Propaganda for the Masses Reflections on Hitler's use of Emotions in Order to Manipulate Reason

Propaganda for the Masses: Reflections on Hitler's use of Emotions in Order to Manipulate Reason and Public Opinion. By Rick Smith

While the world is still in the grips of an emotional frenzy in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, it is worth considering some of Adolf Hitler's observations on how such emotions are used to manipulate people. Emotional responses have been the source of untold suffering and bloodshed throughout the course of human history.

As natural as emotions are, they are easily manipulated by external forces and can be used to control reason and action. Communications and propaganda experts have been aware of this fact for a very long time. Hitler understood this only too well. That Hitler was a monster can hardly be questioned; the fact that he possessed a kind of mad genius and a keen understanding of how the masses think (or, rather, do not think) is equally unquestionable.

Hitler referred to emotion as a kind of doorway or "gateway" into the more suggestible regions of the human heart and mind; once this door has been opened it is possible to "get inside" of people's heads and direct their responses and actions. In the wake of the economic collapse in Germany and the humiliations heaped upon the German people after World War I, Hitler was able to use the emotions that emerged from these events to manipulate public opinion and, ultimately, to lead his people into a terrible and destructive war.

Where emotion was lacking, such as in the case of the Jewish question, events were staged or phony stories planted in order to fire people's emotions in the direction that the government wanted to go. That a tyrant like Hitler was aware of and effectively used such knowledge should put all of us on guard.

No intelligent person should allow himself or herself to be goaded into blindly supporting the actions of government merely because their emotions tell them so. What is right can only be determined in a state of emotional calm.

Once your emotions are turned off, you can turn to the task of analyzing the causes, effects, and solutions to the problems that face you. There is nothing inherently wrong with emotion, it is a necessary part of the human psyche; it is that which has allowed us to develop a sense of empathy for our fellow human beings. There is, for instance, nothing wrong with feeling emotion for the innocent victims of the World Trade Center attack, but one must also grant the same emotional sympathy to the sufferings of the innocent people that have been killed worldwide by the decisions and actions of the global super powers.

Only fools allow themselves to guided by their emotions; to do so is to allow yourself to become a mindless puppet of those who still practice Hitler's advanced techniques of manipulation. With the advent of television and mass communication devices, modern propaganda has become much more subtle, effective, and powerful. I am thus providing below a few snippets of Hitler's observations on the power of propaganda and of the crucial role that emotion plays in any effective propaganda campaign. By educating oneself in the techniques of propaganda, the reader stands a better chance of operating as a free and independent agent (rather than just as a part of a gigantic mindless mass).

In the end, the reader should remember that propaganda is used as much today as it ever was, and perhaps even more; if we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the spinmasters we could be led to the same unspeakable end that the German people faced. Let us sincerely try to avoid subjecting ourselves to lessons that, in a better world, should have been learned years ago. I would also like to warn my readers to be wary of the those who would stage and fabricate events designed to create emotional responses, as Hitler once did, in order to facilitate what would otherwise be unpopular agendas. To think that such ideas are mere "conspiracy theory" is to make a conscious decision to ignore history.

Powerful people manipulate the masses quite consciously and quite deliberately, they always have, and probably always will (unless the masses wise up). A brief perusal of the writings of such people as Walter Lippmann, George Creel, Edward Bernays, and other influential government advisers should make this painfully clear; western academics and politicians have learned from the mass mind manipulation techniques employed by the Nazis, and incorporated them into newer, subtler, and better techniques. Propaganda for the Masses is the first part in what I hope to be an ongoing effort designed to lift the proverbial veil of global deception. Consider the excerpts provided below and then ask your self how these might apply to the modern world:

"All great movements are popular movements, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or by the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses ... Only a storm of hot passion can turn the destinies of peoples ... It alone gives its chosen one the words which like hammer blows can open the gates to the heart of a people ...

"The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself, since its function, like the poster, consists in attracting the attention of the crowd, and not in educating those who are already educated or who are striving after education and knowledge, its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect...The more modest its intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be...

"The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand [or believe]...

"The war propaganda of the English and Americans were psychologically sound. By representing the Germans to their own people as barbarians and Huns, they prepared the individual soldier for the terrors of war, and thus helped to preserve him from disappointments. After this, the most terrible weapon that was used against him seemed only to confirm what his propagandists had told him; it likewise reinforced his faith in the truth of his government's assertions, while on the other hand it increased his rage and hatred against the vile enemy For the cruel effects of the weapon, whose use by the enemy he now came to know, gradually came to confirm for him the 'Hunnish' brutality of the barbarous enemy, which he had heard all about; and it never dawned on him for a moment that his own weapons possibly, if not probably, might be even more terrible in their effects...

"The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly...

"The broad mass of a nation does not consist of diplomats, or even professors of political law, or even individuals capable of forming a rational opinion; it consists of plain mortals, wavering and inclined to doubt and uncertainty. As soon as our own propaganda admits so much as a glimmer of right on the other side, the foundation for doubt in our own right has been laid. The masses are then in no position to distinguish where foreign injustice ends and our own begins."

Police state

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reveals that the EU is using the war on terrorism to threaten our freedom Let us be thankful, briefly, that the current director of Europol is a stout defender of civil liberties and furthermore a German, among the most reliable defenders of open democracy in the European Union these days. Dr Jurgen Storbeck was already sitting on top of an embryonic FBI before the destruction of the World Trade Center:

now he is to bestride an embryonic CIA as well. The two are to be housed together under one roof at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague. He will soon be one of the few men outside Pyongyang, Baghdad and a handful of other despotisms heading an agency with double access to law enforcement and intelligence secrets — something that every first-term student of political science is taught should never happen in a democracy.

Before the terrorist attacks, Europol was not allowed to have direct dealings with MI5, MI6, the Bundesnachtrichtendienst, or any other intelligence services of the EU member states. It had to rely on contacts with police, customs and immigration services. But in a single throwaway line at their emergency summit in Brussels, EU leaders ordered all EU spy agencies to hand over ‘any relevant information on terrorism’ to Europol. They also approved the creation of an anti-terrorism unit staffed by intelligence officials to be based at the agency’s headquarters. The seed is planted.

Of course, MI5 and MI6 already share secrets on a selective basis with the Dutch, or whoever, but this is a radically different exercise. The information will now go to the EU machinery and will be stored in the computer banks at Europol, where one can only hope that secrets will be safe. The Dutch police arrested a French police captain earlier this summer for operating a scam out of the same computer offices, and another official is still under investigation. If that were not enough, a Munich computer company has accused Europol operatives of stealing its software and pocketing the commissions.

When I asked David Blunkett about intelligence sharing with the sort of people who might be tempted to sell secrets to al-Qa’eda for the right price — not a ludicrous concern, since an EU official was caught three years ago selling confidential data from the Schengen Information System to organised crime — he said sternly that Europol jolly well ought to clean up the problem. By way of reassurance he added that no raw data from GCHQ would be given to ne’er-do-wells. Only those with a top security clearance, and on a strict need-to-know basis, would get a look at our crown jewels.

With a staff of 300, Europol is still a puny creature compared with the $30 billion apparatus of US federal intelligence, but the taboo has been broken. For the first time, the EU has acquired an intelligence function. I expect that it will now mimic the exponential growth of Europol’s police role, which has mushroomed from a tiny clearing house for data on drug trafficking five years ago, to a proto-FBI today with powers to ‘request’ — i.e. launch — criminal probes, and to take part in joint operations with national police. Its jurisdiction was quietly expanded last year to cover ‘all crimes involving money-laundering’. This is the open-door clause. It can be made to mean any crime where money changes hands. I predict that it will soon become the EU equivalent of the federal wire fraud clause in the United States, which gives the FBI primary jurisdiction whenever the US federal mail is used at any stage of a crime. So if the criminal sends a single letter, the Feds can muscle in.

Neither part of this twin-headed Europol is subject to the oversight of an elected parliament. In Washington, the directors of the FBI and CIA are ritually toasted in cross-examination by the senate and house committees. But in the EU’s half-way system between intergovernmentalism and federalism — a paradise for unaccountable elites — Dr Storbeck answers only to a management board, in secret. These are essentially the same people who appoint him, so their is no democratic control on the executive. The European Parliament complains bitterly that it cannot even get a look at Europol’s books.

The hectic pace kept up last week. Mr Blunkett was at it again, this time approving the establishment of Eurojust, an EU body of national prosecutors with the job of co-ordinating probes into organised crime, environmental crimes, xenophobia, and above all terrorism. The legal basis for proceeding this far is a little dodgy, since it derives from Article 31 of the Nice Treaty, which the Irish have refused to ratify, and may never ratify. So EU lawyers are stretching the Amsterdam Treaty to do the job instead. A future justice ministry, a replica of the US Justice Department, will acquire power over time to prosecute cases in EU federal courts.

The foundations of an EU federal judiciary and an EU police and security system are now largely in place. What makes this doubly potent is the parallel urge to give greater repressive powers to the emerging apparatus, an urge that reached an uncontrolled spasm after the deadly attacks in America. It has been going on for two years or so, and while it would be going too far to describe Jack Straw as the Godfather of this European police state, the British have certainly been eager sponsors. This may seem illogical, since it is not obviously in the interests of interior ministers to transfer their own powers to Brussels. But to understand this is to understand the EU’s little secret, the deformed method that causes EU states to push for leaps in integration that Brussels itself is not even requesting.

Mr Straw’s Home Office was the prime mover behind new EU rules passed last July which compelled telephone and Internet service companies to retain billing records, instead of destroying them as they do now. If EU ministers have their way, the police, including Europol, will have access to a databank listing all our telephone calls, faxes and emails, as well as a record of Internet websites that we have visited, which, taken together, provide an imprint of our daily lives.

This was vehemently denounced at the time by the European Commission (yes!), furious that its original proposal had been hijacked by authoritarians, as well as by the European Parliament and by our own data protection commissioner, Elizabeth France, who called it a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which safeguards privacy. Yet it was quietly passed by the 15 EU justice ministers meeting at the EU’s drab Kirchberg Plateau in Luxembourg, a spot reputed to have the highest suicide rate in Christendom. Why did they push through such a measure — which any one state had the power to block — when all indications were that the German, Dutch, Italian, Irish and Scandinavian parliaments would have voted against such a move at home, if the matter had been put to them?

Because interior ministers, with their own institutional proclivity for greater police powers, know they can get what they want more easily through the EU, where everything can be stitched up behind closed doors — especially at the Kirchberg Plateau, far from the Brussels press corps. And the British know it best. New Labour has mastered the art of exploiting EU procedures as a means of evading parliamentary oversight — and its corollary, unwelcome media debate. The consequences are irreversible. A bad British law can be repealed by a future Parliament. Practically speaking, a bad EU law can never be repealed. It is part of that great magisterium, the acquis communautaire, where it sits in perpetuity, infinitely easier to do than to undo.

But it was not until the catastrophe in New York and Washington that New Labour really got the bit between its teeth and dared to push for an EU list of proscribed terrorist organisations and a joint EU definition of terrorism that extends British anti-terror policy to the rest of the EU, and then ups the ante. A terrorist is to be defined as anybody using ‘intimidation’ seriously to alter the political, economic or social structures of states. Clause 3.f. of the text states that ‘Unlawful seizure of or damage to state or government facilities, means of public transport, places of public use, and property’ is an offence carrying a ‘minimum maximum’ prison sentence of five years.

The British rights group, Statewatch, warns that this could be used to cover non-violent protest such as the Greenham Common women’s movement against US Cruise missiles. We know that it has absolutely nothing to do with al-Qa’eda. The text was drafted months ago to prevent a recurrence of the Gothenburg and Genoa riots, which were public-order problems, not terrorism. Once it is law, lodged in the acquis for ever, it can be applied to practically anything, such as anti-EU protest, and will increasingly fall under the ambit of the EU’s federal police, investigating, and (soon) prosecuting authorities. I am willing to wager a small bet in euros that this anti-terrorism text, and especially the clause ‘unlawful seizure of property’, will before the decade is out be used to charge a British citizen engaged in political dissent against the EU.

There will not be much escape if any other EU state chooses to interpret the new terrorism code in such a fashion, or indeed any other fashion that offends our sense of liberty. In the great rush after the attacks, EU ministers also pushed through the European arrest warrant. This obliges Holland to hand over IRA suspects, rather than embrace them as freedom fighters as they were once wont to do. But at the same time, Britain will be compelled to extradite its own citizens to Belgium or Italy, say, countries without habeas corpus, at the demand of a prosecuting magistrate, without the oversight of an independent judge. After having looked into the skulduggery of several Belgian and Italian magistrates, I personally view this as a betrayal of my rights as a free-born Englishman, and I don’t remember being told before the election that the government was going to do such a thing.

Given that the acquis will now gobble up this British concession for ever, the only way I can regain my lost birthright is if Britain withdraws from the European Union completely. It is the sort of thing that sets one thinking

This article appears in the Oct. 5, 2001 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Ashcroft Seeks Hitler-Style Dictatorship Measures

by Edward Spannaus

To understand the extraordinary powers being sought by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft under the rubric of anti-terrorism legislation, one must know the process by which the Nazi emergency measures, the Notverordnungen, were established in early 1933, on the pretext of the Reichstag fire.

As is discussed in this issue's Editorial, Adolf Hitler had been put into power by a circle of British and U.S. financiers, whose situation was becoming increasingly desperate at the time. Within a month, the Anglo-American-backed plotters of the Hitler coup d'état, arranged the Reichstag fire—immediately and falsely blamed on the Communists—which was used as a justification for the emergency police-state laws.

In January 2001, shortly after the nomination of John Ashcroft was announced, Lyndon LaRouche warned that we would soon see the outbreaks of provocations and wars, to which the Bush Administration would respond with crisis-management, Notverordnung-type emergency measures. If John Ashcroft were confirmed for U.S. Attorney General, LaRouche warned, he would be in a position of crucial responsibility as part of an Executive branch crisis-management team, at the point when the administation would be faced with an unavoidable series of financial and strategic crises.

LaRouche and his associates made a fight out of the Ashcroft nomination—on precisely this issue of the role that Ashcroft would play under crisis conditions. The leadership of the Democratic Party ducked the issue, even when the Senate Democrats clearly had the power to stop Ashcroft's confirmation as Attorney General. Today, there can be no doubt: that LaRouche was right, and they were wrong, in allowing Ashcroft's nomination to go through.

The parallel of the Nazi emergency laws is the precise parallel to understand what Ashcroft is now doing. That is not to say that he is witting of the overall coup d'état plot now under way. But Ashcroft's actions today are consistent with those of certain Nazi officials in 1933. He is playing into the coup plot, the same way some German officials played into the 1933 plot to put Hitler into power and then to quickly establish a dictatorship.

Ashcroft's Emergency Powers

Since the events of Sept. 11, Ashcroft, who up to that point had operated largely out of the public limelight, has emerged as a prominent spokesman and a key player in the Bush Administration's crisis-management team. And he has demonstrated that LaRouche's warnings were fully justified.

In the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Ashcroft's Department of Justice (DOJ) went into action to patch together a new package of anti-terrorism laws—which consisted largely of measures which the Justice Department had already been seeking, but had been unable to get passed by Congress.

And even as the new legislative package was being submitted to Congress and debated, Ashcroft's Justice Department and the FBI were already stretching existing laws beyond any previous limits, in rounding up and detaining hundreds of persons, largely of Middle Eastern origin.

In his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 24, Ashcroft reported that the FBI and INS (the DOJ's Immigration and Naturalization Service) have arrested or detained 352 individuals since Sept. 11, and they are seeking 392 more beyond that. (Some informed sources believed that the number actually detained far exceeds Ashcroft's official estimate.)

Of the 352 being held as of Sept. 24, there were 98 being detained on immigration violations, and 254 were being held on other charges, generally for minor offenses such as traffic violations, misdemeanors, and identification fraud. At least a dozen are being held as "material witnesses"—a hitherto little-used provision, that allows law enforcement to hold a person without bond, if he is deemed likely to have significant information about a crime.

According to press accounts, many of those detained have not been given access to a lawyer, and some are being held incommunicado.

The Justice Department's Legislative Package

Even though Ashcroft had demanded that Congress pass his so-called "Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001" within a week, many members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, balked, and demanded time to read and analyze it. A mark-up of the bill, scheduled for Sept. 25 by the House Judiciary Committee, had to be postponed for a week. The Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (Vt.), is working on his own version—which retains many of the Ashcroft proposals—with the objective of arriving at a "consensus" version of the bill.

Following are some of the most objectionable provisions of the Justice Department bill as presented by Attorney General Ashcroft:

Expand the government's right to conduct secret search-and-seizure operations;

Expand the INS's deportation and detention powers;

Permit authorities to seize computer e-mail and voice-mail without a wiretap court order;

Allow a nationwide roving wiretap order for all communications by an individual;

Allow the use of criminal wiretap information for intelligence purposes, and allow use of national-security electronic intercepts for criminal cases (which cannot legally be done now);

Allow the use in U.S. courts, of foreign government intercepts of U.S. citizens' phone conversations abroad, obtained without Fourth Amendment protections;

Allow secret grand jury information to be released to military and intelligence agencies;

Increase all terrorism offenses to carry up to possible life sentences;

Expand the use of racketeering laws in terrorism cases;

Permit the Attorney General to issue an "administrative subpoena" for documents and records, in a terrorism or national security case, rather than requiring that the subpoena be issued by a duly convened grand jury, which is subject to judicial review;

Limit a detained person's ability to bring a habeas corpus petition, or seek judicial review (an appeal) of a detention order, so that it can be brought only in Federal court in Washington, D.C., no matter where the person is detained. A number of the above provisions are made all the more dangerous, because of the expansion of the definition of "terrorism" under current law—which could now include civil disobedience, or any act of violence, or threatened violence, not carried out for financial gain.

'Homeland Security'

Another part of the administration's overall response to Sept. 11, is the proposal to create a Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security, to coordinate both preventive counter-terrorist measures, and responses to any terrorist attack.

The New York Times reported on Sept. 28, that the administration wants to give the new agency powers to match those of the existing National Security Council. The new "Homeland Security Council" would include the Secretaries of the Justice, Defense, Treasury, and Health and Human Services Departments, as well as the heads of the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

At this point, the new agency appears to be more of a coordination focal point, rather than a new command structure. But, potentially, such a structure could combine two of the worst features of the Reagan-Bush crisis-management structure which ran what is known as "Iran-Contra" and other covert operations.

These were 1) the National Security Council staff structure, typified by Lt. Col. Oliver North, which ran a "parallel and secret government," and, 2) the "continuity of government," or "emergency preparedness" program, responsible for contingency planning for nuclear war, disaster, or mass civil unrest. (This was actually Ollie North's first assignment in the NSC.)

It was reported at the time, that contingency plans existed under this program, to suspend the Constitution in a period of national emergency. This program also incorporated the Defense Department's Civil Disturbance Plan, known as "Operation Garden Plot," which dates from the 1960s, and is still in effect today.

After the twin towers

1.The global economy must be policed

Saturday September 29, 2001

We are all slowly coming to terms with what September 11 meant. If the new world order is not to give way to what the French newspaper Le Monde this week dubbed the new world disorder, then we must begin to grasp the scale, complexity and implications of the challenges that lie in the rubble of New York and Washington.

Some of the starkest challenges are to the state, nationally and internationally, in its efforts to protect the liberty of citizens and to preserve peace and security. The response will not only be short-term and military. It will be long-term and it will reach across the way we live our lives and regulate our economies, societies and freedoms. Here, and in a series of future editorials, we attempt to plot pathways through the new chaos towards a new order in a changed world.

One of the most striking changes since September 11 has been the new willingness of the world, led by the US, to hunt down the hidden financial assets of terrorists as well as criminals, drug dealers and money launderers. This new commitment runs counter to prevailing free-market assumptions about banking secrecy and the need for tax havens. Yet Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, revealed the full extent of the changed rules of engagement in the New York Times this week. He said that, while one response may (our italics) include firing cruise missiles, "we are just as likely to engage in electronic combat to track and stop investments moving through offshore banking centres. The uniforms of this conflict will be bankers' pinstripes and programmers' grunge just as assuredly as desert camouflage."

Reaction to the atrocities has already done more to change some of globalisation's worst imbalances than all the anti-capitalist demonstrations together. As a result of the Bush response, expansion of trade flows will be checked by what is in effect a levy on globalisation (through increased airport and insurance charges etc) while surveillance, hitherto cursory, will be increased. The global village is getting its own police force.

The chances of success are not good - but that is no reason for not trying. It is all too easy to list the obstacles: the world's banking system is only as strong as its weakest link; as long as there are some tax havens in existence all the dodgy money will go there; six decades of fighting mafia money in the US has not been a great success; and, even if the new banking police force had been in place, it is doubtful whether it would have discovered the latest outrage. September 11 was a low-budget operation (maybe costing less than £140,000), an amount easily lost among the trillions of dollars roaring around the global financial system each week or the unmonitored byways of the informal hawala banking system of Muslim countries.

President Bush has set up the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Centre. Some of the powers the US wants - like the ability to close rogue banks without public proof of a link with terrorism - have ominous implications. But that does not remove the need for swift action. Even before September 11 there was a very strong case for a global force to tackle the underground economy of laundered money including drugs, crime and the fruits of government corruption that is estimated to top £1,000bn. The unpaid taxes on these sums should alone be incentive enough for the global police.

While the US is quite properly taking the lead in the new anti-terrorism war, long-term success will need a more broadly based organisation to ensure the cooperation of countries unfriendly to the US. This means that as many countries as possible should ratify the international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism. This was adopted by the United Nation general assembly at the end of 1999 but has only been ratified by four countries (one of which is the UK). This convention puts the onus on the countries themselves to take action to identify and freeze the sums used for terrorism. If the war against the financing of terrorism is to have any chance of lasting success once the initial impetus has died down, then it should be as broadly based as possible. The UN (with the US as its richest and most aggressive member) is the right body to be financial watchdog for the world community. It will be good for the UN and good for the world.

There is nothing wrong with globalisation as such. But it has underscored the disproportionate economic power of corporations and of criminals. All countries should adopt existing best practice, such as the requirement for banks to know exactly who their customers are and the duty to report suspicious dealings. That means a clampdown on offshore tax havens. If the terrorists are to be beaten, their assets must be hunted down and appropriated. That will mean restraints elsewhere. But so be it. The world will never be perfect, but it can be made safer.

Monday October 1 5:06 PM ET

Court Won't Hear Muslim Woman's Case

By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Muslim woman will not be allowed to pursue claims that her boss violated her rights by pressuring her to stop wearing a head scarf to work.

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to consider reinstating Zeinab Ali's lawsuit against Alamo Rent-A-Car Inc., a decision that civil rights groups say could affect workers of all religions.

The case predates the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Many Muslims have complained that their dress or appearance has elicited harassment or worse since the attacks.

Ali said she was told in 1996 to stop wearing the scarf at the car rental company job or she would be transferred to another position with less customer interaction. She said her boss complained that the scarf did not match uniforms that employees were required to wear.

Woodley B. Osborne, an attorney for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and other groups, said some bosses may feel free now to discriminate based on religion.

``If you've got someone wearing a religious garb, you can say `take it off or I'll put you in the back room,''' he said. ``It was a straightforward case. It would have been a simple thing to correct - and timely.''

Fearing retribution, Ali said she replaced the traditional hijab scarf with a much smaller hair covering. Her lawyer said she continued to complain to superiors and was later fired as part of company cutbacks.

Ali sued Alamo Rent-A-Car claiming that her civil rights were violated. The suit was dismissed without a trial because a judge said she did not prove that she was hurt financially because of religious discrimination. The dismissal was upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites).

Groups like the American Jewish Congress and Anti-Defamation League said the rulings needed to be overturned.

``Employees whose religious beliefs require the wearing of distinctive garb may be banished to the workplace equivalent of the back of the bus so long as the employee suffers no measurable economic loss,'' the groups told the court.

They said bosses can pressure Orthodox Jewish men not to wear skull caps, Sikhs to put away turbans and Pentecostal women to substitute pants for skirts.

Alamo said Ali's firing was legal and unrelated to religious issues. It said she was not ordered to stop wearing a head covering, only told she could be given a different job. The company said the woman was never punished financially.

``The Supreme Court is not a forum for a `what if' scenario or for rendering an advisory opinion,'' the company told the court.

Ali, who is originally from Somalia, was working as a management trainee at the company's office at Reagan National Airport outside Washington.

``Employers are expressly at liberty to interfere deliberately, even maliciously, with the religious observances and obligations of any worker who cannot risk economic martyrdom,'' Ali said in the appeal.

Muslim women often wear scarves to cover their hair when around men.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it receives about 1,500 employment and discrimination complaints a year from Arab and Muslim members.

The case is Ali v. Alamo Rent-A-Car, Inc., 00-1813.

- On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov

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