Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Blowing their cover

The AP has discovered that a small law firm in Memphis, Tennessee may have been helping America's spooks do some extremely nasty things. The law office of Douglas R. Beaty, who claims to be a mere real estate lawyer, has the exact same address as Stevens Express Leasing Inc. They're in the "rendition" business -- that is, they fly Bush's prisoners to torture-friendly nations.

"The Federal Aviation Administration lists Stevens Express Leasing as the owner of four airplanes — three Beechcrafts and a DC-3." After reading Daniel Hopsicker's Welcome to Terrorland (a mandatory volume for anyone who wants a glimpse of what's really going on), I think the next step should be an investigation of the airport those planes call home.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hm. just got home from turkey day in memphis, flying in and out of that very airport. and gosh, it is after all the home of fred smith's fedex. a couple of my good buddies work there.

and because of that i was told in casual conversation over yams and cranberry sauce that, of course compared to new england, memphis has less flight and weather woes because the weather isn't as bad, but still they have some deal with fedex to clear the runways when there are ice storms etc.

one way to keep the local officials' eyes trained away from questionable activities. but then it's not clear if the brains that train those eyes could process the info even if they looked right at it.

Anonymous said...

Having worked in a number of law offices, this isn't surprising. The vast majority of corporations that are formed in this country are mere shells. The reason that the address is the same as a law firm, is that the corporation most likely is little more than a drawer in some lawyer's file cabinet. Of course, this shell company also has assets, namely, the plane or planes, but it sure looks like the "employees" spend most of their time out of the office. I wouldn't read too much into the lawyers' role, however. Even spooks need someone to incorporate them.

Hamden from DU