My wife picked up a book at the dollar store... They have books that the publisher thought were going to sell many copies, but were totally wrong... For example: The John Ashcroft biography turned out to be a financial disaster... no one really wanted to know why he wrote the USA PATRIOT ACT. Everyone was just so happy that he resigned...
However, it turned out to be an interesting story told from his own twisted perspective...
So, go on down to your own dollar store and see if you can find "Never Again" by John Ashcroft. It is a revealing look inside the minds of the failed "War on Terror".
It's worth $1.00 plus tax... not worth much more...
One blessing about the failed "War on Terror". The US government used to spend a lot of time and money fighting the failed "War on Drugs"... basically, it was an attack on "People like Us"... The target was mostly Hippies... and Yuppies... People that use Illegal drugs...
Now, with the failed "War on Terror" the target has changed from "People Like Us" to "People NOT Like Us"... It's good to not be the target anymore...
cops tv show satire: republicans on trial... crime isn't so much fun anymore!
so many republicans resigned, convicted, arrested... so much fun to see evil punished...
I did learn a lot about Ashcroft from his Biography. He was the governor of Missouri and the senator also... He is a Christian and started every work day with a prayer meeting... He is totally in favor of spying on Americans to prevent our behaving badly... The goal of the USA PATRIOT ACT was to prevent crime... If a "nogoodnik" is presumptively arrested, he won't commit a crime...
spying on Americans, one of the main Ideas of the USA PATRIOT ACT
reflection of Anti-War Protest March in store window below spy cameras.
Big Brother is watching YOU...
this picture was copied from a website that was shut down because they were selling glass marijuana smoking pipes. Yes, it's really Illegal!
I stole this fine artwork about the time Tommy Chong was arrested for his internet glass pipe store... Chong was convicted and spent time in jail. NOT KIDDING! Another fine example of John Ashcroft and his "Justice"... Difficult to believe that selling glass could be illegal...
Ashcroft was the Attorney General when Robert Hanssen was arrested for selling TOP SECRET documents to the Russians. Hanssen was a career FBI agent and sold secrets for over 20 years...
There is a chapter in "Never Again" about how Hanssen was arrested... All the evidence had already been collected by the FBI and they were just waiting for Hansses to be caught in the act of placing secret documents under a bridge in a park to be picked up later by the KGB. A "dead drop" where the people involved never meet each other... Hanssen hid a plastic wrapped package in Foxstone Park and left a signal for the KGB to know that there was something to pick up. Later, the KGB agent would retrieve the package and place money in the same place.
The park is now a tourist attraction in Vienna Virginia... nicknamed "spy park" the local hiking club has made a website with directions and maps showing where the crimes were committed. Here is a map.
photo of the bridge...
Two movies were made about him.
MASTER SPY with William Hurt was the better movie. (in my opinion)
BREACH with Chris Cooper. (too creepy...)
Hanssen was a member of the Catholic Church's sect Opus Dei.
* Cherkashin, Victor & Feifer, Gregory (2005), Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer : The True
Story of the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, Basic Books, ISBN 0465009697
This book is available to read online at Amazon and tells the story from the Russian viewpoint.
NSEERS alien tracking system. This is a program developed by Ashcroft as a post 9/11 way to watch aliens in the USA that come from specific countries. Aliens from the Middle East must register, be fingerprinted, interrogated and check in with INS every 30 days... A database is created of Illegal Aliens to watch for...
This is designed to let local law enforcement check if a person is an illegal alien at a routine traffic stop or any other contact with law enforcement officers... According to the book "Never Again" four of the hijackers on 9/11 had been given traffic tickets in the year before 9/11/2001 while they were here illegally... Their visa had expired and INS could have deported them... possibly preventing the airplane crashes...
replaced by the Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT system...