Federal Court rejects government bid to keep spy document

Federal Court rejects government bid to keep spy document

The Gazette - November 19, 2010 - by Andrew Duffy, Postmedia News
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Federal+Court+rejects+government+keep+document/3858079/story.html

"Government agencies will not be able to hide information behind the veil of national security if the information offers evidence of complicity in torture, a Federal Court judge has ruled."

Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week: Oct. 10-16, 2010

Dehumanization and Torture - Andy Worthington and Justine Sharrock:

More at:
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/10/15/video-andy-worthington-and-justine-sharrock-at-berkeley-says-no-to-torture-week/





Liveblogging:
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/10/13/liveblogging-berkeley-says-no-to-torture-week-days-two-and-three-radio-film-and-puncturing-john-yoos-lies/

Paul Pritchard - The footage that made all the difference

Paul Pritchard recorded police stunning Dziekanski with Taser shots at Vancouver International Airport on October 14, 2007.

After Paul Pritchard gave police his footage of the Tasering of Dziekanski, he had to hire a lawyer, hold a news conference and threaten court action to get it back.

No wonder the RCMP wants "everything in secret"...

The video is only partially available now. It stops when RCMP officers start the actions that resulted in his death. It was previously on youtube. Part of the video follows:

The Use of State Secrets

Center For Constitutional Rights attorneys discuss President Obama's first year's policies of torture, detention, and abduction. Speaking are CCR (Center for Constitutional Rights- USA) President Michael Ratner, Senior Staff Attorney Maria LaHood, and Executive Director Vince Warren, moderated by CCR's Education and Outreach Director Annette Warren Dickerson. Event at Judson Church, USA, February 17, 2010.

MAHER ARAR - AN UPDATE

On February 1, 2010, Maher Arar petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' en banc decision dismissing his case. (November 2, 2009)

Details and a message from Center for Constitutional Rights HERE:
http://www.ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/arar-v.-ashcroft


In 2007 , CNN aired an interview with Maher Arar :

Book Review - A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments

[The following is reposted from INVICTUS Blog (HERE) which reposted it from a Firedoglake Book Salon. It was the introductory essay introducing author H.P. Albarelli and his book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments. One can still read the chat from the 1/23/10 FDL Book Salon by clicking here.]

The book contains among others, revelations about "the LSD dosing of an entire small French town, Pont-St.-Esprit, in August 1951. Four people died, and hundreds were afflicted."

Extract:
"As the book's title suggests, Olson's death was intricately tied up with the history of U.S. interrogation, torture, and mind control experiments. Many readers are no doubt familiar with the acronym MKULTRA. This CIA program, and others like it - Project Bluebird, Operation Artichoke, MKNAOMI, MKSEARCH, among others - were launched in part in reaction to fears within the government that communist countries were outstripping the West in their ability to manipulate prisoners' minds, and even create, via hypnosis and drugs, Manchurian Candidate assassins. Hysteria over "brainwashing" was later discovered to be whipped up by CIA-linked journalists.

The CIA worked closely with academic and military researchers, including many doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists. The scientists' results were later operationalized in the CIA's 1960s KUBARK and other interrogation manuals."

"One of the many revelations in this well-researched and documented book, and a key element in the Olson murder mystery, is the LSD dosing of an entire small French town, Pont-St.-Esprit, in August 1951. Four people died, and hundreds were afflicted. It may have been an incautious slip regarding the Pont-St.-Esprit episode that constituted what Frank Olson explained to his wife before his death was "a terrible mistake."

From the book (p. 690):
According to Albert and Neal [two CIA informants], several weeks before the meeting at Deep Creek Lake, Frank Olson had "broken security" and talked about the French experiment on at least two occasions. He had been specifically cautioned by [CIA agent] Vincent Ruwet and [Ft. Detrick Special Operations Division chief] John Schwab about the "high level of security and sensitivity involving the experiment"....

The question was posed to the two sources: "Was this, the incident in France at Pont-St.-Esprit, the 'un-American activity' referred to in the papers given to the Olsons by [CIA Director] William Colby?"

FULL ARTICLE HERE:
http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/book-review-terrible-mistake-murder-of.html

Arar launches online magazine to probe security issues

January 20, 2010 -

Maher Arar launches online magazine to probe security issues :

PRISM MAGAZINE: The Security Practices Monitor at:

http://prism-magazine.com/

"OTTAWA — Falsely accused of terrorist ties, Maher Arar has transformed his rendition ordeal into an online magazine promoting critical analysis of national security and related issues.

PRISM Magazine, a self-described "security practices monitor," debuted Wednesday. The inaugural edition includes a feature article on security and human rights by Alex Neve, head of Amnesty International Canada's English branch, and a commentary by veteran Ottawa journalist Jeff Sallot on the failure of U.S. intelligence officials to detect the Christmas Day airline bomb plot."

Arar, who lives in Ottawa, is the publisher of the not-for-profit journal, which has one other volunteer staff member, managing editor Richard Swain.

Full Article

http://www.canada.com/news/Arar+launches+online+magazine+probe+security+issues/2465277/story.html

Maher Arar interview at FAULT LINES:

Retrospect - March 2009

Documentary: "AMERICAN FAUST: From Condi to Neo-Condi"

American Faust - A documentary that covers the career of American Condoleezza Rice - from the weapons of mass destruction lies to the torture program, she regrets nothing....

Worldwide Release December 2nd, 2009

DVD and download at:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvxjn4_american-faust_news

The trailer of "AMERICAN FAUST: From Condi to Neo-condi"

Italian Court Convicts 23 Americans In CIA Rendition Case | AfterDowningStreet.org

More on the first extraordinary rendition conviction:

Italian Court Convicts 23 Americans In CIA Rendition Case

AfterDowningStreet.org

TORTURE ON TRIAL - 2009

RAPING THE WORLD: THE AMERICAN TORTURE INSTRUCTIONS- “Reception at Black Site”: WELCOME HOME !! and then "The insult slap "

The essence of American Torture, wherever it takes place:

"pressure" in a comprehensive, systematic and cumulative manner...

"The insult slap “is often the first physical technique used with an High Value Detainee once an interrogation begins.”

It is all written in details, from the first "insult slap" to wherever it goes...

Among the documents released on Monday there is a "background paper" which describes the CIA’s process of “rendition” and the torture prisoners are then subjected to ( at least part of it)

Instructions on torture satrating at the "Welcome Home" upon arrival at the torture prisons :

Three stages and more : conditioning techniques, corrective techniques and coercive techniques...

“conditioning techniques” - detainee is reduced to a “baseline, dependent state”
"corrective techniques" - “insult slap,” “abdominal slap,” “facial hold,” and “attention grasp.”...
"coercive techniques" - .....

Background paper - HERE "The Combined techniques of the United States of America Torture Program:
Documents released (only a fraction of what exists, for sure)

ON EMBARASSMENT AND SHAME - FROM THE FIRST SLAP IN THE FACE ...TO THE IDEA OF JUSTICE

"What an irony that it is the tortured not the torturer, who feels shame and embarassment from the first slap in the face to the non accountability of those who participated directly or indirectly in torture and its irreversible damages."





"Anyone who has been tortured remains tortured." Anyone who has suffered torture never again will be at easy in the world...faith in humanity , already cracked by the first slap in the face, then demolished by torture, is never acquired again..."
Jean Améry, Austrian philosopher tortured by the Nazis - At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor of Auschwitz and Its Realities - 1980


HOW CAN IT BE THAT THOSE WHO AUTHORIZED, ORDERED AND/OR PARTICIPATED IN TORTURE WALK FREE, RECEIVING THE "DE FACT" IMPUNITY ?

"...I ask you to act in service to the truth and to the principle that no matter how high the position held nor how much power accrues to it, its incumbent must be held accountable to the law. ...to do less is to betray the very idea of Justice"

From the letter of Sister Dianna Ortiz, U.S. citizen tortured in Guatemala in 1989, to President Obama - July 2009



In France, the top Secret "Alliance Base":
"Under the directions of the CIA, the countries that have sent officers to be part of the "Alliance Base" based in France, include: Canada, Britain, France, Australia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/02/AR2005070201361.html?referrer=emailarticle


see post JULY 3, 2009 HERE

UK Restoring the Rule of Law - Secret of Ghost Flights to be Revealed - CIA could not have acted alone in The Rendition Program

Jeppesen UK Gives In, Will Give Up "Ghost Plane" Evidence on Renditions
Which governments were complicit in extraordinary rendition is finally going to be exposed as :

The article:

Secrets of CIA 'ghost flights' to be revealed

July 26, 2009 - Sunday - UK Guardian

HERE



MORE and In the NEWS:

Toronto Star December 4, 2005 -Ghost flights over Canada-By Tim Harper - HERE

STEPHEN GRAY - author of the book "GHOST PLANE" interview at:
Watch Video: EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION - HERE

Canadian Security Intelligence Service- Problems beyond Torture:personal accountability and the moral necessity of Nuremberg’s fundamental ethic

CSIS and "the Nuremberg Defense" - "Just following orders"

THE NUREMBERG ETHIC

- "One cannot evade ethical responsibilities by “just following the law,” “just following orders,” “just following regulations,”

Is this the reason CSIS's employees are not accountable for their actions? "Just following orders"?

After the findings of wrongdoing by Canadian cops and spooks (O'Connor and Iacobucci Reports, e.g.) Canadian officials were not hold accountable for their actions and their names and actions have been protected by a secrecy that gives these "faceless taxpayer money paid people", the power to, with impunity, destroy the lives and reputation of innocent people and still hide behind institutions that look like prepared to do whatever it takes to avoid accountability.

No Nuremberg Ethic in Canadian Institutions? Is the “Nuremberg Defense” acceptable and allowed by Canadian Intelligence Services Codes?

For individual conclusion – “Nuremberg Ethic” :

- "One cannot evade ethical responsibilities by “just following the law,” “just following orders,” “just following regulations,” etc

- “Ethical Responsibilities” go beyond torture to include:
- behaviors often termed “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment
- activities such as using soldiers or civilians as human subjects without their knowledge or informed consent
- using therapy relationship as pretense to obtain information from or about those held in prisons, jails, holdingcells, detention centers, or other institutions and other activities that might be undertaken in service of national security, intelligence, or defense agencies, or under the auspices of national, state, or local law enforcement, correctional, judicial, or other governmental authorities
- unfair discrimination and other concepts associated with civil rights or fair and just treatment.

PS:
The Nuremberg Defense: "just following orders”, was used by NAZI criminals who, among other things, tried to justify their actions hiding behind institutions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some facts about Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CIA, USA...and more:

1 - CSIS "very close relationship" w/CIA:Alliance Base,Secret Counterterrorist Intelligence Centers

The Washington Post, By Dana Priest, July 3, 2005, (HERE) :
In 2002, the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, funded a top secret center in Paris, code-named "Alliance Base".

It would give the necessary cover to countries that did not want to be perceived perceived as taking direction from the CIA.
The center's working language is French, as revealed in the article, which would play down the U.S. role and the CIA main role.
Countries who have sent officers to be part of the top secret "Alliance Base" include:Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and the United States.

--------------------------------------------
2- John Di Gangi, then the director of foreign intelligence at Canada's Foreign Affairs Department:(HERE) “The U.S. would like Canada's assistance in putting together a criminal case against Abdelrazik,” John Di Gangi, then the director of foreign intelligence at Canada's Foreign Affairs Department, writes in the note sent to top officials in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and other security agencies, following a high-level diplomatic request from senior U.S. officials. “If Canadian police or security agencies shared what they had, it might prove to be enough for the U.S. to proceed as the threshold for prosecution there [in the U.S.] was lower than here [in Canada].”[ post June 21, 2009]

---------------------------------------------------------
From harassing people to "squeeze" them out of the country, participation in "interrogation" in a notorious torture prison to recent "omissions" to Federal Court judges (HERE), CSIS's list of "mistakes" goes on and on. But since there has been no accountability, the problem , looks like, is not what they have been doing but the fact that, in some cases, they were caught...

THE HILL TIMES - October 2, 2006 - CSIS didn't want Arar returned to Canada - HERE

And more at "Canadian role in Syria torture" - BBC News, October 24, 2008 - HERE

In 2007, as part of the investigation into government foreknowledge of the torture, it was revealed that Jack Hooper, former CSIS deputy director, had sent an earlier memo on October 10, 2002 that included the reference "I think the United States would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him".

He also contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2003 to tell them that it was not in Canada's interests to demand that the United States return Maher Arar, rather than deporting him to Syria.


3- CANADIAN SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE (CSIS) IN THE TORTURE PRISON OF GUANTANAMO:

OFFICIAL REPORTS:
In "preparation" for the Canadian Officials "visit", the Canadian citizen was put in the "frequent flyer program: for the three weeks before Mr. Gould's visit, Umar has not been permitted more than three hours in anyone location. At three hours intervals he is moved to another cell block, thus denying him uninterrupted'sleep and a continued change of neighbours. He will soon be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then he will be interviewed again"

(All documents available are on line at The University of California Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas - click HERE)

video HEREOmar Kadhar when he was captured at the age of 14


In ONE of CSIS "visits" to Guantanamo, on March 30, 2004, Jim Gould, CSIS officer, was one of the interrogators at Guantanamo:, and doesn't look like that he was there to get ""information which can prevent something like the Air India bombing, the Twin Towers".

"I want to talk to the honest Omar I was talking yesterday. I don't want to talk to this Omar"

Video at:
Newsweek Magazine, July 15, 2008:

http://video.newsweek.com/#?t=1868992093&l=18465772001

Or at CBC News - timeline and video HERE:


Documents also show that in "preparation" for the Canadian Officials "visit", the Canadian citizen was put in the "frequent flyer program: for the three weeks before Mr. Gould's visit, Umar has not been permitted more than three hours in anyone location. At three hours intervals he is moved to another cell block, thus denying him uninterrupted'sleep and a continued change of neighbours. He will soon be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then he will be interviewed again"(extracetd from the report HERE)

Omar Khadr, was 15 years old when he was captured in July 2002 and was transferred to the US prison at Bagram airbase, where was subjected to chronic abuse. He was severely wounded by then. One of his interrogators at Bagram prison was Sgt. Joshua Claus, who was later charged of various crimes, including assault and “maltreatment of a detainee” in connection with the murder of the two men, and was sentenced to five months in jail in 2006.

How many more Abdelraziks? by Maher Arar

How many more Abdelraziks? by Maher Arar - From Globe and Mail - June 26, 2009 - HERE

Recently, it seems like every new day has brought new revelations about the depth of involvement of Canadian government agencies, past and present, in the torture of Canadian citizens. Despite the clear conclusions of Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's inquiry and the findings of former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci's inquiry, the unique stamp of Canadian involvement in the torture of its citizens is actually growing.

An inquiry into the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, which now seems inevitable, will certainly shed more light about the widely used practice of “obtain information by proxy.” But Canadians need not wait for a full-blown inquiry to learn the facts in this case: A glimpse into the heart of a possible inquiry can already be gleaned from a recent federal court order ruling that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was, at the very least, complicit in Mr. Abdelrazik's initial detention. We can add to that all the rest of what we have learned recently from extensive investigative journalistic reporting, which has mostly quoted official Canadian government documents.

What is particularly puzzling is how CSIS keeps repeating its hopeful mantra that it was never complicit in any of these cases. What the agency may not realize is that, regardless of how often or loudly it denies the obvious, Canadians have learned enough from two federal inquiries and the work of reporters to draw their own conclusions. CSIS should be more worried about its credibility, and be open and forthcoming about the facts of this most recent matter. This is the only path that will allow it to restore its credibility, and the most direct route to providing Canadians with the truth.

Canadians deserve to know why so many of this country's citizens, all of Muslim background, have been imprisoned and tortured abroad. Human-rights organizations, activists and national-security experts have been calling for the current government to establish the credible oversight agency that was recommended by Judge O'Connor several years ago. Their calls have landed on deaf ears.

How many more victims will it take before our government realizes that it needs to act? If the government had established this agency, Mr. Abdelrazik could launch a complaint upon his return. The time required for him to get answers and justice would be much shorter. For taxpayers, it would be a much cheaper alternative than a full-blown federal inquiry.

Most importantly, Canadians would have a reason to trust that their security agencies are being properly held to a higher standard.

In the meantime, even before another inquiry is called, agencies that have played any role in the ordeals of Canadians detained and tortured abroad should be truthful in their statements and not defensive in their rhetoric. They should apologize to the victims of overzealous national security practices. Moreover, they need to take actions assuring Canadians that this will never happen again. It is that simple.

CIA - The Torture Program: Psychologists Who Devised US Torture Program Had No Interrogation Experience, Were Paid $1000/Day by CIA

Physicians for Human Rights: -May 1, 2009 - HERE
ABC News, April 30, 2009 - HERE

Bruce Jessen, left, and JimMitchell
As Senate Reports confirm Rumsfeld responsible for Torture Program (HERE), more revelations about the program emerge and calls for an for an independent, outside investigation of the American Psychological Association's (APA) ties to the Pentagon also increase. (HERE)

According to current and former government officials, the CIA’s secret torture program was designed by Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. They were paid $1000/day to design and implement the US torture program.

Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington, together founded Mitchell Jessen and Associates . They are both former military officers who had no interrogation experience, as per former U.S. officials who say the two men were essentially the architects of the CIA’s interrogation plan.

“The whole intense interrogation concept that we hear about, is essentially their concepts,” according to Col. Steven Kleinman, an Air Force interrogator….

But it turns out neither Mitchell nor Jessen had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before the CIA hired them.

“They went to two individuals who had no interrogation experience,” said Col. Kleinman. “They are not interrogators.”

Michael Rolince, former section chief of the F.B.I.'s International Terrorism Operations, says that the tactics were a "voodoo science" .

According to a person familiar with the methods, the basic approach was to "break down [the detainees] through isolation, white noise, completely take away their ability to predict the future, create dependence on interrogators."(Vanity Fair, Katherine Eban, July 17, 2007)

Mitchell and Jessen were first exposed in July 2007 (article HERE) as the CIA psychologists who reversed engineered US military SERE training methods for the Bush administration’s torture program.

"The reverse-engineered SERE tactics that had been designed by Mitchell and Jessen, road-tested in the C.I.A.'s black sites, and adopted in Guantánamo were being used in Iraq as well. One intelligence officer recalled witnessing a live demonstration of the tactics. The detainee was on his knees in a room painted black and forced to hold an iron bar in his extended hands while interrogators slapped him repeatedly. The man was then taken into a bunker, where he was stripped naked, blindfolded, and shackled. He was ordered to be left that way for 12 hours."

(Rorschach and Awe, by Katherine Eban, Vanity Fair, July 17, 2007 - HERE)

SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape; it is a training program for US military personnel at risk of capture. As part of the program, trainees are subjected to harsh and abusive psychological interrogation methods — largely derived from Cold War techniques employed by Soviet and Chinese interrogators to extract false confessions.

WATCH the Video: "Fault Lines" - April 16, 2009 - Canadian Torture Cases included

TORTURE and AMERICA'S Wars - CIA torture operatives, officers of a vigilante Nation since segregation, used to torture, kidnappings, secret executions ...?
USA Torture Program - a reminder of the Ku Klux Klan tactics and "techniques"?

(photo by Anthony Karen-
"Aryan Outfitters - Meet the Ku Klux Klan's seamstress of hate couture"
full piece at Mother Jones, March 27, 2008 - HERE


CIA RENDITION , Torture , kidnappings, assassinations...and more - updates and interviews at "Fault Lines" - with Avi Lewis - April 16, 2009 - HERE


Watch the video:

Part I



Part II






Interviews with people on all sides of the so-called "war on terror" - from human rights lawyers to former Bush administration officials; from a former US detainee who was rendered to torture to the CIA analyst who helped author his fate- Michael Scheuer.

Scheuer remarkably has no constraints when he shows the bully/vigilante mentality of American Secret Services:
"I'd rather kill them when we find them, than to take them anywhere!"
by Michael Scheuer - former CIA staffer

Also, an interview with Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state under George Bush, Obama's predecessor, who said he hoped he would have resigned had he known that detainees were being waterboarded.

Creating and feeding ISLAMOPHOBIA - how Islamophobes manipulate media

FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN REPORTING documents the "ISLAMOPHOBIA INDUSTRY"

Smearcasting documents the public writings and appearances of Islamophobic activists and pundits who intentionally and regularly spread fear, bigotry and misinformation in the media.

A fresh ook at Islamophobia and its perpetrators in today’s media

See snapshots, or case studies, describing how Islamophobes manipulate media.

http://www.smearcasting.com/


(from the FAIR BLOG at http://www.fair.org/index.php)

"DIRECTED SOUND TO GET IN YOUR HEAD" - An Interesting Article

Advertisers using 'directed sound' to get in your head

By DAVID HO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/19/08

WATERTOWN, Mass. — If you hear mysterious voices in your head the next time you stroll down the street, they may be trying to sell you something.

That was the case recently in New York when people walking beneath a billboard for the A&E show "Paranormal State" suddenly heard a woman's disembodied voice whisper: "Who's there? Who's there?" and "It's not your imagination."

The creepy effect was caused by technology called Audio Spotlight that projects sound in a focused beam so only people in a certain spot can hear it. That "directed sound" system is the work of Joseph Pompei, an engineer who founded Holosonic Research Labs Inc. in Watertown.

"There is an interesting perception of the sound being inside your head," Pompei said.

Thanks to the spread of digital video signs and pressure on advertisers to reach consumers in new ways, the business of directed sound has begun to take off for a handful of companies.

"The idea of directing sound was a real uphill battle when we first started, but all of a sudden people are coming to us saying, 'We have to have directional sound. We don't want all this noise in our store,' " said Woody Norris, founder of American Technology Corp. in San Diego.

Norris sells the HyperSonic Sound system, which uses the same principles as the Holosonic product.

Norris said he has sold many units for use with video screens in checkout lines in Kroger- and Meijer-owned grocery stores so audio can reach waiting customers without constantly bombarding store workers.

Court TV used Audio Spotlight in 2006 in Manhattan bookstores and a few Atlanta locations to promote a murder mystery show.

Customers who tripped a motion sensor would suddenly hear a voice whispering a 30-second message. Part of it said: "Don't turn around. Do you ever think about murder? Committing the ultimate crime? I do. All the time."

Full article at:

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/business/stories/2008/02/18/sound_0219.html