2008 August 07

Who is Bush to lecture the Chinese—or anyone, for that matter—on human rights?

There he was in Thailand, pressing China to uphold human rights when he has done more than any other President to heap scorn on them.

After 9/11, he said, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say. We’re going to kick some ass.”

They’ve illegally kidnapped hundreds of people and disappeared them into black sites.

They’ve had some of these victims tortured with waterboarding and made many others hang by their arms for hours on end.

They’ve held hundreds of people without charge for years in Guantanamo and at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

And they’ve held thousands of people without charge for years in Iraq, often caging them in brutal containers.

Time and time again, Bush and Cheney and their apologists in the Justice Department have asserted the right to flout international treaties on human rights essentially whenever they feel like it.

“With breathtaking legal obfuscation, the US administration has continued its efforts to weaken the absolute prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment,” the report notes. It denounced “the hollowness of the US administration’s call for democracy and freedom abroad,” and said that the Bush Administration “has distinguished itself in recent years through its defiance of international law.”

Bush has no standing whatsoever to be lecturing China—even on labor rights, which he also did in Thailand.

The Bush Administration has fined only 6 percent of the companies that had been violating federal wage laws, according to its own Labor Department. The rest got off.

But it is to say that he has left an indelible black mark on our own reputation.

He has disgraced the values we’re supposed to hold dear, and he’s given an invitation to other countries to trample all over human rights with impunity.

Pakistani president to be impeached

guardian.co.uk | Pakistan’s fragile coalition government today announced plans to impeach President Pervez Musharraf, throwing the country into new political turmoil.

Musharraf was today plotting his response with advisers and finally cancelled an on-off trip to the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. Pakistan’s top military commanders also reportedly met today and the reaction of the army - which was, until recently, led by Musharraf - will now be key.

The breakthrough for the coalition - which has been able to agree on little since coming to office four months ago - came after three days of talks between the parties that came to power after elections in February, led by Asif Zardari of the Pakistan People’s party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N).

“We want to make a new Pakistan,” said Zardari, sitting with his coalition partners at a press conference in Islamabad. “We have the votes and the political will.”

The coalition must prove that the president has subverted the constitution or is guilty of gross misconduct. Musharraf’s decision to dismiss the country’s judiciary and suspend the constitution for a six-week period last November may form the basis of the impeachment.

But impeachment will not be easy; it requires a two-thirds majority in parliament, and while the elections brought Musharraf’s opponents to power, the numbers are close. The bigger immediate concern is Musharraf’s constitutional power to dismiss the parliament, under a mechanism that was used three times in the 1990s to sack governments.

If the president believes that the army is with him, he may be tempted to use this authority. Impeachment has never been used in Pakistan before and there are fears that it could provoke another military intervention.

“This decision was taken in haste. They are playing with fire,” said Amin Fahim, an estranged senior member of the PPP. “Every action has a reaction.”

The president has repeatedly said he will not allow himself to be forced from power. Earlier this year, Musharraf - whose autobiography is pointedly called In the Line of Fire - warned that “I cannot preside over the downfall of Pakistan”.

The Pakistan military has indicated that it wishes to stay out of politics following Musharraf’s decision to give up the job of army chief in November, when he stubbornly clung on to his other role of president.

However, it is unclear whether the men in uniform, who have staged multiple coups in Pakistan’s turbulent history, will stand aside while a former army chief is humiliated and dragged out of office.

Sharif said today that he was confident that “this is not the Pakistan of the 80s and 90s”. Zardari said that it was the wish of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December last year, that her death would become “a catalyst of change”.

Sharif’s current politics are based on two themes: removing Musharraf and restoring to office the judges he sacked in November. However, many remain sceptical about Zardari’s sincerity about either of those causes.

In March Zardari made another dramatic announcement, also sitting alongside Sharif, that he would reinstate the judiciary. After four months in government, those judges remain out of office, and the PPP has come up with a series of reasons why it could not happen yet. However, impeachment is a far more complicated and risky manoeuvre than bringing the judges back.

The PPP came to power after months of careful secret negotiations with Musharraf and many believe that it continues to work on the basis of a “deal” that it forged with him. Under that arrangement, dozens of criminal charges against Zardari and Bhutto were dropped.

“Asif [Zardari] and Pervez Musharraf are inseparable, for their own self-interest,” said Iqbal Haider, a former law minister under Bhutto’s government of the 1990s. “Impeachment is a device to distract attention from the restoration of the judges.”

In the past, Musharraf has enjoyed strong support from Washington, as a major ally in the “war on terror”, which has given Pakistan billions of dollars in military aid. But it is now widely thought that he can no longer rely on the White House to bail him out.

Analyst: Beware of the Google Gadgets

By William Jackson | One fun thing about the interactive world of Web 2.0 is the online applications you can take advantage of, such as Google Gadgets.

Google describes Gadgets as “miniature objects that offer cool and dynamic content that can be placed on any page on the Web. They’re free and available for you to add to any Webpage that you own,” including personalized Google properties such as iGoogle and Google Desktop.

However, one person’s cool functionality can be another’s security vulnerability.

“The architecture right now is highly insecure,” said Tom Stracener, a senior analyst with the application security company Cenzic Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. “It is not clear to me that Google Gadgets have been adopted in a widespread fashion,” but they are being used by people without a lot of security awareness or expertise. “The current environment is high-risk,” Stracener added.

Stracener and security consultant Robert Hansen — known to the online world as “Rsnake” — demonstrated some malicious exploits for Gadgets, such as internal port scanning and JavaScript hacks, at this week’s Black Hat Briefings security conference.

“I love being on the bleeding edge of what’s coming next” in the world of security threats, Stracener said. And one of the things coming next might be “Gmalware” — Gadgets optimized for evil instead of good.

There are thousands of Gadgets available and most of them tend to be basic and innocuous, such as calendars, to-do lists and photo displays. Also, there are some more serious applications for accessing financial programs or making online transactions. This area has not taken off yet, but Google is offering seed money for development of transactional applications for the platform, according to Stracener.

“Google Gadgets are designed with an open architecture so that anyone can produce them,” he said. He called the Google vision “revolutionary,” but said that as in much of the rest of the online world, functionality is being promoted before security. “The net result is that unless you look at a Gadget’s code, you can’t be sure what it is doing.”

Some examples of what it could be doing were presented as proof-of-concept exploits developed by Stracener and Hansen. One of Stracener’s first Gadget exploits was a calendar that would read the user’s clipboard periodically and export the data. That one took advantage of an Internet Explorer 6 vulnerability that no longer is available.

Hansen developed a Gadget that would probe other Gadgets and steal information from them. Other Gadgets could be used to spider internal Web pages. There is one that could be used to perform cross-site request forgery, sending the user to a malicious page where malware could be uploaded or log-in credentials captured. A variation of this could log a user into an attacker’s account when logging onto a personalized iGoogle page.

Google Gadget exploits have not been found in the wild, and Stracener and Hansen describe the attacks they demonstrated as largely theoretical because the exploits do not pose a great risk to sensitive information at this point. However, wider adoption of more powerful Gadgets could create more significant exposures.

Stracener said that although the current architecture is risky, Google is responding to reports of vulnerabilities. It could take a while to fix all of the problems, however. Although some fixes will be simple, others might require more fundamental changes in the architecture.

Boycott these companies - they support human rights violations

foobar | Here is the link to the sponsors for this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing. As I wrote before, if freedom and human rights mean anything to us, we owe it ourselves and to those who are suffering from censorship and oppression to do something - anything! - about it.

The one thing where it hurts these days is always the money. The games were given to China despite it’s terrible human rights record purely for financial reasons. China gets away with what it does, because we let it - purely for financial reasons.

Thus, the one action we can take that will be noticed is to show our discontent with our wallets. Boycott Chinese products, and the sponsors of these games, who with their financial support and their good names end up supporting the regime in China.

Boycotting the sponsors hopefully will send a message that this kind of support cannot be tolerated.

Bush scolds China over human rights… then flies in for Games

Police chief calls for universal DNA database

By Auslan Cramb | Stephen House, Chief Constable of Strathclyde, said that storing the genetic profiles of every man, woman and child would help catch more criminals.

He also called for Scotland to adopt the English DNA system that allows the profiles of suspects to be kept even if they are not charged with any wrongdoing.

Police in Scotland have to destroy the DNA records of innocent people but can keep samples of those accused of sexual or violent crimes for three years.

There are around 4.2 million DNA profiles stored in England, which has the biggest genetic database in the world.

However, a government inquiry recommended last week that one million of these should be destroyed because they came from people who had never been convicted.

Increasing DNA databases north or south of the border would also be strongly opposed by human rights groups and by many politicians. In Scotland, the database currently holds the genetic profiles of around 200,000 Scots.

Mr House said he was pressing minister adopt the English system, and used the case of the murdered teenager Sally Anne Bowman to support his case.

Her killer was caught by the Metropolitan Police largely through a DNA sample collected after an unrelated incident that was already in the system.

He added: “In Scotland the chances are that the DNA would be destroyed but in England it wasn’t, it was put on the database and matched. There are numerous examples of where that has happened.

“An even more complete system is to say we will go the whole hog. Forget criminality, we’ll take DNA from everyone in the country.

“If the public and the government decide they want to do it, you would do it gradually.

“One of the ways to do it is that you would say all newborn children would have DNA recorded and when you apply for a driver’s licence your DNA would be taken and gradually over the years would start to develop a 100 per cent database. Would it deter people? That’s less certain, but we would detect more crime.”

Last year, a senior judge called for the entire UK population, and every visitor to Britain to be put on the DNA database.

Lord Justice Sedley, one of England’s most experienced appeal court judges, described the country’s current system as “indefensible”.

However, any move towards a national database would meet with fierce opposition. Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems, has described the British public as the most “spied upon on the planet”.

The organisation Liberty said a database of every man, woman and child in the country was a “chilling proposal, ripe for indignity, error and abuse”.

And the human rights lawyer John Scott said yesterday that the plan would “disturb the balance between the state and the individual”.

He added: “At a time when people are calling for the English system to be closer to our own, we shouldn’t be going in the opposite direction.

“We could get a situation where outside bodies like insurance firms manage to get hold of DNA from innocent people and use it for their own purposes.”

The issue is being reviewed for the Scottish Executive by Prof James Fraser of Strathclyde University’s centre for forensic science.

Simon Davies, of the human rights watchdog organisation Privacy International, said the Strathclyde force had a history of “obsession with DNA collection” and it was time it was “reined in”.

He added: “It was Strathclyde that proposed many years ago mandatory DNA collection for even minor offences. What it is proposing is a step too far.”

Cloned e-passports fiasco renews calls for £4.7bn ID card scheme to be axed

Opposition MPs accused the Government last night of being naive in believing that new microchipped passports would be foolproof against criminals involved in identity theft.

After The Times disclosed that new passports could be cloned and manipulated in minutes and would then be accepted as genuine, MPs also gave warning of serious implications for the security of the Government’s £4.7 billion identity card scheme.

The identity card project, which starts this year when cards are issued to foreign nationals from outside Europe, relies on microchips similar to those cloned in minutes by a computer researcher as part of tests conducted for The Times.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, joined calls for the whole project to be scrapped. “The Government is clearly incapable of creating a criminal-proof gold standard for identity,” he said.

David Davis, who quit as shadow home secretary to fight a by-election on the issue of the growth of the “Big Brother” state, said: “The Government are incredibly naive about this system.

“There will never be a foolproof system, and there will always be an arms race between those who are developing the system and those who want to crack it.

“This is a massive flaw: a loophole the size of Traitor’s Gate. It is also profligate in financial terms, and what we are all being asked to do is give up our freedom and privacy in exchange for a bogus deal on security.”

Opponents of the identity cards said that putting private personal information on a chip in a passport or identity card would make it easier for people to steal a person’s life. Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of the No2ID cards campaign, said: “With an ID card or chipped passport, you’ll never know who’s walking around pretending to be you. The e-passports fiasco illustrates why the National Identity Scheme must be scrapped now.”

The criticisms came as ministers said yesterday that moves by the European Union could also prevent Britain from using airline passenger lists to combat illegal immigration.

The Home Office started collecting records on airline passengers in 2005 and gathers information on an estimated 30 million passenger movements annually. Among the information collected is a traveller’s name, the date of reservation and issue of their ticket, the person’s address and telephone number and payment details.

The EU initiative would require all member states to collect the information, known as passenger name records (PNR) and store it for 13 years. At present Britain is the only EU state with a fully operational PNR system.

However, under the draft EU proposal, PNR data could be collected only for the purposes of “fighting terrorism and organised crime” and not, as Britain does, for tackling serious crime and for immigration control.

A House of Lords report gives warning that if the Government fails to persuade the EU to allow the gathering and sharing of the data for immigration control reasons, it is faced with the difficult decision of opting out of the deal.Yesterday’s response to the Lords EU select committee report also revealed that the Government is powerless to collect PNR-style data on travellers who arrive in Britain by coach.

Infosecurity adviser says there are greater intrusions to fear than the DNA database

Mike Barwise, from Infosecurity Adviser, the online forum run by the Infosecurity Europe team, has revealed he is less concerned about the privacy issues that the National DNA Database creates than other planned government files.

“The media seems preoccupied at the moment about people’s DNA being stored centrally, but the reality is that the database is really a one-dimensional invasion of citizen’s privacy,” he said.

“Two-dimensional databases, such as the planned telecommunications database of the numbers that people call from their landlines and mobile phones, are much more worrying,” he added.

According to Barwise, when you factor in the time element to the planned government telecommunications database and add in location-based data from the cellular carriers, you create a three-dimensional view of the person concerned.

“Not only do you have the numbers called and the locations called from, but you have a time-based diary from which you can extrapolate their movements,” he explained.

In his online blog, Barwise notes that a sample of 30 ordinary UK citizens were assembled back in January to debate the pros and cons of the national DNA database.

“This has been a highly charged subject for years, not least due to the progressive extension of the scope of the database, culminating in recent proposals to include young children who might offend in the future - or indeed everyone in the country,” he said, adding that the issue arouses strong emotions.

The proposed telecommunications database, however, he adds, would disclose your circle of business and social contacts, as well as your Web browsing habits.

This would, says Barwise, reveal vast amounts of information about your lifestyle.

Small wonder then, that Barwise says that, against this backdrop, concerns about a DNA database start to pale into insignificance…

Police Extend Stop & Search Powers at Climate Camp

Police powers to stop and search people at Climate Camp have been extended. Officers can now stop and search anyone without needing to have reasonable grounds to do so.

Officers can now stop and search anyone without needing to have reasonable grounds to do so.

The command team say they took the decision after stopping people with items that could be used as weapons.

There is also heightened tension with a hardcore group of people police say are intent on criminal activity.

The extended powers – under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act – are now in place across the Hoo peninsula.

It means anyone, including visitors to the area, or residents are subject to a stop and search if requested by a police officer.

Assistant Chief Constable Gary Beautridge said: “Kent Police has held back from extending stop and search powers since the climate camp protestors arrived.

“But today we have felt it is necessary to put an order in place that covers the whole of the Hoo peninsula.

“We’re also finding people who are carrying items that could be used as weapons.

“We want local people to feel safe in the knowledge that we are seizing these items.

“We ask that people on the Hoo peninsula continue to support us and we are really appreciative of their continuing patience and understanding.

“When the camp ends next week we hope the communities in the area can return to normal quickly.

ACC Beautridge added that Kent Police will continue to allow peaceful protest and endeavour to keep disruption for local people to a minimum.

Unmanned spy planes to police Britain

By Kim Sengupta | The Government is drawing up plans to use unmanned “drone” aircraft currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to counter terrorism and aid police operations in Britain.

The MoD is carrying out research and development to enable the spy planes, which are equipped with highly sophisticated monitoring equipment that allows them to secretly track and photograph suspects without their knowledge, to be deployed within three years.

The plans have been backed by the House of Commons Defence Committee but have attracted criticism from civil liberties campaigners concerned about the implications of covert surveillance of civilians.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can obtain clear images while flying at up to 50,000ft. If ministers give the scheme the go-ahead the UK will be among the first countries to use UAVs to monitor its own citizens.

The Israeli military operates them over Palestinian cities such as Gaza and Ramallah, while the US Customs and Border Protection agency flies them over the Mexican border to detect illegal migrants along specified routes.

Gareth Crossman, director of policy at the civil rights watchdog Liberty, said: “The question is not so much about the technology but what one does with it. We have quite definite laws about where CCTV can be used but of course with UAVs you have much greater ability to gather material in private spaces and this would lead to concern.”

He added: “If they are used to simply hover to gain random information then that would obviously be a matter of worry and a civil liberty issue.”

UAVs are currently restricted to military installations in Salisbury Plain because of regulations banning them from using the same airspace as civil aircraft. However, a commercial consortium led by BAE Systems will provide the safety measures necessary for the planes to fly over the UK within three years.

The MPs’ report says the MoD is “closely involved with the development of procedures and regulations which allow UAVs to operate in national and Nato airspace. But the committee indicates that the ministry should do more.”

The BAE Systems consortium is partly funded by a number of government agencies, but not the MoD, which has an observer status on the project, called the Astraea programme. The next stage of the project is due to cost £44m, with private companies providing half of that.

The committee says: “In the response to our report we expect the MoD to set out why it supports the Astraea programme only in an ‘observer role’ and its future plans with regard to this programme.”

The MPs say full consideration should be given to evidence given to the committee by a weapons company that meeting the air safety requirements would open the way for UAVs to be used in disaster relief, crowd control, anti-terror surveillance, maritime searches and support for the Coastguard, police, fire and intelligence services.

The UAVs will give law enforcement agencies huge scope for surveillance. Robert Emerson, a security analyst who specialises in deciphering aerial images, said: “Satellite images can be affected by clouds and lack of light, with UAVs you can avoid that by choosing the height at which you fly. There is now also Google Earth, but these are often old images out of date. There is tremendous potential in material gathered by UAVs.”

He added: “There will obviously be implications for privacy, human rights, etc. That is something the Government will have to address and I imagine that there will be protests from some quarters. But you certainly cannot blame police and intelligence services for wanting to use them.”

There are also concerns over safety, however. In April 2006 a UAV used by US Customs and Border Protection crashed in Arizona when its engine was accidentally turned off by the team piloting it. At the end of the first investigation into an un-manned aircraft accident, America’s National Transportation Safety Board issued 22 recommendations and its chairman talked of a “wide range of safety issues involving the civilian use of unmanned aircraft”.

Feds say Irvins alone caused 2001 anthrax attacks

Army scientist Bruce Ivins “was the only person responsible” for anthrax attacks in 2001 that killed five and rattled the nation, the Justice Department said Wednesday, buttressing its claim with the release of dozens of documents all pointing to his guilt.

Ivins, who committed suicide last week, had sole custody of highly purified anthrax spores with “certain genetic mutations identical” to the poison used in the attacks, according to the documents. Investigators also said they had traced back to his lab the type of envelopes used to send the deadly powder through the mails.

Ivins killed himself last week as investigators closed in, and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said, “We regret that we will not have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury.”

Ivins’ attorney, Paul Kemp, has repeatedly asserted his late client’s innocence.

The prosecutor’s news conference capped a fast-paced series of events in which the government partially lifted its veil of secrecy in the investigation of the poisonings that followed closely after the airliner terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The newly released records depict the scientist as deeply troubled, increasingly so as he confronted the possibility of being charged.

“He said he was not going to face the death penalty, but instead had a plan to kill co-workers and other individuals who had wronged him,” according to one affidavit. In e-mails to colleagues, Ivins described a feeling of dual personalities, the material said.

The affidavits also said Ivins submitted false anthrax samples to the FBI, was unable to give investigators “an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of” the attacks and sought to frame unnamed co-workers.

In addition, he was said to have received immunizations against anthrax and yellow fever in early September 2001, several weeks before the first anthrax-laced envelope was received in the mail.

Authorities say that language Ivins used in an e-mail days before the 2001 anthrax attacks was similar to the messages in anthrax-laced letters to Democratic Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.

In the e-mail, Ivins wrote that “Bin Laden terrorists for sure have anthrax and sarin gas” and have “just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans.” The letters to Daschle and Leahy said: “WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX . . . DEATH TO AMERICA . . . DEATH TO ISRAEL.”

Wednesday’s documents were released as the FBI held a private briefing for families of the victims of the attacks and officials said the agency was preparing to close the case.

As for motive, investigators seemed to offer two possible reasons for the attacks: that the brilliant scientist wanted to bolster support for a vaccine he helped create and that the anti-abortion Catholic targeted two pro-choice Catholic lawmakers.

“We are confident that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks,” Taylor told a news conference at the Justice Department.

Noting that Ivins would have been entitled to a presumption of innocence, Taylor nevertheless said prosecutors were confident “we could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The events in Washington unfolded as a memorial service was held for Ivins at Fort Detrick, the secret government installation in Frederick, Md., where he worked. Reporters were barred.

More than 200 pages of documents were made public by the FBI, virtually all of them describing the government’s attempts to link Ivins to the crimes.

“It is a very compelling case,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who attended a briefing for lawmakers and staff.

The government material describes at length painstaking scientific efforts to trace the source of the anthrax that was used in the attacks.

It says that in his lab, Ivins had custody of a flask of anthrax termed “the genetic parent” to the powder involved — a source that investigators say was used to grow spores for the attacks on “at least two separate occasions.”

Anthrax culled from the letters was quickly discovered to be the so-called Ames strain of bacteria, but with genetic mutations that made it distinct. Scientists developed more sophisticated tests for four of those mutations, and concluded that all the samples that matched came from a single batch, code-named RMR-1029, stored at Fort Detrick.

Ivins “has been the sole custodian of RMR-1029 since it was first grown in 1997,” said one affidavit.

Powder from anthrax-laden letters sent to the New York Post and Tom Brokaw of NBC contained a bacterial contaminant not found in the anthrax-containing envelopes mailed to Sens. Patrick Leahy or Tom Daschle, the affidavit said.

Investigators concluded that “the contaminant must have been introduced during the production of the Post and Brokaw spores,” the affidavit said.

The documents disclosed that authorities searched Ivins’ home on Nov. 2, 2007, taking 22 swabs of vacuum filters and radiators and seizing dozens of items. Among them were video cassettes, family photos, information about guns and a copy of “The Plague” by Albert Camus.

Investigators also reported seizing three cardboard boxes labeled “Paul Kemp … attorney client privilege.”

Ivins’ cars and his safe deposit box also were searched as investigators closed in on the respected government scientist who had been troubled by mental health problems for years.

According to an affidavit filed by Charles B. Wickersham, a postal inspector, the scientist told an unnamed co-worker “that he had `incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times’ and ‘feared that he might not be able to control his behavior.’”

A mental health worker who was involved in treating Ivins disclosed last week that she was so concerned about his behavior that she recently sought a court order to keep him away from her.

Allegations that Ivins sought to mislead investigators ran through the material made public.

One FBI document said Ivins “repeatedly named other researchers as possible mailers and claimed that the anthrax used in the attacks resembled that of another researcher” at the same facility.

Stephen A. Hatfill’s career as a bioscientist was ruined after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft named him a “person of interest” in the probe. The government recently paid $6 million to settle a lawsuit by Hatfill, who worked in the same lab.

The documents made public painted a picture of Ivins seeking to mislead investigators beginning in 2002, when he allegedly submitted the wrong samples to FBI investigators.

It wasn’t until more than two years later, in March 2005, that he was confronted with the alleged switch, according to U.S. Postal Inspector Thomas Dellafera, who added that Ivins insisted he had not sought to deceive.

The documents were released following an order from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. Among them were more than a dozen search warrants issued as the government closed in on Ivins in an investigation into the terrifying mail poisonings a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Lamberth ordered the release after consultation with Amy Jeffress, a national security prosecutor at the Department of Justice.

The investigation dates to 2001, when anthrax-laced mail turned up in two Senate offices as well as news media offices and elsewhere. At the time, the events were widely viewed as the work of terrorists, and delivery of mail was crippled when anthrax spores were discovered in mailing equipment that had processed the contaminated envelopes.

The FBI’s investigation had dragged on for years, tarnishing the reputation of the agency in the process.

Secret EU security draft risks uproar with call to pool policing and give US personal data

Europe should consider sharing vast amounts of intelligence and information on its citizens with the US to establish a “Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation” to combat terrorism, according to a high-level confidential report on future security.

The 27 members of the EU should also pool intelligence on terrorism, develop joint video-surveillance and unmanned drone aircraft, start networks of anti-terrorism centres, and boost the role and powers of an intelligence-coordinating body in Brussels, said senior officials.

The 53-page report drafted by the Future Group of interior and justice ministers from six EU member states - Germany, France, Sweden, Portugal, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic -argues Europe will need to integrate much of its policing, intelligence-gathering, and policy-making if it is to tackle terrorism, organised crime, and legal and illegal immigration.

The report, seen by the Guardian, was submitted to EU governments last month following 18 months of work. The group, which also includes senior officials from the European Commission, was established by Germany last year and charged with drafting a blueprint for security and justice policy over the next five years.

Baroness Scotland, the UK attorney general, had observer status with the group to assess the implications for Britain, whose legal system, unlike continental Europe, is based on the common law.

The group’s controversial proposals are certain to trigger major disputes, not least its calls for Europe to create an expeditionary corps of armed gendarmerie for paramilitary intervention overseas.

The report said the EU would fail to beat terrorism unless it developed a full partnership with Washington, a process currently pushing ahead in fits and starts.

“The EU should make up its mind with regard to the political objective of achieving a Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation with the United States in the field of freedom, security and justice,” it said.

Such a pact, which should be finalised by 2014 at the latest, would entail the transfer of vast volumes of information on European citizens and travellers to the US authorities. Negotiations have long been under way to agree such a pact, but have been bedevilled by divergences in privacy law and data protection regimes.

The US is already demanding that EU countries sign up for a battery of security measures on transatlantic flights and the supply of personal information on passengers if they are to enjoy visa-free travel to the US. Under one such accord struck in March between Washington and Berlin, the Germans are to make DNA and biometric information on travellers available.

The European Commission and the US homeland security department are also trying to iron out discrepancies in privacy laws to allow the wholesale exchange of data. The aim is to reach a binding international agreement this year or next.

Last month the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to MEPs pressing Brussels to reject US pressure because the US is “a country that, in privacy terms, is all but lawless … US privacy laws are weak. They offer little protection to citizens and virtually none to non-citizens.”

While urging a comprehensive transatlantic electronic pact, the Future Group focuses mainly on boosting police cooperation and integration between EU states, policies which would reinforce the powers of European agencies and institutions bearing acronyms such as Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, and Sitcen and perhaps see new agencies established to deal with security and intelligence operations.

Several member states, not least Britain, will have deep qualms about the proposals, with the British likely to balk at automatic pooling of national intelligence.

Anti-terrorist campaigns can only be effective if “maximum information flow between [EU] member states is guaranteed,” the report said. “Relevant security-related information should be available to all security authorities in the member states.” It said “networks of anti-terrorist centres” was a possible solution.

While cooperation between national police forces in the EU was advancing, the report conceded that the sharing of espionage and intelligence material was a “considerable challenge” as it clashed with the “principle of confidentiality” that is the basis for successful exchanges.

The report calls for a bigger role for “Sitcen” in coordinating intelligence sharing. Sitcen, or the Joint Situation Centre, is a shadowy intelligence body based in Brussels which started as a foreign policy tool supplying analysis on international crises to Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, but which now focuses on counter-terrorism and internal security policy.

Key points

· National security services and intelligence agencies need to collaborate much more closely

· New EU internet-based propaganda campaign to defeat radicalisation and terrorist recruitment

· Create “European Gendarmerie Force” for deployment and intervention abroad. Pooling of EU funds for such missions

· Common EU immigration policies. By 2014, EU leaders should make the political decision on whether to enter a “Euro-Atlantic area of freedom, security, and justice” with the Americans

Police bullying at Camp Kingsnorth

By Lenin’s Tomb |

I’ve just returned from a 2-3 day sojourn at the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth — site of a proposed new coal-fired power station – which is now gearing up towards its climax. As usual the headlines focus upon policing and the inevitable ‘discovery’ of a weapons cache, more on which below. But once you make the effort – a word I use advisedly — to get through police lines and into the camp itself the overwhelming impression is of a D.I.Y. heaven: solar panels and a wind turbine being erected, water pipes connected, sanitation systems constructed, media and cinema tents put up, impromptu kitchens, cleaning zones … an al fresco and non-commercial soukh catering to the pleasures and necessities of daily life.

The Camp’s great strength is that theory and practice share a space for a week. Having kicked off with marches and due to finish on Saturday with direct action, in the days between there are workshops galore – a hundred or more – covering the usual themes as well as not a few tailored to specialist tastes: “the world lawn tango championships,” “five-finger direct action training,” and – one cannot but wonder whether practice and theory were united here — “safe sex for activists.” That Arthur Scargill made an appearance was welcome, although it was disappointing to see that he has not yet got it. (In the USA at the outset of World War Two it was union leaders who, against bitter resistance from big business, championed the conversion of auto plants to make planes. In the war upon climate change, just think: the skills of power station engineers; solar, wave and wind; surely a no-brainer.) The high-point was a session (pictured below) at which George Monbiot spoke on the role of the state in mitigating climate chaos — although it was marred when that organ itself, in the shape of riot police, threatened to enter the camp, prompting most of the 250-strong audience to exit theory in a headlong rush to practice.

A degree of division arose with regard to the appropriate tactics for countering the police, but it was a no-win situation. Agreement to allow the police onto site – with their batons and video cameras, their bullying, snooping, sniffing and otherwise canine ways – would have necessitated constant surveillance of the surveillers, a continuous and enervating tug-of-war. The other option, the one taken, was to concentrate forces at the gates, to keep them at bay. With this, the boys in blue-and-dayglow-yellow needed only to build up forces at one gate, deploy riot police to the fore, or engage in any minor feint, in order to panic and disrupt the Camp. Which of course they did. In afternoons, during workshops. At two a.m. — waking all with a cacophony of sirens that sparked a mass exit from tents, followed by the thuds of sleepy running bodies tripping over guy ropes. And then again, after adrenaline levels had subsided and campers had returned to sleep, at the break of dawn.

The question is, why have Her Majesty’s police force decided to subject a crew of campers to such astonishing levels of harassment? What tactics are involved, and at what level were they authorised?

On harassment and intimidation the litany is endless. We observed their tactics, aghast. They must’ve looked up and memorised every petty by-law they could find, in addition to compendia of recent legislation. (Thanks to the cop who dropped his copy of the ‘Pocket Legislation Guide on Policing Protest,’ which gives an overview of legislation that can be used to stifle any form of legitimate protest, we know a bit more about an organisation, the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit, that assisted them in this.) They terminated our shuttlebus service (for ferrying participants from rail station to campsite) and arrested the driver on the grounds that one copper, claiming to have witnessed a passenger give a driver a donation, deemed it to be an unlicensed taxi. They filmed everyone. There were interminable and repeated searches of anyone entering or exiting camp — and these were not the usual cursory pat down. In my case (not an extreme one): in addition to searching all bags and pockets they were uncommonly interested in the linings of my trousers; and they dismantled my mobile phone and took the battery out (”in case there’s a razor blade concealed inside”). From me they took nothing but others were less fortunate. The innumerable items confiscated included: plywood, wheelie bins, a track for wheelchair access, a puncture repair kit, carpet, a board game and part of a windmill. And, of course, childrens’ crayons. (They’re a graffiti hazard, don’t you know?)

Arguably the most visible and unarguably the most audible police presence is the helicopter. Upon arrival, I asked the copper who was searching me – time for such conversations was not rationed — why the chopper was in the air. “It’s because an incident is going on. Don’t worry, it costs a fortune to keep it up there, it’ll only be sent up when there’s something going on.” In fact, it was airborne about one minute in every three; deafening, menacing, watching. Even at night it hovered above us, and would sometimes swoop low – perhaps in case its clatter at normal altitude hadn’t yet woken a few of those below.

So we may return to the question: why apply these tactics? The resources involved, in terms of manpower, equipment and fuel, are colossal. In conversation with a senior police officer, I listened to his point of view. “Don’t get us wrong: we know very well that 99% of the people in the camp are completely non-violent. It’s the other 1% we’re concerned about.” A machete, he claimed, had been found in nearby undergrowth. During my days there, I saw nothing to suggest a potentially violent “1%” – and, unlike the officer, I was observing campers up close. The machete story is a smear. Chances are it is a fiction, or planted, or belonged to a nearby villager. Activists, being ecologically aware, know full well that to approach Kingsnorth does not require hacking paths through jungle. But let’s assume for a moment that he is right. There are around 1,000 people at the Camp. If that same officer were responsible for policing a village of 1,000 people, and was informed that 10 were potentially violent, would he call up a fleet of fully-manned vans from the North Wales Heddlu, alongside similar convoys from the West Mids, South Yorks, the Met, Essex, Kent and all? Rumour has it that 27 forces were involved! Would he call in a helicopter, and riot police? Or would he think “me oh my what an English idyll – a pity, perhaps, about one or two delinquents at closing time on a Friday night, but a token presence should deal with that”?

Perhaps there is a better reason: the police tactic is all about defending Kingsnorth. After all, the Camp’s clearly and openly stated aim is to shut it down. But this explanation has no more traction than does the “violent 1%.” Participants show no sign of going anywhere near Kingsnorth until Saturday, so why police the Camp, which is situated many miles away, all week long? To the possible rejoinder that an absence of police attention would encourage activists to approach the power station sooner than declared, there is an obvious reply. With the same police numbers deployed to harass the Camp, the power station could be thrice encircled: it could be sealed off by land, sea, air and any other conceivable avenue of approach, and with enough spare policepower to boot (no pun intended) that the Heddlu and the Brummies could be sent back home. Just think of all the trouble and tension that could be spared, not to mention police overspend.

The only possible reason for this level of intimidation – apart, perhaps, from an interest in giving riot cops some live training — is that the police force is hell bent on hounding and intimidating the movement against climate chaos. This does not represent a departure from recent trends in policing – as witnessed in London at the anti-Bush protest (with its use of agent provocateurs) and the ‘Circle Line Party.’ Yet it is an escalation.

The question that remains is: who authorised this strategy? Downing Street, one would suppose, but we should be told.

Iraqis: Deal close on plan for US troops to leave

AP | BAGHDAD - Iraq and the U.S. are near an agreement on all American combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that, two Iraqi officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. U.S. officials, however, insisted no dates had been agreed.

The proposed agreement calls for Americans to hand over parts of Baghdad’s Green Zone — where the U.S. Embassy is located — to the Iraqis by the end of 2008. It would also remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, according to the two senior officials, both close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and familiar with the negotiations.

The officials, who spoke separately on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing, said all U.S. combat troops would leave Iraq by October 2010, with the remaining support personnel gone “around 2013.” The schedule could be amended if both sides agree — a face-saving escape clause that would extend the presence of U.S. forces if security conditions warrant it.

U.S. acceptance — even tentatively — of a specific timeline would represent a dramatic reversal of American policy in place since the war began in March 2003.

Both Iraqi and American officials agreed that the deal is not final and that a major unresolved issue is the U.S. demand for immunity for U.S. soldiers from prosecution under Iraqi law.

Throughout the conflict, President Bush steadfastly refused to accept any timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. Last month, however, Bush and al-Maliki agreed to set a “general time horizon” for ending the U.S. mission.

Bush’s shift to a timeline was seen as a move to speed agreement on a security pact governing the U.S. military presence in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Iraq’s Shiite-led government has been holding firm for some sort of withdrawal schedule — a move the Iraqis said was essential to win parliamentary approval.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on details of the talks. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nangtongo said the negotiations were taking place “in a constructive spirit” based on respect for Iraqi sovereignty.

In Washington, U.S. officials acknowledged that some progress has been made on the timelines for troop withdrawals but that the immunity issue remained a huge problem. One senior U.S. official close to the discussion said no dates have been agreed upon.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations have not been finished.

But the Iraqis insisted the dates had been settled preliminarily between the two sides, although they acknowledged that nothing is final until the entire negotiations have been completed.

One Iraqi official said persuading the Americans to accept a timetable was a “key achievement” of the talks and that the government would seek parliamentary ratification as soon as the deal is signed.

But differences over immunity could scuttle the whole deal, the Iraqis said. One of the officials described immunity as a “minefield” and said each side was sticking by its position.

One official said U.S. negotiator David Satterfield told him that immunity for soldiers was a “red line” for the United States. The official said he replied that issue was “a red line for us too.”

The official said the Iraqis were willing to grant immunity for actions committed on American bases and during combat operations — but not a blanket exemption from Iraqi law.

The Iraqis also want American forces hand over any Iraqi they detain. The U.S. insists that detainees must be “ready” for handover, which the Iraqi officials assume means the Americans want to interrogate them first.

As the talks drag on, American officials said the Bush administration is losing patience with the Iraqis over the negotiations, which both sides had hoped to wrap up by the end of July.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and al-Maliki had a long and “very difficult” phone conversation about the situation on Wednesday during which she pressed the Iraqi leader for more flexibility particularly on immunity, one U.S. senior official said.

“The sovereignty issue is very big for the Iraqis and we understand that. But we are losing patience,” the official said. “The process needs to get moving and get moving quickly.”

The official could not say how long the call lasted but said it was “not brief” and “tense at times.”

In London, Britain’s defense ministry said it is also in talks with Iraq’s government over the role of British troops after the U.N. mandate runs out. Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently said that early next year Britain will reduce its troops in Iraq, now at about 4,100, and that Britain’s role in the country will change fundamentally.

Iraq’s position in the U.S. talks hardened after a series of Iraqi military successes against Shiite and Sunni extremists in Basra, Baghdad, Mosul and other major cities and after the rise in world oil prices flooded the country with petrodollars.

As the government’s confidence rose, Iraqi officials believed they were in a strong negotiating position — especially with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, pledging to remove all combat forces within his first 16 months in office if security conditions allow.

Standing firm against the Americans also enhances al-Maliki’s nationalist credentials, enabling him to appeal for support from Iraqis long opposed to the U.S. presence.

On Thursday, a spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr said the Shiite cleric will call on his fighters to maintain a cease-fire against American troops — but may lift the order if the security agreement fails to contain a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.

The statement by Sheik Salah al-Obeidi came as al-Sadr planned to spell out details of a formula to reorganize his Mahdi Army militia by separating it into an unarmed cultural organization and elite fighting cells.

“This move is meant to offer an incentive for the foreign forces to withdraw,” al-Obeidi said. “The special cells of fighters will not strike against foreign forces until the situation becomes clear vis-a-vis the Iraq-U.S. agreement on the presence of American forces here.”

Several cease-fires by al-Sadr have been key to a sharp decline in violence over the past year. But American officials still consider his militiamen a threat and have backed the Iraqi military in operations to try to oust them from their power bases in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

How Much Do You Want to Bet Bush Issues Pardons of the Crimes You Claim Don’t Exist?

Many of you, including both of your nominees for the throne and your Speaker and Minority Leader, claim to believe that George W. Bush and gang have not committed any crimes. To reward your perceptiveness, courage, and integrity, I would like to offer to contribute to your campaigns for reelection (in 2010 or later) if Bush does not issue any pardons for any of the crimes found in Congressman Kucinich’s articles of impeachment. I’m making this easy on you, because you’ve already pardoned Bush himself and all of his accomplices, through legislation, for violations of FISA and for illegal detentions. You have time remaining to legislatively pardon everything else. Plus, by failing to uphold the old laws (such as the Constitution) on spying and election fraud you are setting us up for a “victory” by John McCain, who could be counted on by Bush to issue pardons. Nonetheless, I am willing to bet you that Bush issues pardons. He may even attempt self-pardons, but what I am predicting are pardons of others or blanket pardons of anyone (perhaps including himself) involved in particular crimes. To claim a contribution to your reelection campaign, you have to publicly commit right now to making a contribution to AfterDowningStreet.org if Bush DOES issue pardons of any of the crimes found in the articles of impeachment. I am confident you will make this commitment given your refusal to impeach and the absurdity of thinking that someone might issue pardons for crimes his administration is not guilty of.