An activist who believes he was improperly included on a state terror threat list said this morning he is preparing a federal lawsuit.
"When people's civil rights are trampled it's a federal issue," said Gene Stilp of Harrisburg, who holds a Virginia law license but does not practice as an attorney...
[Full Article]Rendell: "Deeply embarrassed" over spying on peaceful groups
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell apologized Tuesday to groups whose entirely lawful events were the subject of regular anti-terrorism reports provided by a Philadelphia-based Israeli-American outfit to state law enforcement agencies, the AP reports:
An embarrassed Gov. Ed Rendell apologized Tuesday to groups whose peaceful protests or events, from an animal rights demonstration to a gay and lesbian festival, were the subject of regular anti-terrorism bulletins being distributed by his homeland security director.
Rendell said that the information was useless to law enforcement agencies and that distributing it was tantamount to trampling on constitutional rights. ...."This is ludicrous," Rendell said. "And I apologize to any of the groups who had this information disseminated about their activities. They have the right to protest."
Rendell said he was "deeply embarrassed," and said the fact that the state was paying for such rudimentary information was "stunning."
Rendell said he ordered an end to the $125,000 contract with the Philadelphia-based organization, the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, that supplied the information, but said he was not firing his homeland security director, James Powers. ...
Here's a link to the firm, which has contracts with several other law enforcement agencies across the country...
[Full Article]Pennsylvania Homeland Security Employed Israeli Company to Suppress American Political Dissent
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
September 17, 2010
On the Alex Jones Show yesterday, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen discussed the involvement of a shadowy Israeli company in an effort by Pennsylvania’s Homeland Security to spy on activists exercising their First Amendment.
On Wednesday, Infowars.com reported that Pennsylvania paid a Philadelphia-based nonprofit $125,000 to compile a list of activists as part of the state Homeland Security’s federally mandated mission to protect public infrastructure. Madsen, citing a story published on late Wednesday by the Philadelphia Citypaper, revealed that the “non-profit” operates not only out of Philadelphia, but Israel as well.
Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen talks about the scandal on the Alex Jones Show on September 16.
Research conducted by Citypaper journalist Isaiah Thompson shows that the company, the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), in fact does not operate under non-profit status, as reported yesterday by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “Although the group claims nonprofit status on its website and is listed as a nonprofit corporation by the Pennsylvania Department of State, a search on websites Guidestar.org and IRS.gov yielded no indication that the organization enjoys tax-exempt status. An email seeking clarification of the group’s nonprofit status was not returned,” writes Thompson.
ITRR’s website describes the company as “the preeminent Israeli/American security firm providing training, intelligence and education to clients across the globe.” ITRR categorizes itself as a “Targeted Action Monitoring Center” that does not function as a “clipping service, but a powerful fusion center of battle-tested operatives, analysts, and researchers who have real-life experience fighting both terrorists and criminal entities [...] distinguished among other agencies by its access to a vast network of on-the-ground key-sources in virtually every region of the world.”
For a company boasting specialized counter-terror services, there is virtually no information available on it in the mainstream media. Citypaper’s research turned up a scattering of lackluster ITRR reports published in trade publications, primarily dealing with international terrorism. One report, authored by an intern, details the use of Twitter by “religious, anarchists, anti-government, and anti-globalization” activists who are described as extremists.
In addition, ITRR participated in a 2008 Philadelphia “Emergency Preparedness and Prevention and Hazmat Spills Conference” sponsored by the EPA.
According to the ITRR website, courses offered by the company “are approved by the Israeli Department of Defense (note: this page has since been removed from the website) and ITRR shares a relationship with the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute, an organization promoting trade opportunities, joint ventures, and strategic alliances between international businesses and Israeli companies. Interestingly, ITRR also shares a partnership with Philadelphia University.
ITRR’s two principles are Aaron Richman, a former Israeli police captain, and Michael Perelman, a former York police commander. The Associated Press yesterday cited an interview conducted in 2007 with Perelman where he admitted ITRR information came from news and internet sites, as well as “on the ground” sources who check on travel routes used by company clients including Harvard University and the United Nations.
The ITRR, however, does more than scour the internet and news services and repackage information for its clients. Pennsylvania Homeland Security director James F. Powers Jr. told the Philadelphia Inquirer in July that ITRR operatives posed in chat rooms as people opposed to last year’s G-20 summit in Pittsburgh and compromised the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, an anarchist organization. “We got the information to the Pittsburgh Police, and they were able to cut them off at the pass,” Powers told Inquirer columnist Daniel Rubin.
On Thursday, the scandal widened when Pittsburgh officials refused to comment on the role ITRR played in tracking and disabling activist groups that planned to protest the 2009 G20 summit in their city. Police Chief Nate Harper and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s spokeswoman, Joanna Doven, said they could not talk about information provided by ITRR, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The evolving scandal reveals how far the state of Pennsylvania and apparently the city of Pittsburgh will go in order to deny citizens their First Amendment right to protest and petition the government and demonize disfavored political groups.
ITRR’s connection to Israel also raises the specter that the company is a front for an Israeli intelligence operation and the Israelis gained more than they gave in the relationship with Pennsylvania’s Homeland Security and apparently the city of Pittsburgh.
The use of an Israeli company is especially egregious considering the track record of Israel in violating the civil and human rights of the Palestinians and its far reaching global intelligence operations, including the assassination of activists in foreign countries.
From dancing Israelis on September 11, 2001, to Israeli spies posing as art students and Israeli intelligence operatives shadowing and presumably handling Mohammad Atta and other supposed hijackers in Florida, there is evidence of Israel spying on Americans and running intelligence operations on U.S. soil.
The Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, otherwise (and more accurately) known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, remains largely unpunished to this day. Lawrence Franklin, a policy analyst under Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz — both key pro-Israel neocons in the Bush administration — passed on a classified presidential directive and other sensitive documents pertaining to U.S. deliberations on foreign policy regarding Iran to AIPAC and subsequently to the Israeli government.
False flag events staged by Israel against the United States are legendary. In fact, the Israeli Mossad admits it uses false flag in most of its operations to cover its tracks.
On June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel directly attacked a United States Navy technical research ship, the USS Liberty, and killed 34 crew members and wounded 170. The attack was swept under the rug and never appropriately investigated.
Less deadly instances of Israeli treachery continue unabated. On September 7, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee accused Israeli agents of posing as FBI agents in an effort to harass and intimidate Muslims. The ADC called on the Department of Justice, Department of State, and other federal agencies to investigate.
“Israel’s undercover operations here, including missions to steal U.S. secrets, are hardly a secret at the FBI, CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. From time to time, in fact, the FBI has called Israeli officials on the carpet to complain about a particularly brazen effort to collect classified or other sensitive information, in particular U.S. technical and industrial secrets,” Jeff Stein wrote for the Washington Post on September 2. Stein quotes a CIA official as stating that Israeli intelligence operatives are “all over the place” in the United States.
