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TSA To Allow Breast Milk, Cigarette Lighters Aboard Airplanes Airline passengers will no longer have to surrender their cigarette lighters before boarding commercial airplanes beginning next month. In an announcement made Friday, the Transportation Security Administration said it also will allow mothers with or without children to fly with more than three ounces of breast milk. The agency said that by allowing cigarette lighters on planes, airport officials will get more time to search for explosives. "The No. 1 threat for us is someone trying to bring bomb components through the security checkpoint. We don't want anything that distracts concentration from searching for that," TSA chief Kip Hawley told the New York Times adding that it takes millions of dollars to dispose of thousands of lighters confiscated each day. Starting Aug. 4, passengers will be allowed to carry disposable butane lighters, such as Bics, and refillable lighters, including Zippos, however, torch-style lighters, which have hotter flames, will still not be allowed, the TSA said. The lighters were banned from commercial flights in April 2005 following the case of shoe-bomber who unsuccessfully tried to use matchsticks to blow explosives hidden in his shoes while aboard a flight from Paris-to-Miami in 2001. The lawmakers were worried that a lighter might have worked. Another change in policy announced Friday was associated with carrying breast milk through security checkpoints. Under the revised rules, mothers flying with, and without, their child will be permitted to bring breast milk in quantities greater than three ounces as long as it is declared for inspection at the security checkpoint....
Bush won't promise to pardon border agents Questioned by an audience member at a forum, President Bush said he could not promise to pardon former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. "I'm not going to make that kind of promise in a forum like this," Bush said at the Nashville event yesterday, which focused on his budget. Bush referred to the U.S. attorney responsible for the case, Johnny Sutton, as "a dear friend of mine" and called him a "fair guy" and "even-handed," according to a White House transcript. The president elicited laughter when he told the questioner, "You've got a nice smile, but you can't entice me into making a public statement." "I know this is an emotional issue, but people need to look at the facts," Bush said. "These men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend, Johnny Sutton, presented them. But anyway, no, I won't make you that promise."....
Prosecution 'deals' with Mexico investigated A hearing has been scheduled in federal court on a request by Judicial Watch for access to government documents about any deals it cut with Mexico in the prosecution of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. As WND has reported, government documents already have disclosed the fact that Mexican consular officials were the ones who demanded a prosecution of Texas Sheriff's Deputy Guillermo "Gilmer" Hernandez, who was brought to trial after two illegal immigrants were injured when he fired at a van that had tried to run him down. U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, told WND at that point he "long suspected that Mexican government officials ordered the prosecution of our law enforcement agents." "Mexico wants to intimidate our law enforcement into leaving our border unprotected, and we now have confirmation of it in writing," he said. The hearing on Monday, Judicial Watch said, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon on the issue of its request for access to government documents about any deals. Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, wants to see records detailing the U.S. governments contacts and "deals" with the Mexican government. The organization had filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the State Department in January, seeking records of "communications and actions by U.S. government personnel with Mexican officials concerning the prosecutions of U.S. Border Patrol Agents Ignacio 'Nacho' Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean over the shooting of Mexican drug smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila."....
Court Orders U.S. To Turn over Records on Detainees A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the U.S. government to turn over virtually all its information on Guantanamo detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures. The decision set the stage for new legal battles over the government's reasons for holding the men indefinitely. The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants. It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration's detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantanamo, where about 360 men are now being held. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and lawyers for the detainees....
Military Medical Breach Revealed A government contractor handling sensitive health information for 867,000 U.S. service members and their families acknowledged yesterday that some of its employees sent unencrypted data -- such as medical appointments, treatments and diagnoses -- across the Internet. Air Force investigators are probing the security breach at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) of San Diego, an $8 billion defense contractor that holds sensitive government contracts, including for information security. The breach was discovered in May and involved data being processed by SAIC under nine health-care data contracts for the military. It was detected during routine scanning for questionable network traffic by a special military task force that directs the operation of the military's computer network, said an Air Force spokeswoman, Jean Schaefer. The task force determined that medical data were being sent through a server that was not secure against hacker attacks, she said. It is illegal to transmit unencrypted health information over the Internet. So far, there is no evidence that personal data have been compromised, but "the possibility cannot be ruled out," SAIC said in a press release....
New Fingerprint Method Could Show Diet, Sex, Race A victim might not care if a murderer is a smoker or a vegetarian. But having such knowledge could help police solve a case. Details like this could one day be at their fingertips if a new fingerprinting technique pans out as expected. Standard methods for collecting fingerprints at crime scenes, which involve powders, liquids or vapors, can alter the prints and erase valuable forensic clues, including traces of chemicals that might be in the prints. Now researchers find tape made from gelatin could enable forensics teams to chemically analyze prints gathered at crime scenes, yielding more specific information about miscreants' diets and even possibly their gender and race....
Microchip Implants Raise Privacy Concern CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself - until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms. The "chipping" of two workers with RFIDs - radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick - was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said. To some, the microchip was a wondrous invention - a high-tech helper that could increase security at nuclear plants and military bases, help authorities identify wandering Alzheimer's patients, allow consumers to buy their groceries, literally, with the wave of a chipped hand. To others, the notion of tagging people was Orwellian, a departure from centuries of history and tradition in which people had the right to go and do as they pleased, without being tracked, unless they were harming someone else. Chipping, these critics said, might start with Alzheimer's patients or Army Rangers, but would eventually be suggested for convicts, then parolees, then sex offenders, then illegal aliens - until one day, a majority of Americans, falling into one category or another, would find themselves electronically tagged....
Researchers have created a robotic fly for covert surveillance A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals. "Nature makes the world's best fliers," says Robert Wood, leader of Harvard's robotic-fly project and a professor at the university's school of engineering and applied sciences. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding Wood's research in the hope that it will lead to stealth surveillance robots for the battlefield and urban environments. The robot's small size and fly-like appearance are critical to such missions. "You probably wouldn't notice a fly in the room, but you certainly would notice a hawk," Wood says....