FBI Fights New Curbs On Domestic Spying

The FBI is resisting legislation that would put more restrictions on domestic surveillance of Americans' private records, saying the agency already has tightened its rules to crack down on wrongful use of national security letters.

FBI General Counsel Valerie E. Caproni told a House panel that the agency has responded to abuses outlined in internal reports by tightening the requirements for issuing national security letters.

"In light of the FBI's tremendous progress in this regard, further legislative changes, including the measures envisioned by [Congress], would be neither necessary nor appropriate," Caproni testified to a Judiciary subcommittee.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are pushing legislation that would limit the FBI's ability to secretly collect reams of information on the bank, telephone, credit card and Internet accounts of private Americans involved in terrorism investigations.

Government Changes Position on Bisphenol A

By Lyndsey Layton / Washington Post

A federal health agency acknowledged for the first time yesterday concerns that a chemical found in thousands of everyday products such as baby bottles and compact discs may cause cancer and other serious disorders.

The draft report by the National Toxicology Program signaled a turning point in the government's position on bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical so ubiquitous in the United States that it has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of the population over 6 years of age.

Last year, another expert panel using outside scientists minimized the health risks of BPA, but its findings were widely assailed after a congressional investigation found that a firm hired to perform scientific analysis was also working for the chemical industry.

Used in the production of plastic since the 1950s, BPA may be linked in laboratory animals to breast cancer, prostate cancer, early puberty in females and behavioral changes, according to the study released yesterday. It called for more research into the chemical's health effects.

Although the National Toxicology Program, an office of the National Institutes of Health, has no power to regulate BPA, its findings are used by other federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, which set safe exposure limits for chemicals.

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Setting the Propaganda Stage for an Attack on Iran: American Hegemony Is Not Guaranteed

By Paul Craig Roberts

Exactly as the British press predicted, last week's congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Green Zone administrator Ryan Crocker set the propaganda stage for a Bush regime attack on Iran. On April 10 Robert H. Reid of AP News reported: "The top US commander has shifted the focus from al-Qaida to Iranian-backed 'special groups' as the main threat . . . The shift was articulated by Gen. Petraeus who told Congress that 'unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.'"

According to the neocon propaganda, the "special groups" (have you ever heard of them before?) are breakaway elements of al Sadr's militia.

Nonsensical on its face, the Petraeus/Crocker testimony is just another mask in the macabre theatre of lies that the Bush regime has told in order to justify its wars of naked aggression against Muslims.

Fact #1: Al Sadr is not allied with Iran. He speaks with an Iraqi voice and has his militia under orders to stand down from conflict. The Badr militia is the Shi'ite militia that is allied with Iran. Why did the US and its Iraqi puppet Maliki attack al Sadr's militia and not the Badr militia or the breakaway elements of Sadr's militia that allegedly now operate as gangs?

Fact #2: The Shi'ite militias and the Sunni insurgents are armed with weapons available from the unsecured weapon stockpiles of Saddam Hussein's army. If Iran were arming Iraqis, the Iraqi insurgents and militias would have armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles.

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FBI Caused Delay in Terror Case Ahead of Senate Testimony

Counterterrorism officials in FBI headquarters slowed an investigation into a possible conspirator in the 2005 London bombings by forcing a field agent to return documents acquired from a U.S. university. Why? Because the agent received the documents through a lawful subpoena, while headquarters wanted him to demand the records under the USA Patriot Act, using a power the FBI did not have, but desperately wanted.

When a North Carolina State University lawyer correctly rejected the second records demand, the FBI obtained another subpoena. Two weeks later, the delay was cited by FBI director Robert Mueller in congressional testimony as proof that the USA Patriot Act needed to be expanded.

The strange episode is recounted in newly declassified documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents shed new light on how senior FBI officials' determination to gain independence from judicial oversight slowed its own investigation, and led the bureau's director to offer inaccurate testimony to Congress. The revelations are likely to play a key role in Capitol Hill hearings Tuesday and Wednesday on the FBI's use of so-called national security letters, or NSLs

At issue is the FBI's probe of a former chemistry graduate student at North Carolina State University who was then suspected aiding the deadly attack.  The student has since been cleared of any involvement.

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The CDC's Deadly Mistakes

Sometimes connecting the dots reveals a grim picture. Several new reports about hospital infections show that the danger is increasing rapidly, and that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isn't leveling with the public about it.

Tomorrow Congress will hold hearings on whether the federal government is doing enough to prevent deadly hospital infection. The answer is "no." The biggest culprit is the CDC. The CDC claims 1.7 million people contract infections in U.S. hospitals each year. The truth is several times that number. The proof is in the data.

One of the fastest growing infections is "Mersa" or MRSA, which stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a superbug that doesn't respond to most antibiotics. In 1993, there were fewer than 2,000 MRSA infections in U.S. hospitals. By 2005, the figure had shot up to 368,000 according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. By June, 2007, 2.4 percent of all patients had MRSA hospital infections, according to the largest-ever study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control. That would mean 880,000 victims a year.

That's from one superbug. Imagine the number of infections from bacteria of all kinds, including such killers as VRE (vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus) and C. diff (Clostridium difficile). Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently told Congress that MRSA accounts for only 8 percent of hospital infections.

These new facts discredit the CDC's official 1.7 million estimate. CDC spokeswoman Nicole Coffin admits "the number isn't perfect."

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Taxpayers Face $400 Billion Bill For Bailout!

By Patrice Hill / Washington Times

The potential cost to U.S. taxpayers of bailing out Wall Street firms stricken by the credit crisis could grow to as much as $400 billion in a deep and prolonged recession, Standard & Poor's estimated yesterday.

That bill would soar by another $1.4 trillion if it included the cost of bailing out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other government credit agencies, whose losses could be so massive that the U.S. government could lose its AAA rating in what would be a calamity for the U.S. Treasury and the dollar.

Standard & Poor's is one of two Wall Street credit agencies that assign ratings to the U.S. government. The ratings not only reflect on the government's strength, but they largely determine its debt costs. To assign a rating, S&P must make realistic estimates of the financial threats that arise in dire circumstances, including the possibility of a severe recession resulting from the housing collapse.

"Even under a severe stress scenario, the contingent fiscal risks of broker-dealers will not threaten the AAA rating on the U.S. government," said John B. Chambers, chairman of S&P's sovereign ratings committee, but because the government credit agencies have grown to such an enormous size, their insolvency would put pressure on the U.S. government's own finances.

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Ron Paul & Others Want FBI Access to Data Curbed

By Carrie Johnson / Washington Post

Bipartisan groups in Congress are pressing to place new controls on the FBI's ability to demand troves of sensitive personal information from telephone providers and credit card companies, over the opposition of agency officials who say they deserve more time to clean up past abuses.

Proposals to rein in the use of secret "national security letters" will be discussed over the next week at hearings in both chambers. The hearings stem from disclosures that the FBI had clandestinely gathered telephone, e-mail and financial records "sought for" or "relevant to" terrorism or intelligence activities without following appropriate procedures.

The Justice Department's inspector general issued reports in 2007 and earlier this year citing repeated breaches. They included shoddy FBI paperwork, improper claims about nonexistent emergencies and an insufficient link between the data requests and ongoing national security probes.

"It is clear that the NSL authority is too overbroad and operates unchecked," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the House bill. "We must give our law enforcement the tools they need to protect us, but any such powers must be consistent with the rule of law."

The House bill, sponsored by Nadler, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), would tighten the language governing when national security letters could be used, by requiring that they clearly pertain to investigations of a foreign power or an agent instead of just being considered "relevant" to such investigations.

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Red Cross criticizes U.S., urges reforms at prison in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Red Cross criticized the way the U.S. handles prisoners at the highly secretive Bagram military base, urging reforms Monday that would allow detainees to introduce testimony in their defense.

The criticism of the prison, which few outsiders have seen, goes to the heart of the system the Bush administration uses to justify holding detainees outside the U.S.

Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said many of the 600-plus detainees at Bagram complain they do not even know why they are being held. Kellenberger spent a half day at the prison during a one-week visit to Afghanistan that ended Monday.

''They do not know what the future brings, how long will they be there and under which conditions will they be released,'' Kellenberger said.

While Kellenberger's comments were aimed specifically at Bagram, Red Cross chief spokesman Florian Westphal said there was ''a strong parallel'' with the U.S. military detention centers in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

USDA Wants to Sterilize Fresh Produce and Turn Live Foods into Dead Foods

By Mike Adams / Natural News

There's a new plot underway to sterilize your food and destroy the nutritional value of fresh produce. The players in this plot are the usual suspects: The USDA (which backed the "raw" almond sterilization rules now in effect in California) and the American Chemical Society -- a pro-chemical group that represents the interests of industrial chemical manufacturers. The latest push comes from USDA researchers who conducted a study to see which method more effectively killed bacteria on leafy green vegetables like spinach.

To conduct the study, they bathed the spinach in a solution contaminated with bacteria. Then, they tried to remove the bacteria using three methods: Washing, chemical spraying and irradiation. Not surprisingly, only the irradiation killed nearly 100 percent of the bacterial colonies. That's because radiation sterilizes both the bacteria and the vegetable leaves, effectively killing the plant and destroying much of its nutritional value while it kills the bacteria.

The USDA claims this is a huge success. By using radiation on all fresh produce, they claim, the number of food-borne illness outbreaks that happen each year could be substantially reduced. It all makes sense until you realize that by destroying the nutritional value of all fresh produce sold in the United States, an irradiation policy would greatly increase the number of people killed by infections and chronic diseases that are prevented by the natural medicines found in fresh produce!

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Meltdown of U.S. Dollar Underway as China Dumps the Currency

Comments by China that it intends to move away from its reliance on the dollar triggered a sharp drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and heightened worldwide fears about the U.S. currency's stability. Chinese Central Bank Vice Director Xiu Jian said that his country is planning to shift much of its $1.4 trillion national currency reserve from dollars to more stable currencies, such as the euro or Canadian dollar. After these comments, the dollar fell to record lows relative to other currencies -- the lowest ever against the euro, the lowest in a generation against the British pound, and the lowest in 57 years against the Canadian dollar.

"The big issue on any currency is if its rate of depreciation is so fast that it scares away all capital, and the announcement that we heard from China sort of feeds those fears," said Larry Smith, chief investment officer at Third Wave Global Investors.

China is the world's largest investor in U.S. Treasury bonds and securities, holding more U.S. debt than any country but Japan. Because China's currency is linked to the dollar, the country also maintains a massive reserve of the currency.

But this policy had already begun to shift at the time of Xiu's comments. China has divested approximately 5 percent of its $400 billion holdings in the U.S. Treasury and established a $200 billion fund to help diversify its investments in equities and stocks around the world.

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Feds Use Phone Records to Get Risen's Sources on NSA Spy Program

By Philip Shenon / NY Times

Former government officials have recently been called before a federal grand jury and confronted with phone records documenting calls with a reporter who covers intelligence issues at The New York Times, according to people with detailed knowledge of the investigation.

A former official who was called before the grand jury in Alexandria, Va., said that he was shown extensive phone records that documented the date and duration of conversations with James Risen, a Times reporter in Washington, and that prosecutors were trying to identify Mr. Risen’s sources. Mr. Risen is fighting a grand jury subpoena for testimony about his sources for a 2006 book on the Central Intelligence Agency.

Justice Department officials have confirmed that prosecutors are trying to identify Mr. Risen’s sources for the book, “State of War,” and for articles he wrote for The Times about the nation’s spy agencies, to determine if his sources violated laws on the sharing of classified information.

But spokesmen for the department would not comment on details of the grand jury investigation, which is being conducted out of the federal courthouse in Alexandria.

The grand jury witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to draw new attention to himself, and others with knowledge of the investigation say it is unclear whose phone records were obtained by the Justice Department — if they were records of calls made from Mr. Risen’s phones or from the phones of officials who may have talked to him.

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McCain Reveals Confusion Over Petraeus Role

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona may not have been paying the closest of attention last week during hearings on the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

Speaking Monday at the annual meeting of the Associated Press, McCain was asked whether he, if elected, would shift combat troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to intensify the search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

“I would not do that unless Gen. [David] Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that,” McCain said, referring to the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Petraeus, however, made clear last week that he has nothing to do with the decision. Testifying last week before four congressional committees, including the Senate Armed Services Committee on which McCain is the ranking Republican, Petraeus said the decision about whether troops could be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan was not his responsibility because his portfolio is limited to the multi-national force in Iraq.

Decisions about Afghanistan would be made by others, he said.

“I’ve been sort of focused on another task,” Petraeus said when pressed about whether more troops should be diverted to Afghanistan rather than Iraq.

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U.S. to Release Photographer Held for 2 Years

The U.S. military said Monday it will release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, more than two years after he was detained by U.S. Marines on suspicions of links to insurgents. The military said it has determined Hussein is not a threat and plans to free him Wednesday.

In the past week, Iraqi judicial committees dismissed all allegations against Hussein and ordered his release.

Hussein has been in custody since April 12, 2006. The AP and Hussein denied any improper contacts and said he was only doing his job as a journalist working in a war zone.

AP President Tom Curley expressed relief.

“In time, we will celebrate Bilal’s release. For now, we want him safe and united with his family. While we may never see eye to eye with the U.S. military over this case, it is time for all of us to move on,” said Curley.

A statement by Multi-National Forces-Iraq said Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, commander of coalition detention facilities in Iraq, signed the release order after confirming the Iraqi committee’s decision to grant Hussein amnesty — a ruling that drops charges but carries no implication of guilt or innocence.

“After the action by the Iraqi judicial committees, we reviewed the circumstances of Hussein’s detention and determined that he no longer presents an imperative threat to security,” Stone said in the statement.

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Bush Replaced REX84 With New Martial Law Executive Order!!

In May 2007, Bush signed executive new orders NSDP51 and HSDP20 to replace REX84. The older order REX84 was an older directive to establish martial law in the event of a national emergency. Everything done in government is done for a reason, and these two new orders are no exception. These new directives surprised and alarmed many real conservatives and true patriots at the time.

These two orders established that the White House administration would take over all local governments under a national state of emergency, instead of Homeland Security. In May 2007, The Washington Post apparently saw nothing wrong with it and placed the story back on page 13 (a fitting unlucky number for it), according to a CSPAN television interview with well known author and writer Jerome Corsi. A contradiction appears to exist here. It cites a nuclear attack or a decapitating event in Washington as the reason for this, according to security analysts. If all the leaders and the administration in Washington are dead from a nuclear attack, who will be left to take over leading the nation under executive orders NSDP51 and HSPD20?

Who would be left to sign the martial law orders? This implies that martial law must be activated BEFORE an attack takes place while the administration is out of town, which clearly implies a false-flag operation by traitors of the worst kind. The administration was in Florida on 9-11, too.

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Closing in on Bush's Torture Cabal

By Jeffrey S. Kaye / AlterNet

It remains to be seen whether there will be any fallout from the news that the country's top officials signed off on torture. Don't rely on the press.

An interview in Esquire magazine of John Yoo, former Bush attorney for the White House's Office of Legal Counsel, and author of two controversial torture authorization memos, may give a hint of what kind of defense Yoo will be present if he decides (under threat of subpoena) to appear before John Conyer's House Judiciary Committee on May 9. Of course, he may decide (or be forced) to fight any appearance. But when career prosecutors start thinking War Crimes Act, and Yoo wakes up and discovers he's expendable, then he might feel differently.

This comes out in Yoo's interview (with the portion below reproduced from TPMMuckraker, bold emphasis added). Note that the time Yoo is talking about is after torture techniques were approved and apparently directed by Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and others in Bush's National Security Council's Principals Committee. The approval came supposedly at the behest of the CIA, who were frustrated with the interrogation of Abu Zubayda, captured in Pakistan in March 2002.

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Nader Supports New Inquiry Into 9/11

Ralph Nader, the consumer activist and independent presidential candidate, seems to think that the report of the commission assigned to investigate the events of 9-11 should not be the last word.

"There are unanswered questions in the 9-11 investigation, and they should be answered," Nader said at a recent address at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. "How do you go from plausibility to evidence? You have a more independent inquiry."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, airliners collided with each of the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, after which they and a third nearby office building mysteriously collapsed. Other incidents on the same day at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania were also attributed to aircraft collisions. All were pitched by the government as the result of a terrorist conspiracy, although it is widely believed that the government may have played a direct role in orchestrating the events.

After public cries for an investigation, President George Bush and Congress deputized the 9-11 Commission, which issued its report in 2004. While the report was praised by some, critics contended that it was not much more than a government whitewash.

On another topic, Nader had kind words to say for presidential candidate, Ron Paul.

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Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks

By Len Hart / The Peoples Voice

It was David Hume’s 1758 Of the First Principles of Government that stated:

"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular."

—David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government

Hume was not alone in associating military governments with despotic governments. When any person puts himself both above and against the law, then the people are entitled lawfully to rise up —violently if necessary —to overthrow the tyrant, the self-proclaimed dictator. In our own Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said that "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it". Che Guevara spoke of such 'governments' when he said:

"When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken."

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An Iraqi View of the War

By Walter Pincus / Washington Post

While Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker were on Capitol Hill last week updating the situation in Iraq from the American point of view, Iraq's ambassador to the United States, Sameer Shaker Sumaidaie, was giving his somewhat different -- also upbeat -- view at a think tank in downtown Washington.

Seeing the situation in Iraq through the eyes of an Iraqi official is a worthwhile exercise, starting with a look back at 2003.

When, as Sumaidaie put it, "the Americans breezed in" five years ago, they found a country where Saddam Hussein's "security apparatus [had] represented more than 50 percent of employment" and years of sanctions had caused the collapse of government institutions and services.

"In this vacuum -- and politics, like nature, does not like a vacuum -- stepped in anybody who could step in internally and externally," he told the audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Neighboring countries who wanted to grab a foothold" and Iraqi political entities in exile "moved in to claim whatever they can claim of this potential huge pie that came into being."

Because of this, he said, "the main people who were organized were the Kurds and the religious, or the Islamist, parties. The secular organizations were very underrepresented."

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The Democrats Have Only Themselves to Blame

By Alicia Hope / GangsterGovernment

When Nancy Pelosi said impeachment was off the proverbial table, she signed the death certificate for the democratic party! Even though the Democrats may not have had the votes needed, impeachment would have stopped the "new crazies" from launching another illegal war for profit...only this time against Iran! It would have also been the death knell for any Republican nominee! The prognostication, only a few months ago, was not a good one for Republicans! Now, it looks like McCain may beat Obama. In a recent poll by USA Today, McCain actually beats Obama The Savior!

By the way, Barack's assassination is off the table too. It is no longer necessary. It was never viable but these are desperate times for the real evil-doers. That's the one good thing about this entire fiasco. Obama will not be "taken out". The race is now close enough that they can steal the election(if necessary) without raising the ire of the public. Diebold machines just happen to still be in place, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting electorate! If it's too close, the Supreme Court or some other judicial body will step in and give the race to McCain.

The Democrats should have impeached this bunch a long time ago! I know the Democrats fear the power behind the presidency! But they'll soon learn that impeachment would have been the option that would have saved this nation or at least given it a reprieve. Historian Michael Parenti called Bush “the biggest thug” ever to occupy the White House! Do I need to list the dirty deeds(and they weren't done dirt cheap)?

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The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours

By Nita Farahany / Washington Post

Imagine a world of streets lined with video cameras that alert authorities to any suspicious activity. A world where police officers can read the minds of potential criminals and arrest them before they commit any crimes. A world in which a suspect who lies under questioning gets nabbed immediately because his brain has given him away.

Though that may sound a lot like the plot of the 2002 movie "Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise and based on a Philip K. Dick novel, I'm not talking about science fiction here; it turns out we're not so far away from that world. But does it sound like a very safe place, or a very scary one?

It's a question I think we should be asking as the federal government invests millions of dollars in emerging technology aimed at detecting and decoding brain activity. And though government funding focuses on military uses for these new gizmos, they can and do end up in the hands of civilian law enforcement and in commercial applications. As spending continues and neurotechnology advances, that imagined world is no longer the stuff of science fiction or futuristic movies, and we postpone at our peril confronting the ethical and legal dilemmas it poses for a society that values not just personal safety but civil liberty as well.

Consider Cernium Corp.'s "Perceptrak" video surveillance and monitoring system, recently installed by Johns Hopkins University, among others. This technology grew out of a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense -- to develop intelligent video analytics systems. Unlike simple video cameras monitored by security guards, Perceptrak integrates video cameras with an intelligent computer video.

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