Shooty's News and Current events

General: U.S. goals not achieved in Fallujah

2004-06-13T19:10:00.000-05:00

A senior U.S. military officer acknowledged today that the Americans have not achieved their goals in Fallujah despite the agreement to end the siege of the Sunni Muslim city and turn security over to an Iraqi force.

Ten U.S. Marines and hundreds of Iraqis were killed during the three-week siege of Fallujah, which was launched after four Americans working for the Blackwater USA security company were ambushed, killed, their bodies mutilated and hung from a Euphrates river bridge.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters that the city had been generally quiet since Marines lifted the siege in early May.

Kimmitt also said the U.S.-led coalition had demanded a return to Iraqi government control, handing over of heavy weapons and the arrest of those responsible for the killing of the Blackwater employees.

"We are not satisfied we are making active progress in the latter," Kimmitt said. "We are not satisfied that there has been progress on any of those objectives, with the exception of having Iraqi presence back inside the city."

Hard-line Islamic leaders have reasserted their power in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad. Some were active in defending the city against the Marines and have profited by a perception -- both here and elsewhere in Iraq -- that the Fallujah fighters defeated a superpower.

(end of excerpt)

Wireless World: 'Always on' PDAs ascending

2004-06-13T19:05:00.000-05:00

Source: Gene J. Koprowski, United Press International - 06/11/04

Advances in technology for personal digital assistants, made by Sony and other manufacturers, and for other wireless devices, such as the Blackberry, are making the notebook computer seem as dated as a manual typewriter. Faster processing power, in a package nearly as small as a mobile phone, with a keyboard for typing e-mail messages, enables travelers to stay linked with their business colleagues and families, and to continue to be productive, even on the road, without the need for a PC.

"The idea of being 'always on' is spreading," said Roger Hibbert, associate editor of Mobile PC magazine in San Francisco. "People always want to be available," he told United Press International. "With a Blackberry, or a PDA, you don't have to pop it open to get a message by e-mail. It's more convenient."

[..]

Now, business travelers are "looking for ways to combine all the necessary applications into just one small gadget," Jannie Luong, a spokeswoman for Verizon SuperPages, a unit of the phone company, told UPI.

Developers, such as Nokia, are changing the way their products are designed to accommodate the trend.

The Scandinavian company's latest mobile phone -- the Series 60 devices -- are phones with PDA functionality, "and a whole lot more, built into them," Erik Schmollinger, a spokesman for Nokia, told UPI.

This trend is even causing e-commerce sites -- like Verizon's -- to change the way they present information. The information provided online is being streamlined, so customers can see white and yellow pages, travel guides, hotel reviews, and movie information, "all in the palm of your hand," Luong said.

Others are changing the way they do business as well, due to the growth of the technology, and keep the devices with them all the time, even in the office.

[..]

The primary concern is security. The university worries about being linked to a public network with its entire computing infrastructure. The solution, Trinkle said, may be to have two networks.

"There could be multiple ways to get on the network," he added.

Trinkle noted, however, in more competitive, business environments, the PDA may become a primary computing tool.

"That is likely to happen in quite a few places, with the Blackberry, and the Sony trio, becoming the interface," Trinkle said. "Folks will use it to get their information. There will be a convergence of personal and business identity online. We're starting to see in this country what took off in Japan a while ago -- a mobile phone culture."

(end of excerpt)

Agents seize Orlando City Hall computers (Buddy Dyer case)

2004-06-13T19:03:00.000-05:00

Source: The Orlando Sentinel - 06/12/04

Law-enforcement agents raided Orlando City Hall on Friday and carted off computers used by top managers in the Fire Department as part of their widening investigation into possible election fraud in the mayor's race.

Agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would reveal few details of their inquiry, but a search warrant indicated that investigators are trying to determine whether city firefighters were improperly paid with taxpayer money while campaigning for Mayor Buddy Dyer.

"It's part of our ongoing criminal investigation of election fraud," FDLE legal adviser Steve Brady said. "It's all related to the same issue, the mayoral-election issue."

(end of excerpt)

US terror plot to ‘wipe out a neighbourhood’

2004-06-13T18:59:00.000-05:00

Source: The Sunday Times - 06/13/04

The Italian warrant for the arrest of Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, 32, an Egyptian seized in a suburb of Milan last week, details transcripts of bugged conversations and telephone calls in which he not only boasted of his involvement in the Spanish attack of March 11 but also spoke of future plans. The Spanish government has said it will seek the extradition of Ahmed — also known as “Mohamed the Egyptian”.

Ahmed moved to Milan in early April. Police surveillance teams nicknamed him “the trainer” because of his practice of befriending Muslim immigrants, finding out who was most dissatisfied with the West and asking: “What are you doing to change the situation?” A former Egyptian army explosives expert, he bears a sign of his religious devotion on his forehead — a weal caused by striking his head hard on the ground during Muslim prayers.

Bugs placed by anti-terrorist police in Ahmed’s one-bedroom flat recorded a conversation on May 26 with Yahia Payumi, 21, a Palestinian who was also later arrested.

After denouncing the torture by American troops of “our brothers in Iraq”, Ahmed was quoted as saying: “Hotaf has been prepared with many medicinal products. If they throw one stick, they wipe out an American neighbourhood.”

Although the woman named Hotaf was said to have been discovered, other women were ready to replace her, Ahmed added. “Amal, Hanan, Fatiha — you only need to call them and they come. God is great.”

(end of excerpt)

Florida Voting Machines Have Recount Flaw

2004-06-13T18:57:00.000-05:00

Source: Associated Press - 06/12/04

, Fla. (AP) - Touchscreen voting machines in 11 counties have a software flaw that could make manual recounts impossible in November's presidential election, state officials said.

A spokeswoman for the secretary of state called the problems "minor technical hiccups" that can be resolved, but critics allege voting officials wrongly certified a voting system they knew had a bug.

The electronic voting machines are a response to Florida's 2000 presidential election

[..]

The elections chief, Ed Kast, abruptly resigned Monday, saying he wanted a change of pace.

[..]

"These are minor technical hiccups that happen," said Hood spokeswoman Nicole DeLara. "No votes are lost, or could be lost."

Wexler and coalition members said they want to know how the state can be sure that glitches will not prevent elections officials from even detecting computer malfunctions.

"How do you know that any votes were lost if your audit is wrong?" asked Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade coalition.

State officials say there is no need for recounts, or an audit trail, with the touchscreen system because it was designed to prevent people from voting in the same race more than once - an overvote - and provide multiple alerts to voters to warn them when they are skipping a race - an undervote.

They emphasize that the "glitch" in the touchscreen machines occurs when the audit is done after the election, not when the tally sheet is printed in each precinct when polls close.

(end of excerpt)

Former Baath members to return to public service

2004-06-13T18:21:00.000-05:00

Source: Middle East Online - 06/10/04

More than 12,000 former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party are in the process of reintegration into public service a year after losing their jobs under a now abandoned policy of punishing loyalists of the ousted regime, a senior official said Thursday.

In a backtrack on its once hardline stance, the so-called National De-Baathification Committee - a body created and headed by erstwhile Pentagon favourite Ahmad Chalabi - reinstated the public servants.

"Our committee, which fired 30,000 people, has decided to reintegrate 12,000 who have appealed the decision," Mithal Allussi, director of the committee, said.

"They come from a range of sectors, for example the interior ministry, education or electricity," he said.

"Some decided to restart active work and others chose retirement."

The softer stance on former Baath party members followed Chalabi's fall from favour in a head-on collision with his US allies last month.

When US overseer Paul Bremer arrived in Iraq one year ago, he issued a decree expelling all senior Baathists from the administration and dissolving the armed forces.

The policy was the result of Chalabi's intense lobbying with his well-placed friends in Washington at the expense of Bremer's predecessor Jay Garner, who saw administering the war-torn country as the priority, not a witch-hunt.

Some 6,000 teachers were among the 30,000 civil servants fired by the committee under Chalabi.

(end of excerpt)

Serbia seeks end to UN mission in Kosovo

2004-06-13T18:10:00.000-05:00

Source: Aleksandar Mitic, Independent Online (South Africa) - 06/12/04

Five years after the United Nations and Nato intervened to end the war in Kosovo, Belgrade insists the international mission has been a "stinging failure" and is demanding a change of strategy.

[..]

"It is evident that after the recent violence the international community must count the costs of the stinging failure of its policies in Kosovo," said Dragan Marsicanin, a senior figure in the ruling coalition.

[..]

Kosovo's outgoing UN mission chief, Harri Holkeri, warned Thursday the security situation there was "very fragile" and the province could turn into a hotbed for terrorism if it was abandoned by the international community.

"If the international community gives up, what would it be? That would be a carte blanche for terrorism, for violence... all kinds of actions against humanity," Holkeri said.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who visited the breakaway province last Monday for the second time since the anti-Serb riots, said a society plagued by such ethnic violence "does not belong to Europe".

[..]

Serbia is now demanding a dramatic change in strategy to allow the province to be "decentralised" between Serb and Albanian areas - an idea that has been criticised as amounting to the ethnic division of Kosovo.

This policy, announced by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica earlier this year, has been unanimously adopted by the Serbian parliament and is seen here as the only practical solution to ensure security for the Serbs.

It would grant extended powers to five enclaves where Serbs were in the majority before their post-war exodus, when more than 200,000 fled in fear of reprisal attacks by the Albanian majority.

Only around 80 000 Serbs remain in Kosovo, out of a total population in the province of 1,8 million. Nato troops who are supposed to ensure security were completely overwhelmed by the organised mob violence in March.

Marsicanin said the decentralisation plan was the "only solution" which could "stabilise the region" in accord with UN Resolution 1244, which established the UN protectorate in Kosovo.

The plan has won the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who described it as a "very good base for work" after meeting Kostunica last week.

Western European leaders have been far more cautious, however one Western diplomat in Belgrade told AFP that Kostunica's plan was a "good point of departure" and that the "decentralisation of Kosovo is inevitable".

Kosovo Albanian Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi has condemned the idea as an emotional response to the March violence and a way of dividing the province or reintegrating it with Serbia.

The ethnic Albanian leadership of Kosovo demands nothing short of independence, however the province remains technically part of Serbia and its "final status" will be decided by the Security Council.

(end of excerpt)

Labour and Tories facing losses

2004-06-13T18:05:00.000-05:00

Source: BBC - 06/13/04

Labour and the Tories have both seen their vote slump in the early UK results for the European elections.

After results from London, the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber and Wales, the Tory vote is down 7% and Labour has fallen 6%.

With turnout at a record high, the main winner seems to be the UK Independence Party, whose vote has doubled to 13%.

The Liberal Democrats are also doing well - up 3% - with the Greens, BNP and Respect also gaining.

Elsewhere in Europe early counts suggest governing parties in Germany and France are suffering losses.

Parties of the centre-right Europe-wide are expected to remain the biggest single block in the new parliament but Eurosceptic groups are tipped for striking successes.

Voting to select the UK's 78 MEPs took place on Thursday, although other European countries have held their polls on Sunday.

[..]

The overall turnout across the EU has fallen to an all-time low at 44.6%, with the figure at 47.6% for the 15 long-standing members.

In the UK, the turnout is expected to run at 38% - topping the record of 37% for a European election set in 1989.

The UK Independence Party, which wants the UK to withdraw from Europe, has won 13.1% of the votes in the first three regions.

(end of excerpt)

Arab Men Posing as TV Crew Arrested in Baghdad

2004-06-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

Source: Reuters - 06/10/04

Four Arab men posing as journalists were arrested this week when explosives residue was detected on them as they tried to enter the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led administration, a senior U.S. army officer said.

The officer, a top security official in the compound which hosts news conferences given by senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and houses the U.S. consulate, said explosives were found in the men's hotel room after the arrests on Sunday.

They were posing as employees of an international television company and carried fake identification cards and were trying to drive a van into the compound when they were arrested, he said.

"The IDs looked real. But when we called the organization and asked if they were employees, they said they had not heard of them," the army officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters.

[..]

"The four who were arrested may have just been gathering information on the compound or maybe they were just scouting it out. This case is serious," the officer said. He declined to comment on the nationality of the men.

(end of excerpt)

Iraq 'to shed' US oil advisers

2004-06-11T23:31:00.000-05:00

Source: BBC - 06/10/04

Iraq's new Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban has reportedly said that all coalition advisers will leave Iraqi ministries after the 30 June handover.
Quoted by the UK's Financial Times, he said that the ministry would reassert full control over the country's lucrative oil industry.

However, the new UN resolution on Iraq limits the freedom of action of the interim government about to take power.

Mr Ghadhban also played down attacks by militants on oil infrastructure.

"When sovereignty is regained it means that there will be no more US advisers, not only in the ministry of oil, but in every ministry in Iraq," he was quoted as saying in Thursday's edition of the FT.

(end of excerpt)

Media not impartial, majority say

2004-06-11T23:26:00.000-05:00

Source: Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun - 06/11/04

The survey, the first of its kind in Canada, found that 76 per cent of respondents said news organizations are not independent, while only 19 per cent said they are mostly independent.

Five per cent had no opinion or refused to answer.

Young Canadians were even more cynical, with 81 per cent of 19 to 25-year-olds saying news organizations are influenced by powerful groups and individuals, the survey found.

When respondents were asked what outside groups influence the news, 42 per cent said politicians and government; 27 per cent, business and money interests; 12 per cent, media owners; 12 per cent, lobby groups; seven per cent, labour unions, and four per cent, advertisers.

Francophone Quebecers were less likely to mention political and business influences (38 and 27 per cent respectively) and more likely to pinpoint media owners (15 per cent) and labour unions (17 per cent).

The survey was conducted late last year by the Canadian Media Research Consortium, which includes the University of B.C. graduate school of journalism, the York/Ryerson Universities graduate program in communications and culture and Laval University's media studies.

A slim majority of respondents, 52 per cent, said media coverage of the personal and ethical behaviour of political leaders is excessive but a much larger majority, 64 per cent, said criticism of their policies and proposals is not.

(end of excerpt)

Facing Defeat?

2004-06-11T23:17:00.000-05:00

Source: Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek - 06/10/04

Justice Department lawyers, fearing a crushing defeat before the U.S. Supreme Court in the next few weeks, are scrambling to develop a conventional criminal case against “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla that would charge him with providing “material support” to Al Qaeda, NEWSWEEK has learned.

The prospective case against Padilla would rely in part on material seized by the FBI in Afghanistan—principally an Al Qaeda “new applicant form” that, authorities said, the former Chicago gang member filled out in July 2000 to enter a terrorist training camp run by Osama bin Laden's organization.

But officials acknowledge that the charges could well be difficult to bring and that none of Padilla’s admissions to interrogators—including an apparent confession that he met with top Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah and agreed to undertake a terror mission—would ever be admissible in court.

Even more significant, administration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention—that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific purpose of setting off a radiological “dirty bomb”—has turned out to be wrong and most likely can never be used against him in court.

The reassessments of Padilla come amid a growing sense of gloom within Justice that the Supreme Court is likely to rule decisively against the Bush administration not just in the Padilla case but in two other pivotal cases in the war on terror: one involving the detention of another “enemy combatant,” Yasir Hamden, and another involving the treatment of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the Padilla and Hambdi cases, the administration is arguing it has the right to hold the two U.S. citizens indefinitely without trial. In the Guantanamo case, the administration argues that foreign nationals being interrogated there do not have the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.

Lawyers within the Justice Department are now bracing for defeat in both the enemy-combatant and Guantanamo cases, both of which are expected to be decided before the Supreme Court ends its term at the end of the month, according to one conservative and politically well-connected lawyer. “They are 99 percent certain they are going to lose,” said the lawyer, who asked not to be identified. “It’s a very sobering realization.”

While Supreme Court forecasts are hazardous at best, the conventional wisdom among former Supreme Court clerks is that recent disclosures about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and internal administration memos disavowing compliance with international treaties involving treatment of prisoners has badly hurt the government’s arguments before the court and turned two key “swing” justices—Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy—against it, the lawyer said.

Insider thinking within Justice has the Supreme Court voting six to three against the administration on Guantanamo and by a perhaps even larger margin in the Padilla and Hamdi cases.

(end of excerpt)

P10K Founder Ken O'Keefe in Israeli Jail for entering Gaza

2004-06-11T23:10:00.000-05:00

Source: CMAQ Canada - 06/11/04

Former US Marine and initiator of the Human Shield Action to Iraq, Ken O'Keefe, was jailed last night by Israeli authorities attempting to enter the Gaza Strip. He wished to discuss with the people and leaders of Gaza the P10K plan to bring 10,000 western citizens to act as international observers in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. P10K also calls for a cessation of offensive operations from the Israeli Government and the militant Palestinian Resistance, upon the arrival of the 10,000 strong P10K Force.

O'Keefe and P10K coordinator Ian Hodgson were detained by ten Israeli Soldiers at 2pm Thursday as they walked along the beach into Palestinian Gaza from an area of Jewish Settlements at the northern end of the Gaza Strip. Knowing that Israel would refuse entry through the usual checkpoints into Gaza, the pair nearly caught Israeli soldiers off guard with their unconventional approach along the coastline.

O'Keefe said: 'I desperately wanted to discuss this idea with people in Gaza, and would not simply accept Israel's refusal to admit me entry. P10K aims to save life on both sides of the conflict, and uphold international law by ending Israel's illegal and immoral occupation, which is the root cause of Palestinian violence."

"Israeli state terrorism is fueling the conflict; Israel must stop its assassinations, incursions, house demolitions and building of the wall, and fully withdraw its illegal settlements and military from the occupied territories until there can be any movement towards a peaceful resolution of this conflict. Palestinian human rights must be respected, most importantly the right to life, but also the right to travel, which I was denied today."

O'Keefe is being held at Sohar Prison in the Negev region of Israel, close to the Egyptian border. Last night Ammon Golan from Erez Police Station said that O'Keefe would be deported to London in the next two days.

Israel effectively imprisons over a million Palestinian in Gaza, with access granted only to selected media and NGO's. P10K would bring more than 3,500 western citizens into the Gaza Strip to prevent widespread human rights abuses such as the destructive incursions into Rafah two weeks ago.

The P10K plan is explained in full at www.P10K.net.

(end of excerpt)

Justice Department Loses Laptop With DEA Data, Newsweek Says

2004-06-11T23:06:00.000-05:00

Source: Bloomberg - 05/30/04

The Justice Department is looking for a missing laptop computer that contains sensitive data about Drug Enforcement Administration investigations and confidential informants, Newsweek reported.

The computer doesn't contain the names of the informants, the magazine said, citing an unidentified law enforcement official. It contains more than 4,000 pages of case-file data, including details about the informants' activities, which could enable drug traffickers to figure out their identities, the magazine said.

An auditor for the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, which was conducting a routine investigation of DEA payments to informants, reported the computer stolen three weeks ago, Newsweek said. The auditor last week changed his story and said that he had accidentally damaged the computer and had thrown it out to avoid embarrassment, the magazine reported.

Investigators are trying to verify the auditor's account, Newsweek said.

(end of excerpt)

Indian Pt. Terror Drill Includes Fake Plane Crash

2004-06-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

Source: 1010 WINS - 06/09/04

Tuesday's fake crash set off an ever-worsening cascade of simulated events for Indian Point plant operators and emergency responders. By the time the drill ended, a containment building was portrayed as filling with radioactive steam and portions of surrounding counties had been "evacuated" and residents advised to swallow anti-radiation pills. The actual residents, however, had no part in the drill.

Plant owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast and federal regulators have been criticized for not taking terror into account in emergency planning since the World Trade Center attack, 40 miles to the south in lower Manhattan. At the site are the mothballed Indian Point 1 plant and the active Indian Point 2 and 3 plants.

The critics were not assuaged by Tuesday's drill. The scenario did not include a simulated release of radiation into the atmosphere -- an omission that "speaks to the farcical nature of this exercise," said Kyle Rabin, of Riverkeeper, one of the organizations in the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition.

"We want to know if the public can be protected from a release of radiation," he said.

He also criticized as "unbelievable" the announcement that there were no traffic control problems during the simulated evacuations.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will evaluate the exercise at a public meeting on Thursday.

The drill began with word that a group of men had been stopped on a Connecticut highway in a car laden with weapons and documents pointing to an attack on Indian Point. Then the North American Aerospace Defense Command alerted the NRC that a 767 cargo jet seemed to be heading for Indian Point.

The "crash" wiped out offsite power to the reactor as it was being shut down. Backup generators failed and a leak of reactor coolant raised the specter of a meltdown.

A fake general emergency was declared, and Westchester County ordered the evacuation and advised those who have potassium iodide to "swallow one dose now." Potassium iodide is meant to inhibit the effect of radiation on the human thyroid.

The scenario of the crash included no damage to the reactor's concrete containment building. Brian Holian, of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said recent studies showed "most plane crashes into containment buildings would not result in significant releases of radiation."

Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, who has called for a shutdown of the Indian Point plants, took part in the drill but "still feels the evacuation wouldn't work in a fast-breaking scenario of radiation escaping," said his chief adviser, Susan Tolchin.

(end of excerpt)

Live anthrax shipped from Md. to Calif.

2004-06-11T23:01:00.000-05:00

Source: UPI - 06/11/04

The Centers for Disease Control is investigating how live anthrax was mistakenly shipped from Maryland to California, exposing five people to the deadly agent.

Researchers at the Southern Research Institute in Frederick, Md., intended to send dead samples of the bacteria to colleagues at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in Oakland, Calif., so they could produce antibodies against the disease by injecting the dead anthrax into mice. When nearly all of the mice died, government health officials were notified, and the scientists who had been exposed to the anthrax were given the antibiotic Cipro, The Baltimore Sun reported.

FBI bioterrorism experts based in San Francisco collected the samples from the Oakland hospital Wednesday.

No wrongdoing is suspected, and no criminal investigation is planned, said Bill Carter, a spokesman at FBI's Washington headquarters.

The deadly material was shipped in March but wasn't injected into the mice until months later. On May 28, 10 mice were injected; all 10 died three days later. On June 4, 40 mice were injected; 39 were dead three days later.

(end of excerpt)

Dossier a mistake - Rimington

2004-06-11T22:56:00.000-05:00

Source: Elizabeth Grice, The Telegraph - 06/12/04

The whole idea of releasing an intelligence dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was misguided and has damaged public confidence in the secret service, the former head of MI5 said yesterday.

"I feel the dossier was a mistake," said Dame Stella Rimington. "Formally putting intelligence into the public domain was not, in my view, a sensible thing to do.

"The whole point about intelligence is that it changes. What you think is the case today may be different tomorrow because of new information. The trouble is, if you put something out as a dossier, it is frozen in time."

She added: "That whole episode has probably damaged the reputation of the intelligence service, at least momentarily, in the eyes of the public, which is a great pity."

[..]

Asked whether, as director general, she would have resisted Tony Blair's request for a dossier, Dame Stella said: "I can't say, as I don't know the circumstances . . . but I expect I would have thought: no good will come of this."

(end of excerpt)

CIA misses deadline to fix analysis flaws

2004-06-11T22:46:00.000-05:00

Source: Douglas Jehl, New York Times - 06/10/04

The Central Intelligence Agency has yet to come up with a plan to address what senior officials have described as a major flaw in its operations, despite a pledge four months ago that the problem would be resolved within 30 days.

The problem, which contributed to errors in the agency’s prewar estimates on Iraq, is rooted in procedures that severely limit how much information about human sources is shared with analysts who produce intelligence assessments, according to senior intelligence officials.

In a Feb. 11 speech, a senior CIA official, Jami Miscik, described the problem as an example of ‘‘imperfections in our system’’ and said that George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, had given subordinates 30 days ‘‘to devise a permanent and lasting solution.’’ But this week, a senior intelligence official said that a team headed by the agency’s executive director, A. B. Krongard, was ‘‘still working out the modalities’’ of a new arrangement.

A senior intelligence official said this week that the recently announced departures of Tenet and James Pavitt, the deputy director for operations, meant that it was unlikely that the new arrangements would be worked out soon.

The difficulty of working out a solution reflects a deep gulf between the CIA’s operations directorate, which recruits and run spies around the world, and its intelligence directorate, which is in charge of sifting intelligence from those spies and from satellites and eavesdropping devices and drawing broad conclusions.

In the case of Iraq, analysts who wrote reports stating that the country possessed illicit weapons did so without knowing that some of the central sources they cited were defectors linked to Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, according to senior intelligence officials.

[..]

In these and other cases, the prewar assessments about Iraq’s illicit weapons were based on reports from sources who did not have firsthand information about what they described.

That fact, too, was sometimes known by intelligence officers but was rarely shared with intelligence analysts, ac cording to the senior intelligence officials.

In her speech, Miscik said that ‘‘the biggest lesson’’ to have emerged from the apparent mistakes in the agency’s prewar assessments on Iraq was ‘‘the importance of getting the analyst as much information as possible about a source’s access.

‘‘Analysts can no longer be put in a position of making a judgment on a critical issue without a full and comprehensive understanding of the source’s access to the information on which they are reporting,’’ Miscik said in the speech to intelligence analysts at the agency, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times.

[..]

Under the longstanding arrangements that Miscik said would be changed, the directorate of operations typically shields information about sources’ identity, motivations and even access to information from the directorate of intelligence.

[..]

In her speech, Miscik did not cite specific examples in which inadequate sharing of information had led to mistakes in the prewar intelligence on Iraq.

But she said an internal review of that intelligence had found cases in which a single source had been described in different ways, so that an intelligence analyst might believe the same information actually had come from multiple sources.

‘‘In an age where policymakers are relying on intelligence to inform their decision-making, we cannot let these imperfections in our system continue,’’ Miscik said in the speech.

(end of excerpt)

Woman awarded $100,000 for CIA-funded electroshock

2004-06-11T22:42:00.000-05:00

Source: CBC News Online - 06/10/04

MONTREAL - A Montreal woman who underwent intense electroshock treatment in a program funded by the CIA 50 years ago has been awarded $100,000.

Gail Kastner was given massive electroshock therapy to treat depression in 1953 at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal.

She was told on Wednesday of the compensation award.

She was left out of a federal compensation package in 1994 because her treatment was deemed to have been less intense than that of other victims of the experiments. Her treatment was also found to have had fewer long-term effects.

A Federal Court judge reversed that ruling, and awarded her the same amount Ottawa gave to 77 others as compensation for their treatment.

There were 253 claims rejected.

Dr. Ewan Cameron, who was director of the Allan Memorial Institute, conducted experiments using electroshock and drug-induced sleep. The research was funded from 1950 to 1965 by the CIA and by the Canadian government.

(end of excerpt)

50,000 troops in Gulf illness scare

2004-06-11T22:35:00.000-05:00

Source: James Meikle, The Guardian - 06/11/04

All 50,000 troops who served in the first Gulf war might have been exposed to low levels of chemical warfare agents during the fighting and its aftermath, a US investigation has suggested.

The implication of a Congressional report that large numbers of civilians and troops in Iraq and neighbouring countries could have been exposed will galvanise the controversy over illnesses suffered by more than 5,000 British veterans since 1991 that have been linked to their service in the Gulf.

The report indicates that possible chemical contamination of troops could have been much more widespread than suggested by previous official government estimates, based on US research for the Pentagon and CIA.

Lord Morris, the Labour peer who has led the campaign on Gulf war illnesses, yesterday demanded answers from the government, saying it appeared the entire British deployment of more than 50,000 troops could have been at risk.

The MoD used the US defence department models to estimate that 9,000 British troops were within the chemical plume that might have been released from the destruction of chemical agents at Khamisaya, in southern Iraq, in March 1991. This figure was revealed in 1999. Previously, the government said no British units would have been affected, although one Briton might have been under a plume.

More than 5,000 British veterans have reported illnesses they believe related to the Gulf war or the inoculations they received before deployment and more than 600 have died. The government has refused to accept any suggestion that there is a "syndrome" but points to its £8.5m research programme to prove its commitment to finding answers.

The government's current position is that the possible level of nerve agent exposure from Khamisaya would have had "no detectable effect" on human health, and the Pentagon still insists the information was the best available and any researcher would know limitations of the data. The CIA also agreed with the report.

But the general accounting office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, last week said the assumptions used by the Pentagon were based on incomplete and uncertain data and that postwar testing to replicate the size of the plume "did not realistically simulate the actual conditions of bombings or demolitions".

The Pentagon, including the bombing of other sites in Iraq, estimated that nearly 102,000 US troops were potentially exposed. But the GAO concluded that, given the significant methodological flaws, neither the Pentagon nor the MoD could know which troops were and which troops were not exposed.

Lord Morris, an honorary member of a US congressional sub-committee investigating undiagnosed illnesses, said: "This is a profoundly significant report not only for US veterans but for ours as well."

He has tabled a parliamentary question to ministers on the issue.

(end of excerpt)

U.S. forces not wanted

2004-06-11T22:24:00.000-05:00

Source: AP, Reuters - 06/07/04

Speaking on the final day of a three-day conference on Asian security, Najib said his country would not allow American "troops or assets" to set foot in the Strait of Malacca - a narrow 900-kilometer, or 550-mile, waterway straddling Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore that handles a third of the world's trade and more than half its oil.

[..]

"However, what we should avoid is the presence of foreign forces in Southeast Asia to help us deal with this threat," he said, "not because we distrust those outside the region, but because foreign military presence will set us back in our ideological battle against extremism and militancy."

(end of excerpt)

Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7

2004-06-11T22:20:00.000-05:00

Source: TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON, Capitol Hill Blue - 06/07/04

Actually, if the woman knew what was happening inside the nondescript office building at 3701 Fairfax Drive, she might think it really does matter because the building houses the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Total Information Awareness Program, the “big brother” program Congress thought it killed.

When the woman in line deposited her paycheck at the Bank of America branch, a record of that deposit showed up immediately in the computer databanks in the office across the street, just as financial, travel and other personal transactions of virtually every American do millions of time every minute.

Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program’s controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA’s TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon – with administration approval – simply moved the program into a ‘black bag’ account,” says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. “Black bag programs don’t require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight.”

DARPA also hired private contractors to fill many of the roles in the program, which helped evade detection by Congressional auditors. Using a private security firm like Cantwell, instead of the Federal Protective Service, helped keep TIA off the radar screen.

[..]

Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism.

“Americans must trade some privacy for security,” he says. “Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off.”

[..]

“Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person’s spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”

Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.

[..]

Missouri Congressman William Clay, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, and Intergovernmental Relations, worries that DARPA is skirting the law by letting private contractors handle the data mining.

"The agencies involved in data mining are trying to skirt the Privacy Act by claiming that they hold no data," said Clay. Instead, they use private companies to maintain and sift through the data, he said.

"Technically, that gets them out from under the Privacy Act," he said. "Ethically, it does not."

[..]

When Congress voted to cut the funded, the operation at 3701 Fairfax Drive should have shut down and Arlington County should have returned the officers assigned there to normal duty. However, the officers remained in place and additional security was added to the detail.

According to construction records on file in the Arlington County building and zoning office, more than 20 high-speed data lines have been installed at the location in the last 18 months. Microwave data antennas are also installed on the roof.

Pentagon spokesmen refuse to discuss what is happening in the building, citing "national security" as the reason.

[..]

“With meaningful pattern recognition, the order of magnitude of errors from inferences is huge, something like ten to the third (power),” says Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce and the chairman of information mapping software company Groxis. “There would be an incalculable expense to monitor a thousand wrong hits for one correct inference.”

DARPA tried to interest Groxis in becoming part of the TIA project but the company declined, saying the project was neither feasible nor ethical. Hawken says he knows people with the National Security Agency who refused to work on TIA because of ethical concerns.

(end of excerpt)

Today Indiana, Tomorrow Your State

2004-06-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

Source: Elaine Kitchel, Intervention Magazine - 06/07/04

It's no secret that the new voting technology--paperless, electronic voting machines--has increased the risk of fraud and incorrect totals. You have only to read the daily newspapers to see story after story of possible tampering and elections gone wrong.

Take Indiana, for instance. WISH TV, an Indiana television station, did a recent in-depth investigation of the election woes plaguing some Indiana counties after some precincts ran out of republican ballots shortly after the polls opened, and after some counties reported thousands more votes than registered voters.

What the WISH-TV news team uncovered was something far deeper even than a lack of ballots. A look beyond the present failings toward the fall election revealed possibilities for tampering that would scare even the most complacent of voters.

Top state election officials tend to work closely with the vendors of voting equipment. Republican Kathy Richardson, an Indiana State Representative who was Indiana's Hamilton County Clerk, purchased $1.3 million worth of electronic voting equipment from MicroVote, and says she plans to purchase $700,000 more. She told WISH-TV, “When you work with a vendor, you develop a relationship.” She works closely indeed. MicroVote's president, James Ries Jr., has donated to Richardson's campaign. Apparently, voting equipment companies don't see that as a conflict.

(end of excerpt)

Scientology link to public schools - As early as the third grade, students in S.F. and elsewhere are subtly introduced to church's concepts

2004-06-11T21:49:00.000-05:00

Source: Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle - 06/09/04

A popular anti-drug program provided free to schools in San Francisco and elsewhere teaches concepts straight out of the Church of Scientology, including medical theories that some addiction experts described as "irresponsible" and "pseudoscience."

As a result, students are being introduced to somebeliefs and methods of Scientology without their knowledge.

[..]

Narconon's anti-drug instruction rests on these key church concepts: that the body stores all kinds of toxins indefinitely in fat, where they wreak havoc on the mind until "sweated" out. Those ideas are rejected by the five medical experts contacted by The Chronicle, who say there is no evidence to support them.

Narconon was created by L. Ron Hubbard, the late science-fiction writer who founded Scientology, a religion that claims to improve the well-being of followers through courses aimed at self-improvement and global serenity. Narconon operates a global network of drug treatment centers, as well as education programs for elementary, middle and high school students.

Its lectures have reached 1.7 million children around the nation in the last decade, Narconon officials said, and more than 30,000 San Francisco students since 1991. Meanwhile, Narconon's anti-drug message and charismatic speakers earn rave reviews from students and teachers.

[..]

"It's pseudoscience, right up there with colonic irrigation," said Dr. Peter Banys, director of substance abuse programs at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco.

Dr. Igor Grant, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego, agreed: "I'm not aware of any data that show that going into a sauna detoxifies you from toxins of any kind. " Three other addiction experts contacted by The Chronicle echoed their skepticism.

[..]

"Narconon's orders come from the Church of Scientology's senior management," said Tory Christman, a former church member who worked briefly at Narconon International. "Their programs, policies -- it's all church policy. There's no question about this to anyone involved."

[..]

"Where's the evidence that supports what they're saying?" asked Dr. Timmen Cermak, medical director of Ohlhoff Recovery Programs in San Francisco and Marin County and author of "Marijuana: What's a Parent to Believe?"

"They're certainly spouting this as though it's proven, but it's not considered important enough to be talked about within the addiction medicine field," he said. "It's irresponsible."

[..]

"The longest we know that THC (the active substance in marijuana) stays in the fat is about a month. For ecstasy and LSD, we're talking about a day or two," said Dr. Neal Benowitz , head of clinical pharmacology at UCSF.

Nor is there evidence that drugs in fat cause cravings or flashbacks, said Banys, of San Francisco's VA Medical Center. "You could also say that craving is caused by evil spirits, which cause you to do bad things and therefore it's demonic possession. You couldn't prove it wasn't, and it seemed to make sense. But that's the use of metaphor, not science."

Banys said research shows that cravings are associated with dopamine, a neurotransmitter. And Cermak said flashbacks are thought to be prompted by "re- exposure to the drug-taking situation, or a reasonable facsimile (that) causes the brain to begin experiencing some of the same chemical changes that administering the drug itself produces."

Drs. Benowitz, Banys and Cermak dismissed the idea that niacin and sauna can rid the body of drugs, as did Dr. David Smith of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic and Dr. Igor Grant at UC San Diego.

(end of excerpt)

Feds Putting Weapons in Citizens' Luggage?

2004-06-11T21:47:00.000-05:00

Source: Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com - 06/11/04

American travelers are finding blades planted in their luggage, and it looks as if federal workers - make that employees - are culpable.

"The question I have is, 'What's the point of tossing items into people's suitcases?'" David Grindle of Bloomington, Ind., told the Herald-Times. "Is the TSA doing this on purpose in an attempt to catch someone else? I wish I knew."

After Grindle and his family returned from an airline trip to Florida, they found wire cutters in one of their bags, along with a note that said a screener from the Transportation Security Administration had inspected the suitcase.

The family immediately thought of Dorrine and George Theodore, also residents of Bloomington, who found a knife with a 10-inch blade - and a note from the TSA - in their luggage after they flew home from California last month.

"I've been to Europe, where they search your bags in front of you, and I have no trouble with that," Grindle said. "But it makes me nervous having my bags searched without me being present, especially when inspectors are flipping things in my bags that don't belong to me. What would stop them from putting illegal drugs in my bag?"

TSA mouthpiece Chris Rhatigan said the reports mystified her. "If I could answer that question, I'd be rich. They could have been honest mistakes. Perhaps the bags somehow popped open during their travels, and someone dropped something inside. I honestly don't know."

(end of excerpt)