FLE
Homeland Security opening private mail
In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary. But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance. Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words “by Border Protection” and carrying the official Homeland Security seal. “I had no idea (Homeland Security) would open personal letters,” Goodman told MSNBC.com in a phone interview. “That’s why I alerted the media. I thought it should be known publicly that this is going on,” he said. The letter comes from a retired Filipino history professor; Goodman declined to identify her. And although the Philippines is on the U.S. government’s radar screen as a potential spawning ground for Muslim-related terrorism, Goodman said his friend is a devout Catholic and not given to supporting such causes. A spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection division said he couldn’t speak directly to Goodman’s case but acknowledged that the agency can, will and does open mail coming to U.S. citizens that originates from a foreign country whenever it’s deemed necessary....
Inquiry Says F.B.I. Erred in Implicating Man in Attack
Overconfidence in its own fingerprint-identification technology and sloppy paperwork contributed to the F.B.I.'s wrongly implicating a Portland, Ore., lawyer in the deadly 2004 Madrid train bombing, a Justice Department investigation said Friday. But the investigation, by the department's inspector general's office, said there had been no misconduct by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and no abuse of the antiterrorism USA Patriot Act in the case of the lawyer, Brandon Mayfield. Mr. Mayfield was jailed for two weeks in May 2004 as a material witness before he was cleared. Although Mr. Mayfield's Islamic faith was not a factor in the initial stages of the bombing investigation, when F.B.I. technicians erroneously concluded that a print found on a plastic bag near the Madrid attack scene matched one of Mr. Mayfield's, it may have slowed his ultimate exoneration, the Justice Department inquiry found. The inspector general said the chain of errors that led to Mr. Mayfield's jailing was in part because of the "unusual similarity" between Mr. Mayfield's fingerprints and those found at the bomb site on March 11, 2004....
Head of Federal Air Marshal Service resigns
The head of the Federal Air Marshal Service, Thomas Quinn, is leaving office, effective Feb. 3, MSNBC.com has learned. Quinn announced his plans to retire in an internal agency e-mail late Thursday; he gave no reason for his resignation, or any indication of what he plans to do after leaving the agency. "I am proud of the men and women of the FAMS and salute you for your dedication and performance in fulfilling our mission," Quinn, 59, says in the e-mail, obtained by MSNBC.com. "I leave knowing that the Federal Air Marshal Service is an effective, competent federal law enforcement organization that will continue to be an important contributor to the security of the homeland." Quinn, a former Secret Service agent, came out of retirement to head up the moribund air marshal corps in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The air marshal program, started in the 1970s after a rash of airline hijackings, had dwindled in scope and importance. When 9/11 hit, there were only 33 air marshals on the payroll. Quinn oversaw the often rocky transition of the newly formed Federal Air Marshal Service as it rapidly hired and trained "thousands" of new air marshals to meet a congressional deadline of having a functioning stand-alone agency by July 2002. The exact number of air marshals is classified....
FISA Gotcha!
What if President Bush had actually gone to the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? Imagine if, instead of relying on his own constitutional authority, he had done the thing his detractors now insist he should have done. That is, what if he had actually gone to the FISA court and requested authorization to eavesdrop on Americans suspected of helping al Qaeda wage its terrorist war against the United States? Now, let's suppose the same brave, anonymous "whistleblowers" — in the same sort of flagrant violation of federal law and of the oath of confidentiality they gave to be trusted with access to the nation's most sensitive information — had instead leaked that program. Let's suppose they had gone to James Risen of the New York Times and told him not about warrantless wiretapping but about a surge in eavesdropping under judicial imprimatur. Would that FISA compliance have made it all okay? Do you really think there would have been no scandal? Or, in this climate that it has so tirelessly labored to create, do you think the Times would simply have weaved a different scandal?....
Congress is partly to blame for Bush's warrantless wiretaps
Congress is in an uproar over the Bush administration's use of warrantless wiretaps in the United States against American citizens. And well it might be. But to find the culprit, Congress has only to look in a mirror. The sad truth is that Congress does not want to exercise effective oversight of intelligence activities. President Bush, for his part, says Congress implicitly authorized eavesdropping and other searches without a warrant when it authorized the president to respond to 9/11. The president has also asserted his inherent power under the Constitution to wiretap without congressional authorization, either implied or explicit. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has admitted that the administration backed off seeking congressional authority because of advice from Capitol Hill that it would be too difficult to pass. So, if you don't think you can get it, say you don't need it. Mr. Bush is not the first president to claim an inherent power in matters of national security. The last one before Bush was his immediate predecessor, Bill Clinton, who claimed it in connection with the sale of secrets by CIA employee Aldrich Ames. The issue is not political; it is institutional. There is a further institutional issue between the executive and legislative branches: conflicting views of what is involved in consultation between them. Traditionally, the executive branch has thought it has consulted Congress when in fact it has done no more than inform Congress. Congress, on the other hand, does not think it has been consulted unless there has been discussion as to what to do about a given problem....
Terrorism and Probable Cause
In August 2001, instructors at a flight school in Minneapolis became suspicious of Zacharias Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent who want to fly airplanes but didn't want to learn how to land them. They tipped off the FBI, which arrested Moussaoui on an immigration violation. Among Moussaoui's possessions was a computer. Minneapolis agents wanted to go into the hard drive to check for contacts or other information. Doing so, however, required that FBI headquarters in Washington apply for a search warrant before a federal judge. Schooled in the latest niceties of contemporary law enforcement, the Washington office responded that there was no "probable cause" for conducting a search. "All you've got is a guy with an expired visa who's taking flight lessons," they said. "Where's the crime?" The Minneapolis office responded that it would be good to find out exactly what was going on before Moussaoui "took an airplane and flew it into the World Trade Center." Their pleas had no impact. Only after September 11th did FBI officials finally look into Moussaoui's computer, where they found information linking him to both the Hamburg cell that planned the attack and to its leader, Mohammed Atta....
Friday, January 06, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Wolf shot dead on ranch near Big Timber A ranch manager shot and killed a wolf that was reportedly chasing cattle last week southwest of Big Timber. The shooting was the seventh of its kind in Montana since the federal Department of Interior loosened rules last year intended to give landowners more flexibility in dealing with wolves that are attacking or harassing livestock. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees federally protected wolves, is reviewing the incident. The 2-year-old female wolf was shot Dec. 30, according to the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which has partial management authority over wolves in the state. The agency would not release the name of the ranch manager or identify the ranch where the wolf was shot. Jon Trapp, a state wolf management specialist based in Red Lodge, said the rancher reported wolves in the area last winter, but he hadn't heard any recent reports....
Easements conserve sensitive wildlife habitat It might seem strange to consider that roller coasters in Florida could contribute to a successful elk population in Wyoming, but that's exactly what's happening under some innovative plans to fund wildlife habitat conservation. The unlikely connection is the result of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's Absaroka Conservation Initiative, a program aimed at raising private money to fund conservation easements for critical elk habitat. "We've just received some money from Busch Gardens in Florida," said Bill Mytton, the foundation's lands program manager for Montana and Wyoming. "They're interested in working on conservation projects throughout the greater Yellowstone region." Another program initially proposed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal will use public money to fund conservation projects throughout the state. The Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust has received initial funding of $15 million, with a goal of building a $200 million fund from state mineral taxes. The trust will announce its first projects in June.....
Enforcement flights anger CMR hunters Airplane enforcement flights over the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge during Montana's fall hunting seasons may be designed to catch off-road travelers and game violators, but they also may be harassing law-abiding hunters and game animals, some say. "You can't hear what's ahead of you, and all the animals are nervous," said Alvie Hallock of Glasgow. Hallock was hunting on private property north of Jordan on Nov. 20, near the CMR boundary, when airplane overflights raised his blood pressure to the boiling point. "They're supposed to be public servants, not public menaces," he said. "They ought to go to public relations school." Hallock, a Glasgow body shop owner, was one of several hunters on land owned by Jerry Coldwell who encountered the planes. He left without filling his tag and soured about the CMR. CMR's managers defend the 20 days per season that planes are used for enforcement as a common-sense way to patrol a huge swath of rugged country....
Can we talk? "Prairie dogs have a language. They talk, and they sometimes talk about us," says Con Slobodchikoff, a professor of biology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. "Prairie dogs have alarm calls for different species of predators," Slobodchikoff says. "We have identified different calls for humans, domestic dogs, red-tailed hawks, coyotes, cats, badgers, weasels and eagles. "Within these calls, they can describe the physical features of the predator. They can describe the size and shape of an individual human and the color of clothes that he or she is wearing. They can describe the coat color and the size and shape of a domestic dog. . . . Our studies are showing that prairie dogs have the most sophisticated natural animal language that has been decoded to date." Slobodchikoff began studying the social behavior of prairie dogs about 20 years ago. He gradually recognized signs that the foot-long, 2-pound rodents, which live in colonies, appeared to have a shared language....
Interior secretary, Idaho governor sign wolf management plan Idaho has assumed management authority over more than 500 gray wolves that roam the state's central mountains under an agreement signed Thursday by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. This means that state Department of Fish and Game agents, not the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is now responsible for issuing wolf-kill permits to ranchers whose livestock has fallen victim to wolves. Some, including ranching groups and hunters, heralded the tranfer, saying the state will be more responsive than federal managers to controlling wolves that eat cattle, sheep and elk. Advocates for the controversial predator, meanwhile, fear state control will hurt wolf recovery efforts. Norton and Kempthorne, who called the signing a historic event, hope it leads to removing Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the region within 12 months....
Colorado Looks to Active RFID for Cervids After completing a trial of passive low-frequency and UHF RFID tags for cervid tracking, the Colorado Department of Agriculture has determined that active RFID tags may be the only way to gain the 100 percent read rate it seeks for cervid herds in the state. Cervid tracking is more rigorous in Colorado than in some other states because of a state mandate requiring ranchers to test dead elk and fallow deer for CWD, or chronic wasting disease. CWD is part of a group of ailments known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which includes mad cow disease. If an animal decomposes before being tested, neither ranchers nor the state can determine if it died of the lethal and contagious disease. Under the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) mandate, currently being developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), all cervid ranchers in the United States will be required to inventory their animals using RFID or some other method. No specific date for compliance has yet been determined....
Scorched forests best left alone, study finds Logging in the wake of southwest Oregon's giant 2002 Biscuit Fire destroyed more than two-thirds of seedlings sprouting from scorched ground and littered the soil with tinder that could fuel another blaze, scientists found. A research team led by Oregon State University concluded that in the first few years after a fire forests can recover as well or better on their own than if they are logged and replanted. The findings, published Thursday in online editions of the journal Science, undermine arguments behind a U.S. Forest Service program to salvage burned trees and plant seedlings across thousands of acres blackened by the Biscuit blaze. Among the goals of the work, backed by the timber industry and the Bush administration, was accelerating forest regrowth and clearing dead trees so they do not feed another inferno....
Loggers start removing burned trees northwest of Helena Nearly 2 1/2 years after a wildfire burned some 38,000 acres northwest of here, loggers are removing burned trees on part of the land, work that was scaled back following challenges by environmental groups. Loggers began removing dead and dying trees Wednesday on land burned by the Snow-Talon fire of 2003 and are likely to work for about eight weeks, said Ranger Amber Kamps of the Forest Service's Lincoln Ranger District. Sun Mountain Lumber Co. of Townsend bid $168,229 for the 4 million board feet of timber, mostly lodgepole pine and Douglas fir. An initial Forest Service analysis identified 27 million board feet for removal. Environmental groups challenged that amount as excessive and said the plan jeopardized bull trout, grizzly bears and lynx. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and others filed a formal notice of intent to sue....
Scientist draws heat for controversial climate theory Canada’s forests may actually worsen global warming rather than cool the planet, says a controversial study by a Stanford University physicist and environmental scientist. This doesn’t mean we should bulldoze forests to fight global warming, says Ken Caldeira. Forests are still valuable ecological features in many ways. But he says it’s "premature at least," and maybe even dead wrong, to plant new forests and maintain existing ones in the belief that this will cool the Earth. If we want to stop global warming, he says, we’d better begin by burning less fossil fuel. This is, he admits, an unpopular view with many. Since he presented his paper at the conference of the American Geophysical Union last month, he’s been getting an earful....
Official: Snowmobilers were in wilderness Two snowmobilers killed in a New Year's Day avalanche were in a wilderness area where motorized vehicles are prohibited, and others in their party may face charges, a U.S. Forest Service official said. Jacob Kroeger, 25, of Stockton, Iowa, and Gabriel Medina, 32, of Wilton, Iowa, died of suffocation after they were buried in an avalanche in the Neota Wilderness Area about 70 miles northwest of Denver, authorities said. Forest Service spokeswoman Reghan Cloudman said Kroeger, Medina and 10 other snowmobilers were in an area where all motor vehicles are barred. She said forestry officers will interview some members of the party, and they could be charged with using motorized vehicles in a protected wilderness area. A conviction carries a fine of up to $5,000 and a prison sentences of up to six months, she said....
Cemex a winner in ruling A federal judge once again has rejected the city's claims that federal agencies failed to perform a sufficient environmental analysis before approving a plan to mine 56.1 million tons of sand and gravel in Soledad Canyon. On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian sided with the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Board of Land Appeals in a 69-page final ruling favoring Mexico-based Cemex mining company. In its lawsuit, Santa Clarita had raised 15 claims under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and several federal mining laws in hopes of defeating the project. The city lost a related lawsuit in November....
Lawsuit filed over Sand Mt. blue butterfly A group of environmental organizations claims the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Nevada is dragging its feet over protecting habitat for the Sand Mountain blue butterfly and is taking agency to court. The Center for Biological Diversity, in a joint effort with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association, announced Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against the USFWS and U.S. Secretary of Interior Gale Norton for violating the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit stems from the fact that the Nevada division of the USFWS has taken longer than the required 90 days to answer a petition requesting that the Sand Mountain blue butterfly be named as an endangered species. The petition was originally filed in April 2004....
Earthjustice Calls for Independent Review of Federal Grizzly Bear Science In an effort to ensure an independent scientific review, a conservation law firm has asked the federal government to provide the scientific data on which it relies to justify delisting the Yellowstone grizzly bear population and potential grizzly bear hunting. Earthjustice asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to release scientific data about the Yellowstone grizzly bears, which the federal government has previously refused to release. “Science depends on other scientists reviewing data and attempting to repeat the work of published authors. The federal government has refused to release key grizzly bear data even after the publication of scientific papers,” said Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold. “Their game plan is to delist the grizzly bear before independent scientists can review the basic data. Bears would be dodging bullets before independent scientists could assess whether the federal government has missed the boat.”....
BLM plans roundup of Red Rock Canyon wild horses near Las Vegas The Bureau of Land Management plans to round up and remove most of a herd of wild horses that roam Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in southern Nevada. The agency said Wednesday it would remove 19 of 35 horses from the area this year and add four mares to the herd next year from the BLM's Wheeler Pass Herd Management Area. It called the roundup necessary to help remaining animals find food in an area near Goodsprings damaged by wildfire last summer. "Reducing the herd size would not only ensure forage for the remaining herd, but protect reseeding efforts in the burned area," a BLM statement said....
Expert Blames Dog Disease for Wolf Decline Most of the gray wolf pups born in Yellowstone National Park last year have died, a federal wolf expert says, and he believes a dog disease _ parvo virus _ may be behind the dramatic loss. Just 22 of the 69 pups born last year are still alive, said Doug Smith, the park's wolf project leader. That's the biggest drop in pup numbers since wolves were reintroduced to the park 11 years ago, with the greatest toll seen on the park's northern range. There, he said just eight of the 49 pups born last spring survived. "It's cause for concern, a great deal of concern," he said. Over the next few weeks, Smith said, officials plan to catch Yellowstone wolf pups and take blood samples to see if the suspicions about parvo virus are true. The disease can cause extreme diarrhea and dehydration and kill more vulnerable animals, like young pups....
Battle over property rights goes on, despite ruling The moment of truth is yet to arrive in the now-famous Fort Trumbull neighborhood in New London, Conn. Six months after the US Supreme Court ruled that the city could seize and demolish private homes to make way for a commercial development project, determined residents are still living in their homes in the targeted neighborhood. There have been no bulldozers. No wrecking balls. No police officers dragging homeowners away. At least, not yet. Instead, the state of Connecticut has hired a mediator to try to find a more peaceful solution to the seven-year battle that has touched off a heated debate over the government's use of eminent domain to foster economic development. To property rights activists across the nation, Fort Trumbull has become ground zero in that battle ever since the high court's 5-4 ruling. These activists are using outrage over the case to spearhead a reform movement aimed at passing laws to make it increasingly difficult for local and state governments to raze homes and turn the land over to private developers....
Critics of rural Nevada water-pumping plan urge go-slow approach Opponents of a $2 billion plan to pump rural Nevada groundwater to booming Las Vegas said Thursday the state should move slowly in reviewing the plan despite pressure from advocates for quick action. Simeon Herskovits of the Western Environmental Law Center said the state's water engineer, Hugh Ricci, should wait until a federal study on water is completed in 2007 before deciding on the water-pumping request from the southern Nevada Water Authority. Rancher Dean Baker of Snake Valley, a potential pumping area on the Nevada-Utah border, said Ricci should complete work on existing water right issues before granting any new water permits. Jerald Anderson, also from the Snake Valley, added that moving ahead too quickly would be "a rush to judgment, and we need more time to protect agricultural interests."....
Lack of Arizona snowpack expected to have negative impact Arizona's lack of winter snow will translate into problems statewide later this year for communities dependent upon surface water flows and worsen the wildfire season, experts say. Water supply specialist Larry Martinez, snow survey program manager for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, says snowpack is virtually nonexistent this winter all across the ponderosa pine belt from Williams to Alpine. "All indications are that based on the snowpack that we have now, which is zero, that the flows are going to be affected in a negative way as we roll into spring and early summer," Martinez said. "Most affected will be the folks in the rural communities - including Flagstaff - because they depend on surface water for their water," he said. What's more, the nonexistent snowpack portends an active wildfire season, said Chuck Maxwell, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service meteorologist and predictive services group leader for the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque, N.M....
Arrest made in Silver City slaying A tip has led authorities to the arrest a 35-year-old man in the slaying of Silver City rancher John Timothy Edwards. James Michael Snider was arrested at 8:30 a.m. today without incident, Grant County Sheriff Raul "Bully" Holguin said. He was being held at the Grant County Detention Center on a $500,000 cash bond on an open count of murder and tampering with evidence, Holguin said. Edwards, 62, was found near his truck on Forest Road 172 on Dec. 30. Sheriff's officials have not released the cause of death. A photograph of Snider was circulated to area law enforcement late Wednesday night and another tip led detectives to an undisclosed residence on Cottage San Road where Snider was arrested....
Mysterious Horse Deaths Raise Theories About UFOs It's been a long time since Colorado ranchers sat on their porches at night with shotguns, scanning the sky, but there's a new mystery on the eastern plains involving the deaths of six horses and a burro in Calhan. The case has caught the attention of UFO investigators. The truth, they say, is out there. "Is this a mystery? It's a huge mystery," said Linda Moulton Howe of Albuquerque, N.M., author of "An Alien Harvest," a book about cattle mutilations. "What it all means I don't know. But do I think humans did that? Absolutely not." The facts are sparse: On Oct. 11, six horses and a burro -- all healthy -- were found dead in a field near Calhan. Dr. John Heikkila, the veterinarian who examined the animals, ruled out a winter storm, disease, toxic plants and lightning. Officials remain puzzled by the quarter-inch puncture holes in the animals' hides, originally thought to be gunshot wounds, but no bullets were found. Toxicology tests for common poisons were negative, and expensive testing for "unusual possibilities" was not done because of cost, Heikkila wrote in his Nov. 20 autopsy report. He concluded that an unusual toxin, delivered through a dart or pellet, caused the deaths....
Wolf shot dead on ranch near Big Timber A ranch manager shot and killed a wolf that was reportedly chasing cattle last week southwest of Big Timber. The shooting was the seventh of its kind in Montana since the federal Department of Interior loosened rules last year intended to give landowners more flexibility in dealing with wolves that are attacking or harassing livestock. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees federally protected wolves, is reviewing the incident. The 2-year-old female wolf was shot Dec. 30, according to the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which has partial management authority over wolves in the state. The agency would not release the name of the ranch manager or identify the ranch where the wolf was shot. Jon Trapp, a state wolf management specialist based in Red Lodge, said the rancher reported wolves in the area last winter, but he hadn't heard any recent reports....
Easements conserve sensitive wildlife habitat It might seem strange to consider that roller coasters in Florida could contribute to a successful elk population in Wyoming, but that's exactly what's happening under some innovative plans to fund wildlife habitat conservation. The unlikely connection is the result of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's Absaroka Conservation Initiative, a program aimed at raising private money to fund conservation easements for critical elk habitat. "We've just received some money from Busch Gardens in Florida," said Bill Mytton, the foundation's lands program manager for Montana and Wyoming. "They're interested in working on conservation projects throughout the greater Yellowstone region." Another program initially proposed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal will use public money to fund conservation projects throughout the state. The Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust has received initial funding of $15 million, with a goal of building a $200 million fund from state mineral taxes. The trust will announce its first projects in June.....
Enforcement flights anger CMR hunters Airplane enforcement flights over the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge during Montana's fall hunting seasons may be designed to catch off-road travelers and game violators, but they also may be harassing law-abiding hunters and game animals, some say. "You can't hear what's ahead of you, and all the animals are nervous," said Alvie Hallock of Glasgow. Hallock was hunting on private property north of Jordan on Nov. 20, near the CMR boundary, when airplane overflights raised his blood pressure to the boiling point. "They're supposed to be public servants, not public menaces," he said. "They ought to go to public relations school." Hallock, a Glasgow body shop owner, was one of several hunters on land owned by Jerry Coldwell who encountered the planes. He left without filling his tag and soured about the CMR. CMR's managers defend the 20 days per season that planes are used for enforcement as a common-sense way to patrol a huge swath of rugged country....
Can we talk? "Prairie dogs have a language. They talk, and they sometimes talk about us," says Con Slobodchikoff, a professor of biology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. "Prairie dogs have alarm calls for different species of predators," Slobodchikoff says. "We have identified different calls for humans, domestic dogs, red-tailed hawks, coyotes, cats, badgers, weasels and eagles. "Within these calls, they can describe the physical features of the predator. They can describe the size and shape of an individual human and the color of clothes that he or she is wearing. They can describe the coat color and the size and shape of a domestic dog. . . . Our studies are showing that prairie dogs have the most sophisticated natural animal language that has been decoded to date." Slobodchikoff began studying the social behavior of prairie dogs about 20 years ago. He gradually recognized signs that the foot-long, 2-pound rodents, which live in colonies, appeared to have a shared language....
Interior secretary, Idaho governor sign wolf management plan Idaho has assumed management authority over more than 500 gray wolves that roam the state's central mountains under an agreement signed Thursday by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. This means that state Department of Fish and Game agents, not the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is now responsible for issuing wolf-kill permits to ranchers whose livestock has fallen victim to wolves. Some, including ranching groups and hunters, heralded the tranfer, saying the state will be more responsive than federal managers to controlling wolves that eat cattle, sheep and elk. Advocates for the controversial predator, meanwhile, fear state control will hurt wolf recovery efforts. Norton and Kempthorne, who called the signing a historic event, hope it leads to removing Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the region within 12 months....
Colorado Looks to Active RFID for Cervids After completing a trial of passive low-frequency and UHF RFID tags for cervid tracking, the Colorado Department of Agriculture has determined that active RFID tags may be the only way to gain the 100 percent read rate it seeks for cervid herds in the state. Cervid tracking is more rigorous in Colorado than in some other states because of a state mandate requiring ranchers to test dead elk and fallow deer for CWD, or chronic wasting disease. CWD is part of a group of ailments known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which includes mad cow disease. If an animal decomposes before being tested, neither ranchers nor the state can determine if it died of the lethal and contagious disease. Under the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) mandate, currently being developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), all cervid ranchers in the United States will be required to inventory their animals using RFID or some other method. No specific date for compliance has yet been determined....
Scorched forests best left alone, study finds Logging in the wake of southwest Oregon's giant 2002 Biscuit Fire destroyed more than two-thirds of seedlings sprouting from scorched ground and littered the soil with tinder that could fuel another blaze, scientists found. A research team led by Oregon State University concluded that in the first few years after a fire forests can recover as well or better on their own than if they are logged and replanted. The findings, published Thursday in online editions of the journal Science, undermine arguments behind a U.S. Forest Service program to salvage burned trees and plant seedlings across thousands of acres blackened by the Biscuit blaze. Among the goals of the work, backed by the timber industry and the Bush administration, was accelerating forest regrowth and clearing dead trees so they do not feed another inferno....
Loggers start removing burned trees northwest of Helena Nearly 2 1/2 years after a wildfire burned some 38,000 acres northwest of here, loggers are removing burned trees on part of the land, work that was scaled back following challenges by environmental groups. Loggers began removing dead and dying trees Wednesday on land burned by the Snow-Talon fire of 2003 and are likely to work for about eight weeks, said Ranger Amber Kamps of the Forest Service's Lincoln Ranger District. Sun Mountain Lumber Co. of Townsend bid $168,229 for the 4 million board feet of timber, mostly lodgepole pine and Douglas fir. An initial Forest Service analysis identified 27 million board feet for removal. Environmental groups challenged that amount as excessive and said the plan jeopardized bull trout, grizzly bears and lynx. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and others filed a formal notice of intent to sue....
Scientist draws heat for controversial climate theory Canada’s forests may actually worsen global warming rather than cool the planet, says a controversial study by a Stanford University physicist and environmental scientist. This doesn’t mean we should bulldoze forests to fight global warming, says Ken Caldeira. Forests are still valuable ecological features in many ways. But he says it’s "premature at least," and maybe even dead wrong, to plant new forests and maintain existing ones in the belief that this will cool the Earth. If we want to stop global warming, he says, we’d better begin by burning less fossil fuel. This is, he admits, an unpopular view with many. Since he presented his paper at the conference of the American Geophysical Union last month, he’s been getting an earful....
Official: Snowmobilers were in wilderness Two snowmobilers killed in a New Year's Day avalanche were in a wilderness area where motorized vehicles are prohibited, and others in their party may face charges, a U.S. Forest Service official said. Jacob Kroeger, 25, of Stockton, Iowa, and Gabriel Medina, 32, of Wilton, Iowa, died of suffocation after they were buried in an avalanche in the Neota Wilderness Area about 70 miles northwest of Denver, authorities said. Forest Service spokeswoman Reghan Cloudman said Kroeger, Medina and 10 other snowmobilers were in an area where all motor vehicles are barred. She said forestry officers will interview some members of the party, and they could be charged with using motorized vehicles in a protected wilderness area. A conviction carries a fine of up to $5,000 and a prison sentences of up to six months, she said....
Cemex a winner in ruling A federal judge once again has rejected the city's claims that federal agencies failed to perform a sufficient environmental analysis before approving a plan to mine 56.1 million tons of sand and gravel in Soledad Canyon. On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian sided with the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Board of Land Appeals in a 69-page final ruling favoring Mexico-based Cemex mining company. In its lawsuit, Santa Clarita had raised 15 claims under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and several federal mining laws in hopes of defeating the project. The city lost a related lawsuit in November....
Lawsuit filed over Sand Mt. blue butterfly A group of environmental organizations claims the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Nevada is dragging its feet over protecting habitat for the Sand Mountain blue butterfly and is taking agency to court. The Center for Biological Diversity, in a joint effort with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association, announced Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against the USFWS and U.S. Secretary of Interior Gale Norton for violating the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit stems from the fact that the Nevada division of the USFWS has taken longer than the required 90 days to answer a petition requesting that the Sand Mountain blue butterfly be named as an endangered species. The petition was originally filed in April 2004....
Earthjustice Calls for Independent Review of Federal Grizzly Bear Science In an effort to ensure an independent scientific review, a conservation law firm has asked the federal government to provide the scientific data on which it relies to justify delisting the Yellowstone grizzly bear population and potential grizzly bear hunting. Earthjustice asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to release scientific data about the Yellowstone grizzly bears, which the federal government has previously refused to release. “Science depends on other scientists reviewing data and attempting to repeat the work of published authors. The federal government has refused to release key grizzly bear data even after the publication of scientific papers,” said Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold. “Their game plan is to delist the grizzly bear before independent scientists can review the basic data. Bears would be dodging bullets before independent scientists could assess whether the federal government has missed the boat.”....
BLM plans roundup of Red Rock Canyon wild horses near Las Vegas The Bureau of Land Management plans to round up and remove most of a herd of wild horses that roam Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in southern Nevada. The agency said Wednesday it would remove 19 of 35 horses from the area this year and add four mares to the herd next year from the BLM's Wheeler Pass Herd Management Area. It called the roundup necessary to help remaining animals find food in an area near Goodsprings damaged by wildfire last summer. "Reducing the herd size would not only ensure forage for the remaining herd, but protect reseeding efforts in the burned area," a BLM statement said....
Expert Blames Dog Disease for Wolf Decline Most of the gray wolf pups born in Yellowstone National Park last year have died, a federal wolf expert says, and he believes a dog disease _ parvo virus _ may be behind the dramatic loss. Just 22 of the 69 pups born last year are still alive, said Doug Smith, the park's wolf project leader. That's the biggest drop in pup numbers since wolves were reintroduced to the park 11 years ago, with the greatest toll seen on the park's northern range. There, he said just eight of the 49 pups born last spring survived. "It's cause for concern, a great deal of concern," he said. Over the next few weeks, Smith said, officials plan to catch Yellowstone wolf pups and take blood samples to see if the suspicions about parvo virus are true. The disease can cause extreme diarrhea and dehydration and kill more vulnerable animals, like young pups....
Battle over property rights goes on, despite ruling The moment of truth is yet to arrive in the now-famous Fort Trumbull neighborhood in New London, Conn. Six months after the US Supreme Court ruled that the city could seize and demolish private homes to make way for a commercial development project, determined residents are still living in their homes in the targeted neighborhood. There have been no bulldozers. No wrecking balls. No police officers dragging homeowners away. At least, not yet. Instead, the state of Connecticut has hired a mediator to try to find a more peaceful solution to the seven-year battle that has touched off a heated debate over the government's use of eminent domain to foster economic development. To property rights activists across the nation, Fort Trumbull has become ground zero in that battle ever since the high court's 5-4 ruling. These activists are using outrage over the case to spearhead a reform movement aimed at passing laws to make it increasingly difficult for local and state governments to raze homes and turn the land over to private developers....
Critics of rural Nevada water-pumping plan urge go-slow approach Opponents of a $2 billion plan to pump rural Nevada groundwater to booming Las Vegas said Thursday the state should move slowly in reviewing the plan despite pressure from advocates for quick action. Simeon Herskovits of the Western Environmental Law Center said the state's water engineer, Hugh Ricci, should wait until a federal study on water is completed in 2007 before deciding on the water-pumping request from the southern Nevada Water Authority. Rancher Dean Baker of Snake Valley, a potential pumping area on the Nevada-Utah border, said Ricci should complete work on existing water right issues before granting any new water permits. Jerald Anderson, also from the Snake Valley, added that moving ahead too quickly would be "a rush to judgment, and we need more time to protect agricultural interests."....
Lack of Arizona snowpack expected to have negative impact Arizona's lack of winter snow will translate into problems statewide later this year for communities dependent upon surface water flows and worsen the wildfire season, experts say. Water supply specialist Larry Martinez, snow survey program manager for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, says snowpack is virtually nonexistent this winter all across the ponderosa pine belt from Williams to Alpine. "All indications are that based on the snowpack that we have now, which is zero, that the flows are going to be affected in a negative way as we roll into spring and early summer," Martinez said. "Most affected will be the folks in the rural communities - including Flagstaff - because they depend on surface water for their water," he said. What's more, the nonexistent snowpack portends an active wildfire season, said Chuck Maxwell, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service meteorologist and predictive services group leader for the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque, N.M....
Arrest made in Silver City slaying A tip has led authorities to the arrest a 35-year-old man in the slaying of Silver City rancher John Timothy Edwards. James Michael Snider was arrested at 8:30 a.m. today without incident, Grant County Sheriff Raul "Bully" Holguin said. He was being held at the Grant County Detention Center on a $500,000 cash bond on an open count of murder and tampering with evidence, Holguin said. Edwards, 62, was found near his truck on Forest Road 172 on Dec. 30. Sheriff's officials have not released the cause of death. A photograph of Snider was circulated to area law enforcement late Wednesday night and another tip led detectives to an undisclosed residence on Cottage San Road where Snider was arrested....
Mysterious Horse Deaths Raise Theories About UFOs It's been a long time since Colorado ranchers sat on their porches at night with shotguns, scanning the sky, but there's a new mystery on the eastern plains involving the deaths of six horses and a burro in Calhan. The case has caught the attention of UFO investigators. The truth, they say, is out there. "Is this a mystery? It's a huge mystery," said Linda Moulton Howe of Albuquerque, N.M., author of "An Alien Harvest," a book about cattle mutilations. "What it all means I don't know. But do I think humans did that? Absolutely not." The facts are sparse: On Oct. 11, six horses and a burro -- all healthy -- were found dead in a field near Calhan. Dr. John Heikkila, the veterinarian who examined the animals, ruled out a winter storm, disease, toxic plants and lightning. Officials remain puzzled by the quarter-inch puncture holes in the animals' hides, originally thought to be gunshot wounds, but no bullets were found. Toxicology tests for common poisons were negative, and expensive testing for "unusual possibilities" was not done because of cost, Heikkila wrote in his Nov. 20 autopsy report. He concluded that an unusual toxin, delivered through a dart or pellet, caused the deaths....
Thursday, January 05, 2006
FLE
NSA whistleblower asks to testify
A former National Security Agency official wants to tell Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Russ Tice, a whistleblower who was dismissed from the NSA last year, stated in letters to the House and Senate intelligence committees that he is prepared to testify about highly classified Special Access Programs, or SAPs, that were improperly carried out by both the NSA and the DIA. "I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency," Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times. The letters were sent the same day that the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FISA court issues orders for targeted electronic and other surveillance by the government. In his Dec. 16 letter, Mr. Tice wrote that his testimony would be given under the provisions of the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which makes it legal for intelligence officials to disclose wrongdoing without being punished. The activities involved the NSA director, the NSA deputies chief of staff for air and space operations and the secretary of defense, he stated. "These ... acts were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs," Mr. Tice said....
The spy plan's spoiler
JAMES B. COMEY CAN HARDLY be considered soft on terrorism. As deputy attorney general, he has been one of the Bush administration's chief prosecutors of the war on terror, pursuing accused bombers and terrorists from Riyadh to Chicago. So his refusal to approve the administration's warrantless wiretaps of Americans cannot simply be dismissed as the rantings of an Al Qaeda apologist. But Comey's objections, made in 2004 and first reported Sunday in the New York Times, do more than rob the president and his defenders of one of their favorite arguments. The article was based on the accounts of unnamed administration officials, and Comey isn't giving the reasons for his opposition to the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program. But they're easy to guess. First, the program is unnecessary. There is already a special court to approve wiretaps of suspected terrorists, and it is notoriously obliging; in 2004, it received 1,758 requests for warrants and denied none of them. It often issues such warrants within hours and can approve them after the fact. (Details about the court's activities are secret.) And the Patriot Act, almost all of which has been renewed, gives law enforcement extraordinary powers to fight terrorists. Second, the program is probably illegal. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created that special court, specifically allows warrantless surveillance in the case of war, but for only 15 days after that war has been declared. If it had to conduct such surveillance for longer than that — Congress authorized the use of force, which is tantamount to a declaration of war, one week after 9/11 — the executive branch would need to change the law....
Surveillance Court Is Seeking Answers
The members of a secret federal court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases are scheduled to receive a classified briefing Monday from top Justice Department and intelligence officials about a controversial warrantless-eavesdropping program, according to sources familiar with the arrangements. Several judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said they want to hear directly from administration officials why President Bush believed he had the authority to order, without the court's permission, wiretapping of some phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Of serious concern to several judges is whether any information gleaned from intercepts by the National Security Agency was later used to gain their permission for wiretaps without the source being disclosed. The court is made up of 11 judges who, on a rotating basis, hear government applications for surveillance warrants. But only the presiding judge, currently Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, was notified of the government eavesdropping program. One judge, James Robertson, who also serves on the federal bench in Washington, resigned his seat on the surveillance court in protest shortly after the wiretapping was revealed by the New York Times in mid-December. Kollar-Kotelly began pressing for a closed government briefing for the remaining members of the court on Dec. 19, the day she learned of Robertson's concerns. Other judges wanted to know, as Robertson had, whether the administration had misled their court about its sources of information on possible terrorism suspects. Kollar-Kotelly had privately raised concerns in 2004 about the risk that the government could taint the integrity of the court's work by using information it gained via wiretapping to obtain warrants from judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act....
Cheney strongly defends eavesdropping operation
Vice President Dick Cheney strongly defended a secret domestic eavesdropping operation in use since the September 11, 2001, attacks, saying it was not violating American civil liberties and has helped fend off potential terrorist attacks. "The enemy that struck on 9/11 is weakened and fractured yet it is still lethal and planning to hit us again. Either we are serious about fighting this war or we are not," Cheney said in remarks prepared for a speech at the Heritage Foundation think tank. Revelations that the National Security Agency was secretly monitoring phone calls between people in the United States and suspected al Qaeda followers abroad has sparked an outcry from Democrats and Republicans, with many lawmakers and rights groups questioning whether it violates the U.S. Constitution. Cheney, in speech excerpts released by the White House, called President George W. Bush's decision to intercept "a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications" a vital step. "There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If we'd been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon," Cheney said. Cheney insisted that Bush was committed to protecting civil liberties. "He has made clear from the outset, both publicly and privately, that our duty to uphold the law of the land admits no exceptions in wartime," Cheney said....
Secret Surveillance May Have Occurred Before Authorization
Even before the White House formally authorized a secret program to spy on U.S. citizens without obtaining warrants, such eavesdropping was occurring and some of the information was being shared with the FBI, declassified correspondence and interviews with congressional and intelligence officials indicate. On Oct. 1, 2001, three weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was running the National Security Agency at the time, told the House intelligence committee that the agency was broadening its surveillance authorities, according to a newly released letter sent to him that month by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). Pelosi, the ranking Democrat on the committee, raised concerns in the letter, which was declassified with several redactions and made public yesterday by her staff. "I am concerned whether and to what extent the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting," Pelosi wrote on Oct. 11, 2001. The substance of Hayden's response one week later, on Oct. 17, 2001, was redacted. The secret NSA program, developed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on Washington and New York as a way to find any hidden al Qaeda operatives still in the United States, was authorized in October 2001, a senior administration official said. The president and senior aides have publicly discussed various aspects of the program, but neither the White House, the NSA nor the office of the director of national intelligence would say what day the president authorized it. Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in an e-mail yesterday that it would be inappropriate to "discuss details which could potentially cause harm to the safety of our nation." Pelosi's letter suggested that she and others on the committee first heard about expanded work by the NSA on Oct. 1, 2001, when Hayden briefed them on NSA activities....
Dueling Investigations
This one is going to be interesting. On the left, we have the outrage of those who are ever so conscientious of our civil liberties. On the right, we have those who believe civil liberties are meaningless if you are dead. The strategies are clear. One side will try to obfuscate a serious breach of national security. The other will make their case in a sea of biased reporting and politics at its worst. The word that would seem to apply here is “chutzpah.” It takes a lot of brass to create a scandal by disclosing classified information and then blaming those injured by your action. In spite of the spin of “domestic spying” and “big brother,” the truth is, those in Congress who should have been informed of the operation were, and that includes those who now spew such hypocritical outrage. Are those who protest too much, the ones who just may be in a whole lot of hot water? The opinions being regurgitated as to whether it was legal for the president to authorize electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists without a court order is astonishing. What seems abundantly clear is that no one really has a clue as to a definitive answer to this question. Fortunately for the president, there is clear precedent on his side to support his decision. More remarkable however are the positions themselves. On the Democrat side, there is complete indignation over the fact that residents in this country, citizens or not could be subjected to “electronic eavesdropping” without prior authorization from the court. No discussion as to legal status of those being monitored, the sensitive nature of the reasons for that surveillance or the immediate impact to national security, simply a total disregard for the relevancy for taking action and faux “outrage” because it happened....
Spy Crimes
aced with the most serious legal scandal of his administration, President Bush's impulse has been to stonewall. He has denied misleading the public when he insisted last year that any government wiretaps were conducted under court order, and his Justice Department has defended the legality of his domestic spying program in unequivocal terms. But the administration's legal defense is unconvincing--based on a willful misreading of Supreme Court precedents and congressional intentions. It should not excuse Bush's actions. And Congress must make sure that it does not. Many legal questions have subjective and uncertain answers. But the legality of Bush's domestic surveillance program is not one of them. The program almost certainly violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which prohibits "electronic surveillance" of "any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States," except as authorized by law. Since the administration has admitted that it intercepted telephone calls to and from American citizens in the United States without getting a court order, it clearly broke the law. Bush's most extreme defenders actually concede that he violated the law, but they insist that the president has inherent authority to ignore or break any law that restricts his authority as commander-in-chief under Article II of the Constitution. This is a radical extension of the arguments about unilateral presidential power championed by former Justice Department official John Yoo, a defender of the Bush surveillance program, and David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. But no court has ever suggested that the widely respected FISA law might be an unconstitutional infringement on the president's constitutional authority, and no president before Bush has had the audacity to press such an absurd claim....
Justices Order Padilla Terror Case Moved to Civilian Court
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed federal prosecutors yesterday to take over the case of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla so he could face criminal terrorism charges, overruling a lower court and ending an unusual battle between the executive and judicial branches. In a one-page order, the justices authorized Padilla's transfer from a Navy brig to Justice Department custody. He will be brought before a federal judge in Miami. The Bush administration had requested the transfer, and government officials said they were pleased with the court's order. But yesterday's decision did not settle the larger issues raised by the Padilla case, including whether a U.S. citizen could be held in military custody without charges. Still, the order marked a major step in the odyssey of Padilla, whose arrest in Chicago in 2002 triggered a legal and philosophical battle over the government's power to detain Americans captured in this country. He was introduced to the public as a shadowy former gang member who converted to Islam and stood accused by top federal officials of plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb." He was locked in the brig for more than three years. For much of that time, Padilla had no access to a lawyer, and he has never appeared in court to fight his detention. Now, the man whose face is known only from one old photo shown repeatedly on television and in newspapers will appear in a public courtroom in a case that has come to symbolize many of the conflicting arguments over the Bush administration's approach to fighting terrorism....
New documents may influence Patriot Act debate
When Congress reconvenes this month, one of the first chores facing lawmakers will be reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, and newly disclosed documents could become a factor in the debate. Those opposing the current long-term reauthorization bill could have more rhetorical ammunition by the end of the month, as documents from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit trickle out of FBI offices. The Electronic Privacy Information Center early last year filed a FOIA request but received few documents until a federal district judge in November ordered the FBI to produce 1,500 pages of documents every 15 days until the requests are fulfilled. EPIC is scheduled to receive the latest batch of documents Wednesday. The previous batch of documents, delivered shortly before Christmas, show that the FBI's office of general counsel had sent to the Intelligence Oversight Board several complaints about agents' snooping activities. The board is comprised of three members, is housed in the White House and reports to the president. Some of the complaints relate to how agents tracked their targets. One complaint, for example, showed concern over the tracking of a suspect's telephone calls. The agent continued the tracking even after someone other than the suspect started using the phone, said Marcia Hofmann, director of EPIC's open government project. Another document shows that an FBI agent received an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that allowed him to access addressing information on a suspect's e-mails, but he ultimately accessed more information in the e-mails than allowed by the court....
Government Web sites are keeping an eye on you
Dozens of federal agencies are tracking visits to U.S. government Web sites in violation of long-standing rules designed to protect online privacy, a CNET News.com investigation shows. From the Air Force to the Treasury Department, government agencies are using either "Web bugs" or permanent cookies to monitor their visitors' behavior, even though federal law restricts the practice. Some departments changed their practices this week after being contacted by CNET News.com. The Pentagon said it wasn't aware that its popular Defenselink.mil portal tracked visitors--in violation of a privacy notice--and said it would fix the problem. So did the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. "We were not aware of the cookies set to expire in 2016," a Pentagon representative said Wednesday. "All of the cookies we had set with WebTrends were to be strictly (temporary) cookies, and we are taking immediate action." WebTrends is a commercial Web-monitoring service. The practice of tracking Web visitors came under fire last week when the National Security Agency was found to use permanent cookies to monitor visitors, a practice it halted after inquiries from the Associated Press. The White House also was criticized last week for employing WebTrends' tracking mechanism that used a tiny GIF image....
Groups go to court over wiretap rule for Internet calls
A new federal regulation making it easier for law enforcement to tap Internet phone calls is being challenged in court. Privacy and technology groups asked the federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday to overturn a Federal Communications Commission rule that expands wiretapping laws to cover Internet calls — or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Law enforcement agencies already can obtain a subpoena for the contents of VoIP calls from Internet access providers. But the FBI and others want the ability to capture the technology live and they want systems designed so it would be easy to do that. "The whole process of innovation on the Internet would be seriously damaged," said John Morris, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. To meet the rule's requirements, Internet call providers would have to rewire networks at great cost, Morris said. In addition, there is fear the rule would stifle development of new technologies by placing more regulatory burdens on innovators....
Report Faults TSA Security Contracting
Transportation Security Administration officials rushing to hire airport passenger screeners after Sept. 11, 2001, may have violated contracting regulations by failing to track spending while telling a contractor to "do whatever was necessary" to meet congressional deadlines, according to a new government report. Soon after awarding a $104 million contract in February 2002 to hire 30,000 screeners, the under-staffed agency demanded significant changes to the contract that would eventually push the price of the deal to more than $741 million. TSA officials then moved forward with no planning "or adequate cost control," the report said, and they ignored warnings from contractor NCS Pearson Inc. that project costs had far exceeded the budget approved by Congress. "Generally, legislative deadlines, rather than detailed requirements or cost analyses, drove TSA's management decisions," said the report, which was prepared by the Office of Inspector General at the Homeland Security Department. The 32-page report is set to be released next week. A Pearson spokeswoman declined to comment on the report, saying she had not seen it. A TSA spokeswoman also said she had not seen the report and could not comment. The report's findings are based largely on the work of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, which called into question $303 million of the government's spending on the screener contract....
Shootings against Border Patrol escalating
More than two dozen shots were fired at Border Patrol agents from across the Rio Grande on Friday and Wednesday, marking a large increase in such shootings in this sector of the border, an agency official said. In fiscal year 2005, there were a total of six shootings, said Julio Salinas, spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley sector Border Patrol. The shootings reported Friday and Wednesday are the sixth and seventh shootings since fiscal year began Oct. 1, officials said. The increase in violence against agents is likely due to the effectiveness of the patrol’s enforcement, he said. The smugglers react violently to the Border Patrol’s presence, Salinas said. “We believe it is due to operations, due to the fact that we are a threat to the narcotic or alien smugglers, and that is one of the ways they react,” he said....
Fatal shooting of Mexican by agent at border probed
Police officials in San Diego are investigating the shooting death of a Mexican national by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, who fired a shot at the man after being targeted in a rock attack. Border Patrol spokesman Todd Fraser yesterday said the agent, an eight-year veteran whose name was withheld, came under attack Friday after approaching the man along fences on the U.S.-Mexico border near the San Ysidro, Calif., port of entry. He said the man was standing on the U.S. side of the fence at the time of the 7:25 p.m. encounter, but returned to Mexico after the shooting. Mr. Fraser said the unidentified agent fired in self-defense, trying to protect himself from what agents in the area describe as a "rocking," during which agents and their vehicles are pelted with large rocks or chunks of cement blocks. He said the agent, fearing for his life, fired one round at the man, who then fled back to Mexico. He said the agent was not sure at the time whether the man had been hit. The shooting victim has been identified by Mexican officials as Guillermo Martinez Rodriguez, an 18-year-old who checked himself into a Tijuana, Mexico, hospital after the incident but died four hours later. He reportedly was struck by a single gunshot to the back of his right shoulder....
NSA whistleblower asks to testify
A former National Security Agency official wants to tell Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Russ Tice, a whistleblower who was dismissed from the NSA last year, stated in letters to the House and Senate intelligence committees that he is prepared to testify about highly classified Special Access Programs, or SAPs, that were improperly carried out by both the NSA and the DIA. "I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency," Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times. The letters were sent the same day that the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FISA court issues orders for targeted electronic and other surveillance by the government. In his Dec. 16 letter, Mr. Tice wrote that his testimony would be given under the provisions of the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which makes it legal for intelligence officials to disclose wrongdoing without being punished. The activities involved the NSA director, the NSA deputies chief of staff for air and space operations and the secretary of defense, he stated. "These ... acts were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs," Mr. Tice said....
The spy plan's spoiler
JAMES B. COMEY CAN HARDLY be considered soft on terrorism. As deputy attorney general, he has been one of the Bush administration's chief prosecutors of the war on terror, pursuing accused bombers and terrorists from Riyadh to Chicago. So his refusal to approve the administration's warrantless wiretaps of Americans cannot simply be dismissed as the rantings of an Al Qaeda apologist. But Comey's objections, made in 2004 and first reported Sunday in the New York Times, do more than rob the president and his defenders of one of their favorite arguments. The article was based on the accounts of unnamed administration officials, and Comey isn't giving the reasons for his opposition to the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program. But they're easy to guess. First, the program is unnecessary. There is already a special court to approve wiretaps of suspected terrorists, and it is notoriously obliging; in 2004, it received 1,758 requests for warrants and denied none of them. It often issues such warrants within hours and can approve them after the fact. (Details about the court's activities are secret.) And the Patriot Act, almost all of which has been renewed, gives law enforcement extraordinary powers to fight terrorists. Second, the program is probably illegal. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created that special court, specifically allows warrantless surveillance in the case of war, but for only 15 days after that war has been declared. If it had to conduct such surveillance for longer than that — Congress authorized the use of force, which is tantamount to a declaration of war, one week after 9/11 — the executive branch would need to change the law....
Surveillance Court Is Seeking Answers
The members of a secret federal court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases are scheduled to receive a classified briefing Monday from top Justice Department and intelligence officials about a controversial warrantless-eavesdropping program, according to sources familiar with the arrangements. Several judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said they want to hear directly from administration officials why President Bush believed he had the authority to order, without the court's permission, wiretapping of some phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Of serious concern to several judges is whether any information gleaned from intercepts by the National Security Agency was later used to gain their permission for wiretaps without the source being disclosed. The court is made up of 11 judges who, on a rotating basis, hear government applications for surveillance warrants. But only the presiding judge, currently Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, was notified of the government eavesdropping program. One judge, James Robertson, who also serves on the federal bench in Washington, resigned his seat on the surveillance court in protest shortly after the wiretapping was revealed by the New York Times in mid-December. Kollar-Kotelly began pressing for a closed government briefing for the remaining members of the court on Dec. 19, the day she learned of Robertson's concerns. Other judges wanted to know, as Robertson had, whether the administration had misled their court about its sources of information on possible terrorism suspects. Kollar-Kotelly had privately raised concerns in 2004 about the risk that the government could taint the integrity of the court's work by using information it gained via wiretapping to obtain warrants from judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act....
Cheney strongly defends eavesdropping operation
Vice President Dick Cheney strongly defended a secret domestic eavesdropping operation in use since the September 11, 2001, attacks, saying it was not violating American civil liberties and has helped fend off potential terrorist attacks. "The enemy that struck on 9/11 is weakened and fractured yet it is still lethal and planning to hit us again. Either we are serious about fighting this war or we are not," Cheney said in remarks prepared for a speech at the Heritage Foundation think tank. Revelations that the National Security Agency was secretly monitoring phone calls between people in the United States and suspected al Qaeda followers abroad has sparked an outcry from Democrats and Republicans, with many lawmakers and rights groups questioning whether it violates the U.S. Constitution. Cheney, in speech excerpts released by the White House, called President George W. Bush's decision to intercept "a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications" a vital step. "There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If we'd been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon," Cheney said. Cheney insisted that Bush was committed to protecting civil liberties. "He has made clear from the outset, both publicly and privately, that our duty to uphold the law of the land admits no exceptions in wartime," Cheney said....
Secret Surveillance May Have Occurred Before Authorization
Even before the White House formally authorized a secret program to spy on U.S. citizens without obtaining warrants, such eavesdropping was occurring and some of the information was being shared with the FBI, declassified correspondence and interviews with congressional and intelligence officials indicate. On Oct. 1, 2001, three weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was running the National Security Agency at the time, told the House intelligence committee that the agency was broadening its surveillance authorities, according to a newly released letter sent to him that month by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). Pelosi, the ranking Democrat on the committee, raised concerns in the letter, which was declassified with several redactions and made public yesterday by her staff. "I am concerned whether and to what extent the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting," Pelosi wrote on Oct. 11, 2001. The substance of Hayden's response one week later, on Oct. 17, 2001, was redacted. The secret NSA program, developed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on Washington and New York as a way to find any hidden al Qaeda operatives still in the United States, was authorized in October 2001, a senior administration official said. The president and senior aides have publicly discussed various aspects of the program, but neither the White House, the NSA nor the office of the director of national intelligence would say what day the president authorized it. Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in an e-mail yesterday that it would be inappropriate to "discuss details which could potentially cause harm to the safety of our nation." Pelosi's letter suggested that she and others on the committee first heard about expanded work by the NSA on Oct. 1, 2001, when Hayden briefed them on NSA activities....
Dueling Investigations
This one is going to be interesting. On the left, we have the outrage of those who are ever so conscientious of our civil liberties. On the right, we have those who believe civil liberties are meaningless if you are dead. The strategies are clear. One side will try to obfuscate a serious breach of national security. The other will make their case in a sea of biased reporting and politics at its worst. The word that would seem to apply here is “chutzpah.” It takes a lot of brass to create a scandal by disclosing classified information and then blaming those injured by your action. In spite of the spin of “domestic spying” and “big brother,” the truth is, those in Congress who should have been informed of the operation were, and that includes those who now spew such hypocritical outrage. Are those who protest too much, the ones who just may be in a whole lot of hot water? The opinions being regurgitated as to whether it was legal for the president to authorize electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists without a court order is astonishing. What seems abundantly clear is that no one really has a clue as to a definitive answer to this question. Fortunately for the president, there is clear precedent on his side to support his decision. More remarkable however are the positions themselves. On the Democrat side, there is complete indignation over the fact that residents in this country, citizens or not could be subjected to “electronic eavesdropping” without prior authorization from the court. No discussion as to legal status of those being monitored, the sensitive nature of the reasons for that surveillance or the immediate impact to national security, simply a total disregard for the relevancy for taking action and faux “outrage” because it happened....
Spy Crimes
aced with the most serious legal scandal of his administration, President Bush's impulse has been to stonewall. He has denied misleading the public when he insisted last year that any government wiretaps were conducted under court order, and his Justice Department has defended the legality of his domestic spying program in unequivocal terms. But the administration's legal defense is unconvincing--based on a willful misreading of Supreme Court precedents and congressional intentions. It should not excuse Bush's actions. And Congress must make sure that it does not. Many legal questions have subjective and uncertain answers. But the legality of Bush's domestic surveillance program is not one of them. The program almost certainly violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which prohibits "electronic surveillance" of "any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States," except as authorized by law. Since the administration has admitted that it intercepted telephone calls to and from American citizens in the United States without getting a court order, it clearly broke the law. Bush's most extreme defenders actually concede that he violated the law, but they insist that the president has inherent authority to ignore or break any law that restricts his authority as commander-in-chief under Article II of the Constitution. This is a radical extension of the arguments about unilateral presidential power championed by former Justice Department official John Yoo, a defender of the Bush surveillance program, and David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. But no court has ever suggested that the widely respected FISA law might be an unconstitutional infringement on the president's constitutional authority, and no president before Bush has had the audacity to press such an absurd claim....
Justices Order Padilla Terror Case Moved to Civilian Court
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed federal prosecutors yesterday to take over the case of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla so he could face criminal terrorism charges, overruling a lower court and ending an unusual battle between the executive and judicial branches. In a one-page order, the justices authorized Padilla's transfer from a Navy brig to Justice Department custody. He will be brought before a federal judge in Miami. The Bush administration had requested the transfer, and government officials said they were pleased with the court's order. But yesterday's decision did not settle the larger issues raised by the Padilla case, including whether a U.S. citizen could be held in military custody without charges. Still, the order marked a major step in the odyssey of Padilla, whose arrest in Chicago in 2002 triggered a legal and philosophical battle over the government's power to detain Americans captured in this country. He was introduced to the public as a shadowy former gang member who converted to Islam and stood accused by top federal officials of plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb." He was locked in the brig for more than three years. For much of that time, Padilla had no access to a lawyer, and he has never appeared in court to fight his detention. Now, the man whose face is known only from one old photo shown repeatedly on television and in newspapers will appear in a public courtroom in a case that has come to symbolize many of the conflicting arguments over the Bush administration's approach to fighting terrorism....
New documents may influence Patriot Act debate
When Congress reconvenes this month, one of the first chores facing lawmakers will be reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, and newly disclosed documents could become a factor in the debate. Those opposing the current long-term reauthorization bill could have more rhetorical ammunition by the end of the month, as documents from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit trickle out of FBI offices. The Electronic Privacy Information Center early last year filed a FOIA request but received few documents until a federal district judge in November ordered the FBI to produce 1,500 pages of documents every 15 days until the requests are fulfilled. EPIC is scheduled to receive the latest batch of documents Wednesday. The previous batch of documents, delivered shortly before Christmas, show that the FBI's office of general counsel had sent to the Intelligence Oversight Board several complaints about agents' snooping activities. The board is comprised of three members, is housed in the White House and reports to the president. Some of the complaints relate to how agents tracked their targets. One complaint, for example, showed concern over the tracking of a suspect's telephone calls. The agent continued the tracking even after someone other than the suspect started using the phone, said Marcia Hofmann, director of EPIC's open government project. Another document shows that an FBI agent received an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that allowed him to access addressing information on a suspect's e-mails, but he ultimately accessed more information in the e-mails than allowed by the court....
Government Web sites are keeping an eye on you
Dozens of federal agencies are tracking visits to U.S. government Web sites in violation of long-standing rules designed to protect online privacy, a CNET News.com investigation shows. From the Air Force to the Treasury Department, government agencies are using either "Web bugs" or permanent cookies to monitor their visitors' behavior, even though federal law restricts the practice. Some departments changed their practices this week after being contacted by CNET News.com. The Pentagon said it wasn't aware that its popular Defenselink.mil portal tracked visitors--in violation of a privacy notice--and said it would fix the problem. So did the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. "We were not aware of the cookies set to expire in 2016," a Pentagon representative said Wednesday. "All of the cookies we had set with WebTrends were to be strictly (temporary) cookies, and we are taking immediate action." WebTrends is a commercial Web-monitoring service. The practice of tracking Web visitors came under fire last week when the National Security Agency was found to use permanent cookies to monitor visitors, a practice it halted after inquiries from the Associated Press. The White House also was criticized last week for employing WebTrends' tracking mechanism that used a tiny GIF image....
Groups go to court over wiretap rule for Internet calls
A new federal regulation making it easier for law enforcement to tap Internet phone calls is being challenged in court. Privacy and technology groups asked the federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday to overturn a Federal Communications Commission rule that expands wiretapping laws to cover Internet calls — or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Law enforcement agencies already can obtain a subpoena for the contents of VoIP calls from Internet access providers. But the FBI and others want the ability to capture the technology live and they want systems designed so it would be easy to do that. "The whole process of innovation on the Internet would be seriously damaged," said John Morris, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. To meet the rule's requirements, Internet call providers would have to rewire networks at great cost, Morris said. In addition, there is fear the rule would stifle development of new technologies by placing more regulatory burdens on innovators....
Report Faults TSA Security Contracting
Transportation Security Administration officials rushing to hire airport passenger screeners after Sept. 11, 2001, may have violated contracting regulations by failing to track spending while telling a contractor to "do whatever was necessary" to meet congressional deadlines, according to a new government report. Soon after awarding a $104 million contract in February 2002 to hire 30,000 screeners, the under-staffed agency demanded significant changes to the contract that would eventually push the price of the deal to more than $741 million. TSA officials then moved forward with no planning "or adequate cost control," the report said, and they ignored warnings from contractor NCS Pearson Inc. that project costs had far exceeded the budget approved by Congress. "Generally, legislative deadlines, rather than detailed requirements or cost analyses, drove TSA's management decisions," said the report, which was prepared by the Office of Inspector General at the Homeland Security Department. The 32-page report is set to be released next week. A Pearson spokeswoman declined to comment on the report, saying she had not seen it. A TSA spokeswoman also said she had not seen the report and could not comment. The report's findings are based largely on the work of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, which called into question $303 million of the government's spending on the screener contract....
Shootings against Border Patrol escalating
More than two dozen shots were fired at Border Patrol agents from across the Rio Grande on Friday and Wednesday, marking a large increase in such shootings in this sector of the border, an agency official said. In fiscal year 2005, there were a total of six shootings, said Julio Salinas, spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley sector Border Patrol. The shootings reported Friday and Wednesday are the sixth and seventh shootings since fiscal year began Oct. 1, officials said. The increase in violence against agents is likely due to the effectiveness of the patrol’s enforcement, he said. The smugglers react violently to the Border Patrol’s presence, Salinas said. “We believe it is due to operations, due to the fact that we are a threat to the narcotic or alien smugglers, and that is one of the ways they react,” he said....
Fatal shooting of Mexican by agent at border probed
Police officials in San Diego are investigating the shooting death of a Mexican national by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, who fired a shot at the man after being targeted in a rock attack. Border Patrol spokesman Todd Fraser yesterday said the agent, an eight-year veteran whose name was withheld, came under attack Friday after approaching the man along fences on the U.S.-Mexico border near the San Ysidro, Calif., port of entry. He said the man was standing on the U.S. side of the fence at the time of the 7:25 p.m. encounter, but returned to Mexico after the shooting. Mr. Fraser said the unidentified agent fired in self-defense, trying to protect himself from what agents in the area describe as a "rocking," during which agents and their vehicles are pelted with large rocks or chunks of cement blocks. He said the agent, fearing for his life, fired one round at the man, who then fled back to Mexico. He said the agent was not sure at the time whether the man had been hit. The shooting victim has been identified by Mexican officials as Guillermo Martinez Rodriguez, an 18-year-old who checked himself into a Tijuana, Mexico, hospital after the incident but died four hours later. He reportedly was struck by a single gunshot to the back of his right shoulder....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Grant county Rancher found slain The Grant County Sheriff's Department is investigating the death of a rancher whose body was found a few miles from his home. John Timothy Edwards, 62, was a community leader who friends said had no enemies and was quick to help people. His body was found Friday on the side of a forest road near his hay-filled truck, and authorities have not released any details other than to say Edwards was slain. Edwards was president of the Grant County Cattle Growers and had worked for more than 25 years as an athletics coach and professor at Central Arizona College before retiring and moving to New Mexico. Ty Bays, southwest regional vice president of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, said Edwards was found by his wife and a neighbor....
Third mountain lion killed A Williston man who was hunting mountain lions killed the third cougar of North Dakota's experimental season. The lion is an adult male that weighed 140 pounds, said Dorothy Fecske, furbearer biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. The skinned and frozen carcass was delivered to Bismarck on Monday afternoon, and Fecske said she will do a necropsy today after it thaws out. Andy Anderson was hunting with dogs Saturday morning west of Grassy Butte when they came across cougar tracks in the snow, put the dogs on the trail and followed on foot. "It went in a hole, and I had to crawl in the hole and shoot it. I had a flashlight, and I saw the snarl of its face," Anderson, the owner of Scenic Sports in Williston, said by telephone Tuesday. He was using a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol, but the sequence of events remained foggy even Tuesday morning, he said. He knows the cougar escaped from the hole, injured one of the four dogs and took cover in another hole. He believes he shot the lion three times. "When I got the third hit on it, it was pretty well dead," he said. The wounded dog was "stitched up and is fine," said Anderson, who was accompanied by another lion hunter and a third individual. The cat measured 87 inches - or 7 feet, 3 inches - from nose to tail....
Idaho wants to use copters to track wolves Idaho wants federal permission to land helicopters in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness this winter to put radio collars on wolves that have roamed the remote mountain region since their 1995 reintroduction. The request to the U.S. Forest Service to allow motorized transport into a federally protected wilderness other than at established airstrips coincides with the state taking over management of the endangered predators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The state was to formally take over management at a Thursday ceremony in Boise with Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. Foes of the helicopters are threatening to sue if the Forest Service acquiesces, saying such flights are banned by rules governing the 2.4-million-acre wilderness. They also fear state game managers will use information from the radio collars to eventually track and kill wolves, which now number 500 in Idaho. Wolf managers with the state Department of Fish and Game said using helicopters to collar wolves - the aircraft have been flying since December to count elk - is vastly more effective than trapping them on foot....
Cougar management plan drawing plenty of skepticism A proposed cougar-management plan that would allow for more intensive hunting of cougars in areas where they pose a risk to humans, pets or livestock gets a public airing Thursday before the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission. The draft plan, first unveiled last summer, has drawn less-than-enthusiastic reviews from ranchers who say it doesn't go far enough to protect their livestock and from cougar advocates who say the plan opens the door to unnecessary hunting of the big cats. It's the latest turn in a long-running wildlife debate that's been raging since Oregon voters in 1994 adopted a ballot measure banning the use of dogs in hunting cougars, a practice that the measure's sponsors called cruel....
Wolves' territory could be widened Mexican wolves would continue to roam in parts of Arizona and New Mexico, and their allowable range could be expanded, according to recommendations contained in a five-year review of the reintroduction program. Terry Johnson of Arizona Game & Fish Department, a major participant in the review, said its 37 recommendations will go to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for review. By April 2007, Johnson said, he hopes the federal agency will decide on which recommendations will be implemented. Included in the review is a recommended moratorium throughout 2006 on introducing new wolves into the wild. The moratorium would be imposed if six or more breeding pairs are found in a wolf count that is taking place now. Johnson said an estimated 50 to 60 wolves live in the wolf reintroduction area, which comprises the Blue Range, the White Mountain Apache Reservation and the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. If researchers confirm that estimate, it would represent about half of the 100 wolves the original reintroduction plan anticipated. Johnson said the current area is not sufficient for 100 wolves....
Film looks at legacy of FWP wildlife restoration There are still parts of Montana's past lost in a fog of mystery. Tucked away in scrapbooks and filed away beside decades of memories are stories of dedication, effort and heroism that haven't seen the light of day in years. A new DVD released by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks aims to change that, in part, by documenting the rejuvenation of Montana's wildlife and the efforts of the private citizens that made it possible. “Back From the Brink: Montana's Wildlife Legacy” is a two-hour documentary, produced by Media Works in Bozeman, that follows the story of Montana's declining wildlife populations in the 1800s and subsequent restoration. The film, broken into two one-hour parts, shows the concentrated and grassroots efforts of Montana residents to save elk, pheasant, antelope and bear from statewide extirpation....
No Malibu repeat, thanks to land trust Fortunately, that kind of spoiled paradise -- pruned, paved and parking-lotted -- won't be coming to our portion of the California coastline, the one that stretches from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay. At least until the Big One sends the coastline tumbling into the sea, tourists and locals will be able to walk along the beach near Pigeon Point, watch great blue herons off San Gregorio and enjoy miles of ocean views uncluttered by hotels and tract homes. That's because some of our well-heeled neighbors passed the hat and came up with $200 million to preserve more than 20,000 acres of hillside, beachfront and farm land for our eternal enjoyment. On Tuesday, the Peninsula Open Space Trust announced the end of a four-year fundraising campaign to buy up the most vulnerable, rural, open lands of the San Mateo coast. The campaign began with $50 million donations from the families of two high-tech pioneers, Gordon Moore and David Packard. With help from more than 10,000 other donors, POST reached the $200 million goal as 2005 ended....
Roadless areas touted as critical to Colorado Protecting Colorado’s roadless areas is crucial for successful hunting and fishing, and those pastimes are critical to the state’s economy. That was the message sent Wednesday by Trout Unlimited officials, a fly-rod manufacturer and two retired Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists. The advocates of roadless areas held a teleconference to publicize the release of a report by Trout Unlimited on the importance of preserving pristine areas of the state for fish and wildlife. They also criticized a recent Bush administration policy that could allow road building on millions of acres of roadless land in Colorado and across the West controlled by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management....
Researchers look at tracking timber through its scent Timber researchers hope to create wood sniffers that could track lumber from forest to front-room furniture the way bloodhounds track criminals — by their scent. The devices are still in the imagination of their developers. They could allow the timber industry to certify that individual products come from woods managed in an environmentally sound way. They could make it harder to move pirated logs, reducing theft and illegal logging. Or they could help the industry be better at marketing and management. Glen Murphy, a forest-engineering professor at Oregon State University, says he envisions an electronic "wood hound." Lumber would be tagged with scents such as the three perfumery chemicals he's been using on wood samples from cedar, ponderosa pine and hemlock trees....
Will the Environmentalists Find Their Voice? For U.S. environmentalists, 2005 will be remembered harshly, because it marked the clear and undeniable end of U.S. global environmental leadership. For three decades, the United States was the world's environmental trendsetter. But now leadership comes from the European Union, a phenomenon I observed firsthand last spring as a Fulbright scholar teaching comparative environmental law at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. The most prominent example is global warming. Despite a strong scientific consensus that Earth's temperatures are rising because of human activity, the Bush administration clings stubbornly to its opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, most recently evidenced at the Montreal climate change talks. Meanwhile, in 2005 the EU embarked on an aggressive approach to limiting greenhouse gases, modeled after market-based strategies to controlling acid-rain emissions pioneered by the United States. About 12,000 industrial facilities are required to limit their emissions of carbon dioxide (a leading contributor to global warming), but have flexibility in how to achieve these limits....
Pioneering a new skiing concept Call it hardcore, call it radical, call it roots skiing, call it anything but ordinary. Take 1,600 acres of steep mountainous terrain, slather it with some of the nation’s deepest annual snowfall, string up a single second-hand double chairlift and what do you get? The world’s newest concept in downhill skiing — Silverton Mountain. Located just outside of the tiny former mining town of Silverton — an hour north of Durango in the mighty San Juan range — Silverton Mountain is both a nod to skiing’s early days and the most novel concept in the field to come along in decades. While most ski areas make more money today off real estate and retail sales than ski tickets, and tout their food, lodging and grooming machines, Silverton Mountain is all about the skiing and respect for the mountain environment....
Company: Methane water poses no threat Early results from a coal-bed methane pilot project show there should be no problems with plans to pump salty water from drilling operations into Seminoe Reservoir, officials with a Colorado-based company said. The pilot project leads the company to expect that water produced through methane extraction will meet existing drinking water and aquatic life protection standards, officials said. The Bureau of Land Management is taking public comment on its proposal to allow Dudley and Associates LLC of Denver to pump water from its planned Seminoe Road coal-bed methane development into the reservoir on the North Platte River. The company plans to drill up to 1,240 wells over the next 30 to 40 years in the western Hanna Basin....
The gas fire next time From the air, part of New Mexico's Carson National Forest looks like a spider web that's been carved into the landscape. Here on the 33,000-acre Jicarilla District, more than 700 gas wells and a maze of over 400 miles of associated roads crisscross the land. While companies have been leasing this New Mexico forest for gas development since the 1950s, the federal government has doubled the well density in the past five years, from one well every 320 acres, to one well every 160 acres. Over the next 20 years, the number of wells in the area will double, says Mark Linden, the Forest Service's regional geologist. The impact to the land has been significant. Traffic seems constant, with trucks hauling water from gas wells and oil company employees driving to read meters. A fine layer of sandstone dust rises from the dirt roads in a haze; in places, litter covers the ground. This is the landscape of the West's latest energy boom. In the past six years, oil and gas companies have nearly quadrupled the number of drilling permit applications they've submitted to the federal government. That's translated into the Bureau of Land Management issuing an unprecedented number of drilling permits for public lands in Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. In fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the agency handed out over 6,000 new permits each year....
The Niman way His theory is holding up in restaurants and grocery stores across the country. Diners and home cooks pay a premium for beef, pork and lamb bearing the brand of Niman Ranch Inc. The premium varies by the cut but generally runs 10 percent to 30 percent more than the price of conventionally raised meat. Niman Ranch's yearly revenues are approaching $60 million, Niman says. Flavor is just one factor in the Niman success story. Niman also believes that because livestock is on the planet for such a short time, it also deserves the best. Toward that goal, he's assembled a network of like-minded ranchers and farmers who believe they can remain viable by following husbandry practices that take into account the well-being of their land and their livestock as well as the taste buds of consumers. Niman Ranch livestock is raised in the open and fed only natural feeds, free of hormones and growth-promoting antibiotics. The more than 500 family farmers who have joined the Niman Ranch network are urged to raise traditional breeds celebrated for their flavor and to sign affidavits vowing to abide by the company's protocols....
CD continues singer's way West in story and legend For 57 years, this cowboy has been singing about cattle, cowboys and history along the Western trails, writing new songs about old stuff. Earl Gleason, singer and songwriter, finds great love in what he does. "I don't know what it is," Gleason said. "Part of it is the history behind it, and part of it is the joy you know you've brought to someone's life." With the release of his third recording, "The Drovers," Gleason said that seven of the songs on his new CD reflect deeply into history. "They're old in nature," Gleason said. "Some of the songs talk about things that are 80 to 120 years old." Many of Gleason's songs stem from his love of history and his determination to preserve historic places in the West. He wrote a song titled "Magdalena Town" on his "Burnt Biscuits" CD that brought attention to the stockyards that were built in 1885 in Magdalena, saving them from demolition. The stockyards are the only end-of-the-trail rail point in the United State that's left....
Grant county Rancher found slain The Grant County Sheriff's Department is investigating the death of a rancher whose body was found a few miles from his home. John Timothy Edwards, 62, was a community leader who friends said had no enemies and was quick to help people. His body was found Friday on the side of a forest road near his hay-filled truck, and authorities have not released any details other than to say Edwards was slain. Edwards was president of the Grant County Cattle Growers and had worked for more than 25 years as an athletics coach and professor at Central Arizona College before retiring and moving to New Mexico. Ty Bays, southwest regional vice president of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, said Edwards was found by his wife and a neighbor....
Third mountain lion killed A Williston man who was hunting mountain lions killed the third cougar of North Dakota's experimental season. The lion is an adult male that weighed 140 pounds, said Dorothy Fecske, furbearer biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. The skinned and frozen carcass was delivered to Bismarck on Monday afternoon, and Fecske said she will do a necropsy today after it thaws out. Andy Anderson was hunting with dogs Saturday morning west of Grassy Butte when they came across cougar tracks in the snow, put the dogs on the trail and followed on foot. "It went in a hole, and I had to crawl in the hole and shoot it. I had a flashlight, and I saw the snarl of its face," Anderson, the owner of Scenic Sports in Williston, said by telephone Tuesday. He was using a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol, but the sequence of events remained foggy even Tuesday morning, he said. He knows the cougar escaped from the hole, injured one of the four dogs and took cover in another hole. He believes he shot the lion three times. "When I got the third hit on it, it was pretty well dead," he said. The wounded dog was "stitched up and is fine," said Anderson, who was accompanied by another lion hunter and a third individual. The cat measured 87 inches - or 7 feet, 3 inches - from nose to tail....
Idaho wants to use copters to track wolves Idaho wants federal permission to land helicopters in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness this winter to put radio collars on wolves that have roamed the remote mountain region since their 1995 reintroduction. The request to the U.S. Forest Service to allow motorized transport into a federally protected wilderness other than at established airstrips coincides with the state taking over management of the endangered predators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The state was to formally take over management at a Thursday ceremony in Boise with Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. Foes of the helicopters are threatening to sue if the Forest Service acquiesces, saying such flights are banned by rules governing the 2.4-million-acre wilderness. They also fear state game managers will use information from the radio collars to eventually track and kill wolves, which now number 500 in Idaho. Wolf managers with the state Department of Fish and Game said using helicopters to collar wolves - the aircraft have been flying since December to count elk - is vastly more effective than trapping them on foot....
Cougar management plan drawing plenty of skepticism A proposed cougar-management plan that would allow for more intensive hunting of cougars in areas where they pose a risk to humans, pets or livestock gets a public airing Thursday before the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission. The draft plan, first unveiled last summer, has drawn less-than-enthusiastic reviews from ranchers who say it doesn't go far enough to protect their livestock and from cougar advocates who say the plan opens the door to unnecessary hunting of the big cats. It's the latest turn in a long-running wildlife debate that's been raging since Oregon voters in 1994 adopted a ballot measure banning the use of dogs in hunting cougars, a practice that the measure's sponsors called cruel....
Wolves' territory could be widened Mexican wolves would continue to roam in parts of Arizona and New Mexico, and their allowable range could be expanded, according to recommendations contained in a five-year review of the reintroduction program. Terry Johnson of Arizona Game & Fish Department, a major participant in the review, said its 37 recommendations will go to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for review. By April 2007, Johnson said, he hopes the federal agency will decide on which recommendations will be implemented. Included in the review is a recommended moratorium throughout 2006 on introducing new wolves into the wild. The moratorium would be imposed if six or more breeding pairs are found in a wolf count that is taking place now. Johnson said an estimated 50 to 60 wolves live in the wolf reintroduction area, which comprises the Blue Range, the White Mountain Apache Reservation and the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. If researchers confirm that estimate, it would represent about half of the 100 wolves the original reintroduction plan anticipated. Johnson said the current area is not sufficient for 100 wolves....
Film looks at legacy of FWP wildlife restoration There are still parts of Montana's past lost in a fog of mystery. Tucked away in scrapbooks and filed away beside decades of memories are stories of dedication, effort and heroism that haven't seen the light of day in years. A new DVD released by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks aims to change that, in part, by documenting the rejuvenation of Montana's wildlife and the efforts of the private citizens that made it possible. “Back From the Brink: Montana's Wildlife Legacy” is a two-hour documentary, produced by Media Works in Bozeman, that follows the story of Montana's declining wildlife populations in the 1800s and subsequent restoration. The film, broken into two one-hour parts, shows the concentrated and grassroots efforts of Montana residents to save elk, pheasant, antelope and bear from statewide extirpation....
No Malibu repeat, thanks to land trust Fortunately, that kind of spoiled paradise -- pruned, paved and parking-lotted -- won't be coming to our portion of the California coastline, the one that stretches from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay. At least until the Big One sends the coastline tumbling into the sea, tourists and locals will be able to walk along the beach near Pigeon Point, watch great blue herons off San Gregorio and enjoy miles of ocean views uncluttered by hotels and tract homes. That's because some of our well-heeled neighbors passed the hat and came up with $200 million to preserve more than 20,000 acres of hillside, beachfront and farm land for our eternal enjoyment. On Tuesday, the Peninsula Open Space Trust announced the end of a four-year fundraising campaign to buy up the most vulnerable, rural, open lands of the San Mateo coast. The campaign began with $50 million donations from the families of two high-tech pioneers, Gordon Moore and David Packard. With help from more than 10,000 other donors, POST reached the $200 million goal as 2005 ended....
Roadless areas touted as critical to Colorado Protecting Colorado’s roadless areas is crucial for successful hunting and fishing, and those pastimes are critical to the state’s economy. That was the message sent Wednesday by Trout Unlimited officials, a fly-rod manufacturer and two retired Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists. The advocates of roadless areas held a teleconference to publicize the release of a report by Trout Unlimited on the importance of preserving pristine areas of the state for fish and wildlife. They also criticized a recent Bush administration policy that could allow road building on millions of acres of roadless land in Colorado and across the West controlled by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management....
Researchers look at tracking timber through its scent Timber researchers hope to create wood sniffers that could track lumber from forest to front-room furniture the way bloodhounds track criminals — by their scent. The devices are still in the imagination of their developers. They could allow the timber industry to certify that individual products come from woods managed in an environmentally sound way. They could make it harder to move pirated logs, reducing theft and illegal logging. Or they could help the industry be better at marketing and management. Glen Murphy, a forest-engineering professor at Oregon State University, says he envisions an electronic "wood hound." Lumber would be tagged with scents such as the three perfumery chemicals he's been using on wood samples from cedar, ponderosa pine and hemlock trees....
Will the Environmentalists Find Their Voice? For U.S. environmentalists, 2005 will be remembered harshly, because it marked the clear and undeniable end of U.S. global environmental leadership. For three decades, the United States was the world's environmental trendsetter. But now leadership comes from the European Union, a phenomenon I observed firsthand last spring as a Fulbright scholar teaching comparative environmental law at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. The most prominent example is global warming. Despite a strong scientific consensus that Earth's temperatures are rising because of human activity, the Bush administration clings stubbornly to its opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, most recently evidenced at the Montreal climate change talks. Meanwhile, in 2005 the EU embarked on an aggressive approach to limiting greenhouse gases, modeled after market-based strategies to controlling acid-rain emissions pioneered by the United States. About 12,000 industrial facilities are required to limit their emissions of carbon dioxide (a leading contributor to global warming), but have flexibility in how to achieve these limits....
Pioneering a new skiing concept Call it hardcore, call it radical, call it roots skiing, call it anything but ordinary. Take 1,600 acres of steep mountainous terrain, slather it with some of the nation’s deepest annual snowfall, string up a single second-hand double chairlift and what do you get? The world’s newest concept in downhill skiing — Silverton Mountain. Located just outside of the tiny former mining town of Silverton — an hour north of Durango in the mighty San Juan range — Silverton Mountain is both a nod to skiing’s early days and the most novel concept in the field to come along in decades. While most ski areas make more money today off real estate and retail sales than ski tickets, and tout their food, lodging and grooming machines, Silverton Mountain is all about the skiing and respect for the mountain environment....
Company: Methane water poses no threat Early results from a coal-bed methane pilot project show there should be no problems with plans to pump salty water from drilling operations into Seminoe Reservoir, officials with a Colorado-based company said. The pilot project leads the company to expect that water produced through methane extraction will meet existing drinking water and aquatic life protection standards, officials said. The Bureau of Land Management is taking public comment on its proposal to allow Dudley and Associates LLC of Denver to pump water from its planned Seminoe Road coal-bed methane development into the reservoir on the North Platte River. The company plans to drill up to 1,240 wells over the next 30 to 40 years in the western Hanna Basin....
The gas fire next time From the air, part of New Mexico's Carson National Forest looks like a spider web that's been carved into the landscape. Here on the 33,000-acre Jicarilla District, more than 700 gas wells and a maze of over 400 miles of associated roads crisscross the land. While companies have been leasing this New Mexico forest for gas development since the 1950s, the federal government has doubled the well density in the past five years, from one well every 320 acres, to one well every 160 acres. Over the next 20 years, the number of wells in the area will double, says Mark Linden, the Forest Service's regional geologist. The impact to the land has been significant. Traffic seems constant, with trucks hauling water from gas wells and oil company employees driving to read meters. A fine layer of sandstone dust rises from the dirt roads in a haze; in places, litter covers the ground. This is the landscape of the West's latest energy boom. In the past six years, oil and gas companies have nearly quadrupled the number of drilling permit applications they've submitted to the federal government. That's translated into the Bureau of Land Management issuing an unprecedented number of drilling permits for public lands in Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. In fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the agency handed out over 6,000 new permits each year....
The Niman way His theory is holding up in restaurants and grocery stores across the country. Diners and home cooks pay a premium for beef, pork and lamb bearing the brand of Niman Ranch Inc. The premium varies by the cut but generally runs 10 percent to 30 percent more than the price of conventionally raised meat. Niman Ranch's yearly revenues are approaching $60 million, Niman says. Flavor is just one factor in the Niman success story. Niman also believes that because livestock is on the planet for such a short time, it also deserves the best. Toward that goal, he's assembled a network of like-minded ranchers and farmers who believe they can remain viable by following husbandry practices that take into account the well-being of their land and their livestock as well as the taste buds of consumers. Niman Ranch livestock is raised in the open and fed only natural feeds, free of hormones and growth-promoting antibiotics. The more than 500 family farmers who have joined the Niman Ranch network are urged to raise traditional breeds celebrated for their flavor and to sign affidavits vowing to abide by the company's protocols....
CD continues singer's way West in story and legend For 57 years, this cowboy has been singing about cattle, cowboys and history along the Western trails, writing new songs about old stuff. Earl Gleason, singer and songwriter, finds great love in what he does. "I don't know what it is," Gleason said. "Part of it is the history behind it, and part of it is the joy you know you've brought to someone's life." With the release of his third recording, "The Drovers," Gleason said that seven of the songs on his new CD reflect deeply into history. "They're old in nature," Gleason said. "Some of the songs talk about things that are 80 to 120 years old." Many of Gleason's songs stem from his love of history and his determination to preserve historic places in the West. He wrote a song titled "Magdalena Town" on his "Burnt Biscuits" CD that brought attention to the stockyards that were built in 1885 in Magdalena, saving them from demolition. The stockyards are the only end-of-the-trail rail point in the United State that's left....
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Trouble in waterfowl paradise as grasslands become croplands After a short hike off a township road, Scott Stephens crested a hill in the Missouri Coteau and scanned a landscape that makes waterfowl biologists pause in appreciation. Here was the breadbasket of U.S. duck production. It folds to the horizon in a series of broad wetlands and lakes, nestled among rolling hills and interspersed among large tracts of grasslands never touched by a plow. Each spring, the skies over the Coteau hill country are filled with skeins of ducks anxious for breeding, said Stephens, a biologist for the conservation group Ducks Unlimited. With the grasslands acting as magnets for the ground-nesting birds, the Coteau hosts up to 125 duck pairs per square mile, some of the highest duck-nesting densities on the continent. But Stephens said this duck paradise is threatened by a newcomer to the hill country - genetically altered varieties of corn and soybeans that are supplanting the native grasslands....
Quivira conference explores urban-rural divide When two Sierra Club members and a rancher founded the Quivira Coalition in Santa Fe more than eight years ago, they wanted to build bridges between ranchers and environmentalists , urban and rural. “We wanted to convince the urban environmental community that ranching is sustainable ,” said Quivira Coalition executive director Courtney White. “We wanted to help the rural ranching community understand urban values and why environmentalists feel the way they do.” The coalition’s fifth annual conference, Jan. 12-14 at the Hilton Hotel in Albuquerque will explore “Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide: Reconnecting People to Land and Each Other.” Speakers will hail from across the country and Mexico, among them Sonora ranchers Iván and Martha Aguirre; scientist Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona; New Mexico Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons; Peter Forbes of Vermont’s Center for Whole Communities; and Dan Imhoff of the Wild Farm Alliance in Northern California....
Center for Biological Diversity to open new office in Los Angeles The Center for Biological Diversity opened a new Los Angeles office today in recognition of the region’s concentration of unique wildlife, plants and rich natural landscape. According to the LA Weekly (November 2002), “[The Center is] pound for pound, dollar for dollar, the most effective conservation organization in the country.” “Southern California has an unparalleled natural heritage legacy,” said Ileene Anderson, an ecologist heading the new office. “Common misconceptions paint Southern California as all asphalt and concrete. But many valuable natural lands remain – from Tejon Ranch to the Angeles National Forest to the Channel Islands to the Santa Ana River – and we plan to do everything in our power to secure their protection.” Center Conservation Director Peter Galvin stated, “We are extremely excited to be opening our Los Angeles area office and to have renowned botanist and naturalist Ileene Anderson joining the Center team.” Since its first victory protecting the Mexican spotted owl in the forests of the Southwest, the Center has gone the distance to save endangered plants and animals around the globe – gaining protection for 342 species and more than 43 million acres of critical habitat in just over 16 years....
Column: Greens vs. Alito In the midst of the holiday season, five environmentalist groups joined the ranks of liberal activists opposing the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Making a string of exaggerated and inaccurate charges, the groups allege that Judge Alito is "extreme" and "cannot be trusted" on the Supreme Court. Glenn Sugameli of Earthjustice warns that Judge Alito "would pursue his own extreme legal theories to create new barriers that prevent the enactment and enforcement of national laws that protect families and communities from pollution." Earthjustice is not alone in opposing Alito's confirmation. Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and the National Environmental Trust have announced their opposition as well, echoing Earthjustice's alarmist anti-Alito attacks. FOE's Sara Zdeb warned, "Judge Alito threatens to drive the Court in a decidedly anti-environment direction." When the Alito nomination was announced, the Sierra Club called him "a nominee who may represent great danger to Americans' ability to protect our clean air, clean water, and special places." Move over President Bush; for the next month Samuel Alito is Environmental Enemy Number One. Of particular concern to environmental groups is Judge Alito's apparent respect for principles of federalism. They fear that Judge Alito's demonstrated willingness to enforce constitutional limits on federal power could hamstring federal environmental protections. Not only do green groups exaggerate the threat, but they misrepresent Alito's opinions as well....
Editorial: Easterners disconnected from Western realities There's obviously something liberating about leaving a government job. On the inside, one must tread carefully, mincing one's words into a politically correct mush. Once outside, one can speak more honestly, without fear of courting controversy or landing in political hot water. That's why the recent comments made by outgoing Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Rebecca Watson, who is taking a job with a Denver law firm after four years at the Department of Interior, were so interesting to read. She's saying now what she might have been reluctant to say while in government. And what she's saying is important. In an interview with the Associated Press, Watson said she believes “the urbanization of America has helped polarize beliefs about the environment, leaving many city dwellers with romanticized and often unrealistic views about wildlife and natural resources in the West.” During her years at the department, Watson encountered many Easterners who she says have “false perspectives” about public lands conflicts in this part of the country. And that understanding gap is a problem. Watson is putting her finger on a serious problem: the growing disconnect between urban dwellers and rural people, between Easterners and Westerners, on environmental and public lands issues. Were the federal government not in a position to dictate such policies from thousands of miles away, and were state and local governments given a greater say in federal land policies, this understanding gap wouldn't matter much. But until that balance of power shifts westward - and states in the region demand a true partnership with Washington - urbanites and Easterners will continue to impose their ideas of environmental virtue on Westerners....
Overhaul of Endangered Species Act taking shape After more than three decades of life with the Endangered Species Act, there is a growing indication that one of the world's most significant environmental laws is about to undergo its first major overhaul. In early autumn, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Stockton, the House Resources Committee chairman, that would make several major changes to the landmark 1973 federal law. Then Dec. 15, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, introduced similarly sweeping legislation that will frame debate on the issue in the Senate in 2006. Meanwhile, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., chairman of the Senate Fisheries, Wildlife and Water Subcommittee, also is expected to introduce by March a proposal to rewrite the oft-criticized law, although in a manner more palatable to the environmental community. "What all these things indicate is that there is growing bipartisan support for some reform of the Endangered Species Act, which is long overdue," said Andrew R. Henderson, vice president and general counsel for the Building Industry Association of Southern California....
Tiny minnow could factor into dairy project in S.W. Minnesota The tiny Topeka shiner could have a big say in the development of a dairy operation near this southwestern Minnesota town. The minnow is the only fish in Minnesota on the federal endangered species list, and some fear it could block a 3,000-cow dairy operation near Adrian. The minnow has already delayed road building, slowed permits for water projects and raised hackles among Minnesota county officials. The shiner "has had major impact, some good, some not so good," said Doug Bos, assistant director of the Rock County Land Management office in Luverne. Lincoln County Commissioner Curt Blumeyer said concern about the minnow "holds up our (road) construction until later in the year."....
Editorial: Managing Invasive Species: Breaking open the poisons doesn't make us safer It is so easy to foul up an ecosystem. It is so hard to fix it again. In fact, it may be impossible. That's the dilemma the Bureau of Land Management faces as it drafts plans to attack some of the "invasive species" of plants that are altering the landscape of the American West. Rapidly spreading non-native flora such as cheat grass, tamarisk and Russian olive have taken over rangelands, dried up streams and made land inhospitable for animals that have lived there for centuries. As the name of their agency mandates, BLM officials seek to manage that situation by trying various means to remove those squatters from public land. But the whole concept of management, a term usually associated with directing human beings, may be just as foreign to local ecosystems as any of the offending plants. And deliberately trying to transplant that human concept to the natural world could be at least as destructive as any invading species. Proposed techniques of eliminating, or limiting, invasive species include, but are not limited to, aerial spraying of herbicides....
Mojave lake's history a bit fishy Scholars at a remote university research center in the middle of the Mojave Desert are attempting to unravel a mystery involving an endangered fish whose ancestors evolved after the last Ice Age. Scientists say the rare Mojave tui chub, found in 1.2-acre Lake Tuendae on the grounds of the Desert Studies Center operated by the California State University system, have survived in the harsh desert environment for 10,000 years. About 3,500 chub live in the lake, and another 500 are found in a nearby pool at the 80-acre center southwest of Baker in the east Mojave. "When ancient Lake Mojave began to dry up due to climatic changes, the fish found refuge at a 7-foot-deep spring on these grounds," said Robert Fulton, manager of the studies center the past two decades. "The fish were known to exist at the Mojave Narrows (near Victorville) since the turn of the past century. But most scientists believed that native chub species had been hybridized."....
Warming Climate of American West Pushes Pika to Extinction The American pika, a small mammal related to the rabbit, appears to be facing extinction in the Great Basin, new research has found. The pikas, pronounced pie-cas, are sensitive to high temperatures, a characteristic that makes them an indicator species for global warming in the western United States where they live high in the mountains. Pikas live in rock-strewn talus slopes that provide them with relief from hot temperatures and protection from predators. A University of Washington archaeologist who has examined fossil records covering the past 40,000 years says his work shows that the pikas are being pushed upward in their mountain habitat and are running out of places to live. Archaeologist Donald Grayson says climate change and human activities appear to be the primary factors jeopardizing the pika, Ochotona princeps. Roads and livestock are encroaching on pika habitat, he says....
Fears grow over small fish Tanana fisherman Charlie Campbell doesn't need scientific studies or empirical data to prove Yukon River chinook salmon--the mighty king of the species--are getting smaller. All he has to do is walk into his smokehouse. "I'm noticing I have a lot more headroom in the smokehouse than I remember," said Campbell, a subsistence fisherman who uses a fishwheel in The Rapids area of the Yukon between Tanana and Rampart. "Long salmon strips hang in your face and you have to duck to get underneath them. I'm 6-2, so it's an issue for me. With these shorter fish, shorter strips." Campbell hasn't been alone in his hypothesizing. Dozens of fishermen along the middle and upper reaches of the 2,300-mile Yukon have been claiming for years that smaller kings are returning from the ocean to spawn. A pair of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists released a study earlier this month that lends some scientific weight to that suspicion....
Something's growing at Redwood National Park America's pre-eminent redwoods showcase, Redwood National Park, will begin 2006 significantly larger, and not just because the massive trees there grew taller. The formerly 112,000-acre park in Humboldt and Del Norte counties -- home to the tallest living things on Earth -- grew by about 26,000 acres after President Bush signed a law to expand the park's boundaries on Dec. 21. The law, written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., added the 25,000-acre Mill Creek property, a vast expanse of redwood and Douglas fir forests six miles south of Crescent City, to the park's northern flank, along with a few smaller parcels. The Mill Creek property, roughly equal in size to the city of San Francisco, was heavily logged over the past 150 years, but remains home to bald eagles, black bears and some of California's best salmon streams....
Column: ANWR oil opponents ignore critical issues Did you know that the National Audubon Society has earned more than $25 million in royalties by allowing oil and natural gas production in Louisiana's Rainey Wildlife Refuge and Michigan's Baker Sanctuary? In fact, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey commissioned by U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in 2001 reported that 77 of 567 wildlife refuges in 22 states had oil and gas activities on their land in 2000, according to Arctic Power, the Alaskan group pushing for ANWR oil exploration. Ironically, the Rainey refuge is the winter habitat for snow geese migrating from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), while the Baker Sanctuary, a 900-acre wetland, provides hundreds of Sandhill cranes with a critical nesting area. If drilling and exploration are safely done in existing wildlife refuges, why would it be an "environmental apocalypse" if a tiny portion of ANWR were opened to exploration? It would not....
Git along little dogies, or minicows If you're a suburban cowboy hankering to raise a herd and short on ranch land, mini-cattle may be for you. New breeds of pint-sized heifers and bulls are making it easier for small farmers to raise cattle for milk, meat or just fun. On Bill Bryan's 50-acre spread on Maryland's Eastern Shore, he sold seven calves last year. "We've sold the vast majority of our calves to people who have these little 3- to 5-acre farmettes and they'll fence in an acre, buy a calf and more or less keep 'em for pets," Bryan said. Two minicalves stood nearby, contentedly munching on grass in a small fenced-in area, skittering away if visitors got too close. Bryan is among a group of pioneering breeders raising miniature cattle that can be as little as a third of the size of the larger breeds. The reasons are many, they say. You don't need the back 40 acres to raise these breeds; the back four will do. Minicattle eat about a third as much as a full-sized steer, are less destructive of pasture land and fencing, and are easier to handle. While each animal may be smaller, more meat can be produced overall from each acre, breeders say. And the smaller size of each animal also has its benefits....
Trouble in waterfowl paradise as grasslands become croplands After a short hike off a township road, Scott Stephens crested a hill in the Missouri Coteau and scanned a landscape that makes waterfowl biologists pause in appreciation. Here was the breadbasket of U.S. duck production. It folds to the horizon in a series of broad wetlands and lakes, nestled among rolling hills and interspersed among large tracts of grasslands never touched by a plow. Each spring, the skies over the Coteau hill country are filled with skeins of ducks anxious for breeding, said Stephens, a biologist for the conservation group Ducks Unlimited. With the grasslands acting as magnets for the ground-nesting birds, the Coteau hosts up to 125 duck pairs per square mile, some of the highest duck-nesting densities on the continent. But Stephens said this duck paradise is threatened by a newcomer to the hill country - genetically altered varieties of corn and soybeans that are supplanting the native grasslands....
Quivira conference explores urban-rural divide When two Sierra Club members and a rancher founded the Quivira Coalition in Santa Fe more than eight years ago, they wanted to build bridges between ranchers and environmentalists , urban and rural. “We wanted to convince the urban environmental community that ranching is sustainable ,” said Quivira Coalition executive director Courtney White. “We wanted to help the rural ranching community understand urban values and why environmentalists feel the way they do.” The coalition’s fifth annual conference, Jan. 12-14 at the Hilton Hotel in Albuquerque will explore “Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide: Reconnecting People to Land and Each Other.” Speakers will hail from across the country and Mexico, among them Sonora ranchers Iván and Martha Aguirre; scientist Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona; New Mexico Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons; Peter Forbes of Vermont’s Center for Whole Communities; and Dan Imhoff of the Wild Farm Alliance in Northern California....
Center for Biological Diversity to open new office in Los Angeles The Center for Biological Diversity opened a new Los Angeles office today in recognition of the region’s concentration of unique wildlife, plants and rich natural landscape. According to the LA Weekly (November 2002), “[The Center is] pound for pound, dollar for dollar, the most effective conservation organization in the country.” “Southern California has an unparalleled natural heritage legacy,” said Ileene Anderson, an ecologist heading the new office. “Common misconceptions paint Southern California as all asphalt and concrete. But many valuable natural lands remain – from Tejon Ranch to the Angeles National Forest to the Channel Islands to the Santa Ana River – and we plan to do everything in our power to secure their protection.” Center Conservation Director Peter Galvin stated, “We are extremely excited to be opening our Los Angeles area office and to have renowned botanist and naturalist Ileene Anderson joining the Center team.” Since its first victory protecting the Mexican spotted owl in the forests of the Southwest, the Center has gone the distance to save endangered plants and animals around the globe – gaining protection for 342 species and more than 43 million acres of critical habitat in just over 16 years....
Column: Greens vs. Alito In the midst of the holiday season, five environmentalist groups joined the ranks of liberal activists opposing the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Making a string of exaggerated and inaccurate charges, the groups allege that Judge Alito is "extreme" and "cannot be trusted" on the Supreme Court. Glenn Sugameli of Earthjustice warns that Judge Alito "would pursue his own extreme legal theories to create new barriers that prevent the enactment and enforcement of national laws that protect families and communities from pollution." Earthjustice is not alone in opposing Alito's confirmation. Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and the National Environmental Trust have announced their opposition as well, echoing Earthjustice's alarmist anti-Alito attacks. FOE's Sara Zdeb warned, "Judge Alito threatens to drive the Court in a decidedly anti-environment direction." When the Alito nomination was announced, the Sierra Club called him "a nominee who may represent great danger to Americans' ability to protect our clean air, clean water, and special places." Move over President Bush; for the next month Samuel Alito is Environmental Enemy Number One. Of particular concern to environmental groups is Judge Alito's apparent respect for principles of federalism. They fear that Judge Alito's demonstrated willingness to enforce constitutional limits on federal power could hamstring federal environmental protections. Not only do green groups exaggerate the threat, but they misrepresent Alito's opinions as well....
Editorial: Easterners disconnected from Western realities There's obviously something liberating about leaving a government job. On the inside, one must tread carefully, mincing one's words into a politically correct mush. Once outside, one can speak more honestly, without fear of courting controversy or landing in political hot water. That's why the recent comments made by outgoing Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Rebecca Watson, who is taking a job with a Denver law firm after four years at the Department of Interior, were so interesting to read. She's saying now what she might have been reluctant to say while in government. And what she's saying is important. In an interview with the Associated Press, Watson said she believes “the urbanization of America has helped polarize beliefs about the environment, leaving many city dwellers with romanticized and often unrealistic views about wildlife and natural resources in the West.” During her years at the department, Watson encountered many Easterners who she says have “false perspectives” about public lands conflicts in this part of the country. And that understanding gap is a problem. Watson is putting her finger on a serious problem: the growing disconnect between urban dwellers and rural people, between Easterners and Westerners, on environmental and public lands issues. Were the federal government not in a position to dictate such policies from thousands of miles away, and were state and local governments given a greater say in federal land policies, this understanding gap wouldn't matter much. But until that balance of power shifts westward - and states in the region demand a true partnership with Washington - urbanites and Easterners will continue to impose their ideas of environmental virtue on Westerners....
Overhaul of Endangered Species Act taking shape After more than three decades of life with the Endangered Species Act, there is a growing indication that one of the world's most significant environmental laws is about to undergo its first major overhaul. In early autumn, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Stockton, the House Resources Committee chairman, that would make several major changes to the landmark 1973 federal law. Then Dec. 15, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, introduced similarly sweeping legislation that will frame debate on the issue in the Senate in 2006. Meanwhile, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., chairman of the Senate Fisheries, Wildlife and Water Subcommittee, also is expected to introduce by March a proposal to rewrite the oft-criticized law, although in a manner more palatable to the environmental community. "What all these things indicate is that there is growing bipartisan support for some reform of the Endangered Species Act, which is long overdue," said Andrew R. Henderson, vice president and general counsel for the Building Industry Association of Southern California....
Tiny minnow could factor into dairy project in S.W. Minnesota The tiny Topeka shiner could have a big say in the development of a dairy operation near this southwestern Minnesota town. The minnow is the only fish in Minnesota on the federal endangered species list, and some fear it could block a 3,000-cow dairy operation near Adrian. The minnow has already delayed road building, slowed permits for water projects and raised hackles among Minnesota county officials. The shiner "has had major impact, some good, some not so good," said Doug Bos, assistant director of the Rock County Land Management office in Luverne. Lincoln County Commissioner Curt Blumeyer said concern about the minnow "holds up our (road) construction until later in the year."....
Editorial: Managing Invasive Species: Breaking open the poisons doesn't make us safer It is so easy to foul up an ecosystem. It is so hard to fix it again. In fact, it may be impossible. That's the dilemma the Bureau of Land Management faces as it drafts plans to attack some of the "invasive species" of plants that are altering the landscape of the American West. Rapidly spreading non-native flora such as cheat grass, tamarisk and Russian olive have taken over rangelands, dried up streams and made land inhospitable for animals that have lived there for centuries. As the name of their agency mandates, BLM officials seek to manage that situation by trying various means to remove those squatters from public land. But the whole concept of management, a term usually associated with directing human beings, may be just as foreign to local ecosystems as any of the offending plants. And deliberately trying to transplant that human concept to the natural world could be at least as destructive as any invading species. Proposed techniques of eliminating, or limiting, invasive species include, but are not limited to, aerial spraying of herbicides....
Mojave lake's history a bit fishy Scholars at a remote university research center in the middle of the Mojave Desert are attempting to unravel a mystery involving an endangered fish whose ancestors evolved after the last Ice Age. Scientists say the rare Mojave tui chub, found in 1.2-acre Lake Tuendae on the grounds of the Desert Studies Center operated by the California State University system, have survived in the harsh desert environment for 10,000 years. About 3,500 chub live in the lake, and another 500 are found in a nearby pool at the 80-acre center southwest of Baker in the east Mojave. "When ancient Lake Mojave began to dry up due to climatic changes, the fish found refuge at a 7-foot-deep spring on these grounds," said Robert Fulton, manager of the studies center the past two decades. "The fish were known to exist at the Mojave Narrows (near Victorville) since the turn of the past century. But most scientists believed that native chub species had been hybridized."....
Warming Climate of American West Pushes Pika to Extinction The American pika, a small mammal related to the rabbit, appears to be facing extinction in the Great Basin, new research has found. The pikas, pronounced pie-cas, are sensitive to high temperatures, a characteristic that makes them an indicator species for global warming in the western United States where they live high in the mountains. Pikas live in rock-strewn talus slopes that provide them with relief from hot temperatures and protection from predators. A University of Washington archaeologist who has examined fossil records covering the past 40,000 years says his work shows that the pikas are being pushed upward in their mountain habitat and are running out of places to live. Archaeologist Donald Grayson says climate change and human activities appear to be the primary factors jeopardizing the pika, Ochotona princeps. Roads and livestock are encroaching on pika habitat, he says....
Fears grow over small fish Tanana fisherman Charlie Campbell doesn't need scientific studies or empirical data to prove Yukon River chinook salmon--the mighty king of the species--are getting smaller. All he has to do is walk into his smokehouse. "I'm noticing I have a lot more headroom in the smokehouse than I remember," said Campbell, a subsistence fisherman who uses a fishwheel in The Rapids area of the Yukon between Tanana and Rampart. "Long salmon strips hang in your face and you have to duck to get underneath them. I'm 6-2, so it's an issue for me. With these shorter fish, shorter strips." Campbell hasn't been alone in his hypothesizing. Dozens of fishermen along the middle and upper reaches of the 2,300-mile Yukon have been claiming for years that smaller kings are returning from the ocean to spawn. A pair of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists released a study earlier this month that lends some scientific weight to that suspicion....
Something's growing at Redwood National Park America's pre-eminent redwoods showcase, Redwood National Park, will begin 2006 significantly larger, and not just because the massive trees there grew taller. The formerly 112,000-acre park in Humboldt and Del Norte counties -- home to the tallest living things on Earth -- grew by about 26,000 acres after President Bush signed a law to expand the park's boundaries on Dec. 21. The law, written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., added the 25,000-acre Mill Creek property, a vast expanse of redwood and Douglas fir forests six miles south of Crescent City, to the park's northern flank, along with a few smaller parcels. The Mill Creek property, roughly equal in size to the city of San Francisco, was heavily logged over the past 150 years, but remains home to bald eagles, black bears and some of California's best salmon streams....
Column: ANWR oil opponents ignore critical issues Did you know that the National Audubon Society has earned more than $25 million in royalties by allowing oil and natural gas production in Louisiana's Rainey Wildlife Refuge and Michigan's Baker Sanctuary? In fact, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey commissioned by U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in 2001 reported that 77 of 567 wildlife refuges in 22 states had oil and gas activities on their land in 2000, according to Arctic Power, the Alaskan group pushing for ANWR oil exploration. Ironically, the Rainey refuge is the winter habitat for snow geese migrating from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), while the Baker Sanctuary, a 900-acre wetland, provides hundreds of Sandhill cranes with a critical nesting area. If drilling and exploration are safely done in existing wildlife refuges, why would it be an "environmental apocalypse" if a tiny portion of ANWR were opened to exploration? It would not....
Git along little dogies, or minicows If you're a suburban cowboy hankering to raise a herd and short on ranch land, mini-cattle may be for you. New breeds of pint-sized heifers and bulls are making it easier for small farmers to raise cattle for milk, meat or just fun. On Bill Bryan's 50-acre spread on Maryland's Eastern Shore, he sold seven calves last year. "We've sold the vast majority of our calves to people who have these little 3- to 5-acre farmettes and they'll fence in an acre, buy a calf and more or less keep 'em for pets," Bryan said. Two minicalves stood nearby, contentedly munching on grass in a small fenced-in area, skittering away if visitors got too close. Bryan is among a group of pioneering breeders raising miniature cattle that can be as little as a third of the size of the larger breeds. The reasons are many, they say. You don't need the back 40 acres to raise these breeds; the back four will do. Minicattle eat about a third as much as a full-sized steer, are less destructive of pasture land and fencing, and are easier to handle. While each animal may be smaller, more meat can be produced overall from each acre, breeders say. And the smaller size of each animal also has its benefits....
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
FLE
Bush Assails Democrats Over Patriot Act
President Bush accused Democrats yesterday of blocking a full reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act for political reasons, as the White House stepped up an aggressive campaign to defend the president's terrorism-fighting authority. "For partisan reasons, in my mind, people have not stepped up," Bush told reporters, with 19 federal prosecutors by his side. "The enemy has not gone away; they're still there, and I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war and they've got to give us the tools necessary to win this war." Adopting campaign-style tactics, Bush and his aides plan to accuse Democrats of jeopardizing national security to further their political agenda, a tack that worked well for the White House in the 2002 and 2004 elections. But the political environment is different now, with Bush less popular and Democrats better organized in opposition. Moreover, key Republicans are also raising objections to Bush's broad interpretation of presidential power. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) was among the first to demand hearings on the NSA intercepts, and four GOP senators who typically back Bush in policy disputes played crucial roles in blocking the full reauthorization of the Patriot Act before Congress adjourned shortly before Christmas....
Bush Defends Spying Program As 'Necessary' to Protect U.S.
President Bush today mounted his third defense in two weeks of his secret domestic spying program, calling his order authorizing warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens a limited, legal program that Americans understand is protecting their security. Taking questions from reporters after a brief stop at an Army hospital in San Antonio to visit wounded troops, the president acknowledged concerns that monitoring overseas telephone calls and e-mails of citizens with suspected ties to terrorism may violate civil liberties. But he called his directive to the National Security Agency (NSA) after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "vital and necessary" to protect the country. "This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America, and I repeat limited," Bush said before flying back to Washington after six days cloistered on his ranch in Crawford, Tex. "I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking. "If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why." The president's first public comments of the new year after no public appearances last week offered a glimpse into how his administration intends to deflect congressional inquiries into his authorization of wiretaps on terrorism suspects -- with a vigorous defense of the program as a matter of national security....
Has Bush Gone Too Far?
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House officials were haunted by two questions. Were there other terrorists lying in wait within the U.S.? And, given how freely the 19 hijackers had been able to operate before they acted, how would we know where to find them? It didn't take long before an aggressive idea emerged from the circle of Administration hawks. Liberalize the rules for domestic spying, they urged. Free the National Security Agency (NSA) to use its powerful listening technology to eavesdrop on terrorist suspects on U.S. soil without having to seek a warrant for every phone number it tracked. But because of a 1978 law that forbids the NSA to conduct no-warrant surveillance inside the U.S., the new policy would require one of two steps. The first was to revise the law. The other was to ignore it. In the end, George Bush tried the first. When that failed, he opted for the second. In 2002 he issued a secret Executive Order to allow the NSA to eavesdrop without a warrant on phone conversations, e-mail and other electronic communications, even when at least one party to the exchange was in the U.S.—the circumstance that would ordinarily trigger the warrant requirement. For four years, Bush's decision remained a closely guarded secret. Because the NSA program was so sensitive, Administration officials tell Time, the "lawyers' group," an organization of fewer than half a dozen government attorneys the National Security Council convenes to review top-secret intelligence programs, was bypassed. Instead, the legal vetting was given to Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel....
Spy Controversy, Redux
I went back to the records of the Church committee uncertain whether what I'd find in its investigation of abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies would have much relevance for today's uproar. Certainly the Bush administration's actions - its unilateral assertion of questionable presidential powers, its casual disregard for established legal rules, its contemptuous attitude toward congressional oversight - are extremely troubling. At the same time, the underlying actions at issue, at least from what's been reported so far, don't seem to rise to the level of the lurid, flagrant abuses (plots to assassinate foreign leaders, "black-bag job" break-ins to disrupt political dissidents) uncovered by the Church committee and a parallel House probe. As it turned out, though, some of the less well-known aspects of those investigations involved the NSA. And, much as today, the episodes called on the agency, the executive branch and Congress to grapple with questions about the proper balance between privacy and security, the role of the NSA in gathering intelligence domestically, and the circumstances, if any, under which the NSA could eavesdrop on Americans. The Church committee discovered that the NSA had for years - unbeknownst to Congress - been using a "watch list" of U.S. citizens and organizations in sorting through the foreign communications it intercepted. In addition, for three decades, from 1945 to 1975, telegraph companies had been turning over to the NSA copies of most telegrams sent from the United States to foreign countries. This program, code-named Shamrock, was, according to the Church committee report, "probably the largest governmental interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken."....
Full Speed Ahead: Behind the NSA spying furor
The talk at the White House in the days and weeks after 9/11 was all about suitcase nukes and germ warfare and surprise decapitation strikes. Every morning, as they crossed West Executive Drive on their way to work in the West Wing, Bush administration staffers recall seeing a plain white truck with a galvanized metal chimney. Sensors sniffing for pathogens or radioactivity, they guessed, though they couldn't be sure. Like just about everything else at that spooky time, the purpose of the truck was a secret. Such chilling sights are not likely to inspire thoughtful ruminations about the separation of powers or the true meaning of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The message to White House lawyers from their commander in chief, recalls one who was deeply involved at the time, was clear enough: find a way to exercise the full panoply of powers granted the president by Congress and the Constitution. If that meant pushing the boundaries of the law, so be it. The Bush administration did not throw away the Bill of Rights in the months and years that followed; indeed, NEWSWEEK has learned, ferocious behind-the-scenes infighting stalled for a time the administration's ambitious program of electronic spying on U.S. citizens at home and abroad. On one day in the spring of 2004, White House chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a bedside visit to John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, who was stricken with a rare and painful pancreatic disease, to try—without success—to get him to reverse his deputy, Acting Attorney General James Comey, who was balking at the warrantless eavesdropping. Miffed that Comey, a straitlaced, by-the-book former U.S. attorney from New York, was not a "team player" on this and other issues, President George W. Bush dubbed him with a derisive nickname, "Cuomo," after Mario Cuomo, the New York governor who vacillated over running for president in the 1980s. (The White House denies this; Comey declined to comment.) In a perfect democracy trying to strike a balance between civil liberties and national security, there would be reasoned, open debate between representatives of the different branches of government. But human nature and politics rarely work in neat and orderly ways. In moments of crisis, presidents, if they believe in executive power (and most inevitably do), will do almost anything to protect the country....
Wartime Attacks on Civil Liberties
If it is true to say, as Randolph Bourne did, that war is the health of the state, it is equally true to say that war is the sickness of individual liberty. The state always menaces its people with an array of orders, prohibitions, and confiscations, but never so much as in times of war, when it can count on widespread support for all measures said to be necessary to ensure victory. That is especially so when it comes to dissent. Many citizens and politicians are seized with the idea that any disagreement with the war policies is a threat to national survival and must be suppressed at all costs. Opposition to or even indifference toward the war is equated with disloyalty, and the deeply ingrained notion that the people have an overarching obligation of loyalty to the state rises to support the crackdown. Censorship and punishment are just what the traitors deserve! In Perilous Times, University of Chicago Law School professor Geoffrey Stone chronicles the American experience with the attack on civil liberties during times of war. Stone, a noted First Amendment scholar, has written an elegant book that begins with the Sedition Act of 1798 and continues through the Vietnam War. He explains in his introduction, Time and again, Americans have allowed fear and fury to get the better of them. Time and again, Americans have suppressed dissent, imprisoned and deported dissenters, and then — later — regretted their actions. This book is first and foremost about why this happens and how we can break this pattern as we look to the future. As a history, Perilous Times is a complete triumph, meticulously researched and clearly told....
GOV'T. WINS COURT AUTHORIZATION TO SPY ON CELL PHONE USE
A federal court issued an opinion permitting government agencies to use cell phone data to track a cell phone's physical location, without a search warrant based on probable cause. The ruling seems to be in line with recent revelations about President Bush authorizing secret, warrantless wiretaps. The court opinion on Dec. 20, 2005 went largely unnoticed by the media or the public, but may have major ramifications on privacy rights and issues. Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York issued the opinion, despite three previous rulings to the contrary by other judges. There is no party to appeal, so the ruling paves the way for government agencies in all states to begin cell phone tracking without legal difficulty. There was only one party in each case that was rejected by other courts, the same party in the case that was given approval -- the Department of Justice. The DOJ did not appeal the cases it lost, and there is no party to appeal the case it won. "What other new surveillance powers has the government been creating out of whole cloth and how long have they been getting away with it?" commented the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation on it's web site. The DOJ revealed an attitude that a court order is not needed in the brief submitted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Brown: "A cell phone user voluntarily transmits a signal to the cell phone company, and thereby 'assumes the risk' that the cell phone provider will reveal to law enforcement the cell-site information."....
Chatting Up the TSA
Next time you go to the airport be sure to put on a happy face, even if you’ve been informed that your flight has been delayed by an hour and that you’ll miss all your connections. You’ll need this cheerful façade to make it through the TSA airport security checkpoint. As if being asked to strip off shoes, coats, belts and other clothing before going through a metal detector and getting your personal belongings x-rayed is not enough, the TSA will begin psychoanalyzing air travelers in 40 major airports next year. TSA screeners, who are not even fully trained law enforcement personnel, let alone professional psychologists, will perform behavior analysis screening on all passengers. The screeners will look for “suspicious” signs that might indicate a passenger could be a terrorist: having dry lips or a throbbing carotid artery (I’m not kidding), failure to make eye contact with or say hello to the screener, or evasive or slow answers to casual questions asked by the screener. Travelers who exhibit such nefarious characteristics will undergo extra physical searches—the infamous “pat down” frisk and bag rummage—and could even face police questioning. This further invasion of the public’s privacy is part of a trend in law enforcement to go beyond merely responding to criminal activity in an attempt to prevent it. But allowing security personnel to question people, conduct intrusive searches, and possibly even make arrests on such flimsy criteria, instead of on hard evidence of criminal activity, should raise alarm bells with all Americans concerned about their civil liberties. Even psychologists who believe that analyzing body language in a controlled lab environment can detect deceptive behavior admit that studies are needed to see if it will work in the field—in this case, en masse and at chaotic airport checkpoints....
RFID Passport Tests To Begin At San Francisco Airport
The Department of Homeland Security will begin testing passports embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology at the San Francisco International Airport mid-January, a spokesperson for the agency said Friday. Australia, New Zealand and Singapore have begun to issue passports to travelers with RFID chips. Many pass through the San Francisco, making it a likely location to test the technology, according to Anna Hinken, a US-Visit spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security. "We're bringing technology to the borders and chose RFID as one to help reach the goals of expediting safe entrance into the United States," she said. In October, the U.S. State Department issued final regulations on passports issued after October 2006, stating all would have embedded RFID chips that carry the holder's personal data and digital photo. Specifications for the passports were developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations agency. San Francisco is not the first major U.S. city to trial the technology. Through the US-Visit program, the DHS ran a three month test with RFID-embedded e-passports in fall 2005 at the Los Angeles International Airport. Other RFID projects have been in the works, too. All this increased security isn't cheap. The technology budget for the US-Visit program adds up to more than $1 billion in the past three fiscal years, ending Oct. 1. DHS is waiting for "official" word on the 2006 budget, but Hinken said funds have been approved and expects final funding in January....
Man Arrested At Airport Says Gun Was For Protection
An arrest report shows that a North Carolina man arrested for having a stun gun in his baggage at Chicago's main airport told police he'd just returned from missionary work in Nigeria and had the weapon for protection there. A screener at O'Hare International Airport found the stun gun in carry-on baggage belonging to 35-year-old John Adegbenjo, of Winston-Salem. Adegbenjo had flown into Chicago on a Lufthansa flight from Germany and was planning to board a flight to Greensboro. He's charged with unauthorized use of a weapon and attempting to board an aircraft with a weapon. Adegbenjo's wife said her husband's missionary group in Nigeria didn't want to depend on police protection. Authorities said in court Thursday that Adegbenjo has no known criminal history. His bail was set at $50,000.
Bush Assails Democrats Over Patriot Act
President Bush accused Democrats yesterday of blocking a full reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act for political reasons, as the White House stepped up an aggressive campaign to defend the president's terrorism-fighting authority. "For partisan reasons, in my mind, people have not stepped up," Bush told reporters, with 19 federal prosecutors by his side. "The enemy has not gone away; they're still there, and I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war and they've got to give us the tools necessary to win this war." Adopting campaign-style tactics, Bush and his aides plan to accuse Democrats of jeopardizing national security to further their political agenda, a tack that worked well for the White House in the 2002 and 2004 elections. But the political environment is different now, with Bush less popular and Democrats better organized in opposition. Moreover, key Republicans are also raising objections to Bush's broad interpretation of presidential power. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) was among the first to demand hearings on the NSA intercepts, and four GOP senators who typically back Bush in policy disputes played crucial roles in blocking the full reauthorization of the Patriot Act before Congress adjourned shortly before Christmas....
Bush Defends Spying Program As 'Necessary' to Protect U.S.
President Bush today mounted his third defense in two weeks of his secret domestic spying program, calling his order authorizing warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens a limited, legal program that Americans understand is protecting their security. Taking questions from reporters after a brief stop at an Army hospital in San Antonio to visit wounded troops, the president acknowledged concerns that monitoring overseas telephone calls and e-mails of citizens with suspected ties to terrorism may violate civil liberties. But he called his directive to the National Security Agency (NSA) after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "vital and necessary" to protect the country. "This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America, and I repeat limited," Bush said before flying back to Washington after six days cloistered on his ranch in Crawford, Tex. "I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking. "If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why." The president's first public comments of the new year after no public appearances last week offered a glimpse into how his administration intends to deflect congressional inquiries into his authorization of wiretaps on terrorism suspects -- with a vigorous defense of the program as a matter of national security....
Has Bush Gone Too Far?
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House officials were haunted by two questions. Were there other terrorists lying in wait within the U.S.? And, given how freely the 19 hijackers had been able to operate before they acted, how would we know where to find them? It didn't take long before an aggressive idea emerged from the circle of Administration hawks. Liberalize the rules for domestic spying, they urged. Free the National Security Agency (NSA) to use its powerful listening technology to eavesdrop on terrorist suspects on U.S. soil without having to seek a warrant for every phone number it tracked. But because of a 1978 law that forbids the NSA to conduct no-warrant surveillance inside the U.S., the new policy would require one of two steps. The first was to revise the law. The other was to ignore it. In the end, George Bush tried the first. When that failed, he opted for the second. In 2002 he issued a secret Executive Order to allow the NSA to eavesdrop without a warrant on phone conversations, e-mail and other electronic communications, even when at least one party to the exchange was in the U.S.—the circumstance that would ordinarily trigger the warrant requirement. For four years, Bush's decision remained a closely guarded secret. Because the NSA program was so sensitive, Administration officials tell Time, the "lawyers' group," an organization of fewer than half a dozen government attorneys the National Security Council convenes to review top-secret intelligence programs, was bypassed. Instead, the legal vetting was given to Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel....
Spy Controversy, Redux
I went back to the records of the Church committee uncertain whether what I'd find in its investigation of abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies would have much relevance for today's uproar. Certainly the Bush administration's actions - its unilateral assertion of questionable presidential powers, its casual disregard for established legal rules, its contemptuous attitude toward congressional oversight - are extremely troubling. At the same time, the underlying actions at issue, at least from what's been reported so far, don't seem to rise to the level of the lurid, flagrant abuses (plots to assassinate foreign leaders, "black-bag job" break-ins to disrupt political dissidents) uncovered by the Church committee and a parallel House probe. As it turned out, though, some of the less well-known aspects of those investigations involved the NSA. And, much as today, the episodes called on the agency, the executive branch and Congress to grapple with questions about the proper balance between privacy and security, the role of the NSA in gathering intelligence domestically, and the circumstances, if any, under which the NSA could eavesdrop on Americans. The Church committee discovered that the NSA had for years - unbeknownst to Congress - been using a "watch list" of U.S. citizens and organizations in sorting through the foreign communications it intercepted. In addition, for three decades, from 1945 to 1975, telegraph companies had been turning over to the NSA copies of most telegrams sent from the United States to foreign countries. This program, code-named Shamrock, was, according to the Church committee report, "probably the largest governmental interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken."....
Full Speed Ahead: Behind the NSA spying furor
The talk at the White House in the days and weeks after 9/11 was all about suitcase nukes and germ warfare and surprise decapitation strikes. Every morning, as they crossed West Executive Drive on their way to work in the West Wing, Bush administration staffers recall seeing a plain white truck with a galvanized metal chimney. Sensors sniffing for pathogens or radioactivity, they guessed, though they couldn't be sure. Like just about everything else at that spooky time, the purpose of the truck was a secret. Such chilling sights are not likely to inspire thoughtful ruminations about the separation of powers or the true meaning of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The message to White House lawyers from their commander in chief, recalls one who was deeply involved at the time, was clear enough: find a way to exercise the full panoply of powers granted the president by Congress and the Constitution. If that meant pushing the boundaries of the law, so be it. The Bush administration did not throw away the Bill of Rights in the months and years that followed; indeed, NEWSWEEK has learned, ferocious behind-the-scenes infighting stalled for a time the administration's ambitious program of electronic spying on U.S. citizens at home and abroad. On one day in the spring of 2004, White House chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a bedside visit to John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, who was stricken with a rare and painful pancreatic disease, to try—without success—to get him to reverse his deputy, Acting Attorney General James Comey, who was balking at the warrantless eavesdropping. Miffed that Comey, a straitlaced, by-the-book former U.S. attorney from New York, was not a "team player" on this and other issues, President George W. Bush dubbed him with a derisive nickname, "Cuomo," after Mario Cuomo, the New York governor who vacillated over running for president in the 1980s. (The White House denies this; Comey declined to comment.) In a perfect democracy trying to strike a balance between civil liberties and national security, there would be reasoned, open debate between representatives of the different branches of government. But human nature and politics rarely work in neat and orderly ways. In moments of crisis, presidents, if they believe in executive power (and most inevitably do), will do almost anything to protect the country....
Wartime Attacks on Civil Liberties
If it is true to say, as Randolph Bourne did, that war is the health of the state, it is equally true to say that war is the sickness of individual liberty. The state always menaces its people with an array of orders, prohibitions, and confiscations, but never so much as in times of war, when it can count on widespread support for all measures said to be necessary to ensure victory. That is especially so when it comes to dissent. Many citizens and politicians are seized with the idea that any disagreement with the war policies is a threat to national survival and must be suppressed at all costs. Opposition to or even indifference toward the war is equated with disloyalty, and the deeply ingrained notion that the people have an overarching obligation of loyalty to the state rises to support the crackdown. Censorship and punishment are just what the traitors deserve! In Perilous Times, University of Chicago Law School professor Geoffrey Stone chronicles the American experience with the attack on civil liberties during times of war. Stone, a noted First Amendment scholar, has written an elegant book that begins with the Sedition Act of 1798 and continues through the Vietnam War. He explains in his introduction, Time and again, Americans have allowed fear and fury to get the better of them. Time and again, Americans have suppressed dissent, imprisoned and deported dissenters, and then — later — regretted their actions. This book is first and foremost about why this happens and how we can break this pattern as we look to the future. As a history, Perilous Times is a complete triumph, meticulously researched and clearly told....
GOV'T. WINS COURT AUTHORIZATION TO SPY ON CELL PHONE USE
A federal court issued an opinion permitting government agencies to use cell phone data to track a cell phone's physical location, without a search warrant based on probable cause. The ruling seems to be in line with recent revelations about President Bush authorizing secret, warrantless wiretaps. The court opinion on Dec. 20, 2005 went largely unnoticed by the media or the public, but may have major ramifications on privacy rights and issues. Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York issued the opinion, despite three previous rulings to the contrary by other judges. There is no party to appeal, so the ruling paves the way for government agencies in all states to begin cell phone tracking without legal difficulty. There was only one party in each case that was rejected by other courts, the same party in the case that was given approval -- the Department of Justice. The DOJ did not appeal the cases it lost, and there is no party to appeal the case it won. "What other new surveillance powers has the government been creating out of whole cloth and how long have they been getting away with it?" commented the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation on it's web site. The DOJ revealed an attitude that a court order is not needed in the brief submitted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Brown: "A cell phone user voluntarily transmits a signal to the cell phone company, and thereby 'assumes the risk' that the cell phone provider will reveal to law enforcement the cell-site information."....
Chatting Up the TSA
Next time you go to the airport be sure to put on a happy face, even if you’ve been informed that your flight has been delayed by an hour and that you’ll miss all your connections. You’ll need this cheerful façade to make it through the TSA airport security checkpoint. As if being asked to strip off shoes, coats, belts and other clothing before going through a metal detector and getting your personal belongings x-rayed is not enough, the TSA will begin psychoanalyzing air travelers in 40 major airports next year. TSA screeners, who are not even fully trained law enforcement personnel, let alone professional psychologists, will perform behavior analysis screening on all passengers. The screeners will look for “suspicious” signs that might indicate a passenger could be a terrorist: having dry lips or a throbbing carotid artery (I’m not kidding), failure to make eye contact with or say hello to the screener, or evasive or slow answers to casual questions asked by the screener. Travelers who exhibit such nefarious characteristics will undergo extra physical searches—the infamous “pat down” frisk and bag rummage—and could even face police questioning. This further invasion of the public’s privacy is part of a trend in law enforcement to go beyond merely responding to criminal activity in an attempt to prevent it. But allowing security personnel to question people, conduct intrusive searches, and possibly even make arrests on such flimsy criteria, instead of on hard evidence of criminal activity, should raise alarm bells with all Americans concerned about their civil liberties. Even psychologists who believe that analyzing body language in a controlled lab environment can detect deceptive behavior admit that studies are needed to see if it will work in the field—in this case, en masse and at chaotic airport checkpoints....
RFID Passport Tests To Begin At San Francisco Airport
The Department of Homeland Security will begin testing passports embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology at the San Francisco International Airport mid-January, a spokesperson for the agency said Friday. Australia, New Zealand and Singapore have begun to issue passports to travelers with RFID chips. Many pass through the San Francisco, making it a likely location to test the technology, according to Anna Hinken, a US-Visit spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security. "We're bringing technology to the borders and chose RFID as one to help reach the goals of expediting safe entrance into the United States," she said. In October, the U.S. State Department issued final regulations on passports issued after October 2006, stating all would have embedded RFID chips that carry the holder's personal data and digital photo. Specifications for the passports were developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations agency. San Francisco is not the first major U.S. city to trial the technology. Through the US-Visit program, the DHS ran a three month test with RFID-embedded e-passports in fall 2005 at the Los Angeles International Airport. Other RFID projects have been in the works, too. All this increased security isn't cheap. The technology budget for the US-Visit program adds up to more than $1 billion in the past three fiscal years, ending Oct. 1. DHS is waiting for "official" word on the 2006 budget, but Hinken said funds have been approved and expects final funding in January....
Man Arrested At Airport Says Gun Was For Protection
An arrest report shows that a North Carolina man arrested for having a stun gun in his baggage at Chicago's main airport told police he'd just returned from missionary work in Nigeria and had the weapon for protection there. A screener at O'Hare International Airport found the stun gun in carry-on baggage belonging to 35-year-old John Adegbenjo, of Winston-Salem. Adegbenjo had flown into Chicago on a Lufthansa flight from Germany and was planning to board a flight to Greensboro. He's charged with unauthorized use of a weapon and attempting to board an aircraft with a weapon. Adegbenjo's wife said her husband's missionary group in Nigeria didn't want to depend on police protection. Authorities said in court Thursday that Adegbenjo has no known criminal history. His bail was set at $50,000.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)