Heads Up A Weekly edition of News and Views from around our country October 25, 1996 #6 by: Doug Fiedor fiedor19@eos.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please Distribute Widely ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTROLLING SPEECH By this time, everyone with a computer knows that the federal government wants strict controls on the flow of information over the Internet. Towards this end, the White House wants Congress to update the "Anti-Terrorism Bill" to reflect the Internet as being essential to national security. No doubt! That way the FBI, CIA, NSA and other spook agencies can spy on us legally. Remember now, everything the government wants hidden from public scrutiny is placed under the rubric of "national security." The Department of Justice tried to get their collective foot in the door with the Internet Decency Act. The courts effectively knocked that down. So, they came back with an even more oppressive law, The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, which was hidden in the last appropriations bill. That too can be expected to be overturned by the courts. National security issues will not usually be addressed by the courts. We may, however, discuss these issues among ourselves, as long as we do not have direct access to classified information. And, in this matter, we do not. We do, however, have a couple interesting facts to relate. The person most likely attempting to ram-rod strict government control measures of the Internet through Congress is Jamie Gorelick, the second in command at the Department of Justice. Last July, she was widely quoted as publicly stating that getting control over the Internet is as important to the U.S. Government as was the development of the first Atomic bomb via the Manhattan Project. Heavy stuff! So, to the Assistant United States Attorney General, control of the flow of information between American citizens is as important as the control of Atomic weapons. In other words, we citizens apparently should not be allowed information. Allowed what information? Allowed any information Jamie Gorelick does not wish us to have is the probable answer. Apparently, an understanding of the Bill of Rights is not required for those working within the Department of Justice. Ms. Gorelick, by the way, is not seeking the Attorney General's position when Janet Reno leaves next year. Rather, she is campaigning for the position of Director of the CIA. If Clinton wins again, she'll probably get it, too. That will give the nation's co-president control over part of the spook agencies. And needless to say, that should prove interesting to watch. . . . DOG AND PONY SHOW Congress is not in session. But, Arlen Specter and the Senate Intelligence Committee held a public meeting October 23 on illegal drug trafficking by the CIA anyway. They questioned Fred Hitz, Inspector General of the CIA and Michael Bromwich, the Justice Department's Inspector General. While Hitz did not admit CIA involvement in drug trafficking, he did hint that there was some information showing that agents of the CIA knew about it in the 1980s. Hopefully, Hitz also knows that it is a federal felony for government agents to have such knowledge and not provide it to the proper police agencies. "To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men," said Abraham Lincoln. There are a lot of "cowards" mixed up in this mess. Those with knowledge of the activities at Mena Airport in Arkansas immediately come to mind. . . . Michael Bromwich, Justice's IG, previously worked for Congressional investigations looking into this same matter -- the very same Congressional investigations, by the way, that were obstructed by Justice and the CIA. This time, Bromwich has subpoena power for any Department of Justice records he may wish. If he doesn't get fired first, this could become very, very interesting! The point was made that at no time did anyone associated with the CIA "target" the inner city with drugs. Of course they did not. And that would not even be suggested by anyone reading all of the available information. The fact is, the CIA did not actually sell drugs. Their protected "associates" did. These associates of the CIA went looking for a market for their cocaine, and the inner-city market became available first. So, they serviced that market. No one specifically targeted inner-city Black communities, or anyone else. It was a scheme to make money. That's it in a nutshell. Still, it is fact that many people associated with -- or, working for -- the CIA did import and sell tons of illegal drugs in this country. And, personnel in the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury, and the CIA, protected these CIA associated drug traffickers from prosecution for a period of years. Meanwhile, the CIA's disinformation people have already started spreading their stuff in Associated Press, LA Times and Washington Post articles. The problem is, there is much too much evidence intermixed with court testimony, pleadings and what not to disregard this. SOCIALISM REWARDED The person singularly responsible for entrenching socialism in the federal government is, of course, Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a reward for his attempt to totally destroy our Constitutional form of government, the Clinton Administration, through Navy Secretary John Dalton, is naming -- what else -- a Destroyer the USS Roosevelt. Is this a pun, or what? PABULUM FOR THE MASSES Evidently, the mass media plans to make us suffer through another Simpson trial. Constitutional issues never make the news. Instead, stories of a deviant ex-football player fill the space. They write about the courts. They report the incessant political pandering of campaigners. But not much space is given to the laws impacting our daily lives. It wasn't always like that, though. For instance, the front page of an 1898 Detroit newspaper has three stories on proposed laws -- and, the reporters describe how the laws can be expected to affect the citizen. Inside the paper are five more similar articles. Evidently, reporters actually reported things of use to their readers back then. No more. Today, we get useful tidbits like the racial makeup of the O.J. jury. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION The Student Press Law Center (1101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1910, Arlington, VA 22209) announced the completion of its "Web-based automatic, fill-in-the-blanks, State open records law request letter generator." The user provides the state and information desired, and the generator writes the request letter -- complete with the specific cite, time allowances and penalties of that state's open records law. The request generator can be found at http://www.splc.org on the Internet. Give it a try. KNOWN BY THE COMPANY HE KEEPS Can you can judge a man's character by watching his friends? Let's see: One of Mr. X's carousing buddies went to prison for distribution of cocaine, and may soon be indicted again for laundering drug money. X's younger brother, who often partied with them, also did some prison time for cocaine. Another of X's old friends went to prison for white collar crimes -- like fraud and embezzlement against his friends and clients. Two of X's other friends and business partners (a married couple) were also convicted of a whole series of white collar crimes. At the same time they were active business partners, X was fooling around with the other man's wife. Yet another of X's best friends ended up dead under rather suspicious circumstances. But, while this man and X were "good friends," the man was also fooling with X's wife and hiring private investigators to follow X around. They wanted an up to date list of all of the women X was playing with on the side. So yes, you can sometimes judge a man's character by the company he keeps. Bill Clinton is a character all right. But he is definitely not a man of honorable character.