FBI memos: Hoover knew Salvati was innocent
From the Boston Globe
Excerpts: CBS' ``60 Minutes'' probes the wrongful conviction of Boston man Joseph Salvati again tonight with additional 1965 memos showing FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover knew the wrong men went to prison for the Edward ``Teddy'' Deegan murder. Uncovered by congressional investigators, the June 9, 1965, memo from the Boston FBI acknowledges its own informant Vincent ``Jimmy The Bear'' Flemmi actually killed Deegan in Chelsea...
Salvati spent 30 years in prison for the crime until his sentence was commuted in 1997 and the charges were officially dropped last year.
House Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) will file legislation in July to remove Hoover's name from FBI headquarters, committee sources said. Reported by the Herald in May, the '65 memo to Hoover says Flemmi is a psychopath who will kill again but concludes, ``the informant's potential outweighs the risk involved.'' Congressional investigators said Department of Justice files show tacit approval from Hoover for Flemmi's continued use.

Labels: FBI

Senator Byrd challenges Bush’s ideas on war
From the West Virginia Gazette
Excerpts: ...Byrd criticized the Bush administration for “saber-rattling” and “unwise and dangerous effort to keep the public and Congress largely in the dark...Shrouded in ambiguity and cloaked in deep secrecy, this administration continues to suddenly, and sometimes unexpectedly, drop its decisions upon the public and Congress, and expect obedient approval, without question, without debate, and without opposition.”
Byrd left no doubt he would like to see Saddam Hussein removed from power. “He has promoted the starvation of Iraqi children so that he and his cabal can live in palaces. Saddam Hussein is a scourge on the people of Iraq and a menace to peace.” But as a student of Senate history, Byrd referred to past tragedies in arguing for Senate debate and public participation in major policy decisions. “As we learned all too well in Korea, Vietnam and Somalia, it is dangerous to present Congress and the American people with a fait accompli on important matters of foreign affairs.”

NY Mayor Bloomberg: It's investors' fault
From the New York Daily News
Excerpts: Investors who lost money in the corporate scandals sweeping the nation shouldn't look to Mayor Bloomberg for sympathy. "People who were buying stocks in the stock market at multiples that never made any sense should look at themselves in the mirror," the mayor said. "They're as responsible, I think, as those that actually committed the crimes of misstating earnings and fudging the numbers," he said.
The remark, made on Bloomberg's weekly WABC-AM radio show, drew heated criticism from the other side of City Hall. "That's just like equating a woman who dresses in ways that some might feel is provocative as being just as guilty as a rapist," said City Councilman James Sanders (D-Queens), chairman of the Economic Development Committee. Sanders called the mayor's remark "unfortunate" and a "knee-jerk" reaction to the corporate scandals. "I'm sure, in his frustration against this great theft of everyday working people by the callous and criminal elite, he overstated his position," Sanders said. But Ed Skyler, Bloomberg's press secretary, said the mayor "stands by his statement."

Moussaoui NOT part of September 11?
From CBS News
Excerpt: A number of people are under surveillance. None is believed to have had a supporting role in the 9/11 attacks. Some may have been slated to assist Zacarias Moussaoui - the so-called "20th Hijacker" - who senior officials now believe, in fact, was not scheduled to be part of the Sept. 11 attacks after all, but was to have carried out a separate, unknown mission.
End excerpt. Compare to Government alters Moussaoui indictment from The Guardian, June 20, 2002.

Labels: September 11

Don't hurt civilians, Karzai says to U.S.
From the Chicago Sun Times

Bush's Trifecta Joke: Not funny, not even true
From MSNBC
Excerpts: This is its basic telling: “You know, when I was running for president, in Chicago, somebody said, would you ever have deficit spending? I said, only if we were at war, or only if we had a recession, or only if we had a national emergency. Never did I dream we’d get the trifecta.” ...So far, the president has told the joke on the record at least 14 times. It originated, evidently, as an anecdote he told to business leaders Oct. 3 — three weeks after the terrorist attacks — when he explained his three-part reasoning for going into deficit spending...However, the real problem with the joke is that it is a complete falsehood...Bush never told any audience, or any reporter, in Chicago that he could foresee three conditions under which deficit spending might be necessary. In fact, throughout the entire campaign, Bush had been insistent that budget surpluses would continue...

Labels: bush

Banker charged in Brazillian money laundering
From Reuters via Iwon
Excerpts: Federal authorities said on Thursday they had cracked a half-billion dollar Brazilian money laundering ring, arresting a New Jersey banker after a two-year sting. Maria Carolina Nolasco, a Portuguese-born U.S. citizen, was charged with illegally transmitting millions of dollars from dozens of accounts she controlled as manager of Valley National Bancorp's (VLY) international private banking department. Nolasco, 44, of Jersey City, was released on $250,000 bail. If convicted on all eight counts, she could be sentenced to more than 50 years in jail.

Bank executive charged in Mexican drug ring conspiracy
From Reuters via Iwon
A former Lehman Brothers (LEH) account executive has been indicted on charges of helping a former Mexican governor launder millions of dollars in payoffs he received to protect a cocaine cartel, prosecutors said on Thursday. Consuelo Marquez, 39, a Manhattan resident, was named as a defendant in the indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court. She was charged along with former Gov. Mario Villanueva Madrid of Mexico's Quintana Roo state and his son for their alleged role in a scheme to launder payoffs through foreign and U.S. banks and brokerage accounts.

G-8: $20 billion for Russian disarmament, no firm commitment for Africa
Washington Post

White House counterterrorism official resigns
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: The top White House official for coordinating the federal government's counteroffensive against terrorism resigned yesterday in a surprise decision that removed one of the Bush administration's leading advocates of launching aggressive and unconventional attacks on terrorist networks...The White House said Downing, 62, would be succeeded by another retired general, John A. Gordon, who is chief of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, and previously was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency...

Ashcroft fires bankruptcy administrator
From the San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpts: Linda Stanley, the government's outspoken chief bankruptcy administrator in Northern California and Nevada, said Tuesday she was abruptly fired by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. Stanley, a Justice Department employee, called the dismissal unexpected and highly unusual. She said its timing in the middle of her second term "raises the question of whether it was a political decision." ...
"Linda Stanley went out on a limb to insist that consumers had a right to representation in the bankruptcy proceeding and to question the outrageous legal costs PG&E is racking up," TURN said in a statement. "We hope this isn't payback for her standing up for consumers." Justice Department spokeswoman Dana Perino declined to offer a reason for Stanley's removal.

Republican-Controlled Panel Defies President on Civil Service Raise
Washington Post

G8 Around the World
USA - Fox News - Bush Says No Mideast Deal Without Change
Canada - Ottawa Citizen - U.S. Mideast peace plan overshadows G 8 talks on economy, disarmament
UK - Guardian - Public spat over Arafat widens Blair and Bush rift
Russia - Pravda - Fight against terrorism is the focus of the G8 Summit

Judge Enters Innocent Plea on Behalf of Moussaoui
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: A federal judge entered a plea of innocent Tuesday on behalf of Zacarias Moussaoui at the French citizen's arraignment on a revised Sept. 11-related indictment and denied his request to move the trial to Denver. A defiant Moussaoui, who refused "in the name of Allah," to enter a plea at his initial arraignment, took the same tack again...
In turning down Moussaoui's plea for a change of venue, the judge rejected his claim that he could not obtain an impartial jury from the northern Virginia area, where the Pentagon is located. She also dismissed his claim that the jury pool would be overrepresented with employees of the U.S. government...
The government filed the new indictment last week, offering no explanation for the mostly minor revisions. In one substantive change, prosecutors deleted allegations that Moussaoui had inquired about crop-dusting planes and had information about them in his computer.

US Newspaper List
Bookmark: www.usnpl.com
Just about every newspaper in American can easily be accessed using this website.

Feinstein demands answers from FBI on political spying
From the San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpts: U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, citing a Chronicle report that detailed wide-ranging and unlawful FBI activities at the University of California, has asked FBI Director Robert Mueller whether the bureau is currently involved in similar intelligence operations.
In a pointed letter expressing her "deep concern" about The Chronicle's disclosures, Feinstein also asked Mueller to outline steps taken to prevent the FBI from again misusing its power for political purposes.
"Bob, these allegations are serious, and could not come at a worse time," the senator said in her June 18, 2002, letter. "It is vital that we have a strong FBI that enjoys the confidence and trust of the American people. If there are things we need to do to tighten safeguards or to prevent a return to past misdeeds, we must do them now."
Feinstein's letter comes as the Bush administration and Congress are expanding the FBI's domestic intelligence powers to prevent terrorist acts like the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Labels: FBI

Security bill bars blowing whistle
From the Washington Times
Experts: A provision in the bill seeking to create a Homeland Security Department will exempt its employees from whistleblower protection, the very law that helped expose intelligence-gathering missteps before September 11. The legislation now before Congress contains a provision allowing the director of the proposed agency to waive all employee protections in Title V, including the Whistleblower Protection Act. The act protects government employees from retaliation or losing employment for speaking out on waste, fraud and abuse...
Other elements of the plan are long on secrecy and short on accountability, Mr. Edgar says.
The department would not be required to release information under the Freedom of Information Act. This would eliminate the agency's responsibility to answer questions from the public. Advisory committees that normally include public input would be immune, and the Cabinet secretary would have veto power over inspector general audits and investigations. "We need to know real facts, and not just spin from the agency," he says.

Head of Sept. 11 Probe Obstructed Danforth's Waco Inquiry
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: The official in charge of ferreting out information about the FBI for a joint congressional intelligence panel allegedly obstructed a Justice Department probe of the bureau two years ago. As the FBI's deputy general counsel, Thomas A. Kelley was the bureau's point of contact for special counsel John C. Danforth's inquiry into the 1993 Waco debacle in which 75 Branch Davidians died in a fire after a 51-day standoff. Kelley, who has since retired from the FBI, heads the intelligence panel's probe of the bureau's role in tracking terrorists before the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to a December 2000 internal FBI memo, Kelley "continued to thwart and obstruct" the Waco investigation to the point that Danforth was forced to send a team to search FBI headquarters for documents Kelley refused to turn over. "This non-cooperative spirit was at the specific direction of [deputy general counsel] Kelley," the memo states. The memo, written by an agent in the bureau's Office of Professional Responsibility, is cited in a letter sent to the intelligence committee leadership by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). The letter was obtained yesterday by The Washington Post. "I am concerned that Mr. Kelley is part of this review," Grassley wrote.
The letter says that even when Kelley's supervisor recused him from dealing with the Waco investigators, Kelley "continued to insert himself into the Waco inquiry."...The memo says Kelley should have been investigated for alleged "unprofessional conduct, poor judgment, conflict of interest, hostile work environment and retaliation/reprisal" related to his role in the Waco investigation. Grassley's letter says Kelley retired "before an OPR investigation could proceed."

Labels: September 11

Mexico's President Fox declassifies millions of government files
From CNN
Excerpts: President Vicente Fox is releasing nearly 80 million secret intelligence files collected over decades, vowing that Mexico's government will never again use spying and violence against its critics..."Pressure, espionage and violence are not the tools we use in politics: dialogue and understanding are," said Fox...
They apparently range from security checks of government officials to reports on the torture and disappearance of hundreds suspected anti-government militants during the so-called dirty war, from the 1960s through the early 1980s. They also may shed more light on incidents such as deadly government attacks on student demonstrators in 1968 and 1971. "Terrible events such as those that are documented by these archives cannot occur again in our country," said Interior Secretary Santiago Creel...Fox earlier had the federal Human Rights Commission investigate -- and confirm -- the fact that hundreds of people, most of them suspected leftist rebels, vanished after being arrested. He also named a special prosecutor to take action against torturers and murderers.

Government Alters Moussaoui Indictment
From the Guardian (UK)
Excerpts: The government has altered the indictment of accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, dropping indications that he was implicated in planning attacks with crop-dusting planes. There was no official explanation for the change. The possibility of crop-dusting attacks was considered so serious after the Sept. 11 hijackings that crop-dusting planes were grounded for a time...The new indictment also dropped a reference that the lead Sept. 11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, made inquiries about starting a crop-dusting company at various times in 2000 and 2001.

Labels: September 11

U.S. faulted in Canadian war deaths
From MSNBC
Excerpts: The officials said the investigation report found that the F-16 pilot, Maj. Harry Schmidt of the Illinois Air National Guard, did not take time to properly assess the threat on the ground before dropping a 500-pound laser-guided bomb....The U.S. military officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the report had not yet been presented to top-level Pentagon officials, but it found that Schmidt did not check properly before he dropped his bomb on the Canadians as they conducted a nighttime live-fire exercise on the ground south of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Umbach, an Air National Guard squadron commander, also let things get out of control, according to one official.
...The U.S. probe found that Schmidt dropped the bomb after being told by air controllers not to release a weapon until further checks were made. But after seeing ground fire and believing his flight was threatened, he dropped the bomb instead of leaving the area to assess the threat and plan a counterstrike.

Two FBI Whistle-Blowers Allege Lax Security, Possible Espionage
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: In separate cases, two new FBI whistle-blowers are alleging mismanagement and lax security -- and in one case possible espionage -- among those who translate and oversee some of the FBI's most sensitive, top-secret wiretaps in counterintelligence and counterterrorist investigations.The allegations of one of the whistle-blowers have prompted two key senators -- Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) -- to pose critical questions about the FBI division working on the front line of gathering and analyzing wiretaps. That whistle-blower, Sibel Edmonds, 32, a former wiretap translator in the Washington field office, raised suspicions about a co-worker's connections to a group under surveillance...Edmonds was fired in March after she reported her concerns. Government officials said the FBI fired her because her "disruptiveness" hurt her on-the-job "performance." Edmonds said she believes she was fired in retaliation for reporting on her co-worker.
In the second whistle-blower case, John M. Cole, 41, program manager for FBI foreign intelligence investigations covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, said counterintelligence and counterterrorism training has declined drastically in recent years as part of a continuing pattern of poor management.Cole also said he had observed what he believed was a security lapse regarding the screening and hiring of translators. "I thought we had all these new security procedures in place, in light of [FBI spy Robert P.] Hanssen," Cole said. "No one is going by the rules and regulations and whatever policy may be implemented."

Labels: FBI

Combatants Lack Rights, U.S. Argues
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: Prisoners declared enemy combatants do not have the right to a lawyer and the American judiciary cannot second-guess the military's classification of such detainees, the Justice Department argued yesterday in a brief to an appeals court. The filing in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, the U.S.-born man captured with Taliban forces and being held at a Navy brig in Norfolk, provides the most forceful enunciation yet of the Bush administration's position that those declared enemy combatants in the war on terrorism have no right to counsel and can be held indefinitely. The strongly worded brief signed by Deputy Solicitor General Paul D. Clement also argues that the civilian courts have no standing to intervene.
The government's position was outlined in a 46-page filing with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. It came in response to a ruling by a federal judge in Norfolk that allowed Hamdi to see Federal Public Defender Frank W. Dunham Jr., who had filed a motion seeking access to the detainee. "The court may not second-guess the military's enemy combatant determination. Going beyond that determination would require the courts to enter an area in which they have no competence, much less institutional expertise, intrude upon the Constitutional prerogative of the Commander in Chief . . . and possibly create 'a conflict between judicial and military opinion highly comforting to enemies of the United States,' " the brief said, citing a 1950 Supreme Court ruling.

EPA says toxic sludge is good for fish
From the Washington Times
Excerpts: The Army Corps of Engineers' dumping of toxic sludge into the Potomac River protects fish by forcing them to flee the polluted area and escape fishermen, according to an internal Environmental Protection Agency document. The document says it is not a "ridiculous possibility" that a discharge "actually protects the fish in that they are not inclined to bite (and get eaten by humans) but they go ahead with their upstream movement and egg laying."...
"To suggest that toxic sludge is good for fish because it prevents them from being caught by man is like suggesting that we club baby seals to death to prevent them from being eaten by sharks. It's ludicrous," said Rep. George P. Radanovich, California Republican and chairman of the subcommittee on national parks, recreation and public lands.
"This is one of the most frightening examples of bureaucratic ineptitude and backward logic I have ever seen," Mr. Radanovich said.

Saudis bar access to terror suspects
From CBS News
Excerpts: Saudi authorities will not allow foreign security personnel to interrogate its 13 detained al Qaeda suspects, a government-controlled Saudi newspaper reported Wednesday, describing a policy that could strain U.S.-Saudi relations...On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia announced its first al Qaeda-related arrests since Sept. 11 in a plot to shoot down a U.S. military plane stationed at a Saudi base. It alleged the suspects "were planning to carry out terrorist attacks against vital and important installations in the kingdom, by using explosives and two (surface-to-air) SA-7 missiles, smuggled into the kingdom and hidden in different places around the country."...
It took five months before the kingdom acknowledged that 15 of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi. It has not taken part in a worldwide asset freeze of accounts linked to al Qaeda chief and exiled Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden or changed laws — as other Gulf states have — to crack down on money transferring or Islamic banking practices that al Qaeda may be abusing.

Due to the shortage of real news, it is highly recommended that you check out some of the headlines you might have missed.

Rumsfeld sold up to $91 million in shares comply with ethics
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Excerpts: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sold up to $91 million in stock and partnership shares last year to comply with government ethics rules, according to his financial disclosure statement released Tuesday. Rumsfeld complained in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics that the disclosure form is "excessively complex and confusing" and cost him more than $60,000 in accountants' fees to compile.
Rumsfeld, who also was defense secretary under President Gerald Ford, spent more than 20 years as an executive at several large corporations before returning to government service. Among his largest holdings were stakes in the computer graphics chip maker Nvidia, where he was a business adviser, and Gilead Sciences, a drug company where he was chairman of the board until coming to head the Pentagon.

Labels: rumsfeld

The Justice Department's John Lindh Emails
From MSNBC

Guilty verdict forces Andersen to give up clients
From the Guardian (UK)
Excerpts: Arthur Andersen will this week begin the task of handing over about 1,600 public company clients to rival auditors after the accounting firm was on Saturday found guilty of obstruction of justice.
The accounting firm said it would appeal the decision, but acknowledged that the guilty verdict had sounded the death knell for its auditing practice. Andersen will cease auditing work at the end of August after 89 years in business...Sentencing has been set for October 11 and the firm faces fines of up to $500,000. But of more importance is the automatic suspension from auditing public companies registered with the securities and exchange commission.

Home Depot refuses to do business with the Federal Government
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Excerpts: Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest hardware and home-improvement chain, has told its 1,400 stores not to do business with the U.S. government or its representatives. The Post-Dispatch checked with managers at 38 stores in 11 states. All but two said they had received instructions from Home Depot's corporate headquarters this month not to take government credit cards, purchase orders or even cash if the items are being used by the federal government...
The General Services Administration, the government's quartermaster, just learned of the policy. "I was contacted by the Department of Defense last week, and they said that some of their people were stopped from making purchases at Home Depot," Susan McIver, director of the GSA's Services Acquisition Center, said Friday.
"Home Depot has not contacted us, so I've got no idea what their problem is. We are checking with the other federal agencies to see what they are encountering and then will call the company."

Afghan aid groups fear attacks
From the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Excerpts: International aid workers are threatening to leave northern Afghanistan after a female worker was gang raped, a clinic was attacked by gunmen, and a vehicle carrying food for the hungry was shot up, the United Nations said Saturday....All three attacks occurred in the past week in northern Afghanistan, he said...At least one American aid organization, whose vehicle was attacked Friday while taking food to a camp for internally displaced Afghans, has already pulled out of the country "and may not proceed further with their program," Almeida said.
Other groups are considering similar actions, he said.

Pentagon censors new Nicholas Cage movie
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: When filmmakers ask the Defense Department for help, they have to submit their screenplays to Phil Strub, the head of the department's film and TV liaison office in Washington. He reviews them for accuracy and to determine whether they will help the military's recruiting efforts. Hollywood's top producers regularly trek to Strub's office, pleading for assistance. Strub has clout. If he likes a script, he can recommend that the Pentagon give the movie's producers access to billions of dollars' worth of military hardware -- ships, airplanes and tanks. But if he doesn't like a script, the producers will have to make the changes he recommends if they want the military's assistance.
That's what happened to "Windtalkers," which tells the story of Marines assigned to guard the Navajo "code talkers" who used their unique language to confound Japanese code breakers...
"This has to go," Morgan wrote. "The activity is un-Marine. . . . I recommend these characters be looting the dead for intelligence, or military souvenirs -- swords, knives, field glasses. Loot is still not cool, but more realistic and less brutal." Strub agreed. "Stealing gold teeth, yep, has to go!" he wrote back to Morgan...Screenwriters Joe Batteer and John Rice fought to keep the scene in the film, but in the end took it out. Batteer said the scene was dropped only after the Marines objected. "The Marines' notes came prior to the decision to drop that," he said.

FBI Powers may feed Cyberspying
From Fox News
Excerpts: Magic Lantern is the FBI's latest and most closely-guarded program designed to let agents track Web browsing activity, including e-mail and password access, without detection. While some experts say it is still in the planning stages, most techies believe it already operates. Its existence, leaked to the press last December, enables agents to remotely bug a suspect’s computer and trace his or her movements online and offline by recording the keystrokes on the user's keyboard..."Magic Lantern certainly gives the federal government the ability to make creative use of the Patriot Act," said Sobel. "It’s not someone’s paranoid fantasy, there is the existence of such a thing."
Indeed, with the technology, agents now don't even need to leave the safety of their own offices to bug a computer. Magic Lantern can employ the use of an attached virus on an e-mail to target suspects.

Labels: FBI

Ohio State Students threatened with expulsion, arrest for heckling Bush speech
You'll have to scroll down past the speech highlights for this.
From AP via Yahoo
Excerpt: Bush was invited to speak at the Ohio State commencement by representatives of the graduating class. But immediately before class members filed into the giant football stadium, an announcer instructed the crowd that all the university's speakers deserve to be treated with respect and that anyone demonstrating or heckling would be subject to expulsion and arrest. The announcer urged that Bush be greeted with a "thunderous" ovation.

Georgia Congressman sues Bill Clinton, James Carville, and Larry Flynt for Emotional Distress
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: We never realized that that Rep. Bob Barr -- the Georgia Republican who so despised Bill Clinton that he demanded his impeachment before the Monica Lewinsky scandal -- was such a delicate hothouse flower. Well, it turns out that Barr was deeply hurt by all those slings and arrows during his 1998 ordeal as a Republican impeachment manager. Barr was so wounded, in fact, that he has filed suit in a Washington federal court against the former president, Clinton loyalist James Carville and politically active pornographer Larry Flynt seeking compensatory damages "in excess of $30 million" for "loss of reputation and emotional distress" and "injury in his person and property" allegedly caused by these three -- who Barr claims conspired to "hinder [the plaintiff] in the lawful discharge of his duties."...
Defendant Flynt, meanwhile, declared: "This time, Barr has kicked the wrong dog." Defendant Carville told us: "To call this suit 'frivolous' would be to elevate the status of 'frivolous.' " Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, said: "The claims have no legal merit and will be defended vigorously."

American Airlines dispatcher told not to report Shoe-Bomber
From USA Today
Excerpt: The American Airlines dispatcher who handled the flight carrying alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid says her supervisor told her to hold off telling the Federal Aviation Administration about the scare because he feared the plane would be delayed. Julie Robichaux filed a 12-page complaint Wednesday with the FAA, saying her superior told her not to report the shoe-bomb incident ''because the flight would be remotely parked and it would be forever before we could get the plane out of there.'' Robichaux said she did not follow the instructions. American Airlines spokesman Steve Tankel denied the accusations.

White House to Relax Air Pollution Rules for Utilities
From the New York Times
Excerpts: The Bush administration on Thursday said it will relax costly air pollution rules when U.S. utilities are repaired or expanded, triggering a storm of protest from environmental groups and some Democrats. The move by the Environmental Protection Agency came after months of lobbying by U.S. utilities and industry, which have long complained about complex rules on how far they can go to enlarge or upgrade a plant before having to install costly equipment to control smog, acid rain and soot...
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle called the EPA announcement an ``extraordinary example'' of rolling back environmental protections. ``I'm very, very saddened by the news again today that once again clean air takes a back seat to the polluters and the special interests that seem to have such power in this administration,'' Daschle told reporters.

Immigration supervisor at Los Angeles airport arrested for immigrant smuggling
From the Dallas Morning News
Excerpts: An immigration supervisor and four others have been charged with smuggling illegal immigrants from the Philippines into the United States through Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said Tuesday. The five are charged with allegedly conspiring to meet immigrants at arriving flights, diverting them from connecting flights and escorting them past airport security, according to a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. attorney's office...Those arrested Monday included Maximiano Ramos, 53, a supervisor with the Immigration and Naturalization Service...Two defendants worked at a private airport security firm that provides escorts who meet passengers and ensure they board the correct connecting flights.

Bush opposes labeling of genetically engineered food
From the Houston Chronicle
Excerpts: The Bush administration opposes the labeling of genetically engineered food, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told the world's premier biotechnology industry gathering.
"Mandatory labeling will only frighten consumers," he said during a breakfast speech Monday at the BIO 2002 conference. "Labeling implies that biotechnology products are unsafe." ...
U.S. officials have said the labeling could cost U.S. companies $4 billion a year...Critics complain that not enough testing has been done to determine the long-term health effects of splicing the genes of two species together to create food. "The science is so immature, we don't know what we are doing," Canadian genetics professor David Suzuki said at an anti-biotech rally in a Toronto park on Sunday

Labels: bush

Ground Zero bank refuses clean-up
From the Guardian (UK)
Excerpts: A skyscraper next to Ground Zero believed to contain bodies of people who died on September 11 has still not been entered or searched because the bank which owns it will not let rescue workers inside...Deutsche Bank maintains that a mould which has infested its walls and ventilation system could be a health hazard, embroiling the company in potential liability lawsuits worth millions of dollars..."It's very disturbing that anyone would prevent the firefighters from bringing loved ones home to their families," said Marian Fontana, who lost her firefighter husband David on September 11.
End excerpt. Coincidentally, this is the same bank that has been implicated in pre 9-11 insider trading

Labels: September 11

Would-be Power Plant Bombing Soldier gets Probation
From the Florida Times-Union
You'll have to scroll down a few stories to find it...this sentencing didn't receive very much attention.
Excerpt: The soldier from Fort Stewart, Ga., who was arrested on charges of planting an explosive device on a dirt road will serve 18 months probation after pleading no contest yesterday. A Jacksonville police officer stopped Derek Lawrence Peterson in May and found him wearing all black clothing and black plastic pads on his knees and elbows. Police said Peterson, 27, told them he was in the area practicing "recon tactics." End excerpt. Also see
Fort Stewart soldier jailed in Florida on $5 million bond
From the Savannah Morning News
Excerpt: The officer recognized Peterson's black 2002 Chevrolet Silverado pickup because he had noticed it backed up to the Florida Power and Light station's main gate 30 minutes earlier as he drove to assist another officer. The officer searched Peterson's truck and found a 12-inch knife, a six-inch knife, a 12-gauge shotgun, shotgun shells, .45-caliber bullets, four ammo magazines, a six-volt battery, duct tape, speaker wire and plastic from an explosive device, the report said. After being informed of his rights, wrote arresting officer D.F. Valiante, "the suspect advised me that he was on the power plant property to practice recon tactics." Police followed footprints on a dirt road at the power plant and found an explosive device underneath the power lines, the report said. End excerpt.
What's up with these off-base training missions? Remember this from last February?
Deputy Will Not Face Charges In Shooting Of Fort Bragg Soldiers
From WRAL-TV (North Carolina)
Excerpt: Both soldiers were riding in a pickup truck and dressed in civilian clothing when Butler pulled them over on a rural road. A civilian was driving the truck. According to the State Bureau of Investigation, Butler believed his life was in danger because the soldiers reached for a gun and behaved in a suspicious manner. The deputy killed one soldier and wounded the other when they tried to disarm him. According to officials, the soldiers thought the deputy was taking part in the training exercise.

Activists awarded $4.4 million for FBI frame-up
From the San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpts: Twelve years after they were arrested in the bombing of their own car, two Earth First! activists were awarded about $4.4 million Tuesday in a federal suit claiming they were framed by Oakland Police and FBI agents...Cherney and Bari were injured when a bomb exploded in their Subaru while they were driving in Oakland in May 1990. Bari, who was at the wheel, suffered a crushed pelvis.
The two were arrested within hours, but the case fell apart weeks later when prosecutors said there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges. Cherney and Bari sued investigators for false arrest, illegal search, slanderous statements and conspiracy. They claimed officials ignored evidence exonerating the activists and lied to try to make their case.

Labels: FBI

Missile Defense data will now be kept secret
From the Los Angeles Times
Excerpts: The Bush administration will now keep secret key information on its missile defense program, a blow to opponents who have relied on such data to challenge the technology as error-prone and not ready for deployment. Administration officials said they will withhold the data, which concerns flight tests of the program's most advanced long-range system, to prevent U.S. adversaries from gaining secrets about hardware intended to shield the nation from nuclear attack.
Critics of the program, including some influential lawmakers, say the move is an attempt to stifle criticism and allow the administration to control the debate on the system's future. "They're attempting to avoid the usual oversight by Congress, the media ... and the larger scientific community," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee that oversees the project. "There's an attitude of 'we know best, don't bother us.'"

Ridge: Bush should veto Cabinet-level homeland security office
From Government Executive magazine
Highlights: Today's comments were the first time Ridge has said he would recommend a presidential veto. Ridge said presidents should be "entitled to a few advisers" who owe their loyalty solely to the president...Ridge's comments came as key members of Congress ramp up efforts to approve legislation that would create a full-fledged Cabinet-level position for homeland security.
End excerpt
Oops! That's an old story from May 30. "My bad". Here's the latest:
Ridge, Card defend homeland security plan
From UPI

Government buys $663 million worth of tobacco, pays to let it rot
Fox News
Roughly 225 million pounds of tainted tobacco sits in warehouses all over the United States, unwanted, unusable and paid for with $663 million of U.S. taxpayer cash. Under federal law, the tobacco can't be sold in the United States and nobody wants to buy it overseas. It now sits in warehouses at a cost of $270,000 a month, $3.3 million a year.
"Temporary assistance is one thing," said Pete Sapp, president of the National Taxpayer's Union, "but when the government attempts to manipulate supply and demand, consumers as well as taxpayers suffer." Supporters of the government's storage plan say keeping the stock on hand is the best method for staying competitive.

Providence Journal worker kills two, maybe self, injures another
From the Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin
Excerpts: An employee of The Providence Journal Co. fatally shot two coworkers, wounded a third, and may have then died in a car fire...The police said that Carlos Pacheco, 38, a 20-year employee at The Journal, entered the building at 210 Kinsley Ave. at about 9:30 a.m., and shot a supervisor, Robert Benetti, 38, of Pawtucket. Benetti died. Pacheco then shot and wounded a driver, Charles Johnson, 30, of Providence, as Johnson sat in his pickup in the parking lot.
Shortly after, the Warwick police found Matthew Fandetti, 29, shot dead in his house in Warwick, and a fourth person burned beyond recognition in a car...Detectives say they are waiting for the results of an autopsy to determine the identity of the burned person, but the destroyed car belonged to Pacheco, said Providence Detective Maj. Martin F. Hames. The handgun was also in the car.

Administration Sued to Determine Who Knew What, And When, About Anthrax
From Fox News
Excerpts: A conservative group is suing the Bush administration for access to documents surrounding last fall's anthrax attacks, asserting that top officials may have known that the bioterrorist attack was coming. Judicial Watch said Friday it has yet to receive documents from several agencies after filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The group argues the documents will show who knew what, and when.
Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, noted administration officials said last fall that some White House staff had begun taking the antibiotic Cipro on Sept. 11, weeks before the anthrax attacks were made public. "We believe that the White House knew or had reason to know that an anthrax attack was imminent or under way," Klayman said.

Cheney on the Grill
Taking a closer look at Halliburton’s accounting practices
From Newsweek

The FBI and the Making of Ronald Reagan
From the San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpt: Under the guise of protecting national security, the FBI conducted wide-ranging and unlawful intelligence operations concerning the University of California that at different points involved the head of the CIA and then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, The Chronicle has learned.
According to thousands of pages of FBI records obtained by The Chronicle after a 17-year legal fight, the FBI unlawfully schemed with the head of the CIA to harass students, faculty and members of the Board of Regents, and mounted a concerted campaign to destroy the career of UC President Clark Kerr, which included sending the White House derogatory allegations about him that the bureau knew were false.

Labels: FBI

NY State residents line up for government radiation pills
From the Tampa Tribune
Excerpts: Neighbors of a nuclear power plant 30 miles north of New York City stood in line Saturday for free radiation-fighting pills to keep in their homes in case of an emergency. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the government has increased security at all nuclear power plants, including taking into account for the first time a possible suicide attack by a large aircraft. One precaution is the distribution of potassium iodide pills, which the Nuclear Regulator Commission is offering to residents within 10 miles of nuclear plants. Thirteen states have accepted the pills.

Series of bombings have Birmingham, AL residents on edge
From MSNBC
An explosive device was found around 2:45 p.m. Friday in west Birmingham following similar discoveries in Chilton and Shelby counties. Once alerted, authorities took no chances, sending in a robot to retrieve it from the Triple S convenience store ..
In Shelby County, four devices were planted. Three of them exploded, damaging mailboxes, and sending authorities scrambling to find out who's responsible. Another device surfaced in Chilton County.
Incidents like these not only put authorities on edge, they also concern people living in the community...

Bush rejects bid to halt oil drilling off California coast
From the San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpts: President Bush has rejected Gov. Gray Davis' plea to extend the same protections against oil and gas drilling to California that he granted Florida last week. "A major difference between Florida and California is that Florida opposes coastal drilling and California does not," Interior Secretary Gale Norton wrote Davis on Bush's behalf in a letter released Friday.
California Resources Secretary Mary Nichols called that reasoning "100 percent wrong" and suggested that "someone has been giving (Norton) very bad advice." Davis was sharply critical, noting that California has taken the federal government to court to block drilling on 36 undeveloped leases off the coast of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. A judge agreed with the state a year ago; a hearing on the Bush administration's appeal is set for Monday.

Labels: bush

Washington State Troopers doing random searches at ferry docks
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Excerpts: State troopers have launched an aggressive campaign to boost security on Washington State Ferries by randomly searching vehicles while their owners wait to board. The searches are ostensibly voluntary, but motorists who refuse can be denied passage by the captain of the boat...
Yesterday, clipboard-toting troopers were at the Winslow terminal on Bainbridge Island for the morning commute. They checked every 15th vehicle, asking drivers if they had any explosives or weapons in the car. Drivers were asked to produce identification and a vehicle registration, and then to open the trunk and all other storage areas. License numbers and other information was noted on a form....
Sheehan said the ACLU hopes to reach people who have been searched, or who have refused to be searched, adding that the fact that a refusal could result in a missed ferry ride makes it hardly voluntary. "You have the right not to be searched as long as you don't want to travel freely in the state of Washington any longer," he said. "That's not voluntary."

Venezuelan Coup Plotters apply for asylum in United States
From the Tampa Tribune
Excerpts: Three Venezuelan military officers say they are seeking political asylum in the United States because they fear persecution from the government of President Hugo Chavez, the target of an attempted military coup...
Chavez was briefly deposed and arrested April 12 by military generals after 17 people died and hundreds were wounded when a huge opposition march collided with government supporters at the presidential palace. Loyal troops - backed by thousands of civilian protesters - swept him back to power two days later. Dozens died in a weekend of rioting and looting.
End excerpt. Also see
Venezuela coup linked to Bush team
From the Guardian (UK)
Excerpts: The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time...One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair...The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich.

NSA didn't share key pre-Sept. 11 information, sources say
You've got to wonder what Condaleeza Rice was doing all summer.
From the Miami Herald
Excerpts: A secretive U.S. eavesdropping agency monitored telephone conversations before Sept. 11 between the suspected commander of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and the alleged chief hijacker, but did not share the information with other intelligence agencies, U.S. officials said Thursday.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the conversations between Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohammed Atta were intercepted by the National Security Agency, or NSA, an intelligence agency that monitors and decodes foreign communications.
The NSA failed to share the intercepts with the CIA or other U.S. intelligence agencies, the officials told Knight Ridder. It also failed to promptly translate some intercepted Arabic language conversations, a senior intelligence official said.

Watch the 9-11 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings live
Windows Media From MSNBC
or on Real Player from CBS

Dee Dee Ramone Found Dead
Rolling Stone Magazine

Justice Dept. Subpoenas MSNBC Without Approval
From MSNBC
Excerpts: Without required approval, U.S. prosecutors sent a subpoena to MSNBC.com demanding a reporter’s notes, e-mails and other information as part of an investigation into a nomadic young hacker who acknowledged breaking into computers at The New York Times earlier this year.
Under guidelines from the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft or his deputy must personally approve any subpoenas sent to journalists, and Barbara Comstock, director of the Office of Public Affairs, must review such requests. But senior Justice officials on Ashcroft’s staff at headquarters said they were unfamiliar with the MSNBC.com subpoena, and Ms. Comstock said she did not review it. “If that’s true ... they violated their own policy,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Big Tobacco spied on health groups
MSNBC

Florida might lose federal school funds
From WTSP St. Petersburg
Published reports say the state of Florida might lose some needed federal school money because state spending on education has gone down. The St. Petersburg Times says numbers compiled by the federal government contradict claims by Governor Jeb Bush that school spending has gone up.
The federal numbers show Florida was the only state in the nation to cut spending on high-poverty schools during the 1999-2000 budget year. But Horne says it actually went up 4.6 percent.

Witnesses Disagree on Details of Flight 587 Crash
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: The National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that 349 people reported seeing American Airlines Flight 587 fall from the sky over New York on Nov. 12 but that there is wide disagreement on what they saw. Investigators, law enforcement officers and others who interview witnesses have long known those reports are often unreliable, but a compilation of witness accounts of the crash, which killed 265 people, is striking in its contrasts...
Some of the witnesses earlier had accused the NTSB of ignoring their reports, suggesting a coverup of the real cause.

Who wants to kill Medical Examiner O. C. Smith?
What do Kathy Smith, the woman who was murdered in a fiery crash days before she was to face charges for getting fake ID's for foreigners, and Don C. Wiley, the Harvard microbiologist who was found dead in the Mississippi river have in common? Their autopsies were performed by the same man, O. C. Smith. Now somebody wants O. C. Smith dead, so much so that they wrapped him in barbed wire and strapped a bomb to his body, then left him to explode in a parking lot. It didn't work, though.
Investigators suspect the attacker is the same person who sent threatening letters to Dr. Smith last year, but perhaps they should be connecting the dots of the bigger picture.

US Fighter Pilots given Amphetamines
From the Vancouver Sun
Excerpts: Pilots from the U.S. fighter squadron that mistakenly bombed Canadian troops in Afghanistan had told their commanders shortly before the fatal accident that they were exhausted and needed more rest between missions...Pilots are supposed to get 12 hours of rest between missions, but that can be changed when the unit is in a state of alert. The 183rd has been flying missions in the no-fly zone since March. Although U.S. air force rules allow flight surgeons to prescribe dextro-amphetamine (dexe-drine), the drug is supposed to be used for long transoceanic transport flights, not combat missions.
"If they can't work around the scheduling, and people have to work extended hours, then dextro-amphetamine is approved," said Betty-Anne Mauger, a public affairs officer with the U.S. air force surgeon general.

Oregon community challenges Feds
From CNN
Excerpts: Grant County voters passed two ballot measures last month reflecting the frustration of residents who feel they no longer control their lives, livelihoods or the land. By about a 2-to-1 margin, residents approved a measure banning the United Nations in the county and another allowing people to cut trees on federal land, regardless of whether the U.S. Forest Service approves...Supporters hope to push the Forest Service into allowing more logging. They say millions of board feet of timber could be salvaged by allowing people to cut the big ponderosa pines and firs that are hazards.
The second measure that passed in Grant County says the United Nations wants to take away people's guns, seize private property, control the education of children and establish "one world religion-Pantheism (and) world taxation." "The U.N. scares me. If anything ever got bad, we could have foreigners here controlling us," said John Day painter and muralist Patricia Ross, 55.

Supreme Court sides with inmate whose lawyer slept through trial
From Reuters
Excerpts: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Texas, which wanted to execute a death row inmate even though his lawyer slept repeatedly during his 1984 murder trial in Houston.
A federal judge granted Burdine a new trial, based on Cannon's sleeping, but he also said Cannon referred to his client with gay slurs.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that a sleeping lawyer could provide effective counsel by not dozing during important parts of the trial. But the full appeals court, by a 9-5 vote, ruled for Burdine, deciding his trial was fundamentally unfair.

Airport managers revolt against security changes
From Time Magazine
Excerpt: A key aspect of Washington's aviation-security plan is seriously flawed, and the 39 managers of the country's largest airports have taken the bold step of saying so in a strongly worded joint letter sent last week to Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta...The letter says the bomb-detection devices the TSA has ordered installed by Dec. 31 will create crowds of people in terminals who could be targets for attacks; the machines would be installed near terminal entrances and thus create huge congestion there. The devices would quickly become outdated, the letter adds, yet require big construction costs...
"Somebody needed to tell the truth," says Jeff Fegan, the director in Dallas and one of the letter's authors. Mineta's office says he has no intention of trying to change the law.

British Marines harrassed by gay Afghans
From The Scotsman
Excerpts: BRITISH marines returning from an operation deep in the Afghan mountains spoke last night of an alarming new threat - being propositioned by swarms of gay local farmers.
An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village."
"It was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."

PETA accuses Ringling Brothers of spying
From MSNBC
Excerpts: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contends in a lawsuit that top officials of the company that owns Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus paid a former top CIA operative to spy on the organization. PETA, THE NATION’S largest animal-rights group, claims that Feld Entertainment used “former top government spies,” including former CIA deputy director Clair E. George to tap its phones, steal documents and infiltrate PETA and similar groups...It contends that Feld directed an operation that planted volunteers or employees who were on PETA’s payroll within the organization to steal information protected as trade secrets.

Apologies for not keeping up on the news. For the latest headlines, click here or here.