Source: http://express.lineone.net/news_detail.html?sku=874

Related: Murder of Diana Archives -
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archive_diana_murder.html


Diana: The 18 missing witnesses in £4m inquiry

John Twomey
UK Daily Express
Thursday, December 14, 2006

EIGHTEEN key witnesses have been ignored by the £4million Lord Stevens
inquiry into the death of Princess Diana.

Their evidence to French police had raised several questions about the
fatal crash in Paris.

But detectives working on the three-year inquiry – which will publish
its findings tomorrow – didn’t interview them to gather fresh testimony.

The revelations come after the Daily Express revealed disturbing
allegations from a crucial witness in the Diana probe who claimed that
British detectives tried to pressure him into changing parts of his
evidence.

The claims by jeweller Alberto Repossi – who insists Diana and Dodi were
engaged when they died in the crash – have been dismissed by the
Operation Paget squad.

Lord Stevens’ inquiry was set up to finally discover the truth behind
how Princess Diana’s Mercedes, driven by Henri Paul, came to crash in
the Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997.

Dodi’s father Mohamed Al Fayed has spent the past nine years mounting a
determined campaign for the truth, spending millions of pounds
uncovering fundamental flaws in the original French inquiry.

He remains convinced that the pair were murdered in a plot organised by
the British Establishment, including the intelligence services.

One of the many theories put forward is that the Princess’s car was
struck by another vehicle as it entered the tunnel under the River
Seine.

And yesterday it emerged that one family which gave detailed statements
to French police – but not to their British counterparts – told how they
saw two large cars heading at speed towards the Pont de L’Alma underpass
in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Moments later, the vehicles disappeared into the tunnel and the family
heard the screeching of brakes, the “scrunching” of metal, a first
sickening impact and a louder bang followed by the haunting sound of a
jammed horn.

As the witnesses looked down into the underpass, they saw the wreckage
of the Mercedes car which was carrying Diana and Dodi slewed across the
carriageway. But there was no sign of the second car.

The family also told how a taxi, following at a normal distance, stopped
at the tunnel entrance but no-one got out.

They also recalled seeing a mystery man running straight past them and
into the tunnel. The family, which has declined to be named, was
interviewed by Captain Eric Crosnier of the Paris crime squad shortly
after the crash. The family says it has given no other interviews.

Lord Stevens will present his findings at a press conference to the
world’s media tomorrow.

The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner is understood to have
concluded that Diana and Dodi died because their chauffeur Henri Paul
was drunk and driving too fast.

Paul was also killed and Dodi’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was
seriously injured but survived.

Harrods owner Mr Al Fayed suspects British intelligence officers were
involved in “organising” the crash and covering up afterwards.

He fears the deaths were ordered because the Establishment could not
bear the thought of the mother of a future king being pregnant with a
Muslim’s child.

Last week, his lawyers forced the former senior judge in charge of the
inquest to back down over plans to hold preliminary hearings in private.
Lady Butler-Sloss said she was persuaded to reverse her decision because
of “strong public interest in the case”.

But Mr Al Fayed’s victory has only fuelled suspicions that a cover-up is
being attempted.

Statements made by the French family have been backed up by another
witness, Clifford Gooroovado, 41.

He said: “The Mercedes car was driving behind another car. The car in
front of the Mercedes was probably running at normal speed. The
consequence was that the Mercedes probably accelerated so hard in order
to pull out and overtake this car.”

Grigori Rassinier, who was also near the underpass, said in a statement:
“There were a number of cars in the tunnel and it was certainly possible
that there was one or more other cars travelling ahead of the Mercedes
at the time of the crash.”

Mr Rassinier said he had been contacted by the Operation Paget squad
last year and offered to travel to London to give a statement. But he
claims he never heard from them again.

Last week, the Daily Express revealed how Monte Carlo-based jeweller Mr
Repossi alleged he was put under pressure to change his story during
lengthy interviews with officers from Lord Stevens’ squad.

The jeweller claims – backed up by receipts and CCTV footage from his
Monaco showroom – that Diana and Dodi picked out a £230,000 emerald and
diamond band from a variety of engagement rings in a prestigious range
called Dis-Moi Oui – Tell Me Yes.

Dodi later asked for the ring to be sent to the Repossi store at the
Place Vendome in Paris, which the jeweller opened especially so he could
visit on August 30 – the day before the crash.

The fabulous engagement ring was later left at Dodi’s Paris apartment
where he had planned to present it to the princess. Detectives from Lord
Stevens’ team interviewed Mr Repossi three times and his wife once.

In the final meeting in July this year, officers told him that the
jewellery was not an engagement ring. Mr Repossi said: “They warned me
that if anyone lied to Lord Stevens then he had the power to get people
sent to prison,” he said.

“They kept repeating the warnings of the risk to my reputation and the
bad press coverage I would get. But despite all this, I was not prepared
to change what I’d said before because it was the truth.”

The inquiry team vehemently denies any attempt to put pressure on any
witness to tell anything other than the truth.

Sources close to Lord Stevens’ investigation yesterday suggested that
the 18 witnesses may not have been spoken to because their original
statements were perfectly adequate and there was no need to interview
them again.

Source: http://www.rense.com/general74/dismiss.htm

Related: 9/11 Archives (PrisonPlanet.com) -
http://www.prisonplanet.com/911.html

Related: http://911blogger.com/


Chomsky Dismisses 911
Conspiracy Theories As 'Dubious'
12-13-6


The following is an exchange between a ZNet Sustainer and Noam Chomsky,
which took place in the Sustainer Web Board where Noam hosts a forum...

ZNet Sustainer: Dear Noam, There is much documentation observed and
uncovered by the 911 families themselves suggesting a criminal
conspiracy within the Bush Administration to cover-up the 9/11 attacks
(see DVD, 9/11: Press for Truth). Additionally, much evidence has been
put forward to question the official version of events. This has come in
part from Paul Thompson, an activist who has creatively established the
9/11 Timeline, a free 9/11 investigative database for activist
researchers, which now, according to The Village Voice's James Ridgeway,
rivals the 9/11 Commission's report in accuracy and lucidity (see,
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0416,mondo1,52830,6.html,
or www.cooperativeresearch.org).

Noam Chomsky: Hard for me to respond to the rest of the letter, because
I am not persuaded by the assumption that much documentation and other
evidence has been uncovered. To determine that, we'd have to investigate
the alleged evidence. Take, say, the physical evidence. There are ways
to assess that: submit it to specialists -- of whom there are thousands
-- who have the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering,
materials science, building construction, etc., for review and analysis;
and one cannot gain the required knowledge by surfing the internet. In
fact, that's been done, by the professional association of civil
engineers. Or, take the course pursued by anyone who thinks they have
made a genuine discovery: submit it to a serious journal for peer review
and publication. To my knowledge, there isn't a single submission.

ZNet Sustainer: A question that arises for me is that regardless of this
issue, how do I as an activist prevent myself from getting distracted by
such things as conspiracy theories instead of focusing on the bigger
picture of the institutional analysis of private profit over people?

Noam Chomsky: I think this reaches the heart of the matter. One of the
major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous
amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and
ongoing crimes of state, and their institutional background, crimes that
are far more serious than blowing up the WTC would be, if there were any
credibility to that thesis. That is, I suspect, why the 9/11 movement is
treated far more tolerantly by centers of power than is the norm for
serious critical and activist work. How do you personally set
priorities? That's of course up to you. I've explained my priorities
often, in print as well as elsewhere, but we have to make our own
judgments.

ZNet Sustainer: In a sense, profit over people is the real conspiracy,
yes, yet not a conspiracy at all ­ rather institutional reality? At the
same time, if the core of conspiracy theories are accurate, which is
challenging to pin down, though increasingly possible, does it not fit
into the same motivations of furthering institutional aims of public
subsidizes to private tyrannies? I mean, through the 9/11attacks, Bush
Et Al. has been able to justify massive increases in defense spending
for a "war without end," and Israel has been given the green light to do
virtually whatever it wants since now 'the Americans are in the same
fight.' Furthermore, there has been a substantial rollback of civil
rights in our nation, with the most extreme example being strong attempt
to terminate habeas corpus.

Noam Chomsky: Can't answer for the same reasons. I don't see any reason
to accept the presuppositions. As for the consequences, in one of my
first interviews after 9/11 I pointed out the obvious: every power
system in the world was going to exploit it for its own interests: the
Russians in Chechnya, China against the Uighurs, Israel in the occupied
territories,... etc., and states would exploit the opportunity to
control their own populations more fully through "prevention of
terrorism acts" and the like. By the "who gains" argument, every power
system in the world could be assigned responsibility for 9/11.

ZNet Sustianer: This begs the question: if 9/11 was an inside job, then
what's to say that Bush Et Al., if cornered or not, wouldn't resort to
another more heinous attack of grander proportions in the age of nuclear
terrorism ­ which by its very nature would petrify populations the world
over, leading citizens to cower under the Bush umbrella of power.

Noam Chomsky: Wrong question, in my opinion. They were carrying out far
more serious crimes, against Americans as well, before 9/11 -- crimes
that literally threaten human survival. They may well resort to further
crimes if activists here prefer not to deal with them and to focus their
attention on arcane and dubious theories about 9/11.

ZNet Sustainer: Considering that in the US there are stage-managed
elections, public relations propaganda wars, and a
military-industrial-education-prison-etc. complex, does something like
this sound far-fetched?

Noam Chomsky: I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Everything you
mention goes back far before 9/11, and hasn't changed that much since.
More evidence that the 9/11 movement is diverting energy and attention
away from far more serious crimes -- and in this case crimes that are
quite real and easily demonstrated.

ZNet Sustainer:Considering the long history of false flag operations to
wrongly justify wars, our most recent precedent being WMD in Iraq, The
Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, going back much further to Pearl Harbor (FDR
knowingly allowing the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor ­ which is
different from false flag operations), to the 1898 Spanish-American War,
to the 1846 Mexican-American War, to Andrew Jackson's seizing of
Seminole land in 1812 (aka Florida).

Noam Chomsky: The concept of "false flag operation" is not a very
serious one, in my opinion. None of the examples you describe, or any
other in history, has even a remote resemblance to the alleged 9/11
conspiracy. I'd suggest that you look at each of them carefully.

ZNet Sustainer: Lastly, as the world's leading terror state, would it
not surprise anyone if the US was capable of such an action? Would it
surprise you? Do you think that so-called conspiracy theorists have
anything worthy to present?

Noam Chomsky: I think the Bush administration would have had to be
utterly insane to try anything like what is alleged, for their own
narrow interests, and do not think that serious evidence has been
provided to support claims about actions that would not only be
outlandish, for their own interests, but that have no remote historical
parallel. The effects, however, are all too clear, namely, what I just
mentioned: diverting activism and commitment away from the very serious
ongoing crimes of state.

http://blog.zmag.org/node/2779

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20061213/cm_usatoday/stopvirtualstripsearch

Comment: Noooo...it's about trainning us all for Humiliation techniques
and trainning us for what's to come in the near future as such measures
will be used on us "The Public" in everyday life wherever we go.

Into a shopping store, into a mall, into sporting events, checkpoints
without warrants...just trainning the public as if this is all normal
when it is teaching us to Love our own enslavement and making us like &
love our own shackles.

Because these measures will be soon used on the Streets of America and
other nations all together....they are getting us READY for it and to
Enjoy the tyranny.


Stop virtual strip-search

Barry Steinhardt
USA Today
Thursday, December 14, 2006

Body scanners are a virtual strip-search that Americans should not be
subjected to. They offer very little security value in return for the
cost to our dignity and privacy.

Let's be clear: The body scanners - known as "backscatter" - are X-ray
devices that expose us to radiation. And the government has not
carefully studied what long-term effects that radiation will have on
frequent fliers, or even casual ones.

But of more immediate concern, they create incredibly graphic images of
our naked bodies. Those images will reveal not only our private body
parts, but also intimate medical details such as colostomy bags or the
effects of a mastectomy.

The government is now touting its ability to hide these revealing
images. The problem is that masking the revealing images is likely to
degrade the very pictures of weapons and explosives that the X-rays are
supposed to find. In other words, to have any potential security value,
they are going to need to be graphic. How long will it be before the TSA
succumbs to the pressure to go back to exposing the full image?

And the inconvenient truth is that the government has a very poor track
record of keeping Americans' personal information private. It is sadly
predictable that the body image of a famous person, or even ordinary
people, will be sold for profit or perverse amusement. Even a few such
incidents will make us all feel more exposed and could have a
devastating effect on our very fragile airline industry.

I have no doubt we would be marginally safer if we were all forced to
fly naked. But that's just not something that Americans would accept -
and neither should they accept this machine.

There are less intrusive technologies for detecting explosives. One
example is explosive detection portals, which blow air on passengers and
look for molecules of explosives. That kind of a technology is where the
government should be focusing its resources and public relations
efforts.

We don't need to fly naked to be safe.

Source:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116598078991348617-ixe9zZfYn1035s3P88WdMJZDTTI_20071213.html?mod=blogs

TSA Approves Scanner That Will Let Fliers Who Pay Keep Their Shoes On

LAURA MECKLER
Wall St Journal
Thursday, December 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government approved new technology that will
automatically scan shoes and boots for bombs, and promises that
travelers will soon be spared the trouble of scurrying through security
in their socks. But the new machines will be available only to travelers
who pay to join a special program, at least at first.

The shoe-scanner approval will give a crucial boost to the Registered
Traveler program, which is designed to provide faster airport security
screening, via a special security line, to travelers who sign up in
advance and undergo a background check. But the program, to be run by
private companies under the supervision of the Transportation Security
Administration, has languished for years, and currently is operating
only in Orlando, Fla.

The shoe scanner is expected to draw customers to the program because
not only will it speed up lines. It will also offer another perk --
remaining shod -- to attract customers willing to pay annual fees of
about $100.

"We've always said that Registered Traveler has to be more than a
front-of-the-line program," says Steven Brill, chief executive of
Verified Identity Pass Inc., which operates the Registered Traveler
program in Orlando. A handful of other companies also want to offer
Registered Traveler programs at airports.

Travelers who join the programs will undergo background checks, and then
get biometric cards designed to work at any airport's Registered
Traveler kiosks, where iris scans or fingerprints would match the person
with his or her ID card. Those kiosks are designed to be used in
conjunction with existing carry-on baggage X-ray machines and metal
detectors.

The speedy handling of known travelers is designed to free up the TSA to
focus on other passengers, who may pose a greater risk. Private
companies that take part in the program must be approved by the TSA and
compete to win contracts from airports to provide the service.
Interoperable technology will allow customers of any given company to
use another company's security lines when traveling through various
airports.

The shoe scanner is part of a kiosk developed by General Electric Co.'s
GE Security, which is a minority investor in Verified. Passengers step
onto a platform with hip-level walls and enter identifying information
on the touch screen. Meanwhile, their shoes are scanned for bombs from
below, and residue from their fingers is analyzed to detect trace
amounts of explosive material.

"We're comfortable with the level of the security that the shoe scanner
provides," said Christopher White, a spokesman for the TSA. The TSA says
it will examine each airport's setup before giving each site the
go-ahead to dispense with shoe removal.

Verified and GE Security hope that, in the future, the use of this trace
detector will eliminate the need for passengers to take off their
jackets when they walk through security. The TSA has yet to approve the
trace detector. The kiosk, including both the shoe scanner and the trace
detector, has been undergoing testing at Orlando.

Verified has bought 20 of the kiosks for use at the airports where it
has contracts to operate Registered Traveler programs. It plans to
launch operations at John F. Kennedy International Airport's Terminal 7,
which is run by British Airways, as early as next week. The company
plans to follow at three more airports -- in Cincinnati, San Jose,
Calif., and Indianapolis -- in the coming weeks. It is charging
passengers $99.95 per year.


Not everyone is enthused about Registered Traveler. The major airline
trade group, the Air Transport Association, has tried to dissuade
airports from signing on, arguing that it will deliver little benefit
while distracting the TSA from other priorities such as developing a new
system for monitoring passenger lists for the names of suspected
terrorists. In addition, airlines already offer special security lines
to first-class and most-frequent fliers at some airports, and Registered
Traveler could wind up competing with this and other airline-provided
perks.

The other companies competing for Registered Traveler contracts also
promise to buy advanced screening equipment once it is approved for use
by the TSA. That technology, which is in various stages of development,
is designed to ease the three major headaches of airport screening:
removing shoes, jackets and laptops from their cases.

Unisys Corp., which has signed up the airport in Reno, Nev., is
considering buying the shoe scanners but is also looking at backscatter
technology, which the TSA is now testing in Phoenix. Backscatter is an
X-ray that can see through clothing to detect threatening objects that
might be hidden. This technology should allow passengers to keep shoes
and jackets on as they pass through security, said Larry Zmuda, who
heads the Registered Traveler program for Unisys. "We're going to try
and push for multiple benefits and not just shoes."

A third major player is Saflink Corp., which hasn't yet won an airport
contract. It is focusing on building relationships with charitable
groups, universities, professional sports teams and trade associations
that would offer the company's card, called Fast Lane Option, at a
discount or as a fund-raising device for the organization.

All three companies are developing packages of various travel and
nontravel related perks, ranging from discounts on airport parking and
merchandise to credit card and offers and deals on mortgage rates.

Any new technology used for Registered Traveler is being paid for by the
private companies. The new GE kiosks, for instance, cost more than
$150,000 each. That might be too expensive for the federal government to
buy and install for the use of all air travelers. But the government
will monitor the performance of the machines and could wind up buying
them down the road.

"The people who travel the most ... will finance development of
technology for everybody else," says Mr. Brill. "That's a pretty good
model."

Source:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/12/13/antidepressants.suicide.ap/index.html

Panel urges broader suicide warning on antidepressants

AP
Thursday, December 14, 2006

Antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal behavior for people up to
age 24, the government said Wednesday. It plans new warning labels, and
says users of all ages should be closely monitored.

The label change proposed Wednesday would expand a warning now on the
antidepressants that applies only to children and adolescents.

The Food and Drug Administration presented its plan to update the drug
labels at a meeting of outside advisers on the issue. They endorsed the
plan.

The FDA also stressed that patients of all ages should continue to be
carefully monitored for signs of suicidal tendencies when they are
beginning treatment on the drugs.

Public reaction was split, with some saying the changes were overdue and
others arguing they could keep drugs from those who need them. (Dr.
Sanjay Gupta ponders the seeming contradiction. )

In emotional testimony illustrated at times by slides of family photos,
relatives of suicide victims pleaded for the new warnings.

Suzanne Gonzalez, shouting and in tears, goaded the panel to action,
telling the experts that her 40-year-old husband who had been taking
Paxil shot himself.

"I wake up every morning thinking, 'Oh my God, he's dead. He is freaking
dead.' Do you wake up and think, 'How many people are going to die today
because I am doing nothing?"' Gonzalez asked.

Still, mental health experts worry that additional warnings could
curtail use of the drugs and ultimately do more harm than good.

Dr. John Mann, a Columbia University psychiatrist, suggested simply
replacing the proposed expanded warnings with the recommendation that
doctors more closely monitor their patients.

"We can do more good by providing more treatment for depressed children
and adults," Mann said.

The FDA proposed the changes after completing a review that found use of
the drugs may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior among
young adults 18 to 24, as well as among younger patients.

Psychiatrists testified Wednesday that the 2004 addition of a warning
for children led to a falloff in antidepressant prescriptions being
written for patients under 18 -- and an increase in suicides in that age
group.

Still, overall use of antidepressants continues to grow, with nearly 190
million prescriptions dispensed in the United States last year,
according to IMS Health, a health care information company. That
suggests doctors have placed more weight on the long-term benefits of
the drugs than on any short-term risks, said Dr. Thomas Laughren,
director of the FDA's division of psychiatry products.

Expanding the "black box" or other warnings on the drugs could dissuade
patients from seeking or starting treatment, mental health experts said.
They warned that people with untreated depression -- about half of those
who suffer from the disease -- face an estimated 15 percent greater
likelihood of death by suicide.

Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a Harvard Medical School clinical instructor in
psychiatry and author of "Prozac Backlash," said expanding the warnings
wouldn't scare off patients, but instead would allow them to make
informed choices.

The FDA recently completed a review of 372 studies involving about
100,000 patients and 11 antidepressants, including Lexapro, Zoloft,
Prozac and Paxil.

When the results were analyzed by age, it became clear there was an
elevated though small and short-term risk for suicidal thoughts and
behavior among adults 18 to 24, the FDA said in documents released ahead
of Wednesday's meeting of its psychopharmacologic drugs advisory
committee.

The FDA's analysis of the multiple studies suggests an age-related shift
in the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior associated with treatment
with the drugs. For instance, antidepressants seem to protect against
suicidal thoughts and behavior in adults 30 and older, with the effect
most pronounced in patients over 65.

The FDA said the increased risk could mean as many as 14 additional
cases of suicidal thoughts or behavior in every 1,000 children treated
with antidepressants. For adults 18 to 24, there could be four
additional such cases per 1,000.

In May, GlaxoSmithKline and the FDA warned Paxil may raise the risk of
suicidal behavior in young adults and added that to the drug's label.

"Anytime suicide is involved it is a tragic outcome. It is one of the
things that keeps us motivated to search for better treatments because
depression can be a fatal illness," GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Mary
Anne Rhyne said.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Rr6wwQwNo

Olbermann :: Afghanistan - The forgotten war

You Tube
Thursday, December 14, 2006

(VIDEO)

Source:
http://www.eagletribune.com/hhnews/local_story_347094559?keyword=topstory

Big brother is watching: Security cameras keep an eye on school

Mike LaBella
Eagle-Tribune
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

HAVERHILL - If a fight or other problem were to happen in a Consentino
Middle School hallway, chances are the principal or another school
official could see what was happening and respond in seconds.

Video surveillance, like you might find at a department store or gas
station, has come to Consentino.

Big Brother is watching, and students are aware of what it means to
them.

"I found out about it last year," eighth-grader Matthew Tavares said. "I
thought the cameras on the hallway ceilings were smoke detectors at
first until I was in the assistant principal's office and saw a
television. A camera was pointing down my hallway."

Since becoming Consentino principal four years ago, James Scully has
used private donations along with city money to buy and install a video
surveillance system, one camera and one monitor at a time.

With nine cameras now mounted on hallway ceilings and video monitors in
several front offices, it is the most extensive system in any public
school in the city, with the exception of Haverhill High - which is in
the process of completing the installation of a more elaborate system
through its multimillion-dollar renovation project.


"When I came here, discipline and control were a problem for teachers
and the kids that go to this school," Scully said. "Some people think
that schools can solve society's ills, but unfortunately, we can't. We
have an obligation to make sure schools are as safe as we possibly can."

During the 2000 and 2001 school year, a full-time police officer was
assigned to Consentino to help it deal with an increase in student
discipline problems. Scully said that officer's position was cut during
his first year at the school due to a lack of money.

School resource officers offer more than security, Scully said.

"There are number of situations that benefit having an officer
available," he said. "A school resource officer that handles discipline
issues is not needed at this particular time. The most important thing
is, when we do have an issue, we get tremendous assistance from the
Police Department."

School Committee member Kerry Fitzgerald considers video surveillance
systems a useful tool for schools.

"The way the world is now, I don't see how we have any other choice but
to give schools tools that help keep our kids safe," she said.

Haverhill High's surveillance system proved its merit when it recorded
six students in the act of pulling fire alarms at different times.
School officials were able to play back digital video recordings, which
helped them identify those involved.

Matthew said cameras in his school's halls tend to discourage students
from taking part in activities such as stealing from lockers or
fighting.

"If someone did something to someone it would be caught on tape,"
Matthew said. "Once in a while kids will try to do something like kick a
locker. Other kids will say, 'Don't do that, because someone is watching
us.' I think it stops fights from happening, too.With the cameras,
school is now a safer place to be."

Jeff Dill, maintenance supervisor for the city, said that most public
schools in the city have at least one camera and one monitor protecting
their front entryways.

At Haverhill High, where a full-time school resource officer is
assigned, the new video surveillance system operates constantly,
observing the building and its occupants.

Dill said these kinds of systems are intended to help stop intruders;
discourage vandalism, gang activity and fights; and even discourage
students from skipping class and gathering in particular areas of the
building.

Haverhill High's system is about 90 percent complete and will eventually
enable school officials such as the superintendent to monitor activity
from a distance through a secure Internet connection, Dill said.

Consentino's cameras watch every hallway as well as outside the
building.

Scully said that since the system was installed, vandalism to the
outside of the building has diminished.

"We used to find broken bottles on school grounds," Scully said. "Not
any more. Vandalism is down. It's nil."

Students are aware of the system, Scully said, and it seems to be
impacting their behavior.

He offered one example of how the system is on the minds of students.

"One boy recently broke a window in a door by accident," Scully said.
"He came to my office to tell me what happened. Kids know that we don't
have to play detective any more."

Scully is looking to upgrade the system and wants to install as many as
24 cameras.

He plans to use a $500 grant he received this week from Exxon Mobil in
Bradford to convert the recording process to digital, in place of the
current VHS taping system.

Charlene MacCurtain, manager of the Mobil station, said she was able to
secure an education alliance corporate grant from Exxon Mobil for
Consentino.

MacCurtain is familiar with video surveillance, as she has a system at
her Bradford station.

"It's all about security and protecting your employees and customers,"
MacCurtain said. "At Consentino, parents want to know their kids are
safe."


How it works

Nine cameras about the size and shape of softballs are attached to
hallway ceilings and exterior walls.

The cameras feed live video into four monitors in the principal's
office, assistant principal's office and front office.

Video is recorded for future playback.

Source:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-12-13T231656Z_01_N13491988_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-RIGHTS-CAMERAS.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Security cameras raise rights worry in NY: report

Reuters
Thursday, December 14, 2006

The security cameras are watching, a New York rights group warned on
Wednesday.

Security cameras have increased fivefold in parts of New York City and
have become so pervasive that they threaten the rights of privacy,
speech and association, the New York Civil Liberties Union, or NYCLU,
said in a report.

Moreover, there was no evidence the cameras deterred crime, the group
said.

In 2005 there were 4,176 cameras in three districts of southern
Manhattan, up from 769 cameras in a 1998 survey, the report said.

"Unregulated video surveillance technology has already led to abuses in
New York City, including the police department's creation of visual
dossiers on people engaged in lawful street demonstrations and the
voyeuristic videotaping of individuals' private and intimate conduct,"
the group said.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A 1998 study conducted by the NYCLU found 2,397 video surveillance
cameras visible from street level in Manhattan. The report said that
same number of cameras can be now found in the neighborhoods of
Greenwich Village and Soho alone.

Source:
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/141206smartcard.htm

Pubs, banks could be banned for asking for smartcard ID

The Age
Thursday, December 14, 2006

Comment: Notice how this is "good news" in order to sell people on the
ID card. We have an ID card but if anyone calls it that they go to
prison.


BANK or pub workers who demand their customers produce the Federal
Government's new smartcard as a form of ID could go to jail for up to
five years or be fined $55,000, under draft legislation.

Companies that demand the card would face fines of up to $275,000.

The Government's $1.1 billion access card will replace up to 17 social
service cards such as the Medicare card by 2010 and will be required by
anyone who wants to get government benefits.

But privacy and consumer advocates have raised fears that because almost
every Australian will need one, the access card could become an ID card.

The Government's legislation is designed to address fears that the
access card is an Australia card in disguise.

In what Canberra says is "probably a world first", the legislation makes
the individual holder the owner of the card — and not the Government.
Usually it is the issuer of a card, be it a government or a gymnasium,
which owns it. But Canberra will own all the information held on the
card.

And in a measure that will go some way to allaying fears of "function
creep" — in which the uses of the access card are expanded beyond what
was first intended — the bill says it can only be used to pay out
government benefits and services.

If in the future the Government wants to use it for other purposes, it
will have to get Parliament to agree.

The legislation also includes punishments for people or businesses that
are found to have somehow pressured an individual to produce the card,
even if they don't explicitly demand it for identification.

This would protect "elderly people and other vulnerable individuals
(who) may feel threatened by powerful businesses" to hand over the card,
according to the Government's explanation of the legislation.

The head of the Government's Access Card Consumer and Privacy Taskforce,
Allan Fels, said yesterday that the Government had adopted his "core
recommendations" on the access card.

The legislative protections meant the access card had a better chance of
being accepted by the public than the Australia Card, he said.

"I think the legislation avoids a number of the problems of the old
Australia Card. (The legislation says) it can't be used as an ID card —
it's not required to be carried by anyone and it's also essentially
limited to giving access to Medicare. It also prevents adding new
functions (to the card) without legislation."

But the Government has not adopted all of Professor Fels'
recommendations and each card will still have a unique identifying
number and a signature on it.

"If every Australian eventually has a number assigned to them the
long-term privacy implications are fairly considerable," Professor Fels
says.

"It would in the long run facilitate the linking up of a lot of
information about people."

Source:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Leahy_to_RAW_Torture_memos_will_1213.html

Leahy to RAW: Torture memos will be made public

Brian Beutler
Raw Story
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

United States Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the incoming chairman of the
Judiciary Committee has informed RAW STORY that he will subpoena a
controversial detainee treatment memorandum if his request that the
Justice Department submit it to him is not met.

Leahy indicates that the document—acknowledged to exist in November by
the Justice Department after a FOIA request by the ACLU—should have been
sent to him many months ago, when he asked Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales to provide him with all memos concerning detainee treatment.

That memo—a companion of sorts to the infamous Bybee memorandum, which
broadened the range of permissible detainee questioning techniques—is
said to outline actual interrogation procedures that have been approved
by the Executive Branch. Many suspect that some of the procedures will
be found to be forbidden by the Geneva Convention against Torture.

"I want to find out what is in the...memo," he indicated at a forum at
Georgetown University. "I intend to continue to try to get it. I would
hope we could get these without a subpoena."

But the senator indicated he is willing to use legal authority, if
necessary.

"It is legitimately within our oversight," he insisted. "If we don't get
these things which are legitimately within our oversight, I'll ask the
committee to give me the power to subpoena them."

Should a subpoena reveal that key information has been classified, Leahy
offered that he is also willing to pursue other means of obtaining the
information. "I find it hard," he explained, "to think of what could
possibly be in there of a classified nature. If something is classified
you have the process within the congress to determine whether it can be
declassified.”

Leahy also indicated that he would reinstitute the so-called Thurmond
Rule, named for now-deceased Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), an informal
understanding whereby judicial nominations are not brought up in the
Senate between the party conventions and Election Day of a presidential
year.

During Leahy's hour-long talk, he pledged to work to see habeas corpus
rights that were removed by the recently passed Military Commissions Act
of 2006 restored, as well as to put an end to the warrantless
wiretapping policies instituted by the Bush Administration after
September 11, 2001.

When asked in a question and answer session whether and when he'd summon
Attorney General Gonzales to testify before the Judiciary Committee,
Leahy said that during a lunch with the Attorney General, he'd told him
that he could "expect an invitation," and declared that he would not
"accept answers like 'I can't answer that', or 'we'll get back to you'
because, of course, they never get back to you."

When pressed to say what he would do if faced with evasive responses
such as those from Justice Department officials, Leahy said he would use
his subpoena power to make sure he obtains all the information he seeks.
“I expect to get the answers. If I don't then I believe we should
subpoena...If the president wants to claim executive authority, let him
do so and then we can go from there.”

Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/12/AR2006121201310.html

66% Think U.S. Spies on Its Citizens
52% in Poll Back Hearings on Handling of Domestic Surveillance

Dan Eggen
Washington Post
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies
are intruding on privacy rights as part of terrorism investigations, but
they remain divided over whether such tactics are justified, according
to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday.

The poll also showed that 52 percent of respondents favor congressional
hearings on how the Bush administration has handled surveillance,
detainees and other terrorism-related issues, compared with 45 percent
who are opposed. That question was posed to half of the poll's
1,005-person random sample.

Overall, the poll -- which includes questions that have been asked since
2002 and 2003 -- showed a continued skepticism about whether the
government is adequately protecting privacy rights as it conducts
terrorism-related investigations.

Compared with June 2002, for example, almost twice as many respondents
say the need to respect privacy outranks the need to investigate
terrorist threats. That shift was first evident in polling conducted in
January 2006.

That sentiment is still a minority view, however: Nearly two-thirds rank
investigating threats as more important than guarding against intrusions
on personal privacy, down from 79 percent in 2002.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who is a professor in Georgetown
University's Security Studies Program, said the poll results could spell
trouble for the FBI and other government agencies as they continue to
seek support for expanded anti-terrorism powers granted after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks.

"I don't think you can view these polling results in isolation from an
overall phenomenon, which is that people are more skeptical of the
government's conduct of the war on terrorism," Hoffman said.

Sixty-six percent of those questioned said that the FBI and other
agencies are "intruding on some Americans' privacy rights" in terrorism
investigations, up from 58 percent in September 2003. Thirty percent
think the government is not intruding on privacy.

Support for intrusive tactics has dropped even more significantly during
that time. A bare majority, 51 percent, feel the tactics are justified,
down from 63 percent three years ago.

The poll was conducted by telephone from Dec. 7 through Monday, and the
results have a three-percentage-point margin of error.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on-blogs/

McCain Legislation Out To Destroy Blogs

Think Progress
Thursday, December 14, 2006

John McCain has made clear that he doesn’t like the blogosphere.

Now he has introduced legislation that would treat blogs like Internet
service providers and hold them responsible for all activity in the
comments sections and user profiles. Some highlights of the legislation:

– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report
illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to
$300,000.”

– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such
reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections
may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.

— Social networking sites will be forced to take “effective measures” —
such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is
“associated” with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook
and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and
personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up
for personal diaries.

Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that this
proposal may be based more “on fear or political considerations rather
than on the facts.” When he introduced his legislation to the Senate,
McCain offered no evidence that children are being victimized by people
who post comments on blogs.

McCain’s legislation could deal a serious blow to the blogosphere.
Lacking resources to police their sites, many individual blogs may have
to shut down open discussion.

Morning!!

I can never seem to sleep these days. but oh well! I need to make my
morning coffee...(yawnz).... -_- eh..eye spider cob-webs...lol

Yes ESPECIALLY with Marshmellowsssss OH YEAHHHH ^_~ I luv me sum hot
coco....

Well I got Hot CoCoooo...soo....(sticks tongue out)

(eats popcorn while drinking hot coco)

WaHhhHhhHhhh...

HoOoOoOT..........................To................HooTtTttt


(pants)

What?? nobody likes my hot coco?? grrrr...

Well it can't be helped hun. When certain guy's see stuff like this the
animal instinct inside the human mind takes over.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...Rolla Coastaaaa

Anyone up for hot coco? this post makes me kinda warm inside...