School Bus Drivers Join the Terror Watch

 NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- The war on terror has a new front line - the school bus line. Financed by the Homeland Security Department, school bus drivers are being trained to watch for potential terrorists, people who may be casing their routes or plotting to blow up their buses.

Designers of the School Bus Watch program want to turn 600,000 bus drivers into an army of observers, like a counterterrorism watch on wheels. Already mindful of motorists with road rage and kids with weapons, bus drivers are now being warned of far more grisly scenarios.

Like this one: terrorists monitor a punctual driver for weeks, then hijack a bus and load the friendly yellow vehicle with enough explosives to take down a building.

An alert school bus driver could foil that plan, security expert Jeffrey Beatty recently told a class of 250 of drivers in Norfolk, Va. After all, bus drivers cover millions of miles of roads. They know the towns, the kids, the parents.

"The terrorist is not going to be able to do some of their casing and rehearsal activity without being detected by one of you," said Beatty, an anti-terrorism veteran of the CIA, FBI and the Army's Delta Force. The more people watching, he told the drivers, the safer the community will be.

With bus drivers becoming informal intelligence gatherers, the reach of homeland security is growing - not exactly what parents think of when their kids head to the bus stop.
...more

  This is the kind of nonsense I'm talking about that needs attention right now. I want to know how the Democrat Party approaches this issue. If anyone can find some candidates to ask, please do and get back to me on this.

  This is a new part of a $50,000,000.00 program that has been in effect since 2003. If it's needed, I want to know why and the 'why' should come with credible evidence. If the Democratic Party doesn't endorse this program I would like to know what they are doing to change it.

  If it could be done, would the Democrat Party work within an association greater than itself as a supportive an active member? It would require sharing a platform equally with Independent parties and individuals to work together in achieving larger common goals.

  Would this be possible or would it require that only the dem party to make all of the rules? An association that focused on issues/policies/people rather than candidates in particular would allow us to work together to address critical issues that we now face. Diversity of specific opinion would be encouraged within the association but some common ground that would benefit everyone would be required.

  Is it possible?

  This comes as no surprise to some of us. The wiretapping issue is serious and deserves the attention it gets but there are other programs far more dangerous.

  Here are a few realities we have come to accept so far.

Every noncash purchase we make is recorded electronically in detail.

All personal medical and financial information is highly detailed, documented, archived, profiled, owned and brokered by several different private companies

Our telecommunications(phone calls) and email are documented, archived, available for sale, wiretapped, profiled and marketed.

Our internet search records have been recorded and archived by the various search engines and that data is archived in databases.

Our blog entries, comments, website form data, and similar thoughts are recorded in electronic digital format and stored by the entities that own the sites we interact on.

Our ISP services keep detailed records of all of our online activities

  This is only a partial list and each of us could easily add more to the understanding of how everything we do is somehow documented and stored for future reference. We have come to accept this in several ways while some methods have been forced on us. Profiles are created for marketing purposes to make our lives easier. Storing favorite bookmarks, targeted content, preferences, newsletter lists, book topic announcements, alerts and again more ways than I can list here.

  I have mentioned in comments here before the possible scenario of being turned down for a loan or other application based on a summary of the applicant's internet browser history log. It's not tinfoil terroitory and the threat of wrongfull prosecution by misperception of data is with us. The evolution and development of software to conduct data analysis through deep data mining enables the govt and/or private companies to connect all of the dots in our lives based on the factors they choose to profile.

Check out the power of this program called ADVISE

Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far?
The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.

The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.

"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."

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A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity.

What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building.

  Here In Reality has some information on one of the architects responsible for this ability

...That day, John M. Poindexter was appointed Director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office.

Who's John Poindexter?
A retired Navy Admiral, John Poindexter lost his job as National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal. [1]  

What's the Information Awareness Office (IAO)?
It's a new office created by the Pentagon agency DARPA after 9/11 to gather intelligence through electronic sources like the internet, phone, and fax lines.   [2]

Why did John Poindexter get the job?
He was the Vice President of Syntek Technologies, a government contractor.  Syntek and Poindexter worked for years with DARPA to develop Genoa, a surveillance device that's a combination cutting-edge search engine, sophisticated information harvesting program", and a "peer-to-peer" file sharing system.  Kind of a military-grade Google/Napster for use in instant analysis of electronic data.

So John Poindexter, along with Oliver North and many others, went behind President Reagan's back (supposedly) and sold weapons to the Iranians (illegally), then took the money they made and funneled it to the brutal "Contra" army that they built in Central America (also illegally). See [1] [3]

  It should be noted that while outrage and debate have been known concerning felons voting, it appears acceptable to give GOP hero felons the keys to the jail. It's crucial to remember that a large percentage of voters consider these guys heros and it would be no shock to see more of North pushing for total surveillance and votes, both.

  This isn't exclusively a govt trust issue involved. It's crucial to consider that these programs are run by private contractors.

  There's another iceberg called Starlight

  DHS to upgrade enforcement systems
Sytel, based in Bethesda, Md., led a team that received a task order under ICE's Starlight contract to carry out the Enforcement Systems Program. The task order includes an initial $6.5 million base year and as many as five option years that could bring the value of the contract to as much as $34 million, EDS said.

EDS will operate under a subcontract to provide planning, maintenance, development, help desk, database and operations support for the following systems:
---

• Enforcement Integrated Database, a central repository for enforcement data


• Apprehension Booking Module, a system for capturing data on illegal alien activity and supporting DHS programs to arrest, detain and deport aliens


• Worksite Enforcement Activity Reporting System, also known as Lynx, which stores and retrieves data about employers who violate immigration laws


• Criminal Alien Investigation System, which automates investigation work related to deportation cases


• Deportable Alien Control System, which automates ICE's deportable alien tracking


• General Counsel Electronic Management system, a case management system for ICE attorneys


• Detention and Removal Operations Program Support, which automates investigations flagged by the interagency Joint Terrorist Task Forces as high profile or related to terrorist activity.

  Now, I think the issue is how the govt can manipulate all of our information to create a threat profile in order to prosecute any one of us. However, in light of the 'tinfoillly' nature of this subject, I have one other suggestion.

FBI internet surveillance: Is oversight possible?
Wait a second.  In this AP article on how the FBI's Carnivore's internet wiretap software has been replaced by "superior" commercial wiretap software....

From the same site, just for the appreciation of all things tinfoilly...
File this one under bizarre, but POGO pal LC was listening to the Starlight Mints, an Oklahoma band often compared to the Flaming Lips, and noticed that Track 5 of one of their CDs is titled, "Valerie Flames." 

This diary is not comprehensive on the subject and intended only as a means to encourage either individual research or surrender.

  If the democrats want to win based in part on fiscal responsibility, stop wasting our tax dollars to screw us into submission. At least get competitive bidding when you sell us out.

  I'm not even going to bother writing a diary that will go without comment.

  Here's the test...

  If you hear your comments, opinions or ideas repeated in the MSM or any of BushCo entities, then consider yourself Punk'd. Debate free speech vs responsibility or one religion against another, in the context of the cartoon, and the Rovian Neocons own you.

  Understand that this was their desired result of their manipulation of you.

  Your choice now is to decide which level of tactical nuke to use against Iran because that's exactly where you're headed.

  This is currently in hearings on C-Span with Rummy and some of the crew. Before I launch into an exhaustive diary of the subject, is this the same process that approves covert military domestic surveillance operations we talked about in earlier diaries?

  Ok, 2 questions. If it is and there are better diaries already done, can one be bumped up to the top to restart that particular topic?

  My empathy and support to SusanHu here and the nasty predicament her aquaintance(s) have found themselves in. I had mentioned here in comments before some of the first ones that were brought in. I agree that there are many questionable circumstances surrounding these arrests and other have/are doing thorough diaries.

  I just wanted to take a minute to bring something else to attention concerning the entire matter.

PETA Deserves Close FBI Scrutiny

PETA Deserves Close FBI Scrutiny, Says Consumer Group
Animal Rights Organization Has a History of Funding and Supporting Domestic- Terror Groups

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 PRNewswire -- FBI investigations into the activities of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which were recently publicized by the American Civil Liberties Union, are entirely justified and serve to protect the public from animal-rights violence, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom said today. PETA's history of offering both financial and rhetorical support to FBI-designated "domestic terror" threat groups -- including the violent Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) -- has made it a logical and important subject for in-depth scrutiny by federal law enforcement.

"Given PETA's deplorable behavior and outright support of terrorist violence, it would be scandalous if the FBI were not aggressively investigating the group," said Center for Consumer Freedom Director of Research David Martosko. "PETA has chosen time and time again to make common cause with the most violent elements of the animal rights movement. It's outrageous that PETA is now playing the victim and complaining about the consequences of its actions."

PETA has provided the FBI with numerous reasons to open a formal investigation, including:

...list at site linked above

  This tenuous connection is identical to the cause given for some renditions and detentions.

 This may have been done before but I thought it would be relevant to post for anyone that may have missed it.

  I'm no genius but I can usually get a hint when someone is trying to pull a fast one. I'm not always right on it and I can be very dupable if the deception falls in line with what I want to believe. Good deception always includes some truth in it. Maybe it's a matter of what we don't want to believe that sets us up as suckers or an easy mark. Some people feel intimaidated by confidence, others by education, money or stature. I'm sure the fear of doubting those who are supposed to be more knowledgeable can also be a factor.

  One thing that enables a deception is denying common sense. The con can make any far-fetched claim somehow sound believable. Stretch the truth until it's ready to snap and the victim will rush to rescue the liar when the con's hurt shows from the victim's waning loyalty. Another effective method is to shame or insult someone into submission.

  It's a matter of being played for a fool. The manipulation of the victim's feelings cover a wide range of guilt, false compliments, laying out breadcrumbs so the dupe will proudly discover the prize at the end of the trail.  

  Do you ever bother to question the value of the goal and whether or not you're being duped into pursuing something totally false?

  Do you ever stop to consider how gullible you are?

  Free your disbeliefs for a moment and speculate how you might act if, for whatever reason, you find yourself involved in a crime. ... what would happen afterwards?

  If you found yourself in possession of stolen credit cards from a recent crime victim, would you....

1. Stop at a nearby gas station to use the card so quickly that police had not arrived at the crime scen yet?

2. Take precautions to conceal your identity on subsequent uses of the card,...say, maybe wearing different clothes?

3. Be aware of any security cameras in use?

4. Continue to try the card after it had been denied?

5. Wonder why your picture from security cameras, wearing the same clothes, was on TV?

6. Go to the local police station to ask them why that picture was on TV and what they wanted you for?...wearing the same clothes?

  Tice was a guest on Hackball with C Matthews and several tendencies were noticed in Matthews' questions. I can update later when a transcript is available.

  One thing is clear and that's Chris Matthews will give the president unlimited power and excuses simply due to the tragedy of 9/11. He was tougher on Tice than he has been on others and treated Tice like a convicted criminal rather than respect his patriotism. This is not new for Matthews but he crossed another line tonight.

  I've noticed that Matthews' usual ploy of invoking 9/11 and using it to dismiss administration responsibility also coincides with his demands for accountability from non-admin sources.

  If he, and others, would demand the accountability the people never received for the unanswered questions of 9/11 then folks like Tice would not be put in the dilemma that BushCo puts them in.

  9/11 changed everything and is the main excuse for any action that BushCo and other politicians want to justify. None of them have given 9/11 the proper investigation due a criminal act as it was.

  If 9/11 didn't happen as it's told to us that it happened then those are the questions of accountability that need answered first. The answers will remove most justification for the illegal acts of Bush and his minions. This is how Matthews and others similar to him need to be dealt with. If it's not done, nothing will detract from the growing police state we live in. Any violation of law or act against humanity will be falsely justified by the legend of 9/11.

  How much do you think the GOP pays Matthews to act like that?

  oh yeah, almost forgot. Did anyone catch him yesterday when he was so proud that he looked up the lobby laws?

  I'm looking for honest input to get an idea of where people are on some serious issues. These affect nearly all decisions that will help form our future. If you can, take a few minutes and answer any or all with as little or as much information you care to contribute.

GOP Scandal Tied To Iran-Contra Drug Trafficking

1. Has the Intelligence Agency(ies) been responsible for the creation and existence of al Qaeda and other groups?

2. Has IA been responsible for covert funding of operations through illegal means, such as drugs, gambling or other nonrecordable activities?

3. Has IA shifted their financing into high tech software and internet industries? Is this part of the syndicate financing the Abramoff scandal?

4. Did IA and justice departments have the 9/11 suspects either under surveillance or working as operatives or both?

5. Are the majority of claimed WOT arrests and convictions based on false evidence and actually keeping relatively innocent people wrongly jailed?

6. Is the WOT actually a way to cover up or silence witnesses from covert operations and activities in the past?

7. In all of the above, has it been a history of other countries' IA working in partnership with US on these matters?

8. Would it do more harm than good to investigate all of this?

9. Is Miles O'Brien from CNN a Mockingbird and used to explain away the airline attacks in the past as well as covering the WOT/bin Laden stories?

10. Did you know it's recently been put into law as a prosecutable offense to 'annoy under an anonymous name' on the internet?

CIA announces technology venture capital

Name: Content Analyst Co.

Location: Reston

Robert Liscouski is president and chief executive of Content Analyst.

Funding: Company has raised about $7 million from the private equity firm Content Investors of Minneapolis and Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego.

Big idea: Content Analyst acquired the rights to a text analytics tool from SAIC and has continued its development. The tool, originally developed from patents held by Bell Labs, automates the analysis of unstructured information in databases. Robert P. Liscouski, president and chief executive, said he is concentrating on targeting commercial markets, including opinion and market research, online essay scoring, and content aggregation. "Our core technology is latent semantic indexing," Liscouski said. "Its a technique that allows us to identify relationships between words so we can come up with meanings for terms that would ordinarily have to be predefined."

How it works: The tool is inserted into the work flow that controls data streams coming into an organization. It examines new data and puts it into categories, Liscouski said. It's multilingual so a user is not required to set up a thesaurus or a dictionary or translate the query or the data being examined. The system uses algorithms to identify relevant information automatically and is able to pick out information of emerging importance.

"It's driven by the data that you give it," said Lois Dickey, chief operating officer. "Most tools require that there be a taxonomy [a system of classification] generated by subject matter experts. It's driven by the data itself, which is a huge labor savings."

Example of use: The tool can be used by the intelligence and homeland security communities and by civilian agencies, systems integrators, and the commercial market. "Government work is where we have market space, but our real growth area is commercial work," Liscouski said.

Big-name customer: Ebsco Publishing; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, a division of Harcourt Classroom Education Co.; SAIC; the National Science Foundation; the Education Department; and In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital operation.

  These are the people that are collecting and sifting the logfiles created by other programs such as Webtrends, the private company owned by the Francisco Partners that use the intelligent pixel form on the NSA sight.

  The CIA Venture arm isn't anything new. They announced it in 1999.

Meet The CIA's Venture Capitalist

The enterprise was started in 1999 as a way for the government to tap into Silicon Valley's tech boom. At the time, businesses were spending millions on new technologies, and startups neither knew how nor particularly cared to deal with the Defense Dept. or intelligence agencies.

BUSY MIDDLEMAN.  The CIA wanted to change this and get a window into what engineers were doing. The agency figured the best way to do that was by flashing a little cash. Then the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, put In-Q-Tel's mission on the front burner for folks both in the Valley and Washington, D.C. The outfit was flooded with business plans, and its budget and staff increased dramatically -- a necessary step.

On the government side, the lack of communication among various intelligence divisions was painfully obvious, and new technology was needed to solve that. On the startup side, few knew how to deal with the feds. In-Q-Tel was the middleman. "Our deal flow went up by a factor of five," Louie says.

In just six years, the Arlington (Va.) venture, which also has offices in Menlo Park, Calif., has invested in 77 transactions. Last year, it completed a deal about every other week, each ranging in size from $500,000 to $3 million. By comparison, a typical venture-capital firm does about a dozen deals a year.   Many of the startups credit In-Q-Tel for helping them get a foothold in the federal world. "It's hard to be an 18-person organization and have government entities see you as useful," says Jeff Jonas, chief scientist at Analytic Solutions, which IBM (IBM ) acquired in January, 2005.

CLOSER SCRUTINY.  Jonas' company makes software that helps organizations ferret out corrupt people -- a natural fit for the government, Jonas thought. But he wasn't able to get any traction until In-Q-Tel decided to invest in Analytic Solutions five years ago. After the deal, some 70% of his business was in government contracts -- which helped attract Big Blue's eye.

As In-Q-Tel's investments grow, so does public scrutiny. The venture is always walking a fine line between the public and private sector. Set up as a nonprofit, it invests taxpayer money with all decisions about where to reinvest being made by an independent board of trustees. All of the proceeds go back to In-Q-Tel to fund new companies, but not a dollar moves before copious reports are filed.

Compensating the CIA's dealmakers is a trickier issue. Typically venture capitalists get a salary and a hefty stake in the returns from companies they fund. To be competitive, In-Q-Tel had to do something similar. And, Louie says, having some skin in the game keeps staffers motivated to do the best deals. So from 20% to 40% of an employee's salary goes into a mandatory fund. For every $3 invested in a company, $1 from an employee fund is also invested.

  Don't you feel better knowing that personal  information sharing is a profit-making arm of our intelligence departments? Everyone involved in those industries has a financial stake in collecting as many obscure details about our lives as possible and showing the need for it by producing results in threat prevention, whether it's genuine or not.

  As with the NSA cookie crumbling, it's not the danger to privacy that other techniques are.
NetIQ Expands Web Analytics Reporting Offerings with WebTrends Reporting Center
   WebTrends Reporting Center improves and extends the features of WebTrends' flagship reporting product and includes three new editions--the eBusiness Edition, the Enterprise Edition and the Service Provider Edition--designed to deliver the features and functionality required for customers that range from mid-market businesses to large enterprises and service providers. NetIQ also released today the WebTrends  Data Collection Server, providing organizations with client-side data  collection for the most accurate and complete view of visitor behavior across geographical areas or multiple domains. NetIQ also made available Data Conduits for Content Management Systems for WebTrends Reporting Center, which integrate web visitor behavioral data with content management systems.

  Here is why this is important. The following is a sample TOS of an average site.

 Cookies; Pixel Tags

Pharmavite reserves the right at any time to collect anonymous, non-personal information about your use of this site through the use of "cookies" and pixel tags.

"Cookies" are pieces of information that a Web site sends to your computer and puts on your computer's hard drive while you are viewing the Web site. "Cookies" allow us to know how often someone visits our site and the activities they conduct while on our site (such as the places you visited, etc.). "Cookies" can also be used to store personal preferences for your convenience and to track user trends and patterns. The information collected by "cookies" can help us better understand and improve areas of this site and our products that our users find valuable.

Cookies alone do not tell us your e-mail address or other personally identifiable information. However, once you choose to provide us with personally identifiable information, such information may be linked to the data stored in the "cookie."

Your browser software can be set to reject all "cookies" or to warn you each time a cookie is being sent. You do this through your browser (like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer) settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser's Help menu to learn the correct way to reject "cookies" or receive warnings about "cookies." If you reject our "cookies," certain of the functions and conveniences of our site may not work properly, but you do not have to accept our "cookies" to productively use our site.

Sponsors, partners or advertisers on this site may also use their own "cookies" when you click on their advertisement or link to their site or service. Pharmavite does not control these third parties' use of "cookies" or how they manage the information they gather from your visit to their sites. We recommend that you review the privacy policy of other sites you visit or link to from our site for information on how these other sites use "cookies" and your personal information.

In addition, visitors to our site who have received a targeted promotional campaign from Pharmavite or its third party advertising company, may have some of the pages they visit on our site noted by us or by such company through the use of pixel tags (also called clear "gifs"). The information collected in this way may be associated with personally identifiable information. The information collected by pixel tags is used for the purpose of targeting future campaigns and upgrading visitor information used in reporting statistics.

Imbedded Code

We use a tracking utility called WebTrends Liveª that uses a users IP address and code imbedded in our site to gather non-personally identifiable information about web site usage and movement. This data is then analyzed and used for improving user experience and promoting our products. You should refer to the WebTrends Live Privacy Policy to learn how they collect and use information. You can find WebTrends Live's privacy policy here:
http://www.webtrendslive.com/privacy_policy.htm source

...and then this

An official with the contractor, WebTrends Inc., said later Thursday, however, that although a cookie may be used, no data from it is actually sent back to the company.

The development came a day after the National Security Agency admitted it had erred in using banned "cookies" at its Web site. Cookies are small data files that can be used to track Internet users. The acknowledgments followed inquiries by The Associated Press.

The White House's Web site uses what's known as a Web bug to anonymously keep track of who's visiting and when. A Web bug is essentially a tiny graphic image - a dot, really - that's virtually invisible. In this case, the bug is pulled from a server maintained by WebTrends and lets the traffic analytic company know that another person has visited a specific page on the site.

Web bugs themselves are not prohibited.
U.S. to probe contractor's Web tracking

For the most part nobody is lying but they are all collectively avoiding the truth. No data has to forwarded when another company can access all of the information and more that is stored in logfiles created.

  Impeach BushCo but take another look at all claimed convictions in the GWoT.
  Impeach BushCo for improper domestic surveillance but be prepared to face more insidious truths that likely are legal but immoral.

  The current topic of illegal surveillance by the government is definitely a topic of concern. NSA and others have been quietly recording everything we do in other ways as well.

The government market has acted at times like the rising tide that lifts all boats. Demand, particularly toward the end of a fiscal year, traditionally buoys technology suppliers. But fiscal 2005 has unfolded somewhat differently. The demand for products and services has been uneven. Some companies report soaring revenue and profits, while others grapple with mediocre, or even declining, sales.

This year's installment of the 10 companies to watch features products and services vendors that have targeted hot niches and have been rewarded accordingly. Storage, security, and enterprise architecture rank among the areas ringing up government sales. BakBone Software, Tumbleweed Communications and Troux Technologies

made this year's list as representatives of this trend. Among services companies, SI International has distinguished itself by being nimble and focusing on mission-critical outsourcing and other areas.

Another shift reflected in the 2005 list: Fewer new companies are entering the government market. The stabilization of homeland security spending and the maturation of once leading-edge technologies -- for example, Web services -- have combined to reduce the flow of entrants.

New companies may be fewer, but some familiar names have recast themselves in the government sector. They include Adobe Systems and RSA Security, both of which made this year's list on the strength of significantly broadened technology charters.

Read on for the stories of 10 companies that have targeted pockets of demand in the government market.
10 hot companies to watch

  Lack of genuine oversight and the lucrative returns of helping out the private sector have allowed the govt-corporate partnerships to monitor us legally. The ability to collect smaller companies and their valuable patents has allowed a concentration of contracts for services in a smaller group of ownership. Owning the patents allows a company to decide what the technology will be that works with it.

In May, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office installed Tumbleweed's SecureTransport file transfer solution. In June, the Defense Information Systems Agency finished the initial procurement of the company's Validation Authority product. That product will be deployed to more than 1.3 million Defense Department users, company officials said.

Ann Smith, vice president of federal sales at Tumbleweed, identified an Army project as the company's most recent win. That deal, which came via a partnership with a small-business contractor, involves the company's Online Certificate Status Protocol products. In another partnering initiative, Tumbleweed is working with Lockheed Martin to upgrade the Defense Message System.

Craig Brennan, appointed Tumbleweed's president and chief executive officer in July, said he plans to continue the company's pursuit of government-sector business.

"Craig is interested in the federal market and sees that as a very large portion of the way to grow the business," Smith said.

In storage, Xiotech targets midsize departmental deployments, rather than enterprise data centers, where many storage-area network (SAN) vendors play.

This philosophy has generated many government wins. Agencies buying Xiotech storage gear include the Architect of the Capitol, the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission and the Navy. The uptick in federal business has helped fuel a 25 percent revenue growth rate at the company. Powell said the government represents 21 percent of Xiotech's overall business.
--------------------
Since late 2004, backup and restore specialist BakBone Software has cultivated customers and business allies in the federal market.

Agencies that have purchased the company's wares include the Agriculture Department, Lackland Air Force Base, the Library of Congress, NASA, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Geological Survey.
------------------------
As for partners, earlier this year the company unveiled a federal program. Kumar said its partners include CDW Government, FedTek, GovConnection, GMRI and GTSI. BakBone has been tapping the partners to gain access to such vehicles as NASA's Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement III and NIH's Electronic Commodity Store III.
--------------------
A considerable amount of Troux's government business flows through integrators. The company's most recent integrator ally is Raytheon. Troux also works with SRA International and Blueprint Technologies.
----------------------
"You can't do business in the federal market without taking that approach," Motola said, referring to partnerships with integrators.

In other government developments, in April Troux introduced its Department of Defense Architecture Framework. And in September the company plans to open a Washington, D.C.-based sales and customer training center.
--------------

BladeLogic has quickly established a federal foothold for its data center automation product.

The company began building a federal operation late last year. Dev Ittycheria, BladeLogic's president and CEO, said he had little experience in the government market back then.

He also faced lingering cynicism about the viability of small companies in the wake of the dot-com meltdown. "We needed to build credibility in the marketplace," he said.

To that end, BladeLogic banked on its service record with large commercial accounts such as Putnam Investments, Starbucks and Time Warner Cable. The company also forged ties with three large federal integrators.

The strategy produced results within three months. In that time, BladeLogic landed deals with the Air Force Pentagon Communications Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration and a third customer that company officials declined to identify.

After six months, the company had generated more than $1 million in federal revenue.

  Those are just a few that are involved but all of them boast the integration of data management for the government sector. The sharing of information between subsidiaries of larger companies creates a network of accessability that covers nearly everything and everyone.

from 2004 Collaborative surveillance between government and the private sector is not new. For three decades during the Cold War, for example, telegraph companies like Western Union, RCA Global and International Telephone and Telegraph gave the National Security Agency, or NSA, all cables that went to or from the United States. Operation Shamrock, which ran from 1945 to 1975, helped the NSA compile 75,000 files on individuals and organizations, many of them involved in peace movements and civil disobedience.

Big Business Becoming Big Brother

The government is increasingly using corporations to do its surveillance work, allowing it to get around restrictions that protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, according to a report released Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that works to protect civil liberties.

Data aggregators -- companies that aggregate information from numerous private and public databases -- and private companies that collect information about their customers are increasingly giving or selling data to the government to augment its surveillance capabilities and help it track the activities of people.

Because laws that restrict government data collection don't apply to private industry, the government is able to bypass restrictions on domestic surveillance. Congress needs to close such loopholes, the ACLU said, before the exchange of information gets out of hand.
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The ACLU released the Surveillance-Industrial Complex report in conjunction with a new website designed to educate the public about how information collected from them is being used.

The report listed three ways in which government agencies obtain data from the private sector: by purchasing the data, by obtaining a court order or simply by asking for it. Corporations freely share information with government agencies because they don't want to appear to be unpatriotic, they hope to obtain future lucrative Homeland Security contracts with the government or they fear increased government scrutiny of their business practices if they don't share.
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These days, the increasing amount of electronic data that is collected and stored, along with developments in software technology, make it easy for the government to sort through mounds of data quickly to profile individuals through their connections and activities.

Although the Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from keeping dossiers on Americans unless they are the specific target of an investigation, the government circumvents the legislation by piggybacking on private-sector data collection.

Corporations are not subject to congressional oversight or Freedom of Information Act requests -- two methods for monitoring government activities and exposing abuses. And no laws prevent companies from voluntarily sharing most data with the government.

  The NSA violations are serious but they aren't the only violation we're enduring. We need to fix these other problems at the same time.

  New questions arise every day and I don't have to actively dig them up. It's just one contradiction after another.

  This applies to subjects in several current diaries  but I put it here, to avoid possible disruptions. The subjects themselves are a source of contradiction, not any of the diaries. This applies to ethics in journalism, the lack of a credible investigation of 9/11 and the immediate reaction that cast Muslim/Arab folks into the role of enemy based on apparent lies.

  This ignorant hatred is the root of many current problems and it has to stop. It should also be seen for where it originates and how it is perpetuated.

  Here's one example of how it starts.

  Within 6 days of the 9/11 attack, this article appeared in the New Yorker. Considering the attack was a crime, it's inconceivable that no criminal  investigation was pursued. Look how fast the conclusions were reached by a trusted scholar on the subject.

Posted 2001-09-17
In the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, in 1995, there were experts and officials who automatically assumed, in print and on television, that the perpetrators were Islamic fundamentalists. When it turned out that two young Americans had planted the bomb, everyone--talking heads and government officials alike--vowed to practice more restraint. In the initial reports from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, one could hear that catch, that attempt at evenhandedness and caution. And yet, by early afternoon, Administration officials, congressional leaders, and many others were saying that the bombing had "all the characteristics" of an operation carried out by Islamic radicals--in particular, the terrorist network run, at least in part, by Osama bin Laden.

Yossef Bodansky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and the author of "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," was not among those who hurried to focus solely on bin Laden. "We don't have all the evidence yet," he said. "We have to look at the material as it comes through, and, if the material says it is the little green man on Mars, then it will be the little green man on Mars. I'm not among the choir who says the bearded one did it. He may have done it, but we'll see."

Bodansky went on, "Training a would-be martyr is one thing. Usually, as in Turkey or in Israel, a martyr is like a robot. He gets a specific mission: You strap on a bomb, you go stand in a night club, count to three, say 'Allah is Great,' and boom. This is something else. These people, four crews, had to have had special preparation, they had to work together, to hold together a situation in which a planeload of people is taken captive and they know they are headed for a bad end. And in three of the four cases the crews succeeded. No one is rushing to take credit for this. The sponsoring states don't want to be bombed, and they will go to extreme measures to conceal who did it, just as they went to extreme measures to coördinate it."

So, we have an established professional Congressional consultant both disclaiming ignorance of the facts and proceeds to justify a case for Muslim persecution. The simple disclaimer isn't enough if he's going to contradict it. Further into the story he gets more specific.

Bodansky and others have said that U.S. intelligence has long known that countries such as Iran and independent groups have made plans for "super-terrorism" and have trained people to carry out terrorist acts..

"We've known since the mid-eighties, for example, that Iran was training people to fly as kamikazes on commercial planes, as bombs, into civilian targets," Bodansky said. "The question was whether the political leaders of the sponsoring states would give the order to actually do it. From the moment a country starts risking the wrath of the civilized world to start such a training program, it must be serious about it." Bodansky explained that Iran's principal "school" is in Wakilabad, in the northeast part of the country, and is an entity of Iranian intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard. The school, he said, has American-made commercial jets for training its students in techniques of hijacking, sabotage, and flying into civilian targets. While evidence was beginning to accumulate that at least some of the nineteen suspected hijackers were men who had taken flying lessons at schools in Florida, Bodansky indicated that it was still early and the picture incomplete.

"The bottom line is that the attack in New York and Washington was carefully prepared and studied," Bodansky said. "The people who flew into the World Trade Center were highly trained professionals with experience in flying large commercial jets. Flying large aircraft at low altitudes in an urban sky is not a simple thing."

A retired C.I.A. officer said, "I've never seen an operation go that smoothly." What particularly alarmed him, and other members of the intelligence community, was the likelihood that the terrorists had been sheltered--and never betrayed--by Muslim communities in the United States.

Even as commentators and political leaders repeatedly warned against stereotyping, there was strong agreement among former intelligence officials that Arab and Muslim communities in the United States could suffer. A former national-security adviser was outspoken. "We can't do racial profiling?" he asked. "Like hell. Nobody is going to trust anybody looking like an Arab. They're done." Another former high security official said, "It's civil liberties versus getting the bad guys." A Justice Department official put it more delicately: "You've got bunches of Arabs who don't want to throw bombs. Yet they're Arabs. It doesn't mean we're going to profile Arabs, but we're going to look at people who come from a certain culture with a certain background." A military officer said, simply, "The Muslim people will pay a horrible price."

  While actual evidence was coming in of air training in Florida, Bodansky offered this 'fact' as he was building a case (in earlier parts of the article) to bomb states in the Mid-East.
Bodansky explained that Iran's principal "school" is in Wakilabad, in the northeast part of the country, and is an entity of Iranian intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard. The school, he said, has American-made commercial jets for training its students in techniques of hijacking, sabotage, and flying into civilian targets.

  Trouble is, I can't seem to find any other reference to Wakilabad other than Bodansky's or a near identical version of it as it's repeated in different media as definitive sourced knowledge.

  Now, is this misplaced ethics or is Wakilabad so secret that nobody else has mentioned it?

Also from Bodansky

UPI Exclusive: Pearl tracked al Qaida

 Mohammed was seen in Islamabad's posh F-7 sector when Pakistani and U.S. officials arrested Ramzi Yusuf, the man who tried to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.

The director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Josef Bodansky, told UPI emphatically, "Mohammed was Pearl's killer."

"An Algerian actually did the job, but Mohammed gave the order for the killing. There's no question about it," he said. Bodansky said Mohammed also has ties to Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency, which he said had acted to shield him in the past.

"Mohammed was running operations right in Karachi," said Bodansky. Bodansky would not reveal his sources of information.

More works from Bodansky

And then there was this in an interview with a colleague
JD: In May of 1996, I flew to Washington D.C. and met personally with the Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Yossef Bodansky. Mr. Bodansky's resume included international acclaim as a terrorism expert and former consultant to the Departments of State and Defense. He shared that he had independently come across the same Middle Eastern suspects that KFOR-TV had been investigating. In the years that followed, we forged a unique working relationship in which he disclosed sensitive intelligence documents that convincingly refuted the notion that two disenfranchised army buddies single-handedly pulled off America's deadliest terrorist attack of the 20th Century.

I obtained copies of the significant portions of an alert that was disseminated prior to the bombing that predicted Islamic militants were planning to strike. On February 27, 1995 the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare issued a prior warning that stated there would be an "Iran-sponsored Islamic attack" on U.S. soil. Washington D.C. topped the hit list. The primary targets were Congress and the White House, a prescient insight into the events of 9-11. In response to that warning, security was beefed up in the nation's capitol, so the focus then shifted from Washington D.C. to America's heartland. On March 3, 1995, Mr. Bodansky authored an updated warning that stated the terrorists now planned to strike at "the heart of the U.S." Twelve cities were placed on the potential target list because of the radical Islamic groups and terrorist networks operating within those cities. Oklahoma City was on that original list.
OKC BOMBING, JAYNA DAVIS INTERVIEWED

So what are we supposed to believe?

  Could the information that's cited by Congress to fund mega-billions into an industry be exploited by politics? Could it be an influence that's been at work for 20 years or more, slowly building to a turning point?

Dropping the Franklin Inquiry: Anticipated Contingency?

Also working in McCollum's office during that same time period was Yossef Bodansky. On Dec. 1, 1985, the Israeli newspaper Davar reported that "the FBI is looking into the possibility that a journalist in the US known as an associate of Israels, may have served as a courier for classified materials delivered to the Israelis. The Israeli newspaper identified the man as Yossef "Seffie" Bodansky, an Israeli living at that time in Baltimore and working as a writer and consultant on military affairs.

According to a fascinating report published in 1986 titled "Spy, Steal and Smuggle: Israel's Special Relationship with the United States" by Claudia Wright, Bodansky, who was working on a contract with the Pentagon in 1985, underwent an investigation conducted on his activities in the Pentagon by the Defense Investigative Service, the Pentagons own security department and, many of Bodansky's activities were put on hold. Shortly after this, Jonathan Polllard was arrested for spying on the United States for Israel.

Additionally Davar reported, Bodansky had met Pollard for lunch and Bodansky admitted to the Israeli reporter that "he may have run into Pollard at some party although he had no memory of such a meeting." According to Wright, a Washington source claimed that he had introduced Pollard to Bodansky and confirmed that they knew each other.

Wright goes on to say that Bodansky's principal contact at the Pentagon was Harold Rhode who was an adviser on Southwest Asia affairs to the then Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. Rhode has been named in many articles on the current Israeli espionage affair as having traveled to Rome with Larry Franklin to meet with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Bodansky not only went on to receive additional security clearances, but he joined McCollum's staff in the late 1980s as the head of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Though a citizen of Israel, Bodansky held that position until very recently.

District Attorney Paul McNulty might have gotten some interesting insights into Israeli espionage and security clearances while working in close proximity with Bodansky on McCollum's staff. Many of these political connections and the movement were reminiscent of the experience of the Stephen Bryen Israeli Espionage case of more than 25 years ago.

  I'm not making any accusations here. I'm only asking questions in trying to determine the credibility of popular reference work based on the possible influence of political bias.

  Could external forces have had an effect on the accuracy of his work?

  Some issues of outrage are going undiscussed concerning the wiretaps and FISA. It points to a primary flaw in the GWoT and concern for privacy or security. I agree that impeachment should be pursued but it should be for the right reasons.

  The idea of pursuing investigations based on improperly obtained evidence is more than just a violation of rights or the constitution. It's covered in the discussion - Jurist Quits; Senators, Constitutional Experts Demand Inquiries

Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004, and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants -- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court." ...

  I have mentioned in several comments that evidence of an Islamic jihadist threat, in the BushCo era primarily, is not present in the claims and cases they make. Regardless of the forces behind this deception, it's crucial to at least acknowledge it's presence to correct the problem. Without doubt, it's a problem worthy of far more outrage than simple violations of privacy. It's the issue that embodies the spirit of law and the Constitution and it's been completely lost in all of this.

The Courts and the War on Terror
f note also is the failure of DOJ prosecutors to tie many of these cases directly to terrorism. In the Portland case, for instance, seven men were arrested on material support charges. Two of the men, Patrice Lumumba Ford and Jeffrey Leon Battle, were the main focus of the government's indictments. "Evidence" came largely from secret FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrants. FISA and its secret courts were originally designed to regulate the FBI's spying by distinguishing between counterintelligence operations and persecution of the government's political opponents.

The Patriot Act and post-9/11 court decisions have, in effect, eliminated the requirement that FISA surveillance - wiretapping, searches, and otherwise - be primarily for intelligence-gathering as opposed to criminal investigatory purposes. By jettisoning that standard, Congress and the courts now permit the government to avoid the strictures of the Fourth Amendment and ordinary wiretap statutes by simply declaring anything, no matter how flimsy or marginal, is for intelligence purposes. Indeed, under the new standards, FISA warrants have mushroomed at an alarming rate; and the public sees only the tip of the iceberg, since FISA warrants and their fruits never see the light of day unless they are used in a criminal prosecution - which represent only an infinitesimal fraction of the total number of FISA wiretaps and searches.

Nonetheless, government prosecutors, evidently worried that new post-9/11 Bush administration rules extending FISA requests to terrorism cases might sooner or later be challenged as unconstitutional, again offered plea bargains. The defendants agreed. Terrorism-related charges against Battle and Ford were dropped and each was sentenced not to life for "terrorism," but to 18 years for "treason"; the other five defendants pled on lesser charges. Despite the convictions, the administration failed, as it had failed in the Lackawanna case, to link the accused directly to a terrorist conspiracy.
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Terrorism Prosecutions
The United States v. Yahya Goba, Sahim Alwan, Shafal Mosed, Yasein Taher, Faysal Galab; The United States v. Mukhtar Al-Bakri. In September 2002, federal prosecutors in Lackawanna, New York, charged six young American men of Yemeni descent with providing material support to terrorists. The men, all American citizens, had traveled to a military-type training camp in Afghanistan in April of 2001, where they were trained to assemble and fire rifles and heard anti-American lectures by Osama bin Laden and others.

Although they undertook no terrorism-related actions upon their return to the United States, all six defendants pled guilty to charges of providing material support to terrorists or of contributing services to terrorist, and agreed to provide assistance in other terrorism investigations. In December 2003, each was sentenced to between seven and ten years in prison.

  Dr Rice, others in the administration and most of the MainStreamMedia all agreed that these actions were making us safer and were justified. I didn't think so then and I don't think so now.

Bush Authorized Yemen-Style Strikes, Rice Says

Sun Nov 10, 1:16 PM ET
By Todd Eastham

http://newsmine.org/archive/security/predator-dron...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) has given broad authority to "a variety of people" in his administration to launch attacks like the missile strike that killed six suspected al Qaeda operatives in Yemen last week, his national security adviser said on Sunday.

"The president has given broad authority to a variety of people to do what they have to do to protect this country," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) told the television show Fox News Sunday. "It's a new kind of war. We're fighting on a lot of different fronts."

A report in Newsweek magazine made public on Sunday suggests the Yemen attack was a precursor of more to come. Several other al Qaeda operatives are being tracked and targeted for such strikes in Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia, Newsweek said, citing an "informed source."

He was killed along with five other suspected Muslim extremists when the car they were traveling in was obliterated by a missile fired by an unmanned "Predator" drone operated by the CIA (news - web sites). A U.S. citizen was also killed in the attack.

Human rights group Amnesty International wrote to Bush on Friday to question Washington's role in the attack.

'EXTRA-JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS'

"If this was the deliberate killing of suspects in lieu of arrest, in circumstances in which they did not pose an immediate threat, the killings would be extra-judicial executions in violation of international human rights law," the London-based rights group in a statement.

Amnesty called on the United States to issue a clear and unequivocal statement that it does not sanction extra-judicial executions. Rice seemed to reject that call on Sunday.

"I can assure you that no constitutional questions are raised here," she said when asked if such killings violated U.S. or international law. The president is "well within the bounds of accepted practice and the letter of his constitutional authority," Rice said.

"We have a lot of allies in this war," she added.

The United States views al Qaeda militants as enemy combatants in its war on terror and fair game for military strikes anywhere in the world. While Washington says it sought permission from Yemen for last week's strike, it has offered no assurances it would always do so in the future.

Newsweek asked Sen. Robert Graham of Florida, outgoing chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, if other such strikes were planned. "I hope so," was Graham's reply.
Citing "informed sources," Newsweek said Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh gave the United States permission for such attacks but was angered when the hit was leaked to the press.

CIA officials were also angry and concerned that the leak, which they traced to the Pentagon (news - web sites), would discourage other countries from allowing such strikes within their borders, Newsweek reported.
http://newsmine.org/archive/security/predator-dron...

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  There were no qualms about pursuing the war on terror in this manner.

Nobody listened to the ones looking behind the curtain.

Mueller On Frontline
You say sharing information. But what you were doing was using, if you will, the secret court, intelligence wiretaps. There's no way for us to monitor what you were doing. There's no way for the defendants, for instance, in this case, to get access to the information. Is that why you were doing it?

Well, no, no, no, that's not why we were doing it. It's because we need to determine who in this country is poised, positioned to commit terrorist acts. Often it's before a crime has been committed. But the potential for an attack on our security is such that a court, the FISA Court, determines that we've established the requisite probable cause to utilize that technique. We used it in this case, as we'd used it in years past, and will use it in the future.

So you could've done it with the FISA Court with this procedure in the past. You could have done it in this case, as well.

Yes. With that information, if we'd gotten information from that particular technique, we could not have shared it with the criminal investigators. We couldn't have shared it necessarily with those who were developing a criminal case. So you could not put together all the information you have on these individuals, on this group, on this group of individuals, along with the information in the United States, along with the information that you have overseas.
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All I'm getting at is that there appeared to have been some controversy about how imminent the threat was from this group in Lackawanna in the summer, that the analysts at the agency presented a perspective. They interpreted some of the e-mails as saying there might be an imminent attack. But no one had checked with the office in Buffalo, to find out, for example, that there had been a wedding, and the wedding didn't necessarily mean attack.

I would hesitate to make conclusions on partial facts that you may be picking up. As I said before, there are often disagreements as to what a particular set of facts mean. That is not at all unusual, and one shouldn't read into it more than is there.

Well, enlighten me, because, I mean, in fact, I'm at a disadvantage. The investigations take place in, necessarily to a certain extent, in secret, or in some in camera form. We're trying to figure out what happened.

All I'm going to tell you is investigations, whether it be this and others, where you have partial facts, analysts, agents are always trying to interpret what those facts mean, extrapolate from them what they mean. There are differences of opinion. You can have a set of facts that changes daily, because you got new facts in, based on the investigation. It may be urgent one day and not so urgent the next day as you get more facts. It's not unusual. It's not something that, in my mind, is tremendously controversial. ...

Unclear Danger: Inside the Lackawanna Terror Case

  The concept of how easily any one of us could be taken as one of them is based on the policy that some are more deserving of outrage than others.

  Clearly, the view of the government is that the end justifies the means and without accountability there is no justifiable outrage.

  Our society has condoned the illegal and unjust actions that have already included improper procedures resulting in assasination. So many have been forced into confessing to crimes that didn't commit that they are then used to justify the next injustice.

The Lackawanna Six & Rambo III

Though identified in the national media and later in President George W. Bush's now-infamous 2003 State of the Union speech as a "terrorist cell," the Justice Department only charged the men under an ambiguous provision of the 1996 anti-terrorism law for "providing material support or resources to designated terrorist organizations." The passive-voice term designated, in this case, means an organization that the U.S. Secretary of State designates as fitting the State Department's description of terrorist. Organizations such as the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, and the El Salvadoran opposition party FMLN have in the past enjoyed such politically motivated State Department designations.

 And then there's the case of Lackawanna resident and U.S. citizen Kamal Derwish. A potential codefendant of the Lackawanna Six, he was summarily executed without trial in Yemen by a Central Intelligence Agency missile that incinerated the car he was traveling in. In Derwish's case, there were no pretenses of either a trial or indefinite detention. His execution made legal history with the federal government squishing its toes into the mud of a postconstitutional United States. No doubt Derwish's death also served to intimidate the remaining men into pleading guilty--and remaining in the world of the living.

  Impeachment will only change the names and faces if we don't correct the underlying disaster. After writing this diary earlier today, I found a piece posted by Truthout's W R Pitt. It's a detailed article that highlights the hard work of Rep Conyers and summarises much of what I've attempted to say here

The Breaking Strain By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Wednesday 21 December 2005 "This is America," I wrote. "At bottom, America is a dream, an idea. You can take away all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies - you can take all of that away, and the idea will still be there as pure and great as anything conceived by the human mind. I do very much believe that the idea that is America stands as the last, best hope for this world. When used properly, it can work wonders. That idea, that dream, is in mortal peril. You can still have all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies - you can have all of that. But if you murder the idea that is America, you have murdered America itself in a way that ten thousand 9/11s could never do. No terrorist can destroy the ideals we hold dear. Only we can do that." The breaking strain has been reached, and those ideals we hold so dear are indeed in mortal peril. The President of the United States of America has declared himself fully and completely above the law. The Constitution does not matter to him, nor do the Amendments. Laws passed to safeguard the American people from intrusive governmental invasion have been cast aside and ignored, simply because George W. Bush finds it meet to do so. Intolerable. Impeachable. full article at link above.