March 2010

A Visibility 9-11 Podcast
Interview by John Bursill
March 20, 2010
Listen here
In
this motivating interview I talk to organiser, activist and philanthropist Betsy
Metz. We ask Betsy about the highly successful conference she organised and
facilitated this month. The March 2010 "Treason in America: 9/11, the Wars & Our Broken Constitution" Conference was a milestone in the history
of the 9/11 Truth Movement. For the first time in America, Peace Activists,
Government Whistleblowers, Journalists and 9/11 Truth Activists explored recent
American history together with open minds and hearts, searching for the shocking
truth. See: www.treasoninamericaconference.com
So who is Betsy Metz?
Betsy Metz is the quintessential all-American gal! She is a well-educated and
fiercely patriotic mother of four and a devoted and loving wife of her husband
for 26 happy years. Her husband is also the all-American, being a college quarterback
and a former Marine Corps Officer. Together as a family they want for nothing
and by any standard have had an excellent and prosperous life. This life would
be impossible in nearly any other country in the world and it is fair to say
they are living the "American Dream"!

By Sahil Kapur
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
RawStory.com

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against
probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according
to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.
The notification came in a letter dated January 6, 2004, addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet. The ACLU described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former vice president Dick Cheney.

In the message, the officials denied the bipartisan commission’s request to question terrorist detainees, informing its two senior-most members that doing so would “cross” a “line” and obstruct the administration’s ability to protect the nation.

“In response to the Commission’s expansive requests for access to secrets, the executive branch has provided such access in full cooperation,” the letter read. “There is, however, a line that the Commission should not cross — the line separating the Commission’s proper inquiry into the September 11, 2001 attacks from interference with the Government’s ability to safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks.”

March 15, 2010

WashingtonsBlog.com
In a bizarre, Soviet-style move, the White House has threatened to veto the
intelligence budget unless everyone accepts the FBI frame up of Dr. Bruce Ivins.
As Bloomberg writes:

President Barack Obama probably would veto legislation authorizing the next
budget for U.S. intelligence agencies if it calls for a new investigation
into the 2001 anthrax attacks, an administration official said.
A proposed probe by the intelligence agencies’ inspector general “would
undermine public confidence” in an FBI probe of the attacks “and
unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions,” Peter Orszag, director of the
Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a letter to leaders of the House
and Senate Intelligence committees.

Given that an FBI investigation into a specific crime has nothing
to do with the budget or any of OMB’s other core responsibilities,
it seems that Orszag simply drew the short straw for this little assignment.

by Marc Ambinder
March 5 2010
TheAtlantic.com

Why is the national security community treating the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration’s choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump.

According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

(There is no distinction between U.S. persons–visa holders or citizens–and non-U.S. persons.)

By Philip Messing
March 14, 2010
New York Post

On Nov. 28, 1953, Frank Olson, a bland, seemingly innocuous 42-year-old government scientist, plunged to his death from room 1018A in New York’s Statler Hotel, landing on a Seventh Avenue sidewalk just opposite Penn Station.

Olson’s ignominious end was written off as an unremarkable suicide of a depressed government bureaucrat who came to New York City seeking psychiatric treatment, so it attracted scant attention at the time.

But 22 years later, the Rockefeller Commission report was released, detailing a litany of domestic abuses committed by the CIA. The ugly truth emerged: Olson’s death was the result of his having been surreptitiously dosed with LSD days earlier by his colleagues.

The shocking disclosure led to President Gerald Ford’s apology to Olson’s widow and his three children, who accepted a $750,000 civil payment for his wrongful death.