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SAN FRANCISCO News:
Gay
- Religion
-  Politics-  People
- San
Francisco - California
- Salt
Lake City -  Utah
"Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage." ... "Less than two weeks before [2008] Election Day, [Frank Schubert] the chief strategist behind a ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage in California called an emergency meeting here." ... "The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president [David McKay] of the Mormon Church." ... "The California measure, Proposition 8, was to many Mormons a kind of firewall to be held at all costs." ... "First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco [California] a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties." ... "Shortly after receiving the invitation from the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City [Utah's capital] issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations, saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause." ... "“And they sure did,” Mr. Schubert said." ... "Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect Marriage, estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts." ... "In the end, Protect Marriage estimates, as much as half of the nearly $40 million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons." (1, 2) -By Jesse McKinley and Kirk Johnson -NYTimes 
 Al
Gore -  Barack
Obama -  Global
-  Climate
-  Technology
-  Money
-  Environmental
-  Emissions
-  Law
- Politics
- San
Francisco - California
"Gore urges US to try for 100% renewable energy within a decade." ... "[Democratic President-Elect] Barack Obama should set drastic targets to force the US [United States] to switch to renewable energy in an effort to slow down climate change, according to the former [Democratic] vice president Al Gore. Gore said that one of Obama's first acts as US president should be to demand a move to 100% renewable energy within 10 years." ... ""We can do that," he said during the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco [California] last Friday. "The declaration from [Democratic] President [John F] Kennedy that we would land a man on the moon and bring him back safely was thought by many to be impossible."" ... "During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to invest $150bn (£96bn) in renewables over 10 years as part of the plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also cutting carbon emissions. Many hope to see those policies enacted with a far-reaching climate-change bill that would bring the US back into the global environment fold." -By Bobbie Johnson -Guardian.co.uk
 Homes
-  Nevada
-  Florida
- Phoenix
-  Arizona
- Los
Angeles - San
Diego - San
Francisco - California
- Florida
-  Michigan
-  Minnesota
-  Illinois
-  Ohio
-  Georgia
-  New
York - Seattle
-  Washington
-  Massachusetts
- Portland
-  Oregon
-  Colorado
-  Texas
-  North
Carolina
"Home prices down 15.8% in past year, S&P says: Seven of 20 cities tally monthly price gains in May, Case-Shiller data show." ... "Prices in 10 cities fell 16.9% in the past year." ... "Prices thus are at the same levels as they were in the summer of 2004, which means four years of appreciation have been effectively wiped out. Prices are down 18.4% from peak levels seen two years ago." ... "Here's a list of the 20 cities in the Case-Shiller index with the annual decline through May: Las Vegas [Nevada], down 28.4%; Miami [Florida], down 28.3%; Phoenix [Arizona], down 26.5%; Los Angeles [California], down 24.5%; San Diego [California], down 23.2%; San Francisco [California], down 22.9%; Tampa [Florida], down 20.2%; Detroit [Michigan], down 17.4%; Washington [DC], down 15.4%; Minneapolis [Minnesota], down 14.8%; Chicago [Illinois], down 9.4%; Cleveland [Ohio], down 8%; Atlanta [Georgia], and New York [City, New York], both down 7.9%; Seattle [Washington], down 6.3%; Boston [Massachusetts], down 6.2%; Portland [Oregon], down 5.2%; Denver [Colorado], down 4.8%; Dallas [Texas], down 3.1%; and Charlotte, N.C. [North Carolina], down 0.2%." -By Rex Nutting -MarketWatch 
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Government
- 
Electronic
- 
Surveillance
- Data
- Travelers
- 
Flying
- 
Driving
- 
Reading
- People
- Civil
Liberties - 
US
- International
- San
Francisco - California
- 
Alaska
- 
Terrorism
- 
Intelligence
- Politics
- Law
- "Collecting
of Details on Travelers Documented: U.S. Effort More
Extensive Than Previously Known." ... "The U.S. government is collecting
electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly,
drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they
travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys,
and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents
obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government
officials." ... "The personal travel records are meant to be stored for
as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort
to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country.
Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated
Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists
from innocent people entering the country." ... "Officials yesterday defended
the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked
to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged
that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms
about the government's ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people.
The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are
generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not
created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any
errors, activists said." ... "The activists alleged that the data collection
effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering
of data related to Americans' exercise of their First Amendment rights,
such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate.
They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used
to impede their right to travel." ... ""The federal government is trying
to build a surveillance society," said John Gilmore, a civil liberties
activist in San Francisco whose records were requested by the Identity
Project, an ad-hoc group of privacy advocates in California and Alaska.
The government, he said, "may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions.
. . . But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it
with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and
without our consent."" (1, 2)
-By Ellen Nakashima with contributions by Julie Tate
-WashingtonPost
Secret
- 
Phone
- 
E-Mail
- Surveillance
- Company
- Consumer
- Lawsuit
- Politics
- Terrorism
- Government
- Intelligence
- San
Francisco - California
- "Case
Dismissed? The secret lobbying campaign your phone
company doesn't want you to know about." ... "The nation’s biggest telecommunications
companies, working closely with the [Republican President Bush] White House,
have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve
a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the
U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance programs." ... "The
campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and
law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that
a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco [California] is poised to rule
that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed." ... "If that happens,
the telecom companies say, they may be forced to terminate their cooperation
with the U.S. intelligence community—or risk potentially crippling damage
awards for allegedly turning over personal information about their customers
to the government without a judicial warrant." ... "But critics say the
language proposed by the White House—drafted in close cooperation with
the industry officials—is so extraordinarily broad that it would provide
retroactive immunity for all past telecom actions related to the surveillance
program. Its practical effect, they argue, would be to shut down any independent
judicial or state inquires into how the companies have assisted the government
in eavesdropping on the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents in
the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks." ... "Among those coordinating
the industry’s effort are two well-connected capital players who both worked
for President George H.W. Bush: Verizon general counsel William Barr, who
served as attorney general under 41, and AT&T senior executive vice
president James Cicconi, who was the elder Bush's deputy chief of staff."
... "Working with them are a battery of major D.C. lobbyists and lawyers
who are providing "strategic advice" to the companies on the issue, according
to sources familiar with the campaign who asked not to be identified talking
about it. Among the players, these sources said: powerhouse Republican
lobbyists Charlie Black and Wayne Berman (who represent AT&T and Verizon,
respectively), former GOP senator and U.S. ambassador to Germany Dan Coats
(a lawyer at King & Spaulding who is representing Sprint), former Democratic
Party strategist and one-time assistant secretary of State Tom Donilon
(who represents Verizon), former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick
(whose law firm also represents Verizon) and Brad Berenson, a former assistant
White House counsel under President George W. Bush who now represents AT&T."
(1,
2,
3)
-By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
-MSNBC /Newsweek
Government
- Intelligence
- Wiretap
- Secrets
- Phone
- E-Mail
- 
Internet
- Messages
- Technology
- Companies
- Politics
- San
Francisco - California
- "Classified
evidence debated: Court likely to allow suit against
AT&T, reject wiretap case." ... "A federal appeals court holding a
high-stakes hearing Wednesday in San Francisco [California] on President
Bush's clandestine eavesdropping program appeared inclined to keep alive
a lawsuit accusing AT&T of illegally letting the government intercept
millions of Americans' phone calls and e-mails." ... "At the same hearing,
however, the panel appeared skeptical about a suit by a defunct Islamic
charity that said it had evidence that it and two of its lawyers had been
wiretapped - the only such case in the nation filed by an alleged target
of the surveillance program. The snag is that the evidence, a document
that the government inadvertently released to the plaintiffs in 2004, is
classified top secret and thus can't be used in court to prove that the
calls were overheard." ... "The two-hour hearing by the Ninth U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals involved two different cases with a common theme: the
Bush administration's argument that the details of the program were so
sensitive that a lawsuit challenging any aspect of it would pose an unacceptable
risk of exposing state secrets." ... "The AT&T suit, like several cases
pending against other telecommunications companies, accuses the firm of
giving the National Security Agency unlimited access to customers' phone
calls, e-mails and message records. Plaintiffs in the AT&T case have
submitted a declaration by a former company engineer who said he helped
install equipment at the company's San Francisco office that would divert
Internet messages to a room reserved for government-cleared employees."
-By Bob Egelko -SFGate.com
US
- International
- Secret
- Government
- Phone
- Wiretapping
- Internet
- Intelligence
- Database
- Technology
- Law
- San
Francisco - California
- "NSA
Judge: 'I feel like I'm in Alice and Wonderland'."
... "Spectators lined up outside the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco [California] starting at noon to guarantee a seat at a much-anticipated
legal showdown over the government's secret wiretapping program." ... "The
hearing involves two cases: one aimed at AT&T for allegedly helping
the government with a widespread datamining program allegedly involving
domestic and international phone calls and internet use; the other a direct
challenge to the government's admitted warrantless wiretapping of overseas
phone calls." ... "Jon Eisenberg, (right [photo at Wired.com]) an Oakland-based
[California] attorney, is arguing on behalf of a now-defunct Islamic charity
Al-Haramain and its lawyers, who claim to have been accidentally given
a Top Secret log of their own phone conversations, which they say proves
the government illegally eavesdropped on them without warrants." ... "The
courtroom filled quickly with more than 20 attorneys in the courtroom well,
and 80 spectators seated and standing. Another 40 filed into
an overflow courtroom, including Mark Klein, the former AT&T engineer
who provided internal company documents to the EFF. Those documents allegedly
show that AT&T built a secret spying room for the NSA in its San Francisco
internet switching center. " ... "The government says the purported log
of calls between one of the Islamic charity directors and two American
lawyers is classified Top Secret and has the SCI level, meaning that it
is "secure compartmented information." That designation usually applies
to surveillance information" -By Kevin Poulsen
-Wired
Sports
- 
Drug
- Law
- San
Francisco - California
- "Bonds
Sets Baseball's Home Run Record: Giants Slugger Passes
Aaron With No. 756." ... "Seven fifty-five, the most cherished number in
baseball if not all of American sports, lived a good, long, noble life.
Spawned from the powerful bat of an aging slugger named Hank Aaron on July
20, 1976, it grew in stature over the years, surviving the occasional challenge
and ruling over the record book even as other, lesser records fell. But
on a cool Tuesday night near the shores of San Francisco Bay [San Francisco,
California], 755 finally perished at the hands of a relentless, controversial
invader from the west named Barry Lamar Bonds. Seven fifty-five is gone.
Behold, 756." ... "Only three players in the last 86 years have held the
sport's signature mark. Babe Ruth first captured it in 1921, then surrendered
it posthumously to Aaron in 1974. And now, for better or worse, it belongs
to Bonds." ... "Across the land, baseball fans, including many who play
and run the game, are unsure what to make of 756 because of the player
who struck it. Bonds is alleged to have used steroids beginning in the
late 1990s, fueling a late-career explosion in offensive production that
is unparalleled in baseball history. Even as Bonds took aim at Aaron's
record this summer, a grand jury continued to investigate him for possible
perjury and tax evasion charges stemming from his involvement with an alleged
steroids ring." ... ""This record is not tainted," Bonds said in his postgame
news conference. "It's not tainted at all. At all. Period. You guys [in
the media] can say whatever you want."" -By Dave Sheinin
-WashingtonPost
Noteworthy
- 
Media
- Terrorism
- San
Francisco - California
- Illinois
- 
Connecticut
- 2008
Election - "Dodd,
Talk Show Host Exchange On-Air Jabs." ... "[Rupert
Murdoch's Foxnews Host] Bill O'Reilly told [2008 election Democratic Presidential
Candidate and Connecticut Senator] Chris Dodd, "I don't have any respect
for you" and "if I were Joe Lieberman, I would never talk to you again.""
... "Dodd fired back that the talk show host says "a lot of things [that]
are vile on a daily basis" and that studies show O'Reilly says something
derogatory about people or groups once every 6.8 seconds." ... "Dodd's
presidential campaign has been itching for the confrontation all week.
"Support Chris Dodd's strong stance against partisan media," says the front
page of the Dodd campaign website. The site urges viewers to "stand up"
against O'Reilly by contributing." ... "O'Reilly set the tone early in
the five-minute interview. He told listeners about his distaste for the
liberal blog Daily Kos and this week's convention, called Yearly Kos, in
Chicago [Illinois]. The convention is expected to attract most of the Democratic
presidential candidates, including Dodd." ... "[Dodd to O'Reilly,] "You
ought to be far more candid with your viewing audience here and tell them
your real objection here is the ideology of Daily Kos," the senator said."
... "On the argument went, with Dodd noting that in 2005, O'Reilly suggested
he wouldn't mind seeing San Francisco's [California] Coit Tower blown up
by al-Qaida." -By David Lightman
-Courant.com
Harriet
Miers
- US
Attorneys - Politics
- San
Francisco - California
- "Pelosi
promises congressional contempt charge for Harriet Miers:
Speaker reiterates impeachment is not on her agenda." ... "Congress this
week will take the next step to force the [Republican President] Bush administration
to hand over information about the dismissal of U.S. attorneys and the
politicization of the Justice Department, House Speaker [California Democratic
Representative] Nancy Pelosi said Saturday." ... "The House Judiciary Committee
will bring contempt of Congress charges against the administration this
week, said the San Francisco Democrat. She did not specify who the subject
of the action would be, but Pelosi spokesman, Brendan Daly, said later
it would be former White House counsel Harriet Miers, who defied a House
Judiciary Committee subpoena to appear." ... ""They have disregarded the
call of Congress for information about their politicizing the Department
of Justice. We can document that. Those are actual facts and we will bring
the contempt of Congress forth," said Pelosi, who spoke with reporters
at a San Francisco workshop for people who want to become U.S. citizens."
... "Contempt of Congress is defined by federal law as action that obstructs
the work of Congress, including investigations." -By
Wyatt Buchanan -SFGate.com
Secret
- 
Paul
McNulty
- 
Michael
Elston
- US
Attorneys - Law
- Politics
- Arizona
- 
Arkansas
- Seattle
- Washington
- San
Francisco - California
- "Justice
Official Says He Was Directed To Call Fired Prosecutors."
... "The chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty
has told congressional investigators that phone calls he placed to four
fired U.S. attorneys -- calls that three of the prosecutors say involved
threats about testifying before Congress -- were made at McNulty's direction."
... "Michael Elston, the chief of staff, told congressional investigators
in a closed-door session on March 30 that McNulty specifically instructed
him to make the phone calls after the Justice Department's No. 2 official
learned that the fired prosecutors might testify before Congress about
their dismissals." ... "At least one member of Congress has questioned
whether the phone calls might constitute obstruction of justice." ... "Elston
said that McNulty directed him to place calls to fired U.S. attorneys Paul
Charlton of Arizona, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, and John McKay
of Seattle [Washington], all of whom said they felt pressured to keep quiet.
Elston also placed a call to federal prosecutor Kevin Ryan of San
Francisco [California], as directed, but did not speak to him. The calls
were placed between January and March of this year -- before details about
the political motivations for the firings became public." ... "On Wednesday,
the House Judiciary Committee made public formal
correspondence from three fired prosecutors who said they thought that
Elston was trying to intimidate them into keeping quiet." -By
Murray
Waas -NationalJournal
Secret
- Reporters
- Business
- Sports
- Drugs
- San
Francisco - 
