Federal Probe launched into missing TSA hard drive

USA TODAY
Probe launched into missing TSA hard drive
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities have launched a "full-blown criminal investigation" into the disappearance of a computer drive holding personal and banking records of 100,000 Transportation Security Administration employees, agency Administrator Kip Hawley said Monday.

"We're doing a full-court press on this," Hawley told TSA employees in a conference call that USA TODAY was able to listen to.

Hawley's comments downplayed the possibility that the portable hard drive had been lost from TSA headquarters in Arlington, Va., on Thursday. The TSA had said Friday that it was "unclear" whether the device was "still within headquarters or was stolen."

Agency spokeswoman Ellen Howe acknowledged Hawley's comments and added that "nothing has been ruled out," including the possibility the hard drive was lost.

On Monday, TSA employees questioned how the drive went missing and whether it would expose the identities of the thousands of armed air marshals, who ride undercover on airplanes to thwart terrorists. Air marshals, who are TSA employees, fear what someone could do with their names, birth dates and Social Security numbers — data that were on the hard drive.

"If that information is out there, it's very easy to find out who they are," said John Adler, executive vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, whose members include air marshals. Adler said terrorists could use personnel information to find where air marshals live, photograph them and disseminate the photos.

Hawley said air marshals' security "was one of our first concerns" but downplayed the risk to them. The TSA said on its website that "without extensive knowledge of TSA's human resource system, it is extremely difficult to determine what positions employees on the missing hard drive have."

The TSA has not ruled out the possibility that an insider took the drive.

Aviation-security consultant Rich Roth said the data theft "shouldn't affect the air marshals at all." Terrorists who are determined to spot air marshals can simply watch passengers boarding planes early, he said.

The FBI and Secret Service have joined the investigation, which began Thursday after employees in the TSA personnel office who frequently use the hard drive found it missing.

Howe, the TSA spokeswoman, said the drive is about the size of a desk telephone.

Paul Stephens, a policy analyst at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy group, questioned why a federal security agency would store sensitive information on "something that could be carried away in a briefcase" and not on a larger, less-portable device. External hard drives store data such as text files and photographs and are plugged into a computer.

Cris Soulia, a TSA screener in San Diego and a former Navy computer technician, said he was "dumbfounded" that the agency would store personnel records on a portable device.

"That's really irresponsible," Soulia said.

Howe declined to address why the records were stored on an external hard drive, saying it is "an element of an ongoing investigation."

Stephens said stealing hard drives "is a bit unusual" and usually indicates that "the purpose of the theft was to obtain the data." Many data breaches are the unintentional result of someone stealing a computer to sell it and the computer happens to hold personnel information, he said.

The clearinghouse has tracked hundreds of security breaches that exposed 154 million data records.



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Homeland Security Affirms Mandates for Driver’s Licenses

The New York Times
Agency Affirms Mandates for Driver’s Licenses
By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, May 8 — The Homeland Security Department said Tuesday that it would plow ahead with national standards for driver’s licenses, despite a highly unusual level of activity by state legislatures opposed to the idea, and substantial second thoughts in Congress.

The department said it had received about 12,000 public responses to its draft rules, in a 60-day comment period that ended Tuesday. Russ Knocke, a spokesman, said the comments were mixed.

Comments at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday were more negative. The chairman, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, complained that security rules were supposed to be “smart as well as tough” and predicted that state motor vehicle departments would not be able to cope with the requirements, which include verifying all documents presented by applicants. Even renewals will require birth certificates or other proof of legal residence. And the change will impose billions of dollars in costs on states and localities, Mr. Leahy and others said.

Mr. Leahy, who is a sponsor of a bipartisan bill to repeal the rules before they take effect, asserts that the department cannot even safeguard the personal information of its own employees. (Recently the department acknowledged that it had released the names and Social Security numbers of thousands of employees, including undercover sky marshals.)

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which has a clock on its Web page counting down the time until the law’s requirements take effect (368 days as of Tuesday), Washington and Montana have enacted laws pledging not to comply. In Idaho, the Legislature passed, and the governor signed, a budget specifying that expenditures for carrying out the law next year would be zero. Resolutions opposing the new licenses have been passed by one or both houses of the legislature, and in some cases signed by the governor, in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, North Dakota and Utah.

Carl Tubbesing, deputy executive director of the conference, said, the actions of legislatures was “without precedent in the last 20 years.”

But Mr. Knocke, the spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, predicted that reluctant states would come around because people would demand it. Without the standardized licenses, they would need a passport to board an airliner, he said.

“Residents of non-Real ID-compliant states are going to displeased with their leadership,” he said.

While states have mostly complained about costs, others have raised privacy objections. The American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday that the system as laid out by the Bush administration “streamlines identity theft.”

There was some support for the license plan at the hearing. Janice L. Kephart, former counsel to the Sept. 11 commission, pointed out that Ziad Jarrah, a hijacker of United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, had been stopped for speeding two days before the Sept. 11 attacks and gave the police officer one of the two Florida driver’s licenses he was carrying. If the nation had a system that limited applicants to a single license, the authorities would have had a better chance of catching him, she said.

The law requires the states to begin issuing the standardized licenses by next May, but the department can issue extensions through Dec. 31, 2009. All licenses are supposed to be compliant by May 10, 2013.

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The Murdoch Muscle

Huffington Post
Jayne Lyn Stahl
The Murdoch Muscle

Before you know it, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is going to own the news, and we don't hear a peep from the press, or the mainstream media.

In his bid to buy Dow Jones for $5 billion, last week, the Australian-born owner of Fox News, Harper Collins, the New York Post, and The Times of London offered an unprecedented $60 a share for the company's remaining stock options, and nobody blinked, except members of the Bancroft family, owners of the Wall Street Journal, and controlling stockholders of Dow Jones.
But, insiders say, that for $10 a share more, the Bancrofts, too, may be willing to give it up for Rupert Murdoch.

Not only is no one in the mainstream media speaking out against the proposed takeover, but some even suggest it might not be a bad idea for this master at corporate monopoly to have his way with Dow Jones, and the Journal, arguing that, if a bit disfigured, the news will survive. After all, salmonella kills people, not sensationalism. And, if anybody's squawking, it must be behind closed doors where only family members can hear. Where is outrage at the thought that, sooner rather than later, the Wall Street Journal will look just like the New York Post, and Fox News? Where is the angst not merely from the public, but from the press corps that a company called News Corp. can buy and sell what we read? No one is asking what will happen to dissent, and a free press when big business and big news merge. Corporate profit, which has consumed the heart and soul of America, as well as the middle class, now looks to devour the information age like a bowl of sushi.

If he prevails, and acquires Dow Jones, Mr. Murdoch will lay claim to the second largest paper in the country, and the lion's share of newspaper profit. And, Rupert Murdoch will, once again, get to demonstrate his unfailing ability to flex, censor, and sway his way to the top. But, allowing for inflation, the $60 million question is, while he's had his eye on the Wall Street Journal for many years, why is the Fox News owner so hot for the Journal now, this close to a crucial presidential race? Having watched the Murdoch muscle at work, over the past decade or so, a pattern emerges, one that is as transparent as it is trans-fat.

Arguably, only a shark has a better sense of smell than Rupert Murdoch. He already has The Times of London in his pocket, and has expressed more than a passing interest in that paper's leading competitor, The Financial Times, showing not merely how much he wants to be the big fish, but that he can ably breakfast, lunch, and dine on his competition. So, it's not too big a stretch to think that, having had his fill of Dow and the Journal, Mr. M. may have a craving for USA Today, the only paper with a larger circulation than the Wall Street Journal.

But, newspaper consolidation isn't the only thing we have to fear from Rupert Murdoch. His devout conservatism and penchant for silencing his opposition, as well as his well-documented campaigns against anything contrarian, may prove especially precarious in these times when not only the Journal, but every print newspaper is hemorrhaging readership as a result of the Internet.

For a look at how Murdoch challenges diversity of opinion, one has only to go back to the days when he acquired The Village Voice, some twenty years ago, to see that, while he likes to make money, he also has another agenda. Shortly after his takeover, two of the Voice's most liberal investigative reporters, Joe Conason and Wayne Barrett were let go. Murdoch's battle of the bilge includes, but is not limited to, purging his opposition in ways that would make Stalin envious. While Mr. Barrett was hired back, the message came through, loud and clear; don't mess with Rupert Murdoch. The Murdoch rubric appears to be comply, or perish.

Word has it that he hasn't even taken over yet, but has already mentioned to reporters, at the Journal, that he doesn't like "long stories" which, many think, is code for the fact that he doesn't want investigative work, and that only those will survive who tow the party line. And, which party would that be? The party that Fox endorses, of course. The party that wants to bring you the next president of the United States, a man Mr. Murdoch has had his eye on for almost as long as the Wall Street Journal.

The only time he appears to deviate from his rank and file Republican conservatism is when it lines his pocket as is the case with Hong Kong, and his tacit agreement to look the other way with regard to human rights abuses in Communist China, as well as to bend to the wishes of Chinese censors. Indeed, Murdoch went along with redacting anything pejorative about Communist China long before Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google caved in to demands of censors from Beijing.

Showing his capacity to flex his censor muscle, in the spring of 1998, Murdoch stopped Harper Collins from publishing the memoirs of one-time Hong Kong governor, Chris Patten, because he alleged human rights abuses by Communist China. Murdoch himself sat down with a draft of East and West, Patten's book, and "ordered senior managers at Harper Collins to tone down the criticism of Chinese leadership." (Toronto Star) Clearly, Mr. Murdoch doesn't like it when anybody has something bad to say about his friends in Communist China.

Similarly, a few months later, Murdoch made it clear that he wouldn't want anyone to say anything bad about another friend, Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas. Later that year, Fox Television dropped a television drama based on a book, Strange Justice, by (quell coincidence) two Wall Street Journal reporters that concluded that Anita Hill's allegations against Thomas were accurate. Once again, the News Corp. owner got his hands on the book, and demanded that the TV project be scrapped telling a colleague only that he was friends with Justice Thomas, and that Thomas had been "railroaded" in the court proceedings. And, Murdoch based his decision only on the book; he didn't bother to read the screenplay before stopping the teledrama dead in its tracks. Who cares about divine right of kings when we have divine right of publishers!

Aside from his loyalty to conservative Justice Thomas, that same month, that same year, 1998, Rupert Murdoch hosted a fundraiser for Senator John McCain who, at the time, conveniently happened to be chairman of the committee that oversees the Federal Communications Commissions. In a fundraiser invite, Murdoch called McCain "an outspoken leader for the telecommunications industry." (NYTimes) I'm sure at least one Republican presidential candidate will take one huge sigh of relief should Mr. Murdoch take the helm of Dow Jones, and the second largest newspaper in the country. How expedient to have, as a friend, the owner of Fox News, the New York Post, The Times of London, and now Dow Jones? That is, unless somebody wakes up before their snooze alarm goes off.

It isn't just the war the press has gone to sleep on. Who's been busy running the farm when we've been out betting it? If Murdoch prevails in his bid for Dow Jones, he may not just buying the Wall Street Journal, but the 2008 presidential election, as well.

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Congress seeks more testimony in expanded U.S. Justice Department inquiry

AP
Congress seeks more testimony in expanded U.S. Justice Department inquiry
MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON — Congress is stepping up its inquiry into the politics of Justice Department decision-making, seeking cooperation from one department official and preparing to put the department's former White House liaison under oath.

The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Bradley Schlozman, a former senior civil rights attorney and U.S. attorney, to speak with investigators. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said it would not try to prevent Congress from granting immunity to White House liaison Monica Goodling if she should testify before a committee.

Lawmakers want to talk to Schlozman and Goodling as part of an inquiry into whether the department played politics with the hiring and firing of department officials. The inquiry began as a question about whether U.S. attorneys _ presidential appointees who serve as the top federal law enforcement officials in their state districts _ were fired for political reasons.

It has grown, however, into an investigation of whether the agency let politics affect criminal investigations and whether officials made employment decisions for political reasons.

Lawmakers want to question Schlozman, who now works for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, about a voter fraud lawsuit he filed against Missouri in the lead-up to the 2006 election. Committee members said they wanted to know whether Schlozman's predecessor was forced out for not endorsing that lawsuit, which was ultimately dismissed.

"The Committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the administration's decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. attorneys," the Judiciary Committee's Democratic chairman, Patrick Leahy, wrote in a letter co-signed by the committee's top Republican, Arlen Specter.

The letter asked Schlozman to submit voluntarily to interviews and testimony and provide documents to the committee.

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said politics do not influence decisions about whether to bring a case.

"The Justice Department brings its civil actions and criminal prosecutions based on evidence, not on politics," Boyd said. "We expect U.S. attorneys to bring election and voter fraud cases where evidence of such fraud exists."

The Justice Department is conducting an internal review of the firings of U.S. attorneys and other decisions. As part of that investigation, the agency is reviewing whether Goodling sought to place Republicans as front-line prosecutors in state U.S. attorney districts.

Lawmakers want to question Goodling but, without a promise of immunity, she has refused. In a letter to the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, the Justice Department said it would prefer not to see an immunity deal.

"However, we understand the committee's interest in obtaining Ms. Goodling's testimony," the letter said. "Therefore, after balancing the significant public interest against the impact of the committee's actions on our ongoing investigation, we will not raise an objection or seek a deferral."

The letter was signed by Inspector General Glenn Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel to the Office of Professional Responsibility.

___

On the Net:

Department of Justice: http://www.usdoj.gov

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Following in the footsteps of Bush/Cheney, Conservatives Create their own reality on the web

ABC News
Banned From YouTube?
Conservatives Perceive YouTube Bias, Launch New Video-Sharing Site
By JENNIFER PARKER

May 4, 2007 —

In the new digital media age, damning political videos can have an immediate impact on campaign 2.0, thanks largely to the availability and immediacy of YouTube.

The popular video-sharing Web site first debuted "Hillary 1984," which compared Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. to a Orwellian dictator, then-Sen. George Allen's career-altering "macaca" moment and the "I Feel Pretty" video that chided former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' good looks.

But YouTube, which is owned by Google, has also been a favorite target of conservatives, who accuse the site of a liberal bias.

Banned from YouTube?
Railing against YouTube, two Republican White House veterans have launched QubeTV as a conservative alternative.

"The 2008 campaign will be dominated by video and in particular by user-generated video," says QubeTV founder Charlie Gerow, a former aide in the Ronald Reagan White House.

"There are a vast array of young conservative activists and operatives out there armed with cell phones or hand-helds that are going to capture the next 'macaca' moment or John Kerry bad joke and put them on Qube TV," says Gerow, whose Pennsylvania strategic media firm, Quantum Communications, created the Web site.

Gerow insists YouTube banned a video by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin about radical Islamists.

Responding to that incident, a statement on the Web site reads: "We fly the conservative flag here at QubeTV, and we will not be about banning or deleting conservatives."

YouTube takes issue with Gerow's assertion that the site is banning conservative content.

"That's flat out incorrect," says a spokesman for YouTube, who asked not to be identified by name.

A statement provided to ABC News by YouTube elaborated: "Our site provides an equal opportunity for both sides of the political spectrum and embraces voter interaction with the candidates with no regard to party affiliation."

YouTube says its users, not YouTube employees, police the site. However, if users flag inappropriate content, YouTube managers review it and remove the offending video from the site.

Conservatives Post to QubeTV

Though the new site lacks the bells and whistles YouTube boasts, some GOP presidential candidates have already contributed video.

Users can click on video of Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., explaining why President Bush's tax cuts should be made permanent.

On another posting, a user named "gnewman" created a video of politically connected conservatives promoting the site.

The promotional video includes Republican heavyweights such as Mary Matalin, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., looking into the camera and reciting "QubeTV".

On the same video, Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council adds, "We're very excited to partner with you and looking forward to promoting the vast right-wing conspiracy on the Web."

YouTube Bias Doubted

Nonethless, most Internet watchers dismiss the idea that YouTube is inherently biased.

"There's no sort of obvious partisan tilt of the whole technology," says Lee Rainie, founding director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

"It's democratic -- small "d" -- in the grandest sense of that term and anybody whose motivated, or who has an idea or anybody whose got media or something to say can throw up a Web site and put it online," he says.

But YouTube isn't the only site raising the ire of some conservatives.

Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales' Internet encyclopedia, also has some conservative competition on the Web. Conservapedia.com was founded in November 2006 by Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

A statement on the Web site reads: "It's time for the conservatives to get our voice out on the Internet!"

On Conservapedia, a search for "global warming" yields a definition that states, in part: "The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community."

On Wikipedia, that same search yields a definition of global warming: "The observed increase in the average temperature of Earth's near surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation."

The difference in approach -- a classic "wiki-war" -- is not uncommon, and Rainie suggests that the conservative alternatives are natural outgrowths of the Internet.

"The Internet is all about niches," says Rainie. "It makes perfect sense for all kinds of groups that are organized by partisan belief and passion to create their own channels."

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The sons and daughters of some iconic Republicans (Ike! T.R.!) are contemplating crossing the aisle

Newsweek.com
Children of Iconic Republicans May Vote Dem
The sons and daughters of some iconic Republicans (Ike! T.R.!) are contemplating crossing the aisle.
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

May 14, 2007 issue - Susan Eisenhower is an accomplished professional, the president of an international consulting firm. She also happens to be Ike's granddaughter—and in that role, she's the humble torchbearer for moderate "Eisenhower Republicans." Increasingly, however, she says that the partisanship and free spending of the Bush presidency—and the takeover of the party by single-issue voters, especially pro-lifers—is driving these pragmatic, fiscally conservative voters out of the GOP. Eisenhower says she could vote Democratic in 2008, but she's still intent on saving her party. "I made a pact with a number of people," she tells NEWSWEEK. "I said, 'Please don't leave the party without calling me first.' For a while, there weren't too many calls. And then suddenly, there was a flurry of them. I found myself watching them slip away one by one."

Eisenhower isn't the only GOP scion debating if the party still feels like home. Theodore Roosevelt IV, an investment banker in New York and an environmental activist like his great-grandfather, Teddy, takes issue with what he says is George W. Bush's inattention to global warming (and Republican presidential contender John McCain's flirtations with the religious right). He's unhappy with the cost of the global war on terror and the record deficits incurred to finance it. Ninety years ago, former president Teddy Roosevelt attacked Woodrow Wilson's pro-democracy idealism, calling it "milk-and-water righteousness"; Roosevelt's great-grandson doesn't like how the current president is promoting values abroad, either. "I come from a tradition of pragmatic Republicanism," he says. "This administration has taken the idea of aggressively exporting democracy à la Woodrow Wilson and gone in a direction even Wilson wouldn't have considered."

The party might even be alien to Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP nominee who jolted the party rightward when he said that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Goldwater's youngest daughter, Peggy, who is active in GOP politics in Orange County, Calif., says she is a "moderate conservative," just as her firebrand father became later in life, irked by Republicans in Washington who embrace big government. "The government is taking on more than I feel they can handle," she says.

Granted, these are no ordinary voters. But their unhappiness with the GOP suggests there's a new middle up for grabs in 2008. George W. Bush, of course, campaigned as a "compassionate conservative"; he and Karl Rove dreamed of a new and lasting Republican majority. Theodore Lowi, however, the author of "The End of the Republican Era," says the nation's disaffection over Iraq and Bush is so great that 2008 could resemble 1932, when FDR exploited the collapse of the GOP under Herbert Hoover to create a new Democratic majority.

(The return of Congress to the Dems in 2006 is a possible prelude.) Or, 2008 could look like 1968, when Democratic self-destruction after Vietnam led to Richard Nixon's election, and later to a realignment under Ronald Reagan.

Some Republicans, such as former secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, believe Republicans will always close ranks behind their standard-bearer, unlike ever-fractious Democrats, no matter how upset they are with the direction of the party. "Certainly, Hillary unites the Republicans when almost nothing else will," he says. But Lowi thinks today's GOP schisms are "deeper and harder to plaster over." That worries GOP mavericks like Sen. Chuck Hagel as well as moderate party loyalists like Brent Scowcroft, national-security adviser under George H.W. Bush, who says, "We lack an organizing principle for the party."

Poll numbers don't yet reflect a massive moderate exodus. Still, Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center says that Republican party identification has dropped "quite a bit." In 2002, 30 percent of Americans identified themselves as Republicans, 31 percent as Democrats. This year it's 25 percent Republican, 33 percent Dems. Independents, Dimock says, are leaning "much more Democratic." Even so, Eisenhower and other lifelong Republicans say they haven't heard much yet from the leading Democratic candidates that persuades them. "I can't tell you how many Republicans I've talked to who are thinking along radical lines" about deserting in '08 if they hear the right message, says Eisenhower. "It's a buyer's market. Make my day."

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18507722/site/newsweek/?from=rss

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Humvee doors can trap troops; The money to fix them was in the Iraq spending bill President Bush vetoed

USA TODAY
Humvee doors can trap troops
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Army is fixing the doors of every armored Humvee in combat in Iraq because they can jam shut during an attack and trap soldiers inside, Pentagon records and interviews show.

The door trouble, the latest in a series of problems with the Humvees since the Iraq war began, is an unintended consequence of the Pentagon's effort to add armor to protect troops from makeshift bombs. Improvised explosive devices are the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in Iraq, causing 70% of injuries and deaths. Armored Humvees, the main troop-transport vehicle, are often targeted by insurgents who plant bombs on roads.

One quick fix to the jamming problem was to weld D-shaped hooks to Humvee doors so another truck could rip them off with a cable. The hook is built into the latest version of armor added to the Humvee, known as the Frag Kit 5, said Lt. Col. William Wiggins, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. "Every Humvee outside (a fortified base) will have a hook," Wiggins said. There are about 18,000 Humvees in Iraq.

The Army plans to spend $284 million this year on armor kits, which also include improved latches and hinges for the heavier doors. The money was in the Iraq spending bill President Bush vetoed last week because it contained a troop-withdrawal timeline.

"The Humvee wasn't designed to withstand the kind of blasts our soldiers are getting hit with in Iraq," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. "This is just another reason why we need to get as many of the new MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles as possible into the field, as soon as possible"

The MRAP vehicle has a V-shaped hull and a raised chassis that better disperses the force of a blast. Biden recently won approval of a $1.5 billion amendment to the military spending bill to buy more MRAP vehicles.

The Pentagon does not generally identify vehicles in which troops are killed, making it impossible to determine the number killed because of the door problem.

When armor from the new kits is added, a Humvee door can weigh at least 600 pounds, said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., of the House Armed Services Committee. The Humvee has run its course as a useful vehicle, he said. "It wasn't designed for urban warfare."

The Marines have been fixing their Humvees in Anbar province as well, Maj. Jeff Pool, a spokesman based in Fallujah. They intend to replace all its Humvees with MRAP vehicles, while the Army plans to continue using some Humvees. Adm. William Fallon, in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, called "rapid fielding" of MRAPs a priority. Fallon heads U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tom Buckner, an owner of IbisTek, a small military contractor, said the Humvee door problem became apparent early in 2006. The company produces a device know as the Rat Claw, which grips the Humvee door, while cables attached to another truck rip it off. The military has bought about 1,500 of the $400 devices.



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Senate Likely to Back Drug Reimportation

washingtonpost.com
Senate Likely to Back Drug Reimportation
Arguments Pit Savings Against Safety
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Senate cleared the way yesterday for the likely adoption of a measure that would legalize the reimportation of lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada and other countries, a move supporters say would save consumers $50 billion over 10 years.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 63 to 28 to move to a final vote on adding the drug provision to a larger bill on the operations of the Food and Drug Administration.

"There is a pricing problem with prescription drugs," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who co-sponsored the amendment with Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine). "The identical drug, FDA-approved, the same pill, put in the same bottle, made by the same company, is set virtually every other place in the world at a lower price. And the American consumer is told, 'You know what, we have a special deal for you: You get to pay the highest price in the world.' "

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), one of the lead sponsors of the FDA bill, opposed the amendment, saying the FDA has enough trouble determining whether domestic drugs are safe.

"I'm baffled that we want to take on all the hard work and effort to fix our drug system's problems and then throw it all away opening it up to more drugs," Enzi said. "Let's get it fixed at home before we open it up to the world."

A final vote on the provision, as well as one on the larger bill, is not expected until next week. The House has not yet taken up similar FDA legislation.

The provision would allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from Canada and permit commercial distributors to obtain them from Canada, Japan, Austria, Switzerland and other European Union nations, Dorgan's staff said. Imported drugs would have to be FDA-approved, manufactured in facilities inspected by the FDA and carry documentation about the chain of custody of the drugs.

Earlier this week, the White House said President Bush's advisers would recommend that he veto any reimportation provision that did not address safety concerns around imported drugs that were identified by a Department of Health and Human Services task force in 2004.

"The administration believes that allowing the importation of drugs outside the current safety system established by the FDA without addressing these serious safety concerns would threaten public health and result in unsafe, unapproved and counterfeit drugs being imported into the United States," the White House statement said.

Despite support in the House and Senate, the White House for years has blocked legislation opening the borders to the reimportation of U.S.-made pharmaceuticals, arguing that their safety cannot be assured. During the Clinton administration, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala similarly concluded that she could not guarantee a safe system for drug imports.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) has offered a further amendment that would require the federal government to certify the safety of imported drugs and determine whether importation brings any economic benefit. If the Bush administration reported an inability to certify the safety of the drugs, Dorgan and Snowe's amendment could be undercut.

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Average-gasoline prices hit all-time high

Reuters
Average-gasoline prices hit all-time high: survey

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. average retail gasoline prices rose to an all-time high over the past two weeks, due to a number of refinery outages, according to the latest nationwide Lundberg survey.

The national average price for self-serve regular unleaded gas was $3.0684 a gallon on May 4, an increase of 19.47 cents per gallon in the past two weeks, according to the survey of about 7,000 gas stations.

The prior all-time record was an average price of $3.0256 per gallon, that was reached on August 11, 2006.

However, the current price is 6.4 cents short of the inflation-adjusted high that was reached in March of 1981, at that time regular grade self serve gasoline was $1.35 per gallon, but on an inflation-adjusted basis today that would translate into $3.13 per gallon.

Survey editor Trilby Lundberg said the recent spike is related to refinery issues and is not related to issues with crude oil supplies.

"In the past two weeks alone there have been at least 12 refinery incidents, mostly in the U.S.," said Lundberg, in an interview.

"All the incidents combined, served to push U.S. gas prices even higher by tightening supply, at a time of rising demand," said Lundberg.

The survey found that at $3.49 a gallon, San Francisco had the highest average price for self-serve regular unleaded gas, while the lowest price was $2.80 a gallon in South Carolina.

So far this year the average price of regular unleaded gasoline has surged more than 88 cents per gallon, said Lundberg.

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Killer Kansas tornado wreaks chaos and destruction

Reuters
Killer Kansas tornado wreaks chaos and destruction
By Carey Gillam

OVERLAND PARK, Kansas (Reuters) - Rescue crews on Sunday combed piles of debris where homes and businesses once stood in Greensburg, Kansas, in a meticulous search for survivors of a killer tornado.

By nightfall searchers had not found anyone else -- alive or dead -- in the rubble, leaving the twister's toll at eight dead in the tiny farming community of Greensburg and one dead in nearby Pratt County as a result of Friday night's twister. At least 50 people were injured, some critically.

A 10th person died and three people were injured on Saturday night when another tornado touched down in southwest Kansas not far from Greensburg.

"We didn't find any additional people today or bodies in the search and rescue effort," said Kansas Emergency Management spokeswoman Sharon Watson. "But we'll continue to search."

Some 90 percent of the businesses and homes in Greensburg, a town of about 1,800, were damaged or destroyed when the mile-wide tornado and winds of 165 mph (265 kph) ripped through.

Federal Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Crystal Payton, in Greensburg on Sunday, compared the devastation to that wrought along the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

"This may be smaller in scope than Katrina ... but it is equally devastating," she said.

FEMA director R. David Paulison is scheduled to tour the area Monday. FEMA is working to set up trailers and support services in the area and has a hotline for residents to call for assistance.

Soldiers with the Kansas National Guard were also being deployed to help remove debris.

Air patrols were also conducting reconnaissance flights along the tornado's path to search for possible victims, stranded motorists and residents.

Greensburg resident Bruce Foster, 50, said he rode out the storm in the basement of a friend's house, huddling under a mattress with a group of neighbors.

"The house started shaking and dust was falling. Our ears started popping and then it got all calm," Foster said. "We went upstairs and the house was gone, all gone. There wasn't any furniture or anything."

President George W. Bush declared the community a major disaster area and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts. "Our hearts are heavy for the loss of life in Greensburg, Kansas," Bush said on Sunday.

Kansans struggled to comprehend the losses. "They're still going through a little bit of shell shock," said Red Cross worker Ralph Rojas, who helped operate a shelter where about 50 Greensburg residents spent the night.

"There are still people looking for family and friends," Rojas said. "There is a major portion of the community just gone."

Greensburg's hospital and schools were among the buildings destroyed. The water tower next to the town's main tourist attraction -- the world's largest hand-dug well -- was knocked down. The nursing home was nearly leveled.

About 30 survivors were found in the remains of the hospital, according to Watson. "There was a warning in time for people to take cover so that helped," she said.

In addition to the tornado that touched down Friday night, at least three more hit the region Saturday night, the National Weather Service said.

One woman in Ottawa County, Kansas, was killed in the Saturday night storms, said Watson. She was staying in a camper near a lake when the twister hit. Three family members in the camper were injured.

Widespread flooding was also reported throughout central Kansas, closing parts of the Kansas turnpike. At least four counties issued disaster declarations due to the flooding.

The peak U.S. tornado season runs from March through early July; twisters kill an average of 70 Americans each year. The most violent single tornado appeared on March 18, 1925, killing 689 people in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

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Democrats stand firm on Iraq troop withdrawal

Reuters
Democrats stand firm on Iraq troop withdrawal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic congressional leaders said on Sunday they would "shake the White House" to pressure President George W. Bush to get U.S. troops out of Iraq as they seek a new war-funding bill to replace the one Bush vetoed.

Democrats on Sunday's political talk shows pursued a theme that the United States should not be the referee in Iraq's civil war and showed no sign of giving ground on troop withdrawals.

"This is the American people's fight. They asked us to send a message to the president," New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" program. "... We've got to shake that White House until the people of the United States are heard."

With the Iraq war helping drag Bush's approval rating to an all-time low of 28 percent, according to a Newsweek magazine poll, he must work with the Democratic-controlled Congress on a war finance bill. He rejected a $124 billion bill last week because it set specific dates for troop withdrawals.

New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, appearing on CNN's "Late Edition," said Democrats and Republicans were "not that close" to reaching a compromise on a funding bill but said there were encouraging signs.

NO LET-UP

Rangel said the House would not let up on Bush until the United States was out of Iraq.

"We hope that he would be sophisticated enough to come up with an international solution," he said. "But the people that elected us said, bring our troops home. Enough is enough ... There is no victory in sight. It's a civil war and we don't have the wherewithal to resolve that major problem."

Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, a Democratic candidate for president, said he remained committed to legislation from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, both Democrats, that sets a firm timetable for pulling out all U.S. troops by March 31, 2008, but would consider other options if that fails.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, a Republican, said he favored benchmark goals to measure the progress of the Iraqi government as a gauge for removing U.S. forces.

"I'm for benchmarks that are for success," he said on Fox. "I'm not for benchmarks with artificial timelines, yanking funds, trying to ensure that there's failure in Iraq."

Boehner said it was too early to give up on Bush's plan, especially since all the 30,000 additional troops he ordered to Iraq have not been deployed.

"We want this plan to have a chance of success," he said. "Over the course of the next three months or four months, we'll have some idea how well the plan is working."

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Bush's approval rate falls to 28 percent

Reuters
Bush's approval rate falls to 28 percent: Newsweek

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's approval rating has fallen to 28 percent in a Newsweek Poll released on Saturday, an all-time low for Bush in that survey.

Nearly two out of three Americans -- 62 percent -- believe Bush's recent actions in Iraq show he is "stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes," Newsweek reported. Just 30 percent think Bush's execution of the Iraq war demonstrates he is "willing to take political risks" to do what's right.

Bush's unpopularity may also be casting a dark shadow over Republican chances for keeping the White House in 2008. Democratic front-runners lead potential Republican contenders in head-to-head match-ups across the board, the poll suggests.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama fares best against the lead Republicans so far in the race. Obama bested Republican front-runner and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani by 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters who responded to the poll.

Obama topped Arizona Sen. John McCain by 52 percent to 39 percent and defeated former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by 58 percent to 29 percent, Newsweek reported.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner among Democratic voters, topped Giuliani by 49 percent to 46 percent, beat out McCain 50 percent to 44 percent and outdistanced Romney 57 percent to 35 percent, the poll found.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards topped Giuliani by 6 points, McCain by 10 and Romney by 37 points in the poll.

The poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International on Wednesday and Thursday, interviewed 1,001 adults 18 and older. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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Pet food ingredient mislabeled

Yahoo! News
U.S.: Pet food ingredient mislabeled
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

The exporter of a contaminated pet food ingredient blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in the United States may have avoided Chinese export inspections by labeling it a nonfood product, a U.S. government report says.

The company, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., was not the original producer of the tainted wheat gluten, but may have purchased it from up to 25 different suppliers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

The identities of those suppliers remain a mystery and all calls to listed numbers for Xuzhou Anying on Friday rang unanswered. Investigators are also looking into the origins of a second contaminated food additive imported from China, rice protein concentrate.

The New York Times reported that Xuzhou Anying's manager, Mao Lijun, had been detained by Chinese authorities, although the paper gave no details about possible charges against him.

Calls to police and government offices in the city of Xuzhou, in eastern China's Jiangsu where the company is based, rang unanswered on Friday, which was a public holiday.

The scandal concerns the use of the mildly toxic chemical melamine as an additive to animal feed, a practice believed to be common in China, where scandals over contaminated or unsafe food are routine.

Adding the chemical to food is illegal under American law, and while no laws govern the use of melamine in China, the government last week said it was banning its application in food products.

A wave of animal deaths in the U.S. in March was blamed on melamine contamination, prompting one of the biggest recalls of pet food in American history — more than 100 brands. The recall has since been expanded to include pet food products in Canada and Europe.

The FDA on Thursday said U.S. government inspectors are checking food makers who use protein concentrates to ensure none of their products were contaminated with melamine.

There is no evidence that any of the two contaminated batches of wheat gluten and rice protein from China ended up as an ingredient in human food, "but it's prudent to look," said David Acheson, assistant FDA commissioner for food protection.

Although it has no nutritional value, melamine is high in nitrogen, making wheat gluten and other vegetable products to which it is added appear to have more protein. That allows it to be sold at a premium to farmers and those who use wheat gluten and other additives to make pet food.

The chemical, normally used to make plastics and fertilizers, is not considered a direct health risk to humans. However, scientists say they have too little data to assess how it might react with other chemicals, raising concerns about its introduction into the human food chain through the consumption of meat from animals raised on melamine-spiked feed.

"According to the Chinese government, Xuzhou Anying did not declare the contaminated wheat gluten it shipped to the United States as a raw material for feed or food," the U.S. FDA report said.

"Rather, according to the Chinese government, it was declared to them as nonfood product, meaning that it was not subject to mandatory inspection by the Chinese government," the report said.

China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week that the contaminated vegetable protein managed to get past customs without inspection because it had not been declared for use in pet food.

The FDA report said that as of April 26, the FDA had received reports of 1,950 deaths of cats and 2,200 deaths of dogs related to the complaint. Earlier, the administration said it had confirmed only about a dozen pet deaths due to kidney failure caused by melamine ingestion.

The outbreak has drawn wide concern in the U.S., where such pets are often considered members of the family. Bereaved pet owners have sued the firms involved, and FDA investigators have raided the offices of Menu Foods, a maker of pet food, and ChemNutra Inc., which supplied the wheat gluten, according to the companies.

FDA inspectors have been sent to China to investigate the contamination.

__

Associated Press writer Andrew Bridges in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.

(This version CORRECTS that melamine causes kidney failure, not liver damage.)

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Bush promises to veto abortion measures

Yahoo! News
Bush promises to veto abortion measures
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

President Bush is warning Democratic leaders that any attempt to weaken federal policies that restrict abortion will be met with a veto.

White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday that the warning, issued in letters to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, was intended to stop abortion amendments from being added to spending bills and other legislation that Congress will be considering in the coming weeks.

"There's nothing specific pending right now," Fratto said.

The Republicans who held power in past sessions of Congress ensured that spending bills included language prohibiting federal funding for abortion except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest, and restricting funding for international family planning groups that might give advice on or provide abortions.

Now in the minority, House and Senate Republicans recently wrote the president urging him to make clear that any weakening of those restrictions would be unacceptable.

"The standing pattern is that appropriate conscience protections must be in place for health care entities, and that taxpayer dollars may not be used in coercive or involuntary family planning programs," Bush said in letters dated Thursday.

"I will veto any legislation that weakens current federal policies and laws on abortion, or that encourages the destruction of human life at any stage," he wrote.

Bush has already threatened to veto legislation, passed by the House and Senate in different forms this year, that would ease restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. He killed a similar stem cell bill last year in the first veto of his presidency.

Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, said that "if the president is serious about finding common ground on this divisive issue, he should support Sen. Reid's efforts to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies in this country." Reid and others are sponsoring legislation that would improve family planning services, require insurance companies to pay for birth control and provide effective sex education for young people.

The letter was hailed by anti-abortion leaders such as Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, who said his group appreciates "that the president is drawing a bright line."

"President Bush is not the first man to occupy the Oval Office who talked about valuing preborn life, but no administration has backed up those words with as much consistent policy support as his has," said Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family Action.

On the other side, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Bush had essentially told the new Congress "that he wants to continue denying millions of women access to essential medical services, including family planning and safe, legal abortion, even if it means jeopardizing their health."

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Transportation Security Administration loses hard drive with personal info on 100,000

Yahoo! News
TSA loses hard drive with personal info
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

The Transportation Security Administration has lost a computer hard drive containing Social Security numbers, bank data and payroll information for about 100,000 employees.

Authorities realized Thursday the hard drive was missing from a controlled area at TSA headquarters. TSA Administrator Kip Hawley sent a letter to employees Friday apologizing for the lost data and promising to pay for one year of credit monitoring services.

"TSA has no evidence that an unauthorized individual is using your personal information, but we bring this incident to your attention so that you can be alert to signs of any possible misuse of your identity," Hawley wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press. "We profoundly apologize for any inconvenience and concern that this incident has caused you."

The agency said it did not know whether the device is still within headquarters or was stolen.

TSA said it has asked the FBI and Secret Service to investigate and said it would fire anyone discovered to have violated the agency's data-protection policies.

In a statement released Friday night, the agency said the external — or portable — hard drive contained information on employees who worked for the Homeland Security agency from January 2002 until August 2005.

TSA, a division of the Homeland Security Department, employs about 50,000 people and is responsible for security of the nation's transportation systems, including airports and train stations.

"It's seems like there's a problem with security inside Homeland Security and that makes no sense," said James Slade, a TSA screener and the executive vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union chapter at John F. Kennedy International Airport. "That's scary. That's my identity. And now who has a hold of it? So many things go on in your mind."

The agency added a section to its Web site Friday night addressing the data security breach and directing people to information about identity theft.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (news, bio, voting record), D-Texas, whose Homeland Security subcommittee oversees the TSA, promised to hold hearings on the security breach. She said Homeland Security buildings are part of the critical infrastructure the agency is charged with protecting.

"We should expect it to be secure," she said.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., called the security breach "a terrible and unfortunate blow" for an agency he said already suffered from low morale.

It's the latest mishap for the government involving computer data. Last year, a laptop with information for more than 26.5 million military personnel, was stolen from a Veterans Affairs Department employee's home. Law enforcement officials recovered the laptop, and the FBI said Social Security numbers and other personal data had not been copied.

___

Associated Press writer Ted Bridis contributed to this report.

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Leverett residents call for Bush impeachment

Amherst Bulletin
Leverett residents call for Bush impeachment
By Bob Dunn

LEVERETT, MA - Town Meeting voters April 28 made Leverett the second western Massachusetts town inside a week to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Following Whately's vote April 24, residents urged their town representatives to recommend to Congress impeachment action on the grounds that Bush and Cheney are responsible for unauthorized electronic surveillance, torture of prisoners, misleading the public to justify the war in Iraq, suspending due process and access to counsel for detainees, detaining non-citizens without charges and abusing the power of the executive branch.

The article passed without discussion, and with only one voice in opposition.

In earlier action, voters also approved a $4.7 million budget, put the "Right to Farm" proposal out to pasture, silenced a noise bylaw, and said hello to some new town officials.

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U.S. pet food recall widens amid cross-contamination

Yahoo! News
U.S. pet food recall widens amid cross-contamination
By Susan Heavey

A major pet food recall has expanded again as manufacturer Menu Foods Income Fund revealed evidence of cross-contamination by some cat and dog food pulled since March.

About 8,500 complaints of related pet deaths have been reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by Thursday, but the agency said that only 16 deaths of cats and dogs have been confirmed.

The pet foods recalled late on Wednesday were made at the same facility at the same time as other Menu Foods products that contained wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine, the company said in statement.

Menu Foods, which initiated a recall of 60 million packages of pet food on March 16, said the additional products were not supposed to contain wheat gluten, but a customer report and study results indicated cross-contamination.

Since then, Menu Foods has expanded its recall several times.

Melamine, used in plastics and fertilizer, has turned up in wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate imported from China and shipped to various pet food manufacturers. More than 100 brands of pet food have been recalled after reports of kidney failure in cats and dogs and several pet deaths.

Menu Foods makes pet food sold under a variety of labels such as Iams, Eukanuba, President's Choice and Nutro Max Gourmet Classics and store brands sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Safeway Inc. and Petsmart Inc.

Other pet food manufacturers, including Colgate-Palmolive Co., Nestle SA, and Del Monte Pet Products, have also pulled some brands.

The recalls came amid mounting reports of pet deaths and thousands of consumer complaints to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's hotline.

The agency has received about 17,000 complaints of sick pets, with deaths cited in half of them, it said.

LITTLE RISK FOR HUMANS

The FDA has expanded its investigation to include livestock feed that contained tainted pet food and made its way to some 6,000 hogs and as many as 3.1 million chickens.

While both the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have said food from those pigs and chickens poses little risk for humans, they have called for remaining livestock that consumed the feed to be slaughtered.

Wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate are also used in human foods such as bread and pasta, but there is "no evidence that it has ended up in baby food or for that matter any other human food as an ingredient," said FDA Assistant Commissioner for Food Protection David Acheson.

He said the FDA was continuing to hold vegetable-based proteins from China at the border pending further inspection as well as testing samples of pet foods and ingredients already in the United States.

Of 700 domestic samples tested, about 400 tested positive for melamine and were traced back to the two Chinese companies -- Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd. and Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd.

FDA investigators are in China working with officials there, Acheson said.

The FDA has said it thinks a combination of melamine and melamine-related compounds form crystals in some pets' kidneys that can cause problems. "We don't believe that the melamine alone is the cause of this," Acheson said.

(Additional reporting by Christopher Doering)

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Bush Wants Phone Firms Immune to Privacy Suits

washingtonpost.com
Bush Wants Phone Firms Immune to Privacy Suits
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration is urging Congress to pass a law that would halt dozens of lawsuits charging phone companies with invading ordinary citizens' privacy through a post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance program.

The measure is part of a legislative package drafted by the Justice Department to relax provisions in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that restrict the administration's ability to intercept electronic communications in the United States. If passed, the proposed changes would forestall efforts to compel disclosure of the program's details through Congress or the court system.

The proposal states that "no action shall lie . . . in any court, and no penalty . . . shall be imposed . . . against any person" for giving the government information, including customer records, in connection with alleged intelligence activity the attorney general certifies "is, was, would be or would have been" intended to protect the United States from terrorist attack. The measure, which has not yet been filed, is contained in a proposed amendment to the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill.

The immunity measure has stoked controversy following public uproar over news reports of warrantless access to both telephone conversations and records as part of the administration's post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism policies. It is part of a larger debate about the proper balance between guarding national security and civil liberties and the extent to which private companies have acted as an arm of the federal government. In March, the Justice Department inspector general found that the FBI had secret contracts with three telephone companies to obtain Americans' phone records, claiming "exigent circumstances," when, in many instances, none existed.

Civil liberties advocates opposed the immunity measure. They said the government had yet to disclose to Congress the attorney general's legal opinion supporting the surveillance program and what role the phone companies played in it.

The government asserts that the blanket immunity is necessary to protect sensitive national security information. "If companies are alleged to have cooperated with the government to protect our nation against another attack, they should not be held liable for any assistance they are alleged to have provided," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said.

The immunity would be limited to assistance from Sept. 11, 2001, to the date the measure becomes law.

Though laws exist that could immunize companies against civil and criminal liability in surveillance cases, invoking them would acknowledge that the firm cooperated with the government. Such knowledge could allow a terrorist to adjust tactics, the government argues.

Government lawyers crafted the immunity bill using terms deliberately vague in referring to activity that "would be or would have been" aimed at protecting the country from attack to avoid indicating whether a company cooperated.

But civil libertarians charged that blanket immunity would amount to a legislative pardon to telecommunications companies and others that have aided the government's warrantless surveillance, without explaining the pardon's basis.

"To let them off the hook now sets a dangerous precedent by encouraging them to continue to engage in illegal collaborations with the government in the future," said Kevin Bankston, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which last year filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T, charging that the company allowed the government to unlawfully monitor U.S. residents.

The measure would gut Congress's efforts to conduct inquiries into the administration's surveillance program because a subpoenaed company or government official could invoke immunity, said Tim Sparapani, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued the government to force a halt to its wiretapping program.

"The end result is not only will the Bush administration continue to stonewall Congress in its request for information on warrantless wiretapping, but no one who participated will have any threat above their head," Sparapani said. "You could just face a congressional subpoena and say, 'I'm sorry, I'm immunized.' "

Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said to gain his support, the measure needs to state explicitly that a person who intentionally violates the law should not be granted immunity. "If somebody intentionally breaks the law . . . that's not something you should just ignore," he said.

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Reuters
Former Gonzales aide praises fired prosecutors
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former deputy on Thursday praised most of the federal prosecutors Gonzales fired last year in a Justice Department shake-up that is now under congressional investigation.

In testimony before Congress, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey described five of the eight U.S. attorneys ousted by Gonzales using phrases like "one of the best," "one of my favorites" and "very able." He characterized just one as a "weak performer."

The administration contends the dismissal of eight of the country's 93 U.S. attorneys was justified, but mishandled. Congressional investigators are trying to determine if the sackings were politically motivated.

The Justice Department has offered shifting explanations of the firings, initially saying they were performance-related but later pointing to policy differences. Recently released internal documents showed loyalty to Bush was also a factor.

Comey told a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary subcommittee he was unaware of the dismissal program, which originated at the White House shortly after President George W. Bush was re-elected in November 2004.

"I was not aware that there was any kind of process going on," said Comey, who served as deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005, when he left for a job in the private sector.

One of the U.S. attorneys, Bud Cummins, was ousted in Arkansas to make room for Tim Griffin, a former aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove.

"You're a good man and have handled this maelstrom with great dignity," Comey wrote in March in an e-mail to Cummins that was released by the subcommittee. "Watching it causes me great pain," Comey added.

Bush rejected bipartisan calls to fire Gonzales after the attorney general made a contentious appearance last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Gonzales is to appear next week before the House Judiciary Committee, where he will face more tough questions from lawmakers who have charged he has undermined confidence in the Justice Department.

Under questioning, Comey praised five of the fired prosecutors -- David Iglesias of New Mexico, Daniel Bogden of Nevada, Paul Charlton of Arizona, Carol Lam of San Diego and John McKay of Washington state. He called just one, Kevin Ryan of San Francisco, a "weak performer."

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Giuliani says repeal of abortion law would be "OK"; Other Repub candidates strongly for repeal of Roe v Wade

Reuters
Giuliani says repeal of abortion law would be "OK"

SIMI VALLEY, California (Reuters) - To Sam Brownback, it would be "a glorious day," and to Tom Tancredo the "greatest day in this country's history." For Rudolph Giuliani, repeal of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion "would be OK."

Republican presidential hopefuls, at their first debate on Thursday, were asked if repeal of the Roe v. Wade decision would be a good day for America.

"It would be OK to repeal," said Giuliani, New York's former mayor, contending with his record of support for abortion rights as he courts conservative Republicans.

"I think the court has to make that decision and then the country can deal with it. We're a federalist system of government and states can make their own decisions," said Giuliani, who leads Republicans in the polls.

Giuliani, a Roman Catholic, maintains he personally thinks abortion is wrong but believes it is ultimately a woman's choice, a position that goes against the grain of the social conservatives who carry big clout in the Republican primaries.

His lawyerly response contrasted sharply with some other candidates who jumped at the chance to burnish their anti-abortion credentials.

"After 40 million dead because we have aborted them in this country, I would say that that would be the greatest day in this country's history when that, in fact, is overturned," said Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado.

"It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom," said Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney seized the chance to explain his changed position on abortion.

"Well, I've always been personally pro-life, but for me, it was a great question about whether or not government should intrude in that decision," Romney said.

He said he changed his position after the debate in his state over cloning. "It's a "brave new world" mentality that Roe v. Wade has given us, and I changed my mind," he said.

(Writing by Vicki Allen in Washington, editing by Peter Cooney; World Desk Americas)

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