ENDGAME: Halliburton subsidiary to build Prison Camps in the US

This is almost too incredible to believe. Right under our noses a major contract has been awarded to Kellog Brown & Root to build detention camps on US soil. Are they for immigrants? Are they for "terrorists"? What's going on here? Is the brouhaha over selling American ports to an Arab company just a smokescreen for far shadier deals?

It looks like our country is planning for the worst and wants to make sure it has a system in place to preserve "order" in the face of catastrophe. Could it be that the government really just wants to protect its own interests and the interests of corporate elites?

It's time to start asking questions.


10-Year U.S. Strategic Plan For Detention Camps Revives Proposals From Oliver North

Peter Dale Scott, New American Media, 21 Feb. 2006

The Halliburton subsidiary KBR (formerly Brown and Root) announced on Jan. 24 that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps. Two weeks later, on Feb. 6, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that the Fiscal Year 2007 federal budget would allocate over $400 million to add 6,700 additional detention beds (an increase of 32 percent over 2006). This $400 million allocation is more than a four-fold increase over the FY 2006 budget, which provided only $90 million for the same purpose.

Both the contract and the budget allocation are in partial fulfillment of an ambitious 10-year Homeland Security strategic plan, code-named ENDGAME, authorized in 2003. According to a 49-page Homeland Security document on the plan, ENDGAME expands "a mission first articulated in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798." Its goal is the capability to "remove all removable aliens," including "illegal economic migrants, aliens who have committed criminal acts, asylum-seekers (required to be retained by law) or potential terrorists."


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John Pilger - Iran: The Next War

Candlelight Vigil Held to Protest Torture and Spying

Citizens held a vigil Wednesday evening in Northampton, MA to protest Bush administration policies that are undermining civil liberties. People stood in the cold for half an hour holding candles and signs to protest the administration's secrecy, wiretapping, and its record of human rights abuses. The local chapter of 'Raging Grannies' sang acapella songs about torture and wiretapping with three part harmony. People took turns reading the bill of rights and took the microphone calling for the Impeachment of president Bush.

Armed with a microphone from the kind folks at WMUA I canvassed the people for comments about why they were there - obviously, because they have a big problem with Bush's policies - and what they thought could be done about it. I also asked people what they would say to president Bush if they got the chance. I'll hopefully have an edited version of the piece within the week.

The people who came out for the vigil were mostly thirty years old and up; there were a couple small "protest dogs" wearing clever signs; but there weren't very many college-age people from what I could see, and I walked up and down the block quite a few times during the vigil.

The vigil was coordinated nationally by MoveOn.org and organized locally by members of the nascent Coalition to Oppose Secrecy and Torture and cosponsored by the Western Mass Progressive Democrats.

For more information on this and other events, check out MoveOn.org.

Greenland Ice Cap Melting Fast

New Satellite data shows that the Greenland ice cap is melting faster than previously predicted, says the nation's top climate scientist. We must take immediate action, he says.

How long have we got? We have to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree. That will be warmer than it has been for half a million years, and many things could become unstoppable. If we are to stop that, we cannot wait for new technologies like capturing emissions from burning coal. We have to act with what we have. This decade, that means focusing on energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy that do not burn carbon. We don't have much time left.

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UMASS Antiwar Coalition Plans March

The Umass Antiwar Coalition will gather March 8th to present a petition to Chancellor Lombardi. The Coalition will urge the administration to

(1) Prohibit all forms of Military Recruitment on campus

(2) Remove the FBI agent from its payroll

AND

(3) Refuse to accept research grant funding provided by the US Department of Defense and related agencies.

US Plays "Tit for Tat games" with Venezuelan Diplomat

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. ordered a Venezuelan embassy official to leave the country within 72 hours after Venezuela yesterday expelled the U.S. naval attaché at the American embassy in Caracas for alleged espionage.

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