaos, suggesting that the nation-state may be entering a period in which its usefulness as a concept for organizing societies will be severely challenged. The United States has been less affected by this process than most other Western nation-states; we seem to prosper despite such challenges. However, the breakdown of the family, increased drug use among our children, the growing specter of gang violence, and other forms of social terrorism suggest that our own institutions are not immune to a degree of chaos. This article examines two periods of similar transition, and analyzes characteristics of contemporary values and institutions which suggest that the Western world may face a period comparable to previous epochal shifts in warfare.

    The Battle of Grozny: Deadly Classroom for Urban Combat by TIMOTHY L. THOMAS; From Parameters, Summer 1999, pp. 87-102.: The battle for Grozny, the capital of the small Russian Republic of Chechnya, took place in January 1995. It pitted a hastily assembled and unprepared Russian force against a Chechen force of regulars and guerrillas equipped with Russian weapons and a belief in their cause. The Chechens held their own for three weeks but eventually lost the city to the Russian armed forces in late January (the Chechens retook the city in August 1996). Both sides learned or relearned many lessons of urban combat, most of them the hard way.[1] This article examines the most important of those lessons, the interesting and perhaps surprising conclusions drawn by the Russians about modern urban warfare, and their implications for US soldiers and urban warfare theory.

    The Fed - Martha’s Civil Unrest Tips Recently, I have received a number of requests asking how to properly prepare a riot à la française. Many of my readers understand the good, old-fashioned American riot but have no idea where to begin with the French one. Do you burn the cars on the right side of the road or the left? My recipe for a Molotov cocktail is in gallons, how do I convert it into liters? What French expletive is customarily used? Worry no more, for I, Martha Stewart, will explain all...

    How to Survive Civil Unrest - Travel Tips Sometimes things go bad -- really bad when you are traveling abroad. Hence The U.S. Government provides tips on what you should do when there is blood on the streets and tanks are rumbling through the central plaza.

    Civil Unrest We haven't seen any serious civil unrest here in North America - not in our lifetimes - not really. Probably, the racial equality riots in the 60's are as bad as anything we've seen. But even then in those cities, was there still some kind of civil control, did the water continue to run - did the power stay on and could you buy a gallon of gas? Kelly experienced a major civil war in Africa and knows exactly what can happen when 'things really break down.' I think you'll learn a lot from this story.

    Eyewitness Accounts from France | Autonomy & Solidarity

    MARTIAL LAW The guide will help you plan, prepare, and get ready in the event that martial law threatens your safety and well being. It is divided into two parts. The first part describes the framework for martial law and the second part the actions to take in preparing or the actual declaration of martial law.

    U.S. MILITARY CIVIL DISTURBANCE PLANNING: THE WAR AT HOME Under the heading of "civil disturbance planning", the U.S. military is training troops and police to suppress democratic opposition in America. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, is code-named, "Operation Garden Plot". Originated in 1968, the "operational plan" has been updated over the last three decades, most recently in 1991, and was activated during the Los Angeles "riots" of 1992, and more than likely during the recent anti-WTO "Battle in Seattle."

    UNDERSTANDING RIOTS After the Los Angeles riot in spring of 1992, almost every pundit in the country took a turn at explaining why riots occur. The conventional wisdom on the subject went something like this: certain dramatic events such as political assassinations or unpopular jury verdicts crystallize riots from social rage. So to understand riots, one must understand the causes of social rage, usually said to be racism, poverty, lack of economic opportunity, and why people who experience this rage manage it in such a destructive manner. The usual suspects include breakdown of the family, television, and a generalized cultural disorientation.

    "The Coming Anarchy" Very interesting article by Robert Kaplan in Atlantic Monthly (1994). This article gave me the creeps and I just scanned it as quickly as I could (thanks to Evelyn Woods).

    Religiously based civil unrest and warfare Often, the media does not identify the precise causes of some of the conflicts around the world. Clashes are frequently described as being ethnic in origin, even though religion may have been a main cause. The true causes of unrest are sometimes difficult to determine. Frequently, there are a mixture of political alliances, economic differences, ethnic feuds, religious differences and others

    The Effects of Civil Unrest Helping family and neighborhoods prepare for earthquakes, volcanoes, fires and floods, in Gig Harbor, Key Peninsula, and Pierce County.

    Analysis of the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest Beginning on the afternoon of April 29, 1992 and for the next three days, Los Angeles County was an area in turmoil. The verdict in the Rodney king trial generated an immediate response in the form of riots, looting and fires. Immediately after the civil unrest, the Employment Development Department (EDD) began an effort to assess the extent of the damage to businesses and the loss of jobs in the area. This report is a summary of EDD's findings following several months of research.

    Los Angeles Riots-Series of Reports ...As 4,000 regular Army troops and 1,000 federal law enforcement officers move into Los Angeles, people have begun to actually assess the severity of this latest day of "revolution". They find thirty-eight (38) people dead, 1,250 people injured, 3,600 structural fires, hundreds of businesses looted and closed, and more than 3,000 people arrested. At least four (4) police officers and three (3) firefighters have been shot and hundreds of other injured as they attempted to control the fires and lawlessness of the past three days.

    The Detroit Riots of 1967- Events The Detroit Riot of 1967 began when police vice squad officers executed a raid on an after hours drinking club or “blind pig” in a predominantly black neighborhoods located at Twelfth Street and Clairmount Avenue. They were expecting to round up a few patrons, but instead found 82 people inside holding a party for two returning Vietnam veterans. Yet, the officers attempted to arrest everyone who was on the scene.

    National Center for the Study of Police and Civil Disorder South Central Los Angeles, Liberty City, Harlem, Watts–the names of these American urban neighborhoods instantly remind us of how deeply the nation’s consciousness has been scarred by civil disorder. The spark that ignites the violence is always one incident, usually police-related. In its wake is a wounded city and a nation in shock.

    Iraq Training Assessment Trip Report The following report summarizes my recent training assessment trip to Iraq during July. All topics listed below were identified by the various units/ individuals from the perspective of what topics/events frequently dealt with in Iraq should be incorporated into the Urban Warfare predeployment training program.

    G.N. McLean's The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America 1886 FROM ITS INCIPIENT STAGE TO THE FIRST BOMB THROWN IN CHICAGO. A COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT CONSPIRACY CULMINATING IN THE Haymarket Massacre, MAY 4th, 1886. A MINUTE ACCOUNT OF THE APPREHENSION, TRIAL, CONVICTION AND EXECUTION OF THE LEADING CONSPIRATORS.

    Coming Anarchy I don't really know where these folks are going - their tagline is "Speak Victorian, think Pagan" and their focus is all over the timeline. Interesting place to visit, tho.

    Anarchy in the U.S.A., by Charles M. Young Noam Chomsky interviewed by Charles M. Young, Rolling Stone, May 28, 1992. Some viewers may be insulted by this link. The point is, anarchy, riots, and civil unrest comes from disagreements (hatred, even) between parties and peoples - and LOTS of people think the way NC and the Rolling Stone do.

    RACE WAR IN THE FUTURE FOR USA? LBJ, and the Immigration Act of 1965 opened the floodgates of immigration from third world nations. California is the first state to show, via 2000 census, that traditional whites are a minority. If the trend continues, whites will be a minority in the entire nation by 2050. We could so easily see what happened in the Balkans, also happen here in the USA. Apparently multicultural, multi-racial, and multi-ethnic democracies do not survive long. The minute the majority race, or culture loses it's position of majority, the nation begins to undergo internal fracturing. It is my contention this is/was the plan beginning in 1965.

    Racial Equality How the KKK feels on the subject.

    Juan Santos: Immigration Endgame

    What Drives Societal Collapse We do, however, have distinct advantages over societies in the past, because we can anticipate the future. Although far from perfect, and perhaps subject to unexpected non-linearities, general circulation models provide a road map for how the climate system is likely to evolve in the future. We also know where population growth will be greatest. We must use this information to design strategies that minimize the impact of climate change on societies that are at greatest risk. This will require substantial international cooperation, without which the 21st century will likely witness unprecedented social disruptions.

    Muslim American Society Islam is the fastest growing religion in North America. Islam’s appeal lies in the simplicity of its principles. In its harmonious interplay of faith with reason, its vision coordinates the sacred and the secular into a comprehensive whole. Due to Islam’s stress on equality and brotherhood of its community, it has special appeal for the historically oppressed. These egalitarian principles also draw converts from the middle class America. Thus, mosques, Islamic centers and schools truly represent a melting pot for the Muslims all over America...

    America Alone The U.S. government’s National Intelligence Council is predicting the EU will collapse by 2020... How bad is it going to get in Europe? As bad as it can get – as in societal collapse, fascist revivalism, and the long Eurabian night, not over the entire Continent but over significant parts of it. And those countries that manage to escape the darkness will do so only after violent convulsions of their own.”



    * * * *
    * * * *

    Click Here for

    Will this “Anarchist” be arrested for threatening and advocating the overthrow of the Government?

    Labels:

    Assistant US Attorney or Mob Enforcer taking out the Mafia's and FBI’s "Deadwood"?

    The Hartford Courant


    Avenging Angel' Takes On FBI




    By EDMUND H. MAHONY
    January 28, 2001



    BOSTON - John H. Durham looked impatient, distracted and, odd as it might seem in the circumstance, privately amused by the spectacle of it all - which is to say, he looked pretty much like he usually looks.



    He was in the cavernous new federal courthouse, off to the side of the podium, pinned down by reporters. Heavier hitters in law enforcement – drawn from their offices like moths to television lights - were looking serious and trying not to embarrass themselves while taking questions about Durham's newest case. It involves nothing less than systemic corruption of an FBI office.



    That Durham could have better explained his own case to the press is not to suggest that he is retiring. He is not. In a courtroom, prosecuting a defendant, he sometimes looks ready lunge at defense lawyers - if a 50-year-old lawyer trapped 16 hours a day in a cramped office can still lunge. He'll clinch with anyone, anywhere. One year in Connecticut, as an assistant U.S. attorney, he put a third of New England's mafia in jail. He has never lost a case.



    He just doesn't like attention.



    That is making for an interesting turn of events. The driven, if publicity averse, Durham has become the white knight in what is emerging as one of the country's worst law enforcement scandals.



    So far, as a special prosecutor in Boston, Durham has identified enough potential grand jury targets to become something of a full employment service for the defense bar. Defense lawyers, having belatedly reached the conclusion that his investigation is for real, are now scrambling to figure him out.



    Will he be able to run out all his leads or will Department of Justice higher-ups cap the investigation at what they decide is a politically manageable point? Can Durham protect his task force from the brutal rivalries among the city's police agencies? And what kind of lawyer is it anyway who sneaks out a side door when he could be lecturing the TV crews out front about the moral superiority of his position?



    "I was surprised at first that he got the appointment because he is not political," said John R. Williams, a defense attorney in New Haven. "And then, frankly, my one thought when he went up there was: Jesus Christ, are they going to eat him for breakfast?"



    Two and one-half years ago, then-U.S. Attorney General Janet C. Reno appointed Durham to explore allegations that, for three decades, FBI agents and police officers in Boston have been in bed with the mob. In particular, he is looking for crimes committed by agents working with James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, two murderous gangsters who served as FBI informants for a combined 50 years.



    What Durham has found to date is nothing less than sensational, judging from what has become part of the public record.



    Among other things, he has accused a decorated FBI agent of setting up at least three murders and he is examining evidence suggesting that a second agent might have participated in another - the execution of a former owner of World Jai Alai Inc., once one of the country's leading parimutuel businesses. What's more, he has charged state and local police officers in Massachusetts with secretly helping Bulger and Flemmi. A half dozen bodies have been unearthed from secret graves scattered around the city.



    Last month, Durham gave defense lawyers secret government memos suggesting that unscrupulous FBI officials – probably with the knowledge of ex-Director J. Edgar Hoover – framed four men for a 1965 murder. State prosecutors, after 30 years of intransigence, immediately began steps to drop charges against the four - two of whom died of old age in prison.



    To say Durham has been turning heads in Boston's clubby legal community is an understatement. That's nothing new in Connecticut, where Durham has compiled one of the most successful prosecutorial records in the country.



    "You underestimate Durham at your own peril," said Hugh Keefe, a New Haven defense lawyer.



    Successful prosecutors often leave embittered defense lawyers and alienated witnesses in their wakes, victims of a win-at all-costs mentality. Durham, by all accounts, is a refreshing departure. A colleague, struggling for the right description, recently caught himself short and confessed: "I don't want to get maudlin here. But he really is a good person." Even defense lawyers known to attack prosecutors reflexively have little criticism.



    "There is nothing negative that I can say," Boston lawyer Anthony Cardinale said. "So if you're looking for that, I'm not in that mode."



    Cardinale would seem like a shoo-in for the negative, having been one of a half-dozen lawyers who squared off against Durham in Hartford in the early 1990s in what then was the biggest mob trial in the country. His client, Louis "Louie Pugs" Pugliano, got life without parole. So frustrated was Cardinale, who has defended clients in some of the country's more notable organized crime trials, that he nearly got himself jailed for contempt.



    "He's obviously a very fierce competitor," Cardinale said. "But he's not a zealot. And he does it by the rules. He is very professional. He is courteous. I've been up against them all over the country and I'd put him in the top echelon of federal prosecutors. He's such a decent guy you can't hate him. That can make it hard to get motivated."



    The view from within law enforcement is even less complicated.



    "There is no more principled, there is no more better living, there is no finer person that I know of or have encountered in my life," said Richard Farley, a former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's New Haven division.



    Or, Farley might have added, anyone who pays such close attention to detail.





    In 1989, someone fired a .22-caliber bullet into William "The Wild Guy" Grasso's brain and dumped his body in a thicket of poison ivy near the Connecticut River. That, in turn, provoked a frenzy of court-authorized, electronic bugging because, at the time of his death, Grasso was under-boss of New England's Patriarca crime family.



    The bugs resulted in horrible recordings because gangsters have learned to turn up the radio while they whisper. Poor recordings became stacks of lousy transcripts riddled by the parenthetical word "unintelligible." Normally, senior prosecutors do not concern themselves with transcribing FBI audiotapes. Durham does.



    "John is a perfectionist," said Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin, a former prosecutor who worked the Grasso case with Durham.



    "Sometimes he'll look over a transcript and he won't be satisfied," Devlin said. "Of course, the agents say he can hear grass grow. He does have, actually, remarkable hearing. It's like Ted Williams seeing the seam on the ball turn."



    By deciphering a phrase that had been written off as unintelligible, Durham turned up a piece of evidence supporting the critical prosecutorial contention that mobsters in Connecticut and Rhode Island were working together.



    With mobsters around New England linked, Durham could build a regional racketeering case against those eventually arrested for Grasso's murder. He ultimately convicted mobsters elsewhere of crimes committed by associates in Connecticut.



    Somehow, Durham has remained cynicism-free over a quarter century of jailing professional felons. The man who remarked that his four sons can attend college wherever they choose so long as the school has a "Cross" in its name - once fired off an angry note to a Connecticut bishop after a priest appeared in court as a character witness for a Ku Klux Klansman.



    He likes to hunt ducks, work trout with a fly rod and still looks fit. He has thinning hair, steel-framed glasses and probably a closet full of gray suits. He has a tart sense of humor and, despite a daunting professional schedule, is a fixture at wakes and retirements. He takes Lent seriously and rarely misses Mass on Sunday.



    But there are few glimpses of his private life. Asked if he would cooperate with a journalist writing about him, he volunteered to make available "all the information to which members of the fourth estate are entitled under freedom of information laws." Pressed, he said: "You know, I'm not the only person working on this case. Why don't you write about the others. They deserve credit."



    Friends say he studied at Colgate University and was a fashionably long-haired member of the school baseball team. After receiving a law degree at the University of Connecticut, he volunteered as a social worker on a South Dakota Indian reservation.



    Back in Connecticut, he found work as a prosecutor in the newly created chief state's attorney's office. Before long, he was recruited by then-New Haven State's Attorney Arnold Markle, who had a grant to organize a groundbreaking unit dedicated to prosecuting career criminals.



    Durham moved on to the U.S. Department of Justice's super secret organized crime Strike Force. When the strike forces were folded into local U.S. attorney's offices, Durham became chief of the criminal division in New Haven. In the 1990s he was promoted to deputy U.S. attorney.



    Through the 1980s and '90s, Durham prosecuted or supervised every organized crime case in Connecticut. His team contributed critical evidence to the conviction in New York of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. He conceived the strategy that put Connecticut's big cities a decade ahead of those in neighboring states in eradicating violent urban crack gangs - a strategy that was later adopted elsewhere in the country. He demoted himself to assistant U.S. attorney about two years ago - guilt, friends said, over spending too much time in Boston.



    "John was given that thing in Boston, I am quite convinced, because he has a reputation for being above the fray, of being absolutely incorruptible and of absolutely calling things the way he sees them," said Ira Grudberg, a defense lawyer in New Haven. "Despite the fact that he can be a hard ass about certain things, I believe he is a real straight shooter."



    Durham has built a career on the presumptive integrity of the criminal justice system. Criminals are supposed to know that their punishments are just because the system operates without bias. Durham was sent to Boston as a special prosecutor to investigate signs that the system had failed.



    Evidence produced during a federal criminal trial in the late 1990s suggested that a group of senior FBI agents, over a 30 year period, established a bizarre alliance with what was arguably New England's most ruthless criminal outfit.



    For years, rumors flew in Boston that some criminals were committing murders and obstructing justice with FBI protection. It was suspected that men were wrongly convicted of crimes because the real criminals worked for the FBI.



    The bureau dismissed the rumors as fantasy. Defense lawyers struggled futilely to prove them. Detectives from states as disparate as Connecticut, Oklahoma and Florida worked a series of murders connected to the jai alai industry and wound up with nothing but shared suspicion of the FBI and bitter knowledge that their cases dead-ended in Boston.



    All that is changing and, like him or not, Durham is the reason. A specially selected task force of investigators from around the country, operating under his direction, now appears on the way to succeeding where earlier investigations failed. Collectively, allegations in the string of indictments Durham has obtained so far present an incredible picture: Two supposed FBI informants put law enforcement to work for them. There is evidence that agents set up men for gangland murders for as little as a diamond engagement ring and a few thousand dollars.



    Not surprisingly, the task force has met with resistance. It has come from FBI officials interested in protecting themselves and Massachusetts detectives afflicted by law enforcement's peculiar institutional jealousies. But longtime associates describe Durham as determined to push on, even if he is increasingly put off by what his task force is finding.



    "Given what he is seeing and how corrupt, small fee, the whole system was, it's really a terrible job," said a federal judge who knows Durham well. "But somebody has to do this job. And I think that he understands that more than anybody. I know this is tearing him up. But on the other hand, would you want him after you? He may be getting no pleasure out of it. But he's like an avenging angel."



    Durham is winning converts in Boston.



    "I think he is going to leave here with a tremendous reputation, the guy who came in from outside and cleaned up a terrible situation," said a senior official in the Suffolk County district attorney's office - the office that, in 1968, used bad evidence from the FBI to convict four apparently innocent men of murder.



    This is no big surprise for the army of Durham loyalists in Connecticut law enforcement.



    FBI agents - and their bosses - get promoted when they win cases and that is pretty much a guarantee when Durham is prosecuting. By the 1990s, not only was the bureau in Connecticut submitting investigations of sensitive matters for Durham's supervision, it was breaking bureau rules by, in effect, permitting him to assign agents.



    In the early 1990s, a scrap of paper containing Durham's home address was found in the wing of the Hartford jail holding a group of mobsters judged sufficiently ruthless to be denied bail. Durham supervised their indictments and was preparing their prosecution.



    Word moved quickly through the law enforcement grapevine. Heavily armed officers converged on the home and Durham was greeted in his own driveway by a shotgun-carrying agent.



    But there are limits to what even the most heavily starched agent can take, and a prosecutor who insists on separate checks for coffee sometimes needs to be brought up short.



    When a foursome of detectives won Red Sox tickets at a law enforcement golf tournament, but couldn't make it to Fenway Park, they gave the seats to Durham, whose deepest flaw may be the Red Sox. This occurred at a time when Foxwoods Resort Casino was experiencing a run of bad press after a couple of gangsters were trying to insinuate themselves into casino operations.



    Durham snatched the tickets, took his sons and spent the found money on overpriced sweatshirts.



    Back at work, there was a letter in his box - a forgery, it turned out, on filched stationery - from a high casino executive. The casino was thrilled, the letter said, that the man who would supervise any casino case could use its complimentary seats. In the future, they were his for the asking.



    The big laugh the detectives planned ended up as a frantic search through outgoing mail at the U.S. attorney's office. Durham had mailed a check and apologetic letter to the casino before anyone could spring the joke on him.



    While his demands for separate checks drive waitresses mad, Durham is not an over-the-top Puritan. In federal prosecutions in Connecticut, he is invariably the first prosecutor called by defense lawyers who believe they have clients with a special claim to leniency.



    "While he is very tough and aggressive," Williams said, "I've never noticed that he ever thought he had a halo. He's able to respect opposing points of view. And that makes him very special and very, very good at what he's doing."



    Williams' concern about whether Durham succeeds arises from questions about whether lawyers used to playing by Connecticut rules can prosper in Boston's dog-eat-dog arena.



    After two years, there is no need for concern.



    At the press conference, Durham finally couldn't avoid a question.



    "Does the Department of Justice have the stomach to pursue this investigation to its conclusion?" one of the reporters asked, meaning will the government find some excuse to shut down the case to prevent further shredding the FBI's credibility?



    It was the only question Durham answered.



    "The government absolutely has the stomach," he said.

    Labels:

    Friday, January 26, 2007

    Spielberg and Rage against the Machine on Bush?

    Stalker with a Badge?


    Plainfield Police Chief Gary Sousa

    CONNECTICUT NEWS
    `It Is Absolutely Shocking'

    Plainfield Police Chief Of 25 Years Accused Of Sexual Harassment In Internal Affairs Report


    January 26, 2007
    By LYNN DOAN, Courant Staff Writer

    PLAINFIELD [Connecticut] -- The chairwoman of the police commission, shocked by a report accusing longtime Police Chief Gary Sousa of sexually harassing three town employees, said Thursday that she would be "thrilled if he resigned and saved the town more embarrassment."

    The chairwoman, Jackie Dubois, who said she long suspected that Sousa had behaved inappropriately after a night of drinking two years ago, was taken aback by the extent of the sexual harassment allegations.

    According to the 137-page report by the police department's internal affairs office, three women - the town clerk, the town bookkeeper and the former assistant to the first selectman - worked in fear as Sousa continually sexually harassed them, intimidated them and, in two cases, pulled them over with his police cruiser.

    "It is absolutely shocking," Dubois said. "Now that the facts are out there, any reasonable person that reads it, I'm sure, will do the right thing. I would be thrilled if he were to resign."

    The report was released this week to police commission members, some of whom refused to comment on the findings. The commission is scheduled to meet in closed session today to discuss the report and possibly take action, which could include Sousa's termination.

    Dubois said she had heard reports that Sousa, who is married, had stepped out of line one summer night in 2005, when a group of town employees gathered for drinks at a local restaurant. Jodi Benson, assistant to the first selectman at the time, told a co-worker that Sousa followed her into the ladies restroom and blocked her way out, the report said. Sousa then grabbed her breasts, saying, "You know I've been wanting to sleep with you."

    The incident was just one of several cited in the report written by Deputy Police Chief Robert J. Hoffman after interviewing 23 town employees.

    Sousa, 58, who has served as the town's police chief for 25 years, is accused in the report by several town officials and employees of constantly calling and visiting the women. At one point, Town Clerk Louisa Trakas said in the report, she was fielding up to 10 calls a day from Sousa, who was also visiting her in her office daily.

    "He started kissing my hand and I told him my husband wouldn't like that," Trakas said in the report.

    After Sousa hinted that he was going to kiss her at a town-hosted Christmas party, Trakas said she told him she felt uncomfortable with his advances. It was then, she said, that Sousa "took up with" Dodie Mineau, the town's bookkeeper.

    "It really made [Mineau] distraught and she was in tears all the time, she was a wreck," Trakas said.

    According to the report, Sousa then began spending hours in Mineau's office and insisted, on at least one occasion, on escorting her to her car after a meeting.

    Both Benson and Trakas said they were intimidated by Sousa because of his position - and his gun.

    Trakas said in the report that Sousa often hit his gun holster and said, "If you hear this noise, hit the ground." Benson also told a co-worker that Sousa had pulled her over in his police cruiser after she failed to meet him at a hotel for sex.

    "She told me she was scared to death. ... That she feared for her safety because he was pissed," the co-worker said in the report.

    The three women either would not comment on the allegations or could not be reached Thursday.

    Prompted by complaints filed against Sousa by three residents - George Krecidlo, David Ertsgard and John Dubois, the husband of Jackie Dubois, the internal affairs report found that Sousa committed 10 violations as police chief. The violations include: insubordination, conduct unbecoming an officer, undue influence and arrogance, oppression or tyranny. Hoffman said the chief was insubordinate because he contacted people involved in the investigation after the police commission had ordered him to stay away from them. The department has 27 full- and part-time employees.

    The residents who filed complaints said they were concerned that Sousa was tainting the investigation because his telephone records show that he had been contacting those involved.

    Sousa, who declined to comment for this story, has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying town officials are only trying to punish him for backing former First Selectman Don Gladding. Gladding lost a Democratic primary in November 2005 to current First Selectman Kevin Cunningham.

    "It's laughable. It is just absurd," Cunningham said of Sousa's charge. He said he launched the investigation into the sexual allegations after town employees approached him. "It was me doing my duty."

    Contact Lynn Doan at ldoan@courant.com.

    A discussion of this story with Courant Staff Writer Lynn Doan is scheduled to be shown on New England Cable News each hour today between 9 a.m. and noon.

    * * * *

    Click Here for

    To FN Lazy to Protect and Serve?


    Click Here for a post on Domestic Spying and Police Misconduct

    Click Here for a story on an unresponsive Attorney General

    Labels:

    Arrest Video



    This is the video that caused such a stir this year because Massachusetts State Police threatened Leominster mom Mary Jean with prosecution if she didn't remove it from her site, www.conte2006.com. Captured by a crib monitor, it shows the State Police arresting Paul Pechonis and then swarming through his home even though they didn't have a search warrant. Ms. Jean won an injunction against the police in Federal Court allowing her to keep the tape on her site but Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly is now appealing that injunction.


    Police Officers often look to see if there is a video camera. The tape can be confiscated to be destroyed and the camera operator may face a beating.

    Labels:

    Police Political Damage Control


    HARTFORD POLICE CHIEF DARYL ROBERTS, right, and state Capitol Police Chief Michael Fallon face the legislature’s public safety and security committee at a hearing Tuesday on the arrest of political activist Ken Krayeske on Jan. 3. Krayeske was arrested as he approached Gov. M. Jodi Rell to take a photograph during the inaugural parade. Roberts testified that Krayeske “breached the parade route.”
    (TOM BROWN)

    Jan. 23, 2007

    Copyright 2007, The Hartford Courant

    POLITICS
    Chief Explains Krayeske Arrest
    City Police Take Full Responsibility
    January 24, 2007
    By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writer

    Hartford police took full responsibility Tuesday for the arrest of political activist Ken Krayeske at Gov. M. Jodi Rell's inaugural parade, telling legislators that they were not influenced by a state police flier describing Krayeske as someone who might be disruptive.

    Hartford Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts testified at a legislative hearing that Krayeske was arrested because he "breached the parade route," a claim disputed by Krayeske and witnesses, not because of a threat assessment by state police.

    "He was not arrested based on the picture," Roberts said, referring to a two-page state police flier with Krayeske's photo that was distributed to Hartford and state police on the inaugural parade security detail.

    Krayeske, 34, who also works as a free-lance photographer and writer, was arrested Jan. 3 after photographing the governor as she marched from the Hartford Civic Center to the Legislative Office Building for her early afternoon inaugural ceremony.

    Police initially described Krayeske as aggressively approaching the governor when arrested, but a Courant reporter accompanying Rell saw no such approach. And a witness said Krayeske was arrested after Rell had passed by him without incident as he shot photos from the curb.

    Roberts said Tuesday that it is up to the courts to decide what happened.

    Sitting next to Roberts before the legislature's public safety committee, state Public Safety Commissioner Leonard Boyle said state police played no role in the decision to arrest and detain Krayeske for 12 hours on misdemeanor charges of breach of peace and interfering with police.

    Krayeske, who had suggested on a political website that demonstrators protest outside Rell's inaugural ball the evening of Jan. 3, was not released from custody until about 1 a.m. on Jan. 4, long after the ball had ended.

    But Roberts said no one asked Hartford police to keep Krayeske in custody until after the ball. He said Hartford police decided on their own to set bail of $75,000 for Krayeske, which kept him locked up until a state bail commissioner ordered him released without bail.

    Roberts said his officers set a high bail because Krayeske was "evasive" and "uncooperative" after his arrest. Krayeske, an anti-war demonstrator who once taught protesters how to behave if arrested, had asked for a lawyer and refused to answer questions.

    Legislators invited Boyle, Roberts and other law-enforcement officials to appear before the public safety committee and explain how Krayeske, who managed the gubernatorial campaign of Green Party candidate Cliff Thornton last year, came to be classified a security risk.

    Boyle said state police did not consider Krayeske a possible threat until he posted this note on a website: "Whose going to protest the inaugural ball Jan. 3 with me? No need to make nice after watching this documentary."

    The documentary referred to an examination of the troubled state juvenile training center.

    Boyle said the Web posting prompted his officers to check Krayeske's record, finding that he once had been arrested and fined $50 for protesting at the launching of a nuclear submarine in Groton. On that basis, Krayeske's photo was shown to the parade security detail.

    Rep. Jim Shapiro, D-Stamford, read Boyle a state law prohibiting intelligence gathering for political reasons and questioned the propriety of circulating a flier about Krayeske.

    "I think a mistake was made here," Shapiro said. "It may have been an honest one, but I think a mistake was made."

    But two Republican committee members, Reps. Ruth Fahrbach of Windsor and Leonard C. Greene of Beacon Falls, expressed regret that some legislators were questioning Krayeske's arrest.

    Greene said if the arrest had occurred shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, legislators would be "patting you on the back."

    Contact Mark Pazniokas at mpazniokas@courant.com.

    * * * *

    YouTube video featuring Kenny K.



    * * * *

    Click Here for photos and background on the "Kenny gets arrested story"

    Click Here for Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials, Notice

    Labels:

    Thursday, January 25, 2007

    Is the "Ghetto Fabulous" Party Theme Racist?




    CONNECTICUT NEWS
    Off-Campus Party Theme Called Racially Insensitive
    Law School Plans Session To Deal With `Hurtful' Actions

    January 25, 2007
    By GRACE E. MERRITT, Courant Staff Writer

    WEST HARTFORD -- The interim dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law has scheduled a schoolwide roundtable discussion for today to air concerns raised by a weekend off-campus party in which some law students dressed in hip-hop clothes and toted 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor.

    Photos of the "Bullets & Bubbly" party were posted on the popular website facebook.com, dismaying some students who regarded the party theme as racially insensitive. Photos depicted partygoers wearing do-rags, muscle shirts, hoodies, and necklaces with gold medallions.

    The party, attended by several student leaders, seems to reflect a trend toward these kinds of parties among college students nationally; one of the more notorious, a "Ghetto Fabulous" party hosted by University of Texas law students in September, garnered national headlines after photos ended up on the Web.

    Interim Dean Kurt Strasser scheduled the roundtable discussion Wednesday after hearing from members of the Black Law Students Association, as well as some faculty and staff members who were upset about the party, which was held in a private home and drew up to 75 people.

    Strasser said he hopes the session will bring the law school community together and provide a "teaching moment."

    "My basic take on the situation is that if we look at ourselves as a community, some have taken action that is deeply hurtful to other members of the community," he said. "I don't think it was at all intended that way. I think it was an exercise in very poor judgment. I want to spark a discussion where people come to understand what they did has proven to be hurtful."

    The Black Law Students Association declined to comment publicly, but held a meeting Wednesday night to discuss the issue.

    Michael Nichols, a graduate student member of the UConn board of trustees, attended the party along with several other student leaders. He wore a tuxedo, he said.

    "At the time we felt that nothing was wrong or mean-spirited. Since then we have learned that many of our friends and fellow students were hurt. For this I am truly sorry," he said, adding that he hoped the discussion would raise sensitivity to other students' feelings.

    UConn law student Greg O'Neil said he was going to go to the party but decided to visit a friend in Boston instead.

    "I think they tried to have [the party] be in good taste, and the theme was supposed to be broad, but some people chose to wear costumes that were racially insensitive," O'Neil said.

    Ryan Greco, president of the Student Bar Association at the law school, said he was disturbed by the incident.

    "A number of students, both white and black, were offended by the party. But it isn't the party that is the real issue. It's the underlying lack of communication between the two cultures," Greco said.

    Jeremy R. Paul, who was named the new dean of the law school Wednesday, lamented the incident but expressed confidence in how law school officials are dealing with the controversy.

    "Clearly this is an unfortunate incident," Paul said. "I'm very concerned about it."

    "I don't think my classmates intended to do harm but significant harm was done to both our community and its members and there has to be some form of accountability for that," said Ben Smilowitz, a UConn law student. "It's also important to learn from this. We knew about these parties happening in Texas and Georgia, but I don't think people realize they're probably just as common in Connecticut."

    Strasser hopes the flap also teaches the students a lesson about professionalism and how to present themselves.

    "Rightly or wrongly, as lawyers these students will be influential leaders, opinion makers, people who deal with lots of people," he said.

    The controversy also underscored the power of the Internet, which made the photos widely available.

    "I hope the students will come to realize that pictures that are put on the Internet are likely to be available to potential employers, clients and parents," Strasser said.

    He predicted the incident would not tarnish the students' law careers or have any bearing on the bar exam, which includes a good character evaluation.

    "This is something I think all of those students would prefer not to have as part of their history. What we have to remember is this is one exercise of bad judgment."

    Strasser noted that the school has taken strides toward becoming a more diverse community. The law school was named one of the top 10 best law schools in the country for Hispanic law students by Hispanic Business magazine last year.

    In recent months, there have been similar parties at other colleges. Besides the University of Texas bash, a "straight thuggin' party" at a University of Chicago dorm two years ago and invitations to a "Halloween in the Hood" party at Johns Hopkins University sparked campus debates about race relations.

    The roundtable at the UConn law school is scheduled to be held at 12:15 p.m. in Starr Hall on the West Hartford law school campus.

    "I just hope it leads to a productive conversation," said Kaaryn Gustafson, a black law professor at the school.

    * * * *

    Click Here for http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/

    Click Here for http://judicialmisconduct.blogspot.com/

    Hit Counter