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Facebook’s Gone Rogue

Facebook has gone rogue, drunk on founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dreams of world domination. It’s time the rest of the web ecosystem recognizes this and works to replace it with something open and distributed.

Facebook used to be a place to share photos and thoughts with friends and family and maybe play a few stupid games that let you pretend you were a mafia don or a homesteader. It became a very useful way to connect with your friends, long-lost friends and family members. Even if you didn’t really want to keep up with them.

Soon everybody — including your uncle Louie and that guy you hated from your last job — had a profile. And Facebook realized it owned the network.

Then Facebook decided to turn “your” profile page into your identity online — figuring, rightly, that there’s money and power in being the place where people define themselves. But to do that, the folks at Facebook had to make sure that the information you give it was public. More

Eye in sky finds illegal Pierce County buildings

TACOMA, Wash. -- Pierce County has identified more than 3,200 illegal garages and other structures under a controversial program that uses aerial photographs to spot buildings constructed without a permit.

Gordon Aleshire, assistant director of the county's planning department, told a County Council committee Monday that the program has prompted hundreds of property owners to seek amnesty for their illegal buildings. And it has generated more than $107,000 in revenue for the county as property owners seek building permits they should have obtained in the first place.

But council members remain critical of the program, which some local residents see as a Big Brother-style high-tech surveillance program. "This has been a troubling program to a number of council members," Chairman Roger Bush, R-Frederickson, said at a meeting of the council's Community Development Committee on Monday. More

Data mining for fun and profit

BOCA RATON — At any one time, some 750,000 pedophiles are prowling the Internet, the United Nations says. They might be lurking in chat rooms. Or swapping images of adults having sex with kids.

It's a virtual epidemic of child pornography, and to fight it, law enforcement officers from all over are converging on a cavernous building in South Florida. Here they have access to the most advanced technology for finding pedophiles.

But this isn't run by any government agency. The desks, computers, technology — all are provided free by a former drug smuggler named Hank Asher.

Called a "mad scientist'' by one employee, Asher has made a fortune collecting public records — deeds, lawsuits, voter registrations — and combining them into databases that can be invaluable in locating people. Plug a name into Accurint, Asher's best-known product, and you'll see addresses, possible relatives, licenses held. More

Jolly Rancher lands third-grader in detention for a week

ORCHARD, Texas – A third-grader at Brazos Elementary was given a week’s detention for possessing a Jolly Rancher.

School officials in Brazos County are defending the seemingly harsh sentence. The school’s principal and superintendent said they were simply complying with a state law that limits junk food in schools.

But the girl’s parents say it’s a huge overreaction.

“I think it’s stupid to give a kid a week’s worth of detention for a piece of candy,” said Amber Brazda, the girl’s mother. "The whole thing was just ridiculous to me." Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. More

FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited

WASHINGTON--The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.

FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting.

As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do. More

NJ Mom Recognizes Census Worker as Sex Offender

A man with a U.S. census badge knocked on Amy Schmalbach’s door on May 4. Thinking that answering the door to a government worker was a safe bet, she did. And then she wondered why he looked so familiar.

As soon as the man left her Pennsauken home, Schmalbach realized where she had seen him before: on the state’s sex-offender registry.

"I figured this is a government worker, I'm safe," Schmalbach, 33, told the Inquirer. She had given him names and birthdates of her family to the man who called himself “Jamie.”

The man’s real name is Frank J. Kuni, but goes by many aliases, including Jamie Shepard. It was under the name “Jamie Shepard” that he applied for a door-to-door job with the census bureau. More

Seattle police OK to stun pregnant woman

SEATTLE - Three Seattle police officers were justified when they used a stun gun on a pregnant mother who refused to sign a traffic ticket, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a case that prompted an incredulous dissent.

Malaika Brooks was driving her son to Seattle's African American Academy in 2004 when she was stopped for doing 32 mph in a school zone.

She insisted it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and refused to sign the ticket because she thought she'd be admitting guilt.

Rather than give her the ticket and let her go on her way, the officers decided to arrest her. One reached in, turned off her car and dropped the keys on the floor. Brooks stiffened her arms against the steering wheel and told the officers she was pregnant, but refused to get out, even after they threatened to stun her. More

FBI May Be Behind Your New Facebook Friend

The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.

U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting.

Think you know who's behind that "friend" request? Think again. Your new "friend" just might be the FBI.

The document, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.

Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. More

School condemned after pupils left in tears by mock shooting

Blackminster Middle School in Evesham, Worcs, faced condemnation from parents after their children were left traumatised by the mock shooting.

The youngsters, aged between 10 and 13, thought they were taking part in a fire drill when an alarm bell rang and they were ushered out into the playground.

But they were left in terror as a man appeared brandishing a gun and appeared to shoot dead Richard Kent, their science teacher, as he ran across a field.

Following a loud bang simulating a gunshot, other staff involved in the act rushed to the teacher's aid and appeared to try to resuscitate him.

There was a delay of 10 minutes before weeping pupils were taken back to the assembly hall where teachers explained that the pretend shooting had been laid on as part of a science lesson. More

Employer told not to post advert for 'reliable' workers because it discriminates against 'unreliable' applicants

When it comes to hiring staff, there are plenty of legal pitfalls employers need to watch out for these days.

So recruitment agency boss Nicole Mamo was especially careful to ensure her advert for hospital workers did not offend on grounds of race, age or sexual orientation.

However, she hadn't reckoned on discriminating against a wholly different section of the community - the completely useless.

When she ran the ad past a job centre, she was told she couldn't ask for 'reliable' and 'hard-working' applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people.

'In my 15 years in recruitment I haven't heard anything so ridiculous,' Mrs Mamo said. 'If the matter wasn't so serious I would be laughing out loud. More

TSA Forces Disabled 4 Year Old to Remove Leg Braces

Philadelphia TSA screeners forced the developmentally delayed, four-year-old son of a Camden, PA police officer to remove his leg-braces and wobble through a checkpoint, despite the fact that their procedure calls for such a case to be handled through a swabbing in a private room.

When the police officer complained, the supervising TSA screener turned around and walked away. Then a Philadelphia police officer asked what was wrong and "suggested he calm down and enjoy his vacation."

Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.

The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk.

The screener told them to take off the boy's braces. More

Marines split over openly gay service

Lance Cpl. Daniel Beasley will shoulder a portable missile launcher when he's on patrol in Afghanistan in a few weeks. He said it won't matter whether the Marine next to him is gay.

"If you don't bother me and you don't bring it to work, I don't care," the 20-year-old Chicago native said Tuesday as he headed into an Oceanside dry cleaner. "If people aren't blatant about it, I think they should be able to serve."

Interviews with several active-duty and retired Marines revealed different opinions as the Pentagon begins a review, mandated by President Barack Obama, aimed at repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. North County and Southwest Riverside County congressional representatives oppose any immediate change, though one left the door open to an eventual repeal.

The interviews also showed that many in the Marines, a force that prides itself on its warrior ethos, are conflicted. While saying they're not bothered by homosexuality, some Marines say having gays and lesbians serve in the open could hurt order and discipline. More

Pennsylvania School Accused of Cyberspying on Students

PA Philadelphia-area school district finds itself under scrutiny after remotely activating a MacBook Web cam and capturing a young student engaging in "improper behavior at home." The student was confronted by a Harrington High School official and shown photographs of his actions. These photographs set off privacy alarms and have led to a class-action lawsuit alleging that the school district has been spying on its students in their homes.

Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, released a statement yesterday admitting the MacBook cameras could be remotely activated without the user's knowledge. McGinley claimed the remote camera activation was meant as a theft-prevention measure. "The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," McGinley said. More

Clothing destroyed while people are too poor to buy it

In the bitter cold on Monday night, a man and woman picked apart a pyramid of clear trash bags, the discards of the HM clothing store that reigns in blazing plate-glass glory on 34th Street, just east of Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

At the back entrance on 35th Street, awaiting trash haulers, were bags of garments that appear to have never been worn. And to make sure that they never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & M’s back door. The man and woman were there to salvage what had not been destroyed.

He worked quickly, never uttering a word. A bag was opened and eyed, and if it held something of promise, was tossed at the feet of the woman. She said her name was Pepa. More

Romulus Police Disgust other Police Agencies

ROMULUS, Mich. -- Romulus police officers are being so aggressive that another police agency is warning drivers to be wary of a so-called “speed trap.” Detroit Metropolitan police are outing Romulus officers who are pulling over drivers for speeding in the area of Interstate 94 around the airport.

"Under the bridge might be an unmarked Dodge Charger that’s there to nail you," said airport spokesman Mike Conway.

Conway said Romulus police are pulling over record-number of drivers in an effort to raise cash.

"To us, it’s more of a revenue generation for the city of Romulus than traffic safety enforcement," he said. Conway said court records show the city has written 10,000 tickets since July 1st.

The Wayne County Airport Authority has even begun circulating fliers that read,

"The Romulus Police Department has dramatically increased its patrols at the entrances and exits to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, using unmarked vehicles. Please be careful to observe all speed limits and traffic laws." More

Jet diverts to Philly over teen passenger's prayer

A Jewish teenager trying to pray on a New York-to-Kentucky flight caused a scare Thursday when he pulled out a set of small boxes containing holy scrolls, leading the captain to divert the flight to Philadelphia, where the commuter plane was greeted by police, bomb-sniffing dogs and federal agents.

The 17-year-old on US Airways Express Flight 3079 was using tefillin, a set of small boxes containing biblical passages that are attached to leather straps, Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore said.

When used in prayer, one box is strapped to the arm while the other box is placed on the head.

"It's something that the average person is not going to see very often, if ever," FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said. More

What Should You Worry About?

Humans are good at many things—typing, inventing stuff—but we're quite bad at assessing risk. Day after day, we get bent out of shape over things we shouldn’t worry about so much, like airplane crashes and lightning strikes, instead of things we should, like heart disease and the flu.

So how can we find out what's truly dangerous? Economics. Upon hearing the word, most people think of incomprehensible charts and jargon and promptly change the subject.

However, we can use the field's powerful ideas and tools, along with huge piles of data, to understand topics that aren't typically associated with economics. Topics like shark attacks. More

Raped by lookalike foods: ammoniated beef

Eight years ago, federal officials were struggling to remove potentially deadly E. coli from hamburgers when an entrepreneurial company from South Dakota came up with a novel idea: injecting beef with ammonia.

The company, Beef Products Inc., had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil. The trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella.

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products. More

Cop shoots fire chief in Ark. court over tickets

JERICHO, Ark. - It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn't hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps.

The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court.

Payne ended up in the hospital, but his shooting last week brought to a boil simmering tensions between residents of this tiny former cotton city and their police force. Drivers quickly learn to slow to a crawl along the gravel roads and the two-lane highway that run through Jericho, but they say sometimes that isn't enough to fend off the city ticketing machine. More

New scanners break child porn laws

The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned.

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to "virtual strip-searching" and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved.

Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.

They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. More

People who emit more than their fair share of carbon emissions are having their pay docked in a trial that could lead to rationing being reintroduced via the workplace after an absence of half a century.

Britain’s first employee carbon rationing scheme is about to be extended, after the trial demonstrated the effectiveness of fining people for exceeding their personal emissions target. Unlike the energy-saving schemes adopted by thousands of companies, the rationing scheme monitors employees’ personal emissions, including home energy bills, petrol purchases and holiday flights.

Workers who take a long-haul flight are likely to be fined for exceeding their annual ration unless they take drastic action in other areas, such as switching off the central heating or cutting out almost all car journeys. More

Motorists run gauntlet on highway

Pretoria, South Africa - Gangs of armed robbers are attacking motorists on the R21 Highway - the main road linking OR Tambo International Airport to Pretoria.

The gangs, which are also attacking construction workers upgrading the highway, have left a trail of terror behind them over the past three months.

The gang's ambushes, which have included attacks on businessmen and a US Aid agency employee, have left at least four motorists and a security guard at a construction site seriously injured after they were shot by the robbers.

he most recent attack took place last Tuesday night when a businessman was shot in the legs as he was changing a flat tyre on his car. More

Danish Police Arrest Over 1,000 Protesters

One week into the COP15 and protesters are taking to the streets of Copenhagen. Police are using the recently passed protest package laws to the full, having detained more than 1,000 protesters for up to 12 hours and charging only six of these.

Hundreds of protesters under arrest were forced to sit on the cold ground for up to five hours before being taken to the special detention cages on the outskirts of Copenhagen.

By far the largest protest of the COP15 took place on Saturday, where up to 100,000 people were involved. The huge crowd started out at the Danish Parliament and was en-route to the Bella Center, where COP15 is taking place, when police made their presence known by arresting between 3,400 protesters in a pincer movement at the back of the demonstration. More

San Diego PD ignore child prostitution, illlegal camps

Nearly two weeks after a group of illegal immigration activists stumbled upon prostitution in McGonigle Canyon in San Diego, there is little to show the community in the form of action.

The San Diego Police Department’s slow reaction has caused many to scratch their heads wondering why it is taking police so long to remove the illegal migrant campers.

“What are you doing out here?” asked one resident about this reporter. “If it wasn’t for you reporting this nothing would be done. I’m scared to visit the canyon any more.”

After several days of speculation, SDPD Capt. Rosario said there would be a mobile command van placed in the canyon as well as some quads and horses.

A quick visit inside the police mobile command unit shows a communication network, radios and a television for the officers who are stationed inside the van. Again, there was no word about the SDPD actually being on foot inside the canyon where the prostitution is taking place. More

Milking the Poor: One Family's Fall Into Homelessness

The descent into homelessness can be equated to falling off a cliff. Wealth buys passage on toll roads a safe distance from the edge, but poverty's foot path runs along the craggy and unstable lip of a gaping precipice. Emma and her family hit a few ledges on the way down, blown by winds of misfortune every time they began to regain stable footing. As Emma describes their story: "It's too much bad luck for anyone to believe."

At the moment, Emma's fiance, Wilkins, sits in a windowless cell of the Lynnwood City Holding Facility serving a 30-day sentence for driving with a suspended license--the result of an unpaid ticket for driving without insurance. Though the term 'debtor's prison' evokes Dickensian inequalities of a past era, I find it difficult to characterize Wilkins's incarceration as anything more just.

"If you don't have money for insurance, and you get pulled over, then you'll never have money again," Emma explains, summarizing the painful lesson realized through her entanglement with Washington law. "Fines rack up every time they make a judgment against you. If you don't respond, if you don't get the notice, then it goes to collections, additional penalties are levied. It just gets worse and worse. And that's how our hole got deeper and deeper." More

Man accused of using Twitter to direct protesters during G20 summit

A New York-based anarchist has been arrested by the FBI and charged with hindering prosecution after he allegedly used the social networking site Twitter to help protesters at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh evade the police.

Elliot Madison, 41, from Queens, had his home raided and was put on $30,000 (£19,000) bail after he and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, were tracked to the Carefree Inn motel in Pittsburgh during the summit on 24 and 25 September.

The pair were found sitting in front of a bank of laptops and emergency frequency radio scanners. They were wearing headphones and microphones and had many maps and contact numbers in the room.

Official police documents allege the two men used Twitter messages to contact protesters at the summit "and to inform the protesters and groups of the movements and actions of law enforcement". More

Geely pops a big wheelie for metro cop

South Africa - Can a Chinese-made Geely car cover 4,6km in just 19 seconds - at 871km/h? Yes say the Joburg metro police, this is quite possible.

For, on April 26, they caught Midrand motorist Francisca Al-Halaseh on two cameras.

One was near the Canada Road Bridge on the N12 South and the second, 4.6km later, at the Randshow Road Bridge on the N12 South. But despite the cameras being 4.6km apart, the time difference between the two clips is a mere 19 seconds.

This means Al-Halaseh, who was driving the Geely, should have been driving 871km/h and not the 102km in an 80km zone that she was caught at. More

US Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets

America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.

In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media.

It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.

Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn’t touch closed social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get customized, real-time feeds of what’s being said on these sites, based on a series of keywords. More

'Naked' scanner in airport trial

A trial of a scanner that produces "naked" images of passengers has begun at Manchester Airport.

The authorities say it will speed up security checks by quickly revealing any concealed weapons or explosives.

But the full body scans will also show up breast enlargements, body piercings and a clear black-and-white outline of passengers' genitals.

The airport has stressed that the images are not pornographic and will be destroyed straight away.

Sarah Barrett, head of customer experience at the airport, said most passengers did not like the traditional "pat down" search.

Ms Barrett said: "This scanner completely takes away the hassle of needing to undress." More

Thumbprint rule at Tampa Bank of America stymies armless man trying to cash check

TAMPA — Steve Valdez used one of his prosthetic arms to slip a check to the teller at Bank of America downtown.

"She said, 'Obviously you aren't going to be able to give us a thumbprint,' " Valdez recalled. The teller went to get the branch manager to find out what to do, Valdez said.

Valdez was born without arms, and this wasn't his first time cashing a check at someone else's bank. The check was from his wife, so he took it to her bank Thursday, thinking that would make it simple.

Not this time. He could not understand why his two forms of photo ID were unacceptable. He said the manager gave him two options: open an account or come back with your wife.

He did neither. More

Obama Youth to patrol American cities

In Barack Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech calling America to national service, Obama promised he would develop a paramilitary force of unmatched size, "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

He has made good on that promise.

Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters. More

Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?

IT’S too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering.

City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s.

“If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.” More

State to Mom: Stop Baby-Sitting Neighbors' Kids

Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood's children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.

Regulators who oversee child care, however, don't see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she'd be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

"I was freaked out. I was blown away," she said.

"I got on the phone immediately, called my husband, then I called all the girls" — that is, the mothers whose kids she watches — "every one of them." More

Hot tiles a headache for San Onofre

SAN ONOFRE ---- At the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, even throwing out a batch of old ceramic tiles sets off alarms.

Southern California Edison, the plant's owner, reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday that a shipment of various materials from the seaside plant was rejected at Terminal Island in Long Beach Harbor after a "portal monitor" detected radiation.

Edison spokesman Gil Alexander said Tuesday that an inspection performed after the shipment was returned to San Onofre found the radiation reading stemmed from a common ingredient in ceramic tiles, not anything absorbed at the plant.

"They were garden-variety standard retail decorative tiles," Alexander said. "The clay in them can give off a very low level of natural background radiation." More

Obama: We Need To Bail Out Newspapers Or Blogs Will Run The World

Obama yesterday expressed concern at the sorry state of the news industry and said that he will look at a news paper bailout , because otherwise, blogs will take over the world, and that would be a threat to democracy, The Hill reports.

"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.

He said he would be happy to look a bills that could give tax newspapers tax-breaks if they were to restructure as 50 (c) (3) educational corporations. One of the bills is that of Senator Ben Cardin, who has introduced the "Newspaper Revitalization Act." More

Blackwater’s ‘License to Kill’ under the Lens

Did the non-disclosure clauses just expire for some former Blackwater Xe executives? It would seem to be the case, based on the New York Times‘ series of scoops on the company’s more-intimate-than-previously-reported ties to the CIA.

The latest revelation: The company’s contractors help assemble and load missiles and smart bombs on the CIA’s Predator drones. The firm, the Times reports, also provided security at secret bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That latter point should come as little surprise to Blackwater-watchers. According to Robert Young Pelton’s Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror, Blackwater first got into the security business to provide protective details for the CIA in Afghanistan post-9/11. More

Ridge accuses Bush White House of political use of terror alert system

In his new book, the first Homeland Security chief, Tom Ridge, accuses top aides to President George W. Bush of pressing him to raise the terror alert level to influence the 2004 presidential election.

Ridge, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, says that he refused the entreaty just before the election from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, according to a summary of the book from publisher Thomas Dunne Books.

Ridge writes that there was a "vigorous, some might say dramatic, discussion" about raising the threat level. He says his aides told the White House that doing so would politicize national security.

"I believe our strong interventions had pulled the 'go-up' advocates back from the brink," Ridge writes. "But I consider the episode to be not only a dramatic moment in Washington's recent history, but another illustration of the intersection of politics, fear, credibility and security." More

Newborn's Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy

Matthew Brzica and his wife hardly noticed when the hospital took a few drops of blood from each of their four newborn children for routine genetic testing. But then they discovered that the state had kept the dried blood samples ever since -- and was making them available to scientists for medical research.

"They're just taking DNA from young kids right out of the womb and putting it into a warehouse," said Brzica, of Victoria, Minn. "DNA is what makes us who we are. It's just not right."

The couple is among a group of parents challenging Minnesota's practice of storing babies' blood samples and allowing researchers to study them without their permission. The confrontation, and a similar one in Texas, has focused attention on the practice at a time when there is increasing interest in using millions of these collected "blood spots" to study diseases. More

Whoops! Cash For Clunkers Payments Are Taxable!

The Cash For Clunkers program is adding to the activity at treasurers' offices all around South Dakota. First, people were asking for proof of ownership, so they could show they owned their vehicle for a full year, allowing them to cash it in. Now, they'll be returning to register their new vehicle. And when they do, new owners need to bring every bit of paperwork provided to them by their dealer.

"That means they need their title, their damage disclosure, their bill of sale and the dealers have 30 days to get that to them," Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam Nelson said.

But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable.

"They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out," Nelson said. More

Legal Immunity Set for Swine Flu Vaccine Makers

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has not only given immunity to the makers of Tamiflu and Relenza for injuries stemming from their use against swine flu, she has granted immunity to future swine flu vaccines and “any associated adjuvants”.

The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu, thousands filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time around, they will have no recourse.

The 2006 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (the PREP Act) allows the DHHS Secretary to invoke almost complete immunity from liability for manufacturers of vaccines and drugs used to combat a declared public health emergency. More

Obama's Science Czar: Eugenics is wonderful

Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens.

The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology -- informally known as the United States' Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force. More

Judge sentences man to 6 months in jail for yawning

Clifton Williams arrived at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet and sat in the fourth-floor courtroom where his cousin was pleading guilty to a felony drug charge.

As Circuit Judge Daniel Rozak handed down the cousin's sentence -- 2 years' probation -- Williams, 33, stretched and let out a very ill-timed yawn.

Williams' sentence? Six months in jail -- the maximum penalty for criminal contempt without a jury trial. The Richton Park man was locked up July 23 and will serve at least 21 days.

"I was flabbergasted because I didn't realize a judge could do that," said Williams' father, Clifton Williams Sr. "It seems to me like a yawn is an involuntary action." More

Unsafe tractor-trailer and bus companies ordered to shut down still on US highways

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of tractor-trailer and bus companies ordered to shut down because of federal safety violations ranging from suspended licenses to possible drug use have stayed on the road by using different names, investigators say.

The study by the Government Accountability Office comes a year after an unlicensed charter bus carrying a Vietnamese-American Catholic group blew a retreaded tire installed on a steering axle and skidded off a Texas highway, killing 17 people in one of the nation's deadliest bus crashes. The use of recapped tires on the steering wheels is a violation of federal regulations, the study stated.

The GAO report found that at least 20 of the roughly 220 commercial bus companies that had been fined and ordered out of service in 2007 and 2008 by federal regulators evaded compliance by setting up shop under a new name, the same tactic used by the bus operator in the Texas crash. More

Police chief denounces 'cowardly' iPhone users monitoring speed traps

Area drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices that pinpoint the location of the cameras.

That has irked D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices, which can also help drivers dodge sobriety checkpoints.

"I think that's the whole point of this program," she told The Examiner. "It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives." More

School bans pupils from wearing goggles

Teachers at St Sidwells Primary school, Exeter, Devon, have told parents of pupils goggles can now only be worn by children who have an 'adverse reaction to chemicals in water'.

Authorities at the school say they're following advice from the British Association of Advisors and Lecturers in Physical Education (BAALPE).

The BAALPE advice states: "Head teachers should inform parents and carers that goggles can be a hazard and cause permanent eye injury. More

Researchers: Social Security Numbers Can Be Guessed

Researchers have found that it is possible to guess many -- if not all -- of the nine digits in an individual's Social Security number using publicly available information, a finding they say compromises the security of one of the most widely used consumer identifiers in the United States.

Many numbers could be guessed at by simply knowing a person's birth data, the researchers from Carnegie Mellon University said.

The results come as concern grows over identity theft and lawmakers in Washington push legislation that would bar businesses from requiring people to supply their Social Security number when purchasing a good or service. More

Police Check Into Kids' Lemonade Sales

HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Seven suburban Philadelphia children had a brush with the law for selling lemonade without a permit.

But police say it was all a misunderstanding. A neighbor called Haverford Township police July 10 about the sales. He said the youngsters were going door to door and he didn't think they were being properly supervised.

A responding officer told the kids they were violating an ordinance that bans sales without a permit. But Deputy Chief John Viola said the officer didn't know the law doesn't apply to anyone under 16 years old. More

People on terrorist watch list allowed to buy guns

When people on the government's terrorist watch list have tried to buy guns or explosives in recent years, the government has let them the vast majority of the time.

That's the finding of a new report by the Government Accountability Office, sent to lawmakers last month and released publicly Monday.

From February 2004 to February 2009, 963 background checks using the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System "resulted in valid matches with terrorist watch list records; of these matches, approximately 90 percent were allowed to proceed because the checks revealed no prohibiting information," the GAO report says.

About 10 percent were denied. More

Single father turned away from swimming pool by health and safety rules

A single father was left stunned after he was turned away from a swimming pool when staff told him he could not provide proper supervision for his two sons.

Phillip Smith and sons Jake, aged five, and Aiden, three, were not allowed to enjoy a swim at the leisure centre because under-eights must be accompanied on a one-to-one basis by adults.

He was told sessions were available for single parents with more than one child, where there is extra supervision available, but these were early in the morning at weekends or during school hours in the week.

Mr Smith, 37, from Killamarsh in Sheffield, who is separated from his sons' mother, accused the leisure centre of 'discriminating against single parents'. More

Americans Fed Up with Out of Control Airport 'Searches'

The Transportation Security Administration has moved beyond just checking for weapons and explosives. It’s now training airport screeners to spot anything suspicious, and then honoring them when searches lead to arrests for crimes like drug possession and credit-card fraud.

But two court cases in the past month question whether TSA searches—which the agency says have broadened to allow screeners to use more judgment—have been going too far.

A federal judge in June threw out seizure of three fake passports from a traveler, saying that TSA screeners violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Congress authorizes TSA to search travelers for weapons and explosives; beyond that, the agency is overstepping its bounds, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley said. “The extent of the search went beyond the permissible purpose of detecting weapons and explosives and was instead motivated by a desire to uncover contraband evidencing ordinary criminal wrongdoing,” Judge Marbley wrote. More

Kids touring prisons get stun-gunned

TALLAHASSEE -- Children held hands so 50,000 volts could pass through their fingers. Other children were dangerously close to breathing tear gas.

A total of 43 children were directly and indirectly shocked by electric stun guns during simultaneous ''Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day'' events gone wrong at three state prisons last month. One was a warden's daughter.

The bizarre descriptions of kids being exposed to tear gas and shocked while holding hands in circles were revealed during a Friday news conference by Walter McNeil, the surprised chief of the Florida Department of Corrections. Three prison guards have been fired, two have resigned and 16 others will be disciplined for what happened on April 23, McNeil said. More

Shelter scans fingerprints of homeless

A Calgary shelter is scanning the fingerprints of its homeless clients, citing problems with gang members and drug dealers sneaking into the facility.

Dermot Baldwin, head of the Calgary Drop-In Centre, said people who have been barred from the shelter use fake identification to get in.

The homeless shelter is testing a new $150,000 security system that scans clients' fingerprints, and Baldwin said he expects it will be fully up and running in a few weeks.

Brian Edy, a civil rights lawyer, suggested that the centre rely on metal detectors or install lockers for people to leave their belongings outside as alternatives to the "intrusive" fingerprinting.

"We can give that helping hand without requiring fingerprints before you get a bowl of soup." More

Key health care senators have industry ties

Influential senators working to overhaul the nation's health care system have investments and family ties with some of the biggest names in the industry. The wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, the lawmaker in charge of writing the Senate's bill, sits on the boards of four health care companies.

Members of both parties have industry connections, including Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin, in addition to Dodd, and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl and Orrin Hatch, financial reports showed Friday. . Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of the Connecticut Democrat, is on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals.

Other publicly available documents show Mrs. Dodd last year was one of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the company's SEC filings. More

Banks Use Life Insurance to Fund Bonuses

Banks are using a little-known tactic to help pay bonuses, deferred pay and pensions they owe executives: They're holding life-insurance policies on hundreds of thousands of their workers, with themselves as the beneficiaries.

Banks took out much of this life insurance during the mortgage bubble, when executives' pay -- and the IOUs for their deferred compensation -- surged, and banking regulators affirmed the use of life insurance as a way to finance executive pay and benefits.

The insurance policies essentially are informal pension funds for executives: Companies deposit money into the contracts, which are like big, nondeductible IRAs, and allocate the cash among investments that grow tax-free. Over time, employers receive tax-free death benefits when employees, former employees and retirees die. More

New South Africa law forces registration of cell phones

South Africa has passed a new law that compels all cell phone users to register their SIM cards. Users who fail to register would be barred from their network services.

The new law came into effect on July 1 2009. It seeks to assist the country’s law enforcement agencies investigate and combat serious crimes. All cell phone subscribers have to show proof of identity as well as present a utility bill to show proof of residence to be registered.

When registering, customers would need to have with them their cell phone number, full names and surname, and ID number or passport number. Proof of identity should be provided by a green barcoded ID document, an ID card, temporary ID certificate, or passport. More

Firms With Bailout Cash Find Money to Fund Lobbying

Top recipients of federal bailout money spent more than $10 million on political lobbying in the first three months of this year, including aggressive efforts aimed at blocking executive pay limits and tougher financial regulations, according to newly filed disclosure records.

The biggest spenders among major firms in the group included General Motors, which spent nearly $1 million a month on lobbying, and Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, which together spent more than $2.5 million in their efforts to sway lawmakers and Obama administration officials on a wide range of financial issues.

In all, major bailout recipients have spent more than $22 million on lobbying in the six months since the government began doling out rescue funds, Senate disclosure records show. More

Suspect Dies After Being Tased During Arrest

SALEM, Ore. - Police say a Salem man died Saturday night after physically resisting officers of the Salem Police Department during his arrest.

Salem Police Lt. Dave Okada says the incident began at 7:38 p.m. when Salem Police were called to an apartment at 1251 Royvonne Ave SE #5 regarding a report of a male trespassing at that location.

"While investigating the trespass situation, officers encountered and attempted to arrest 37-year old Gregory Rold, who violently resisted the officers," Okada said. "Rold continued to violently resist the officers' attempts to take him into custody, causing the officers to deploy their Tasers and ASP batons."

Okada says once Rold was restrained and handcuffed, "officers noticed that Rold was unconscious and unresponsive. Officers called for immediate medical assistance and rendered emergency medical aid to Rold until medical assistance arrived." More

Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project

WASHINGTON -- Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project -- the Defense Department's costliest weapons program ever -- according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks.

Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.

The latest intrusions provide new evidence that a battle is heating up between the U.S. and potential adversaries over the data networks that tie the world together. The revelations follow a recent report that computers used to control the U.S. electrical-distribution system, as well as other infrastructure, have also been infiltrated by spies abroad. More

Census Takers Recording The GPS Coordinates Of Homes

The Census Bureau has launched a massive field operation to kick off the 2010 Census. More than 140,000 temporary U.S. Census Bureau workers are now verifying addresses across the nation as the first major field operation of the 2010 Census began is underway. It is called address verification or address canvassing.

Address verification is a critically important step to assure that every housing unit receives a census questionnaire in March 2010. Address verification will take approximately six to eight weeks to complete.

“We go to all communities and neighborhoods to make sure that we have correct addresses,” said Dennis Johnson, Regional Director. “This is the first publicly visible activity of the 2010 Census. Census workers are not in uniforms, they will have official identification and they’ll use hand-held computers equipped with GPS to increase geographic accuracy. We’ve also sent notices about this operation to law enforcement agencies. ” More

Airline sorry for omitting Israel

British airline BMI has apologised after in-flight maps on its London-Tel Aviv service did not identify Israel.

The moving maps marked Islamic holy sites but showed only the city of Haifa in Israel, identified by its Arabic name, Khefa.

Israeli officials accused BMI of trying to "hide the existence of Israel".

But BMI said it was a technical error - the maps had not been changed since the planes were taken over from a former airline which flew to the Middle East. More

Ex-Pentagon Official Sentenced For Child Porn

SAN DIEGO -- A former decorated swift-boat captain in the Vietnam War, who went on to become an official at the Pentagon, was sentenced Monday in San Diego to 37 months behind bars for keeping hundreds of child pornography images on his computers.

Wade Sanders, 69, will surrender in July to begin serving the federal prison term handed down by U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan.

Sanders told the judge that he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography because that's what he did. Sanders had faced a maximum of 10 years in prison. More

Debtors’ Prisons make a comeback in Amerika

The jailers of the 19th century — even in the pre-Civil War South — largely abandoned the practice of imprisoning people for falling into debt as counterproductive and ultimately barbaric. In the 1970s and ’80s, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that incarcerating people who can’t pay fines because of poverty violates the U.S. Constitution.

Apparently, though, some states and county jails never got the memo. Welcome to the debtors’ prisons of the 21st century. “Edwina Nowlin, a poor Michigan resident, was ordered to reimburse a juvenile detention center $104 a month for holding her 16-year-old son,” the New York Times wrote in an editorial.

“When she explained to the court that she could not afford to pay, Ms. Nowlin was sent to prison. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which helped get her out last week after she spent 28 days behind bars, says it is seeing more people being sent to jail because they cannot make various court-ordered payments. That is both barbaric and unconstitutional.” More

Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Discussing Aid for AIPAC Defendants

Rep. Jane Harman , a California Democrat long involved in intelligence issues, was overheard on a 2005 National Security Agency wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

In return, the Israeli agent pledged to help lobby for Harman to become chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Two former senior national security officials, one who has read a transcript of the wiretap and a second who was briefed on its contents, said Harman agreed during the conversation to “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference.” Their accounts were confirmed by a third source with knowledge of the wiretapped conversation and subsequent events.

AIPAC is the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington. More

The Bilbray case: $50,000 gets you $26 million

Rep. Brian Bilbray is asking Congress to approve a special funding request known as an earmark and spend $26 million to buy two Predator unmanned airplanes for the military.

The earmark request is raising eyebrows for two reasons: It bypasses the normal process for Pentagon spending, and the company that builds the planes has given Bilbray thousands of dollars in political contributions.

The Solana Beach Republican recently announced the request on his Web site, along with another request for $6 million to upgrade an imaging system to help the California National Guard track natural disasters, such as wildfires.

General Atomics, the San Diego-based firm that makes the Predator, has contributed $50,000 to Bilbray through its political action committee since 1997, according to figures kept by the Federal Election Commission. More

Police Chief Jailed for Using Taser on Wife

He's been the Oakwood Police Chief for almost two months. Now he's out of a job and jailed on a warrant for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The Leon County community had sworn in Oly Yahnson Ivy, 30, just two months earlier as its police chief.

Ivy's warrant was apparently issued after authorities had investigated a possible past incident in his home. A teletype had been sent out Monday morning advising law enforcement agencies that a "wanted individual was a peace officer possibly in possession of a badge, police radio and weapons".

He was arrested in nearby Anderson County shortly after that. Anderson County then transferred Ivy to Leon County where he is being held on a $100,000 bond. More

Michelle Obama's organic garden angers US farming companies

Michelle Obama's decision to make her new White House vegetable garden entirely organic has angered America's powerful agribusiness lobby who are urging the First Lady to consider the use of appropriate "crop protection products".

Mrs Obama started work on the kitchen garden with a gang of schoolchildren last month. Media coverage of the first White House food plot since Eleanor Roosevelt "dug for victory" in the Second World War garnered media coverage across the world.

But to the consernation of Big Ag, Mrs Obama has said the project will not use chemical products to tackle pests or give her plants a boost, the Times reports. More

Social network sites 'monitored'

Social networking sites like Facebook could be monitored by the UK government under proposals to make them keep details of users' contacts.

The Home Office said it was needed to tackle crime gangs and terrorists who might use the sites, but said it would not keep the content of conversations.

It is part of a plan to store details of all phone calls, e-mails and websites visited on a central database. Civil liberties campaigners have called the proposals a "snoopers' charter".

Tens of millions of people use sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to chat with friends, but ministers say they have no interest in the content of discussions - just who people have been talking to. More

Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due process

Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.

The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.

"Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats," Lundeby said. More

Deadly new flu virus in US and Mexico may go pandemic

A novel flu virus has struck hundreds of people in Mexico, and at least 18 have died. It has also infected 20 people in five states in the US, and appears able to spread readily from human to human. The US has declared a public health emergency, and the World Health Organization is holding emergency meetings to decide whether to declare the possible onset of a flu pandemic.

Ironically, after years of concern about H5N1 bird flu, the new flu causing concern is a pig virus, of a family known as H1N1.

Flu viruses are named after the two main proteins on their surfaces, abbreviated H and N. They are also differentiated by what animal they usually infect. The H in the new virus comes from pigs, but some of its other genes come from bird and human flu viruses, a mixture that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "very unusual". More

Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars. More

US Marshals Use Taser On Wrong Man

GRANDVIEW, Mo. -- A local man said he was shocked to be rushed by U.S. marshals at a basketball game Wednesday.

Surveillance cameras at a Grandview community center captured video of Stuart Wright at a men's basketball game when the marshals burst in, guns drawn and a Taser gun deployed.

"I've never been through anything like this before. I was in shock," said Wright.

Wright played basketball in college and even the semi-pros, but now his biggest accomplishments are his kids. More

Homeland Security officials say US is fertile ground for recruiting by right-wing extremists

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security officials are warning that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country's first black president to recruit members to their cause.

In an intelligence assessment issued to law enforcement last week, Homeland Security officials said there was no specific information about an attack in the works by right-wing extremists.

The agency warns that an extended economic downturn with real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit could foster an environment for extremists to recruit members who may not have been supportive of these causes in the past. More

Safety team warns of 'catastrophic' wiring in Iraq

A military team sent to evaluate electrical problems at U.S. facilities in Iraq determined there was a high risk that flawed wiring could cause further "catastrophic results"—namely, the electrocutions of U.S. soldiers.

The team said the use of a required device, commonly found in American houses to prevent electrical shocks, was "patchy at best" near showers and latrines in U.S. military facilities. There also was widespread use of uncertified electrical devices and "incomplete application" of U.S. electrical codes in buildings throughout the war-torn country, the team found.

At least three U.S. service members have been electrocuted in Iraq while taking showers in the six years since the U.S.-led invasion of the country. More

Finding a Way to Review Surveillance Tape in Bulk

An agency under the director of national intelligence is seeking to develop an automated computer program that could process millions of feet of videotape, such as surveillance-camera data from countries other than the United States, according to a report released last week.

The goal is to identify "well established patterns of clearly suspicious behavior" of individuals outside the United States.

The research program, called Video Analysis and Content Extraction, has been underway since 2001 and is being undertaken by the Office of Incisive Analysis, part of the government's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). It is one of several IARPA research projects aimed at developing systems that would permit subject-based review of massive video and other databases for counterterrorism and other intelligence purposes. More

America Occupied: TSA Thugs

Steve Bierfeldt was traveling from a regional meeting of a conservative political organization known to advocate sound money, small government, civil liberties and belief in The United States Constitution when he was detained and interrogated by Transportation Security Administration officials for having cash in his possession.

TSA agents claim having a large sum of money which could be any amount over $50.00 is cause to be detained and interrogated. When Mr. Bierfeldt asks if the interrogation over having cash is lawful he was threatened with further detainment and investigation by DEA and FBI.

TSA contacts an FBI agent who quickly discovers the funds being transported are political contributions the FBI agent tells Mr. Bierfeldt he is free to go. However the lead TSA agent quickly responds that he must contact his supervisor first because Mr. Bierfeldt is a “suspicious person” in his opinion. More

Here is an excerpt from audio recorded by Mr. Bierfeldt. There is no documented instance of any passenger threatening or endangering an aircraft with cash.

Are peanut allergy people nuts?

Peanut-allergy panic has spread across the nation. In a recent essay, Harvard physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis relates an incident in which a peanut was spotted on the floor of a school bus, "whereupon the bus was evacuated and cleaned (I am tempted to say decontaminated), even though it was full of 10 year olds who, unlike 2 year olds, could actually be told not to eat off the floor."

Actions like that are no doubt overdue in the minds of organizations like the 30,000-member Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), a Virginia-based advocacy organization that has led the fight to raise awareness about peanut and other food allergies in both children and adults. Go to its Web site and you'll see some eyebrow-raising points. More

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