Friday, October 12, 2007

Former Qwest CEO: NSA Snooping Predated 9/11

Kurt Nimmo
TruthNews

October 12, 2007

Neocons are fond of beating their chests and claiming with self-righteous indignation that complaints aimed at the Bush administration’s violation of the Constitution, in particular the NSA’s vacuum cleaner approach to telecommunications snooping, are warranted because al-Qaeda attacked us on September 11, 2001. If not for al-Qaeda and other such evil-minded miscreants, the theory goes, we would not need to snoop cell phone and email traffic or conduct the equivalent to rifling through underwear drawers.

Of course, this neocon argument is pure hockey sticks, as underscored by court documents released this week in the case of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, convicted of insider trading. “Nacchio unsuccessfully attempted to defend himself by arguing that he actually expected Qwest’s 2001 earnings to be higher because of secret NSA contracts, which, he contends, were denied by the NSA after he declined in a February 27, 2001 meeting to give the NSA customer calling records, court documents released this week show,” reports Wired. Nacchio’s lawyer, Herbert Stern, expanded on this in a statement:

In light of pending litigation, I have been reluctant to issue any public statements. However, because of apparent confusion concerning Joe Nacchio and his role in refusing to make private telephone records of Qwest customers available to the NSA immediately following the Patriot Act, and in order to negate misguided attempts to relate Mr. Nacchio’s conduct to present litigation, the following are the facts.

In the Fall of 2001, at a time when there was no investigation of Qwest or Mr. Nacchio by the Department of Justice or the Securities and Exchange Commission, and while Mr. Nacchio was Chairman and CEO of Qwest and was serving pursuant to the President’s appointment as the Chairman of the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, Qwest was approached to permit the Government access to the private telephone records of Qwest customers.

Mr. Nacchio made inquiry as to whether a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request. When he learned that no such authority had been granted and that there was a disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process, including the Special Court which had been established to handle such matters, Mr. Nacchio concluded that these requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act.

Accordingly, Mr. Nacchio issued instructions to refuse to comply with these requests. These requests continued throughout Mr. Nacchio’s tenure and until his departure in June of 2002.

Of course, it is just a coincidence Mr. Nacchio was convicted of insider trading after refusing to allow the government to violate the privacy of Qwest’s customers.

Not that it matters. Telecoms have connived with the government to snoop on the American people for many decades, beginning during WWII with the Armed Forces Security Agency, the precursor to the NSA. In the late 40s and 1950s, the NSA kicked off Project MINARET and Project SHAMROCK and Western Union, RCA, and ITT cooperated fully, to the point where they gave the NSA daily microfilm copies of transited telegraphs. So successful were these operations, the CIA got in on the act and set up a front company in Lower Manhattan called LPMEDLEY, designed to better facilitate snooping on unwitting telecom customers. It is said the investigations of Senator Frank Church in the 1970s put an end to this monkey business. Of course, it is naive in the extreme to believe the government would stop spying on its citizens simply because a few people complained.

Related video:

NSA Pressured LA Times To Kill Domestic Spying Story

Michael Hayden: “probable cause” is not in the 4th Amendment

Even Fox News Admits: FBI Can Listen to You Even if Your Cell Phone is Off

Fact of Fiction? Enemy of the State Scene

Sphere: Related Content

Foreclosure Filings Nearly Double

Alex Veiga
Associated Press
October 11, 2007

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Foreclosure filings across the U.S. nearly doubled last month compared with September 2006, as financially strapped homeowners already behind on mortgage payments defaulted on their loans or came closer to losing their homes to foreclosure, a real estate information company said Thursday.

A total of 223,538 foreclosure filings were reported in September, up from 112,210 in the same month a year ago, according to Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc.

The number of filings in September was down 8 percent from August’s 243,947, the firm said.

Despite the sequential decline, the September figure represents the second-highest total for filings in a single month since the company began tracking monthly filings two years ago.

“August was an extraordinarily high month for foreclosure activity, so some falloff was almost predictable,” said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s vice president for marketing.

The filings include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Some properties might have received more than one notice if the owners have multiple mortgages.

Typically, borrowers must be 60 to 90 days past due on their mortgage payments before their lender will consider them in default, the first stage of the foreclosure process. If a homeowner can’t find a way to get current on payments, the home is then often put up for auction, and if it doesn’t sell, it eventually goes back to the bank.

In all, 39 states saw a decline in foreclosure filings, the firm said.

Sharga noted that there was a spike in the number of bank repossessions in August that did not occur in September.

It’s likely that the sequential decline in foreclosure activity between August and September was just a blip, not a bellwether of lessening foreclosure filings.

“We don’t see September as the beginning of the end in this cycle of foreclosures,” Sharga said.

The foreclosure rate for the nation in September was one foreclosure filing for every 557 households, the firm said.

The U.S. housing market has seen sales decline and home prices fall or remain flat, making it harder for homeowners who can’t afford to make mortgage payments to sell their homes or seek refinancing.

Many of those troubled homeowners were among those who took on adjustable-rate mortgages that are now adjusting to a higher interest rate, translating into payments they cannot afford to make.

The rising delinquencies and foreclosures this year have led the mortgage industry to tighten lending standards, further narrowing options for homeowners struggling to pay their mortgage.

Nevada, Florida and California had the highest foreclosure rates in the country last month, the firm said.

Nevada reported one foreclosure filing for every 185 households, earning the state the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for the ninth month in a row. The state had 5,504 filings in September, down 11.1 percent from August and more than triple from September 2006.

Florida had one foreclosure filing for every 248 households. The state reported 33,354 foreclosure filings in September, down just less than 2 percent from August, but more than three times greater than September 2006’s total.

California’s foreclosure rate was one filing for every 253 households. The state reported the most foreclosure filings of any single state with 51,259, down 11 percent from August but a fourfold increase from September of last year.

Rounding out the states with the top 10 foreclosure rates last month were Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Colorado, Texas and Indiana.

Rich Elite Get Rich, Poor Stay Poor

Reuters
October 12, 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The richest one percent of Americans earned a postwar record of 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent a year earlier, reflecting a widening income disparity among different classes in the nation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing new Internal Revenue Service data.

The data showed that the fortunes of the bottom 50 percent of Americans are worsening, with that group earning 12.8 percent of all income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent the year before, the paper said.

It said that while the IRS data goes back only to 1986, academic research suggests that the last time wealthy Americans had such a high percentage of the national income pie was in the 1920s.

The article cited an interview with President Bush, who attributed income inequality to “skills gaps” among various classes. It said the IRS didn’t identify the source of rising income for the affluent, but said a boom on Wall Street has likely played a part.

Hillary prods Bush to go after Iran

aljazeera
Hillary Clinton is demanding that Bush take a more belligerent posture toward Iran.

By Robert Parry

So let me see if I’ve got this right: Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for the presidential nomination, is demanding that George W. Bush take a more belligerent posture toward Iran.

In her view – and that of 75 other members of the U.S. Senate – President Bush hasn’t been aggressive or hasty enough in designating a large part of the Iranian military, the Revolutionary Guards, as an international terrorist organization.

The Senate resolution, approved on Sept. 26, recounts allegations that elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have supplied Iraqi Shia fighters with “explosively formed penetrator” bombs that have shattered U.S. armored vehicles and killed American troops.

In response, the Senate resolution calls on President Bush to list the Revolutionary Guards as “specially designated global terrorists.” In opposing the resolution, Sen. James Webb, D-Virginia, warned that the move could be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Despite Webb’s protest, 29 Democrats joined Republicans and neoconservative Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to pass the “sense of the Senate” resolution. The Democrats egging Bush on included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, California’s Dianne Feinstein and Michigan’s Carl Levin.

Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Richard Lugar of Indiana were the only Republicans voting no. Democratic presidential hopefuls Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut also opposed the measure. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was absent but said he would have voted against it.

But Hillary Clinton, who also voted to grant Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq in 2002 and staunchly supported the war for the next three years before reinventing herself as an Iraq War critic, now has reverted to her old hawkish self, jumping out ahead of Bush in urging a more hostile policy toward Iran.

Besides the extraordinary notion that Bush needs prodding into greater belligerence, there is the dangerous definitional problem of throwing the broad cloak of “terrorism” over Iraqis, who are resisting a U.S. military invasion force, and their alleged Iranian allies.

The classic definition of terrorism is violence directed against civilians to make a political point. The term shouldn't be applied to an indigenous population fighting an irregular war against a foreign occupying army, since that would have made everyone from George Washington to the French Resistance to the Afghanis confronting the Soviet occupation "terrorists."

Though Americans understandably detest anyone killing U.S. soldiers – whatever the circumstances – it is not "terrorism." In effect, the Senate resolution is choosing to use “terrorist” as a geopolitical curse word against any combatant who challenges U.S. military might.

While that "tough-guy/gal" stance might make political sense domestically – condemning anyone who dares take up arms against U.S. soldiers – the risk is that once the word “terrorist” is attached, it effectively dictates a course of action: negotiations with "terrorists" are prohibited and a host of draconian actions become unavoidable, even if they are counterproductive.

With a peaceful solution off the table, violence is almost guaranteed to escalate; more U.S. soldiers are likely to die; and American interests may be damaged. One might have thought that the lesson of loosely applying the epithet “terrorist” to an adversary would have been learned from the debacle that followed Bush falsely linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda.

That is a lesson now measured by the blood of some 3,800 dead American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. But it is a lesson that Hillary Clinton and those other senators – with their fingers to the political winds – apparently still haven’t learned.

-- Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush , can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

ConsortiumNews

Vigilant Shield: JFCOM, NORAD to drill martial law during TOPOFF4

From the U.S. military’s NORTHCOM factsheet :

“North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command along with U.S. Pacific Command, the Department of Homeland Security as well as local, state and other federal responders will exercise their response abilities against a variety of potential threats during Exercise Vigilant Shield ‘08, a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-designated, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)-sponsored, and U.S. Joint Forces Command[JFCOM]-supported Department of Defense exercise for homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities missions.

VS-08 will be conducted concurrent with Top Officials 4 (TOPOFF 4), the nation’s premier exercise of terrorism preparedness sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, and several other linked exercises as part of the National Level Exercise 1-08. These linked exercises will take place October 15-20 and are being conducted throughout the United States and in conjunction with several partner nations including Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as the Territory of Guam.

VS-08 and National Level Exercise 1-08 will provide local, state, tribal, interagency, Department of Defense, and non-governmental organizations and agencies involved in homeland security and homeland defense the opportunity to participate in a full range of exercise scenarios that will better prepare participants to prevent and respond to national crises. The participating organizations will conduct a multi-layered, civilian-led response to a national crisis.

USNORTHCOM’s primary exercise venues for VS-08 include locations in Oregon, Arizona and a cooperative venue with USPACOM in the Territory of Guam. NORAD’s aerospace detection and defense events will take place across all the exercise venues, to exercise the ability to mobilize resources for aerospace defense, aerospace control, maritime warning, and coordination of air operations in a disaster area. […]

Exercise VIGILANT SHIELD Objectives:
· Demonstrate multiagency, multijurisdictional unity of effort in support of a civilian-led response to a national crisis through collaboration with local, state, and federal responders to a series of catastrophic events.
· Reinforce operational and strategic relationships between USNORTHCOM and the
Department of Homeland Security.
· Provide an opportunity for local, state, and federal leaders to conduct and lead response efforts within their state including the use of state assets, emergency management assistance agreements, and support from federal resources, including active duty military forces.
· Assess NORAD and USNORTHCOM assigned units in the execution of homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities missions.
· Evaluate NORAD and USNORTHCOM staff implementation of Concept Plans to include effects-based approach planning and operations to protect the homeland from missile attack.
· Provide continuous Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment to all agencies, via NORAD.
· Evaluate various combatant commands’ operational coordination.
· Develop U.S. government strategic communication themes and objectives to ensure that all exercise agencies communicate with one synchronized voice.
· Exercise USNORTHCOM’s Ballistic Missile Defense planning and operations to create a
seamless coordination of control between combatant commands.
· Provide USNORTHCOM opportunities to exercise defense support of civil authorities in the execution of Department of Defense Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or High-yield Explosive response plans and coordinate AntiTerrorism/ Force Protection activities.
· Deploy USNORTHCOM’s Mobile Consolidated Command Center.
· Conduct interagency and Department of Defense expanded maritime interception operations, maritime domain awareness, maritime warning and maritime operational threat response.

—–

Let’s hope that if anyone in NORAD or JFCOM plan to “go live” into a false flag with space-based or other assets that geopolitical forces opposed to further World War can stop them.

Express your concern!

Some numbers for NORAD:

NORAD Public Affairs (719) 554-3525
General Inquiries (719) 554-6889
Media Relations (719) 554-9618

New Evidence that the Official Story about 9/11 is Indefensible

RINF David Ray Griffin

Early in 2007, Interlink Books published my Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. The stimulus for my writing this book was the appearance in August 2006—just before the fifth anniversary of 9/11—of four publications intended to bolster the official account by debunking the alternative view, according to which 9/11 was an inside job. The most explicit and well-known of these publications was a book by Popular Mechanics entitled Debunking 9/11 Myths.

My book’s introduction and conclusion dealt with the irresponsible way the press, including the left-leaning press, has dealt with this issue. One of their failings, I showed, was simply to accept the official reports — especially The 9/11 Commission Report and the report on the World Trade Center put out by the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) — as neutral, scientific reports. They thereby ignored the fact that the 9/11 Commission was run by Philip Zelikow, who was virtually a member of the US. Bush administration, and that NIST is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce and hence of the Bush administration (which has distorted science for political purposes to an unprecedented extent).

The book’s four chapters then demonstrated that none of the documents of August 2006 actually served to debunk the claims of the 9/11 truth movement. The first two chapters dealt with two documents—including a new book by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission — that tried, by creating a completely new story, to debunk the claim that the U.S. military’s failure to intercept four hijacked airliners could have occurred only if there had been a stand-down order. I argued that this new story was too inherently implausible, as well as too contradictory of previous statements by the military, to be worthy of belief.

The third chapter dealt with NIST’s reports on the Twin Towers, showing that they are political, not scientific, documents, because they ignore all evidence not consistent with NIST’s theory, such as testimony showing that massive explosions had occurred and that steel had melted—even though the fires could not have gotten even close to the temperature needed to melt steel (which means that there had to have been another source of energy).

The fourth and longest chapter dealt with the Popular Mechanics book, which discusses all the issues (the failures to intercept, the WTC, the Pentagon, and United 93). My critique showed this book to be filled with distortions and outright lies. Although the Popular Mechanics book has been used as the basis for two TV specials intended to bolster the official story—one on the BBC and one on the History Channel in the USA (which is partially owned by the Hearst Corporation, which puts out Popular Mechanics) — the fact that the public is increasingly seeing through this book’s deceptions is shown by recent reviews on Amazon.com.

My book, although it has yet to be reviewed by a single mainstream publication in the United States, has been supported by well-respected political commentators from the left and the right. Howard Zinn wrote: “Considering how the 9-ll tragedy has been used by the Bush administration to propel us into immoral wars again and again, I believe that David Ray Griffin’s provocative questions about 9-ll deserve to be investigated and addressed.” Paul Craig Roberts, who was the assistant secretary of the US Treasury during the Reagan administration, wrote: “Professor Griffin is the nemesis of the 9/11 cover-up. This new book destroys the credibility of the NIST and Popular Mechanics reports and annihilates his critics.”

My book was even endorsed by a former senior official of the CIA, Bill Christison, who had for the first five years after 9/11, he admitted, studiously avoided looking at the evidence that it might have been an inside job. He called my book “a superb compendium of the strong body of evidence showing the official US government story of what happened on September 11, 2001 to be almost certainly a monstrous series of lies.”

Book reviewers in mainstream publications were evidently not moved even by Publishers Weekly. Although it had dismissed my first two books about 9/11 as “ridiculous” and “pure speculation,” it said of Debunking 9/11 Debunking: “All but the most dogmatic readers will find Griffin’s evidence — from the inconsistencies between NORAD tapes and the 9/11 Commission Report to rigorous exploration into the physics of the collapse–detailed and deeply unnerving.”

Another source widely used to determine whether a book is worthy of review is Choice, put out by the American Library Association. It has recently spoken, saying: “Griffin exhibits exceptional skill in detailed scholarly analysis. He concludes with a call to the reader, and all of us, to bring these issues into full public discussion and to expose the truth about 9/11, whatever it may be. Indeed, such ‘truth’ has certainly not yet been revealed due to extensive gaps and contradictions in official theories that he documents in detail.” Whether this endorsement will lead to any reviews remains to be seen.

In any case, I was motivated to put out the Revised and Updated Edition primarily because of new information about the alleged phone calls from passengers on the flights to relatives, through which reports of hijackers on the airplanes reached the public.

In the first edition, I presented extensive evidence that reported cell phone calls from the airliners, including the approximately 10 reported cell phone calls from United 93 (which crashed in Pennsylvania), could not have occurred, because the cell phone technology at the time did not allow calls to be made from airliners flying at a high altitude (Flight 93 was at 34,300 to 40,700 feet when the calls were reportedly made). I argued not that the relatives of the passengers had lied about receiving the calls but that they had been duped—by means of voice morphing, which is now perfected to the point that, advertisers brag, you can fool your spouse.

Even after my book appeared, Popular Mechanics continued to claim, on the basis of very weak evidence, that high-altitude cell phone calls were indeed possible (see the History Channel special, “9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction”). However, as I reported in the Revised and Updated Edition of my book, the FBI had in 2006 presented, as evidence in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (sometimes called “the 20th hijacker”), a report on phone calls from the four airliners. According to this report, there were only two cell phone calls from United 93, and they were made at 9:58, shortly before the plane crashed, when it was down to 5,000 feet. When the FBI had to present evidence in a court of law, therefore, it would not claim that any high-altitude cell phone calls had occurred. (These two low-altitude calls from Flight 93 were, according to the FBI report, the only two cell phone calls made from all four flights).

The most well known of the reported cell phone calls from Flight 93 were four calls that Deena Burnett reported receiving from her husband, Tom Burnett. She knew that he had used his cell phone, she reported on several TV shows and later in her book, because she saw his Caller ID number. However, as I reported, there are now devices, such as “FoneFaker,” that will produce the person’s Caller ID as well as his or her voice. Deena Burnett and the others, I believe, were not lying; they were duped.

The most famous of the reported calls from the flights supposedly came from Barbara Olson, the well-known commentator on CNN who was married to Ted Olson, who was then the US solicitor general. Olson reported that his wife had called him twice from American Airlines Flight 77, stating that hijackers with knives and boxcutters had taken over the plane. Besides providing evidence of hijackers, this call also provided the only evidence that Flight 77 was still aloft (it had disappeared from radar and there had been reports of an airliner crash nearby). Although Olson went back and forth on the question of whether his wife had used a cell phone or an onboard phone, he finally settled on the latter.

In the first edition, I challenged this claim on the basis of evidence from American Airlines that their Boeing 757 (which is what Flight 77 was) had no onboard phones. After publishing the book, however, I became worried, because of some new evidence, that that statement from American Airlines, made in 2004, had referred only to their 757s at that time — that their 757s in 2001 may well have had onboard phones. So I published a retraction, saying that the claim was uncertain.

That retraction, however, evoked new evidence, including a statement made by American Airlines in 2006 that their 757s in 2001 had had no onboard phones, so that anyone calling out from Flight 77 had needed to use a cell phone. Barbara Olson, therefore, could not have used a passenger-seat phone. That left open, of course, the possibility that Ted Olson was correct when he said that his wife had used her cell phone.

However, the evidence from the Moussaoui trial ruled out this possibility. In its report on AA 77, it listed one attempted call from Barbara Olson, which was “unconnected” and hence lasted “0 seconds.”

This was an astounding discovery. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice. And yet it had undercut the testimony of the DOJ’s former solicitor general, saying in effect that the two calls that he reported had never happened. The implication is that unless Ted Olson had, like Deena Burnett, been duped, he had lied. Although this should have produced front-page headlines, it has thus far not been reported by any mainstream publication.

The Revised and Updated Edition of “Debunking 9/11 Debunking” provides the documentation for these reports from American Airlines and the FBI, which pretty thoroughly undermine the idea that any of the reported calls were genuine: If the cell phone calls were faked, why should we believe that the reported calls from onboard phones were genuine?

This new edition also contains more quotations from former military officers calling the official conspiracy theory impossible.

It also contains a report on Rudy Giuliani’s problematic response to a group of activists who asked him, with camera running, how he knew that the Twin Towers were going to collapse. (He had told Peter Jennings on ABC News on 9/11 itself that he had been warned.) Given the fact that he Giuliani is currently the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, evidence that he had inside information on the collapse of the towers—an event for which there was no historical precedent—should certainly be investigated.

This new edition has garnered some further endorsements. I was especially pleased to get one from former CIA case officer Robert Baer (the author of See No Evil, which inspired the movie Syriana), because he had written a critical review of my first book, The New Pearl Harbor. Having more recently, like Bill Christison, become convinced that 9/11 was an inside job, he wrote: “Until we get a complete, honest, transparent investigation–not one based on ‘confession’ extracted by torture — we will never know what happened on 9/11. David Griffin will never let this go until we get the truth.”

Also, hoping that my new book would be found even more convincing than my earlier ones, I was very pleased to see that John Whitbeck, an international law specialist, had written: “After reading David Ray Griffin’s previous books on the subject, I was over 90% convinced that 9/11 was an inside job. Now, after reading Debunking 9/11 Debunking, I am, I regret to say, 100% convinced.”

The implications of this conclusion are, of course, enormous. But will you see the evidence for this conclusion discussed in the mainstream press? Don’t hold your breath.

In New Jersey, Gumballs Pose a Threat to Homeland Security

JULIE O’CONNOR
The Star-Ledger
October 11, 2007

Three Dover officials say they’ve found a serious homeland security threat to chew on: gumballs.

They worry the colorful round treats could be poisoned by an enterprising terrorist who sees them as bait for unsuspecting targets — young kids.

So, with the approval of the mayor and the skepticism of the police chief in this central Morris County town of 18,000, the three aldermen are in the middle of a nine-month inspection of Dover’s coin-operated gumball and candy machines. Thus far, they have surveyed 103 local businesses about their machines.

Led by Alderman Frank Poolas, who envisioned the project and enlisted the aid of fellow Aldermen Jack Delaney and Michael Picciallo, the trio began their investigation six months ago and plan to report their results to Mayor James Dodd Jan. 1.

Already they say they’ve discovered more than 100 unlicensed coin-operated machines in town — many filled with gumballs, jawbreakers and other candies they call perfect for potential terrorists.

The security threat should be “looked at seriously in light of what has happened so far,” said Poolas. “Someone who wanted to do harm really could.”

However, Police Chief Harold “Butch” Valentine said the police department has no reason to believe terrorists are even contemplating contaminating candy.

“We’ve never received any information to the contrary. The gumballs are safe,” he said.

The odds are remote that candy machines would be targeted by terrorists, he added. “You’d probably win the lottery first,” Valentine said.

Thomas Zellman, director of the Morris County Department of Law and Public Safety, agreed that gumball machines are “certainly not” a threat to homeland security.

MAYOR’S APPROVAL
While sticky local issues such as overcrowded housing, taxi ordinances and redevelopment projects have dominated past elections in Dover, Poolas called gumball machine inspections a “high priority.”

Delaney said the aldermen’s goal is to create a registration process for gumball machines and find out where all that candy is coming from.

“God forbid something happened,” he said. “There’s just no record of anything.”

William Shuler Jr., a Republican running for a seat on the board of aldermen, thought gumballs are a problem, but only after they’ve been chewed.

“If I had it my way,” Shuler said, “I would probably remove all gumball machines and get the gum off the sidewalks and make less work for sidewalk sweepers.”

But the mayor said the aldermen are “absolutely on the right track.”

“One of the problems that we have here with homeland security is that it would be very easy for someone to put poison in one of these coin-operated devices that distribute candy to children,” Dodd said.

Properly licensed machines must be inspected by the health department, and they should provide revenue for the town, Poolas said.

SPREADSHEET
The aldermen say they conduct their survey on weekends and plan to meet 8:30 a.m. Saturday at Town Hall to continue their inspections. They’ve already covered businesses on Blackwell, Sussex, Warren, Essex and Morris streets, Basset Highway and a small section of Route 15.

At local taverns, clubs and stores, they log the number of coin-operated machines on a spreadsheet and check for stickers to see if they are licensed.

After they submit their report to the mayor, they hope a town committee will make further recommendations.

“We have to sit down as a mayor and board, and come up with a decision on the gumball machines,” Poolas said, “for the children.”

Battle against terrorism in Pakistan tribal area is lost, US Congress told

Anwar Iqbal
Dawn
October 11, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct 10: The US pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to do more in the war against terror has been counter-productive and the battle against extremists in the tribal areas has been lost, a key congressional panel was told on Wednesday.

Witnesses appearing before the House Armed Services Committee also noted that the United States has been publicly involved in arranging a power-sharing deal in Pakistan, which may hurt its image if the arrangement fails.

“I’m concerned that our policy toward Pakistan has not been as comprehensive as it should be,” said the committee’s chairman, Congressman Ike Skelton. “We may be unprepared to handle the repercussions if events in Pakistan continue to move as rapidly as they have in recent years.”

The powerful committee, which oversees US military policies, invited a host of witnesses to speak on “security challenges involving Pakistan and policy implications for the US Department of Defence.”

“We’ve put additional pressure on President Musharraf,” Dr Marvin Weinbaum of Washington’s Middle East institute told the committee. “Let me suggest, however, that increasingly this pressure has been counter-productive.”

He said that the actions President Musharraf took under pressure had not only fallen short “but have had the double-barrelled effect of intensifying opposition within the frontier region and also eroding his political support in the country.”

Mr Weinbaum, a veteran South Asian scholar who has authored several books on Pakistan, warned: “Most of us who look at Pakistan believe at this point in time (believe) that Pakistan has in the northwest frontier area lost the battle against extremism and terrorism.

“And the consequences … are quite considerable for the United States, for our success in dealing with the insurgency in Afghanistan, stabilizing that country, and of course uprooting the Al Qaeda network and the spread of Islamic extremism in Pakistan,” he said.

“And … the consequences … for Pakistan, its stability, its integrity are really tied up with what happens in that tribal region.”

Congressman Duncan Hunter, the ranking Republican member of the committee, however, noted that Pakistan is committed to the war against terror, has deployed nearly 100,000 troops in the tribal belt, some of them coming off the Indian border, and hundreds of Pakistani troops also have died while fighting the terrorists.

But “there’s been information that I’ve seen to the effect that most of that corps resides in garrison and is not undertaking what one might call aggressive operations,” he added.

Teresita Schaffer, a former US ambassador and now director of the South Asia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told the committee that in the past six months, President Musharraf has been seriously weakened.

And “the major non-religious political figures, in my view, have been diminished; and the US has been publicly involved in the deal-making leading to Pakistan’s next government,” she observed.

“I expect that Musharraf’s election last weekend will eventually be confirmed by the Supreme Court and that legislative elections will be held in January,” she added.

Ambassador Schaffer warned that the government that follows these elections is likely to be an uneasy one. “Musharraf will be one power centre. He believes in unity of command … and is not particularly interested in power-sharing. Both his political party and perhaps the army will be strongly tempted to manipulate the elections to minimise Ms Bhutto’s claim on power,” she said.

“If Bhutto does participate in government, she will strongly defend her turf. And assuming that Musharraf retires from the army, that institution will be under new leadership and will be a distinct power centre, no matter how careful Musharraf has been to promote officers loyal to himself,” she said.

Rice Says Iran 'Lying' About Nukes

MATTHEW LEE
AP
Friday October 12, 2007

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday accused Iran of "lying" about the aim of its nuclear program, saying there's no doubt Tehran wants the capability to produce nuclear weapons and has deceived the U.N.'s atomic watchdog about its intentions.

"There is an Iranian history of obfuscation and, indeed, lying to the IAEA," she said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"There is a history of Iran not answering important questions about what is going on and there is Iran pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to nuclear weapons-grade material," Rice told reporters aboard her plane as she headed to Moscow.

U.S. officials have long accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons behind the facade of a civil atomic energy program, charges that Tehran denies. But Rice's strong words, including the blunt reference to Iranian "lying," come at a critical time in dealing with the matter.

The United States is trying to win Russian support for new U.N. sanctions against Iran but has faced sharp resistance from Moscow, which has nuclear cooperation agreements with Tehran and argues the country should be given more time to come clean on its programs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week there is no proof Tehran is trying to build the bomb. Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are scheduled to see him in Moscow on Friday.

Washington has been pressing for more sanctions since earlier this year.

But last month, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - Britain, China, France the United States and Russia - and Germany agreed with the support of the European Union to hold off on a new sanctions resolution until November to allow negotiations with Iran to continue.

FULL STORY: CLICK HERE

Hillary Confronted on Bilderberg in Oakland

JonesReport.com
October 12, 2007

Members of WeAreChange Oakland confronted Hillary Clinton during a campaign event on her involvement in the secretive Bilderberg group. Clinton snapped quickly away from statements that “We know you’re with Bilderberg, Hillary” and “We know about Roger Ailes and Fox News. Rupert Murdoch’s got your back.”

Clinton made no direct acknowledgment to hearing the statements, but moved on quickly after turning away, as a secret service agent stepped in behind her.

Hillary attended the 2006 Bilderberg meeting in Ottawa, Canada, according to reports from inside the Brookstreet Hotel. Attending the meeting while a New York Senator was in violation of the Logan Act.

Hillary also attended Bilderberg in 1997 at Lake Lanier, Georgia, the only time a first lady has ever attended, and Bill Clinton attended in 1991, just before his election as president.

Activists have confronted Hillary Clinton on her Bilderberg association at least two other times, including during a forum in Las Vegas and at a hotel in New York.

But the Bilderberg kingmakers aren’t the only ones backing Hillary for the whitehouse. Supposedly-conservative Rupert Murdoch, CEO of NewsCorp, Fox News’ parent company, made headlines when he hosted a fundraiser for Clinton and had been reportedly meeting with her weekly.

The International Murdoch Media Smearing Of Ron Paul Begins

Darryl Mason
YOUR NEW REALITY
Friday October 12, 2007

The Rupert Murdoch media in the United States mostly pretends Ron Paul doesn't exist, or simply doesn't matter. As hard a myth that is to maintain, Murdoch is clearly backing Giuliani and Billary and no-one else for the White House in 2008. Like most American elites, Murdoch doesn't care if it's Billary or Giuliani, just as long as it isn't Ron Paul in the White House come 2008.

In Australia, now that Ron Paul's infamy is spreading fast, and his reputation as one of the more credible and interesting Republican candidates is taking root, the Murdoch media has decided to kill off the story of a real presidential underdog before it excites too many journalists down under.

The first shot from Murdoch's Australian media claims that Ron Paul's impressive dominance of internet campaigning is merely the result of a "fake online campaign."

Wait. Here's the full headlines from news.com.au :

Republican Ron Paul In Possible 'Fake Online Campaign'

In the story, journalist Mark Schliebs makes a fistful of accusations of online fraud, based on little more than his own opinion and the strategic use of words like 'possible' and 'may'. If the headline wasn't bad enough, check out the opening paragraph :

A candidate for the US presidency is being buoyed by a massive online campaign that may be a fake grassroots movement organised by party staff.
It gets worse, and far more dubious :
YouTube footage of Texan Republican Congressman Ron Paul, whose candidacy has been overshadowed in the media by competitors Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain, has been viewed by tens of thousands of people in the last week.

As of 11am (AEST) today, a compilation of different clips of Dr Paul was the “Top Rated” video of the past 24 hours.

The clip had been viewed nearly 60,000 times since it was uploaded yesterday.

But it was not the only clip of the Congressman receiving kudos from Youtube users, with another 10 videos appearing in today’s list of the site’s 100 "Top Rated" recordings.

Of the 11 featured clips of Dr Paul, only one user uploaded more than one of them in the last 24 hours.

Just one of the 11 clips in the list was actually featured in today's top 100 "Most Viewed" videos.

Head of Flinders University’s Department of American Studies Don De Bats told NEWS.com.au that it “sounded like” an astroturfing campaign.

Astroturfing is the term used to describe a fake grassroots campaign, where members of an organisation create the illusion that “ordinary people” are behind the movement.

Professor De Bats said that for a relatively unknown candidate like Dr Paul to have so much prominence online was suspicious.

“I would not put any credibility on those results,” Prof De Bats said.

“I find it terrifically surprising and unlikely (that Dr Paul would attract that level of response).”

Earlier this week, the Republican's campaign team issued a press release that said: “Dr Paul's video channel has been viewed 4.5 million times by supporters who embrace his message of freedom and limited government, making him one of the most-watched presidential candidates in internet history.”

Those figures were only based on clips uploaded by one user, RonPaul2008dotcom, who didn’t have any clips in today’s 100 Top Rated list.
What the hell is this guy talking about? Can anyone make sense of this nonsense? The RonPaul2008 channel is an election channel, which every presidential wannabe who is seriously pursuing an online audience also has, including Billary, Giuliani and Barack Obama.

It's an online campaign, so of course Ron Paul supporters or Ron Paul's own office is going to post clips, just as the teams behind Giuliani, Billary and Obama are now also doing.

Similar claims of 'astroturfing' have been made about Ron Paul's extraordinary showing in online polls after Republican debates, where he often heartily trounces higher profile candidates like Rudolph Giuliani. Despite the fact that most major media organisations only allow one vote from each IP address for such polls, the smear campaign continues to claim that Ron Paul staffers, and a small pool of supporters, are stacking the polls.

So when there is clear evidence that Ron Paul is making a deep impression with hundreds of thousands of Americans online, via impressive viewing numbers for videos on YouTube, a Murdoch journo tries to claim that this is merely yet another example of astroturfing?

There's many reasons why it is in the interest of the 'establishment' media to try and discredit Ron Paul every chance they get. Here's one reason why - Ron Paul talks like this about the international Murdoch media campaign to ramp up support for a War On Iran:

"Why don't we just open up the Constitution and read it? You're not allowed to go to war without a declaration of war. Now, as far as fleeting enemies goes, yes-- if there's an imminent attack on us. We've never had that happen to us in 220 years. The idea that Iran could pose an imminent attack on the United States is preposterous. There's no way."

"This is just war propaganda preparing this nation to go to war and spread this war not only into Iraq but into Iran unconstitutionally. It is a road to disaster for us as a nation. It is the road to our financial disaster if we don't read the Constitution once in a while."

No wonder they want to shut him up, and shut him down.


What the Murdoch media journo also failed to point out is how miserable the YouTube viewing numbers, and online poll results, are for presidential wannabes like Giuliani, who is supposed to be the chief Republican contender for the White House, and is "electrifying" the Republican heartland, if you believe what you hear on Fox News.

Tens of millions of Americans spend more than three or four hours online every day, but how many of them are drawn to check out Giuliani videos on YouTube? Not many. This Giuliani YouTube video, where he espouses on one of his key platforms, attracted a measly 370 viewings after a week. The clips where Giuliani scores tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of viewings, are the ones where he and Ron Paul are going at each other during Republican debates.

Here's Giuliani on free trade (94 viewings), on combating internet predators (113 viewings), and on energy independence for the US (120 viewings) - at the time of this blog posting.

But when an anti-war Republican, who personifies the core values of real American conservatism, and who 'courageously speaks the truth', finds a massive online audience who flock to each new video in their hundreds of thousands, it's all supposed to be fake?

If Ron Paul supporters are so easily stacking YouTube viewing numbers, and online polls, then why aren't Giuliani supporters doing the same?

The Australian Murdoch media story on Ron Paul is a beat-up, hack work, nasty and vindictive and a standard example of the kind of insidious propaganda that gets flung at anyone who hits the American heartland talking of changing the status quo of an American in deep, deep trouble.

The Murdoch journalist also failed to mention the biggest Ron Paul story of the last few weeks - the fact that he has managed to raise $5 million in only a few months, with the vast majority of donations coming in small amounts from tens of thousands of supporters, as opposed to Giuliani who gets a handful of checks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each instead.

The 'Fake Online Campaign' story has gone up on News Limited's central media website for Australia, and it is likely to filter out into city newspapers across the country tomorrow, and also become fodder for talk back radio. Remember that Rupert Murdoch controls 70% of all Australian newspapers. That's some distribution system for propaganda like the Schliebs story.

The lies propagated by Mark Schliebs will stick, and the rest of the Australian media will follow the Murdoch media line : that Ron Paul's remarkable grassroots support base is nothing more than a fake campaign, organised by his staffers, instead of a revolutionary change to the way Americans elect their presidents, or at least hear what they have to say and what they stand for.

Another voice of rational American politics, which could help change the blood-stained international reputation of the United States, has been maligned, and discredited in Australia today.

If more Australians, Europeans, Asians and Russians heard what Ron Paul had to say, the horrific international poll results showing anti-American dissent is soaring across the world might level off a bit.

This Ron Paul video (and remember this is a video clip about politics, not Paris Hilton nude or skateboarding dogs) has been viewed an extraordinary 472,000 times.

Astroturfing? They wish.

More than 2,000 dead in US during arrests in three years: report

AFP
Friday October 12, 2007

More than 2,000 people died in the United States during arrests between 2003 and 2005, according to data published by the Department of Justice for the first time Thursday.

As many as 54 percent were killed by police, 12 percent died because of a drug or alcohol overdose, 11 percent committed suicide, seven percent succumbed to accidents and five percent died due to illnesses or natural causes, according to statistics from 47 US states, and the US federal capital city, released in accordance with a 2000 law.

By comparison, over the same period of time, security agencies carried out more than 41 million arrests, a number that does not include detentions as a result of traffic violations.

At the same time, more than 174,000 police officers were assaulted, 380 were killed, 41 percent of them in the course of a crime, the statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed.

Among the 1,095 suspects killed by police and other security forces, 80 percent were armed, 62 percent threatened police officers, 36 percent made an attempt to escape, and 18 percent were under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

About 45 percent of those killed were white, 30 percent were black and 20 percent were Hispanics.

According to the statistics, almost all succumbed to gunfire, while 17 were killed by "Taser" stunguns.

Among the 234 suspects who committed suicide, more than half were detained for violent crimes. Two-thirds killed themselves with a firearm in the course of their arrest. Meanwhile, others hanged themselves in detention cells.

Miami Jury Hears Patsy Oaths Led by FBI Informant

CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press
October 11, 2007

MIAMI (AP) — A videotaped pledge of allegiance to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden by seven men accused of plotting terror attacks on U.S. soil was played Thursday for jurors, who saw each man repeat the oath, give his name and then break into applause.

The oath was led by an FBI informant, Elie Assad, who was posing as an al-Qaida operative named Mohammed supposedly sent to help the group with its purported plot to destroy Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI buildings in several cities to spark an insurrection.

“We’ll be doing, in the future, a great job together,” Assad tells the men after administering the oath at a warehouse in Miami’s impoverished Liberty City neighborhood. The warehouse had been supplied by the FBI and was wired for video and audio recording.

“I’m just happy,” says the alleged ringleader, Narseal Batiste, after the ceremony.

Among the oath’s words repeated by all the so-called “Liberty City Seven” are “to be a loyalist to the path of holy war and to my brothers.” Assad told the group at the outset he was authorized to give the oath as a representative of bin Laden.

The ceremony took place March 16, 2006, and is critical to the prosecution’s charges that the group conspired to provide support to al-Qaida and to levy war against the United States. Each of the seven faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

Earlier Thursday, Assad testified that Batiste provided a detailed list of gear the group wanted, including machine guns, bulletproof vests, sport utility vehicles, motorcycles and $50,000 in cash. He said Batiste sought dynamite to destroy the 110-story Sears Tower.

“He told me he was a professional, and he knows how to build buildings, and he knows how to take them down,” Assad testified.

Attorneys for Batiste and the others have said they never intended to mount a terrorist attack and that they went along with the FBI informants only to attempt to extort money from them. Their trial is expected to last up to two more months.

Assad’s testimony marked the first public appearance by the key prosecution witness. Assad described himself as a Lebanese national of Syrian descent who speaks six languages. He said he was enlisted by the FBI to act as an al-Qaida emissary after agents were tipped in fall 2005 that Batiste was allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Assad testified that Batiste gave him a handwritten, three-page list of requested supplies at a meeting Dec. 29, 2005, including the weaponry, $50,000 in cash, binoculars, dirt bikes, street motorcycles, SUVs and two large recreational vehicles capable of holding his entire group.

Batiste also told Assad he had access to private land in Louisiana and Alabama, where he hoped to use these supplies to train his “soldiers” there so they could mount a guerrilla war to be triggered by the toppling of the Sears Tower.

“I’m really serious about everything I told you,” Batiste said in one recorded conversation. “There’s only one government - and that’s the government of Islam.”

Assad said he gave the list to the FBI and ultimately supplied only military-style boots and a cell phone to Batiste. “It’s not safe to give him machine guns,” Assad said.

Prosecutors also played a recording of a Jan. 28, 2006, meeting of Assad, the other informant and Batiste in the Florida Keys. The two informants had been unexpectedly driven there from Miami amid increasing suspicions among Batiste’s group that they might be working for the FBI, prosecutors said.

During the meeting, held in a tent in the town of Islamorada, Batiste notes that the Bush administration has become increasingly concerned about homegrown terrorist cells and that “it would have been easy” for Assad to have recorded their previous talks - which, in fact, he did.

“You’ve got to understand, in this country right now, right now, there are spies everywhere,” Batiste said on the recording.

Assad assured Batiste that he was a legitimate al-Qaida representative and the two informants were driven back to Miami unharmed.

An Open Letter to the Ron Paul Faithful

CNBC
Allen Wastler

Dear folks,

You guys are good. Real good. You are truly a force on World Wide Web and I tip my hat to you.

That's based on my first hand experience of your work regarding our CNBC Republican candidate debate. After the debate, we put up a poll on our Web site asking who readers thought won the debate. You guys flooded it.

Now these Internet polls are admittedly unscientific and subject to hacking. In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less. The cyber equivalent of asking the room for a show of hands on a certain question.

So there was our after-debate poll. The numbers grew ... 7,000-plus votes after a couple of hours ... and Ron Paul was at 75%.

Now Paul is a fine gentleman with some substantial backing and, by the way, was a dynamic presence throughout the debate , but I haven't seen him pull those kind of numbers in any "legit" poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.

The next day, our email basket was flooded with Ron Paul support messages. And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can't help but admire that.

But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest "show of hands" -- it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn't our intention and certainly doesn't serve our readers ... at least those who aren't already in the Ron Paul camp.

Some of you Ron Paul fans take issue with my decision to take the poll down. Fine. When a well-organized and committed "few" can throw the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of "the many," I get a little worried. I'd take it down again.

Sincerely,

Allen Wastler
Managing Editor, CNBC.com
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Amazing....