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Salon.com News | "We should have had orange or red-type of alert in June or July of 2001"
A former FBI translator told the 9/11 commission that the bureau had detailed information well before Sept. 11, 2001, that terrorists were likely to attack the U.S. with airplanes.
A slightly different take on the same news event: Architects Unveil Revised Freedom Tower Design
Freedom Tower to rise 1,776 feet from ashes
Architect says it will be an 'exclamation point' on the skyline
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
Friday, December 19, 2003
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Freedom Tower to be built at the site of the devastated World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan is still planned as the world's tallest building, according to a revised model unveiled Friday by the architects collaborating on its design.
This is an advance story (which is essentially just my press release, cleaned up a little) about the Bill of Rights Day activity that I'm organizing. I'm saving the text of it here as it was published at Yubanet.
(This will eventually be posted at my main blog, but it's not functioning properly, so I'm using this blog as a backup place to put these entries.)
Group to honor Bill of Rights Day with March and Memorial on Monday
By Lance Brown, Nevada County Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Dec 13, 2003, 08:43
Local civil liberties activists will be holding a memorial service and march for the Bill of Rights in Nevada City this Monday-- Bill of Rights Day. The group will gather outside the Rood County Government Center at Noon, and march to Calanan Park in downtown Nevada City.
All interested parties are invited to attend.
This marks the third consecutive year that local activists have held a public commemoration of Bill of Rights Day -- the anniversary of the ratification of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. A "funeral" last year preceded this year's memorial, and in 2001 the day was marked with a rally.
The event is part of an ongoing local campaign to raise awareness about what the group sees as grave dangers to our civil liberties that have come in the wake of the “war on terror”. The Nevada County Bill of Rights Defense Committee is launching a drive to pass local resolutions making Nevada County a "civil liberties safe zone", as part of a national movement where over 200 communities (and three states) have passed similar resolutions.
For more local information, call 274-2474 or visit ncrights.org.
1878 Military Law Gets New Attention
by T.A. Badger, Associated Press, 24 November 2001
SAN ANTONIO -- America's military is largely prohibited from acting as a domestic police force, but with the increased fears of terrorism, some experts say it's time to rethink those restrictions.
"Our way of life has forever changed," wrote Sen. John Warner, R-Va., in a letter last month to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Should this law now be changed to enable our active-duty military to more fully join other domestic assets in this war against terrorism?"
The law, known as the Posse Comitatus Act, was championed by Southern lawmakers in 1878 who were angry about the widespread use of the Army in post-Civil War law enforcement.
It currently bans the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from participating in arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other police-type activity on U.S. soil. The Coast Guard and National Guard troops under the control of state governors are excluded from the act.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying in October before the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that it might be desirable to give federal troops more of a role in domestic policing to prevent terrorism.
...
Thanks to Post911TimeLine for this link.
And here's a link to an article about the same issue when it popped up over 6 months later, with the formation of the Department of Homeland Security.
Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 20%
Foreign Views of U.S. Darken Since Sept. 11
By Richard Bernstein
The New York Times
Thursday 11 September 2003
BERLIN - In the two years since Sept. 11, 2001, the view of the United States as a victim of terrorism that deserved the world's sympathy and support has given way to a widespread vision of America as an imperial power that has defied world opinion through unjustified and unilateral use of military force.
"A lot of people had sympathy for Americans around the time of 9/11, but that's changed," said Cathy Hearn, 31, a flight attendant from South Africa, expressing a view commonly heard in many countries. "They act like the big guy riding roughshod over everyone else."
In interviews by Times correspondents from Africa to Europe to Southeast Asia, one point emerged clearly: The war in Iraq has had a major impact on public opinion, which has moved generally from post-9/11 sympathy to post-Iraq antipathy, or at least to disappointment over what is seen as the sole superpower's inclination to act pre-emptively, without either persuasive reasons or United Nations approval.
To some degree, the resentment is centered on the person of President Bush, who is seen by many of those interviewed, at best, as an ineffective spokesman for American interests and, at worst, as a gunslinging cowboy knocking over international treaties and bent on controlling the world's oil, if not the entire world.
...
Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 20%
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Al-Qaida issues a chilling warning
Brian Whitaker and agencies
Monday September 8, 2003
The Guardian
A new tape purporting to be from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network yesterday threatened an onslaught against Americans so devastating it would obliterate memories of the September 11 suicide attacks.
The audio tape message, dated September 3, was broadcast on al-Arabiyya satellite TV channel yesterday and seemed timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the devastation in New York and Washington in which about 3,000 people were killed.
"We announce there will be new attacks inside and outside [the US] which would make America forget the attacks of September 11," said an al-Qaida spokesman who identified himself as Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Najdi. The television showed a still photograph of a bearded militant.
"We assure Muslims that al-Qaida ranks have doubled ... Our casualties are nothing compared to our (good) conditions now. Our coming martyrdom operations will prove to you what we are saying," he added.
The speaker denied al-Qaida had been involved in the car bombing that killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, a leading Shia cleric, in Iraq last month.
Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 20%
"I smiled at my own joke, but the clerk's smile disappeared. 'Ask again,' he hissed, 'and I will call security to remove you from the building and have you barred as a security risk ..'"
By Sarah Whalen*
"I'm sorry," the clerk at the U.S. National Archives says: "You can't see the Saudi Arabian documents." I'm surprised. All the National Archive's documents are already reviewed and then declassified or removed. In theory, whatever's there is no longer secret.
Until 9/11.
"It's part of the Patriot Act," the clerk averred, referring to Public Law 107-56, the hastily-passed legislation entitled, "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001."
"The U.S. State Department records you requested are indeed declassified and theoretically available. But they also may contain information that terrorists can use, like names and addresses and information of U.S. citizens." I gave a blank look. "So?" The clerk's brow furrowed with concern. "A terrorist could come into the National Archives and try to steal their identities or target them for assassination."
I protested: "The documents I seek are over thirty years old and even older." Now the clerk's smile became nothing but teeth, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
...
Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L2.5
Freedom Rating: -2.5
Learning Percentage: 55%