Why I Give My 9-year-old Pot

http://www.doublex.com/section/health-science/why-i-give-my-9-year-old-pot

Regarding Kopala

So I sent this last week, then again this morning

To James Orban,

RE: “What we know about marijuana” by Margret Kopala, The Ottawa
Citizen,

Saturday, May 31, 2008

This letter is not being submitted for publication in your pages, but
feel free to publish it if in whole or in part you choose…..

I would like to preface this complaint by stating clearly that I
adamantly respect everyone’s freedom of speech rights, and would stand up for
anyone’s right to hold and state their opinions, no matter how much I might
disagree with those opinions or how poorly researched they might be.

I hold as much disdain for censorship as any writer, but this isn’t
about censorship or opinions, it is about subjective opinions, vague notions,
and flimsy science being put forth as “truth”, and the incredibly negative
effect it has on society, and on us.

I would also like it noted that I respect the Citizen’s journalistic
record, and regard your paper as a quality publication. This is not a platitude
or a polite formality, it is meant to show you that I am not merely some
media-hating ranter who can only see my own side of things, or demands
that people succumb to my desires.

But in my opinion, and the opinion of many others across this country,
Margret Kopala has continually used junk science, vague,
quasi-moralistic ideological arguments, and easily dispelled myths as the “truth” on
which she bases her “opinion” articles. We have repeatedly sent her
information to show where she is wrong, in the hopes that she might modify her opinions
or at least temper them with some sort of journalistic balance and integrity.

This, it seems, she has chosen to ignore.

I hope you can agree that this is not acceptable, and I hope you can see
how it sullies your good reputation.

Granted, she is entitled to whatever outlandish and poorly considered
opinions she wants to hold, and is free to express them – on her own.

But when her opinions serve to foster discrimination against a certain group
of people – namely marijuana users and anti-prohibition activists like
ourselves – some serious considerations must be taken. The publishers
and editors are the people who are ultimately responsible for what reaches
the public, so that is why I am bringing the complaint to you directly.

My own Human Rights complaint against the Ontario government
notwithstanding, I don’t care much for official bodies telling me, the
media, or the public what is “acceptable” in public discourse. I would
sincerely like to avoid any “official” complaints processes against your
publication, (Press counsel, Human Rights, etc.) choosing instead to
open this friendly dialogue in an effort to resolve these issues amicably.

Calling in the “officials” usually just fosters more resentment between
the parties (and in the public eye), and causes the recipient of such
complaints to “dig in their heels” just for the sake of it. When all the dust
settles, neither party is pleased, there is much resentment on both sides, and if
one side does win, it is usually unfairly (in my view).

But when you publish Kopala’s articles, you are offering tacit approval
to her opinions. It says to readers “Well, we might not agree with her, but
we are going to let her say it anyway.” Fair enough, and I applaud this
open attitude. But when her words damage us as much as they do, they need to
be addressed. And there is damage, as I will explain later.

Perhaps I flatter her. I am assuming, possibly erroneously, that a lot
of people actually read her articles, respect her opinions, and that they
actually believe what she puts forth as “truth”. Considering that public
discourse on marijuana over the past 80+ years has consisted mostly of
balderdash, junk science, fear-mongering, ad-hominem arguments, and the
reiteration of “commonly held beliefs”, it is hardly surprising that
Kopala keeps doing it. It is far easier than actual research. Add in the
public’s diminished capacity for critical thinking, and it is a recipe for
problems.

If any other group were subjected to this level of discrimination, there
would be far more serious consequences. But because marijuana users -
medical and otherwise – are still considered perfectly acceptable
targets for public discrimination and suspicion, she manages to get away with
it. If we complain, we are dismissed. “Who cares what a bunch of pot-heads
think, right?” Who indeed. The Charter of Rights and the Supreme Court for
starters.

Examples from Kopola’s latetest:
“… Vancouver’s safe injection site, rather than legalized cannabis,
would be the Trojan Horse for the legalization of all addictive drugs…”

“Trojan Horse”. This implies, in no uncertain terms, that the idea of
“legalizing” drugs is some sort of evil “trick” that drug law reform
activists are trying to perpetrate upon the citizens of Canada. It
paints us as villains, instead of the dedicated, altruistic, community-minded
citizens that we are.

In reality, we are committed to reducing danger in our communities,
largely because we are the primary victims of crime, discrimination, and
law-enforcement issues that surround illegal drugs. We are also keen to
protect people’s rights – the rights of the drugs users as well as
society’s right to not have to deal with messy and expensive drug problems.

The idea of legalizing all drugs and regulating them for production and
sale to adults is supported by history and science. Yet drug prohibition (the
status quo), has proven wildly counterproductive, as pointed out in Dan
Gardner’s most recent article about drug policy on the same day as
Kopola’s article.

“Well, right there! That should be fair.” You might say. “Kopola has her
opinion, Gardner has his, and we published both. Fair and balanced.”

Hardly. Gardner bases his opinion articles on facts that are supported by
science and history, and which can be looked up. Kopola’s are not. She is using
misinformation that has been widely criticized – by many far more
learned people than me – as biased.

She goes on: “…no treatment of which I am aware uses the substance
that caused the problem to cure it. Smokers use nicotine gum, not more
cigarettes, to kick the habit, don’t steal to feed their habit and if
heroine and cocaine are so helpful, why aren’t doctors prescribing them
in pill form?”

They are. Drug maintenance programs have been used for decades around
the world, but this paragraph tells the reader that no such thing has ever
existed. In the late 1800’s (a period of time that social conservatives
like to refer to as “The good old days”) cocaine and heroin and cannabis were
all sold without prescriptions. Just because she has never heard of
something, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, but the readers don’t know that.

Vagueness as fact.

I can only assume that having a global, digital, super-encyclopedia at
her fingertips is still too much of a deterrent to actual research for
Kopala, but that does not excuse the people in the editorial department in
charge of “fact checking”.

She goes on: “According to The Independent, research in the United
Kingdom of an estimated 500,000 cannabis addicts shows some 26,000 sought
treatment in 2006.”

“Cannabis addicts”. Subtle, when one considers that people can become
“addicted” to TV shows, video games, and chocolate. But once again, the
prohibitionist mindset and writing technique lumps marijuana in with
cocaine and heroin, when in reality, caffeine and video games have shown to be
even more difficult to kick than a marijuana habit. The mere use of the term
“cannabis addicts” paints all users as addicts, or on their way to an
inevitable addiction – to cannabis, and eventually hard drugs. That
includes me and my epileptic wife, who, I have no doubt, Kopala would gladly
refer to as “addicts”. We view this as perpetuating scientifically invalid
stereotypes, and using misinformation to do it.

“… a clear connection between cannabis use and psychosis.”
The “clear connection” to which she refers was merely a correlation, but
no cause has ever been found. The actual “studies” which she refers to even
mention this in their reports, but many writers, especially in the
wildly sensationalistic world of UK journalism, don’t bother to mention this.

Leaving out big chunks of information to forward your opinion (“cherry
picking”) is not journalism, it is propaganda. I am sure the UK is
really NOT the measure of “journalism” to which The Citizen wishes to be
compared.

Even Fox News seems fair and balanced by comparison.

She continues: “And while cannabis is addictive and its use commonly
precedes the use of hard drugs, the “gateway” theory, formerly
discredited, is now being scientifically verified.”

No it isn’t. There are some vague new factors that are being explored,
but for her to say that cannabis IS additive is as scientifically valid as
me saying categorically that it is NOT addictive. Since just about anything
can be habit forming, one cannot say for sure that cannabis IS or is NOT
“addictive”. Kopala makes no distinction, and the reader is left with
the idea that all cannabis use is addiction, and that all users are
suffering from some level of mental illness.

The “gateway theory” has been repeatedly debunked, and a casual glance
at history (or the 2002 Senate Committee Report) shows that the large
majority of marijuana users do NOT go on to harder drugs. If it were true that
marijuana use inevitably led to hard drugs, there would be many TIMES
more heroin and cocaine addicts in Canada. Even a ten-fold increase in hard
drug users would still represent only a fraction of the cannabis users in
Canada.

For example, the per capita marijuana use rate in Canada has nearly
quadrupled in the past two decades, but the per capita use of hard drugs
has remained about the same. Meanwhile, the psychosis and schizophrenia
rates that Kopala tries to worry her readers about, has remained roughly the
same.

” ….the British government recently made cannabis possession
punishable by up to five years in prison.” Kopala puts this statement forth as if it
were a wise idea based on solid science, but the UK’s new classification of
cannabis is no more wise now than it was decades ago.

I am sure Kopala would agree that her articles about marijuana have an
agenda, even if it is half-hearted and softly delivered. The message
from her article is clear: “Marijuana is bad, and the best way to reduce
danger is to keep prohibition in place, or increase it, like the UK has.”

This is nonsense, of course. Not because I don’t agree with her, but
because science, history, and common sense don’t agree with her.

I would be troubled to think that this is how you wish your paper to be
regarded. She is, to my mind, exhibiting a level of journalistic
integrity that any high school would be ashamed to print. I would say that these
articles belong on the windshields of cars, not on the pages of a
respectable newspaper. Your readers – and everyone who works for the
Citizen – deserve better.

Okay, so I am not an “expert”, as such. I am a disabled man “with no
letters after my name”, struggling to survive in a society that seems bent on
usurping my rights, so maybe I am a bit biased. I am also a daily
cannabis user who has experienced significant improvements in my health through
the use of cannabis, so that might, in your eyes, skew my opinion even more.

So don’t listen to me. Look it up for yourself. Consult with Dan
Gardner, or Eugene Oscapella, or Alan Young, or any of the other learned and
well-heeled drug policy analysts and experts in Canada. I am sure they would agree
more with my position than with Kopala’s.

Now, as for the discrimination factor:

When race groups, religious groups, gay rights groups, or disabled
groups see articles or comments in the media that they find offensive or
damaging to their groups’ way of life, they complain. When they hear government
or law-enforcement officials using inflammatory or derisive language, they
complain.

Anytime someone incites hate, violence, discrimination, or alienation of
an identifiable group, it is often referred to as “Hate Speech”. As a
result, many insulting and insensitive words and turns of phrase that were once
commonplace in media, entertainment, and in print, are no longer acceptable.

This, I applaud.

Many people think that, because marijuana is more or less illegal, it is
perfectly acceptable to make fun of us, lie about us, exaggerate and
hyperbolize, discriminate against us, and make calls to round us all up
and throw away the key. We are persecuted, jailed, separated from our
families, and forced to endure financial difficulties, all because of a choice (or
necessity) of medicine or relaxation.

These same sorts of dehumanizing tactics have been used against races,
religions, homosexuals, and immigrants in the past, and the damage has
been extensive. There was a time when the “commonly held belief” that women
were inferior to men was taken as fact. There was no valid science to support
this, but as recently as the 1970’s, eye-rolling jokes about “women’s
liberation” were still common. Now, a simple joke about “women drivers”
could have someone dragged before a Human Rights Tribunal. This, I do
NOT applaud! Watching Ezra Levant and Mark Stein’s cases are deeply
disconcerting.

However, millions of people use cannabis in Canada. Hundreds of
thousands do so for medical reasons, even if they are reluctant to admit it. A little
more than twenty six hundred have licences from Health Canada to use and
even grow this medicine.

Medical Marijuana users in Canada have a Charter Right to use cannabis
as medicine, and as such, have a Charter Right to not be discriminated
against for doing so. We are not getting high – we are trying to stay alive.

Repeated government, police, and media rhetoric, exaggeration, and
hyperbole about marijuana’s potency and effects (most of which is based on
scientifically inaccurate information), damages us socially,
economically, physically, spiritually, and mentally. It makes it more difficult for
many of us to get work, maintain our health, maintain friendships and family
relations, feel safe in our homes and communities, and access community
services. We are shunned, ostracized, and ridiculed.

Words like “stoner”, “pot-head”, and “druggies” offend us deeply, as it
dehumanizes and subjugates us. It categorizes us, in the public mind, as
no better than a “hopeless addict” living on the street.

We applaud anyone’s sincere efforts to reduce drug use in our society.
But history and science indicate that lying, exaggerating, cajoling, and
bullying the public into not using drugs – usually for quasi-moralistic
reasons – is counterproductive and damaging.

The creation of this group (Patients Against Ignorance and
Discrimination on Cannabis, which is basically a Facebook group) was prompted by Mark
Bonokoski’s article which appeared in the Fri, August 24, 2007 edition
of the Toronto Sun, entitled: “Having sampled the marijuana of today -
purely for journalistic reasons — I realize how powerful the stuff is compared
to the hippy-dippy ’60s”

This article, we felt, was so full of scientifically inaccurate
balderdash and, what we consider deliberate discrimination against marijuana users,

that were were forced to complain to the Ontario Press Council. It went
no where, naturally. Little surprise there.

PAIDOC’s mission is to draw attention to every occurrence of this type
of discrimination and misinformation, and when possible, to take action.
Marijuana users, medical and otherwise, contribute widely to this
society at all levels, and we deserve and demand the same respect as everyone else.

We should accept nothing less that equal treatment.

I would like to note that humorous, well-intentioned comments about
“munchies” and short term memory loss and so on, will be considered on a

case to case basis. We DO have a sense of humour, after all, and we are
quiet flexible. We make plenty of jokes about it ourselves, just as
Chris Rock might make jokes about race issues.

But the line in the sand is now clearly drawn, and we intend to address
anything that we deem as damaging or deliberately disparaging. We would
much rather have a civilized debate about this issue, but articles like
Kopala’s make it increasingly difficult. Her actions have continued, despite our
numerous complaints and requests, so one can only assume that it is
deliberate.

If she were to actually address the information that counters her
opinions, consider it, and then still held those opinions, I would have less
reason to complain. But she omits information and misrepresents science in an
effort to forward that opinion, and that is not acceptable.

To resolve this issue, I might respectfully suggest that you start a
half-million-word debate on the pages of your publication, giving a
thorough and fair examination of both sides of the issue of drug prohibition, and
let the public figure it out for themselves. Kopala vs Gardner. Fact vs
fact. Opinion vs opinion. Then let an informed public decide.

Please phone me at your convenience so that we might delineate this issue.

Sincerely,

Russell Barth
Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder
Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis
(PAIDOC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCdNX_k71iw
www.rata.ca/paidoc.html

PS: Recent science out of Germany shows how cannabinoids stimulate the
body’s production of TIMP-1, which helps healthy cells resist cancer
invasion.

www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20071226/pot-slows-cancer-in-test-tube

This might explain why chronic pot smokers have lower – not higher -
rates of cancer than tobacco smokers (as a recent California study showed).

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Here is what he sent back:

Russell, thanks for the note and there is no need for us to discuss
further. You and others have made your point abundantly clear. Thanks,
Jim

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We’ll see…..

Russell’s Ontario Human Rights Complaint

www.rata.ca/complaint

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEJVfbfqgtw

On May 7, 2008, my wife Christine Lowe and I were standing on the front patio of an Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario-licenced establishment (a comedy club, actually) in Ottawa. I had just performed my comedy routine, so we had already been inside the club, and we were deciding whether or not to go back inside for the rest of the show. I was not paid to perform, and we did not buy or use any liquor.

We were chatting with staff who were outside smoking tobacco on their break. My wife and I both have federal Authorization To Possess Dried Marihuana for medical purposes (“medical marihuana licence”) in accordance with ss 4(1), 55 and 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, (S.C. 1996, c. 19).

The MMAD regulations state clearly that license holders are allowed to use their medicine where ever tobacco can be used, so we thought we were in compliance with the law. We were about to light marihuana cigarettes (joints), in accordance with the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations from Health Canada (SOR/2001-227).

We were informed by members of the staff, that we could not smoke marihuana on the property, as they had recently been informed that they would be “written up” for an infraction regarding an incident involving the alleged use of marihuana in their parking lot.

When we informed the staff members that we both had medical marihuana licences and that it was legal for us to use marihuana wherever tobacco can be smoked, they informed us that they didn’t know what else to say, because the owner had made this policy. We were asked to not medicate, or, to stand on the public sidewalk to medicate. Embarrassed and humiliated, we decided not to medicate, and left.

It should be noted that the staff members who asked us not to smoke were kind and sympathetic.It should

On May 12, 2008, I spoke to the owner of the club (and liquor licencee) about the incident. He said that his policy was “No marihuana on the premises, period.” I explained that it was a violation of our rights to disallow our use of marihuana. He explained that he had to obey the rules of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. That is when we realized that it was not the liquor licencee or his staff who were violating our rights, it was the system itself violating the liquor licencee’s rights, and ours!

Regulation 719, section 45, subsection 2 of the Liquor Licence Act (R.S.O. 1990, c.L.19) states: (2)The licence holder shall not permit a person to hold, offer for sale, sell, distribute or consume a controlled substance as defined in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) on the premises or in the adjacent washrooms, liquor and food preparation areas and storage areas under the exclusive control of the licence holder. (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 719, s. 45 (2); O. Reg. 247/02, s. 17; O. Reg. 24/04, s. 1.)

“Hold” and “consume”. These words are important. The moment my wife and I – or any federally licensed medical marihuana user – steps onto the property of any AGCO licenced establishment, we are in violation of the Liquor Licence Act and Regulations, because there is nothing in the act nor the regulations that specifically allows us to possess or consume marihuana. Nor is there any provision for liquor licencees or their staff to allow patrons, staff, or performers to use legal medical marihuana.

In fact, there is nothing anywhere in any Provincial or Federal Legislation that actually acknowledges our rights to use marihuana.

So I have launched an Ontario Human Rights Complaint against the Ontario Government for failing to amend legislation to accommodate licensed medical marihuana users.

But there is a catch. Queen’s Park can only do so much when the relevant federal regulations are inconsistent and incoherent. You see, Health Canada’s Marihuana Medical Access Regulations are not sufficient to protect our rights, as they fail to comply coherently with any Provincial legislation. Why? Because Health Canada’s Marihuana Medical Access Regulations have never been legislated into actual law.

As they stand now, the regulations are nebulous, changeable on a whim, and as such, they are of questionable constitutionality. There have been several recent court cases, among them R. v. Long, 2007 ONCJ 340 and 341 (CanLII), R. v. Bodnar et al., 2007 ONCJ (unreported), Sfetkopoulos v. Canada (Attorney General), 2008 FC 33 (CanLII), that throw the constitutionality of the entire Controlled Drugs and Substance Act, as regards to marihuana, into question.

That is the basis of our other compliant against the Canadian Government. They have had eight years to amend the CDSA, and any other relevant legislation, or pass other legislation, that would clear this whole thing up. They have not done so, nor have they even tried, and that is the reason we are pushing this issue. The Federal Government’s continued inaction has caused our rights, and the rights of many other medical marihuana users, to be violated.

We are just in the process of getting that started, as the people at Canada Human Rights were under the impression that we “were only allowed to use our medicine in private”. I sense a deliberate delay, but can’t prove it, obviously.

I told them to read Health Canada’s Marihuana Medical Access Regulations and The Ontario Liquor Licence Act closely: As it is now, the law forbids my wife and I from using or possessing marihuana in any licensed establishment in Ontario, possibly even in Canada, period.

Listen; In Ontario, if the liquor licencee or his staff allow my wife and I into the licenced establishment, knowing that we are in possession of marihuana, they are in violation of the Liquor Licence Act. If they allow us into the licenced establishment knowing that we have just used marihuana, they are in violation of the Liquor Licence Act.

However, if they refuse us entry, based on the fact that we have just used, or are in possession of marihuana, or disallow our use of marihuana on the patio or parking lot, then we are being discriminated against.

This infringes on our rights to gain access to services, and infringes on our ability to perform on stage, and to seek possible future employment as performers. It has also caused us much stress, ill health, embarrassment, and humiliation.

Even though we have medical marihuana licences, Regulation 719, section 45, subsection 2 of the Liquor Licence Act Regulations make no distinction nor makes allowance for people with medical marihuana licences. This lack of coherent legislation on the part of the Ontario Government, places my wife, myself, the licenced establishment owner, his staff, and every liquor licencee and staff member in Ontario in a legal conundrum: obey the regulations of the Liquor Licence Act and violate our human rights, or allow us to possess and use marihuana, and risk their liquor licence. This is a huge risk for all liquor licencees and staff. It is a no-win situation for everyone involved, yet it is the government that is at fault.

Even if we use our medicine across the street, the smell off of our clothes, our breath, our manner, and the redness of our eyes could all be grounds enough for an inspector to write up an “infraction” against the liquor licencee. “Liquor licencee did knowingly allow a man ‘intoxicated’ on marihuana to perform on stage.” would be a pretty hard charge to beat, especially when the performer in question is a bearded, red-eyed, long-hair talking specifically about his medical marihuana licence and use.

Even the AGCO inspectors themselves are stuck, because they have no legal jurisdiction to ask anyone if they possess a medical marihuana licence or not, even if that person is on stage talking about his marihuana licence. Inspectors are forced to report such observable violations, or risk their job. As such, they also risk violating the rights of licenced medical marihuana users, simply by doing their job! So I couldn’t even file a complaint against the AGCO inspector(s), because I have never spoken to one (that I know of), and besides, their hands are tied by The Act.

I know. It is completely absurd.

The guy at the Ontario Human Rights Commission was adamant that I had “to file against the bar owner and the staff member” who asked us not to smoke. I kept refusing, on the grounds that they did nothing wrong, they were simply complying with the Provincial Law. After I read him the relevant portion of the Liquor Licence Act and the Health Canada regulations, he finally got it.

So, as of May 26, 2008, my Ontario compliant is in the mail, and my Canada complaint is sure to follow. I have also sent excerpts to my MPP, Gord Hunter, my MP, John Baird, my MPP, Jim Watson, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, John Tory, and Howard Hampton.

We decided not to ask for any “damages” as in, money. It would probably just slow things down, and it hardly seems fair to spend even more of the province’s money. Besides, more complaints are sure to follow, and whether complaintants got $100 or $1,000,000 from it, the law will still need to change. With the law the way it is, medical marihuana users are barred from entry at thousands of bars and restaurants. Also, hospitals, schools, and retirement homes.

No amount of money can fix that.

And no, this isn’t a ploy or prank designed to forward my non-existent comedy “career”. My health simply does not allow me to persue it past a hobby.

And no, we aren’t looking for the right to smoke pot indoors. We aren’t even demanding this or that as far as rights go… (although, allowing us to medicate where ever tobacco is used seems only fair). We just want the law to be amended to recognize us.

Stay Tuned.

Russell Barth, May 26, 2008.

YouTube Video Helps Viewer Help Epileptic

Jimmy From Ft. Worth, Texas emailed me this:

Hi,
My name is Jimmy. My closes friend’s dog is epileptic. After seeing the dog have a seizure I  couldn’t help but feel helpless. So I went on Youtube.com and searched for some videos on what one looks like and on how someone could help is a person who is having a seizure, and your video came up on the girl who was having a seizure on the couch. You walked through the seizure and what to look for, what to do, and what not to do. You even mentioned how a person will act after a seizure.

Well today while I was at work. A young man fell to the floor and started having a seizure. A co worker ran to me and told me so I ran out to him. He was by himself on the floor. he had hit his head and was on his back. the other three people in the room were just looking at him. I got down by his side and ran through your video.  I pushed everything away from him, pushed him on his side and held his head from thrashing around. his seizure lasted about a minute. I told everyone to stand back because he was about to come to.

He ended up being ok. Just a busted lip and head from the fall. the paramedics cleaned him up and made sure everything was ok.

I just wanted to tell you thank you for posting you video. It helped me help someone else.

Medical Marijuana Dosage In Canada

The Gator Ted Affair

The Cost Of The Disabled

Eight years of reefer madness

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=336547

Study doubts effectiveness of antidepressant drugs

Study doubts effectiveness of antidepressant drugs

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=1e894d95-a721-49b1-b5ca-b06cf278e6df&k=7518

Spirit In This Guy

Bush REwrites Laws to protect Big Bother

Endgame

http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1745

Australians Welcome In Canada!

Cloud Seeding Over Ottawa?

Marijuana inhibits cancer tumour growth

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january112008/cancer_treatment_11008.php

http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/01/22/Marijuana_inhibits_cancer_tumour_growth

Canada puts United States on torture list with Syria & Iran

Institutionalized Spying on Americans

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7824

Institutionalized Spying on Americans

Homeland Security’s National Applications Office (NAO)

by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, January 17, 2008

This article reviews two police state tools (among many in use) in America. One is new, undiscussed and largely unknown to the public. The other was covered in a December article by this writer called Police State America. Here it is updated with new information.

The National Applications Office (NAO)

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established a new domestic spying operation in 2007 called the National Applications Office (NOA) and described it as “the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law enforcement purposes within the United States.” The office was to begin operating last fall to “build on the long-standing work of the Civil Applications Committee (CAC), which was created in 1974 to facilitate the use of the capabilities of the intelligence community for civil, non-defense uses in the United States.”

With or without congressional authorization or oversight, the executive branch is in charge and will let NAO use state-of-the-art technology, including military satellite imagery, to spy on Americans without their knowledge. Implementation is delayed, however, after Committee on Homeland Security Chairman, Bennie Thompson, and other committee members raised questions of “very serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.” In response, DHS agreed to delay operating (officially) until all matters are addressed and resolved.

Given its track record post-9/11, expect little more than pro forma posturing before Congress signs off on what Kate Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, calls “Big Brother in the Sky” and a “police state” in the offing.

DHS supplies this background information on NAO. Post-9/11, the Director of National Intelligence appointed an Independent Study Group (ISG) in May, 2005 to “review the current operation and future role of the (1974) Civil Applications Committee and study the current state of Intelligence Community support to homeland security and law enforcement entities.”

In September 2005, the Committee produced a “Blue Ribbon Study,” now declassified. Its nine members were headed by and included three Booz Allen Hamilton officials because of the company’s expertise in spying and intelligence gathering. Its other members have similar experience. They all have a vested interest in domestic spying because the business potential is huge for defense related industries and consultants.

ISG members included:

Keith Hall, Chairman
Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton

Edward G. Anderson
LTG US Army (Ret),
Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton

Thomas W. Conroy
Vice President
National Security Programs
Northrop Grumman/TASC

Patrick M. Hughes
LTG US Army (Ret)
Vice President, Homeland Security
L-3 Communications

Kevin O’Connell
Director of Defense Group Incorporated (DGI)
Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis (CIRA)

CIRA is a think tank that calls itself “the premier open source and cultural intelligence exploitation cell for the US intelligence community.” Its business is revolutionizing intelligence analysis.

Jeff Baxter
Independent Defense Consultant with DOD and industry ties

Dr. Paul Gilman
Director
Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
US Department of Energy

Kemp Lear
Associate
Booz Allen Hamilton, and

Joseph D. Whitley, Esq
Alston & Bird LLP, Government Investigations and Compliance Group, former Acting Associate Attorney General in GHW Bush administration, and former General Counsel for DHS under GW Bush

The ISG’s report produced 11 significant findings and 27 recommendations based on its conclusion that there’s “an urgent need for action because opportunities to better protect the nation are being missed.” It “concluded a new management and process model (is) needed to effectively employ IC (Intelligence Community) capabilities for domestic uses.”

In March 2006, DHS unveiled the new agency to implement ISG’s recommendations called the National Applications Office. In May, 2007, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Michael McConnell, named DHS as its executive agent and functional manager. At least in principle according to DHS, Congress agreed with this approach and to provide funding for it, beginning in the fall of 2007.

The public knew nothing about this until a feature August 15, 2007 Wall Street Journal story broke the news. It was headlined “US to Expand Use of Spy Satellites.” It noted that for the first time the nation’s top intelligence official (DNI’s McConnell) “greatly expanded the range of federal and local (civilian law enforcement agencies that) can get access to” military spy satellite collected information. Until now, civilian use was restricted to agencies like NASA and the US Geological Survey, and only for scientific and environmental study.

The Journal explained that key objectives under new guidelines will be:

– border security,

– securing critical infrastructure and helping emergency responders after natural disasters,

– working with criminal and civil federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, and

– unmentioned by the Journal, the ability to spy on anyone, anywhere, anytime domestically for any reason – an unprecedented act using state-of-the-art technology enabling real-time, high-resolution images and data from space.

NAO will also oversee classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other US agencies involved in dealing with all aspects of national security, including “terrorism.”

NSA was established in 1952, is super-secret, and for many years was never revealed to exist. Today, its capabilities are awesome and worrisome. It eavesdrops globally, mines a vast amount of data, and does it through a network of spy satellites, listening posts, and surveillance planes to monitor virtually all electronic communications from landline and cell phones, telegrams, emails, faxes, radio and television, data bases of all kinds and the internet.

NGA is new and began operating in 2003. It lets military and intelligence analysts monitor virtually anything or anyone from state-of-the-art spy satellites. Both NSA and NGA coordinate jointly with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) that designs, builds and operates military spy satellites. It also analyzes military and CIA-collected aircraft and satellite reconnaissance information.

Combined with warrantless wiretapping, pervasive spying of all kinds, the abandonment of the law and checks and balances, intense secrecy, and an array of repressive post-9/11 legislation, Executive Orders and National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives, NAO is another national security police state tool any despot would love. It’s now established and may be operating without congressional approval.

Using spy satellites domestically “is largely uncharted territory,” as the Wall Street Journal noted. Even its architects admit there’s no clarity on this, and the ISG’s report stated “There is little if any policy, guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of domestic MASINT (Measurement and Signatures Intelligence).”

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is the main DOD spy agency. It manages MASINT that’s ultra-secret and sophisticated. It uses state-of-the-art radar, lasers, infrared sensors, electromagnetic data and other technologies that can detect chemicals, electro-magnetic activity, whether a nuclear power plant produces plutonium, and the type vehicle from its exhaust. It can also see under bridges, through clouds, forest canopies and even concrete to create images and collect data. In addition, it can detect people, activity and weapons that satellites and photo-reconnaissance aircraft miss, so it’s an invaluable spy tool but highly intrusive and up to now only for military and foreign intelligence work.

Further, military spy satellites are state-of-the-art and superior to civilian ones. They record in color as well as black and white, use different parts of the light spectrum to track human activities and ground movements and can detect chemical weapons traces and people-generated heat in buildings.

This much we know about them. Their full potential is top secret and available only to the military and intelligence community. The Journal quoted an alarmed Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology, that advocates for digital age privacy rights saying: “Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it’s also invisible. And that’s what makes this so dangerous.”

Anyone for any reason may be watched at all times (through walls) with no way to know it, but a June 2001 (before 9/11) Supreme Court decision offers hope. In Kyllo v. United States, the Court ruled for petitioner 5 to 4 (with Scalia and Thomas in the majority). It voided a conviction based on police use of thermal imaging to detect heat in his triplex to determine if an illegal drug was being grown, in this case marijuana.

The Court held: “Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment ’search,” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant….To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment” protecting against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

In 1981, Ronald Reagan seemed to agree in Executive Order 12333 on United States Intelligence Activities. It bars the intelligence community from most forms of home eavesdropping while providing wide latitude to all government agencies to “provide the President and the National Security Council with the necessary information (needed to) conduct….foreign, defense and economic policy (and protect US) national interests from foreign security threats. (Collecting this information is to be done, however,) consistent with the Constitution and applicable law….”

That was then, and this is now. It’s hard imagining congressional concern or DHS meaning that NAO will “prioritize the protection of privacy and civil liberties” and citing the Reagan Executive Order and the 1974 Privacy Act. That law mandates that no government agency “shall disclose any record (or) system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains.” The Privacy act requires the US government to maintain an administrative and physical security system to prevent the unauthorized release of personal records.

Post-9/11, the Patriot Act ended that protection, so DHS is shameless saying NAO must comply with civil liberties and privacy laws and be subject to “oversight by the DHS Inspector General, Chief Privacy Officer, and the Officer for Civil Rights and Liberties” plus additional oversight. No longer post-9/11 when the national security state got repressive new tools to erode the constitution, ignore democratic principles, and give the President unrestricted powers in the name of national security. NAO is the latest one watching us as our “Big Brother in the Sky.” Orwell would be proud.

Real ID Act Update – Another Intrusive Police State Tool

The Read ID Act of 2005 required states to meet federal ID standards by May, 2008. That’s now changed because 29 states passed or introduced laws that refuse to comply. They call the Act costly to administer, a bureaucratic nightmare, and New Hampshire said it’s “repugnant” and violates the state and US Constitutions.

The federal law mandates that every US citizen and legal resident have a national ID card that in most cases is a driver’s license meeting federal standards. It requires it to contain an individual’s personal information and makes one mandatory to open a bank account, board an airplane, be able to vote, get a job, enter a federal building, or conduct virtually all essential business requiring identification.

States balked, and that doomed the original version. On January 11, changes were unveiled when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued binding new rules. Under them, states have until 2011 to comply (instead of 2008), until 2014 to issue “tamper-proof licenses” to drivers born after 1964, and until 2017 for those born before this date. DHS said the original law would cost states $14 billion. The new regulations with an extended phase-in cuts the amount to around $3.9 billion or $8 per license.

These numbers may be bogus, however, the true costs may be far higher, and that’s why the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is lobbying for Real ID’s passage. Its members include high-tech card makers like Digimarc and Northrup Grumman and data brokers like Choicepoint and LexisNexis that profit by selling personal information to advertisers and the government.

Under new DHS rules, licenses must include a digital photo taken at the beginning of the application process and a filament or other security device to prevent counterfeiting. They must also have three layers of security that states can select from a DHS menu. In addition, states must begin checking license applicants’ Social Security and immigration status over the next year.

As of now, a controversial radio frequency identification (RFID) technology microchip isn’t required. It may come later, however, and here’s the problem. It’ll let cardholder movements and activities be tracked everywhere, at all times – in other words, a police state dream along with other pervasive spying tools.

Even worse would be mandating human RFID chip implants. It’s not planned so far (but not ruled out), and three states (California, Wisconsin and North Dakota) preemptively banned the practice without recipients’ consent.

Think it can’t happen? Consider a January 13 article in the London Independent headlined “Prisoners ‘to be chipped like dogs.’ ” The article states that civil rights groups and probation officers are furious that “hi-tech ’satellite’…. machine-readable (microchip) tagging (is) planned (for thousands of offenders) to create more space in jails.” Unlike ankle bracelets now sometimes used, tiny RFID chips would be surgically implanted for monitoring the way they’re currently used for dogs, cats, cattle and luggage. They’re more reliable, it’s believed, as current devices can be tampered with or removed.

Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), was quoted saying: “We have looked at….the practicalities and the ethics (and we concluded) its time has come.” The UK currently has the largest prison population per capita in western Europe. It sounds like authorities plan to expand it using fewer cells. It also sounds like a scheme to tag everyone after testing them first on prisoners. And consider the possibilities. RFID technology is advancing, and one company plans deeper implants that can vibrate, emit electroshocks, broadcast a message to the implantee, and/or be a hidden microphone to transmit conversations. It’s not science fiction, and what’s planned for the UK will likely come to America. In fact, it’s already here.

In 2004, the FDA approved a grain-of-rice sized, antenna-containing VeriChip for human implantation that allows vital information to be read when a person’s body is scanned. The company states on its web site that it’s “the world’s first and only patented, FDA-cleared, human-implantable RFID microchip….with skin-sensing capabilities.” Reportedly, about 2000 test subjects now have them, but it may signal mandatory implantation ahead. Consider for whom for starters – prisoners, military personnel and possibly anyone seeking employment. After them, maybe everyone in a brave new global surveillance world.

It gets worse. Katherine Albrecht authored a report called “Microchip-Cancer Report – Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature 1990-2006.” After reading it, Dr. Robert Benezra, Director Cancer Biology, Genetics Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said: “There’s no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members. Given the preliminary animal data, it looks to me that there’s definitely cause for concern.”

Albrecht’s report evaluated 11 previously published toxicology and pathology studies. In six of them, up to 10.2% of rats and mice developed malignant tumors (typically sarcomas) where microchips were implanted. Two others reported the same findings for dogs. These tumors spread fast and “often led to the death of the afflicted animals. In many cases, the tumors metastasized and spread to other parts of the animals. The implants were unequivocally identified as the cause of the cancers.”

Report reviews, conclusions and recommendations were to immediately stop further human implantations, inform people with them of the dangers, offer a microchip removal procedure, and reverse all animal microchipping mandates.

Debate Ahead on New DHS ID Rules

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said new ID rules require states to verify each cardholder’s personal information (including a person’s legal status in the country) by matching it against federal Social Security and passport databases and/or comparable state ones.

States have time to adjust, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy wasted no time saying he’ll recommend legislation to ban Real ID drivers’ license provisions because “so many Americans oppose” them. They’re intrusive, burdensome, and federal databases are full of false or out-of-date information that’s hard to disprove, but unless it is Americans will be denied their legal right to a driver’s license.

The ACLU also strongly opposes Real ID because it violates privacy, lets government agencies share data, and its “tortured remains” represent an “utterly unworkable” system that will “irreparably damage the fabric of American life.” An ACLU January 11 press release further states that DHS “dumped the problems of the statute on future presidents like a rotting corpse left on (its) steps (and) whoever is president in 2018.” Congress must “recognize the situation and take action.” The Real ID Act and new DHS rules must be “repealed and replaced with a clean, simple, and vigorous new driver’s license security law that does not create a national ID” or violate Americans’ privacy.

Futuristic Hi-Tech Profiling

On January 14, Computerworld online revealed more cause for concern in an article called “Big Brother Really is Watching.” It’s about DHS “bankrolling futuristic profiling technology….” for its Project Hostile Intent. It, in turn, is part of a broader initiative called the Future Attribute Screening Technologies Mobile Module. It’s to be a self-contained, automated screening system that’s portable and easy to implement, and DHS hopes to test it at airports in 2010 and deploy it (if it works) by 2012 at airports, border checkpoints, other points of entry and other security-related areas.

Here’s the problem. If developed (reliable or not), these devices will use video, audio, laser and infrared sensors to feed real-time data into a computer using “specially developed algorithms” to identify “suspicious people.” It would work (in theory) by interpreting gestures, facial expressions and speech variations as well as measure body temperature, heart and respiration rate, blood pressure, skin moisture, and other physiological characteristics.

The idea would be detect deception and identify suspicious people for aggressive interrogation, searches and even arrest. But consider what’s coming. If developed, the technology may be used anywhere by government or the private sector for airport or other checkpoint security, buildings, job interviews, employee screening, buying insurance or conducting any other type essential business.

Aside from Fourth Amendment issues, here’s the problem according to Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at security consultant BT Counterpane: “It’s a good idea fraught with difficulties….don’t hold your breath” it will work, and a better idea is to focus on detecting suspicious objects. Schneier further compares the technology to lie detectors that rely on “fake technology” and only work in films. They’re used because people want them although it’s acknowledged, even when well-administered, their median accuracy percentage is 50% at best.

This technology is worse, it may never be reliable, but may be deployed anyway in the age of “terror.” Something to consider next time we blink going through airport security, and ACLU Technology and Liberty Project director Barry Steinhardt states the concern: “We are not going to catch any terrorists (with it), but a lot of innocent people, especially racial and ethnic minorities, are going to be trapped in a web of suspicion.” Even so, DHS spent billions on this and other screening tools post-9/11. Expect lots more ahead, and here’s the bottom line:

As things now stand, Washington, post-9/11, suspended constitutional protections in the name of national security and suppressed our civil liberties for our own good. This article reviewed their newest tools and wonders what’s next. This writer called it Police State America in December that won’t change with a new White House occupant in 2009 unless organized resistance stops it. Complacency is unthinkable, and unless we act, we’ll deserve Aleksandr Herzen’s curse of another era – to be the “disease,” not the “doctors.”

Stephen Lendman is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Fema Concentration Camps

Canada has a bunch of them too.

Views Of Ottawa 1

Views Of Ottawa 2