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

WEBMASTERS! Get Your Website To The Top Of Google

First Air-Powered Car: Zero Emissions by Next Summer

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

India’s largest automaker is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008.

Barring any last-minute design changes on the way to production, the Air Car should be surprisingly practical. The $12,700 CityCAT, one of a handful of planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units; MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car’s carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours.

Of course, the Air Car will likely never hit American shores, especially considering its all-glue construction. But that doesn’t mean the major automakers can write it off as a bizarre Indian experiment — MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa.

Have Your Say: First Air-Powered Car: Zero Emissions by Next Summer
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Rudy to 9/11 heroes: “Drop dead”

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

Dear activists, colleagues and friends,With your help millions of Americans now know the story behind The Real Rudy, and his disastrous handling of events before, during and after 9/11.

In the wake of that tragic day, he completed a triumvirate of tragically inept behavior by ignoring the health of the very heroes who toiled day and night at Ground Zero.

They want to meet with him, and they want to ask him what is he going to do to help them.

Watch the video: http://therealrudy.org/heroes.php?utm_source=rgemail

This is the Real Rudy Giuliani. Every time he heartlessly utters 9/11 9/11 9/11 to try and help his flagging political career, let’s make sure people shake their heads in disgust, because they know the true story of Rudy Giuliani, the 9/11 failure.

Sign the petition telling Rudy to meet with the real heroes of 9/11:

http://therealrudy.org/heroes.php?utm_source=rgemail

Thanks again for all of your time, passion and commitment!

Sincerely,

Cliff Schecter, Leighton Woodhouse and the Brave New Films team

P.S. The video has already received coverage in the Los Angeles Times and on The Huffington Post. But we need everyone to know the truth. Please help us get this story out as far and wide as possible. Only you can make sure our films are a continuing success in contributing to the success of progressive politics across the country.

Sadly, you already know much of the real story about The Real Rudy. That he chose to put his anti-terrorist command center in the only spot in New York City that had been hit by terrorists before, against the advice of every professional and his own people, because The World Trade Center was more convenient for him.

Furthermore, you’re aware that his inaction in updating the radios used by firefighters who perished that day borders on the criminal. He knew the radios didn’t work at least 8 years before that day, and when he finally chose to replace them, did so in grand Bushian style with a no-bid contract for radios that didn’t work.

Yet, these were not even the worst aspects of Giuliani’s 9/11 record. He completed this triumvirate of tragically inept behavior by ignoring the health of the very heroes who toiled day and night at Ground Zero after the attack. Nothing I could tell you here could prepare you for what you’re about to watch–once healthy human beings now suffering from a range of illnesses that are a direct result of a toxic brew they inhaled in downtown Manhattan, while Rudy was telling them everything was safe and sound from his perch at Yankee Stadium and they were spending sleepless nights trying to save lives (often not wearing respirators because The Giuliani Adminstration ignored that federal requirement).

This is the Real Rudy Giuliani. A man who wants to be President and has 9/11 Tourette’s Syndrome. Well, every time he heartlessly utters that simple phrase to try and help his flagging political career, let’s make sure people shake their heads in disgust, because they know the true story of Rudy Giuliani the 9/11 failure.

And one more thing. Please sign the petition, demanding that Rudy meet with 9/11 first responders he has chosen to heretofore ignore. It is the very least this man could do.

Have Your Say: Rudy to 9/11 heroes: “Drop dead”
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Mr 911 - The Giuliani Anthem

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

A new animated short that lampoons and exposes Rudy Giuliani is making waves on the internet.

The cartoon, produced by www.headastate.com/ titled Mr 911, pulls no punches as it highlights Giuliani’s consistent use of 9/11 for political and personal gain, delves into his mob connections and his relationship with the now disgraced former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.

The short is a parody of an original campaign ad by John F Kennedy which aired in 1960.

“This cartoon promises to go where others have fallen short.” the Heada’State group states on its website.

“Heada’State aims to give life to those little read back page stories in the newspaper that have such a large effect in the world. Our subject is not just the news, but the people who are a part of that often misinterpreted world.” creator Andrew Arnold continues.

The creators are taking one dollar donations to determine who will be their next target for lampoonery. All candidates are in the frame except for Ron Paul. Should the Congressman be the top vote winner, the Heada’State crew will create a special positive ad in his honor.

Visit the site and vote for Ron Paul!

Have Your Say: Mr 911 - The Giuliani Anthem
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Ron Paul: How Do I Say Thank You?

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

Dr Ron Paul writes - In Iowa, many hundreds of volunteers worked day and night for our campaign. College kids took their Christmas vacations in the snow for freedom. Thousands of people donated to make it all possible. We had many phone calls, brochures, mailings, advertising. Revolutionaries from all over the country sent handwritten letters to every voter, and despite national media attacks and censorship, we got more than 10 percent of the vote. We also soundly beat a certain ex-mayor who started off the first debate by attacking a pro-American foreign policy and the explanatory doctrine of “blowback,” the CIA’s term for foreign intervention that causes trouble for us in return. The Golden Rule applies to nations as well as to individuals.

And speaking of debates, FOX blocked my participation in its last New Hampshire debate, but I think that hurt FOX more than us. We had a terrifically successful townhall meeting at the same time, and Jay Leno invited me on the Tonight Show again to discuss it. Many members of our movement were galvanized to overcome the bias, including me!

In our Iowa campaign, since it was a caucus, we were dealing with party activists for the most part, not the people. And some of the activists were very unhappy to hear our views, trying to scream them down! Others thought that peace violates Christianity. But New Hampshire is another story. There is a state and a people tailor-made for us. Live Free! Then there are Michigan, South Carolina, and Super Tuesday and its nearly 20 primaries. Frankly, we need $23 million more to have a chance of beating the establishment candidates.

I am working hard for our ideas, as I know you are. The attacks and even smears will increase as we do better. But they will not defeat our ideas. They cannot defeat out ideas. At this moment of urgency for America, with spending, taxes, spying, inflation, and wars out of control and threatening all we love, let us rededicate ourselves to freedom, prosperity, and peace. Already, I owe you all my thanks. Join me in this great endeavor in New Hampshire and beyond. Please make your most generous donation now: https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate

Have Your Say: Ron Paul: How Do I Say Thank You?
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Jerusalem lights to go out so Bush can enjoy sunrise

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Lights in the Old City of Jerusalem will be turned off before dawn this week so visiting US President George W. Bush can get a better view of the sun rising over its ancient walls.

Bush, who arrives in the Middle East on Wednesday for a visit lasting more than a week, had made a request to watch the sun rise over the Old City from his suite at the King David Hotel, a municipal spokesman said on Tuesday.

To make the scene more dramatic, the authorities have decided to turn off the lights illuminating the limestone walls before dawn on Thursday and Friday, the spokesman told reporters.

The gesture is just one of several that Bush’s Israeli hosts will extend to the president of their main ally during his landmark three-day visit this week — the first by a sitting US president to Israel and the Palestinian territories in nine years.

Awaiting Bush at his King David suite — reportedly costing 2,600 dollars a night — will be a white terry bathrobe embroidered with his name in gold, local media have reported.

Israeli television broadcast footage of the garment throughout the day on Tuesday.

And the main highway leading into Jerusalem from the west — already plagued by traffic problems — will be completely closed in one direction for an hour on Wednesday after Bush arrives to allow the unhindered passage of the convoy containing his hundreds-strong entourage.

Have Your Say: Jerusalem lights to go out so Bush can enjoy sunrise
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

How To: Install micro wind turbines and solar panels

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

£25 million in grants issued for micro wind turbines and solar panels

Small scale renewable energy grants worth some £25 million have now been claimed from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP). The news came as Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks called for more homes and business to follow his lead by adopting a ‘go green’ new year’s resolution.

His call comes as more and more homes, schools and businesses have been helped with Government grants to install technologies such as solar panels, biomass boilers and ground-source heat pumps.

Grants claimed under BERR’s Low Carbon Buildings Programme since it launched in April 2006 are up to approximately £25 million:

* £7.5 million to help 4,600 households generate their own clean and green energy.

* £18 million for a total of 739 projects on school, community, housing association and business buildings.

Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said: “It’s vital that recent efforts by world governments to reach a deal on cutting global carbon emissions are matched by action by each and every one of us. Deciding to go green and generate your own clean energy is one of the most valuable New Year’s resolutions you can make. It is certainly my intention to make a difference, and make my own house more energy efficient and install clean and green electricity.

“There are still grants available to householders who want to follow in the footsteps of the thousands across the UK who have been helped by the Government to fit microgeneration technology at their homes. Many schools have benefited also and the pupils there have been able to see renewable energy in action and understand more about its important benefits.”

There are still £11m in grants available under Phase 1 for householders who want to generate renewable energy at home. Schools, charitable bodies and other public sector organisations can apply for a share of the £44m that remains from the original £50m set aside for them under Phase 2.

It has also been another year of progress for the wider renewable sector.

* Consent for eight major renewables projects, including the world’s largest biomass plant in Port Talbot; the innovative Wave Hub project off the Cornish coast; the 66MW Fullabrook Down wind farm in Devon and a 450MW offshore wind farm at Walney in the Irish Sea.

* Announcement by Energy Secretary John Hutton of plans for a massive expansion in offshore wind power. The vast bulk of the seas around the UK are to be covered by a new Strategic Environmental Assessment, opening up the possibility of enough offshore wind to power all of the UK’s homes.

* The announcement by John Hutton of a feasibility study into the possibility of clean energy generation in the Severn Barrage that could generate up to 5% of the UK’s future electricity.

In 2008 the momentum will be maintained with the introduction of legislation that will aim to ‘band’ the Renewables Obligation to bring on more support for less developed renewables technologies such as wave, tidal and offshore wind.

Background

For more information on the Low Carbon Buildings Programme and to apply for grants click here: http://www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk/about/hfaqs/

Some successful applicant case studies:

Christ Church Chislehurst, Kent

Michael Milton Church Warden.

http://www.chislehurst-christchurch.diocese-rochester.org

Grant £10k of £51k system cost

6 boreholes; 34kw ground source heat pump system

The ground source heat pumps will heat the new community building which will be linked to both the church and the refurbished church hall. The church grounds were used for the installation of boreholes and the the new extension incorporated underfloor heating. With the availability of a grant to partially fund the installation, this form of technology also offers a realistic payback period, which off-sets the need to raise additional funds by private individual donations.

Bute Cottage Nursery School, Penarth.

Cery Hoffrock, Headteacher

butecottns@valeofglamorgan.gov.uk

£1.7k of £3.5k system cost

Education of 3 to 5 year olds, community learning for a catchment that includes the whole of Penarth. 80 children are on roll and these children are replaced by 80 new ones each year. The nursery school is committed to conservation & recycling and engages & educates the wider community in joining with it to ensure that it continues to be recognised as an International Green Flag Eco-School.

Runshaw College, Leyland, Lancs

Grant £27k of £54k system cost

11kWp Solar PV system

Further education college, electricity for sports hall, fitness suite, indoor and outdoor changing facilities. Analysis ruled out wind power. The visual presence of Solar PV coupled with the active system monitoring from an educational point of view, the long life of the technology and the opportunity to claim renewable obligation certificates and rewards for any export payments all underlined Solar PV as the right choice.

Fulston Manor School, Kent

Clive Johnson, Headmaster

http://www.solar4schools.co.uk/schools/fulston_manor_school.html

Grant £10k of £20k system cost

4kWp Solar PV system

Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue, Halifax, Yorks

Jean Burchell

http://www.tiagreyhounds.org.uk/

6kW Proven Wind Turbine

Grant £10k of £21k system cost

As the Charity’s name suggests the objects are to provide refuge and veterinary care for dogs in need - in particular Greyhounds and Lurchers. The wind turbine will power the farmhouse which is the charity’s headquarters incorporating living accommodation for the on-site Trustee, office space and housing for older/sick dogs as well as the kennel block housing in the region of 80 dogs at any one time.

Source

If you have a question that’s not listed below you can post a new one on the Energy Saving Trust’s frequently asked questions database, click here to go to this database.

A.) What levels of grants will be available?
The current grant levels are as follows and we will regularly review them as the market for each technology develops:

Technology	Maximum Amount of Grant
Solar photovoltaics	Maximum of £2,000 per kW of installed capacity, subject to an overall maximum of £2,500 or 50% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower
Wind turbines	Maximum of £1,000 per kW of installed capacity, subject to an overall maximum of £2,500 or 30% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower
Small hydro	Maximum of £1,000 per kW of installed capacity, subject to an overall maximum of £2,500 or 30% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower
Solar thermal hot water	Overall maximum of £400 or 30% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower
Ground source heat pumps	Overall maximum of £1,200 or 30% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower
Automated wood pellet fed room heaters/stoves	Overall maximum of £600 or 20% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower
Wood fuelled boiler systems	Overall maximum of £1,500 or 30% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower

B.) Who can apply for a grant?
Individual property owners including private householders can apply for grants from the programme.
C.) How will the application process work?
Applications are accepted on a rolling first-come-first-served basis. An outline of the process is as follows:

Complete the energy efficiency measures required by the programme, obtain planning permission for your installation if necessary and obtain a quote from an accredited installer.
Make an application online.
After receiving a grant offer letter via email, order the equipment and begin installing the technology. The grant validity period varies by technology. See D.) below for more details.
After you have completed the installation and you have paid the installer, you can submit the claim documents to the Energy Saving Trust.
The grant claim is checked and, if in order, the grant will be issued within 25 working days of receipt of all the documentation.

Applications can be received from properties located within England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland (excluding the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands).

Please note: you should wait until you have received a grant offer letter before commencing the installation.

D.) How long will my grant be valid for?
Grant validity periods vary by technology.

Installations on existing buildings:

Solar Thermal Hot Water – 3 months
Solar PV – 4 months
Wind Turbines – 4 months
Ground Source Heat Pumps – 6 months
Wood Fuelled Boilers – 6 months
Pellet Stoves – 6 months
Small Scale Hydro – 12 months

Installations on buildings under construction:

Solar Thermal Hot Water – 6 months
Solar PV – 6 months
Wind Turbines – 6 months
Ground Source Heat Pumps – 6 months
Wood Fuelled Boilers – 6 months
Pellet Stoves – 6 months
Small Scale Hydro – 12 months

E.) How long will it take to receive my grant payment?
We aim to process grant claims within 25 working days of receipt of full claim documents. Currently our grant processing time is 22 working days as of 7th January 2008.

F.) Is there any guidance available for the online application system?
Yes, please read the following guidance notes

G.) What are the required energy efficiency measures?
You must undertake a number of energy efficiency measures before you are eligible to apply for a grant from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme. These measures will ensure that you are minimising your energy requirements. Before applying we require you to have:

a. insulated the whole of the loft of the property to meet current building regulations e.g. 270mm of mineral wool loft insulation or suitable alternative
b. installed cavity wall insulation (if you have cavity walls)
c. fitted low energy light bulbs in all appropriate light fittings
d. installed basic controls for your heating system to include a room thermostat and a programmer or timer.

We recommend that you complete a home energy check to assess which measures are most suitable for your home. You can also call your local Energy Saving Trust advice centre on 0800 512 012 for guidance on energy efficiency measures and energy efficiency grants available in your area.
H.) I applied for a householder grant online and was successful. Why haven’t I received my email confirmation?
When you successfully apply for a householder grant online you will receive a grant offer letter via email. Therefore you must enter your email address accurately. If your email account has a spam filter your grant offer letter may be sent to your junk items box. If you have not received your grant offer letter within 3 working days and it is not in your junk items box please call our helpline on 0800 915 0990.

I.) I applied for a grant with a paper application. Why haven’t I received any response?
Paper application forms will be processed within 15 working days of receipt. If you have given an email address on your application form and ticked to say you are happy to receive communications by email, any response to your application will be sent to that email address. If you do not have an email address a response will be sent by post to the correspondence address listed on your application form.

J.) Where can my installer obtain a completion certificate?
These can be downloaded from this website, click here to download the completion certificates.

K.) Provisional certification
Installers certified under the Low Carbon Buildings Programme can be either provisionally or fully certified. Provisional certification means that a certified installer can carry out 5 installations; the installer must be inspected by the certification organisation before they can become fully certified and do an unlimited number of installations.

Both provisionally and fully certified installers are available for selection on the online application system. However, please note that once the provisionally certified installer you have selected has reached the 5 installation limit, the online system will not allow you to proceed with an application. You will only be able to select them again once they have become fully certified; the same rules apply for applications made on paper.

L.) What are the criteria for receiving a grant?
The main criteria for householders are:
1. Applicants must be the householder / owners of the property for which the grant is applied (applicants who have leasehold ownership must have permission of the property freeholder).
2. Applicants must be resident of, and the installation address be situated in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland (excluding the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands).
3. Systems must supply a permanent building (mobile homes, caravans, house boats etc. are not eligible).
4. You have installed the basic level of energy efficiency measures as outlined in FAQ G above. You may be able to access grants for energy efficiency measures. Have a look at the Energy Saving Trust’s grants information database or call your local Energy Saving Trust advice centre on 0800 512 012 for information on energy efficiency grants .
5. You must have received planning permission for your installation or received confirmation from your local authority that it is not required.

M.) Can I still receive a grant if a non-certified installer performs the installation?
Only if the certified installer who installed the technology was not contracted to you directly, but was sub-contracted by your main contractor. In this case, the certified installer must fill out the completion certificate, and you must provide a suitable chain of copy invoices evidencing to the Energy Saving Trust’s satisfaction that the work was carried out by the certified installer and that the certified installer has been paid in full for that work.

N.) I live in a house owned by the council; can I apply for a grant?
Unfortunately you can’t apply for a grant. The council - as the owner of the building - must apply for the grant under the Phase 1, Stream 2 or Phase 2 of the Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

O.) I would like to install a microgeneration technology on my property, but I rent part of it out. Will I be eligible for a grant?
It depends. In order to be eligible for a grant, the benefit of the system must be clearly accrued only to the domestic owner and resident. For example: you would like to install photovoltaic tiles on the ground floor extension of a property you own but let out the top floor. In this case, you will be eligible for a grant as long as you use the ground floor flat as a dwelling, and the electricity generated by the installation only benefits that flat (through separate metering).

P.) Can I apply more than once for the same project for different technologies?
Yes you can. You can apply for funding for up to 3 different technologies on one building, with a maximum of 3 different buildings funded (NB these have to be on separate applications). There is a maximum of £2,500 of funding available per installation address.

Q.) What if the grant applications are for different addresses?
Different addresses are still eligible as the programme is all about maximising the number of low carbon buildings.

R.) I received a grant under the old schemes (Clear Skies and PV schemes), can I have a grant from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme too?
Yes, provided it is for another technology. You cannot have more than one grant from this or the previous programmes for the same technology.

S.) I live in Scotland / Northern Ireland, can I also get a grant from the schemes operating here?
You will not be allowed to receive a grant from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme along with a grant from the Scottish Community and Household Renewables Initiative (SCHRI) or the Northern Ireland’s Renewable Energy Fund for the same project or installation; i.e. double funding for projects will not be allowed.

T.) Can I obtain lottery funding in addition to the Low Carbon Buildings Programme Grant?
Yes, you will be able to apply for funding under the Low Carbon Buildings Programme as well as for lottery funding, provided the total sum of funding received does not exceed 100% of the cost of the installation.

U.) What can be funded?
Grants are available for more than one microgeneration technology at the same address. All new systems supported with Low Carbon Buildings Grants must deliver an output of greater than 0.5kWp for electrical installations. There is no minimum for thermal installations.

Applications must be related to installations on permanent buildings. Applications for temporary and mobile buildings or non-building related installations will not be considered for Grant support (e.g. mobile homes, houseboats, motorway sound barriers, telecommunication towers).

Grants will only be awarded in respect of equipment and work directly related to the installed system. This includes design of the system, the cost of the plant and/or materials, installation and connection. Unrelated building works are not eligible.

Grants may only be claimed for approved (certified) products/systems. Your certified installer will be aware of this list. Where you have applied for a grant and installed a product not listed on the approved register, your grant will NOT be paid.

Installations should be designed and commissioned by certified installers. If a non-certified installer carries out the installation, then the grant will not be awarded in respect of this part of the cost. A certified installer must confirm that the system has been satisfactorily installed by signing the programme completion certific.

Please note the grant will not cover:

Value Added Tax (VAT)
Un-associated costs (e.g. roofing works outside the direct installation of the microtechnology system, vandal covers, asbestos removal, upgrades to your household ring main, new radiators or heat distribution system, etc.)
Warranty costs – all accredited microgeneration installers are required to provide an installation warranty free of charge. Manufacturers usually provide an extensive lifetime warranty for their technology. Consult your installer for details of these warranties before committing
Expenditure on works or activities which any other person or organisation has a statutory duty to undertake
Any liability arising out of negligence on the part of the Applicant or its representatives
Expenditure of a political or religious nature

Please refer to the term and conditions for further details.

V.) Can I pay a deposit before I apply for my grant?
Please note that any payment you make to your installer is done at your own risk. Grant assistance is not automatically guaranteed to all who make an application; we therefore advise applicants not to make any payments before the receipt of a grant offer.

W.) My grant offer letter now contains out of date information due to changes to my installation project; what can I do?
If your grant offer letter becomes out of date due to changes to your installation project, you must, as a condition of the grant, inform us in writing of these changes. You may

EITHER

Withdraw from your current grant offer and reapply with details from your newly appointed installer. In this instance your grant offer would be re-issued with the correct details listed.

Continue installation work at your own risk under your current grant offer. In this instance, your grant offer and web entry will not be updated with the details you have supplied. We will accept a grant claim against your original grant offer though please note that:
1) the maximum grant payable will be capped at your original offer amount but may be reduced
2) the grant claim will only be honoured where:
- All information complies with the terms and conditions of the grant
- The new installer has the correct certification
- The equipment installed is approved
If when you come to claim, there is a problem with your installer’s certification, or they have installed unapproved equipment then we will reject your claim and no monies will be payable. Please click here to check certification status of your proposed system and new installer.

X.) Which technology is right for me?
It depends on the location of your house and the type of microgeneration system that you are considering on installing. You could take a look at the section on this website on microgeneration technologies to consider the technology that might be most suitable for you.

If you would like to read about other case studies of previously funded microgeneration installations take a look at:

The Clear Skies website and the Energy Saving Trust’s website.

Y.) Can grants be obtained for Air Source Heat Pumps?
The current accreditation schemes does not cover this technology. The new scheme will do so after appropriate standards for this technology have been developed.

Z.) Are wind turbines suitable in all locations?
The Energy Saving Trust does not guarantee or underwrite the performance of any technology grant funded under the Low Carbon Buildings Programme. You are advised to ask your installer (or the product manufacturer) what reassurances they can provide you in support of any performance claims they make.

This is especially important for small wind turbines, due to the variability in local wind conditions. For some newer wind turbines, particularly those designed for mounting on buildings, there may not be (or only limited) independent long-term performance data verifying performance claims.

AA.) How long must the microgeneration system operate?
The system installed must operate at the Installation address for a minimum of 5 years from the date of the completion certificate. The Energy Saving Trust, or its authorised representative, may carry out a site inspection to ensure compliance of these programme conditions. Applicants must also ensure that end users of the microgeneration system co-operate with any energy monitoring exercise carried out by the Energy Saving Trust or its authorised representatives.

AB.) What if I decide to sell my property before the 5 years are up?
You must then write to the Low Carbon Buildings Programme to inform us of this as well as of the details of the person(s) that have bought the property. The new owner(s) must be made aware that the terms and conditions of grant have now passed on to them.

AC.) I can’t find an installer for Fuel Cells, Renewable CHP or Micro CHP?
The new certification scheme will cover these technologies after appropriate standards for these technologies have been developed.

AD.) I would like to use a particular installer that is not on the list, what can I do?
The onus for obtaining certification for the installation of renewable energy technologies lies with the installer and not with the certification organisation. If an installer wishes to become certified, and so be able to service customers who are also looking to apply for a grant under the Low Carbon Buildings Programme, they will need to join the UK Microgeneration Certification Scheme www.uk-microgeneration.co.uk.

AE.) How many grants have been given so far?
By clicking here you can view statistics on stream 1 - household grant applications by country and region.

Source

Have Your Say: How To: Install micro wind turbines and solar panels
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Republicans Vote to Impeach Dick Cheney

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

By Kamal El-Din

In what may be the biggest political news of the century a sitting vice-president may be impeached at the hands of his own party. In a stunning reversal today House Republicans have broken with the President and have voted to impeach vice-president Dick Cheney. House Republicans have insisted that the resolution to impeach, sponsored by Dennis Kucinich, be debated on the floor of the House.

The news has sent shockwaves across the country as the GOP faithful find their beleaguered party imploding before their very eyes. Under pressure from a deeply divided and angry base congressional Republicans have split with President Bush and Vice –President Cheney.

The White House would not comment on the matter officially, but our sources indicate that the enraged Cheney tried to order the Air Force to drop napalm on the Capital building, only to be told that ‘..we don’t do that anymore.” We expect some kind of official statement on the issue early tomorrow morning.

In the mean time all of Washington is trying to understand what it all means.

“I’m amazed they had the guts to do it.” Says Washington insider David Brooks. “But really, what did the congressional Republicans have to lose? Do you really think that they were going to go lock step with this terribly unpopular President over the cliff? Not on you life. These guys, lead by Pete Sessions, read the writing on the wall and decided that the President and Cheney were a liability. Bush and Cheney are done next year, but the rest of the Republican Party doesn’t want to wonder in the wilderness for another forty years. They are cutting their losses in an attempt to regroup by the next election.”

The resolution accuses Cheney of violating his oath to protect the U.S. Constitution and lying to the public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Have Your Say: Republicans Vote to Impeach Dick Cheney
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

‘No end to extremism with US policies’

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto has said that extremism could only be tackled when the US stops supporting dictators in the region.

The son of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto told reporters on Tuesday that Washington’s support for dictators in the region was one of the factors behind the spread of extremism in the world; The News, a leading Pakistani daily reported on its web site.

“The family’s and party’s request is for a UN-sponsored investigation, because we do not believe that an investigation under the authority of the Pakistan government has the necessary transparency,” Bilawal said, referring to the assassination of his mother.

He warned that rigged elections will lead to chaos in the country.

Bilawal said his mother’s death had made him resilient, and adamant that democracy would be restored in Pakistan.

JR/RE

Have Your Say: ‘No end to extremism with US policies’
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Nukes, Spooks, and the Specter of 9/11

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

“The next president may have to deal with a nuclear attack,” averred ABC’s Charles Gibson at Saturday night’s Democratic presidential debate. “The day after a nuclear weapon goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to prevent it and what will we actually do on the day after?”

It’s a question that frightens everyone, and one to which there is no easy answer: none of the candidates really rose to the occasion, and most seemed baffled. Hillary Clinton made sure she used the word “retaliation” with unusual emphasis, and when pressed on the question of how she would retaliate against “stateless” terrorists nevertheless insisted that she would indeed retaliate against someone, because the perpetrators had to have a “haven” somewhere within a state.

Yes, well, that’s not necessarily true, but what if that “haven” is… right here in the U.S.? Or, perhaps, in a NATO country, say, Turkey?

Say what?

Impossible, you say? Not if you believe Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI who listened in on hundreds of telephone intercepts and has now told the London Times that several top U.S. government officials conspired with foreign agents to steal U.S. nuclear secrets and sell them on the black market. The Times reports:

“Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of U.S. officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

“Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the U.S. State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan. The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims. However, Edmonds said: ‘He was aiding foreign operatives against U.S. interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.’

“She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents. ‘If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,’ she said.”

Edmonds brought all this to the attention of lawmakers, as well as the American media, and several news organizations filed reports – until a federal judge issued an unprecedented gag order. Edmonds’ story was deemed too hot to handle: if the public were allowed to know what she knows, according to our government, America’s national security would be severely impaired. Yet now she is speaking out, and what she has to say is unsettling, to say the least.

Edmonds has named at least one of the officials: he is Marc Grossman, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, assistant secretary of state for European affairs under the Clinton administration and undersecretary of state for political affairs from 2001-2005. Grossman is now vice chairman of The Cohen Group, a consulting firm founded by Bill Clinton’s defense secretary, William S. Cohen.

Edmonds contends that an international nuclear smuggling ring, associated with the intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Israel, has been permitted to operate in the U.S. with impunity. Our government, she claims, knew all about it yet, in order to placate the foreign governments involved, allowed a vast criminal enterprise to carry out its activities, including money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and espionage involving efforts to steal U.S. nuclear technology.

As a translator for the FBI, Edmonds had the task of translating many hours of intercepted phone conversations between Turkish officials and Pakistanis, Israelis, and Americans who were targets of the FBI’s counterintelligence unit. Thousands of hours of intercepted calls revealed a network of moles placed in various military installations and academic venues dealing with nuclear technology. Edmonds gives us the details, via the Times:

“Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. ‘The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,’ she said.

“They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official [Marc Grossman] who provided some of their moles – mainly Ph.D. students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.”

And “while the FBI was investigating,” says Edmonds, “several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.” An entire wing of the national security bureaucracy, associated with the neoconservatives, has long profited from representing Turkish interests in Washington: this group includes not only Grossman, but also Paul Wolfowitz, chief intellectual architect of the Iraq war and ex-World Bank president; former deputy defense secretary for policy Douglas J. Feith; Feith’s successor, Eric Edelman; and Richard Perle, the notorious uber-neocon whose unique ability to mix profiteering and warmongering forced him to resign his official capacity as a key administration adviser.

Edmonds draws a picture of a three-sided alliance consisting of Turkish, Pakistani, and Israeli agents who coordinated efforts to milk U.S. nuclear secrets and technology, funneling the intelligence stream to the black market nuclear network set up by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. The multi-millionaire Pakistani nuclear scientist then turned around and sold his nuclear assets to North Korea, Libya, and Iran.

This was no “rogue” operation, but a covert action executed by Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, the chief of Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, at the time. The Turks were used as intermediaries because direct ISI intervention would have roused immediate suspicion. Large amounts of cash were dropped off at the offices of Turkish-American lobbying groups, such as the American Turkish Council in Washington, which was reportedly picked up by at least one top U.S. official.

This Pakistani-Turkish-Israeli Axis of Espionage, operating through their respective embassies, systematically combed Washington officialdom for potential moles, compiling lists that, according to Edmonds and the Times, “contained all their ‘hooking points,’ which could be financial or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to.” Nice work, there.

This sounds a lot like the setup the handlers of convicted spy Larry Franklin worked with to glean information from the rabidly pro-Israel Franklin and pass it off to Israeli embassy officials, including former Israeli ambassador Danny Ayalon; Naor Gilon, the former political officer at the embassy; and Rafi Barak, the former deputy chief of mission. And there is indeed a connection to the Franklin case, according to the Times,

“One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing U.S. defense information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat. ‘He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001,’ [Edmonds] said.”

Franklin delivered his “packages” to AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman and their Israeli handlers for ideological reasons, but others, such as Grossman – according to Edmonds – did it for money. Grossman angrily denies the charge. In any case, apparently large cash transactions were recorded on the tapes Edmonds translated, in which U.S. officials were heard selling the nation’s nuclear secrets. As the Times relates:

“Well-known U.S. officials were then bribed by foreign agents to steal U.S. nuclear secrets. One such incident from 2000 involves an agent overheard on a wiretap discussing ‘nuclear information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama,’ in which the agent allegedly is heard saying: ‘We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000.’”

A vast criminal enterprise supported by at least three foreign intelligence agencies acting in concert with top U.S. officials, including some “household names” – if true, it’s the story of the decade. Yet that isn’t all. The really scary aspect of this labyrinthine network of foreign agents, and their American dupes and collaborators, is its connections to terrorist organizations, specifically al-Qaeda.

To begin with, Gen. Ahmad is suspected of having wired a large amount of money into Mohammed Atta’s Dubai bank account shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. More ominously, the Times reports: “Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.”

Pakistani and/or Turkish operatives arrested or held for questioning in the wake of the 9/11 attacks? Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of it. However, the U.S. authorities did round up a large number of Israelis, including these guys, and held them for several months before extraditing them back to their home country.

Even more alarming is the reason Edmonds approached the Times with the story, “after reading about an al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.” That’s a reference to this Nov. 2 story in the Times, which details the career of a top al-Qaeda kingpin, one Louai al-Sakka, who claims to have trained several of the 9/11 hijackers at a camp situated outside Istanbul in the resort area of the Yalova mountains.

Now that’s curious: a Muslim fundamentalist training camp in a country run by a fanatically secular military that would normally not tolerate such activities. As the Times puts it: “Turkish intelligence were aware of unusual militant Islamic activity in the Yalova mountains, where Sakka had set up his camps. But they posed no threat to Turkey at the time.”

Not a threat to Turkey, eh? All too true: the terrorists’ target was the U.S. The al-Qaeda recruits trained by Sakka were specifically chosen by the top leadership of al-Qaeda – i.e., bin Laden – to carry out the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. That they were nurtured and steeled for their mission under the noses of our NATO allies in Ankara seems bizarre – until one begins to take Sibel Edmonds seriously. Then the whole horrifying picture starts to fall into place.

The darkest secrets of 9/11 are buried at the end of the trail laid out in Edmonds’ testimony. As Luke Ryland, the world’s foremost expert on the Edmonds case, writes:

“The Times article then notes something that I reported 18 months ago. Immediately after 911, the FBI arrested a bunch of people suspected of being involved with the attacks – including four associates of key targets of FBI’s counterintelligence operations. Sibel heard the targets tell Marc Grossman: ‘We need to get them out of the U.S. because we can’t afford for them to spill the beans.’ Grossman duly facilitated their release from jail and the suspects immediately left the country without further investigation or interrogation.

“Let me repeat that for emphasis: The #3 guy at the State Dept. facilitated the immediate release of 911 suspects at the request of targets of the FBI’s investigation.”

Corruption and a massive cover-up organized at the highest levels of government – America’s nuclear secrets and technology looted on a massive scale, and sold to our enemies via a network set up by our alleged foreign “friends,” while the threat of nuclear terrorism hangs over our country like a thick fog of fear, and warmongering politicians scare us into going along with the program – if even half of what Edmonds alleges turns out to be true, then we are all in some very big trouble.

In light of the Edmonds revelations, we have to reconsider the implications of the question Charles Gibson opened with during the ABC Democratic debate:

“The day after a nuclear weapon goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to prevent it and what will we actually do on the day after?”

Perhaps congressman Henry Waxman, who solemnly pledged to launch a public investigation into the allegations made by Edmonds, will wish he had kept his promise. Maybe even the national news media, which has been offered this story repeatedly, by Ms. Edmonds and her supporters, will wish they had covered it.

Fortunately, we don’t need the “mainstream” media to get the truth out to the American people. With the new technology of the computer age, we can do an end run around the media. This YouTube video is shocking:

As Edmonds says, “we have the facts, we have the documents, we have the witnesses. Put out the tapes, put out the documents, put out the intercepts – put out the truth.”

If a nuke ever goes off in an American city, it will probably have been stolen from our own arsenal – once the American people wake up to that scary fact, the rest will follow automatically.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12166

Have Your Say: Nukes, Spooks, and the Specter of 9/11
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Democratic Party complicit in CIA torture

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

Declassified letter exposes Democratic Party complicity in CIA torture

By Joe Kay

Last week, the CIA declassified a February 2003 letter from Democratic Representative Jane Harman of California discussing the planned destruction of videotapes depicting the interrogation and torture of prisoners held by the CIA.

Harman requested that the CIA release the letter in order to show her supposed criticism of the agency’s plans to destroy the evidence. In a statement on the letter, Harman said that it “makes clear my concern about possible destruction of any tapes.” In fact, the letter only underscores the fact that the Democratic Party was aware of and supported the CIA’s secret policy of torture.

Democrats knew of plans to destroy evidence of interrogations, but made no serious attempt to stop it or inform the American people. Indeed, Harman’s “concern” was in effect an indication to the CIA that the Democrats would not challenge a decision to destroy the tapes and would not expose the agency if it did so.

The videotapes, involving hundreds of hours of interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were secretly destroyed in November 2005. Their destruction was only publicly disclosed last month, though several Democrats had been made aware of the action at least a year ago.

Perhaps the most significant section of the three-paragraph letter is that dealing with the CIA’s interrogation policy, not the plans for destroying the tapes. Harman made clear that she supported the program of “enhanced interrogation,” which included the use of the notorious torture technique of waterboarding. The letter amounted to a green light for the continuation of the program, which was kept secret from the American people for several more years.

In the letter, addressed to CIA General Counsel Scott Muller, Harman discusses a briefing given to a few leading Democratic and Republican congressmen the week before. She says that the briefing “brought home to me the difficult challenges faced by the Central Intelligence Agency in the current threat environment. I realize we are at a time when the balance between security and liberty must be constantly evaluated and recalibrated in order to protect our nation and its people from catastrophic terrorist attack…”

Harman reported that at the hearing, Muller “assured us that the [redacted] approved by the Attorney General have been subject to an extensive review by lawyers at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Justice and the National Security Council and found to be within the law.”

Harman, who is a graduate of Harvard Law School, indicated no disagreement with these legal findings, even though the methods employed by the CIA are clear violations of anti-torture statutes and international treaties. She merely questioned whether or not what she later calls “enhanced techniques” were consistent with US policy and whether or not they had been “authorized and approved by the President.”

Many of the documents arguing for the legality of torture have never been released to the public. However, one such document was leaked to the public—the infamous August 2002 “torture memo,” prepared by Justice Department lawyers—which argued that the president has the constitutional right to torture as part of his war powers. This memo presumably formed part of the legal rationale presented by the CIA to Harman and others to justify the torture methods.

Harman’s acceptance of the legal rationale for torture was in line with the reaction of the entire Democratic Party to the antidemocratic policies implemented by the White House, using the “war on terror” and the attacks of September 11 as a pretext.

According to a Washington Post article published last month, in 2002 four congressional leaders, including the current speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, another Democrat from California, were “given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators devised to try to make the prisoners talk.”

The meeting with Harman in February 2003 evidently also included a discussion of the CIA’s plans to destroy the tapes. Harman wrote to Muller, “You discussed the fact that there is a videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry. I would urge the Agency to reconsider that plan.”

Harman does not suggest that the tapes should be preserved because they depict illegal activity and therefore constitute evidence of a crime. She also does not oppose the Bush administration’s determination that the destruction of the tapes would be legal. Rather, she suggests, “The videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future. The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the Agency,” she concludes. In other words, Harman’s concern was largely one of public relations.

The references to an inquiry by the CIA inspector general apparently refers to an examination, carried out by inspector general John Helgerson, into the CIA’s interrogation techniques. The inquiry was completed in the spring of 2004, but there were no public references to it until November 2005. It was reportedly critical of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques.

On November 9, 2005, the New York Times published an article citing officials familiar with the report. According to the Times, the officials “said the report expressed skepticism about the Bush administration view that any ban on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment under the treaty does not apply to CIA interrogations because they take place overseas on people who are not citizens of the United States.”

The Times exposure of the Inspector General report is another possible motivating factor behind the CIA’s decision to go ahead and destroy the tapes in November 2005. That same month, other reports exposed for the first time the existence of the CIA network of secret prisons. The government was also being pressed in several court cases to turn over all evidence and records of interrogation.

The role of the Democrats in supporting and helping cover up the CIA’s torture program and the subsequent destruction of videotapes ensures that any Congressional investigation will be a whitewash. It appears increasingly likely that Democrats will scale down Congressional inquiries on the grounds that the Justice Department has launched its own criminal investigation.

Last week, Democrats moved quickly to praise an announcement by Attorney General Michael Mukasey that a criminal investigation will begin. Mukasey’s selection of John Durham, a deputy US attorney from Connecticut, has been portrayed in the media and by Democrats as a move to give the investigation greater independence. This is false. Durham’s work will be subordinate to and filtered by the Justice Department, which means the Bush administration. It will have no “independence” from those who are deeply complicit in the crime that is supposedly under investigation.

The attitude of sections of the liberal establishment was expressed in an editorial in the Los Angeles Times on January 4. The Times is the principal newspaper in California—the home state of both Harman and Pelosi.

The editors wrote that Mukasey “has displayed a commendable sensitivity to appearances” by appointing Durham to lead the criminal investigation. The newspaper said that congressmen “shouldn’t complicate his assignment by forcing key figures in the criminal investigation to testify on Capitol Hill—at least for now.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department investigation will likely be dragged out for an extended period of time and possibly through the end of the Bush administration’s term of office.

Have Your Say: Democratic Party complicit in CIA torture
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Step forward for open government, new media

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

THE FIRST significant reform in more than a decade of the federal Freedom of Information Act, signed into law last week by President Bush, is an important step forward for open government and the ability of citizens to hold government representatives accountable for their actions.By improving the process by which the federal government carries out the requirements of the act, the law should correct a tendency to delay action on requests for public information. At the same time, by broadening the definition of who is a journalist, the new law improves accessibility for bloggers and other non-traditional journalists at a time when technology is changing media.

The Open Government Act of 2007 improves FOIA by creating an independent ombudsman to resolve citizen disputes, creating a system for the public to easily track the status of requests and allowing those making requests to more effectively recover legal costs incurred when federal agencies improperly deny requests. It also broadens the scope of information that can be requested.

“The Open Government Act will help to reverse the troubling trends of excessive delays and lax FOIA compliance in our government and help to restore the public’s trust in their government,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who sponsored the bipartisan legislation with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

No doubt, some bureaucrats will continue to try to deny the public access to information. But our hope is that such foot-dragging just became much more difficult.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/oped/ci_7910804

Have Your Say: Step forward for open government, new media
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

CIA tapes: What do we still not know?

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

By Jane Harman

In February 2003, just weeks after becoming ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, I learned at a briefing that the CIA intended to destroy a videotape of the interrogation of a high value detainee, Abu Zubaydah. I advised against it and followed up days later with a strong letter that the agency just declassified.

It was only after CIA Director Michael Hayden disclosed in December that videotapes had been destroyed that I was able to discuss the matter and my letter publicly.

The facts surrounding the 2005 destruction of the tapes — about which I was never told — must be learned. Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced last week that a veteran prosecutor will oversee a criminal investigation into whether the CIA broke the law when it destroyed the tapes. This probe and any others must be thorough and unflinching.

There is a distinct possibility that CIA testimony before the Intelligence Committees was misleading. It is a fact that Congress was not informed at the time of the tapes’ destruction.

Not only was Congress reviewing the Bush administration’s interrogation and detention policy during those years, the 9/11 Commission was also making inquiries of the agency, and several federal prosecutions were proceeding. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the 9/11 Commission, recently accused the CIA of obstructing the panel’s investigation by failing to turn over the videotapes.

Who did what?

Senior White House officials — such as former legal counsel Harriet Miers and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, among others — have revealed they were involved in discussions about the tapes’ disposition. The Department of Justice was, too.

Porter Goss, the CIA director in 2005, says he opposed destroying the tapes. The role of his subordinates, however, is still unclear.

While it is suddenly difficult to find anyone at CIA, the Justice Department or the White House who believed that the tapes should have been destroyed, the fact is they were — resulting in a breach of faith with Congress and possible criminal wrongdoing. It would be grossly unfair to make some in the agency take the fall for decisions made by others. This smells like the coverup of the coverup.

Since the 9/11 attacks, I have been calling on the Bush administration to articulate a clear legal framework for U.S. detention and interrogation policy — to protect privacy and civil liberties and also to provide the intelligence community with the guidance it needs to do its job without fear of reprisal or prosecution.

I voted against the Military Commissions Act, which passed Congress but provided in my view an inappropriate exemption for the CIA’s interrogation policy. More recently, I supported legislation to prohibit any interrogation techniques not contained in the Army Field Manual — effectively closing the loophole that allowed the CIA’s separate program to be established.

Unanswered questions

This episode is not just about the destruction of videotapes and those involved in the decision to do so. The thrust of my February 2003 briefing was about the administration’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques since 9/11. My contemporaneous letter questioned whether the White House had determined that those techniques were consistent with “the principles and policies of the United States” and whether the president had approved them.

I never got answers to my questions, nor has Congress ever received the Justice Department legal memoranda that we asked for.

The rest of the world is watching closely. We still have not recovered from the black eye of Abu Ghraib.

These latest revelations do enormous damage to our international standing and credibility — and are additional evidence that we stand at the brink of constitutional crisis.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., is chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Assessment.

Have Your Say: CIA tapes: What do we still not know?
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Guantanamo: Six Years of Injustice - and Counting

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

By Mary Shaw

January 11, 2008, will mark the sixth anniversary of the first arrival of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

While some of Gitmo’s residents probably are terrorists who want to kill Americans, we have reason to believe that many others are actually innocent of any ties to terrorism and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or were arrested due to an unfortunate language misinterpretation, or were arbitrarily sold to U.S. troops by bounty hunters.

And, as of this writing, only 10 Gitmo detainees have ever been charged with any crime.

In fact, a study by Seton Hall University found that 55 percent of Gitmo detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies.

According to the same study, only eight percent were characterized as al-Qaeda fighters. 40 percent of the remaining detainees have no definitive connection with al-Qaeda at all, and 18 percent have no definitive affiliation with either al-Qaeda or the Taliban!

Imagine being an innocent person locked up in a 6.5′ x 8′ cage and mistreated for six years straight — 2,191 days — without charge, and with no real means to challenge your detention or prove your innocence — just an unfair military tribunal system that has been condemned by Amnesty International and other human rights groups as a travesty of justice. But, you see, the Bushies say that the Gitmo detainees are “the worst of the worst” and therefore don’t deserve basic human rights.

In other words, they’re presumed guilty until proven innocent — but they have no opportunity to prove their innocence. Catch-22.

Imagine the helplessness, hopelessness, and despair that the innocent detainees must feel. And think of their families. These innocent detainees are not just numbers; they are fathers, sons, husbands, brothers, uncles, nephews, cousins, and friends. And some of them were just kids when they were arrested.

Congress blessed this horrific system when it passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which turned a really bad policy into really bad law.

Congress should be ashamed. And Congress should waste no more time in correcting that mistake.

We need to close Guantanamo — a national embarrassment — and give each detainee a fair trial, in accordance in international law. Sort them out in a credible court of law, release the ones found innocent, and punish the true bad guys.

Why is a fair trial so unacceptable to the Bush administration — and to Congress?

Have Your Say: Guantanamo: Six Years of Injustice - and Counting
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Gordon Brown still clueless on ID Cards

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

SpyBlog.org.uk

Gordon Brown still clueless on ID Cards and the National Identity Register centralised biometric database

Our unelected Prime Minister Gordon Brown still does not seem to have grasped the fundamentals of his NuLabour compulsory centralised biometric database the National Identity Register scheme according to this propaganda interview with The Observer newspaper this Sunday

Gordon Brown demonstrated how shockingly out of touch with the real world, by trying to justify the multi-billion pound compulsory national population surveillance and control infrastructure that is the National Identity Register, partly because of some small scale, unproven fingerprint biometric trials in some US and, allegedly, European shops, even though there have been no such successful trials in the UK, and no major UK retailer has decided that the idea is worth spending money on nationally.

The Yorkshire Ranter got in ahead of us, to point out some of the obvious flaws in Gordon Brown’s muddled answers to the rather soft and friendly questioning by The Observer regarding so called “ID Cards”.

Maybe when you go to a supermarket, as happens in some parts of the States and Europe, you are going to be safer, instead of carrying a credit card which can easily be stolen, to use your biometrics to shop.

This has to be some kind of record for biometric scienciness; the Government has historically always handwaved reality-based objections to ID cards away by claiming that we wouldn’t need them very often, whilst also floating insanely grandiose visions of biometric imperialism. Charles Clarke, we may recall, advertised them as “making it easier to rent videos”; as well as offering horrific new possibilities for total surveillance, this would have blasted the Government’s hazy costings down to nothing, demanding vast numbers of readers and numbers of transactions per second that even telecoms engineers would consider ambitious. To say nothing of insulting our intelligence.

This idea is both ridiculous, and, typically for Gordon Brown, a re-tread of a previously announced idea - see Gordon Brown - part 3 of the Chatham House speech on the 10th of October 2006, when he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer, trying unsuccessfully to pretend that he had a grasp on “security” and foreign affairs.

See also this NO2ID discussion forum thread on this latest spin by Gordon Brown.

See also Ideal Government, for another dissection of Gordon Brown’s ideas on “ID Cards” as outlined in the Observer interview.

We have not forgotten the other recent, dishonest and misleading attempts by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and by his “no longer a safe pair of hands” sidekick Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, who tried to pretend that the ongoing missing HMRC data .privacy and security breach scandal , which has not gone away, for which they are personally responsibler, would somehow have been less serious, if the the wretched biometric National Identity Register had been in place and linked to the missing Child Benefit Award database.

These political lies were punctured elegantly by this open latter from leading academic experts, who described them as a “fairy-land” scenario.

Have Your Say: Gordon Brown still clueless on ID Cards
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

2007 ‘worst ever year’ for privacy

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

Research by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that 37 million items of personal data went missing during last year. The party has claimed the figure raises further questions about the government’s ability to handle personal data and calls into doubt plans for ID cards.

Losses include a laptop stolen from King’s Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire that contained 11,000 records on children aged between eight months and eight years, including their names, addresses and dates of birth, and the 80 passports which go missing in the post every month.

Before Christmas, transport secretary Ruth Kelly admitted to Parliament that the names, addresses and phone numbers of three million learner drives had been lost by the Driving Standards Agency. This followed the loss by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs of two discs containing the details of some 25 million people, after officials had failed to follow the proper procedures for handling data.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, branded 2007 as the “worst ever year” for personal privacy.

“Vast numbers of British people have been the victims of serial incompetence. This shocking record of data loss means we need a total rethink on data-protection enforcement and an immediate end to the ID cards plan,” Clegg said.

“There is simply no way that any democratic government can expect an unwilling public to accept having their precious personal data cropped and stored in the world’s largest database when they aren’t confident that database will be safe,” Clegg added.

Clegg said the crisis in personal-data handling had reached crisis point and that the government’s plans to introduce a national ID cards scheme were now in freefall.

“Gordon Brown must now have the courage to admit that his government’s obsession with data retention has hit a brick wall, and drop it for good,” Clegg added.

MPs on the House of Commons Justice Committee are calling for tougher sanctions for government organisations which commit serious breaches of data-protection law.

Under current law, neither government departments nor agencies can be held criminally responsible for data-protection breaches.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39291984,00.htm

Have Your Say: 2007 ‘worst ever year’ for privacy
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Related News

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Business News, Environmental News, Science & Technology 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.

Translate: