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Disclosure * European Opposition to Missile Defense * FBI Obstruction to Justice
The three issues of this issue of Flyby News updates work on the Disclosure Project, efforts to politically thwart U.S. Missile Defense, and the FBI's obstruction to justice. The latter item is covered by an Editorial in Indian Country Today, which questions why the issue of Leonard Peltier, regarding FBI abuses, is basically ignored in the mainstream media and Congress.
Please remember that tomorrow is the deadline date to send a fax to stop the Navy from experimenting with their deadly sonar blasts in the ocean. Please respond. It takes just a few minutes to send a free fax from:
http://www.nrdcaction.org/index.asp?step=2&item=377
The next issue will contain stories on the movement to increase the use of nuclear power and on available alternatives.
1) The Disclosure Project ・Overview
2) Report by the Coordinator of the Global Network ・Bruce Gagnon
3) Indian Country Today: "FBI misconduct must be remembered.."
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1) The Disclosure Project ・Overview
The Disclosure Project is a nonprofit research project working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence, and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems. The disclosure of the truth will have far-reaching implications for our society -- new technologies to end pollution and global warming, long-term solution to the energy crisis, and the beginning of an era of peaceful relations with other civilizations in space. The key evidences of the validation of this project are revealed in over 5 dozen military and government witnesses.
THE CAMPAIGN FOR DISCLOSURE
On May 9, 2001, one of the largest and most successful press conferences in the recent history of the National Press Club was completed. More than 20 military, government and corporate witnesses to unambiguous UFO and extraterrestrial events stated their testimony before millions. This kickoff event for the Campaign for Disclosure was carried by major media world-wide. The event was live webcast, and at 9 a.m. over 250,000 people were waiting on-line for the press conference to begin. The next biggest webcast event at the National Press Club was less than 25,000. While the first hour of the conference was "electronically jammed" according to the president of ConnectLive, the company that webcasts all National Press Club events, eventually
thousands of people around the world were able to watch the event on-line. It may still be viewed by going to ConnectLive.com.
For more information, visit the updated website for the Disclosure Project:
http://www.disclosureproject.org/
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2) Report by the Coordinator of the Global Network ・Bruce Gagnon
27 May 2001
Friends,
Just back from three weeks away to England, Ireland, and Germany.
The Global Network's (GN) membership conference in Leeds, England was a great success (see Karl Grossman's recent article that we mailed out for details). For the first time we had folks come from places like Alaska, Egypt, South Korea, Australia, Norway, Sweden, France, and Belgium. In all we had over 200 people from 20 countries represented.
As Karl said in his article we expanded the GN Board of Directors (BOD). We have added several new people including: Alla Yaroshinskaya (Russia), Cheong Wooksik (South Korea), Loring Wirbel (Colorado), Sally Light (California) and we have asked activists in Australia to suggest a woman to be added to the BOD. We expect this to be done very soon.
We also approved Dave Knight, the chairperson of CND in the United Kingdom, to be the new chair of our advisory board. We'd like the advisory board to take a greater role in 2001-2002 in helping us do long-range planning. With consultation with our BOD, Dave will be working to expand the advisory committee in the coming months.
After a few days off in Ireland I went to Germany for a speaking tour that took me to Berlin, Hamburg, Bonn, Trier, Munich, Kornwestheim, Darmstadt, and Frankfurt. I went by train to each stop and our advisory board member Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck (Mutlangen) coordinated the tour.
GN board member Regina Hagen and Wolfgang joined me in Berlin where we spent 2 ス days holding a news conference, held public meetings with several different peace groups, and held sessions with members of parliament (MP) and their staffs. We met with two MP's from the ruling SPD party, one of whom extended an invitation to Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to come to Berlin to speak to German members of the Bundestag. I carried home a hand written invitation and have sent it to Rep. Kucinich. We also met with 14 leaders in the PDS party (former East Germans) who have recently been working to gather anti-Star Wars signatures of parliamentarians from around the world. They were particularly pleased to develop relationships with the GN. We were supposed to meet with two MP's from the Green Party but instead they sent four of their aides. The German Greens are being heavily criticized by the peace movement for their support of the NATO war on Yugoslavia and for recent weak statements on Bush's plan for "missile defense."
Several news articles came out of our Berlin news conference as well as radio coverage.
Hamburg was my biggest meeting, with representatives from many different groups in attendance. In Bonn I did a radio interview that was broadcast nationally and in Trier the local newspaper covered my talk.
Prior to the event in Munich, local activists took me to a local radio station for an interview. Munich was a very important meeting because it is very near the U.S. signals intelligence base at Bad Aibling. We have not had a lot of work done around Bad Aibling in the past and it was my hope that we could get folks in Munich to agree to focus more attention on the base. The people at the meeting enthusiastically agreed to hold an action there in conjunction with our October 13 international day of protest.
While in Munich I stayed at the home of the renowned nuclear physicist Hans Peter Duerr. We had a wonderful breakfast discussion on the Star Wars issue and I feel certain that he will become more involved in the campaign to keep space for peace. He has tremendous influence inside and outside of Germany.
I am confident that several key German cities (including Berlin) will hold actions on October 13 as a result of this trip. There was tremendous interest in the issue, several people in Berlin followed us from meeting to meeting. Both in England and Germany it is clear that people view the Bush administration as a significant threat to global peace and stability and will respond with increased activity on the issue. In both these countries there is always talk about the "special relationship" their government has with the U.S. and it was important for an American citizen to be publicly saying that they do not need to "follow" the U.S. on this issue.
Much thanks to all those who made the events in England and Germany such a success.
Immediately upon our return Dr. Michio Kaku, one of our GN board members, had Karl Grossman and me on his radio show (Science for the People) to talk about our trip to Europe. Michio regularly keeps the work of the GN before the public on his national radio program.
I think it important that people understand that the recent return of the U.S. Senate to Democratic party control will only marginally help us stop Star Wars. While it is likely to help slow down any early deployment of "missile defense", Democratic Senate leader Tom Dsachle (D-SD) said just this morning on TV that his party still supports "missile defense" but only wants to be sure that it works properly before deploying. He said clearly that research and development (wasting hundreds of billions of dollars) should continue. It has always been my opinion that if you give the Pentagon enough money and enough time that they will come up with some technology that will work. So please don't be fooled into thinking that the Democrats will save us -- they won't. We have much work to do.
Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083; Gainesville, FL. 32607; (352) 337-9274
http://www.space4peace.org
For a related story: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001181592,00.html
Allies rebuff Powell over missile shield
BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR
NATO allies refused to endorse President Bush's missile defence project yesterday. It is the latest evidence of division between the
United States and Europe over the "Son of Star Wars" plan.
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Reminder:
June 10 -- Washington, D.C. Action -- Stop Missile Defense
And in the halls of Congress
Monday and Tuesday, June 11 and 12
U.S. CONGRESS SWITCHBOARD 202-224-3121
For more information, visit:
http://www.projectabolition.org/
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3) Indian Country Today: "FBI misconduct must be remembered.."
In an editorial in this week's issue, Indian Country Today says that the current debate over the FBI and its mistakes should include its handling of Leonard Peltier's case. Despite all the media attention, no one seems to focus on Peltier. Ruby Ridge, Wen Ho Lee, and of course, convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, have received coverage while little has been made of Peltier. WHY?
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FBI misconduct in Peltier's case must be remembered in the interest of justice
http://www.indiancountry.com/articles/editorial-2001-05-23-02.shtml
The recent FBI boondoggle in Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's case is indicative of a pattern of prosecutorial abuse going back decades.
In case after case, withholding of evidence, intimidation of people under investigation and other questionable practices have made national commentators as well as Washington politicians call for a thorough review of the agency founded, and highly politicized, by J. Edgar Hoover.
New York Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer, citing numerous other cases where FBI misconduct has become obvious, requested that President Bush appoint a special commission to examine the nation's primary federal law enforcement agency. Attorney General John Ashcroft already is investigating.
Critics have recalled the case of Joseph Salvati of Boston, freed in January after serving 30 years for murder. A judge concluded in that case that the FBI, to protect an informant, hid testimony that would have cleared Salvati.
Then there was the botched investigation of Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist accused of 59 criminal counts and held for nine months in solitary confinement. After a horrific public disclosure campaign against him, Lee was cleared of all but a minor charge and released.
So have critics recalled the case of Richard Jewell, targeted in the bombing at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. The intense, no-holds-barred investigation and, again, devastating public disclosures, nearly destroyed a man who had rushed to help the victims and was the actual hero of the day. Jewell was lucky; he was exonerated after only three months.
Others have pointed to cases of apparent excessive deadly force (Ruby Ridge, Waco), botched evidentiary science, and even simple incompetence, as in the case of TWA Flight 800, where the FBI never passed on to the National Transportation Safety Board crucial evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms uncovered early on.
But no one in the national media seems to have remembered Leonard Peltier. So we again wonder, what about the case of Leonard Peltier?
In McVeigh's case, the most horrific of terrorists gets a reprieve of 30 days while more than 3,000 pages of evidentiary information are belatedly handed over to his defense team to study.
But consider Peltier, who has served 25 years for the 1975 killing of two FBI agents. In his highly controversial case, the FBI continues to hold secret more than 6,000 pages of information, claiming national security reasons. This despite clear indications of misconduct, including falsification of evidence and intimidation of witnesses by various FBI officials, which forced the American Indian Movement activist's conviction.
This much is known. In the climate of violence against traditional American Indians that characterized Indian country in the 1970s, FBI agents were all over the place, en masse, often in combat gear, constantly raiding the remote home compounds of traditional people who sympathized with the issues raised by AIM.
The FBI's closest collaborators, the so-called Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONS), known for their night raids and drive-by shootings that left many wounded and some dead, were actually given arms by the federal agents. It was in that context that a young Leonard Peltier signed on to help defend elders at the Jumping Bull compound in Oglala district, where the FBI raid took place that would result in the deaths of one American Indian man and two federal agents.
Judge Heaney of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, who heard an appeal in Peltier's case (denied on a technicality) wrote in a 1991 letter to Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii: "The United States government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievances of the Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one which culminated in the deadly firefight on June 26, 1975 ... The United States government must share responsibility with the Native Americans for the .. firefight ... the government's role can properly be considered a mitigating circumstance." Judge Heaney, in this letter, recommended clemency/commutation of sentence for Mr. Peltier as part of the healing process.
We know that Peltier was extradited from Canada, where he had fled, on the basis of an affidavit signed by Myrtle Poor Bear, who claimed to have witnessed Peltier shooting the agents. Poor Bear later recanted and testified to being intimidated by FBI agents, who confronted her with
photographs of the murdered body of Anna Mae Aquash.
At Peltier's trial, FBI ballistic expert Evan Hodge testified he was unable to perform the best test, a firing-pin test, on certain casings found near the agents' car, because the rifle in question had been damaged in a fire. Instead, he stated that he conducted an extractor-mark test and found the casing and weapon to match. But years later, an FBI teletype obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed that in October 1975, a firing-pin ballistic test had indeed been performed on the rifle said to have belonged to Peltier and that the results were clearly negative.
The jury never heard this crucial information.
Considering the critical nature of the materials later disclosed, such as the ballistic tests, the approximately 6,000 FBI documents still being withheld in their entirety as well as 5,000 partial documents could very well contain evidence that would establish Peltier's position. A government attorney actually conceded in one appellate hearing that, "We had a murder, we had numerous shooters, we do not know who specifically fired what killing shots ... ." But Peltier, the government insisted, could still be guilty for aiding and abetting, a complete change of theory from that mounted at his trial.
It is a crucial moment to remember Peltier. The national media must be made to remember his case among the numerous other cases of FBI misconduct resulting in the incarceration of innocent people. Clearly, the FBI's culture of concealment and sense superior purpose, which have led the agency into such transgression, must be challenged.
Peltier's trial and subsequent intense campaigns by the FBI to deny him any relief must be reconsidered in light of the emerging pattern of abuse now revealed. Tell all the media; tell the U.S. Congress; Indian country demands justice for Leonard Peltier.
ゥ2001 Indian Country Today
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For a related story on the FBI and McVeigh read the transcript from Sixty Minutes II,
aired on CBS TV on May 29, 2001:
http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,293828-412,00.shtml
For more information on the defense of Leonard Peltier
http://www.freepeltier.org
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