Senate thumbs up to surveillance, telecoms immunity

Senate Authorizes Broad Expansion Of Surveillance Act

By Paul Kane

The Senate yesterday approved a sweeping measure that would expand the government's clandestine surveillance powers, delivering a key victory to the White House by approving immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with intelligence agencies in domestic spying after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

On a 68 to 29 vote, the Senate approved the reauthorization of a law that would give the government greater powers to eavesdrop in terrorism and intelligence cases without obtaining warrants from a secret court.

The Senate's action, days before a temporary surveillance law expires Friday, sets up a clash with House Democrats, who have previously approved legislation that does not contain immunity for the telecommunications industry. The chambers have been locked in a standoff over the immunity provision since the House vote Nov. 15, with President Bush demanding the protection for the industry.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the president "will not sign another extension" of the temporary law, a decision that could force congressional leaders to reconcile their differences this week.

"The House is risking national security by delaying action," Fratto said. "It's increasingly clear Congress will not act until it has to, and a second extension will only lead to a third."

But House leaders vowed again yesterday to oppose the telecom immunity provision until the White House releases more information about the controversial warrantless surveillance program it initiated shortly after the terrorist attacks.

Bush applauded the Senate bill and warned House Democrats to put aside "narrow partisan concerns" on the immunity issue and approve the Senate's version.

"This good bill passed by the Senate provides a long-term foundation for our intelligence community to monitor the communications of foreign terrorists in ways that are timely and effective and that also protect the liberties of Americans," Bush said.

The House and Senate bills both include major revisions to the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which established a secret court to issue warrants for domestic spying on suspects in terrorism and intelligence cases. The National Security Agency, however, secretly bypassed the court for years as it obtained information from telecommunication companies, until media reports revealed the arrangement.

The most important change approved by the Senate yesterday would make permanent a law approved last August that expanded the government's authority to intercept -- without a court order -- the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States communicating with others overseas. U.S. intelligence agencies previously had broad leeway to monitor the communications of foreign terrorism suspects but needed warrants to monitor calls intercepted in the United States, regardless of where they originated...

 

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DU and cancer clusters among vets

" ... Marion Fulk, a former nuclear chemical physicist at Lawrence Livermore lab, is investigating how DU affects the human body. Fulk said that 8 malignancies out of 20, in 16 months, "is spectacular - and of serious concern."

The high rate of malignancies found in this unit appears to have been caused by exposure to DU weapons on the battlefield. If DU were found to be the cause, this case would be "critical evidence" of Fulk's theory on how the DU particulate affects DNA.

Such quick malignancies are caused by the particulate effect of DU, according to Fulk:

When DU (Uranium 238) decays, it transforms into two short-lived and "very hot" isotopes - Thorium 234 and Protactinium 234. As it transforms in the body, the DU particle is firing off faster and faster "bullets" into the DNA, Fulk said, or wherever it is lodged. Because uranium has a natural attraction to phosphorus, however, it is drawn to the phosphate in the DNA.

As the Uranium 238 decays, it releases alpha and beta particles with millions of electron volts. When a DU particle makes this transformation in the human body it releases "huge amounts of energy in the same location doing lots of damage very quickly," Fulk said.

Thorium 234 has a half-life of 24 days and emits a beta particle of .270 million electron volts as it transforms into Protactinium 234, which has a half-life of less than 7 hours. Protactinium then emits a beta particle of 2.19 million electron volts as it transforms into the more stable Uranium 234.

The chemical binding energy in the molecules of the human cell is less than 10 electron volts. One alpha particle from U-238 is over 4 million electron volts, which is like "nuking a cell."

Leuren Moret, a scientist who is opposed to the use of DU, compared it to sitting in front of a fire and putting a red-hot coal in your mouth. "The nuclear establishment wants us to believe that it is like sitting in front of the fire and warming the whole body evenly - and that no harm is done, but that is not the reality," she said.

"We can expect to see multiple cancers in one person," Moret said. "These multiple unrelated cancers in the same individual have been reported in Yugoslavia and Iraq in families that had no history of any cancer. This is unknown in the previous studies of cancer," she said. "A new phenomenon."

The Pentagon's Goodno questioned Dr. Korényi-Both's report that 8 of 20 recently returned soldiers from one unit had experienced malignant growths. Goodno and Korényi-Both did agree, however, that Iraqi chemical and biological agents had not played a role in the 2003 invasion. ... "

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The Clintons: A Case Study In Money And Politics

Hillary Clinton's ability to loan her presidential campaign $5 million demonstrates how extraordinarily lucrative the post-White House years have been for the former First Lady and her husband.

While Clinton campaign aides are quick to point out that Mrs. Clinton could easily cover the loan from the $9.2 million she made in royalties from her bestselling book 'Living History', she made the loan by writing a check on a joint banking account she and her husband maintain, according to her staff.

'Living History' contributed less than a fifth of the money that the Clintons have earned over the seven years between 2001 and 2006, as documented in Mrs. Clinton's United States Senate and presidential financial disclosure reports -- a sum in excess of $45 million, not including the couple's earnings in 2007 or 2008.

The Clintons have become a case study in the interrelationship of money and politics, a relationship steadily strengthening in scope and magnitude.

A look at Hillary Clinton's financial disclosure reports over the last six years reveals the benefits available to those who hold high public office. Bill Clinton, for example, has become a political ATM, pumping as much as or more than $10 million a year into their joint account.

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The EU is a self-perpetuating racket

There’s too much at stake for Eurocrats who depend on the system, says Daniel Hannan

The EU is no longer an ideological project; it's a racket: a mechanism for redistributing money to the people who work for it. If that sounds harsh, ask yourself when you last met a Euro-enthusiast who was not being indirectly paid by Brussels.

This week, David Miliband stood at the Dispatch Box and listed the NGOs backing the Lisbon Treaty (nee European Constitution): "The NSPCC pledged its support, as have One World Action, Action Aid and Oxfam. Environmental organisations support the treaty provisions on sustainable development and even the commission of bishops supports the treaty. This is a coalition not of ideology, but integrity".

Integrity, eh? I've done a little digging around, and it turns out that every one of these organisations gets money from Brussels.

The 'commission of bishops' to which the Foreign Secretary refers, for example, turns out to be something called the 'Commission of the Bishops Conferences of the European Community'. It's not an ecclesiastical organisation that just happens to be pro-integration; it's a creature of the European Commission, wholly dependent on the EU for its funding and existence.

There was a time when the European project was supported by idealists who genuinely believed that they were building a better future. Not any more. The 2005 'No' votes in France and the Netherlands were the EU's equivalent of the 1968 Prague Spring. They killed off the idea that, given time, voters might come round to the ruling doctrine, and thereby make possible a restoration of democracy.

As in the 1970s Cold War Comecon states, the EU is now run, not by true believers, but by an apparat of officials whose livelihoods depend on the system - an apparat made up of NGOs, civil servants and local councils as well as Eurocrats. There’s too much at stake for them to give up easily.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/?storyID=14408

Liberty ... American-style

Guantanamo Comes to Main Street U.S.A.
Mark A. Goldman


They say that the difference between how democracy in Europe has evolved compared to that of the United States is that in Europe the government is afraid of the People whereas in the United States the People are afraid of the government. That's a dangerous state of affairs and it looks like it's going to get worse.

It's not only a matter of who you vote for... it's a matter of how well informed you are when you do vote... and Americans now are notorious for not being nearly as well informed as the citizens of many other countries are. So in America, we don't really think very deeply about the range of choices that are or are not available to us. Fatal mistake.

The video below is indicative of the evolving consciousness of law enforcement in our nation... and it's our 'Shock and Awe' government, with its penchant for gratuitous and unconscionable violence, and the People's refusal to hold them accountable, that is setting the stage for our future in this 'land of the free and home of the brave.'

When we allow fear and force to dominate the way in which our government deals with people we don't know... we open the door to despotism, for surely when we fail to protect the legitimate rights of any group or person, we sow the seeds of our own destruction. Take a look at this video if you want to know what is happening to civil liberties in our own country. I guess for some members of our community, this is not news at all.

Apparently local law enforcement officers are now being trained to treat citizens the way military personnel were trained to treat Guantanamo prisoners. Your government doesn't seem to care anymore what you think... except maybe during an election year and even then, not so much. And like the military, many police officers who have been trained to just follow orders, are doing just that...just following orders. Watch this disturbing video.

Everything by the book...



Our silence and indifference to the plight of others is what allows this kind of thing to happen. You probably won't get a better wake up call than this. No doubt bad public relations will force this kind of evidence into dark corners. The question is, will we wake up, or will we remain silent until something like this happens to someone we know and care about... or maybe to a lot of people we know and care about?

http://www.gpln.com/guantanamotactics.htm