[Mb-civic] Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'

[Hawaiipolo at cs.com]

Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs' 
By Nat Parry 
Consortium News 

Tuesday 21 February 2006 

Not that George W. Bush needs much encouragement, but Sen. Lindsey Graham 
suggested to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a new target for the 
administration's domestic operations - Fifth Columnists, supposedly disloyal Americans who 
sympathize and collaborate with the enemy. 

"The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to 
pursue Fifth Column movements," Graham, R-S.C., told Gonzales during Senate 
Judiciary Committee hearings on Feb. 6. 

"I stand by this President's ability, inherent to being Commander in Chief, 
to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think you need a warrant 
to do that," Graham added, volunteering to work with the administration to 
draft guidelines for how best to neutralize this alleged threat. 

"Senator," a smiling Gonzales responded, "the President already said we'd be 
happy to listen to your ideas." 

In less paranoid times, Graham's comments might be viewed by many Americans 
as a Republican trying to have it both ways - ingratiating himself to an 
administration of his own party while seeking some credit from Washington centrists 
for suggesting Congress should have at least a tiny say in how Bush runs the 
War on Terror. 

But recent developments suggest that the Bush administration may already be 
contemplating what to do with Americans who are deemed insufficiently loyal or 
who disseminate information that may be considered helpful to the enemy. 

Top US officials have cited the need to challenge news that undercuts Bush's 
actions as a key front in defeating the terrorists, who are aided by "news 
informers" in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 

Detention Centers 

Plus, there was that curious development in January when the Army Corps of 
Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown &Root a $385 million 
contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal 
with "an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to support the rapid 
development of new programs," KBR said. [Market Watch, Jan. 26, 2006] 

Later, the New York Times reported that "KBR would build the centers for the 
Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house 
people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require 
additional detention space." [Feb. 4, 2006] 

Like most news stories on the KBR contract, the Times focused on concerns 
about Halliburton's reputation for bilking US taxpayers by overcharging for 
sub-par services. 

"It's hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust 
Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars," remarked Rep. Henry Waxman, 
D-California. 

Less attention centered on the phrase "rapid development of new programs" and 
what kind of programs would require a major expansion of detention centers, 
each capable of holding 5,000 people. Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to elaborate on what these "new 
programs" might be. 

Only a few independent journalists, such as Peter Dale Scott and Maureen 
Farrell, have pursued what the Bush administration might actually be thinking. 

Scott speculated that the "detention centers could be used to detain American 
citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law." He recalled 
that during the Reagan administration, National Security Council aide Oliver 
North organized Rex-84 "readiness exercise," which contemplated the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency rounding up and detaining 400,000 "refugees," in the 
event of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the 
United States. 

Farrell pointed out that because "another terror attack is all but certain, 
it seems far more likely that the centers would be used for post-911-type 
detentions of immigrants rather than a sudden deluge" of immigrants flooding across 
the border. 

Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said, "Almost certainly this is 
preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and 
possibly dissenters. They've already done this on a smaller scale, with the 
'special registration' detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with 
Guantanamo." 

Labor Camps 

There also was another little-noticed item posted at the US Army Web site, 
about the Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This program "provides Army 
policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and 
civilian prison camps on Army installations." 

The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid action revision" 
on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a "template for developing 
agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate 
labor on Army installations. 

On its face, the Army's labor program refers to inmates housed in federal, 
state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal laws that govern the 
use of civilian labor and provide for the establishment of prison camps in the 
United States, including a federal statute that authorizes the Attorney 
General to "establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him" and 
"make available ... the services of United States prisoners" to various 
government departments, including the Department of Defense. 

Though the timing of the document's posting - within the past few weeks - may 
just be a coincidence, the reference to a "rapid action revision" and the KBR 
contract's contemplation of "rapid development of new programs" have raised 
eyebrows about why this sudden need for urgency. 

These developments also are drawing more attention now because of earlier 
Bush administration policies to involve the Pentagon in "counter-terrorism" 
operations inside the United States. 

Pentagon Surveillance 

Despite the Posse Comitatus Act's prohibitions against US military personnel 
engaging in domestic law enforcement, the Pentagon has expanded its operations 
beyond previous boundaries, such as its role in domestic surveillance 
activities. 

The Washington Post has reported that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror 
attacks, the Defense Department has been creating new agencies that gather and 
analyze intelligence within the United States. [Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2005] 

The White House also is moving to expand the power of the Pentagon's 
Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), created three years ago to consolidate 
counterintelligence operations. The White House proposal would transform CIFA into 
an office that has authority to investigate crimes such as treason, terrorist 
sabotage or economic espionage. 

The Pentagon also has pushed legislation in Congress that would create an 
intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share 
information about US citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence 
agencies. But some in the Pentagon don't seem to think that new laws are even 
necessary. 

In a 2001 Defense Department memo that surfaced in January 2006, the US 
Army's top intelligence officer wrote, "Contrary to popular belief, there is no 
absolute ban on [military] intelligence components collecting US person 
information." 

Drawing a distinction between "collecting" information and "receiving" 
information on US citizens, the memo argued that "MI [military intelligence] may 
receive information from anyone, anytime." [See CQ.com, Jan. 31, 2005] 

This receipt of information presumably would include data from the National 
Security Agency, which has been engaging in surveillance of US citizens without 
court-approved warrants in apparent violation of the Foreign Intelligence 
Security Act. Bush approved the program of warrantless wiretaps shortly after 
9/11. 

There also may be an even more extensive surveillance program. Former NSA 
employee Russell D. Tice told a congressional committee on Feb. 14 that such a 
top-secret surveillance program existed, but he said he couldn't discuss the 
details without breaking classification laws. 

Tice added that the "special access" surveillance program may be violating 
the constitutional rights of millions of Americans. [UPI, Feb. 14, 2006] 

With this expanded surveillance, the government's list of terrorist suspects 
is rapidly swelling. 

The Washington Post reported on Feb. 15 that the National Counterterrorism 
Center's central repository now holds the names of 325,000 terrorist suspects, a 
four-fold increase since the fall of 2003. 

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA's 
domestic surveillance program, an NCTC official told the Post, "Our database 
includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all 
intelligence community organizations, including NSA." 

Homeland Defense 

As the administration scoops up more and more names, members of Congress also 
have questioned the elasticity of Bush's definitions for words like terrorist 
"affiliates," used to justify wiretapping Americans allegedly in contact with 
such people or entities. 

During the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on the wiretap program, Sen. 
Dianne Feinstein, D-California, complained that the House and Senate 
Intelligence Committees "have not been briefed on the scope and nature of the program." 


Feinstein added that, therefore, the committees "have not been able to 
explore what is a link or an affiliate to al-Qaeda or what minimization procedures 
(for purging the names of innocent people) are in place." 

The combination of the Bush administration's expansive reading of its own 
power and its insistence on extraordinary secrecy has raised the alarm of civil 
libertarians when contemplating how far the Pentagon might go in involving 
itself in domestic matters. 

A Defense Department document, entitled the "Strategy for Homeland Defense 
and Civil Support," has set out a military strategy against terrorism that 
envisions an "active, layered defense" both inside and outside US territory. In the 
document, the Pentagon pledges to "transform US military forces to execute 
homeland defense missions in the ... US homeland." 

The Pentagon strategy paper calls for increased military reconnaissance and 
surveillance to "defeat potential challengers before they threaten the United 
States." The plan "maximizes threat awareness and seizes the initiative from 
those who would harm us." 

But there are concerns over how the Pentagon judges "threats" and who falls 
under the category "those who would harm us." A Pentagon official said the 
Counterintelligence Field Activity's TALON program has amassed files on antiwar 
protesters. 

In December 2005, NBC News revealed the existence of a secret 400-page 
Pentagon document listing 1,500 "suspicious incidents" over a 10-month period, 
including dozens of small antiwar demonstrations that were classified as a 
"threat." 

The Defense Department also might be moving toward legitimizing the use of 
propaganda domestically, as part of its overall war strategy. 

A secret Pentagon "Information Operations Roadmap," approved by Rumsfeld in 
October 2003, calls for "full spectrum" information operations and notes that 
"information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and 
PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa." 

"PSYOPS messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger 
audiences, including the American public," the document states. The Pentagon 
argues, however, that "the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences 
becomes more a question of USG [US government] intent rather than information 
dissemination practices." 

It calls for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news 
media at home, but does not outline any corresponding limits on PSYOP 
campaigns. 

Similar to the distinction the Pentagon draws between "collecting" and 
"receiving" intelligence on US citizens, the Information Operations Roadmap argues 
that as long as the American public is not intentionally "targeted," any PSYOP 
propaganda consumed by the American public is acceptable. 

The Pentagon plan also includes a strategy for taking over the Internet and 
controlling the flow of information, viewing the Web as a potential military 
adversary. The "roadmap" speaks of "fighting the net," and implies that the 
Internet is the equivalent of "an enemy weapons system." 

In a speech on Feb. 17 to the Council on Foreign Relations, Rumsfeld 
elaborated on the administration's perception that the battle over information would 
be a crucial front in the War on Terror, or as Rumsfeld calls it, the Long War. 


"Let there be no doubt, the longer it takes to put a strategic communication 
framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be 
filled by the enemy and by news informers that most assuredly will not paint an 
accurate picture of what is actually taking place," Rumsfeld said. 

The Department of Homeland Security also has demonstrated a tendency to 
deploy military operatives to deal with domestic crises. 

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the department dispatched "heavily armed 
paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for 
their work in Iraq, (and had them) openly patrolling the streets of New 
Orleans," reported journalists Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo on Sept. 10, 2005. 


Noting the reputation of the Blackwater mercenaries as "some of the most 
feared professional killers in the world," Scahill and Crespo said Blackwater's 
presence in New Orleans "raises alarming questions about why the government 
would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan 
to operate here." 

US Battlefield 

In the view of some civil libertarians, a form of martial law already exists 
in the United States and has been in place since shortly after the 9/11 
attacks when Bush issued Military Order No. 1 which empowered him to detain any 
non-citizen as an international terrorist or enemy combatant. 

"The President decided that he was no longer running the country as a 
civilian President," wrote civil rights attorney Michael Ratner in the book 
Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. "He issued a military order giving himself the 
power to run the country as a general." 

For any American citizen suspected of collaborating with terrorists, Bush 
also revealed what's in store. In May 2002, the FBI arrested US citizen Jose 
Padilla in Chicago on suspicion that he might be an al-Qaeda operative planning an 
attack. 

Rather than bring criminal charges, Bush designated Padilla an "enemy 
combatant" and had him imprisoned indefinitely without benefit of due process. After 
three years, the administration finally brought charges against Padilla, in 
order to avoid a Supreme Court showdown the White House might have lost. 

But since the Court was not able to rule on the Padilla case, the 
administration's arguments have not been formally repudiated. Indeed, despite filing 
charges against Padilla, the White House still asserts the right to detain US 
citizens without charges as enemy combatants. 

This claimed authority is based on the assertion that the United States is at 
war and the American homeland is part of the battlefield. 

"In the war against terrorists of global reach, as the Nation learned all too 
well on Sept. 11, 2001, the territory of the United States is part of the 
battlefield," Bush's lawyers argued in briefs to the federal courts. [Washington 
Post, July 19, 2005] 

Given Bush's now open assertions that he is using his "plenary" - or 
unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the indefinite War on 
Terror, Americans can no longer trust that their constitutional rights protect 
them from government actions. 

As former Vice President Al Gore asked after recounting a litany of sweeping 
powers that Bush has asserted to fight the War on Terror, "Can it be true that 
any President really has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is 
'yes,' then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any 
acts that can on their face be prohibited?" 

In such extraordinary circumstances, the American people might legitimately 
ask exactly what the Bush administration means by the "rapid development of new 
programs," which might require the construction of a new network of detention 
camps. 

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