Please join us in the important work of creating an independent Citizens' 9/11 Commission to reopen the 9/11 investigation!
We need your help to create a real investigation that is:
- free of governmental interference
- fully funded by we, the people
- vested with subpoena power
This objective can reached through the exercise of direct democracy. This means placing a ballot initiative before voters in states that have an initiative law. Our initial goal is to qualify in at least one state during the election year of 2014. After that, our task will be to wage an historic campaign to pass each initiative into law.
Once we begin seating the new commission in one of the winning states, then any other state, county and city will be able to legally and financially support the effort. soon, the entire country could be on record at the grassroots level for supporting a new commission – at which point nothing can stop us!
You can participate in the Citizens 9/11 Commission's campaign by becoming a sponsor, by making a financial donation, by forming an affiliated action group, and in other ways! First, please click on the “JOIN THIS CAMPAIGN” button to enlist as a campaigner, then click on the tabs underneath our banner to learn more about the other ways you can help the Citizens 9/11 Commission Campaign succeed.
“When in the Course of Human Events…" 
Thus begins the Declaration of Independence. It asserts that we the people, given a choice, will not stand for ever-increasing tyrannical measures being imposed on us by our government. Our forebears saw it as their mission to provide this choice: They devised a strategy, executed a tactical plan, and launched a revolutionary new approach to government that sought to constrain state power and keep it answerable to we the people.
On the eleventh of September 2001, our nation was brutally traumatized by murderous attacks that occurred on American soil. In light of the available evidence and testimonies which have been extensively reviewed by discerning, independent investigators, it appears that the bulk of the official story about how these attacks were carried out is, in all probability, one big lie. If the attacks of 9/11 had been treated as the crimes that they were, if all of the forensic evidence had been reviewed by court of law, it would surely have come to light that the Bush Administration and certain military officers were not forthcoming in their versions of what actually occurred on that fateful day. Indeed, the official conspiracy theory advanced by the government has so many holes in it that no grand jury in the country would have handed down an indictment of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda on such a flimsy premise. Yet well over a million innocent Afghans and Iraqis have already lost their lives in the military prosecution of this kangaroo-court case. Deep down inside, we all know what was really high-jacked on 9/11: Our national integrity—justice, civility and our country’s claim to carry the torch of righteousness for the rest of the world. The time is past due for the public to stand up to our government, just as our revolutionary founders stood up to theirs, and to 
demand a real investigation of the events of 9/11 and its aftermath as the vital step to restoring justice and the rule of law. Just as our founding fathers opposed a tyrannical government that usurped the will of the people to pursue imperial expansion, so must we. And just as our forebears did, we need an actionable plan to accomplish our mission.
OUR STRATEGY
Although there is no avenue for a national Initiative in the U.S. at this time, 24 states have ballot initiative laws which enable the people to pass laws directly through elections—laws of the people, by the people and for the people. We see this as the best available option to achieve a real 9/11 investigation, because the U.S. Congress (along with our slavish mass media) has entrenched itself in the obviously flawed 9/11 Commission Report as the final word on the matter (recall that some members of the 9/11 Commission themselves have admitted that they were routinely misled and "doomed to fail”). Our Campaign is actively involved in filing initiatives in states that have initiative laws in place and is committed to seeing the passage of at least one such initiative in the 2012 (presidential) election cycle. Each initiative will empower an independent 9/11 Commission — free of governmental interference yet having full subpoena power — and will contain language that allows each state to link up with other states in a unifying, joint-powers arrangement that supports a single, national commission.
OUR FUNDING GOALS
Typically, a state initiative campaign goes through four phases: filing, certification, the signature-gathering campaign, and the electoral campaign. We will pursue these four steps in as many states as proves practical. The success of a signature-gathering effort in a state gives us the option to pursue an electoral campaign in that state if we believe we can succeed. Of course, to the extent that activists voluntarily assume responsibility for signature collection, the costs to the Campaign can be correspondingly reduced, but even under the best of circumstances, volunteers are normally able to collect only ¼ to ⅓ of the total number of signatures required.
MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER
It won't be cheap, it won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight, but the support of enough caring citizens will assure our ultimate success. The Citizens’ 9/11 Commission Campaign has at its helm a steering committee of committed individuals. Last year, with the expert assistance of California’s Office of Legal Council, we drafted an initiative measure to serve as a foundation to be used in state referendums nationwide to legislate an independent 9/11 investigation and that includes provisions for “joint powers” that will enable collaboration between different states. Last Fall,
a 9-11cc initiative campaign was certified and launched in Massachusetts, however the Campaign was unable to attract the financial resources needed to fund a full-fledged professional campaign in that state in time for the 2012 election cycle. So now we are regrouping for a 2014 effort.
No one should be above the law, yet the real perpetrators of 9/11 are most likely still at large, protected by government lies and cover-ups. We know what our revolutionary forefathers did when faced with an intransigent, imperialistic government. They wrote: “We pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” They developed a plan of action and saw it through. The price of “liberty and justice for all” is the same as ever. The CItizens’ 9/11 Commission Campaign is pledged to rescue our national honor from those who have disgraced it through an enormous miscarriage of justice called the “global war on terror.”
Our Campaign needs feedback, moral support, publicity, local actions in support of the campaign, statewide organizational efforts in initiative-law states, and most importantly at this juncture, financial donations. Please contribute in whatever way you can.
(Stuart DeUsoz, Byron Belitsos, George Ripley, and Ken Jenkins contributed to this article.)
The text says "Colorado and North Dakota. We must raise just over $1,100,000 to fund successful campaigns in these two states"
I don't understand. Colorado reportedly requires 86K signatures and N. Dakota needs 14K for a total of 100K. If 25K are obtained by volunteers, you need 75K additional done by professional signature gathering. Professionals are reported to require $2-3 per signature. So the total for BOTH states is around $200,000. But you say you need $1,100,000 for these two states.
Please explain what the other $800,000 is for? Thanks.
Also, if I could make a suggestion: It seems N. Dakota could be done for $30,000 (10K signatures by professional, volunteers for the remainder). Even if $40,000, you have $60,000 on hand, so why not do N. Dakota now and get one state on board which becomes a basis for other states, like Colorado?
The short answer to your question, Paul, is that, as it states in the above outline, there are several phases in a successful state campaign. Our first tactical goal is, to be sure, getting the 9-11cc initiative on a state ballot. But this is only the first step to getting the Commission, and far from sufficient to meet our strategic goal of establishing the Citizens 911 Commission. The second step is to win at the polls once it is on the ballot To accomplish that we will have to mount a very thorough public educational program. The third phase, also with its own considerable expenses, is to defend the ballot victory against legal challenges and other efforts to annul it in the public sphere. The fourth phase, which is not budgeted but will at some point need to be addressed, concerns the costs of setting up the Commission, which will be contingent on whether any state-funding of the Commission has been successful. Please read the entire strategic plan for these detailed explanations of these additional expenses. The strategic plan is strategic in this way especially: it does not limit itself to the short-term goal of getting the initiative on a ballot (which, as you suggest, could be done in North Dakota with the funds we now have), but with the high costs of winning the ballot victory, and then defending that success against the legal challenges it will almost certainly face. Your assumption that 25% of ballots would be collected by volunteers is a good-case scenario, but suppose it doesn't pan out? Should a strategic plan not be prepared for the worst, rather than a wishful course of events? This is especially true when it comes to winning and defending the ballot victory. It is at this point that we expect those who oppose our initiative to come out of the woodwork and oppose our effort. Nothing short of a professional public relations effort will counter them. Our strategic plan provides for that. It is not easy to quantify the resources that will be needed for these purposes, but our plan attempts to do so, trying to consider what will realistically be needed not only to gather enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot, but to win at the polls, and defend the victory. Moreover, while it's true that North Dakota is less costly than most other states, the question of media interest has to be taken into account. What would a victory in, say, Montana do to propel the movement vs. a victory in, say, California or even Colorado? The higher the state's political profile, the more media traction it offers, and the more impetus to the movement. The strategic plan considers these factors as well. It considers staffing needs once a campaign reaches the ballot level, to provide direction and keep the message out there when the big guns of opponents start the usual demoralization efforts in the media.
All of these costs are identified and projected. It does not mean we will attain the goal, it is only that this funding goal represents the consensus of what would assure a successful campaign. And if we should happen to exceed the funding goal, it would then provide seed money to help support the campaign in other initiative-law states ( our strategic plan includes a long wish list of states beyond these two strategically targeted states). Remember that the Campaign calls for the passage of support legislation in many states, so as to lend more legal power to the Commission. Professional petition circulators tell horror stories of campaigns which shot their wad in a successful effort to get their issue on a ballot, then were easily overcome in the second phase at the ballot box because their opponents kept their powder dry and sent a media barrage their way, which they were unable to counter, having exhausted their resources in the petitioning drive. We don't want to be another corpse along that highway, Paul. We want this initiative to win at every step, so that the Commission will become a reality, and in as many states as possible, so that it will gain legal clout. We hope for the best but expect the worst. And if volunteers end up bringing in record numbers of signatures, if our opponents are mum all the way through a breeze of an election victory, if there is no litigation after the ballot victory, if the election victory brings with it sufficient dedication of state revenue to fund the Commission without need of ancillary support….then it only means that we have a windfall of reserve to help other states on our wish list pass similar legislation and become joint-powers partners. The Campaign is a non-profit project. All its money has to be spent on pursing its stated goals. All of its financial activities are publicized for all to see (http://9-11cc.org/index.php/financial-transparency-our-current-reports/). But if we want to win, we are going to have to think big, and the long and the short of that is that it will take some big bucks to finance a professional campaign in two select states, even, indeed, for only the higher-profile of the two states. But even this large cost, as we point out in the piece above, is quite a bit less than the cost of a single Cruise missile. It helps to keep it in perspective.
I would only add that meeting our $1.2 million funding goal is not a precondition of action by the Campaign. With less in reserve, we could still act in a single state (perhaps only in North Dakota, as you suggest) but would need to tailor our strategic plan accordingly. But the sights of the Campaign are currently set higher, and the reasons for this are spelled out in the strategic plan (http://9-11cc.org/index.php/2011/10/27/our-strategic-plan).
Peace,
Ken Freeland
Thanks for laying this out in some detail Ken. I'm disappointed that it can't be done this year in MA – my home state – but now I understand why and fully support the change in strategy. I will becoming a supporting member today and I'm looking into the possibility of a larger donation. Are individual to non-profit interest free loans a possibility?
Great to see the steering committee is refocused and ontrack. I was beginning to wonder when I didn't see any updates on your website.
peace,
Mark Haskins
Mark,
Thanks for your support! I've replied to you by private email regarding particulars, but for the benefit of others reading this, the quesiton of loans to the campaign has been discussed in the past, but there is no current policy with respect to it. Hopefully you, Mark, will be the spur that helps us break ground on this interesting and potentiallly very valuable way of helplng the 9-11cc Campaign get off the ground in our target states, when the need of funding is most urgent!
Peace,
Ken