Scotsman
13/08/2006 TONY Blair is planning to push through 90-day detention without charge for terror suspects following the alleged plot to murder thousands of airline passengers by blowing their jets out of the sky.
Senior ministers believe public concern about terrorism is now at such a level that they will be able to reintroduce the controversial detention powers, which were rejected in favour of a 28-day limit following the 7/7 attacks. Click to learn more... A senior government source confirmed that Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown and Home Secretary John Reid all believed that the UK's apparently narrow escape from a major disaster proved the case for a clamp-down on "the enemy within". The source said: "It is one of the few things that Brown, Blair and Reid can agree on." The 90-day proposal - rejected following a humiliating rebellion by Labour MPs last November - is expected to form the centrepiece of further anti-terror powers to be included in the Queen's Speech this autumn. Comment: 90 days without trial, for anyone deemed to be an "enemy of the state". Right now, most British citizens are docile sheep, in the near future however, many of them may have cause for protest. At that point in time, they may regret their support for their government's measures to "keep them safe". Of course, British citizens have real cause to trust in the integrity and efficency of their government and military leaders, as the next story shows...
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Aug 11 (IPS)
Sanjay Suri LONDON - The arrest of 19 people -- all Muslims -- over what the police have described as a sinister plot to blow up U.S. bound aircraft from London, has cast a shadow of suspicion over the entire Muslim community in Britain.
Dramatically released information on the cracking of the suspected conspiracy led to cancellation of several flights in and out of Britain Thursday. Many flights remained disrupted Friday. Passengers were being allowed almost no hand luggage on board. The extent of security precautions dominated news, and with that provoked new suspicions about Muslims, estimated to number about two million in a population of 59 million. |
New York Times
August 12, 2006 By yesterday the morning shows were back to consumer tips - only the advice was about packing for red alerts, not campgrounds and water parks. An expert on "Today" instructed Ann Curry on how to "be a minimalist." On CBS, Harry Smith performed a cheery show-and-tell about the risks of carrying aboard lip gloss, conditioner and, most of all, nail polish remover.
Even "The Insider," the syndicated gossip show, found its own way to the foiled terrorist plot: on Thursday night's edition, it reported on celebrities - Kim Cattrall and Kevin Spacey - who were delayed at Heathrow. The averted bombings - an extensive attack that may have been timed to coincide with the anniversary of Sept. 11 - does not answer the question of whether the public is safer now than it was five years ago. European and American security forces are more vigilant, but terrorists have also grown more virulent. What the close call did show is how far terrorism has metastasized on television. It's a fact of life at airports and on news programs, but even entertainment shows feel compelled - or entitled - to weigh in. Islamic terrorism is woven into the fabric of prime-time thrillers like "24" and "The Unit," but it also surfaces on police shows and legal dramas. The first season of the Showtime series "Sleeper Cell," about an undercover agent who infiltrates a cell of Muslim conspirators in Los Angeles, eerily presaged the London plot - including terrorists who are Westerners who converted to Islam. |
Scotsman
14/08/2006 MORE than 24,500 government security passes giving access to military sites and sensitive Whitehall offices have gone missing in the past three years, fuelling fears about the British state's vulnerability to terrorism.
The startling number of government identity documents unaccounted for has been revealed in a series of internal audits conducted by Whitehall departments and seen by The Scotsman. Since last week's foiling of an alleged UK terrorist plot to bomb US-bound airliners, all government facilities have been placed at a high state of alert, and opposition MPs said the loss of so many security passes was deeply troubling. The majority of the missing security passes were issued by the Ministry of Defence to members of the armed forces. In all, the MoD has lost track of 22,731 forces passes since the start of 2004. More than 4,600 military passes have gone missing since the start of this year alone. |
By DAN CATERINICCHIA
AP Business Writer Fri Aug 11, 2006 WASHINGTON - Despite ongoing privacy concerns and legal disputes involving companies bidding on the project, the U.S. State Department plans to begin issuing smart chip-embedded passports to Americans as planned Monday.
Not even the foiled terror plot that heightened security checks at airports nationwide threatens to delay the rollout, the agency said. Any hitches in getting the technology to work properly could add even longer waits to travelers already facing lengthy security lines at airports. The new U.S. passports will include a chip that contains all the data contained in the paper version - name, birthdate, gender, for example - and can be read by electronic scanners at equipped airports. The State Department says they will speed up going through customs and help enhance border security. Privacy groups continue to raise concerns about the security of the electronic information and a German computer security expert earlier this month demonstrated in Las Vegas how personal information stored on the documents could be copied and transferred to another device. |
By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press August 13, 2006 LONDON - British police questioned 22 suspects Sunday in the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic jetliners in mid-air, and the country's top law-and-order official warned that the risk of another attack still remained high.
Home Secretary John Reid said the threat "is a chronic one and it is a severe one." Reid repeated the assertion, made before by police, that Britain has foiled four major terrorist plots since the July 7, 2005, London transit bombings, and said police were conducting about 24 anti-terrorist investigations. |
Associated Press
Sun Aug 13 2006 DALLAS - The wife of one of three Texas men arraigned on terrorism-related charges in Michigan says her husband and his relatives are not terrorists, but are simply trying to make money by reselling cell phones.
"They're locked up in jail for something that they didn't do," 20-year-old Lina Odeh told The Associated Press on Saturday. Her husband, Louai Abdelhamied Othman of Mesquite, along with his brother, Adham Abdelhamid Othman of Dallas, and their cousin Maruan Awad Muhareb of Mesquite, are charged with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes. Police found about 1,000 cell phones in the men's minivan. Authorities have not said what they believe the men intended to do with the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones. But the police chief in Caro, Mich., where they were arrested, said cell phones can be used as detonators, and prosecutors in a similar case in Ohio have said that TracFones are often used by terrorists because they are not traceable. Odeh said the men were buying the phones to sell to a man in Dallas for a profit of about $5 per phone. She said they were in Michigan because so many people in the Dallas area are doing the same thing that the phones are often sold out. Odeh said she thought her husband and her relatives were targeted because of their Arab descent. The men's families come from Jerusalem, she said. |
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Star Tribune The nation's chief of homeland security said Sunday that the U.S. should consider reviewing its laws to allow for more electronic surveillance and detention of possible terror suspects, citing last week's foiled plot.
Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stopped short of calling for immediate changes, noting there might be constitutional barriers to the type of wide police powers the British had in apprehending suspects in the plot to blow up airliners headed to the U.S. |
Press Association
Sunday August 13, 2006 Troops should be sent into major airports to help with security checks and ease delays in the wake of Thursday's bomb plot security alert shadow home secretary David Davis said.
A third of flights due to leave Heathrow on Sunday have been cancelled despite a plea by the airlines for measures to alleviate the problems caused by new anti-terror measures. Airlines are at loggerheads with operator British Airports Authority (BAA) over who is to blame for the continuing delays and cancellations. |
Wall Street Journal
14/08/2006 At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer, scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain, sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones.
With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses, the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses -- blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions. The trial of the Israeli-developed system represents an effort by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to determine whether technology can spot passengers who have "hostile intent." In effect, the screening system attempts to mechanize Israel's vaunted airport-security process by using algorithms, artificial-intelligence software and polygraph principles. |
Palestine Chronicle
12/08/2006 From the time the offensive began until August 8, the monitoring group said at least 170 Palestinians had been killed, of whom 138 were civilians.
GAZA - Last month was the deadliest in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years, a Palestinian research group said on Thursday, as Israel's six-week offensive in the territory led to a surge in killings. |
Henry Porter
Sunday August 13, 2006 The Observer |
Madeline Baró Diaz
South Florida Sun-Sentinel August 10 2006 One of the most striking moments captured on camera during the protests occurred when Miami attorney Elizabeth Ritter, in business attire with a red jacket, held a sign that said "Fear Totalitarianism" while standing in front of a row of police in riot gear. The officers opened fire with rubber bullets, hitting Ritter as she walked away from them. While she crouched behind her sign, a bullet hit her in the head. On the training tape, released to the media Wednesday, the deputies make fun of Ritter.
"You see that lady with the red dress?" said Sgt. Michael Kallman, addressing the hooting and cheering deputies. "I don't know who got her, but when it went through the sign it hit her smack dab in the middle of the head." "Can I get a little piece of her red dress?" called a voice off camera. Sheriff's spokesman Elliot Cohen said the tape was reviewed "a long time ago" and it was determined to have broken no department rules. "There's a difference between violating department procedure and just being inappropriate," he said. Ritter, who said she was protesting the fact that her hometown had become a "veritable police state" where even the courts were afraid to open during the protests, said she had not considered legal action until she saw the tape. "I was appalled and shocked that they would be applauded and congratulated for that kind of egregious conduct against a citizen," she said. "It's going to take some form of civil rights action to help modify the training ... or the type of individual the Broward Sheriff's Office sees fit to employ as an officer of the law." |
AP
Sat Aug 12, 2006 ROMULUS, Mich. - The Customs area at a Detroit airport was briefly shut down Saturday after a passenger claimed he had contaminated everyone on a flight with a biological agent, officials said.
Meanwhile, in Dallas, officials evacuated part of a terminal airport because a suitcase was smoking and leaking liquid. At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a U.S. citizen got of a Northwest Airlines flight and implied to the crew he had a biological agent of some sort and had contaminated the flight, U.S. Customs agent Ron Smith said. Airport emergency medical technicians examined the man and decided that he did not pose a health risk. He was eventually allowed to leave, Smith said. Meanwhile, officials evacuated portions of a terminal at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for about three hours while officials inspected a suitcase emitting smoke and liquid. Authorities tracked down the bag's owner and determined the suspicious item was an aerosol hairspray can. |
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