Well, looks like all who took part in that crime have been duly rewarded. James Baker, John Roberts, John Bolton, Josh Bolton, and CHOICEPOINT. But don't dare talk about 2000 or you will be told to get over it. That it doesn't matter anymore. That it is past. BS. It is not past, because those complicit in that crime that the people allowed to go unpunished are running the Neocon agenda now. Below is an expose' by Greg Palast into just how this company that was an accomplice in the coup of 2000 is now being rewarded by being contracted to sell your private information to the government. You think you still live in a Democratic Republic? Oh, and of course, with the imminent confirmation of "Generalisimo" Hayden, our country will enter the next phase of the "Project For the New American Century." All because the American people just don't seem to want to keep this Democracy bad enough.
More.
The Times and USA Today have Missed the Bigger Story -- Again
By Greg Palast
05/12/06 -"ICH" - -I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news.
This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.
The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company, formed in 1997, called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.
Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.
They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.
Who ARE these guys selling George Bush a piece of you?
ChoicePoint's board has more Republicans than a Palm Beach country club. It was funded, and its board stocked, by such Republican sugar daddies as billionaires Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone -- even after Langone was charged by the Securities Exchange Commission with abuse of inside information.
I first ran across these guys in 2000 in Florida when our Guardian/BBC team discovered the list of 94,000 "felons" that Katherine Harris had ordered removed from Florida's voter rolls before the election. Virtually every voter purged was innocent of any crime except, in most cases, Voting While Black. Who came up with this electoral hit list that gave Bush the White House? ChoicePoint, Inc.
And worse, they KNEW the racially-tainted list of felons was bogus. And when we caught them, they lied about it. While they've since apologized to the NAACP, ChoicePoint's ethnic cleansing of voter rolls has been amply assuaged by the man the company elected.
And now ChoicePoint and George Bush want your blood. Forget your phone bill. ChoicePoint, a sickened executive of the company told us in confidence, "hope[s] to build a database of DNA samples from every person in the United States ...linked to all the other information held by CP [ChoicePoint]" from medical to voting records.
And ChoicePoint lied about that too. The company publicly denied they gave DNA to the Feds -- but then told our investigator, pretending to seek work, that ChoicePoint was "the number one" provider of DNA info to the FBI.
"And that scares the hell out of me," said the executive (who has since left the company), because ChoicePoint gets it WRONG so often. We are not contracting out our Homeland Security to James Bond here. It's more like Austin Powers, Inc. Besides the 97% error rate in finding Florida "felons," Illinois State Police fired the company after discovering ChoicePoint had produced test "results" on rape case evidence ... that didn't exist. And ChoicePoint just got hit with the largest fine in Federal Trade Commission history for letting identity thieves purchase 145,000 credit card records.
But it won't stop, despite Republican senators shedding big crocodile tears about "surveillance" of innocent Americans. That's because FEAR is a lucrative business -- not just for ChoicePoint, but for firms such as Syntech, Sybase and Lockheed-Martin -- each of which has provided lucrative posts or profits to connected Republicans including former Total Information Awareness chief John Poindexter (Syntech), Marvin Bush (Sybase) and Lynn Cheney (Lockheed-Martin).
But how can they get Americans to give up our personal files, our phone logs, our DNA and our rights? Easy. Fear sells better than sex -- and they want you to be afraid. Back to today's New York Times, page 28: "Wider Use of DNA Lists is Urged in Fighting Crime." And who is providing the technology? It comes, says the Times, from the work done on using DNA fragments to identity victims of the September 11 attack. And who did that job (for $12 million, no bid)? ChoicePoint, Inc. Which is NOT mentioned by the Times.
End of excerpt.
So you think 2000 is past? That it led to nothing significant? That not standing up enmasse to DEMAND that Al Gore be placed in the Presidential term he won is batty? That we should just bury it (because calling him to now run without doing anything to counter these crimes is easier) and allow those who stole our Democracy right out from under our feet to get away with it? I really am so disgusted today as an American, and am actually grateful that The DaVinci Code movie comes out today so I have some place to go to not have to think about how the American people are being so DERELICT in THEIR duty as citizens to stand up to this shit.
And sure, there wasn't a coup in 2000 and we should just get over it... You know, "stop crying in our teacups." So what if Katherine Harris contracted CHOICEPOINT to purge 94,000 blacks from its "felon" rolls whose only crime to them was being black. So what if a CRIME was committed thus denying us our rightful President? It makes no difference... Right? After all, they did "apologize." And so what if all those who helped got rewarded? Wasn't that nice of Bush to repay the kindness of friends? What a Christian man he is! Roberts on the Supreme Court, Josh Bolton his new Chief of Staff, John Bolton getting to orchestrate the war with Iran, and now CHOICEPOINT being allowed to sell information about Americans... How sweet of Bush.
And of course, we have nothing to worry about as Americans. Our Congress is standing up to it all. They don't confirm anyone whom they think might compromise the security and welfare of the American people, or not uphold the Constitution. They stand up to Bush regarding his abuses of our Constitution. And I hear they are even about to vote on a Constitutional amendment to restore the term of Al Gore that was stolen from him! Oh wait, I've slipped into that alternate universe Al Gore gave his speech from on SNL last Saturday... An alternate universe he wouldn't have had to deliver a skit from if people in this country really DID give a damn about their Constitution.
Well, CHOICEPOINT according to this expose' by Greg Palast is now selling YOUR private information to the government and doing very well regarding contracts as a reward for their CRIME in 2000. Doesn't that make you feel all warm and gooey inside? You are being protected from big bad terrorists here by the NSA, CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security knowing you have to take Timmy to soccer practice, and that you will be late for your doctor's appointment...How ungrateful of you to even consider that the Constitution should be followed and warrants obtained under the law. Or that an election should be fair. Or that the President you voted for actually be sitting in your White House. Why, it's absolutely a crackpot effort as well to try to make people understand that the events that unfolded in the not too distant past have had a direct effect on what is happening now and in the future.
You are supposed to forget that. You are supposed to just sit on forums now and write sweet letters to Al Gore to run for President to save you from the mess YOU helped make by not standing up for your country, and not even give the events transpiring around you as you do so another throught to what YOU must do to stop them now. And who will now stand up as this is happening since our Congress seems bent on making America a Fascist nation?:
Hayden To be Confirmed
This seals it for me. 1984 officiallly comes to America in 2006. I am now convinced that this Congress both Democrat and Republican are the same, because no matter who Bush puts up they automatically get confirmed. And I believe that now the attack on Iran which is said to be going on clandestinely already will ramp up. I really think some people need a serious reality check because they don't truly see where this country is headed, and unless the people join in taking it back now, it isn't going to be saved. That is why so many are calling for IMPEACHMENT, but it doesn't seem to be getting through either. So what else is an American who actually respects the Constitution to think with this happening OVER and OVER again, and with accomplices in the 2000 coup actually being REWARDED instead of facing JUSTICE? How much more are we going to have to take?
It then is obvious to me that the American people as a whole don't really give two sh** who heads the CIA, or Homeland Security, or FEMA, or any other department in this once Democratic government. All they care about is BSing and day dreaming...oh yes, and shopping. Sometimes I truly believe I am an anachronism, as I am reduced to stunned silence with each and every affront to our Constitution that simply gets swept away.
Now Hayden will be confirmed even though he headed an unconstitutional and illegal wiretapping program in direct violation of our Constitution. Now the plans of the Neocons can go forward as he will keep their operations secret (especially regarding information surrounding 9.11, wink wink) and the Congress will give them a wink, and the American people will give them the nod.
I don't even know why the hell anyone with a sense of duty and love for this country bothers to give a damn anymore, even though we must. I suppose I need to face the fact once and for all that for all the outrage so many of them exude while BSing about it all, it amounts to nothing more than that... of course, people don't like to hear or read that truth, because they need to be able to blame someone else in order to validate their own existence. But it is the plain truth as evident of where we are today.
The same people who enabled Bush to take power in this country illegally and unconstitutionally by allowing it to happen, now do nothing but expect someone else to get them out of it (and in reality I don't think that is going to be enough at this point,) and the sad thing is that I think with Hayden's confirmation that it may go past the point of turning us back. I keep saying I hope to be proven wrong, but then it happens again. John Kerry was on here not too long ago and the question asked in that diary was "When is enough enough?" If you don't know the answer to that Senator Kerry, we are in way more trouble than I thought we were. I've had ENOUGH. And I'm tired of being told that 2000 is past, because it isn't. It is staring us in the face every single day we awaken to the bastards who have eviscerated our country beyond recognition doing it some more.