The operators of McCormick Place are violating the constitutionally-protected free speech rights of a national organization committed to protecting consumers from intrusive surveillance by commercial interests by barring the group from distributing leaflets, wearing t-shirts with anti-surveillance messages and speaking to individuals in public areas at the prominent convention center, according to a lawsuit filed in federal district court today. The organization, Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), have been denied access to the Grand Concourse at McCormick Place and a park area outside the Grand Concourse during the Electronic Product Code Symposium scheduled to take place at McCormick Place on September 15 through 17, 2003. . . .

Because of the time sensitivity of the issue, the ACLU of Illinois has asked the court to schedule an emergency hearing to consider a motion for a temporary restraining order mandating that the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) allow representatives of CASPIAN to access the Grand Concourse and nearby park area for distribution of leaflets and other expressive activity. . . .

The ACLU of Illinois argues that the Grand Concourse should be open for expressive activity because it is a public area. . . .

McCormick Place funded, operated and owned by the government has no legitimate interests in denying free expression in areas that are otherwise open to the general public. . . .

Because the facility is operated by the State of Illinois, the managers have an obligation to insure that all viewpoints have an opportunity to be heard in the public areas of the convention center fostering critical discussion about important issues. . . .

CASPIAN is a national, grassroots organization that opposes the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) devices to tag and track individual consumer products. CASPIAN also has voiced strong opposition to the development and implementation of the Electronic Product Code (EPC) network, a system that is designed to uniquely number all RFID tagged items and connect them to computer databases via the Internet.

Consumers will protest the "EPC Symposium" at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center Tuesday, September 16 at 10 AM. The Symposium is scheduled to showcase the world launch of the Electronic Product Code (EPC) network.

The EPC network, nicknamed by proponents "The Internet of Things," was designed to connect all items on the planet to computer databases via miniature RFID "spy chips." The stated purpose of the network is to tag and track every manufactured item with a unique EPC identification number.

Corporations like Gillette, Procter & Gamble and Unilever plan to embed EPC-compliant RFID chips in consumer products and product packaging. "We have serious privacy and civil liberties concerns about this technology. Corporations and governments could use it to register products to individuals and secretly track them after purchase," says Katherine Albrecht, Founder and Director of CASPIAN. . .

"These RFID spy chips can be read silently from a distance, right through your clothes, wallet, backpack or purse by anyone with the right reader device. For example, the chips can be secretly embedded in credit cards or sewn into the seams of pants where they can be used to observe people's movements without their knowledge or consent." . . .

For more information about the protest visit http://www.stopRFID.com. . .

In addition to the live protest in Chicago, consumers from around the world will stage their own local protests of the EPC launch. For example, consumers in England plan to protest on Monday, September 15 at a Tesco supermarket in Sandhurst, Surrey. Details of that protest are available at http://www.notags.co.uk

NEW YORK — A judge ruled yesterday that the hijacking and crashing of jetliners was a "foreseeable risk," opening the door to hundreds of September 11 lawsuits against the aviation industry.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said negligent security screening might have contributed to the deaths of 3,000 people in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the crash of a hijacked plane in Pennsylvania. . .

The defendants — American and United airlines, the Boeing Co. and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — had sought dismissal of the lawsuits, saying they had no duty to anticipate and guard against deliberate, suicidal aircraft crashes and that any potential negligence on their part did not cause deaths and injuries. . .

Dec. 22 is the last day families may apply to the compensation fund, created by Congress to provide aid to the families of those killed or injured in the attacks, and to protect the aviation industry from crippling litigation.

About 2,275 compensation fund claims have been filed. Roughly 1,700 eligible families have not decided whether to enroll with the fund or file a lawsuit.

The average fund payout has been about $1.5 million, with the highest award $6.8 million. The minimum payout is $250,000.

American Airlines spokesman Todd Burke said the airline would appeal the ruling. . . .

Boeing spokesman Ken Mercer said the jet manufacturer also would appeal. . . .

Keith S. Franz, a Baltimore lawyer representing seven family members of those killed at the Pentagon and two who were severely injured, said the ruling probably would lead some people to decide to sue. . . "They want to know what happened and why — and it's only through litigation that you get to ask those questions," Mr. Franz said.

Hellersteins ruling of 9/09/03 is just the begining

For two years Mrs. Mariani has fought not just United Airlines, but her attorneys as well, firing both the Nolan Law Group and Mary Schiavo of Baum, Headlund, Aristei, Guilford and Schiavo due to their inability to exercise Mrs. Mariani’s rights to the truth. Mrs. Mariani is now represented by the Law Offices of Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, PA. Through Mr. Berg's office, Mrs. Mariani will now initiate acquisition of all relevant facts and will pursue discovery even to the highest levels of government regarding the secrets of 9-11. . .

Mrs. Mariani has been continuously harassed [by letters and telephone calls] by provocateurs linked to the 9-11 Victim's Compensation Fund headed by Special Master Kenneth Feinberg of the U.S. Department of Justice. In every fashion, these individuals have been hounding Mrs. Mariani while also attempting to manipulate her into the Feinberg “Fund” so she would be forced to promise never to sue the government of the United States. . .

Mrs. Mariani has decided not to "roll-over, shut up, and get over it." Moreover, the Red Cross has never fully compensated victim family members commensurate with what generous and giving people contributed out of their heartfelt sympathy and concern for the victim families. As a matter of fact, the Red Cross has sought more and more information from the families that has only served to stall their access to funds that would cover their mounting bills.

Thus, Red Cross delays have in effect thrown needy families into the waiting arms of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Kenneth Feinberg while also serving to keep the government of the United States out of the courtroom via what Mariani originally termed "the Feinberg hush fund."

Strangely, while Mr. Feinberg has maintained total control over fund settlements, he allowed the Red Cross to extend payments in the millions from these donations to displaced renters and homeowners who did not even lose a family member, and also to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers, all of whom should have been paid from FEMA's well-established and budgeted funds approved by Congress.

In other words, the Red Cross allowed the U.S. government to use Red Cross funds specifically donated to the families who lost their loved ones, said funds given to other parties, which only helped to extend and intensify the financial difficulties of victims family members, as many just decided to give up and submit to Kenneth Feinberg's fund while also absolving the government of the United States of all future accountability.

It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with aeroplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that "al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House".

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).
[...]
. . . there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself. The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate.

Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority? The former US federal crimes prosecutor, John Loftus, has said: "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence."

New footage of the WTC planes has been released. Apparently the man who made the video didn't realise what he had. The New York Times has released a redacted version of the footage, but one of the frames is very intriguing.
. . .
[Compiled comments]

"Something is definitely there that was not built by the manufacturer."
...
"I have a few thoughts about that photo. 1. The bright spot you see inthe photo is a reflection of a (infrared targeting laser). The camera that was used to take that photo is most likely sensitive to infrared radiation. Judging by the size of the beams (spot) I would quess the laser was stationed about 5 or 7 miles away from the WTC.
The object on the underside of the plane maybe a combination missile pod/ guidance system. I've worked with lasers for over 25 years."

Maybe it's just me, but looking at these pictures and the shots from the Naudet footage, the first plane looks too small to be a Boeing 767.

Outside the Hotel Burgers Park, in Pretoria, South Africa. . .

Nearby, Robbie Robinson, the current AABA Mr. America... walks thorugh the lobby. . .

Columbu, like the others, is a specialist at anabolizing his muscles-- tearing them down by "bombing them" with concentrated exercise, then supplying them with huge amounts of protein (including artificial steroids) while they're resting to make them grow. . .

Columbu will have to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger, the hero of perfected mass. . .

"I feel you only can have a few leaders," [Arnold] says in a guttural, confident voice, "and then the rest is followers. I feel that I am the born leader and that I've always impressed with being the leader. I hate to be the follower. I had this when I was a little boy. . ."

Arnold grew up in Graz, Austria. His mother was a hausfrau; his father, now dead, a policeman . . .

"Around the time of grammar school, I had this incredible desire to be recognized. . . I got the feeling I was meant to be more than just an average guy running around, that I was chosen to do something special.

"At that point, I didn't think about money. I thought about the fame, about just being the greatest. I was dreaming about being some dictator of a country or some savior like Jesus . . .

"You can say a pump is as good as coming with a chick in bed," he's said. . . .

"Like when guys started smoking when they were 11 years old, I was the first to say, 'No good.' You know, I felt this was for the untermensch-- you know, the low class. . .

"Security," he says, walking out the door towards the Mercedes 450 parked in his driveway, "means nothing to me. There is no security in the world anymore -- that's been proven over and over. You know what happened to the Japanese people in the second World War. If they bought a house they never got it back again. Look at Germany and the Jewish people. Everything was taken away. There is no security. . ."

ASHLAND, OR (Talon News) -- A Saudi Arabian-based Islamic Charitable Foundation with alleged links to terrorism has a branch in Ashland, Oregon which is getting a tax break from the Internal Revenue Service.

Al Haramain is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501c(3) organization in the United States, which means the group does not pay taxes, and individuals who wish to contribute may deduct at least a portion of their contribution for income tax purposes. ...

An executive order banning business with or donations to terrorist groups included Al Haramain, with over 400 different ways of spelling the group's name, on March 11 2002.

According to the order: "Any transaction or dealing by United States persons or within the United States in property or interests in property blocked pursuant to this order is prohibited, including but not limited to the making or receiving of any contribution of funds, goods, or services to or for the benefit of those persons listed in the Annex to this order or determined to be subject to this order."......

The same website reports that in the United States, Al Haramain has three business entities in Ashland, Oregon: Al Haramain Foundation, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, and Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, Inc. While all three of these are separately filed businesses, they are all at the same location and under the same management.

"These three businesses are one and the same as al-Haramain's headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The President and Vice-President of the United States branch, Aqeel al-Aqeel and Mansour al-Kadi, are the Secretary General and Deputy General, respectively, of the Riyadh office," the same website reads.

Although Saudis earlier this year said they would close all Al Haramain operations outside Saudi Arabia, that does not appear to have happened....

After the 1998 bombing attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, Al Haramain was banned there due to law enforcement concerns that it has played a part in the attack. In 2002 the Treasury Department froze assets of the group's Bosnian and Somali branches because of suspected links to terrorists.

"Dnevnik reports the text published in the British daily Times claiming that Bin-Ladin and KLA have a 'joint' cash box in the United States. There is information that Bin-Ladin's collaborators raise money through an organization allegedly for the Albanian refugees after the Kosovo crisis. The raised money is then allocated to Bin-Ladin's terrorists, but also to KLA fighters. Some of the men in KLA are trained in the camps led by Bin-Ladin.

The Times does not state the name of the organization, but it is obvious that it is a "humanitarian organization" acting in the mosques and Muslim cultural centres in the United States. Under the veil that money for 'Kosovo's refugees' or 'Afghanistan's children' is being raised, the organization accumulates large amounts of dollars. This is not additional expenditure for the Muslims that live in the United States, as according to the American laws the persons that support the humanitarian organizations have tax reliefs, so the Muslims working in the United States are stimulated to give money in the organization. Some of money is won back directly from the American budget through the tax reliefs. The raised money is used for buying weapons.
The Times stresses that some of these organizations were established under CIA's auspices in the time when the American intelligence agency supported the Afghanistan Islamists in the fight against the Soviet Union. But even when the Russian Army withdrew from Afghanistan they continued to raise money.

Money for the KLA was raised in a similar manner, under US auspices, as that helped to oust Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Yugoslavia."

WASHINGTON - A government office is sponsoring a robot race through the Mojave Desert with a $1 million cash prize, trying to build lasers powerful enough to down missiles and studying the feet of geckos. And it calls its best employees "freewheeling zealots."

DARPA - the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - is unlike any other federal agency.

New assignments in terrorism and high-powered computer software have brought unwanted attention and controversy to the office of just 240 employees. Before that, it had quietly transformed not only the U.S. military, with stealth aircraft, Predator drones and precision bombs, but also American society, with the Internet and global positioning satellites.

The man whose work generated much of the recent publicity, former Iran-Contra figure and retired Adm. John Poindexter, left the agency Friday after 20 months.....

Still, many were surprised DARPA dared bring in Poindexter. Forced out as President Reagan's national security adviser, Poindexter had been convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, though the convictions were overturned on appeal.

Tether lured Poindexter from Syntek Technologies to head a new Information Awareness Office to develop the admiral's ideas for thwarting terrorists. DARPA paid Poindexter $138,200 a year, the same as Tether, and close to his $147,182 Syntek salary.

Poindexter's project was quickly denounced by privacy advocates from the political left and right, and Congress began restricting it.

His plan for a futures market that let investors bet on Mideast political developments was based on markets that had predicted election outcomes and movie sales, but a contractor outlined plans to sell futures contracts on assassinations and coups.

[Sept. 24, 2001] "US and European investment market regulators are investigating whether bin Laden or any of his associates attempted to cash in on the share market reaction to September 11.
They are worried that dramatic falls in several reinsurance stocks - including AXA, Munich Re and Swiss Re - and in hotel stocks on European markets in the days preceding the attacks point to insider trading."

"It is established that only United and American stocks had this level of put buying before the attacks. No other airlines were affected. Many of the UAL puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. On September 10, 4,516 put options are purchased on American Airlines as compared to 748 call options. No other airlines show any similar trading patterns to those experienced by UAL and American. The put option purchases on both airlines were 600% above normal. This at a time when Reuters (September 10) issues a business report stating, "Airline stocks may be poised to take off." Highly abnormal levels of put options are also purchased in Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA Re (insurance) which owns 25% of American Airlines, and Munich Re. All of these companies are directly impacted by the September 11 attacks."

Investigators are now exploring links between [Soliman] Biheiri, the Saudi-sponsored International Islamic Relief Organization, and Mercy International, a charity implicated in the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings....

In 1985, Biheiri met a man named Suliman al-Ali in New Jersey. The two became personal friends, attending Islamic conferences together and entertaining at each other's homes. In 1989, al-Ali left the United States for Saudi Arabia to become a full time fundraiser for the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). As described in the Biheiri affidavit, IIRO has extensive contacts with Islamist terrorist organization, including al Qaeda and Hamas.

According to tax filings, Al-Ali raised over $500,000 in his first year with IIRO. Impressed with his fundraising abilities, the Saudis sent al-Ali back to the U.S. to open IIRO's official office in the Washington, D.C. area.

Al-Ali landed in Washington, D.C. in 1991 with his checkbook and a mission. By this time, the Saudi-relief infrastructure that supported the jihad in Afghanistan had shifted focus to Eastern Europe. Muslims in Bosnia were being massacred by the Serbs and al-Ali had $10 million to put towards Bosnian aid. Over the next several years, al-Ali channeled at least $4 million of this money to BMI investments run by Biheiri.....

al-Ali disclosed that he sent almost $200,000 to Mercy International in Canada, a branch of the Michigan-based Mercy International. The legal name of the Canadian office is actually Mercy International Relief Agency......

In the United States, Mercy International originally went by the name Human Concern International (HCI), an organization created in the 1980s to support the Afghan jihad against the Soviets. Their Pakistan offices were headed by Ahmed Khadr, a close associate of bin Laden and an al Qaeda moneyman. In 1989, HCI changed its name to Mercy International-USA and moved to Michigan.

"The HUM [Harkat-ul-Mujahideen], which produced some of the best fighters of the Afghan war, was favoured by the CIA and got the lion's share of the Stinger missiles, explosives and other equipment....
the CIA asked the ISI to divert part of the dregs of the HUM and the HUJI to Bosnia to assist the Muslims there in their fight against the Serbs. The transfer to Bosnia was funded by the Saudi Intelligence, the arms and ammunition were given by the Iranian Intelligence and the leadership and motivation were provided by serving and retired officers of the ISI and the Turkish intelligence.... From Bosnia, they were diverted to Kosovo by the CIA "

"the Baker Botts team openly acknowledge in their brief that [Prince] Sultan has for the past 16 years approved regular payments of about $266,000 a year to the International Islamic Relief Organization—a large Saudi charity whose U.S. offices were last year raided by federal agents. Sultan also authorized two additional grants totaling $52,000 to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, another Saudi-based group that has drawn the scrutiny of U.S. antiterrorism investigators."

[Sept. 4, 2003]In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks while U.S. airspace was restricted, planes sanctioned by the Bush administration flew about the country gathering some 140 high-ranking Saudi Arabians – including several relatives of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden – who were then spirited out of the country within a week of the terror, according to a senior official......

Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke described the Saudi exodus in an interview for the current issue of Vanity Fair on newsstands today. Clarke, who left the White House in February, lends confirmation to reports of the evacuation which first surfaced in September 2001, but have been dispelled as rumor and urban legend.

Citing Clarke, the magazine reports that within a week of the hijackings private planes picked up individuals from 10 cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Houston and Boston. Aviation officials complained the flights took place before the government had lifted flight restrictions for the general public......

Clarke said the Saudis feared they "would be targeted for retribution" by Americans after the hijackings. According to the Globe, a Saudi diplomat said the relatives of bin Laden had been advised by both the Saudi government and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to return to Saudi Arabia at least temporarily for their own safety.......

"Somebody brought to us for approval the decision to let an airplane filled with Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, leave the country," Clarke, who headed the Counterrorism Security Group of the National Security Council, told Vanity Fair. He said he did not recall who requested approval for the flight, but believes it was either the FBI or the State Department. He said he, in turn, checked with FBI officials, who gave the go ahead......

The Tampa Tribune and New York Times reported at the time that FBI agents supervised the shepherding of young members of the bin Laden family by car and plane to secret assembly points in Texas and elsewhere prior to their ultimate departure out of the country........

According to Clarke, top White House officials personally approved the repatriation plan, which is thought to have been organized by Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Vanity Fair reports Prince Bandar met with President George W. Bush on Sept. 13, 2001, but it is not known whether the plan was discussed. .......