Five anti-Bush protesters file federal
lawsuit
Lawyers for the “Smoketown Six” filed a federal civil rights
lawsuit Dec. 9 accusing local, state, and federal law-enforcement officials
of illegally arresting the men after they dropped their pants in protest
during President Bush’s visit to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
in July.
The lawsuit accuses East Lampeter Township police, Pennsylvania state
police, and US Secret Service agents of violating the men’s right
to free speech when they were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct
July 9.
Minutes before the presidential tour bus arrived in Smoketown, seven
men stripped to thong underwear and piled on top of each other in an
effort to re-create one of the images from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal
in Iraq.
One of the men escaped from police, and one chose not to participate
in the lawsuit because he no longer lives in Pennsylvania.
After being arrested, the men were detained until after the president
left the area. (Intelligencer Journal)
CIA behind automated chat room spying
scheme
Documents obtained by a public interest research center show that the
US Central Intelligence Agency and the National Science Foundation collaborated
to fund researchers developing software to electronically spy on Internet
chat rooms.
The documents, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center
through a Freedom of Information Act, show that $157,673 was awarded
to two researchers to fund the development of chat room surveillance
software.
The documents include information about the project — conducted
under the auspices of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy,
NY — the objective of which is described as the establishment of
a “fully automated surveillance system for data collection and
analysis in Internet chat rooms to discover hidden groups.”
The documents further explain that surveillance will determine what
is being discussed in various chat rooms, who is discussing those topics,
and if the topic is “hot” in a particular chat room. “Thus,
the proposed system could aid the intelligence community to discover
hidden communities and communication patterns in chat rooms without
human intervention,” the document states. (The
New Standard)
CA to sue over federal abortion funding
ban
California’s attorney general, Bill Lockyer, said Dec. 8 he will
sue the federal government to block a congressional restriction that
could stall federal funds if the state enforces its abortion rights
laws.
Rep. David Weldon (R-FL) inserted the provision into a $388 billion
spending bill last month. It would block any of the money from going
to state, federal, or local government agencies that punish health care
providers and insurers because they don’t provide abortions, make
abortion referrals, or cover them.
Weldon, a doctor, said the measure will prevent health care providers
who oppose abortion from being forced to assist in ending pregnancies.
He and other supporters contend it is merely a variation on a decades-old
prohibition on spending federal money on most abortions.
But Lockyer said California could be among the most affected because
it has some of the most sweeping laws protecting women’s right
to an abortion, along with a privacy guarantee written into the state
Constitution.
Lockyer called the provision “an unacceptable attack on women’s
rights and state sovereignty, and a backdoor attempt to overturn Roe
v. Wade.”
The state could lose its share of federal money earmarked for education,
labor, health, and human services programs.
A team of state lawyers is drafting the lawsuit, which Lockyer said
will be filed within weeks if Bush signs the legislation as expected.
The suit will ask a federal judge to declare the provision invalid and
prohibit its enforcement on the grounds that the financial penalties
are so severe they unconstitutionally violate state sovereignty.
Lockyer acknowledged the courts have generally upheld Congress’
right to restrict how states use federal money.
(AP)
NY legislation to reduce mandatory sentences
After years of false starts, state lawmakers voted Dec. 7 to reduce
the steep mandatory prison sentences given to people convicted of drug
crimes in New York State, sanctions considered among the most severe
in the nation.
The push to soften the so-called Rockefeller drug laws came after a
nearly decade-long campaign to ease the drug penalties instituted in
the 1970s that put some low-level first-time drug offenders behind bars
for sentences ranging from 15 years to life.
Under the changes, which Gov. George Pataki said he would sign, the
sentence for those same offenders would be reduced to eight to 20 years
in prison. The law will allow more than 400 inmates serving lengthy
prison terms on those top counts to appeal to judges to get out of jail
early.
The changes reflected a nationwide push in recent years to lessen some
of the punishments for drug offenders. (New
York Times)
Pentagon ousts official under FBI investigation
A senior Defense official placed under investigation by the FBI on allegations
that he tried to steer Iraqi reconstruction contracts toward friends
has been removed from office, Pentagon officials confirmed Dec. 10.
John A. “Jack” Shaw, the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary
for international technology security, was ordered to leave after refusing
to sign a letter of resignation, the officials said.
Shaw was one of a few high-ranking US officials who drew the scrutiny
of investigators looking into how billions in taxpayer dollars were
being spent in Iraq to rebuild that country.
Shaw allegedly tried to steer two contracts, one involving telecommunications
and a second involving dredging at an Iraqi port, to companies linked
to longtime friends or clients of longtime friends.
After the allegations against him surfaced last spring, Shaw responded
with a report of his own, charging that one of the US officials accusing
him had taken bribes in a conspiracy to place Iraq’s cellular phone
network under the control of a former Saddam Hussein ally.
Shaw did not respond to requests for comment on his ouster. However,
in e-mails and letters exchanged with Pentagon officials over his departure,
Shaw portrayed himself as a whistle-blower who was being unfairly asked
to resign for having highlighted problems with the cellular phone licensing
process. (Los Angeles Times)
Pentagon raps academy in sex assault
probe
The Pentagon’s inspector general, Joseph E. Schmitz, said a series
of commanders at the Air Force Academy failed to recognize and deal
with reports of sexual assaults against female cadets.
Last year nearly 150 women came forward with accusations that they had
been assaulted by fellow cadets between 1993 and 2003. Many alleged
they were punished, ignored, or ostracized by commanders for speaking
out.
A summary of Schmitz’s report blamed eight unnamed Air Force officials
for their roles in the program that oversaw sexual-assault reporting
at the academy.
The Pentagon said it would soon implement a new military-wide policy
that would protect the confidentiality of people who report being sexually
assaulted.
Outside investigations concluded that the culture of the academy created
conditions that contributed to the problem, including a lingering resistance
to having female cadets at all. (AP)
Homeless Iraq vets showing up at shelters
US veterans from the war in Iraq are beginning to show up at homeless
shelters around the country, and advocates fear they are the leading
edge of a new generation of homeless vets not seen since the Vietnam
era.
Nearly 300,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and almost
half served during the Vietnam era. While some experts have questioned
the degree to which mental trauma from combat causes homelessness, a
large number of veterans live with the long-term effects of post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), and substance abuse, according to the Homeless
Veterans coalition.
Some homeless-veteran advocates fear that similar combat experiences
in Vietnam and Iraq mean that these first few homeless veterans from
Iraq are the crest of a wave.
Data from the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that as of last July,
nearly 28,000 veterans from Iraq sought health care from the VA. One
out of every five was diagnosed with a mental disorder. An Army study
in July showed that 17 percent of service members returning from Iraq
met screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety disorder,
or PTSD.
Advocates said seeing homeless veterans from Iraq should cause alarm.
Around one-fourth of all homeless Americans are veterans, and more than
75 percent of them have some sort of mental or substance abuse problem,
according to the coalition.
More troubling, experts said, is that mental problems are emerging as
a major casualty cluster, particularly from the war in Iraq where the
enemy is basically everywhere and blends in with the civilian population,
and death can come from any direction at any time. (UPI)
US petroleum demand to skyrocket
US petroleum demand is expected to grow by a projected 37 percent by
2025, forcing the nation to rely even more on foreign suppliers to meet
its growing oil thirst, the government said Dec. 9.
Petroleum demand is set to grow at an average rate of 1.5 percent to
27.93 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2025 from 20.45 million bpd in
2004, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA)
long-term forecast.
The EIA long-term forecast projected the nation’s energy supply,
demand, and prices for 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2025.
The US economy will import 68 percent of its petroleum needs in 2025,
up from 58 percent now, the EIA said.
US natural gas demand will grow 43 percent but imports from Canada will
not be able to keep pace, so US markets will rely on supplies from a
yet-to-be-built Alaska pipeline and imports of liquefied natural gas
from other nations, the EIA said.
Coal will remain the nation’s primary source of electricity through
2025, accounting for about half of generation capacity. Natural-gas
fired generation will grow to 24 percent of capacity in 2025 from 16
percent in 2003.
US nuclear generation will increase slightly, but no new plants are
expected to be built because of unfavorable economics, the report said.
(Reuters)
Lawmakers press FDA on whistleblower
Twenty-two members of Congress signed a letter Dec. 10 demanding information
on reports that FDA whistleblower David Graham was being punished by
Food and Drug Administration officials for his outspoken testimony before
a Senate committee.
The letter said the members of Congress wanted “to express our
strong dismay at recent reports about efforts taken by some at FDA to
discredit and smear Dr. Graham.”
Graham, who works in the FDA’s office of drug safety, testified
before a Senate committee last month that the FDA fumbled in its handling
of the arthritis drug Vioxx and had mishandled safety problems with
five other widely used drugs.
The FDA rebutted Graham’s testimony with filings on the agency
website. An FDA official also sent e-mail messages to the medical journal
Lancet expressing concerns about a Vioxx study by Graham that the journal
was preparing to publish. Eventually, Graham withdrew the paper after
he could not obtain a clear approval from the FDA for its publication.
Additionally, the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower
support group, said Graham was the target of a “rabid bureaucratic
backlash.” (AP)
Federal vehicles torched in VA, MD
Several fires that have damaged or destroyed federal government vehicles
outside military recruitment offices in Fairfax County, Virginia and
Montgomery, Maryland in the past two weeks.
The destroyed cars — all federal property — were parked near
or behind offices shared by recruiters for the Army, Navy, Air Force,
and Marines.
The fires, which came in the middle of a “highly unusual”
string of seven vehicle fires in a seven-day period, are under investigation,
said the Fairfax fire department. (Washington Post)
Former Congressman jailed in OH election protest
Former US Congressman Dan Hamburg, who served one term in Congress as
a Democrat and later ran for governor of California as the Green Party
candidate, was jailed after he attempted to deliver a letter about election
irregularities to the Ohio Secretary of State Dec. 8.
Hamburg and his wife arrived in Columbus Dec. 1 to demand a recount
of ballots from the Nov. 2 election in Ohio, where allegations of fraud
and election irregularities have circulated since President Bush secured
a second term after winning that state.
The Hamburgs joined a group that went to Columbus to protest the vote
count by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who was Ohio chairman
for the Bush campaign.
On Dec. 6, Hamburg attempted to deliver a letter to Blackwell demanding
that he recuse himself from the vote count, but was blocked from getting
off at his floor by state troopers.
Two days later Hamburg said he and his wife returned with a 14-page
letter issued by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee after a
hearing on the Ohio vote count last week in Washington.
After the Hamburgs were turned back at the lobby, they went to a coffee
shop, where security guards asked them to leave the building. When they
refused, they were arrested on suspicion of trespassing.
Hamburg and his wife spent a night in jail and were released a few hours
apart early Dec. 9 morning after pleading guilty to misdemeanor public
disturbance charges. (AP)
CIA fired me for not toeing Iraq line
— agent
A senior CIA analyst who was once decorated for his work on weapons
proliferation in the Middle East has accused the spy agency of ruining
his career as punishment for his refusal to adhere to official pre-war
“dogma” on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
In a lawsuit filed in a US district court, the unnamed agent, described
as a 22-year veteran of the agency’s counter-proliferation department,
accuses his former supervisors of demanding that he alter his intelligence
reporting to conform to the views of CIA management in the run-up to
the war on Iraq.
The action marks the first time the CIA, which proclaimed that Saddam
Hussein had stockpiles of WMD, has been publicly accused by one of its
employees of exerting pressure to produce reports that would help the
Bush administration make its case to go to war on Hussein.
However, one former CIA employee said the process described by the analyst
— pressure and retaliation — was a familiar bureaucratic response
to agents who did not conform. (Guardian
(UK))
Married gay couples lose health benefits
Many of Massachusetts’ largest employers are dropping health benefits
for unmarried gay couples, seven months after the state became the only
one in the US to legalize same-sex marriage.
Massachusetts companies, some of which pioneered so-called domestic-partner
benefits for unmarried, same-sex partners, said they are now withdrawing
them for reasons of fairness: If gays and lesbians can now marry, they
should no longer receive special treatment in the form of health benefits
that were not made available to unmarried, opposite-sex couples.
No data are available on how many employers that offered the benefits
are dropping them in Massachusetts. Typically, the proportion of employees
who avail themselves of domestic-partner benefits is very small.
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders argues that taking away
benefits is an unfair hardship, because the decision to marry is still
more difficult for gay and lesbian couples. Unlike opposite-sex married
couples, gay married couples will have to pay taxes on their benefits
to the IRS because federal law defines marriage as a partnership solely
between a man and a woman.
Gay marriage can also jeopardize enlistees’ military status, and
gay couples who marry may be barred from international adoptions. (Boston
Globe)
Young men warned of laptop health risk
Teenagers and young men should keep their laptops off their laps because
they could damage fertility, an expert said Dec. 9. Laptops, which reach
high internal operating temperatures, can heat up the scrotum which
could affect the quality and quantity of men’s sperm.
“It is very difficult to predict how long the computer can be used
safely,” said Dr. Yefim Sheynkin, an associate professor of urology
at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. “It may not
be at all, if the testicular temperature goes up high within a very
short period of time.”
Adolescents and young men who use laptops several times a day over many
years face the greatest risk. Sheynkin fears that if laptop use is not
curtailed, in 15-20 years when they want to start a family the men could
face problems. (Reuters)
