Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday December 26 2006 - (813)

Tuesday December 26 2006 edition
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Justice Department Interagency Data Base Raises Privacy Fears 2006-12-26 03:29:30 The Justice Department is building a massive database that allows state and local police officers around the country to search millions of case files from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies, according to Justice officials. The system, known as "OneDOJ," already holds approximately 1 million case records and is projected to triple in size over the next three years, Justice officials said. The files include investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offenses, and the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets, officials said. The database is billed by its supporters as a much-needed step toward better information-sharing with local law enforcement agencies, which have long complained about a lack of cooperation from the federal government. Civil-liberties and privacy advocates say the scale and contents of such a database raise immediate privacy and civil rights concerns, in part because tens of thousands of local police officers could gain access to personal details about people who have not been arrested or charged with crimes. Read The Full Story Analysis: Iran Oil Revenue Quickly Drying Up 2006-12-26 03:28:50 Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if the trend continues income could virtually disappear by 2015, according to an analysis published Monday in a journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Iran's economic woes could make the country unstable and vulnerable, with its oil industry crippled, Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University, said in the report and in an interview. Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually. In less than five years, exports could be halved, and they could disappear by 2015, Stern predicted. Read The Full Story British Troops Raid Iraq Police Station, Kill 7, Rescue 127 Prisoners From Execution 2006-12-25 16:10:55 Hundreds of British soldiers laid siege to a police station in the southern city of Basra Monday, killing seven gunmen, rescuing 127 prisoners from almost certain execution and ultimately reducing the building to rubble. The focus of the attack was an arm of the local police called the Special Crimes Unit, which British officials said had been thoroughly infiltrated by criminals and militia members who had used it to terrorize local residents and violently settle scores with political or tribal rivals. “The Serious Crimes Unit was at the center of death squad activity,” said Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a spokesman for the British military. When British forces eventually gained control of the facility, they found the prisoners being held in conditions Major Burbridge described as “appalling.” More than 100 men were crowded into a single cell, 30 feet by 40 feet, with two open toilets, two sinks and just a few blankets spread over the concrete floor. A significant number showed signs of being tortured, he said. Some had crushed hands and feet, others had cigarette and electrical burns and a significant number had gunshot wounds to their legs and knees. Read The Full Story Bombings Kill 4 U.S. Soldiers, 7 Iraqi Policemen 2006-12-25 16:09:26 Four American service members were killed in explosions, and seven Iraqi policemen died when a suicide attacker detonated a bomb in a police station northeast of the capital, authorities said Sunday. The American casualties occurred Saturday. Three soldiers from the 89th Military Police Brigade were killed and one was wounded when their vehicle was struck by a bomb in eastern Baghdad shortly after noon, the U.S. military reported. A Task Force Lightning soldier assigned to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, died and another was wounded as a result of an explosion in Diyala province, northeast of the capital, the military said. The deaths bring the number of U.S. service members killed in December to 77, which makes it the second-deadliest month this year, after October. Read The Full Story Ethiopia Declares War On Somalia Militia As Jets Bomb Mogadishu Airport 2006-12-25 03:38:43 Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Mogadishu International Airport in the middle of Somalia's capital on Monday, said witnesses. It was the first direct attack on the headquarters of an Islamic movement attempting to wrest power from the internationally recognized government. There was no immediate information about casualties. Ethiopia's prime minister announced Sunday night that his country was "forced to enter a war" with Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts after the group declared holy war on Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation. Residents said Islamic fighters left the town of Belet Weyne on the Somali-Ethiopian border overnight after Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Islamic positions on Sunday. Ethiopian and Somali troops captured a key border town early Monday, a day after Ethiopia sent fighter jets into neighboring Somalia and bombed several towns in a dramatic attack on a powerful Islamic movement. Read The Full Story U.S. Military Uges Iraq To Rein In Its Security Guard 2006-12-25 03:37:57 U.S. military commanders in Iraq are attempting to get under control the Facilities Protection Service, whose 150,000 members are paid to guard the 26 Iraqi ministries and serve as personal security to ministers and important government officials, but also provide manpower for sectarian party militias and death squads. The Iraq Study Group highlighted the problem earlier this month, describing members of the FPS, an Iraqi force, as having "questionable loyalties and capabilities," and quoting an unnamed senior U.S. official saying they are "incompetent, dysfunctional and subversive." Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr controls the ministries of health, transportation and agriculture, and FPS units employed by those ministries are "a source of funding and jobs for the Mahdi Army," his militia, according to the study group report. Read The Full Story Surprise - NOT! Flaws Detected In Microsoft's Vista 2006-12-25 03:37:19 Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month. On Dec. 15, a Russian programmer posted a description of a flaw that makes it possible to increase a user’s privileges on all of the company’s recent operating systems, including Vista. And over the weekend a Silicon Valley computer security firm said it had notified Microsoft that it had also found that flaw, as well as five other vulnerabilities, including one serious error in the software code underlying the company’s new Internet Explorer 7 browser. The browser flaw is particularly troubling because it potentially means that Web users could become infected with malicious software simply by visiting a booby-trapped site. That would make it possible for an attacker to inject rogue software into the Vista-based computer, according to executives at Determina, a company based in Redwood City, California, that sells software intended to protect against operating system and other vulnerabilities. Read The Full Story	Internet Cafes In Front Line Of New Gaza Violence 2006-12-26 03:29:11 Using political violence be-tween Hamas and Fatah as cover, radical Islamists are bombing internet cafés, pool halls and chemists in Gaza to impose their own brand of fundamentalism. Cybercafés have been singled out for allegedly allowing customers to download pornography. Chemists have been bombed for selling hallucinogens smuggled from Israel or through tunnels from Egypt, while pool halls are accused of encouraging immoral behaviour. A group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Righteousness is believed to have carried out more than a dozen attacks in recent weeks. The previously unknown group issued a warning letter late last month threatening to “execute the laws of God”. It claimed responsibility for “shooting rocket-propelled grenades and planting bombs at internet cafés in Gaza, which are trying to make a whole generation preoccupied with matters other than jihad and worship”. The group also claimed unverifiable attacks on unveiled women, music shops and motorists playing loud music. Read The Full Story Violent Storms Pound Florida On Christmas 2006-12-25 16:11:14 Powerful storms damaged at least three dozen homes as heavy rain and strong wind swept across the Southeast on Monday. The worst damage was in Florida, between Tampa and the Georgia border, where three people were injured and three homes were destroyed. In Pasco County, along the Gulf coast just north of Tampa, two people were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries and more than two dozen homes were damaged as a storm passed the Tampa Bay Golf & County Club shortly before noon, said sheriff's deputy Doug Tobin. A roof was blown off a home in nearby San Antonio, and several trees were knocked over by high winds, one briefly blocking a county road intersection in New Port Richey, said Tobin. Read The Full Story Bald Eagle To Be Taken Off Endangered Species List 2006-12-25 16:10:29 Seven years after the U.S. government moved to take the bald eagle off the endangered species list, the Bush administration intends to complete the step by February, prodded by a frustrated libertarian property owner in Minnesota. The delisting, supported by mainstream environmental groups, would represent a formal declaration that the eagle population has sufficiently rebounded, increasing more than 15-fold since its 1963 nadir to more than 7,000 nesting pairs. The next challenge is to ensure the national symbol's continued protection. "By February 16th, the bald eagle will be delisted," said Marshall Jones, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We'll be clear so people won't think, 'It's open season on bald eagles.' No way." Read The Full Story Intelligence Sources: English Channel Tunnel Targeted By Terrorists 2006-12-25 03:39:07 The English Channel tunnel has been targeted by a group of Islamic militant terrorists aiming to cause maximum carnage during the holiday season, according to French and American secret services. The plan, which the French DGSE foreign intelligence service became aware of earlier this year, is revealed in a secret report to the French government on threat levels. The report, dated December 19, indicates that the tip-off came from the American CIA. British and French intelligence agencies have run a series of checks of the security system protecting the 31-mile tunnel but the threat level, the DGSE warns, remains high. British security services remain on high alert throughout the holiday period. According to the French sources, the plan was put together in Pakistan and is being directed from there. The plotters are believed to be Western Europeans, possibly Britons of Pakistani descent. The DGSE say that levels of "chatter", the constant communication that takes place between militants, has not been so high since 2001. Last week Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police, described "the threat of another terrorist attempt" as "ever present" adding that "Christmas is a period when that might happen". Read The Full Story Auditors: Pentagon, Interior Dept. Wasted Millions 2006-12-25 03:38:18 The U.S. Defense Department paid two procurement operations at the Department of the Interior to arrange for Pentagon purchases totaling $1.7 billion that resulted in excessive fees and tens of millions of dollars in waste, documents show. Defense turned to Interior, which manages federal lands and resources, in an effort to speed up its contracting. Interior is one of several government agencies allowed to manage contracts for other agencies in exchange for a fee. The arrangement between Interior and Defense "routinely violated rules designed to protect U.S. Government interests," according to draft audit documents obtained by the Washington Post. More than half of the contracts examined were awarded without competition or without checks to determine that the prices were reasonable, according to the audits by the inspectors general for Defense (DOD) and Interior (DOI). Ninety-two percent of the work reviewed was awarded without verifying that the contractors' cost estimates were accurate; 96 percent was inadequately monitored. Read The Full Story Nonprofit Group Connects Rep. Murtha, Lobbyists, Raises Ethics Questions 2006-12-25 03:37:40 For a quarter of a century, Carmen Scialabba labored for U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), helping parcel out the billions of dollars that came through the House Appropriations Committee, so when the disabled aide needed a favor, Murtha was there. In 2001, Murtha announced the creation of Scialabba's nonprofit agency for the disabled in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The next year, with Scialabba still on his staff, Murtha secured a half-million dollars for the group, the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals With Disabilities (PAID), and put another $150,000 in the pipeline for 2003, according to appropriations committee records and former committee aides. Since then, the group has helped hundreds of disabled people find work. Yet the group serves another function as well. PAID has become a gathering point for defense contractors and lobbyists with business before Murtha's defense appropriations subcommittee, and for Pennsylvania businesses and universities that have thrived on federal money obtained by Murtha. Read The Full Story James Brown, 'Godfather Of Soul', Dies At 73 2006-12-25 03:36:59 James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73. Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said. Copsidas said Brown's family was being notified of his death and that the cause was still uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said. Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style. Read The Full Story
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