Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday January 5 2007 - (813)

Friday January 5 2007 edition
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Bush Says New Postal Law Allows Government To Open Americans' Mail 2007-01-05 03:34:31 President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News reported. The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions. That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it. Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise. "Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill. Read The Full Story Bush Revamping His Iraq Team 2007-01-05 03:33:56 President Bush is overhauling his top diplomatic and military team in Iraq, as the White House scrambles to complete its new war policy package in time for the president to unveil it in a speech to the nation next week, officials said. The White House is struggling to overcome deep differences among advisers over both the deployment of additional U.S. troops and whether the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki can deliver long-delayed political and military actions, according to officials familiar with the debate. With significant policy details left to be worked out this weekend, the administration is nonetheless moving ahead on several personnel changes. It is set to announce that Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who gained fame for his early success in training Iraqi troops and securing a volatile city in northern Iraq, will replace Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., as commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, say officials. Read The Full Story Bill Gates: Day Of Home-Help Robot Is Near 2007-01-05 03:33:01 An office worker checks her home-gadget webpage from her work computer. The tasks she set for her home robots in the morning have all been completed: washing and ironing, vacuuming the lounge and mowing the lawn. She orders dinner from the kitchen chefbot - sushi today, using a recipe from a Japanese website - then checks her elderly mother's house. The companionbot has given mum her medicine and helped her out of bed and into a chair. This is the vision of the future offered by Bill Gates who, in the latest issue of Scientific American, argues that the robotics industry is on the cusp of a big expansion. He likens the current state of robotic technology to the situation in the fledgling computer industry when he and his fellow entrepreneur Paul Allen launched Microsoft in the mid-1970s. Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda Urges Somali Islamists To Attack Ethiopians, Be 'Martyrs' 2007-01-05 03:31:58 A purported audio tape by al-Qaeda's deputy leader urged Somali Islamists on Friday to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign of suicide and other forms of attacks against Ethiopian forces in Somalia. Ethiopian forces helped Somalia's interim government rout Islamists in a two-week war. The United States and Ethiopia have portrayed the Somalia Islamic Courts Council as linked to and even run by al-Qaeda, a charge the Islamists have denied. "You must ambush, mine, raid and (carry out) martyrdom campaigns so that you can wipe them out," Ayman al-Zawahri, deputy to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said in his message to Somali Islamists. "As happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the world's strongest power was defeated by the campaigns of the mujahideen troops going to heaven, so its slaves shall be defeated on the Muslim lands of Somalia," he said. Read The Full Story Report: Israel's Olmert Wants Coalition Partner To Quit As Defense Minister 2007-01-05 03:30:35 Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, will ask his defense minister to quit his post or leave the government, Israeli television reported Thursday night. Olmert and Amir Peretz, the leader of the Labor party, have had a fractious relationship since they went into a coalition partnership last year, but senior officials were quick to deny the reports. The anonymous briefing of journalists is evidence of tension within the government. Both Olmert, who leads the centrist Kadima party, and Peretz are unpopular within their own parties. Britain's Channel 2 and Israel TV said that sources in the prime minister's office told them Peretz would be asked to resign and take another cabinet position, and would be fired if he refused. Read The Full Story U.S. Nuclear Agency Head Dismissed For Security Lapses 2007-01-04 19:52:21 Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Thursday dismissed the chief of the country's nuclear weapons program because of security breakdowns at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, laboratory and other facilities. Linton Brooks will submit his resignation this month as head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said the department. Bodman said the nuclear agency under Brooks, a former ambassador and arms control negotiator, had not adequately corrected security problems. "I have decided it is time for new leadership at the NNSA," said Bodman. Brooks was reprimanded in June for failing to report to Bodman a security breach of computers at an agency facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that resulted in the theft of files containing Social Security numbers and other personal data for 1,500 workers. Read The Full Story El Nino Means 2007 Likely To Be Hottest Year On Record 2007-01-04 19:51:54 Global temperatures will rise to their highest levels ever recorded this year, according to scientists at the Met Office (Editor's note: "Met" is short for "meteorological".). They believe there is a 60% chance that 2007 temperatures will top the previous hottest year, 1998. The forecast follows news that the U.K. experienced the warmest year on record in 2006, with an average temperature of 9.7 Celsius - 1.1 degrees celsius above average. The duration of sunshine over the country was 13% higher than average. The scorching predictions for 2007 are due partly to global warming and partly to a moderate El Nino event. This is a climatic phenomenon focused on the tropical eastern Pacific that affects climate globally and leads to higher temperatures. The previous hottest year, 1998, was also a strong El Nino year with a global average temperature of 14.52 Celsius. The U.K.'s Met Office is predicting that this year will be 0.02 degrees higher. Read The Full Story The Iraq War On Trial? 2007-01-04 19:50:53 Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the only U.S. military officer to refuse deployment to Iraq, is due to appear in court Thursday for a pre-trial hearing at Fort Lewis in the state of Washington. Lt. Watada, the first military officer charged with public dissent since 1965, faces charges of "missing movement" and "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman". If convicted, he could spend up to six years in prison. At Thursday's hearing, defense lawyers and prosecutors are expected to file several motions in preparation for his court-martial. The legal preliminaries already have the makings of a media event. Peace activists, international law experts and war resisters past and present are girding themselves for events designed to drum up support for Lt. Watada, recently described by Rolling Stone as "one of this year's greatest mavericks". Read The Full Story Abe Vows To Reform Japan's Pacifist Constitution 2007-01-04 19:50:09 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Thursday vowed to reform his country's pacifist constitution, a controversial move that is expected to influence the outcome of upper house elections later this year. Abe, who took office in September, also said he would strengthen ties with the U.S. and Europe as anxiety grows about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Six-party talks held in China last month ended without agreement and no date has been set for the next meeting. "To protect the lives and assets of the Japanese is our fundamental security policy," Abe told reporters, adding that Japan would pursue a more "assertive" foreign policy. Read The Full Story Missing U.S. Sailor Spotted Off Chilean Coast 2007-01-04 19:48:56 A Chilean navy search plane has spotted an American solo sailor on his storm-battered yacht off the southern tip of South America, and a trawler was heading to rescue him, the military said Thursday. Ken Barnes, of Newport Beach, California, also made visual contact with the pilots from his yacht, which has two broken masts and a disabled engine, said the navy. Barnes, 47, set off from Long Beach, California, on Oct. 28 in a 44-foot ketch called the Privateer in hopes of sailing around the world. His girlfriend, Cathy Chambers, said he called her Tuesday in California on his satellite phone to say he was in trouble due to a storm. He told Chambers he had lost engine power and steering and had two broken masts and broken hatches. The Privateer was also taking on water in 46-mph winds and 25-foot swells, she said. Read The Full Story Pelosi Elected First Female Speaker Of U.S. House 2007-01-04 15:17:31 Jubilant House Democrats on Thursday elected Rep. Nancy Pelosi as the first woman speaker of the House, the crowning celebration of newfound power the party won in the November’s electoral sweep. "I accept this gavel in the spirit of partnership, not partisanship, and look forward to working with you on behalf of the American people," said Pelosi in remarks prepared for her colleagues. "In this House, we may belong to different parties, but we serve one country." Both Democrats and Republicans pledged cooperation despite years of bitter partisanship and gridlock, to try to get the 110th Congress off on a productive note. Read The Full Story FBI Files: Rehnquist Had Hallucinations 2007-01-04 15:17:02 The FBI's file on former Chief Justice William Rehnquist - made public more than a year after his death - indicates the Nixon and Reagan administrations enlisted its help in blunting criticism of him during confirmation hearings. The file also offers insight into the hallucinations and other symptoms of withdrawal that Rehnquist suffered when he was taken off a prescription painkiller in 1981. A doctor was cited as saying that Rehnquist, an associate justice of the Supreme Court at the time, tried to escape the hospital in his pajamas and imagined that the CIA was plotting against him. The FBI on Wednesday released 1,561 pages of documents on Rehnquist to The Associated Press, other news organizations and scholars in response to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act following Rehnquist's death in September 2005. An additional 207 pages were withheld under the federal disclosure law, and the FBI said an entire section of his file could not be found. Read The Full Story U.S. Democrats Hope To Take From Oil, Give To Green Energy 2007-01-04 03:04:24 U.S. House Democrats are crafting an energy package that would roll back billions of dollars worth of oil drilling incentives, raise billions more by boosting federal royalties paid by oil and gas companies for offshore production, and plow the money into new tax breaks for renewable energy sources, congressional sources said yesterday. Eager to paint themselves as different from the Bush administration and the past Republican majority, Democratic leaders are targeting a manufacturing tax cut in 2004 that they say gave unneeded incentives to the oil industry, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, of Maryland, said in a briefing Wednesday. Hoyer said Democrats are also planning to force oil companies to pay royalties on deepwater Gulf of Mexico tracts leased in 1998 and 1999; the Interior Department has said that the leases inadvertently failed to include provisions for royalty payments once oil prices rose above certain thresholds. The repeal of the 2004 tax cuts for the oil and gas industry would generate nearly $5 billion, said Democratic lawmakers, quoting estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation. The royalty payments would yield between $9 billion and $11 billion, said Hoyer. Read The Full Story Saturn's Biggest Moon, Titan, Has Lakes - Of Liquid Methane 2007-01-04 03:03:49 As scientists have predicted but have had a hard time proving, the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, appears to be dotted with lakes of liquid methane. The lakes are more intriguing evidence of the active phenomena at play on the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere. The discovery, reported Wednesday by an international team of researchers, was made by a radar survey of Titan's high northern latitudes by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn and its retinue of satellites since July 2004. One of the mission's major objectives is the investigation of Titan's environment, thought to be a frigid version of conditions on the primordial Earth. The radar imaging system detected more than 75 dark patches in the landscape near Titan's northern polar region, the scientists said in a detailed description of the find published Thursday in the journal Nature. Read The Full Story Bush Adopts Democrats' Goal To Balance Budget 2007-01-04 03:02:55 President Bush promised Wednesday to produce a plan to balance the federal budget in five years and challenged lawmakers to slash their special pet projects in half next year, embracing priorities of the new Democratic leadership that will assume control of Congress Thursday. Appearing in the Rose Garden with his Cabinet, Bush said he has been encouraged by meetings with Democrats and thinks they can reach common ground on spending issues that have bitterly divided them for six years. He said that the budget proposal he will make Feb. 5 will erase the deficit by 2012, and he called on Congress "to end the dead-of-the-night" process in which earmarks are slipped into spending bills. The president's announcements were greeted by Democrats as "me-tooism," as one senior leadership aide put it, that closely tracked goals outlined by the new majority. The incoming House and Senate budget committee chairmen have set 2012 as a target for balancing the budget, and the incoming House and Senate appropriations chairmen have decided to freeze earmarks this year and introduce further restrictions on such spending items, which are often called pork. In trying to adopt such ambitions as his own, Bush hopes to regain the initiative after his party lost Congress in November and to counter his reputation as a president who took a budget surplus and turned it into record deficits, said analysts. Bush has never proposed a balanced budget since it went into deficit, never vetoed a spending bill when Republicans controlled Congress and offered little sustained objection to earmarks until the issue gained political traction last year. Read The Full Story Update: Student Arrested In Tacoma High School Shooting 2007-01-04 03:01:28 A teenager was shot to death in a high school hallway Wednesday as classes resumed after the winter break. Police arrested a fellow student wandering around a neighborhood a few blocks away, authorities said. Police were trying to determine what prompted the shooting. Witnesses said the gunman, who was not identified, fired three shots at point-blank range, splattering blood on lockers at Foss High School and setting off panic. He appeared to be aiming only at the victim, they said. The victim "got shot - bang - and he just fell," sophomore Malcolm Clark said. "He just froze, and he fell backwards into the lockers." Read The Full Story	Editorial: Protecting Internet Democracy 2007-01-05 03:34:11 Intellpuke: The following editorial on one of my favorite issues, Internet democracy, appeared in the New York Times edition for Wednesday, January 3, 2007. The editorial follows: One of the big winners in the last election may turn out to be the principle, known as net neutrality, that Internet service providers should not be able to favor some content over others. Democrats who are moving into the majority in Congress - led by Ron Wyden in the Senate and Edward Markey in the House - say they plan to fight hard to pass a net neutrality bill, and we hope that they do. It is vital to preserve the Internet’s role in promoting entrepreneurship and free expression. Internet users now get access to any Web site on an equal basis. Foreign and domestic sites, big corporate home pages and little-guy blogs all show up on a user’s screen in the same way when their addresses are typed into a browser. Anyone who puts up a Web page can broadcast it to the world. Cable and telephone companies are talking, however, about creating a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane and a slow lane. Companies that pay hefty fees would have their Web pages delivered to Internet users in the current speedy fashion. Companies and individuals that do not would be relegated to the slow lane. Creating these sorts of tiers would destroy the democratic quality of the Internet. Big, wealthy voices would start to overpower the smaller, poorer ones. Innovation would be threatened if start-ups and small companies could not afford the new fees. The next eBay or Google might never be born. Read The Full Story Sen. Biden: White House Postponing Loss Of Iraq 2007-01-05 03:33:40 U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., (D-Delaware), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam. "I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost," said Biden. "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy - literally, not figuratively." Read The Full Story British Scientists: Part Animal-Part Human Embryo Research Important To Fighting Diseases 2007-01-05 03:32:25 Important research into human diseases could be jeopardized if permission to create part animal-part human embryos is withheld, leading British scientists have warned. In a plea to the government and the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), five experts have called for greater understanding of what they are trying to achieve. The HFEA, which regulates embryo research, will meet on Wednesday to discuss applications for licenses to create the embryos. A Government White Paper published last month proposes outlawing the creation of such embryos - at least initially. The researchers want to extract stem cells from embryos that can be studied for their potential to treat human diseases. Read The Full Story Search By Land, Air And Sea Finds No Trace Of Missing Indonesia Airliner 2007-01-05 03:31:26 An hour after Adam Air Flight KI-574 took off on New Year's Day with 102 passengers and crew for what should have been a short hop between islands, the pilot reported heavy winds. Then the plane disappeared, seemingly into thin air. Thousands of soldiers battled rugged jungle terrain, a fleet of aircraft took to the skies and ships scoured the sea for a third day Thursday in a search of an area roughly the size of California. By nightfall, there was still no trace of the missing Boeing 737, its six crew members and 96 passengers - including an Oregon man and his two daughters. "It is kind of strange," said Febrizal Lubis, a pilot with another Indonesian airline. "The plane was going along at 35,000 feet, and then with no Mayday or distress signal, it disappeared like that." Read The Full Story Investigation Underway Into Toxic Leak At BASF U.K. Plant 2007-01-05 03:29:56 A British chemical worker is in a critical condition following a leak at a plant which left 37 people needing medical treatment. An investigation has been launched into the release of a corrosive and hazardous substance at the BASF plant at Seal Sands, Billingham, Teesside, in the U.K., which emergency services treated as a "major incident". It is the third safety scare that the manufacturer has suffered at Teesside, following a huge fire in 1995 and the death of an employee who was overcome by fumes four years later. BASF said one employee was being treated at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary following the leak at the nylon intermediates plant. "We understand that he remains critical but stable," said a BASF spokesman. Read The Full Story U.S. Warships Guard Somali Coast To Prevent Islamists From Fleeing 2007-01-04 19:52:09 U.S. forces are being deployed off the coast of Somalia to prevent Islamists with suspected terrorist links from fleeing the country, it was reported Thursday. The move follows two weeks of fighting, which began when Somali government troops, backed by Ethiopia, defeated the Somali Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC). The SCIC had controlled the country since June. "We would be concerned that no leaders who were members of the Islamic Courts, which have ties to terrorist organisations, including al-Qaeda, are allowed to flee and leave Somalia," said a U.S. government spokesman. Read The Full Story Eli Lilly To Pay Up To $500 Million To Settle Zyprexa Claims 2007-01-04 19:51:11 Eli Lilly agreed Thursday to pay up to $500 million to settle 18,000 lawsuits from people who claimed they developed diabetes or other diseases after taking Zyprexa, Lilly's drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder Including earlier settlements over Zyprexa, Lilly has now agreed to pay at least $1.2 billion to 28,500 people who claim they were injured by the drug. At least 1,200 suits are still pending, said the company. About 20 million people worldwide have taken Zyprexa since its introduction in 1996. The settlement covers cases filed in state and federal courts by 14 plaintiffs' law firms or groups of firms, said Lilly. The federal suits have been overseen by a judge in Brooklyn, New York, Jack B. Weinstein, of the Eastern District of New York. Read The Full Story A Year On: Airel Sharon's Legacy Under Seige 2007-01-04 19:50:28 Intellpuke: In the following special report, Guardian correspondent Conal Urquhart writes that when illness felled Ariel Sharon a year ago, it cruelly exposed the inadquacies of his successor as Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. Mr. Urquhart's report follows: A year ago today (Thursday, Jan. 4) Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, was sitting at his farm in the Negev desert when he complained of chest pains. Sharon had suffered a minor stroke two weeks previously, so it was decided that he should be taken by ambulance to hospital in Jerusalem. At some point on the hour-long journey, he suffered a huge brain haemorrhage and lapsed into a coma, which has endured until now. That same evening Ehud Olmert, his deputy, was appointed prime minister, a position he has held ever since. Sharon's biggest achievement as prime minister was Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and the forging of a political group, Kadima, to carry out further withdrawals in the West Bank. But as one commentator remarked as the prime minister lay in hospital, "If Sharon goes, everything changes." Read The Full Story Bush To Nominate Khalilzad For U.N. Job 2007-01-04 19:49:32 Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, will be nominated by President Bush to become the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, a senior administration official said Thursday. Khalilzad, who is Afghan born, has served also as ambassador to Afghanistan. He is likely to be replaced in Baghdad by Ryan Crocker, a veteran American diplomat, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make an announcement for the White House. Khalilzad would replace John Bolton, whose appointment to the U.N. job expired recently. Read The Full Story More Rhode Island Schools Closed Over Health Scare 2007-01-04 19:48:29 More than 21,000 students in public schools in three communities in Rhode Island were told Thursday to stay home for the rest of the week after a child who attended one of the schools was admitted to a hospital with a probable case of meningitis. Health officials said the closing of schools in Coventry, Warwick and West Warwick was precautionary and said a decision would be made over the weekend whether to reopen on Monday. The decision came as a student from a school in Coventry was sent to a hospital with suspected meningitis and after a second grader from West Warwick died last month from a related disorder, encephalitis. Speaking at a televised news conference, Dr. David Gifford, head of the state's health department said, that "with this recent case of meningitis, we have decided" to close the schools out of what he said was "an abundance of caution" until more information can be collected on patterns of infection. Read The Full Story FTC Levies $25 Million Fine Against Diet Pill Firms 2007-01-04 15:17:16 The Federal Trade Commission today announced fines and penalties of $25 million against the makers of four popular diet pills as part of an ongoing review of products that claim to boost weight loss with special formulas and secret ingredients that have not been adequately studied. The fines were imposed as part of a settlement with the makers of Xenadrine EFX, One-A-Day Weight Smart, Cortislim and Trimspa - popular pills with combined sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Much of the money will be returned to consumers, although FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said details of the refund program are still being worked out. The companies involved ranged from what FTC officials described as "fly-by-night" operations that are already bankrupt to multinational drug giant Bayer Corp. Bayer agreed to pay a $3.2 million penalty for what the FTC said were exaggerated weight-loss claims for its One-A-Day Weight Smart multivitamin. Read The Full Story Harriet Miers Resigns As White House Counsel 2007-01-04 15:16:41 Harriet Miers, President Bush's failed Supreme Court nominee and longtime adviser, on Thursday submitted her resignation as White House counsel. White House press secretary Tony Snow said the president reluctantly accepted her resignation, which takes effect Jan. 31. He said a search for a successor is under way. Bush nominated Miers in October 2005 to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but she dropped out under fire from conservatives who questioned her qualifications and would not support her. Asked why she was leaving, Snow said: "Basically, she has been here six years." Read The Full Story Rhode Island School Shut After Encephalitis Outbreak Kills Pupil 2007-01-04 03:04:07 State and federal health officials are investigating an extremely rare outbreak of encephalitis in Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed a second grader last month and led officials to close his elementary school this week. Health officials said the cases of encephalitis, which is usually brought on by a virus and causes the brain to swell, are unusual because they appear to be caused by a common bacteria, mycoplasma pneumoniae, or walking pneumonia. "It's very rare for someone to be hospitalized with mycoplasma, and it's even more rare to see such a severe complication as encephalitis," said Cynthia Whitney, acting branch chief for the respiratory diseases branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "What makes this so unusual is that more than one case has been linked to this outbreak of mycoplasma." The second grader, Dylan Gleavey of Warwick, died of encephalitis on Dec. 21. A classmate of Dylan's at Greenwood Elementary School became ill with meningitis that progressed to a mild form of encephalitis, said Dr. David R. Gifford, Rhode Island's director of health. Read The Full Story Contractors Cited By FBI In Abuse At Guantanamo Bay 2007-01-04 03:03:17 New allegations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay released by the FBI on Tuesday put private contractors at the center of interrogation operations, raising questions once again about where they fit in the military's chain of command. The FBI's disclosures, which are based on eyewitness reports, refer several times to contractors directing the Army's interrogation efforts at the military detention center in Cuba. In at least one case, FBI agents were told that detainees may have been mistreated on orders from a contractor. Taken together, the documents suggest a greater role for contractors than was previously known, and contracting experts said they indicate a further blurring of the limits on how much responsibility the private sector can carry in doing the public's work. "These are incredibly sensitive and important government jobs. That's why you're supposed to have a very clear and public chain of command," said Brookings Institution scholar Peter W. Singer. "But now there's a confusion about proper roles." Read The Full Story Citing Quality-Control Failures, U.S. Bars Lab From Testing Electronic Voting Machines 2007-01-04 03:01:49 A laboratory that has tested most of the nation's electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests. The company, Ciber Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colorado, has also come under fire from analysts hired by New York State over its plans to test new voting machines for the state. New York could eventually spend $200 million to replace its aging lever devices. Experts on voting systems say the Ciber problems underscore longstanding worries about lax inspections in the secretive world of voting-machine testing. The action by the federal Election Assistance Commission seems certain to fan growing concerns about the reliability and security of the devices. The commission acted last summer, but the problem was not disclosed then. Officials at the commission and Ciber confirmed the action in recent interviews. Read The Full Story U.S. Intelligence 'Czar' Will Leave Post To Be State Dept. Deputy 2007-01-04 03:00:56 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has persuaded John D. Negroponte to leave his post as director of national intelligence and come to the State Department as her deputy, government officials said last night. Negroponte's move would fill a crucial hole on Rice's team. She has been without a deputy since Robert B. Zoellick left in July for a Wall Street firm. It also comes as President Bush plans to announce a new Iraq strategy; as former Iraq envoy, Negroponte would be expected to play a major role in implementing that plan in his new role. Negroponte's decision to step down as the nation's top spy for a sub-Cabinet position marks a sudden reversal. Rice had earlier sought to recruit Negroponte - as well as other high-profile figures - for the job, but last month he insisted he was staying at his post. "In my own mind at least, I visualize staying ... through the end of this administration, and then I think probably that'll be about the right time to pack it in," he told C-SPAN in an interview broadcast Dec. 3. "I've pulled together a very good team, and they've stayed with me for the past 18 months," he said, "and I hope they'll stay with me as long as I'm in the job." Read The Full Story
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