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Intel Official: Say Goodbye to Privacy A top intelligence official says it is time people in the United States changed their definition of privacy. Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information. Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act. Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering....
U.S. simulates 'dirty bomb' attacks on Phoenix, Portland A dirty bomb explodes in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. A few hours later, two more dirty bombs detonate, this time on the continental United States. One bomb goes off at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, killing an unknown number of people and spreading radiation throughout the airport. Almost simultaneously, a dirty bomb goes off in Portland, Ore., detonated on the Steel Bridge, one of the city's main arteries across the Willamette River to the downtown area. Within minutes, the news media broadcast these disasters to the world. Is the U.S. facing another 9/11, this time with dirty bombs set off by another wave of Islamic terrorists? How many more dirty bombs are set to go off, and where? As much as the scenario may sound like the screenplay of a Hollywood thriller, these terrorists events were being simulated as part of a national training exercise conducted by NORAD and USNORTHCOM in October. Named Vigilant Shield 2008, or VS08, the exercise was also a "top officials exercise," code-named TOPOFF4....
Border Fence Could Cut Through Backyards Founded 240 years ago, this sleepy Texas town along the Rio Grande has outlasted the Spanish, then the Mexicans and then the short-lived independent Republic of Texas. But it may not survive the U.S. government's effort to secure the Mexican border with a steel fence. A map obtained by The Associated Press shows that the double- or triple-layer fence may be built as much as two miles from the river on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, leaving parts of Granjeno and other nearby communities in a potential no-man's-land between the barrier and the water's edge. Based on the map and what the residents have been told, the fence could run straight through houses and backyards. Some fear it could also cut farmers off from prime farmland close to the water. "I don't sleep right because I'm worried," said Daniel Garza, a 74- year-old retiree born and raised in Granjeno. Garza said federal agents told him that the gray brick house he built just five years ago and shares with his 72-year-old wife is squarely in the fence's path. "No matter what they offer, I don't want to move, I don't want to leave,"....