Stolen Lives Ceremony, One Month Later

Every October 22, concerned citizens across America march against police brutality & remember the many lives stolen by police shootings, tasers, & chemical weaponry over the years.
Nationally, there have been well over 2000 Stolen Lives in the last 10 years.
This year, Communities United Against Police Brutality led a large group down to the Fifth Precinct Police station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, gaining the support of everyone who drove by and honked, & who stopped and listened as all the names of the Minnesota dead were read aloud.
Victims of fatal police brutality were honored by having their names & life dates placed on the police station steps, like rows of tombstones. Regrettably, several of them were nameless, unidentified homeless people who police killed without documenting them or giving much thought.
The officers inside watched & did nothing; the officers outside watched from their cars and cautiously followed the march of Minneapolitans along blocks parallel to their route.
Since the march last month, the nights have gotten longer, colder and lonelier in Minnesota. Minneapolis police have not responded in any way to the demands of the people-- probably they have their hands full now that the False Reporting on Police Brutality statute has been overturned, & lawsuits are being brought against them by black cops over racism and abuse, as well as by citizens demanding that Police Chief Dolan follow the law and punish abusive officers.
To see the list of those we remember, the victims we speak out for:
See this List & Memorial.

Martial Law Blueprint - Leaked!

National Level Exercise 2011 docs found on Army Corps fileserver prove upgrade for Secret 'Civil Disturbance Operations CONPLAN 3502' the Master Pentagon Blueprint for RNC/G20 Lockdowns, Policing Disasters & More

By Twin Cities Indymedia — Digital presentations posted on an Army Corps of Engineers server, about military operations in a giant FEMA-simulated earthquake drill called National Level Exercise 2011, inadvertently reveal crucial new info about another 'Secret' Pentagon plan, Northcom CONPLAN 3502, including the “trigger” for domestic military 'Civil Disturbance Operations.' CONPLAN 3502 and CONPLAN 3501, 'Defense Support of Civil Authorities,' are the two main military plans used to design the Pentagon's 'footprint' at National Special Security Events like the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Exactly as the Pennsylvania National Guard took over the G20 protester jail operation, other docs show 'Secret' CONPLAN 3502 specifically plans for military-operated detention and search operations within our country. In context, the new material is the most troubling I have ever discovered, and proves anew that underneath Constitutional limited government, a more brutal martial framework is secretly, constantly, extending its reach. DHS/FEMA doesn't like it at all when NLEs get publicized so check it out right away. Full URLs below.

The Big Break: FEMA NLE Regional Readiness Workshop files (indexed on Google)

The NLE2011 presentations & material show a domestic military command system that's accelerated quite a bit since the 1960s. The new documents are in these directories & URLS - all from a planning meeting in March called the Regional Readiness Workshop (RRW).

Google "USARNORTH CONPLAN 3501" and it should take you directly to http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=usarnorth+conplan+3501

...This is the key presentation! https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/NewMadrid/Document%20Library/1/11.%20FINAL%20ARNORTH_Dovey_NMSZ%20RRW.ppt

You have to 'accept security certificate' i.e. bad encryption, for your browser to connect to it. [I think this is one reason no one has noticed!] The rest of the files can be located at URLS like

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/NewMadrid/Document%20Library - The whole filestash for the New Madrid Seismic Zone National Level Exercise 2011 Regional Readiness Workshop. This has the index for the other RRW presentations. (All interesting)

The notes in here portray a FEMA & emergency management system in confusion, overall an alarming state of earthquake preparation for a New Madrid Seismic Zone event. The 11th presentation, from US Army North, was apparently never given due to time constraint (See 'After Action Report'). Don't miss the presentation which maps out which fiber optic cables that would snap in a New Madrid epic heartland earthquake!

Presentation #11 is about CONPLAN 3501, the sunny-faced all-sized military program working between FEMA and NORTHCOM to set up joint commands. It's the same plan as the Gulfwater Horizon Joint Command (more below). They put out a happy 400-page DSCA handbook recently to lay out the nice Joint Task Force / Northcom disaster civil support logistics stuff. No riot control gear suggested in 3501. No checkpoints, etc.

But seemingly accidentally, an entirely different intro notes annotation or text was left in the Army's title slide.

Chilling stuff / details below: the notes show incremental updates to the ultimate “bad cop” Northcom mega-plan, CONPLAN 3502, with the apparent approval of US 5th Army Chief of Staff Richard Francey. CONPLAN3502 is the replacement for the post 1960s Army lockdown plan, GARDEN PLOT. So this note gives us a new totally concrete view of the Army's recent 'Changelog' of the same damn plan that's been there all along – yeah, it includes military detention centers for US citizens, other official material proves.

The rest of the URLS worth checking out, besides the RRW folder:

Reference materials here:

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/EmergencyManagement/default.aspx
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/EmergencyManagement/Shared%20Documents/Forms/DOD%20and%20Army%20Regulations%20and%20Directives.aspx

1994 version of domestic ops (dod 3025.1) manual here, not seen elsewhere?

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/EmergencyManagement/Shared%20Documents/DoD%203025.1M.pdf

Calendar has training events etc :

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/Lists/Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=479&Source=https%3A%2F%2Feportal%2Eusace%2Earmy%2Emil%2Fsites%2FRSC%2FLists%2FCalendar%2FCalendar%20RSC%2Easpx%3FCalendarDate%3D12%252F18%252F2010
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/trainingexer/Civil/level1/default.aspx
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/trainingexer/Civil/level1/Pages/ConOps.aspx

Some files are like this - in segments, you can get them together with a ZIP app

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2Fsites%2FENGLink%2FSLS2010%2FShared%20Documents%2FNYC%20Pres&View=

Check into these folders - they have FEMA reportbacks - the Senior Leadership Seminar 2010:

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?

Local emergency managers freakin out over giga-planfail. For Public Safety concerns this is just grim :

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2fENGLink%2fSLS2010%2fShared%20Documents%2fBO1&FolderCTID=
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2fENGLink%2fSLS2010%2fShared%20Documents%2fBO3&FolderCTID=
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2fENGLink%2fSLS2010%2fShared%20Documents%2fBO2&FolderCTID=

I think that covers all the interesting folders.

To understand where CONPLAN 3502 & the new info fits, we have to briefly go back to its roots, back to Kent State and the riots of the 1960s - now these plans are core to the domestic military system's new generation.

Quick History - From GARDEN PLOT & Kent State to (S)ecret 3502, NORTHCOM & More

The US Northern Command, NORTHCOM, near Colorado Springs & the post-Cold War NORAD command center, was set up in 2002 as a Department of Defense counterpart to the Department of Homeland Security. NORTHCOM is a global 'combatant command' with responsibility for all of North America, like CENTCOM handles the Middle East, EUCOM Europe, AFRICOM Africa, etc. (By the way, PACOM, the Pacific Command, has 'CONPLAN 7502' setup for Asian Civil Disturbance Operations - i.e. almost certainly ready-to-go on US bases during the Seoul G20).

CONPLANs are Concept of Operations Plans, basically abstract templates, around 200 to 300 pages long in some cases, which can be turned into OPLANs, specific local operations plans. Other operations like exercises (exercise orders or EXORDs) can be generated from CONPLANs as well. CONPLANs are numbered in sets for each combatant command - NORTHCOM got the 2500s and 3500s, PACOM the 7500s etc.

Before NORTHCOM, the US military labeled its plans differently. The urban riots of the 1960s prompted the blue-ribbon Kerner Commission to recommend a more coherent approach for the military to intervene in domestic emergencies. So the Pentagon secretly drafted and deployed 'GARDEN PLOT,' also known as Plan 55-2.

Four versions of GARDEN PLOT have been released recently via FOIA. (More @ globalsecurity.org) At the US Social Forum this summer, an activist attorney who's been dealing with west coast military ops said to me that they thought GARDEN PLOT was 'just a conspiracy theory' all those years, but of course it turned out to be very real.

GARDEN PLOT laid out the National Guard plan at the Watts Riots, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the LA Riots and Kent State. Just like 3502, it kept getting revised after every 'lab test' on Americans. It's really the main foundation, and in the 1980s infamous Oliver North-related tests like REX84 and in California, Louis Guifrida's CABLE SPLICER were essentially GARDEN PLOT type exercises, with Pentagon & FEMA-based communications & control.

An early-1990s domestic operations manual was also on USACE server, so it shows the pre-NORTHCOM/DHS way the Pentagon & FEMA were connected.

Once tiny authorities & connections have grown into bureaucracies with thousands of operatives & staff. GARDEN PLOT was last modified in 1996, and in 2002 it was replaced with CONPLAN3502. That's the main idea-what's new here is the latest revision info & the “trigger”.

CONPLAN 3502 = GARDEN PLOT For 21st Century Military Control Ops in America

NORTHCOM has now set a whole series of CONPLANs. One particularly creepy one, CONPLAN 3591, the master plan for Influenza Pandemic operations, (PDF) has already been published but heavily redacted. Skimming 3591 illustrates the deeply spooky and exhaustive nature of CONPLANS – not to mention the bulk, more than 250 pages with many annexes!

CONPLAN 3502 is, at a minimum, the classified (S)ecret NORTHCOM replacement for GARDEN PLOT – this means it replaces the major secret Army domestic crackdown plan of the 20th Century. Careful comparison of all official CONPLAN 3502 references with the GARDEN PLOT editions – dating from the 1960s to 1996 – proves that certain features like “Civil Disturbance Conditions” or CIDCONs are in both. CIDCONs are a stages of readiness for an Army units with Civil Disturbance gear to fly out to US cities. (Like this set of Army gear eerily advertised right now on the Metrodome - a pic from the 2008RNC!)

GARDEN PLOT lists Army staging areas or 'bases' for domestic military operations such as the military fields by the Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport, which is exactly where they staged to crush the Highway 55 Coldwater resistance protest camp in 2002. The 'bases' are key to understanding what turned up.

There they were, already indexed on Google for “NLE 2011” and “USARNORTH CONPLAN 3501” etc - files on the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) server. Inside the NLE2011 Powerpoint slides from US Army North, the 5th Army under NORTHCOM, supposed to just be about CONPLAN 3501, 'Defense Support of Civil Authorities' which includes all big disasters, hurricanes, earthquakes etc.

Instead the title slide's 'notes' or annotation field has a whole bunch of explanation about CONPLAN 3502 including Army revisions and 'base' changes! This must have been accidentally left within the PowerPoint - as almost nothing else references 3502. It proves the 5th Army Chief of Staff is approving refinements to 3502, apparently (by the date) after they deployed it in Pittsburgh.

This proves beyond the shadow of a doubt a Colonel Francey, i.e. Chief of Staff (CofS) Richard Francey of the US 5th Army, influenced the revisions to CONPLAN 3502 - it proves where this thing is getting tweaked.

Why is this here? The military is choked by transmitting all its material in PowerPoints, and soldiers are constantly throwing presentations together from existing slides, so it's no surprise the presentation about approving revisions to CONPLAN 3502 leached into the CONPLAN 3501/NLE2011 Earthquake presentation. According to meeting notes this presentation was never actually given as they ran out of time – the actual National Level Exercise 2011 planning conference process seemed quite messy in execution.

Another major CONPLAN 3502 fact was included to be presented, no less than the “TRIGGER” condition itself. A slide with very pixellated layout (via MS Paint?) shows the “3502 TRIGGER = CDO EXCEDES T32 CAPIBILITIES” [sic]. Civil Disturbance Operations exceed Title 32 Capabilities, it seems likely, a reference to the different sections of US Code delineating domestic military operations authorities.

There it is, one heck of a droid many have been looking for. But let's look for further reference hooks to codes of martial law-like behavior. Turns out there are plenty.

Cross Reference: CONPLAN 3502 Outlining Domestic Searches, Crowd Control & Detention Facilities Match Pittsburgh G20 Terrors

The frightening dimension of what must be contained in the full version of CONPLAN 3502 is indicated by footnotes in a manual for Judge Advocate Generals and military lawyers - Chapter 5 of the Domestic Operational Law Handbook. (PDF 3MB)

The entire JAG manual is frightening, really, for anyone that assures themselves the Posse Comitatus Act really restricts domestic military operations.

A series of footnotes authoritatively point to USNORTHCOM CONPLAN 3502 as containing everything from handling insurance claims to domestic military-controlled detention facilities, and domestic military searches and seizures. Yes, really. (And no one seems to have noticed!)

The same conditions described in JAG manual sections footnoted to CONPLAN 3502 happened in the 2009 G20 Conference in Pittsburgh, in particular military detention operations at the Allegheny County Jail, and fully armored-up riot control style crowd control.

For the rest of the article, see:

http://tc.indymedia.org/2010/nov/tc-indymedia-exclusive-secret-trigger-blueprint-emergency-domestic-military-crackdown-plan-

UPDATE: War Powers addressed at University of St. Thomas Law

On October 7, students and community members gathered for the Journal of Law and Public Policy Forum on Presidential Powers at University of St. Thomas Law School.
A report from Tackling Torture at the Top and Colleen Rowley:

There was a protester presence the entire day, and two separate rallies during the day. In addition 10 or 11 T3 supporters went in to hear the symposium. Also inside were 30 Delahunty students apparently assigned to come, and around 30 students who looked in or stopped in passing, up in the balcony area.
The symposium was tightly controlled. At the door, attendees were told they couldn't even carry a single flyer in. All questions were handed in and only one question from T3 was selected (that only happened because of T3 insistence).
There were five speakers arguing that presidential powers override all other branches of government and one speaker opposed, but she was not given an opportunity to debate the other speakers. Three were solidly pro-presidential powers (Yoo, Delahunty, and Stokes-Paulsen), while one (Amar) claimed to be a proponent of “Unitary Executive” but only spoke on the President’s power to fire agency heads. He disagreed on some details with his former student, John Yoo. Amar was also one who admitted the war on terror is PERMANENT.
And then Kitrosser argued, in her separate half-hour, for some restraints on illegal actions of a President, while Schultz seemed to be against the extreme ramifications of the theory of presidential power. He confined his remarks to the political analysis of how Obama had not departed from Bush’s stances and therefore had not played to his own base of support which in Schultz’s view was not going to serve him well in the upcoming elections.
The issue of torture was not specifically mentioned in relation to executive branch power.

Do We have the Worst Police in the Midwest?

Does Minneapolis have the Worst police in the Midwest? What are the problems that the community can address without the police? When do we need them? What are they doing right?
Come discuss these issues, crucial to our community, at Walker Community Church on the evening of Thursday, October 14.
There's a lot more to do than discuss-- the small organization Communities United Against Police Brutality has successfully filed suits against the city before, changed ordinances, shamed officers, and mobilized community members for Cop Watch and much more. Find out how you can get involved, this Thursday!

Yoo & Delahunty to face the University of St. Thomas community

Journal of Law and Public Policy Forum on presidential powers to take place at University of St. Thomas Law, October 7 2010.
John Yoo, and Prof. Robert Delahunty, former lawyers for the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel, will be there as advocates for strong presidential powers. Heidi Kittrosser from the University of Minnesota and Akhil Amar of Yale University – one of this country’s leading law professors -- will support the position for limiting presidential powers. It should be a robust debate.

Anti-torture advocates like Tackling Torture at the Top will be there before the arrival of the registrants to the symposium with orange ribbons, flyers, and banners. People will boycott, people will attend, people will demonstrate outside & raise awareness, others will listen to the speakers and hopefully submit questions. There are speakers that do not support Yoo/Delahunty and there are other speakers that need to answer some pertinent questions.

At the lunch hour, 11:30 -12:30, and at 4:00, there will be demonstrations on the sidewalk outside the building. Everyone could wear an orange ribbon for torture awareness.

John Yoo speaks at 2:15 for 45 minutes. Some people may shun him by leaving the room, or standing
with their backs to him, or may choose to confront him with questions, or a sign. It is not choreographed.
Robert Delahunty is on the panel but not given a time to present an argument.

We need everyone, every body, every mind, to protest the presence of John Yoo and Robert Delahunty. Everyone is welcome to participate in demonstrating our disgust for Robert Delahunty and John Yoo's misuse of the law giving way to the crime of torture. And we believe that accountability is the only way that we can stop this despicable crime.


The use of enhanced presidential powers in time of war would allow the president to negate the laws and treaties that would protect the prisoners from abuse and torture. This is what happened by the memos written by John Yoo and Robert Delahunty. This goes against our laws and our morals. It would be good for UST to refresh their memory to their mission statement at the Law School:
The University of St. Thomas School of Law, as a Catholic law school, is dedicated to integrating faith and reason in the search for truth through a focus on morality and social justice.

On the same day, a different university in nearby St. Paul is making quite a different point of human rights issues.

My Sister's and Brother's Keeper?

Human Rights in the Era of Globalization

This year's theme of the 2010 Macalester International Roundtable is "My Sister's and Brother's Keeper?: Human Rights in the Era of Globalization."
The Macalester International Roundtable will take place on October 7, 8, & 9, 2010 at Macalester College 1600 Grand Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota
All sessions will be held in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall.

The discussions will revolve around such questions as:
What are the main human rights concerns of the 21st century?
What are the primary forces (and contexts) responsible for these issues, and why?
In what specific ways could human rights be advanced, and by whom?

Free and open to the public.

Community Response to FBI Raids across the Nation

Statement of Solidarity with Activists Raided and Subpoenaed on 9/24/10

The raids and grand jury subpoenas against antiwar and international solidarity activists on the morning of Friday, September 24, 2010 are not just an attack on particular activists, but on our movements for social justice as a whole. With a united voice, we condemn this repression; we demand the federal government cease its investigation and withdraw the subpoenas immediately; and we vow to continue our work for true justice.

We reject the allegation that the government's investigation into our movements is based on "material support for terrorism" in any form. This allegation is particularly ludicrous considering the terror tactics the U.S. government engages in on a daily basis, both globally and domestically. Aimed against valued members of our community, the raids against activists on Friday morning were particularly offensive to us. However, we recognize that they are unexceptional instances of repression when compared to the daily crimes against humanity carried out by U.S. imperialism.

We refuse to let the accusations of a notoriously untruthful, repressive government divide us in any way. Because an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, we resolve to set any ideological or other political differences aside and respond in solidarity with one another. Our struggle will continue.

Signed,

Becca at the Persistent Press

and-- you!

If you would like to add your name and/or organization to this list, please email ActivismIsNotTerrorism@gmail.com

Complicit in Torture: University of St. Thomas defends its star Law Professor

Law students headed to class Monday morning at the University of St. Thomas School of Torture-- so called by anti-torture activists waiting outside.

At 10:30 am on August 30, Professor Robert Delahunty taught his first class of the school year at the School of Law, but not without facing the protesters on his way to work. An activist group called Tackling Torture at the Top was there to educate the public about Delahunty's role in the Bush administration, paving the way for CIA and military torture as a tool against terrorists.

See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_rwq6-Pc8Y

Delahunty, as a member of the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote legal memos supporting presidential war powers under the Constitution is a higher law than any treaty, intimating that the president can use his Constitutional war powers to override treaties.
"As the Nation's representative in foreign affairs, the President has a variety of constitutional powers with respect to treaties, including the powers to suspend them, withhold performance of them, contravene them or terminate them."

-Yoo and Delahunty, Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees.

His legal opinion denies that the Geneva Conventions apply to non-state actors or enemy combatants. His legal memos built upon other legal decisions and memos, and they in turn were expanded upon by the John Yoo/Jay Bybee legal memos. Those explicitly permitted torture and water-boarding by redefining torture as anything that pushes the body to organ failure or death.

For a physical act to constitute torture, "It must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure."
-Bybee, Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 USC SS 2340-2340A
After the Obama administration released the "torture memos" for the world to see in April 2009, anti-torture activists and law students alike read them in horror. Thousands of Americans pressed Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute the officials who allowed for torture, through petitions, calls and demonstrations. However, the Obama administration would not go forward with prosecutions, claiming that they had to "look forward" and not back.

As the T3 activists waved their flags outside the law school, they talked to several passers-by who expressed their familiarity with the torture memos.

The activists have brought their concerns to Delahunty as well as to the University of St. Thomas' Law School Dean Mengler and its Board of Governors.

Delahunty went by without comment, today as usual, but the Board of Governors did respond to the group's complaints and letters and protests of the past few years. Last week, the Chair of the University Law School's Board of Governors, Laurence Fl LeJeune, wrote to the group with full awareness of the controversy around Delahunty, and in full support of him as a law professor at this Catholic, ethics-centered University.

Mr. LeJeune noted that they have been very well advised by Dean Dr. Mengler and others of the facts about Delahunty and they are very satisfied with him as an employee. As has been noted by Dean Mengler, they feel that Delahunty has served "four presidential administrations, and other institutions with distinction. His impressive academic and professional record can be found on the School of Law website.” He noted too how "the graduating class of 2010 selected Professor Delahunty as its Professor of the Year - for his excellence as a teacher and scholar, and for the many ways in which he works with and supports our students."

Individuals on the Law School Board of Trustees have also been contacted. Neither the Board of Governors nor the Board of Trustees will meet with T3. These individuals influence not only the University but the larger community and economy as well: among the highest paid CEO's in Minnesota in 2008 were two UST Board of Trustees members. The Star Tribune then listed Stephen Hemsley of United Health Group as 5th highest paid, and George Buckley of 3M as 13th highest paid.