Irish Intelligence Agencies and the Stasi , a comparison.

international | crime and justice | opinion/analysis Thursday February 24, 2005 12:57 by Brian Nugent Co.Meath

Some thoughts on reading the book 'Stasiland' on a society dominated by the secret police.

In the summer of 1989 on the sweeping broad acres of central europe's East Germany a strange perplexing epidemic which had been smoldering for years was now touching everybody in the workers republic. The authorities couldn’t quite name this malady, because to do so was to address the problems it raised .The disease was the modern complaint of conspiracytheoryitis!

Apparently large numbers of people were walking around theorising that the democratic institutions of the state were a sham! Sure we have elections national and local, political parties large and small, coalition governments etc but it didn't matter who you voted for nothing ever changed!!! The powers that be did their own thing irrespective of the wishes of the people!

.And how is that? The reasonable people would ask nodding their sage heads and trying not to roll their eyes to heaven in a way that seemed appropriate when listening to these poor misguided souls.

Well you see the politicians and police and judiciary are all in thrall to the secret police who have them all blackmailed or threatened into doing what their told !(1) The same goes for the media ! They would confidently assert.

'I see' would come the inevitable non committal reply from those that knew that of course such police were only there to address the ongoing problems of internal subversion and other offences against the state, but his excitable neighbour continued:

And besides even if some politicians did try to change direction the truth was that their big brothers in the eastern block would step in secretly or otherwise and ensure uniformity among their gallant ‘allies’!

And so the debate raged across the hot summer and autumn until eventually in response to the popular unrest, or maybe because Moscow had quietly stepped back, the state fell and finally the people could learn the truth one way or the other. In Leipzig for example on the 4th of December the people rushed into the secret police (the Stasi) offices climbing the staircases and overpowering the few guards they expected to find the files that had held their secrets for so long .(2)

The first sight that greeted them though was not paper but row upon row of small filled glass bottles like some anatomy lab rather than a police headquarters. They were looking at the dirty underwear taken in burglaries and other means from the houses of all the 'dissidents' (meaning uncorrupt politically aware people) in Leipzig. That was a headscratcher even for the most extreme of the conspiracy theorists! It turns out that the Stasi wanted them as samples for their sniffer dogs who would use them to track the people corresponding to the samples (3). And then they learned , as the book 'Stasiland' has shown, that the extent and power of these intelligence agencies was far in advance of even the most extreme suspicions that the people had prior to being able to see the files.

How very interesting I hear you ask, but what has that to do with Ireland. We all shudder at the activities of the Stasi and of course it was terrible but nothing like that happens in a modern democracy. After all their whole system reeks of a kind of eastern tyranny that people in the west would never stand for! People being dragged out their beds by the secret police for some supposed offense against the state, held without trial for goodness knows how long, allowed access to lawyers only under total surveillance by their captors (4), and then marched into juryless courts where denied the right to silence they were frequently fitted up by a corrupt police! (5) Its lucky we live in Ireland....:-)

But the interesting thing is that we have been here already. Just after the fall of East Germany and other eastern block states the whole olympic movement was shaken by the revelations that the great East German athletes and sports people only earned their four year haul of medals by massive organised doping .After some shock as people everywhere adjusted to the idea of such widespread fraud buried underneath the popular tv of the olympics everything settled down with the comforting thought that at least such things didn’t happen in the west. As the 90s wore on I guess many people wondered at the success of so many athletes from the big western powers and the blatant doping that was involved but still whatever happened at least we were spared such worries about sport in little old Ireland ! I wonder what people think now.

Consider Peru: "Which of the democratic checks and balances - opposition parties, the judiciary, a free press - is the most critical? Peru has the full set of democratic institutions. In the 1990s, the secret-police chief Vladimiro Montesinos systematically undermined them all with bribes. We
quantify the checks using the bribe prices. Montesinos paid television-channel owners about
100 times what he paid judges and politicians. One single television channel’s bribe was four
times larger than the total of the opposition politicians’ bribes. By revealed preference, the
strongest check on the government’s power was the news media. "(6) And it proved no protection from the secret police chief who is widely considered to be a CIA asset. It may in short be too safe an assumption that such things as the Stasi revealed couldn't happen here.

The first thing to note about Irish intelligence agencies is that it might be a naive assumption to think that they are controlled by Irish people in Ireland. It turns out that the control of the main domestic intelligence agency 'Security and Intelligence' , then known as C3 , was formally handed over to the British government in the form of MI5 at a secret meeting at Baldonnel airport in early 1974.(7) The reason given was naturally the suppression of terrorism. Turns out that at that time the main terrorism in the state was being carried out by the British intelligence agencies themselves , including the attacks that lead to the passing of the 'Offences Against the State" act.(8) It seems that this agreement is still in force.C3 in turn controlled Garda Special Branch and some army officers from Irish army intelligence known as G2 found themselves unpromoted because they were 'cautious of the apparently unquestioning alliance between some senior Garda officers and British intelligence.' An interesting phoenix article that discusses this subject notes this information given from a legal source who has seen the evidence given to the Barron enquiry on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings:
"For years, a cabal of senior Garda officers, controlled by a foreign intelligence agency (MI5) directed state policy in many crucial areas, often against the better interests of citizens who were quite unaware of what was happening.”
Maybe people wouldn't stand for the kind of practices that occurred in East Germany, but they aren't likely to be objecting to something they know nothing whatsoever about. The article goes on to state that army intelligence officers from G2 believe that one senior garda, in cooperation with MI5, had tried to oust the then taoiseach Jack Lynch. MI5 in the UK meanwhile are known, as the article points out, to have bugged 10 Downing Street and broken into the private home of Harold Wilson, one of the few recent British prime ministers to question the atlantic consensus. Not long ago I read a report of an Irish business man who wanted to speak to somebody in charge of security at Dublin Airport as he wanted to question some point about the ID he had shown. The person he was introduced to turned out to be English and admitted that he worked for a British intelligence agency .A statement from the Gardai , I think , was issued later claiming he had been on some 'training exercise' in Ireland.(9). Meanwhile with respect to the American government here again is my much thumbed Phoenix Annual 2004 ( p68):

"How much the hear no evil , see no evil policy towards the US by the Garda Siochana and Irish military intelligence (G2) is due to political influence , indolence or something more sinister , is hard to determine . Certainly, in the last 10 years, links have developed between American intelligence agencies and the Gardai and defence forces which need to be examined. Most of the senior officers in Garda HQ have been trained by the FBI at Quantico near Washington, where they come into contact with CIA operatives. The US military attaché in Dublin is a respected guest at monthly meals with G2 officers in McKee Barracks, while his informal visits to Defence Forces GHQ at Parkgate are more frequent. .....[Shannon etc} may not be unconnected with the cosy relationship between the Pentagon's representative in Dublin and the top brass in the Defence Forces.”

In the absence of a look at those files it is obviously difficult to determine the extent or nature of the domestic intelligence agencies in Ireland but I think it might be instructive to look at two practices that the Stasi revealed and try to guess are they happening in Ireland.

One of the most startling revelations the files revealed was that the Stasi were using chemicals and radioactive substances on their version of "terrorist suspects" ( i.e. the dissidents.) as a kind of secret tag that could be monitored by hidden Geiger counters . As reported in the New Scientist magazine:

"The Stasi files revealed that dissidents were labeled with radioactive substances in a number of ways. If people could not be sprayed with a radioactive solution the spies would label their cars, documents or paper money, according to Becker.

If the floors of rooms used for meetings by dissidents could be treated, the Stasi could follow anyone who attended."(10)

Of course this had the effect of badly damaging the health of the dissidents, an effect which was no doubt excused as necessary for the security of the state but very bad news for those people unfortunate enough to be treated that way. For example the Stasi irradiated banknotes this way and calculated that if a person had more than two notes in his pocket:" the effect on his fertility `came close to castration.'"

The question is, is this practice, or some combination of it, being used right now by the western powers? One of the radioactive substances used was apparently scandium-64 and according to an article by the well known author Gordon Thomas it is now being used by the Israelis against the Palestinians (11), where it is described as "highly lethal over a lengthy period as it permeates clothing with gamma radiation".

In America this general substance comes under the misleading heading of nonlethal weapons .The New York Times reported for example on the subject on October 29, 2002 the time of the Russian theatre siege , saying :

"In interviews yesterday, senior American authorities and private experts said the agent used by the Russians was probably similar to one of a small arsenal of nonlethal weapons that the United States is quietly studying for use by soldiers and police officers against terrorists. Scientists said the United States had conducted research on Fentanyl, a well-known drug with many medical applications, as a human incapacitant for nearly a decade......
A main contractor in the work is the Institute for Emerging Defense Technologies at Pennsylvania State University. Andrew Mazzara, the institute's director, said that nonlethal weapons 'are used for peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, noncombatant evacuation, hostage rescue, and domestic law enforcement and corrections facilities.' "(12)

It certainly seems possible that the use of radiation on suspects is part of the 'small arsenal' mentioned. In the UK and Ireland meanwhile I have seen two straws in the wind that seem to point this way .Firstly here is a quote from a book by Martin McGartland the RUC Special Branch's famous agent in Belfast in the 80s :
"The Special Branch had discovered a 'magic' spray which they would daub on the roof of a suspect car. The spray, invisible to the naked eye, could be picked up by a device fitted into a helicopter, and the mark would remain visible for a couple of weeks even if the car was washed and polished. It was one of the SB's most successful weapons in tracking IRA suspects and was the reason why so many IRA members were caught traveling around the country in what they thought were safe vehicles ."(13)

What could that be except a radioactive spray? Invisible to the naked eye and yet can be tracked by a helicopter? And if they are using it on cars how else are they using it? This second reference is from a memo sent to Turkish security forces from Aims Ltd a private British security company "which has close links to British intelligence and the SAS”, and leaked to the Sunday Times in 1999 :
"'Radiation detection. This is a method in which a radioactive source is placed in the target and the source is then monitored.
This can be done by aircraft or satellite. The downside is that the target succumbs to radiation poisoning in approximately 21 days. This has been used by certain nations when they have released PoWs.'

A security official involved in the deal said Aims proposed to irradiate the prisoners from a source hidden in a metal box on a table in an interrogation cell."(14)

Of course there are no prizes for guessing who the SAS got to practice this on first. As the above indicates they are remarkably cavalier with the health of those they classify as a threat to the state many of whom doubtless were never charged with any offense, because maybe they never committed any. It is impossible in truth to properly figure out what or how commonly used these substances and maybe devices in Ireland are but the above I think clearly shows that there is a use of chemical (and biological ?) weapons by the security forces against people they don’t like in western countries.

Unfortunately with the advance of technology and the amount of time and money that say the American government pours into this type of technology the chances are that what the Stasi were using might be old hat although the idea of chemically tagging someone might be still popular .For example maybe if those new 'see through' type of surveillance devices that are now rolled out in ports and airports were commonly used for human surveillance then it might be desirable for the security forces to be using some type of chemical to mark people in a way that would be particularly visible to such a device , in the same way that X-rays of blood vessels can be seen only after the patient has swallowed some drink that contains heavy metals like barium .Heavy metals being I suppose the best candidates for such a substance .It needn't be complicated to administer , for example a broken thermometer can throw up a very effective cloud of dangerous mercury vapour , mercury being a metal that vapourises into air at room temperature. Anyhow we can only guess in the absence of real facts from those secretive agencies.

Either way it’s clearly worthy of remark that so many people caught up in the troubles in Northern Ireland claim now to be suffering from ill health as a result of coming into contact with the security forces. You can see this in the recent reports of republican prisoners dying of cancer who blame the experimental gas that was used during a prison riot in the 70s and also the ongoing complaints from people living near the watch towers in South Armagh (15). You could also follow the logic of this and wonder whether or not this ill health in those perceived as 'enemies of the state' is something the authorities really dislike?

So much for the secretive poisoning of 'terrorist suspects' in the name of surveillance by the Stasi, the second tactic that the Stasi employed that I hope to look at is the question of isolating the 'dissidents'.

Basically the Stasi as the domestic intelligence agency were involved in watching and reporting to the state on the activities of that I suppose independent minded and therefore troublesome group of people that we now know as dissidents. No doubt they always justified this surveillance of such a large group of (basically harmless) people by hyping them up as a great threat to the security of the state. That of course is true of all domestic intelligence agencies everywhere in any era. But, contrary to what some might think, these agencies are not just glorified peeping toms, they also aim to actively prevent their 'suspects ' from having any political impact. Among other ways, what they try to do is to isolate groups and individuals (16).

To explain this I will try to give a hypothetical example .Lets take Anthony Coughlin (17) the well known opponent of further EU integration who we now know was monitored by Irish army intelligence prior to the first European Community referendum despite the fact that everybody knows he never had any involvement at any time with any paramilitary groups etc and you can be sure that the Irish state knew that but was spying on him anyway.(I wish to point out all this is genuinely hypothetical , I don't know much about Anthony Coughlin personally.) So they go about their merry way in the usual manner, following people on the street , intercepting mail and telephone calls , viewing banking records and any relevant files in any government departments etc etc building up quite a picture on their suspect as all these agencies do. But they have a problem. He simply isn't doing anything wrong and not breaking the law as is probably the case 99 per cent of the time these agencies are monitoring people. But the state would doubtless like very much to get the EEC referendum passed and would not be looking favourably on poor old Anthony doing his best to highlight the pitfalls in signing away so much of our sovereignty. So they still want to stop him and yet the whole idea of monitoring people in order to bring charges in court which is what law enforcement people are supposed to be doing is a non starter here. So to address this kind of problem some bright spark in some agency at some unrecorded moment in history thought up this idea of isolating people. They simply take the picture they have built up about the person, and the powers they are using in watching him, and attempt to restrict his ability to have a political impact.

Top of the list in a western country of course is financial isolation and pressure .So that letter that was intercepted in the mail, which they are constantly monitoring, with the lucrative or indeed any job offer gets lost in the post. The same possibly goes for checks in the mail, deadly for any small business. Whereas when they are just monitoring someone they can check out a persons place of employment by numerous discreet ways as part of this isolation process they might take a different approach. Some more high profile visits to his/her employer with questions that indicate what a troublemaker the target is might be in order and obviously could give an employer cold feet about continuing to employ the person. Any small business person is very vulnerable to the vagaries of the complicated and strictly applied tax code in this country .Troubles on that front could easily devastate a self-employed person (18). Nearly everybody has to interact as well with one or other government department which in some shape or form regulate all professions and businesses in the state and harm might come their way from there (19). The net effect of course is that a person with little money is maybe not able to get around to meetings and publish things like Anthony Coughlin has done in successive european campaigns. It is very effective at times of high costs of living such as modern Ireland of course. It might also leave a person very vulnerable to some new 'financial assistance' ,with strings attached , from their erstwhile enemies (20).Also there are eras when not having employment is considered the ultimate social sin and can damage a persons credibility by itself.(21).

This financial isolation and pressure can be aggravated by social isolation which is also of course useful for its own sake in this context .Clearly not having a car, place to stay, computer or whatever is not much of a problem when you are among a wide circle of friends and family who could lend a hand but very difficult to deal with for a person on his own. To achieve this social isolation they basically resort to slander, whispering campaigns, inaccurate information spread by the agencies themselves (22). To take up a phrase that was used to describe slander against the 'Daily Ireland' newspaper they simply accuse people of being either mad , bad or dangerous to know or some horrible mixture of all three .(23) Of course the agencies can use the information that they already would have gleaned on a persons family and acquaintances to tailor their slander at just the right concerns or prejudices of their listeners.(24) They also probably do this early and often , early because first impressions of a person or his activities count better than later ones and often to reinforce the slander so that it is taken eventually as a kind of widely acknowledged truth. They might also be able to use some technological wizardry to make their case. For example conceivably an older person being maligned as 'past it' could be slipped something that could cause temporary confusion in him/her, in order to reinforce the slander (25). Obviously doctored documents sound or video could be easily deployed here to discredit the victim , as it will likely never be seen by him/her never mind shown in court and therefore easily forged.(26)

Mad of course is the old standby of the eastern bloc agencies but it clearly has also been used in the west (27 ). It combines a neat way to discredit what a person is saying with a smoother passage to a locked cell than the judicial system can sometimes give. As a nice Orwellian twist a person that alleges some kind of grand state conspiracy against himself/herself is likely to get there all the sooner.

Bad in Ireland probably means claiming that a person is a member of a paramilitary organisation
when they are not, like classically in the case of Pat Finucane or maybe whispering that a person is connected to the drug trade. This kind of thing could be useful in the event of a person being killed as well since some statement like that the victim was 'known to the police' can scare away too much public interest and disquiet. Which thankfully has not succeeded in the case of the abovementioned solicitor. In the case of a high profile person this could be done through the organs of the media rather than at a personal level .This might also manifest itself in false charges (28), here is the Phoenix magazines recent impression of the influence the Gardai in Ireland can have in the media:

"Many of the Garda problems stem from a culture of secrecy and media manipulation which has evolved as a result of 30 years of largely political policing in the North. The regular Garda practice of demonizing suspects and bringing them, in the absence of courtroom proof, to nudge-and-wink trial in the media, still goes on .An example of this unofficial, symbiotic relationship between certain gardai and the media - and not just various tabloids - came in the classic ‘Sunday World ' report that the then emerging Donegal scandal was an IRA plot to discredit Special Branch. "(29)

Also as part of the ongoing surveillance it might be possible to change the nature of the surveillance in a way that assists this process. While before on entering a hotel say he/she might be watched discreetly by some nondescript person glancing up from his paper the other side of the ornamental flowers now an operative could noisily approach staff or the management enquiring about the whereabouts of their 'suspect' and just between themselves outlining a terrible saga of infamy culminating in the odd bout of kleptomania in hotel rooms!! So getting in the early slander (30).

Finally a little bit of more formal official state interference might be in order as part of this policy of isolation .In the Soviet Union for example they had a system of internal passports so clearly a person not in good standing might be refused permission to travel about which is doubtless helpful in restricting their political influence. The same would be especially true of exit visas to travel abroad. Meanwhile in many western countries it is increasingly the case that without proper ID you cannot book a room, open a bank account, and even enter pubs and clubs. Of course in theory there is no problem getting such ID, but 'bureaucratic' difficulties could arise (31) .Obviously this might become even more of an issue with the talk of biometric IDs being compulsory for doing nearly anything.

As well as the footnotes to the above I have seen the following which seems to indicate that this is practiced in the west .This is a quote from a former 'US intelligence agent trained at a national level ' in describing the results of research by her into a number of reported cases of harassment presumably by an intelligence agency in the US:

"Isolation of the individual from members of his/her immediate family-virtually assured when highly focused forms of ....... harassment commence.

Progressive financial impoverishment, brought on by termination of the individual’s employment, and compounded by expenses associated with the harassment."(32)

Whistleblowers would seem a common term in the west for those which we refer to in the east as dissidents .Here is a description of what happens to whistleblowers usually in the UK according to Liam Clarke the well known Sunday Times journalist:

“In Britain whistleblowers such as White are generally subjected to a campaign of character assassination. It is suggested they are crooks or Walter Mitty-type characters, and they then face years of expensive litigation to clear their names. "(33)


Of course the Stasi and the KGB had a lot of other weapons in their armoury like assassination, I have just concentrated on these two tactics. I just hope that people would agree with me that these practices should be prevented from taking root in Ireland as immoral and in any civilised country illegal and might join with me in condemning them. If you think so, and think it worthwhile, any reader can also send this article around as an email attachment to any person you think might feel the same way.

Footnotes
I am very grateful and would like to profoundly acknowledge all the hard work put in by so many people in making so much of these articles and detail available on the web. This includes those read and not listed below .This is my modest contribution to same.

(1) If you feel the need to speculate on these issues you might like to note that at the time of the Emmet Stagg affair it was reported that the Gardai have a practice of passing onto headquarters any details that might be considered compromising for at least some politicians .This was said to be in order to protect the politician from possible blackmail. Also with respect to the banks and Charles Haughey it was noted that his financial affairs were handled "at the highest level in the bank” apparently because of the sensitive position that Haughey held, and it was dealt with remarkably generously. ( http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/1999/02/18/ihead.htm )

(2) www.bbc.co.uk/education/languages/germany_insideout/east1.html

In Ireland the files held in great secrecy by special branch date from the Fenian troubles of the 1860’s. (http://www.atholbooks.org/archives/publicarchives/pastlabcom/labcomjan04.html quoting The Phoenix 19/12/2003.) Meanwhile one historian Christy Campbell had only intermittent and heavily censored access to secret service files relating to Ireland of the 1880s held in the PRO London.(Christy Campbell "Fenian Fire" (2002) p.xxi ) .Nonetheless he was able to figure out that the 'outrages' and terrorism that had Britain and Ireland in thrall at that time and attributed to the nefarious activities of Irish dynamiters were in fact nearly all in the employ of various branches of the British government and used by them for political purposes. And that’s only the files in the PRO, secret service papers that show some of the bribery that passed the act of union were kept so secret that their "very existence was not revealed to the modern PRO until nearly 200 years later ". (‘History, Journal of the Historical Association 'Jan 1997 Vol.82 no.265 p.225) Closed for the same 200 years were the court martial records of the 1798 rebellion (Brian Barton "From Behind a Closed Door" p31 (2002)). From which you might deduct that the secrecy these files are kept in are not paranoia but important in keeping Irish people clueless about what really went on during their supposedly violent history .

In Puerto Rico, a country dominated by the United States, the authorities had files on over 100,000 people:
"Over half a century the police unit built up a vast network of informers--everyday people like the victims themselves. Other governmental and private institutions also provided information for the files. .....
Information in the carpetas [secret police files] allegedly was used to deny employment or take other punitive actions such as unlawful arrests against Puerto Ricans from every walk of life, from students and teachers to farmers and cab drivers, lawyers and artists.
.......
When the dossiers were released in 1992, many islanders--including school teachers, union leaders and writers--were shocked to learn that friends, neighbors and family members had secretly spied on them for years.
One client of Hey Maestre, a 16-year-old high school student, had books and other materials confiscated in Puerto Rico after attending an international socialist youth activity in Finland. He claims authorities then expelled him from school and blocked his admission to college.

The carpetas also were used in child custody hearings and employment interviews. And in some cases, entire families were drawn into the web of state spying because one member was considered 'subversive.' " (http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/puertorico/carpetas.htm quoting the Washington Post dec 28 1999.)


(3) Of course if these tactics are employed now in advanced western countries they are highly likely to be using the various types of electronic 'noses' that have been developed rather than dogs. The reference is from the book 'Stasiland'.


(4) This whistleblower has shown that political prisoners in Belmarsh prison in London have in practice no privacy from the security forces for legal matters:
"The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum Security" by Richard Tomlinson, (2001) p185.

(5)This is a sample of some of the serious issues the Morris Tribunal is examining, which might be of interest in this context:
Anonymous Allegations SITECONTENT_113.pdf .page 1..[allegations made by one or multiple gardai - the source to Howlin is said to be a serving Dublin garda , the source to Higgins a retired Donegal garda -of garda corruption being investigated by the Morris Tribunal , inter alia :]
"(ii) When working with these two high ranking members of An
Garda Síochána he was alleged to have been given the job of
producing evidence by unlawful means to prove a case beyond
reasonable doubt whenever such evidence “had to be got”;
(iii) In this regard a large number of convictions were achieved by
planting evidence and it is alleged that both of the high ranking
Gardaí were aware that the member under investigation was the
source of trumped up evidence used in this manner;
(iv) The member under investigation gained from his actions of
producing trumped up evidence which secured convictions in that
he had paid to him extra expenses in the form of unworked
overtime/travelling and subsistence allowances which continued
up to 1998 and that he was given blanket permission to claim
such expenses;”

Also a report by Barry O'Kelly in the Sunday Business Post Jan 29 2002 on the trial in the case of one of the most serious crimes in modern Irish history makes interesting reading. It’s not stated there but reported at the time that one of the witnesses in the case during the trial stated that he gave false testimony because of intimidation by the Gardai.
(archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2002/01/20/story57787728.asp)
(The witness discussed at: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68131&comment_order=asc&save_prefs=true )

(6) "How to subvert democracy, Montesinos in Peru” http://www.cesifo.de/pls/guestci/download/CESifo+Working+Papers+2004/CESifo+Working+Papers+April+2004/cesifo1_wp1173.pdf

(7) "The Phoenix" July 2003 Vol 21 no 14 p 8-10.This agreement was first revealed to the public in Ireland ,as far as I know, by Fred Holroyd at a meeting of' 'Justice for the Forgotten' in Dublin on the 27th June 2003.It was not reported in the media. Major Holroyd was told this by a Doctor Hugh Thomas who served as medical officer for the large British contingent at the discussions at Baldonnel.

(8) See both above listed sources. That is also the Phoenix article mentioned next in the text.

(9) I regret I have forgotten which newspaper I read that in.

(10) http://216.87.7.9/Intel%20Bulletin/Intel%20Bulletin%20020010105.htm

(11) http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:oqWY3afKkKUJ:lists.village.virginia edu/cgi-bin/spoons/archive_msg.pl%3Ffile%3Ddeleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari.0104%26msgnum%3D75%26start%3D6930%26end %3D7035
+scandium-64&hl=en

(12) http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/dll/knockoutgas2.htm

(13) Martin McGartland "Fifty Dead Men Walking"(1998), p269.

(14) Sunday Times 31st October 1999

(15) On the gas used: http://www.geocities.com/collusion2000_1999/news7.html
Where the local people have been driven to putting up road signs trying to highlight the cancer and health problems they say are being caused by devices used in those towers. Gerry Conlon (" Proved Innocent" (1990)) also said that he was sometimes poisoned while a prisoner in England.

(16) I have not seen this practice explained explicitly anywhere , just in passing in 'stasiland' .I have written it partly from that book and partly from the sources noted in the footnotes .

(17) Article by Ryle Dwyer at IrishExaminer.com 8/1/2005.

(18) This testimony of Thomas Gilligan at the Mahon tribunal is possibly of interest here, bearing in mind that he had some very dramatic things to say about politicians in Ireland, none of it complimentary to the powers that be:
p.75. "A No, I didn't get profit. I was actually made bankrupt through skulduggery.
Q 433 We'll come to that in a moment. As far as this is concerned, that you made
profit and what is more important about this is that these documents show that
the driving force behind your involvement in these two investments was to make
a massive profit on a small investment.
A Wrong. That was not the driving force at all. I could have been -- I had a 20
million pound deal in Milton Keynes going on, which I lost due to the
skulduggery in this country. I didn't need the bank.
Q 434 But as far as the question of you ending up without any money is concerned,
that was not to do with Quarryvale --
A It was to do with Quarryvale, and Frank Dunlop and false information supplied
to the British Inland Revenue by your client and his merry men.
Q 435 That, I would suggest to you, is a ridiculous suggestion.
A No, it's not ridiculous. It's an absolute fact, and I will prove it.
Q 436 Did the inland --
A It's an absolute fact and I'll prove it.
p.76. Q 437 Did the Inland Revenue make you bankrupt?
A The Inland Revenue in England did on a false claim, supplied by one Mr. Frank
Dunlop, the government press secretary, and Mr. O'Callaghan's side-kick.
Q 438 So Mr. O'Callaghan -- you seem to portray yourself as the victim at every stage
in relation to this. The Inland Revenue took proceedings against you and
bankrupted you; is that correct?
A That's correct, on false information, and I can prove it. I lost a 20 million
pound deal in Milton Keynes, as well as an office block that I had already
built and paid for, due to a false claim. And the law in England is -- when it
comes to an Irishman, you're guilty until proven innocent. I didn't get
justice there and I didn't get justice here. "

( TUESDAY, 16TH MARCH 2004 , CONTINUATION OF QUESTIONING OF
MR. THOMAS GILMARTIN BY MR. MAGUIRE. , SITECONTENT_255.pdf p.75-76 www.flood-tribunal.ie )

(19) Major Holroyd at the above mentioned Dublin meeting also stated that Dr Hugh Thomas was set up on false charges by the state who claimed he has defrauded the NHS as part of his practice as a doctor. He luckily managed to show that some of the documents the state were using were forged .Apparently he detected it by seeing a wrong sized welsh dragon on the forms.

Also Pat Rabitte in the Dail has highlighted the case of farmer John Fleury .It is a truism in the farming community that their economic troubles are in large measure caused by a political powerful oligopoly in the meat processing industry and to counteract that the only recourse they have are live cattle exports. Unfortunately some time ago the shipping companies refused to export any cattle and some people including Mr. Fleury brought them to court to compel them to allow the exports and were successful, so making many enemies it seems. He highlighted his subsequent strange problems with the Department of Agriculture , which has a very powerful impact on the life of a farmer , on the Vincent Browne radio show .Pat Rabitte was contacted it seems while Mr. Fleury was trying to protect his house from the banks. ( www.gov.ie/debates-03/13May/Sect2.htm ).

(20) Again at that meeting Major Holroyd said he had been approached to take up a very lucrative job offer as a security consultant for a multinational company. It is clear that this would be on the understanding that he stopped making his allegations of abuses in the intelligence system in Northern Ireland. This was after he had been through the difficulties described below.

He also related the story of an unnamed Dublin journalist who initially gave a lot of publicity to some of the issues he raises but as a result lost his job, couldn't pay the mortgage, gave up and is now working for a very right wing paper.

(21) At the same Dublin meeting listed above Major Holroyd mentioned how they at times make it difficult for him to get employment and then sneer that he cannot hold down a job. Major Holroyd did describe this generally as a process of 'isolating' people (his word) but he didn’t go into any detail and in fact used the word in a slightly different context. Obviously he worked in British military intelligence in Northern Ireland in the 70s.

(22) It seems the Stasi particularly enjoyed spreading false rumors that a person was a Stasi informant. (.http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:JPIoNL09Ec4J:www.utopie1.de/stasi/heinrich/englisch1.htm+&hl=en
stasi tactics )

(23) Daily Ireland Thursday February 10 2005 article by Jude Collins p.15.He says that some of the abuse heaped on the paper was so 'early' it was before the paper was actually launched.

(24) Richard Tomlinson for example, the MI6 whistleblower, claims that private detectives hired by MI6 told his landlady in Italy that he was a convicted pedophile. He also states that MI6 threatened him with lifelong harassment .(www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2001-Febrary/014745.html )

According to evidence at a recent libel trial in Cork Brendan O'Brien the RTE journalist received an unsolicited telephone call from Noel O'Flynn TD while he was interviewing two gardai in the course of a programme unflattering to the Gardai. In it the FF TD referred to one of the retired gardai as having mental problems and the other as having been thrown out of the force for alcoholism and stealing. Jerry McCarthy one of the gardai slandered managed to win the libel case showing this to be completely untrue. The TD told O'Brien that he had "heard he was meeting with a garda" no further details are reported as to how he knew to ring the journalist at that time. (home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/4225483?view=Printer )

(25) The use of drugs that effect the mind in various ways is testified to by General Major Jan Sejna who described over 50 intelligence operations where drugs were used like that .He defected from Czechoslovakia in 1968 and had formerly being the head of the Defense Council Secretariat and Chief of Staff to the Minister for Defence in that country. This link also notes that the CIA conducted research in the 1950s into inter alia drugs that could "cause mental disturbance" and "diminish ambition and working efficiency ". (www.apfn.net/messageboard/12-06-03/discussion.cgi.20.html ).

(26) This is exactly what occurred to Sir Roger Casement with the black diaries which many people still consider to be forged and which were shown around to influential people to counteract sympathy for him before he was hung. They were never shown in court or to him or to the general public at the time. Considering then views on homosexuality he was clearly painted thus as mad and bad and consequently dangerous to know!
Consider also the case of Peter Foster the partner of Carole Caplin, an adviser with ready access to the Prime Minister, who got the full tabloid treatment recently. A number of telephone conversations said to have been intercepted between him in Australia and his mother in Dublin were reported verbatim in the Sun newspaper. Fosters' supporters stated that a number of different phone calls were mixed up together and "strategically edited" in a way that presented a completely misleading picture .Peter Foster describes his experiences thus:
"Over the last few weeks papers have reported: I am an agent for Mossad, I am facing extradition to Australia to face criminal charges, I sold emails to the Daily Mail, I am the father of twins I've never seen, my business in Australia was founded on drugs money, I sent an email to Paul Walsh attempting to tie the Blairs into my product, I have a brother called Paul, I was touting to sell my story to the British media for 100,000 pounds ....
And tomorrow I now hear it will be suggested I am gay. I could go on but none of these things are true. But I had no chance to challenge these lies. Where did they come from? Could it be I had to be discredited by the establishment? "( politics.guardian.co.uk/cherie/story/0,12713,861220,00.html )

Note the smooth relationship between the intelligence agencies, the only people who realistically could have recorded the conversations, and the tabloids. Incidentally it is said they were bugged in Dublin where Louise Pelloti Peter's mother lives .The Sun decided not to run the transcripts in its Irish edition.

Philip Agee the famous CIA dissident was very busy in the agency forging documents (Philip Agee "Inside the Company, CIA Diary" (1975).


(27) The poet Ezra Pound was said to have been placed in a psychiatric hospital in Washington for many years as a result of making some powerful enemies .Quoting Eustace Mullins:
"Well I met a political prisoner, a man who had been imprisoned because he stood up for the Constitution of the United States: a poet named Ezra Pound. And he had been incarcerated, without trial, in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C."( www.soren.org/gov/eustace.html )

Meanwhile it has been alleged in a new Irish magazine that some of the former patients in the Magdalen Laundries have been housed in dubious circumstances in Grangegormon mental institution in Dublin ('Irish Crime' vol.1 issue.7 Dec-Jan 2004/05 p11) There have been lots of rumours that some of the abuse suffered by children in religious institutions was connived at by powerful politicians and civil servants. See the ongoing research by Jim Cairns author of "Disappeared off the face of the earth " including an article entitled "Abusers to be named on the net "by Carmel Hayes in the 'Kilkenny People' June 1997.

Also note the campaign of disinformation via private briefings by CIA agent Brian Latell on Capitol Hill accusing President Aristide of Haiti of seeking treatment for mental problems and subsequently leaked to the media. "It turned out that the time during which the CIA report alleges Aristide was treated at a Canadian hospital falls within the same period that Aristide was studying and teaching in Israel.” (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RIE402A.html )

These are some of the expeirences of Robert Dougal Watt an auditor in the EU :
"The Court has certainly done its best to discredit me; publicly denying all my allegations, publicly promising disciplinary procedures, and off-the-record insisting that I am as mad as a hatter.
...........If I return to work without public acknowledgement by the Court that my allegations of 22 April are soundly based, then I assume I will be disciplined, and possibly bankrupted by Mr [B]’s claim of defamation."

Of course another point is that under the kind of stress people in this situation are likely to encounter problems can arrise which can be easily and deliberately misinterpreted . Mr Watt begins one of his letters thus :

"However, I feel I should point out straight away - given the nature of the contents of this letter, and given that in my understanding you have been deliberately misled to date regarding my mental state - that neither my doctor in Luxembourg, nor my doctor in Scotland, has diagnosed me as paranoid or in any way, “mad”. I have been prescribed beta-blockers and sleeping pills for stress, and an anti-depressant for anxiety; but both doctors have assured me that stress and anxiety are the rational responses of an individual who finds him/herself in circumstances such as mine. This stress and anxiety arise from much more than worry about holding on to my job and pension entitlements - which I knowingly placed at risk on 22 April; but from concern over the physical well-being of my family and myself - which I did not knowingly place at risk. "

and is driven to finishing his letter :

" I conclude, I am not paranoid; only terrified.

Yours faithfully,

R Dougal WATT
Auditor
17 June 2002 "
( http://www.justresponse.net/DougalWatt3Sep02.html )


(28) This seems a very common practice .See for example the experiences of Rodney Stich, a veteran of WW2 and a noted writer on abuses in the aviation industry and other areas in American society .Summing up an episode in his book Defrauding America a reviewer notes:
"As a result of Stich's continuous whistle blowing, retaliation ensued when his assets were seized (to take away the funding of Stich's activist activities) through misuse of chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, and his refusal to "surrender" eventually led to him being sentenced to prison on trumped up charges. "(the amazon.com page on "Defrauding America..." by Rodney Stich)

While Colin Wallace , another panelist at the abovementioned Dublin meeting and formerly a senior figure in the liaison between the security forces and the media in northern Ireland., is such a famous case they wrote a book about it (Paul Foot "Who framed Colin Wallace"(1989)).Major Colin Wallace was particularly trying to tell people that the government permitted Kincora and he also asks as Tim Dalyell MP related in the House of Commons: "why do we allow Army-related intelligence services to harass politicians ? This was long before the world had heard of Peter Wright; it is the reason why Wallace was thrown out of Northern Ireland, and then harassed." (www.parliament.the-stationary-office.co.uk/pa/cm198889/cmhansrd/1989-10-18/Debate-6.html and
www.parliament.the-stationary-office.co.uk/pa/cm198889/cmhansrd/1989-06-08/Debate-5.html )

(29) The Phoenix Annual 2004, p 62

(30) Ralph McGehee the ex-CIA agent who revealed a lot of that agencies nefarious goings on in Thailand describes such a process as happening to him. He points out that: "I suppose the internal justification for their actions is to investigate me in a 'counterintelligence' investigation," he wrote in one message, "but their actions are so blatant, its real purpose can only be to intimidate me."
( http://www.parascope.com/articles/1197/mcgehee3.htm )
His experiences in the CIA are described here:
http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/mcgehee.htm

(31) In the case of one person from the UK arrested just before the Mayday protests in Dublin and charged only with trespassing, she had her passport confiscated as one of the bail conditions. The case took forever to get to court and without such ID she couldn't even claim social welfare.
( https://www3.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/05/291959.html )

Eamonn Delaney who used to work in the department of foreign affairs revealed in his book "Accidental Diplomat, My years in the Irish Foreign Service” that there is a blacklist there to prevent certain people from ever claiming Irish passports despite being eligible for them. He at any rate seemed to regard it as quite arbitrary the criteria that caused some people to go on the list.

Also the post 9-11 steps taken on air travel in America that are supposed to restrict travel by 'terrorist suspects' have actually impeded travel by people like Cat Stevens and Edward Kennedy,
a 71-year-old Milwaukee nun and peace activist, and Barbara Olshansky, an attorney with the left-leaning Center for Constitutional Rights, who has been:"subjected to strip- and full-body searches every time she's flown since 9/11, even though she has no criminal record. "
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/06/terror/main610466.shtml
http://www.jdlasica.com/blog/archives/2003_08_03.html )


(32) http://home.att.net/~mcra/microwav.htm
Association of National Security Alumni December 1992 Julianne McKinney.

This person is an expert in the use of those strange devices like those used in the famous microwave attack by the Soviet Union on the US embassy in Moscow mentioned by Henry Kissinger:

“In April 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sent the following telegram to the US Embassy in Moscow: “Beginning in 1960, the Soviet Union directed high frequency beams of radiation at the US Embassy in Moscow which were calculated not to pick up intelligence, but cause physiological effects on personnel. It has been verified that the effects are not temporary. Definitely tied to such radiation and the UHF/VHF electromagnetic waves are: (A) Cataracts, (B) Heart attacks, (C) Malignancies, (D) Circulatory problems, and (E) Permanent deterioration of the nervous system. In most cases, the after-effects do not become evident until long after exposure - a decade or more.”"
(http://www.wanttoknow.info/mindcontrollers10pg )

In the McKinney quote I am guilty of leaving out the adjective electronic as I am trying to extrapolate the idea that these agencies aim for isolation in their targets, from the speculation that they use these devices to achieve it .I'm not saying there is no justification in what she says .Bearing in mind she is rumored to have run agents out of Berlin for the Pentagon it seems those gadgets were used extensively during the cold war. To get a list of the sort of technology I am talking about I recommend this manual www.usafa.af.mil/inss/OCP/ocp15.pdf . Note the url, the af.mil is the official web space of the American air force, hence the list it supplies is clearly taken seriously by at least one branch of the US government. This is the title :

"NONLETHAL WEAPONS:
TERMS AND REFERENCE
USAF Institute for National Security Studies
USAF Academy, Colorado

Robert J. Bunker
December 1996

We believe you will find this reference book to be a useful addition to
the current literature on nonlethal weapons. Its target audience is individuals
who deal with military operations other than war, special operations, or
weapons procurement and sales."

As you see from that last quote the only areas really left are some type of law enforcement /intelligence capacity .I cannot describe all the technologies because there are a so many different types of horrible devices pointed at people to make them ill or catch them like microwaves, infrared, ultrasound .etc. all described here in a clinical sobriety .Here is a few to give you some idea of how wide-ranging this is .From the spooky:
"Hologram, Death. Hologram used to scare a target individual to death.
Example, a drug lord with a weak heart sees the ghost of his dead rival
appearing at his bedside and dies of fright ."

to the mind boggling :
"Biotechnical, Neuro-Implant. Computer implants into the brain which allow
for behavioral modification and control. Current research is experimental in
nature and focuses on lab animals such as mice"

or just disagreeable:
"Biotechnical, Malodorous Agents. Foul-smelling gases and sprays such as
hydrogen sulphide (H2S) or a compound known as NaS8 which is used in
making plastics. Could be delivered by a grenade. Past work on "cultural
specific" agents has also been undertaken [356,529]. See also Biotechnical,
Project Agile"

or ambitious :
"Theoretical, New Gunpowder Revolution. The perception that the wide scale
application of nonlethal technology on the battlefield will be as significant as
the fielding of gunpowder based firearms during the European Renaissance "

As you can see under the heading nonlethal can lay a multitude of evils:
"Biotechnical, Genetic Alteration. The act of changing genetic code to create a
desired less-than-lethal but longterm disablement effect, perhaps for
generations, thereby creating a societal burden."

As far as I know the simple truth is that the use or otherwise of these devices in Ireland is simply unknown, but hopefully unlikely.

(33) http://www.allaboutaccount.com/finding-a-secret-bank-account-in-a-divorce.html quoting from www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1452653,00.html .
Detective Sergeant John White and his informant Paddy Dixon have alleged that Garda authorities permitted the Omagh bomb 'to go through' .They "also allege that a clandestine deal between the Irish government and the Real IRA just weeks after the bombing led to charges being dropped against eight men arrested following the explosion." ( http://observer.guardian.co.uk/nireland/story/0,11008,1066420,00.html )

I have concentrated in this account on the known activities of some intelligence agencies but possibly the real pattern of these networks comes from the experiences of P2 in Italy.As everybody knows this is a masonic lodge which controlled much of Italian politics in the post war period , possibly set up and certainly backed by the CIA , exercising effective control for its own ends the domestic Italian intelligence agencies and affiliated with the senior English Grand Lodge in London.So maybe this policy of isolation that I describe can be carried out by a wider group than simply a state controlled domestic intelligence agency .Robert Dougal Watt an auditor with EU Court of Auditors describes an atmosphere in the EU where the freemasons/mafia/ and western intelligence agencies seek to dominate and influence the political life of the EU .Here is some of his analysis of P2 and its leader Gelli:

"As part of this general US policy, from 1947 onwards the US Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, undertook a number of initiatives designed to secure the defence of Western Europe from these twin threats of internal communist subversion and Soviet invasion.

Freemasonry - persecuted by Hitler, Mussolini and Vichy - was revived in post-1945 continental Europe with the support of US covert agencies. These encouraged freemasonry as “secret networks” of society’s powerful: useful for combatting internal communist subversion, by covert as well as overt means; and foreseen as useful for anti-communist civil resistance, in the event of Soviet invasion and occupation.

US covert agencies were also instrumental in resurrecting the mafia - crushed by Mussolini - as a bulwark against communism in Italy’s impoverished south. Until c.1970, the mafia fulfilled this role, to which it owed its origins in the nineteenth century: of combating those enemies of the established order against whom the authorities could or would not act; in return for implicit toleration of their extortion and other rackets.
........
The P2 conspiracy was initially attributed to KGB subversion - every Italian political party was compromised by the scandal, with the exception of the Communist Party. However, this attribution - traceable directly to the Italian secret services, themselves compromised by P2; indirectly to the CIA; and also promulgated by British secret services - was discredited by the following Italian parliamentary enquiry. Upon the basis of a detailed study of Gelli’s personal history and secret service dossier, the enquiry concluded “that Gelli himself must belong to the secret services, since this is the only logical explanation for the cover they gave Gelli, both in a passive way (not gathering information on him) and an active one (not providing information about him to political authorities who requested it)” (quoted in Short, p550). However, given that Venerable Master Gelli himself was “puppet-master” of all three of Italy’s secret service chiefs, his status seems to have been greater than merely “national”. In this light, it can be deduced that P2 owed its origins to US “cold war” policy, in a period when the Italian Communist Party was receiving one third of the electoral vote, and rising in popularity. This conclusion is consistent with US action following revelation of the conspiracy; pressure was applied on the Italian government by NATO, to keep in post the senior military, naval, air force and secret service chiefs compromised by the scandal, ostensibly due to a need to maintain stability during a period marked by uncertainty in the Middle East. "

(http://www.justresponse.net/DougalWatt3Sep02.html and the links therein , note that Mr Watt has written three documents on this subject and his own experiences all of which are extremely interesting and all three should be read by anyone interested in the EU.
http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/P2.html for more on P-2 .
http://www.skepticfiles.org/socialis/cosiga3a.htm for evidence of CIA involvement.)

P-2 being a Masonic lodge , and in good standing with the Grand Lodge in London as told to Mr Watt , is maybe relevant to this practice of isolation.This is an account from a man described as a senior civil servant in Whitehall as told to Stephen Knight during his researches on freemasony in England :

" 'It is not difficult to ruin a man,' he said. 'And I will tell you how it is done time and again. There are more than half a million brethren under the jurisdiction of Grand Lodge.
Christopher explained that Masonry's nationwide organization of men from most walks of life provided one of the most efficient private intelligence networks imaginable. Private information on anybody in the country could normally be accessed very rapidly through endless permutations of masonic contacts - police, magistrates, solicitors, bank managers, Post Office staff ('very useful in supplying copies of a man's mail'), doctors, government employee bosses of firms and nationalized industries etc., etc. dossier of personal data could be built up on anybody very quickly. When the major facts of an individual's life were known, areas of vulnerability would become apparent. Perhaps he is in financial difficulties; perhaps he has some social vice - if married he might 'retain a mistress' or have proclivity for visiting prostitutes; perhaps there is something in his past he wishes keep buried, some guilty secret, a criminal offence (easily obtainable through Freemason police of doubtful virtue), or other blemish on his character: all these and more could be discovered via the wide-ranging masons network of 600,000 contacts, a great many of whom were disposed to do favours for one another because that had been their prime motive for joining.

Sometimes this information gathering process - often involving a long chain of masonic contacts all over the country and possibly abroad - would be unnecessary. Enough would be known in advance about the adversary to initiate any desired action against him.
I asked how this 'action' might be taken.
'Solicitors are very good at it,' said Christopher. 'Get your man involved in something legal - it need not be serious - and you have him.' Solicitors, I was told, are 'past masters' at causing endless delays, generating useless paperwork, ignoring instruc