FINCEN, OCDTF, FEMA, NDER: The takeover of your rights AEN NEWS March 18, 1994, Linda Thompson, Telephone: (317) 780- 5200 Copyright (c) 1994 AEN News. All Rights Reserved. FINCEN is the acronym for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network located at: 2070 Chain Bridge Road Vienna, Va. 22182 Telephone: (703) 905-6096 - Switchboard Gary Gardner, Executive director: 202-905-3635 Brian Bruh, Director (Former address: 3833 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Va. 22203,former director was Andy Flodin, left in December, 1993. This information still appears on their literature and is incorrect). FINCEN is a federally operated, multi-U.S. government-agency, 92-computer data bank center located in Vienna, Virginia. It operates under the Department of Treasury. It is accessed by modem (computer link by telephone to the government computer) by government agencies. Each state has a coordinator for FINCEN in the State Police. Sgt. Danny Ellis is the Indiana State Police FINCEN COORDINATOR. Check with either FINCEN or your state police headquarters to find out who your state police coordinator is. When you find out the name, address and telephone of the FINCEN state police coordinator for your state, please call American Justice Federation with this information. We are compiling a comprehensive list of the coordinators and their addresses for all states. American Justice Federation's telephone number is: 317-780-5200. FINCEN was established in 1990 with $13.4 million in funding. Brian M. Bruh, a former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Criminal Investigation at the IRS and chief investigator for the Tower Commission, was appointed as director of FINCEN in March 1990. It's staff includes agents of the BATF, the Secret Service, Postal Inspectors, DEA, Defense Intelligence Agence, and CIA. It's first application was to target the assets of Iraqi people and corporations in the United States for another Treasury agency, the Office of Foreign Asset Control in 1990, during Desert Storm. These targets were people suspected, merely suspected, of financial dealings of any type with Iraq. Their bank accounts and property were identified by FINCEN and then "frozen" and seized. A law enforcement magazine, Money Laundering Alert, reported this first use of FINCEN in its April, 1991 edition as well. Joanna Brown, at the FINCEN Operations Center, who at the time I called (April, 1993) was the Acting Branch Chief, said that FINCEN does work for federal, state, and local government regulatory agencies Provides law enforcement, commercial and financial information in support of cases of various agencies. The information FINCEN has on file includes: Open and closed customs cases IRS cases Secret Service Cases Vehicle VIN and driver's license and tag registration Some passenger information on out of country flights Addresses, SSN, spouses names Credit bureau files Property registration (home/corporate property loans, liens, deeds). In April, 1993, when I spoke to then-executive director of FINCEN, Andy Flodin, to learn if the black helicopters were "FINCEN troops", he told me that "OCDTF" is probably the agency that flies the black helicopters. OCDTF OCDTF (pronounced OH-suh-def) is an acronym for the "Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force," in Washington, D.C.. Telephone number: (202) 514-1860. On March 17, 1994, I spoke with Lyle Newton, the Deputy Director of OCDTF in Washington, D.C. at 202-514-1860. He told me that OCDTF is a coordinating agency for multi-agency law enforcement operations by DEA, ATF, FBI, INS, Secret Service, Customs, IRS and U.S. Marshalls and can use all the equipment from any of these agencies, including black helicopters. OCDTF is the coordinating agency for the Multi-Jurisdictional task force referred to in Public Law 100-690. It, too, operates under the Department of the Treasury. Lyle Newton, the OCDTF deputy director, said that OCDTF was formed in the fall of 1982, when the heads of all the federal law enforcement agencies got together to determine how could they work better together to target drug trafficking organizations, including money laundering crimes, the aim being to convict the top leadership of the enterprises. (Note that this means this is yet another government activity that existed long before Congressional approval was sought for it, and it also shows that Al Gore's "reinventing government" plan to "unify" all the federal law enforcement agencies already exists, too.) Mr. Newton explained how OCDTF gets involved in a case. OCDTF is primarily interested in pursuing people with a lot of assets that appear to be "drug runners" or involved in racketeering. A local law enforcement agency (city or state police, for instance) will call any of the federal agencies (such as DEA, FBI, US Marshalls, IRS) and ask for "federal assistance." The federal agency then contacts OCDTF for assistance. OCDTF has a committee that approves whether OCDTF gets involved. If OCDTF gets involved in the case, that means the project gets federal funding from the OCDTF budget, rather than the state or local agency's budget. This provides a BIG incentive for every city and state police agency to call in the federal agencies at every opportunity, and it provides a big incentive for the feds to call OCDTF. Other "perks" that go along with getting OCDTF involved in a law enforcement investigation include immediate access to a grand jury (so much for equal protection), and accelerated cooperation from IRS "advisors", immediate access to FINCEN, as well as access to FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Service Agency secret federal court that has six judges who meet in secret on the 6th floor of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. and issue secret warrants to tap telephones (these warrants last up to a year, whereas normal warrants last 60-90 days). 7500 applications for such warrants have been submitted to the "secret" court and not one has ever been turned down. Copies of these warrants can't be obtained, not even by defense attorneys, the target of the warrants is never informed, and the target of the warrants cannot appear in his own behalf. The OCDTF Deputy Director also told me that OCDTF can and does work with the "Strike Force" but wouldn't tell me what the Strike Force is or where it is from and I'm working on that information now. Once OCDTF puts its official stamp of approval on a project, all the assets of every other federal law enforcement agency are available, and yes, this does include black helicopters. We have identified black helicopters being flown by Department of Energy and Department of Energy Contractor, Wackenhutt Services Organization, so OCEDEF is probably only the tip of the iceberg. FEMA Watchers, Here's a Tidbit of significant interest: Have you ever heard of the Enders? Well, until today, March 17, 1994, I hadn't either, but I heard one of those "rumors" that needed chasing do wn that there was an agency run by FEMA that had a lot of FEMA people already working in civilian jobs, waiting for their agencies to be "federalized" in an emergency and then they would automatically become pre-approved federal employees and continue in their same jobs. So I chased this rumor down. It's true. The agency is called NDER (appropriately pronounced "ender"). It operates under FEMA (the federal emergency management agency). NDER is the acronym for the National Defense Executive Reserve. I spoke to Linda Maddox, who is the Executive Director of NDER in Washington, D.C. Her number is (202) 696-2400, extension 2703. Linda Maddox explains NDER as if it is a good thing for the country. She says it is "a program very much like the military reserve, formed after World War II, under the old 'dollar a year man' program begun by Roosevelt. Counsellers who were former heads of government and from civilian resources are brought in as independent consultants to the government." Ms. Maddox said that in 1979, FEMA became the coordinator of program, and that NDER under FEMA works with other agencies to "change legislation and rule making, and coordinate with other agencies." In other words, our federal tax dollars are funding a federally operated lobbying group. NDER keeps a database of the membership and training (somebody send in a FOIA request!) The members receive training once a year from FEMA, and memberhip is a 3 year membership. Gary Kah, author of "Enroute to Global Occupation," and himself a former member of the NDER says he was told that what was discussed at NDER meetings was "classified information." Members must come to training at their own expense. Backgrounds of the people who are presently in NDER include acadamia, transportation, energy, retired federal employees, and people from the trucking and railroad industries. There are presently 1800 members roughly. By way of example of what we are talking about there, a past president of NDER is the vice president of Alcoa. If there were a "national security emergency," all these people would already have security clearances and begin working immediately in civilian sector jobs that would be "federalized" because of the emergency. Ms. Maddox related that "We have ten federal regional centers in the US and a lot are assigned to those regional offices and areas. We try to go out to the regions to do the training. The president is the only one who can activate the NDER." The catch is that the authority for the existence of the NDER comes from the Defense Production Act. The entire program was intended only for a national security emergency, and has no authority to authorize mobilization of members for such things as FEMA's "natural disaster emergencies," such as earthquakes, or "crime" emergencies (such as the power given to the president in the new crime bill to declare a "crime emergency") or any other type of disaster. Ms. Maddox says that NDER is focusing in a new direction since the cold war is over. The present FEMA director, Mr. Whit, wants a different definition of national emergency, not a strictly "defense" emergency. He and those in FEMA are now looking at all-hazards emergencies and looking for federalization in all situations, according to Ms. Maddox. Ms. Maddox is also the Chairman for an interagency committee of the heads of 12 other individual departments that also have NDER programs (in other words, FEMA isn't the only agency with thousands of people standing at the ready for when the civilian sector is "federalized" due to some declared "emergency.") She says these agencies consist of any agency that had a former national emergency provision, such as department of transportation, and ports authorities, and agencies run their own programs. By way of explaining how the NDER program works, she said that "If the ports had to be 'federalized' the NDER people working at the ports would immediately become federal employees and continue operating the ports." I know it gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling, how about you? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AEN NEWS March 18, 1994, Linda Thompson Telephone: (317) 780-5200; Fax: (317) 780-5209 Copyright (c) 1994 AEN News. All Rights Reserved.