the/diseased/republik

the Washington Post which alleges that the FBI " illegally collected more than 2,000 US telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records." the report continues: "E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats. ... FBI officials told The Post that their own review has found that about half of the 4,400 toll records collected in emergency situations or with after-the-fact approvals were done in technical violation of the law. The searches involved only records of calls and not the content of the calls. In some cases, agents broadened their searches to gather numbers...

Daily Herald | Officials unveil Lake County's most-wanted gang members "Illinois leads the nation in per capita gang members, fueled in part by the growth of suburban street gangs," Kirk said. "As violent gangs are pushed out of Chicago, they are relocating to the northern suburbs." They asked the public to call the sheriff's office with information they have about people on the list, and stressed public cooperation is critical. Since it originated last year, the most wanted list has led to the arrest of 17 fugitives. It is repopulated after each time a suspect is apprehended. They asked the public to call the sheriff's office with information they have about people on the list, and stressed public cooperation is critical. Gang members should be prepared to get what they give, Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran said Monday. As part of releasing an updated list of the "worst of the worst" gang members in the county, including two wanted for m...

here is a lil history for you kids out there. and a day planner for the for security minded:

01/06/2009: "If they all knew..." § 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States this is treason...? If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor. why the hell didn't they do something?! Now that we have intelligence experts, the military community, present and former administration, a Senator, and the media saying that they all knew the evidence was bullshit. Durbin's excuse is that he was sworn to secrecy. I don't know about Dick, I was...

This marked the first time under the new United States Constitution that the federal government used military force to exert authority over the nation's citizens. It was also one of only two times that a sitting President personally commanded the military in the field; the other was after President James Madison fled the British occupation of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812 . The military suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion set a precedent that U.S. citizens who wished to change the law had to do so peacefully through constitutional means; otherwise, the government would meet any threats to disturb the status quo with force. The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion also had the unintended consequences of encouraging small whiskey producers in Kentucky and Tennessee , which remained outside the sphere of Federal control for many more years. In these frontier areas, they also found good corn-growing country as well as limestone -filtered water and therefore began makin...

from the website Slashdot: "Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists." - source -

i have just recently found out about this new CTA policy: On Nov. 22, Mike Doyle of Chicago Carless fame wrote a well-researched piece about the CTA's newest efforts to crack down on what it calls "continous riders" -- passengers who ride to the end of a rail terminal and board another train going in the opposite direction. Often folks who do this are homeless. Doyle is angry that the CTA should now start aggressively enforcing this rule, saying it's aimed squarely at the homeless: "It’s pretty clear who these new “continuous riding” signs are aimed at. I can’t imagine a reasonable Chicagoan believing that homeless people are not the obvious and only target here." But Doyle didn't just angrily rail against this policy. He reached out to the CTA with a series of well-thought-out questions to try and determine what was behind this new crackdown. The CTA had their typical PR spin that it wasn't to crack down on homeless, but "to remind CTA cus...

Vice President Dick Cheney, in another stunning admission during his campaign to burnish the Bush administration’s legacy, said he personally authorized the “enhanced interrogations” of 33 suspected terrorist detainees and approved the waterboarding of three so-called “high-value” prisoners. “I signed off on it; others did, as well, too,” Cheney said about the waterboarding, a practice of simulated drowning done by strapping a person to a board, covering the face with a cloth and then pouring water over it, a torture technique dating back at least to the Spanish Inquisition. The victim feels as if he is drowning. Cheney identified the three waterboarded detainees as al-Qaeda figures Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and al Nashiri. “That's it, those three guys,” Cheney said in an interview with the right-wing Washington Times.

Set in the year 2022, Soylent Green depicts a dystopia , a Malthusian catastrophe that occurs because humanity has failed to pursue sustainable development and has not halted uncontrolled population growth ; New York City 's population is 40,000,000, with more than half of it unemployed. Global warming , air and water pollution have produced a year-round heatwave and a thin, yellow, daytime smog . Food and fuel are scarce resources, because of animal and plant decimation, housing is dilapidated and overcrowded, and widespread government-sponsored euthanasia is encouraged to control and reduce overpopulation. Meat, bread, cheese, fruit, vegetables, and even alcoholic beverages are scarce and extremely expensive; for example, a six- ounce jar of strawberry jam is 150 "Ds" ( US Dollars ). Like the soylent food factories, the farms producing foodstuffs are heavily guarded and off-limits to civilians. For most of the populace, natural foods are a rarely, if ever, enjoy...

'In his remarkable book, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Simon Sebag Montefiore does a service by focusing on the intimacies of power. In his detailed, highly readable account of Joseph Stalin's entourage, Montefiore shows how power is often a byproduct of informal interaction, a thing of the dinner table, the hunting expedition, the boudoir. 'But Montefiore also poses another question, one more specific to the Soviet leader. Why is it that the experienced, ruthless, conceited men and women around Stalin could so easily fall under his ruinous power, to the extent that some remained loyal even after the murder or imprisonment of members of their families? The answer is deceptively simple: There was no sovereign rule of law to mediate the relation. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Stalin himself became the law, replacing the hard but more egalitarian conventions of the Communist Party. The absolute leader destroyed a system and replaced it with his own absolute ego. 'Ob...

amigoro writes to let us know about an appeals court ruling on Friday that holds that federal agents can snoop on an individual's web surfing, email and all other forms of Internet communication habits without a warrant . The court found recording this kind of information to be analogous to the use of a pen register. In 1979 the Supreme Court ruled that this technique did not constitute a search for Fourth Amendment purposes. fullstory and discusion @ slashdot .

A US appeals court has dismissed a case challenging President George W Bush's domestic surveillance programme. The judges in Cincinnati ruled 2-1 that the groups which brought the lawsuit, including the American Civil Liberties Union, had no legal right to sue. The ruling strikes down a lower court's order that found the programme, adopted after 9/11, to be unconstitutional. It allowed the government to monitor contacts between US citizens and terror suspects abroad, without a warrant. While President Bush says his wartime powers allowed him to authorise surveillance without the need for a warrant, critics say he violated Americans' civil liberties. Mr Bush decided not to renew the domestic spying programme in January this year. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the government would instead seek approval from a special court for wiretaps. FULL STORY AT THE BBC ...

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — Routed in the Gaza Strip, the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is fractured and adrift at a moment when it is viewed by the outside world as the best hope for blunting the militant Hamas movement in the West Bank. Once dominant in Palestinian affairs, the organization long led by the late Yasser Arafat is beset by a weak and aging leadership, internal schisms and a widespread reputation among Palestinians as corrupt, ineffectual and out of touch. Those troubles have some Palestinians wondering whether Fatah is more likely to lose the West Bank than to recapture the Gaza Strip from Hamas. The crisis facing Fatah has deepened since Hamas crushed its forces in Gaza last month, leaving Fatah's authority limited to the West Bank. The United States, Israel and European allies have promised to bolster Abbas, a relative moderate, and his party as a way to isolate Hamas. Fatah ruled unchallenged under Arafat, but was sent reeling after his d...

Intoxicate me, my cigarette And give me a scornful air, I want to stay cold and silent While hearing sweet confessions. These lyrics from Lucianne Boyer's 1930 song "Dans la Fumée" demonstrate not only the psychological power of the cigarette, but also its role as a cultural icon. A poster featuring Madame Boyer's troubled visage can be found in one of this city's quirkier museums, the six-year-old Musée du Fumeur. Actually a storefront with a couple of tiny rooms in the back, the 650-square-foot space was formerly a butcher shop -- which you'll be reminded of as you breathe in wafts of roasting chicken from the store nearby. Ironically, you won't be graced with the aroma of cigarette smoke until you step outdoors. ( Wall Street Journal article )

Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney. Bill Leonard, head of the government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman's staff that Cheney's office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman. In pointed letters released today by Waxman, ISOO's Leonard twice questioned Cheney's office on its assertion it was exempt from the rules. He received no reply, but the vice president later tried to get rid of Leonard's office entirely, according to Waxman. Leonard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement e-mailed to the Blotter on ABCNews.com, C...

In a move that has executives from movie studios and record labels grinning from ear to ear, AT&T has announced that it will develop and deploy technology that will attempt to keep pirated content off its network. The move is spurred in part by the company's decision to offer IPTV television service as part of its U-Verse package , AT&T senior VP James W. Cicconi told the Los Angeles Times . Despite the major technical problems inherent in such a program, AT&T is moving ahead. By making themselves into the arbiters of copyright law, the company risks being drawn into a costly "arms race" with programmers who don't like the idea of a massive corporation (and one which appears to have turned over information to the NSA ) peeking into their packets and deciding which ones go through. This is exactly the situation that Dr. Greg Jackson, CIO of the University of Chicago, warned Congress about last week . "The only successful, robust way to address probl...

Democrats Monday aim to stick the knife into President George W. Bush's besieged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, with a rare Senate "no confidence" vote sparked by a row over fired federal prosecutors. The debate is the culmination of an intense Democratic campaign for the scalp of Gonzales, one of Bush's closest political allies, who has also faced calls to resign from some senior Republicans. Bush Monday vigorously defended Gonzales, following up White House accusations that the symbolic and non-binding Senate vote is simply political mischief drummed up by Democrats to appease grass roots supporters. "They can try to have their votes of no confidence, but it's not going to determine who serves in my government," Bush told reporters in Bulgaria before flying back to Washington after a tour of Europe. An afternoon of debate was scheduled on a simple resolution stating that Gonzales "no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the America...

June 11 ( Bloomberg ) -- A divided federal appeals court, in a rebuke to the Bush administration, ruled that an alleged al-Qaeda agent held for four years in U.S. military custody can't be detained indefinitely without being charged. The 2-1 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia said accused terrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri can instead be given a criminal trial in a civilian court. The judges said the U.S. can no longer hold him in a Navy brig in South Carolina. ``The president cannot eliminate constitutional protections (even more details of US Constitution and State's Rights ) with the stroke of a pen by proclaiming a civilian, even a criminal civilian, an enemy combatant subject to indefinite military detention,'' the court said. Al-Marri ``can be returned to civilian prosecutors, tried on criminal charges, and, if convicted, punished severely.'' Al-Marri was in the U.S. ...

JERUSALEM, June 11 ( Reuters ) Israel is also monitoring neighbouring Syria for signs of a military build-up following last year's war against the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group, an ally of Damascus.) - Israel launched a new spy satellite on Monday and said it would provide high-quality surveillance over enemies such as Syria and Iran, rivalling the capabilities of the United States. Rocketed into orbit from a coastal Israeli air base, the Ofek 7 was expected to begin relaying high-resolution ground photographs from an altitude of 200-500 km (125-315 miles) by the end of the week. "The successful launch adds an important layer to Israel's defence capabilities and it is a testament to Israel's technological strength," Defence Minister Amir Peretz said in a statement. Haim Eshed, head of the Defence Ministry's space directorate, told Army Radio that Ofek 7 would help Israel "deal with the Iranian issue". Iran's nuclear programme has raised fear...