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Diane · Joined: 20 Oct 2007 Posts: 592 Location: New York City

I should mention, though, one concern I have about William Pepper.

In "9/11: Press for Truth," William Pepper appears briefly and is described as having done some sort of work for the government of Pakistan. I don't know the details, or whether he has had any sort of ongoing relationship with the Pakistani government, but I see a possible conflict of interest there.

Another thing that someone should ask him about.
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Diane

New York City Activist

Diane · Joined: 20 Oct 2007 Posts: 592 Location: New York City

Diane · Joined: 20 Oct 2007 Posts: 592 Location: New York City

P.S.: About NYC's legal challenges to the ballot initiative: I'm no lawyer, but my suspicion is that Pepper has looked into the legal issues and has a viable strategy for challenging them successfully. I'm no lawyer, but here's my guess as to how he might go about it:

First off, the ballot initiative does indeed deal with the funding question. It involves raising money from private sources. And, from what I remember hearing last year at New York 9/11 Truth, Pepper has claimed that he already has a bunch of rich donors lined up. So the funding may be a non-issue.

If the funding is to come from private sources, this also implies that the commissioners aren't, properly speaking, government officials. Hence Pepper might argue that some aspects of New York State election law, such as the residency requirement, are not applicable. Rather, the commission will be in a legally unprecedented grey area between being a public and private institution. (Well, not totally unprecedented. Sort of like the Federal Reserve System, only on a much smaller scale. A better analogy might be the many small towns that have all-volunteer fire departments and police forces that don't receive public funds.)

As for the jurisdiction issue, well, some important aspects of the crime did take place in New York. NYC is where the largest number of people were murdered, after all. So 9/11 is arguably a local concern, as well as a federal concern. And there have been many crimes that have been prosecuted on both a local level and a federal level.
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Diane

New York City Activist

Diane · Joined: 20 Oct 2007 Posts: 592 Location: New York City

I just now posted the following on my blog: “Screw Loose Change” dissing the NYC-CAN ballot initiative.
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Diane

New York City Activist

Diane · Joined: 20 Oct 2007 Posts: 592 Location: New York City

I just now watched some parts of 9/11: Press for Truth again.

In the section titled "The Money Trail," William Pepper is described as "an international lawyer and consultant to the Pakistani government." He is presented as an informed source about India's investigation into the money transfer from Omar Saeed Sheikh to Mohammed Atta.

Hence, I now strongly question whether he should be on a commission to investigate 9/11. If the above is accurate, then it sounds like he should be called to testify before such a commission. But should he be a member of the commission itself?

On edit: On the other hand, "consultant" sounds like only temporary employment, so maybe this isn't really an issue. We need to find out more about this.
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Diane

New York City Activist