Torture By Waterboarding
On Friday’s Countdown Keith Olbermann talked to Newsweek’s Richard Wolfe and Former Nixon White House Counsel, John Dean, about Senators Feinstein and Schumer’s inexcusable caving on President Bush’s Attorney General nominee and an ABC News report that claims former acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin was forced out of the DoJ when he declared waterboarding to be torture after allowing himself to be waterboarded.
E.U. Seeks Data on American Passengers
American travelers' personal data would for the first time be exported to all European Union states by airline carriers flying to Europe under a proposal to be announced this week.
The data, including names, telephone numbers, credit card information and travel itinerary, would be sent to E.U. member states so they could assess passenger risk for counterterrorism purposes, according to a draft copy obtained by The Washington Post.
Pakistan emergency orders set to backfire
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's bid to cling to power is set to backfire badly, destabilising a key US ally, spawning new militant attacks and straining relations with the army, analysts have said.
Musharraf, who led a military coup in 1999, imposed a state of emergency in nuclear-armed Pakistan on Saturday in response to what he said was a hostile judiciary and the growing menace of al-Qaeda and pro-Taliban militants.
U.S. Army wants 418,000 acres of private ranch land
The U.S. Army wants 418,000 acres of private ranch land to triple the size of its Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, a training area considered suitable some would say essential for preparing American warriors to do battle in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Colorado may not be alone. Military planners foresee a need for 5 million more acres for training facilities by 2011.
Whistleblowers claim contractor fraud ignored
Alan M. Grayson, who represents Hanken, Godfrey and a handful of other whistleblowers in lawsuits about contracting fraud in Iraq, says the department is thwarting whistleblowers of helping them.
He argues that the Bush administration sweeps many cases under the rug, obtains court orders to keep details from the public and that Justice Department lawyers threaten whistleblowers with dismissal of their cases or contempt of court simply for telling people what they know
De Menezes killing: what the witnesses saw
Britain's most senior policeman is so far defying calls for his resignation since the Met was found guilty on Thursday of "fundamental failures" in the anti-terror operation that led to the 24-year-old Brazilian's death in a Tube carriage at Stockwell station the day after a failed bomb attack on London.
Oct 23, 2007: This bill was passed in the House of Representatives by roll call vote. The vote was held under a suspension of the rules to cut debate short and pass the bill, needing a two-thirds majority. The totals were 404 Ayes, 6 Nays, 22 Present/Not Voting.
Is Real ID plan on its deathbed?
The U.S. government's controversial plan to outfit all Americans with uniform electronic identification cards officially known as Real ID may be on its deathbed, opponents of the program charged this week.
CDS traders warn of ‘blood on streets’
Speculation was rife that leading major investment banks were facing additional losses linked to complex mortgage-backed securities, while worries mounted over the health of major financial guarantors.
Rice rejects compromise to solve Lebanese crisis
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned on Friday against diplomatic moves to resolve the standoff between Lebanon's rival political camps through compromise. Rice's comments came as Lebanon's rival camps are trying to reach a deal over a successor to President Emile Lahoud, who must step down on November 24.
Big Brother Eyes German Journalists
In the wake of 9/11, European countries have been busy enacting controversial mandatory data retention laws. Now draft legislation by the German government would make it easier to monitor virtually all communications by journalists effectively ending source confidentiality and press freedom.
Citigroup calls emergency board meeting
Fears of more turmoil hitting global stock markets grew last night after it emerged that Citigroup, the world’s biggest bank, has called an emergency board meeting for this weekend amid fears of escalating bad debts.
Blackwater's Owner Has Spies for Hire
The operation, Total Intelligence Solutions, has assembled a roster of former spooks high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence that mirrors the slate of former military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency's more controversial programs, including the rendition and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas.
"They have the skills and background to do anything anyone wants," said RJ Hillhouse, who writes a national security blog called The Spy Who Billed Me. "There's no oversight. They're an independent company offering freelance espionage services. They're rent-a-spies."
Musharraf imposes emergency rule
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has declared emergency rule and suspended the country's constitution.
He defended his actions in a national address, saying he was curbing a rise in extremism in Pakistan.
Pyschologists Against Torture
In addition to our dismay as citizens at these types of actions by our government, we are concerned as psychologists that psychologist involvement in abusive interrogations is in violation of established national and international norms of medical and psychological ethics4. In its Declaration of Tokyo Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment, the World Medical Association stated: “The physician shall not use nor allow to be used, as far as he or she can, medical knowledge or skills, or health information specific to individuals, to facilitate or otherwise aid any interrogation, legal or illegal.” Similarly, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the American Psychiatric Association have taken clear unequivocal positions affirming the primacy of the health-promoting missions of their respective professions.
Warlord's death evokes CIA's Golden days in the heroin trade
The death of Burmese warlord Khun Sa severs one of the few remaining links between Washington's Central Intelligence Agency and the trafficking of heroin out of Southeast Asia's famed Golden Triangle.
Back in the 1960s and '70s, Khun Sa's empire fitted neatly into a CIA operation to fund Southeast Asian hill tribe militias to attack North Vietnamese supply routes to the war in South Vietnam.
In one of the CIA's more foul operations, its agents used its Air America airline to fly out Golden Triangle heroin. The drug was sold to corrupt South Vietnamese and Thai politicians who then peddled it to GIs in South Vietnam and a booming population of addicts in America.
Faulty Intel Source "Curve Ball" Revealed
60 Minutes has identified the man whose fabricated story of Iraqi biological weapons drove the U.S. argument for invading Iraq. It has also obtained video of "Curve Ball," as he was known in intelligence circles, and discovered he was not only a liar, but also a thief and a poor student instead of the chemical engineering whiz he claimed to be.
Flashback - A Spy Speaks Out
When no weapons of mass destruction surfaced in Iraq, President Bush insisted that all those WMD claims before the war were the result of faulty intelligence. But a former top CIA official, Tyler Drumheller a 26-year veteran of the agency has decided to do something CIA officials at his level almost never do: Speak out.
He tells correspondent Ed Bradley the real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration, time and again, welcomed intelligence that fit the president's determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not.
al-Qaida's No. 2 Threatens Libya
Al-Qaida's No. 2 figure harshly criticized Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in a new audio tape Saturday, accusing him of being an enemy of Islam and threatening a wave of attacks against the North African country because it improved relations with the U.S.
The mouse that shook the world It can run for hours at 20 metres per minute without getting tired. It lives longer, has more sex, and eats more without gaining weight. Could the science that created this supermouse be applied to humans?
Flashback - Why the future doesn't need us
Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.
The plan for eternal life
I'm sitting in a darkened hall listening to neuroscientist Anders Sandberg describe how to scan ultra-thin sections of brain. First, embed the brain in plastic, then use a camera combined with laser beam and diamond blade to capture images of the tissue as it is sliced.
The method is being developed (in mice, so far) to better understand the architecture of the brain. But Sandberg, who is based at the University of Oxford, has a rather more ambitious aim in mind. For him, this work is merely the first step towards uploading the contents of human brains - memories, emotions and all - onto a computer.
Experimental Weather Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon
Prepare yourself for more water shortages, floods, droughts, and a sharp decline in food supplies in the United States when U.S. Senate Bill 1807 & U.S. House Bill 3445, that were introduced on July 17, 2007, are voted into law. These identical bills, titled: “Weather Mitigation Research and Development Policy Authorization Act of 2007”, are moving forward at a rapid rate in Committees on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Deadly month in Iraq dulls US claims of progress
The number of Iraqis killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks rose in October, according to government figures obtained on Thursday, in a blow to a 9-month-old US troop-surge policy.
Bloomberg Calls for Tax on Carbon Emissions
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced today his support for a national carbon tax. In what his aides called one of the most significant policy addresses of his second and final term, the mayor argued that directly taxing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change will slow global warming, promote economic growth and stimulate technological innovation even if it results in higher gasoline prices in the short term.
'Virtual Satellites': Scientists Pursue Flexible, Adaptable Space Systems
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is predicting that in the future "virtual satellites" circling the globe will peer down on enemy forces.
Instead of one expensive 10,000-pound spacecraft, the spy camera will float alone, unattached to other components. The onboard processor and communications node, for example, will orbit nearby and the three building blocks in this system will be linked wirelessly.
The Art Of Mind Control
As the twenty-first century settles in around us, the influencing machine is quietly making itself at home in the mainstream of our techno-hungry culture. Only a decade ago, the idea of a covert device that uses futuristic technology to send messages and control minds was confined to a handful of cults and subcultures: aficionados of the paranoid sci-fi of Philip K.Dick, or of a samizdat conspiracy literature where mind control was occasionally proposed as the hidden hand that unifies the disparate narratives of alien abductions and controlling elites. Now, for every twelve year old who has seen The X-Files, The Matrix or a thousand film, TV and comic spin-offs, the influencing machine needs no explanation, and the Internet hums with stories of subliminal messaging, mysterious implants and military mind control programmes.
The Microchip Agenda
Agenda to introduce microchip implants
(Great page with lots of links)
Bush attorney general nominee gets key Democratic support
The confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general was all but assured Friday when two key Democratic senators said they will vote in favor of the nominee despite questions about his views on "waterboarding" and the president's power to order electronic surveillance.
Rice Must Testify at Ex-Israel Lobbyists' Spy Trial
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ex-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and about a dozen other current and former Bush administration officials must testify at the trial of two former lobbyists accused of spying for Israel, a judge said.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis in Alexandria, Virginia, today rejected a government effort to bar testimony by the officials, who also include former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Deadly HIV-TB co-epidemic sweeps sub-Saharan Africa: report
Drug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV have merged into a double-barreled epidemic that is sweeping across sub-Saharan Africa and threatening global efforts to eradicate both diseases, according to a report released Friday.
No, The Collapse of the Twin Towers Did NOT Create the Molten Metal
When confronted with evidence that temperatures at the World Trade Centers were too high to have been caused by anything other than explosives, defenders of the government story argue that such temperatures were caused by "friction" or "pressure" from the gigantic buildings collapsing in on themselves.
However, a professor emeritus of physics has proven that the collapses themselves could not have melted steel.
TSA Exposed Its Undcover People
The Transportation Security Administration touts its programs to ensure security by using undercover operatives to test its airport screeners. In one instance, however, the agency thwarted such a test by alerting screeners across the country that it was under way, even providing descriptions of the undercover agents.
'USAF struck Syrian nuclear site'
The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a suspected nuclear site under construction.
Bush calls war deniers dangerous
Bush compared Congress' Democratic leaders Thursday to people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century.
Explosive Evidence - High Temperatures Prove WTC Demolition
The government has been forced to admit that the fires in World Trade Center buildings 1, 2 and 7 were not hot enough to melt steel. That's because maximum temperatures reached by burning jet fuel, diesel, office supplies and equipment, and the other flammable material which could possibly have burned in the World Trade Centers are far below the melting point of steel.
Rumsfeld Ordered Military to Link Iraq to Iran, Evidence or Not
In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.
