The Three Stages Of
Truth Regarding 911
By Douglas Herman
Exclusive to Rense.com
4-17-6

"All great truths begin as blasphemies." -George Bernard Shaw

The eventual collapse of a great lie resembles the infamous collapse of an obscure 47-story building that few ever saw. When a great fiction falls, formerly accepted as a great historical fact, the collapse resembles a controlled demolition masquerading as a natural event.

Great lies have the burden of truth pressing upon them, constantly, incrementally, compounding weight like interest. Truth crushes the lie slowly and then the resounding crash occurs suddenly. Years later, students will laugh and wonder how anyone could ever be so stupid as to believe a discredited lie.

"All truth passes through three stages," wrote Schopenhauer. "First, it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

The illogical collapse of three steel skyscrapers is a historical fact, for now. The cause of the collapse has been determined, in the judgment of university professors and structural engineers, as caused by fire. An historical and scientific fact.

The experts have spoken. The truth is self-evident. But is it factual? Do scientific theories based on examining, not the evidence because that has been destroyed, but videotapes, become fact simply because experts say it is so?

Imagine if you lived in 1903. Gathered on a sand dune in North Carolina, an imaginary group of university professors, structural engineers and government experts has deduced that man cannot fly. Everyone concludes a human cannot fly, being heavier than air, while every study concludes flight is impossible.

Suddenly a tinny roar drowns out all the learned proclamations! A sudden draft of wind knocks off a few hats and scatters papers. With a look of terror, the group cowers in the sand, as a huge shadow passes overhead like an enormous pterodactyl. A pair of bicycle mechanics, tinkering in a garage, has just proven the "experts" wrong.

"Controlled, powered flight had seemed impossible until Orville Wright took off on the 17th December 1903. The key to the Wright Brother's success was that their engineering had gone beyond the trial and error methods of their contemporaries. Having only very limited resources they showed great scientific ingenuity."

Possessing only limited resources, 9-11 theorists like Hufschmid, Hoffman, Tarpley, Griffin and Jones have shown great scientific ingenuity. The next wave will consist of engineers, mechanics, chemists and architects who will go beyond trial and error methods and dare to contradict the official but biased scientific data.

Since no government expert or structural engineer ever went beyond theoretical or computerized modeling, their learned deductions carry no more weight than the average Internet blogger or high school student who examined the same WTC videotapes the experts studied. A budding Wright Brother would instead build a scale model and recreate the exact sequence of events. I'm certain an engineering class will do exactly that one day-unless the government, predictably, pressures that school to close down the project altogether.

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual," said Galileo. Enamored with specialists, America loves her authorities and experts and disdains that "single individual" researcher.

But experts are commonly wrong. Researchers and investigators of the 9-11 Truth Movement, by painstaking analysis (almost always without pay), prove them wrong incrementally. One day in the future, students of physics and engineering will shake their heads and titter in classrooms. How could those so-called experts in the early 21st century have ever believed two fragile aluminum airplanes could utterly destroy seven stout steel skyscrapers? That is the question they will ask their professors.

The common accusation leveled against those of us highly skeptical of the government liturgy of the 9-11 attack, is that we somehow "demean" the memory of the victims. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The greatest homage to truth is to use it, said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Only a fool accepts half-truths, pseudo-science, government propaganda, media sound bites, factoids, planted evidence, faked testimony and paid expertise as "Truth." We do not find those truths to be self-evident, except of criminal complicity.

Eric Hufschmid (Conspiracies and Underdogs) asks how reinforced concrete can become pulverized into dust and explode outward into what resembles a volcanic cloud? The government-sponsored scientists and engineering experts ignored this question. Gravity alone cannot account for the energy required to convert falling concrete slabs into dust particles. Nor can gravity alone account for the great distances of ejected aluminum and steel, not to mention the inexplicable collapse itself.

Pseudo-science conjures a rational for three collapses that appears laughable, wholly un-scientific given the laws of physics and the laws of probability. Given the eventual circumstances of thousands of deaths, through the resulting wars of conquest, the WTC conclusion is diabolical on closer inspection. The scientists who lent credence to this ignorant conclusion (terrorism + fire = collapse) will one day be deservedly mocked (MIT - Morons In Training).


A half truth in such circumstances is a huge miscarriage of justice, a monstrous crime. The Christian philosopher, Augustine, remarked: "He who conceals a useful truth is equally guilty with the propagator of an injurious falsehood." And if thousands were killed and injured (Iraq and Afghanistan) following the pseudo-scientific conclusions, how much greater is that crime?

If my country cannot survive facing the facts of a brilliant yet diabolical crime at the WTC, it stands on shaky ground indeed. If science cannot speak honestly in the face of government pressure, about the simplest scientific laws, but sells itself for money instead, as "expertise," it is a great whore.

Governments conspire; that is what they do best.

They conspire pragmatically, which they call the greater good, but more often than not they conspire criminally, for the interest of a few. As Balzac might have surmised, 9-11 was a great crime, pure greed disguised as a crazed act by religious fanatics (which was never proven). "Behind every great fortune there is a crime," Balzac wrote. And the greater the crime the greater the fortune to be made (billions in the case of 9-11), and the greater the master criminals involved.

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them," said Galileo. But the mass of dullards accept the dictates of a few clever deceivers (liars), requiring not simply discovery but overcoming their own inertia and the deception of their leaders.

I predict, one day, greed will be the ultimate undoing of the 9-11 conspirators. Greed and duplicity, as lies constrict and strangle the liars who told them. We are only in the late First Stage of Truth; do not lose hope.


Footnote; The Texas City Scenario did not occur on Easter Day, thanks be to God and overwhelming scrutiny of these operators. The chief method to counteract villainy is to let them know THEY too are being watched as they watch us. If there is to be another WTC or OKC bombing, we need to observe and note EVERY suspicious detail BEFORE the fact. Prevention is 90% of cure. DH

Amateur historian and apprentice philosopher, Douglas Herman writes regularly for Rense and is the author of The Guns of Dallas.

Comments at douglasherman7@yahoo.com

Abramoff's NSA and Domestic Spying Scandal
by leveymg
Wed Jan 25, 2006 at 10:25:59 AM PDT
The National Security Scandals of Jack Abramoff - Part II

(Pt. 1, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/24/121156/129)

While Jack Abramoff's scandalous rip-off of Indian tribes is well know, his role as a GOP fixer for NSA and CIA contractors has gone virtually under the radar screen. Abramoff's lobbying activities raise serious questions about the role of his corporate and foreign clients in compromising highly sensitive NSA and Capitol Hill communications networks, in domestic spying and in other illegal national security-related activities.

leveymg's diary :: ::
We now learn that Abramoff is at the center of a much wider web of criminal activity involving private-sector NSA contractors and GOP lawmakers. Abramoff served as a conduit between the NSA and private companies that have become the focus of multiple criminal prosecutions and national security investigations, including the abuse of prisoners abroad, and alledged spying on Capitol Hill lawmakers by Abramoff clients.

Yesterday, we reported that Verizon (dba Qwest Wireless), is the focus of an NSA contracting scandal and a little-noticed trial of executives for cooking company books. Attorneys for Qwest's CEO, Joseph Nacchio, raised knowledge of classified government contracts anticipated by Qwest in 2001 as "one of the key elements to his defense." http://www.democraticunderground.com/... ; also, see, http://today.reuters.com/...

That trial reveals something far more important about the corruption scandal that is gripping top GOP lawmakers. Abramoff and his associates manueuvered his clients -- including now bankrupt Enron, Global Crossing and Tyco International -- into federal contracts that gave them leverage over strategic U.S. markets, a role in framing foreign policy options, or unprecedented private-sector access to operating classified government data networks. This has resulted in the gravest constitutional crisis since Watergate, as well as a massive damage to U.S. national security.

The 2001 Contract to Privatize NSA's Surveillance Systems

In 2001 Verizon, along with CACI (a defense contractor shepherded by Abramoff that heavily contributed to the GOP), was awarded part of a multi-billion dollar NSA contract to privatize the NSA's information technology systems, capabilities that were then used by the Bush Administration to carry out illegal domestic spying. As part of that ten-year program, code-named Project Groundbreaker, NSA surveillance systems continue to be developed, operated and maintained by private sector IT companies. See, http://lists.jammed.com/...

Washington Post
August 1, 2001
Pg. E1

By Vernon Loeb and Greg Schneider, Washington Post Staff Writers

The National Security Agency yesterday awarded a 10-year contract worth more than $2 billion to Computer Sciences Corp. and more than a dozen partners in what NSA officials called the largest effort by a U.S. intelligence agency to entrust its information technology systems to a private contractor.

With the Bush administration engaged in a comprehensive review of the nation's intelligence capabilities, the award represents a clear acknowledgment by NSA officials that the agency has fallen behind the technological curve and now needs the private sector to modernize its
Cold War infrastructure. The contract, dubbed Project Groundbreaker, also represents a major departure for the NSA, which has long prided itself on developing much of its own computer and signals intelligence technology.

SNIP

Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the NSA's director, said the contract "allows us to refocus assets on the agency's core mission of providing foreign signals intelligence and protecting U.S. national
security-related information systems." One intelligence community official called the contract "unprecedented in terms of the scale of the effort, taking advantage of the private sector's ability to make technical inroads
and modernize rapidly. It could very well be replicated by other intelligence agencies, if the effort is successful."

While many of the requirements included in the contract involve non-classified computing and telecommunications services, Computer Sciences and its partners also will be responsible for designing and maintaining classified systems used for the management of electronic
signals and digital data intercepted around the globe. California-based CSC formed a partnership on the contract with Logicon, a Herndon-based unit of Northrop Grumman Corp. The joint venture is known as the Eagle Alliance,
and will be led by Robinson. The team was selected over groups led by AT&T Corp. and OAO TechnologySolutions Inc. Agency officials said the contract, which will become "fully operational" by Nov. 1, includes financial incentives to support the hiring of 750 NSA employees by the contractors at "comparable or better pay, benefits and opportunities."

SNIP

It also undertook a similar outsourcing program for the Army in the past few years, a $680 million job called the Wholesale Logistics Modernization Program. Under that program, about 200 Army employees became CSC employees, the company said.

SNIP

CSC's other partners include General Dynamics Corp., Keane Federal Systems Inc., Omen Inc., ACS Defense Inc., BTG Inc., CACI International Inc., Compaq Computer Corp., TRW Inc., Windemere, Fiber Plus, Verizon and Superior Communications.

CACI: CIA contractor abuse

CACI is part of the Groundbreaker contract. A CACI contractor working for the CIA was implicated in the torture and homicide of a detainee in Afghanistan. Sourcewatch reports that Abramoff's former law firm, Greenberg Traurig, working with a CACI lobbyist on a junket to Israel to introduce Capitol Hill to prisoner interrogation techniques. See, http://www.sourcewatch.org/...

4. "Miami-headquartered firm (Greenberg Traurig) partially funded/sponsored delegation to Israel by House-Senate Armed Services Committee members and government contractors to witness and be briefed on interrogation resistance procedures and torture techniques ... One of lobbyists joining them to Israel included Jack London, CEO, CACI International, the American defense contractor implicated by Major General Antonio M. Taguba in outsourced Iraqi torture at Abu Ghraib prison." See Taguba Report.
Ali Abunimah, "Israeli link possible in US torture techniques. In exchange for interrogation training, did Washington award security contracts?" (http://www.dailystar.com.lb /...) The Daily Star (Lebanon), May 11, 2004. Also posted May 18, 2004 by San Francisco Indymedia (http://sf.indymedia.org /...).

Scandal over Abramoff foreign wireless company client brings down Rep. Bob Nye

Yet another major GOP scandal concerns a different Abramoff client, MobileAcess Networks(dba FoxCom Wireless) an Israeli wireless company, which was awarded the contract to install a local area wireless network in the House and Senate office buildings. This has led to the downfall of House Operations Committee Chair Bob Nye (R.,OH), who received lavish gifts from Abramoff and his clients in the deal.

The contract was awarded after the Israeli wireless company made a $50,000 gift to Abramoff's favorite "charity", the Capital Athletic Foundation, that also received a million dollar donation from a Russian tycoon seeking favors in Washington. Abramoff's firm received $240,000 for its services.

In relation to the other Abramoff clients involved with the NSA, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this transaction is that the House wireless contract was awarded to the Israeli company despite security concerns that the network was vulnerable to monitoring. Nevertheless, the contract was pushed through by Nye after the NSA cleared the plan.

http://www.hillnews.com/...

(I)n 2002, the license to build a (wireless phone) network inside the House office buildings went to MobileAccess Networks, an upstart Israeli company formerly named Foxcom Wireless. In 2004, MobileAccess trumped LGC (a rival US bidder) again, winning a $3.9 million dollar contract to build a similar network in the Senate.

"We felt that there were irregularities in the vendor selection process and formally protested the process, but to no avail," Ian Sugarboard, LGC's CEO, said in an e-mail. "In addition, it appeared that lobbyists had exerted undue influence on the deal."

The process by which MobileAccess beat LGC has resurfaced because of the scandals surrounding GOP megalobbyist Jack Abramoff.

SNIP

The FBI and National Security Agency reviewed the security of LGC's technology to make sure foreign intelligence services could not penetrate the network, according to documents reviewed by The Hill.
In December 2000, Thomas's staff, the Architect of the Capitol's Office and the House Information Resource Office appeared set to award LGC a license. But the paperwork sat on the chairman's desk, unsigned.

In a brief interview with The Hill this week, Thomas said that as House Administration Committee chairman he made the procurement process "more professional" and kept politics at "arms length" but that he could not recall details of the wireless decision. A former staffer involved in the process recalled that "Thomas never reached a final decision on LGC. Frankly, one of my guys was a little out in front of the decision in how he conveyed things third-hand."

The source added, "Bob Bean, who was Hoyer's staff director at the time, weighed in on behalf of making sure that Foxcom got equitable consideration. Bean came to me to personally suggest steps like weighing the preferences of the telecom companies." Bean died last year. Meantime, Foxcom offered a cut-rate price of $750,000 to each carrier. LGC's initial price to the carriers was $1.15 million, which it cut to $850,000. The license was worth up to $4 million.

Expect updates as this story develops.

COPYRIGHT 2006, Mark G. Levey

Vice president argued for domestic wiretapping without warrants
By Scott Shane and Eric Lichtblau The New York Times

SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2006


WASHINGTON In the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e- mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials.

But lawyers at the agency, trained in the agency's strict rules against domestic spying and reluctant to approve any warrantless eavesdropping, insisted that it should be limited to communications into and out of the country, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the debate inside the White House late in 2001.

The agency's position ultimately prevailed. Details have not emerged publicly of how the director of the agency at the time, General Michael Hayden, designed the program, persuaded wary agency officers to accept it and sold the White House on its limits.

Whatever the internal deliberations, Hayden was the program's overseer and has become its chief salesman. He is certain to face questions about his role when he appears at a Senate hearing this week on his nomination as director of the CIA.

Criticism of the surveillance program flared again last week with the disclosure that the security agency had collected the phone records of millions of Americans to track terror suspects.

By several accounts, Hayden, a 61- year-old U.S. Air Force officer who left the agency in April of last year to become the principal deputy director of national intelligence, was the man in the middle as President George W. Bush demanded that intelligence agencies act urgently to stop future attacks.

On one side was a strong-willed vice president and his longtime legal adviser, David Addington, who believed that the Constitution permitted spy agencies to take sweeping measures to defend the country. Later, Cheney would personally arrange tightly controlled briefings on the program for select members of Congress.

On the other side was the largest U.S. intelligence agency, which was battered by eavesdropping scandals in the 1970s and has since wielded its powerful technology with extreme care to avoid accusations of spying on Americans.

As in other areas of intelligence collection, including interrogation methods for suspected terrorists, Cheney and Addington took an aggressive view of what was permissible under the Constitution, said the two senior intelligence officials.

If people suspected of links to Al Qaeda made calls inside the United States, the vice president and Addington argued that eavesdropping without warrants "could be done and should be done," one of the officials said.

"That's not what the NSA lawyers think," he added, referring to the agency.

The other official said there was "a very healthy debate" over the issue. The vice president's staff was "pushing and pushing, and it was up to the agency lawyers to draw a line and say absolutely not."

Both officials said they were speaking about the internal discussion because of the importance of the national security and civil liberty issues involved and because the interplay between Cheney's office and the intelligence agencies is usually hidden from public view. Both spoke favorably of Hayden; one expressed no view on his nomination for the CIA job, and the other was interviewed by The New York Times weeks before Bush selected him.

Cheney's spokeswoman, Lee Anne McBride, declined to discuss the deliberations about the classified program.

"This is terrorist surveillance, not domestic surveillance," McBride said. "The vice president has explained this wartime measure is limited in scope and conducted in a lawful way that safeguards our civil liberties."

Spokespeople for the agency and for Hayden declined to comment.

Even with the agency lawyers' reported success in narrowing the program, critics say that it is nonetheless illegal and that it should have never been created. For the first time since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978, the agency was targeting Americans and others inside the country for eavesdropping without warrants.

The spying that would become such a divisive issue for the White House and for Hayden grew out of a meeting days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Bush gathered his senior intelligence aides to brainstorm about ways to head off another attack.

"Is there anything more we could be doing, given the current laws?" the president later recalled asking.

Hayden stepped forward. "There is," he said, according to Bush's recounting of the conversation in March during a town-hall-style meeting in Cleveland.

By all accounts, Hayden was the principal designer of the plan. He saw the opportunity to use the agency's enormous technological capabilities by loosening restrictions on its operations inside the United States.

For his part, Cheney helped justify the program with an expansive theory of presidential power, which he explained to reporters a few days after The Times first reported on the program in December.

Cheney traced his views to his service as chief of staff to President Gerald Ford in the 1970s, when post-Watergate changes, which included the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, "served to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in a national security area."

Senior intelligence officials outside the agency who discussed the matter in late 2001 with Hayden said he accepted the White House and Justice Department argument that the president, as commander in chief, had the authority to approve such eavesdropping.

"Hayden was no cowboy on this," said another former intelligence official who was granted anonymity because the program remains classified.

WASHINGTON In the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e- mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials.

But lawyers at the agency, trained in the agency's strict rules against domestic spying and reluctant to approve any warrantless eavesdropping, insisted that it should be limited to communications into and out of the country, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the debate inside the White House late in 2001.

The agency's position ultimately prevailed. Details have not emerged publicly of how the director of the agency at the time, General Michael Hayden, designed the program, persuaded wary agency officers to accept it and sold the White House on its limits.

Whatever the internal deliberations, Hayden was the program's overseer and has become its chief salesman. He is certain to face questions about his role when he appears at a Senate hearing this week on his nomination as director of the CIA.

Criticism of the surveillance program flared again last week with the disclosure that the security agency had collected the phone records of millions of Americans to track terror suspects.

By several accounts, Hayden, a 61- year-old U.S. Air Force officer who left the agency in April of last year to become the principal deputy director of national intelligence, was the man in the middle as President George W. Bush demanded that intelligence agencies act urgently to stop future attacks.

On one side was a strong-willed vice president and his longtime legal adviser, David Addington, who believed that the Constitution permitted spy agencies to take sweeping measures to defend the country. Later, Cheney would personally arrange tightly controlled briefings on the program for select members of Congress.

On the other side was the largest U.S. intelligence agency, which was battered by eavesdropping scandals in the 1970s and has since wielded its powerful technology with extreme care to avoid accusations of spying on Americans.

As in other areas of intelligence collection, including interrogation methods for suspected terrorists, Cheney and Addington took an aggressive view of what was permissible under the Constitution, said the two senior intelligence officials.

If people suspected of links to Al Qaeda made calls inside the United States, the vice president and Addington argued that eavesdropping without warrants "could be done and should be done," one of the officials said.

"That's not what the NSA lawyers think," he added, referring to the agency.

The other official said there was "a very healthy debate" over the issue. The vice president's staff was "pushing and pushing, and it was up to the agency lawyers to draw a line and say absolutely not."

Both officials said they were speaking about the internal discussion because of the importance of the national security and civil liberty issues involved and because the interplay between Cheney's office and the intelligence agencies is usually hidden from public view. Both spoke favorably of Hayden; one expressed no view on his nomination for the CIA job, and the other was interviewed by The New York Times weeks before Bush selected him.

Cheney's spokeswoman, Lee Anne McBride, declined to discuss the deliberations about the classified program.

"This is terrorist surveillance, not domestic surveillance," McBride said. "The vice president has explained this wartime measure is limited in scope and conducted in a lawful way that safeguards our civil liberties."

Spokespeople for the agency and for Hayden declined to comment.

Even with the agency lawyers' reported success in narrowing the program, critics say that it is nonetheless illegal and that it should have never been created. For the first time since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978, the agency was targeting Americans and others inside the country for eavesdropping without warrants.

The spying that would become such a divisive issue for the White House and for Hayden grew out of a meeting days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Bush gathered his senior intelligence aides to brainstorm about ways to head off another attack.

"Is there anything more we could be doing, given the current laws?" the president later recalled asking.

Hayden stepped forward. "There is," he said, according to Bush's recounting of the conversation in March during a town-hall-style meeting in Cleveland.

By all accounts, Hayden was the principal designer of the plan. He saw the opportunity to use the agency's enormous technological capabilities by loosening restrictions on its operations inside the United States.

For his part, Cheney helped justify the program with an expansive theory of presidential power, which he explained to reporters a few days after The Times first reported on the program in December.

Cheney traced his views to his service as chief of staff to President Gerald Ford in the 1970s, when post-Watergate changes, which included the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, "served to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in a national security area."

Senior intelligence officials outside the agency who discussed the matter in late 2001 with Hayden said he accepted the White House and Justice Department argument that the president, as commander in chief, had the authority to approve such eavesdropping.

"Hayden was no cowboy on this," said another former intelligence official who was granted anonymity because the program remains classified.

SIBEL EDMOND'S INTERVIEW ON RBN
12/01/2004
An Open Letter To The American People
Dear Fellow Citizens:
For the past three years the United States Department of Justice has been relentlessly engaged in actions geared towards covering up my reports and investigations into my allegations. These actions include gagging the United States Congress, blocking court proceedings in my case by invoking state secret privilege, quashing a subpoena for my deposition on information regarding 9/11, withholding documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act, and preventing the release of the Inspector General's report of its investigations into my reports and allegations. My reports, many of which have been confirmed by the United States Senate and leaked memos by the Department of Justice, involve criminal conduct against our national interests, serious security breaches threatening our intelligence, intentional mistranslation of intelligence with severe consequences, and intentional blocking of certain terrorism and criminal cases from being investigated by our government officials.

This is not just about our government's relentless fight against me, and my information. This fight is also directed against what is known as "the public's right to know" in our essential oversight responsibility over our government as responsible citizens. These actions by our government are not geared toward protecting the 'national security' of the United States. On the contrary, they are endangering our national security by covering up facts and information related to criminal activities against this country and it's citizens. The Department of Justice and this administration are fully aware that making this information public will bring about the question of accountability. And they do not want to be held accountable. It is for these reasons that I have been striving to get the Congress to release the long overdue report by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, and to hold its own public hearings regarding these issues. In a letter written July 9, 2004 to the Attorney General, regarding the classification of the entire report on my case by the Inspector General's office, Senator Grassley and Senator Leahy stated: "We fear that the designation of information as classified in these cases serves to protect the executive branch against embarrassing revelations and full accountability. Releasing declassified versions of these reports, or at least portions or summaries, would serve the public's interest, increase transparency, promote effectiveness and efficiency at the FBI, and facilitate Congressional oversight. To do otherwise could damage the public's confidence not only in the government's ability to protect the nation, but also in the government's ability to police itself."

I know that it is very easy to get discouraged with the system and give up the fight. I know sometimes it makes sense to consider attempts to bring about transparency and accountability futile. I know many of us believe that by voting once every few years, paying our taxes in a timely manner, and abiding by the law, we more than fulfill our obligations as citizens of this great democratic nation. I myself used to sincerely believe that. There have been times when I came so very close to giving up, knowing that all those available channels I had pursued, from the Congress to the Courts, from the IG's office to the 9/11 Commission, became rock solid walls and ears deafened to the voice of public concern. Giving up would have been the easiest way to stop the time, energy, and financial resources being consumed in my fruitless battle to bring about truth, transparency, and accountability. For me, there were times it would have been very easy to stop, to get disgusted and give up; if it weren't for those words of wisdom from our founding Fathers who said: "The price of liberty, is eternal vigilance." If it wasn't for the fact that I have lived in countries where the words freedom, liberty, transparency and accountability represented fantasy, surrealism, and impossibility; which gave me more reasons to treasure what this great country and its Constitution offered me as its citizen.

I was told so many times by so many people that " These issues are so troubling, but this is the government and we can't do anything about it. We can't rock the boat." But stop for a second and think about it: We elect the captains of this boat, we maintain and sustain this boat through our taxes, and we, the people, suffer the consequences when this boat malfunctions, as we did on September 11. If we don't have the right to rock this boat, when this boat or part of it is badly in need of being rocked and repaired, then who does?

Our Congress must fulfill the "checks and balances" responsibilities of the Constitution in the exercise of its fundamental duties, including probing deeper to produce more information about government activities as part of its appropriations, authorization, and oversight functions. We the people have put these representatives in the Congress. We the people have given them the authority to ensure oversight, integrity, transparency, and accountability of our government and our rights. Thus, we the people have the right and the power to demand that our representatives fulfill these obligations.

Government transparency is fundamental to democracy. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Information is the currency of democracy." Our Democracy cannot endure without a committed citizenry and an open government that answers to the people. Our Democracy has survived because of the participation of its citizenry, which completely depends on the government's transparency and accountability.

I am asking for your support to do just that - demand government transparency and accountability. Please read the following petition demanding the immediate release of the long-completed IG Report, followed by public Congressional hearings, by clicking on the link below. If clicking doesn't seem to work, you can copy and paste the link into your browser's address window, or retype it there. If you agree, if you want answers and accountability, please sign this petition. http://www.democracyinaction.org

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling
May 15, 2006 10:33 AM

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports.

People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.

Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.

The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.

A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators.