Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday September 29 2006 - (813)

Friday September 29 2006 edition
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Congressional Report Links Lobbyist Abramoff And White House 2006-09-29 00:17:04 A bipartisan Congressional report documents hundreds of contacts between White House officials and the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partners, including at least 10 direct contacts between Abramoff and Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist. The House Government Reform Committee report, based on e-mail messages and other records subpoenaed fromAbramoff's lobbying firm, found 485 contacts between Abramoff's lobbying team and White House officials from 2001 to 2004, including 82 with Rove's office. The lobbyists spent almost $25,000 in meals and drinks for the White House officials and provided them with tickets to numerous sporting events and concerts, according to the report, scheduled for release Friday. Read The Full Story Ashcroft Denied Immunity In Wrongful Detention Case 2006-09-29 00:16:11 A federal judge in Idaho has ruled that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of a U.S. citizen arrested as a "material witness" in a terrorism case. U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge, in a ruling issued late Wednesday, dismissed claims by the Justice Department that Ashcroft and other officials should be granted immunity from claims by a former star college football player arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2003. Attorneys for the plaintiff in the civil suit, Abdullah al-Kidd, said the decision raises the possibility that Ashcroft could be forced to testify or turn over records about the government's use of the material witness law, a cornerstone of its controversial legal strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Read The Full Story Belgian Government Rules That U.S. Sifting Of Bank Data Is Illegal 2006-09-29 00:14:32 A secret U.S. program to monitor millions of international financial transactions for terrorist links violated Belgian and European law and will have to be changed, the Belgian government said Thursday. The decision, announced by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, came as the country's Data Privacy Commission released a 20-page report finding that the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, had improperly turned over data from millions of global financial transactions to U.S. anti-terrorism investigators. "It has to be seen as a gross miscalculation by SWIFT that it has, for years, secretly and systematically transferred massive amounts of personal data for surveillance without effective and clear legal basis and independent controls in line with Belgian and European law," says the report. Read The Full Story Foster Gulch Complex Fire 2006-09-28 21:45:17 R:  This is the copter [S] works with sucking up water out of the Snake River in Hell's Canyon in Idaho/Oregon border.  Can you imagine being in those rafts?  I thought this was such an awesome picture. S: That pic that [R] sent to you was taken in Hell's Canyon while battling the Foster Gulch fire. Read The Full Story Identity Thieves Target Smaller E-Businesses 2006-09-28 13:44:59 Schuyler Cole needed an accessory for his Palm Treo 600 smartphone, so the Haleiwa, Hawaii, resident fired up his Web browser last month and ran a Google search. After scanning the search results, he purchased the inexpensive item - a USB cable used to synchronize the Treo's settings with his personal computer - from Cellhut.com, the first online store displayed in the results that looked like it carried the cable. The site featured a "Hackersafe" logo indicating that the site's security had been verified within the past 24 hours. Later that day, information from Cole's purchase - including his name, address, credit card and phone numbers, and the date and exact time of the transaction - were posted into an online forum that caters to criminals engaged in credit card and identity theft. Ostensibly, the data on Cole was posted as an enticement to other fraudsters lurking on the forum who might be interested in buying large numbers of similar records. Read The Full Story IBM Recalls 526,000 ThinkPad Batteries 2006-09-28 13:42:30 Some 526,000 batteries used in ThinkPad notebook computers worldwide are being recalled in the latest problem with batteries made by Sony Corp., the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said Thursday. IBM Corp., based in Armonk, New York, and Lenovo Inc. of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, recalled the rechargeable, lithium-ion batteries used in ThinkPad computers because they may pose a fire hazard. About 168,500 of the batteries were sold in the U.S., while the rest were distributed worldwide, said the CPSC. It was the fourth recall in recent months involving Sony batteries believed to be defective. In August, Dell asked customers to return 4.1 million faulty laptop batteries and Apple recalled 1.8 million batteries worldwide, warning they could catch fire. Last week, Toshiba said it was recalling 340,000 laptop batteries due to a problem that caused the laptops to sometimes run out of power. Read The Full Story Police Indentify Gunman In Colorado School Shooting 2006-09-28 13:41:12 The gunman who took six girls hostage in a high school classroom, killing a 16-year-old, had sexually assaulted at least some of them, the sheriff said Thursday. "He did traumatize and assault our children," Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said. "I'll only say that it's sexual in nature." Wegener identified the suspect as Duane R. Morrison, 53, of the Denver area. He said investigators had not established any previous connection between him and the hostages at Platte Canyon High School. Wegener said that Morrison was from the Denver area but had been living in his car. State records showed he was arrested in July in the west Denver suburb of Lakewood on a charge of obstructing police in another suburb. He was also arrested for larceny and marijuana possession in 1973. Read The Full Story $75 Million Iraq Police Academy A Disaster 2006-09-28 00:54:37 A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found. The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest". "This is the most essential civil security project in the country - and it's a failure," said Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. "The Baghdad police academy is a disaster." Bowen's office plans to release a 21-page report Thursday detailing the most alarming problems with the facility. Read The Full Story U.S. Military Officials Critical Of Iraq Goverment 2006-09-28 00:53:42 Senior American military officials are warning that time is growing short for Iraq to root out militias inside and outside the government and purge ministries of corrupt officials who are diverting large sums of money to their own political parties. "We are now at a time when we have a little bit of influence there," said a senior military official. Referring to the problem of militias, he added, "There is going to come a time when I would argue we are going to have to force this issue." The official said political parties who were plundering ministries were squandering chances to make progress that could reduce sectarian violence. "I can tell you in every single ministry how they are using that ministry to fill the coffers of the political parties," said the official. "They are doing that because that is exactly what Saddam Husseindid." Read The Full Story	Analysis: Many Human Rights Absent In Military Trials Bill 2006-09-29 00:16:40 The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system. President Bush's argument that the government requires extraordinary power to respond to the unusual threat of terrorism helped him win final support for a system of military trials with highly truncated defendant's rights. The United States used similar trials on just four occasions: during the country's revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and World War II. Included in the bill, passed by Republican majorities in the Senate Thursday and the House on Wednesday, are unique rules that bar terrorism suspects from challenging their detention or treatment through traditional habeas corpus petitions. They allow prosecutors, under certain conditions, to use evidence collected through hearsay or coercion to seek criminal convictions. The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions, except in death penalty cases, and appeals must go through a second military panel before reaching a federal civilian court. By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities. Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions, as they are known, and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death. Read The Full Story Deputy Dies In Shooting Near Florida Schools 2006-09-29 00:15:39 A man who had been pulled over for a traffic violation shot two sheriff's deputies Thursday, killing one of them and prompting an intensive manhunt that forced a lockdown at three schools, said officials. Authorities told residents to lock themselves in their homes as officers swarmed the rural area. The gunman remains at large. The shooter was first approached during a traffic stop, but he fled into a wooded area when the deputy began asking him about his identity, said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. That deputy and another who arrived seconds later with a police dog chased the suspect into the woods. As the officers tracked him, there was a "burst of gunfire," said Judd. The first deputy returned fire, and both deputies and the dog were shot. Read The Full Story Senior Military Tell U.K. Government To Pull Troops Out Of Iraq 2006-09-29 00:13:48 Senior U.K. military officers have been pressing the Blair government to withdraw British troops from Iraq and concentrate on what they now regard as a more worthwhile and winnable battleground in Afghanistan. They believe there is a limit to what British soldiers can achieve in southern Iraq and that it is time the Iraqis took responsibility for their own security, say defense sources. Pressure from military chiefs for an early and significant cut in the 7,500 British troops in Iraq is also motivated by extreme pressure being placed on soldiers and those responsible for training them. "What is more important, Afghanistan or Iraq?" a senior defense source asked Thursday. "There is a group within the Ministry of Defense (MoD) pushing hard to get troops out of Iraq to get more into Afghanistan." Military chiefs have been losing patience with the slow progress made in building a new Iraqi national army and security services. Significantly, they now say the level of violence in the country will not be a factor determining when British troops should leave. Read The Full Story Senate Narrowly Rejects Amendment To Detainee Bill 2006-09-28 13:45:37 The Senate today narrowly rejected a measure that would have allowed suspected terrorists to challenge their detention in federal court, as the body moved closer to passing a White House-backed bill to authorize special military tribunals for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. In a key vote on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermonth, the Senate voted 51 to 48 against deleting from the bill a provision that rules out habeas corpus petitions for foreigners held in the war on terrorism. The writ of habeas corpus, which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, allows people to challenge in court the legality of their detention, essentially meaning that they cannot be held indefinitely without charge or trial. The issue was one of the most contentious in the bill, the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The proposed legislation authorizes the president "to establish military commissions for the trial of alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses. ..." It would also set the parameters for interrogating terrorism suspects. In debate on the amendment, Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other Republicans whom he described as "moderate," charged that denying habeas corpus to detainees would be unconstitutional. Read The Full Story Video Linked To Al-Qaeda Urges More Attacks In Iraq 2006-09-28 13:44:15 The new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq purportedly said Thursday in an audio message posted online that more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 - the first apparent acknowledgment from the insurgents about their losses. The message also called for experts in the fields of "chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences -  especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts" to join the terror group's holy war against the West. "We are in dire need of you," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir - also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri - the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. "The field of jihad (holy war) can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them." Read The Full Story 2 Deputies, K-9 Shot, Manhunt Near Florida School 2006-09-28 13:42:00 Florida police were searching for a suspect who shot two sheriff's deputies and a K-9 police dog Thursday, said authorities. The Polk County deputies were taken to a hospital following the early afternoon shooting in north Lakeland, sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Wood said. She didn't know their conditions. A hospital spokeswoman referred questions about the deputies to the sheriff's office. The shooting occurred near Kathleen High School, which was locked down, Wood said. A woman who would identify herself only as Mrs. Platt said students were locked in their classrooms and were safe. Read The Full Story Ex-Hewlett-Packard Exec Says Other Companies Use Surveillance 2006-09-28 13:40:33 The ousted chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard Co. told a House subcommittee today that some of the tactics used by the computer giant in its surveillance scandal are employed by other American companies. "I believe that these methods may, in fact, be quite common, not just at Hewlett-Packard but at companies around the country," said Patricia Dunn, who was fired by the company on Friday. "Every company has a security department. Every company of consequences has people who do detective-type work in order to ferret out the forces of nefarious activities." House lawmakers are using the hearing on Capitol Hill to strongly denounce tactics that Hewlett-Packard used to secretly probe leaks about the company to the media. This morning, 10 former Hewlett-Packard employees and outside contractors, including the ex-general counsel, refused to testify. Read The Full Story Gunman Kills Girl Hostage And Himself At Colorado School 2006-09-28 00:54:12 A gunman took six girls hostage at the Platte Canyon High School in the mountain town of Bailey, Colorado, Wednesday, using them as human shields for hours before he shot and fatally wounded a girl, then killed himself as a SWAT team moved in, said authorities. The gunman, believed to be between 30 and 50 years old, was cornered with the girls in a second-floor classroom, and released four of them, one by one. Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said authorities decided to enter the school to save the two remaining hostages after the gunman cut off negotiations and set a deadline. He said the man had threatened the girls during the four-hour ordeal. The man was not identified. "I don't know why he wanted to do this," said Wegener. Read The Full Story New Hope For Democrats In Bid For U.S. Senate 2006-09-28 00:53:18 Six weeks before Election Day, the Democrats suddenly face a map with unexpected opportunities in their battle for control of the Senate. In Virginia, a state that few expected to be seriously competitive, Senator George Allen looks newly vulnerable after a series of controversies over charges of racial insensitivity, strategists in both parties say. In Tennessee, another Southern state long considered safely red, Representative Harold E. Ford, Jr., a Democrat, has run a strong campaign that has kept that state in contention. Elsewhere, Democratic challengers are either ahead or close in races in five states held by the Republicans:  Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, according to political strategists in both parties and the latest polls. Read The Full Story
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