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SCI-TECH News:
 Hillary
Clinton -  Women's
-  Medical
- Science
- Abortion
- Language
-  Politics
-  Family
-  Federal
-  Money
-  New
York
"Clinton vows to fight "insulting" abortion plan." ... "A [Republican President] Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a "gratuitous, unnecessary insult" to women and faces tough opposition, [New York Democratic Senator] Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Friday." ... "The former Democratic presidential candidate joined family planning groups to condemn the proposal that defines abortion to include contraception such as birth control pills and intrauterine devices." ... "It would cut off federal funds to hospitals and states where medical providers are obligated to offer legal abortion and contraception to women." ... ""We will not put up with this radical, ideological agenda to turn the clock back on women's rights," the New York senator told a joint news conference with New York [Democratic Representative] Rep. Nita Lowey, also a Democrat, at Bellevue Hospital." ... ""Women would watch their contraceptive coverage disappear overnight," said Clinton." (1, 2) -By Michelle Nichols with contributions by Ellen Wulfhorst and Eric Beech -Reuters 
Secret
- Torture
- War
Crimes - Prisons
-  US
- Guantanamo
-  Cuba
-  Chinese
-   Korean
-  History
- Medical
- Science
-  Psychological
-  Military
-  Intelligence
- Politics
-  Investigators
"China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo." ... "The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay [Cuba] in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”" ... "What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners." ... "The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency." ... "Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by [Republican] President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods." ... "Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed." ... "But committee investigators were not aware of the chart’s source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who spoke on condition of anonymity." ... "The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities." ... "Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American prisoners had been “brainwashed,” and provoked the military to revamp its training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies’ harsh methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured." ... "In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners." ... "The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”" (1, 2) -By Scott Shane -NYTimes PDF Documents via NYTimes: "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From the Air Force Prisoners of War (pdf) [September 1957 article by A. D. Biderman, Bull, N.Y. Acad. Med, Vol. 33, No.9, pp 616-625. 10 pages. NB: p. 4 (619), Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance]." "Documents Released at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on SERE Tactics (pdf)." 
Disaster
-  Environment
-  Human
-  Agriculture
-  Land
- Science
-  Iowa
- History
-  Weather
"Iowa Flooding Could Be An Act of Man, Experts Say." ... "[Cedar Falls, Iowa college professor and City Council member Kamyar] Enshayan, director of an environmental center at the University of Northern Iowa, suspects that this natural disaster wasn't really all that natural. He points out that the heavy rains fell on a landscape radically reengineered by humans. Plowed fields have replaced tallgrass prairies. Fields have been meticulously drained with underground pipes. Streams and creeks have been straightened. Most of the wetlands are gone. Flood plains have been filled and developed." ... ""We've done numerous things to the landscape that took away these water-absorbing functions," he said. "Agriculture must respect the limits of nature."" ... "Officials are still trying to understand all the factors that contributed to Iowa's flooding, and not everyone has the same suspicions as Enshayan. For them, the cause was obvious: It rained buckets and buckets for days on end. They say the changes in land use were lesser factors in what was really just a case of meteorological bad luck." ... "But some Iowans who study the environment suspect that changes in the land, both recently and over the past century or so, have made Iowa's terrain not only highly profitable but also highly vulnerable to flooding." ... "" (1, 2) -By Joel Achenbach with contributions by Kari Lydersen -WashingtonPost
Military
- Tech
-  Safety
- Investigation
- Government
-  Accounting
- Politics
- US
-  Taiwan
"US N-weapons parts missing, Pentagon says." ... "The US military cannot locate hundreds of sensitive nuclear missile components, according to several government officials familiar with a Pentagon report on nuclear safeguards." ... "Robert Gates, US [Republican President Bush's] defence secretary, recently fired both the US Air Force chief of staff and air force secretary after an investigation blamed the air force for the inadvertent shipment of nuclear missile nose cones to Taiwan." ... "According to previously undisclosed details obtained by the FT, the investigation also concluded that the air force could not account for many sensitive components previously included in its nuclear inventory." ... "One official said the number of missing components was more than 1,000." ... "The disclosure is the latest embarrassing episode for the air force, which last year had to explain how a bomber mistakenly carried six nuclear missiles across the US." -By Demetri Sevastopulos -FT.com
War
Crimes - Criminal
- Politicians
- US
-  Iraq
-  Afghanistan
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Prison
- Torture
- Human
- Human
Rights -  Law
- Medical
- Psychological
- Science
"General who probed Abu Ghraib says [Republican President] Bush officials committed war crimes." ... "The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the [Republican President] Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account." ... "The remarks by [Major General] Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that [United States] U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices." ... ""After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."" ... "Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote." ... "The group Physicians for Human Rights, which compiled the new report, described it as the most in-depth medical and psychological examination of former detainees to date." ... "Also this week, a probe by the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed how senior Pentagon officials pushed for harsher interrogation methods over the objections of top military lawyers. Those methods later surfaced in Afghanistan and Iraq." -By Warren P. Strobel -McClatchyDC.com 
Torture
- Crimes
- Unlawful
- US
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Prison
-  Terrorism
- War
Crimes - Politics
- Human
- Rights
- Medical
- Psychological
- Science
"Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by the US." ... "About: Broken Laws, Broken Lives shows the human consequences of harsh and unlawful US interrogation practices. This landmark report reveals the excruciating pain and continued suffering of men who, never charged with any crime, endured torture at US detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay [Cuba]. Based on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture claims, the report documents practices used to bring about long-lasting pain, terror, humiliation, and shame for months on end." -Physicians for Human Rights -BrokenLives.info 
 J
Robert Flores
- Crime
- Political
- Juvenile
- Justice
- Science
-  Sports
-  New
Jersey -  Texas
- "Football
Charity Says It Deserved a $500,000 Govt Grant: Despite
Not Even Applying, the Charity Was Awarded a Grant; Some [Department Of
Justice] DOJ Staffers Objected." ... "A group that promotes leadership
through football says it doesn't know how it was awarded a $500,000 federal
grant to help stop juvenile crime, but that it "wasn't political."" ...
"The grant is one of a number for the Department of Justice's Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) that has come under
scrutiny after current and former employees said the official who awarded
the money ignored professional staff recommendations and played favorites
with groups connected to the [Republican] Bush White House. ABC
News conducted an investigation into the OJJDP, which aired earlier this
week on "Nightline"." ... "The National Football Foundation (NFF),
formerly based in New Jersey and now in Texas, says they did not apply
for the grant and have had no contact with J. Robert Flores, the official
who awarded the money." ... "Some OJJDP staffers said this program did
not deserve the funding." ... ""The football program, like the World Golf
Foundation, has lots of private resources and outside funding. They have
wealthy powerful people on the board," one staffer said." ... "The staffer
added that by law the OJJDP's primary focus is to fund programs that intervene
and protect kids who are on the cusp of entering into the juvenile justice
system or who are already in the system, and there is no research that
shows this program targets the most at-risk kids." (1,
2)
-By Anna Schecter -ABCNEWS.com
Health
- Science
- Environmental
- Safety
-Laws
-  Manufacturing
- Industries
-  EU
- US
-  Global
-Consumers
- Government
- Politics
-  Computer
-  Privacy
- Newborns
"Chemical Law Has Global Impact: [European Union's] E.U.'s New Rules Forcing Changes By [United States] U.S. Firms." ... "Europe this month rolled out new restrictions on makers of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems, changes that are forcing U.S. industries to find new ways to produce a wide range of everyday products." ... "The new laws in the European Union require companies to demonstrate that a chemical is safe before it enters commerce -- the opposite of policies in the United States, where regulators must prove that a chemical is harmful before it can be restricted or removed from the market. Manufacturers say that complying with the European laws will add billions to their costs, possibly driving up prices of some products." ... "The changes come at a time when consumers are increasingly worried about the long-term consequences of chemical exposure and are agitating for more aggressive regulation. In the United States, these pressures have spurred efforts in Congress and some state legislatures to pass laws that would circumvent the laborious federal regulatory process." ... "Adamantly opposed by the U.S. chemical industry and the [Republican President] Bush administration, the E.U. laws will be phased in over the next decade. It is difficult to know exactly how the changes will affect products sold in the United States. But American manufacturers are already searching for safer alternatives to chemicals used to make thousands of consumer goods, from bike helmets to shower curtains." ... "The European Union's tough stance on chemical regulation is the latest area in which the Europeans are reshaping business practices with demands that American companies either comply or lose access to a market of 27 countries and nearly 500 million people." ... "From its crackdown on antitrust practices in the computer industry to its rigorous protection of consumer privacy, the European Union has adopted a regulatory philosophy that emphasizes the consumer. Its approach to managing chemical risks, which started with a trickle of individual bans and has swelled into a wave, is part of a European focus on caution when it comes to health and the environment." ... "A study by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found an average of 200 industrial chemicals in the cord blood of newborns." (1, 2) -By Lyndsey Layton -WashingtonPost
J
Robert Flores
- Political
- Federal
- Juvenile
- Justice
- Health
- Science
- "Questions
Surround Govt Funded Abstinence Program: Why Did
a Lower-Ranked Organization Get Money While Higher-Ranked Groups Were Denied
Funding?" ... "An organization that promotes sexual abstinence for teens
received a federal grant of over a million dollars, twice what it had requested,
despite the skepticism Department of Justice staffers had about the group
and the fact that it refused to participate in a congressionally mandated
study." ... "So why did the Best Friends Foundation receive the grant from
the Justice Department's juvenile justice office even though dozens of
competing organizations were rated higher by the office's own reviewers?
Current and former staffers say it was because of Best Friends' powerful
president and founder, Elayne Bennett." ... "Not only is Bennett the wife
of Bill Bennett, a former [Republican President] Reagan and [Republican
President] Bush administration official and conservative political commentator,
but she is also personally close to the chief administrator of the Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), J. Robert Flores."
... "DOJ staffers were deeply skeptical when Best Friends applied for a
grant of around a half-million dollars last summer. For one thing, the
organization had backed out of a congressionally mandated study to examine
whether or not abstinence programs are effective." ... "Then there were
the DOJ staffers own internal reviews, which placed Best Friends behind
dozens of other competing organizations. Out of 104 grants in their category,
Best Friends ranked 53rd." ... "But those other organizations didn't have
Elayne Bennett. Bennett, say current and former DOJ staffers in the OJJDP,
often spoke on the phone with Flores and had access to him and his aides
that other juvenile organizations ordinarily wouldn't have." ... "Meanwhile,
competing with Best Friends for a federal grant from the OJJDP was a Washington
non-profit, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), an advocacy
group for victims of rape and sexual assault." ... "In the category of
OJJDP grants for which both organizations applied, Best Friends ranked
51st, while RAINN came in at 14th. RAINN did not receive a grant from the
OJJDP." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Murray Waas -ABCNEWS.com
Secret
- Surveillance
-  Cellphone
-  Tracking
- Technology
-  Internet
- Financial
- Data
- Electronic
- Intelligence
- Counterterrorism
- Investigation
- Law
- Politics
"Secret Spy Court Repeatedly Questions FBI Wiretap Network." ... "Does the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] track cellphone users' physical movements without a warrant? Does the Bureau store recordings of innocent Americans caught up in wiretaps in a searchable database? Does the FBI's wiretap equipment store information like voicemail passwords and bank account numbers without legal authorization to do so?" ... "That's what the nation's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC] wanted to know, in a series of secret inquiries in 2005 and 2006 into the bureau's counterterrorism electronic surveillance efforts, revealed for the first time in newly declassified documents." ... "The inquires are the first publicly known questioning of the FBI's post-9/11 surveillance activities by the secret court, which has historically approved nearly every wiretap application submitted to it. The court handles surveillance requests in counterterrorism and foreign espionage investigations. The inquiries add to questions surrounding how the FBI has used the broad powers handed to it by Congress in the 2001 USA Patriot Act, including the FBI's admitted abuse of so-called National Security Letters to get stored telephone and financial records." ... "Among other things, the declassified documents reveal that lawyers in the FBI's Office of General Counsel and the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy Review queried FBI technology officials in late July 2006 about cellphone tracking. The attorneys asked whether the FBI was obtaining and storing real-time cellphone-location data from carriers under a "pen register" court order that's normally limited to records of who a person called or was called by." ... "Separately, the secret court questioned if the FBI was using pen register orders to collect digits dialed after a call is made, potentially including voicemail passwords and account numbers entered into bank-by-phone applications." ... "EFF's Bankston says it's clear that FBI offices had configured their digit-recording software, [Digital Collection System] DCS 3000, to collect more than the law allows." ... "For more on the FBI's sophisticated wiretapping technology and how it links in with the nation's phone and internet infrastructure, see Point, Click, Eavesdrop." -By Ryan Singel -27B/6 -Wired
 John
McCain -  Tom
Loeffler -  Susan
E Nelson -  Rick
Davis -Illegal
- 2008
Election - Politics
-  French
- US
-Military
-  Aircraft
- Technology
-  EADS
Airbus
"McCain Lobbyist Ties Questioned in Ad, Complaint." ... "The TV ad from Campaign Money Watch, set to run on Washington, D.C., broadcast and cable outlets starting Monday, focuses on [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain's role in the awarding of an Air Force contract that would eventually go to the French company Airbus [EADS] instead of the American company Boeing." ... ""Seven of McCain’s staff and fundraisers lobbied for Airbus," the ad says. "And guess what? John McCain intervened, which helped Airbus get that Pentagon contract. Tell John McCain to kick those lobbyists off the Straight Talk Express."" ... "The group is also asking the Federal Election Commission to investigate two other public reports that touch on McCain's connections to lobbyists: That a lobbying company, the Loeffler Group LLP, made payments this year to McCain's national finance director, Susan Nelson; and that a company controlled in part by campaign manager Rick Davis sliced more than $100,000 off of McCain campaign's tab, when the campaign was starved for cash last year." ... "While working for Loeffler, Nelson lobbied on behalf of Airbus. Newsweek reported last month that Nelson was rehired early this year as a consultant for the company, while on the McCain campaign's payroll." ... "Campaign Money Watch alleges that the payments made by the Loeffler Group and the discount arranged by the company 3eDC could amount to illegal corporate contributions, according to an FEC complaint to be filed Monday." -ABCNEWS.com  WATCH:
"The McCain File" ad claiming, "Some straight talk about John McCain and
his lobbyists' involvement in a deal that landed a French defense contractor
a big-money contract." via FireTheLobbyists.com
and Public Campaign Action Fund's
Youtube
channel.
Abortion
- Law
- History
- Politics
- Women's
- Health
- Science
- New
York
"Repairing the Damage, Before Roe." ... "I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City [New York], from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals." ... "There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done." ... "The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear: The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die." ... "This, too, was clear: Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available." ... "The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it. " -By Waldo L. Fielding, M.D. [Doctor of Medicine] -NYTimes
John
McCain -  Barack
Obama - US
-  Iran
- Military
- Technology
- Intelligence
- Politics
- Terrorism
- Iraq
- 
-  Ariz
-  Ill
- 2008
Election
"Both McCain, Obama exaggerating Iran's nuclear program." ... "The presumptive Republican nominee for president and the leading contender for the Democratic nomination are exaggerating what's known about Iran's nuclear program as they duel over how best to deal with Tehran." ... "[2008 Election Presidential Candidates and Senators] Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz. [Republican-Arizona], and Barack Obama, D-Ill. [Democratic-Illinois], say that Iran is developing nuclear weapons." ... "The U.S. intelligence community, however, thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the [United Nations] U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the program, has found no evidence to date of an active Iranian nuclear-weapons project." ... "The candidates' comments raise questions about how carefully the two have studied the public record on what's become a major campaign issue and is one of the most difficult foreign-policy challenges likely to confront the next president." ... "The issue is also significant because the [Republican President] Bush administration inflated assessments of the Iraqi nuclear threat and the possibility that former dictator Saddam Hussein could pass nuclear weapons to terrorists as it sought to whip up public support for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq." ... "Iran has been expanding an industrial-scale uranium enrichment program in defiance of U.N. Security Council demands that it be suspended. Enrichment is the process that produces low-enriched uranium fuel for nuclear generating stations and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons." ... "Iran, whose known enrichment facilities are under IAEA monitoring, says it's making low-enriched uranium reactor fuel and has no intention of developing weapons. Few experts, however, think that Iran has come clean about all its nuclear activities." -By Jonathan S. Landay -McClatchyDC.com
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