The Best War Ever

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Halliburton to receive most of its disputed funds

The Army has decided to reimburse a Halliburton subsidiary for nearly all of its disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and repair oil equipment in Iraq, even though the Pentagon's own auditors had identified more than $250 million in charges as potentially excessive or unjustified.

The Army said in response to questions on Friday that questionable business practices by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, had in some cases driven up the company's costs. But in the haste and peril of war, it had largely done as well as could be expected, the Army said, and aside from a few penalties, the government was compelled to reimburse the company for its costs.

Under the type of contract awarded to the company, "the contractor is not required to perform perfectly to be entitled to reimbursement," said Rhonda James, a spokeswoman for the southwestern division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, based in Dallas, where the contract is administered.

The contract has been the subject of intense scrutiny after disclosures in 2003 that it had been awarded without competitive bidding. That produced criticism from Congressional Democrats and others that the company had benefited from its connection with Dick Cheney, who was Halliburton's chief executive before becoming vice president.

Later that year auditors began focusing on the fuel deliveries under the contract, finding that the fuel transportation costs that the company was charging the Army were in some cases nearly triple what others were charging to do the same job. But Kellogg Brown & Root, which has consistently maintained that its costs were justified, characterized the Army's decision as an official repudiation of those criticisms.

"Once all the facts were fully examined, it is clear, and now confirmed, that KBR performed this work appropriately per the client's direction and within the contract terms," said Cathy Mann, a company spokeswoman, in a written statement on the decision. The company's charges, she said, "were deemed properly incurred."

The Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency had questioned $263 million in costs for fuel deliveries, pipeline repairs and other tasks that auditors said were potentially inflated or unsupported by documentation. But the Army decided to pay all but $10.1 million of those contested costs, which were mostly for trucking fuel from Kuwait and Turkey.

That means the Army is withholding payment on just 3.8 percent of the charges questioned by the Pentagon audit agency, which is far below the rate at which the agency's recommendation is usually followed or sustained by the military - the so-called "sustention rate."

Figures provided by the Pentagon audit agency on thousands of military contracts over the past three years show how far the Halliburton decision lies outside the norm.

The rest of the story can be found here

Stop Censoring The Internet



The Open Net Intiative can be found here. Help keep the internet censor and state free in EVERY country.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Sh Its IT

One-in-five U.S. information technology workers say they are dissatisfied in their jobs and one-third are planning to find a new job 2006, a survey found.IT workers cite unmanageable workloads, low pay and a lack of effective leadership as the leading factors influencing their decisions to look for new opportunities, a CareerBuilder.com survey found.Sixty-one percent of IT workers said their workload has increased over the last six months, and close to half say their workload is unmanageable. Nearly three-in-10 said they were dissatisfied with their balance between work and home.Thirty-eight percent said they are not happy with the way their corporate leaders are running the organization, while 25 percent are dissatisfied with their direct supervisors.

Throw me on that pyre as well.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Mr Furley ... aka Don Knotts dead at 81

Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," has died. He was 81.

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs "The Andy Griffith Show," and another Knotts hit, "Three's Company."

Unspecified health problems had forced him to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August 2005.

The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmies.

The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.

His favorite episodes, he said, were "The Pickle Story," where Aunt Bea makes pickles no one can eat, and "Barney and the Choir," where no one can stop him from singing.

"I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way," he lamented. "It's one of my weaknesses."

Saturday, February 25, 2006

IRS finds disturbing behaviour by churches

WASHINGTON - IRS exams found nearly three out of four churches, charities and other civic groups suspected of having violated restraints on political activity in the 2004 election actually did so, the agency said Friday.

Most of the examinations that have concluded found only a single, isolated incidence of prohibited campaign activity.

In three cases, however, the IRS uncovered violations egregious enough to recommend revoking the groups’ tax-exempt status.

The vast majority of charities and churches followed the law, but the examinations found a “disturbing” amount of political intervention in the 2004 elections, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said.

“It’s disturbing not because it’s pervasive, but because it has the potential to really grow and have a very bad impact on the integrity of charities and churches,” Everson said in an interview.

The tax agency looked only at charities, churches and other tax-exempt organizations referred to the IRS for potentially violating laws that bar them from participating in or intervening in elections, including advocating for or against any candidate.

Those referred to the IRS represent a tiny fraction of more than 1 million tax-exempt organizations organized under section 501(c)(3) of the tax law.

The IRS examined 110 organizations referred to the tax agency for potentially violations, and 28 cases remain open.

Among the 82 closed cases, the IRS found prohibited politicking and sent a written warning to 55 organizations and assessed a penalty tax against one group. Those organizations included 37 churches and 19 other organizations.

In the three additional cases in which the IRS recommended revoking tax-exempt status, none of the organizations were churches. The agency did not identify the three.

The IRS found tax violations unrelated to politics in five cases. Examinations of the 18 remaining groups did not turn up any wrongdoing.

In some cases, the IRS found flagrant violations of the law. In others, charities did not understand their obligations. Many activities fall into an ambiguous area that requires closer scrutiny of context and timing.

“There are very few places where you can draw bright lines,” Everson said. “People have to think about this.”

Among the prohibited activities, the examiners found that charities and churches had distributed printed material supporting a preferred candidate and assembled improper voter guides or candidate ratings.

Religious leaders had used the pulpit to endorse or oppose a particular candidate, and some groups had shown preferential treatment to candidates by letting them speak at functions.

Other charities and churches had made improper cash contributions to a candidate’s political campaign.

The IRS said the cases covered “the full spectrum” of political viewpoints.

The tax agency set up a task force in 2004 to review allegations of improper political activity. The special procedures, revealed shortly before the election, drew criticism from some tax-exempt groups.

An audit by Treasury Department inspectors found nothing inappropriate in the examinations, but it faulted the IRS for creating the appearance of political motivations by waiting too long to announce the project and contact organizations.

The IRS said it plans to continue using the task force, and its speedier procedures, for this year’s election and in the future. It also released detailed guidance to charities and churches about the prohibitions against political activities.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Its just that simple

Dont call it the "Cold War"

The United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.

Rumsfeld, who laid out broad strategies for what the military and the Bush administration are now calling the "long war," likened al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin while urging Americans not to give in on the battle of wills that could stretch for years. He said there is a tendency to underestimate the threats that terrorists pose to global security, and said liberty is at stake.

"Compelled by a militant ideology that celebrates murder and suicide with no territory to defend, with little to lose, they will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs," Rumsfeld said in a speech at the National Press Club.

The speech, which aides said was titled "The Long War," came on the eve of the Pentagon's release of its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which sets out plans for how the U.S. military will address major security challenges 20 years into the future. The plans to be released today include shifts to make the military more agile and capable of dealing with unconventional threats, something Rumsfeld has said is necessary to move from a military designed for the Cold War into one that is more flexible.

He said the nation must focus on three strategies in the ongoing war: preventing terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, defending the U.S. homeland and helping allies fight terrorism. He emphasized that these goals could take a long time to achieve.

Indeed, the QDR, mandated every four years by Congress, opens with the declaration: "The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war."

The review has been widely anticipated in Washington defense circles because of the dramatic changes in the U.S. military's global role since the last review in 2001. Adding to the high expectations is the fact that Rumsfeld and his team have now been in place for more than four years.

The QDR strategy draws heavily on lessons learned by the military from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide campaign against terrorism, shifting the Pentagon's emphasis away from conventional warfare of the Cold War era toward three new areas.

First are "irregular" conflicts against insurgents, terrorists and other non-state enemies. Iraq and Afghanistan are the "early battles" in the campaign against Islamic extremists and terrorists, who are "profoundly more dangerous" than in the past because of technological advances that allow them to operate globally, said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England in an address on Wednesday.

The QDR also focuses on defending the U.S. homeland against "catastrophic" attacks such as with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Finally, it sets out plans for deterring the rising military heft of major powers such as China.

The strategic vision outlined in the QDR has won high marks from defense analysts for diagnosing the problems the U.S. military will likely face. However, it is less successful in translating those concepts into concrete military capabilities, the analysts say.

The review does not dramatically change the "force construct" -- the set of world contingencies that the U.S. military is expected to be able to deal with. The most important change is the recognition that U.S. forces may have to carry out long-term stability operations, or surge suddenly to a world hot spot. There are not "huge tectonic shifts," said Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an address Wednesday.

The strategy does call for devoting resources to accelerate a long-range strike capability directed at hostile nations, and for new investments aimed at countering biological and nuclear weapons -- such as teams able to defuse a nuclear bomb. But it makes relatively minor adjustments in key weapons systems, with the biggest programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter and the Army's Future Combat Systems escaping virtually unscathed. This leaves less room for investments in innovative programs and forces to address the types of problems that the QDR identifies, analysts say.

"A lot of tough choices are kicked down the road," said Andrew F. Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

One of the toughest battles facing the United States, Rumsfeld said yesterday, is recognizing the seriousness of the terrorist threat and the immediacy of fighting the nation's enemies. He said the task facing Western nations could be arduous, as terrorists operate in numerous countries around the world, hidden, and with the willingness to wait long periods between attacks. Military leaders and officials in the Bush administration have taken to calling the global war on terrorism the "long war," which defense experts say is a recognition that there is no end in sight.

"Dealing with the issue of terrorism and extremism is going to take a long time," said Robert E. Hunter, senior adviser at Rand Corp. and a former ambassador to NATO. "But we have to define success. You're never going to get rid of all terrorism."

Rumsfeld said he does not believe the war will end with a bang but, instead, with a whimper, "fading down over a sustained period of time as more countries in the world are successful," much as how democracy outlasted communism in the Cold War. He added that the early decades of the Cold War also brought confusion and doubt.

"The only way that terrorists can win this struggle is if we lose our will and surrender the fight, or think it's not important enough, or in confusion or in disagreement among ourselves give them the time to regroup and reestablish themselves in Iraq or elsewhere," he said.

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Ok not to sound Orwellian about this, but the "perpetual" war has finally happened.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Judge revokes custody because woman participates in Sub Genius holiday event

December 18, 2005, Rachel put Kohl on a flight to Rochester, New York to be picked up by Jeff for his Christmas visitation. This year Jeff was finally required to share half the transportation expenses. The visitation plan was for Kohl to be returned by Jeff to Rachel’s mother on January 2, 2006, so Kohl could spend time with his mother’s relatives before returning to Georgia on January 7, 2006.

Rachel would not see Kohl again until January 20, 2006, when she was allowed one brief overnight visit with Kohl at her mother’s house. Kohl was visibly changed, appearing closed and withdrawn and becoming emotional when the subject of his living arrangements was approached, even very gently, from any direction. He seemed afraid to talk about what was going on in his father’s house, or whether or not he wanted to live there.

On December 22, 2005, without informing Rachel, Jeff went to the Orleans County Courthouse and presented Judge Punch with a series of allegations about not being able to contact Rachel and needing an order of Temporary Sole Custody in order to prevent Kohl from being kidnapped. Judge Punch issued Jeff a Temporary Sole Custody order and allowed him to keep Kohl after his scheduled Christmas visitation. This was done without making any attempt to contact Rachel and discover whether Jeff’s allegations were true. Rachel did not even receive any paperwork from the court until January 9, 2006 — 17 days after Judge Punch entered the order of Temporary Sole Custody for Jeff.

On February 3, 2006, Judge Punch heard testimony in the case. Jeff entered into evidence 16 exhibits taken from the Internet, 12 of which are photographs of the SubGenius event, X-Day. Kohl has never attended X-Day and is not in any of the pictures. Rachel is depicted in many of these photos, often wearing skimpy costumes or completely nude, while participating in X-Day and Detroit Devival events.

The judge, allegedly a very strict Catholic, became outraged at the photos of the X-Day parody of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ — especially the photo where Jesus [Steve Bevilacqua] is wearing clown makeup and carrying a crucifix with a pool-noodle dollar sign on it while being beaten by a crowd of SubGenii, including a topless woman with a “dildo”.

His Honor also strongly disapproved of the photos of Mary Magdalen [Rachel Bevilacqua] in a bondage dress and papier maché goat’s head. The judge repeatedly asked, “Why a goat? What’s so significant about a goat’s head?” When Rachel replied, “I just thought the word ‘goat’ was funny,” Judge Punch lost his temper completely, and began to shout abuse at Rachel, calling her a “pervert,” “mentally ill,” “lying,” and a participant in “sex orgies.” The judge ordered that Rachel is to have absolutely no contact with her son, not even in writing, because he felt the pictures of X-Day performance art were evidence enough to suspect “severe mental illness”. Rachel has had no contact with Kohl since that day, February 3, 2006.

If you would like to help Rachel go to her blog and read more about her case there.

Radio Shack CEO Resigns

DALLAS (AP) - RadioShack Corp.'s embattled president and CEO, David Edmondson, resigned Monday following questions about his resume's accuracy.

The Fort Worth electronics retailer said in a statement that its board had accepted his resignation and had promoted Claire Babrowski, who most recently served as executive vice president and chief operating officer, to acting CEO.

The Fort Worth company said last week that it would hire outside lawyers to investigate errors in Edmondson's resume, including claims that he earned two college degrees for which the school he attended has no records. That investigation won't continue since Edmondson quit, the company said.

Edmondson said he took responsibility for errors in the resume, which were first reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

On Monday, Edmondson issued a brief statement but did not discuss his resume.

``For the last 11 years, it has been my privilege to be associated with RadioShack,'' he said. ``At this time the board and I have agreed that it is in the best interest of the company for new leadership to step forward so that our turnaround plan has the best possible chance to succeed, as I know it will.''

RadioShack said Friday its fourth-quarter earnings fell 62 percent and disclosed plans to close 400 to 700 stores and two distribution centers as part of a campaign to fix its financial performance. Its shares tumbled 8 percent, after sinking at midday to a three-year low of $19.08.

``This situation is especially painful, because Dave is a talented and dedicated individual who has made many contributions to the company,'' said Executive Chairman Leonard Roberts, citing Edmondson's push to incorporate wireless products into RadioShack's retail mix.

The move did not surprise Stacey Widlitz, analyst for Fulcrum Global Partners Inc., though she didn't think the change would come on a public holiday, as it did, when financial markets were closed.

``If you think about his tenure, it's not as if he's led a turnaround of this company,'' she said. ``That being said, it would be difficult for the board, considering the things that have come out, to find a reason to keep him.''

Edmondson had claimed that he received degrees in theology and psychology from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California, which moved in 1998 to Oklahoma and renamed itself Heartland Baptist Bible College.

The school's registrar told the Star-Telegram that records showed Edmondson completed only two semesters and that the school never offered degrees in psychology. The school official declined to comment to The Associated Press.

The company has since removed biographical sketches of its executives, including Babrowski, and replaced it with the following statement: ``We are currently updating and validating all of the biographical information for each of our senior executives.''

Widlitz said Babrowski, a former McDonald's Corp. executive hired last summer, would fit well as CEO, even if it's temporary.

``She's the right candidate,'' Widlitz said. ``I like her approach at how she looks at the business. She walks into a store and wants to see it through the consumer's eyes.''

Edmondson, 46, joined RadioShack in 1994 and has been CEO since May. He said Wednesday he believes that he received a theology diploma called a ThG, but not the four-year bachelor of science degree listed on his resume. He added that he cannot document the ThG diploma.

Edmondson is also scheduled to stand trial in Fort Worth in April on charges of driving while intoxicated.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Top Ten Signs You're A Fundamentalist Christian ............. and probably Republican

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."


3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Friday, February 17, 2006

More Parody Logos


Global warming occuring faster than expected

A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared - twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago. The implications for rising sea levels - and climate change - could be dramatic.

Yet, a few weeks ago, when I - a Nasa climate scientist - tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team - staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration - tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa's mission is to understand and protect the planet.

This new satellite data is a remarkable advance. We are seeing for the first time the detailed behaviour of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet. They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year. It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance.

Hundreds of cubic kilometres sounds like a lot of ice. But this is just the beginning. Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid. The issue is how close we are getting to that tipping point. The summer of 2005 broke all records for melting in Greenland. So we may be on the edge.

Our understanding of what is going on is very new. Today's forecasts of sea-level rise use climate models of the ice sheets that say they can only disintegrate over a thousand years or more. But we can now see that the models are almost worthless. They treat the ice sheets like a single block of ice that will slowly melt. But what is happening is much more dynamic.

Once the ice starts to melt at the surface, it forms lakes that empty down crevasses to the bottom of the ice. You get rivers of water underneath the ice. And the ice slides towards the ocean.

Our Nasa scientists have measured this in Greenland. And once these ice streams start moving, their influence stretches right to the interior of the ice sheet. Building an ice sheet takes a long time, because it is limited by snowfall. But destroying it can be explosively rapid.

How fast can this go? Right now, I think our best measure is what happened in the past. We know that, for instance, 14,000 years ago sea levels rose by 20m in 400 years - that is five metres in a century. This was towards the end of the last ice age, so there was more ice around. But, on the other hand, temperatures were not warming as fast as today.

How far can it go? The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today - which is what we expect later this century - sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon. None of the current climate and ice models predict this. But I prefer the evidence from the Earth's history and my own eyes. I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself.

It's hard to say what the world will be like if this happens. It would be another planet. You could imagine great armadas of icebergs breaking off Greenland and melting as they float south. And, of course, huge areas being flooded.

How long have we got? We have to stabilise emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree. That will be warmer than it has been for half a million years, and many things could become unstoppable. If we are to stop that, we cannot wait for new technologies like capturing emissions from burning coal. We have to act with what we have. This decade, that means focusing on energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy that do not burn carbon. We don't have much time left.

Network Neutrality .... The Battle Begins

As Congress ponders the future of telecommunications policy, a new line of debate has opened over the concept of "network neutrality," and advocates of that neutrality are making their case to bloggers.

Under a system of net neutrality, dominant cable and telecommunications companies could not charge their competitors extra to offer certain high-bandwidth services over high-speed Internet networks. BellSouth and Verizon Communications have proposed doing just that, arguing that they should be able to charge more for higher quality service. But critics contend that unless networks remain neutral, the flow of commerce and information will be hindered.

Free Press is among the proponents of net neutrality, and it created an online letter-writing campaign at Net Freedom Now to push the concept. The group also spearheaded a conference call with bloggers on Friday. The speakers included Timothy Karr and Ben Scott of Free Press, Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, and law professor Lawrence Lessig, who has a blawg.

I didn't get a chance to join the call, but Craig Aaron of Free Press provided the details after the fact. About 25 bloggers, including those from Mediageek, The Jeff Pulver Blog, Sandhill Trek and Wi-Fi Networking News, were on the one-hour call.

Bob Morris addressed the subject at Politics in the Zeros after the call. "This would destroy the Net as we know it," he said of the plan for tiered pricing by telecom and cable giants. "For example, great blogs like Crooks and Liars that do videocasting would not be able to afford top-tier prices and thus would be relegated to a slower-download-speed lane (if they weren't blocked altogether.) Technology exists now, in the form of new routers, for this to happen."

Mediageek also posted commentary on the call, as well as a related podcast. And Sandhill Trek offered some thoughts.

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(I'll update this later with links to all of the important info ..... I'm having browser issues at the moment)
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Until now, the Internet has been governed by the principle of “network neutrality,” which allows independent voices to try out new ideas without having to pay extra or ask for permission.

But net neutrality is in danger. Major communications companies are planning to discriminate against the online content and services that they don’t yet control. If successful, their scheme would forever alter the free flow of information and ideas in the blogosphere.

Congress is now debating the future of the Internet. Unless bloggers and their readers get involved, our elected representatives could allow the Internet to become a “walled garden” and shift the digital revolution into reverse.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

They call him Emperor George

WASHINGTON - Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts said he has worked out an agreement with the White House to change U.S. law regarding the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program and provide more information about it to Congress.

"We are trying to get some movement, and we have a clear indication of that movement," Roberts, R-Kan., said.

Without offering specifics, Roberts said the agreement with the White House provides "a fix" to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and offers more briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The deal comes as the committee was set to have a meeting Thursday about whether to open an investigation into the hotly disputed program. Roberts indicated the deal may eliminate the need for such an inquiry. Democrats have been demanding an investigation but some Republicans don't want to tangle the panel in a testy election-year probe.

"Whether or not an investigation is the right thing to do at this particular time, I am not sure," Roberts told reporters while heading into the meeting.

The White House was not immediately available for comment on Roberts' statement.

Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan hinted at a "good discussion going on" with lawmakers and praised in particular "some good ideas" presented by Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record). The Ohio Republican has suggested the FISA law be changed to accommodate the NSA program.

However, McClellan left the impression that any deal would not allow for significant changes. He said the White House continued to maintain that Bush does not need Congress' approval to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping and that the president would resist any legislation that might compromise the program.

"There's kind of a high bar to overcome," McClellan said. "We think there's some good ideas, but we have not seen actual legislation."

Separately, the Justice Department has strongly discouraged the Senate Judiciary Committee from calling former Attorney General
John Ashcroft and his deputy to testify about the surveillance program, saying they won't have new information for Congress about it.

Just as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could not talk about the administration's internal deliberations when he appeared before the committee earlier this month, neither can Ashcroft nor his former No. 2, James Comey, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella said in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

The letter, written Wednesday, was obtained by The Associated Press.

"In light of their inability to discuss such confidential information, along with the fact that the attorney general has already provided the executive branch position on the legal authority for the program, we do not believe that Messrs. Ashcroft and Comey would be in a position to provide any new information to the committee," Moschella wrote. He was responding to Specter's request that the two men testify this month.

While Moschella indicated their testimony wouldn't be of value, he did not say the committee could not call Ashcroft and Comey to appear.

The Judiciary Committee has been looking into the legality of the National Security Agency's program. In a heated daylong hearing on Feb. 6, four Republicans joined the committee's Democrats in raising questions about whether
President Bush went too far in authorizing the wiretapping without court warrants.

Specter wants the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the program's constitutionality.

Reports have indicated that Comey and others had reservations about the program in 2004. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and Gonzales, then the White House counsel, visited Ashcroft about those issues while Ashcroft was in the hospital for gallstone pancreatitis.

Whistleblower claims more intrusive spying by the NSA

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees - members or their staff - because they lack high enough clearance.

Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said they believe a few members of the Armed Services Committee are cleared for the information, but they said believe their committee and the intelligence committees have jurisdiction to hear the allegations.

"Congressman Kucinich wants Congressman Shays to hold a hearing (on the program)," said Doug Gordon, Kucinich's spokesman. "Obviously it would have to take place in some kind of a closed hearing. But Congress has a role to play in oversight. The (Bush) administration does not get to decide what Congress can and can not hear."

Tice was testifying because he was a National Security Agency intelligence officer who was stripped of his security clearance after he reported his suspicions that a former colleague at the Defense Intelligence Agency was a spy. The matter was dismissed by the DIA, but Tice pressed it later and was subsequently ordered to take a psychological examination, during which he was declared paranoid. He is now unemployed.

Tice was one of the New York Times sources for its wiretapping story, but he told the committee the information he provided was not secret and could have been provided by an private sector electronic communications professional.

Hacking through the walls of China

TORONTO — More than fifteen years after the Berlin Wall was shattered with hammers and bulldozers, a Canadian-designed computer program is preparing to break through what activists call the great firewall of China.

The program, in the late stages of development in a University of Toronto office, is designed to help those trapped behind the blocking and filtering systems set up by restrictive governments. If successful, it will equip volunteers in more open countries to help those on the other side of digital barriers, allowing a free flow of information and news into and out of even the most closed societies.

The program is part of a quiet war over freedom of information. Even as countries considered repressive, such as China, North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia, pour money into stopping the free exchange of data, small groups of activists keep looking for ways around the technological barriers.

At the University of Toronto, in the small basement office of Citizen Lab, researchers are getting ready for the release of Psiphon, the latest weapon in the fight.

"I was always interested in the idea of using computers for social and political change," said Nart Villeneuve, who has been dabbling with the project for about two years. "It was a matter of creating a program for really non-technical people that was easy and effective."

Psiphon is designed to eliminate a drawback of anti-filter programs: incriminating the users behind the firewall. If found by authorities, that anti-filter software can lead to coercive interrogation, a bid to uncover the suspect's Internet travel secrets using a tactic known to insiders as "rubber-hose cryptoanalysis."

Mr. Villeneuve built a system that won't leave dangerous footprints on computers. In simple terms, it works by giving monitored computer users a way to send an encrypted request for information to a computer located in a secure country. That computer finds the information and sends it back, also encrypted.

An elegant wrinkle is that the data will enter users' machines through computer port 443. Relied on for the secure transfer of data, this port is the one through whichreams of financial data stream constantly around the world.

"Unless a country wanted to cut off all connections for any financial transactions they wouldn't be able to cut off these transmissions," said Professor Ronald Deibert, the director of Citizen Lab.

A drawback to Psiphon is that the person behind the firewall has to be given a user name and password by the person offering up the computer. With this kind of setup, Mr. Villeneuve said, activists may end up working with specific dissidents and people in repressive countries may rely on relatives abroad to help them get connected. Canadians, with ties to every country in the world, are in a particularly good position to use such a system.

Although this reduces the program's reach, a relationship-based system could also minimize improper use. People who know the owner of their proxy computer are less likely to abuse their system, the logic goes.

"The big novel thing here is that you have a one-to-one connection," said Danny O'Brien, activism co-ordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group. "That's a great innovation, because so many people have computers that are always on, and this lets you deal with someone you can trust."

If the remote user begins to view illegal material, their access can be limited in several ways, such as allowing access to text only. In extreme cases, Mr. Villeneuve said, people found with evidence of illegal activity on their computer would be able to prove through forensic analysis that it had been done by the remote user.

The team at Citizen Lab is now racing to put the final touches on the program in time for its public debut at the international congress of the free-speech group PEN in May. Billed as a uniquely Canadian approach to "hactivism," the first generation of Psiphon will then be made publicly available.

Its release is set to come against a backdrop of ever-diminishing free access to the Internet. Just last month the popular search engine Google agreed to self-censor, restricting access to certain content and websites in order to gain access to the Chinese market.

Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, an international NGO, said the country has managed to create "a culture of fear and self-censorship." They are helped, she added, by Western countries willing to sell Internet-monitoring equipment to Beijing and bend to its terms.

Mr. O'Brien noted that public knowledge of monitoring can have as major an effect as the surveillance itself.

"You don't need to arrest every dissident and you don't need to take down every website. You just need to give the impression that you're watching," he said. "Merely establishing that you are being watched has a great effect on freedom of expression."

Activist groups around the world work to shine a spotlight on such repression, hoping that publicity and pressure will bring about change.

Although Psiphon is a purely Citizen Lab project, Prof. Deibert's team is also part of the Open Net Initiative. It's a partnership that includes Harvard and Cambridge universities and tries to document the extent of state interference on the Internet.

In Prof. Deibert's words, they try "to turn the tables on the watchers, to watch the watchers."

Coulter votes in wrong precinct

She may be smart enough to earn millions from her acidic political barbs, but when it comes to something as simple as voting in her tiny hometown, hard-core conservative pundit Ann Coulter is a tad confused.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections records show Coulter voted last week in Palm Beach's council election. Problem is: She cast her ballot in a precinct 4 miles north of the precinct where she owns a home — and that could be a big no-no.

Coulter, who owns a $1.8 million crib on Seabreeze Avenue, should have voted in Precinct 1198. It covers most homes on her street. Instead, records show, she voted in Precinct 1196, at the northern tip of the island.

A fave on the college speaking circuit and the occasional target of cream-pies-to-the-face, Coulter registered as a Republican (no kidding!) with the supervisor's office June 24. That's three months after she bought the home and moved to Palm Beach from Manhattan.

Here's the sticky part for The Right's Lady Macbeth: She wrote down an Indian Road address instead of Seabreeze on her voter's registration application. And she signed to certify the information as true.

"She never lived here," said Suzanne Frisbie, owner of the Indian Road home. "I'm Ann's Realtor, and she used this address to forward mail when she moved from New York."

Coulter didn't respond to requests for comment. But the blond GOP pit bull's former agent, Joani Evans, last year told Page Two Coulter left NYC to escape stalkers.

Is a desire to hold on to privacy the reason she gave the wrong address?

"I know but I'm not going to say," Frisbie replied.

No matter, Florida statutes make it a third-degree felony to vote knowingly in the wrong precinct. Lying on a voter's registration can cost up to $5,000 and five years behind bars.

"We're not a policing agency," says Elections Chief Deputy Charmaine Kelly. "You do not have to show proof that you live at your address. But when you sign the registration application, you also take an oath that everything you wrote is the truth.

"If someone brings us proof that a person falsified a registration, we'll check into it, then refer the matter to the state attorney's office if necessary."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone who reads this knows that I love slinging crap at Ms Coulter. But alas, if she owns a $1.8 Mil house there, the 5 grand wont hurt a bit. She can just go out and get another pie in the face or be jeered in public again. Oops sorry, I mean do another lecture at some university.

UN Report on Guantanamo says US is abusing prisoners

NEW YORK — A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture.

It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.

The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, is the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Nonetheless, its findings — notably a conclusion that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison.

Nearly 500 people captured abroad since 2002 in Afghanistan and elsewhere and described by the U.S. as "enemy combatants" are being held at Guantanamo Bay.

"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the U.S. government," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and one of the envoys. "There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture."

The draft report, reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, has not been officially released. U.N. officials are in the process of incorporating comments and clarifications from the U.S. government.

In November, the Bush administration offered the U.N. team the same tour of the prison given to journalists and members of Congress, but refused the envoys access to prisoners. Because of that, the U.N. group declined the visit.

Nowak said he did not expect major changes to the report's conclusions and recommendations as a result of the U.S. government's response, though there would be amendments on minor issues.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said the Defense Department did not comment about U.N. matters.

The report is not legally binding. But human rights and legal advocates hope the U.N.'s conclusions will add weight to similar findings by rights groups and the European Parliament.

"I think the effect of this will be to revive concern about the government's mistreatment of detainees, and to get people to take another look at the legal basis," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. "There are lots of lingering questions about how do you justify holding these people."

The report focuses on the U.S. government's legal basis for the detentions as described in its formal response to the U.N. inquiry: "The law of war allows the United States — and any other country engaged in combat — to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities. Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States."

But the U.N. team concluded that there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were "enemy combatants," and determined that the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms. The U.S. has released or transferred more than 260 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

It also rejected the premise that "the war on terrorism" exempted the U.S. from international conventions on torture and civil and political rights.

The report said some of the treatment of detainees met the definition of torture under the U.N. Convention Against Torture: The acts were committed by government officials, with a clear purpose, inflicting severe pain or suffering against victims in a position of powerlessness.

Read the rest of the story here

Happy Birthday you little Dictator you

Today is Kim Jong Il's 64th B day. In celebration of that, I thought I'd post a little song JUST for him. (Thanks to Trey Parker for these words.)

I'm So Ronery
I'm so ronery
So ronery
So ronery and sadry arone

There's no one
Just me onry
Sitting on my rittle throne
I work very hard and make up great prans
But nobody ristens, no one understands
Seems that no one takes me serirousry

And so I'm ronery
A little ronery
Poor rittre me

There's nobody
I can rerate to
Feer rike a bird in a cage
It's kinda sihry
But not rearry
Because it's fihring my body with rage

I work rearry hard and I'm physicarry fit
But nobody here seems to rearize that
When I rure the world maybe they'rr notice me
But untir then I'rr just be ronery
Rittre ronery, poor rittre me
I'm so ronery
I'm so ronery

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Too much free time

And Jay Pinkerton .... leave you with this

First time live blogging of Congressional Hearing

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Representatives of Cisco Systems, Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft will be in the proverbial hot seats today in Washington as Congress examines the role of U.S. technology companies in repression of Internet usage by the Chinese government.

And U.S. Representative Chris Smith, chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees global human rights, wants people to tune in via the web.

For the first time, Smith says, a Congressional hearing will be “blogged live” starting at 10 AM EST.

“Modern communications have empowered individuals to get their news from different sources, and blogs have become a regular news source for many Americans – particularly students and younger people,” Smith said in a statement from his office. “Live blogs from different events in Congress will enable more Americans to hear their elected representatives, allow for increased transparency and encourage greater civic participation.”

The hearing will be broadcast live at: wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/

Smith, who represents the 4th Congressional District in New Jersey, is obviously using the web to drive home a point about freedom in China with the high-tech representatives.

“It is important to note that the freedoms that we enjoy in America allow individuals to publish information and news on the Web unfiltered – even from within the walls of Congress,” Smith said. “Those freedoms do not exist in China and individuals who attempt to speak freely are imprisoned and even tortured, and US corporations should not be aiding in that process.”

The hearing is titled “The Internet in China: A Tool for Suppression?”

Attorneys will be representing the U.S. high-tech quartet. Scheduled to testify are:

# Mark Chandler, Vice President and General Counsel, Cisco Systems.

# Jack Krumholtz, Director, Govt. Affairs and Associate General Counsel, Microsoft

# Michael Callahan, General Counsel, Yahoo

# Elliot Schrage, Vice President of Communications and Corporate Affairs, Google


The four are expected to come under tough questioning from both Democrats and Republicans.

“Many pro-business and pro-democracy observers argue that the expansion of the Internet and trade will result in increased freedom of expression and political openness in China,” Smith’s office said in a statement. “Yet, despite recognizing that the ability to communicate openly is essential to breaking down the walls of communism and repression, several of the top US internet companies have aided and complied with the Chinese Government’s demand for censorship in order to enter the PRC market, in essence becoming a megaphone for communist propaganda and a tool for controlling public opinion.”

The Associated Press said Democrat Tom Lantos of California is among those upset by what’s happening in China.

"The hugely successful businesses that come before Congress ... will have to account for their complicity in China's culture of repression, and to begin to make amends," The AP quoted Lantos as saying.

Yahoo!, for example, has been accused of providing information to the Chinese government that led to the arrest of a human rights activist. Google has also been accused on tailoring searches to meet Chinese government requirements.

Smith’s office, citing information from the OpenNet Initiative, said China has been especially effective in repressing Internet use.

“Compared to similar efforts in other states, China's filtering regime is pervasive, sophisticated, and effective. It comprises multiple levels of legal regulation and technical control,” the OpenNet Initiative has found. “It involves numerous state agencies and thousands of public and private personnel. It censors content transmitted through multiple methods, including web pages, web logs, on-line discussion forums, university bulletin board systems, and e-mail messages.”

The coverage of this hearing should make for a very interesting blog.

Google + Censorship = House subcommittee hearing

WASHINGTON -- Google Inc.'s decision to block politically sensitive terms on its new Chinese search site has drawn the scrutiny of U.S. lawmakers, who next month will question U.S. technology companies that help Beijing's censors.

Representatives from Google and other Internet companies have been called to a Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearing on Wednesday and to a Feb. 16 session of the House of Representatives subcommittee on global human rights.

The hearings follow Google's announcement Tuesday that the company will block taboo terms in China such as democracy, Tibet and Falun Gong, and not offer e-mail, chat and weblog publishing services that could be used for political protest (see "Google to launch censored results in China").

Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the human rights subcommittee, has invited Google, Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc., as well as State Department officials and press freedom watchdog groups, to the Feb 16. hearing, he said in a statement.

Smith, a frequent critic of China's human rights practices, seized on Google's corporate motto, "Don't be evil," saying in a statement that the firm "would enable evil by cooperating with China's censorship policies just to make a buck."

Smith told Reuters, "The question is not whether companies should be promoting democracy. The real question is, Should they partner with the secret police in cracking down on dissidents and enabling human rights abuses?"

Code of conduct

Freedom-of-speech advocates, who have been critical of U.S. companies that have accommodated Chinese authorities, are pressing for U.S. legislation establishing a code of conduct for Internet companies working in countries deemed repressive in annual U.S. State Department human rights reports.

"Our lobbying within the United States is calling for a bipartisan effort to support us in getting the legislation passed," said Tala Dowlatshahi, the New York representative of Reporters Without Borders, a France-based watchdog group.

She said the group was also pressing shareholder groups of those companies to insist on upholding "ethics, principles and universal standards" enshrined in the Geneva Convention.

The legislation envisioned by Reporters Without Borders was spelled out in a Jan. 6 online campaign and calls on U.S. companies to refrain from hosting e-mail servers, filtering search engines, blogs and discussion forums in repressive countries.

The proposal would either ban U.S. companies from selling Internet censorship software to repressive states or force them to make censorship of some terms impossible.

It would also require companies to get Department of Commerce permission to sell Internet censorship equipment or conduct related training in countries deemed repressive by the State Department.

In Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told Reuters that China's government had already been censoring the search engine.

The decision to block sensitive terms on the China site "is not something I enjoy," Brin said, "but I think it was a reasonable decision."

* note from yours truly. Yes this link will take you to a story that is almost 2 weeks old, but the hearing is today. I will post more news as I hear about it.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Happy Valentines Day



What better way to say I love you ok?

Dick Cheney makes excuses even Mom would love

Ok, I'm sorry but I had to post this:
From David Lettermans Top 10 last night

*10.* "Heart palpitation caused trigger finger to spasm"

*9.* "Wanted to get the Iraq mess off the front page"

*8.* "Not enough Jim Beam"

*7.* "Trying to stop the spread of bird flu"

*6.* "I love to shoot people"

*5.* "Guy was making cracks about my lesbian daughter"

*4.* "I thought the guy was trying to go 'gay cowboy' on me"

*3.* "Excuse? I hit him, didn't I?"

*2.* "Until Democrats approve medicare reform, we have to make some tough choices for the elderly"

*1.* "Made a bet with Gretzky's wife"

Google .... its what democracy stands for



If anyone has any stories about DIYing an anti-Google t shirt, let me know and I'll post it.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Illness

Sorry,

I'm sick today so I stayed at home in bed. Heres the only thing I feel like posting today:

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Protest Google's Censorship in China

As of today, over 2,050 people have committed to boycott Google on Valentine's Day, over 45,000 emails have been sent to Google's executives, and over 4,300 emails have been sent to executives at Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco.

The latest Google break up video, which you can view NoLuv4Google homepage or here.

Contacts inside Google have said that they have given ALL of their employees the option of not coming to work on February 14th to avoid these protests. Help Students For A Free Tibet continue to put pressure on Google for their disgraceful partnership to help the Chinese government block information about democracy and human rights from people inside Tibet and China.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Clarion Writers Workshop

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Cheney Approved Plame Leak

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Beyond what was stated in the court paper, say people with firsthand knowledge of the matter, Libby also indicated what he will offer as a broad defense during his upcoming criminal trial: that Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials had earlier encouraged and authorized him to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war. Later, after the war began in 2003, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war.

read the rest of the story here

US Plans on Massive Data Sweep

The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.

The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.


"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."

The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.

DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level."

Data-mining is a key technology

A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity.

What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building.

But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio. The key is not merely to identify terrorists, or sift for key words, but to identify critical patterns in data that illumine their motives and intentions, he wrote in a presentation at a November conference in Richland, Wash.

For example: Is a burst of Internet traffic between a few people the plotting of terrorists, or just bloggers arguing? ADVISE algorithms would try to determine that before flagging the data pattern for a human analyst's review.

At least a few pieces of ADVISE are already operational. Consider Starlight, which along with other "visualization" software tools can give human analysts a graphical view of data. Viewing data in this way could reveal patterns not obvious in text or number form. Understanding the relationships among people, organizations, places, and things - using social-behavior analysis and other techniques - is essential to going beyond mere data-mining to comprehensive "knowledge discovery in databases," Dr. Kielman wrote in his November report. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

One data program has foiled terrorists

Starlight has already helped foil some terror plots, says Jim Thomas, one of its developers and director of the government's new National Visualization Analytics Center in Richland, Wash. He can't elaborate because the cases are classified, he adds. But "there's no question that the technology we've invented here at the lab has been used to protect our freedoms - and that's pretty cool."

As envisioned, ADVISE and its analytical tools would be used by other agencies to look for terrorists. "All federal, state, local and private-sector security entities will be able to share and collaborate in real time with distributed data warehouses that will provide full support for analysis and action" for the ADVISE system, says the 2004 workshop report.
Some antiterror efforts die - others just change names

Defense Department

November 2002 - The New York Times identifies a counterterrorism program called Total Information Awareness.

September 2003 - After terminating TIA on privacy grounds, Congress shuts down its successor, Terrorism Information Awareness, for the same reasons.

Department of Homeland Security

February 2003 - The department's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announces it's replacing its 1990s-era Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS I).

July 2004 - TSA cancels CAPPS II because of privacy concerns.

August 2004 - TSA says it will begin testing a similar system - Secure Flight - with built-in privacy features.

July 2005 - Government auditors charge that Secure Flight is violating privacy laws by holding information on 43,000 people not suspected of terrorism.

A program in the shadows

Yet the scope of ADVISE - its stage of development, cost, and most other details - is so obscure that critics say it poses a major privacy challenge.

"We just don't know enough about this technology, how it works, or what it is used for," says Marcia Hofmann of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "It matters to a lot of people that these programs and software exist. We don't really know to what extent the government is mining personal data."

Even congressmen with direct oversight of DHS, who favor data mining, say they don't know enough about the program.

"I am not fully briefed on ADVISE," wrote Rep. Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania, vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in an e-mail. "I'll get briefed this week."

Privacy concerns have torpedoed federal data-mining efforts in the past. In 2002, news reports revealed that the Defense Department was working on Total Information Awareness, a project aimed at collecting and sifting vast amounts of personal and government data for clues to terrorism. An uproar caused Congress to cancel the TIA program a year later.

Echoes of a past controversial plan

ADVISE "looks very much like TIA," Mr. Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes in an e-mail. "There's the same emphasis on broad collection and pattern analysis."

But Mr. Sand, the DHS official, emphasizes that privacy protection would be built-in. "Before a system leaves the department there's been a privacy review.... That's our focus."

Some computer scientists support the concepts behind ADVISE.

"This sort of technology does protect against a real threat," says Jeffrey Ullman, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University. "If a computer suspects me of being a terrorist, but just says maybe an analyst should look at it ... well, that's no big deal. This is the type of thing we need to be willing to do, to give up a certain amount of privacy."

Others are less sure.

"It isn't a bad idea, but you have to do it in a way that demonstrates its utility - and with provable privacy protection," says Latanya Sweeney, founder of the Data Privacy Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. But since speaking on privacy at the 2004 DHS workshop, she now doubts the department is building privacy into ADVISE. "At this point, ADVISE has no funding for privacy technology."

She cites a recent request for proposal by the Office of Naval Research on behalf of DHS. Although it doesn't mention ADVISE by name, the proposal outlines data-technology research that meshes closely with technology cited in ADVISE documents.

Neither the proposal - nor any other she has seen - provides any funding for provable privacy technology, she adds.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Driving the Truth Home ..... with a drunk at the wheel.

Fark said it best .... Deutsch Bag ..... er Bagged

George Deutsch, the Bush "war room" campaign staffer, who was on a quest to end science at NASA, has "resigned." Yep, he doesn't work there anymore. Seems young Mr. Deutsch had some discrepancies in his resume:

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

NASA Chief Backs Agency Openness (Feb. 4, 2006) Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his resume on file at the agency asserted.

The best part of this is that he was busted by a blogger, a pro-science blogger at that:

Mr. Deutsch's educational record was first challenged on Monday by Nick Anthis, who graduated from Texas A&M last year with a biochemistry degree and has been writing a Web log on science policy, scientificactivist.blogspot.com.

After Mr. Anthis read about the problems at NASA, he said in an interview: "It seemed like political figures had really overstepped the line. I was just going to write some commentary on this when somebody tipped me off that George Deutsch might not have graduated."

He posted a blog entry asserting this after he checked with the university's association of former students. He reported that the association said Mr. Deutsch received no degree.

How is anyone who worked for Bush supposed to think that telling little lies will get them in to trouble? Lying about a war helped get his boss re-elected. And how the hell did Deutsch get that job in the first place? That's the question asked by Nick Anthis, the blogger at scientific activist:

...instead of the story being about a 24-year-old lying, it should be about this: how did this guy, who already had dubious qualifications, make it into NASA with such an obvious lie on his resume? To work for a federal agency, including NASA, extensive background checks are usually required. If I was able to uncover the truth about Deutsch in one phone call, then he must have been placed in his current position without any investigation, due to his loyal service on the Bush presidential campaign.

"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Abe Lincoln, 1865.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Thats Emperor Rove to you!

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping. Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.
"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said. The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings. Over the last few weeks, Mr. Rove has been calling in virtually every Republican on the Senate committee as well as the leadership in Congress. The sources said Mr. Rove's message has been that a vote against Mr. Bush would destroy GOP prospects in congressional elections."He's [Rove] lining them up one by one," another congressional source said. Mr. Rove is leading the White House campaign to help the GOP in November’s congressional elections. The sources said the White House has offered to help loyalists with money and free publicity, such as appearances and photo-ops with the president. Those deemed disloyal to Mr. Rove would appear on his blacklist. The sources said dozens of GOP members in the House and Senate are on that list.So far, only a handful of GOP senators have questioned Mr. Rove's tactics. Some have raised doubts about Mr. Rove's strategy of painting the Democrats, who have opposed unwarranted surveillance, as being dismissive of the threat posed by al Qaeda terrorists. "Well, I didn't like what Mr. Rove said, because it frames terrorism and the issue of terrorism and everything that goes with it, whether it's the renewal of the Patriot Act or the NSA wiretapping, in a political context," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican.

Read the story Here

Test

Ok ..... so as you can see I screwed something up with my HTML-ness and will have to go back and fix a few things. If you're still reading this that is. I hope to have the links and such put back up in the next day or two.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Further Proof that music today SUCKS!

NEW YORK — While one-quarter of the nation's music fans say they've downloaded songs onto their computers — legally or otherwise — a new nationwide poll suggests music executives should look elsewhere to explain their business woes.

Three in every four fans complain that compact discs are too expensive, and 58% complain that music in general is getting worse, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine.

"Less talented people are able to get a song out there and make a quick million and you never hear from them again," said Kate Simkins, 30, of Cape Cod, Mass.

Ipsos' telephone poll of 1,000 adults, including 963 music listeners, from all states except Alaska and Hawaii was conducted Jan. 23-25 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

It's been a bad few years for the music industry, knocked on its heels by the popularity of downloading and iPods. A total of 618.9 million CD albums were sold during 2005, sharply down from the 762.8 million sold in 2001, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

At the same time, 352.7 million tracks were sold digitally in 2005, a category that wasn't even measured five years ago. After years where fans had to buy $20 CDs because they liked one or two songs, now they can download the songs for 99 cents a pop, or free if they can burn a copy from a friend.

Many in the music industry grumble that downloading has been their downfall, and the business has aggressively tried to stop illegal file sharing.

The poll found that 80% of people consider downloading music for free without the copyright holder's permission to be stealing. People who actually download are less apt to consider it stealing, but there's evidence that many fans accept the iTunes business model. The poll found that 71% of music fans believe that a 99 cents a song is a fair price or outright bargain.

"They shouldn't be able to do it illegally," said Mickey Johnson, 41, from Charleston, Tenn. "That's art. Somebody is putting their art out there. They should be compensated for it. It's just like Picasso or something."

The industry would be wise to embrace downloading, said Greg Hoerger, 42, of Minneapolis, who suggested that customers could receive five or six free downloads from an artist when they buy a CD.

For fans like Hoerger and Simkins, buying a CD for about $20 is no bargain. They'd rather download one or two favorite songs to their iPods. The digital music revolution also has other benefits, Simkins said: with the iPod, she no longer has to have cassettes or CDs cluttering her car.

The last CD she bought, a few months ago, was by the Killers. "It was on sale," she said.

Many fans also say they just don't like what they're hearing. It may not be surprising to hear older fans say music just isn't what it used to be when they were growing up. But the poll also found that 49% of music fans ages 18-to-34 — the target audience for the music business — say music is getting worse.

"Even if our parents didn't like how loud rock 'n' roll was, or that it was revolutionary, at least they could listen to some of it," said Christina Tjoelker, 49, from Snohomish, Wash. "It wasn't gross. It wasn't disgusting. It wasn't about beating up women or shooting the police."

The last CD she bought was Neil Diamond's new one, "because Oprah was raving about it," she said.

Overall, music fans were split on why music sales have been declining for the past five years: 33% said it was because of illegal downloads, 29% said it was because of competition from other forms of entertainment, 21% blamed it on the quality of music getting worse and 13% said it was because CDs are too expensive.

FM radio is still the main way most fans find out about new music, according to the poll. Television shows are a distant second.

Rock 'n' roll is the most popular style of music, cited by 26% of the fans. It runs neck-and-neck with country among fans ages 35 or over.

Rap music is the source of the biggest generation gap. Among fans under age 35, 18% called rap or hip-hop their favorite style of music, the poll found. Only 2% of people ages 35 and over said the same thing.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

From the Guardian

Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo

PM promised to be 'solidly behind' US invasion with or without UN backing

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was "solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.

Article continues
"The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam".

The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College, London. Professor Sands last year exposed the doubts shared by Foreign Office lawyers about the legality of the invasion in disclosures which eventually forced the prime minister to publish the full legal advice given to him by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

The memo seen by Prof Sands reveals:

· Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

· Mr Bush even expressed the hope that a defector would be extracted from Iraq and give a "public presentation about Saddam's WMD". He is also said to have referred Mr Blair to a "small possibility" that Saddam would be "assassinated".

· Mr Blair told the US president that a second UN resolution would be an "insurance policy", providing "international cover, including with the Arabs" if anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning oil wells, killing children, or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq.

· Mr Bush told the prime minister that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups". Mr Blair did not demur, according to the book.

The revelation that Mr Blair had supported the US president's plans to go to war with Iraq even in the absence of a second UN resolution contrasts with the assurances the prime minister gave parliament shortly after. On February 25 2003 - three weeks after his trip to Washington - Mr Blair told the Commons that the government was giving "Saddam one further, final chance to disarm voluntarily".

He added: "Even now, today, we are offering Saddam the prospect of voluntary disarmament through the UN. I detest his regime - I hope most people do - but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully."

On March 18, before the crucial vote on the war, he told MPs: "The UN should be the focus both of diplomacy and of action... [and that not to take military action] would do more damage in the long term to the UN than any other single course that we could pursue."

The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair, attended by six close aides, came at a time of growing concern about the failure of any hard intelligence to back up claims that Saddam was producing weapons of mass destruction in breach of UN disarmament obligations. It took place a few days before the then US secretary Colin Powell made claims - since discredited - in a dramatic presentation at the UN about Iraq's weapons programme.

Earlier in January 2003, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, expressed his private concerns about the absence of a smoking gun in a private note to Mr Blair, according to the book. He said he hoped that the UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, would come up with enough evidence to report a breach by Iraq of is its UN obligations.

Downing Street did not deny the existence of the memo last night, but said: "The prime minister only committed UK forces to Iraq after securing the approval of the House of Commons in a vote on March 18, 2003." It added the decision to resort to military action to ensure Iraq fulfilled its obligations imposed by successive security council resolutions was taken only after attempts to disarm Iraq had failed. "Of course during this time there were frequent discussions between the UK and US governments about Iraq. We do not comment on the prime minister's conversations with other leaders."

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat acting leader, said last night: "The fact that consideration was apparently given to using American military aircraft in UN colours in the hope of provoking Saddam Hussein is a graphic illustration of the rush to war. It would also appear to be the case that the diplomatic efforts in New York after the meeting of January 31 were simply going through the motions.

"The prime minister's offer of February 25 to Saddam Hussein was about as empty as it could get. He has a lot of explaining to do."

Prof Sands says Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's UN ambassador at the time, told a foreign colleague he was "clearly uncomfortable" about the failure to get a second resolution. Foreign Office lawyers consistently warned that an invasion would be regarded as unlawful. The book reveals that Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the FO's deputy chief legal adviser who resigned over the war, told the Butler inquiry into the use of intelligence during the run-up to the war, of her belief that Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, shared the FO view. According to private evidence to the Butler inquiry, Lord Goldsmith told FO lawyers in early 2003: "The prime minister has told me that I cannot give advice, but you know what my views are".

On March 7 2003 he advised the prime minister that the Bush administration believed that a case could be made for an invasion without a second UN resolution. But he warned that Britain could be challenged in the international criminal court. Ten days later, he said a second resolution was not necessary.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Free Tibet and Hacking Google

So you may have heard about the relationship between Google and the Chinese Government. If not go here. Now the Students for a Free Tibet have set up a Break Up With Google site. Also if you dont like what they are doing, here is a script to change the Google logo from "I'm Feeling Lucky" to "I'm Feeling Repressed." Go have a look and have fun!

From NSA to DUH!

Ok so yes I'm about to rant again ...... I was just going through some headlines from one of the news feeds I read regularly and it was announced that Britney Spears was being cast as a christian reporter for an episode of Will & Grace .... first let me say good for her. I'm glad she can still find work. I mean who can blame her for wanting to get out of the house ... Has any one heard K-Fed's rap? Who'd wanna stay in the house listening to THAT crap all day? Britney described Kevin as like Eminem but with a more postive message. You can hear his song here, but be warned that if you are at work you may want to "bite down on a wooden spoon or something to keep from laughing."

But I digress ..... it was reported elsewhere (and no I'm not posting the link to this story ... you can find it yourself) that Britney is also being courted by a Christian organization in the UK as a spokesperson (along with several other women) for role-models. Again, I say .... good for her .... at least she is still being "out there" in public, being seen, yadda yadda yadda, but the ISSUE I have with this is one thing. Well ok not ONE thing but one thing in particular. Some tabloid reported that as her and Cletus K-fed were having relationship troubles, that she had said to friends that she wanted to have another child to keep him in the relationship. Now yes I am supposing a lot here. I know its tabloid journalism, so you cant always trust them, but barring that point does ANYONE remember how her and K-Fed met? Does anyone remember that he was having an affair with her. This his girlfriend/wife/whatever was pregnant with HIS child while he was off plying the sheets with Britney? Is that the kind of role model your kids need? I know this is just a subtle little thing and if some of my friends are reading this they'll make sure to tell me that role models arent meant to be perfect. That based on what we have now, you take what you can get. I say to them thats great and all, but if we keep lowering the standards for what a "role model" is, how long will it be before we hit absolute bottom. Hey Marion Barry, not doing anything this weekend? We have a gig for you speaking at a rehab center. Come tell us how well thats working out for you. Hey John Rocker, come teach a diversity and ethnic sensitivity training seminar. Hey Martha Stewart come teach us about stock trading ethics or BEST idea, hey Dick Cheney, can you come teach us how to profit while theres a war on? Does anyone get my meaning here? Are you listening?

NSA and Impeachment

Larry Diamond, a Democrat and a Hoover Institution senior fellow, went to Baghdad in 2004 as a consultant for the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, believing strongly in the Bush administration's goal of building a democracy there. While critical of many aspects of the Iraq war, he has, he says, wholeheartedly supported President Bush's aggressive approach to the war on terror.

Grover Norquist is one of the most influential conservative Republicans in Washington. His weekly "Wednesday Meeting" at his L Street office is a must for conservative strategists, and he has been called the "managing director of the hard-core right" by the liberal Nation magazine. Perhaps the country's leading anti-tax enthusiast, he is, like Diamond, a hawk in the war on terror.

Despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, they agree on one other major issue: that the Bush administration's program of domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency without obtaining court warrants has less to do with the war on terror than with threats to the nation's civil liberties.

"My view on the terrorists is that we should find all of them and kill them," said Norquist. "But we should also protect our civil liberties, which the terrorists are trying to destroy."

Diamond, whose academic specialty is the building of democracies, has taken his opposition one step further, joining a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union last week to halt the president's program.

"I teach about democracy and the rule of law, the quality of a democracy," he said. "I meet so many people around the world who want to look up to the American model, and a spying program like this really harms us."

Bush and his senior officials have defended the wiretaps as essential in a time of war, while many White House and GOP officials have attempted to characterize opposition as coming mostly from partisan Democrats critical of the war in Iraq. In a speech to the Republican National Committee last Friday, Karl Rove, the president's chief strategist, accused Democrats of making "wild and reckless and false charges" on the wiretap issue.

But, in fact, a number of prominent Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have criticized Bush and the wiretapping without court warrants as a violation of the law and basic civil liberties. So have other well-known conservatives, including former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia. Bruce Fein, a lawyer who worked in the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan, wrote in a commentary in the Washington Times last week that Bush should face "possible impeachment" if the practice is not stopped.

"There have been as many Republicans as Democrats who've spoken out on the issue," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Tuesday as he stated that the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he heads, will begin hearings on the matter on Feb. 6.

Norquist and Diamond explained in interviews why this odd alliance has come together in spite of the bitter divisions between left and right on most other political issues.

Diamond, who also teaches at Stanford University, is an expert on democratic development -- the reason he was hired as a consultant for the Coalition Provisional Authority by his old friend and former Stanford colleague Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

He says that, though he is a Democrat, his focus is civil liberties, not the president.

"I give Bush credit for his vigilance since 9/11," said Diamond. "I'm very much in sympathy with the need to monitor al Qaeda and terrorists, to uproot them, interdict them, catch them and when necessary to kill them. But we can't roll over on something like this."

Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, says he knows some fellow conservatives have labeled him a traitor for condemning the same administration that instituted the biggest tax cuts in recent American history -- cuts for which Norquist vigorously lobbied. But an even greater disloyalty, Norquist responds, would be to allow what he regards as the trampling on civil liberties to go unimpeded.

"The president's friends are exactly who you want telling him this," said Norquist. "No one else has the credibility. We are being team players by telling him, not by keeping quiet."

Norquist said one of his main concerns is that, once the government becomes so intrusive, there is no way to prevent continued erosion of individual rights.

"Even if you believed an angel was making these decisions, and that's not what I'm saying, at some point the person in the White House will change," he said. "Hillary Clinton might be making these decisions."

The New York Times first disclosed last month that the president had approved a program under which the NSA had been intercepting an apparently large volume of communications to and from the United States without first obtaining special court approval, as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

But the president and senior administration officials insist that Congress gave the president the authority to bypass that law. They also say that the extraordinary threat presented by terrorist groups require such measures. Initially, most national opinion polls narrowly favored the administration's position, but polls released this week show a majority in favor of obtaining a warrant before such surveillance is permitted.

Last Tuesday, the ACLU and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed separate lawsuits in federal courts seeking to stop the administration from the eavesdropping without obtaining warrants.

Joining the ACLU suit were a mix of supporters and opponents of the Bush administration, including Diamond, James Bamford, who has written several books on the NSA, and Christopher Hitchens, a columnist who vocally supported the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq and has written extensively about the threat posed by "Islamo-fascism," the term he uses to characterize the ideology of al Qaeda.

Diamond and the others who have signed on to the ACLU suit say they suspect that some of their overseas communications might have been intercepted.

Diamond also fears that some researchers, especially in the Middle East, will stop communicating with him for fear they might be caught in the NSA's electronic net, making it harder for him to continue his own work on democratic development in countries like Egypt and Iraq.

And, like Norquist, Diamond worries about how the Bush administration or others might use the wiretap information.

"That information could be sitting in a database somewhere for a long time," said Diamond. "It might be there not just for this administration, but for anyone.

"That data could be mined for any reason," he added. "It's frightening."

Norquist is not a party to either suit, but he has been outspoken in criticizing his party's leader. He said that he had brushed aside concerns that he was harming the president or being disloyal at a critical time.

"You need someone who is a Republican to call the president on this," he said.

Norquist said, ironically, he was particularly concerned about the problem because the Democrats appeared to be so weak.

"For 40 years we always assumed the left would take care of our civil liberties," he said. "If there were problems, the Democrats were the ones who would push back. But now with a Republican Congress and a Republican in the White House, the ACLU can't get their calls returned."

Referring to what some see as a conflict between fighting vicious terrorists and upholding all civil liberties, Norquist said: "It's not either/or. If the president thinks he needs different tools, pass a law to get them. Don't break the existing laws.

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