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Moriel Ministries > Teachings > Be Alert! Archive |
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Be Alert! - Oct. 23, 2006
"Come now, and let us reason together," Says the LORD, Think..! (Wake Up Before It's Too Late!) Article List The Road to Artificial Omniscience Terror, Crime, Pestilence & Natural Disaster: Paving the way towards the mark Daniel 11:38a Revelation 13:12 Revelation 13:16-17 VeriChip Corporation Adds 67 Hospitals/Emergency Rooms to its VeriMed Patient Identification System Network at the Annual American College of Emergency Physicians Conference 252 Hospitals Have Agreed to Adopt VeriMed System Exceeding Full-Year Forecast BUSINESS WIRE - October 19, 2006 -- DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- VeriChip Corporation, a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions (NASDAQ:ADSX - News), announced today that 67 new healthcare facilities agreed to participate in the VeriMed Patient Identification System Network at the recently completed American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Conference in New Orleans held from October 15-18. The new healthcare facilities agreed to use the VeriMed reader as standard protocol to scan patients that arrive in emergency rooms unconscious, delirious or confused. The Company continues to provide readers to hospitals and other healthcare facilities at no charge as part of its efforts to "seed" the infrastructure for the VeriMed patient identification system. The new healthcare facilities bring the total number of hospitals and healthcare facilities, located in states that have agreed to adopt the VeriMed System, to 252. "We continue to gain traction among leading hospitals as a result of our marketing initiatives at many leading medical conferences, as well as the increasing recognition of the role that the VeriMed Patient Identification System can play in critical care situations," stated Kevin McLaughlin, CEO of VeriChip Corporation. "We continue to focus on both leading hospitals and influential physicians as we develop our footprint throughout the country." The VeriMed System, which consists of a hand-held radio frequency identification (RFID) scanner, an implantable RFID microchip, and a secure patient database, is being used to help rapidly identify and provide access to important health information on participating patients who arrive at the emergency department unconscious, delirious, or unable to communicate. ... http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/061019/20061019005648.html?.v=1 Supreme Court upholds Arizona's photo ID law for elections THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC - By Amanda Crawford - October 20, 2006 -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that Arizona can go ahead with requiring voters to present a photo ID, starting with next month's general election, as part of the Proposition 200 that voters passed in 2004. The ruling overturns an Oct. 5 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which put the voter ID rules on hold this election cycle. The Supreme Court on Friday did not decide whether the new voter ID rules are constitutional. That decision is still pending in federal district court.... The new voter ID rules were passed, in part, to keep illegal immigrants and other non-citizens from voting. Opponents have argued that legal voters, especially the poor and the elderly, might also be disenfranchised because of the rules. In order to cast a ballot at the polls, voters must show a photo ID with current street address or two forms of identification, such as a utility bill or car registration, with name and street address. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1020scotus-voterID20-ON.html FBI director wants ISPs to track users CNET News.com - By Declan McCullagh, Staff Writer - October 18, 2006 -- "Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms," Mueller said in a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Boston. "All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders and protect future victims," Mueller said. "We must find a balance between the legitimate need for privacy and law enforcement's clear need for access." The speech to the law enforcement group, which approved a resolution on the topic earlier in the day, echoes other calls from Bush administration officials to force private firms to record information about customers. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, for instance, told Congress last month that "this is a national problem that requires federal legislation." Justice Department officials admit privately that data retention legislation is controversial enough that there wasn't time to ease it through the U.S. Congress before politicians left to campaign for re-election. Instead, the idea is expected to surface in early 2007, and one Democratic politician has already promised legislation. Law enforcement groups claim that by the time they contact Internet service providers, customers' records may have been deleted in the routine course of business. Industry representatives, however, say that if police respond to tips promptly instead of dawdling, it would be difficult to imagine any investigation that would be imperiled. It's not clear exactly what a data retention law would require. One proposal would go beyond Internet providers and require registrars, the companies that sell domain names, to maintain records too. And during private meetings with industry officials, FBI and Justice Department representatives have cited the desirability of also forcing search engines to keep logs--a proposal that could gain additional law enforcement support after AOL showed how useful such records could be in investigations. A representative of the International Association of Chiefs of Police said he was not able to provide a copy of the resolution. Preservation vs. retention A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity." Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend to allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether a computer is in use at the time. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.) In addition, Internet providers are required by another federal law to report child pornography sightings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is in turn charged with forwarding that report to the appropriate police agency. When adopting its data retention rules, the European Parliament approved U.K.-backed requirements saying that communications providers in its 25 member countries--several of which had enacted their own data retention laws already--must retain customer data for a minimum of six months and a maximum of two years. The Europe-wide requirement applies to a wide variety of "traffic" and "location" data, including: the identities of the customers' correspondents; the date, time and duration of phone calls, VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls or e-mail messages; and the location of the device used for the communications. But the "content" of the communications is not supposed to be retained. The rules are expected to take effect in 2008. CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report . http://news.com.com/FBI+director+wants+ISPs+to+track+users/2100-7348_3-6126877.html?tag=nefd.top 21st century pyramids–super datacenters Google boss warns politicians about Internet power Politicians have yet to appreciate the impact of the online world, which will also affect the outcome of elections, Schmidt said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Wednesday. He predicted that "truth predictor" software would, within five years, "hold politicians to account." People would be able to use programs to check seemingly factual statements against historical data to see to see if they were correct. "One of my messages to them (politicians) is to think about having every one of your voters online all the time, then inputting 'is this true or false.' We (at Google) are not in charge of truth but we might be able to give a probability," he told the newspaper. The chairman and chief executive of the world's most popular Internet search engine was speaking during a visit to Britain this week, where he met British Prime Minister Tony Blair and spoke at the opposition Conservative Party's annual conference. "Many of the politicians don't actually understand the phenomenon of the Internet very well," Schmidt told the Financial Times. "It's partly because of their age ... often what they learn about the Internet they learn from their staffs and their children." The advent of television taught political leaders the art of the sound bite. The Internet will also force them to adapt. "The Internet has largely filled a role of funding for politicians ... but it has not yet affected elections. It clearly will," Schmidt said. Writing in the Sun tabloid, the Google boss said the online world has empowered ordinary people with the ability to challenge governments, the media and business. "It has broken down the barriers that exist between people and information, effectively democratizing access to human knowledge," Schmidt wrote. "This has made us much more powerful as individuals." Computers taught to sort opinion from fact The project involves Cornell University Professor of Computer Science Claire Cardie and associate professors of computer science Janyce Wiebe of the University of Pittsburgh and Ellen Riloff of the University of Utah. The consortium is one of four University Affiliate Centers to conduct research on advanced methods for information analysis and to develop computational technologies that contribute to national security. "Lots of work has been done on extracting factual information -- the who, what, where, when," explained Cardie. "We're interested in seeing how we would extract information about opinions." The scientists will use machine-learning algorithms to give computers examples of text expressing both fact and opinion and then teach them to tell the difference. http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060925-055616-9311r Court allows NSA surveillance program during appeal The president has said the program is needed in the war on terrorism; opponents say it oversteps constitutional boundaries on free speech, privacy and executive powers. The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave little explanation for the decision. In the three-paragraph ruling, the judges said that they balanced the likelihood an appeal would succeed, the potential damage to both sides and the public interest. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled August 17 that the program targeting communications between people in the United States and people overseas with a suspected link to terrorism is unconstitutional. She refused September 28 to postpone her ruling during appeals, but gave the government a week to ask the 6th Circuit to halt it from taking effect. (Full story) The Justice Department had urged the appeals court to allow it to keep the program in place while it argues its appeal, claiming that the nation faced "potential irreparable harm." "The country will be more vulnerable to a terrorist attack," the government motion said. The program monitors international phone calls and e-mails to and from the United States involving people the government suspects have terrorist links. A secret court has been set up to quickly grant warrants for such surveillance, but the government says it can't always wait for a court to take action. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the program on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say it has made it difficult for them to do their jobs because they believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets. Many said they had been forced to take expensive and time-consuming overseas trips because their contacts wouldn't speak openly on the phone or because they didn't want to violate their contacts' confidentiality. Similar lawsuits challenging the program have been filed by other groups. The issue could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/04/domestic.spying.ap/index.html Official: Swiss Banks Broke Privacy Law ASSOCIATED PRESS - October 13, 2006 - BERN, Switzerland -- Swiss banks violated the law by passing banking information on to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the country's top data protection official said Friday. The banks, usually known for safeguarding the privacy of their clients, should have informed customers making international money transfers via the Belgium-based SWIFT money-transfer service that their data could be passed on to third parties, Hanspeter Thuer said. Just the possibility of the data being leaked should have been grounds enough to warn customers, he said. After the Sept. 11 attacks, SWIFT largely complied with U.S. requests for banking information in its anti-terror investigations. SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, operates a secure electronic messaging service used by some 7,800 financial institutions to make international money transfers worth $6 trillion a day. Thuer said the issue was whether information could be passed on to states whose data protection laws are not as stringent as those in Switzerland. Referring to a report by a Belgian privacy commission, Thuer urged that a solution be negotiated by which U.S. laws and European data protection rules are standardized. Last month, Switzerland Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz said giving the CIA access to the SWIFT information did not infringe Swiss sovereignty or the country's banking secrecy rules. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061013/switzerland_terrorist_financing.html?.v=2 Data Transfer Broke Rules, Report Says “It has to be seen as a gross miscalculation by Swift that it has, for years, secretly and systematically transferred massive amounts of personal data for surveillance without effective and clear legal basis and independent controls in line with Belgian and European law,” the commission wrote today in its report. Swift, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, has come under scrutiny for secretly cooperating with a Bush administration program meant to trace the flows of money among suspected terrorists and their supporters. American analysts were permitted to sift through confidential data on millions of transactions without obtaining specific warrants or subpoenas. Administration officials have defended the secret program, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York and Washington. But critics in Europe have argued that it improperly put American security interests ahead of European civil liberties. This week, a separate panel set up by the European Union debated whether the program violated European banking laws. That panel is considering whether an independent auditor should be appointed to prevent possible privacy abuses at Swift, which is owned by its member banks. Presenting the findings of the Belgian commission’s investigation, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said he recognized that sharing some data on financial transfers with the United States was essential in the global fight against terrorism. But he took Swift to task for passing on such confidential financial information without adequate safeguards that European privacy rules would be respected. “Swift finds itself in a conflicting position between American and European law,” Mr. Verhofstadt said. “But it should have received stronger guarantees of privacy protection based on European standards — not by American standards, which are not as strong.” Among other things, Belgian officials said, Swift should have taken stronger steps to make sure its data was used only for terrorism investigations, and should have obtained assurances from the Americans about how long the data would be retained. Under European Union law, companies may not transfer confidential personal data to an entity in another country unless that country’s privacy protections are deemed adequate. The union does not consider American protections adequate because the United States has never enacted comprehensive data protection laws. Under that rule, the commission found, Swift acted without a legal basis when it sent the data to the United States.... The European Union and the United States are increasingly at odds over how to reconcile civil liberties with security. Recent allegations that the United States kidnapped people on European soil and held them in secret detention centers on suspicion of involvement with terrorism has drawn extensive criticism from European legislators. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/world/europe/28cnd-swift.html?_r=1&ei=5094 Bush signs law on security for US ports, ban on online gambling The law also included an unrelated provision inserted by lawmakers in Congress to severely restrict Internet gambling, prompting gaming companies abroad to close down their US operations.... Entitled the "Security and Accountability For Every (SAFE) Port Act of 2006," the law provides 3.4 billion dollars over five years to strengthen security at ports and requires radiation detection technology to be installed in 22 of the country's largest ports by the end of 2007. The measure calls for bolstering inspections on some 11 million containers that transit American ports every year, deploying inspectors to foreign ports to check cargo headed to US ports, and speeding up paperwork from private shipowners. The opposition Democrats mostly supported the law, but said the Bush administration has neglected other vulnerable sectors such as rail and mass transit. Congress took the gaming industry by surprise in approving restrictions on online gambling. The law prohibits US banks and credit card companies from processing online bets. Republicans backing the provision said it was designed to protect youngsters from the financial and moral damage of online gambling, but opponents said it could prove extremely difficult to enforce. Critics also said that gambling businesses that cater to horse-racing and state lotteries, which enjoy powerful political patronage, were exempted from the law. http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/13/061013233953.g3sz9zz2.html High-tech school security is on the rise U.S. , EU Fail on Air Passenger Data Deal Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the failure to agree wouldn't disrupt trans-Atlantic air travel. Chertoff said in a telephone interview Saturday that he was sending EU representatives "an initial proposed agreement, which I think embodies what their fundamental requirements for data protection are so we can do what we need to protect our borders. If they're prepared to accept and sign, great. If we have to have additional talks, fine.".... Reaching a new deal before a court-imposed deadline was an EU priority to ensure airlines could continue to legally submit 34 pieces of data about passengers flying from Europe to U.S. destinations. Such data - including passengers' names, addresses and credit card details - must be transferred to U.S. authorities within 15 minutes of a flight's departure for the United States. The EU's top court in May ruled that the deal put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States was illegal because it was not using the right legal basis under EU law. It did not rule on the deal's content. An EU court allowed the data to keep flowing until Sept. 30 to give officials time to negotiate a new deal. Washington has warned that airlines failing to share passenger information face fines of up to $6,000 per passenger and the loss of landing rights. Without the deal, airlines that hand over passenger data to U.S. authorities could face legal action from national data protection authorities in EU states, the Commission said. Chertoff, though, said he had been assured that airlines would continue to transmit the data. "There's no intention for them to interfere with the continued transmission," Chertoff said. He also said he didn't expect airlines to be fined. "I don't envision that while we're in these discussions any country in Europe is going to take some precipitous step to put the airlines in a difficult position," he said. Chertoff said there is no legal vacuum because U.S. law is clear that airlines have to provide information about people entering this country. ... TSA Concept Video Shows Future RFID-Enabled Airport CASPIAN/SPYCHIPS.com - Press Release - August 14, 2006 -- RFID-laced passports may be just the start of an Orwellian airport experience, warn privacy advocates and authors Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre as the nation braces for a rollout of the controversial technology in passports this week. http://www.spychips.com/press-releases/orwellian-rfid-airport.html "Spychips" Paperback Released By Penguin/Plume This Week CASPIAN/SPYCHIPS.com - Press Release - September 28, 2006 -- As the Penguin/Plume paperback version of the award-winning book "Spychips" hits bookstores this week, the authors are anticipating an intensified consumer backlash against companies like Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart. "You can't read the offensive corporate schemes revealed in this book and not be infuriated with them," say authors Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. http://www.spychips.com/press-releases/spychips-penguin-plume.html Big Brother is shouting at you THE DAILY MAIL [ LONDON] - September 16, 2006 - Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly. The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'. Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success. Jack Bonner, who manages the system, said: 'It is one hell of a deterrent. It's one thing to know that there are CCTV cameras about, but it's quite another when they loudly point out what you have just done wrong. 'Most people are so ashamed and embarrassed at being caught they quickly slink off without further trouble. 'There was one incident when two men started fighting outside a nightclub. One of the control room operators warned them over the loudspeakers and they looked up, startled, stopped fighting and scarpered in opposite directions. 'This isn't about keeping tabs on people, it's about making the streets safer for the law-abiding majority and helping to change the attitudes of those who cause trouble. It challenges unacceptable behaviour and makes people think twice.' The Mail on Sunday watched as a cyclist riding through a pedestrian area was ordered to stop. 'Would the young man on the bike please get off and walk as he is riding in a pedestrian area,' came the command. The surprised youth stopped, and looked about. A look of horror spread across his face as he realised the voice was referring to him. He dismounted and wheeled his bike through the crowded streets, as instructed. Law-abiding shopper Karen Margery, 40, was shocked to hear the speakers spring into action as she walked past them. Afterwards she said: 'It's quite scary to realise that your every move could be monitored - it really is like Big Brother. 'But Middlesbrough does have a big problem with anti-social behaviour, so it is very reassuring.' The scheme has been introduced by Middlesbrough mayor Ray Mallon, a former police superintendent who was dubbed Robocop for pioneering the zero-tolerance approach to crime. He believes the talking cameras will dramatically cut not just anti-social behaviour, but violent crime, too. And if the city centre scheme proves a success, it will be extended into residential areas. The control room operators have been given strict guidelines about what commands they can give. Yelling 'Oi you, stop that', is not permitted. Instead, their instructions make the following suggestions: 'Warning - you are being monitored by CCTV - Warning - you are in an alcohol-free zone, please refrain from drinking'; and Warning - your behaviour is being monitored by CCTV. It is being recorded and the police are attending.' Mr Bonner said: 'We always make the requests polite, and if the offender obeys, the operator adds 'thank you'. We think that's a nice finishing touch. 'It would appear that the offenders are the only ones who find the audio cameras intrusive. The vast majority of people welcome these cameras. 'Put it this way, we never have requests to remove them.' But civil rights campaigners have argued that the talking cameras are no 'magic bullet', in the fight against crime. Liberty spokesman Doug Jewell said: 'None of us likes litterbugs or yobs playing up on a Saturday night, but talking CCTV cameras are no substitute for police officers on the beat.' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=405477&in_ page_id=1770 Corporate Ethics are 'Situational' China jamming test sparks U.S. satellite concerns The Defense Department remains tight-lipped about details, including which satellite was involved or when it occurred. The Pentagon's National Reconnaissance Office Director Donald Kerr last week acknowledged the incident, first reported by Defense News, but said it did not materially damage the U.S. satellite's ability to collect information. "It makes us think," Kerr told reporters. The issue looms large, given that U.S. military operations have rapidly grown more reliant on satellite data for everything from targeting bombs to relaying communications to spying on enemy nations. Critical U.S. space assets include a constellation of 30 Global Positioning Satellites that help target bombs and find enemy locations. This system is also widely used in commercial applications, ranging from car navigation systems to automatic teller machines. The Pentagon also depends on communications satellites that relay sensitive messages to battlefield commanders, and satellites that track weather in critical areas so U.S. troops can plan their missions.... FRESH CONCERNS Clearly, the incident sparked fresh concerns among U.S. officials and watchdog groups about the U.S. ability to determine if satellite problems are caused by malfunctions, weather anomalies like solar flares, or targeted attacks. Air Force Space Commander Gen. Kevin Chilton said it was often difficult to know exactly what happened to satellites orbiting from 125 to 22,400 miles above the earth. "We're at a point where the technology's out there and the capability for people to do things to our satellites is there. I'm focused on it beyond any single event," Chilton said. Satellites are also vulnerable to man-made and natural events affecting their ground stations and the links between the station and the satellite, he told reporters last week. Theresa Hitchens of the Center for Defense Information cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the Chinese incident. Beijing may have been testing its capability to track satellites, not damage them, Hitchens said. "We don't know their intent, and we don't have the capability to know." Hitchens also noted current technology made it difficult to identify anything smaller than a baseball in the orbits where spy satellites fly, a capability that needed to be improved. At the same time, she said, the Pentagon would be prudent to use lower-cost and lower-risk systems closer to earth to do some critical tasks like surveillance and communications. ANTI-SATELLITE WEAPONS? Hitchens also emphasized that it would be extremely difficult to disable a satellite with a laser -- and even U.S. scientists had not developed a system to do that. But there is growing concern among lawmakers about U.S. efforts to develop such anti-satellite weapons. House of Representatives lawmakers tried to block a planned test of Starfire, a satellite and star tracking program, for fiscal 2007 after learning it could also be used as an anti-satellite weapon. The funds were reinstated only after the Air Force assured lawmakers it would be used only for tracking. The Chinese incident also underscored the need to develop an international code of conduct for space. Currently, there are no specific rules or treaties governing behavior of the 40 countries that operate satellites, and about a dozen countries that have launch capability, Hitchens said. Video-hungry users could push Net to brink: Nortel But the telecom equipment giant, still struggling to turn its fortunes round after the tech bubble burst, is treading carefully as it prepares for what it sees as a looming buildout of capacity by telecommunications companies. Massive overbuild of Internet bandwidth capacity helped lead to the meltdown six years ago, and the company says it doesn't want things to go wrong again. "It's driven by caution, because none of us want to repeat the mistakes of 1999 to 2001," Nortel's chief technology officer, John Roese, told Reuters in a recent interview. The mistakes he refers to saw billions of dollars in Nortel losses, as well as tens of thousands of job cuts and a precipitous plunge in its stock price. Nortel stock peaked at more than C$120 a share in 2000. They are worth about C$2.50 a share today. But perhaps ironically, Roese also believes the capacity bubble helped service providers cope with the surge in demand for bandwidth that came with the advent of online video Web sites like YouTube.com. "The only reason YouTube didn't destroy the Internet is because there was a bit of a bubble in terms of excess capacity out there," Roese said. "But, boy, don't take that for granted." Nortel believes its Metro Ethernet unit, which uses technology similar to the one used to connect local, short-distance networks to build Internet infrastructure, will soon draw carriers that need more capacity and let them stay safely ahead of the demand curve. This curve has been growing steeper as users demand more bandwidth for online video, music, games and, increasingly, television. "That's our underlying fear," he said. "If the industry cannot keep up with the demand because we kind of take it for granted after the buildout in the 2000 timeframe, if we ever hit a wall, the impact on global economies, the impact on innovation is just profound." He said market research into trends like Internet video had led the Toronto-based Nortel to believe the surge in demand for bandwidth capacity is real. "Over the last six months we've absolutely convinced ourselves -- and we think we have a lot of empirical data to back it up -- that this is not a short-term trend," he said. ... http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061020/wr_nm/nortel_dc_2 Web use overtakes newspapers But the growth of new media is expanding total media consumption rather than simply cannibalising print and television. Print consumption has re-mained static at three hours a week in the past two years, as time spent online has doubled from two to four hours. Viewers are also spending more time watching television, up from 10 hours to 12 a week. The Jupiter Research survey of more than 5,000 people in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain shows that Europeans’ use of the internet is still behind the rates seen in the US. A similar study by Jupiter of US habits found that Americans now spend 14 hours a week online – as much time as they spend watching television – and just three hours reading print. However, the rapid spread of fast broadband internet connections in Europe is likely to accelerate the trend. The average time spent online by broadband customers in Europe was seven hours a week, compared with two hours for those with dial-up connections. ... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/eb9509dc-5700-11db-9110-0000779e2340.html New Media A Weapon in New World Of Politics Former congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) ended his political career over sexually charged e-mails to former House pages. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) stumbled over his puzzling use of the word "macaca" and his clumsy response to revelations about his Jewish ancestry. Former president Bill Clinton had a televised temper fit when an interviewer challenged his terrorism record. All three episodes, however, were in their own ways signs of the unruly new age in American politics. Each featured an arresting personal angle. Each originally percolated in the world of new media -- Web sites and news outlets that did not exist a generation ago -- before charging into the traditional world of newspapers and television networks. In each case, the accusations quickly pivoted into a debate about the motivations and alleged biases of the accusers. Cumulatively, the stories highlight a new brand of politics in which nearly any revelation in the news becomes a weapon or shield in the daily partisan wars, and the aim of candidates and their operatives is not so much to win an argument as to brand opponents as fundamentally unfit. In interviews, figures as diverse as Clinton, Vice President Cheney and White House strategist Karl Rove spoke about their experiences navigating the highly polarized and often downright toxic political and media environment that blossomed in the 1990s and reached full flower in recent years. Their comments, and those of their associates, underscore just how dramatically changes in media culture have influenced the strategies and daily routines of leading political figures. Cheney said he often starts his day by listening to radio host Don Imus, whose trash-talking style has given him legions of fans and made his show a frequent stop of politicians. Cheney's wife, Lynne, people close to her say, is an avid consumer of Matt Drudge's online Drudge Report, which often either breaks or promotes stories with a salacious angle and in recent days has bannered every new disclosure in the Foley case. Rove said he has benefited on occasion from the new-media echo chamber. When he gave a speech last year saying liberals want to give terrorists understanding and therapy, he delighted when Democrats howled in protest. This guaranteed that the story would stay alive for days. "I was sort of amused by it because it struck me, well, they're just simply repeating my argument, which was good," he said. Clinton -- who regards Rove with a mixture of admiration and disdain as the most effective modern practitioner of polarizing politics -- said in an interview that he has become fixated on the problem of how Democrats can learn to fight more effectively against the kind of attack President Bush's top political aide leveled. Associates of the former president said he thinks that Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Sen. John F. Kerry ( Mass.) in 2004 lost the presidency because they could not effectively respond to a modern media culture that places new emphasis on politicians' personalities and provides new incentives for personal attack. While the Foley and Allen episodes burned Republicans, Clinton said in an interview earlier this year that he thinks the proliferation of media outlets, as well as the breakdown of old restraints in both media and politics, on balance has favored Republicans. Without mentioning Gore or Kerry by name, he complained that many Democrats have allowed themselves to become unnerved and even paralyzed in response. "All of this is a head game, you know. . . . All great contests are head games," Clinton said. "Our candidates have to get to a point where they don't allow other people to define them as either people or as political leaders. Our people have got to be more psychologically prepared for it, and there has to be more distance between them and these withering attacks." Associates said he regards this as his most important advice to his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), if she runs for president in 2008. In any generation, the disclosure of Foley's sexual overtures to teenage boys would have been a big story and ended his public career. But it was the confluence of new media trends and a trench-warfare mentality pervading national politics that turned the story into a round-the-clock furor. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), fighting for his career amid allegations that he did not respond properly when told of Foley's e-mails, has gone to conservative media outlets to make his case. On Rush Limbaugh's radio show, Hastert agreed when the host said the Foley story was driven by Democrats "in some sort of cooperation with some in the media" to suppress turnout of conservative voters before the Nov. 7 elections. Limbaugh offered no evidence. But the same accusation was leveled in Hastert's interview with Hugh Hewitt, another prominent conservative radio host and blogger, who said the speaker is a "target right now of the left-wing media machine." Those comments are a reminder that a changed media culture that creates new perils for politicians also provides new forms of refuge. For a full generation on the conservative side, and more recently among liberals, ideologues have created a menu of new media alternatives, including talk radio and Web sites. New media have also elevated flamboyant political entrepreneurs such as Ann Coulter on the right and Michael Moore on the left to prominent places in the political dialogue. New media platforms make criticism of traditional "mainstream media" part of their stock in trade. This development usually ensures that any politician in trouble can count on some sympathetic forums to make his or her case. It often ensures that any controversy is marked by intense disagreement over the basic facts or relevance of the story, and obscured by clouds of accusation over the opposition's motives. Clinton benefited from this phenomenon during his recent showdown with Fox News. Appearing on a network that many liberals regard as enemy terrain, he said interviewer Chris Wallace and his bosses were distorting his terrorism record to carry water for conservatives. Kerry advisers think the most important factor in his loss was the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which attacked his war record. The group initially received scant attention in old media outlets, but its accusations were fanned by the Drudge Report, Fox News and other new media platforms. By the end, the accusations dominated coverage in both old and new media. Each time a similar episode occurs, it is often covered as an isolated and even eccentric event. But Clinton, in an earlier interview, said his party should understand that the ideological and financial incentives among politicians and media organizations mean that every election cycle will feature such episodes -- and it should plan accordingly. But he said Democrats of his generation tend to be naive about new media realities. There is an expectation among Democrats that establishment old media organizations are de facto allies -- and will rebut political accusations and serve as referees on new-media excesses. "We're all that way, and I think a part of it is we grew up in the '60s and the press led us against the war and the press led us on civil rights and the press led us on Watergate," Clinton said. "Those of us of a certain age grew up with this almost unrealistic set of expectations." Few conservatives would make a similar miscalculation. Many of the first generation of new media platforms, including Limbaugh's show and Drudge's Web site, first flourished because of a conviction among conservatives that old media were unfair. All this has given Republicans a comfort and skill at using new media to political advantage that most Democrats have not matched. At the Republican National Committee, leaking items to the Drudge Report is an official part of communications strategy. ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/05/AR2006100501811_pf.html Inside Bohemian Grove The Story People Magazine Won't Let You Read Bohemian Grove, a secluded campground in California's Sonoma County, is the site of an annual two-week gathering of a highly select, all-male club, whose members have included every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge. Current participants include George Bush, Henry Kissinger, James Baker and David Rockefeller -- a virtual who's who of the most powerful men in business and government. Few journalists have gotten into the Grove and been allowed to tell the tale (one exception is Philip Weiss, whose November 1989 Spy piece provides the most detailed inside account), and members maintain that the goings-on there are not newsworthy events, merely private fun. In fact, official business is conducted there: Policy speeches are regularly made by members and guests, and the club privately boasts that the Manhattan Project was conceived on its grounds. Given the veil of secrecy that surrounds the Bohemian "encampment," a reporter needs to enter the grounds covertly in order to get a full portrait. Mathison entered the grounds three times July 1991, aided by activists from the Bohemian Grove Action Network. He witnessed a speech -- "Smart Weapons" -- by former Navy Secretary John Lehman, who stated that the Pentagon estimates that 200,000 Iraqis were killed by the U.S. and its allies during the Gulf War. Other featured speakers included Defense Secretary Richard Cheney on "Major Defense Problems of the 21st Century", former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano on "America's Health Revolution -- Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Pays", and former Attorney General Elliott Richardson on "Defining the New World Order". Mathison's entree into the secret world of the Grove was cut short on July 20, however, when he was recognized by two of the participants in the festivities -- executives from Time Warner, People's publisher. More loyal to the Grove than to journalistic endeavor, they had the reporter removed from the premises ( San Francisco Weekly, 8/7/91). Mathison already had plenty of material, however, and turned in an article to his editors, which was scheduled to appear in the Aug. 5, 1991 issue. They were pleased with the piece, according to Mathison: "They liked it enough to expand it a bit," he told Extra!. But then the story was suddenly killed. Landon Jones, managing editor of People, told Extra! that the decision had nothing to do with the Time Warner executives. "It was cut partially because he hadn't been there long enough to get a complete story. Secondly, we felt very uncertain about reporting what we did have, because, and this is my fault and I take responsibility for this, I simply didn't realize it was technically trespassing." For his part, Mathison said he did not know why the story was killed, and implied it would be nearly impossible to find the real reason. "It's easier to penetrate the Bohemian Grove than the Time- Life Building," he told Extra!. But the story raises questions about the ability of a media entity to report critically on an elite when its executives are enthusiastic members of that elite. Indeed, the Time organization was noted for sending a corporate plane to the Bohemian gathering every year, according to long-time Grove-watcher Kerry Richardson. Time Warner is not the only media corporation with Bohemian connections. The list of Fourth Estate bigwigs who have been members or guests is extensive: Franklin Murphy, the former CEO of the Times Mirror corporation; William Randolph Hearst, Jr.; Jack Howard and Charles Scripps of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain; Tom Johnson, president of CNN and former publisher of the Los Angeles Times. When Associated Press president Louis Boccardi spoke at one of the Grove's "Lakeside Talks" about kidnapped reporter Terry Anderson (Spy, 11/89), he referred to his audience as men of "power and rank" and "gave them more details than he said he was willing to give his readers." Walter Cronkite, now on the CBS board, hangs out at the same lodge at Bohemian Grove as George Bush and the former chairs of Procter & Gamble and Bank of America; Cronkite's voice has served as the voice of the Owl of Bohemia, a fixture in the club's mock-druidic rituals. The media figures attending the retreat all agree not to report on what goes on inside. The prohibition seems to apply to reporters who are not guests or members as well: In 1982, NPR got a recording of Henry Kissinger's speech at the Grove -- but declined to air it (Spy, 11/89). Also in 1982, a Time reporter went undercover as a waiter in Bohemian Grove; like Mathison's People article, his story was killed. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1489 Internet freedom reigns in Amsterdam At a time when the neutrality of the Internet is at stake, and Internet service providers (ISPs) are moving to prioritize their premium traffic, the Amsterdam Internet Exchange is a reminder that the Internet was built on the principle of the unrestricted exchange of ideas and information. The popularity of the AMS-IX. the official name of the exchange, is the result of a liberal foundation which has created a place where ISPs can do business any way they like. "'Anything goes unless it's forbidden', was our motto from the beginning. We added a few rules later on, but any unnecessary organizing is being prevented," said Rob Blokzijl from Nikhef, the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics in the Netherlands. It shares this spirit with the designers of the Internet who decided that all data packets were created equal, and with Tim Berners-Lee who developed the World Wide Web at the Swiss particle physics lab CERN as a universal and neutral platform. "The public will demand an open Internet," Berners-Lee said in a recent interview with Reuters. Indeed, the debate over "net neutrality" is one of the biggest issues facing the Web today on both sides of the Atlantic, pitting big cable and phone companies against Internet powerhouses like Google Inc. At issue is whether broadband providers should be allowed to create "toll booths" that would charge Internet companies to move content along fast broadband lines, a move critics say would restrict the freedom of the Web. .... U.S. agents question teen SACRAMENTO BEE - By Laurel Rosenhall and Ryan Lillis - Bee Staff Writers - October 13, 2006 -- The latest Sacramento resident to be questioned by federal agents in possible threats against President Bush is a 14-year-old girl with a heart on her backpack and braces on her teeth, a freckle-nosed adolescent who is passionate about liberal politics and cute movie stars. Her name is Julia Wilson, and she learned a vivid civics lesson Wednesday when two Secret Service agents pulled her out of biology class at McClatchy High School to ask about comments and images she posted on MySpace. Beneath the words "Kill Bush," Julia posted a cartoonish photo-collage of a knife stabbing the hand of the president. It was one of a few images Julia said she used to decorate an anti-Bush Web page she moderated on MySpace, the social networking Web site that is hugely popular among teenagers. The Secret Service refused to answer questions about the case or even confirm an investigation. Eric Zahren, a Secret Service spokesman, said the agency does not discuss its work "due to the sensitivity of our mission." But Julia's mother, Kirstie Wilson, and an assistant principal at McClatchy High said two agents showed them badges stating they were with the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security. Federal law prohibits making serious threats against the president, and Julia and her parents say what she did was wrong. The couple are disturbed, however, that federal agents questioned a child at school -- without her parents present. And First Amendment lawyers question whether the Secret Service over-reacted to a 14-year-old's comments on a Web site made for casual socializing. "I don't condone what she did, but it seems a little over the top to me," said Julia's father, Jim Moose. "You'd think they could look at the situation and determine that she's not a credible threat.".... Here is how Julia Wilson's family tells their story: Two Secret Service agents arrived at their Land Park home about 2:30 Wednesday afternoon, Kirstie Wilson said. They told her they wanted to speak with her daughter about threats to the president that she had posted on MySpace.... It was a 15- to 20-minute interview, Julia said. Agents asked her about her father's job, her e-mail address, and her Social Security number. They asked about the MySpace page she had created last year as an eighth-grader at Sutter Middle School. "I told them I just really don't agree with Bush's politics," Julia said Thursday. "I don't have any plans of harming Bush in any way. I'm very peaceful; I just don't like Bush." The MySpace page under question was a group page, similar to an online club. Most of the groups Julia is a part of are fan clubs for movie stars like Jake Gyllenhaal and Ewan McGregor. The group that got her in trouble was called something like "People who want to stab Bush" -- Julia said she doesn't remember the exact name because she soon changed it. After an eighth-grade history lesson in which she learned that threatening the president is against the law, Julia said she changed the group name to "So Bush is an idiot but hey what else is new?" The group primarily consisted of her teenage friends who share her liberal political interests, Julia said. She deleted the group page over the summer when she decided that MySpace was juvenile and taking up too much time. Moose and Wilson say they had no idea what their daughter had posted online. "I was more than happy to have them talk to her about the severity of what she did. But I wanted to be here with her," Kirstie Wilson said. McClatchy Assistant Principal Paul Belluomini said he usually does not notify parents when law enforcement officials come to school to interview students. "Parents usually interfere with an investigation, so we usually don't notify them until it's done," he said.... In any case, said Ann Brick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, Julia Wilson's post did not sound like a "true threat" to the president, making it political speech that is protected by the First Amendment. "The courts have to distinguish between political rhetoric and hyperbole and a real threat," Brick said. "A reasonable person would have to interpret what was said as indication of a serious intent to commit harm." Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said in the current political climate, "the threshold that brings (agents) in has gotten lower." "It's a cautionary tale for kids who are on MySpace that putting something on MySpace like 'Kill the President' is not the same as saying it on e-mail or over the phone," Scheer said. "The government is not systematically |
