BREAKING: Discover How A Slacker Makes $100,000 A Year!

WEBMASTERS! Get Your Website To The Top Of Google

Get your FBI file — and your NSA and CIA files too, while you’re at it

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

Do you have an FBI file?

You might! Many people do. So let’s talk about your past. Did you …

… ever participate in a civil rights march? How about a Vietnam war protest?

… ever sign an edgy political petition?

… ever know a guy named “Joey the Horse?” (Ever help him take out any heavy garbage bags?)

… ever hang out with a third-world dictator, retired or present?

Phil says: “The Freedom-of-Information-loving folks who brought you Get Grandpa’s FBI File have just launched a sister site: Get My FBI File . This site helps you automatically generate the letters you need to send in to get your own FBI file … and while you’re at it, you can also get your NSA, CIA, DIA, DSS, Secret Service, etc. files too, just by checking a few boxes. If you throw in UnSecureFlight.Com, we’re getting perilously close to one-stop shopping for all your government security file needs.”

See: http://www.getmyfbifile.com/ and http://www.getmyfbifile.com/form.php

Have Your Say: Get your FBI file — and your NSA and CIA files too, while you’re at it
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Who Watches the CIA Watchers?

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

Katrina vanden Heuvel

In the cloak and dagger, smoke and hall of mirrors that is the CIA, we have more evidence that it’s dangerous to be a whistleblower, even if that happens to be your job. The CIA’s own inspector general, John Helgerson, is being investigated by CIA Director Michael Hayden regarding his investigations into CIA torture allegations.

According to the New York Times, “The review is particularly focused on complaints that Mr. Helgerson’s office has not acted as a fair and impartial judge of agency operations but instead has begun a crusade against those who have participated in controversial detention programs.”

Thus, the investigator into torture is being tortured by an investigation–the bureaucratic equivalent of water boarding–into his crusade against the crusaders. And ’round and ’round we go.

But if Hayden is watching Helgerson who is watching Hayden and the CIA, is anyone watching over this mess? Who would benefit from a cowed CIA? Who needs evidence that Iran is up to no good to justify another war? Dick Cheney, perhaps? Who knows? No one watches over him. Not even Google Maps.

Have Your Say: Who Watches the CIA Watchers?
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Image database is latest technology added to border control platform

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

 Ian Grant

Immigration minister Liam Byrne last week unveiled a £50,000 image-based database system that associates fingerprints, a visa and a unique passport number with an individual. The system is the latest plank in the government’s £400m e-Borders border control technology platform.

The pilot system to confirm the identity of visitors to the UK will run at Gatwick North Terminal from September 2007 to April 2008, using data from visa applicants from Sierra Leone. If successful, the government may extend it to cover up to five million visitors a year from non-European countries, excluding the US. The pilot is part of a wider biometric-based border control system for the EU called BioDev 2. The BioDev 2 consortium members are Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and the UK. A Home Office spokesman said the project is 80% funded by the EU. Britain has contributed about £28,000 to the European Commission for BioDev 2.

Motorola, Zetes and Sagem, which earlier supplied the iris recognition system for the Home Office’s “trusted traveller” scheme, are the three main suppliers to the BioDev project. Motorola supplied the Gatwick installation, and will install similar systems in other EU countries later.

Mike Lyne, assistant director at the Border & Immigration Agency, said the department is pleased with the system’s performance so far. Some 5,000 names and related images are in the pilot database.

Most come from the collection UKVisas has been building since September 2006, when giving biometric details became compulsory for visa applications from some countries.

Fred Preston, Motorola’s project leader, said the system finds a matching record in milliseconds.

Have Your Say: Image database is latest technology added to border control platform
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

NIST Admits Total Collapse Of Twin Towers Unexplainable

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

 

Implicitly acknowledges controlled demolition only means by which towers could have fallen at free fall speed

Paul Joseph Watson

The National Institute for Standards and Technology has been forced to admit that the total free-fall collapse of the twin towers cannot be explained after an exhaustive scientific study, implicitly acknowledging that controlled demolition is the only means by which the buildings could have come down.

In a recent letter (PDF link) to 9/11 victim’s family representatives Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine, NIST states, “We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.”

A 10,000 page scientific study only offers theories as to how the “collapse initiation” proceeded and fails to address how it was possible for part of a WTC structure to fall through the path of most resistance at freefall speed, completely violating the accepted laws of physics.

In addition, NIST’s own studies confirmed that virtually none of the steel in either tower reached temperatures hotter than 500 degrees. The point at which steel weakens is 1000 degrees and melting point is reached at 1,500 degrees, according to NIST itself.

“NIST’S 10,000-page report purports to explain what it calls “collapse initiation” — the loss of several floors’ vertical support,” writes Kevin Barrett of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. “In order to dream up this preposterous scenario, NIST had to ignore its own tests that showed that virtually none of the steel got hotter than 500 degrees f. It had to claim that somehow the planes took out many core columns, despite the fact that only a direct hit by an engine would have been likely to do so, and that the chances of this happening even once are fairly low. It had to preposterously allege that the plane that nicked the corner of the South Tower took out more core columns than the one that hit the North Tower almost dead center. It had to tweak all the parameters till they screamed bloody murder and say that the steel was far weaker than it actually was, the fire was far hotter than it actually was, the sagging was far greater than it actually was, and so on. And so NIST hallucinated a computer-generated fantasy scenario for “collapse initiation”–the failure of a few floors.”

“But how do you get from the failure of a few floors to total collapse at free-fall speed of the entire structure? The short answer: You don’t. Anyone with the slightest grasp of the laws of physics understands that even if all of the vertical supports on a few floors somehow failed catastrophically at exactly the same moment–a virtually impossible event, but one necessary to explain why the Towers would come straight down rather than toppling sideways–the top part of the building could not fall THROUGH the still-intact, highly robust lower part of the building, straight through the path of most resistance, just as fast as it would have fallen through thin air.”

“Thus total free-fall collapse, even given NIST’s ridiculous “initiation” scenario, is utterly impossible. The probability of it happening is exactly equal to the probability of the whole building suddenly falling upward and landing on the moon,” concludes Barrett.

NIST have yet to properly address the sudden freefall collapse of WTC Building 7, which imploded on the late afternoon of 9/11 despite not being hit by a jetliner.

In August 2006, NIST promised to scientifically evaluate whether explosive devices could have contributed to the 47-story building’s collapse but no answers have been forthcoming.

In August of this year, James Quintiere, Ph.D., former Chief of the Fire Science Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, called for an independent inquiry into NIST’s investigation of the collapse of the twin towers.

Quintiere said NIST’s conclusions were “questionable”, that they failed to follow standard scientific procedures and that their failure to address Building 7 belied the fact that the investigation was incomplete.

Have Your Say: NIST Admits Total Collapse Of Twin Towers Unexplainable
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Witness saw ‘white flash’ in Diana death crash tunnel

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

By Robert Barr

A man who claimed he saw a blinding flash of light in a Paris road tunnel just before the car crash that killed Princess Diana spent hours yesterday answering questions about inconsistencies in statements he has made.

Francois Levistre, whose testimony to the British inquest differed at key points from other witnesses, testified that he saw two men on a motorcycle ahead of the princess’s car, a “major flash of light,” and then a crash.

Afterward, he said, the passenger on the motorcycle looked into the crumpled Mercedes and gave a two-hand gesture to indicate “job done.”

The inquest is investigating the deaths of the princess and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, on 31 August 1997. Henri Paul, who was driving their Mercedes car, also died in the crash.

Fayed’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, has claimed that a blinding flash may have been used by rogue British agents in a murder plot orchestrated by Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

Both the French and British police ruled out a conspiracy, concluding that Paul was drunk and driving too fast.

Levistre is not the only witness who claims to have seen a flash in the tunnel but was the first to testify to the inquest.

He said he was driving through the tunnel as the incident unfolded, and then stopped at the end and watched through his rearview mirror.

Other witnesses have told of seeing people running into the tunnel after the crash, and of photographers snapping pictures. Levistre said he saw only two men moving around for as long as five minutes.

Questioned repeatedly about why he had told different stories to French police and an examining magistrate, Levistre said he hadn’t read the statements that he later signed.

“You know, people ask questions and you just answer,” said Levistre, who testified from Paris via a videolink.

He confirmed that he did not call the police but did contact the Ritz Hotel, controlled by Mohamed al Fayed, and The Sunday Times newspaper in Britain.

Bernard Dertavelle, a lawyer for the Ritz, notified police, who then summoned Levistre, he testified.

Levistre said he saw the Mercedes enter the tunnel and a motorcycle pulling out to overtake it. He said he saw no other vehicles.

The bright flash, he said, was directed at the Mercedes from the back of the motorcycle.

He confirmed that he had served a jail sentence on a weapons charge, and felt he had been harassed by the French media after he and his wife were accused of offering a child to a German industrialist. Levistre said his wife acted as a surrogate mother, which led to an investigation in France but no charges.

Have Your Say: Witness saw ‘white flash’ in Diana death crash tunnel
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

New Film Exposes How Rudy Failed Firefighters On 9/11

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

Sam Stein

Filmmaker Robert Greenwald has released another explosive short documentary film about Rudy Giuliani, this time highlighting the former New York City mayor’s controversial handling of radios used by the city’s fire department on Sept. 11. Greenwald is also petitioning the New York City Council to launch an investigation into the matter.

The web video, released Monday by Brave New Films, alleges that during his administration Giuliani failed to equip the FDNY with adequate, let alone functioning, communication equipment. That in turn created massive problems on 9/11 and may have contributed to the unnecessary deaths of dozens of servicemen.

“What did Mr. Giuliani do [about faulty radios]?” Al Santora, the retired Chief of Safety for FDNY whose son died on 9/11, asks in one of the film’s most poignant moments. “He had eight years. He did nothing to correct that situation… We got people dead as a result.”

As Greenwald documents, the radios used by the FDNY on 9/11 were precisely the same ones that malfunctioned during the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Eight years after that attack, Giuliani did replace the defective equipment. But the new radios he bought under a no-bid, $14 million contract from Motorola (the previous contract was $1.4 million) were never field-tested. The “upgrade” proved disastrous. Within a week, the just-purchased radios were recalled after a firefighter’s mayday went un-heard. Giuliani was forced to reissue the old, faulty batch. And on 9/11 when a police helicopter warned that the North Tower could collapse, more than 120 firefighters remained inside.

“The radios failed them and that was Giuliani failing them,” says Roseleen Tallon, whose brother Sean was an FDNY member killed in 9/11.

In addition to releasing the film on www.therealrudy.org, Greenwald is petitioning New York City Councilman Eric Gioia to initiate a public investigation into Giulaini’s handling of the FDNY radios.

“No investigation has ever taken place,” Greenwald told the Huffington Post. “People were killed because he screwed up… and family members want questions answered.”

Giuliani’s office did not return calls requesting comment.

This is the second Giuliani film made by Greenwald. The first explored the former mayor’s decision to ignore the advise of his own security experts and locate New York’s terrorist command center at the World Trade Center, despite its centrality as a potential terrorist target.

Have Your Say: New Film Exposes How Rudy Failed Firefighters On 9/11
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Related News

• How Safe Are Mobile Phones?
• RINF Alternative News on Twitter
• Lindsey Williams Videos on the Oil/Energy ‘Crisis’
• VIDEO: What really happened in New Orleans?
• VIDEO: 9/11 - The Secret Rulers of the World

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 9:11 pm and is filed under General, Human Rights, 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.