28
Jan
2006

Washington Post Story Mentions Abramoff on Bush Transition Team

Abramoff and His Vanishing Friends

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010501903_pf.html

WE CAN STOP ALITO THIS WEEKEND | Democrats.com
http://www.democrats.com/we-can-stop-alito

Democrats Don't Know Jack !--"Abramoff"

FL Gov Jeb Bush Shredding Abramoff-Related Docs?
http://www.rense.com/general69/cridi.htm

85 Percent of Democrats in PA Likely to Vote for Pro-Impeachment Congressmen. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_sw_060127_85_percent_of_democr.htm

Steps required to Impeach a President LII's Focus on Impeachment http://www.law.cornell.edu/background/impeach/

Is It Time Yet? If Not then it's Not Far Off ! http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/isittimeyet.html


Informant: ranger116

Universal Mental Screening Program Usurps Parental Rights

-----Original Message-----
From: mindfreedom-news-bounces
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 8:16 AM
Human Rights in Mental Health
Subject: NEWS: Psych. Screening of Kids is a Top Censored Story

NEWS: Human Rights & Mental Health
http://www.MindFreedom.org - Jan. 2006

Media Watchdogs Say Bush Plan for Psychiatric Screening of Kids is a "Top Censored Story of 2006."

Thousands of Youth May be Drugged.

One of the "Top Censored Stories of 2006" is that the Bush Administration is seeking to make psychiatric screening of USA children common practice, says a widely-respected media watchdog group.

These mass screenings would put thousands of youth at risk of inappropriate psychiatric drugging.

The American Psychiatric Association was even caught bragging in print about how well they've done in keeping this story out of mainstream media.

Each year Project Censored -- a media research group out of Sonoma University -- picks the top 25 stories censored by mainstream media.

Here is Project Censored's summary of the #11 Top Censored Story for 2006:

PROJECT CENSORED - 2006

Universal Mental Screening Program Usurps Parental Rights

In April of 2002, President Bush appointed a 22 member commission called the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in order to "identify policies that could be implemented by Federal, State and local governments to maximize the utility of existing resources, improve coordination of treatments and services, and promote successful community integration for adults with a serious mental illness and children with a serious emotional disturbance."[1] Members of this commission include physicians in the mental health field and at least one (Robert N. Postlethwait) former employee of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co.

In July of 2003 the commission published the results of their study. They found that mental health disorders often go undiagnosed and recommended to the President that there should be more comprehensive screening for mental illnesses for people of all ages, including pre-school age children. In accordance with their findings, the commission recommended that schools were in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adult employees of our nation's schools.[2]

The commission also recommended linking the screenings with treatment and support. They recommended using the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a model treatment system.[3] TMAP, which was implemented in Texas' publicly funded mental health care system while George W. Bush was governor of Texas,[4] is a disease management program that aids physicians in prescribing drugs to patients based on clinical history, background, symptoms, and previous results. It was the first program in the United States aimed at establishing medication guidelines for treating mental health illnesses.[5] Basically, it is an algorithm that recommends specific drugs which should be used to treat specific diseases. Funding for TMAP was provided by a Robert Wood-Johnson Grant as well as several major drug companies. The project began in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from pharmaceutical companies, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas.[6]

Critics of mental health screening and TMAP claim that it is a payoff to Pharmaceutical companies. Many cite Allen Jones, a former employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General. He was fired when he revealed that many key officials who have influence over the medication plan in his state received monetary perks and benefits from pharmaceutical companies, which benefited from their drugs being in the medication algorithm.

TMAP also promotes the use of newer, more expensive anti-psychotic drugs. Results of studies conducted in the United States and Great Britain found that using the older, more established anti-psychotic drugs as a front line treatment rather than the newer experimental drugs makes more sense. Under TMAP, the Eli Lilly drug olanzapine, a new atypical antipsychotic drug, is used as a first line treatment rather than a more typical anti-psychotic medication. Perhaps it is because Eli Lilly has several ties to the Bush family, where George Bush Sr. was a member of the board of directors. George W. Bush also appointed Eli Lilly C.E.O. Sidney Taurel to a seat on the Homeland Security Council. Of Eli Lilly's $1.6 million political contributions in 2000, 82 percent went to Republicans and George W. Bush.[7]

In November of 2004, Congress appropriated $20 million[8] to implement the findings of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. This would include mandatory screening by schools for mental health illnesses. Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas introduced an amendment to the appropriations bills which would withhold funding for mandatory mental health screenings and require parental consent and notification. His amendment, however, was voted down by a wide margin (95-315 in the House of Representatives).[9]

Paul, a doctor and long-time member of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) states, "At issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical treatment is appropriate for their children. The notion of federal bureaucrats ordering potentially millions of youngsters to take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin strikes an emotional chord with American parents." Paul says the allegation "that we have a nation of children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment is patently false," and warns that mental health screening could be used to label children whose attitudes, religious beliefs, and political views conflict with established doctrine.

Paul further warns that an obvious major beneficiary of this legislation is the pharmaceutical industry. The AAPS has decried this legislation, which they say will lead to mandatory psychological testing of every child in America without parental consent, and "heap even more coercive pressure on parents to medicate children with potentially dangerous side effects."


Update by Jeanne Lenzer: Whether it's the pills we take or the oil we use, it would be reassuring to know that the information used to develop new medicines or to utilize natural resources wisely is based on science--not corporate spin.

But blandishments from Big Pharma to politicians and doctors have a profound effect on health care in the U.S., making medical research closer to propaganda than science at times.

One way drug companies, in collusion with doctors, increase their market share is to expand the definition of diseases. When diagnostic criteria were liberalized for attention deficit disorder in 1991, the number of children diagnosed jumped by about 60 percent.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) acknowledged in the July 2004 issue of Advocacy News that, "The BMJ story has gained some traction in derivative reports on the Internet." But, they boasted, "mainstream media have not touched the story, in part thanks to APA's work, for which the [Bush] Administration is appreciative."[10]

The APA's boast is curious. The article was the most downloaded article in the history of the BMJ. It clearly struck a nerve with a public wary of doctors and politicians whose pockets are lined with drug company money.

Given the interest in the BMJ story, it would seem that the APA, instead of attempting to keep the story out of the mainstream media, would be anxious to counter the widely circulated statements in the article. It would also seem that the mainstream press could provide the Administration and the APA the best possible vehicle to counter these supposed factual errors in the BMJ article.

But, the facts might prove difficult to square with the public. More than one in every 100 toddlers and preschoolers in the United States are on powerful psychiatric drugs, such as Ritalin and Prozac, according to a study published in the February 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Joseph T. Coyle, M.D., wrote in an accompanying editorial, "It appears that behaviorally disturbed children are now increasingly subjected to quick and inexpensive pharmacologic fixes, as opposed to informed mutimodal therapy." He concluded, "These disturbing prescription practices suggest a growing crisis in mental health services to children and demand more thorough investigation."

But instead of issuing warnings about overmedication or inappropriate prescribing, the experts on the New Freedom Commission warn ominously that too few children are receiving treatment for mental illness. They cite escalating numbers of toddlers expelled from daycare as evidence of potentially serious psychological problems--problems to be diagnosed and cured with mental health screening and pills. Social and economic reasons for the rise in kiddie expulsions are left unexamined.

As bad as this is for those put on drugs and labeled "mentally ill," the far bigger concern is the creation of a disease for every drug, a situation made possible by the hand-in-glove relationship between industry and the government.


NOTES

1. http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov/.
2. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.
3. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.
4. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.
5. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=3084.
6. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.
7. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078.
8. http://www.truthnews.net/world/2004090078.htm.
9. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41606.
10. See Medicating Aliah:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/medicating_aliah.html.

Alliance for Human Research Protection
http://www.ahrp.org
http://www.psych.org/join_apa/mb/newsletters/advocacy/AdvNewsJuly2004.htm#21.


Sources:

_Asheville Global Report_ (_British Medical Journal_),No. 284, June 24-30, 2004
Title: "Bush Plans To Screen Whole U.S. Population For Mental Illness"
Author: Jeanne Lenzer
http://www.agrnews.org/issues/284/#2

Truth News, September 13,2004
Title: "Forcing Kids Into a Mental Health Ghetto"
Congressman Ron Paul
http://www.truthnews.net/world/2004090078.htm

Faculty Evaluator: David Van Nuys Ph.D.
Student Researchers: John Ferritto, Matt Johnson

From: http://www.projectcensored.org/

Project Censored is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters.

From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media.

Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each year from journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens around the world. With the help of more than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members, Project Censored reviews the story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources and national significance.

- end of Project Censored story -


ACTION: STOP THE CENSORSHIP! Let the public know about this! Please forward to all appropriate places on and off the Internet! Thank you!


Forwarded by MindFreedom International http://www.MindFreedom.org

The above news story is forwarded as a free public service by the nonprofit human rights organization MindFreedom International.

* Win human rights campaigns in mental health.
* End abuse by the psychiatric drug industry.
* Support the voices of psychiatric survivors.
* Promote safe and humane options in mental health.

MindFreedom USA has a national campaign to challenge psychiatric screening of youth.

MindFreedom International unites 100 sponsor and affiliate groups with individual members, and is accredited by the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with Consultative Roster Status.

MindFreedom is one of the very few totally independent groups in the mental health field with no funding from governments, drug companies, religions, corporations, or the mental health system.

For a MAD MARKET of books and other products to support human rights campaigns in mental health: http://www.madmarket.org

MindFreedom International
454 Willamette, Suite 216 - POB 11284 Eugene, OR 97440-3484 USA

http://www.mindfreedom.org email: office at mindfreedom.org fax: (541) 345-3737 office phone: (541) 345-9106 USA toll free: 1-877-MAD-PRIDE / 1-877-623-7743


Please forward this to all appropriate places on and off the Internet. Thank you!


Informant: Richard

The sound of civil liberties evaporating

The legal underpinning for dictatorship

Remember --in an empire, there are no citizens, only subjects. The final paragraph is a classic illustration of the "lobster in the pot" syndrome.--MN

The sound of civil liberties evaporating
By Jacob Weisberg - editor of Slate.com
January 26, 2006, Financial Times

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4915da5e-8e12-11da-8fda-0000779e2340,s01=1.html

It is tempting to dismiss the debate about the National Security Agency spying on Americans as a technical conflict about procedural rights. The president believes he has the legal authority to order electronic snooping without asking anyone's permission. Civil libertarians and privacy-fretters think George W. Bush needs a warrant from the special court set up to authorise wiretapping in cases of national security. But, in practice, the so-called FISA court that issues such warrants functions as a rubber stamp for the executive branch anyhow, so what is the difference in the end?

Would that so little were at stake. In fact, the Senate hearings on NSA domestic espionage that are set to begin next month will confront fundamental questions about the balance of power within our system. Even if one assumes that every unknown instance of warrant-less spying by the NSA was justified on security grounds, the arguments issuing from the White House threaten the concept of checks and balances as it has been understood in America for the past 218 years. Simply put, Mr Bush and his lawyers contend that the president's national security powers are unlimited. And since the war on terror is currently scheduled to run indefinitely, the executive supremacy they are asserting will not be a temporary condition.

The extremity of Mr Bush's position emerges most clearly in a
42-page document issued by the Department of Justice last week. As Andrew Cohen, a CBS legal analyst, wrote in an online commentary: "The first time you read the 'white paper', you feel like it is describing a foreign country guided by an unfamiliar constitution." To develop this further, the nation implied by the document would be an elective dictatorship, governed not by three counter-poised branches of government, but by a secretive, possibly benign, awesomely powerful despot.

According to Alberto Gonzalez, attorney-general, the putative author of the white paper, the president's powers as commander-in-chief make him the "sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs". This status, which derives from Article II of the Constitution, brings with it the authority to conduct warrant-less surveillance for the purpose of disrupting possible terrorist attacks on the US.

That power already sounds boundless, but according to Mr Gonzalez, this sole organ has garnered even more authority under the congressional Authorisation for the use of Military Force, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This resolution is invariably referred to by the ungainly acronym Aumf - the sound, perhaps, of civil liberties being exhaled by a democracy. In the language of the white paper, the potent formula of Article II plus Aumf "places the president at the zenith of his powers", giving him "all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate".

This somewhat daffy monarchical undertone accompanies legal reasoning that recalls Alice's conversation with the March Hare. Aumf is understood by the justice department to expressly authorise warrant-less surveillance even though the resolution that Congress passed neither envisaged nor implied anything of the kind. The president's insistence that he alone can divine the hidden meaning of legislation is of a piece with his recently-noticed practice of appending "signing statements" to bills - as in, "by signing this anti- torture bill into law, I pronounce it to signify that it has no power over me". Similarly in his white paper, Mr Bush as much as declares: "I determine what my words mean and I alone determine what yours mean, too."

Twisting vague statements into specific authorisation is a stretch. But it is in inverting specific prohibitions into blanket permission that Mr Gonzalez reaches for the genuinely Orwellian. The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 not only does not authorise Mr Bush's warrant-less snooping, but clearly and specifically prohibits it by prescribing the FISA court system as the "exclusive" method for authorising electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes. With a little help from the white paper, however, that protection goes "aumf" as well; Mr Gonzalez proposes that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must either be read as consistent with the position that King Zenith can wiretap whomever he wants (thus becoming meaningless), or, alternatively, be dismissed as an unconstitutional irrelevance.

Mr Bush's message to the courts, like his message to Congress, is: make way, subjects. His quiet detour around the federal judges who sit on the FISA court is entirely consistent with the White House position in the big terrorism civil liberties cases that federal judges lack jurisdiction to meddle with presidential decisions about whom to lock up and how to treat them.

The final problem with Mr Gonzalez's theories of unfettered executive authority is that they, as the lawyers say, prove too much. The Article II plus Aumf justification for warrant- less spying is essentially the same one the administration has advanced to excuse torture, ignore the Geneva convention and indefinitely hold even US citizens without a hearing, charges or trial. Torture and detention without due process are bad enough. But why does this all-purpose rationale not also extend to press censorship or arresting political opponents, were the president to deem such measures vital to the nation's security?

I do not suggest that Mr Bush intends anything of the kind - or that even a Congress as supine as the current one would remain passive if he went so far. But the president's latest assertion that he alone can safeguard our civil liberties is not just disturbing and wrong. It is downright un-American.


portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news, discussion and debate service of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left.

For answers to frequently asked questions:
http://www.portside.org/faq


Informant: Michael Novick

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

January 29, 2006

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," he said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."

Mr. Acosta said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel whom the public could perceive as speaking for the agency. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.

Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, is a leading authority on the earth's climate system. He directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute on Morningside Heights in Manhattan.

Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He has had run-ins with politicians or their appointees in various administrations, including budget watchers in the first Bush administration and Vice President Al Gore.

In 2001, Dr. Hansen was invited twice to brief Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide.

He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled, and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.

But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.

In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA's mission statement includes the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."

He said he was particularly incensed that the directives affecting his statements had come through informal telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.

Dr. Hansen's supervisor, Franco Einaudi, said there had been no official "order or pressure to say shut Jim up." But Dr. Einaudi added, "That doesn't mean I like this kind of pressure being applied."

The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet." The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.

After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.

Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.

In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.

Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority.

But she added: "I'm a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That's not our job. That's not our mission. The inference was that Hansen was disloyal." Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, in NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing so.

Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's supervisor, said that when Mr. Deutsch was asked about the conversations he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. Mr. Deutsch referred all interview requests to Mr. Acosta.

Ms. McCarthy, when told of the response, said: "Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don't have a dog is this race. And what does Hansen have to gain?"

Mr. Acosta said that for the moment he had no way of judging who was telling the truth. Several colleagues of both Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Hansen said Ms. McCarthy's statements were consistent with what she told them when the conversations occurred.

"He's not trying to create a war over this," said Larry D. Travis, an astronomer who is Dr. Hansen's deputy at Goddard, "but really feels very strongly that this is an obligation we have as federal scientists, to inform the public, and this kind of attempted muzzling of the science community is really rather dangerous. If we just accept it, then we're contributing to the problem."

Dr. Travis said he walked into Ms. McCarthy's office in mid-December at the end of one of the calls from Mr. Deutsch demanding that Dr. Hansen be better controlled.

In an interview on Friday, Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's leading independent scientific body, praised Dr. Hansen's scientific contributions and said he had always seemed to describe his public statements clearly as his personal views.

"He really is one of the most productive and creative scientists in the world," Dr. Cicerone said. "I've heard Hansen speak many times and I've read many of his papers, starting in the late 70's. Every single time, in writing or when I've heard him speak, he's always clear that he's speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it's been."

The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.

Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.

One example is Indur M. Goklany, assistant director of science and technology policy in the policy office of the Interior Department. For years, Dr. Goklany, an electrical engineer by training, has written in papers and books that it may be better not to force cuts in greenhouse gases because the added prosperity from unfettered economic activity would allow countries to exploit benefits of warming and adapt to problems.

In an e-mail exchange on Friday, Dr. Goklany said that in the Clinton administration he was shifted to nonclimate-related work, but added that he had never had to stop his outside writing, as long as he identifies the views as his own.

"One reason why I still continue to do the extracurricular stuff is because one doesn't have to get clearance for what I plan on saying or writing," he wrote.

Many people who work with Dr. Hansen said that politics was not a factor in his dispute with the Bush administration.

"The thing that has always struck me about him is I don't think he's political at all," said Mark R. Hess, director of public affairs for the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., a position that also covers the Goddard Institute in New York.

"He really is not about concerning himself with whose administration is in charge, whether it's Republicans, Democrats or whatever," Mr. Hess said. "He's a pretty down-the-road conservative independent-minded person.

"What he cares deeply about is being a scientist, his research, and I think he feels a true obligation to be able to talk about that in whatever fora are offered to him."

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company


Informant: Teresa Binstock

Granada's Grim Sowers Plow up Moratorium on Terminator

------ Forwarded Message

From: dharry
Date: 01/28/06 17:49:43
To: ipcb-net
Subject: [Ipcb-net] Granada's Grim Sowers Plow up Moratorium on Terminator

ETC Group Ban Terminator
Campaign News Release
27 January 2006
http://www.etcgroup.org
http://www.banterminator.org

Granada's Grim Sowers Plow up Moratorium on Terminator, Clear the Path for its Approval at UN

Terminator Opponents Prepare for Battle at COP8 in Curitiba, Brazil March 20-31, 2006

Indigenous peoples were betrayed and Farmers' Rights trampled at a UN meeting this week when the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian governments - guided by the US government and a brazen cabal of corporate Gene Giants - took a major step to undermine the existing moratorium on Terminator technology (i.e., plants that are genetically modified to produce sterile seeds at harvest). The damaging recommendations from the meeting in Granada, Spain, now go to the upcoming 8th biennial meeting of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Curitiba, Brazil, March 20-31.

The CBD's "Working Group on Article 8(j)" that met in Granada this week was established to protect the traditional knowledge, innovation and practices of Indigenous peoples and peasant farmers. Civil society groups and Indigenous peoples watched in disbelief however as governments ignored the profoundly negative social, economic and environmental impacts of "suicide seeds" highlighted in numerous CBD studies as well as in official submissions from Indigenous peoples and farmers' organizations. The outcome now threatens biodiversity and the future of seed-saving and locally adapted agriculture worldwide.

"Terminator poses a threat to our welfare and food sovereignty and constitutes a violation of our human right of self-determination," said Mariano Marcos Terena of Brazil on behalf of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

Although the meeting "reaffirmed" the fragile UN moratorium on Terminator, new recommendations adopted in Granada now may be used to block the CBD's precautionary approach when governments meet in March in Brazil. Not only did the meeting fail to condemn Terminator as immoral and anti-farmer, Australia and the United States falsely claimed that Terminator, which creates sterility, would "increase productivity."

With a US government official consulting at her side, the Australian negotiator insisted on deleting reference to the "precautionary approach" and used this as a bargaining chip to win controversial wording for a "case-by-case risk assessment" of Terminator. "The new reference to case-by-case assessment is shocking and extremely damaging because it suggests that national regulatory review of Terminator is possible - it undermines the CBD moratorium, opening the door to Terminator approval," warns Hope Shand of ETC Group.

"Australia's brazen move confirms that an alarming government- industry strategy is in play to overturn the UN moratorium on Terminator," said Lucy Sharratt of the Ban Terminator Campaign. "The process and outcome dismiss the contributions of Indigenous and local communities."

Despite the unscrupulous push by a handful of rich countries to put industry profits before Farmers' Rights, the majority of governments at the meeting remain solidly opposed to Terminator technology and committed to the existing moratorium. In her welcoming address the Spanish Minister of the Environment acknowledged the dangers of Terminator technology. During the meeting, the African Group, Egypt and the Philippines made impassioned speeches about the potentially devastating impacts of Terminator on biodiversity and food security and the need for national bans. Norway, Pakistan, Kenya and the European Union defended the existing moratorium. India and Brazil both referred to their national laws prohibiting genetic seed sterilization technology. Despite this strong opposition to Terminator, Australia's extreme position and its determination to block consensus left governments little room to negotiate.

In the Halls of Shame: Despite public pledges not to develop Terminator technology, Gene Giants Syngenta and Monsanto lobbied aggressively on Terminator throughout the week. Harry Collins of Delta and Pine Land, the world's largest cotton seed company which is now testing Terminator plants in greenhouses, attended under the auspices of the International Seed Federation. Monsanto's Roger Krueger moonlighted as a representative from the International Chamber of Commerce. They were joined in the corridors by CropLife International, a pesticide lobby group representing the "plant science industry."

Outside the UN meeting Spanish people of all ages gathered to remind governments of the strong public resistance to Terminator technology. Ecologistas en Accion organized public events, street protests, and educational street displays throughout the week as part of the International Ban Terminator Campaign (http://www.banterminator.org). When news of the Granada outcome reached the plenary of the World Social Forum in Caracas Venezuela last night there were howls of anger from thousands of assembled farmers.

"Allowing 'case by case' approval of Terminator means a slow death for farmers 'coffin-by-coffin' " explained Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group speaking in Caracas.

The Ban Terminator Campaign will work with groups and movements across the world to strengthen the global resistance to stop Terminator. The fight now moves to the COP8 meeting in Brazil March 20-31.

A transcript of the Draft Recommendation submitted by the Working Group can be read on ETC Group's web site at:
http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/8jWorkingGroupRecommendations.pdf

For more information:

Lucy Sharratt,
Coordinator, Ban Terminator Campaign
lucy@banterminator.org
mobile: +1 613 252-2147

Hope Shand and Veronica Villa,
ETC Group hope@etcgroup.org veronica@etcgroup.org

ETC Headquarters, Ottawa tel: +1 613 241 2267 etc@etcgroup.org

Pat Mooney and Silvia Ribeiro in Caracas mobile: +1 613 261 0688 Hotel El Cid (+58212) 263 2611 silvia@etcgroup.org


Informant: Teresa Binstock

Driven by Fear or Governed by Law?

From: Joe Volk

Legislative Action Message

Driven by Fear or Governed by Law?– FCNL

In his “global war on terror,” President Bush has a strategy for U.S. security which can be summed up in one word: “Boo!”

Once upon a time, in the era of the New Deal, a president led by reminding citizens that their only fear should be fear itself. The public responded with courage and resolve. Today, George W. Bush offers different advice and a different deal. He scares the bejeezes out of the public with made-up stories of false threats based on dis-information. He says, be afraid. And then he pitches his deal: give up your liberty and I’ll make you safe. What will our response be to this fear-deal? To save our liberty, we must respond with courage and resolve. What was true in the 20th century remains true today in the 21st century: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

George W. Bush launched a public campaign this week to defend the administration’s warrant-less domestic spying program and paint congressional critics of the program from both parties as unwilling to make the tough choices needed to protect the United States from attack. We can’t let this White House public relations campaign go unanswered. We must support the Senate investigation of the legal foundation for this program. Write to your senators at

http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=8422726&type=CO

Is the President Above the Law? Our country faces real threats. Presidents do have a responsibility to protect the United States. But in our society the president is not above the law. We believe the National Security Agency (NSA) domestic spying program violates a specific provision of one law. Five senators from the president’s own party, John McCain, Arlen Specter, Chuck Hagel, Lindsey Graham, and Sam Brownback, have also expressed doubts about the legal basis for this program to spy on U.S. citizens. The Senate has scheduled hearings for February 6 to examine this issue, but the White House campaign could lead some senators to back away from a full investigation on the rule of law and the responses to the president’s arguments.

The NSA spying program is but one example of a broader White House effort expanding presidential powers and usurping laws passed by Congress in a manner that threatens our constitutional democracy. The president states flatly that the NSA spying program is legal. When asked during a press conference on Thursday by a reporter about assertions that his actions circumvent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), a law that establishes procedures for domestic wiretapping by the NSA, the president said:

"The FISA law was written in 1978. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world. FISA is still an important tool. And we still use that tool. But I said, look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law? And people said, it doesn't work in order to be able to do the job we expect us to do. And so that's why I made the decision I made. And you know, ‘circumventing’ is a loaded word, and I refuse to accept it, because I believe what I'm doing is legally right.”

That is a breathtaking admission.

The president admitted that he didn’t like the law so he just made up his own rules. So where does the presidential authority come from to authorize this program? The answer from the administration is that the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force to respond to the attacks of September 11, 2001 grants the president power to do what he needs to do. “Most presidents believe that during a time of war that we can use our authorities under the Constitution to make decisions necessary to protect us,” the president said Thursday. He believes that 2001 law, in effect, told the administration: “Go ahead and conduct the war. We’re not going to tell you how to do it.”

Different times, difficult issues, and new challenges do require reconsideration. Some members of Congress from both parties have suggested that Congress should consider amending the FISA law to grant the president the authority he needs to engage in wiretapping without approval even by the secret FISA court to track violent extremists communicating with people in the United States. But the president suggested this week that he will resist attempts to rewrite the laws because even a public debate on his actions might endanger national security.

This administration’s response to legitimate questioning about the expansion of presidential powers that could infringe on individual rights is to charge that the people formulating the questions are weakening the United States, exposing the country to the possibility of further violent attacks, and imposing unreasonable restraints on the president during wartime.

That argument cannot -- must not -- go unchallenged. The country can – and we must -- promote conditions for our public to be safe and our country secure by preserving individual liberties. This country had a revolution when another George tried to be the law over here, and the public kicked him out of the country in the name of freedom and security.

From the beginning of our country, freedom and security have lived hand-in-hand as partners under the Constitution, not antagonists. The Senate hearings that begin on February 6 offer an opportunity to open up a public debate on these issues. But the debate must be rooted in a reaffirmation that Congress under the Constitution is charged as a coequal branch of government with the responsibility to govern this country. No president is above the law, especially not in wartime. Presidents must respect Congress as a coequal partner and must abide by the laws of this country. And Congress must not subordinate itself to the president, not even in hard times.

Take Action Now Write your senators today. We must persuade Congress to investigate carefully the NSA spying program and other attempts to usurp the constitutionally protected powers of the Congress. Write a letter to your senators at
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=8422726&type=CO

Speak out, talk to friends, neighbors, colleagues, and others in your community. Urge them to speak out as well.

In the next week, FCNL will be posting on our web site documents, papers, and other resources that offer a more detailed analysis of this debate on the fate of freedom and responses to the president’s arguments. We encourage you to check back often.

Background documents Read the President’s statements about wiretapping
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060125-1.html

Read the questions that Senator Specter is asking Attorney General Gonzalez about the program PDF
http://www.fcnl.org/pdfs/civ_liberties/012406Gonzales.pdf

Find out why six senators are demanding an investigation of this program
http://feinstein.senate.gov/05releases/r-i-spying.htm

Read the text from the Authorization for the Use of Force from the 107th Congress

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:s.j.res.23.enr:

The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/

Contact Congress and the Administration:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/


Informant: Martin Greenhut

Research scam makes waves - Doctor admits to cheating on more research

http://www.omega-news.info/research_scandal_in_norway.htm

Doctor admits to cheating on more research

The Norwegian doctor and researcher who set off a scandal by admitting that he fabricated an article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet has now admitted to also fabricating articles in two other journals as well.

Erling O Lyngtveit is the new attorney for the Norwegian doctor and researcher caught fabricating articles. He met with newspaper Aftenposten over the weekend. PHOTO: OLAV OLSEN

Dr Jon Sudbø, who's now admitted to fabricating three articles about cancers of the mouth, is currently on sick leave himself. PHOTO: RADIUM.NO Related stories: Research scandal will be investigated - 18.01.2006 Research scam makes waves - 17.01.2006 Research cheats may be jailed - 16.01.2006

Dr Jon Sudbø laid all his cards on the table over the weekend, according to his defense attorney, and also claims he regrets the medical bluff he mounted over the past several years.

Oslo attorney Erling O Lyngtveit told newspaper Aftenposten that his client "has expressed a desire to be completely open." Lyngtveit also said that Sudbø will cooperate with both a commission appointed to investigate the medical research scandal and his employer, the national cancer hospital in Oslo (Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet)

Sudbø's fabrication of medical research has rocked not just the research community in Norway, but also in neighboring Sweden and the US, where Sudbø worked with some of the world's top cancer researchers. Several of them had been listed as co-authors of the articles Sudbø now admits fabricating, so the scandal affects their credibility as well.

The other articles Sudbø now says he fabricated include one published in The New England Journal of Medicine in April 2004 and another in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in March 2005, both of which dealt with cancers of the mouth. Sudbø admits that he fabricated fatality statistics in the first article, and cheated on blood test data in the second article.

"He therefore can't stand behind the results that are presented there either," Lyngtveit said.

The attorney stressed on behalf of his client, who's since been admitted to hospital himself and is officially on sick leave, that none of the fraudulent articles has had any consequences for patients. He said other data and studies that Sudbø has presented over the years are genuine.

Lyngtveit called the fabrications "a catastrophe" for Sudbø, "both personnally, professionally and socially. He's taking one day at a time. The most important thing for him now is to prevent his work as a doctor from coming into doubt."

Aftenposten's reporter Anne Hafstad
Aftenposten English Web Desk Nina Berglund


Informant: Iris Atzmon

Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 27, 2006

VERICHIP RFID IMPLANT HACKED!

Will Security Problems Quash IPO Plans for Controversial Company?

The VeriChip can be hacked! This revelation along with other worrisome details could put a crimp in VeriChip Corporation's planned initial public offering (IPO) of its common stock, say Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre.

The anti-RFID activists and authors of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID" make no bones about their objection to VeriChip's plans to inject glass encapsulated RFID tags into people. But now they've discovered information that could call VeriChip's entire business model into question.

"If you look at the VeriChip purely from the business angle, it's a ridiculously flawed product," says McIntyre. She notes that security researcher Jonathan Westhues has shown how easy it is to clone a VeriChip implanted in a person's arm and program a new chip with the same number.

Westhues, known for his prior work cloning RFID-based proximity cards, has posted his VeriChip cloning demo online at
http://cq.cx/verichip.pl.

The VeriChip "is not good for anything," says Westhues, has absolutely no security and "solves a number of different non-problems badly."

The chip's security issues may spell trouble for those who have had one of the microchips embedded in their flesh. These include eighteen employees in the Mexican Attorney General's office who use an implanted chip to enter a sensitive records room, and a handful bar patrons in Europe who use the injected chips to pay for drinks. "What are these people going to do now that their chips can be cloned?" says McIntyre. "Wear tinfoil shirts or keep everyone at arm's length?"

Albrecht quips, "A man with a chip in his arm may soon find himself wondering whether that cute gal on the next bar stool likes his smile or wants to clone his VeriChip. It gives new meaning to the burning question, 'Does she want my number?'"

But the VeriChip's problems don't stop there, says McInytre, who is also a former bank examiner and financial writer. She has carefully analyzed the company's SEC registration statement and associated chipping information and discovered serious flaws. It turns out the company's own literature indicates that chipped patients cannot undergo an MRI if they're unconscious. What's more, the company admits that critical medical information linked to the chip could be unavailable in a real emergency. "These issues call VeriChip's promotional campaigns and business plan into question," McIntyre says.

The instructions provided to medical personnel warn that chipped patients should not undergo an MRI unless they are fully alert and able to communicate any "unusual sensations or problems," like movement or heating of the implant. This conflicts with company's efforts to promote people who cannot speak for themselves, such as Alzheimer's patients, those with dementia, the mentally disabled, and people concerned about entering an emergency room unconscious.

"The irony is that implantees will have to wear a Medic Alert bracelet or bear some obvious marking so they aren't mistakenly put in an MRI machine," Albrecht says.

Chipped patients might also have to wear a Medic Alert bracelet as a back-up in case the VeriChip database containing their critical medical information is unavailable. The fine print on the back of the VeriChip Patient Registration Form warns implantees that "the Company does not warrant...that the website will be available at any particular time," and physicians are told the product might not function in places where there are ambient radio transmissions--like ambulances. In addition, patients are required to waive any claims related to the product's "merchantability and fitness." The waiver paragraph as it appears on the form is reprinted below:

"Patient...is fully aware of any risks, complications, risks of loss, damage of any nature, and injury that may be associated with this registration. Patient waives all claims and releases any liability arising from this registration and acknowledges that no warranties of any kind have been made or will be made with respect to this registration. ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, HOWEVER ARISING, WHETHER BY OPERATION OF LAW OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MECHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXCLUDED AND WAIVED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COMPANY BE LIABLE TO PATIENT FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING LOST INCOME OR SAVINGS) ARISING FROM ANY CAUSE WHATSOEVER, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THEIR POSSIBILITY, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SUCH DAMAGES ARE SOUGHT BASED ON BREACH OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY." [Emphasis in the original.]

"For a life or death medical device, that's unbelievable," says McIntyre. "I wouldn't buy toilet paper that required that kind of a disclaimer, never mind a product that's supposed to serve as a lifeline in an emergency."

McIntyre contacted the VeriChip Corporation for comments on these issues and was initially promised a response. When the company failed to get to get back to her, McIntyre followed up and was told that the employee had been instructed not to answer her questions. The unanswered questions, along with photos of the VeriChip and associated literature, are available at
http://www.spychips.com/verichip/unanswered-questions.html.


ABOUT THE BOOK

"Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID" was released in October 2005. Already in its fifth printing, "Spychips" is the winner of the Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty and has received wide critical acclaim. Authored by Harvard doctoral researcher Katherine Albrecht and former bank examiner Liz McIntyre, the book is meticulously researched, drawing on patent documents, corporate source materials, conference proceedings, and firsthand interviews to paint a compelling -- and frightening -- picture of the threat posed by RFID.

Despite its hundreds of footnotes and academic-level accuracy, the book remains lively and readable according to critics, who have called it a "techno-thriller" and "a masterpiece of technocriticism."

CASPIAN: Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering Opposing retail surveillance schemes since 1999.

http://www.spychips.com/
http://www.nocards.org/

You're welcome to duplicate and distribute this message to others who may find it of interest.


Informant: ireland

--------

SPYCHIPS: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID
http://www.lfb.com/index.php?template=spychipsexcerpt.html&stocknumber=PV9017



http://omega.twoday.net/topics/RFID/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Spychips

41 votes needed for filibuster, 13 in the bag, 22 on the fence: PHONE CALLS NEEDED

More Senate Democrats Joining Filibuster Vote: ...At the start of the day [Friday], only Dick Durbin and Debbie Stabenow supported Kerry and Kennedy. Just before noon, Hillary Clinton's office called to say she supported us. Then Harry Reid came on board, along with Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Chris Dodd, and (I think) Chuck Schumer.

TAKE ACTION HERE: http://www.democrats.com/we-can-stop-alito http://democrats.com/alito-48

Filibuster option on Alito divides Senate Democrats
by Maura Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
Saturday, January 28, 2006

Washington -- Democrats lined up Friday for and against a last-ditch effort to block the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, with some opposing the call for a filibuster and others supporting it, even as they acknowledged it is unlikely to succeed.

"Everyone knows there are not enough votes to support a filibuster," said Democratic leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who said he would nonetheless vote against ending debate on President Bush's choice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Democrats split on the move. Reid, who had expressed reservations about a filibuster, described his decision to join the effort as a kind of protest vote against Alito, a veteran federal appeals court judge from New Jersey whose confirmation to the Supreme Court is expected Tuesday.

California's two Democratic senators said they will support the filibuster attempt.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against Alito's nomination, said she will vote against ending debate Monday, a procedure known as cloture.

"Based on a very long and thoughtful analysis of the record and transcript, which I tried to indicate in my floor statement (Thursday), I have decided I will vote no on cloture," Feinstein said in a statement released Friday by her office.

Sen. Barbara Boxer indicated she, too, is inclined to support a filibuster, the Senate's traditional strategy of unlimited debate to block a bill or nomination.

"There is only one way to send this nominee back to the president and get a mainstream justice, and that is to get 41 votes for a filibuster," Boxer said. "Clearly it's an uphill battle, but if colleagues on both sides of the aisle realize liberty and justice are on the line, we have a chance for a nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who along with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., called for the filibuster, returned to Washington from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to lead the effort. In a speech on the Senate floor, he accused President Bush of trying to make the Supreme Court more ideologically conservative.

"The critical question here is why are we so compelled to accept, in such a rush, a nominee who has so clearly been chosen for political and ideological reasons," said Kerry, who lost the 2004 presidential election to Bush.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan derided the filibuster effort by mocking Kerry's presence at the Davos forum, despite the fact that Republican senators also attended.

"This was the first time ever that a senator has called for a filibuster from the slopes of Davos, Switzerland," McClellan said at his daily briefing for reporters. "I think even for a senator, it takes some pretty serious yodeling to call for a filibuster from a five-star ski resort in the Swiss Alps."

Under rules of the 100-member Senate, it takes 60 votes to end a debate; a filibuster occurs when at least 41 senators decide to block action by refusing to end the debate. While that many Democrats are likely to oppose Alito's confirmation, several of them won't support a filibuster.

At least 53 of the Senate's 55 Republicans plan to vote for Alito, easily giving the nominee the majority he needs.

Democrats are split, however, on the wisdom of pursuing a filibuster. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., long an "undecided" vote on Alito, announced Friday that he will oppose the filibuster. He was joined by Sens. Ken Salazar of Colorado and Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

"While I personally cannot support Judge Alito's confirmation on the Supreme Court, there is not a smoking gun in his past that would warrant 'extraordinary circumstances' and subsequently a filibuster against his nomination," Pryor said in a statement.

Chronicle staff writer Carolyn Lochhead contributed to this report.

Page A - 4 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/28/MNGAIGV0U71.DTL


Informant: John Calvert

Bush Administration Launches Campaign Of Lies In Defense Of Government Spying

Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 07:39:53 -0800
From: Zepp zepp@finestplanet.com
Subject:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060124/sc_nm/environment_warming_dc_1

Bush Administration Launches Campaign Of Lies In Defense Of Government Spying

By Joe Kay
25 January 2006

*The Bush administration has initiated a campaign to defend its illegal spying program, employing its well-established technique of brazenly lying to the American people.

The campaign began last week with a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney on January 19 and one by White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove on January 20. Rove denounced the mild criticisms made by some Democrats of the National Security Agency spying program as exhibiting a "pre-9/11" mentality, which "makes them wrong, wrong deeply and profoundly and consistently."

Coming from Rove, these remarks are a clear sign that the Republican Party plans to run in the 2006 elections on the basis of a defense of the administration's criminal policies.

Rove's statements, and the statements of other administration officials, are not directed primarily at the Democrats, who do not have any fundamental objections to the attack on democratic rights represented by the NSA program.

The main target is the American people and the widespread public opposition to what is a fundamental violation of basic constitutional guarantees.

Far from retreating in the face of this opposition, the government is seeking to intimidate the population by suggesting that any criticism of the program is equivalent to aiding terrorists.

The announcement that Bush will speak at the headquarters of the NSA on Wednesday is an indication of how critical the administration considers the program to be.

Though it is thought to be the largest US intelligence agency, the NSA is also one of the most secretive institutions of the government, one whose operations and budget have rarely been discussed publicly.

It is known in Washington as the "No Such Agency."

Bush's public appearance at the NSA is intended to bring the agency into greater prominence, and legitimize all of its various activities, including the new spying program.

Other administration officials who have spoken in recent days in defense of the spying program include Vice President Dick Cheney last week and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday. Bush spoke on Monday at a separate appearance at Kansas State University.

The administration's offensive is designed to cover up the basic fact that the government has been operating a program that is in direct violation of U.S. law and the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In particular, the NSA spying violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which was put in place as a direct consequence of revelations of massive illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens and opponents of government policies.

In defending the program, administration officials have repeated the fraudulent legal arguments discussed in a Justice Department memo released last week.

These arguments include the claim that spying on American citizens is part of the president's powers as commander-in-chief, and that the powers were also approved by the Authorization to Use Military Force, passed by Congress after the September 11 attacks.

Gonzales repeated on Tuesday, "The president's authority to take military action-including the use of communications intelligence targeted at the enemy- does not come merely from his inherent constitutional powers. It comes directly from Congress as well."

The inclusion of surveillance of communications of US citizens under the category of "military action" underscores the limitless character of the power claimed by the president.

The principle of the separation of powers is thrown out the window, and there is essentially no action that the president might take that could not be justified using the same argument.

Underlying the administration's defense is the basic lie that spying is necessary as part of the "war on terrorism."

Administration officials invariably precede their remarks on the spying program by a recollection of the attacks of September 11, in the same way as they sought to frame the war in Iraq as a response to a world in which "everything had changed."

Bush and the other officials have repeatedly asserted that the spying program is narrowly tailored to target members of Al Qaeda. "We have ways to determine whether or not someone can be an Al Qaeda affiliate or Al Qaeda," Bush said on Monday. "And if they're making a phone call in the United States, it seems like to me we want to know why."

By repeating over and over the assertion that the program is directed solely at Al Qaeda members or "affiliates," the administration hopes to obscure the fact that all the published reports on the program have exposed this claim as false.

James Risen, who co-wrote the original /New York Times/ piece reporting on the secret program, has explained in his recently published book, /State of War/, that the spying involves government access to vast databases containing tens or hundreds of thousands of communications and emails that have nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

The NSA has established close relationships with major telecommunications companies to tap into communication "switches," which allow them to search for data they may consider relevant.

Bush officials have also claimed that the spying involves only international communications-those that are either from or to a country other than the United States.

Bush said on Monday that "these are not phone calls within the United States. It's a phone call of an Al Qaeda, known Al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States."

However, the databases that the NSA has access to contain both international communications as well as communications entirely within the United States.

"There seems to be no physical or logical obstacle to prevent the NSA from eavesdropping on anyone in the United States that it chooses," Risen wrote. An article in the /New York Times /on December 21 also reported that some of the communications monitored by the NSA occurred entirely within the US.

The Bush administration is asking the American people to trust its assertion that the program is targeting only "known Al Qaeda" members or "affiliates."

Even if one were to accept this claim as true, the question remains:

Who falls under the category of an Al Qaeda affiliate?

Lawyers for the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed lawsuits against the government on the justified suspicion that their communications have been monitored while they seek to represent clients held at Guantánamo Bay.

The administration has never offered a serious explanation for why it has chosen to operate the program in violation of FISA if it was only targeting Al Qaeda.

FISA established a separate court that approves NSA requests to spy on communications involving suspected intelligence agents or terrorist suspects.

Out of thousands of requests made since it was set up, the FISA court has only rejected a handful.

FISA also allows the government to monitor communications for up to 72 hours before it is required to present evidence to the court in order to receive a warrant.

If the administration wanted to spy on someone who it could reasonably claim had some ties to Al Qaeda, it could easily do so within this framework.

Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, former NSA director and current deputy director of national intelligence, sought to address this obvious contradiction in remarks on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington.

He argued that FISA does not allow the NSA by itself to initiate spying without a warrant for 72 hours. Rather, "The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage, and the attorney general's standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court," Hayden said. Gonzales repeated the same argument in his speech.

In other words, according to the Bush administration, approval from the attorney general is an undue burden on the NSA, preventing it from acting quickly to monitor necessary communications.

The idea that the attorney general might be hesitant to give authorization to spy on a suspected Al Qaeda member is absurd.

Under such circumstances, the attorney general would have no doubt that his authorization of the spying would eventually be approved by the FISA court.

Besides the general principle of the administration that the president should be unconstrained in his powers, the only conceivable explanation for the decision to violate FISA and pursue warrantless spying of electronic communications is that the government intends to target broader sections of the population.

It has already been established that the Pentagon has kept records of antiwar protesters, and there have been a number of reports in recent weeks of the NSA spying on peace activists in Baltimore, Maryland and San Jose, California, although not as part of the new program authorized by the administration.

FISA was passed in response to public anger over precisely this sort of spying, including the monitoring of prominent political figures such as Martin Luther King Jr.

The American ruling elite has long sought to get rid of these constraints.

Like all of the Bush administration's policies, the attacks of September 11 have been used as a pretext to carry out a pre-conceived agenda.

In this regard, there was a revealing exchange during a question and answer period between Lt. Gen. Hayden and a representative of "The World Can't Wait" organization, which is planning an upcoming protest against the Bush administration.

The questioner asked if the NSA is spying on the communications of members of his organization. In response, Hayden asserted only that the spying program "isn't a drift net" that is monitoring all calls made by US citizens.

He did not reply when asked again whether the NSA was specifically targeting "people who politically oppose the Bush government."

Hayden also refused to participate in a public debate on the NSA program, saying that this would be equivalent to asking him to "come out and tell the world how you're catching Al Qaeda."

In other words, any serious discussion of the nature and extent of the program would aid terrorism. In response to a question from an Associated Press reporter,

Hayden refused even to state what kind of communications were being monitored-whether these included both phone conversations and emails.

Further refuting the argument that the program was implemented as a response to 9/11 is the fact that at least one report has stated that the attempt to gain access to telecommunications databases began before the attacks.

In an article published January 3, the online magazine /Slate/ cited one telecommunications executive who said that his company had been solicited by the NSA for this purpose in early 2001.

An exhaustive list of the lies employed by the Bush administration in defending the spying program would take a book to fully elaborate, but several others deserve to be noted:

* Hayden, voicing a position that has been repeated by other administration officials, declared, "Had this program been in effect prior to 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 Al Qaeda operatives in the United States, and we would have identified them as such."

In fact, the US government had detected several of the 9/11 hijackers and were following them prior to the attacks.

Even the 9/11 commission was forced to acknowledge this fact in a report that otherwise whitewashed the role of the intelligence agencies in facilitating the terrorist attacks by refusing to take action on information they had.

* Hayden said that when US citizens come up in their reports to other agencies, the "US identities are expunged when they're not essential to understanding the intelligence value of any report."

He failed to mention, however, that other agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI and the CIA, can request from the NSA the names that have been withheld, and these are routinely provided. /Newsweek /has previously reported that between January 2004 and May 2005, more than 10,000 names of US citizens were provided to other agencies in this way.

* In his Monday appearance in Kansas, Bush said that his "most important job is to protect the security of the American people" and Gonzales said at the Columbia Law School on Tuesday that "No other public official ... is charged by the Constitution with the primary responsibility for protecting the safety of all Americans-and the Constitution gives the president all authority necessary to fulfill this solemn duty."

This is a fundamental misrepresentation of the constitutional role of the president, and is in line with the administration's attempt to portray the president as the commander-in-chief of the entire country, rather than the military.

In fact, the Constitution states that the task of the president, as head of the executive branch, is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

Nowhere does it say that the primary role of the president is to "protect the safety of all Americans."

This revision of the Constitution is intended to justify the president's open violation of the law using the pretext of "national security."

* Bush also said, "We briefed members of the United States Congress ... about this program.... If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?"

A report by the Congressional Research Service earlier this month found that the reporting procedure used by the administration- in which the report was only given to a small group of House and Senate leaders, under strict gag orders-"would appear to be inconsistent with the law."

Congress was never briefed on the program, let alone the American people as a whole, whose rights have been violated.

In making the very restricted briefings to some congressmen of both parties, the administration was relying on the fact that the Democratic Party would not say or do anything to reveal the existence of the illegal program.

This is a role that the Democrats faithfully fulfilled.

If the administration-which has been exposed as acting in blatant violation of existing legislation-feels that it can respond with such a brazen disregard for truth, it is because it feels confident that it faces no serious opposition from within the political establishment.

Throughout the existence of the spying program, leading Democrats had been informed of it, but said nothing.

In response to the revelations, the Democratic Party leadership not called for the impeachment of the president, or even for an end to the spying program.

Rather, their main demand is that the president present his case to Congress and let the legislative body overturn or rewrite FISA to make the program "legal."

On Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan hinted that the administration might in fact follow the advice of the Democrats on this question.


Informant: Friends

Ms. Noe's own scandal: Wife of Ohio GOP fundraiser does some election reform of her own

Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 07:28:12 -0800
From: Zepp zepp@finestplanet.com
Subject: Ms. Noe's own scandal: Wife of Ohio GOP fundraiser does some election reform of her own

http://tinyurl.com/8zt74


*Ms. Noe's own scandal: Wife of Ohio GOP fundraiser does some election reform of her own*

*Larisa Alexandrovna*

In yet another surreal twist in Ohio's "coin-gate" scandal, the wife of Bush's chief Ohio fundraiser, Tom Noe-who is currently embroiled in campaign finance and money laundering probes-surprised poll workers and observers alike by disrupting the ballot count during the 2004 general election, RAW STORY http://rawstory.com has discovered.

Bernadette Noe, who served dual roles as chairman for the Lucas County Republican Party and the Lucas County Board of Elections, sent twelve "partisans" into a warehouse on Election Day, according a memo authored by Ohio's Director of Campaign Finance Richard Weghorst who was present at the time.

The assertion is part of a comprehensive investigation prepared for Ohio Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell regarding reports of irregularities in Lucas County. The report found gross failures on the part of Ms. Noe's board in preparation for and administration of November's election. (Read the memo in PDF
http://rawstory.com/other/pdfs/lucasinquiryrawstory.pdf

The Board was "directly responsible for the inefficient and unorganized election process" in the county, the report said. Weghorst found they had failed to lock and secure ballots and voting machines; manipulated the three percent hand recount; and failed to properly remove Ralph Nader from county ballots.

But perhaps the most striking event directly linked to Ms. Noe was what Weghorst described as "a note-worthy incident relating to security" on the evening of the election.

Weghorst, who was present at a local warehouse where ballots were being tabulated, says in his report that "two groups of partisan volunteers totaling approximately twelve people" arrived, whose "purpose for being there was not immediately known nor requested."

When the volunteers refused to leave the premises, Weghorst called the police, who then escorted the group away from the warehouse. It later emerged they had come at Ms. Noe's request.

A Diebold employee, Robert Diekmann, was also present at the warehouse that night.

*Ms. Noe and the machines*

Ms. Noe was an advocate of Diebold's optical scan software as chair of the Lucas County Board of Elections. In April 2004, she and another fellow Republican board member voted to approve a $350,000 contract with Diebold to lease machines for the election. The county was forced the lease the equipment after a deadlock and a rebuke from Blackwell.

"It's going to cost us more than we thought it would, but it's going to be a fair election," Ms. Noe said
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040622/NEWS09/406220342&SearchID=732159619585 at the time. "I am confident with the system we will have with Diebold."

"Every vote is going to get counted, and it is going to be an efficient election," she added.

The contract was no-bid. After Democrats on the board revealed a cheaper bid from another company, the Lucas County board was forced to open the contract for bidding, over Ms. Noe's objections
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040624/NEWS09/406240414&SearchID=732159571969

The contract was eventually awarded to Diebold.

Diebold has faced scrutiny in Ohio, particularly after comments
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm by the firm's chief executive in 2003 to Ohio Republicans in which he declared he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

One Ohio election official recently admitted
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_lobbyist_tried_to_bribe_Ohio_county_with__0716.html a Diebold lobbyist offered him $10,000 in an effort to woo the county to purchase Diebold machines, which he diverted to the local Republican Party.

*Additional allegations against Ms. Noe*

Reminiscent of an account reported on by RAW STORY
http://rawstory.com regarding ballot tampering in Clermont County
http://gnn.tv/headlines/947/_Why_were_there_stickers_on_ballots_in_Clermont_County_Ohio Ohio, Ms. Noe was involved in an incident through which Republican volunteers were brought in to "assist" processing returned voter confirmation postcards. On her authority and that of several other board members, partisan volunteers were allowed to copy the returned cards.

They were subsequently caught by a Lucas County Democratic official peeling the return stickers off the voter confirmation cards, and were told to leave. Weghorst's inquiry found no evidence they had been supervised.

The investigator's report was submitted in April 2005.

Bernadette Noe resigned from the Lucas County Republican Party and from her position as head of the Board of Elections in December, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.

In April, the Toledo Blade reported
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050701/NEWS24/50701016 Ms. Noe acted improperly as chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party in accepting $65,000 in loans for the party from her husband. She is also involved in a scandal surrounding an aide to Ohio governor Bob Taft (R) staying for a reduced rate at her vacation home
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050731/SRRARECOINS/307310018

Bernadette Noe is married to the now-infamous
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050403/NEWS24/504030349 Tom Noe, who invested millions of dollars of state funds into rare coins and who is currently the target of a wide-ranging inquiry. Noe, a Bush Pioneer, also allegedly laundered money into President Bush's reelection campaign by paying others to donate.

Tom Noe, the owner of several shady business ventures, including Vintage Coins and Collectibles, funneled an estimated fifty million dollars into his own personal and business accounts as well as to the state's GOP candidates. Noe's rare coin venture came at the expense of The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, for whom he acted as the sole fund manager.

The Noe coin scandal has widened to include investigations into Taft as well as other GOP candidates from across the state, including several Ohio Supreme Court justices.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is expected to ask the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel today.

"The facts that have come out indicate a culture of corruption in the Ohio Republican Party," Conyers in a statement to RAW STORY
http://rawstory.com "An investigation such as this, which is rife with conflicts of interest, begs for the appointment of an independent prosecutor who would be immune from the partisan gamesmanship we have seen so far."

Conyers' letter to the Justice Department is available here
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Conyers_to_call_for_special_prosecutor_to_investigate_Noe__0801.html

For additional reading on the ongoing investigation, see the following references:

Special Counsel sought in Noe case
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050801/SRRARECOINS/308010013 Taft stays mum

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050731/SRRARECOINS/307310018 Noe Transfers $3.8 Million to his own firm
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050723/SRRARECOINS/50723003/-1/SRRARECOINS2 Rare Coin Fund spurs calls to revise Ohio law
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050406/NEWS24/504060400


Informant: Friends

Mobile phone giant flexes its muscle

For info. It would appear that the Inspector was sympathetic to the principle of concern and anxiety about health having an adverse effect on amenity - which of course is the way that 'health' should always be presented. A very important High Court judgement is now the issue.

David Baron


West Sussex Gazette - 26 January 2006

Mobile phone giant flexes its muscle

Mobile phone giant O2 is taking John Prescott to court after a government planning inspector backed Arun District Council's decision not to grant a mast near a Littlehampton School. This is the first time the company has appealed against an inspector's decision and if successful it will set a precedent for other appeals throughout the country. O2 wanted to erect a 50ft tall mast north-west of the A259 roundabout opposite Lyminster Infant School but Arun refused because it was too close. When O2 appealed, planning inspector David Harmston sided with the council and rejected the mast because its presence would be likely to generate "significant fears and apprehension however unjustified" which would harm the well-being of children, parents and staff. Mr Harmston said that although the mast would be more than 100 metres away from the school it was considered 'near' within government planning guidelines. He also thought the O2's failure to consult with the school before submitting its application was significant. He was not satisfied that a suitable alternative location could not be found elsewhere in the area to match O2's required technical needs. O2 said that it did not consider the school to be near and so did not consult the school at the pre-application stage. It also said that there were no suitable alternative sites. James Stevenson of O2 said it believed the inspector was wrong in his decision. "We think that his rejection of this mast was wrong and that it is now for the court to settle," said Mr Stevenson. "What we have said is that health and safety is not a local authorit'ys responsibility and not an inspector's concern. If we win it will make it clear to other inspectors on what they can include and what they ca't include." Mr Stevenson said that O2 was confident it would win the case which will be heard in a month's time.

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Stevenson's quote "What we have said is that health and safety is not a local authority's responsibility and not an inspector's concern." Well, in his opinion, who's concern is it then? His industry are certainly showing no concern at all for the health and well being of those children who attend Littlehampton School. Who are the mobile phone industry to judge how we perceive our own health and welfare?

Bev

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Quite right! The Health & Safety Executive would contend (with the law in full support) that health and safety is everyone's concern.

David B

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From Karen Barratt

I'm not surprised Stevenson is feeling confident. I fear we may be looking at another 'Harrogate' (see below) where the ODPM barrister put up a pathetically inadequate argument. This led to a judgement that many LPAs are using wrongly to say they cannot consider health if there is ICNIRP compliance. The ODPM barrister in the Harrogate Appeal case did not explain the difference between thermal and non-thermal effects which might have persuaded the judges to put less faith less in the ICNIRP certificate when finding that the Inspector was wrong to uphold the council refusal of three masts near as many schools. We had the impression at the time that Prescott had to go through the motions of supporting his Inspector , hence the Appeal -but would have found it very inconvenient to have won.


Dec 2004 Harrogate

A year ago - after protests from parents - Harrogate council refused to give the mast planning permission on health grounds. The companies appealed, but a public inquiry upheld the council's refusal because there was "insufficient reassurance" that the mast would cause "no material harm to the children's health".

The companies then took the case to court. Mr Prescott supported the council, but the judge decided in favour of the phone companies. It was then the Deputy Prime Minister's turn to appeal, but last month the Court of Appeal also gave the mast the go-ahead, saying the planning process should only be allowed to consider "perceived health risks" in exceptional circumstances.

Mr Prescott came under pressure to take the issue to the House of Lords for a final decision, but refused to do so on the grounds that it was "unlikely" he would "be able to successfully argue that the case raises points of law of general public importance". The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister adds, however, that "it is considered appropriate to carefully consider the policy implications arising from the judgment when the transcript becomes available".

Protesters and MPs will be urging him to amend his planning guidance to councils, which fatally undermines his case by stipulating that permission to erect masts cannot be refused on health grounds.

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It should be made very clear that there are two clauses in PPG8 guidelines. The one that concerns the health effects of exposure to microwave radiation is one that demands scientific proof. The degree of proof called for by the Government is virtually beyond that which can be derived from a scientific study. This is the main bone of contention. When asked to prove safety, they always say that you cannot prove a negative, so they press on regardless. So we have the current impasse. However, the second clause refers to " health concerns "which followed the outcome of the High Court case brought by the brave Yasmin Skelt. Here she claimed that compliance with the ICNIRP guidelines did not allay her personal fears. Before the Judge could rule in her favour { when it would have become case law and thus apply throughout the country }, John Prescott conceded and so the clause about health concerns was added. HERE NO PROOF IS REQUIRED. It is purely the conclusion that an individual has reached after taking in all the evidence produced, both for and against. Planning Officers here, first tried to lump these two together, citing that these two clauses seemed ambiguous and, as there was no prooof, the health concerns could be given little priority. When I challenged them on this, they then included in their reportthe statement that little wieght need to be given to health concerns because there were no " special circumstances " here. When I then asked what would be the special circumstances circumstances that would allow significant weight to hese concerns. I was told they did not know. When asked why they said it, I was told that it was because they were told to do/ In other words every possible means are being applied to dilute this clause, that was only inserted following the aforesaid Court case. I believe we should challenge this seriously and force this concerns clause to be given more credibility. IT IS IN THE GUIDELINES AND we should not be railroaded into saying it has no significance.

Dennis Cannon

The Local Phone Call: MIRACLE To Stop Alito

This is the most important alert we will ever send.

There is a political earthquake taking place right now and the mainstream media and some in the political establishment are DESPERATELY trying to cover it up and deny it. The people of the United States are rising up in open democratic revolt to demand that their representatives actually listen to them and fight for their rights.

Thanks to the courage of John Kerry in the simple act of calling for a filibuster of the Alito nomination, there WILL be a cloture vote on Monday, and if enough of us call and fax, there is NO senator we cannot turn around. Otherwise, why should they even be allowed to remain in office?

LOCAL PHONES, LOCAL PHONES, LOCAL PHONES!

With perhaps millions of people trying to get through to their senators, we have had reports the phone messaging system in Washington is completely jammed. Does that mean we stop trying? NO!!! We crank it up to the next level by filling every local district office answering machine they have, and consuming every piece of fax paper they've got. Here are the LOCAL phone and fax numbers for your own senators for the state of the original recipient of this message.

If this message is forwarded to you and you are in another state, you can instantly look up your own senators' numbers with the one click function at

http://www.nocrony.com

Our message to our senators is simple. Your vote to support a filibuster will NOT cost you an election. Any other vote absolutely will. Respect the will of the people and you will have the most mobilized and committed activists in the country to contribute and work tirelessly for your behalf. Oppose the will of the people and we will raise challengers to you in your own primaries and contribute every dime we have to them to defeat you, and failing that we will look to find ANY other candidate in the general election to support. Listen to the people or your political career will be the REAL done deal. EMPHASIZE that you are a constituent (IF you are) and provide contact information to prove it.

If you have Republican senators, it is just as important to contact them with the additional message of how outraged you will be if they try to pull some nuclear option stunt.

You should concentrate on the local office closest to you, and if you are doing faxing, you should also definitely hit the Washington number as well, on the chance that there is a piece of fax paper left there. If you are looking to do even MORE, here is the master list of ALL phone and fax numbers for ALL senators, with annotations about which are the most critical swing votes.

http://www.nocrony.com/master_senate_phones.txt

If you are are calling senators in other states, be candid that you are not a direct constituent. But the message is the same, if you stand with the party on this one we will go out of our way to help you. Otherwise we will flood your state with money and labor to support ANY candidate who runs against you until the end of time.

It is wonderful if you want to make massive numbers of phone calls yourself. But you can IMMENSELY amplify your effectiveness by FIRST forwarding this message to absolutely every other person you know so that they can be similarly mobilized. It is not just the sheer volume of messages, even more critical is the number of DIFFERENT people speaking out at once.

We have heard reports that even Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the first Democratic senator to betray the cause, is monitoring his phone messages this weekend, as are Robert Byrd (WV) and Tim Johnson (SD). All the other issues we care about, stopping the war in Iraq, stopping the widespread illegal domestic wire taps for political purposes, stopping the abuses of the Patriot Act, stopping the looting of our national budget by special interests at the expense of the people's needs, ALL these things can be achieved if we just unify behind this one issue of stopping Alito now.

Let us be able to look back and say we did everything we could have done to win this victory in spite of the corrupt media pundits who are working overtime to tell us what we cannot do. We are proving them wrong day by day.

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.

Powered by The People's Email Network Copyright 2005, Patent pending, All rights reserved

The WHO's 2006 RF research agenda

The WHO's 2006 RF research agenda is posted at

www.who.int/peh-emf/research/rf_research_agenda_final_Jan2006.pdf

It must be said that the lack of support we have received to date from the WHO on our EHS issue--and especially its outrageous conclusion at the Prague 2004 workshop on EMF hypersensitivity that there is "no substantial evidence" to support the existence of a causal relationship between EMF and EHS, when there is a body of published evidence but it was conveniently omitted from the final report--has grieviously undermined our trust in the integrity of the WHO. But do we have any other choice right now if we wish to continue our struggle for full recognition of EHS and the central role non-ionising radiation plays in the development of this physical impairment other than engage with the WHO?

And so I am sending along to you for posting its 2006 Research Agenda for Radio Freqency Fields. It would be good to get feedback on this document--its shortcomings, other observations et al. I found its "High Priority Research Needs" in the Dosimetry section (page 8) particularly interesting.

Best, Imelda, Cork.

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WHO, EMF, Electromagnetic Radiation and Mobile Phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1194586/

Dr. Chiyoji Ohkubo answers an EHS person
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1414514/


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=EHS

Leitpetition "Mobilfunk" stammt aus dem Juni 2000

Eintrag-Details: Leitpetition "Mobilfunk" stammt aus dem Juni 2000 ! Leitpetition "Mobilfunk" stammt aus dem Juni 2000 ! von helmutgobsch @ 28.01.2006 - 16:12:30

Wie mir der Verantwortliche für Umwelt des Petitionauschussdienstes des Deutschen Bundestages, Herr Volker Düring (Tel.: 030 - 227 35415) schriftlich mitteilt, ist die Leitpetition "Mobilfunk", die aus dem Juni 2000 stammt, bis heute nicht entschieden (d.h. eine unglaubliche Beurteilungszeit für eine Petition von 5 Jahren und sieben Monaten). Dies hat mit demokratischen Verfahrensweisen absolut nichts mehr zu tun !!! Offensichtlich soll das lange "Aussitzen" dieser Petition den weiteren Ausbau von UMTS nicht behindern ! Herr Düring teilte mir zwar mit, dass diese Petiton in einer der nächsten Sitzungen des Petitionsauschusses auf der Tagesordnung stehen wird, allein mir fehlt der Glaube. Rufen Sie Herrn Düring ständig an, damit hier endlich eine positive Entscheidung für die vielen Mobilfunkgeschädigten in unserem Land gefällt wird ! Vielen Dank !

Ein Skandal !

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Helmut Gobsch

Impeach or Indict Bush and Cheney

The Constitution is silent on whether a seated President and Vice President can be indicted, while in office, for crimes committed while they have held those offices. Constitutional lawyers are congenitally prone to announcing that this cannot be done because it would disrupt the ongoing business of the government. According to Ronnie Drugger it is time to do it, if necessary absent impeachment, for exactly that reason - to disrupt the continuation of THIS government.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012806Z.shtml



Impeach or Indict Bush and Cheney

The year 2006 will be historic for the nation, and probably for humanity. Texans Bush and Rove and their conspirators in the second Bush presidency have disgraced American democracy at home and in the world with debasements of our nation and our values that have now entered their climactic phase.

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=2117


From Information Clearing House



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

Chinese Government Committee not Recommending GM Rice

A Chinese government committee has failed to reach a consensus on the safety of genetically modified rice, putting off the world's first large-scale production of the transgenic grain for human consumption.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=80&news:oid=n4430

Kraft to Halt Sale of Genetically Modified Food in China Kraft Foods

Kraft to Halt Sale of Genetically Modified Food in China Kraft Foods, the world's second-largest food producer, said it will stop using genetically modified (GM) ingredients in all products sold in China from 2007, the Shanghai Daily reported.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=80&news:oid=n4431

Bush's Parteifreunde: Der Präsident versagt in der Klimapolitik

24.01.2006

Auch von eigenen Parteifreunden wird George W. Bush immer mehr als Umwelt-Analphabet attackiert. Der Präsident versage in der Klimapolitik.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n4480

NABU: Deutsche Eiche ist so krank wie nie zuvor

25.01.2006

Der Naturschutzbund NABU hat die Bundesregierung angesichts des alarmierend schlechten Zustandes des deutschen Waldes zum zügigen Handeln aufgefordert.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n4486

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Mobilfunk und Bäume
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/523004/

Wo wird in Deutschland Gen-Mais angebaut?

26.01.2006

Auch dieses Jahr wird in Deutschland zu kommerziellen Zwecken Gen-Mais angebaut - Greenpeace zeigt jetzt wo.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n4498

Erich Schöndorf: "Das Projekt"

Was blüht Amerika, wenn es seinen Raubtierkapitalismus immer mehr von der Leine lässt? Erich Schöndorf, der Ankläger im berühmten Frankfurter Holzschutzmittel-Prozess, gibt in seinem neuen Umwelt-Thriller eine authentische und daher warnende Antwort: Die Entwicklung eskaliert und mündet in einen neuen Terrorismus.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=34&article:oid=a4448

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Mehr über Erich Schöndorf unter:
http://tinyurl.com/dm2j3

Neue Studie zu den Auswirkungen der Tschernobyl-Katastrophe

Die Auswirkungen des Größt-Anzunehmenden-Unfalls (GAU) im Atomkraftwerk Tschernobyl seien geringer als bisher angenommen, behauptet ein internationales Wissenschaftlergremium in einem im September 2005 vorgelegten Bericht. Fast 20 Jahre nach der Katastrophe präsentiert das so genannte Tschernobyl-Forum unter Federführung der Internationalen Atomenergiebehörde (IAEA) das angeblich „wahre Ausmaß des Unfalls“ mit dem Tenor: „Alles gar nicht so schlimm“.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=18&article:oid=a4477

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PLAYING DOWN THE EFFECTS OF CHERNOBYL
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1253880/

060128 - R - Mobilfunk - Newsletter

http://www.omega-news.info/060128_r_mobilfunk_newsletter.rtf

060127 - R - Mobilfunk - Newsletter

http://www.omega-news.info/060127_r_mobilfunk_newsletter.rtf

060125 - R - Mobilfunk - Newsletter

http://www.omega-news.info/060125_r_mobilfunk_newsletter.rtf

WE CAN STOP ALITO THIS WEEKEND

http://www.democrats.com/we-can-stop-alito

The last two days have been amazing.

Early Thursday afternoon, we broke the news that Senator John Kerry would lead a filibuster against Judge Sam Alito if he could get 41 Senators to sustain the filibuster. Three hours later, CNN confirmed our story.

Naturally, the White House freaked out and told Senator Bill Frist to schedule a cloture vote as quickly as possible - Monday at 4:30 p.m. - to prevent Democrats from uniting behind Kerry.

Then the White House called its media whores at the NY Times (David Kirkpatrick), AP (Jesse Holland), Pentagon Post (Charles Babington), CNN (Miles O'Brien), and MSNBC (Chris Matthews) and told them to trash John Kerry for daring to challenge the will of Emperor Bush, and to repeat over and over that Democrats did not have enough votes to stop Alito.

But even as Karl Rove was doing his dirty work, progressive activists like you were calling your Senators urging them to support John Kerry's filibuster.

And one by one, Democratic Senators began to turn around.

http://democrats.com/alito-48

At the start of the day, only Dick Durbin and Debbie Stabenow supported Kerry and Kennedy. Just before noon, Hillary Clinton's office called to say she supported us. Then Harry Reid came on board, along with Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Chris Dodd, and (I think) Chuck Schumer.

Most importantly, we even picked up Dianne Feinstein, who just yesterday said she opposed a filibuster.

That's 12 votes for a filibuster - and exactly 12 more votes than we had two days ago!

I believe we really can stop Alito by Monday at 4:30 p.m. - but here's what we must do.

1. Ignore the media whores. Karl Rove is feeding them lies as he always does, and they are swallowing those lies as they always do. The only media that matters is the media we are creating right here by calling each Senator and getting a YES or NO statement from them.

2. Keep calling the Senators who are undecided or opposed to a filibuster. You can call their DC office all weekend and leave polite but firm voicemails urging the Senators to support Kerry's filibuster. When offices open on Monday 9 a.m. ET, make another round of calls. Let's shut down the Capitol switchboard on Monday!

http://democrats.com/alito-48

3. Call the DNC (202-863-8000) and the DSCC (202-224-2447) and tell them your 2006 contributions will depend on the success of the Alito filibuster. Tell them they need to get every Democratic Senator on board.

4. Wake up the sleeping bloggers. Where are the biggest blogs, including DailyKos.com, TalkingPointsMemo.com, CrooksandLiars.com, and AmericaBlog.com? (Complaining about how Democrats played last week won't cut it -we're in the Super Bowl and we can win this damn game if we get Democrats to play their best game on Monday - and hopefully the rest of this coming week.) Thanks to Agonist, BobGeiger, BradBlog, BuzzFlash, CultureKitchen, The Democratic Daily, DemocraticUnderground, Eschaton, Firedoglake, Mahablog, MakeThemAccountable, Mark Crispin Miller, NewsDissector, PoliticalWire, RudePundit, Vichy Democrats and everyone else who's plugging this.

5. Lend a hand to real-world groups like NOW, People for the American Way, Feminist Majority, Backbone Campaign, Moveon, Planned Parenthood, Progressive Democrats of America, and Working Assets Long Distance, which have worked tirelessly for two months to Stop Alito.

6. Call talk shows like Air America, C-SPAN, etc. and talk about what we're doing on this blog and how we're killing ourselves to stop Alito - and how we can win if everyone who cares about the future of our Democracy joins us.

7. Keep hope alive - because American Democracy is worth it!!!

http://democrats.com/alito-48

Bob Fertik


UPCOMING EVENTS TO END THE WAR AND HOLD WARMAKERS ACCOUNTABLE

The following events can also be found in the After Downing Street events system at http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/event

Panel Discussion of Immediate Withdrawal from Iraq Featuring: Scott Ritter, Stephen Zunes, Ann Wright, Michael Schwartz, David Swanson, Harlan Hopgood, Steve Young, and Lisa Lubow. Saturday, January 28, 7:30 p.m. Grand Ballroom - Manhattan Beach Marriott, 1400 Parkview Avenue, Manhattan Beach, Calif. Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party and US Tour of Duty http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6939

"Out of Iraq" Forum Featuring: David Swanson, Ann Wright, Jane Bright, Sean Huze, Marcy Winograd Sunday, January 29, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. The Paul Kopeikin Gallery, 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. Progressive Democrats of America, After Downing Street, & Clothing of the American Mind
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6947

Bush-Cheney Impeachment Forum Featuring: Kevin Zeese, Cindy Sheehan, Ann Wright, David Swanson, Ramsey Clark, Marcus Raskin, and Ralph Nader. Monday, January 30, noon to 2 p.m. Bus Boys and Poets, 14th and V Streets, NW, Washington, DC Democracy Rising, After Downing Street/Censure Bush, Backbone Campaign, Democrats.com, ImpeachPAC, Montgomery County Progressive Alliance, and Progressive Democrats of America.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6900

Cindy Sheehan to Read from Her New Book Monday, January 30, 7 p.m. All Souls Unitarian Church, 1500 Harvard St. NW, Washington, DC
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6904

Dick Cheney Birthday Bash Monday, January 30, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Duggan's Pub, 440 S. 11th Street, Lincoln, Neb.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6678

Alternative State of the Union Featuring: Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Cavanagh Tuesday, January 31, 9:00 – 9:40 a.m. news conference followed by two panel discussions of 45-50 min. Democratic National Headquarters, The Wasserman Conference Room, 430 South Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6916

Related Nation Editorial:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060206/editors

"Out of Iraq" by Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060206/woolsey

"A Unified Security Budget" by John Conyers
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060206/conyers

The People's State of the Union Press Event January 31, 3-5 p.m. Mott House, 122 Maryland Ave NE, Washington, DC John Conyers, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Cindy Sheehan, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim, Ann Wright, John Cavanagh http://www.codepinkalert.org

Bring the Noise and Drown Out Bush’s Lies Tuesday, January 31, 8 p.m. In large cities and town squares across the country — we will rally one hour before Bush’s address. At 9:00 PM let the world hear us as we symbolically drown out Bush’s lies—bring your own noise—drums, pots and pans, musical instruments — your voice. Let taxi horns blare and church bells ring, as we bring our own state of the union message: BUSH STEP DOWN! In DC? Join us at the Capitol Reflecting Pool! http://www.worldcantwait.org

The People's State of the Union Instead of sitting at home alone shouting at your TV in anger and frustration, take the People's State of the Union to the public. Gather with other CODEPINK women at a friendly bar or restaurant to watch the President's speech and make a night of it. In DC? Join us at Bus Boys and Poets restaurant at V and 14th Streets, NW, for a Sorry State of the Union. Play "Liars Bingo", drink "pink elephants" Live simulcast with Verna Avery Brown, Pacifica radio DC Bureau Chief.
http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?list=type&type=106

Iraq's Oil and Port Workers and their Unions: Photographs by David Bacon January 31 - February 28 Opening Reception: January 31, 7:30 p.m. United Steel Workers Local 675, 1200 E. 220th St., Carson, Calif. March 1 - March 31 International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63, 350 W. 5th Street, San Pedro, Calif.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6948

Bush Crimes Commission to Present Findings Feb. 2, 12 Noon National Press Club, Washington, DC CONTACT: 212-941-8086 EMAIL: commission@nion.us
http://www.bushcommission.org

Take Our Demand to the White House This regime is immoral, dangerous, and criminally indictable. Bush Lied. Bush Spied. Bush Step Down. 2006. 2008. Too late. Turn your outrage into mass political action. Saturday, February 4, 11 a.m. 17th & Constitution, Washington, DC http://www.worldcantwait.org

SIGNS FOR ANY OCCASION:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6792


FORWARD THIS INFORMATION

Mobiltelefonstrålning ofarlig?

http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1469452/

Significant increases in the risk of benign brain tumors, especially acoustic neuromas, following the use of mobile telephones

http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1461989/

Omega-News Collection 28. January 2006

Cloudy with a Chance of Chaos
http://www.livelogcity.com/users/omega/114957.html

Climate change may bring more violent weather swings and sooner than experts had thought
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1448676/

BAFFLED SCIENTISTS SAY LESS SUNLIGHT REACHING EARTH
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1466096/

Earth could warm up fast
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1471740/

2005 Was Warmest Year on Record: NASA
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1468813/

'Green' Measures Key to Earth's Future
http://www.livelogcity.com/users/omega/89513.html

The Amazon is Drying: Catastrophically
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1458166/

'Suicide Seeds' Could Spell Death of Peasant Agriculture
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1474342/

Europe's anti-GM Food Movement Grows
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1448668/

Protecting Grizzly Bears
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1465443/

Help protect polar bears, corals, seabirds, and other species threatened by climate change
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1478634/

Vote USA 2004
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Vote+USA+2004/

Iraq War
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Irak-Krieg/

Is Iran next?
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Is+Iran+next/

Tsunami
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Tsunami/

RFID
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/RFID/

EMF-Omega-News 28. January 2006
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1478984/

EMF-Omega-News 28. January 2006

Significant increases in the risk of benign brain tumors, especially acoustic neuromas, following the use of mobile telephones
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1461989/

1.8 times more acoustic neuroma after ten years mobile phone use was found
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1449508/

The electromagnetic fields of cellular phones and the health of children and of teenagers
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1448194/

Acute mobile phone effects on pre-attentive operation
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1451672/

Microwaves and Insects
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1448681/

Mobiltelefonstrålning ofarlig?
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1469452/

Half breast cancers tied to environment
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1475343/

EMF Conference: February 2006, Italy
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1472608/

Masts INSIDE Your House?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1451396/

Silent Killer
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1450106/

New hope for phone mast campaigners
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1448167/

'Fry Willy'
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1455789/

Phone mast pair in court over costs bill
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1456779/

We'll keep on fighting against phone masts
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1459976/

MP's phone mast fears
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1460223/

Residents take action over mast
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1464253/

Deputy Prime Minister: Telecommunications Masts
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1464395/

Mobile firm branded ‘time wasters’
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1471407/

Bid to squash Orange mast plan for school
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1472437/

‘Mast to stick out like a sore thumb’
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1474502/

Submission from Lynne Featherstone MP to the Scrutiny Review of Mobile Phone Masts
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1476671/

TRAHVOL: hopeful powerline fears heard
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1446933/

SWEEP news 13
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1450095/

Dossier bornes de mesures des CEM des antennes relais de Brest
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1455051/

Téléphone mobile : Synthèse Nouvelle Etude Tumeur & Témoignage audio
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1462089/

Les antennes à l'index jusqu'à nouvel ordre
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1475808/

Bio-electromagnetic Weapons
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1461821/

News from Mast Sanity
http://tinyurl.com/aotw3

Omega-News Collection 28. January 2006
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1478988/
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