Sara Jean Green | Seattle, WA | May 6, 2008

Seattle Times - Following up on this post, it appears that the men taking pictures on a Ferry from Seattle were tourists not terrorists:

Two ferry riders sought by FBI last summer were just tourists
By Sara Jean Green

Last summer, the FBI launched an international search for two men after crew members and riders on a Washington State Ferry reported their unusual behavior — namely that they were taking pictures below deck, in areas that don't hold much interest for most tourists.

A ferry captain snapped their photo, which was passed along to the FBI.

Arms Race in Space
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:31:40 -0500
By Marko Beljac - GNN

It's on. It's expensive. And it could destablize the world.

Benjamin J. Romano | Seattle | April 29

The Seattle Times - Microsoft device helps police pluck evidence from cyberscene of crime
By Benjamin J. Romano
Seattle Times technology reporter

Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that may have been used in crimes.

The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday.

The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.

The View From Gate 14
April 25, 2008; Page A7

America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention. America left its ticket and passport in the jacket in the bin in the X-ray machine, and is admonished. America is embarrassed to have put one one-ounce moisturizer too many in the see-through bag. America is irritated that the TSA agent removed its mascara, opened it, put it to her nose, and smelled it. Why don't you put it up your nose and see if it explodes? America thinks.

Springfield, Mass | April 24

AP - The city's new police commissioner, William Fitchet, says members of the department's Street Crime Unit will again don black, military-style uniforms as part of his strategy to deal with youth violence....Sgt. John Delaney told a city council hearing Wednesday that the stark uniforms send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests.

Delaney said a sense of "fear" has been missing for the past few years.

Not a day goes by without mention of the phrase “tipping point”, and with good reason. Different variations of this phrase include “critical mass”, “precipice” and the ever popular “day of reckoning”. The truth is alarming when one considers how many times these phrases are used, and used correctly. Our nation and the World are facing challenges that need to be addressed, and addressed as swiftly as possible. The human race can no longer pass off the responsibility of meeting challenges by doing nothing while we put the onus of problem solving onto our children and grandchildren. The time of band-aids and temporary short term fixes in regard to our most pressing problems is just about over. This planet is poised to reap the rewards that have come about from choosing half measures and politically acceptable “solutions” that are not solutions at all, but rather compromises expressly designed to placate the people, while protecting political, economic or religious interests.

Randall Mikkelsen | Washington | April 23

Reuters - Crime groups operating as "mobsters without borders" have gained significant footholds in global markets and provide logistic support to terrorists, the United States said on Wednesday.

Launching a campaign against such international criminals, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said they were more adaptable and sophisticated than La Cosa Nostra and other syndicates the U.S. government set out to defeat half a century ago.

"These international criminals pose real national security threats to this country," Mukasey said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. He cited recent cases, many with links to the former Soviet bloc.

As an Internet Organizer for Progressive Future, I've been busily spreading the otherwise buried reports of the atrocities and abuses committed by military contractors in Iraq. As outraged as they made me, I had to wonder why these stories failed to reach the mainstream American public. Now I know why.

In an extensive article on the front page of Sunday's New York Times, David Bartow exposes how the Pentagon recruited, groomed, prepped and, one may go so far as to say, bribed a team of "military analysts." This team consisted of retired military men, defense lobbyists and private contractor representatives, who were then unleashed upon the mainstream media to deliver manipulated testimony on the war. Highlights of the detailed investigation of the Pentagon's highly strategized manipulation of war reporting are as follows:

José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco
By Greg Palast
Monday, April 21, 2008
(For TomPaine.com)
(Listen to the Podcast here)

Psst! George Bush has a secret

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

You’re not supposed to know that – for two reasons:
First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership: The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.

Government authority is crossing a line
By Raul Reyes
USAToday

Last week, Eloisa Tamez, 73, lost the latest round in her ongoing fight with the U.S. government. A judge ordered her to let Washington survey her land near Brownsville, Texas. It lies in the path of a proposed border fence. Now, Tamez, heir to an original Spanish land grant dating to the 1700s, fears that her property will be seized with good reason.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently waived more than 30 laws in order to expedite construction of the border fence. He did so with little regard for the concerns of residents, local officials and environmentalists.

New York | April 18

Associated Press - Written warnings to "properly destroy if discarded."

The government agency building a 102-story skyscraper at the World Trade Center site is investigating the discovery of two sets of blueprints for the building that a homeless man says he found in the trash.

The schematic documents for the Freedom Tower, under construction at ground zero, were marked "Secure Document — Confidential," the New York Post reported Friday.

The documents, dated Oct. 5, 2007, contain plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall, and the location of air ducts, elevators, electrical systems and support columns, the Post reported.

Eileen Sullivan | Washington | April 16

The Guardian - The federal government wants to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone who is arrested by a federal law enforcement agency. That would be a departure from the current practice of collecting samples only from convicted felons.

The government also wants to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are being detained, whether they have been charged or not. Justice Department spokesman Erik Albin says the DNA would be collected through a cheek swab.

Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties concerns about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions.

This has been coming for a long time. I’ve been watching the politicians in Washington very closely to see exactly how they intended to manage an administration that is so extremely neo-conservative that they are dangerous to this country and the world. I’ve seen heroic stances by some like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold and even Ron Paul. However, this is not enough. We’ve seen Cynthia McKinney disenfranchised as well as others that have stood up to tyranny and war. Meanwhile, while all of this has taken place, the Democratic Party has been split down the middle and has offered no protection or support to any that oppose the horrendous regime in Washington.

Luke Harding | Sochi | April 7

The Guardian - George Bush's attempts to patch up the US's battered relationship with Russia failed yesterday when Vladimir Putin said he continued to oppose the US's European missile defence plans.

Bush and Putin held talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. It was their last encounter before Putin steps down as president on May 7. Bush also met Putin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev. Although the rapport between the presidents was warm, with Bush calling Putin a "strong leader" and slapping him affectionately on the back, there was no progress on the crucial issue: the US's contentious plans to build a anti-missile defence shield in central Europe.

"I want to be understood correctly. Strategically, no change happened in our ... attitude to US plans," Putin said.

Putin conceded, however, that there had been "some positive developments". "Our concerns were finally heard by the US side. I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach an agreement," he said.

** Bush and Putin, at last meeting, agree to disagree

Tom Devine | Virginia | April 04

The Roanoke Times - Devine is legal director of the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.

Big Brother has joined nearly every American family. He lives in the cellphone, if a highly credible whistleblower's March disclosure to Congress accurately reflects telecommunications industry standard operating procedure.

The affidavit of Babak Pasdar, a recognized national computer security expert, raises basic questions that Congress must answer before deciding on telecom immunity, such as "immunity for what?" It raises fundamental questions about whether the reality of privacy still exists, let alone the right. And it illustrates the amazing power of whistleblowers who "commit the truth" to neutralize abuses of massive power that betray the public.

In the fall of 2003, Pasdar was hired by a major telecommunications carrier to overhaul its security. He discovered a mysterious "Quantico Circuit" with access to the entire mobile network that didn't have any security controls. Nor did it have any usage logs making a record of what information flowed through the system. The security breach was unheard of, abandoning basic industry norms practiced in the rest of the telecom's lines.

Global Gridlock:
How the US Military-Industrial Complex Seeks to Contain and Control the Earth and it's Eco-System

by Dr. Kingsley Dennis
Global Research, March 31, 2008

Introduction

The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges once famously wrote of a great Empire that created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map itself grew and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire finally crumbled, all that remained was the map. In some sense we can say that it is the map in which we live; we occupy a location within a simulation of reality. Although semanticists say that 'the map is not the territory', within this digitised age the territory is increasingly becoming the map and the separation between the physical and the digitised rendition is blurring. In this context, to 'know the map’ gives priority to intervene upon the physical. In recent years many of us have been scrambling to get 'on the Net' and thus be 'mapped'; within a few years we may find that living 'off the Net' will no longer be an option.

April 4

BBC - A 20-year-old man has been arrested in Florida after posting an online threat to re-enact last year's mass shooting at Virginia Tech, police have said.

Officers who searched the home of Calin Chi Wong found a cache of weapons that included four AK-47 assault rifles and 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

Mr Wong has been charged with making written threats to kill or injure.

Police said Mr Wong had told them he was just upset and had no intention of actually carrying out a massacre.

He has been released on bail. Additional charges may be brought, police said.

"Potential to act"

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee | April 2

Information Week - Thousands of employers are scrambling this week to file H-1B visa petitions in hopes that the U.S. government will approve their applications to hire foreign tech workers in fiscal 2009. InformationWeek analyzed the list of companies that had their H-1B visa applications approved last year and the number of approvals they got.

Among the top 10 companies having H-1B visa petitions approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for fiscal 2007 (which started Oct. 1, 2006) are eight Indian firms -- with Infosys ranked at No. 1 with 4,559 visas -- and two U.S.-based companies, Microsoft and Intel, having a combined 1,328 visa petitions approved. In total, the top 10 companies had 12,876 H-1B visa petitions approved.

March 27

BBC - A US state department review has found that the passport files of several high-profile Americans have been accessed, the Associated Press reports.

It comes a week after revelations that workers improperly viewed the files of the three presidential candidates.

Other Americans whose files had been viewed since January 2007 included late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith, AP reports, citing unnamed officials.

AP says the review is not complete and the number of cases is not yet clear.

State department officials told AP the review involved several hundred US citizens whose passport files are flagged for extra protection because of their prominence.

March 20

MSNBC - Third employee at State disciplined over accessing candidate’s records

Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's passport file.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the department itself detected the instances of "imprudent curiosity," which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. He would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined.

A senior official told NBC News there was "no political motivation" to the incidents, adding that the three were low-level contract employees doing administrative work when they accessed Obama's records.

It just goes to show that some people will never “get it”. The Progressive Press has whipped up a cauldron of molten ire against George W. Bush’s statement that the war in Iraq was “worth it”. My God, how could he say such a thing? The Progressive Press remarks; “Doesn’t he know that almost 4,000 Americans and untold Iraqi’s have died in a quagmire? Doesn’t he realize that the cost of this war is in the trillions? Doesn’t he realize that we are no closer to victory than we were five long years ago?”

Sure he does. He just doesn’t really care. He feels that as long as the defense contractors are making windfall profits along with Halliburton and their subsidiary KBR, and are getting gigantic no-bid contracts, and the Federal Reserve pours trillions of dollars at interest into the economy, making the bankers rich, and as long as the oil companies can get their hands on that Iraqi oil, the world is a great place. If you believe that he sees anything as wrong or right, you have a problem with your perception.

I have been at this a long time. Lately I have no desire to write about what I see happening in the world because I’ve already talked about it. I saw the Zeitgeist movie this evening and there was nothing in the movie that I have not already written about. Yes we have been taken for a ride by the people that control this country and that are the International Bankers. Yes the Federal Reserve is robbing us blind and we have known that since Woodrow Wilson told us so. Yes, our education system in this country is producing sub-par graduates without the capacity for critical thing; you know that by just talking to them. We know that the media is controlled by the corporations that are controlled by the bankers who control our government. I know all that.

Siobhan Gorman | Washingotn | March 10

WSJ - Terror Fight Blurs Line Over Domain; Tracking Email

m meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans' privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But the data-sifting effort didn't disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system.

The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people's communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Washington DC | March 8

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush on Saturday vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Kevin Johnson | March 6

USA Today - Law enforcement requests for postal info granted

U.S. postal authorities have approved more than 10,000 law enforcement requests to record names, addresses and other information from the outside of letters and packages of suspected criminals every year since 1998, according to U.S. Postal Inspection Service data.

In each of those years, officials approved more than 97% of requests to record the information during criminal inquiries. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, the most recent year provided, officials granted at least 99.5% of requests, according to partial responses to inquiries filed by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

Postal officials have closely guarded the warrantless surveillance mail program, used for decades to track fugitives and to interrupt the delivery of illegal drugs or other controlled substances such as explosives. In other government surveillance, such as most wiretap programs, a judge approves requests. In this one, the USPIS' chief inspector has authority to grant or deny a request.

The Postal Service handles 214 billion pieces of mail each year. Correspondence and packages transported by private carriers, such as FedEx and UPS, are not subject to the surveillance.