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Woman handcuffed over swing set tiff

A Georgia woman was handcuffed and detained at her home by National Park Rangers after an argument over her family's swing set. Rangers said the swing set is on Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area property, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Kevin Cheri, superintendent for the park, said two of his officers were making routine inspections around the park when they noticed a homeowner's swing set on park property. The officers went to speak with Schelly Gettings to explain that the swing set had to be removed or put on her property, Cheri said. Cheri said Gettings became abusive toward the officers. "She was out of control," he said. "They were asking her to please calm down. She shoved one of the officers. He put handcuffs on her to protect himself and her....It's crossing the line when you touch an officer of the law."....

Airport ID checks legally enforced?

A federal appeals court wrestled Thursday with what seems to be a straightforward question: Can Americans be required to show ID on a commercial airline flight? John Gilmore, an early employee of Sun Microsystems and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the answer should be "no." The libertarian millionaire sued the Bush administration, which claims that the ID requirement is necessary for security but has refused to identify any actual regulation requiring it. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed skeptical of the Bush administration's defense of secret laws and regulations but stopped short of suggesting that such a rule would be necessarily unconstitutional. "How do we know there's an order?" Judge Thomas Nelson asked. "Because you said there was?" Replied Joshua Waldman, a staff attorney for the Department of Justice: "We couldn't confirm or deny the existence of an order." Even though government regulations required his silence, Waldman said, the situation did seem a "bit peculiar." "This is America," said James Harrison, a lawyer representing Gilmore. "We do not have secret laws. Period." Harrison stressed that Gilmore was happy to go through a metal detector....

MINIATURE GOLF COURSE MADE HOMELAND SECURITY WATCH LIST

Mini-golfers, calm down and tee up -- Emerald Hills Golfland is off the feds' terrorist-target list. Or is it? Some time back, officials added the humble South San Jose theme park -- ``three acres, two mini golf courses, very challenging,'' says Golfland's VP Bob Kenney -- to their National Asset Database. Local officials, figuring plenty of other Silicon Valley sites were richer targets, burst out laughing when they saw it. ``The moment we realized it was on the list, it was taken off,'' said San Jose police officer Rubens Dalaison, who handles ``critical infrastructure assessment'' for the department. ``I myself took it off.'' Then again, the list remains top secret. So who really knows? The terrorist-watchers at Homeland Security did not return several phone calls. And no one locally seems to know how Golfland got on the list to begin with....

US terror watchlist 80,000 names long

A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources. The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported. Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name. The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a "selectee" section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks....

30,000 fliers seek terror watch-list removal

Nearly 30,000 airline passengers in the past year asked the Homeland Security Department to remove their names from terrorist watch lists, and all but about 60 were successful, Transportation Security Administration officials said. None of the passengers listed was ever prevented from flying, but some were selected for additional screening ranging from questioning to strip searches, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials said. "That number reflects the number of passengers that TSA has been able to provide relief to, whose names were the same or similar to those who actually appear on the no-flight or selectee list," said Yolanda Clark, chief spokeswoman for the TSA, an agency within the Homeland Security Department. Marcia Hofmann, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's open-government project, said the number of passengers asking to be delisted is "greater than anybody anticipated," and shows "the watch-list process doesn't work the way it is supposed to."....

FBI put peaceful protesters in terrorism files

The names and license plate numbers of about 30 people who protested three years ago in Colorado Springs were put into FBI domestic-terrorism files, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado says. The Denver-based ACLU obtained federal documents on a 2002 Colorado Springs protest and a 2003 anti-war rally under the Freedom of Information Act. ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said the documents show the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force wastes resources generating files on "nonviolent protest." "These documents confirm that the names and license plate numbers of several dozen peaceful protesters who committed no crime are now in a JTTF file marked 'counterterrorism,'" he said. "This kind of surveillance of First Amendment activities has serious consequences. Law-abiding Americans may be reluctant to speak out when doing so means that their names will wind up in an FBI file." FBI Special Agent Monique Kelso, the spokeswoman for the agency in Colorado, disputed the claim the task force wastes resources gathering information on protesters....

Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy

Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from the handset. In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular technology as a tool for easily and secretly monitoring the movements of suspects as they occur. But this kind of surveillance - which investigators have been able to conduct with easily obtained court orders - has now come under tougher legal scrutiny. In the last four months, three federal judges have denied prosecutors the right to get cellphone tracking information from wireless companies without first showing "probable cause" to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. That is the same standard applied to requests for search warrants. The rulings, issued by magistrate judges in New York, Texas and Maryland, underscore the growing debate over privacy rights and government surveillance in the digital age. Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies want to exploit this technology, too - which means more courts are bound to wrestle with what legal standard applies when government agents ask to conduct such surveillance. Cellular operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless know, within about 300 yards, the location of their subscribers whenever a phone is turned on. Even if the phone is not in use it is communicating with cellphone tower sites, and the wireless provider keeps track of the phone's position as it travels. The operators have said that they turn over location information when presented with a court order to do so. The recent rulings by the magistrates, who are appointed by a majority of the federal district judges in a given court, do not bind other courts. But they could significantly curtail access to cell location data if other jurisdictions adopt the same reasoning. (The government's requests in the three cases, with their details, were sealed because they involve investigations still under way.)....

Defense Facilities Pass Along Reports of Suspicious Activity

Day after day, reports of suspicious activity filed from military bases and other defense installations throughout the United States flow into the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, a three-year-old Pentagon agency whose size and budget remain classified. The Talon reports, as they are called, are based on information from civilians and military personnel who stumble across people or information they think might be part of a terrorist plot or threat against defense facilities at home or abroad. The documents can consist of "raw information reported by concerned citizens and military members regarding suspicious incidents," said a 2003 memo signed by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. The reports "may or may not be related to an actual threat, and its very nature may be fragmented and incomplete," the memo said. The Talon system is part of the Defense Department's growing effort to gather intelligence within the United States, which officials argue is imperative as they work to detect and prevent potentially catastrophic terrorist assaults. The Talon reports -- how many are generated is classified, a Pentagon spokesman said -- are collected and analyzed by CIFA, an agency at the forefront of the Pentagon's counterterrorism program....

Bush Says Congress Needs to Act Quickly to Extend Patriot Act

U.S. President George W. Bush called on Congress to quickly renew the USA Patriot Act, saying that the law's expiration at the end of this month might lead to terrorist violence. ``The terrorist threats will not expire on that schedule,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address. ``In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without that vital law for a single moment.'' Congressional negotiators reached an agreement this week on a four-year extension of the expansion of powers by federal officials to investigate suspected terrorists, clearing the way for a vote next week. The law was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Critics in Congress have expressed disappointment in the law and have called for further changes before a vote is held. Opposition by a bipartisan group of six senators has left the bill's fate in some doubt, with at least one calling for a possible filibuster, just weeks before the law is to expire....

ACLU Opposes Patriot Act Provision

The American Civil Liberties Union raised objections yesterday to a little-noticed provision of the latest version of the USA Patriot Act bill, arguing that it would give the Secret Service wider latitude to charge protesters accused of disrupting major events including political conventions and the Olympics. But Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who sponsored the provisions, and his aides said the concerns are misguided. The changes are meant to clear up legal confusion about the Secret Service's role at major events and to ensure that venues are fully secure before the president or other top officials arrive, they said. "I'm a little surprised at the concern," Specter said in an interview, adding later, "The venue needs to be subject to their jurisdiction to make sure it's okay." The measure is the latest point of contention in a GOP-approved conference bill that would make permanent most parts of the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law and would renew two other provisions for four years. A bipartisan group has vowed to fight the proposal, and several lawmakers proposed legislation yesterday that would give Congress an additional three months to negotiate. The Secret Service is authorized to charge suspects with breaching security or disruptive behavior at National Special Security Events, but only if the president or another person under the protection of the service is in attendance, according to a legislative summary. The bill adds language prohibiting people from "willfully and knowingly" entering a restricted area "where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting." The measure also applies to security breaches "in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance," according to the bill. Penalties for such violations would increase from six months to a year in prison....

At F.B.I., Frustration Over Limits on an Antiterror Law

Some agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been frustrated by what they see as the Justice Department's reluctance to let them demand records and to use other far-ranging investigative measures in terrorism cases, newly disclosed e-mail messages and internal documents show. Publicly, the debate over the law known as the USA Patriot Act has focused on concerns from civil rights advocates that the F.B.I. has gained too much power to use expanded investigative tools to go on what could amount to fishing expeditions. But the newly disclosed e-mail messages offer a competing view, showing that, privately, some F.B.I. agents have felt hamstrung by their inability to get approval for using new powers under the Patriot Act, which was passed weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. One internal F.B.I. message, sent in October 2003, criticized the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review at the Justice Department, which reviews and approves terrorist warrants, as regularly blocking requests from the F.B.I. to use a section of the antiterrorism law that gave the bureau broader authority to demand records from institutions like banks, Internet providers and libraries....

How planespotters turned into the scourge of the CIA

Paul last saw the Gulfstream V about 18 months ago. He comes down to Glasgow airport's planespotters' club most days. He had not seen the plane before so he marked the serial number down in his book. At the time, he did not think there was anything unusual about the Gulfstream being ushered to a stand away from public view, one that could not be seen from the airport terminal or the club's prime view. But that flight this week was at the centre of a transatlantic row that saw the prime minister being put on the spot on the floor of the House of Commons and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, forced on the defensive during a visit to Europe. The Gulfstream V has been identified as having been used by the CIA for "extraordinary renditions" - abducting terror suspects and taking them to secret prisons around the world where they may be tortured. The recording of flights by spotters like Paul from places as far afield as Bournemouth and Karachi has unintentionally played a significant role in helping journalists and human rights groups expose the scale of the CIA's renditions system. But his impact on such international intrigue largely passes Paul by. "It's not the CIA bit that interests us. You don't even know who owns the plane when you take down the serial number," he said, already distracted as something comes in to land through the grey drizzle. "You keep accurate logs, for your own records."....