Guidelines Expand FBI's Surveillance Powers Justice Department officials released new guidelines yesterday that empower FBI agents to use intrusive techniques to gather intelligence within the United States, alarming civil liberties groups and Democratic lawmakers who worry that they invite privacy violations and other abuses. The new road map allows investigators to recruit informants, employ physical surveillance and conduct interviews in which agents disguise their identities in an effort to assess national security threats. FBI agents could pursue each of those steps without any single fact indicating a person has ties to a terrorist organization. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said the guidelines are necessary to fulfill the FBI's core mission to predict threats and respond even before an attack takes place. Civil liberties activists yesterday raised anew questions about the expanded role of the FBI in collecting an array of foreign intelligence within U.S. borders, absent evidence of a crime. For instance, the guidelines allow FBI agents to conduct interviews and monitor the movement of people who may possess useful information on subjects of general interest to American policymakers, such as a foreign government's oil exports....

FBI Prevents Agents from Telling 'Truth' About 9/11 on PBS The FBI has blocked two of its veteran counterterrorism agents from going public with accusations that the CIA deliberately withheld crucial intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. FBI Special Agents Mark Rossini and Douglas Miller have asked for permission to appear in an upcoming public television documentary, scheduled to air in January, on pre-9/11 rivalries between the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency. The program is a spin-off from The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, by acclaimed investigative reporter James Bamford, due out in a matter of days. The FBI denied Rossini and Miller permission to participate in the book or the PBS "NOVA" documentary, which is also being written and produced by Bamford, on grounds that the FBI "doesn't want to stir up old conflicts with the CIA," according to multiple reliable sources....

Feds Tout New Domestic Intelligence Centers Federal, state and local cops are huddling together in domestic intelligence dens around the nation to fuse anti-terror information and tips in ways they never have before, and they want the American people to know about it -- sort of. Homeland Security Under Secretary Charlie Allen, formerly of the CIA, described how sharing threat assessments, and even the occasional raw intel, with the new fusion centers marks a cultural shift from the Cold War era. Back then, spies treated everyone, other departments and agencies included, as suspicious. The fifty or so U.S. fusion centers are where the federal, state and local cops share intelligence, sift data for clues, run down reports of suspicious packages and connect dots in an effort to detect and thwart terrorism attacks, drug smuggling and gang fighting. The dominant catchphrase from the officials was that the centers need to focus on "all threats, all hazards." That means that the fusion centers would be working on immigration, radicalization, demographic changes, hurricanes, biological and chemical threats, as well as common criminal activity. Officials say the centers must look at even the most mundane crimes, since they can be used to fund terrorism. But critics say that "all hazards, all threats" approach sounds suspiciously like the government is building a distributed domestic intelligence service that could easily begin keeping tabs on Americans exercising their First Amendment rights. The scope also seems at odds with the federal government's Information Sharing Environment guidelines, which say these centers are supposed to focus on terrorism. California's Anti-Terrorism Information Center admitted to spying on anti-war groups in 2003. And Denver's police department built their own secret spy files on Quakers and 200 other organizations. Earlier this year, the ACLU issued a warning report about Fusion Centers, complete with an interactive fusion center map, earlier this year. The report, entitled What's Wrong With Fusion Centers, cited concerns about military units operating in the centers, as well as the potential for scope creep and data mining. How, the group asked, can citizens contest information about themselves, given the patchwork of state, local and federal sunshine laws that may or may not apply....

Supremes Mull Whether Bad Databases Make for Illegal Searches If a false entry in a database leads to a unconstitutional police search that reveals illegal drugs, does the government get to hold it against you? That's the question the Supreme Court will tackle on Tuesday in a case civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center argue will have broad implications in a world where we are constantly being evaluated against databases and watch lists that are riddled with frustratingly persistent errors. "In these interlinked databases, one error can spread like a disease, infecting every system it touches and condemning the individual to whom this error refers to suffer substantial delay, harassment, and improper arrest," EPIC director Marc Rotenberg argued in a friend of the court brief (.pdf). Not surprisingly, the government disagrees. "Police officers in the field must be allowed to rely on information they receive from others when it is reasonable to do so," the Justice Department wrote in its brief (.pdf), arguing that throwing out the evidence won't make errors less likely....

Who Killed Real ID? Americans probably would never have suffered through a debate over national ID cards—much less a bill mandating them—but for the attacks of September 11, 2001. Biometric identification cards have been rejected by panel after panel, pol after pol, pitchfork-wielding mob after pitchforkwielding mob, ever since the technology came online. In 1973, the year that the 12-digit Universal Product Code made its debut, the House of Representatives' Health, Education, and Welfare Advisory Committee rejected a national ID system on the grounds that it "would enhance the likelihood of arbitrary or uncontrolled linkage of records about people." As the years passed, the consensus held. In 1977 the congressionally mandated Privacy Protection Study Commission, confronting the problem of identity theft, warned that a national ID and database of personal information would create more problems than they solved. It recommended that bureaucrats "halt the incremental drift toward creation of a standard universal label and central population register" until legislators found a way to keep the information secure. In part, the commission's reluctance reflected the post-Watergate cynicism and paranoia of the 1970s. But its decision was also rooted in a historical and uniquely American aversion to having the central government issue—and demand on request—uniform ID cards. That cantankerous tradition flared up again in the early 1990s, when the Clinton administration's health care plan was attached to a system of biometric cards. Add to that the objections by affected interests such as state governments and "sin" industries, and opposition to a national ID scheme seemed etched in concrete. Then came 9/11....

Snubbing Constitutionally-Protected Speech Some candidates will go to great lengths to win a campaign. Some may even snub the Constitution in the process. That’s precisely what the Obama campaign has been doing in an attempt to keep the National Rifle Association (NRA) from airing political ads accusing presidential candidate Barack Obama of hiding a long-standing anti-Second Amendment record. In what appears to be a direct assault on Constitutionally-protected speech, the Obama camp is bullying media outlets with threats of lawsuits in an attempt to censor the ads. According to news reports, Robert Bauer, general counsel to the Obama campaign wrote a letter dated September 23, 2008 to various TV stations in Pennsylvania and Ohio, stating that “[f]or the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement.” The controversy continues with reports that Obama and the Democratic National Committee are calling on followers to contact the stations and demand that they pull the ads....

New York Defends Handgun Database New York's seven-year-old database of handgun "fingerprints" has yet to lead to a criminal prosecution, and questions linger about its effectiveness. Still, state police remain committed to the tool, saying that more time and a long-awaited link to a federal ballistics database could bring success. Since March 2001, identifying information about more than 200,000 new revolvers and semiautomatic pistols sold in New York have been entered into the Combined Ballistic Identification System database maintained by state police. New York and Maryland are the only states that maintain statewide databases. New guns are test-fired, and the minute markings the weapons make on the shell casings are recorded and entered into the digital database. Proponents say the markings are as unique as fingerprints and can be compared against shell casings found at crime scenes. Gun advocates, who have opposed the database from the get-go as unworkable, claim the lack of results is evidence of the system's failure. They contend that a firearm's "fingerprints" can be changed easily by taking a file to the breech face....

British Government will spy on every call and e-mail Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain. GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project. Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers - thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers. Ministers are braced for a backlash similar to the one caused by their ID cards programme. MI5 currently conducts limited e-mail and website intercepts which are approved under specific warrants by the home secretary. Further details of the new plan will be unveiled next month in the Queen’s speech....

Cheney touts administration record on conservation Vice President Dick Cheney told attendees of the White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy meeting Friday the Bush Administration has been a strong partner for conservation groups and is moving to expand three successful initiatives. The Health Forest Initiative, Cheney told an audience of more than 600 at the Reno Ballroom, has helped clean up dangerous kindling and underbrush, restoring more than 26 million acres of forest land. He said there has been significant improvement for America’s wetlands and the Conservation Reserve program has enrolled more than a million acres of private grassland, helping ranchers and farmers restore that habitat. He said even as he prepares to leave office, President George W. Bush is expanding those programs. He said more incentives for landowners to join would add 7 million acres to the Conservation Reserve program over the next five years. Bush has committed the federal government to restoring another 4 million acres of wetlands in that same time period. The conference was convened by an executive order issued by Bush in 2007 to draft an action plan to guide future wildlife conservation efforts nationwide and protect “the nation’s hunting heritage.”....Go here to read the Executive Order.

Federal judge finds oil firm guilty in bird deaths A federal magistrate judge has found a Kansas oil man and an oil firm guilty of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for not properly screening equipment to protect birds. U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Humpreys found that Apollo Energies Inc. and Dale Walker, doing business as Red Cedar Oil, did not comply with a federal law that requires them to secure oil field equipment to keep birds from getting trapped in exhaust stacks and openings. The case stems from two search warrants the agency executed at sites in Barber County. Apollo Energies and Walker were found guilty of one misdemeanor count for the deaths of two Northern flickers and an Eastern bluebird. In addition, Walker was found guilty of a second count for the death of a common grackle at another site. "The spooky part of it is that this can happen everywhere," defense attorney Stephen Robison said Monday. "It really could happen as a bird flies into your front window, it could happen in your chimney, it could happen in the roof vent of any building in Wichita, Kan., it could happen in grain bins all over the state, and we are at the mercy of the Fish and Wildlife Service," he said. "That is the upsetting part."....Thank you Mr. Cheney.

Sheep producer is angry 'the wolves win' A northern Wisconsin farmer who has watched a growing pack of wolves harass his sheep and kill one can't believe the animals are back on the federal endangered species list. "All it means is the wolves win," said Merrill Rosenwinkel of Herbster, in far northern Bayfield County. "It is discouraging is what it is. It would be nice if we could go back to when there weren't any wolves here." The ruling means the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources now can no longer manage wolves like it wants — basically allowing the killing of the problem ones that go after livestock, pets and even bear hunting dogs. "I am very much disappointed," said Adrian Wydeven, the agency's wolf expert. "This really reduces our flexibility. It creates a lot more problems trying to manage our population. I think we lose public support to some extent because people were more willing to accept wolves when we could rapidly go out and have the problem animals removed."....Thank you Mr. Cheney.

Wolves sought after killings Wildlife officials are tracking wolves in the Reed Point area after a verified kill of a sheep and goat at a ranch north of the town this week. If found, one wolf will be shot and the other collared and released to gather information on its travels. A kill permit also was issued to the landowner. Because wolves have not been seen frequently in the area, trapped wolves may be fitted with radio collars and released so biologists can follow them, learn where they came from and whether they are part of a larger pack. This is the fifth incident in which wolves have attacked the rancher's sheep - a total of 15 sheep and a goat have been confirmed killed. Herders and guard dogs have not prevented the depredations....Thank you Mr. Cheney.

Owyhees gets chance to pass the Senate, Congress this year Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he expects a vote on a lands bill after the election that includes protections for the Owyhee Canyonlands and ranching in Owyhee County. The Senate will come back for a lame duck session Nov. 17. "One thing we are going to move to is a land package," Reid said on the floor Wednesday soon after the passage of the financial rescue bill. "We have talked to everybody about this." The bill includes Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo's Owyhee legislation which was sent to the floor by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Crapo has worked hard for six years to hold together the coalition of ranchers and environmentalists who back his Owyhees bill. The bill would protect 517,000 acres as wilderness, another 315 miles of rivers as wild and scenic and help ranchers with a series of land transfers, buyouts and the establishment of a science center. The bill also includes a bill to protect 387 miles of the Snake River and its tributaries in Wyoming under the Wild and Scenic Rivers bill. Crapo worked out problems in the Wyoming provision of the bill raised by Sen. Larry Craig and the Idaho Water Users Association. Overall the bill contains more than 90 titles, including more than a half dozen wilderness measures to protect more than 900,000 acres of wild land in Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, Virginia and West Virginia.

Calif. Court Says Mobile Billboard Law Doesn't Muzzle Animal Rights Group's Speech An animal rights group had every right to protest singer/actress Hilary Duff's performances at rodeos and bullfight arenas, but not on moving billboards in West Hollywood, Calif. In a 2-1 decision Tuesday, California's 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles upheld the small city's ban on mobile billboard advertising after finding it doesn't violate the animal group's free-speech rights. "The ordinance is content neutral," Justice Frances Rothschild wrote. "It draws no distinctions based on the content of the speech or the viewpoints expressed. Nor is there any evidence that 'the ordinance was designed to suppress certain ideas that the city finds distasteful or that it has been applied to [plaintiffs] because of the views that they express.'" Steve Hindi, president of Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, an Illinois-based nonprofit that seeks to expose cruelty to animals, was pulled over in West Hollywood one night and fined more than $1,000 for violating the city's ban on mobile billboards. Hindi was driving the so-called "Tiger Truck," a vehicle that has four 100-inch video screens on all sides, showing animal abuse and blaring the sounds of creatures in distress....

The Rational Environmentalist Where in the world can we do the most good? That is the basic question addressed by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank founded six years ago by the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg. To answer the question, the center periodically convenes panels of leading economists, who weigh and prioritize the solutions experts have proposed to the world's biggest problems. Lomborg, a boyish 43-year-old, first burst onto the intellectual scene in 2001 with his best-selling book The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. There the former Greenpeace member argued persuasively that most of the planetary doom scenarios imagined by ideological environmentalists were contradicted by the available ecological and economic data. The book provoked a furious green backlash, the low point of which was a 2003 ruling by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty that "the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty." Lomborg was vindicated later that year when the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation overturned the ruling, calling it "completely void of argumentation." Ronald Bailey, reason's science correspondent, interviewed Lomborg in a gilt-edged room at the Moltkes Palace in Copenhagen during a lunch break at the 2008 Copenhagen Consensus Conference....

Officers seek removal of NM game director The head of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department has had his hunting license revoked for illegally killing a deer on private land. Now, conservation officers who work for him want him to step down or be replaced. Thompson has taken responsibility, but members of the New Mexico Conservation Officers Association claim the director's handling of the incident has given the department a bad name. ''It's frustrating for us,'' Colin Duff, president of the association, told The Associated Press on Friday. ''For a guy to be in that position, he's been convicted and is still signing laws that pertain to everybody else's hunting privileges, we don't really see how he can keep doing that.'' A letter from the association was read at Thursday's commission meeting, outlining the group's feelings about Thompson's leadership. The letter states Thompson ''should step aside and let a qualified and trustworthy person take the reins.'' Despite the convictions, the association claims the director fought the revocation process, forcing his own employees to testify against him. Duff said similar violations involving wildlife officials in other states have resulted in resignations or terminations long before court action. ''Why has New Mexico's leadership acted so differently? Why has this leader been afforded the ability to disrespect his agency for an entire year?'' Duff said in the letter. ''These are truly sad times for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.''....

Federal Worker Pleads Guilty in Overtime Scheme A federal Forest Service analyst has pleaded guilty to claiming more than $280,000 in fraudulent overtime in the last five years, federal prosecutors said today. Forty-six-year-old Karen Burroughs agreed to resign as a management analyst after her plea today in U.S. District Court in Washington. The Washington woman told authorities she fraudulent claimed overtime on weekends and holidays she didn't work. Prosecutors say the fraud started in 2003 and ended in July, allowing Burroughs to receive more than $280,000....Almost $60,000 a year in overtime and no one noticed?

Report Says Forest Service Has Harassed Gatherings A report by the Wyoming chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union contends that the federal Forest Service has engaged in systematic harassment of people who attend Rainbow Family gatherings on public lands. The A.C.L.U. opened an investigation this summer after a clash on July 3 between members of the Rainbow Family, an informal group of professed hippies and peace activists, and Forest Service law enforcement officers. About 7,000 members of the group attended its annual gathering this summer, held in the Bridger-Teton National Forest near Big Sandy in western Wyoming. Forest Service law enforcement officers fired pepper balls — like paint balls but containing a pepper substance — at Rainbow Family members during the incident. Scores of witnesses told the A.C.L.U. that the officers had lacked justification. The A.C.L.U. did not talk to Forest Service officials for its report. The report also said that officers had taken the smallest violation as an excuse to search participants’ cars and campsites for drugs....

Sheriffs worry as federal law enforcement funding dries up A change in federal funding has reduced law enforcement at Belle Fourche Reservoir as annual visitor counts continue to grow. A $60,000 federal contract that enabled Butte County Sheriff Fred Lamphere to look after activities there was not renewed as of Oct. 1, and Orman Dam’s managers at the Bureau of Reclamation have instead pitched in with the Bureau of Land Management to hire a ranger to patrol federal properties in Butte and Meade counties. The sheriff says the federal agencies are not yet ready to take over patrolling, and even when it happens, his department will still provide dispatching services and investigate certain incidents on the federal land, and the county’s taxpayers will fund those activities as well as court and jail expenses for handling lawbreakers....The Bushies would rather increase federal personnel than contract with local government. From nationalizing the airport inspectors to creating the homeland security dept. to policing public lands and facilities, their mantra has been federalize, centralize and supersize.

Ranger ready for anything in desert scape High noon and the desert is hot as a wok, yet Tim Duncan is wearing body armor under his uniform. A handgun and a Taser hang from his belt. Next to him in the truck are a shotgun and an M-16 assault rifle with extra magazines. "Out here, you have to be prepared," he said. Duncan is a National Park Service ranger at the Mojave National Preserve, a Mordor-like sweep of serrated mountains, feral deserts, Joshua tree forests, dry lakes and lava beds - a park five times the size of Los Angeles that's patrolled by eight law officers. Here the wilds of nature meet the wilds of man, an incongruous environment that has hidden meth labs and illegal waste dumps, plant and wildlife poachers, archaeological thieves, the occasional dumped body and train robbers. Yes, train robbers. Union Pacific trains laden with goods from the coast rumble into the Mojave National Preserve at the aptly named Devil's Playground, 40 miles of hellish sand dunes and salt flats at the base of the Kelso Mountains. Mile-long caravans of double-stacked cars wheeze to a crawl as they labor up the steep Cima Grade through the heart of the preserve. Sometimes they stop on side tracks to let other trains pass. Thieves typically strike at night - busting into boxcars and tossing down the booty to waiting accomplices with trucks....