December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

MIB Subpoena 3 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:41:07 -0500 > From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> > Subject: MIB Subpoena 3 > We've received word of a third Grand Jury subpoena in > CJ's case. With a request to not publicize the person and > information sought. Yep, we tried to prize it loose, citing > Gilmore's model, but no go. > Word from that person is that the trial is expected to begin > in mid-November, which could indicate that CJ's evaluation > will be completed shortly. > All we got so far is the Nov 10 date on John Gilmore's Grand > Jury subpoena and the mid-Nov trial start. So any info is most > welcome. My subpeona date was the 18th, changed from the 19th. Something changed in their time table. Possible pressure from some front? > BTW, has anyone seen news reports on CJ's case other than > those of Declan? If so, we'd like pointers or copies. Nada. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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IP: Europe May Block Flow of Internet Data With US
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Europe May Block Flow of Internet Data With US Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 09:45:04 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/todays_paper/reduced/today/intl/intl.3.html International - Monday October 26, 1998 Europe May Block Flow of Internet Data With US Peter Ford, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor PARIS -- Radically different American and European notions of privacy and how to protect it are threatening to curb the worldwide boom in electronic commerce. New European Union rules governing international transfers of personal data over the Internet go into effect today. They commit EU governments to strict new privacy standards in electronic databases storing citizens' personal details. And they oblige governments to block data transfers to countries that fail to uphold "adequate" privacy provisions. That, in the European Commission's view, includes the United States. Year-long efforts by senior US negotiators to convince the EU otherwise have shown how "in Europe, privacy is seen as a human right ... while the Americans are saying that the market should look after it," says Christiaan van der Valk, an expert in electronic privacy issues with the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. Unless European and US negotiators reach agreement, the EU directive "could have pretty severe long-term effects, hindering the extension of e-commerce and the globalization of industry generally," warns IBM spokeswoman Armgard von Reden. The new rules give European citizens the right to access personal data held on them by private corporations and to correct it if it is false. Individuals must give consent to the processing of sensitive data such as medical records or details of ethnicity. Web-site operators routinely capture personal information about users who visit their sites and sell it to direct marketing companies and other clients. "Privacy safeguards in the United States have not kept up to date," argued Marc Rotenberg, a teacher of privacy law at Georgetown University in Washington, in testimony to the US House of Representatives earlier this year. If data protection officials in European countries were to start forbidding the transfer of personal data to the US this week, or demanding individual notification of such transfers from data processors, "everything would grind to a halt," says Philip Jones, assistant registrar at Britain's Data Protection Registry, a government body. Every day companies such as airlines, banks, and insurance firms transfer millions of bits of information - like names, addresses, and phone numbers - on clients or potential customers. But "nobody is going to go down to some basement in European Union headquarters to throw a switch that will shut off all data flows on Monday morning," adds Professor Rotenberg. Only a handful of the 15 EU countries have passed the legislation to implement the Commission's directive. The Commission is still negotiating with the US on how the rules will be enforced. Washington, reluctant to legislate, is seeking EU approval for a voluntary system. US companies wishing to process Europeans' personal information would adhere to a set of principles laid down by the Department of Commerce. How they would be enforced, however, and how European citizens could seek redress for any grievances, is not yet clear. Alternatively, US negotiators are suggesting companies could join systems such as the Online Privacy Alliance, set up by IBM and Time-Warner, among others. Members commit themselves to respect the alliance's privacy standards and to submit to checks by Trust-e, an independent verification organization. Data-importing companies in the US could also sign contracts with the exporter, pledging to treat information with the same degree of confidentiality it would enjoy in Europe. "Most global companies are heading in this direction," says Ms. von Reden. EC officials were to meet European representatives today to discuss the American proposals and Washington's request for a 90-day extension of the application of the new rules. Nobody expects dramatic changes this week, but privacy activists are expected to test the directive as soon as it comes into force by laying a complaint against a high-profile company such as Visa International or Citigroup. At the moment, says one executive with an international financial services group, "I am not sure that anyone can say how this is all supposed to work in real life." ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: ISPI Clips 5.69: EU Law Aims to Protect Privacy of Personal Data
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ama-gi ISPI" <offshore(a)email.msn.com> Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 5.69: EU Law Aims to Protect Privacy of Personal Data Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 02:34:54 -0800 To: <Undisclosed.Recipients(a)majordomo.pobox.com> ISPI Clips 5.69: EU Law Aims to Protect Privacy of Personal Data News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) Tuesday October 27, 1998 ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This From: The New York Times, October 26, 1998 http://www.nytimes.com European Law Aims to Protect Privacy of Personal Data http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+45+ 0+wAAA+privacy By EDMUND L. ANDREWS FRANKFURT, Germany -- The European Union put into effect a law Sunday prohibiting U.S.-style buying and selling of personal data, a move that could interrupt electronic commerce with the United States if the two sides fail to resolve deep philosophical and legal differences over protecting privacy. The goal of the European law is to prohibit companies from using information about their customers in ways the customers never intended -- for example, selling it to other companies for use as a marketing tool. The new law affects an enormous range of information that companies collect about people in the course of daily business, from credit-card transactions to magazine subscriptions to telephone records, as well as the electronic footprints that people leave when they visit sites on the World Wide Web. The law was adopted three years ago by the European Union after a majority of its 15 member nations agreed to issue what is known as a directive. Under European law, each member nation is required to implement the directive by enacting its own law. Six nations have drafted or passed such laws so far. Beyond its impact on Europe, the directive has the potential to disrupt electronic commerce with the United States. A key provision of the new measure would prohibit any company doing business in the European Union from transmitting personal data to any country that does not guarantee comparable privacy protection -- foremost among them, at this point, the United States. American direct-marketing companies, which make money buying, selling and developing business strategies based on huge data banks of personal information about consumers, have lobbied hard against government regulation of their industry. As a result, the Clinton administration has adopted a more laissez-faire approach under which data industries would be allowed to police themselves through self-regulatory organizations. U.S. officials say they agree with Europe on the basic principle that privacy should be protected but they have big differences about the best way to carry it out. "They have privacy czars and bureaucracies, and that kind of top-down approach would probably be regarded as a violation of privacy rights by many people in the U.S.," David Aaron, undersecretary of commerce, said of European nations. Aaron, who held talks on the issue with European officials in Brussels, Belgium, earlier this month, added, "We say, 'Let's create a situation where, if companies agree to follow certain data practices, they can be held harmless under the new directive."' If the issue, which neither side paid much attention to until a few months ago, is not resolved, European officials could theoretically soon begin to block trans-Atlantic data transfers by multinational corporations and the growing number of Internet companies. European officials say they have no plans for any blockades soon, and are hopeful about reaching a peaceful resolution. Officials from the United States and Europe say they held constructive positive discussions earlier this month. The European Commission has scheduled a meeting on the issue for Monday, and it is expected to seek some kind of temporary solution while the two sides negotiate. Underlying the debate is a deeper political issue that is fraught with cultural baggage. For years, European nations have been far tougher than the United States about protecting privacy. Many countries essentially ban telephone marketing to people's homes, and that prohibition is now being applied to unsolicited sales approaches by fax and e-mail. Several nations, including Germany and the Netherlands, have government agencies devoted exclusively to protecting personal data. Acting as ombudsmen, these agencies investigate complaints from individuals who believe that companies have mishandled information about them. Companies that are accused of violating privacy laws can be prosecuted under criminal laws. "There is a great difference in attitudes about privacy protection between Europe and the United States," said Ulrich Sieber, a law professor at the University of Wuertzburg in Germany. U.S. privacy laws are far more lax and consist of a hodgepodge of statutes and regulations enforced by various state and federal agencies charged with oversight of other industries, like, for instance, those that regulate banks. In sharp contrast with Europe, an entire industry has arisen in the United States that specializes in trolling public and private sources for vast quantities of personal information, like birth records, drivers' license numbers and torrents of data accumulated by retailers about customers' individual purchases. The new European directive embraces several basic principles that national governments must now translate into their own laws. It requires that companies tell people when they collect information about them and disclose how that information will be used. In addition, customers must provide informed consent before any company can legally use that data. The law also requires companies to give people access to information about themselves. U.S. officials say they agree with those requirements in principle, but disagree with giving people unconditional access to information about themselves, saying access should be allowed only if it is reasonable or practical to do so. The more difficult issues are enforcement and policing. Aaron says the United States wants to give companies a variety of "safe harbors" to satisfy privacy protection. One idea is to create independent self-regulatory organizations that would monitor a company's data practices and would give well-behaved companies what amounts to a stamp of approval. Another option, they say, should be for companies to deal directly with European officials and demonstrate that their systems and practices are appropriate. But legal experts say the new law could easily take on a life of its own, because it gives individuals and private organizations the right to sue companies that they say fail to provide adequate privacy protections. Industry and government officials worry that independent privacy advocates in Europe will simply invoke the letter of the law and begin taking U.S. companies to court. "I'm not sure the idea of creating safe harbors will be practical, because people can still go ahead and sue a company regardless of whether the governments reach an agreement among themselves," said Christopher Kuner, a lawyer in Frankfurt who specializes in European information law. In the short term, government and industry officials predict that nothing much will happen. Most countries have yet to implement their own laws to carry out the directive. And several countries, including Germany, have had tough laws in place for years, and companies have found ways to deal with the requirements. One of the pioneering cases in Germany involved Citibank, which ran afoul of German data-protection authorities in 1995. But since Citibank, which has a major business presence in Germany, demonstrated to government officials there how its system protected data in the United States, it has operated without conflicts. Executives of American Express Co. said they had reached similar agreements in many countries and that they believed they could live with the new directive. "It is a crucial issue for us, but it has not been a burden so far," said James Tobin, an American Express spokesman in London. John Borking, vice president of the Data Protection Authority of the Netherlands, said, "We are not information police, and I expect that in the whole of Europe nothing will happen." But, added Borking, European governments will always take privacy protection seriously. "We are at the beginning of a new information society, and no one really knows the outcome," he said. "But privacy and trust are important parts of this society." Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company --------------------------------NOTICE:------------------------------ ISPI Clips are news & opinion articles on privacy issues from all points of view; they are clipped from local, national and international newspapers, journals and magazines, etc. Inclusion as an ISPI Clip does not necessarily reflect an endorsement of the content or opinion by ISPI. In compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed free without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISPI Clips is a FREE e-mail service from the "Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues" (ISPI). To receive "ISPI Clips" on a regular bases (up to 3 - 8 clips per day) send the following message "Please enter [Your Name] into the ISPI Clips list: [Your e-mail address]" to: ISPIClips(a)ama-gi.com . The Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) is a small contributor-funded organization based in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). ISPI operates on a not-for-profit basis, accepts no government funding and takes a global perspective. ISPI's mandate is to conduct & promote interdisciplinary research into electronic, personal and financial privacy with a view toward helping ordinary people understand the degree of privacy they have with respect to government, industry and each other and to likewise inform them about techniques to enhance their privacy. But, none of this can be accomplished without your kind and generous financial support. If you are concerned about the erosion of your privacy in general, won't you please help us continue this important work by becoming an "ISPI Supporter" or by taking out an institute Membership? We gratefully accept all contributions: Less than $60 ISPI Supporter $60 - $99 Primary ISPI Membership (1 year) $100 - $300 Senior ISPI Membership (2 years) More than $300 Executive Council Membership (life) Your ISPI "membership" contribution entitles you to receive "The ISPI Privacy Reporter" (our bi-monthly 12 page hard-copy newsletter in multi-contributor format) for the duration of your membership. For a contribution form with postal instructions please send the following message "ISPI Contribution Form" to ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com . We maintain a strict privacy policy. Any information you divulge to ISPI is kept in strict confidence. It will not be sold, lent or given away to any third party. **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: ISPI Clips 5.68: No Data Flow Disruption Between EU & US--at Least for Now
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ama-gi ISPI" <offshore(a)email.msn.com> Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 5.68: No Data Flow Disruption Between EU & US--at Least for Now Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 02:33:46 -0800 To: <Undisclosed.Recipients(a)majordomo.pobox.com> ISPI Clips 5.68: No Data Flow Disruption Between EU & US--at Least for Now. News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) Tuesday October 27, 1998 ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This From: CNET News.com, October 25, 1998 http://www.news.com European privacy deadline nears http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27920,00.html By Tim Clark Staff Writer, CNET News.com The European Union will not disrupt the flow of data between Europe and the United States, even though strict new privacy protections took effect in Europe yesterday, a key Commerce Department official said today. The new European Union privacy directive prohibits sending personal data to nations whose privacy protections aren't as vigorous as in the 15-country bloc, but Commerce undersecretary David Aaron said today that the Europeans have agreed to open formal negotiations on how U.S. firms can comply with it. U.S. diplomats have been discussing the issue with the European Commission for six months, in talks described as discussions rather than as negotiations. "We believe we can reach a resolution, and we think it is imperative that we do so promptly," Aaron said, naming December 15 as a target to close the matter. "The U.S. premise is that the United States has effective privacy protection but that the approach here is different than in Europe," he said. "We will seek an arrangement that provides a workable framework on both sides of Atlantic, where data will be secured and disruption of transatlantic data flows will be avoided." The EU's privacy directive, if enforced, could prevent database marketing firms, Web sites, U.S. firms with European employees, and credit card companies from sending personal data back to the United States. That's because the privacy directive bars export of data to nations whose protection of personal data is not certified to be as strong as Europe's. The issue remains a sticking point despite earlier hints from the White House that the problem would be settled by now. Months of discussions have led U.S. officials to hope that the private sector-led approach favored by the Clinton administration can be reconciled with strict privacy laws in many European nations. The United States is proposing a concept dubbed "safe harbor:" In the absence of U.S. privacy legislation, American firms could voluntarily adhere to a set of privacy practices such as those from TRUSTe http://www.truste.org/ ], the business-backed U.S. privacy group pushing voluntary privacy guidelines on the Internet. The U.S. and the European Union will negotiate as to the content of privacy guidelines that would be considered acceptable protections to allow U.S. firms to send personal data on individuals from Europe to the United States. "If companies did that, privacy protections would be considered 'adequate,' and there would be a presumption that data would be able to flow," the U.S. official said. TRUSTe executive director Susan Scott has spoken favorably in recent weeks about the safe harbor concept, and she outlined the idea to the Europeans earlier this year. But privacy law advocate Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, isn't sure the safe harbor concept will fly. "The U.S. had been saying there was going to be some big agreement, but there isn't one," said Rotenberg, who favors strong U.S. privacy laws. "So there is still a question as to whether U.S. firms will be blocked by the EU directive." Copyright © 1995-98 CNET, Inc. --------------------------------NOTICE:------------------------------ ISPI Clips are news & opinion articles on privacy issues from all points of view; they are clipped from local, national and international newspapers, journals and magazines, etc. Inclusion as an ISPI Clip does not necessarily reflect an endorsement of the content or opinion by ISPI. In compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed free without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISPI Clips is a FREE e-mail service from the "Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues" (ISPI). To receive "ISPI Clips" on a regular bases (up to 3 - 8 clips per day) send the following message "Please enter [Your Name] into the ISPI Clips list: [Your e-mail address]" to: ISPIClips(a)ama-gi.com . The Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) is a small contributor-funded organization based in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). ISPI operates on a not-for-profit basis, accepts no government funding and takes a global perspective. ISPI's mandate is to conduct & promote interdisciplinary research into electronic, personal and financial privacy with a view toward helping ordinary people understand the degree of privacy they have with respect to government, industry and each other and to likewise inform them about techniques to enhance their privacy. But, none of this can be accomplished without your kind and generous financial support. If you are concerned about the erosion of your privacy in general, won't you please help us continue this important work by becoming an "ISPI Supporter" or by taking out an institute Membership? We gratefully accept all contributions: Less than $60 ISPI Supporter $60 - $99 Primary ISPI Membership (1 year) $100 - $300 Senior ISPI Membership (2 years) More than $300 Executive Council Membership (life) Your ISPI "membership" contribution entitles you to receive "The ISPI Privacy Reporter" (our bi-monthly 12 page hard-copy newsletter in multi-contributor format) for the duration of your membership. For a contribution form with postal instructions please send the following message "ISPI Contribution Form" to ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com . We maintain a strict privacy policy. Any information you divulge to ISPI is kept in strict confidence. It will not be sold, lent or given away to any third party. **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: CIA admits drug trafficking, cover-up
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: CIA admits drug trafficking, cover-up Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 09:43:07 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: WorldNetDaily http://www.WorldNetDaily.com/ronthal/981027.comlr.shtml CIA admits drug trafficking, cover-up COPYRIGHT 1998 WorldNetDaily This isn't the CIA report you may be thinking of, the one from last January in which that agency swore up and down it "could find no evidence" for any contra-drug ties. No. This is the other one -- Volume 2, dated October 8, 1998. The one in which the CIA quietly, quietly admits it allowed cocaine to be exported and sold to American citizens to help fund the contras. Back in March, the CIA's Inspector General, Fred Hitz, told Congress that the CIA had maintained relationships with companies and individuals that it knew to be involved in the drug business, and furthermore, that the CIA had received from the Justice Department clearance not to report any knowledge it might have of drug-dealing by CIA assets. Here's ample evidence for the latter at least: random highlights from the report include "Exclusion of Narcotics Violations from Scope of Reportable Non-employee Crimes" -- "DoJ and CIA discussed the issue of whether narcotics violations should be in the list of reportable crimes and the parties arrived at an understanding where CIA would only report 'serious, not run-of-the-mill, narcotics violations.' ... According to Cohen, CIA's main concern was the collection of intelligence on narcotics, not law enforcement." There's also some Clintonesque toe-twisting about the exact definition of "employee" here: Between August 15, 1979 and March 2, 1982, CIA was required by the April 15, 1979 Attorney General's guidelines under E.O. 12036 and HN 7-39 to report to DoJ any narcotics trafficking allegations relating to individuals, assets, or independent contractors who were associated with the Contras because assets and independent contractors were considered "employees" for crimes reporting purposes. As of March 2, 1982, the terms of the 1982 CIA-DoJ Crimes Reporting MOU under E.O. 12333 no longer required that CIA report to DoJ narcotics trafficking allegations regarding individuals, assets, or independent contractors associated with the Contras because assets and independent contractors were not considered "employees" for crimes reporting purposes. Note also recollections of "remarks by CATF chief Alan Fiers (who had direct responsibility for management of the Nicaraguan and Central American programs) to the effect that there had been some credible reporting of narcotics trafficking in the Southern Front (Costa Rica)." In short, here's vindication for journalist Gary Webb after all -- despite his regrettable subsequent co-optation by and collaboration with the conspiracy theorists of the left, who claimed the introduction of drugs into the inner cities was itself a deliberate racist-genocidal government policy. Want more? Read the report; read Webb's original book , though it's sadly marred by the Maxine Waters introduction; read, also, Whiteout by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, which covers not only the CIA's drug trafficking involvement, but the campaign to discredit Webb as well -- it's the book the CIA doesn't want you to read. It really IS the economy, stupid In political philosophy, there's a fine line between the visionary innovator and the cryptoutopian crackpot. The Economic Government Group pushes that line. Formed out of concern that "the freedom movement was focused too closely on devising ways to minimize the state and not enough on developing workable alternatives to it," it works to let the marketplace become the means by which government is created and maintained. Its Web site, Economic.net , carries not one but two introductions to its occasionally loony, but occasionally blisteringly creative ideas; I recommend Stephen H. Foerster's good straightforward summary of this take-no-prisoners free-market philosophy. Fans of the book The Sovereign Individual by J. Davidson and W. Rees-Mogg may find affinities here. Capitalistic self-regulation now in progress Its familiar branded online seal is displayed on more and more reputable merchants' Web sites; its own site offers a variety of privacy resources for both Web publishers and Web users. TRUSTe seeks to build users' trust and confidence on the Internet and, in doing so, accelerate growth of the Internet industry -- all based on a strong understanding of the fact that no single privacy principle is adequate for all situations. Government regulation of the Internet would likely be more rigid, ham-handed, costly to implement, and difficult to repeal than an industry- regulated program such as TRUSTe's. If you sell stuff on the Internet, or know someone who does, using and encouraging the use of TRUSTe just might be doing Web commerce a big favor. The forgotten point of the military The relatively high levels of defense spending today belie serious gaps in our military preparedness. Pork-barreling is grotesquely distorting the direction of the dollars actually appropriated to the services, in a spirit well exemplified by the latest budget from Congress. Meanwhile, America's armed forces are more and more diverted into "peacekeeping" and domestic policing, subjected to the egalitarian schemes of social engineers, and systematically alienated from civilian society. "The lack of a strong military leads only to its more frequent use," former secretary of the Navy John Lehman points out. "America needs forces that are recruited, trained, and directed to do not social services, not international welfare, not peacekeeping, not drug interdiction, but to rain fire and destruction on our enemies if they break the peace and seek to attack us and our close allies. ... The armed services are not just another branch of the civil service." Lehman warns against the misuse of the services for diplomacy or in domestic law enforcement (including drug interdiction). His prescription for the rehabilitation of the military includes restoring the warrior culture of the forces, eliminating politically correct double standards, redressing the civil-military imbalance, and reducing the pork. Somebody had better start listening to him. E - The People "If your car is swallowed up by a pothole the size of Poughkeepsie, E - The People can help you find the person you need to tell about it," claims this community-affairs Web service's front page. Click on "streets," enter your address, and they'll identify your public works commissioner -- and see that your complaint reaches his or her office, even if that office isn't on the Internet (they'll convert your email to a fax). Lots of Web sites offer "easy" access to federal or state officials, but not many provide on this nitty-gritty local level. The site sometimes slows down at busy times, so use patience. The CSPI health crackpots are at it again This time it's soda pop that they're warning you is the devil's instrument. They want it banned from schools, taxes placed on its sale, and an end put to ads for it that target children. When are these querulous suburban Savonarolas' fifteen minutes going to be over? Methinks I detect a certain cooling toward them even now: wonder of wonders, the AP actually noticed this time that they "offered little scientific evidence" for all their dire claims of damaging effects. But I'm not really optimistic; there'll always be a market for scare stories with a moralistic cherry on top. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: Cell phone tapping stirs debate
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Cell phone tapping stirs debate Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:49:06 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctd698.htm 10/22/98- Updated 12:08 PM ET The Nation's Homepage Cell phone tapping stirs debate WASHINGTON -- Law enforcement officials say they need to know where a suspected criminal is when he makes a cellular telephone call. Federal regulators are proposing to give them the capability to find out. The Federal Communications Commission without dissent proposed Thursday that cellular phone companies make technical changes so the FBI, police and other law enforcers -- as long as a court approves -- can locate a person talking on a mobile phone. This and other additional wiretapping capabilities being proposed aim to help law enforcers keep pace with technology. With some 66 million cellular phone customers, police want the authority to legally tap cell phones to track down drug dealers, terrorists and kidnappers. But some groups worry that such a practice could violate privacy. The location proposal is part of a larger plan to implement a 1994 law that requires telecommunications companies to make changes in their networks so police can carry out court-ordered wiretaps in a world of digital technology. The proposal is based on a plan from the telecommunications industry. ''We think this is a positive step forward,'' said Stephen Colgate, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for administration. ''In many kidnapping cases, it would have been very helpful to have location information.'' But James Dempsey, counsel to the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy group, said: ''We're prepared to fight this one every step of the way.'' FCC Chairman Bill Kennard stressed that police would have no access to locations without a court order. ''A lot of people are saying the FCC will turn mobile phones into tracking devices for the FBI and invade Americans' privacy. I don't believe that will be the case,'' Kennard said. With a court order, police already can legally listen in to cell phone conversations, and, in some instances, get information on the caller's location. But not every company has the technical ability to provide a caller's location. This proposal, if adopted, would set up a nationwide requirement for companies to follow. The legal standard for obtaining a location is lower than the standard for a wiretap order in which police must show a judge there is probable cause of criminal activity. Under the proposal, police would only need to show the location is relevant to an investigation. Privacy groups say that means the government could easily track the movements not only of a suspect, but also of associates, friends or relatives. It would give police the ability to obtain the cellular phone user's location at the beginning and end of a wiretapped call. The proposal would provide police with that information based on the cellular tower, or ''cell'' site, where a call originated and ended. That would give information on the caller's location within several city blocks in an urban area to hundreds of square miles in a rural area. The FBI had been seeking more exact location information. The FCC also is expected to tentatively conclude that companies must give police, as long as a court approves, additional capabilities -- beyond minimum technical standards already proposed by the industry -- so their ability to conduct wiretaps won't be thwarted. The additional capabilities being sought by the FBI that were advanced by the FCC include: Letting police listen in on the conversations of all people on a conference call, even if some are put on hold and no longer are talking to the target of a wiretap. Letting police get information when the wiretap target has put someone on hold or dropped someone from a conference call, and letting them find out if the wiretap target has used dialing features -- such as call waiting or call forwarding. Giving police the number dialed by a wiretap target when the suspect, for instance, uses a credit or calling card at a pay phone. Privacy groups and the telephone industry contend the additional capabilities sought by the FBI go beyond the 1994 law and are an attempt to broaden wiretapping powers. The FBI says it merely wants to preserve the ability to conduct legal wiretaps in a world of constantly changing technology. The FCC is involved because the Justice Department, FBI and the telecommunications industry, after three years of negotiations, were unable to reach agreement on the larger plan for implementing the 1994 law. All interested parties will get a chance to offer opinions on the proposal, which could be revised. Kennard wants a final plan adopted by the end of the year. ©COPYRIGHT 1998 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: [FP] Microsoft puts smart card on table
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> Subject: IP: [FP] Microsoft puts smart card on table Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 19:56:43 -0600 To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com SCAN THIS NEWS 10/26/98 Microsoft puts smart card on table http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C27923%2C00.html?dd.ne.tx.fs6.1026 By Tim Clark Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 26, 1998 Update: Microsoft tomorrow will announce an extension of its Windows operating system for smart cards, a company spokesman said today. Smart cards, which have very limited memory and processing power, are about the size of a credit card and embedded with a computer chip. The technology is used for storing data on mobile phones, banking online, and paying for phone calls and public transit fares. Microsoft vice president Paul Maritz is scheduled to announce the operating system initiative tomorrow at Cartes 98, a conference on smart card technology in Paris. A new system from Microsoft could bring more acceptance of smart cards in the United States. Smart cards have been used in Europe, which holds more than 80 percent of the market, but have been slow to progress in America, at least in part beacuse of the lack of a standard operating system. Microsoft is bidding to enter that arena, but Sun Microsystems is already active in that space with its JavaCard specification. In addition, Mondex, an e-cash company controlled by MasterCard has its MultOS system designed so cards with different operating systems can work together. The company's interest in smart cards parallels its strategy with Windows CE, a stripped-down version of its PC operating system for consumer electronics devices. In April, Microsoft announced a version of Windows CE for automobiles, gas pumps, industrial controllers, and other uses. The smart-card initiative seeks to go after even smaller, cheaper devices--particularly when rival Sun is targeting the same business. The Microsoft spokesman said card developers could use existing Windows tools to work with their software. The annual Paris show is a major showcase for the smart card industry. Schlumberger, a major French manufacturer of smart cards, today unveiled new software for its cards that transforms a smart card into a security device to identify its holder. Many PC makers have said they will produce machines with smart-card readers built in, a capability that Microsoft has provided in its desktop PC operating systems. Microsoft has a certification and logo program that indicates smart card systems work with Windows NT. ======================================================================= Don't believe anything you read on the Net unless: 1) you can confirm it with another source, and/or 2) it is consistent with what you already know to be true. ======================================================================= Reply to: <fingerprint(a)networkusa.org> ======================================================================= To subscribe to the free Scan This News newsletter, send a message to <majordomo(a)efga.org> and type "subscribe scan" in the BODY. Or, to be removed type "unsubscribe scan" in the message BODY. For additional instructions see www.efga.org/about/maillist.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scan This News" is Sponsored by S.C.A.N. Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page: www.networkusa.org/fingerprint.shtml ======================================================================= **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: 'Grass-Roots' Lobbyists Unrobed as AT&T
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: 'Grass-Roots' Lobbyists Unrobed as AT&T Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 07:46:23 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/wtech002.htm 'Grass-Roots' Lobbyists Unrobed as AT&T By Jackie Spinner Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 24, 1998; Page A1 The Prince George's Coalition Against Hidden Taxes billed itself as a "grass-roots" organization when it formed 10 days ago to fight proposed legislation that would charge telecommunications companies seeking to provide new telephone, Internet or other services. In those two weeks, the coalition, which has a paid spokesman and a professional public relations firm at its disposal, has spent $50,000 on radio, newspaper and television ads suggesting that the law would create a "hidden tax" on telephone use for all residential and business customers in Prince George's County. In fact, it is not clear what the legislation would mean for consumers. But this much is certain: There is very little that is "grass roots" about the Prince George's Coalition Against Hidden Taxes, which is a massive lobbying effort by AT&T to quash efforts by Prince George's County to cash in on the emergence of new communications technologies. The media campaign, which Prince George's County Executive Wayne K. Curry (D) called a "disgraceful fraud," demonstrates how much is at stake for a rapidly changing telecommunications industry and for a local government that stands to collect about $6 million a year by taxing providers of new services. Under the proposed legislation, the county would collect 3 percent of gross revenue generated by companies that seek to use public rights of way to lay cable, string wire or plant cellular towers to provide new services. Prince George's County Council members are scheduled to vote on the legislation Wednesday. Prince George's County is the first local jurisdiction in the Washington region to consider a broad telecommunications fee for using public rights of way. Governments across the country are struggling with similar efforts, trying to get fair compensation while encouraging companies to come in and provide services after the 1996 Telecommunications Act opened the doors to competition. AT&T officials said the legislation is unfair and singles out telecommunications firms from other users of public land, such as the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, Washington Gas Light Co. and Potomac Electric Power Co. "It's a money grab," said Ross Baker, director of governmental affairs for AT&T in Maryland. "We pay handsomely right now for the occupancy of the right of way." AT&T now pays permit fees and personal property taxes on equipment located on public rights of way in Prince George's. The company estimated those costs to be about $218,000 a year. According to AT&T, all phone customers' monthly bills could increase 3 percent to 15 percent if the legislation is passed because the cost would have to be passed on to consumers. The company said it would indicate on the bill what portion was the result of a "Prince George's County" surcharge. "Telephone bills are going to go up," said Steve Novak, spokesman for the AT&T-led coalition. County officials and the communications lawyer the county hired to draft the legislation dispute that contention. They said the legislation specifically exempts from the fee basic telephone services such as those provided by Bell Atlantic. But telecommunications companies, including Bell Atlantic, would pay a fee for running new Internet lines or providing telephone service over cable wires, something AT&T is exploring in some markets. Companies also would be charged for offering new call waiting and call forwarding features. "This legislation will not cause an increase in the prices of traditional telephone service," said Nicholas P. Miller, the D.C.-based communications lawyer advising the county. "On the other hand, because billing is largely deregulated, we have no control over how the companies may misrepresent the effect of this local rental charge." John Dillon, Bell Atlantic's vice president of external affairs, said the company is opposed to legislation that taxes revenue for any of its activities, traditional or otherwise. "If the county wants to sit down and talk about what costs are not being covered, we will do that," he said. Thomas Haller, president of the Prince George's Chamber of Commerce, which held what it called an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss the legislation, said the bill could deter telecommunications companies from doing business in the county. "If companies are dissuaded from providing telecommunications services here because they can't compete, we're not going to have much competition," Haller said. Novak said AT&T formed the coalition to warn the public about the county's proposal. People calling the coalition to express their concern about the legislation are quickly transferred to the office of their County Council member. "We are trying to educate the public," Novak said. Council member M.H. Jim Estepp (D-Upper Marlboro), who sponsored the legislation, said he received calls from residents at a rate of about 16 an hour during one day this week. Often, he said, callers were disconnected when he started to explain his position. (Novak said the disconnections are not intentional.) "These are big-time tactics, and when big money tries to crush local government, not only are they doing a disservice to the county, that becomes the issue," Estepp said. Curry agreed. "This isn't any citizens coalition. This is a bunch of giant companies trying to profit off the public for free," he said. But AT&T spokesman Stephen H. Clawson said consumers are the ones who will be hurt. "We found out that there was considerable confusion and concern about the legislation," he said. "We have an obligation to our customers." © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: Bioterrorism: America's Newest War Game
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Bioterrorism: America's Newest War Game Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 06:07:57 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: The Nation http://www.thenation.com/issue/981109/1109PRIN.HTM BIOTERRORISM AMERICA'S NEWEST WAR GAME BY PETER PRINGLE "Catastrophic Terrorism" roars the headline over an article in the current Foreign Affairs. The three distinguished authors--John Deutch, a former director of Central Intelligence; Ashton Carter, an ex-Pentagon assistant secretary; and Philip Zelikow, a former member of the National Security Council--declare with unswerving certainty that "the danger of weapons of mass destruction being used against America and its allies is greater now than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962." Any act of "catastrophic terrorism," they say, could have the effect of Pearl Harbor; it could divide America into a "before and after." This is no shot across the bow of a sleeping ship. America is now spending $7 billion a year defending itself against backpack nuclear bombs, canisters of nerve gas and petri dishes of germ weapons planted in crowded cities by an as-yet-unknown adversary. So many different agencies are shoring up the nation's defenses against mega-terrorism, says the government auditor, that it's hard to keep track of where all the money is going, let alone whether it is being spent wisely. Any new government project tagged with the word "terrorism" goes to the top of the pile in Congress. The Pentagon is ordering devices to sniff out nerve gases and deadly germs. National Guard units that normally deal with floods and hurricanes are being trained as chemical and biological SWAT teams. Under the threat of another war with Iraq, all 2.4 million American troops are being vaccinated against anthrax, and companies are scrambling to provide the vaccines--including, notably, a company founded by Adm. William Crowe Jr., a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The FBI wants to send more agents into embassies abroad and is demanding its own planes to shuttle investigative teams around the world. Local and state governments used to dealing with flu epidemics are preparing for the nightmare gas or microbe attack. And one can only imagine what antiterrorist projects the CIA has been dreaming up with its "black" budget of covert ops. Now the players in this new war game have got a new title for their grim pursuit. The thrust of "Catastrophic Terrorism" is a grand reorganization of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI bureaucracies to eliminate the perennial agency overlaps and gaps between "foreign" and "domestic" terrorism. The authors want to pool intelligence at the FBI, create new Catastrophic Terrorism Response Offices, already dubbed CTROs, and cut the two dozen agencies with shopping lists for vaccines, gas sniffers and protective clothing down to one--the Defense Department--because, they say, the Pentagon has the expertise when it comes to rapid acquisition. The operation sounds like it's a few steps short of war mobilization. All but the new title, perhaps, could have been predicted (the original choice, "Grand Terrorism," was rejected on the grounds that there is nothing grand about this method of warfare). Beached by the fall of Communism and the end of the cold war, planners in the Pentagon and military think tanks have been circling a number of new threats: First it was drug wars and then "rogue" states; but international terrorism has an enduring quality in the annals of "threat politics." By dividing the phenomenon into two distinct parts--conventional and catastrophic--Deutch, the quintessential academic/consultant to the Pentagon and the defense industry, and his co-authors have mirrored the old cold war categories of conventional and nuclear weapons. Conventional terrorist weapons are truck bombs filled with fertilizer explosive. Catastrophic terrorist weapons are nuclear, chemical and especially biological--the very weapons President Nixon renounced three decades ago in an effort to prevent their spread to other countries. The sixties US arsenal of biological weapons--then the world's largest and most sophisticated--has come back to haunt those now charged with the defense of the nation. Chemical weapons of mass destruction have been used in state-sponsored warfare--by Iraq against Iran and its own Kurdish population--and fragments of Saddam Hussein's dismantled Scud missiles were alleged by US investigators to have traces of VX, the deadliest of all nerve gases. The worry is that such weapons could also be used by Islamic fundamentalist groups such as the one that President Clinton said he was concerned about when he recently authorized the firing of cruise missiles at a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan--or by groups such as the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, or by homegrown US adherents to survivalism. No one denies the threat of catastrophic terrorism, but the pace at which it has taken center stage as the prime threat to US security is almost as unnerving as the threat itself. In the media, Russian defectors talk alarmingly of new strains of untreatable anthrax and deadly cocktails of smallpox and Ebola; teenage hackers invade super-secret Pentagon computers; Aum Shinrikyo is said to be back in force, if not in action, after the Tokyo subway nerve gas incident; and three Texans are charged with plotting to assassinate President Clinton with a cactus needle coated with botulin flicked from a cigarette lighter. Outside the calm of the international affairs departments of MIT and Harvard (where Deutch and Carter work), or the offices of the Washington Beltway "bandits" bulging with profits from new contracts related to terrorism, or indeed in the Pentagon itself, where new acronyms bloom, a sense of panic is in the air. Expert after expert says it's not a question of if but when this doomsday will occur. The media cast around for bogymen and find Russia with its rusting biological weapons labs and penniless scientists who could aid and abet the new bioterrorists. Actually, in most years since 1980 the number of Americans killed by terrorists has been fewer than ten, but the toll can suddenly jump. In 1983, 271 Americans were killed by terrorist attacks, most of them in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. Then came bombs at the World Trade Center in 1993 (six dead, 1,000 injured), the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 (168 dead, 500 injured) and the Khobar Towers Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996 (nineteen dead, 500 injured). The World Trade Center in New York is often taken as a starting point for the new concern. What if the World Trade Center bomb had been nuclear, or had dispersed a deadly pathogen? In the rush to play a new war game there is always a tendency to hype the threat. Last November Defense Secretary William Cohen appeared on TV holding a bag of sugar claiming the equivalent amount of anthrax spores would be enough to kill half the population of Washington, DC, an illustration that would only be valid if the dispersal were perfect and the wind were always blowing in the right direction. Republican Senator Fred Thompson, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, asked meekly of the terrorist threat, "Is it being overblown?" (The pun was apparently unintended.) There is, after all, no 100 percent protection against chemical or biological weapons--as there was no 100 percent protection against nuclear weapons. That doesn't prevent the rise of a new threat industry, of course, but one must ask whether there is a way of averting catastrophe other than building Fortress America. One of the true believers in the need for elaborate defenses against germ weapons is none other than President Clinton. He became a convert, and started pushing for stockpiles of vaccines, after reading--among all the intelligence reports on terrorism and the Iraq crisis--a novel titled The Cobra Event, about a fictitious germ attack on Manhattan using a mixture of smallpox and cold viruses. Chemical and biological warfare is great fiction material, of course, but are we in danger of being unable to separate fact from fiction? The author of the novel, Richard Preston, also wrote a non-fiction account of the rise of "bioterrorism" in a March issue of The New Yorker. The article quoted a Russian who was involved in the Soviet biological weapons program named Kanatjan Alibekov, who had been the Number Two in charge of the weapons section of the archipelago of Soviet biological plants known as Biopreparat. He "defected" in 1992, a year after the fall of Communism, and changed his name to Ken Alibek. In The New Yorker he said the Soviets had built huge plants for the production of biological weapons. In the 1972 Nixon-negotiated Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibited the development, production and stockpiling of these weapons, there was a loophole; the treaty did not prevent countries from building a production line for such weapons and keeping it in reserve. This is what the Soviets did--something US intelligence had known about for some time. But Alibek claims that the Russians had actually used these facilities to produce tons of deadly anthrax, some of which had been genetically engineered so that available vaccines were useless, and some of which may have been put into the warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Alibek also asserted that the Russians had experimented with deadly cocktails of smallpox spiked with the Ebola virus, which causes internal hemorrhaging, and with Venezuelan equine encephalitis, a brain virus. For almost a dozen breathless pages, The New Yorker treated its readers to gruesome details of the power of these pathogens, pausing only when the author, himself out of puff, asked the key question: Does anyone believe Alibek? Or is he, as a defector who has apparently outlived his usefulness to the CIA's covert intelligence world, trying to make a buck in civvy street by exaggerating the importance of his information? Preston consulted an old cold warrior, Bill Patrick, the retired US biological warfare expert who was chief of product development for the US Army's biological warfare laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Patrick, quite reasonably for an old campaigner, takes the defector on trust; if Alibek doesn't know what the Soviets were doing, then who does? But other scientific experts, not given a hearing until page twelve of the thirteen-page New Yorker article, ranged from skeptical to dismissive. One was Dr. Peter Jahrling, the chief scientist at the US Army medical research Institute of Infectious Diseases. He was one of Alibek's original debriefers. Jahrling told The New Yorker, "His [Alibek's] talk about chimeras [mixtures] of Ebola is sheer fantasy, in my opinion." Preston also consulted Joshua Lederberg, the Nobel Prizewinning molecular biologist and a member of a working group at the National Academy of Sciences who advises the government on biological weapons and the potential for terrorism. Lederberg told Preston, "It's not even clear to me that adding Ebola genes to smallpox would make it more deadly." Putting these comments higher up in the article would have been more responsible journalism, clearly, but it would also have spoiled the story. The week before the New Yorker article ran, Alibek was given his first television exposure, on Diane Sawyer's PrimeTime Live show. "Biological weapons. They're real, they're here...smallpox, Ebola, anthrax," was how the hourlong show began. Alibek told Sawyer that the Russians had created a deadly genetic merger of smallpox and Ebola. "In this case, [the] mortality rate [is] about 90 percent, up to 100 percent. No treatment techniques," warned Alibek. "How many people could they have killed?" Sawyer asked him. "The entire population of Earth several times," he replied. ABC generously shared Alibek with the New York Times, which, in return, promoted Sawyer's show on its front page with an interview with the former Soviet scientist--including a warning (not mentioned by Sawyer) that Alibek was considered by US intelligence to be credible about the "subjects he knows firsthand...[but] less reliable on political and military issues." Sawyer's search for Soviet malfeasance took her to Ekaterinburg (formerly the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk), where, in 1979, an accidental release of anthrax spores from a Soviet military compound killed more than sixty people. After reports of the accident reached the West through Soviet émigrés, Moscow claimed the deaths were because of anthrax-tainted meat (anthrax is endemic in the region). Matthew Meselson, the Harvard molecular biologist and the scientist who was instrumental in persuading Nixon to outlaw biological weapons in 1969, led a team of investigators to Sverdlovsk. In 1994 Meselson proved in an article in Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that in fact there had been a release of anthrax spores from the military compound, and he confirmed nearly seventy deaths. But Sawyer, who spent four months researching the show, never interviewed Meselson or anyone from his team, including Jeanne Guillemin, a sociologist at Boston College who had cross-checked a Russian casualty list with hospital records, local interviews and grave sites. Instead, Sawyer referred to an unnamed director of a Sverdlovsk military hospital as saying there had been 259 victims--but not how many of the victims had died. Sawyer's staff called Professor Meselson the night before the program aired, but merely to ask his help with the pronunciation of a number of drugs used to treat the victims: penicillin, cephalosporin, chloramphenicol and corticosteroids. In a further effort to suggest that more spookiness was afoot, Sawyer recorded that at the end of 1997 Russian scientists had published a paper in the British medical journal Vaccine describing the creation of a genetically engineered anthrax strain that was resistant to standard Russian anthrax vaccine. "Might the Russians be creating germs that can resist vaccines?" asked Sawyer. But was there really anything sinister about the Russian work? Were the Russian experiments threatening a new kind of catastrophic terrorism, or were Russian scientists simply studying the lethality of anthrax, which is endemic in Russia? Sawyer didn't mention that Western intelligence had known about the new anthrax strains for almost two years--from an unclassified International Workshop on Anthrax held at Winchester, England, in September 1995. The Russian scientists had openly described their experiments at the meeting sponsored by a number of commercial, charitable and professional organizations independent of the US and British governments. Bioterrorism, biocriminals, bioweaponeers--all good buzzwords for novelists and movie makers who will continue to sound alarms and attract influential followers, no doubt; but the fact is, there have been only two serious uses of biological weapons in this century: one by the Japanese Imperial Army against China, and the other a failed attempt by Aum Shinrikyo to disperse anthrax spores. So if there are terrorists out there wanting to use biological or chemical or nuclear weapons, how good is our intelligence about them? In hearings before Congress in 1995 the CIA admitted that its terrorism intelligence desk somehow missed the 1994 sarin gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo in Matsumoto, which killed seven people--although the event had been reported in the Japanese and European press and even in the US-owned International Herald Tribune. Such revelations suggest that a new, multi-agency National Intelligence Center, as proposed by Deutch et al. in Foreign Affairs, might not only be a good idea but a necessity. But why a whole new bureaucracy? Why the Manhattan Project syndrome? The Aum Shinrikyo story suggests that a small band of well-trained researchers who tap into publicly available information could be as useful as national information centers, wiretaps and grand jury investigations. The risk in rushing to meet the new threat--any new threat--with new departments of counter-espionage and counter-weapons is that the old art of deterrence through international treaties will take a back seat. The United States already has a policy that criminalizes terrorist activity at home, including the postOklahoma City Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996. It also supports sanctions against countries promoting terrorism and corporations exporting material that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction. In the article on catastrophic terrorism, Deutch et al. mention the proposal of Harvard professor Meselson and his law professor colleague, Philip Heymann, for an international convention making it a crime for individuals to engage in the production of biological or chemical weapons. The existing chemical and biological conventions apply only to states. The idea is to deter national leaders, such as Saddam Hussein, and groups such as Aum Shinrikyo, from seeking to develop chemical or biological weapons, and to discourage corporations from assisting them because the scientist or the CEO could be arrested. If such a treaty had existed and been supported by the United States in the eighties when Iraq was using poison gas and developing biological weapons, the suppliers and advisers on whom Saddam depended could have been brought to trial. The proposal is being co-promoted by Meselson's longtime ally in the fight to eliminate chemical and biological weapons, Julian Perry Robinson of the University of Sussex in England. The crimes are carefully defined in the precise language of the chemical and biological conventions, now ratified by 120 and 141 countries respectively. Under the proposed law any nation that is party to the existing conventions would be bound either to prosecute or to extradite a violator. Such treaties already in effect are aimed at piracy, genocide, airline hijacking and harming diplomats on active duty. If the proposal becomes law, terrorists would have their support group cut from under them; there is even the suggestion of a reward for anyone who provides information leading to a perpetrator's arrest. Maybe the fiction writers will pick up the idea too. Then, who knows whether the FBI or some adventurer from the plaintiff's bar--bringing, say, a class action on behalf of aggrieved shareholders of a company caught trading in anthrax--will be the first to be responsible for the arrest of the culprits? The next generation of terror novels should be filled with "biocriminals" and "chemothugs." For an alternative view, and relief from the drumbeat of the New Threat merchants, one can turn to this quarter's Foreign Policy, a rival of Foreign Affairs. In an article titled "The Great Superterrorism Scare," Ehud Sprinzak, a professor of political science at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, suggests that the voices of doom are mistaken. Their concept of postcold war chaos breeding terrorist fanatics is simply not supported by the evidence of three decades. "Despite the lurid rhetoric, a massive terrorist attack with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons is hardly inevitable. It is not even likely," he writes. "Terrorists wish to convince us that they are capable of striking from anywhere at any time, but there is really no chaos. In fact, terrorism involves predictable behavior, and the vast majority of terrorist organizations can be identified well in advance." Such views tend to go unheard by doomsayers. The Republicans added $9 billion to the military budget, including several additional millions for antiterrorism projects, by emphasizing unpreparedness--sure to be a big issue in Election 2000. --- Peter Pringle, a British journalist, reported on the end of the cold war from Washington and Moscow for The Independent of London. Join a discussion in the Digital Edition Forums. Or send your letter to the editor to letters(a)thenation.com. The Nation Digital Edition http://www.thenation.com Copyright (c) 1998, The Nation Company, L.P. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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