Laws, Military-Intelligence Papers, and media reports re: the New War (on Civilians)

1981: Executive Order 12333 signed into law by President Reagan legalized COINTELPRO. It also allows the FBI, CIA, military, local law enforcement and anyone acting on their behalf (now including the private sector) to engage in counterintelligence activities- without a warrant.

1995: CFR report: “Non-Lethal Technologies: Military Options and Implications”- suggests that in covert war against a global enemy, secrecy must be used to preserve the effectiveness of these new weapons and to create confusion as to the source of the attacks.

2001: (Sept. 28), UN Security Council Resolution 1373 on Combating Terrorism states the US and its allies will be denying sanctuaries to anyone labeled a terrorist all over the planet. “UN Security Council Resolution 1373 called for UN member states to work together to suppress terrorist financing, share intelligence on terrorism, monitor borders, and “implement…the relevant international conventions and protocols to combat terrorism.”

2001: USA PATRIOT ACT, Section 802, describes domestic terrorism as activities that “involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the US or of any State,” as well as acts that “appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population… to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and … occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” So basically if you appear to be intimidating a civilian population or government to influence policy, then you are potential terrorists. This allows for the of targeting people who are peacefully expressing their ideas.

The act allows law enforcement to collect emails and monitor internet activity, access telephone, financial, medical and other records. It legalizes secret searches through suspects house or business, without their knowledge or permission. Congress voted to extend the act and broaden its scope in 2005

2006: “Military Commissions Act” basically abolishes habeas corpus and allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who either speaks out against government policies, or is thought to have donated to a charity that is categorized as a terrorist organization. All that is needed for any US citizen to be secretly imprisoned indefinitely without a trial is for the president to declare them an enemy combatant.

2007: “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” (HR1955) passed on October 23.

2007: “National Defense Authorization Act” abolished the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibited the National Guard and regular military from working with local or federal police to target the US population. Act allows for militarized police roundups of protesters, “potential terrorists,” and “undesirables.” It allows the president to put US troops in any city to suppress pubic disorder.

2012: National Defense Authorization Act gives military the right to detain and assassinate US citizens without due process.

The “Anti-Terror” Bureaucracies

Military-Intelligence-Congressional Position Papers that define the New War

DOD’s “Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms” defines an insurgent as a “member of a political party who rebels against established leadership.”

1970: Zbigniew Bzrezinsky’s “Between Two Ages” notes that new technology, including electromagnetic weapons, will be available to leaders of developed nations for conducting secret warfare, of which only a small number of security forces would be needed.

1972: Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights report stated that by 1969 the Directorate for Civil Disturbance Planning and Operations (DCDPO) had built a domestic war room in the Pentagon for monitoring political protests. It was constructed based on similar ones used in Vietnam (Operation Phoenix) and was equipped with situational maps, computers, closed circuit TVs, hot lines, illuminated switchboards, etc. The Senate report notes that the DCDPO viewed peaceful protesters not as loyal Americans exercising constitutional rights but as “dissident forces” in a counterinsurgency war.

1973: US Senate Report “Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics” states: “Military surveillance of civilian politics in the United States is as old as the Army intelligence itself,” dating back to 1917- WWI). It continued during WWII with the Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC), and then into the Cold War and the 1960’s with the Military Intelligence Group (MIG).

In 1939, the FBI, the MID (Military Intelligence Division), and the ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) continued to conduct investigations on civilians who were labeled “subversive.”

In the late 1960’s, the Continental United States Intelligence (CONUS) conducted widespread surveillance on civilians using multiple groups, including USA Intelligence Command (USAINTC), Continental Army command (CONARC), and Directorate of Civil Disturbance and Planning (DCDPO).

Military’s surveillance of civilians in the 1960’s was massive and unrestrained, and involved widespread use of undercover agents. “No individual, organization, or activity which expressed “dissident views” was immune from such surveillance.”

1975: Church Senate Committee (Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) concluded that FBI conducted its own massive domestic spying program to neutralize internal dissent with their COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) between 1956-1971. Individuals and groups were placed under surveillance and attacked. Labeling these individuals and groups as “communist” was used as an excuse to attack them. The program expanded to target nonviolent individuals, antiwar community, and religious groups.

FBI Director Hoover stated that the goal of the program is to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” these designated individuals and groups. Methods used included psychological warfare techniques originally developed to neutralize foreign agents. Church Committee Report stated that under COINTELPRO programs, “the arsenal of techniques used against foreign espionage agents was transferred to domestic enemies.”
Methods used included use of high-tech surveillance equipment, wiretaps, bugs, microphones, mail openings, forging correspondence, psychological warfare, character assassination, spreading false information, “spoofing,” and breaking up marriages and careers, framings, etc. Homes were secretly broken into. A secret network of government spies and informants was used to attack people. The FBI worked with police and sent out “army of informers” across the country to harass people.

1994: “The Revolution in Military Affairs and Conflict Short of War,” by Steven Metz and James Kievit, states that “a revolutionary technology has been designed specifically to address the new global (civilian) enemy. They advocate an irregular approach to destroy the new enemy, including asymmetric, indirect, attrition-based approaches. The goal is psychological collapse of the enemy. A protracted method of inflicting frequent physical and psychological pain over a long time period is used to break the enemy’s will. NLW technology will be used for executions in some cases under conditions that offer plausible deniability.

1998: “Nonlethality and American Land Power” by US Army Strategic Services (6/15/98) states that in the future, military forces will be facing opponents who were schooled in America.

1999: RAND’s “Countering the New Terrorism” says terrorism is developing into netwar, which is an information war, on the level of MOOTW. RAND says terrorists will continue violent attacks and also shift toward nonlethal ones, or information attacks. “Indeed, terrorism has long been about ‘information’.”

2000: “Network Centric Warfare” by DOD states: “Although civilians have been involved as victims and in supporting (combat) roles throughout history, they will play and increasingly important role in the battlespaces of the future.” This will require close coordination between military and civilian sectors.

2002: “Information Operations and Asymmetric Warfare…. Are We Ready?”, published by the US Army War College article announces that “the forces of nationalism are interfering with world unification” and that these and future threats will be identified and dealt with using electronic warfare (EW).

2002: Lt. Col. John B. Alexander’s article, “Non-lethal Weapons to Gain Relevancy in Future Conflicts” (March 1 issue of “National Defense”), states that terrorists who live among the civilian population in densely populated cities around the world will be identified and attacked with NLW.

2002: DOD’s “Effects Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, and War” states: “For such a foe, the focus in not on targets but on actions that are directed toward political objectives and that revolve about the opponent’s will and decision-making structure. In short, the approach to warfare is…. directed at shaping behavior…. the effects-based strategy is conceived and executed as a direct assault on an opponent’s will.” The report mentions that pain will be inflicted relentlessly on the “victim” over a long period of time. The specific methods used to inflict this pain include NLW, and tactics, biological/chemical weapons, and psychological operations (PsyOps). They leave no visible marks.

2002: In “Defending the Homeland,” the US Army War College states (April, 2002 report) that: “We must also focus on non-traditional threats at home. The country must refocus on and fix its attention… on defending the homeland against a wide array of threats.”

2003: “Deterring and Responding to Asymmetrical Threats” by US Army Command and General Staff College (May 22) states that these enemies have been able to avoid attacks so far due to safe havens provided by international laws. However, that will change and these groups and individuals will be hunted down and attacked. The report cites the Tofflers who state that the primary obstacles to this new society are those resisting globalization. After linking these resisters to terrorists, it states that “the only solution is to eradicate the entire organism.”

2004: In “Countering Global Insurgency” published in the Small Wars Journal in September-November 2004, David Kilcullen, chief counterinsurgency advisor to the Bush and Obama administrations and General Petraeus, called for a “global Phoenix operation.”

2005: Bush II White House’s “Strategy for Winning the War on Terror” report states: “The ability of terrorists to exploit the Internet and 24/7 worldwide media coverage allows them to bolster their prominence as well as feed a steady diet of radical ideology, twisted images, and conspiracy theories to potential recruits in all corners of the globe.”

2005: In U.S. Air Force article in Defense Daily, Lt. Col. John Forsythe stated: “We’re not in a war against nations or big armies, we’re in a war against individuals.”

2005: The “Strategy for Homeland and Civil Support” Department of Defense report states: “Defense of the Homeland involves a global, multi-domain battlespace. The global reach of potential and existing adversaries necessitates a global perspective.

2005: (Sept. 19), The Nation reports that through the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force), the military, federal law enforcement, and local police are aggressively targeting potential domestic terrorists.

2005: RAND Corporation announces in “Toward a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs:” “Adversaries that know that they are persistently being watched are likely to change their behavior.” A non-state actor is described as anyone who either acts or plans against US national security interests. Individuals using such asymmetric approaches, says RAND, will become the dominant threat to the US homeland. (US Army states that aggressive and continuous surveillance will be used against the enemy.)

2006: “Irregular Warfare Special Study” by the Joint Warfighting Center

2006: RAND’s “Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves” by Brian Michael Jenkins links terrorists to those who are against globalization by asserting that the two groups will form an alliance.

2006: White House’s “Strategy for Winning the War on Terror” – says that the DOD will be eliminating all safe havens for “terrorists.” It states: “This is a battle of ideas.” The terrorism we confront today, it says, originates from “subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation. Terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories.”

2006: “Multi-Service Concepts for Irregular Warfare” by the US Marine Corps Combat Development Command and US Special Operations Command Center.

2006: “Defining Asymmetric Warfare” in “Land Warfare Papers”

2006: In “Man-Hunting, Nexus Topography, Dark Networks, and Small Worlds,” (Winter issue of Iosphere), Chief Warrant Officer 3, John R. Dodson stated: “The asymmetrical threats currently challenging U.S. national policies are not that of large standing armies. They are individuals and groups of like-minded individuals.”

2007: USSOCOM’s “Posture Statement” declares that PsyOp and civil affairs will be the primary methods to detect and eliminate the underlying causes of extremist belief systems. These methods will be used to erode “extremist ideologies.”

2007: United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) stated: “The global terror movement is broadening in scope to include other affiliated, independent, and emerging terrorist groups.” The “new terrorists” include “groups, and even individuals possessing entrenched anti-Western or anti-globalization agendas.”

2008: “US Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare Manual” states the new enemies will be hunted down, isolated, denied critical services, and attacked. This will occur amid numerous combatants, in densely populated urban areas. It will happen all over the planet, in cities and towns, anywhere “pockets of resistance” remain.

2008: “Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat” report, issued by U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs (chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins) states that extremists are using the internet to recruit followers into a global terrorist movement.

2007: Annual Report of Department of Defense states: “New asymmetrical threats have emerged. This is an enemy that lives and hides among the civilian population.”

2007: “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act of 2007 (HR1955) drafted probably by RAND and passed in the House of Representatives. Section 899A defines homegrown terrorism as: “The use, planned use, or threatened use, of fore or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United Sates or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” This is basically a laws against thoughts and ideas. Also, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines “force” as “moral or mental strength.” Hence, force could be defined as use of moral or mental strength and/or “the capacity to persuade.” So hence, force can be defined as having strong feelings or expressions about an issue.

2007: (11/6/07) C-Span broadcast the House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on Terrorism and the Internet, chaired by representatives Jane Harman (D-CA) and Dave Riechert (R-WA) and including former director of RAND Corporation and an advisor from the Simon Weisenthal Center, who linked 9/11 Truth to terrorist groups. Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center accused these sites of promoting conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 being an inside job. RAND’s Bruce Hoffman stated: “These falsehoods and conspiracy theories have now become so so ubiquitous and so pervasive that they are believed.”

2008: US Army Special Operations Forces report: “Unconventional Warfare Manual”

2008: CFR’s “Militant Extremists in the United States” says that those who oppose the World Trade Organization are potential domestic enemies.

2008: “Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare” publication (FM 3-0.130) of US Army states: “Adversaries threaten the United States throughout a complex operational environment, extending from critical regions overseas to the homeland…. Irregulars, or irregular forces, are individuals or groups of individuals who are not members of a regular armed force, police, or other internal security force.”

2008: “Field Manual Operations” of the US Army states: “An adversary is a party acknowledged as potentially hostile to a friendly party and against which the use of force may be envisaged….. The operational environment will expand to areas historically immune to battle (especially urban areas). All operations will be conducted “among the people” and outcomes will be measured in terms of effects on populations. (Hence, adversaries also include members of the local populace who sympathize with the enemy or who might be hostile or people who support them. This identical to the mission statement of the Phoenix Program in the Vietnam War).

2008: “Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat,” report by US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (led by Senators Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins). It mentions that terrorists and other extremists are using the internet as part of a comprehensive messaging campaign to recruit followers into a global terrorist network. The internet also functions as a virtual extremist in the US that identify with terrorist objectives

Newspaper articles

2004: USA Today reports that according to the Anti-Defamation League, US Marshals, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, domestic terrorists include those labeled white supremacists and anti-government people, as well as those who oppose corporations.

2005: Colorado Springs Independent (12/5/05) stated: “The FBI hasn’t just monitored environmental and anti-war rallies in Colorado Springs. The agency also has opened official counterterrorism cases in connection with demonstrations, using a definition of “terrorism” that is so vague it could fit almost any crime.”

2005: MSNBC (12/14/05) reports that “the US military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11 which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.”

2005: Democracy Now reports (12/15/05): “Newly leaked Pentagon documents have confirmed the military has been monitoring and collecting intelligence on anti-war groups across the country.”

2007: New York Time’s “Military Expands Intelligence Role in US” notes an aggressive expansion by the military, the CIA, and FBI into domestic intelligence gathering.

2009: (March 3) Reuters states that the military will be waging the War on Terror domestically (in “Bush-era Memos Saw Rights Limits in US Terror War”).” Constitutional free-speech protections and prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure could take a back seat to military needs in fighting terrorism inside the country.”

Articles by MSNBC, the ACLU, and Democracy Now explain that the US military including the National Guard and Army are working with local police, the FBI, and other federal agencies to conduct surveillance on US citizens suspected of being potential terrorists.

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