United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

In a follow-up to Tuesday's broadcast breaking the story of the exposure of a military spy who infiltrated Western Washington antiwar groups and reported to Fort Lewis and the nationwide fusion center network of intelligence sharing, on Wednesday Democracy Now! featured an interview with Christopher Pyle, who as a captain working for U.S. Army intelligence in 1970 played a key role in exposing and bring to an end massive military surveillance of American citizens active in the antiwar and civil rights movements.[1]  --  "[H]istory is repeating itself," said Pyle.  --  "I think the significance is less that the Army is monitoring civilian political activity, than that there is a network — a nationwide network of fusion centers — these state police intelligence units, these municipal police intelligence units, that bring together the services of the military, of police, and even private corporations to share information," he said.  --  "And there’s an area of this which has not yet become publicly known, and that is the role of corporations working with the intelligence agencies, corporations which do data processing and data mining, which are totally exempt from any state or federal privacy laws.  There’s no control on them at all." ...

In reporting on the unmasking of a Fort Lewis spy inside the Olympia PMR group, local mainstream media are failing to mention or are downplaying the most important aspect of the case:  the issue of the massive and little-reported growth of fusion centers that is endangering privacy and civil liberties in the United States.[1,2]  --  There is no mention, either, of the fact that the story has become national news, with Democracy Now! devoting 45 minutes of its hour-long broadcast Tuesday morning on the issue, raising important issues of national concern.  --  COMMENT:  This non-coverage is part of a pattern of silence relating to every issue of importance that pertains to the growth of militarism and the U.S. national security state in recent years that is particularly visible in the coverage of the News Tribune of Tacoma, WA, located next to one of the nation's largest military bases.  --  UFPPC has corresponded with the management of the News Tribune regarding a conflict-of-interest concern created by the paper's relationship to the defense establishment (the News Tribune earns a substantial share of its income from a Dept. of Defense contract making it the publisher of the Northwest Guardian, the Fort Lewis newspaper); management argues that it maintains a firewall between its editorial and its business practices, but the pattern of its coverage does not support this conclusion.  --  Regarding fusion centers, UFPPC has documented in recent years that the very existence of fusion centers is being systematically downplayed by our corporate-owned media — perhaps because the corporations themselves are part of the fusion center networks.  --  Clearly, a congressional investigation is called for if Americans still care anything about their freedoms.  --  In her Truthdig column on Tuesday, Amy Goodman wrote:  "Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Rush Holt, D-N.J., and others are pushing for a new, comprehensive investigation of all U.S. intelligence activities, of the scale of the Church Committee hearings, which exposed widespread spying on and disruption of legal domestic groups, attempts at assassination of foreign heads of state, and more.  --  Demands mount for information on and accountability for Vice President Dick Cheney’s alleged secret assassination squad, President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, and the CIA’s alleged misleading of Congress. But the spying in Olympia occurred well into the Obama administration (and may continue today). President Barack Obama supports retroactive immunity for telecom companies involved in the wiretapping, and has maintained Bush-era reliance on the state secrets privilege. Lee and Holt should take the information uncovered by Brendan Dunn and the Olympia activists and get the investigations started now."[3] ...

Democracy Now! devoted 45 minutes of its news broadcast Tuesday to breaking the story of the revelation of an informant reporting to the U.S. military who over the last two years infiltrated and spied on the Port Militarization Resistance group in Olympia, WA.[1]  --  Documents turned up by a FOIA request led the group to the realization that "John Jacobs," a purported anarchist who gained the confidence of the group and acted as an adminstrator of its listserv, was really John Towery, a member of Fort Lewis's Force Protection Service.  --  When confronted, Towery confessed his spying, shocking activists who considered him a friend.  --  Fort Lewis acknowledged the spying for the first time in a statement to Democracy Now!  --  Commentators believe that there are many more such spies, and some are calling for a full-scale investigation into domestic spying programs, including the mysterious system of "fusion centers" set up nationwide of which Towery's spying was a part, instituted by the Bush administration, saying that these programs may involve breaking existing laws like Posse Comitatus.  --  Mike German of the ACLU appeared on the broadcast, saying the U.S. military appears to regard fusion centers as a "method of circumventing Posse Comitatus and the restrictions on military intelligence gathering in the United States."  --  Eileen Clancy of I-Witness told Amy Goodman:  "[I]t’s very clear that this problem is national in scope."  --  BACKGROUND: UFPPC has worked with PMR and has supported most of their actions.  --  See "A Protest in the Best American Tradition" (March 15, 2007):  "Just as the young Abraham Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau opposed the U.S. war of aggression against Mexico as a perversion of American values, so protesters at the Port of Tacoma stood this month against a war so illegal, so immoral, and so disastrous that it endangers the very health of the American body politic. . . . This legitimate protest has occasioned lamentable and disturbing behavior on the part of the Tacoma Police Department. . . . [W]e must work to understand why our local authorities chose the line of conduct that we were dismayed to witness this week.  There must be an investigation.  Those responsible must be held to account.  What happened is not acceptable."  --  The militarization of the police response to legitimate public protest deserves new attention in the light of the latest revelations.  --  See also UFPPC's other statements related to port militarization resistance, "Statement on Olympia Port Militarization Resistance" (November 15, 2007), and "The Failure of Democrats to Stop the War Is a Crisis of the Republic Legitimating Civil Resistance," (December 20, 2007) emphasizing that it is protesters, and not our militarized police, who are on the side of the rule of law in the present matter.  --  DEEPER BACKGROUND:  See also the following material on fusion centers posted on the UFPPC website:  1) "Fusion center mission creep deserves more attention than it's getting" (June 9, 2009); 2) "The return of Total Information Awareness — EPIC's backgrounder on 'fusion centers'" (May 18, 2008); 3) "Fusion centers 'have potential to be privacy nightmares'" (May 13, 2008); 4) "Why do media censor WAJAC's involvement in Seattle 'mystery men' case?" (May 10, 2008); 5) "Media mostly mum about terror drills and fusion centers" (May 4, 2008); 6) "'Martial law training' of unprecedented scope gets no national press" (April 21, 2008)....

A woman in her thirties who was a mother with two children was shot and killed at around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday as she worked at her clothing and jewelry kiosk at the Fort Lewis PX, the News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) reported Wednesday.[1]  --  She was killed by a 59-year-old retired sergeant first class living in Lakewood who then "fatally wounded himself," causing "panic in the Wal-Mart-size shopping center" that serves Pierce County's immense army base, Scott Fontaine and Mike Archibold said.  --  The victim's mother said she believed her daughter was killed "by a former boyfriend who [Sharlona] White had left seven months ago."  --  Because both of the dead were civilians, the FBI has taken over the case, Fontaine and Archibold said.  --  The Seattle Times reported around midnight that the murderer shot himself in the head but died only around 4:00 p.m.[2]  --  He had retired in 1992 and lived in Lakewood, Sanjay Bhatt and Charles E. Brown said.  --  Commentators on the KING 5 website added a few details.  --  One said that the woman killed "was the nicest person you could ever meet. . . . She sold Christian items for the exchanges as a vendor."  --  Another claiming to be the daughter of the murderer, apparently provoked by idle speculation on the part of some others, posted a statement that said of him that "He was a very nice man, a great father and a loving friend.  He was my father and we will never understand why he did this.  He hurt his children, his loved ones, and his family.  He also hurt a very nice young lady's family as well and has left two beautiful children without their mother.  My father has never been to the Middle East and was retired.  You don't have to deploy to be able to do something like this.  Whatever my father's reasons were, they were too much for him to bear.  We send our prayers and condolences to her family for their loss.  We love our father and nothing could ever change that.  Nothing has ever happened like this in our family and no family deserves the pain that is left for all of us to deal with.  I understand that everyone has their opinions or their reasoning on who my father was and what caused him to do this.  That is a answer that we will never know.  Do know that this could happen to anyone and no family is safe from a tragedy like this.  I never imagined this would happen but it knocked on our door.  Be blessed, love your family, listen, pay attention, and never think it won't be the last time.  That knock may visit your doorstep one day.  By the grace of GOD I pray it doesn't because the pain is unbearable for any family to handle whether your loved one was the suspect or the victim.  We will always love our father and our prayers go out to her and her family.  May God help and bless us all."  --  BACKGROUND:  In the several dozen reports on this incident that I reviewed, only one used the term "murder-suicide," though this case seems to conform to a common pattern in such crimes.  --  According to the Wikipedia article on the murder-suicide, "Though there's no national tracking system for murder-suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 to 1,500 deaths per year in the U.S., with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners, males were the vast majority of the perpetrators, and over 90% of murder suicides involved a firearm.  Depression, financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators." ...

On Wednesday a group of fourteen citizens including members of the Save Gaza Campaign met with Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna "to discuss his earlier signing of a controversial letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supporting Israel's attacks in Gaza during December and January," a press released prepared by Peter Lippman and Linda Frank said Thursday.[1]  --  "McKenna listened cordially and promised to consult with the group in the event that future questions arise relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . . . The group meeting with McKenna presented several requests including that he publicly withdraw his name from the Attorneys General letter . . . The Attorney General indicated that he would respond to the requests within a few weeks."  --  Linda Frank represented United for Peace of Pierce County at the meeting....

The remarkable documentary film "Sir! No Sir!" (2005, directed by David Zeiger) will be shown on Thurs., Jul. 16, at King's Books in a fundraiser for Coffee Strong, the GI coffeehouse near Fort Lewis.[1]  --  Randy Rowland, who appears in the film as a member of the Presidio 27, will be present and will speak after the film.  --  "Sir! No Sir!," which won an audience award at the L.A. Film Festival and the Golden Starfish Award for best documentary of 2005 and which enjoys a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 88% "ripe," tells the not-well-enough-known story of resistance to the Vietnam War from within the military and makes the case that this resistance played a key role in ending the Vietnam War.  --  NOTE:  For more materials on GI resistance to the Vietnam War (not a topic the mainstream media is willing to feature, for obvious reasons), see here....

Washington Public Campaigns is sponsoring a public forum on health care reform that will be held at First United Methodist Church (621 Tacoma Ave. S.) at 7:00 p.m., preceded by a social hour.  --  More details below.[1] ...

Following a meeting with Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA 3rd) on Sat., Jun. 6, in Olympia, at which the congressman spoke about his second trip to Gaza, the Corries are appealing for your help in encouraging our representatives in Congress to take a fresh look at the Israel/Palestine situation.[1] ...

Nancy Farrell reminds you to turn out if possible for the protest against sales of militarized bulldozers to Israel by Caterpillar, Inc., on Mon. afternoon, Jun. 8, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.[1]  --  Nancy recently sent a letter to the News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) on Caterpillar; the text is posted below.[2] ...