CITIZINE NEWS
Alberto Gonzales Nominated to be Attorney General

by Thom White

LOS ANGELES -- November 15, 2004 -- The Bush Administration has nominated Alberto R. Gonzales to be the next U.S Attorney General.

Gonzales was born in San Antonio, Texas, received his undergraduate degree from Rice University, and then graduated from Harvard Law School. When George W. Bush (M.B.A., Harvard) became Governor of Texas in 1994, Gonzales became his general counsel.

With Gonzales’ legal aid, Bush avoided jury duty on a DUI case in 1996. According to a USA Today story from March 2002, Gonzales argued that “if Bush served, he would not, as governor, be able to pardon the defendant in the future.” The memo did the trick, and Gov. Bush was relieved of his civic duty. Jury service could have forced Gov. Bush to disclose the number of times he has been arrested, and the fact that he had pled guilty to drunk driving in 1976, a revelation that later surfaced mysteriously days before the 2000 election.

Alberto Gonzales was soon appointed by Gov. Bush to the Texas Supreme Court (and named by Hispanic Business magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics of 1999). He won re-election to the Court in 2000, with more than $34,000 in contributions from groups the New York Daily News referred to as “Enron’s lawyers.”

Once it was decided in December 2000 that George W. Bush would be President, Alberto Gonzales was named Bush’s general counsel. The White House counsel advises the president on all legal issues, such as policy, ethics, and whether to approve or veto legislation.

Legal memos Gonzales has authored since September 11, 2001, have caused a bit of controversy. This year, Gonzales has been at the center of the scandal in which Pentagon officials in 2002 approved Abu Ghraib-style abuse of prisoners being interrogated. The Daily Telegraph (UK) reported on June 13, 2004, the following:

A string of leaked government memos over the past few days have revealed that President George W. Bush was advised by Justice Department officials and White House lawyer Alberto Gonzales, that Geneva Conventions on torture did not apply to unlawful combatants [captured during the war on terror].
In a January 22, 2002, memo, Gonzales advised President Bush that the nature of the war on terror “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”

A legal advisor to the Pentagon told the Telegraph that Gonzales’ memo made it “clear to everyone that there was a debate in the administration about how far interrogations could go, and the answer [Gonzales] came up with was ‘pretty far.’ ”

Alberto Gonzales himself helped invent the term “enemy combatant” to circumvent standing rules in the treatment of prisoners of war.

According to Human Rights Watch, Gonzales “drafted the original military commission order signed by President Bush on November 14, 2001,” which allowed suspected terrorists “to be secretly charged, tried, and executed without the most basic due process protections.”

Bush officially announced on February 7, 2002, that Geneva Conventions on torture of prisoners of war would not apply to Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere. His new policy was based on a legal memo by John Yoo (author of much of the PATRIOT Act), and Gonzales’ memo from January simply confirmed the correctness of the new policy to be unveiled.

Other U.S. government attorneys argued the decision “would undermine the U.S. military culture, which is based on a strict adherence to the law of war,” but Gonzales dismissed these objections, saying U.S. personnel would abide by a “minimum standard” of conduct, and that executives directing the war would still abide by the “principle” of the Geneva Conventions. The war on terror would need to be “waged in part by covert and secret operations” and out-dated international agreements would only endanger security.

In late August 2003, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, supervisor of “intelligence gathering operations” on prisoners at Guantanamo, was sent to Iraq where he would advise how to “rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence,” using his experiences and Geneva Convention-free methodology being developed at Guantanamo.

According to Counterpunch magazine, Miller’s recommendations have not been publicly released. However, in a memo entitled “Intelligence Rules of Engagement” dated October 9, 2003, Gen. Richard Sanchez, supreme U.S. military commander in Iraq, “approved the use of dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, and sensory deprivation of prisoners,” according to a June 2004 Washington Post report.

On December 2, 2003, Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld approved the following interrogation tortures (or enhanced interrogation methods to induce stress): “Yelling at detainees, use of stress positions, use of isolation, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli [blindfolding and covering ears], use of hoods, use of twenty-four hour interrogation, removal of clothing, use of mild physical contact, and use of detainees’ individual phobias [such as prisoners’ fear of dogs or homosexuality, as in the Abu Ghraib abuses].”

Alberto Gonzales has been nominated to be Attorney General, an officer who is supposed to uphold the law. However, it appears that most of Alberto Gonzales’ briefings have simply been about circumventing law to give Team Bush/Cheney the authority to act within a new legal realm beyond the scope of accepted international agreements and existing U.S. laws, and ven paving the way to legalize abuse of prisoners of the war on terror. Will Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General, make for good law or a new era of lawlessness cloaked in executive privilege?

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TECH NEWS
VeriChip Receives FDA Approval for Humans

by Thom White

LOS ANGELES -- November 15, 2004 -- The Food and Drug Administration on October 13, 2004, approved the use of the VeriChip on humans. The VeriChip is an implantable identification microchip that could soon eliminate credit and ATM cards, but is first being introduced for medical identification.

Already the technology is being tested abroad. Australia’s The Age reports: “In Amsterdam and Barcelona, patrons of exclusive bars can opt to have a microchip implanted under their skin. The chip allows them to enter the clubs unimpeded while also allowing management to keep a running record of their tab… The technology is the same as that used to track animals in the wild or pets in the cities.”

CSI-Miami (produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) has been the first to inject the VeriChip into T.V. culture. In one episode, “a scantily-clad clubgoer in South Beach has her credit card number embedded on a VeriChip, which is then injected beneath her skin. Her reasoning: she has no place else to put her card.”

VeriChip is manufactured and developed by Applied Digital Systems (ADS) of Delray Beach, Florida. The VeriChip Corporation, a subsidiary of ADS, strives to produce “miniaturized, implantable identification technology with multiple medical, security, and emergency applications.”

ADS first announced VeriChip on December 19, 2001. The company has sold 30 million virtually identical injectable identification chips for pets and livestock in the past fifteen years.

CBS’s Michael Baron described the FDA-approved medical system: “The VeriChip Health Information Microtransponder System is an implantable RFID microtransponder, an inserter, a hand-held scanner, and a secure database containing patient-approved health care information.”

CBN News reported on the Jacobs family of Coral Springs, Fla., which “wants to be the first family to receive the VeriChip.”

“I was watching the news with Derrick and there was a segment on the VeriChip, and he was so intrigued with the VeriChip. After it was over he stood up and said, ‘I want to be the first kid to have the chip implanted in me,” said Leslie Jacobs.

“Everybody uses computers in their everyday life, and as people get more and more close to computers, people can’t even live without computers for one day,” Derrick said. “So I think it’s just another step closer in the evolution of man and technology.”

But for Derrick’s dad, Jeff, who suffers from a number of medical challenges, the VeriChip could be a lifesaver… “I can’t wait to get it because it will make me feel so much more secure,” Jeff said.

The Mercury News’ Mike Langberg reported on further uses of the VeriChip: “A VeriChip implanted for medical reasons could be used in other ways, such as tracking movement in a building through scanners built into doorways. Applied Digital is interested in expanding to non-medical uses, including credit card verification.”
ADS has already announced its “newest subdermal RFID solution called VeriPay … that can be used in a variety of security, financial, emergency identification, and other applications.”

Applied Digital CEO Scott Silverman pointed out how VeriPay could replace the use of plastic credit cards, and eliminate present concerns over “identity theft.” At a conference in Paris, Silverman “invited banking and credit companies to partner with the VeriChip Corporation in developing specific commercial applications beginning with pilot programs and other market tests.”

Adrian Mello of Electronic Business described possible consequences down the road for those who refuse to “get chipped” despite widespread use of the VeriChip. It could reach a point where “life became difficult for ordinary citizens without a chip implant … At the moment, the decision to have a chip implant is entirely up to the individual, but there is a danger that health insurance companies, hospitals, and governments might require individuals to get the implants or face higher costs or reduced services.”

According to CBN News, “Still more advanced versions of the microchip someday might be able to track a person’s location through global positioning satellites (GPS). Right now, ADS sells a separate system for tracking and monitoring called Digital Angel … A GPS tracking device is currently too large to fit into the tiny VeriChip, but miniaturization is probably only a matter of time.”

So far, Digital Angel had only been produced as an external wristwatch receiver, but in November 2004, VeriChip Corp. acquired eXI Wireless, a “leading provider of wireless technology and asset tracking / location systems” to assist with the tracking capabilities of the chip.

Katherine Albrecht of CASPIAN (www.spychips.com), which campaigns against the use of RFID technology, commented that, “In the post-9/11 world, we are already racing down the path to total surveillance. The only thing missing to clinch the deal has been the technology. This may fill that gap.”

“Getting chipped” costs $150-200 at the moment. The first 100,000 to register to get chipped received $50.00 off at the time of their “chipping” procedure.

VeriChip Corp. has confirmed orders of over $300 million from a Latin American marketer. In July 2004, Mexico’s Attorney General under Vicente Fox announced that “he and 160 top officials had received VeriChip injections for gaining access to top-secret offices” and more than a thousand patients in Mexico have had a scannable chip implanted.

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