-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 1:35 pm Subject: No Noose is Good News (Severed Headlines 04/02/08) CLG's BREAKING NEWS and COMMENTARY Last updated: 04/02/2008 12:08:51 http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news <follow links at site> Military Report: Secretly 'Recruit or Hire Bloggers' A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers." ...A 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, "Blogs and Military Information Strategy," offers a third approach -- co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. "Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering," write the report's co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning. ACLU: Military skirting law to spy The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, the ACLU said Tuesday. "Newly unredacted documents released today reveal that the Department of Defense is using the FBI to circumvent legal limits on its own NSL power," said the ACLU, whose lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court. Intelligence Centers Tap Into Personal Databases State Groups, Dozens of 'Fusion Centers,' Were Formed After 9/11 Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA, the document shows, though it's not clear what information those systems contain. From 2004 to 2007, state and local governments received $254 million from the Department of Homeland Security to support of the centers, which are staffed by employees of the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies. In some cases, they work with the U.S. Northern Command, the Pentagon operation involved in homeland security. Inside the Pentagon's Black Budget One patch shows a space alien with huge eyes holding a stealth bomber near its mouth. "To Serve Man" reads the text above, a reference to a classic "Twilight Zone" episode in which man is the entree, not the customer. Military officials and experts said the patches are real if often unofficial efforts at building team spirit... The classified budget of the Defense Department, concealed from the public in all but outline, has nearly doubled in the Bush years, to $32 billion. Wasting and Wanting at the Pentagon New York Times President Bush and a far-too-compliant Congress have already wasted more than $600 billion on the disastrous Iraq war. Since Mr. Bush took office, the Pentagon’s weapons acquisition budget has doubled from $790 billion in 2000 to $1.6 trillion last year... Not only did Mr. Bush and his former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, allow contractors to run amok in Iraq, they let them run amok in the halls of the Pentagon. Colombian Troops Kill Farmers, Pass Off Bodies as Rebels' 'Civilians are just being taken out, executed, and then dressed up in uniforms so the authorities can claim body counts of guerrillas killed.' Under intense pressure from Colombian military commanders to register combat kills, the army has in recent years also increasingly been killing poor farmers and passing them off as rebels slain in combat, government officials and human rights groups say. The trend has prompted concern among some members of the U.S. Congress. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, said he is holding up $23 million in military aid until he sees progress in the fight against impunity and state-sponsored violence terrorism. "We've had six years, $5 billion in U.S. aid. More than half of it has gone to the Colombian military, and we find the army is killing more civilians, not less," Leahy said in an interview. "And by all accounts, we find that civilians are just being taken out, executed and then dressed up in uniforms so they can claim body counts of guerrillas killed." Hamas TV puppet 'kills' Bush as revenge for U.S. actions Child tells Bush: "You are a criminal. You deprived me of everything." In a Hamas TV production for Palestinian children, a puppet stabs U.S. President George Bush to death in revenge for American and Israeli actions. The children's puppet aired Sunday, part of series called "Exceptionals." In the episode, Bush, a hand-held puppet dressed in a green uniform and wearing boxing gloves, is shown talking to a Palestinian child. The child, with tears in his voice, accuses Bush of killing his father in Iraq, his mother in Lebanon and his brothers and sisters in Gaza, with the assistance of the Israelis. Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides.
