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Mobiles to become digital wallets

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

The UK’s big five mobile phone firms have switched on a payment system that turns handsets into digital wallets. Called PayForIt, the scheme is designed for those buying goods and services with a value of up to £10.

The industry hopes it will be used to pay for ringtones, train tickets, parking fees and eventually as a payment system on web shops and sites.

Any cash spent via the scheme will automatically be added on to a customer’s phone bill.

Cash crunch

The scheme standardises the way phones can be used to make payments so the process is the same no matter which operator a customer has signed up for or which handset they are using.

Mike Short, chairman of the Mobile Data Association, said PayForIt had been developed as an alternative to other systems such as premium rate SMS.

Many people, said Mr Short, were unhappy using that payment system because of past uncertainty about how much they would pay and who they turn to if things go wrong.

“It’s for those customers who have not felt comfortable with mobile transactions or payments,” he said.

Trust in mobile payments would be boosted, said Mr Short because shoppers will know who they are buying from and what they are spending.

Anyone paying for goods with PayForIt will see an information screen that lays out what they have bought, who it has been bought from and how much it will cost.

“It’s about opening up the micro payment choices,” said Mr Short, “but it’s not a total cash replacement.”

PayForIt will appear as a payment option on sites that people can get to via their handset and soon will also appear as a way to pay on websites too, said Mr Short.

Bad experiences have made some wary of paying via handset

Companies such as I-play, Gameloft, EA, Multimap, SonyEricsson and Samsung have become the first to sign up and let people pay using the PayForIt system.

PayForIt was first announced in March 2006 and the official start date for the scheme was 1 September.

“Most big brands would not use premium rate SMS to run their services, it’s not a good experience, it’s not consumer friendly,” said Anuj Khanna, a spokesman for Tanla Mobile which is one of the firms administering payments made via PayForIt.

“It’s entirely geared at the low value, high volume transaction market,” he said.

Paul Hunt, an expert on mobile commerce at consultancy Atos Origin, said there had been many failed attempts to set up similar schemes in the past. He said PayForIt has a good chance of success.

“There’s a much wider age range of mobile users and the capabilities of handsets have changed,” he said. “The click to buy reality is catching up with the hype.”

But, he added, the backers of the scheme had to work hard to distinguish PayForIt from alternatives to ensure people realise how it differs from other schemes.

BBC

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Intelligence database worrying

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

R.G. Ratcliffe

After a commercial airline pilot testified before a government agency against the construction of a nuclear power plant, the Department of Public Safety intelligence division investigated him as a potential terrorist who might fly his passenger-loaded airplane into such a plant.

The First Unitarian Church of Dallas hosted talks by a gay-rights group and was labeled by DPS intelligence as the “sponsor of radical-left groups.”

The manager of a West Texas Chamber of Commerce announced that he would challenge the House Appropriations Committee chairman’s re-election. The man immediately lost his job, and the DPS created a dossier on him and his wife that was circulated at the Capitol.

The DPS at the time was building a massive intelligence computer database on Texas residents that would be shared among law enforcement agencies. Then-Gov. Dolph Briscoe put a halt to it, saying it appeared to lack safeguards against an invasion of privacy.

All of that occurred in 1974 and embarrassed the DPS nationally. The agency destroyed the intelligence files and apologized to the Dallas church. But now the scandal is all but forgotten, and some civil libertarians fear that it could be repeated.

In the current world of terrorist threats, the Legislature this year expanded police surveillance powers and declined to put tighter controls on an intelligence computer database being built at the insistence of Gov. Rick Perry’s office.

Political aspect

Two-thirds of the House voted to remove management of the computer from Perry’s staff and give it entirely to DPS, but the measure was not part of the final border security law, Senate Bill 11, signed by the governor. Civil libertarians remain concerned that the database will be misused in the future, particularly if managed by a political office such as a governor’s.

“I do not take lightly the issue of backpack nuclear bombs. So we need to do a better job,” said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, an opponent of the new database. “But the over-reach we’re seeing here is phenomenal.”

Perry’s director of homeland security, Steve McCraw — the driving force behind the Texas Data Exchange (TDEx) computer — declined to be interviewed.

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said the computer is meant to be nothing more than a centralized system to allow law enforcement agencies across Texas to share data that already is being kept by individual police and sheriff’s departments.

“It really is just a fundamental 9-11 Commission finding that law enforcement needs to share information at the state and local level and federal level. This allows that information sharing,” Cesinger said.

The computer is located at DPS but is managed by personnel under McCraw in the governor’s division of emergency management. The database is kept by a private company, Apriss Inc., on a computer in Kentucky.

“We continue to be deeply concerned about the governor’s office having a hand in TDEx and the database being outside the state of Texas,” said Rebecca Bernhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Looking at the past

Rep. Burnam said he was a legislative aide at the Capitol in the 1970s when the DPS intelligence scandal broke. He said there is no reason to believe at the moment that intelligence data is being misused but that it is something that should concern people.

Burnam said opponents to Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor toll road system could find themselves under investigation like the airline pilot who was seen as a potential terrorist because of his political activity.

Former state Sen. A.R. “Babe” Schwartz, D-Galveston, led the investigation into DPS intelligence gathering. In a recent interview, Schwartz said the pilot’s case was far from the only one.

“They have a vast repertoire of records on citizens,” Schwartz said. “They collected pure hearsay. They collected accounts from people who wanted to defame other people.”

One of the dossiers kept by DPS was on a former three-term Texas House member from Houston, Curtis Graves. The information was gathered from anonymous sources and included a list of people he sang with while drinking in a Houston tavern.

At the time of the scandal, DPS was preparing to build an interagency computer file on Texas residents. Briscoe said he was afraid it would contain noncriminal material that should not be housed in a database without residents’ consent.

“Where it’s necessary to get the consent of anyone involved, and I think that’s proper, I rather doubt it’s practical,” Briscoe said.

Needed tool

The Congressional Research Service earlier this summer prepared a report to Congress on anti-terrorism efforts at state law enforcement “fusion centers,” including the one run by DPS. A focus of the report was on computer systems such as TDEx used by the fusion centers to connect the dots in criminal activity.

The report said such computers represent “state police intelligence units on steroids” and said they take a more “proactive approach to law enforcement.” It noted a variety of terrorist plots that had been foiled by interagency cooperation.

But the report also said protecting civil liberties may be a major problem with such intelligence gathering. It quoted National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell as saying, “The intelligence community has an obligation to better identify and counter threats to Americans while still safeguarding their privacy. The task is inherently a difficult one.”

Cesinger, Perry’s spokeswoman, said the governor is not concerned about potential misuse of the state databases because he believes law enforcement will use it properly.

“Our law enforcement officials are reasonable and rational, and collecting information should be seen as a positive thing,” Cesinger said. “Sharing this information will maximize the knowledge of our law enforcement officers who are trying to protect public safety.”

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DIANA: VITAL NEW EVIDENCE BLOWS APART POLICE CASE

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

By Cyril Dixon

 

THE mystery over Princess Diana’s fatal car crash took another twist yesterday when startling new evidence emerged about the death of a key witness.

The Daily Express has uncovered dramatic new information which undermines the French police claim that  photographer James Andanson doused himself and his black BMW with petrol and set himself alight.

Andanson was found dead in his burnt-out car three years after the smash which killed Diana, her lover Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul.

Andanson, suspected of causing the crash by driving a white Fiat Uno into their Mercedes, was said officially to have committed suicide.

But investigators have uncovered a receipt which shows that  although Andanson, 54, did buy a substantial amount of fuel on the day he died, it was diesel, not petrol.

Unlike petrol, diesel is not highly inflammable at normal temperatures and would not have ignited if he had struck a match.

He used his credit card to buy more than 100 litres of diesel on a visit to a hypermarket near Nant, southern France.

Sceptics would say it is far more likely that the experienced paparazzo bought it to fill up his car for the 400-mile journey back to his home in central France.

They would also think it unlikely for him to prepare his car for a long trip if he planned to kill himself just a few miles away.

The development could support the theory that Andanson was murdered by the security services.

Dodi’s father Mohamed Al Fayed believes he was on the intelligence payroll and that he was killed to stop him exposing a plot to assassinate his son and the Princess.

The Harrods owner’s belief is supported by the evidence of a new witness, a policeman, who said he saw what looked like a bullet hole in the dead photographer’s head.

The officer backs up claims by Christophe Pelat, the fireman who discovered the body, that Andanson had been shot in the head.

Two months ago, Pelat said: “I saw him at close range and I’m absolutely convinced that he had been shot in the head.”

Yesterday’s revelation came just days after the police officer who ran the initial inquiry into how Diana died in Paris’s Alma tunnel blamed the Fiat driver.

Jean Claude Mules said he had compelling evidence that the black Mercedes collided with the Fiat seconds before it ploughed into a pillar. He said his officers would have “had their killer” if they had succeeded in tracing the driver.

Andanson was found dead on  May 4 2000 in woodland alongside a country road near Nant, in the Aveyron region of France.

He had apparently left his wife Elizabeth, 45, at their farmhouse in Lignieres, 170 miles south of Paris, and driven 400 miles south to Nant.

A police spokesman said at the time: “He took his own life by dousing himself and the car with petrol and then setting light to it.”

But Andanson’s credit card records show he went into a Géant hypermarket just a few miles away from where he was found dead.

He bought more than 100 litres of diesel and spent almost 600 francs.

Investigators are not certain what he did with the fuel. But his BMW 3 series’ saloon would hold only 60 litres and he may have filled up and transported the surplus in cans. Critically, experts say that it is inconceivable that Andanson would buy diesel to set himself alight.

Ray Holloway, of the Petrol Retailers Association, said: “With petrol it is the vapour that is the risk. It’s very different with diesel.

“Diesel is warmed and compressed to make it fire. You wouldn’t be able to set light to diesel with a match. It would just go out.

“The flashpoint for diesel, that is the temperature it would need to get to, is something like 63C.

“You would need to warm diesel up with something like a blow torch to have any hope of igniting it, and even then you would probably have to be in a confined space.

“People often get burned when using petrol because they try setting light to the liquid. But what happens is the vapour ignites first.”

The riddle of Andanson’s death will be looked at by Lord Justice Scott Baker, the judge appointed to oversee Diana’s inquest. He has produced a list of 20 questions about the accident which most people assumed had been answered but which must now be re-examined.

Andanson, who worked for the Sipa agency, was famous for his celebrity portraits, including one of Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on his death-bed.

But he is also rumoured to have been working for the security services. Former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson once alleged they use the paparazzi because they are good at tracking the whereabouts of high profile “targets”.

In the summer before the accident, when Diana and Dodi cruised the Mediterranean on his father’s yacht Jonikal, they were plagued by paparazzi. Andanson was one of the biggest players on that scene and was never far away from the couple.

Mr Al Fayed believes Diana, 36, and Dodi, 42, were murdered in a conspiracy driven by the Royal Family and carried out by the security services in August 1997.

He claims they had fallen in love after spending the summer together and planned to marry.

Mr Al Fayed claims the Royals objected to their romance because they did not want Prince William to have a stepfather who was non-white and a Muslim.

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Cheney, the survivor without challengers

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

By Edward Luce and Andrew Ward

Dick Cheney once jokingly referred to himself as Darth Vader - such was his dark reputation with the mainstream US media. With the departure of Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s electoral mastermind, the US vice-president is seen as “the last man standing” in the administration.

Yet far from being the increasingly isolated figure that he is often portrayed, Cheney wields influence that has arguably never been greater. Among the close circle of trusted advisers that Bush has relied on since coming to the White House, only Cheney remains.

The others - the so-called “Texas mafia” that included Harriet Miers, the former counsel, Dan Barlett, director of communications, Karen Hughes, a senior adviser, Alberto Gonzales, the outgoing attorney general and Rove - have all left.

It was this informal coterie that would retreat with Bush to his private quarters after formal White House meetings and take the hard decisions. “These were the people Bush trusted and where he could say anything,” said a former Cheney aide. “Cheney will now be unchallenged.”

Of the inner circle, Rove was probably the only one with equal weight to the vice-president - although they did not always see eye to eye. Rove’s principal agenda has been to expand the Republican party’s electoral base to create a “permanent majority”. Cheney’s has been to expand the executive powers that he believes were illegitimately taken from the White House after Watergate in the 1970s.

Often they were chasing two different rabbits. It is Cheney who looks far likelier to accomplish his agenda. “There is no one left who can now out-argue the vice-president,” says Juleanna Glover, another former Cheney aide.

The fact that the White House has no candidate running in 2008 further increases Cheney’s room for manoeuvre, particularly given Rove’s departure. “Rove was first and foremost a political animal,” says Stephen Hayes, Cheney’s biographer. “He looked at how policies could benefit the Republicans. Cheney’s attitude is: ‘Politics be damned. This is the right thing to do. Now someone else go sell it to the American public and our allies’.”

Nor, as some have suggested, does Gonzales’ departure necessarily weaken the vice-president’s hand.

“In terms of the formulation of arguments, Gonzales was never much of a player,” said John Bolton, a former ally of Cheney in the Bush administration and a former UN ambassador, now at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “David Addington [a senior Cheney aide] was the main theoretician of executive privilege and he is still there.”

Significant test

The first significant test of Cheney’s influence in the post-Rove era will come within the next few weeks, when Bush picks a nominee to replace Gonzales as attorney-general.

People close to the White House say Cheney wants a conservative nominee who will defend the expansion of presidential power he has championed over the past six years.

But Bush is under pressure from others in the administration to choose an independent figure who would stand up to the White House. Bruce Fein, a former senior law officer in the Reagan administration, says the identity of Gonzales’ replacement will determine “whether the Cheney executive privilege agenda will continue to prevail”.

Cheney has focused his vice-presidency on reversing the constraints placed on executive power following Watergate and the Vietnam war.

It was this philosophy that led to the launch of a controversial domestic eavesdropping programme after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the blurring of US policy towards torture.

Perhaps the clearest evidence of Cheney’s overriding influence is the deadlock over the future of Guantanamo. The vice-president is the only high-profile administration official still arguing for the detention centre to be kept open. Yet his views have so far trumped the growing consensus elsewhere in the administration about the need to work towards closing the facility.

“Cheney’s most important goal is to establish beyond this presidency the White House’s pre-eminent and in some respects exclusive role to make war, determine what war is and who is a combatant,” says Fein. “That will be his legacy.”

While Cheney has lost some ground to foreign policy moderates, those who know him well insist he will continue to push for tougher action to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. “He should not be underestimated on this point,” says a former senior administration official. “Cheney has argued for military action against Iran before and he will likely do so again. If the current round of UN resolutions fail to get Iran to change course, then Cheney’s argument will gather strength through 2008.”

Bolton says on foreign policy the Bush administration will retain its strongest freedom of action.

“People tend to forget that we do not have a parliamentary system - the powers of the executive do not depend on who controls the legislature or on the state of public opinion,” he says.

“We have a separation of powers. This is especially true of foreign policy.”

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‘China power growing as Bush ignores Asia’

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

US President George W Bush is so preoccupied with Iraq he is neglecting Asia and allowing China to take a greater leadership role, a former senior US official said in remarks published on Monday.

“In every measure, China is making real hay right throughout Asia,” Richard Armitage, Bush’s former deputy secretary of state told The Australian newspaper in an interview.

“Right now, we’re just so preoccupied with Iraq that we’re ignoring Asia totally.”

Bush is cutting short his attendance at a major Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney this weekend to return to Washington in time for reports to Congress on progress in Iraq by top US general David Petraeus.

Armitage also criticised Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice for skipping two out of three annual meetings which bring the US together with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Bush administration had radically underestimated the importance of Asia, he said.

“In almost every measure, military budgets, population growths, the need for raw materials, our interests will force us back to Asia.”

Armitage said there was a danger of Chinese leadership in Asia surpassing that of the US.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a strong supporter of Bush’s Iraq policy, was reportedly bitterly disappointed that the US president will miss the second day of the two-day summit.

In an attempt to make amends, Bush has extended his state visit ahead of the APEC summit.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/China_power_growing_as_Bush_ignores_Asia_/articleshow/2333726.cms

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George Bush IS intelligent, says PM

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

GEORGE W. Bush was an intelligent and likeable man, Prime Minister John Howard said today ahead of the US President’s arrival in Australia.

Large parts sections of central Sydney have been cordoned off with a 3m security fence amid predictions of violent protests to coincide with Mr Bush’s visit to the APEC leaders’ summit.

Protesters are keen to target Mr Bush over the US-led involvement in the Iraq war and his perceived failure to address climate change.

But Mr Howard today had only praise for Mr Bush, saying the US President had a “special position” as the democratically elected leader of Australia’s most important ally.

“He has his critics,” Mr Howard said during an unusual appearance on Channel 9’s Mornings with Kerri-Anne.

“I like him. I find him an intelligent, likeable man to deal with on a personal basis.”

Mr Howard promised to stick by Mr Bush because he would “never” walk away from a friend.

“I don’t care how much they’re criticised. You form a view of somebody and their character and I tend to stick with them,” Mr Howard said.

“It may not always enjoy total support, but I do it in a way that doesn’t damage the interest of my country.”

Mr Howard said a strong relationship between Canberra and Washington was crucial to Australia’s security.

“It’s in Australia’s interest to have a close alliance with America - not always to agree with America, we disagree with America on a lot of things,” he said.

“But overwhelmingly America remains a force for good, it is our security guarantor, and that alliance with the United States is fundamental to our future.”

Mr Howard said he accepted that the Iraq war was not popular with Australians.

But regardless of what people thought of the original decision to join the US-led invasion, it would be wrong to withdraw Australia’s few hundred personnel at this point, he said.

“I accept that the Iraq war’s not popular and I accept that George Bush has his critics,” Mr Howard said.

“I believe we were right to go into Iraq, I think we’d be very wrong to pull out now. What would happen if the Americans pulled out now, the place would just descend into total chaos, the terrorists would have a huge victory and that would be a major setback for our cause.

“So that’s why I’m perservering with our policies.”

There were signs that the recent surge in US troop numbers in Iraq was helping to turn things around, he said.

America’s top commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, will next week deliver a report to Congress on the security situation in Iraq, including the effect of the boost in US troop numbers.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has promised a Labor government will bring home Australia’s 550 combat forces from southern Iraq at the end of their current rotation - about the middle of next year.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22352661-5005961,00.html

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Now police are told they can use Taser guns on children

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

By JASON LEWIS

Police have been given the go-ahead to use Taser stun guns against children.

The relaxing of restrictions on the use of the weapons comes despite warnings that they could trigger a heart attack in youngsters.

Until now, Tasers - which emit a 50,000-volt electric shock - have been used only by specialist officers as a “non lethal” alternative to firearms.

Stun gun: Tasers give off a 50,000 volt blast

However, they can now be used against all potentially violent offenders even if they are unarmed.

It is the decision not to ban their use against minors that is likely to raise serious concerns.

Home Office Police Minister Tony McNulty said medical assessments had confirmed the risk of death or serious injury from Tasers was “low”.

But he failed to mention Government advisers had also warned of a potential risk to children.

The Defence Scientific Advisory Council medical committee told the Home Office that not enough was known about the health risks of using the weapons against children.

Tasers work by firing metal barbs into the skin which then discharge an electrical charge which is designed to disable someone long enough to allow police to detain them safely.

The committee, which is made up of independent scientists and doctors, said that limited research suggested there was a risk children could suffer “a serious cardiac event”.

It recommended that officers should be “particularly vigilant” for any Taser-induced adverse response and said guidance should be amended to “identify children and adults of small stature” as being at potentially greater risk from the cardiac effects of Tasers.

The Government scientists were also asked to test whether the weapons could cause a miscarriage if used on a pregnant woman.

While not saying whether police would be allowed to Taser an expectant mother, the Home Office said the DSAC committee had “specifically asked” for computer simulations to be carried out to analyse the effect on “a pregnant female”.

Amnesty International claims Tasers have been responsible for 220 deaths in America since 2001. Many cities and police forces there have banned their use against minors.

Two years ago in Chicago a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after being shot with one. Medics had to use a defibrillator four times to resuscitate him.

Taser International, the American firm that makes the device, said tests on pigs suggested the weapons were safe.

The Association of Chief Police Officers, which issues guidance to forces on the use of weapons, said Tasers would be made “readily available” for “conflict management” at incidents of “violence and threats of violence of such severity that they will need force”.

Non-firearms officers in ten forces will be trained to use the weapons. Every incident they are involved in will be assessed over a 12-month trial period.

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Excerpts from the interview by Iran’s Chief Nuclear Negotiator

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Dr. Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran´s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Iran´ top nuclear negotiator, in a French radio interview on Thursday February 17, 2006, declared the latest positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the issue of Iran´s peaceful nuclear program.  Following are excerpts of the interview :

• The lslamic Republic of Iran wants to use the peaceful nuclear technology within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
• The Islamic Republic of Iran has been and continues to be committed to its international non-proliferation commitments.
  Unfortunately certain western countries, contrary to their public statements, have been insisting in the negotiations that Iran should not have any nuclear technology and know-how. This is a double-standard behavior in international system and can not be acceptable.
• The Islamic Republic of Iran like other nations such as Brazil, Japan and many European Countries would like to exercise its inalienable rights to peaceful use of nuclear technology and play its role in this category of countries in international arena
  The best guarantee for peacefulness of the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran could include the following measures:
  • Accepting the current IAEA monitoring and verification systems.
  • Use of modern centrifuges, proposed by some American and British scientists, which permit only limited enrichment.
  • participation of interested countries in Iran´s peaceful nuclear activities in the form of a consortium.
• Accordingly, there are various ways to ensure that Iran is not pursuing Military nuclear programs.
• Should these guarantees be acceptable, the Islamic Republic of Iran would accept to send the Additional Protocol to the Parliament for ratification.
• It has been the consistent policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to employ peaceful nuclear technology for country´s economic development.
• It would be much more appropriate that rather than simply repeating the positions of the United States, the EU would act independently and propose new ways on the basis of the inalienable rights enshrined in the NPT.
• The Islamic Republic of Iran stands ready to cooperate with the EU in this regard and it is appropriate to avoid the language of threat and imposition in this process. Therefore, should the EU change its discourse and stand ready to clearly recognize the Iran´s rights in the framework of the NPT, there will be a complete readiness on Iran´s side to cooperate with Europe.
• The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to negotiate and cooperate with all other countries (except the Zionist regime) in this regard.
• The main problem with the European´s proposal in August 2005 was its negligence of Iran´s inalienable right to peaceful nuclear technology, in contradiction to the provisions of the NPT.
• We are of the view that the potentials and capacities of the European Union can be employed to resolve this issue and we stand ready to cooperate with the EU for the longer term as well. In the past, we had the same position, but we have not witnessed appropriate behaviors of the European side. The cancellation of the construction of the Bushehr power plant by the Siemens of Germany, the refusal of France’s EURODIEF to deliver Uranium and failure of the United State´s to honor its commitment to deliver the Uranium for Tehran´s research reactor, which had been paid for, are but a few examples of the behaviors that are not comprehensible. These are some of the reasons which have caused our mistrust towards the west and have encouraged us to go for the completion of our own peaceful nuclear program.
• Should a credible international system for providing nuclear fuel be in place, the Islamic Republic of Iran would be ready to procure its nuclear fuel from that system.  However, such a system dose not exist at present.

The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London

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Webster Tarpley at the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

Webster Tarpley at the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference — “Understanding the Sinister Dyanamics of 9/11″

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It’s no secret - the election was a fraud

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

George Bush has shredded the Constitution; bankrupted the country; blackened our reputation as a people; and lied us into an illegal, immoral, self-destructive military operation in Iraq.

And he was never elected president.

Not in 2000. Not in 2004.

And the news media, Congress, and the Democratic Party have never even attempted to do anything about it.

If you’re living in America, that’s the kind of country you’re living in now.

It’s not a question of when or if we’ll lose our democracy, it’s been gone a long time. The only question is what we’re going to do to get it back.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/145.html

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Snow’s on way out; Rove’s gone

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

By Mark Silva

White House press secretary Tony Snow will leave this month to devote time to writing, speaking and playing a more active public role in combating cancer, a disease he has confronted for three roller-coaster years.

Dana Perino, the principal deputy press secretary, will take Snow’s place Sept. 14, the first time President Bush has chosen a woman as voice of the White House.

Snow, battling a recurrence of colon cancer he had hoped was in remission when he became the president’s chief spokesman in April 2006, said it is not the disease but the financial burden his work has placed on his family that is forcing him to leave.

While paid $168,000 a year as press secretary, that salary is far less than Snow, a father of three who has fought cancer since 2005, made as a host for the Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio.

“Cancer has nothing to do with this,” Snow said Friday of his decision.

“I ran out of money,” he said. “I made more money when I was in my previous career. … We took out a loan when I came to the White House, and that loan is now gone.”

While planning some well-paying public-speaking engagements and occasional TV and radio work, Snow, 52, said he hopes to devote his time to a book on “how you deal with sickness.”

Bush, congratulating Snow for taking on “a big job with courage,” said that now, “One, he’ll battle cancer and win. And secondly, he’ll be a solid contributor to society.” Bush finished with an unusually personal nod to his departing aide: “I love you.”

Perino, 35, who has substituted often for Snow since his cancer returned in March, is “a smart, capable person,” said Bush, looking at reporters in the pressroom. “She can handle you all.”

Snow is the latest in a long line of senior Bush advisers to leave before the end of the president’s second term. Friday was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove’s last day. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation this week. Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett, White House attorney Harriet Miers, budget director Rob Portman, political director Sara Taylor, deputy national-security adviser J.D. Crouch and Meghan O’Sullivan, a national-security adviser who worked on Iraq, also have stepped down.

Snow, who said in March that doctors had discovered his colon cancer had recurred and spread to his liver, recently finished months of chemotherapy and will face another treatment and then periodic CAT scans. The most recent scan, he said, was encouraging.

Asked about his long-range plans, Snow, facing seasoned correspondent Helen Thomas, seated in the front row and center of the press room, said: “When I’m your age, I want to be sitting in the front row making life a living hell for a presidential press secretary.”

Material from McClatchy Newspapers is included in this report.

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Vital Lockerbie evidence ‘was tampered with’

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

The Observer

Fragments of bomb timer that helped to convict a Libyan ex-agent were ‘practically carbonised’ before the trial, says bankrupt Swiss businessman

The key piece of material evidence used by prosecutors to implicate Libya in the Lockerbie bombing has emerged as a probable fake.
Nearly two decades after Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland on 21 December, 1988, allegations of international political intrigue and shoddy investigative work are being levelled at the British government, the FBI and the Scottish police as one of the crucial witnesses, Swiss engineer Ulrich Lumpert, has apparently confessed that he lied about the origins of a crucial ‘timer’ - evidence that helped tie the man convicted of the bombing to the crime.

The disaster killed 270 people when the London to New York Boeing 747 exploded in mid-air. Britain and the US blamed Libya, saying that its leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, wanted revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986. At a trial in the Netherlands in 2001, former Libyan agent Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for life.

He is currently serving his sentence in Greenock prison, but later this month the Scottish Court of Appeal is expected to hear Megrahi’s case, after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled in June that there was enough evidence to suggest a miscarriage of justice. Lumpert’s confession, which was given to police in his home city of Zurich last week, will strengthen Megrahi’s appeal.

The Zurich-based Swiss businessman Edwin Bollier, who has spent nearly two decades trying to clear his company’s name, is as eager for the appeal as is Megrahi. Bollier’s now bankrupt company, Mebo, manufactured the timer switch that prosecutors used to implicate Libya after they said that fragments of it had been found on a Scottish hillside.

Bollier, now 70, admits having done business with Libya. ‘Two years before Lockerbie, we sold 20 MST-13 timers to the Libyan military. FBI agents and the Scottish investigators said one of those timers had been used to detonate the bomb. We were shown a fuzzy photograph and I confirmed the fragments looked as though they came from one of our timers.’

However, Bollier was uneasy with the photograph he had been shown and asked to see the fragments. He was finally given permission in 1998 and travelled to Dumfries to see the evidence.

‘I was shown fragments of a brown circuit board which matched our prototype. But when the MST-13 went into production, the timers contained green boards. I knew that the timers sold to Libya had green boards. I told the investigators this.’

Back in Switzerland, Bollier’s company was in effect bankrupt, having faced a lawsuit from Pan Am and having lost major clients, such as the German federal police to which Mebo supplied communications equipment.

In 2001, Bollier spent five days in the witness box at the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. ‘I was a defence witness, but the trial was so skewed to prove Libyan involvement that the details of what I had to say was ignored. A photograph of the fragments was produced in court and I asked to see the pieces again. When they were brought to me, they were practically carbonised. They had been tampered with since I had seen them in Dumfries.’

Few people apart from conspiracy theorists and investigative journalists working on the case were prepared to believe Bollier until the end of last month, when Lumpert, one of his former employees, walked into a Zurich police station and asked to swear an affidavit before a notary.

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Holes in the wall to see PINs in our eyes

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

Daily Mail

Bank customers could soon enter their PIN codes at cash machines just by looking at the numbers in the right order.

The system is designed to beat fraudsters looking over your shoulder to see which keys you press.

The technology, called EyePassword, is being developed in America - and High Street banks in Britain are already interested in using it.

It works by shining an infrared light on your eye. This stays in the same spot on your eye no matter where you look.

As you gaze at the cash dispenser key pad, your pupil moves. When your eye comes to rest on a number, a camera compares the position of your pupil with the fixed light in your eye.

The system is then able to work out which direction your pupil has moved in and how far and, therefore, which number you are looking at.

EyePassword has a three per cent error rate and it can take six times longer to enter your pin.

But Lloyds, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland have expressed an interest in the technology.

However, its inventor, Manu Kumar, of California’s Stanford University, warned: “There are lots of issues to be resolved, probably the biggest one being cost.”

Computer security specialist Dr Jeff Yan, of Newcastle University, said cash dispensers using EyePassword could cost £5,000, £3,000 more than a conventional ATM.

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