The Spanish interior ministry says it is investigating reports that two suspects in the 11 March Madrid train bombings were police informants.

The move came after Spain's El Mundo newspaper said Moroccan Rafa Zuher and Spaniard Jose Emilio Suarez had been in contact with police before the attacks.

The men are suspected of providing dynamite for the attacks, which killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000.

The paper said they passed on details about drug deals and other crimes.

[...]

According to El Mundo, [Suarez] was an informant for the National Police, providing information about trafficking in weapons, drugs and explosives.

The U.S. is one of 38 nations that have signed onto the Council of Europe's "Convention on Cybercrime," but the U.S. Senate has not yet ratified the measure. In a letter to the Senate last November, President Bush called the pact "the only multilateral treaty to address the problems of computer-related crime and electronic evidence gathering." The treaty, "would remove or minimize legal obstacles to international cooperation that delay or endanger U.S. investigations and prosecutions of computer-related crime," said Bush.

Drafted under strong U.S. influence, the treaty aims to harmonize computer crime laws around the world by obliging participating countries to outlaw computer intrusion, child pornography, commercial copyright infringement, and online fraud.

Another portion of the treaty requires each country to pass laws that permit the government to search and seize e-mail and computer records, perform Internet surveillance, and to order ISPs to preserve logs in connection with an investigation. A "mutual assistance" provision then obligates the country to use those tools to help out other signatory countries in cross-border investigations: France, for example, could request from the U.S. the traffic logs for an anonymous Hotmail user suspected of violating French law.

They want the logs of my web site with all the forum messages, and the IP addresses. That's right. All of them. A giant fishing expedition for every communication of everyone interested in the voting issue. This has nothing to do with a VoteHere "hack" investigation, and I have refused to turn it over.

So, yesterday, they call me up and tell me they are going to subpeona me and put me in front of a grand jury. Well, let 'em. They still aren't getting the list of members of BlackBoxVoting.org unless they seize my computer -- which my attorney tells me might be what they have in mind.

Also, Agent Mike told me he just "happened" to be on the plane with me a couple weeks ago. What's that supposed to do? Scare me?

[...]

VoteHere: This is the company that has no visible means of support. It doesn't seem to sell anything. Its board is heavily infested with defense industry types -- a former CIA director (Robert Gates, now heads George Bush School of Government); it had Admiral Bill Owens, also Vice-Chairman of SAIC and a member of the Defense Policy Board with Perle and Wolfowitz, a very close friend of Cheney; currently headed by former Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro.

VoteHere announced that it would be releasing its software for review, back in July 2003. It was planning to release it in September, and was supposed to do so to Dr. David Dill's web site. It never released the code, just a bunch of literature about its product. (It did release some, but not all, of its code this month, making a big splash about it). About a week into October, I got solicited with an email "click this link" for VoteHere software.

Now who would fall for that?

The unnamed informant was rewarded for the arrest of Alhamser Limbong alias "Commander Kosovo" who was captured along with five other Abu Sayyaf militants in a series of Manila raids in late March.

The military said Limbong was the person who beheaded Californian Guillermo Sobero, who was abducted by the gunmen along with Kansas missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham and a group of Filipino tourists in May 2001.

Martin Burnham was later killed during a rescue mission in June 2002, while his wife survived and was reunited with their children.

The Abu Sayyaf, which has been linked by Washington and Manila to the al-Qaeda terror network, kidnapped Christians and foreigners in Mindanao for a decade, sometimes beheading their captives if ransom is not paid.

"The CIA orchestrated massive arms shipments via Pakistan, including state-of-the-art Stinger surface-to-air missiles," Cooley said. Three American presidents -- Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush -- hailed the mujahideens as "freedom fighters," he said.
The Abu Sayyaf, Cooley said, was the last of the seven Afghan guerrilla groups to be organized late in the war -- in 1986 or three years before the Soviets withdrew. It was founded by an Afghan professor named Abdul Rasul Abu Sayyaf. And like Osama bin Laden, the group was financed by Saudi Arabia's wealthy elite and influenced by Wahabism, an ultra-conservative form of Islam that dates back to the mid-18th century and is espoused by the Saudi royal family."

[June 10, 2003] "jihadis [were] trained at its University of Dawa Wal-Jihad, which was funded by Saudi Arabia and established by Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf during the Afghan resistance movement against the Soviets in the 1980s....
Professor Sayyaf, chief of the Ittehad-i-Islami Afghanistan, which was a part of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, was very close to Saudi Arabia, which bankrolled his jihadi training camp in the garb of a university. Many top al-Qaeda leaders received training at the university.......

AMY GOODMAN: The Bush administration is trying to block FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds from testifying in a lawsuit filed by relatives and survivors of Sept. 11.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said Monday he would hear classified evidence next month from the government, which is expected to cite laws regarding state secrets in order to gag the Turkish-American translator. The administration claims her evidence would "cause serious damage to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States".

Edmonds was hired after Sept. 11 by the FBI to translate pre-9/11 intelligence gathered by the agency. She has publicly said on Democracy Now and other media outlets that the U.S. had considerable evidence that Al Qaida was planning to strike the US with airplanes.

She was subsequently subpoenaed by the law firm Motley-Rice, which represents hundreds of families who are taking civil action against a number of banks and two members of the Bush-connected Saudi royal family for allegedly aiding al-Qaida.

The Bush administration had requested the hearing be closed to the public and press. On Monday, journalists and activists appeared at the court to object. Judge Walton yielded and the hearing was subsequently opened to scrutiny. However, Edmonds' testimony has been postponed to June, and the question of whether her deposition will be allowed remains unresolved until further review.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: [D]o you feel the wrath of the state right now upon you and in what ways. And do you think you might be ready to release documents - the kinds of things you might have told the 911 Commission about secretly, or privately?

SIBEL EDMONDS: [....] As I said, this has been going on for two years and two months. I went through the appropriate steps, believing that they were appropriate to do and they were the means to achieve having the truth to get out, and I had gone to the inspector general's office, and they were supposed to release this report in Fall, 2002, and now they are not releasing it, a year-and-a-half after that deadline has been over. I have gone to the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have gone to the OPR, and now finally, this is the 9-11, which is basically my last hope. It's true this investigation ? if they don't make this public, then I have to step forward and just put an end to it. And I think the time is approaching.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Are you afraid?

SIBEL EDMONDS: There are times that I am afraid, but then again, I have to remind myself that this is my civic duty, and this is for the country, because what they are doing by pushing this stuff under this blanket of secrecy, what they are hiding is against the public's welfare and interest. And reminding that to myself just helps me to a certain degree overcome that fear.

The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now.

The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government.

[...]

The ACLU alleges that a section of the act is unconstitutional because it allows the FBI to request financial records and other documents from businesses without a warrant or judicial approval.

The vast majority of the United Nations' oil-for-food contracts in Iraq have mysteriously vanished, crippling investigators trying to uncover fraud in the program, a government report charged yesterday.

The General Accounting Office report, presented at a congressional hearing into the scandal-plagued program, determined that 80 percent of U.N. records had not been turned over.

[...]

The GAO findings, which were aired at a hearing of the House International Relations Committee, raise new questions about corruption and mismanagement in the biggest-ever U.N. aid program - and what has been called the biggest financial scandal in history. An earlier GAO report said Saddam ripped off over $10 billion.

Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said the report raised serious concerns - and could have "a potential impact on the reputation and credibility of the United Nations."

The Boneyard Examiner, Sept. 13 - Nov. 15, 1971

The Boneyard Examiner, a weekly published by the Boneyard Press to "be a thorn in the side of those who perpetuate exploitation and injustice in our community" containing news of student interest, feature articles, advertisements, and cartoons. The Undergraduate Student Association sponsored the first issue.

The Bush administration is bracing itself for the latest memoir by a former insider. Joe Wilson, a former ambassador, will this week reveal the name of the government official who "outed" his wife - revealing her identity as a CIA operative in apparent revenge for his role in proving the White House made false claims about Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

But in what has increasingly becoming the habit during Mr Bush's presidency, Mr Wilson will not make his claims on television, at a press conference or even in a newspaper column but between the covers of a "must-read" book. His memoir, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity, is published tomorrow.

American and British hopes that a handover of "sovereignty" to an interim government on 30 June might lead to stability in Iraq are fading fast.

The Interim Government will be politically very weak. It will not have sovereign powers, despite being described as "fully sovereign" in the law which is setting it up.

It will not be an elected body to which moderate Iraqis can easily rally. It will last only until elections are held by the end of January 2005.

The limitations of the interim government are as follows:

* It will be appointed not elected
* It will have no powers to make laws
* Laws and rules already made by the Coalition will remain in force
* It will probably not have controlling power over the Coalition forces which after 30 June will become the "multi-national force"

Insurgent attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure, added to the damage caused by U.S. forces during the war last year, are helping to cripple economic and other reconstruction efforts in that strife-torn country, U.S. intelligence officials told United Press International.

The result is that Iraq's oil production, which was projected by the Bush administration to double and be used to pay for the costs of the war, has not served that purpose because exports are down from 2.5 million barrels a day to around 1.5 million barrels a day, according to these sources.

[...]

[T]he prevention of pipeline sabotage has been a top priority of the Coalition Provisional Authority and that currently about 14,000 security workers have taken up positions along important pipeline routes or critical oil installations. Contract security workers are equipped with the latest electronic motion sensors, advanced surveillance equipment, night vision equipment, and that mobile security patrols have increased "six-fold."

The White House, the 9/11 commission, and Congress are all considering recommending the appointment of a new intelligence czar, who would head up the government's 15 intelligence agencies and offices. As it stands now, the director of central intelligence, currently George Tenet, controls only the Central Intelligence Agency and its budget—a small slice of the total pie. What are the 14 other intel agencies, and what does each one do?

National Reconnaissance Office. Builds, launches, and maintains the country's spy satellites.

National Security Agency. Intercepts and, if necessary, cracks foreign signals, whether e-mail messages, cellphone calls, or regular land-line calls.

Defense Intelligence Agency. Gives the military information and tips on other countries' militaries.

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Analyzes satellite photos, using them to make maps and other goodies, such as 3-D simulations of terrain and targets.

In addition, each of the United States' five armed services—the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and yes, Coast Guard—has its own intel branch.

The departments of State, Treasury, and Energy each have an intel unit. Relying on their particular expertise, these groups analyze other agencies' data and give assessments to their secretaries.

No. 13 operates in a similar manner and is housed in the Department of Homeland Security; it's the office behind the multi-hued threat alert.

And while there is talk about creating a domestic intel agency along the lines of the British MI-5, the FBI insists it already is one.

The Supreme Court appeared troubled Tuesday by the prospect of letting the public have a look into private White House policy meetings, a hopeful sign for the Bush administration's aggressive defense of secrecy in the case of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.

The court is the latest stop in a nearly three-year fight over access to records of the task force that prepared a national energy strategy. The president put Cheney, a former energy industry executive, in charge and the group's recommendations were friendly to industries. Most stalled in Congress.

Raising the gravest concerns about unnecessary snooping into the executive branch was Justice Antonin Scalia, who stayed in the case despite conflict-of-interest questions relating to his friendship with Cheney. He said a president has broad authority to keep matters private.

Former FBI contract linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds did not back down regarding reported evidence she uncovered implicating espionage in the FBI and State Department when we recently asked whether she thought the explosive information would ever see the light of day.

"As you know, I cannot say much about that; but why do you think Attorney General Ashcroft asserted State Secret Privilege in my case when I decided to go public with what I had found in the translations?" she said, as we walked down the circular marble staircase from the second floor 9-11 panel hearing room to the ground floor atrium in the Hart Senate office building. Justice Department lawyers at the request of FBI Director Robert Mueller invoked the arcane legal procedure which even allows the withholding of evidence documents from the judge.

The President:
"By the way, the reason I bring up the Patriot Act, it's set to expire next year. I'm starting a campaign to make it clear to members of Congress that it shouldn't expire. It shouldn't expire for the security of our country."

The Truth:
Less that 10 percent of the Patriot Act expires; most of the law is permanent and those portions that do sunset will not do so until December 31, 2005.

The President:
"And that changed, the law changed on- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists, see?"

The Truth:
Roving wiretaps were available prior to 9/11 against drug lords and terrorists. Prior to the law, the FBI could get a roving wiretap against both when it had probable cause of crime for a wiretap eligible offense. What the Patriot Act did is make roving wiretaps available in intelligence investigations supervised by the secret intelligence court without the judicial safeguards of the criminal wiretap statute.

The President:
"... see, I'm not a lawyer, so it's kind of hard for me to kind of get bogged down in the law. (Applause). I'm not going to play like one, either. (Laughter.) The way I viewed it, if I can just put it in simple terms, is that one part of the FBI couldn't tell the other part of the FBI vital information because of the law. And the CIA and the FBI couldn't talk."

The Truth:
The CIA and the FBI could talk and did. As Janet Reno wrote in prepared testimony before the 9/11 commission, "There are simply no walls or restrictions on sharing the vast majority of counterterrorism information. There are no legal restrictions at all on the ability of the members of the intelligence community to share intelligence information with each other.

"With respect to sharing between intelligence investigators and criminal investigators, information learned as a result of a physical surveillance or from a confidential informant can be legally shared without restriction.

The opening blast in a campaign to require the federal courts to operate within their authorized jurisdiction was unveiled last week in Montgomery, Alabama under the title the Constitution Restoration Act. The original sponsors of S. 2082 are Senators Richard Shelby, Zell Miller, Sam Brownback, and Lindsey Graham, and the original sponsors of the companion bill H.R. 3799 are Representatives Robert Aderholt and Mike Pence.

This legislation would clarify that the federal courts do not have jurisdiction to hear cases brought against a federal, state or local government or officer for acknowledging God. The bill is in response to the dozens of cases that have been filed across the country asking federal judges to declare the recitation in public schools of the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it includes the words "under God," or asking that the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings or parks be held unconstitutional.

The bill's sponsors believe that the federal courts have no authority to hear such cases or render such a decision. No law bans the acknowledgment of God, and the U.S. Constitution delegates "all legislative powers" to the Congress and none to the courts.

[...]

The Constitution Restoration Act also orders federal courts not to rely on foreign laws, administrative rules or court decisions. Americans have been shocked to learn that five U.S. Supreme Court Justices have cited foreign sources, even though it is self-evident that U.S. judges should be bound by the U.S. Constitution and U.S. laws, rather than foreign ones.

Context for the newly-released "Joint Chiefs Rejected 'Airplanes as Missiles' Game Scenario in April 2001" stories:

There are many mainstream media articles published over the last two years which, when taken together, give the context for understanding what the just-breaking "Joint Chiefs Rejected 'Airplanes as Missiles' scenario in April 2001" story means. With regard to the first article below, about NORAD's "Vigilant Guardian" emergency response exercise held on the morning of 9/11 in the northeast sector of the U.S. including New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania, we know that this "Vigilant Guardian" 'wargame' had to either be on, or involve, a multiple-hijack scenario because the person in charge of 'running' the game at NEADS (NORAD N.E. Sector) in Rome, New York as well as the very person who, finally, too late authorized the scrambling of real jets on 9/11, NORAD's No. 2 General Arnold, at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, were both (along with many other 'game players that morning) confused at the beginning as to whether incomings from Boston air traffic control, etc. were 'for real,' or were part of the wargame; and they would not, and could not, have been confused unless what actually began unfolding -- the attacks -- were the same as, or very similar to, the scenario/content of the pre-planned exercise(s).

Even Richard Clarke, in his book AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, gives part of the transcript of his phone conversation with Gen. Arnold that morning, in which Gen. Arnold refers to being, right then, as Clarke is calling, involved in (words to the effect, see page 5) 'just that' (i.e. game scenario).

Also, there is lots of evidence that the hijackers were leaked details of the U.S. government's hijack-and-plane-into-building emergency response exercise(s) scheduled for the morning of 9/11 (see below mainstream press articles) because we know for an absolute fact that they perpetrated the real thing 'on top of' NORAD's (and possibly also NRO's) wargame(s) that very morning.

Further extremely strong evidence that the hijackers used the date OF the Government's own wargame as the date for their own attacks, is the text of the famous Sept. 10 NSA intercept between Atta and KSM:

"The MATCH is about to begin. Zero hour is tomorrow" (i.e. Sept. 11).

'Match' can be a clear referent for a 'game'. Also, in the famous Der Spiegel article based on the transcripts of the interrogations of KSM and Bilalshibh obtained by the magazine, reprinted in full in the New York Times, it is revealed that, at the mid-July 'Final 9/11 Planning Meeting' in Tarragona, Spain, Atta takes the information to the so-called attack 'coordinator' (and some now say KSM was also there), that 'The date for the attack has been set', but that that date 'is not yet known.'

Take careful note of the passive tense here -- 'has been' set. Atta then, much later, communicates the actual date for the attack, in the famous 'two sticks and a cake with a handle' call with KSM -- i.e., the date of this key Atta-KSM call is clearly
just after Atta has been informed, probably by Pakistani ISI Chief Gen. Ahmad, that the U.S. Government has just confirmed that "Vigilant Guardian" will indeed go forward and that Sept. 11 has been set as the day (Day 2 of the exercise) that a multiple-hijack-and-plane-into-building scenario will be 'run'.

And what does this line of evidence mean? : No 'real' hijacker or mastermind would not choose his own date for an attack. That is, this is 'the' line of evidence that nails the claim that, at the top. 9/11 had to be an Inside Job, or, at the very least, there had to be at least one Insider traitor who leaked the date, as well as all the major details, of the Pentagon/NORAD's own game plan for the morning of Sept. 11 to Atta, to KSM, and to Binalshibh.

Below are the mainstream articles from 2002 that provide the context for, and explode the meaning of, the above just-breaking "Joint Chiefs Rejected 'Airplanes as Missiles' Scenario in April 2001" articles published in the Wash. Post, Boston Globe, etc.:

Iincluded is an article about NORAD's Northeast Sector (NEADS) emergency response exercise on the morning of Sept. 11, called "Vigilant Guardian" (elsewhere, for example Clarke's book p. 5, the same wargame is referred to as "Vigilant Warrior")

from Kyle Hence:

(Sibel Edmonds, ex-FBI translator) "...is asking for a public showing of support at the hearing on Monday.

Please come to the U.S. Dictrict Court in Washington, D.C. at 3rd St. and Constitution Avenue this coming MONDAY, April 26th Enter thru Constitution Avenue entrance and go to Judge Reggie Walton's courtroom. Proceedings BEGIN AT 11:30AM. Come earlier if you can.

The secrecy must end. What must rally and demand the truth see the light of day and keep asking "what is it they are so intent upon hiding that they would go to such lengths to silence Sibel Edmonds?"

From Sibel Edmonds:

The Bureau will argue in front of the judge, try to get him to order a gag on me. Motley-Rice will try to make their case re: importance to the family members & the country.

We need to gather a large group, and have them show up in the courtroom, have them rally/kick/scream. The press will cover it, and this is our chance to wake everybody up and let them see what's happening. What can you do? I am sending e-mails to everyone I know. . . .

It will be a hearing in front of Judge Walton, the Bureau is going to fight Motley-Rice in order to block my deposition as a witness for their case. It will be attended by the Bureau's attorneys, Motley-Rice attorneys, Mark Zaid (my attorney), myself, and the press.

Did the World Trade Center towers undergo a deliberate “power-down” on the weekend prior to the 9-11 terrorist attacks? According to Scott Forbes, a senior database administrator for Fiduciary Trust, Inc. – a high-net investment bank which was later acquired by Franklin Templeton – this is precisely what took place. Forbes, who was hired by Fiduciary in 1999 and is now stationed at a U.K. branch office, was working on the weekend of September 8-9, 2001, and said that his company was given three weeks advance notice that New York’s Port Authority would take out power in the South Tower from the 48th floor up. The reason: the Port Authority was performing a cabling upgrade to increase the WTC’s computer bandwidth.

Forbes stated that Fiduciary Trust was one of the WTC’s first occupants after it was erected, and that a “power-down” had never been initiated prior to this occasion. He also stated that his company put forth a huge investment in time and resources to take down their computer systems due to the deliberate power outage. This process, Forbes recalled, began early Saturday morning (September 8th) and continued until mid-Sunday afternoon (September 9th) – approximately 30 hours. As a result of having its electricity cut, the WTC’s security cameras were rendered inoperative, as were its I.D. systems, and elevators to the upper floors.

Forbes did stress, though, that there was power to the WTC’s lower floors, and that there were plenty of engineers going in-and-out of the WTC who had free access throughout the building due to its security system being knocked out. . . . Forbes wrote: "Without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors, and many, many 'engineers' coming in and out of the tower." . . .

Forbes had Tuesday, September 11th off, and thus watched the World Trade Center towers collapse from his apartment. While doing so, he recalled, “I was convinced immediately that something was happening related to the weekend work.”

In addition, Forbes says there were other peculiarities revolving around this unreported event, including:

1) Fiduciary employees trapped between the 90-97th floors of the South Tower told family members (via cell-phone calls) that they were hearing “bomb-like explosions” throughout the towers.

2) Video cameras positioned atop the World Trade Center which were used to feed daily images to local television stations were inexplicably inoperative that morning.

3) A Fiduciary employee who was on one of the lower floors and escaped immediately after the first (North) tower was struck, reported that he was amazed by the large number of FBI agents that were already on the streets surrounding the WTC complex only minutes after the initial strike.

4) Last but not least, Ann Tatlock, CEO of Fiduciary Trust and now a board member of Franklin Templeton, had just arrived at a conference hosted by Warren Buffet at the Offutt Air Force Base (home of the U.S. Strategic Command Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska) when the 9-11 attacks took place. Coincidentally, later that day President George W. Bush flew into this very same base on Air Force One for “security reasons.” Even more chilling are the Offutt AFB ties to the CIA’s MK ULTRA experiments, Project Monarch, the Franklin Cover-Up, and the diabolical practices of Michael Aquino. (Type any of these words into a search engine for more information.)

The effort will be made at the National Rifle Association’s annual get-together, which is scheduled for Saturday, April 17, 2004 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to encourage N.R.A. members to get behind the idea of resisting the ill-conceived McCain-Feingold legislation with a call to support a Constitutional Convention. This is extremely bad advice! I agree that the McCain-Feingold legislation needs to be opposed; however, you should not try to put out a fire with gasoline.