9/11 Initiative

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, who endorsed Mountain Party candidate Jesse Johnson in last year’s special election for the late Robert Byrd’s seat in the US Senate, is heading up a petition drive in California to put an initiative on the November 2012 ballot to create a state commission to fully investigate the events of September 11, 2001.

Gravel has a long history of challenging conventional wisdom. Here’s a description of his collaboration with famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, from Washington’s Blog, one of the best sites on the web to find information about global “deep politics”:

"The two main players in releasing the Pentagon Papers were Daniel Ellsberg and United States Senator Mike Gravel.

Senator Gravel is the person who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. This act made the papers public record, so that they could not be censored by the government. He was the only member of Congress courageous enough to do so.

Both Ellsberg and Gravel - like many other high-level former officials in the government and intelligence services (including many well-known whistleblowers) - support a new 9/11 investigation. Ellsberg says that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is 'far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers.' (Here's some of what that whistleblower says.) He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.

And he said that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible, that 'very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much involvement there might have been,' that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of those in office, and that there's enough evidence to justify a new, 'hard-hitting' investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath (see this and this)."

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/pentagon-papers-whistleblowers.html

Here is the first section of the initiative:

The 9/11 Citizens Investigation Commission Act

This measure would establish within state government the 9/11 Citizens Investigation Commission in order to conduct a citizen-based, comprehensive, and truly independent investigation into events relating to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The measure would:

(1) Grant the commission all investigatory powers of the state, including the power of subpoena;

(2) Authorize the commission to enter into a joint powers agreement with any public entity within the United States and to exercise any investigatory power of any of the contracting powers in conducting the investigation;

(3) Amend the California Constitution to appoint former United States Senator Mike Gravel as the initial Director of the 9/11 Citizens Investigation Commission, and in his absence Representative Cynthia McKinney, to ensure the political independence of the commission from government interference through the appointment process, and to provide the commission credibility with respect to the transparency of its operations;

(4) Appropriate an amount equal to $0.50 per resident of the state from the General Fund to the director to conduct and administrate the investigation;

(5) Specify conditions governing its future amendment; and

(6) Provide that if a provision of the measure is held invalid, that provision’s invalidity will not render the remainder of the measure invalid.

TO THE HONORABLE SECRETARY OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA

We, the undersigned, registered, qualified voters of California, residents of ____ County (or City and County), hereby propose amendments to the Constitution of California and the Code, and petition the Secretary of State to submit the same to the voters of California for their adoption or rejection at the next succeeding general election or at any special statewide election held prior to that general election or otherwise provided by law. (The “official summary date,” the date that the Attorney General sends the title and summary for the initiative measure to the proponent, is also the date that the Secretary of State will use to determine the calendar deadlines applicable to the measure. All requisite signatures must be received within 150 days of the official summary date. The requisite number of signatures and other qualifications for placement on the November 2, 2012 Presidential General Election ballot must be met at least 131 days before that election—May 24, 2012.) The proposed constitutional amendments read as follows:

SECTION 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the 9/11 Citizens
Investigation Commission Act.

SECTION 2. The people of the State of California find and declare all of the
following:

(a) The events of September 11, 2001, have had a profound effect on the economic, social, and cultural well-being of Californians, and of all citizens of the United States.

(1) In the wake of that tragic day, the United States entered into the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. Vast amounts of the blood and treasure of the American people have been spent fighting these ongoing wars. Over 5,800 American military personnel have lost their lives in the War on Terror, and over 40,000 have been wounded. In addition, innumerable innocent civilians have also lost their lives in the War on Terror. According to a September 2, 2010, report by the federal Congressional Research Service, the cumulative total for funds appropriated in the War on Terror was $1,121,000,000,000.

(2) Since September 11, 2001, the civil liberties of Californians and other Americans have been drastically curtailed, and fundamental rights guaranteed by the United States Bill of Rights have been under attack. Government actions under the USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56), enacted on October 26, 2001, have trampled civil liberties and fundamental rights by, among other things, purportedly authorizing increased espionage against innocent United States citizens, and the indefinite detention of certain prisoners without charge.

(3) Since September 11, 2001, the federal government has decimated essential liberties of its citizens in the name of temporary safety, and this way of thinking has reached an absurd extent, in that suspicionless, systematic assault on its citizens has become a policy of the federal government. In November 2010, the Transportation Security Administration, an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, began implementing additional screening procedures for air travelers, including the use of invasive back-scatter X-ray scans that display nude images of the person scanned, and extensive patdowns that include the touching of the chest, genitals, and buttocks of the person inspected.

(b) Beyond these profound effects on the well-being of Californians and all United States citizens, there are other wide-ranging and substantial considerations that support the need for further investigation into the events of September 11, 2001:

(1) A false flag operation is one designed to deceive so that the operation appears as though it was carried out by another entity, rather than the actual operator, in order to foster a clandestine political effect. The history of the United States is littered with instances of the alleged use of false flag operations, especially as pretext for war or to forward a pro-war agenda. These instances include, among others, the invasion of Mexico in 1846, the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine on February 18, 1898, the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, the second Gulf of Tonkin incident claimed to have occurred on August 4, 1964, and the purported existence of weapons of mass destruction as the rationale for the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

(2) World Trade Center Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper that was part of the World Trade Center complex, collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, and proffered explanations for the building’s failure have been widely disputed. To date, over 1,400 architectural and engineering professionals, and over 10,000 other individuals, have signed a petition, addressed to Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States of America, demanding “a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 – specifically the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7.”

(3) In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the federal government established the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, to prepare a full and complete account of, and to report on the circumstances surrounding, the attacks. However, the 9/11 Commission has been widely criticized for lacking sufficient political independence or legal authority to discharge its duties. In their book, which was co-written after the conclusion of the commission’s work, “Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission,” the commission’s Chairman, Republican Thomas H. Kean, and its Vice Chairman, Democrat Lee H. Hamilton, asserted their belief that the commission had been designed to fail. The collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 was not addressed in the 9/11 Commission’s final report.

(c) The State of California is an appropriate government entity to initiate, and to provide the legal basis for, a citizens’ investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. Californians were among those who died in the attacks of that infamous day, and many more Californians have subsequently died fighting in the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. Furthermore, alleged terrorist conspirators trained in California to carry out the events of September 11, 2001. Historically, California has been an economic and political leader among the states, and events relating to September 11, 2001, have drastically affected the economics and politics of both California and the country at large. For all these reasons, the initiation of a citizens’ investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, is an urgent matter of statewide concern.

(d) In order to ensure the political independence of the 9/11 Citizens Investigation Commission from government interference through the appointment process, and to provide the commission credibility with respect to the transparency of its operations, former United States Senator Mike Gravel shall serve as the initial director of the commission and, if Senator Gravel is unable to serve as the initial director, former Member of the United States House of Representatives Cynthia McKinney shall serve in that capacity.

(e) We, the people of the State of California, in solidarity with all citizens of the United States, direct the 9/11 Citizens Investigation Commission, a new investigatory commission created by this act, to conduct a citizen-based, comprehensive, and truly independent investigation into events relating to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

--Michael Hasty