- Hi Jeff,
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- Here's an excerpt from a revealing article about Wesley
Clark that is posted on a website called: The Center for Public Integrity
http://www.bop2004.org/bop2004/candidate.aspx?cid=12 .
-
- Yes, there is a bit of irony here. Now we know we can
thank Clark for helping to install our new color coded, Big Brother, the
throw-out-the-4th amendment dragnet that's being used to indiscrimately
screen all air travellers-- under the pretext of national security, of
course. And we know that "national security" is the rasion d'
etre of all totalitarian societies. You'll find the salient excerpts towards
the end of the article. This makes me wonder, who is Michael Moore a lobbyist
for?
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- Here's the excerpt:
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- Two weeks after declaring his intention to run for president,
Clark was still registered to represent a high tech contractor, Acxiom
Corporation, giving him the rare distinction of seeking the White House
while registered as a lobbyist. Shortly after Clark announced his candidacy,
a company spokesman said the general no longer lobbied for Acxiom, but,
according to the Senate Office of Public Records, Clark had not filed any
termination papers.
-
- Clark has been lobbying for the firm since January 2,
2002; Acxiom has paid more than $830,000 for Clark to advance its agenda
and meet with government officials. Clark also serves on the company's
board of directors.
-
- According to federal disclosure records, Clark lobbied
directly on "information transfers, airline security and homeland
security issues," for Acxiom, which sought funding to do controversial
informational background checks on passengers for airlines. Privacy advocates
have criticized the program, called the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening
System II, because of concerns that the data collected would be an overly
invasive violation of individuals' rights to privacy. The public outcry
has been so strong that there is a bi-partisan effort to create more oversight
for the program to protect privacy interests if CAPPS II is implemented.
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- Clark lobbied the Department of Justice, the Central
Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Transportation for the company.
Clark also reported, on his lobbyist disclosure forms, that he promoted
Acxiom to the Senate and the executive office of the president. According
an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report, he even met personally with Vice President
Richard Cheney.
-
- He also made a pitch for the kind of tracking that the
company's wares can perform while acting as a commentator on CNN. On January
6, 2002, four days after filing as a lobbyist for Acxiom, Clark told an
interviewer, in response to worries that private planes could be used for
terrorist attacks, "We've been worried about general aviation security
for some time. The aircraft need to be secured, the airfields need to be
secured, and obviously we're going to also have to go through and do a
better job of screening who could fly aircraft, who the private pilots
are, who owns these aircraft. So it's going to be another major effort."
-
- Naturally, he did not reveal to CNN's viewers that the
company he lobbied for had a substantial stake in this issue.
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