The organization's main "fact-finder" was doubling as a spy for the white South African government while his buddy, a San Francisco cop who had tutored El Salvadoran death squads on the finer aspects of torture, was providing its officials with personal information on the organization's putative enemies when the story broke in San Francisco in December, 1992. The organization was the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL claims to be the nation's leading defender against prejudice and bigotry but in this instance its targets were members of the African National Congress and its supporters, and apparently everyone, Arab and non-Arab, who had the temerity to criticize Israel. This included some who drove to Arab community events where the ADL's "fact-finder," Roy Bullock, and the cop, Tom Gerard, took turns writing down their license plate numbers, which Gerard turned into addresses thanks to his access to California motor vehicle records.
Their spying efforts proved to be part of a much larger intelligence gathering operation that targeted some 12,000 individuals and more than 600 left-of-center organizations in northern California.
After the first flurry of publicity, the ADL's spin doctors successfully kept the story from receiving the national coverage that the situation warranted. But the story hasn't gone away.
Last November the California Court of Appeals handed down a decision that paves the way for a major test later this year of the ADL's penchant for spying on its enemies. It was the most significant episode in a slow-moving class-action case filed in 1993 by 19 pro-Palestinian and anti-apartheid activists who claim to be victims of the ADL's snooping operations.
The plaintiffs say they were illegally spied on by Bullock, then considered the ADL's top "fact-finder" by his now deceased chief, Irwin Suall, and that such spying constituted an invasion of privacy under the provisions of the California Constitution.
The ADL's defense, accepted by the court in 1994, is that the Jewish defense organization is, collectively, a "journalist" and, therefore, can legally engage in information-gathering activities regardless of the source. At question was access by the plaintiffs to information contained in 10 boxes of files seized by the San Francisco police from the ADL's San Francisco office in April, 1993, and placed under court seal where the ADL has fought fiercely to keep them. In the years since then, efforts by the court to settle the case have foundered on the ADL's refusal to allow potentially embarrassing depositions taken by plaintiffs' lawyer ex-Congressman Paul (Pete) McCloskey of Bullock, ADL officials and police officers to be be made public and its files opened. The plaintiffs have been unwilling to compromise on either of these issues.
Then, in September, 1997, Judge Alex Saldamondo ruled that McCloskey's clients were entitled to see what the ADL had on them in its files. Two plaintiffs, Jeffrey Blankfort and Steve Zeltzer, co-founders of the Labor Committee on the Middle East, who had "outed" Bullock as an ADL spy after he infiltrated their group in 1987, received an extract of their files from the DA's office the day before they were ordered sealed. Both contain illegally obtained information, much of which, say Blankfort and Zeltzer, is erroneous.
When ADL's appeal of that decision was rejected by Court of Appeals Judge Anthony Kline, the ADL persuaded the State Supreme Court to return the case to the full court for a hearing. On November 15, 1998, the court reaffirmed ADL's status as a journalist and acknowledged its right to maintain files and obtain information on all but two of the remaining plaintiffs on the basis that they are "limited-purpose public figures", which it defined as having been publicly engaged and identified in activities around a particular issue, in this instance opposition to Israeli occupation and/or South African apartheid. There is no protection, said the court, for obtaining information illegally on non-public figures.
The court made an important qualification, however, ruling that for "limited purpose" figures, the journalist's shield only applies if the information obtained is to be used for journalistic purposes. It does not protect the ADL from charges that it passed information about the plaintiffs to "foreign governments (in this instance, Israel or South Africa) or to others", which is what the plaintiffs claim the ADL has done.
Although the Court of Appeals vacated Judge Saldamando's decision, it did state that representatives of the plaintiffs had the right to request a review of ADL's files to discover possible constitutional violations, each of which would be worth $2500. While this may seem a small sum, there are hundreds of Arab-Americans and anti-apartheid activists whose names appear in the ADL's files who potentially could collect if the ADL loses in court or is forced to settle the case.
The origins of the story are murky. What the press reported was that the SFPD acted on a tip from the FBI, which was supposedly concerned about files on the Nation of Islam that were stolen from its local office, and arrested Gerard, who allegedly had done the pilfering. In Gerard's computer they found files on more than 7,000 individuals, many of them Arab-Americans, as well as information on hundreds of left-to-liberal organizations filed by Gerard as "pinko". In his locker, they found a black executioner's hood, a number of photos of dark-skinned men bound and blindfolded, CIA manuals, a secret document on interrogation techniques, stamped "secret" and referring to El Salvador, and numerous passports and IDs in a variety of names, all with his picture.
This splendid fellow began meeting with Richard Hirschhaut, chief of the ADL's San Francisco office in 1986, during which, according to a "confidential" Hirschhaut memo to the aforementioned ADL chief "fact-finder" Suall, he provided "a significant amount of information" on "the activities of specific Arab organizations and individuals in the Bay Area". That memo hasn't been made public but what was reported created a nightmare for the ADL when it turned out that Gerard had been exchanging non-public, personal information from government files with Bullock, a paid informant for the ADL since 1954 and whose own computerized "pinko" files on leftish and liberal folks, when seized by the police, proved to be a third again as large as Gerard's. According to police, his computer contained the names of nearly 12,000 individuals, 77 Arab-American organizations, 29 anti-apartheid organizations, and more than 600 "pinko" groups which included such revolutionary outfits as the NAACP, Asian Law Caucus and SANE/FREEZE, as well as 20 Bay area labor unions including the SF Labor Council. There were in addition, files on 612 right-wing organizations and 27 skinhead groups.
According to SF police inspector Ron Roth, 75 percent of their contents was non-public information illegally obtained from government agencies.
After indicating that the ADL would be charged with violating the California's Business and Profession's code, SF District Attorney Arlo Smith did an extraordinary thing. He made available to the public, merely for the copying costs, some 700 pages of documents incriminating the ADL in a nation-wide intelligence gathering operation run out of New York by Suall. One of the significant parts of that report was Bullock's admission that he was paid by a South African intelligence agent to spy on anti-apartheid activists (which he was already doing for the ADL.) He had reported on a visit to California by the ANC's Chris Hani, ten days before the man expected by many to succeed Nelson Mandela, returned home to be brutally murdered.
The ADL attempted to portray Bullock as a free-lance investigator, but no one was convinced, because since 1954 Bullock had been paid through a cutout, an ADL lawyer in Beverly Hills. After his exposure, Bullock was put directly on the ADL's payroll. ADL's position on the ANC was identical to that of the South African government - they considered it to be a "terrorist", "communist" organization. At the time, Israel was furnishing arms to maintain the apartheid regime in power.
In 1994, Smith announced that he would not prosecute either the ADL or Bullock since it would be "expensive and time-consuming both to the SFDA and the defendants," a curious judgement considering the overwhelming evidence in his possession.
In its settlement with the city, the ADL, admitted no wrongdoing, agreed to restrain their operatives from seeking non-public data on ADL's enemies from government agencies and, putting a happy face on the story, promised to create a $25,000 Hate Crimes Fund and another $25,000 for a public school course.
Another class-action case filed by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and other spied-upon groups such as CISPES, the Bay Area Anti-Apartheid Network and the National Lawyers Guild, was settled in 1996, also under conditions favorable to the ADL, but without the approval of some of the suing groups.
In that instance, again without admitting wrongdoing or opening its files, the ADL agreed: to remove questionably obtained information from its files; that it would not seek non-public information on individuals from government employees and would pay $25,000 to a fund to improve relations among Jews, blacks and other minorities. A similar deal was offered to McCloskey's plaintiffs but they turned it down since it would let the ADL off the hook and allow its secrets to be kept intact.
Source : Counter punch
9-11 — LEST WE FORGET!
I know what REAL terrorists are – first hand – and they are here – many in ‘Nu Yok’ – many in the White House – many in Washington – a lot in the Bapt-duh ‘Synagogues’ and a WHOLE LOT in uniform. WE are the terrorists!
As incredible as it seems – even after YEARS of irrefutable evidence and testimony and corroboration from demolition experts – scientists – chemists – eyewitness – historians – forensic experts – nano-contamination specialists – law enforcement officials as well as highly self-incriminating testimony of suspects and IsraHELL leaders – Mossad agents and other pertinent sources – we have fools who persist in believing the ‘third world joke’ deceptions of discredited leaders of two of the world’s most corrupt and most criminal regimes.
The internet is BLOATED to overflowing with videos of contradicting testimony from some of the worst war criminals frauds liars and country sellers in American history! These lying putrid war criminal murdering scum include George Bush – Colin Powell – Dick Cheney – D. Rumsfeld – and C. Rice – have been caught RED HANDED LYING. Until these rancid mega-war-criminal treasonous lying greedy scum are brought to justice and HUNG – there will never be peace. Are you also listening – Obama – Jew puppet imposter? See this ‘MUST SEE’ – and listen to the chimp face’s very last comment. Very revealing of his TRUE lying demonic nature.
These lies have already needlessly cost almost FORTY ONE THOUSAND killed or seriously injured American sons ( Iraq/Afgh. Aug. 2010) – SO FAR! Hardly mentioned are the THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND U.S. BRAIN INJURIES. Even more alarming and revealing are the 18 vet suicides a DAY! That is almost ONE AMERICAN SON per DAY feeling such guilt and remorse for their barbaric crimes against defenseless helpless mostly children civilians – that they simply could not cope with the horror any more! Multiply that by 365 times 7 years and you realize what the GUILT of their psychopathic criminal conduct has done to our children – not just alcohol or drugs.
Why shouldn’t they feel terrible guilt. After all – their rapes thefts looting and murders were based on baseless LIES told by our Godless soulless war criminal leaders. TWO MILLION TOTALLY INNOCENT IRAQI AND AFGHAN CIVILIAN LIVES – MOSTLY DEFENSELESS CHILDREN have been murdered in cold blood! WHY? – all for the greater glory and security of the Jews in IsraHELL of course. NONE Of these people were ever ANY kind of mortal threat to ANY American.
Source : Joecortina
As incredible as it seems – even after YEARS of irrefutable evidence and testimony and corroboration from demolition experts – scientists – chemists – eyewitness – historians – forensic experts – nano-contamination specialists – law enforcement officials as well as highly self-incriminating testimony of suspects and IsraHELL leaders – Mossad agents and other pertinent sources – we have fools who persist in believing the ‘third world joke’ deceptions of discredited leaders of two of the world’s most corrupt and most criminal regimes.
The internet is BLOATED to overflowing with videos of contradicting testimony from some of the worst war criminals frauds liars and country sellers in American history! These lying putrid war criminal murdering scum include George Bush – Colin Powell – Dick Cheney – D. Rumsfeld – and C. Rice – have been caught RED HANDED LYING. Until these rancid mega-war-criminal treasonous lying greedy scum are brought to justice and HUNG – there will never be peace. Are you also listening – Obama – Jew puppet imposter? See this ‘MUST SEE’ – and listen to the chimp face’s very last comment. Very revealing of his TRUE lying demonic nature.
These lies have already needlessly cost almost FORTY ONE THOUSAND killed or seriously injured American sons ( Iraq/Afgh. Aug. 2010) – SO FAR! Hardly mentioned are the THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND U.S. BRAIN INJURIES. Even more alarming and revealing are the 18 vet suicides a DAY! That is almost ONE AMERICAN SON per DAY feeling such guilt and remorse for their barbaric crimes against defenseless helpless mostly children civilians – that they simply could not cope with the horror any more! Multiply that by 365 times 7 years and you realize what the GUILT of their psychopathic criminal conduct has done to our children – not just alcohol or drugs.
Why shouldn’t they feel terrible guilt. After all – their rapes thefts looting and murders were based on baseless LIES told by our Godless soulless war criminal leaders. TWO MILLION TOTALLY INNOCENT IRAQI AND AFGHAN CIVILIAN LIVES – MOSTLY DEFENSELESS CHILDREN have been murdered in cold blood! WHY? – all for the greater glory and security of the Jews in IsraHELL of course. NONE Of these people were ever ANY kind of mortal threat to ANY American.
Source : Joecortina
More U.S. Soldiers Killed Themselves Than Died in Combat in 2010 [& 2009]
For the second year in a row, more American soldiers—both enlisted men and women and veterans—committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn't vast by any means, but the symbolism is significant and troubling. In 2009, there were 381 suicides by military personnel, a number that also exceeded the number of combat deaths.
Earlier this month, military authorities announced that suicides amongst active-duty soldiers had slowed in 2010, while suicides amongst reservists and people in the National Guard had increased. It was proof, they said, that the frequent psychological screenings active-duty personnel receive were working, and that reservists and guardsmen, who are more removed from the military's medical bureaucracy, simply need to begin undergoing more health checks. This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any suggestion that things are "working." Even if something's working, the system is still very, very broken.
Source :
Earlier this month, military authorities announced that suicides amongst active-duty soldiers had slowed in 2010, while suicides amongst reservists and people in the National Guard had increased. It was proof, they said, that the frequent psychological screenings active-duty personnel receive were working, and that reservists and guardsmen, who are more removed from the military's medical bureaucracy, simply need to begin undergoing more health checks. This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any suggestion that things are "working." Even if something's working, the system is still very, very broken.
Source :
Islamic Jihad: Fatah practices in W. Bank won’t extinguish the resistance
The Islamic Jihad Movement in occupied Palestine has lashed out at the PA security forces and the militia of Fatah in the West Bank, stressing that the practices of those forces against the Palestinian fighters won’t extinguish the torch of resistance.
The remarks of the Movement came after Israeli occupation forces killed an Islamic Jihad fighter, Salem Al-Sammodi, in coordination with the PA security forces near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
“The practices of the PA security forces against Palestinian freedom fighters in the West Bank are unpatriotic and serves only the interests of the Israeli occupation,” the Islamic Jihad said in a statement it issued in reaction to the assassination of Sammodi.
However, the Movement called on its fighters and supporters not to relax their quest for freedom and independence, urging them to remain steadfast on the national constants of the Palestinian people coupled with vigilance against the PA-Israeli conspiracies.
The Movement also pointed out that the assassination of Sammodi unveils the suspicious role of the PA security forces and the Oslo government in the West Bank in serving the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people, underlining that the PA allegations of halting negotiations with the Israelis while preserving security coordination is “meaningless”.
Moreover, the Islamic Jihad warned the PA leadership in the West Bank that continuing its security practices would isolate it further from the Palestinian public, calling on the good people in Fatah faction to bridle such unsolicited behavior.
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/islamic-jihad-fatah-practices-in-w-bank-wont-extinguish-the-resistance/
The remarks of the Movement came after Israeli occupation forces killed an Islamic Jihad fighter, Salem Al-Sammodi, in coordination with the PA security forces near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
“The practices of the PA security forces against Palestinian freedom fighters in the West Bank are unpatriotic and serves only the interests of the Israeli occupation,” the Islamic Jihad said in a statement it issued in reaction to the assassination of Sammodi.
However, the Movement called on its fighters and supporters not to relax their quest for freedom and independence, urging them to remain steadfast on the national constants of the Palestinian people coupled with vigilance against the PA-Israeli conspiracies.
The Movement also pointed out that the assassination of Sammodi unveils the suspicious role of the PA security forces and the Oslo government in the West Bank in serving the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people, underlining that the PA allegations of halting negotiations with the Israelis while preserving security coordination is “meaningless”.
Moreover, the Islamic Jihad warned the PA leadership in the West Bank that continuing its security practices would isolate it further from the Palestinian public, calling on the good people in Fatah faction to bridle such unsolicited behavior.
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/islamic-jihad-fatah-practices-in-w-bank-wont-extinguish-the-resistance/
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