-Caveat Lector-
[radtimes] # 151
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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How to assist RadTimes--> (See ** at end.)
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Contents:
--The PanAm 103 Verdict
--Global Warming Portends Water, Power Shortages
--Chomsky: USA -- Elections 2000
--Elusive Anarchists: Hatred of Hierarchy Makes ELF Elusive
--Extra security for bank meeting to cost taxpayers millions
--World Economic Forum says hackers got into system
--And Now, the Good Side Of Facial Profiling
===================================================================
The PanAm 103 Verdict
by William Blum
02/02/01
The papers are filled with pictures of happy relatives of the victims of
the 1988 bombing of PanAm 103. A Libyan, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi,
was just found guilty of the bombing by a Scottish court in the Hague, his
co-defendant, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, being acquitted. At long last there's
going to be some kind of closure for the families.
What's wrong with this picture?
What's wrong is that the evidence against Megrahi is thin to the point of
transparency. The court verdict might be dubbed Supreme Court II, another
instance of non-judicial factors clouding judicial reasoning. The three
Scottish judges can not have relished returning to the UK after finding both
defendants innocent of the murder of 270 people, largely from the UK and the
US. Not to mention having to directly face dozens of hysterical victims'
family members in the courtroom. And with the full knowledge of the desires
of Washington and Downing Street as to the outcome.
I have now read the entire 26,000-word Opinion of the Court which
accompanied the verdict. One has to do that, as well as being very familiar
with the history of the case, as I am, to appreciate what the judges did. I
can only offer here a few examples of the many questionable aspects of the
decision.
The key charge against Megrahi -- the sine qua non -- is that he caused a
suitcase with explosives to be loaded at Malta airport and tagged it so it
would pass through Malta, Frankfurt and London airports without an
accompanying passenger and without being inspected. That by itself would
have been a major feat and so unlikely to happen that any terrorist with any
common sense would have found a better way. But aside from anything else, we
have this -- as to the first step, loading the suitcase at Malta: there is no
witness, no video, no document, no fingerprints, no nothing, no evidence of
any kind. And the court admits it: "The absence of any explanation of the
method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180
[Air Malta] is a major difficulty for the Crown case."
The court places great -- nay, paramount -- weight upon the supposed
identification of Megrahi by a storekeeper in Malta as the purchaser of the
clothing found in the bomb suitcase. But this storekeeper had earlier
identified several other people as the culprit, including one who was a CIA
agent. When he finally identified Megrahi from a photo, it was after
Megrahi's photo had been in the world news for years. Again, the court
acknowledges the possible danger inherent in such a decision:
These identifications were criticised inter alia on the ground that
photographs of the accused have featured many times over the years in the
media and accordingly purported identifications more than ten years after the
event are of little if any value.
The Opinion of the Court places considerable weight as well on the
suspicious behavior of Megrahi prior to the fatal day, making much of his
comings and goings abroad, phone calls to unknown parties for unknown
reasons, the use of a pseudonym, etc. The three judges try to squeeze as
much mileage out of these events as they can, as if they had no better case
to make. But Megrahi was seemingly a member of Libyan intelligence, and last
we all knew, Libya is entitled to have an intelligence service, and
intelligence agents have been known to act ... well, in mysterious ways, for
whatever assignment they're on. The court had no idea what assignment, if
any, Megrahi was working on.
There is much more that is known about the case that makes the court
verdict and written opinion questionable, although credit must be given the
court for its frankness about what it was doing, even while it was doing it.
"We are aware that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a
number of uncertainties and qualifications. We are also aware that there is
a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together
and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of
conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified."
Let's hope that Megrahi is really guilty. It would be a terrible shame
if he spends the rest of his life in prison because back in 1990, as the
United States was preparing for war against Iraq and needed Syria and Iran as
allies, Washington suddenly dropped those two countries as the prime suspects
in the plane bombing and -- seemingly from nowhere -- discovered Libya, the
Arab state least supportive of the US buildup to the Gulf War.
Judges should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent.
William Blum is the author of "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only
Superpower" and "Killing Hope:US Military and CIA Interventions Since World
War 2"
Portions of the books can be read at:
http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm (with a link to Killing Hope)
A detailed article on the PanAm 103 case by William Blum can be found at
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/panam.htm
The full text of the Opinion of the Court can be found at
http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/html/lockerbie.htm
===================================================================
Global Warming Portends Water, Power Shortages In American West
By Cat Lazaroff
BERKELEY, California, February 2, 2001 (ENS) - California's current energy
and water shortages may be a sign of things to come. Within the next 50
years, California and other western states will face serious water problems
because of an increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, say
scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/feb2001/2001L-02-02-06.html
===================================================================
USA - Elections 2000
by Noam Chomsky
The most striking fact about the November 2000 elections is
that they were a statistical tie (for Congress as well,
virtually). The most interesting question is what this
shows, if anything, about the state of functioning
democracy.
For many commentators, the fact that the presidency "is
hinging on a few hundred votes" reveals the extraordinary
health and vigour of American democracy (former State
Department spokesperson James Rubin). An alternative
interpretation is that it confirms the conclusion that there
was no election in any sense that takes the concept of
democracy seriously.
Under what conditions would we expect 100 million votes to
divide 50-50, with variations that fall well within expected
margins of error of 1-2%? There is a very simple model that
would yield such expectations: people were voting at random.
If tens of millions of votes were cast for X vs. Y as
president of Mars, such results would be expected. To the
extent that the simplest model is valid, the elections did
not take place.
Of course, more complex models can be constructed, and we
know that the simplest one is not strictly valid. Voting
blocs can be identified, and sometimes the reasons for
choices can be discerned. It's understandable that financial
services should overwhelmingly support Bush, whose announced
plans included huge gifts of public resources to the
industry and even more commitment than his opponent to the
demolition of quasi-democratic institutions (Social Security
in particular). And it is no surprise that affluent white
voters favoured Bush while union members, Latinos and
African-Americans strongly opposed him ("supported Gore," in
conventional terminology). But blocs are not always easy to
explain in terms of interest-based voting, and it is well to
remember that voting is often consciously against interest.
For example, in 1984 Reagan ran as a "real conservative,"
winning what was called a "landslide victory" (with under
30% of the electoral vote); a large majority of voters
opposed his legislative program, and 4% of his supporters
identified themselves as "real conservatives."
Such outcomes are not too surprising when over 80% of the
population feel that the government is "run for the benefit
of the few and the special interests, not the people," up
from about half in earlier years. And when similar numbers
feel that the economic system is "inherently unfair" and
working people have too little say, and that "there is too
much power concentrated in the hands of large companies for
the good of the nation." Under such circumstances, people
may tend to vote (if at all) on grounds that are irrelevant
to policy choices over which they feel they have little
influence.
Such tendencies are strengthened by intense
media/advertising concentration on style, personality, and
other irrelevancies (in the presidential debates, will Bush
remember where Canada is?; will Gore remind people of some
unpleasant know-it-all in 4th grade?). Public opinion
studies lend further credibility to the simplest model.
Harvard's Vanishing Voter Project has been monitoring
attitudes through the presidential campaign. Its director,
Thomas Patterson, reports that "Americans' feeling of
powerlessness has reached an alarming high," with 53%
responding "only a little" or "none" to the question: "How
much influence do you think people like you have on what
government does?" The previous peak, 30 years ago, was 41%.
During the campaign, over 60% of regular voters regarded
politics in America as "generally pretty disgusting." In
each weekly survey, more people found the campaign boring
than exciting, by a margin of 48% to 28% in the final week.
Three-fourths of the population regarded the whole process
as largely a game played by large contributors
(overwhelmingly corporations), party leaders, and the PR
industry, which crafted candidates to say "almost anything
to get themselves elected," so that one could believe little
that they said even when their stand on issues was
intelligible. On almost all issues, citizens could not
identify the stands of the candidates - not because they are
stupid or not trying.
It is, then, not unreasonable to suppose that the simplest
model is a pretty fair first approximation to the truth
about the election, and that the country is being driven
even more than before towards the condition described by
former President Alfonso Lopez Michaelsen of Colombia,
referring to his own country: a political system of power
sharing by parties that are "two horses with the same
owner." Furthermore, that seems to be general popular
understanding.
On the side, perhaps the similarities help us understand
Clinton's great admiration and praise for Colombian
democracy, and for the grotesque social and economic system
kept in place by violence. And the fact that after a decade
in which Colombia was the leading recipient of US arms and
military training in the hemisphere - and the leading human
rights violator, in conformity with a well-established
correlation - it attained first place world-wide in 1999,
with a huge further increase now in progress (Israel-Egypt
are a separate category).
When an election is a largely meaningless statistical tie,
and a victor has to be selected somehow, the rational
procedure would be some arbitrary choice; say, flipping a
coin. But that is unacceptable. It is necessary to invest
the process of selecting our leader with appropriate
majesty, an effort conducted for five weeks of intense elite
dedication to the task, with limited success, it appears.
The five weeks of passionate effort were not a complete
waste. They did contribute to exposing racist bias in
practices in Florida and elsewhere - which probably have a
considerable element of class bias, concealed by the
standard refusal in US commentary to admit that class
structure exists, and the race-class correlations. There was
also at least some slight attention to a numerically far
more significant factor than the ugly harassment of black
voters and electoral chicanery: disenfranchisement through
incarceration.
The day after the election, Human Rights Watch issued a
(barely-noted) study reporting that the "decisive" element
in the Florida election was the exclusion of 31% of
African-American men, either in prison or among the more
than 400,000 "ex-offenders" permanently disenfranchised. HRW
estimates than "more than 200,000 potential black voters
[were] excluded from the polls." Since they overwhelmingly
vote Democratic, that "decisively" changed the outcome. The
numbers overwhelm those debated in the intense scrutiny over
marginal technical issues (dimpled chads, etc.). The same
was true of other swing states. In seven states, HRW
reported, "one in four black men is permanently barred" from
voting; "almost every state in the U.S. denies prisoners the
right to vote" and "fourteen states bar criminal offenders
from voting even after they have finished their sentences,"
permanently disenfranchising "over one million
ex-offenders." These are African-American and Latino out of
any relation to proportion of the population, or even to
what is called "crime." "More than 13% of black men (some
1.4 million nation-wide) are disenfranchised for many years,
sometimes for life, a result of felony convictions, many for
passing the same drugs that Al Gore smoked and George W.
snorted in years gone by," U. of New Mexico Law Professor
Tim Canova writes.
The few reports in the mainstream U.S. press noted that the
political implications are highly significant, drawing votes
away from Democratic candidates. The numbers are large. In
Alabama and Florida, over 6% of potential voters were
excluded because of felony records; "for blacks in Alabama,
the rate is 12.4 percent and in Florida 13.8 percent"; "In
five other states - Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia
and Wyoming - felony disenfranchisement laws affected one in
four black men" (NY Times, Nov. 3, citing human rights and
academic studies).
The academic researchers, sociologists Jeff Manza
(Northwestern) and Christopher Uggen (Minnesota) conclude
that "were it not for disenfranchised felons, the Democrats
would still have control of the U.S. Senate." "If the
Bush-Gore election turns out to be as close as the
Kennedy-Nixon election, and Bush squeaks through, we may be
able to attribute that to felon disenfranchisement."
Re-examining close Senate elections since 1978, they
conclude further that "the felon vote could have reversed
Republican victories in Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky,
Florida and Wyoming, and prevented the Republican takeover"
(Los Angeles Times, Sept. 8). Citing the same studies, the
Santa Fe New Mexican (Nov. 19) pointed out that 5.5% of
potential voters in New Mexico - where the election was also
a statistical tie - were disenfranchised by felony
convictions. "As many as 45 percent of black males in the
state can't vote - the highest ratio in the country," though
the total figures are not as dramatic as Florida. Figures
were not available for Hispanics, who constitute 60% of the
state's prisoners (and about 40% of the estimated
population), but the conclusions are expected to be
comparable. "Neither party seems interested in addressing
the issue, Manza said. Republicans feel they have little to
gain because these voters are thought to be overwhelmingly
Democratic. And, he added, `Democrats are sufficiently
concerned about not appearing to be weak on crime that I'm
sure they would not be jumping up and down on this'."
The last comment directs attention to a critically important
matter, discussed prominently abroad (see Duncan Campbell,
Guardian, Nov. 14; Serge Halimi and Loic Wacquant, Le Monde
diplomatique, Dec. 2000; also Earl Ofari Hutchinson,
Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 14). For the past eight
years, Clinton and Gore disenfranchised a major voting bloc
that would have easily swung the election to Gore. During
their tenure in office, the prison population swelled from
1.4 to 2 million, removing an enormous number of potential
Democratic voters from the lists, thanks to the harsh
sentencing laws. Clinton-Gore were particularly devoted to
draconian Reagan-Bush laws, Hutchinson points out. The core
of these practices is drug laws that have little to do with
drugs but a lot to do with social control: removing
superfluous people and frightening the rest.
When the latest phase of the "war on drugs" was designed in
the 1980s, it was recognised at once that "we are choosing
to have an intense crime problem concentrated among
minorities" (Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the few
Senators who paid attention to social statistics). "The
war's planners knew exactly what they were doing,"
criminologist Michael Tonry wrote, reviewing the racist and
class-based procedures that run through the system from
arrest to sentencing - and that continue a long and
disgraceful tradition (see Randall Shelden, Controlling the
Dangerous Classes: A Critical Introduction to the History of
Criminal Justice).
Twenty years ago, the US was similar to other industrial
countries in rate of incarceration. By now, it is off the
spectrum, the world's leader among countries that have
meaningful statistics. The escalation was unrelated to crime
rates, which were not unlike other industrial countries then
and have remained stable or declined. But they are a natural
component of the domestic programs instituted from the late
Carter years, a variant of the "neo-liberal reforms" that
have had a devastating effect in much of the third world.
These "reforms" have been accompanied by a notable
deterioration in conventional measures of "economic health"
world-wide, but have had a much more dramatic impact on
standard social indicators: measures of "quality of life."
In the US, these tracked economic growth until the "reforms"
were instituted, and have declined since, now to about the
level of 40 years ago, in what the Fordham University
research institute that has done the major studies of the
topic calls a "social recession" (Marc and Marque-Luisa
Miringoff, The Social Health of the Nation; see Paul Street,
Z magazine, November 2000). Economic rewards are highly
concentrated, and much of the population becomes superfluous
for profit and power.
Marginalisation of the superfluous population takes many
forms. Some of these were the topic of a recent Business
Week cover story entitled "Why Service Stinks" (Oct. 23). It
reviewed refinements in implementing the 80-20 rule taught
in business schools: 20% of your customers provide 80% of
the profits, and you may be better off without the rest. The
"new consumer apartheid" relies on modern information
technology (in large measure a gift from an unwitting
public) to allow corporations to provide grand services to
profitable customers, and to deliberately offer skimpy
services to the rest, whose inquiries or complaints can be
safely ignored. The experience is familiar, and carries
severe costs - how great when distributed over a large
population, we don't know, because they are not included
among the highly ideological measures of economic
performance. Incarceration might be regarded as an extreme
version, for the least worthy.
Incarceration has other functions. It is a form of
interference in labour markets, removing working-age males,
increasingly women as well, from the labour force.
Calculating real unemployment when this labour force is
included, the authors of an informative academic study find
the US to be well within the European range, contrary to
conventional claims (Bruce Western and Katherine Beckett,
Am. J. of Sociology, Jan. 1999; also Prison Legal News, Oct.
2000). They conclude that what is at issue is not labour
market interference, but the kind that is chosen: job
training, unemployment insurance, and so on, on the social
democratic model; or throwing superfluous people into jail.
In pursuing these policies, the US has separated itself from
other industrial countries. Europe abandoned voting
restrictions for criminals decades ago; in 1999, the
Constitutional Court of South Africa gave inmates the right
to vote, saying that the "vote of each and every citizen is
a badge of dignity and personhood."
Prior to the "neo-liberal reforms" and their "drug war"
concomitant, the US was heading in the same direction, the
National Law Journal (Oct. 30) comments: "The American Bar
Association Standards on Civil Disabilities of a Convicted
Person, approved in 1980, state flatly that `[persons]
convicted of any offence should not be deprived of the right
to vote' and that laws subjecting convicts to collateral
civil disabilities `should be repealed'."
Without continuing, the Clinton-Gore programs of
disenfranchising their own voters should be understood as a
natural component of their overall socio-economic
conceptions. And the elections themselves illustrate the
related conception of the political system of two horses
with the same corporate owner. None of this is new, of
course. There is no "golden age" that has been lost, and
this is not the first period of concentrated attack on
democracy and human rights. Insofar as the November 2000
elections are worth discussing, they should, I think, be
seen primarily from these perspectives.
===================================================================
Elusive Anarchists: Hatred of Hierarchy Makes ELF Elusive
By Dean Schabner
ABCNews
Jan. 30 � How could the FBI, the crime fighting organization
that broke the back of the Mafia and infiltrated the KGB,
apparently be so stymied by a bunch of granola-eating,
Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers?
The Earth Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for
more than $37 million worth of damage in more than 100 acts
of "ecotage" at lumber companies, housing construction sites
and ski resorts over the past five years. Law enforcement
officials have recognized an ELF style � fires set with
simple devices at sites vacated for the night, weekend or
holiday, followed shortly by an announcemt sent anonymously
to a spokesperson.
The group's claims to being non-violent and opposed to
harming any living thing � including their ideological
opponents and the people who work for them � have done
nothing to make law enforcement officials soften their view
of ELF.
"Criminals, terrorists," said Joe Valiquette, the New York
spokesman for the FBI, when asked about ELF after the recent
spate of fires at house construction sites on Long Island.
However, they pose a peculiar problem to law enforcement,
because of their apparent lack of hierarchical organization.
Officials acknowledge that the arrest last week of an
Indiana man accused of a tree spiking that was linked to ELF
is not necessarily a major breakthrough in their battle with
the group. But while FBI spokesman have admitted suffering a
level of frustration in attempting to crack ELF, they
express no doubts that the group will be broken.
By all accounts � both from law enforcement officials and
from unofficial ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh � there is no
leadership structure within ELF. The name is just a catchall
for an undetermined number of cells around the country that
act independently and on their own initiative, though they
all seem to have a common agenda.
'No One Knows Each Other'
"There's a complex worldview that tends to be associated
with these green radical folks," said Bron Taylor, a
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh religion professor who has
studied the radical environmentalists and their beliefs for
more than a decade. "One is that small-scale foraging
societies are better than large-scale organized
industrialized societies. The best way to be human is to be
in small leaderless groups, where you work things out within
the community. There's at the least a decentralization of
society and at the maximum a very anarchist outlook in these
subcultures.
"In this view, one of the primary forces driving the
environmental holocaust is the nation-state, especially the
capitalist nation-state, which is especially effective at
destroying nature to make a buck."
This worldview explains both ELF's choice of targets and
what makes it so difficult for law enforcement to deal with.
They are uncomfortable with any kind of hierarchy, Taylor
says, so there is no formal organization in ELF. Even if one
cell were infiltrated, it does not mean that would lead
investigators to a chain of command that would allow them to
infiltrate other cells.
"There is no hierarchy, no physical group that they can
see," Rosebraugh told Bear Deluxe magazine in Portland. "You
might have a cell operating, or 57 cells operating, where no
one knows each other."
That makes ELF very different from most other terrorist,
criminal and espionage groups � such as the Mafia, the KGB
and even other radical environmental groups � that law
enforcement has successfully infiltrated, officials admit.
"We have not had a lot of success in this area, but that's
not a reflection of lack of effort, it's a reflection of the
difficulty of resolving these crimes," Forest Service
special agent in charge of investigation in the Northwest
Tom Lyons said.
----
ELF Making Good on Threat
Officials Fear Increased 'Ecotage' by Elusive Activists
By Dean Schabner
ABCNews
Jan. 30 � The Earth Liberation Front has carried out more
than 100 acts of destruction in the last five years,
wreaking $37 million worth of damage. To date, police have
one suspect, and the group, leading a rising wave of
environmental extremism, is promising to escalate its
attacks.
Last week, investigators got their first break, arresting
Frank Ambrose, of Indiana, in connection with a tree spiking
incident for which the ELF claimed credit. Law enforcers,
however, are not calling it a major breakthrough in their
five-year war with the elusive activists.
"It's always a positive when there is some success," said
Tom Lyons, a U.S. Forest Service special agent in charge of
law investigation in the Northwest. "That can only help to
deter and show law enforcement agents' intent to deal with
this issue nationwide. It's well publicized that
organizations like ELF operate in small cells around the
country, and this man's ties [to ELF] are the subject of
speculation."
The "elves" of the ELF have become more and more active
since they claimed responsibility for setting fires that
caused $12 million worth of damage at the Vail Mountain ski
resort more than two years ago. According to the activists
and the law enforcement agencies that battle them, there's
likely to be a lot more of their costly mischief.
"This year, 2001, we hope to see an escalation in tactics
against capitalism and industry," ELF said earlier this
month in a communique to Craig Rosebraugh, the Portland,
Ore., man who acts as unofficial spokesman for the group. In
the statement, ELF also claimed responsibility for a fire at
a lumber company office in Glendale, Ore., that did $400,000
worth of damage.
Crime fighters in the FBI and the Forest Service are taking
them at their word, especially considering that the Bush
Administration has been talking about opening the national
parks to mining and logging and stepping up the search for
oil in the Alaska wilderness.
"It's a question that's been on my mind and on a number of
people's minds," said Kim Thorsen, Forest Service department
director of law enforcement and investigation. "The new
administration's policies are different from those in the
past. It's very possible that this coming summer season is
going to be very contentious, if we start cutting more trees
and we start mining. It's an issue we're going to have to be
very aware of."
David Szady, the special agent in charge of the FBI's
Portland division, said that ELF has already begun to
increase its activity, noting that though there was nothing
as spectacular as the Vail incident last year, 2000 was the
group's busiest yet.
Apocalyptic Environmentalists, Political Cynics
ELF claimed responsibility for 16 fires last year at
construction sites for luxury homes in Colorado, Arizona and
New York, and law enforcement officials link them to the
Anarchist Golf Association, which destroyed two grass seed
research centers in Oregon. The group is also blamed for a
fire at a Forest Service tree biogenetic research site in
Wisconsin. In all, they claimed responsibility for $2.2
million worth of damage in 2000.
While Thorsen seemed ready to link the possibility of more
"ecotage" to the policies of the administration in
Washington, at least one person who has studied the movement
sees no reason to believe that ELF cares at all who is in
the White House.
Bron Taylor, a professor of religion at the University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh who has studied the radical environmental
movement for more than a decade, said that one of the
defining elements of the activists is their political
cynicism.
"With these guys, I don't think they look at any
administration as being better than any other," Taylor said.
Taylor, who has published dozens of articles in scholarly
journals dealing with various aspects of the environmental
movement, said he gained his understanding of the activists
not just from their public statements and actions, but from
numerous interviews, many conducted anonymously with people
he said he believed were ELF members.
"You can't understand these guys if you don't understand the
ethical and spiritual motivations behind them," Taylor said.
"There are continuities between their ethical and spiritual
motivations, and those that have motivated the environmental
vanguard for the last 125 years. You have grafted onto that
a particular reading of environmental science and of
governmental politics that tends to be on the one hand
apocalyptic in terms of its view of the environment and on
the other deeply cynical in its political analysis."
Violent Terrorists or Religious Radicals
He describes their reverence for nature as a religious
feeling related to the beliefs of Native Americans in which
all living things have souls and are seen as sacred.
According to Taylor, "deep ecologists" such as those in ELF
have a firm belief in three essential tenets: That
ecosystems have an inherent worth that cannot be judged in
relation to human needs; that human actions are bringing the
earth toward mass extinctions; and that political action is
insufficient to bring about the wholesale social changes
needed.
Because of their rejection of the possibility that
government will make the kind of policy changes they deem
necessary, ELF activists are not concerned about swaying
public opinion, in Taylor's reading of the group. Their
goal, he says, is to create a situation in which it is
simply unprofitable for lumber companies to cut down trees
or construction companies to build luxury "trophy homes" in
wild areas.
While this makes them ready to take actions that are
considered by much of society to be radical, their reverence
for nature and their belief � whether articulated or not �
that life in any form is sacred, keeps them opposed to
intentionally harming other people, even their ideological
opponents.
"It is a laugh to me when they call us violent or
terrorists," Lee Dessaux, a hunt saboteur said in a 1997
interview quoted in Taylor's article "Religion, Violence and
Radical Environmentalism: from Earth First! to the Unabomber
to the Earth Liberation Front" in Journal of Terrorism and
Political Violence. "I say, if we were, don't you think we'd
have killed people by now?"
They still haven't either killed or seriously hurt anyone in
more than 100 incidents over five years since they burned a
truck at Forestry Service office in Oregon, but law
enforcement officials fear it is only a matter of time.
"They keep saying that we're not going to hurt anyone, and I
think they're sincere, but what happens is you can't control
the zealots � we saw that with [Oklahoma City bomber
Timothy] McVeigh," Szady said. "Our other fear is that
someone is going to be killed accidentally."
Expanding Scope, Extending Range
Not only has ELF picked up its pace, it seems the "elves"
have also begun to branch out and move around the country.
Whereas early on their ecotage was primarily directed at the
logging industry, and primarily in the Northwest, their
recent campaign against suburban sprawl brought them
attention in the Northeast.
"These people are popping up all over," Szady said. "The
names can change, but we think the people are the same."
To date, it seems that the FBI and others trying to catch
the "elves" haven't been able to find out for sure, though.
Szady refused to say whether the FBI has had any success
attempting to infiltrate ELF, but there have been no arrests
in any of major the incidents for which "elves" have claimed
responsibility.
"We have to take a very coordinated effort on the local,
state and federal level, with all involved agencies working
together," he said. "We're also hoping to get cooperation
from the people in those organizations who might feel that
some members have stepped over the line."
The Indiana arrest, carried out by state Conservation
agents, shows that various law enforcement organizations are
cooperating in the fight against ELF, but doesn't mean an
end is in sight.
===================================================================
Extra security for bank meeting to cost taxpayers millions
<http://starbulletin.com/2001/02/01/news/story7.html>
The Asian Development Bank,a target of anti-globalization groups, will meet
in Honolulu
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 1, 2001
It will cost taxpayers an estimated $6.5 million to $7 million to
provide security for the five-day Asian Development Bank conference in May.
But while the extra security is needed for possible protests, the May
7-11 gathering of the world's financial leaders at the Hawai'i Convention
Center is also expected to pump $17 million to $20 million into the Hawaii
economy.
"We have no doubt there will be a demonstration in conjunction with
this meeting," said Bob Fishman, chief executive officer for the Hawaii
Tourism Authority during a briefing before a City Council Committee yesterday.
The purpose of the Manila-based bank, which has 60 member nations led
by the United States and Japan, is to eliminate poverty in Asia. But
environmentalists and human rights groups are at odds with many of the
organization's globalization policies.
Expected at the conference are 500 to 600 official delegates, 1,000 to
1,500 bank officials and other guests, and 400 to 500 media.
Tradition dictates the leader of the host country attends. "We have
very strong reason to believe President Bush will be here to open the
meeting," Fishman said.
What Hawaii law enforcement officials want to avoid is a repeat of the
rampant -- and highly publicized -- rioting that marred and cut short the
World Trade Organization's December 1999 meeting in Seattle.
Fishman said the violence there was one of the reasons bank officials
chose to come to Hawaii.
There were an estimated 4,000 demonstrators at the bank's last meeting
in Chiang Mai, Thailand, this past May, according to news reports.
On the closing day, about 2,000 riot police were deployed to keep at
bay about 1,200 Thais who protested that bank-financed projects like dams
have ruined their lives.
"They were orderly, they were loud, they made their point," said
Fishman, who attended the proceedings. "They were able to succeed in
getting world media attention, which was the purpose of their demonstration."
A group of federal, state and city law enforcement officials have been
meeting for months, Fishman said. "You can rest assured that every
potential upset to the equilibrium of our community is being brainstormed
and prepared
for."
About $500,000 is needed immediately to purchase equipment, Assistant
Police Chief Boisse Correa said, part of some $6 million the police
department will expend in association with the conference. The bulk of that
will be for overtime and other personnel costs, he said.
All leaves and vacation among police officers have been canceled,
while many of those normally on desk duty will be uniformed and on the
streets, he said.
Correa said among the inconveniences residents should expect are road
closures and diversions and the shutdown of area parks to give law
enforcement staging areas.
Councilman John Henry Felix said he has some worries about the funding
for the preparation. But Fishman said he expects a good portion of the
security costs to be reimbursed by the federal government. The city of
Seattle got $4.5 million, he said.
Both Fishman and Correa emphasized that they do not want to discourage
protest, only ensure that it is peaceful.
"We want the people of the world to know that there is a civil and
civilized way for (protesters) to get in front of a camera and make their
statements," Fishman said.
===================================================================
World Economic Forum says hackers got into system
GENEVA, Feb 4 (Reuters) - The World Economic Forum said on Sunday
hackers managed to breach its computer system during its annual meeting
in Davos, Switzerland, last week.
The Forum does not yet know who the hackers were, or how they
obtained credit card information on some of its members and guests. It is
treating the matter as a crime.
This year's attendees included Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates,
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro
Mori.
"We do take this very seriously, and we are going to be investigating
this aggressively," Charles McLean, the forum's Director of Communications
and Public Affairs, told Reuters.
"We at this point have no idea how this information got out. If they
could have a security breach at the Pentagon and they can have a security
breach at the State Department, it is possible to have a security breach at
the World Economic Forum."
McLean confirmed a report about the breach in the Swiss Sunday
newspaper SonntagsZeitung but declined to speculate on whether he thought
hackers were connected to the anti-globalisation protests. He said he
learned of the security breach after being contacted by the newspaper.
The Davos conference is not only a magnet for politicians and
business leaders, but also has drawn increasingly large numbers of
anti-globalisation protesters in the past two years.
Protesters were kept away from the conference this year by extremely
tight security, but staged marches in some other cities, including Swiss
business and banking centre Zurich.
McLean said the paper had been contacted by hackers who showed it
the information, which he said might have been taken from the Forum's
sign-up centre in the alpine resort of Davos.
The information in the Davos computer is kept separate from the
Forum's main server at its headquarters in Geneva.
===================================================================
And Now, the Good Side Of Facial Profiling
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23360-2001Feb3.html
By John D. Woodward Jr.
Sunday, February 4, 2001; Page B04
It seemed like an Orwellian revelation: Last week, law enforcement officials
at Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa secretly scanned spectators' faces with
surveillance cameras and instantly compared their "faceprints" against those
of suspected terrorists and known criminals in a computerized database.
Alarmed civil libertarians quickly raised the specter of a Big Brother
government spying on its citizens.
But is the growing use of this technology cause for alarm? Is it an
undesirable invasion of individual privacy, or does it represent a positive
advance in security measures that generates benefits for society? As someone
who closely follows law and policy issues related to biometrics --
technologies that use a person's physical characteristics or personal traits
for recognition -- I believe we must not move precipitously to condemn a
technology that can serve as a useful tool in the fight against crime and
terrorism.
The technology used at the Super Bowl is known as facial recognition. Making
an identification by looking at a person's face is a standard technique:
Police regularly use mug shots to identify criminals, and most of us rarely
go through a week without having someone ask, "May I see a photo ID,
please?" But biometric facial recognition, which uses measurable facial
features, such as the distances and angles between geometric points on the
face -- the ends of the mouth, the nostrils and eye corners -- to recognize
a specific individual, is a highly automated, computerized process. And as
such, it raises real fears that we are losing the ability to control
information about ourselves -- that we are being robbed of our anonymity and
our privacy.
These fears are spawned by two aspects of biometric facial recognition --
clandestine capture, which means that facial recognition systems can scan a
person's face surreptitiously, without their permission; and tracking, which
refers to the fact that the technology makes it possible to monitor an
individual's actions over a period of time.
At its most extreme, tracking could become a kind of "super surveillance"
that allows the tracker both to "follow" a person in the present and to
search databases to learn where he was months ago. For example, suppose the
authorities placed me in their "watch list" database as someone they wanted
to keep an eye out for. Surveillance cameras capturing my faceprint as I go
about my many daily tasks would digitally transmit this biometric
information for instantaneous comparison with the watch list.
As I board the Metro on my way to work, enter and exit my office building,
stop by the ATM, or attend a political rally, a match will be made, allowing
the tracker to know my movements. Similarly, the authorities can enter on
their watch list the biometric information -- the faceprint -- of all those
who attended the political rally with me and conduct searches to try to
identify them from their movements. If such a system were established, it
would become possible to compile a comprehensive profile of an individual's
movements and activities. And the information from such tracking could be
combined with other personal data, acquired by other means (like using
someone's Social Security number), to provide even more insight into a
person's private life.
But while all these fears are understandable, we should not allow perceived
or potential threats to our privacy to blind us to the positive uses of
biometric technologies such as facial recognition. Perhaps Osama bin Laden's
henchmen were nowhere to be found in Tampa's Raymond James Stadium, but law
enforcement officials at the Super Bowl were taking prudent steps to
identify them if they were.
The national security community believes that facial recognition can also
help it in identifying and protecting against threats to U.S. forces and
embassies abroad. If a known terrorist can be identified before he closes in
on his target, lives can be saved. In the wake of the terrorist attack on
Khobar Towers, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) has embarked on a $50-million initiative known as "Human ID at a
Distance," a major component of which is facial recognition.
Facial recognition can also have beneficial uses closer to home. For
example, many parents would likely feel safer knowing their children's
elementary school had a facial recognition system to ensure that convicted
child molesters were not granted access to school grounds. Such a use,
however, could point up one potential problem of facial recognition -- that
people who have "paid their debt to society" may face heightened police
scrutiny once they are identified in a public setting.
On the whole, however, biometric facial recognition systems offer advantages
over other security measures. They are not invasive or even inconvenient.
The system used at the Super Bowl was much less intrusive than a metal
detector at a public building, or an inaugural parade checkpoint. In that
sense, it helped to protect the privacy of individuals, who otherwise might
have had to endure more individualized police attention.
The technological impartiality of facial recognition also offers significant
benefits for society. While humans are adept at recognizing facial features,
we are also susceptible to prejudices and preconceptions. The controversy
surrounding racial profiling illustrates the problems that can result.
Facial recognition systems, by contrast, do not focus on a person's skin
color, hairstyle or manner of dress, and they do not recognize racial
stereotypes. While there is a danger that the system may make an incorrect
match, that danger is no more exaggerated than it is when traditional
identification methods, such as comparing mug shots, are used.
While we must remain alert to potential abuses, we would be ill-advised to
decry the technology's use under all circumstances. Instead, we should focus
on monitoring what kind of information goes into watch list databases and
what information is gathered, stored and disseminated. Options to consider
include establishing legal measures to provide for responsible use; ensuring
that citizens understand how the technology is used; monitoring government
use through citizen oversight committees and review boards; and encouraging
open, rather than surreptitious, use of the technology. The fear of
potential but inchoate threats to privacy should not deter us from using
facial recognition where it can produce positive benefits.
----
John Woodward is a senior policy analyst at Rand, where he works on
biometric policy issues. The views expressed in this article are his own.
===================================================================
"Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control."
-Jim Dodge
======================================================
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
-Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
======================================================
"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
-J. Krishnamurti
======================================================
"The world is my country, all mankind my brethren,
and to do good is my religion."
-Thomas Paine
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