Every war has its wonder weapon.  In Afghanistan, it was the Predator, the unmanned drone that would loiter, invisibly, over the battlefield before unleashing a Hellfire missile on an unsuspecting target.  The Gulf War marked the debut of precision-guided munitions, and in Vietnam helicopters came of age.  World War II gave us the horror of nuclear weapons, and World War I introduced the tank.  If there's a second Gulf War, get ready to meet the high-power microwave.

HPMs are man-made lightning bolts crammed into cruise missiles.  They could be key weapons for targeting Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons.
HPMs fry the sophisticated computers and electronic gear necessary to produce, protect, store and deliver such agents. The powerful electromagnetic pulses can travel into deeply buried bunkers through ventilation shafts, plumbing and antennas.  But unlike conventional explosives, they won't spew deadly agents into the air, where they could poison Iraqi civilians or advancing U.S.  troops.

The HPM is a top-secret program, and the Pentagon wants to keep it that way.  Senior military officials have dropped hints about a new, classified weapon for Iraq but won't provide details.  Still, information about HPMs, first successfully tested in 1999, has trickled out.  "High-power microwave technology is ready for the transition to active weapons in the U.S. military," Air Force Colonel Eileen Walling wrote in a rare, unclassified report on the program three years ago.  "There are signs that microwave weapons will represent a revolutionary concept for warfare, principally because microwaves are designed to incapacitate equipment rather than humans."

HPMs can unleash in a flash as much electrical power—2 billion watts or more—as the Hoover Dam generates in 24 hours.  Capacitors aboard the missile discharge an energy pulse—moving at the speed of light and impervious to bad weather—in front of the missile as it nears its target.  That pulse can destroy any electronics within 1,000 ft.  of the flash by short-circuiting internal electrical connections, thereby wrecking memory chips, ruining computer motherboards and generally screwing up electronic components not built to withstand such powerful surges.  It's similar to what can happen to your computer or TV when lightning strikes nearby and a tidal wave of electricity rides in through the wiring.

Most of this "e-bomb" development is taking place at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.  The Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland has been studying how to deliver varying but predictable electrical pulses to inflict increasing levels of harm: to deny, degrade, damage or destroy, to use the Pentagon's parlance.  HPM engineers call it "dial-a-hurt." But that hurt can cause unintended problems: beyond taking out a tyrant's silicon chips, HPMs could destroy nearby heart pacemakers and other life-critical electrical systems in hospitals or aboard aircraft (that's why the U.S.  military is putting them only on long-range cruise missiles).  The U.S.  used a more primitive form of these weapons—known as soft bombs—against Yugoslavia and in the first Gulf War, when cruise missiles showered miles of thin carbon fibers over electrical facilities, creating massive short circuits that shut down electrical power.

Although the Pentagon prefers not to use experimental weapons on the battlefield, "the world intervenes from time to time," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says.  "And you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage, and you might use it."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S.  Army used a high-energy laser to shoot down an artillery shell in mid-flight on Tuesday in a defense industry breakthrough, the Army and the manufacturer said.

The Army and TRW Inc, which developed the weapon, said in a joint statement that the laser tracked, locked onto and fired a burst of concentrated light energy photons at the speeding shell over the White Sands test range in New Mexico.

"Seconds later, at a point well short of its intended destination, the projectile was destroyed," the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command said.

The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL)
is being developed by TRW for the Army and the Israeli Defense Ministry.  Lasers have been used in past tests at the range to shoot down slower Katyusha Rockets similar to those fired at Israel by militant guerrilla groups in neighboring Lebanon.

"This shootdown shifts the paradigm for defensive capabilities.  We've shown that even an artillery projectile hurtling through the air at supersonic speed is no match for a laser," said Army Lt.  Gen.  Joseph Cosumano, head of the missile defense command.

"Tactical high energy lasers have the capacity to change the face of the battlefield," he added.

The laser was fired from a static testbed in a carefully controlled test, but TRW officials said they looked forward to producing a truly mobile version as the program progressed.

Tuesday's test -- the first time a laser had shot down an artillery shell -- was part of a new series to determine MTHEL requirements and demonstrate the system's capabilities against a wide range of airborne targets.

In earlier tests in 2000 and 2001 the testbed focused on the threat of artillery rockets and shot down 25 Katyushas fired singly and in salvos.

The U.S.  military has shot down dummy intercontinental missile warheads in tests both inside and outside the atmosphere using projectile weapons and is also examining the possible use of long-range lasers to burn up such warheads in flight.

Britain has been involved in secret talks with the United States over the development of so-called non-lethal weapons, including lasers that blind the enemy and microwave systems that cook the skin of human targets.

The Observer has established that British and US military leaders met at the Ministry of Defence HQ in London to discuss the operational benefits of such technology when used as a 'persuasive tool' against people from enemy regimes.

Documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act detail talks about battlefield uses of the weapons and whether they could be used to back up economic sanctions against target countries.  The weapons include lasers that can blind and stun an enemy and cut through metal to disable vehicles.

Another weapon discussed was a system that uses microwave beams to heat the water in human skin in the same way as a microwave oven cooks a meal.  The third category of weapons was the use of gases similar to those deployed to end the terrorist siege in a Moscow theatre, which killed more than 100 hostages.

The disclosures prompted demands last night from opposition politicians for a full statement on Britain's involvement in developing such weapons.  Opposition MPs and campaigners believe the fact that the military is considering developing and using these weapons in war or as a tool to threaten other states breaches a number of international arms and humanitarian treaties.

Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, called on the Government to 'come clean' on Britain's involvement and will demand Foreign Secretary Jack Straw gives details.

'These reports have serious implications,' Campbell said.  'If Britain and American are together seeking to exploit loopholes in existing international arms convention, our credibility will be severely undermined.  Suggestions that we use such weapons as part of any sanctions programme is a level of policy which must be discussed on the House of Commons.' British personnel at the secret meeting with the US military included Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham and Dr Martin Hubbard, who heads the non-lethal weapons research programme at Porton Down, Wiltshire.  US officers included Major General Bice, deputy commander of the US Marines in Europe, and Brigadier-General Richard Zilmer, deputy director of US operations at European Command Headquarters.

The documents reveal the full scope of the new weapons programmes that the US military is developing.  The first was high-power microwave technology that cooks an enemy's skin.
Its military name is the Vehicle-Mounted Active Denial System (V-Mads), but it has already been nicknamed the People Zapper.  It works by harnessing electromagnetic power to fire an invisible pulse of energy at light speed towards a target.  The beam causes the water molecules under the skin to vibrate violently, producing heat and discomfort.  Scientists believe the system could heat a person's skin to about 130 degrees in two seconds.

The US delegation admits there might be problems with legal claims by victims.

The documents reveal that both the British and US military believe laser beams have a 'number of potential applications and desirable attributes as a non-lethal weapon'.  They are impressed that laser guns can be 'tunable' either to stun or kill.  Although laser weapons that permanently blind are banned under international law, the documents show officials are studying low-energy lasers that blind temporarily and others that produce a stunning effect.

The classified document, which is an 'assessment report' of a meeting that took place on 30 November 2000, admits the term 'non-lethal' was inaccurate.'

An Arab League think tank, the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up, has hosted a lecture by the author of a book that says the U.S.  military was responsible for the attacks on Sept.  11.

Theirry Meyssan, author of "The Appalling Fraud," spoke at the event on April 8.

A summary of the lecture and Arab media reports about the event were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.

ZCCF material says the think tank was established by the Arab League in 1999 and that the list of speakers the group has hosted this year includes former Vice President Al Gore, former Secretary of State James Baker and Neil Bush, brother of President George W.  Bush.

According to the MEMRI translation, Meyssan asserted the following in presenting his argument:

"Both Congress and the U.S.  media covered up the truth by not investigating events; "It was not reported that the White House's Old Executive Building was bombed, as was a third building in Manhattan; "The 1,200 detainees held in the U.S.  knew nothing of the attacks, and their names are kept secret so that they cannot be charged; "The American military – to further its interest and hegemony over the world – was responsible for the attacks; "It is a possibility that the planes of Sept.  11 were remote-controlled.  For two hours before the attack, waves from a homing device were recorded transmitting from, and interfering with transmission from, the twin towers, and such a device could be used to direct airplanes.  If the planes were controlled by remote, no hijackers were needed, thus the passenger lists were fake"; and "Bin Laden's involvement: 'This myth also does not stand analysis,' since he was a previous CIA agent who was visited by the head of the CIA in a Dubai hospital in July."

On April 10, says MEMRI, the Saudi government daily The Saudi Gazette ran a story on the lecture titled "U.S.  military officials behind 9/11 attacks – French author." The article detailed Meyssan's proposal that a United Nations panel be established to find those really behind Sept.  11 and that until this happens, all American military operations, including any against Iran or Iraq, should be considered illegal.  The Saudi Gazette quoted Meyssan as stating, "… [T]hose who masterminded the operations and led them were American terrorists."

"The fact that [presidential] communication codes were decoded by the attackers proves that at least one of the masterminds of the attack was an American military official," the paper quotes Meyssan as saying.

Said the story, "Commenting on the assumption that American military officials had planned the attacks, [Meyssan] said that such an assumption could be true, as a similar thing happened in 1961 when the American command planned internal attacks against American citizens."

Silent Weapons - Dr.  Judith Nipps - herblady@yourinter.nethttp://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=16112

Congress Admits Chemtrails Are Real http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=117373&group=webcasthttp://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=16111 Click Above to Visit our Sponsor Paul Rebhan

CONGRESSMAN ACKNOWLEDGES CHEMTRAILS Sun Jan 13 21:01:12 2002 CONGRESSMAN ACKNOWLEDGES CHEMTRAILS http://www.rebfile.com/chemtrails%20latest.htm Congress Admits

Rep.  Kucinich blows the whistle on chemtrails Rep.  Kucinich's HR 2977 Names Chemtrails As An 'Exotic Weapon' By Lorie Kramer seektress@ev1.net

1-10-2 After years of denial from government, military, and environmental agencies, the reality of the controversial issue regarding the covert programs known as Chemtrails has been acknowledged.

On October 2, 2001 Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Ohio introduced H.  R.  2977 during the 1st Session of the 107th Congress of the United States.  The "Space Preservation Act of  2001" seeks to "preserve the cooperative, peaceful uses of space for the benfit of all humankind by permanently prohibiting the basing of weapons in space by the United States, and to require the President to take action and implement a world treaty banning space-based weapons."

In the bill Chemtrails are listed as an "exotic weapons system".  Ironically in Section 7 - Definitions.  The complete text of the bill may be found at Clifford Carnicom's website, "Chemtrail Crimes and Coverup Documented".

The bill also addresses such things as particle beams, electromagnetic radiation, plasma, or extremely low frequency (ELF) or ultra low frequency (ULF) energy radiation, and mind-control as weapons.  All of these areas have been researched and pondered by those investigating chemtrails and working to gain accountability for those programs.

They can't have it both ways.  Water vapor is not a weapon.

This is a call to all those of conscience.  This is a time when action is needed.  It is time.  The lies have gone on long enough.  We can tell the Air Force and the Navy and the other agencies involved in this criminal activity, "No, You may NOT own the Weather ...Period!" We may not have another chance.

On behalf of the members of Chemtrail Tracking USA, Clifford Carnicom's Board, Chemtrail Central and the many other groups and individuals working diligently to get accountability, we urge your listeners to respond.  Contact government and media, demand answers. If not now, when?

We know what we see.  We did not consent.  We want it stopped.

To see text of HR 2977:
http://www.carnicom.com/hr2977.htm

An Arab League think tank, the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up, has hosted a lecture by the author of a book that says the U.S.  military was responsible for the attacks on Sept.  11.

Theirry Meyssan, author of "The Appalling Fraud," spoke at the event on April 8.

A summary of the lecture and Arab media reports about the event were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.

ZCCF material says the think tank was established by the Arab League in 1999 and that the list of speakers the group has hosted this year includes former Vice President Al Gore, former Secretary of State James Baker and Neil Bush, brother of President George W.  Bush.

According to the MEMRI translation, Meyssan asserted the following in presenting his argument:

"Both Congress and the U.S.  media covered up the truth by not investigating events; "It was not reported that the White House's Old Executive Building was bombed, as was a third building in Manhattan; "The 1,200 detainees held in the U.S.  knew nothing of the attacks, and their names are kept secret so that they cannot be charged; "The American military – to further its interest and hegemony over the world – was responsible for the attacks; "It is a possibility that the planes of Sept.  11 were remote-controlled.  For two hours before the attack, waves from a homing device were recorded transmitting from, and interfering with transmission from, the twin towers, and such a device could be used to direct airplanes.  If the planes were controlled by remote, no hijackers were needed, thus the passenger lists were fake"; and "Bin Laden's involvement: 'This myth also does not stand analysis,' since he was a previous CIA agent who was visited by the head of the CIA in a Dubai hospital in July."

On April 10, says MEMRI, the Saudi government daily The Saudi Gazette ran a story on the lecture titled "U.S.  military officials behind 9/11 attacks – French author." The article detailed Meyssan's proposal that a United Nations panel be established to find those really behind Sept.  11 and that until this happens, all American military operations, including any against Iran or Iraq, should be considered illegal.  The Saudi Gazette quoted Meyssan as stating, "… [T]hose who masterminded the operations and led them were American terrorists."

"The fact that [presidential] communication codes were decoded by the attackers proves that at least one of the masterminds of the attack was an American military official," the paper quotes Meyssan as saying.

Said the story, "Commenting on the assumption that American military officials had planned the attacks, [Meyssan] said that such an assumption could be true, as a similar thing happened in 1961 when the American command planned internal attacks against American citizens."

As political and military experts on News talk shows discuss with all seriousness, the potential for a tactical nuclear response from the U.S.  for the mounting bio-terror attacks, it should be pointed out that geophysics warfare weapons such as HAARP are making nuclear retaliation obsolete.

This military array in Alaska and others like it around the world have the potential to deliver an equivalent nuclear detonation to a long-range target without warning, without the missile and without the radiation.  One of 12 U.S.  HAARP patents is titled: U.S.  Patent 4873928: Nuclear-Sized Explosions Without Radiation HAARP was constructed under the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) other wise known as "Star Wars".

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a congressionally initiated program jointly managed by the U.S.  Air Force and U.S.  Navy.  Using 3 gigawatts of power (3 billion watts) from a 23-acre site in Gakona, Alaska, it is considered the most powerful array on Earth.

Another ability of an array such as HAARP could be used to heat radiate people within a large yet distant target, even a buried underground bunker or cave network.  This would minimize public and international opposition to such a response as the effects, although not as visual as tactical nuclear detonations, provides a similar broad termination of targets.  The world may not even realize anything had happened and thus large-scale enemy losses in one location without physical munitions detonations may be played down or passed off as conventional combat or Special Forces action.

The trick to using such a weapon with underground targets is to find the target in the first place.  The same array that may be used to deliver the effect can also be used to penetrate deep into the ground to find the target.  HAARP can in effect be used for Earth-penetrating tomography, which can reveal the existence of underground installations.

The HAARP complex consists of 180 towers, 72 feet in height, forming a "high-power, high frequency phased array radio transmitter".  Military applications of HAARP include long-range ground penetration radar, over the horizon radar, submarine communication.

The basics for Ground penetration or target neutralization is to use the antenna array to target and heat the ionosphere in the upper atmosphere to create a lens to bounce or reflect a signal off to a target of great distance.  Although some distances may be to far to reach a target if it is on the other side of the globe.

Moon Bounce In late 1998 and early 1999 the ELFRAD GROUP monitored a daily frequency from .9 to .95 hertz (pulses per second), the wavelength of this frequency was approximately 319,877km or 198,711 miles.  The moon's distance is fairly close to the wavelength.  The signal appears to be a controlled signal transmitted from an unknown source at approximately the same time daily except weekends.  The signal is strong enough to generate it's third harmonic which is 2.81235 hz.  The signal has a very quick rise time and a slower decay at the end, which is usually indicative of an artificial source.  A low pass filtered showed the signal tracks very well with the magnetometers placed in various locations around the planet especially those in the northern area.

Lets pick apart the data above.  A Ultra Low Frequency signal in late 1998 through early 1999 from an unknown source which occurs only on week days, powerful enough to create a third harmonic wave, with a quick rise slow decay which tracks better with magnetometers in the North and a wavelength approximately matching the distance to the moon.  The answer seems apparent HAARP or a similar array in the North is bouncing signals off the Moon back to the Earth.

Why would you want to bounce signals off the Moon?

To reach targets around the world you could design a floating mobile HAARP that would have to equal the surface area of five large aircraft carriers or 8 super tankers tied together costing billions of dollars, or you could use a stationary permanent array such as HAARP and use the moon as a reflector to effectively bounce your signals anywhere on Earth given mutual Moon visibility between the source and the target!

Ham radio enthusiasts call this reflection technique EME (Earth-Moon-Earth)
or Moonbounce, and have been utilizing the moon with High Frequencies since the 1950's to communicate around the world.  HAARP can transmit both Low and High Frequencies.

Israeli HAARP?

It is rumoured that Israel has access to a similar array, which would increase mutual moon visibility in the Middle East region for Moonbounce transmission, but proximity to any targets in this area might be close enough to an Israeli array that Ionosphere reflection might be possible around the clock.

Tactical Nuclear retaliation by the U.S.  during the War on Terrorism is in effect obsolete, given that the Americans could Tactically strike with a geophysics array producing similar damage associated with nuclear detonation, without the long term detrimental effects and downwind radioactive fallout.  Other alternative uses of the array such as radiating transmissions may provide similar biological target termination without any blast effects.  Moonbounce techniques also mean that a stationary array can in effect target anywhere on the Earth.

Star Wars now seems an appropriate term for this particular Strategic Defense Initiative using HAARP to utilize the Moon as a potential Death Star!

Reference Papers:

The ELFRAD GROUP http://www.elfrad.com/Moon.htm

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E-BOMB In the blink of an eye, electromagnetic bombs could throw civilization back 200 years. And terrorists can build them for $400.
BY JIM WILSON Lead illustration by Edwin Herder

The next Pearl Harbor will not announce itself with a searing flash of nuclear light or with the plaintive wails of those dying of Ebola or its genetically engineered twin.  You will hear a sharp crack in the distance.  By the time you mistakenly identify this sound as an innocent clap of thunder, the civilized world will have become unhinged.  Fluorescent lights and television sets will glow eerily bright, despite being turned off.  The aroma of ozone mixed with smoldering plastic will seep from outlet covers as electric wires arc and telephone lines melt.  Your Palm Pilot and MP3 player will feel warm to the touch, their batteries overloaded.  Your computer, and every bit of data on it, will be toast.  And then you will notice that the world sounds different too.  The background music of civilization, the whirl of internal-combustion engines, will have stopped.  Save a few diesels, engines will never start again.  You, however, will remain unharmed, as you find yourself thrust backward 200 years, to a time when electricity meant a lightning bolt fracturing the night sky.  This is not a hypothetical, son-of-Y2K scenario.  It is a realistic assessment of the damage the Pentagon believes could be inflicted by a new generation of weapons--E-bombs.

The first major test of an American electromagnetic bomb is scheduled for next year.
Ultimately, the Army hopes to use E-bomb technology to explode artillery shells in midflight.  The Navy wants to use the E-bomb's high-power microwave pulses to neutralize antiship missiles.  And, the Air Force plans to equip its bombers, strike fighters, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles with E-bomb capabilities.  When fielded, these will be among the most technologically sophisticated weapons the U.S.
military establishment has ever built.

There is, however, another part to the E-bomb story, one that military planners are reluctant to discuss.  While American versions of these weapons are based on advanced technologies, terrorists could use a less expensive, low-tech approach to create the same destructive power.  "Any nation with even a 1940s technology base could make them," says Carlo Kopp, an Australian-based expert on high-tech warfare.  "The threat of E-bomb proliferation is very real." POPULAR MECHANICS estimates a basic weapon could be built for $400.

 
 

In the 1980s, the Air Force tested E-bombs that used cruise-missile delivery systems.
PHOTO BY AVAIATION WEEK & AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY
 
 

An Old Idea Made New

The theory behind the E-bomb was proposed in 1925 by physicist Arthur H. Compton--not to build weapons, but to study atoms. Compton demonstrated that firing a stream of highly energetic photons into atoms that have a low atomic number causes them to eject a stream of electrons. Physics students know this phenomenon as the Compton Effect. It became a key tool in unlocking the secrets of the atom.

Ironically, this nuclear research led to an unexpected demonstration of the power of the Compton Effect, and spawned a new type of weapon. In 1958, nuclear weapons designers ignited hydrogen bombs high over the Pacific Ocean. The detonations created bursts of gamma rays that, upon striking the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, released a tsunami of electrons that spread for hundreds of miles. Street lights were blown out in Hawaii and radio navigation was disrupted for 18 hours, as far away as Australia. The United States set out to learn how to "harden" electronics against this electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and develop EMP weapons.

America has remained at the forefront of EMP weapons development. Although much of this work is classified, it's believed that current efforts are based on using high-temperature superconductors to create intense magnetic fields. What worries terrorism experts is an idea the United States studied but discarded--the Flux Compression Generator (FCG).

A Poor Man's E-Bomb

An FCG is an astoundingly simple weapon. It consists of an explosives-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger copper coil, as shown below. The instant before the chemical explosive is detonated, the coil is energized by a bank of capacitors, creating a magnetic field. The explosive charge detonates from the rear forward. As the tube flares outward it touches the edge of the coil, thereby creating a moving short circuit. "The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic field while reducing the inductance of the stator [coil]," says Kopp. "The result is that FCGs will produce a ramping current pulse, which breaks before the final disintegration of the device. Published results suggest ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of millions of amps." The pulse that emerges makes a lightning bolt seem like a flashbulb by comparison.

An Air Force spokesman, who describes this effect as similar to a lightning strike, points out that electronics systems can be protected by placing them in metal enclosures called Faraday Cages that divert any impinging electromagnetic energy directly to the ground. Foreign military analysts say this reassuring explanation is incomplete.

The India Connection

The Indian military has studied FCG devices in detail because it fears that Pakistan, with which it has ongoing conflicts, might use E-bombs against the city of Bangalore, a sort of Indian Silicon Valley. An Indian Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis study of E-bombs points to two problems that have been largely overlooked by the West. The first is that very-high-frequency pulses, in the microwave range, can worm their way around vents in Faraday Cages. The second concern is known as the "late-time EMP effect," and may be the most worrisome aspect of FCG devices. It occurs in the 15 minutes after detonation. During this period, the EMP that surged through electrical systems creates localized magnetic fields. When these magnetic fields collapse, they cause electric surges to travel through the power and telecommunication infrastructure. This string-of-firecrackers effect means that terrorists would not have to drop their homemade E-bombs directly on the targets they wish to destroy. Heavily guarded sites, such as telephone switching centers and electronic funds-transfer exchanges, could be attacked through their electric and telecommunication connections.

Knock out electric power, computers and telecommunication and you've destroyed the foundation of modern society. In the age of Third World-sponsored terrorism, the E-bomb is the great equalizer.
 

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Published Friday, Sept.  14, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News

Bills would require handgun buyers to take safety test, give fingerprint BY MIKE ZAPLER Mercury News SACRAMENTO -- Californians wanting to buy a handgun will have to give a thumbprint, show proof of residency and pass a written safety test if Gov.  Gray Davis signs aggressive new gun controls backed by both chambers of the Legislature on Thursday.

Those rules would be in addition to a mandated 10-day waiting period and background check that are now in place.

Davis, reluctant to enact new gun controls until the effects of earlier measures are better known, hasn't said yet whether he will sign the two bills, which are identical.

``He hasn't made any decision yet,'' Davis spokesman Roger Salazar said.

The powerful National Rifle Association, an active player in state elections, has come out strongly against the proposals, which were scaled back in recent weeks in response to critics' concerns.

The California State Sheriffs' Association also opposes the additional curbs.  But other law enforcement groups, including the Peace Officers Research Association of California, have endorsed the proposal.
 

Training tools Sen.  Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, and Assembly Majority Leader Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco, said their identical measures are motivated by the estimated 30,000 deaths and thousands more injuries inflicted by guns in the United States every year.  They're pitching the new rules less as restrictions than as education and training tools for new firearms owners.

The Senate voted 23-13 to pass one bill, and the Assembly voted 41-33 to pass the other.  Both bills now head to the governor.
 

Inconvenience Under the bills, handgun buyers would need to obtain a handgun ``safety certificate'' by having their thumbprint taken at the gun shop and providing a California driver's license or other identification to show they live in the state.  They also would have to take a written safety test drawn up by the state Department of Justice.

One San Jose opponent said the measures would do little except inconvenience law-abiding handgun purchasers.  One controversial provision requiring new handgun buyers to demonstrate proficiency in shooting was stripped from the bill.

``It's politics,'' said Phil Filardo, owner of the Gun Exchange on Almaden Expressway.
``It has nothing to do with gun safety.'' Scott has personal as well as public policy motivations for pursuing the bill.  In 1993, his 27-year-old son, Adam, was shot to death at a party when someone was playing with a gun and didn't realize it was loaded.

``Before you drive you ought to know how to handle a car, and before you use a gun you ought to know how to handle that too,'' Scott said.

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March 2, 2001
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon on Thursday unveiled a new "non-lethal" weapon designed to drive off an
adversary with an energy beam that inflicts pain without causing lasting harm.

The weapon could be used for riot control and peacekeeping missions when deadly force is not necessary, officials
said.

The weapon, called "active denial technology," was developed by Air Force research laboratories in New Mexico
and Texas as part of a multi-service program run by the Marine Corps.

"This revolutionary force-protection technology gives U.S. service members an alternative to using deadly force,"
said Marine Corps Col. George P. Fenton, director of the program at Quantico, Virginia.

The weapon is designed to stop people by firing millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy in a beam that quickly
heats up the surface of the victim's skin. Within seconds the person feels pain that officials said is similar to
touching a hot light bulb.

Like being burned
"It's the kind of pain you would feel if you were being burned," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the Air Force
Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. "It's just not intense enough to cause any
damage."

The Pentagon has made a strong push to develop "non-lethal" weapons in the aftermath of a humanitarian mission
in Somalia in 1992-93 that put soldiers in the line of fire in urban areas where civilians were present.

A prototype of the weapon will be tested on goats and humans at Kirtland in the next few months, Garcia said.

"When it penetrates in, it activates the pain sensors, and you feel a lot of pain," Garcia said. "But there's no
damage. It truly is a non-lethal device."

The Marine Corps said $40 million was spent developing the weapon during the past decade.

The Marine Corps plans to mount the microwave weapon on top of Humvees, the Jeep-like vehicles used by both
the Marines and the Army. Later it might be used on aircraft and ships, officials said.

The weapon could be fielded by 2009, officials said.

Concerns remain
William Arkin, senior military adviser to Human Rights Watch, questioned whether a pain weapon would be safe to
use against civilians in combat situations.

"What about children in the crowd? What about pregnant women and the elderly?" he said.

"We have developed a nonlethal weapon which causes pain. What happens when someone continues to walk toward
the source of the high-power microwave? What happens when panic ensues in a crowd as a result of high-power
microwave? What happens when it's focused on someone's eye?" Arkin said.

Gulf War Vets Home Page

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IN THE MILITARY Justice confirms Navy flag flap Islands' top judge corroborates high-level talks to placate communists By Geoff Metcalf © 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

"I can guarantee you that it did happen.  I would stake my life on it." --Alan Fields, chief justice of the Marshall Islands Supreme Court, confirming WorldNetDaily's reports on clandestine discussions of subordinating the American flag to that of communist Vietnam The highest-ranking judicial officer of a foreign nation, corroborating one of WorldNetDaily's most controversial stories of the year, says the U.S.
government engaged in high-level discussions about lowering the U.S.  flag to below the level of the Vietnamese flag so as not to offend the communist nation.

According to Alan Fields, chief justice of the Marshall Islands Supreme Court, high-level U.S.
Navy sources on both the east and west coast have confirmed to him that discussions were held regarding a scheme to subordinate the American flag to Vietnam's during President Clinton's recent trip to Southeast Asia.

WorldNetDaily's Aug 23 story was publicly repudiated by Defense Department spokesman Ken Bacon, by U.S.  Navy spokesman Alan P.  Goldstein and many others in the media and the military.
That exclusive story comprised two parts: That the president was secretly planning a trip to Southeast Asia after the November election but before the end of his term, and that he planned to have a U.S.
Navy ship, with him onboard, lower its flag -- in violation of long-standing Navy regulations -- to below the level of the Vietnamese flag when the U.S.  ship pulled into Vietnam's territorial waters.

The notion of the U.S.  military's commander in chief using the Navy's flag to "bow" before the communist Vietnamese caused a firestorm among WND's large military readership.  But the official denials also came fast and furiously.

"The Navy is not aware of any planned trips by the President to China or Vietnam aboard a Navy ship," said Alan P.  Goldstein, assistant chief of information for technology integration in the Navy's Office of Information in the Pentagon.  "I ... can assure you that there are no plans to change the regulations governing the flying of the U.S.  flag on U.S.  Navy warships," Goldstein added.

Phil Alperson, legislative director for Rep.  Ronnie Shows, D-Miss., announced in a widely circulated e-mail message:

"I have spoken with White House officials.  They UNAMBIGUOUSLY state the following: There are no plans at this time for the President to make such a trip.  If he were to make such a trip, there is no way he will alter Navy regulations requiring that the U.S.  flag always fly above any other flag.  THIS IS AN UNFOUNDED RUMOR THAT MUST STOP NOW!"

Nevertheless, within weeks the White House acknowledged that Clinton would indeed make the trip, which USA Today, Associated Press and others then reported.

But the second half of the story -- the alleged plot to avoid offending the Vietnamese government by lowering the American flag to below the level of the communist nation's flag -- eluded independently verifiable confirmation, since WND's multiple high-level Navy sources all insisted on anonymity due to fear of retaliation.  Even a high-ranking officer in CINCPACFLT (Commander In Chief U.S.
Pacific Fleet) wrote a letter confirming, "There was a proposal to change the regulations to accommodate a presidential trip to Vietnam and Vietnam requires that its flag fly in the superior position." But that too was from a source who didn't wish to risk the possible negative consequences of speaking on the record.  The CINCPACFLT officer also explained in his letter that, "No one is talking about this issue on the staff anymore, which strongly suggests that the news story killed the initiative." With the Clinton trip now history, there are no reports that the American flag ended up being subordinated to Vietnam's during the presidential visit.

The officer also clarified one facet of the original story: "I am sure that there never was any intention for Clinton to go to Vietnam on a Navy ship ...  I believe that the concept was for a port visit by one of our ships concurrent with his visit." He added, "I'd like to get word to [WND reporter Geoff Metcalf] that his story is accurate, but this administration is vindictive and I would like to leave the Navy with my rank and retirement intact."

Now, as the issue continues to percolate through various Internet news and discussion groups, a high-level source has finally gone on the record.
The chief justice of the Marshall Islands Supreme Court has now confirmed the second portion of the controversial story.

Toward the end of a recent broadcast interview with WorldNetDaily, Justice Alan Fields was asked whether, given his proximity to the U.S.  Navy headquarters in Hawaii, he had heard of the flag controversy.

"Yes," he replied.  "And it was confirmed to me by two sources.  High-ranking Navy officials on both coasts ...  both sides of the United States ...  that there were discussions and these discussions originated not with the Navy but with the secretary of defense office."

He added, "It did happen, and there were discussions.  I did eventually see your stories from WorldNetDaily and I suspect without you bringing this forward, it would have quietly been done."

At one point, the interview proceeded like this:

Metcalf: I've been getting two flavors of reaction to the series of stories.  First: "Thanks, great job, attaboy, you saved us from an awkward embarrassment." And on the other side: "Shame on you, how dare you, you are a (expletive deleted)
hack and are making this up out of whole cloth to hurt the administration." You have heard it from both coasts that it did happen as reported?

Fields: I can guarantee you that it did happen.  ...  I would stake my life on it.

WorldNetDaily has received assurances from some of its as-yet unnamed high-level Navy sources that, when the Clinton administration is gone, they likely will also go on the record regarding this story.
 
 

If you would like to weigh in on this issue, visit WorldNetDaily's Daily Poll.

"Printrak Adds FaceIt Technology to Its Mugshot System"
Business Wire (10/03/00)

On Monday, President Clinton attended a service at the Capitol Hill memorial for murdered police officers and asked Congress to increase by twice as much the federal money for bulletproof vests for local police. Passed into law two years ago and scheduled to expire in 2001, the program enables the Department of Justice to pay for as much as 50 percent of the expense of such vests for local police. Last year, the government purchased 92,500 vests and still has $24 million, enough to purchase an additional 90,000 during the fiscal year that concludes Sept. 30. Clinton supports as well a congressional proposal to lengthen the vest program from 2002 to 2004, and to double financing to $150 million from $75 million during that time.
 
 

On Friday, the Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice stated it will provide grants to Smith & Wesson and FN Manufacturing Inc. to study and create technologies for "smart guns"-firearms that know the difference between individuals who are or are not allowed to use them. These guns have revealed significant possibilities in lowering human fatalities when weapons are intentionally or accidentally removed from their rightful owner. FBI figures reveal that during the last decade, 57 police officers were killed by their own guns, while another 113 weapons were stolen from law enforcement officials in the same period. The Smith & Wesson grant will back functionality and practicality tests of an electronic fire handgun with a code-operated combination lock
and an individual fingerprint module that interacts with an electric fire handgun, and also a study of current company technologies and the creation of the future prototype. Meanwhile, FN Manufacturing Inc. will employ its Justice Department grant to continue the study, development, and testing of its smart gun prototype, which engages concealed microelectronics to disarm the weapon from use by anyone who is not authorized.
 
 

Officers in Roanoke, Va., claim they feel more protected at night using night vision, says ITT Industries Night Vision. As part of ITT's sponsoring of the activities for Washington, D.C.'s National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) Police Week 2000, the firm will talk about and show night vision's safety advantages during this week. The demonstrations will take place near the memorial in a blackout tent situated in the Fraternal Order of Police social gathering section. ITT, which works with law enforcement groups throughout the nation to discover the best means to improve officer safety with night vision, provides a night operations training program, with main areas for night vision use consisting of narcotics operations, surveillance, K-9, special operations, and building searches. The Bureau of Justice's U.S. crime figures reveal that the majority of violent acts take place after nightfall. Seventy-one percent of attacks on police officers take place at night, as well as 70 percent of police deaths. More officers were murdered between 10 p.m. and midnight than during any other two-hour
time frame in the last 10 years, according to NLEOMF.
 

"Adding a Commanding Presence: San Bernardino Police Buy a Bus to Use as an Operations Center at Crime Scenes and Disasters" Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.) (05/14/00) P. B04; Frazier, Joanna

San Bernardino, Calif., Police Department Chief Lee Dean will execute a three-year-old goal by obtaining a custom-built 38-foot bus to serve as a mobile command center. Dean hopes that the bus will do a better job than the current arrangement of a trailer hitched to a pickup truck in attracting top candidates at job fairs, impressing children at community events, and providing a high-tech communications center during major crime investigations and disasters. The bus will be able to accommodate six people in its dispatch center and another six people in a conference area located in its back seats if a disaster occurs. The cost of the bus is being covered by a
$200,000 grant from the Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning and a federal grant. The state grant is part of the California Law Enforcement Technology Equipment Program's effort to improve technology in police departments.
 
 

Imagis Technologies and partner ORION Scientific Systems were recently awarded a $2.65 million contract to provide an integrated imaging-based law enforcement solution to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office in northern California. The solution will be comprised of Imagis' CABS Computerized Arrest and Booking System, ID-2000 Facial Recognition Software, Regional Data-Sharing, Property-ID to facilitate evidence control and tracking outside of the station house, and CABS Mobile for the wireless transmission of suspects' records and
photos to officers in their cars. The new software will be integrated with Alameda County's existing Corpus mainframe application, making it the largest police digital imaging system on the West Coast. The system is expected to be up and running by the first quarter of 2001.
 
 

Many of the most high-profile cyberattack cases in recent times have not been solved by law enforcement officials, but rather by private citizens who act as cybersleuths in their spare time. Many law enforcement agencies readily admit that they often do not have the manpower or the technical know-how when it comes to investigating many hacking and virus cases, and say that the work of private cybersleuths, who often work with police in the most critical parts of investigations, is invaluable. For example, a group of private citizens are believed to have led investigators to the Philippines after they traced the "I Love You" virus to the Amable Mendoza Aguiluz Computer College in Manila. However, police also admit that these cyberdetectives often behave more like vigilantes,
and they are concerned that many may commit illegal acts when pursuing their cyberprey, which could result in evidence that does not stand up in court. "Any mistakes they make really come back to haunt us, " says Paul E. Coggins, the United States Attorney in Dallas. Regardless, many cybersleuths contend that they have no desire to be cops, but are merely computer geeks protecting their turf.
 
 

About two dozen visitors to Iowa's nine state prisons have complained they have been wrongly denied visits because of a drug detection device. The state of Iowa has installed the Ion Track Itemiser ITMS in all nine of its state prisons to prevent drugs from slipping in prison walls without the need for strip searches. "It's no more invasive than handling a paper towel or a Kleenex and handing it back," said Terry Mapes, deputy superintendent of the prison, describing the filter paper. Prison officials say that in response to the complaints, they will allow immediate retesting and give the warden more flexibility in allowing non-contact visits in disputed testing.
 
 

The Kane County Board in Kane County, Illinois, has approved a plan to partially fund a new control center panel for the Kane County Jail with a $250,000 state grant. Sheriff Ken Ramsey says the new equipment will help monitor and control access inside the jail. The new equipment could be in place in six months.
 
 

The Providence Police Department (PPD) recently announced that it has enjoyed superb results in fingerprint matching hit rates since it began using NEC Technologies' Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) in 1998. The PPD said that prior to purchasing the system, it did not have the time or manpower to search through fingerprints in order to match potential suspects to a crime scene, resulting in many cases going unsolved. However, since 1998, PPD has added over 500,000 latent fingerprints into its AFIS, allowing investigators to solve crimes with more efficiency and speed than ever before. The PPD says that since implementing AFIS, it has seen a four-fold increase in the number of house break-ins solved. PPD Captain John Ryan says, "NEC's AFIS facilitates and simplifies the investigation process, allowing us to focus on catching the right suspects and putting them
behind bars."
 
 

Global Pacific Wireless Internet, a division of Worldwide Wireless Networks, will display its wireless devices to
various global law enforcement agencies at the Litton PRC 14th Annual International Users Group and Training Conference. The conference, which is sponsored by the Newport Beach Police Department, will begin on May 21 and continue through May 25 at the Newport Beach, Calif., Marriott Hotel on Fashion Island. The Newport Beach Police Department has previously contracted with Global Pacific for a broadband mobile wireless Internet system, and one of the department's vehicles that is equipped with this system will be on display at the conference. Jack Tortorice, CEO of Worldwide Wireless Networks, says," As one of the first developers of this broadband mobile technology, we believe it is the beginning of a new era in law enforcement technology that will ultimately
decrease costs and save lives by providing more information in the field."
 
 

John VanNatta, superintendent at the new Miami Correctional Facility in northern Indiana, praises the technology the $107.2 million prison features. Microwave beams detect any motion between fences in the prison yard, with the outer fence sounding an alarm when it senses 15 pounds or more pressing against it. Soon, employees will punch in with electronic ID cards and a palm print reader that prohibits fudging on time cards. VanNatta also notes that a computer lab is being set up to train inmates for future jobs.
 
 

A request for proposal (RFP) is a vitally important document for any law enforcement agency. The RFP forms are not only the initial draft of an agency's acquisition plan, but it will be referred to time and again as the record management system or computer-assisted dispatch being purchased or installed, and will provide the foundation for the final contract. RFPs can vary widely between law enforcement groups, but successful RFPs tend to have certain features in common: ground rules, system requirements, evaluation criteria, and proposal format. The ground rules lay out the purpose of the RFP and provide contact information. In the requirements section, the organization will dictate what the technology mandates are. In the third section, evaluation criteria, the specifics on how
proposals will be judged are stated, such as cost, contractual conditions, and the availability of support services. The last section, proposal format, explains how the companies replying to the RFP should structure their bids. It is vital that each supplier lists the information on its bid in a form comparable to that of the other bidders, since this will save evaluators a lot of time later. While many suppliers will provide RFP outlines to help their clients, organizations thinking of creating an RFP should turn to other agencies of similar size and shape and request copies of RFPs that were created to purchase similar technologies.
 
 

Jaycor Tactical Systems has developed a hybrid of paintball and law enforcement technology called the PepperBall System, which allows officers to spray chemical agents at suspects or into rioting crowds from a safe distance. Jaycor improved the design of the original paintball, made with soft gel coverings, to be more effective in law enforcement by designing a harder shell that resists hot and cold weather and explodes upon impact to release controlling chemicals like pepper spray. The PepperBall System uses .68-caliber high-pressure air and carbon dioxide recoilless launchers, which can reach suspects who are up to 30 feet away. Chemicals that are released from the projectiles, which cause minor trauma to the skin upon impact and should only be fired at the chest and legs, enter the suspect's eyes and respiratory system. The PepperBall system allows officers eight to 200 rounds of projectiles with a range of 100 feet. The technology can be used in different weather situations by bouncing the
projectiles off pavement or hard surfaces near the suspect. The system also includes projectiles that are used for
training, which can take place in almost any room or area available. The ease of training, compared to other less-lethal systems, allows more officers to become familiar with the technology without disrupting normal operations within the department. Police agencies in Washington, California, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Colorado, Missouri, Georgia, and Arizona are already using the PepperBall system.
 
 

The move to share criminal justice data among all U.S. governments is growing. A report from the National Association of State Information Resource Executives and the Justice Department supports common open-technology standards for nationwide sharing of data. The National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices is also working with the department to find common data investments. Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton said integration is a priority for most governors. A national strategy is being formed so that systems can function and share vocabulary. Costs of new systems or training of personnel would be recovered by the results, according to the NASIRE report.
 
 

Convenience stores are heavily dependent on tobacco sales, and so verifying the age of customers is a serious concern for store owners. In New York State, the Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes chain has installed new age-verifying scanning technology in all of its stores to ensure that tobacco products and liquor stay out of the hands of minors. Because the scanner reads the magnetic strip on the back of driver's
licenses, even if the customer has visually altered the front of the license, the machine will not be fooled. Furthermore, because it is the machine, and not the clerk, that has the final say on whether a sale is approved, clerks will be able to avoid many of the arguments that result when a sale is refused.

Elements of the German air force—better known as the Luftwaffe—operating out of U.S. Air Force bases and conducting training over American soil may be illegal, according to a government watchdog organization based in New Mexico, where Luftwaffe planes are stationed.

The Paragon Foundation says low-level flight training being conducted by German air units out of Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, since April 1996 “may prove to have been unauthorized from the start because the secretary of state and Congress did not approve them.”

At the center of the controversy is a lawsuit originally filed in September 1998 by Otero County rancher Charlie Lee, the Otero County Grazing Association, Otero Cattleman, Lincoln Forest Permittees and others. The suit, which is being financed primarily by Paragon, seeks to block construction of a target complex and low-level flights on Otero Mesa in southeast New Mexico and west Texas.

German Tornado fighter bomber being refueled over the Mediterranean Sea by a U.S. Air Force KC-135R tanker.

The controversy worsened a year later, when two German Tornado fighters collided in mid-air outside Carlsbad, New Mexico, barely missing the Marathon Indian Basin Gas Processing Plant and a local ranch. The resulting crash investigation was conducted entirely by German air force personnel—and its findings have not been made available to the American public, even after a memorandum passed in the New Mexico Senate demanding details of the crash and German operational and investigative procedures, Paragon Officials told WorldNetDaily.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Bruce D. Black “changed the complexion” of the case by granting permission to “allow an amendment to the lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of the German air force presence in the U.S.” said Bob Jones, president of the Paragon Foundation.

“American Air Force officials have not followed proper channels in allowing foreign troops to train in America. This has gone on since the [initial] agreement [in the early 1990s] between former President George Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. There has never been congressional approval of this foreign training,” Jones said.
“This is a big break in this case. Judge Black’s decision will allow the plaintiffs to depose U.S. State Department and Air Force officials,” said Frank Bond, the lead Paragon attorney in the case. “We can challenge the legal premise for the German air force presence at Holloman. Our team will show that the Secretary of State and Congress had not authorized the German air force to be conducting operations there.”

State Department officials had no comment and referred the matter to the Pentagon. Air Force officials there said they were looking into the matter, but were unable to locate staffers who had the most recent information, a spokesman told WorldNetDaily.

Meanwhile, a public relations official at Holloman told Paragon he didn’t believe the judge’s ruling would have an impact on German operations there, adding that German officials haven’t replied to the New Mexico Senate’s request because “it doesn’t have the force of law.”

German air force spokesman Cmdr. Eckhard Sowoda, also at Holloman, had no comment on the ruling or the German Ministry of Defense’s failure to provide the materials requested by New Mexico lawmakers, the group said.

“The threshold question is whether the United States Air Force legally brought the Germans to Holloman,” said Bond. “The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the U.S. Air Force and the German Ministry of Defense may be illegal because it was not submitted to the Secretary of State. Once approved by State, the MOA has to be transmitted to Congress.”

He also said that a Memorandum of Agreement is not a legal document, and that the Germans are operating under a “Letter of Diplomatic Approval” instead.

“That letter doesn’t permit the transport of hazardous material,” Bond said, adding that “the Germans are now using live weapons while training” by carrying bombs, rockets and flares

      CNN reported: “The Army has pulled together a team of cinematography experts from Hollywood to help it harness the technology depicted in the hit movie ‘The Matrix’ and TV series ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ for use in its own next generation of training and simulation systems. Lt. Gen. William Campbell, the Army's chief information officer, said the Army is studying the feasibility of building a ‘holodeck,’ a cutting-edge simulator that would use virtual cinematography and video game technology to create realistic 3-D scenes of actual locations worldwide that soldiers could use for training and mission rehearsal. ‘It allows you to go anywhere, anytime,’ Campbell said...James Heath, senior intelligence and technical adviser at the U.S. Army's Land Information Warfare Activity, said visualization is key to the future of the Army. ‘Not only will [the holodeck] happen, but it's really mandatory,’ he said. The Defense Department's relationship with the entertainment industry has been growing closer. Last year, the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office and Paramount Digital Entertainment began work on adapting Hollywood multimedia technology and movie storytelling skills to create realistic simulations for military      officers learning how to make better decisions during international crises. Also last year, the Army signed a five-year, $45 million contract with the University of Southern California to establish the Institute of Creative Technologies, a center for researching applications to improve realism in training simulators. Under that contract, the Army is expecting movie producers and computer game makers to develop new and better technologies...”

Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent, prompting critics of U.S. gun control efforts to issue new warnings of what life in America could be like if Congress ever bans firearms.

After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.
The bans were not limited to so-called “assault” weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.

Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation’s crime statistics tell a different story:
* Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
* Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
*Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
* In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;
* In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;
* There has been a reported “dramatic increase” in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

At the time of the ban, which followed an April 29, 1996 shooting at a Port Arthur tourist spot by lone gunman Martin Bryant, the continent had an annual murder-by-firearm rate of about 1.8 per 100,000 persons, “a safe society by any standards,” said Tidswell. But such low rates of crime and rare shootings did not deter then-Prime Minister John Howard from calling for and supporting the weapons ban.

Since the ban has been in effect, membership in the Australian Sporting Shooters Association has climbed to about 112,000 -- a 200 percent increase.

Australian press accounts report that the half a million-plus figure of weapons turned in to authorities so far only represents a tiny fraction of the guns believed to be in the country.

According to one report, in March 1997 the number of privately held firearms in Australia numbered around 10 million. “In the State of Queensland,” for example, the report said only “80,000 guns have been seized out of a total of approximately 3 million, a tiny fraction.”

And, said the report, 15 percent of the more than half a million guns collected came from licensed gun dealers.
Moreover, a black market allegedly has developed in the country. The report said about 1 million Chinese-made semi-automatics, “one type of gun specifically targeted by the new law,” have been imported and sold throughout the country.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the situation in Australia reminds him of Great Britain, where English lawmakers have passed similar restrictive gun control laws. “In fact, when you brought up the subject of this interview, I didn’t hear you clearly—I thought you were talking about England, not Australia,” Pratt told WorldNetDaily. “It’s hard to tell the difference between them.”
Pratt said officials in both countries can “no longer control what the criminals do,” because an armed society used to serve as a check on the power and influence of the criminal element.

Worse, Pratt said he was “offended by people who say, basically, that I don’t have a right to defend myself or my family.” Specifically, during debates with gun control advocates like members of Handgun Control, Inc. or similar organizations, Pratt said he routinely asks them if they’re “against self defense.”

Most often, he said, “they don’t say anything ---they just don’t answer me. But occasionally I’ll get one of them to admit it and say ‘yes.’”

Pratt said, based on the examples of democracies that have enacted near-total bans on private firearm ownership that the same thing could happen to Americans. His organization routinely researches and reports incidents that happen all over the country when private armed citizens successfully defend themselves against armed robbers or intruders, but “liberals completely ignore this reality.”

Pratt, who said was scheduled to appear in a televised discussion later in the day about a shooting incident between two first graders in Michigan on Tuesday, said he was in favor of allowing teachers to carry weapons to protect themselves and their students on campus.

Pratt pointed to the example of a Pearl, Mississippi teacher who, in 1997, armed with his own handgun, was able to blunt the killing spree of Luke Woodham.

“By making schools and even entire communities ‘gun free zones,’ you’re basically telling the criminal element that you’re unarmed and extremely vulnerable,” Pratt said.

Pratt also warned against falling into the gun registration trap.

“Governments will ask you to trust them to allow gun registration, then use those registration lists to later confiscate the firearms,” he said. “It’s happened countless times throughout history.”

Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control, Inc., issued a statement calling on lawmakers in Michigan and in Washington to pass more restrictive gun access laws.

“This horrible tragedy should send a clear message to lawmakers in Michigan and around the country: they should quickly pass child access prevention or ‘safe storage’ laws that make it a crime to leave a loaded firearm where it is accessible by children,” Brady said.

Brady also blamed gun makers for the Michigan shooting.

“The responsibility for shootings like these do not stop at the hands of the gun owner,” Brady said. “Why are ... gun makers manufacturing weapons that a six-year old child can fire? This makes no rational sense. When will gun makers realize that they bear a responsibility to make sure that their products do not mete out preventable deaths, and that they do not warrant nor deserve special protection from the law to avoid that burden? Instead of safeguarding the gun makers, we should be childproofing the guns.”

In contrast to near-complete bans in Australia and Great Britain, many U.S. states have passed liberal concealed carry laws that allow private citizens to obtain a permit to carry a loaded gun at all times in most public places. According to Yale University researcher John R. Lott, formerly of the University of Chicago and a gun control analyst who has conducted the most extensive study on the impact of concealed carry laws in the nation’s history, the more liberal the right to carry, the less violent crime occurs.

Lott, who examined a mass of crime data spanning decades in all 3,200-plus counties in the United States, concluded that the most important factor in the deterrence of violent crimes were increased police presence and longer jail sentences. However, his research also demonstrated that liberal concealed carry laws were at the top of the list of reasons violent crime has dropped steadily since those laws began to be enacted by state legislatures a decade ago.

The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a division of Handgun Control, Inc., disagreed with Lott’s findings, as well as the overall assumption that a reduction in the availability of guns in society reduces violent crime. “Using violent crime data provided by the FBI, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence determined that, on average over a five-year period, violent crime dropped almost 25 percent in states that limit or prohibit carrying concealed weapons,” the Center said. “This compares with only a 11 percent drop in states with lax concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws. Moreover, states with some of the strongest laws against concealed weapons experienced the largest drops.”

Without naming its source, the Center also claimed “a prominent criminologist from Johns Hopkins University has stated that Lott’s study was so flawed that ‘nothing can be learned of it,’ and that it should not be used as the basis for policy-making.”

In his most recent research, Lott noted a few examples of mass shootings in schools when teachers who were armed, albeit illegally, were able to prevent further loss of life among students indiscriminately targeted by other students with guns.

Ironically, both Lott and Handgun Control acknowledge that the reams of gun control laws on the books in Washington and in all 50 states have been ineffective in eradicating mass shootings or preventing children from bringing weapons to school. However, Lott’s research indicates the criminal element has been successful in obtaining weapons despite widespread bans and gun control laws, while HCI continues to push for more laws that further restrict, license or eliminate handguns and long guns.

Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter for
WorldNetDaily.

                  By Stephan Archer and Sarah Foster
                  © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

American gun owners and advocacy groups like the National Rifle Association are suddenly finding that when it comes to firearms legislation, they had better pay attention to what's happening not only in Congress and their state legislatures, but at the United Nations, where the Second Amendment is being quietly dismantled behind closed doors.

Since the end of the Cold War, the disarmament community has brought small arms and light weapons within its sphere of interest, placing them and their "proliferation" on a par with such long-standing concerns as nuclear missiles and bio-chemical weapons. Though the terms tend to be used interchangeably, the United Nations defines small arms as weapons designed for personal use, while light weapons are those designed for several persons operating as a crew. Together, they account for virtually every kind of firearm from revolvers, pistols, rifles, carbines and light machine guns all the way to heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, mortars up to 100 mm caliber, and land mines.

On Sept. 24, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, of Ghana, called on members of the Security Council to "tackle one of the key challenges in preventing conflict in the next century" -- the proliferation and "easy availability" of small arms and light weapons, which Annan identified as the "primary tools of violence" in conflicts throughout the world.

It was the first time the council had met to discuss the subject, and Annan praised the United Nations as a whole for playing "a leading role in putting the issue of small arms firmly on the international agenda."

Even in societies not beset by civil war, the easy availability of small arms has in many cases contributed to violence and political instability," he said. "Controlling that easy availability is a prerequisite for a successful peace-building process."

Talk is one thing, but the Security Council then unanimously adopted the "Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms," which had been released Aug. 19 to the General Assembly. The 26-member group's various recommendations, two dozen in all, add up to a comprehensive program for worldwide gun control, and call for a total ban on private ownership of "assault rifles." A few of the recommendations:

                      *  All small arms and light weapons which are not under legal civilian possession and which are not required for the purposes of national defense and internal security, should be collected and destroyed by States as expeditiously as possible.

                       *All States should determine in their national laws and regulations which arms are permitted for civilian possession and the conditions under which they can be used.

                      * All States should ensure that they have in place adequate laws, regulations and administrative procedures to exercise effective control over the legal possession of small arms and light weapons and over their transfer in order ... to prevent illicit trafficking.

                       *States are encouraged to integrate measures to control ammunition ... into prevention and reduction measures relating to small arms and light weapons.

                       *States should work towards ...appropriate national legislation, regulations and licensing requirements that define conditions under which firearms can be acquired, used and traded by private persons. In particular, they should consider the prohibition of unrestricted trade and private ownership of small arms and light weapons specifically designed for military purposes, such as automatic guns (e.g., assault rifles and machine-guns).

The report notes with approval countries like China that have acted to "strengthen legal or regulatory controls." China reported that some 300,000 "illicit" guns were seized and destroyed last year by officials acting in response to "new and more stringent national regulations that have come into force ... on the control on guns within the country and on arms exports." France, too, in 1998 "acted to reinforce governmental control over military and civilian arms and ammunition, and introduced more rigorous measures regulating the holding of arms by civilians." And the United States gave assurances that the federal government has taken "a number of relevant national measures." All United States citizens, wherever located, and any person subject to United States law, must now register in order to engage in arms brokering activities. ..." That is, prior written approval from the State Department is required.

Contacted for comment, a State Department official who requested anonymity denied that the report spelled out gun control programs being imposed on this country via the United Nations, despite the fact that a State Department senior foreign affairs specialist, Herbert Calhoun, had served as a member of the group and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- representing the United States on the Seccurity Council -- had endorsed the report.

"The United Nations will not dictate domestic gun control for any nation," the official told WorldNetDaily. "They can make recommendations and nations can act on those recommendations as they see fit, but we will never have the United Nations telling countries what they should do."

Questioned about specific recommendations, he replied, "Those are just recommendations --and surprisingly, a number of countries, including the U.S., take them up on those recommendations. In fact, we support all 24 of those recommendations."

                  World 'awash' with small arms

The current surge of activity at the United Nations against small arms was signaled in January 1995 by then-Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his "Supplement to an Agenda for Peace," a position paper on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

The world, he said, was "awash" with small arms that were responsible for "most of the deaths in current conflicts." Traffic in these weapons is "very difficult to monitor, let alone intercept." Boutros-Ghali urged that since progress had been made in the area of weapons of mass destruction and major weapons systems, "parallel progress in conventional arms, particularly in respect to light weapons," was needed.

In response to Boutros-Ghali's call, in 1997 Secretary General Kofi Annan upgraded the United Nations' disarmament office to departmental status as the Department of Disarmament Affairs, citing his intention to place greater emphasis on small arms and light weapons. The Department for Disarmament affairs is headed by Under-Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka.

The new department continues to work on the traditional issues of nuclear missile systems, test ban treaties and the like -- but there's now a special website for small arms issues.

This activity at the international level quickly drew the attention of the National Rifle Association, which has posted a warning in a fact sheet on its website.

"While the actions of the U.N. do not have direct impact on U.S. law unless passed as a treaty by the U.N. General Assembly and ratified by the U.S. Senate, ... the U.N. can do a great deal to interfere with gun owners' rights by lending an appearance of legitimacy to oppressive anti-gun measures. It is clear that one of the goals of this effort is to demonize civilian ownership of guns and make strict regulation of firearms appear as the only acceptable alternative."

                  An 'unholy alliance'

Attorney Thomas Mason, who represents the National Rifle Association at meetings of the United Nations, told WorldNetDaily how this effort to radically reduce private gun ownership is being furthered not only by U.N. bureaucrats and delegates, but with the help of non-governmental organizations -- "NGOs" as they're called -- that have beeen granted special consultative status to observe the proceedings and, when invited, present information and exert considerable influence on delegates and staff.

"A dynamic for worldwide gun control efforts has developed in the international arena over the past five years -- an unholy alliance between NGOs, small to medium-size governments and the United Nations," said Mason. "People have no idea that the United Nations is a totally closed process. There is no public records law or open meetings law. As a member of the public you do not have an automatic right to attend committee meetings. To get in the door you have to be an accredited NGO."

There are over 1,000 non-governmental accredited organizations dealing with the numerous issues with which the United Nations concerns itself: education, health, land use and the environment, and guns. The National Rifle Association received accreditation in 1995, and is one of only two pro-gun NGOs to have been certified. The other is the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia.

"We sought NGO status to monitor the activities of the U.N. in terms of issues that are important to our membership, more so than to become an active lobbying force there," explained Patrick O'Malley, deputy director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. "That's primarily the role we continue to act in today -- that of observer, monitoring any number of initiatives that they're working on in places as far flung as Geneva, Vienna, Cairo."

"But make no mistake," he added, "We are working actively to ensure that the discussions on specific gun control-connected issues do not in any way pose a threat to our domestic sovereignty or the public policy process that we have here in the United States -- that's the goal of many of the [anti-gun] groups -- to seek a global harmonization -- as they call it -- of domestic gun control laws.

"And when they speak of 'harmonization,' they don't talk about other countries coming to our level where we [in the United States] have a basic right to own a firearm; they're talking about taking the United States to the standard of many other countries where firearms ownership is essentially completely banned.

"There are some highly extremist proposals out there," O'Malley continued, "proposals that range from the bizarre to the ridiculous. Proposals have been put forward that every single round of ammunition manufactured be trackable by satellite so that we can establish a protocol for monitoring what they call 'flows' of small arms and ammunition into areas of conflict."

                  First landmines, next small arms

This diverse mix of non-governmental organizations -- most with anti-gun agendas --national governments, and U.N. leaders has been holding workshops and conferences throughout the world on firearms-related issues.

"Workshops in the international arena are essentially meetings to deliberate issues," said Mason. "When a government or NGO sponsors a workshop, it's much more serious than the ordinary person might think. That's where the thinking and talking is done and decisions are made."

One such meeting will be held today at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to discuss the draft of a field guide on light weapons designed for use by humanitarian and relief personnel working in arms control programs in hot spots around the world.

The two-hour technical workshop is sponsored by the Program on Development and Security-- called SAND -- of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a private graduate school in Monterey, California, and the Bonn International Center for Conversion in Germany. The two "think tanks" are well connected to the United Nations through their work on the international weapons trade and its perceived impact on communities and peace-keeping efforts around the world. Dr. Edward J. Laurance, executive director of the SAND program at the Monterey institute and co-author of the field manual, also serves as a consultant to the United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms and the U.N. Register on Conventional Weapons.

Although it's not unusual for independent groups to give presentations at the United Nations, today's meeting will be chaired by Jayantha Dhanapala, under-secretary general for disarmament affairs. The session and its choice of host are a testimony to the growing influence of NGOs at the United Nations, and highlight the increased attention paid by that body to the "proliferation" of personal firearms throughout the world and their possession by "civilians." The significance of Dhanapala's role heading up the event is well-appreciated by Laurance.

"All NGOs and governments are invited to look at the first draft of our field manual," he told WorldNetDaily. "We're unveiling it at the workshop and getting feedback. But the important thing for us is that the workshop is hosted by the under-secretary general for disarmament."

Laurance sees an even greater role for organizations like SAND and the Bonn International Center in the U.N. decision-making process as that body opens its doors to "civil society."

"Civil society -- that's sort of a buzz word --meaning NGOs, academic experts, the public at large," he explained. "The U.N. increasingly asks people like me and others as consultants. Increasingly, conferences are held cooperatively with the NGO community, and NGOs are being used to provide information and ideas."

Laurance called attention to the success of NGOs in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. After six years of campaigning, 129 governments in 1997 signed a treaty banning the production and use of land mines. The United States is not one of them.

                  If such a campaign worked with landmines, what about personal firearms?

If you followed the Land Mine Treaty, that's a perfect example of where NGOs were used," he explained. "There was a group of so-called like-minded states that really wanted the treaty and a bunch of others that were on the fence. So the NGOs were used to get the countries that were on the fence to jump in and sign the treaty."

Laurance credits the environmental movement for developing the process domestically and at the international level.

"The environmental groups showed the way," he said. "They had the information and they made it available. We've made that point with the small arms and light weapons issue: that civil society has information, particularly at the local level. It's civil society that's being hurt by these weapons. Civil society can tell governments what weapons are doing the damage and why, and where they come from."

"Many governments understand this," he continued. "The United States is a special case because of the whole gun control issue, and the United States has a very special challenge: They have to constantly worry that what they do in this area internationally doesn't have any domestic effects."

Besides his work in academia and with the United Nations, Laurance and the SAND program are active participants in a newly-formed, globe-spanning coalition of national and international peace, disarmament, humanitarian and anti-gun groups called the International Action Network on Small Arms --which he helped found. It is the kind of ffar-flung association that would have been all but impossible to organize and direct in the days before the Internet and e-mail.

                  'Flame for peace' gun bonfire

"Perhaps the way forward for the peace movement will be the high-tech route, using modern technology to lead campaigns of the 21st century," according to Tamar Gabelnick of the Federation of American Scientists, and a founder of IANSA. In an article describing the new group, Gabelnick wrote, "IANSA will act as a coordinator and facilitator for groups worldwide working to prevent the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons. A small secretariat will be complemented in its role as an information warehouse and facilitator of 'mini-campaigns" by heavy reliance on the web and e-mail. This format will help to harmonize the activities of a diverse group of organizations while allowing the flexibility necessary to address the components of this multi-faceted issue."

Recalling Mason's remarks about the "unholy alliance," funding for the new group has come largely from five agencies of small to medium-size governments: The Belgian Ministry for Development Cooperation; the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the United Kingdom Department for International Development; and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After several organizing meetings beginning in December 1997, IANSA was formally launched May 11 of this year at The Hague during the Appeal for Peace Conference, which reportedly drew an estimated 7,000 delegates from around the world to celebrate the centennial of The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899. To celebrate the formation of the new coalition, organizers destroyed a collection of firearms donated by governments in a "Flame for Peace" bonfire in the city center.

Four months after its debut, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke glowingly of the new organization for its role in directing public attention to the issue of firearms.

"The momentum for combating small arms proliferation has also come from civil society, which has been increasingly active on this issue," Annan said in his Sept. 24 address to the Security Council. "The establishment early this year of the International Action Network on Small Arms has helped to sharpen public focus on small arms, which has helped us gain the public support necessary for success."

"IANSA is a coalition of non-governmental organizations that was established to organize international efforts for controlling the global trade in firearms -- that's its main purpose," said Michael Klare, one of its founders. Klare teaches Peace and Conflict Studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and is co-director of the Project on Light Weapons of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

"It's not designed to become a large organization on its own," he continued. "People feel very strongly about not creating a new bureaucracy. We don't have officers at this point because the understanding is that the members of IANSA are organizations themselves and only those organizations can set their own policy."

 E.J. Hogendoorn of Human Rights Watch and, like Klare, one of IANSA's founders, views it more as a campaign.

"It's a very encompassing campaign by different groups that bring different agendas to the campaign, but all of them center around the misuse of light weapons and small arms," said Hogendoorn. "So, for example, Human Rights Watch -- we're not a gun control organization per se, and traditionally most of our work has been on human rights concerns. But we do care about people selling weapons to human rights abusers."

Like Human Rights Watch, most members of IANSA are not gun control organizations per se, nor are they involved in domestic gun-related issues -- but the measures developed to control gunn trafficking at the international level will necessarily require backup by domestic measures. Membership in IANSA is open to non-governmental organizations, community groups and professional associations that support at least some of the group's policy objectives and "do not oppose or advocate opposition to those objectives, which they do not explicitly support." Organizers have developed a list of gun control measures IANSA supports, including: Reducing the availability of weapons to civilians in all societies. Providing resources to develop the capacity in national and local governments to achieve effective controls over small arms possession and use. Promoting safe storage practices for small arms on the part of citizens and states. Systematic collection and destruction of weapons that are illegally held by civilians. Collection and verifiable destruction of surplus weapons as part of U.N. peacekeeping operations. Promoting programs to encourage citizens to surrender illegal, unsafe or unwanted firearms. Banning the advertisement and promotion of small arms to civilians.

                  International gun control treaty coming?

At least 200 organizations have signed on with IANSA as supporters or active participants, including Human Rights Watch, the Federation of American Scientists, Pax Christi, World Council of Churches, Amnesty International, Gun Free South Africa, Viva Rio, the leading anti-gun group in Rio de Janiero, the Arias Foundation in Costa Rio, and the British American Security and Intelligence Center -- or Basic, which has offices in London and Washington.

The lobbying efforts of IANSA and "likeminded" governments has begun paying off. A conference is in the works to be held in 2001 that will cover all aspects of small arms --and some kind of a firearms protocol or treaty will probably be on the agenda.

According to the National Rifle Association's Tom Mason: "Proposals are being floated of an international treaty banning civilian possession of military-style firearms -- though it's impossible to distinguish military from civilian; other proposals are calling for the destruction of all surplus military firearms, calling for the registration and regulation internationally of all manufacturing and shipping of firearms -- there's a whole series of very radical proposals.

"They will have their first meeting to prepare for the conference on February 28," Mason said.

                  "We will be there," he promised.

                  Stephan Archer and Sarah Foster are staff
                  reporters for WorldNetDaily.

The bill authorizes the secretary of defense to "assign members of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to assist" the Immigration and Naturalization Service "in preventing the entry of terrorists and drug traffickers into the United States."

The measure also would permit the military to assist the U.S.  Customs Service "in the inspection of cargo, vehicles and aircraft at points of entry" into the U.S.  "to prevent the entry of weapons of mass destruction, components" thereof, "prohibited narcotics or drugs, or other terrorist or drug trafficking items."

The bill, HR 628, passed
243-183 with 8 abstentions on May 18.  Sponsored by Rep.
James Traficant, D-Ohio, the measure was originally introduced in February 1999.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the Traficant amendment would amend Chapter 18 of Title 10, United States Code.  Title 10 governs the use of American military forces and personnel and already permits the use of military personnel to operate equipment in support of domestic law enforcement agencies, as well as the training of civilian law enforcement personnel.

U.S.  law currently prohibits, with exceptions, the "direct participation" of U.S.  military personnel in "search, seizure, arrest or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law."

While there remains support for the deployment of U.S.  military forces in a domestic border patrol capacity, not all officials who are engaged in border enforcement welcome the addition of American military personnel.

The National Border Patrol Council, the country's largest Border Patrol union, is opposed to the Traficant provision because the organization does not believe U.S.  troops are adequately trained for such a mission and because of past experiences with troops on the border.

While the Traficant provision would require that any military personnel deployed in a border-patrol capacity first receive training, the National Border Patrol Council, in a statement, said, "We all know that the training will last a few hours at most, in sharp contrast to the comprehensive 19-week training program that Border Patrol Agents must complete."

Also, the Border Patrol union is worried that another incident like the death of 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez, Jr., will occur.  Hernandez was shot and killed by U.S.  Marines near Redford, Texas, on May 20, 1997.  Marines claimed the teen shot at them; they were later cleared, but the incident drew sufficient outcry to force the Pentagon to drop deployment of military forces along the border for the time being.

Supporters of the provision, however, point out that it specifically prohibits U.S.  troops from conducting "a search, seizure or other similar law enforcement activity or to make an arrest,"
in accordance with Posse Comitatus laws.  It also requires the attorney general or secretary of the treasury to notify local officials and state governors when forces are being deployed in support of Border Patrol functions.

Controversy over the plan is as old as the bill itself.  One year ago, in an interview with WorldNetDaily, Gregory Nojeim, legislative counsel for the Washington, D.C., chapter of the ACLU, said the sum total of the new military roles in civilian law enforcement would eventually destroy "what was left" of the Posse Comitatus Act.

"These provisions ...  will blow a hole in Posse Comitatus large enough to drive a thousand tanks onto our city streets," he said.

Nojeim said he is most concerned about language in the bill that gives much more arbitrary judgement on the potential conditions in which the military could be used in the hands of the secretary of defense, the attorney general and the secretary of the treasury.

"They're trying to make it more of a routine thing to have the military involved in enforcing American civil law," he added.  "Imagine having troops on your streets and in your back yard for an undetermined amount of time for what could be an ambiguous reason."

Tim Lynch, a spokesman for the libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute, said he believes it is a precursor to end the strict limitations on civilian law-enforcement use of military assets and personnel.

Last year, he said that while the provision had not yet been passed into law, he feared it was "a certainty" it would be.  The fact that the measure passed the House last month bears out his concerns.

"Not too many people are talking about it, not many are objecting to it, and it looks like it's just going to sail through," he said.  "That concerns us."

By Jon E. Dougherty
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Critics are denouncing recent congressional changes to the Posse Comitatus Act that will allow a broader use of U.S. military forces in a domestic law enforcement role including a new unit for deployment in assisting civilian officers during a terrorist attack.

The new command, established Oct. 7 in Norfolk, Va., will be called the U.S. Joint Forces Command, and replaces the former U.S.

Atlantic Command. At a ceremony commemorating the new unit, Defense Secretary William Cohen told participants the American people shouldn’t fear the potential of seeing U.S. military forces on the streets of U.S. cities.

The military must “deal with the threats we are most likely to face,” Cohen told reporters, downplaying concerns about troops operating on home soil. “The American people should not be concerned about it. They should welcome it.”

The new command is designed to prepare U.S. troops to fight abroad or to respond if terrorists strike with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

In opposing the measure, critics cite the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits federal troops from participating in domestic law enforcement activities under most circumstances. With the concern over domestic terrorism rising since the World Trade Center bombing and numerous incidences of cyber-attacks on U.S. defense and financial institutions, the Clinton administration has begun to relax some of those restrictions. In July, WorldNetDaily reported the new measures would end the requirement for local law agencies to reimburse the federal government for any local use of military equipment, as well as enable the Department of Defense to deploy military troops in cases of anticipated or actual terrorist attacks.

Then, David Kopel of the Independence Institute warned that the measures would, if passed, “set (bad) precedents for years to come.”

Since the Waco debacle in 1993, when federal law officers and military personnel assaulted a church community resulting in the deaths of over 80 men, women and children, Kopel said the federal government has been “eroding the protections contained in the Posse Comitatus Act.” In the past, he told WorldNetDaily, most of the amendments to the original law had been based on bogus drug issues. Now, he said, that issue seems to have shifted to so-called terrorist attacks, or at least the threat of them.

The Defense Department has said only the military has enough equipment to operate in a poisoned environment, or to manage a massive decontamination effort. Secretary Cohen told reporters last week that federal law will not be violated because the military would only respond if requested.

“It is subordinate to civilian control,” he said.

But Gregory Nojeim, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C., told WorldNetDaily he is concerned about “nightmare scenarios” like those in the recent films, Enemy of the State” and “The Siege.” “Soldiers are not equipped, by training or temperament, to enforce the laws with proper regard for civil and constitutional rights,” he said. “They’re trained to kill the enemy.”

Nojeim said the ACLU is concerned about “letting loose the most effective fighting force in the history of the world” on American civilians. Cohen said that the creation of the Joint Forces Command would better coordinate the training of the four armed services. However, history is replete with reasons why some Americans continue to be hesitant about using military troops in a law enforcement capacity.

Besides questions about the Army’s Delta Force role during the Waco siege, most recently, in 1997, U.S. Marines assigned to assist the U.S. Border Patrol in combating illegal immigration accidentally shot and killed an 18-year-old goat herder. That force has since been withdrawn and reassigned, but lawmakers have remained committed to expanding the military’s civil law enforcement role in other ways. For example, the military also has been given an expanded role in defending against cyber-terrorism, or assaults on U.S. computer systems. The U.S. Space Command in Colorado will be leading that effort.

Nojeim questioned the need for such an expansion of federal military forces into the domestic law enforcement arena, even though U.S. officials have said the nation is now at greater risk of terrorist attack. He also believes the White House should do a better job of educating the American people about why the changes to the Posse Comitatus law are needed.

“For years the federal government has showered the FBI with hundreds of millions of new dollars to help it combat crimes involving chemical and biological weapons,” he told WorldNetDaily. “Taxpayers need to know where that money has gone and why the president now wants to call in the troops.”  Addressing the long-term ramifications of the change in military law enforcement policy, Nojeim said, “When the crisis hits, those with the biggest guns will be subordinate to no

H A R T F O R D, Conn., Sept. 26 —
Before Columbine High School, before the Atlanta day trader offices, before the Jewish community center in Los Angeles, there was Matthew Beck.

In March 1998, the 35-year-old accountant went on a suicidal shooting spree in his offices at the Connecticut Lottery headquarters. Four people died before Beck put the gun to his own head.

Lawmakers reacted with one of the toughest gun-seizure laws on the books. Starting next month, Connecticut police will be allowed to confiscate guns from anyone determined to be an immediate danger to himself or others.  The law is rooted in the notion that rampages such as Beck’s are preceded by a detectable descent into madness.

Critics say the law tramples the Second Amendment and fear it could lead to unwarranted searches and seizures. Supporters say the standards for seizing guns are so high the law will seldom be used. From both sides, Connecticut’s law—apparently the first of its kind—is attracting attention.

Seizure Conditions

Legally seizing a gun will require more than suspicion, said state police Lt.  Robert Kiehm. There must be evidence that the person recently tortured animals, threatened to kill himself or others or acted violently. A police investigation must conclude there is no other way to keep the person from doing harm, and a warrant must be issued by a judge.
The law also requires a hearing within 14 days to determine whether the gun should be returned.

Beck had threatened to kill his bosses at the lottery several days before the rampage. His co-workers were so nervous, one started bringing a gun to work for his own protection, said Rep. Michael Lawlor, the law’s sponsor.

Under the new law, if those co-workers had “called the cops and said Beck was talking about guns and making threats, something could have been done before the shooting happened,” Lawlor said.

Violates Constitutional Rights?

Gun-rights advocates argue that allowing police to take weapons from people who haven’t done anything wrong violates their Constitutional right to bear arms “You don’t forfeit your rights just because you might do something bad,” said Dennis Fusaro, director of state legislation for Gun Owners of America.  The National Rifle Association declined to comment. The law also could lead to illegal searches, said Rep. Richard Tulisano.  Lawmakers in other states say the focus on prevention is the law’s strength.

Illinois Rep. Tom Darta, a Chicago Democrat, said he plans to introduce a similar Illinois proposal in November. “The thing that frustrates me is that when they’re pulling bodies out of a house, neighbors are telling the police ‘Yeah, the guy who shot them was nuts—we all knew that,“‘ Dart said.

Steven Duke, a Yale University law professor, said he doubts the law would have prevented Mark O. Barton from killing nine people at two brokerage firms in Atlanta in July.
“What guy who wants to shoot somebody is really going to be deterred because his pet weapon has been confiscated?” Duke asked.

But Lawlor said the new law could stop people like Benjamin Smith, the white supremacist who killed two people and wounded nine during a two-state shooting spree targeting Jews, blacks and Asians.

Smith’s criminal record and reputation for passing out hate literature could have prompted police to take action, Lawlor said.

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.  All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

It’s taken nearly seven years, but it looks as though -- finally—rank and file cops are ready to publicly call Clinton the hypocrite he is regarding law enforcement and gun control.
According to an article in Capitol Hill Blue Sept. 8, the Law Enforcement Alliance of America is preparing to launch an ad campaign (today) decrying Clinton’s hypocrisy and informing Americans that, among other things, Clinton’s “Justice” Department has had a 46 percent drop in prosecutions since Attorney General Janet Reno took over.
Specifically, the LEAA’s campaign will oppose “the president, congressional Democrats and other gun control advocates.” Jim Fortiss, executive director of the 65,000-member strong LEAA, said that Clinton “almost on a daily basis, exploits the rank-and-file of the law enforcement community to further his anti-gun agenda, yet his own administration has a reprehensible record of prosecuting criminals who violate the laws already on the books.”
“It is an insult to the injured and maimed police officers and all in law enforcement who risk their lives on a daily basis to even consider more gun legislation, not to mention releasing convicted terrorists for politically motivated reasons,” he added.  Amen. How many times have we heard this? And yet—to hear Clinton, Democrats and the mainstream media tell it—all cops hate guns and those who own them. That’s just garbage.  In fact, study after study has shown that some 90 percent of police officers regularly say they support gun rights and the right to carry a concealed weapon. They say that because they—and not the anointed gun socialists—know that such constitutional principles are key deterrents to crime. Outside of posting a cop on every street corner—which is Clinton’s wet dream and the wet dream of every socialist authoritarian—guns in the hands of America’s law abiding stop more crime than anything else.

But you cannot convince the gun Nazis that this is either true or a sound idea. No, they’d rather continue to have their loved ones gunned down by real criminals who know that neither they nor their neighbors are armed and can do nothing to stop them. They’d rather continue to be too scared to walk down their own streets while pointing fingers at law abiding gun owners and comparing them to some distant, knuckle-dragging relative of the human race.
What cowardly stupidity. It is these gun Nazis—and not law abiding gun owners—who are most responsible for hundreds of violent crime deaths a year. It is they who insist on an unarmed and undefended population. It is they who revel in perpetual “victim” status, not pro-rights Americans who long ago realized that guns—not laws and not politicians—help keep American society safe. The most recent crime figures bear this out.  The LEAA hopes to convince millions of Americans that most beat cops are neither afraid of the Second Amendment nor of the right of anyone to use it. They already know what the socialist Clinton and his Democrat and Republican cohorts don’t care to admit: Cops, too, are safer with more guns on the street.
Stressing our differences

Tuesday night ABC aired a one-hour special highlighting the “important impact” Latino music is having on American culture. I didn’t care to watch that so I began cable channel flipping and simultaneously conducting a little experiment.  As I flipped the TV channels, I noticed there were cable channels specifically catering to blacks and Hispanics, as well as Asians and women. There were no cable channels specifically for white Americans and, even more specifically, white American males.  Nothing but more political correctness, I thought. But really, it’s much more than that. It seems like a conscious effort to fractionalize—to “balkanize”—this country because each time a popular media outlet emphasizes the differences between we Americans instead of our similarities, it drives a wedge further between us. And someday, I fear, the recognition gap will be so wide there will be no breaching it. By then, we’ll all simply be different people living in the same country, instead of all of us being Americans.

I hate the notion of a “hyphenated” American: An African-American, a Hispanic-American, an Asian-American, or a European-American. There are no such things; these titles were all created out of whole cloth by socialists who know that the only way to control a population is to divide and conquer it. To the people who believe this, I say, “Do you remember the ‘ethnic Albanian’ label we gave to former Yugoslavians?” Is any of this sinking in? As long as those who control the direction our culture travels insist upon dividing us instead of highlighting our similarities as Americans—language, U.S. customs, principles and American culture—there will never be unity.
And if that happens, you might as well plan on your children’s children having to live in squalor and misery while they fight for their own survival because this country, someday, will self-destruct once all the common bonds have been destroyed.  It’s inevitable. And that ought to anger all of us— no matter what our “ethnic” background— enough to want to do something to stop it. We can start by telling these PC antagonists to stuff their notions of “popular” culture.

Freeing terrorists

No matter what the reason for President Clinton’s granting of clemency to 11 FALN members—political expediency, because he cares, or whatever—the result will be the same. Once they walk out of prison, their ties to over 130 bombings in U.S. cities and possessions will mean nothing, and a group of avowed terrorists will go free.  That is the real problem I have with Clinton’s clemency deal to former Puerto Rican nationalists -- several known terrorists connected to bona fide terror bombings are walking out of jail because we have a president who doesn’t give a rat’s behind what the American people think about anything.  And are we going to be safer for it? Oh, sure we are—that’s because Clinton made these committed nationalists sign a paper pledging not to be bad anymore. That is, 11 of them signed the paper; four others who were convicted at the same time as the others are still so committed to Puerto Rican nationhood that they wouldn’t even sign the clemency agreement. How’s that for “rehabilitation?” And what happens if these Puerto Rican punks go and bomb U.S. buildings? Does anyone seriously think the conscience-less Clinton will be held liable?  Maybe the Republicans will “conduct an investigation” and we’ll all be able to rest easier knowing they “got to the bottom of this.” The signal Clinton is sending to the rest of the world—that the U.S. is morally weak, leadership poor and vulnerable—will invite, not deter, future attacks on our soil. I don’t guess he’ll be held liable for that, either.

     Joseph de Courcy, editor of the well-respected "Intelligence Digest," says in a mailing delivered to subscribers this week: "While NATO congratulates itself on bombing the Serbs into submission, Israel's Mossad and other Middle Eastern intelligence sources have      discovered that Kosovo was one humiliation too many for Russia. Now Moscow has agreed to back Saddam's secret plan of revenge. With this all-important Russian backing, Saddam is joining with hated Iran and Syria to launch one final war against Israel. Amazingly, Saddam will allow Iranian troops to cross Iraqi territory to join the attack on Israel. And to keep America from interfering, Moscow has given Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the means to attack American population centers with weapons of mass destruction. The     threat is real...and the implications terrifying..."

      "I promised Zoh some years ago that I would come on her show and I would talk about weaponry and I'm fulfilling that promise today."

      One of the greatest man-induced dangers we face as a planet today is the development of electromagnetic frequencies to be used as wave warfare. In April of 1997 Secretary of Defense William Cohen admitted he was concerned about threats of terrorism with weapons that can cause earthquakes and trigger volcanoes.

Over the years we have shared with our audiences many different approaches to the subject of quantum mechanics, the work of Nikola Tesla, the concerns about ELF wave warfare, mind control, and other technological nightmares predicted by the misuse of these technologies. Investigators and researchers in these areas often refuse to speak publicly about their work, and usually Ltc. Tom Bearden is one of them. When asked, Bearden typically declines to share his knowledge about our government's involvement in behavioral weaponry, lecturing instead on the many other facets in his amazing repertoire. Indeed, there are other lecturers speaking publicly about behavioral weaponry, but often they are sent by the government to assure the public this stuff doesn't go on.

But on May 16, 1997, however, Tom Bearden kept his promise, and agreed to be a guest on The Zoh Show and tell her audience what he knows about electromagnetic weaponry. Zoh recalled meeting Christopher Bird for the first time in December 1977. The co-author of the classic, The Secret Life of Plants, Chris Bird eventually became the best man at the wedding of Dr. Bob and Zoh (see Hieronimus & Co. Newsletter #6), and at that first meeting Chris noted Zoh's interest in learning how frequencies are capable of changing consciousness, healing and harming. Chris said, "You must speak to my good friend Tom Bearden." Tom and Zoh briefly discussed his work in weaponry, with a promise to go into more details at their next meeting. Since then, he has discontinued public speaking about his knowledge, until this date, twenty years later, on May 16, 1997 when he joined The Zoh Show to help promote the New Energy Conference of May 1997, and fulfill his twenty year old promise.

Zoh asked Tom to give his own rendition of his biography and he modestly summarized his extraordinary background like this:

"Well, in all these matters, Zoh, you've got to keep your sense of humor. I started out to be a country & western guitar picker and singer and followed that trade until I wound up in the U.S. Army. I had an Army career, I'm retired of course, then worked in aerospace for 19 years. That's basically my background. Masters Degree in Nuclear Engineering, B.S. degree in mathematics, some other courses here and there, and the equivalent of a Masters Degree in Aerospace Engineering from a special Army course. I got concerned early on looking at lectromagnetics," when he realized text book teachings were antiquated in the teachings and concept of energy. It was all twisted up, and it is to this day, and I'm not the only one who says that. Some of the very famous foundation's physicists have pointed out that electrodynamics should be completely redone, but it's fashionable to never pay attention to that." Tom says he got concerned because it appeared to him that if the errors were corrected, "you could also model the mind," he continues. "I've always been convinced that we are human beings. We are not meat computers and we are not machines. If we lose sight of the fact of our humanity and our human beingness, the rest of it doesn't matter anyway. If we are nothing but a bunch of robots beating one another's brains out then we would be better off to be destroyed and populate the earth with real human beings.

 "One of the things that I wanted to see was a science that was more humane, that considered human beings as well as materialism. Fortunately, quantum mechanics destroyed materialism about sixty-something years ago but unfortunately it hasn't fallen down yet. It's dead but it's not toppled over, and unfortunately most of our scientists are still materialists," meaning they believe that the brain is where all the action is. In their belief, he says, "there's no such thing as an independent mind or independent spirit or anything."

Tom is reluctant to discuss our military's involvement in electromagnetic warfare because he doesn't want to be "gagged". "First of all, as you can probably imagine, I've leaned over backwards and stayed completely out of any room that had anything to do with anything our own government might be doing or might not be doing. The obvious reason is: everything I did had to be done from open sources -- otherwise you just end up getting classified, and gagged and shut up."

In general, however, Tom will say, "Most of our attention in the west has been focused on what we call Directed Energy Weapons, where we actually just bang the energy out in the normal fashion, and we try to get lots of it out there, and we try to get it out in a real dense clump and bang it with that. That's like a laser beam. Or, in microwaves, hold a bunch of it together so that it gets hit with a slug of energy. That's basically what kinds of weapons, the west at least, overtly anyway, has been working on. In the KGB laboratories, the cream of the non-linear scientists of the whole world are the Russian scientists, always have been. Those folks worked on this other stuff and they were working on it shortly after the end of World War II. In 1947 they were working on it like mad and so by 1950 they were testing prototype laboratory weapons. Particularly by the latter 50s they actually had pretty good solid weapons systems and prototype coming along. The first large strategic weapons that they deployed, the real big monsters were deployed in early 1963. The reason for the      Cuban missile crisis was: in backing Castro the Russians wanted to change the whole balance of power and stick in nuclear weapons, but they also knew they had these super weapons coming along. Kruschev had spoken of those in 1960. Part of that was printed in the New York Times. And so he went ahead and started sticking in the long range missiles and the nuclear weapons and so forth. And they did put nuclear weapons in Cuba in spite of the knowledge of our government in those days. Later we found they really did. What [Kruschev] did was he just sort of jumped the gun, because his big stuff was not deployed yet, and when Kennedy called his bluff in 1962 he didn't have the big guns behind him and his missiles were in woeful shape. Kennedy knew that, courtesy of Colonel Penkovsky, a Soviet spy that was in our employ at that time, courtesy of the British Intelligence. Kennedy knew that as far as missiles and the normal stuff was concerned, Kruschev was in terrible shape. So of course he got caught with his pants down, so to speak, he didn't have the big weapons to back himself up yet. BUT when he got them he negotiated and blustered around long enough to get a promise out of Kennedy not to attack Cuba so he could keep the base in Cuba. Then he vowed revenge. When those things were deployed, of course, he had lost face seriously before the whole world and particularly before the Communist party. So Kruschev's days were numbered shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was desperate to try and stay in power.

 "...1962 was the Cuban Missile Crisis, as soon as those things got deployed a few months later, in April 1963, he did a tremendous dramatic test of the weaponry. First he killed the U.S.S. Thresher underneath the ocean off the coast of the U.S., left signatures a mile wide. The next day he placed an underwater burst of this energy, gigantic burst 100 miles north of Puerto Rico, one of the deepest parts of the oceans and we had a passing jet airliner which happened to see the surface of the ocean ball up and rise up about 1/2 a mile high in a mushroom cloud and fall back into the ocean, the symptoms of an underwater nuclear burst if you don't vent the gas bubble. We have a good pick point. My personal opinion is the Russians were up to their neck in the death of Kennedy also, as was apparently God and everybody else, too, but the thing is he did get his revenge and he did demonstrate to the Communist party that the weapons were workable and they would destroy, for example, the finest attack submarine we had of the day."

"...In general there's a "system within the system" in Russia. First of all you've got the Communist party which is really the dominant system, and it still is today. It's sort of lying dormant a little bit today, but not really. It still controls the KGB, and the KGB still has all the powers that it wants to exercise. And it always did control and have the development systems for the advanced weapons of the kind that I was talking about, where you use a different kind of electromagnetics. We pointed out that two papers, one in 1903 and one in 1904 by E.T. Whittaker, give you the way to go about constructing and using this new electromagnetics.

"...That last paper was used to establish what today is called Super Potential Theory and very few people work in it but it's known. The first paper was completely ignored and it gave you the ability... to create energy at a distance. It does not flow through space as normal EM [electro magnetic] Waves. It's not ELF [extremely low frequency]. It's not like your normal radio broadcasting system at all. It's really like a DC voltage that doesn't have anything going on on the surface but down underneath it has pressure waves, and the pressure waves bang into the system on the other end and create real electromagnetic energy on that end. Putting it simply... there's no such thing as a shield for it. So obviously that kind of weaponry is head and shoulders above anything else we normally look at including firing a laser beam here at something up there, you know, and with it going through the air in the normal fashion... What happens at the other end is the energy rises directly as out of the local vacuum the actual space time the thing's embedded in."

To define scalar energy, Tom drew an analogy. "Suppose you have an ocean -- after all, we know today that space itself is a special kind of ocean. It's filled with enormous flux activity. It's not an emptiness at all, sort of like a special kind of sea or ocean. The waves that you have on the surface where the water has to rear up, be physically lifted up, and moved energetically, that compares to a normal electromagnetic wave. Those waves move pretty slow on the surface of the water. Now underneath the water if you sort of had a little flat plate area and you bang this plate very sharply with a little shock wave, you get a pressure wave that goes through the water. This pressure is just a transmission of pressure. Water's almost incompressible or basically incompressible, so the pressure wave goes very rapidly through the water at a tremendous rate. If you bang together somewhere out in the  distance a couple of these pressure waves that come in from two different points and meet upon an object, upon that object they then create all kinds of upheaval waves and all kind of stuff you'd get on the surface. The object can be in deep trouble very quickly, but when you look at it from the surface kind of view you will see waves appear on it. It didn't get there with surface waves transporting across and hitting it in a normal fashion. It came in by the pressure waves underneath slapping together and recreating the surface waves. And that's the way we're talking about. In other words you have a hidden type of wave that buries up to what we would say in space time, if you want to talk general relativity, or better yet to look at it materially the way that Whitaker did and so forth, it simply infolds inside the scalar potential, what we normally call just DC voltage."

Working in scalar energy "can do a lot of good as well as a lot of bad," says Tom Bearden. "Let's talk about some good and bad that you can do in terms of human beings. First of all, a Russian scientist named Kosnoschev who headed up a research institute in Siberia in those days did some enormously important work.... As far as everybody else was concerned [he demonstrated] openly just normal electromagnetics -- but it wasn't. It was the special stuff. He demonstrated that any kind of cellular disease whatsoever, without limitation, can be captured and transmitted into other cells at a distance using this special kind of electromagnetics. They did about 18,000 experiments, and research institutes can prove this. And so, of course, the KGB and so forth started weaponising that effect very highly. You know for years [they used] the so-called microwave radiation on the U.S. Embassy in Moscow where they induced all kinds of health changes. This was a limited test deliberately kept very small, although they did kill three ambassadors."

"...Wheeler, one of the great physicists of this country, pointed out that if you condense energy like in mass or you have a cloth of energy, that affects the actual fabric of space time itself. It's like it pushes the sheet, makes a lump in it." Zoh likened it to dropping a child's ball on his bed and the sheet gets a bump in it. "It changes it," continued Tom. "It's an engine. In return the geometry gets twisted up, interacts back on the mass. Mass tells space time how to curve, space time curvature tells mass how to move. This operates at all levels and all you have to do is capture these little clumps of energy, make a pattern of them that you need, and that's called engineering the vacuum. We just call it vacuum engines.

"So you can make these little pockets of energy in the actual vacuum itself and the emptiness in front of you, little energetic dispositions. It's got forces in it once mass is put there. There are little invisible fingers that are little engines and they work on the mass. They work inside the nucleus. They work wherever you design them for."

"...There's two kinds of frequency there. There's the frequency that exists up on the surface of the ocean and then there are these jillions of frequencies that are hidden down underneath the ocean. Those are the ones that we're talking about." While Bearden and other teams of scientists world over are trying to learn how to use that available energy to heal and to change the disease state, it can also be used to kill.

 "It's the ultimate biological warfare, of course," continues Thomas Bearden. "I'll say this flatly, and I won't answer any further questions about it; the Gulf War Syndrome was induced... It was induced with this stuff. All the rest... was contributing factors that everybody's talking about. Yeah you had a little bit of nerve gas released, yeah, you had some chemicals, yeah, you had this, but not everybody got those exposures. There are some deeper signatures if you look into it very deeply that show you exactly how it was done and the fact that it was induced. It was a test. It was a test of a very special kind of weapon I have not talked about yet. Anyway you can use it to create diseases.

"You can just as easily use it to cure diseases," continues Bearden. For example there were experiments in France in the early 1960s when they cured lab animals of terminal tumors and other vicious infections like the sleeping sickness using internal    electromagnetics -- without knowing what they were doing. Thee late Christopher Bird wrote about the whole history of that project. "But nobody could explain how it worked.... What they were able to do was just back the cell up. Once the cell was infected or diseased or whatever, like in a cancer cell, they just reversed it back to a normal cell. They didn't kill the cell. That's not what you do. You just change it back and forth." Nobel Prize nominee Robert Becker also showed conclusively that extremely minute amounts of electricity can induce healing, a practice now approved by the FDA for use in healing bone fractures in hospitals everywhere. Unfortunately millions of people continue to suffer needlessly when electromagnetic healing could cure them of numerous ailments and illnesses, but the FDA will has not approved its use elsewhere.

"The Russians looked at it you know, with an extremely large research program," says Tom. "They not only looked at it but they developed the heck out of it. So that's the problem. We just simply can't get our own scientists to move off of square one.... There's been absolutely no [development] in this country, even looking at this internal       electrodynamics, even though it's been in the hard literature for almost a century."

"One problem is all science is patronized, that is, somebody has to pay the freight, somebody has to pay the bills.... The bureaucracy in science that controls the money flow, what money shall be spent and what it shall be spent for controls all of science. What people do not realize is science is not free at all in this country -- it is highly constricted. There are plenty of bright, young Ph.D.s that would love to work on this kind of thing, but the scientific community will not allow them because the bureaucracy will not give them any funds. And if they try to work on their own in this area they get destroyed, pure and simple.

"...The other thing is scientists like to glorify themselves, but they form a distribution just like any other group of people. The broad in the middle are people just like you and I doing a special job. They're no better, no worse. There's a small percentage of them that are angelic almost. They are really the epitome of the scientists. There is also a small group on the bottom, the end of it, the bottom 11% that are nearly devils, and they are manipulative and they try to rise and control everything, and they are interested only in the big money game, who's got the money, who controls. Governments of the world have been made beasts of burden for large control interests anyway, not just one, but all kinds of control interests. It's a DOGGONE cat and dog fight out there. And so what you have is all these competing interests using power, influence and money, and all buying everything. And that's what controls what science works on. That's why you don't get free energy. Free energy can be done anytime anybody wants to spend a little money. It's slowly being done anyway."

Ltc. Tom Bearden knows a lot about electromagnetic theory, over-unity electrical machines and free energy devices, but only on The Zoh Show will you hear him talking about subjects he has removed from his public speaking lectures: weapons that can trigger earthquakes, cause volcanoes, disturb brain patterns and seed thoughts in the populous. For copies of Thomas E. Bearden's writings, The Excalibur Briefing, 1988 and 1990, and AIDS As Biological Warfare, send an SASE to The Tesla Book Company, P.O. Box 121873, Chula Vista, CA 91912. Tom Bearden is a frequent speaker on new energy technologies. Video and audio tapes of his presentations at the International Symposium on New Energy can be ordered from Back Country Productions at 303-772-8358

 Two scalar hemispherical surfaces are created, using multiple frequency transmitters and truncated Fourier series expansions. Interference of the two scalar hemispheres creates a great, glowing hemispherical shell of ordinary electromagnetic energy. In the shell, the energy density is sufficient to lift Dirac matter from the Dirac sea of vacuum. The shell is thus filled with a glowing plasma.

Such a shell may be several hundreds of miles in diameter at the base. The enormous energy required to form such a defense shell is obtained by a "scalar power tap" into the molten core of the earth itself as previously explained. In late April/early May of 1985, 27 such "power taps" were placed in the earth by the Soviets. If each tap is capable of powering 4 to 6 large scalar EM weapons, then the Soviet strategic scalar EM arsenal contains over 100 monstrous superweapons capable of generating exothermic explosions, endothermic explosions, engineering the weather, locating and destroying underwater submarines, detecting and destroying ballistic missiles shortly after launch, detecting and destroying long range strategic bombers as soon as they are airborne, etc.

At any rate, the giant Tesla shield is useful against any penetrating vehicle. If the shell is not so large, its energy density may be very high. In that case, the intense plasma heating will fuse and even vaporize metallic bodies. In addition, any vehicle encountering the shell is subjected to an extremely intense EMP arising everywhere inside its circuitry. EMP shielding is of no use against the creation of energy throughout the spacetime of the
circuits; such shielding only helps against energy flow through space in the  conventional sense.

Thus the electronics of any vehicle encountering the shield are instantly dudded, whether or not they are shielded against ordinary electromagnetic interference (EMI). This includes the electronics operating a nuclear warhead, carried by a re-entry vehicle. Electrically everything penetrating the shell is totally dudded. Further, explosive materials are exploded when such an EMP is encountered, and combustible materials are fiercely consumed or set afire. Ablative shielding suffers an interesting catastrophe: since energy does not try to "flow into" the shielding but "arises" everywhere in it simultaneously, "ablation" occurs everywhere throughout the ablative material, simply exploding it instantly. In addition, for smaller Tesla shells (say of 50 miles in diameter) the energy density is sufficient to melt or vaporize metals such as missile structures.

With such a Tesla shield, there is no need to discriminate true warhead bearing re-entry vehicles from decoys, chaff, etc. The whole "mess" entering the shield is simply "cleaned up" and "sterilized" or destroyed. The shield can take care of ICBMs/IRBMs and their nuclear warheads, strategic bombers and their nuclear bombs, cruise missiles and their nuclear warheads, re-entry vehicles and their warheads, decoys, chaff, etc.

The London Sunday Times of 17 August 1980 contained information and a photo-sketch of incidents of sighting of the testing of very large Tesla globes deep within the Soviet Union. The sightings were made in Afghanistan by British war cameraman Nick Downie. The phenomena seen were in the direction of the Saryshagan Missile Test Range, which -- according to the U.S. Defense Departments "Soviet Military Power," 1986 -- contains one or more large directed energy weapons (DEW's).

Even though Downie was seeing the globe of light from a great distance, it flared silently over the Hindu Kush and expanded to subtend an arc of about 20 degrees, dimming as it expanded. (An arc of 20 degrees subtended by an object many hundreds of miles distant indicates an object of well over a hundred miles in diameter. This gives some idea of the enormous energy being controlled and manipulated by these Soviet weapons.)

Downie saw the sight on more than one occasion in September 1979.

In the same month --December 1979-- a stationary luminous globe containing a vertical stripe of black in the center was seen in the sky off the coast of St.Petersburg, Florida. This particular type of sighting in that area has been previously correlated with times of known activity at Saryshagan.

Further, in the same month, U.S. nuclear warning Vela satellites detected a "nuclear flash" over the South Atlantic, off the coast of Africa. Controversy has raged in U.S. Intelligence and scientific circles to this day as to whether a nuclear explosion or some other kind of mechanism produced the flash.

Indeed, the flash may have been produced by a scalar EM howitzer from Saryshagan as one more "ping" of the U.S. Intelligence system, to ascertain whether or not it knew anything about scalar EM howitzers. Again the negative response told them with high confidence that (1) We still didn't know about scalar EM stuff, and (2) We were still totally defenseless against the Soviet scalar EM weaponry.

At any rate, from Downie's sightings, it is highly probable that the DEW weaponry at Saryshagan Missile Test Range was active in September 1979, and was producing large Tesla globes. If the DEWs at Saryshagan can produce the giant luminous Tesla globe, they are almost certainly scalar EM interferometers and can produce the giant Tesla shields as well. Downie reported other earlier sightings of similar phenomena seen by Afghans deep within the Soviet Union in the same direction toward Saryshagan...

Briefly, let us cover the uses of such a giant globe or spherical shell of glowing EM energy and plasma.

By placing such a giant globe hundreds of miles out away from the defended heartland, an entire arc of the sky can be defended against long range ballistic missile attack in midcourse. During their midcourse trajectory, the attacking missiles would have to penetrate the globular shell twice, exposing them to giant internal EMPs twice. A very high probability thus exists that all missiles entering the space occupied by the globe are  dudded upon entry and/or exit. This includes the electronics inside the nuclear warheads themselves. Also this is particularly effective against MIRV and MARV missile carriers since the multiple re-entry vehicles are normally still on the main vehicle during most of midcourse. The use of this midcourse ABM globe defense greatly reduces the number of vehicles arriving at the latter part of midcourse and the terminal phase of their trajectory.

By using a smaller, more intense globe, and placing it on incoming clusters of objects or single objects, both EMP and local heating are used against the objects. This is suitable in the latter part of midcourse and in the terminal phase of ICBMs, IRBMs, SLBMs, and cruise missiles. It is also useful against incoming strategic bombers and their air to surface missiles both ballistic and cruise.

Two modes of the globes -- especially the small ones -- can be used. First the continuous mode can be used to "fry" or vaporize incoming objects in a relatively small volume (say ten to fifteen miles in diameter). Second, the "pulse" mode can be used to "service" all incoming objects, whether or not they have passed through the "large globe" midcourse defense. This provides an additional guarantee of killing the objects; discrimination is not required, just get all of them. The exposure of all incoming objects to  multiple attacks raises the probability of kill to essentially 100%, or as close to that as one wishes. Of course the incoming vehicle may still encounter a terminal defense consisting of the Tesla shield and associated roving "quickshot" small intense globes.

 In short, with these systems an essentially 100% ABM and anti bomber defense is possible. Further, the Soviets have possessed such an effective defense for two decades, JUST AS THEY HAVE OPENLY STATED SINCE 1960 WHEN KHRUSHCHEV ANNOUNCED HIS "SUPERWEAPONS"!!

Here is another verified incident of a gigantic test of a Soviet scalar EM howitzer deep within the Soviet Union.

This is a C.I.A. report, released under the Freedom of Information Act. One can be quite sure that the incident occurred as stated.

The phenomenon was seen from two aircraft approaching Mehrabad Airport in Teheran, Iran on June 17, 1966 and reported by their pilots.

On the far horizon deep within the Soviet Union, an intense spherical ball of light appeared, "sitting on the horizon" so to speak. The globe of light increased to enormous size, dimming as it did so, literally filling an arc of the distant sky as it expanded. The sighting was shielded from most ground observers view at the airport itself due to an intervening mountain range which masked most of the phenomena from the ground.

 The silent, expanding globe was observed for four or five minutes before it faded away.

Again this is positive evidence of the testing of a giant scalar interferometer, in the "midcourse ABM globe" type of action.

However, note the date -- mid 1966! The Soviets have therefore been testing such scalar weapons of enormous size and power for at least two decades. This implies that development must have started at least a decade earlier, or in the mid '50s.

Still earlier, in January 1960 Nikita Khrushchev had announced the development of a "fantastic" Soviet weapon, one which could even destroy all life on earth if unrestrainedly used. In 1962 the ebullient Khrushchev was forced to back down and lose face before John Kennedy, in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev's missiles and bombers were in woeful shape, as Kennedy well knew (by courtesy of the Russian spy, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky). Kennedy did not know that Khrushchev's new superweapons were nearing deployment, but were not quite ready yet.

 To save face and prevent his immediate ouster, Khrushchev apparently conducted a startling two-strike demonstration of his new weapons as soon as they became operationally ready. On April 10, 1963 he detected and destroyed the U.S.S. Thresher nuclear submarine, using a scalar EM howitzer in the underwater "continuous" mode. The next day he demonstrated the "pulsed" underwater destruction mode for underwater subs by producing a giant underwater explosion underneath the water 100 miles north of Puerto Rico. Ironically, just as the Atlantic was coming alive with U.S. naval vessels searching for the lost Thresher, a second test of the weapons that had finished off the sub occurred to the south of them, unnoticed and disregarded, even though seen and reported to the F.B.I. and the U.S. Coast Guard by a passing U.S. jetliner's pilot and crew, who observed the underwater explosion.

We thus can peg the development of these weapons by the Soviets as starting well before 1960. The first operational deployment of the gigantic strategic weaponry occurred in early 1963.

Note that the 1966 testing observed here is completely consistent with this estimated development schedule.

Thus large Soviet strategic scalar EM weapons have been operational on site for 24 YEARS !!! This implies that at least three additional generations of the scalar EM weapons have been developed and deployed by now...

Incidents of Soviet testing of the Tesla shield and the Tesla globe weapons are routinely observed  by airline pilots flying over the North Pacific into and out of Japan.

This is one typical example. Two jetliners, Japan Air Lines flights 403 and 421, sighted and reported a large glowing globe of light sitting just beyond the horizon and extending well above it. The aircraft were in the vicinity of 42 degrees N latitude and 153 degrees longitude at the time. The sighting was thus about 700 miles east of Kushiro.

The diameter of the ball was estimated as at least 18-27 kilometers by the pilots. Depending upon the actual distance to the sphere it may have been of much larger size.

This incident is reported in the Asahi Evening News, Tokyo, June 22, 1982.

Many similar sightings have been reported by jet airliner pilots flying over these waters.

Here is another sighting closer to home.

This incident was observed from a passing ship on June 22,1976 in the North Atlantic, at about 2113-2140 hours. It is reported in the Marine Observer, Vol.47,1977, p.66.

First an orange glow was sighted behind some distant clouds. A couple of minutes later, a glowing white sphere of light was observed to the left of the orange glow, just above the clouds. The white sphere then slowly expanded to a much larger sphere, dimming as it expanded. At its maximum size, the top of the white sphere reached about 24 degrees 30 minutes elevation angle to the observer. Development to maximum size required about 10 minutes.

 By 2140 hours the sphere had faded and disappeared. The sphere was sufficiently thin that the stars could be seen through  it at all times.

Again, this incident strongly fits the large Tesla globe mode of a Soviet scalar EM interferometer.

 The significance and role of the orange glow are not known at this time.

 Here is another incident that represents a stimulus to the British government, to see if the British are aware of scalar electromagnetics.

Again this is a CIA report released under the Freedom of Information Act, so the details are reliable.

 On Sep. 10, 1976 British European Airways flight 831, flying between Moscow and London and over Lithuania at the time, observed an intense ball of light above the clouds below the aircraft. The light was so intense it lit up the sky in the entire vicinity.

The concerned pilot reported the glowing object to Soviet ground authorities with whom he was in contact. He received harsh instructions to ignore the light, and essentially to continue on his way out of there.

Here we see an incident involving a small, intense Tesla globe, of the kind with which the defense could "service" objects that had already penetrated a large midcourse globe, or aircraft approaching the defended area.

Obviously the Soviet authorities were tracking the aircraft, and knew it was in the vicinity. It seems logical, then, that they deliberately placed the brightly glowing ball beneath the aircraft so that the pilot and crew could not fail to observe it.

The strange message to the pilot was simply designed to increase the intensity of the stimulus. The stimulus was to be something like, "The Soviets are doing something in research and development that allows them to create intense balls of glowing light at a distance, and place these objects in and around the air in and around aircraft, possibly to intercept them." The purpose, of course, was to observe the British governments reaction after the incident was reported by the pilot upon his arrival in London.

Again the reaction of the British -- and the U.S. as well -- was as predicted. Again we showed that we knew nothing of scalar electromagnetic weapons, and did not recognize one when we encountered its effects.

Very neat things can be done if one "nests" several Tesla shields --say three or four -- concentrically, one iinside the other. In that case even the nuclear radiation (such as gamma rays) from a defense-suppressive high altitude nuclear burst can be handled.

For example, suppose three such concentric shields are placed over a large vital area. Further, suppose a high altitude nuclear burst is placed above the outer shield. Gamma radiation almost instantly strikes the plasma in the outer shell, where it is absorbed, scattered, and re-radiated at a lower temperature. (That after all is what plasmas do.) Inside the first shell, the scattered radiation is now in the x-ray and ultra violet region.
Let us track the most lethal component, the x-rays.

The scattered x-rays then strike the second plasma shell, and are absorbed scattered and re-radiated at a lower temperature. Inside the second shell the scattered radiation is now in the visible and infrared region, with a little ultraviolet.

This optical radiation in turn strikes the third plasma shell, and is absorbed scattered and re-radiated at still lower temperature. Inside the third shell, most of the energy is now in the form of radio frequency (RF) energy, with a little IR and visible band spectral energy content.

At this point, ordinary electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding of electronic equipment on the ground inside the third shield can take care of any RF interference resulting from the emergent RF noise.

As can be seen, three shells are sufficient to convert the gamma and x-ray radiation (and ultraviolet and infrared) mostly to harmless RF energy before all three shells are penetrated. Thus the tactic of deliberate defense suppression by a preliminary high altitude nuclear burst can be countered by multiple Tesla shields.

In addition, of course, any ordinary vehicles penetrating all three shields are exposed to successive violent EMP's and are almost certainly electrically dudded. The vehicles are also subjected to multiple periods of intense heating, so combustibles, fuels, explosives, and ablatives are destroyed. In addition, metal structures may be melted or vaporized.

Think of it this way: anything which hits one of these Tesla shields goes phhht! Just like a bug hitting an electrified bugkiller screen.

For years passing ships have observed and reported such multiple-shield "light phenomena" over remote regions of the ocean. U.S. intelligence has routinely not paid any heed to "lights at night" over remote ocean areas, and so Soviet tests in this manner have remained relatively unnoticed by officialdom...

In July 1976 the U.S. received very special Bicentennial greetings from the Soviet Union.

At that time, communications systems of the world in the 3-30 megaHertz band suddenly met substantial interference from extremely powerful, chirped Soviet transmitters which were suddenly activated. These transmitters continue their transmission to this day.

Estimates of the power of these transmitters vary, but figures range as high as several hundred megawatts, with a nominal figure being 100 megawatts.

These powerful transmitters were properly nicknamed "Woodpeckers" because of the characteristic sound of the chirped signal when received. That is, the received signal makes a "pecking" sound much like a woodpecker's beak hitting a block of wood.

Several nations protested, but the powerful signals have continued, right down to this day. The only Soviet response was to add a "spread spectrum" capability, so that the transmitter would not dwell too long on one specific frequency, but shifted periodically to other frequencies.

These transmitters have apparently never been precisely located by U.S. intelligence, but their beams carry much of the characteristics of an over-the-horizon (OTH) radar. They have been dubbed OTH radars by U.S. intelligence, and can without question perform that mission, in addition to some very interesting missions that U.S. intelligence does not assess.

"Soviet Military Power", Department of Defense, 1985, p.45 shows the direct intersection over the United States of the Woodpecker radar beams used in an OTH role. In addition, shown is an additional "scanner" beam which can be scanned across the intersection "grid" over the U.S., formed by waveform interference of two main Woodpecker beams.

First, they can be used in  a conventional OTH radar mode, since their beams follow the earth-ionosphere waveguide and curve around the earth. In this mode they can detect missiles at launch and thereafter, and strategic bombers at launch and thereafter.

These scalar interference grid weapons can be used to biologically attack entire populations in a targeted area. This aspect is not covered in this briefing. Suffice it to say that phase locked ELF modulation signals of 10 Hz and less are often detected on multiple woodpecker frequencies simultaneously. In a target area, this modulation -- is sufficiently stronger than the Schumann resonance of the earth's magnetic field -- will entrain a percentage of the brains into "forced entrainment". In that case, these human brains are "synchronized" to the Woodpecker signals so that multiple coherent frequencies are phase-locked into them. That is, multiple coherent EM channels directly into these entrained brains now exist. At that point, Fourier expansions may now be used to attack specific portions of the brain geometrically.

In addition, scalar EM disease patterns can be modulated upon the carriers, again with fourier expansions. Specific biological effects can be induced in the entrained populations at will, limited only by the state of the art of the Soviet technology used to attack them. Possible effects include instantaneous death, heart seizure, severe emotional disruption, loss of control of internal functions, diseases, disabling of the immune system, and even implantation of thoughts, emotions, and ideas which are interpreted by the subjects as their own.

While further discussion of this area is beyond the scope of my knowledge, the biological aspects of the Woodpecker transmitters are horrible. It suffices to say that, in thousands of experiments, Kaznacheyev demonstrated that almost any kind of cellular death and disease pattern could be electromagnetically transmitted. Kaznacheyev reported the effect in te near ultraviolet.  Experimenters at the University of Marburg in West Germany duplicated the experiments in the infrared.

The bottom line is that photons themselves can carry death and disease patterns between cells. Scalar EM technology allows synthesis of the actual potential pattern (which after all represents total control of charge and charge distribution, hence biochemistry in the cell) of a particular disease or death mechanism. Symptoms (and cellular death from them!) of nuclear radiation, chemical poisoning, bacterial infection, and other mechanisms were induced by the Kaznacheyev experiments.

Dr. Popp of West Germany has published an analysis of the virtual photon master control system of the cells. Since scalar EM represents the deliberate ordering of virtual particle  flux into deterministic patterns, the master control system can readily be entered with scalar techniques to induce disease and disorder at will...

WASHINGTON -- Congress says in a new report that the Pentagon defied the law and the Constitution by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on military projects that lawmakers never approved, including a super-secret Air Force program. The Pentagon acknowledged some of the accusations Wednesday night, saying honest mistakes led to its failure to notify Congress about the way it was spending money.

The House Appropriations Committee, expressing anger and astonishment in a report that accompanied this year's military spending bill, which is scheduled to be debated by the House on Thursday, said the practice had eroded trust between the nation's lawmakers and military commanders. Representative Jerry Lewis, Republican of California and chairman of the committee's defense spending panel, said the Pentagon's actions showed its belief "that it can even move money to a program Congress has closed down, maybe presuming, 'Oh, well, nobody will know.' "

"What do we have to do to make them understand what we mean when we say no?"
Lewis asked.

The Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, said Wednesday night that the failure to notify Congress about the military's redirecting of appropriated funds had taken place. "We work very hard to respond to the directives Congress gives us," Bacon said. "Do we get it right 100 percent of the time? Of course not."

He acknowledged that the Air Force wrongfully started and financed a highly classified, still-secret project, known as a "black program," without informing Congress last year. The committee said that act was illegal. It also raises questions about civilian control of black programs, whose costs and nature are the most highly classified secrets in the Pentagon. Military officials refused to discuss any details of the black program.

The committee's 313-page report says the Air Force tried to buy an $800 million military communications satellite without lawful authority, and illegally diverted from an unspecified program hundreds of millions of dollars to update its C-5 transport plane. It also says the Pentagon spent millions of dollars on a "Star Wars" missile defense program that was previously canceled by Congress.

The report cited three other examples involving military trucks, missiles and tanks. It did not provide specific cost figures, but committee staff members said these practices were a chronic and worsening problem adding up to billions of dollars spent improperly and illegally over the past decade, particularly in the last year or so as military officials have tried to finance more and more expensive programs.

Addressing the specific charges other than the Air Force black program, Bacon said the military had on occasion failed to notify lawmakers about the way it spent money on these and other military projects. But he said these were honest errors, and not open defiance.

As for the military satellite, he said there were legitimate disputes over whether caches of research money should be segregated from money to the satellite. Bacon said the several hundred million dollars transferred to the C-5 program involved a misunderstanding between the Pentagon and Congress, and the "Star Wars" program was a controversy over whether the program had been completely canceled.

The law and Pentagon procedures allow military officials to shift funds from one account to another, but not without telling Congress. They cannot finance programs Congress never approved, or use money for a purpose that lawmakers never intended. But they have done so for years, the committee's report and its staff members said.

"The Constitution is pretty clear on this," Lewis said. It says: "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law." That means the Pentagon cannot spend money unless Congress authorizes it for specific programs.

Congress struggles every year over the military's budget and the costs of weapons. But the Pentagon now consumes half of the available funds in the Federal budget, and some senior Republican lawmakers, mindful that their party is cutting billions of dollars from domestic programs, are trying to be more vigilant about military spending.

The Pentagon spending battle has been joined this year in the House on two fronts: the accountability of Pentagon officials and the cost of weapons, including the $70 billion F-22 fighter jet program.

The committee has withheld $1.8 billion sought to produce the first six F-22's, saying the money would be better spent on pilots and present-day planes. The F-22 is supposed to be the flagship of the 21st century Air Force. The decision has produced howls of protest from the Pentagon. "We can fund the F-22," President Clinton said today. "It would be a mistake to abandon the project."

The Senate's defense bill finances the first six F-22's. But Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told Defense Secretary William S. Cohen this week that "we can't be giving you a blank check."

The House Appropriations Committee report noted that the Air Force was trying to write its own checks for the F-22. It said the Air Force requested hundreds of millions of dollars that was supposed to help buy the first F-22's, but Air Force officials, "in violation of specific Congressional direction," earmarked the money for additional research and development. The Air Force, in a statement, said it "had not misled Congress or misused appropriated funds." It called the committee's report a product of "misunderstanding or misinterpretation," and said it would "work with Congress to clear this up."

That may take some doing. The committee called the Air Force's "lack of accountability astonishing."

Its report said the Air Force broke the law with a new program to update electronics and software on the C-5 transport plane. This program, "which the Congress never formally approved," cost several hundred million dollars. The money was obtained "by diverting funds specifically provided by the Congress for another program," the report said.

The committee said the Air Force has been taking money out of research funds to help finance a new $800 million Milstar military communications satellite. One of the satellites was lost in space this spring, but because appropriated money was diverted, the Air Force cannot say how much a replacement will cost taxpayers, the report said.

"This committee is little short of amazed," the report said in accusing Pentagon and missile-defense officials of illegally financing a "Star Wars" system known as the Medium Altitude Air Defense program.

The system has cost $100 million but produced nothing, the committee said. It was canceled last year by Congress. But it received at least $2 million diverted by Pentagon and missile-defense officials from another missile-defense program to help keep it alive, the report said.

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/072299pentagon-spend.html

  (1) The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 (part A of title XXIX of