BellSouth and AT&T Close Deal

December 30, 2006
BellSouth and AT&T Close Deal
By VIKAS BAJAJ





Federal regulators approved AT&T’s $85.8 billion acquisition of BellSouth yesterday, allowing the companies to close their delayed deal.

The approval came a day after the two companies disclosed concessions designed to win the support of dissenting policy makers.

The Federal Communications Commission cleared the deal, the largest telecommunications merger in history, after AT&T offered to abide by certain conditions sought by two Democratic commissioners who found themselves with leverage after one of their three Republican colleagues recused himself from voting on the acquisition, leaving the agency tied 2-to-2.

The deal will go a significant distance toward recreating the prebreak-up AT&T. The company’s local-phone network will traverse 22 states and stretch from Miami to San Francisco and include the Great Lakes region.

The old AT&T was broken up in 1984 into seven local-phone companies and one long-distance company, of which only three survive today: AT&T, Verizon Communications and Qwest Communications International. The acquisition also will give AT&T, based in San Antonio, total control of Cingular Wireless, the nation’s largest mobile phone company and until now a 60-40 joint venture with BellSouth.

The combined company has 58 million cellphone customers, 67.5 million phone lines and 11.5 million broadband users. It would have reported revenue of $115 billion in 2005. It employs more than 300,000 people.

The approval hinged on a number of conditions, chief among them a “network neutrality” pledge by AT&T to allow its customers unfettered access to data and services over high-speed Internet connections. The company agreed to live by the pledge for two years or until Congress addresses the issue, something many officials and experts say could happen in the coming year.

In practical terms, the guarantee will not change how consumers use the Internet. But many advocates and policy makers have worried that with the dominance that cable and phone companies exercise over the broadband business, they could control, restrict or impede what customers can do with their connections.

That fear has been stoked by telecommunications executives who have said they would like to charge content providers like Google extra for the smooth and speedy delivery of services like TV shows over broadband connections.

“It’s a historic breakthrough,” Jonathan S. Adelstein, one of the Democratic commissioners who voted for the deal, said in a telephone interview. “It’s going to set the terms of the debate going forward. It is going to cause us all to think deeply about how we address this.”

In a statement, the other Democratic commissioner, Michael J. Copps, described the agreement as a step “that will preserve and encourage the truly transformative openness and power of the Internet.”

Though hailed by several consumer advocates, critics said AT&T’s pledge did not go far enough because it would not cover a new higher-speed service AT&T is building in California, Texas and elsewhere to provide video over fiber optic cables.

“Whether I want to watch the Southern Baptist Convention or Al Jazeera or The Jerusalem Post, that should be my decision,” said Dave Burstein, the publisher of DSL Prime, an industry newsletter. “That’s what we are fighting for: the basic First Amendment.”

AT&T officials said that while its video service would not be covered, customers who signed up for broadband Internet services would be able to tap into Internet-based video and data services from other sources without restriction or interference.

“These commitments reflect our long history of providing consumers and businesses with the most advanced and affordable communications services," AT&T’s chairman and chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., said in a statement.

The latest negotiations on this and other concessions between AT&T and the F.C.C. began after Robert M. McDowell, the Republican commissioner who had recused himself, announced on Dec. 18 that he could still not vote on the deal even though the commission’s general counsel had cleared him to do so. Before being appointed to the commission this summer, Mr. McDowell was the general counsel for Comptel, a trade group that represented rivals of AT&T and opposed the deal.

His recusal left the F.C.C. chairman, Kevin J. Martin, without enough votes in favor of the deal, which had already won a unconditional approval from the antitrust division of the Justice Department.

Analysts and officials said the negotiations took on a sense of urgency because AT&T wanted the deal, which had already been delayed several times, completed by the end of the year so it could be closed and accounted for in the current year and to please investors. Shares of AT&T are up more than 26 percent and BellSouth 48 percent since the deal was announced in March. At that time the deal was valued at $67 billion. Both stocks rose slightly yesterday.

“While this is not at all show-stopping by any means, it is the best that all the parties could do given the enormous pressure to get this deal done before the end of the year,” said Jessica Zufolo, senior policy director for Medley Global Advisors, a research firm.

Members of Congress with an interest in telecommunications have been urging the two sides to get the deal done. Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is expected to head the Energy and Commerce Committee in January, publicly chided the Democratic commissioners for pressing AT&T to make concessions he said had nothing to do with the merger.

“I have significant concerns over the process followed at the F.C.C. during these final weeks, and believe that such process may be suitable for committee review,” Mr. Dingell said in a statement yesterday.

Other concessions AT&T agreed to in exchange for approval included:

A freeze on some fees it charges rivals for the rent of some high-capacity wires that serve office buildings.

A commitment to offer high-speed Internet service to all of its local phone customers by the end of next year.

Allowing customers to buy high-speed Internet service without a local-phone line.

The sale of certain wireless spectrum.

Bringing back 3,000 jobs BellSouth has sent overseas.




Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company






























FCC Approves AT&T's Buyout Of BellSouth
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29, 2006



(AP) The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved AT&T Inc.'s $86 billion buyout of BellSouth Corp. Friday, the day after the company offered a new slate of concessions for consumers and competitors.

The FCC's approval was the last major regulatory hurdle for the proposed deal, which is the largest telecommunications merger in U.S. history.

Lawyers for AT&T and the two Democratic commissioners who had opposed the merger, hammered out a compromise, the details of which were released Thursday night.

Among the conditions offered by AT&T is a promise to observe "network neutrality" principles, an offer of $19.95 per month stand-alone digital subscriber line service and a vow to divest some wireless spectrum.

The FCC's approval was the last major regulatory hurdle for the proposed deal, which is the largest telecommunications merger in U.S. history.

AT&T offered the concessions after a little more than a week of marathon negotiations with lawyers who work for the two Democrats on the commission, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein.

Adelstein said Friday he was pleased with the agreement.

"We got substantial concessions that are going to mitigate a lot of the harms that would otherwise have resulted from this merger," he said.

The reaction from Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, however, was decidedly negative. The chairman found some conditions to be "unnecessary" and said that some "impose burdens that have nothing to do with the transaction, are discriminatory, and run contrary to commission policy and precedent."

Copps was cautiously optimistic, saying that the approval was "not a triumph for huge corporate mergers but a modest victory for American consumers." He added that he was not entirely satisfied with the compromise but believed it is "a genuine step forward" in several areas.

Consumer advocates had opposed the merger from the beginning, but put the best face on the compromise, especially on the issue of network neutrality, which can be loosely defined as the idea that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.

Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America said AT&T has pledged to protect "the free and open Internet." He called it a "win for the public" and said he will continue to work for federal legislation on network neutrality in the New Year.

The agreement came together 10 days after Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell announced that he would not vote, despite being authorized to do so by the FCC's general counsel. The buyout passed by a 4-0 vote with McDowell not participating.

McDowell, a Republican, had decided not to participate in the negotiations because of his former position as a lobbyist for Comptel, a trade organization that opposes the merger.

McDowell said in a statement Friday that he was "delighted that my colleagues and the merging companies were able to come to terms so quickly after last week's announcement."

Martin, who supported approval of the merger without conditions, had declared an impasse in the negotiations and was betting that McDowell would vote in favor of the deal break a 2-2 partisan deadlock.

But with McDowell's firm declaration that he would not vote, the pressure shifted to AT&T, which had hoped to close the transaction by the end of the year, a development that put the two Democrats in a much stronger position.

Adelstein said the agreement could have been completed a month ago were it not for the McDowell issue. "It turns out there was never an impasse after all," he said.

Under the agreement, BellSouth shareholders will receive 1.325 shares of AT&T stock for every share of BellSouth stock. In March, when the buyout was announced, it was valued at $67 billion. But thanks to a more than 25 percent increase in the value of AT&T's stock, the total is up to around $86 billion.

The Justice Department approved the merger on Oct. 11, but it attached no conditions, a move that prompted outrage among many Democrats.

In an effort to gain the support of Copps and Adelstein, AT&T submitted a set of concessions on Oct. 13, but they were rejected.

In AT&T's letter committing to the new conditions, the company's senior vice president in charge of regulatory affairs, Robert W. Quinn Jr., noted that the new concessions were "significantly more extensive than those submitted on Oct. 13."

The new offer extends the lifespan of many conditions from 30 months under the old deal to 42 months or longer in some cases.

Among the promises made by the company:

An offer of stand-alone, DSL Internet service to customers in its service area for $19.95 per month for 30 months. The "naked DSL (digital subscriber line)" offer would allow those who live in AT&T and BellSouth's service areas to sign up for fast Internet access without being required to buy a package of other services.

To cap rates for "special access" customers, usually competitors and large businesses that pay to connect directly to a regional phone company's central office via a dedicated fiber optic line, for 48 months.

To divest all of the 2.5 GHZ spectrum currently licensed to BellSouth within one year of the merger closing date.

To "repatriate" 3,000 jobs that were outsourced by BellSouth outside the U.S. by Dec. 31, 2008, with at least 200 of those jobs to be located in New Orleans.

The most difficult item in the negotiators was that of network neutrality.

AT&T had clearly drawn a line in the sand on the issue, and was not prepared to offer any promises that would not affect the telecommunications industry as a whole.

The company's position has been receiving generally positive reaction from proponents of the concept, but some skepticism from others, who are concerned with the wording of AT&T's commitment.

AT&T says it will "maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service" for two years and that it would not sell services to Internet content providers that "privileges, degrades or prioritizes" traffic over its wireline broadband service.

But it makes an exception to the company's Internet Protocol television service.

Martin is unconvinced the network neutrality provisions are necessary.

"The conditions regarding net neutrality have very little to do with the merger at hand and very well may cause greater problems than the speculative problems they seek to address," he wrote. "These conditions are simply not warranted by current market conditions and may deter facilities investment."

Meanwhile, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, indicated his displeasure in a statement that said the process followed by the FCC may be "suitable for committee review."

Earl Comstock, president and CEO of Comptel, a group that represents competitors of AT&T, said he would have preferred to see more conditions from AT&T, and questioned why the compromise came so quickly.

"Compared to where it was in the fall, there was definite progress," he said of the deal. "But given the negotiating position (of the Democrats) it could be better."

The combination of San Antonio-based AT&T and Atlanta-based BellSouth will have operations in 22 states. AT&T estimates that about 10,000 jobs will be phased out over three years.

Combined, the companies generate about $117 billion in revenue and operate 68.7 million local phone lines stretching coast to coast across the southern United States and up through the Midwest.

The buyout will also give AT&T complete control over Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless telecommunications provider, which it owns in partnership with BellSouth.

AT&T Chairman and CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr. said in a statement: "AT&T will be an engine for innovation, competition and growth for our customers at home and abroad. In the Southeast, we will build on BellSouth's excellent record of serving customers and communities. And we are ready to lead the way in a new era of integrated wireless services nationwide."



©MMVI The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Military considers recruiting foreigners

Military considers recruiting foreigners
Expedited citizenship would be an incentive
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff December 26, 2006





WASHINGTON -- The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks -- including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer -- according to Pentagon officials.

Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans' willingness to serve in uniform.

The idea of signing up foreigners who are seeking US citizenship is gaining traction as a way to address a critical need for the Pentagon, while fully absorbing some of the roughly one million immigrants that enter the United States legally each year.

The proposal to induct more noncitizens, which is still largely on the drawing board, has to clear a number of hurdles. So far, the Pentagon has been quiet about specifics -- including who would be eligible to join, where the recruiting stations would be, and what the minimum standards might involve, including English proficiency. In the meantime, the Pentagon and immigration authorities have expanded a program that accelerates citizenship for legal residents who volunteer for the military.

And since Sept. 11, 2001, the number of imm igrants in uniform who have become US citizens has increased from 750 in 2001 to almost 4,600 last year, according to military statistics.

With severe manpower strains because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and a mandate to expand the overall size of the military -- the Pentagon is under pressure to consider a variety of proposals involving foreign recruits, according to a military affairs analyst.

"It works as a military idea and it works in the context of American immigration," said Thomas Donnelly , a military scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington and a leading proponent of recruiting more foreigners to serve in the military.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind on, the Pentagon has warned Congress and the White House that the military is stretched "to the breaking point."

Both President Bush and Robert M. Gates, his new defense secretary, have acknowledged that the total size of the military must be expanded to help alleviate the strain on ground troops, many of whom have been deployed repeatedly in combat theaters.

Bush said last week that he has ordered Gates to come up with a plan for the first significant increase in ground forces since the end of the Cold War. Democrats who are preparing to take control of Congress, meanwhile, promise to make increasing the size of the military one of their top legislative priorities in 2007.

"With today's demands placing such a high strain on our service members, it becomes more crucial than ever that we work to alleviate their burden," said Representative Ike Skelton , a Missouri Democrat who is set to chair the House Armed Services Committee, and who has been calling for a larger Army for more than a decade.

But it would take years and billions of dollars to recruit, train, and equip the 30,000 troops and 5,000 Marines the Pentagon says it needs. And military recruiters, fighting the perception that signing up means a ticket to Baghdad, have had to rely on financial incentives and lower standards to meet their quotas.

That has led Pentagon officials to consider casting a wider net for noncitizens who are already here, said Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty , an Army spokesman.

Already, the Army and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security have "made it easier for green-card holders who do enlist to get their citizenship," Hilferty said.

Other Army officials, who asked not to be identified, said personnel officials are working with Congress and other parts of the government to test the feasibility of going beyond US borders to recruit soldiers and Marines.

Currently, Pentagon policy stipulates that only immigrants legally residing in the United States are eligible to enlist. There are currently about 30,000 noncitizens who serve in the US armed forces, making up about 2 percent of the active-duty force, according to statistics from the military and the Council on Foreign Relations. About 100 noncitizens have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A recent change in US law, however, gave the Pentagon authority to bring immigrants to the United States if it determines it is vital to national security. So far, the Pentagon has not taken advantage of it, but the calls are growing to take use the new authority.

Indeed, some top military thinkers believe the United States should go as far as targeting foreigners in their native countries.

"It's a little dramatic," said Michael O'Hanlon , a military specialist at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution and another supporter of the proposal. "But if you don't get some new idea how to do this, we will not be able to achieve an increase" in the size of the armed forces.

"We have already done the standard things to recruit new soldiers, including using more recruiters and new advertising campaigns," O'Hanlon added.

O'Hanlon and others noted that the country has relied before on sizable numbers of noncitizens to serve in the military -- in the Revolutionary War, for example, German and French soldiers served alongside the colonists, and locals were recruited into US ranks to fight insurgents in the Philippines.

Other nations have recruited foreign citizens: In France, the famed Foreign Legion relies on about 8,000 noncitizens; Nepalese soldiers called Gurkhas have fought and died with British Army forces for two centuries; and the Swiss Guard, which protects the Vatican, consists of troops who hail from many nations.

"It is not without historical precedent," said Donnelly, author of a recent book titled "The Army We Need," which advocates for a larger military.

Still, to some military officials and civil rights groups, relying on large number of foreigners to serve in the military is offensive.

The Hispanic rights advocacy group National Council of La Raza has said the plan sends the wrong message that Americans themselves are not willing to sacrifice to defend their country. Officials have also raised concerns that immigrants would be disproportionately sent to the front lines as "cannon fodder" in any conflict.

Some within the Army privately express concern that a big push to recruit noncitizens would smack of "the decline of the American empire," as one Army official who asked not to be identified put it.

Officially, the military remains confident that it can meet recruiting goals -- no matter how large the military is increased -- without having to rely on foreigners.

"The Army can grow to whatever size the nation wants us to grow to," Hilferty said. "National defense is a national challenge, not the Army's challenge."

He pointed out that just 15 years ago, during the Gulf War, the Army had a total of about 730,000 active-duty soldiers, amounting to about one American in 350 who were serving in the active-duty Army.

"Today, with 300 million Americans and about 500,000 active-duty soldiers, only about one American in 600 is an active-duty soldier," he said. "America did then, and we do now, have an all-volunteer force, and I see no reason why America couldn't increase the number of Americans serving."

But Max Boot, a national security specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the number of noncitizens the armed forces have now is relatively small by historical standards.

"In the 19th century, when the foreign-born population of the United States was much higher, so was the percentage of foreigners serving in the military," Boot wrote in 2005.

"During the Civil War, at least 20 percent of Union soldiers were immigrants, and many of them had just stepped off the boat before donning a blue uniform. There were even entire units, like the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry [the Scandinavian Regiment] and General Louis Blenker's German Division, where English was hardly spoken."

"The military would do well today to open its ranks not only to legal immigrants but also to illegal ones and, as important, to untold numbers of young men and women who are not here now but would like to come," Boot added.

"No doubt many would be willing to serve for some set period, in return for one of the world's most precious commodities -- US citizenship. Some might deride those who sign up as mercenaries, but these troops would have significantly different motives than the usual soldier of fortune."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.










© 2006 The New York Times Company
© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

U.S. Deaths in Iraq Exceed 9-11 Count

U.S. Deaths in Iraq Exceed 9-11 Count
Dec 26, 12:14 AM (ET)
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA




BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The U.S. military death toll in Iraq has reached 2,974, one more than the number of deaths in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, according to an Associated Press count on Tuesday.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers in a bomb explosion southwest of Baghdad on Monday.

The deaths raised the number of troops killed to 2,974 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks claimed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

"The joint patrol was conducting security operations in order to stop terrorists from placing roadside bombs in the area," the military said in a statement on the latest deaths. "As they conducted their mission, a roadside bomb exploded near one of their vehicles."

Another soldier was wounded in the explosion, the military said.

On Monday, British soldiers backed by tanks raided a police station in the southern city of Basra, killing seven gunmen in an effort to stop renegade Iraqi officers from executing their prisoners, the British military said.

After the British stormed the Basra police station, they removed the prisoners, who showed evidence of torture, then evacuated the building before blowing it up.

The operation showed how closely aligned some police units are with militias and death squads - and the challenges coalition forces face as they transfer authority for security to Iraqis.

In Baghdad, police found 40 bodies, apparent victims of sectarian violence. A car bomb exploded beside a market and a suicide bomber struck a bus in separate attacks that killed 14 civilians and wounded at least 33.

In the Basra raid, the British set out to arrest officers with the station's serious crimes unit who were suspected of involvement with Shiite death squads. Seven members of the rogue police unit were apprehended three days ago in other raids, said a British spokeswoman, Royal Navy Lt. Jenny Saleh.

"We had intelligence to indicate that the serious crimes unit would execute its prisoners in the coming days, so we decided to intervene," Saleh said.

British troops were fired on as they approached the station and their return fire killed seven gunmen, said Maj. Charlie Burbridge, another British military spokesman.

British and Iraqi forces transferred all 76 prisoners at the station to another facility in downtown Basra, he said. Some prisoners had "classic torture injuries" such as crushed hands and feet, cigarette and electrical burns and gunshot wounds in the knees, Burbridge said.

The British demolished the building in an effort to disband the unit. "We identified the serious crimes unit as, frankly, too far gone," Burbridge said. "We just had to get rid of it."

The unit's members, he alleged, were involved in tribal and political feuds in southern Iraq, which is mostly Shiite. They were not, he said, engaged in the kind of sectarian reprisal killings that have terrorized mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad.

Most of Britain's 7,200 troops in Iraq are based in the Basra area.

Mohammed al-Askari, a spokesman for Iraq's Defense Ministry, said the operation was coordinated with the Iraqi government. "Multinational forces got approval for this raid from this ministry and with participation of the Iraqi army," he said.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of training Iraqi forces, said in Washington last week that efforts were under way to weed out Iraqi national police believed to be sympathetic to the militias.

Up to a quarter are thought to be aligned with the militias, which are engaged in sectarian violence.

The establishment of a viable Iraqi police force is vital to the U.S.-led coalition's goal of handing responsibility for security to Iraqis, so foreign troops can return home.

In another sign of lawlessness in Basra, gunmen on Monday robbed $740,000 from a bank about half a mile from the raided police station.

The car bomb in Baghdad, meanwhile, struck a mostly Shiite district to the east that attracts crowds of shoppers and laborers looking for work.

In another part of eastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber exploded in a minibus, killing three people and injuring 19, police said.

Another suicide bomber killed two policemen at a checkpoint at a university entrance in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, a stronghold of the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

The deaths came a day after Iraq's interior minister said attacks targeting police had killed some 12,000 officers since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.

Christians attended Christmas services in Baghdad and northern Iraq, home to most of Iraq's 800,000 Christians. Some in Baghdad stayed home, however, fearing violence.

Christians are on the fringes of the conflict, which mostly involves Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs - but they have been targeted by Islamic militants.

"I hope next year will bring good things and unite all Iraqis because there is no difference between Christians and Muslims," said Abu Fadi, a worshipper who does not use his Christian name because he fears for his safety. "May God bring relief from this."

In another sign of escalating diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the White House said Monday that U.S. troops in Iraq detained at least two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity.

U.S. officials have charged that Iran provides training and other aid to Shiite militias in Iraq - including the equipment used to build roadside bombs. The Tehran regime says it only has political and religious links with Iraqi Shiites.

But Iran is believed to be expanding its shadowy role in Iraq, partly to counter U.S. influence in the region.

In Baghdad, a spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani confirmed that U.S. troops had detained two Iranians who were in Iraq at his invitation. "The president is unhappy about it," said Hiwa Osman, Talabani's media adviser.

He gave no further details, and the U.S. military said it had no comment.

"We suspect this event validates our claims about Iranian meddling, but we want to finish our investigation of the detained Iranians before characterizing their activities," White House spokesman Alex Conant said Monday. "We will be better able to explain what this means about the larger picture after we finish our investigation."

He said that a routine raid on suspected insurgents netted the Iranians. Two had diplomatic immunity and were released to the Iraqi government, which then released them to Iran, Conant said.








Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed



© 2006 IAC Search & Media. All rights reserved

Bald Eagle to Be Taken Off Endangered List

Bald Eagle to Be Taken Off Endangered List
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 25, 2006; A03





MINNEAPOLIS -- Seven years after the U.S. government moved to take the bald eagle off the endangered species list, the Bush administration intends to complete the step by February, prodded by a frustrated libertarian property owner in Minnesota.

The delisting, supported by mainstream environmental groups, would represent a formal declaration that the eagle population has sufficiently rebounded, increasing more than 15-fold since its 1963 nadir to more than 7,000 nesting pairs.

The next challenge is to ensure the national symbol's continued protection.

"By February 16th, the bald eagle will be delisted," said Marshall Jones, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We'll be clear so people won't think, 'It's open season on bald eagles.' No way."

Although the majestic raptor will no longer be covered by the Endangered Species Act, two earlier laws and a few carefully written phrases are expected to balance respect for the eagle with an appreciation for property rights.

"It's not as though we're pulling away the Endangered Species Act and you have nothing else," said John Kostyak, senior counsel at the National Wildlife Federation, which supports the delisting.

Kostyak called the eagle's recovery "an amazing success story," but said if the species' numbers unexpectedly decline, the bird can be added to the list anew.

It was a bald eagle's nest that undid Edmund Contoski. And it was Edmund Contoski who filed a federal lawsuit that prompted U.S. District Judge John Tunheim to set the February deadline for the government to act or explain why not.

Contoski's problem, as he saw it, was the nest high in a pine on his property alongside Sullivan Lake, about 100 miles northwest of the Twin Cities. When the nest was reported to state environmental authorities, he was a few weeks away from carving out a road and several lots, hoping to make good on a family investment.

No eagles were using the nest that year -- they returned later -- but the discovery meant that no one could build within 330 feet. The land was suddenly useless for development, and Contoski was steamed.

"I can't even cut firewood," he said. "I can't trim a tree. I can't do anything."

He tracked down the Pacific Legal Foundation, which has a record of challenging endangered-species rules. Better yet, Pacific attorney Damien Schiff was willing to file suit for free.

For attorney and client, the case was more about principle than principal.

Contoski, 69, is not a prosperous man, although he owns his comfortable Minneapolis home free and clear. He lives with his black cat, Victor, and reads a lot. A table is piled high with such volumes as "Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths" and "The Skeptical Environmentalist."

A former city planner, published author and founder three decades ago of Minnesota's Libertarian Party, Contoski is not enthusiastic about government rules. During a recent ride to a restaurant, he declined to wear his seatbelt despite an insistent dashboard beep.

He would not mind wearing a seatbelt in a world without such laws, he explained, "but I'll be [expletive] if I'll wear it if the government insists."

When he studies his Constitution, he sees a guarantee of inalienable rights.

"It doesn't say, 'unless eagles need a home.' It's unfair that we pay taxes all these years and now we can't recoup that. If it's public benefit, let the federal government or the state pay us for it."

Contoski's family bought 23 acres in 1939. The lakefront land provides gorgeous views to the far shore, about a mile away, but he sees no justification for paying taxes on property they will not use.

"I'm 69 years old and I have a heart condition. How long am I going to live?" asked Contoski, who likes to say he pays taxes and eagles don't. "It's not as though I'm against the eagles. If the eagles lose this tree, they'll go to their other nests."

Hence the lawsuit, which Contoski filed in 2005 and won in August.

A key issue was why the government had not acted. After all, it was a dramatic moment in July 1999 when President Bill Clinton stood beside a bald eagle at a White House ceremony and hailed "the rebirth of our proudest living symbol."

Despite Benjamin Franklin's dismissal of the national icon as "a bird of bad moral character" -- he preferred the humble turkey -- extraordinary efforts were made to keep it from disappearing from the lower 48 states.

The greatest threat to a creature with few natural enemies came from humankind, particularly with the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, which weakened eagle eggs. In time, DDT was banned, and the eagle, whose population once numbered as few as 417 nesting pairs in the contiguous United States, was added to the endangered list.

Taking it off the list has proved difficult, to say the least. The Clinton administration left office without taking action. The Bush administration promised to move on it, but those efforts also lagged.

Amid the often conflicting agendas of politics, preservation and development, experts say what now makes a compromise likely is the unexpected resilience of the eagle population and a consensus that regulations should be clear but flexible.

Environmentalists and eagle fans want to be sure eagles and sufficient habitats are protected. Developers, investors and others want continued access to building permits via various exceptions and tradeoffs that are not allowed under the laws that would take precedence if the eagle were delisted.

"Ultimately, what we're trying to work toward is ensuring, if the bald eagle is taken off the list, people won't see that much of a change," said Chris Tollefson, chief spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Rules are being polished, for example, to define activities permitted near eagle habitats and what can be done near nests that eagles are not using. A debate has been underway over what it means to "disturb" an eagle, a crucial but imprecise word in the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

"The bottom line is the delisting has been working its way through the process for a long time," said Kostyak, who said of Contoski, "Give him credit for getting a deadline imposed."

As for Contoski's fortunes, he considers it unlikely that anything will change, especially now that the eagles have returned.

He is contemplating another lawsuit, this time against the remaining laws.

"From his point of view, it may be a Pyrrhic victory," said Michael J. Bean, who leads wildlife conservation efforts for Environmental Defense. "But from an eagle's point of view, it's a good thing to recognize it has recovered."

Staff writer Juliet Eilperin in Washington contributed to this report.











© 2006 The Washington Post Company

U.S. toll in Iraq surpasses that of 9/11

U.S. toll in Iraq surpasses that of 9/11
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer






BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 36 Iraqis died Tuesday in bombings, officials said, including a coordinated strike that killed 25 in western Baghdad. Separately, the deaths of six U.S. soldiers pushed the American toll beyond the number of victims in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The three coordinated car bombs in western Baghdad injured at least 55 people, a doctor at Yarmouk hospital, where the victims were taken, said on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. The attacks occurred in a mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood.

In separate attacks, a bomb exploded in a central Baghdad market, killing four people and wounding 15 others, police said. Two roadside bombs targeted an Iraqi police patrol in an eastern neighborhood of the capital, killing four policemen and injuring 12 people.

In Kirkuk, 180 miles north of the Iraqi capital, another roadside bomb killed three civilians — including an 8-year-old girl — and wounded six other people, police said.

The U.S. military on Tuesday announced the deaths of six more American soldiers, pushing the U.S. military death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The milestone came with military announcement that three soldiers had been killed Monday. Three more service members were killed Tuesday in roadside bombings near Baghdad, the military said.

President Bush has said that the Iraq war is part of the United States' post-Sept. 11 approach to threats abroad. Going on offense against enemies before they could harm Americans meant removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, pursuing members of al-Qaida and seeking regime change in Iraq, Bush has said.

Democratic leaders have said the Bush administration has gotten the U.S. bogged down in Iraq when there was no evidence of links to the Sept. 11 attacks, detracting from efforts against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

The AP count of those killed includes at least seven military civilians. Prior to the deaths announced Tuesday, the AP count was 15 higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday. At least 2,377 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

American troops fought gunmen in a Shiite militia stronghold in east Baghdad on Tuesday, witnesses said.

Fighters loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were engaged in the clashes with U.S. forces in and near Sadr City, an official in al-Sadr's office said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. There was no immediate word on casualties.

British soldiers were on alert for reprisals a day after they raided a police station in the southern city of Basra, killing seven gunmen in an effort to stop renegade Iraqi officers from executing their prisoners.

"We fully expect more attacks on our bases and on Basra stations, but that's nothing out of the ordinary," Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a military spokesman, said Tuesday. "But this is part of a long-term rehabilitation of the Iraqi police service, to make it more effective and more accountable, and ultimately provide better security for the people of Basra."

After the British stormed the police station, they removed 127 prisoners, who showed evidence of torture, then evacuated the building before blowing it up, he said.

Burbridge had previously said only 76 prisoners were in the station, but later said soldiers miscounted the prisoners because the operation was done under cover of darkness.

Some 800 of the British military's 7,200 troops in Iraq were involved in the operation, he said.

A spokesman for Iraq's defense minister said Monday that the Iraqi interior and defense ministries approved the Basra operation, but some members of the Basra provincial council said they were not notified.

"We object to the way the operation was conducted... There was no need to bring in such a huge number of forces and break down the station," council member Hakim al-Maiyahi told The Associated Press.

Burbridge acknowledged the council members' concerns, but said British officials had alerted the provincial governor, Mohammed al-Waili, who approved the operation.

"He told us it was the right thing — the way forward. He supported our activity," Burbridge said.

Al-Waili refused to comment on the matter.

Christians attended Christmas services in Baghdad and northern Iraq, home to most of Iraq's 800,000 Christians. Some in Baghdad stayed home on Monday, however, fearing violence.

Christians are on the fringes of the conflict, which mostly involves Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs, but they have been targeted by Islamic militants.

"I hope next year will bring good things and unite all Iraqis because there is no difference between Christians and Muslims," said Abu Fadi, a worshipper who does not use his Christian name because he fears for his safety. "May God bring relief from this."












Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Homeland Security admits it did not follow privacy law

Homeland Security admits it did not follow privacy law
Updated 12/23/2006 9:50 AM ET




WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department admitted Friday it did not follow the Privacy Act two years ago in obtaining more commercial data about U.S. airline passengers than it had announced it would.

Seventeen months ago, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' auditing arm, reached the same conclusion: The department's Transportation Security Administration "did not fully disclose to the public its use of personal information in its fall 2004 privacy notices as required by the Privacy Act."

Even so, in a report Friday on the testing of TSA's Secure Flight domestic air passenger screening program, the Homeland Security department's privacy office acknowledged TSA didn't comply with the law. But the privacy office still couldn't bring itself to use the word "violate."

Instead, the privacy office said, "TSA announced one testing program, but conducted an entirely different one." In a 40-word, separate sentence, the report noted that federal programs that collect personal data that can identify Americans "are required to be announced in Privacy Act system notices and privacy impact assessments."

TSA spokesman Christopher White noted the GAO's earlier conclusions and said, "TSA has already implemented or is in the process of implementing each of the DHS privacy office recommendations."

Congress has been unhappy with TSA's domestic airline screening program for years — since it was called CAPPS II before it was tweaked and renamed Secure Flight. Federal law now bars TSA from implementing a domestic screening system until the GAO is satisfied it can meet 10 standards of privacy protection, accuracy and security.

Secure Flight has never passed all those tests, and White said there is no target date for implementing it. "We are more concerned with getting it right," White said.

Friday's report reinforced concerns on Capitol Hill.

"This further documents the cavalier way the Bush administration treats Americans' privacy," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is set to become Senate Judiciary Committee chairman in January. "With this database program, first they ignored the Privacy Act, and now, two years later, they still have a hard time admitting it."

Leahy promised the new Congress will try to learn more about how the administration uses such databases. "Data mining technology has great potential," Leahy said, "but history shows that without adequate checks and balances and oversight, misuse and abuse of the public's personal information will be inevitable."

Characterizing the Secure Flight problems as "largely unintentional," Homeland Security's privacy office attributed them to TSA's failure to revise the public announcement after the test changed.

The privacy office said TSA announced in fall 2004 it would acquire passenger name records of people who flew domestically in June 2004. Airline passenger name records include the flyer's name, address, itinerary, form of payment, history of one-way travel, contact phone number, seating location and even requests for special meals.

The public notices said TSA would try to match the passenger names with names on watch lists of terrorists and criminals.

But they also said the passenger records would be compared with unspecified commercial data about Americans in an effort to see if the passenger data was accurate. It assured the public that TSA would not receive commercial data used by contractors to conduct that part of the tests.

But the contractor, EagleForce, used data obtained from commercial data collection companies Acxiom, Insight America and Qsent to fill in missing information in the passenger records and then sent the enhanced records back to TSA on CDs for comparison with watch lists.

This was "contrary to the express statements in the fall privacy notices about the Secure Flight program," Homeland Security's privacy office concluded. "EagleForce's access to the commercial data amounted to access of the data by TSA."

Another procedure originally thought to enhance privacy backfired. EagleForce augmented the 42,000 passenger name records with similar variations of the spelling of each first and last name so it asked for commercial data on 240,000 names.

Many of these variations were the actual names of real people whose records were then put into the test without any public notice, the report said. Eventually, the three companies supplied EagleForce with 191 million records, though many were duplicates.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Posted 12/22/2006 10:12 PM ET
Updated 12/23/2006 9:50 AM ET












Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Eleanor Clift: Bush's Worst Lies of 2006

Eleanor Clift: Bush's Worst Lies of 2006
A look back at some of the biggest falsehoods of 2006.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift





Updated: 1:03 p.m. ET Dec 22, 2006
Dec. 22, 2006 - In the spirit of holding our political leaders accountable, this year-end review will tabulate the worst lies told by Bush and company, along with several stories that were underreported in the media. Much of what was generated got lost in the fog of war, but the long arm of history will retrieve these moments. As the president said in his news conference this week, if they’re still writing about No. 1—George Washington—there’s plenty of time before the historians can properly evaluate No. 43. Judging by the mess in Iraq, it could be 200 or 300 years—if ever—before Bush is vindicated.

Bush has shifted his rhetoric in deference to the grim and deteriorating reality on the ground in Iraq. Asked by a reporter on Oct. 25 if we are winning the war, Bush said, “Absolutely, we’re winning.” Offered the opportunity at his press conference to defend that statement, Bush has adopted a new formulation. He now says, “We’re not winning, but we’re not losing.” That sounds like the definition of a quagmire.

Exploitation of the war gained Republicans seats in ’02 and got Bush a second term in ’04, but it wasn’t enough in ’06. Karl Rove decided the best way for Republicans to retain control of the House and Senate was to embrace the war in Iraq and run against the Democrats as “Defeatocrats” and “Cut and Runners.” It might have worked, had not most Americans decided they did indeed want to cut and run. Not right away—the voters want an orderly exit—but they weren’t buying Bush’s big lie about the Democrats.

Bush campaigned this fall as though the Democrats were the real enemy, not the terrorists. “They [Democrats] think the best way to protect the American people is wait until we’re attacked again…If you don’t want your government listening in on terrorists, vote for the Democrats.” Now that the Democrats have won, watch Bush try to off-load blame for the failure in Iraq. If the Democrats won’t go along with whatever cockamamie scheme he comes up with, he can always accuse them of losing the war.


Days after giving Defense Secretary Rumsfeld a ringing endorsement, declaring he would be there until the end, Bush fired him. It was the most obvious lie of his presidency. And it tripped so easily off Bush’s tongue. There was none of the stammering that usually accompanies his public utterances. It was as big a lie as Rove’s assertion on National Public Radio that all the public polls pointing toward a rout for the GOP were wrong. “I have the math,” Rove proclaimed. A lot of people believed Rove, but the voters didn’t.

The administration had the media snookered much of the time. Stories that were underreported largely because they ran counter to administration spin include:

A study that shows the death toll among Iraqis has reached as high as 655,000.

Extensively researched by teams of doctors commissioned by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Md., the study—and the controversy over its sampling methodology—was given scant attention by the media because it was so far out of line from the administration’s projection of perhaps 50,000 civilian deaths. That’s still a horrendous death toll of innocents in a country the size of Iraq. Now, 100 bodies routinely turn up every day in Baghdad’s morgues, the victims of sectarian violence, and the report, published in October in The Lancet medical journal, seems to be closer to the truth than anything the Bush administration has acknowledged.

Private contractors in Iraq.

There are 100,000 government contractors in Iraq, a number that rivals the 140,000 U.S. soldiers in the country. It’s dangerous work; some 650 contractors have died there. They do a lot of the jobs the military used to do, everything from providing security and interrogating prisoners to cooking meals for the soldiers. They work for military contractors like KBR and DynCorp International, which are helping train the Iraqi police force. This is the largest contingent of civilians ever operating in a battlefield environment, and there’s been no congressional oversight or accountability. That should change with the Democrats taking over the investigative committees on Capitol Hill. The abuses may be just waiting to be uncovered.

America’s secret torture prisons, whose existence Bush acknowledged as part of his tough-guy campaigning this fall.

Set up in the aftermath of 9/11 to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely, the legality, morality and practicality of these so-called “black sites” have come under scrutiny. After a brief flurry about the use of torture tactics like “water boarding,” where a prisoner is made to feel he’s drowning, the story of these CIA-operated overseas prisons faded. Yet they contributed to the central tragedy of the Bush administration, the collapse of America’s standing around the world.








© 2006 MSNBC.com

Truck hauling 6,000 pounds uranium overturns on I-95

Posted on Thu, Dec. 21, 2006
Truck hauling 6,000 pounds uranium overturns on I-95
Associated Press



BENSON, N.C. - A tractor-trailer hauling about 6,000 pounds of low-grade uranium overturned Thursday as it exited Interstate 95 in Johnston County, authorities said.

The truck crashed onto its side after the driver lost control while exiting onto Interstate 40, said Jason Barbour, the county's emergency communications director. One of two people in the truck suffered minor injuries, and no other vehicles were involved, he said.

Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Everett Clendenin said the truck was carrying a radioactive material called packaged fissile. The powdered uranium was packed in containers that weren't breached by the accident, he said.

"There's no threat to the public," Clendenin said. "It's a low grade uranium."

The accident happened just before 9 p.m. Traffic was diverted and the exit ramp was closed for several hours. Clendenin said the ramp should reopen early Friday morning.

The uranium was being transported by Portsmouth Marine Terminal, from Portsmouth Va., to Global Nuclear Fuels in Wilmington, a coastal city about 130 miles southeast of Raleigh.







© 2006 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

Congressman: Superhighway about North American Union

Congressman: Superhighway about North American Union
Paul says goal is common currency,
borderless travel, bigger bureaucracy
Posted: October 30, 2006
12:41 p.m. Eastern




© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com


Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas
WASHINGTON – Rep. Ron Paul, a maverick Republican from Texas, today denounced plans for the proposed "NAFTA superhighway" in his state as part of a larger plot for merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American Union.

"By now many Texans have heard about the proposed 'NAFTA Superhighway,' which is also referred to as the trans-Texas corridor," he said in a statement. "What you may not know is the extent to which plans for such a superhighway are moving forward without congressional oversight or media attention."

Paul explained that most members of Congress are unaware of the plans because only relatively small amounts of money have been spent studying the plans and those allocations were included in "enormous transportation appropriations bills."

"The proposed highway is part of a broader plan advanced by a quasi-government organization called the 'Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,' or SPP," he explains. "The SPP was first launched in 2005 by the heads of state of Canada, Mexico, and the United States at a summit in Waco."

No treaties were involved, and Congress was not included in discussions or plans, he says.

"Instead, the SPP is an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments," according to Paul. "One principal player is a Spanish construction company, which plans to build the highway and operate it as a toll road. But don't be fooled: The superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit politically connected interests."

Paul says, however, the real issue raised by the superhighway plan and the SPP is national sovereignty.

"Once again, decisions that affect millions of Americans are not being made by those Americans themselves, or even by their elected representatives in Congress," says Paul. "Instead, a handful of elites use their government connections to bypass national legislatures and ignore our Constitution – which expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade."

The ultimate goal, he says, is not simply a superhighway "but an integrated North American Union – complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy and virtually borderless travel within the union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether."

Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., has introduced a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the U.S. should not engage in the construction of a NAFTA superhighway, or enter into any agreement that advances the concept of a North American Union.

"I wholeheartedly support this legislation and predict that the superhighway will become a sleeper issue in the 2008 election," says Paul. "Any movement toward a North American Union diminishes the ability of average Americans to influence the laws under which they must live. The SPP agreement, including the plan for a major transnational superhighway through Texas, is moving forward without congressional oversight – and that is an outrage. The administration needs a strong message from Congress that the American people will not tolerate backroom deals that threaten our sovereignty."







Copyright 1997-2006
All Rights Reserved. WorldNetDaily.com Inc.

More corruption seen among border agents

More corruption seen among border agents
Web Posted: 11/28/2006 12:05 AM CST
Angela Kocherga
KENS 5 Border Bureau Chief




Agents fighting crime on the border are dealing with increasing corruption in their ranks. Among those facing charges are immigration, customs and border patrol agents.

All were caught working for smugglers in El Paso who are supposed to protect our border are increasingly taking bribes instead.

They're the agents who guard our borders and decide who and what gets past nearby checkpoints leading to highways that double as lucrative smuggling routes.

It was at a checkpoint in far West Texas that four agents who were supposed to protect the border switched sides.

"We're disappointed when any agent violates the trust that was given upon them. We will investigate any allegations of misconduct," said Asst. Chief Patrol Agent Robert Fuentes.

The men were convicted last year for waving vehicles filled with illegal immigrants and drugs through the Sierra Blanca checkpoint in exchange for bribes.

Corruption has existed as long as there has been a border, but there's been a spike in cases since 9/11.

"As it becomes more difficult to cross the border, it becomes more important to the drug type organizations and alien smuggling organizations to try to recruit officers," said FBI supervisory agent Jay Abbott.

In the few couple years, dozens of customs, immigration and border patrol agents have been caught working for smugglers, including 10 in Texas.

The bribes from traffickers can easily top an average agent's salary about $50,000 a year.

Criminal organizations also know how to exploit close-knit border communities. Places where it's not unusual for agents and smugglers to grow up together or for extended families to include relatives on both sides of the border — and the law.

The Sierra Blanca checkpoint case involved two brothers: one worked for the border patrol and the other for smugglers.

Critics, including members of the Border Patrol Agents Union, are calling for more thorough background checks as the agency beefs up it's forces.

The border patrol academy is under a presidential mandate to graduate 6,000 new agents in the next couple of years.

We've learned traffickers are hoping to use this to their advantage.

"Some of these drug organizations which are very sophisticated are actually placing people into the border patrol or into ICE in order to assist their efforts," Abbott said.

ICE is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, but new recruits are not the only concern. Veterans are also vulnerable.

Santiago Efrain Valle was a supervisor at the immigration detention center in El Paso when he was arrested in March.

According to court documents, he took a bribe of $20,000 to release an immigration agent from Mexico in custody for smuggling people across the border.











Portions © 2006 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News.
All rights reserved.

Colo. Subdivision Bans Wreath Peace Sign

Colo. Subdivision Bans Wreath Peace Sign
By ROBERT WELLER
The Associated Press





DENVER - A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

"Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," he said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Lisa Jensen said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing."

Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines will cost her about $1,000, and doubts they will be able to make her pay. But she said she's not going to take it down until after Christmas.


"Now that it has come to this I feel I can't get bullied," she said. "What if they don't like my Santa Claus."

The association in this 200-home subdivision 270 miles southwest of Denver has sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and the board "will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive."

The subdivision's rules say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee.

Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members.


November 26, 2006 8:50 PM












©2006 Copyright Calkins Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Watchdogs fuming over ethics ruling

Watchdogs fuming over ethics ruling
Web Posted: 11/27/2006 10:25 PM CST
Lisa Sandberg
Express-News Austin Bureau





AUSTIN — A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as "currency" without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday.

The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws.

"What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the "currency" interpretation would render it "perfectly legal to report the gift of 'a wheelbarrow' without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash."

In a letter to commissioners, Earle called such an analysis "absurd and out of step with both the law and current public attitudes and concerns about corruption in government."

Monday's ruling was preceded by little discussion.

At their last meeting, commissioners said they would welcome more precise reporting but were powerless to require it, based on current laws.

"The question here is whether the description of a gift of cash of over $250 is required to include the value of the gift," the Ethics Commission opinion said in part. "The term 'description' is not defined in Chapter 572 of the Government Code, nor is it defined anywhere else in the Government Code."

"In our opinion, the requirement to describe a gift of cash or cash equivalent may be satisfied by including in the description the following: 'currency,' or a description of the gift, such as 'check' or 'money order,' as appropriate," the ruling stated.

This was the second time the commission ruled on the issue of cash gift disclosures. In March, it ruled that a gift of two checks for $100,000 could be listed simply as "checks."

The case stems from a June 2005 disclosure filed by Dallas businessman Bill Ceverha, a board member of the State Employees Retirement System board. The system oversees a nearly $20 billion fund that provides benefits for 250,000 retired state workers.

Ceverha disclosed that he received a gift, described only as a "check," from Houston home builder Bob Perry, the largest Republican donor in the state.

Both have said the check for $50,000 was supposed to help cover legal fees Ceverha incurred defending himself against a lawsuit related to his role as treasurer of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Texas fundraising operation.

The disclosure issue is sure to surface during next year's legislative session. Legislators have filed at least four bills for campaign finance, and Gov. Rick Perry has said he would support changing the current statute to require more precise reporting requirements.




The Associated Press contributed to this report.










Portions © 2006 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News.
All rights reserved.

Mother charged in death of infant

Mother charged in death of infant
Coroner's office says 31/2-week-old girl died of burns from microwave.
By Cathy Mong
Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 28, 2006






DAYTON — A 26-year-old mother was arrested Monday by Dayton police in the homicide of her 3½-week-old daughter, Paris Talley, on Aug. 30, 2005, a death officials said they believe was caused when the child was burned in a microwave oven.

China Arnold was picked up at her house, 3612 E. Second St., about 2:30 p.m. on a warrant for a charge of aggravated murder, Sgt. Gary White said. Arnold was taken to the Montgomery County Jail. The warrant was issued last week.

Ken Betz, director of the Montgomery County Coroner's Office, said, "We have reason to believe and scientific evidence to support that a microwave oven might have been involved in the death of this child." The cause of death was ruled a homicide at the time, by hyperthermia due to thermal injury.

The baby's death was only the second on record in the nation believed caused by microwave oven. A 20-year-old Virginia mother was convicted of involuntary manslaughter on Sept. 26, 2000, in the death of her 5-week-old son.

"That's what made this case so difficult," Betz said. "We're in an area where there's not a lot of scientific research on the effect of microwave on human beings."

Additional evidence recently came to light that helped prosecutors approve the arrest warrant, he said. "There were no external signs, like scalding water."

White said the mother had custody at the time of Paris' death. When Arnold brought her to Children's Medical Center on Aug. 30, 2005, "the baby was dead. The investigation commenced at that point," he said.

"The police department is satisfied we've helped bring some justice so far to Paris' homicide," White said.










Copyright ©2006 Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA. All rights reserved.

Iraq conflict passes WWII

Iraq conflict passes WWII
Email Print Normal font Large font Cynthia Banham
November 24, 2006





THEY were America's days of infamy, 60 years apart - Pearl Harbour and September 11. The first led the US into World War II, a conflict it endured for 1348 days; the second was followed by a war that from tomorrow will have lasted even longer.

America's involvement in Iraq will reach that milestone at a time when the clamour for withdrawal has never been louder, and the possibility of achieving it has never seemed so difficult. The decisive end of World War II in 1945 delivers no lessons that could be applied to a very different war in a very different era.

If anything, things seem to be getting worse, the options less appealing. Baghdad is reeling from the deadliest assault on Iraqi civilians since the start of the US invasion in March 2003. At least 200 people died and more than 250 were injured after six car bombs, mortar attacks and missiles battered the Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City.

Plumes of black smoke and anguished screams rose above a chaotic landscape of flames and charred cars, witnesses said.

Violence later spread to other neighbourhoods in retaliatory attacks across Baghdad, even as politicians and senior religious clerics appealed for calm.

The Iraqi Government locked down the capital with an indefinite curfew and shut the airport to commercial flights.

It is a long way from Mission Accomplished - the banner that decorated a US aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003 as the US President, George Bush, proclaimed the end of "major combat operations". Forty-four months on, Americans still count the cost of the war: more than 2860 US soldiers dead, more than 21,000 injured.

Those figures do not compare with US casualties in World War II, when 406,000 American soldiers died and 671,000 were wounded. But the Iraq campaign has become a symbol of the pitfalls of a new style of conflict - a war against an ill-defined enemy with no end in sight.

American politicians have not failed to note the symbolism of the milestone.

The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin, pointed to it as he pushed for a phased withdrawal within four to six months.

"We are 3 years into a conflict which has already lasted longer than the Korean conflict and almost as long as World War II. We should put the responsibility for Iraq's future squarely where it belongs: on the Iraqis."

In Canberra, the Prime Minister, John Howard, acknowledged Iraq was "going through a bad phase" and that nobody was "other than horrified at the continued loss of life". Mr Howard said any change in the role of Australia's troops would depend on "what's involved in any possible British reduction" of its commitment.

"We haven't agreed to anything else and if there are any proposals that we do something differently, well they will have to be assessed on their merits and according to our judgement as to whether it's appropriate."

Agence France-Presse










Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald.

School killings up slightly, U.S. study finds

MSNBC.com
School killings up slightly, U.S. study finds
At least 21 people died at school during 2004-05 academic year
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:41 p.m. ET Dec 3, 2006






WASHINGTON - At least 21 people were killed at school during the 2004-05 academic year, a slight increase from the year before, the government reported Sunday.

The study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics does not include data from fatal shootings in Wisconsin, Colorado and Pennsylvania this fall. In Pennsylvania, five Amish girls were killed in a one-room schoolhouse by a milk truck driver who then turned the gun on himself.

Overall, fewer students reported being the victims of violent crime at school or school-sponsored events in 2004-2005, the study by the Justice Department agency show. Additionally, school-age children remain far more likely to be assaulted, raped and robbed off school grounds.

The study looked at violent crime against students over several periods of time.

The 21 killings at school-related events, between July 2004 and June 2005, targeted victims between age 5 and 18, said Katrina Baum, co-author of the 2006 Indicators of School Crime and Safety. Over the previous year, 19 people were killed.

50-fold risk increase at school
It was not immediately clear whether all the victims were students. Still, the preliminary data indicates that students were about 50 times more likely in the 2003-04 school year to be killed away from school than at school, the report shows.


The number of deadly shootings has risen and fallen over the past 15 years. Overall school violence has shown a declining trend, although it has increased lately.

The study notes that four of every 1,000 students in 2004 reported being the victim of violent crimes — compared with six of every 1,000 in 2003. Researchers polled students between 12 and 18 for that part of the survey, co-written by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Younger students were found to be more likely crime victims — including those injured by bullies, the report showed. Last year, 28 percent of students polled said they had been bullied.

Also in 2005, 24 percent of students questioned said that gangs were at their schools — up 3 percent from 2003. The rates of fights, drinking alcoholic beverages, and weapons found at schools remained at 2003 levels, the report noted.




© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.










© 2006 MSNBC.com

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool
Agency used novel surveillance technique on alleged Mafioso: activating his cell phone's microphone and then just listening.
By Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: December 1, 2006, 2:20 PM PST
Last modified: December 1, 2006, 6:35 PM PST
Story last modified Mon Dec 04 06:56:51 PST 2006







The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

"If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

FBI's physical bugs discovered

The FBI's Joint Organized Crime Task Force, which includes members of the New York police department, had little luck with conventional surveillance of the Genovese family. They did have a confidential source who reported the suspects met at restaurants including Brunello Trattoria in New Rochelle, N.Y., which the FBI then bugged.

But in July 2003, Ardito and his crew discovered bugs in three restaurants, and the FBI quietly removed the rest. Conversations recounted in FBI affidavits show the men were also highly suspicious of being tailed by police and avoided conversations on cell phones whenever possible.

That led the FBI to resort to "roving bugs," first of Ardito's Nextel handset and then of Peluso's. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones approved them in a series of orders in 2003 and 2004, and said she expected to "be advised of the locations" of the suspects when their conversations were recorded.

Details of how the Nextel bugs worked are sketchy. Court documents, including an affidavit (p1) and (p2) prepared by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kolodner in September 2003, refer to them as a "listening device placed in the cellular telephone." That phrase could refer to software or hardware.

One private investigator interviewed by CNET News.com, Skipp Porteous of Sherlock Investigations in New York, said he believed the FBI planted a physical bug somewhere in the Nextel handset and did not remotely activate the microphone.

"They had to have physical possession of the phone to do it," Porteous said. "There are several ways that they could have gotten physical possession. Then they monitored the bug from fairly near by."

But other experts thought microphone activation is the more likely scenario, mostly because the battery in a tiny bug would not have lasted a year and because court documents say the bug works anywhere "within the United States"--in other words, outside the range of a nearby FBI agent armed with a radio receiver.

In addition, a paranoid Mafioso likely would be suspicious of any ploy to get him to hand over a cell phone so a bug could be planted. And Kolodner's affidavit seeking a court order lists Ardito's phone number, his 15-digit International Mobile Subscriber Identifier, and lists Nextel Communications as the service provider, all of which would be unnecessary if a physical bug were being planted.

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug," the article said, "enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down."

For its part, Nextel said through spokesman Travis Sowders: "We're not aware of this investigation, and we weren't asked to participate."

Other mobile providers were reluctant to talk about this kind of surveillance. Verizon Wireless said only that it "works closely with law enforcement and public safety officials. When presented with legally authorized orders, we assist law enforcement in every way possible."

A Motorola representative said that "your best source in this case would be the FBI itself." Cingular, T-Mobile, and the CTIA trade association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mobsters: The surveillance vanguard

This isn't the first time the federal government has pushed at the limits of electronic surveillance when investigating reputed mobsters.

In one case involving Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey, the FBI found itself thwarted when Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode confidential business data.

So with a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke logger and monitor its output.

Like Ardito's lawyers, Scarfo's defense attorneys argued that the then-novel technique was not legal and that the information gleaned through it could not be used. Also like Ardito, Scarfo's lawyers lost when a judge ruled in January 2002 that the evidence was admissible.

This week, Judge Kaplan in the southern district of New York concluded that the "roving bugs" were legally permitted to capture hundreds of hours of conversations because the FBI had obtained a court order and alternatives probably wouldn't work.

The FBI's "applications made a sufficient case for electronic surveillance," Kaplan wrote. "They indicated that alternative methods of investigation either had failed or were unlikely to produce results, in part because the subjects deliberately avoided government surveillance."

Bill Stollhans, president of the Private Investigators Association of Virginia, said such a technique would be legally reserved for police armed with court orders, not private investigators.

There is "no law that would allow me as a private investigator to use that type of technique," he said. "That is exclusively for law enforcement. It is not allowable or not legal in the private sector. No client of mine can ask me to overhear telephone or strictly oral conversations."

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer's video camera and forwarded him the recordings.






Copyright ©1995-2006 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ruling gets a bah humbug

Posted on Sat, Dec. 02, 2006
Ruling gets a bah humbug
Lexington County employees must pay tax on $25 holiday gift cards
By CLIF LeBLANC







Lexington County’s 1,300 employees will get a little holiday surprise this year — Uncle Sam will tax the $25 holiday gift cards workers have received since 1997.

An Internal Revenue Service auditor advised the county in 2004 about a decision to treat gift cards as taxable income, said county finance director Larry Porth.

The IRS decision doesn’t sit well with Hope Frick, who has worked for the county for 23 years.

“If they’re that hard up for money, then I will send them my Piggly Wiggly card ... when I pay my taxes,” said Frick, 52, a deputy clerk of court.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of.”

County administrator Katherine Hubbard broke the news to council at its Nov. 14 meeting.

“They are supposed to be taxable, no matter how bah humbug that may sound,” Hubbard said of the gift cards. Hubbard changed her name from Katherine Doucett when she was married recently.

The IRS decided gift cards and gift coupons are the same as cash. Cash equivalents are never “excludable” from taxes. That’s tax talk for no taxes due.

Yet a turkey, a ham, a holiday gift basket or a gift card limited to specific products like those is not taxable in the eyes of the IRS.

“This is the first year we’ve ever reported it,” Porth said. “This is no different than if we gave them (employees) $1 per week.”

The gift cards generally are distributed along with the paycheck just before Christmas.

Shannon Cockrell is pragmatic about the IRS policy.

“I’m not crazy about it,” she said of paying taxes on the gift. “It’s only $25.”

Cockrell, a 48-year-old receptionist in the clerk’s office, was more surprised when she became a county employee in 2004 and gave up her old Christmas bonus from a private employer — a week’s pay.

Still, Cockrell said she uses the county card for a holiday meal.

Lexington County allows grocery stores to bid for the cards each year. Piggly Wiggly again won this year’s contest.

The county paid $29,050, or $22.50 each, for the $25 gift cards, Porth said.

County Council set aside $31,050 in this year’s budget to pay for the cards.

That means — ho, ho, ho —there will be a $2,000 surplus.

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664.

SCROOGE-LIKE?

Here’s how the Internal Revenue Service views gifts to employees, according to www.irs.gov:

Taxable income

“Gift certificates that are redeemable for a significant variety of items are considered cash-equivalent.”

So ... taxes must be taken out of your paycheck for gift cards to grocery stores and the like.

Not taxable

“Those (gift certificates) which can be applied only to a choice of one type of item would generally be considered noncash and could be tax-exempt.”

So ... employers would not have to deduct taxes for gift certificates workers redeem for a specific product or service.

That also means gifts of products — holiday hams or turkeys, fruit baskets — are not taxable.










© 2006 The State and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.