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Radioactive Armenian car 
Fuckin A'
WikiLeaks cables: How US 'second line of defence' tackles nuclear threat
A worker at a uranium mine in DR Congo: the abundance and quality of Congolese ore worries the US as terrorists could use it to create bombs. Photograph: Schalk Van Zuydam/AP
The leaked US cables reveal the constant, largely unseen, work by American diplomatic missions around the world to try to keep the atomic genie in its bottle and forestall the nightmare of a terrorist nuclear attack.
The leaked cables tell hair-raising tales of casks of uranium found in wicker baskets in Burundi, a retired Russian general offering to sell "uranium plates" in Portugal, and a radioactive Armenian car on the Georgian border.
As part of what the US government calls its "second line of defence", it is America's diplomatic corps who are called out in the middle of the night when radiation detectors goes off on a border crossing or smugglers turn up with fissile or radioactive materials in his pocket.
Each time that happens, and UN data suggests it has happened about 500 times in the past 15 years, it means the "first line of defence" has already been breached. The fissile material (the fuel for a nuclear warhead) or radioactive isotopes (which emit harmful radiation), have already been stolen from their source.
Three months after taking office, Barack Obama vowed to secure all the world's vulnerable nuclear stocks within four years in a global drive to pre-empt nuclear terrorism. But a cash-strapped Congress has yet to do approve any increase in funding for the ambitious project and Obama's deadline looks almost certain to be missed. Meanwhile, from Africa to the former Soviet Union, there are signs it may already be too late.
In June 2007, the US embassy in Burundi reported an approach by a local elder alerting the Americans to a cache of uranium in a concrete bunker over the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He was concerned that it would fall into the hands of "the wrong people", specifically the Arabs who will "destroy" people with it. At the request of the sceptical Americans, he returned a few weeks later with a Congolese smuggler who said he found the material hidden at an old Belgian colonial building. He had pictures of a wicker basket with a uranium cask inside, apparently the property of the country's Atomic Energy Commision.
There was good reason for alarm. After Mobutu Sese Seko seized power in the mid-1960s, two uranium fuel rods from a colonial-era research reactor went missing. One turned up in 1998 when the Sicilian mafia were caught in a sting operation trying to sell it for over $12m (£7.7m) to a customer in the Middle East. The other is still unaccounted for.
Another decade on, security at the Kinshasa nuclear research centre had scarcely improved. A diplomatic cable in September 2006 describes the security measures separating the reactor from the university next door.
"The fence is not lit at night, has no razor-wire across the top, and is not monitored by video
surveillance," a US diplomatic team reports. "There is also no cleared buffer zone between it and the surrounding vegetation. There are numerous holes in the fence, and large gaps where the fence was missing altogether. University of Kinshasa students frequently walk through the fence to cut across [the reactor site] and subsistence farmers grow manioc on the facility next to the nuclear waste storage building."
At the same time, there was concern over established smuggling routes shipping both uranium fuel and raw uranium ore abroad, possibly to Iran. Congo has some of the richest uranium reserves on earth, both in terms of the scale of the deposits and the purity of its ore.
It would require just a few lorry loads of Congolese ore to process and enrich enough uranium for a bomb. Both Washington and inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been concerned that such a black market source of high quality ore, outside IAEA controls, could be used in a covert weapons programme in Iran.
A cable from Tanzania in September 2006 passed on a tip that some of the smuggled material may be passing through the nation's capital.
"According to a senior Swiss diplomat, the shipment of uranium through Dar es Salaam is common knowledge to two Swiss shipping companies ... though no one at either company would admit it in writing."
The other major front in America's "second line of defence" runs around the edge of Russia's borders, where the collapse of the Soviet Union created a black market in nuclear and radioactive material that endures two decades on.
As in Africa, the fears are based on poor security, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet implosion, when a significant amount of fissile material went missing, some of it undoubtedly stolen by former military officers and officials as a private pension plan. As in Africa, the diplomats are left with the challenging task of separating nuclear fact from fiction.
In July 2008, the embassy in Lisbon reported a "walk-in" informant with a tale of a retired Russian general who had a brick of uranium metal to sell. The informant handed over a picture of the merchandise – a lump of grey metal.
Noting that the "walk-in stated he is not on any medications and has not consulted any mental health specialists", the case is handed over to specialists, and there is no further mention of it in the cables.
More often, the post-Soviet nuclear black market has remained closer to home. An illicit trafficking database maintained by the IAEA records 500 incidents since the mid-90s, involving "the theft or loss of nuclear or other radioactive material". Of those, 15 involved high enrichment uranium (HEU) and plutonium, from which nuclear warheads are made. Most of those were in former Soviet republics or in eastern Europe.
As part of the "second line of defence" programme, the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is helping Russia build radiation detectors on every one of the country's border crossings, about 350 sites, by the end of next year.
However, there are doubts that this expensive hi-tech approach will work. Critics point to the fact that out of 20 high profile cases where nuclear smuggling has been uncovered, radiation detectors have played a part in only one. That is partly because they are so easily triggered, there are often turned off or ignored by local officials.
A confidential cable from the US embassy in Tbilisi records an incident in August last year when a car carrying three Armenians set off a detector on the Georgian-Armenian border. The driver was waved on by customs guards, however, after he claimed to have been injected with radioactive isotopes during surgery.
The car was only searched when it set off the alarm again on the way back to Armenia. It was found to be contaminated throughout by Cesium-137, a highly radioactive isotope, which could make a devastating "dirty bomb". A cloth in the car produced the highest radiation reading, but no radioactive material was found. It appears that whatever the car was carrying, had been delivered.
Eight months later, two more Armenian smugglers crossed the same border carrying HEU, but managed to shield it from the detectors by the simple expedient of carrying it in a lead-lined cigarette box. The alarms did not sound, and instead, the two Armenians, Hrant Ohanyan and Sumbat Tonoyan, were caught in a Georgian sting operation and were sentenced last month to prison terms of 13 and 14 years respectively. As the US cables make vividly clear, their cases are the tip of an iceberg.
Fuckin A'
WikiLeaks cables: How US 'second line of defence' tackles nuclear threat
A worker at a uranium mine in DR Congo: the abundance and quality of Congolese ore worries the US as terrorists could use it to create bombs. Photograph: Schalk Van Zuydam/AP
The leaked US cables reveal the constant, largely unseen, work by American diplomatic missions around the world to try to keep the atomic genie in its bottle and forestall the nightmare of a terrorist nuclear attack.
The leaked cables tell hair-raising tales of casks of uranium found in wicker baskets in Burundi, a retired Russian general offering to sell "uranium plates" in Portugal, and a radioactive Armenian car on the Georgian border.
As part of what the US government calls its "second line of defence", it is America's diplomatic corps who are called out in the middle of the night when radiation detectors goes off on a border crossing or smugglers turn up with fissile or radioactive materials in his pocket.
Each time that happens, and UN data suggests it has happened about 500 times in the past 15 years, it means the "first line of defence" has already been breached. The fissile material (the fuel for a nuclear warhead) or radioactive isotopes (which emit harmful radiation), have already been stolen from their source.
Three months after taking office, Barack Obama vowed to secure all the world's vulnerable nuclear stocks within four years in a global drive to pre-empt nuclear terrorism. But a cash-strapped Congress has yet to do approve any increase in funding for the ambitious project and Obama's deadline looks almost certain to be missed. Meanwhile, from Africa to the former Soviet Union, there are signs it may already be too late.
In June 2007, the US embassy in Burundi reported an approach by a local elder alerting the Americans to a cache of uranium in a concrete bunker over the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He was concerned that it would fall into the hands of "the wrong people", specifically the Arabs who will "destroy" people with it. At the request of the sceptical Americans, he returned a few weeks later with a Congolese smuggler who said he found the material hidden at an old Belgian colonial building. He had pictures of a wicker basket with a uranium cask inside, apparently the property of the country's Atomic Energy Commision.
There was good reason for alarm. After Mobutu Sese Seko seized power in the mid-1960s, two uranium fuel rods from a colonial-era research reactor went missing. One turned up in 1998 when the Sicilian mafia were caught in a sting operation trying to sell it for over $12m (£7.7m) to a customer in the Middle East. The other is still unaccounted for.
Another decade on, security at the Kinshasa nuclear research centre had scarcely improved. A diplomatic cable in September 2006 describes the security measures separating the reactor from the university next door.
"The fence is not lit at night, has no razor-wire across the top, and is not monitored by video
surveillance," a US diplomatic team reports. "There is also no cleared buffer zone between it and the surrounding vegetation. There are numerous holes in the fence, and large gaps where the fence was missing altogether. University of Kinshasa students frequently walk through the fence to cut across [the reactor site] and subsistence farmers grow manioc on the facility next to the nuclear waste storage building."
At the same time, there was concern over established smuggling routes shipping both uranium fuel and raw uranium ore abroad, possibly to Iran. Congo has some of the richest uranium reserves on earth, both in terms of the scale of the deposits and the purity of its ore.
It would require just a few lorry loads of Congolese ore to process and enrich enough uranium for a bomb. Both Washington and inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been concerned that such a black market source of high quality ore, outside IAEA controls, could be used in a covert weapons programme in Iran.
A cable from Tanzania in September 2006 passed on a tip that some of the smuggled material may be passing through the nation's capital.
"According to a senior Swiss diplomat, the shipment of uranium through Dar es Salaam is common knowledge to two Swiss shipping companies ... though no one at either company would admit it in writing."
The other major front in America's "second line of defence" runs around the edge of Russia's borders, where the collapse of the Soviet Union created a black market in nuclear and radioactive material that endures two decades on.
As in Africa, the fears are based on poor security, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet implosion, when a significant amount of fissile material went missing, some of it undoubtedly stolen by former military officers and officials as a private pension plan. As in Africa, the diplomats are left with the challenging task of separating nuclear fact from fiction.
In July 2008, the embassy in Lisbon reported a "walk-in" informant with a tale of a retired Russian general who had a brick of uranium metal to sell. The informant handed over a picture of the merchandise – a lump of grey metal.
Noting that the "walk-in stated he is not on any medications and has not consulted any mental health specialists", the case is handed over to specialists, and there is no further mention of it in the cables.
More often, the post-Soviet nuclear black market has remained closer to home. An illicit trafficking database maintained by the IAEA records 500 incidents since the mid-90s, involving "the theft or loss of nuclear or other radioactive material". Of those, 15 involved high enrichment uranium (HEU) and plutonium, from which nuclear warheads are made. Most of those were in former Soviet republics or in eastern Europe.
As part of the "second line of defence" programme, the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is helping Russia build radiation detectors on every one of the country's border crossings, about 350 sites, by the end of next year.
However, there are doubts that this expensive hi-tech approach will work. Critics point to the fact that out of 20 high profile cases where nuclear smuggling has been uncovered, radiation detectors have played a part in only one. That is partly because they are so easily triggered, there are often turned off or ignored by local officials.
A confidential cable from the US embassy in Tbilisi records an incident in August last year when a car carrying three Armenians set off a detector on the Georgian-Armenian border. The driver was waved on by customs guards, however, after he claimed to have been injected with radioactive isotopes during surgery.
The car was only searched when it set off the alarm again on the way back to Armenia. It was found to be contaminated throughout by Cesium-137, a highly radioactive isotope, which could make a devastating "dirty bomb". A cloth in the car produced the highest radiation reading, but no radioactive material was found. It appears that whatever the car was carrying, had been delivered.
Eight months later, two more Armenian smugglers crossed the same border carrying HEU, but managed to shield it from the detectors by the simple expedient of carrying it in a lead-lined cigarette box. The alarms did not sound, and instead, the two Armenians, Hrant Ohanyan and Sumbat Tonoyan, were caught in a Georgian sting operation and were sentenced last month to prison terms of 13 and 14 years respectively. As the US cables make vividly clear, their cases are the tip of an iceberg.
Say good bye to free media and net neutrality...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/obama-fcc-caves-on-net-ne_b_799435.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/obama-fcc-caves-on-net-ne_b_799435.html
FCC Net Neutrality Rules Slammed from All Sides
By Ryan Singel
12/20/2010
The federal government’s new internet fairness policy — designed to prevent the nation’s cable and DSL internet service providers from meddling with the open, free-wheeling nature of the internet — was met with loud criticism Monday night from all sides of the political spectrum.
Many Republicans, including FCC commissioner Robert McDowell, blasted the new rules as an interventionist over-reach by an activist federal regulator intent on asserting control over the internet. Meanwhile, Democrats, including Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota, along with public interest and free speech groups, slammed the rules as woefully inadquate to protect the public from the predations of an industry keen on turning the internet into a cyber-version of cable TV, with tiers and premium packages affordable by the wealthy.
There was one group, however, that seemed pleased by the new rules: the nation’s cable and telecommunications companies, which have been making the rounds in recent weeks signaling their support for Chairman Julius Genachowski’s compromise deal.
And of course, the new rules will allow President Obama to say that he fulfilled a key campaign pledge — net neutrality — when the plan’s critics say he has done nothing of the sort, and in fact only consigned the issue to more lawsuits and uncertainty. The long-awaited move comes after five years of running battles between the nation’s telecoms, public interest groups and Silicon Valley firms over how best to keep the internet open to innovation.
Come Tuesday afternoon, following what will likely be a 3-2 party line vote at the FCC, the new rules of the road will resemble the old rules in many respects — just with less legal authority, and a massive new loophole. For the first time, federal policy would allow for so-called reasonable “paid prioritization,” which critics argue is the first step toward cleaving out high-speed, premium fast-lanes from the “public internet.” This could jeopardize internet innovation by disincentivising entrepreneurial activity on the free, or regular, internet.
The new policy appeared to cross a key hurdle Monday when Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he would support it.
“The item we will vote on tomorrow is not the one I would have crafted,” Copps said in a statement. “But I believe we have been able to make the current iteration better than what was originally circulated. If vigilantly and vigorously implemented by the Commission — and if upheld by the courts — it could represent an important milestone in the ongoing struggle to safeguard the awesome opportunity-creating power of the open Internet.”
“While I cannot vote wholeheartedly to approve the item, I will not block it by voting against it,” Copps added.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy group that supports net neutrality, instantly launched a fusillade against Copps.
“Internet users across America will have lost a hero if Commissioner Copps caves to pressure from big business and supports FCC Chairman Genachowski’s fake Net Neutrality rules — rules written by AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, the very companies the public is depending on the FCC to regulate strongly,” PCCC Senior Online Campaigns Director Jason Rosenbaum said in a statement. “There’s no such thing as half a First Amendment, and there’s no such thing as half of Net Neutrality. If approved, Genachowski’s industry-written rules would be a historic mistake: For the first time, the FCC would give its stamp of approval to discrimination online.”
The apparent denouement of this saga comes after five years of debates, lawsuits, botched regulatory actions, grassroots campaigns, and millions of dollars spent lobbying the federal government.
In 2005, then-FCC chairman Michael Powell issued a set of principles, the so-called Four Freedoms, which said that internet users had the right to use the lawful software and services they want to on the internet, access their choice of content, use whatever devices they like, and get meaningful information about how their online service plan works. The principles applied explicitly only to cable and DSL connections, and the FCC didn’t say if they applied to wireless providers, such as 3G plans for cellphones.
The FCC’s new plan is basically the same, according to a summary given to reporters Monday afternoon.
Both wireless and fixed broadband service providers will have to explain how they manage congestion on their networks. Cable and DSL companies will have to let you use the applications, online services and devices that you want to. Meanwhile, wireless companies will be prohibited from blocking websites and internet telephony services like Skype. Cable and DSL providers would be barred from “unreasonably” discriminating against various online services.
It is unclear what will constitute the FCC’s standard of “unreasonableness.” But if the FCC determines such “unreasonable” discrimination is occurring, the FCC says it has the power to enjoin — or stop — the behavior, as well as issue fines or even seize assets, an FCC official said.
McDowell vigorously opposes the plan, which he says will “expand the government’s reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings,” as he wrote in an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, pro-net neutrality advocates lambasted the plan as “fake” net neutrality and accused Genachowski of caving to corporate interests. The order leaves open the possibility of providers creating internet fast lanes and slow lanes (for instance, charging YouTube to get to customers faster). Mobile carriers will also be free to charge users extra to watch online video services.
“The proposed rules are so riddled with loopholes that it’s clear that the FCC chairman crafted them with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists,” said Tim Karr, campaign director of pro-net neutrality group Free Press.
“We’re thinking of running James Cicconi as the next FCC Commissioner,” Karr added. “His campaign slogan would be 'eliminate the middle man.’”
Cicconi is AT&T’s top lobbyist in Washington, D.C. In the weeks leading up to announcement of the rules, AT&T lobbyists met with senior FCC staff at least six times to make their views on the issue known, according to federal disclosure documents.
Like former Chairman Powell’s rules, the new FCC plan is built on a jumble of legal authorities. In the Bush years, the FCC deregulated broadband. That move declared that the Internet was not a communication service, which means the FCC has little authority over it. (Except oddly, when it comes to the rules about making the internet wiretap-friendly for the government, in which case, broadband is considered a communications service and thus carriers have to build-in wiretap equipment).
So these net neutrality rules aren’t based on the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband internet service, which was struck down last April in the landmark Comcast decision, which stunned an over-confident FCC. Instead, the commission is relying on the authority of a hodge-podge of provisions cobbled together from the 1996 Telecommunications Act — authority the commission insists it can defend in federal court. One of those provisions gives the FCC authority to regulate video games.
When asked during a press briefing Monday to elaborate on the legal basis for the new rules — and whether this arrangement of twigs and twine would be challenged quickly in court, as the earlier rules were — a senior official bristled at the question. He called it loaded.
But just last spring, Genachowski himself said the FCC’s own general counsel has warned that the commission was on shaky legal ground in the wake of the Comcast case which overturned the rules.
“The Commission’s General Counsel and many other lawyers believe that the Comcast decision reduces sharply the Commission’s ability to protect consumers and promote competition using its 'ancillary’ authority,” Genachowski said, “and creates serious uncertainty about the Commission’s ability, under this approach, to perform the basic oversight functions, and pursue the basic broadband-related policies, that have been long and widely thought essential and appropriate.”
In the wake of the Comcast disaster, Genachoswski proposed to rebuild the rules by re-classifying broadband as a “communications service,” which would have given the agency clear authority to impose so-called “common carrier” rules. But that idea turned out to be political kryptonite, even if the FCC promised to apply to the internet only a small handful of the rules that regulate the phone system.
For his part, Republican commissioner McDowell is under no such illusions about what a boon the vague new rules will be for the highly-paid corporate lawyers the cable and telecommunications industry keeps on retainer like pets.
“The FCC’s action will spark a billable-hours bonanza as lawyers litigate the meaning of 'reasonable’ network management for years to come,” McDowell wrote. “How’s that for regulatory certainty?”
Additional reporting and writing by Sam Gustin
-The Huffington Post
By Ryan Singel
12/20/2010
The federal government’s new internet fairness policy — designed to prevent the nation’s cable and DSL internet service providers from meddling with the open, free-wheeling nature of the internet — was met with loud criticism Monday night from all sides of the political spectrum.
Many Republicans, including FCC commissioner Robert McDowell, blasted the new rules as an interventionist over-reach by an activist federal regulator intent on asserting control over the internet. Meanwhile, Democrats, including Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota, along with public interest and free speech groups, slammed the rules as woefully inadquate to protect the public from the predations of an industry keen on turning the internet into a cyber-version of cable TV, with tiers and premium packages affordable by the wealthy.
There was one group, however, that seemed pleased by the new rules: the nation’s cable and telecommunications companies, which have been making the rounds in recent weeks signaling their support for Chairman Julius Genachowski’s compromise deal.
And of course, the new rules will allow President Obama to say that he fulfilled a key campaign pledge — net neutrality — when the plan’s critics say he has done nothing of the sort, and in fact only consigned the issue to more lawsuits and uncertainty. The long-awaited move comes after five years of running battles between the nation’s telecoms, public interest groups and Silicon Valley firms over how best to keep the internet open to innovation.
Come Tuesday afternoon, following what will likely be a 3-2 party line vote at the FCC, the new rules of the road will resemble the old rules in many respects — just with less legal authority, and a massive new loophole. For the first time, federal policy would allow for so-called reasonable “paid prioritization,” which critics argue is the first step toward cleaving out high-speed, premium fast-lanes from the “public internet.” This could jeopardize internet innovation by disincentivising entrepreneurial activity on the free, or regular, internet.
The new policy appeared to cross a key hurdle Monday when Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he would support it.
“The item we will vote on tomorrow is not the one I would have crafted,” Copps said in a statement. “But I believe we have been able to make the current iteration better than what was originally circulated. If vigilantly and vigorously implemented by the Commission — and if upheld by the courts — it could represent an important milestone in the ongoing struggle to safeguard the awesome opportunity-creating power of the open Internet.”
“While I cannot vote wholeheartedly to approve the item, I will not block it by voting against it,” Copps added.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy group that supports net neutrality, instantly launched a fusillade against Copps.
“Internet users across America will have lost a hero if Commissioner Copps caves to pressure from big business and supports FCC Chairman Genachowski’s fake Net Neutrality rules — rules written by AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, the very companies the public is depending on the FCC to regulate strongly,” PCCC Senior Online Campaigns Director Jason Rosenbaum said in a statement. “There’s no such thing as half a First Amendment, and there’s no such thing as half of Net Neutrality. If approved, Genachowski’s industry-written rules would be a historic mistake: For the first time, the FCC would give its stamp of approval to discrimination online.”
The apparent denouement of this saga comes after five years of debates, lawsuits, botched regulatory actions, grassroots campaigns, and millions of dollars spent lobbying the federal government.
In 2005, then-FCC chairman Michael Powell issued a set of principles, the so-called Four Freedoms, which said that internet users had the right to use the lawful software and services they want to on the internet, access their choice of content, use whatever devices they like, and get meaningful information about how their online service plan works. The principles applied explicitly only to cable and DSL connections, and the FCC didn’t say if they applied to wireless providers, such as 3G plans for cellphones.
The FCC’s new plan is basically the same, according to a summary given to reporters Monday afternoon.
Both wireless and fixed broadband service providers will have to explain how they manage congestion on their networks. Cable and DSL companies will have to let you use the applications, online services and devices that you want to. Meanwhile, wireless companies will be prohibited from blocking websites and internet telephony services like Skype. Cable and DSL providers would be barred from “unreasonably” discriminating against various online services.
It is unclear what will constitute the FCC’s standard of “unreasonableness.” But if the FCC determines such “unreasonable” discrimination is occurring, the FCC says it has the power to enjoin — or stop — the behavior, as well as issue fines or even seize assets, an FCC official said.
McDowell vigorously opposes the plan, which he says will “expand the government’s reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings,” as he wrote in an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, pro-net neutrality advocates lambasted the plan as “fake” net neutrality and accused Genachowski of caving to corporate interests. The order leaves open the possibility of providers creating internet fast lanes and slow lanes (for instance, charging YouTube to get to customers faster). Mobile carriers will also be free to charge users extra to watch online video services.
“The proposed rules are so riddled with loopholes that it’s clear that the FCC chairman crafted them with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists,” said Tim Karr, campaign director of pro-net neutrality group Free Press.
“We’re thinking of running James Cicconi as the next FCC Commissioner,” Karr added. “His campaign slogan would be 'eliminate the middle man.’”
Cicconi is AT&T’s top lobbyist in Washington, D.C. In the weeks leading up to announcement of the rules, AT&T lobbyists met with senior FCC staff at least six times to make their views on the issue known, according to federal disclosure documents.
Like former Chairman Powell’s rules, the new FCC plan is built on a jumble of legal authorities. In the Bush years, the FCC deregulated broadband. That move declared that the Internet was not a communication service, which means the FCC has little authority over it. (Except oddly, when it comes to the rules about making the internet wiretap-friendly for the government, in which case, broadband is considered a communications service and thus carriers have to build-in wiretap equipment).
So these net neutrality rules aren’t based on the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband internet service, which was struck down last April in the landmark Comcast decision, which stunned an over-confident FCC. Instead, the commission is relying on the authority of a hodge-podge of provisions cobbled together from the 1996 Telecommunications Act — authority the commission insists it can defend in federal court. One of those provisions gives the FCC authority to regulate video games.
When asked during a press briefing Monday to elaborate on the legal basis for the new rules — and whether this arrangement of twigs and twine would be challenged quickly in court, as the earlier rules were — a senior official bristled at the question. He called it loaded.
But just last spring, Genachowski himself said the FCC’s own general counsel has warned that the commission was on shaky legal ground in the wake of the Comcast case which overturned the rules.
“The Commission’s General Counsel and many other lawyers believe that the Comcast decision reduces sharply the Commission’s ability to protect consumers and promote competition using its 'ancillary’ authority,” Genachowski said, “and creates serious uncertainty about the Commission’s ability, under this approach, to perform the basic oversight functions, and pursue the basic broadband-related policies, that have been long and widely thought essential and appropriate.”
In the wake of the Comcast disaster, Genachoswski proposed to rebuild the rules by re-classifying broadband as a “communications service,” which would have given the agency clear authority to impose so-called “common carrier” rules. But that idea turned out to be political kryptonite, even if the FCC promised to apply to the internet only a small handful of the rules that regulate the phone system.
For his part, Republican commissioner McDowell is under no such illusions about what a boon the vague new rules will be for the highly-paid corporate lawyers the cable and telecommunications industry keeps on retainer like pets.
“The FCC’s action will spark a billable-hours bonanza as lawyers litigate the meaning of 'reasonable’ network management for years to come,” McDowell wrote. “How’s that for regulatory certainty?”
Additional reporting and writing by Sam Gustin
-The Huffington Post
WikiLeaks cables: Syria believed Israel was behind sniper killing
It was late in the evening of 1 August 2008 in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous when the sniper fired the fatal shot. The target was General Muhammad Suleiman, President Bashar al-Assad's top security aide. Israelis, the US embassy in Damascus reported, were "the most obvious suspects" in the assassination.
US state department cables released by WikiLeaks trace the panicked response of the authorities. "Syrian security services quickly cordoned and searched the entire beach neighbourhood where the shooting had occurred," the embassy was informed. Syrian-based journalists were instructed not to report the story. It was a sensational event, akin to another mysterious assassination in Damascus earlier that year, when a car bomb killed Imad Mughniyeh, military chief of Hezbollah.
Initial reports were vague about Suleiman's identity and position, and the news blackout lasted for four days. But the US government knew exactly who he was. A secret document several months earlier gave his precise job description: "Syrian special presidential adviser for arms procurement and strategic weapons."
Eleven months earlier, Israeli planes had attacked and destroyed a suspected nuclear site at al-Kibar on the Euphrates river, apparently one of the special projects Suleiman managed "which may have have been unknown to the broader Syrian military leadership", as the embassy put it. Israeli media reported that he had also served as Assad's liaison to Hezbollah.
Israel was the obvious suspect in Suleiman's murder, US officials reported. "Syrian security services are well aware that the coastal city of Tartous would offer easier access to Israeli operatives than would more inland locations such as Damascus. Suleiman was not a highly visible government official, and the use of a sniper suggests the assassin could visually identify Suleiman from a distance."
In the capital, the government remained silent, probably, the embassy speculated, because "(1) they may not know who did it; (2) such accusations could impair or end Syria's nascent peace negotiations with Israel; and (3) publicising the event would reveal yet another lapse in Syria's vaunted security apparatus."
Reports about internal discussions suggest that the Tartous killing strengthened the hands of Syrian security officials who were opposed to peace talks with Israel.
Ten days later a US embassy contact reported that the assassination had become "a frequent source of controversy" in internal Syrian government deliberations. "Tempers flared during an August 12 higher policy council meeting when high-level security service officials openly questioned the government's continuation of indirect negotiations with Israel and its 'generosity' with Lebanon." Security chiefs claimed that Syria would make concessions and not receive any tangible gains from engaging Lebanon or talking indirectly to Israel.
"Underlying this tense exchange was frustration within the security services that the [Syrian government] was all but ignoring the assassination of Suleiman. Security service officials were suggesting that 'if the Israelis did it' [killed Suleiman], why was the Syrian government continuing the dialogue?" the embassy source added. "'And if it was an inside job, people are wondering about their future.'"
Assad was thus under increasing pressure to provide assurances to his security chiefs about their positions and about the government's intention not to make premature concessions.
Embassy cables also show that the US had previously wanted to apply financial sanctions to Suleiman as part of an effort to weaken the Assad regime, but found it difficult to do so because the information about him was so highly classified it could not be made public.
"Muhammad Suleiman is a relatively low-payoff target," diplomats reported back to Washington. "His activities are not widely known, which will make it difficult to obtain unclassified information for a public statement and, likewise, make it unlikely that his designation would resonate inside Syria."
It was late in the evening of 1 August 2008 in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous when the sniper fired the fatal shot. The target was General Muhammad Suleiman, President Bashar al-Assad's top security aide. Israelis, the US embassy in Damascus reported, were "the most obvious suspects" in the assassination.
US state department cables released by WikiLeaks trace the panicked response of the authorities. "Syrian security services quickly cordoned and searched the entire beach neighbourhood where the shooting had occurred," the embassy was informed. Syrian-based journalists were instructed not to report the story. It was a sensational event, akin to another mysterious assassination in Damascus earlier that year, when a car bomb killed Imad Mughniyeh, military chief of Hezbollah.
Initial reports were vague about Suleiman's identity and position, and the news blackout lasted for four days. But the US government knew exactly who he was. A secret document several months earlier gave his precise job description: "Syrian special presidential adviser for arms procurement and strategic weapons."
Eleven months earlier, Israeli planes had attacked and destroyed a suspected nuclear site at al-Kibar on the Euphrates river, apparently one of the special projects Suleiman managed "which may have have been unknown to the broader Syrian military leadership", as the embassy put it. Israeli media reported that he had also served as Assad's liaison to Hezbollah.
Israel was the obvious suspect in Suleiman's murder, US officials reported. "Syrian security services are well aware that the coastal city of Tartous would offer easier access to Israeli operatives than would more inland locations such as Damascus. Suleiman was not a highly visible government official, and the use of a sniper suggests the assassin could visually identify Suleiman from a distance."
In the capital, the government remained silent, probably, the embassy speculated, because "(1) they may not know who did it; (2) such accusations could impair or end Syria's nascent peace negotiations with Israel; and (3) publicising the event would reveal yet another lapse in Syria's vaunted security apparatus."
Reports about internal discussions suggest that the Tartous killing strengthened the hands of Syrian security officials who were opposed to peace talks with Israel.
Ten days later a US embassy contact reported that the assassination had become "a frequent source of controversy" in internal Syrian government deliberations. "Tempers flared during an August 12 higher policy council meeting when high-level security service officials openly questioned the government's continuation of indirect negotiations with Israel and its 'generosity' with Lebanon." Security chiefs claimed that Syria would make concessions and not receive any tangible gains from engaging Lebanon or talking indirectly to Israel.
"Underlying this tense exchange was frustration within the security services that the [Syrian government] was all but ignoring the assassination of Suleiman. Security service officials were suggesting that 'if the Israelis did it' [killed Suleiman], why was the Syrian government continuing the dialogue?" the embassy source added. "'And if it was an inside job, people are wondering about their future.'"
Assad was thus under increasing pressure to provide assurances to his security chiefs about their positions and about the government's intention not to make premature concessions.
Embassy cables also show that the US had previously wanted to apply financial sanctions to Suleiman as part of an effort to weaken the Assad regime, but found it difficult to do so because the information about him was so highly classified it could not be made public.
"Muhammad Suleiman is a relatively low-payoff target," diplomats reported back to Washington. "His activities are not widely known, which will make it difficult to obtain unclassified information for a public statement and, likewise, make it unlikely that his designation would resonate inside Syria."
This is worth seeing (especially around 3 mins) 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3adw9oLBkBI&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3adw9oLBkBI&feature=player_embedded#!
WikiLeaks' Assange complains he's victim of leaks
LONDON – It has come to this: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is complaining that someone leaked a Swedish police report on his alleged sexual offenses.
In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, Assange complained about reporting in the rival newspaper The Guardian, which is one of several publications that has been helping WikiLeaks edit its trove of secret U.S. diplomatic files in exchange for an early look at them.
The Guardian published details Saturday of the Swedish police report in which two women accuse Assange of rape, based on what it described as "unauthorized access" to prosecutors' files. Assange claimed the newspaper was "selectively publishing" parts of it, and questioned the timing of the leak, saying it was given to the paper a day before his bail hearing last week.
"The leak of the police report to The Guardian was clearly designed to undermine my bail application. It was timed to come up on the desk of the judge that morning," Assange was quoted as saying in Tuesday's paper. "Someone in authority clearly intended to keep Julian in prison, and shopped (the report) around to other newspapers as well."
Assange, who is contesting a Swedish extradition bid, was freed on bail last week under strict conditions including that he stay at the home of a supporter in southern England, wear an electronic tag, observe a curfew and post a bond of 200,000 pounds ($310,000). He faces his next court hearing Jan. 11.
Swedish officials want to question Assange about allegations stemming from separate encounters with two women in Sweden over the summer. The women have accused Assange of sexual crimes including rape, molestation and unlawful coercion. Assange denies the allegations, which his lawyers say stem from a dispute over "consensual but unprotected sex." He has not been charged.
The Times quoted Assange as saying there is "very suggestive evidence" that the two women were motivated by revenge, money and police pressure.
In an editorial, The Guardian defended its coverage, saying it "is unusual for a sex-offense case to be presented outside of the judicial process in such a manner, but then it is unheard of for a defendant, his legal team and supporters to so vehemently and publicly attack women at the heart of a rape case."
In a BBC interview aired Tuesday, Assange said he believed the women behind the allegations "found out that they were mutual lovers of mine and they had unprotected sex and they got into a tizzy about whether there was a possibility of sexually transmitted diseases."
The women's lawyer, Claes Borgstrom, has said they went through similar experiences with Assange and decided to go to the police together to seek advice on what to do. A policewoman who heard their accounts decided that Assange had probably committed a sex crime of some kind and passed the case to a prosecutor.
Borgstrom has criticized Assange for suggesting that the allegations are part of a smear campaign against him and WikiLeaks, which has begun to release what it says are more than a quarter-million leaked U.S. embassy cables, infuriating the United States and governments around the world. Borgstrom says the case has nothing to do with Assange's website or any wider conspiracy against it.
Asked by the Times whether he is promiscuous, Assange replied: "I am not promiscuous. I just really like women."
He said WikiLeaks had received "tremendous" public support, even when he was in jail.
"I was handed a card by one of my black prison guards. It said, 'I only have two heroes in the world: Dr. (Martin Luther) King, and you,'" he told the newspaper. "That is representative of 50 percent of people."
Assange didn't immediately return calls Tuesday seeking comment.
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Bold part 1)
Bold part 2) :dielaugh:
LONDON – It has come to this: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is complaining that someone leaked a Swedish police report on his alleged sexual offenses.
In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, Assange complained about reporting in the rival newspaper The Guardian, which is one of several publications that has been helping WikiLeaks edit its trove of secret U.S. diplomatic files in exchange for an early look at them.
The Guardian published details Saturday of the Swedish police report in which two women accuse Assange of rape, based on what it described as "unauthorized access" to prosecutors' files. Assange claimed the newspaper was "selectively publishing" parts of it, and questioned the timing of the leak, saying it was given to the paper a day before his bail hearing last week.
"The leak of the police report to The Guardian was clearly designed to undermine my bail application. It was timed to come up on the desk of the judge that morning," Assange was quoted as saying in Tuesday's paper. "Someone in authority clearly intended to keep Julian in prison, and shopped (the report) around to other newspapers as well."
Assange, who is contesting a Swedish extradition bid, was freed on bail last week under strict conditions including that he stay at the home of a supporter in southern England, wear an electronic tag, observe a curfew and post a bond of 200,000 pounds ($310,000). He faces his next court hearing Jan. 11.
Swedish officials want to question Assange about allegations stemming from separate encounters with two women in Sweden over the summer. The women have accused Assange of sexual crimes including rape, molestation and unlawful coercion. Assange denies the allegations, which his lawyers say stem from a dispute over "consensual but unprotected sex." He has not been charged.
The Times quoted Assange as saying there is "very suggestive evidence" that the two women were motivated by revenge, money and police pressure.
In an editorial, The Guardian defended its coverage, saying it "is unusual for a sex-offense case to be presented outside of the judicial process in such a manner, but then it is unheard of for a defendant, his legal team and supporters to so vehemently and publicly attack women at the heart of a rape case."
In a BBC interview aired Tuesday, Assange said he believed the women behind the allegations "found out that they were mutual lovers of mine and they had unprotected sex and they got into a tizzy about whether there was a possibility of sexually transmitted diseases."
The women's lawyer, Claes Borgstrom, has said they went through similar experiences with Assange and decided to go to the police together to seek advice on what to do. A policewoman who heard their accounts decided that Assange had probably committed a sex crime of some kind and passed the case to a prosecutor.
Borgstrom has criticized Assange for suggesting that the allegations are part of a smear campaign against him and WikiLeaks, which has begun to release what it says are more than a quarter-million leaked U.S. embassy cables, infuriating the United States and governments around the world. Borgstrom says the case has nothing to do with Assange's website or any wider conspiracy against it.
Asked by the Times whether he is promiscuous, Assange replied: "I am not promiscuous. I just really like women."
He said WikiLeaks had received "tremendous" public support, even when he was in jail.
"I was handed a card by one of my black prison guards. It said, 'I only have two heroes in the world: Dr. (Martin Luther) King, and you,'" he told the newspaper. "That is representative of 50 percent of people."
Assange didn't immediately return calls Tuesday seeking comment.
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Bold part 1)
Bold part 2) :dielaugh:
WikiLeaks Founder:
We Have Enough Information To Make An Exec At A Major Bank Resign
The Huffington Post | Ryan McCarthy First Posted: 12-21-10 08:21 AM |
An upcoming data dump by WikiLeaks will be damaging enough that an executive at a major American bank will resign, the organization's founder Julian Assange told the U.K.'s Times in a recent interview.
Speculation has swirled that WikiLeaks may be targeting Bank of America in its next leak, which Assange said in a Forbes interview will target at least one major bank. In a 2009 Computer World interview, Assange said that he had 5 GB hard drive from a Bank of America executive. The bank recently stopped processing WikiLeaks payments.
In an interview with the Times, Assange said: "We don't want the bank to suffer unless it's called for. But if its management is operating in a responsive way there will be resignations."
New York Times scribe Andrew Ross Sorkin, for his part, says it's not Wall Street executives who are worried about WikiLeaks' next bombshell, it's Wall Street regulators. Here's Sorkin:
It seems the prospect of gigabytes of e-mail and other documents from financial institutions can be viewed one of two ways: as a treasure trove for regulators to scrutinize -- or as an embarrassment for the United States government, which has spent millions of dollars investigating Wall Street in the last two years without a scalp to show for it.
Inside the Securities and Exchange Commission, the organization is bracing for a public outcry, according to people who have recently spoken with some high-ranking officials about the prospect of a WikiLeaks release of bank documents.
If WikiLeaks reveals truly damaging information, Wall Street regulators may in a particularly awkward situation: they'll end up being scooped by an organization that has been branded as a terrorist group.
We Have Enough Information To Make An Exec At A Major Bank Resign
The Huffington Post | Ryan McCarthy First Posted: 12-21-10 08:21 AM |
An upcoming data dump by WikiLeaks will be damaging enough that an executive at a major American bank will resign, the organization's founder Julian Assange told the U.K.'s Times in a recent interview.
Speculation has swirled that WikiLeaks may be targeting Bank of America in its next leak, which Assange said in a Forbes interview will target at least one major bank. In a 2009 Computer World interview, Assange said that he had 5 GB hard drive from a Bank of America executive. The bank recently stopped processing WikiLeaks payments.
In an interview with the Times, Assange said: "We don't want the bank to suffer unless it's called for. But if its management is operating in a responsive way there will be resignations."
New York Times scribe Andrew Ross Sorkin, for his part, says it's not Wall Street executives who are worried about WikiLeaks' next bombshell, it's Wall Street regulators. Here's Sorkin:
It seems the prospect of gigabytes of e-mail and other documents from financial institutions can be viewed one of two ways: as a treasure trove for regulators to scrutinize -- or as an embarrassment for the United States government, which has spent millions of dollars investigating Wall Street in the last two years without a scalp to show for it.
Inside the Securities and Exchange Commission, the organization is bracing for a public outcry, according to people who have recently spoken with some high-ranking officials about the prospect of a WikiLeaks release of bank documents.
If WikiLeaks reveals truly damaging information, Wall Street regulators may in a particularly awkward situation: they'll end up being scooped by an organization that has been branded as a terrorist group.
But that's what the banks are hoping for. They want to shift the blame to the regulators when in fact both are guilty of horrendous fraud and negligence. The big banks are the regulators, after all. How many positions at the New York Fed, the SEC, et cetera, are filled with Goldman Sachs/other investment banker graduates? Several. So of course they will be ready and waiting to be the fall guy for any fallout from Wikileaks, or any other damning evidence that arises. They have already made their millions through bonuses and stock options, so what the hell do the regulators care if the government is blamed? They've already hijacked it.
As that one moron Republican said recently, "Regulators are here to serve the banks." Die in a fire motherfucker.
If this article is true, and the banks go unscathed, then I will lose all respect for Wikileaks and consider it a controlled release of information. You have all sorts of fraud to choose from when it comes to large US banks and the FED, from Foreclosuregate and accounting fraud to lying under oath to Congress, both of which are in the open for all to see. You better be damned sure these banks have committed far greater crimes than we know about.
As that one moron Republican said recently, "Regulators are here to serve the banks." Die in a fire motherfucker.
If this article is true, and the banks go unscathed, then I will lose all respect for Wikileaks and consider it a controlled release of information. You have all sorts of fraud to choose from when it comes to large US banks and the FED, from Foreclosuregate and accounting fraud to lying under oath to Congress, both of which are in the open for all to see. You better be damned sure these banks have committed far greater crimes than we know about.