[september_eleven_vreeland] Digest Number 1297

There are 6 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
2. Authoritarian Rule Britannia
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
3. "We Want Information": The Database State
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
4. The War on Privacy
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
5. Markovian Parallax Denigrate
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
6. Susan Lindauer: From 'Spy' to 'Psychotic'
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>

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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 11:59:48 -0500
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
Subject: Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists

Frequent Make contributor Tom Owad just published a mind-blowing how-to on his website explaining how to mine Amazon's wish list database to uncover "subversives."
Using a pair of 5-year-old computers, two home DSL connections, 42 hours of computer time, and 5 man hours, I now had documents describing the reading preferences of 260,000 U.S. citizens.
I downloaded all the files to an external 120 GB Firewire drive in UFS format. The raw data occupied little more than 5 GB. I initially wanted to move all the files into a single directory to facilitate searching, but as the directory contents exceeded 100,000 items, the speed became glacially slow, so I kept the data divided into chunks of 25,000 wishlists.

Next comes the fun part � what books are most dangerous? So many to choose from. Here's a sample of the list I made. Feel free to make up your own list if you decide to try some data mining. Send it to the FBI. I'm sure they'll appreciate your help in fighting terrorism.

Link

Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists
Submitted by Tom Owad

Vast deposits of personal information sit in databases across the internet. Terms used in phone conversations have become the grounds for federal investigation. Reputable organizations like the Catholic Worker, Greenpeace, and the Vegan Community Project, have come under scrutiny by FBI "counterterrorism" agents.

"Data mining" of all that information and communication is at the heart of the furor over the recent disclosure of government snooping. "U.S. President George W. Bush and his aides have said his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to al-Qaeda. What has not been acknowledged, according to the Times, is that NSA technicians combed large amounts of phone and Internet traffic seeking patterns pointing to terrorism suspects.

"Some officials described the program as a large data mining operation, the Times said, and described it as much larger than the White House has acknowledged." (Reuters)

Combining a data mining operation with the Patriot Act's power to access information makes it all too easy for the federal government to violate the Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable search. Ars Technica has an article, The new technology at the root of the NSA wiretap scandal, that describes the ease with which widespread wiretapping can now be implemented. It quotes Philip Zimmermann, the creator of the PGP encryption software:

"A year after the CALEA [Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act] passed [in 1994], the FBI disclosed plans to require the phone companies to build into their infrastructure the capacity to simultaneously wiretap 1 percent of all phone calls in all major U.S. cities. This would represent more than a thousandfold increase over previous levels in the number of phones that could be wiretapped. In previous years, there were only about a thousand court-ordered wiretaps in the United States per year, at the federal, state, and local levels combined. It's hard to see how the government could even employ enough judges to sign enough wiretap orders to wiretap 1 percent of all our phone calls, much less hire enough federal agents to sit and listen to all that traffic in real time. The only plausible way of processing that amount of traffic is a massive Orwellian application of automated voice recognition technology to sift through it all, searching for interesting keywords or searching for a particular speaker's voice. If the government doesn't find the target in the first 1 percent sample, the wiretaps can be shifted over to a different 1 percent until the target is found, or until everyone's phone line has been checked for subversive traffic. The FBI said they need this capacity to plan for the future. This plan sparked such outrage that it was defeated in Congress. But the mere fact that the FBI even asked for these broad powers is revealing of their agenda."

It used to be you had to get a warrant to monitor a person or a group of people. Today, it is increasingly easy to monitor ideas. And then track them back to people. Most of us don't have access to the databases, software, or computing power of the NSA, FBI, and other government agencies. But an individual with access to the internet can still develop a fairly sophisticated profile of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens using free and publicly available resources. Here's an example.

There are many websites and databases that could be used for this project, but few things tell you as much about a person as the books he chooses to read. Isn't that why the Patriot Act specifically requires libraries to release information on who's reading what? For this reason, I chose to focus on the information contained in the popular Amazon wishlists.

Amazon wishlists lets anyone bookmark books for later purchase. By default these lists are public and available to anybody who searches by name. If the wishlist creator specifies a shipping address, someone else can even purchase the book on Amazon and have it shipped directly as a gift. The wishlist creator's city and state are made public on the wishlist, but the street address remains private. Amazon's popularity has created a vast database of wishlists. No index of all wishlists is available, but it remains possible to view all wishlists by people of a particular first name. A recent search for people named Mark returned 124,887 publicly viewable wishlists.

For an all inclusive search by name, you could compile a comprehensive list of first names and nicknames from the baby names databases available on the internet. Armed with this list, and by recording the search results for each first name, it is possible for you to retrieve the vast majority of public wishlists on Amazon.

For the purposes of this exercise, only a single name was chosen � a common male name that returned over 260,000 wishlists. I'm not going to divulge what name was actually used. Let's pretend it was "Edgar," in honor of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

Before writing a script to download all the 260,000 "Edgar" wishlists, I confirmed that my actions would not violate Amazon's Conditions of Use. I also checked the robots.txt file which contains a list of directories Amazon requests not be traversed by scripts. User wishlists are not in this list, nor did the actions to be taken violate the conditions of use.

I started by doing a wishlist search for people named "Edgar" and got back a page linking to the wishlists of the first 25 matches. The url looked something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/search.html/?encoding=UTF8&type=wishlist&field-name=edgar&page=1

Two variables extracted from the above url are of particular note:

a.. field-name=edgar
b.. page=1
Changing "edgar" to "george", would generate the first page of matches for people named George. Change '1' to '2' and you'd get matches 26 through 50 instead of 1 through 25.

Using a simple 6-line shell script and the popular wget command line tool, I configured two computers on two different DSL connections to begin downloading all 260,000 wishlists in increments of 25,000. Each group of 25,000 wishlists took about four hours to download, for a total download time of less than one day. Each wishlist is located at an address like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/?encoding=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=1DBHU3OCV72ZW

1DBHU3OCV72ZW is the wishlist owner's unique Amazon identification number. I made up the one you see here. By directing wget only to download pages at urls similar to this one, and by incrementing the search page from 1 to 10,400, it is possible to download all 260,000 wishlists without user intervention. Using a pair of 5-year-old computers, two home DSL connections, 42 hours of computer time, and 5 man hours, I now had documents describing the reading preferences of 260,000 U.S. citizens.

I downloaded all the files to an external 120 GB Firewire drive in UFS format. The raw data occupied little more than 5 GB. I initially wanted to move all the files into a single directory to facilitate searching, but as the directory contents exceeded 100,000 items, the speed became glacially slow, so I kept the data divided into chunks of 25,000 wishlists.

Next comes the fun part � what books are most dangerous? So many to choose from. Here's a sample of the list I made. Feel free to make up your own list if you decide to try some data mining. Send it to the FBI. I'm sure they'll appreciate your help in fighting terrorism.

a.. On Liberty by Stuart Mill. First sentence: "The subject of this essay is not the so-called 'liberty of the will', so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of philosophical necessity; but civil, or social liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual." What more do you need?
b.. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The classic anti-war novel.
c.. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Dystopian.
d.. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. More dystopian.
e.. 1984 by George Orwell. Most dystopian.
f.. Critical Thinking by Alec Fisher. Can't have any of that.
g.. Build Your Own Laser, Phaser, Ion Ray Gun and Other Working Space Age Projects by Robert Iannini. Obviously.
h.. Apple I Replica Creation by Tom Owad. Building your own computer should be illegal. (ok, it's also here because I wrote it.)
i.. The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual And Spiritual Origins by Mark & Louise Zwick.
continued at: http://www.applefritter.com/bannedbooks

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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:04:24 -0500
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
Subject: Authoritarian Rule Britannia

Authoritarian Rule Britannia
As government pushes Britain towards surveillance police state the next Prime Minister lauds over glorious heritage of freedom

Steve Watson | February 14 2006

The nations not so blest as thee,
Shall in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Thomas Augustine Arne, 1740

Britain is currently teetering on the brink of a huge political shift. As far as the Blair era has gone in transforming this country into a paranoid, uncommunicative, culturally starved, spin controlled Orwellian style authoritarian state, things are about to be taken to a whole new level.

Yesterday was a brutal indicator of what Britons should expect politically over the next decade, with a crucial vote on ID legislation and a key speech by the next leader in waiting, Gordon Brown.

As the current British government is now the key Ally of the Straussian killing machine that has usurped control over the American people, I urge true patriotic Americans to take a look now at what is happening here over the pond and heed this warning from a concerned patriotic Briton seeing his country further usurped by tyrannical bureaucrats.

COMULSARY ID CARDS

The Government was accused last night of planning "backdoor compulsion" for identity cards despite promising MPs that fresh legislation would have to be introduced first.

MPs also voted, by a majority of 51, in favour of making it compulsory as of 2008 for citizens to register their personal and biometric details on the National Identity Register, when applying for or renewing "designated" documents such as a passport. This rejected a House of Lords amendment to make ID card take-up voluntary when people get a new passport.

Last month we told you that this would happen, even though the mainstream media was running with the headlines "DEFEAT FOR GOVERNMENT ON ID CARDS".

This basically equates to not only ENFORCED ID card carrying, but also a government owned biometric database, containing scans of everyone's fingerprints and Iris patterns.

The Identity Cards Bill also gives the Home Secretary the power to make regulations under which, in future, access to public services will be conditional on producing an ID card.

In this sense the ID card will quickly become compulsory when the people of Britain discover that access to anything from medical care to public transport will be impossible without your biometric card.

Shadow home secretary David Davis described the scheme as one of "covert and creeping compulsion"

The ID card along with the database represent a major shift into the police state here in Britain. Five years ago people were saying Britons would never allow ID cards to become a reality, now they ARE reality. the government is putting them through slowly slowly, piece by piece in a stepping stone fashion because they know if they made it clear what they were doing, the vast majority of people in this country would be up in arms.

A BBC poll yesterday indicated that 75% oppose UK ID Cards on security grounds.

We have previously exposed how the government told us that the ID card would make our information more secure, yet they propose paying for it by selling the information of 44 million British citizens to private companies. How secure is that?

ID cards will not stop terrorism. Even the Home Secretary Charles Clarke admitted it after the London bombings.

Top criminologists have gone public to say that ID cards will actually result in an increase in identity theft, not a decrease as the government claims.

The system is purely about authoritarian control over the citizens of this country. EVERY argument that the government makes for ID cards is pure hogwash, they even admit it themselves. ID cards will have the polar opposite effect to what the government says will happen. the only logical explanation left as to why the government is so determined to get ID cards through parliament is that they want total control over the population of this country.

GORDON BROWN: THE NEXT PRIME MINISTER IS "BLAIR ON STEROIDS"

The British people have long had it drilled into their minds that the Prime Minister after Tony Blair will be Gordon Brown. It has been widely reported by every major media outlet and is well known within government that the pair have established a "working assumption" that would enable Mr Brown to take over the reins. A television drama was even made about the so called "deal" made between the two before Blair became Prime Minister.

The deal is due to take place any time now.

Gordon Brown, the current chancellor of the Exchequer, has been the financial brainpower behind the New Labour agenda since it was kick started by globalist connections in the early 1990s. He is and always has been personally determined to be Prime Minister of Britain though, many believe every decision he has taken as chancellor has been with his prime ministerial ambition in mind.

As a young politician Brown was a staunch Socialist within the Scottish Labour party. When John Smith became leader of the Labour Party shortly before his premature death, he appointed Brown as Shadow Chancellor. Smith was a member of the steering committee, the inner core of the Bilderberg Group. He got Gordon Brown invited to the 1991 Bilderberg meeting where he was effectively groomed along with Blair as the next big thing in British politics. Incidentally this was the same meeting at which Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was in attendance, he became President a matter of months later.

Brown has also, as far back as 1998 been listed in the "Global Leaders group" at the World Economic forum (otherwise known as the DAVOS group) He has often been touted for high ranking IMF positions.

Brown was a traditional Labour figure, the economic spokesman who doesn�t know much about economics. He took on an advisor - Ed Balls, a Financial Times leader writer - an ideologist for globalization, in effect - who learned his economic trade at Harvard. Balls is a regular Bilderberg attendee, his name can be found on the attendance lists almost every year since 2001. Brown soon started going to New England regularly for his summer holidays and became a true believer in the the neo-liberal line from Harvard - Globalization, the Washington consensus.

It seems now that Brown's takeover from Blair is in effect. He has started concentrating less on his role as chancellor and more on over all policy. Yesterday, at a major speech at the Royal United Services Institute in London, Brown demonstrated his "personal commitment" to tough anti-terrorism laws by calling for the police to be allowed to hold terrorist suspects for longer than 28 days.

The Government's attempt to introduce a maximum 90-day period for which suspects could be held without charge was rejected by Parliament last year. Instead MPs approved a doubling of the current 14-day maximum. Again the stepping stones method in use.

Mr Brown also said biometrics would soon be used in banks and supermarkets, and that it made sense to extend the use of the technology into the public sector for use in an ID scheme.

Brown hideously even quoted George Orwell, to equate these authoritarian ideas with the struggle for freedom: "writing in the thirties, at democracy's darkest hour in Europe, when the threat was fascism, "the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit, no bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit".

Brown continually equated 7/7 with 9/11 as historical turning points, even though on 7/7 the attack in London was on a very small scale with only around 50 fatalities.

In perhaps the most hypocritical fashion you can imagine, though continuing the Blair like use of newspeak and spin, the next Prime minister is also heavily drawing on British heritage, defence of hard earned freedom and dignified British military history. Yet he is doing so in order to tout prison without trial, biometrics, ID cards and citizen databases.

Brown announced that the Treasury will allocate �1.5 million from the proceeds from the coin celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar to help fund a memorial in Staffordshire for the men and women in our armed forces who have given their lives.

He also proposed ceremonies in every constituency and locality of the country to mark national Veterans' Day.

And to involve young people more in celebrating the contribution of British armed forces, he wants to allow PRIVATE firms to help state schools pay to set up their own military cadet forces.

The full speech can be found here

Columnist Brendan O'Neill sums up the shift from Blair to Brown and the turn in British politics quite neatly,

"Brown wants to go a step further than Blair in ratcheting up fear of an overblown terror threat and reorganising British politics and society around suspicion and security. In short, he plans to apply the accountant's instinctive caution to life, liberty and politics in the twenty-first century, which is likely to make even the Blair era look like a hotbed of political principle."

Blair and Bush were just the faces and names required to initiate the open revelation of the authoritarian agenda to the world, the next US/UK pairing, whether it be Brown/Clinton or Brown/Rice (The high fibre option), will be a slicker and cleverer operation conducted with stealth like efficiency.

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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:00:32 -0500
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
Subject: "We Want Information": The Database State

"We Want Information": The Database State
Imprisoned in the United Kingdom

Paul Joseph Watson/ February 18 2006

The population of the United Kingdom are being trained like circus acts to sing and perform when any designated 'authority figure' demands they hand over their personal information in anticipation of the mandatory ID card that will weed out the subversives and block the non-conformists from using public services or being able to travel.

In the 1960's cult series The Prisoner every week Britons saw the newly designated authority figure demand the character of Patrick McGoohan hand over information. The program was an attempt at forewarning against the accelerating relationship between science, technology, and tyranny, and how it would be used to enslave a docile population concerned only with mindlessness and convenience.

The Village was a beautiful yet sinister enclave where residents were forcibly placed, kept and watched 24 hours a day by camera surveillance systems. The hierarchy of power was represented by a glowing pyramid with an all-seeing eye in the center of The Village control room.

The climax of the series saw McGoohan escape the prison of The Village and re-enter society only to discover that society itself was the prison and that, in his words, "freedom is a myth."

Another Orwellian story found its way into my inbox underlining again the enforced obsession with cataloguing every movement and action of the average British citizen.

A mother and husband were browsing Woolworths, a major UK department chain, when they noticed a young lady with photographic equipment offering to take baby pictures at the back of the store.

The mother takes up the story,

"We decided to get our daughter's portrait done and as I was sorting her hair the lady (girl actually, looked about 18) started asking questions and filling out a form. It went something like this.

She asked for my name and address so I gave it to her. Then she wanted my post code.

Fine.

Telephone number?

Okay.

Then I asked her if the pictures would be delivered and the answer was NO, I have to pick them up at the shop. (I started thinking, if they're not posting the pics why all the details? Surely I just need a ticket with a number?)

She then asked for my daughter's name.

Fine, (she'll probably need that to talk her into a pose anyway).

Date of birth?

"What do you want that for?" I asked.

"Just for our records," she told me.

Suspicion was beginning to set in, so I deliberately said "she's four and a half." She looked a bit annoyed/confused at that, but gave in, and then asked me to sign an agreement. I glanced at it quickly but one of the paragraphs that struck me was, that the photos and negatives (and obviously all the info I gave about my daughter) would be kept and owned by them (whoever they are) to do with & give to whatever & whoever they wanted.

"Forget it" I said. "Bit too much like a big brother thing this, what do they do with all this info?" I asked.

"Oh they just keep hold of it for 3 years and then destroy it all." she said it like this was a normal thing to do. (maybe it is, maybe I am paranoid?)

"That's what they tell you, a bit fishy if you ask me, I've changed my mind we don't want you taking any pictures of my daughter" I said, then left, (leaving her with all our details, minus the DOB and of course, the pictures). I wonder how many thousands of kids & babies they have photos and details of? And why do they need names, DOBs etc?

They're only selling portraits, aren't they??"

Should we be surprised?

The British government has passed legislation to make every offence arrestable. Every suspect arrested, even if proven innocent, has their DNA added to the criminal database and stored forever in perpetuity.

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, police can approach any person whatsoever, whether they are acting suspiciously or not, and demand they provide their full details, address and date of birth. This information is kept forever in perpetuity. 119,000 people have already had their details recorded and this figure will skyrocket after the post 7/7 figures are added.

"We want information."

The story of the baby photographer is an auderve for what is to come. Police will begin to routinely demand that citizens show their papers under any circumstance.

Tales of this nature make many Britons like myself yearn for pastures new before the real fun begins after the mandatory implementation of the national ID card after 2008. But like McGoohan in the hit 60's series, would we not just be exchanging one prison for another?

~~~~

Houston Police Chief Wants Surveillance Cameras In Private Homes
Orwellian telescreens will monitor your behavior

Paul Joseph Watson/ February 16 2006

The age of the telescreen is upon us as surveillance cameras that festoon our streets, shopping malls and airports are now moving into our private homes as the panopticon prison is erected.

The Associated Press reports,

"HOUSTON Houston's police chief is suggesting putting surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets and even private homes."

"Chief Harold Hurtt today said it's another way of combatting crime amid a shortage of officers.

Scott Henson with the American Civil Liberties Union calls Hurtt's proposal to require surveillance cameras as part of some building permits -- "radical and extreme."

In the meantime, Homeland Security grants are being used to blanket major cities and even small sleepy communities with arsenals of spy cameras.

All over the United States, Canada and Britain, surveillance camera systems are being installed on street corners, in public bathrooms, in residential neighborhoods, and even in parks and forests. We are asked to trust the government underlings who control them that they are working for our best interests as said underlings are caught using the cameras to spy on naked women in their homes.

In the UK, government programs encourage citizens to spy on their neighbors and report suspicious activity as part of a CCTV channel subscriber package.

Homeland Security funding is being utilized to fund this mass expansion of the surveillance state in the US as city and state officials clamor at the teat of Big Brother to milk the cash cow of the police state and win the contracts for installing more and more sophisticated spy cameras.

The government demands to know everything about our private lives and catalogue, file and index every aspect of our existence, yet government itself becomes more and more secret with each passing day as it engages in escalating criminal activities.

The agenda behind surveillance cameras is not simply to track the movements of certain individuals. There are not enough watchers to catalogue all the information. The cameras are about behavior control and creating an omnipresent atmosphere whereby the citizen consciously regulates his own behavior so as not to seem suspicious. The surveillance cameras are there to make a statement. We are the prison guards, you are the prisoners.

As George Orwell described it in 1984,

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard."

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

This is the prison without bars. This is the panopticon, a prison so constructed that the inspector can see each of the prisoners at all times, without being seen. This is a portrait of the accelerating movement by western governments to erect giant, powerful, all-pervading mass surveillance, tracking and control grids that will keep all populations firmly under the baleful and watchful gaze of Big Brother.

FLASHBACK: Strange Orwellian Telescreens Debut At UK Supermarkets

FLASHBACK: Shouting Telescreens Coming to Britain

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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 09:50:42 -0500
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
Subject: The War on Privacy

The War on Privacy

Rumsfeld warns that the enemy can succeed in changing our way of life. It already has.

"The enemy may succeed in changing our way of life."

by Nat Hentoff
February 12th, 2006 12:53 PM

There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. . . . But at any rate they would plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live�did live, from habit that became instinct�in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. George Orwell

One morning, in his Supreme Court chambers, Justice William Brennan was giving me a lesson on the American Revolution. "A main precipitating cause of our revolution," he said, "was the general search warrant that British customs officers wrote�without going to any court�to break into the American colonists' homes and offices, looking for contraband." Everything, including the colonists, was turned upside down.

He added that news of these recurrent assaults on privacy were spread through the colonies by the Committees of Correspondence that Sam Adams and others organized, inflaming the outraged Americans.

Now, the Congressional Democratic leadership has finally found an issue to focus on�the vanishing of Americans' privacy, as happened before the American Revolution, but currently on a scale undreamed of by Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the other patriots in the Committees of Correspondence.

The rising present anger around the country, across party lines, is reflected in a February 3 Zogby Interactive poll that "finds Americans largely unwilling to surrender civil liberties�even if it is to prevent terrorists from carrying out attacks. . . . Even routine security measures, like random searches of bags, purses, and other packages, were opposed by half (50 percent) of respondents in the survey. . . . Just 28 percent are willing to allow their telephone conversations to be monitored."

On the other hand, nearly half (45 percent) favored at least "a great deal" of government secrecy in the war on terror. But the public's awareness that the United States has increasingly become a nation under surveillance is indicated by resistance not only to random searches and tapping into our telephone conversations. Zogby says: This is a "public obsessed with civil liberties."

Well, not obsessed yet, but growingly apprehensive.

In 2001, for example, 82 percent of those surveyed by Zogby favored government video surveillance of street corners, neighborhoods, and other public places. By 2006, this approval has dropped to 70 percent, still a formidable figure. But the decline is part of an across-the-board change in public willingness to give up civil liberties from 2001 to the present awakening to the vanishing of the "reasonable expectation of privacy" that used to be in our rule of law.

James Madison, the principal architect of the Bill of Rights, warned: "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment in our liberties." Because of the continually expanding surveillance technology available to the government, no administration in our history has been engaged in more pervasive "experiments" on our liberties than Bush's regime. And even more penetrating means of surveillance will be available to future presidents who claim that their "inherent powers" in a war on terrorism allow them to ignore laws and the other branches of government. The present and future dangers to Americans' individual liberties have been underscored in a revealing speech by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on February 2 at the National Press Club in Washington. (The ramifications of this analysis of our future are deeper than he may have intended.)

Rumsfeld said flatly that this war to keep us secure from worldwide, dedicated lethal terrorists can last for decades! At last, this crucial difference from all the other wars in which we have been involved is sinking into the American consciousness.

In their February 3 Washington Post coverage of the Rumsfeld address, Josh White and Ann Scott Tyson valuably added this context: "Iraq and Afghanistan are the 'early battles' in the campaign against Islamic extremists and terrorists, who are profoundly more dangerous than in the past because of technological advances that allow them to operate globally, said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon K. England in an address on Wednesday [February 1]."

At the core of Rumsfeld's own remarks is this admission: "Compelled by a militant ideology that celebrates murder and suicide with no territory to defend, with little to lose, they will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs." (Emphasis added.)

But our enemies are changing our way of life, beginning with the 2001 Patriot Act that, among other invasions, expanded the FBI's ability to use National Security Letters�without going to judges�to collect personal information about us. This marked the return of the "general search warrant" of our colonial past.

Because the New York Times exposed how the National Security Agency's spying is further changing our way of life, the administration is intent on punishing the Times�with the support of Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In an afterword to George Orwell's 1984, Eric Fromm emphasized: "Orwell . . is not a prophet of disaster. He wants to warn and awaken us. He still hopes� but . . . his hope is a desperate one. . . . Books like Orwell's are powerful warnings, and it would be most unfortunate if the reader smugly interpreted 1984 as another description of Stalinist barbarism, and if he does not see that it means us, too."

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, in an interview with the New York Times' Bob Herbert, tells how Orwell is indeed speaking to us: "The more people grow accustomed to a listening environment in which Big Brother is assumed to be behind every wall, behind every e-mail, and invisibly present in every electronic communication, telephonic or otherwise�that is the kind of society, as people grow accustomed to it, in which you can end up being boiled to death without ever noticing that the water is getting hotter, degree by degree." (Emphasis added.)

Will the Democrats become a truly serious opposition party before privacy disappears entirely?

http://villagevoice.com/news/0607,hentoff,72136,6.html

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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 10:54:32 -0500
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
Subject: Markovian Parallax Denigrate

Saturday, February 18, 2006
Markovian Parallax Denigrate

It's their ways to detain, their ways to disgrace,
their knee in your balls and their fist in your face.
Yes and long live the state by whoever it's made,
sir, I didn't see nothing, I was just getting home late. - Leonard Cohen

On August 5, 1996, Usenet groups were spammed by messages of seemingly random word strings, "sometimes numbering in the thousands in a single posting," under the subject line "Markovian Parallax Denigrate":

jitterbugging McKinley Abe break Newtonian inferring
caw update Cohen air collaborate rue
sportswriting rococo invocate tousle shadflower
Debby Stirling pathogenesis escritoire adventitious novo
ITT most chairperson Dwight Hertzog different
pinpoint dunk McKinley pendant firelight Uranus
episodic medicine ditty craggy flogging variac
brotherhood Webb impromptu file countenance inheritance
cohesion refrigerate morphine napkin inland Janeiro
nameable yearbook hark....

I imagine that night the data stream must have been thick with reports of Usenet abuse. But like much abuse, we have to ask, what's its point? It was either nonsense, or a cipher. And if a cipher, then it was a virtual numbers station.

I used to be an avid listener of shortwave radio, and often found numbers stations without realizing what the monotonous intoning, beeps or bizarre sound sequences might be. Interestingly, no one who knows for sure what they are is talking even now, though the most informed guess is that it's the background noise of the black ops world. Fittingly, they can make for creepy listening. For instance the German station, known as "Swedish Rhapsody," which broadcast in the voice of a young girl. And a new one, apparently transmitting from the Southwest US and known as "Yosemite Sam", that begins with a brief data burst followed by the phrase "Varmint, I'ma Gonna Blow Yah T'Smithereens!" This is repeated ten seconds later on the next highest of four frequencies. "Transmissions always start at an offset of 7 seconds, such as at 10:00:07. The timing of the transmissions seems to be excellent." (If this sounds like fun listening, you may want to consider the Conent Project. Though it was released before the debut of "Yosemite Sam" )

Getting back to "Markovian Parallax Denigrate," Google has archived an example here that was posted to alt.religion.christian.boston-church. The sender is identified as "Chris Brokerage," though clicking "view profile" brings up the email address susan_lindauer@worf.uwsp.edu.

Now, "Susan Lindauer" - does that name mean anything to you? Thanks to Project Willow on the RI discussion board for reminding me of her strange story. At least of the strangeness we can know.

In 1993 Lindauer left a career as a journalist with such credits as Fortune, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and US News & World Report to join the press office of Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio. Three years later, at the time of the "Markovian Parallax Denigrate" postings, she was working for former Senator Carol Mosely Brown. And two years after that, in 1998, Lindauer was making a deposition in the Lockerbie Trial that contradicted the official Libya did it! yarn, corroborating the accounts of others, such as former DIA operative Lester Coleman that it was instead all about Bekka Valley heroin and CIA drug dealing. (Coleman's book, Trail of the Octopus, can be read online with free registration here.) Because of her time on the Lockerbie case, Lindauer developed an impressive network of Middle East contacts. (Her Washington contacts weren't too shabby, either. Andrew Card is her second cousin.)

But how you're likely to know Lindauer's name is by her March 2004 arrest for acting as an "unregistered agent" of the Iraqi government over a period of five years. (Shades of the stitch-up of George Galloway.) Lindauer argued that her efforts to lift sanctions and to prevent war were being misrepresented. To the Associated Press, Lindauer claimed she was being punished for involving herself in US foreign policy. Though the media portrayed her as a spy and its echo chamber called her a traitor, she was never charged with espionage.

That was two years ago. Her case has yet to come to trial. In fact, she's been judged unfit to stand trial. Today, "she is confined to a federal mental facility in Texas, perhaps never to get her day in court...She is being held past her scheduled release date, which had been sometime early this month, and, she tells friends, might be forcibly medicated as part of her treatment."

According to two court-appointed doctors:

the defendant is suffering from psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, delusional disorder, hallucinatory phenomena, and mood disturbance that render her mentally incompetent to the extent that she does not understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her and is unable to assist properly in her defense at this time.

Lindauer had been free on bail until last September when the court, informed by the judgement of the doctors, decided she needed closer observation. Now, it's unclear when she's getting out, and "friends say her mental state seems to have worsened during incarceration":

"I got a call from her Feb. 4," says [friend JB] Fields. "They are talking about forcibly medicating her. She sees women around her, in Carswell [federal medical center in Fort Worth, Texas], who can't hold their own silverware to eat because of medications, and she doesn't see how such treatments make anyone more fit for trial. Seems a lot like the way the Soviets used to treat dissidents." Lindauer told another friend she was being guarded like a terrorist at Carswell, and a relative of Lindauer who recently attempted to visit her was turned away, Fields says.

So, what was all that about "Markovian Parallax Denigrate"? Lindauer was caught up in the Lockerbie intrigue by 1994. Anyone cross-posting a cipher to Usenet would be unlikely to use his or her own email address. And yet hers was.

From spynumbers.com:

"59372 98324 19043 78903 95320...". The mechanized female voice drones on and on... What have you stumbled on to? Instructions to spies? Messages exchanged between drug dealers? Deliberate attempts at deception and misinformation?

Chances are, all of the above

Chances are, by 1996 some parties were unhappy with Lindauer sniffing around the drugs of Lockerbie. And so, perhaps for short-term shit-disturbance and a cheap investment in an unknown, long-term pay out, the "Markovian Parallax Denigrate" was created and ascribed to Susan Lindaur. (It's interesting to see "Webb" in the word string. It was in August, 1996, the same month of the "Markovian Parallax Denigrate," that Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" first appeared.) Deliberate misinformation, to suggest Lindauer was playing a double game, and to lay down some legend if she gave them cause to use it.

Psychotic, delusional, hallucinatory. But they were after her.

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/02/markovian-parallax-denigrate_18.html

Definitions:

MARKOVIAN
: of, relating to, or resembling a Markov process or Markov chain especially by having probabilities defined in terms of transition from the possible existing states to other states

PARALLAX
: the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object; especially : the angular difference in direction of a celestial body as measured from two points on the earth's orbit

DENIGRATE
1 : to cast aspersions on : DEFAME
2 : to deny the importance or validity of : BELITTLE

Hmmmmm. Veddy interesting.

---------

Here is a web page that has "Everything Susan P. Lindauer"
Bio, comments from co-workers, friends, neighbors...
Links to many articles on her arrest.

http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Susan_Lindauer_Case.htm

-----

Anonymous said...

The forced psychiatric treatment sounds a bit like the latest "Ludlum" thriller: The Ambler Warning.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312316712/sr=8-1/qid=1140288134/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5816968-7678236?%5Fencoding=UTF8

I haven't read it, but the whole premise of the government having a psychiatric warehouse for government employees & spies considered to be "beyond salvage" as a disconcerting ring of truth to it.

Richard J said...
The Susan Lindauer story is just one more that the mainstream media want nothing to do with.

What is frightening is that what is being done to her could happen to any of us, so that to be become paranoid is the only sane response.

So we need not seek to know for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for us.

Anonymous said...

Forced psychiatric treatment of people the government finds troublesome goes back at least to the days of the JFK assassination. See this link from Mae Brussels' archives:
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/vmmbletterhouseassass.htm
Abraham Bolden was an African American Secret Service man from Chicago who reported a plot on Kennedy's life. He was sent to a mental institution.

yesferatu said...
"the whole premise of the government having a psychiatric warehouse for government employees & spies considered to be "beyond salvage" as a disconcerting ring of truth to it."

The concept of such a premise made for a great 60's british TV show "The Prisoner" which is open to multiple interpretations...one being that it has a ring of truth to it.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/prisonerthe/prisonerthe.htm

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the post.

Here is where it gets really, really weird, at least for me: the newsgroup where everything was posted (alt.religion.christian.boston-church) is about a cult (The Boston Church of Christ) of which I was a part for 13+ years. This newsgroup, unfortunately, does not seem to be active right and is overrun by spurious spam of a religious nature.

The cult was led by a scumbag, named Kip McKean. The usual brainwashing, peer-pressure, and manipulation took place in the cult and resulted in the usual consequences: lots of people ended up with messed-up brains and messed-up lives (me included).

Now, here is where it gets super- duper- ultra creepy and totally relevant to the Rigorous Intuition meme...:

-1- Most of the 'leaders' of the Boston Church were recruited among the top US universities: MIT, Harvard, etc. (Elitism).
-2- Some of those leaders were accused of molesting children and/or teenagers in several different churches. (Ritual Abuse). Of course, these abuses were covered-up by the Church hierarchy, sometimes at great cost (Cover-up).
-3- In the Boston Church, the emphasis was often put on a Spiritual War, Religious Warfare, and being a Proud Soldier for God (Fascism).
-4- Kip McKean and his brother Randy McKean (also a leader) boasted several times that their father was a former Admiral, or, at least, a former very high-rank officer in the US Navy. (Armed forces link... CIA? NSA?). And, by the way, I have been trying to find a trace of this Admiral McKean for several years now... And it seems like either Kip McKean was lying about his father, or that whatever his father did for his country was deep-black, top secret stuff.
-5- Kip McKean and several other leaders of the Boston Church are rumored to have attended NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) seminars, in the Boston area, just before the Boston Church started its remarkable growth. (Manipulation, Brain Washing, etc.)
-6- The Boston Church (or ICOC as it was known) was also very aggressive in sending 'missions' into Middle-East countries. They had dozens of people who went there, and tried to 'convert' people into the cult, some even in very dangerous places... Like Iraq and Iran.

Etc... etc... I could go on and on for hours on this subject.

And... there you are, Jeff, posting about these weird messages, posted by someone who is conveniently locked up later in a psychiatric asylum.

Knowing what I know, I just can't believe this is a mere coincidence. It's just too weird -- talk about triggering and repressed memories. I feel like I am either going to go crazy, or that I am about to undergo a dramatic shift of perspective...

Posting this anonimously. For obvious reasons.

------

TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS -- FROM BEIRUT TO LOCKERBIE -- INSIDE THE DIA


by Donald Goddard with Lester K. Coleman
� 1993 by Donald Goddard and Lester Coleman

http://www.american-buddha.com/trail.abol.htm

[This message contained attachments]

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 11:46:14 -0500
From: "norgesen" <norgeson@hotmail.com>
Subject: Susan Lindauer: From 'Spy' to 'Psychotic'

Susan Lindauer: Psychotic, delusional, hallucinatory. But they were after her.
Her case has yet to come to trial. In fact, she's been judged unfit to stand trial. Today, "she is confined to a federal mental facility in Texas, perhaps never to get her day in court...She is being held past her scheduled release date, which had been sometime early this month, and, she tells friends, might be forcibly medicated as part of her treatment."

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/02/markovian-parallax-denigrate_18.html

------

From 'Spy' to Psychotic
The latest on the very strange story of former Seattle journalist Susan Lindauer.
By Rick Anderson

Susan Lindauer leaves the federal courthouse in New York on March 15, 2004.
Chris Hondros / Getty ImagesAlmost as instantly as she hit the global news cycle as a reputed U.S. traitor and alleged spy for Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, former Seattle newspaper journalist Susan Lindauer dropped off the radar. Once the headlines faded in 2004, the public might have assumed she was convicted and sent to prison. But for the moment, Susan Lindauer's strange story remains incomplete. She is confined to a federal mental facility in Texas, perhaps never to get her day in court, according to friends, officials, and public records. Mostly unnoticed, a New York federal judge has found her incompetent to stand trial and ordered further evaluation. She is being held past her scheduled release date, which had been sometime early this month, and, she tells friends, might be forcibly medicated as part of her treatment.

An ex�Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter and former U.S. Senate and House aide, Lindauer, 43, was charged in March 2004 with conspiring to act as a spy and being an unregistered Iraqi agent. U.S. prosecutors allege the antiwar activist accepted $10,000 from Hussein's intelligence unit over five years and sought to support resistance groups after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. She insisted her efforts�principally, to get economic sanctions lifted against Iraq�were misunderstood. She was not specifically charged with spying or espionage. The bigger question, however, was always her sanity. She had a history of mood swings and paranoid fears. People were watching her, she often said, although, as it turned out, federal agents indeed had set up surveillance and tapped her phone. Still, if she betrayed her country, did she do so knowingly?

She had a history of mood swings and paranoid fears. People were watching her, she often said, although, as it turned out, federal agents indeed had set up surveillance and tapped her phone. Still, if she betrayed her country, did she do so knowingly?Her mental illness is now official. Two court-appointed doctors determined, according to a ruling last fall by U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, "the defendant is suffering from psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, delusional disorder, hallucinatory phenomena, and mood disturbance that render her mentally incompetent to the extent that she does not understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her and is unable to assist properly in her defense at this time." Lindauer is undergoing observation to determine if she'll ever be able to defend herself in court, perhaps aided by antipsychotic drugs.

Friends say her mental state seems to have worsened during incarceration since October. "It's not clear when she's getting out now," says J.B. Fields, a federal employee with a low-level security clearance who rents a basement apartment from Lindauer at her Takoma Park, Md., home, and who talks with her regularly. "She has her good days and her bad days," he says, based on conversation when Lindauer calls from Texas. "On days when she gets emotional or scared, everybody's evil, you know."

In a letter written to her second cousin, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, two months after Sept. 11, 2001, Lindauer made no secret about her activism or her emotional mission to aid Iraqi citizens. The letter, a copy of which she gave to basement tenant Fields, is apparently one of at least two she sent or gave to Card in 2001 and 2003. The undisclosed second letter, mentioned in the indictment, is being used to prosecute her. In the first letter, written Dec. 2, 2001, Lindauer indicates she was working back channels of government and meeting with officials at the Iraqi embassy, which prosecutors say she in fact did. She wrote Card about conversations with Iraqi diplomats and extended an olive branch on behalf of Hussein's government�in hopes, she said, of getting U.S. economic sanctions lifted against Baghdad. "I am truly praying, Andy," she stated, "that this correspondence will trigger some sort of response from you, so that this ugly quagmire in Iraq can begin to heal. Iraq is hoping for a reply through formal channels, but I would be willing to carry any response as well." After his relative's arrest, Card would not say whether he might have sparked an investigation of the sometimes-journalist by turning over that or the other letter to the FBI. The FBI would say only that Card was interviewed as part of the probe.

Lindauer, known also to prosecutors by the unexplained alias of "Susan Symbol," got out on bail, secured by her Maryland home, in 2004. She was awaiting trial until last September, when Judge Mukasey, after reading the assessments of two psychiatrists, decided more thorough observation was needed. He ordered Lindauer to turn herself in on Oct. 3 at Carswell federal medical center in Fort Worth, which specializes in mental-health services for female offenders. Sanford Talkin, Lindauer's court-appointed New York attorney, says he can't discuss the ongoing case. However, his firm recently sent an e-mail "To the Concerned Friends of Susan Lindauer," stating: "Please be assured that our office is working very hard on Susan's behalf. We understand the frustration some of you have expressed with the length of time it has taken to resolve this matter. I promise you that the decision of whether to take this case to trial or not is entirely Susan's to make. If she wants her day in court, that is what she will have. Our office has expended thousands of hours in preparing Susan's defense. Every decision has been made with Susan's best interests in mind. Additionally, Susan's Uncle Ted, a lawyer himself, has been kept appraised of everything we have done, and continue to do, to defend Susan. We appreciate your concern and would suggest the best way to assist Susan would be to send her letters of support. This is a difficult time, and she could use encouraging words from her friends to help her get through it."

Bridget Kelly, a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia in New York, said they could not comment. Garcia's office did provide a copy of the Sept. 22, 2005, court order in which Mukasey directed Lindauer to surrender at Carswell or face rearrest. Unable to pay travel expenses, Lindauer was provided airfare from Baltimore to Fort Worth by the government. She was committed "for a reasonable period, not to exceed four months, to determine whether there is a substantial probability that in the foreseeable [future] she will attain the capacity to permit a trial," the order states.

"I got a call from her Feb. 4," says renter Fields. "They are talking about forcibly medicating her. She sees women around her, in Carswell, who can't hold their own silverware to eat because of medications, and she doesn't see how such treatments make anyone more fit for trial. Seems a lot like the way the Soviets used to treat dissidents." Lindauer told another friend she was being guarded like a terrorist at Carswell, and a relative of Lindauer who recently attempted to visit her was turned away, Fields says. He supports Lindauer but isn't convinced of either her guilt or innocence. "I wonder what she really did�what evidence there might be that I don't know about. But I sure would like to see due process observed."

Lindauer, who was raised in Alaska and graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts in 1985, went to work in 1987 as a reporter at the P-I, and in 1989 was an editorial writer at The Herald in Everett. She also worked as a writer and researcher at U.S. News & World Report and Fortune. Co-workers here remembered her in part for erratic behavior and mood swings. A Snohomish County merchant sought an antiharassment order against her because of quirky phone calls Lindauer allegedly made asking the merchant to "cast spells" on The Herald. She is the daughter of John Lindauer, a onetime newspaper publisher and former Republican nominee for governor of Alaska. In D.C., however, Susan Lindauer served only Democrats. She was an aide to Rep. Peter DeFazio and then-Rep. Ron Wyden, who is now a senator, both of Oregon, in 1993 and 1994. She also served as press secretary to now-ex-Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois for a few months in 1996, and in 2002 Lindauer worked two months for Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California. After Lindauer was arrested, congressional spokespersons described Lindauer as mostly a short-termer who handled no sensitive documents.

According to the federal indictment, covering the years 1999 through 2004, Lindauer met with members of Hussein's Iraqi intelligence service who were posted at the United Nations in New York. She returned from a 2002 trip to Iraq with $5,000 cash given her by Iraqi agents, the U.S. alleges. She later received another $5,000 and conspired to support Iraqi resistance with a man she thought was a Libyan intelligence agent�in reality, an FBI agent. In January 2003, prosecutors allege, Lindauer, as an unregistered foreign agent, delivered the second letter to the home of Card that apparently makes a case against invading Iraq, which happened two months later. The Justice Department characterized that letter as "an unsuccessful attempt to influence United States policy." News reports and Web sites revealed that in earlier years she had also written to Republican donors as well as to then-President-elect Bush. The Bush letter came off as either artless or illusionary. Lindauer boasted of her "regrettably extraordinary gift for counterterrorism" and claimed she had prevented assassination attempts on world leaders.

In contrast, the December 2001 letter from Lindauer to Card, a copy of which Fields has now posted on his personal Web site (jayspolitics.blogspot.com), seems rational. She said Iraqi leaders hoped to demonstrate their good faith to create a climate for talks with the U.S. and were willing to allow resumption of weapons inspections. They'd also cease firing on U.S. aircraft patrolling the No-Fly Zone and would cooperate "on terrorism issues per specific requests made by President Bush." The situation offered a potential foreign-policy victory for Bush, she wrote, noting "his praises would be sung wildly in the Arab Street." Iraq, she concluded, "has to accept its responsibilities, and I'm trying very hard to help achieve that goal, with the greatest hope that the regional insecurities and instabilities of the Middle East will become more diminished if my efforts succeed." Fields says, "It must have crushed her when Bush went to war" 15 months later.

Lindauer is in part accused of conspiring with Raed Al-Anbuke and Wisam Al-Anbuke, sons of a former Iraqi liaison to U.N. weapons inspectors. The Al-Anbukes, like her, are charged with failing to register as foreign agents or lobbyists. Lindauer said she was an activist, not a lobbyist. She had worked to get U.S. economic sanctions lifted against Libya as well as Iraq because of their effects on civilians, she claimed. Lindauer has long believed in the radical notion that Syrian agents, not the Libyan government, caused the terrorist airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 (though Libya has accepted responsibility). While working as an aide to Wyden in 1994, she gave a sworn deposition to the commission probing the bombing. She told investigators she was under "intense surveillance" at the time and that her house was bugged. She also claimed she'd "survived several assassination attempts."

Within 10 years, by 2004, she had allegedly become something of a spy, or, as the government nebulously defines it, worked in concert with others to "act" as one. If so, it was unconventional spycraft. She had disclosed her Iraqi connections directly to the White House through the letters to Card, she openly discussed some of her intentions with friends, and met in New York with Iraqi agents, presumably some of the more intensely surveilled operatives on U.S. soil. Her friend Fields suspects she saw herself more as diplomat than spy. "I admire her for having the courage of her convictions to try to put an end to the sanctions," he says. "Her philosophical approach was one that favored peaceful resolution, and [she] was horrified at the consequences that were befalling poor Iraqi citizens. When she is calm, I find that she is pretty factual."

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0607/lindauer.php

~~~

Lockerbie Trial Document: Susan Lindauer Deposition
4 December 1998

Last month, MEIB reported that Dr. Richard Fuisz, a major CIA operative in Syria during the 1980s, met with a congressional staffer by the name of Susan Lindauer in 1994 and told her that that the perpetrators of the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland were based in Syria [see "The Lockerbie Bombing Trial: Is Libya Being Framed?" Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, June 2000]. One month after their meeting, the Clinton administration, which holds Libya responsible for the bombing, placed a gag order on Dr. Fuisz to prevent him from publicly discussing the issue.

While Dr. Fuisz is still unable to comment on this matter because of the gag order, MEIB has obtained a copy of a formal deposition filed by Lindauer in 1998 in which she recounts this conversation in detail. This deposition (see below) has been submitted to the court in which two Libyan suspects are currently on trial and to U.N. officials, who have attempted to persuade the Clinton administration to lift the gag order on Dr. Fuisz.

Lindauer says that she has been subject to intense surveillance, threats, and attacks since she began meeting with Libyan officials in 1995 to discuss her knowledge of the Lockerbie bombing. "Someone put acid on the steering wheel of my car on a day I was supposed to drive to NYC for a meeting at the Libya House. I scrubbed my hands with a toilet brush, but my face was burned so badly that 3 weeks later friends worried I might be badly scarred," Lindauer told MEIB. "Also, my house was bugged with listening devices and cameras -- little red laser lights in the shower vent. And I survived several assassination attempts."

She has agreed to publish her email address, slndau@aol.com, along with this deposition so that journalists, researchers and others interested in learning more about this issue can contact her.

Text of Deposition

My name is Susan Lindauer. I reside in Silver Spring, Maryland, one of the suburbs outside the District of Columbia in the United States of America. At the time these events took place, I was living inside the District of Columbia, at 1002 C Street NE on Capitol Hill.
In offering this deposition, I hereby inform the court and all interested parties at the United Nations that I have never accepted any financial compensation from any of the individuals, or governments involved in this case, in any form of cash or non-cash payment. Furthermore, I have never solicited nor received promise of future payments in exchange for this testimony. My reasons for coming forward reflect my own deepest personal values, and my sense of obligation to the cause of international peace and security. I remain deeply persuaded that justice must never be confused with convenience or political scapegoating, and that the issues of this case, including the prosecution of terrorist activities and the imposition of sanctions that seek to isolate an entire Arabic population, are too important in this contemporary age for a lie to stand unchallenged. And so let it be understood by the court: I make these statements of my own free will, out of respect to my own conscience and sense of obligation as a world citizen.

This deposition pertains to my direct and immediate knowledge of an American named Dr. Richard Fuisz, and unequivocal statements by Dr. Fuisz directly to me that he has first hand knowledge about the Lockerbie case. Dr. Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr. Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of Pan Am 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever. He has also made direct statements to me describing harassment that he has suffered for trying to provide this information to the families of Pan Am 103 and prosecuting authorities in the United States government.

I first met Dr. Richard Fuisz in his business office in Chantilly, Virginia in the United States of America. The date was September,1994. I had been invited to meet Dr. Fuisz by a mutual acquaintance because of my position as press secretary to former Congressman Ron Wyden (a Democrat from Oregon), and because of my known longstanding interest in the Middle East. Wyden is now a United States Senator, and I have continued my career in TV journalism and public affairs. For the record, my relationship with Dr. Fuisz has remained purely professional, and based strictly on my respect for his integrity and incredible, indepth knowledge of the Middle East.

Dr. Fuisz told me in September, 1994 that he had lived in Syria during the 1980s, and that he maintained close ties to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East overall. Mutual friends and associates have confirmed this. He was vague as to what capacity he was working, but after our conversation, I concluded by myself that he must have been feeding U.S. intelligence efforts. He told me that he had infiltrated a network of Syrian terrorists tied to the Iranian Hezbollah, who, at the time of his residence in Damascus, were holding Americans hostage in Beirut. Dr. Fuisz impressed on me that he had identified the organizers behind the hostage crisis, and that he had actually located the streets and buildings where those Americans were being held captive, at tremendous personal risk, in order to try to orchestrate a rescue. This information was later confirmed by a third party source.

We talked a great deal about how the sale of heroin/opium from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon is financing terrorist activities on a global scale. I must add, the rise of heroin in street markets all over the U.S. is a most insidious trend with enormous human costs, which has further motivated my determination to stay involved in this question of Pan Am 103. (The bombing of Pan Am 103 was intended to strike drug enforcement agents of the United States, in reprisal for their aggressive efforts.)

As further evidence of his deep infiltration of terrorist circles, occasionally Dr. Fuisz pointed to photographs on his wall that showed individuals engaged in social activities at private homes. He said they were some of the "most famous terrorists in the Middle East," to use his words. Obliquely he told me they might be household names in the United States.

Dr. Fuisz asked for my help as a congressional staffer because he said he had a problem. After testifying before a congressional committee about an American company that supplied Iraq with SCUD mobile missile launchers, he complained of being seriously harassed in lawsuits and by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Efforts by his attorneys to stop this harassment had been answered with warnings from the highest levels that he should never have talked about U.S. arms supplies to Iraq, and that he should stop trying to contact families tied to Pan Am 103.

In fact, this was the context for how the Pan Am bombing came up in our conversation. He said to me, gosh, [note to MEIB: he used much stronger language and profanities that I did not think would be appropriate for a deposition] I could be providing so much more information about Middle Eastern terrorists, except the United States government doesn't want anybody talking about Syria. Then he jumped into the Lockerbie case by way of example of unsolved bombing cases that he said has the immediate capability to resolve. He complained that he was getting shafted for trying to assist a cause that American leaders profess to care very much about. In essence, he insisted the messenger was getting shot for delivering the message.

Dr. Fuisz made it very clear that he knows a great deal of insider knowledge about this case. Because of his Syrian ties, he told me he "was first on the ground in the investigation," to use his words. At one point, I said to him, "Oh yeah, everybody knows Syria did it, and the U.S. repaid them for supporting us during the Iraqi War by shifting the blame to Libya."

Immediately he cut me off.

"Susan � Do you understand the difference between a primary source and a secondary source? Those people in Virginia are analysts. They're reading reports from the field, but they don't have first-hand contact with events as they're happening on the ground. Or first hand knowledge about what's taking place. So they don't actually know it, even if they think they do."

"I know it, Susan. I know it. That's the difference. Because of my Syria contacts, I was the first on the ground in the investigation. I was there. They're reading my reports." (His emphasis. Then he laughed sarcastically.) "In this case, they're reading them and destroying them." (And he threw up his hands.)

He continued on:

"Susan, if the (United States) government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack today. I could do it right now. You want a police line up? I could go into any crowded restaurant of 200 people, and pick out these men."

"I can identify them by face, by name." He started gesticulating, and counting off on his fingers. "I can tell you the address where they work, and what time they arrive at their office in the morning. I can tell you what time they go to lunch, what kind of restaurants they go to, and what time they leave their offices to go home for the day. I can tell you their home addresses, the names of their wives if they're married, the names and ages of all their children. I can tell you about their girlfriends. I can even tell you what type of prostitutes they like."

"And you know what, Susan? You won't find this restaurant anywhere in Libya. No, you will only find this restaurant in Damascus. I didn't get that from any report, Susan." Dr. Fuisz started shaking his head. "I got it because I was investigating on the ground, and I know. Do you understand what I'm saying to you now? I know!"

To which I answered. "For God's sakes tell me, and I'll get my boss to protect you."

Then he got really mad. "No, no � It's so crazy. I'm not even allowed to tell you, and you're a congressional staffer." Then he repeated his story about the Terex lawsuit against both him and New York Times reporter Seymour Hirsch, (the famous Pulitzer Prize winner), whose only crime was reporting Dr. Fuisz testimony at the congressional hearing.

This was how I learned that Dr. Fuisz is covered by the Secrets Act, which severely restricts his ability to communicate information about Pan Am 103. Though he says freely that he knows first hand that Libya was not involved in any capacity whatsoever, it's my understanding that he can provide no further details regarding his part in the investigation, or details identifying the true criminals in this case.

This is tragic on two accounts. First, the accused Libyans are effectively denied the right to a fair trial where they might bring forth witnesses in their own defense, which could immediately exonerate them of all charges. And secondly, the families are denied the ability to close this terrible wound, and experience the healing that would be gained from discovering the complete truth and facts surrounding this case.

On both accounts, I cannot be silent. I suspect my disclosure will grieve the families with the horrible revelation that U.S. government officials have behaved so cynically and despicably as to withhold evidence in this case. And yet such a cynical and desperate act must be condemned by civilized society. I dare say Libya is entitled to financial compensation for the economic harassment her people have endured because of these blatantly false accusations, and the deliberate efforts to mislead potential judges, and victimize potential witnesses by a policy of aggressive harassment and punishment for speaking out. Meanwhile, the true culprits have literally gotten away with murder.

For shame on all of you!

This ends my deposition.

Signed this 4th Day of December, 1998 In the presence of a notary public.

(Lindauer's signature and the crest of the notary stamp)

http://www.meib.org/articles/0007_me2.htm

~~~

The Spy-cific Northwest
Journalists, sailor, diplomat�spies. Why is Washington so spooky?
By Rick Anderson

The media horde spies Susan Lindauer in New York after a court appearance last week.
Chris Hondros / Getty ImagesWashington State might have cornered the market on salmon, jetliners, and geoducks, but the region's most remarkable export may be its crop of spooks. The March 11 indictment of former Seattle journalist Susan Lindauer brings the count to at least a dozen Washingtonians charged with espionage in the past half-century. They trafficked in secrets to and from the United States, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, and Vietnam. One tried to supply arms to Libya. Most are from small towns, several went to the University of Washington, and one is still out in the cold. With Lindauer's arrest, the state has also added the apparently unique distinction of having an accused or convicted international spy from each of its two biggest newspapers. Besides Lindauer, a onetime Seattle Post- Intelligencer reporter charged as an agent for Iraq, Ron Humphrey, a cub sportswriter at The Seattle Times, was one of only two captured Vietnam-era spies and spent 15 years in prison.

Newcomer Lindauer, 41, was out on bail last week, accused of conspiring with the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 2002. She was arrested following a sting operation in which an FBI undercover agent posed as a terrorist recruiter. Federal prosecutors claim she accepted $10,000 from Saddam Hussein's government and plotted to aid resistance groups. Lindauer told New York reporters she had merely tried to arrange a meeting between the FBI and an Iraqi official that would shed light on the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. "Iraq agreed to do that interview. President Bush refused to send the FBI. And here I am today," she said. Lindauer was employed at Fortune, U.S. News & World Report, and The Herald of Everett as an editorial writer before working for several members of Congress, including Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat.

The P-I, where Lindauer worked in 1987, reports that former co-workers remember her not for her writing but for mood swings and erratic behavior. It turns out that after leaving the paper she claimed to have met with a CIA operative who told her secrets about another terror investigation, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. She said the operative informed her in 1994, when she worked as press secretary for then-Rep. Wyden, that Syrians, not Libyans, were responsible for the 1988 bombing of the Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that left 270 dead. She outlined the conversation in a notarized deposition dated 1998. The operative, Lindauer claimed, told her that "no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of Pan Am 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever." Her source claimed to know where to find the bombers, and when she told him, "For God's sakes, tell me [where], and I'll get my boss to protect you," he refused. (In February 2004, Libya officially accepted responsibility for the bombing.) Lindauer said she met with Libyan officials in 1995 to determine the truth but was subjected to surveillance, threats, and attacks. "Someone put acid on the steering wheel of my car . . . ," Lindauer said in the deposition. "Also, my house was bugged with listening devices and cameras�little red laser lights in the shower vent. And I survived several assassination attempts."

Case closed? Well, remember the spy charges have yet to be proved. And consider that former Fort Lewis Army chaplain James Yee, who in 2003 faced possible charges of mutiny, sedition, and espionage at the Navy prison at Guant�namo Bay, wound up facing only accusations of adultery and mishandling classified materials�and now has had all charges dropped.

And if Lindauer's case sounds strange, that's in keeping with the state's oddball spy lore. Ron Humphrey, a onetime UW journalism major, worked as a budding sportswriter covering a Times youth football-promotion contest called Old Ossie before his arrest as a communications officer with the State Department. In the late 1970s, he began passing consular cable traffic to a friend who ran a Vietnamese diplomatic center in the District of Columbia. Humphrey thought the cables were low-level chitchat and could aid American-Vietnamese postwar relations. But the cables ended up in Communist hands. Prosecutors didn't consider Humphrey a dangerous man, but a secret was a secret. He was 46 in 1982 when his appeals ran out and he was imprisoned. I wrote about his case some years back and he sent a note from the federal pen in Danbury, Conn. He fondly recalled his tenure at the Times. "After watching the young hoodlums to see that they didn't make off with our footballs when our backs were turned," he said, "I would trudge back to ye olde Sports Department and try to write a story about the contest winner that was different from the day before, the day before that, and the day before that." He recalled also that Charles Colson, the former Nixon aide and Watergate co-conspirator, visited him in jail during his D.C. trial. "He told me, `When I was in the White House, we did to others what was done to you. Only we were the ones who went to jail.'" Humphrey was released in the late 1990s and would now be around 68. I couldn't locate him last week.

Our other spies are all nonjournalists but with similarly weird stories. They include:

�William H. Martin, then 29, a UW student from Ellensburg who joined the National Security Agency as a cryptologist and defected in 1960 to the Soviet Union. He did so, he said, because the Soviets encouraged "the talents of women." U.S. officials claimed Martin and a fellow defector were homosexuals and the other defector had once admitted to having sex with animals. Martin has not been heard from in 40 years.

�Harold Nicholson, a longtime CIA agent, who was indicted in 1996 for supplying classified documents and agent identities to the Russians. Then 46, Nicholson was allegedly motivated by a need for money after a divorce from his wife in Shelton, which left him with $6,000 in bills and $1,000 in monthly alimony. His mother called him a loyal American. He pleaded guilty to spying and was sentenced to 23 years.

�Edwin P. Wilson, now 73, the onetime Seattle merchant mariner who became a CIA agent and used his espionage contacts to launch a lucrative black-market arms dealership. In 1983, he was sentenced to 52 years, and though his conviction was amazingly reversed last fall because the government used false testimony against him, he remains in federal prison (see Buzz, Nov. 5, 2003). Wilson's story is detailed in Peter Maas' book Manhunt.

�Christopher Boyce, then 22, convicted in 1977 with Andrew Dalton Lee for passing defense secrets to the Russians (subject of the book and movie The Falcon and the Snowman). Though he's Californian, I include him in our local lore because he escaped from prison and hid out for months across the street from my mother-in-law's home on the Washington coast, dropping in for coffee. She didn't know who he was until his 1982 recapture, an event that led to one of the most memor�able lines in spydom: Surrounded by feds at a drive-in eatery in Port Angeles, Boyce quickly surrendered when a U.S. marshal snuck up and, at gunpoint, commanded: "Drop that cheeseburger!"

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0412/040324_news_spies.php

~~~

TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS -- FROM BEIRUT TO LOCKERBIE -- INSIDE THE DIA

http://www.american-buddha.com/oct.31.jpg

http://www.american-buddha.com/trail.abol.htm

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