New York City

9-11 health impact dispute: "We never lied," Christine Whitman lies

It is a truly appalling spectacle to watch former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman and New York City officials pass the buck for the deadly 9-11 health fallout back and forth like a shuttlecock. Whitman said in a "60 Minutes" interview to be aired this weekend that the EPA did not have authority over the Ground Zero site, and claimed she provided an accurate assessment of the air quality following the attacks. She distinguished between the air in lower Manhattan, which was considered safe, and the air at Ground Zero, which was not. "The readings [in lower Manhattan] were showing us that there was nothing that gave us any concern about long-term health implications," she said. "That was different from on the pile itself, at ground zero. There, we always said consistently, 'You've got to wear protective gear.'" (AP, Sept. 8)

Ethnic profiling at NY's JFK airport

From Newsday, Aug. 24:

Muslim, Arab and South Asian passengers are being profiled by Homeland Security officers at Kennedy Airport, civil liberties groups said Wednesday, citing a New Jersey family that was detained and interrogated after a flight from Dubai last week.

NYC: another victory in Critical Mass struggle

This comes, of course, in response to activist pressure. On Aug. 17, a lively grassroots "public hearing" on the proposed regulations was held at St. Marks Church in the East Village, where at least three City Council members spoke out in opposition to the new regs. The official public hearing scheduled (somewhat perversely) for police headquarters later this week, has been cancelled. From the New York Times, Aug. 19:

2nd Circuit upholds subway searches

One year after the hysteria that followed the London bombings, we are treated to yet another terrorist scare emanating from the UK, with the alleged plot to blow up airliners mid-flight by mixing combustible liquids, supposedly discovered in the nick of time. While that dominates the headlines (much more so, note, than the real terrorist carnage in Mumbai, which generated barely a media flicker compared to the significantly less deadly London attacks), buried in the inner pages of even the New York papers comes another turn of the screw they started tightening a year ago. From the New York Daily News, Aug. 12:

NYC: new regs in Critical Mass crackdown

Another turn of the screw. The NYPD unveils draconian new regulations in the ongoing crackdown on the Critical Mass bicyclists. The elitist New York Timess refuses to put this fine July 21 column by Clyde Haberman online for free, but we present it here in the interests of free speech and open discourse:

New York activists remember Farouk Abdel-Muhti

"¡Farouk Vive! ¡La Lucha Sigue!"
Vigil Commemorating the Life of Farouk Abdel-Muhti

New York-based Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti died suddenly of a heart attack on July 21, 2004, three weeks before his 57th birthday and 100 days after he was released from immigration detention. Federal agents and New York City police arrested Farouk in April 2002, just as he was beginning to work as a producer of segments on Palestine at New York's WBAI-FM. The US government then held him in a series of county and federal facilities for nearly two years—in clear violation of his constitutional rights—and refused to release him until ordered to do so by a federal district judge.

NYC: no 9-11 liability

Remember how the firefighters, cops and rescue workers who answered the call of duty at New York's Ground Zero were exploited shamelessly for war propaganda—as if saving lives in New York was somehow the same as taking lives in Iraq? Well now look what's happening to them. It seems all that talk about honoring the heroes was a mile wide and an inch thick. From the New York Times, June 23:

NYC: police informant behind terror plot?

Yet again. All it takes is reading the New York Times to get pretty damn paranoid these days. From May 16:

Defendant Says Police Informer Pushed Him Into Bomb Plot
A Pakistani immigrant accused of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station in 2004 took the stand in his own defense yesterday and said he never wanted to carry out an attack until he met a paid police informer who treated him like a younger brother and inflamed his anger against the United States.

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