September 4, 2005 -- Reports continue that communications in and around New Orleans are being purposely jammed (and severed) by the US government (see Sep. 2 article below). The jamming is having an adverse impact on emergency, disaster recovery, and news media communications. The jamming is even affecting police radio frequencies in Jefferson Parish, according to an Australian news report. The President of Jefferson Parish Aaron Broussard told Meet the Press today that FEMA cut his parish's emergency communications lines and he had to have his sheriff restore the severed lines and post armed deputies to ensure that FEMA did not try to cut the communications lines again. Broussard's statement: "Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, 'No one is getting near these lines.'"
Jamming radio and other communications such as television signals is part of a Pentagon tactic called "information blockade" or "technology blockade." The tactic is one of a number of such operations that are part of the doctrine of "information warfare" and is one of the psychological operations (PSYOPS) methods used by the US Special Operations Command. Jamming is currently being used by US forces in Iraq and was used by the US Navy in the botched coup attempt against President Hugo Chavez in April 2002. US Navy ships off the Venezuelan coast jammed diplomatic, military, emergency services, police, and even taxi cab frequencies in Caracas and other large cities.
From "The Manchurian Printer," Simson L. Garfinkel [The Boston Sunday Globe, March 5, 1995, Focus Section, Page 83]:
"Not surprisingly, the unclassified version of the Pentagon's report barely mentions the offensive possibilities of Information Warfare---capabilities that the Pentagon currently has under development. Nevertheless, these capabilities are alluded to in several of the diagrams, which show a keen interest by the military in OOTW---Operations Other Than War. "They have things like information influence, perception management, and PSYOPS---psychological operations," says Wayne Madsen, a lead scientist at the Computer Sciences Corporation in northern Virginia, who has studied the summer study report. 'Basically, I think that what they are talking about is having the capability to censor and put out propaganda on the networks. That includes global news networks like CNN and BBC, your information services, like CompuServe and Prodigy,' and communications satellite networks. 'When they talk about 'technology blockade,' they want to be able to block data going into or out of a certain region of the world that they may be attacking."',
ALERT: WMR readers should be aware that web sites like Democratic Underground are "locking" information on the radio jamming in Louisiana and the corruption involved in FEMA hurricane disaster preparedness (IEM Team contract). Readers should also be aware that the Pentagon's technology blockade strategy extends to the Internet. Web sites like Democratic Underground and Daily Kos have a lot of explaining to do when they censor critical information during a national emergency. These web sites, along with Fox News and the other news sources with overt and covert political agendas, are not serving in the public interest and should be avoided as sources for important information. For example, some Daily Kos posters are questioning whether FEMA deliberately cut Jefferson Parish's emergency telephone lines. That is because many of those involved with Daily Kos and Democratic Underground are squishy Democrats with a pretty obvious agenda. - WM