The ARTICLE Thread

[KoolAid]

National Security Agency: Giving Out U.S. Names
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.
By Mark Hosenball
The National Security Agency is not supposed to target Americans; when a U.S. citizen's name comes up in an NSA "intercept," the agency routinely minimizes dissemination of the info by masking the name before it distributes the report to other U.S. agencies.
But it's now clear the agency disseminates thousands of U.S. names. U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton told a Senate confirmation hearing he had requested that U.S. names be unmasked from NSA intercepts on a handful of occasions; the State Department said he had made 10 such requests since 2001, and that the department as a whole had made 400 similar requests over the same period. But evidence is emerging that NSA regularly supplies uncensored intercepts, including named Americans, to other agencies far more often than even many top intel officials knew.
According to information obtained by NEWSWEEK, since January 2004 NSA received—and fulfilled—between 3,000 and 3, 500 requests from other agencies to supply the names of U.S. citizens and officials (and citizens of other countries that help NSA eavesdrop around the world, including Britain, Canada and Australia) that initially were deleted from raw intercept reports.
Sources say the number of names disclosed by NSA to other agencies during this period is more than 10,000. About one third of such disclosures were made to officials at the policymaking level; most of the rest were disclosed to other intel agencies and, perhaps surprisingly, only a small proportion to law-enforcement agencies. Civil libertarians expressed dismay at the numbers.
An official familiar with NSA procedures insisted the agency maintains careful logs of all requests for U.S. names and doles out such info only after agency officials are satisfied "that the requester needs the information [and that it's] necessary to understand the foreign intelligence or assess its importance."

[KoolAid]

Defending Spy Program, General Reveals Shaky Grip on 4th Amendment
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.

NEW YORK The former national director of the National Security Agency, in an appearance today before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., today, appeared to be unfamiliar with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when pressed by a reporter with Knight Ridder's Washington office -- despite his claims that he was actually something of an expert on it.

General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of National Intelligence with the Office of National Intelligence, talked with reporters about the current controversy surrounding the National Security Agency's warrantless monitoring of communications of suspected al Qaeda terrorists. Hayden has been in this position since last April, but was NSA director when the NSA monitoring program began in 2001.
As the last journalist to get in a question, Jonathan Landay, a well-regarded investigative reporter for Knight Ridder, noted that Gen. Hayden repeatedly referred to the Fourth Amendment's search standard of "reasonableness" without mentioning that it also demands "probable cause." Hayden seemed to deny that the amendment included any such thing, or was simply ignoring it.
Here is the exchange, along with the entire Fourth Amendment at the end.
***
QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --
GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: But the --
GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.
QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.
GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: But does it not say probable --
GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --
QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --
GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause."
And so what many people believe -- and I'd like you to respond to this -- is that what you've actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place of probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?
GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn't craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.
Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me -- and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable.
***
Here's the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. "
A new Gallup poll released Monday showed that 51% of Americans said the administration was wrong to intercept conversations involving a party inside the U.S. without a warrant. In response to another question, 58% said they support the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the program.

[KoolAid]

2 groups sue U.S. over domestic surveillance
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.
NEW YORK -- Two lawsuits were filed Tuesday in federal court that seek to end President Bush's electronic eavesdropping program, saying it is illegal and exceeds his constitutional powers.

The lawsuits--one filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the other in Detroit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups--say the program bypasses safeguards in a 1978 law requiring court approval of electronic monitoring.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents hundreds of men held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, must now audit old communications to determine whether "anything was disclosed that might undermine our representation of our clients," said Bill Goodman, the center's legal director.
The Detroit lawsuit said the program has impaired plaintiffs' ability to gather information from sources abroad.
A spokesman for the Justice Department disputed the lawsuits' assertions.
"We believe these cases are without merit and plan to vigorously defend against the charges," Brian Roehrkasse said

[KoolAid]

Senate panel rejects bid for NSA inquiry To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.
By David Morgan
Senate Republicans on Tuesday agreed to expand oversight of President George W. Bush's domestic spying program but rejected Democratic pressure for a broad inquiry into eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.
Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record) of Kansas, Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the committee voted to create a new seven-member subcommittee that would scrutinize the eavesdropping under a plan approved by the White House.
The Bush administration was criticized by rights groups, Democrats and some Republicans for the surveillance program. It started after the September 11 attacks and allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant on Americans' international phone and e-mail communications while in pursuit of al Qaeda.
In addition, the White House has begun discussions with several Republican lawmakers on legislative language that could further regulate the program.
"I believe the president is prepared to sign a bill once the Congress does work its will," Roberts told reporters after a closed-door committee meeting.
"When it comes to national security, I prefer accommodation over confrontation whenever possible. We should fight the enemy. We should not fight each other."
Four Senate Republicans, all critics of the program, proposed a plan that would authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant for 45 days but require the White House to justify every decision to continue beyond that timeframe.
The legislative proposal, titled the Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006, also would force the eavesdropping program to cease after five years unless renewed by Congress.
Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio, one of the four Republicans pressing for legislation, said the proposal was backed by Roberts and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and accepted "in broad concept" by the White House.
DEMOCRATIC COMPLAINTS
But the Republican-controlled intelligence panel voted down a Democratic proposal for a complete investigation into the
surveillance by the National Security Agency by the full 15-member intelligence committee. Democrats complained that they had been shut out of discussions with the White House that led to the agreement.
"The committee, to put it bluntly, is basically under the control of the White House through its chairman," said a visibly frustrated Sen. John Rockefeller (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee.
Republicans rejected suggestions that the intelligence panel was retreating from its oversight duties on the NSA program. "The scope of the subcommittee's purview will be broad, wide, deep," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska.
The committee's decision came five days after the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence agreed on a new plan to pursue oversight of the NSA program through a subcommittee that has not yet been identified.
The White House has not agreed to the new House oversight plan. Up to now, White House officials have allowed full details of the NSA program to be shared only with eight members of Congress, including the Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats of the intelligence panels in both House and Senate.
The House agreement appeared to undermine efforts by Democrats and some Republicans to seek an inquiry by the full House intelligence committee.
The White House contends that Bush has the constitutional authority to order the eavesdropping as commander-in-chief, as well as congressional approval in the form of an authorization for use of military force against al Qaeda that lawmakers enacted on September 14, 2001.
Democrats and some Republicans contend the authorization was not meant to cover warrantless domestic spying and say the NSA program may violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain warrants for all electronic eavesdropping inside the United States.

[KoolAid]

Domestic Military Intelligence Is Back
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.
Code Name of the Week: Cornerstone

Yesterday, Walter Pincus To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. in The Washington Post about the Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), certainly one of the more mysterious Pentagon agencies, and one that is at the center of the Defense Department's expanded programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States.

[KoolAid]

NSA just one of many federal agencies spying on Americans
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.
Spying on Americans by the super-secret National Security Agency is not only more widespread than President George W. Bush admits but is part of a concentrated, government-wide effort to gather and catalog information on U.S. citizens, sources close to the administration say.

Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
“It’s a total effort to build dossiers on as many Americans as possible,” says a former NSA agent who quit in disgust over use of the agency to spy on Americans. “We’re no longer in the business of tracking our enemies. We’re spying on everyday Americans.”
“It's really obvious to me that it's a look-at-everything type program,” says cryptology expert Bruce Schneier.
Schneier says he suspects that the NSA is turning its massive spy satellites inward on the United States and intentionally gathering vast streams of raw data from many more people than disclosed to date — potentially including all e-mails and phone calls within the United States.
But the NSA spying is just the tip of the iceberg.
Although supposedly killed by Congress more than 18 months ago, the Defense Advance Project Research Agency’s Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) system, formerly called the “Total Information Awareness” program, is alive and well and collecting data in real time on Americans at a computer center located at 3801 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia.
The system, set up by retired admiral John Poindexter, once convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, compiles financial, travel and other data on the day-to-day activities of Americans and then runs that data through a computer model to look for patterns that the agency deems “terrorist-related behavior.”
Poindexter admits the program was quietly moved into the Pentagon’s “black bag” program where it does escapes Congressional oversight.
“TIA builds a profile of every American who travels, has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person’s spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”
Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.
Intelligence pros call the process “data mining” and that is something the NSA excels at as well says former NSA signals intelligence analyst Russell Tice.
"The technology exists," says Tice, who left the NSA earlier this year.
"Say Aunt Molly in Oklahoma calls her niece at an Army base in Germany and says, 'Isn't it horrible about those terrorists and September 11th,'" Tice told the Atlanta Constitution recently. “That conversation would not only be captured by NSA satellites listening in on Germany — which is legal — but flagged and listened to by NSA analysts and possibly transcribed for further investigation. All you would have to do is move the vacuum cleaner a little to the left and begin sucking up the other end of that conversation. You move it a little more and you could be picking up everything people are saying from California to New York."
The Pentagon has built a massive database of Americans it considers threats, including members of antiwar groups, peace activists and writers opposed to the war in Iraq. Pentagon officials now claim they are “reviewing the files” to see if the information is necessary to the “war on terrorism.”
“Given the military's legacy of privacy abuses, such vague assurances are cold comfort,” says Gene Healy, senior editor of the CATO Institute in Washington.
“During World War I, concerns about German saboteurs led to unrestrained domestic spying by U.S. Army intelligence operatives,” says Healy. “Army spies were given free reign to gather information on potential subversives, and were often empowered to make arrests as special police officers. Occasionally, they carried false identification as employees of public utilities to allow them, as the chief intelligence officer for the Western Department put it, ‘to enter offices or residences of suspects gracefully, and thereby obtain data.’”
“There's a long and troubling history of military surveillance in this country,” Healy adds. “That history suggests that we should loathe allowing the Pentagon access to our personal information.”
In her book Army Surveillance in America, historian Joan M. Jensen noted, “What began as a system to protect the government from enemy agents became a vast surveillance system to watch civilians who violated no law but who objected to wartime policies or to the war itself.”
“It’s a fucking nightmare,” says a Congressional aide who recently obtained information on the program for his boss but asked not to be identified because he fears retaliation from the Bush administration. “We’re collecting more information on Americans than on real enemies of our country.”
Sen. John Rockefeller says he raised concerns more than two years ago about increased spying on Americans but – as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee – could not share that concern with colleagues.
"For the last few days, I have witnessed the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney-General repeatedly misrepresent the facts," Rockefeller said last week. When he was first briefed about the activity in 2003, we sent a handwritten note to Vice President Dick Cheney outlining his concerns.
"I am retaining a copy of this letter in a sealed envelope in the secure spaces of the Senate intelligence committee to ensure that I have a record of this communication," Rockefeller told Cheney. However, Rockefeller says now, “my concerns were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues.”
Missouri Congressman William Clay worries that the Bush Adminstration is skirting the law by letting private contractors handle the data mining.
"The agencies involved in data mining are trying to skirt the Privacy Act by claiming that they hold no data," said Clay. Instead, they use private companies to maintain and sift through the data, he said.
"Technically, that gets them out from under the Privacy Act," he said. "Ethically, it does not."

[KoolAid]

FBI Keeps Watch on Activists
Antiwar, other groups are monitored to curb violence, not because of ideology, agency says.
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.
DENVER — The FBI, while waging a highly publicized war against terrorism, has spent resources gathering information on antiwar and environmental protesters and on activists who feed vegetarian meals to the homeless, the agency's internal memos show.
For years, the FBI's definition of terrorism has included violence against property, such as the window-smashing during the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. That definition has led FBI investigations to online discussion boards, organizing meetings and demonstrations of a wide range of activist groups. Officials say that international terrorists pose the greatest threat to the nation but that they cannot ignore crimes committed by some activists.
"It's one thing to express an idea or such, but when you commit acts of violence in support of that activity, that's where our interest comes in," said FBI spokesman Bill Carter in Washington.
He stressed that the agency targeted individuals who committed crimes and did not single out groups for ideological reasons. He cited the recent arrest of environmental activists accused of firebombing an unfinished ski resort in Vail. "People can get hurt," Carter said. "Businesses can be ruined."
The FBI's encounters with activists are described in hundreds of pages of documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act after agents visited several activists before the 2004 political conventions. Details have steadily trickled out over the last year, but newly released documents provide a fuller view of some FBI probes.
"Any definition of terrorism that would include someone throwing a bottle or rock through a window during an antiwar demonstration is dangerously overbroad," ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner said. "The FBI will have its hands full pursuing antiwar groups instead of truly dangerous organizations."
ACLU attorneys say most violence during demonstrations is minor and is better handled by local police than federal counterterrorism agents. They say the FBI, which spied on antiwar and civil rights leaders during the 1960s, appears to be investigating activists solely for opposing the government.
"They don't know where Osama bin Laden is, but they're spending money watching people like me," said environmental activist Kirsten Atkins. Her license plate number showed up in an FBI terrorism file after she attended a protest against the lumber industry in Colorado Springs in 2002.
ACLU attorneys acknowledge that the FBI memos are heavily redacted and contain incomplete portraits of some cases. Still, the attorneys say, the documents show that the FBI has monitored groups that were not suspected of any crime.
"It certainly seems they're casting a net much more widely than would be necessary to thwart something like the blowing up of the Oklahoma City federal building," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado.
FBI officials respond that there is nothing improper about agents attending a meeting or demonstration.
"We have to be able to go out and look at things; we have to be able to conduct an investigation," said William J. Crowley, a spokesman for the FBI in Pittsburgh. His field office filed a report — released by the ACLU this month — in which an agent described photographing Pittsburgh activists who were handing out fliers for a war protest. The report mentioned no potential violence or crimes.
Crowley said his office had been looking for a certain person in that case and had closed the file when it realized the suspect was not among those handing out the leaflets.
The murky connection that the federal government makes between some left-wing activist groups and terrorism was illustrated in a Justice Department presentation to a college law class this month.
An FBI counterterrorism official showed the class, at the University of Texas in Austin, 35 slides listing militia, neo-Nazi and Islamist groups. Senior Special Agent Charles Rasner said one slide, labeled "Anarchism," was a federal analyst's list of groups that people intent on terrorism might associate with.
The list included Food Not Bombs, which mainly serves vegetarian food to homeless people, and — with a question mark next to it — Indymedia, a collective that publishes what it calls radical journalism online. Both groups are among the numerous organizations affiliated with anarchists and anti-globalization protests, where there has been some violence.
Elizabeth Wagoner said she was one of the few students who objected to the groups' inclusion on the list. "My friends do Indymedia," she said. "My friends aren't terrorists."
Rasner said that he'd never heard of the two groups before and didn't mean to condemn them. But he added that it made sense to worry about violent people emerging from anarchist networks — "Any group can have somebody that goes south."
Denver, where the ACLU fought a lengthy court battle with local police over its spying on political groups, has the most extensive records of encounters between the FBI and activists. Documents obtained by the ACLU there revealed how agents monitored the lumber industry demonstration, an antiwar march and an anarchist group that activists say was never formed.
In June 2002, environmental activists protested the annual meeting of the North American Wholesale Lumber Assn. in Colorado Springs. An FBI memo justified opening an inquiry into the protest because an activist training camp was to be held on "nonviolent methods of forest defense … security culture, street theater and banner making."
About 30 to 40 people attended the protest; three were arrested for trespassing while hanging a political banner. Colorado Springs police faxed the FBI a three-page list of demonstrators' license plate numbers.
In a recent interview, Denver FBI spokeswoman Monique R. Kelso first said the training camp and protest would not have been enough to merit an anti-terrorism inquiry. But later she said that she wasn't familiar with the details of the case and that the FBI opened cases when there was possible criminal activity.
The FBI's Denver office also monitored a February 2003 antiwar demonstration in Colorado Springs. A bureau memo said that activists planned to block streets and an Air Force base entrance, and that a more "radical" faction had announced online that it would meet near the demonstration but break away for unspecified purposes. The memo said an agent would watch the breakaway group and report to local police and FBI agents monitoring the march.
FBI officials say there was additional information, which they cannot disclose, that justified a terrorism investigation of that protest. They stress that they have to be aggressive in investigating terrorism in the post-Sept. 11 world.
"There's a lot of responsibility on the FBI," said Joe Airey, head of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Denver. "We have a real obligation to make sure there are no additional terrorist acts on this soil."
Denver-area activists said that since the surveillance documents became public, there had been a subtle chill, with some people avoiding protests for fear of ending up in an FBI file. Some activists think the FBI has been watching their groups to intimidate them.
"We've kind of gathered up our skirts and pulled in," said Sarah Bardwell, who works for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group. Along with some activist roommates, she has also volunteered for Food Not Bombs.
"In our house, we don't talk about politics anymore," Bardwell said. "There's been a toning down of everything we do."
That change came after six FBI agents and Denver police officers visited her house in July 2004.
Months earlier, the FBI had obtained a flier advertising a meeting near Bardwell's house to form a chapter of Anarchist Black Cross. That movement has two wings; one, according to the FBI, has been associated with "some of the most violent left-wing groups of the past 40 years."
The organizer of the meeting, Dawn Rewolinski, said the prospective chapter would have been part of the movement's other wing, which writes letters to prisoners. The chapter was never established, Rewolinski said. "All we did is eat some cookies and talk about various prisoners and realize we didn't have enough money for a P.O. box."
Nonetheless, FBI investigators believed a Denver chapter had been launched. They discovered that Anarchist Black Cross was affiliated with Food Not Bombs, and authorities ended up on Bardwell's doorstep, asking about the anarchists' plans for protests at the upcoming Democratic and Republican national conventions.
Kelso, the FBI spokeswoman, said there were documents that could not be released to the ACLU that showed good reasons for the government's concern. She dismissed the idea that agents were spying on activists for political reasons.
"We don't have enough agents," Kelso said, "to go out there to monitor and surveil innocent people."

[KoolAid]

The price of domestic spying Infiltrated by feds, antiwar group turns on photographer
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.
MIAMI -- The first time federal agents infiltrated the Broward Antiwar Coalition was in July 2003, two months before a planned protest against President George W. Bush, according to one member of the South Florida activist group.
The second time was in September 2003, two months before the infamous Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in downtown Miami, which resulted in several lawsuits against the Miami Police Department for using excessive force against protesters.
And the third time was less than a year ago, just days before the Organization of American States meeting in downtown Fort Lauderdale, said Ray Del Papa, one of the original members of the activist group.
Each time, it was a different person who had joined their group or befriended one of its members, asking prying questions and knowing just a little too much personal information about the activists. Each time, the individual seemed to contradict statements they had made about themselves and their background. And each time, that person would disappear within a few months, never to be heard from again.
So last month, when NBC revealed that the federal government had been spying on antiwar groups around the country, including several in South Florida, it confirmed what Broward Antiwar Coalition members had suspected for more than two years: that Big Brother had been watching all along.
And it left them with a simmering rage -- and paranoia from being spied upon -- that exploded on the streets of Miami earlier this month when one of its members allegedly attacked a photojournalist, landing the activist in jail. The incident revealed the untold price of domestic surveillance: that people who feel they are being spied upon are liable to turn on each other.
Kate Healey, 44, was charged with one count of misdemeanor battery. She declined to be interviewed for this article.
Photographer attacked on suspicion of surveillance
Ray Del Papa, a member of the Broward Antiwar Coalition, accuses Danny Hammontree, the photographer of this shot, of being an FBI informant.
The incident began during a demonstration against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Jan. 9 in downtown Miami. Members of the Broward Antiwar Coalition were among several groups protesting against Alito. As usual, a number of counter-protesters, including a group of pro-lifers, had shown up to voice their opposition to the activist groups.
Photojournalist Danny Hammontree said he was taking pictures of a screaming argument between an anti-Alito protester and a pro-life woman waving a Bible, when the anti-Alito woman turned to him and demanded: "Who the fuck are you?"
Hammontree told her he was a freelancer who specializes in shooting protests. The woman, later identified as Healey, told him he was not allowed to take her photo because it was against the law, he said.
"I said, 'I have as much right to photograph you as you have to be here protesting,'" he said.
"Then she attacked me."
Hammontree said that Healey stormed up to him as he was holding the camera up to his face and shoved the lens hard into his eye.
"Then she started punching me in the chest and body," he said. "It didn't really hurt me. It was really more of a threat against my equipment than against me."
Watching the whole incident unravel was a member of Miami's Civilian Investigative Panel, a watchdog group that was established to monitor the Miami Police Department, after a series of questionable police shootings on civilians that eventually landed several cops in jail.
"A lady from the CIP came and pulled her off me," Hammontree said.
Dean Lautermilch, another South Florida photojournalist who specializes in protests, said Healey initially confronted him before turning her anger towards Hammontree.
"She was screaming at one of the Christians and during a pause, I tapped her on the shoulder and said hello," he said. "Then she started screaming at me, 'Don't you understand, we got infiltrated by the FBI. We don't know who to trust anymore.'
"Danny then took a photo and she turned on him."
After taking statements from witnesses, police asked Hammontree if he wanted to press charges against Healey, which he did.
"I did it out of principle because I want them to know that in the future, I'm not going to tolerate them attacking me," he said. "Especially with all my equipment. I work for myself so I don't have a company to replace my camera gear."
Suspicion festers among group members
Meanwhile, Del Papa, who was furious at watching one of his fellow group members arrested, accused Hammontree and Lautermilch of being spies for the FBI.
"He was getting all crazy, the cop had to hold him back," Hammontree said. "He was saying, 'I know you guys are with the FBI' or some crazy shit like that. So I took his photo."
Del Papa said he is suspicious of Lautermilch because of an incident last year when the photojournalist refused to photograph another Broward Antiwar Coalition member getting arrested during a protest against the Central America Free Trade Agreement in July 2004.
"He tries to tell me he is exercising his right to take photographs, but when it comes to taking a picture of one of our guys getting arrested, he refuses," Del Papa said. "And he likes to take a lot of portrait shots, real close up photos of our faces. If you're photographing a protest, why do you need portraits?"
Lautermilch said Ft. Lauderdale Police intimidated him and Hammontree from taking the photo of the arrest that day.
"It was clear from their body language that if I took that photo, they would have come after me," he said. "We felt terrible and we apologized several times, but I'm not going to lose $5,000 of Nikon equipment over the incident that happened in the tunnel."
Christian Minaya, 25, said he was initially arrested for "prowling", even though he was on a public sidewalk. That charge was later reduced to trespassing. Minaya said he does not suspect the photographers of being informants.
"I've seen the cops confiscate cameras so that is probably why they wouldn't take the photo," he said.
Both photographers laughed at the idea that they are FBI informants.
"I've never even gone to any of their meetings," Lautermilch said, adding that he takes portrait shots because that is his photography style. "I always try to make them look good."
Hammontree said that he is likely to have his own FBI file because he grew up in a hippy commune.
"The whole irony is that I'm on their side," Hammontree said. "I am antiwar and anti-Bush. But I'm against anyone who is going to attack me for taking their photo."
While Hammontree and Lautermilch were photographing protesters during the anti-Alito rally, members of the Broward Antiwar Coalition were also photographing people whom they believed to be undercover cops.
"There were like four undercover police officers there," said Paul Lefrak, one of the founding members of the Broward Antiwar Coalition.
"We go up and photograph them. They're always these lone, buff guys, standing in the crowd, looking around. They try to avoid getting photographed. We tell them we just want their photograph."
Lefrak said he did not witness the incident between Healey and the photojournalists, but he pleaded with Hammontree to drop the charges. Lefrak is fully aware the group has been infiltrated in the past, but would not go as far as to associate either of the two photographers with the FBI.
"I would only make an accusation of someone being a cop or an informant if I had strong evidence," he said. "But I'm not going to say I will vouch for (Lautermilch). It's a question mark."
Group was infiltrated three times
In the past, the infiltrators were usually more obvious.
For example, the first time the group was infiltrated was in 2003, when Del Papa was befriended by a new employee at his job in a hobby store.
"He would come in and work on Saturdays. He was an active duty officer stationed in Miami. And he knew a lot of stuff about me. What my interests were, people I associated with outside of politics.
"On his first day, he drops the name of a close friend of mine who lives in Baltimore. That was a red flag."
And as they got to know each other, the man kept prying into events that Del Papa attended with the Broward Antiwar Coalition.
"He told me he was a sympathizer to the cause and that his wife is a socialist," Del Papa said.
Del Papa, who is a professional model builder, said the man claimed to be a model aficionado.
"But as we started working together, I realized the man didn't know a whole lot about the hobby," Del Papa said. "I never trusted him. I always kept him at a distance."
Two months later, after the man stopped showing up to work, never to be heard from again, another man started showing up at the group's meetings. On Nov. 11, during the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami, the man showed up with a woman they had never seen before.
"They were dressed in Black Bloc attire, but he was wearing Nikes," Del Papa said. "Nobody in the Black Bloc wears Nikes. And he said he was from Pittsburgh, but when I asked him about Pittsburgh, his knowledge was very limited.'
Not surprisingly, the man and the women disappeared after the FTAA protest.
Just last year, in the days leading to the protest against American States meeting in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Del Papa spoke on phone to another member about the need for a medic at the protest. Less than 24 hours later, a woman showed up out of the blue at a group meeting, claiming to be a medic.
On the day of the protest, the woman organized a group of young people to plant themselves in front of the police. The youths sat down less than 15 feet from a group of police officers, who were fully dressed in riot gear.
"It was 4 p.m. and we were supposed to disperse at 5 p.m. because that was when the permit was going to expire," he said. "We weren't sure if the kids were going to disperse and we didn't want to give the cops an excuse to do what they did in Miami."
They managed to get the young people to stand up before the 5 p.m. deadline without incident. The woman never returned.
Lefrak said the Broward Antiwar Coalition is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights against the federal government over the spying.
"To me, it just shows that anytime the government resorts to oppression against popular movements, it shows they fear the mass movement," Lefrak said. "That is something that can encourage us. And we're not afraid of it. We will continue to do our part."

[KoolAid]

Okay, Adam, you SO cannot plan the wedding...

ROME, Georgia (Reuters) - A young man's plan to propose to his girlfriend on a small chartered plane almost ended in disaster when the plane crashed and the engagement ring was lost in the wreckage.
Adam Sutton, 19, told Erika Brussee, 18, they were going on a date to the movies but instead took her to the airport in Rome, a town in northwest Georgia, for a chartered flight on Friday, according to the WSB-TV Web site.
The plan was for family members to hold up a large sign on the ground with the words "will you marry me" on it. But Brussee only saw the word "marry" because part of the sign was obscured before the plane, flying slowly at low altitude, stalled and crashed on the tarmac at Rome's airport.
The couple were not seriously hurt, Mike Mathews, airport manager at Richard B. Russell Regional Airport, told Reuters on Monday.
Brussee finally said "yes" to the proposal in the ambulance, Mathews said, but Sutton wasn't able to give her the ring. Only the ring's box could be found after the crash.
The plane's pilot was knocked unconscious by the crash and Sutton had to pull him from the plane.

[KoolAid]

Missile falls off truck onto New York highway

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A missile fell off a truck and onto a New York highway on Friday, but the weapon did not have a warhead and posed no danger, police said.
WCBS radio reported it was a Tomahawk cruise missile. Police and fire department officials could not confirm that.
The cargo came loose when the truck carrying it collided with another truck on a motorway in the Bronx.
"It was a military-type missile but it was inert. There was no danger and no one was harmed," a police spokesman said.

[KoolAid]

Toy hydrogen-powered car offers glimpse of future




Monday, July 24, 2006

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- It's a dream that's been pursued for years by governments, energy companies and automakers so far without success: Mass-producing affordable hydrogen-powered cars that spew just clean water from their tailpipes.
So Shanghai's Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies decided to start small. Really small.
This month, it will begin sales of a tiny hydrogen fuel-cell car, complete with its own miniature solar-powered refueling station. The toy is a step toward introducing the technology to the public and making it commercially viable.
"Public awareness and education are the first steps toward commercialization," said Horizon founder Taras Wankewycz, 32. "We want to make sure this technology gets adapted globally."
Automakers and energy companies view hydrogen fuel cells as a promising technology that could wean the world from its addiction to crude oil. But it's expensive and technological hurdles remain despite billions of dollars that have been poured into research.
There's the cost and challenge of building fuel cells that convert hydrogen to electricity, and the question of how to cleanly generate the gas and distribute it to yet-to-be built fueling stations. Though prototype hydrogen cars exist, they're far from practical or affordable.
Horizon's H-Racer and fueling station solve those problems on a very small scale. The price: $80 for the set.
The toy's fuel cell, like those envisioned for real cars, relies on an electrochemical reaction to generate the current that powers the gadget's electric motor. Unlike a gas-powered internal combustion engine, the only byproducts are electricity, heat and water.
The fuel is supplied by its alarm clock-sized refueling station. A small electric current, generated by the solar cells, extracts hydrogen from water. (A battery backup is available for cloudy days.)
When the vehicle is hooked up to the refueling station, a balloon inside the 6-inch long car slowly fills.
With the flip of a switch, the car takes off and runs for 4 minutes on a full tank. The gas never ignites -- and any would-be recreators of the Hindenburg disaster are likely to be disappointed by the toy's negligible amount of the gas.
Horizon has bigger plans for the technology. Wankewycz said it's working on ways to make fuel cells more efficient, so that they can be used to power cell phones and laptop computers, and eventually vehicles and households.
Still, what works for a toy isn't close to being ready for full-size cars. For one, it's extremely expensive, said Daniel Nocera, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemistry professor and one of the world's leading researchers in exploring how sunlight can be used to extract hydrogen from water.
"Technologies exist to split water with solar cells," he said. "It's just not market-viable yet. ... To say that it's going to be upscaled or commercialized for an energy society, that's a leap of faith for me."
Still, he admires Horizon's raising awareness about alternative energies through a toy.
"It's a great message to send," he said.
At Horizon's headquarters on the top floor of a nondescript warehouse-type building in a bleak suburban district of Shanghai, Wankewycz and former Eastman Chemical Co. colleague George Gu demonstrated prototypes of a hydrogen-powered electric bicycle and a golf caddy they are converting from lead acid batteries to hydrogen power.
"We're working on the smaller things until the infrastructure is ready," he says.
Unlike the solar-powered toy, the bike and caddy rely on hydrogen extracted from metal hydride canisters. It generates more gas, but it's less environmentally friendly than the technique used for the H-Racer.
In other rooms, two women assemble fuel cells using a customized machine while researchers work on improving the efficiency of Horizon's fuel cell "stacks" -- bigger blocks of fuel cells intended for commercial use.
Wankewycz, who was born in France but raised in California, says the company has raised about $5.5 million from venture capitalist investors since it was founded in 2003. Horizon's revenues in 2005 were $170,000 but are forecast to exceed $3 million this year, the company said.
Bigger fuel cell companies like Canada's Ballard Power Systems are working with governments in Europe, the United States and large Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai to build fuel-cell demonstration programs for buses and other public transport.
Horizon envisions neighborhood systems of small shops providing refills for small hydrogen canisters to families, much as they now sell tanks of liquid petroleum gas or propane for stoves and heaters. The canisters could be used to power scooters or small, electric cars suitable for short jaunts, Wankewycz said.
Horizon also is selling thousands of educational science kits that retail for about $50, and it's marketing fuel cell stacks for research purposes. It also hopes to commercialize its fuel cell technology for short-term emergency use, such as powering cell phones in a disaster.
"As soon as we are able to do something, we sell it," Wankewycz says. "Our goal is to be profitable by next year."
This toy hydrogen fuel-cell car comes with its own solar-powered refueling station.

[KoolAid]

Apple Invents a "Touchless" Touch-Screen

To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. What if the entire surface of your iPod was a screen, and you could wave your fingers over different parts of the screen to call up different controls? Depending on what you were doing, you could manipulate a virtual scroll-wheel or get a keyboard to pop up. What's more, you could do this without actually touching the screen or getting it all smudged up. You could be typing in air just above teh screen, and the movement of your fingers would be causing each key on the screen to enlarge as you "tap" it.
Just such an invention is what Apple describes in a To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. published yesterday. It describes an input/output system that senses when a finger or stylus is hovering in proximity over the screen. The sensing could occur any number of ways—from measuring capacitive resistance and changes in the electric field to magnetic, optical,infrared, and acoustic techniques. Freaky.

Same thing, different article:

The "none-touch" iPod revealed
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.

Sometimes Apple seems to just To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.. But its latest invention -- a To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. for its iconic iPod music player -- could be headed to market in short order. In its recent To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily., Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer hinted at new iPods coming soon. And last month, Terry Gou, the chairman of Hon Hai, a major contract manufacturer for Apple, To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. on its way in the second half of the year. Apple's new patent shows a tablet-style iPod with a virtual scrollwheel that's activated by the mere proximity of a finger -- so you can manipulate the player without actually smudging the screen by touching it. If the patented device is the same as Gou's "none-touch" iPod, this idea could become reality in your pocket in a matter of months.

Same thing..different article.

New iPod design patents filed
Apple has filed a series of patents on new iPod designs, AppleInsider To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.. Most notably, the designs avoid the iPod's iconic click-wheel in favor of a series of other interfaces: a 12-key layout similar to cell phones; rectangular scroll "strips" similar to laptop trackpads; a four-way button that looks like some videogame controllers; and most intriguingly, a design with no buttons or touch-sensitive area at all. The latter could be an iPod which uses To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. -- an invention made possible by an earlier Apple patent. Ready to ditch your iPod Nano already? Apple could have a replacement soon.

same thing...you know by now...

Apple beats Street, stock jumps
iPod maker's earnings jump 48 percent thanks to strong sales of iPods and Intel-powered Macs; stock rallies after-hours.
By Jessica Seid, CNNMoney.com staff writer
July 19 2006: 6:20 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Apple Computer Wednesday reported that net earnings jumped 48 percent in the latest quarter, topping forecasts on Wall Street.
To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. (To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.) stock jumped 8 percent in after-hours trading.
The maker of iPods and Mac computers reported earnings of 54 cents a share for its fiscal third quarter ended July 1, up from 37 cents a year earlier. Analysts had been looking for profits of 44 cents a share, according to a survey by Thomson First Call.
Net income jumped to $472 million from $320 million.
Sales climbed to $4.37 billion from $3.5 billion, about in line with forecasts of $4.4 billion.
Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., said it expects $4.5 billion to $4.6 billion in revenue for the current quarter, below analysts' expectations of $4.9 billion, and earnings of 46 cents to 48 cents a share after a three-cent charge for stock-based compensation. Analysts had been forecasting profit of 52 cents a share for the current quarter.
The company shipped 1.3 million Macs in the quarter, up 12 percent from a year ago and just above Wall Street analysts' expectations of about 1.25 million, as customers grabbed up new Mac models containing Intel chips. The company said its entire Mac line will make the switch to Intel chips by the end of the year.
"We're thrilled with the growth of our Mac business, and especially that over 75 percent of the Macs sold during the quarter used Intel processors. This is the smoothest and most successful transition that any of us have ever experienced," CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement.
Apple announced iPod shipments of 8.1 million in its second quarter, up 32 percent from a year earlier and slightly above many analysts' expectations of 8 million, said Gene Munster, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray.
"All the news out of this (report) remains positive," said Barry Jaruzelski, vice president and managing partner in consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton's technology practice. But, the "macro issue remains, what's the follow up for the iPod?"
"At some point the whole (MP3) category will plateau," Jaruzelski said, adding that Apple's 75 percent market share means the company will be particularly vulnerable if demand for portable audio players slows down.
Apple's stock has lagged near its 52-week low recently due to concerns that updated versions of the iPod may be delayed to the fourth quarter and that sales of the iPod Nano, introduced last October, have been sluggish.
Apple executives declined to detail when the next iPod would be released, but CFO Peter Oppenheimer said "we are very confident with the products in our pipeline."


If this is the tech we got for a mp3 player..let me just end it here. A touchless touch-screen is as far in technology i can imagine.

[KoolAid]

What could possibly go wrong?

LONDON (Reuters) - British police have condemned a role-playing game where contestants travel all over London armed with water pistols looking to "assassinate" other players, saying it could spark terrorism alerts.
"StreetWars," which is described on its Web site as a "three-week long, 24/7, water gun assassination tournament," begins Tuesday in the British capital.
The game, which has taken place in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Vienna, involves players hunting down targets whose details they have been given and then squirting them with water to eliminate them.
But angry police say the appearance of people behaving suspiciously, armed with what could look like real guns, risked sparking major alerts in a city where four suicide bombers attacked the transport system last year, killing 52 commuters.
"The sight of people carrying what appears to be a firearm on the London Underground system one year after the tragic events of July 2005 will cause passengers and staff genuine fear," British Transport Police said in a statement.
They warned they would come down hard on any players who caused trouble.
London's Scotland Yard also said the game could divert essential resources.
"A seemingly innocent bit of fun can escalate with armed officers responding to what potentially is reported as a life-threatening situation," a spokesman said.

[KoolAid]

"You call that a knife?"

LONDON (Reuters) - With Australian outback hero Crocodile Dundee as her inspiration, an 80-year-old British pensioner foiled a knife-wielding burglar with an even bigger blade of her own. When woken by a masked man holding a knife, Winifred Whelan screamed and ran downstairs to the kitchen.
Grabbing a giant carving knife, she told the startled intruder "You call that a knife? This is a knife" in an echo of the famous scene in the Crocodile Dundee film when actor Paul Hogan confronted a New York mugger.
As she took on the intruder, her husband grappled with his accomplice.
Recalling the incident on the day the burglars were jailed for the break-in, Whelan told The Liverpool Echo: "I said to the robber 'You call that a knife?' His was around 10 inches long and I had a carving knife measuring around 14 inches.
"I pointed it at his belly and added 'This is a knife!'"

[KoolAid]

Wrong T-shirt giveaway for forged passport

NICOSIA (Reuters) - An England football shirt gave away a Senegalese man attempting to enter Cyprus on a forged French passport, police on the Mediterranean island said on Monday.
Suspicions were aroused when the man appeared at a checkpoint supervising crossings from the Turkish Cypriot north to the Greek Cypriot south of the divided island, wearing the England shirt and presenting a French passport.
"Being a football fan, the officer found it highly unlikely that a Frenchman would want to wear an England football jersey," a police source said.
"That was his first suspicion prior to the proper check on the passport, which turned out to be a fake," said the source.
The 22-year-old man, who has not been charged, was remanded in custody for six days pending further inquiries.