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from allgov.com: Congressional Democrats, the media and civil libertarians are continuing their fight with President Barack Obama over his administration’s secret interpretations of the Patriot Act. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, who sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder last week claiming a classified intelligence operation based on the Patriot Act interpretation is not as critical to national security as the administration says.
Wyden and Udall also wrote that Americans would be “stunned” if they knew what the government was really doing based on the legal theory being employed through the Patriot Act. In October, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) said that the government’s use of “Section 215 is unfortunately cloaked in secrecy. Some day that cloak will be lifted, and future generations will ask whether our actions today meet the test of a democratic society: transparency, accountability, and fidelity to the rule of law and our Constitution.”
The Department of Justice has insisted that revealing anything about the secret spy program could “cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.” Federal lawyers are trying to dismiss two lawsuits, one by The New York Times and the other by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that seek to force the administration into disclosing how the Patriot Act has been interpreted.
s.1867 'national defense authorization act' creates police state* from presstv: American rights activists have slammed the US Senate for gearing up to vote on a bill on Monday that would define the whole of the United States as a 'battlefield' and allow the military to arrest American citizens in their own back yard without charge or trial.
The reactions comes after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said last week that “the senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president-and every future president - the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even US citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.”
This stealth provision was added to the bill by the committee's chairman, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), but has a bit of a history. It was first proposed by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey in 2008 after the Bush administration lost the Boumediene v. Bush case, in which the Supreme Court decided that federal courts would subject the administration's asserted law of war basis to hold Guantanamo detainees to searching review. An idea that may have originally been intended to bolster the Bush administration's basis for holding Guantanamo detainees is now being promoted as an authorization of a worldwide war — and could become the single biggest ceding of unchecked war authority to the executive branch in modern American history.
from raw story: Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.
In the message, the officials denied the bipartisan commission's request to question terrorist detainees, informing its two senior-most members that doing so would "cross" a "line" and obstruct the administration's ability to protect the nation.
from threat level: Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting.
Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
from raw story: A middle school teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland, will have to apologize to a 13-year-old student after yelling at her and having her escorted out of class by school police when the student refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. According to the ACLU of Maryland, a 13-year-old female student at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance on Jan. 27. The teacher reportedly ordered the girl out into the hallway, where he threatened the girl with detention and then sent her to the school counselor's office.
The next day, when the student again refused to stand for the pledge, the teacher called school officers to remove her from the classroom and take her to the counselor's office once again.
"When the student’s mother reached out to an assistant principal for help in dealing with the teacher’s abusive and improper actions, the official said her daughter should instead apologize for her 'defiance.' The student did apologize, twice," the ACLU states.
The right to sit silently during the Pledge of Allegiance has been held up by the US Supreme Court, and is enshrined in Maryland state law and Mongtomery County Public Schools' own policies, reports the Washington Post.
conduct which includes things like this: bush administration authorized use of insects in interrogations from raw story: The Bush Administration Office of Legal Counsel authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to put insects inside a confinement box as part of the Administration's "harsh interrogation" practice, as well as throwing detainees into walls, according to memos released by President Barack Obama on Thursday. Read the full memos here.
A 18-page memo, dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
A 46-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
A 20-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
A 40-page memo, dated May 30, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
obama to meet victims & relatives of 9/11 attacks from washington post: President Obama will gather tomorrow with victims and families of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and U.S.S. Cole bombing for a face-to-face meeting as his administration struggles to decide how to handle detainees at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, several of those invited said. The previously undisclosed meeting at the White House tomorrow afternoon will give the new president a chance to explain his decision to close the controversial prison facility where the U.S. has placed many suspected terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Obama has been assailed by conservative critics who say the decision to close the facility within a year will lead to putting many of those terrorists back on the street. In a recent interview, former vice president Dick Cheney, an architect of the Bush administration's war on terror, criticized the decision as reckless. In an interview with Politico.com, Cheney accused the Obama administration of following "campaign rhetoric" on Guantanamo and warned that the new president's policies could put the country at greater risk of a new attack... One 9/11 activist, who declined to be identified talking about the meeting, said "fireworks" are likely at the gathering because it will include both relatives who oppose and those who support Obama's plan to close Guantanamo Bay. "There's been some noise that some families don't like the idea and others do, so this is a chance to discuss that," the activist said.
'hope is flickering' says aclu from raw story: The American Civil Liberties Union, which has generally been harshly critical of President George W. Bush and praiseworthy of President Barack Obama, has fired a torpedo across the Obama bow... "Hope is flickering," Romero said in a statement. "The Obama administration's position is not change. It is more of the same. This represents a complete turn-around and undermining of the restoration of the rule of law. The new American administration shouldn't be complicit in hiding the abuses of its predecessors."
obama says US can't send protectionist trade message from reuters: President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he did not want to send a protectionist message on world trade and would look at altering "Buy American" language in an economic stimulus bill coming out of Congress. "I think it would be a mistake ... at a time when worldwide trade is declining for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade," Obama said on the Fox television network.
obama to bring nuke labs to the pentagon? from danger room: The Albuquerque Journal has a real nuke scoop: The Obama administration is considering a plan to fold the U.S. nuclear weapons complex into the Department of Defense.
obama preserved rendition two days after taking office from raw story: Two days after taking the helm of a country ready for change after eight years of George W. Bush, President Obama has allowed one controversial "War on Terror" tactic to remain in place: rendition. Despite frequent condemnation of the practice around the world, rendition - the secret capture, transportation and detention of suspected terrorists to foreign prisons in countries that cooperate with the U.S. - remains in the CIA's playbook, thanks to a Jan. 22 executive order issued by President Obama.
obama abandons ‘war on terror’ catchphrase from thinkprogress: The AP notes that only once since taking office on Jan. 20 has President Obama used the phrase “war on terror,” which was always on the lips of President Bush. Obama has instead more broadly referenced the “enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism.” CSIS national security analyst Anthony Cordesman notes that Bush’s phrase “became associated in the minds of many people outside the Unites States and particularly in places where the countries are largely Islamic and Arab, as being anti-Islam and anti-Arab.” Indeed, a Pentagon-funded study last year recommended that the U.S. do away with the terminology as the strategy behind it was “not successful in undermining al Qai’da’s capabilities.”
video: rahm says if you're on no-fly list, no gun! from youtube: Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) speaking at DC’s annual Stand Up For a Safe America event sponsored by the Brady Center says if your name is on the terrorist no fly list you should not be allowed to own a gun.
nypd wants to jam cell phones during terror attack from danger room: The New York Police Department wants to be able to shut down cell phones, in case of a terrorist attack. During last month's massacre in Mumbai, terrorist handlers over micromanaged via mobile phone the assaults on the hotels, train stations, and Jewish center that killed more than 170 people. In testimony [44kb PDF] today before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly (pictured) said he wanted to take out that "formidable capacity to adjust tactics while attacks are underway." ... For now, Kelly said, the NYPD is taking a whole range of measures to stop another Mumbai-style spree - from working with private businesses to interdicting boats to training recruits in heavy weapons to installing a spycam network across downtown Manhattan. But Charles Allen, the Department of Homeland Security's top intelligence official, confessed to the Senate panel that "response to a similar terrorist attack in a major U.S. urban city would be complicated and difficult."
3rd 'human terrain' researcher dead from danger room: For the third time in eight months, a social scientist with the Army's Human Terrain cultural research program has died. In early November, while on patrol in an Afghan village, Paula Loyd was doused with a flammable liquid, and set on fire. She suffered second- and third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body. Loyd was rushed to a nearby medical center, where she was treated by a burn specialist. Shortly thereafter, Loyd was evacuated to the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and then to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. But after a two month struggle, she was overcome by her injuries. This is the latest in a series of attacks on Human Terrain personnel. In May, Michael Bhatia, an Oxford-trained political scientist working in eastern Afghanistan, was killed, along with two soldiers, by a roadside explosive. Less than two months later, a bomb detonated inside the Sadr City District Council building in Iraq. Social scientist Nicole Suveges was inside. She and 11 others died instantly.
darpa chief staying on, for now from danger room: Tony Tether, the controversial chief of the Pentagon's premiere research agency, Darpa, will remain in office during the Obama administration. At least, for a little while. "Dr. Tether will be here after Jan. 20, and there's no formal date on which he plans to leave," Darpa spokesman Jan Walker tells Michael Belfiore in an e-mail. Tether, the longest-serving director of the $3 billion-per-year agency, is one of several top Pentagon officials who will stay in place, if only temporarily, after the presidential transition. Defense Secretary Bob Gates is, of course, at the top of the list of holdovers.
army assembles 'mad scientist' conference from danger room: Last August, the U.S. Army held a three-day conference in Portsmouth, Virginia, to look at new developments in military science and hardware. The confab was called the "2008 Mad Scientist Future Technology Seminar." Really. It was. "The objective of the seminar was to investigate proliferating technologies with the potential to empower individuals and groups in the next 10-25 years," according to an unclassified summary of the Mad Scientist gathering [1.3mb DOC], obtained by Danger Room. As you'd expect from such a colorfully-titled gathering, the collected brains predicted a world in which individuals would have easy access to everything from ray guns to nano-bots to bioengineered weapons to arms for creating international chaos online.
pentagon's far-out science podcast from danger room: Stick this in your iPod and smoke it: The U.S. Department of Defense is launching a new radio show audio webcast, "Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military." I listened in to the first broadcast - an interview about atomic timekeeping with Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory's Master Clock - and it was actually pretty damn interesting. Chester discussed the history of timekeeping - from waterclocks and pendulum clocks to leap seconds - as well as the principles behind the atomic clock, which uses natural oscillation in specific atoms to define a timescale. Chester also talked about the application of timekeeping to military operations. “In our business, timing is literally everything,” Chester said. “An error of three nanoseconds in timing translates to a position error of one meter for a precision-guided weapon.”
reining in the imperial presidency: lessons & recommendations relating to the presidency of george w bush from 9/11 blogger: In a 487-page report out today recapping Bush’s “imperial presidency,” House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) recommends that “the incoming Administration finally begin an independent criminal review of activities of the outgoing Administration.”
virginia teen dies after being tased by police from wsls: State Police are investigating the death of a 17-year-old after Martinsville Police used a stun device on a teenager Thursday night [jan8]... Justin Gregory, 15, says his friend, 17-year-old Derick, died after a Martinsville officer used a taser on him... Police say they were called there for a disorderly conduct after callers say someone was “using the bathroom” in the road. Gregory tells us Derick, “was out in the middle of the road acting stupid.” When the boys went inside, Gregory said only a few minutes went by before police arrived. Police say it was Officer R.L. Wray who responded. When he arrived, he noticed the front door had been forced open and requested assistance. Police say Wray heard loud banging noises coming from the kitchen, which according to Gregory is in the back of the home. When Gregory saw the officer coming, he claims, “I was upstairs, and the cops told me to come down. So I came downstairs, and everything happened,” said Gregory. Gregory says Derick had been drinking, but claims there was no confrontation with police. “Derick walked around from the kitchen, into the living room, and got half-way into the living room, and the cop tased him. He didn’t run at him or nothing,” said Gregory.
aclu website tracks public surveillance from raw story: In response to a recent rise in public surveillance funding by the Department of Homeland Security, ACLU's Technology and Liberty program has launched a Web site to let America know – YouAreBeingWatched.us. The Web site provides news related to public video surveillance, links for more information, ways to take action, a 'horror stories' tab detailing recent misuse of surveillance authority and a flash map of locations in the US where municipal surveillance cameras have been installed. “The new site will provide one-stop shopping for users, including the press, who want to know the big picture and the fine details about the spread of video surveillance systems,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in a release... Meanwhile, a timely University of California study [8.9mb PDF] has found that San Francisco's $700,000 'Crime Camera' program has had no impact on violent crime since its 2005 installation. The study also states that robberies dropped significantly within each camera's radius, but notes that this finding is inconclusive.
fema starts pr campaign with new channel on youtube from eyes on the lies: The astronomically corrupt federal agency that has brought us the terrible aftermath of hurricane Katrina has a new card in their sleeve: Propaganda! This federal agency – which two years ago admitted that in time of disaster the agency would openly recruit clergy men to encourage people to submit to the governments agenda – has fired up their own brand spankin’ new YouTube Channel. FEMA says that the goal with this new channel is, “to provide a forum for the public to see how FEMA operates in communities across America, comment on disaster response and recovery, and learn how to prepare homes and communities for all hazards.” Translation: to put up a fight against the hundreds of video’s on YouTube that effectively expose FEMA of being a corrupt agency that completely oversteps the bounds of the Constitution. Without any FEMA video’s on YouTube that paint a pretty picture in the minds of the viewer, FEMA has earned a well deserved bad rap. FEMA has a long road of public relations ahead of them. The top 5 hits when you YouTube “FEMA” all relate to the thousands of plastic coffins that are found along FEMA internment installations and a few videos of FEMA concentration camps. This is a big difference to the videos on FEMA’s channel that portray friendly people who work in the field and appear to be friendly everyday people who are kind and helping after a disaster. However, in a time of a national disaster like 9/11 where FEMA will be used to round up the people of political dissent, these friendly everyday people will be overshadowed by Homeland Security troops who are ordered to round up herds of people who are not drinking the government kool-aid.
norad exercise in dc area on jan14 from free republic: DC area residents should not be alarmed to see and hear military aircraft overhead today [jan14] as NORAD will be conducting a live-fly exercise. Civil Air Patrol aircraft, Air Force F-16s and Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopters will participate in the exercise which also includes the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Capital Region Command Center, the Joint Air Defense Operations Center and other agencies and military groups. The flights are expected to take place late at night and early in the morning. It is the latest in a series of exercises which have been conducted following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. In the event of inclement weather, the exercise will be postponed until Thursday.
rangel to reintroduce military draft measure from the hill: Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) likely will introduce his controversial legislation to reinstate the draft again this year, but he will wait until after the economic stimulus package is passed. Asked if he plans to introduce the legislation again in 2009, Rangel last week said, “Probably … yes. I don’t want to do anything this early to distract from the issue of the economic stimulus.” Rangel’s military draft bill did create a distraction for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) soon after Democrats won control of Congress after the 2006 election. In the wake of that historic victory, Pelosi said publicly that she did not support the draft and that the Democratic leadership would not back Rangel’s legislation. She also said Rangel’s legislation was not about reinstating the draft but was instead “a way to make a point” about social inequality.
from blacklisted news: In violation of its pledge to the United Nations not to recruit children into the military, the Pentagon “regularly target(s) children under 17,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says. The Pentagon “heavily recruits on high school campuses, targeting students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without limits on the age of students they contact,” the ACLU states in a 46-page report titled “Soldiers of Misfortune.” (540kb PDF) This is in violation of the U.S. Senate's 2002 ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Pentagon recruiters are enrolling children as young as 14 in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) in 3,000 middle-, junior-, and high schools nationwide, causing about 45 percent of the quarter of million students so enrolled to enlist, a rate much higher than in the general student population. Clearly, this is the outcome of underage exposure.
rand lobbies pentagon: start war to save US economy from paul joseph watson & yihan dai: According to reports out of topChinese mainstream news outlets, the RAND Corporationrecently presented a shocking proposal to the Pentagon in which it lobbied for a war to be started with a major foreign power in an attempt to stimulate the American economy and prevent a recession. A fierce debate has now ensued in China about who that foreign power may be, with China itself as well as Russia and even Japan suspected to be the targets of aggression. The reports cite French media news sources as having uncovered the proposal, in which RAND suggested that the $700 billion dollars that has been earmarked to bailout Wall Street and failing banks instead be used to finance a new war which would in turn re-invigorate the flagging stock markets. The RAND Corporation is a notoriously powerful NGO with deep ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex as well as interlocking connections with the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations.
'constitution-free zone' within 100 miles from border from raw story: The ACLU says a "Constitution-free zone" exists within 100 miles of the US border, where DHS claims the authority to stop, search and detain anyone for any reason. Nearly two-thirds of the US population lives within 100 miles of the border, according to the ACLU, and the border zone encompasses scores of major metropolitan areas and even entire states.
army can't retry watada for refusal to serve in iraq war from honolulu advertiser: A federal judge ruled late yesterday that the Army cannot retry 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, the Kalani High graduate who was the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to the war in Iraq, on the main charges against him. Watada was charged with missing his Fort Lewis, Wash., Stryker brigade's deployment and with conduct unbecoming an officer after he refused to board a flight to the Middle East in June 2006. The 30-year-old soldier contended that the war is illegal and that he would be a party to war crimes if he served in Iraq. His first court-martial ended in a mistrial in February 2007. Watada's father, Bob, last night said, "It's obviously good news. It's very good news."
catholics seek support for probe of fort benning school from georgia bulletin: Ten years after a Catholic archbishop in Guatemala was beaten to death for his work on human rights, four Atlanta priests, two sisters, and seven local members of the Catholic peace group Pax Christi are calling on Congress to deepen its investigation of the controversial Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation which one of his killers attended. The activists believe the Department of Defense-funded military school based at Fort Benning in Columbus, formerly known as theSchool of the Americas, is linked to human right violators in Latin America who target the poor and clergy who speak up for them. They want Congress to enact a law that would suspend the military school until a commission reports on what tactics former students were taught that violated international law or United States law and hold accountable those who drafted and approved those teaching manuals.
ex-cia man died after hospital heart monitor was turned down from daily mail: A former CIA man died after the volume of an alarm on his hospital heart monitor was turned down, an inquest has heard. American Alan Bel, 60, suffered a heart attack – but medics failed to notice because they were not alerted because they could not hear the alarm. Consultant cardiologist Dr Bernard Clarke told the inquest that ‘on the balance of probabilities’ staff could have saved the 60-year-old if the machine had been working.
US professor will bring 'hidden history of 9/11' to uw from the record: A U.S. professor who questions the official version of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, will speak next month at the University of Waterloo. Paul Zarembka, economics professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, is editor of The Hidden History of 9/11. He will speak about studies done at UW and the University of Toronto on terrorist attacks in New York City and discuss whether the U.S. government told the truth about the events. Zarembka will speak Nov. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m. in Arts Lecture Hall 116. Admission is $2. For more information, visit www.waterloo911.ca. Next spring, the UW 9/11 Research Group will hold another talk, which is to include an explosives expert.
naomi wolf: i have 9/11 questions, like any thoughtful citizen does from truthnews: On October 7, 2008, Naomi Wolf was at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena, California to give a talk and sign her new book “Give Me Liberty.” Stewart Howe, of WeAreChangeLA, was on hand and asked Ms. Wolf to give a message to the truth and accountability movement. Ms. Wolf stated that although she has no theory about what happened on 9/11, no question should be off the table in a free society and saluted the movement’s desire to seek truth and accountability. “I live ten blocks from ground zero in Manhattan, and I know that I had questions as a citizen… I think every thoughtful citizen has noticed things that might raised questions,” Wolf commented.
marines & army get ready to wield stun guns from danger room: The Marine Corps has been buying Tasers for years. But the military has only used the stun guns sparingly in the field. Now, all that is set to change, thanks to new training guidelines for the electroshock weapons. What's Arabic for "Don't Tase me, bro"? “We would expect the use of [devices such as the Taser] to grow over time, now that we have this long-term policy in place,” Maj. David Nevers, a tells Marine Corps Times.
pennsylvania mulls audio school bus surveillance from phoenixville news: Bus companies and school districts would be allowed to record audio on school buses under legislation that would modify the state's wiretapping and surveillance law and, supporters say, help deter unruly student behavior. Some buses already use silent video cameras, but questions have arisen about whether recording sound violates the law, which requires the consent of the person being recorded. State Rep. Don Walko, D-Allegheny, said his legislation would allow school boards to authorize audio taping while requiring notification of students and parents and placing signs on buses stating audio taping is taking place... In 2006, state police asked Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. to determine whether Laidlaw Transit Inc. had illegally audio taped students on buses in two districts. Zappala found Laidlaw had no intent to break the law, and said he wouldn't prosecute bus audio taping cases if they followed the requirements now part of Walko's legislation.
fbi paid informant $240k to spy on 'fort dix six' from nypost: Being an informant for the FBI in the Fort Dix terror investigation has paid well, a witness explained to jurors yesterday. John Stermel, an investigator assigned to an FBI counterterrorism task force, spent yesterday morning on the stand detailing the role of informant Mahmoud Omar, who wore a wire for 16 months in the investigation of five men accused of planning to shoot soldiers at the Army base. Defense lawyers say it was Omar who tried to plot an attack - not their clients.
white house pushes for local schools to drug test students from schenectady daily gazette: The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is hoping to convince local school districts and educators to randomly drug test students. It's a movement that is sweeping the country and gaining support in many states, and advocates say it provides students a "credible reason to say no to drug use."
doe tests river for contaminants from nuke program from mcclatchy: Workers are collecting samples along the Columbia River in Washington state to test for contaminants linked to past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. "After the sampling we'll know where and what the contaminants are and who or what might be exposed to them," said Jamie Zeisloft, who's leading the testing for the Department of Energy.
military investigates amnesia beams from danger room: A team of scientists from the United States and China announced last week that, for the first time, they had found a means of selectively and safely erasing memories in mice, using the signaling molecule αCaMKII. It's a big step forward, and one that will be of considerable interest to the military, which has devoted efforts to memory manipulation as a means of treating post-traumatic stress disorder. But some military research has moved in another direction entirely. In the 1980s, researchers found that even low-level exposure to a beam of electrons caused rats to forget what had just happened to them (an effect known as retrograde amnesia — the other version, anteretrograde amnesia, is when you can't form new memories). The same effect was also achieved with X-rays. The time factor was not large — it only caused memory loss about the previous four seconds — but the effect was intriguing. One theory was that the amnesia was a result of the brilliant flash experienced when the electron beam struck the retina. And, indeed, it turned out that it is possible to produce amnesia in rodents using a flash of light.
minot b52s deployed to guam take part in exercise from minot daily news: B-52 aircrews from Minot Air Force Base deployed to Guam recently finished a flying exercise this month over the Pacific Alaska Range Complex. The exercise tested their ability to defend against air threats. A 10-day joint exercise, Red Flag-Alaska 09-1, also included B-52s from Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, and F-16 Fighting Falcons from Kunsan Air Base in the Republic of Korea and Eielson AFB near Fairbanks, Alaska. KC-135s for air refueling from McConnell AFB, Kan., also participated, according to the 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs at Eielson AFB.
pakistan to US: call off the killer drones from danger room: Since the start of August, U.S. drones have struck targets in Pakistan at least 19 times. The latest attack, one of the deadliest ever, killed 20. Now, Pakistani officials say they've had enough of the robot planes, and are demanding that America call off its killer drones "immediately." "The drone attacks have negative repercussions when the Pakistani government tries to get the support of the people in the tribal area,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq tells the New York Times. "They are not helping meet the objectives of the war on terror... Such attacks [a]re a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and should be stopped immediately," the ministry added, in a statement. The American military stepped up its unmanned aerial vehicle assaults on Pakistan, in part because of local government complaints over manned attacks on militant camps inside the country. Local media reports say that 301 civilians have been killed this year in American strikes, both conventional and robotic.
witness: police did not warn de menezes before opening fire from guardian: Jean Charles de Menezes was not warned before he was shot dead by police, three witnesses told an inquest today. The claim contradicts the police account that the innocent Brazilian was warned before being shot. Ralph Livock and his girlfriend Rachel Wilson were sitting in a tube carriage opposite the 27-year-old Brazilian, the inquest heard. Nicholas Hilliard QC, counsel to the inquest, asked him if he heard the police shout a warning. "Absolutely not," Livock replied. "And I remember that specifically because one of the conversations that Rachel and I had afterwards was that we had no idea whether they were police, whether they were terrorists, whether they were somebody else. We just had no idea."
is the taliban stockpiling opium? and if so, why? from time: If international drug- and law-enforcement officials are right, the Taliban might be hiding up to $3.2 billion worth of opium inside Afghanistan, potentially causing huge complications for NATO's decision this month to attack Afghanistan's opium laboratories and smuggling networks. If it exists, the drug stockpile would also have a major bearing on Afghan officials' tentative peace talks with the Taliban, which are favored by U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus and both U.S. presidential candidates.
lockerbie bomber applies for bail from asd: The man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, has applied to be released on bail, pending his appeal. Arguments are due to be heard in the High Court in Edinburgh next Thursday. Earlier this month his lawyer announced that the Libyan was suffering from advanced prostate cancer. Megrahi is serving a minimum of 27 years in Greenock prison for the bombing, which killed 270 people. He has so far served seven years. The 56-year-old is appealing against his 2001 conviction and the length of his sentence.
ex-italian prez: provocateur riots then 'beat the shit out of protesters' from paul joseph watson: Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has offered a solution to the Italian government in dealing with widespread demonstrations by students and teachers over a cut in state funding of education - use agent provocateurs to start riots and then have the police "beat the shit out of the protesters". Cossiga, former Italian President, Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior, and one of the founders of the Operation GLADIOcovert intelligence unit, encouraged Silvio Berlusconi and current Minister of the Interior Robert Maroni to "do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior," namely infiltrate what so far have been relatively peaceful demonstrations, radicalize them, start riots, then engender public support for a heavy-handed police response.
microsoft patents web moderator robots from cryptogon: This is a real time Ministry of Truth tool that can change content as it’s moving over the web. Filters are great, as long as individuals are in control of them. For example, I don’t want to ever see any stories that contain the words McCain, Obama, Biden or Palin on Reddit. These stories waste my time. I use filtering software that prevents that useless stuff from even appearing on my screen. The danger is that these types of tools could be implemented at the service provider level. Oh no no no. Not good. The Aussies are getting a taste of this now. This Microsoft tool, rather than blocking material outright, sanitizes it midstream.
fbi: anthrax hoaxes from california man still in mail from ap: A California man suspected of mailing more than 120 hoax anthrax letters to media outlets was interviewed previously by the FBI after one similar mailing in 2007, but he was not charged. Marc M. Keyser, 66, was interviewed by the FBI in January 2007 for allegedly sending a package containing a small aerosol can labeled "Anthrax," along with a compact disc, to the Sacramento News and Review newspaper, according a criminal complaint filed Thursday in federal court.
new bio lab on texas island worries environmentalists & locals from nytimes: Much of the University of Texas medical school on this island suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ike, except for one gleaming new building, a national biological defense laboratory that will soon house some of the most deadly diseases in the world. How a laboratory where scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg ended up on a barrier island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc puzzles some environmentalists and community leaders. “It’s crazy, in my mind,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. “I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.” Officials at the laboratory and at the National Institutes of Health, which along with the university is helping to pay for the $174 million building, say it can withstand any storm the Atlantic hurls at it.
gm stops 401(k) payments from buffalo business: In yet another sign of its financial trouble, General Motors Corp. will halt matching payments to all employees’ 401(k) savings plans. The temporary suspension, which would affect all 1,340 employees at GM’s engine plant in the Town of Tonawanda and the automaker’s entire U.S. workforce, would take effect Nov. 1. The action, which a spokeswoman said is aimed at conserving cash, comes in the face of continued declining auto sales.
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