another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Aug 05, 2013 12:20 am

see link for full story

http://www.knoxfocus.com/2013/08/a-tale ... ar-hoover/

A Tale of Tennessee and the FBI: Senator K. D. McKellar and J. Edgar Hoover

From the author’s personal collection.
Senator K. D. McKellar speaking during a Senate committee meeting.

By Ray Hill August 5 2013
Francis Biddle, was Attorney General of the United States under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and noted Tennessee’s Senator Kenneth D. McKellar could be “obstinate” and “vindictive”, but was careful to note McKellar was “shrewd”. Biddle also added that McKellar “never forgot”. It was McKellar’s long memory that caused the Tennessean to bedevil the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover.

The Democrats came back to power in 1933 with the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt after twelve long years of Republican rule. McKellar’s office was inundated with requests from thousands of Tennesseans looking for work. Senator McKellar kept an eye out for his constituents with every Federal agency and McKellar contacted Hoover about the desire of a few Tennesseans who wished to become special agents for the FBI. The imperious Director ignored McKellar, causing the senator to go over his head and contact Hoover’s nominal boss, the Attorney General. When Hoover found out about McKellar complaining to the Attorney General, he retaliated by firing three FBI special agents in Tennessee not a week later.

Considering that Kenneth McKellar was the ranking member of the Senate’s powerful Appropriations Committee, Hoover’s act of vengeance was both arrogant and foolish. McKellar was also the Chairman of the Appropriation Committee’s Justice subcommittee, which oversaw Hoover’s own budget. McKellar had been in the Senate since 1917 and was one of the more senior Democrats in that body. Profoundly angered by Hoover’s insult, McKellar waited for the FBI Director to come to Congress, as he must, for funds.

The confrontation between Senator McKellar and J. Edgar Hoover has been well documented and has even been recognized in modern film. The Tennessean managed to mortally embarrass the ultra-sensitive Hoover so badly it chaffed the FBI Director for decades to come. Both Dillinger with Johnny Depp and the remarkable J. Edgar, a film by Clint Eastwood, have scenes with Senator McKellar clashing with Hoover. Oddly, both actors chosen to portray Senator McKellar have moustaches, an affectation McKellar never wore on his lip.

Congress had previously passed a slew of crime bills, but had not included enough money to cover the cost of implementation. J. Edgar Hoover came to Capitol Hill to ask for quite nearly twice his earlier budget appropriation. Waiting for him was Tennessee’s senior United States Senator.

Armed with an array of graphs, charts and statistics, Hoover doubtless felt himself well prepared for the questioning to come from the Senate Appropriations Committee members. Hoover proudly rattled off his statistics; bank robberies, which had been almost commonplace earlier, were significantly down. Kidnappings (the most famous of which was perhaps the abduction of the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindberg) had been reduced. “Ma” Barker was dead, as were “Baby Face” Nelson and John Dillinger.

Senator McKellar began his questioning of Hoover after the Director finished his presentation outlining the FBI’s need for more money.

McKellar rather innocuously wondered if the FBI used any of its budget on advertising and the Director replied it did not. Senator McKellar noted the number of movies being released by Hollywood depicting the workings of the FBI, which he claimed widely advertised the agency and its methods. During the 1930s there were a plethora of movie studios and modern day readers will remember, television was years away from becoming a popular form of entertainment. At that time, the primary forms of entertainment for Americans was either the movies or radio. Fortunately for Hoover, Senator McKellar did not probe into the agency’s ties to some radio programs, as the producer of one such program proudly boasted the stories were lifted directly from the FBI’s own files. Hoover said the FBI objected to much of the material used by the Hollywood studios as it related to the agency and had duly registered its protests.

What Hoover did not mention to the subcommittee members was he was keenly aware of the power of modern media and how it affected the FBI’s reputation and effectiveness. Hoover had even entertained the notion of the FBI making its own movies for public consumption.

McKellar asked Hoover if the FBI employed any professional writers, which the Director denied. The two continued to verbally spar throughout the hearing and McKellar infuriated Director Hoover by pointing out the FBI had on more than one occasion claimed credit for arrests made by other law enforcement agencies. Senator McKellar told the red-faced Hoover, “It seems to me that your Department is just running wild, Mr. Hoover.” McKellar went on to say he considered Hoover’s request for more money “extravagant”.

The angry Hoover interjected, “Will you let me make a statement?”

Senator McKellar snapped, “I think that is the statement.”

One sympathetic senator tried to help Hoover during the course of the hearing. Missouri’s Harry Truman tried to steer the conversation away from McKellar’s pointed questioning. Ironically, Truman would later come to dislike J. Edgar Hoover intensely.

Comfortable with his well-prepared statistics, Hoover fielded Senator Truman’s questions easily. Positively relentless when provoked, McKellar was not done and was soon again on the attack. The Tennessean wanted to know, “How many people have been killed by your Department since you have been allowed to have guns?”

Hoover, describing the dead as “desperadoes”, replied that eight people had been killed since the FBI agents were allowed the use of firearms. Hoover also mentioned four FBI agents had been killed in the line of duty.

Senator McKellar snorted, “In other words the net effect of turning guns over to your department has been the killing of eight desperadoes and four G-men.”

Hoover tried to stress FBI agents were under the strictest of orders to make every effort to take any suspect alive. The FBI Director explained agents were only to use their weapons in self-defense or if absolutely necessary.

Senator McKellar dismissed Hoover’s statement, saying, “I doubt very much whether you ought to have a law that permits you to go around the country armed as an army would, and shoot down all the people you suspect of being criminals, or such that you suspect of having guns, and having your own men shot down.”

McKellar went on to tell the enraged and astonished FBI Director that it was not his fault the statutes enabling FBI agents to shoot down an unsuspecting populace were on the law books; rather it was the fault of the Congress who had enacted the laws. McKellar told Hoover even if a man was a murderer, the FBI agents did not have the right to kill him, causing the FBI Director to cry, “Even if he pulls a gun on you?”

Senator McKellar serenely replied that was a matter for the courts. Senator Truman wanted to know just how McKellar would catch them “If they commenced shooting at you?” The Tennessean was forced to reluctantly concede there might be instances where it was necessary for the FBI agents to use their weapons.

McKellar went on with his questioning, quietly asking Hoover what his qualifications were to serve as Director of the FBI. Hoover replied he had been employed by the Department of Justice for nineteen years and had been the FBI Director for twelve years. Senator McKellar retorted he meant had Hoover attended any sort of “crime school”? Hoover, starting to squirm, mentioned he had initiated just such a training program inside the FBI, causing Senator McKellar to scathingly say, “So whatever you know about it you learned there in the Department?”

Hoover replied that was true and described it as “first-hand” experience.

It was then that Senator McKellar asked the question that was to eat at Hoover until his death in 1972.

“Did you ever make an arrest?” McKellar wondered.

Hoover weakly replied he had.”

Senator McKellar refused to allow Hoover to wriggle off the hook, persisting by asking, “How many arrests have you made and who were they?”

J. Edgar Hoover answered the question by citing his investigations in a few cases, but Senator McKellar demanded, “Did you make the arrests?” Hoover said the arrests were made by officers who were “under my supervision”.

Senator McKellar thundered, “I am talking about the actual arrests.” Pressing his point, McKellar asked, “You never arrested them actually?”

Hoover lamely mentioned the FBI had not even had the authority to make arrests until two years before the 1936 hearing. Yet it did not erase the pubic perception that came from the hearing; the famed Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the top “G-Man” in the country had never even made a single arrest in his career.

It was a devastating admission for Hoover to make and one that made him appear at least vaguely cowardly. Years later, Hoover would confess McKellar’s forced admission had felt as if his manhood had been questioned. Following his confrontation with Senator McKellar, the outraged Director gave instructions to be notified the moment agents located the whereabouts of notorious bank robber and criminal Alvin Karpis.

When told that Karpis had been found in New Orleans, Hoover chartered a plane to fly him to the Big Easy where he personally arrested Karpis.

McKellar pressed the Senate to reduce the appropriation for the FBI, but the full Senate disagreed and gave Hoover the amount he had requested.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Aug 07, 2013 1:35 am

The man behind the Mumbai Terrorist attacks was David Headley.
Mr Headley also happens to be a DEA and FBI informant.

The man behind the 1993 1st World Trade Center bombing was FBI informant
Amad Salem. His FBI handlers were agents Anticev and Floyd.

The man behind the Oklahoma City bombing was FBI informant Timothy "Lee Harvey "McVeigh.
His FBI handler has been identified as FBI supervisor Larry Potts.





see link for full story
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/a ... llance-dea
US drug agency surveillance unit to be investigated by Department of Justice

Civil rights groups express concern after revelations that secret unit uses wiretaps and telephone records to arrest Americans
Tuesday 6 August 2013 16.29 EDT

The US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into revelations that the Drug Enforcement Agency uses surveillance tactics – including wiretapping and massive databases of telephone records – to arrest Americans, amid growing concerns from lawyers and civil rights groups over its lack of transparency.

Reuters on Monday detailed how the Special Operative Division – a unit within the DEA comprising representatives of two dozen agencies including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security – passes tips from wiretaps, informants and a database of telephone records to field agents to investigate and arrest criminals. Reuters reports that, although such cases rarely involve national security issues, the DEA agents using the tips are trained to "recreate" the source of the criminal investigation to conceal its true origin from defence lawyers, prosecutors and judges.

The revelations, which follow the Guardian's recent disclosures of the National Security Agency's wholescale collection of US phone data, have raised concerns among judges, prosecutors and civil rights lawyers over a lack of transparency. Many said the SOD practice violates a defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial.

James Felman, vice-chair of criminal justice at the American Bar Association, said the DEA story "connects the dots" over the government's potential abuse of phone records collected by the NSA.

Felman, an attorney in Tampa, said: "By the sound of it, this is a routine practice of using masses of information on Americans, in an erosion of constitutional protections of our citizens. This is clear evidence of things that people have been saying they are not doing. Collecting data on ordinary citizens and then concealing it officially. It is indefensible."

"I don't think that most people would believe that our government would be using these measures and using this excuse when they want to investigate heavy offences," he said. "What is upsetting is that it appears to be policy and practice to consensually conceal information that should be disclosed."

While the NSA data collection is aimed at thwarting terrorists, the SOD programme is focused on criminals such as drug dealers and money launderers.

One former federal agent who received tips from the SOD described the process to Reuters. He told how he would instruct state police to find an excuse to stop a certain vehicle on which they had information, and then have drug dogs search it. After an arrest was made, agents would then pretend that the investigation began as a result of the traffic stop, and not because of the information the SOD had passed on.

A training document quoted by Reuters described the practice whereby agents would "recreate" the source of the investigation, as "parallel construction". A dozen current or former federal agents interviewed by Reuters confirmed they had relied on parallel construction.

Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011, described the practice of "parallel construction" as "a fancy word for phonying up the course of the investigation". It was one thing, she said, to create special rules for national security, but creating rules for ordinary crime threatened to undermine the bill of rights, set up as a check against the power of the executive.

"The best way to describe it is the government is saying 'trust us'," said Gertner. "The bill of rights is clear that we don't."

Gertner said that defence attorneys had a right to know and examine the source of the information against their clients.

"Even if a judge approved a wiretap, it doesn't mean there wasn't exculpatory or tainted evidence," she said. "If the judge does not know the genesis of the information there cannot be judicial review. When the DEA is concealing what the source of the information is and pretending it came from one place rather than another, there can be no judicial review."

Gertner and other legal experts said that there was no need to conceal such information in court, as there are already procedures by which judges can examine sensitive information in private to determine whether it is relevant.

The implications for existing cases, Gertner said, were difficult to assess.
"There needs to be an investigation and disclosure about the extent to which this information was used in previous investigations."

Civil rights campaigners said the latest revelations about surveillance programmes were an indictment of how easily the NSA data collection can be abused.

Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's criminal law reform project, said: "With the uncovering of this massive surveillance programme, the government are reassuring people that they are very selective, that they are not using it on ordinary citizens.

"The opposite case is one of our concerns.

"What you have here is the DEA tapping into the vast NSA spying programme and using it to launch criminal cases on Americans. Not in national security cases, but other cases."
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:46 am

see link for full story
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013 ... thheld-ira


FBI Intelligence on Omagh bomb 'withheld from police'

Security forces had two agents in the Real IRA but did not share that information with Northern Ireland officers, report claims


Wednesday 7 August 2013





MI5, the FBI and Garda special branch "starved" police in Northern Ireland of vital intelligence that could have prevented the Real IRA bomb that killed 29 people at Omagh in 1998, a damning new report on the atrocity concludes.

The investigation, commissioned by families of the Omagh victims, will show evidence that they claim proves that information from two key informers inside the Real IRA – one in the United States, the other in the Irish Republic – was not passed on to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

The Omagh bomb was the single biggest atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles. No one has been convicted in a criminal court in connection with the bombing in the County Tyrone market town.

Ahead of the publication of the report in Omagh, the father of Aidan Gallagher, a young man killed in the blast, said access to new intelligence files proved that the FBI, the security services and the Garda's crime and security branch (the Republic of Ireland's main anti-terrorist unit) all withheld vital information.

Michael Gallagher, who has campaigned since the atrocity for a cross-border public inquiry, said: "All good policing is based on intelligence, especially prior intelligence before any criminal act is committed. In the case of the events running up to the Omagh bomb, it is now clear that the police in the north were starved of information. The security forces in America, Britain and the Republic had two key agents inside the Real IRA but did not share the information they were providing to the police in Northern Ireland."

The Omagh Support and Self Help Group also demanded an inquiry into the explosion.

"There has been no full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Omagh bomb. The inquest did not inquire into the intelligence, the criminal prosecutions did not lead to any convictions, and the civil action did not deal with the issue of preventability. The police investigation has been heavily criticised and the report highlights such concerns that the states [UK and Ireland] must now establish a full cross-border public inquiry," a spokesperson for the group said, adding that failure to do so would be a failure to comply with obligations under article 2(1) and article 3 of the European convention on human rights.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Aug 08, 2013 4:36 pm

see link for full story
http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/calif ... ews=850804


Federal Appeals Court Lets FBI off the Hook after It Lied to a Judge

Thursday, August 08, 2013


Yes, the FBI was spying on the Muslim community in Southern California and, yes, it lied to a federal judge about the existence of documents relevant to a case regarding that surveillance.

But, no, the FBI shouldn’t be sanctioned for its behavior.

That was the ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which disagreed with U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney, who ordered the government in 2011 to pay court costs for those bringing suit on behalf of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization of mosques and Muslim organizations that has operated in Southern California since 1995.

The civil liberties case before the District Court alleged that U.S. authorities illegally spied on mosques in 2006 and 2007. The FBI was accused of sending an undercover informant into several Orange County mosques as part of Operation Flex and may have collected information on hundreds of people. The FBI admitted that it used the informant, but demanded that the case be tossed for national security reasons.

Lawyers for the mosques demanded to see surveillance records on the plaintiffs. The FBI told the judge it had provided all the information within the scope of the plaintiffs’ original Freedom of Information Act request. That wasn’t true and an incensed Judge Carney sanctioned the FBI.

“The Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court,” Judge Carney wrote.

But the Ninth Court of Appeals said that wasn’t true and reversed his ruling. You can, apparently lie to a judge if later on you admit you lied and then sandbag him in his own courtroom.

The FBI had initially released eight heavily-redacted pages of information in response to the lawsuit brought against them and said that was all there was. But eventually they coughed up another 100 pages of equally heavily-redacted documents that they showed the judge privately in camera. Then, later, the FBI produced yet more documents.

In response to the serial deception, Carney wrote in his 2011 ruling, “The court must impose monetary sanctions to deter the government from deceiving the court again.”

The three-judge appellate panel disagreed, cited what is known as a safe harbor provision of the law, and reversed on procedural grounds, saying what counted was the fact that the judge eventually got the documents.

A frustrated Judge Carney tossed out the spying lawsuit against the FBI in August 2012 for national security reasons, likening himself to a fictional Greek hero who must save all those around him at the expense of a few. “Odysseus opted to pass by the monster and risk a few of his individual sailors, rather than hazard the loss of his entire ship to the sucking whirlpool,” the apologetic judge wrote.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Aug 08, 2013 6:27 pm

Chemical engineer Mark Basile will be testing 911 debris for nano thermetic signatures

see http://markbasile.org/



Draft minutes of Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Monthly 9/11 Truth Teleconference Call 8 pm (ET); 5pm (PT)

Present on the 7/31/2013 9/11 Teleconference Call were:

Ken Freeland, Facilitator of 9/11 Teleconference Call, Houston 9/11 Truth
Craig McKee, Secretary of 9/11 Teleconference Call, Truth and Shadows
Barbara Honegger, independent 9/11 researcher
Shelton Lankford, spokesman, Military Officers for 9/11 Truth
James Hufferd, 9/11 Truth Grassroots Organization
Paul Zarembka, editor of The Hidden History of 9-11
Dwain Deets, SD9/11 Truth
Sheila Casey, DC 9/11 Truth
Adam Syed, Cincinnati 9/11 Truth
Adam Ruff, independent 9/11 activist
Barrie Zwicker, author of Towers of Deception: the Media Cover-up of 9/11
Ned Delaney, 9/11 Grassroots
Lorenzo Fine, 9/11 activist, Newton, Mass.
Mark Basile, chemical engineer, 9/11 researcher
Mike Booth, 9/11 activist, Indiana
George Ripley, Citizens 9/11 Commission


Draft minutes from 7/31/13 teleconference were APPROVED

The draft agenda was APPROVED

1) Request for support for study

Chemical engineer Mark Basile explained that he is looking to independently confirm the evidence laid out in the 2009 paper by Niels Harrit and others about thermite being present in the WTC dust. Basile says he isn’t looking for money but rather endorsements for his efforts. A vote on whether to endorse what Basile wants to do will be undertaken by the Teleconference on the August 28 call. For more information, go to http://markbasile.org.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Aug 11, 2013 6:21 pm

see link for full story
http://www.blackbluedog.com/2013/08/new ... ed-couple/


Finally: 75 Cleveland Cops to be Disciplined for Shooting 137 Times at Unarmed Couple
August 10, 2013 |

75 police officers in Cleveland, OH are finally going to be disciplined for firing more than 137 shots killing an unarmed couple November 29 of last year.

An August 2nd report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer reveals that 19 of the 75 officers will reportedly face charges including engaging in a chase without permission and providing false information on duty.

More than 100 officers in 60 police cars engaged in a high-speed chase of 43 year-old Timothy Russell and 30 year-old Malissa Williams. According to the Business Insider, none of the officers have thus far lost their jobs even months after the incident.

The 25 minute chase that involved three districts ended in the school parking lot of Heritage Middle School, where the couple died in a hail of bullets ripping through their car.

Described as a gunfight, it turns out it wasn’t much of a fight at all as police found Williams shot 24 times and Russell shot 23 times, both unarmed and dead. Not one police officer was injured in the chase.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:51 pm

caution this site has no way to contact the site owners


http://thefbifiles.com/
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:24 pm

see link for full story
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics ... ult-rifles


Why Do IRS Agents Need AR-15 Assault Rifles?

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By Andy Kossak, Sun, August 11, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service has reportedly been buying up a vast collection of AR-15 assault rifles for agents and training them in the proper use of those weapons.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Aug 13, 2013 12:49 am

see link for full story
http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/23116486/on ... task-force
FBI confirms investigation into chief of N. Ga sex crimes task force
Posted: Aug 12, 2013 5:23 PM EST Updated: Aug 12, 2013 6:03 PM EST
By Matt Barbour, Reporter - email

RINGGOLD, GA (WRCB) -
A hearing was held Monday for several people accused of sex crimes in North Georgia, but the attorneys representing those suspects say their clients' cases have been jeopardized by the FBI special agent in charge.
It is a case that has made headlines over the past year.

The allegations surrounding FBI agent Ken Hillman first came to light last year during an investigation that cost a Ringgold Police officer his job. The officer was fired for failing to arrest Hillman and another woman for DUI.
The woman involved is Angela Russell, the estranged wife of local millionaire, Emerson Russell.

Allegations surfaced that Hillman was allowing Russell to tag along and participate in undercover sex sting operations in North Georgia.

"Some pretty shocking behavior by someone in an agency which is very professional," says defense attorney McCracken Poston.
Poston represents one of several people arrested and charged with sex crimes by agent Ken Hillman's task force.
Poston, along with several other defense attorneys, say Russell's involvement jeopardized at least 11 cases. The attorneys filed subpoenas for the FBI to testify in the hearing for the suspects. Superior Court Judge Grant Brantley, brought in from Atlanta, read aloud a letter from the FBI, explaining why it could not testify.

"The investigation is confidential and we can not publicly confirm or deny the investigation at this time but the issuance of subpoenas to the FBI in the above cases warrant our disclosure of the investigation to you," Brantley read to the court.

"Finally, we had actual proof that a federal investigation is ongoing," says Poston.

The Department of Justice confirmed in a separate letter that the FBI inspection division in Washington, D.C. is conducting its own investigation into the laundry list of allegations against Hillman, some of which Brantley read to the court.

"(He) made unauthorized disclosures regarding investigative targets and techniques," read Judge Brantley.

Other allegations read aloud say Hillman "misused his position by intervening in a traffic incident involving an acquaintance, transported an unauthorized passenger in a bureau vehicle, allowed unauthorized individuals to participate in an arrest, gave a handgun to an unauthorized individual, subsequent to a potential arrest, allowed unauthorized access to an undercover location, and misused his position during a traffic stop.

"Obviously, none of this has been proven yet," says Poston. "But it puts everything in a real quandary when you have a lead agent of the top agency that has these types of problems."
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Aug 13, 2013 10:59 pm

TWO STORIES LET GOD SORT OUT THE TRUTH




1ST READ
SEE LINK FOR FULL STORY
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013 ... topsy.html


JFKcountercoup

Monday, August 12, 2013
Case for a New Autopsy
A CASE FOR A NEW AUTOPSY

By William Kelly

The victim was murdered, gunned down on the street in broad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses.

The cause of death - a bullet to the head, was determined by an autopsy. But after that fact was clearly established, there is complete legal confusion - as the body was improperly removed from the state where the murder occurred before there was a proper forensic autopsy, as required by law. Rather than a proper forensic autopsy – which creates certified evidence that can be used in a court of law, a less thorough regular autopsy was performed, the purpose of which was to determine the cause of death - gunshot to the head.

But there were three different autopsy reports prepared, the doctors who conducted the autopsy did not talk about the wounds with the emergency room doctors who treated them, and there were two brain exams, one of a brain that was not that of the victim.

The photos, x-rays and reports of the autopsy could not be introduced as evidence in a court of law because the technicians who took the photos and x-rays could not identify them as the ones they created, so the provenance - the chain of evidence from the scene of the crime to the grave, is broken and lost, much like our history.

If the victim was an unknown bum found dead in a street gutter and his death was considered suspicious, his remains would be routinely exhumed and given a proper forensic autopsy - one that would produce photos, x-rays and reports that could be introduced as evidence in a court of law.

But justice has been thwarted in this case because the victim was the President of the United States named John F. Kennedy, and political forces have intervened to prevent a proper legal resolution of the case and keep the truth from being known.

The details of the original, botched autopsy are well known. When the doctors in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital in Dallas viewed the wounds within minutes after they were inflicted, they only examined the throat and head wounds. The throat wound they assumed, because of its small size, to be one of entrance, and it was enlarged to insert breathing tubes.

The head wound, as all the Parkland doctors agreed, was a large, grapefruit sized whole in the back of the head, indicating an exit wound, and a flap of bone and flesh on the side of the head above the ear exposed the brain. The large, gaping hole in the back of the President’s head was also confirmed by Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who twice viewed it and confirmed its existence.

Because the President was lying on his back on the hospital gurney,and the nature of the head wounds precluded his survival, the Parkland doctors didn’t turn him over and didn't know there was also an entrance wound in the back, about six inches below the neck.

They did however, find a nearly pristine bullet on a gurney that may have been used by to wheel the President or Texas Governor John Connally into the emergency room.

The autopsy doctors, when they discovered the entrance wound in the back, found that the bullet only penetrated a few inches, less than a finger, and the bullet probably fell out and was the one discovered on the gurney at Parkland. A four star military general ordered the doctors not to track the full extent of the back wound.

The next day the autopsy doctors were surprised to learn that the Parkland emergency doctors had enlarged an already existing throat wound – which they believed to be an entrance wound, so it was realized that, even though their conclusion as to the cause of death - gunshot to the head, was correct, the rest of their report was invalid as more information became available from witnesses at Parkland.

Eventually the official report on the assassination concluded that the back wound was not a superficial, two inch deep wound, but did in fact transit the victim and exited his throat, and then inflicted all of the wounds on Governor Connally in the jump seat in front of the President, creating the “Single Bullet Theory,” which is required if all of the wounds were by one gunman shooting from behind.

When the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigated the murder in the late 1970s and the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) in the 1990s questioned the doctors, photographers and x-ray technicians, they testified that could not recognize their work, sometimes explaining that the photos in evidence could not have been the ones they took because they were of a different type of film and not from the angles of the photos they took.

In retrospect, everyone with any knowledge of the Bethesda Naval Hospital autopsy agrees that it was a medical and legal abortion, and all of the autopsy reports, exams, x-rays and photos have lost their chain of possession and the provenance necessary for them to be introduced into evidence in a court of law.

Because the cause of death was a “gunshot to the head,” and therefore a murder, this case certainly meets the “suspicious death” threshold necessary for the law to require a new, proper forensic autopsy, one that would answer all outstanding questions and recreate the lost provenance of the chain of evidence in the case.

But since the victim is not an ordinary American citizen, but the President of the United States, the laws, rules and standards are considered different - and rather than give the President the best and most thorough autopsy he deserves, observance of the law is relegated to the feelings of the Kennedy family.

In a press release for the NOVA TV science program Cold Case JFK it is noted that, “Renowned JFK assassination expert and professor John McAdamas weighs in on the findings of the Warren Commission , the deficiencies of the medical and autopsy evidence, and the lack of understanding on the part of the Kennedy camp on the need for a forensic autopsy at the time..”

Indeed, a forensic autopsy is what is needed, and it is one that can and should be done today, in honor of the president on the fiftieth anniversary of his murder.

Society gives the family primary control over the body of the deceased, yet in many cases a coroner, district attorney or grand jury has the power to order the exhumation of a body for a forensic autopsy, especially in the case of a suspicious death or homicide.

In an academic presentation on the subject of a new autopsy at a 2003 Conference, the topic should have been presented in an objective, unbiased fashion, but instead, an emotional appeal was made to respect the Kennedy family, to honor the revered dead and let them rest in peace.

Well, the revered dead are turning over in their graves and will never rest in peace, and neither will we, until the total truth is determined, including the answers to the many questions concerning the medical evidence and botched autopsy of the President.

The first objection to a proper forensic autopsy is the feelings of the Kennedy family, and like the decision of the Connally family at the death of John Connally, not to permit an autopsy, it has always been assumed that the Kennedy family would also oppose a new, proper forensic autopsy.

John Connally and his wife were sitting just in front of President Kennedy and he was wounded in the same barrage of bullets. They never believed the “single bullet theory,” and it has been suggested that there is more lead in Connally's wrist than is missing from the so-called “magic bullet.”

When Connally died the Justice Department requested the bullet fragments be removed, but the request was denied by the Connally family.

When the Department of Justice agreed to request of John T. Orr, Jr. one of the most respected federal attorneys, to subject bullet fragments CE567 to further tests, they also noted in a memo for the record that: “...It is our view that the Department (of Justice) has retained investigative jurisdiction over the assassination, though such investigation is restricted to activities which are not based upon the expectation of an eventual federal prosecution. Thus, the examination of evidence in federal possession is seemingly appropriate, (while) obtaining evidence by grand jury subpoena would like be inappropriate. This position was adopted by the Division and endorsed b the Office of the Deputy Attorney General when we declined to seek a court order for exhumation of former Governor Connally’s body following allegations that bullet fragments remaining in his body from the incident would reveal, by weight or composition, the existence of additional bullets.” [For more on CE567 see: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/201 ... found.html]

Though no one has actually asked them, like the Connallys, it has always been assumed that the Kennedys will deny such a request as well.

That may have been the case with the previous generation who witnessed the public exhumation and butchering of the body of Lee Harvey Oswald, which was done to positively establish his identity.

But today a proper forensic autopsy can be conducted with dignity, it can answer many of the outstanding questions, legally reestablish the provenance of the medical evidence in the case and reconnect the truth to history.


Bill Kelly
William E. Kelly, Jr. was born in 1951, the son of a Camden, New Jersey, policeman. He majored in history at the University of Dayton, Ohio, School of Education, where he did his thesis on the Bay of Pigs. After graduation he taught history and became a freelance journalist and author of regional history books "300 Years at the Point" and "Birth of the Birdie," a history of golf. He is writing a follow up book on golf, "Flight of the Eagle - The Growth of Golf in America," and a history of rock & roll at the Jersey Shore. Kelly formed the Committee for an Open Archives (COA) with his college associate John Judge, lobbying extensively for the JFK Assassination Records Act, which was passed in 1992. With others, he was an original founder of the Coaliton on Political Assassinations (COPA). With Judge, he also assisted the 9/11 Citizen's Watch, which monitored the work of the 9/11 Commission. Kelly is currently attempting to petition federal prosecutors to convein a special federal grand jury to review the evidence and get Congress to Oversee the JFK Act.



2ND READ

100 Critical Points About 9/11
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/04/15 ... about-911/


Introduction/Challenge to ‘Debunkers’:

It’s time for ‘debunkers’ to showcase their years of hard work. I’m looking for a concise and agreed-upon explanation for each of the following items so that we might forever put to rest these ‘nonsense conspiracy theories’ about 9/11.

Ideally, I’m hoping for a 1-4 sentence long, simplified explanation for each of these listed circumstances, explaining how they fit into the widely-accepted narrative. If any of these conditions were not present as alleged, or if you find them to be irrelevant, just explain a more accurate interpretation of the corresponding data.

Choose any number or set of numbers from the following list. For each point, write what you believe to be the official stance relative to the mainstream “Arab terrorist” narrative. Consistency and consensus is what we’re looking for. The goal of this article is to have each of these points adequately addressed in order to demonstrate, for any future “truthers”, that there is a reasonable explanation for these circumstances that was simply overlooked by the 9/11 Truth movement.

Eventually, I would like to be able to construct a full outline of the ‘debunker’ consensus on these most-relevant aspects of 9/11.

Some of the points, below, may seem familiar. Special thanks to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (VIDEO) and all of the honest institutions and individuals who have made this article possible.
Regarding WTC7:

1. Rapid onset of collapse
2. Sounds of explosions at ground floor reported immediately before the building’s destruction
3. Symmetrical “structural failure” – through the path of greatest resistance – at free-fall acceleration
4. Imploded, collapsing completely, and landed in its own footprint
5. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic-like clouds
6. Expert corroboration from the top European controlled demolition professional (referring to the evidently bias-free testimony of the late Danny Jowenko)
7. Foreknowledge of “collapse” by media, NYPD, FDNY (particularly the numerous media announcements of the WTC7 collapse more than 20 minutes prior to its occurrence)
8. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and intergranular melting on structural steel samples
9. Several tons of molten metal reported by numerous highly qualified witnesses
10. Very few visible fire deformations prior to complete collapse of WTC7
11. No evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel
12. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never collapsed (One Meridian Plaza, First Interstate Bank)

Regarding the Twin Towers:

13. Destruction proceeds through the path of greatest resistance at nearly free-fall acceleration
14. Improbable symmetry of debris distribution
15. Extremely rapid onset of destruction
16. Over 100 first responders reported explosions and flashes offset from actual collapse
17. Multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally
18. Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking
19. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic-like clouds
20. 1200-foot-diameter debris field: no “pancaked” floors found
21. Isolated explosive ejections 20–40 stories below demolition front
22. Total building destruction: dismemberment of steel frame
23. Several tons of molten metal found under both high-rises
24. Evidence of explosives found in steel and dust samples
25. Prominent figures including the head structural engineer for the WTC stated that the Twin Towers were over-engineered and more than capable of withstanding the resulting fires and impact of a large jetliner

Regarding Flight 77:

26. Hundreds of highly-trained pilots have contended that Hani Hanjour’s training as a pilot would have made him essentially incapable of his alleged flight path into the Pentagon
27. According to the FAA memo of May 21, 2003 and other statements from relevant authorities, the US military had plenty of time and resources to have defended an incoming attack on the Pentagon

Regarding Flight 93:

28. According to several eyewitnesses, human remains were virtually non-existent at the crash site – private investigators were not permitted and no independent source has identified the remains of any passenger
29. Cell-phones were purported to have been in-use on Flight 93 with altitudes and conditions that would have made this nearly impossible

Regarding legitimacy of the 9/11 Truth movement:

30. At least 220 senior military, intelligence, law enforcement, and government officials (link) have been willing to compromise their reputation to demand a new investigation
31. Hundreds of retired or active military in the United States have signed a petition for the truth movement; at least thousands more are keeping silent
32. The expertise of nearly 2,000 qualified architects and engineers (link) have led them to express serious doubts about the official narrative surrounding WTC collapses; they are now demanding a new investigation after reviewing the compelling evidence for controlled-demolition
33. Professional pilots with a combined flight experience of more than 200,000 hours, as well as thousands of medical professionals, scientists, firefighters, lawyers, political leaders, scholars, and family members of victims are among those demanding another investigation
34. Approximately 30% of Americans, overall, have expressed doubts of the official Arab-terrorist conspiracy theory after being introduced to evidence presented by advocates of the 9/11 Truth movement
35. Support for 9/11 Truth has been increasing steadily over the years which suggests that propagated media themes and confirmation bias are being gradually overcome by grassroots campaigns for an honest approach
36. Trends in the recent rise of genuine skepticism and secular thought throughout Western society are similar to 9/11 Truth in that both are oppressed by authoritarian entities and social dogma

Regarding potential motives, methods, and suspects:

37. Two months prior to 9/11, the WTC complex changed ownership for the first time in 33 years. It was acquired by Jewish Zionist and private property developer Larry Silverstein along with his long-time friend and real estate tycoon, Frank Lowy. Silverstein was a former chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, the largest Zionist organization dedicated to raising money and support for Israel. Lowy is a Jewish Zionist and former member of the Israeli terrorist organization “Haganah”.
38. Silverstein acquired the WTC property from the New York Port Authority. A press release from the Port Authority on 24 July 2001 tells of the privatization shift that ultimately enabled Silverstein’s acquisition of the complex. The chief lobbyist and principal force behind this privatization was Ronald S. Lauder, chairman of the New York State Research Council on Privatization. Lauder is an active member of numerous prominent Zionist organizations and has previously funded a school for the Mossad (Israeli spy agency), developing the Lauder School of Government Diplomacy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel.
39. The company in charge of security at the WTC, Securacom (later became Stratesec), had George Bush’s brother, Marvin Bush, as a leading director. Bush’s distant cousin and lifetime family affiliate, Wirt Walker III, was its CEO. Securacom also provided security for Dulles International Airport and United Airlines. During the “World Trade Center Project”, Securacom spent several years prior to 9/11 having unrestricted access to the most sensitive areas of the building. Another major security provider was Kroll Associates, led by co-owners Jules Kroll and Jeremy Kroll, and managing director Jerome Hauer — all of these men are Jewish and staunch Zionists.
40. Chairman of the NY Port Authority, Lewis Eisenberg, an avid Zionist and former leading member of the United Jewish Appeal, oversaw the negotiations that won Silverstein and Lowy the 99-year lease despite being outbid by a competitor, Vornado Realty Trust. According to a New York Times article from March 2001, entitled “World Trade Center Deal Remains in Doubt”, Eisenberg had “imposed a news blackout” surrounding these negotiations.
41. The WTC buildings Silverstein had purchased required a combined total of at least a billion dollars in maintenance ranging from asbestos to electric problems that Silverstein ‘lucked out’ of when they collapsed.
42. Silverstein was recorded as having said, when referring to WTC7, “…they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, ‘we’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.’ And they made that decision to pull, and we watched the building collapse”. The fire department commander with whom Silverstein claims he spoke, Chief Daniel Nigro, confirmed that he hadn’t spoken to Silverstein on 9/11, nor has any other member of FDNY corroborated Mr. Silverstein’s story that “pull” did not imply an order to demolish the building.
43. The insurance policy for the WTC complex was initially raised to 3.6 billion dollars just two months prior to the attacks but Silverstein advocated an obscure clause which enabled him to claim twice — once for each attack — totaling 7.2 billion dollars (there has been a final settlement for approximately 4.55 billion).
44. According to a Sep 9, 2002 article entitled “Up In Smoke” from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Larry Silverstein were such great friends, even for years prior to the attacks, that “every Sunday afternoon, New York time, Netanyahu would call Silverstein. It made no difference what the subject was or where Netanyahu was, he would always call”.
45. Larry Silverstein and his children were both supposed to work in the North tower that day but, luckily, Larry had a dermatologist appointment that he couldn’t miss and both of his children were “running late for work”.
46. High-rise buildings not belonging to Silverstein Properties on 9/11, despite being much closer to the Twin Towers, did not manage to collapse.
47. Ordained Rabbi, Zionist and citizen of Israel, Dov Zakheim was appointed as comptroller and chief financial officer for the Pentagon during the Bush administration, from May 2001 to March 2004. Zakheim had been one of Bush’s closest advisers while he was Governor of Texas, then became his senior foreign policy adviser during the 2000 presidential campaign.
48. Rabbi Zakheim had earlier held the position of Chief Executive Officer at Systems Planning Corporation (SPC). One of the products offered by SPC is a “Command Transmitter System” for remote control and flight termination of airborne test vehicles.
49. A subsidiary of Zakheim’s SPC firm, known as Tridata Corporation, oversaw the investigation of the first World Trade Center terrorist attack in 1993, which would have provided vital first-hand knowledge of the security systems and structural blueprints of the World Trade Center.
50. Zakheim holds dual Israeli-American citizenship, is a member of the Council for Foreign Relations, is a founding member of the neoconservative movement, and co-authored a publication released by Project for a New American Century (PNAC) a year prior to 9/11 which passively called for “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” to foster American support for war in the Middle East.
51. The airline security company responsible for the shocking security lapses at both the Boston and Newark airports on 9/11 is a wholly-owned subsidiary of an Israeli company, International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS), headed by men with clear ties to Israel’s military intelligence agency, Mossad. The owners of ICTS Huntleigh USA, Menachem Atzmon and Ezra Harel, are both Israeli Jews. Atzmon has very close and controversial ties to former Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert.
52. A four-part investigative series by Fox News reporter Carl Cameron was aired in December 2001, which outlined how the Israeli-controlled company Amdocs had installed a communications system for the White House during the mid-1990s. The evidence presented in this series demonstrated, clearly, that Amdocs was spying on the White House.
53. An Israeli spy ring of more than 120 agents was discovered between March 2001 and September 11, 2001. Media coverage on the matter became stifled rapidly following the attacks, although this was almost certainly the largest spy ring ever discovered within the United States.
54. As the towers came down on 9/11, five Israelis were witnessed dancing near the scene. Police arrested them and found that their van tested positive for explosives, contained $4,700 cash as well as photographs of them smiling in front of the wreckage, maps with places highlighted, and other suspicious contraband. US authorities were later reported by Fox News to have detained 60 such Israeli “movers” in various locations.
55. Several leading Jewish institutions aggressively backlashed against Fox News and other media outlets that reported suspicions of Israeli involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and petitioned high-level officials at the White House to close down investigations of Israeli spies.
56. The motto of Israel’s foreign intelligence service was, until recently, “by way of deception thou shalt wage war”. This is confirmed by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky.

Regarding the 9/11 connection to Zionism and the Iraq war:

57. As Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn has pointed out, 26 of the 50 most influential neoconservatives who induced America to wage war in Iraq are Jewish (52%). In appraising how the US was deceived to wage this war, he noted: “The point is simply that the neocons seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influences their political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East.” Lasn was promptly attacked as “anti-Semitic” when he titled his article, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They’re Jewish?”.
58. A leading source of fabricated ‘evidence’ for Iraqi WMDs was Ahmed Chalabi, a long-time friend of the “godfather of neoconservatism” and adamant Zionist, Albert Wohlstetter, who later introduced Chalabi to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Perle and Wolfowitz became two of the foremost advocates of the Iraq War, citing Chalabi’s falsified WMD ‘evidence’ as justification for an invasion. Perle, Wohlstetter, and Wolfowitz are all secular Jews and prominent Zionists.
59. In 1982, a Zionist publication entitled “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s” made the following statement: “Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets… Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.”
60. In 1996, a report was presented by Zionist and Iraq war advocate Richard Perle for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. It recommended “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right”.
61. In November 1997, the Zionist-founded publication Weekly Standard ran an article entitled “Saddam Must Go” that stated: “We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it’s time to start thinking the unthinkable”.
62. In 1998, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative group consisting of members such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and other prominent Zionists, published a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein on the pretext that he was a “hazard” to “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.”. PNAC co-founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan, both adamant Zionists of Jewish descent, also co-authored the 1997 Weekly Standard article “Saddam Must Go”, above.
63. In 1999, David Wurmser, another Zionist member of PNAC who is also of Jewish descent, published his book “Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein” which argued that America was failing to contain Iraq and that the US Military should be used in order to redraw the map of the Middle East. Wurmser would go on to serve as Mideast advisor to VP Dick Cheney from 2003-2007.
64. On September 15, 2001 at Camp David, four days after 9/11, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested a US attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan because it was “doable.” In the lead-up to the war, he assured Americans that it was “wildly off the mark” to think hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify a postwar Iraq; that the Iraqis “are going to welcome us as liberators”; and that “it is just wrong” to assume that the United States would have to fund the Iraq war.
65. In the year following 9/11, numerous statements and press releases aimed at distorting the public’s view of Iraq were made by prominent Zionist-Jewish figures including Senator Joe Lieberman, Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman, columnist William Safire, Eliot Cohen, David Frum, Norman Podhoretz, and Charles Krauthammer, among many others. Their statements appeared nationwide in well-known publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and The New York Times.
66. In a September 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “The Case for Toppling Saddam,” current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Saddam Hussein could be hiding nuclear material “in centrifuges the size of washing machines” throughout the country.
67. A Zionist of a predominantly Jewish background, Philip Zelikow, made the following candid admission to a foreign policy conference on September 10, 2002: “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 — it’s the threat against Israel.”. Despite this revealing admission, Zelikow, as a member of President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, authored the National Security Strategy of September 2002 that provided the justification for a preemptive war against Iraq.
68. Other prominent Zionists playing key roles in the progression toward war in Iraq include, but are not limited to, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis Libby, National Security Council member Elliot Abrams, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.

Regarding exposure to propaganda:

69. According to a July 2006 World Public Opinion Poll, 50% of Americans believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the US invaded.
70. A May 2012 poll conducted by YouGov has shown that these widely-propagated, false notions continue resonate in the minds of the public for more than a decade after they were originally expressed. It found that 63% of Republicans, 27% of independents, and 15% of Democrats still believe Iraq had WMDs when the US invaded.
71. Public misconceptions about WMDs and other false assumptions show that most Americans are not examining their evidence critically but, rather, are acquiring their opinions from mainstream media outlets.
72. A set of comparitive analyses for 2004, conducted by the organization “If Americans Knew”, led by freelance journalist Alison Weir and supported by various authoritative figures in government; reviews media coverage from major media outlets including Associated Press, The New York Times, ABC, CBS, and NBC. These studies have demonstrated, quite clearly, the extreme bias in media coverage of issues pertaining to Israel. Despite the fact that since 1987, there have been more than five times as many Palestinian deaths as Israelis (7,978 vs. 1,503) and ten times as many Palestinian children killed as Israeli children (1,503 vs. 142), these media outlets in 2004, on average, reported Israeli deaths vs. Palestinian deaths at a ratio of [3.3 : 1] for all ages and [8.2 : 1] for children.
73. A 2006 Zogby poll has shown that, nearly five years after the attacks on 9/11, only 57% of Americans were aware that a third skyscraper (WTC7) had collapsed.
74. In 1999, in an article featured in the Los Angeles Jewish Times, entitled “Yes, Virginia, Jews Do Control the Media”, the following revelation is made: “Four of the largest five entertainment giants are now run or owned by Jews. Murdoch’s News Corp (at number four) is the only gentile holdout — however Rupert is as pro-Israel as any Jew, probably more so.”
75. In July 2012, from The Times of Israel, Jewish journalist Elad Nehorai reveals: “Let’s be honest with ourselves, here, fellow Jews. We do control the media. We’ve got so many dudes up in the executive offices in all the big movie production companies it’s almost obscene. [...] Did you know that all eight major film studios are run by Jews?”
76. Jews represent only 1.8% of the US population and 0.5% globally. Zionist Jews comprise only a fraction of these figures. This suggests that, by any reasonable measure, Western institutions are vastly, disproportionately dominated by ethnocentric Zionists.
77. Comcast/NBCUniversal is currently the largest media conglomerate in the world, led by Jewish/Zionist CEO and president Brian L. Roberts. The corporation’s executive vice president, David L. Cohen, is another unwaveringly Zionist Jew and former vice chair of the Jewish Federations in Philadelphia.
78. The Walt Disney Company is the second-largest media conglomerate in the world and is led by Jewish Zionist Robert Iger. His predecessor was Michael Eisner, another Zionist Jew.
79. Google, Inc. is currently the third-largest media conglomerate and is led by Jewish Zionists including but not limited to Larry Page, CEO, and Eric Schmidt, executive chairman and former CEO.
80. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which includes more than 800 media companies in 50 different countries, is the fourth-largest media conglomerate on the globe. Murdoch is a renowned Zionist and notorious for imposing his views within subordinate media networks. According to the Los Angeles Jewish Times, “Rupert is as pro-Israel as any Jew, probably more so”. Murdoch is considered “legally Jewish” according to Jewish law as his mother, Elisabeth Joy nee Greene was born of a Jewish family.
81. Viacom is the fifth-largest global media conglomerate and is run by executive chairman and former CEO Sumner Redstone, and by president and CEO Philippe Dauman. Both are Zionists and both are Jewish.
82. Time Warner is the sixth-largest media conglomerate in the world and is led by adamant Zionist Jeffrey Bewkes, who was given a Human Relations Award in 2001 from the American Jewish Committee. Bewkes’ most substantial and recent individual political campaign contributions have gone to Senator Chris Dodd and Rahm Emanuel. Dodd boasts that he has “supported substantial foreign aid for Israel” since he was first elected to the Senate in 1980. Rahm Emanuel is a former member of the Israeli military and son of an Irgun terrorist, Benjamin Emanuel.
83. Most other Western institutions including but not limited to education, law, finance, government, and other corporate entities also exhibit similar disproportionate Zionist and Jewish dominance.

Regarding the moral justification to conspire among ethnocentric Zionists:

84. Theistic religion has consistently allowed people to justify their immoral acts with references to perceived notions of ‘divinity’. In the case of Zionism, we have an extremist sect of Judaism combined with tightly-woven networks of political and financial power. With inherently shared motives and overwhelming means, conspiracy becomes inevitable.
85. According to Israeli professor Ehud Sprinzak: “In a thirty page study that examined all Halakhic [Jewish religious law] authorities on the subject, [Israeli rabbi David] Ben-Haim proves that according to the vast majority, the Torah, when speaking about Adam (a human being), never includes Gentiles [non-Jews] in this category. He points out that ten recognized Halakhic authorities repeatedly proposed that Gentiles are more beast than human and that they should be treated accordingly; only two authorities recognize non-Jews as full human beings created in the image of God.”
86. From renowned historian Norman Cantor: “The Talmudic [based on a certain Jewish scripture] mind is hostile to ethnic equality and to universalism. It is very anxious to enforce an ideal of communal purity. All possible contacts with Gentiles are to be avoided.”
87. ‘Baba Kamma 37b’ of the Jewish Talmud states: The gentiles are outside the protection of law and God has “exposed their money to Israel.”
88. ‘Yebamoth 98a’ states that all gentile [non-Jewish] children are animals.
89. ‘Baba Kamma 113a.’: Jews may use lies (“subterfuges”) to circumvent a Gentile.
90. ‘Sanhedrin 57a’ states: When a Jew murders a gentile (“Cuthean”), there will be no death penalty. What a Jew steals from a gentile he may keep.
91. ‘Moed Kattan 17a’: If a Jew is tempted to do evil he should go to a city where he is not known and do the evil there.
92. Beyond those addressed above, there are dozens of other explicit references in Talmudic scripture that clarify an interpretation of “gentiles” or “goyim” as being second-class human beings compared to any Jew, and that gentiles may be used, however necessary, to empower Jews or fulfill a given prophecy.
93. According to an interview with Rabbi Manis Friedman in Moment Magazine’s June 2009 “Ask the Rabbis” feature: “The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women, and children”.
94. According to the Jewish Press, June 9, 1989, p. 56b, Israelis annually take part in a national pilgrimage to honor the grave of Simon ben Yohai, a rabbi who advocated the extermination of non-Jews. Rabbi ben Yohai has said: “Tob shebe goyyim harog” which translates to “even the best of the gentiles should all be killed”.
95. Rabbi Yaacov Perrin said, according to NY Daily News, Feb 28, 1994, “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail”.
96. Moses Maimonides is considered the greatest codifier and philosopher in Jewish history. He has this to say about non-Jews: “Accordingly, if we see an idolater (gentile) being swept away or drowning in the river, we should not help him. If we see that his life is in danger, we should not save him.”
97. Jewish author Douglas Rushkoff outlines the threat of organized Judaism and summarizes the world-view many Jewish extremists and Zionists possess: “The thing that makes Judaism dangerous to everybody — to every race, to every nation, to every idea — is that we smash things that aren’t true. We don’t believe in the boundaries of nation-state, we don’t believe in the ideas of these individual gods that protect individual groups of people. [...] In a sense, our detractors have us right in that we are a corrosive force. We’re breaking down the false gods of all nations and all people because they’re not real. And that’s very upsetting to people.”

Regarding the assumption that any criticism of this type is “antisemitic”:

98. When asked about why people are called “antisemitic” in the United States for criticizing Israel, former Israeli minister Shulamit Aloni explains: “Well, it’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticizing Israel, then they are ‘antisemitic’. And the [Jewish] organization is strong, and has a lot of money, and the ties between Israel and the American Jewish establishment are very strong. [...] Their attitude is ‘is Israel, my country right or wrong’, identification. They are not ready to hear criticism and it’s very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as ‘antisemitic’ and to bring up the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jewish people, and that is to justify everything we do to the Palestinians.”

Regarding the notion that everything is fine in America and 9/11 ‘truthers’ are crazy:

99. In a 2008 poll by the New York Times, 81% of Americans agreed that the U.S. is on the wrong track, up from 35% in early 2002. This figure is likely much higher, today.
100. According to Dr. Robert Hopper, a clinical psychologist: “9/11 truth challenges the beliefs that our country protects us and keeps us safe, and that America is the ‘good guy’. When your beliefs are challenged, fear and anxiety are created. In response to that, our psychological defenses kick in and they protect us from these emotions. Denial, which is probably the most primitive psychological defense, is the one most likely to kick in when our beliefs are challenged.”

Thanks for reading. Let’s get to the bottom of this.
fruhmenschen
 
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Aug 15, 2013 12:16 am

It has been over 15 years since David Burnham published his book ABOVE THE LAW
which looks at FBI agents fixing cases for corporations. Down here in the whisper
stream FBI director Robert Mueller was know for covering up the largest banking scandal in US History.
The BCCI banking scandal was covered up by Robert Mueller when he was an assistant US Attorney General.
The current US Attrney General Eric Holder is know for his coverup of the Martin Luther King assassination investigation when Holder was an US Assistant Attorney General in 1999.

As a criminal justice consumer your first duty is to follow your tax dollar trail
to see if your tax dimes is used to help or hurt you.
You do know what to do?
see link for full story

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k ... 56852.html



The FBI's 2010 Mortgage Fraud Report Reveals Why the Banksters Love Holder
Posted: 08/14/2013 2:30 pm


The Obama administration's continuation of the Bush administration's refusal to prosecute the elite banksters (or even the vastly lower status CEOs of the fraudulent mortgage bank) that drove the crisis has made it clear that the rule of law no longer applies to wide ranges of life and that crony capitalism will continue to reign.

One of the difficulties we have is that because the last two administrations have fanatical devotees of the cult of the Virgin Crisis - the myth that the ongoing crisis was the first in modern times conceived without sin (control fraud) - that it is exceptionally difficult to know what their creed is. DOJ has refused to prosecute any elite banker for mortgage loan origination fraud. The rare prosecutions it has brought against senior officials of fraudulent loan originator (a large, but obscure regional mortgage bank: Taylor Bean) did not prosecute the officials for their fraudulent origination (or sale) of loans. They Taylor Bean officials were only prosecuted for their fraud against the TARP program - and only because Neil Barofsky (SIGTARP) made the criminal referral about that fraud and pushed relentlessly to force the Department of Justice to prosecute. With zero prosecutions of the massively fraudulent home lenders that drove the crisis to we are left with no information on why committing hundreds of thousands of frauds via the twin epidemics of loan origination fraud (inflating appraisals and making endemically fraudulent "liar's" loans) is no longer a crime that the FBI investigates and DOJ prosecutes. No senior DOJ or FBI official, of course, is stupid enough to state openly why we no longer prosecute even the CEOs of long-bankrupt mortgage banks that led these accounting control frauds. The U.S. Attorney for Sacramento, one of the epicenters of accounting control fraud, was foolish enough to attempt to explain why he did not investigated or prosecute the banksters:

Benjamin Wagner, a U.S. Attorney who is actively prosecuting mortgage fraud cases in Sacramento, Calif., points out that banks lose money when a loan turns out to be fraudulent. "It doesn't make any sense to me that they would be deliberately defrauding themselves," Wagner said.

Wagner's inability to keep his pronouns straight even when they were in the same sentence - "they" refers to the CEO, "themselves" refers to the bank the CEO is looting - was so embarrassing that he did not even try to respond to his critics. With no indictments of the bank CEOs for loan origination fraud and no statements by senior DOJ leaders about why they refuse to prosecute the leaders of the accounting control frauds that drove our last three major crises we are forced to guess at what went wrong at the FBI and DOJ.

This is the first in a series of columns that use the FBI's 2010 Mortgage Fraud Report to make intelligent inferences about why the prosecutors have ceased prosecuting control frauds directed by senior financial leaders. To find that report on the FBI web site, one searches for "mortgage fraud" and reads the following:

Mortgage Fraud

These scams hit us right where we live.

From foreclosure frauds to subprime shenanigans, mortgage fraud is a growing crime threat that is hurting homeowners, businesses, and the national economy. We have developed new ways to detect and combat mortgage fraud, including collecting and analyzing data to spot emerging trends and patterns. And we are using the full array of investigative techniques to find and stop criminals before the fact, rather than after the damage has been done.

The first clause is schizophrenic. "Foreclosure fraud" is a massive anti-purchaser control fraud directed by the senior leadership of fraudulent banks. "Subprime" refers to one of the primary forms of "ammunition" used by the accounting control frauds whose fraudulent mortgage loan originations drove the financial crisis. But the FBI calls this form of fraud, which caused catastrophic losses mere "shenanigans."

Definition of SHENANIGAN

1

: a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose

2

a: tricky or questionable practices or conduct --usually used in plural

b: high-spirited or mischievous activity --usually used in plural

Examples of SHENANIGAN

1. <students engaging in youthful shenanigans on the last day of school>

2. <an act of vandalism that went way beyond the usual shenanigans at summer camp>

The trivialization of even elite white-collar crime is a problem that Henry Pontell and I have warned against.

White-Collar Criminology and the Occupy Wall Street Movement in The Criminologist, Vol. 37 #1. Henry N. Pontell and William K. Black. American Society of Criminology (January/February 2012)

As this series of columns will demonstrate, one of the consistent facts that emerges from the FBI's 2010 Mortgage Fraud Report; albeit through consistent omission, is that the FBI implicitly assumes that this is our first Virgin financial crisis of the modern era. Even the concept of control fraud at financial institutions no longer exists at the FBI.

A related key truth also arises through consistent omission in the same FBI report - the banking regulatory agencies continue to play no role the FBI considers worthy of mention in identifying, reporting, and fighting mortgage fraud. Both omissions begin to become clear in the 2010 FBI report's introduction.

2010 Mortgage Fraud Report: Year in Review


Scope Note

The purpose of this study is to provide insight into the breadth and depth of mortgage fraud crimes perpetrated against the United States and its citizens during 2010. This report updates the 2009 Mortgage Fraud Report and addresses current mortgage fraud projections, issues, and the identification of mortgage fraud "hot spots." The objective of this study is to provide FBI program managers and the general public with relevant data to better understand the threat posed by mortgage fraud. The report was requested by the Financial Crimes Section, Criminal Investigative Division (CID), and prepared by the Financial Crimes Intelligence Unit (FCIU), Directorate of Intelligence (DI).

This report is based on FBI; federal, state, and local law enforcement; mortgage industry; and open-source reporting. Information was also provided by other government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-Office of Inspector General (HUD-OIG), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Industry reporting was obtained from LexisNexis, Mortgage Asset Research Institute (MARI), RealtyTrac, Inc., Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), Interthinx, and CoreLogic. Some industry reporting was acquired through open sources.

Mortgage fraud perpetrators include licensed/registered and non-licensed/registered mortgage brokers, lenders, appraisers, underwriters, accountants, real estate agents, settlement attorneys, land developers, investors, builders, bank account representatives, and trust account representatives.

Note ten omissions and one dangerous inclusion in the introduction to FBI Mortgage Fraud Report for 2010. First, this is the most recent FBI Mortgage Fraud report. While the FBI felt the need to get updated analysis of mortgage fraud in 2009 and 2010 it has not updated the report since that time even as the statute of limitations is running out for many of the frauds.

Second, the long list of federal entities that provided "information" about "mortgage fraud" did not include the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the OCC, and OTS - the four banking regulatory agencies that should have been the leading source of information on mortgage fraud. They had the duty to regulate the control frauds that drove the crisis. The Fed had the unique statutory authority under HOEPA (1994) to ban all "liar's loans" - one of the twin epidemics of accounting control fraud by loan originators that drove the crisis. We know that the Fed collected data on these endemically fraudulent liar's loans because they cited the data in 2008 when they finally, under Congressional pressure, used HOEPA to ban liar's loans. We also know from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) report that the Fed's staff collected data on enormous number of liar's loans being made by affiliates of the Nation's largest banks. The Fed's supervisors used the data to warn the Fed's senior leadership years before the crisis about the need to use HOEPA to stop a growing disaster. Alan Greenspan and his successor Ben Bernanke refused to stop the endemically fraudulent loans and Greenspan attacked the staff for daring to criticize the largest banks (which reprised his shameful performance when his supervisors criticized the large banks for aiding and abetting Enron's accounting control fraud and anti-public (tax) fraud) (FCIC 2011: 20). The next page of the report explains that the OCC examiners raised similar flags about liar's loans based on their examination findings. The OTS examined three of the most notorious "liar's" loan lenders (Countrywide, Washington Mutual (WaMu), and IndyMac). Countrywide and WaMu were also infamous for their widespread appraisal fraud. The OTS had copious data on mortgage fraud origination by many of the largest lenders that it had a duty to regulate.

Third, the FBI does not mention the SEC though it was the supervisor and examiner of the Nation's largest investment banks. Those investment banks were among the largest originators and purchasers of fraudulent liar's loans. The SEC should have had reams of data and expertise on liar's loans, appraisal fraud, and many other control frauds that generated vast amounts of mortgage fraud. Like the banking regulatory agencies, the SEC should have been an invaluable source of expertise on mortgage fraud in addition to being among the most important data providers.

Fourth, the banking regulatory agencies and the SEC must not have made any criminal referrals the FBI considered worthy of note. Criminal referrals are the "road map" that the experts in banking fraud schemes (the banking regulators and the SEC) provide to the FBI to make it possible for them to mount an effective investigation. The FBI mortgage fraud report does not indicate that it received any criminal referrals from the federal banking and securities regulators. The OTS, during the vastly smaller and far less fraudulent S&L debacle made over 30,000 criminal referrals. How did OTS go from over 30,000 criminal referrals in a far smaller crisis/fraud scheme to zero criminal referrals in this crisis? That question should have been of paramount importance to the FBI. The 2010 FBI report on mortgage fraud, however, does not mention the death of criminal prosecutions by the regulatory agencies. The FBI report does not explain why criminal referrals from the regulators are essential to the FBI's success because a bank will rarely make a criminal referral against its CEO. The destruction of the criminal referral process, which denied the FBI its vital expertise about the industry, was critical to the FBI's inability to recognize widespread accounting control fraud.

Fifth, the FBI does not list the honest appraisers as a source of information on mortgage fraud. That represents an extraordinary failure, and one that was as inexcusable as it was disastrous. I have written a great deal recently about the honest appraisers' efforts to warn the Nation about the epidemic of appraisal fraud driven by the leaders of the accounting control frauds.

From 2000 to 2007, a coalition of appraisal organizations ... delivered to Washington officials a public petition; signed by 11,000 appraisers.... [I]t charged that lenders were pressuring appraisers to place artificially high prices on properties [and] "blacklisting honest appraisers" and instead assigning business only to appraisers who would hit the desired price targets (FCIC 2010:18).

The appraisers began warning the FBI in 2000 - before the Enron-era accounting control fraud crisis blew up. The appraisers' petition was the perfect information the FBI needed - it demonstrated that the leaders of the lenders and their agents were running control frauds. Only the lender and its agents can cause widespread appraisal fraud. No honest lender would ever inflate an appraisal, but an accounting control fraud would find such a strategy optimal. My prior articles have explained that several years before the FBI wrote its 2010 report on mortgage fraud the appraisers had also provided data demonstrating the endemic nature of appraisal fraud and an investigation by New York Attorney General Cuomo had confirmed the accuracy of the appraisers' warning about the fraudulent lenders blacklisting honest appraisers.

Sixth, the FBI sought no input from white-collar criminologists - the specialists in this field with the most relevant expertise. One hopes that when the FBI investigates the theft of nuclear materials they consult physicists.

Seventh, the FBI sought no input from the professional association of mortgage brokers founded to try to restore integrity to that profession. My prior columns have quoted at length from the honest loan brokers' testimony before the Fed warning of the endemically fraudulent nature of liar's loans and explaining the destructive interaction of that form of fraud and appraisal fraud.

Eighth, the FBI specifically notes that it received information from MARI because of its anti-fraud expertise. The FBI neglects to note, however, that MARI had warned the entire mortgage industry (and the FBI) that the incidence of fraud in liar's loans was 90 percent. By 2006, roughly 40% of all loans originated that year were liar's loans and the number of liar's loans grew by over 500% from 2003-2006. After MARI's warning to the industry in early 2006 about liar's loans the industry massively increased the number of liar's loans it made. The only way for lenders to sell endemically fraudulent liar's loans was through fraud, so the FBI knew that liar's loans had to propagate fraud throughout the secondary market and mortgage derivatives. Despite all this, the FBI report on mortgage fraud ignores appraisal and mortgage origination fraud directed by the lenders' controlling officers.

Ninth, the FBI ignores the OTS's successful crackdown on liar's loans in 1990-1991 that was based on the inherently fraudulent nature of liar's loans. No honest mortgage lender would make wide-scale liar's loans. The FBI ignored the criminal referrals that OTS had made two decades earlier that explained why liar's loans optimized accounting control fraud.

Tenth, the FBI's list of "mortgage fraud perpetrators" gives a free pass to the real frauds and fingers the little people for prosecution. The FBI's list excludes all the officials who actually led the endemic appraisal and "liar's" loan frauds. The list only covers the minnows.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Aug 15, 2013 12:44 pm

see link for full story
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... g/2642491/

Feds pay millions for border-agent housing in Arizona
Brenna Goth , The Arizona Republic
August 12, 2013
Cost of building 21 homes in Ajo, Ariz., averages about $600,000 per house.
The Arizona Republic)
Story Highlights

The new houses are two-, three-bedroom models that range in size from 1,276 to 1,570 square feet
Older homes of a similar size in community of 4,400 sold for less than $100,000
Ajo is 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexican border


AJO, Ariz. — Taxpayers paid millions of dollars for a cluster of yellow, blue and salmon-colored homes that recently sprouted in the desert here, just west of a Spanish colonial revival-style plaza.

The federal government spent, on average, more than $600,000 apiece to plan and build 21 two- and three-bedroom houses and develop the surrounding area to attract U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel to live in this small former mining community.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Aug 16, 2013 11:46 pm

see link for full story
http://newsone.com/2681771/herbert-eugene-miller/

Tennessee Cop Busted Looking At Child Porn In Patrol Car
Aug 16, 2013

Herbert Eugene Mille

Greenville, Tennessee police officer Herbert Eugene Miller, 44 (pictured above), faces child pornography charges after investigators discovered that he used the computer in his patrol car to look at pictures of young girls, reports the Smoking Gun.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:51 am

One of LA’s Most Notorious Drug Dealers is Now Dedicating His Life to Charity
http://www.yourblackworld.net/2013/08/b ... o-charity/

BY: John “Hennry” Harris

Freeway Ricky Ross ran a criminal drug enterprise that earned him more than $600 million distributing cocaine that was used to sponsor CIA-backed Contra Rebels in Central America. Released from prison in 2009 for good behavior, the Real Rick Ross now backs more laudable causes.
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Re: another day at the hairdresser-I need a perm and wash

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Aug 18, 2013 6:27 pm

see link for full story
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/16/ ... ngerprint/

August 16-18, 2013

The Real Crime is in the Crime Lab
The FBI and the Myth of the Fingerprint
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Few law enforcement institutions have been so thoroughly discredited as the FBI’s forensic lab. In 1997 the Bureau’s inspector general of the time issued a devastating report, stigmatizing one instance after another of mishandled and contaminated evidence, inept technicians, and outright fabrication. The IG concluded that there were “serious and credible allegations of incompetence” and perjured courtroom testimony.

Our view is that taken as a whole, forensic evidence as used by prosecutors is inherently untrustworthy. For example, for years many people went to prison on the basis of the claims of a North Carolina anthropologist, Louise Robbins. She helped send people to prison or to Death Row with her self-proclaimed power to identify criminals through shoe prints. As an excellent recent Chicago Tribune series on forensic humbug recalled, on occasion she even said she could use the method to determine a person’s height, sex and race. Robbins died in 1987, her legacy compromised by the conclusion of many Appeals Courts that her methodology was bosh. There have been similarly hollow claims for lip prints and ear prints, all of them invoked by their supporters as “100 per cent reliable” and believed by juries too easily impressed by passionate invocations to 100 percent reliable scientific data.

Of course the apex forensic hero of prosecutors, long promoted as the bottom line in reliability–at least until the arrival of DNA matching–has been the fingerprint.

Fingerprints entered the arsenal of police and prosecutors in the late nineteenth century, touted as “scientific” in the manner of other fashionable methods of that time in the identification of supposed criminals, such as phrenology. A prime salesman was Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin and a founding huckster for the bogus “science” of eugenics. Actually fingerprints, at least in modern times, found their original use in the efforts of a British colonial administrator to intimidate his Indian laborers (whose faces he could not distinguish) from turning up more than once to get paid. He’d make a great show of scrutinizing the fingerprints he insisted they daub on his ledger book.

Then, as now, the use of the so-called “unique fingerprint” has been histrionic, not exactly scientific. In 1995, so the Chicago Tribune series discovered, “one of the only independent proficiency tests of fingerprint examiners in U.S. crime labs found that nearly a quarter reported false positives, meaning they declared prints identical even though they were not–the sort of mistakes that can lead to wrongful convictions or arrests.”

Decade after decade people have been sent to prison for years or dispatched to the death cell, solely on the basis of a single, even a partial print. So great is the resonance of the phrase “a perfect match” that defense lawyers throw in the towel, as judge and jury listen to the assured conclusions of the FBI’s analysts who virtually monopolize the fingerprint industry in the U.S.A. Overseas, in London’s Scotland Yard for example, the same mesmerizing “certainty” held sway, and still does.

In the U.S.A., part of the mystique stems from the “one discrepancy rule” which has supposedly governed the FBI’s fingerprint analysis. The rule says that identifications are subject to a standard of “100 per cent certainty” where a single difference in appearance is supposed to preclude identification.

The 1997 lab scandals threw a shadow over the FBI’s forensic procedures as a whole and the criminal defense bar began to raise protests against prosecutorial use of latent fingerprint identification evidence, as produced by FBI procedures. In 2002 Judge Louis Pollak, presiding over in a case in Pennsylvania, initially ruled that the FBI’s fingerprint matching criteria fell below new standards of forensic reliability (the Daubert Standards) stipulated by the Supreme Court. Ultimately the judge was persuaded that the FBI’s fingerprint lab had never made a mistake. In 2004, in U.S. v. Mitchell, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld these same questionable procedures.

But in 2006, the FBI’s new inspector general, Glenn Fine, grudgingly administered what should properly be regarded as the deathblow to fingerprint evidence as used by the FBI and indeed by law enforcement generally.

The case reviewed by Inspector General Fine, at the request of U.S. Rep John Conyers and U.S. Senator Russell Feingold, concerns the false arrest by the FBI of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer from Beaverton, Oregon.

On March 11, 2004, several bombs exploded in Madrid’s subway system with 191 killed and 1,460 injured. Shortly thereafter the Spanish police discovered a blue plastic bag filled with detonators in a van parked near the Acala de Heres train station in Madrid, whence all of the trains involved in the bombing had originated on the fatal day.

The Spanish police were able to lift a number of latent prints off the bag. On March 17 they transmitted digital images of these fingerprints to the FBI’s crime lab in Virginia. The lab ran the images through its prized IAFIS, otherwise known as the Integrated, Automated, Fingerprint Identification System, containing a database of some 20 million fingerprints.

The IAFIS computer spat out twenty “candidate prints”, with the warning that these 20 candidates were “close non-match”. Then the FBI examiners went to work with their magnifying glasses, assessing ridges and forks between the sample of 20 and the images from Spain. In a trice, the doubts of the IAFIS computer were thrust aside, and senior fingerprint examiner Terry Green determined that he had found “a 100 per cent match” with one of the Spanish prints of the fourth-ranked print in the IAFIS batch of 20 close non-matches. Green said this fourth ranked print came from the left index finger of Brandon Mayfield. Mayfield’s prints were in the FBI’s master file, not because he had been arrested or charged with any crime, but because he was a former U.S. Army lieutenant.

Green submitted his conclusions to two other FBI examiners who duly confirmed his conclusions. But as the Inspector General later noted, these examiners were not directed to inspect a set of prints without knowing that a match had already asserted by one of their colleagues. They were simply given the pair of supposedly matched prints and asked to confirm the finding. (These two examiners later refused to talk to the FBI’s inspector general.)

The FBI lost no time in alerting the Federal Prosecutor’s office in Portland, which initiated surveillance of Mayfield with a request to the secret FISA court, which issued a warrant for Mayfield’s phone to be tapped on the grounds, laid out in the Patriot Act, that he was a terrorist, and therefore by definition a foreign agent.

Surreptitious tapping and surveillance of Mayfield began. On April 2, 2004, the FBI sent a letter to the Spanish police informing them that they had developed a big break in the case, with a positive identification of a print on the bag of detonators.

Ten days later the forensic science division of the Spanish national police sent the FBI its own analysis. It held that the purported match of Mayfield’s print was “conclusively negative”. (The inspector general refered to this as the “Negativo Report”.)

The next day, April 14, the Federal Prosecutor in Portland became aware of the fact that the Spanish authorities were vigorously disputing the match with Mayfield’s left forefinger. But by now the Prosecutor and his team were scenting blood. Through covert surveillance they had learned that Mayfield was married to an Egyptian woman, had recently converted to Islam, was a regular attendee at the Bailal mosque in Portland, and had as one of his clients in a child custody dispute an American Muslim called Jeffrey Battle. Battle, a black man, had just been convicted of trying to go to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban.

Armed, so they thought, with this arsenal of compromising detail, the Federal Prosecutor and the FBI had no patience with the pettifogging negativism of the Spanish police. So confident were the Americans of the guilt of their prey that they never went back to take another look at the supposedly matching prints. Instead, on April 21, they flew a member of the FBI’s latent print unit to Spain for on-the-spot refutation of the impertinent Madrid constabulary.

The Inspector General’s report makes it clear that the FBI man returned from Spain with a false account of his reception, alleging that the Spanish fingerprint team had bowed to his superior analytic skills. The head of the Spanish team, Pedro Luis Melida-Weda, insists that his team remained entirely unconvinced. “At no time did we give our approval. We refused to validate the FBI’s conclusions. We kept working on the identification.”

By now either the U.S. Attorney’s office or, more likely, the FBI was leaking to the press news of the pursuit of a U.S. suspect in the Madrid bombing. But they knew that the actual evidence they had on Mayfield was virtually non-existent, aside from the fingerprint. On May 6, the Federal Prosecutor in Portland told U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jones that the Spanish police had ultimately accepted the FBI’s match, that Mayfield, alerted by the stories in the press about an unnamed suspect, might start destroying evidence, and that, therefore, they wanted to seize Mayfield, using the now favored charge du jour of the war on terror, claiming him to be a “material witness”. Judge Jones approved an arrest warrant.

Mayfield had no idea that the FBI had been tapping his phones and secretly rummaging through his office. The first time he became aware that he was a citizen under suspicion was on the afternoon of May 6. On that day eight FBI agents showed up at his law office, seized him, cuffed his hands behind his back, ridiculed his protestations. As they approached the door, Mayfield implored them to take the handcuffs off, saying he didn’t want his clients or staff to see him in this condition. The FBI agents said derisively, “Don’t worry about it. The media is right behind us.”

Mayfield ended up with two federal public defenders, Steven Wax and Christopher Schatz. Like many such, these two were dedicated to their interest of their client, tireless and resourceful. Their first concern was to get Mayfield out of the Multnomah Federal Detention Center in downtown Portland. Though jailed under an alias chosen for him by the Federal Prosecutor, the feds had immediately leaked this alias–Randy Barker–to The Oregonian newspaper, and a guard at the jail had promptly roughed up Mayfield.

The two public defenders went before Judge Jones and asked that as a material witness he be kept under house arrest, there being scant apparent evidence against him. Judge Jones finally compelled the U.S. Prosecutor to say what evidence he had against Mayfield. A fingerprint, said the Federal Prosecutor, withholding from the court the fact that this fingerprint was highly controversial and had been explicitly disqualified by the Spanish police.

The federal defenders questioned the imprisonment of their client, faced penalties of the utmost gravity, on the basis of a fingerprint. Judge Jones allowed as how he had sent people to prison for life on the basis of a single fingerprint. Mayfield’s attorneys asked to see a copy of the allegedly matched fingerprints and have them evaluated by their own expert witness. Knowing he was on thin ice the Federal Prosecutor refused, claiming it was an issue of national security. Under pressure from Judge Jones, himself pressured by the assiduous federal defenders, the U.S. Prosecutor finally agreed he would give the prints to an independent evaluator selected by Judge Jones.

The prints were given to Kenneth R. Moses of San Francisco, an SFPD veteran who runs a company called Forensic Identification Services, which, among other things, proclaims its skills in “computer enhancement of fingerprints”. It was “quite difficult”, Moses said, because of “blurring and some blotting out”, but yes, the FBI had it right, and there was “100 per cent certainty” that one of the prints on the blue bag in Madrid derived from the left index finger of Brandon Mayfield.

Moses transmitted this confident opinion by phone to Judge Jones on the morning of May 19. Immediately following Moses’ assertion, the U.S. attorney stepped forward to confide to Judge Jones dismaying news from Madrid from the Spanish police that very morning. The news “cast some doubt on the identification”. This information, he added, “was classified or potentially classified”.

The prosecutors then huddled with the judge in his chambers. After 20 minutes, Judge Jones stormed back out and announced that the prosecutors needed to tell the defense lawyers what they had just told him. The prosecutor duly informed the courtroom that the Spanish police had identified the fingerprint as belonging to the right middle finger of Ouhnane Daoud, an Algerian national living in Spain. Daoud was under arrest as a suspect in the bombing. Judge Jones ordered Mayfield to be freed. The U.S. prosecutor said he should be placed under electronic monitoring, a request which the judge turned down.

Four days later, on May 24, the warrant for his detention was dismissed.

The FBI sent two of their senor fingerprint analysts to Spain on a mission to salvage the Bureau from humiliation. The two analysts did their best, returning with the claim that the fingerprint sent to the FBI by the Spanish police was of “no value for identification purposes”, a claim which the inspector general later shot down by pointing that only a few weeks thereafter the FBI’s latent fingerprint unit concurred with the Spanish national police lab’s determination that the print on the bag matched the right middle finger of Ouhnane Daoud.

The FBI lab fought an increasingly desperate rearguard battle, eventually claiming that it had been the victim of an excessive reliance on technology. The inspector general points out that the only investigator in the FBI’s lab to emerge with any credit is in fact the IAFIS computer that had stated clearly, “close, no match”.

The Inspector General wrote the bottom line on the “science” of fingerprint matching. He got the FBI’s top examiner to admit that if Mayfield had “been like the Maytag repair man” and not a Muslim convert married to an Egyptian, “the laboratory might have revisited the identification with more skepticism.”

And Daoud’s fingerprint match? We don’t know, but if he was convicted on the basis of fingerprints alone, we would say there is grounds for an appeal.

This essay is adapted from End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair.

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature, Grand Theft Pentagon and Born Under a Bad Sky. His latest book is Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net.
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