Internment and replacement of imams among measures

Document proposed 'direct lines' to Israeli intelligence

New files reveal Israel requested assassination of militant

British intelligence helped draw up a secret plan for a wide-ranging crackdown on the Islamist movement Hamas which became a security blueprint for the Palestinian Authority, leaked documents reveal. The plan asked for the internment of leaders and activists, the closure of radio stations and the replacement of imams in mosques.

The disclosure of the British plan, drawn up by the intelligence service in conjunction with Whitehall officials in 2004, and passed by a Jerusalem-based MI6 officer to the senior PA security official at the time, Jibril Rajoub, is contained in the cache of confidential documents obtained by al-Jazeera TV and shared with the Guardian. The documents also highlight the intimate level of military and security cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli forces.

The bulk of the British plan has since been carried out by the West Bank-based PA security apparatus which is increasingly criticised for authoritarian rule and human rights abuses, including detention without trial and torture.

It's that time of year again - the President of the United States is taking an hour or so out of his evening to explain to the 15% of the American public who didn't change the channel that things aren't as bad as they seem. It's called the State of the Union Address - though this year it was introduced by ABC News as 'The State of OUR Union' - just keep spinning things, folks, play continuity, community and any faint whiff of ownership - perhaps one or two of those guys in Illinois won't change the channel.

The intro on CBS led in with the congressional shooting and how the congresswoman Gaby Giffords is recovering. It's always wise to lead in with emotion, it hooks people, before they can reach for the remote.

The Republicans and Democrats will be 'seated together' this year, as opposed to the customary seating which separates them 'across the aisle'. What does this mean? Nothing. Forcing children who dislike each other to sit together rarely accomplishes much. While waiting for the president to enter, the camera pans across all the congressmen standing and milling around and shaking hands with each other as if this is ground-breaking behavior - a background hum of casual chatting and friendly camaraderie ensues; dancing on the deck of the Titanic.

Quite a lot is made of this by the news commentators, as it is explained that Republicans and Democrats paired up with each other as 'dates' to sit together, mixed on both sides of 'the aisle'. The media refers to it as a 'prom' - they even speak of a 'prom queen and king', the "better looking members of the senate who paired up early". This is the country's Legislative Branch of government acting like, being treated like they are teenagers at a prom. While this is a classic marketing tactic to humanize and familiarize a loathed branch of government to the 'common man', who is mentally and emotionally 14 years old, all I can say is, please save us from marketers.

It could be a game-changer.

A plan in Arizona to require presidential candidates to prove their eligibility to occupy the Oval Office is approaching critical mass, even though it has just been introduced.

The proposal from state Rep. Judy Burges, who carried a similar plan that fell short last year only because of political maneuvering, was introduced yesterday with 16 members of the state Senate as co-sponsors.

It needs only 16 votes in the Senate to pass.

In the House, there are 25 co-sponsors, with the need for only 31 votes for passage, and Burges told WND that there were several chamber members who confirmed they support the plan and will vote for it, but simply didn't wish to be listed as co-sponsors.

The proposal, which also is being taken up in a number of other states, is highly specific and directly addresses the questions that have been raised by Barack Obama's occupancy of the White House. It says:

Within ten days after submittal of the names of the candidates, the national political party committee shall submit an affidavit of the presidential candidate in which the presidential candidate states the candidate's citizenship and age and shall append to the affidavit documents that prove that the candidate is a natural born citizen, prove the candidate's age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for President of the United States as prescribed in article II, section 1, Constitution of the United States.

Mandatory data retention 'raises serious privacy and free speech concerns'

The US Justice Department wants Internet service providers and cell phone companies to be required to hold on to records for longer to help with criminal prosecutions.

"Data retention is fundamental to the department's work in investigating and prosecuting almost every type of crime," US deputy assistant attorney general Jason Weinstein told a congressional subcommittee on Tuesday.

"Some records are kept for weeks or months; others are stored very briefly before being purged," Weinstein said in remarks prepared for delivery to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

He said Internet records are often "the only available evidence that allows us to investigate who committed crimes on the Internet."

Internet and phone records can be "crucial evidence" in a wide array of cases, including child exploitation, violent crime, fraud, terrorism, public corruption, drug trafficking, online piracy and computer hacking, Weinstein said, but only if the data still exists when law enforcement needs it.

The British government is complicit in torturing political prisoners detained and jailed in the occupied West Bank by the Palestinian Authority (PA), a senior British officer said.

The officer, James MacInnis is charged with training the PA's top security officials as part of a plan to provide assistance and financial support to PA agents in arresting and torturing members of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas.

MacInnin admitted to the British role in torturing Palestinian prisoners after an Arab organization for human rights in London revealed that the PA has been torturing prisoners affiliated with Hamas for years.

Torture techniques used in PA prisons included shabh (hanging) of all kinds, beatings with cables, pulling out nails, suspension from the ceiling, flogging, kicking, cursing, electric shocks, sexual harassment and the threat of rape, according to the report.

At least six Palestinians have died under torture in PA prisons and many former detainees have permanent physical disabilities, the report found.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach surprised voters on Tuesday by saying he will resign, just three years after winning the largest parliamentary majority in the oil-rich province's history.

Stelmach, 59, a farmer by trade who has had a tumultuous relationship with Alberta's powerful energy industry, told reporters he plans to step down as head of the governing Progressive Conservative Party before the next election.

"There is no doubt that my decision today will come as a shock to many and a disappointment to my friends and Albertans," he said.

Alberta is one of the top suppliers of oil to the United States, thanks largely to its vast oil sands, the largest crude reserves outside the Middle East.

In his first election as leader, Stelmach's party won a landslide victory in the Western Canadian province of 3.3 million in 2008, despite discontent over his moves to boost royalties levied on the oil sector.

Since then, the premier has taken hits from disgruntled oil and gas producers, though royalty rates were rolled back during the recession, while facing accusations that his Conservatives have mismanaged the province's healthcare system.

Dmitry Medvedev today accused government officials of allowing security checks at Domodedovo airport to slip into "a state of anarchy", amid reports that a Black Widow suicide bomber detonated the bomb that killed 35 people there yesterday.

The Russian president told chiefs of the federal security service (FSB) that those responsible for transport security "could be dismissed or face other sanctions" as a result of the negligence.

"We will have to put in place a much tougher inspection system, total inspections. It will likely take passengers longer, but it's the only way out," he said. "The information available to us [from Domodedovo] suggests that it was simply a state of anarchy. People were able to enter [the airport] from any place. Control over people's movements was partial and did not apply to those waiting for passengers."

Medevedev said earlier in the day: "What happened shows that there were clear security violations."

Palestinians have expressed shock and dismay at the US suggestion to settle Palestinian refugees in Argentina and Chile rather than let them return to ancestral land in Israel.

Representatives of the Palestinian diaspora said the plan to ship displaced Palestinians from the Middle East to a new homeland across the Atlantic clashed with their fundamental right to go home.

"It's completely unacceptable. It contradicts our inalienable right to return to our own homeland," said Daniel Jadue, vice-president of Chile's Palestine Federation. "That right cannot be renounced. To make this suggestion shows the mediation was not honest. It was clearly tilted in favour of Israel. This is extremely grave."

I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the National Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." -- Senator Frank Church (1975)

In recent years I have become more and more concerned with the interactions between three important and alarming trends in recent American history. The first is America's increasing militarization, and above all its inclination, even obsession, to involve itself in needless and pernicious wars. The second, closely related, is the progressive shrinking of public politics and the rule of law as they are subordinated, even domestically, to the requirements of covert U.S. operations abroad.

The third, also closely related, is the important and increasingly deleterious impact on American history and the global extension of American power, of what I have called deep events. These events, like the JFK assassination, the Watergate break-in, or 9/11, which repeatedly involve law-breaking or violence, are mysterious to begin with, are embedded in ongoing covert processes, have consequences that enlarge covert government, and are subsequently covered up by systematic falsifications in media and internal government records.

One factor linking Dallas, Watergate, and 9/11, has been the involvement in all three deep events of personnel involved in America's highest-level emergency planning, known since the 1980s as Continuity of Government (COG) planning, or more colloquially as "the Doomsday Project." The implementation of COG plans on 9/11, or what I call Doomsday Power, was the culmination of three decades of such planning, and has resulted in the permanent militarization of the domestic United States, and the imposition at home of institutions and processes designed for domination abroad.

Writing about these deep events as they occurred over the decades, I have been interested in the interrelations among them. It is now possible to show how each was related both to those preceding it, and those which followed.

Minneapolis - Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration on Monday, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Ventura is asking a federal judge in Minnesota to issue an injunction ordering officials to stop subjecting him to "warrantless and suspicionless" scans and body searches.

The lawsuit, which also names Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole as defendants, argues the searches are "unwarranted and unreasonable intrusions on Governor Ventura's personal privacy and dignity . and are a justifiable cause for him to be concerned for his personal health and well-being."

According to the lawsuit, Ventura received a hip replacement in 2008, and since then, his titanium implant has set off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints. The lawsuit said that prior to last November officials had used a non-invasive hand-held wand to scan his body as a secondary security measure.