HavenWorks.com/noteworthy/archive NOTEWORTHY NEWS ARCHIVE A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

Noteworthy News History Archives
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Noteworthy Archive:

20080331

Food - Crisis - World - People - Farmers - Land - Fuel - Money - Politics - History - Weather - Drought - China - UN - "Tensions rise as world faces short rations." ... "Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it's already boiling over." ... "Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports -- a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century." ... "Plundered by severe weather in producing countries and by a boom in demand from fast-developing nations, the world's wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have been on the rise for five years, ending decades of cheap food." ... "Drought, a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow fuel have all contributed to food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors." ... "World population is set to hit 9 billion by 2050, and most of the extra 2.5 billion people will live in the developing world. It is in these countries that the population is demanding dairy and meat, which require more land to produce." ... "In 2007 alone, according to the U.N. [United Nations] Food and Agriculture Organization's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 percent and grain 42 percent." [see also: Agflation] (1, 2, 3, 4,5) -By Russell Blinch and Brian Love with contributions by Ayesha Rascoe, Missy Ryan, Alistair Thomson, Ho Binh Minh and Eddie Evans -Reuters

20080330

Iraq - US - Military - Politics - History - Money - Accounting- Investigators - "After years of effort, Iraqi army still can't 'stand up'." ... "Iraq's new army is "developing steadily," with "strong Iraqi leaders out front," the chief U.S. [United States] trainer said." ... "That was three-plus years ago, and the trainer was David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq. Some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army's weapons, according to investigators." ... "The 2004-05 Defense Ministry scandal was just one in a long series of setbacks in the five-year struggle to "stand up" an Iraqi military as [Republican] President Bush has promised and allow hard-pressed U.S. forces to "stand down." The latest discouraging episode was unfolding this weekend in bloody Basra, the southern city where Iraqi government forces -- in their toughest test yet -- were struggling to gain the upper hand in a battle with Shiite Muslim militias." ... "Year by year, the goal of deploying a capable, free-standing Iraqi army has seemed to always slip further into the future." ... "How not to build an army:" ... "Early 2003: The first reversal came even before the March U.S. invasion, when the Pentagon discarded prewar plans that called for restructuring the 400,000-man Saddam Hussein-era army into a postwar force of 150,000 to 200,000." ... "Mid-2003: U.S. occupation chief L. Paul Bremer III unilaterally ordered Saddam's army disbanded, and the Bush administration opted for a token military force to guard Iraq's borders. Bremer said the army had already fallen apart after Saddam's fall. The controversial move helped prompt many Sunni officers to eventually join the insurgency." ... "Iraqi view: [Lt. Gen. [Lieutenant General] James] Dubik says Iraqi defense officials don't expect to take over internal security until as late as 2012 and won't be able to defend Iraq's borders until 2018." -By Charles J. Hanley -AP via -Star-Telegram.com

20080325

American - Workers - Health - Safety - Lawsuit - KBR Halliburton - Corporation - Government - History - Texas - Oil - Construction - Science - Iraq - Cayman Islands - Politics - "Iraq contractor fights suit over toxic exposure: Tax loophole may subject construction firm to damages." ... "When the American team arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003 to repair the Qarmat Ali water injection plant, supervisors told them the orange, sand-like substance strewn around the looted facility was just a "mild irritant," workers recall." ... "The workers got it on their hands and clothing every day while racing for 2 1/2 months to meet a deadline to get the plant, a crucial part of Iraq's oil infrastructure, up and running." ... "But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath. Within weeks, nearly 60 percent exhibited symptoms of exposure, according to the minutes of a meeting of project managers from KBR, the Houston[Texas]-based construction company in charge of the repairs." ... "Now, nine Americans are accusing KBR, then a subsidiary of the oil conglomerate Halliburton, of knowingly exposing them to the deadly substance and failing to provide them with the protective equipment needed to keep them safe." ... "But the workers, like all employees injured in Iraq, face an uphill struggle in their quest for damages. Under a World War II-era federal workers compensation law, employers are generally protected from employee lawsuits, except in rare cases in which it can be proven that the company intentionally harmed its employees or committed outright fraud." ... "KBR is citing the law, called the Defense Base Act, as grounds to reject the workers' request for damages." ... "But the company's own actions have undermined its case: To avoid payroll taxes for its American employees, KBR hired the workers through two subsidiaries registered in the Cayman Islands, part of a strategy that has allowed KBR to dodge hundreds of millions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes." ... "That gives the workers' lawyer, Mike Doyle of Houston, a chance to argue to an arbitration board that KBR is not an employer protected by federal law, but a third-party that can be sued." -By Farah Stockman -Boston/Globe

20080321

Government - E-Mail - Computer - Data - Archives - History - Presidential Records Act - Law - Politics - Secrets - "White House: Computer hard drives tossed." ... "Older [Republican President Bush] White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005." ... "The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed." ... ""When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. [United States] Magistrate Judge John Facciola." ... "At a House committee hearing last month, a computer expert who previously worked at the White House called the e-mail system "primitive" and said it was set up in a way that created a high risk that data would be lost from White House servers where it was being archived." -By Pete Yost -APvia -Yahoo

20080319

John McCain - Intelligence - Military - Terrorism - Politics - History - US - Iraq - Iran - Israel - Arizona - 2008 Election - "McCain Repeats Iran-Al Qaeda Gaffe Yet Again." ... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain has done it again." ... "For the third time in two days, the Arizona Republican has pushed the definitively false statement that the terrorist group Al-Qaeda was getting assistance from Iran, even though he was publicly ridiculed for the same false assertion on Tuesday." ... "This time, in a statement from his campaign honoring the fifth year anniversary of the war, McCain wrote:" ... ""Today in Iraq, America and our allies stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism. The security gains over the past year have been dramatic and undeniable. Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."" ... "On Tuesday, the senator, appearing in Israel, made a nearly identical assertion that al-Qaeda was leaving Iraq to retool and regroup in Iran." -By Sam Stein -HuffingtonPost.com
John McCain - Foreign - Intelligence - Military - Terrorism - Politics - History - Radio - 2008 Election - US - Iraq - "McCain stumbles in Amman." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain has long presented himself as a seasoned statesman and foreign policy expert, someone with the wisdom and experience to guide the U.S. [United States] through troubled times." ... "That's why the media and his rivals pounced on him when he got a fundamental question regarding the violence in Iraq wrong." ... "Karen Finney, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, issued a press release:"

"After eight years of the [Republican President] Bush administration’s incompetence in Iraq, McCain’s comments don’t give the American people a reason to believe that he can be trusted to offer a clear way forward. Not only is Senator McCain wrong on Iraq once again, but he showed he either doesn’t understand the challenges facing Iraq and the region or is willing to ignore the facts on the ground."

"Democrats also noted that McCain had made similar comments during an interview on a conservative talk radio program, “The Hugh Hewitt Show."" -By Borzou Daragahi

-LAtimes

20080318

John McCain - Intelligence - Military - Terrorism - Politics - 2008 Election - US - Iraq - Iran - Jordan - Arizona - "A McCain Gaffe in Jordan." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona] Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran." ... "He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq." ... "Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."" ... "Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." ... "The mistake threatened to undermine McCain's argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists." -By Cameron W. Barr and Michael D. Shear -WashingtonPost

20080314

Dick Cheney - Illegal - Spying - Criminal Investigations - Military - Government - Intelligence - Politics - History - Data - Secret - Torture - Executions - "President weakens espionage oversight." ... "Almost 32 years to the day after [Republican] President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, [Republican] President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority." ... "Ford created the board following a 1975-76 investigation by Congress into domestic spying, assassination operations, and other abuses by intelligence agencies. The probe prompted fierce battles between Congress and the Ford administration, whose top officials included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the current president's father, George H. W. Bush." ... "To blunt proposals for new laws imposing greater congressional oversight of intelligence matters, Ford enacted his own reforms with an executive order that went into effect on March 1, 1976. Among them, he created the Intelligence Oversight Board to serve as a watchdog over spying agencies." ... "The board's investigations and reports have been mostly kept secret. But the [Democratic President] Clinton administration provided a rare window into the panel's capabilities in 1996 by publishing a board report faulting the CIA for not adequately informing Congress about putting known torturers and killers in Guatemala on its payroll." ... "But Bush downsized the board's mandate to be an aggressive watchdog against such problems in an executive order issued on Feb. 29 [2008], the eve of the anniversary of the day Ford's order took effect." ... "Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity that it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem." ... "Bush's order also terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months. Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in." ... "Some analysts said the order is just the latest example of actions the administration has taken since the 2001 terrorist attacks that have scaled back intelligence reforms enacted in the 1970s." ... "In his 1976 executive order, for example, Ford also banned foreign intelligence agencies, such as the National Security Agency, from collecting information about Americans. The Bush administration bypassed that rule by having domestic agencies collect information about Americans and then hand the data to the NSA, The Wall Street Journal reported this week." -By Charlie Savage -Boston/Globe
Political - Government - Environmental - Air - Science - Health - People - Farm - Land - Animals - Clean Air Act - Law - Industry - Motor Vehicles - "Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest: EPA Scrambles To Justify Action." ... "The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by [Republican] President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA." ... "EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit [of allowable air pollution], according to the documents." ... ""It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council." ... "The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone." ... "Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard." ... "Ozone, which is formed when pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds released by industry and motor vehicles are exposed to sunlight, is linked to an array of heart and respiratory illnesses." (1, 2) -By Juliet Eilperin -WashingtonPost

20080313

Noteworthy - Consumer - Finances - Law - Politics - "'Muscle' Silences Credit Card Adversaries." ... "Christy Mylar Smith and her husband paid their Citibank card bill on time for years -- but when they paid late twice in one year, their interest rate increased from 12.9 percent to 31.4 percent overnight." ... "Steven Strachan has a FICO score in the high 700s, has always paid on time, has never gone over the limit, yet Chase increased his rate from 10.99 percent to 24.99 percent." ... "Steve Autry accepted a fixed rate for life of 9.9 percent from Capital One. Now Capital One tells him that the cost of business and rising interest rates will cause his rates to increase, even though he has been a customer in good standing for many years." ... "Marvin Weatherspoon took advantage of a low introductory rate from Bank of America, but because he was a few days late in paying one month, his interest rate has been increased from 4.25 percent to almost 25 percent. Only $108 of his $347 monthly payment goes to the principal. He has tried to work with the bank, but felt "he had no voice."" ... "At the 11th hour, the credit companies found a way to stop those that had traveled to Washington today to tell their story to the congressional panel on consumer credit." ... "The banks whose practices were about to be discussed on Capitol Hill demanded that those testifying before Congress about credit card practices sign a waiver that allowed their personal financial information be revealed to the public." ... "The Republicans on the subcommittee backed the banks' requests and a procedural battle would have ensued." (1, 2) -By Vija Udenans -ABCNEWS.com
Stephen L Johnson - Corporate - Government - Politics - Environmental - Air - Health - Science - Clean Air Act - Law - History - Vehicles - Manufacturing - Power Plants - Children - "EPA Tightens Pollution Standards: But Agency Ignored Advisers' Guidance." ... "The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday limited the allowable amount of pollution-forming ozone in the air to 75 parts per billion, a level significantly higher [meaning more polluting] than what the agency's scientific advisers had urged for this key component of unhealthy air pollution." ... "[Republican President Bush's Environmental Protection Agency] Administrator Stephen L. Johnson also said he would push Congress to rewrite the nearly 37-year-old Clean Air Act to allow regulators to take into consideration the cost and feasibility of controlling pollution when making decisions about air quality, something that is currently prohibited by the law. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that the government needed to base the ozone standard strictly on protecting public health, with no regard to cost." ... "The new pollution rules -- one of the most important environmental decisions facing the Bush administration in the president's final year in office -- will be a major factor in determining the quality of the air Americans will breathe for at least a decade. The standards, which are aimed at protecting both public health and welfare, are designed to limit the amount of nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds released into the air by vehicles, manufacturing facilities and power plants. In sunlight, the pollutants form ozone." ... "Johnson said he did "what was required by the law and the recent scientific evidence," but his decision to set a lower but still less-restrictive limit than what the EPA's advisory committees had recommended sparked a backlash from Democratic lawmakers, public health advocates and his own independent advisers." ... "Nearly a year ago, EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee reiterated in writing that its members were "unanimous in recommending" that the agency set the standard no higher than 70 parts per billion (ppb) and to consider a limit as low as 60 ppb. EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee and public health advocates lobbied for the 60-ppb limit because children are more vulnerable to air pollution." ... "EPA and other scientists have shown that ozone has a direct impact on rates of heart and respiratory disease and resulting premature deaths. The agency calculates that the new standard of 75 ppb would prevent 1,300 to 3,500 premature deaths a year, whereas 65 ppb would avoid 3,000 to 9,200 deaths annually. " -By Juliet Eilperin -WashingtonPost

20080312

John McCain - Corporate - Politics - European - Built - Planes - US - Military - Government - Space - Arizona - Los Angeles - California - Texas - 2008 Election - "McCain Advisers Lobbied for Europeans to Win Air Force Tanker Deal." ... "A co-chairman of [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona] Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign and other top campaign advisers and supporters were lobbyists for the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, part of a group that beat out Boeing for a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force." ... "Boeing, which has filed an appeal with the Government Accountability Office, is expected to focus at least in part on Mr. McCain’s role in the deal, including letters that he sent urging the Defense Department, in evaluating the tanker bids, not to consider the potential effects of a separate United States-Airbus trade dispute." ... "That contract was won by the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, known as EADS, the corporate parent of Airbus, and Northrop Grumman, the military contractor based in Los Angeles [California]." ... "Mr. McCain’s campaign co-chairman, former Representative Thomas Loeffler, a Texas Republican, also runs a lobbying firm, the Loeffler Group, which earned $220,000 working for EADS in 2007. Mr. Loeffler was the McCain campaign national finance chairman when his firm was hired to lobby for EADS." ... "Two other Loeffler executives who were registered to lobby for EADS are now top campaign advisers for Mr. McCain: Susan Nelson, the finance director, and William L. Ball III, the former Navy secretary. Ms. Nelson and Mr. Ball left the lobbying firm to join the campaign." ... "Another major money raiser for Mr. McCain, Wayne Berman, who was named vice chairman of the campaign last year, also worked for EADS through another lobbying firm, Ogilvy Government Relations, where he is a partner. Ogilvy earned $240,000 from EADS in 2007." ... "Also supporting Mr. McCain and lobbying on behalf of EADS was Kirk Blalock, a national chairman of Young Professionals for McCain and a former aide to [Republican] President Bush. Mr. Blalock’s lobbying firm, Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, earned $320,000 from EADS in 2007, according to disclosure forms required by Congress. " -By David M. Herszenhorn with contributions by Michael Cooper and Steven R. Weisman -NYTimes

20080311

Joshua B Bolten - Harriet E Miers - Michael B Mukasey - US Attorneys - Politics - Investigation - Lawsuit - Federal - Texas - Mich - Calif - "House Panel Sues to Force Bush Aides to Table: Bolten and Miers Ignored Subpoenas In Prosecutor Probe." ... "The House Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit yesterday to enforce subpoenas against [Republican] President Bush's chief of staff and his former counsel in a probe of suspected White House involvement in the 2006 firings of nine federal prosecutors." ... "The panel filed the federal court suit against Joshua B. Bolten, White House chief of staff since April 2006, and Harriet E. Miers, a close associate of Bush's from Texas who resigned as White House counsel in January 2007 after a little more than two years on the job." ... "The lawsuit charges that Bolten and Miers, who were cited by the House for contempt of Congress last month, defied committee subpoenas by refusing to testify or provide documents demanded by the panel." ... "But Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said White House aides involved in the case cannot be prosecuted because they were following legal advice from the Justice Department. He refused to refer the contempt citation to a grand jury." ... "The refusal of Bolten and Miers to comply with the subpoenas "did not constitute a crime," Mukasey said in a Feb. 29 letter to [California Democratic Representative and] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)." ... "[Michigan Democratic Representative] Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the Judiciary Committee chairman, described Mukasey's refusal as "contrary to federal law" and said the panel filed the civil lawsuit to enforce the subpoenas." ... "According to the lawsuit, the committee launched its investigation in part to "examine allegations of malfeasance, abuse of authority and violations of existing laws by Executive Branch personnel."" ... "It says the year-long investigation "has uncovered substantial evidence" that the Bush administration and Justice Department "injected partisan considerations into the forced resignations or retention of U.S. attorneys."" ... "It cites "credible evidence" that U.S. attorneys who "failed to return desired indictments or failed to bring voter fraud prosecutions that were considered politically useful to the administration were forced to resign," as were those who "prosecuted officeholders allied with the administration."" -By William Branigin -WashingtonPost

20080310

Water - Drugs - Human - Health - Environmental - Science - Investigation - Industry - Consumer - Safety - Federal - Law - Earth - Wildlife - California - New Jersey - Michigan - Ky - "Sex Hormones, Mood Stabilizers Found In Drinking Water Of 41 M Americans." ... "A vast array of pharmaceuticals _ including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones _ have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows." ... "To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe." ... "But the presence of so many prescription drugs _ and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen _ in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health." ... "In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas _ from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit [Michigan] to Louisville, Ky. [Kentucky.]" ... "How do the drugs get into the water?" ... "People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue." ... "And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies _ which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public _ have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife." ... "The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water." ... "The AP's investigation also indicates that watersheds, the natural sources of most of the nation's water supply, also are contaminated." ... "Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems." ... "Pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply." -By Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza, and Justin Pritchard -AssociatedPress via -HuffingtonPost.com
US - Iraq - Military - Osama bin Laden - Terrorism - Intelligence - Archives - History - Declassification - - "Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida." ... "An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network." ... "The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime." ... "The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report." ... "[Republican] President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." ... "Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship." ... "Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence." ... "As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq. "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims," he said." ... "The new study, entitled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents", was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review." -By Warren P. Strobel -McClatchyDC.com
Secretive - Government - Domestic Spying - American- Peoples - Communications - Travel - Finances - Electronic - EMails - Internet - Searches - Databases - Civil-Liberties - Law - Terrorism - Politics - Investigation - International - Military - Intelligence - TIA - "NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data." ... "Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns [the TIA program: the Total Information Awareness program]. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans' privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." ... "But the data-sifting effort didn't disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system." ... "The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people's communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks." ... "Congress now is hotly debating domestic spying powers under the main law governing U.S. surveillance aimed at foreign threats. An expansion of those powers expired last month and awaits renewal, which could be voted on in the House of Representatives this week. The biggest point of contention over the law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is whether telecommunications and other companies should be made immune from liability for assisting government surveillance." ... "Largely missing from the public discussion is the role of the highly secretive NSA in analyzing that data, collected through little-known arrangements that can blur the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence gathering." ... "According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called "transactional" data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns. Then they spit out leads to be explored by counterterrorism programs across the U.S. government, such as the NSA's own Terrorist Surveillance Program, formed to intercept phone calls and emails between the U.S. and overseas without a judge's approval when a link to al Qaeda is suspected." ... "The NSA's enterprise involves a cluster of powerful intelligence-gathering programs, all of which sparked civil-liberties complaints when they came to light. They include a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data once known as Carnivore, now called the Digital Collection System, and a U.S. arrangement with the world's main international banking clearinghouse to track money movements." ... "The effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called "black programs" whose existence is undisclosed, the current and former officials say." ... "Two current officials also said the NSA's current combination of programs now largely mirrors the former TIA [Total Information Awareness] project. But the NSA offers less privacy protection." -By Siobhan Gorman -WSJ.com

20080306

Illegal - Corporate - Government - Surveillance - Terrorism - Investigation - Consumer - Finances - Telephone - Internet - Data - Intelligence - Politics - Rights - History - Audit - Vt - "More FBI Privacy Violations Confirmed." ... "The FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] acknowledged it improperly accessed Americans' telephone records, credit reports and Internet traffic in 2006, the fourth straight year of privacy abuses resulting from investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies." ... "Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, [FBI Director Robert] Mueller raised the issue of the FBI's controversial use of so-called national security letters [NSLs] in reference to an upcoming report on the topic by the Justice Department's inspector general." ... "An audit by the inspector general last year found the FBI demanded personal records without official authorization or otherwise collected more data than allowed in dozens of cases between 2003 and 2005. Additionally, last year's audit found that the FBI had underreported to Congress how many national security letters were requested by more than 4,600." ... "National security letters, as outlined in the USA Patriot Act, are administrative subpoenas used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases. They allow the FBI to require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers without a judge's approval." ... "Speaking before the FBI chief, [Vermont Democratic Senator and] Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. [Democratic-Vermont], urged Mueller to be more vigilant in correcting what he called "widespread illegal and improper use of national security letters."" ... ""Everybody wants to stop terrorists. But we also, though, as Americans, we believe in our privacy rights and we want those protected," Leahy said. "There has to be a better chain of command for this. You cannot just have an FBI agent who decides he'd like to obtain Americans' records, bank records or anything else and do it just because they want to."" -By Lara Jakes Jordan -AP via -SFGate.com
Dick Cheney - Corporate - Military - Government - KBR-Halliburton - Cayman Islands - United Arab Emirates (Dubai) - Secret - Iraq - Oil - Infrastructure - History - American - Workers - Health - Security - Legislation - Massachusetts - "Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore: Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deductions." ... "Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp. [Corporation], has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven [Cayman Islands]." ... "More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands." ... "The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars." ... "But the use of the loophole results in a significantly greater loss of revenue to the government as a whole, particularly to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds." ... ""Failing to contribute to Social Security and Medicare thousands of times over isn't shielding the taxpayers they claim to protect, it's costing our citizens in the name of short-term corporate greed," said [Massachusetts Democratic] Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has introduced legislation to close loopholes for companies registering overseas." ... "With an estimated $16 billion in contracts, KBR is by far the largest contractor in Iraq, with eight times the work of its nearest competitor." ... "The [secret] no-bid contract it received in 2002 to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure and a multibillion-dollar contract to provide support services to troops have long drawn scrutiny because [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 until he joined the Republican ticket with [Republican] President Bush in 2000." ... "The largest of the Cayman Islands shell companies - called [SEII] Service Employees International Inc. [Incorporated, which is not associated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)], which is now listed as having more than 20,000 workers in Iraq, according to KBR - was created two years before Cheney became Halliburton's chief executive. But a second Cayman Islands company called Overseas Administrative Services, which now is listed as the employer of 1,020 mostly managerial workers in Iraq, was established two months after Cheney's appointment." ... "If KBR's American workers averaged even as much as $63,000 per year, they and KBR would have owed more than $100 million per year in Social Security and Medicare taxes, split evenly between them. Over the course of the five-year war, their tax bill would have been more than $500 million." ... "The real managers of Service Employees International work out of KBR's office in Dubai. KBR and Halliburton, which also moved to Dubai [an emirate of the United Arab Emirates], severed ties last year." -By Farah Stockman with contributions by Stephanie Vallejo and Matt Negrin -Boston/Globe

20080228

US- Iraq - Military - Intelligence - Torture - Prison - Psychology - Book - Political - History - "How Good People Turn Evil, From Stanford to Abu Ghraib." ... "[Psychologist Philip] Zimbardo conducted a now-famous experiment at Stanford University in 1971, involving students who posed as prisoners and guards. Five days into the experiment, Zimbardo halted the study when the student guards began abusing the prisoners, forcing them to strip naked and simulate sex acts." ... "His book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, explores how a "perfect storm" of conditions can make ordinary people commit horrendous acts." ... "Wired: You were an expert defense witness in the court-martial of Sgt. Chip Frederick, an Abu Ghraib guard. What were the situational influences in his case?" ... "Zimbardo: Abu Ghraib was under bombardment all the time. In the prison, five soldiers and 20 Iraqi prisoners get killed. That means automatically any soldier working there is under high fear and high stress. Then the insurgency starts in 2003, and they start arresting everyone in sight. When Chip Frederick [starts working at Abu Ghraib] in September, there are 200 prisoners there. Within three months there's a thousand prisoners with a handful of guards to take care of them, so they're overwhelmed. Frederick and the others worked 12-hour shifts. How many days a week? Seven. How many days without a day off? Forty. That kind of stress reduces decision-making and critical thinking and rationality. But that's only the beginning." ... "He [complained] to higher-ups on the record, "We have mentally ill patients who cover themselves with [excrement]. We have people with tuberculosis that shouldn't be in this population. We have kids mixed with adults."" ... "And they tell him, "It's a war zone. Do your job. Do whatever you have to do."" ... "Wired: How did what happened at Abu Ghraib compare to your Stanford prison study?" ... "Zimbardo: The military intelligence, the CIA and the civilian interrogator corporation, Titan, told the MPs [at Abu Ghraib], "It is your job to soften the prisoners up. We give you permission to do something you ordinarily are not allowed to do as a military policeman -- to break the prisoners, to soften them up, to prepare them for interrogation." That's permission to step across the line from what is typically restricted behavior to now unrestricted behavior." ... "In the same way in the Stanford prison study, I was saying [to the student guards], "You have to be powerful to prevent further rebellion." I tell them, "You're not allowed, however, to use physical force." By default, I allow them to use psychological force. In five days, five prisoners are having emotional breakdowns." ... "The situational forces that were going on in [Abu Ghraib] -- the dehumanization, the lack of personal accountability, the lack of surveillance, the permission to get away with anti-social actions -- it was like the Stanford prison study, but in spades." ... "Those sets of things are found any time you really see an evil situation occurring, whether it's Rwanda or Nazi Germany or the Khmer Rouge. " (1, 2) -By Kim Zetter -Wired