The National Security Agency Declassified: "The largest U.S. spy agency warned the incoming Bush administration in its 'Transition 2001' report that the Information Age required rethinking the policies and authorities that kept the National Security Agency in compliance with the Constitution's 4th Amendment prohibition on 'unreasonable searches and seizures' without warrant and 'probable cause,' according to an updated briefing book of declassified NSA documents posted today on the World Wide Web."

(Via The National Security Archives.)

Wired News: Data Brokers Face Regulation: "ChoicePoint and other companies that amass consumer profiles should be forced by Congress to protect that information from identity theft, the head of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday.

Existing laws are not strong enough to ensure that data brokers handle Social Security numbers and other sensitive details responsibly, FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras told the Senate Banking Committee."

(Via Wired.)

CNN.com - Ex-hostage disputes U.S. account of shooting - Mar 7, 2005: "The U.S. military said Sgrena's car rapidly approached a checkpoint Friday night, and those inside ignored repeated warnings to stop.

Troops used arm signals and flashing white lights, fired warning shots in front of the car, and shot into the engine block when the driver did not stop, the military said in a statement.

But in an interview with Italy's La 7 Television, the 56-year-old journalist said 'there was no bright light, no signal.'

And Italian magistrate Franco Ionta said Sgrena reported the incident was not at a checkpoint, but rather that the shots came from 'a patrol that shot as soon as they lit us up with a spotlight.'"

(Via CNN.)

CNN.com - Clinton sleeps on floor so elder Bush can have bed - Mar 6, 2005: "NEW YORK (AP) -- On their tour of tsunami damage in Southeast Asia, former President Bill Clinton once allowed his predecessor, former President George H.W. Bush, to sleep on the plane's only bed while he stretched out on the floor.

The government plane in which the presidents toured the disaster area had one large bedroom and another room with tables and seats, according to an interview with Bush in this week's Newsweek.

Bush, 80, said Clinton offered ahead of time to give the older former president the bedroom so he could lie flat and avoid paining his body. Clinton, 58, decided to play cards in the other room that night.

The next morning, Bush said he peeked in and saw Clinton sound asleep on the plane's floor."

(Via CNN.)

Syria promises to pull back in Lebanon: "Syria will withdraw all its forces in Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley area, closer to the Syrian-Lebanese border, Syrian President Bashar Assad said today. The move comes after the United Nations, the Arab League, the United States, France, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt all stepped up pressure on Damascus to quit Lebanon."

(Via CNN.com.)

CNN.com - Clinton sleeps on floor so elder Bush can have bed - Mar 6, 2005: "NEW YORK (AP) -- On their tour of tsunami damage in Southeast Asia, former President Bill Clinton once allowed his predecessor, former President George H.W. Bush, to sleep on the plane's only bed while he stretched out on the floor.

The government plane in which the presidents toured the disaster area had one large bedroom and another room with tables and seats, according to an interview with Bush in this week's Newsweek.

Bush, 80, said Clinton offered ahead of time to give the older former president the bedroom so he could lie flat and avoid paining his body. Clinton, 58, decided to play cards in the other room that night.

The next morning, Bush said he peeked in and saw Clinton sound asleep on the plane's floor."

(Via CNN.)

HYDROGEN CAR IN ARMY TEST: "The Army's National Automotive Center is taking a peek into that future now, testing out its first hydrogen-powered car. The 66-inch wide, 13.5 horsepower Aggressor Alternative Mobility Vehicle goes from 0 to 40 mph in four seconds, and tops out at 80 mph, according to its makers, Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide. But speed isn't really the selling point of the Aggressor. Stealth is. The vehicle has a 'virtually silent operating mode with reduced thermal signature,' making it harder for evil-doers to spot the car."

(Via Defense Tech.)

HYDROGEN CAR IN ARMY TEST: "The Army's National Automotive Center is taking a peek into that future now, testing out its first hydrogen-powered car. The 66-inch wide, 13.5 horsepower Aggressor Alternative Mobility Vehicle goes from 0 to 40 mph in four seconds, and tops out at 80 mph, according to its makers, Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide. But speed isn't really the selling point of the Aggressor. Stealth is. The vehicle has a 'virtually silent operating mode with reduced thermal signature,' making it harder for evil-doers to spot the car."

(Via Defense Tech.)

The Online Beat: "Let the people of Lebanon vote--under the watchful eye of election monitors from the UN, the Carter Center and other international agencies--on whether they want the Syrians to leave on the more-or-less immediate timetable that Bush is promoting. My bet is that the majority of Lebanese voters would tell the occupiers to exit. But as someone who has spent a good deal of time in the region, I suspect that the vote would be closer than many observers from afar imagine. That's because after the horrific instability and violence of the 1980s, there is a portion of the Lebanese population that sees the Syrian military presence as a stabilizing force in a country that is deeply divided along lines of religion, ethnicity and class. The fact is that pro-Syrian parties have won a lot of votes in Lebanese elections, and it is not unreasonable to think that they will continue to do so in the future.

If President Bush really believes, as he told the Lebanese people on Tuesday, that 'Lebanon's future belongs in your hands,' then he should support a popular referendum that could settle the question of what future the Lebanese people want.

The president should not stop there. He should also support similar referendums regarding the occupations of Palestine and Iraq -- where polls suggest there is widespread opposition to the presence of foreign military forces."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

National Sec-recy | Ari Berman: "The CIA has finally admitted to sending alleged terrorists to despotic countries for interrogation in a practice known as 'rendition.' According to a senior official quoted in Sunday's New York Times, the Bush Administration gave the CIA broad authority through a still-classified directive days after September 11. More importantly--and unmentioned in the Times piece--is how the Administration is invoking a little-known state secrets privilege to quash legal challenges to its controversial rendition policy.

The most high-profile example is that of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was snatched from New York's JFK Airport, transferred to Syria and tortured by Syrian intelligence officials, who held him for ten months. Released to Canadian authorities in October 2003 after Syria found no links to terrorism, Arar and the Center for Constitutional Rights are suing the US government for transferring Arar to a country where they knew he would be tortured. Now the Bush Administration is trying to dismiss the case by invoking the state secrets clause. (See David Cole's 'Accounting for Torture' for more on Arar.)"

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Historians Ask Congress to Suspend Nixon Transfer: "The historians noted that current plans for the Nixon transfer, for which the Library is seeking $3 million in public funding, do not include any 'legally binding commitment by the Nixon estate or the Nixon Library and Birthplace for such a unified collection in the control of the National Archives and governed by public access laws.' In addition, the historians recommended that 'Congress should enact a statutory requirement for an independent review board at each of the existing and future Presidential Libraries.'"

(Via The National Security Archives.)

Parchin - Iran Special Weapons Facilities: "On 05 January 2005 Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said 'we expect to visit Parchin within the next days or a few weeks'. Iran allowed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to visit the Parchin military site in January in the interests of transparency following the allegations, but the visit was limited to only one of four areas identified as being of potential interest and to only five buildings in that area.

On 01 March 2005 Iran turned down a request by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency to make a second visit to the Parchin military site, which has been linked in allegations to nuclear weapons testing."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

Salon.com News | The invisible wounded: "It's widely known that on the eve of the Iraq invasion in 2003, the Bush administration moved to defy the math and enforced a ban on photographs of the caskets arriving at Dover, or at any other military bases. But few realize that it seems to be pursuing the same strategy with the wounded, who are far more numerous. Since 9/11, the Pentagon's Transportation Command has medevaced 24,772 patients from battlefields, mostly from Iraq. But two years after the invasion of Iraq, images of wounded troops arriving in the United States are almost as hard to find as pictures of caskets from Dover. That's because all the transport is done literally in the dark, and in most cases, photos are banned."

(Via Salon.)

Salon.com News | What the tsunami dragged in: "For $110 a month -- roughly the salary of a high school teacher in this underdeveloped country -- he spends four hours each day combing the village streets and pastures for mines uprooted by the tsunami."

...

"No one knows exactly how many mines were scattered through Kuchchaveli by the tsunami; the records from the nearby Sri Lanka Navy base, where the devices originated, were lost in the flood. Vavuniyu's best guess is that some 850 Pakistan- and Chinese-made mines were washed inland out of minefields and storehouses. Some ended up in the local schoolyard. Others were found lodged in trees, hidden between boulders, or buried under the sandy soil. Ramesh Kumar, a field officer mapping out the danger areas, says he's found mines floating in wells."

(Via Salon.)