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Bipartisan group blasts NSA wiretaps

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

A U.S. bipartisan group Wednesday said the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program is illegal.

The Liberty and Security Committee of the Constitution Project said in a statement that the U.S. Congress should finish its probe into the warrantless surveillance program before it heeds the urging of the Bush administration to beef up laws on electronic surveillance.

Those signing the statement included: David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Walter Cronkite, former managing editor of CBS Evening News; former Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., the chairman of the Republican Party Policy Committee; Harold Koh, dean of Yale Law School; and William S. Sessions, former FBI director under Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton.

“The NSA’s warrantless surveillance program has stood for too long as an affront to America’s rule of law,” said Keene, a co-chair of the Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee. “The American people deserve to know why and to what extent the NSA has been tapping Americans’ phones without a warrant.”

The committee said the administration’s surveillance program “upends separate, balanced powers by thwarting the will of Congress and preventing any opportunity for judicial review.

“Congress should be applauded for taking steps to uncover the truth about the spying program,” said Sharon Bradford Franklin, senior counsel at the Constitution Project. “Congress must complete its investigation before considering any changes to the law governing electronic surveillance.”

The statement was published one week after a deadline for the White House and the Department of Justice to comply with Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenas to provide documents about the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. The White House has asked for and been given an extension on the deadline.

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MP slams school biometric guidance

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

By Kablenet

An MP has attacked the government’s biometrics advice to schools for failing to enshrine in law a parent’s right to be consulted.

Lib Dems MP Greg Mulholland told the Commons on 23 July 2007 that the guidance failed to introduce a legal requirement for schools to acquire parental consent before collecting their child’s biometric data.

The guidance, published on 23 July by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta), outlines the data protection guidelines schools should follow when deploying biometric technology. It states that schools should be open and transparent on such matters but falls short of introducing a legal mandate to consult with parents.

Arguing for further clarity, Mulholland cited an online poll of 1,400 parents conducted last summer by civil liberties group, Leave them kids alone, which found that 94 per cent were against schools taking biometric data without parental consent.

He also raised concerns over the security of biometrics, saying that the view that fraudsters would not be able to replicate a fingerprint, owing to it being stored as a number rather than a fingerprint, was simply not accurate.

“Independent technology experts have stated that in their opinion it is impossible to say that data will remain secure,” he said. “Advances in technology mean that it is inaccurate to say that it will not be possible to reverse-engineer the data stored in order to obtain the original fingerprint.”

Mulholland continued to argue that swipe cards were “100 per cent accurate when passed over a reader”, as opposed to fingerprint scanners that are only “93 per cent accurate” and considerably more expensive.

Concluding that the costs of introducing biometrics in schools fully outweighed the benefits, he said: “The collection of biometric data in our schools is unnecessary, intrusive and insecure. A can of worms has been opened and, as yet, the government has failed to adequately close it. The only way to achieve real clarity is for the government to say that schools must always ask parents for consent before taking biometric data from children.”

Schools minister Jim Knight insisted that the technology was not “1984 by the backdoor”. He stressed that pupils must be fully informed of the data collected and retained, and in cases where they did not understand, their parents must be informed.

Reiterating that it was not possible to recreate a fingerprint from the numbers that are stored, he pointed out that swipe cards could easily be lost, forgotten or swapped between pupils. But he accepted that such systems should give pupils whose parents opt them out of the system, the same access to school services that biometric users enjoy.

He added: “We have had some reassurance that the same sort of technology that might be used in the dining hall, the library or for attendance could be interchanged with the use of swipe cards.”

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Biometric British visas compulsory for everyone

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

By RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL

Everyone applying to enter the UK for longer than six months will need to procure biometric visas from March, Britain’s prime minister Gordon Brown has announced as part of his urgent new counter-terrorism strategy, unveiling a scheme that no longer makes a distinction between countries like Pakistan presumed to be “high-risk” and the rest of the world.

Less than a month after Britain suffered three separate, botched car-bomb attacks allegedly led by Bangalore engineer Kafeel Ahmed, his doctor brother Sabeel and other West Asian medics, Brown said recent experience indicated the UK urgently needed to double the 28-day period currently allowed to police to detain suspected terrorists without charge.

The changes to Britain’s visa policy mean that Indians and other nationals of countries not currently classified as “high-risk” would need biometric or electronically-verifiable visas to enter.

In a nod to the ongoing prosecution of Sabeel and his alleged West Asian conspirators in the London and Glasgow attacks, even as Kafeel remains critically ill with 92 per cent burns, Brown pointed out that “during the recent period six people had to be held for 27 or 28 days.”

Sabeel was charged a full 14 days after he was detained for questioning, thereby becoming the first Indian to be accused of overseas terrorist activities.

Another of the Ahmed brothers’ alleged conspirators, Dr Mohammed Asha, was charged nearly three weeks after he was originally picked up by police.

Sketching out the global spread of the terrorist threats to Britain, reaching as far away as into India, Brown told parliament on Wednesday that the London and Glasgow attacks “were the 15th attempted terrorist plot on British soil since 2001″; that “the police and security services are currently having to contend with around 30 known plots, and monitor over 200 groupings or networks and around 2,000 individuals” and longer detention without charge of suspects was essential because “there may be huge quantities of material evidence to be analysed and there is a need for assistance from other countries.”

The London and Glasgow attacks prompted British police and security services to launch an investigation spanning three continents and multiple countries, including India and Australia, where the Ahmed brothers’ cousin Mohammed Haneef was detained and charged with “reckless” assistance to a terrorist conspiracy.

The British government’s proposed change to detention without charge is highly controversial and considered a politically-sensitive counter-terrorism measure, with opposition parties and activist groups arguing it will curtail key civil liberties embedded in the British way of life.

But commentators agree that the recent London and Glasgow attacks may persuade the government’s critics to agree to longer police incarceration of suspected terrorists without charge.

Brown, who revealed that British police and security forces had managed to convict 30 people so far this year for terrorist activity, said Britain and much of the world had to “confront a generation-long challenge to defeat Al Qaeda inspired terrorist violence” with long-term measures.

These included the so-called hearts-and-minds policy of winning over disaffected youth and marginalized hotheads in Britain, Brown indicated, promising a further injection of a whopping 70-million pounds over three years “to support local authorities and community groups in improving the capacity of local communities to resist violent extremism.”

Pointing out that Britain had “perhaps as many as 1000 madrassas in Britain, educating between 50,000 and 100,000 young people in after school classes,” he proposed citizenship education as a core curriculum subject for Muslim youths.

In a further ambitious, international, far-reaching and financially big-ticket hearts-and-minds measure, Brown said his government would provide funding for a new BBC Arabic television channel and an “editorially-independent Farsi TV channel for the people of Iran”.

Britain is also to institute a new “unified border force” of immigration and customs officers to boost the fight against terrorism, the prime minister said.

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9/11 Workers Not Getting Enough Care, Report Says

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

By ANTHONY DePALMA

Almost six years after the terrorist attack on New York, the federal government still does not have an adequate array of health programs for ground zero workers — or a reliable estimate of how much treating their illnesses will cost — according to a federal report released yesterday.

The report, produced by the Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, concluded that thousands of federal workers and responders who came to ground zero from other parts of the country do not have access to suitable health programs.

The report also said that an estimate of health care costs made late last year by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was based on questionable assumptions, inconsistent data and instances of double billing. As a result, the report concluded, “It is unclear whether the overall estimate overstated or understated the costs of monitoring and treating responders.”

But officials at the institute, the federal agency that coordinates spending on the ground zero health programs, said the new report looked at outdated estimates, which they admitted were shaky.

New estimates by the institute, made public last week, considered recommendations by the Government Accountability Office and are based on the first few months of treatment costs reported by the Fire Department of New York and a consortium of regional health care institutions led by the Mount Sinai Medical Center.

An estimate for 9/11 health programs released late last year and analyzed by the accountability office put the annual cost of monitoring and treatment services, along with associated expenses, at $230 million to $283 million, depending on the number of workers who seek help.

The institute’s revised estimate last week put this year’s costs at $195 million. But it said the total figure for 2007 and 2008 could be between $428 million and $712 million if more workers register to participate in the programs and a greater percentage of them need medical or mental health treatment.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that while the accountability office indicated that previous health program cost estimates have been imprecise, the report “leaves no doubt that substantial federal resources are needed for the foreseeable future.”

A government official who worked on the institute’s cost estimates acknowledged that the treatment program had been in existence for only a few months and that actual costs could turn out to be quite different. The official was not authorized to speak about the program and asked to be quoted anonymously.

Part of the problem in estimating costs is the piecemeal way in which the health programs have been created and financed. Beginning in October 2001, federal funds from a variety of sources established and later supported programs to screen and monitor thousands of people who worked at ground zero during the cleanup and recovery operation, which lasted about nine months after Sept. 11. The money went to the Fire Department, the Mount Sinai consortium and two mental health and counseling programs run for members of the New York Police Department.

Treatment money from the federal government became available only last year. Additional funds were approved this year and could be included in next year’s federal budget.

The G.A.O. found that the occupational health institute’s earlier estimates relied on workers’ compensation reimbursement rates. Those figures were adjusted to reflect the special treatment needs of ground zero workers, who have developed respiratory and digestive ailments.

But the estimates proved unreliable for a number of reasons, according to the G.A.O. report. The occupational health institute relied on “questionable assumptions” that were not based on sound data to revise the workers’ compensation rates, the G.A.O. report said. Estimates often included program changes, like more frequent monitoring visits, that had not yet been put into place. And the institute mistakenly counted indirect costs twice.

The report also criticized the on-again, off-again health program for federal employees. It said that nonfederal workers around the country do not have access to the same level of health care as those in the New York region, and it called for the creation of a national health plan for ground zero workers.

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West Hollywood votes to impeach Bush and Cheney

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

The City Council’s resolution cites abuses of power and other misdeeds. Some residents say they should have been consulted first.

By Ari B. Bloomekatz

The White House is more than 2,600 miles from West Hollywood, a distance emblematic of how far left the progressive city is compared with elected leaders running the nation on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Last week the distance came into focus as West Hollywood officials made their city the first in Southern California to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

West Hollywood was the 80th city or township in the nation to pass such a declaration, following similar actions in Michigan, Ohio and Vermont as well as six cities in Northern California, including Arcada and Eureka.

Citing perceived abuses of power and constitutional transgressions, such as domestic wiretapping and torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the City Council passed the resolution unanimously Monday.

Mayor John J. Duran said he thought it was his civic responsibility to hold elected officials responsible for what he called egregious crimes.

“Someday I know I’ll look back and I’ll be satisfied that when I thought the Constitution was in peril, I took some action rather than just sat passively by,” Duran said.

He hopes the Santa Monica and Beverly Hills councils will follow suit, increasing pressure on Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) to take action in Congress.

The idea was introduced to West Hollywood officials by Peter Thottam, executive director of the Los Angeles National Impeachment Center, which recently opened near the Beverly Center as the nation’s first “impeachment headquarters.” The center has a staff of about 100 volunteers; it stages protests every Sunday outside the Federal Building in Westwood.

Thottam said the West Hollywood resolution signals a victory for his group.

“We’re pretty excited,” Thottam said. “We think it lays the foundation for a very strong movement here in Southern California.”

A major goal is to eventually persuade the Los Angeles City Council to pass a similar resolution. The message probably would be much louder coming from the second-largest city in the nation, compared with West Hollywood’s population of about 35,000, Duran said.

West Hollywood has a history of passing resolutions opposing the actions of conservative administrations, including its approval two years ago of a call to end the war in Iraq.

Residents said they have often heard anti-Bush and Cheney banter in bars, restaurants and coffee shops. Many said that although they did not align with the Bush administration’s politics, they had mixed feelings about the potential for an impeachment resolution.

“As a whole, do they make a convincing argument? Yes,” West Hollywood resident John Tower said while eating lunch recently at Joey’s Cafe on Santa Monica Boulevard. “I hear them criticized all the time.”

Still, Tower said he wished city leaders had surveyed residents before choosing to speak for everyone.

Across the street at Irv’s Burgers, Steven Hadnagy smiled and said simply: “That’s not going to happen.”

Hadnagy said that he thought Bush was a “lousy” president but that he was tired of local communities disagreeing with elected officials and then trying to recall or impeach them.

“You can’t impeach the entire Republican Party,” Hadnagy said. Instead, he said, he was placing his bets on the 2008 election.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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