http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16734853-1244,00.html


Informant: Andy

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1584143,00.html


Informant: Andy

Météorologie: le programme HAARP
http://www.next-up.org/main.php?param=meterologiecem

QS4 said aerials in church towers could give a "clear, strong signal"

A proposal to install a mobile phone aerial in a spire, which was the subject of angry opposition, has been dropped by a church council.

Police had to be called to St Luke's Church, in St John's, Tunbridge Wells in Kent, during heated protests by up to 100 people.

They reacted angrily when Vodafone went to the church to publicise the plans.

The Parochial Church Council of St Luke said it abandoned the plan "to avoid a damaging division in the community".

Kent Police were called when representatives of Vodafone and QS4 - a company appointed by the Church of England to negotiate such deals - were confronted by the protestors.

'Barrage of abuse'

The companies insisted the proposed aerial was not a health risk, while the church said local residents with 3G phones would benefit.

In a statement released on Friday, the church council said: "Ever since we were approached on this matter, we have followed the Church of England's national procedures which include consultation with the local community.

"Sadly our attempt to hold that consultation resulted in a display of rowdy behaviour and a barrage of abuse directed at our vicar.

"The Parochial Church Council of St Luke does not believe that there is any proven risk to health arising from the installation of such a mast.

Omega this is not true. See under:
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Cancer+Cluster
http://www.buergerwelle.de/body_science.html

"Nevertheless, in order to avoid a damaging division within the community, it has decided not to pursue the project."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/4385306.stm

Für Ermittlungszwecke: Große Koalition will Telekommunikationsdaten angeblich speichern lassen (28.10.05)

Telekommunikationsdaten sollen zum Zweck der Terror- und Kriminalitätsbekämpfung in Deutschland künftig zwischen sechs und zwölf Monaten gespeichert werden. Darauf haben sich nach Informationen der Tageszeitung "Die Welt" Union und SPD geeinigt.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=12154

von BI Lüchow-Dannenberg

GENERALVERDACHT GEGEN HUNDERTE CASTOR-GEGNER

Ganz neue Methoden, an Datenmaterial von Atomkraftgegnern heranzukommen, hat die Polizei vor kurzem auf den Gleisen der CASTOR-Transportstrecke zwischen Lüneburg und Dannenberg angewendet. Nach einer friedlichen Protestaktion sammelte die Polizei Zigarrettenkippen von Beteiligten auf. Dazu hatten die Beamten Untersuchungshandschuhe übergezogen, und steckten nach Beobachtungen die Kippen einzeln in Plastikbeutel. Zuvor schon waren Aktionsteilnehmer fotografiert und wohl auch gefilmt worden.

Link zum Artikel: http://www.aku-wiesbaden.de/artikel_94.htm

--------

CASTOR-TRANSPORT UM 2 WOCHEN VERSCHOBEN

Nach Informationen der Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg (BI) sind die ursprünglich für den 5. November anvisierten Castortransporte um zwei Wochen verlegt worden. Voraussichtlich am Wochenende des Totensonntag (19./20.11.) soll nun die hochradioaktive Fracht per Bahn aus dem französischen Verladebahnhof in Valogne rollen.

Link zum Artikel: http://www.aku-wiesbaden.de/artikel_93.htm

Here's the AUDIO from Rep Kurt Weldon's STUNNING disclosures on the House Floor "Able Danger" & 9/11 Foreknowledge".

Most here already know about "ABLE DANGER". What Rep. Weldon, Republican from Penn, brought up late one nigh last week on the House Floor will make Bush Administration's recent troubles seem like child's play by comparison.

This time, even ardent conservatives, such as Michael Savage of "The Savage Nation" radio talk show, are calling for liberals and conservatives to put aside our differences and come together on this one. I included an excerpt from his show, in the first audio clip below, reflective of this appeal.

Because most people find it hard to make time to listen to audio clips, I condensed and highlighted the main points of Weldon's speech in the first 2 clips. The complete speech follows these excerpts. Following that, I included a link to a related article.

Finally, I re-posted the audio clips, from about 6 months ago, from Ed Griffin on C-Span 2, on the distortions and omissions from the "9/11 Commission Report". Maybe now, moderate conservatives will not be so quick in dismissing Griffin's own disclosures.

Please support Rep. Kurt Weldon's effort BY PASSING THIS INFORMATION TO ALL YOU KNOW!!!

Jack Topel


Michael Savage of "Savage Nation Radio Show on Rep Weldon
1) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231518&f=BSUADK&ps=13&p=1 (3 min) (plus begining introduction from Rep Weldon on the House floor)

Excerpts from Rep Weldon's 47 minute speech on the House floor
2) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231521&f=ICKHOY&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)

3) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231526&f=GMGWDG&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)

The Complete Speech from Rep Weldon on the House Floor
1) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231530&f=IYGSRV&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)
2) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231526&f=GMGWDG&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)
3) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231536&f=QHHAXC&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)
4) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231563&f=MLONEB&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)
5) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=231565&f=ROJGEH&ps=13&p=1 ( 7 min)

For the whole article on: "Able Danger" & 9/11 Foreknowledge
by William F. Jasper -- October 31, 2005 For the whole article, go to:

http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=697&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0



Ed Griffins speech on C-Span 2 - "Distortions and Omissions by the 9/11 Commission Report"

1) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172819&f=MDXING&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)
2) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172837&f=ESRJLJ&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)

Input that backs Griffin's last premise from John Lear
3) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172840&f=WXWOTJ&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)

Balance of Ed Griffins speech on C-Sapn 2
4) http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172847&f=GWUXUV&ps=13&p=1 (8 min)

"I went to fight in Iraq to get revenge for 9/11... I found out Bush had led us into a war that was immoral and totally wrong..." - IVAW Member, Tomas Young.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102805N.shtml

A federal grand jury has indicted Tom Noe, the former Toledo-area coin dealer at the center of a state investment scandal, of illegally laundering money into President Bush’s re-election campaign.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102805L.shtml

Celeste Zappala and Anne Roesler write that in Iraq, another soldier teetered on consciousness, drew the last breath and was gone. And all the hopes that rode on him and all the prayers that followed him from all the people who loved him are done.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102805J.shtml

INITIATIVE zur Verhinderung weiterer Handymasten im Feyregger Wohngebiet

Gerhard HÜTMEYER
Getreidestraße 13
4540 Pfarrkirchen/Bad Hall
Tel.: 07258/7579
e-mail: g.huetmeyer@aon.at


Enttäuschung bei den Sprechern der Bürgerinitiative

Nur zwei Dutzend bei Protestkundgebung

Dem Aufruf der „Initiative zur Verhinderung von weiteren Handymasten im Feyregger Wohngebiet“ mit einem stillen Protest an der gestrigen Gemeinderatssitzung (14.10.2005) als Zuhörer teilzunehmen, sind insgesamt nur 28 Personen gefolgt.

Da einige Zuhörer wegen anderer Tagesordnungspunkte gekommen waren, bleiben für die Protestkundgebung nur zwei Dutzend Besucher übrig.

Die zwei Dutzend Bürger traten mit einigen Protesttafeln und einem veränderten Gemeindewappen (anstelle der Heilquelle ein Silo mit drei Handymasten) auf. Über Ersuchen des Bürgermeisters wurden diese Tafeln nur kurz im Sitzungssaal präsentiert und kurz nach Sitzungsbeginn im Vorraum abgelegt. Bürgermeister Herbert Plaimer begründete sein Ersuchen damit, dass er eine Gefahr durch das Umfallen von Tafeln nicht ausschließen könne.

Einerseits war es zwar ein rekordverdächtiger Besuch, andererseits hätte die Bürgerinitiative insgeheim mit rund 100 Zuhörern gerechnet. Die Tische im Sitzungssaal der Gemeinde Pfarrkirchen wurden jedenfalls enger gestellt und auch eine eventuell notwendige Umsiedelung in den Turnsaal der Volksschule war vorbereitet.

Sprecher wirft das Handtuch

„Ich bin enttäuscht über die geringe Zuhörerzahl. Es ist traurig, wenn die betroffenen BügerInnen nicht hinter uns stehen und werde daher für die Bürgerinitiative nicht mehr zur Verfügung stehen“, so Sprecher Gerhard Hütmeyer.

Und auch der zweite Sprecher der Bürgerinitiative, Franz WIESER, verlässt aufgrund der schwachen Beteiligung an der stillen Protestkundgebung die Bürgerinitiative, die zwar noch teilweise privat weiterarbeitet, aber nicht mehr für öffentlich für den Ortsteil Feyregg der Gemeinde A-4540 Pfarrkirchen bei Bad Hall auftritt.

http://action.truemajority.org/campaign/libbyindictment


Informant: mojo_j_2000

Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102805X.shtml

--------

22 pgs Libby indictment
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf


Informant: mojo_j_2000

Forced Drug Experiments On Black & Latino Children

Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center is using Foster Care Children locked at the Incarnation Children's Center in Washington Heights, Manhattan as Guinea Pigs for their research on HIV Toxic Drugs & Experimental Vaccines on behalf of Drug Companies. Most of those Children are also given Psychotropics to keep them Docile while they torture them. Psychiatrists use them for a study of "Suicidal Tendencies in HIV positive Children".

These Children were taken away from their Mothers when they went to deliver and tested HIV+. We know that those tests are unreliable and crossreact with the Flu, Smallpox, 60 other infections (past or present) and with pregnancy. Many of these Children died and are still dying as a result of these Lethal Experiments. Children as young as 1 month old were intubated & daily force-fed these drugs, even in the middle of the night: plain torture before killing them.

Emergency Rally at 3:00 PM Saturday, October 29, 2005 Incarnation Children's Center 142 Audubon Avenue, Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York (172 & 173 Street, Trains 1, 9, A, C to 168 St. Stop)

There are 18,000 Children in Foster Care in NYC: 98% Black & Latino, less than 1% White. Foster Care is a profit-driven Industry, a subtle continuation of Institutionalized Slavery. It treats Children as Chattel, violating the 13th Amendment against Slavery and Involuntary Servitude. Family Court is an Institutionalized System of Injustice setup to "legalize" this Racketeering Scheme and Rubber Stamp the State Sponsored Child & Family Abuse to Terrorize & Subdue poor Blacks & Latinos. A Social Cancer that continually feeds the prison, homeless and mentally ill population. See:
http://www.parentsinaction.net/english/CHILDREN_AS_CHATTEL.htm


Join Us in Defense of Our Children. No More "Tuskegee Experiments" Stop Torturing Our Children. Defend Our Children from Their Tormentors Close Down this Slaughterhouse. Let Our Children Go

Stop the Slave Trade with Our Children. Reparations Now!

Sponsors: Parents in Action, December 12 Movement, Millions For Reparations, Mothers of the Stolen Children, Parents Against Forced Adoptions, Circulo Bolivariano Alberto Lovera, Concerned Citizens for Family Preservation, Harlem Tenants Council, Descendants of Freedom, NYC Mothers Acting Up, The People Advocacy, International Action Center, National Action Network, Muhammad Mosque No. 7, ICOPE, The Defense Foundation for Children USA, The Miracles Of Hope Network, Altitudes for Community Excellence, Association of Black Social Workers, etc.

See:

http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/guineapig012605.shtml
http://lostsheep1.com/newletter/newsletter4.htm http://www.nyclass.com/print.cfm?content_id=11944
http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=10614 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4035345.stm
http://www.indypressny.org/article.php3?ArticleID=1839
http://www.altheal.org/toxicity/house.htm
http://www.altheal.org/toxicity/nurse.htm http://www.altheal.org/toxicity/icccont.htm
http://www.gnn.tv/blogs/4787/Vaccine_Trials_Get_the_Cure_Get_the_Disease
http://www.ahrp.org/ahrpspeaks/SACHRP0405.php

Parents in Action: 718-392-7485, 347-624-4830,
parentsinaction1@yahoo.com,
http://www.parentsinaction.net
December 12 Movement: 718-398-1766,
d12m@aol.com,
http://www.millionsforreparations.com

Stop the Coward Attack on Poor Mothers & Their Innocent Children

http://openpr.de/news/66137.html

INITIATIVE zur Verhinderung weiterer Handymasten im Feyregger Wohngebiet

Gerhard HÜTMEYER
Getreidestraße 13
4540 Pfarrkirchen/Bad Hall
Tel.: 07258/7579
e-mail: g.huetmeyer@aon.at

Pfarrkirchen bei Bad Hall am 28. Oktober 2005

Pfarrkirchner Appell von neun Doktoren der Medizinwissenschaft

Nachdem Betreiberfirmen in Pfarrkirchen/Bad Hall Mobilfunksendeanlagen erweitern wollen haben sich in der 2100-Seelen-Gemeinde nun sieben Ärzte, ein Biologie-Universitätsprofessor und eine Psychologie-Neurologin zu einem Pfarrkirchner Appell zusammengeschlossen und fordern neben dem FREIBURGER Appell vom 9.10.2002, dem BAMBERGER APPELL vom 21.7.2004, dem HOFER APPELL vom 28.5.2005, dem LICHTENFELSTER APPELL vom 5.7.2005, der WARNUNG der WIENER Ärztekammer vom 5.8.2005 und der WARNUNG der österr. Ärztekammer vom 30.8.2005 nachdrücklich:

1.) Keinen weiteren Ausbau der Mobilfunktechnologie, denn es handelt sich um unfreiwillige Risiken für die Menschen mit wahrscheinlich dauerhaften gesundheitlichen Belastungen.

2.) Reduzierung der Funkbelastung für alle Sendeanlagen auf maximal 1 Mikrowatt pro Quadratmeter in Wohnräumen.

3.) Aufklärung der BürgerInnen, Jugendlichen und Kinder über die Benützung von Handys und Schnurlostelefonen und über die Gesundheitsrisiken des Elektrosmog.

4.) Kinder und Jugendliche sollten (unter 16 Jahren) Handys nur im Notfall benutzen.

5.) Bei aufgetretenen Schäden das Verursacherprinzip beachten.

Mehr als 1500 deutsche Ärzte, Fachärzte und Medizinprofessoren haben die obgenannten Appelle unterzeichnet. Die erfahrenen Mediziner beweisen eine signifikante Häufung folgender Krankheiten in der Nähe von Mobilfunksendeanlagen: Lern-, Konzentrations- und Verhaltensstörungen bei Kindern (Hyperaktivität); Blutdruckentgleisungen; Herzrhythmusstörungen, Herzinfarkte und Schlaganfälle immer jüngerer Menschen; Hirndegenerative Erkrankungen; Krebserkrankungen wie Leukämie und Hirntumore; Kopfschmerzen und Migräne; chronische Erschöpfung, innere Unruhe; Schlaflosigkeit und Tagesmüdigkeit, Ohrengeräusche, Infektanfälligkeit, Nervenschmerzen, etc.

Der Pfarrkirchner Appell schließt sich den genannten Appellen an, hält den weiteren Ausbau des Mobilfunknetzes für bedenklich und appelliert an Politiker, Wissenschaftler und Verantwortliche des Gesundheitswesens, dem im Grundgesetz garantierten Schutz von Leben und Gesundheit wieder den Vorrang einzuräumen.

--------

Ärzteappelle gegen ungezügelten Mobilfunk
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1064751/

Gerhard Hütmeyer 10/15/05 8:23 >>>

Sehr geehrter Dr. Stefan WEISS,

zur Problematik über Parteistellungen bei der Errichtung von Sendmastanlagen schreiben Sie für Vizekanzler Bundesminister vom 8. August 2005 an Bgm Plaimer der Gemeinde Pfarrkirchen:

Vizekanzler Hubert GORBACH GZ. BMVIT-907.001/0452-Büro HVK/2005 DVR:0000175

....... Die Problematik der Parteistellung der Anrainer resultiert daraus, dass die Errichtung von Mobilfunksendeanlagen durch das TKG (Telekommunikationsgesetz) als Bundesgesetz nicht umfassend geregelt werden kann, da derartige Vorhaben unterschiedliche, in der Kompetenz der Länder liegende Rechtsbereiche tangieren. Zu nennen sind hier u.a. die Bauordnungen, Landschaftsschutz- und Naturschutzgesetze, sowie Normen des Ortsbildschutzes.

Die Möglichkeit der Verankerung der Parteistellung im Telkommunikationsgesetz ist daher schon aus Gründen der verfassungsrechtlichen Kompetenzlage äußerst eingeschränkt.

Die Problematik der Nichteinbeziehung der Bürger im Rahmen dieser Verfahren zur Errichtung von Sendeanlagen ist bekannt. Eine Änderung dieser Situation obliegt jedoch aufgrund der erwähnten Situation den einzelnen Bundesländern. ....................

FRAGE: Mit welchen Landesgesetzen kann hier in Oberösterreich eine Parteistellung erreicht werden ?

Mit freundlichem Gruß

Initiative zur Erweiterung von Handymasten im Feyregger Wohngebiet Gerhard Hütmeyer Getreidestraße 13, 4540 Pfarrkirchen/Bad Hall Tel.: 07258/7579 od. 0699/81180410 e-mail: g.huetmeyer@aon.at


----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefan WEISS" To: "Gerhard Hütmeyer" Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 4:31 PM Subject: Antw: Schreiben von Vizekanzler Hubert GORBACH an die GdPfarrkirchen


Sehr geehrter Herr Hütmeyer!

Um den betroffenen Bürgern Parteistellung zu verschaffen, müssten die jeweiligen Landesgesetze (wie etwa die OÖ Bauordnung, Landschaftsschutz- und Naturschutzgesetze) dies vorsehen und eben in diese Richtung geändert werden.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Stefan Weiss

http://www.counterpunch.org/gasper10282005.html


Informant: Ashley Smith

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1028-05.htm


Informant: John Calvert

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3546/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

It allows donors who make cash gifts to almost any charity by the end of this year to deduct an amount equal to virtually 100 percent of their adjusted gross incomes, double the normal limit of 50 percent of income.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102705M.shtml

As of Oct. 15, according to the Pentagon, 15,220 members of the US military had been wounded in action since the Iraqi operation began in March 2003 -- 542 during the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and 14,678 since US troops began battling the insurgency. Nearly half of those wounded were injured severely enough that they could not return to duty within 72 hours.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102705G.shtml

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will return to court next Tuesday for a hearing on whether the judge assigned to handle his trial should be recused. DeLay was indicted on conspiracy charges arising out of an investigation into campaign fundraising for the 2002 Texas state legislature elections. He and two associates are accused of funneling corporate money to Texas legislative campaigns in violation of state law, which prohibits use of such donations for electing or defeating state candidates.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102705E.shtml

From: "Kathy Guthrie" FCNL Legislative Action Message

The vice-president of the United States is publically advocating giving a U.S. government agency statutory authority to use torture. Supporters of the McCain anti-torture amendment to the military spending bill have no time to enjoy the amendment’s overwhelming 90-9 bi-partisan passage in the Senate. The amendment may be rendered meaningless by loopholes under consideration in conference committee. We must act now, telling Congress that no matter which government agency, no matter where, and no matter how the president characterizes the circumstances, United States forces do not ever have permission to torture or use cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

Take Action: Please contact your congressional delegation, including both of your senators and your representative. Tell them that the McCain amendment must not be altered during conference committee to lessen its provisions. Tell them that every member of Congress has the responsibility to make sure that U.S. moral values and sound military principles are upheld by preserving the McCain amendment to the 2006 military appropriations bill, intact for the president’s signature.

See FCNL’s web site
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=8170141&type=CO to find a sample letter and contact your members of Congress directly. You will need to enter your zip code to see the sample letter.

Background: President Bush has threatened to veto the 2006 military appropriations bill (H.R. 2863) because the Senate amended its version of the bill to require that: (1) treatment of all Department of Defense (DoD) detainees or detainees held in DoD facilities must follow the Army Field Manual for Intelligence Interrogation; and (2) the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (to which the U.S. is a signatory) governs all U.S. detainees. Read the text of the amendment.:

http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1567&issue_id=70

The president’s congressional allies were initially rumored to have plans to strip the amendment from the bill. However, the lopsided, bi-partisan vote in the Senate signaled a powerful political incentive for the conference committee to retain the amendment in the bill. Instead of working to strip the amendment, the administration and its supporters have suggested revisions to the amendment that would water it down to the point of meaninglessness. Vice-President Cheney proposed his own “compromise” plan to Sen. McCain last week (week of Oct. 10). The Cheney Plan would exempt the CIA from the provisions of the anti-torture amendment. This plan is so shocking, it bears repeating: the vice-president of the United States is publically advocating giving a U.S. government agency statutory authority to use torture. This proposal is especially dangerous in light of the administration’s support for moving all intelligence functions out of the Pentagon and the FBI and into the CIA’s portfolio.

Other proponents of allowing brutal treatment under some circumstances have suggested other loopholes to the amendment, e.g., presidential waiver (the president could, using his own judgment, waive the prohibition in the interest of national security); geographic limitation (torture would be prohibited only in certain locations, such as on U.S. soil); or non-applicability of the amendment during "classified" interrogations.

The president argues that the McCain amendment ties the president’s hands in his efforts to preserve national security in the post-September 11 world. He also claims that as commander-in-chief, he has the authority to determine the rules by which detainees in the "war against terror" are handled. Human rights supporters disagree, pointing to the U.S. Constitution, Art. I, sec. 8: "The Congress shall have Power ... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." (emphasis added)

Human rights advocates reiterate that torture -

is inhumane; doesn’t reflect our country’s moral values; undermines human rights standards worldwide; creates legions of enemies of the U.S.; brings danger of retaliation on U.S. troops and travelers abroad; and does not work - it does not produce reliable intelligence information. Check the FCNL website for further background information about the use of torture.


Informant: Martin Greenhut

The European Union has issued a one month import ban and effectively stopped the constant flow of parrots and other pet birds from Africa, Asia and South-America, which are caught in the wild under mostly illegal or dreadful conditions. The pseudo-legal regulations at the market countries often only cover the the illegal and cruel practices at the countries of origin. Of late 1.76 million wild birds imported live per year used to supply the demanding and uneducated European consumer market, whereby it is estimated that at least a similar number already died in the trade-pipelines. The global ecosystems can no longer afford to loose nearly 5 million birds from the wild every year just to satisfy sick consumer demands.

This import ban for all EU countries has to become permanent now !

Please go to http://www.worldparrottrust.org to get all the background information and kindly sign the petition at: http://www.worldparrottrust.org/trade/tradegerman.htm !

But such must not apply for Europe only, though it counts for around 87% of the global trade in wild birds, but the treatment of wild birds as mere trading goods has to stop everywhere.

ECOTERRA Intl. therefore asks all environmental and health organisations to get similar import-stops in place worldwide and to initiate a crack-down on the illegal trade !

The deadly spiral of purely opportunistic and money-oriented trade of wild species, which bears in addition serious health-risks and gives opportunities only to further criminal medical scams must be broken - now, because already drug-resistant strains of the deadly H5N1 virus exist.


ECOTERRA Intl.

P.S.: And use this issue to check the credibility of your newspaper - if they just followed the mainstream scaremongering, financed by Big Pharma: Give them the boot ! The conning has to stop too!

---------------

Tamiflu-resistant bird flu found in Vietnam Burning culled chickens in Vietnam Catherine Brahic
17 October 2005 Source: SciDev.Net

Researchers have found a strain of bird flu that can resist Tamiflu, the drug that governments and the World Health Organization are stockpiling in preparation for a widely predicted flu pandemic.

The scientists say health authorities should consider stocking up on more than one anti-flu drug.

The Vietnamese and Japanese researchers, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo, will publish their findings in Nature on Thursday (20 October).

They isolated the drug-resistant H5N1 virus from a 14-year-old Vietnamese girl.

Most of the virus strains found in her blood were resistant to oseltamivir, the flu drug sold commercially as Tamiflu. This resistance was the result of a single genetic mutation in one of the virus's eight proteins.

"We've been watching for this change [in the virus]," Kawaoka says. "This is the first, but we will see others. There's no question about it."

The researchers acknowledge that their findings are based on a single patient, but say the results suggest, "it might be useful to stockpile zanamivir as well as oseltamivir in the event of an H5N1 influenza pandemic".

It is not the first time flu experts have advised governments to stockpile zanamivir, whose trade name is Relenza (see 'Bird flu: in favour of contingency plans').

In August, Kenneth Tsang and colleagues suggested in The Lancet that H5N1, which has killed 60 people in Asia, would be less likely to become resistant to zanamivir than to oseltamivir.

Kawaoka calls oseltamivir the "first line of defence. It is the drug many countries are stockpiling, and the plan is to rely heavily on it."

It is widely accepted that the global flu pandemic experts have been predicting for more than a year could ensue if H5N1 became able to spread from person to person (see Time to prepare for bird flu pandemic 'running out').

Kawaoka and colleagues say that, as far as they could tell, the Vietnamese patient had no direct contact with poultry. She had, however, taken care of her 21-year-old brother while he was infected with H5N1.

So far, the World Health Organization has not confirmed a single case of H5N1 being transmitted between people.

Last year, researchers suggested that a Thai woman might have been infected with the virus while caring for her infected daughter (see Bird flu deaths raise fears of human spread).

The World Health Organization, however, never confirmed this, or other suspected cases of human-to-human transmission.

Reference: Nature 437, 1108 (2005)

Related SciDev.Net articles: Asian nations to stockpile flu drugs against pandemic Bird flu virus 'could be mutating in Vietnam'

-----------------

Oh no! Say it aint so. Rummy's old company makes money on flu alerts?

TAMIFLU GILEAD CHAIR WAS ... RUMMY http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=1443 Friday, October 21, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com

NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Readers can be helpful, and one just wrote in to inform us of a link that we had never imagined - Donald Rumsfeld, until he resigned and joined the Bush Administration, was the chairman of something called Gilead which just happened to make something called Tamiflu.

Now anyone who hasn't been on Mars for the last month or two, knows that there were only two things that were going to stop the human version of bird flu. One was a bird flu vaccine (which probably would work better if you were a bird) and the other was something called Tamiflu. Yes, that Tamiflu. In such short supply that the hundreds of millions of orders that have been pouring into Gilead probably won't be filled for another 12 months or so. But everyone has got to have it because somehow or other it became established that Tamiflu really worked.

This was the party line, anyway, for about a week, until word began trickling back in that maybe Tamiflu didn't work. In fact, the word on Tamiflu has always been positive at first and then eventually negative. It's a kind of pattern. We even find corroboration of it here on the Democrats.com, in what appears to be either a chat room or news roundup as follows, "Rummy was CEO of Gilead Sciences until named to the Bush cabinet and, like Cheney, still has ties that bind to the 'old company.' Now isn't it an 'amazing coincidence' that the drug Tamiflu patented by Gilead Sciences is being pushed by the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases as the NUMBER ONE choice for flu, which, wonder of wonders, is sweeping through in one epidemic after another."

The post from January '04 adds, "Tamiflu is now also being recommended to fight avian flu ... Scroll through this NIAID page and you will find Tamiflu listed as ahead of all other recommended drugs for both prevention and treatment of flu. Trouble is, Gilead has been accused of rigging the trials of Tamiflu as a preventive treatment. Meanwhile Gilead is making a killing."

The post then gives the following link:
http://12.31.13.115/HealthNews/reuters/NewsStory0106200324.htm)

We bet Gilead is still making a killing as is Big Pharma. Please notice now that the orders are in, the hysteria has died down a bit. Perhaps everybody is too busy counting the money. Or perhaps it was never about anything BUT the money. We weren't entirely sure, but we knew that none of it passed the old "smell test." In fact, in serial articles we claimed that bird flu probably wasn't going to turn into human flu anytime soon, that even if it did, it didn't mean that the world was in for a dose of 1918 influenza all over again. We just couldn't believe that the people bringing us Spanish Influenza Redux - with all the hype and horror - were remotely qualified to bring us even the opening of an envelope.

We questioned everything, even whether 1918 was all just the fault of a flu virus. Didn't seem likely to us then and doesn't now - especially since we've come to understand what hygiene was like for the soldiers coming back from the war, how vaccine providers apparently unloaded their stock after the war, lowering immunities, etc. and, finally how the new miracle drug, aspirin, was all the rage, prescribed by medical parishioners everywhere. Aspirin lowers fevers and allows flu to build until it bursts out all over the body with renewed and potentially mortal violence.

And that brings us to today. Bird flu still rages and, yes, it may mutate into human flu at some point and cause death, many deaths, or fewer deaths, no one knows. It may indeed sweep around the world. But of more worry immediately were moves of civil authorities to float trial balloons about mandatory vaccination and to start sending vials of superflu bugs around the world in the name of science. We demanded that our viewers call the Capitol Hill and get out the word that the government was to cease testing new vaccines, cease ordering TamiFlu and bird flu vaccine, neither of which work or will work against whatever it is that bird flu will turn into. Which at least some in government would love because then they could turn the President's apparent yen for martial law into reality. And Bush could use some martial law about now. Hell, he could use anything, maybe even a good book.

We hoped that this latest epidemic of hysteria would finally force the government to come clean about other remedies - super doses of Vitamin C and even the use of silver as an antidote. We're still waiting. Sigh.

staff&nbspreports - Free-Market News Network

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More Tamiflu on the way, says drug giant

Thai researchers testing samples for bird flu Catherine Brahic
18 October 2005 Source: SciDev.Net The company that makes Tamiflu, the drug health authorities are stockpiling in case of a flu pandemic, says it will consider letting governments and other companies produce the drug. Roche Pharmaceuticals also said it would expand its manufacturing capacity to meet the rapidly growing demand. Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, reduces flu symptoms. It might be able to cure and reduce the spread of infection between people if the bird flu virus H5N1, which has killed 60 people in Asia, sparks a human pandemic. Because it holds the patent for the drug, Roche is the only company allowed to make it, but cannot keep up with increased global demand. The company announced today (18 October) that the US Food and Drug Administration has given it permission to open an extra factory in the United States to make more of the drug. A Roche spokesperson told SciDev.Net that the company was unable to say how much this would boost supplies. William Burns, head of Roche's Pharma Division, said in today's statement that to supply the world with more Tamiflu the company was prepared to discuss "all available options" with any government or company. Burns said Roche would do this "provided such groups can realistically produce substantial amounts of the medicine for emergency pandemic use, in accordance with appropriate quality specifications, safety and regulatory guidelines". According to Reuters, the Indian drug company Cipla wants to start making oseltamivir but has yet to approach Roche. Reuters also reports that Thailand plans to bypass Roche's patent and make a much cheaper, generic version of the drug by October 2006. Roche told SciDev.Net that an Asian government — but not the Thai one — had approached it about a production agreement for the drug. Also today, GlaxoSmithKline announced it would to increase production of another flu drug called Relenza (zanamivir), which some researchers have urged governments to stockpile in addition to Tamiflu (see Tamiflu-resistant bird flu found in Vietnam).


Regional Gateways

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Waterbird culls and wetland drainage could worsen spread of Avian Influenza, BirdLife warns 20 October 2005 BirdLIfe International [1] today warned that hasty responses to Avian Influenza based on incomplete or unsound data could do great damage to birds and other biodiversity, while actually raising the risk to people and to the economically important poultry industry. BirdLife International’s Partners throughout Europe, such as the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK ), are working or preparing to work with their governments to monitor migratory wild bird populations and to provide scientific data and expert guidance. Recent outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza [2] in Europe have occurred along migratory flyways (including the Danube delta, a great gathering place for migratory waterbird) during the autumn migration. There is no concrete evidence that migratory birds have helped transmit the disease between countries or regions, but the possibility cannot be ruled out. The spread of H5N1 within and beyond South-east Asia appears attributable to movements of infected poultry [3, 4, 5]. The patterns of spread are not consistent with the timing and direction of movements of wild birds BirdLife International strongly opposes any suggestion that wild birds should be culled as a way of controlling the spread of the disease, on grounds of practicality and effectiveness, as well as conservation. Any such attempts could spread the virus more widely, as survivors disperse to new places, and healthy birds become stressed and more prone to infection. The World Health Organisation, Food and Agriculture Organisation and OIE (the World Organisation for Animal Health) agree that control of avian influenza in wild birds by culling is not feasible, and should not be attempted.

Similarly, attempts to drain wetlands to keep waterbirds away are also likely to be counterproductive, as well as disastrous for the environment, the conservation of threatened species, and for vital ecosystem services such as flood control and water cleansing. Birds will seek alternative staging places and waterbirds forced to fly further and endure more crowded conditions along their migration route will be more prone to infection. Some Asian and Middle Eastern governments are reported to be already formulating proposals for draining wetlands. The most efficient control techniques involve improved biosecurity, to reduce the likelihood of contact between poultry and wild birds or infected water sources. Further measures include stricter controls or even bans on movements of domestic poultry, and on wild bird markets. Countries should also ban imports of wild-caught birds from infected areas. Such measures should be introduced worldwide. BirdLife International therefore welcomes the recommendations by the European Commission that surveillance and biosecurity measures at poultry farms in the European Union should be strengthened, and that the Member States and experts have been advised to increase resources and efforts to monitor migratory bird species. “We would like to offer our expertise in the Member States through our Partners and invite the EU state administrations to contact our Partners in country for help especially with the wild bird monitoring programmes,” said Dr Clairie Papazoglou, BirdLife International’s Head of EU Policy,. BirdLife International’s Director of Science, Dr Leon Bennun, stressed the importance of informed and balanced judgement in responses to the threat of avian influenza, and in the public dissemination of information about it. “It is important that discussions of the issues relating to avian influenza should differentiate between the real problems caused by the spread of the disease within bird populations, especially within the poultry industry, and the theoretical risks of a human pandemic.” ENDS Contacts For further information please contact: Ade Long, Communications, BirdLife International, tel: +44 1223 277812 mobile +44 (0)7779 7779018332 email: adrian.long@birdlife.org

Notes

[1] BirdLife International is a partnership of people working together for birds and the environment. It promotes sustainable living as a means of conserving birds and all other forms of biodiversity and is the leading authority on the status of birds and their habitats. Over 10 million people support the BirdLife Partnership of national non-governmental conservation organisations and local networks.

[2] There are at least 144 strains of avian influenza, many of which circulate in wild birds at low levels. Most strains are mild and are designated ’Low Pathogenicity Avian Influenza‘ (LPAI). But a few ’subtypes’ can cause massive mortality in poultry and are designated ’High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza‘ (HPAI).

Wild birds can also be infected with, and killed by, HPAI viruses. They appear to acquire the virus through contact with infected poultry or with facilities used by them.

Subtype H5N1 evolved in poultry from Low Pathogenicity Avian Influenza viruses that were probably acquired from wild birds. Conditions in poultry flocks (such as crowding, and prolonged contact with faeces, saliva and other bodily secretions) keep the viruses circulating as they evolve [3] The current series of outbreaks began in 2003 in South-east Asia , where a dramatic increase in intensive poultry production is sometimes combined with poor hygiene and bio-security in small “backyard” enterprises. Domestic ducks are commonly turned out to feed in rice fields alongside waterbirds during the day, and confined with other poultry at night. Birds from different areas are brought together in networks of poultry markets, and often transported hundreds of miles.

[4] Within south-east Asia , movements of poultry and poultry products are known to have been involved in the virus’s spread among flocks and between countries. Outbreaks in China , Kazakhstan and southern Russia are connected by major road and rail routes. The “transmission routes” between outbreaks in Asia do not follow migratory flyways. Many of these outbreaks also occurred in summer, when birds are moulting and do not fly far.

[5] There are several ways through which H5N1 might be transmitted, including movements of poultry (and feathers), migrating birds, the trade in wild-caught birds, and the movement of soil/mud on wheels and feet. The relative importance of each of these factors in the transmission of H5N1 is unknown, but to date, all outbreaks that have been investigated have been traced back to poultry movements.

Ade Long Head of Communications BirdLife International Wellbrook Court, Girton Cambridge CB3 0NA, UK adrian.long@birdlife.org Tel: +44 (0)1223 279812 Fax: +44 (0)1223 277200
http://www.birdlife.org

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Avian flu on the wing: are wild birds to blame?

21 October 2005 Source: The bird flu H5N1 virus is spreading fast, and the general view presented in the media is that migratory birds are to blame. Yet, writes Dennis Normile in Science, bird experts have been almost unanimously sceptical about this theory. They argue that sick or dying birds cannot fly very far, and that even if they were carrying the virus, H5N1 should already have arrived in places where it has not. Moreover, researchers in the US and China have been monitoring wild birds for several years, looking for healthy birds carrying H5N1. So far, both searches have found nothing. Rather, experts have been arguing that it is human movement of birds that is spreading the disease. Examples include poultry trade and, more unusually, a traveller caught smuggling birds of prey from Thailand to Belgium. Tests showed that these birds were carrying H5N1. But outbreaks among wildfowl in remote corners of China and Mongolia — where movements of domestic poultry have been ruled out as a cause — are forcing some to change their minds. A Chinese team, for instance, is speculating that mildly infected birds could be carrying the virus long distances. As researchers scramble to pinpoint the cause, surveillance remains patchy, and efforts to fight bird flu in Asia is failing to get adequate international funding. Link to full article in Science:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5747/426?ijkey=t3pFaK.twYqc6&keytype=ref&siteid=sci


From ECOTERRA Intl.

by Mike Ingram

26 October 2005

In a serious attack on democratic rights, the US government has greatly increased the scope of legislation introduced in 1994, regarding the electronic monitoring of telecommunications providers.

The legislation, known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) obliges telephone companies to make it possible for law enforcement agencies to intercept any phone conversations carried out over its networks, as well as making call records available.

The act also stipulates that it must not be possible for a person to detect that his or her conversation is being monitored by the respective government agency.

An order issued by the Federal Communications Commission in August and first published in the Federal Register of October 13 extends the requirement of the 1994 legislation to cover broadband Internet access services, including wireless and voice-over-IP (VoIP) Internet telephony services.

Universities required to comply

The far-ranging implications of this are highlighted in an appeal being prepared by lawyers for the American Council on Education.

The largest association of universities and colleges is preparing to appeal the order before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

According to the New York Times, the universities do not question the government’s right to implement wiretaps but are appealing on the grounds of cost— in excess of $7 billion, according to estimates by some professionals.

But the cost is itself indicative of the extent of the threat to privacy and democratic rights contained in the order.

Universities provide Internet access from hundreds of buildings across campuses and entire cities, including lounges, dorms, classrooms, laboratories, libraries and other areas that offer either wired or wireless Internet access.

Universities already comply with requests by law enforcement officials who produce court orders requiring wiretaps.

At present, this requires them to work with campus officials to single out specific sites and install the equipment needed to carry out surveillance.

The new legislation requires universities to have every Internet access point send all communications to a network operations center, where the data packets could be put together into a single package for delivery to a law enforcement agency.

If this is done, then the government will no longer require the collaboration of campus officials to monitor the activities of students or staff.

The technology will be in place for automatic surveillance from a remote location without the knowledge of either the individuals being monitored or the institution itself.

Beyond the university campus, the order extends the 1994 wiretap provisions to Internet service providers, libraries, airports providing wireless services and municipalities that either provide Internet access to residents or plan to build their own Internet access networks, such as Philadelphia or San Francisco.

CALEA to cover Internet telephony providers

As well as extending CALEA to broadband Internet access providers, the order states, “We conclude that CALEA applies to providers of ‘interconnected VoIP services,’ which include those VoIP services that:

(1) enable real-time, two-way voice communications;
(2) require a broadband connection from the user’s location;
(3) require IP-compatible customer premises question; and
(4) permit users to receive calls from and terminate calls to the PSTN [public switched telephone network].”

This poses huge compliance problems for companies providing so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) services, where communications are not routed through a central server.

Though the legislation requires compliance only from systems that allow connection to the PSTN, it nevertheless requires that on such systems, all calls be wiretappable, not just those interacting with the phone system.

This would potentially require P2P telephone service companies such as Skype to re-engineer its system to make customers wiretappable because it offers the SkypeIn and SkypeOut paid services that permit customers to receive calls from and make them to the traditional phone system.

Skype is the best known of such services, which was recently purchased by eBay for $2.6 billion. The service registers well over 3 million users online at any one time.

The expansion of CALEA to cover VoIP services is the latest in a long line of attacks on democratic rights and civil liberties carried out on the basis of the supposed “war on terror.”

When CALEA was set up in 1994, it explicitly differentiated between telecommunications and Internet services. CALEA originally carried a complete exemption for all “information services.” This was in part a response to broad-based criticisms on civil liberties grounds and concerns that to place such requirements on an emerging technology would stifle innovation and leave American capitalism unable to compete against its rivals.

As the Internet emerged as a mass medium, however, there were increasing attempts by police and intelligence agencies services to undermine such a separation.

The terrorist attacks of 2001 provided the political climate in which this could finally be achieved.

It was demanded that all such concerns be put aside in the interests of the “war on terror.”

On September 13, 2001, just two days after the attacks on New York and Washington, the Senate approved the Combating Terrorism Act, which among other things extended the powers of the FBI and other police agencies to spy on the Internet using new technology to monitor e-mail messages as they pass through Internet service providers.

Previous laws on telephone wiretapping made it relatively easy for the police to obtain the records of incoming and outgoing phone calls, a procedure called “trap and trace,” resulting in a list of all numbers called from or calling to a target location.

A much higher standard of evidence must be met to get an actual wiretap that records the substance of telephone conversations.

In the past, the monitoring of Internet traffic was limited to this more restrictive standard, but with the Combating Terrorism Act, Internet monitoring was treated the same as a trap-and-trace, although the information obtained goes far beyond a simple list of phone numbers.

The expansion of CALEA to require that any institution providing broadband Internet services must implement the technical means to facilitate such spying on an automatic basis is an ominous warning of things to come.

The FCC’s own press release describes the ruling as “the first step to apply CALEA obligations to new technologies and services that are increasingly used as a substitute for conventional services.”

See Also:

Internet privacy threatened following terrorist attacks on US [24 September 2001]

Democratic rights in America: the first casualty of Bush’s anti-terror war [19 September 2001]

The FCC ruling can be found at: http://www.cdt.org/digi_tele/20050923fcc-calea.pdf

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/calea-o26.shtml


Informant: friends2b

A group of mothers said yesterday that their sons were "beaten and tortured" by guards at the DC jail during several incidents last month in which they were allegedly sprayed with mace, stripped, blasted with water hoses, and dragged from their cells and attacked - all out of the view of security cameras.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/102705WA.shtml

Slaughter: There is only one decent response to these millionaires' proposal to steal workers' livelihoods and pensions: a strike that shuts down the industry nationwide, paid for with the UAW's enormous strike fund. The Big Three have been losing market share to other companies for years and can't afford not to have cars to sell.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/102705LB.shtml

The House Resources Committee passed a budget package Wednesday that would revise the nation's 1872 mining law to let mining companies buy Western land at fire-sale prices as part of a budget plan to raise funds and cut federal spending.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/102705EC.shtml

Republicans in Congress are renewing their push to break up the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing the nation's largest federal appeals court - the frequent source of rulings that infuriate conservatives - has become too big to be effective.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/102705EB.shtml

In the latest sign of the political jitters on Capitol Hill over high gasoline prices, a House panel voted Wednesday to relax a long-standing federal ban on new oil and gas drilling off most of the US coast and to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/102705EA.shtml

We read it in the newspapers, we hear it on the radio every day, every hour, that hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys are being pitilessly exterminated all over the world. We see them on television running for life, desperately flapping their wings, we hear their cries of terror as they are brutally grasped by men in masks and overalls, piled on top of each other in containers and either gassed or burned alive or thrown into pits and buried alive. And we accept it. There is no outcry, no protest, no scream of indignation. Even the World Federation for the Protection of Animals (WFPA) is keeping quiet. Nobody dares to accuse the administrations who are responsible for this and raise their voices to say out loud that this is not a way to treat sensitive, living beings, and that this is a crime and a heavy collective guilt for which we unfailingly will have to pay.

The price may be the loss of our migratory birds, along with the devastating and unimaginable consequences for the environment and for our own survival.

Migratory birds with their potential to spread avian flue have suddenly become the mortal enemies of man. “Killerenten” – killer ducks – is the name given by a popular Swiss newspaper to the innocent wild ducks and geese that are flying into our lands at this time, day after day, to pass the winter on our lakes. And in certain eastern European countries we can already see hoards of humans roaming about destroying birds nests in panic-stricken fear of some hypothetic virus. In blind and furious determination they are demolishing and burning down nesting areas and barricading all openings to cow sheds with netting and meshing to stop swallows from building their nests under the roofs and beams – a clear death sentence for that already heavily threatened species of birds.

What in heaven’s name has yet to happen before we recognise in our unrestrained consumption of meat and our abject and highly dangerous methods of factory farming the very source of our misery? How much more hardship, suffering and catastrophes still need to occur before we understand that the vile and stupid maxim of “mankind before all else” is leading us to ruin?

October 2005 FRANZ WEBER FOUNDATION, Switzerland

Fondation Franz Weber
1820 Montreux Switzerland Tél. +41 (0) 21 964 42 84 Fax +41 (0) 21 964 57 36


From ECOTERRA Intl.

White House officials braced for the possibility that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide would be indicted in the CIA leak case, but held out hope that presidential confidant Karl Rove might escape charges for the time being.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102805Z.shtml

by Jack Random

Now, as we await the indictments to be handed down by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the Plame Gate case, we are stricken by the parallels to Watergate. Yes, Watergate. This is no Monica Gate. This is not the story of over-zealous prosecutors investigating crooked real estate deals or the sexual escapades of the chief executive. At its very core, Plame Gate is the story of an abuse of executive power, involving the critical national security matter of exposing a covert agent for political retribution. The through-line of both cases is the incredible arrogance of the White House...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct05/Random1028.htm



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

by Nicole Colson

One of the most brutal murder sprees in recent U.S. history went largely ignored by the media. On the last night of September, six people were killed in their homes in southern Georgia -- five bludgeoned to death with baseball bats and one shot in the head. But because the victims were Mexican immigrants -- most of them undocumented -- they were easy to overlook. That’s why they were victims of these unspeakable crimes, too. In a system that views some people as “illegal” -- and where politicians and their corporate backers want undocumented workers for cheap labor, but don’t want to give them equal rights--immigrants will be scapegoated, exploited and preyed upon. Nicole Colson looks at the consequences of U.S. immigration policies on the lives of undocumented workers...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct05/Colson1028.htm

by Jason Leopold

The special prosecutor investigating the outing of a covert CIA agent expanded his probe last year to include intelligence information used by the Bush administration claiming that Iraq tried to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Niger. According to a court filing posted on the website of Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating who leaked the name of undercover CIA agent to reporters, was interested in questioning New York Times reporter Judith Miller about the CIA agent or whether she discussed Iraq's alleged efforts to purchase uranium from Niger...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct05/Leopold1028.htm

Tom Paine
by Russ Baker

10/27/05

"Perhaps by the time you read this, you will know the outcome of Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiries into the so-called Valerie Plame Affair. Perhaps, up until that announcement came or comes, you have resisted planning, oh, say, a, cigarettes-in-prison fund for Karl Rove. But some won't wait. Everyone with a vested interest in minimizing the significance of any outcome -- i.e. anyone who goes down with the good ship Bushypop, from hack legislators to hack pundits to hack political hacks -- has spent the past week or so frantically digging through their chest of hoary excuses. Perhaps it is from a subconscious sense of guilt, perhaps it is just good political sense. Whatever, we're too far along in the public debate about honesty and trust to let the spin go unchallenged. So here are some examples of what we're already seeing, some things we might expect to see, and some reasonable quick-responses to them...

http://tinyurl.com/8otvl


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Washington Times
by Donald Lambro

10/27/05

Perhaps no issue, outside of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, has angered conservatives more than the growth in federal spending during George W. Bush's presidency. Granted, Mr. Bush began his tenure by effectively slashing more than $1.4 trillion from the government's 10-year revenue projections through his tax cuts. Few of his critics see this as a spending cut, but if those tax cuts had not been passed, that money would have been spent, instead of remaining in the private sector where it fueled investment, job-creation and economic growth. That growth has paid off handsome dividends in the form of increased tax revenues that this year shrank the federal budget deficit by $100 billion. Still, there is no getting around the fact that spending has risen over the last five years, in many areas dramatically. But are the increases excessive or is there a reasonable justification for much of it?

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20051026-095053-8703r.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Frontiers of Freedom
by Diane M. Grassi

10/27/05

Staff Sergeant George T. Alexander, Jr. suffered injuries in an October 17, 2005 explosion in Iraq. He died of his sustained wounds on October 22, 2005 in San Antonio, TX near his home of Killeen, TX. Unfortunately, his death will be earmarked as the 2,000th United States soldier confirmed dead, serving in the War in Iraq. There have also been approximately 12,000 wounded soldiers who have returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them now permanently disabled. The U.S. military has called upon the media to refrain from making a political issue of the number of dead service members, but it is expected to remain a political hot potato on Capitol Hill...

http://tinyurl.com/byx5x


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

National Center for Policy Analysis
by staff

10/25/05

As debate begins in the U.S. Senate on an energy bill, government needs to remove barriers outside of Hurricane Alley that restrict domestic energy production and refining that would benefit consumers, according to NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett, noting that private firms both prepared for and responded to the recent hurricanes better and with more effectiveness than governments...

http://tinyurl.com/8wg9x


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Strike the Root
by David MacGregor

10/27/05

In 1984, the ordinary people were completely subjugated because of the state's control over information. The control was total. In contrast, the internet bypasses the state information control apparatus. On the 'net, one has access to nonofficial news sources and opinions. It is literally impossible to censor the bulk of what goes on online. ... The internet can be your gateway to personal freedom. Your portal to the real world -- the world without the charade of state power. But you have to want freedom. You have to desire it intensely. If you want to be a prole, that is your choice and your right. But if you want to be FREE, then it's time to wake up and ACT...

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/macgregor/macgregor6.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.counterpunch.org/lee10272005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Dreams
by Laurie Beacham and Amber Hard

10/27/05

Today we are appalled by the story told in 'North Country,' a film that chronicles the first class-action lawsuit brought for sexual harassment. The suit was led by Lois Jenson, a single mother trying to provide for her family, who became one of the first women to work at Minnesota's Eveleth Mines. ... Legal experts agree that because of the Eveleth case, for the first time employers across the country instituted policies to protect their employees from sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has not disappeared, but Jenson's legal case has made the workplace safer for women nationwide. Jenson's case was important for another reason. It showed how critical it is that we as Americans, even the most powerless, have the right to go to court when we have been harmed. And especially, it showed how vital the right to file class-action lawsuits can be, particularly for the preservation and enforcement of civil rights. Today these rights are under attack by America's biggest corporations. This year, for example, after enormous pressure from the world's biggest industries, Congress passed a law creating significant limits on class-action lawsuits...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1027-32.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Raleigh News & Observer
by Stan Goff

10/27/05

"The argument that those who have died will have died in vain is sophistry of the cruelest kind. We do not say when children are killed by drunken drivers that they died in vain. We honor their memories by organizing to ensure that the same thing doesn't happen to others. The way we support the troops -- as human beings, not occupiers -- and honor the memories of those who have already died is to bring them all home, and do it now...

http://tinyurl.com/ceey8


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Human Events
by Chuck Muth

10/27/05

It's time to right the wrong that was done to Judge Bork. It's time to use this 'swing' seat to right the direction of the Court. A court which reaffirmed special, rather than equal, treatment of minorities in college admissions. A court which said the government can take away your property and give it to someone else for economic reasons. A court which upheld a congressional law infringing on citizens' right to free speech 30 days before an election. A court which is out of control and out of line. If the President does, in fact, nominate someone like that, the left will be loaded for bear. They're gonna kick like mules and bite like crocodiles. It's gonna be an old-fashioned bar brawl, complete with mud, blood and beer. Oh, what a glorious constitutional fight it will be...

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=9923


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Slate
by Jack Shafer

10/27/05

Robert Novak has only half-kept the vow he made two years ago not to talk about the Valerie Plame case until the Fitzgerald investigation concludes. Seeing as that hour is upon us, I eagerly await his version of events. But Novak won't have an easy time telling his story. Since publishing his infamous July 14, 2003, column that outed the covert CIA officer, Novak has made a mash of it every time he's discussed the subject. Tracking his many inconsistent statements about how and why administration sources leaked Valerie Plame's name to him and whether he would surrender the names of confidential sources have been the liberal watchdogs at Media Matters for America and others. To straighten the record, Novak will need an Ingersoll-Rand DD-70 tandem asphalt roller...

http://www.slate.com/id/2128918/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Chillicothe Gazette
by McMasters

10/27/05

Late last month, a junior sociology major at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., silently stationed himself near a military recruiters' table on campus. The student, Tariq Khan, is a Pakistani-American and a four-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He held literature and wore a sign stating, 'Recruiters lie. Don't be deceived.' The recruiters, naturally, were not happy. Some bystanders weren't either. Words were exchanged. Campus police arrived, Tariq Khan was unable to produce identification, a scuffle ensued, and the student, bruised and bloodied, according to one news account, was taken to jail. He will appear in court Nov. 14 on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing. ... Protesters off campus run into the same problems. On Sept. 26, 370 anti-war protesters outside the White House were hauled away to jail. Also that day, 41 demonstrators at the Pentagon were picked up and carted off for booking. Officially, authorities cite trespass, disorderly conduct, failure to obtain a permit and similar laws as reasons for arrests, threats of arrest and disruption of such demonstrations. Unofficially, they send a chilling signal that disagreement with government policy or majority opinion can get you in trouble with the law...

http://tinyurl.com/cwuta


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Dickson Herald
by Leon Alligood

10/27/05

A resolution approved by the Clay County Commission in Celina was intended to squelch protests at funerals, a not-so-subtle ploy to deter disturbances at the funeral of Sgt. Wesley Tucker, a Clay County soldier who recently died in Iraq. But the wording of the measure that was passed last week, restricting protesters to an out-of-the-way spot at the local sanitation department, appears to put a damper on protests of any kind, whether associated with a funeral or not. That has raised eyebrows among First Amendment advocates...

http://tinyurl.com/dwp47


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Des Moines Register
by staff

10/27/05

A federal order would force universities, online-communications companies and cities to upgrade Internet computer networks by spring 2007 to allow easier monitoring of Internet-based phone calls. The order has prompted a host of loud objections: An outrageous price tag. The potential for invasion of privacy. The fear that innovation will be stifled. Congress should listen and revise the law. Law-enforcement officers fighting terrorism and other criminal activity should not face unreasonable obstacles in carrying out court-ordered wiretaps in the Internet era. But law changes also should not impose an unnecessary burden on civil liberties, creativity or the bottom line...

http://tinyurl.com/atlyk


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Salon
by Juan Cole

10/28/05

As Washington waits on pins and needles to see if Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald hands down indictments, the focus falls on Dick Cheney's inner circle. This group, along with that surrounding Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made up what Colin Powell's top aide, Lawrence Wilkerson, called 'a cabal' that 'on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.' Cheney is the first vice president to have had, in effect, his own personal National Security Council. This formidable and unprecedented rump foreign policy team, comprised of radical hawks, played a key role in every aspect of the war on Iraq: planning for it, gathering 'evidence' to justify it and punishing those who spoke out against it. It is not surprising that members of that team, and Cheney himself, have now also emerged as targets in Fitzgerald's investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson to the press, along with Bush adviser Karl Rove... [subscription or ad view required]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/28/vice_president/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

All the President's Men – The Sequel Is Here
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hadar/hadar31.html

AntiWar.Com
by Alan Bock

10/28/05

"From a military or strategic standpoint, to be sure, there's not that much significance to the figure of 2,000 U.S. military personnel -- Staff Sgt. George Alexander Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, was the sad milestone, although some will dispute whether he was # 2,000 or 'only' #1,993 -- who have died in Iraq. However, if, as the famed Prussian philosopher of war Karl von Clausewitz famously said, war is simply politics conducted by other means (and vice versa, I might add), the number might have genuine significance. Insofar as wars are inherently political, in a regime with vestiges of democracy, public opinion matters. ... Given that two-thirds of Americans now believe the Iraq war was a mistake, the milestone, especially inasmuch as it was reached the same week officials announced the approval of a draft Iraqi constitution, is likely to have some resonance. The challenge for those who do not relish future wars of conquest or imperial housekeeping is to move the conversation beyond the wisdom of this war to a discussion of a future foreign policy in which war is viewed as an absolute last resort instead of the first-reach option for political leaders with neither military experience nor much interest in the world beyond our borders. Reconsidering the wisdom of this war is the first order of business, of course...

http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=7815


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Reason
by David Weigel

If you asked the Republicans in 2004, Sen. Russ Feingold was a slow-moving target painting himself ever-brighter shades of red. The Wisconsin Democrat, who had barely won his last election with 51 percent of the vote, was running for re-election in a year the GOP would be marshalling all its forces to win the state for George W. Bush. Republicans had dislodged a number of Democrats in other states by casting them as weak-kneed in the war on terrorism. Feingold was the easiest mark yet: the only member of the United States Senate who had voted against the PATRIOT Act... (for publication 11/05)

http://www.reason.com/0511/fe.dw.when.shtml


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Free Market News Network
by Thomas L. Knapp

10/27/05

OK, I admit it. I've been pinging Google News every 20 minutes or so, all day long. If you're a politics junkie, you've been doing the same thing. Mr. Fitzgerald has us all on tenterhooks. Will there be indictments? How many? Who? Republicans seem to be alternating between pulling their hair out and trying to pretend that it ain't no thang. Democrats aren't disguising their glee -- but they are keeping busy trying to extend the case from the Plame outing all the way to the whole Iraq war rationale...

http://www.fmnn.com/Analysis/118/2738/2005-10-27.asp?wid=118&nid=2738


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Christian Science Monitor

10/27/05

President Bush is getting a 'do-over' on his latest Supreme Court pick. White House counsel Harriet Miers's decision to withdraw her nomination electrified Washington Thursday morning, momentarily diverting attention from the intense speculation over possible looming indictments of White House officials in the CIA leak case. The news ignited a burst of speculation: Whom would Mr. Bush nominate next to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor? And would his next choice trigger the kind of battle royale with Democrats over the future of the court that many activists on both the left and the right seem to crave?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1028/p01s03-uspo.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CNN

10/27/05

A curious and twisting episode that began in the sixth paragraph of a 2003 newspaper column could culminate Friday in criminal charges reaching to the top echelons of the White House. The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald, is expected on Friday to announce the results of his probe, including whether a federal grand jury will issue any indictments, an attorney involved in the case told CNN...

http://tinyurl.com/agrsx


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Houston Chronicle

10/27/05

'Dirty bomb' suspect Jose Padilla has asked the Supreme Court to limit the government's power to hold him and other U.S. terror suspects indefinitely and without charges. The case of Padilla, who has been in custody more than three years, presents a major test of the Bush administration's wartime authority. The former gang member is accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive device...

http://tinyurl.com/dgpk7


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

USA Today

10/27/05

A Texas prosecutor asked Thursday for all e-mail sent and received in 2002 by three indicted associates of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay as part of an investigation into an alleged campaign finance scheme. The latest subpoenas issued by District Attorney Ronnie Earle request correspondence to and from e-mail addresses belonging to John Colyandro, Jim Ellis and Warren RoBold. He did not ask DeLay to provide e-mails...

http://tinyurl.com/c6ucl


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Dreams

10/27/05

Peace Action joined with other anti war groups in a day of action on Wednesday around the 2,000th unnecessary death of an American soldier in Iraq. Peace Action affiliates, along with allied antiwar groups and coalition partners participated in nearly 2,000 events nationwide. At the White House vigil, hundreds held candles calling for U.S. troops to be brought home from Iraq and for Congress to provide leadership to bring our troops home. Nearly fifty people laid head to toe on the sidewalk in front of the President’s home just like soldiers are laid to rest at Arlington cemetery. Park police arrested 26 mourners at the 'die in' including Cindy Sheehan -- the mother who lost her son in Iraq and camped at Crawford, TX asking the President why...

http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/1027-02.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

swissinfo [Switzerland]

10/28/05

The special counsel investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. British time) on Friday to discuss the status of the probe, his office said in a statement. The statement said information on the case will be available at noon. The announcement came after the federal grand jury weighing criminal charges over the leak began meeting with special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, with the expectation of criminal charges in the long-running investigation. Legal sources said Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, appeared likely to be charged, and perhaps other officials also. But legal sources said Fitzgerald had informed President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, that he will not be indicted on Friday, although he will remain under investigation and in legal jeopardy. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, had no immediate comment. Charges in the case would be the first in a two-year probe that began with an investigation of who disclosed CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity...

http://tinyurl.com/b9crm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Congratulations to our participants for taking the lead in opposing Miers as nothing more than a crony. The People's Email Network did the labor of transcribing the initial conference call where it was stated that any ruling against Bush would be seen as a personal betrayal by both him and Miers, and we posted it for the benefit of the whole community. It was the right thing to do, and the ideological greed of the right wing in helping to scuttle their own candidate will now leave them in a WEAKER position to clamor for another extremist. But only if we continue to demand what the majority of the American people want, a true moderate. We will have another action on this by end of the weekend.

CALLING ALL CANDIDATES WHO WANT TO WIN

We are starting to do more and more actions for other groups on their own sites, using the power of our dedicated submission server in the background. All the links for other action pages in this alert are examples of how we are helping other activists to achieve their policy objectives, please REVIEW THEM BELOW and support them all.

We are now ready to provide these same services at no charge for any candidate who wants to build a track record of being out there FIGHTING for the people. Having your own action pages now on issue after issue is the MOST powerful way for you to have demonstrated for your constituents come election day that you are an activist who means business. We have the code to empower you to create action pages on both state and nation issues at your own initiative and all you have to do is drop us an email and ask for it.

TELL THE PRESIDENT NO PARDONS FOR TRAITORS

We have already done five action pages for the John Conyers web site. The latest is a demand to the president that he NOT preemptively pardon those in his administration who are indicted for the acts of treason related to the outing of a critical covert CIA operative. Conyers has already generated 10,000 submissions on this in just the last day or so using the form we created for him. With looming indictments a near certainty, NOW is the time to speak out and tell Bush that no interference in this nonpartisan investigation will be tolerated by American people.

http://johnconyers.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7BB8736AFE-46F8-4994-81E7-7ECB674DE91D%7D

SUPPORT MEANINGFUL ELECTION REFORM WITH HR 550

For Velvet Revolution we helped them put together a campaign to support the Rush Holt bill to mandate voter-verified paper ballots and random audits for all elections. This is similar to SB 370 just passed and signed into law in CA, where the organizers of the California Election Protection Network credited the action page we created for them "in large part" for this victory over the opposition of Schwarzenegger's own Republican secretary of state. This proves we can get fair election laws enacted if only the people will speak out.

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/Content/VotingReform/pen3.php

SUPPORT HR 505 TO DEMAND THE IRAQ WAR COOKED DOCUMENTS

Dennis Kucinich has put forward a resolution of inquiry to demand access by Congress to all documents from the notorious White House Iraq Group, who rigged the case for war against Iraq. Just today we learn that Libby and Cheney, already implicated in the CIA leak treason scandal, were responsible for withholding evidence of their malfeasance in doctoring up the Powell U.N. speech from a previous Senate panel investigating the perversion of pre-invasion intelligence. With now more than 2,000 of our brave service people dead, it's time we finally got to the bottom of how we were all lied into this war in the first place. Here is the newest action page that Democrats.com created for themselves using our system.

http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/72

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

The United States currently has a military presence in 192 nations and troops stationed in 135 of them. This means the United States has a military presence in just over 70% of the world’s nations, making the United States far more influential and widespread than any empire before it.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/27/093554.php


From Information Clearing House

Interview of Scott Ritter by Seymour Hersh:

The acclaimed journalist interviews weapons inspector Scott Ritter on KPFA's Against the Grain.

Audio. MP3
http://www.againstthegrain.org/audio10.26.05.mp3


From Information Clearing House



Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh: Iraq Confidential

Seymour Hersh and former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter discuss how the CIA manipulated and sabotaged the work of UN departments to achieve a hidden foreign policy agenda in the Middle East.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102805K.shtml

In August 2002, Dick Cheney was doing his best to shock the nation into action.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10784.htm

The Vice President of the United States is actively lobbying for torture right now. Not in the 1800's. Not in the 1950's. Right now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-real-indictment-of-di_b_9599.html


From Information Clearing House

Cheney had been the foremost administration advocate for war with Iraq, and Libby played a central staff role in coordinating the sale of the war to both the public and Congress.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10793.htm



Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers to Senate Intelligence Panel

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102805I.shtml

US police arrested Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq who has become a prominent war opponent, along with two dozen people for demonstrating without authoritization in front of the White House.

http://tinyurl.com/afwh7



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

' "Our political program will focus more on getting the Americans out of Iraq," Hussein al-Falluji, a prominent Sunni who took part in talks on the constitution, told Reuters. "Our message to the American administration is clear: get out of Iraq or set a timetable for withdrawal or the resistance will keep slaughtering your soldiers until Judgment Day." '

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10787.htm

A Dead Civilian a Day Keeps the Terrorists at Bay?

By Jason Miller

"The new doctrine was not one of preemptive war, which arguably falls within some stretched interpretation of the UN Charter, but rather a doctrine that doesn't begin to have any grounds in international law, namely, preventive war. That is, the United States will rule the world by force, and if there is any challenge to its domination---whether it is perceived in the distance, invented, imagined, or whatever--then the United States will have the right to destroy that challenge before it becomes a threat. That's preventive war, not preemptive war."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10788.htm

United for Peace and Justice

Call congress to express your disgust that the Bush Administration wants to give the CIA carte blanche to torture people.

Call members of the House/Senate Conference Committee (listed below) about an important measure banning torture

On October 8, the U.S. Senate took a stand against torture, voting 90 - 9 for an amendment sponsored by Sen. John McCain banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees. The amendment, attached to the Defense Appropriations Bill in the Senate, now faces a battle in the joint House/Senate conference committee, the committee that will negotiate the final language in the bill. The House version of the massive military spending bill doesn't include any language banning torture.

The White House, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, is aggressively opposing the amendment. If it were to pass, the CIA would be forced to stop holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. Even worse, Cheney is requesting the conference committee to adopt language that would legally authorize human rights abuses and torture by CIA operatives and continue the practice of secret detention centers.

McCain and other amendment supporters would rather pull the amendment than have it weakened.

We can't let that happen. The Bush Administration should not be given the right to run more Abu Ghraib torture centers, where Arabs, Muslims, or others are denied basic rights granted to other human beings.

United for Peace and Justice urges you to call members of the House/Senate conference committee to express your disgust that the Bush Administration wants to give the CIA carte blanche to torture people. Demand that the House and Senate Conference Committee bring the McCain amendment to the floor AS IS - and with NO CHANGES.

Call members of the House/Senate Conference Committee
Members of the House and Senate Conference Committee are listed below. If your Senator or Representative is listed, call their office. If your Senator or Representative is not listed, call one or more of the members marked with *.

The conference committee will decide either to include the McCain amendment as written, to weaken it or to radically rewrite it to endorse torture as the Bush administration wants. Members of the committee are meeting informally this week, so immediate phone calls are necessary.

You can base your calls on these talking points, provided by Amnesty International USA:

Ask them to ensure the Senate anti-torture amendment is retained as is by the conference committee and to encourage the President to sign it in