Torture is not the only secret program that has failed to produce intelligence with integrity – this failure is true of every part of the secret world from the CIA, which relies on foreign liaison hand-outs for the bulk of its “clandestine” intelligence to the NSA, which processes less than 1% of what it collects, to the NRO and NGA that are inept at “Big Data” and incapable of providing all-source fused data to the end-user at a desk in Washington or in a foxhole abroad. This is about far more than torture – this is about the complicity of military and civilian intelligence in assassinating thousands (with a documented 98% innocents along the way) while spending over a trillion dollars in a manner that is not helpful to Whole of Government strategy, policy, acquisition, and operations. SHORT URL for Open Letter: http://tinyurl.com/fire-intel-3

Cancer is the second leading cause of death if all cardiovascular illnesses are considered as number one. More research is needed to find cure for cancer and this petition will generate support for more cancer research. Nobel prizes are important. History may have overlooked Otto but together this petition will help shine the light of inspiration.

It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in the torture report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes. It is critical that we hold accountable those who authorized, those who legally sanctioned and those who implemented the torture policies.

We need to stop corporations like AT&T, the Koch brothers, Monsanto, Cargill, ConAgra, Chevron, Exxonmobile, BP, Gannett News, Rupert Murdoch, Time-Warner, Comcast etc. from unfairly dumping huge amounts of money into Republican and Tea Party Republican campaigns to overwhelm candidates like Progressive Candidates who do not have the campaign funds to compete. Publically funded campaigns would make it an even playing field for candidates to not be "bought" by large conservative corporations to push their secret agendas.

The country in charge of the investigation, Holland, excluded Malaysia, the country whose airline was the operator of the crashed airplane, but allowed Ukraine to participate. Ukraine is one of potential perpetrators of the crash and including it in the investigation is a blatant conflict of interest. Additionally, Holland refused to reveal the details of a secret agreement allowing each member country to block the release of any information it considers undesirable.

The financial sector was expanded at the expense of the real economy and should be shriveled to its core tasks. The financial part of education was expanded and financial products were created and promoted that caused the 2008 financial meltdown. Housing, health care and job creation are vital necessities that are missed with precarious make-shift work, speculation and profit-mongering of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

People only pay in to social security on the first $117,000. If they earn $5 million, they only pay into the fund on the first $117,000. Social security saves millions from dire poverty. Social security creates public spirit, that joy and thankfulness that can make life exuberant and interdependent. Generations could trust and respect one another with sorrow "more distant than a star" (Donovan). The cap is an anomaly that makes no sense in our day of near zero interests and outsourced manufacturing.

The acreage they want to give away is the most scared lands of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. They want to strip all of the copper ore out from under the lands where the tribes have used for burials and scared ceremonies of hundreds of years. The company even admits this will cause "a little subsidence" of these lands. What that means is these mountains will collapse after having a huge amount of rock removed from under them.They do not even talk about the fact that this scared mountain is an important part of the water supply to the entire very arid region. Another fact ignored is that they will have to pollute the water resources that are already used in this area in order to get the "Low grade copper ore" out from under them since water is necessary for ore processing. What will the scared lands look like in 10 years? This area of fragile ecology supports many endangered species. All that will be left is a smoldering pile of pulverized rock surrounded by drying up ponds of polluted water. This will not only be an environmental disaster, but the total destruction of the San Carlos Apache Tribe's culture and past. Why are we even talking about allowing a foreign company to destroy Native American property? This does no benefit anyone except a company with ties to China and Iran. Or perhaps certain politicians. The Native Americans have been lied to and cheated by the American Government too many times already. Now they want to allow San Carlos Apache Tribe's most sacred lands to be destroyed so a foreign company can get richer? This is completely immoral and should be totally illegal! Some other American National lands scheduled to be given away or heavily exploited include: 1,600 acres from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State for industrial development 70,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska would be opened to logging A couple thousand acres of National Lands in North Carolina There are hundreds of thousands of acres of American to be handed off or tied up for industrial destruction in this massive land grab. Why is is all hidden away inside of a defense bill when it has nothing to do with defense, but everything to do with greed? Just when I thought that our Congress could go no lower, they find a new way of demonstrating their complete disdain for the people that they are supposed to be representing. Now they are helping themselves to land that is supposed to belong to all Americans The Congress is giving away out National lands to anyone that they want to. Where do they get the right to give away any American National Lands? Also included in this horrible bill are other areas important to people that they want to give away including National properties in North Carolina. Our National lands belong to the people of this country not to Congress! These people need to be stopped before they destroy the entire country so they can get wealthier! They will be able to afford to leave the remains of this beautiful country after they pillage and rape it, but millions of Americans will not have the same luxury. This is our future generation's heritage that they are so callously wiping out for the purpose of a few selfish people getting richer.

The United States is the only developed nation that uses torture. Obama, as well as several of our past presidents should be prosecuted for signing off on that. During our endless foreign wars we have murdered over a million innocent civilians as "collateral damage". Future presidents will continue this process unless they see that ignoring international rules has lethal consequences.

Many people get most, or all, of their news and opinions, from one sorce, be it MSNBC, FOX, etc. This has led to increasingly divided voting blocs, in the public, and in Washington.

It is an outrage that the U.S. President is planning to ask the Congress for ONE TRILLION DOLLARS over the next 30 years to perpetuate the nuclear terror by building a new nuclear bomb factory, as well as new nuclear bombs, and their delivery systems -- missiles, planes and submarines capable of destroying all life on earth many times over. We can either eliminate all nuclear weapons or we can watch them proliferate. There’s no middle way. We can either have no nuclear weapons states, or we can have many. As long as some states have nuclear weapons others will desire them, and the more that have them the more easily they will spread to others still. If nuclear weapons continue to exist, there will very likely be a nuclear catastrophe, and the more the weapons have proliferated, the sooner it will come. Hundreds of incidents have nearly destroyed our world through accident, confusion, misunderstanding, and extremely irrational machismo. Recently nuclear bombs were mistakenly flown to Mississippi from their bases in North Dakota and no one knew they were missing for over 38 hours. And a number of soldiers with their finger on the nuclear button in the missile launch silos were dismissed for drunkeness and cheating on tests, while silo doors were found to be improperly secured. Possessing nuclear weapons does absolutely nothing to keep us safe, so that there is really no trade-off involved in eliminating them. They do not deter terrorist attacks by non-state actors in any way. Nor do they add an iota to a military’s ability to deter nations from attacking, given the United States’ ability to destroy anything anywhere at any time with non-nuclear weapons. The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China have all lost wars against non-nuclear powers while possessing nukes. The elimination of nuclear weapons is globally a widely recognized need, as well as a legally mandated action, and a step toward a world beyond war.

NATO encirclement, the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, an attempt to use an agreement with the European Union to bring NATO into Ukraine at the Russian border, a U.S. nuclear first-strike policy, are all policies which attempt to substitute force for diplomacy. Tensions between Russia and the U.S. are being fueled every day by players who would benefit financially from a resumption of the Cold War which, from 1948 to 1991 cost U.S. taxpayers $20 TRILLION dollars (in 2014 dollars), an amount exceeding our $18 trillion National Debt. The resolution just passed by the House calls for “the President, in consultation with Congress, to conduct a review of the force posture, readiness and responsibilities of United States Armed Forces and the forces of other members of NATO to determine if the contributions and actions of each are sufficient to meet the obligations of collective self-defense under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, and to specify the measures needed to remedy any deficiencies...” In other words, "let’s get ready for war with Russia." This is a dangerous and costly direction. Using diplomacy, rather than poor substitutes for it, would save dollars and lives, while allowing us to prioritize useful projects and collaborate with our international allies. This is a moment in which we all must raise our voices to make that change.