:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 1.30.2004 ::

:: "Ashcroft says surveillance powers should stand" ::

A CNET News.com report
By Declan McCullagh

The Bush administration is warning Congress not to tinker with the Internet surveillance powers that the USA Patriot Act awarded to federal police.

In a four-page letter to the Senate on Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said that defanging the controversial law, which has been criticized by every major Democratic presidential contender, would "undermine our ongoing campaign to detect and prevent catastrophic terrorist attacks." Were Congress to vote to amend the USA Patriot Act, Ashcroft indicated, President Bush would veto the bill.

Ashcroft was responding to a proposal in the Senate called the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (Safe), which would amend the USA Patriot Act by slapping limits on current police practices relating to surveillance and search warrants. It is sponsored by Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho and has 12 co-sponsors, including two other Republicans.

Many portions of the Safe Act affect the ability of federal police to conduct Internet surveillance against not only terrorists but also suspected perpetrators of a broad range of drug-related, computer hacking and white collar crimes. The measure would amend the USA Patriot Act to require, for instance, that electronic-surveillance orders specify either the identity or location of the suspect and that the person be there at the time--a departure from current practice.

"This is an overheated attack on a very modest bill," said Tim Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It shows that the attorney general is afraid of the bipartisan momentum that is going forward to fix parts of the Patriot Act."

Ashcroft identifies no terrorist plots that were thwarted by the existence of the USA Patriot Act, Edgar said. "It doesn't contain a single real example of why passage of the Safe Act would impede antiterrorism efforts. It's based entirely on speculation and misleading, slanted legal analysis."

Another section of the Safe Act that Ashcroft criticized would increase privacy protections for library patrons who use public computers for e-mail and Web browsing.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:03:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: Mars update ::

From SFGate.com:
Opportunity lifts NASA spirits
2nd Mars rover about to land; predecessor's woes continue

Pasadena -- Frustrated engineers tried under intense pressure Friday to coax bits of information from the Mars rover Spirit's fragmented radio signals, even as they prepared for the risky landing Saturday of the rover's twin on the other side of the Red Planet.

Opportunity, the mission's second rover, is set to land at 9:05 Saturday night on a huge mineral outcrop in the midst of a plain called Meridiania Planum. The area, about the size of Oklahoma and Missouri, is covered in a mineral called hematite, which typically forms in marine or volcanic environments rich in water.

Complex problems are nothing new in the history of NASA's ventures: They have afflicted past missions to Venus, Jupiter and Saturn as well as three previous landing on Mars.

But the growing tension here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mission Control is palpable, for Spirit was about to begin one of its most exciting efforts -- exploring an ancient Marian crater -- when trouble with the spacecraft's flow of data began Wednesday.

"The patient is in intensive care right now,'' Pete Theisinger, the mission's chief engineer and project manager, said with the resignation of a 30-year veteran accepting the inevitable crises in space exploration. "Don't expect it to get better for days or even weeks."

Theisinger said the problem was not unlike one that afflicts every computer owner on Earth. Something is haywire in Spirit's software, he said, and his team has tried to reboot the spacecraft's computer 60 times without success.

posted by me

:: 10:20:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Report from the Open Source war ::

From eWeek:
SCO Goes to Washington in Linux Battle
By Matt Hicks

The SCO Group Inc. has found a new venue for its attacks on Linux and open-source software: Capitol Hill.

SCO earlier this month sent a letter to the 535 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate from company President and CEO Darl McBride, raising concerns about open-source software and its General Public License (GPL), the company confirmed on Wednesday.

In the letter, which the Open Source and Industry Alliance on Wednesday made public on its Web site in PDF format, McBride wrote that open-source software threatens the U.S. IT industry, the nation's global economic competitiveness and national security. He urged lawmakers to consider these threats when voting on economic, intellectual property and national security issues.

"I urge you to consider the other side because I believe that Open Source, as it is currently constituted, is a slippery slope ..."

posted by me

:: 7:13:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "Exorcism Suspected After Girl Found Dead" ::

An AP report:
ATLANTA - A 6-year-old girl was found dead in a motel room with a broken back Monday after what police said may have been an exorcism. Two adults were arrested after they and two children were spotted on the street naked in the freezing cold.

The adults, who had been staying in the motel room, were charged with cruelty to children, public indecency and obstruction of police and were taken to a psychiatric ward.

Police said the girl had been brutalized and suffered a broken back and other broken bones. An autopsy was planned.

Based on what the adults told authorities, investigators believe "they were involved possibly in a ritual of some sort," police spokesman John Quigley said. "It may have had something to do with undemonizing the child in some manner."

Police learned of the death around 12:30 a.m. when the unidentified man and woman were seen walking naked down a city street with two children, ages 2 and 7, Quigley said.

The 7-year-old provided investigators with information that led them to the motel, where they found the girl's body.

The two adults had apparently been living there for some time, possibly through assistance from a church, Quigley said.

posted by me

:: 3:50:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "Red Light, Green Light" ::

From Wired News:
CAPPS II Stands Alone, Feds Say
The Department of Homeland Security is denying reports that a screening system for airline passengers will be merged with another program that fingerprints and photographs visitors to the United States. By Ryan Singel.

posted by me

:: 1:05:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: RE Iraq ::

From The BBC News online:
Bush's goal 'was always Saddam'

A top official sacked from the Bush administration has suggested the chief aim of the Iraq war was to oust Saddam.

George W Bush and his coalition allies cited a threat of weapons of mass destruction as the grounds for war.

But the overthrow of Saddam was his aim right from when he entered the White House three years ago, said former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction Saddam Hussein was a bad person and he needed to go," he said.

ALSO:
From Independent News online:
Bush was demanding excuse to invade Iraq in January 2001, says ex-treasury secretary

posted by me

:: 5:37:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Surveillance Nation update ::

From Wired News:
Bush Grabs New Power for FBI
By Kim Zetter

While the nation was distracted last month by images of Saddam Hussein's spider hole and dental exam, President George W. Bush quietly signed into law a new bill that gives the FBI increased surveillance powers and dramatically expands the reach of the USA Patriot Act.

The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 grants the FBI unprecedented power to obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge.

Under the law, the FBI does not need to seek a court order to access such records, nor does it need to prove just cause.

Previously, under the Patriot Act, the FBI had to submit subpoena requests to a federal judge. Intelligence agencies and the Treasury Department, however, could obtain some financial data from banks, credit unions and other financial institutions without a court order or grand jury subpoena if they had the approval of a senior government official.

The new law (see Section 374 of the act), however, lets the FBI acquire these records through an administrative procedure whereby an FBI field agent simply drafts a so-called national security letter stating the information is relevant to a national security investigation.

posted by me

:: 11:04:00 AM [+] ::
...

" ... explosive space modulator"

NASA Rover Touches Down on Mars
January 4, 2004 12:32 AM EST

PASADENA, Calif. - A NASA rover plunged through the atmosphere of Mars and bounced down upon its rocky surface Saturday night, beginning a mission to roam the Red Planet in search of evidence that it was once suitable for life.

Radio signals received on Earth minutes after the landing suggested the Spirit rover survived, prompting mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to let out whoops of delight.

It still was not immediately known if the Spirit rover would operate as planned. It is one of two-identical six-wheeled robots expected to roam the planet for 90 days, analyzing Martian rocks and soil for clues that could reveal whether the planet was ever a warmer, wetter place capable of sustaining life.

The rover relied on a heat shield, parachute and rockets to slow its descent to Mars. Eight seconds before landing, a giant set of air bags inflated to cushion its bouncy landing.

It was not immediately clear if the air bags sufficiently protected the rover, enclosed inside a four-petaled lander, from the jarring landing.

But up until the landing everything was proceeding flawlessly, with Spirit appearing on track to make a "bull's-eye" landing within a cigar-shaped ellipse inside Gusev Crater, a Connecticut-sized indentation just south of the Martian equator, navigation team chief Louis D'Amario said.

"This is essentially perfect navigation. We couldn't have possibly hoped to do better than this," D'Amario said.

posted by me

:: 12:23:00 AM [+] ::
...