Lilith Lela on Tumblr
May 20
FBI Spent 44 Months Probing Leak To TSG #OpGitmo
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MAY 17—In response to The Smoking Gun’s publication of a classified CIA terrorism report, the Department of Justice launched a lengthy leak investigation that included subpoenaed telephone records, interviews with dozens of government officials, 
polygraph and computer examinations, and “a fair amount of time trying to dig up information about the site itself,” according to FBI records.
The federal probe is detailed—albeit in a significantly redacted fashion—in 682 pages of FBI records released last month. More than 350 other pages related to the criminal probe were withheld in their entirety by bureau officials who processed a Freedom of Information Act request filed by a TSG reporter.
The FBI investigation, run by Washington, D.C.-based counterintelligence agents, sought to determine who provided TSG with a 12-page CIA report detailing the organizing activities of al-Qaeda members imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay (and the U.S. government’s inability to effectively combat these efforts).
The classified document, which can be found here, includes sensitive material from several U.S. intelligence organizations and their foreign counterparts.
The federal probe—code-named “Stubborn Ways”—was launched shortly after TSG’s July 2006 publication of the CIA report.
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FBI Spent 44 Months Probing Leak To TSG | The Smoking Gun
Why was a Sunday Times report on US government ties to al-Qaeda chief spiked?
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FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds was described as “the most gagged person in the history of the United States” by the American Civil Liberties Union. Was the Sunday Times pressured to drop its investigation into her revelations?
A whistleblower has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government.
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Why was a Sunday Times report on US government ties to al-Qaeda chief spiked? - UK Indymedia
Palestinian refugees are not at your service
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[…]
The refugee dilemma
After two more questions, a weary Um Muhammad began fidgeting in her seat shaking her legs nervously; she answered with a defeated tone while grabbing her handbag, positioning herself to get up and leave. But the rookie eyes of the Harvard students didn’t notice her signals of departure. I asked Um Muhammad to get going and she asked me if there is “anything at all that these girls can do to help my son.” I apologized and told her not to waste her time with them.
This has been the Palestinian refugees’ dilemma since 1948: watching groups of people from across the globe stroll through the misery of their camps and and then leave. Making their personal plight and stories available to writers and advocates is for them a way to induce change and action and to advance their moral cause around the world.
But humanity is the key here. To tell stories and conduct research, one would do well to remember that refugees deserve our sensitivity when dealing with their hardships. It’s been 65 years and Palestinians in the camps are still clutching onto whatever crumbs of hope or aid they can. But ultimately they are left awaiting the day they can return to the place where their dignity and humanity can be restored: Palestine.
[…]
Palestinian refugees are not at your service | The Electronic Intifada
May 17
Sisa: Cocaine of the Poor | SISA IS DESTROYING THE LIVES OF ATHENS’S HOMELESS PEOPLE
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thestolencaryatid:
The day we arrived in Athens, we approached a man as we walked through Exarcheia, a district that’s traditionally been home to anarchists and is now known for its high concentration of addicts. The man was glaring at the sky, shouting. I thought he was screaming at God, but it turned out he was just yelling about a broken traffic light. Cars swept past, their drivers giving him no opportunity to beg at their windows. He was inconsolable, flitting between rage and tears, but after I bought him an orange juice, he chilled out, said his name was Konstantinos and told me all about sisa.
“The cocaine of the poor! It’s the cocaine of the poor!” he shouted. He said that people he knew who smoked too much were losing limbs. “If you smoke it for six months, you’ll be dead,” he said. He claimed that he wasn’t a user, but the next day I bumped into him again and he beckoned for me to follow, squatted behind a car and smoked a pipe full of sisa. It was the middle of the afternoon.
[…] I asked him why he thought local police officers were behind the distribution of the potentially fatal narcotic. “Some of [the users] came to us and said that the police told them to go to Exarcheia. They said, ‘We cannot do it anywhere else, they send us away from all the other territories, all the other squares. They said go to Exarcheia.’”
“So you believe it’s political?” I asked.
“Yeah, this whole social movement is starting to rise up, and they want to have an excuse to come in as a savior for the residents… They’ve done it before, like two decades ago with heroin.”
I’m usually suspicious of Vice but this is really important. Please click through the link and watch the corresponding video(s) (part 1, part 2), they aren’t too long.
(via erisandkallisti)
Anonymous: We are legion.: We are imprisoning the wrong men for all the wrong reasons.
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otpglobal:
anonyops:
Releasing the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay will require US Government officials to do something it is not used to doing, and something it does not like to do — admit it was wrong. It is wrong to hold these men for more than a decade, wrong to torture them, and wrong to deny their release.
This is why I believe more than 80 prisoners at Guantanamo, who have not been charged with any crimes, who have not had a trial, and who have been cleared for release are still there, wasting away in solitary cells.
If the US Government does not act to release these prisoners, they will be forced with the reality that they are losing public confidence. It is up to each of us to tell government officials that they are wrong in continuing this inhumane injustice.
Please read the following letter by SAMIR NAJI al HASAN MOQBEL.
Here’s an excerpt:
ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.
I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.
I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.
I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either.
When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.
I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.
Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/hunger-striking-at-guantanamo-bay.html?_r=0
Samir has been cleared for release. He’s being painfully force-fed by tubes being jammed into his nose, into his stomach. He’s being stripped of all dignity, all due process, and any shred of humanity.
We are doing this. If we don’t speak up, the deaths of these men, who have not been charged with any crimes, will be on our hands.
Report: Canada could see indigenous uprising
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(Source: somethingaboutnews, via aboriginalpressnews)
FORTY HELPFUL TIPS FOR ANTI-COMMUNISTS (A modern classic)
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determinatenegation:
by J. Slavyanski
1. Constantly insist that Marxism is discredited, outdated, and totally dead and buried. Then proceed to build a lucrative career on beating that supposedly ‘dead’ horse for the rest of your working life.
2. Remember, any unnatural death that occurs under a ‘Communist’…
(via erisandkallisti)
emergentfutures:
The US Government has taken its most serious action yet against the popular cyber-currency Bitcoin by shutting down transfers between payment provider Dwolla and a Japanese exchange where the currency is traded.
Full Story: GigaOm
(via mclarissa)