Police in Pittsburgh attack anti-recruitment protesters with tasers, dogs and pepper sprayTwo women protesting the war in Iraq were taken to a hospital Saturday after police broke up an unauthorized march involving about five dozen people on a busy one-way street near an Army recruiting station.
David Meieran, who helped organize the protest, accused police of “inappropriate and excessive force.”
Sgt. Clint Winkler, a supervisor on duty, told The Associated Press that one woman who would not leave was subdued with a Taser. He also confirmed t... (more)
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Russian Regional Head Proposes 21-Year Reign for PutinThe head of the Russian internal republic of Mari El, Leonid Markelov, has called for a legislative extension of the presidential term in Russia.
“The head of state in this country should be able to be elected not twice in a row but three times, and an individual presidential term should not be limited to four years but to at least five and a maximum of seven years,” Interfax news agency quoted Markelov as saying.
The president of Mari El proposed a chan... (more)
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Four sue over passenger dataFour Alaskans have filed suit against the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), seeking to prevent the agency deleting personal records that were obtained during a passenger-screening programme. The TSA has denied that it holds records on Anchorage-based Bill Beck and Sally Huntley (both travel agents) and John Davis and Charles Beckley, but the Alaskans want the agency to check more thoroughly.
According to reports the four are keen to see whether any information relat... (more)
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Valley tech firms try to block state RFID banSilicon Valley tech companies have launched an 11th-hour bid to stop state legislation that they say would slow the development of RFID -- the technology that uses computer chips to send information over radio frequencies.
These chips are being placed in smaller and smaller spaces, and the technology for reading them has gotten better, too. In fact, it's become so good that critics are raising privacy concerns over the security of the data. The biggest fears are that criminals cou... (more)
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Police look at cameraThat famous lyric by rock group “The Police” — the one that goes “I’ll be watching you” — may soon have a very literal interpretation in Oshkosh when the airplanes come buzzing into town.
There are no specific concerns or threats, but the Winnebago County police and the Department of Homeland Security have a new $25,000 set of high-tech peepers on order, one intended to zero in on potential terrorism threats at Wittman Regional Airport.... (more)
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Firms warned to take a 'Big Brother attitude' to e-mailsBUSINESS information consultancy Croner today urged firms to take a "Big Brother attitude" when monitoring employee e-mails, given that 35 per cent of all outbound office e-mail is unrelated to work.
The group said e-mails are increasingly being used by employees to bully, harass and air prejudices against colleagues.
Croner warned that e-mails can be used as evidence against employers in many tribunal cases. Too many employers are unaware of this fact, are too comp... (more)
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US spies N Korea nuke activityA US spy satellite has found that North Korea reactivated its nuclear reactor last month after it spotted vapour coming out of the reactor's boiler, a Japanese daily said on Sunday.
The reactivation of the Yongbyon nuclear complex came just before six-nation talks aimed at halting the North's nuclear drive began in Beijing in late July, the Asahi Shimbun daily said, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources.
The topic of the reactivated reactor had been discussed during th... (more)
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Hubble scans for Moon base locationsPlanetary scientists are using the Hubble Space Telescope to scout out sites for potential human bases on the Moon.
Previous missions have observed the Moon at a range of wavelengths. But none have boasted Hubble's sharp resolution at ultraviolet wavelengths - it can identify spectral features just 50 metres across over swathes of lunar terrain.
"We're trying to ascertain the potential of ultraviolet spectra for indicating lunar resources," says Bruce Hapke, a plane... (more)
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Google tool watches as you workGoogle's desktop search software is being overhauled to become a digital helper that reacts to what users do.
The move is likely to intensify competition between Google and rivals Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.
The revamped software will suggest web links, personal documents and images that might be relevant to whatever someone is doing with their computer.
The tool also automatically subscribes to feeds from weblogs and news sites that a user visits.
... (more)
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Study: War on alcohol, drugs failing in countyOriginally, a party sounded fun.
But then somebody burned the carpet, splintered the banister and broke the vacuum trying to sweep up the stuffing from the torn couch. When the sun came up, Sarah had cleaning to do.
She and 15 friends washed their glasses and gathered the trash, but forgot a liquor-filled water bottle in the sink and left a row of bulging garbage bags in the garage.
Sarah’s parents grounded their daughter for a month, but the parties di... (more)
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Cheney's 'Spoon-Benders' Pushing Nuclear ArmageddonSometime in late 1980, then-Col. Paul E. Vallely, the Commander of the 7th Psychological Operations Group, United States Army Reserve, Presidio of San Francisco, Ca., co-authored a discussion paper, which received wide and controversial attention within the U.S. military, particularly within the Special Operations community. The paper was titled "From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory," and it presented a Nietzschean scheme for waging perpetual psychological warfare against friend and ... (more)
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Pentagon drills for nuke terrorWhen authorities tried to arrest a terrorist discovered unloading an improvised nuclear weapon in the port of Charleston, S.C., the bomb was detonated, killing 10,000, injuring 30,000 and exposing as many as 100,000 to high levels of radiation.
That was the scenario at the center of a nuclear terrorism drill, completed this week, one involving thousands of civilians, military personnel and local and federal officials.
"Sudden Respond 05" was led by Virginia's Fort M... (more)
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Police knew Brazilian was 'not bomb risk'Police officers from the team involved in the fatal shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes did not believe he posed 'an immediate threat'.
Senior sources in the Metropolitan Police have told The Observer that members of the surveillance team who followed de Menezes into Stockwell underground station in London felt that he was not about to detonate a bomb, was not armed and was not acting suspiciously. It was only when they were joined by armed officers that his threat was d... (more)
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CFR’s Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and CanadaThe Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what’s really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."
"Community" means integrating the United States with the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico... (more)
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Met chief: I was kept in the dark on Tube killingSir Ian Blair, Britain's most senior police officer, has admitted he did not know his officers had killed an innocent man until a day after Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead at Stockwell Tube station.
His revelation in a newspaper interview today will add to growing concern about the police investigation into the killing of the Brazilian electrician on Friday 22 July.
Sir Ian said he first learnt that the Brazilian was entirely innocent at about 10.30 the follow... (more)
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'Disgusted' parents reject Met's offer of £15,000 compensation for dead sonThe parents of the Brazilian electrician shot dead by police were offered £15,000 in compensation for the loss of their son, raising allegations that the family were being bought off.
The offer was made to the mother and father of Jean Charles de Menezes by a senior Metropolitan Police commander during a hurried meeting arranged eight days after the electrician was shot dead at Stockwell tube station.
His grieving parents, Maria de Menezes, 59, and Matozinhos,... (more)
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Police foil gas attack on CommonsSCOTLAND YARD believes it has thwarted an Al-Qaeda gas attack aimed at ministers and MPs in parliament. The plot, hatched last year, is understood to have been discovered in coded e-mails on computers seized from terror suspects in Britain and Pakistan.
Police and MI5 then identified an Al-Qaeda cell that had carried out extensive research and video-recorded reconnaissance missions in preparation for the attack.
The encrypted e-mails are said to have been decoded wi... (more)
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SAS faces inquiry into missing Iraq fundsTHE SAS is facing an internal inquiry into allegations that hundreds of thousands of pounds have been misappropriated during some of its covert operations in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Sources close to the elite undercover regiment claim that inquiries are being made of many of its more than 200 soldiers and officers.
One source said they were to be asked about possible irregularities in the way that so-called “black budgets” have been spent ... (more)
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MI5 recruitment drive draws flood of Islamic applicants after attacksThe number of people applying to join MI5 has increased by more than 150 per cent since London was attacked by suicide bombers.
Applications have included a "significant proportion" from the Asian and Muslim communities, according to a Whitehall official.
Before July 7, MI5 would routinely receive about 1,000 applications a week from people seeking a career in the Security Service.
In the weeks after the attacks, however, that number has risen to 2,50... (more)
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Rights chief: we need more spiesTHE head of Britain’s most prominent civil rights group has called for the recruitment of many new police officers and British-Asian spies to infiltrate their own community in an attempt to crack Muslim terrorist cells, writes Jasper Gerard.
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, says she rejects some assumptions made by her predecessors.
Past leaders of Liberty include Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman, now senior government figures. “I want more ... (more)
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Fury as officials secretly downgrade terror threatThe official level of threat from a terrorist attack has been secretly lowered from its highest rating for the first time since the July 7 bombings. The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the decision was taken on Thursday by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, a Government body based at Thames House, the headquarters of MI5.
The threat level was reduced from "critical" or Level 1 - its highest state - to "severe general" or Level 2G because intelligence sources do not have any spe... (more)
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MK Elon: 'This is a Police State' Police prevented Sderot residents from protesting near PM Sharon's ranch and barred a terror victim's family from traveling for psychological help. MK Elon says Israel has become a "police state."
Knesset Member Benny Elon (National Union) spent the Sabbath opposite Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Sycamore Ranch, protesting the expulsion of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria. He said police blocked Sderot residents who tried to join him. "It is unbelievable how they gag peo... (more)
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Government May Soon Track You by Your License PlateThe reason for the concern in the legal and privacy-rights communities is that e-plates may expand the ability of police to track individuals by the movement of their vehicles. A single RFID reader can identify dozens of vehicles fitted with e-plates moving at any speed at a distance of about 100 yards.
A controversial plan to embed radio frequency identification chips in license plates in the United Kingdom also may be coming to the United States, experts told UPI's Wireless Worl... (more)
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BUY SPYSUPERMARKET trolleys could soon be fitted with transmitters to track the habits of shoppers.
They will monitor how long customers spend in each area, the products they buy and the time spent waiting at the checkout.
The information will be stored on a giant database to enable retail chiefs to build up the biggest-ever picture of our weekly buying habits.
They insist the information will be used to boost efficiency and improve the layout of stores.
... (more)
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Call for 1,000 more speed cameras to save livesThe controversial debate over speed cameras will be reignited this week after Britain's leading police expert on the issue called for a significant expansion of the number of the devices around the country.
Although the government has blocked the installation of more cameras, Ian Bell, speed camera liaison officer for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said Britain's roads required up to 1,000 extra cameras, a 16 per cent increase.
Until now, police have refused to s... (more)
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Data - carrying chips set off Big Brother fearsThe government has so much information on Californians — mostly carried on cards in their wallets and purses — that it could swiftly become something like Big Brother from novelist George Orwell's "1984" in this post Sept. 11 world.
That's the way a diverse coalition of privacy and consumer groups see it. Government and technology firms disagree. And state lawmakers have jumped into the middle with landmark legislation on "radio-frequency identification," which experts... (more)
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