In response to the WSJ article, the authors of the whistleblower protection clause of SOX, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), wrote a letter dated September 9, 2008 to Secretary Chao pointing out that both the language of the statute and their intention were clearly for subsidiaries to be covered under the whistleblower protection and that “there is simply no basis” for the Labor Department’s interpretation. They demanded an explanation of the Department’s actions.

But it is clear what Bush’s Labor Department and its Secretary Elaine Chao were doing. They were running interference for corporate malefactors and hanging out to dry those who would expose their wrongdoing, in other words business as usual.

In spring 2008, an administrative law judge in the Labor Department ordered Daoud to pay $1 million to the families of 11 of the 12 slain Nepalis.

On August 27, 2008, a civil suit on behalf of Gurung and the families of the deceased workers was filed in the federal district court for Central California against Daoud and KBR alleging trafficking, racketeering, extortion, peonage, involuntary servitude, forced labor, vicarious violation of RICO, and negligence. The suit claimed US jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Claims Act and contended:

Defendants’ actions as set forth above constitute the torts of trafficking in persons, involuntary servitude, forced labor, and slavery.

161. Trafficking in persons in [sic] a modern day form of slavery, and along with involuntary servitude and forced labor constitutes a tort in violation of the law of nations and/or in violation of treaties of the United States.

162. Defendants’ actions as set forth above constitute the torts of prolonged detention, and/or false imprisonment, which also constitute torts in violation of the law of nation and/or in violation of the treaties of the United States.

KBR was spun off from Halliburton, the company that Dick Cheney used to run. Its government services contracts have exploded under the Bush Administration, despite providing expensive, shoddy services for our troops. Its two main goals are to make as much money as possible anyway possible and in furtherance of this to avoid taking responsibility for any of its truly reprehensible actions.

Then just days before the convention opening, the FBI and local law enforcement, especially of diehard Republican loyalist Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, initiated a series of punitive raids over the weekend against various groups. The first occurred at a central clearinghouse for protestors known as the “Welcoming Committee”. Those there were handcuffed, computers were seized, but no arrests were made. Sheriff Fletcher released a statement in which he described the “Welcoming Committee” as a “criminal enterprise made up of 35 self- described anarchists who are intent on committing criminal acts.” If such were the case, it is surprising no arrests were made. The following day raids were also carried out against other “dangerous” groups, such as Legalwatch and Food not Bombs. In one case, building inspectors arrived after a raid and gave owners until 6:30 the next morning to fix the door the police had kicked in or have the premises boarded up.

In the later raids, some 6 individuals were arrested but none charged. Instead they were kept on probable cause holds. Such a hold allows police to hold someone up to 36 hours, weekends not counting, without charge. Effectively, this permits law officers like Sheriff Fletcher to mete out 4-5 day jail sentences to anyone he doesn’t like, in other words, punishment without charge, conviction, or crime. Similar strong arm tactics by the New York police at the Republican convention in 2004 led to settlements in the millions. But with the federal government underwriting security costs this is not much of a disincentive.

On September 1, 2008, the police using pepper spray, tear gas, and “less lethal” projectiles fought numerous battles with demonstrators most of whom were peaceful. By the end of the first day, official figures listed 163 arrests, unofficial numbers 256.

This pattern of infiltration, fearmongering, high profile raids, large shows of military style force, aggressive indiscriminate treatment of demonstrators, and mass arrests has come to be known as the “Miami model” from its use against protesters to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations in Miami in November 2003.

In the early phases, police actions were largely ignored by the mainstream media and most of the reporting came from bloggers and independent media sources. As violence increased, the mainstream media did pick up the story but even they noted that most protesters were peaceful.

It is important to remember that the real object of these raids, seizures, and arrests is not to stop crime but dissent. They are meant to send a message, that if you protest, even legally, even peacefully, you risk arbitrary detention, seizure of your property, punishment, and humiliation by the powers that be. Dissent in this country has become for many un-American. Worse it is seen as a kind of terrorism. This is all the more bizarre and disheartening because our country was itself founded on dissent. Pilgrims, Quakers, believers and non-believers of all sorts, came to these shores precisely because they did not agree with the powers of their day. The Founding Fathers were dissenters and started a revolution and a country over their dissent. The Framers understood this and enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution the right to dissent in both the guarantees of freedom of speech and of peaceful assembly. Yet in the Age of Terror, dissent is no longer seen as a living, breathing expression of our democracy but as suspicious, probably criminal, certainly unpatriotic, a thing to be suppressed, especially so that the greater good, in this case the photo-ops of the national party conventions can proceed unquestioned, unchallenged, and unhindered.

Shortly after Steven Hatfill’s exoneration, on July 29, 2008, another researcher at the Fort Detrick facility Bruce Ivins committed suicide. Ivins had worked at the facility for 36 years and had been involved in research on a vaccine against multiple strains of anthrax. Initial reports suggested he had become the FBI’s prime suspect in the anthrax case after the bureau’s long investigation/persecution of Hatfill. His home was searched twice. He began attending group therapy. On July 9, 2008, he was escorted from his work and committed for psychiatric evaluation after a social worker Jean Duley who ran the group sessions alleged Ivins stated he was about to be charged with 5 capital murders and had discussed plans to kill his co-workers. A psychiatrist described Ivins as “homicidal, sociopathic with clear intentions”. Despite this, he was released but refused access to his lab. On July 24, Duley sought a restraining order against him (at the suggestion of the FBI) citing threatening phone calls, and a history of threatening behavior going back to his graduate school days (although he had no criminal record). On July 27 Ivins was found at his home unresponsive having apparently taken a large number of Tylenol with codeine. He died two days later.

It all seemed so open and shut. The FBI had finally gotten the right man. Seeing the forces of the law closing in on him, the guilty man killed himself. Except there were questions. If Ivins had a history of threats going back decades, why had he been given clearances and allowed to work in such a dangerous area? If Ivins could become the government’s prime suspect so quickly after it dropped its investigation of Steven Hatfill, why had he not been more thoroughly investigated anytime in the previous 7 years? And while a guilty man might commit suicide so might a hounded one, especially with the spectacle of Steven Hatfill’s ordeal very much on his mind. Also how much weight was to be given to the statements of Jean Duley the “therapist” who it turned out had little training and no credentials but who did have an interesting rap sheet? Then there was the FBI’s case. Ivins certainly considered himself to be a target of its investigation. It is Department of Justice policy to inform a witness to a Grand Jury if he/she is a “target” of investigation, and Ivins had appeared before one. But not only did the FBI not arrest Ivins a suspected terrorist with access to deadly pathogens it made no attempt to have him removed from his lab. Finally, in an August 4, 2008 New York Times story published nearly a week after his death, it came out that the Grand Jury had not progressed very far in its investigation, that several more weeks (so nothing imminent as first reported) of testimony had been planned, that the case against Ivins was, as in the case of Hatfill, mostly circumstantial, and that there was no evidence showing that he had traveled to New Jersey at the time the anthrax letters were posted in 2001.

What is important to remember here is that the FBI has blown two investigations into the anthrax letters. What, if any, part Bruce Ivins had in them is and likely will remain unknown.

There are two other aspects of the anthrax attacks that should be mentioned. Because of its geographic location, the nature of its research, and the kind of anthrax it had access to and which was used in the letters, it has been understood from early on that Fort Detrick (not al Qaeda or Iraq) was the source of the anthrax used. Nor was Hatfill the first anthrax suspect who had worked at Fort Detrick.

An anonymous letter postmarked September 21, 2001, three days after the first anthrax letters were posted and twelve days before the first anthrax case was diagnosed, is sent to the FBI claiming that a former Fort Detrick researcher Ayaad Assaad might be planning a biological attack. Assaad was a naturalized Egyptian-American who had worked at Fort Detrick from 1989-1997. During that time he had been subjected to scurrilous racist attacks by some of his co-workers, most notably Lieutenant Colonel Philip Zack and Doctor Marian Rippy. Both were reprimanded. Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991. Rippy left shortly thereafter in February 1992. The FBI unconditionally cleared Assaad but the timing of the informant letter and the early connection to Fort Detrick are disturbing to say the least.

At the same time, the Bush Administration was quick to draw a relationship between the anthrax attacks and Iraq. Government scientists at Fort Detrick leaked to ABCNews investigative reporter Brian Ross that a particular preparatory material bentonite had been found in the anthrax samples recovered. Yes, the place that was the source of the anthrax was originally the same place that was tasked with investigating it. The claim was made that only Iraq used bentonite indicating clear Iraqi involvement in the attacks. Coming so quickly on the heels of 9/11, it suggested that the Iraqis might be involved in that as well. The problem was it wasn’t true. Yet as of August 2008 despite calls following the death of Bruce Ivins, Brian Ross has never given up the names of the “sources” who lied to him, had clear conflicts of interest in shifting attention away from Fort Detrick, and who helped generate a false argument for war with Iraq.