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WHO RULES: THE ISRAEL LOBBY OR UNCLE SAM? The answer at last! Uri Avnery, former Knesset member, assesses the Lobby's power. "If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would sign the bill forthwith." But, yes, in the end the dog wags the tail. Fifty years ago Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" blew the cobwebs out of millions of young minds and drove a stake through the heart of Eisenhower's America. Lenni Brenner remembers Ginsberg in the East Village. Dr Mengele died in exile, in disguise. Dr Ishii died rich and recognized, in his own Tokyo home. Christopher Reed on Japanese WW2 medical tortures and how the U.S. covered them up. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
Today's Stories May 11, 2006 Sunsara Taylor Jonathan Cook Tariq Ali Wayne S. Smith Mike Whitney Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Mickey Z. Francis Boyle Edward S. Herman
/ David Peterson Website of the
Day
May 10, 2006 Werther Larry Birns / Michael Lettieri Ramzy Baroud Kevin Zeese Evelyn Pringle Amira Hass Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Sharon Smith Website of the Day
May 9, 2006 Ray McGovern M. Shahid Alam Moshe Adler Walter MIgnolo Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor William S. Lind Todd Chretien Dave Lindorff Ishmael Reed Website of the
Day
May 8, 2006 Kate McCabe Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Ingmar Lee Robert Jensen Ricardo Alarcon Will Youmans / M. Kay Siblani Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
May 6 / 7, 2006 Jeffrey St. Clair Ariel Dorfman Joe Allen Fred Gardner Jeff Taylor Saul Landau Stephen Philion Trish Schuh Ralph Nader Robert Fisk Paul Cantor John Holt James Ryan Lawrence R. Velvel Greg Moses Laray Polk Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Mickey Z. Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Week
May 5, 2006 Vijay Prashad Robert Fisk David Swanson Mearsheimer / Walt Dave Lindorff Sarah Ferguson CounterPunch
News Service Corporate Crime Reporter Website of the
Day
May 4, 2006 John F. Sugg Jonathan Cook Roger Burbach Chris Dols Christopher Brauchli Tony Swindell Website of the Day
May 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Paul Craig Roberts James Petras Lee Sustar David Bolton Joshua Frank Jeffery R. Webber Website of the
Day
May 2, 2006 Evelyn Pringle Tariq Ali Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Sen. Russell
Feingold Anthony Papa Website of the
Day
May Day, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Christopher Reed Michael Donnelly Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Gilad Atzmon Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
April 29 / 30, 2006 Peter Linebaugh Ralph Nader Robert Bryce Rev. William
Alberts Lee Sustar John Chuckman Eric Ruder Seth Sandronsky Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Fred Gardner Don Monkerud Tommy Stevenson Lettrist International Contratiempo St. Clair, Vest
and D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of the
Weekend
April 28, 2006 James Ridgeway Ramzy Baroud Sarah Knopp William S. Lind Werther April 27, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Robert Fisk Juan Santos Robert Jensen Dave Lindorff Jose Pertierra
April 26,2006 Robin Philpot Sherry Wolf Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Gary
Leupp Bill
Quigley
April 25, 2006 Gary
Leupp Paul
Craig Roberts Linda
S. Heard Ralph
Nader Mike
Whitney Michael
Donnelly Sharon
Smith Website
of the Day
April 24, 2006 Tim
Wise John
Stanton Dave
Lindorff Steve
Shore Amadou
Deme Mickey
Z. Ralph Nader Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day
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May 12, 2006 "Hello, It's Me ..."What Fourth Amendment?By DAVE LINDORFF I called my phone service provider, Verizon, Friday, to find out whether my phone records had been or were still being provided to the National Security Agency. Of course, I knew they were, since the report in USA Today on May 11 stated that Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth had all turned over all their customer records to the NSA, with only Qwest, of the major phone providers, refusing the request. The first thing I discovered was that when I called Verizon customer service, a misleadingly comforting recording had been added, saying, "As always, privacy of your account is your right and our duty." After that effort to head me off, I was switched to a customer service representative, who, upon learning that I was calling not with a billing question, but to see if my records had been given to the government, advised me that all such calls were being handled by the phone company's "Security Department." Switched to the Security Department, I got a recorded message saying that "all representatives are busy," instructing me to leave my number, and promising me that I would be called back. Uh-huh. It would appear that the public is truly upset, finally, at the news that the Bush administration has authorized massive "data mining" of phone records, once considered to be private absent a court order and a finding of probable cause. Now let me say that I know all about these phone company "Security Departments" (a misnomer if ever there was one!). In fact, my first ever investigative reporting scoop was a story I broke in my own weekly paper, the Los Angeles Vanguard, back in May 1976. That was an article exposing how the "Security Departments" of Pacific Telephone and GTE were both routinely giving out unlisted numbers, as well as customer credit records and other phone records, to a list of some 200 public agencies, ranging from federal, state and local police to the local library late books desk, all without any request for a warrant. When we confronted old Ma Bell
with our story, we were given a flat denial by the PR department,
and assured that such customer records were held in confidence
unless there was a court order. However, we held a press conference
on the sidewalk in front of PacTel corporate headquarters, which
was well attended by the local media. The company panicked and
invited everyone in to a hasty company press conference on the
issue. But when we and a group of LA reporters from the city's
mainstream media crowded into PacTel's press room and started
hammering the flaks with questions, it I also learned, and reported in the Vanguard, that phone company "Security Departments" are routinely staffed by, and headed by retired federal agents from places like the Secret Service and the FBI-people who are on a first-name basis with the spooks in Washington. No wonder they are so accommodating, when unseemly requests for customer data are made. Given this experience, it comes as little surprise to me, then, to learn that the successors to the old Ma Bell for the most part have willingly agreed to pimp for the NSA in its latest mass spying campaign. Both Verizon and AT&T (now wholly owned by SBC Communications) have company rules requiring that any government request for customer billing information or call records be preceded by a court order or subpoena, according to a May 12 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. But just as back in 1976 with Pacific Telephone and GTE, both these companies simply ignored their own rules-and federal privacy statutes and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--when the NSA came calling. I'm still waiting for my callback from Verizon Security. Maybe they're just real busy fielding calls from irate customers. Verizon's vice president for media relations, Jack Hoey, refused to comment or respond to questions regarding the company's breach of its own internal rules, saying only that a prepared statement was being made available to the media. That statement read: "We do not comment on national security matters. Questions about national security policies and practices should be directed to the relevant government policymakers. Verizon acts in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy." Not so committed, though, that they'd require the NSA to get a warrant. SBC's media department also has so far declined to even respond to my messages asking for comment. Clearly, the Bush administration decided to implement Admiral John Poindexter's bold idea of a Total Information Awareness program, even after Congress and the public broadly denounced the idea when it was first exposed back in 2002. Supposedly killed back then, the idea of monitoring everyone all the time was just too tempting to this control-freak administration, so they just shifted the plan out of the Pentagon and handed it to the NSA. Thirty years ago, the headline for our exposé was "At Pacific Telephone, Your Privacy Ain't Worth a Nickel." Now it appears the headline should read, "In Bush's America, The Fourth Amendment Ain't." Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new
book of CounterPunch columns titled "This
Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage
Press. Lindorff's new book, "The
Case for Impeachment", He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |