FBI's $500 Million Wiretap Retrofitting Fund Empty

The FBI has gone through nearly all of its $500 millon budget for making old telephone switches wiretap friendly, but an FBI survey showed that nearly 40 percent of the nation's switches still aren't up to federal wiretapping standards, according to a new report from the Justice Department's inspector general.

A 1994 law known as the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act or CALEA requires all telephone switches installed after 1995 to comply with detailed wiretapping rules, and Congress set aside a half billion dollars for the FBI to dole out to help carriers make older landline switches compliant.

Cell phone switches, however, are all compliant and nearly all FBI surveillance targets cell phones and pagers. In 2005, the feds got some 1800 criminal wiretap court orders, along with nearly 2,200 court orders for anti-terrorism and foreign intelligence wiretaps.

According to a redacted report (.pdf) from the DOJ's Inspector General, the FBI has only a little more than $5000 left in dedicated CALEA funds, which mostly went towards paying switch manufacturers to write wiretapping software and issue licenses to use that software for older switches.

The audit says it is not possible to tell if the money was well-spent, since neither the telecoms nor the switch makers are keen on sharing information.

Though the FBI has a well-earned reputation for bungling large technology projects, the FBI successfully built a sprawling surveillance network that taps into key telecom facilities around the country.

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New Hampshire Joins Montana in Real ID Victory

Détente has arrived in the fight between independence-minded states and a federal bureaucracy keen to claim a unanimous victory in its drive to create a de facto national identity database.

The key? The renegade states send a nice letter that is not a request for an extension of a looming deadline but touts the security of their driver's licenses, which the Department of Homeland Security accepts as an official extension request. That lets DHS save face, even as it backs down from repeated threats to punish the citizens of rogue states.

On Thursday, New Hampshire became the second of the four holdout states to get an unasked-for extension, following the path blazed by Montana's feisty Democratic governor Brian Schweitzer last Friday. Schweitzer told Threat Level he sent DHS "a horse, and if they want to call it a zebra, that's up to them."

The legislators in the Live Free or Die state, like those in Montana, banned the state from complying with the Real ID mandates, citing state's rights, the inequity of unfunded federal mandates, and privacy issues. Under the rules, almost all license holders will have to return to the DMV with notarized "breeder documents" like birth and marriage certificates, and states will have to interlink their databases of digital photos and personal information. Citizens of states that opt out can't use their licenses for federal purposes, such as entering airport screening lines or going to a Social Security office.

DHS says the new licenses will prevent terrorism and identity theft, and Secretary Michael Chertoff says it's one of his top priorities in his last nine months in office.

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Was polonium-210 being smuggled for a dirty bomb?

By Paul Craig Roberts

In the recently published thriller, The Shell Game, Steve Alten weaves a tale of a neoconservative plot to attack Iran. To overcome resistance, a black op group associated with a Republican administration arranges for nuclear devices to be exploded in two American cities, with planted evidence pointing to Iran.

Recent developments make one wonder if fact is following fantasy.

The Bush regime’s propaganda against Iran is going full blast and obviously has a purpose. The foreign press reports that the reason for Cheney’s latest trip abroad is to cajole, threaten, and purchase support for a US attack on Iran.

The Israeli government continues to see an Iranian nuclear weapon on the horizon and to agitate for US action against Iran.

According to John McGlynn in Japan Focus(March 22, 2008), the Bush regime is already attacking Iran with Treasury Department actions to cut off Iran’s banking system from all international banking relationships, thereby preventing Iran from importing and exporting. McGlynn calls the US Treasury’s action a "US declaration of war on Iran."

Cheney’s trip shows that the Bush regime is undeterred by the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusion that Iran abandoned several years ago any nuclear weapons program that it might have had. The International Atomic Energy Agency has never found evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite all the facts and without evidence, the Bush Regime continues to assert that Iran has a nuclear weapons program that warrants an American attack on Iran.

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Will Kosovo be turned over to the Pentagon?

Predictions made by experts before Kosovo's illegal declaration of independence are coming true - the territory seized from Serbia is turning into a big military base of the United States and NATO.

Thus, George W. Bush ordered arms shipments to Kosovo. Because of this, Moscow insisted on an emergency session of the NATO-Russia Council - it will be held in Brussels on March 28.

Incidentally, Bush issued this order two days after the Moscow visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who urged Moscow to promote cooperation, expand consultations, and display more openness in general.

The haste with which the Pentagon is trying to take the fledgling Kosovo under its wing demonstrates the West's lack of confidence that peace will come to the Balkans after Kosovo's cessation. But the West was actively using this rhetoric - the need to put an end to the Yugoslav crisis - in order to justify its support for the Kosovo separatists. There can be no peace when one side is being equipped with weapons against the other. This means pouring more fuel on the fire...

The Serbs have already got the message. In the city of Kosovska Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo), they desperately rushed to defend their last shelter - a courthouse. Previously, it was the venue of Serbian justice, but now it is occupied by international lawyers who will turn it over to their Albanian colleagues. Blood was spilled there during clashes with peacekeepers. There are numerous rallies in Belgrade supporting the Serbian minority in Kosovo.

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Dozens Killed Spying for U.S. Government

Extremists in Pakistan's western tribal areas have killed dozens of people suspected of providing intelligence to the United States and its allies in recent months, according to local officials and tribal elders. The killings, some of them carried out in brutal fashion and videotaped as warnings to would-be spies, come as the U.S. government has escalated airstrikes in the region.

Officials and tribal elders say most of the victims have been Afghan refugees who can easily cross the porous border with Pakistan. Extremists have killed accused spies since the start of military operations against al-Qaeda fighters and their tribal supporters in 2001, but the recent deaths represent a marked increase in such cases.

"I don't know how much truth lies in these accusations against particular individuals. But looking at the increasing frequency of such incidents, we have also started thinking that the United States may be using Afghan refugees in this area as their informants for information about local as well as foreign militants," one official said on condition of anonymity.

The official added that the Afghans may be working for the Afghan government, outside U.S. command. But "that is considered to be like spying for the United States in this region," he said.

On Tuesday, local officials near Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, found the body of an Afghan refugee, Abdullah Jan. Attached to the body was a note that warned, "Anyone working as an American spy will meet the same fate."

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Government Printing Office Profits Go to Bonuses and Trips

When the government's main printing agency booked $100 million in unexpected profit it went on a spending spree: large bonuses to top managers, trips to Paris and Las Vegas, and an official photo of the boss that cost $10,000.

The bonuses, some nearly as high as $13,000, and travel are raising questions among congressional investigators and Government Printing Office officials about whether the agency is misusing its newfound wealth and whether it received the proper authority for some of the larger compensation payments from the Office of Budget and Management.

Additionally, investigators are looking into whether Public Printer Robert C. Tapella paid close to $10,000 for photographs of himself for his office and during his swearing-in ceremony in November.

The spending comes as GPO recorded record profits of about $100 million over the past 16 months by selling blank passports produced by its printing and binding services to the State Department at more than twice the cost. The investigation also has raised security concerns about the use of overseas companies for components and assembly of the computerized electronic passports.

GPO spokesman Gary Somerset said the process for "goal-based performance" bonuses began five years ago and enables employees "to earn bonuses based on performance of the agency as a whole" as well as individual job performance.

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Did the Government Entrap the 9/11 Hijackers?

We've all seen it on television. The defense attorney argues his client was "entrapped". That is, that it wasn't the defendant's idea to commit the crime, but that the police planted the idea and urged him to do it.

Many of us have heard allegations that post-9/11 arrests of suspected Al Qaeda members were based on very thin information. Did you realize that all or virtually all of these arrests occurred due to entrapment? For example:

• PBS' Frontline ran a special report focusing on the the alleged Al Qaeda plot in Lodi, California, which showed -- based upon interviews with top law enforcement officials involved in the case -- that the bust amounted to little more than entrapment and coerced and fabricated confessions from two men who, in fact, had nothing to do with the terrorist group

• The Washington Post ran a story about one alleged threat entitled "Was it a terror sting or entrapment?", showing that the U.S. government lent material support to the wanna-be terrorists, and put violent ideas in their heads

• Raw Story reports that the alleged terrorist group that is alleged to have planned to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower was non-violent before a government informant infiltrated the group and planted violent ideas in their heads

• There are numerous other instances of entrapment of peaceful or mentally incompetent people who are then arrested as "terrorists" (see this, this and this)
  

But surely 9/11 was different, right?. Without doubt, the hijackers were bloodthirsty militant Muslims who, solely due to their crazy beliefs and dark hearts, decided to attack and kill Americans. Right?

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Basra Oil Pipe Ignited as Iraq Fighting Worsens

An attack on an Iraqi oil pipeline has crippled the country's main crude pumping terminals, as fighting between Shi'ite factions and the security forces engulfed the south and centre of the country.

A fire was reported on the Zubair-1 pipeline, the main revenue earner for the Iraqi state, near Basra. The attack effectively brought all exports through Iraq's southern terminals to a halt.

The police chief in the central city of Kut said 44 people died in clashes between followers of the powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi military supported by US forces.

In Baghdad and across the country followers of Sadr staged mass demonstrations to denounce the government, which on Tuesday launched a military operation targeting militias in Basra.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have joined mass rallies in the Sadr City, Kadhimiya and Shula districts of Baghdad, an interior ministry source said.

"We demand the downfall of the [Nouri al-Maliki] government. It does not represent the people. It represents Bush and Cheney," said Hussein Abu Ali, a Sadr City resident.

Commanders of the Mahdi army, Sadr's militia, declared that they could withstand any assault the government and its US army allies could mount.

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Pentagon Holds Thousands of Americans 'Prisoners of War'

Sgt. Kristofer Shawn Goldsmith was one of the many soldiers and Marines, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who gave testimony at last weekend's Winter Soldier investigation. They spoke from personal experience about what the American military is doing in those countries. They gave examples of what they had done, what they had been ordered to do, what they had witnessed, how their experiences had wounded them, both physically and psychically, and what kind of care and support they have, or most often have not gotten since coming home.

The panel Goldsmith was on was called "The Breakdown of the U.S. Military," so he surprised the audience when he said that he was going to talk about prisoners of war.

He was not, however, going to talk about the three soldiers listed as missing in action on the Department of Defense website. He was referring to those who have been the victims of stop-loss, the device by which the president can, "in the event of war," choose to extend an enlistee's contract "until six months after the war ends." The "War on Terror" is this president's excuse for invoking that clause. Because that war will, by definition, continue as long as we insist that there is a difference between the terror inflicted on our innocents and the terror inflicted on theirs, American soldiers are effectively signing away their freedom indefinitely when they join the military. They are prisoners of an ill-defined and undeclared war on a tactic -- terrorism -- that dates back to Biblical times and will be with us indefinitely.

According to U.S. News and World Report, there are at least 60,000 of them.

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Post 9/11 Air Safety Proposal: Shock-Bracelets Controlled by Flight Crew

Before you watch the YouTube clip, remember that on the 9/11 flights, there were no Arabic names on the flight manifests! Check for yourself! Flight 11, Flight 175, Flight 77, and Flight 93. I thought the government said the hijackers brought their tickets like everyone else. Why aren't their names on the manifests? How is it that some of the hijackers trained at SECURE U.S. military bases? It's unbelievable!!! Now, they're trying to use 9/11 to sell us on shock-bracelets! What if we decide not to fly or better yet, maybe we should fly out of this cage...never to return!!!

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US Treasury Plans Banking Reform

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has revealed his department is working on a "blueprint for regulatory reform" in an effort to avert further market turmoil in the wake of investment bank Bear Stearns' collapse.

"This latest episode has highlighted that the world has changed," he said. "These changes require us all to think more broadly about the regulatory and supervisory framework."

He said the move by the Federal Reserve to open its lending to securities firms on the same terms as regulated banks was appropriate, but as an emergency measure.

He warned: "Despite the fundamental changes in our financial system, it would be premature to jump to the conclusion that all broker-dealers or other potentially important financial firms in our system today should have permanent access to the Fed's liquidity facility. Recent market conditions are an exception to the norm."

Leaders of the US Senate Finance Committee yesterday asked Mr Paulson's department, the Federal Reserve, JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns for more details about JP Morgan's plan to buy Bear Stearns.

Democrat Max Baucus, chairman of the committee, said: "Economic times are tight on Main Street as well as on Wall Street, and we have a responsibility to all taxpayers to review the details of this deal."

With support from the Fed and the Treasury, Bear Stearns has agreed to be sold to JP Morgan for about $10 a share. As part of the deal, the Fed agreed to guarantee up to $29bn of Bear's assets.

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Was Bailout Illegal? Should Bankers Be Jailed?

Congress should conduct an investigation into the criminality of the Federal Reserve and Treasury's bailout of the vaporized speculative "investment" bank Bear Stearns on March 16.

The Emergency Banking Act, passed by Congress on March 9, 1933, provides for government assistance to protect vital banking functions. That assistance is restricted to commercial banks.

Chartered commercial banks make up a vital part of our overall economy, but brokerage houses and investment banks such as Bear Stearns are strictly part of the speculative apparatus that has looted the economy and the population blind. That the Fed stepped in to provide tens of billions of dollars, or more, to save Bear Stearns, is prima facie criminal.

Lyndon LaRouche charged on March 18 that the bailout represented a case of money laundering that should be prosecuted.

"It smells like another filthy Goldman Sachs scheme," LaRouche said. "I think it is time to increase the social status of our Federal prison population—by sending all those responsible for this abomination to jail.... These guys are cheating."

LaRouche added that the bailout scam "is an obstruction of our plan—the Homeowners and Bank Protection act and the three steps needed to survive," that he had identified in his March 12 webcast.

So far, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Finance Committee are planning to investigate the actions of the Federal Reserve in providing the bailout of Bear Stearns, MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal reported on March 19.

Military Tells Bush of Troop Strains

Behind the Pentagon's closed doors, U.S. military leaders told President Bush Wednesday they are worried about the Iraq war's mounting strain on troops and their families. But they indicated they'd go along with a brief halt in pulling out troops this summer.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff did say senior commanders in Iraq should make more frequent assessments of security conditions, an idea that appeared aimed at increasing pressure for more rapid troop reductions.

The chiefs' concern is that U.S. forces are being worn thin, compromising the Pentagon's ability to handle crises elsewhere in the world.

In the war zone itself, two more American soldiers were killed Wednesday in separate attacks in Baghdad, raising the U.S. death toll to at least 4,003, according to an Associated Press count. Volleys of rockets also slammed into Baghdad's Green Zone for the third day this week, and the U.S. Embassy said three Americans were seriously wounded. At least eight Iraqis were killed elsewhere in the capital by rounds that apparently fell short.

Wednesday's 90-minute Pentagon session, held in a secure conference room known as "the Tank," was arranged by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to provide Bush an additional set of military views as he prepares to decide how to proceed in Iraq once his troop buildup, which began in 2007, runs its course by July.

"Armed with all that, the president must now decide the way ahead in Iraq," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. The discussion covered not only Iraq but Afghanistan, where violence has spiked, and broader military matters, said Morrell, who briefed reporters without giving details of the discussion. Some specifics were provided by defense officials, commenting on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely.

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Threat of a Re-Surge in Iraq

Could Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's attempts to re-establish control over Basra backfire? There is a growing possibility that it could become a wider intra-Shi'ite war, drawing in the forces loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose ceasefire has been key to the success of the U.S. "surge"? If so, the consequences for American military strategy in Iraq in an all-important political year will be grave.

Maliki's government targeted Basra because it could. Unlike many other southern cities where fighting has escalated in recent weeks, Maliki has built an independent power base among the security forces there. But Tuesday's sweep of Basra could turn sour in other southern cities where the central government's power is weak. Indeed, many Shi'ites are seeing this not just as an example of the Shi'ite Maliki taking on other Shi'ites (including Sadrists) but of America backing the Prime Minister up in a de facto Shi'a civil war. Iraqi government forces have attacked Shi'ite militias and gangs in at least seven major southern Iraq cities in the past two weeks. And America has been there to support Maliki's troops every time.

In response, Sadr loyalists have already taken to the streets in Baghdad, where U.S. troops will have to deal with the backlash. U.S. officials have so far shied away from blaming Sadr for the recent rise of violence (including an Easter attack on the Green Zone), mostly because Sadr's ceasefire has been key to the success of the surge. (General David Petraeus has pointed the finger at Iran instead.) But as clashes increase, they may not be able to dance around it for much longer.

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Taxpayers May Be Liable From Bear, Mortgage Rescue!!!

Even as the Bush administration insists it won't risk public funds in a bailout, American taxpayers may already be liable for billions of dollars stemming from Federal Reserve and Treasury efforts to quell a financial crisis.

History suggests the Fed may not recover some of the almost $30 billion investment in illiquid mortgage securities it received from Bear Stearns Cos., said Joe Mason, a Drexel University professor who has written on banking crises. Treasury's push to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy more mortgage bonds reduces the capital the government-chartered companies hold in reserve at a time when foreclosures and defaults are surging. Senators are promising to investigate.

Officials ``are playing with fire,'' said Allan Meltzer, a Fed historian and economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. ``With good luck, none of these liabilities will come due. We can't expect that good luck, and we haven't had it.''

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were forced to respond after capital markets seized up and Bear Stearns faced a run by creditors. In an emergency action that jeopardizes the dividend it pays the Treasury, the Fed authorized a $29 billion loan against illiquid mortgage- and asset-backed securities from Bear Stearns that will be held in a Delaware corporation. JPMorgan Chase & Co. contributed $1 billion.

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FDIC Plans for Rise In Bank Failures

Anticipating a surge in troubled financial institutions, federal regulators aim to increase by 60 percent the number of workers who handle bank failures.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants to add 140 workers in the division that handles bank failures, bringing the total to 360, said John Bovenzi, the agency's chief operating officer.

"We want to make sure that we're prepared," Bovenzi said yesterday, adding that most of the hires will be temporary and based in Dallas.

There have been five bank failures since February 2007 following an uneventful stretch of more than two years. The last time the agency was hit hard with failures was during the 1990-91 recession, when 502 banks failed in three years.

Analysts predict more failures but said they don't think they will reach early-1990s levels.

Gerard Cassidy, managing director of bank equity research at RBC Capital Markets, projects 150 bank failures over the next three years, with the highest concentration coming from states such as California and Florida where an overheated real estate market is in a fast freeze.

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Trustees: Social Security, Medicare Face Financial Trouble

Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing enormous financial challenges, with the threats to Medicare far more severe.

The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019.

Both those dates were the same as in last year's report. But the trustees warned that financial pressures will begin much sooner when the programs begin paying out more in benefits each year than they collect in payroll taxes. For Medicare, that threshhold is projected to be reached this year and for Social Security it is projected to occur in 2017.

The first year that payments will exceed income for Social Security will occur in 2017, just nine years from now, reflecting growing demands from the retirement of 78 million baby boomers. Medicare is projected to pay out more than it receives in income starting this year.

"The financial difficulties facing Social Security and Medicare pose enormous challenges," the trustees said in their report. "The sooner these challenges are addressed, the more varied and less disruptive their solutions can be."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, one of the trustees, warned that the country was facing a fiscal train wreck unless something is done.

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Another Govt Data Security Breach

First it was the Department of Veterans Affairs. Then, the Internal Revenue Service. Now, the National Institutes of Health is the latest federal agency that failed to encrypt laptop computers containing sensitive private information.

The recent theft of a laptop that had medical test results for 2,500 patients in an NIH heart imaging study shows that the government is still not guarding private information, despite new rules, privacy specialists say.

"The issue isn't so much with the policy; it's with the policy being followed in practice," said Joy Pritts, a Georgetown University researcher who specializes in health care privacy.

The laptop was reported stolen from Dr. Andrew E. Arai's locked car trunk Feb. 23, but the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute alerted patients to the data theft only last week.

Their names, birth dates and test results from an ongoing heart imaging study were not encrypted because the agency hadn't gotten around to securing Arai's laptop, said Dr. Susan Shurin, the institute's deputy director. Officials said there was a delay in informing patients of the breach of confidential information because it wasn't initially clear that the laptop held personal information.

"This justifies a hard look at the whole system as well as the individual," said Shurin, who said the institute had begun checking every laptop for encryption and reminding staff to avoid keeping private information on laptops unless necessary.

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21 Nations More Prosperous Than U.S.

The United Kingdom has been ranked as one of the most stable and prosperous countries in the world, beating the United States, France and even Switzerland in a global assessment of every nation’s achievements and standards.

A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries and dependent territories has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations. The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic.

The US lies 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th, losing points in the assessment of its social achievements.

The bottom ten, surprisingly, do not include Iraq. They are listed as Gaza and the West Bank, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

The UK received high marks despite the deployment of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, the continuing threat from home-grown terrorists and the collapse of the Northern Rock bank.

The global check on every country recognised as an individual state or territory by the United Nations was carried out by Jane’s Information Group and is published today.

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U.S. says Missile Parts Mistakenly Sent to Taiwan

The U.S. Defense Department accidentally shipped non-nuclear ballistic missile components to Taiwan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Four nose-cone fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles were shipped instead of helicopter batteries that Taiwan had requested, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said.

The fuses were shipped to Taiwan in the fall of 2006 and kept in a warehouse there. The Taiwanese military informed the United States last week about their presence on the island.

"There are no nuclear or fissile materials associated with these items," Wynne said. "The United States is making all appropriate notifications in the spirit of candor and openness in an effort to avoid any misunderstanding."

An investigation is under way, he added.

"In an organization as large as DOD, the largest and most complex in the world, there will be mistakes. But they can not be tolerated in the arena in strategic systems, whether they are nuclear or only associated equipment, as was in this case," Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Ryan Henry said.

He said the parts were 1960s technology, designed for use with Minuteman ballistic missiles.

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