In our latest podcast, (left to right) editors Henry See, Scott Ogrin, and Joe Quinn discuss the nature and history of conspiracies in the US, as well as the popular notion of conspiracy theories.

We present the evidence that shows that conspiracy is an integral component of life here on the big blue marble. With two special guests from New York City, we also discuss the effects that very real conspiracies are now having on ordinary Americans.

Below are some of the articles cited so that you can read the material yourselves.

If you have any questions for the Signs Team or would like to suggest a topic for future PodCast discussion, you can write us at:

For the first time, the Signs Team's most popular and discerning essays have been compiled into book form and thematically organized.

These books contain hard hitting exposés into human nature, propaganda, psyop activities and insights into the world events that shape our future and our understanding of the world.

The six new books, available now at our bookstore, are entitled:

• 911 Conspiracy
• The Human Condition
• The Media
• Religion
• The Work
• U.S. Freedom

Read them today - before the book burning starts!

The Size of the Lie...

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, because the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad.

The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them more easy victims of a big lie than a small one, because they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones.

Such a form of lying would never enter their heads. They would never credit others with the possibility of such great impudence as the complete reversal of facts. Even explanations would long leave them in doubt and hesitation, and any trifling reason would dispose them to accept a thing as true.

Something therefore always remains and sticks from the most imprudent of lies, a fact which all bodies and individuals concerned in the art of lying in this world know only too well, and therefore they stop at nothing to achieve this end."

- Adolf Hitler writing in his book Mein Kampf

As most readers are aware, the main purpose of the Signs of the Times page is to uncover and present the truth - to as great an extent as we can uncover it - about our world, the nature of the people that inhabit it, and the many and varied groups involved in attempting to control it. In the interests of objectivity and a deeper understanding of the dynamics at work, it may be useful for us, at this particular point in time, to stop for a minute and consider the state and nature of human existence on our planet at present.

There are approximately 6 billion of us on this planet. The lives and fortunes of this 6 billion people are directed in various ways by a relatively small group of elected or unelected individuals who, together, make up what is called "government".

No individual or group alive today can lay claim to having come up with the idea that an individual or a small group should be in charge of everybody else. All of us were born into a world where some form of government or another already existed, including those individuals who, during their lifetime, became part of the ruling class. There is obviously a power - a "line of force" - behind these governments, but we will leave that aspect of the question aside for the moment. For now, we want to look at very specific issues.

There are two possible explanations as to why some form of government or another - a ruling class vis a vis the masses of humanity - has existed now for many generations.

The first explanation is the argument that it is fundamental to human nature to look to a leader or leaders to take and enact decisions on behalf of the larger group. The argument goes that, due to another fundamental aspect of human nature - the tendency towards service to self - leadership by an individual or small group is necessary to ensure that a structured society, even the most primitive, can succeed without descending into anarchy, violence and survival of the fittest, and that even those humans who wish that it were not so, innately understand this and therefore willingly embrace a hierarchy as a necessary evil. Leadership, or government, then, is a structure that is put in place essentially to protect the people from themselves while maintaining the structure of society for the benefit of all, and places power into the hands of the few who present themselves as most able to do the job.

Let us notice this important fact: by and large in recent history, those that have presented themselves, or have been presented by others, as being fit for the job of leadership, have been elected or selected as a result of their own claims, or the claims of others, as to their competence rather than due to any stunningly evident leadership qualities. That is to say, society is too large for direct contact and intimate knowledge of the leaders by the people, so we end up having to trust their claims or the claims of their pals.

This, of course, leads to the question of who will protect the people from the leaders and regulate their actions if such a need arises?

This issue does not seem to be provided for in any practical or rational way, and the 'governees' are left to paradoxically hope that the leaders somehow possess, or will develop, the benevolent qualities befitting those who aspire to positions of power.

The paradox is, of course, in the fact that the lack of these benevolent qualities in humans in general, including the leaders, is what creates the need for leaders in the first place!

The second explanation, while accepting that human beings tend towards self service, proclaims that it is not by any means a 'black and white' issue and that there exists also an altruistic aspect to human nature, if only in potential. Furthermore, it is proposed that the degree to which self centeredness and altruism are manifested can vary greatly from person to person. It is further argued that there exists the possibility that, if the human potential for altruism were to be cultivated, a very different social structure might have a chance to develop. With this as its basis, the second explanation asserts that the concept that a few must naturally govern the many is not necessarily true and, in fact, is most often promoted by those in whom the service to self nature is strongest.

Indeed, it can be convincingly argued that, for those people of a predominantly self-serving nature, the first explanation is in fact very true, but only for them, and it is in this idea that a foundational problem of our existence arises.

In a world where some people possess the potential for service to others, and some do not, those that do not will, by their very nature, be able to provide false evidence that the first explanation is the truth, that anarchy does indeed result from a lack of leaders, which then precludes the possibility that anything other than a hierarchical structured society can ever exist. Furthermore, and again as a result of their predominating service to self nature, we see that it is from the ranks of these people that the few that rule the many are most often drawn. Some might also call such a scenario "catch 22".

Another strategy is to agree that mankind is able to evolve and develop the altruistic seed within, and then propose that this is best done by a small elite who knows best what altruism really means. Synarchy is one form of this strategy.

By the beginning of the 21st century, the process of electing leaders and governing the masses by the few has become so refined as to be virtually an automated procedure (the 2000 US presidential elections being a case in point). Those predisposed to self-serving ideals join and rise up through the ranks of the existing leaders and continue the job of governing the many. A natural and closed clique among the leaders results, and today's citizenry, whose ancestors long ago relinquished power to what has today become a self-perpetuating organism, must simply sit, wait, hope, and ultimately lie to themselves in order to believe that their leaders will act in the best interests of all.

Having said that, the "best interests of all" from the point of view of the leaders, is to maintain the status quo, the status quo being that the many continue to believe that their leaders really are acting for the good of all, even when their innate human nature leads them to act only in their own interests. This naturally forces those in government to resort to acts of deception in order to maintain the illusion as they go about the job of serving their own interests.

The people however are not completely denuded of any resources to search for and uncover the truth about the real intention of their leaders. Deception is only an attempt to hide an already existent truth, it does not wipe out the existence of the truth. As such, those citizens of a diligent and truth-loving disposition can, with enough effort and desire, still discover evidence to corroborate the truth of the idea that was lost to our ancestors - that those who actively seek and attain political or government office are, by their nature, generally unfit for it. Democracy merely enlarged the pool from which psychopaths and self-centered people could be brought into the ruling elite.

We see these games of deception going on every day in the news. The invasion of Iraq and the lies used to justify this act - criminal under international law - are but one example. The stories told by the Israelis to justify the murder of Palestinian children is another horrifying example.

Now that we are all happily unburdened by the indecision over whether or not our leaders "would do that", and are abundantly furnished with the proof of logical reasoning which shows that, by their very nature, they would indeed and always have "done that", we should be able to objectively confront the events of September 11th, 2001 and it's aftermath.

On November 25, 1941 Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto sent a radio message to the group of Japanese warships that would attack Pearl Harbor on December 7. Newly released naval records prove that from November 17 to 25 the United States Navy intercepted eighty-three messages that Yamamoto sent to his carriers. Part of the November 25 message read: “…the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow…”

One might wonder if the theory that President Franklin Roosevelt had a foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack would have been alluded to in this summer’s movie, Pearl Harbor. Since World War II many people have suspected that Washington knew the attack was coming. When Thomas Dewey was running for president against Roosevelt in 1944 he found out about America’s ability to intercept Japan’s radio messages, and thought this knowledge would enable him to defeat the popular FDR. In the fall of that year, Dewey planned a series of speeches charging FDR with foreknowledge of the attack. Ultimately, General George Marshall, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded Dewey not to make the speeches. Japan’s naval leaders did not realize America had cracked their codes, and Dewey’s speeches could have sacrificed America’s code-breaking advantage. So, Dewey said nothing, and in November FDR was elected president for the fourth time.

Now, though, according to Robert Stinnett, author of Simon & Schuster’s Day Of Deceit, we have the proof. Stinnett’s book is dedicated to Congressman John Moss, the author of America’s Freedom of Information Act. According to Stinnett, the answers to the mysteries of Pearl Harbor can be found in the extraordinary number of documents he was able to attain through Freedom of Information Act requests. Cable after cable of decryptions, scores of military messages that America was intercepting, clearly showed that Japanese ships were preparing for war and heading straight for Hawaii. Stinnett, an author, journalist, and World War II veteran, spent sixteen years delving into the National Archives. He poured over more than 200,000 documents, and conducted dozens of interviews. This meticulous research led Stinnet to a firmly held conclusion: FDR knew.

“Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” was Roosevelt’s famous campaign statement of 1940. He wasn’t being ingenuous. FDR’s military and State Department leaders were agreeing that a victorious Nazi Germany would threaten the national security of the United States. In White House meetings the strong feeling was that America needed a call to action. This is not what the public wanted, though. Eighty to ninety percent of the American people wanted nothing to do with Europe’s war. So, according to Stinnett, Roosevelt provoked Japan to attack us, let it happen at Pearl Harbor, and thus galvanized the country to war.

Many who came into contact with Roosevelt during that time hinted that FDR wasn’t being forthright about his intentions in Europe. After the attack, on the Sunday evening of December 7, 1941, Roosevelt had a brief meeting in the White House with Edward R. Murrow, the famed journalist, and William Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services. Later Donovan told an assistant the he believed FDR welcomed the attack and didn’t seem surprised. The only thing Roosevelt seemed to care about, Donovan felt, was if the public would now support a declaration of war. According to Day Of Deceit, in October 1940 FDR adopted a specific strategy to incite Japan to commit an overt act of war.

Part of the strategy was to move America’s Pacific fleet out of California and anchor it in Pearl Harbor. Admiral James Richardson, the commander of the Pacific fleet, strongly opposed keeping the ships in harm’s way in Hawaii. He expressed this to Roosevelt, and so the President relieved him of his command. Later Richardson quoted Roosevelt as saying: “Sooner or later the Japanese will commit an overt act against the United States and the nation will be willing to enter the war.”

Comment: Three and a half years ago, what percentage of American citizens would have wanted nothing to do with a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention an endless "war on terror" leading, inexplicably, to a clamp down on civil liberties at home? After 9/11, of course, they had no choice, they were "victims" of an "unprovoked" and "surprise" attack by "Arab terrorists", just as American citizens were "victims" of an "unprovoked" and "surprise" attack by the Japanese.

[...] The Spanish-American War was a watershed event. It was the first eruption of militarism on the part of the United States, which until that time had rested content with consolidating its internal position, and marked the emergence of America as a world power.

When the Battleship Maine arrived in Havana, Cuba on January 25 1898, ostensibly as a gesture of goodwill, relations between Spain and the United States were already under severe strain.

With the closing of the American frontier, capital looked for new areas of investment. Arriving late on the scene as a world power the US could only acquire new territory at the expense of the older, established European states.

Cuba, only 90 miles from the Florida coast, had long been coveted by the Americans. Attempts by US mercenaries to foment rebellion against the Spanish dated back to before the civil war. The Southern plantation owners financed several such expeditions with the hopes of expanding their slave empire.

In the years after the civil war the possession of Cuba came to be seen as strategically desirable. As plans went forward for the construction of a canal across Central America, control of Cuba came to be seen as even more necessary.

Likewise the growing importance of trade with Asia raised the necessity for the United States to establish a base in the western Pacific. Control of the Philippines would put the Americans in a position to stake their claim the rich markets of China and southeast Asia.

US lust for Cuba was hardly a secret. A few years before the Maine's visit to Cuba Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts had declared, "England has studded the Atlantic seaboard with strong places which are a standing menace to our Atlantic seaboard. We should have among those islands at least one strong naval station, and when the Nicaragua canal is built the island of Cuba...will become to us a necessity."

Another Senator, Shelby M. Cullom, was even more blunt in expressing the imperialist ambitions of the American big business. He said, "It is time someone woke up and realized the necessity of annexing some property. We want all this northern hemisphere."

Spain, weakened by internal decay and the loss of most of her American colonies was hardly in a position to fight the United States. The only problem that remained for big business was how to convince a public still imbued with the ideals of the American Revolution and the civil war against slavery that the forcible annexation of Spanish colonies squared with democratic principles.

The fortuitous outbreak of popular rebellions in Cuba and Philippines against Spanish rule provided the Americans with a plausible justification for military intervention. William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer and other publishers gave great play to the uprising in Cuba in order to foment hostility toward Spain. The successes of the insurrectionists and alleged atrocities on the part of the Spaniards were exaggerated out of all proportion in order to build sympathy for US military intervention.

In one incident Hearst sent the noted artist Frederic Remington to Cuba to provide sketches for American newspaper readers of the revolution. When the disillusioned Remington wired Hearst "Everything quiet. No trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return." Hearst shot back the notorious reply, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I will furnish the war."

By 1897 large sections of big business were clamoring for war. In October 1897 Theodore Roosevelt, at that time Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the administration of President William McKinley, sent a wire to American Admiral George Dewey in the far east advising him to prepare for an attack on the Spanish fleet in the Philippines pending developments in Cuba.

On the pretext of protecting American citizens, in fact there was no such threat, the President ordered the Battleship Maine to Key West, Florida, where it could sail to Cuba at a moments notice. When a group of conservative Spaniards attacked a Havana newspaper office on January 12 McKinley provocatively sent the Maine to Havana.

The Spanish, bending over backwards to avert war, accepted US explanations that the visit of the powerful warship was a "courtesy call." The ship's officers were treated with all due respect.

Then, on February 15, just as the Maine prepared to leave Havana, a huge explosion tore apart the ship. Two officers and 266 enlisted men out of the 354-man crew died. The Spanish helped rescue the survivors and expressed shock at the tragedy.

To this day no one knows for sure what caused the explosion. The Spanish certainly had no motive for provoking a war given the huge military and industrial preponderance of the United States.

Without one shred of evidence the American press assumed the Spanish were to blame. When Hearst heard the news of the explosion he declared, "This means war." The New York Journal carried a headline reading, "The War Ship Maine Was Split In Two By An Enemy's Secret Infernal Machine." The front page carried a drawing of the ship riding atop mines and showed wires leading to a Spanish fort guarding the harbor.

A commission hastily assembled by the United States concluded that a mine had indeed destroyed the ship. The assumption, though not explicitly stated, was that the Spanish were responsible.

The slogan "Remember the Maine" became the battle cry of US militarists. The United States issued a series of ultimatums, demanding that Spain virtually cede sovereignty over Cuba. Despite the fact that Spain capitulated to most American demands, McKinley asked for and received authorization for the use of military force from Congress. On April 23 Congress adopted a resolution declaring that a state of war existed with Spain.

Within months the Spanish were defeated. The United States obtained virtually all of Spain's remaining colonies, including Cuba and the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico. The United States next turned its military against its supposed allies, the Philippine insurrectionists. After crushing the Philippine revolutionary movement the United States established a brutal colonial administration to rival the Spaniards.

What did happen aboard the Maine? The facts all but rule out an attack by the Spanish. Not only did the Spanish have no motive, but circumstantial evidence makes it highly unlikely that an external device such as a mine or a torpedo destroyed the ship.

An independent report conducted by the Spanish made the following significant points.

1. A mine would almost certainly have had to have been detonated by electricity since the Maine was stationary and did not run into an explosive device. However, no wires were found.

2. No column of water was seen, though one would have been likely if a mine had exploded.

3. There were no dead fish in the harbor, even though that would be expected if an external explosion had occurred.

Further the Maine entered Havana with virtually no advance notice, making it unlikely that anyone could have planted a mine in the ship's berth.

If the explosion was not caused by a mine then it must have been triggered by something inside the ship. One hypothesis raised by the navy but soon discarded in light of the war hysteria was that a fire in a coal bunker detonated a reserve magazine. Many in the navy had questioned the wisdom of placing ammunition right next to the coal, given the significant danger of accidental fire.

In 1976 US Admiral Hyman Rickover published a report asserting that a fire in the coal bunker most likely had caused the explosion on the Maine. In preparing his study he enlisted two navy experts on ship design.

However there is another possibility that deserves consideration. Was the explosion on the Maine a deliberate provocation by US militarists or their agents to foment war with Spain?

If accidental, the blast was extremely fortuitous for the United States. Without an overt act on the part of Spain the McKinley administration would have been hard pressed to justify military action.

The British historian Hugh Thomas in his history of Cuba published in 1971 cites William Astor Chanler, a member of the US House of Representatives, who had connections to Roosevelt, as a suspect in the bombing of the Maine. Chanler along with his brothers were involved in smuggling arms to the Cuba insurrectionists. He reportedly claimed responsibility for the explosion on the Maine in a conversation with the US ambassador William C. Bullitt in the early 1930's. Chanler died shortly afterwards in Paris.

HUNDREDS of former US prisoners of war have begun a battle for compensation after uncovering documents that allegedly prove the wartime administration deliberately used them as a tool to whip up domestic support for war with Japan.

A former prisoner has uncovered papers in the US National Archive that she claims prove the government restricted the travel of 7,000 American citizens from the Philippines, while at the same time encouraging evacuation of Americans from other potential Japanese targets in China and south-east Asia.

A federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Washington, DC, alleges that the government at first wanted to keep Americans in the Philippines to discourage Japanese aggression, but later used them as a political tool.

A group of 500 former prisoners claim the plan was devised by the US wartime leader, Franklin D Roosevelt. with the approval of Winston Churchill, Britain’s Prime Minister, to cause outrage among American citizens unwilling to back a war on Japan. [...]

Thirty years ago, it all seemed very clear.

"American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression", announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964.

That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and 'certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam' after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin."

But there was no "second attack" by North Vietnam -- no "renewed attacks against American destroyers." By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War.

A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass media...leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties.

The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 -- and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later.

The truth was very different.

Rather than being on a routine patrol Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers -- in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force.

"The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam...had taken place," writes scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were "part of a campaign of increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had been pursuing since early 1964."

On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf -- a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam.

But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened.

Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness" and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat."

One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power."

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."

But Johnson's deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, "went to the American people last night with the somber facts." The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to "face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities."

An exhaustive new book, The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media "described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat' -- when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North."

Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media's "almost exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information" -- as well as "reluctance to question official pronouncements on 'national security issues.'"

Daniel Hallin's classic book The "Uncensored War" observes that journalists had "a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn't used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese gunboats."

What's more, "It was generally known...that `covert' operations against North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and direction, had been going on for some time."

In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam -- sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only "no" votes.) The resolution authorized the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."

The rest is tragic history.

Nearly three decades later, during the Gulf War, columnist Sydney Schanberg warned journalists not to forget "our unquestioning chorus of agreeability when Lyndon Johnson bamboozled us with his fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident."

Schanberg blamed not only the press but also "the apparent amnesia of the wider American public."

And he added: "We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth."

Hidden away in a report on the Canadian refusal to sign up to the US "Missile Defence Plan", the US government's diplomatic envoy to Ottawa, Paul Cellucci, has revealed something very interesting:

"Washington had hoped Canada would would go further and participate in building the continental defence shield, an elaborate system that some worry could lead to weapons in space and an international arms race.

Cellucci compared the situation to one that occurred during the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. He noted that it was a Canadian general at Norad who scrambled military jets under orders from Bush to shoot down a hijacked commercial aircraft headed for Washington.

Had that plane been flying over Canada, it would have fallen to the prime minister to make the decision to shoot it down, Cellucci said."

Rumsfeld has also let slip the truth about 9/11, more than once. Back in December he too confirmed that Flight 93 has been shot down when, as reported by CNN, he said:

And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon

Then there was his little slip about "the missile that hit this building" in a Defence Department interview:

"Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center."

But of course, these are just mistakes, right? The fact that they confirm the massive amounts of evidence which shows that the government is lying about the events of 9/11 is inconsequential, right?

How many more government officials telling the world that Flight 93 was shot down will it take before the American people sit up and take notice? The FACT is that Flight 93 WAS SHOT DOWN, which then opens up a can of worms in terms of the autheticity of the alleged "let's roll" cell phone call from the passengers on Flight 93. Was that too just part of the fantasy of 9/11? We already know the answers. Perhaps some day the American and world public will deem themselves worthy to know the truth also.

Earlier this month, the sixth season of CBS' Big Brother premiered with the subtitle "Summer of Secrets." The reality show, premised on the hypervisibility of a tightly controlled domestic space, must've realized that voyeuristic pleasure in total surveillance was no longer satisfying. Consequently, they distributed a variety of "zones of imperceptibility" into their game: hidden rooms, clandestine pacts, and covert operations/rules. Little did the producers of the show know just how prescient they were in capturing the zeitgeist of Summer 2005.

Take, for instance, the "Secret Group of Al-Qaeda in Europe" (the "organization" that originally claimed responsibility for the London bombings). The name speaks volumes. Why call it the "secret" group - is it opposed to the "public" group? If it were more in tune with the times, it whould be called the Super-Secret Group. The moniker sounds like an unintended effect of Western cultural imperialism; namely, too many comic book-inspired movies. What next, "The Fantastic 4 Allah"? It all sounds like a continuation of 2003's Legion of Doom-named Iraqi villains, "Chemical Ali" and "Dr. Germ". It makes one wonder if Stan Lee is now working for the Rendon Group!

Downing the Rabbit Hole

One of the biggest mysteries of the early summer was eventually lost amid the shuffle of other major stories. The Downing Street Memo (DSM) was remarkable not for its content but for the fact that so little attention was paid to it by mainstream media. Pundits spent more time dismissing the memo than following up on it. Christopher Hitchens, that neo-centrist perception manager, added to his portfolio on dissent-bashing with a piece on the DSM as "conspiracy theory."

It should come as no surprise that mainstream journalism didn't set the agenda with the DSM. Looking back on the past year of state/press relations, how could corporate journalism do anything but? Oh, Bush Administration, you want to consistently lie to us humble journalists in order to start a war? Well we just might have to write an indignant all-too-late op-ed piece and then come back for some more abuse! Tightly control press conferences with pre-selected questions? Well, we appreciate any access, so I guess that's the best we can get right now. Manipulate our reporters with anonymous leaks and dirty tricks? Ok, we forgive you, but you watch out next time, ya big lug! Plant a fake journalist among our ranks? Naughty, naughty, but thanks for giving us a diversionary homoerotic titillation!

How many more mea culpas can we tolerate from these lapdogs? When our own friends end up repeating self-destructive behaviors (going in and out of addictive drug-hazes, returning to a toxic and abusive partner) we will draw a line. Why do we allow these guests, who are supposed to be working in our name, to get away with more? We've been extremely patient during their bouts of recovery. It's about time we recognize the decades-long exodus of journalistic consumers not as "apathy" but as the self-affirming popular decision to stop sticking around a user. No need here for a collective intervention: professional journalism should be shown some tough love and the door.

Embedded journalism, from this bitter-medicine perspective, was corporate journalism's last gasp to purify itself. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but I'm just updating Jean Baudrillard's insights on Disney: embedded journalism exists to make us think that the rest of mainstream journalism is not embedded. So let's not look to these dependent dinosaurs for our hope or moral edification. We should begin with the assumption that all mainstream journalism is embedded journalism until it can prove otherwise. Without this symbolic dependency, we can begin candidly assessing journalism's relationship with secrecy.

The Plame Game

Calls for Karl Rove's firing for leaking Valerie Plame's name have been met with Republican Party line retorts that no "clear evidence" can be found. After much evasion and prevarication by press secretary Scott McLellan, Bush finally announced that the threshold of Rove tolerance would be juridical: Rove would have to have committed a crime in order to be axed. Drawing a distinction between legal and ethical standards seemed not to matter.

More than Rove's actual legal status, we can begin asking questions about the nature of evidence in the court of public opinion. What is the status of evidence in a context of epistemological uncertainty? What can count as proof, and what effects does proof have? The Downing Street Memo shows that proof is itself contestable - what is evidence of evidence?

Crime and evidence have taken on new cultural functions. The US is rife with anti-lawyer sentiments, from the rise in lawyer jokes to the smearing of John Edwards' vice-presidential campaign with charges that he was an "ambulance chaser." Interestingly, these sentiments are primarily targeted at criminal defense attorneys or civil prosecutors, while overzealous criminal prosecutors rarely get scapegoated. The notable recent exception here is Michael Jackson's legion of supporters, who themselves became the target of derision and insult.

More than humor, rightwing pundits now have taken on Defense Attorney status with the Bush administration in the court of public opinion. The party line on Rove was delivered with univocality, making the old Soviet Politburo seem like a teeming marketplace of ideas. As virtual defense lawyers, the rightwing apparatchiks may know their client's guilt, but will act as apologists at all costs. Any criticism of their client, then, must be founded on prosecutorial evidential standards.

At the same time, other much looser standards are applied to make the case against official Terror/War enemies. Much ink has been spilled on the flimsy, fixed, and fabricated evidence of the need to invade Iraq. Insinuations, when strongly worded, repeatedly uttered, and widely distributed stand in as evidence of a "vague connection" or "some kind of link". Take the scandalous story of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the newly elected Iranian president. Ahmadinejad was accused of being one of the hostage takers during the 1979 siege of the US embassy in Iran. Four days after his election, a handful of the former hostages (seemingly spontaneously, but actually with prompting from the oppositional "news" organization Iran Focus) reported that he looked exactly like one of their captors. Even while other former detainees and forensic experts denied the link, the power of suggestion was visually anchored through the side-by-side juxtaposition of two photos for over 24 hours. Ultimately disproven, the truth mattered little as the flood coverage secured an image-link. The effects are yet to be seen but we can speculate that defining Iran as a terrorist state in need of regime change just got easier.

An even looser evidential standard comes via the metaphorical use of the classic incontrovertible identifying trace of a criminal: the fingerprint.

Immediately after the 7/7 London bombing, we were told that terror experts were looking for a "signature" or fingerprints to identify the perpetrators. Perhaps on a post-binge high after watching a CSI marathon, these Global Security forensic artists came up with some doozies. The flimsiest of details became proof: the targeting of "transportation" was seen as an Al-Qaeda fingerprint. Never mind that Europe has known mass transit to be a target at least since the 1980 bombing of the Bologna railway station (purportedly by the Red Brigades, but subsequently shown to have murkier origins).

Simultaneous bombings? "Must be Al-Qaeda!" sayeth the security sleuths. It's such an ingenious method that not only could no one else have invented it, no one else could even mimic it! Instead of being glued to forensic drama television, these "trace" theorists would be wise to review virtually every action thriller film from the 1960s onwards, paying particular attention to the phrase "Let's synchronize our watches."

Perhaps the silliest, yet potentially sinister, bit of proof is occurring around the desperate search for Al-Qaeda links between 7/7 and the "failed copycat" bombings of 7/21. Plainclothes information officers came up with this Eureka: the suspects used the same brand of bookbag! Consumerist ideology now influences terrorism investigations, with their shared assumption that an individual's uniqueness is expressed through consumer purchases. Are you a budding bomber but tired of generic rucksacks that easily tear, exposing your telltale wires? Want to stand out in the "transit-terror" crowd (but blend in at the same time)? No fear, Land's End is here! And if you happen to own one of these for, say, school or travelling, never mind the "random" searches likely to come your way. Think of it as a value-added service (quasi-celebrity attention) associated with wearing the right label.

Public rhetorical tactics like these (loud insinuation, forensic metaphors, "expert" dependence) are effective because they are publicly irrefutable-they disguise themselves as evidence. What's worse, the fingerprint metaphor rarely transfers to domestic skullduggery. False stories, disinformation campaigns, and hoaxes are perpetrated in US media (e.g. the Dan Rather memo, Jeff Gannon plant, Iranian president/hostage taker link). Rarely will anyone in corporate journalism utter the word "fingerprints" regarding Rove or any other psy operative. When the praetorian media guard proclaim "there are no smoking guns here," they command top billing. Ultimately, it's not about producing more evidence, but being able to determine the situations in which particular standards of evidence can be applied.

Karl, Kevlar Konsultant

Perhaps the problem is with the overreliance on evidence itself. Facts on their own have no necessary effects on an audience. For instance, what does evidence do for a people lacking will and memory? The same facts, which in one context are testimony to wrongdoing, can become evidence of invincibility. Without the proper circumstances of popular will and/or organizational channels, power absorbs these attacks as confirmation of its own unassailability. Rove's mischief in the Plame Game, rather than being a telltale sign of perfidy, becomes proof of his ingenious craft of plausible deniability. Newsweek reporter Dana Milbank exclaimed on MSNBC that Rove was "too big to fail" (7/11). Other pundits noted that, good or bad, Rove was 'Bush's Brain', insinuating that it would be an impossible extrication. To counter this impossibility, may we kindly recommend Anthony Hopkins' surgical/culinary treat for Ray Liotta in the closing scenes of Hannibal.

The scandals that surrounded the Clinton White House (often coded through naturalizing terms like "cloud," "climate," or "fog") were in large part due to incessant media attention. Not only is this natural haze not enveloping the Bush White House, thanks to "liberal media" it has morphed into armor. If Ronald Reagan was the Teflon President, Rove is the Kevlar Konsultant. Actually, Kevlar doesn't quite capture the process. In a world of techno-organic fusion, we might better look to a sci-fi image: an armor that absorbs and reintegrates artillery directed at it, leaving a bio-synthetic "scar" that hardens the material.

Rove's fate is a watershed symptom, not the least for what it says about totalitarianism's immune system. If he stays on, his power grows stronger after a failed attack. Like the staged assassination attempts of ancient regimes, it will further numb popular will, at least when it comes to electoral politics. If Rove is fired, he would likely stick around, withdrawing even further into "double supersecret background" where he could secrete influence from the protective cover of shadows.

Reliance on evidence in the court of public opinion is important, but excessive faith in it may also limit our strategies. It narrows our understanding of the current era to events in the public sphere. Guy Debord, that premiere analyst of the spectacle and secrecy, recommended that people "make use of what is hidden" from them. If we don't expand our analysis to what might be called the "secret sphere," we will continue to grope in the dark while believing everything is illuminated.

Jack Z. Bratich is assistant professor at Rutgers University. He is currently writing a book on conspiracy panics, as well as doing research on public secrecy and popular occulture. His fingerprints are all over this essay. He can be reached at: jbratich@rci.rutgers.edu

1945:

Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States. In other words, while other American agencies are hunting down Nazi war criminals for arrest, the U.S. intelligence community is smuggling them into America, unpunished, for their use against the Soviets. The most important of these is Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's master spy who had built up an intelligence network in the Soviet Union. With full U.S. blessing, he creates the "Gehlen Organization," a band of refugee Nazi spies who reactivate their networks in Russia. These include SS intelligence officers Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg (who massacred Jews in the Holocaust), Klaus Barbie (the "Butcher of Lyon"), Otto von Bolschwing (the Holocaust mastermind who worked with Eichmann) . The Gehlen Organization supplies the U.S. with its only intelligence on the Soviet Union for the next ten years, serving as a bridge between the abolishment of the OSS and the creation of the CIA. However, much of the "intelligence" the former Nazis provide is bogus.

"Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.

Human plutonium injection experiments. The Manhattan Project was asked to inject a hospital patient at either Rochester or Chicago with 1 to 10 micrograms of plutonium and send the excreta to Los Alamos for analysis. The first human plutonium injection took place on April 10, 1945, without the informed consent of the patient.

1947:

CIA created - President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council. The CIA is accountable to the president through the NSC - there is no democratic or congressional oversight. Its charter allows the CIA to "perform such other functions and duties. As the National Security Council may from time to time direct."

Control of US atomic energy passes from the US Military to the civilian Atomic Energy Commission.

Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.

The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.

Paper clip scientist Kurt Rahr. Rahr was a convicted criminal with an extensive Nazi past. In September 1947, he conducted mind control experiments at Edgewood Arsenal, where such experiments flourished until at least 1966.

1948:

The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."

The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It works - the communists are defeated.

1949:

The CIA creates its first major propaganda outlet, Radio Free Europe. Over the next several decades, its broadcasts are so blatantly false that for a time it is considered illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S.

Operation MOCKINGBIRD - The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham head the effort. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major CIA player. Eventually, the CIA's media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more. By the CIA's own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become CIA assets.

The Army began widespread spraying of 239 U.S. cities with bacteria and pathogens as part of the secret testing of biological weapons.

The CIA bill passed Congress with scarcely a whisper. The bill allowed the CIA's budget to be secret and enabled any branch of government to transfer money covertly to the CIA "without regard to any provisions of law."

1950:

Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.

The CIA initiated studies in mind control programs "in 1950, with Project BLUEBIRD, rechristened ARTICHOKE in 1951. To establish a ' cover story' for this research, the CIA funded a propaganda effort designed to convince the world that the Communist Bloc had devised insidious new methods of re-shaping the human will; the CIA's own efforts could therefore, if exposed, be explained as an attempt to ' catch up' with Soviet and Chinese work. The primary promoter of this ' line' was one Edward Hunter, a CIA contract employee operating under-cover as a journalist, and, later, a prominent member of the John Birch society."

"Hunter offered 'brainwashing' as the explanation for the numerous confessions signed by American prisoners of war during the Korean War and (generally) UN-recanted upon the prisoners' repatriation. These confessions alleged that the United States used germ warfare in the Korean conflict, a claim which the American public of the time found impossible to accept. Many years later, however, investigative reporters discovered that Japan's germ warfare specialists (who had wreaked incalculable terror on the conquered Chinese during WWII) had been mustered into the American national security apparatus -- and that the knowledge gleaned from Japan's horrifying germ warfare experiments probably WAS used in Korea, just as the 'brainwashed' soldiers had indicated.

Thus, we now know that the entire brainwashing scare of the 1950s constituted a CIA hoax perpetrated upon the American public: CIA deputy director Richard Helms admitted as much when, in 1963, he told the Warren Commission that "Soviet mind control research consistently lagged years behind American efforts."

Six experimental biological warfare attacks by the US Army from a ship, using Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcescens along with flourescent particles (zinc cadmium sulfide), at one point forming a cloud about two miles long as the ship traveled slowly along the shoreline of San Francisco bay. One of the stated objectives of the exercise was to study "the offensive possibilities of attacking a seaport city with a BW [biological warfare] aerosol" from offshore. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection.

September 29, patients at Stanford University's hospital in San Francisco were found to be infected by Serratia marcescens. This type of infection had never before been reported at the hospital. Eleven patients became infected, and one died.

According to a report submitted to a Senate committee [2002] by a professor of microbiology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook: "an increase in the number of Serratia marcescens can cause disease in a healthy person and...serious disease in sick people."

1965:

CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.

Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Vietnam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.

Indonesia - The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA has been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, will massacre between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being "communist." The CIA supplies the names of countless suspects.

Dominican Republic - A popular rebellion breaks out, promising to reinstall Juan Bosch as the country's elected leader. The revolution is crushed when U.S. Marines land to uphold the military regime by force. The CIA directs everything behind the scenes.

Greece - With the CIA's backing, the king removes George Papandreous as prime minister. Papandreous has failed to vigorously support U.S. interests in Greece.

Congo (Zaire) - A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator. The hated and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.

1966:

CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.

U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.

MK-Search reactivates previously abdandoned projects under Richard Helms, new Director of Central Intelligence. One such project was Spellbinder. Its goal was to create a "sleeper killer," someone who could be turned loose after receiving a key word planted in his mind under hypnosis. According to Gordon Thomas, the project was a failure.

The American media contributed toward maintaining a rigid status quo, almost obsequious in its compliance to the national security community. Senator William Fullbright commented about this on August 13, 1966, during Senate hearings on government and media. He said it was very interesting that so many prominent newspapers did not contest or even raise questions about government policy.

1968:

Dr. Gordon J. F. MacDonald, science advisor to President Lyndon Johnson, wrote, "Perturbation of the environment can produce changes in behavioural patterns." He was referring to low frequency EM waves in the ionosphere affecting human brain wave patterns. (From his book, Unless Peace Comes, a Scientific Forecast of New Weapons, cited in "New World Order ELF Psychotronic Tyranny", a paper by C. B. Baker.)

CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.

CIA continued its work on mind control. Dr. Robert Keefe, a neurosurgeon at Tulane University, conducted work in Electrical Stimulation of the Brain (ESB). The experiments involved implanting electrodes into the brain and body, with the result that the subjects' memory, impulses, and feelings could all be controlled. ESB could also evoke hallucinations, fear, and pleasure. "It could literally manipulate the human will, at will," said Keefe.

George Estabrooks, another scientist, stated to the Providence Evening Bulletin that the key to creating an effective spy or assassin is by creating a multiple personality with the aid of hypnosis, a procedure he described as "child's play." Estabrooks suggested that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby could have been controlled in this manner.

Operation CHAOS - The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.

Bolivia - A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency.

1980:

El Salvador - The Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, pleads with President Carter "Christian to Christian" to stop aiding the military government slaughtering his people. Carter refuses. Shortly afterwards, right-wing leader Roberto D'Aubuisson has Romero shot through the heart while saying Mass. The country soon dissolves into civil war, with the peasants in the hills fighting against the military government. The CIA and U.S. Armed Forces supply the government with overwhelming military and intelligence superiority. CIA-trained death squads roam the countryside, committing atrocities like that of El Mazote in 1982, where they massacre between 700 and 1000 men, women and children. By 1992, some 63,000 Salvadorans will be killed.

1981:

Eldon Byrd who worked for Naval Surface Weapons, Office of Non-Lethal Weapons, was commissioned in 1981 to develop electromagnetic devices for purposes including 'riot control', clandestine operations and hostage removal."

"Byrd also wrote of experiments where behavior of animals was controlled by exposure to weak electromagnetic fields. 'At a certain frequency and power intensity, they could make the animal purr, lay down and roll over.'" (Keeler, Anna, "Remote Mind Control Technology")

"Between 1981 and September 1982, the Navy commissioned me to investigate the potential of developing electromagnetic devices that could be used as non-lethal weapons by the Marine Corp for the purpose of 'riot control', hostage removal, clandestine operations, and so on." Eldon Byrd, Naval Surface Weapons Center, Silver Spring MD. (From "Electromagnetic Pollution" by Kim Besly, p 12.)

Iran/Contra Begins - The CIA begins selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. President Reagan vows that the Sandinistas will be "pressured" until "they say 'uncle.'" The CIA's Freedom Fighter's Manual disbursed to the Contras includes instruction on economic sabotage, propaganda, extortion, bribery, blackmail, interrogation, torture, murder and political assassination.

1990:

RF MEDIA, 1990, CIA:

Electronic, multi-directional subliminal suggestion and programming
Location: Boulder, Colorado (Location of main cell telephone node, national television synchronization node)
Targeting: national population of the United States
Frequencies: ULF VHF HF Phase modulation
Power: Gigawatts
Implementation: Television and radio communications, the "videodrome" signals
Purpose: Programming and triggering behavioral desire, subversion of psychic abilities of population, preparatory processing for mass electromagnetic control
Pseudonym: "Buzz Saw" E.E.M.C.

TOWER, CIA, NSA:

Electronic cross country subliminal programming and suggestion
Targeting: Mass population, short-range intervals, long-range cumulative
Frequencies: Microwave, EHF SHF
Methodology: Cellular telephone system, ELF modulation
Purpose: Programming through neural resonance and encoded information
Effect: Neural degeneration, DNA resonance modification, psychic suppression
Pseudonym: "Wedding Bells"

More than 1500 six-month old black and hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.

1995:

U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.

Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.

Bush, Ridge look at suspending 1878 Posse Comitatus Act

Amid debate over whether U.S. troops should be used to secure the U.S. border, or deployed in any other domestic capacity in the war against terrorism, the Bush administration will review the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

There is considerable confusion both in the public and among lawmakers about what this law actually says and whether any changes in it might be warranted.

"Federal law prohibits military personnel from enforcing the law within the United States except as expressly authorized by the Constitution or an Act of Congress," President Bush said July 16 in the plan he submitted to Congress for the new Department of Homeland Security. "The threat of catastrophic terrorism requires a thorough review of the laws permitting the military to act within the United States in order to determine whether domestic preparedness and response efforts would benefit from greater involvement of military personnel and, if so, how."

The PCA is commonly and falsely believed to forbid the U.S. military from enforcing domestic law in all circumstances. In fact, it forbids it only in some circumstances.

Said Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge on "Fox News Sunday" on July 21, "Well, I think there's been much conversation about that concept, which as you know is called posse comitatus, and that is historically within this country, we do not give our military law-enforcement responsibilities. And I think the discussion, the public discussion, is really about the private discussion that will undoubtedly occur between the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, once his new North American Command is established, because I think it would be very appropriate for the two secretaries to determine what military assets would be available, under what circumstances, to support civilian authorities in the event of another terrorist attack."

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on CNN's "Late Edition," said, "I don't fear looking at it to see whether or not our military can be more helpful in a very supportive and assisting role even than they have been up to now – providing equipment, providing training, those kind of things which do not involve arresting people."

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday," "I think it is time to revisit it. Back after Oklahoma City, former Sen. Sam Nunn and I introduced legislation that would moderately alter the Posse Comitatus – let me be precise – allow, for example, the military, that has expertise in weapons of mass destruction, to be called in. Let's say you had word that there was something going on in one of the tunnels in Amtrak, or you had some major event where they thought there may have been a weapon of mass destruction involved. Right now, when you call in the military, the military would not be allowed to shoot to kill, if in fact they were approaching the weapon, and so on."

The primary sentence of the Posse Comitatus Act, as amended since 1878, now says, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." "Posse comitatus" means "the power or force of the county," according to Black's Law Dictionary (1990), and refers to any group empowered to enforce domestic law.

Contrary to popular belief, the PCA does not presently forbid all U.S. military units from enforcing domestic laws. The plain language of the law does not cover the Navy, Marine Corps or National Guard. "The PCA expressly applies only to the Army and Air Force," wrote Matthew Carlton Hammond in an article in the Washington University Law Quarterly (Summer 1997). "Congress did not mention the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard or National Guard in the PCA; accordingly, the PCA does not limit them. However, the Department of Defense has extended by regulation the PCA's prohibitions to the Navy and Marine Corps."

The phrase "under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress" and the ambiguity of "to execute the laws" have been interpreted to allow numerous uses of the military to enforce domestic law since the PCA was enacted. Traditionally, a "constitutional" exception to the PCA has been interpreted broadly, said Hammond. "The exception permits military action to protect federal property and functions, to prevent loss of life, and to restore public order when local authorities cannot control a situation," he wrote. Congress already has explicitly carved out exceptions to the PCA for drug interdiction and for responses to biological and chemical incidents. According to Hammond, no one has ever faced criminal prosecution under the law.

Writing in the Spring 2002 edition of Parameters, a highly respected military journal published by the U.S. Army War College, Chris Quillen wrote, "Almost any presidential decision or congressional legislation can circumvent Posse Comitatus rather easily." Noted Hammond, "Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan both used the military to replace striking federal employees. In 1970, President Nixon sent 30,000 federal troops to replace striking postal workers in New York, and in 1981, President Reagan replaced striking air-traffic controllers."

There is also one relatively recent example of the use of the American military to restore order after a major domestic disturbance. U.S. Marines detained suspects and performed searches during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, even though some involved believed that they were violating U.S. law. They did so because Marine Corps doctrine – the theory behind conducting operations – told them that this was the only way to restore order. [...]

Recent pronouncements from the Bush Administration and national security initiatives put in place in the Reagan era could see internment camps and martial law in the United States.

When president Ronald Reagan was considering invading Nicaragua he issued a series of executive orders that provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with broad powers in the event of a "crisis" such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a US military invasion abroad". They were never used.

But with the looming possibility of a US invasion of Iraq, recent pronouncements by President George Bush's domestic security chief, Tom Ridge, and an official with the US Civil Rights Commission should fire concerns that these powers could be employed or a de facto drift into their deployment could occur.

On July 20 the Detroit Free Press ran a story entitled "Arabs in US could be held, official warns". The story referred to a member of the US Civil Rights Commission who foresaw the possibility of internment camps for Arab Americans. FEMA has practised for such an occasion.

FEMA, whose main role is disaster response, is also responsible for handling US domestic unrest.

From 1982-84 Colonel Oliver North assisted FEMA in drafting its civil defence preparations. Details of these plans emerged during the 1987 Iran-Contra scandal.

They included executive orders providing for suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA.

A Miami Herald article on July 5, 1987, reported that the former FEMA director Louis Guiffrida's deputy, John Brinkerhoff, handled the martial law portion of the planning. The plan was said to be similar to one Mr Giuffrida had developed earlier to combat "a national uprising by black militants". It provided for the detention "of at least 21million American Negroes"' in "assembly centres or relocation camps". [...]

Attorney general shows himself as a menace to liberty.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties.

The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.

This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The Justice Department has insisted that the judge must simply accept its declaration and cannot interfere with the president's absolute authority in "a time of war."

In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the arrest stopped a plan to detonate a radioactive bomb in New York or Washington, D.C. The administration later issued an embarrassing correction that there was no evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear is that Padilla is an American citizen and was arrested in the United States--two facts that should trigger the full application of constitutional rights.

Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy. [...]