bush cancels visit to switzerland after arrest threat

from reuters: Former President George W. Bush has canceled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday. Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on February 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country. Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say. Human rights groups said they had intended to submit a 2,500-page case against Bush in the Swiss city on Monday for alleged mistreatment of suspected militants at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in Cuba where captives from Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in the so-called War on Terror were interned.

related obamessiah updates:
video: o'reilly interviews obamessiah on stupor bowl stunday*
85 americans are already running for president*
video: blagojevich wants 'missing' phone calls recovered*
cali rep. jane harman to resign from house*
gop rep chris lee resigns after topless craigslist post*

cyber/space\war: homeland hackers & a paid internet

hacker 'dark tangent', jeff moss, joins dhs security council

bills would kill dhs satellite surveillance office
from fcw: A senior House Democrat has introduced legislation that would kill the controversial National Applications Office (NAO), a Homeland Security Department-run program to make intelligence and military satellite imagery available to civilian agencies for domestic purposes. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Homeland Security Committee’s Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment Subcommittee, introduced a bill on June 4 that would require DHS to immediately close the NAO. She also introduced a measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), to prohibit DHS from spending any money on the NAO or any similar program.

universal ‘rubik’s cube’ could become pentagon shapeshifter*
first a jellyfish, now a dragonfly... giant crop circles just get weirder*
seti pioneer debunks crop circles as et communications*
how can cyberspace be defended?*
collateral damage from cyber warfare?*
pirate party wins eu parliament seat*
voting machine sequoia agrees to hand over source code*
hacker gary mckinnon 'too fragile' to extradite*
indiana university announces new security informatics master's degree*
usatoday to introduce digital edition, for a fee*
army orders bases: stop blocking twitter, facebook, flickr*
despite army order, some bases still ban twitter, facebook, flickr*
nsa ill-suited for domestic cybersecurity role*

the internet 'absolutely' will become a 'paid system' within 5yrs
from zdnet: The days of the free Internet will draw to a close over the next five years, according to the chairman and chief executive of IAC, the interactive services company which operates a collection of more than 30 Internet sites which produce $1.5 billion a year in revenue. The only missing link, according to Barry Diller, who cut his teeth building up over-the-air and cable TV networks: a good billing system, akin to Amazon’s “one-click” button or the Apple iPhone’s slick downloading of paid applications. "I absolutely believe the Internet is passing from its free days into a paid system. Inevitably, I promise you, it will be paid," Diller said in a keynote discussion opening up the Advertising 2.0 conference held at his company’s futuristic glass building alongside the Hudson River in Manhattan. "Not every single thing, but anything of value."

US drops spy case against pro-israel lobbyists rosen & weissman

from nytimes: A case that began four years ago with the tantalizing and volatile premise that officials of a major pro-Israel lobbying organization were illegally trafficking in sensitive national security information collapsed on Friday as prosecutors asked that all charges be withdrawn.

From the beginning, the case against the lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was highly unusual. The two, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were charged under the World War I-era Espionage Act, accused of improperly providing to their colleagues, journalists and Israeli diplomats sensitive information they had acquired by speaking with American policy makers...

The decision to drop the case comes just days before AIPAC is scheduled to begin its annual policy conference in Washington, which has often served as an advertisement of its influence...

The investigation of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman also surfaced recently in news reports that Representative Jane Harman... was overheard agreeing with an Israeli intelligence operative to try to intercede with Bush administration officials to obtain leniency for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman in exchange for help in persuading Democratic leaders to make her chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee...

The government’s motion to dismiss said the government was obliged take a final review of the case to consider “the likelihood that classified information will be revealed at trial, any damage to the national security that might result from a disclosure of classified information and the likelihood the government would prevail at trial.” [100kb PDF]



update1: lawyers credit obama team for dismissing aipac case
from jewish telegraphic agency: Lawyers for the two former AIPAC staffers charged four years ago with dealing in government secrets credited the Obama administration for dropping the case. “We are extremely grateful that this new Administration, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia, has taken seriously their obligation to evaluate cases on the merits and not to allow an unjust prosecution to continue solely due to momentum,” said the joint statement by lawyers for Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman issued Friday, hours after the government filed for a dismissal of the charges against the two former senior staffers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “This Administration truly shows that theirs is a Department of Justice, where the justice of any case can be re-evaluated and the government can admit that a case should not be pursued.”

video update: springtime for aipac: annual confab draws protest
from liamh2: Its Springtime for AIPAC! The mega-Israel Lobby convenes annually in Washington, D.C. at the convention center. AIPAC sucks out over $3 billion a year from our fast fading treasury for Israel with little or no dissent from the fakers in the U.S. Congress. If only the cities of Detroit, LA, Atlanta and Baltimore had such a puffed-up advocate in their corner. If you're lucky, you can spot some of your Congressional low lifes crawling on all fours into the convention center to pay homage to the Israel-First types. Isn't there a law against that kind of bootlicking? As always, lovers of the Republic were outside on the streets on Monday, May 4, 2009, protesting AIPAC. For some background on the all-powerful Israel Lobby, see: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/04/30/the-lobby-wants-war/ and http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/05/03/the-spies-who-got-away/ and http://wrmea.com/ and http://www.irmep.org/ila/ and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Mearsheimer and Walt, at:
http://us.macmillan.com/theisraellobbyandusforeignpolicy

flashback: in the thrall of aipac: why obama can't save us

harman, wiretaps, doj & aipac: more massive corruption

major scandal erupts involving congress, cabinet & corruption

download greenwald & stein interview [10.5mb mp3]
wiretap recorded rep harman promising to intervene for aipac
from cqpolitics: Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington. Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript... The identity of the "suspected Israeli agent" could not be determined with certainty, and officials were extremely skittish about going beyond Harman's involvement to discuss other aspects of the NSA eavesdropping operation against Israeli targets, which remain highly classified. But according to the former officials familiar with the transcripts, the alleged Israeli agent asked Harman if she could use any influence she had with Gonzales, who became attorney general in 2005, to get the charges against the AIPAC officials reduced to lesser felonies. Rosen had been charged with two counts of conspiring to communicate, and communicating national defense information to people not entitled to receive it. Weissman was charged with conspiracy... "It's a story about the corruption of government - not legal corruption necessarily, but ethical corruption." Ironically, however, nothing much was gained by it. The Justice Department did not back away from charging AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman for trafficking in classified information. Gonzales was engulfed by the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal. And Jane Harman was relegated to chairing a House Homeland Security subcommittee.

flashback: harman conflates 9/11 truth & jihadist websites

video: 'wide circle' of people knew about harman wiretap

harman caught on tape agreeing to lobby for alleged aipac spies
from jeremy scahill: This is a huge story... The case, known as the AIPAC espionage scandal centers around allegations that at least two AIPAC staff members passed sensitive US intelligence on Iran, provided by Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, to Israel. In early 2006, Franklin pled guilty to espionage-related charges and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The case against two indicted AIPAC staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, is ongoing. Allegations that Harman intervened in this case in an effort to win the spot as chair of the Intelligence Committee have been widespread since 2006, but an FBI investigation into Harman was dropped for “lack of evidence.”

flashback: israel might have many more spies here

harman & aipac: more evidence of massive government corruption
from kurt nimmo: It really comes as no surprise Rep. Jane Harman was caught on a federal wiretap offering to lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against AIPAC officials. Much of Congress is beholden to the Israeli pressure group. Instead of taking note of this common practice — politicians coming to the rescue of their favored constituents at the expensive of those they were elected to represent — we should take note of the willingness of the NSA and FBI to make this information public. Somebody wanted Jane Harman out of the picture. The case is yet another example of how politics works in the District of Criminals. In exchange for help in getting espionage-related charges reduced against two AIPAC officials, a suspected Israeli agent pledged to lobby Nancy Pelosi, then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, according to CQ Politics. More specifically, the Los Angeles Times reveals, the caller told Harman Haim Saban would threaten to withhold campaign contributions from Pelosi unless Harman became committee chairwoman... “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,” Saban told Forbes in 2003. Harman’s office told the Associated Press she “never contacted the Justice Department about its prosecution of present or former AIPAC employees, and the Justice Department never informed her that she was or is the subject of or involved in an investigation.” In a statement, Harman attempted to change the subject. “If there is anything about this story that should arouse concern it is that the Bush administration may have been engaged in electronic surveillance of members of the congressional intelligence committees.” Harman didn’t bother to mention the fact she had leaned on the New York Times in order to get the newspaper to hold off on publishing an article on the unconstitutional NSA wiretap program. “Harman is a poster child for what has been wrong with Congress for the last 8 years,” writes George Washington’s Blog. She needs to be brought up on ethics and bribery charges immediately and drummed out of Congress. If the AIPAC operatives are convicted, treason charges against Harman should not be ruled out.

flashback: declassified docs shed new light on aipac espionage

update1: pelosi: 'i don't respond to threats... bring it on!'

video update: harman wiretap story is real life spy thriller
from raw replay: CQPolitics.com reported that Rep. Jane Harman was caught on NSA wiretaps offering to intervene in the case of an accused spy. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explains how the case compares to classic movie plotlines. This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Apr. 21, 2009.

police state int'l: bioterror, bigbro, behavioral screening & more

a slew of warnings on nuclear, chemical & biological terrorism prompt worries of fearmongering (or fears of worrymongering)
from usnews: After a series of dire new warnings about possible terrorist threats—capped by a government commission's report that terrorists are likely to stage a biological or nuclear attack somewhere in the world during the next five years—some experts are urging officials "to retire the fear card," as California Rep. Jane Harman puts it. "We need to educate and inform the American people, not terrify them with alarming details about possible threats to the homeland," she said, reacting to the 132-page report from the Commission for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism released this week. Harman, who heads the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Assessment, added, "It's time for the rhetoric about that threat to calm, instead of inflame, an anxious public."

The drumbeat started last month, when Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said that the potential for a WMD attack in the coming decades is growing. The probability is increasing, he said, that the world will see "large casualty terrorist attacks using chemical, biological, or, less likely, nuclear materials." And the U.S. intelligence community recently released a study warning of an increased risk of the use of mass-casualty weapons by 2025.

bioterror, nano shields, tactical dew, mumbai attack summary




stratcom urges quick nuclear weapons modernization
from washington post: The leader of the U.S. Strategic Command said yesterday that "time is not on our side" to modernize the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, particularly as China and Russia upgrade their nuclear warheads and delivery systems. "The path of inaction is a path leading toward nuclear disarmament. . . . The time to act is now," Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton told an audience of government, military and civilian arms experts attending the Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Washington. But Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic weapons, told the same audience that the nation's nuclear modernization program was in a "holding pattern" until the Obama administration could review studies that are to be completed next year. Chilton said he was concerned that Congress had effectively killed the Bush administration's Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which is designed to provide a modern, safer warhead with no new capabilities before the end of this decade. Expressing concern that the nation's Cold War stockpile is aging, Chilton said that "a reliable [nuclear] inventory supports nonproliferation goals."

iran war games, northrop abm, nuclear terror +

uk's big brother police to get 'war-time' powers
from daily mail: State officials are to be given powers previously reserved for times of war to demand a person's proof of identity at any time. Anybody who refuses the Big Brother demand could face arrest and a possible prison sentence. The new rules come in legislation unveiled in today's [dec3] Queen's Speech. They are presented as a crackdown on illegal immigration, but lawyers say they could be applied to anybody who has ever been outside the UK, even on holiday. The civil rights group Liberty, which analysed clauses from the new Immigration and Citizenship Bill, called them an attempt to introduce compulsory ID cards by the back door.


german police get powers to hack into home computers
from telegraph: Under a compromise between the hardline Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and dissenting MPs, Germany's Parliament is put unprecedented power in the hands of the Federal Criminal Police (BKA). New laws, some of the toughest in Europe, will also allow police to bug and photograph suspect's homes, tap their phones and track the location of their mobile calls. Under the compromise, the police will need a judge's approval before using the Trojans, even in an emergency. Trojans will carry "Remote Forensic Software" that can search hard drives and send evidence back to investigators without their having to enter the suspect's home.

berlusconi plans to use g8 presidency to 'regulate the internet'
from the register: Italian president and media baron Silvio Berlusconi said today that he would use his country's imminent presidency of the G8 group to push for an international agreement to "regulate the internet". Speaking to Italian postal workers, Reuters reports Berlusconi said: "The G8 has as its task the regulation of financial markets... I think the next G8 can bring to the table a proposal for a regulation of the internet." Italy's G8 presidency begins on January 1. The role is taken by each of the group's members in rotation. The holder country is responsible for organising and hosting the G8's meetings and setting the agenda. Italy's last G8 presidency in 2001, also under Berlusconi, was marred by riots at the annual meeting in Genoa.

bush fcc chairman considering 'porn-free Internet'
from raw story: Bush Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is still considering a proposal to create a free, porn-free Internet, according to today's Wall Street Journal: "The free Internet plan is the most controversial issue the agency will tackle in December. Mr. Martin shelved plans to consider a wider variety of sticky issues pending at the agency, including a request by the Hollywood studios to hobble TVs and set-top boxes so studios can offer copy-protected theatrical releases sooner. The proposal to allow a no-smut, free wireless Internet service is part of a proposal to auction off a chunk of airwaves. The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service"... Martin was Deputy General Counsel for the Bush-Cheney 2000 recount.

courtroom showdown: bush demands spying telecom amnesty
from threat level: The Bush administration on Tuesday will try to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation's telecoms, which are accused of transmitting Americans' private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants. At issue in the high-stakes showdown... are the nearly four dozen lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups and class action attorneys against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other carriers who allegedly cooperated with the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The lawsuits claim the cooperation violated federal wiretapping laws and the Constitution. (28kb PDF) In July, as part of a wider domestic spying bill, Congress voted to kill the lawsuits and grant retroactive amnesty to any phone companies that helped with the surveillance; President-elect Barack Obama was among those who voted for the law in the Senate. On Tuesday, lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation are set to urge the federal judge overseeing those lawsuits to reject immunity as unconstitutional. At stake, they say, is the very principle of the rule of law in America.

behavioral screening: the future of airport security?
from cnn: Keep your shoes and belts on: Waiting in long airport security lines to pass through metal detectors may soon be a thing of the past. Security experts say focus is shifting from analyzing the content of carry-ons to analyzing the content of passengers' intentions and emotions. "We are seeing a needed paradigm shift when it comes to security," says Omer Laviv, CEO of ATHENA GS3, an Israeli-based security company. "This 'brain-fingerprinting,' or technology which checks for behavioral intent, is much more developed than we think." Nowhere is the need for cutting-edge security more acute than Israel, which faces constant security threats. For this reason, Israel has become a leader in developing security technology.