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Secret Talks with Israel Threaten U.S. National Security!
ISRAEL - LIEBERMAN, WE ARE ON TO YOU!
The Lieberman bill would establish a National Office for Counterterrorism, whose director would be on the National Security Council, which would have much more power than Bush's Homeland Security Office, and would incorporate the counterterror intelligence functions of the FBI and CIA.
Tenet and Mueller strongly oppose this.
UNITED STATES NEWS DIGEST
Ashcroft Provokes Congress Over New Police-State Powers; Leahy Warns Homeland Security Dept. 'Above the Law'
Representative John Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc), angrily cancelled hearings of the House Judiciary Committee when Attorney General John Ashcroft failed to provide the committee with his testimony in advance. Sensenbrenner, and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), have both gone on record opposing Ashcroft's plan to institute sweeping new powers under revised Attorney General guidelines. New hearings will be scheduled.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, opening a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing June 25 with Tom Ridge, Committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) said that the Bush Administration's proposed Department of Homeland Security is 'above the law,' because it is exempted from many of the legal requirements that apply to other agencies.
Leahy cited a number of areas in which the new Department would be exempted from existing laws, including the Freedom of Information Act, conflict-of-interest rules for agency advisers, whistleblower protection rules, procurement rules, and Inspector General investigations. He said that 'really what this does is put them above the law,' and 'that's not a good signal to send.'
Leahy warned that there are four items which he said are cobbled together under 'management flexibility,' that could slow the bill down in the Senate: (1) FOIA exemptions; (2) weakening whistleblower protections; (3) weakening safeguards for the gathering and handling of sensitive law enforcement information; and (4) threatening job security for government employees.
Leahy stressed that 'we do not want to go back to the excesses of the days of J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO and things like that.'
Leahy also told Ridge that he is concerned about the reduction of law-enforcement and crime-reduction programs which may accompany the creation of the new Department. Other Senators, such as Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), raised concerns that the FBI and the Coast Guard will be taken out of narcotics enforcement.
At the same time, at hearings June 27 chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn), CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller clashed with Lieberman over the contents of his own Homeland Secutity Bill, 'To establish the Department of National Homeland Security and the National Office for Combating Terrorism,' S. 252.
The Lieberman bill would establish a National Office for Counterterrorism, whose director would be on the National Security Council, which would have much more power than Bush's Homeland Security Office, and would incorporate the counterterror intelligence functions of the FBI and CIA.
Tenet and Mueller strongly oppose this.
MIDEAST NEWS DIGEST
Secret Talks with Israel Threaten U.S. National Security
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith—a notorious member of the 'X Committee' that was long associated with the espionage of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard—is now plotting with Sharon government officials to put U.S. national security in the hands of Israeli intelligence. Sharon was one of the leading officials who ran the 'off the reservation' Israeli operation that ran Pollard until he was arrested in 1985.
Two of Israel's rightwing fascists, Brig Gen. David Tzur, and Minister of the Interior Uzi Landau, held secret meetings this week with Bush Administration officials led by Feith to discuss merging U.S. and Israeli functions in a a single office, reported the Washington Times on June 29 in an article called, 'U.S., Israel Discuss Joint Terror Office.'
As reported in the Washington Times, this joint U.S.-Israel counter-terror office, 'to be in Washington, would monitor an almost instantaneous communications link between the proposed U.S. Department of Homeland Defense and the Israeli government on matters of homeland security. Visa policies, terrorist profiles and virtually all other internal security data—except classified intelligence—would be swapped by computer, fax and telephone.'
Landau, in an interview with the Washington Times, declared that 'Israel is a laboratory for fighting terror.' He claimed that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa) are active boosters of the scheme. Weldon confirmed that he is proposing such a joint U.S.-Israeli office as the centerpiece of broader legislation he is drafting, along with Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz) and Rep. Jane Hartman (D-Calif). Weldon said, 'We have laid out a strategy for increased cooperation with Israel. The U.S.-Israeli office would be run by a point person in the new Homeland Defense Department.' A Defense Department official confirmed that there had been a closed-door meeting on Thursday, June 27 with the two Israeli officials, and that the meeting was attended by Feith (a member of the Wolfowitz cabal)—who was recently in Israel on another top-level Pentagon mission. Both Landau and Gen. Tzur confirmed that the proposal for the new D.C. office came from the Israeli government.
Landau, describing the meeting with Feith, could not contain his enthusiasm about the new level of Israeli penetration of the U.S. national security structures: 'I felt like a member of the same family. We're all facing the same problem of terror.' While in the U.S., Landau addressed a New York gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
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Americans wake up, quit hitting the snooooozzzzze button and get up!
This could be your last wake up call!
Stay alert!
Kind regards
R. Zuercher
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