Tag Archives: government

Bozell Column: The NAACP Cries Racism

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Almost from the moment Barack Obama declared he would run for president in 2007, our enraptured media elite has been accusing anyone who would stand in Obama’s way with racism. The question was never whether Obama was ready to govern the country, but whether the country was ready for the historic awesomeness of Obama. Pity the NAACP. We now have a black president, and they must convince (racist) America that there still exists the need for a national association to advance “colored people” in our society. How to do it? Identify and condemn as “racists” anyone or any group opposed to Barack Obama. Apparently you cannot sincerely oppose a crushing tax burden, a useless “stimulus” bill, ObamaCare, or any other element of his socialist agenda without being tagged as a bigot. In case there was any doubt that the NAACP was carrying water for the White House political machine, Michelle Obama appeared before the NAACP convention and insisted there was still persistent racism in America, and the group’s founders would “urge us to increase our intensity” – to fight for President Obama. The merger is so obvious they could now be called the NAA-DNC. Now the NAACP has found its mojo. It is slandering the Tea Party as “racist.” In an article on CNN.com headlined “The Tea Party Must Police Itself,” NAACP chief Benjamin Jealous smeared the entire movement: “The avowed racist David Duke notes that thousands of Tea Party activists have urged him to run for president. When the Tea Party marches by, Duke thinks it’s his fiesta.” Since when did the NAACP – or anyone else, for that matter– give a hoot what David Duke thinks of anything? On its own website, the NAACP continues to rehash all those unproven allegations that “respected members of the Congressional Black Caucus reported that racial epithets were hurled at them as they passed by aWashington, DC health care protest.” But let’s stop calling them “unproven allegations.” Let’s call them what they are: lies. There is no video evidence that this ever occurred, but the NAACP doesn’t care about the evidence in its kangaroo court. They even repeated that “Representative Emanuel Cleaver was spat upon during the incident.” In the real world, Cleaver quickly walked away from his own story when video footage proved it wasn’t true. The NAACP’s video recounting the “racism” of the Tea Party had plenty of objectionable signs suggesting Obama was a fascist and “It’s 1939 Germany all over again.” Someone needs to research the meaning of the word “racism.” It gets better. The NAACP-endorsed video of purportedly racist signs even includes two shots of Confederate flags and “hateful” messages like “We Need a Christian President” and the sitcom catch phrase “What You Talking About, Willis?” A poster imposing Obama’s face with a Mr. T Mohawk hairdo next to the words “Gimme Yo Change” may be odd, but it’s not racist. It sure sounds like there weren’t many racist signs at Tea Party rallies if that’s all they could muster. But “Bush Lied, Thousands Died” – that’s okay. The bigger problem for the NAACP is that it has its very own racists. Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website revealed video of a NAACP banquet where U.S. Department of Agriculture appointee Shirley Sherrod talked about how she didn’t want to help a white farmer because he should be helped by “his own kind.” The contempt in her voice, in her face, and in the audience’s laughter is unmistakable. So where are all those news outlets which dutifully covered the NAACP’s attacks on the Tea Party now? The network evening news and morning news shows avoided this racist video entirely on the first day. Nevertheless, the cable news networks picked it up, and within hours, Shirley Sherrod had resigned from the Agriculture Department. Sherrod was clearly furious that her racist remarks were exposed. CNN analyst Roland Martin asserted that Sherrod had to go, because with a political appointment, remarks like this ruin the perception that Sherrod would be fair in distributing government help. Sherrod screamed right back at him that he was “clearly from a different world” than the deeply racist world she lived in. The bottom line is not only that Sherrod needed to go – but that the TV elite must stop ignoring this, and stop pretending that black racism and discriminatory attitudes do not exist. If Obama’s election was supposed to heal our race relations, then the media should put this controversy back on his desk and press him to address it.

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Google, scarier than we all think?

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Citing new information about Google's classified government contracts and the Internet giant's admitted Wi-Spying activity, Consumer Watchdog today said it is more imperative than ever for the Energy and Commerce Committee to conduct hearings into possible privacy violations by Google. In a letter to Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Ranking Member Joe Barton, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group's John M. Simpson wrote: “Based on today's Washington Post, it appears that Google holds classified U.S. government contracts to supply search and geospatial information to the U.S. government. In addition, White House records show that Google executives have been holding meetings with U.S. national security officials for undisclosed reasons. Finally, it also appears that Google's widely criticized efforts to collect wireless network data on American citizens were not inadvertent, contrary to the company's claims.” “As history has repeatedly shown, alliances between the U.S. intelligence community and giant corporations that collect data on American citizens can be a toxic combination where the U.S. Constitution is concerned,” the letter said. In a June 9 letter to the Energy and Commerce Committee, Google director for public policy Pablo Chavez asserted that Google “mistakenly included code in our software that collected samples of 'payload data'” from private WiFi networks. But review of a patent application from Google covering the gathering of WiFi data published Jan. 28 shows that the data collection program was a very deliberate effort to assemble as much information as possible about U.S. residential and business WiFi networks. The letter continued: “…what the patent does show is that Google's recent claims about how the Street View program was designed are not accurate, and that the company always intended to collect and store the 'packets' of wireless data that contain so-called payload information. “The patent makes repeated reference to 'capturing' packets, including paragraph [0055], which states that the system will enable geolocations so long as the equipment being used 'is able to capture and properly decode a packet…' “This raises serious questions about whether Google has engaged in a reckless effort to amass private data without giving any thought to the possible misuse of that information, and whether it can be trusted to safeguard the information it collects from the prying eyes of the U.S. government.” Read the patent here: http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/US20100020776.pdf Read the letter here: http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/LtrWaxman071910.pdf In addition, White House visitor logs show that Alan Davidson, Google's Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs, has had at least three meetings with officials of the National Security Council since the beginning of last year. One of the meetings was with White House senior director for Russian affairs Mike McFaul, while another was with Middle East advisor Daniel Shapiro. It has also been widely reported that Google has been working in “partnership” with the National Security Agency, the very same government body that illegally intercepted the private communications of millions of Americans during the Bush administration http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/googles-wi-spying-and-intelligence-ties-… added by: littlwarrior

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Ontario Limits Size and Quantity of EV Rebates

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Photo: Government of Ontario Always Read the Fine Print When the rebates for plug-in hybrids and electric cars were first announced by the government of Ontario , there was no word on how many applicants would be accepted, and the size of the rebates was aid to be between $4,000 and $10,000 (depending on the capacity of the car’s battery). But now that the tax measure is phasing in, the details are changing, and not for the better. Read on for details…. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Ontario Limits Size and Quantity of EV Rebates

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Disgraced USDA Official Blames Fox News and Tea Party For Her Dismissal

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The USDA employee that was forced to resign Monday as a result of racist comments she made at an NAACP gathering in March has blamed Fox News and the Tea Party for her inability to convince her employers of her innocence. As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, Shirley Sherrod, the USDA’s Rural Development director for the state of Georgia, delivered a racism-laden address at the NAACP’s 20th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet back on March 27. On CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday, after Sherrod said that the video published by Big Government didn’t accurately depict what really happened, host John Roberts asked, “When the U.S. Department of Agriculture came to you and said you have to step down, why didn’t you just say, wait a minute, you don’t know the full story?” Sherrod amazingly answered, “I did say that, but they, for some reason, the stuff that Fox and the Tea Party does is scaring the administration” (video follows with transcript and commentary): JOHN ROBERTS: Just a little while ago, we’re telling you the story of Shirley Sherrod, the U.S. Department of Agriculture official from Georgia who resigned after charges that she made racist comments before the NAACP because she said she wouldn’t help a farmer because he was white. That was one side of the story. We got the other side of the story from Shirley Sherrod coming up right after the break. She says it’s nothing of what people are saying it was. So, let’s hear from her coming right up. Fifty minutes after the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: The U.S. Department of Agriculture accepts the resignation of an employee after a video surfaced showing her telling an audience that she withheld assistance to a white farmer because of his race. Let’s listen to what she told the NAACP. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SHIRLEY SHERROD, FMR. USDA WORKER: I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farm land. And here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So, I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough. (END VIDEO CLIP) KIRAN CHETRY: Does that video tell the whole story? Joining us now on the phone from Albany, Georgia is Shirley Sherrod, herself. Thanks for being with us this morning, Shirley. SHERROD: Thank you. CHETRY: You say that this was part of the story and that it was part that was spliced enough to show you in a bad light, that this isn’t the whole story. Will you finish for us how this ended? SHERROD: OK. I was speaking to that group like I’ve done many groups, and I tell them about a time when I thought the issue was race and race only. And I tell them the story of how I’ve worked with a white farmer back in 1986. I was not working for the Department of Agriculture. I was working with a non-profit organization assisting farmers throughout South Georgia and the Southeast. And this farmer came to me for help. I was telling the story about how working with him helped me to see that the issue is not about race, it’s about those who have versus those who do not have. And I tell how I took him to a lawyer who I thought would help him. In the end, that lawyer didn’t. In the end, I had to frantically look for a lawyer because when USDA lifted — I’m sorry. When the court lifted the injunction against USDA in May of 1987, this white farmer was one of 13 that was foreclosed on by the state of Georgia. I had to frantically find a lawyer who would file a chapter 11 to stop the foreclosure. He couldn’t — at that time, we had up to 12. CHETRY: Yes. But let me just get back really quickly, you said you didn’t give them the full force of what you could do. You said you did enough, and then you referred to the race (ph) of the lawyer as well saying that perhaps because the lawyer was white, that he would help him. So, what did you mean by that? SHERROD: What I meant was, I didn’t know anyone else, but it thought taking — I didn’t know another lawyer at that time who was local, who knew something about chapter 12. But I thought if I took him to a white lawyer, he would definitely do all that he could to help save his farm. ROBERTS: Miss Sherrod, let’s make it clear though, that this happened 24 years ago. You eventually worked with this white farmer. You eventually became friends, you say, with the farmer and his wife. SHERROD: Yes. ROBERTS: So, the question I have is, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture came to you and said you have to step down, why didn’t you just say, wait a minute, you don’t know the full story. Here’s the full story, why should I step down? SHERROD: I did say that, but they, for some reason, the stuff that Fox and the Tea Party does is scaring the administration. I told them get the whole tape and look at the whole tape and look at how I tell people we have to get beyond race and start working together. ROBERTS: Many people at home might be thinking if you’re recounting an old story, why did you succumb to pressure to step down, why didn’t you fight this? SHERROD: If I tried to fight it and didn’t have any support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, what would I do? CHETRY: Let me ask you this. Did you talk to the NAACP about it because I just want to read from our audience what Ben Jealous, the president said. He said referring to you and this surfacing of the tape, “her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story, she ultimately realized her mistake as well as the common predicament of working people of all races. She gave no indication she’d attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man. And the reaction from many in the audience is disturbing.” This is from Ben Jealous. Did you try to clarify with the NAACP your story? SHERROD: No, I haven’t had had a chance to talk to anyone. All of this was happening so fast. And it’s unfortunate that the NAACP would make a statement without even checking to see what happened. This was 24 years ago, and I’m telling a story to try to unite people with that now. ROBERTS: Certainly, you’re coming out and telling your story now takes it to a different level, and obviously, we’re going to keep following this. It’s good to get your side of it. Sherri Sherrod, former Agriculture Department official. Thanks for joining us this morning. And perhaps, we can get you back on again, get your face on TV as well and talk to you more about this as the story continues to develop. SHERROD: I don’t mind. ROBERTS: All right. Thanks so much. CHETRY: Thanks a lot. So let’s get this straight: her employers at the USDA don’t believe her story and NEITHER does the NAACP. But didn’t you get the sense Chetry and Roberts did and were quite sympathetic?  For the record, here’s Monday’s press release from the NAACP: (BALTIMORE, MD) NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous issued the following statement today after learning of the resignation of Shirley Sherrod of the United States Department of Agriculture: “Since our founding in 1909, the NAACP has been a multi-racial, multi-faith organization that– while generally rooted in African American communities– fights to end racial discrimination against all Americans. We concur with US Agriculture Secretary Vilsack in accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod for her remarks at a local NAACP Freedom Fund banquet. Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race. We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers. Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man. The reaction from many in the audience is disturbing. We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event and take any appropriate action. We thank those who brought this to our national office’s attention, as there are hundreds of local fundraising dinners each year. Sherrod’s behavior is even more intolerable in light of the US Department of Agriculture’s well documented history of denying opportunities to African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American farmers, as well as female farmers of all races. Currently, justice for many of these farmers is being held up by Congress. We would hope all who share our outrage at Sherrod’s statements would join us in pushing for these cases to be remedied. The NAACP will continue to advance the ideals of America and fight for freedom, justice and fairness for all Americans.” Regardless of the conclusions made by the USDA and the NAACP, is the media template going to be that Sherrod’s actions took place 24 years ago, and she was wrongfully forced to resign as a result of pressure from Fox News and the Tea Party? Will Sherrod be made out as the victim by a sympathetic press? Stay tuned. 

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A hidden world, growing beyond control

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine. The investigation's other findings include: * Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. * An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. * In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space. http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/tsa/static/articles/hidden… added by: Sexirobot

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Network Morning Shows Ignore Resignation of USDA Official Who Made Racist Comments at NAACP Meeting

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Monday, Andrew Breitbart, on his blog Big Government, revealed video of a Department of Agriculture official making racially charged comments at a 2009 NAACP meeting. While the media were quick to jump on the civil rights organization accusing the tea party of racism last week, they have failed to provide any coverage of this controversy. The comments were made by the USDA’s Georgia Director of Rural Development Shirley Sherrod at a 2009 NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. As the video clearly shows, Sherrod’s description of discriminating against white farmers was well received by the audience. The comments, which were reported throughout the day Monday on Fox News, stirred so much controversy that Sherrod resigned Monday night and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was forced to issue a statement on the matter: ““There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person.” As NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard earlier reported , none of the network evening news broadcasts touched the story on Monday . On Tuesday, the CBS Early Show, NBC’s Today, and ABC’s Good Morning America were all silent on the controversy and resignation. However, all three morning shows did manage to focus on a recent verbal gaffe made by Sarah Palin. —Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Grills Michele Bachmann: Will Tea Party ‘Undermine’ GOP Chances?

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

One day after suggesting that terrorist attacks during Barack Obama’s watch be ” set aside ,” Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos grilled Michelle Bachmann, forcing her to respond for every supposed crime of the Tea Party movement. The former Democratic operative wondered if being “more formally aligned with the Tea Party” movement could ” undermine Republicans chances of taking the House back in November .” He then quizzed, “What did you think when you saw that billboard, comparing the President to Hitler and Lenin?” In contrast, during Iraq war protests, vulgar, sometimes violent signs held up by liberals were routinely ignored by journalists. Yet, Stephanopoulos berated the Minnesota representative, “You yourself had to distance yourself last fall from members of the Tea Party that were using Holocaust imagery.” Earlier in the piece, the GMA host hit Bachmann for suggesting that extension of unemployment benefits should be paid for. He asserted, “The tax cuts passed by President Bush are set to expire at the end of the year. I know you want to extend them. Do you support paying for those, as well?” Asking a politician to be consistent on how to pay for their programs and policy beliefs is fair. It’s just too bad that reporters rarely ask Democrats how they will pay for things or what programs should be cut. A transcript of the segment, which aired at 7:09am EDT, follows: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: For more on this, we are going to turn to the founder of the brand new Tea Party caucus in the House, Republican Congressman Michele Bachman of Minnesota. Thanks for joining us this morning, Congresswoman. And let’s get right to this unemployment debate. President Obama, you saw that offensive in the Rose Garden yesterday, very tough on your party. He took on those who, he said, have no problems on spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans. But are now saying we shouldn’t offer relief to the middle class Americans. How do you respond? MICHELE BACHMANN: Well, the best way to offer a relief to the middle class is to have a pro-job growth economy. And that’s not what the President has laid forth in his strategy. Republicans are not opposed to unemployment benefits, hardly. We’re looking at $34 billion in unemployment. But, remember, it was Democrats that made a big deal of the concept of pay-go. They said they would not spend money unless they made cuts in other places. Neither the President, nor Speaker Pelosi has made an attempt to cut spending in order to pay for the benefits. This is a basic function of government. And, so, it’s important that they find other cuts in other places. But instead, George, what we’ve seen, they’ve continued to expand the long line of benefits in other areas. We need to make first things first. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s take a look at that principle. The tax cuts passed by President Bush are set to expire at the end of the year. I know you want to extend them. Do you support paying for those, as well? BACHMANN: I think we need to be paying for all of the spending that’s going out. But when people are able to keep more of their own money, that shouldn’t be considered a cost. STEPHANOPOULOS: So, that’s a no? BACHMANN: Well, I think what we need to do is have a pro-job growth formula. And, really, what that is, cut the dramatic government spending that has happened. This didn’t happen in a vacuum. President obama spent over $1 trillion on stimulus. We were all promised that about four million jobs would be created. Instead, about four million jobs were lost. Then, President Obama decided to take over, through either direct ownership or control, one private industry after another. What we’ve learned is that the federal government takeover of private business leads to unemployment, not employment. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me be clear then- BACHMANN: Your story’s accurate. People want jobs. That’s true. They don’t want unemployment. But the government’s policies have brought about failure in private job creation. STEPHANOPOULOS: But, to be clear, you’re saying the tax cuts don’t have to be paid for. But this unemployment extension does. Let me turn to the new Tea Party caucus that was formed. You said it was designed to promote fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution and limited government. I’m wondering, why do you think it’s necessary? Are leaders in the House not living up to that responsibility? BACHMANN: Well, what we’ve been hearing from people all over the country, George, is that Congress is not listening to the American people. This is a forum for members of Congress to be able to listen to what people have been trying to tell us. And it is very simple. It’s a banner that comes under the idea of don’t spend more than what you’re taking in. People want the federal government to live just the way they do. And they want us to adhere to principles of the Constitution, because people believe they’re taxed enough already. This isn’t a political party, like the Republican Party or Democrat Party. It’s a set of ideas that, after all, members of Congress, swore that they would uphold under the Constitution. STEPHANOPOULOS: You also run the risk of taking in the controversy that comes with the Tea Party, as well. We all saw the billboard in northern Iowa last week, comparing President Obama to Hitler and Lenin. The broader movement had to expel the Chairman of the Tea Party Express this weekend for making racist comments. You yourself had to distance yourself last fall from members of the Tea Party that were using Holocaust imagery. Are you worried that being more formally aligned with the Tea Party, you might undermine Republicans chances of taking the House back in November? BACHMANN: Well, what I think what we’re trying to do more than anything, again, is to give a forum to the ideas that people have tried to talk to us about. Most of the people who came to Washington, to rallies, and to town hall meetings across the country, are just trying to get the attention of Congress to say, would you please stop spending money that you don’t have. Because, the money is our money. That’s what the people are saying. These are lawyers, doctors, small business owners, housewives, farmers. People from all walks of life, just saying, please, federal government, get your act together. And start acting in a way that will not leave us bankrupt and will create a pro-growth agenda here in America. STEPHANOPOULOS: We only have a few seconds. What did you think when you saw that billboard, comparing the President to Hitler and Lenin? BACHMANN: Well, you know, some things aren’t helpful going forward. And to focus on the ideas of a pro-growth economy, living within our means, that’s positive. That’s what we hope to do in this caucus.

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ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Grills Michele Bachmann: Will Tea Party ‘Undermine’ GOP Chances?

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NSA Executive Leaked After Official Reporting Process Failed Him | Threat Level | Wired.com

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

A former NSA executive who is fighting government charges of leaking classified information was part of a group that pursued several sanctioned paths to report concerns about an agency spy program, but was repeatedly frustrated by the government’s inaction, according to a report Wednesday. Thomas Drake, now reduced to working at a Washington, D.C.-area Apple store while awaiting his trial, first notified his superiors at the National Security Agency, then looked to Congress to address his concerns, and finally worked with a group that went to the Defense Department’s inspector general, according to The Washington Post. When all of these avenues failed to net results, he took his information to a reporter at The Baltimore Sun. Drake now faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison if convicted of mishandling classified information and obstructing justice. Drake’s information involved a data-mining program called ThinThread that, after the Sept. 11 attacks, was going to be replaced by a more expensive, less efficient and less privacy-friendly program called Trailblazer. When he expressed concerns that the new program would ignore constitutional safeguards around wiretapping, he was reportedly rebuffed by his superiors. “He tried to have his concerns heard and nobody really wanted to listen,” attorney Nina Ginsberg, who is representing a former Capitol Hill staffer but is not representing Drake, told the Post. Drake began working for the NSA in 1989 as a contractor. His job was to evaluate software programs for the agency. In 2001, on the morning of Sept. 11 to be exact, he began a new job as a senior executive at the NSA overseeing the office of change leadership and communications, the Post says. ThinThread was developed for the NSA in the ’90s to mine massive amounts of digital data collected by the agency and find patterns. One of the existing program’s key features was a privacy component that anonymized collected data through encryption. The identifying information would only be decrypted if authorities gained sufficient evidence to obtain a warrant. Although the mere collection of domestic data was still illegal without a warrant, Drake apparently approved of the product as long as the anonymization feature was in place. But after Sept. 11, NSA director Michael Hayden opted instead for the $1.2 billion Trailblazer program, which was believed to have more robust capability to handle larger volumes of data, but which had none of the privacy safeguards present in ThinThread. Three of Drake’s superiors now say that he never mentioned his concerns about constitutional safeguards to them, but career NSA employees back Drake’s story, according to the paper. They took their concerns to congressional leaders and staffers, including Diane Roark, a Republican staff member of the House Intelligence Committee. Roark contacted Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who was responsible for appointing judges to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — the court that oversees requests for national security surveillance warrants. But Rehnquist apparently was a dead end. Roark also had no luck with her boss, House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida). Instead of performing his congressional oversight duty, Goss simply sent her along to NSA chief Hayden, who told her: “We’re proud of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.” That’s when Roark and former NSA employees who sided with Drake took their concerns to the Defense Department’s inspector general. They reported that the NSA had shelved ThinThread in favor of a program that cost 10 times as much and was less effective. An administrative investigation was spawned by their complaint, as well as two criminal fraud investigations. The inspector general’s report was completed in December 2004 but was classified and led to no action. It was Roark who suggested Drake contact a reporter at that point. A month later, in December 2005, The New York Times reported its groundbreaking story disclosing that the NSA had been spying on Americans, based on information from anonymous sources. Drake decided he should come forward with his information as well. He contacted Siobhan Gorman at The Baltimore Sun, using Hushmail, an encrypted e-mail service. They communicated for a year without Drake identifying himself, before they finally met in person. Drake allegedly provided Gorman with scans of classified documents, from which she wrote an article questioning the NSA’s replacement of ThinThread with Trailblazer and its abandonment of privacy safeguards. Drake later told New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that the story was actually much more significant than what The Baltimore Sun reported. Drake’s attorney, a public defender, says the government’s allegations against his client are factually wrong and miss important principles suggested by the case. “Throughout, Tom Drake has tried as best he could to do the right thing in service of his country,” Jim Wyda told the Post. “His motives in this important matter are completely pure.” added by: toyotabedzrock

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‘War on drugs’ fuels HIV epidemic as governments ignore science, experts say

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Two Vancouver-based groups that do research on HIV-AIDS and drug policy say the war on drugs waged by many governments, including the government of Canada, has failed to curb illegal drug use and is actually fuelling the spread of the disease. “There's just a huge discordance between scientific evidence and policy,” said Dr. Evan Wood, founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy and a researcher at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/war-on-drugs-fuels-hiv-epidemic-as-… added by: JackHerer

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BP Hopes to Keep Gulf Well Closed, But Seeping Is Being Detected | The New York Times

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The New York Times July 18, 2010 BP Hopes to Keep Gulf Well Closed, but Seeping Is Detected By HENRY FOUNTAIN After three days of encouraging pressure tests, a senior BP official said Sunday that the company’s recently capped well in the Gulf of Mexico was holding up and that BP now hoped to keep the well closed until it could be permanently plugged. But government officials were more skeptical and cited a new potential problem. That BP plan differs sharply from the one the company and the federal government had suggested only a day earlier, to eventually allow the flow of oil to resume temporarily, collecting it through pipes to surface ships. If BP succeeds in keeping the cap atop the well closed until a relief well is finished, that would mean the gusher would effectively be over, three months — and tens of millions of gallons of oil — after it began. It would be a major turnaround after weeks of failure for the oil giant, which had been harshly criticized as being unprepared for such a disaster. “We’re hopeful,” Doug Suttles, the company’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said in a conference call with reporters Sunday morning. “Right now we do not have a target to return the well to flow,” he said. The federal government was more cautious, saying only that the test could be extended 24 hours at a time after scientific reviews. Late Sunday, the government ordered BP to step up monitoring of the well after “undetermined anomalies” were discovered on the seafloor nearby. In a letter to the company, Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who commands the response to the oil spill, also noted that tests had detected a seep — usually a flow of hydrocarbons from the seafloor — “a distance from the well.” And while the letter said the federal government would allow the test to continue for now, the discovery of a seep and the unspecified anomalies suggest that the well could be damaged and that it may have to be reopened soon to avoid making the situation worse. The pressure testing, which began Thursday with the closing of valves on the cap and is designed to assess the condition of the well, was originally expected to last 48 hours. “We need to be careful in predicting how long it will go,” Mr. Suttles said. If a problem crops up, he said, collection systems could be restarted, some within a few hours. In a few weeks there should be enough capacity to collect more than the high estimate of 60,000 barrels a day. But Mr. Suttles said that if valves on the cap were reopened to restart collection, oil would pour anew into the gulf for up to three days. If the well is not reopened, it could mean that the precise volume of oil that leaked — the well has been estimated to be flowing at a rate of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day — may never be known. That raises the question of whether the company might escape some liability for the spill. It has been an encouraging several days for BP, but it comes after many engineering efforts that produced little but a lexicon of strange terms, all defining failure: containment dome, junk shot and top kill among them. Even the good news about the test and the new cap, which was installed last week, left many wondering why the project could not have happened earlier. BP has pointed out that the concept — essentially, putting a new blowout preventer atop the existing one that failed when the Deepwater Horizon drill rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers — had been in the works since shortly after the disaster occurred. They have said, and diaries and other documents tend to bear out, that ideas were worked on in parallel, with those that were easier to accomplish and had a greater chance of succeeding being tried first. In a discussion with a reporter in mid-May, Kent Wells, a senior BP vice president in charge of the subsea work, and others described in broad terms an option to install a second preventer if the top kill, in which heavy drilling mud was to be pumped into the well to stop oil and gas from coming up, did not work. The top kill failed and one proposed explanation at the time was that the well was damaged. That put a halt, for a while, to talk of putting another blowout preventer or other tight-sealing cap on the well, out of concern that a buildup of pressure could further damage the well. But the idea was revived, and in June BP considered using the blowout preventer from the Development Driller II rig, which was working on the second relief well, for the job. The company halted drilling of the well, aiming to bring the blowout preventer to the surface. But the federal government intervened and ordered BP to continue drilling the well as a backup in case anything went wrong with the first relief well. The cap that was eventually used was designed and built more or less from scratch, although off-the-shelf valves and rams were used. And as with any engineering project, particularly one being conducted by remotely operated submersibles a mile underwater, installation procedures had to be devised and practiced. That practice appeared to pay off last week when the cap was installed. It was by far the smoothest operation of the many that had been undertaken in the three-month disaster. With the valves on the cap closed and the gulf still free of fresh oil on Sunday, Mr. Suttles said that skimming ships near the site were collecting far less oily water. Only one controlled burn was conducted Saturday, compared with 19 the day before, he said. And there were no new reports of oil reaching the shore. “There is less and less oil to recover,” he said. Barring bad weather, the relief well, which will be used to pump heavy mud, followed by cement, into the blown-out well to seal it permanently, may be ready by the end of July, although it may take several more weeks for the process to be completed, Mr. Suttles said. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/07/19/us/19oilspill_337-395/19oilspill_… added by: EthicalVegan

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