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WeB-LOG after 9/11 continued

July 3-10, 2004

Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq
http://intelligence.senate.gov/iraqreport2.pdf
Conclusions (Excerpted From Full Report)
http://intelligence.senate.gov/conclusions.pdf

Effort to Curb Scope of Antiterrorism Law Falls Short
By Eric Lichtblau
An effort to bar the government from demanding records from libraries and booksellers in some terrorism investigations fell one vote short of passage in the House on Thursday after a late burst of lobbying prompted nine Republicans to switch their votes. The vote, a 210 to 210 deadlock, amounted to a referendum on the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act and reflected deep divisions in Congress over whether the law undercuts civil liberties. Under House rules, the tie vote meant the measure was defeated. The outcome led to angry recriminations from House Democrats, who accused Republicans of "vote-rigging" by holding the vote open for an extra 23 minutes to get enough colleagues to switch votes. Frustrated Democrats shouted "Shame, shame!" and "Democracy!" as the voting continued, but Republicans defended their right as the majority party to keep the vote open to "educate members" about the dangers of scaling back government counterterrorism powers.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071004Z.shtml

House GOP Defends Patriot Act Powers
Partisan Rancor High as Plan to Soften Anti-Terror Law Is Defeated
By Dan Morgan and Charles Babington
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37480-2004Jul8?language=printer

End of the anthrax
Long-awaited removal of biohazard in Boca Raton building set for Sunday
Published Thursday, July 8, 2004
by Dale M. King
The first building in the nation infected with deadly anthrax only three weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States is about to be cleaned up. Starting at noon on Sunday, hazards cleanup company BioONE will begin pumping low levels of anthrax-eliminating chlorine dioxide into the former AMI Building at 5401 Broken Sound Blvd., Boca Raton.
http://www.bocaratonnews.com/index.php?src=news&category=LOCAL%20NEWS&prid=8857

Plane that caused Capitol evacuation nearly shot down Aircraft carried Kentucky's governor
By Spencer S. Hsu
The top general at the North American Aerospace Defense Command was on the telephone and prepared to order an F-16 fighter to shoot down an unidentified plane that turned out to be carrying the governor of Kentucky to President Ronald Reagan's funeral last month, according to two federal security officials briefed separately about the incident.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5389327/

BAGHDAD, July 4: Saboteurs attacked the oil pipeline linking Iraq's northern and southern fields on Sunday, a day after they hit another pipeline that cut exports by half, officials and witnesses said. Columns of smoke were rising hundreds of metres from a section of the strategic pipeline in the Hawijat al-Fallujah area, some 80 km southwest of Baghdad. Industry insiders say northern crude was being secretly pumped through the pipeline for export through two offshore southern terminals. Northern crude is usually pumped through a pipeline to Turkey, but sabotage has forced Iraq to divert flows south. Exports from the southern terminals, which account for all of Iraq's oil exports, fell to 960,000 barrels per day on Saturday after saboteurs blew a hole in one of two pipelines feeding them. Iraq used to export around two million bpd before the attack on the southern pipeline on Saturday. Iraqi exports are dependent on the Gulf route. Attacks on the two southern pipelines and other oil installations have stopped exports several times this year. Senior Iraqi security official Ahmad al-Khafaji said that sabotage against oil installations would continue unless neighbouring countries helped stop the infiltration of the foreign militants alleged to be behind the attacks.

Saudi Arabia's intelligence agencies are so infiltrated by al-Qa'ida sympathisers that the kingdom's counter-terrorist campaign is failing and militant operations are spreading into neighbouring states, senior Arab and Western officials have warned. The main Saudi intelligence organisation responsible for combating al-Qa'ida at the Interior Ministry is riddled with agents linked to the militants, the officials say. "Their staff is 80 per cent sympathetic to al-Qa'ida," one senior Arab source said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10053683%255E2703,00.html

Israel said yesterday that it would not abandon its "no show, no tell" nuclear policy, because the long-standing strategy of deliberate ambiguity had paid off.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/07/wmid07.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/07/07/ixportal.html

Former Halliburton Co. insiders have come forward with new allegations of massive waste of taxpayer money in Iraq.
NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5333896/

Indicting Ken Lay For Securities Fraud Is Not Enough; Former Enron Chairman Must Account For Energy Crimes
Group Calls Indictment A Hollow Victory If Bush Administration Fails to Go After Billions Stolen During Cal. Energy Crisis
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/utilities/pr/pr004448.php3

Pentagon Says Bush Records of Service Were Destroyed
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/campaign/09records.html?ei=5062&en=4820315663b5a96a&ex=1089950400&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print

9/11 panel rebuts Cheney
The finding, made public last month, undercut a key argument used by the administration of President George W Bush to justify its March 2003 invasion of Iraq. The administration insisted in the lead-up to the war that al-Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime had developed "sinister nexus" that might result in terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction. But in a report released on June 16, the commission said al-Qaeda leader bin Laden was actively opposed to Iraq's secular government and at one time even sponsored an anti-Saddam Islamist group based in Iraqi Kurdistan. Later, authorities in Sudan, where bin Laden had found refuge in the early 1990s, reportedly persuaded the al-Qaeda chief to drop that support and attempt to make amends with Baghdad, according to the document. As part of these efforts, a senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan and finally met bin Laden in 1994, the report said. But nothing appears to have come out of this courtship, according to the commission. Bin Laden is said to have requested space for establishing al-Qaeda training camps in Iraq as well as assistance in arming the groups, "but Iraq apparently never responded," said the commission.
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1553855,00.html

The Coming Break Up of America: Part I
Commentary by Frosty Wooldridge
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_9482.shtml

The Coming Break Up of America: Part II
Commentary by Frosty Wooldridge
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_9506.shtml

The Justice Department is dispatching teams of federal agents to 15 cities struggling with violent crime problems. Teams of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service; FBI; and Drug Enforcement Administration will be assigned to each of the 15 cities for six months. A Justice Department prosecutor will handle cases of those charged. Investigators will focus on prosecuting people for firearms violations, which often accompany gang activity, illegal drug organizations and organized crime groups. The 15 Violent Crime Impact Teams will use high-tech surveillance and other techniques to identify the worst offenders. The ATF is leading the effort because of its expertise in gun crime investigations and ballistics, said ATF Director Carl Truscott. Concentrating on gun crimes allows prosecutors to "focus on the thugs who are plaguing these neighborhoods" and are likely responsible for a long list of other offenses, said Deputy Attorney General James Comey. Cities getting federal teams are Albuquerque, New Mexico; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Baltimore, Maryland; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Tampa, Florida; Miami, Florida; Richmond, Virginia; Greensboro, North Carolina; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Las Vegas, Nevada; Columbus, Ohio; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles, California; Tucson, Arizona; and the Washington, D.C.-Northern Virginia region.

July 10 (AP) - Florida elections officials said Saturday that they would not use a disputed list that was intended to keep felons from voting, acknowledging a flaw that could have allowed Hispanic felons to cast ballots in November. The problem could have been significant in Florida, which President Bush won by just 537 votes in 2000. The state has a sizable Cuban population, and Hispanics in Florida have tended to vote Republican more than Hispanics nationally. The list had about 28,000 Democrats and around 9,500 Republicans, with most of the rest unaffiliated. Gov. Jeb Bush said that not including Hispanic felons on the list "was an oversight and a mistake." He added, "We accept responsibility, and that's why we're pulling it back." Governor Bush said the mistake occurred because two databases that were merged to form the disputed list were incompatible. When voters register in Florida, they can identify themselves as Hispanic. But the felons database has no Hispanic category, which excluded many people from the list. Secretary of State Glenda Hood said elections supervisors would find other ways to ensure that felons were removed from the rolls. The decision to scrap the list was made after it was reported that of the nearly 48,000 people on the list, created by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, only 61 were classified as Hispanics. The purge of felons from voter rolls has been a thorny issue since the 2000 presidential election. A private company hired to identify ineligible voters before the election produced a list with scores of errors, and elections supervisors used it to remove voters without verifying its accuracy. A federal lawsuit led to an agreement to restore rights to thousands of voters. Florida is one of only a few states that do not automatically restore voting rights to felons once they have completed their sentence.

TALLAHASSEE - Nobody disputes that the almost 2,500 people on the list of felons at risk of being erased from voter rolls have had their voting rights restored. The problem is that broad disagreement exists between state election officials and voting rights advocates over how difficult it should be to clear them from a list of people believed to be felons. The voters, overwhelmingly Democrats, were included because they registered to vote before they went through the clemency process and won back their voting rights. The Division of Elections, an executive branch agency reporting to Gov. Jeb Bush, contends state law requires felons to register after their voting rights have been restored. Officials acknowledged Tuesday that the list includes felons who likely have followed the state's registration policy but that there is no method of tracking compliance unless they move to a new county. Voting rights advocates and some county election supervisors said the registration requirement being ordered by the state this year is unnecessary. The American Civil Liberties Union and Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho cite a separate state law that they say makes the registration date a moot point. ``There is a serious possibility that a fully qualified voter will be disenfranchised because of an administrative error,'' ACLU of Florida Legal Director Randall C. Marshall wrote in a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Glenda Hood. The group is threatening a lawsuit unless she reverses her position on registration. The voters have been flagged by the state on its list of nearly 48,000 people it has directed county election supervisors to verify as felons, then purge from the voter rolls. The list has been scrutinized ever since a Leon County judge overturned a law last week that kept copies of the list out of the hands of the public. Veterans of the legal battles erupting over Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election are openly worried. U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, said, ``The governor's administration will stop at nothing to knock people from the rolls. This is an official document that came out of the highest levels of state government, and I wouldn't even call it an error but a high level of trickery.'' The public interest is intense partly because potentially hundreds of voters were wrongly disfranchised through a similar process during the 2000 presidential election in Florida. Also contributing to the concern is that county election supervisors are under no legal obligation to ``absolutely'' verify that voters on the list have committed a felony and lost civil rights before they are purged. State law requires only ``substantial'' verification. Janet Modrow, who shares oversight of the purge list, acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that she compared felons' original - not the latest - registration date with their clemency date to determine whether they need to register again. Modrow said it will be each county election supervisor's responsibility to see whether the voter has registered since their clemency. This check was not suggested, however, in a checklist of verifications the state said it is distributing to the 67 election supervisors. Division of Elections Director Dawn Roberts said voters who registered before they received clemency committed a serious mistake. ``This is an anomaly that should not have occurred. It is an anomaly that cannot be overlooked,'' she said. In many cases, it had been overlooked for many years, and voters on the list of 2,500 have voted without incident for some time. Modrow said she would have used more up-to-date information when compiling the list if it had been available. Meek replied to the explanation with a blunt, ``Hogwash. I think that argument is weak and is not leveling with the people of the state of Florida.'' Pasco County Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning, who predicts it will cost him $14,000 to hire an outside firm to verify the county's portion of the list, said, ``Hopefully we'll get some guidance from the Department of Elections on what to do with the people who registered before clemency. I would lean to keeping them on the file today, but I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing.'' Leon Elections Supervisor Sancho, who has become a leading critic of state officials' handling of felons' voting rights, said, ``We've made the determination it is illegal to deny the right of an individual to vote because of an error or omission, regardless of who committed the error, if such error is not material to decide whether a person is actually qualified to vote.''

Low wages keep working poor in poverty
Barely making it becoming the rule for more families
By CHRISTINA HOAG
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2666890

Family income levels in Florida have dropped more than those in most other states over the last four years, according to data from economists and the U.S. Census Bureau. The estimated median household income for Florida this year is about 7 percent lower than in 2000, when adjusted for inflation. Only two other states showed greater income drops, with Mississippi falling 8.8 percent and Missouri down 7.8 percent, according to Census data and estimates from the consulting firm Economy.com. Nationally, the median household income dropped 0.8 percent the consulting firm found. Economists pointed to factors such as the growth of Florida's low-wage hospitality and tourism industry, an increase in part-time jobs, and low interest rates on bank deposits to account for part of the state's decline in median family income levels. "For all the talk in the state by political leaders and the economic development agencies about diversifying our economy, the successes haven't been that great," said David Scott, director of the University of Central Florida's Phillips Institute for the Study of American Business.

The government told cosmetics makers Friday they can no longer use brain and spinal cord tissue from older cattle in lipstick, hair sprays and other products. The new Food and Drug Administration regulations come in the wake of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease last December.
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01084.html

Avian influenza in Asian countries far from over
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/48087/index.html
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/

Another Top Bioweapons Expert Killed
By Sam Marsden
http://www.rense.com/general54/hehi.htm

Mysterious Disease Killing Watermelon Crop
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
http://www.rense.com/general54/watermelpon.htm

Poll: over 40% of Canadian teens think America is "evil"
by Arthur Weinreb
http://www.torontofreepress.com/2004/weinreb063004.htm

[Microsoft] Internet Explorer Is Too Dangerous to Keep Using
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
Although Linux & Open Source Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols once used IE on his Windows machines, he now finds Microsoft's browser seriously insecure and endorses open-source ones instead.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1617927,00.asp

July 1-2, 2004

The FBI urged police nationwide Thursday to step up patrols and watch for signs of terrorist activity during the Fourth of July weekend. A constant stream of intelligence indicates that al-Qaida is determined to stage another major attack this summer or fall, possibly timed to one of a series of symbolic events in the United States and overseas, most notably the political conventions, national election and Olympics, but also the Fourth of July. The FBI said police should increase patrols this holiday weekend, vary the timing, size and routes of the patrols, and make sure all vehicles illegally parked in key areas are approached and their drivers questioned. Last week, the agency sent a bulletin urging tighter security to state and local officials and those that operate power and chemical plants and key transportation facilities. The FBI bulletin cited recent intelligence that continues to show al-Qaida interest in attacking a range of facilities, including gas stations and refineries; financial and government institutions; civil aviation; nuclear plants and dams, and subways and freight trains. Terrorists could seek to replicate attacks overseas that have used bombs in vehicles, assault teams armed with light weapons and suicide bombers, the FBI said. Law enforcement officials were also asked to be wary of possible terrorist surveillance, which the FBI said nearly always occurs prior to any attack "to determine suitability, security and probability of success." Terrorists may also make anonymous threats to observe how security reacts and may attempt surveillance disguised as homeless people, shoe shiners, street vendors or street sweepers, the FBI said. The FBI bulletin repeated for local authorities a previously released list of indicators often associated with suicide bomber attacks overseas. These include:
_Irregular, loose-fitting clothing not appropriate for warm weather,
possibly with "protruding bulges or exposed wires" or a noticeable
chemical odor.
_"Sweating, mumbling (prayers) or unusually calm and detached
behavior." In addition, people who refuse to show their hands, possibly to
conceal a detonator.
_Disguises including military, police, medical or firefighter uniforms or
someone posing as a pregnant woman.
_Large or heavy baggage not appropriate for the location, such as a big
duffel bag carried into a restaurant.

The Coast Guard launched an ambitious maritime anti-terrorism program Thursday when it started inspecting every foreign ship coming to a U.S. port to make sure it has taken steps to improve security. Ships that fall short of international standards could be barred from U.S. ports, or allowed in under Coast Guard escort and forced to hire security guards while docked. In addition, the Coast Guard will soon begin inspecting ports in 135 countries to evaluate their security.

F.B.I. officials said yesterday that they would not be able to fully deploy a long-awaited computer system to manage the bureau's case files before the end of the year as promised, and that they could not predict when the entire system would be in place. As a result, an important technological component of the administration's domestic security effort remains in limbo. The Virtual Case File system, which would allow agents to share information easily — a critical shortcoming of the present system — is already two years behind schedule and one bureau official who spoke on condition of anonymity went so far as to suggest that the program might ultimately have to be abandoned. Other F.B.I. officials denied that the situation was that dire, but they acknowledged that the program development was far slower than the bureau had initially expected. The postponement represents a setback in replacing an antiquated system with shortcomings that were highlighted during investigations of the F.B.I.'s failure to detect the Sept. 11 plot. In the aftermath of the hijackings, Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, told a Senate panel that the bureau's computer system was so limited that it could not search its files for combinations of terms like "flight" and "schools," precisely the kind of combination that might have helped to discern the patterns of activity leading up to the attacks. Instead, Mr. Mueller said, the system could search for words like "flight" and "school" only one at a time. According to a staff report from the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the F.B.I.'s primary information system, which was designed using 1980's technology, was "already obsolete when installed in 1995." The commission report said that "field agents usually did not know what investigations agents in their own office, let alone in other field offices, were working on."

In a book to be released next month, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," an unidentified 23-year veteran of the CIA offers a stinging critique of the war on terror. Seeing flaws in U.S. intelligence and policy, he believes a growing segment of the Islamic world disapproves of American actions and radical leaders capitalize on that animosity by making a case that Islam is under attack by the United States. In short, Anonymous says, the U.S. is losing the war on terror. Why write a book? "I thought it was very clear that the American people and certainly our elected officials did not have a good handle on the nature of the threat," a failure of senior career intelligence officials, he said in an interview. "I also meant to draw attention to the fact that we have not yet recognized that our enemy really doesn't care about our way of life, or our democracy, or our values."

As President Bush narrows the field of candidates for CIA director, a senior Senate Democrat is questioning the idea that he might choose spy-turned-congressman Porter Goss, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Friday it would be a mistake to let a politician — "any politician from either party" — succeed CIA Director George Tenet, who leaves next month. A Yale graduate like Bush, Goss, 65, has served in Congress for 16 years and has chaired the Intelligence Committee for nearly eight. In addition to Goss, other names that have been floated include Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and former CIA director Robert M. Gates.

The US Congress, the domed bastion of democracy in the capital of capitalism, abounds with deep-pocketed politicians whose fortunes have made the legislative branch of government a millionaire's club. In the 435-member House of Representatives, 123 elected officials earned at least one million dollars last year, according to recently released financial records made public each year. Next door in the ornate Senate, whose blue-blooded pedigree includes a Kennedy and a Rockefeller, one in three people are millionaires. By comparison, less than one percent of Americans make seven-figure incomes. The American greenback is bipartisan, filling the pockets of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans without discrimination.

Artists Subpeonaed In Patriot Act Case
From George Paxinos
http://www.rense.com/general54/patr.htm

Chinese government gets a new SMS messaging surveillance system
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10870

The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission. Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel. Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush.

The Miami Herald reported on July 2 that there are more than 2100 voter names erroneously on the list because they have received clemency and their rights have been restored. Others erroneously on the list may well never have been convicted of a felony at all.
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16170

A Florida Circuit Court judge said Thursday that a list of felons to be purged from Florida's voter rolls must be made available to anybody that wants a copy, handing a victory to media organizations that had sought copies from the state but were refused. The ruling by Judge Nikki Clark came in a lawsuit filed by CNN in May. The news network said it wanted the list in order to verify its accuracy and to prevent the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters. Critics suspect many legitimate voters were not allowed to vote in the 2000 presidential election because of inaccuracies in these lists. "The Division of Elections is hereby ordered to immediately open the suspected felons list for public inspection and permit the plaintiff and interveners to copy and photograph the list," Clark wrote in a summary judgment. George W. Bush won Florida's 25 electoral votes in 2000 by just 537 votes over Democrat Al Gore. That year, then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a private firm to purge felons from voting. Hundreds of voters claimed to have been wrongfully removed from the rolls, possibly altering the outcome of the election.

Has America entered an Orwellian world of Doublespeak where outright lies can pass for the truth? Are Americans being sold a bill of goods by a handful of transnational media corporations and political elites whose interests have little in common with the interests of the American people? Orwell Rolls in his Grave explores what the media doesn't like to talk about -- itself. Does the corporate media reflect the public opinion or create it? Did the media help George Bush steal the presidency and market the Iraq war? From the very size of the media monopolies and how they got that way to who decides what gets on the air and what doesn't, the film moves through a troubling list of questions and news stories that go unanswered and unreported in the media. Are Americans being given the information a democracy needs to survive or have they been electronically lobotomized into loving Big Brother?
http://www.buzzflash.com/orwell/about.html

The Poverty of the Rest of the World
Commentary by Frosty Wooldridge
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_9419.shtml

During the 90's Edward Hooper, a British journalist, traveled to Africa and became convinced that AIDS was an act of man, not an act of God. He interviewed hundred of participants and collected thousands of documents to support his theory.
http://www.cbc.ca/witness/originsofaids/hooper.html

June 25-30, 2004

Saudi police killed a top spiritual guide for the Saudi wing of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network during a shootout in Riyadh on Wednesday, security sources said. They named the slain militant as Abdullah al-Roshood, on a list of 26 most wanted suspects. After the death of al Qaeda's Saudi commander, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin -- hours after militants beheaded U.S. hostage Paul Johnson -- the group named Saleh al-Awfi as its new leader. At least 85 policemen and civilians, many of them foreigners, have been killed in the shootings and suicide bombings blamed on al Qaeda. Last week, Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah announced a limited government amnesty for militants who surrender. Official said the families of their victims could still press for punishment. Al Qaeda, in an Internet newsletter, denounced the amnesty and said it was doomed to fail. The United States and Britain, key allies of Saudi Arabia, have urged their 65,000 citizens in the kingdom to leave, citing the possibility of further militant attacks.

The Pentagon announced a major expansion of its vaccination program with a new order on Wednesday requiring that anthrax and smallpox vaccine be administered to all soldiers and essential civilians in the Middle East and, for the first time, to troops in South Korea.

The U.S. Army is planning an involuntary mobilization of thousands of reserve troops to maintain adequate force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials said on Monday. The move -- involving the seldom-tapped Individual Ready Reserve -- represents the latest evidence of the strain being placed on the U.S. military, particularly the Army, by operations in those two countries.

House Bill Would Enforce Patriot Act Secrecy Clause
by Jessica Azulay
In recent months, signs of public outrage have begun to surface over the FBI's use of National Security Letters (NSLs) to secretly demand information from business and public agencies about their clientele. Under one of the most controversial section of the USA PATRIOT Act, third party record holders who receive NSLs requesting information about their patrons are forbidden from telling anyone about the Letter. Now some lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are considering a bill that would designate concrete penalties for people who refuse to comply with NSL requests for information or who tell anyone that federal agents requested personal information about their clients. Additionally, the bill would grant the FBI greater power to secretly monitor non-citizens and would allow the use of secretly gathered evidence in immigration hearing without giving defendants the opportunity to legally challenge the information. The Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Tools Improvement Act of 2003 (HR 3179) was introduced in the House last September and is currently in the House Judiciary Committee. The bill's opponents fear that one of the bill's sponsors, Representative Porter Goss (R-FL), who also chairs the House Intelligence Committee will fold the provisions of HR 3179 into the annual intelligence authorization bill, making it difficult for lawmakers to oppose.
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=589
http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR03179:

Big Brother Beat Cop A Walking Database On YOU
From Nobel Eagle
http://www.rense.com/general54/bigbrotherbeatcop.htm

SUPREME COURT OKs DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF AMERICAN CITIZENS
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/06/291611.shtml

The United States will lose its character if the nation's leaders aren't careful to balance civil rights against security needs, the chair of a congressional commission on terrorism told a convention of homeland security workers on Monday. "The enemy can't bring down this Republic - only we can do that," former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore told about 500 people at the third annual Government Symposium on Information Sharing and Homeland Security in Orlando. Gilmore led the Congressional Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction between 1999 and last year. The panel, also known as the Gilmore Commission, issued its fifth and final report last December. Among the report's recommendations was the creation of an independent board to make sure that efforts to monitor suspected terrorists don't infringe on Americans' civil liberties. Americans' desire to "fix things," such as faults in the nation's security, plus the nation's embrace of technology, which could manifest itself with omnipresent cameras in public or the use of national identification cards, could infringe on individual liberties, Gilmore said. Gilmore also said that Americans need to keep perspective that it's impossible to protect every part of the nation from a possible attack. "We're going to have to start telling the American people that they can't be protected from everything and they won't be protected from everything," he said. He added, "They're not threatened in most places." Joel Bagnal, former assistant for counterterrorism to President Bush, told the conferees that Americans have grown more complacent about homeland security as time has passed since the Sept. 11 attacks. "Rest assured, there is new intelligence everyday to suggest the terrorist threat is still alive," Bagnal said. Al Qaida eventually will be destroyed, but it will be replaced by smaller terrorist groups that may be harder to detect and destroy, Bagnal said. Both men said that the United States needs a better system to share information among federal, state and local law enforcement. Bagnal added that the United States also needed a campaign that helps the world understand that democracy is a better alternative to Islamic militarism. "That means you have Web sites that talk about freedoms rather than terrorism," he said. The convention was sponsored by the Government Emerging Technology Alliance, a nonprofit group that tries to join emerging technologies with the federal government, and National Conference Services, a conference-planning business.

The U.S.-led coalition transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, 2004.

Iraqis, Seeking Foes of Saudis, Contacted bin Laden, File Says
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/politics/25TERR.html?ex=1088740800&en=ffec5d72643beac1&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam
By Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921-3401r.htm

VP Dick Cheney has set a standard for War Profiteering that others can only dream about.
By Mick Youther
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=788

Facts Why Bush Will Remain President
By Ted Twietmeyer
http://www.rense.com/general54/facts.htm

THE PART OF THE 9-11 STORY MICHAEL MOORE MISSED!
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/farenheit911michaelmoore.html

It's been nearly three years. But the government is releasing details about charter flights that left Orlando and Tampa carrying members of Osama bin Laden's family shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Eight days afterward, at least 26 passengers, mostly bin Laden relatives, left Orlando aboard a Boeing 727 chartered from Ryan International. The plane's crew initially refused to fly the relatives but agreed to do it 15 minutes later. Bin Laden's brother Khalil sought protection for his family living on an 18-acre estate in west Orange County. The sheriff's office refused to put a patrol car outside but escorted relatives to the airport for their own safety. Published reports says six charter flights picked up bin Laden relatives and other Saudis from airports around the country in September 2001. The 9-11 commission says only 30 of 142 passengers were interviewed by the F-B-I before leaving.

The 9/11 Commission's report of Mohamed Atta's final days does not match what's already on the record.
by Daniel Hopsicker
http://www.madcowprod.com/indexbbb.html

More On The F-16 Happy Hooligans And Flt 93
By E. Gothenberg
http://www.rense.com/general54/happy.htm

A Plan and a Plea
It’s Time to Unite Against the Mainstream Media
http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/a_plan_and_a_plea.html

Drug Prices Rose After Medicare Law, Group Says
By Susan Heavey
Prices for medicines most used by older Americans rose steadily after the Bush administration enacted the new Medicare law late last year, the nation's largest group representing the elderly said on Wednesday.
http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5554880
http://www.aarp.org/legislative/prescriptiondrugs/rxprices/watchdog/

June 18-24, 2004

The Treasury Department ordered banks on Thursday to freeze any assets found in the United States belonging to six foreigners the government believes are linked to an al-Qaida terror cell in Italy. The department said it has information the cell was engaged in the trafficking of weapons and chemical materials. A department statement said "militant members of the organization were able to immigrate to Italy because the cell was supplying them with false documentation." The six people were identified as: Mohamed Ben Mohamed Abdelhedi; Kamel Darraji; Mohamed El Mahfoudi; Imed Ben Bechir Jammali; Habib Ben Ahmed Loubiri; and Chabaane Ben Mohamed Trabelsi.

The Daily Life of Kawther Salam
Al-Qaeda, Paul Johnson and two American Officers
I have never read any Islamic Rule in the Koran which allows the decapitation of people whether they are Moslems, Christians or Jews, for any reason whatsoever.
http://s023.dyndns.org/kawther/K20040622A.html

Saudi security forces killed the kingdom's top al Qaeda leader Abdulaziz al-Muqrin and two other militants Friday shortly after the group beheaded the U.S. engineer they were holding, a senior security source said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5461110

Bush Interviewed in Gov't CIA Leak Probe
By DEB RIECHMANN
"The likelihood of actually finding the source of the leak is very small"
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=693&e=1&u=/ap/20040625/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_cia_leak

The New York Times Opinion - Show Us the Proof
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/19/opinion/19SAT1.html?ex=1088222400&en=22ba731e1d686bd1&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands
by Julian Borger
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1242639,00.html

Americans Were 'Bushwhacked' Says Weapons Inspector Ritter
By John Intardonato
http://www.rense.com/general54/ritter.htm

Sibel Edmonds sues Ashcroft again for actions tied to 9-11 evidence
FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds sues Ashcroft and DOJ for the second time, asserting that re-classification of her 9-11 allegations was illegal and unconstitutional
by Tom Flocco
http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=66

Did Ashcroft brush off terror warnings?
NBC exclusive: 9/11 commission interviews FBI officials who contradict Ashcroft testimony
By Lisa Myers
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5271234/

Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11," on television or radio after July 30 if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel.
http://www.thehill.com/news/062404/moore.aspx

National Military Command Center operations director asked newly-qualified substitute on Sept. 10 to stand his watch at 8:30 am on Sept. 11
by Tom Flocco
http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=65&mode=&order=0&thold=0

NORAD Cmdr - 911 Planes Could Have Been Stopped
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/061904A.shtml

The Explosion of the 9-11 Truth Movement -- U.S. Media's Dirty Little Secret
by Bill Douglas
http://www.newtopiamagazine.net/content/issue17/oped/911.php

911 COMMISSION COVERUP
THE MEDIA REPEATS A STORY FULL OF HOLES
By William Thomas
http://willthomas.net/911/911_Cover_Up.htm

COVERING UP AMERICA’S DAY OF DECEPTION
QUESTIONS THE 911 COMMISSION DARED NOT ASK
http://willthomas.net/911/911_Commission.htm

New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional
By TERESA HAMPTON
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4704.shtml

Bush to screen population for mental illness
Sweeping initiative links diagnoses to treatment with specific drugs
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078

Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness
by Jeanne Lenzer
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/1458

Bush Claimed Right to Waive Torture Laws
By TERENCE HUNT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0%2C1282%2C-4234178%2C00.html

More False Information From TSA
By Ryan Singe
http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,63958,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

Pentagon Seeks U.S. Spy Powers
By Ryan Singel
http://wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,63917,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

How Big Brother Is Watching, Listening
and Misusing Information About You
By TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4656.shtml

One lawyer says the government will now be able to "turn a person's silence into a criminal offense." A sharply-divided Supreme Court has ruled five-to-four that Americans have no constitutional right to keep quiet when police ask for their names. Privacy rights advocates say the ruling essentially opens a can of worms, forcing people who haven't done anything wrong to give information that can be used in broad data searches. The head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center says the modern age means police get "an extraordinary look" into somebody's private life simply by getting their identification. But the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation says officers will only be able to demand I-D from people suspected of criminal involvement. The case involved a Nevada rancher who was arrested after refusing multiple requests to give an officer his name.
http://papersplease.org/
http://www.epic.org/privacy/hiibel/default.html
http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/040621hiibel.pdf

Librarian's stand against federal law
By Humphrey Hawksley
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3820079.stm

Western Drought Now Beats 1930s Dust Bowl
By Angie Wagner
http://www.rense.com/general53/beats.htm

Health Officials Fear New Mosquito Disease
By DANIEL YEE
Rift Valley fever, which originated in Africa, is the only disease at the top of both human health and agriculture lists of dangerous diseases. The virus can kill people, with a near 1 percent mortality rate, making it deadlier than West Nile. But Rift Valley poses a greater threat to cattle and sheep. It kills up to 30 percent of the livestock it infects and if it were found in animals here, it would probably prompt livestock bans by other countries.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040623/D83CJL5O0.html

Hospitals charge uninsured people far higher fees than they charge the insured, and may use aggressive collection techniques that can drive patients into bankruptcy, lawmakers and expert witnesses said at a congressional hearing on Thursday. Several academic and think tank experts who appeared before the panel said the uninsured could face bills two to four times higher than the insured, as well as extremely aggressive collection techniques. An expert on bankruptcy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law school, said aggressive collection tactics can drive patients into bankruptcy and even harm their health -- but still not produce much money for the hospitals.

Chemical maker DuPont is preparing for a clash with the Environmental Protection Agency over a document containing data on birth risks associated with an unregulated chemical used to make Teflon.
http://www.ewg.org/issues/PFCs/index.php

New evidence shows Enron Corp. was still manipulating energy markets a year after the company claims it stopped, a Democratic senator said on Thursday, asking that lawmakers haul the company back to Capitol Hill to explain the discrepancy. Internal documents and audiotapes revealed that Enron continued manipulative trading practices virtually until its bankruptcy in December 2001 although executives told Congress in sworn testimony that those kinds of strategies stopped in December 2000.

June 12-17, 2004

Hijack 'suspects' alive and well
Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well. The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

The 911 panel depicted the Federal Aviation Administration as slow to alert the military to the hijackings — even failing to pass along word that one of the planes had been seized.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=US&cat=Terrorism

America is "massively vulnerable" to another big terrorist attack because of President George Bush's insistence on diverting resources from internal security to the war in Iraq, Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism chief has said. He told The Independent the war in Iraq had taken focus and financing not only from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida supporters but from homeland security programmes in the US. "America is massively vulnerable," Mr Clarke said. "Its chemical plants are vulnerable; its train systems are all vulnerable. We are a target-rich environment. There are lots of targets that could be made harder to attack but we are not doing that." The invasion of Iraq, which Mr Clarke believes presented no threat to the US, had created three serious security problems, he said. Insufficient aid was being given to countries such as Yemen and Pakistan, where there were known to be terrorists, to help them strengthen security measures. Second, troops and resources such as satellite imaging, special forces and unmanned Predator drones, had been moved from the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to help the troops in Iraq. Third, the billions of dollars that had been spent in Iraq had used money that could have been spent on security within the US.

Saboteurs Hit Iraq's Oil Lifeline
By Alistair Lyon
http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5427799

The UAE-based daily Al-Khaleej reported on Monday that Kuwaiti tariff officials have intercepted a truck loaded with radioactive materials in the Iraq-Kuwait border. The daily quoted informed sources as saying that the radioactive control team from Kuwait's Health Ministry discovered that one of the trucks belonging to the U.S.-led coalition forces was carrying heavy radioactive materials trucks. The trucks were headed for Iraq. The daily said that such materials could only enter a country when there is permission from related bodies while the materials were secretly being carried to Iraq. Security forces stressed that no contamination had been caused by the material. The MNA reported for the first time the coalition forces' suspicious transfer of WMD parts from Kuwait to Southern Iraq by trucks.

Iran Rejects Restraint on Nuclear Program
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Toughening its stance in advance of a meeting of the U.N. nuclear
watchdog agency, Iran on Saturday said it would reject international restrictions on its
nuclear program and challenged the world to accept Tehran as a member of the ``nuclear
club.''
http://www.middleeast.org/launch/redirect.cgi?c=2&num=72

China is sending nuclear technology to Iran in exchange for oil and allowing North Korea to use Chinese air, rail and seaports to ship missiles and other weapons, congressional investigators reported on Tuesday.
http://www.uscc.gov/

The three Americans killed or kidnapped by Islamic radicals in Saudi Arabia in the past week were likely selected as targets many days or weeks in advance and singled out because of their work as military contractors, U.S. and Saudi officials said Sunday. Authorities continued to search for the kidnapped American, Paul M. Johnson Jr., 55, an employee of Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp., whose family reported Saturday that he had vanished in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. A group calling itself Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula issued a statement Saturday saying it had captured Johnson and would treat him in the same way that U.S. troops treated Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38241-2004Jun13?language=printer

Suspected militants killed an American in the Saudi capital on Saturday, shooting him in the back as he parked in his home garage, and the U.S. Embassy said it was searching for an American who was missing. A purported al-Qaida statement posted on an Islamic Web site late Saturday claimed the terror group had killed one American and kidnapped another in Riyadh. It threatened to treat the captive as U.S. troops treated Iraqi prisoners.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAUDI_AMERICAN_KILLED?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

General Granted Latitude At Prison
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Josh White
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/061304A.shtml

Mission creep? A new bill could expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States
By Michael Isikoff
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5197014/site/newsweek

The Son of Patriot Act Also Rises
By Kim Zetter
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,63800,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

The lost War drill ? (Chapter 10)
By Ewing2001
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=436

The commission investigating the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US has found no "credible evidence" that Iraq helped al-Qaeda carry them out. The statement was published before the bipartisan commission began the final two-day public session. It said Iraq "never responded" to Osama Bin Laden's requests to set up training camps and for help in buying weapons. On Monday, US Vice-President Dick Cheney said that Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al-Qaeda.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3812351.stm
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040616/D83860A00.html

Official verdict: White House misled world over Saddam
By Andrew Buncombe
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=532341

Bush's new lawyer harbors secretive, criminal past
By John Byrne
http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/jim_sharp_bush_lawyer_secrecy.htm

Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go
By Ronald Brownstein
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/061404A.shtml

George Bush’s lack of leadership qualities and his blind obedience to ideology threaten our national security.
by Gerald S. Rellick
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=771

Congress must find out if the recent reports about Bush’s erratic behavior are true, because when King George has a problem, we all have a problem.
By Mick Youther
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=772

Vice President Dick Cheney's staff was involved from the very start of the decision-making process that ended with Houston's Halliburton Co. being awarded a multibillion-dollar contract to perform work in Iraq, a key Democratic lawmaker said Sunday.
http://HalliburtonWatch.org/

Auditors Take Aim at Halliburton's Work in Iraq
By Sue Pleming
http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5427745

Top White House officials expressed anger after TIME magazine detailed the location of Vice President Dick Cheney's secret bunker. In new editions, TIME revealed "Site R," an underground bunker on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border where the Vice President spent much of his time in 2001. TIME wrote: "Deep under Raven Rock Mountain, Site R is a secret world of five buildings, each three stories tall, computer filled caverns and a subterranean water reservoir. It is just 7 miles from Camp David." Raven Rock Mountain is easily found using basic geographical maps.

Interesting - No Israelis Attended Ronald Reagan's Funeral
From Wayne Madsen
http://www.rense.com/general53/offical.htm

Ronnie And Saddam
How Secret Deals Under Reagan Secured
Saddam An Arsenal Of WMD
By Neil Mackay
http://www.rense.com/general53/ronnie.htm

A web site has launched a campaign to deter theater owners from showing Michael Moore's film, "Fahrenheit 9-11". A list of theaters currently committed to showing the film is provided along with exhortations to call and demand that the film be dropped. Some theater owners are reporting receiving death threats. This web site, "www.moveamericaforward.org" , is actually an alias for "www.moveamericaforward.com".
Russo Marsh & Rogers is a political public relations firm with strong ties to the GOP.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/russo.html

Republican dirty tricksters join the Motion Picture Association of America to stop Americans from seeing Michael Moore’s new movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
By Frederick Sweet
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=774

Alternative measures of labor underutilization
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

Acid-Fast Bacteria Discovered In Prostate Cancer
Alan R Cantwell, M.D.
http://www.rense.com/general53/acsaid.htm

June 8-11, 2004

Attackers Hit Oil Pipelines, Police and a U.S. Convoy
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 10 - Insurgents attacked on several fronts Wednesday, firing mortars at an Iraqi militia brigade west of here, setting ablaze two important oil pipelines in the north and ambushing an American military convoy in the capital.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/10/international/middleeast/10iraq.html?ex=1087444800&en=4f93e4e97da81576&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

The "dirty bomb" allegedly planned by terror suspect Jose Padilla would have been a dud, not the radiological threat portrayed last week by federal authorities, scientists say. At a June 1 news conference, the Justice Department said the alleged al-Qaida associate hoped to attack Americans by detonating "uranium wrapped with explosives" in order to spread radioactivity. But uranium's extremely low radioactivity is harmless compared with high-radiation materials — such as cesium and cobalt isotopes used in medicine and industry that experts see as potential dirty bomb fuels. American nuclear physicist Peter D. Zimmerman, co-author of an expert analysis of dirty bombs for the U.S. National Defense University, said last week's government announcement was "extremely disturbing — because you cannot make a radiological dispersal device with uranium. There is just no significant radiation hazard." Other specialists agreed. "It's the equivalent of blowing up lead," said physicist Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040609/ap_on_sc/dirty_bomb_dud_2

Ten US Navy Carriers Now At Sea - Only Two In Port
http://www.rense.com/general53/port.htm

OIL AND GAS LIQUIDS 2004 Scenario
http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/Default.htm

The State Department acknowledged Thursday it was wrong in reporting terrorism declined worldwide last year, a finding used to boost one of President Bush's chief foreign policy claims — success in countering terror.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=1276&e=1&u=/ap/20040611/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/powell_terror_report

Pentagon Wastes $100m On Unused Air Tickets
By David Rennie
http://www.rense.com/general53/pepent.htm

US 'not bound by torture laws'
A Pentagon report last year argued that President George W Bush was not bound by laws banning the use of torture, according to the Wall Street Journal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3783869.stm

Bush Changing His Story on Prison Abuse Scandal
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df06092004.html

IVINS: The Day the Constitution Died
By Molly Ivins
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18919

TORTURE COMING TO AMERICA?
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/torture.html

Bush the Narcissist
The Empire is His Mirror
By MICHAEL LEON
http://www.counterpunch.org/leon06082004.html

COUP D'ETAT:
The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the CIA on June 3rd and 4th
Bush, Cheney Indictments in Plame Case Looming
by Michael C. Ruppert
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html

More Enron Tapes, More Gloating
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/08/eveningnews/main621856.shtml

The Supreme Court removed the last legal roadblock to Mexican trucks rolling across U.S. roadways, siding with the Bush administration Monday in a long-running dispute with labor union officials, environmentalists and consumer advocates.

How Big Brother Is Watching, Listening and Misusing Information About You
By TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4656.shtml

24-hour camera surveillance in city is part of bigger plan
Financed by homeland security grants, new network aimed at fighting
terrorists as much as drug dealers
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.cameras10jun10,0,938536,print.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

Cities Say No to the Patriot Act
By Kim Zetter
In the past two years, more than 300 cities and four states have passed resolutions calling on Congress to repeal or change parts of the USA Patriot Act that, activists say, violate constitutional rights such as free speech and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,63702,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

Extremism, Xenophobia Rising in Russia
By MARIA DANILOVA
Ethnic minorities in Moscow complain that beatings and insults are almost a daily occurrence. "Racially motivated crimes are growing in number and brutality by the year," Alexander Brod, head of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, told The Associated Press in an interview.
http://www.einnews.com/russia/newsfeed-RussiaHumanRights

THATCHER PAYS TRIBUTE
Here is the full text of Margaret Thatcher's eulogy to Ronald Reagan:
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13125658,00.html

"President Clinton really held out all hope the funeral would be a nonpartisan event, like Nixon's was," a top Clinton source said on Tuesday morning. "He's angry and disappointed neither he nor President Carter have been asked to speak, as of yet." The top source says Clinton has been critical that both Bush presidents will address the crowd gathered at National Cathedral. Nixon's vice president Gerald Ford did not speak at Nixon's funeral.

Laura Bush, whose father died from Alzheimer's, said on Wednesday she admired Nancy Reagan's devotion to former President Ronald Reagan until his death but could not back her call for relaxation of stem cell research restrictions. Reagan, the 40th U.S. president, died on Saturday at 93 of pneumonia after a long battle with the brain-wasting disease.

Commentary: A Media Circus Worthy of Contempt
Forget the myth of the man the media is shoving down our throats; the reality of
Ronald Reagan is much more interesting and much less pleasant.
By Frederick Sweet and Stewart Nusbaumer
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=770

Planet Reagan
By William Rivers Pitt
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/060704A.shtml

Saint Ron Of The Wall
By Judith Moriarty
http://www.rense.com/general53/stron.htm

The Reagan Legacy
By Gary Sudborough
http://www.rense.com/general53/ree.htm

Lockdown on Sea Island
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=529162

Home On the Range
By Judith Moriarty
http://www.rense.com/general53/home.htm

THOUSANDS WHO HAVE HAD THEIR VOTING RIGHTS RESTORED MAY REMAIN ON FLORIDA PURGE LISTS
http://www.brennancenter.org/presscenter/releases_2004/pressrelease_2004_0608.html

Florida Orders New Purge Of Voter List
By Andrew Gumbel
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=529914

SARS labs unsafe, says WHO
Scientific advisors call for international
regime to regulate pathogen
biocontainment | By Robert Walgate
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040603/03/

911 : TIA now verifies flight of Saudis
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=394

Man in Bulldozer Rampage Found Dead
By P. SOLOMON BANDA
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040605/D830SQHG0.html

Colorado Bulldozer Rampage And Lying Liars!
By Russell R. Bingman
http://www.rense.com/general53/color.htm

Colorado Rampage - Whores And Tyrants Drooling
By Russell R. Bingman
http://www.nobsnews.org/gpage6.html
http://www.rense.com/general53/whores.htm

The Death Of Americanism And Therefore Our Constitution, And Our Nation, Known As America
http://www.rense.com/general53/death.htm

P-I Focus: While we're off fighting terror, the planet's crumbling
By RICHARD STEINER
PROFESSOR
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/175309_focus30.html

June 1-7, 2004

The International Atomic Energy Agency plans a campaign to force Israel to permit international inspections of its Dimona nuclear facility. The agency has been under longterm pressure from the European Union, Arab states and Iran to focus more attention on Irael's nuclear program. Several Arab countries reiterated their call for a nuclear free zone in the Middle East during a United Nations sponsored disarmament conference in Geneva on May 27. Arab envoys said the establishment of such a zone would be their priority over the coming year.

CIA Director George Tenet Resigns
Both Mr. Tenet and President Bush said the resignation was for personal reasons. But current and former intelligence officials noted that Mr. Tenet was anticipating heavy criticism from three reports expected to assail the agency over its failure. Mr. Tenet is to be replaced by his deputy, John McLaughlin, who will serve as acting director. Mr. Bush is unlikely to nominate a permanent successor before the November election, Republicans said, because a confirmation battle this summer would attract more attention to the agency's assessments of Saddam Hussein's weapons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/04/politics/04TENE.html?ei=5006&en=71ba78a45d065ad2&ex=1086926400&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=

Second top-level resignation at CIA
By OLIVER MOORE
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040604.wciia0604/BNStory/International/

LA 'on the road to Falluja'?
By Anita Rice
Los Angeles is notorious for gang violence, but even by LA standards 2002 was gruesome. With 658 murders in just that one year, it became America's murder capital.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/3771411.stm

U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan had Osama bin Laden "within reach" on at least two occasions, but were unable to prevent him slipping away, France's top general said Wednesday. French chief of staff Gen. Henri Bentegeat, said the al-Qaida leader had evaded capture several times since 2002, but not recently. He didn't say where bin Laden had been tracked down, and refused to comment on whether French special forces operating in southern Afghanistan were involved. "Several times the coalition has had Osama bin Laden directly within reach," Bentegeat told reporters during a visit to the Afghan capital. "But between locating a person and arresting them there is a gap tied to all the uncertainties of all operations of this kind." A spokeswoman for the U.S. military in Kabul had no immediate comment on the general's remarks. Bentegeat said several of bin Laden's top lieutenants also evaded capture. "At least two times they managed to escape," he said. "That's absolutely inevitable, normal in the conditions in which these kind of operations are carried out. "I'm not saying there was an incident of this kind recently," he added. "To my knowledge, that's not the case." Bentegeat made similar comments in an interview in March to France's Europe-1 radio station, saying bin Laden narrowly escaped capture by French troops in Afghanistan, perhaps several times. He did not specify when or where the escapes took place. Some 200 French troops work with the 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in the drive to track holdouts of the former ruling Taliban regime and bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group.

United States and British security agents failed to act on a tip-off they received more than a year before the September 2001 atrocities that al-Qa'ida terrorists planned a large-scale attack in the US, the FBI confirmed yesterday. Niaz Khan, a former curry house waiter from Britain, told FBI investigators in April 2000 that he had been trained as a hijacker for Osama bin Laden and had even been taught the layout of a Boeing commercial aircraft cockpit. They did not follow up the lead, and allowed him to leave the US voluntarily. He was detained by the security services on his arrival in Britain, but was released after being held overnight and returned to his home in Burnley, Lancashire. The only action the FBI took was to add Mr Khan's name to its list of people banned from boarding commercial aircraft.

Senate committee still missing key documents in prisoner abuse case
By Sumana Chatterjee and Shashank Bengali
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8842112.htm

Enron Traders Caught On Tape
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released two Enron memos describing company plans to inflate energy prices during California's energy crisis of 2000. The practices were considered so outrageous, that an attorney with the California Public Utilities Commission dubbed them a "smoking gun memo."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml

Oil prices surged more than $2 a barrel and finished at a record level Tuesday as already jittery markets were jolted by the deadly weekend attack against Western oil workers in Saudi Arabia. "The OPEC meeting is almost an afterthought," said John Kilduff, senior energy analyst at Fimat USA in New York, referring to the oil cartel's gathering in Beirut this week to discuss a possible supply increase. The attack against two oil company compounds in Saudi Arabia on Saturday that killed 22 people — the second such incident in the country in one month — solidified traders' fears that terrorists operating in the Middle East intend to target oil industry infrastructure and workers in an effort to disrupt the global supply chain. These concerns have propped up prices $5 per barrel or more in recent months even though supplies have not been affected. Oil futures settled well above $42 on Tuesday to a new high, although when inflation is taken into account crude is not as expensive today as it was during the energy crisis more than 20 years ago. Light crude for July delivery settled at $42.33 per barrel, up $2.45, or 6 percent, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The previous record closing price was $41.72, set on May 24.

Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4629.shtml

Cheney Said Questioned On CIA Leak
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/02/politics/main620810.shtml

How Chalabi and the White House held the front page
The New York Times has burned its reputation on a pyre of lies about Iraq
James Moore
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0%2C3604%2C1227334%2C00.html

Iraq Gas Costs 5¢ Gallon Thanks To US Taxpayers
http://www.rense.com/general53/tedx.htm

Iraq costs are $119.4 billion and rising; lawmakers ponder how money might have been spent
By Alan Fram
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/153/wash/Iraq_costs_are_119_4_billion_aP.shtml

"Bad Things Happen. I Don't Have to Apologize."
The Liars are Winning
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley06022004.html

Biodiesel Boom Well-Timed
By John Gartner
http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,63635,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

Jose Padilla, American Terrorist
Declassified document details al-Qaeda soldier's U.S. bomb plots
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0601042padilla1.html

Twisted Tale of Art, Death, DNA
By Mark Baard
The Critical Art Ensemble's work includes a website and CD-ROM promoting the fictitious biotech firm, GenTerra, and a performance arts piece aimed at deconstructing and disrupting the growth of genetically modified foods produced by companies like Monsanto. The CAE says this tactic, which it calls "fuzzy biological sabotage," would encourage "those who never would join a movement (to) become unknowing cohorts or willing allies" in the struggle against the biotech industry. FBI agents are trying to find any connections that may exist between the Kurtzes' radical agenda, their DNA lab and Hope's untimely, and unexplained, death last month. FBI agents between May 14 and May 17, acting on a sealed search warrant obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office, searched the Kurtz home and removed petri dishes bearing bacteria, lab equipment, computers, disks, books and the couple's passports and birth certificates, said da Costa.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63637,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

Acid-Fast Bacteria In-Vivo in Prostate Cancer and the Connection between Prostate Cancer, Other Cancers, and the Kaposi’s Sarcoma Virus
Author: Alan R Cantwell, Jr., M.D
http://www.joimr.org/phorum/read.php?f=2&i=57&t=57

Toxic dust' on computers linked to diseases
By Rachel Konrad
Electronics companies began using polybrominated diphenyl (PBDEs) and other flame retardants in the 1970s, arguing that the toxins prevent fires and cannot escape from plastic casings.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-06-03-toxic-computer-dust_x.htm

California considers program to measure pollutants in people
BY BARBARA FEDER OSTROV
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/breaking_news/8804422.htm

E.P.A. Nears Pact on Waste by Processors of Livestock
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/politics/03enviro.html?ex=1086840000&en=b0532559d51ab425&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
By DOUG THOMPSON
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml

Bush Ignores Wage Crisis Hitting Middle Class
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df06042004.html

Wal-Mart Gets an 'F'
http://www.sweatshops.org/scorecard.html

May 28-31, 2004

Saudi officials sought Sunday to reassure foreign oil executives - and prevent a dramatic rise in crude prices - after the lethal attack on two compounds housing offices and homes of expatriates working in the country's most important industry. The weekend rampage by gunmen that killed 22 in the Saudi city of Khobar was the second such attack in less than a month. Saudi officials and foreign analysts voiced concern that it might frighten some would-be investors and oil service company employees from doing business in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, they worried that the attack - which killed an American oil man, a British oil company executive, 17 other foreigners and three Saudis - might inflame fears about political stability there and drive oil prices higher when trading resumes on futures markets later in the week.

A man identified as al-Qaida's chief in the Saudi region claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in the kingdom's oil hub on a tape posted on the Internet Sunday. The unauthenticated tape was posted on a Web site known for militant Muslim comment along with a written statement about the attack that was characterized by contempt for non-Muslims. The speaker who identifies himself as Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin, believed to lead al-Qaida operations in Saudi Arabia, describes attackers "slaughtering" hostages, specifying they included an Italian, an American a Japanese and a Briton. On the 8-minute tape, the speaker also said an American's body was dragged through the city streets. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said no Japanese nationals were killed or involved in the standoff. Helicopter-borned Saudi commandos entered the expatriate resort early Sunday to free up to 60 foreign hostages seized by Islamic militants who had earlier sprayed gunfire inside Persian Gulf oil industry compounds. The attackers killed 22 people, the Interior Ministry said Sunday, including eight Indians, three Filipinos, three Saudis, two Sri Lankans, an American, a Briton, an Italian, a Swede, a South African and a 10-year-old Egyptian boy. The statement also said that one of the four attackers - the leader of the group - had been captured by Saudi forces after being wounded. Three others, including one who was also wounded, escaped. The attack began early Saturday with shooting at oil company offices in Khobar, 250 miles northeast of Riyadh, and ended 25 hours later. The purported al-Moqrin recording ends with what appears to be sounds from the attack. Shots are heard, and men shout: "Open this door quickly!" The speaker rails against the Saudi government, accusing it of opening the country to Americans and providing "America with oil at the cheapest prices according to their masters' wish, so that their economy does not collapse." The speaker says the struggle with America would be pursued "in the Arabian peninsula, Afghanistan, in Iraq" and that the battle with the Saudi government will continue until the "crusaders are expelled from the land of Islam." The authenticity of tape could not be verified, but the voice resembled the voice on previous tapes attributed to al-Moqrin. U.S. and Saudi officials believe al-Moqrin is al-Qaida's top figure in Saudi Arabia and masterminded the Nov. 8 bombing of a Riyadh housing compound that killed 17 people, most of them Arabs and Muslims working in Saudi Arabia. The 700-word written statement posted Sunday was signed by al-Qaida's cell in the Arabian Peninsula and claimed all of the hostages had been killed. "The holy warriors didn't leave any of the hostages alive. All those infidels and crusaders who were in their hands were liquidated," it said, although dozens of hostages were freed during the crisis. The statement said attackers killed nine people in the initial shooting and an unspecified number of hostages, including 10 Indians. "It is worth mentioning that the holy warriors were very careful not to shed any Muslim blood as they differentiated between them and the infidel crusaders," the statement said. The statement said one of the attackers was "martyred," or killed, although authorities said at least two gunmen died. It said the cell included one of the men on a government list of 26 most-wanted militants.

The FBI office in Denver has received "numerous" calls about the seven people believed to be associated with al-Qaeda pictured Wednesday in newspapers. Monique Kelso, spokeswoman for the Denver office, wouldn't characterize the calls as "sightings," but at least one was reported as such. Samuel Mac, manager of the Denny's in Avon, isn't happy with the response he got from the FBI when he reported that two of them ate at his restaurant Wednesday. When he called the FBI in Washington, D.C., Mac said the man who answered the telephone said he had to call the Denver office and declined to take down any of the information. When he called the Denver office, he was shuttled to voice mail because the agents were busy, Mac said. It was five hours before a seemingly uninterested agent called back. Mac said two men - he subsequently identified them from their photographs as Adnan G. El Shukrijumah and Abderraouf Jdey - came into Denny's, which is just off Interstate 70, about 8 p.m. One ordered a chicken sandwich and a salad, the other just a salad, Mac said. They were demanding, rude and obnoxious, he said. They said they were from Iran and were driving from New York to the West Coast. When the FBI agent called him back, she took a few notes and said she would pass the information along to the field agents, according to Mac. Kelso said the Denver FBI office has received at least a dozen calls about the pictures. The calls are all taken seriously and "we follow up on every lead," she said. But she said the FBI has no reason to believe any of the seven are in Colorado or traveling through.

Suppliers for Libya's nuclear weapons program stretched over three continents, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said in an internal report Friday. Diplomats identified the former Soviet Union and South Africa as among them. Traces of highly enriched uranium were found at some Libyan sites, according to the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency made available to The Associated Press. But it suggested the uranium entered the country on equipment purchased abroad. The report did not name the countries involved in supplying Libya. However, diplomats close to the agency said on condition of anonymity that the report indicated the former Soviet Union, South Africa, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia supported or served as bases for individuals selling nuclear components or know-how to Libya. Other diplomats had earlier named North Korea, as well as individuals from Pakistan, UAE member Dubai and Malaysia as part of the black market chain selling nuclear secrets to rogue nations. One of the diplomats said Moscow had not been previously linked to Libyan efforts to acquire a weapons program. The report said Libya had been cooperative since going public about its weapons programs in December and pledging to scrap them. But it said more inspections were needed of its efforts to enrich uranium - one way to make nuclear weapons. Its program included purchases of hundreds of centrifuges and orders for 10,000 more. In their efforts, the Libyans bought drawings of a nuclear warhead that diplomats identified as likely originating in China but sold by Pakistan. The illicit nuclear network headed by Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan remains the focal point of investigations by the Vienna-based IAEA as it tries to trace the development of shipments to Libya, Iran, North Korea and possibly other nations trying to acquire illegal nuclear technology. North Korea was drawn deeper into the suppliers' web last week by diplomats who said it appeared to be the source of nearly two tons of a uranium compound that Libya handed over to Americans in January as part of its decision to get rid of weapons of mass destruction.

Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals football player who died in April while a U.S. soldier fighting in Afghanistan, likely was killed by friendly fire, an Army investigation has concluded. "It does seem pretty clear that he was killed by friendly fire," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which was alerted to the information by the Army's Legislative Liaison Office. Officials at the Pentagon and at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, late Friday declined to provide more details of the investigation's findings.

Libyan Nuclear Devices Missing
Mystery Snarls Probe of Pakistani's Smuggling Network
By Joby Warrick
A few days after Libya's historic pledge on Dec. 19 to abandon the quest for nuclear weapons, Libyan intelligence officials met with visiting U.S. diplomats to deliver some unsettling news: A sizable quantity of nuclear equipment purchased by Libya appeared to be missing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63785-2004May28?language=printer

The Center for National Response, which occupies a 2,800-foot-long abandoned highway tunnel in rural West Virginia, is a proving ground for soldiers, firefighters and police officers preparing to respond to terrorist attacks. National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams, or WMD CSTs, are called in by first responders to handle suspected releases of biological, chemical and radiological materials, have been the CNR's primary customers since it opened in 2000.
Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams
In Florida it is the 44th WMD CST [Florida National Guard] at Starke, Florida
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/wmd-cst.htm

Suicide U.: Iran registers volunteers for martyrdom
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_3.html

U.S. agencies collect, examine personal data on Americans
By Audrey Hudson
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040528-122605-9267r.htm

Lawyers blast PATRIOT Act
Among legal changes targeted specifically at the event were:
* The FBI can now issue "National Security Letters" to order businesses to disclose
sensitive data on anyone. No warrant or judicial oversight is needed, and a gag
order protects the FBI from disclosure.
* Delayed Notice Searches are new forms of warrants that allow authorities to enter
homes or businesses and copy computer or paper files without notification.
* The sharing of warrant-less eavesdropping on electronic communication with state
and federal law-enforcement agencies by the National Security agencies.
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=171

Govt Computer Surveillance Rings Alarm Bells
By Andy Sullivan
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5268720

Terrorists on Ashcroft's 'Wanted List' Already in Jail
http://prisonplanet.tv/articles/may2004/052704wantedlist.htm

Absentee Ballot Law Is A Joke That Isn't Funny
By Jim DeFede
Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed an absentee ballot law that takes away the witness requirement.
http://www.rense.com/general53/absenteeballotlaw.htm

D(isinformation) Day: 60 Years is Enough
By Mickey Z.
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/mickeyz05292004/

Children of Satan
The 'Ignoble Liars Behind Bush's No-Exit War
http://larouchein2004.net/pages/other/2003/030409cos.htm

'Depleted uranium: Pentagon poison'
By Minnie Bruce Pratt
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/dumtg0603.php

Big Oil guzzles profits as gas prices rise
By Greg Butterfield
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/bigoil0603.php

US Record Prison Population Rises Again
By Alan Elsner
http://www.rense.com/general53/USrecordprisonpop.htm

Bush Plans To Slash Popular Programs After Election
A leaked White House memo shows that if George Bush is re-elected, he will make
large cuts in many government programs, including both homeland security and
veterans programs, while again cutting the taxes of the wealthy.
By Stewart Nusbaumer
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=756

Big Pharma
By Bruce Levine
More than one journalist has uncovered corrupt connections between the Bush Family, psychiatry, and Eli Lilly & Company, the giant pharmaceutical corporation.
http://www.zmag.org/ZMagSite/May2004/levine0504.html

May 27, 2004

Government agencies are using or planning nearly 200 computer projects that identify terrorists, analyze scientific information and detect fraud, a congressional survey said. Most of the programs, 122 out of 199, can access private documents such as student loan applications, bank account numbers and credit card information, said the report by the General Accounting Office. More than 50 of these projects relied on private databases for information while 77 collected data from other federal agencies.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04548.pdf

Nuclear jet crash 'could kill millions'
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995036

Why Is Aafia Siddiqui On John Ashcroft's Wanted Poster?
By Kurt Nimmo
http://www.rense.com/general53/whis.htm

Sleeping with the enemy
Homeland Security whistleblower told Congress, Bush, Ashcroft, Mueller, and Ridge that Florida immigration officials accepted sham marriage bribes linked to a congressional office, al Qaeda operatives, and 9/11 terrorism
by Tom Flocco
http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=63&mode=&order=0&thold=0

Assessing The Threat
from Kirwan
http://www.rense.com/general53/assess.htm

New York Times admits failuresin run-up to war
Gary Younge
The New York Times yesterday admitted that its coverage in the
run-up to the Iraq war was "not as rigorous as it should have
been" and failed to adequately question the credibility of Iraqi
defectors or challenge their tales of terror camps and the
presence of weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1225616,00.html

The larder is almost bare
After four consecutive meagre harvests, the result of heat
waves, droughts and pestilence,the world's stockpile of
grain is perilously low. Is it a harbinger of 'gastronomical
Armageddon?'
By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040522/FAMINE22//?query=GRAIN+HARVEST

Evidence For CWD/Mad Cow/TSEs In The Environment
http://www.rense.com/general34/evide.htm

'Organic' outcry heeded
Feds withdraw changes allowing more pesticides
by Carol Ness
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/05/27/MNGBT6SHM71.DTL

May 26, 2004

U.S. counterterrorism and law enforcement officials had said Tuesday that new intelligence indicates that a group of terrorists already deployed inside the United States is preparing to launch a major attack this summer. This information was described by a senior counterterrorism official on condition of anonymity as extremely credible and backed by an unusually high level of corroboration. But Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, interviewed on NBC's ''Today'' show, said there are no current plans to lift the national alert status from Code Yellow, where it currently stands. Beginning with Saturday's dedication of the new World War II Memorial in Washington, the summer presents a number of high-profile targets in the United States. They include the G-8 summit in Georgia next month that will attract top officials from some of America's closest allies, plus the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July and the Republican National Convention in August in New York City. The FBI and Homeland Security Department also are concerned about so-called soft targets such as shopping malls anywhere in the United States that offer a far less protected environment than a political convention hall. There also is concern terrorists might try to mount an attack to coincide with the November election. Of special concern, the counterterrorism official said, is the possibility that terrorists may possess and use a chemical, biological or radiological weapon that could cause much more damage and casualties than a conventional bomb. The FBI already has created a special task force that is focused solely on dealing with this summer's threat. The official did not say how many suspected al-Qaida or other terrorist operatives are believed in the country, whether they made their way into the United States recently or have been here for some time. Special security attention already is being focused to the nation's rail, subway and bus lines.
http://www.fbi.gov/

Despite losses around the world, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists, and its ranks are growing because of the conflict in Iraq, a think tank warned Tuesday. Al-Qaida still has a functioning leadership despite the death or capture of key figures, and estimates suggest al-Qaida operates in more than 60 countries around the world, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its Strategic Survey 2003-4.

With U.S. marines gone and central government authority virtually nonexistent, Fallujah resembles an Islamic mini-state - anyone caught selling alcohol is flogged and paraded in the city. Men are encouraged to grow beards and barbers are warned against giving "western" hair cuts. "After all the blood that was shed, and the lives that were lost, we shall only accept God's law in Fallujah," said cleric Abdul-Qader al-Aloussi, offering a glimpse of what a future Iraq may look like as the U.S.-led occupation draws to a close. "We must capitalize on our victory over the Americans and implement Islamic sharia laws." The departure of the marines under an agreement that ended the three-week siege last month has enabled hardline Islamic leaders to assert their power in this once-restive city 50 kilometres west of Baghdad. Some were active in defending the city against the marines and have profited by a perception - both here and elsewhere in Iraq - that the mujahedeen, or Islamic holy warriors, defeated a superpower. Under the agreement, the marines handed security in the city to a new Fallujah Brigade made up largely of local residents and commanded by officers of Saddam Hussein's former army. With the departure of the marines, the position of the U.S.-appointed civil administration has been weakened in favour of the clerics and the mujahedeen who resisted the U.S. occupation. That is a pattern that could be repeated elsewhere in Iraq after the occupation ends June 30, unless other legitimate leaders come forward to replace those tainted by association with the occupation. Fallujah, which calls itself the City of Mosques, provides the religious fundamentalists with fertile ground for wielding power. The city's estimated 300,000 residents are known for their religious piety.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader called President George W. Bush a "messianic militarist" and said he should be impeached. Nader, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York Monday, said Bush should be impeached for taking the country to war on false pretences, the New York Times reported. "The founding fathers did not want the declaration of war put in the hands of one man," he said, adding that Bush's acts amount to "high crimes and misdemeanors." "To say that President Bush has exaggerated the threat of al-Qaida is to trip into a political hornets' nest," but it is now time to raise "the impertinent question" about whether Bush exaggerated the terrorist threat for political gain, Nader said.

Former Vice President Al Gore delivered a blistering denunciation Wednesday of the Bush administration. "We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign." "I am calling today for Republicans as well as Democrats to join me in asking for the immediate resignations of those immediately below George Bush and Dick Cheney, who are most responsible for creating the catastrophe we are facing in Iraq," Gore said, drawing strong applause from the crowd. "Donald Rumsfeld ought to resign immediately!" "Our nation is at risk every single day Rumsfeld remains as secretary of defense. We need someone with good judgment and common sense." Rice "ought to resign immediately. She has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy. This is a disaster for our country," he said. "It came from twisted values and atrocious policies at the highest levels of our government," he said. Gore described Tenet as a friend and "honorable man" who should still leave his position for intelligence failures. He said the crisis in Iraq has generated fierce anti-American sentiment and provided a strong recruiting tool for terror groups. President Bush "has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every town and city to a greater danger of attacks by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness and bungling at stirring up hornets' nests that pose no threat whatsoever to us," Gore said. Gore said that because of the war, Iraq has "become the central recruiting office for terrorists." The administration, he said, has also set up U.S. soldiers for "payback the next time they are held as prisoners."
http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html

The Iranian Spy in the House of Bush
By William Rivers Pitt
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052604A.shtml

Afghanistan, the war the world forgot
By Colin Brown and Kim Sengupta
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=524675

Nine years after a bomb ripped through the federal building in Oklahoma City, Terry L. Nichols was convicted on Wednesday of 161 counts of first-degree murder in the blast, and a state jury has to decide whether he should be executed. Mr. Nichols, 49, was already serving a life term for federal charges of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in connection to the bombing. Yet his level of involvement in the explosion that killed 168 people has long been a matter of debate. At his federal trial in Denver seven years ago, the jurors rejected the most serious charges of premeditated murder against him. But the swift verdict here placed Mr. Nichols firmly at the heart of the plot, beside Timothy J. McVeigh, an old Army friend of Mr. Nichols who was executed in 2001. Prosecutors here acknowledged that Mr. Nichols was at home in Kansas on April 19, 1995, when Mr. McVeigh drove a truck packed with explosives to the Alfred P. Murrah Building. The prosecutors told the jurors that Mr. Nichols was deeply involved in every other step of the plot, months of planning, obtaining ammonium nitrate fertilizer and the other components and building the bomb. Prosecutors argued that Mr. Nichols and Mr. McVeigh planned the bombing because they were angry with the government and wanted to avenge the deadly standoff at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., two years earlier. The prosecutors presented hundreds of items of evidence and hundreds of witnesses. Among the objects were a receipt for the fertilizer found in his house, rental agreements for storage bins in fake names but in Mr. Nichols's handwriting and a long record of telephone calls between Mr. Nichols and Mr. McVeigh. "He is a bombing co-conspirator, as heavily involved as Mr. McVeigh, no less involved than Mr. McVeigh." a prosecutor, Sandra H. Elliott, told the jurors on Tuesday. "Just because he didn't drive a truck doesn't mean he didn't do it." Defense lawyers said that Mr. McVeigh had carried out the bombing and that Mr. Nichols, the quieter of the two, had been set up to take the fall by his friend. The lawyers strongly disputed the state's forensic analysis of evidence. They suggested that Mr. McVeigh might have been assisted by a broader conspiracy of people, but not Mr. Nichols. What about "John Doe No. 2?" the defense team asked about a stocky man some witnesses described having seen with Mr. McVeigh before the bombing, but who looked nothing like Mr. Nichols. What about others who were seen or heard with Mr. McVeigh in the weeks before the blast. "People who are still unknown assisted Timothy McVeigh," Barbara Bergman, a defense lawyer, told jurors on Tuesday. Mr. Nichols's precise role, compared to Mr. McVeigh's, has been a central question in the legal cases against him. In 1997, Mr. Nichols was tried in federal court in connection with eight federal agents killed in the bombing. His lawyers argued that Mr. Nichols had broken ties with Mr. McVeigh by the time of the bombing and that he was trying to build a life. In that case, the jurors deliberated for 41 hours over six days. They ultimately found Mr. Nichols guilty of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter, the "unlawful killing of a human being without malice," but not guilty of more serious charges of first- and second-degree murder.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/nichols/0526_guilty_ap.html
http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/documents/archive_m.html#mcveigh

May 22-25, 2004

The price of oil reached a new high Monday, settling at $41.72 per barrel.

The Justice Department is seeking to expand its anti-terrorism powers again, adding among other things a FBI subpoena power so secret that even a lawsuit challenging it had to be kept under wraps. Experts say the changes, which have are moving piecemeal through Congress in several bills, are among the most significant since Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the frightening days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Some of the measures being sought have been recycled from a controversial Justice Department draft of a bill, dubbed "Patriot II," which was abandoned after details of its provisions leaked to the media. Critics oppose giving law enforcement officials more power, complaining that not enough informationhas been made available about how the Justice Department is using the tools in the Patriot Act. "Are its provisions being used widely - in ordinary cases having nothing to do with terrorism? The attorney general has said he hasn't used some powers. If so, are such powers needed?" asked former Rep. Bob Barr, a conservative Georgia Republican and civil liberties advocate. "These questions should be examined before we consider new legislation." The Senate already has approved legislation making it easier for FBI agents to go after so-called lone-wolf terrorists not affiliated with any known organization or foreign government. The House of Representatives is considering the same measure as part of a larger bill dubbed the "The Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Tools Improvement Act of 2003." The provision would allow the government to conduct secret surveillance on suspected terrorists or spies without proving that they have any affiliation with a foreign government or terrorist organization. Critics worry that the government would use this change to snoop on people even if officials had no proof that they were part of a terror network. The bill has two powerful co-sponsors, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. In addition to the lone-wolf provision, the bill would strengthen national security letters, which the FBI can use in counterterrorism or espionage cases to obtain business and financial records, as well as electronic communications from third parties, such as Internet service providers, medical offices or credit reporting agencies with no judicial oversight. The legislation would punish someone who discloses that he or she has received a letter with up to five years in prison and allow the attorney general to seek a judge to enforce the letter if someone refuses to hand over the information the FBI wants. How often the FBI has used national security letters - first authorized in 1986 - is unknown because the Justice Department has kept the figure classified. It's widely believed, however, that their use is rising because the number of counterterrorism cases has skyrocketed. A Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union for data on national security letters was met with six pages of blacked-out data with the word "secret" stamped on the top of each page. In addition to the Sensenbrenner-Goss bill, a separate bill is moving through the House Judiciary Committee, sponsored by Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, that would broaden the government's ability to bring the death penalty in terrorism cases. The national security letter reforms, the lone-wolf terrorism provision and the death penalty enhancements were all in the draft of "Patriot II." The chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, Christopher Wray, has also called for lawmakers to expand the material support law, which makes it a crime to provide financing, lodging, training or other assistance to terrorist organizations.

Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the Shiite Islamic sect to which the majority of Iranians and Iraqis belong, was a favorite of Pentagon officials. He recently came under suspicion that he might have handed over sensitive information to Iran about the U.S. occupation. He had provided intelligence to the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction, which was used to justify the U.S. war against Iraq. On Sunday, Chalabi called the spying charges false, the alleged activities nonexistent. "I'm prepared to go to Congress and testify under oath and expose all the information and the documents in our possession, and let George Tenet come himself to Congress to testify," Chalabi said on ABC's "This Week." Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said both the Clinton and Bush administrations should have heeded warning signs about Chalabi's credibility, including a 1992 conviction in Jordan in a banking scandal. The Iraqi contends the conviction resulted from misconduct by Jordanian authorities and the now-deposed Saddam Hussein government in Baghdad.

A U.S. Army sergeant who gave an insider's view of Abu Ghraib prison to the media has lost his security clearance and has been disciplined by the military for speaking out, he told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Justice Memos Explained How to Skip Prisoner Rights
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/politics/21MEMO.html?ex=1085716800&en=f9eca3aa3946297d&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported today. Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones. "Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works. Disturbing new photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse, which the US government had reportedly tried to keep hidden, were published on Friday in the Washington Post newspaper. The photos emerged along with details of testimony from inmates at Abu Ghraib who said they were sexually molested by female soldiers, beaten, sodomised and forced to eat food from toilets.

At least 2,000 pages might have been missing from the copy of the Army report on soldiers' abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners that was delivered to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/05/23/national1434EDT0495.DTL

Those Missing Taguba Pages: More Dirty Tricks in TortureGate
Kurt Nimmo
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/may2004/240504missingpages.htm

Fewer than 6 percent of the world's seaports and ships adhere to United Nations rules aimed at preventing terrorist attacks, the head of the U.N.'s maritime agency said.

President Bush should demand the resignation of Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman because the department quietly allowed imports of some Canadian beef despite the ban it imposed due to Canada's case of mad cow disease, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Thursday. "It now appears that the USDA has secretly and selectively violated its own publicly announced ban on the importation of processed beef from Canada," Conrad said in a letter to President Bush. "In fact, the report is so damaging to the credibility and integrity of the USDA that I believe you should ask the Secretary of Agriculture to resign."

USDA Allowed Canadian Beef In Despite Ban
By Marc Kaufman
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41076-2004May19?language=printer

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist issued subpoenas Tuesday to eight oil companies for documents about the cost, production, inventory and pricing of gasoline. Crist said the request for documents signaled the beginning of a formal investigation into the rising cost of gasoline. "We must make sure that these companies are not unfairly taking advantage of Floridians at the pump," Crist said. Crist's office sent the subpoenas to Florida representatives of BP Products North America, Chevron-Texaco Corp., Citgo Petroleum, Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil Corp., Marathon Ashland Petroleum, Shell, and Amerada Hess Corp. The companies have until June 30 to send documents to Crist explaining and justifying how their gasoline is priced.

A judge threw out Monday a Democratic congessman's lawsuit that sought to require that electronic voting machines produce a paper trail. It's the second time U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler has been denied in his challenge of the legality of paperless touchscreen voting machines. A similar case filed in state courts was dismissed in February, although that ruling is being appeal. Wexler, D-Boca Raton, argued in the federal suit that without a printout, voters in Florida's 15 touchscreen counties are being denied their right to have their votes accurately recorded, reported and recounted if necessary. On the touchscreen system, voters use their fingers to touch a computer screen to mark their selections. Their votes are tabulated on the computer and no ballot is printed out. The suit was filed against Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, and Indian River Supervisor of Elections Kay Clem.

A second challenge to a Florida directive allowing the destruction of unused punchcard ballots from the 2000 presidential election in Florida was dismissed Thursday by a circuit court judge. "I disagree with his conclusion," attorney Gary Farmer, who was suing Secretary of State Glenda Hood and state elections supervisor Ed Kast, said after a 40-minute hearing. Farmer said a majority of the unused ballots have been destroyed, although that at least one county, Palm Beach, has not contested an injunction ordering it to keep the excess ballots. "If no fix is in, tell me what the legitimate reason is to destroy these items if people aren't hiding something," Farmer said. "That's the question no one can answer for me." Relying in part on the willingness of Nova University law school to house the unused ballots, Farmer argued that the remaining unused ballots should be preserved for historic and academic purposes. "I don't understand the rush to destroy these things," Farmer said. George Waas, who represented the state, argued Hood followed state law and asked Smith to dismiss the case outright. All Florida counties that used punch cards in 2000 have since shifted to modern technologies, such as touch-screen voting.

The American Public Health Association announced its opposition to a Bush administration proposal to redirect funds intended for state bioterrorism preparedness and called for funding increases to cover the costs of any new programs.
http://www.apha.org/news/press/2004/bioterror_preparedness.htm

A bill passed by the California Senate that would require ammunition buyers to provide a thumb print at the time of purchase amounts to "an insidious invasion of privacy," the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said.
http://www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/press-releases/cc-cal_thumb_print.html

A new report by Good Jobs First exposes, for the first time, how state and local governments are giving hand-outs to Wal-Mart - - $107.7 million in Texas alone -- to help the giant retailer expand its huge network. The study, titled Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance its Never-Ending Growth.
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/

Using the Consumer Price Index to Rob Americans Blind
by Richard Benson
Real Inflation Hits 10% Per Year
http://www.prudentbear.com/archive_comm_article.asp?content_idx=31899

Two More Israelis In Van Arrested Near US Nuke Facility
Bomb suspected after an Israeli was unable to give credentials for entry.
By LIZ HAMPTON
Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base was locked down for security reasons Friday after two Israelis were detained for questioning. Base spokesman Ed Buczek said two Israeli men attempted to enter the base about 10:30 a.m. They were hired by a moving-and-storage company to pick up some household goods in base housing, he said. One occupant of the vehicle was unable to provide base security personnel with proper credentials after arriving at the Franklin Gate entrance, Buczek said. ....The two men, whose names were not released, were detained and later taken into custody by federal immigration officers in Savannah for possible deportation, Buczek said.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/052204/geo_15672724.shtml

Berg, Moussaoui and the OK bombing ties
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=269

Book Review: The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century
By Thomas P. M. Barnett
Reviewed by Terry Cochran
A plan to integrate the insecure world into the secure world with police type forces, but would the result be endless war and a centralized world order?
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=738

Immigration Invasion View from a Border Patrol Officer
Commentary by Frosty Wooldridge
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_9106.shtml

More than half of all national journalists (51%) and almost as many local journalists (46%) believe that their profession is off the mark and headed down the wrong path, according to a comprehensive study released today by The Pew Research Center, The Project for Excellence in Journalism and The Committee of Concerned Journalists. Many journalists believe that increased financial pressure is "seriously hurting" the quality of news coverage -- 66% of national newspeople and 57% of local journalists see it this way.
http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/journalist_survey.html

May 20-21, 2004

The FBI is warning law enforcement agencies to be on the alert for the possibility that suicide bombers may attempt to strike inside the United States. A classified intelligence bulletin circulated Thursday to 18,000 U.S. law enforcement bodies is headlined "Possible suicide bomber indicators," and was distributed via the Bureau’s secure Law Enforcement Online (LEO) Intranet. It warns local badge-carriers to look for obvious signs of trouble — people wearing heavy, bulky jackets on warm days, smelling of chemicals, trailing wires from their jackets — as well, more subtle ones, such as tightly clenched fists. Someone who never shows his palms could be gripping a detonator rigged to go off when a button is released. "If you shoot him, you ' re still not safe because his hands relax and the bomb explodes," says a counter-terrorism official. The FBI bulletin also notes that suicide bombers may disguise themselves in stolen military, police or firefighter's garb, or even as pregnant women.

Bush Says He Won't Tap Oil Reserve to Stem Price Rise
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aOTMmWcIOVRE&refer=us

Victims' Families Criticize 9/11 Panel
By SARA KUGLER
Families of World Trade Center victims say the Sept. 11 commission and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani failed them by "sugarcoating" their questions and answers in a public hearing.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040520/D82MAMAO0.html

Scandalous 9/11 Panel, Giuliani heckled, families outraged
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=236

Commission: Fire, Police Rivalry Hurt 9/11 Rescue
By Ellen Wulfhorst
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=KQNNX11LBLFIOCRBAEOCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=5181171

Reuters Stands by Iraq Abuse Reports, Releases Timeline on Incident
By Greg Mitchell
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000515956

Memo Gave Intelligence Bigger Role Increased Pressure Sought on Prisoners
By R. Jeffrey Smith
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43708-2004May20.html

Secrecy surrounds voter eligibility
Thousands may be struck from rolls
By Nancy Cook Lauer
The state has identified 47,687 Florida voters - 1,671 in the Big Bend alone - as suspected felons possibly ineligible to vote. Who's on the list? It's hard to know, thanks to an unusual veil of secrecy.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/8699040.htm

The feds want to know who has been visiting the Web site of voting watchdog Bev Harris, and they are likely to get what they want.
by George Howland Jr
In the past 20 months, Harris has become Americas leading critic of electronic voting.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0420/040519_news_blackboxvoting.php

Database Measured 'Terrorism Quotient'
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN
Before helping to launch the criminal information project known as Matrix, a database contractor gave U.S. and Florida authorities the names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists - sparking some investigations and arrests.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040520/D82M9B400.html
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0%2C2100%2C63535%2C00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4

Israeli official says detentions of 2 men ‘comedy of mistakes’
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_crime&Number=1476139&t=-1#Post1476139

http://www.infowars.com/print/iraq/berg_archive.htm

American filmmaker Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a scathing indictment of White House actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, won the top prize Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.

Michael Moore's anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" isn't even original. Two years ago, "9/11: The Road to Tyranny," a real documentary by Alex Jones, had most of the "facts" Moore uses in his scatter-shot diatribe. Jones, who is less interested in making money than the self-aggrandizing Moore, released his film for free on his Web site http://www.infowars.com, where it drew legions of new fans, including producer Curt Johnson, who is hiring Jones as a consultant on a political action thriller titled "Wake Up."

Skeletons in the closet
While at Yale University, both John Kerry and George
Bush joined an elite secret society, the Order of Skull
and Bones. How might their lifelong allegiance to the
club affect their relationship - and political decisions?
Suzanne Goldenberg tracks down other Bonesmen to
find out
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1220758,00.html

Federal Judge Tosses Out Ashcroft Effort to Stifle Greenpeace, Peaceful Protest
The cargo ship was carrying 70 tons of mahogany that had been illegally cut
in the Brazilian Amazon. The Justice Department brought no charges against
the shipper, despite the fact that the importation violated both U.S. law and
international treaties.
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000122.php

May 15-19, 2004

Iraqi Governing Council President Killed in Attack
At Least 7 Iraqis Killed, 5 Wounded in Suicide Bomb Attack
By Scott Wilson and Sewell Chan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32354-2004May17?language=printer

Pentagon may use IRS to find reservists
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040518-011213-5792r.htm

"How will it be done?" is heard in the Nicholas Berg decapitation video!
by Hector Carreon
It is a total shame that the mainstream media is not bringing this information to the attention of the public. It appears that the US news media is comprised of gutless pseudo-journalists who sell their services only to globalists, Zionists, corporations and the military-industrial complex. Are they restrained or do they not care about the common citizens any more?
http://www.aztlan.net/nick_berg_how_done.htm

Nick Berg Mystery deepens
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=218

Cell-phone use could be blacked out at LAX, the Rose Bowl and Universal Studios under an anti-terrorism plan being formulated by Sheriff Lee Baca and other law enforcement authorities. Baca is exploring the use of jamming equipment -- already used widely in foreign countries and to protect President Bush -- to interrupt cell-phone signals if a terrorist attack was expected in Los Angeles. The issue gained urgency after terrorists used cell phones to detonate explosives March 11 in railway bombings in Spain. Baca, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Pakistan, said a cell-phone jamming device helped avert the attempted assassination of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Dec. 14. "We have to look at this very realistically," Baca said. "Public safety is more important than public convenience. We want to take the responsibility head-on and do the best we can, protecting people against terrorist attacks." Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Horace Frank said the department's bomb squad is very interested in the idea and LAPD Counter-Terrorism Bureau Chief John Miller met with Baca recently to discuss the proposal. Various companies already sell equipment on the Internet that block cell phone signals. The products include jammers that overwhelm cell phone frequencies, systems that mute cell phone ringers and sensors that detect cell phones. The products range from hand-held jammers costing a few hundred dollars that darken cell-phone signals over a range up to 15 meters, to nearly $10,000 suitcase-sized equipment sold to government and military agencies that can block signals up to several miles. "The military has airplanes that can fly over and block an entire city. A lot of hospitals use them to prevent cell phones from triggering someone's defibrillator. A lot of devices in hospitals are frequency-controlled." Although Baca's proposal could be useful in protecting the public, critics say the more powerful jamming equipment could. The cell-phone industry objects to the use of the jammers, arguing that the airwaves are public property and jammers violate the rights of cell-phone users. Under law, the importation, sale or use of cell-phone jammers is banned in the United States and can result in Federal Communications Commission fines of up to $11,000 daily per device. An FCC spokesperson said the fines have been levied against people for not holding a license to use the devices. "In an emergency situation, there are different exceptions that could be made," she said. "But that's a decision that would have to come from the headquarters in Washington, D.C." Currently, the Secret Service uses cell-phone jamming equipment when President Bush travels in his limousine, on Air Force One and when he gives a speech. Casinos use jammers to prevent people from cheating using cell phones and some federal law enforcement agencies use the equipment during hostage situations. If officials received intelligence that terrorists planned to detonate a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport, he would favor using jamming equipment until a bomb squad could render the explosives safe.

May 14, 2004

Oil prices soared to a record Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, crossing $41 a barrel and settling at the highest point in the 21-year-history of crude futures trading in New York.

Nick Berg, the Philadelphia-area man beheaded in Iraq by militants with links to al-Qaida, was investigated by U.S. authorities for a possible connection to terrorists, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday. No terrorist link was found, the attorney general said in a Justice Department news conference. Ashcroft said Berg was investigated by the FBI in 2002 after authorities learned that an e-mail address traced to him had apparently been used by someone with ties to terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui while Berg was briefly an engineering student at the University of Oklahoma in 1999.

Nicholas Berg, the American who was filmed being beheaded, had been arrested by Iraqi police earlier and held on suspicion of being a spy because he had a Jewish name and an Israeli stamp in his passport, it has emerged.

Mosul Police Chief Denies Detaining Slain American Nicholas Berg
http://www.rense.com/general52/denies.htm

Nicholas Berg's family has e-mails from a U.S. diplomatic official in Iraq saying the U.S. military had detained him there. Government officials have said Berg -- who was later beheaded -- was held by Iraqi police and was never in the custody of American forces. Berg's relatives say his detention set up the circumstances that contributed to his death. The family showed The Associated Press an April first e-mail from Beth Payne, the U.S. consular officer in Iraq. She wrote that he was "being detained by the U.S. military in Mosul." She also said he was safe and she would try to get a contact person for the parents. Berg's brother says the government should come clean about contacts with the American civilian before he died.

State has no records of Berg's firm
R. JONATHAN TULEYA , Staff Writer
Prometheus Methods Tower Services Inc., the business that cost Nick Berg his life in Iraq, has no records with the Pennsylvania Department of State.
http://www.dailylocal.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11650247&BRD=1671&PAG=461&dept_id=17782&rfi=6

15 Anomalies Surrounding Death Of Nick Berg
http://www.rense.com/general52/anom.htm

Internet firm shuts down website showing beheading
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/13/1084289814845.html

Christians leave Nigerian city as riot rages
By Tume Ahemba
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=510963&section=news

Pakistani newspapers Friday mostly lamented the shock exit of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee after his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) dramatic election loss, portraying him as crucial to the nascent peace process.

Presidential push fails to quell GOP fear of Patriot Act
By Alexander Bolton
http://www.hillnews.com/news/051204/patriot.aspx

Corrupt use of World Bank funds may exceed $100 billion and while the institution has moved to combat the problem, more must be done, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Thursday. Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, charged that "in its starkest terms, corruption has cost the lives of uncounted individuals contending with poverty and disease." He commended World Bank President James Wolfensohn for bringing greater attention to the issue, but said, "Corruption remains a serious problem."
http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2004/hrg040513a.html

May 13, 2004

The price of gas set another record today, hitting $1.95 a gallon for gas.
http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/

Iran Strongly Warns Israel Against any Attack on Bushehr Power Plant
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=5/12/2004&Cat=2&Num=022

Cuba has stepped up military preparations fearing an invasion by the United States "is closer than ever," Cuba's ambassador to Honduras Alberto Gonzalez said Wednesday.

Was Nicholas Berg and Daniel Perle connected with the Mossad?
Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the masked man who beheaded an American civilian in Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials concluded Thursday, leaving other questions unresolved about Nicholas Berg's final days and his contacts with U.S. and Iraqi authorities. In an odd twist, it also emerged Thursday that the FBI questioned Berg in 2002 about an e-mail address traced to him that was used by an acquintance of terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. Investigators concluded that Berg had nothing to do with Moussaoui. It is unclear when and how Berg, a self-employed telecommunications businessman, was captured. Accounts of his detention in Mosul in late March are also conflicting. U.S. officials insist Berg was arrested by Iraqi police for involvement in "suspicious activities." The Mosul police chief has denied that. An April 1 e-mail from a U.S. consular official in Iraq, provided by Berg's family, said he was being detained by the U.S. military. The FBI visited Berg three times before his April 6 release, a U.S. spokesman in Iraq, Dan Senor, said Wednesday. The agents told Berg that Iraq was too dangerous for unprotected American civilians. Berg wrote his parents after his release that federal agents had questioned him about whether he had ever built a pipe bomb or had been in Iran. Berg's family members have called on the government to tell all it knows about its contacts with the 26-year-old. They have blamed U.S. authorities for detaining him in Iraq until the anti-American violence worsened. Berg had caught the FBI's attention before. Speaking to reporters outside his home in West Chester, Pa., Berg's father, Michael, said Thursday that his son was investigated by the FBI over contact he had with a terrorism suspect while he was a student at the University of Oklahoma. A senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Berg volunteered information about the 2002 investigation when he was detained in Iraq. The official said that an e-mail address traced to Berg had been used by an unidentified individual with purported connections to terrorism. The investigation showed that Berg had never met the suspect individual and had not given the e-mail address to that person. Investigators concluded that Berg's e-mail address had been spread among dozens of people with links to the university. The suspect individual appears to have been acquainted with Moussaoui, an al-Qaida adherent now in federal custody and awaiting trial on conspiracy charges stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks, the official said. Moussaoui attended flight school in Norman, Okla., home of the university. In what may be Berg's last contact before his kidnapping, he checked out of Baghdad's Fanar Hotel on April 10 around 7 a.m., according to the hotel receptionist. American businessman Andrew Robert Duke and the staff there said Berg left some of his belongings in storage, with plans to return. "Inshallah (God willing), I will be back in a few days," the receptionist said Berg told her. Berg's killing was reminiscent of the 2002 death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was decapitated while a video camera captured the slaying.

Nick Berg Snuff Porn: CIA / Mossad Death Squad?
by MARC PERKEL
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=94&contentid=1234

Death of Nick Berg:Bush-Cheney-Pentagon PsyOps? (continued)
by URI DOWBENKO
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=2&contentid=1228&page=2

Nick Berg decapitation video declared "a fraud" by medical doctor
http://www.aztlan.net/fake_video.htm

Beheading Staged? - al-Zarqawi Was Killed Long Ago
Commentary By Susan Forest
http://www.rense.com/general52/stageda.htm

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=54893;title=APFN
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_crime&Number=1468521&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1&t=-1#Post1468521

Contrary to widespread belief, Saddam Hussein did not use look-alikes to fool his enemies, the former Iraqi dictator's physician claimed on Wednesday. Ala Bashir, author of a book published in Norway and including titbits about his most famous patient, whom he describes as "gentle", said he would have known if Saddam had employed doubles.
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1526030,00.html

With so many National Guard troops in Iraq, officials in some states are worried they could be caught short-handed if an emergency flares up at home.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee resigned Thursday after his governing coalition lost the parliamentary election, ending his nearly six years in power.

Chickenhawk Groupthink?
Analysis by Jim Lobe
In a 1972 book, 'Victims of Groupthink: A Psychology Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes', Irving Janis identified the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as particularly compelling examples of how very smart people can collectively make very stupid decisions.
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=23698

Secrets Of The Plunge Protection Team The Four Derivative US Dictators
By Michael Edward
http://www.rense.com/general52/secretsoftheplunge.htm

The FBI and other U.S. agencies ignored the murky pasts of alleged Nazi collaborators living in the United States because the government saw them as useful during the Cold War, according to newly released records. Government historian Norman J.W. Goda said the FBI "did not dig deep for the truth" on Nazis in America. Goda said the documents show the INS was not, as long thought, "asleep at the switch" during the years when many Nazi sympathizers made it into the country.
http://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified_records/declassified_records.html

Film Raises Ire Over HIV Origins
By Kate Rope
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63424,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

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