Chairman: Bush officials misled public on global warming

Chairman: Bush officials misled public on global warming
POSTED: 2:28 p.m. EST, January 30, 2007






WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Democratic chairman of a House panel examining the government's response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said he and the top Republican on his oversight committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, have sought documents from the administration on climate policy, but repeatedly been rebuffed.

"The committee isn't trying to obtain state secrets or documents that could affect our immediate national security," said Waxman, opening the hearing. "We are simply seeking answers to whether the White House's political staff is inappropriately censoring impartial government scientists."

"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger," Waxman said.

Administration officials were not scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In the past the White House has said it has only sought to inject balance into reports on climate change. Present Bush has acknowledged concerns about global warming, but strongly opposes mandatory caps of greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that approach would be too costly.

Waxman said his committee had not received documents it requested from the White House and other agencies, and that a handful of papers received on the eve of the hearing "add nothing to our inquiry."

Two private advocacy groups, meanwhile, presented to the panel a survey of government climate scientists showing that many of them say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming.

Survey: Scientists pressured to downplay threat

The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete reference to "global warming" or "climate change" from a report.

The questionnaire was sent by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private advocacy group. The report also was based on "firsthand experiences" described in interviews with the Government Accountability Project, which helps government whistleblowers, lawmakers were told.

At the same time, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, sought to gauge her colleague's sentiment on climate change. She opened a meeting where senators were to express their views on global warming in advance of a broader set of hearings on the issue.

Among those scheduled to make comments were two presidential hopefuls -- Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Barack Obama, D-Illinois. Both lawmakers favor mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, something opposed by President Bush, who argues such requirements would threaten economic growth. (Watch why the president has proposed his own global warming initiative )

U.N. climate change report expected soon

The intense interest about climate change comes as some 500 climate scientists gather in Paris this week to put the final touches on a United Nations report on how warming, as a result of a growing concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, is likely to affect sea levels. (Watch how global warming my be changing Asia' climate )

They agree sea levels will rise, but not on how much. Whatever the report says when it comes out at week's end, it is likely to influence the climate debate in Congress.

At the Waxman hearing, the two advocacy groups said their research -- based on the questionnaires, interviews and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act -- revealed "evidence of widespread interference in climate science in federal agencies."

The groups report described largely anonymous claims by scientists that their findings at times at been misrepresented, that they had been pressured to change findings and had been restricted on what they were allowed to say publicly.

The survey involved scientists across the government from NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency to the department's of Agriculture, Energy, Commerce, Defense and Interior. In all the government employees more than 2,000 scientists who spend at least some of their time on climate issues, the report said.




Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.





© 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.

FBI turns to broad new wiretap method

FBI turns to broad new wiretap method
01 / 30 / 07





The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.

Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. It raises concerns similar to those stirred by widespread Internet monitoring that the National Security Agency is said to have done, according to documents that have surfaced in one federal lawsuit, and may stretch the bounds of what's legally permissible.

Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.)

That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at the junction point of a router or network switch.

The technique came to light at the Search & Seizure in the Digital Age symposium held at Stanford University's law school on Friday. Ohm, who is now a law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Richard Downing, a CCIPS assistant deputy chief, discussed it during the symposium.

In a telephone conversation afterward, Ohm said that full-pipe recording has become federal agents' default method for Internet surveillance. "You collect wherever you can on the (network) segment," he said. "If it happens to be the segment that has a lot of IP addresses, you don't throw away the other IP addresses. You do that after the fact."

"You intercept first and you use whatever filtering, data mining to get at the information about the person you're trying to monitor," he added.

On Monday, a Justice Department representative would not immediately answer questions about this kind of surveillance technique.

"What they're doing is even worse than Carnivore," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who attended the Stanford event. "What they're doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets."

When the FBI announced two years ago it had abandoned Carnivore, news reports said that the bureau would increasingly rely on Internet providers to conduct the surveillance and reimburse them for costs. While Carnivore was the subject of congressional scrutiny and outside audits, the FBI's current Internet eavesdropping techniques have received little attention.

Carnivore apparently did not perform full-pipe recording. A technical report

(PDF: "Independent Technical Review of the Carnivore System") from December 2000 prepared for the Justice Department said that Carnivore "accumulates no data other than that which passes its filters" and that it saves packets "for later analysis only after they are positively linked by the filter settings to a target."


Copyright © 2006 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

While you were sleeping (Bush took over the Government)

While you were sleeping (Bush took over the Government)
Submitted by Canada IFP on Fri, 2007-01-26 11:3






United States President stealthily took over the Federal Government last week through a new executive order last week that takes away all autonomy from Agencies, according to public interest organizations.

The order amends a series of previous executive orders that culminated in Executive Order No. 12,866, which the White House has used to give itself the power to review regulations before they can be officially published in the Federal Register.

The new order applies the review power not just to regulations but also to what it calls “significant guidance documents.”

“This order is just the latest in a series of unacceptable power grabs by the Bush administration,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “President Bush is asserting the right to change the law by executive fiat.”

The group identified three major problems with the new executive order:

First, it requires agencies to get White House approval of many important kinds of guidance for the public, which would allow the White House to create a bureaucratic bottleneck that would slow down agencies’ ability to give the public information it needs.

Agencies use guidance to let the public know how they intend to enforce the laws and regulations on the books.

“By requiring White House approval of important guidance, the White House will insert its political agenda and pro-business bias into every level of agency policy, so that our federal government will handcuff itself instead of the companies that violate the law and put the public in danger,” Robert Shull, Public Citizen’s deputy director for auto safety and regulatory policy, warned.

Second, the new order stresses the concept of “market failure” in its revised command for agencies to state justifications for new regulations for public health, privacy, safety, civil rights and the environment. Market failure is an economics term describing situations in which private markets, left to themselves, fail to bring about results that the public needs.

This order will be enforced by Susan Dudley, a controversial figure the White House is setting up for a recess appointment to become the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

She calls herself a "free-market environmentalist," who wants to protect the environment through "market-based incentives."
Based on an evaluation of Dudley’s record in a report released last year, Public Citizen has concluded that in her hands, the market failure provision will become a barrier to the protections that the public needs.

Third, the order requires agencies to develop annual plans for upcoming rulemakings that identify “the combined aggregate costs and benefits of all … regulations planned for that calendar year to assist with the identification of priorities.”

This new requirement will make cost/benefit analysis the central factor in setting priorities for needed protections of the public interest.

“These cost/benefit analyses are notoriously biased against regulation, especially long-term goals such as preventing global warming or cancers that manifest years after exposure to toxic substances,” said Claybrook. “The upshot of this whole executive order is that the White House is already working to undermine not just agencies but also the new Congress’ ability to protect the public.”

“The White House is amending the Administrative Procedure Act by decree, claiming power that belongs to Congress alone. It is an appalling arrogation of power and a slap in the face to the new Congress,” said Shull. “Congress must immediately arrange hearings to hold the president accountable for this affront to the rule of law.”

Republican: Scripts need reviewing

Republican: Scripts need reviewing
Movie prompts lawmaker's film incentive idea
By Mark Schreiner
Raleigh Bureau Chief





Raleigh Citing the controversy surrounding the Dakota Fanning film Hounddog, the leader of the state Senate Republicans says he wants the government to review scripts before cameras start rolling in North Carolina.

That system, said state Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, would apply only to films seeking the state's lucrative filmmaker incentive, which refunds as much as 15 percent of what productions spend in North Carolina from the state treasury.

"Why should North Carolina taxpayers pay for something they find objectionable?" said Berger, who is having proposed legislation drafted.

It is not known whether Hounddog's producers have or will apply for the incentive. A call Thursday to the N.C. Department of Revenue, which oversees incentive payments, was not returned.

Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, one of the backers of the new law that created the current incentive system, said she couldn't say much until she saw Berger's proposal in writing.

"There's no bill yet to take a look at," she said. "But I am always willing to consider reasonable ways to improve the program."

She did say she thought looking at scripts before shooting starts might be meaningless because a script could be changed during production.

"We should consider the end product," she said, "which is what our current system is designed to do."

State law denies the incentive to films that are obscene. In state law, obscenity is defined as depicting sexual conduct presented in an offensive way that appeals to prurient interest, lacks any "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value" and is not free speech protected by the state or federal constitutions.

Berger said the film-incentive ban should be broadened to include material considered objectionable. He said there should be no First Amendment concerns because the producer would be seeking money from the state government. But he did say that if constitutional questions confused the matter, it would be better not to have a film incentive at all.

Berger has not seen the movie. He said his opinions were formed by what he has read about it.

The Fanning film, which is playing this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, has been a flashpoint of controversy since it was filmed on locations in New Hanover and Brunswick counties last summer.

The movie tells the story of Lewellen, a girl played by 12-year-old Fanning, who is growing up in the 1960s South.

In one scene, the character is raped. The scene lasts a few minutes and is not graphic, according to The Associated Press. There is no nudity, the scene is darkly lit, and only Fanning's face and hand are shown.

Criticism and questions began even before the first screening of the film. A group called the Christian Film and Television Commission claims Hounddog breaks the federal child-pornography law, according to the AP.

Last year, a complaint reached the New Hanover County district attorney, who issued a letter saying he saw uncut portions of the film and found that no crime had been committed in his jurisdiction.

The film's publicist took a request for comment Thursday afternoon but did not return it before press time.

Under the current system, the process begins when producers make inquiries of local film commissions or the state film office to gauge whether their project might be eligible.

But to claim the credit, the producers must file a state tax return. The N.C. Department of Revenue examines the return and judges whether all the criteria in the law have been met. The refund can be as much as $7.5 million per film.

Berger pointed to South Carolina, which requires up-front applications from producers, who must attach a copy of their script.

Even so, said Jeff Monks, South Carolina's film commissioner, the state does not assess the content of a proposed movie.

"Censorship is not part of our activity," he said. The purpose of asking for the script is to see whether it conforms to the budget and schedule information producers are required to provide.

"We want to see if this film is doable and a good investment for the people of the state," he said.

Mark Schreiner: (919) 835-1434

mark.schreiner@starnewsonline.com

Car salesmen accused of taking life savings

Saturday, January 20, 2007
Car salesmen accused of taking life savings
Mentally ill man lost $101,200 in plot
By HECTOR CASTRO AND CASEY MCNERTHNEY
P-I REPORTERS






Richard Grey lived for more than a decade with his mother in the Lam Bow apartments in West Seattle. Not trusting banks, he faithfully cashed his Social Security checks and squirreled the money away in Bartell Drugs bags.

Last summer, he used $30,000 in cash carried in one of those plastic bags to buy a new pickup truck from longtime Seattle dealership Huling Bros. Auto Center.

That, King County prosecutors said Friday, put the mentally unstable man at the mercy of thieves -- thieves who worked at the auto dealership.

Investigators said the 60-year-old man was cheated out of $101,200 -- his life savings -- in an intricate plot that involved 11 dealership employees.

Earlier this week, King County prosecutors charged former sales manager Adrian G. Dillard, 32, and former salesman Ted Coxwell, 39, with burglary and theft. Dillard was also charged with money laundering. Former salesman Paul Rimbey, 39, was charged with theft.

"It was unbelievable," said Seattle police Detective Caryn Lee, who works on cases of fraud involving vulnerable victims.

Police do not know what has become of most of Grey's missing money.

"It's gone," Lee said.

Steve Huling, 59, who sold the dealership two weeks ago, refunded Grey the $30,000 purchase price after learning of the events.


"I thought it was the right thing to do," Huling said Friday.

But news of the arrests shocked Ryan Gee, whose family bought Huling Bros.

"To say this is concerning is an enormous understatement. This is far from the realm of the way we do business," Gee said.

Neighbors said Grey, who has been committed to Western State Hospital, deteriorated after his mother moved to an adult care home, leaving him alone.

"At 6:15 in the morning, he'd come out and howl for a good 10 to 15 minutes," said building maintenance mechanic Jim Alberts.

"From the minute you met this guy, you could tell he was mentally disturbed," resident manager Abdi-asis Farah said.

The salesman who sold Grey the pickup told police he was at first doubtful that his customer had the money. At the time, Grey was wearing soiled clothing and had "apparent mental problems," according to court documents released Friday.

But Grey told the salesman he had a lot of cash at home. So the salesman drove Grey to his apartment on Delridge Way Southwest, and Grey emerged with a bag stuffed with $30,000 in $100 bills.

The sale became the talk of the floor, witnesses told police. What also soon became common knowledge was that Grey had boasted of having much more, as much as another $100,000 in cash in his apartment.

Grey contacted the dealership again after his new pickup was impounded.

.

The salesman told investigators he and another employee drove Grey to Mercer Island to retrieve the truck.

When word of this spread, witnesses told investigators, some employees planned to break into Grey's apartment while he was gone and search for cash inside.

Investigators now believe Coxwell and Dillard did just that, possibly stealing as much as $70,000 in cash.

At least two others admitted breaking into the apartment at other times, but did not find any large amounts of cash to steal. They have not been charged with any crime and more charges are not expected.

In court documents released Friday, prosecutors contend that the theft became well-known among several employees who were not involved.

On July 27, Grey called Seattle police to report his truck stolen. It had actually been towed away yet again.

Police found Grey wearing pants soiled with feces and urine, found piles of human feces throughout the apartment, and saw that Grey had a roll of money stuffed in a shirt pocket.

Grey said he had just paid cash for the truck and added that he believed someone from the dealership had stolen $75,000.

Police did not have enough information to pursue the case, but because Grey was unable to care for himself, he was involuntarily committed to Western State Hospital.

In November, an undercover Washington State Patrol detective learned about a burglary involving Huling Bros. employees in West Seattle that targeted a mentally disabled man.

Investigators discovered that Dillard took more than $20,000 in $100 bills to a bank just days after the burglary and purchased four cashier's checks, using the money to pay off credit card debts, court documents say.

Coxwell, fired shortly after the burglary for drug use, showed up at the dealership a week later with $1,300 in $100 bills, paying off a car.

Investigators also discovered that while Grey was held in the psychiatric unit at Harborview Medical Center, Rimbey had the mentally handicapped man sign the truck over to him. The paperwork was notarized at the hospital, the documents state.

P-I reporter Craig Harris contributed to this report. P-I reporter Hector Castro can be reached at 206-903-5396 or hectorcastro@seattlepi.com.














©1996-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Judge rules in favor of record companies

Friday, January 19, 2007 - Page updated at 10:08 AM
Judge rules in favor of record companies
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer





NEW YORK — A lawsuit in which record companies allege XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. is cheating them by letting consumers store songs can proceed toward trial, a judge ruled Friday after finding merit to the companies' claims.

U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts made the finding in a case brought by Atlantic Recording Corp., BMG Music, Capitol Records Inc. and other music distribution companies against the licensed satellite radio broadcaster.

In a lawsuit last year, the companies said XM directly infringes on their exclusive distribution rights by letting consumers record songs onto special receivers marketed as "XM + MP3" players.

XM has argued it is protected from infringement lawsuits by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which permits individuals to record music off the radio for private use. The judge said she did not believe the company was protected in this instance by the act.

Messages for comment left with lawyers on both sides were not immediately returned.

In refusing to toss out the lawsuit, the judge noted that the record companies consent to XM's use of their copyrighted material solely for the purposes of providing a digital satellite broadcasting service.

She said XM operates like traditional radio broadcast providers, who cannot offer an interactive service, publish programming schedules prior to broadcast or play songs from an artist more often than specified within a three-hour period. But by broadcasting and storing copyrighted music for later listening by the consumer, the judge said XM is both a broadcaster and a distributor, but only paying to be a broadcaster.

"The record companies sufficiently allege that serving as a music distributor to XM + MP3 users gives XM added commercial benefit as a satellite radio broadcaster," Batts said.

Although XM argued in court papers that an XM + MP3 player is much like a traditional radio-cassette player, the judge said "it is not."

"It is manifestly apparent that the use of a radio-cassette player to record songs played over free radio does not threaten the market for copyrighted works as does the use of a recorder which stores songs from private radio broadcasts on a subscription fee basis," she said.





Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company



Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo, other than personal use, must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail resale@seattletimes.com with your request.

Pentagon, CIA step up spying on Americans

Pentagon, CIA step up spying on Americans
They use national security letters to get financial data
- Eric Lichtblau, Mark Mazzetti, New York Times
Sunday, January 14, 2007





(01-14) 04:00 PST Washington -- The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.

The CIA also has issued what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of U.S. military personnel and civilians, officials say.

The FBI, the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, provoking criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who see them as unjustified intrusions into Americans' private lives.

But it was not previously known, even to some senior counterterrorism officials, that the Pentagon and the CIA have been using their own "noncompulsory" versions of the letters. Congress has rejected several attempts by the two agencies since 2001 for authority to issue mandatory letters, in part because of concerns about the dangers of expanding their role in domestic spying.

The military and the CIA have long been restricted in their domestic intelligence operations, and both are barred from conducting traditional domestic law enforcement work. The CIA's role within the United States has been largely limited to recruiting people to spy on foreign countries.

Carl Kropf, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, said intelligence agencies like the CIA used the letters on only a "limited basis."

Pentagon officials defended the letters as valuable tools and said they were part of a broader strategy since the Sept. 11 attacks to use more aggressive intelligence-gathering tactics -- a priority of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The letters "provide tremendous leads to follow and often with which to corroborate other evidence in the context of counterespionage and counterterrorism," said Maj. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman.

Government lawyers say the legal authority for the Pentagon and the CIA to use national security letters in gathering domestic records dates back nearly three decades and, by their reading, was strengthened by the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act.

Pentagon officials said they used the letters to follow up on a variety of intelligence tips or leads. While they would not provide details about specific cases, military intelligence officials with knowledge of them said the military had issued the letters to collect financial records regarding a government contractor with unexplained wealth, for example, and a chaplain at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, erroneously suspected of aiding prisoners at the facility.

Usually, the financial documents collected through the letters do not establish any links to espionage or terrorism and seldom have led to criminal charges, military officials say. Instead, the letters often help eliminate suspects.

"We may find out this person has unexplained wealth for reasons that have nothing to do with being a spy, in which case we're out of it," said Thomas Gandy, a senior Army counterintelligence official.

Military intelligence officers have sent letters in up to 500 investigations over the last five years, two officials estimated. The number of letters is likely to be well into the thousands, the officials said, because a single case often generates letters to multiple financial institutions. For its part, the CIA issues a handful of national security letters each year, agency officials said. Congressional officials said members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had been briefed on the use of the letters by the military and CIA.

Some national security experts and civil liberties advocates are troubled by the CIA and military taking on domestic intelligence activities, particularly in light of recent disclosures that the Counterintelligence Field Activity office had maintained files on Iraq war protesters in the United States in violation of the military's own guidelines. Some experts say the Pentagon has adopted an overly expansive view of its domestic role under the guise of "force protection," or efforts to guard military installations.

"There's a strong tradition of not using our military for domestic law enforcement," said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, a former general counsel at both the National Security Agency and the CIA who is dean at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. "They're moving into territory where historically they have not been authorized or presumed to be operating."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Rumsfeld directed military lawyers and intelligence officials to examine their legal authority to collect intelligence both inside the United States and abroad. They concluded that the Pentagon had "way more" legal tools than it had been using, a senior Defense Department official said.

Military officials say the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978, which establishes procedures for government access to sensitive banking data, first authorized them to issue national security letters.

One prominent case in which letters were used to obtain financial records, according to two military officials, was that of James Yee, a Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo who was suspected in 2003 of aiding terror suspects imprisoned at the facility. The espionage case against Yee soon collapsed.

Eugene Fidell, a defense lawyer for the former chaplain, said he found the use of the letters to be "disturbing," in part because the military does not have the same checks and balances when it comes to Americans' civil rights as does the FBI. "Where is the accountability?" he asked. "That's the evil of it -- it doesn't leave fingerprints."

Page A - 3



©2007 San Francisco Chronicle

Senators aim to restrict Net, satellite radio recording

Senators aim to restrict Net, satellite radio recording
Music industry backs the effort, but digital rights groups say it would erode users' music-listening freedoms.
By Anne Broache Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: January 12, 2007, 10:35 AM PST
Last modified: January 12, 2007, 1:01 PM PST





Satellite and Internet radio services would be required to restrict listeners' ability to record and play back individual songs, under new legislation introduced this week in the U.S. Senate.

The rules are embedded in a copyright bill called the Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act, or Perform Act, which was reintroduced Thursday by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). They have pitched the proposal, which first emerged in an earlier version last spring, as a means to level the playing field among "radio-like services" available via cable, satellite and the Internet.

By their description, that means requiring all such services to pay "fair market value" for the use of copyright music libraries. The bill's sponsors argue the existing regime must change because it applies different royalty rates, depending on what medium transmits the music.

But the measure goes further, taking aim at portable satellite radio devices, such as XM Satellite Radio's Inno player, that allow consumers to store copies of songs originally played on-air. The proposal says that all audio services--Webcasters included--would be obligated to implement "reasonably available and economically reasonable" copy-protection technology aimed at preventing "music theft" and restricting automatic recording.

"New radio services are allowing users to do more than simply listen to music," Feinstein said in a statement. "What was once a passive listening experience has turned into a forum where users can record, manipulate, collect and create personalized music libraries."

The Recording Industry Association of America applauded the effort and urged Congress to make passing the legislation a top priority this year. The lobbying group sued XM last year over a music-storing device offered by the service, arguing that it should have to pay licensing fees akin to what Apple pays to run its iTunes download service.

"We love satellite radio," RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol said in a statement. "But this is simply no way to do business. It's in everyone's best interest to ensure a marketplace where fair competition can thrive."

XM Satellite Radio spokesman Chance Patterson called the proposed legislation "ill-advised" because, among other things, it would "harm consumers' long-protected recording rights." The company is making "good progress" in resolving what he referred to as "a business dispute with our partners in the music industry" and, besides, satellite radio outfits already pay royalties, he said.

In what the bill's sponsors describe as an attempt to avoid "harming" songwriters and performers, the Perform Act makes distinctions about what sort of recordings listeners would be allowed to make, according to a copy of the bill obtained by CNET News.com.

Radio listeners would be permitted to set their devices to automatically record full radio programs on certain channels at certain times. But allowing users to program their devices to automatically find and record specific sound recordings, artists or albums--say, only all Michael Jackson tracks played on the service--would be prohibited. So-called "manual" recording would be allowed, as long as it's done "in a manner that is not an infringement of copyright."

In addition, the services would have to employ technological protection measures that prevent people from "separating component segments of the copyrighted material" contained in broadcasts. And they would be required to restrict users' "redistribution, retransmission or other exporting" of all or part of copyright music to other devices--unless the destination device is part of a secure in-home network that also limits the scope of automated recordings.

It is unclear how the proposed requirements would affect software recorders. A Mac OS X utility called StreamRipperX, for instance, permits songs from Internet radio stations to be saved as unprotected MP3 files. If future versions of such software tried to circumvent the digital rights management (DRM) technology used in encrypted broadcasts, they would almost certainly violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Digital rights advocacy groups vowed to fight the proposal. A similar bill of the same name introduced last spring encountered considerable resistance from such groups and individual Webcasters, even spawning an opposition Web site.

Opponents argue the proposed rules would stymie users' ability to record music off the radio. And by forcing Webcasters to blanket their content with DRM schemes, they would essentially erase the possibility of editing broadcasts for personal use and would potentially make the shows interoperable with fewer portable players.

Under current law, Webcasters must pay royalties to record companies and may not assist their users in recording their Webcasts, but they do not have to employ DRM. Most streaming radio stations, including those operated through Live365, ShoutCast and Apple's iTunes, use an open MP3-streaming format.

The proposal "remains a fundamental assault on consumers' reasonable rights and expectations about home recording and fair use in any modern context," said Robert Schwartz, general counsel to the Home Recording Rights Coalition.

Gigi Sohn, president of advocacy group Public Knowledge, said she sympathized with calls for streamlined music licensing but blasted the bill as "a direct attack on the satellite music industry and on nascent terrestrial digital radio." She said the bill attempts wrongly to equate download services like iTunes with radio services.

"This bill looks to the past rather than to the future," she said in a statement, "by limiting the ability of consumers to use material to which they have subscribed and by limiting future innovations in electronics."

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.



Copyright ©1995-2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Man charged with assaulting child

Man charged with assaulting child
By Gail Cetnar
Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 17, 2007






A Springfield man was in jail Wednesday after reportedly admitting to investigators that he inflicted severe head injuries to his wife's 1-year-old son.

Chris J. Grieve, 24, of 547 Villa Road, was charged with felonious assault and felonious child endangering. Clark County Municipal Court Judge Eugene Nevius posted his bond at $50,000 Wednesday morning.

Christian Wiseman was breathing on a ventilator at Children's Medical Center in Dayton, Springfield Police Sgt. Jeffrey Flores said. Murder-related charges will be filed against Grieve if the child dies, he said.

"The injuries are consistent with Shaken Baby (Syndrome) and blunt force trauma," Flores said. "We're still investigating it as far as the actual events, how they happened."

Myla Davis, the child's maternal grandmother, said Grieve became agitated because the baby wouldn't eat, so he picked up the baby from a high chair and slammed him into the ground.

The incident occurred between 6:30 and 10:30 p.m. Sunday, court documents show.

Myla Davis said doctors told her the child suffered 90 percent brain damage and has a 30 to 50 percent chance of survival. If he lives, he'll be "extremely mentally challenged," she said.

Grieve is married to Michelle L. Davis, the child's mother.

The mother told police she checked on her son about 11:10 p.m. Saturday after arriving home from work. He was sleeping and appeared fine, according to her account.

No problems were evident when she checked on the sleeping child again at 4 a.m. Sunday. But the child was moaning and wouldn't wake up when she and Grieve checked on him at 7 a.m., so she took him to Mercy Medical Center, a police report states.

Wiseman then was taken to Children's Medical Center in Dayton.

Family members are shocked by the ordeal, Myla Davis said.

"I've never seen the kid (Grieve) get angry. He lived in my house for two months last summer and I had no reason to be concerned with his behavior toward Christian at all," she said.


Contact this reporter at 328-0367 or gcetnar@coxohio.com













Copyright ©2007 Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA. All rights reserved.

Gonzales: Judges unfit to rule on terror policy

Gonzales: Judges unfit to rule on terror policy
Attorney general says federal jurists should defer to president's will
Updated: 8:07 a.m. ET Jan 17, 2007





“We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments,” Gonzales says in the prepared speech. “That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country.”

Challenges to Bush policies

Gonzales did not cite any specific activist jurists, or give examples of national security cases, in his prepared text. The Justice Department is appealing an August decision by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit, who ruled the government’s warrantless surveillance program unconstitutional and ordered it stopped immediately.

The Justice Department appealed her decision and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has ruled that the administration can keep the program in place during the appeal.

Attorneys representing terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay are challenging the legality of a law, signed by President Bush in October, that authorizes military trials. Those challenges raise the possibility that trials will be struck down by a federal appeals court or the Supreme Court.

Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, has in the past warned about judges who inject their personal beliefs in cases. But his prepared remarks Wednesday mark his sharpest words over concerns about the federal judiciary — the third, and equal, branch of government.

Judges who “apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences, they actually reduce the credibility and authority of the judiciary,” Gonzales says. “In so doing, they undermine the rule of law that strengthens our democracy.”

Even so, Gonzales characterized efforts to retaliate against unpopular rulings as misguided, noting a failed South Dakota proposal to sue or jail judges for making unpopular court decisions. He also called for Congress to consider increasing the number of federal judges to handle heavy workloads, and to offer them higher salaries to lure and keep the best jurists on the bench.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.










© 2006 MSNBC.com

Justice Dept. to Seek Court’s Approval for U.S. Spying

January 17, 2007
Justice Dept. to Seek Court’s Approval for U.S. Spying
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:15 p.m. ET





WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has agreed to shift course and let a secret but independent panel of federal judges oversee the government's controversial domestic spying program.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will have final say in approving wiretaps on communications involving people with suspected terror links, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday in a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Since Jan. 10, when the court began overseeing the program, at least one request has been approved to monitor communications of a person believed to be linked to al-Qaida or an associated terror group.

In his letter to Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Gonzales wrote that ''any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.''

The Bush administration secretly launched the Terrorist Surveillance Program in 2001 to monitor international phone calls and e-mails to or from the United States involving people suspected by the government of having terrorist links. Gonzales said Bush would not reauthorize the program.

The shift in oversight means that all wiretaps or other eavesdropping tools by the federal government must be approved by court order. Previously, the program allowed investigators to spy without a warrant -- resulting in widespread criticism from lawmakers and others who questioned the legality.

''The issue has never been whether to monitor suspected terrorists but doing it legally and with proper checks and balances to prevent abuses,'' Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday in welcoming the change. ''Providing efficient but meaningful court review is a major step toward addressing those concerns.''

The turnaround came after more than a year of stubborn insistence by the White House that oversight by the secret court was not required by law and, in fact, would be a hindrance to stopping terrorists. The FISA court was established in the late 1970s to review requests for warrants to conduct surveillance inside the United States.

Bush has maintained that the warrantless surveillance program's existence was ''fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities,'' and has said he would continue to reauthorize it ''for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups.'' He has said circumventing the FISA court ''enables us to move faster and quicker.''

On Wednesday, the White House said it is satisfied with the new guidelines to address administration officials' concerns about national security.

''The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has put together its guidelines and its rules and those have met administration concerns about speed and agility when it comes to responding to bits of intelligence where we may to be able to save American lives,'' White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

Snow said he could not explain why those concerns could not have been addressed before the program was started. He said the president will not reauthorize the present program because the new rules will serve as guideposts.

A federal judge in Detroit last August declared the program unconstitutional, saying it violates the rights to free speech and privacy and the separation of powers. In October, a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based appeals court ruled that the administration could keep the program in place while it appeals the Detroit decision.

Additionally, the Justice Department's inspector general is investigating the agency's use of information gathered in the spying program. In testimony last fall in front of the Senate panel, FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was not allowed to discuss classified details that could show whether it has curbed terrorist activity in the United States.

Congressional intelligence committees have already been briefed on the court's orders, Gonzales said in his letter. It was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee the day before he is set to testify before the panel, which oversees the Justice Department.

Some Democrats said the change still may not go far enough.

''While this may be a step in the right direction, it should not deflect the attention of the American people or the Congress from seeking answers about the current and past operation of this program,'' said House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.



Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press

Military Is Expanding Its Intelligence Role in U.S.

January 14, 2007
Military Is Expanding Its Intelligence Role in U.S.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK MAZZETTI




WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.

The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.

The F.B.I., the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, provoking criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who see them as unjustified intrusions into Americans’ private lives.

But it was not previously known, even to some senior counterterrorism officials, that the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been using their own “noncompulsory” versions of the letters. Congress has rejected several attempts by the two agencies since 2001 for authority to issue mandatory letters, in part because of concerns about the dangers of expanding their role in domestic spying.

The military and the C.I.A. have long been restricted in their domestic intelligence operations, and both are barred from conducting traditional domestic law enforcement work. The C.I.A.’s role within the United States has been largely limited to recruiting people to spy on foreign countries.

Carl Kropf, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, said intelligence agencies like the C.I.A. used the letters on only a “limited basis.”

Pentagon officials defended the letters as valuable tools and said they were part of a broader strategy since the Sept. 11 attacks to use more aggressive intelligence-gathering tactics — a priority of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The letters “provide tremendous leads to follow and often with which to corroborate other evidence in the context of counterespionage and counterterrorism,” said Maj. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman.

Government lawyers say the legal authority for the Pentagon and the C.I.A. to use national security letters in gathering domestic records dates back nearly three decades and, by their reading, was strengthened by the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act.

Pentagon officials said they used the letters to follow up on a variety of intelligence tips or leads. While they would not provide details about specific cases, military intelligence officials with knowledge of them said the military had issued the letters to collect financial records regarding a government contractor with unexplained wealth, for example, and a chaplain at Guantánamo Bay erroneously suspected of aiding prisoners at the facility.

Usually, the financial documents collected through the letters do not establish any links to espionage or terrorism and have seldom led to criminal charges, military officials say. Instead, the letters often help eliminate suspects.

“We may find out this person has unexplained wealth for reasons that have nothing to do with being a spy, in which case we’re out of it,” said Thomas A. Gandy, a senior Army counterintelligence official.

But even when the initial suspicions are unproven, the documents have intelligence value, military officials say. In the next year, they plan to incorporate the records into a database at the Counterintelligence Field Activity office at the Pentagon to track possible threats against the military, Pentagon officials said. Like others interviewed, they would speak only on the condition of anonymity.

Military intelligence officers have sent letters in up to 500 investigations over the last five years, two officials estimated. The number of letters is likely to be well into the thousands, the officials said, because a single case often generates letters to multiple financial institutions. For its part, the C.I.A. issues a handful of national security letters each year, agency officials said. Congressional officials said members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had been briefed on the use of the letters by the military and the C.I.A.

Some national security experts and civil liberties advocates are troubled by the C.I.A. and military taking on domestic intelligence activities, particularly in light of recent disclosures that the Counterintelligence Field Activity office had maintained files on Iraq war protesters in the United States in violation of the military’s own guidelines. Some experts say the Pentagon has adopted an overly expansive view of its domestic role under the guise of “force protection,” or efforts to guard military installations.

“There’s a strong tradition of not using our military for domestic law enforcement,” said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, a former general counsel at both the National Security Agency and the C.I.A. who is the dean at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. “They’re moving into territory where historically they have not been authorized or presumed to be operating.”

Similarly, John Radsan, an assistant general counsel at the C.I.A. from 2002 to 2004 and now a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, said, “The C.I.A. is not supposed to have any law enforcement powers, or internal security functions, so if they’ve been issuing their own national security letters, they better be able to explain how they don’t cross the line.”

The Pentagon’s expanded intelligence-gathering role, in particular, has created occasional conflicts with other federal agencies. Pentagon efforts to post American military officers at embassies overseas to gather intelligence for counterterrorism operations or future war plans has rankled some State Department and C.I.A. officials, who see the military teams as duplicating and potentially interfering with the intelligence agency.

In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has complained about military officials dealing directly with local police — rather than through the bureau — for assistance in responding to possible terrorist threats against a military base. F.B.I. officials say the threats have often turned out to be uncorroborated and, at times, have stirred needless anxiety.

The military’s frequent use of national security letters has sometimes caused concerns from the businesses receiving them, a counterterrorism official said. Lawyers at financial institutions, which routinely provide records to the F.B.I. in law enforcement investigations, have contacted bureau officials to say they were confused by the scope of the military’s requests and whether they were obligated to turn the records over, the official said.

Companies are not eager to turn over sensitive financial data about customers to the government, the official said, “so the more this is done, and the more poorly it’s done, the more pushback there is for the F.B.I.”

The bureau has frequently relied on the letters in recent years to gather telephone and Internet logs, financial information and other records in terrorism investigations, serving more than 9,000 letters in 2005, according to a Justice Department tally. As an investigative tool, the letters present relatively few hurdles; they can be authorized by supervisors rather than a court. Passage of the Patriot Act in October 2001 lowered the standard for issuing the letters, requiring only that the documents sought be “relevant” to an investigation and allowing records requests for more peripheral figures, not just targets of an inquiry.

Some Democrats have accused the F.B.I. of using the letters for fishing expeditions, and the American Civil Liberties Union won court challenges in two cases, one for library records in Connecticut and the other for Internet records in Manhattan. Concerned about possible abuses, Congress imposed new safeguards in extending the Patriot Act last year, in part by making clear that recipients of national security letters could contact a lawyer and seek court review. Congress also directed the Justice Department inspector general to study the F.B.I.’s use of the letters, a review that is continuing.

Unlike the F.B.I., the military and the C.I.A. do not have wide-ranging authority to seek records on Americans in intelligence investigations. But the expanded use of national security letters has allowed the Pentagon and the intelligence agency to collect records on their own. Sometimes, military or C.I.A. officials work with the F.B.I. to seek records, as occurred with an American translator who had worked for the military in Iraq and was suspected of having ties to insurgents.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Rumsfeld directed military lawyers and intelligence officials to examine their legal authorities to collect intelligence both inside the United States and abroad. They concluded that the Pentagon had “way more” legal tools than it had been using, a senior Defense Department official said.

Military officials say the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978, which establishes procedures for government access to sensitive banking data, first authorized them to issue national security letters. The military had used the letters sporadically for years, officials say, but the pace accelerated in late 2001, when lawyers and intelligence officials concluded that the Patriot Act strengthened their ability to use the letters to seek financial records on a voluntary basis and to issue mandatory letters to obtain credit ratings, the officials said.

The Patriot Act does not specifically mention military intelligence or C.I.A. officials in connection with the national security letters.

Some F.B.I. officials said they were surprised by the Pentagon’s interpretation of the law when military officials first informed them of it. “It was a very broad reading of the law,” a former counterterrorism official said.

While the letters typically have been used to trace the financial transactions of military personnel, they also have been used to investigate civilian contractors and people with no military ties who may pose a threat to the military, officials said. Military officials say they regard the letters as one of the least intrusive means to gather evidence. When a full investigation is opened, one official said, it has now become “standard practice” to issue such letters.

One prominent case in which letters were used to obtain financial records, according to two military officials, was that of a Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who was suspected in 2003 of aiding terror suspects imprisoned at the facility. The espionage case against the chaplain, James J. Yee, soon collapsed.

Eugene Fidell, a defense lawyer for the former chaplain and a military law expert, said he was unaware that military investigators may have used national security letters to obtain financial information about Mr. Yee, nor was he aware that the military had ever claimed the authority to issue the letters.

Mr. Fidell said he found the practice “disturbing,” in part because the military does not have the same checks and balances when it comes to Americans’ civil rights as does the F.B.I. “Where is the accountability?” he asked. “That’s the evil of it — it doesn’t leave fingerprints.”

Even when a case is closed, military officials said they generally maintain the records for years because they may be relevant to future intelligence inquiries. Officials at the Pentagon’s counterintelligence unit say they plan to incorporate those records into a database, called Portico, on intelligence leads. The financial documents will not be widely disseminated, but limited to investigators, an intelligence official said.

“You don’t want to destroy something only to find out that the same guy comes up in another report and you don’t know that he was investigated before,” the official said.

The Counterintelligence Field Activity office, created in 2002 to better coordinate the military’s efforts to combat foreign intelligence services, has drawn criticism for some domestic intelligence activities.

The agency houses an antiterrorist database of intelligence tips and threat reports, known as Talon, which had been collecting information on antiwar planning meetings at churches, libraries and other locations. The Defense Department has since tightened its procedures for what kind of information is allowed into the Talon database, and the counterintelligence office also purged more than 250 incident reports from the database that officials determined should never have been included because they centered on lawful political protests by people opposed to the war in Iraq.




Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Pentagon Viewing Americans' Bank Records

Pentagon Viewing Americans' Bank Records
Jan 14, 7:19 AM (ET)
By LOLITA BALDOR



WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon and to a lesser extent the CIA have been using a little-known power to look at the banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage within the United States, officials said Saturday.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Saturday the Defense Department "makes requests for information under authorities of the National Security Letter statutes ... but does not use the specific term National Security Letter in its investigatory practice."

Whitman did not indicate the number of requests that have been made in recent years, but said authorities operate under the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the National Security Act.

"These statutory tools may provide key leads for counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations," Whitman said. "Because these are requests for information rather than court orders, a DOD request under the NSL statutes cannot be compelled absent court involvement."

"It is our understanding that the intelligence community agencies make such requests on a limited basis," said Carl Kropf, a spokesman for the Office of the National Intelligence Director, which oversees all 16 spy agencies in the government.

The national security letters permit the executive branch to seek records about people in terror and spy investigations without a judge's approval or grand jury subpoena.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Whitman said Defense Department "counterintelligence investigators routinely coordinate ... with the FBI."

The national security letters have prompted criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who claim they invade the privacy of Americans' lives, even though banks and other financial institutions typically turn over the financial records voluntarily.

The New York Times reported on expanded use of the technique by the Pentagon and CIA in an article posted Saturday on the Internet.

The vast majority of national security letters are issued by the FBI, but in very rare circumstances they have been used by the CIA before and after 9/11, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

The CIA has used these non-compulsory letters in espionage investigations and other circumstances, the official said.

"It is very uncommon for the agency to be issuing these letters," the official said. "The agency has the authority to do so, and it is absolutely lawful."

Another government official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said one example of a case in which the letters were used was the 1994 case of CIA officer Aldrich Ames, who eventually was found to have been selling secrets to the Soviet Union.

None of the officials reached by the AP commented about the extent of use by the Defense Department agencies, but the Times said military intelligence officers have sent the letters in up to 500 investigations.

---

Associated Press Writer Katherine Shrader contributed to this report.











Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.




© 2007 IAC Search & Media. All rights reserved.

Gunmen Force Troops Off Border Watch

Gunmen Force Troops Off Border Watch
Gunmen Force National Guard Troops to Flee Observation Post Near Mexico Border
The Associated Press






TUCSON, Ariz. Jan 5, 2007 (AP)— National Guard troops at an observation post near the Mexico border were forced to flee a group of armed people, who later ran into Mexico, authorities said.

The troops, who are not allowed to apprehend illegal border crossers, withdrew safely and no one was injured, said National Guard Sgt. Edward Balaban.

U.S. Border Patrol officials are investigating the 11 p.m. Wednesday incident and trying to determine who the armed people were and why they approached the post near Sasabe, in the desert corridor between Nogales and Lukeville. Balaban said the troops didn't know how many people were involved because it was so dark.

That area has been the busiest in the Tucson Sector for marijuana seizures. Agents have seized 124,000 pounds of marijuana there since Oct. 1, said Rob Daniels, spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector.

"We don't know if this was a matter of somebody coming up accidentally on the individuals, coming up intentionally on the individuals, or some sort of a diversion," Daniels said.

With more Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops patrolling the Arizona section of the U.S.-Mexico border, it has become more difficult to smuggle drugs and people across and "that heightened frustration may have been connected to what took place last night," Daniels said.

Balaban said officials would investigate and then determine whether to change any procedures for troops at the border.

Since arriving in mid-June, the Guard has assisted the Border Patrol by manning control rooms, repairing roads, fences and vehicles, and spotting and reporting illegal border crossings to the Border Patrol. President Bush said last spring he would have up to 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to assist the Border Patrol.


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.












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Money clashes with mission

A TIMES INVESTIGATION
Money clashes with mission
The Gates Foundation invests heavily in sub-prime lenders and other businesses that undercut its good works.
By Charles Piller, Times Staff Writer
January 8, 2007









Seattle — WHEN the cold call came from Ameriquest Mortgage Co., a top lender, Jeff and Cheryl Busby were intrigued.

They had been wanting to renovate the garage of their small bungalow, a stone's throw from picturesque Green Lake. The agent, they said, promised that refinancing would give them $20,000 in cash, yet lower the monthly payments.

The agent was a smooth talker, and the Busbys were not concerned that he didn't offer them a chance to study the documents.

They later found that their interest rate was 11% — far too high. Assuming an honest mistake, the couple returned to Ameriquest. The agent said he would get them a better loan. Things moved so fast, they said, that they had no opportunity to read the dozens of pages of fine print.

The new terms were worse. The payments nearly equaled their entire income.

Ultimately, they sued, saying Ameriquest had invented a car sales business for Cheryl to improve her financial status, complete with a phony business card. Cheryl was 63 and had never sold a car in her life. Their lawsuit also said the agent had fabricated a higher income to "flip" the Busbys into a bigger loan, larded with illegal charges.

The Busbys couldn't make the payments and were forced to sell. The bungalow had been in Cheryl's family since 1935. It was where she had grown up and where her parents had died. It was 100% of the Busbys' retirement nest egg.

Now it was gone.

"It was a traumatic experience," Jeff Busby said, sitting with his wife in the small rented house where they ended up, awaiting the outcome of their lawsuit. Both talked at once, pouring their story out.

"Jeff went into the hospital for a month — a depression," Cheryl said, her eyes brimming. It was his first relapse of bipolar disorder in many years.

White-haired at 65, Jeff Busby still had the barrel chest of a former athlete who once played scratch golf, but he moved and talked nervously. Losing their home had taken a toll.

"I kind of went berserk," he said.

The Busbys found a lawyer through Cheryl's employer, Solid Ground, a Seattle nonprofit that counsels victims of predatory lenders. Since 1998, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded the nonprofit grants totaling $1.2 million. Yet at the end of last year, the Gates Foundation had more than $2 million invested in securities from Ameriquest.

The conflict is one of many that a Times investigation has found between the foundation's investments and its good works. The Gates Foundation reaps vast profits every year from companies whose actions contradict its mission of improving society in the United States and around the world, particularly the lot of people afflicted by poverty and disease.

The Times has found that the Gates Foundation had major investments in:

• Mortgage companies that were accused in lawsuits or by government officials of making it easier for thousands of people to lose their homes.

• A healthcare firm that has agreed to pay more than $1.5 billion to settle lawsuits accusing it of medical lapses and fraud going back a decade.

• Chocolate companies said by the U.S. government to be profiting from the slave labor of children.

Critics fault the Gates Foundation most for failing to use the power of its immense wealth to improve the behavior of the companies in which it invests. At the end of 2005, the foundation's endowment stood at $35 billion. In June 2006, Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion.

That $66 billion will give the Gates Foundation more than 10% of the assets of all of the charitable foundations in the United States and provide it with unmatched muscle and potential moral authority. Though it does a vast amount of good with its grants, the foundation declines to use its influence in efforts to reform companies whose business practices flout its goals.

The Gates Foundation did not respond to written questions about specific investments and whether it planned to change its investment policies. It maintains a strict firewall between those who invest its endowment and those who make its grants.

No lack of guidance

GUIDANCE is available for investors who want to avoid companies that behave irresponsibly.

For-profit services such as Calvert Group Ltd. and KLD Research & Analytics Inc. analyze corporate conduct for mutual funds, pension managers and other foundations, but the Gates Foundation does not use information from these services either to avoid investing in or to try to improve companies that engage in socially irresponsible behavior — even behavior that conflicts with the foundation's mission.

Neither do some other leading philanthropies. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, for instance, and the Pew Charitable Trusts invest to maximize funds for grants and vote proxies solely to increase a company's financial performance.

If the Hewlett Foundation created a large staff to monitor the social impact of its investments, said Eric Brown, the foundation's communications director, "The L.A. Times might call us and ask why we have so much overhead."

But the assets of the nation's charitable foundations have risen to a dizzying $511 billion. With such wealth will come closer scrutiny, said Douglas Bauer, senior vice president of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a nonprofit group that counsels foundations. "People are demanding a higher level of accountability."

The Gates Foundation has at least $224 million invested in companies dedicated to gambling, such as the Las Vegas Sands Corp., MGM Mirage Inc. and Penn National Gaming Inc.; or dedicated to alcoholic beverages, including the Tsingtao Brewery Co. in China, Kirin Brewery Co. in Japan, and the United Kingdom's Diageo, maker of Smirnoff vodka, Guinness beer and Johnnie Walker whiskey.

The foundation says it does use one investment screen — to avoid holdings in tobacco. Nonetheless, as of December 2005, it held at least $43 million worth of investments in companies tied directly to tobacco profits. They included Alcan Inc., one of the largest producers of cigarette packaging; and President Chain Store Corp., the Pantry Inc. and Seven & I Holdings Co., which earn a substantial part of their revenues from the sales of tobacco products.

The foundation did not respond to written questions about its investments in companies that profit from alcohol, gambling or tobacco.

The Ford Foundation also screens out tobacco companies, but no others. In part, said Linda Strumpf, its chief investment officer, that is because judging other far-flung, complex corporations that often mix beneficial activities with harmful ones can be a "slippery slope."

Unlike the Gates Foundation, however, Ford scrutinizes corporate behavior, then quietly pressures companies to change harmful polices. Strumpf said Ford voted on more than 600 shareholder proxies annually, including initiatives on climate change, AIDS, human rights and equal opportunity.

Monica Harrington, a senior policy officer for the Gates Foundation, said its investment managers voted proxies, but she did not respond to written questions about specifics. In May, she told the Chronicle of Philanthropy that the Gates Foundation did not get involved in proxy issues.

In addition, Ford has invested $375 million of its endowment in ways that directly support its charitable mission. "You can have more influence as an owner," Strumpf said.

One example of such influence was the effort in the 1980s and '90s to force the ruling regime in South Africa to end racial oppression. Hundreds of municipal and state governments, universities and other institutional investors divested from companies with South African operations that refused to adopt the Sullivan Principles, a code of conduct meant to end workforce discrimination and segregation. The stand the investors took was a key factor in ending apartheid.

A more contemporary example is the Carbon Disclosure Project. Investors controlling assets of $31.5 trillion have collectively pressured 940 large companies to provide detailed data on greenhouse-gas emissions. The project uses the responses to spur improvement on climate change.

Most advocates of these approaches are less provocateurs than hard-nosed investors.

"Although we have ethical and moral principles, we argue the business case," said Lance Lindblom, president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. In the long run, he said, beneficial practices accrue to the bottom line. "The approach that we take is really about our long-term, sustainable profit interests."

As more information on investment practices comes to light, said Paul Hawken, who runs the Natural Capital Institute, an investment research group, it will be hard for large foundations to ignore the effects of their investments. "A foundation in this way is like any other business. It will be held accountable. [Simply] getting the highest return is what got us into this mess."

Its size gives the Gates Foundation an unmatched ability to steer the debate on foundation investments. Starting in 2009, when outlays of Buffett's donations begin, it will give away $3.5 billion each year — nearly equal to the total assets of the legendary Rockefeller Foundation.

Bauer said he had this message for the Gates Foundation and others that invest with a blind eye to the consequences: Good returns from bad companies can cancel out the beneficial effects of grants.

"In the extreme example, it would be a wash," he said. "Trustees should say to themselves: 'As we think about the work that we are trying to do with this foundation, which ultimately should contribute to the public good, we should be making sure that everything we do is aligned to the mission, including the investments we make.' "

'Fraud follows money'

LONG before the Gates Foundation's investment in Ameriquest, the mortgage lender had become known for high-pressure sales tactics, forged documents, hidden costs, stiff prepayment rules and rushed closings, such as the ones that Jeff and Cheryl Busby said cost them their home.

In January 2006, ACC Capital Holdings Corp., which owns Ameriquest, settled a class-action suit with 49 states and the District of Colombia. Without admitting wrongdoing, the firm agreed to pay $295 million to customers who had borrowed money between 1999 and 2005.

"Doing the right thing for the people we serve has always been one of our core values," said Aseem Mital, the company's chief executive. "We regret those occasions when our associates have not met this ideal."

Ameriquest declined to comment on the Busby lawsuit.

Cheryl Busby's employer, Solid Ground, is one of many groups that have gotten money from the Gates Foundation to fight housing instability and homelessness. Since its inception, the foundation has awarded at least $48 million in such grants.

Indeed, it has made housing a top priority in its Pacific Northwest giving. The foundation has funded so many shelters and services that if a map of Seattle were a dartboard, almost any toss could hit a Gates-supported program.

Similarly, Ameriquest is only one of many lenders in which the Gates Foundation has invested that have contributed to housing instability. Like Ameriquest, these lenders offer so-called sub-prime loans, designed for borrowers who have credit problems that disqualify them from conventional prime loans.

Sub-prime loans can be a way for less creditworthy Americans to become homeowners, and sometimes sub-prime lenders provide a valuable service.

But they often give higher-interest sub-prime loans to borrowers who could qualify for standard loans. During the recent housing bubble, sub-prime lending grew until it accounted for more than a fifth of all residential loans, according to National Mortgage News, an industry publication.

"Fraud follows money. It always has," said Chuck Cross, who until recently directed consumer services for the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions.

Numerous studies have shown that it is not uncommon for unscrupulous sub-prime lenders to target minority borrowers — or seniors, such as the Busbys.

Growth in the sub-prime industry has been fueled by the practice of bundling loans and selling them like bonds. Investment banks have bought billions of dollars' worth of sub-prime loans, freeing predators to bilk new victims.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, federally chartered corporations, are the biggest investors in sub-prime loans, according to Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication. Together, Cecala said, they buy about one-third of all sub-prime securities issued by major lenders, including Ameriquest.

Several experts call Fannie and Freddie key enablers of sub-prime excesses. "What are they doing," Cross asked rhetorically, "buying loans from a company that just suffered the second-biggest predatory-lending settlement in history?"

Fannie Mae has said it never supports predatory lending. Freddie Mac has said it refuses "to do business with financial institutions that engage in predatory lending."

Federal investigators, however, have found that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have failed to meet industry standards of ethics. In 2003, the investigators said, "Freddie Mac cast aside accounting rules, internal controls, disclosure standards, and the public trust in the pursuit of steady earnings growth."

In 2004, the investigators nabbed Fannie Mae in one of the biggest accounting scandals ever: It recently reduced its previously announced earnings by $6.3 billion.

"We consider the whole industry suspect," said Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition, a group of more than 240 nonprofits and public agencies that studies financial agencies.

Nonetheless, as of December 2005, the Gates Foundation had at least $367 million invested in the stocks, bonds or securities of 20 of the top 25 sub-prime lenders and other large sub-prime companies. These included companies involved in the four largest class-action settlements for sub-prime abuses.

The foundation also holds nearly $1.9 billion worth of stocks and securities issued by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Overall, Gates Foundation investments in the sub-prime companies or their securities totaled more than $2.2 billion in 2005.

The Gates Foundation did not respond to written questions about its investments in Ameriquest and in the sub-prime lending industry or about that industry's effects on housing instability.

Problematic profits

FEW Gates Foundation investments more sharply contradict its emphasis on human welfare than its holdings in a hospital firm accused of unneeded surgeries for profit or its holdings in companies accused of buying supplies produced by the slave labor of children.

The hospital firm, Tenet Healthcare Corp., has a history of scandals, lawsuits, federal raids for fraud, kickbacks and patient-care lapses going back more than a decade. Although in most cases the company denied wrongdoing, since 2003, Tenet has agreed to pay more than $1.5 billion in settlements.

The Gates Foundation held $58 million in Tenet bonds in 2002, the year Tenet paid $56 million on charges of Medicare fraud. The same year, Tenet faced a major scandal at its Redding, Calif., hospital, which was accused of hundreds of unneeded heart surgeries to boost profits.

It settled federal charges in that case for $54 million.

Bonds from a troubled company can offer high returns despite scandals, as long as the company stays in business. In 2003, the Gates Foundation increased its Tenet bond holdings to $89 million.

In addition, the foundation bought Tenet stock worth about $80 million.

In 2004, Tenet settled lawsuits brought by patients and their loved ones in the Redding scandal. It agreed to pay $395 million.

"This settlement is the fair and honorable way to conclude this very sad chapter," said Trevor Fetter, Tenet's chief executive. "We are building a new Tenet on a solid foundation of quality, transparency, compliance and integrity."

Eighteen months later, Tenet settled new federal charges of Medicare fraud for $900 million. It was the second-largest such settlement ever.

"Some of this company's past actions did not measure up to the high standards that we have imposed on ourselves since these issues first arose," Fetter says now. "But these challenges galvanized us to make necessary changes."

Tenet shares slid in 2004, and the Gates Foundation sold its stock. As of the end of 2005, however, it still held $10 million in Tenet bonds.

The Gates Foundation did not respond to written questions about its investments in Tenet or about the accusations of fraud and lapses in care.

Forced child labor

THE Gates Foundation, which awards much of its money to help children, has benefited from a $2.1-billion stake in companies cited by the services that analyze corporate conduct because the companies have been accused of violating human rights, including the rights of children.

Since 2005, for example, the Gates Foundation held investments totaling $189 million in four large chocolate makers: $146 million in Archer Daniels Midland Co.; $26 million in Nestle; $12 million in Cadbury Schweppes, the world's largest confectionary maker; and $5 million in Kraft Foods Inc.

All four companies publicly support sustainable cocoa farming, responsible pesticide use and nonabusive labor practices. All participate in the International Cocoa Initiative to keep production environmentally safe and free of child labor.

Nonetheless, all four firms buy much of their cocoa from West Africa, where 70% of the world's cocoa is grown. A 2002 report by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, a group supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, said 284,000 children in West Africa, many younger than 14, worked in the cocoa industry under hazardous conditions.

They included 200,000 children in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer. "Countless numbers of children have been trafficked to slave on Cote d'Ivoire's many cocoa plantations," a U.S. State Department report said this year.

The U.S. Labor Department said: "Children working as forced labor on these farms describe being deceived, coerced and threatened by adult intermediaries and employers; working between 10-20 hours per day with few or no breaks under hazardous conditions; and being confined to locked rooms at night."

In addition to the children trafficked as slaves, many were working under hazardous conditions on their own parents' small farms. The four chocolate companies said they were committed to eliminating all abusive child labor.

U.S. lawmakers, however, threatened trade sanctions unless the industry set standards to check and certify cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, and label chocolate so buyers could be assured that farms producing cocoa were being monitored against child labor. All four firms support the program.

The deadline passed, though, and no certification program had been implemented. A new deadline to establish a certification system and apply it to half of the cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana was set for July 2008.

In 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund sued Nestle, Archer Daniels Midland and another chocolate producer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on behalf of three children from Mali who said they were taken from their homes and brought to Ivory Coast as slaves. The lawsuit, filed for "thousands" of children who allegedly suffered the same fate, said the companies failed to use their power to control suppliers.

The companies denied any liability. Nestle spokeswoman Barb Skoog told the Reuters news agency: "Obviously, we strongly believe it is important to make sure that cocoa is grown responsibly without abusive labor practices."

The lawsuit is pending.

The Gates Foundation did not respond to written questions about its investments in the chocolate makers or about concerns that their products had been produced using child slaves.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
charles.piller@latimes.com

*

Times staff writer Doug Smith, data analyst Sandra Poindexter and researchers Maloy Moore and Robin Mayper contributed to this report.

*

(Begin Text of Infobox)

$367 million

Gates Foundation investments in stocks, bonds or securities of 20 of the top 25 sub-prime lenders and other large sub-prime companies.

$1.9 billion

The amount of stocks and securities the foundation holds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

$2.2 billion

The foundation's overall investments in sub-prime companies or their securities in 2005.

*

Source: Gates Foundation 2005 tax returns

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Gates Foundation

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Employees: 300

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Trustees: Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren E. Buffett*

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Assets

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Total: $65.95 billion**

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Asset ranking, compared to national GDP: 56th (below Kuwait and above Bangladesh; higher than all sub-Saharan African nations except South Africa and Nigeria)

Asset ranking, compared with corporations ranked by market capitalization: 89th

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Grants

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Total grants since inception: $13.02 billion

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Global health: $7.79 billion / Global development: $631 million / U.S. programs: $4.58 billion / Other: $15 million

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*Buffett intends to join the Board of Trustees this year.

**2005 Gates Foundation endowment of $34.95 billion (includinginvestments loaned under secured lending transactions), plus $31billion in projected donations from Buffett announced in 2006

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Sources: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, International Monetary Fund,Yahoo Finance

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Top 10 U.S. foundations

By total assets, in billions

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: $65.95//Ford Foundation: $11.61//Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: $9.11//Lilly Endowment:$8.35//W.K. Kellogg Foundation*:$7.30//William and Flora Hewlett Foundation:$7.12//David and Lucile Packard Foundation:$5.79//Andrew W. Mellon Foundation:$5.50//John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation:$5.36//Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation:$5.20

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Note: 2005 figures; Gates Foundation is $34.95 billion (including investments loaned under secured lending transactions), plus $31 billion in projected donations from Warren E. Buffett announced in 2006.

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*Figure is for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Trust.

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Sources: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Chronicle of Philanthropy

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--

About this series

This series is based on more than 90 interviews and hundreds of documents, including thousands of pages of Gates Foundation grant descriptions and policies, evaluation reports, tax forms, filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission through September 2006, and lists of endowment holdings from 2002 through 2005.

Information was used from four leading services that provide guidance for investors regarding corporate performance: Calvert Group Ltd., Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, KLD Research & Analytics Inc. and Oekom Research. None of the companies was directly involved in The Times' assessment of the Gates Foundation portfolio; they have taken no position on The Times' conclusions.

The research groups consider companies in context and weigh their efforts to improve. The Times tally of Gates investments in companies that contradict its goals included only those firms that were ranked among the worst by the investment rating services.

Companies among the 100 highest-polluting in the United States were derived from rankings by the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute. These rankings consider total air pollution released, toxicity of pollutants and the number of people at risk of exposure. The top 50 polluters in Canada were rated by the trade publication Corporate Knights, based largely on the University of Massachusetts approach.

The Times used several studies that reviewed or evaluated actions of the pharmaceutical industry regarding intellectual property rights, patents and drug pricing in developing nations. A preliminary list of relevant companies was drawn up using studies or evaluations conducted by Innovest, KLD, Oekom, the nonprofit medical group Doctors Without Borders, and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors that includes religious groups, pension funds, endowments, hospital corporations and colleges.

The list was refined and validated in interviews with experts and through a review of more than 40 technical papers and analyses, including studies by the World Bank and the World Health Organization. Those sources were supplemented with reports and announcements from the pharmaceutical companies and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a leading trade group.

Companies in the sub-prime industry were compiled from National Mortgage News and Inside Mortgage Finance, leading trade publications.

Information about proxies was gathered from the EthVest database, sponsored by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The data were supplemented by interviews with officials from various foundations.

The overall figures in this series may significantly understate the volume of Gates Foundation investments that tend to conflict with its charitable goals. The Gates Foundation did not provide details for approximately $4.3 billion of investments it characterizes as loans.

For details, see latimes.com/gatesabout.















Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

Pentagon Abandons Active-Duty Time Limit

Jan 11, 8:46 PM EST
Pentagon Abandons Active-Duty Time Limit
By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer





WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.

The day after President Bush announced his plan for a deeper U.S. military commitment in Iraq, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the change in reserve policy would have been made anyway because active-duty troops already were getting too little time between their combat tours.

The Pentagon also announced it is proposing to Congress that the size of the Army be increased by 65,000, to 547,000 and that the Marine Corps, the smallest of the services, grow by 27,000, to 202,000, over the next five years. No cost estimate was provided, but officials said it would be at least several billion dollars.

Until now, the Pentagon's policy on the Guard or Reserve was that members' cumulative time on active duty for the Iraq or Afghan wars could not exceed 24 months. That cumulative limit is now lifted; the remaining limit is on the length of any single mobilization, which may not exceed 24 consecutive months, Pace said.

In other words, a citizen-soldier could be mobilized for a 24-month stretch in Iraq or Afghanistan, then demobilized and allowed to return to civilian life, only to be mobilized a second time for as much as an additional 24 months. In practice, Pace said, the Pentagon intends to limit all future mobilizations to 12 months.

Members of the Guard combat brigades that have served in Iraq in recent years spent 18 months on active duty - about six months in pre-deployment training in the United States, followed by about 12 months in Iraq. Under the old policy, they could not be sent back to Iraq because their cumulative time on active duty would exceed 24 months. Now that cumulative limit has been lifted, giving the Pentagon more flexibility.

The new approach, Pace said, is to squeeze the training, deployment and demobilization into a maximum of 12 months. He called that a "significant planning factor" for Guard and Reserve members and their families.

David Chu, the Pentagon's chief of personnel, said in an interview that he thinks Guard and Reserve members will be cheered by the decision to limit future mobilizations to 12 months. The fact that some with previous Iraq experience will end up spending more than 24 months on active duty is "no big deal," Chu said, because it has been "implicitly understood" by most that they eventually would go beyond 24 months.

A senior U.S. military official who briefed reporters Thursday on Iraq-related developments said that by next January, the Pentagon "probably will be calling again" on National Guard combat brigades that previously served yearlong tours in Iraq. Under Pentagon ground rules, the official could not be further identified.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing with Pace, announced several other changes in Guard and Reserve policy:

-Although the Pentagon's goal is to mobilize Guard and Reserve units no more frequently than one year out of six, the demands of wartime will require calling up some units more often than that. They provided no details on how many units would be remobilized at the faster pace or when that would begin to happen.

Army officials had been saying for some time that more frequent mobilizations were necessary because the active-duty force is being stretched too thin. Gates' announcement is the first confirmation of the change.

-To allow for more cohesion among Guard and Reserve units sent into combat, they will be deployed as whole units, rather than as partial units or as individuals plugged into a unit they do not normally train with.

-Extra pay will be provided for Guard and Reserve troops who are required to mobilize more than once in six years; active-duty troops who get less than two years between overseas deployments also will get extra pay. Details were not provided.

-Military commanders will review their administration of a hardship waiver program "to ensure that they have properly taken into account exceptional circumstances facing military families of deployed service members."

As part of Bush's plan for boosting U.S. troop strength in Iraq, a brigade of National Guard soldiers from Minnesota will have its yearlong tour in Iraq extended by 125 days, to the end of July, and a Patriot missile battalion will be sent to the Persian Gulf next month, the Army said Thursday.

Maj. Randy Taylor, a spokesman for the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, at Fort Bliss, Texas, said the Patriot unit was aware of the announced deployment. He said no formal order had been received Thursday.

The dispatching of a Patriot missile battery, capable of defending against shorter-range ballistic missile attacks, appeared linked to Bush's announcement Wednesday that he ordered an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, which would be in easy reach of Iran, whose nuclear program is a U.S. concern.

Navy officials said the carrier heading to the Gulf region is the USS John C. Stennis, which previously had been in line to deploy to the Pacific. It was not clear Thursday how the Pentagon intended to compensate in the Pacific for the absence of the Stennis in that region, where a chief worry is North Korea.

The Marines announced that two infantry units - the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment - will stay in Iraq 60 to 90 days longer than scheduled. That will enable the Marines to have a total of eight infantry battalions in western Anbar province, instead of the current six, by February. Once the 60- to 90-day extension is over, an additional two battalions will be sent in early from their U.S. bases.

Also, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which combines infantry with a helicopter squadron and a logistics battalion, totaling about 2,200 Marines, will stay in Anbar for 45 more days.

Those extensions conform with Bush's announcement that he was ordering 4,000 more Marines to Anbar.

The military tries to avoid extending combat tours and sending forces earlier than planned because it disrupts the lives of troops and their families and makes it harder for the services to get all troops through the education and training programs they need for promotions. But in this case it was deemed unavoidable.

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