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NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans' privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the data-sifting effort didn't disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system. The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people's communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks. According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called "transactional" data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns. Then they spit out leads to be explored by counterterrorism programs across the U.S. government, such as the NSA's own Terrorist Surveillance Program, formed to intercept phone calls and emails between the U.S. and overseas without a judge's approval when a link to al Qaeda is suspected. The NSA's enterprise involves a cluster of powerful intelligence-gathering programs, all of which sparked civil-liberties complaints when they came to light. They include a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data once known as Carnivore, now called the Digital Collection System, and a U.S. arrangement with the world's main international banking clearinghouse to track money movements. The effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called "black programs" whose existence is undisclosed, the current and former officials say. Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach. Among them, current and former intelligence officials say, is a longstanding Treasury Department program to collect individual financial data including wire transfers and credit-card transactions....
Relief for Phone Firms Proposed House Democratic leaders announced yesterday their support for providing some relief to phone companies that have been sued for assisting the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program but reaffirmed their opposition to the legal immunity sought by the administration. The proposal would allow the companies, which face nearly 40 civil lawsuits in a federal court in San Francisco, to defend themselves in secret, in front of a judge but without the plaintiffs. Leaders intend to organize a floor vote on it tomorrow. Allowing such "ex parte" review of classified evidence is meant to defuse the administration's argument that the companies cannot respond to the lawsuits now without disclosing classified information that would harm national security, and that the companies should, therefore, be immunized. The measure is part of a revised House bill that would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The administration contends that the act has been overtaken by technological advances and, especially in the case of e-mails, requires new provisions to allow intelligence agents to eavesdrop on communications involving foreign targets. White House press secretary Dana Perino said the House Democrats' bill is "dead on arrival" for several reasons, including its failure to provide the liability protection that is in the Senate bill....
Girls, guys and Glocks? On Valentine's Day a man walked into a Northern Illinois University lecture hall and began shooting students, one at a time, while some ran and others cowered under seats. By the time he was done, he'd killed five people and wounded 18 more. Last April, a man went from classroom to classroom at Virginia Tech, shooting people as they barricaded doors, hid under desks and ran toward open windows. In the nearly 10-minute stretch before police reached him, the shooter had fired over 174 rounds, killed 32 people and injured 17 more. Those horrifying and graphic details - not just the death but the utter helplessness of those who were killed - have galvanized more than 19,000 students and professors across the nation to fight for the right to carry concealed weapons on campus. They say the victims in nearly every school shooting in the past decade have been unarmed and completely helpless in the 2 to 10 minutes before armed police or security guards arrived...Utah is the only major exception, at the moment. Its state legislature passed a law in 2004 that prevents public universities from banning weapons on campus, which, in a roundabout way, makes it legal for students with concealed weapons permits to bring guns to class. Another 12 states are considering similar legislation, according to Bryce Eastlick, director of business operations for the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Six more states are writing up bills this spring. Among the 12, said Eastlick, are Virginia, Washington and Arizona, which have all seen massacre-style school shootings in the past decade....
Pandemic flu plan would put Chicago on lockdown Containing an influenza pandemic in a large U.S. city like Chicago would require widespread school closings, quarantines of infected households and bans on public gatherings, U.S. researchers said on Monday. But, if done quickly and well, such steps could reduce infections by as much as 80 percent, said researcher Stephen Eubank of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, based on a computer simulation of just such an event. Health experts almost universally agree that a global epidemic -- a pandemic -- of influenza is inevitable. Flu is always circulating but, every few decades, a completely new strain emerges and makes millions sicker than usual. Government estimates suggest vaccines and drugs will not be enough to slow or prevent a flu pandemic, and the U.S. pandemic plan includes ways to limit the spread by closing schools and implementing strategies to reduce contact with infected people. Schools and day-care centers would close. Theaters, bars, restaurants and ball parks would be shuttered. Offices and factories would be open but hobbled as workers stay home to care for children. Infected people and their friends and families would be confined to their homes. "We are not talking about simply shutting things down for a day or two like a snow day. It's a sustained period for weeks or months," he said....