Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday July 26 2007 - (813)

Thursday July 26 2007 edition
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Documents Contradict Gonzales' Testimony 2007-07-25 21:00:59 Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The documents, obtained by the Associated Press, come as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization. A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony. At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval. Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe. Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program's legality. Read The Full Story CIA Discounted British Rendition Concerns, Say Parliament Members In Damning Report 2007-07-25 20:59:51 Britain's MI5 contributed to the seizure of two British residents by the CIA, which secretly flew them to Guantanamo Bay in a move with "serious implications for the intelligence relationship" between Britain and the U.S., a cross-party committee of senior Parliament members said in a damning report released Wednesday. The security service passed information to the Americans on Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi, and Jamil el-Banna, from Jordan, as they flew to the Gambia to set up a business there in 2002. Both had lived in Britain for many years. Rawi was released from Guantanamo in March after evidence emerged in a British court that he helped MI5 monitor Abu Qatada, the radical cleric. Banna is still held in the U.S. base on Cuba. Though the U.S. has said he can leave, the British government said his U.K. residence status had expired because of his absence. In its report Wednesday, the parliamentary intelligence and security committee said MI5 was "indirectly and inadvertently" involved in the rendition of the two men by passing on the information, which included claims about their Islamist sympathies. Read The Full Story Retirees Fight U.S. Over U.S.-Canada Border Wall 2007-07-25 20:59:18 Herbert and Shirley-Ann Leu were thinking landscaping, not politics, when they built an 85-foot-long concrete wall in their backyard. But their yard happens to run along the U.S.-Canadian border - a situation that has put the Leus in the middle of a property rights battle, led the Bush administration to fire its own hand-picked border caretaker, and given rise to a legal dispute over the extent of presidential authority. The Leus, who moved about two years ago from Hawaii to this town in the state's northwestern corner, had just finished building the 4-foot-high wall when they were visited earlier this year by the International Boundary Commission, a joint U.S.-Canadian agency maintains the countries' long, often-unguarded border. American commissioner Dennis Schornack, a Republican appointed by President Bush, told the Leus their retaining wall stuck about three feet into a 10-foot border buffer zone that had to remain free of obstruction. He said if the Leus didn't tear their wall down, the commission would do it for them - and send them the bill. Read The Full Story Are Voter Registration Drives Being Put Out Of Business? 2007-07-25 14:23:06 After the wave of successes in 2004 voter registration drives by groups like ACORN, a half-dozen states passed severe laws that scared off voting activists - and now the Senate is weighing in. In 2004, Floridians overwhelmingly voted to raise their state minimum wage after low-income advocates collected ballot petition signatures, registered thousands of new voters and turned out the vote. The following spring, Florida's Republican-majority Legislature reacted. It passed a law that so severely regulated voter registration drives that before the 2006 primary, Florida's League of Women Voters stopped registering voters for the first time in its history. The League feared mistakes on just 14 voter registration forms could result in penalties equal to its entire $70,000 budget. Florida's actions were not unique. In Ohio, where the 2004 presidential election lingered as its Electoral College votes were challenged in Congress, Ohio's Republican-majority Legislature passed a series of election reforms including tough new rules and penalties for voter registration drives. In 2006, that law stopped the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and community and church groups from registering voters in the state. "In Florida, it absolutely shut down voter registration by all groups going up through the primary election of 2006," said Wendy Weiser, Deputy Director of the Brennan Center, a New York-based public-interest law firm that challenged the Florida and Ohio laws. "In Ohio, before there was an injunction in the case, voter registration was halted." Read The Full Story Experts: Don't Let Down Hurricane Guard 2007-07-25 14:22:28 Nearly eight weeks have passed since the last tropical storm in the Atlantic-Caribbean region faded away, but banish any notion the 2007 hurricane season has been unusually slow and beware the coming months, say experts. The peak of the six-month season is just around the corner and forecasters are still predicting a busy one. "There's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary," Gerry Bell, a hurricane forecaster for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said of the Atlantic season's first two months. "It's not slow. It's not fast." On average, June and July produce zero to two named storms or hurricanes. So far this year, there have been two. Andrea formed in early May, Barry on June 1. There is plenty of evidence that the first two months are meaningless as an indicator for the rest of a hurricane season. In 2004, the first storm did not form until Aug. 1. It ultimately became hurricane Alex and kicked off one of the worst Atlantic seasons in decades. By mid-August that year, there had been five storms. The entire 2004 season saw 15 storms, including nine hurricanes. Read The Full Story At Least 3 Injured In Explosions Near Downtown Dallas, Texas 2007-07-25 13:13:53 At least three people were injured Wednesday by a massive series of explosions of acetylene tanks and 18-wheelers at a plant south of downtown Dallas, Texas. Huge balls of fire were shooting into the air and thick, black smoke filled the sky near the Trinity River and Interstate 35. Dallas Fire-Rescue Lt. Joel Lavender said the fire started on an 18-wheeler on a loading dock on the back side of Southwest Industrial Gases complex in the 500 block of Industrial Boulevard. The fire then spread into the building, where tanks of oxygen tanks, helium and acetylene began blowing up. Two people suffered burns and a third sustained a back injury. Lt. Lavender was unclear where they were when the injuries occurred. Another spokesman, Paul Lara, said he was told they were in stable condition.. Seventy-five firefighters and 20 pieces of equipment were called in, but they had not begun fighting the blaze because of concerns about exploding canisters and air quality. Read The Full Story Bush's Public Standing Hits New Low 2007-07-25 12:48:37 President Bush is a competitive guy, but this is one contest he would rather lose. With 18 months left in office, he is in the running for most unpopular president in the history of modern polling. The latest Washington Post-ABC News survey shows that 65 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, matching his all-time low. In polls conducted by the Post or Gallup going back to 1938, only once has a president exceeded that level of public animosity - and that was Richard M. Nixon, who hit 66 percent four days before he resigned. The historic depth of Bush's public standing has whipsawed his White House, sapped his clout, drained his advisers, encouraged his enemies and jeopardized his legacy. Around the White House, aides make gallows-humor jokes about how they can alienate their remaining supporters - at least those aides not heading for the door. Outside the White House, many former aides privately express anger and bitterness at their erstwhile colleagues, Bush and the fate of his presidency. Bush has been so down for so long that some advisers maintain it no longer bothers them much. It can even, they say, be liberating. Seeking the best interpretation for the president's predicament, they argue that Bush can do what he thinks is right without regard to political cost, pointing to decisions to send more U.S. troops to Iraq and to commute the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff. Read The Full Story U.S. Airports Warned About Terror 'Dry Runs' 2007-07-25 12:48:09 Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September. The unclassified alert was distributed on July 20 by the Transportation Security Administration to federal air marshals, its own transportation security officers and other law enforcement agencies. The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included "wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances," including block cheese, the bulletin said. "The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern." Security officers were urged to keep an eye out for "ordinary items that look like improvised explosive device components." Read The Full Story Taliban Gunmen Kill 1 South Korean Hostage 2007-07-25 12:08:58 Taliban militants shot dead a South Korean hostage Wednesday after a deadline for their demands passed, said a spokesman. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the militants, told agencies that one of the 23 hostages had been killed at around 4 p.m. (12:30 BST). Yousef told Reuters that the militants would kill the remaining hostages unless demands were met by a new deadline. "If the administration of Kabul is not ready to release our hostages, then by 1 a.m. the rest of the hostages will be killed," he told Reuters. "That time is the last deadline." A police official said militants told him the hostage was sick and couldn't walk and was therefore shot. A number of other South Korean hostages were freed and taken to a U.S. base in Ghazni, western officials said. The officials did not know how many had been freed. However, the South Korean news agency, Yonhap, said eight Koreans had been freed, citing unnamed Korean officials. An Afghan official involved in the negotiations earlier said a large sum of money w Read The Full Story U.S. Housing Market Lurches Lower 2007-07-25 12:08:26 Sales of existing homes in the U.S. plummeted last month to their lowest level for four-and-a-half years, government figures showed Wednesday, as analysts warned the "free-fall" in the U.S. housing market is to continue. The National Association of Realtors said sales in June fell to a lower-than-expected rate of 5.75 million units a year, down by 3.8%. This was the lowest level since November 2002. Wall Street had expected home resales to fall to 5.88 million units from the 5.99 million initially reported in May before they were downwardly revised. A breakdown of the data showed that the weakness in the housing market was felt across the whole of the United States. Read The Full Story Editorial: Credibility Collapse 2007-07-25 01:38:07 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the Washington Post's edition for Wednesday, July 25, 2007. Once again, Alberto Gonzales is unable to offer straight answers to simple questions. "I don't trust you." "What credibility is left for you?" Something is terribly, terribly wrong when the attorney general of the United States is called to testify under oath before Congress and much of the hearing revolves around his credibility - or lack thereof. But such was the case yet again during an appearance yesterday by Alberto R. Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The comments quoted above from Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) and ranking Republican Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania) reflect the frustration we have come to know all too well when Mr. Gonzales is asked to provide answers to legitimate questions, whether the subject is surveillance programs, interrogation methods for foreign prisoners, the firing of U.S. attorneys - or even last-minute missions to hospital rooms. That last topic formed the basis of what can only be described as incredible testimony by Mr. Gonzales yesterday. During the hearing, the attorney general was asked about his March 10, 2004, sojourn to a Washington hospital where then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was in intensive care because of gall bladder complications. Mr. Ashcroft had temporarily transferred the powers of the attorney general to his deputy, James B. Comey. Mr. Comey had refused to give the department's legal blessing to an intelligence program due to expire the next day. Mr. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, traveled to Mr. Ashcroft's bedside with then-White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card, Jr. Read The Full Story Stocks Take A Beating On Lender's Earnings 2007-07-25 01:37:26 U.S. stocks took a beating Tuesday largely because poor earnings from one of the nation's largest mortgage lenders renewed concerns about whether the housing downturn could damage the broader economy. Countrywide Financial, which originates 17 percent of U.S. mortgages, reported a sharp drop in second-quarter profit, slashed its earnings forecast and signaled that its woes reflect that credit problems are spreading to a wider population of borrowers than once believed. With more than 1,000 branches and an extensive network of mortgage brokers, Countrywide's reach makes it a closely watched bellwether of market conditions, which is why its lower-than-expected results rattled investors, analysts said. All major stock indexes recorded the biggest loss in more than four months. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, a broad market measure, fell 30.53 points, or nearly 2 percent, to 1511.04. The Dow Jones industrial average of blue-chip stocks fell 226.47, or 1.6 percent, to 13,716.95. The tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 50.72, or 1.9 percent, to 2639.86. Read The Full Story Audit: SBA Improperly Canceled Loans To 8,000 Along Gulf After Hurricanes 2007-07-25 01:36:17 The federal Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government’s largest program to help disaster victims rebuild their houses, improperly canceled thousands of loans it had promised homeowners along the Gulf Coast after the 2005 hurricanes, a government audit has found. The agency canceled nearly 8,000 loans without calling the borrowers or mailing them a notice, according to the audit by the agency’s inspector general. The homeowners did eventually receive a letter contending that they had voluntarily given up their loans, the report says, even though many told auditors that they actually needed the money. The loans were canceled last year, after the agency had come under fire for being slow to give out rebuilding money, according to the audit. Former agency employees have complained that they were pressured to withdraw the loans to cut the number of applicants whose loans had been approved but not paid out. A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment on the report. Read The Full Story	Senate Standoff May Doom U.S.-Mexican Border Funding 2007-07-25 21:00:02 A standoff in the Senate on Wednesday seemed to doom $3 billion in widely backed funds aimed at gaining control over the porous U.S.-Mexico border. It started with an end-run by Republicans to pass some of the most popular elements of President Bush's failed immigration bill, including a plan to increase security along the southern border. Democrats liked the money but objected to such GOP proposals as allowing law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status and cracking down on those who overstay their visas. The move put political pressure on Senate Democrats. They killed Sen. Lindsey Graham's plan on a 52-44 procedural vote, but Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, immediately countered with a pared-down proposal containing only the border security funds. Then Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a Bush ally, killed that effort. Read The Full Story Evacuation For Oxford, England, Residents As Waters Levels Predicted To Rise 2007-07-25 20:59:33 Dozens of people in Oxford were woken in the small hours Wednesday by a knock on the door from police offering to evacuate them and warning that the situation could get worse. With up to 4 feet of water surging past in the worst-hit places, about 120 people were ferried from the Botley Road area to the west of the city center in 4x4s and dinghies, either to stay with friends and relatives or at an emergency shelter set up at Oxford United's Kassam Stadium. By the afternoon, firefighters said the water level appeared to have stabilized but warned it could get worse again if further rain fell Thursday. Residents estimated it had been rising by an inch every hour at its most vigorous. Some reported up to 2 feet of water in their ground floor rooms. Read The Full Story Britain OKs Base For U.S. Missile Defense System 2007-07-25 20:58:49 Britain has agreed to let the United States use a Royal Air Force base as part of its planned missile defense system, British Defense Secretary Des Browne announced Wednesday. Browne said Menwith Hill, a U.S. military listening station in northern England, would be equipped with communications equipment enabling it to route satellite warnings about missile launches to British and American officials. The defense secretary said in a written statement to lawmakers that the move was "a building block to enhance our national and collective security." He said there were no plans to locate missile interceptors in Britain, but added that the government was keeping the matter under review. Britain supports the contentious U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense system in Europe, although American officials have indicated that Britain's role would likely be limited to providing early warning information. Read The Full Story International Study: Human Activity Altering Rainfall Patterns 2007-07-25 14:22:47 Human activity is altering the world's precipitation patterns, bringing more rainfall to Canada, Northern Europe and Russia and drier weather to tropical and subtropical areas north of the equator, according to the first major international study that examines these changes over the past century. Global warming has been blamed for higher temperatures and warmer oceans, but this is the first research paper that makes a link to rainfall patterns, with widespread implications for how people will adapt now that they've messed with Mother Nature. "It's the first time that we've detected in precipitation data a clear imprint of human influence on the climate system," Francis Zwiers, one of the lead authors of the study and director of the climate research division at Environment Canada, said in an interview Monday. "Temperature changes we can cope with. But water changes are much more difficult to cope with. That will have economic impacts, and impacts on food production, and could ultimately displace populations." Read The Full Story Largest Sunni Bloc Drops Out Of Iraq Government 2007-07-25 14:22:08 Iraq's largest Sunni Arab bloc said Wednesday it had suspended membership in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government, a fresh setback to the Shiite leader's faltering efforts at national reconciliation. The police development came on a day that saw two suicide car bombings strike soccer fans in Baghdad as they were celebrating Iraq's victory in the Asian Cup semifinal. At least 27 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in those attacks, said officials. The Iraqi Accordance Front, which has six Cabinet seats and 44 of 275 seats in parliament, gave al-Maliki a week to meet its demands or see its six members officially quit the 14-month-old Cabinet. Read The Full Story House Judiciary Committe Votes For Contempt Charges In U.S. Attorney Firings Case 2007-07-25 12:48:51 The House Judiciary Committee voted today to issue contempt citations for two of President Bush's most trusted aides, taking its most dramatic step yet towards a constitutional showdown with the White House over the Justice Department's dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys. The panel voted 22-17, along party lines, to issue citations to Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel. Both refused to comply with committee subpoenas after Bush declared that documents and testimony related to the prosecutor firings were protected by executive privilege. "If we countenance a process where our subpoenas can be readily ignored, where a witness under a duly authorized subpoena doesn't even have to bother to show up...then we have already lost," Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan), said before the vote. "We won't be able to get anybody in front of this committee or any other." The vote represents the first overt step towards finding Bolten and Miers in criminal contempt of Congress. Next would come a vote of the entire House, followed by a referral to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Read The Full Story Report: 'Fundamental Changes' Needed In Veterans' Health Care 2007-07-25 12:48:22 A presidential commission examining the care given to wounded U.S. servicemembers is calling for "fundamental changes" in the management of the military's health care and disability system, according to a draft report released this morning. The President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, which briefed President Bush this morning on its findings, is set to vote Wednesday on it's final recommendations. "We don't recommend merely patching the system, as has been done in the past," the draft report stated. "Instead, the experiences of these young men and women have highlighted the need for fundamental changes in care management and the disability system." Read The Full Story FCC Majority Backs Open Access Plan For Airwaves 2007-07-25 12:47:53 A majority of the members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) told a House panel Tuesday that they support an open-access requirement for the coming radio spectrum auction that would give consumers more choices for cellphone devices and services. The open-access proposal, first outlined about two weeks ago by FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, has become central to the debate over how the airwaves will be used when television broadcasters give them up in 2009. The FCC plans to auction these airwaves to companies in January. The measure would require the highest bidder to use a third of the airwaves to build a network that is available to all wireless devices and services. The hearing Tuesday before the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet was the first time the commissioners publicly shared their views about the rules for the auction and was probably the last chance for Congress to weigh in before commissioners vote on the rules, perhaps as early as next week. Democratic Commissioners Jonathan S. Adelstein and Michael J. Copps said they supported the open-access plan, while Republican Commissioners Deborah Taylor Tate and Robert M. McDowell said they were undecided. Read The Full Story MySpace Finds 29,000 Sex Offenders On Its Website 2007-07-25 12:08:41 MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on its website, more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago. The figure was released by the attorney general of North Carolina, one of several U.S. states whose officials have been pressing the popular social networking site, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, to provide data on how many registered sex offenders are using it and where they live. MySpace initially withheld the information citing federal privacy laws, but the company began sharing the information in May after the states filed formal legal requests. At the time, MySpace said it had already used a database it helped create to remove the profiles of around 7,000 sex offenders out of a total of about 180 million profiles on the site. Read The Full Story Report Suggests Laws Broken In U.S. Attorney Firings 2007-07-25 01:38:21 House Democrats, preparing for a vote today on contempt citations against President Bush's chief of staff and former counsel, produced a report Tuesday that for the first time alleges specific ways that several administration officials may have broken the law during the multiple firings of U.S. attorneys. The report says that Congress's seven-month investigation into the firings raises "serious concerns" that senior White House and Justice Departmentaides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year may have obstructed justice and violated federal statutes that protect civil service employees, prohibit political retaliation against government officials and cover presidential records. The 52-page memorandum, from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan), seeks to explain why Democrats are trying to overcome an effort by the White House to shield officials and documents from the congressional inquiry through a claim of executive privilege. The report also provides the first written account of the Democrats' interpretation of the firings and the administration's response to the controversy. The investigation "has uncovered serious evidence of wrongdoing by the department and White House staff," Conyers says. Read The Full Story San Diego Home Foreclosures Increase 551 Percent 2007-07-25 01:37:45 Home foreclosures in San Diego County continued their troublesome upward climb in June, but analysts say the number has yet to reach a threshold that creates a drag on real estate prices or the economy at large. “California is better off than the nation and San Diego County is better off than California,” said researcher John Karevoll of DataQuick Information Systems. “It still is not a major factor in the real estate market, but if there is a recession, it could become a huge factor.” DataQuick reported on Tuesday that during the first half of 2007 San Diego County had 2,896 foreclosures compared to 445 during the first half of 2006, a 551 percent increase. Read The Full Story U.S. Military's Civilian Hires Fall Between Cracks In Medical Care 2007-07-25 01:36:52 Traveling through Sunni insurgent territory north of Baghdad, the U.S. military convoy was nearing a base when a roadside bomb ripped into the lead Humvee, leaving its gunner, Mike Helms, bleeding and swaying from a strap in the open back. Helms, 31, a civilian counterintelligence expert with the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group, had been sent to Iraq in 2004 to help fill a critical intelligence gap in the area known as the Sunni Triangle. While in Iraq, he lived with soldiers and ate military rations, took fire from mortar rounds and small arms, and clocked hundreds of miles manning a machine gun on the back of a Humvee. Nevertheless, his status as an Army civilian would leave him stranded in the aftermath of the June 16, 2004, attack, when the bomb hit his Humvee so hard it blew his M-60 off its turret. In the months that followed, Helms recalled, he was denied vital care for his wounds - ranging from shrapnel in his left arm to traumatic brain injury. Forced to rely on federal workers' compensation and turned away from regular care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military hospitals, Helms has faced years of frustration grappling with bureaucracies unprepared to help a government civilian wounded in combat. Read The Full Story UFO Sightings Bring English Town To A Standstill 2007-07-25 00:29:11 A crowd of 100 stunned stargazers brought a town centre to a standstill when five mysterious UFOs were spotted hovering in the sky. Drinkers spilled out of pubs, motorists stopped to gawp and camera phones were aimed upwards as the five orbs, in a seeming formation, hovered above Stratford-Upon-Avon for half an hour. The unidentified flying objects lit up the otherwise clear night sky above Shakespeare's birthplace in Warwickshire on Saturday. Although Air Traffic Control reported no unusual activity, some witnesses were convinced they were witnessing an extra-terrestrial spectacle. Read The Full Story
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