Venezuela: Fear for Sale re:Choice Point (Greg Palast)

[Imperialism Inc.]

Thought this deserved its own thread. For more on Venezuela from today try this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1699879#1701478


Is Choice Point involved in helping the opposition in its fraud? This article makes you wonder.

Excerpts from the election edition of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Venezuela: Fear for Sale
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1188


Excerpts from the election edition of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Venezuela: Fear for Sale

By: Greg Palast - http://GregPalast.com

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For ChoicePoint, with its 15-billion-plus records on every living and dying being in the United States, Ground Zero would become a profit center lined with gold. Contracts would gush forth from War on Terror fever not hurt by the fact that ChoicePoint did something for George W. Bush that the voters would not: select him as our president.

--cut--
I had hoped so, until a “little birdie” faxed me what appeared to be confidential pages from ChoicePoint’s contract with Mr. John Ashcroft’s Justice Department. A no-bid $67-million deal offered profiles on any citizen in half a dozen nations. The choice of citizens to spy on caught my eye. While the September 11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, ChoicePoint’s menu offered records on Venezuelans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, Argentinians and Mexicans.

What do these nations have in common besides a lack of involvement in the September 11 attacks? Coincidentally, each is in the throes of major electoral contests in which the leading candidates—presidents Luiz Ignacio “Lula” da Silva of Brazil, Néstor Kirchner of Argentina and Mexico City mayor Andres Lopez Obrador—have had the nerve to challenge the globalization demands of George Bush.

When Mexico discovered ChoicePoint had its citizen files, the nation threatened company executives with criminal charges. ChoicePoint protested its innocence and offered to destroy the files of any nation that requests it.

But ChoicePoint, apparently, presented no such offer to the government of Venezuela, home of President Hugo Chavez.

Hugo Chávez drives George Bush crazy. Maybe it’s jealousy: Unlike Mr. Bush, Chávez won office by a majority of the vote. Or maybe it’s the oil. Venezuela sits atop a reserve rivaling Iraq’s. In Caracas, I showed Congressman Nicolas Maduro the ChoicePoint-Ashcroft agreement. Maduro, a leader of Chávez’s political party, was unaware that his nation’s citizen files were for sale to U.S. intelligence. But he understood their value to make mischief.

If the lists somehow fell into the hands of the Venezuelan opposition, it could im-measurably help their computer-aided drive to recall and remove Chávez. A Choice-Point flak said the Bush administration told the company they haven’t used the lists that way. The PR man didn’t say if the Bush spooks laughed when they said it. Our team located a $53,000 payment from our government to Chávez’s recall organizers, who claim to be armed with computer lists of the registered. What was practiced in Florida, without Choice-Point’s knowledge, could be retooled for Venezuela, then Brazil, Mexico and so on. Is Mr. Bush fighting a war on terror…or a war on democracy?

[kalian]

1. I finished reading Palast's book...

its awesome! :toast:

[Imperialism Inc.]

2. I don't have the new edition.

I read most of the first American edition though.

Is there enough new info to make it worth buying the new edition?

[kalian]

4. I'm not familiar with the initial edition...sorry

[JanMichael]

3. kick

.