Has Anyone Seen Tom Snyder lately?

He was described as mean, ornery, conceited, self important and an aristocratic self centered man.... A surf board bully on a private beach, and a son-of-a-bitch of the first order. People were told not to speak to him if they saw him walk the hallways, riding an elevator, or sitting in the network cafeteria at NBC headquarters, better known as '30 Rock' He was known to literally take a stranger's head off, should they cross that line. Many would say that Tom Snyder was only on, when the camera was on.

He was also described as professional, a hard worker, kind, funny, fiercely private, a perfectionist, a family man, competitive, a work-a-hollic and one of the best television news reporters, anchors and interviewers in the business. From 1974 to 1983, Tom Snyder ruled late night network television in America as host of the NBC-TV program called The Tomorrow Show. It followed perhaps one of the most watched, celebrated, and highly acclaimed television programs in America at the time, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Tomorrow aired at the then Un-Godly hour of 1am. Even with that odd hour of a broadcast for a network program, ( One in the morning for Christ sakes!!!! ) nearly everyone in the broadcasting and media business in general, would make it a point to watch. Tomorrow was one of those rarest of Television programs for that, or any time. In the tradition of 'firsts,' it could be argued that The Tomorrow Show followed in footsteps of ground breaking programs on the NBC Television Network like Today, and the Tonight Show. In short, a program not to be missed.

During that time he was also anchor of WNBC-TV's NEWSCENTER 4 local news program seen in the New York market. He was the first to do NBC News Update, which was a major, and risky, addition to the Network scene at the time. It pre-dated the explosion of cable television that came later. Prior to that, a lot of stops in between, that included KYW-TV, in Philadelphia and KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. It was a busy period for the Wisconsin native, who in his own way was breaking new ground each day. Here was a man in a rare setting: pulling off both local and network television programming without missing a beat. He was literally, everywhere.

His last stop was the follow-up program to Late Night with David Letterman, on the CBS-TV Network. It was simply called the Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder. After that, well, silence.... until the creation of the web site known as COLORTINI DOT COM where Snyder let it all hang out. And let it all hang out he did... lots of jabs at political coverage on current network television. Calling it as he saw it on both the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, domestic policy, social security, the game of cat-and-mouse in the terrorism debate, and those who parrot the line of the Bush camp, out in the popular press. Indeed, colortini was a needed breath of fresh air amid those who share the political view of, say, Matt Drudge, or dear old Rush.

In recent months going in the second half of 2005, Snyder revealed that both he and his brother were suffering from a rare form of leukemia. He kept plugging away on his web site, none-the-less, making a lot of us laugh, and sharing insights into the broadcasting business that few in that industry reveal, either publicly or privately. Then, suddenly, sometime after Halloween the colortini web site, too, ceased operation. All one gets now when going there is a 'Thanks for the memories' message.

For what it is worth, the Snyder interviews that most stick out in my mind would run along these lines: His 'Q and A' with ex-Beatle John Lennon back in 1975. Lennon, five years before his tragic death in New York in 1980, did not offer very many interviews, to anyone, during his so-called 'hidden' years. Another was a truly revealing interview with the former actor of the 1940's and '50's, Sterling Hayden, who was on TOMORROW to push his book about his life. Snyder got more out of him then mere talk of his book project. Hayden revealed, perhaps for the first time, his regrets over 'naming names,' he said he was forced to disclose, during the Mc Carthy era of the 1950's. He was, at the time, making a comeback after years out of the public view. There were other Q & A's' with folks like the noted film director, Peter Bogdonovich, noted Tee Vee documentarian and journalist, Bill Moyers, then of CBS-TV, and one in France with the ousted Iranian President, Bani Sadr. Turns out that Sadr was living as an exile in Paris, and didn't trust many reporters in the American media. He did trust Snyder, and he knew about the international influence of the Tomorrow Show. Didn't know, like many viewers of the NBC-TV program, that Snyder spoke fluent French! And last, but certainly not least, was his jailhouse interview with convicted mass murderer Charles Manson. Out of the friendly confines of a climate controlled, and 'cooled' Television studio with the soft lights of a late night night program, and out-in- the-field, or trenches, Snyder seemed completely in his element. That Manson interview was riveting television.

One thing I have to add here about Tom Snyder, he was NOT a racist. As a journalist who is Black, I was impressed with the way he handled African-American subjects. That is, he was ALWAYS fair and friendly, rather than hostile or condescending. That is, his interviews with people of color, especially Black Americans, was even keeled. His interviews with noted leaders such as the civil rights figure Jesse Jackson, Disco song writer and producer, the late Van Mc Coy, comedian Richard Pryor, Jazz guitarist George Benson, and Rock and Roll icon, Chuck Berry made superb viewing. His interview with play-write Geoffrey Holder, was lively, and together, they both made it a great television event, as well.

The surfacing of the Colortini web site first came to light for me, in of all places, the media column in the New York Post newspaper in early 2004. There was talk about the murder rap California cops had placed on former Tee Vee actor Robert Blake, known for his role in the 1970's-era detective series, Barretta. Snyder, according to The Post, had written that Blake in his view was a man who was 'ready to fly off the handle at any minute.' Snyder believed that he was quite capable of killing his grifter wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, in a fit of rage. That short note of the Snyder web site in 2004, an election year, helped it grow by leaps and bounds. It was amazing just how many people logged-on ( I read somewhere of upwards of two million 'hits' during one monthly period,) to read his twice monthly comments on the news of the day. I should know, I was one of them.

When I was a student at the Community Film Workshop Council ( CFWC) in New York back in 1977, Bob Teague, New York's first televison reporter of African-American descent, was the news writing instructor. Teague was a long-time, and highly respected reporter at WNBC-TV's NEWSCENTER 4 program. He was a tough 'take no prisoner' kind of instructor. I have to say, one of the best professors, instructors or teachers I've ever had. A proud Black man, and a straight shooter, Teague was simply no-nonsense. He understood his legacy, as a 'first.' The importance of a Black man doing a great job, in a highly visible position, in the New York market. Teague was a veteran newspaper reporter for The New York Times in the 1950's, before he made the jump to television during the newspaper strike of 1962. Towards the end of my 18 week journalism training cycle at the CFWC, I asked Mr. Teague what was it like to work around Tom Snyder, inside the WNBC Newsroom at 30 Rock. Teague paused for a moment, a broad closed-mouth smile crossed his face, and all he would say was, "He is a Professional." In Teague's books about local Television news, one of them, the noted tome, LIVE AND OFF-COLOR: NEWSBIZ, he referred to Snyder as the "NBC-TV Superstar." Nothing more. No other kind of references, good, bad or indifferent. Just that.

I am not writing the Tom Snyder 'Obit' just yet. But I have to say that he, from a-far, had a positive, though indirect impact on my career. That impact is with me everyday from the way I do interviews, to the way in which I approach a news story. With confidence. Or at least the air of confidence. Ha! He was, and remains, one of those rare television personalities who seemed completely relaxed once that RED LIGHT on top of the main camera came on. For those of us who know what that is like, to sit there, and to feel the butterflies rumble in the belly, inside of a cold television studio, not to mention with hot and bright lights in your face, as the floor director delivers 'the countdown,' and, as the red light is about to go on, well, it is a sensation few really know. Pure terror!!! Ha!

All is quiet on the Tom Snyder front at present. His brother, in a deadly serious, but joking manner called himself Leukemia one, and referred to his brother, Tom Snyder, as Leukemia two. Tom Snyder shared that with his audience this past Fall on his web site, as he shared so much of his personal life during the broadcasting years with those who tuned-in. Snyder will be 69 years old sometime in 2006. I wish him well.

One other thing I have to add here before I sign-off.... Many so-called 'Superstars' are not known to personally answer mail from inquiring fans. Such jobs, it is believed, are left to those down the food chain.

Tom Snyder personally answered an E-mail two years ago I had sent when I told him about one Tomorrow Show guest I had encountered in the city..... It was a memorable guest, a woman named Velvet Rhodes, who runs a California-based group called SPAEACA. That's an acronym in short for the 'Society for the Promulgation And Encouragement of Amazon Conduct and Attitude.' Kid you not. Rhodes is an advocate of female superiority, and had made the rounds to a number of New York-based television and radio Talk Shows, to push a book, and to also push her group. I had attended a forum where Velvet Rhodes was the featured guest in the city that week. When it was over, I went to retrieve my coat to head home. Turns out, the room where my coat, and others were placed, had a bed. Rhodes was on it, and one forum participant was performing oral sex on her! It was, well, embarrassing, awkward, and unexpected, to say the least. She smacked this guy on his head, violently, a number of times, and barked at this man, "I didn't tell you to stop!" I got my coat and got the hell out there! That bit I shared with Snyder in my E-mail.

In the Tomorrow show's intro, Rhodes played bully and asked the provocative question she had posed to about a half dozen, or so, show hosts in the rounds. It caught many flat footed, and completely off guard, and it also tested one's professionalism. She tried it on Tomorrow, and Rhodes asked Snyder would he like to kiss her feet!!!!! Snyder, clearly angered, and in a comment NBC-TV bleeped, told her straight away, quote, "how would you like to kiss my ass??!!!" One could hear the entire studio crew howl with laugher. Ha! Just like that. LIVE and on-the-air.

Now that may be extreme, it was part of the way Tom Snyder dealt with his subjects. Straight to the point, no punches pulled, and with a kind of dignity current day radio SHOCK JOCKS, and other Television talk show hosts have never learned. A throw back to the days of intelligent television. For me, media figures like Dick Cavett and the late David Susskind come to mind. Now I am dating myself. Ha!

Now, again, I have to ask you all, has anyone seen Tom Snyder lately?

Hoping for a fast and complete recovery for Tom Snyder sometime soon.

Happy Belated New Year Everybody!!!!

Catch you all again soon.

Eric K. Williams, Executive Director
International Access Networks / I-A-N, Inc.
New York, New York

America's Secret Court

(Here is some heavy stuff that is still relevant today. Written before the attacks on the World Trade Center of September 11, 2001. Do take a look at this piece, and share with us your thoughts. We would like to thank Paul and Joan for their contribution.)

-Eric Williams, Executive Director International Access Networks
Wednesday, January 11, 2006


By PAUL DERIENZO and JOAN MOOSSY,
5118 words


Second North American and all other rights available.



The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court deliberates in a vault-like room in the Dept. of Justice in DC. It issues no written opinions, and since 1978 has yet to turn down even one of some 10,000 requests for wiretaps and search warrants.



First appeared in Penthouse. Updated September 23, 2001


Preface

The tragedy that struck the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, on the banks of the Potomac on September 11th happened without warning--and except for the brave passengers on United Airlines flight 93--without resistance. How could the mightiest power on earth, the only global superpower, fall victim to a relatively small group of conspirators? The answer may lie in the penchant for our counter intelligence folks to use racial, ethnic and cultural profiling to target their suspects. Incidents of agents barking down a wrong tree while bad guys operate freely, plotting unspeakable acts of violence directly on US shores are all to common. The false prosecution of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, the failure to detect FBI counterintelligence Agent and traitor Robert Hanssen, and now the failure of intelligence agencies to discover and stop the World Trade Center and Pentagon attackers. Although many pundits and officials have asked the public not to play the "blame game" this article clearly demands that Americans demand immediate accountability over the lapses by the intelligence community that allowed these horrendous attacks. This article is the story of one of the most important legal counterspy tools, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and how although it was designed to limit governmental abuses of power this law may be helping to create a police state. It's the story of how personal ambition and a lack of clear moral and ethical guidelines can put our most cherished freedoms in peril.

--Paul DeRienzo and Joan Moossy NYC, September 23, 2001

Imagine a secret court made up of anonymous judges chosen by the Chief Justice of the United States and empowered to grant wiretaps, approve break-ins, bug psychiatrists' offices and people's homes-all without probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed. Its hearings are conducted in secret, without notification of the proposed targets and under a novel definition of due process that allows suspension of long-held civil rights in the name of national security. Once the subject of an investigation is judged a "foreign power or agent of. a foreign power," a much lower standard than "probable cause," surveillance can begin and the targets cannot challenge the evidence, answer the charges brought against them, or in many cases even know the surveillance has taken place. Such a secret court does in fact exist. It was created in 1978 under a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was designed to limit the sort of abuses of authority committed by the administration of President Richard M. Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. But according to many legal experts, FISA may in fact facilitate the creation of a police state. Even staunch conservatives are troubled by this legislation. Yale Law School professor and former Supreme Court candidate Robert Bork has said that FISA would "not be the first regulatory scheme that turned out to benefit the regulated rather than the public."

The roots of FISA lie in the social upheavals that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 70s. During that time, countless citizens were drawn into a plethora of political-activist groups, from the civil-rights movement to anti-war organizations. Demonstrations and riots rocked cities and college campuses as Americans began to question seriously the government's war in Vietnam. The federal government moved quickly to stanch the tide of opposition and social change through a program of dirty tricks and unprecedented violations of personal rights and privacy, often justified as necessary for national security.

The government's abuse of the Constitution eventually reached its height with the Watergate break-in and subsequent scandal that resulted in the near-impeachment and consequent resignation of President Nixon, who had ordered break-ins, known as black-bag jobs, against his Democratic opponents in the 1972 election. To defend his actions, Nixon argued that the president has an "inherent authority" as chief executive to suspend the Constitution in an emergency. Abraham Lincoln had limited habeas-corpus rights during the Civil War, and Franklin Roosevelt had interned thousands of Japanese-Americans in camps after Pearl Harbor.

Public outrage over Nixon's abuses led to a 1976 investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Testimony before the committee, which was headed by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, revealed that the nation's intelligence agencies had consistently ignored and violated the Constitution for more than a quarter century. Among other abuses, the FBI was held responsible for the infamous COINTELPRO counterintelligence program that targeted those whom Hoover and Nixon perceived as political enemies: the Black Panther party, the American Indian Movement, and a host of popular leaders, including the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. To Senator Church, all this was "one of the sordid episodes in the history of American law enforcement."

The findings of the Church Committee clearly established that there needed to be strict separation of federal law enforcement from the government's counterintelligence activities. Ever since passage of the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968, electronic surveillance in criminal investigations has required a warrant signed by a judge. But the '68 law had left open an exception in cases of national security - a loophole exploited by Nixon and his cronies. As designed ten years later, the primary purpose of FISA was to gather counterintelligence information, not to make criminal prosecutions. Surveillance would be conducted under the guidance of the Justice Department, employing a team of lawyers to work with the attorney general and the FBI An innovation proposed by then Attorney General Griffin Bell created a special court of sitting federal judges who would approve FISA wiretaps the same way judges approve criminal wiretaps.

The main targets of FISA were supposed to be foreign intelligence agents working as part of their country's diplomatic missions in the United States. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to hear a FISA case, lower courts have ruled that "once surveillance becomes primarily a criminal investigation ... individual privacy interests come to the fore and government foreign-policy concerns recede." Yet the fact that evidence acquired from a FISA surveillance can be used to make a criminal prosecution has led some critics to charge that the FBI is taking advantage of the law to make arrests. Asserts American University law professor and Nation magazine commentator Herman Schwartz, "FISA has not eliminated the incentive to use intelligence-gathering authority improperly to obtain evidence for criminal prosecutions."

A famous example of this impropriety is the case of former high-level CIA official Aldrich Ames, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 1994 for spying for the Soviet Union. Although Ames eventually pled guilty to espionage, his lawyers say the government undermined the rights of all Americans, loyal or otherwise, in the way they went after him. Prior to 1995, FISA specifically allowed national-security wiretaps but not searches without probable cause. The 17B.I., lacking enough evidence to prove Ames had committed a crime but eager to catch him, went to then-Attorney General Janet Reno in October 1993 and convinced her to allow a search of Ames's home without a warrant from a judge. It boils down to a sticky issue, since the most important right protected by the Fourth Amendment and enshrined in a thou sand years of legal precedent is the right to be safe from a search in one's own home. Is it wrong for the government, even in the name of a legitimate national security investigation, to violate the Constitution?

Ames's lawyer, Preston Burton shrugs off the disappointment of not having had the opportunity to argue the constitutionality of the search. "It would have presented some very interesting legal issues that the courts have not clearly grappled with-and now they don't have to," he says, "because [Congress has] remedied the problem." Indeed, within a year of Reno's action, Congress had amended FISA, permitting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to grant search warrants without probable cause. President Bill Clinton broadened that power in February 1995 with an executive order allowing the attorney general and other top-level officials to approve physical searches without a court order if the purpose is "to acquire foreign intelligence information." According to Burton, despite the real threat of spies and terrorists targeting the U.S., "the argument that there is a national-security exception [to the Constitution] is a dangerous animal, because what that is hard to define."

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court deliberates behind heavy, spyproof doors in a windowless, vault-like room in the headquarters of the Department of Justice. It issues no written opinions, and since 1978 has yet to turn down even one of some 10,000 requests for wiretaps and search warrants. It's a frightening record, even to dedicated Justice Department lawyers like Richard Scruggs, who examined FISA surveillance applications in 1995 and found that "there were so many FISAs being conducted with so few attorneys that the review process to prevent factual and legal errors was virtually nonexistent."

Suspicions that COINTELPRO may not have been put out of business with the Church Committee hearings grew in the mid-1980s, after the FBI admitted it had paid informants to spy on domestic political and religious groups associated with the Committee in Support of the People of El Salvador. Although the bureau was never directly implicated in the campaign of dirty tricks launched against C.I.S.P.E.S., many began to see a familiar pattern of abuse. "Under the Clinton administration," Scruggs wrote in his 1995 report to the Justice Department, "the nation's two systems for wiretapping-[Title 111] for criminal cases and [FISA] for intelligence gathering[have] become freight trains running at full throttle down parallel tracks." Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, FISA wiretap and search authorizations increased dramatically, from 484 in 1992 to 839 in 1996, before leveling off at 749 in 1997 (Domestic criminal wiretaps increased from 340 to 569 in the same period.)

There are seven judges on the FISA court, appointed to staggered seven-year terms by the Chief Justice. Cases are brought by the attorney general acting for the FBI or any other agency of the executive branch, including the super secret National Security Agency Hearings are held every two weeks, and in the event a warrant application is turned down, the government can take its case to what has become known as the "Maytag repairmen" of the judicial system, the Foreign Intelligence Board of Review, a court that Chief Justice William Rhenquist once remarked was "the easiest job you can have," because it never gets any appeals.

For more information about this article please go to the folowing link.

http://nwo.media.xs2.net/articles/99_06secretcourt.html

News out of France..... The aftermath of the rebellions in France and the reaction for further action on the issues that spark nation-wide rioting in October and November.

Words from a colleague in the French language...

Bonjour,

Dans le cadre de la Quinzaine Internationale contre la Françafrique :
Objet: Rappel manif dimanche 4 décembre
Un dernier message de rappel pour la manifestation de ce dimanche contre
le sommet franco-africain de Bamako.

Horaires : - 14h, RDV à Place des fêtes (M° Place des Fêtes, XIXème)
pour de la manifestation

Parcours :
- déposé auprès de la préfecture : Place des fêtes, République, Barbès
Rochechouart.
- dispersion de la manifestation à 18h à Barbès : donc prière d'arriver
à l'heure car il y a du chemin à faire !


Appel et signatures :
- la liste des signataires apparait sur le dernier tract imprimé
aujourd'hui et mis en pièce jointe en PDF (deux A5 sur un A4, à diffuser
bien entendu)
- elle est aussi disponible mise à jour sur le site d'Afrique XX1 si
vous souhaitez diffuser largement une page Internet :
http://afrique21.org/article.php3?id_article=143

Salutations militantes, en espérant vous voir nombreux (ses)

FARId