Blackwater Worldwide and the Private Security Industry




Democracy Now! offers groundbreaking coverage on the private military company Blackwater Worldwide. The North Carolina-based firm operates under a multi-million dollar contract to protect U.S. officials and facilities. It’s been allowed close to free reign under a murky legal environment that offers little to no oversight over its operations.

Investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill offers regular reports. He is author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”

August 28, 2008: EXCLUSIVE: House Oversight Chair Henry Waxman Calls for Cancellation of Blackwater’s Contract in Iraq
In an exclusive interview with Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, Congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, calls on Sen. Barack Obama to cancel the private military firm Blackwater’s Iraq contract if Obama is elected president. Serious questions remain about what Obama will do with this massive private shadow army in Iraq.

June 02, 2008: Blackwater: From the Nisour Square Massacre to the Future of the Mercenary Industry

May 23, 2008: ‘War, Inc.’: John Cusack’s New Film Satirizes the Corruption, Profiteering and Hubris Behind the Iraq War

May 02, 2008: Southern California Residents Gear Up for New Fight to Stop Secretive Expansion by Military Firm Blackwater

April 07, 2008: State Dept. Renews Blackwater Contract in Iraq Despite Pentagon Labeling Sept. Baghdad Killing of 17 Civilians ‘A Criminal Event’

December 19, 2007: EXCLUSIVE…Blackwater Sued Again For Sept. 9th Attack, Five Iraqis Dead, Ten Wounded

December 19, 2007: TV BROADCAST EXCLUSIVE: Iraqi Witnesses, Victims Describe Blackwater Shooting in Harrowing Detail

December 10, 2007: What is Blackwater’s Role in the 2008 Presidential Race?

November 09, 2007 An Act of Terrorism? Blackwater Sniper Shot Dead Three Iraqi Guards At Iraqi Media Center in February

November 08, 2007: As Blackwater Is Implicated in Another Deadly Shooting in Iraq, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) Urges Passage of the Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act

October 18, 2007: ‘They Protect People’s Lives’—One Month After Baghdad Killings, Bush Defends Blackwater USA

October 11, 2007: EXCLUSIVE–Family Members of Slain Iraqis Sue Blackwater USA for Deadly Baghdad Shooting

October 11, 2007: Ex-U.S. Official in Iraq on Iraqi Efforts to Ban Blackwater: ‘I Was Surprised it Had Taken This Long’

October 11, 2007: Blackwater Loses Bid to Reject Wrongful Death Suit in Afghan Plane Crash

October 3, 2007: Mr. Prince Goes to Washington: Blackwater Founder Testifies Before Congress

September 27, 2007: Michelle Bachelet on Chilean Troops Working For Blackwater in Iraq and Fujimori’s Extradition to Peru

September 24, 2007:Blackwater Back on Patrol in Baghdad As Shootings Probe Continues

September 18, 2007:Can Iraq (or Anyone) Hold Blackwater Accountable for Killing Iraqi Civilians? A Debate On the Role of Private Contractors in Iraq

May 23, 2007:Pivotal Family Lawsuit Against Blackwater USA Blocked from Court—and Moved to Panel with Company Ties

May 23, 2007:Jeremy Scahill Responds to Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, Visits Blackwater Sites and Prince’s Hometown

May 11, 2007:Author and DN! Correspondent Jeremy Scahill Testifies in Landmark House Hearing on Defense Contracting

April 19, 2007:Blackwater Plans for New Military Facility Near San Diego Draws Fire From Residents, Peace Activists and Local Congressmember

March 21, 2007:Part II–Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

March 20, 2007:Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

February 08, 2007:Blackwater USA Takes Congressional Hot-Seat as Landmark Hearing Probes Mercenary Firm’s Role in Iraq

January 26, 2007:Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush’s Undeclared Surge

April 20, 2006:Blackwater in the Crosshairs: The Families of Four Private Security Contractors Killed in Fallujah File a Ground-Breaking Lawsuit

February 22, 2006:EXCLUSIVE: Al Jazeera Reporters Give Bloody First Hand Account of April ’04 U.S. Siege of Fallujah

September 23, 2005:Blackwater Down: Fresh From Iraq, Private Security Forces Roam the Streets of an American City With Impunity

September 16, 2005:The Militarization of New Orleans: Jeremy Scahill Reports from Louisiana

September 12, 2005:Overkill: Feared Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans

June 21, 2005:Private Warriors: New PBS Doc Questions Role of Military Contractors in Iraq

December 23, 2004:A New Poverty Draft: Military Contractors Target Latin America For New Recruits

April 01, 2004:Blackwater USA: Building the ‘Largest Private Army in the World’

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates
The Obama and McCain campaigns jointly negotiated a detailed secret contract dictating the terms of all the 2008 debates. This includes who gets to participate, as well as the topics raised during the debates. We speak to Open Debates founder and executive director George Farah


JUAN GONZALEZ: Tonight, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri will host the first and only vice-presidential debate between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Delaware Senator Joseph Biden. The debate will be moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS.


Senator McCain and Governor Palin have been sowing doubts about how fair Ifill will be because of a book she’s writing that’s called Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. The McCain campaign and right-wing pundits allege that Ifill might be biased in favor of Senator Obama.


What’s missing, however, is any concern about the fairness of the very structure of the debate. The Obama and McCain campaigns jointly negotiated a detailed contract dictating the terms of all the 2008 debates. This includes who gets to participate, as well as the topics raised during the debates. But the contract remains a secret, and the Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation created by the two major parties, has refused to release the contract to the public.


AMY GOODMAN: Open Debates is a nonprofit committed to democratizing the presidential debate process. Last month, Open Debates and nine other pro-democracy groups called on the Commission to make the contract public.


George Farah is the founder and executive director of Open Debates, author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates, joining us from Washington, D.C.


So, George, well, what are these rules tonight? What will they abide by, and who is making them?


GEORGE FARAH: Unfortunately, Amy, we don’t know the extent of the rules, because, precisely because, the Obama and McCain campaigns have absolutely refused to release the detailed contract that dictates the terms of tonight’s debate. We only have limited knowledge.


With respect to the new rules that we do know about, because the campaigns are terrified that both Biden and Palin will make a major gaffe during tonight’s performance, they have severely restricted the response times, so each candidate only has ninety seconds to respond to a particular question and then, only two minutes afterwards, to have some sort of discussion. This is in sharp contrast to the amount of time that was given to Obama and McCain during their debate.


And, of course, Amy, you’re not going to see any third party voices in tonight’s debate. The Republican, Democratic parties, who exert near absolute control over these public forums, have determined and made sure that no third party voices are ever seen on the debate stage and can challenge their dominance of our political system.


JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, walk us through how we got to this stage, who originally was sponsoring these debates years back, and how this secretive nonprofit organization gained control of them.


GEORGE FARAH: We used to have a fantastic, genuinely nonpartisan presidential debate sponsor: the League of Women Voters. From 1976 until 1984, the League of Women Voters hosted our most important public forums, and they made sure the debates served the public interest rather than the interest of any political party. And they had the guts to stand up to the two major parties.


In 1980, for example, former Republican Congressman John Anderson ran as an Independent for the president of the United States. President Jimmy Carter adamantly refused to debate him, but the League said, “You know what, Mr. President? Too bad.” And they hosted a presidential debate between Ronald Reagan and John Anderson that was watched by over 40 million people.


Fast-forward four years later, the Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan campaigns actually vetoed sixty-eight of the moderators that the League of Women Voters had proposed for the three debates. What did the League do? They issued a scathing public press release castigating the candidates for abusing the process, and the Reagan and Mondale campaigns were forced to accept aggressive moderators.


Again, four years later, the League of Women Voters were refusing to implement any contract that was negotiated by the George Bush and Dukakis campaigns. They had negotiated the first secret contract, a twelve-page memoranda of understanding, that dictated who would participate and how the format would be structured. The League said, “This is an outrage!”

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

AMY GOODMAN: You mean that that was longer than the initial proposal for the $700 billion bailout?


GEORGE FARAH: Nine pages longer. And they absolutely refused to implement the contract. Well, guess what. The parties did not like the fact that an uppity women’s organization, pro-democracy, was telling their boys who could participate in their debates and under what condition. And so, in 1987, they created this private corporation called the Commission on Presidential Debates. It sounds like a government agency; it’s not. And every four years, it awards absolute control to the Republican and Democratic parties over our political forums.


JUAN GONZALEZ: And who sponsors this organization?


GEORGE FARAH: Well, that makes things even worse. Unfortunately, much of the money that finances the presidential debates that are hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates are private corporations that have regulatory interests before Congress. Anheuser-Busch has spent the most money of any company in the United States on presidential debates, which is partly why every four years we get a debate in St. Louis, and we don’t have a debate this year in New Orleans, which is dying for a debate, and massive civic groups were demanding that a debate be held there to highlight some of Katrina’s problems.


Another consequence of corporate sponsorship is that the corporations are able to give a contribution this way to both parties. You know, we have limitations in this country. Corporations can’t give direct contributions to the candidates. Well, the Commission provides an end-run around. When a corporation gives money to the Commission on Presidential Debates, it knows it is giving money to both the Republican and Democratic parties, supporting their duopoly over our political process and excluding third party voices that may be hostile to corporate power. And all four third party candidates that are on ballots this year are sharply critical of growing corporate power.


AMY GOODMAN: Who are the co-chairs of the Commission?


GEORGE FARAH: Well, you’ve got Frank Fahrenkopf and Paul Kirk. These guys have run this presidential debate process for twenty years. They first incorporated in 1988. At the time, Amy, they were the heads of the Republican and Democratic parties. And they still—they still run our presidential debates.


And it shouldn’t be surprising that these guys are willing to sacrifice the integrity of the political process to serve partisan or private interest, because they’re registered lobbyists. Paul Kirk has lobbied on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. And Frank Fahrenkopf is the nation’s leading gambling lobbyist; he is the president of the American Gaming Association. These are the guys deciding who gets to participate in the most important political forums in the United States of America.

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

JUAN GONZALEZ: But now, there have been occasions when a third party candidate did get in. Obviously, Ross Perot managed to get in some of the debates back in ’92. Now, what have they been doing in terms of that?


GEORGE FARAH: Well, Juan, in 1992, the only reason Ross Perot got in the presidential debates is because the candidates refused to exclude him. That’s it. If the candidates had wanted him out, if Bill Clinton had wanted him out, he would have been out.


Four years later, though, when Ross Perot ran again, he was polling exactly the amount he was polling prior to the debates in 1992; he was polling at nine percent. He had $36 million in taxpayer funds. And yet, he was excluded. Why? Because behind closed doors, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole struck a deal.


Bill Clinton agreed to exclude Perot as long as Bob Dole agreed that there would be only two debates instead of three debates, that they would abolish follow-up questions, and that they would schedule those debates opposite the World Series. Bill Clinton was winning by about twenty points in the polls, and he didn’t want anyone watching these debates or any difficult questions challenging his authority.


And that’s exactly what happened. Perot was excluded, despite $35 million in taxpayer funds. The debates were held opposite the World Series, resulting in the lowest viewership ever. No follow-up questions. Only two debates. And the American people had no idea, because the Commission on Presidential Debates secretly implemented the contract and took all the flak.


AMY GOODMAN: I want to look how the two major party presidential nominees talk about the financial crisis and the Treasury’s $700 billion bailout and how the third party candidates address the issue. Let’s begin with an excerpt from the first presidential debate last Friday between Senator McCain and Senator Obama.


SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Number one, we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got oversight over this whole process. $700 billion potentially is a lot of money. Number two, we’ve got to make sure that taxpayers, when they are putting their money at risk, have the possibility of getting that money back and gains if the market and when the market returns.


SEN. JOHN McCAIN: We have finally seen Republicans and Democrats sitting down and negotiating together and coming up with a package. This package has transparency in it, options for loans to failing businesses, rather than the government taking over those loans. We have to—it has to have a package with a number of other essential elements to it.



AMY GOODMAN: So, the two major presidential party candidates agree on the bailout. Now, let’s listen to some of the other presidential candidates who were not included in Friday’s debate, what they had to say about the bailout. This is Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr.

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

BOB BARR: Now we have the federal government, the Bush administration, coming to us, the taxpayers of this country, and saying, “We want you to bail us out of the problem that we’ve created over the last ten years.” You open the door to this, you throw open wide the barn doors here, this raid on the federal Treasury, this raid on the taxpayers of this country, you’ll know for a fact that it will happen again and again and again. Already, others are lining up. The automobile industry is already lining up for its bailout. The Republican and the Democratic parties are complicit not only in causing this problem through their bad policies, their bad legislation, but also in proposing this bogus solution to the problem.



AMY GOODMAN: That’s Bob Barr, Libertarian candidate for president. We also interviewed Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader last week. This is some of what he had to say.


RALPH NADER: It’s not clear at all why a bailout is needed. That’s part of the stampede in the pack and the panic that Bush and Paulson and Bernanke are pushing Congress toward. You know, it’s eerily reminiscent, when you listen to Bush yesterday, of how he stampeded the Congress and the country into the criminal war invasion of Iraq in 2003. I mean, look at all his statements: this could do this, this would do that, farms failing, small business, tada, tada. The first question we have to ask as citizens is, why is there a need for a bailout?



AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ralph Nader. And finally, this is Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney talking about the bailout.


CYNTHIA McKINNEY: First of all, we need a moratorium on foreclosures. Secondly, we need to renegotiate all adjustable-rate mortgages into thirty- or forty-year loans. We also need to make sure that we redefine credit so that credit can work for small business owners and individuals and not against them. We also need accountability in the system—openness, transparency and accountability.

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

AMY GOODMAN: George Farah, it sounds like it would be a very different debate about the most important issues of the day, if these third party candidates were included.


GEORGE FARAH: Absolutely, Amy. Thank you so much for highlighting the significance of third party inclusion. There is no doubt that often the Republican and Democratic parties take positions, in large part due to the corporate interests that finance their campaigns, that are directly at odds with the opinions of either the majority of Americans or tens of millions of Americans. And these debates, which are designed to inform voters so they can make substantive decisions, should be airing the ideas that are supported by the vast majority of Americans that the two major parties are excluding.


And historically, that is the role that third parties have played. Historically, it has been third parties, not the major parties, that have supported and are responsible for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, public schools, public power, unemployment compensation, minimum wage, child labor laws. The list goes on and on. The two parties fail to address a particular issue; a third party rises up, and it’s supported by tens of millions of Americans, forcing the Republican and Democratic parties to co-opt that issue, or the third party rises and succeeds, which is why the Republican Party jumped from being a third party to being a major party of the United States of America.


When you exclude third parties from the election process, third parties that the vast majority of Americans would like to see in the presidential debates, you’re not only denying those people the right to choose who they want to run for president and who they want to vote for, but you’re denying the very fundamental and critical issues that, in a generative democracy, we need to have aired in from of tens of millions of voters.


AMY GOODMAN: George Farah, I want to thank you for being with us. Your website?


GEORGE FARAH: Opendebates.org. I’d appreciate if if everyone took a peek at it. Thank you.


AMY GOODMAN: George Farah, executive director and founder of Open Debates, author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates.

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

FEMA Admits It Held Fake Press Conference about California Wildfires; FEMA Staffers Posed as Journalists
On Tuesday, FEMA staged a fake press conference with agency staffers posing as news reporters. One FEMA staffer who pretended to be a journalist has since been promoted to become head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, had staged a fake press conference Tuesday with agency staffers posing as news reporters. Their acknowledgement, as well as an apology from FEMA officials, followed a Washington Post report that exposed the staged event. FEMA had only given reporters 15 minutes notice for Tuesday’s press conference. A toll-free telephone line allowed reporters to listen to the proceedings, but not to pose any questions.

This is an excerpt of the faux press conference where FEMA staff asked their boss Harvey Johnson, the FEMA Deputy Administrator, scripted and friendly questions.

FEMA “Press Conference”
Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff sharply rebuked FEMA on Saturday and called the staged news briefing “one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I’ve seen.” White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino also addressed questions about this at her news briefing on Friday.

White House press briefing
Diane Farsetta is a senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy. She coordinates the Center’s “No Fake News” campaign. She joins me now on the phone from Madison, Wisconsin.

Diane Farsetta, senior researcher at the Madison, Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy. She coordinates the center’s “No Fake News” campaign.
AMY GOODMAN: The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, had staged a fake news conference Tuesday with agency staffers posing as news reporters. Their acknowledgement, as well as an apology from FEMA officials, followed a Washington Post report that exposed the staged event. FEMA had only given reporters fifteen minutes notice for Tuesday’s news conference. A toll-free telephone line allowed reporters to listen to the proceedings, but not to pose any questions. The news conference was carried by MSNBC and Fox.

This is an excerpt of the fake news conference, where the FEMA staff asked their boss Harvey Johnson, the FEMA deputy administrator, well, friendly questions.

FEMA STAFFER: Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?

HARVEY JOHNSON: I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far. If you look at where FEMA has come over the last couple years, to see this one-hour VTC with the region in place and aggressively linked in with the state, a regional administrator who’s at the state EOC with the state Office of Emergency Services, linked up there for the last couple days to make sure that we understand the situation and can bring the right support to the state. This is a FEMA and a federal government that’s leaning forward, not waiting to react. And you have to be pretty pleased to see that.

Listen to the mayor of San Diego and ask him what he thinks about FEMA’s performance, and he’ll tell you that he couldn’t be more pleased with the support he’s been provided by the federal government, coordinated by FEMA. And ask Governor Schwarzenegger what he thinks about FEMA’s performance, he’ll tell you the same thing, that he couldn’t be more pleased at how FEMA recognizes the role the federal government is facilitating in that effort to the benefit of the state and the communities and those disaster victims in California. So you have to be really proud at the way our FEMA team has pulled together, looking beyond our own bounds of FEMA to bring the federal partners together.

MODERATOR: Last question?

FEMA STAFFER: What lessons learned from Katrina have been applied?

HARVEY JOHNSON: And lessons learned from Katrina, it’s like, is there day and is there night? And if you take a look at Katrina, where there really was no leaning forward, really, there really was not a fabric of federal partners, where there wasn’t good smooth communications between the governor and the administrator of FEMA, the governor and the President, to see all the federal partners linked together, pre-scripting mission assignments, having contracts in place, following a game plan, we didn’t do any of those kind of things in Katrina. And what you’re seeing now is a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team.

You are seeing some fits and starts, as you would expect in a disaster. It’s not storybook perfect, but you’re seeing people react and to see in a gap and to fill it right away and not wait to be told to fill it. And you’re seeing a gap that exists for moments, not for days or a week. And so, I think what you’re really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership, and the benefit of good partnership, none of which were present in Katrina. So I think as a nation, people should sit up and take notice that you have the worst wildfire season in history in California, and look at how well the state and the local governments are performing, look at how well we’re working together between state and federal partners. It’s a good thing to see, and it should be reassuring to the American public that if a disaster does strike our country, whether it’s California or a hurricane on the Gulf Coast, that we’ll do the same thing, we’ll pull together to support state and locals’ common objectives by teamwork and partnership.

AMY GOODMAN: FEMA deputy administrator Harvey Johnson being questioned by—well, the country thought they were reporters, but they were FEMA staffers posing as reporters. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff sharply rebuked FEMA Saturday and called the staged news briefing “one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I’ve seen.” White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino also addressed questions about this at her news briefing Friday.

REPORTER: On Tuesday, FEMA’s deputy administrator held what was called a news briefing to talk about the California wildfires. And from what we understand, the questions were posed not by reporters, but by staffers, and that distinction was not made known. Is that appropriate?

DANA PERINO: It is not. It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House or that we—we certainly don’t condone it. We didn’t know about it beforehand. FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting to try to get out a lot of information to reporters, who were asking for answers to a variety of questions in regards to the wildfires in California. It’s not something I would have condoned, and they, I’m sure, will not do it again.

REPORTER: Who is responsible?

DANA PERINO: FEMA is responsible, and they have taken that—they have accepted that responsibility, and they issued an apology today.

REPORTER: But isn’t—a follow-up on that. Isn’t there a normal morning call with all the press secretaries of all the agencies here, and whether somebody is having a press briefing or not is discussed?

DANA PERINO: We have a variety of ways that we talk to the—communicate to the communicators in the agencies. FEMA is not on that daily call, no, and I don’t know if the DHS—the head of DHS communications knew about it either. But FEMA has apologized for the error in judgment.

REPORTER: Dana, why didn’t this raise alarm bells, in terms of credibility, with anyone there?

DANA PERINO: You’ll have to ask them. They have admitted that they had an error in judgment. I would agree with that. They’ve issued an apology. And, you know, you’ll have to ask them about why they decided to do that.

REPORTER: But isn’t the President concerned, at a time when he is traveling to the area to talk about a very significant natural disaster—there have been issues about FEMA in the past, trying to make a distinction about progress made, and for them to effectively pretend to hold a news conference, doesn’t the President have concerns about that?

DANA PERINO: I just said that the White House did not know about it beforehand, and the White House condones it. And they have apologized for it. They had an error in judgment. They have admitted that. And I think that what they were—I don’t think that there was any mal-intent. I think that they were trying to provide information to the public through the press, because there were so many questions pouring in. It was just a bad way to handle it, and they know that.

REPORTER: Will anybody be reprimanded?

DANA PERINO: You’ll have to ask FEMA.

AMY GOODMAN: White House press person, Dana Perino, being questioned by real reporters at the White House, or at least they play them on TV. This is Diane Farsetta, senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy. She coordinates the Center’s “No Fake News” campaign, joining us now by phone from Madison, Wisconsin.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Diane. Your response to this news conference?

DIANE FARSETTA: Well, I think it has to be seen as an attempt at deliberate deception by the Bush administration and one in a long string of cases where we’ve seen this type of behavior, this really contempt for the role of a free press in a democracy. It happened almost two years to the day that there was a quote-unquote “teleconference” with the troops in Iraq that President Bush held, where it turned out that they had been prepped beforehand by the Pentagon’s lead PR person, Allison Barber. So we’ve seen this time and time again. There’s Armstrong Williams. There’s Jeff Gannon. Unfortunately, the Bush administration doesn’t seem to really understand that there needs to be independent reporters.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain again who Jeff Gannon is, for those with short memory.

DIANE FARSETTA: Sure. He is a person who was receiving daily passes to White House briefings. He was associated with the Republican Party, really had no real press credentials, but was in the briefing room at the White House asking softball questions at hard times during press conferences.

AMY GOODMAN: What more do you know about this news conference? Harvey Johnson, the deputy administrator of FEMA, they call a news conference, give reporters fifteen minutes to get there in Southern California. Of course, they can’t get there, so they’re told to call into a number, and they’re told they can only listen, they cannot participate. So they’re watching it on MSNBC, or they’re just listening on the phone, or they’re watching it on Fox, which is carrying it live. And explain who the—well, the fake reporters were.

DIANE FARSETTA: Right. Well, there were four staff people with FEMA who all had roles in dealing with the media. So I think it’s important to point out that these are not people who are not used to these type of situations. These are people who work at a federal agency that deals with emergency situations, and they work specifically with press. One of them, John Philbin, who’s—or who was, until last week, FEMA’s director of external affairs, he had a quarter-century career so far working in government with media, specifically working on crisis communication—marketing communications, brand management are his areas of expertise, and I think that’s what we really saw was brand management. They couldn’t have known—or they couldn’t not have known that this would reflect very poorly on FEMA if the word got out. And they basically seem to have been assuming that the word would not get out about what they were doing.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s astounding is where Philbin is now going.

DIANE FARSETTA: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: He was hardly punished.

DIANE FARSETTA: Right, exactly. He seems to have gotten a promotion to head public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. So, one can only wonder what he’ll be doing in his new position.

AMY GOODMAN: Have any of the others gotten promotions after faking reporters—being reporters?

DIANE FARSETTA: Not in this case so far. It will be interesting—I mean, you had aired some of, you know, the White House spokesperson, and the Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff did come out and condemn. I think, you know, that’s what you have to do in these cases when you get caught, is come out and condemn. But it will be interesting to see is anyone actually held accountable for this.

AMY GOODMAN: Diane Farsetta, very briefly, before we go to break, any updates on your whole campaign around exposing networks, local news stations that use video news releases, VNRs, either government VNRs or corporate VNRs?

DIANE FARSETTA: Right. We did have a very exciting breakthrough. The Federal Communications Commission proposed five fines against Comcast Corporation for one of their cable channels, CN8, having aired five VNRs without disclosure. It’s far from a done deal—

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what those VNRs are.

DIANE FARSETTA: Sure. They are—they’re sponsored PR videos. They were promoting things like Wheaties brand cereal, and they were being aired as news without any disclosure. So, fines have been proposed. Comcast is appealing. And there’s more than 110 other TV stations that we hope the FCC will be announcing fines against.

AMY GOODMAN: Diane Farsetta, I want to thank you for being with us, senior researcher at the Madison, Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy. She leads their “No Fake News” campaign.

Democracy Now .com

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

In a barely noticed development, a US Army unit is now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. An initial news report in the Army Times newspaper last month noted that in addition to emergency response the force “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.” The military has since claimed the force will not be used for civil unrest, but questions remain. We speak to Army Col. Michael Boatner, future operations division chief of USNORTHCOM, and Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine.

AMY GOODMAN: In a barely noticed development last week, the Army stationed an active unit inside the United States. The Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Team is back from Iraq, now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The unit will serve as an on-call federal response for large-scale emergencies and disasters. It’s being called the Consequence Management Response Force, CCMRF, or “sea-smurf” for short.


It’s the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to USNORTHCOM, which was itself formed in October 2002 to “provide command and control of Department of Defense homeland defense efforts.”


An initial news report in the Army Times newspaper last month noted, in addition to emergency response, the force “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.” The Army Times has since appended a clarification, and a September 30th press release from the Northern Command states: “This response force will not be called upon to help with law enforcement, civil disturbance or crowd control."


When Democracy Now! spoke to Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Goodpaster, a public affairs officer for NORTHCOM, she said the force would have weapons stored in containers on site, as well as access to tanks, but the decision to use weapons would be made at a far higher level, perhaps by Secretary of Defense, SECDEF.


Well, I’m joined now by two guests. Army Colonel Michael Boatner is future operations division chief of USNORTHCOM. He joins me on the phone from Colorado Springs. We’re also joined from Madison, Wisconsin by journalist and editor of The Progressive magazine, Matthew Rothschild.


We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Why don’t we begin with Colonel Michael Boatner? Can you explain the significance, the first time, October 1st, deployment of the troops just back from Iraq?


COL. MICHAEL BOATNER: Yes, Amy. I’d be happy to. And again, there has been some concern and some misimpressions that I would like to correct. The primary purpose of this force is to provide help to people in need in the aftermath of a WMD-like event in the homeland. It’s something that figures very prominently in the national planning scenarios under the National Response Framework, and that’s how DoD provides support in the homeland to civil authority. This capability is tailored technical life-saving support and then further logistic support for that very specific scenario. So, we designed it for that purpose.


And really, the new development is that it’s been assigned to NORTHCOM, because there’s an increasingly important requirement to ensure that they have done that technical training, that they can work together as a joint service team. These capabilities come from all of our services and from a variety of installations, and that’s not an ideal command and control environment. So we’ve been given control of these forces so that we can train them, ensure they’re responsive and direct them to participate in our exercises, so that were they called to support civil authority, those governors or local state jurisdictions that might need our help, that they would be responsive and capable in the event and also would be able to survive based on the skills that they have learned, trained and focused on.


They ultimately have weapons, heavy weapons and combat vehicles and another service capability at their home station at Fort Stewart, Georgia, but they wouldn’t bring that stuff with them. In fact, they’re prohibited from bringing it. They would bring their individual weapons, which is the standard policy for deployments in the homeland. Those would be centralized and containerized, and they could only be issued to the soldiers with the Secretary of Defense permission.

So I think, you know, that kind of wraps up our position on this. We’re proud to be able to provide this capability. It’s all about saving lives, relieving suffering, mitigating great property damage to infrastructure and things like that, and frankly, restoring public confidence in the aftermath of an event like this.

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

AMY GOODMAN: So the use of the weapons would only be decided by SECDEF, the Secretary of Defense. But what about the governors? The SECDEF would have—Secretary of Defense would have—would be able to preempt the governors in a decision whether these soldiers would use their weapons on US soil?


COL. MICHAEL BOATNER: No, this basically only boils down to self-defense. Any military force has the inherent right to self-defense. And if the situation was inherently dangerous, then potentially the Secretary of Defense would allow them to carry their weapons, but it would only be for self- and unit-defense. This force has got no role in a civil disturbance or civil unrest, any of those kinds of things.


AMY GOODMAN: Matt Rothschild, you’ve been writing about this in The Progressive magazine. What is your concern?


MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD: Well, I’m very concerned on a number of fronts about this, Amy. One, that NORTHCOM, the Northern Command, that came into being in October of 2002, when that came in, people like me were concerned that the Pentagon was going to use its forces here in the United States, and now it looks like, in fact, it is, even though on its website it says it doesn’t have units of its own. Now it’s getting a unit of its own.


And Colonel Boatner talked about this unit, what it’s trained for. Well, let’s look at what it’s trained for. This is the 3rd Infantry, 1st Brigade Combat unit that has spent three of the last five years in Iraq in counterinsurgency. It’s a war-fighting unit, was one of the first units to Baghdad. It was involved in the battle of Fallujah. And, you know, that’s what they’ve been trained to do. And now they’re bringing that training here?


On top of that, one of the commanders of this unit was boasting in the Army Times about this new package of non-lethal weapons that has been designed, and this unit itself is going be able to use, according to that original article. And in fact, the commander was saying he had even tasered himself and was boasting about tasering himself. So, why is a Pentagon unit that’s going to be possibly patrolling the streets of the United States involved in using tasers?


AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Boatner?


COL. MICHAEL BOATNER: Well, I’d like to address that. That involved a service mission and a service set of equipment that was issued for overseas deployment. Those soldiers do not have that on their equipment list for deploying in the homeland. And again, they have been involved in situations overseas. And having talked to commanders who have returned, those situations are largely nonviolent, non-kinetic. And when they do escalate, the soldiers have a lot of experience with seeing the indicators and understanding it. So, I would say that our soldiers are trustworthy. They can deploy in the homeland, and American citizens can be confident that there will be no abuses.


AMY GOODMAN: Matt Rothschild?


MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD: Well, you know, that doesn’t really satisfy me, and I don’t think it should satisfy your listeners and your audience, Amy, because, you know, our people in the field in Iraq, some of them have not behaved up to the highest standards, and a lot of police forces in the United States who have been using these tasers have used them inappropriately.


The whole question here about what the Pentagon is doing patrolling in the United States gets to the real heart of the matter, which is, do we have a democracy here? I mean, there is a law on the books called the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act that says that the president of the United States, as commander-in-chief, cannot put the military on our streets. And this is a violation of that, it seems to me.


President Bush tried to get around this act a couple years ago in the Defense Authorization Act that he signed that got rid of some of those restrictions, and then last year, in the new Defense Authorization Act, thanks to the work of Senator Patrick Leahy and Kit Bond of Missouri, that was stripped away. And so, the President isn’t supposed to be using the military in this fashion, and though the President, true to form, appended a signing statement to that saying he’s not going to be governed by that. So, here we have a situation where the President of United States has been aggrandizing his power, and this gives him a whole brigade unit to use against US citizens here at home.

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down

AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Michael Boatner, what about the Posse Comitatus Act, and where does that fit in when US troops are deployed on US soil?


COL. MICHAEL BOATNER: It absolutely governs in every instance. We are not allowed to help enforce the law. We don’t do that. Every time we get a request—and again, this kind of a deployment is defense support to civil authority under the National Response Framework and the Stafford Act. And we do it all the time, in response to hurricanes, floods, fires and things like that. But again, you know, if we review the requirement that comes to us from civil authority and it has any complexion of law enforcement whatsoever, it gets rejected and pushed back, because it’s not lawful.


AMY GOODMAN: Matthew Rothschild, does this satisfy you, editor of The Progressive magazine?


MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD: No, it doesn’t. One of the reasons it doesn’t is not by what Boatner was saying right there, but what President Bush has been doing. And if we looked at National Security Presidential Directive 51, that he signed on May 9th of 2007, Amy, this gives the President enormous powers to declare a catastrophic emergency and to bypass our regular system of laws, essentially, to impose a form of martial law.


And if you look at that National Security Presidential Directive, what it says, that in any incident where there is extraordinary disruption of a whole range of things, including our economy, the President can declare a catastrophic emergency. Well, we’re having these huge disturbances in our economy. President Bush could today pick up that National Security Directive 51 and say, “We’re in a catastrophic emergency. I’m going to declare martial law, and I’m going to use this combat brigade to enforce it.”


AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Michael Boatner?


COL. MICHAEL BOATNER: The only exception that I know of is the Insurrection Act. It’s something that is very unlikely to be invoked. In my thirty-year career, it’s only been used once, in the LA riots, and it was a widespread situation of lawlessness and violence. And the governor of the state requested that the President provide support. And that’s a completely different situation. The forces available to do that are in every service in every part of the country, and it’s completely unrelated to the—this consequence management force that we’re talking about.


AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned governors, and I was just looking at a piece by Jeff Stein—he is the national security editor of Congressional Quarterly— talking about homeland security. And he said, “Safely tucked into the $526 billion defense bill, it easily crossed the goal line on the last day of September.


“The language doesn’t just brush aside a liberal Democrat slated to take over the Judiciary Committee”—this was a piece written last year—it “runs over the backs of the governors, 22 of whom are Republicans.


“The governors had waved red flags about the measure on Aug. 1, 2007, sending letters of protest from their Washington office to the Republican chairs and ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services committees.


“No response. So they petitioned the party heads on the Hill.”


The letter, signed by every member of the National Governors Association, said, “This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors…to the federal government.”


Colonel Michael Boatner?

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down