Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday August 1 2007 - (813)

Wednesday August 1 2007 edition
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U.S. Intelligence Chief: Bush Authorized Series Of Secret Activities In 2001 2007-08-01 02:25:35 The Bush administration's chief intelligence official said Tuesday that President Bush authorized a series of secret surveillance activities under a single executive order in late 2001. The disclosure makes clear that a controversial National Security Agency program was part of a much broader operation than the president previously described. The disclosure by Mike McConnell, director of  U.S. national intelligence, appears to be the first time that the administration has publicly acknowledged that Bush's order included undisclosed activities beyond the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005. In a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), McConnell wrote that the executive order following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks included "a number of ... intelligence activities" and that a name routinely used by the administration - the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) - applied only to "one particular aspect of these activities, and nothing more." "This is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly, because it is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has been officially acknowledged," said McConnell. Read The Full Story White House Pushes Congress To Give It Authority For Warrantless Surveillance Outside U.S. 2007-08-01 02:25:02 The Bush administration is pressing Congress this week for the authority to intercept, without a court order, any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States. The proposal, submitted by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to congressional leaders on Friday, would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for the first time since 2006 so that a court order would no longer be needed before wiretapping anyone "reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States". It would also give the attorney general sole authority to order the interception of communications for up to one year as long as he certifies that the surveillance is directed at a person outside the United States. The administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have mounted a full-court press to get the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the measure before lawmakers leave town this week for the August recess, trying to portray reluctant Democrats as weak on terrorism. Read The Full Story Murdoch Clinches $5 Billion Dow Takeover 2007-08-01 02:24:17 Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch Tuesday night clinched ownership of the Wall Street Journal's publisher, Dow Jones, after key members of the controlling Bancroft family switched sides to back his $5 billion takeover bid. After frantic last-minute negotiations, it became clear that the Bancrofts, who control 64% of Dow Jones, were pledging at least 38% of the company's stock to Murdoch's News Corporation. Because minority public shareholders are likely to overwhelmingly back the $60-a-share bid from Murdoch, the Bancrofts' position left him in a winning position in three-month takeover battle. Early this morning, the Reuters agency reported that the Dow Jones board of directors meeting in New York gave its approval to News Corp's deal after the latter's board, also meeting in the city, had approved the deal. According to reports in the U.S., a series of minor concessions were sufficient to swing the votes of a crucial Denver-based Bancroft family trust which had held out for a higher price. News Corp has agreed to foot part of the bill for $30 million in advisory fees run up by the Bancrofts as they dithered. The business news channel CNBC reported Tuesday night that a member of the family would be given a seat on News Corp's board and some would get tax-free preferred stock in lieu of cash. Read The Full Story Sydney, Australia, Installs Terror Loudspeakers 2007-08-01 02:23:39 Australia's largest city has installed dozens of loudspeakers to tell residents what to do in a terrorist attack, an official announced Wednesday. The speakers should be operational in time for next month's meeting of 21 world leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, said New South Wales state Police Minister David Campbell. "If there were a terrorist event or a major building fire and there were people in the streets, this is a way of giving them information," Campbell told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. A wailing siren would attract residents' attention, followed by a police announcement directing people to evacuation points plotted around the downtown area. Read The Full Story U.S. House Approves Ethics Reform Bill 2007-07-31 14:44:07 The House gave final and overwhelming approval today to a landmark bill that would tighten ethics and lobbying rules for Congress, passing it on to a Senate that is under a new ethics cloud after Monday's FBI raid on Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-Alaska) house. The 411-8 vote in the House should give the ethics overhaul the momentum it will need to hurdle Senate conservatives, who have complained bitterly that Democratic leaders weakened provisions disclosing so-called "earmarks,"- funding for lawmakers' pet projects. Those conservatives, led by Sens. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) are expected to block immediate consideration of the bill, and force a vote to end their filibuster, but after the lopsided House vote, Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D-Nevada), asked, "Isn't it legitimate to ask the Republicans how they really want to proceed?" The new lobbying bill would for the first time require lawmakers to disclose small campaign contributions that are "bundled" into large packages by lobbyists, and it requires lobbyists to detail their own campaign contributions, as well as payments to presidential libraries, inaugural committees and charities controlled by lawmakers. Read The Full Story Police Find Body Of 2nd Slain S. Korean Hostage 2007-07-31 01:05:31 Police in central Afghanistan at daybreak Tuesday discovered the body of a second South Korean hostage slain by the Taliban, said officials. The Al-Jazeera television network, meanwhile, showed footage that it said was seven female hostages in Afghanistan. The victim's body was found in the village of Arizo Kalley in Andar District, some 6 miles west of Ghazni city, said Abdul Rahim Deciwal, the chief administrator in the area. A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said senior Taliban leaders decided to kill the male captive because the government had not met Taliban demands to trade prisoners for the Christian volunteers, who were in their 12th day of captivity Monday. Read The Full Story U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts Suffers Seizure 2007-07-31 01:05:11 U.S. Chief Justice John G. Robers, Jr., was rushed to a hospital in Rockport, Maine, Monday afternoon after suffering a seizure at his summer island home, said a Supreme Court spokeswoman. Roberts, 52, fell on a dock after having a "benign idiopathic seizure," said Kathleen Landin Arberg, the court's public information officer. She said that Roberts has "fully recovered from the incident" but that he would remain at Penobscot Bay Medical Center here overnight for observation. Arberg said that the chief justice, who has presided over the court for two terms, received minor scrapes from the fall but that a "thorough neurological evaluation ... revealed no cause for concern." She said he experienced a similar event in 1993 but had no recurrence until Monday. Read The Full Story U.S. Aids Turkish Drive Against Kurdish Fighters 2007-07-31 01:04:49 The Pentagon confirmed yesterday that it is working closely with the Turkish government to stop Kurdish guerrillas operating from bases in northern Iraq. But it refused to comment on a report that the U.S. is planning a covert operation to send special forces into action to try to neutralize the leadership of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which has been mounting attacks inside Turkey. The U.S. is trying to persuade the Turkish army against taking matters into its own hands by invading northern Iraq, where the Kurds have established an autonomous region. Washington, faced with a myriad of problems in Iraq, does not need a new front opening up in the country. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, would neither confirm nor deny that a covert operation was being planned, but he said Monday: "We recognize that the PKK is a serious problem and we're working closely with both the government of Iraq and the government of Turkey to resolve this." Read The Full Story British Prime Minister Brown Stresses Shared Values In Talks With Bush 2007-07-31 01:04:05 President Bush Monday lavished praise on Gordon Brown at their first summit together, saying he was a man of principle who understood the ideological war against terrorism. But over two days of talks held at Camp David,  Brown retained his right to withdraw British troops from Iraq more quickly than the Americans. During their joint press conference Tuesday, Bush heaped personal praise on the prime minister as a worthy leader and a man that wanted to find solutions. The prime minister, by contrast, hailed the relationship with America as the most important bilateral relationship for Britain, but held back from any personal praise of President Bush, in what is likely to have been a calculated decision to put the bilateral relations on a more formal footing. Brown also read out a businesslike lengthy statement and surprisingly described the talks simply as "full and frank", normally diplomatic language for a cool relationship. The atmosphere suggested the British delegation is determined to rid themselves of the image of poodle to a Republican administration that has only 18 months to run. Read The Full Story	U.S. Attorney Became Justice Department Target For Refusing To Slow Down On OxyContin Case 2007-08-01 02:25:18 The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday.  John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney in Roanoke, Virginia, testified that he was at home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received the call on his cellphone from Michael J. Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Brownlee settled the case anyway. Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired. Brownlee ultimately kept his job but, as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales confronts withering criticism over the dismissals, the episode in the OxyContin case provides fresh evidence of efforts by senior officials in the department's headquarters to sway the work of U.S. attorneys' offices. Read The Full Story U.S. FCC Approves Airwave Use For All Phones 2007-08-01 02:24:32 Consumers will be able to use any cellphone and software they want on a network built on airwaves to be auctioned early next year, according to rules approved Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission.  The vote sets the stage for the auction of public airwaves that will change hands from television broadcasters to a fast-growing wireless industry. The auction, scheduled for January 2008, is expected to raise about $15 billion for the U.S. Treasury. The vote was a partial victory for consumer advocacy groups and Internet companies such as Google, which wanted rules that would allow consumers to use a variety of devices on a network, but those groups also sought more-ambitious rules that would open the network to third-party companies. That measure did not pass. Creating an open network would mean companies like Google would not have to arrange with wireless carriers to make services like Web search and online video available, as they do now. Read The Full Story Retired General Censured In Tillman Case 2007-08-01 02:23:56 The Army censured a retired three-star general Tuesday for a "perfect storm of mistakes, misjudgments and a failure of leadership" after the 2004 friendly-fire death in Afghanistan of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. Army Secretary Pete Geren asked a military review panel to decide whether Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, who led Army special operation forces after the Sept. 11 attacks, should also have his rank reduced. In a stinging rebuke, Geren said Kensinger "failed to provide proper leadership to the soldiers under his administrative control" when the Army Ranger and former pro football star was killed in 2004. Geren said that while Kensinger was "guilty of deception" in misleading investigators, there was no intentional Pentagon cover-up of circumstances surrounding Tillman's death - at first categorized by the military as being from enemy fire. Read The Full Story Cheney Opposes Closing Guantanamo Prison 2007-08-01 02:23:24 Vice President Cheney said Tuesday that he would not immediately close the prison housing terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,because there is no other place to send some of the world's most dangerous men. President Bush has said repeatedly that he wants to close the prison once administration officials figure out what to do with several hundred remaining detainees, but senior administration officials have been divided about how to accomplish that, given practical impediments such as the reluctance on the part of some countries to accept the return of their citizens detained there. Cheney gave voice to his position in an interview with CNN's Larry King, who asked whether Cheney agreed with former secretary of state Colin L. Powell that the facility should be closed "yesterday." "I think you need to have someplace to hold those individuals who have been captured during the global war on terror. I'm thinking of people like Khalid Sheik Mohammad. This is a man we captured in Pakistan. He's the mastermind of 9/11," replied Cheney. "There are hundreds of people like that, and if you closed Guantanamo, you'd have to find someplace else to put these folks." Read The Full Story Oil Prices Rise Above $78 A Barrel, Set One-Year Record 2007-07-31 14:43:54 Oil prices set another one-year record Tuesday on expectations that crude inventories fell last week and reports of new violence in Nigeria, a large oil producer and key supplier to the U.S. Investors believe Wednesday's inventory report by the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration will show that refiners drew down oil inventories as they continued to increase gasoline production last week, analysts said. News that a Nigerian construction worker was kidnapped Tuesday added to the bullish tone of a market that seems determined to test last year's record highs, analysts said. ''They want to get back to $78.40,'' the intraday price record set July 14, 2006, said Jack Hunter, an energy trader at FC Stone Group in Kansas City. Read The Full Story FBI, IRS Agents Search Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' Home 2007-07-31 01:05:22 Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R) Monday as part of a broad federal investigation of political corruption in the state that has also swept up his son and one of his closest financial backers, said officials. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, is under scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska energy services company, Veco, whose chief executive pleaded guilty in early May to a bribery scheme involving state lawmakers. Contractors have told a federal grand jury that in 2000, Veco executives oversaw a lavish remodeling of Stevens'  house in Girdwood, an exclusive ski resort area 40 miles from Anchorage, according to statements by the contractors. Stevens said in a statement that his attorneys were advised of the impending search Monday morning. He said he would not comment on details of the inquiry to avoid "any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome." Read The Full Story Editorial: Bush's Folly 2007-07-31 01:04:59 Intellpuke: The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times edition for Monday, July 30, 2007. His fixation on al-Qaeda's role in Iraq reveals the shallowness of his thinking - and of the U.S. strategy on fighting terrorism. President Bush's speech last week arguing that the United States must stay in Iraq to defeat the al-Qaeda leadership reassembling there ranks as one of his most vacuous. It drew on intelligence that was conveniently (and perhaps selectively?) declassified in order to make the dubious case that the al-Qaeda in Iraq today is the same enemy that attacked us on 9/11. Bush repeated his tendentious trope: "A key lesson of September the 11th is that the best way to protect America is to go on the offense, to fight the terrorists overseas so we don't have to face them here at home." This led directly to the unstated conclusion that the United States must stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to conquer evil. The speech leaves little doubt that the president intends to keep fighting in Iraq until Jan. 20, 2009 - if Congress will let him. Either way, the public shouldn't believe that al-Qaeda is responsible for most of Iraq's problems. Foreign jihadists have certainly done a wicked job of urging onthe Sunnis and Shiites who are doing most of the killing. But the key question is who should be fighting al-Qaeda - and all the other groups slaughtering Iraqi civilians. The answer, of course, is the Iraqis. They're the most qualified. Sunni tribal leaders in Al Anbar and Diyala provinces are already on the job, supported by the U.S. Iraqis have the language, intelligence and understanding of the enemy. They are fighting for and on their home ground. It is American hubris to think we can do it better. Read The Full Story Germany May End Ransom Payments For Kidnap Victims 2007-07-31 01:04:29 A debate is raging in Germany about the government's policy on negotiating the release of hostages taken abroad after the interior ministry implicitly acknowledged that secret ransom payments were made to kidnappers. Following a string of kidnappings of German nationals, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, the government is reportedly discussing ways of implementing a tougher strategy in an apparent attempt to reduce the frequency of the seizures. Because it is known that the German government - like those of Italy and France - is willing to pay ransoms, the "value" of German kidnap victims has risen in the Middle East, experts have acknowledged. Observers in the field say that ransom money often goes to finance weaponry for insurgents. "We have to consider whether we can justify paying money for a hostage with money which is eventually used to buy weapons which are used to kill our soldiers in Afghanistan," a high-ranking security expert in the interior ministry told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Read The Full Story
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