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botulism toxin, anthrax, gangrene bacteria, West Nile fever virus and Dengue fever virus. These shipments continued even after Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran in 1984. Later, in 1988, Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds. But perhaps most importantly, the missing pages contain infor- mation that could make a case for war crimes charges being laid against officials within the Reagan and Bush, Sr, administrations— including the current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his collaboration with Saddam Hussein leading up to the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and acting as liaison for US military aid during the war between Iraq and Iran. Congress passed legislation that created the Transportation Security Authority (TSA), which oversees baggage screeners at airports and requires all baggage screeners to be Federal govern- ment employees. But since the TSA is part of the Homeland Security Department, employees may not form or join a union. Congressional legislation also allows Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to suspend civil service regulations, allow dis- crimination, abolish whistleblower protections and exempt the department from Freedom of Information Act regulations. The House has passed legislation that also exempts the Homeland Security Department from Title 5 of the Civil Service Act, which protects the collective bargaining rights of Federal employees. - Sa ee — en — ee — eee 4. Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists employees. According to a classified document, "Special Operations and Joint Forces in Countering Terrorism", prepared for Secretary of | 6. Closing Access to Information Technology Defense Donald Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, a new Technological changes, coupled with deregulation, may soon organisation has been created to thwart potential terrorist attacks radically limit diversity on the Internet. The 7,000 Internet Service on the United States. Providers (ISPs) that remain in the US today are quickly dwindling This counter-terror operations group—the "Proactive to just two or three for any one locale. They are being bought out Preemptive Operations Group" by large monopolies that also control (P20G)—will require 100 people and your local phone and cable and possibly at least USS100 million a yeu The In 1963, America's top military Tmemet satelite. k "ell team of covert counterintelligence uch degree of market control spells agents will be responsible for secret brass presented a plan that trouble for freedom of information on missions designed to target terrorist called for a fake terrorist the Internet. Cable and phone monopo- leaders as well as stimulate reactions campaign—complete with lies would become clearinghouses for among terrorist groups, provoking . ne uy information. Corporations and govern- them into committing violent acts bombings, hijackings, plane ment agencies will hold tremendous which would then expose them to crashes and dead Americans— power to filter and censor content. ISPs "counterattack" by US forces. already have the capability to "privi- This means that the United States to provide "justification" for lege", or block out, content travelling government is planning to use secret an invasion of Cuba. through their web servers. With the military operations in order to provoke demise of open access regulations, murderous terrorist attacks on innocent Internet content will likely resemble the people. In a strange twist of logic, it "monotonous diet of corporate content" seems the plan is to somehow combat terrorism by causing it. that viewers now receive with cable television. According to the report, other strategies include stealing money The monopoly power being handed over to the cable and phone from terrorist cells or tricking them with fake communications. companies will enable them to sell different levels of Internet The Defense Department already maintains a secretive counter-ter- access, much like they do with cable television. For one price, you ror operations group, known as Delta Force, that is called in when could access only certain pre-approved sites; for a higher price, a crisis happens. you could access a wider selection of sites; and only for the highest The current P2OG program is not entirely new to the United price could you access the entire World Wide Web. This is States. One similar program was Operation Northwoods. In 1963, already the way that many wireless Internet packages operate. America's top military brass presented a plan to President John F. It's clear that "marginal" content that isn't associated with e- Kennedy that called for a fake terrorist campaign—complete with commerce, big business or government would have a hard time bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americz making it into the first-tier, "basic" packages. This isn't censorship, vide "ju ation" for an invasion of Cuba, the Mafia/corporate we'll be told. It's just that there is only so much bandwidth to go fiefdom which had recently been lost to Castro. around, and customers would rather see CNN, the Disney Channel and porn than community-based websites such as Indymedia.org. Fo Tha Cffacdt ta Mala Liniane Dieannane In 1963, America's top military brass presented a plan that called for a fake terrorist campaign—complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans— to provide "justification" for an invasion of Cuba. 5. The Effort to Make Unions Disappear For more than a quarter of a century, big business has engaged in a successful campaign of weakening unions, redistributing income away from the working class and writing business-friendly tules for the global economy. Yet the current political climate makes the last 25 years look like a golden era for workers' rights. Called the "most pro-corporate President in history", George W. Bush has been engaged, particularly since 9-11, in a relentless yet largely covert effort to undermine labour unions and worker pro- tections. In the wake of 9-11, the Bush administration used the spectre of national security to justify its attack on public-sector unions and to stall passage of the Homeland Security Bill until receiving the right to exempt the 180,000 employees of the new department from most civil-service protections. 7. Treaty Busting by the USA The United States is a signatory to nine multilateral treaties that it has either blatantly violated or gradually subverted. The Bush Administration is now outright rejecting a number of those treaties, and in doing so places global security in jeopardy as other nations feel entitled to do the same. The rejected treaties include: the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The US is also not complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical NEXUS +13 DECEMBER 2003 — JANUARY 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com