statism watch

Oh, because of documents like this? US Counterinsurgency Manual Leaked, Calls for False Flag Operations, Suspension of Human Rights

Perhaps the forces should be more concerned about doing the sorts of things that prompt its personnel to leak in the first place rather than trying to attack public accountability organizations.

Prior Leaks: Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Green World Order” By 2010 | Cryptome.org Leaks Microsoft Online Surveillance Guide, MS Demands Takedown Under Copyright Law | ACTA Internet Chapter Leaks: Renegotiates WIPO, Sets 3 Strikes as Model | Beyond ACTA: Proposed EU – Canada Trade Agreement Intellectual Property Chapter Leaks | Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | New Leaks of Secret ACTA Copyright Law Reveal Oppressive ‘Global DMCA’ | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon Tax | More ACTA Details Leak: It’s An Entertainment Industry Wishlist | American Intelligence Contractors Leak Canadian Toronto 18 ‘Terror Training’ Video to Web | US Counterinsurgency Manual Leaked, Calls for False Flag Operations, Suspension of Human Rights | Son of ‘Patriot Act’ Author Denies Connection to Obama-NAFTA Leak | Signs point to PMO in NAFTA leak

David Kravets, Wired.com
March 15, 2010

Wikileaks presents a “threat to the U.S. Army” and publishes “potentially actionable information” for targeting military personnel, according to a classified intelligence report posted Monday on the whistleblowing site.

The 32-page report entitled Wikileaks.org – An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence Services, Insurgents, or Terrorist Groups? (.pdf) indicates the government’s concern that “current employees or moles” within the Defense Department or the U.S. government “are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.” To stop this, the 2008 report had suggested a campaign to expose and punish those who leak to the site, which was founded in 2007 by Chinese dissidents, journalists and mathematicians.

“Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the website that they will remain anonymous,” according to the report. “The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public.”

The document is classified Secret, and was produced by the Army Counterintelligence Center, under the Department of Defense Intelligence Analysis Program. It appears to underscore the military’s alarm that Wikileaks might be used to reveal United States military secrets, or broadcast disinformation harmful to the U.S.

Neither Wikileaks editor Julian Assange nor the Defense Department immediately responded for comment.

The report, which could not be independently verified, said Wikileaks “could be of value to foreign intelligence and security services (FISS), foreign military forces, foreign insurgents, and foreign terrorist groups for collecting information or for planning attacks against U.S. forces, both within the United State and abroad.”

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A legislator, actually doing their job and writing independent legislation to fix a national problem? It’s a novel idea but it just may work. One might have thought, or hoped, that this was already covered under existing legislation (eg; The Geneva Convention) but it appears not.

Flashback: Ottawa anticipated Afghan torture allegations: memo | CSIS secretly interrogated Afghan prisoners | Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer | Harper grilled over prorogation, Afghan detainee torture documents | MP threatens motion on Afghan documents | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

CBC News
March 15, 2010

NDP human rights critic Wayne Marston has tabled a private member’s bill in the Commons that he says will prevent any government complicity in torture.

If passed, the Prevention of Torture Act would oblige officials to “report knowledge of torture to the proper authorities” and would establish diplomatic protocols for the “immediate repatriation for any Canadian citizen [abroad] at risk of torture,” Marston said Monday.

He said the proposed new law would not undermine Canada’s ability to investigate or prosecute those citizens in Canada, but would make it a criminal offence to use information acquired by torture.

“It would also call for a creation of a government watch list of those countries known to engage in torture,” said Marston, MP for Hamilton-Stoney Creek.

The House rarely passes private members’ bills, but Marston said he believes the bill will gain support because it recognizes that Canadians don’t condone torture “in any form, at any time.”

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It strains credulity that the NYT is presenting this operation as the action of a single rogue defence department official and that the strategic analysis outfit described was absolutely firewalled off from the espionage that was going on. More likely, we’ll find out in a few weeks that the web site and ‘International Media Ventures’ were never anything other than a front for military intelligence and that Furlong simply wasn’t discrete enough. They had the Iran-Contra guy on staff? Come on. And how does Blackwater figure into this? These contractor’s skill sets would have been in demand in-theatre so it may come out that they were under contract with the infamous paramilitary force as well.

Flashback: Arrested Terrorist Leader Exposes Extensive CIA Connections | Report: ‘US to expand military centers in Pakistan’ | U.S. prods Pakistan to expand offensive | CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan | U.S. Military Joins CIA’s Drone War in Pakistan | Blackwater’s Erik Prince: Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy | Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | US military may escalate ‘war on terror’ by striking deeper into Pakistan | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes | Bush secret order to send special forces into Pakistan | CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship

Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazetti, New York Times
March 15, 2010

From left: Michael D. Furlong, the official who was said to have hired private contractors to track militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Robert Young Pelton, a contractor; Duane Clarridge, a former C.I.A. official; and Eason Jordan, a former television news executive.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.

While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.

It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Officials said Mr. Furlong’s secret network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to merely gather information about the region.

Moreover, in Pakistan, where Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, the secret use of private contractors may be seen as an attempt to get around the Pakistani government’s prohibition of American military personnel’s operating in the country.

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Now we all have to read the damn thing to see what’s in it. It’s a little disturbing that this comes so hot on the heels of the US rollout of aspects of its new Einstein wiretapping and ‘cybersecurity’ program and the CSIS announcement that they’ll be undertaking outreach and liason programs with the private sector, exactly what this plan proposes. The reason Einstein is relevant here is that it too details ways in which the United States government will federalize and standardize the network infrastructure of what they regard as private sector concerns vital to the security of the state. (Note: The first skim through the index looks like it’s giving Public Safety Canada a FEMA-inspired protocol, in which the state is run by the government cabinet committee through the ‘GOC’ (Government Operations Centre) and its regional Public Safety offices in an emergency, but watch this space for more details. The question becomes – what defines an emergency, this document has just announced that the ruling government’s cabinet can seize power in an emergency, this journal initially reads it. Get involved! Read it yourself and comment below.)

Related: Cyberattacks push CSIS to reach out to business | Ask military to help with H1N1: Ottawa councillor | Public Safety Canada’s emergency plan not implemented: Auditor General | Canada’s military peers into future, sees drone patrols, draft, insurgency | Maximum Alert: U.S. Troops Now Occupying America | More troops on the streets: U.S. terror alert expands to transit and stadiums | Ground broken on $3.4 billion Homeland Security complex | Military helicopters over downtown Montreal for exercise | US Military To Work With FEMA During Swine Flu Pandemic | British Army to Police Medicine Hat During Urban Warfare Drills | Urban warfare drills coming to Medicine Hat | Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’ | Military may patrol bar zone in Barrie |British Secret Service, Army Alert on Bank Riots | US Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage | Military and police practice integration during Olympic security exercises | Canadian military getting 1,300 new heavily armoured trucks for ‘domestic use’ | Army ‘Strategic Shock’ Report Says Troops May Be Needed To Quell U.S. Civil Unrest | Troops in the Streets: Army Brigades Standing By to Assist in Disasters, Help Quell Dissent | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies | Harper pledges to boost military presence in cities |Ontario Police Chiefs travel to Israel to study police tactics

The Canadian Press
March 15, 2010

OTTAWA — The government has released an “all-hazards” national emergency response plan four months after it was chastised for not having one approved by cabinet.

The plan outlines the responsibilities departments and agencies have in national or provincial emergencies, as well as international ones that could affect Canada.

“It outlines the processes and mechanisms needed for an integrated response to an emergency,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Monday.

“It’s also designed to co-ordinate emergency response efforts by federal, provincial and territorial governments, as well as the private sector and NGOs.

“Most of all, it will help to ensure that the government’s response to an emergency is seamless and timely and that key decisions can be made quickly when disaster strikes.”

Largely logistical in nature, the plan touches on virtually every conceivable natural or man-made disaster, from toxic spills and plane or train crashes to earthquakes, deadly storms and pandemics.

It also addresses government roles in tackling “cyber incidents” and terrorism – all in the name of protecting lives, property, national security and the economy.

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With the caveat, of course, that laying the filter of ‘left wing’ and ‘right wing’ over these issues muddles them horribly, this is an excellent account of undercover police operations, their rewards and risks. It’s complicated. And as Officer A points out, the risks involve destabilizing proper and legitimate social movements – the balance of power is disrupted is police infiltrate every organization that comes along. Often, the police end up running the organizations – it’s a matter of public record that CSIS ran the Heritage Front, a Canadian neo-Nazi organization, through its agent Grant Bristow. They even tried taking over the Reform Party, a grassroots conservative movement, in its formative years. Perhaps they were ultimately successful with that, who knows. The info block below contains similar material.

Related: Bomb plotter blames police in Toronto 18 case | Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate ‘Conspiracy Groups’ | UK Police in £9m scheme to log ‘domestic extremists’ | Montebello police provocateurs called before ethics panel | Students Protest Cops In School After One Of Their Own Arrested | UK anti-terrorism strategy ’spies’ on innocent | Olympic security follows protester’s friend | Provocateur Cops Caught Disguised As ‘Anarchists’ At Pittsburgh G20 | EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” | Pentagon Caught Subverting Protest Group | DoD Training Manual Describes Protest As “Low-Level Terrorism” | UK: Police caught on tape trying to recruit climate activist as informant | G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police? | UK police maintain databank on thousands of protesters | UK: Government ‘using fear as a weapon to erode civil liberties’ | Olympic security boss puts protesters on notice | Rioters Were Paid To Provoke the Police in Bulgaria | Greek Cops Caught on Video Posing as Anarchists | ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest | Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters” | Activists seen as potential threat to Vancouver Games | Journalists urge ban on police posing as reporters | OPP officer posed as journalist during 2007 Mohawk protest | Protestors added to database of terror suspects | Police inspector posed as militant protester | CSIS Spying on Natives, Olympic Dissidents | Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters | Undercover cops tried to incite violence in Montebello: union leader | Officers never posed as protesters: Quebec police | Canadians who trust our secret police should think again

Tony Thompson, The Observer
March 14, 2010

For four years, Officer A lived a secret life among anti-racist activists as they fought brutal battles with the police and the BNP. Here he tells of the terrifying life he led, the psychological burden it placed on him and his growing fears that the work of his unit could threaten legitimate protest

They got drunk together, stood shoulder to shoulder as they fought the police and far-right activists, and became so intimately acquainted with each other’s lives that in the end they were closer than brothers. But it was all a sham. Hidden among the close-knit and highly motivated group of violent far-left activists was a serving police officer, operating deep undercover, whose presence was intended to bring the group to its knees.

That man, known only as Officer A, has now come forward to give his account of the years he spent working for Scotland Yard’s most secret unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), on a mission to prevent disorder on the streets of London. For four years in the mid-1990s, he lived a double life six days a week, spending just one day a week with his wife and family.

Week after week, year in and year out, he lived and breathed the life of a hardcore Trotskyist agitator with a passion for heavy drinking, a deep-seated hatred of the police and a predilection for extreme violence. It was a persona that took him to the heart of some of the most violent groups in the capital at a time when tensions between extreme left and extreme right were at their peak.

“I never had any respite when I was back at home. I simply couldn’t relax,” said Officer A. “The respite for me was being back in my undercover flat because that was where I was supposed to be. Even if my targets were not there, I felt more at ease. I had a really good time with my targets and enjoyed their company enormously – there was a genuine bond. But I was never under any illusion about what I was there to do. They were not truly my friends. The friendship would last only up until the point when they found out what I really was. I was under no illusion about what would happen to me if they did.”

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Related: Research Calls Forensic DNA Technique Into Question | Israeli Scientists Show DNA Evidence Can be Fabricated | UK: Pilot project for DNA, isotope analysis of immigrants ‘deeply flawed’ | Study finds genetic discrimination by insurance firms | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | Australians refused insurance because of poor genes

Kirk Makin, The Globe and Mail
March 13, 2010

Gregory Turner feared he was bound for life in prison after an RCMP lab reported odds of 163 trillion to 1 that a tiny amount of DNA on his gold ring could have come from anybody but a 56-year-old woman found murdered in rural Newfoundland.

The only real evidence in a first-degree murder charge against Mr. Turner, the golden sheen of DNA appeared certain to become a silver bullet in the hands of the Crown.

“I told my lawyer, Jerome Kennedy, that there was no way in the world it was true,” Mr. Turner recalled in an interview. “He believed me. He said that I was too stupid to commit that crime and leave no evidence.”

A lucky hunch by Mr. Kennedy – now Newfoundland’s Minister of Health – saved Mr. Turner from a life behind bars. He sought the name and DNA profile of every technician who had worked at the RCMP lab. It turned out that the technician who had tested the ring had also been working on the victim’s fingernails a few inches away, creating a strong possibility of contamination.

The technician conceded at Mr. Turner’s 2001 trial that she had also contaminated evidence in two previous cases. In another disturbing twist, it emerged that she had mistakenly contaminated Mr. Turner’s ring with her own DNA, causing police to waste considerable time on a futile search for a presumed accomplice.

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This is really Harper’s last and only chance to speak from the heart and lay out whatever master plan he’s been keeping under wraps all these years. To put on that blue sweater and truly appeal to Canadians, to give us some straight talk on the issues we really connect with. (Cough) Getting choked up here. See you Tuesday, Steve. Can we call you Steve now? Let’s have this straight up, no pretense. Canada’s watching.

Related: PM turns to YouTube – and takes questions | Cabinet ministers’ offices regularly interfere in access to information requests, says Tory staffer | Conservatives accused of hiding information | Ottawa won’t budge on secrecy laws | McGuinty won’t deny political interference with Freedom of Information requests | Information commissioner quits, Ottawa chided for lacking ‘guts’ | Canadian Parliament Threatens People For Posting Video Of Proceedings Online | Government secrecy ‘grim,’ watchdog says | Watchdog alarmed by Harper’s information clampdown | Listeria files withheld due to ’systemic’ problems with access to information | Public access vs. government secrecy the issue in Supreme Court of Canada case | Radical change needed in privacy protection, Ont. watchdog says | Files tagged as `sensitive’ cause unfair delays, watchdog says | Tentacles of Secrecy Grip Tightly | Parliament losing power, author says | Over 100 complaints about access to govt. info on Afghan mission: report | Information lockdown: How Harper Controls the Spin | Tories kill access to information database | Harper to create government-run media centre: report

Mike Blanchfeidl, The Canadian Press
March 12, 2010

Prime Minister faces dozens of tough, varied questions via online video

After being called a “pansy” by a cartoon Sarah Palin, Stephen Harper’s experiment with YouTube might yet leave him pining for the parliamentary press gallery.

By late afternoon Friday, the response to the Prime Minister’s pitch this week to hear from Canadians via the popular video website yielded 1,200 questions. They hit on a wide variety of topics, including many Mr. Harper likely won’t be eager to address like legalizing marijuana and 9/11 conspiracy theories.

It often wasn’t so much what they asked – it was how. Many did Marshall McLuhan proud, using the medium of do-it-yourself video to ask tough questions, while lampooning Mr. Harper with stinging messages. His controversial prorogation of Parliament was a prime target.

“You are what we call in Alaska, a pansy,” said a digital cartoon of ex-Alaska governor Sarah Palin in one posting.

“Is it a Canadian tradition for Canadian leaders to run away and hide? If a president did what you did, there would be rioting in the streets? How did you get away with it?”

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Let’s look at this as a sort of media test case. Apparently, there’s been a low intensity war simmering on the southern border of the US for some time now. The local press covers stories of bombings, incursions, and helicopter flyovers. All of these are at least indicative of a power struggle both within the Mexican military and externally, between drug gangs and the existing Mexican establishment. So the question is – why haasn’t there been any wider coverage of this? And what is the function of the relationship between the local press and the national press? Are glaring exclusions of this sort systemic or deliberate? Does the relationship fall within the parameters of Chomsky’s ‘propaganda model‘ of the media? (A model with both systemic and deliberative elements) Or are we seeing the invisible hand of the state trying to avoid a general panic, mass xenophobia, keep the lid on a political situation, or some other intent? Clearly, the CIA is wrapped up in the drug trade, that’s practically mainstream information. Have their pet gangs gotten out of control, destined to be cast as the next ‘Al-Qaeda’ but on the southern US border? Dying states are dangerous for the same reason dying animals are. This article raises as many questions as it answers about what’s going on in Texas.

Related: Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border | Border guards are now Olympic thought police – Amy Goodman detained | US Border Guards to Expand Use of X-Ray Body Scanners | Sarnia resident plans ‘moon’ protest of US border spy balloon | Military spycraft patrols Ontario border from Fort Drum | Incoming CSIS chief to seek biometric data at border | New US border technology directed at insidious threat: Canadians | Predator drones patrolling border irk Manitoba MLA | U.S. set to launch Predator drones to monitor Manitoba border | Military Tech on the Home Front: Predator drones to begin surveillance of Canada-US border | Homeland Security Assuming Broad Powers, Turning Swaths of U.S. into “Constitution-Free Zone” | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies | U.S. Northern Command, Canada Command establish new bilateral Civil Assistance Plan | Nunavut taken aback by military plan for drone patrols | U.S. to patrol Manitoba border with drone aircraft

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
March 12, 2010

Navy chopper with armed troops conducts surveillance in south Texas border town, authorities couldn’t care less

While the U.S. government and federal authorities busy themselves targeting American citizens as domestic terrorists, it seems they couldn’t care less about the fact that the military of a foreign power is flying around American airspace with wanton abandon.

Residents of Falcon Heights, a south Texas border town, saw a Mexican helicopter hovering over a house shortly after 6pm on Tuesday night. The chopper conducted surveillance for about 15 minutes before flying back to Mexico.

“They had armored individuals in the chopper, open ramp, very military looking, in style and preparation,” said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr.

“It’s proof the Mexican military sees no boundaries,” reported local KRGV News’ Stephanie Stone, adding that the incident wasn’t the first of its kind and wouldn’t be the last.

“The markings I understand read ‘La Marina’ which is equivalent to the Mexican Navy,” said Gonzalez.

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Flashback: Government will review ‘anti-terror’ security certificates: Van Loan | Adil Charkaoui, ‘terror suspect’, to be freed | Charkaoui asks court to toss security certificate case | Selective enforcement: Charkaoui barred from US airspace on flight from Fredericton to Montreal | CSIS reviews security certificate cases in wake of criticism | Tories aim to bring back anti-terrorism provisions | High court reprimands CSIS policy of destroying secret evidence in security case | More secrecy added to already secret process | Charkaoui set to fight new security certificate law | New security certificates issued | The New Security Certificate: Rushing injustice through the Senate | Court puts security certificates in limbo

The Canadian Press
March 12, 2010

A simple “sorry” and an offer to pay his legal fees might have sufficed, but Adil Charkaoui said he didn’t even get that courtesy from the federal government.

So the Moroccan-born Montrealer who was accused by Ottawa of being a terrorist and who spent several years living under tight restrictions believes he was left with little choice but to sue the federal government.

Charkaoui said Friday he intends to sue for $24.5 million to restore his tattered reputation after failing to get an apology from Ottawa.

He said the civil suit, filed in Quebec Superior Court on Feb. 22, is not about the money.

“I’m doing it to clear my name, this is very important for me,” Charkaoui told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview between teaching classes.

He said he sent a letter asking for an apology, Canadian citizenship and compensation for lost income and legal fees after a federal judge quashed a security certificate against him.

The response he says he received was that the government was just doing its job.

“To me it meant ‘Go to hell’,” Charkaoui said. “This is about accountability. I want to restore my name, and they made a mistake and destroyed my life in Canada and outside Canada, and they have to pay for what they did.”

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It’s good to see that the emergency workers are finally able to hold the government accountable for some of its lies on 9/11. For greater detail on the suffering the first responders have been through, point your browser towards the documentary Truth Rising. Skip over the opening montage to the 3:10 mark.

CBC News
March 12, 2010

$650M pact for police, firefighters in cleanup still needs approval

A $650-million US tentative deal has been reached between lawyers for the City of New York and thousands of emergency workers claiming cleanup from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made them sick.

The $657 million coming out of a federal emergency insurance fund would be dispersed to police officers, firefighters and other workers involved in the cleanup.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who must approve the settlement, said at a hearing Friday that he needed time to ensure the deal is “fair, appropriate and just to all affected.”

Hellerstein said he would hold another hearing March 19 to let people weigh in on the settlement.

In the years following the attacks, many have complained about respiratory problems like asthma and other more serious health-related diseases including cancer.

Marc Bern, a senior partner with the law firm Worby, Groner, Edelman&Napoli, Bern LLP, which negotiated the deal, said it was “a good settlement.

“We are gratified that these heroic men and women who performed their duties without consideration of the health implications will finally receive just compensation for their pain and suffering, lost wages, medical and other expenses, as the U.S. Congress intended when it appropriated this money,” he said in a statement.

Thousands of police officers, firefighters and construction workers had filed lawsuits against the city, claiming they had been sent to ground zero without proper protective equipment.

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