THE NEWS

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/ February 24, 2006 — NSA expands surveillance of journalists. According to NSA sources, the signals intelligence agency, which has been at the center of a political storm over President Bush’s warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens, has expanded the surveillance of journalists identified by the Bush administration as alleged recipients of classified information. The surveillance database, part of the intelligence community’s "Denial and Deception" operations and once known as "Firstfruit" until WMR revealed its existence last May, now includes transcripts of phone calls and e-mails between journalists and their contacts and associates.

NSA sources revealed that the renamed Firstfruit database now contains signals intelligence intercepts, in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18), and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, of individuals who have communicated via phone, fax, and email with journalists who include James Bamford, James Risen, Seymour Hersh, Vernon Loeb, Bill Gertz, John C. K. Daly, and this editor, Wayne Madsen, among a growing list of others.

NSA’s spying on this editor must entail some surprises for the White House. Although they and their right-wing minions consider this site "fringe" and "conspiratorial," they must be surprised at the number of calls and e-mails received by this editor from such "mainstream media" outlets as the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, Boston Globe, Salon, Knight-Ridder Tribune, and yes, even Rupert Murdoch’s British flagship publication, The Times of London. Why does a "fringe" web publisher deserve the high-level attention of the Bush administration and its law-violating intelligence officials? Perhaps its because the Bush administration has damaged the U.S. intelligence infrastructure to the point where this web site is now a primary steam vent for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials who’ve had enough of the neo-cons and their GOP enablers.

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February 24, 2006 — Ernie Fitzgerald, the longtime Management Systems Deputy for the U.S. Air Force’s Financial Management Assistant Secretary who saved the American taxpayers billions of dollars during his long career and a unflinching guardian of the Pentagon’s budget, was presented the Outstanding Civilian Career Service Medal at his Pentagon retirement ceremony on February 22. Speaking at the occasion was John Vonglis, the Air Force’s acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller and an unsuccessful GOP candidate for the U.S. House from New York’s 18th District, a former Director of Global Finance for PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the Director and special assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, where Vonglis was responsible implementation of Rumsfeld’s public diplomacy efforts aimed at Pentagon transformation and "special programs" in support of efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Prior to assuming his current position, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management.

How the Pentagon must have changed since Ernie began working there as a deputy for Air Force management systems in 1965. Ernie, who was fired by Richard Nixon for calling attention to fraud, waste, and abuse in the C-5 aircraft contract, and after being re-instated after lengthy court battles, has devoted his career to protecting the taxpayers interests and citizens rights. Ernie served as chairman of the National Taxpayers Union and was Director of the Fund for Constitutional Government.

Arriving at the Pentagon for Tuesday’s ceremony was like an opening scene from the show "Get Smart." The only sensible way to get to the Pentagon’s visitor’s entrance is by Metro train. After clearing the turnstiles, the first sign seen is a camera with a red slash through it — no photography — and that is only for the Metro station. Then one’s attention is drawn to a series of posters on the Metro station wall showing troops armed to the teeth. The posters warn: "Every Step You Take . . . Every Move You Make . . . Every Plan You Make . . . We’ll be Watching You." Who is "we," you ask? Well, its the good folks at Northrop Grumman, weapons suppliers to warlords everywhere.

After ascending from the Metro’s escalators, the first stop at the Pentagon’s "improved" security access system is an outside tent, where one must show two forms of photo ID. Then you proceed with an escort inside the building where you empty your pockets and go through the metal detectors. A security guard asked me to lift up my pants legs and show him my shins and calves, which I thought was strange (unless Jeff Gannon is now working for Pentagon security along with his "HotMilitaryStuds.com" crowd. But then again, we are now hearing that Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the person who "G’tmoized" Abu Ghraib, ordered his interrogators to force prisoners at Guantanamo to watch gay pornographic movies. Note to any mother who’s thinking of letting her sons or daughters join the military — ’Mama, don’t let you babies grow up to be perverts!’)

Pentagon security: they seem to be leg men

After flashing your legs to the security guard, you’re then required to once again show a photo ID and provide your Social Security Number. Your photo is then taken and you’re issued a Pentagon visitor’s photo ID badge requiring a cleared escort at all times. All this, to attend a retirement ceremony on the main mall concourse, next to a couple of fast food joints, a bank, and the civilian dental office.

That’s how an American citizen and a military veteran is treated within Rumsfeld’s "death star." However, one has to ask with whose "defense" the Department of Defense is now involved. Walking around the Pentagon are a number of foreign officers — Colombian, Norwegian, Polish, South Korean, Dutch, Australian — decked out in their uniforms with all sorts of rank insignia and various festoons — all with full unescorted access to the building. Is the Department of Defense now a global praetorian defense department?

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February 24, 2006 — WMR can now report further on the mysterious aircraft sighted on remote runways in Afghanistan and engaged, according to U.S. intelligence sources, in flying around Afghan tribal leaders and warlords and questionable "cargo." Afghan and U.S. intelligence sources report that opium production is at an all time high in Afghanistan and that President Hamid Karzai, the U.S. viceroy for Afghanistan, who has nor real political power outside of Kabul, is handsomely profiting from the heroin trade.

The plane in question is a Beech 200, Model 65-A90-1, Serial number LM-64. Although the tail number (ends in 8A) is new, its former tail number was N70766 and the owner was Pactec (still seen on the plane’s tail in the photo below), a California-based non-governmental organization that claims to help humanitarian groups install satellite terminals and other high-tech communications systems in remote locations like Afghanistan and Pakistan. The history of the plane shows that it was exported from the United States to Mali and then re-exported to Afghanistan. At the present time, however, the Beech 200 shown below as well as another similar plane, are operated by Air Serv International. The planes are based in Kabul but the one pictured below reportedly belongs to Pactec.

Air Serv is a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) corporation that was formed in 1985 at the height of U.S. covert involvement in Central America. PacTec’s directorship interlocks with MAF. Air Serv is billed as "not religious by charter" and can "operate in areas where MAF may be restricted." MAF was particularly active in Honduras and Guatemala where it coordinated its activities closely with the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, which included other organizations linked to CIA activities, including World Vision and Trans World Radio.

Mystery Beech on remote runway in Afghanistan

And it what may be a related story, WMR has obtained the flight itinerary for another CIA prisoner rendition aircraft, a Gulfstream IV, call sign N85VM (later re-registered as N227SV), the same plane that illegally took kidnapped Imam Abu Omar to Egypt from Milan via Germany. The Gulfstream was leased to the CIA by Phillip H. Morse, a minority partner of the Boston Red Sox, through his charter agent, Richmor Aviation of Hudson, NY. The owner of the aircraft was listed as Assembly Pointe Aviation, Inc., for which Morse is sole owner. The plane was purchased by Assembly Pointe from El Paso Gas and Electric. The plane’s base of operations was Schenectady, NY. Morse’s residences are in Jupiter, FL; Boston; and Lake George, NY. Morse is an acquaintance of George H. W. Bush.

Some of the stops made by the Gulfstream parallel those of CIA-chartered Gulfstream V (N379P, N8068V, N44982), nicknamed the Guantanamo Bay Express, and fit the profile of a drug-running aircraft, especially the stops made in various Caribbean islands well known as drug trans-shipment points — Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, Bahamas, St. Lucia, Anguilla, etc. — coupled with frequent stops in Afghanistan and other Middle East countries known as major drug sources. See full itinerary here.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/gu...