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11 Indicted in 'Eco-Terrorism' Case

After taking nine years to penetrate what they called a "vast eco-terrorism conspiracy" in Oregon and four other Western states, federal prosecutors announced on Friday the indictment of 11 people in connection with a five-year wave of arson and sabotage claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. The 17 attacks, which occurred from 1996 to 2001, caused no deaths but resulted in an estimated $23 million in damage to lumber companies, a ski resort, meat plants, federal ranger stations and a high-voltage electric tower. After its members allegedly set fire to the office of the Boise Cascade wood products company in Monmouth, Ore., on Christmas Day in 1999, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) sent out a communique saying, "Early Christmas morning elves left coal in Boise Cascade's stocking." In Washington, the Justice Department called the indictments a breakthrough in what prosecutors said has been a long and difficult investigation of the animal rights group and the environmental organization, which organize themselves in small, Maoist-style cells and advocate "direct action" against those who abuse animals or Earth. "Today's indictment proves that we will not tolerate any group that terrorizes the American people, no matter its intentions or objectives," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said at a news conference. Joining Gonzales, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said: "Investigating and preventing animal rights and environmental extremism is one of the FBI's highest domestic priorities." There are 188 open investigations of crimes claimed by the two groups, dating to 1987, according to Carl J. Truscott, director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He said 25 to 30 of those cases are being actively being pursued -- about half of them in the Pacific Northwest, California and Utah....

FBI affadavit on Sacramento arrests outlines deep infilatration of radical movements

FBI documents released today reveal details about the state's case against Eric McDavid, Lauren Weiner, and Zachary Jensen, who were arrested Friday for allegedly conspiring to blow up U.S. Forest Service buildings buildings and cell phone towers on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front. According to the criminal complaint the group considered bombing the Nimbus Dam on the American River near Sacramento, a cellular telephone tower, a power station, banks, trucks, mountain-top-removal projects in West Virginia and Communist Party offices. The complaint went on to claim that the three "scoped out" the US Forest Service's Institute of Forest Genetics in Placerville, California, building and the Nimbus Dam, on January 10th. The following day they allegedly purchased ingredients for a homemade bomb at an area Wal-Mart store. Agents say that they recovered a notebook from Eric McDavid which contained a diagram of the Forest Service Institute and pictures of pipe bombs. Information in the complaint comes from a paid "confidential source (CS) who is deeply imbedded within the subjects' cell. The CS has worked for the FBI since early 2004. S/he has agreed to testify in court." Supporters identified the CS as a young woman named "Anna" who "went to Auburn" with the defendents shortly before their arrests. The document says that she has has provided information in at least 12 anarchist cases since 2004. She has traveled to and infiltrated various anarchist gatherings and protests across the country including the Biodev 2005 demonstrations in Philadelphia, a CrimethInc. convergence in Indiana and the Feral Visions green anarchist gathering in North Carolina. A police officer suffered a fatal heart attack during a confrontation at the Philadelphia protest which the defendants are now being linked to....

Border Crossing Cards May Someday Be Official ID

One card would serve as a border pass, a driver's license and a security ID for entering federal buildings. It would include not just your name and picture, but your fingerprints and DNA. Just don't call it a national ID card. The Homeland Security Department is planning border crossing cards for Americans re-entering the country from Canada and Mexico. Officials hope to start issuing the PASS (for People Access Security Service) cards by the end of 2006, but will not require them for an additional year. A PASS card may also one day carry driver's license and other identification information, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday. But he told reporters, "I don't think it's a national ID card." Critics fear such a card could violate privacy rights. "It seems to me that we ought to try to be building toward an architecture where one card can do a number of different things for somebody so you don't have to carry 10 cards," he said. The card is an alternative to post-Sept. 11 requirements that U.S. residents show their passports to re-enter from Canada and Mexico by the end of 2007. Currently, U.S. residents coming into the country from Mexico or Canada usually only need to show a driver's license or birth certificate that proves nationality. The proposal still would require passports or certain other secure ID documents from Canadians, Mexicans and other foreign citizens entering the United States. Canadian officials have criticized both the passport plan and the PASS cards as costly and cumbersome requirements that could thwart cross-border traffic and hurt the economy in border towns....


Google data request fuels fears

At first glance it is hard to understand why the US Government's Justice Department wants Google to hand over a week's worth of search data. To begin with, this would be a huge amount of information to paw through. In an average week, Google handles between 500 million and a billion searches. While this is far less than the US government's request for 60 days worth of data, it is likely to produce a huge file tens, if not hundreds, of gigabytes in size. At the same time, the US government wants a random sample of one million websites that people have searched for. It is well known that net service firms and search engines do hand over records to law enforcement agencies who need the data for ongoing criminal investigations. In many cases data found in computer memory caches or searches people have done online have been used in successful prosecutions. But in the UK and US there are laws in place that limit how much and what types of information can be requested. So-called "fishing expeditions" in which police forces or intelligence works request data and look through it for people that have committed crimes are outlawed.
Danny Sullivan, net consultant and founder of Search Engine Watch, said the request Google is fighting was not tied to any criminal investigation by law enforcement organisations. "This is a weird one and is not something that has come up before," he told the BBC News website. He said the fear was that the US Government wanted to set a precedent with this request so it can turn to search firms whenever they want, for whatever data is deemed important....

Bush Leads Defense of NSA Domestic Spying

The Bush administration is opening a campaign to push back against criticism of its domestic spying program, ahead of congressional hearings into whether President Bush has the legal authority to eavesdrop on Americans. President Bush will visit the ultra-secret National Security Agency on Wednesday, underscoring his claim that he has the constitutional authority to let intelligence officials listen in on international phone calls of Americans with suspected ties to terrorists. "We are stepping up our efforts to educate the American people," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said about Bush's trip to the NSA, based at Fort Meade in Maryland. "This is a critical tool that helps us save lives and prevent attacks," he said. "It is limited and targeted to al-Qaida communications, with the focus being on detection and prevention." On Monday, deputy national intelligence director Mike Hayden, who headed the National Security Agency when the program began in October 2001, will speak on the issue a the National Press Club. On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is delivering a speech on the program in Washington....

Legal Rationale by Justice Dept. on Spying Effort

The Bush administration offered its fullest defense to date Thursday of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, saying that authorization from Congress to deter terrorist attacks "places the president at the zenith of his powers in authorizing the N.S.A. activities." In a 42-page legal analysis, the Justice Department cited the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the writings of presidents both Republican and Democratic, and dozens of scholarly papers and court cases in justifying President Bush's power to order the N.S.A. surveillance program. With the legality of the program under public attack since its disclosure last month, officials said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales ordered up the analysis partly in response to what administration lawyers felt were unfair conclusions in a Jan. 6 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The Congressional report challenged virtually all the main legal justifications the administration had cited for the program. The analysis released Thursday by the Justice Department, with comments from lawyers throughout the department, expanded on the legal arguments made in two still-classified legal opinions as well as in a slimmer letter that the department sent to Congress last month. The basic thrust of the legal justification was the same - that the president has inherent authority as commander in chief to order wiretaps without warrants and that the N.S.A. operation does not violate either a 1978 law governing intelligence wiretaps or the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches. "The president has made clear that he will exercise all authority available to him, consistent with the Constitution, to protect the people of the United States," the report said. The Congressional authorization on the use of force, it added, "places the president at the zenith of his powers in authorizing the N.S.A. activities."....