Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Ray McGovern got ''The Treatment'' protesting Hillary speech in 2011
McGovern just stood and turned his back. For that he was treated with violence.
JUAN GONZALEZ: On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a major address calling for internet freedom around the world. Speaking at George Washington University, Clinton condemned the Egyptian and Iranian governments for arresting and beating protesters.
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: What happened in Egypt and what happened in Iran, which this week is once again using violence against protesters seeking basic freedoms, was about a great deal more than the internet. In each case, people protested because of deep frustrations with the political and economic conditions of their lives. They stood and marched and chanted, and the authorities tracked and blocked and arrested them.
AMY GOODMAN: Just moments before Hillary Clinton spoke those words, a 71-year-old man was violently ejected from Clinton’s own event and arrested for turning his back on the Secretary of State. TV cameras caught part of what happened.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The voice you heard screaming was that of Ray McGovern as he was dragged away by security guards who left him bruised and bloodied. He was then arrested. McGovern is a former Army intelligence officer and a 27-year veteran of the CIA. He was one of the CIA’s daily briefers for President George H.W. Bush. He has since become a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy.
CONTINUED...
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/18/ex_cia_analyst_ray_mcgovern_beaten
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: What happened in Egypt and what happened in Iran, which this week is once again using violence against protesters seeking basic freedoms, was about a great deal more than the internet. In each case, people protested because of deep frustrations with the political and economic conditions of their lives. They stood and marched and chanted, and the authorities tracked and blocked and arrested them.
AMY GOODMAN: Just moments before Hillary Clinton spoke those words, a 71-year-old man was violently ejected from Clinton’s own event and arrested for turning his back on the Secretary of State. TV cameras caught part of what happened.
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: Then the government pulled the plug. Cell phone service was cut off. TV satellite signals were jammed, and internet access was blocked for nearly the entire population.
RAY McGOVERN: So, this is America! This is America! Who are you? I’m standing there quietly! You’re breaking my arm!
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: The government did not want the people to communicate with each other, and it did not want the press to communicate with the public.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The voice you heard screaming was that of Ray McGovern as he was dragged away by security guards who left him bruised and bloodied. He was then arrested. McGovern is a former Army intelligence officer and a 27-year veteran of the CIA. He was one of the CIA’s daily briefers for President George H.W. Bush. He has since become a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy.
CONTINUED...
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/18/ex_cia_analyst_ray_mcgovern_beaten
Who Ray McGovern is.
54 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
[font size="2"]Two U.S. troops dragging a body bag, Iraq. -- by Christopher Morris[/font size]
Renowned photojournalist assaulted by US Secret Service at Trump rally
By Andre Damon
World Socialist Web Site, 1 March 2016
An agent of the US Secret Service violently assaulted veteran photojournalist Christopher Morris Monday at a rally in Radford University in Virginia for right-wing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The incident, which was caught on video, is a testament to the brutality of law enforcement forces and the violent climate whipped up at the rallies of the right-wing demagogue.
Bystander video showed the Secret Service agent choking the journalist with both hands. “I stepped 18 inches out of the pen and he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and then he slammed me to the ground,” said Morris.
Morris, who was working on assignment from TIME magazine, was seeking to photograph supporters of the group Black Lives Matter, who staged a protest during Trump’s speech in opposition to a string of racist and xenophobic remarks by the candidate.
SNIP (with important info)...
Shortly before the assault, Trump vituperated against reporters, who he said were “amazingly dishonest” and “a real problem in this country.” While he said politicians were “sleaze bags,” “the press is worse,” and the political press is “the worst of all.”
CONTINUED w/links etc....
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/03/01/morr-m01.html
By Andre Damon
World Socialist Web Site, 1 March 2016
An agent of the US Secret Service violently assaulted veteran photojournalist Christopher Morris Monday at a rally in Radford University in Virginia for right-wing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The incident, which was caught on video, is a testament to the brutality of law enforcement forces and the violent climate whipped up at the rallies of the right-wing demagogue.
Bystander video showed the Secret Service agent choking the journalist with both hands. “I stepped 18 inches out of the pen and he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and then he slammed me to the ground,” said Morris.
Morris, who was working on assignment from TIME magazine, was seeking to photograph supporters of the group Black Lives Matter, who staged a protest during Trump’s speech in opposition to a string of racist and xenophobic remarks by the candidate.
SNIP (with important info)...
Shortly before the assault, Trump vituperated against reporters, who he said were “amazingly dishonest” and “a real problem in this country.” While he said politicians were “sleaze bags,” “the press is worse,” and the political press is “the worst of all.”
CONTINUED w/links etc....
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/03/01/morr-m01.html
Fascist Rally 2016 Video:
What kind of country is it where a billionaire "politician" can call out for violence targeting journalists?
And since when does the Secret Service respond?
You cross Mrs. Clinton at your own peril. No one does vindictive like Hill & Bill, Inc.
Unsealed Documents Show Pinochet 'Directly' Involved in Capitol Hill Assassinations
Unsealed Documents Show Pinochet 'Directly' Involved in Capitol Hill Assassinations
Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt became 'symbols of the broader human rights catastrophe of the Pinochet dictatorship'
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
CommonDreams, Oct. 8, 2015
Loved ones have long charged that U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet had a direct hand in the 1976 assassination of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his Institute for Policy Studies colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Now, they may finally be vindicated.
The administration of President Barack Obama on Thursday publicly released documents that appear to show that Pinochet was behind the murders of Letelier and Moffitt, who have become "symbols of the broader human rights catastrophe of the Pinochet dictatorship," Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at IPS, told Common Dreams.
The materials, which include CIA papers, were given to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
SNIP...
Letelier’s son, Chilean Senator Juan Pablo Letelier, is one of the few people who has reviewed the trove and confirmed to the Guardian that they conclusively show Pinochet directly ordered the killing. In addition, the documents reportedly reveal that Pinochet had intended to cover up his role in the assassination by killing his spy chief.
"In (Pinochet’s) predisposition to defend his position he planned to eliminate Manuel Contreras to keep him from talking," Senator Letelier told the Mesa Central show on Tele13 Radio.
CONTINUED...
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/08/unsealed-documents-show-pinochet-directly-involved-capitol-hill-assassinations
Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt became 'symbols of the broader human rights catastrophe of the Pinochet dictatorship'
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
CommonDreams, Oct. 8, 2015
Loved ones have long charged that U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet had a direct hand in the 1976 assassination of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his Institute for Policy Studies colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Now, they may finally be vindicated.
The administration of President Barack Obama on Thursday publicly released documents that appear to show that Pinochet was behind the murders of Letelier and Moffitt, who have become "symbols of the broader human rights catastrophe of the Pinochet dictatorship," Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at IPS, told Common Dreams.
The materials, which include CIA papers, were given to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
SNIP...
Letelier’s son, Chilean Senator Juan Pablo Letelier, is one of the few people who has reviewed the trove and confirmed to the Guardian that they conclusively show Pinochet directly ordered the killing. In addition, the documents reportedly reveal that Pinochet had intended to cover up his role in the assassination by killing his spy chief.
"In (Pinochet’s) predisposition to defend his position he planned to eliminate Manuel Contreras to keep him from talking," Senator Letelier told the Mesa Central show on Tele13 Radio.
CONTINUED...
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/08/unsealed-documents-show-pinochet-directly-involved-capitol-hill-assassinations
From 2006: Know your BFEE: Los Amigos de Bush
To think I once had expected to see mass murderers and warmongers behind bars. What a silly Democrat I am. Little People are the ones who do that, like that PFC who exposed war crimes.
What kind of Democracy is it when those who tell the Truth are considered "Enemies of the State"?
Ex-Spy Vindicated After Protesting Hillary
by Peter Van Buren
Moyers and Company, Sept. 30, 2014
EXCERPT...
McGovern is a changed man. He started out in the Army, then he worked for the CIA from the Kennedy administration up through the first Bush presidency, preparing the president’s daily intel brief. He was a hell of a spy. McGovern began to see the evil of much of the government’s work, and has since become an outspoken critic of the intelligence world and an advocate for free speech. He speaks on behalf of people like Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
Ray McGovern was put on the State Department’s diplomatic security BOLO list – Be On the Look Out – one of a series of proliferating government watch lists. What McGovern did to end up on diplomatic security’s dangerous persons list and how he got off the list are a tale of our era, post-constitutional America.
Offending the Queen
Ray’s offense was to turn his back on Hillary Clinton, literally.
In 2011, at George Washington University during a public event where Clinton was speaking, McGovern stood up and turned his back to the stage. He did not say a word, or otherwise disrupt anything. University cops grabbed McGovern in a headlock and by his arms, and dragged him out of the auditorium by force, their actions directed from the side by a man whose name is redacted from public records. Photos (above) of the then 71-year-old McGovern taken at the time of his arrest show the multiple bruises and contusions he suffered while being arrested. He was secured to a metal chair with two sets of handcuffs. McGovern was at first refused medical care for the bleeding caused by the handcuffs. It is easy to invoke the words thug, bully, goon.
The charges of disorderly conduct were dropped, McGovern was released and it was determined that he committed no crime.
[font color="green"]But because he had spoken back to power, State’s diplomatic security printed up an actual wanted poster citing McGovern’s “considerable amount of political activism” and “significant notoriety in the national media.” Diplomatic security warned agents should USE CAUTION (their emphasis) when stopping McGovern and conducting the required “field interview.” The poster itself was classified as Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU), one of the multitude of pseudo-secret categories created following 9/11.[/font color]
Violations of the First and Fourth Amendments by State
Subjects of BOLO alerts are considered potential threats to the secretary of state. Their whereabouts are typically tracked to see if they will be in proximity of the secretary. If Diplomatic security sees one of the subjects nearby, they detain and question them. Other government agencies and local police are always notified. The alert is a standing directive that the subject be stopped and seized in the absence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause that he is committing an offense. Stop him for being him. These directives slash across the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions against unwarranted search and seizure, as well as the First Amendment’s right to free speech, as the stops typically occur around protests.
CONTINUED...
http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/30/watchlists-fourth-amendment/
The answer to Who Is Enemy and Who Is NOT Enemy is classified Top Secret or stored in somebody's server somewhere.
So thanks. 
I know you do, amborin. For those new to the subject of decorated veterans: Ms. Sheehan's son received a Purple Heart, posthumously.
"Commercial interests are very powerful interests," said George W Bush on Feb. 14, 2007 White House press conference in which he added, "Let me put it this way, ah, sometimes, ah, money trumps peace." And then he giggled and not a single member of the callow, cowed and corrupt press corpse saw fit to ask a follow-up.
Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention back in 2007. I don't recall even one reporter from the national corporate owned news seeing it fit to comment. Certainly not many have commented on how three generations of Bush men -- Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush, President George Herbert Walker Bush and pretzeldent George Walker Bush all had their eyes on Iraq's oil. While prices were high, it became Ukraine's natural gas. What a hoot war is -- and profitable.
Too bad, so sad about all the Little People. Give 'em a medal and they won't feel so bad.
[font size="4"]Bush told the Gold Star mom ''not to sell her medal on eBay?''[/font size]
The little turd from Crawford was sore busy with his wit when he gave his ''commemorative coin'' to Goldstar mother and says: "Don't go selling it on eBay."
The guy said that in the White House to a woman whose son died in Iraq for no reason Bush or anyone ever gave to the American people.
The great DUer UTUSN noted the moment:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1828225
Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America
Snowden's whistleblowing gives us a chance to roll back what is tantamount to an 'executive coup' against the US constitution
by Daniel Ellsberg
The Guardian, 10 June 2013
In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution.
Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.
The government claims it has a court warrant under Fisa – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: "It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp."
For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads –they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know.
The fact that congressional leaders were "briefed" on this and went along with it, without any open debate, hearings, staff analysis, or any real chance for effective dissent, only shows how broken the system of checks and balances is in this country.
Obviously, the United States is not now a police state. But given the extent of this invasion of people's privacy, we do have the full electronic and legislative infrastructure of such a state. If, for instance, there was now a war that led to a large-scale anti-war movement – like the one we had against the war in Vietnam – or, more likely, if we suffered one more attack on the scale of 9/11, I fear for our democracy. These powers are extremely dangerous.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-united-stasi-america
Snowden's whistleblowing gives us a chance to roll back what is tantamount to an 'executive coup' against the US constitution
by Daniel Ellsberg
The Guardian, 10 June 2013
In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution.
Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.
The government claims it has a court warrant under Fisa – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: "It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp."
For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads –they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know.
The fact that congressional leaders were "briefed" on this and went along with it, without any open debate, hearings, staff analysis, or any real chance for effective dissent, only shows how broken the system of checks and balances is in this country.
Obviously, the United States is not now a police state. But given the extent of this invasion of people's privacy, we do have the full electronic and legislative infrastructure of such a state. If, for instance, there was now a war that led to a large-scale anti-war movement – like the one we had against the war in Vietnam – or, more likely, if we suffered one more attack on the scale of 9/11, I fear for our democracy. These powers are extremely dangerous.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-united-stasi-america
Security guards, huh?
I turned my virtual back to her too quite some time ago also when exercising my 1st Amendment Rights.
hasn't she apologized to Ray McGovern?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511328562
K&R
I think this is the gist of the missing text:
The old-timey wanted poster State’s Diplomatic Security printed up cites McGovern’s “considerable amount of political activism” and “significant notoriety in the national media” as if those points were somehow relevant to his inclusion on the watch list. Though McGovern is a thin man, age 75 with no history of violence, Diplomatic Security warns that its agents should USE CAUTION (their emphasis) when stopping McGovern and conducting the required “field interview.”
SOURCE: Peter Van Buren
http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2014/02/24/government-watch-lists-ray-mcgovern-and-post-constitutional-america/
SOURCE: Peter Van Buren
http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2014/02/24/government-watch-lists-ray-mcgovern-and-post-constitutional-america/
I'd say it's like living Kafka, but, you know.
George Orwell put his ideas down on paper in 1984, Animal Farm and other written works. While he didn't foretell the arrival of computing and its implications for mass surveillance, Terry Gilliam did. In the Python's outstanding 1985 film, "Brazil," the Memory Hole was partly electronic, but still required a lot of paperwork and tubes to get the job done of keeping history straight and the tabs on everyone. Today, things are even worse.
Ray McGovern called the situation: "J Edgar Hoover on Supercomputers." I think it may be even worse. The guys who got rid of Nixon -- and Frank Church -- have the latest gear.
J. Edgar Hoover With Supercomputers
by Ray McGovern
AntiWar.com, January 6, 2006
On Dec. 19, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Gen. Mike Hayden held a press conference in which they once again misled the American people.
Gonzales and Hayden answered questions about reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), which Hayden directed from 1999 to 2005, was eavesdropping on Americans via a special program in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The implications for privacy – and our system of checks and balances – are immense.
As long as he read from his prepared statement, Attorney General Gonzales did just fine with the press. He conceded that FISA requires a court order to authorize the surveillance the president ordered the NSA to undertake, and then hammered home the administration's "legal analysis:" the twin arguments that Congress' post-9/11 authorization of force and the president's power as commander in chief trump the legal constraints of FISA.
When the reporters' questions began, though, Gonzales faltered and twice spilled the beans. Asked why the administration decided to flout rather than amend FISA, choosing instead a "backdoor approach," Gonzales said:
"We have had discussions with Congress … as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible."
So they went ahead and did it anyway.
SNIP...
[font color="green"]Another concern is that, among the groups of American citizens most likely to be sucked up by the NSA's vacuum cleaner – because of the nature of their work and their international calls/contacts – are members of Congress and journalists. A key question that raises its ugly head is this: If hundreds of calls and e-mails involving Americans are being intercepted each and every day, and juicy tidbits are learned about, say, prominent officials or other persons, there will be an almost irresistible temptation to make use of this information. Former FBI special agent Coleen Rowley, who for many years monitored court-authorized electronic surveillances and wiretaps relating to organized criminal and drug conspiracy groups, recently underscored how much one can learn about someone by listening in on his/her private communications. She reminds us that the blackmail potential is clear.[/font color]
CONTINUED...
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=8349
Hannah Arendt warned us where all this is going:
The goal of wholesale surveillance, [font color="green"]as (Hannah) Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” [/font color]And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant.
Chris Hedges, The Last Gasp of American Democracy
Thank you, bobthedrummer! You know, personally, what Ray McGovern is all about.
