Observable Elections

[Jei]

http://www.infosecwriters.com/hhworld/hh9/voting.txt
Hitchhiker's World (Issue #9)
 http://www.infosecwriters.com/hhworld/
Observable Elections

Vipul Ved Prakash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
November 2004
This is an interesting time for electronic voting. India,
the largest democracy in the world, went completely paper-
free for its general elections earlier this year. For the
first time, some 387 million people expressed their
electoral right electronically. Despite initial concerns
about security and correctness of the system, the election
process was a smashing success. Over a million electronic
voting machines (EVMs) were deployed, 8000 metric tonnes of
paper saved[1] and the results made public within few hours
of the final vote. Given the quarrelsome and heavily
litigated nature of Indian democracy, a lot of us were
expecting post-election drama, but only a few, if any,
fingers were found pointing.
Things didn't fare so well in the United States. The
Dieobold electronic machines, slated for use in many states
for the November 2004 Federal elections, turned out to have
rather large security holes. Cryptography experts, Avi Rubin
et al, did a formal analysis of the machines and found that
they could be subverted to introduce votes that were never
casted[2]. An independent government-backed analysis
confirmed this[3] and concluded that the Diebold voting
system "as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology,
is at a high risk of compromise."
It is clear, even to a cursory observer, that Diebold
systems are sloppily designed, never mind the sloppiness is
a function of incompetence or intent. The recent controversy
from the "Black Box Voting" security advisory titled "the
Diebold GEMS central tabulator contains a stunning security
hole"[4] has added to the confusion. It claims that a code
entered at a remote location can replace the real vote count
with a fabricated one. This security hole, discovered last
year, is still not fixed says the advisory. In response,
Diebold claims that this is possible, but only in debug
mode, which does little to make people confortable.
What is disturbing to me as a technologist is the
burgeoning public opinion that electronics is an unviable
medium for conducting the serious business of elections.
Over the last year I've seen numerous formal reports and
articles in popular press[5] equating the failures of
Diebold systems with the untenability of electronic voting.
This is rather silly. Diebold systems are not only poorly
engineered, they are also seriously flawed in design. Even
if they were immaculately bug-free, they are so far from
what electronic voting systems should be, that I have
trouble categorizing them as "voting systems". "Electronic
counters" is more accurate.
Various augmentations have been proposed to Diebold systems;
most revolve around parallel paper trails. Verified
Voting[6] for example proposes that a vote be printed based
on the voter's touch-screen selection, so the voter can
touch, feel and verify their vote before casting it into a
traditional ballet box. These votes would then be processed
with an OCR type machine to compute a cumulative result and
the physical votes would be saved so an independent party
can verify the electronic result at a latter date. This is a
reasonable tradeoff -- after all integrity of elections is
way more important than saving trees and time.
While this is the best recommendation for the upcoming
elections, it subtly promotes the primacy of paper and
distrust in electrons. We know that paper elections are no
more secure. The history of vote tampering in paper based
elections is quite illustrious (I'll simply refer the gentle
reader to [7]) and the reason electronics was considered in
the first place was to eliminate such tampering. Verified
Voting recommends that count of the physical votes is to be
considered superior than that of the electronic counterparts
in case of a difference. What happens if the process of this
count is tampered using traditional methods? We are back to
square one.
The central point that I want to get across in this paper is
that the promise of electronic voting is not merely a
quicker, slightly more secure and ecologically enlightened
replacement for paper elections. Electronic voting, if
implemented correctly, could be a major qualitative leap,
not only changing the way in which we approach democratic
elections, but also the the way in which we expect a
democratic government to function.
Cryptographic Integrity
I want to draw attention to the work done by cryptographic
community in the la

More Evidence The Vote Was Rigged

[Jei]

http://www.rense.com/general59/rig.htm
More Evidence The Vote Was Rigged
From Wayne Nash
11-5-4
I don't want rain on the parade but I am getting quite a few emails from 
various sources citing possible irregularities with the voting process. 
So, I did a little research myself on the net to see what I could find. As 
a political scientist I could not resist.

Regardless of the veracity of any claim to possible irregularities I 
suggest that this question of legitimacy of the process needs to be 
addressed if everyone casting their vote is to feel that their vote is 
being properly counted. No one can feel disenfranchised in a real 
democracy. Otherwise, you end up with a dictatorship and not a democracy 
at all.

Unless BOTH sides feel the system is verifiable then you may end up with a 
banana republic 'democracy'. This is not question of who won the election. 
It is a matter of much greater importance; the legitimacy of the 
democratic process itself.

Here are a couple of sites which address the issue:
1. http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
2. http://www.electoral-vote.com/
On this last web site I found this interesting bit of information:
"Various people sent me mail saying that it is awfully fishy that the exit 
polls and final results were substantially different in some places. I 
hope someone will follow this up and actually do a careful analysis. Does 
anyone know of a Website containing all the exit poll data? If we go to 
computerized voting without a paper trail and the machines can be set up 
to cheat, that is the end of our democracy. Switching 5 votes per machine 
is probably all it would take to throw an election and nobody would ever 
see it unless someone compares the computer totals and exit polls. I am 
still very concerned about the remark of Walden O'Dell a Republican fund 
raiser and CEO of Diebold, which makes voting machines saying he would 
deliver Ohio for President Bush. Someone (not me) should look into this 
carefully. The major newspapers actually recounted all the votes in 
Florida last time. Maybe this year's project should be looking at the exit 
polls. If there are descrepancies between the exit polls and the final 
results in touch-screen counties but not in paper-ballot counties, that 
would be a signal. At the very least it could be a good masters thesis for 
a political science student. The Open voting consortium is a group 
addressing the subject of verifiable voting."

Could there be a possible problem here? Let's see...
* In states where there were paper ballots the results exactly matched the 
exit polls.

* In states where there were only electronic 'touch-screen' paperless 
voting machines Bush showed an inexplicable 5-8 point or more difference 
from the polls, contradicting otherwise accurate exit polls.

* The software used in these voting machines is so sophisticated that you 
can't even check out the programming because it disappears leaving nothing 
to verify, no source code, no nothing.

Below are 3 articles explaining how these E-voting programs work. The man 
who published these articles is apparently an expert on this E-voting 
subject and a computer scientist.

Article 1 http://www.southbaymobilization.org/newsroom/ 
articles/04.0303.ADeafeningSilence_article.htm Article 2 
http://www.southbaymobilization.org/newsroom/ 
articles/04.0618.SecretAgentPrograms_article.htm Article 3 
http://www.southbaymobilization.org/newsroom/ 
articles/04.0701.EVoting_TheNewCloseUpMagic_article.htm

Another site takes the subject seriously...
http://www.rense.com/general59/steI.HTM
Highlight:
* SoCalDem has done a statistical analysis... ...on several swing states, and 
EVERY STATE that has EVoting but no paper trails has an unexplained advantage 
for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results.

* In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll 
results match the actual results reported within the margin of error.

* Analysis of the polling data vs actual data and voting systems supports the 
hypothesis that evoting may be to blame in the discrepancies.

* The media was a bit taken aback that the results didn't match the exit polls 
AT ALL. Most of the commentators were scratching their head in disbelief at the 
results. The media has gracefully claimed they "just got it wrong."

Some examples?
WISCONSIN:
Kerry leads Female voters by 7%, Bush leads male voters by 7%. Male vs. Female 
voter turnout is 47% M, 53% F. That means Kerry statistically has a 7% edge in 
exit polling in Wisconsin.

Actual results however show Bush ahead by 1%, an unexplained difference of 8%.
NEVADA:
Kerry leads in the exit polls by a clear margin, but is still behind in the 
reported results. This state is even closer.

Actual is just 1% favor of Bush. Exit polls show Kerry with a wider margin. 
Women favored Kerry by 8% here out of 52% of total voters. Men favored Bush by 
just 6% out of 48% of total voters. Actual reported results don't match ex

Court urged to stop medicating of man who made threats against Bush

[Jei]

IRC chat quote leading to forced medication?

--
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_530027.html

Court urged to stop medicating of man who made threats against Bush
Ananova
Tuesday 26th February 2002

Attorneys for a man charged with threatening George W Bush want the Supreme
Court to stop doctors from medicating him.

Justices were asked to halt the forced medication of Richard Allen
Humphreys. The court has not intervened in similar cases.

Humphreys, of Portland, Oregon, was charged last spring when he was
overheard making comments about the president in South Dakota. A judge said
last May that he was incompetent to stand trial.

He is being held in solitary confinement in a federal medical centre in
Minnesota, according to William Delaney III, an assistant federal public
defender.

Mr Delaney told justices that Humphreys is being forced to take psychotropic
drugs once a week. A judge agreed to allow the medication.

The Secret Service said evidence against Humphreys included a copy of an
internet chat room conversation with the comment: "If you hear that a man
runs up and throws gasoline and a match to Bush you will know that God did
speak through the burning Bush."

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_530027.html

Bush Push for Stiffer Hack Fines

[Jei]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50620,00.html

By Declan McCullagh  
2:00 a.m. Feb. 23, 2002 PST 

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department wants Congress to increase jail
terms and boost surveillance in an anti-hacking bill that will be
debated next week.

On Tuesday, a House Judiciary subcommittee is scheduled to vote on the
Cyber Security Enhancement Act, which already increases punishments
for illegal computer intrusions. In cases where miscreants knowingly
attempt "to cause death or serious bodily injury" through electronic
means, the punishment would be life imprisonment.

That's not stiff enough for the Bush administration. John Malcolm, the
deputy assistant attorney general, has testified that life
imprisonment also should include "reckless" offenses like wreaking
havoc on a 911 system or a hospital network.

"Although the hacker has not intentionally or knowingly harmed ...  
patients, his reckless conduct has clearly put them at risk of death
or serious injury (The law should cover) not only hackers who
damage a computer system knowing that death or serious injury will
result, but also hackers who damage a computer system with reckless
disregard for whether death or serious injury will result," Malcolm
said.

Also look for behind-the-scenes lobbying by the FBI and the Justice
Department on behalf of a replacement bill to expand police wiretap
powers even beyond last fall's mammoth USA Patriot Act.

Current law permits police to use devices that record the numbers of
incoming and outgoing phone calls -- or the Internet equivalent -- for
two-day periods. Cops legally can do that without a court order in
situations that could involve organized crime or the possibility of
"death or serious bodily injury to any person."

A revised version of the Cyber Security Enhancement Act would extend
that list to include "an immediate threat to a national security
interest or an ongoing attack on a (networked) computer that
constitutes a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment greater than
one year."

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the crime subcommittee,
plans to introduce the revised bill as a replacement for the original
one at the vote next Tuesday.

America Looks The Other Way - On Palestinian Holocaust

[Jei]

http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20020221180802450";>http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20020221180802450

>From silence to the bullet  

Thursday, February 21 2002 @ 06:08 PM GMT

Members of the US media need to take a clear stand against the illegal
practices of the Israeli army now, before the train of history passes them
and the ignominy of having stood silent while crimes against humanity were
committed

By Ahmed Bouzid for PalestineChronicle.com

The Day will come, hopefully soon, when everyone, and not just those
watching the Palestinian-Israeli conflict up close, will look back to this
time with utter astonishment and disbelief and ask: Why was the American
media totally silent over Israeli war crimes against Palestinian children?
Why didn't they rise up, through their editorials and their on-air
commentaries, with disgust and indignation over Israel's policy of killing
children and innocent civilians as a tactic to pressure Palestinians to
turn against their leadership?

When such a day comes, will editors be able to legitimately plead
ignorance?  Unlikely. The evidence has been overwhelming, and everywhere:
from day one of this Intifada, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,
Peace Now, Gush Shalom, B'tselem, along with the United Nations Human
Rights Commission, and many, many other groups, have been denouncing the
Israeli army's policy of shooting at children to kill.

As far back as December 2000, only three months after the outbreak of the
Intifada, Amnesty International concluded that: “For a force trained in
policing riots and equipped and prepared for stone throwers, neither
stones nor petrol bombs should be lethal. Therefore there should be no
need for the use of firearms, let alone lethal force, against stone
throwers.”

And yet, the killing and maiming has continued, unabated, to the tune of
80 Palestinian children younger than 15 and 197 below the age of 18, and
tens of thousands of wounded, while the media have stood by in utter
silence. Indeed, not one editorial in any of the main media outlets that I
can remember since the outbreak of the Intifada a year and a half ago has
been published that stated, unambiguously or otherwise, that although
Israel has a right to defend itself, it has no right to kill and maim
children and innocent civilians as a pressure tactic; as a policy. Keeping
to a long-standing tradition of ignoring what human rights organisations
have to say (unless they are targeting America's official “enemies”),
the US mainstream media have decided to simply look the other way.

But then reports of such atrocities began to appear in the mainstream
media itself, under the very noses of editorial writers. Last October, for
instance, in a gripping article by New York Times reporter Chris Hedges,
published in the October issue of Harper's magazine, we read about the
Israeli army's routine practice of inciting Palestinian children and then
shooting them to kill. Hedges also appeared on NPR's Fresh Air on Oct. 30,
2001, where he told millions of listeners the following: “I've seen
death squads kill families in Algeria or El Salvador. But I'd never seen
soldiers bait or taunt kids like this and then shoot them for sport. It
was — I just — even now, I find it almost inconceivable. And I went
back every day, and every day it was the same.”

Then came the eyewitness accounts of Israeli soldiers who are now refusing
to serve in the occupied territories, citing their objection to “illegal
orders” for unleashing death and violence against civilians. In their
statements, the soldiers state: “We, combat officers and soldiers who
have served the state of Israel for long weeks every year... were issued
commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our
country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over
the Palestinian people; we, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this
occupation exacts from both sides; we shall not continue to fight beyond
the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an
entire people.”

And lately, a heated, passionate debate within Israel itself is raging
about Israel's crimes against civilians. In a Feb. 10 piece in Israel's
Haaretz newspaper, veteran journalist Gideon Levy wrote bitterly that
“the Israeli army has totally shaken off any and all moral
responsibility for the killing of these children”, noting that “in not
one of these cases did the Israeli army spokesman take the trouble to do
the minimum human necessary thing — to express sorrow at the death of
the children. The only conclusion is that the Israeli army is not sorry
about their killing. That is the message to those who did the killing and
to the families of those who were killed. No less grave, the Israeli army
did not even contemplate investigating the circumstances of the deaths”.

Levy goes on to observe: “The fact is that not everything is permitted.
When the Israeli army wanted to prevent immoral

BushMob - Israel's Obedient PUPPETS

[Jei]

http://rense.com/general20/isr.htm

Bush Administration Acts Like Israel's Puppet
By Charley Reese

My biggest disappointment in President George W. Bush has been in how he
has allowed himself to be manipulated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

He has followed the same failed policy that his predecessor did.

That policy can be summed up as "the Israelis are always right, and the
Palestinians are always wrong." That's a very convenient policy for
politicians who don't want the powerful Israeli lobby on their case. But
if the goal is peace, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to protect
America's interests, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to bring
stability to the Middle East, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to
eliminate terrorism, the policy is a failure.

Now, when people pursue a policy that has not achieved the goals it was
supposed to, there are three possible reasons. One, the people are
stupid. I think we can eliminate that. Nobody in the White House is
stupid. A second reason is that they are afraid to change the policy
because of domestic political pressure. A third reason could be that
their goals are not the ones they publicly espouse.

I never thought I would feel sympathy for Yasser Arafat, but he's been
put into an untenable position. Imagine a football game. Imagine that
you take the coach away and lock him up in a room. Imagine that you
shoot half his team. And then imagine how silly it sounds for you to
demand of the coach that he win the game.

Arafat is under house arrest. He can't walk outside without chipping his
teeth on the muzzles of Israeli tanks. For weeks, no matter who did
what, the Israelis have bombed and shelled the Palestinian Authority
police stations - along with their equipment and files. The Israelis
have killed and injured numerous PA policemen. Yet Sharon continues to
demand that Arafat stop terrorism, and no matter what Arafat says or
what he does, Sharon scoffs at it.

Now, to our international shame, the Bush administration has adopted the
same pathetic line. Like a flock of parrots, Bush and his people repeat
whatever Sharon says. It's not just people in the Arab countries who see
this sorry spectacle. People all over the world are wondering how it is
that a little country like Israel can jerk the chain of a powerful
nation like the United States.

A few facts: The Palestinians are right. The Israeli occupation of East
Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. When the occupation ends,
peace follows. As long as the occupation continues, so will the resistance.

Sharon has no intention of ending the occupation or of negotiating in
good faith. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is a brutal record of
human-rights violations, violations of the Geneva Accords and violations
of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

It ought to make every American angry that our politicians tell us U.N.
Security Council resolutions are worth the lives of Americans to enforce
against Iraq but are to be vetoed and spit upon when directed at Israel.
Our policy is an insult to anyone who supports the United Nations, and,
frankly, people in Europe are getting sick of it.

Israel has hired two public-relations firms, in addition to its American
lobby, because it is scared to death that Americans are going to wake up
and see the connection between the Israel First policy and the attacks
that occurred Sept. 11. It need not worry about the Bush administration
or most of the Israel First journalists, but I hope the American people
have not all lost their ability to think and to reason.

In the meantime, the Bush administration ought to replace the American
eagle with a parrot clutching an Israeli flag in one claw and a tin cup
in the other.

___

Former Orlando Sentinel columnist
Charley Reese writes for King Features Syndicate.

http://archive.showmenews.com/2002/feb/20020207comm003.asp

DNA profiling 'will transform policing'

[Jei]

DNA profiling 'will transform policing'
Ananova
Thursday 21st February 2002

The Home Secretary says continued investment in DNA profiling to catch
criminals would eventually transform the way police operate.

David Blunkett visited the Forensic Science Service (FSS) laboratory in
Birmingham where he loaded the 1.5 millionth DNA sample onto the National
DNA Database.

The figure marks a halfway point in the FSS's aim to store three million DNA
profiles of criminals by 2004.

After giving staff a swab of his own DNA and loading the 1.5 millionth
sample, Mr Blunkett joked: "I have got mine on there.

"I hope that they (FSS) will not be solving any burglaries or any other
criminalities tonight, otherwise they will put them down to me."

The Government has invested £187 million into a major expansion of the
database, which began in April 2000 and is due for completion by March 2004.

The number of profiles entered was doubled in 2000-2001 compared with the
previous year, resulting in a 34% increase in matches and a 72% increase in
detections where a match had been made.

Mr Blunkett said forensic scientists now had the technology to look at
unsolved crimes up to 25 years old in a bid to bring the perpetrators to
justice.

"This is going to be a transformation in the operation of the way the police
do their job and the catching of serious as well as minor criminals," he
said.

The rapid growth of the service was making a real difference, said Mr
Blunkett.

In 2000-01, 14,785 crimes were detected using the database, compared with
8,612 the previous year.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_526945.html




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Wired News: Beefed-Up Global Surveillance?

[Jei]

>From Wired News, available online at:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,50529,00.html

Beefed-Up Global Surveillance?  
By Declan McCullagh  

2:00 a.m. Feb. 20, 2002 PST 

WASHINGTON -- An addition to an international treaty could permit police
to cooperate more closely on intercepting and decrypting the
communications of suspected terrorists.

The Council of Europe, which includes nearly all European nations, is
meeting this week to prepare additions to a controversial "cybercrime"
treaty that would cover decoding terrorist messages. The United States,
Canada and Japan are non-voting members of the council.

Peter Csonka, the head of the Council of Europe's economic crime division,
said when the drafting process for the so-called Second Protocol is
complete, the document will address "how to identify, how to filter, and
how to trace communications between terrorists."

Details are scarce, and the Council of Europe has repeatedly refused to
elaborate. Csonka would not confirm or deny whether the Second Protocol
will advance limits on encryption technology, coordinate code-breaking
efforts among member nations, or increase electronic surveillance
performed against people linked to terrorism.

This week's closed-door meeting, reportedly taking place at the council's
headquarters in Strasbourg, France, includes representatives from the U.S.
Justice Department, which was one of the most enthusiastic backers of the
original treaty.

Privacy groups and civil libertarians have spent nearly two years
criticizing the existing cybercrime treaty, which is now awaiting
ratification by the legislatures of member nations. If the council plugs
additional surveillance powers into the treaty, opposition seems certain
to increase substantially.

In December, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers asked the
Steering Committee on Crime Problems to draft the "Second Protocol to the
Convention on Cybercriminality to cover also terrorist messages and the
decoding thereof." That is scheduled to happen after an antiterrorism
working group completes its report by April 30, 2002.

This week's meeting is a preliminary one. After the drafting process
begins in earnest later this spring, the steering committee will prepare a
detailed proposal in June and send it back to the Council of Ministers by
the end of September, according to the Csonka.

The still-secret Second Protocol will be, as the name implies, the second
set of additions to the underlying treaty. Currently the Council of Europe
is busy working on the First Protocol, which criminalizes "hate speech"
and racist remarks and likely will run afoul of the First Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution.

Some observers predict the U.S. delegates to the Council of Europe will
not sign the First Protocol. But the underlying cybercrime treaty, without
the "hate speech" components, is likely to go to the U.S. Senate for a
vote.

"There is a group of experts working on the First Protocol. Once this
committee produces the First Protocol in June, then the steering committee
will consider giving terms of reference for a new committee," Csonka said.
"The second group of experts operate on terms of reference that will be
drafted by the European Steering Committee on Crime Problems."

Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, confirmed that
his agency's computer crime section sent representatives to this week's
meeting on the Second Protocol but steadfastly refused to say what they
were doing.

"We're not at liberty to discuss our position or even what's going on,"
Sierra said. "We would prefer to talk about these matters with the people
we're meeting with instead of with reporters."

The French activist group Imaginons un Réseau Internet Solidaire obtained
a list of participants from a December 2001 meeting relating to the "hate
speech" protocol. The three U.S. representatives are: Jason Gull, a trial
attorney at the Justice Department; Kenneth Harris, the associate director
of the criminal division's Office of International Affairs; and Richard
Visek, an attorney in the State Department's law enforcement and
intelligence section.

"This shows that the cyber rights community was justified in its
opposition to the cybercrime treaty," David Sobel of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center said of the Second Protocol. "It is becoming
the vehicle for an ever-expanding list of invasive intergovernmental
activities."

Privacy groups have opposed the underlying treaty, which, according to the
Council of Europe, no countries have ratified so far. Among the
objections: Encouraging self-incrimination, no clear limits on police
eavesdropping powers and unwarranted traffic data collection and storage.

One industry representative who attended a meeting on the cybercrime
treaty at the Justice Department earlier this month said it was suprising
that the government attendees never mentioned the Second Protocol: "It was
interesting because it didn't come up. This was a clear o

OT: Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad

[Jei]

(But related to earlier discussions and suggestions)
--
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&u=/nyt/20020219/ts_nyt/pentagon_readies_efforts_to_s
way_sentiment_abroad

Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad 
Tue Feb 19, 9:00 AM ET 
By JAMES DAO and ERIC SCHMITT The New York Times 

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news 
items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as 
part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers 
in both friendly and unfriendly countries, military officials said. 

  
The plans, which have not received final approval from the Bush 
administration, have stirred opposition among some Pentagon officials 
who say they might undermine the credibility of information that is 
openly distributed by the Defense Department's public affairs 
officers.

The military has long engaged in information warfare against hostile 
nations for instance, by dropping leaflets and broadcasting messages 
into Afghanistan when it was still under Taliban rule.

But it recently created the Office of Strategic Influence, which is 
proposing to broaden that mission into allied nations in the Middle 
East, Asia and even Western Europe. The office would assume a role 
traditionally led by civilian agencies, mainly the State Department.

The small but well-financed Pentagon office, which was established 
shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was a response to 
concerns in the administration that the United States was losing 
public support overseas for its war on terrorism, particularly in 
Islamic countries. 

As part of the effort to counter the pronouncements of the Taliban, 
Osama bin Laden and their supporters, the State Department has 
already hired a former advertising executive to run its public 
diplomacy office, and the White House has created a public 
information "war room" to coordinate the administration's daily 
message domestically and abroad.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, while broadly supportive of 
the new office, has not approved its specific proposals and has asked 
the Pentagon's top lawyer, William J. Haynes, to review them, senior 
Pentagon officials said.

Little information is available about the Office of Strategic 
Influence, and even many senior Pentagon officials and Congressional 
military aides say they know almost nothing about its purpose and 
plans. Its multimillion dollar budget, drawn from a $10 billion 
emergency supplement to the Pentagon budget authorized by Congress in 
October, has not been disclosed.

Headed by Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden of the Air Force, the new office 
has begun circulating classified proposals calling for aggressive 
campaigns that use not only the foreign media and the Internet, but 
also covert operations.

The new office "rolls up all the instruments within D.O.D. to 
influence foreign audiences," its assistant for operations, Thomas A. 
Timmes, a former Army colonel and psychological operations officer, 
said at a recent conference, referring to the Department of 
Defense. "D.O.D. has not traditionally done these things."

One of the office's proposals calls for planting news items with 
foreign media organizations through outside concerns that might not 
have obvious ties to the Pentagon, officials familiar with the 
proposal said.

General Worden envisions a broad mission ranging from "black" 
campaigns that use disinformation and other covert activities 
to "white" public affairs that rely on truthful news releases, 
Pentagon officials said. 

"It goes from the blackest of black programs to the whitest of 
white," a senior Pentagon official said.

Another proposal involves sending journalists, civic leaders and 
foreign leaders e-mail messages that promote American views or attack 
unfriendly governments, officials said.

Asked if such e-mail would be identified as coming from the American 
military, a senior Pentagon official said that "the return address 
will probably be a dot-com, not a dot- mil," a reference to the 
military's Internet designation.

To help the new office, the Pentagon has hired the Rendon Group, a 
Washington-based international consulting firm run by John W. Rendon 
Jr., a former campaign aide to President Jimmy Carter. The firm, 
which is being paid about $100,000 a month, has done extensive work 
for the Central Intelligence Agency, the Kuwaiti royal family and the 
Iraqi National Congress, the opposition group seeking to oust 
President Saddam Hussein.

Officials at the Rendon Group say terms of their contract forbid them 
to talk about their Pentagon work. But the firm is well known for 
running propaganda campaigns in Arab countries, including one 
denouncing atrocities by Iraq during its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The firm has been hired as the Bush administration appears to have 
united around the goal of ousting Mr. Hussein. "Saddam Hussein has a 
charm offensive going on, and we haven't done anything to c

American Dissident Voices: The Martyrdom of Wafa Idris

[Jei]

 AMERICAN DISSIDENT VOICES

 Broadcast of February 9, 2002

 The Martyrdom of Wafa Idris
 By Dr. William Pierce

 Hello!

 I am sure that nearly all patriotic Americans are so embarrassed now
 about the Bush government's activity in the Middle East that you don't
 really want to hear more about it. I understand and sympathize with that
 feeling, but I think that the Middle East situation nevertheless merits
 more serious commentary.

 It is quite clear now that what I announced from the beginning about the
 Bush government's war aim in the Middle East was right on target. The
 aim was not primarily to catch or kill Osama bin Laden; it was to
 replace the Islamic fundamentalist government of Afghanistan with a
 puppet government that would accept handouts from the United States and
 do whatever it was told to do: thus ending Afghanistan's independence,
 bringing it under Washington's control, and eliminating Afghanistan as
 an obstacle to Israeli policy in the Middle East. This war aim, though
 never openly admitted by the Bush government, was justified to the
 American people with much baloney about the mistreatment of Afghan women
 by Muslim fundamentalists and the importance of "restoring democracy" to
 Afghanistan. So what we did with all of our cruise missiles,
 laser-guided bombs, and so-called "daisy cutters" was overthrow the real
 government of Afghanistan and replace it with a coalition of gangsters
 willing to accept bribes from Washington and headed by a yes-man who
 will say to the TV cameras whatever he is told to say.

 Does this make America more secure or serve genuine American interests
 in any other way? Well, it does insure a much larger supply of heroin on
 America's streets and school playgrounds. Afghanistan used to be the
 world's largest source of opium, heroin, and related drugs. The Taliban
 government put an end to that, for religious reasons, by outlawing the
 growing of opium poppies. The first act of the gangster government
 installed by George Bush and headed by Hamid Karzai has been to scrap
 the ban on opium production. It is a big source of money for the
 gangsters -- and "gangsters" is indeed the proper term for the motley
 assortment of warlords who have been armed and financed by the United
 States and who now have replaced the Taliban government, at least in
 Kabul.

 While American aircraft continue to bomb areas of stubborn patriotic
 resistance in Afghanistan, the Bush government is making plans for
 attacking the next country on Israel's hit list, as soon as the
 munitions factories can replenish its depleted supply of cruise
 missiles. George Bush, in fact, is carrying out step by step the program
 demanded by Jewish leaders in Israel and the United States immediately
 after September 11. I remember especially well former Israeli prime
 minister Binyamin Netanyahu stating that the United States must not stop
 with finding and punishing those responsible for the September 11
 attack, but it must eliminate every government that might conceivably
 permit hostile elements to operate from its territory, and he had in
 mind specifically Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. We must eliminate every
 possibility for future terrorism, he demanded, and we must do it now.

 Jewish organizations and their neo-conservative camp followers in this
 country made similar demands, the controlled media indicated agreement,
 and everyone in the Bush administration saluted and shouted, "Yes, sir!"
 in unison.

 There's a famous photograph that has been given a wide circulation
 recently in many publications. It was taken on December 11 in the East
 Room of the White House during a memorial ceremony for the victims of
 the September 11 attack. It shows George Bush posing with his right hand
 over his heart as if pledging allegiance to the flag, but the only flag
 visible is an Israeli flag, filling the entire right side of the
 photograph. When I first saw this rather startling photograph I thought
 that the White House photographer must have inadvertently framed this
 picture the way he did. But certainly, it was no mistake. It was a
 carefully posed photograph, and it was approved by the White House for
 release to the news media. Its message is clear: "I, George Bush, pledge
 allegiance to Israel. I am an obedient servant of the Jews. I and my
 government stand ready to carry out your orders." If you haven't yet
 seen this photograph, you can easily find it on the Internet. I suspect
 that your interpretation will be the same as mine.

 And really, this explains many things in addition to the current war we
 are waging in the Middle East to replace all of the governments in that
 part of the world with ones more to the liking of the Jews, regardless
 of the cost to America. It explains why when George Bush or anyone in
 his administration rages on television about how the United States will
 wage war against terrorism to the very end, that any government that
 sponsors terrorism or harbors

DMCA applies to Whole World, Say Prosecutors

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 23:16:13 -0500
From: Seth Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED],
 [EMAIL PROTECTED],
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [free-sklyarov] DMCA applies to Whole World, Say Prosecutors


(Forwarded from Interesting People list,
[EMAIL PROTECTED])

 Original Message 
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 03:59:21 -0500
From: David Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


>Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 09:38:42 -0500
>To: David Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: Mike Godwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>Dave, it's interesting that at the same time some in
>the government argue that U.S. constitutional projections
>don't apply to the prisoners held at Guantanamo, other
>government officials are insisting that the DMCA applies 
>universally.
>
>--Mike
>
>
WARREN'S WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY

Tuesday, February 12, 2002Vol. 3, No. 29

WORLDWIDE DMCA applicability claimed by federal prosecutors
in Elcomsoft copyright case.  Internet said to make it
impossible to apply only within U.S.  (P. 1)

U.S. Prosecutors Claim DMCA Applies Around the Globe

SAN JOSE -- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act properly
applies to activity outside the U.S., federal prosecutors
said in their case against a Russian company charged with
selling software decrypting Adobe e-Books.  "A construction
of the DMCA that applied it only within the borders of the
United States would thwart Congress's intent to prevent
circumvention technology from being available," the San Jose
U.S. Attorney's Office told U.S. Dist. Judge Ronald Whyte in
papers filed late last week.  "The ease with which materials
can be moved around the Internet makes it impossible to
conceive of an effective DMCA statute that applied solely
within the United States."  That construction was Congress's
intent, as shown by its prohibition against importation of
certain technology, prosecutors argued.

Prosecutors said the judge didn't need to decide that issue,
however, because Elcomsoft was subject to prosecution for
conduct within the U.S.  The company offered its program
through a Chicago server, took payment through a Washington
state firm, sold the software to U.S. customers, promoted it
at a Las Vegas conference, sought U.S. copyright protection
and intended an effect in the U.S., they said.  Further, the
prosecution comports with international law as a reasonable
application of U.S. law in protection of the country''s
territoriality and nationality, the filing said.

Prosecutors also sought to rebut defense arguments that
Elcomsoft had been charged improperly with conspiracy in a
case involving only its programmer, Dmitry Sklyarov, who no
longer is charged, and no one outside the company.  The
indictment refers to unnamed co-conspirators.  The 9th U.S.
Appeals Court, San Francisco, and others recognize the
legitimacy of charging intracorporate conspiracies, the
prosecutors said.  Contrary statements in First (Boston) and
10th (Denver) Appeals Courts opinions cited by the defense
were merely dicta, prosecutors contend.

The extraterritoriality and conspiracy issues are set for
hearing March 4.  Prosecutors are scheduled to file within 2
weeks responses to challenges to DMCA''s constitutionality.
-- Louis Trager


"I speak the password primeval  I give the sign of
democracy "
--Walt Whitman
Mike Godwin can be reached by phone at 202-637-9800
His book, CYBER RIGHTS, can be ordered at
 http://www.panix.com/~mnemonic .


For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/


___
free-sklyarov mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://zork.net/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov

Comcast Admits To Spying on Customers

[Jei]

http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/16316.html

Comcast Admits To Spying on Customers

By Tim McDonald
www.NewsFactor.com,
Part of the NewsFactor Network
February 13, 2002

Stored data can be subpoenaed by law enforcement officials or by lawyers in
civil cases - and it can be stolen.

Cable Internet giant Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSK) reportedly has begun tracking
the Web browsing habits of its customers, keeping records of every Web page
they visit. The company has roughly 1 million high-speed Internet customers.

The third largest cable TV company behind AT&T Cable and AOL Time Warner
(NYSE: AOL), Comcast admitted that it stores the Internet Protocol (IP)
addresses -- unique numeric Internet addresses assigned to subscribers --
along with the Internet address of every Web page subscribers visit.

Jeffrey Chester of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Digital Democracy,
a nonprofit watchdog group, called the tracking "incredibly aggressive."

"It's not a surprise they are tracking what people are doing, it's just the
tip of the iceberg," Chester told NewsFactor. "The next generation of
broadband services provided by Comcast and others allows for this kind of
tracking. The whole business model moving forward for cable and the
television industry generally is one which emulates the deeply personalized
e-commerce strategies."

Sensitive Information

Comcast also said it stores sensitive information, such as credit card
numbers and passwords, in a database managed by network infrastructure
specialist Inktomi (Nasdaq: INKT).

Stored data can be subpoenaed by law enforcement officials or lawyers in
civil cases -- and, as has been proven several times, it can be stolen.

For example, last week, a database with thousands of records involving
potential Comcast Business Communication Internet customers was found
exposed on the Web.

Comcast said the snooping was part of a technological overhaul launched to
save money, according to wire service reports. However, Inktomi, which sold
the technology to Comcast, asserted that Comcast was collecting more
information than was absolutely necessary for technological enhancements.

Leading Role

Comcast claimed the tracking is permitted in its service agreement with
subscribers and said it does not intend to infringe on the privacy of its
customers. The company would not say how long the information it collected
was stored.

A company spokesperson said that customers' Web browsing is being recorded
in Detroit, Michigan, and parts of Delaware and Virginia, and that such
tracking will spread across the United States by the end of this week.

"Personalized television is really the cornerstone of the plan Comcast and
others have for the convergence of television with the Internet in the
broadband online medium," Chester said. "So, technologies are being
deployed, strategies are being developed, investments are being made in
hardware and software and applications all across the board -- and Comcast
is playing the leading role in that regard."

Excuse for Privacy Erosion?

Some civil libertarian groups have openly expressed concern about the
erosion of online privacy in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist
strikes.

The FBI has been particularly aggressive in rooting out online evidence,
serving ISPs with warrants under a 1978 antiterrorism law.

"The privacy debate has been placed on the back burner, conveniently for
companies like Comcast, because of the concern over security since September
11th," Chester said. "As this and other incidents will undoubtedly show, we
need strong consumer safeguards when it comes to cable broadband."

More Cities 'Digitized'

Comcast announced a fourth-quarter net loss of US$321 million, due mainly to
its costly effort to migrate customers from @Home, the broadband Internet
service provider that recently filed for bankruptcy.

The company has said it plans to add more high-speed Internet customers and
is planning to spend $1.3 billion to get more cities "digitized."

Comcast made a winning bid of $72 billion for AT&T Broadband in December. If
the deal is approved by shareholders, the Federal Trade Commission and the
Federal Communications Commission, it will result in the largest cable ISP
in the United States, with 2.2 million high-speed Internet customers.

The combined company would be called AT&T Comcast Corp.

Digital ID: You shop, they snoop?

[Jei]

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2104056,00.html

Digital ID: You shop, they snoop?

09:36 Monday 11th February 2002
Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com

A new plan for tagging everything from computers to shampoo bottles could
make life more convenient, but it's got privacy advocates up in arms
Sun Microsystems has joined a program called Auto-ID to build wireless
digital identification tags into everything from razor blades to soup cans,
chief executive Scott McNealy said on Thursday.

The technology promises efficiency for manufacturers and convenience for
shoppers -- but potentially also headaches for those concerned about
privacy.

McNealy and his colleagues at Sun have eagerly anticipated the day when
everything with a "digital heartbeat" -- cell phones, cars, microwave
ovens -- is attached to the Internet. Sun hopes to supply the mammoth
servers that will process all the information produced by these devices.

"I used to talk about everything with a digital or electric heartbeat" being
connected to the Internet, McNealy told financial analysts in a speech here
Thursday. "Now I'm talking about tomato cans, and I'm not making it up
anymore," he quipped.

Sun has joined the Auto-ID program at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, funded by Procter & Gamble, Gillette, Wal-Mart, Unilever, Tesco,
Target and other corporations.

"You put stuff in a grocery basket and just drive by (a detector)," McNealy
said, describing the idea. The detector reads what's in the basket, charges
a person's credit card and "tells the factory to restock the shelves",
McNealy said.

The goal of the Auto-ID program is to keep store shelves full, said Gillette
spokesman Steve Brayton. On any given afternoon, 8 percent of the items that
US shoppers are looking for are out of stock, he said. On Sunday, it goes up
to 11 percent.

In addition, the technology could help curb theft, Brayton said.

Wal-Mart is trying out the technology in a pilot project in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

"We think within two to three years you'll find some early adopters among
retail and manufacturing businesses," Brayton said. "We're looking at five
to 10 years to widespread use."

Privacy problems?
But building transponders into every sort of product could spark privacy
concerns, said David Holtzman, an Internet security researcher and former
Network Solutions chief technology officer.

People might not be comfortable walking around with items that identify
themselves as medication, condoms or pornography. They also might not be
comfortable with manufacturers tracking where products go after being
purchased.

And "if legislators mandate mandatory tagging of things like firearms or
ammunition, we could get both the left and right wing pissed off", Holtzman
said.

Keeping store shelves stocked or easing checkout isn't a big deal, Holtzman
said. But combining that product information with data about the individuals
buying those products could raise hackles.

"Any one piece of information" -- cell phone records, purchasing records,
car location -- "is not that damning or intrusive. But if you put them
together, you've got my life," Holtzman said. "It's very hard to hide things
when you have that level of analysis."

Even if these uses aren't what retailers and manufacturers have in mind,
technology has a way of creeping into other domains, Holtzman added.
Transponders for driving through electronic tollbooths started as a
convenience to drivers but now are used in combination with timing analysis
to send out speeding tickets, for example.

How it's done
Auto-ID uses passive tags that respond to a specific radio signal. A tiny
capacitor on the chip stores enough energy from the incoming signal to send
out a response. The tags only respond when near a special reader device.

The tags also have a miniature chip and enough memory to keep track of a
digital identity. The memory is 96 bits long, tiny by computer standards but
it provides a huge number of combinations of ones and zeros.

The technology is set up to identify more than 268 million manufacturers
with more than a million individual products each, an Auto-ID representative
said.

The memory stores an electronic product code, or EPC, which is linked with
an Internet service called the Object Naming Service (ONS) that keeps track
of data for every EPC-labeled object. Researchers also are working on a
pared-down 64-bit version of EPC.

But the system is limited by the cost of making the tags, not to mention
installing the infrastructure to monitor the tags and process the
information.

With existing technology, tags cost about 50 cents. That's not much
additional expense for a $1,000 computer, but it is for a $3.50 bottle of
shampoo.

Gillette expects the investment to pay off in the long run, though, and
Auto-ID researchers are examining ways to bring the cost of tags down to a
nickel apiece.

"The researchers of the Auto-ID Center believe the goal of the 5 cent tag is
difficult but achievable," research 

Konformist: SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT ENRON'S CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS

[Jei]

-~->

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,

Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

http://writ.findlaw.com/dean/20020118.html  

SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT ENRON'S CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS:
Did Enron Successfully Buy Influence With The Money It Spent? 
By JOHN W. DEAN 
 
Friday, Jan. 18, 2002

This is Part One of a two-part series by Mr. Dean on Enron. Part Two 
will appear on this site on February 1. - Ed.

Enron spent big money in Washington. According to available records, 
Enron lavished near $5.8 million in political contributions on 
various candidates (Congresspersons, Senators, the President and Vice 
President) over the last decade, with almost seventy-five percent of 
it going to Republicans. Indeed, according to one report, Enron and 
its officials spent $2 million on George W. Bush's political career 
alone, starting with his first (unsuccessful) run for Congress. 

What, I have been wondering, did spreading all that money around 
Washington accomplish? Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, 
American businessmen don't make large political contributions because 
they love their country. Rather they are investments, on which they 
want a return. But what did Enron get for its money? As discussed 
below, I have concluded it received quite a lot. 

The mere fact that Enron's contributions did not buy off 
investigations into the largest bankruptcy in history means little - 
it would have been hard not to investigate given the dramatic 
allegations now being made. And prior to the eleventh hour, Enron's 
contributions seem to have purchased quite a bit of influence, as 
they were no doubt meant to do. 

Highly Questionable Accounting May Disguise Quid Pro Quos

To begin with it, it is worth noting that any quid pro quo relating 
to Enron may be especially hard to track; indeed, Enron may have 
contributed much more than the $5.8 million of which we are currently 
aware. We may never know, for Enron's reporting and record-keeping 
are not very good, as everyone is learning. 

Apparently typical is Enron's auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, which 
not only destroyed records, but also apparently failed to make itself 
privy to all of Enron's 2,832 subsidiaries' operations - the losses 
of which seems to have been kept off the balance sheet, while their 
assets and income were included. That's a neat bookkeeping trick; 
they didn't teach that one in my five years of studying accounting. 

Much of this subsidiary activity was not only off the balance sheets, 
but also offshore. About a third of these partnerships are registered 
in the Cayman Islands or other secrecy havens, which may make it 
impossible to unravel the worst corporate collapse in American 
history. Any quid pro quos, too, may be hard to root out. 

Buying Washington Influence: The Typical Goal of Big Contributors

Having been involved in fund raising, I have few illusions about what 
is involved - particularly with the heavy hitters. There are many 
contributors - indeed, by far the greatest number - who give what 
they can afford to the candidate in whom they believe, hoping he or 
she will win. But these are typically the small contributors. Big 
money comes from wealthy persons and organizations who want 
something - in most cases, something that will add more to their 
wealth. 

First, the big hitters want access. They usually have business 
dealings with the federal government and they want to be able to 
plead their case directly to decisionmakers, should they need to do 
so. 

Others want special favors, everything from an ambassadorship to 
favorable legislation or regulation of their business. Heavy 
contributors are usually well schooled in how to make their 
contribution and stay within the law. When they are not, the smart 
politician returns their money, and advises them on how to make the 
contribution legal, and the contribution, in the end, gets made just 
the same. 

Enron, like many businesses who want something from Washington 
officials, spread its money broadly. According to The Center for 
Responsive Politics, which tracks political contributions, Enron gave 
$530,493 to seventy-one senators since 1989, and $603,488 to 187 
House members. Mostly Republicans were recipients, although important 
Democrats who could affect Enron's business were not overlooked.

Enron's Investment In Politicians: A Better Return than Commentators 
Think

On January 15, Time magazine ran a story entitled "For Enron, 
Washington May Have Been a Bad Investment." The story concludes that 
Kenneth Lay & Company did not get much for their money, other 
than "[a] seat at the table for Dick Cheney's energy-policy 
formulations - OK, six seats - and the grace of the Enron-friendly 
energy policy that resulted. Possibly veto power over the head of the 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - former chief Curtis Hebert Jr. 
says Bush r

Re: spam attack on cpunks list,

[Jei]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2002, proffr11 wrote:

> I've also paid some dues in that I'm being prosecuted for endeavoring
> to further crypto-anarchy.I've had one 3000$ notebook seized and held
> over 8 months.I spit in the eye of "happy fun court".I try and
> propagate crypto-anarchist ideas in other forums,(like indymedia)
...

I wonder how much tax-payer money they waste on analyzing 
and reading just cypherpunk traffic, if this is the case?

Busting kids and websites is a great show of inefficiency
from the FBI. Next, I guess they'll arrest more of those 
people who dare to draw pictures of guns in schools & 
public places and make threatening noises while holding them.

It really amazes me how a nation can afford this from it's
"elite" police forces, and yet, somehow, it also explains
everything down to the hows and why's of Enron's missing Billions.
- The *real* criminals and terrorists get to walk free, while FBI
is busy browsing stupid kids' web-sites and reading their e-mail.

But will these '1984' methods prevent another '911' or 'Enron' 
from occurring?

I doubt it.

Martin-The Looting of America (Reagonomics, Clintonomics & Enronomics)

[Jei]

http://www.almartinraw.com/index.html";>http://www.almartinraw.com/index.html

The Looting of America
Reagonomics, Clintonomics & Enronomics
by Al Martin

Reaganomics has never worked and it can not be defended. When you see TV 
pundits like Larry Kudlow and Bill Seidman defending Reaganomics, you must 
understand that they are not pure economists. They are political economists, 
and they owe their careers to the Republican Party. Both Kudlow and Seidman 
make their money as senior economists for the Heritage Foundation, the Cato 
Institute, other Republican so-called think tanks, economic research 
institutes and socio-economic forums. Bill Seidman, of course, was the former 
chairman of the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), where there were many 
allegations of fraud. When the RTC was charged with cleaning up the S&L mess, 
it promptly proceeded to sell off a lot of property at very favorable prices 
to well-known Republicans and Republican interests.

No matter what Republican political economists says, Reaganomics in the final 
analysis can not be justified because you can not defend the indefensible. 
You cannot get around the fact that the Reagan Bush Regime came into office 
with a $1 trillion accumulated National Debt and the Social Security Fund 
(both the General Fund and Disability Fund) was fully funded. They came into 
office with all the other 43 Public Trust Funds, such as the Indian Affairs 
Fund and the National Reclamation Fund, fully intact and funded. Most 
importantly, they came into office with the United States being the largest 
creditor nation on earth. 

Twelve years later, when the Reagan Bush Regime left office, they had 
expanded the National Debt from $1 trillion to $5.65 trillion. They had 
created a total long-term deficit in the Social Security General and 
Disability Trust Funds of some $3.2 trillion. Then in 1983, they started to 
say that we are henceforth going to count social security contributions as 
surpluses to the Fund, and we will count them now as General Revenue. To 
offset the drain, we will place non-marketable, long-term, US Treasury Bonds 
with a 3% coupon rate into the Social Security Trust Funds. In other words, 
we will stuff the Social Security Fund with worthless paper.

The Reagan Bush Regime tried to say that these were US Treasury Securities ­ 
but they were restricted and non-marketable. That which is restricted and 
non-marketable, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, is a 
worthless instrument -- whether that instrument is government, corporate or 
whatever.

By the end of Reaganomics (when George Bush left office in January 1993), the 
public treasury was spilling red ink at the rate of $2 billion per day, 
approximately twice what the Bush Administration said the deficit was. 

The fact remains that the deficits, during the Reagan Bush Regime, were 
consistently twice as high as what was publicly revealed. Due to the "voodoo 
economics" of the Reagan Bush Regime, they were able to hide the deficits in 
a variety of ways, principally by this egregious and nonsensical Reaganomics 
technique called "off budget deficit financing."

When they were deciding budgetary matters in Congress, they would say, "We'll 
put this $8 billion 'off budget' or this $12 billion 'off budget.'" What this 
meant was that "off budget financing" was simply money, being spent 
currently, which was not being recorded as having been spent currently. It 
was simply an accounting trick. It was also like maintaining two sets of 
books, wherein you can spend money, say $8 billion, but instead of putting it 
in the deficit column, it shows up as a zero figure and the $8 billion 
deficit is transferred to your second set of books called "off budget 
financing."

The problem with "off budget financing" (and the reason why the Treasury 
Department to this day can not balance its books) is that this is money, 
which still has to be raised through the regular sales of US Treasury bills 
bonds and notes. What happened was that the sale of these bills, bonds and 
notes for off budget financing was put in a separate category, not as actual 
liability or actual debt of the US Government, but future contingent debt.

Future contingent debt is debt that is not immediately due, payable, or 
honorable by the US Government. It was only due and payable, when said notes 
were presented for redemption -- whenever their term or maturities ran out. 
In other words, "contingent" means upon redemption at a future date.

There is a parallel between this tactic of Reaganomics and the latest 
accounting tricks of so-called Enronomics, and the failure of the energy 
giant Enron. Enronomics used the same trick to hide losses -- even though one 
is a government entity and the other is a corporate entity and the 
bookkeeping is different. But Enron did use the same tactic in hiding its 
losses through offshore accounts. This is much more complex, in fact, 
extraordinarily complex. There

Re: spam attack on cpunks list

[Jei]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Morlock Elloi wrote:

> > genetic information.  The target's histocompatibility markers.  Just walk by
> > their car and take a swipe of the door handle (warning: could also target
> > family members and parking attendants).
> 
> Looks like pretty soon the knowledge of someone's GATC code will be deadly.
> Time to put on those 6' condoms.
> 
> And you thought that publishing of SSN was bad ...

Wonder how the Islanders are feeling? Their government recently
sold their who national genetic database to some US corporations. 

Re: spam attack on cpunks list

[Jei]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Eric Murray wrote:
 

> On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 05:36:29AM +0200, Jei wrote:
> 
> > My logic tells me it is best to ensure the widest coverage to issues you
> > care about, get as many sources as you can, and simply ram down the facts
> > as many people's troats as you can,
> 
> Many people on this list don't appreciate having stuff rammed
> down their throats.

Many people learn to use filters.

> This isn't a list for people who want to receive PR.   It's a list
> for discussing cryptography and the soceital impact of cryptography.

There are *much* better lists for that purpose. Would you 
like me to post their info where to find them? 

Nah, I won't bother for you. Find 'em yourself, if you can.

As to what is "PR", that's a question of perspective. But
the point - you wouldn't know of the existence of "better"
lists in the first place now, if I hadn't "rammed" the fact
down your virtual troat...

I guess I shouldn't have done that either. :P

Re: spam attack on cpunks list

[Jei]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Tim May wrote:

> (Yeah, if anyone spots a truly relevant item, commenting on it is 
> welcome. Or posting a URL. But simple game theory says that it's best 
> that people don't just bounce things they read to our list, something 
> Choate, mattd, and Jei seem to not understand.)

Would you care to elaborate on that? 

I don't see how game theory would prove your assertion. 

The only party who would benefit of this "not posting" would be the
government. For them it is best that you don't connect to other than
government approved Truth sources.

My logic tells me it is best to ensure the widest coverage to issues you
care about, get as many sources as you can, and simply ram down the facts
as many people's troats as you can, and eliminate the PR your opposition
is trying to feed to your audience. (Maybe this is what you are trying?
:-) O.J. trials, FBI vs China-spy, Microsoft vs DOJ, US presidential
elections & related trials, Enron, Russia's president Putin & "Terrorism",
etc. all prove this.  He who does the better PR job, or control of all
popular media sources, simply wins, whether he was right or wrong.

That's how reality works. That's why and how the Israeli control the US
media and the reporting is so biased there every time it comes to the
Palestinians and Israel. Popularity polls for the US president and
congress are all that matter in directly deciding the whole of US foreign
policy. Nothing else matters.

That much is painfully clear to the rest of the world.

Breaking the rosy one-sided picture of Israeli behaviour
in the American media is one way of effecting those polls.

Maybe the relative concept of "cypherpunk list quality" suffers due to
crossposts but it has never been high (IMHO) on this list during it's
various incarnations, and it has always sooner or later come down to the
same "spammer" level of anarchistic reality, while the signal/noise ratio
draws infinitely closer to zero.

There are nice procmail scripts on the web useful for eliminating
messages containing sufficiently enough duplicated message content,
should you use other than this CypherPunks approved Reality Source.

But maybe you should consider NOT using any of the alternative news
sources instead? The news that I send you, the Truth which I tell you,
should be enough.

:-)

FW: NPR Continues Distortion on Mideast "Calm"

[Jei]

-Original Message-
From: media analysis, critiques and news reports
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of FAIR-L
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 10:35 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [FAIR-L] NPR Continues Distortion on Mideast "Calm"


FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports

ACTIVISM UPDATE:
NPR Continues Distortion on Mideast "Calm"

February 5, 2002

On January 10, FAIR put out an Action Alert asking people to write to
National Public Radio about an apparent blind spot in its Middle East
reporting.  NPR had been referring to the situation in Israel and Palestine
around the New Year as a time of "relative calm" or "comparative quiet,"
explaining at one point that "only one Israeli has been killed in those
three weeks." What NPR didn't explain was that during this "quiet" period,
an average of one Palestinian per day was being killed by Israeli occupation
forces. (See http://www.fair.org/activism/npr-israel-quiet.html .)

In answer to our alert, at least several hundred people wrote to NPR,
calling for Middle East reporting that paid attention to the victims of
violence on all sides.  Yet even as these letters were pouring in, NPR
continued to present the same distorted view of the conflict.

All Things Considered anchor Noah Adams opened a January 14 report on the
assassination of a Palestinian militia leader, and the militia's revenge
murder of an Israeli civilian, by declaring that "deadly violence returned
to the Middle East today"--as if deadly violence hadn't been happening to
Palestinians on an almost daily basis all along.  On the January 17 All
Things Considered, anchor Melissa Block prefaced a question by asserting,
"Until early this week there'd been almost a month of relatively reduced
violence there"-- a premise that was not corrected by correspondent Linda
Gradstein.  And on January 18, correspondent Peter Kenyon referred on
Morning Edition to "the recent lull in violence."

NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, to whom the activists' letters were
addressed, does seem to recognize the problem.  Appearing on January 17 with
media critic Ali Abunimah on WJHU, a Baltimore NPR affiliate, Dvorkin agreed
with the criticism and said that NPR's foreign desk had told hosts and
correspondents to reflect the reality of the situation. But this
intervention does not seem to have resulted in changed coverage-- in fact,
two of the repetitions of the distortion noted above occurred within the
next 24 hours. Even as late as January 30, Linda Gradstein was referring to
the "period of relative calm," as if no one had ever pointed out to NPR that
this characterization ignored the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.

Despite the hundreds of individual letters he has received, Dvorkin has yet
to issue a formal comment on the issue. But in a brief January 25 response
to a FAIR activist, Dvorkin wrote, "After FAIR pointed out the phrase
'relative calm,' NPR corrected that inaccuracy in future reports."  In fact,
the inaccuracy was repeated, and keeps being repeated. Something seems to be
amiss in the way NPR handles legitimate complaints from the public.

ACTION: Please write to NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin and ask him to respond
substantively to the hundreds of letters he has received about NPR's Mideast
coverage, including an explanation of how NPR can repeat the same distortion
after it has been "corrected."

CONTACT:
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

--
Feel free to respond to FAIR
([EMAIL PROTECTED])

FAIR
(212) 633-6700
http://www.fair.org/

E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
list administrators:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


===
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 Mario's Cyberspace Station  http://mprofaca.cro.net/mainmenu.html
===
 To change your subscription mode to Daily Digest
 (one message a day) send a blank message:
 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

2002 Nobel War Prize

[Jei]

ttp://thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=140952002

Blair and Bush nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Fraser Nelson westminster editor

THE collapse of the Taleban was deemed enough reward for Tony Blair
and George Bush’s robust Afghanistan campaign. But yesterday, they
received an unexpected extra: a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Harald Tom Nesvik, a right-wing Norwegian MP with Nobel prize
nomination rights, has put their names forward for the 2002 list.

He is arguing that the two Western leaders have demonstrated their
commitment to peace by making it abundantly clear they will not
tolerate terrorist attacks.

"The background for my nomination is their decisive action against
terrorism, something I believe in the future will be the greatest
threat to peace," Mr Nesvik said yesterday. "Unfortunately, sometimes
you have to use force to secure peace."

The Oslo-based awards committee has been accepting nominations from 1
February.

However, Mr Blair and Mr Bush are nowhere near a shortlist. Last
year, 136 individuals and groups were nominated; this year’s count is
expected to exceed 160, with many nominees linked to 11 September and
its aftermath. The nomination would please Mr Blair, who argued
throughout that the bombing campaign was intended to lay the
foundations for lasting world peace.

Today, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, will add to this theme by
spelling out a £50 billion aid package billed as a "global new deal"
which will share the West’s wealth with destitute countries and pre-
vent a resurgence of terrorism. In the last 40 years, the Nobel Peace
Prize has only come to the United Kingdom once - when David Trimble
and John Hume were recognised in 1998 for their work in the Northern
Ireland peace process.

Other laureates include Nelson Mandela and de FW Klerk, Mikhail
Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa.
This article:

  http://thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=140952002

An Afghan Life's Worth - $1,000 USD

[Jei]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/627086.asp

   Report: U.S. paid villagers over raid
   
   Rumsfeld: U.S.
   investigating;
   he says he has
   no knowledge
   of payments   

   Three men walk away from a grave site near the town of Uruzgan, where
   villagers claim that U.S. special forces wrongly killed at least 18
   men.

   MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
   Feb. 4 --  Afghan officials say the United States has conceded that a
   deadly raid in a southern Afghan village two weeks ago was a mistake
   and that families of those killed had been given compensation -- in
   $100 bills -- according to a report broadcast Monday.
   
  U.S. FORCES have returned to investigate claims that they
   killed the wrong people in the raid, and they should apologize on the
   spot if the claims prove true, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said
   Monday.
  U.S. soldiers have gone to the area in Uruzgan province where
   special forces killed 15 or 16 people and arrested 27 in a nighttime
   raid two weeks ago, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference.
  Rumsfeld admitted for the first time that it was possible that
   a U.S. military assault on two compounds Jan. 24 resulted in their
   "unfortunately killing or wounding some individuals who might have
   been friendly."
  According to a report broadcast Monday by NPR News, however,
   senior Afghan officials said that the United States had already
   expressed regret over the raid at Uruzgan and had even paid the
   victims' families $1,000 each in U.S. cash.
  Responding to a question, Rumsfeld said he had no information
   about reports of such apologies or payments.
   
  "I do know that U.S. soldiers have gone back into the area, I
   believe with Afghans, to try to determine the facts," he said.
  "I would hope that if, in the course of that, they discover
   that somebody was in fact killed who should not have been killed ...
   that American forces would express apologies. I can't say that I know
   that, but I would hope they would."
   
   PENTAGON ABOUT-FACE
  After days of insisting they had struck the right people,
   Pentagon officials said last week that they would investigate the
   incident. The interim Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai said it
   also was investigating.
   
  Rumsfeld said he recalled Karzai's telling someone in the U.S.
   military that "in the event that it turns out that people were in fact
   killed who were friendly to the interim government, that would be
   unfortunate, and it would be helpful if some way could be found to
   compensate them."
  The Pentagon has insisted that U.S. special forces attacked a
   legitimate military target in the raid on an ammunition dump that
   intelligence analysts believed al-Qaida or Taliban forces were using.
  But some Afghans said Taliban renegades were handing over
   weapons to Karzai's government at the site. They said that some
   pro-Karzai figures were killed and that others, including a police
   chief, his deputy and members of a district council, were among those
   arrested.
   
   COMMAND POST MOVING TO BAHRAIN
  Meanwhile, the top Marine Corps general for Central Asia and
   the Persian Gulf is moving his command post from Hawaii to Bahrain in
   another sign that the U.S. anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan and
   elsewhere won't be over any time soon.
  Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston moved to Bahrain in mid-January on
   Rumsfeld's orders, said his spokesman in Hawaii, Lt. Col. Pat Sivigny.
   
  Hailston, who oversees the Marines' operations in both the
   Central and Pacific commands, joins Central Command chiefs for the Air
   Force and the Army, who moved to the region in recent months, and the
   Navy's 5th Fleet, which already had a base there. The Navy component
   of Central Command is headquartered in Bahrain, the Air Force's is in
   Saudi Arabia and the Army's is in Kuwait.
  Also, some Marines who had been deployed to the Afghan campaign
   have moved to the coast of Africa for a three-week joint exercise with
   Kenyan forces, Pentagon officials said Monday.
  More than 2,000 Marines began the amphibious exercise Sunday.
   Officials said it had been planned for months and was not a sign that
   military action was planned soon in neighboring Somalia, where
   officials fear al-Qaida terrorists from Afghanistan could seek refuge.
   
   FACTIONAL FIGHTING
  Also Monday, efforts to quell Afghanistan's worst factional
   fighting since the fall of the Taliban had mixed results. Under
   supervision of the United Nations, opposing forces in the north agreed
   to work toward a demilitarization but, in the east, government
   mediators reportedly failed to push two warring tribes into a peace
   deal and ordered both sides to send delegations to Kabul for more
   talks.
   
  In the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, two factions 

Rep. Culberson drums up Hill votes for "trusted traveler" plan

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 11:31:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FC: Rep. Culberson drums up Hill votes for "trusted traveler" plan

[Rep. John Culberson is a first-term Republican from Texas, just west of
Houston. http://www.house.gov/culberson/ See
also: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03093.html --Declan]

>Culberson Letter Regarding the Trusted Traveler Program
>
>January 29, 2002
>
>Support a Trusted Traveler Program in America
>
>Dear Colleague:
>
>Please join me in sending the following letter to Under Secretary for 
>Transportation Security John Magaw encouraging him to implement a trusted 
>traveler program in the United States:
>
>"We are writing to express our support for the immediate implementation of 
>a trusted traveler program authorized by the Aviation and Transportation 
>Security Act and modeled after the successful Israeli program.  The 
>National Air Transportation Association is working with Lockheed Martin, 
>Microsoft, and other high tech companies to develop identification cards 
>with encoded biometric data (such as fingerprints) for certain 
>passengers.  These plastic "smart cards" would allow law-abiding U.S. 
>citizens who travel frequently to become trusted travelers and be 
>subjected to less rigorous screening procedures than other 
>passengers.  The program would allow airport security and law enforcement 
>personnel to focus their attention and resources on passengers who pose a 
>legitimate hijacking threat, and would help the Transportation Security 
>Administration achieve its stated goal of screening passengers and baggage 
>with no passenger delays greater than 10 minutes.
>
>Section 109(a)(3) of the recently enacted "Aviation and Transportation 
>Security Act" authorizes the Under Secretary of Transportation Security 
>to: establish requirements to implement trusted passenger programs and use 
>available technologies to expedite the security screening of passengers 
>who participate in such programs, thereby allowing security screening 
>personnel to focus on those passengers who should be subject to more 
>extensive screening.  We encourage the Administration to establish these 
>requirements in a timely manner and to work closely with the National Air 
>Transportation Association to oversee the development of passenger 
>identification "smart cards."  Finally, we would like to know what, if 
>any, specific plans the Administration has to implement a trusted traveler 
>program.
>
>Thank you in advance for your consideration of this matter, and we look 
>forward to your response."
>
>Please contact Tony Essalih of my staff at 5-2571 if you have any 
>questions or would like to co-sign this letter.  The deadline for 
>signatures is Wednesday, February 6th.
>Sincerely,
>
>
>
>John Culberson  Member of Congress
>Tony Essalih
>Senior Legislative Assistant
>Congressman John Culberson (TX-07)
>(202) 225-2571

370 Assassination - J'Accuse Bush's Death Squads

[Jei]

http://cryptome.org/bush-kills.htm
31 January 2002 


J'ACCUSE:  BUSH'S DEATH SQUADS 
By Wayne Madsen 

31 January 2002 

Today, The Washington Post ran the fifth segment in its series on what
transpired within the Bush Cabinet in the aftermath of September 11. Of
particular interest is what CIA Director George Tenent brought to the
table at Camp David last September 15.  According to the article by Bob
Woodward and Dan Balz, when Tenent produced a Top Secret "Worldwide Attack
Matrix" that specified targets in 80 countries around the world, he sought
unprecedented authority to simply assassinate foreign terrorists directly
or though allied intelligence services. The CIA even prepared a
"Memorandum of Notification" which would allow the agency to have virtual
carte blanche to conduct political assasinations abroad. This Memorandum
trumped previous mechanisms by which the President would authorize
intelligence actions (but not assassinations) through individual
Presidential Findings. The fail safe mechanisms established under the
administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton
were simply erased at the urging of Tenent.  In light of these
revelations, what was authorized by the President may have led to the
assassinations of a umber of human rights and ethnic leaders not connected
in any way with Al Qaeda but did represent bothersome roadblocks to a
number of U.S. military and corporate interests.

It now seems likely, given the unprecedented "license to kill" President
Bush granted to the CIA, there was U.S. complicity in the murders of the
following individuals. Human rights commissions and war crime tribunals in
Belgium and France should take a close look at these likely criminal
misadventures:

1. Theys Eluay. Today, the Indonesian army chief, General Endriartono
Sutarto, confirmed in Jakarta that West Papuan independence leader Theys
Eluay was assassinated by Indonesian Army units after he was kidnapped
last November 11. The assassins were members of KOPASSUS, a special
operations unit trained by U.S. Special Forces and CIA personnel and was
involved in massacres in East Timor during the Indonesian occupation of
that country. In 1969, West Papua was formally handed over to Indonesia by
the United Nations after a referendum, now widely recognized as rigged,
determined that the non-Indonesian population wanted to be Indonesian.
Eluay was a thorn in the side of Freeport McMoran, a Louisiana-based
mining company that has pillaged West Papua's natural resources and has
been accused by local activists of propping up local Indonesian army and
KOPASSUS officers with bribes and favors. Henry Kissinger serves as a
Director Emeritus on the board of directors of Freeport and former
Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston, recently identified as a lobbyist
for Enron, serves as a full member of the board.

2. Abdullah Syafii. On January 22, 2002, Indonesian army troops
assassinated the military commander of the Free Aceh Movement, Abdullah
Syafii. The Free Aceh Movement demands independence for Aceh, a region in
northwest Sumatra, and is a member of the non-violent Unrepresented
Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), an international organization
headquartered in the Netherlands. It has also been at loggerheads with
ExxonMobil, which has extensive drilling and refining operations in the
territory. Aceh's Governor Abdullah Puteh, who is claimed by local
activists to be on the payroll of ExxonMobil, had written a letter to
Syafii inviting him to attend peace talks with the government. Syafii's
lieutenants claim that the letter contained a small microchip that
permitted Indonesian KOPASSUS troops to track him down and ambush him. The
operation has all the earmarks of the CIA, which can rely on National
Security Agency (NSA) satellites to track such microchip transponders.

3. Elie Hobeika. Elie Hobeika was the head of the Lebanese Forces militia,
a right-wing Christian army that was allied with Israel during its 1982
occupation of Beirut. Although Hobeika was in charge of the Christian
forces that massacred hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children at
the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps that year, he had irrefutable
evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had authorized the mass
murder in his role as Israeli Defense Minister. An official Israeli
commission of inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible for the
massacres. Hobeika was going to testify against Sharon at an upcoming
Belgian war crimes tribunal which has already indicted Sharon for the war
crimes. It was that testimony that resulted in Hobeika being silenced by a
Mossad car bomb that exploded near his SUV near Beirut. The bomb killed
Hobeika and his bodyguards. The CIA, now closely allied with Mossad, is
said to have given its approval for the action.

4. Chief Bola Ige.  On December 23, 2001, Chief Bola Ige, the Minister of
Justice and 

What Kind Of Government......

[Jei]

BOB'S NOTE:  What kind of government would "get in bed" with the big money 
people, lock, stock and barrel, in deference to "We The People"? Why, the 
same government that would hoodwink "We The Sheople" into paying that which 
is referred to as Federal Income Tax when there is no such law that requires 
the sheople in the 50 united States to pay such an exorbitant tax - just like 
there is no law that requires them to give up their fifth amendment right and 
sign a form 1040. THAT'S WHAT GOVERNMENT!  
It's your government - do what you will with it - and if you don't act, the 
government WILL DO WHAT IT WANTS WITH YOU..
Oh, you say you can't do anything?  That's all right - just sit on your 
lethargic butt and do nothing - your New World Order government handlers will 
be there to "take care of you"..

Submitted in disgust,
Bob Worn, Major - USAF (Retired)
1811 Shamburger Road
Pritchett, Texas   75645-2759


ENRON AND THE CORRUPT-O'CRAT'S: 
'THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK'

by Roger Fredinburg
NewsWithViews.com

    It seems that America's energy giant (Enron) managed to drop considerable 
amounts of cash in the laps of virtually anyone influential in and around the 
beltway. Over the past decade their affluence touched the lives and wallets 
of every power broker in the known world.

    From President Clinton to then Governor Bush. Up and down the halls of 
congress regardless of party,  out into the activist arena where even Jesse 
Jackson managed to escape with some loose Enron change.

    Some of us are bound to ask what Enron got in return for their 
investment.  While they are clearly in bed with everyone, where all parties 
seem willing to kiss and tell, the fact remains that Enron is belly up, 
bankrupt, gone the way of the dinosaur. Is there a lesson here for other 
corporate leaders who continue paying the required ransom for access in 
American politics today? To coin a phrase 'Where's The Beef?'

    Accounting giant Arthur Andersen is now on the hot seat as are the 
leaders at Enron. They are both wading in government contracts which might 
reveal answers to the questions about what they got in return for their 
investment later. But the real question is who among the many can rightfully 
be charged with the duty of investigating either Enron or Andersen while the 
unmistakable odor of Enron cash permeates the beltway, lingering about like 
anthrax in the Hart office building.

    Enron's demise is a tragedy and many innocent bystanders will suffer 
greatly for the mismanagement and misleading if not diabolical tactics 
employed to continue the fraud and rip off the shareholders, employees and 
the American taxpayer. Clearly the law was shredded, the checks and balances 
of regulation failed and the stench will likely spread beyond Enron as more 
companies are exposed for using similar tactics.

    It does get worse, much worse when you recognize that these shenanigans 
are nothing new to our federal government agencies. After all, where do you 
think all of these creative accounting methods were developed?

    In recent months we have seen numerous examples of poor accounting 
practices and criminal like behavior on the part of our own government.

    Documents and lap top computers go missing from the State Department. 
Security breaches at our most secret labs and agency branches. Thousands of 
personal computers, lap tops, guns and other weapons by the hundreds a year 
just go missing. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are lost in the 
ether.

    Recent attempts to audit the Internal Revenue Service were foiled because 
the accounting practices there are so abysmal that the worlds leading 
accountants threw up their hands and walked out, 'Mission Impossible' was the 
going explanation, although they were able to determine that tens of billions 
of hard earned taxpayer dollars had simply disappeared, year after year 
without any explanation. Nobody was held to account by the all seeing ever 
present watchdog we call congress. No hearings, no arrests, no discovery, 
nothing but silence.

    Similarly, when a contingent of Congressmen unexpectedly walked into the 
Department of Education and demanded a look at the books there was found to 
be tens if not hundreds of billions of taxpayer Dollars unaccounted for. 
Billions upon billions of dollars just gone. Does anyone remember how many 
Department Of Education people were investigated, how many were arrested, 
questioned by proper authorities?  the answer is zero. Not one person was 
held to account for all that missing money. And rather than be held to 
account the Clinton administration gave tens of millions of dollars in 
bonuses to agency managers throughout the system and none of those bonuses 
were tied to performance. To make matters worse, The new Bush administration 
is handing over to the thieves at Education an additional 26 Billion of our 
hard earned dollars to plug into their faulty ac

Digital Angel

[Jei]

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26316

Post-9/11 security fears usher in subdermal chips 
VeriChip recipients can be ID'd, monitored anywhere in the world 
By Sherrie Gossett
Monday, February 4, 2002

Heads up, future cyborgs! Implantable chips are back in the news, with the
current focus on a tiny chip that can be injected into your body, then
used to identify and monitor you.  Media reports are calling it "the stuff
of science fiction," and Reuters likened it to something from the 1999
blockbuster film, "The Matrix."

Referring to the chip, David Coursey of ZDNet contends that "even paranoia
has a point," and John Soat of Information Week predicts that now "the
call for a national ID system takes on a whole new meaning."

At the center of the worldwide media stir: the announcement by Applied
Digital Solutions of Palm Beach, Fla. (Nasdaq: ADSX) of its implantable
"VeriChip."

In a post-9/11 landscape, where various high-tech security systems are
vying for supremacy and a lasting relationship with the government, ADS
wants its piece of the pie.

These high-tech security systems have sparked a renewed debate over how
best to profit from emergent identification technologies while maintaining
a fair balance between civil liberties and the increased need for homeland
security.

Critics of the chip express concerns over the specter of persons being
injected with the chips against their will, perhaps surreptitiously in
conjunction with a routine vaccination. In addition, they are concerned
about the possibility of such chips eventually being mandated by the
government as a form of ID.

But let's separate the science from the fiction. What is the VeriChip? How
does it work? What is its potential relationship to government? Is it
really a potential threat to civil liberties - or a life-saving miracle of
science?

'Enhance present forms of ID'

The VeriChip is a syringe-injectable radio-frequency device about the size
of the tip of a ballpoint pen. It's designed to carry a unique ID number
and other critical personal data. Once injected, the chip can be activated
by an external scanner, and radio frequency signals then transmit the ID
number and other stored information to a telephone, the Internet or an
FDA-compliant data-storage site.

Its initial use is being touted as an ID for medical implants, such as
heart-regulating devices and artificial joints. The chip can hold info on
required settings, the device's original components, and other essential
parameters. It is also a ready source of data about the implantee's
identity and medical condition.

As WorldNetDaily reported in March 2000, Applied Digital Solutions is also
pushing use of the chip for emergency and security applications, to
"enhance present forms of ID," to enable search-and-rescue operations, and
assist in various law enforcement activities. The company contends that
its technology is superior to biometric technologies, pointing out that
implantation makes it a "tamper-proof" means of identification,
"substantially diminishing theft, loss, duplication or counterfeit."

Are critics' concerns over privacy and tracking capabilities of the chip
legitimate? Or are they just the technophobic squawkings of a collective
pen of "Chicken Littles"?

The Los Angeles Times contends that "these chips are not true tracking
devices" and that "the next generation of body chips, which transmit
signals from a distance is still several years away." Futurist Paul Saffo
says, "This is rightly going to prompt a debate . but the good news is we
still have years to figure it out."

Do we?

To truly understand the future potential of this technology, it is
necessary to look back to perhaps one of the most underreported events of
2000.

Back to the future

The event was the private unveiling of ADS's prototypical Digital Angel
technology - a technology centered around an implantable chip that, once
injected into a human being, allows it to be tracked in real time via GPS
(Global Positioning System), the information then relayed wirelessly to
the Internet, where the person's location, movements and vital signs can
be remotely monitored and stored in a database.

The company first announced that it had acquired the rights to this device
in December of 1999. Company documents described Digital Angel as "an
implantable transceiver . inserted just under the skin . that sends and
receives data and can be continuously tracked by GPS. When implanted in a
body the device is powered electromagnetically by muscle movement and can
be triggered by the 'wearer' or the monitoring facility." Implantation of
Digital Angel was said to be "future" and "subject to FDA approval," with
its preliminary use being outside the body, in the form of a wristwatch.

The strategy implied a "Phase I - Phase 2" approach: using the technology
outside the body first, followed by a Phase 2 for implantation, dictated
by the need to wait for FDA approval as well as the need to gain popular
accep

Zionist Conspiracy Against King Herod-Sharon

[Jei]

-
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 20:33:20 -0500
From: David Goldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FreePalestine! More Zionist Reservists in Rebellion

What will be most interesting is how many of these people would refuse to
do the barbaric things the Zionist army has done since 1947 in the name of
protecting the 1967 state. If there were an intifada in Galilee, would they
be more than willing to do to those Palestinians what the other soldiers
are doing in Gaza and the West Bank?

David Goldman

Telegraph (London) - January 31, 2002


Israel jails 600 reserve soldiers in crackdown on draft dodging

By Inigo Gilmore in Jerusalem


ISRAEL has jailed 600 reserve soldiers in an attempt to halt a growing
rebellion against military service in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
where the six-month-old Palestinian intifada has claimed the lives of
several reservists and shows signs of spiralling out of control.


At least 2,500 reservists have gone absent without leave, while
thousands of others have become "grey conscientious objectors", meaning
that they have fabricated medical or personal reasons why they should
not be called up for duty.


Under Israeli law, every male is required to do three years of national
service between the ages of 18 and 21, followed by a liability for
reserve duty every year - usually about 30 days - until they are between
40 and 50. They make up a 400,000-strong army which supports the regular
force of 200,000 conscripts and professional soldiers.


Most of the reservists have little sympathy with the settlers who
justify occupation of the territories seized from the Arabs by Israel in
the 1967 Six-Day war on religious grounds, claiming that the settlements
are part of biblical Israel. Many of the mostly secular reservists'
objections have a moral and political basis.


The crisis comes at a time when settlement leaders are looking to expand
their neighbourhoods, partly in response to terrorist attacks. Last
week's shootings and bombings will spur settlers to push for wider
development on occupied territory.


Ehud Sprinzak, an academic specialising in politics, said: "Since Sharon
came to power many plans for new settlements have been submitted and the
settlers have found a sympathetic ear. Of course, the issue of reserve
soldiers protecting the new settlements is going to be problematic."


Independent peace monitoring groups say that the number of reservists
refusing service has escalated sharply as the intifada has intensified.
Several reservist soldiers have been killed and, in the past few weeks,
settlements in the Gaza Strip area have come under regular mortar attack
for the first time. Clashes that came after a sniper attack in the West
Bank town of Hebron - which left an 11-month-old baby dead - and a
series of bomb blasts last week have underlined the risks that they
face.


Ishai Menuchim, a reservist tank commander and leader of Yesh Gvuel
(There is a Limit), an independent pressure group, said: "The reservists
do not care about the territories. Many are in their thirties and
forties, they have families and care more about their businesses or
studies.


"So they are not willing to pay the price and risk their lives for
something they don't believe in. This is a big problem for the army
because it will affect their operations. The army needs to understand
that fewer and fewer people are willing to do their dirty work in the
territories."


The issue is a divisive one in Israeli society because many Orthodox
students win exemption from military service on the grounds that they
must put their religious studies first. The problem is particularly
pressing now as reservists are being brought in to replace regular
soldiers who are due for a rest at the end of a four-month tour of duty.
Some senior army officers believe that jailing draft dodgers could
exacerbate the situation by uniting opposition to the draft and even
spurring greater numbers to avoid duty.


One battalion commander said: "This may lead to a terrible crisis. More
draft dodgers means fewer soldiers for the missions. The workload will
increase, not to mention the level of danger. I do not want my men to
feel like suckers."


The army is also having to deal with thousands of petitions from parents
who do not want their sons to do their national service in the occupied
territories. Many have telephoned commanding officers begging them to
find safe desk jobs for their sons.


Ruth Hiller, whose 19-year-old son is a conscientious objector, has gone
to the supreme court to prevent her him from being drafted. The mother
of six says the army has attempted to buy her son Yinnon off by offering
him a job in a hospital.


Mrs Hiller said: "We are shaking their tree and the army is worried
because it knows this case could open the floodgates. The yo

"we want to create a jail without walls"

[Jei]

Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 08:47:41 -0500
From: "Allen L. Barker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: "we want to create a jail without walls"

[This article should not surprise anyone on the list.  We all
knew that the first public, non-secret home/body incarcerations 
would be carried out on sex offenders.  And we all know that it will
not end there.  Welcome to the community as a "virtual jail."]

January 31, 2002

Some States Track Parolees by Satellite

By JENNIFER 8. LEE

TAMPA, Fla. -- THEY call it being on the box.

It's not prison. It's not freedom. It's a gray area between.

John Zadrayel, a 40-year-old convicted sex offender, has been on the
box for a year, a condition of his parole after 14 years in prison.

The box, a four-pound electronic device that resembles a transistor
radio, lets parole officers know exactly where he is at all times. It
calculates his location using the Global Positioning System, a network
of 24 satellites 12,000 miles above the earth.

Mr. Zadrayel carries the box around with him all the time, even when
he is bicycling from his rented room to his job as a cook in a local
restaurant. Some nights he wakes up thinking about it.

He wears a wireless bracelet, locked around his ankle, that transmits
a signal to the box to let it know he's there. When he leaves his room
to watch the ducks in a neighboring pond, he has to remember to stay
within 100 feet of the box. If he were to stray too far or abandon the
box completely, he would be in violation of his parole and could be
sent back to prison.

Mr. Zadrayel is one of about 1,200 offenders nationwide who are using
G.P.S. monitoring devices as a condition of their parole or probation
or as a form of house arrest. They are a small but growing fraction of
the 150,000 offenders in the United States who are subject to more
established forms of electronic supervision like home monitoring
systems and mandatory telephone checks.

Traditional systems, many of which also use ankle bracelets but
without G.P.S., can only confirm whether a person is at a designated
place at a designated time. G.P.S. devices allow the authorities to
check up on an offender at any time.

Although the technology is relatively new and not without glitches,
criminologists say that improved monitoring may help governments
address the longstanding problem of how to protect the public without
resorting to the further incarceration of criminals. Systems like the
box, they say, also offer a glimpse of a future in which imprisonment
may be more a function of technology than of bricks and bars.

By tracking parolees' movements in real time - and notifying the
authorities immediately when violations occur - the system offers a
measure of reassurance to local residents when there are criminals in
their midst.

"Very few people get locked up for the rest of their lives," said
Peggy Conway, editor of The Journal of Offender
Monitoring. "Ultimately these people are going to live in the
community."

More precise monitoring and tracking may also prompt the authorities
to release some prisoners earlier, or even eliminate prison sentences
for some first-time offenses. In Florida, it costs $45 a day to keep
someone in the state prison system, compared with about $10 a day for
surveillance with the G.P.S. device.

Currently 27 states are using some type of satellite surveillance, and
some provinces in Canada are also considering using the
technology. Florida has been the most eager adopter, with almost 600
offenders on the box, partly because Pro Tech Monitoring, the leading
G.P.S. surveillance company, is based in the state.

"It's like Big Brother," said Jim Sommerkamp, a senior probation
supervisor here in Hillsborough County, who supervises Mr. Zadrayel
using Pro Tech's system, known as Satellite Monitoring and Remote
Tracking.

And in this case, officials say, Big Brother is a good thing. People
who have committed crimes once are likely to commit them again; about
half of those released from prison are convicted of a new crime within
three years. As a constant reminder that the government is watching,
G.P.S. monitoring may discourage repeat crimes.

[...]

Adoption of the technology has been somewhat slow because the state
and local authorities are reluctant to commit themselves to a system
that still has rough edges. For one thing, the G.P.S. satellite
signals are often blocked when offenders are inside buildings or
outside in areas with many tall buildings. (If a signal is lost for
more than a few minutes, an alert is sent.) The system is also not
suitable for rural areas where the local cellphone infrastructure may
be inadequate. The monitoring is also labor-intensive: at $10 a day,
Pro Tech's system costs twice as much as traditional electronic
monitoring.

"Many states say it's too expensive, it's too bulky, it's too
unreliable," Dr.  Johnson said. "Until they fix some of those
problems, they're not going to consider it."

But as the technology matures, satellite tracking will

Kremlin `faked' terrorist attacks on apartments

[Jei]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/02Feb2002_news26.html

GENERAL NEWS - Saturday 02 February 2002  

Kremlin `faked' terrorist attacks on apartments 

PATRICK E TYLER 

Intensifying his battle with the Kremlin, the Russian oligarch Boris 
Berezovsky said on Thursday that he was just weeks away from laying out 
documentary evidence that Russia's security services were involved in 
apartment house explosions in September 1999 that killed more than 300 
people.

In an interview in London, he said his investigation of the bombings _ 
which were blamed on separatists in Chechnya and triggered a full-scale 
invasion of that rebellious republic _ was the reason Nikolai Patrushev, 
Russia's intelligence chief, accused him last week of providing financial 
support to Chechen ``terrorists''.

Mr Berezovsky said his evidence ``is no less than the evidence the 
United States had that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the World 
Trade Center attack''.

He said the key to his case was the discovery in late September 1999 that 
Russia's security services had placed what appeared to be a large bomb 
in an apartment in Ryazan, 115 miles southeast of Moscow.

When residents discovered the bomb and called the police, the Federal 
Security Service, or FSB, issued a public apology and asserted that the 
``explosives'' were actually bags of sugar tied together with wires and a 
detonator, a dummy used as part of a security exercise.

A number of Russian legislators called for an independent investigation 
of the bombings and the actions of the security service in Ryazan, but in 
March 2000 parliament defeated a motion to open an inquiry. Vladimir 
Putin, a former head of the FSB, won the presidential election the same 
month. Mr Patrushev succeeded him at the security service.

In the jaded politics of today's Russia, Mr Berezovsky's claims have been 
treated with as much scepticism as the counter-claims of Mr Patrushev 
and the security service. The fact that the charges emerged as Mr 
Berezovsky was losing another battle to retain control of the independent 
TV6 television channel added to that scepticism.

Yet the unsolved explosions that brought terror to Russia and incited 
Russians against Chechens and other ethnic groups from the Caucasus 
stand as an enduring and troubling mystery of the Chechen conflict.

Though dozens of arrests were made in the bombings, no one has been 
convicted of direct complicity. Moreover, the bombings laid the 
groundwork for the furious military campaign against Chechnya and for 
the political rise of Mr Putin, then the prime minister, whose relentless 
prosecution of the war garnered a surge of popular support that 
propelled him into the presidency.

Mr Berezovsky said on Thursday that he had no evidence that Mr Putin 
had personal knowledge of any involvement by security services in the 
apartment bombings, but he said Mr Patrushev did.

``I don't have any facts today that Putin is involved personally,'' he
said. ``I have facts that the chief of the FSB is involved in that, and
other people from the FSB are involved.''

While he said the evidence implicated Mr Patrushev, ``I don't have the 
answer as to who gave the order _ whether it was Putin, Patrushev or 
someone else.''

The resurrection of the case highlights the tenacity of Mr Berezovsky, the 
consummate Kremlin insider in the era of former president Boris Yeltsin. 
>From exile in London, where he is fighting legal battles over his holdings 
and an arrest warrant issued last autumn, he continues to strike at Mr 
Putin in the name of liberal and democratic causes, even when many 
liberals shun him.

And in the end, there is the question of whether Mr Berezovsky is simply
trying to orchestrate a political crisis for Mr Putin to win political
asylum in Britain as a means to protect permanently the wealth he carved
out of Russia in the early days, when the pickings were easy.

Mr Berezovsky responded to this question by saying: ``You won't have to
wait long'' to judge the merit of his case. He would not discuss whether
he planned to seek asylum, but said he would be in danger if he returned
to Russia.

``I don't want to tell you that I expect that they would kill me,'' he
said. ``I am not able to say that. But I cannot exclude anything.''

Mr Berezovsky works these days out of a suite of offices on fashionable
Savile Row, where he manages a business empire that is as hard to define
as it is to measure in value. But over the last decade, he is believed to
have controlled major stakes in Russian automobile enterprises, oil and
aluminum companies, Aeroflot and ORT, the state television combine, from
which he was ejected after Mr Putin became president.

Last week, after Mr Berezovsky lost a battle to keep TV6 on the air with a
crew of journalists who had fled the independent NTV network, the security
director, Mr Patrushev, surprised him with a new assault.

Speaking in a televised interview, Mr Patrushev said his bureau had
information 

CYBERWAR: A Brief Comparison of Email Encryption Protocols

[Jei]

> http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/cryptography_article-4356.html
>
> A Brief Comparison of Email Encryption Protocols
> Raph Levien
> Posted By: Jen Olson
> 1/30/2002 14:31
>
> Update: Shaun Gordon pointed out this article is quite old, and while not
> current still contains useful info. This document briefly reviews and
> compares five major email encryption protocols under consideration: MOSS,
> MSP, PGP, PGP/MIME, and S/MIME. Each is capable of adequate security, but
> also suffers from the lack of good implementation, in the context of
> transparent email encryption. I will try to address issues of underlying
> cryptographic soundness, ease of integration with email, implementation
> issues, support for multimedia and Web datatypes, and backwards
> compatibility.
>
> An additional grave concern is key management. Contrary to some beliefs,key
> management is not a solved problem. All of the proposals contain some
> mechanism for key management, but none of them have been demonstrated to be
> scalable to an Internet-wide email system. My belief is that the problems
> with key management do not stem from the classic Web of trust/certification
> hierarchy split, but the nonexistence of a distributed database (with nice
> interfaces) for holding keys. The encryption protocols also stand in the way
> of such a database, with key formats that are either overly complex,
> inadequate, or both.
>
> Shaun Gordon writes, "You might want to consider taking down the article "A
> Brief Comparison of Email Encryption Protocols. This is a pointer to a
> document that is six years old (it appears to be written in March of '96).
> This could be particularly misleading to some people as there is no clear
> date on the article, but it does refer to the upcoming PGP 3.0 which will be
> released in the fall of '96."
>

CYBERWAR: Under Developement: Encryption

[Jei]

./mark.hopkins.aka.rizzn//

Rizzn's Wartime Factbook: http://factbook.diaryland.com/
The Best UAV: http://www.unmannedaircraft.com
Rizzn's Musical Stylings: http://rizzn.trance.nu

> http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/cryptography_article-4377.html
>
> Under Developement: Encryption
> IDG.net
> Posted By: Jen Olson
> 2/1/2002 10:51
>
> AS MYSTICS SEARCH for the lost island of Atlantis and UFO buffs seek out
> alien spacecraft, cryptologists are continuing their own quest to create
an
> unbreakable code. Michael Rabin, a Harvard University computer science
> professor, believes he has moved cryptology a step closer to its Holy
Grail
> by developing a code that's undecipherable, even by those who have access
to
> both the cypher text and unlimited computing power.
> Rabin's Hyper-Encryption technology, which uses a device that quickly
> generates a deluge of random bits, relies on both time and money to thwart
> even the most dedicated code breaker. A coded message would be hidden
within
> the bits "like raisins in a pudding," quips Rabin. While anyone can read
the
> random bits, the transmission rate is so high that storing all of the
stream
> for analysis would be either technically unfeasible or cost prohibitive.
>
>
> Click here to go to this article:
>
http://www.idg.net/crd_idgsearch_1.html?url=http://www.cio.com/archive/02010
> 2/et_development.html



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INFO: Intricate Screening Of Fliers In Works

[Jei]

- Forwarded message --
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 03:45:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: INFO:  Intricate Screening Of Fliers In Works 

"Theoretically, the system could be calibrated to watch for people with
links to restaurants or other places thought to be favored by terrorist
cells. It might also note phone calls and match individuals against
government watch lists. A potential link to a threatening character or
region could boost a passenger's score"

=
Washington Post Friday, February 1, 2002
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.


Intricate Screening Of Fliers In Works
Database Raises Privacy Concerns


Federal aviation authorities and technology companies will soon begin
testing a vast air security screening system designed to instantly pull
together every passenger's travel history and living arrangements, plus a
wealth of other personal and demographic information.

The government's plan is to establish a computer network linking every
reservation system in the United States to private and government
databases. The network would use data-mining and predictive software to
profile passenger activity and intuit obscure clues about potential
threats, even before the scheduled day of flight.

It might find, for instance, that one man used a debit card to buy tickets
for four other men who sit in separate parts of the same plane -- four men
who have shared addresses in the past. Or it might discern an array of
unusual links and travel habits among passengers on different flights.

Those sorts of details -- along with many other far more subtle patterns
identified by computer programs -- would contribute to a threat index or
score for every passenger. Passengers with higher scores would be singled
out for additional screening by authorities.

As described by developers, the system would be an unobtrusive network
enabling authorities to target potential threats far more effectively
while reducing lines at security checkpoints for most passengers. Critics
say it would be one of the largest monitoring systems ever created by the
government and a huge intrusion on privacy.

Although such a system would rely on existing software and technology, it
could be years before it is fully in place, given that enormous amounts of
data would need to be integrated and a structure would need to be
established for monitoring passenger profiles.

At least one carrier, Delta Air Lines, has been working with several
companies on a prototype. Northwest Airlines has acknowledged that it is
talking with other airlines about a similar screening system. Federal
authorities hope to test at least two prototypes in coming months or
possibly sooner, according to government and industry sources familiar
with the effort.

"This is not fantasy stuff," said Joseph Del Balzo, a former acting
administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration and a security
consultant working on one of the profiling projects. "This technology,
based on transaction analysis, behavior analysis, gives us a pretty good
idea of what's going on in a person's mind."

The screening plans reflect a growing faith among aviation and government
leaders that information technology can solve some of the nation's most
vexing security problems by rooting out and snaring people who intend to
commit terrorist acts.

But a range of policy and technical questions still need to be answered
before the system can become a reality. The Transportation Security
Administration, for example, must decide on a set of standards so
technology companies and airlines can begin building a system. They must
also figure out how to pay for the system and its operation. Industry
officials said they hope the system will cost, on average, much less than
$2 per ticket.

Officials at the TSA declined to comment, saying they did not want to
disclose any details that might undermine aviation security.

Government officials and companies also face questions about privacy. In
interviews, more than a dozen people working on two parallel projects said
they were taking pains to protect individual privacy. They intend to limit
the personal information shared with airlines and security officials.

But developers face restrictions on how much information they can use.
Industry officials have already discussed with lawmakers the possible need
to roll back some privacy protections in the Fair Credit Reporting Act and
Driver's Privacy Protection Act to enable them to use more of the credit
and driver's-license data.

Civil liberties activists said they fear the system could be the
beginnings of a surveillance infrastructure that will erode existing
privacy protections. When told about the system, Barry Steinhardt,
associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it would be
"a massive complex system of surveillance."

"It really is a profound step for the government to be conducting
background checks on a large percentage of Americans. We've never done
that before," he said. "I

The Palestinian Vision of Peace (By Yasir Aarafat, The New YorkTimes)

[Jei]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/03/opinion/03ARAF.html

February 3, 2002

The Palestinian Vision of Peace
By YASIR ARAFAT


RAMALLAH — For the past 16 months, Israelis and Palestinians have been
locked in a catastrophic cycle of violence, a cycle which only promises more
bloodshed and fear. The cycle has led many to conclude that peace is
impossible, a myth borne out of ignorance of the Palestinian position. Now
is the time for the Palestinians to state clearly, and for the world to hear
clearly, the Palestinian vision.

But first, let me be very clear. I condemn the attacks carried out by
terrorist groups against Israeli civilians. These groups do not represent
the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations for freedom. They are
terrorist organizations, and I am determined to put an end to their
activities.

The Palestinian vision of peace is an independent and viable Palestinian
state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, living as an equal
neighbor alongside Israel with peace and security for both the Israeli and
Palestinian peoples. In 1988, the Palestine National Council adopted a
historic resolution calling for the implementation of applicable United
Nations resolutions, particularly, Resolutions 242 and 338. The Palestinians
recognized Israel's right to exist on 78 percent of historical Palestine
with the understanding that we would be allowed to live in freedom on the
remaining 22 percent, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.
Our commitment to that two-state solution remains unchanged, but
unfortunately, also remains unreciprocated.

We seek true independence and full sovereignty: the right to control our own
airspace, water resources and borders; to develop our own economy, to have
normal commercial relations with our neighbors, and to travel freely. In
short, we seek only what the free world now enjoys and only what Israel
insists on for itself: the right to control our own destiny and to take our
place among free nations.

In addition, we seek a fair and just solution to the plight of Palestinian
refugees who for 54 years have not been permitted to return to their homes.
We understand Israel's demographic concerns and understand that the right of
return of Palestinian refugees, a right guaranteed under international law
and United Nations Resolution 194, must be implemented in a way that takes
into account such concerns. However, just as we Palestinians must be
realistic with respect to Israel's demographic desires, Israelis too must be
realistic in understanding that there can be no solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the legitimate rights of these innocent
civilians continue to be ignored. Left unresolved, the refugee issue has the
potential to undermine any permanent peace agreement between Palestinians
and Israelis. How is a Palestinian refugee to understand that his or her
right of return will not be honored but those of Kosovar Albanians, Afghans
and East Timorese have been?

There are those who claim that I am not a partner in peace. In response, I
say Israel's peace partner is, and always has been, the Palestinian people.
Peace is not a signed agreement between individuals — it is reconciliation
between peoples. Two peoples cannot reconcile when one demands control over
the other, when one refuses to treat the other as a partner in peace, when
one uses the logic of power rather than the power of logic. Israel has yet
to understand that it cannot have peace while denying justice. As long as
the occupation of Palestinian lands continues, as long as Palestinians are
denied freedom, then the path to the "peace of the brave" that I embarked
upon with my late partner Yitzhak Rabin, will be littered with obstacles.

The Palestinian people have been denied their freedom for far too long and
are the only people in the world still living under foreign occupation. How
is it possible that the entire world can tolerate this oppression,
discrimination and humiliation? The 1993 Oslo Accord, signed on the White
House lawn, promised the Palestinians freedom by May 1999. Instead, since
1993, the Palestinian people have endured a doubling of Israeli settlers,
expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and increased
restrictions on freedom of movement. How do I convince my people that Israel
is serious about peace while over the past decade Israel intensified the
colonization of Palestinian land from which it was ostensibly negotiating a
withdrawal?

But no degree of oppression and no level of desperation can ever justify the
killing of innocent civilians. I condemn terrorism. I condemn the killing of
innocent civilians, whether they are Israeli, American or Palestinian;
whether they are killed by Palestinian extremists, Israeli settlers, or by
the Israeli government. But condemnations do not stop terrorism. To stop
terrorism, we must understand that terrorism is simply the symptom, not the
disease.

The personal attacks on me currently in vogue 

Innocent Muslims killed as Bush allies 'crusade'

[Jei]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Observer/international/story/0,6903,644045,00.html

Innocent Muslims killed as Bush allies 'crusade'

Shootings and torture by security forces are spreading fear in the
Philippines, the new flashpoint in the US war.

Film-makers Jonathan Miller
and Rob Lemkin report

Sunday February 3, 2002
The Observer

Syed Kaing Mabbul was a coconut farmer on the exquisitely beautiful island
of Basilan in the southern Philippines, the hottest new target in
President George W. Bush's global war on terrorism. His misfortune, his
mother told us, is that he has the same name as a commander of the Abu
Sayyaf, a bloodthirsty group of Islamic extremists financed by robbery,
piracy, ransom and - in the past, at least - by Osama bin Laden.

About 150 Americans, the advance party of a force of about 650, are already
in the southern Philippines for a six-month 'military' exercise that began
formally last Thursday. Their task is to train Filipino soldiers how better
to fight Abu Sayyaf, and to rescue kidnapped missionaries Martin and Gracia
Burnham of Wichita, Kansas, who have been in captivity for eight months.

Syed fled the island last May, and has been living in a lean-to shack on the
outskirts of Zamboanga City, on the island of Mindanao, about 15 miles north
of Basilan across a turquoise sea.

Local Muslims took us to meet Syed's mother, Azirah Mabhul. She told us he
had been betrayed to the army by seven fellow Muslims who had split a bounty
of a million pesos (about £14,000).

'They picked up my son at 8am,' she told us. 'They brought him to
Malagutay Brigade Camp, blindfolded him, beat him, stripped him, then hung
him upside down for eight hours. They inserted ground-up chilli paste into
his rectum to force him to confess to belonging to Abu Sayyaf.'

Azirah said that when she finally located her son, he still couldn't sit
down. 'Mum,' he said, 'I just can't take the pain any more.'

In mid-December, Syed Kaing Mabbul was taken, with 79 other terrorist
suspects, to a high security jail in the capital, Manila. He hasn't been
heard from since.

It was impossible to confirm his story, but Muslim community leaders vouched
for his innocence. His case is one of many accounts of harassment,
indiscriminate arrest, disappearances, routine torture and killing now
producing growing concern over 'gross and rampant human rights violations'
against Muslim civilians.

Human rights leaders point the finger at the America's new ally in its
global war, the Philippine armed forces. Since 11 September, they say,
incidents of abuse have grown, and there is a palpable climate of fear.

'We are the ones who are living in terror,' said the imam of a mosque in a
squalid Muslim ghetto on the edge of Zamboanga City. 'This war against
terror is just the latest campaign in a 400-year crusade against Islam,'
he said, echoing the convictions of the wider Islamic world.

Although the Philippines' five million Muslims comprise a minority in
Asia's only Roman Catholic country, they no longer feel on the fringe of
the global Islamic community.

Syed's case was just one 'among hundreds,' said Zenaida Sabaani-Lawi,
director of Murid, a Muslim organisation which provides micro-finance to
local women. 'There have been killings too. It's been getting worse since
11 September. It's as if they now have a licence,' she said. 'This is
state terror.'

Polygraph Countermeasure Challenge

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 21:23:31 +0100
From: George W. Maschke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Polygraph Countermeasure Challenge

Dr. Drew C. Richardson, the FBI's recently retired senior scientific expert
on polygraph "testing," has reiterated a challenge to the polygraph
community regarding polygraph countermeasures (methods of defeating
polygraph "tests").

Polygraphers frequently claim that any experienced polygraph examiner can
easily detect attempted polygraph countermeasures. Journalists have
frequently parroted such claims without questioning them. But peer-reviewed
research suggests that polygraphers cannot detect countermeasure attempts
at better than chance levels of accuracy, and Dr. Richardson's challenge
should be of interest to all concerned. You'll find it on the
AntiPolygraph.org message board at:

http://antipolygraph.org/cgi-bin/forums/YaBB.pl?board=Proc&action=display

George W. Maschke

Intelligence Forum (http://www.intelforum.org) is sponsored by Intelligence
and National Security, a Frank Cass journal (http://www.frankcass.com/jnls/ins.htm)

Anyone against US govt a terrorist? RAISETHEFIST.COM RAIDED BY FBI!!

[Jei]

http://www.raisethefist.com/

RAISETHEFIST.COM RAIDED BY FBI!!

NEWSFLASH Jan/30 - We have found a complete backup of raisethefist.com
online. We will need U.S. $300.00 Three Hundred in order to obtain a
copy from that host. Please contact the founder if you wish to donate.
The contact info is on the bottom. -Founder
"The raid consisted of FBI, Secret Service, LAPD and LASD. They
sorounded the house with guns before raiding it. They had machine guns,
shot guns, and hand guns. They also had a door bammer ready to break
down the door, they also blocked off the garage door, and had bullet
proof vests. They obviously came prepared to shoot and kill. They had
more artillary then they use for raiding gang felons and drugoperations."
- RTF Founder
LOS ANGELES, JAN 24 2002 - Heavily armed with high-powered machine guns,
shot guns, and hand guns, the FBI, Secret Service, and Los Angeles
Police Department sorounded the founder of raisethefist.com in his
house. The founder was currently asleep, woken up by a relative who said
fbi, police and undercover's were currently up and down all of the
streets, with they're eyes focused on the premises. Raisethefist.com
founder aproached the door were 2 FBI agents demanded that he step
outside. Within seconds a swarm of FBI raided the house with automatic
weapons and shot guns. Additional police and fbi also stayed on the
front lawn, around the house with a door baracade and additional
weapons. "armed and ready".
FBI and secret service entered the house, seizing all servers and
political liturature. Raisethefist.com was currently being ran within
the founders room of the house, over a computer network. The room was
literarly ransacked, and all equipment, disks, cd's .. etc. were boxed
up, loaded into a truck and seized until further notice.
Since 1999, raisethefist.com has been under extensive government
monitering. At times, Raisethefist.com has recieved over 100 hits from
the U.S Department of Defense in a single day. The FBI, police
department, NSA (and who else) continuesly monitered the site on a daily
basis. Even government's from the UK, Canada, Lavtia, Belgium, Egypt,
Finland, and Australia monitered the site continuesly. The FBI had also
previously intercepted all packets going through the DSL line hosting
the site, and have seized additional accounts being used by the site.
In yet another successfull attempt to silence our vioces,
Raisethefist.com, an anarchist/activist independent media/collective has
been shut down by the secret service. A note from the founder:
"It's not yet known at this point if the site will be back up. As of
now, we have nothing. No more servers, no more network, nothing. My room
remains completly ransacked. My neighbors remain shaken up by what
happend. I most likely won't be getting any of the equipment back. They
also took alot of my political litature. Apparently, they're excuse for
shutting it down was the 'militancy' portrayed on the site. This is not
true. This was an excuse. This same 'militancy' they were concerned
about is portrayed on at least a thousand other web sites across the
internet, and they havn't been touched by the federal government, with
the exception for remote monitering. Raisethefist.com was progresive. It
was going somewhere. Kids started creating clubs in their schools called
'RaisetheFist'. People started utilizing the collective as a powerful
resource for the activist/anarchist community. The federal government
has been investigating me, and the site very closely, long before 9-11,
and long before such militancy was even portrayed on the site. They knew
the site had potential, that it was turning into something more than a
site, but a strong collective utilized by activists throughout the world
committed to social justice. And that's become a crime. Justice has
become a crime. Freedom has become a crime. Anyone activly disagreeing
with policies of the U.S is now automaticly rendered a "terrorist" in
the eyes of national security Where raisethefist.com will go from
here, I don't know. Based on what i've been told, i'll most likely be in
jail, so most of my focus will be towards getting an attorney."
If you want to contact the Founder, please E-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or for the Sysop please E-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

 RaiseTheFist.com Leader RaidedBy 25 Heavily-Armed Agents
1-27-2LOS ANGELES - Heavily armed with high-powered machine guns, shot guns,
and hand guns, the FBI, Secret Service, and Los Angeles Police
Department sorounded the founder of raisethefist.com in his house. The
founder was currently asleep, woken up by a relative who said fbi,
police and undercover's were currently up and down all of the streets,
with they're eyes focused on the premises.
Raisethefist.com founder aproached the door were 2 FBI agents demanded
that he step outside. Within seconds a swarm of FBI raided the house
with automatic weapons and shot guns. Additional police and fbi also
stayed on the front lawn, around the house wit

the american dream

[Jei]

A strange state of being this war on terror.
It is a global war until the end of all evil is in sight.
it is a war that will outlast forever - it is a license to
spend the public purse on an unlimited number of evil doers.
It is a war that will destroy the terror of multivitamins,
it is a war that elevate the multinationals to godhead, where
the supermen will be bred to end the terror of individuality.

this war will build information databases like no other, and
will arrest you if you refuse to take the poison that has been
allocated specifically to you.
it will end the terror of childhood and give to the new generations
the certainty that they can misuse their lives if they choose.
this war on terror will end the terror of liberty and replace it with
the sanity of rule. It will seek out evil everywhere, the evils of
defamation, the evils of being outspoken - it will silence the Internet
forever.
It is a war on the terror of the parents when they realise that their
children have been poisoned by toxic diet and society beyond the point where
they can be easily cured. It is a war on the terror of parents who realise
that they are going to outlast their children - whose young growing tissues
cannot mature on the poisons they are being fed.

It is a war that hopes to disintegrate and divide - and rule.
Aside from the ongoing population cull though -
I foresee the breakup and regionalisation of the United States of America.
Its called Devolution.
Its a scam they foisted on us in the UK for by breaking up the UK into
impotent regions they could create more beaurocracy and more taxes and less
democracy. [consensus government]

The big global superstate and its components like the EU is made
up of small regional villages.
The same model applied to the USA would break the country up into Federated
Regions answering not to Washington but to the UN.
They may decide to carve up the USA by using racial profiling -
maybe creating a mexican superstate in the south. eg. Aztlan becomes the
mexican village - they may use religious profiling, maybe to identify and
isolate fundamentalist pockets -
You may get the creation of Mormonia - capital salt lake
the city states of LA or new york [enter kurt russell] the
babylonain/sumerian city state maybe ring fenced with the invincible
overlords as their black nobility.
If state borders were closed with the creation of new 'countries' within the
USA - people would not be able to move about - an ideal situation if
multinational companies want 'captive employees' anchored in their region.

to help with the reassimilation of the citizens in their new countries -
vast new biometric databases will profile the 'abnormal'
and facilitate the diagnosis of deviance and potential terror
suspects eg. vegetarians

Changes of linguistic and religious priorities would further strengthen the
case for the Devolution of the american dream and melting pot into its
Individual components.

Then by media enhanced differences causing at the same time the alienation
and the 'embrace' of global values - the state of the union is no longer one
state but many - ruled by an unrelenting axis of evil illuminazis.

I'm willing to bet that the company shell that was called Enron still exists
and has just acquired a new name - Noner.
If you see how the incestuous UK bilderburgers and enron executives promoted
themselves and funded their excesses to the heights of their paranoia - you
will see that the energy department in the uk govt.  is still being run by
Noner.
Sick transatlantic and global sleaze, with bought prime ministers who have
not the courage to admit to the parents of this country that they are
frauds. Tony though, emperir of eurodisney in waiting - just like the walt
disney franchise - is an idea whose time has already gone.
Blond haired blue eyed superTony awaits in the wings, whilst the athletic
Dubya whose supertuned cardiovascular system has produced a heart so mean it
cant be bothered beating - has already got a hit out on the Pretzel Company
executives.

The day of our global village is come and though the armed and touchy
american public is getting circumspect treatment, maybe even resiliently
holding the fragmentation up with its pride and patriotism and 911 flags-
there appear to be many measures in place to indiscriminately lift any
physical being or object -

But ... How can you arrest a Dream - the american dream ??

andrew hennessey
scotland

UK Train Passengers Pass By Gay Man Having Sex With Goat

[Jei]

I guess that's what happens when you see too many American movies.

- TV provides the accepted truth, the viewpoint, the norm, and a
pattern of behaviour that some people can't help but adopt & repeat.

Monkey see, monkey do.

UK Train Passengers Pass By Gay Man Having Sex With Goat
By Alastair Taylor
TheSun.co.uk
2-1-2

A chef had sex with a goat - and was seen by a trainload of 
passengers, a court heard yesterday. 
  
Stephen Hall, 23, lassoed the animal with his belt at the Paradise 
allotments near his home. 
  
As the packed Hull to Bridlington train stopped at signals, dozens of 
passengers stared out in amazement. 
  
In seconds, police switchboards were jammed as horrified commuters 
used their mobiles to report what they had seen. 
  
The female goat was one of a number left to graze near the 
allotments, Hull Crown Court was told. 
  
A man out walking his dog also made a 999 call to Humberside Police 
Control Room. 
  
Two members of the public pinned down Hall while a stream of officers 
raced to the scene. Jobless Hall, from Hull, was initially arrested 
by the Humberside Police Dog Section. 
  
A vet who examined the goat said it was "subdued" by the assault but 
was not suffering long-term injury. 
  
British Transport Police Detective Inspector Dave Crinnion, who 
investigated, said: "I saw the goat the next day " it did not seem 
too upset but it is difficult to tell." 
  
Yesterday, Hall admitted a sex charge involving an animal. 
  
Judge Jacqueline Davies, who adjourned the case for reports, said: "I 
do not know what sentence the court will impose on you." 
  
He is due to be sentenced on March 13. 
  
Hall, who says he is gay, said after the hearing: "My friends have 
been giving me a lot of stick. They are all joking with me about it. 
  
"I have never done anything like this before." 
  
© 2002 News Group Newspapers 
http://www.thesun.co.uk
 

"THE ENRON BLACK MAGIC, PART FOUR"

[Jei]

http://www.skolnicksreport.com/tebm4.html

"THE ENRON BLACK MAGIC, PART FOUR" 
by Sherman H. Skolnick 1/28/02


THE SWINDLERS and THEIR VICTIMS
Those who grow up in a big city and are political commentators, sort 
of know things by second nature. If they are outspoken, they may even 
describe their lifelong home-town, right to the point, with a few 
words. 

Some years ago, for a period of time, I opened my Chicago-based 
recorded phone commentary message [(773) 731-1100], with "This is 
Sherman Skolnick, from the mafia-CIA capital of the world". 

After a while, because of numerous examples, I and my associates came 
to understand the names of the large law firms and accounting houses 
that are part of the espionage/criminal cartel. One such has been 
Arthur Andersen & Company. 

In Chicago, in years past, two Federal District Judges, by the 
greatest non-coincidence and mysterious forces, had slipped onto 
their dockets most all of the cases in the nation involving the 
American CIA. [Assignment of cases, as we have pointed out, is one of 
the main steps of the BIG FIX.] 

One such judge was George Leighton. As shown by records uncovered by 
us in the National Archives, Leighton had been in 1963 the secret CIA 
attorney for Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA created patsy and falsely 
blamed "lone assassin" of President John F. Kennedy. Judge Leighton, 
without jurisdiction over me, once tried to falsely jail me as an 
assassination researcher. But that is a story for another day.

Another one of CIA's Judges in Chicago was U.S. District Judge Hubert 
L. Will. In the 1950s, he had been CIA's Chief of Counter-
Intelligence in Europe, stationed in Berlin. It was thus natural that 
in 1970 my suit against the National Archives and Record Service was 
assigned to him. For the only time in U.S. history, somehow eleven 
secret documents had been purloined from the Archives. Falling into 
my possession, attached to my suit, they showed that the U.S. Secret 
Service had covered up a plot to assassinate President Kennedy in 
Chicago on the way to his appearance at a football game, two and a 
half weeks before being actually murdered in Dallas. Part of the 
cover-up was to falsely jail the first black Secret Service agent, 
Abraham Bolden, assigned to guarding the President at his residence. 
A person as a double for "Lee Harvey Oswald", was waiting along the 
proposed parade route to murder the President.

In Court, I confronted Judge Will, holding in my hand as an Exhibit, 
a copy of the book, published in Europe but banned from distribution 
in the U.S., "Who's Who in CIA". [I and my associates were about the 
only ones in the U.S. who somehow had copies. We gave them away at 
college speeches in return for small donations. Alas, no more copies 
are left.] 

"I'm not with them anymore", the Judge poo-pooed my demand that he 
step aside. "Come on now, Judge," I reasoned with him, "The CIA is a 
mail-box, once you are in, you are there even if later you claim to 
be on the bench". He denied my request to recuse himself. Naturally, 
the CIA and the U.S. Secret Service, involved in the suit, won. I was 
put out of Court without further legal formality. "THE ENRON BLACK 
MAGIC", Part Four continued, by Sherman H. Skolnick 1/28/02 

Not a coincidence, later in the 1970s, Judge Will had the case 
involving the embezzlement of Rockefeller's unit, First National Bank 
of Chicago. [To confuse matters since then, they have changed their 
name to Bank One.] Millions and millions of dollars disappeared from 
the bank's branch in Athens, Greece. Sources told us it was 
a "permitted" rip-off by the American CIA to secretly finance the 
Greek mafia to do dirty tricks against political dissidents. 

The bank's auditors and consultants were Arthur Andersen & Co., with 
a long previous history of being reportedly instrumental with the 
Mafia/CIA activities in Chicago. [For background, study the details, 
believed by savvy sorts to be accurate, in the book written by family 
members of CIA gangster/assassination arranger "Momo" Giancana---how 
the CIA uses mobsters like "Momo", then later murders them by way of 
throwing them away, "Double Cross The Explosive Inside Story of the 
Mobsters Who Controlled America, Vol. 1," by Sam Giancana and Chuck 
Giancana (contributor), Mass Market Paperback, Warner Books, Inc., 
1993. It deals with the great dangers of trusting the Kennedy Family 
and the American CIA. 

A kingpin in Arthur Andersen's law firm was R. Sargent Shriver who 
was married into the family of "Founding Father" Joseph P. Kennedy 
and his assassinated sons, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. 
About 1975, Shriver was the speaker at Rockefeller Chapel, on the 
campus of Rockefeller's University of Chicago. Shriver's speech was 
about "International Relations". After the speech, we interviewed 
Shriver as the attorney for Arthur Andersen & Co., on tape, in the 
doorway of the Chapel. 

We grilled Shriver about how his client, A

Feds mulling new airline surveillance system

[Jei]

http://www.idg.net/ic_797650_1794_9-1.html

Feds mulling new airline surveillance system

By DAN VERTON
(February 01, 2002)

WASHINGTON -- Federal transportation security officials plan to begin
testing a new network that would enable security officials to collect and
analyze a vast array of personal data on airline passengers in an attempt to
weed out terrorists before they can get aboard aircraft.

The system would link every reservation system in the country with a number
of private and government databases. Through the use of data mining and
predictive software analysis, it would analyze personal travel histories,
unusual relationships between passengers aboard particular flights and a
wealth of other data for clues to potential threats.

A final decision on whether to move ahead with the test or deploy an
operational system has not yet been made. That decision will be made by the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is currently evaluating
two prototype technologies. The TSA could not be reached for comment today.

HNC Software, a San Diego-based firm that develops risk-detection software,
is leading a team of companies to build one of the two main prototypes. HNC
is working with Houston-based PROS Revenue Management Inc., which already
supplies customer analytic software to 17 of the top 25 U.S. airlines, and
Acxiom Corp., a data marketing firm in Little Rock, Ark., that collects
information on land records, car ownership, magazine subscriptions and
telephone numbers.

Joseph Firosh, executive director for research and development at HNC, said
his company's technology is currently used to detect credit card fraud in
the private sector. It is based on neural network technology that can pick
out vague relationships between data that may indicate the potential for
terrorist activity, he said.

HNC is currently talking to both the TSA and Delta Air Lines Inc. about the
feasibility of deploying the technology throughout airports, said Firosh.

"The data will have to come from the airlines, he said. "It will have to be
pooled and we will have to have a way to get the analysis to the various
checkpoints around the airports," Firosh said, indicating that if and when a
deployment decision is made, the system may require airlines to invest in
additional IT infrastructure.

Reports of the system have already raised concerns among some privacy
experts, who view the analysis of such data on all air travelers as a
potential threat to civil liberties.

Steve Kobrin, a professor at The Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who specializes in privacy issues, said he's
concerned that such a system may "tip the balance" between security and
privacy in the wrong direction.

"Is it really necessary to track every move of every air traveler to secure
our skies?" asked Kobrin. "There is a long history of data being used for
purposes other than for which it was collected, and the potential for abuse
here is enormous."

However, Firosh said the system currently being studied will have built-in
privacy protections. "To the system, the information is just data. No human
beings will actually be looking at personal data or making ad hoc judgments
of any kind," he said. Rather, individuals will be rated on a threat scale,
and warnings will be sent electronically to authorities at screening
locations to inspect those individuals with higher threat ratings more
closely, Firosh said.

"It will all depend on how high on the scale of risk an individual is," he
said.

How to be a KGB spy

[Jei]

Anyone have a CIA howto/manual? Others?? :-)
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday_review/story/0,3605,643341,00.html

How to be a KGB spy

Vasiliy Mitrokhin on the secret handbook of Russia's undercover agents

Saturday February 2, 2002
The Guardian

The KGB compiled and issued intelligence and counter-intelligence
dictionaries in the 1970s. Only officers in certain operational sub-units of
the KGB were allowed access to them.
The dictionaries, designed to provide a standard, accepted definition of
intelligence terms peculiar to the solitary and self-contained professional
world of the agencies of repression, had the legal status of regulatory
acts, binding on all units of the Soviet KGB.

Behind the quasi-scientific expressions it is possible to discern the
doctrine of permissiveness, providing a criminal legal basis for any
criminal act or constituting a recommendation to carry out such acts. The
dictionaries are the intelligence officer's book of amoral rules for
activities which jeopardise stability, the law and the social order,
providing guidance on how negative ways and means can be used to achieve
positive results. They authorise for him to do things which are forbidden by
law and to flout customary usage.

Agent-boyevik - a combat agent
An agent carrying out special tasks, including those requiring the use of
arms, explosives, special preparations and substances.

Agent vneshney razvedki KGB iz sovetskykh grazhdan - a Soviet agent of KGB
foreign Intellience
A Soviet citizen systematically carrying out secret instructions from
external intelligence on the basis of patriotic conviction, in foreign
countries or on the territory of the Soviet Union, and undertaking to keep
secret the fact of his cooperation and its nature.

Agent-dezinformator - disinformation agent
An agent who consciously communicates to the intelligence officer with whom
he is in contact patently false information on matters of interest to
intelligence, passing it off as genuine.


Agent-razrabotchik - a cultivation agent
An agent who assesses individuals under cultivation, observes their
behaviour at home and at work, identifies contacts and the nature of their
mutual relations, and carries out other intelligence tasks against targets
of cultivation.


Brosovyy signal - disposable signal
A signal used in some forms of impersonal contact in intelligence work and
intended for a particular contact without attracting attention, namely a
used or throw-away object of no value, or a part of it (such as a lump of
stone, glass, an empty cigarette packet, orange peel, the cork from a bottle
and so forth).

Verbovka v forme pryamogo predlozheniya - recruitment by means of a direct
proposal
A method of drawing a specially selected individual, who has been thoroughly
studied covertly, into secret cooperation with intelligence as an agent
(under true or false flag) by facing him directly with the question of
carrying out intelligence assignments systematically and clandestinely on
specified terms.

Verbovka na ideyno-politicheskoy osnove - recruitment on ideological and
political grounds
Inducing a specially selected and studied individual to cooperate secretly
as an agent by exploiting his political views, his national liberation
aspirations, his nationalist inclinations, his patriotic feelings, his
anti-war and anti- imperialist convictions and other political factors.

Verbovka na komprometiruyushchikh materialakh - recruitment on the basis of
compromising materials
Inducing or forcing a specially selected and studied individual to cooperate
secretly with intelligence as an agent by threatening to expose his
professional and moral failings.

Verbovka na moralno-psikhologicheskoy osnove - recruitment on a moral and
psychological basis
Inducing a specially selected and studied individual to cooperate secretly
as an agent by exerting psychological pressure on him, by exploiting his
foibles, vanity, envy, jealousy, vengefulness, his personal sympathies and
also his moral, professional or other failings.


Vremennyy post naruzhnogo nablyudeniya - temporary surveillance post
A place used by intelligence officers or their agents while conducting
surveillance on a target of cultivation in order to camouflage their
clandestine surveillance of the target as long as necessary. Depending on
circumstances, such posts may be selected in doorways, shops, coffee houses,
tram, trolley-bus or bus stops.

Dezinformatsionnyye materialy - disinformation materials
Material specially collected or fabricated by the intelligence service to
mislead particular circles, agencies, institutions and individuals in
foreign countries (documents, reports, articles published in periodicals or
broadcast by radio and television, declarations by state agencies, public
figures and scholars, private anonymous letters, leaflets etc).


Zhurnalistskoye prikrytiye - journalistic cover
The official activity of an intelligence officer acting

George W. In The Garden Of Gethsemane

[Jei]

George W. In The Garden Of Gethsemane 
An Open Letter to George W. Bush
>From Michael Moore
2-1-2

Dear George, 
  
When it's all over in a couple months, and you're packing up your 
pretzels and Spot and heading back to Texas, what will be your 
biggest regret? Not getting out more often and seeing the sights 
around Rock Creek Park? Never once visiting the newly-renovated IKEA 
in Woodbridge, Virginia? Or buying your way to the White House with 
money from a company that committed the biggest corporate swindle in 
American history? I got a feeling you didn't miss much by not 
spending an entire Saturday afternoon assembling a Swedish bookcase --
 but you should have known that there was no way you would ever 
finish your term by hopping into bed with Kenneth Lay. 
  
It's kind of sad when you think about it. Here you were -- the most 
popular president ever! -- the recipient of so much good will from 
your fellow Americans after September 11, and then you had to go and 
blow it. You just couldn't stay away from your old cowpoke friend 
from Texas, Kenneth Lay. 
  
Kenny has always been there for you. You needed a way to fly around 
to all the primaries and campaign stops in the 2000 election -- so 
Kenny gave you his corporate jet. Did you tell the voters when you 
arrived in each city that the bird you flew in on was from a 
billionaire who was secretly conspiring to give the bird to all his 
employees and investors? He flew you around America on the Enron 
company jet, and for that favor you touched down on tarmac after 
tarmac to tell your fellow citizens that you were "going to restore 
dignity to the White House, the people's house." You said this 
standing in front of an Enron jet! 
  
Man, you loved Lay so much, you not only affectionately referred to 
him as "Kenny Boy," you interrupted an important campaign trip in 
April, 2000, to fly back to Houston for the Astro's opening day at 
the new Enron Field -- just so you could watch Kenny Boy Lay throw 
out the first pitch. How sentimental! 
  
I mean, you loved this man so intensely that, when you were awarded a 
set of keys the Supreme Court had made for you so you could live in 
the White House, you invited Kenny Boy to set up shop -- at 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue! He interviewed those who would hold high-level 
Energy Department positions in your administration. 
  
You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the regulatory 
agency that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick the new chairman of 
the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt -- a former 
lawyer for his accountant, Arthur Andersen! Kenny and the boys at 
Andersen also worked to make sure that accounting firms would be 
exempt from numerous regulations and would not be held liable for 
any "funny bookkeeping" (don't you wish you were this forward-
thinking?). 
  
The rest of Kenny Boy's time was spent next door with his old buddy, 
Dick Cheney (Enron and Halliburton, as you'll recall, got the big 
contracts from your dad to "rebuild" Kuwait after the Gulf War). Lay 
and Dick formed an "energy task force" (Operation Enduring Graft) 
which put together the county's new "energy policy." This policy then 
went on to shut down every light bulb and juicer in the state of 
California. And guess who made out like bandits while "trading" the 
energy California was in desperate need of? Kenny Boy and Enron! No 
wonder Big Dick doesn't want to turn over the files about those 
special meetings with Lay! 
  
The only thing that surprises me more than all the Enron henchmen who 
ended up in your cabinet and administration is how our lazy media 
just rolled over and didn't report it. The list of Enron people on 
your payroll is impressive. Lawrence Lindsey, your chief economic 
advisor? A former advisor at Enron! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill? 
Former CEO of Alcoa, whose lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the 
#3 contributor to the your campaign! Who is Vinson and Elkins? The 
law firm representing Enron! Who is Alcoa? The top polluter in Texas. 
Timothy White, the Secretary of the Army? A former vice-chair of 
Enron Energy! Robert Zoellick, your Federal Trade Representative? A 
former advisor at Enron! Karl Rove, your main man at the White House? 
He owned a quarter-million dollars of Enron stock. 
  
Then there's the Enron lawyer you have nominated to be a federal 
judge in Texas, the Enron lobbyist who is your chair of the 
Republican Party, the two Enron officials who now work for House 
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm 
who sits on Enron's board. And there's the aforementioned Mr. Pitt, 
the former Arthur Andersen attorney whose job it is now as SEC head 
to oversee the stock markets. George, it never stops! 
  
My fingers are getting tired typing all this up -- and there's lots 
more. 
  
Don't get me wrong, George -- I do not think you're an evil man. You 
don't need any crap from people like me -- heck, you got mother-in-
law problems! Now

Has the Pentagram Replaced the Swastika?

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 15:05:48 -
From: fallout1963 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Armageddon-or-NewAge] Re: Has the pentagram replaced the swastika?

We have observed a light show on several occassions in New 
York City since September 2000. Small circles of light race 
across the sky and then stop to form such shapes as a 
pentagram. 

The lights seem to originate on the West Side of Manhattan but 
have been seen over the New Jersey skyline as well. 

These light shows do not seem to be connected with any 
advertising effort . There is no mention of them in the press. 

If anyone has any information on these lights please e to us or 
share with the readers of this forum. Is this happening anywhere 
else?

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "biochimp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> Is it just me or has anyone else noticed
> that these days it seems everywhere you look 
> there is a pentagram incorporated into their
> logo. Maybe it just because I live in the lone"star"
> state of texas, where all major sports teams have it
> dallas cowboys, stars, mavericks, rangers...
> almost every tv channel has it in their logo,
> you'll find 5 pointed stars almost anywhere you look,
> imbedded in the designs of office building ,shopping
> centers, small buisnesses, even resturants. 
> there are hundreds of companys that begin with star..
> star..this  star..that and of course the pentagram is 
> in their logo and on their buisness cards.
> I'm so sick of seeing stars

16th Amendment Never Ratified

[Jei]

- Original Message - 
From: Ken Smith 
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 11:19 PM
Subject: 16th Amendment Never Ratified


  16th AMENDMENT NEVER RATIFIED
 
  The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was
never ratified by a majority of the sovereign States.

  This is the Amendment that allegedly entitled the Federal Agent
(government) in the federal territory of Washington, D.C. and their
private collection company, the IRS, to collect "income tax" as falsely
declared to be ratified in February 1913.

   After an exhaustive year long search of legislative records in 48
sovereign states (Alaska & Hawaii were not admitted into the Union until
after 1913), Bill Benson wrote his fact findings in The Law That Never
Was, Vols. 1 & 2. He was able to unequivocally prove that the 16th
Amendment was never Constitutionally, properly, or legally ratified. The
only record of the 16th Amendment having been confirmed was a proclamation
made by the Secretary of State Philander Knox on February 25, 1913,
wherein he simply declared it to be "in effect", but never stating it was
lawfully ratified.

  Even if the 16th Amendment were properly ratified, according to
Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, it has always been
unconstitutional for the U.S. Federal Government to directly tax We the
People in their property, wages, salaries, or earnings. The judges of the
U.S. Supreme Court rejected any claims that the 16th Amendment changed the
constitutional limits on direct taxes in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R.
Co., 240 U.S. 1, when they ruled that it "created no new power of
taxation" and that it "did not change the constitutional limitations which
forbid any direct taxation of individuals".

  Alleged defects in the ratification of the Income Tax Amendment

  According to the investigations of Bill Benson and others, the
following defects were found in the ratification of the Income Tax
Amendment by the 48 states then existing, three-fourths or 36 of which
were needed to ratify it:

01 - Not ratified by state legislature, and so reported
   
02 - Not ratified by state legislature, but reported as ratified
   
03 - Missing or incomplete evidence of ratification, but reported as 
ratified
   
04 - Failure of Governor or other official to sign, although required by 
State Constitution
   
05 - Other violation of State Constitution in ratification process 
   
06 - Other procedural irregularity making ratification doubtful 
   
07 - Approval, but with change in wording, accepted as ratification of 
original version 
   
08 - Approval, but with change in spelling, accepted as ratification of 
original version 
   
09 - Approval, but with change in capitalization, accepted as ratification 
of original version 
   
10 - Approval, but with change in punctuation, accepted as ratification of 
original version 
   



State 
   01 
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   03 
   04 
   05 
   06 
   07 
   08 
   09 
   10 
   
Alabama 
   



   



   



   



   



   



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Arizona 
   



   



   



   



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Idaho 
   



   



   



   1

OPED: The damned fool WANTS war!

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 22:49:21 -0500
Reply-To: "Political News & Views and Jewish \"National\" Identity 
Subject: [PNEWS] OPED: The damned fool WANTS war!
|  PNEWS-L ARCHIVES ->http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/pnews-l.html |

From: Lisa Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

As you know, he's listed an "evil axis" as including
Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

The situation with Iran and Iraq deserve their own
separate posts.  As for North Korea, on Wednesday
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that
the U.S. had for many years been "quite nicely and
diplomatically" offering invitations to meet with
North Korean officials, but those overtures were
ultimately rejected.

Has Mr. Boucher forgotten so quickly that under
President Clinton, in his last months in office,
relations with North Korea had reached a high point,
so encouraging that then Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright visited Pyongyang.  The visit was significant
in that Albright was the highest level U.S. official
to travel to North Korea. Her visit was right on the
heels of the landmark Pyongyang summit between the
North and South Korean leaders (Kim Dae-jung and Kim
Jong Il).  We had reason to hope for a final peace
deal between the two countries.  All part of the peace
and prosperity we enjoyed for eight years.

Then, along came Bush, swaggering his way into the
White House with his braggadacio talk of reverting to
tougher lines with North Korea, and lo, North Korea
broke off official contacts with not only Washington
but Seoul as well.

THAT's what happened to President Clinton's successes
on the Korean peninsula.

This man thinks war is all a game.  He regards our
young men as little tin soldiers he can play with.
Ever play the boardgame "Risk"?  I play it with my
little boy sometimes, and I can wipe out an entire
country with a roll of the dice and feel nothing but
glee.  I freeze to think that this man is in search of
THAT kind of adrenal skyrocket.

If we ever manage to get really united and begin
exposing the lies of the past year, let's be sure to
include this one.  Any man of his instability, with
such a love of playing war, is inevitably going to be
drawn into an obsessive curiosity about dropping a
nuclear (nuke-you-lar) bomb.

God!  How DID it happen?

Lisa

"We who have a voice must speak for the voiceless."

-- Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, murdered by terrorists trained by the
United States at the School of the Americas.

++
 "Our country ... when right, to be kept right. When wrong, to be put
   right."  -- Carl Shurz
++

Bu$hGate: Lay and Bush, Enron/ Bush Admin, Enron Partnerships,Harvard, Britain

[Jei]

"You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the regulatory agency that 
oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick the new chairman of the Securities and 
Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt -- a former lawyer for his accountant, 
Arthur Andersen! Kenny and the boys at Andersen also worked to make sure that 
accounting firms would be exempt from numerous regulations and would not be 
held liable for any "funny bookkeeping" Kenny Boy has been your number 
one financial backer since you ran for governor. No other American or Saudi 
has given you more money than Kenny Boy and his gang at Enron."

"At least three top White House advisers involved in drafting President 
Bush's energy strategy held stock in the Enron Corporation or earned fees 
from the large Texas-based energy trading company, which lobbied aggressively 
to shape the administration's approach to energy issues." 

"An estimated 3,000 partnerships, some with names of "Star Wars" characters 
such as Jedi, were created by Enron -- which took a 97 percent stake in each 
of them and brought in outside investors for the remainder. The partnerships 
were kept off Enron's books and helped create the accounting debacle that 
pushed the company into the biggest U.S. corporate bankruptcy ever on Dec. 
2." 

http://www.michaelmoore.com/2002_0129.html
01/29/2002

"George W. in the Garden of Gethsemane"
An Open Letter to George W. Bush from Michael Moore

You needed a way to fly around to all the primaries and campaign stops in the 
2000 election -- so Kenny gave you his corporate jet. Did you tell the voters 
when you arrived in each city that the bird you flew in on was from a 
billionaire who was secretly conspiring to give the bird to all his employees 
and investors? He flew you around America on the Enron company jet, and for 
that favor you touched down on tarmac after tarmac to tell your fellow 
citizens that you were "going to restore dignity to the White House, the 
people's house." You said this standing in front of an Enron jet! 
Man, you loved Lay so much, you not only affectionately referred to him as 
"Kenny Boy," you interrupted an important campaign trip in April, 2000, to 
fly back to Houston for the Astros opening day at the new Enron Field -- just 
so you could watch Kenny Boy Lay throw out the first pitch.when you were 
awarded a set of keys the Supreme Court had made for you so you could live in 
the White House, you invited Kenny Boy to set up shop -- at 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue! He interviewed those who would hold high-level Energy Department 
positions in your administration.  You not only let Kenny Boy decide who 
would head the regulatory agency that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick 
the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt -- a 
former lawyer for his accountant, Arthur Andersen! Kenny and the boys at 
Andersen also worked to make sure that accounting firms would be exempt from 
numerous regulations and would not be held liable for any "funny bookkeeping" 
(don't you wish you were this forward-thinking?).Kenny Boy has been your 
number one financial backer since you ran for governor. No other American or 
Saudi has given you more money than Kenny Boy and his gang at Enron.  
O'Neill, Evans, Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- ALL of them gave 
Lay and Enron special favors from day one. The New York Times
last May was so concerned about how Kenny had the run of the place (1600 
Pennsylvania Ave.), they referred to Lay as the "shadow advisor to the 
president."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/03/politics/03DISC.html

June 3, 2001 - Bush Advisers on Energy Report Ties to Industry - By JOSEPH 
KAHN

WASHINGTON, June 2 — At least three top White House advisers involved in 
drafting President Bush's energy strategy held stock in the Enron Corporation 
or earned fees from the large Texas-based energy trading company, which 
lobbied aggressively to shape the administration's approach to energy issues. 
Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political strategist; Lawrence B. Lindsey, the 
top economic coordinator; and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's 
chief of staff, all said in financial disclosure statement released on Friday 
that they already had or intended to divest themselves of holdings in Enron, 
the nation's leading trader and marketer of electricity and natural gas, as 
well as holdings in other energy companies. Mr. Lindsey received $50,000 last 
year from Enron for consulting. Mr. Rove's statement said he intended to sell 
stock holdings in Enron valued at $100,000 to $250,000, though the statement 
does not make clear if he has completed the sale. Mr. Libby sold his stake in 
the company.

http://www.truthout.com/02.01A.Sen.Enron.No.htm

January 31, 2002  Senator Says Enron Not Cooperating With Investigation 
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  Filed at 3:43 p.m. ET 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Enron Corp. has failed to provide a Senate committee with 
important information about a web of pa

War of Words

[Jei]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/newstmpl=story&u=/ap/20020201/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_th
e_apocalypse_1

Bush Touts Anti-Terror Umbrella
Fri Feb 1, 3:22 AM ET
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - "Fight on, America," President Bush exhorts. To him, the
fight against terrorism is joined on every front now, with no end in
sight.

It's not just on battlefields or at border crossings but in schools,
neighborhoods and homes, where he says teaching children, loving them and
helping others are weapons to ward off the evil ones.

Bearing America's mighty grievance born in September, flush with
confidence from military progress and enjoying sky-high public support,
the Republican president is on a roll even by the reckoning of Democrats.

Yet there are voices, few at home, more abroad, wondering whether Bush is
going a little too far with the apocalyptic war talk.

"In rhetoric there's an impulse to repeat what works," said Kathleen Hall
Jamieson, an authority in presidential words and dean of the Annenberg
School for Communication in Philadelphia. "At a certain point, people
realize it's being overworked."

With Bush promoting everything short of eating your spinach as central to
the war on terrorism, she said, "he is beginning to stretch here toward
the edge of plausibility."

Few question the seriousness of the terrorist threat, a danger underscored
with increasing gravity in the last few days.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Thursday of possible attacks
"vastly more deadly" than those of Sept. 11.

But U.S. saber-rattling, such as Bush's assertion Thursday that countries
that do not share American values "better get their house in order,"
spread nervousness abroad even among allies.

Increasingly in recent weeks and most dramatically in his State of the
Union speech and after it, Bush has brought diverse matters under the
umbrella of the anti-terror war, the area where he is politically
unassailable at home.

_Economic growth has become economic "security."

_The drug war is crossing paths with the terror war; the White House is
sponsoring two Super Bowl commercials telling people that buying drugs
could line the pockets of terrorists.

_Bush is advocating cultural change - away from the "If it feels good, do
it" ethos - as a means of fortifying the nation in the struggle of good
and evil.

_Education is no longer just a way to improve a child, a school or a
community - something to do on its own merits.

"We're looking for teachers," he told Floridians in a pitch for retired
educators to help needy children. "And by doing so, we stand square in the
face of evil. We tell the enemy, 'You can't get us.'"

Probably not since Ronald Reagan have Americans seen a president so
lacking in relativism. "We're fighting evil," he says, "and I don't see
any shades of gray."

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California was a blunt if practically
lone voice of semi-dissent after Bush's State of the Union speech.
"Basically, he's played the war for whatever it's worth," she said.

For the most part, Democrats are trying to carve out areas of domestic
policy where they can take on Bush while heaping him with praise as the
commander in chief.

So far, Bush, devoting himself to a struggle that may outlast his
presidency, has kept attention riveted on the war and his expansive
definition of it.

The alarms from the administration grew louder by the day this week,
although the facts behind them were not always solid.

First, White House officials warned in TV appearances before Bush's speech
that up to 100,000 "terrorist killers" had been trained in the Afghan
camps.

Later, away from the cameras and under condition of anonymity, one senior
official clarified the claim, putting the estimate of terrorists actually
trained by al-Qaida where it had been before - 15,000 to 20,000. Bush
settled on "tens of thousands" in his speech.

On Thursday, Rumsfeld said adversaries may strike with ever more dangerous
weapons. He was referring in part to missiles from countries such as North
Korea, Iran and Iraq - the states Bush starkly described as an "axis of
evil."

Appropriating the language of combat for domestic ends is not new in a
country that has tried to wage war on poverty, drugs, illiteracy and more.

But Bush means it literally.

"There are ways to fight terror other than wearing a uniform," he said.

"People say, 'Well, gosh, I want to be part of the war against terror.'
And my answer is, love somebody; be a good mother or dad."

Even the wartime titan Franklin Roosevelt was dealing in analogy when he
asked Congress for power to "wage a war against the emergency."

The foe at hand, that day in 1933, was the Depression, not the Axis.

STATE OF THE EMPIRE

[Jei]

http://www.sierratimes.com/02/01/31/dorothy.htm

STATE OF THE EMPIRE
we will fight the world's evil!
By Dorothy Anne Seese: 01.31.02

Just to make certain that the president said what my ears thought they
heard, the news sites conveniently furnished a copy of President Bush's
State of the Union address. Sure enough, we're taking on all the world's
evil. That would be a noble, almost messianic task -- were it not for the
fact that we, our nation and our leadership -- are viewed by a large
portion of the world as being part of that evil. Even we in America
realize that our government, our multinational corporations and huge
foundations have fostered the demise of true freedom in America. Thus when
the president speaks of "freedom" it is immediately a question as to
whether or not he is speaking of a redefined freedom, rather than the
freedoms for which our forefathers lived, sacrificed and died.

It is apparent that war, or the semblance of war, will continue
indefinitely. That makes sense because evil will continue indefinitely, or
until the Final Judgment comes to abolish all evil. We in America were not
appointed to that task ... at least not in any definable document or
anointing of which we are aware.

The news analysts who spoke after the address agreed that this State of
the Union speech was more a war speech than the usual SU speech given by
the president. Little was said of domestic problems, except for the
emphasis on federalized education, a tool of destruction for
individualistic thinking and the inculcation of globalistic definitions.

Scant mention was made of we seniors, other than the usual repeat of
pre-election "stuff" about choices between food and medicine. That was a
nice token but meaningless.

What we heard, behind the words or between the lines, was that we're now
in an indefinite state of military preparedness for war at home and
abroad. Wartime brings about the abrogation of civil rights and domestic
freedoms.

And woe be to the group that challenges the constitutionality of what is
planned for an America in a state of war-in-perpetuity!

Setting aside the hear-ye rhetoric, the speech was actually a declaration
of indefinite expansion of government and its power over the rights and
privileges of individual citizens.

No wonder there were so many smiles from Democrats! This is precisely what
they have been trying to get across since Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency,
and decades before that if one considers the long-term agenda of the
elitists and advocates of the New World Order.

President Bush named some terrorist states such as Iran and Iraq, and
notably omitted whatever obligation the United States may have to stopping
the genocide in South Africa or Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Notice was thus given
to the nations against whom this country will take wartime measures to
ensure that "evil" is erased from their borders, and perhaps the borders
along with the evils.

Globalism advanced two decades this evening with the president's agenda.

Right-wing Christian Republicans, Libertarians, Constitutionalists and
Reformers could not have heard much, if anything, that would build this
president's conservative base. We need to withdraw from global meddling
and concentrate on America. That, we did not hear.

The president stated that he is a proud member of his political party ...
the Republican party. Yet there was nothing in this address that spoke of
the type of Republicanism espoused by the late Barry Goldwater in the
1950's and 1960's or the type now being maintained by Rep. Ron Paul
(R-Texas).

Who's at war? Congress has declared none. If someone has declared war
against the US, it is not a nation state but an ephemeral movement. Thus
the wartime status of our nation has to be in perpetuity or until the
globalist agenda is accomplished. Anyone who did not hear that, is not
aware of what globalism means. It is not trading with other nations.

Noticeably absent from the president's speech was any mention of China. It
was implicit, perhaps, because China engages in its own type of terrorism
and has done so while maintaining friendly governmental relations with the
US (in spite of the April 2001 reconnaissance plane incident) and China is
a known enemy of the US. Their record on human rights is an abomination to
any God-fearing people, but there don't seem to be many of those around in
the 21st century ... all is compromise, tolerance, diversity and unity.

That's the agenda in a nutshell.

President Bush's speech was smoother than anything Orwell could have
written, because Big Brother would have given himself away, and to the
average American listener to the network news, this speech sounded
impressive, but it was imperialistic.

George W. Bush is a lot better at what he does than was his father.

This writer would be the last to call George W. Bush a fool, he is
incredibly sensitive to what it takes to rally the people to his cause.
And
he just sold the American public at large on a war that doe

A-M$: Bribe for m$

[Jei]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23868.html

Back Microsoft and win an iPaq
By John Lettice
Posted: 29/01/2002 at 14:08 GMT

Back Redmond and win an iPaq? Strange but true, this was indeed the 
offer made to a select mailing list of likely Microsoft supporters by 
lobbying group Americans for Technology Leadership, according to an 
AP report today. The offer was made in a mailshot to attendees of 
this week's Conservative Political Action Conference, a likely 
bastion of Microsoft supporters if ever we've seen one.

ATL, it appears, is utterly unabashed by the matter, with executive 
director Jim Prendergast arguing that the iPaq is just a tool to get 
people involved, and certainly not a bribe. ATL has been soliciting 
pro-Microsoft letters as part of the public comment process on the 
proposed MS-DoJ settlement. Comment on the subject had to be with the 
DoJ by yesterday, and the DoJ now has 30 days to publish it in the 
Federal Register (no relation).

'Publish' may however be something of an exagerration. During the 
trial years when it wanted Microsoft to look bad the DoJ merrily (if 
somewhat bulkily) posted PDFs of practically everything, but now it 
seems not to be inclined to go any further than the bare legal 
minimum of Federal Register publication. But as the Federal Register 
itself has an online presence, we shouldn't consider the comment 
entirely buried.

Although the deadline for comment has now expired, ATL's site (which, 
humorously, seems not to work with The Register's copy of Opera) was 
still soliciting comment today. No mention of iPaqs in the online 
form however, you'll be saddened to hear. ATL describes itself as "a 
broad-based coalition of technology professionals, consumers, and 
organizations dedicated to limiting government regulation of 
technology."

Its founding members include Microsoft, Staples, CompUSA, usual 
suspects the Association for Competitive Technology and Citizens 
Against Government Waste, the Small Business Survival Committee, the 
60Plus Association (Conservative Grey Panthers for Redmond?), and a 
couple of Microsoft partners. It's difficult to figure out what it is 
the other founder, Cityscape Filmworks, does, but we note that it 
managed to put in an appearance at an ACT "career program" as part of 
a national "Techies Day" last October. Small world. ®

== "Anti-M$ Mailing List", another fine service of Enemy.ORG / VBS  ==
== [un]subscribe requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==

Former CIA Director, Bush, veered like a hijacked

[Jei]

Former CIA Director, Bush, veered like a hijacked jetliner into 
ramblings about "liberal" critics alleging prisoner mistreatment 

Posted on Sunday, January 27 @ 13:11:07 EST 
By Larry Chin
YellowTimes.ORG Guest Columnist 

(YellowTimes.ORG) - In a rare television appearance yesterday, former
(or some say still current) president George Herbert Walker Bush lashed
out personally at John Walker Lindh, the American who took up arms with
the Taliban. Shaking with rage, the elder Bush spit venomously about how
he has "absolutely no sympathy" for the Taliboy teenager, and how sick
he was of "liberal Marin County hot tubbers." 

The former CIA Director veered like a hijacked jetliner into ramblings
about "liberal" critics alleging prisoner mistreatment (we can assume he
was referring to "liberals" like the Red Cross and European government
leaders who have a problem with Guantanamo), and the need to "get tough
and get behind the military" (as if the mass goose stepping isn't quite
"getting" enough for his tastes).
 
Pure vindictiveness may explain some of the Carlyle Group senior
adviser's lust to see the young Taliboy's neck in a noose. More likely,
Poppy Bush is angry that his son, President W., is being confronted by a
nemesis from his own dark Iran-Contra past: James Brosnahan. 
James Brosnahan, former federal prosecutor and former member of the
Lawrence Walsh Independent Counsel team, is John Walker Lindh's
attorney. 

Recall that the elder Bush hated no one on earth more than Walsh. In his
book Shadow, Bob Woodward describes how, during the height of the Walsh
inquiry, Bush received a "Lawrence Walsh" doll as a gag Christmas gift
from a member of his staff. Bush slammed the doll repeatedly against his
desk, shouting, "Take that, Walsh!" 

Recall that Bush and his minions did everything possible to obstruct
Walsh's investigation. Walsh's team had discovered notes written by
Caspar Weinberger which disproved Bush's claim that he had been "out of
the loop." These notes proved that Weinberger had knowledge of $25
million in Saudi Arabian contributions to the Nicaraguan contras. 
Recall that it was Brosnahan who spoke out against White House attacks
against Walsh as blatant obstruction of justice. In a piece written by
Robert Parry (from Mother Jones January 1993): 

"It was all so transparent that I was disappointed more people didn't
pick up on the fact that all they were really trying to do was obstruct
the trial of Weinberger. It was going to be a hell of a trial,"
Brosnahan said. V"The full story would have been told, as it pertained
to the [obstruction] counts of the indictment. They [senior Reagan-Bush
officials] couldn't have a trial. The cross- examination of Caspar
Weinberger was going to be an event." 

According to Brosnahan, the trial would have shown that Weinberger knew
as early as summer 1985 that President Ronald Reagan had personally
authorized missile shipments to Iran in violation of the Arms Control
Export Act, and that this potentially impeachable act was concealed by
constructing a false record. "The August [1985] meeting [of Reagan's
National Security Council] discussed having Israel send the missiles to
Iran and replenishing them out of U.S. stocks," says Brosnahan.
"Weinberger is responsible for all missiles. The Secretary of Defense is
the guy." 

Another guy who stood to lose his exalted standing in Washington if the
trial took place was General Colin Powell, who was Weinberger's
principal aide in 1985. In an affidavit, Powell said he "saw virtually
all the papers that went in and out of [Weinberger's] office" and thus
would have had direct access to the evidence of missile replenishment.
Early in the investigation, Powell gave conflicting accounts of his
knowledge of Weinberger's extensive personal notes, denying knowledge of
their existence (when Weinberger was claiming he didn't take any), and
then saying in 1992 that the notes were no secret and describing them in
detail (after Weinberger was forced to cough them up). 

One of the prosecution's star witnesses would have been White House
Chief of Staff Donald Regan, who finally would have recounted the
frantic Oval Office scrambling to contain the scandal in November 1986,
Brosnahan says. "Regan would say that when it broke, he denied things.
But there came a point when he knew it was out of control. At some
point, in December [1985] or January [1986], he wanted to get the whole
thing out." 

In his notorious final act as president, George H.W. Bush pardoned
Caspar Weinberger. He also pardoned the rest of his Iran-Contra gang.
Elliott Abrams, his former assistant secretary of state for
Inter-American affairs. Former National Security Adviser Robert
McFarlane. And CIA agents and friends Dewey Clarridge, Alan Fiers, and
Clair George. 

In defending John Walker, Brosnahan has vowed to fight the current Bush
administration every step of the way. Brosnahan has many points to
raise. For example, Walker Lindh joined the Taliban during 

Bush's State of the Union speech was a historic 'missed opportunity'

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 14:36:02 -0800 (PST)
From: GaryC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [infowars] Bush's State of the Union speech was a historic 'missed
opportunity'

Bush's State of the Union speech was a historic 'missed opportunity'

WASHINGTON, DC -- George W. Bush missed a historic opportunity in his
State of the Union address last night by not refocusing the federal
government on its primary function: Defending the lives and rights of
American citizens.

Instead, he outlined a laundry list of 39 new government proposals, new
expenditures, and expanded programs -- as well as a potentially endless,
worldwide "War on Terrorism," said Libertarian Party Executive Director
Steve Dasbach.

"George Bush's compassionate conservatism is sounding a lot like
compulsive Clintonism," he said. "Instead of using September 11 as an
opportunity to limit the federal government to its core role of defending
America, President Bush is using the tragic terrorist attacks as an excuse
to further expand the federal government."

In fact, during his 48-minute speech, Bush proposed 39 new or expanded
government initiatives, according to the Cato Institute -- which is almost
as many on a per-minute basis as Bill Clinton proposed in his last State
of the Union address.

Such a strategy not only flies in the face of what conservatives profess
to believe -- it also makes Americans less secure, said Dasbach.

"A sprawling, trying-to-do-everything federal government cannot
effectively focus on protecting Americans against foreign threats," he
said. "A government that tries to do too much will end up doing too little
where it really matters -- keeping us safe from foreign threats."

In his State of the Union speech:

* Bush proposed the "largest increase in defense spending in two decades."
He also said the U.S. will take action against an "axis of evil" --
nations like North Korea, Iraq, and Iran which have the potential to
develop weapons of mass destruction.

Missed opportunity: America doesn't need to spend more money to protect
itself -- it needs to spend less money smarter, said Dasbach.

"September 11 could have been used as an opportunity to bring American
troops home from the 144 nations and territories where they are stationed;
to stop subsidizing the defense of wealthy European nations; and to stop
intervening in foreign conflicts that do not affect our security," he
said. "Instead, September 11 is being used as an excuse to rid the entire
world of 'evil-doers,' while spending more money than we did during the
Cold War.

"What President Bush should have done is announce clear, measurable, and
finite goals for this War on Terrorism. Our nation's best interests will
be served by decisive action that targets the guilty, spares the innocent,
and ends as quickly as possible."

* In a clear reference to Enron, Bush said corporations should be "held to
the highest standard of conduct."

Missed opportunity: Bush should have used the Enron debacle to vow to end
wasteful corporate welfare, said Dasbach.

"While there is clear evidence of irresponsibility by Enron executives,
many Americans don't realize that politicians used tax dollars to
irresponsibly enrich those same executives," he said. "Over the past few
years, Enron has received at least $1.6 billion from the federal
government in Import-Export Bank subsidies and from the federal Overseas
Private Investment Corporation.

"What Bush should have done is promise to immediately end all Aid to
Dependent Corporations -- especially ones with corrupt executives and
shoddy accounting practices."

* Bush unveiled the USA Freedom Corps, which will expand the AmeriCorps
program and the Peace Corps, and promote "service" to the nation.

Missed opportunity: Bush should have abolished Bill Clinton's tax-funded
AmeriCorps program, said Dasbach -- and publicly rejected the notion that
compassion comes with a government paycheck attached to it.

"President Bush should have realized that you don't display your love for
country by becoming a tax-funded volunteer," he said. "And Bush should
have promised to take the money that has been squandered on the AmeriCorps
program and return it to individual citizens -- who can best decide how to
spend it to help their nation."

* Finally, Bush promised to extend unemployment benefits, expand the Head
Start program, upgrade teacher colleges, enact a Patients' Bill of Rights,
and expand Medicare to give seniors coverage for prescription drugs.

Missed opportunity: Bush should have used the current economic downturn to
start trimming government programs and spending, said Dasbach.

"Bush's modest tax cuts, which passed last year, were a nice start to help
revitalize the economy," he said. "But that effort will now be undercut by
more government spending, more bureaucracy, and higher deficits.
Regretfully, each of Bush's 39 new and expanded programs will further slow
the effort to crea

[infowars] Homeland Security Job Offer (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 22:51:07 -
From: atomic_play_doh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [infowars] Homeland Security Job Offer

I'm a professional software trainer and developer and below is an 
offer from a broker I use.  The thing that surprised me was the 
magnitude of this thing-30,000 new-hires for the Homeland Security 
Department.

I'm a little nervous about the new 'Homeland Security' branch of our 
government.  Once it kicks in, and we have a new government agency 
with 30,000-200,000 workers keeping an eye on the citizenry...I 
wonder what happens when the immediate threat goes away.  Will we 
just downsize the agency?  Historically, I'd say FAT CHANCE!  If 
anything, new enemies will be found that will justify an expansion-
both in the size and powers of this agency.

Back in the 70's I worked in the intelligence community as a Russian 
Linguist.  I used to subscribe to the 2 major Soviet newspapers:  
Isvestiya and Pravda- which translated mean literally 'News' 
and 'Truth' respectfully.  These two major papers tried to produce an 
illusion of choice in the news, but on all the major issues they 
agreed 100%.  People I knew who had fled the Soviet Union, used to 
joke "there's no Pravda in the Isvestiya, and there's no Isvestiya in 
the Pravda" --a play on the meanings of the words Pravda-Truth and 
Isvestiya-News.  I used to marvel that while the average Soviet knew 
the government was occasionally lying to them, by and large, they 
believed most of the major lies of the state.  I marveled that people 
in the Soviet Union didn't just see that the government was lying 
about almost everything and that the supposedly egalitarian 
government they had, was just as feudal as their old system under the 
czar.  Just different people in power, but those in real power lived 
just as extravagantly as the Czar's people and wielded their power 
with many times more cruelty.

But just like in the novel 1984, the Soviets had a very effective 
means of keeping the people in line.  They kept the common people 
stirred up with a constant enemy, which was usually the United 
States.  The effect of this, was to remove the people's attention 
from real issues, like shortages of toilet paper, food and clothing.

I now see a very similar pattern emerging here in the US.  I surf 
through all the channels on my cable, and virtually every national 
news station has had as their channel description:
-War on Terrorism
-American at War
-America Under Attack

And it's almost as if, every major news reporting agency is reporting 
the same exact thing, with exactly the same slant on every major 
story.  Every newspaper, every radio station and every TV channel 
seems to present the same party line, a whole lot like the way things 
were in the good ol' CCCP (USSR).  

By making the enemy into something pure evil--the common person's 
attention is drawn away from real issues.  And I'm not just talking 
about terrorism.  Before this, it was bootleggers.  Then in the 50's 
it was communists.  More recently, drugs.  Before the war on drugs, 
it was pretty rare for cops to break down doors and bust into 
people's homes at night dressed in military style uniforms, helmets 
and uniforms.  It was also more rare for corrupt prosecutors to steal 
all the private possessions of individuals and imprison them without 
evidence of any kind, other than the false testimony of 'snitches' 
who manufacture testimony to cut their own prison time.

Later I lived in Korea for several years as a civilian.  Walking 
through the countryside, North of Seoul, I would occasionally find 
pamphlets that the North Koreans had sent over via balloons.  They 
were a lot like the 'have-you-been-saved' Chick pamphlets that were 
everywhere back in the 60's and 70's.  The pamphlets portrayed 
Americans with grotesque caricatures-sunken eyes, large noses and 
drooling over the prospect of raping young Korean girls or evil 
businessmen stealing cartloads of money from the poor to support 
their evil and extravagant lifestyles.  The typical North Korean (and 
many South Koreans) believed much of this.  When faced with an 
American-genuine anger, fear and loathing were a natural response.  
Again, this attitude helps draw the focus of the common person away 
from disastrous government policies, and onto non-issues.

The term 'KGB' in Russian is Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Byezopastni  
which I would translate as "Bureau for State/Homeland Security".  The 
term KGB is often associated with evil and tyranny.  However, to most 
Soviets, and certainly to those who served, the ostensible purpose of 
the KGB was to 'protect' and ensure the safety of the 'homeland'.  
Then the  Germans had their Schutzstaffel (SS-defense corp), 
Sicherheitsdienst (SD-security service) and Geheime Staats Polizei 
(Gestapo-secret state police).  The average German, and again those 
who served inside the

TOO MANY COINCIDENCES WE DEMAND A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:11:24 -
From: dogmonsterboy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [InTheShadows] TOO MANY COINCIDENCES WE DEMAND A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR

TOO MANY COINCIDENCES WE DEMAND A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
TO DEFEAT EVIL REGIMES AND EVIL GANGS ABROAD WE NEED AN HONEST 
GOVERNMENT AT HOME.
"Cliff Baxter's Medical Examiner Has Questionable Past"
"The death of Cliff Baxter was declared a suicide by Dr. Joye M. 
Carter, Chief Medical Examiner for Harris County, Texas. But questions 
are being raised about Dr. Carter, whose career includes alleged 
cover-ups.  Recently, Harris County paid Dr. Elizabeth Johnson 
$375,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit against Dr. Carter. Every 
way you turn, the Enron investigation reeks of conflicts of interest 
and cover-ups. We demand a Special Prosecutor!" 
http://www.democrats.com/
please read about Dubya's FBI choice Robert   S. Mueller
Bush FBI Choice Has Interesting Background
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BushBusters/message/1431
Part Two Bush  FBI Choice Has Interesting Background
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BushBusters/message/1449
Part Three Bush FBI Choice Has Interesting
Background
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BushBusters/message/1461
Dubya's FBI choice Robert   S. Mueller was the  "director of the 
homicide division in
the Washington, D.C. U.S. attorney's office "
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BushBusters/message/1431

SAME M.E.( Dr. Joye M. Carter) IN BAXTER (ENRON) DEATH AS IN WILCHER 
DEATH http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BushBusters/message/3021
"FROM: Garby Leon
Columbia Pictures
Culver City, CA
July 14, 1993
TO: The Honorable Janet Reno
Attorney General of the United States
Department of Justice - Room 4400
Tenth and Constitution Ave N.E.
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Madame Attorney General,

I am writing because I feel the death of Paul Wilcher deserves your 
most serious attention, and should be investigated by your
most trusted officials in the Department of Justice.
Paul Wilcher, like Danny Casolaro, was investigating possible 
government involvement in a variety of questionable activities,
including the controversial October Surprise allegations and the 
INSLAW case, his researches leading him into areas that
Casolaro had covered earlier. In his quest Wilcher made himself known 
in and around Capitol Hill as a persistent gadfly, trying
to spur inquiries into possible government malfeasance in several 
areas. He had contacts with, among others, Lee Hamilton,
William Webster, Elliot Richardson and Ross Perot.
By late May, Wilcher said his information had gone beyond Casolaro's 
and he felt this made him a da"danger signal.U In three
weeks, he was dead.
I feel that the two deaths, Casolaro's and Wilcher's, offer disturbing 
parallels, outlined below.
On the 23rd of June, 1993, the body of Paul Wilcher was discovered in 
his Washington DC apartment. This is not a certainty,
since to my knowledge no evidentially identification-no fingerprint or 
dental x- ray matching-was made before the body's
reported cremation two weeks ago.
Present at the scene after Wilcher's death was noted White House 
correspondent Sarah McClendon, who knew Wilcher well
and who had alerted authorities that he was missing. McClendon was 
unable to identify the body as Wilcher after viewing the
remains.
McClendon has been told that preliminary autopsy results have found 
"no natural cause of death, and no other cause of death to
explain Wilcher's demise. Given that Wilcher, in his 40s, was in 
apparent good health, this seems fairly astonishing.
A much larger issue is also implied here: if critics of our government 
are found dead in their bathrooms from obscure causes,
and the government itself doesn't take steps to find out why, then our 
freedoms themselves are threatened-as well as the
activities that protect those freedoms.
If individual investigation and criticism of government activities is 
chilled or intimidated into silence, then democracy loses its
most important protection.
To put it another way, if Danny Casolaro's death was a message of some 
kind, then Wilcher's death is an even grimmer
message-it suggests that Casolaro's death was not a fluke. Anyone 
inspired to follow Casolaro or Wilcher's path now has a
strong added reason to fear doing so.
And a real investigation into Wilcher's death might not be an academic 
exercise. One person who is extremely close to and
knowledgeable about the Casolaro case has said in private that the 
mystery of Casolaro's death could be resolved by a Grand
Jury investigation, with sworn testimony, subpoena power, etc. This 
suggests Paul Wilcher's death may not have to remain a
mystery either.
Paul Wilcher was an acquaintance of mine. He was not a perfect person; 
he made mistakes like anyone else but he was also, at
times, a man of unusual energy and altruism. A seminary student who 
considered becoming a priest, he later became an attorne

CCOPS: Concerned Citizens Opposed to Police States

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --

http://www.ccops.org/

 ~->

  CCOPS: 
  Concerned Citizens Opposed to Police States

  Aaron Zelman - Executive Director 
  P.O. Box 270205 
  Hartford, WI 53027 

  Phone (262) 670-9920 
  Fax (262) 670-9921 

  CCOPS On the Road 
  Totalitarian Time: 

  WARNING: Police States are known to be hazardous to your health! 

   Assault on the Bill of Rights and Security 
CCOPS POLL: WHEN WILL AMERICANS WAKE UP? 

Since September 11, the Bush administration, in the name of fighting 
terrorism, has imposed dozens of police-state policies and proposed many more. Among 
these liberty-killing policies: 


  a.. Expanded surveillance over ordinary people 

  b.. Domestic spying by the CIA 

  c.. New definitions of terrorism so broad they could include millions of 
political activists 

  d.. The return of Know Your Customer (the anti-privacy regulation Americans 
thought they had defeated more than a year ago) 

  e.. Requirements that *every* business report customers who spend a 
"suspicious" amount of cash 

  f.. Detentions without charges 

  g.. Military tribunals without the protection of the Bill of Rights 

  h.. Federal eavesdropping on conversations between prisoners and lawyers 

  i.. A serious proposal for a national ID system with a giant database that, 
from its inception, would give anyone with access information about your movements, 
income, purchases, and investments 

In addition, the CDC has asked the states to adopt "emergency" health care 
measures that would authorize government to do everything from seize your property to 
subject you to forced vaccinations. 

Alleged "civil libertarian" Alan Dershowitz has called for issuance of 
"torture warrants." As Senate hearings, Charles Schumer made the first official demand 
that the FBI's (illegal) records on gun buyers be used to track and identify a segment 
of the population. (This was noted by former CNN anchorman, Reid Collins and ignored 
by the rest of the media). 

And at recent Senate hearings, Attorney General John Ashcroft proclaimed that 
ANYONE who warns that the administration's actions threaten liberty is aiding 
terrorists (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5982-2001Dec6.html). (How 
long, we wonder, before people like us have our assets frozen or end up in secret 
courts?) 

Yet the majority of Americans have so far accepted these blatant threats to 
liberty without a peep of protest. 

CCOPS ASKS: How long do you think it will be before Americans wake up and put 
a stop to this assault on the Bill of Rights and on their own long-term security?

A month
90 days
A year
Five years
10 years
Never -- or they'll wake up when it's too late to preserve even a scrap of 
freedom

Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA effect analysis

[Jei]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, phil hunt wrote:

> On Tuesday 29 January 2002 10:42 pm, João Miguel Neves wrote:
> 
> > > For those who have't seen it yet, CNET has an analysis by a US
> > Representative on the effects of the DMCA and how the intended results
> > haven't appeared.
> >
> > http://news.com.com/2010-1078-825335.html
> 
> I thought the intended result was to fuck the consumer and give big
> business more power, in which case the DMCA has been a startling success.

That was, of course, the REAL purpose, whatever the advertising lingo on
the cover it was sold under to the people. 

Maybe it is time for the end-consumers to start bribing and lubricating
the legislators to pass consumer-protectionist laws, like all the other
lobby-groups do? 

Of course there are darker methods one can also apply to those who don't
agree to work for your interests, like NOT giving them any money and
telling everyone that they're real doofuses.
 
- It seems we live in an effective anarcy already. He who has the money
makes all the rules.

I don't see a way around it. - Adapt?

EU vice-president to claim US site spies on European business

[Jei]

To: Electronic Warfare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Subject: IUFO NEWS:  FWD [forteana] Echelon in Yorkshire

< http://yorkshirepost.co.uk/scripts/editorial2.cgi?cid=4&aid=434459 >

EU vice-president to claim US site spies on European business

VICE-PRESIDENT of the European Parliament, Gerhardt Schmid, is expected to
argue that the Echelon system used at the United States base at Menwith
Hill, near Harrogate, is used for industrial espionage when he speaks in the
town next week.

Dr Schmid compiled the European Parliament's report on Echelon, which is
believed to intercept millions of telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and other
electronic communications and pass confidential information to the US
National Security Agency.

The German Socialist Euro MP has accepted an invitation from the Menwith
Hill Forum ­ which monitors activities at the 560-acre intelligence site ­
to speak at the Friends Meeting House in Queen Parade, Harrogate, on
Thursday at 7.30pm.

The signals intelligence station already has a key role in Echelon, but its
importance will grow when hundreds of staff are transferred to Menwith Hill
from Bad Abling ­ the National Security Agency's third largest monitoring
station, which is in the Bavarian Alps.

Although the US Government has denied the existence of Echelon, it is known
to be shared with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain. UK Government
sources justify it as a means of gathering information on terrorist
organisations and international drug cartels.

But Dr Schmid is expected to argue that Echelon is also used by the United
States Government to gather sensitive economic data from European countries,
which is allegedly being passed on to benefit industrial rivals across the
Atlantic. One example is said to be a £1bn contract lost by Airbus Industrie
to Boeing and McDonnel Douglas.

Dr Schmid, who will tell the Forum that the uncontrolled use of Echelon is
potentially detrimental to European economies and puts at risk thousands of
jobs, will also explain what the European Parliament is doing to try to
protect citizens' rights.

The Forum's chairman, John Eveleigh said: "This public meeting continues our
aim to inform local people of the activities and genuine concerns we have
around the Menwith Hill surveillance station. I urge anyone interested in
finding out more about Echelon to attend." 

The Traitors Among US

[Jei]

- Original Message -
From: "Carol A. Valentine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 4:22 PM
Subject: The Traitors Among Us. Stunning Wash. Post Article


> The Traitors Among Us.  Stunning Wash. Post Article
>
> by Carol A. Valentine
> Curator, Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum
> http://www.Public-Action.com
> Copyright, January, 2002
> May be reproduced for non-commercial purposes
>
> January 26 -- If you want to understand what has happened to our
> beloved country, you will not want to miss this article in today's
> Washington Post, pg. B11:
>
> "Israel's Evangelical Approach.  U.S. Christian Zionists Nurtured as
> Political, Tourism Force. "
>
> I enclose both the URL and the text, below (Attachment 1).
>
> For further understanding of this vitally important subject, I also
> enclose the text of article written by C.E. Carlson, "Kulchur Klash."
> (Attachment 2.) In particular, read the sections following the words
> ARE PHARISEES EXTINCT?
>
> Now, a story which puts some flesh on the issue at hand:
>
> The brother of a friend of mine works in the South.  He was
> discussing US foreign policy with a fellow worker, a retired career
> Navy man who describes himself as a fundamentalist Christian.  The
> Navy man is a devote of TeeVee preacher Pat Robertson.
>
> My friend's brother was arguing that the US policy towards Israel
> amounts to treason to the US.  During the discussion, the subject of
> the USS Liberty came up.   Believe it or not, this Navy man had never
> heard of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty in 1967.  My friend's
> brother referred him to
>
> http://www.USSLiberty.org
>
> The next day, the Navy man came into the office and said:  "I don't
> care what Israel did to the USS Liberty.  I put my God ahead of my
> country."
>
> There it is in a nutshell.  One story--but it superbly illustrates the
point.
>
> "Fundamentalist Christians" (sometimes called "Fundies") are,
> characteristically, not Christian at all.   They reject Jesus's
> notion of the universality of mankind, the belief that each of us is
> equally precious in the eyes of the Lord.  They rely on the Talmud,
> the written laws and commentaries of the Pharisees, not the New
> Testament.  Religiously, Fundies are fellow travelers in the dark
> political cult of Talmudism, sometimes called "Zionism" and sometimes
> called "Judaism."
>
> Fundies will do anything for Israel and "the Jews," whom they worship
> as God or God's little brother.  They are only too happy to be the
> Jews' slaves, and insist we all join in their bondage.  Certainly
> their beliefs are anti-Christian.
>
> More to the point: Characteristically, Fundies are traitors to
> America.  Yes,they are the first to wave the American flag in order
> to spill the blood of those who stand in the way of Israeli ambition.
> Along with Jews, Fundies scream loudest for Arab blood, even though
> all rational analysis shouts that Israel and israeli agents in
> America were responsible for 9-11.  They will do anything to help
> Israel achieve world domination.
>
> Fundies hate the Bill of Rights and the American ideal of "equal
> justice under law."  Need evidence of this?  Ask your friendly
> next-door so called "Christian" fundamentalist about the Waco
> Holocaust.  Ask them if they have ever lifted their voice up against
> what befell the 80-odd goyim in Waco in 1993.  Then find out what
> their attitude is to the death of Jews in WWII or at the hands of
> Palestinian freedom fighters in contemporary Israel.
>
> Thus you will see that only "the Jews" really matter.  Only "the
> Jews" qualify as human.  Thus Fundies follow the teachings of the
> Talmud in their anti-American beliefs. ( See quotes in Attachment 3.)
>
> Zionist "Christians" operate as Israeli super patriots, never
> questioning their own loyalties to Israel or weighing them against
> other principles or values.  As the example of the Navy man shows,
> this loyalty transcends all loyalty to America (or any other native
> country), and even overt oaths of loyalty.  Most astoundingly, few
> people would see the Navy man's Zionism as the fundamental treason it
> is, and it is unlikely that his officers would have a problem with
> it, much less prosecute him for treason.
>
> Take your pick.  Do you prefer the Jewish Zionists of the Clinton
> Administration, or the "Christian" Zionists of the Bush
> Administration?
>
> More and more, the Fundies and their puppet masters show their vile
> corruption to the world.  Today's Washington Post article is an
> in-your-face, out-of-the closet exhibition of these truths.  What are
> we going to do about it?
>
> === Attachment 1 "Israel's Evangelical Approach" ===
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40764-2002Jan25.html
>
> Israel's Evangelical Approach
> By Mark O'Keefe
>
> In an effort to solidify its relationship with American evangelicals,
> the government of Israel has launched initiatives that include
> expen

Senate Report on Money Laundering

[Jei]

http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=2002012906150
00148680_aolns.src

Senate Report on Money Laundering
WASHINGTON (AP) - For drug dealers, dictators or terrorists looking to
launder illicit money, U.S. brokerage firms and investment banks may be
convenient and anonymous places to go, Senate investigators say.

A report being released Tuesday found that securities firms have tens of
thousands of offshore clients channeling billions of potentially illicit
dollars into their U.S. accounts.

The banking industry already has come under scrutiny for its use by money
launderers. But the securities industry also ``has clear money laundering
risks that need to be addressed,'' Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the
Senate Governmental Affairs investigative subcommittee, said.

Subcommittee investigators found that all the 22 U.S. securities firms
examined had numerous offshore customers and many of the firms said they
couldn't provide an accurate count of those clients because their data
systems didn't identify offshore entities. The clients include offshore
corporations, trusts, banks and insurance companies.

The securities firms, which were not named, had more than 45,000 offshore
clients total, with an estimated $140 billion in assets in their accounts -
of which some $137 billion came from offshore corporations and trusts,
according to the report.

The high-risk accounts represent about 2 percent of the U.S. firms' total
accounts, it says.

The investigators didn't find any evidence of illegal activity in the 22
firms that they surveyed.

Levin, who has investigated money laundering in the nation's banking
industry, was testifying at a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday on
new anti-money-laundering rules for banks and securities firms that came in
response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Also appearing were high-ranking
officials from the Justice and Treasury departments, the Federal Reserve and
the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the brokerage
industry.

Businesses in offshore jurisdictions - such as the Caribbean and tiny
islands in the South Pacific - benefit from financial secrecy laws, which
can encourage laundering of dirty money.

The fight against money laundering gained new urgency after the attacks in
New York City, Washington and southwestern Pennsylvania and revelations that
the al-Qaida network of Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the attacks,
uses money from Islamic charities and front companies.

A new anti-terrorism law enacted in October includes rules to combat money
laundering in U.S. banks and securities firms, notably requirements that
they verify their customers' identities and report suspicious transactions
to law enforcement agencies. The rules for banks took effect on Christmas
Day. Final rules for securities firms must be issued by June. Securities
businesses include brokerage firms, investment banks, investment advisers,
bond dealers and mutual funds.

Wall Street had lobbied against some of the rules for securities firms, such
as one prohibiting them from maintaining accounts with foreign shell banks
that exist mainly on paper and lack concrete operations.

``The industry has no patience for money laundering and we have been working
and want to continue to work with the government to eliminate any money
laundering,'' Stuart Kaswell, general counsel of the Securities Industry
Association, Wall Street's major trade group, said Monday.

``We don't want this money in our business. ... We want to make these rules
work,'' Kaswell said. He declined comment on the Senate panel's report,
saying the group hadn't yet seen it.

Law enforcement agencies have been concerned about the securities industry's
potential vulnerability to money laundering, which involves the movement of
profits from drug or arms trafficking, political corruption, prostitution
and other illicit activities through a series of accounts or businesses to
disguise them as proceeds of legitimate business.

An October report by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative
arm, showed that many U.S. securities firms do not have voluntary controls
against money laundering by customers.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the SEC asked all securities firms to check
their records for accounts held or transactions by any of the suspects in
the case identified by the FBI, or by any of the people and groups with
suspected links to terrorism - including bin Laden - named in President
Bush's orders to freeze their assets.

Enron May Spark Revolt of Professionals

[Jei]

Enron May Spark Revolt of Professionals 


By James K. Galbraith 

James K. Galbraith, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is
the author, most recently, of "Inequality and Industrial Change: A Global
View."

January 25, 2002

NOWADAYS there are three classes in America: working people at the bottom,
professionals above them, a tiny elite at the top. Democrats represent the
professionals, Republicans represent the CEOs. No one, much, speaks for
working people, who must rely on the sympathy of leading Democrats for
most of the little they get.

Our politics accordingly mirrors corporate life, with an opposition out of
"Dilbert," grumpy but ineffective. Thus, after the 2000 election,
Democrats abandoned the black voters of Florida, who were disenfranchised
by the tens of thousands. In the tax-bill looting that followed in
Congress, there was just enough grease for the upper middle to buy its
silence. Meanwhile, raids on job safety, on the public schools, on unions,
and the attempt to demolish Social Security fell on the lower orders. In
each case, the aim was elite enrichment, amid the indifference of the
professional class.

Enron could change that. In details complex, the scandal is essentially
simple. A handful of rich people, closely tied to the Texas Republican
Party led by Gov. George W. Bush and Sen. Phil Gramm, decided to become
richer still. Their grand strategy included deregulation of energy,
deregulation of derivatives (an arcane financial device), corrupt
accounting practices, overseas tax scams, U.S. diplomatic pressure
(delivered in 2001 by Dick Cheney himself, on India, where Enron had sold
a white elephant power plant). And then, as the game unwound, they sold
their own stock while freezing employee pension accounts. In the end, the
gang made off with more than a billion dollars, that we know of.

Enron's real business was politics. Energy deregulation helped create the
web of commodities in which Enron traded. Derivatives deregulation
(courtesy of Gramm and Rep. Richard Armey) shielded that market from
review. Consulting contracts to the auditors bought complicity; payments
from auditors to politicians fended off the Securities and Exchange
Commission. Enron paid for favors promptly: $100,000 to the Democrats in
1997 to push the Indians around, $25,000 to Texas Gov. Rick Perry one day
after Enron's Mexico chief got to run the Public Utilities Commission in
Texas. Wendy Gramm, who chaired Enron's audit committee, got nearly $2
million. We still don't know exactly what Enron contributed, in
intellectual terms, to Cheney's energy policy, or to Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill's defense of overseas tax shelters. But it paid well for it:
over time, the big boss George Bush got more than $600,000 in Enron cash.
That we know of.

Enron reveals, for the first time, just how rot at the top can cut against
professional interests. Those were not only small fry, but modest
millionaires in some cases, who lost their 401(k)s. A professional's
pension can't be replaced. And there is nothing a hardworking middle
manager fears more than to end up on Social Security like ordinary folk.
Administration officials proudly refused to intervene on Enron's behalf
once bankruptcy loomed. But here's the catch: They weren't asked to. By
then, their friends had already cashed out. Saving the professionals, or
the company, was not on the agenda.

White House economist Lawrence Lindsey (who'd gotten $50,000 as an Enron
adviser in 2000) reviewed the great bankruptcy's risks to the economy at
large. He concluded they were small; he may not be wrong. Most of the
direct damage landed on a few thousand people in Houston.

But we shouldn't be entirely sure. Corporate America runs on the
collaboration of professionals with the elites. In big and small ways,
managers, accountants, lawyers and engineers make the system work. In each
firm, they have to trust that the big boys are not stealing from them.
Through their pension funds, they control vast sums that they must also
entrust back to corporate America - through the stock market. Before 1988,
the professionals of Japan also felt that by working and saving, borrowing
and investing, everyone would get rich. The crash of that year taught
otherwise. The Japanese middle classes felt betrayed, because they were
betrayed. Their money, what was left of it, went back under the mattress,
where it remains. Japan has not recovered in 14 years.

Suppose that American professionals come to feel the same way? The
economist Thorstein Veblen, back in the days of Teapot Dome, wrote that
the revolution here would not be led by workers. Rather, revolution could
only come to America in the hands of technicians, "the General Staff of
the industrial system," a normally contented class, "harmless and docile,"
in ordinary times. The technicians however, held the real power. And they
might, someday, realize that the absentee landlords, the Vested I

FAT-ASS: Another Government Agency/Service...

[Jei]

From:    [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Gary Reil)

 Oh, how I love the government !!!

 

 A New Federal Security Service


 Almost 150 yrs. ago, President Lincoln found it necessary to hire a
 private investigator - Mr. Alan Pinkerton. He was actually the beginning of
 the Secret Service.

 Since that time federal police authority has grown to a large number of
 three-letter agencies - FBI, CIA, INS, IRS, DEA, BATF, SS, ATF, etc.

 Now comes a proposal for another agency: The "Federal
 Air Transportation Airport Security Service."

 Can't you see it now, the new service in their black outfits
 with their initials in large white letters across their backs?
 FATASS

"What's A Military Take-over, Daddy?"

[Jei]

> Pentagon Plans New Command For U.S.
> Four-Star Officer Would Oversee Homeland Defense 
>  
> By Bradley Graham
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Sunday, January 27, 2002; Page A01 The Pentagon has decided to ask the 
> White House for approval to set up a new four-star command to coordinate 
> federal troops used to defend North America, part of an intensified effort 
> to bolster homeland security, defense officials said.
> The move was prompted by the new domestic security demands placed on the 
> military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Bush administration's 
> declared war on terrorism.
> Although the Pentagon has regional commanders in chief, known as CINCs, who 
> are responsible for Europe, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East 
> and South Asia, none exists for U.S. forces in the United States and 
> Canada. The proposed change would give a single four-star officer authority 
> over such domestic deployments as Air Force jets patrolling above U.S. 
> cities, Navy ships running coastal checks and Army National Guard troops 
> policing airports and border crossings.
> Before September, military leaders had resisted the idea of a homeland CINC 
> (pronounced "sink"), reflecting a traditional aversion to -- and legal 
> limits on -- the use of federal armed forces for domestic law enforcement. 
> Opposition also existed outside the Pentagon on both the political left and 
> right, with civil libertarians and right-wing militia groups alike warning 
> against military forces encroaching on areas traditionally considered the 
> responsibility of civilian emergency response, law enforcement and health 
> agencies.
> But in recent months, as military air, sea and land patrols pressed into 
> action by the Pentagon have answered to several four-star commanders, the 
> Defense Department's top military officers have come to accept the need for 
> streamlining the chain of command.
> Earlier opposition from such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union 
> has also waned, although concerns persist about possible "mission creep" 
> and the risk that any military forces deployed around the country could end 
> up threatening individual rights.
> Initially, the military chiefs had argued for assigning the homeland 
> defense mission to one of two commands already headquartered in the United 
> States -- either the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in 
> Colorado, which is responsible for protecting U.S. skies, or the Joint 
> Forces Command in Virginia, which has been charged with guarding the 
> maritime approaches to North America and the land defense of the 
> continental United States. The thinking was that setting up an entirely new 
> command would entail needless additional bureaucracy and expense.
> But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has settled on creating a new 
> command rather than loading an existing one with additional 
> responsibilities, according to four officials in different branches of the 
> Pentagon familiar with the plan. Currently, the general who heads NORAD 
> also runs the U.S. Space Command, which oversees the nation's military 
> satellites and computer networks. The admiral who leads the Joint Forces 
> Command is in charge of developing new ways the different services can 
> fight together, and he serves as head of NATO's North Atlantic region.
> "All the chiefs and CINCs have seen the plan and have signed on to it, 
> although it has not yet been briefed to the president," a senior military 
> officer said yesterday. "Everyone is moving down the track toward realizing 
> it."
> Defense officials also said that the geographic responsibilities of the new 
> command would likely extend beyond U.S. borders to the rest of North 
> America. Among other advantages, this would facilitate the transfer of the 
> air defense mission from NORAD, which is operated jointly with Canada.
> "It's not going to be just a homeland defense command," another official 
> said. "It's going to be a command that has responsibility beyond homeland 
> defense."
> But many of the details for implementing the new command structure have yet 
> to be worked out, including where it would be located, what it would be 
> called, who would lead it and exactly which functions it would take from 
> existing CINCs.
> "There's still the hope this new command can be created without a net 
> increase in headquarters staff across all the CINC-doms," the senior 
> officer said.
> Another official said: "It's going to take time to work out how you go 
> about moving responsibilities from this or that CINC to this new command. 
> This particular review will go ahead and establish the command, and then 
> we'll lay out a series of considerations over the course of the next 
> several months to make it all happen."
> Responsibility for coordinating federal activities in homeland defense 
> rests with Tom Ridge, who heads the White House's Office of Homeland 
> Security, which wa

Australia: Ten-year-old policy of detention is failing (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:05:24 +
From: ainews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Australia: Ten-year-old policy of detention is failing

* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *

28 January 2002
ASA 12/001/2002
17/02


"As the risk of fatalities increases in ongoing unrest within
Australian immigration detention centres, it is clear that the
ten-year-old policy of mandatory detention is failing and needs
urgent review, "Amnesty International said today.

  "Of immediate concern is the mental health of the
detainees -- hunger strikes, self-harm and attempted suicides of
detainees have obvious roots in extreme desperation.  This is
created by the combined effects of prolonged incarceration,
social isolation and increasing uncertainty about the future,
with many people fearing for their lives if returned to their
home countries."

  No other country imprisons hundreds of children, and
thousands of men and women for lacking a visa under a national
policy requiring their automatic and indefinite detention,
without charge or review by a court.  Contrary to the
government's line, the policy of detention has not deterred
refugees -- as most of them are found to be -- trying to arrive
without authorization.  The government claims that refugees with
valid travel documents are welcome, but people fleeing
persecution often cannot apply for visa at distant embassies and
then wait months or years for approval.

  "Locking up thousands of refugee applicants has proven
not to stop new attempts at reaching Australia.  Are Australians
really willing to pay any price, human and financial, to maintain
a 10-year-old detention policy which has failed to halt desperate
actions to seek refuge?" the organization asked.

  The focus on the physical conditions in the detention
centres detracts from the key issue behind the unrest - mental
health.  Medical professionals and informed observers have
repeatedly raised concerns about the detainees' mental health and
the standards of medical care in detention.

  Amnesty International called on the Australian government
to relieve detainee anxieties by easing some of the pressures
which underlie their desperate actions. At the very least,
families with children and those already found to meet refugee
criteria should be released, pending completion of their visa
approvals.  Detention should be the exception, not the rule, and
determined case by case.

  Ultimately, parliament should reconsider the underlying
factors contributing to acts of desperation in detention, and
enable a substantial increase of efforts to address the causes of
international refugee flows, notably human rights abuses.

  Amnesty International does not condone any acts of
self-harm or violence, whether committed by asylum-seekers or
others protesting their conditions. Neither does it believe the
Australian government can escape its share of the responsibility
for the circumstances driving detainees into desperation.

  Ongoing fighting and instability in Afghanistan, home to
many of the detainees, makes it unlikely that Afghan
asylum-seekers can safely return in the near future. The
Australian experiment with automatic mass detention proves once
again the need for increased international cooperation to slow
refugee flows and provide humane conditions and solutions for
those unable to return home in safety.



You may repost this message onto other sources provided the main
text is not altered in any way and both the header crediting
Amnesty International and this footer remain intact. Only the
list subscription message may be removed.

To subscribe to amnesty-L, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
with "subscribe amnesty-L" in the message body. To unsubscribe,
send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with "unsubscribe amnesty-L"
in the message body. If you have problem signing off, contact
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> handles
only messages concerning list administration. Past and current Amnesty
news services can be found at .
Visit  for information about Amnesty International
and for other AI publications. Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you
need to get in touch with the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International.

Re: [DMCA_discuss] Re: Buy DVDs and games abroad - and break thelaw (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 23:18:29 -0800
From: Anatoly Volynets <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Jei <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [DMCA_discuss] Re: Buy DVDs and games abroad - and break the law
(fwd)

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Saturday 26 January 2002 04:02 pm, you wrote:
> -- Forwarded message --
> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 17:40:02 + (GMT)
> From: Martin Keegan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Buy DVDs and games abroad - and break the law (fwd)
>
> On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, Graham Murray wrote:
> > > In effect, the UK's Copyright and Patents Act 1988 gives copyright
> > > holders more power than America's highly controversial Digital
> > > Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), because there are no exceptions, as
> > > Martin Keegan, of the UK-based Campaign for Digital Rights points out.
> >
> > Is anyone campaigning for the removal (or severe curtailing) from
> > copyright owners the "right" to control the use (in particular
> > restricting where and on what equipment entertainment may be enjoyed)
> > of authorised copies? Once a copy has been created, with the
>
> There's the UK Campaign for Digital Rights (http://uk.eurorights.org/),
> and other small groups, as well as, I believe, EBLIDA (librarians), who
> probably aren't small, but aren't focused on this particular issue.  UK
> CDR is more about being against the European Copyright Directive and
> defending the status quo on copyright (see the quote from me in the
> Register article at the beginning of this thread), rather than having a
> positive programme of its own.
>
> The problem is as follows: the traditional balance of copyright is being
> upset by the massively reduced cost of infringement, and the efforts of
> rightholders to increase the protection the State gives them. The former
> is being used to justify the latter, but the legislative scrutiny to which
> the latter is being submitted is insufficient to strike a new balance in
> which the public interest is best served.

I believe we should stop talk about "traditional balance of copyright", 
because it is injurious illusion. There have never been such a balance, and 
the problem is as follows: ALL copyright related laws mix up author and 
copyright holder.  It was not  apprehended by public so far, because have not 
created that much tension until Internet involvement.

Copyright holder in fact is the same as a publisher (in general terms), and 
is just a business entity, which tries to exploit author (it works even in 
those cases when author and publisher is the same person). Author, generally 
speaking, does not depend on businessman in order to create. Author is the 
only one,who needs protection. And the only danger he or she needs to be 
protected from is a publisher, which intents to still name.

One of the most powerful forces, which encourage creativity is an audience. 
This means that  ANY limitation on distribution of any idea, art work, 
invention, music, article, etc. causes damage to public.

Thus ANY copyright related law or action, which, generally speaking, 
implements some limitations on ideas' distribution, definitely harms public.

So called "copyright balance"  protects ONLY certain business models.

The question is, why any business model should be protected on expense of the 
public interest?

I can understand necessity to protect market, industry, science, culture, 
technology, etc. development. But this does not imply protection of certain 
business models. It seems to be obvious: if a business model contradicts 
market and, general society development then such model should not be 
protected. 

But we must talk not only about protection of society. We must think how to 
enforce its development. And one easy answer for this question does exist:
Eliminate any possible limitation on circulation of ideas, works of art, 
music, inventions, etc.

Do you need examples, how this worked in the history of mankind?
Find them yourself! Do not pass by WWW, Internet, Linux, radio, telephone, 
automobile, book printing, ...wheel.

Do you need examples, how copyright law harmed author, slowed down industry, 
technology, culture development?
Do not ask me. Find them!

Forget about business models, which do not comply with FREE circulation of 
ideas. There are another models on the market and they work.

One can say, if we remove all copyright limitations, the material interest of 
an author will be compromised.  Let us think about this problem then. I can 
imagine some kind of special taxes for use of a new idea, special public 
funds to compensate author work... This must be elaborated.

I personally believe that there is no pla

FC: Antitrust enthusiast group sues over MS-DOJ settlement (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 14:00:29 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FC: Antitrust enthusiast group sues over MS-DOJ settlement

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 16:52:33 -0500
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: American Antitrust Institute sues U.S.,
 Microsoft re Tunney Act disclosures


The American Antitrust Institute has filed a suit for declaratory and
injunctive relief for failure of the Department of Justice and Microsoft
to fully comply with the disclosure requirements of the Tunney Act in
regard to the Microsoft settlement. The suit was filed this morning
(Thursday) and was assigned to the same judge who is handling the
Microsoft case.This is now posted, along with a press release summarizing
the complaint, at www.antitrustinstitute.org.

We have also posted our 47-page comments on the Microsoft settlement under
the Tunney Act.

Recently we posted information about two new Advisory Board members,
Patricia Connors and Douglas Rosenthal. Trish is the antitrust chief in
Florida and head of the NAAG Multistate Antitrust Task Force. Doug is
former head of the Foreign Commerce Section of the DOJ and a partner in
Sonnenschein, Naff, and Rosenthal. It is worth reiterating that Advisory
Board members do not vote on substantive positions of the AAI. The
Advisory Board is quite diverse in makeup and there is no implication that
all members agree with positions AAI takes. In many situations, an
Advisory Member recuses himself or herself from the informal consultation
process that typically occurs.

Bert Foer
American Antitrust Institute




-
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-
Events: Congreso Nacional de Periodismo Digital in Huesca, Spain from
Jan. 17-18 (http://www.congresoperiodismo.com) and the Second
International Conference on Web-Management in Diplomacy in Malta from
Feb. 1-3. (http://www.diplomacy.edu/Web/conference2/)
-

Former Enron exec found dead: Body found at 2:23 AM (fwd)

[Jei]

One less witness..

http://www.chicagotribune.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=sns%2Denron

Chicago Tribune
Chicago, Illinois
January 25, 2002

Former Enron exec found dead
Officials: J. Clifford Baxter died of apparent suicide
The Associated Press
Published January 25, 2002, 11:48 AM CST

HOUSTON -- A former Enron Corp. executive who challenged the company's
questionable financial practices and resigned last May was found shot to
death in a car today, an apparent suicide, authorities said.

  Police in the suburb, Sugar Land, confirmed the death of 43-year-old
J. Clifford Baxter, a former Enron vice chairman. He was shot in the head.

  "We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and
colleague, Cliff Baxter. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and
friends," the company said in a statement.

  Spokesman Mark Palmer had no additional comment.

  Baxter was vice chairman of Enron when he resigned in May 2001,
several months before the energy company's collapse.

  Baxter was identified by name in the explosive warning that Enron
executive Sherron Watkins wrote last August to company chairman Ken Lay.

  "Cliff Baxter complained mightily to (then-CEO Jeff) Skilling and all
who would listen about the inappropriateness of our transactions with LJM,"
one of the partnerships that kept hundreds of millions of dollars in debt
off Enron's books.

  Watkins identified Baxter in a section of her letter stating there is
"a veil of secrecy around LJM and Raptor," another entity involved in the
partnerships.

  Watkins' letter to Lay stated that "we will implode in a wave of
accounting scandals" unless the company halted practices that eventually
sent it into bankruptcy.

  His body was found at 2:23 a.m. today in a car parked in between two
medians in a residential area in Sugar Land. He was in the driver's seat of
the vehicle and a police officer stopped to check on him after noticing the
parked car.

  Jim Richard, a Fort Bend County justice of the peace, ruled Baxter's
death a suicide.

  Baxter was one of 29 former and current Enron executives and board
members named as defendants in a federal lawsuit. Plaintiffs' lawyers said
the executives made $1.1 billion by selling Enron stock between October 1998
and November 2001.

  It said Baxter had sold 577,436 shares for $35.2 million.

  At the time his resignation was announced, Skilling said Baxter had
made "a tremendous contribution to Enron's evolution, particularly as a
member of the team that built Enron's wholesale business."

  It said his primary reason for resigning was to spend more time with
his family.

  Baxter had joined Enron in 1991 and was chairman and CEO of Enron
North America prior to being named chief strategy officer for Enron Corp. in
June 2000 and vice chairman in October 2000, the company said.
  Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

http://www.chicagotribune.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=sns%2Denron

Buy DVDs and games abroad - and break the law

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 15:09:24 -0500
From: Richard Forno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Buy DVDs and games abroad - and break the law

Buy DVDs and games abroad - and break the law
By Drew Cullen
Posted: 24/01/2002 at 16:57 GMT


British consumers will be on the wrong side of the law for the first time if
they buy overseas DVDs or computer games 'unauthorised' for the UK and play
them on their PCs at home.

This is the major implication of a ruling in the High Court yesterday over
the sale in the UK of 'mod-chips' for the Sony Playstation.



However, there is tension between Jacob's ruling and explicit rights granted
to UK consumers through the Sale of Good Act (SGA) and the Unfair Contract
Terms Act (UCTA). But until a consumer, or a group of consumers, challenges
Jacob's ruling, the rights of copyright holders will take precedence.

In effect, the UK's Copyright and Patents Act 1988 gives copyright holders
more power than America's highly controversial Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA), because there are no exceptions, as Martin Keegan, of the
UK-based Campaign for Digital Rights points out.

He expresses concern at yesterday's ruling.
"Anti-circumvention law takes the balance in copyright law out of the hands
of Parliament and the judges, and places it in the hands of technologists
working for major media conglomerates.

Full Story
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/23814.html


**
For Listserv Instructions, see http://www.lawlists.net/cyberia
Off-Topic threads: http://www.lawlists.net/mailman/listinfo/cyberia-ot
Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
**

FW: Arbour says rules shield world's worst criminals

[Jei]

-Original Message-
From: International Justice Watch Discussion List 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
On Behalf Of Daniel Tomasevich
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 5:19 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Arbour says rules shield world's worst criminals


L Arbour doesn't like that national courts have primacy over the ICC.


Daniel

-

   The Ottawa Citizen   January 21, 2002 Monday

   Canadian judge pans new international court: Arbour says
   rules shield world's worst criminals

   BY: David Rider
   DATELINE: TORONTO

   With a permanent international court finally set to become reality, a
   Supreme Court of Canada judge and former war crimes prosecutor is
   worried governments have been handed a "major trump card" to shield
   some of the world's worst criminals.

   Justice Louise Arbour -- an international legal figure who indicted
   former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic -- told a forum she's
   deeply concerned that the borderless court will get involved only when
   a nation is "unwilling" or "unable" to prosecute a case itself.

   It's fairly easy to determine when a state is unable to try someone
   for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes, said Judge
   Arbour, who was chief prosecutor for the United Nations tribunals for
   Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia until her appointment to Canada's top
   court in 1999. For example, Rwanda couldn't hold its own genocide
   trials because few lawyers and judges survived the 1994 massacre.

   However, under rules of the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty
   drafted at a Canadian-chaired meeting in Rome in 1998, national courts
   have primacy -- even when the state's leaders are themselves
   implicated -- and the onus is on international prosecutors to prove
   that any fraudulent investigations and trials aren't "genuine."

   A long-standing proponent of a permanent court to judge the worst
   crimes against civilians, Judge Arbour called the rule a "very, very
   bad idea."

   States with relatively developed legal systems will have a "major
   trump card" to evade justice and will clash with developing countries
   that don't, she said.

   "That clash will be intensely political, so I think the reality is
   that the ICC risks becoming the true default jurisdiction for
   developing countries, and is buying into major political legal battles
   with everybody else," she said.

   A dream of human rights activists since the Second World War, the new
   court is set to become a fact when 60 countries ratify the Rome
   treaty.

   Forty-eight, including Canada, have already done so and the magic
   number is expected to be reached by about mid-April.

   However, holdouts include the United States and most observers believe
   its money and political clout are critical to the court's long-term
   success.

   Judge Arbour said the merits of the court's existence are "yesterday's
   debate" and speculated that the U.S. will become tacitly involved when
   the UN security council, on which the U.S. sits, refers cases to the
   new court.

   "My concern is not that (the court) is too ambitious but that it is
   not ambitious enough," she said, adding it would be a mistake to build
   the court on the Canadian judicial template. For example, prosecutors
   will need more power to protect the safety of witnesses and to get
   information from state intelligence agencies than they have under the
   Canadian system.

   She called the court's development "highly complex, immensely
   challenging but immensely do-able and, for all these reasons, just."

DPPA: AAMVA, EPIC & FTF

[Jei]

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
On Behalf Of ScanThisNews
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 4:59 PM
To: ScanThisNews Recipients List
Subject: [FP] DPPA: AAMVA, EPIC & FTF


SCAN THIS NEWS
1.21.2002

Mark Rotenberg, EPIC, July 15, 1999
Electronic Privacy Information Center
666 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20003
http://www.epic.org/privacy/drivers/EPIC_DPPA_Brief.pdf

"[The DPPA] is a valid exercise of federal authority... ."

"The DPPA is a legitimate exercise of Congress’s authority... ."

"For these reasons, we respectfully urge the Court to reverse the decision
of the lower court [and uphold the DPPA]."

---

Scott McDonald, FightTheFingerprint, January 13, 2000:
http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/fp-dppa-bigbrother.html

"The ruling ... by the US Supreme Court [upholding the Driver's Privacy
Protection Act] paves the way for Big Brother to establish centralized
databases on every citizen."

"[Under DPPA] records may be used to establish a database of driver's
records that will be used to 'prevent fraud.' This exception will likely
result in the development of a central database of all drivers from across
the country, effectively creating a single national identification database
managed by Big Brother."

---

AAMVA President and CEO, Linda Lewis, January 14, 2002:
http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/AAMVAtranscript.html

"I mentioned originally the Driver's Privacy Protection Act. What that
Privacy Act [DPPA] does, it allows for fourteen permissible uses of motor
vehicle record data. So when you ask me, 'Do motor vehicles share data?',
yes, they do, but they do it according to the [DPPA] law."

---

Scott McDonald, FightTheFingerprint, January 13, 2000:
http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/fp-dppa-bigbrother.html

"This DPPA law is the worst thing that could have happened to anyone who
regards their personal information as 'theirs' and 'private.' This Act
wrests control over private information held by the states away from the
states and citizens and places it instead in the hands of a centralized
federal government which has already expressed its intentions of developing
central databases of drivers' photos and identifying data."

"Some news outlets which do not fully understand the long-range implications
of the DPPA -- and the true anti-privacy, big government motives behind its
implementation -- have praised the Court's DPPA ruling. This is a huge
mistake which will be proven out over the coming years as more and more
centralized databases are established using drivers license and motor
vehicle records collected under the authority of the DPPA."

---

AAMVA President and CEO, Linda Lewis, January 14, 2002:
http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/AAMVAtranscript.html

"Well, there's a lot of misinformation being circulated, communicated,
printed, about this huge database in the sky. And let's try to get the
record straight once and for all as to what we're trying to do here. What
we're trying to do is to connect databases that motor vehicle agencies
currently have in place so that they are able to exchange information
about drivers... ."

"By legislating and funding technology such as the Driver Record
Identification Verification System, known as DRIVerS, state agencies and
federal agencies such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the
Social Security Administration, the Bureau of Vital Statistics -- and if
necessary the Federal Bureau of Investigations -- can share information."

---

Scott McDonald, FightTheFingerprint, January 17, 2000:
http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/fp-dppa-two-models.html

"Prior to the DPPA ruling, no state could be "required" to participate in
any of these federal driver registry database programs; the federal
government formerly had no mechanism to force state participation. States
were coaxed into participation through the use of federal grants and
funding-contingent programs. Prior to the DPPA ruling, not all states were
fully cooperating with central database efforts."

"The DPPA will now force states to cooperate with development of these and
other federal registries of driver information and records. Under the
authority granted by the DPPA, a central registry of every driver in every
state will be developed with resultant equivalency of a national
identification database."

---

AAMVA President and CEO, Linda Lewis, January 14, 2002:
http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/AAMVAtranscript.html

"Our intent is to establish a Driver Record Identification System, that for
every driver or person contained therein there is only one license, there
is only one record, and there is only one identity."

"The cost of developing that system comes from the need to have what we
call a unique identifier that allows us to determine me from you from
someone else that has a similar name in the system."

"We are very experienced with partnering with the federal government to
deve

[Armageddon-or-NewAge] Commercial database use flagged (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 23:30:36 +1300
From: Misty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Armageddon or New Age? <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Armageddon-or-NewAge] Commercial database use flagged

Commercial database use flagged
By William Matthews
Jan. 16, 2002
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0114/web-epic-01-16-02.asp


Privacy advocates have filed a lawsuit in federal court to force the Justice
and Treasury departments to disclose details about buying information about
individuals from commercial databases. The agencies are generally banned
from amassing such information on their own.

Electronic Privacy Information Center officials said Jan. 15 that the two
agencies have illegally failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act
requests for details about their information purchasing practices.

Lawyers for EPIC sought the information after seeing news reports and
obtaining documents that indicate at least six federal law enforcement
agencies buy personal information from database companies.

The companies include ChoicePoint Inc., which gathers and sells information
for purposes ranging from employment background checks to insurance fraud
investigations, and Experian, which claims to have information gathered from
"hundreds of public and proprietary sources" on 215 million consumers.

The Privacy Act of 1974 banned federal agencies from collecting personal
information about individuals unless they are actively investigating the
individual. But no such prohibitions apply to database companies.

The companies collect data from a wide range of commercial and government
sources, such as credit card records, motor vehicle and property records,
license records, marriage and divorce data, bankruptcy and other court
databases, product warranty registrations, loan applications and other
sources.

Government agencies that buy the information include the FBI, the Drug
Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Internal Revenue
Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, according to EPIC.

A key concern for privacy advocates is how accurate the data is, said Chris
Hoofnagle, EPIC's legislative counsel who filed the suit. ChoicePoint, for
example, provided inaccurate data to Florida election officials, who denied
thousands of voters access to the polls in 2000.

Hoofnagle said EPIC obtained documents that show that information the IRS
bought from ChoicePoint and Experian included "credit header data," which
includes a person's name, current and prior addresses, Social Security
number, date of birth, telephone number, information from property records,
motor vehicle records, marriage licenses and divorce papers, and records of
international asset location. IRS employees have access to this data through
their desktop computers, Hoofnagle said.

It is not clear whether the agencies buying information are violating the
law, "but if they are buying information without real investigations going
on, then there are going to be problems," he said.

The Privacy Act was passed to stop information collection abuses that were
common during the 1960s and 1970s, when the FBI and other agencies compiled
detailed dossiers on Vietnam War protesters, civil rights activists,
political "enemies" of the president, celebrities and others.

Hoofnagle said recent cases show that the abuse of information by government
employees has not ended. Recent abuses include police employees using
information to track women for dates and to rob rental cars and federal
employees selling DEA data, he said.

"You don't have to have a rogue government, just a rogue civil servant," he
said.

The Justice Department has 30 days to respond to the suit.

 RELATED LINKS


Electronic Privacy Information Center

"Recognizing facial ID possibilities" [FCW.com, Oct. 23, 2001]

"Security trumps privacy in new order" [Federal Computer Week, Sept. 24,
2001]

"Less privacy for digital data" [Federal Computer Week, June 18, 2001]

"The state of surveillance" [Federal Computer Week, June 18, 2001]









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UK Opting out of European Convention on Human Rights

[Jei]

http://europe.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/11/19/gen.britain.debate/index.html#ContentArea
   
Europe debates anti-terror laws
 _
   
   LONDON, England -- The UK Parliament has begun the process of
   approving legislation to let authorities detain some suspected
   terrorists indefinitely without trial.
   
   The proposal, put forward by Home Secretary David Blunkett, has drawn
   complaints from some lawmakers that it is being rushed through
   Parliament and that alternatives should be found that do not violate
   human rights laws.
   
   But on Monday government members of Parliament followed the Labour
   Party line, supported by opposition parties, and approved the first
   stage of the plan by 458 votes to five.
   
   The government wants the Anti-Terrorism, Security and Crime Bill
   approved before Christmas and timetabled just three days for members
   of Parliament to debate the measure.
   
   An order allowing Britain to opt out from part of the European
   Convention on Human Rights would make the indefinite detention of
   terror suspects possible.
   
   Blunkett has defended the proposal, saying it would require annual
   renewal and would only apply to suspects who could not be deported or
   extradited.
   
   "No one is going macho, no one's trying to do this for the sake of
   promoting some sort of vitriolic or anti-human rights agenda,"
   Blunkett told BBC television.
   
   "The security and anti-terrorist services say that there are people
   ... who we would normally be able to remove from the country but at
   the moment they would be able to claim habeas corpus and stop me being
   able to remove them," he said.
   
   "I could remove them if they had a safe country to go to, I could of
   course extradite them where extradition has been agreed with a
   particular country. If I can't actually remove somebody because they
   would be tortured or murdered, I will detain them instead."
   
   The plan has also come in for criticism from civil rights groups.
   
   John Wadham, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "This
   is a fundamental violation of the rule of law, our rights and
   traditional British values."
   
   Britain is not the first European country to consider tightening its
   anti-terror laws in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United
   States, where a number of new laws also have been put into place --
   including a presidential order allowing non-U.S. citizens accused of
   terrorism to be tried in military tribunals rather than civilian
   courts.
   
   Germany has pledged an extra $1.4 billion next year for a security
   crackdown, and the government has introduced an anti-terror package
   that includes upgrading identification cards for non-nationals living
   in there.
   
   The new package was agreed only after days of argument over how to
   prevent terror attacks being planned or executed in Germany while
   protecting civil liberties.
   
   But reports that Interior Minister Otto Schily wanted federal police
   to have the right to carry out searches without a court warrant were
   met with wide-ranging criticism from civil rights groups and warnings
   from within Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's coalition that such powers
   were forbidden by the country's post-war constitution.
   
   In France, the parliament has approved a package of tougher
   anti-terror measures that Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant said was a
   response to "exceptional circumstances."
   
   The new measures, which will be in force through 2003, give police the
   right to search cars and access private phone calls and e-mail.
   
   The strengthened laws will allow police to search car boots on the
   instructions of a prosecutor in terrorist inquiries. Until now cars
   were off-limits to police.
   
   The amendments also allow bag and body searches at places such as
   airports, stadiums and stores, and enable police to carry out
   nighttime searches in storage spaces and garages during preliminary
   investigations. Previously, they had to wait until 6 a.m.
   
   The plan also allows investigative judges to demand that phone or
   Internet companies save wiretapped conversations and Internet data for
   up to a year.
   
   The 15-member European Union has taken collective anti-terror measures
   on a number of related issues, including money laundering.
   
   "We are taking collectively very big decisions -- for (powers of)
   arrest, for money laundering -- in all the chapters where we need new
   cooperation against terrorists," European Commission President Romano
   Prodi told BBC radio.
   
   Since September 11, EU finance, justice and transport ministers have
   jointly endorsed measures to combat global terrorism, including a move
   to apply money-laundering rules to various serious crimes in addition
   to the drugs trade.
   
   They also pledged to freeze asse

US anti-terror war stirs HR concerns

[Jei]

Military Crypto Anarchists let loose on the world, 
random arrests and kidnapping of foreigners..

http://www.dailystarnews.com/200201/20/n2012013.htm#BODY9

US anti-terror war stirs HR concerns

Reuters, Washington/Kabul

US efforts to hunt down terror suspects around the world after the September
11 attacks prompted fresh concern among rights watchdogs on Friday when
American troops seized six Algerians in Bosnia.

The leading suspect, Osama bin Laden, is still at large, but Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf sparked a new round of speculation about his fate
when he said the al-Qaida leader could have died from kidney failure.

The White House said it would welcome news of the death of the presumed
mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon that
killed about 3,100 people, but said the United States had no idea what had
happened to him.

In Sarajevo, the US Embassy said American forces had taken custody of six
Algerians detained by Bosnian authorities in October on suspicion of
involvement in terrorism but released this week by a local court.

The six are to be transferred to a US internment camp in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, where more than 100 captives from the war in Afghanistan against the
Taliban and al-Qaida are already being held.

Human rights groups have criticized conditions at the camp captives are held
in chain-link enclosures and are not accorded prisoner of war status and the
seizure of the six men in Bosnia prompted a fresh outcry.

"It's very disappointing," Madeleine Rees, head of the Bosnia office of the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said of the US action. "It violates
the rule of law."

The US Embassy said Washington acted because the six "Posed a credible
security threat to US personnel and facilities and demonstrated involvement
in international terrorism."

In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, without referring directly to
the prisoner transfer, said governments should not violate human rights in
the war on terrorism.

The United States of Enron

[Jei]

Subject: SNET: The United States of Enron

->  SNETNEWS  Mailing List

January 19, 2002 
The United States of Enron 
By FRANK RICH 

Wasn't that the best?" said a laughing Ann Richards this week, when I asked 
her reaction to President Bush's effort to hide behind her skirt when 
questioned about Enron. "It was so silly. Why didn't he just say Ken Lay was a 
strong supporter and gave him a half-million dollars and is a good friend, and 
he's really sorry Ken's in these terrible circumstances?"  

Good question. As the world knows now, George W. Bush told two lies when 
first asked about his ties to the top guy in what may prove the largest 
corporate flimflam in history. The president said (1) that he only "got to know" 
Mr. Lay in 1994, when in fact their relationship goes back at least to 1992; 
and (2) that Mr. Lay "was a supporter" of Governor Richards, when in fact Mr. 
Lay told TV's "Frontline" last year that he "did support" Mr. Bush over Ms. 
Richards in their Texas race.  

This is the president who promised to usher America into "a new era of 
personal responsibility"?  

What makes the dissembling so strange is that there is no evidence of any 
administration illegality in the Enron affair. And yet each day brings a new 
half-truth or seeming cover-up. Appearing on CNN last Saturday, Lawrence 
Lindsey, the top Bush economic adviser and a former Enron consultant, 
seconded the president's effort to pin Ken Lay on Ann Richards, but 
somehow forgot to say what would become public four days later ‹ that he 
had overseen an administration study of the impact of Enron's travails in 
October. Earlier, Mary Matalin had visited the Imus show to defend her boss, 
Dick Cheney, but instead of vowing to open the books on the secret 
meetings between Enron and the vice president's clandestine energy task 
force, she asserted that Enron got "not one thing" from the administration's 
energy plan (actually it got plenty) and tried desperately to dismiss the entire 
ruckus as lacking an intern's "blue dress."  

Hard as it is to believe, it was only 10 days ago that Ari Fleischer declared, 
"I'm not aware of anybody in the White House who discussed Enron's 
financial situation." Now we're painfully aware that the only White House 
inhabitants who may not have discussed it are the president, Barney and 
Spot ‹ or so we must believe until future investigators turn up a smoking 
pretzel.  

Washington, meanwhile, is busy debating whether Enron the Scandal is as 
hot as Whitewater. This should be a no-brainer. While The Wall Street 
Journal published an encyclopedic series of tomes to parse a low- rent 
Arkansas land scam to a public that never did quite understand it, everyone 
instantly gets an epic fraud in which arrogant high-fliers stacked the deck to 
fleece thousands of peons to the tune of zillions.  

For a quick cultural index of this story's allure, check out the hundreds of hotly 
contested Enron lots on Ebay, where the bankrupt company's stock 
certificates have gone for north of $200 ‹ a multiple of 300 times the last 
known value of a share of the stock itself. And, Ms. Matalin notwithstanding, 
this scandal is not sex-free. Not only did Enron approach Penthouse and 
Playboy to try to enter the porn business, as The Times has reported, but we 
learn in Fortune that "rumors of sexual high jinks" in Enron's executive suites 
"ran rampant." A nation that doted on the soap operatics of "Dallas" may 
have at long last found a worthy sequel in "Houston." Once the "sexual high 
jinks" kick in, it could play 24/7 on cable, with or without Paula Zahn.  

The Washington wisdom that Enron has no legs ‹ that it's not a political 
scandal, merely a financial one ‹ is based on the premise that the Bush 
administration didn't ride to Ken Lay's rescue once disaster struck. But what 
about the favors performed for Enron before the meltdown? That's as political 
as you can get, particularly since, unlike Whitewater, this scandal implicates 
both parties and the corrupt campaign finance system that makes them look 
like interchangeable vending machines for their often overlapping patrons.  

Though the Bush administration has been in office only a year, Enron's oily 
fingerprints are all over its actions as well as its résumés and stock 
portfolios. Mr. Lay helped hand-pick the head of the government agency in 
charge of regulating his own business and stood to gain a $254 million 
corporate tax rebate in the administration-blessed stimulus bill (despite the 
fact that Enron used almost 900 offshore "subsidiaries" to avoid paying any 
income taxes at all in four of the last five years). The Enron old-boy network 
may even have played a backdoor role in the life-and-death matter of stem 
cell policy. When President Bush announced his stem cell "compromise" in 
August, many top researchers criticized it as an obstacle to medical 
progress. But miraculously the administration was able to produce an instant 
endorsement fro

Re: Crypto-Anarchist Activities Control Act ("CAACA")

[Jei]

Heh, that's really funny, considering that the United States is already 
in a state of anarcy. He who has the most lawyers, buddy-connections and
bucks, can do anything and is indeed already in power. Last elections
witnessed the take-over of the Unites States by military crypto-anarchists.

George W. Bush is one of these nasty crypto-anarchists.

On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Aimee Farr wrote:

> Somebody wrote:
> 
> > I, in particular (and many other Cpunk Movement members) do not
> > consider People That Control Armed Men to be "us" and will not identify
> their snitching
> > capabilities with my well-being.
> 
> So "Cypherpunks" is a political movement, then? You are cohesive, and, as
> frequently pointed out, have a written doctrine. (i.e., "read the archives,
> twit" seems to echo in my mind). You have meatspace meetings, and members
> which identify with you as a "movement."
> 
> *ponder*
> 
> AN ACT
> To protect the United States against certain un-American and subversive
> activities by requiring registration of Crypto-Anarchist Networks, and for
> other purposes.
> 
> TITLE I - CRYPTO-ANARCHIST ACTIVITIES CONTROL
> 
> Section 1. (a) This title may be citied as the "Crypto-anarchist Subversive
> Activities Control Act of 2002."
> 
> NECESSITY FOR LEGISLATION
> 
> Sec. 2. As a result of evidence adduced before various committees of the
> Senate and House of Representatives, the Congress hereby finds that --
> (1) There exists a world Anarchist movement which, in its origins, its
> development, and its present practice, is a world-wide revolutionary
> movement whose purpose it is, by treachery, deceit, infiltration into other
> groups (governmental and otherwise), espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and any
> other means deemed necessary, to establish an Anarchist World Disorder
> through the medium of world-wide anarchist disorganization.
> (2) The direction and control of the world Crypto-anarchist movement is
> vested in and exercised by world-wide criminal networks aided by foreign
> intelligence agencies hostile to the interests of the United States.
> (3) These networks establish, or causes the establishment of, and utilizes,
> in various countries, action organizations which are not free and
> independent organizations, but are sections of a world-wide
> Anarchist-Criminal Conspiracy, and are controlled, directed, and subject to
> the discipline of shadow networks who have as their aim the subversion of
> United States intelligence gathering capabilities.
> (4) Of these groups, crypto-anarchist organizations endeavor to carry out
> the objectives of these unholy alliances by bringing about the overthrow of
> existing governments by any available means, including force if necessary,
> and setting up Criminal dictatorships. Although such organizations usually
> designate themselves as political parties, non profit organizations and
> loose affiliations of individuals, they are in fact constituent elements of
> the world-wide Criminal-Anarchist movement and promote the objects of such
> movement by conspiratorial and coercive tactics, instead of through the
> democratic process of a free elective system or through the
> freedom-preserving means employed by a political party which operates as an
> agency by which people govern themselves.
> (5) In carrying on the activities referred to above, these organizations in
> various countries are organized on a secret, conspiratorial basis and
> operate to a substantial extent though organizations, commonly known as
> nonprofit organizations, mailing lists and intellectual societies, which in
> most circumstances are created and maintained, or used, in such a manner as
> to conceal the facts as to their true character and purposes, and their
> membership, and to serve as a recruitment vehicle.
> (6) The agents of Crypto-Anarchy have devised clever and ruthless espionage,
> sabotage and subversive tactics which are carried out in many instances in
> form or manner successfully evasive of existing law.
> (7) The Crypto-Anarchist network in the United States is inspired and
> controlled in a large part by foreign agents, who communicate with them in a
> "sneaky" manner.
> (8) Crypto-Anarchists represent a clear and present danger to the national
> security of these United States, and make it necessary, that Congress, in
> order to provide for the common defense, to preserve the sovereignty of the
> United States as an independent nation, and to guarantee unto each state a
> republican form of government, enact appropriate legislation in recognition
> of this conspiracy, and to prevent it from accomplishing its purpose in the
> United States.
> 
> DEFINITIONS
> 
> Sec. 3. For the purposes of this title--
> ...
> (2) The term "organization"...includes a group of persons, whether or not
> incorporated, permanently or temporarily associated together for joint
> action on any subject or subjects.
> (3) The term "crypto-anarchist infiltrated organization" means
> 
> PROH

Armed With Handhelds

[Jei]

I thought the wireless protocols were proven 
insecure and easy to tap into a while back.

Soon to be public database I guess...
-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 12:26:53 +1100
From: Bond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ParanoidTimes] Armed With Handhelds

Armed With Handhelds

* Using technology from Aether, state troopers at Logan Airport have
gained wireless access to the National Crime Information Center.

By Jennifer Maselli
Jan. 17, 2002

Massachusetts state troopers working at Boston's Logan Airport now have
wireless access to the National Crime Information Center thanks to
technology from Aether that delivers data to BlackBerry handheld devices.

Eighty troopers working at Logan are using the BlackBerrys to quickly send
information gathered from license plates or by talking to individuals at the
airport to the National Crime Information Center to check for stolen
vehicles, outstanding warrants, or previous felonies. When an inquiry is
made via the handheld, the data is sent through a wireless network to a
server at the Lake County, Fla., sheriff's office. Once data is received,
it's transmitted back to the device. Massachusetts is in the process of
upgrading its interfaces with the National Crime Information Center. Once
completed, it will use its own servers instead of the one in Florida.

This will let the troopers conduct more checks in less time, says a
spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Port Authority. Prior to using the
devices, troopers had to radio or telephone inquiries and then wait for a
response. The pilot program will continue for the next month or two. The
Port Authority then will decide whether to continue using the devices.

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020117S0023




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Israel blows up, but fails to stifle the Voice of Palestine

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 04:41:36 +0100
From: Mario Profaca <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "[Spy News]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Spy News] Israel blows up, but fails to stifle the Voice of Palestine

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=12150

Sunday, January 20, 2002

Israel blows up, but fails to stifle the Voice of Palestine
By Nazir Majally, Arab News Staff

RAMALLAH, West Bank, 20 January — Israeli troops blew up the Voice of
Palestine radio station office here yesterday, but failed to stop it from
broadcasting. Palestinian officials called for international sanctions
against Israel

Part of the five-story Voice of Palestine building in the West Bank city of
Ramallah collapsed after Israeli troops, accompanied by tanks and
bulldozers, cleared people from the area before dawn and detonated
explosives.

The blast sent flames, smoke and a shower of debris skyward, and Palestinian
officials said the force shattered windows in nearby houses. They accused
Israel of trying to undermine the Palestinian Authority and its
institutions. The army said in a statement it had carried out the operation
in retaliation for the "murderous attack" in the northern Israeli city of
Hadera two days earlier.

Israel has accused the Voice of Palestine, which broadcasts the official
positions of the Palestinian Authority, of transmitting provocative material
during the Palestinian uprising which erupted in September 2000.
Palestinians deny the charge and say Israel is trying to silence its media.

Voice of Palestine Director Bassem Abusumaya said the station had resumed
broadcasting news, songs and talk shows on FM frequencies used by private
radio stations. Palestinian television continued broadcasting out of Gaza.

The Palestinian leadership said in a statement the "cheap crime" perpetrated
by Israel was meant "to silence the Palestinian voice so the world won’t
know about the brutal crime the Israeli occupation has carried out against
our people". It called on the United Nations and rights groups to condemn
Israel’s action.

"The Palestinian Authority asks that the international community impose
sanctions against Israel so that it stops its aggression and crimes against
the Palestinian people," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an adviser to Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat, said.




===
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[Spy News] Arafat in Israel's public relations trap (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 04:41:35 +0100
From: Mario Profaca <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "[Spy News]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Spy News] [windows-1250] Arafat in Israel^Òs public relations trap

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=12130

Sunday, January 20, 2002

Arafat in Israel’s public relations trap
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid

Was it not a false and ill-advised step on the part of the Palestinian
Authority (PA) to deny outright that it had links with the ship whose cargo
of weapons was seized recently by Israel?

Israel’s public relations machinery has converted the incident into a big
propaganda weapon. Though most Arab writers rallied round the Palestinian
Authority and emphasized its lack of involvement in the arms shipment,
Israel, on the other hand, is bent on using the matter against the
Palestinians.

The mistake on the part of the PA was not that it bought the weapons and
made an attempt to bring them to the Palestinian homeland. On the other
hand, its hurried denial was a gross mistake. The denial made the PA fall
into the trap laid by Israel’s public relations officials who wanted to
capitalize on denial by PA officials rather than the actual capture of the
weapons.

The Israelis were desperately seeking an opportunity to establish that the
Palestinians, including their chief, were a bunch of liars. Soon after the
capture of the ship, the Israelis announced the seizure of a lesser quantity
than what was actually seized. This was apparently a calculated move on the
part of Israel which was sure that the PA would deny. The next Israeli move
was to reveal the full details of the seized weapons while the Palestinians
held fast to their denial. The evidence produced by Israel was strong enough
to pose serious challenges to the Palestinian Authority’s credibility.

The issue would not have become so complicated if the PA had not attached so
much importance to the seizure of the ship. Arafat should have handled the
issue as the former American President Bill Clinton did regarding his
involvement with Monica Levinsky. While admitting that he had some kind of
relationship with the girl, Clinton denied having had illicit relations with
her. Thus he brought half the issue under control. He did not deny all the
charges but neither did he tell the whole truth.

Instead of making a total and complete denial, it would have been safer for
Arafat to have said that he was awaiting a full report on the issue. After a
week or month, he could have clung to the denial if he were sure that his
position was secure. The other option open to the Palestinian leadership was
to announce that the weapons belonged to the PA but that the ship was in
international waters and had not entered Palestinian waters when it was
seized. Or the leaders could have said the ship was being sent to some other
place where the Palestinian police were being trained.

The Israelis exhibited the captain of the ship, an official of the PA, who
admitted his role in importing the weapons. His statements were extremely
embarrassing to the PA leadership. Thus, the Israelis got a golden
opportunity to show that the Palestinian leadership was lying. Nobody can
deny the Palestinians their right to defend themselves. There are several
methods to establish that right, however, instead of resorting to outright
lies. In the worst-case scenario, and if the half-truth failed to produce
the desired effect, the whole truth could be told.

It would have been much better if Arafat had stated that the shipment
belonged to him and that he was forced to import the weapons in the face of
the Israeli challenges and moves which aim at destroying his authority in
the region. If he had made such a statement, Israel would not have been able
to make use of the situation so powerfully against him.



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intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, 
human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, 
for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this 
constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of 
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owner.
For more in

[ISN] Criminal Charges Settled In Distributed-Computing Case (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 01:16:36 -0600 (CST)
From: InfoSec News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ISN] Criminal Charges Settled In Distributed-Computing Case 

http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173751.html

By Steven Bonisteel, Newsbytes
DECATUR, GEORGIA, U.S.A.,
17 Jan 2002, 5:05 PM CST
 
A computer technician at Georgia-run college who found himself facing
criminal charges after installing software for a volunteer
distributed-computing effort will face probation instead of prison.

David McOwen, once a systems administrator at DeKalb Technical
College, faces a year of probation and a $2,100 fine for connecting a
number of DeKalb computers to Distributed.net so that the spare
computing cycles could assist in a communal code-breaking challenge.
 
But McOwen's supporters, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF), said today that an agreement reached with state prosecutors was
far better than the worst-case scenario: years in prison and hundreds
of thousands of dollars in fines and restitution.

"David never should have been prosecuted in the first place, but we're
glad that the state decided to stop," said Lee Tien, a senior staff
attorney at the EFF. "He very likely could have won if the case had
gone to trial, but trials cost money and you never know what will
happen."

Tien said McOwen, who was to face a criminal trial later this month,
will also have to perform 80 hours of community service "unrelated to
computers or technology." However McOwen will not end up with a felony
or misdemeanor record under Georgia's First Offender Act.

The criminal charges stunned many participants in
distributed-computing efforts, who frequently are also denizens of
university or college computing departments.

In early January 2000, when the San Diego Supercomputer Center of the
University of California was issuing press releases about its
number-crunching prowess via Distributed.net in an RC5-64
code-breaking challenge, DeKalb was suspending McOwen for
participating in the same event.

A suspension wasn't all McOwen faced. This spring, long after he had
resigned from DeKalb in the wake of the suspension, McOwen learned
that he was being investigated by the state attorney general's office
as a result of his Distributed.net participation. This fall, he was
officially charged one count of computer theft and seven counts of
computer trespassing.

Tien in a prepared statement said that the dispute centered on a on
whether McOwen had fair notice that the distributed-computing software
was prohibited at DeKalb.

"From what I can tell, the state would have had a hard time proving
beyond a reasonable doubt that David knew he wasn't authorized to
install the software," Tien said. "I can't help but feel that this was
a face-saving deal for the state."

Originally, the state had calculated that McOwen had drained hundreds
of thousands of dollars worth of DeKalb computing time since
installing the software early in 1999, arriving at its figure by
calculating that the software sapped 59 cents worth of bandwidth each
second.

A pro-McOwen site is at http://www.freemcowen.com



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Konformist: Lee Markland on Cooper, Patriots

[Jei]

-~->

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,

Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com


1/11/02
Lee Markland
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Thoughts On Bill Cooper

Poor deluded Bill, poor deluded right wingers. Indeed there is a 
covert government, but it is financed, managed and controlled by 
persons with right wing (or as call themselves, conservative's).  The 
cable news networks, the major media, the large and multi national 
corporations are all conservatives, right wing and fascist elitists, 
who look down on their constituency of "conservative and/or 
Christians" as mere tools to use, by exciting their emotions.  

Adolph Hitler made mention of the short memory of the masses, and in 
that regard he was quite correct, as he used that short memory to 
gain power.

The bug a bear of the New World Order, first was publicly aired by 
George I (George H.W. Bush or Bush 41)

The New World Order is in reality the hegemonistic economic and 
military dominance of the world, not for the benefit of you and I, 
but for the benefit of the "conservative" corporations and 
international financial institutions that really run the world behind 
the scenes.

Ken Lay - Enron-George Bush are well known to the readers of this 
newsletter. Are they also aware that the biggest weapons makers and 
the only manufacturers of nuclear weapons in America are General 
Electic and Westinghouse, both of whom are run by "conservatives", 
ex: right wing "family values" man Jack Welch of GE, and GE owns and 
controls NBC, Westinghouse owns and controls CBS.  Rupert Murdoch (an 
arch conservative) owns Fox, he also owns Staples, the right wing 
London Times, the New York Post, Harpers Collins, the publishing 
house which was not going to publish Michael Moore's book, as well as 
hundreds of other newspapers, magazines and businesses.

Murdoch's influence is so profound that Tony Blair, the PM of 
England, when running for office, went to Australia, supplicated 
himself before Murdoch. Blair, ostensibly represents a "Liberal" 
party in England, Murdoch is an arch "conservative".

It is true that this country is, and has been run by "conservatives", 
even during the Clinton administration, and indeed Clinton's actions, 
the one's in which he was effective, versus his lip service, were 
totally conservative. At the top of the corporate conservative agenda 
was NAFTA and GAAT, and Clinton threw the full force and weight of 
the Presidency and the Democratic Party behind the NAFTA and GAAT 
agenda, thus betraying his labor constituency and labor all over the 
world.  In fact he was probably more effective and instrumental in 
pursuing the corporate labor agenda than Bob Dole would have been, in 
as much as he represented and controlled the so called "loyal 
opposition".

It's a shell game. The current President is, with the consent and 
demand of apparently most Americans or at least "conservative, god 
fearing, family values types" propelling us hell bent for election 
into a jackbooted dictatorship.

The only reason so called "patriots" even support this drive to 
overturn the constitution, is because their phobias, fears, needs and 
religious superstitions have been evoked, and they are, by those 
phobias, fears and needs, the instruments of their own damnation.

They are being tweaked and used.  The same incidentally is true of 
most "liberals", who mimick the "conservatives" in their lack of 
memory and
critical reasoning skills.

Here is how I see the sad state of affairs. There should be a 
national consensus and a mutual concern that runs through the veins 
of all American's. If you listen to the right and left, you will hear 
almost indentical concerns and fears.  However humans carry along a 
lot of other baggage, baggage which should be trivial, and if the 
person possesses criticial reasoning skills, would be recognized as 
trivial.

However these trivialities have emotional roots planted in 
superstition, religion and are watered by psychosexual fears and 
needs. Which is what really drives us humans, because after all our 
main purpose on earth our fundamental drive, besides survival, is to 
reproduce. Which necessitates copulation, which in turn is driven by 
hormones, which in turn requires the establishment of a belief or 
feeling of dominance, security, control, superiority and submission 
depending upon whether one is the male or female.

Poor Bill Cooper was afflicted with this patriarchial obsession and 
was a male supremacist, which also means that he had to be and was a 
misogynist, something that he adamantly denied, however to belie his 
denial, he was easily provoked into a vicious attack for something so 
innocuous as a woman telling him that she had no need to identify 
herself as a Mrs or to take up the husbands name and give up her own 
identity on marriage.

Bill was also, quite apparently, an apocalyptic Christian, 

FC: Rep. Boucher: End liability protection for software firms (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 12:11:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FC: Rep. Boucher: End liability protection for software firms

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 16:35:33 -0500
From: Henry Huang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Boucher: End Liability Protection for Software Makers

And so, the "only fix it if people find out about it" mentality of the software 
industry
FINALLY begins to reap bad fruit, after decades of neglect.

A panel of experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences has
recommended that the special exemptions from product liability lawsuits
given to software makers should be taken away.  Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA),
in particular, is quoted as saying:

"The producers of software should be responsible for any flaws that the
software contains."

As much as everyone would like to see Microsoft sued into the ground, it
ain't gonna happen.  A much more likely scenario is that smaller companies
and producers of Open Source will quickly find themselves at the end of a
sharp lawsuit -- clearing the way for companies who can afford to pay out
lawsuits to continue as they are. Oh, the irony.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-011402micro.story

--

Additionally, Bruce Scheiner has some interesting comments to make about
Microsoft's attitude towards security, and how censoring bug information
hurts far more than it helps.

http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0201.html

-H







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POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
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Events: Congreso Nacional de Periodismo Digital in Huesca, Spain from
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Feb. 1-3. (http://www.diplomacy.edu/Web/conference2/)
-

Taking "Freedom" Out of the Freedom of Information Act? (fwd)

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 02:40:54 -0500
From: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Taking "Freedom" Out of the Freedom of Information Act?

Taking "Freedom" Out of the Freedom of Information Act?



E-Legal: Taking 'Freedom' Out of the Freedom of Information Act?
Eric J. Sinrod
Special to law.com

January 15, 2002

The Department of Justice recently changed policy with respect to 
when government information will be released under the Freedom of 
Information Act (FOIA). Abandoning the Clinton administration policy 
of releasing information unless it is "reasonably foreseeable that 
disclosure would be harmful," the new policy allows governmental 
agencies to resist FOIA requests whenever there is a legal basis to 
do so.

[...]

**
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Make torture an option?

[Jei]

Heh. It is generally believed that people
will confess to anything under torture. 

Now the government will never run out of terrorists. :-)

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 02:52:46 +0100
From: Mario Profaca <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "[Spy News]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Spy News] Make torture an option?

http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,324751-412,00.shtml

Dershowitz: Make Torture An Option

* Civil Libertarian Believes Torture Will Be Used In War On Terrorism
* And He Wants Specific Procedures In Place
* Watch Sunday at 7 PM ET/PT

(CBS) Is there a place in the U.S. justice system for torture?

Alan Dershowitz, the civil libertarian defender of O. J. Simpson,
believes the law should sanction torture so it may be applied
in certain cases, such as terrorist acts.

In a report to be broadcast Sunday on 60 Minutes, Dershowitz tells
Correspondent Mike Wallace that torture is inevitable. "We cant just
close our eyes and pretend we live in a pure world," he says.

After the events of Sept. 11, with many al Qaida members in custody,
Dershowitz says he wants to bring the debate to the forefront. He gave
the "ticking bomb" scenario - a person refusing to tell when and where
a bomb will go off as an example of the type of case warranting torture.

The FBI has anonymously leaked to the press the belief inside the bureau
that torture may be an option in these trying times.  But Lewis Schiliro,
former New York bureau director, warns of problems with torture.

"If anybody had the ability to prevent the events of Sept. 11... they
would have gone to whatever length... The problem becomes, where do
we draw that line?" he tells Wallace.

Torture is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, says Human Rights Watch
Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who also says its not reliable. He points
out that an Islamic terrorist, convicted in America for terrorist plots
he admitted to after torture by authorities in the Philippines, had also
admitted to being the Oklahoma City bomber.

"People will say anything under torture," says Roth, adding that
resorting to torture degrades humanity and the idea of democracy.
"We, in many important respects, become like the terrorists," he tells
Wallace.  "They will have won. Our democracy will have lost."

This is a naive viewpoint, says Dershowitz. "If anybody has any doubt that
our CIA, over time, has taught people to torture, has encouraged torture,
has probably itself tortured in extreme cases, I have a bridge to sell you
in Brooklyn."


===
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FW: ABC Omits U.S. From Human Rights Report

[Jei]

-Original Message-
From: media analysis, critiques and news reports
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of FAIR-L
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 12:29 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [FAIR-L] ABC Omits U.S. From Human Rights Report


FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports


ACTION ALERT:
ABC Omits U.S. From Human Rights Report

January 18, 2002

On its January 16 broadcast, ABC's World News Tonight aired this brief item
about the annual report released that day by Human Rights Watch:

"The international human rights group Human Rights Watch has released its
annual report, and it says that several countries are using the U.S.-led war
against terrorism as a justification to ignore human rights. Human Rights
Watch says that Russia, Egypt, Israel, China, Zimbabwe, Malaysia and
Uzbekistan have all cracked down on domestic opponents in the name of
terrorism."

That summary is close to what the group's press release stated (1/16/02):
"The anti-terror campaign led by the United States is inspiring
opportunistic attacks on civil liberties around the world, Human Rights
Watch warned in its annual global survey released today."

But one country singled out for criticism by Human Rights Watch was
conspicuously absent from ABC's report: the United States, whose
anti-terrorism measures were described in the group's press release as
"threatening long-held human rights principles."

Among Bush administration actions that were identified as demonstrating a
"troubling disregard for well-established human rights safeguards" were "new
laws permitting the indefinite detention of non-citizens, special military
commissions to try suspected terrorists, the detention of over 1,000 people,
and the abrogation of the confidentiality of attorney-client communications
for certain detainees."

While ABC ignored this criticism of the U.S. in favor of pointing fingers at
other countries, the rights report actually drew a connection between the
erosion of human rights standards in the U.S. and overseas. As the London
Guardian reported (1/17/02), "dictators 'need do nothing more than
photocopy' measures introduced by the Bush administration, whose ability to
criticise abuses in other countries was thus deeply compromised, said the
New York-based Human Rights Watch in a devastating 660-page report."

ABC's exclusion of criticism of the U.S. did a disservice to its viewers.
U.S. human rights problems are the ones that are most likely to affect them,
and also those that they are most in a position to do something about.

ACTION: Please ask ABC to issue a correction to its original report about
the Human Rights Watch Annual Report to reflect the group's criticisms of
the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks of September 11.

CONTACT:
ABC's World News Tonight
Phone: 212-456-4040
Fax: 212-456-2795
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your
correspondence.

Konformist: 'It Would Help Enron If You Made That Call'

[Jei]

Insider trading, US style... Heh heh heh. 
Seems like everything Bush ever did, was
either for the poll ratings or money. 

The selfish logic is infallible. It's all 
either for his political gain or hard cash
for his pals.

Well, Americans certainly got the president
they deserve, even if they didn't elect the
guy. Money buys it all.

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 06:59:36 -
From: robalini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Konformist: 'It Would Help Enron If You Made That Call'

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,

Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

'It Would Help Enron If You Made That Call' 
Bush Was Told
By Ed Vulliamy 
The Observer - London 
1-13-2


As he approaches the first anniversary of his inauguration, George W 
Bush is under siege. He has won the war in Afghanistan, but finds 
himself engaged in a new battle against a scandal that is threatening 
to dog his administration and tarnish his reputation . 
  
Bush and his administration have been revealed as entwined in a story 
of corporate greed and political manipulation by an energy firm 
called Enron, now under double criminal investigation. 
  
The scandal - in which the life savings and retirement funds of tens 
of thousands of employees vanished while a number of executive 
directors lined their pockets - reaches so high that John Ashcroft, 
the Attorney-General, has had to withdraw from the investigation 
because he received Enron money, and lawsuits are the pipeline to 
force Vice-President Dick Cheney for details of his contacts with the 
company. 
  
The day Bush took office - a year ago next Saturday - was as cold and 
comfortless as his victory; his motorcade braved driving rain and a 
gauntlet of demonstrations marking the most contested and ugliest 
election result in US history. After 11 September, the world changed 
and so did America's view of Bush. He became the only President since 
Franklin Roosevelt to maintain the support of over 80 per cent of 
Americans for weeks on end. 
  
But now the White House is laid bare by what rivals 
call 'Enronomics' - the political fable of the Enron corporation. 
  
It has long been reported how the Bush administration and family is 
beholden to the energy industry. Before the Afghan war, an 'Energy 
Task Force' favourable to the industry was the main concern for 
Cheney, who himself came to office from the biggest oil equipment 
firm in the world. 
  
Enron was just the kind of scandal a war would hide. The company 
plunged from a stock rating worth $60 billion - seventh on the 
Fortune list of US companies - into the biggest bankruptcy filing in 
US history, registered on 2 December. 
  
The ethical - maybe criminal - core of the scandal is that Enron 
trapped its employees into a 'stock-lock', whereby they were not 
allowed to sell share options bought by way of savings. When the 
company collapsed, they lost everything. Meanwhile, Enron's 
executives - blessed by inside information and foresight - made a 
killing by scrambling to sell shares before the price collapsed. 
  
The victims of Enron's rise and fall were regular employees who opted 
to join a savings plan by investing in their employer - and why not? 
With soaring energy prices and giddy profits, the share value 
quadrupled between 1997 and January last year. The catch was they 
were not allowed to sell. 
  
They were people like Pat Betteridge, of the subsidiary Portland 
General Electric company in Oregon, who remembers grand claims by 
Enron chief executive Kenneth Lay on a visit north: 'We like to think 
of ourselves,' he bragged, 'as the Microsoft of the energy world.' 
  
Betteridge used his $300,000 retirement savings to buy 3,500 shares - 
now worth not a cent. 'If I was hired to do electrical work and I 
botched it as bad as them,' he says, 'I'd either be doing time or get 
my licence yanked.' 
  
The beneficiaries of the company's surge to power were those who 
boarded the wheel of perpetual motion that binds the Bush 
administration to the energy industry. Then the company's brass even 
tried to make their fortune out of its fall as well. 
  
The Observer has dug into Enron's past to find that intimate 
connections with Bush and his Texan Republicans started long before 
the campaigns that brought them to Washington 
  
Enron is a Houston-based utility trading company that sells energy to 
consumers, industrial and domestic. It is one of the biggest of its 
kind in the world - a standing it owes in no small part to Bush's 
governorship in Texas. 
  
Texas's 1992 Energy Policy Act opened a regulatory black hole into 
which Enron moved and thrived, forcing established utility companies 
to buy energy from it. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission, under the presidency of Bush's father, 
allowed for an exemption in trading energy subsidiaries. The practice 
would be 

Re: judge Magic Lanterned by amateur, and busted

[Jei]

What if the hacker had implanted the files?

What if another hacker before him had accessed 
the system in the same way and had implanted the files?

What if a trojan or a computer virus had accessed 
the system and had implanted the evidence?

Oh well... Magic Lantern magically creates us more 
criminals than ever, and so the FBI can meet their 
quota... Now they'll never run out of pedophiles or
terrorists.

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Eric Cordian wrote:

> Spook Remailer writes:
> 
> > As they corresponded, the hacker infected [accused pedo, OC CA Judge]
> > Kline's computer with a virus that allowed him to copy
> > the entire contents of the judge's hard drive. The hacker, 
> > whom prosecutors have not named, then
> > messaged Posey about what he had found.
> 
> Isn't that unauthorized access to a computer system?  Why isn't the
> "hacker" being prosecuted too?
> 
> If prosecutors don't prosecute vigilantes who commit illegal acts to help
> police do an end run around civil rights, what's the difference between
> that, and the police collecting evidence illegally to begin with?
> 
> Randall Schwartz goes down on three felony counts for accessing a
> workplace computer, and we have script kiddies being hailed at heros for
> breaking into judges' computers, and copying their hard drives.  That sort
> of screams double standard, doesn't it?
> 
> -- 
> Eric Michael Cordian 0+
> O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
> "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

Re: Responsibility.

[Jei]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Tim May wrote:

> On Thursday, January 17, 2002, at 08:45 AM, Aimee Farr wrote:
> 
> > When you paint targets on people, other individuals may cause them
> > harm, seeking some measure of your acceptance. Some here might have
> > actual "followers," not fans or confederates-in-cause. Some
> > individuals here, and you even as a group don't have to "ask" for
> > somebody to be hurt, just imply that it is consistent with your
> > wishes. When somebody expresses targeted violent sentiments, and
> > you don't correct them, they perceive that as a ratification. (While
> > "mattd" is a self-identifier, others might not be. You might not
> > even know about them.) Such "suggestions" are a time-tested method
> > of obtaining plausible deniability for violent political action.
> 
> Back on the list for a day or two and already you are back in your tired 
> old pattern of claiming that there is some collective guilt for the 
> actions of individuals.
> 
> What "mattd" writes about is of little concern to me--I filter his 
> garbage into the right spot for it.
> 
> The notion that others have to "denounce" his views, or my views, or 
> your views is wrong-headed. People say a lot of things, and others are 
> free to believe or not believe what they say. It is not our collective 
> responsibility, nor any of our individual responsibilities, to denounce 
> or repudiate them.
> 
> And your insinuation that we are using mattd, for example, as a cat's 
> paw for "violent political action" (?) while "obtaining plausible 
> deniabilty" is pernicious.

Even if CIA can Echelonize each individual bullshitter and character
string they find on the Internet, it should be quite easy for programmers
to create something that will roam around the net and give them enough
suitable strings to read and check, and leave the smart people well enough
alone.

All it takes is one e-mail virus or a trojan that sends randomly generated
threats, including perhaps some encrypted shit and files, and the CIA,
Secret Service, etc goon-squads will have their hands full raiding random
people's homes. And all the people of the world would once again be free
to discuss and bullshit each other as much as they want about anyone they
want.

But do (we) the serious people really want that?

Stupid people deserve to be caught and real Al-Quaida terrorists
don't bullshit on the Internet anyway. After all, it is a small limit
on people's freedom to not be able to dissent and speak out freely in
public. And it mostly concerns only non-American arabs who have no 
privacy rights (now) anyway.

God Bless America.

Re: Responsibility.

[Jei]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Aimee Farr wrote:

> When you paint targets on people, other individuals may cause them
> harm, seeking some measure of your acceptance. Some here might have
> actual "followers," not fans or confederates-in-cause. Some
> individuals here, and you even as a group don't have to "ask" for
> somebody to be hurt, just imply that it is consistent with your
> wishes. When somebody expresses targeted violent sentiments, and you
> don't correct them, they perceive that as a ratification. (While
> "mattd" is a self-identifier, others might not be. You might not even
> know about them.) Such "suggestions" are a time-tested method of
> obtaining plausible deniability for violent political action.

Sadly true. While some people actually get real information and form their
own opinions, the majority simply repeat the bulk feed straight from the
TV. Government controlled information and Hollywood movies provide the
justification for any atrocity the US military sees fit to commit.

All it takes is a nice Hollywood movie about the subject to get the
president's popularity polls stay high, and all is well in the capitol.
Still, does that make all the violence justified and allright? 

If anyone on this planet is a master for 'creating plausible deniability
for violent action' and justification of their own brutality and acts of
mass murder, it is the US military and political system. Double standards
*is* the American Way of doing foreign policy.

Public 'perception management' is a military science nowadays. 
See 'Puppet Master' in Air Force 2015 somewhere under www.fas.org.

> I would think SOMEBODY can at least make the effort to say something
> when violent sentiments are expressed.
>
> Guess not.
> ~Aimee

Heh. I used to think the same about American foreign policies,
but they consider 1.5 million dead Iraqi women and children 
'worth the price' for what they got.

Value is a biased concept. Double standards apply. In general,
Americans see no value in the lives or human rights of non-Americans.
They don't seek the 'good of all', or 'equal justice' on this planet.
They seek money for themselves. Each individually and as groups and
entities. Indeed, money is the only significant political motive
Americans are capable of having. Someone in the chain of command is
motivated by money and power, or things would not be happening the way
they do.

Expressing 'violent sentiments' is equal to 'passing wind', in my book.
Freedom of speech and opionion should be respected. (Read: At least 
those of Americans, if you are an American.) What we should be worrying
of, instead, is people not saying anything even when people are being
slaughtered and starved to death. 

What I want is the government to start respecting the lives and rights of
non-Americans equally in their foreign policy. Is that too much to ask? 
The respect you can afford to give, is the respect you can expect to get.

Right now, Americans don't seem to afford much.

USA: Arbitrary, discriminatory, cruel, futile -- 25 years of judicialkilling

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:00:34 +
From: ainews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: USA: Arbitrary, discriminatory, cruel,
 futile --  25 years of judicial killing

* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *

17 January 2002
AMR 51/007/2002
7/02


A quarter of a century of executions in the USA has offered no
constructive contribution to the country's efforts to combat
violent crime and has caused serious damage to its international
reputation, Amnesty International said today as it issued a new
report to mark the 25th anniversary of the resumption of
executions in the United States.

The report, "Arbitrary, discriminatory, and cruel: An
aide-mémoire to 25 years of judicial killing", recalls some 200
illustrative cases of the men and women put to death since Gary
Gilmore was shot by a Utah firing squad on the morning of 17
January 1977 -- the first execution after the US Supreme Court
lifted the moratorium it had imposed on the death penalty in
1972.

"The USA likes to see itself as a champion of human rights,"
Amnesty International said. "However, its relentless pursuit of
the death penalty in an increasingly abolitionist world starkly
gives the lie to that claim."

"In a period that has seen more than 60 countries legislate
against the death penalty, the USA has shot, gassed,
electrocuted, hanged or poisoned more than 750 prisoners, 600 of
them since 1990," the organization continued.  "What is more, it
has frequently violated internationally-agreed safeguards in
getting the individual to the execution chamber.

"We urge US politicians to answer the question -- what measurable
benefit to society have these killings achieved?," stated Amnesty
International, whose report provides cases to illustrate the
cruelty, futility and brutalizing effect of capital punishment as
well as its rejection of the possibility of rehabilitation.

The report gives examples of the arbitrary way in which the death
penalty is applied in the USA, its politicized nature, and the
fact that this is a punishment that diverts attention and
resources from constructive responses to violent crime.

The report points to numerous cases of people put to death since
1977, including:
-- 18 prisoners executed, in violation of international law, for
crimes committed when they were children;
-- scores of individuals with mental retardation or histories of
mental illness;
-- dozens of African Americans convicted by all-white juries in
cases which show a pattern of prosecutors removing prospective
black jurors during jury selection;
-- more than 25 individuals whose guilt remained in doubt to the
end;
-- numerous defendants denied their right to adequate defence
representation, including those sentenced to death by juries
presented with little or none of the available mitigating
evidence;
-- 17 foreign nationals who were denied their right to consular
assistance after arrest.

"The USA should finally end its relationship with the
executioner," Amnesty International said.  "The past 25 years of
judicial killing has provided ample evidence that no amount of
tinkering with the machinery of death can rid this cruel,
brutalizing and irrevocable punishment of its fundamental flaws."

"It is time for the USA to finally join the modern world by
abolishing the death penalty," the organization concluded.

Background
In 1972, the US Supreme Court overturned the country's capital
laws because of the arbitrary way in which death sentences were
being handed out.   Four years later it gave the green light for
executions to resume after ruling that newly-enacted capital
statutes would cure the system of its capricious tendencies. The
execution of Gary Gilmore went ahead six months later after he
fought every attempt to stop it.  He was the first of more than
90 prisoners who have dropped their appeals and "consented" to
their execution.

Racial and geographic bias remains widespread. Eighty per cent of
the more than 750 prisoners executed since 1977 were convicted of
killing whites, even though blacks and whites are the victims of
murder in almost equal numbers. Eighty per cent were executed in
the southern US states, a third in Texas alone. More than 60 were
prosecuted in a single Texas jurisdiction, Harris County.

The US capital justice system is error-prone. Since Gary Gilmore
was shot, more than 90 prisoners have been released from death
rows after evidence of their innocence emerged.  Many had spent
years on death row and some had come close to execution. Factors
contributing to their wrongful convictions include inadequate
legal representation, prosecutorial misconduct and false
confessions given under duress.

Read the report:
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/AMR510032002?OpenDocument


You may repost this message onto other sources provided the main
text is n

All Satanists Unite in Defence of George Bush and the HomelandDefence Czar!!

[Jei]

01-07-02: A Voice from Abroad: Give greed a chance
By Linda Deak

January 7, 2002 -- The 47 percent of the country who voted for Bush wanted 
some or all of the things that Republicans support: all stops pulled out to 
give greedy money-making free rein; less governmental controls; smaller 
government; reduced taxes, more and "better" religion in government; more 
baseball and less policy, a simpler America, by America and for America.

His supporters were attracted by his down home simplicity, his black/white, 
evil/good thinking. The steam rolling that had Bush declared the president 
was fueled by money, a lot of it oil money. The press and the polls were 
loyally Republican and they did their part. It did not matter that the 
greed candidate had a pitifully stocked brain and we had entered the 
Information Age. It did not matter that he was clueless about the outside 
world as the globe spun towards a one-world vision. It was about money and 
the belief that money was what mattered most in America. It was about not 
being fancy, not being complicated.

Let's make an assessment of the bomb damage in our country and I do not 
mean the plane bombs. I mean the damage the Supreme Court inflicted on us 
by not allowing us to have the winner of our election lead our country. It 
has occurred to me at several junctures since Election 2000 that perhaps 
the angst that many of us feel is a waste of energy. There is an enormous 
backfire building; the ironies are beautiful. Everyone in the world knows 
that Bush and friends brought shame to our nation and that democracy in our 
country is in serious jeopardy. His presidency is not a win for America. It 
is not a win for Republicans and it is not a win for the corporations that 
fought with vigor and paid handsomely to give greed a chance by having their
corporate puppet appointed.

Here is an irony: corporations are all looking pretty nasty right now. 
Enron, the leader of the pack, has shamed the oil industry and is taking 
others down through association. There is going to be so much sunshine put 
on their avarice and shenanigans that it will take decades for that 
industry to recover, if ever. In spite of Bush never suggesting such a 
thing, "alternate methods" are back in vogue. Perhaps it is the beginning 
of the end for the oil industry.

Then there is the wonderful backfire to the Christian Coalition. Pat 
Robertson and Jerry Falwell made themselves infamous in the days after the 
attack. It has been distressing to watch these fellows take religion and 
reduce it to a very base and low level, insisting on their brand of 
religion being wedged into our government. Now they have even had to settle 
a disgraceful racial discrimination lawsuit. Whose religion is this?

There is the matter of the economy. Look at the graphs. Ever since Bush's 
appointment there has been a steady decline. We are now deep into the 
recession and even though Republicans paid fortunes to place him in office, 
it is costing them their shirts because he is staying in office. They are 
not going to get their corporate welfare checks after all. The greed again 
is not attractive.

Bush makes American business and our country look like sharp-elbowed, 
completely selfish people. We are not citizens of the world; we are 
vultures of the world. The Bush policy is: what is good for America is all 
that matters and business is what we care about, not the environment. Nice 
folks we are.

Do you know about Lynn Cheney's ACTA group that puts academics on lists for 
not being patriotic enough, being too intellectual, asking the wrong 
questions? You got to love that hypocrisy. The people who stole the 
election, made a sham of American democracy, now decide who is patriotic 
and who is not. I lodge this complaint wrapped in an old fashioned flag, 
the Betsy Ross flag, the one that flew when our forefathers carved out 
America, not the cheap imitations being fashioned and flown now. I would be 
proud to be on Lynn Cheney's list. My descendents would be able to claim to 
be Daughters and Sons of Lynne Cheney's ACTA List. (ACTA stands for 
American Council of Trustees and Alumni and her report can be found on the 
Internet at goacta.org).

The corporatized media have betrayed their integrity and their profession. 
They have betrayed their readership, the thinkers, who are their customers. 
This independent press, which is publishing this article, is going to 
flourish as a result, maybe even usurp the big guys. In spite of threats, 
our freedom of speech is deep inside us; it lies on the double helix in the 
American DNA. Ashcroft cannot wrest that out of us, no matter how many 
bibles and guns he flashes at us, his Draculas, the American Terrorist 
Truth Sayers.

Bush and his minions tell us that the American lifestyle is the envy of the 
world. That is simply not true.

Because corporate media decide what we should and should not know and the 
choices they make are based on what is best for th

Securing American Airlines - Free Drugs For All

[Jei]

http://homokaasu.org/huhhahhei.htm

Securing American Airlines - Free Drugs For All
Thu Jan 17 2002
by Bob Millerton

Drug Users Anonymous USA spokesperson suggested on Wednesday that all
passengers on American Airlines should be drugged and chained, or at 
the least provided with free narcotics to sedate themselves with. This
in turn would provide the absolute security required by the United States
citizens to resume their flights.

The spokesperson denied to identify herself, but she was adamant in
demanding equal treatment from American Airlines to all of its customers,
equal to those provided by the Taliban military. 'All the cursomers should
be equally sedated during the flights to improved the flight security.'
She said. 'It is absolutely pura racism, and nothing more, that only Arabs
and especially Taleban should be given drugs during their flights.'

American Airlines spokesperson Mike Smith commented that this might
improve the airline popularity, and that they could probably cut a deal
with the CIA for taking up some of the drugs importing business from them,
or at the least have CIA provide the drugs.

The CIA press contacts didn't offer any comments in time for this story.

EFN DEMANDS ACQUITTAL AND FULL REDRESS FOR JON JOHANSEN

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:00:15 -0600 (CST)
From: InfoSec News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ISN] PRESS RELEASE: 'DVD case' 

Forwarded from: Frode E. Nyboe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

This is the English version of EFN's Norwegian press release.

The text is also found at the following URL:

http://www.efn.no/freejon01-2002.html

---


PRESS RELEASE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EFN DEMANDS ACQUITTAL AND FULL REDRESS FOR JON JOHANSEN

The civil rights movement Electronic Frontier Norway (EFN) notes
that Økokrim (The National Authority for Investigation and
Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway), after
two years of investigation, has brought charges against Jon
Johansen in the 'DVD case'.

Xkokrim's leader Inger Marie Sunde claims to the Norwegian News
Agency NTB that public interest necessitates indictment in this
case.

EFN declares that this prosecution is opposed to public interest
and contributes to undermining and erasing fundamental consumer
rights.  The authorities are uncritically giving in to lobbying
from and a shortsighted and unchecked self-interest of American
film- and entertainment industry giants.

Jon Johansen, in collaboration with others, made a program (DeCSS)
which allows anyone to play a DVD-disc on computers which have
open operating systems such as Linux installed.  DeCSS circumvents
a software access control mechanism called CSS, which is
incorporated in most DVDs.  The essence in the DeCSS case is that
CSS restricts PLAYBACK, and NOT copying.  So in fact, CSS bars a
consumer from playing a legally obtained DVD disc in a player of
choice.  These kinds of restrictions on playback not only reduce
the value of the DVD disc to the consumer, they also erase the
right to watch a DVD where, when and how a consumer wants to.

CSS does not restrict the copying of DVDs, and can therefore not
be seen as a protection against unauthorized copying/piracy.
Piracy can be done with or without (bypassing) CSS.  However,
American film and entertainment industry giants have contrived,
via intense lobbying, to get laws passed which have made it
illegal to circumvent all types of digital restrictions
(software-based obstructions) on digital content.  These digital
restrictions are user access blocks that apply to playback as well
as copying.  This way, the consumer's right to choose playback
equipment, and the right to produce copies for personal use, has
effectively been outlawed.  This is no different than a law
restricting, for example, the right to copy music from a CD to an
audio tape for use in one's car or at work, or to create an audio
tape with one's own selection of music.

Unfortunately, there is a dangerous trend involving all types of
digital media and content whereby all carrier products of digital
content (such as DVDs, CDs, E-books, and others) are encumbered
with different types of user access restrictions which severely
impede or eliminate the user's ability to play back as well as
copy.  The reason or impetus for this trend is the film and
entertainment industry giants's unchecked craving for shortsighted
economic gain by forcing consumers to (1) buy playback equipment
at inflated prices (cheaper competing products are forced out of
the market by the digital access restrictions, thus establishing
an artificial monopoly) and (2) buy many separate copies of the
same work (one for the home, one for the car, one for the
workplace, one for the cell phone...).

EFN affirms that the indictment against Jon Johansen is alarming
and hostile to all consumer interests.  A ruling against Johansen
would imply a criminalization of normal and fundamental consumer
rights.  A victory for Jon Johansen, however, would be a victory
for all consumers, and a step in the right direction towards
restoring consumer rights and interests.  Jon Johansen is innocent
and must be found not guilty and be given full redress.

EFN Press Contacts:

  Bjxrn Remseth (EFN president)
  Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Cell phone: +47 9134 1332

  Knut Yrvin (EFN member of the board)
  Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Phone: +47 2232 0202

EFN is a Norwegian civil liberties organization working to protect
and promote freedom of expression, privacy, the use of open media
formats on the net, public access to online resources and
information, and open standards for IT infrastructures.  Inspired
by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the USA, EFN was founded
January 19, 1995.
www.efn.no



-
ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org

To unsubscribe email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY
of the mail.

Somalia's President says the USA terrorizes the Country (CNN)

[Jei]

http://www.khilafah.com/1421/category.php?DocumentID=3101&TagID=2

SOMALIA'S PRESIDENT SAYS THE USA TERRORIZES THE COUNTRY

The president of Somalia’s interim government says the population is
“terrorized by a propagation campaign launched by the USA” that tries to
present Somalia as the country that could become a shelter for Osama bin
Laden and his followers.

President Abdikassim Salad Hassan told in his interview to Reuters in
Sudan’s capital Khartoum, that fear of US’s bombardments hampers peaceful
settlement in the country. Washington considers Somalia as a potential
target in the war against terrorism.

“The people are terrified by a threat of US’s attack on the poor country
destroyed after a ten-year civil war”, told the president. He stressed once
again, no bin Laden’s units were stationed in Somalia.

“We want the international community to help Somalia unite, so that the
country could not become a center for terrorism in the future.”

Speaking about resources designed for struggle with terrorism, Somalia’s
president mentioned problems of the government: governmental officials have
not been paid salaries for four months already, the Ministry for Information
has only one telephone line. He said, the feudal lords who want to throw off
the central government, try to profit by US’s unexpected attention to
Somalia. “For the sake of their selfish interests they want US’s bombing in
Somalia to seize the power as the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.”

Abdikassim Salad Hassim says that Somalia is not like Afghanistan, and the
interim government is not like the Taliban and he himself is not Mullah
Mohammed Omar.

US officials visited the feudal lords, the opposition to Somalia’s
government in the southern town of Baidoa.

President Abdikassim reminded the USA about catastrophic consequences of its
“humanitarian” mission in Somalia at the beginning of the 90s. It is
evident, the president told, that only striving for peace, not for a new war
is the way to beat terrorism.

Israel Spying on America

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 07:34:17 +1100
From: Bond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ParanoidTimes] Spying on America

Spying on America 
  Charles R. Smith
  Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2002 
FBI Investigates Foreign Spy Ring - U.S. Companies Deny Involvement

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the FBI reportedly stumbled on an 
espionage ring that had penetrated the wiretapping system of U.S. law enforcement. Fox 
News Channel reported that the FBI was holding nearly 100 Israeli citizens with direct 
ties to foreign military, criminal and intelligence services. 
In a follow-up to these reports, the FBI did not deny that such actions had been 
taken. However, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson would not answer specific questions on the 
reported espionage. 

"We have seen the Fox News segments that aired several weeks ago on this topic and 
found some inaccuracies with it. Because they are sensitive issues, I do not have the 
luxury of discussing what precisely was accurate and what was inaccurate about their 
reporting," stated Paul Bresson, spokesman for the FBI. 

"Most of the questions [asked by NewsMax.com] are not directly answerable by CALEA 
[Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act]. Your questions may be more 
properly addressed to our National Security Division, which I know would never discuss 
this with you, unfortunately," stated Bresson. 

Employees of U.S. Companies Reportedly Involved 

The espionage operation reportedly includes employees of two companies that perform 
official wiretaps for U.S. local, state and federal law enforcement: Comverse Infosys 
and Amdocs. Official spokesman for both companies denied any involvement in the 
alleged espionage ring. 

"Amdocs is unaware of any investigation or allegations and has not been contacted by 
any agency," stated Dan Ginsberg, of the PR firm Porter Novelli, for Amdocs. 

"Amdocs has not been involved in any illegal or improper activity," said Ginsberg 
flatly. 

"We know of absolutely no factual basis for suggestions that intelligence agencies or 
others have misused our products for illicit purposes," stated Paul Baker, spokesman 
for Comverse. 

"In particular, no company employees have been involved in any of the incidents 
referred to in your December 19 story. Moreover, the reference in that story to a 
suspected abuse of our equipment in a foiled Los Angeles drug bust was completely 
erroneous. Our equipment was not involved in any such incident," said Baker. 

"Comverse Technology is a New York-based corporation that has been publicly traded for 
15 years. It is an S&P 500 and a NASDAQ-100 Index company that has won a worldwide 
leadership position in telecommunications," noted Baker. 

"More than 10 years ago, Comverse established Comverse Infosys Technology as a 
separate subsidiary to meet the monitoring applications needs of some U.S. customers. 
This group maintains the high-level security clearances these customers require," said 
Baker. 

"In full compliance with U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) regulations, this 
subsidiary's operations are completely segregated from all other Comverse businesses 
and are insulated from any foreign influence," said Baker. 

"The board of directors overseeing these operations consists of former high-level 
military officers, including two retired Air Force generals appointed by the DOD. In 
addition, the DOD monitors Comverse Infosys Technology's operations to ensure they 
remain in full regulatory compliance. 

"All equipment supplied by Comverse complies with all applicable government security 
requirements. The notion that 'backdoor' access has been built into the systems is 
absurd. For more than 10 years, these systems have been sold to customers in more than 
40 countries, who have subjected them to rigorous and continuous security testing 
without a single reported breach," said Baker. 

"As with any computer equipment that sits on a network, the Comverse systems are 
protected by the security measures and access restrictions imposed by the user of the 
network, whether a government agency or telephone operator. We fully support the 
evolving CALEA standard, and remain committed to maintaining our industry leadership 
in providing secure and reliable systems," concluded Baker. 

FBI Response Raises Questions 

Despite the extensive denials by Amdocs and Comverse, the curious response by the FBI 
has raised more questions than answers. Sources inside Capitol Hill are investigating 
the allegations and made no comments on the allegations of espionage at this time. 
However, the demands for answers continued to grow outside political circles. 

"If national security is the overriding issue in the FBI's treatment of this case, the 
correct response to your questions should have been 'Sorry, we have no comment at this 
time,'" said Douglas Brown of the Nathan Hale Institute. 

"Of course, the most r

CIA, encourage promotion of vices to divert Palestinian Youth

[Jei]

http://ummahnews.com/viewarticle.php?sid=2515


CIA, encourage promotion of vices to divert Palestinian Youth.
2002-01-15 21:56:03

IAP News
15 January 2002

Representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israeli Shin
Beth experts have recommended that the relatively conservative Palestinian
society be flooded with pornography, drugs and gambling in order to keep
Palestinian youths away from joining the resistance against Israeli
occupation and apartheid.

A high-ranking Palestinian intelligence officer has intimated that American
and Israeli intelligence experts discussed "this issue" many times.

"The idea first came from the Israeli side who suggested that only these
things could take Palestinian youths away from their hostile fixation on
Israel."

The officer said Israeli Shin Beth already instructed some independent
television stations in the West Bank to screen "liberal and
semi-pornographic movies."

He mentioned at least one television station in the southern part of the
West Bank.

The officer said the Israeli government didn't go "far enough" due to
objections and protests from Jewish settlers who argued that pornographic
materials on local screens could have a detrimental effect on the settler
population.

"The settlers are mostly religious people and like most Palestinians, they
don't like these things."

Asked what the Palestinian Authority thought about this, the Palestinian
officer said the PA was being vigilant and would do all it could to thwart
Zionist designs to that effect.

Israel had used drugs and sexual blackmail intensively prior to the Oslo
Accords for the purpose of enlisting Palestinian collaborators for the Shin
Beth.

Thus, collaborators where given almost complete liberty to sell drugs and to
trade in pornographic materials in return for acting as informers for the
Israeli army.

Los Alamos Scientist Criticizes FBI in Book

[Jei]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52000-2002Jan15.html

Los Alamos Scientist Criticizes FBI in Book
Lee Calls Copied Tapes 'Crown Junk'

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 16, 2002; Page A08

Former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee maintains he was selected for
prosecution because of his ethnic background and asserts that the computer
tapes he downloaded, which were the basis of his guilty plea, were not the
"crown jewels" of nuclear weapons building, but "largely the crown junk."

In his newly published autobiography, "My Country Versus Me," written with
the help of Helen Zia, Lee acknowledges that his downloading of computer
tapes was a security violation. But he blames the multi-year FBI
investigation of his activities and his jailing in solitary confinement for
nine months on espionage charges partly on Washington hysteria and spineless
bureaucrats.

Most of all, the Taiwan-born Lee writes, "Had I not been Chinese, I never
would have been accused of espionage and threatened with execution."

Lee's book, however, does not totally explain why he downloaded computer
codes associated with nuclear weapons designs in 1993-94, and again in 1997.
In fact, he focuses his attention on the earlier download and not at all on
those of 1997.

As he did in earlier interviews, he said in his book that the downloading in
the 1993-94 period was done "to protect my files, to make a backup copy." He
adds, as he did just before his guilty plea to the surprise of his own
lawyers, that he had "made more than one backup copy, actually." Why more
than one backup? Because, he writes, "there were no lab rules against making
copies -- most prudent people keep copies of their important documents."

He also said he had "lost some important codes before, when the [Los Alamos
computer] operating system changed, and I didn't want that to happen again."

But, as Los Alamos senior scientists testified at Lee's trial, and another
newly published book on the Lee case, "A Convenient Spy," repeats, Los
Alamos scientists in the highly classified X Division where Lee worked were
repeatedly offered opportunities to copy their own work in case of computer
failure, "day by day, even computer stroke by computer stroke," one said
recently.

Reporters Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman provide another reason for Lee's
downloading. He might have wanted to use the data in a future job, either
with a Taiwan company called Asiatek, which has close ties to that country's
defense ministry, or some other company.

As for the computer codes themselves, called the "crown jewels" of the
nuclear weapons business by one of the nuclear lab's senior scientists, Lee
called them "the crown junk" and "the biggest nuclear weapons secret that
[Los Alamos National Laboratory] and the government have to hide.

"The cornerstone of nuclear deterrence," Lee writes, "is to scare the rest
of the world into thinking that our weapons are bigger, stronger, faster,
and far more destructive than theirs." And while saying that statement is
true, Lee goes on to say, "the science of nuclear weapons hasn't progressed
much" since the end of the Cold War and the test ban treaty.

He says scientists like himself still at the U.S. weapons labs "spend their
time figuring out what to do with rusty, old nuclear bombs." The stockpile
stewardship program, "fixing old bombs and digging up old test data" in
trying to keep U.S. nuclear weapons safe and reliable, is "like eating
leftovers for dinner, [but] it's better than nothing."

Much of the preliminary testimony and motions in court went Lee's way,
particularly because of the work of his two lead lawyers, John Cline and
Mark Holscher.

But when the decision came before trial to accept an agreement that included
pleading guilty to one count of mishandling classified information, Lee
writes that Cline and Holscher told him he had a 95 percent chance of
winning "if it goes to trial, but a five percent chance that we could lose.
If we lose, you could face life in prison. Are you willing to take that
risk?"

Saying "it was not worth the risk of spending the rest of my life in
prison," Lee said he agreed, since losing the right to vote, own a gun, run
for public office or serve on a jury was "less of a sacrifice . . . than to
risk a prison sentence."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Lawmaker Wants Magic Lantern Information From FBI

[Jei]

http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173637.html

Lawmaker Wants Magic Lantern Information From FBI

By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,
14 Jan 2002, 7:27 PM CST

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, in a letter last week told the FBI that he is
concerned about the bureau's refusal to provide information about the
existence of a computer and e-mail surveillance plan dubbed "Magic Lantern."

In the letter, provided to the Politech mailing list by Paul's legislative
director Norman Singleton, the Congressman asked FBI Director Robert Mueller
to hand over information on the keystroke monitoring program, "or provide me
with written justification for the FBI's refusal to share information on
this crucial issue."

Paul asked for a response within two weeks.

"If ... media reports are accurate, the Magic Lantern project could greatly
impact the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans who communicate via
e-mail," Paul said. "Recently, my legislative director attempted to obtain
information on this project from the FBI and was told such information was
classified. Considering the potential impact of Magic Lantern, I am sure you
can understand why I was disturbed by this refusal."

Media reports have said that the FBI could distribute Magic Lantern the same
way worms thread through the Internet, which would eliminate the need for
law enforcement to physically install monitoring programs on suspect's
computers.

Privacy advocates are concerned that a program such as Magic Lantern could
help the FBI circumvent the normal process of subjecting to a court's
oversight when using surveillance tools.

FBI officials had no immediate comment on the letter.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .

19:27 CST

(20020114/WIRES TOP, ONLINE, LEGAL, PC/)

© 2002 PostNewsweek Tech Media


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Finally, A Solution To The DMCA!

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 23:55:44 -0500
From: Michael Wally <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [DMCA_discuss] DMCA Solution

I'm not sure if this hit this mailing list yet, so if it has, sorry for
re-posting.
I found this floating around the internet and thought you might enjoy it.
I've been reading the list for a while and enjoy the current news quite a
lot.  I have done as much as I can on my end, such as putting anti-dmca.org
banners on the top levels of the domains I have and whatnot.  This is my
first post, and I just wanted to let everyone else know that I like what I
see as far as arranging protests and the wonderful ideas you have come up
with.  Anyhow, onto the Solution.




Finally, A Solution To The DMCA!
August 23, 2001

For years, the geek community has been at the wrong end of
the War on Piracy waged by Hollywood lawyers.  The
situation could change, however, with the unveiling of a
secret weapon -- "The First Church Of Digital Grepping".

This newly created church argues that copying digital
information is a form of religious worship.  As such, it's
protected in the US by the freedom of religion clause in
the First Amendment.

"Rock beats scissors.  And Free Exercise of Religion beats
Digital Millennium Copyright Act(tm).  Ha ha, suckers!"
said the church's High Priest.

Chapter 16, Verse 256 of the Sacred Readme of the First
Church Of Digital Grepping  states:

   On the first day, the Great Programmer created a new
   text file and the Universe was born.

   The Great Programmer flexed his fingers, started
   hacking, and entered Deep Hack Mode.

   First He wrote universe.c.  Then sys/laws_of_physics.h
   and universal_constants.h.  The Great Programmer
   continued his Hacking Binge into the second day  with
   sol.c, which begat terra.c, which begat land_and_sea.c,
   which laid the foundation for the creation of life.c.

   On the third day, He gazed upon his Program and saw that
   it was good.  More he produced: prokaryotes.c,
   eukaryotes.c, sys/dna.h, invertebrates.c, vertebrates.c.

   On the fourth day, the Great Programmer, against his
   better judgement,  coded mankind.c.

   On the fifth day, He compiled his work, and received
   1,024 errors.

   On the sixth day, He debugged.

   On the seventh day, He continued to debug.  Rest is for
   the weak.

   On the eight day, the debugging continued.  Only 128
   compiler warnings did He now receive.

   On the ninth day, the program compiled correctly.  Upon
   execution, it immediately coredumped.

   On the tenth day, The Great Programmer debugged.

   On the eleventh day, He debugged.

   On the twelfth day, He waved a dead chicken, but the
   Great Program continued to segfault.

   On the thirteenth day, He discovered the fatal flaw, a
   misplaced comma He did find.  And then void main()
   executed, and the Big Bang did occur.

   Then the Great Programmer leaned back in his executive
   chair, and gazed upon the newborn Universe.

   And frowned.  He knew those sentient humans would be a
   problem. Even after He had sweated over a hot terminal
   for thirteen days, those humans were ungrateful.  They
   called their place of existence the "Universe", not the
   "Great Programmer/Universe".

   On the fourteenth day, he decided to take action.  He
   would send these humans The Meaning Of Life, and soon
   the world would worship Him and his Hacking Skills.

   He did just that.  He inspired a certain human to
   produce a work of art which includes His message, The
   Meaning Of Life.  Eventually the humans would discover
   the .plan of the Great Programmer hidden in a certain
   work of art and all would be well...

The Sacred Readme is a tad vague, but the church's High
Priest believes that "The Meaning Of Life" is encoded in
either a popular song, or a Hollywood movie, or an Adobe
e-book.

"If only we could figure out which 'work of art' the Sacred
Readme refers to, and then grep through the binary
representation to extract the divine message," the High
Priest explains.

The mission of the church is to make digital copies of
every music CD, every movie DVD, and every printed book and
then grep the digital version for any tell-tale signs of
'The Meaning Of Life'."

"Our church cannot function if the DMCA prohibits us from
making copies as part of the Fair Use Doctrine.  We worship
the Great Programmer by trying to discover His secret
message.  Why should we put the profits of Big Evil
Corporations above the search for The Meaning Of Life?"

Of course, the MPAA, RIAA, DVD-CCA, BSA, and other groups
see things slightly differently.

"This is all bull," said a MPAA spokesperson.  "We didn't
buy a slate of Congressmen to get the DMCA passed just so
some fake parody religion could claim a bogus exemption!"

An investigator for Oracle discovered a hand-written copy
of the Sacred Readme while rummaging through the High
Priest's trash cans.  The P.I. believes that the h

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits By Wayne Madsen

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:03:52 -0500
From: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Homeland Security, Homeland Profits By Wayne Madsen

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits

By Wayne Madsen
Special to CorpWatch
December 21, 2001



WASHINGTON, DC -- Recent moves to beef up intelligence gathering in 
the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks have civil 
libertarians concerned that law enforcement agencies will entangle 
many law abiding citizens and social justice groups in their 
surveillance missions. Intelligence networks are setting their sights 
on the Internet, which up to now has had no clear privacy guidelines. 
Under the provisions of the inaptly named anti-terrorism act, 
"USA-PATRIOT," the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National 
Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and a 
number of other smaller law enforcement agencies are looking for ways 
to monitor the Internet and mine useful intelligence from it. And new 
technology makes it easier than ever to spy on the Internet.

Although law enforcement and intelligence agencies claim they are 
merely looking for information to counter future acts of terrorism, 
the definition of "terrorism" is being expanded to cover non-violent 
groups that have traditionally used the Internet to marshal 
resistance to corporate-inspired globalization. Politicians are 
already painting dissent as "unpatriotic" and therefore somehow 
linked to terrorism.

Meanwhile, a phalanx of software companies, consultants, and defense 
contractors stand to reap billions of dollars over the next few years 
by selling surveillance and information-gathering systems to 
government agencies and the private sector.

Technology Already in the Hands of Law Enforcement

Law enforcement agencies like the FBI already have at their disposal 
a massive information sharing network through which federal, state, 
local, and foreign police forces can exchange information on groups 
felt to pose a threat. The system, RISSNET, or Regional Information 
Sharing System Network, which existed before the September 11th 
attacks, recently got a boost when Congress authorized additional 
money for it in the USA PATRIOT Act.

RISSNET is a secure intranet that connects 5,700 law enforcement 
agencies in all 50 states, as well as agencies in Ontario and Quebec, 
the District of Columbia, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, 
and Australia. According to sources close to the Washington 
Metropolitan Police, data on targeted local groups such as the 
Alliance for Global Justice, the anti-World Bank/International 
Monetary Fund activist organization, has been shared with other 
jurisdictions through RISSNET.

RISSNET has also been used to coordinate the monitoring of the 
activities of anti-globalization protestors in Seattle, Quebec City, 
Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington DC and Genoa. For example, when 
the FBI seized network server logs from Independent Media Center 
(IMC) in Seattle during the April 2001 anti-free trade protests in 
Quebec City, RISSNET was used to coordinate activities across 
jurisdictional boundaries. The IMC, founded during the 1999 WTO 
protests, allows activists and independent journalists to post 
directly to its site.

State and metropolitan police intelligence units also monitor the web 
sites of activist organizations in their jurisdictions. All RISS 
intelligence is archived by an Orwellian-sounding entity called 
MAGLOCLEN or "Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law 
Enforcement Network." There are other regional RISS intelligence 
centers around the country with equally mysterious acronyms. 
MAGLOCLEN, a nerve center headquartered in Newtown, Pennsylvania, 
distributes political intelligence to all police departments hooked 
up to RISSNET.

MAGLOCLEN allows police investigators to link various activist groups 
and members through the Link Association Analysis sub-system, a 
relational data base that identifies the "friends and families" of 
groups and individuals. The Telephone Record Analysis sub-system can 
call up records of phone calls of targeted groups and individuals. A 
suspect group's banking and other commercial data can be monitored by 
the Financial Analysis sub-system. And through a system that would 
have been the envy of J. Edgar Hoover, police and federal agents can 
also call up profiles that provide specific information on the 
composition of organizations, including their membership lists. The 
Justice Department has instituted a project called RISSNET II, which 
directly links the individual databases contained within the various 
RISS centers.

The FBI also runs its own intranet called Law Enforcement On-line or 
"LEO," which allows it to communicate intelligence with select other 
law enforcement agencies. In the aftermath of September 11th , the 
FBI is under pre

Drugs Squad Fumes As Bookshop Shields Reader

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:13:01 -0500
From: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Drugs Squad Fumes As Bookshop Shields Reader

Little victories amid a great disaster. The success of drug policy reform
in the U.S. is like sailing up the English Cannel against a springs tide:
making 6 knots over the water and yet seeing the land slip irrevocably
toward the fore.

Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jan 2002
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 The Observer
Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website: http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Author: Lawrence Donegan, in San Francisco

DRUGS SQUAD FUMES AS BOOKSHOP SHIELDS READER

Prize-Winning US Writers Queue Up To Defend Privacy Of Customer Who Bought
Uncle Fester's Illicit Manual

It never won a Pulitzer or appeared on the New York Times bestseller lists
but a 400-page book about the manufacture of illicit drugs by an author
known as Uncle Fester is at the centre of a legal battle over the privacy
of the US book-buying public. In what has been described as a landmark case
for the US book industry, the Tattered Cover bookshop in Denver, Colorado,
has spent 18 months resisting the attempts of both police and courts to
obtain the identity of a customer who purchased Uncle Fester's opus,
Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Drug Laboratories .

Many of the country's most celebrated authors, publishers and booksellers
are supporting the shop, which has argued that handing over the information
would be a serious attack on free speech.

'There is a right to privacy in this country and that includes the right to
read what we like without government interference,' says award-winning
novelist Michael Chabon. 'If the police get what they are after in this
case, what is to stop them demanding to know all sorts of things - like who
has been reading books about any subject the authorities deem to be
'dangerous', such as religious beliefs that don't fit into the so-called
mainstream.'

Chabon, who won the Pulitzer last year for his novel The Amazing Adventures
of Kavalier and Clay, is one of several leading writers, including David
Eggers, Dorothy Allison and the children's book author Daniel Handler, who
have giving financial support to the Tattered Cover's legal defence fund,
along with the American Booksellers' Foundation.

'People shop in bookstores on the understanding that their choices are
confidential,' says Chris Finan, president of the ABF's Foundation for Free
Expression. 'There are a lot of books about subjects - mental health,
sexual dysfunction - that we do not want our wives or husbands to know
we've been reading about. If people know the police can get that kind of
information they will not shop for those books.'

The case centres on a raid by drug enforcement officers at a trailer park
near Denver in March last year. The Uncle Fester book and another called
Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic Drug Laboratories were found
inside a trailer owned by a man suspected of operating a methamphetamine
lab. An envelope discovered in his rubbish bin contained an invoice from
the Tattered Cover.

The following day four plainclothes officers arrived at the shop with a
search warrant, demanding to know if the books were bought there and, if
so, by whom. The shop's owner, Joyce Meskis, refused to provide the
information. 'It is not our job to do the police's work for them,' she said.

Denver police then asked that it enforce the subpoena. At a subsequent
hearing, lawyers for the bookshop argued the police had failed to interview
other witnesses who could have helped convict the suspect. Details of a
customer's purchasing record were not sufficiently important to the
criminal case to justify the 'chilling effect' that releasing such
information would have on the right to free speech enshrined in the First
Amendment, they said.

However, the court upheld the police request - a decision which has been
challenged by the shop's owners in the State's Supreme Court. A ruling on
the appeal is expected in the next few weeks.

The case has echoes of that brought by Kenneth Starr against two bookshops
in Washington DC during his investigation into the Monica Lewinsky
'scandal'. When it emerged that Lewinsky - who was said to have given
President Clinton several books as presents - was a regular customer at the
shops, Starr demanded to see her purchase records. The shops' owners
resisted his request, but the case never reached court after Lewinsky
struck a deal with the former Independent Counsel.

Finan said yesterday there was a growing problem with authorities seeking
private information from bookshops. 'I'm afraid this may be a bad idea
whose time has come, and the chilling effect on publishing could be very
serious indeed. In the Lewinsky case, a false rumour went around that the
bookshops were going to comply with 

James Bovard On Fighting Terrorism, Saving Tyrants

[Jei]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:17:53 -0500
From: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: James Bovard On Fighting Terrorism, Saving Tyrants

Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 23:21:08 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Jim Bovard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Matt - Fighting Terrorism, Saving Tyrants

Matt:
Thought you might enjoy this bouquet for the war on terrorism.
take it easy,
Jim


  USA Today   January 10, 2002

   Don't bed down with tyrants to fight terrorism
   By James Bovard

   President Bush recently declared: "So long as anybody's
   terrorizing established governments, there needs to 
be a war."
   Bush rightfully sought international support for the campaign
   to put the al_Qaeda terrorist network out of 
business. But the
   war on terrorism threatens to become a license for tyranny.
   The United Nations is concerned that an expansive call for
   governments to crack down on terrorism - a crime that is not
   clearly defined - is spurring a surge of oppression 
around the
   world. Los Angeles Times writer William Orme detailed some of
   the ways governments are exploiting the new war to repress
   their citizens:

   The Cuban government, as part of its war on 
terrorism, added a
   new law allowing the death penalty for anyone who uses the
   Internet to incite political violence.

   Zimbabwe's war on terrorism includes a proposal to 
criminalize
   any critical comment about President_dictator Robert Mugabe.

   Syria bragged to the U.N. that financial support for
   terrorists was effectively curtailed by the absence of any
   private banking system or independent charities, Orme
   reported. In other words, a government that totally destroys
   freedom expects to be applauded as an 
anti_terrorist  superstar.

   Bacre Waly Ndiaye, a chief U.N. human_rights 
officer, recently
   complained: "In some countries, non_violent activities have
   been considered as terrorism, and excessive 
measures have been
   taken to suppress or restrict individual rights, 
including the
   presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, freedom
   from torture, privacy rights, freedom of expression and
   assembly, and the right to seek asylum."

   Many of these complaints, in fact, apply to the 
actions of the
   Bush administration. A new law decimates individual 
privacy by
   giving the FBI the de facto right to vacuum up practically
   anyone's e_mail. Permanent resident aliens who publicly
   criticize the U.S. government's war on terrorism 
can be banned
   from re_entering the United States. Some have floated the
   suggestion that permitting the torture of suspects could help
   avert future terrorist attacks. And Bush's 
executive order for
   military tribunals threatens to bring unsavory aspects of
   Third World "justice" to American shores.

   A myopic focus on private_sector criminals risks giving a
   green light to more dangerous government abuses. A core
   fallacy of the war on terrorism - as opposed to attacking and
   destroying al_Qaeda - is that terrorism is worse 
than anything
   else imaginable. Unfortunately, governments have 
committed far
   worse abuses than al_Qaeda or any other terrorist cabal.


 Official murderers
   Mass murder was the most memorable achievement of some
   20th_century governments. The Black Book of Communism, a 1997
   scholarly French compendium, detailed how 85 million to 100
   million people came to die at the hands of communist regimes
   in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and elsewhere. In Death
   by Government, R.J. Rummel declared that some 170 million
   people were killed in one of "the myriad ways 
governments have
   inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and 
foreigners."

  By raising terrorist attacks to the pinnacle of political
   evil, the war on terrorism implicitly sanctifies whatever
   tactic governments use in the name of repressing terrorism.
   But, in the long run, people have far more to fear from

FW: US doesn't have the right to decide PoW status

[Jei]

-Original Message-
From: International Justice Watch Discussion List
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
On Behalf Of Daniel Tomasevich
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 7:19 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: US doesn't have the right to decide PoW status

This article adds to the discussion that the Taliban are PoWs.

   Once in front of a court or tribunal, the Pentagon might argue that
   the Taliban were not the government of Afghanistan and that their
   armed forces were not the armed forces of a party to the convention.
   The problem here is that the convention is widely regarded as an
   accurate statement of customary international law, unwritten rules
   binding on all. Even if the Taliban were not formally a party to the
   convention, both they and the US would still have to comply.

Daniel

(article not for cross posting)

-

   The Guardian Monday January 14, 2002
   Comment

   US doesn't have the right to decide who is or isn't a PoW

   Ignore the Geneva convention and we put our own citizens in peril

   Michael Byers

   Would you want your life to be in the hands of US secretary of defence
   Donald Rumsfeld? Hundreds of captured Taliban and al-Qaida fighters
   don't have a choice. Chained, manacled, hooded, even sedated, their
   beards shorn off against their will, they are being flown around the
   world to Guantanamo Bay, a century-old military outpost seized during
   the Spanish-American war and subsequently leased from Cuba by the US.
   There, they are being kept in tiny chain-link outdoor cages, without
   mosquito repellent, where (their captors assure us) they are likely to
   be rained upon.

   Since Guantanamo Bay is technically foreign territory, the detainees
   have no rights under the US constitution and cannot appeal to US
   federal courts. Any rights they might have under international law
   have been firmly denied. According to Rumsfeld, the detainees "will be
   handled not as prisoners of war, because they are not, but as unlawful
   combatants".

   This unilateral determination of the detainees' status is highly
   convenient, since the 1949 Geneva convention on the treatment of
   prisoners of war stipulates that PoWs can only be tried by "the same
   courts according to the same procedure as in the case of members of
   the armed forces of the detaining power". The Pentagon clearly intends
   to prosecute at least some of the detainees in special military
   commissions having looser rules of evidence and a lower burden of
   proof than regular military or civilian courts. This will help to
   protect classified information, but also substantially increase the
   likelihood of convictions. The rules of evidence and procedure for the
   military commissions will be issued later this month by none other
   than Donald Rumsfeld.

   The Geneva convention also makes it clear that it isn't for Rumsfeld
   to decide whether the detainees are ordinary criminal suspects rather
   than PoWs. Anyone detained in the course of an armed conflict is
   presumed to be a PoW until a competent court or tribunal determines
   otherwise. The record shows that those who negotiated the convention
   were intent on making it impossible for the determination to be made
   by any single person.

   Once in front of a court or tribunal, the Pentagon might argue that
   the Taliban were not the government of Afghanistan and that their
   armed forces were not the armed forces of a party to the convention.
   The problem here is that the convention is widely regarded as an
   accurate statement of customary international law, unwritten rules
   binding on all. Even if the Taliban were not formally a party to the
   convention, both they and the US would still have to comply.

   The Pentagon might also argue that al-Qaida members were not part of
   the Taliban's regular armed forces. Traditionally, irregulars could
   only benefit from PoW status if they wore identifiable insignia, which
   al-Qaida members seem not to have done. But the removal of the Taliban
   regime was justified on the basis that al-Qaida and the Taliban were
   inextricably linked, a justification that weakens the claim that the
   former are irregulars.

   Moreover, the convention has to be interpreted in the context of
   modern international conflicts, which share many of the aspects of
   civil wars and tend not to involve professional soldiers on both
   sides. Since the convention is designed to protect persons, not
   states, the guiding principle has to be the furtherance of that
   protection. This principle is manifest in the presumption that every
   detainee is a PoW until a competent court or tribunal determines
   otherwise.

   This too is the position of the International Committee of the Red
   Cross, which plays a supervisory role over the convention. The Red
   Cross and Amnesty International have both expressed concerns ove