Death by "excited delirium"
On the short list of “legacy” that Bush will leave behind is the encouragement of brutishness in the American character — blame his internal spy network and fright PR, sold as a precaution against unknown deeds that might hurt our “family” and linked to the word “homeland” as if we were simpletons working the field with wooden hoes, and call it “order.” The mob of not-too-bright citizens jumped on that bandwagon quickly enough — now we find enforcement techniques are being used against our own … and we’re surprised, shocked, amazed. Well – DUH!
The police departments and emergency services in this nation … indeed, across the world … are facing down an unhappy public — and preparing for what they’d do if they got surly. Enter the stun gun and their new training to deal with people as though they were a deadly threat, rather than a citizen with rights. For a couple of years, we’ve gotten bulletins about the use of these weapons — now they’re in the spotlight. Below, you’ll read about a nifty house party you can go to in order to get your own.
This is a sociological phenomenon — a sometimes deadly one. In a colossal case of “wrong headedness,” the public views the growing number of Youtubes and reports with an eye toward the culpability of those shocked … did they deserve it? Lord A’mighty — does ANYONE deserve it?
Add that the institutions that meet out these punishments are being schooled to kick ass and take names, rather than “protect and serve.” Last month I got a tearful email from one of our readers in Flagstaff, AZ, about how severely she had been treated over a parking ticket. It’s happening everywhere, part of our march toward “security” — and I’ve read that if you mention your Constitutional rights during any of these interactions, you’re pigeon-holed as a radical and treated harshly.
Brutishness is on the rise and it isn’t the criminal class that we need to protect against. Many of you saw the Youtube of the Polish man tasered in a Canadian airport — he died on the floor. One has to wonder — if he’d spoken English, would they have treated him in this fashion? Wonder … and worry.
Below you’ll find bits on three recent incidents and a Youtube, to start off — then a Rudy connection, a conference in Las Vegas and where to go to get your party invitation. Naomi Wolf, last.
Note: I’m traveling this weekend, I’ll post on Monday from the Pea Patch.
Jude
Stun gun used on pregnant woman in Ohio
JAMES HANNAH, AP
Thu Nov 29
[thanks, Christine]
TROTWOOD, Ohio - The FBI is investigating whether a policeman violated a pregnant woman’s civil rights when he used a stun gun to subdue her, authorities in this Dayton suburb said Thursday.
The woman had gone to the police department Nov. 18 asking police to take custody of her 1-year-old son, but tried to leave with the child after the officer started asking her questions, said Michael Etter, Trotwood public safety director. He added that the woman wore a winter coat and did not tell the officer she was pregnant.
Etter said the officer feared the boy could have been harmed had the woman been allowed to leave with him.
“I don’t think any of this would have happened had she cooperated with us,” Etter said. “We probably would have called her a minister, called a crisis counselor, but you’ve got somebody telling you, ‘I’m not telling you anything, and now I’m going to leave.’”
Valreca Redden, 33, was arrested and taken to jail; Etter said charges of obstruction and resisting arrest are pending. When she arrived at the jail, it was discovered that she was pregnant, and an officer took her to Good Samaritan Hospital.
“She never complained of any kind of injury,” Etter said.
He said the officer released her at the hospital after giving her an order to appear in court, but she did not sign in at the hospital. A message seeking information from the hospital was not immediately returned Thursday.
The boy was later placed in the custody of his father.
A message seeking comment was left for Redden Thursday at her grandfather’s house, which she listed as her home on a police report.
Etter said that he began an internal investigation after a man complained this week about Redden’s treatment, and that the FBI investigation began after he informed the agency of the complaint.
Michael Brooks, an FBI spokesman, said the agency has opened a preliminary civil rights investigation based on information supplied by Trotwood police. He declined to comment further.
Etter said that when Redden showed up at the police department, she told the officer she was “tired of playing games” with the boy’s father, but she refused to answer questions, became frustrated and tried to leave with the child.
Etter said the officer, Michael Wilmer, grabbed the woman, took the child from her and forced her to the ground. When she resisted being handcuffed and tried to get away, the officer used the stun gun, Etter said.
According to a police report, Wilmer said the woman was upset, thrashed violently, and continued to resist despite several warnings that he would use the stun gun if she refused to stop fighting.
Stun guns deliver temporarily disabling bursts of electricity for several seconds, and are used by thousands of law enforcement agencies. Police say they help avoid hand-to-hand struggles that can injure officers and citizens, but critics say some departments overuse them and point to a number of deaths connected to the devices.
A telephone message seeking comment was left for Wilmer, who Etter said remains on duty. Etter said there have been no previous allegations of excessive force involving Wilmer and that he has not been disciplined for any major violations of department policy.
Boynton cop fired for using excessive force in DUI arrest
Kevin Deutsch, Palm Beach Post
Thursday, November 29, 2007
BOYNTON BEACH — A Boynton Beach police officer has been fired after an internal affairs investigation found he used excessive force following the arrest of a man for DUI.
City Manager Kurt Bressner on Wednesday approved Police Chief G. Matthew Immler’s recommendation to fire Officer David Coffey, 27, who was hired in October 2005.
The initial complaint, filed on April 4, involved an alleged altercation outside a van that was taking the complainant from the Boynton Beach Police Department to the Palm Beach County Jail. During this time, Coffey was alleged to have used his Taser to drive stun the complainant four times, police said.
An internal affairs investigation of the entire time the complainant was in police custody uncovered video that showed Coffey used excessive force in a temporary holding cell at the police station, police said.
That video shows Coffey grabbing the complainant by the throat, pushing him into the metal bench in the holding cell and forcing his head against a concrete wall, police said.
The video was a “key element” in the investigation and subsequent decision to fire Coffey, police said.
Coffey was reassigned to administrative duty on April 5. He was placed on paid administrative leave on July 20.
Utah Cop’s Itchy Taser Finger Probed
Jared Massey Posted Video of Highway Patrol Officer’s Tasering Him on YouTube
DAVID SCHOETZ, ABC News
Nov. 21, 2007
A dashboard camera video posted on YouTube less than 24 hours ago showing a Utah Highway Patrol officer firing a Taser at a driver he stopped for speeding has prompted authorities there to expedite an internal investigation into the incident.
“We’ve known about the incident since it occurred,” Cameron Roden, a spokesman for the Utah Highway Patrol, told ABC News. “But with it coming out on the Internet, we’re trying to move the investigation along.”
Jared Massey, 28, posted the nearly 10-minute long clip on YouTube two months after the confrontation with police took place along a rural stretch on a state road two hours east of Salt Lake City.
In it, John Gardner, the officer, is shown on his own dashboard camera as he approaches Massey’s SUV and tells him that he pulled him over for speeding in a 40 mph zone.
Massey and the officer have a brief dispute over speed limit signage before Gardner returns to his cruiser to write the ticket. He then approaches Massey and the two again engage in a dispute, with Massey claiming Gardner stopped him “blind” — without a radar gun — and that he had not yet passed a sign where the speed limit on the road dips to 40 miles per hour.
Gardner tells Massey that he’s going to sign the citation, a demand Massey refuses before the officer asks him to exit the vehicle.
The video shows Gardner walking back to his cruiser to place the citation on his bumper as Massey gets out of the car and points toward the spot where Gardner saw him speeding.
In less than six seconds after asking Massey to get out of the car, Gardner has told him to turn around and put his hands behind his back and pulled out his Taser, a device that fires tiny, tethered cartridges that transmit electrical currents to shock an intended target.
Gardner tells Massey two more times to turn around and put his hands behind his back, to which Massey responds, “What the hell’s wrong with you?” and walks back toward his vehicle. At that point, Gardner fires the Taser, stunning Massey, who drops to the road.
Massey’s pregnant wife, Lauren, then jumps hysterically from the SUV’s passenger door, objecting to the officer’s use of his Taser. Gardner then handcuffs Massey, telling him that he is arresting him for not following his requests.
“You know what, you should have followed my instructions,” Gardner tells Massey as he lies handcuffed on the road.
Gardner then tells Massey’s wife the same thing, as she repeatedly tells him, “You had no right to Taser him.”
When he threatens to arrest her if she doesn’t stay in the car, Massey, who has since stood up, tells Gardner, “Officer, you got a little excited.”
Massey then asks repeatedly to have his rights read to him after being told that he’s going to jail. At one point, Gardner says, apparently to another officer, “Oh, he took a ride with the Taser, pretty painful, heh?”
At the tail end of the clip, which has generated hundreds of comments and been viewed nearly 25,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted, a second officer arrives on the scene and Gardner explains the incident to him. “He was completely in charge,” he said, describing Massey’s behavior.
“I said, ‘Hop out, put your hands behind your back.’ He didn’t do it,” Gardner told his colleague. “I said, ‘Put your hands behind your back.’” When Massey refused to follow his order, Gardner continued, “I said no, I’m not playing that game, pull out the Taser, ‘Turn around, right now, or I’ll Taser you.’” The colleague responded, “Good for you.”
Massey filed a complaint with a local patrol office, according to Roden, the Utah Highway Patrol spokesman. Gardner has not been reprimanded for the incident and, Roden said, has not been disciplined for incidents in the past.
The department has a nine-page Taser policy, Roden said, and this is an incident that will be taken “very seriously.”
In the video, before Gardner takes her husband to jail, he tells Massey’s wife, “It didn’t have to go this way, but it did.”
Now that decision will be made by the state’s public safety internal affairs officers.
View the Youtube of this event here
The Giuliani Connection to the TASER Abuse Explosion
Zak Maymin, OpEdNews
November 29, 2007
Bernard Kerik, former Giuliani’s driver , is behind the sudden advancement of tasers. The phenominal rise of tasers is mainly due to the efforts of Rudy Giuliani. In 2001, Taser International developed its “Advanced Taser Electro-Muscular Disruption” system and became a publicly traded company (”Taser”). In 2000, Giuliani installed Kerik as the New York City police commissioner. In 2002, Kerik, a senior vice president at Giuliani Partners and CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC, became Taser’s director.
With Kerik at the steering wheel, Taser’s profits grew ten times in two years, to $68 million in 2004, up from just under $7 million in 2001. By the way, sales have been helped along by police officers who have received payments and/or stock options from Taser to serve as instructors and trainers.
In 2003, Taser received weapons orders from Homeland Security. In 2004 Bush, lobbied by Giuliani, nominated Kerik as Secretary of Homeland Security. The same year, Kerik made more than $6 million from Taser.
Just five years earlier, Kerik faced lawsuits over delinquent payments for his condo. The life of this high school dropout changed after he became Giuliani’s chauffeur. Giuliani made him rich, powerful, and, as a result, well-educated. After Kerik got a mail-order Bachelor’s Degree from Empire State College in 2002, he went on to receive Honorary Doctorates from Iona College, New York Institute of Technology, Manhattanville College, the College of New Rochelle, and Michigan State University. In 2002, according to keriklegaltrust.com, “Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, also honored him with an honorary appointment as Commander of the Most Excellent Royal Order of the British Empire.”
In 2004, the Commander of the Most Excellent Royal Order withdrew as nominee for secretary of homeland security and resigned from Giuliani Partners “to clear his good name. ” “He continues to be a friend,'’ said Giuliani of the Commander and immediately renamed Giuliani-Kerik LLC to Giuliani Security & Safety LLC.
Earlier this month, Kerik was indicted on federal criminal charges.
A U.N. committee called the use of tasers “a form of torture.” Amnesty International estimated in hundreds taser related deaths.
Giuliani: “Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”
Ok, we get it. It’s all because of the war on terror. Just where is it all going?
Next we will see flying taser saucers zapping us from the sky. Don’t believe it? This weapon has already been built by Taser and tested in Houston. Then there is the crowd control taser. The Air Force secretary Wynne called for using it against US citizens first, before we try it on terrorists, because that “… would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns.”
Yesterday’s poll showed Rudy Taser Giuliani as the best candidate to address terrorism.
Just don’t tase us, bro!
DEATHS IN CUSTODY: TASER HELPS FUND RESEARCH
Symposium aims to define ‘excited delirium’
Critics say the medically unrecognized condition is a way to protect police officers from allegations of wrongdoing
OMAR EL AKKAD, Globe and Mail, Canada
November 30, 2007
LAS VEGAS — In an aging ballroom at Las Vegas’s Imperial Palace hotel usually reserved for a celebrity impersonators show, 360 cops, doctors, lawyers and others have gathered to talk about why people sometimes die in police custody.
The second annual Sudden Death, Excited Delirium and In-Custody Death Conference is under way in Las Vegas, bringing together dozens of experts on a controversial area of research. Most of the speakers - who range from emergency medicine doctors to researchers to current and former police officers - know each other on a first-name basis, having given talks at similar conferences for years. Most of the attendees have paid between $600 and $700 to be here.
While the three-day conference is specifically about in-custody death and excited delirium - an unrecognized medical condition - many of the nearly 20 talks inevitably touch on the role of tasers. As such, the conference has attracted greater Canadian attention since the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport last month.
In fact, Canadians play a major role in this conference, as well as excited-delirium research in general. Officers from Ottawa, Vancouver and Edmonton police forces are here, including members of the RCMP. Two of the conference’s key scheduled speakers are Canadian, including James Cairns, Ontario’s deputy chief coroner, who dropped out at the last minute.
“The goal is to educate as many people as we can about excited delirium,” says John Peters, conference organizer and head of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths. “There’s a wide array of issues.”
However, the key issue is excited delirium, a collection of symptoms that is quickly becoming the leading explanation offered when a person dies in police custody or after a taser is used. According to the various speakers at the conference, signs of excited delirium can include erratic behaviour, profuse sweating and superhuman strength.
Critics, who include civil-liberties groups and plaintiffs in myriad lawsuits against both Taser International and police departments, say the condition is actually a vague collection of descriptors designed to protect police officers from allegations of wrongdoing. But there are virtually no such critics at this conference, only hundreds of researchers and front-line officers who’ll readily stake their reputations on excited delirium being a very real medical emergency.
“I would have used agitated delirium,” says Christine Hall, a Canadian emergency medicine doctor and leading expert on excited delirium. “When people hear the word excited, they think of birthday parties or going on a trip to Hawaii.”
Dr. Hall, who is at this year’s conference and has been asked to speak at next year’s, says much in the same way that abdominal pain can be a symptom of a medical condition such as appendicitis, excited delirium is a collection of symptoms that could point to serious underlying medical problems. The end goal of such conferences, she says, is to allow police officers to spot the signs of what could be a medical emergency.
But as many people at the conference point out, the first step to getting medical help for someone showing signs of excited delirium is to get them restrained. “People say, ‘You should just get him to a hospital,’ ” Dr. Hall says. “But how?”
There are, however, many problems with legitimizing excited delirium. For one thing, the myriad symptoms can blur the line between someone suffering from cocaine-induced excited delirium and someone with low blood sugar - especially for police officers, who generally aren’t trained to make a medical diagnosis.
While excited delirium is not a recognized medical condition, it has been listed as a cause of death in several coroner jury inquests in Canada and the U.S. - Taser International has often said that excited delirium, not its devices, is the cause of death in many cases where people were hit with a stun gun and subsequently died.
The presenters at the conference are well aware of the possibility that they could be perceived in conflict of interest.
Some of them disclose that their research is funded by Taser. Two such presenters conducted research on the negative effects of taser use on the human body; they found very few.
Taser parties stunning success with female clients
Social events aimed at female clients and their personal safety
Nicole Gomez, AZ Republic
Nov. 29, 2007
Pack up your Tupperware, and get ready for a new kind of party.
Dana Shafman, founder of Shieldher Inc., has recently started sponsoring Taser parties, giving women a chance to buy Tasers for $300, or $350 with a laser beam to help with aiming.
Shafman’s parties allow women to get together to discuss concerns and learn about the Taser C2, the newest consumer Taser that is similar to the device police officers use. “I felt that we have Tupperware parties and candle parties to protect our food and house, so why not have a Taser party to learn how to protect our lives and bodies,” Shafman said.
She has had parties in Phoenix and Scottsdale by invitation. Guests have the opportunity to shoot the Taser for the first time at a cardboard cutout during the parties. For safety reasons, no alcohol is served and no one is actually Tasered.
After her first Taser party in Scottsdale recently, Shafman said, “I think the party was spectacular. It opened up opportunities for people to ask questions and get informed about the Tasers.”
Debi McMahon was excited to get her Taser activated.
“I feel like I’m 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. I’m going to buy one for my mom. It’s going to be her 81st birthday present.”
The Tasers come in color choices of pink, blue, silver or black, which caused the women at the Scottsdale party to worry that their small children might see the colored Tasers as a toy.
Caily Scheur, a mother of two, said, “I want to protect my children from (the Taser) just as much as I want to protect myself by using it.”
Scheur said that once the Taser enters her house, she will keep it in a locked box under her bed with the key high enough so her children cannot open the box.
But some of the other women planned on telling their children what the Taser does and why it should be handled only by Mommy and Daddy.
Shafman created Shieldher Inc. in February and became the only Taser party coordinator in the nation, she said.
Shafman used to sleep with knives in her nightstand for protection until she came across Taser International Inc.
“I did not understand why they weren’t doing marketing,” she said, so the idea materialized to sell the Tasers at house parties or office parties. Shafman learned more about the product and volunteered to be shot by a Taser so she could inform others about the product. “I want to provide something that will allow people to protect themselves in and outside of their house.”
The Taser C2, which is not considered a firearm, comes with a manual, training DVD and one replaceable C2 cartridge that loads into the device. The cartridge contains two small probes that can reach an attacker up to 15 feet away. After the trigger safety cover is released, the Taser is aimed at the target and the push of a button to activates the probes. The small probes either attach onto the attacker’s clothing or into their skin, releasing up to 50,000 volts in their body and rendering them motionless. The Taser sends volts for a maximum of 30 seconds, compared with police Tasers that only last for five seconds. Shafman said the consumer model’s voltage lasts longer to give the owner more time to escape.
There is no special certification to own one, but owners must be at least 18 and pass a background check before the Taser can be activated. A call to Taser headquarters or accessing their Web site will activate the device once the background check is complete. Shafman warned that the device is prohibited in seven states, so check the Taser Web site for more information before purchasing or traveling with it.
“As a dealer, I take a cut of all the Taser C2’s and Taser C2 accessories that pass through Shieldher,” she said.
Shafman also said the party hosts will receive a free Taser if 10 devices are sold during their party. She hopes to get the parties going nationwide, sending out representatives and attending the parties herself when possible.
“The End of America”: Feminist Social Critic Naomi Wolf Warns U.S. in Slow Descent into Fascism
Democracy Now
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
[Thanks, Airean]
AMY GOODMAN: Today, we’re joined by a special guest who has just written a book. The United States is on the road to becoming a fascist society, right under our very noses. That’s the premise of the new book by feminist social critic Naomi Wolf. It’s called The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, and it’s already on the New York Times bestseller list.
Naomi Wolf outlines what she sees as the ten steps to shut down a democratic society. She argues the Bush administration has already implemented many of these steps. Naomi Wolf is the author of several books, including the ’90s feminist classic, The Beauty Myth.
Critics describe her latest book, The End of America, as a wake-up call to Americans to heed the lessons of history and fight to save their democracy before its too late.
Naomi Wolf joins us in our firehouse studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!
NAOMI WOLF: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Start off with the stories that you tell in your book.
NAOMI WOLF: Well, they’re the stories of societies that were systematically closed down by would-be despots, would-be dictators, whether they were on the left or the right, who essentially developed a blueprint in the first part of the twentieth century to crush democracies or to crush democracy movements. So they’re also individual stories of how people react as a democracy is being closed down.
But I guess the book really began with a very personal story, because I was forced to write it, even though I didn’t really want to, by a dear friend who is a Holocaust survivor’s daughter. And when we spoke about news events, she kept saying, “They did this in Germany. They did this in Germany.” And I really didn’t think that made sense. I thought that was very extreme language. But finally she forced me to sit down and start reading the histories, of course, not of the later years, because she wasn’t talking about German outcomes, ‘38, ‘39; she was talking about the early years, 1930, ‘31, ‘32, when Germany was a parliamentary democracy, and there was this systematic assault using the rule of law to subvert the rule of law.
And once I saw how many parallels there were, not just in strategy and tactics that we’re seeing again today, but actually in images and sound bites and language, then I read other histories of Italy in the ’20s, Russia in the ’30s, East Germany in the ’50s, Czechoslovakia in the ’60s, Pinochet’s coup in Chile in ‘73, the crushing of the democracy movement in China at the end of the ’80s. And I saw that there is a blueprint that would-be dictators always do the same ten things, whether they’re on the left or the right, and that we are seeing these ten steps taking place systematically right now in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Lay them out.
NAOMI WOLF: Well, they’re not happy. The first step is that all would-be dictators or would-be despots, which is what the founders of our country who foresaw exactly this kind of possibility would call them — all would-be dictators invoke a terrifying internal and external threat. And often it’s a real threat, which they will hype or manipulate. For instance, Stalin spoke about sleeper cells, which is one of those phrases that are being recirculated now by the Bush White House. And this was an invention. He said there were capitalist secret agents who were hiding among good Soviet citizens and who are going to rise up at a signal and create terrorist mayhem — fake story, but it worked to frighten citizens.
Pinochet talked about a real threat: armed insurgents. There were armed insurgents, but he hyped it using fake documents. And we saw — we see this a lot in the historical blueprint, that a would-be dictator will fake documents. His were called Plan Z. He claimed they were going to bomb infrastructure, assassinate leaders. We saw fake documents used by the White House to hype of a terror threat when they used the fake yellowcake documents to claim that Iraq was trying to secure yellowcake uranium. And remember the famous sound bite — “We can’t wait for the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud” — to drive us into an illegal war with a nation we were not at war with.
AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about the language, like the Department of Homeland Security.
NAOMI WOLF: That is where I, as a social critic and a student of language, get really scared. It’s scary enough to see these ten steps, but what is terrifying to me personally is how many actual phrases are being recycled, and tactics. “Homeland security” — “heimat” — became popularized by the National Socialists. Goebbels developed the practice of embedding journalists. Leni von Riefenstahl was embedded, for instance, in Poland. And we’re seeing embedded —
AMY GOODMAN: She’s the famous German filmmaker.
NAOMI WOLF: Filmmaker. If you look at the sequence of, you know, Hitler descending in an airplane in von Riefenstahl’s famous Triumph of the Will and being greeted by the uniformly armed paramilitary sort of surrounding their leader and him saying, “Help us accomplish our mission,” and then you look at other famous images from this administration —
AMY GOODMAN: Like George Bush on “Mission Accomplished.”
NAOMI WOLF: “Mission Accomplished,” exactly right. You look at how, you know, Hitler said we have to invade Czechoslovakia because they’re a staging ground for terrorists and they’re abusing their ethnic minorities — again, a country that we’re not at war with, when the WMD charge vanished, the White House said we have to invade Iraq because they’re a staging ground for terrorists and they’re abusing their ethnic minorities. On and on and on.
I mean, this one scare’s me to death. You know, Mussolini developed — again, a parliamentary democracy, Italy was, in the teens and into 1920. He developed the Blackshirts, which were these paramilitary thugs that beat up newspaper editors, terrorized the population, and they intimidated people counting the vote in Milan. And then Hitler studied Mussolini, so many things were repeated by Hitler. Stalin studied Hitler, Hitler studied Stalin. But Hitler developed the Brownshirts, the SA, who intimidated people counting the vote in Austria. So 90% of them voted for their own annexation, because they were the Brownshirts. And you saw this scene of identically dressed Republican staffers in Florida in 2000 intimidating people counting the vote.
So things like that are really chilling. And they’re more and more chilling as — I think right now people are kind of ramping up their awareness of these echoes, and what you also see predictably, because the blueprint is predictive, is that the White House is ramping up its implementation of some of the scariest aspects of its crackdown.
AMY GOODMAN: You began with these stories back in the summer of 2006 of headlines from a two-week period. Give some of those examples.
NAOMI WOLF: Well, 2006 seems so long ago and so innocent a time, considering how swiftly we’ve zoomed along implementing this blueprint or we’re suffering this implementation. In 2006, a blogger was jailed in San Francisco. In 2006, people in Alabama couldn’t get a fair hearing for protecting voter rolls. There was the beginning of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, in which the state basically legalized torture, which is one of these crucial turning points as an open society closes down.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about Christine Axsmith, the computer security expert working for the CIA, who, what, wrote — posted a message on a blog site on a top-secret computer network, criticizing waterboarding —
NAOMI WOLF: Waterboarding.
AMY GOODMAN: — saying waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong.
NAOMI WOLF: And then she lost her security clearance. She’s one of many, many whistleblowers, key individuals, who have tried to take a stand against some of these positions and who have faced — again, in a closing society this is what happens. This is step seven: target key individuals. They face job loss, character assassination or worse.
Valerie Plame’s bolts were taken away from her back deck, fifty feet off the ground. She has two toddlers. People are being put on the watch list for criticizing the government, for engaging in antiwar protest. Their kids are being put on the watch list. But, yeah, back then, all she said was it’s wrong. And now we’ve just confirmed an attorney general who pretends not to know what waterboarding is, because if he acknowledged that it’s against US and international law, he’d be confirming the fact that there are criminals in the White House right now who have already staged a coup.
AMY GOODMAN: You say step three is establishing secret prisons.
NAOMI WOLF: That’s right. You establish secret prisons, and what I mean by that is unaccountable prisons where torture takes place. And often there will be a military tribunal system set in place. Lenin pioneered that. Mussolini developed the confino system. Hitler again studied Mussolini and developed the People’s Court.
And what starts to happen is — and this is what’s so scary about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and these black sites around the world — apart from the moral issue — and your interview just now with the Palestinian representative brought me to tears, because when he said it’s not just the Palestinians he’s concerned about, it’s the Israelis who lose their souls by this kind of occupation — it’s not just the often-innocent prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and these black sites around the world we should be concerned about, it’s our own American souls that are at stake. But just for purely personal reasons, we should be afraid when the state starts to torture people that it sees as at the margins or that citizens see at the margins: brown people on an island in Guantanamo with Muslim names, whatever. That’s what they did in Germany in ‘31, ‘32: anarchists, communists, Gypsies, Jews, whatever, homosexuals, whatever. You know, people didn’t care, because they were seen as at the margins. People knew about the torture cellars in Germany.
But then, what always happens, always — you can’t name a society in which this doesn’t happen, Amy — is that there’s a blurring of the line. And once the state legalizes torture of people at the margins, inevitably it will begin to direct state abuse at people at the heart of civil society, and it’s always the same cast of characters: journalists, editors, opposition leaders, outspoken clergy and labor leaders. And when that starts to happen, society can close down in a heartbeat, because people start to sensor themselves.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s interesting. During the lead up to Nazi Germany, American reporters were fired by their American editors, pulled back from Germany, because they were sounding the warning. They were saying, “We’re seeing a fascist society build.”
And they were told that they were biased, they were not understanding the circumstances in which Hitler was rising up, people were concerned about their economy, they had been devastated, and that they were being alarmist.
NAOMI WOLF: Interesting. That’s really interesting. I mean, I’m immediately thinking, as you say that, which I actually hadn’t known, that — thinking of a lot of books I’ve been reading lately about deep US involvement. Some corporations were deeply involved in Nazi Germany, making millions, like IBM. How did they round people up so quickly, you know, in Germany when they were rounding up the Jews so fast? It’s because IBM had developed this prototype of a punch card system, and they were secretly working with the Nazis. Prescott Bush, Bush’s grandfather, was making millions in consolidation with Krupp, Thyssen, and it’s very interesting to me, because in the Nuremberg trials they went after these industrialists like Krupp, and so there was a moment at which the Nuremberg trial was about to identify supporters of these war crimes who were US collaborators.
AMY GOODMAN: But they didn’t.
NAOMI WOLF: But they didn’t. But I think it’s interesting that there is that historical memory in the family.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s the question of who controlled the trials, right? It’s the question of who controlled the trials and not wanting their own people to be involved.
NAOMI WOLF: I see.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk then — four, developing a paramilitary force and surveiling ordinary citizens. Those are the fourth and fifth steps.
NAOMI WOLF: Yeah, that’s another big one. I just want to note about the blurring of the line why we’re in such a moment of danger right now. The President has said that he can say, “Amy Goodman, you’re an enemy combatant. Naomi Wolf, you’re an enemy combatant. This guy behind the camera, you’re an enemy combatant. A person walking down the street, enemy combatant. can be anyone. A person walking down the street, enemy combatant.” And it doesn’t matter that we’re innocent US citizens. I mean, we could be Republicans, we could be evangelicals. It doesn’t matter. He can take us, and if he says it’s true, that makes it true, because it’s a status offense, and he can put us in a ten-by-twelve-foot cell in a Navy brig in solitary confinement for three years, making it difficult for us to see our families, to contact an attorney, to get charges filed.
They can’t torture us yet, though I was chilled to learn that an adviser to the White House was reported in a British newspaper yesterday as not ruling out waterboarding against US citizens. However, psychologists know that prolonged isolation makes sane people insane. That’s what happened to Jose Padilla. So, you know, when I say everyone’s got their moment at which they start to silence themselves, the day I read in the New York Times that someone I identify with has been named an enemy combatant and is sitting in a Navy brig in isolation, that’s when I’m going to stop talking in a context like this, because that’s when I will become too afraid.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Naomi Wolf. Her book is The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. Number six in these ten steps toward fascism: infiltrate citizen groups. Seven: arbitrarily detain and release citizens. Eight: target key individuals. Infiltrate citizens’ groups, the evidence?
NAOMI WOLF: Well, the ACLU is suing many agents of the state for illegally infiltrating citizens’ groups. It’s not a new thing in the United States. COINTELPRO did it quite a lot. But it is a hallmark — it’s an extension of a surveillance society, and it’s a hallmark. It’s an extension of step number four, which was the surveillance apparatus. Now, you can’t close down a democracy without a surveillance apparatus aimed at ordinary citizens.
And what many of us know is that there’s been a heightening of surveillance in the wake of 9/11.
But what we’ve got to understand is that our country is unique right now in directing the crackdown on civil liberties and surveillance at citizens. In countries like England and Spain, experienced the same terror attacks, the same kind of terror attacks by the same bad guys that we did, but they’re not using that as a pretext to strip citizens of civil liberties in the same way. And what is so terrifying — again, Italy had a surveillance apparatus, people were informing on each other; Germany, surveillance, the Stasi in East Germany. You couldn’t have a conversation with your neighbor without fearing that it was going to go into your file.
You can’t close down a society without a paramilitary force. We skipped over that one. It’s very important. Blackwater, the Blackshirts, the Brownshirts, that’s not answerable to the people, and surveillance.
So why am I petrified, you know, when I read about Blackwater and about surveillance? I was on the watch list for a year and a half, Amy, which means that every time I got on a plane, I got taken aside for extra searching, quadruple-S high-risk Naomi, you know. And I was told, “You’re on a list.” And I found out that many critics of the administration are on the list: ACLU staffers, Ted Kennedy, antiwar activists, David Altoon [phon.], a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran who was critical of the Iraq war. Not only is he on the list, but people who come to me in tears after my readings are more upset that now their kids are on the list if they write a letter critical of the Bush administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you been able to get off the list?
NAOMI WOLF: Well, I was off the list ’til this book came out, and now I’m back on the list. Why is this more than a sort of irritation? Or, you know, in a strong society, it’s just like whatever, you know, it’s a kind of compliment. But in a closing society, it gets very frightening. In February, the management of the list, which has swollen from 45,000 to 775,000 Americans — they’re adding 20,000 names a month, right? Where are they getting those names? Remember when I said, how do they round up people so quickly in a closing society? The management of the lists is going to go from the airlines to the government. And in February, unless we push back this regulation — it’s being slipped in very quietly — we are going to have to apply to the state to get an airline ticket to cross a border, which moves us from 1931 to about 1936.
AMY GOODMAN: Number nine and number ten of your steps toward fascism: restrict the press; cast criticism as espionage, dissent as treason. Subvert the rule of law is eleven. What is the patriot’s task, where you conclude?
NAOMI WOLF: Well, the patriot’s task is, first, wake up. I mean, all around the world, democracy activists who are familiar with these same ten steps are sort of waving their arms at us, going, “No! You know, recognize this.” You don’t make it easier for the President to declare martial law, as we just did with the 2007 Defense Authorization Act. You don’t make it easier for the President to lock up political opponents in a cell or strip people of habeas corpus. No, you don’t make it easier for the President to have a paramilitary force like Blackwater, composed of hand-selected torturers and murderers from countries like Chile and Nigeria and El Salvador, where they’re trained to torture their own civilians. You know, you don’t set them loose in Illinois and Southern California and North Carolina. No! Bad idea! So, first, you wake up. You see the blueprint.
AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds.
NAOMI WOLF: Finally, we have to — we started the americanfreedomcampaign.org. It’s a democracy movement to restore the rule of law. We’re calling for lawyers across the country and citizens to call for hearings, special prosecutor, identify the crimes, impeach and prosecute, and save the country.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Wolf, I want to thank you for being with us. Do you think Democratic candidates are raising these issues, for president?
NAOMI WOLF: Not enough. This is a transpartisan issue, and we all need to push them, hold their feet to the fire across the board.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Wolf’s book is The End of America. Thank you for being with us.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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