Paranotes 2003
by Al Hidell

Nukes in Space: Have We Just Seen Act One?
Private environmental consultants are concerned over NASA's sloppy recovery and clean up of toxic debris from the fallen space shuttle Columbia. They are especially curious about the discovery of several large stainless steel balls. One 4 ft. by 4 ft. steel sphere was "glowing orange from heat." The San Augustine fireman who found it reported that liquid was coming out of it. He stated: "there was a bleach smell. I could see it was vaporizing into a yellow haze and turning the trees yellow." Another smooth silver sphere had a "yellowish-gold light coming out of it." Volunteers who stayed with the objects were later sent to the hospital for chest x-rays.

NASA explained that the spheres contained "nitrogen tetroxide," which is used as rocket fuel. Concerns were raised that NASA did not attempt to contain the hazardous spill and institute stormwater control, since the spheres had fallen in a low swampy area. One consultant stated, "the state and federal government are notorious for not following their own rules." Sheriff Thomas Kerss from Nacogdoches, Texas told NPR tonight, "There was radioactive material on board" and that retrieval operations would be testing debris for radioactivity.

All this happens as NASA moves to expand its program to use nuclear power in space. NASA's Project Prometheus will broaden its $1 billion Nuclear Systems Initiative, including development of a nuclear-propelled rocket. There is also concern regarding the commission NASA appointed to investigate the accident, which is dominated by retired military and aerospace industry executives with vested interests in the outcome. Just imagine... if this had been a nuclear rocket falling down in pieces over Texas or elsewhere on Earth? (www.space4peace.org)

Mega Mole Hunt
The recent breakup of a massive Israeli spy ring [See "I-Spies" article, PARANOIA Issue 31] raises the question of what the I-Spies were up to prior to 9/11, during the Clinton years. According to Jeffrey Steinberg of Executive Intelligence Review, they were - among other things - utilizing a spy "operating inside the highest levels of the Clinton Administration's national security establishment." In early 1997, the spy - whom the Israelis code-named "Mega" - was the subject of a "frantic mole hunt" by the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA). Although the story was reported in the May 7, 1997 Washington Post, it quickly disappeared from the news. Meanwhile, according to Steinberg, the hunt was abruptly halted.

According to the Post article, it all began when the NSA intercepted a phone conversation between an Israeli embassy official and Danny Yatom, the head of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service. The official was seeking permission to "go to Mega" in order to obtain a copy of a confidential letter that had been sent by then Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. In an apparent sign of Mega's high position in the administration, Yatom admonished his agent, "This is not something we use Mega for."

For information that Mega could not obtain, the Israelis had other resources. In a prescient article in the May 29, 2000 Insight, a publication of the Washington Times, J. Michael Waller and Paul M. Rodriguez revealed the FBI was "probing an explosive foreign-intelligence operation that would dwarf the other spy scandals plaguing the U.S. government." Specifically, the Bureau's counterintelligence division was "tracking a daring operation to spy on high-level U.S. officials by hacking into supposedly secure telephone networks" at the State Department, Defense Department, Department of Justice, and even the White House.

The President himself suspected that his White House phones were being tapped, according to Monica Lewinsky. Yes, while the mainstream media dutifully reported every lurid detail about semen stains on black dresses and the President's amorous use of a cigar, it managed to ignore one of the most newsworthy parts of Lewinsky's testimony. As Steinberg put it, Lewinsky testified that "the President had warned her, on March 29, 1997, at the height of the Mega hunt, that he suspected the White House telephones were being tapped by agents of an unnamed foreign country." That country, according to unnamed U.S. government officials cited by both Steinberg and Waller/Rodriguez, was Israel.

Furthermore, it appears that the Israelis had both the means and the opportunity to penetrate the White House communications system. According to Steinberg, the system was overhauled and modernized during the early years of the Clinton administration, and "one of the main outside contractors involved in the project was an Israeli firm, Amdocs." [For more on Amdocs, see the "I-Spies" article.] It should be noted that neither the firm nor its employees have been charged with or proven to have any involvement in espionage.

The compromise of White House communications was "more than just a technical blunder," a source with detailed knowledge of White House security issues told Walker and Rodriguez. It was "a very serious security failure with unimaginable consequences." How did it happen? Echoing criticism now being leveled at the Clinton administration in light of 9/11, FBI sources told Insight that under the Clinton administration, disregard for security had been "epidemic." Indeed, as late as Spring 2000, the magazine writers were able to obtain "virtually every telephone number within the White House, including those used by outside agencies with employees in the complex, and even the types of computers used and who uses them." This information - gleaned largely from then-unclassified documents - "allowed direct access to communications instruments located in the Oval Office, the residence, bathrooms and grounds." With such information, according to security and intelligence experts interviewed by Insight, "a hacker or spy could target individual telephone lines and write software codes enabling the conversations to be forwarded in real-time for remote recording and transcribing."

Like the Mega spy hunt, the investigation of the massive eavesdropping operation - which compromised both phone and modem communications - appears to have been fruitless. One reason, according to the Insight article, was the Clinton Justice Department's "unwillingness to seek an indictment against a suspect" in the eavesdropping operation. Others have speculated that there were more sinister forces at work. Gordon Thomas, in his book Gideon's Spies (1999), alleged that Israel had blackmailed the Clinton Administration by threatening to release "phone sex" tapes involving Clinton and Lewinsky.

Smallpox: Everything You Know is Wrong
According to Sherri Tenpenny, D.O., writing in the Idaho Observer, our federal and local governments are preparing for a massive, mandatory smallpox vaccination campaign. This, despite the fact that smallpox vaccine has the highest risk of complications of any vaccine, and a shaky track record for success. On June 20, 2002, Tenpenny attended the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) meeting of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). After hearing nearly two days of expert testimony, she has concluded that nearly every generally-accepted 'fact' about smallpox is wrong, and that the cure may well be worse than the disease.

"Smallpox has a slow transmission and is not highly contagious," stated Joel Kuritsky, MD, director of the CDC's smallpox preparedness program. As Tenpenny notes, this statement is "a direct contradiction to nearly everything we have ever heard or read about smallpox." In fact, smallpox is hardly ever spread by casual contact with an infected person. Walter A. Orenstein, M.D. - Director of the National Immunization Program (NIP) at the CDC - has stated flatly, "Smallpox will not spread like wildfire." Echoing Dr. Kuritsky, he declared that the spread of smallpox through casual contacts is actually the "exception to the rule. Orenstein noted that transmission occurs only after "constant exposure of a person that is within 6-7 feet for a minimum of 6-7 days."

With such a slow transmission rate - and assuming an informed public - Dr. Tom Mack of the University of Southern California estimated that the total number of smallpox cases in America would be "less than 10," far less the "millions" of victims that the popular press has postulated. In short, as Dr. Kuritsky put it, "the scenario in which a terrorist could infect himself with smallpox and contaminate an entire city by walking through the streets touching people is purely fiction." As for the effectiveness of the smallpox vaccine, Tenpenny noted that "The worst smallpox disaster occurred in the Philippines after a 10-year compulsory U.S. program administered 25 million vaccinations." So, the government plans don't make much sense, unless they're planning on injecting us with something more than a vaccine. Injectable microchips, perhaps?

Bush Sr. and the JFK Assassination
A recent search of the National Archives JFK Assassination Collection (www.nara.gov) for "Bush" has produced a document dated 11/22/63 which contains the name George H.W. Bush. The document is entitled "Subjects: JFK, Earwitness, Bush, George, H.W." Another document is known to exist which referred to a "George Bush of the CIA" having been briefed by an FBI agent on November 23, 1963. Oddly, another FBI document says that a "George H.W. Bush" (as a private citizen, no CIA affiliation given) had reported to the Houston FBI office - on November 22, 1963 - that one James Parrott had threatened to kill JFK.

So, it appears that President Bush, Sr. was a CIA agent who was in or near Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination; that private citizen George H.W. Bush warned the FBI's Houston office - on that day of the assassination - of a bogus assassination threat, perhaps as part of a disinformation campaign; and that Bush Sr. represented the CIA at an FBI assassination briefing the very next day. Finally, we have the fact that Bush Sr.'s name and address appeared in the personal address book of George de Mohrenschildt, Lee Harvey Oswald's close friend and possible CIA handler.

Researcher Bruce Campbell, whose website features two of the above documents, has also reported another strange de Mohrenschildt connection. It seems that Mohamed Al Fayed - father of Dodi Fayed, who was killed with Lady Diana - met with de Mohrenschildt in 1964, and that Al Fayed was representing one Mohamed El-Amir Atta, which is the name of 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta's father. (www.ciajfk.com)

Bush Airlifted al Qaeda and Taliban Fighters to Freedom
On November 25, 2001, the Northern Alliance took control of Kanduz and captured some 4,000 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. The next day, as President Bush crowed that he was "smoking them out" of their presumed holes, he was also apparently airlifting hundreds - if not thousands - of the captured fighters to freedom.

Writing in the May 29, 2002 New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the secret airlift involved the considerable number of Pakistani Army officers, intelligence advisers, and fighters, who were among the 4,000 captured. Although the evacuations were strongly denied by U.S. and Pakistani officials, Hersh said that American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers had confirmed that "the Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush Administration." It should be remembered that Pakistan went from being the Taliban's strongest military and economic supporter to America's No. 1 ally in the War on Terrorism, virtually overnight. So the capture of a large number of Pakistanis fighting alongside al Qaeda and the Taliban would have been a major embarrassment for both countries.

The American sources explained to Hersh that what was supposed to be a politically-expedient limited evacuation apparently "slipped out of control," and consequently an unknown number of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters managed to jump on the bandwagon. "Dirt got through the screen," a senior intelligence official told Hersh.

Greedy Corporations Profit (Quietly) from Employee Deaths
Even if you don't work for the mob, your boss may have taken a contract out on your life. Call them a new low in worker exploitation or a new high in corporate greed, but corporate-owned life insurance policies (COLIs) have become a trend among Fortune 500 companies.

Using the ghoulish but legal COLIs, companies like Wal-Mart, AT&T, and Procter & Gamble have made millions of dollars off their unknowing employees' deaths. In fact, many of America's most respected companies have been routinely (and quietly) taking out secret life insurance policies on the lives of their low-level employees for years. The insurance business has even given COLIs a nickname: "dead peasant" policies. Families never know the policies are in place and typically receive none of the money. Only one state–Texas–bans such policies. As an exposé in the Houston Chronicle put it, "the state legislature did not want to create an incentive for murder or wagering on human life." But even there, employers continue to buy them, expecting no one will ever find out.

This has caught the attention of U.S. Representative Gene Green (D-Houston) who is looking into whether employers can be required to notify employees of such policies. According to the Chronicle, he is also concerned that COLIs may "create a disincentive to provide a safe workplace," because companies profit from their employee's deaths.

In January 2002, Wal-Mart cancelled all of its COLIs, and opponents of the practice hope that more companies will follow suit. In addition, the IRS has recently challenged the tax deductibility of COLI premiums. (Yes, big business managed to turn COLIs into a tax loophole, too.)

The Mickey Mouse Preservation Act
On October 9, 2002, the Supreme Court heard the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, which presents a challenge to the controversial 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which lengthened copyright terms by 20 years, to 70 years after an artist's death. "What the Supreme Court must answer is whether the intention of copyright is to protect economic value or to promote science and the arts," says Peter Jaszi, a professor of copyright law at American University Law School. (The Constitution stresses the latter purpose.) If the court overturns the law, it could call into question many other unpopular laws, especially the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But if the law is upheld, it will be a huge setback for digital-rights activists.

Opponents say the 20-year copyright extension is a digital land grab by corporations, in particular Disney, which fears it will lose billions of dollars if characters like Mickey Mouse enter the public domain. In fact, Congress has extended copyright terms 11 times since 1962 - each just as the copyright on the first Mickey Mouse film, Steamboat Willie, was set to expire. Coincidence? We don't think so. Indeed, opponents of the law have taken to calling the CTEA, the "Mickey Mouse Preservation Act." Opponents have also noted that Disney itself built its animation empire largely by using stories that had entered the public domain, including Snow White, Cinderella, Pinocchio, and the Little Mermaid.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is lobbying hard for two new bills, one that would mandate copyright protection technology in all new consumer electronics, and another that would permit copyright owners to hack into consumers' personal computers if the copyright holders suspect illegal activity. (Business Week)

Was Flight 93 Shot Down?
Richard Wallace, of the U.K.'s Mirror newspaper (www.mirror.co.uk), has raised several questions about the fate of Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11. Most Americans accept the story that heroic passengers stormed the cockpit and brought the plane down, but is that what really caused the crash? There are several facts that raise the possibility that the aircraft was actually shot down by a U.S. fighter jet, or brought down by a hijacker's bomb - although it should be noted that these theories do not preclude the possibility that heroic passengers did in fact fight the hijackers.

At least six witnesses reported seeing a white "military-style" jet before or immediately after the crash. One witness, Susan Mcelwain, 51, who lives two miles from the site, says the white jet "came right over me, I reckon just 40 or 50ft above my mini-van... Then it disappeared behind some trees," and "a few seconds later I heard this great explosion and saw this fireball rise up over the trees." Government officials at first denied the existence of the jet. In fact, Mcelwain says, "The FBI came and talked to me, and said there was no plane around." Then, officials admitted the jet was there, but that it was a private executive jet. To this, Mcelwain responds that it was "definitely military, it just had that look... It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets." Yet another official explanation acknowledged that a military plane was there, but that it was a surveillance plane taking pictures of the crash from 3,000 ft up. No way, says Mcelwain. "I saw it and it was there before the crash, and it was 40 ft above my head." She is quick to point out, however, that she has "no doubt those brave people on board tried to do something, but I don't believe what happened on the plane brought it down."

Further evidence that some kind of explosion brought the plane down comes from witnesses who reported smoke and flames trailing from Flight 93 before it crashed. Perhaps the most convincing evidence is the extremely wide displacement of the plane's debris, one explanation for which would be an explosion of some sort prior to the crash. Pieces of mail, in-flight magazines, and seat material were found eight miles away from the crash site. Similarly, a large one-ton piece of one of the plane's engines was found 2,000 yards away - over a mile from the crash site. The authorities say it bounced there.

Finally, we have the last mobile phone contact from Flight 93, at 9:58 a.m. The 911 call was made from one of the airliner's restrooms by passenger Edward Felt. Glenn Cramer, the emergency supervisor who answered it, has stated, "He was very distraught. He said he believed the plane was going down... He did hear some sort of an explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane, but he didn't know where. And then we lost contact with him."