7/1/02
11:42:30 AM
Living Their Faith: And Those Who Trespass
by Stephanie Salter
Given that the guests of honor face federal prison terms for civil disobedience, there was a fair bit of joking last week at a going-away party for Bay Area Roman Catholic priests Louis Vitale and Bill O'Donnell.
"My speech before the judge will be short," said Vitale, a Franciscan friar.
Pointing at his longtime friend, O'Donnell, Vitale feigned fear and repeated the Apostle Peter's denial of Jesus: "I do not know the man!"
About 150 friends and supporters at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley laughed and shook their heads in amusement and affection. By just about any standard, both Vitale, 70, and O'Donnell, 72, are considered near- saints in their activist communities.
Vitale has garnered respect and devotion as pastor of St. Boniface Church in San Francisco's Tenderloin District and through decades of peaceful protest against everything from nuclear weapons labs to the purported drug eradication program, Plan Colombia. Earlier this year he received a Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award from the international pacifist organization, Pax Christi.
An Oakland diocesan priest, O'Donnell has become something of a legend during 30 years of similar peace-and-justice activism at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley and through a drug-and-alcohol rehab center, Options Recovery, that he co-founded with Dr. Davida Coady. He logged his first arrest for civil disobedience alongside Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in the 1960s. The count now stands at 224, many with his pal of 20 years, actor Martin Sheen.
If previous cases are any indication, Vitale's and O'Donnell's social works won't impress U.S. District Judge G. Mallon Faircloth next month in Columbus, Ga.
On July 8, both priests will join 35 other defendants in Faircloth's court to be tried for "crossing the line" during a mass demonstration at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -- better known by its former name, the School of the Americas -- at Fort Benning, Ga.
Despite its dramatic sound, crossing the line means peacefully trespassing onto the Army base. Each November, hundreds of protesters -- who contend that the school trains foreign soldiers in such black arts as assassination and making biological and chemical weapons -- trespass and get themselves arrested.
The following summer, dozens go before Faircloth; most receive maximum six- month sentences.
Among the many people Faircloth sentenced last July to six-month stays in federal prison was an 88-year-old Franciscan nun, Dorothy Hennessey. Three years ago, he slapped consecutive six-month sentences on Charlie Liteky, a Vietnam War hero who won the U.S. Medal of Honor for dragging 27 G.I.'s to safety during a firefight in 1967.
Liteky, a former Catholic priest who lives in San Francisco with his human rights activist wife, Judy, was among the well-wishers at last week's bon voyage party. After he listened to O'Donnell read a speech he plans to give in Faircloth's courtroom, he told the throng: "Say goodbye to Bill now because you're not going to see him for a long time if he reads that statement."
Along with calling the court "a pimp for the Pentagon," O'Donnell will ask Faircloth to sentence him to study at the Fort Benning school so he can "tell the world: indeed the new institute has amended its ways and teaches only nonviolence and democracy to its students."
For all the joshing, Vitale and O'Donnell both know that what's ahead is serious business. Besides his usual pastoral duties, Vitale is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar renovation and earthquake retrofitting of St. Boniface. O'Donnell's Options Recovery center, which primarily serves the East Bay poor, is perpetually in need of funding.
But both men also believe priests can be called to live their faith in ways beyond their pastoral duties.
"I really, actually, did not intend to get arrested at Fort Benning," said Vitale. "But there's something just deep down inside of me that says this is the right thing to do. I'm really glad to have the opportunity to make this witness."
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
7/1/02
11:05:11 AM
American Servicemen Used As Guinea Pigs
Tests Revealed DOD Releases Project SHAD Fact Sheets
Project SHAD
Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of the joint service chemical and biological warfare test program conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify US warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability. Although classified, the Department of Defense has been actively pursuing declassification of relevant medical information. To date twelve SHAD projects have been evaluated and released for your review. The Department of Defense continues to search and declassify documents associated with this project, and will post additional information as it becomes available.
http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/current_issues/shad/shad_intro.shtml
American Servicemen used as Guinea Pigs JimCast@infowars.net (Last update) June 27, 2002
"Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense" (SHAD), was a program started in the early 1960's, to learn the vulnerabilities of US warships, during chemical or biological warfare attacks. Under "Project SHAD" were 113 different "Operations" or tests.
US Naval crews and Marine personnel were sprayed with various biological and chemical germ warfare agents, and simulants. Some ships, and Marine personnel were sprayed from overflying aircraft, while other tests on ships were being sprayed by aircraft carriers, which were upwind. While some high ranking personnel may have had knowledge of what was happening, most of the ships crews did not.
Project SHAD was controlled by The US Army Deseret Test Center, later to be known as Dugway Proving Grounds, Utah. For over 35 years, The Department of Defense said, "there was NO Project SHAD".
Today the DoD admits that it tested the deadly nerve agent Sarin, known as VX, or biological toxins on American Servicemen, but said the information was "classified".
Lately the DoD agreed to declassify all of the 113 "Operations" and inform the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) of the findings. Presently 12 of the 113 have been declassified, although the information being released is very limited.
The Department of Defense is not releasing ALL the information needed by the Veteran, which would allow him to apply for treatment in a VA facility and to file a claim for service connected disability compensation.
Only about 600 veterans of the estimated tens of thousands of those exposed to warfare agents have been notified they could be suffering from related dangerous health effects, according to VA and Pentagon officials.
A study by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs completed in September of 2001, but never released to the public or the affected veterans, suggests that Veterans, who participated in "Project SHAD", may be at increased risk for cerebrovascular diseases and respiratory diseases. That they are three (3) times more likely to die of respiratory and vascular brain diseases than the general population.
Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resources Center, said: "These veterans could be dying at a rate three times greater than the general population from diseases that could be related to their military service."
"We have a moral responsibility to set the record straight and that seems to be a problem for both the leaders in the Department of Defense, and the entrenched bureaucrats of the Department of Veterans Affairs."
Agents and decontaminants used, different ones in different tests are: Bacillus globigii (BG), Coxiella burnetii, Pasteurella tularensis, Zinc Cadmium Sulfide,
Beta-propriolactone, Sarin, VX, Escherichia Coli (EC), Serratia Marcescens (SM), Sodium Hydroxide, Peracetic acid, Potassium hydroxide, Sodium hypochlorite, "tracer amounts" of radioactivity and asbestos, Methylacetoacetate.
Senator Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Rep. Mike Thompson (D) of California plan to introduce legislation in their respective chambers next week, urging the Pentagon to reveal more information about the tests, known as "Project SHAD". Eleven other members of Congress have signed the request from Thompson. They have attached a provision on to Senate bill, S-2514, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, to fund the declassification of Project SHAD.
The President has vowed to veto the bill. The tests involved substances that the military believed at the time to be harmless. But evidence now shows that some could be harmful.
The Secretary of veterans affairs, Anthony Principi, urged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to declassify more of the tests "as quickly as possible".
Anyone that believes they were part of the SHAD tests, should contact:
Vietnam Veterans of America 8605 Cameron Street, Suite 400 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301-585-4000, Fax 301-585-0519, 1-800-VVA-1316
The SHAD helpline is at 1-800-749-8387 or contact VA by e-mail at shadhelpline@vba.va.gov
All known SHAD operations, dates of operations, the agents sprayed, and the ships and Marine personnel involved, in no particular order, are:
Operation Dates, Agent Sprayed and Ships involved:
'Copper Head' Jan 24-Feb 25, 1965 Bacillus globigii Zinc Cadmium Sulfide (FP-fluorescent particle) * USS Power
'Shady Grove' Jan 22-Apr. 9, 1965 Bacillus globigii, Coxiella burnetii (OU), Staphylococcal enterotoxin (Type B _PG2) Uranine dye (sodium fluorescein) * USS Granville S.Hall
'Autumn Gold' May 3-31-1963 Bacillus globiggi (BG) * USS Navarro (LPA-215) * USS Tioga County (LST-1158) * USS Carpenter * USS Hoel (DDG13) * USS Granville S. Hall (Yag-40) * Marine Air group 13, First Marine Brigade
'Purple Sage' Jan & Feb 1966 Methylacetoacetate * USS Herbert J. Thomas (DD-833)
'Eager Belle I' Jan-Mar 1963 Bacillus globiggi (BG) * USS George Eastman (yag39)
'Eager Belle II' Feb-Mar 1963 Bacillus globiggi (BG) * USS George Eastman (yag39) * USS Granville S. Hall (yag40) * USS Carpenter (DD-825) * USS Navarro (LPA-215) * USS Tioga County(LST-1158)
'Scarlet Sage' Feb 9,1966-Mar 4, 1966 Bacillus globiggi (BG) * USS Herbert J. Thomas (DD-833) (Army tugs manned by naval personnel)
An article at www.tugboatsF.com/1t2080Frame1 LT-2080, LT-2081, LT-2085 source1.htm, lists the following agents as being used: LT-2086, LT-2087, LT-2088
Tularamia, anthrax, parrot fever, Q fever, botulism, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
'Fearless Johnny' Aug-Sep 1965 VX nerve agent Diethylphthlate * USS George Eastman (yag-39), * USS Granville S. Hall (yag-40) * Two light tugs (not identified) * VC-1 Utility squadron One, * Blue Aiis Squadron (Blue Warriors) * Patrol Squadron Six (PATRON SIX) * Flight Wing Two, * Covered lighter (barge) YFN-811 * US Navy Tug, ATF-105
'Flower Drum I' Feb-Apr Sarin nerve agent * USS George Eastman (yag-39),
Aug-Sep 1964 Sulphur dioxide, Methylacetoacetate * USS Granville S. Hall (yag-40)
'Flower Drum II' Nov & Dec 1964 VX nerve gas * US Navy Barge YFN-811
Phosphorous 32 * US Navy Tug, ATF-105 Bis (2 ethyl-hexyl) hydrogen phosphite
DTC Test 69-32 Apr 30-Jun 28, 1969 Serratia * USS Granville S. Hall (yag-40),
Marcensen, Escherichia coli, Five Army light tugs, (manned Bacillus subtilis var. by naval personnel). niger (BG),
DTC Test 68-50 Sep-Oct 1968 Bacillus globiggi (BG) * USS Granville S. Hall (YAG-40)
Staphylococcal enterotoxin, Type B (PG2), Uranine dye (sodium fluorescein). used on: * 4533rd Tactical Test Squadron * 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing (F-4E aircraft) * Marine Air Group 13, First Marine Brigade
'Half Note' 'Red Beva' 'Night Train' 'Big Tom'
101 Others to come (Hopefully).
Karl Theis Video Field Reporter RealityExpander Channel 10 TimeWarner Austin,Texas cell 512 297-9875 k_t723@yahoo.com
IF THEY DID THIS THEN...WHAT ARE THEY DOING NOW?
DoD News, the official news of the Department of Defense, HA!
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/dodnews.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2002/b05232002_bt264-02.html
7/1/02
10:35:46 AM
U.S. COMPLICITY IN 9-11 ATTACKS WIDELY ACCEPTED AT G6B SUMMIT IN CANADA
June 27, 2002, 16:00 PDT (FTW) -- An estimated crowd of 1,200 turned out on June 25 at the University of Calgary's MacEwan Hall to hear FTW Publisher Mike Ruppert and University of Ottawa Professor Michel Chossudovsky present evidence of and a rationale for U.S. government complicity in last September's terrorist attacks. (See photos at www.fromthewilderness.com). Their two-and-a- half-hour presentation, including documentary evidence, was greeted with a standing ovation.
In a question and answer session after the lecture, not one audience member questioned that the Bush Administration needed the attacks in order to mobilize public support for a war to control Central Asian oil reserves and the cash from the Afghani opium trade. Traditionally, Afghanistan has been the world's largest producer of opium.
The G6B -- standing for a global population of six billion people whose interests need to be balanced against the corporate interests of the industrialized world -- was a three-day event sponsored by, among others, the government of Canada, Amnesty International and the University of Calgary. It brought delegates and activists together from 60 countries. The counter summit was timed and located in Calgary, Alberta so as to juxtapose it with the G8 meeting in nearby Kananaskis of the world's eight largest industrialized nations starting on June 26.
The first-ever joint presentation involving Ruppert and Chossudovsky, an economics professor, presented the strongest evidence to date that not only did the Bush Administration have complete foreknowledge of the attacks and allow them to happen, but also that the CIA had a direct hand in financing the attacks. Chossudovsky presented documentary evidence from ABC news, citing FBI sources, confirming a report that Gen. Mahmud Ahmad, then-chief f the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI), ordered for $100,000 to be wired to lead hijacker Mohammed Atta just weeks before the attacks. The new corroboration from U.S. media, using FBI sources, gave considerable weight to earlier press stories originating in India linking the ISI to 9/11. [These new revelations will be the subject of an upcoming story in FTW].
"General Ahmad arrived in Washington on Sept. 4 and met with, among others, his good friend [CIA Director] George Tenet, [Deputy Secretary of State] Richard Armitage, [Sen.] Joe Biden, [D-Del.,] and the heads of the two intelligence committees," Chossudovsky said.
"To me the issue of foreknowledge is a red herring. Osama bin Laden is and remains to this day a CIA asset. Even now his Al Qaeda operatives are working with the Kosovo Liberation Army who are U.S. allies and with U.S.-backed forces in Macedonia. Members of Al Q'aeda have been protected as they moved into Kashmir where they are now fomenting conflict between India and Pakistan.
"The evidence is becoming clearer every day that the U.S. government helped to plan and fund the Sept. 11 attacks," said Chossudovsky.
In addition, Chossudovsky has uncovered what may be complicity on the part of the major media in hiding the smoking gun. Using transcripts from the Federal Records Service (FRS), Chossudovsky obtained the transcript of a question posed to National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rica at a May 16 press conference, in which she was asked if she had met with the "ISI chief" while he was in Washington. The CNN transcript of the event indicated that the words "ISI chief" were "inaudible" when, in fact, they were quite audible to the FRS. Rice's response was a troubled, "I have not seen that report, and he was certainly not meeting with me."
Chossudovsky painted a broad picture of globalization pushing events toward a possible nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan by noting that one U.S. company with strong intelligence and military connections, MPRI of Vienna, Va., was acting as adviser to both governments. He also noted the strong links between CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Armitage to the leaders of both countries. Chossudovsky also pointed out that George W. Bush receives daily "personal" intelligence briefings from the CIA Director -- a custom that has never previously been followed by any sitting president. Previously most CIA briefings have been delivered in written format.
Ruppert, using new evidence of U.S. government foreknowledge disclosed by major media sources and through recent press conferences, established that by using only open source material, the U.S. government had warnings that multiple airliners, most likely from United and American Air Lines would be hijacked during the week of Sept. 9 and crashed into the twin towers. Using revelations of intelligence intercepts and a Pentagon drill responding to an attack from a hijacked airliner staged prior to Sept. 11, Ruppert established that the Bush Administration's position, which held it had no hint that aircraft would be used as weapons, was false. Pointing to last year's G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, Ruppert noted that extensive precautions had been taken there (including anti-aircraft guns) to prevent just such an attack. A Los Angeles Times story disclosed that President Bush was the target of the suspected attacks in Genoa.
"Bush ought to be having some interesting conversations with the leaders of Italy, Germany, France and Russia since it was their intelligence services who forwarded detailed advance warnings to the CIA throughout the summer of 2001," said Ruppert. "And they referred specifically to suicide attacks with airliners."
Ruppert also debunked the notions that the 9-11 attacks were caused by a lack of cooperation between agencies, and that great numbers of people would have had to be involved in the U.S. end of the operation. Citing a BBC TV report by Gregg Palast which showed an FBI report stating that the Bush administration had ordered the FBI to curtail investigations into bin Laden relatives, Ruppert demonstrated that orders were coming from levels above FBI and CIA leadership. Additionally, referring to the recent memorandum from FBI Special Agent Colleen Rowley and a press conference given by FBI Special Agent Robert Wright, Ruppert popped the government's position that somehow the so-called intelligence "failures" of 9-11 were the result of negligence.
"If you look at the text of Rowley's message and listen to what Wright said at his press conference you hear and see words like, 'obstruct,' ' deliberately thwart,' 'intimidate,' 'block,' 'harass,' 'dishonest,' 'rewrite,' 'omit,' 'undermine,' 'suppress,' 'punish,' 'retaliate' and 'prevent.' These are not words describing negligence. These are words describing deliberate and willful actions.
"And if you note from both the Rowley memo, and apparently from the Wright press conference, it was only one supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters who did all of the deliberate work to stop investigations that could have prevented the attacks. And what did Rowley tell us? Right after Sept. 11 the agent who had blocked the investigations was promoted!"
The $64,000 question remains unanswered: Was the agent in Rowley's case also involved in blocking Wright's Chicago-based investigations into money-laundering for terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda? In any event, the Rowley memorandum proves that just a few officials in key positions could have carried out the 9-11 conspiracy successfully.
LEAVING ANYWAY BUT KICKED OUT JUST THE SAME -- A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH AIR FORCE ONE
On entering Canada Ruppert was questioned first by Canadian Customs officials and then by immigration officers. Upon learning that Ruppert was a journalist and publisher of FTW the immigration officer typed Ruppert's name into a computer and asked specifically if he was going near the G8 conference. Ruppert stated that he was only planning on attending the G6B conference and had plans to return to Los Angeles on June 25. Nonetheless, the immigration officer stamped Ruppert's passport with a visa dated to expire on June 26, requiring that he not be in the country when the conference began. This highly unusual practice was offensive to many Canadians who pointed out that there are no visa requirements between the two countries.
After the lecture, as he was hurrying to the airport, Ruppert was questioned by the local press who photographed his passport as evidence of the Canadian government's desire to censor coverage and public access to the conference.
Ruppert's departure coincided with the arrival of President George Bush and two identical 747 aircraft painted with Air Force One markings. He was able to photograph the arrival of the president and a heavy deployment of support and security aircraft. Ruppert's flight home was delayed by more than an hour. He returned safely to Los Angeles while his suitcase was forced to spend the night in San Francisco. The Calgary lecture was Ruppert's eighth stop in a month in his "Truth and Lies of 9-11" lecture series. He plans to spend the next six weeks working on new stories.
6/30/02
6:34:15 PM
Flavors Of Fraud
by Paul Krugman, The New York Times, June 28, 2002
So you're the manager of an ice cream parlor. It's not very profitable, so how can you get rich? Each of the big business scandals uncovered so far suggests a different strategy for executive self-dealing.
First there's the Enron strategy. You sign contracts to provide customers with an ice cream cone a day for the next 30 years. You deliberately underestimate the cost of providing each cone; then you book all the projected profits on those future ice cream sales as part of this year's bottom line. Suddenly you appear to have a highly profitable business, and you can sell shares in your store at inflated prices.
Then there's the Dynegy strategy. Ice cream sales aren't profitable, but you convince investors that they will be profitable in the future. Then you enter into a quiet agreement with another ice cream parlor down the street: each of you will buy hundreds of cones from the other every day. Or rather, pretend to buy; no need to go to the trouble of actually moving all those cones back and forth. The result is that you appear to be a big player in a coming business, and can sell shares at inflated prices.
Or there's the Adelphia strategy. You sign contracts with customers, and get investors to focus on the volume of contracts rather than their profitability. This time you don't engage in imaginary trades, you simply invent lots of imaginary customers. With your subscriber base growing so rapidly, analysts give you high marks, and you can sell shares at inflated prices.
Finally, there's the WorldCom strategy. Here you don't create imaginary sales; you make real costs disappear, by pretending that operating expenses; cream, sugar, chocolate syrup are part of the purchase price of a new refrigerator. So your unprofitable business seems, on paper, to be a highly profitable business that borrows money only to finance its purchases of new equipment. And you can sell shares at inflated prices.
Oh, I almost forgot: How do you enrich yourself personally? The easiest way is to give yourself lots of stock options, so that you benefit from those inflated prices. But you can also use Enron-style special-purpose entities, Adelphia-style personal loans and so on to add to the windfall. It's good to be C.E.O.
There are a couple of ominous things about this menu of mischief. First is that each of the major business scandals to emerge so far involved a different scam. So there's no comfort in saying that few other companies could have employed the same tricks used by Enron or WorldCom; surely other companies found other tricks. Second, the scams shouldn't have been all that hard to spot. For example, WorldCom now says that 40 percent of its investment last year was bogus, that it was really operating expenses. How could the people who should have been alert to the possibility of corporate fraud; auditors, banks and government regulators miss something that big? The answer, of course, is that they either didn't want to see it or were prevented from doing something about it.
I'm not saying that all U.S. corporations are corrupt. But it's clear that executives who want to be corrupt have faced few obstacles. Auditors weren't interested in giving a hard time to companies that gave them lots of consulting income; bank executives weren't interested in giving a hard time to companies that, as we've learned in the Enron case, let them in on some of those lucrative side deals. And elected officials, kept compliant by campaign contributions and other inducements, kept the regulators from doing their job ‹ starving their agencies for funds, creating regulatory "black holes" in which shady practices could flourish.
(Even while loudly denouncing WorldCom, George W. Bush is trying to appoint the man who drafted the infamous "Enron exemption" a law custom-designed to protect the company from scrutiny to a top position with a key regulatory agency. And some congressmen seem more interested in clamping down on New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, than in doing something about the corruption he has been investigating.)
Meanwhile the revelations keep coming. Six months ago, in a widely denounced column, I suggested that in the end the Enron scandal would mark a bigger turning point for America's perception of itself than Sept. 11 did. Does that sound so implausible today?
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/28/opinion/28KRUG.html
6/30/02
6:23:44 PM
Before 911, Terror Was Low Priority For Bush Administration
by The Associated Press | New York Times, June 29, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions, officials say.
The White House acknowledged the dearth of top-level meetings devoted to the subject of terrorism by the ``principals committee'' of the National Security Council. Yet it has aggressively defended the level of attention, given only scattered hints of al-Qaida activity.
One current security council official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that intensive planning of anti-terrorism strategies was largely the role of midlevel committees at the NSC -- not the Cabinet-level players.
``The president was being briefed. The principals were being briefed, perhaps not together,'' this official said.
The description of the 90 to 100 meetings was confirmed by three White House officials.
Critics said the low number of terrorism meetings by the most senior members of the security council indicated the administration's priorities were elsewhere.
``What were the principals doing to bring this to the attention of the president?'' asked P.J. Crowley, council spokesman for the Clinton administration. ``Given our growing understanding of this threat that we built in '90s about the emerging threat of terrorism, they just didn't seem to get it.''
Clinton officials said their council principals met every two to three weeks to discuss terrorist threats after mid-1998. Those meetings increased during times of heightened terrorist concerns, such as immediately prior to the millennium celebrations, when the principals met nearly every day to discuss threat levels.
Bush's principals committee was focused on missile defense, Iraq, China, international economic policy, global warming and the U.S. stance toward Russia, a subject of particular interest to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, a Russian expert who has now worked for both Bush presidents.
In addition to Rice, the principals usually included CIA Director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Myers was appointed by Bush in August, replacing Gen. Hugh Shelton.
One discussion on terrorism occurred July 3, amid escalating concerns about a likely attack by al-Qaida, one official said. But experts believed al-Qaida would attack American targets overseas, not inside the United States.
The other terrorism meeting occurred Sept. 4 as the security council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer has described the council's review as a ``comprehensive, multi-front plan to dismantle the al-Qaida.'' It included instructions for the Pentagon to develop military strikes, plans to work closely with Afghanistan's Northern Alliance against al-Qaida and proposals to freeze bank accounts linked to Osama bin Laden's group.
That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush's approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.
Bush himself said in February 2001 that the nation hadn't done enough to prepare for possible terrorist attacks, and he pledged: ``I will put a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil.''
A few weeks earlier, Tenet had told Congress, ``The threat from terrorism is real, it is immediate, and it is evolving.'' He described bin Laden and his global network as a serious and immediate threat.
In the last months of the Clinton administration, as early as November 2000, the security council had determined that al-Qaida was responsible for the Oct. 12 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors. Bush first linked al-Qaida to the Cole bombing publicly in his speech to Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks.
``This was a failure in the Bush administration to recognize the nature of terrorism and its impact on the United States,'' said Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis. ``Everybody felt that it was a chronic phenomenon, it would continue and the best we could hope was to contain it.''
One official argued that the lack of regular meetings devoted to terrorism among Bush's upper-echelon advisers did not mean inadequate attention was paid to the subject. More work was done by lower-level council staffers, who regularly briefed the principals individually, even if the principals didn't meet frequently on the issue, this official said.
Crowley, who worked under Clinton, argued that senior-level meetings are necessary for important work to be done.
``You really get the pull of the best information that each agency has when you bring together the principals with the purpose of making decisions and teeing up recommendations to the president,'' Crowley said. ``It's the only way that you overcome those bureaucratic barriers.''
Rice has described the work of the council's Counterterrorism Security Group, directed by Special Assistant Richard Clarke, which met several times each week during July and August. By Aug. 6, Bush received a briefing report with the heading, ``Bin Laden Determined to Strike the United States.'' The report discussed the possibility of traditional airline hijackings.
``To say that the principals never talked about it before Sept. 4 is wrong,'' another official said. ``There were lots of conversations on the margins at meetings or informal meetings. But the first formal meeting was to review the draft policy.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Bush-Council.html
6/30/02
6:18:51 PM
t r u t h o u t | 06.30
Jennifer Van Bergen | Arizona Burns
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.30A.jvb.ariz.htm
Supreme Court Enters HMO, Drug Pricing Battle
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.30B.sc.hmo.htm
Before 9 - 11, Terror Was Low Priority For Bush Administration
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.30C.pre.911.ba.htm
Paul Krugman | Flavors of Fraud
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.30D.krug.fraud.htm
Testimony in El Salvador Torture Trial
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.30E.salvador.trial.htm
6/30/02
6:13:52 PM
Alice Stewart Interview: A-Bomb Data Wrongly Interpreted
The Survivor
In the 1950s, Alice Stewart found that exposing pregnant mothers to X-rays doubled the risk of cancer in their children. Ever since, the physician and epidemiologist has argued that low doses of radiation might be harmful. It's a view that has put her at odds with governments, the military and the nuclear industry. This week, Stewart, who is 93, publishes new research supporting her claims. Michael Bond spoke to the maverick of radiation epidemiology and found her in fighting form.
What new evidence do you have to support your claims that low-level radiation could be dangerous?
Radiation safety standards are derived from studies of the A-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These studies were food for people supporting hormesis, the theory that a little bit of radiation can be good for you--that it stimulates the immune system. When it was found that a small number of the A-bomb survivors were living longer than they ought to, this was seen as proof that radiation had done them good. But we have new data that should put paid to that. We have proof that the A-bomb data have been wrongly interpreted. (See "Radiation: how safe is safe?")
What does your research show?
It shows that cancer was not the only effect of the A-bomb radiation. People died from immune system damage as well. Our paper also shows that the A-bomb survivors were not a normal, homogenous population. They were the best athletes--the top 10 per cent--and did not include the young and the old. This means that we cannot base standards of radiation safety on such an elite cohort.
Do you think that the authorities will now reassess the idea that radiation at low doses is not harmful?
I think this new paper will do it. But I don't think it will lead to an immediate reaction.
Why do you think your findings always take so long to be taken seriously? Take your work in the 1950s showing that a fetus exposed to X-rays has a higher risk of cancer. Or your findings in the 1970s that workers at the Hanford weapons complex in the US were getting cancer after supposedly safe levels of exposure.
The trouble is that I've always had a very small set-up, with only just enough money to employ people to do the research. I've never had a department that's out selling the message to other people. So it's been a bit slower than usual.
When it came to my work on X-rays, nobody wanted to believe it. X-rays were a favourite toy of the medical profession. But much more than that, it was just the moment when the nuclear industry was taking off. If we were right, the industry couldn't develop properly.
Your work has tended to attract a lot of criticism from scientists, one of whom is the leading epidemiologist Richard Doll. Why do you think he doesn't like your work?
I moved to Birmingham University for that reason. I knew that if I stayed at Oxford I would always be under the thumb of Doll. But that is the extraordinary thing. I can have reason to be angry with him because he was powerful and I was weak. He can have no reason at all to be angry at me, and yet he must resent me for some reason. Something irks him about me, and I'm conceited enough to think he suspects I'm a better epidemiologist than him. Now, he will tell you he has never had any quarrel with me at all.
Doll has criticised your methodology on the Hanford Studies. Why?
He's criticised my methodology from the word go. I don't know why. He's even criticised the mathematics of George Kneale, my statistician. But Doll doesn't know a fraction of the mathematics that George knows. I don't know what he means when he says our method is wrong, but he should be called to account.
The main objections to my X-rays study was that the mothers were lay informants --that they weren't scientists, and they could have made up stories. We always knew there were weaknesses in our story. But we'd done our best to check this through the hospitals where they had their X-rays.
You've been described as "an avowed opponent of the nuclear industry". Are you?
Well, I've never avowed it to anybody. But if by the nuclear industry you mean the war and energy industries, then yes I'm against it. If you mean, do I think we should stop using X-rays, then no, but you must use them knowing they are a dangerous toy. I think the medical profession has quite a lot of uses for it. Take, for example, irradiated food. If this was going to prolong the life of food that you could send to a country to save it from starving, it would be excellent. But what you've got to be careful of is not to allow industry to indiscriminately use this radiation and to find it's going down your back drains.
I'm automatically against it for war, and you have to remember that the nuclear military and energy industries have always been far more intimately connected than most people realise.
The discovery that made your name in 1956 was that a fetus exposed to an X-ray is twice as likely to develop cancer within 10 years as one that is not. Did this finding come as a complete surprise to you?
Yes. We weren't particularly looking for a link between cancer and X-rays. We were comparing the medical records of children who had died from leukaemia with those of healthy children from the same regions. And in the questionnaire, we had asked mothers if they'd been X-rayed. It looked to me as if there had been something before birth that produced a little epidemic at a certain age group that never repeated itself. But the risk was so small that if we'd tackled it any other way we'd never have discovered it.
We were lucky, but it wouldn't have been thought of by someone who hadn't had some experience of medicine, and it might have been wrongly interpreted. So if you hadn't found the link it might have been another 20 years before someone else did?
No, not 20 years. To this day we would be thinking X-rays were safe. This is because, as I've indicated, the A-bomb survivor studies from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was the only other study on this, was saying it was safe, and this would have been considered satisfactory to the point where everybody would have been quite happy about X-rays.
How much do you think being a woman helped or hindered your career? When you first walked into the lecture hall as a medical student at Cambridge in 1925 you were met with 200 male students stamping their feet at you.
I'm sure my sex made a tremendous difference. But thanks to my family--my mother was a doctor--and thanks to the war, rather than being a crippling difficulty it actually proved to be rather a helpful one. I found I was constantly thinking of things in an unusual way. I didn't expect to be allowed to get to the top rung, which is something a man would expect, and so perhaps that made it easier to stay with a subject that wasn't very popular.
Has that bothered you?
Not at the time, but in retrospect I think it's the one thing I rather regret . . . that I should have pressed for something more. But I was stuck, I could only do one or other of two things: I could either be fighting the battle for women or I could be getting on with my job. I couldn't win both. And I chose to go on with my job. But I think a braver person might have done something about it.
Were you ever bitter about being sidelined?
No, I think I personally had everything to gain by it. It's always worked in my favour. An element of uncertainty is always a good thing. It's been a constant help. You need some resistance and criticism to bring out the good work. One of the reasons it's been so interesting for me is that no one has ever lost interest in what I've said about radiation. They may despise me, they may hate me, but the problem is there and will stay there if nobody's solved it.
Most people think about cutting back on work when they reach seventy. Did you miss out on anything by carrying on in your nineties?
I stayed working because I was enjoying it, and it was all voluntary. It became obvious early on that we had hit on something that was going to take more than a lifetime to resolve. It wasn't just the radiation thing that interested me. I was really interested in where the other cancers were coming from. You need to follow it for a long time.
Who will carry on your fight in the radiation debate?
I've got a voice in the next generation in Steve Wing and his department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mind you, they're going to make life difficult for them, with grants and everything. People in the nuclear industry will do their very best to stop it. But I'm a great believer that in the end, they'll get caught up in their own machinations and the truth will emerge from an unexpected quarter.
Further reading:
"A bomb survivors: factors that may lead to a re-assessment of the radiation hazard", International Journal of Epidemiology, volume 29, no 4 (4 August 2000) The Woman Who Knew Too Much by Gayle Greene, University of Michigan Press, £19.99, ISBN 0472111078
Radiation: how safe is safe?
The A-bomb database--a record of the health and mortality of the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs--is considered the gold standard when assessing the health risks of radiation. Alice Stewart, however, has spent much of her career arguing that it cannot be trusted. Her latest research, published this week in the International Journal of Epidemiology (vol 29, no 4), strengthens that argument.
The database is used to compare the mortality rates of A-bomb survivors with other Japanese citizens born at the same time. The results have always been the same: people exposed to low doses do not have a higher than average risk of cancer. Stewart says these conclusions are unreliable because the bomb survivors are not truly representative of Japanese society.
In her latest paper, she focuses on the 2600 people who suffered severeradiation injuries even though most received only a small radiation dose. In particular, she wanted to compare their incidence of cancers and other diseases with that of around 60 000 low-dose survivors who did not suffer from serious injuries.
Stewart found the minority group had a much higher incidence of cancer and heart disease. She says these findings were reported to the European Parliament two years ago (see New Scientist, 28 February 1998, p 12) but that the assembly, curiously, decided not to make them public.
Stewart's detractors have pointed to a series of studies showing that certain survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs lived slightly longer than people who had not been exposed.
But research published in The Lancet (vol 356, p 303) at the end of last month casts doubt on these results. Researchers from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima examined the effects of radiation on the 120 000 A-bomb survivors and found that people who received low doses did not live longer than average.
Source: http://www.NewScientist.com
6/30/02
6:07:01 PM
FAIR-Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
MEDIA ADVISORY: Attacks on Pledge Ruling Bolster Its Logic
June 28, 2002
In the immediate aftermath of an appeals court ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional, nearly all the commentary in the country's leading newspapers criticized the decision. But some of the more alarmist arguments used to defend the phrase "under God" actually tended to support the judges' finding that including it in the Pledge is an impermissible government establishment of religion.
Of the 10 largest-circulation dailies in the country, six had run editorials on the ruling as of June 28; all six attacked the decision. Editorialists called it "a fundamentally silly ruling" (L.A. Times (6/27/02) or an "addled opinion" (Wall Street Journal, 6/27/02). The New York Times (6/27/02) said it "lacks common sense," while the Washington Post (6/27/02) compared it to a "parody." The appeals court "went way overboard," in the opinion of Long Island Newsday; for the New York Daily News (6/27/02), "the sooner this decision is overturned, the better."
Signed columns in the top papers had little more balance. Jeffrey Rosen in the New York Times (6/28/02) criticized the ruling's "polarizing vision." In the Washington Post (6/27/02), Marc Fisher criticized "a court steeped in the arrogance of political correctness."
A column by the Chicago Tribune's John Kass (6/27/02) ran under the headline, "Ruling on Pledge Is a Slap in Face to All Americans." Marc Howard Wilson (Chicago Tribune, 6/28/02) called it "typical San Francisco lunacy" and "misguided grandstanding."
In a twist, the L.A. Times (6/28/02) ran a feature by staff writer Martin Miller, who described himself as an atheist but attacked the non-believer whose lawsuit prompted the decision as "sullen, cantankerous and litigious...intolerant, pushy and self-righteous."
Compared to these harsh attacks on the ruling, supporters were muted. The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne (6/28/02) mustered half a cheer for the decision in an op-ed headlined "Wrong for the Right Reasons." The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn (6/27/02) noted that he had criticized mandatory recitations of the Pledge in the past, and invited readers to view those columns on his website.
Susan Jacoby in Newsday (6/28/02) narrowly endorsed the opinion as "entirely correct in constitutional terms," although she wished that the Pledge were "a more substantive issue." Libertarian conservative James Pinkerton (L.A. Times, 6/28/02) produced the most robust defense of the appeals court justices, praising their "historical wisdom" (although calling their ruling "poorly thought out").
Though support for the court ruling was limited in the leading U.S. papers, the criticisms of the decision in some ways backed up the court's reasoning. Several critics adopted the position of the appeals court's dissenter, saying that "under God" is not an establishment of religion because it is a "rote civic exercise" (New York Times, 6/27/02), a "harmless civic recitation" (Newsday, 6/28/02) with "such a minimal religious effect" (New York Times, 6/28/02). "God's name is just a frill, a space-filler in the unthinking torrent of much daily conversation," claimed Fisher in the Washington Post (6/27/02).
But at the same time, many opponents of the decision warned that it could provoke a powerful, emotional response from believers. The New York Times (6/27/02) warned that it was "inviting a political backlash," whose effects Rosen spelled out in the paper the next day: "That ruling will almost certainly galvanize Republicans to push for the appointment of conservative judges who will seek to place religion in the center of public life." The Washington Post (6/27/02) noted that the ruling " can only serve to generate unnecessary political battles and create a fundraising bonanza for the many groups who will rush to its defense."
Those are fairly serious consequences for the cessation of a "rote civic exercise." Indeed, the vitriolic attacks against the decision, and the warnings of what Christians and other monotheists might do if the Pledge were not maintained as is, bolstered the appeals court's finding that including "under God" was "not a mere acknowledgment that many Americans believe in a deity" or "merely descriptive of the undeniable historical significance of religion in the founding of the republic," but rather "an impermissible government endorsement of religion" that "sends a message to unbelievers 'that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.'"
Granted, some of the defenders stood up for the Pledge because of, rather than despite, its religious content. "The sentiment that this is a land blessed has been accepted since Pilgrim days," asserted the Daily News (6/27/02). The Tribune's Kass (6/27/02) wondered whether his children will be "jailed for having any dangerous and heretical beliefs, like a belief in God."
The most disingenuous assertions in support of the Pledge status quo related to the purpose of adding "under God"-- an important constitutional question, since church/state separation questions typically hinge on the secular intent of governmental action.
"The pledge, taken as a whole, was not intended to be a coercive prayer, but was designed to promote patriotism, and as such is consistent with the neutrality principle," wrote Rosen (New York Times, 6/28/02). Editorialized the Daily News (6/17/02): "The two words, viewed in the context of the entire pledge, have nothing whatsoever to do with avowing fealty to God."
Yet if one can believe President Dwight Eisenhower, who signed the bill that added "under God" to the Pledge, that is precisely what altering the oath was meant to accomplish. "In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future," Eisenhower announced at the time (Columbus Dispatch, 6/28/02). "From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and every rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."
Source: http://www.FAIR.org
6/28/02
5:33:38 PM
Greenpeace's Positive Energy
Time for Greenpeace's CLEAN ENERGY NOW! campaign's weekly good news update!!! If you want some of our positive vibe next week, you will have to come find us in Sierra. We are taking next week off and having fun in the sun!
Inside this edition:
-U.S. Mayors Back Renewable Energy
-Positive Energy Goes Global
-Cookin' With Solar
U.S. Mayors Back Renewable Energy
Mayors across the country are in consensus! At the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Madison, Wisconsin this past week, Republican and Democratic mayors agreed that global warming is a serious problem and progressive clean energy initiatives must be adopted by our cities. At the Conference, representatives passed resolutions urging the federal government to further invest in scientific research of global warming and to support state and federal legislation that will promote a marketplace for renewable energy. Five progressive clean energy resolutions were adopted at the conference setting the stage for cities across the country to invest in clean energy as the solution to global warming.
To review the resolutions, go to the following website and look under "Energy":
http://www.usmayors.org/USCM/resolutions/70th_conference/
Positive Energy Goes Global
Greenpeace is setting sail around the world with its "Choose Positive Energy Tour" this summer. The Rainbow Warrior, the flagship for Greenpeace, starts its journey in the North Sea where the potential for offshore wind energy is so great that it is certain to become a renewable energy powerhouse. In the weeks leading up to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, the Rainbow Warrior will be sailing to demonstrate that renewable energy is ready to replace oil, coal, gas, and nuclear power. On the second leg of the tour, the Arctic Sunrise will be visiting Southeast Asia where communities in the Philippines and Thailand are rejecting the use of dirty fuels, such as coal power plants and pushing for a "Solar Generation."
To read more about the Rainbow Warrior's "Choose Positive Energy Tour,"
http://www.choose-positive-energy.org/
Cookin' With Solar
The Rolling Sunlight, the Greenpeace truck that has a large solar array and runs on biodiesel fuel, is in Canada this week cooking with sunlight. French fries deep-fried with solar energy were provided for people on their lunch breaks in Calgary during the G8 Summit. Greenpeace Canada's message to the world economic and political leaders was "Don't Fry Our Planet." The G8 has ignored it's own report on renewable energy that would bring clean, sustainable energy to the billion people who now lack reliable access to electricity.
To learn more about Rolling Sunlight and the G8, go to:
http://www.greenpeace.ca/g8/en/audio/truck.php
The "Positive Energy" newsletter and our web site,
will give you good news about ways to achieve clean air, climate justice, and renewable energy solutions to our ongoing energy crisis.
Want to do more? Become a Greenpeace member today! To give online, go to:
https://www.greenpeaceusa.org/join2/cen.htm
6/28/02
5:22:30 PM
t r u t h o u t
Leahy: Bush Plan 'Above the Law'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.29A.leahy.abv.law.htm
FBI Investigates Anthrax Researchers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.29B.anthrax.htm
GOP Pushes $450 Billion Debt Limit
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.29C.gop.450.dbt.htm
Gephardt Statement on Corporate Expatriation
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.29D.gep.corp.ex.htm
Pelosi Statement on Republican Rule on Prescription Drugs
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.29F.pelosi.drugs.htm
Bush's Terrorism Adviser to Leave White House
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.29G.bush.adv.go.htm
Nicholas D. Kristof | Mr. Bush Talks the Talk
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.29H.kristof.talk.htm
6/28/02
2:16:49 PM
TIMES OBITUARIES, Dr. Alice Stewart, June 27, 2002
Epidemiologist who proved links between exposure to radiation and cancer, and forced the authorities into greater openness
For more than 40 years the epidemiologist Alice Stewart challenged official estimates of the risks of radiation. Her research in 1956 and 1958 alerted the medical profession to the link between foetal X-rays and childhood cancer. Two decades later, in her seventies, she again called for a change in working practices when she published a study showing that workers at nuclear weapons plants are at greater health risk than international safety standards admit.
She was born Alice Mary Naish in Sheffield in 1906. Her parents were both physicians and widely known for their dedication to children's welfare. Alice took a medical degree at Cambridge, where she formed an intense relationship with the literary critic William Empson. Their friendship ended only with his death in 1984. But in 1933 she married Ludovick Stewart. They had a son and a daughter, but divorced in the early 1950s.
During the war she studied the health risks of industrial chemicals in factories and among miners, and in 1946 she was one of the founders of the British Journal of Industrial Medicine. This first stage of her career culminated with her election as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the youngest woman to achieve this distinction. She already had a reputation as a brilliant teacher and clinician.
Shortly after the war, she accepted a position under Professor John Ryle, at the new department of social medicine at Oxford, and became a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. Ryle hoped to direct the attention of the medical profession towards public health, and his ideals greatly appealed to Stewart, but with his death in 1949 social medicine at Oxford was demoted, and although she was kept on as a reader, she was left with "barely enough to light a gas fire".
Then, with a grant of £1,000, she launched her landmark study of the causes of childhood cancer. Beginning from a hunch that mothers might remember something that the doctors had forgotten, she devised a questionnaire for women whose children had died of any form of cancer between 1953 and 1955. By the time a mere 35 questionnaires had been returned, the answer was clear: a single diagnostic X-ray, well within the exposure considered safe, was enough almost to double the risk of early cancer.
This news was a surprise to Stewart and was not welcome in the scientific community. Enthusiasm for nuclear technology was at a high point in the 1950s, and radiography was being used for everything from treating acne and menstrual disorders to ascertaining shoe fit. X-rays, as Stewart put it, "were the favourite toy of the medical profession". The British and American Governments were investing heavily in the arms race and promoting nuclear energy, and there was little willingness to recognise that radiation was as dangerous as Stewart claimed. She never again received a major grant in England.
For the next two decades, however, she and her statistician, George Kneale, extended, elaborated and refined their database at what became the Oxford Survey of Childhood Cancer, until in the 1970s major medical bodies recommended that pregnant women should not be X-rayed, and the practice ceased.
The Oxford Survey had collected information on hundreds of thousands of children across Britain over a 30-year period. Stewart and Kneale had demonstrated that children incubating cancer have greatly increased susceptibility to infections, and turned up a connection between inoculations and resistance to cancer which suggests links between cancer and the immune system. They also had theories about ultrasound and sudden infant death syndrome that they would have liked to test - but such funding as they had was cut off.
In 1974, having officially retired and moved from Oxford to Birmingham, where she had accepted a research appointment, the 68-year-old Stewart received an unexpected phone call from America. Dr Thomas Mancuso, who had been at work on a government study of the health of nuclear workers at Hanford, the weapons complex that produced plutonium for the Manhattan Project, wanted her to "take a closer look" at his data.
Mancuso's study had been going on for more than a decade, and was not expected to turn up anything troubling, since workers' exposure at Hanford, the oldest and largest nuclear weapons facility in the world, was well within the safety limits set by international guidelines. But Stewart and Kneale found that the cancer risk to the workers was about 20 times higher than was being claimed, a discovery that put them at odds with the multimillion-dollar Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies on which international safety guidelines are based.
The American Department of Energy dismissed Mancuso and attempted to seize the data. But Stewart and Kneale took their work back to England and, together with Mancuso, published a series of studies which continued to corroborate a cancer effect considerably higher than the Hiroshima studies indicated. The Energy Department denied the scientists further access to the workers' records and kept research under strict government control. Although the statistical methods of the study were criticised by the Oxford epidemiologist Richard Doll (who had been one of the first to prove the link between smoking and cancer), the Mancuso findings attracted public attention and provoked congressional investigations in 1978 and 1979.
The accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, while the British and American Governments were trying to expand nuclear facilities and weapons production, brought the anti-nuclear movement back to life, and Stewart became one of its heroes. She found herself much in demand, called on as an expert witness to testify against the siting of nuclear facilities and dumps and to testify in compensation cases by veterans and victims who had lived downwind of various plants.
In 1986, when she was 80, she received the Right Livelihood Award, the "alternative Nobel" as it is called, which is awarded in the Swedish Parliament the day before the Nobel Prize to honour those who have made contributions to the betterment of society. The British Embassy, however, refused even to send a car to the airport to pick her up. In 1992 she was awarded the Ramazzini Prize for epidemiology.
Even in the years when Stewart was making dozens of public appearances on behalf of activists in Britain and America, she always insisted that she was a scientist, not an activist, and that she did not have a political programme. She published more than 400 papers in scientific journals. However, although she could deliver her findings in person with exceptional clarity, her publications were often very hard to decipher.
Also in 1986, Stewart received a $1.4 million grant to study the effects of low-dose radiation. This came not from a government agency or academic institute, but from activists, and derived from a fine imposed upon the Three Mile Island facility. To undertake the study, Stewart needed access to the nuclear workers' records, but the American Government refused to release them. It took several years and several freedom of information suits to get at them. When in 1992 Stewart was finally granted access to the records of one third of all workers in nuclear weapons facilities in the US, the front page of The New York Times called it a blow for scientific freedom.
Stewart continued to publish and present papers into her nineties. She was a charismatic speaker and a person of great warmth and generosity. She did not have an easy time as a lone woman in male-dominated fields, and she suffered keenly from the loss of funding and her isolation as a result of taking unpopular stances, but she maintained that obscurity had its advantages, since it allowed her to take risks that other scientists could not.
"Truth is the daughter of time," she was fond of saying; and "It helps in this field to be long-lived" - since in such a political area truth is slow in coming out. She lived long enough to see radiation science move in her direction, with each official estimate of radiation risk acknowledging greater danger than previous estimates admitted.
She also lived to see her efforts help to break the American Department of Energy's hold on radiation health research. She had the satisfaction of seeing one Secretary of Energy in 1993 open the record of the Government's management of nuclear operations during the Cold War, including the records of human experimentation, and then seeing another in 2000 recommending compensation for nuclear workers suffering from cancers that may have been incurred at work.
A biography of her, The Woman Who Knew Too Much by Gayle Green, was published in England and America in 1999.
Alice Stewart is survived by her daughter.
Alice Stewart, epidemiologist, was born on October 4, 1906. She died on June 23, 2002, aged 95.
6/28/02
2:12:39 PM
EMS Update - June 28, 2002
U.S. Rejection of Climate Treaty Could Hurt Businesses
Renewed global momentum in favor of the Kyoto Protocol means there is a strong possibility the international treaty regulating greenhouse gas emissions will enter into force this year. At an EMS press briefing on Tuesday, July 2, leaders in developing market-based approaches to climate change will discuss the implications for U.S. businesses of ratification of the treaty without U.S. participation.
Media advisory: http://www.ems.org/climate/business_advisory.html
Clean Power Bill Clears Senate Committee
Legislation headed for the Senate floor would significantly cut air pollution and address the problem of global warming, in contrast to a plan offered by the Bush administration that green groups say would worsen air pollution.
Natural Resources Defense Council press release:
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020627.asp
Republicans for Environmental Protection press release:
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=7219
6/28/02
2:09:04 PM
Naval bombing questioned after endangered whale found dead
June 28, 2002
BOSTON (AP) _ The Humane Society has asked the U.S. Navy to halt bombings in the Gulf of Maine after an endangered North Atlantic right whale was found headless about 60 miles northeast of Cape Cod.
However a preliminary investigation found no evidence that the whale died during a Naval firing, Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said.
``It is absolutely inconclusive that the Navy was the cause of death of this right whale,'' he said.
The Sharrer Ridge range is ``fairly active,'' and exercises were conducted in May, but Carpenter did not know if any firing had been conducted this month. Sharrer Ridge is approximately 60 miles northeast of Cape Cod.
The whale was found by the National Marine Fisheries Service on June 10. It was so badly decomposed that it is unlikely if a cause of death will ever be determined, said Teri Frady, Fisheries Service spokeswoman. The whale's head was missing, but could have rotted away, she said.
A whale has never been killed in New England by military exercises, Frady said.
``But everyone can figure out that you don't see every single'' whale that dies, Frady said. ``If they're conducting exercises that potentially pose the threat, we're interested.''
Patrol airplanes look for ships, boats and marine animals before launching torpedoes or dropping bombs, which can be live or inert, Carpenter said.
Carpenter and Frady said they were not familiar enough with an Aug. 1 report commissioned by the Fisheries Service that recommended alternative bombing ranges.
``We can't emphasize enough we take it seriously,'' Carpenter said. ``We don't operate with reckless abandon.''
Carpenter said the whale might not have died near Sharrer Ridge, but could have been carried there by a current. The Navy and the Fisheries Service are investigating
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility agreed with the Humane Society's request.
``They should just not drop anything out of any airplanes when whales have the potential to be in that area, period,'' said New England director Kyla Bennett.
The Fisheries Service did create a temporary no-fishing zone east of Nantucket Island after 75 endangered North Atlantic right whales were sighted in the area will begin Monday.
The no-fishing zone will last for 15 days, but could be extended, National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman George Liles said.
``We know where they are, we know they get entangled, we know there's significant amount of line that will go in the water unless we do something,'' Liles said.
Liles said he never had seen so many of the whales in one place. The 75 whales represent a quarter of the whales' total population.
Rules allowing Dynamic Area Management zones, restricting fishing when three or more whales are spotted within 75-square nautical miles, were created last fall.
The zones were proposed after last summer's highly publicized plight of a right whale, dubbed Churchill, who got caught in marine rope. He was presumed to have died after six failed rescue attempts.
Source: http://www.AP.org
6/28/02
2:03:37 PM
TomPaine.com
Independent, Commercial-free
EXPORTING ENRON
Public Funding For Global Plunder
by Mark Engler and Nadia Martinez
"The ongoing reports about Enron's collapse have led many people to believe that the corporation is for all practical purposes defunct. Not so."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5815
THE WEST'S BIG FIRES, LITTLE WATER
After Our Long-Time Abuse, Nature Strikes Back
by Shepherd Bliss
Fires are natural phenomenon, but, because of our relative success at subduing and controlling nature, humans have gotten the idea that we are in charge. This year's fire season, which has just started, could challenge that illusion.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5905
Dispatch: Chicago
COOLING THE CITY WITH GREEN ROOFTOPS
by Lester Graham
"Last summer in 2001 on the hottest day, while it was about a hundred degrees on the City Hall side, it was 165 on the opposite end of the building where's there's a blacktop roof."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5811
U.S. MILITARY MAKES GAME OF RECRUITMENT
Propaganda Is Fun With The New Army Videogame
by Bill Berkowitz
Is the "America's Army" videogame specifically designed to be an action-packed contemporary recruiting device?
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5900
6/28/02
2:00:52 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
BOMB SCHOOL
by Jon Elliston, The Independent Weekly
-- Residents of Hertford, NC, don't pay much attention to the secret CIA training base in their community--even when they hear the explosions.
DIARY
by Michael Brus, Slate
-- A former Slate staffer shares his experience as an entry-level shelter worker, handing out towels, toothbrushes, and tampons to Seattle's homeless in the wee hours of the morning.
ASSERTING DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
by Dave Henson, HopeDance
-- Ecological activists have productively battled corporate agriculture in the last few decades, but the state of local and global farming is still in distress.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
6/28/02
1:56:29 PM
SciTech Daily Review
An extensive study shows no link between vasectomy and prostate cancer, even 25 years after the fact. So that's one less thing to worry about
http://www.healthscoutnews.com/view.cfm?id=507720
How would you like to swap your mobile phone for a molar phone?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2055000/2055654.stm
Scruffy of beard and long of hair, brilliantly obsessive, and given to geek eccentricities ... Founder of the burgeoning free-software movement and legendary hacker/freedom fighter Richard Stallman is profiled in Sam Williams's Free as in Freedom
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0226/dibbell.php
Researchers plan to use grid computing to help authorities prepare for worst-case scenarios involving terrorist attacks
http://www.technologyreview.com/offthewire/3001_1762002_3.asp
In the visual smorgasbord that is the modern world, it can be easy to forget that we must also feed our other senses
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/06/06252002/s_47531.asp
The glamour of the jet age is gone, and that's a shame. Maybe it's time to bring back the wonder of flight
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/06/21/askthepilot/index.html
6/28/02
1:50:45 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
G8 PLEDGES TO BACK SUSTAINABILITY, FIGHT TERROR
KANANASKIS, Alberta, Canada, June 27, 2002 (ENS) - Leaders of the world's eight major industrialized democracies concluded their two day meeting here pledging to cooperate in fighting terrorism, strengthening global economic growth and sustainable development, and building a new partnership for Africa's development.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-27-04.asp
AUSTRALIAN ANTI-TERRORISM LAW COULD STIFLE PROTEST
By Bob Burton
CANBERRA, Australia, June 27, 2002 (ENS) - Environmental groups are alarmed that provisions in anti-terrorism legislation passed by the Australian Parliament Thursday may be used against environmental groups involved in civil disobedience protests.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-27-02.asp
BILL CHALLENGES REVERSAL OF PARKS SNOWMOBILE BAN
WASHINGTON, DC, June 27, 2002 (ENS) - A bill introduced in the House today would override a National Park Service decision to continue to allow snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The Park Service announced its decision two days ago, overturning a ban instituted by the same agency, under a different administration, almost two years ago.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-27-06.asp
GROUPS OPPOSE PUBLIC FINANCING OF CASPIAN PIPELINE
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, DC, June 27, 2002 (ENS) - A multi-billion dollar pipeline that would carry oil more than 1,000 miles from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean, is being challenged by an international coalition of environmental groups.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-27-03.asp
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 27, 2002
Yucca Mountain Shipments Called Mobile Chernobyl
Cheetah Supercomputer Improves Climate Modeling
Chilean Sea Bass Seizures Make Small Dent
Planting Clover Among the Cotton Helps Birds
New Coal Burners May Reduce Pollution
USFWS: Cutthroat Trout Population is Safe
Seal Skin Shipment Seized in New Jersey
Students Help Measure Air Pollution
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-27-09.asp
6/28/02
1:47:32 PM
AlterNet Headlines
THE MIX IS THE MESSAGE #3: A TALE OF TWO BOOKS
Don Hazen, AlterNet
Despite a media black-out -- and themes that repudiate the myth of Bush's invincibility -- books by Michael Moore and Mark Crispin Miller are selling at a brisk pace.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13476
THE MYTH OF GAY MACHO
Richard Goldstein, Village Voice
From disco clones to drag queens, the world rarely sees a gay identity that is free from the taint of macho.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13463
G-8 SUMMIT SIDELINES AFRICA
Ross Crockford, AlterNet
The meeting of the world's most powerful nations was touted as the best and last chance to reverse the crisis in Africa. But the summit has come up well short of expectations.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13475
--Also on our Global Affairs page:
A Wake-Up Call for the G-8 Let's Get Real About "Aid"
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=31
CONSUMERS AND CREATORS
Alana Kumbier, PopPolitics.com
Fandom encompasses a broad spectrum. Some fans practice purely appreciative consumerism and others, rabid obsession.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13467
NOT FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION
Ashley Day, Tolerance.org
It's time catcalling be recognized for what it really is: harassment.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13432
ROCKETS' RED GLARE
J.A. Savage, AlterNet
The Fourth of July is an attractive target date for terrorist attacks. Are the nation's 103 operating commercial nuclear reactors safe? Does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission even care?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13468
BROKERMAN
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, AlterNet So, you want to buy some stock in an American corporation?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13454
RALPH AND ME
Janet Reynolds, Hartford Advocate
Can the failed Green Party presidential candidate lure back disenchanted voters?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13465
RIGHT-WING HAWKS WIN BIG ON MIDDLE EAST
Jim Lobe, AlterNet
President Bush's policy address marks a resounding victory for Ariel Sharon and the pro-Likud faction -- and major setback for peace activists on either side of the conflict.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13461
WEB CASTES
Sarah Klein, Detroit Metro Times
Internet radio was dealt a deathblow last week as the Library of Congress set licensing rates for the webcasting of digital music.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13444
6/28/02
1:34:27 PM
World Environment News - June 28th 2002 from Planet Ark
Global warming threatens US parks, waters - green group - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16628/story.htm
US Senate panel passes first greenhouse gas curbs - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16612/story.htm
UPDATE - Devastated Apache Indians count cost of Ariz blaze - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16613/story.htm
Senate panel votes to ban mercury thermometers - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16615/story.htm
Timber industry unscorched by recent fires - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16616/story.htm
Nebraska seeks CRP land for drought-hit livestock - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16618/story.htm
FACTBOX - Comparison of US Senate, House energy bills - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16610/story.htm
UPDATE - Alaska drilling fight looming with energy bill - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16627/story.htm
UPDATE - UK urges more farm controls against badger visits - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16623/story.htm
UPDATE - Fried foods may cause cancer, more tests needed - UN - SWITZERLAND
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16617/story.htm
Kangaroo meat demand jumps on the Balkans markets - ROMANIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16620/story.htm
Loggers in Peru jungle town protest new law - PERU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16614/story.htm
Animals sacrificed for Nepal king in Indian temple - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16622/story.htm
FEATURE - In Iceland whales may be worth more alive than dead - ICELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16625/story.htm
Germany OKs more cash to clean communist coal mess - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16619/story.htm
UPDATE - German court clears use of bottle, can deposits - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16621/story.htm
EU tells Ireland to update archaic animal test law - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16629/story.htm
China to require GMO health permits from '03 - trade - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16624/story.htm
Bear falls victim to G8 security - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16630/story.htm
TEXT - Canada summary of G8 Kananaskis summit - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16626/story.htm
UPDATE - G8 agrees fund for weapons destruction - Italy - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16611/story.htm
6/28/02
1:32:28 PM
American Servicemen Used As Guinea Pigs
JimCast@infowars.net
June 27, 2002
"Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense" (SHAD), was a program started in the early 1960's, to learn the vulnerabilities of US warships, during chemical or biological warfare attacks. Under "Project SHAD" were 113 different "Operations" or tests.
US Naval crews and Marine personnel were sprayed with various biological and chemical germ warfare agents, and simulants. Some ships, and Marine personnel were sprayed from overflying aircraft, while other tests on ships were being sprayed by aircraft carriers, which were upwind. While some high ranking personnel may have had knowledge of what was happening, most of the ships crews did not.
Project SHAD was controlled by The US Army Deseret Test Center, later to be known as Dugway Proving Grounds, Utah. For over 35 years, The Department of Defense said, "there was NO Project SHAD".
Today the DoD admits that it tested the deadly nerve agent Sarin, known as VX, or biological toxins on American Servicemen, but said the information was "classified".
Lately the DoD agreed to declassify all of the 113 "Operations" and inform the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) of the findings. Presently 12 of the 113 have been declassified, although the information being released is very limited.
The Department of Defense is not releasing ALL the information needed by the Veteran, which would allow him to apply for treatment in a VA facility and to file a claim for service connected disability compensation.
Only about 600 veterans of the estimated tens of thousands of those exposed to warfare agents have been notified they could be suffering from related dangerous health effects, according to VA and Pentagon officials.
A study by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs completed in September of 2001, but never released to the public or the affected veterans, suggests that Veterans, who participated in "Project SHAD", may be at increased risk for cerebrovascular diseases and respiratory diseases. That they are three (3) times more likely to die of respiratory and vascular brain diseases than the general population.
Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resources Center, said: "These veterans could be dying at a rate three times greater than the general population from diseases that could be related to their military service."
"We have a moral responsibility to set the record straight and that seems to be a problem for both the leaders in the Department of Defense, and the entrenched bureaucrats of the Department of Veterans Affairs."
Agents and decontaminants used, different ones in different tests are: Bacillus globigii (BG), Coxiella burnetii, Pasteurella tularensis, Zinc Cadmium Sulfide,
Beta-propriolactone, Sarin, VX, Escherichia Coli (EC), Serratia Marcescens (SM), Sodium Hydroxide, Peracetic acid, Potassium hydroxide, Sodium hypochlorite, "tracer amounts" of radioactivity and asbestos, Methylacetoacetate.
Senator Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Rep. Mike Thompson (D) of California plan to introduce legislation in their respective chambers next week, urging the Pentagon to reveal more information about the tests, known as "Project SHAD". Eleven other members of Congress have signed the request from Thompson. They have attached a provision on to Senate bill, S-2514, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, to fund the declassification of Project SHAD.
The President has vowed to veto the bill. The tests involved substances that the military believed at the time to be harmless. But evidence now shows that some could be harmful.
The Secretary of veterans affairs, Anthony Principi, urged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to declassify more of the tests "as quickly as possible".
Anyone that believes they were part of the SHAD tests, should contact:
Vietnam Veterans of America 8605 Cameron Street, Suite 400 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301-585-4000, Fax 301-585-0519, 1-800-VVA-1316
The SHAD helpline is at 1-800-749-8387 or contact VA by e-mail at shadhelpline@vba.va.gov
All known SHAD operations, dates of operations, the agents sprayed, and the ships and Marine personnel involved, in no particular order, are:
Operation Dates Agent sprayed Ships involved
Copper Head /Jan 24-Feb 25, 1965/Bacillus globigii, USS Power Zinc Cadmium Sulfide (FP-fluorescent particle) Shady Grove/Jan 22-Apr. 9, 1965/Bacillus globigii, USS Granville S.Hall Coxiella burnetii (OU), Staphylococcal enterotoxin Type B _PG2) Uranine dye (sodium fluorescein)
Autumn Gold/May 3-31-1963/Bacillus globiggi (BG), USS Navarro (LPA-215) USS Tioga County (LST-1158) USS Carpenter USS Hoel (DDG13) USS Granville S. Hall (Yag-40) Marine Air group 13, First Marine Brigade
Purple Sage/ Jan & Feb 1966/Methylacetoacetate USS Herbert J. Thomas (DD-833) Eager Belle I/ Jan-Mar 1963/Bacillus globiggi (BG) USS George Eastman(yag39) Eager Belle II/Feb-Mar 1963/Bacillus globiggi (BG) USS George Eastman(yag39) USS Granville S. Hall (yag40) USS Carpenter (DD-825) USS Navarro (LPA-215) USS Tioga County(LST-1158)
Scarlet Sage/Feb 9,1966-Mar 4, 1966/bacillus globiggi USS Herbert J. Thomas (DD-833)
(Army tugs manned by naval personnel) An article at www.tugboatsF.com/1t2080Frame1 LT-2080, LT-2081, LT-2085 source1.htm, lists the following agents as being used: LT-2086, LT-2087, LT-2088
Tularamia, anthrax, parriot fever,Q fever, botulism,and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
Fearless Johnny/Aug-Sep 1965/ VX nerve agent Diethylphthlate USS George Eastman (yag-39), USS Granville S. Hall (yag-40) Two light tugs (not identified) VC-1 Utility squadron One, Blue Aiis Squadron (Blue Warriors) Patrol Squadron Six (PATRON SIX) Flight Wing Two, Covered lighter (barge) YFN-811 US Navy Tug, ATF-105 Flower Drum I/ Feb-Apr Sarin nerve agent, USS George Eastman (yag-39), Aug-Sep 1964/ Sulphur dioxide, USS Granville S. Hall (yag-40) Methylacetoacetate. Flower Drum II /Nov & Dec 1964/VX nerve gas, US Navy Barge YFN-811 Phosphorous 32, US Navy Tug, ATF-105 Bis (2 ethyl-hexyl) hydrogen phosphite DTC Test 69-32/Apr 30-Jun 28, 1969/Serratia USS Granville S. Hall (yag-40), marcensen, Escherichia coli, Five Army light tugs, (manned Bacillus subtilis var. by naval personnel). niger (BG), DTC Test 68-50/Sep-Oct 1968/ Bacillus globiggi (BG) USS Granville S. Hall (YAG-40) Staphylococcal enterotoxin, Type B (PG2), Uranine dye (sodium fluorescein). 4533rd Tactical Test Squadron 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing (F-4E aircraft) Marine Air Group 13, First Marine Brigade Half Note Red Beva Night Train Big Tom
101 Others to come (Hopefully).
- IF THEY DID THIS THEN! WHAT ARE THEY DOING NOW? -
DoD News, the official news of the Department of Defense, HA!
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/dodnews.html
6/28/02
12:38:56 PM
Court Approves Random Drug Tests For Many Students
by David Stout, The New York Times, June 27, 2002
WASHINGTON, June 27 -- The Supreme Court approved random drug-testing for many high school students today, ruling that the interest of educators in keeping drugs out of school outweighs privacy considerations.
The 5-to-4 ruling authorizes a substantial expansion in testing of public school students. The High Court previously upheld random testing for student-athletes.
Today, the Court said drug tests were permissible as a condition for participating in any extracurricular activity that involves interscholastic competition, including the chorus, the band and the Future Homemakers of America.
"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug use," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.
"Students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities voluntarily subject themselves to many of the same intrusions on their privacy as do athletes," Justice Thomas added.
He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer.
In dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the testing program under scrutiny, that of a school district in Pottawatomie County, Okla., "is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse."
By aiming their testing at students who want to participate in extracurricular activities, Justice Ginsburg said, school officials are going after those young people least likely to be in danger from illicit drugs. The other dissenters were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter.
The opinions in the case, Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, 01-332, can be read on the Supreme Court web site: www.supremecourtus.gov.
The decision overturned a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, which found in 2001 that the testing program adopted in 1998 was unreasonable because Pottawatomie officials had not shown there was a specific problem for which drug testing was a solution.
Today's ruling went against Lindsay Earls, an honor student who graduated from the district's Tecumseh High School a year ago and whose sister is still a student there.
Lindsay Earls tested negative, but she and another student sued on grounds the test was accusatory and humiliating. The testing program was suspended after the suits were filed; while it was active, three students out of 505 tested positive. All were athletes.
When the case was argued before the Supreme Court on March 19, the Bush administration argued that a schoolwide drug-testing program, not just one for extracurricular participants, would be constitutional. The High Court has not taken up that issue.
The majority rejected the suggestion that the random drug-testing might amount to an "unreasonable" search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. That consideration is more appropriate for criminal cases, the majority said.
Both Justice Thomas and Justice Breyer, in a concurring opinion, emphasized that they were not passing judgment on whether the Oklahoma district's testing policy was wise. They simply said it was constitutional.
Justice Ginsburg said the majority ruling was both unconstitutional and unwise, that it set a poor example. Borrowing a quote from a Supreme Court ruling of 1943, she saw a need for "scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/national/27CND-DRUG.html
6/28/02
12:30:30 PM
t r u t h o u t | 06.28
Supreme Court Moves US Education to the Right
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.28A.SC.edu.right.htm
William Rivers Pitt | Behold, A Child Shall Lead Them
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.28B.pitt.child.htm
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. | Vouchers: Illegitimate Cure For Legitimate Concerns
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.28C.jjj.vouch.htm
Rangel: Republican Leadership Has Denied The American People a Chance to Have a Real Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.28D.rangel.per.drugs.htm
Tribal Leaders Press for Commission
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.28F.tribe.comm.htm
Away From the TV Cameras, Fire Consumes Apache Land
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.28G.apache.fire.htm
6/27/02
7:25:26 PM
Public Citizen
June 27, 2002
Safety Left at Side of Road in Administration's Haste to Open Border to Mexican Trucks
Shortage of Inspectors, Facilities Will Jeopardize Safety, Groups Say
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Bush administration is in such a rush to open the border to Mexico-domiciled trucks that it has overlooked crucial safety issues and ignored a severe lack of inspectors and inspection stations, which are necessary to ensure the border can be opened safely, four safety groups said today.
In a letter sent today to the Senate Commerce Committee and the Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee, Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, CRASH Survivors Network and the Trauma Foundation warned lawmakers that "the extremely tight schedule laid out by the administration for opening the border has allowed crucial issues to slip through the cracks."
Congress last year agreed to allow Mexico-domiciled long-haul trucks to ship goods throughout the United States, as long as certain inspection requirements are followed. However, 23 of 25 commercial crossings in the United States still do not have permanent inspection facilities, and the government has not hired enough inspectors to check incoming trucks, the groups said. The administration has said it will open the border by the end of July.
In a report released this week, the Department of Transportation Inspector General focused on the implementation of certain goals established by Congress but failed to address safety shortcomings, the groups said. Further, the administration's efforts to put a good face on the chaotic scramble to open the border has resulted in a diversion of resources away from truck safety in the United States.
"The government for years has failed to prepare for the opening of the border - an event required under NAFTA," said Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen's president. "Now, transportation officials are scrambling to get ready. But they are utterly neglecting the agency's domestic truck safety agenda."
Other deficiencies in the government's preparedness to open the border include:
· The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proposed allowing short-haul trucks to continue to operate without certification that they comply with U.S. manufacturing safety standards - a blatant violation of lawmakers' intent that all Mexican carriers follow U.S. law;
· The administration has no meaningful plan to ensure that Mexican truck drivers abide by U.S. rules setting a limit on the number of hours they can drive;
· There is no system to ensure that Mexico-domiciled carriers have valid and adequate insurance by a U.S.-licensed insurer.
"The safety of the public should not be compromised," said Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. "Every year, 5,200 people lose their lives in truck crashes, and this not the time to add to the death toll. We can't allow unsafe trucks to drive through these loopholes."
A copy of the letter is available at
http://www.citizen.org/autosafety/Truck_Safety/nafta/articles.cfm?ID=7912.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
Source: http://www.Citizen.org
6/27/02
7:21:41 PM
Peru Swaps Debt For Tropical Rainforest Protection
WASHINGTON, DC, June 26, 2002 (ENS) - Peru's rare pink river dolphins, jaguars, scarlet macaws, walking palms and giant water lilies will be better protected after an agreement signed today in Washington under which the United States cancelled $14 million in Peruvian debt payments.
For the first time, conservation groups joined the U.S. government in making up the funding to finance a debt-for-nature swap. These debt swaps relieve foreign debt in exchange for a government’s commitment to spend a certain amount of their local currency for conservation work.
Under the agreement, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund each committed approximately $370,000 for a total of $1.1 million. The U.S. government allocated $5.5 million to cancel a portion of Peru’s debt to the United States.
Treasury Department Under Secretary for International Affairs, John Taylor, and Peruvian Finance Minister Pedro Paulo Kuczynski signed the agreement today at the U.S. Treasury Department.
As a result, Peru will save about $14 million in debt payments over the next 16 years, and will provide the local currency equivalent of approximately $10.6 million toward conservation over the next 12 years.
At the signing ceremony, Under Secretary Taylor said the Bush administration is committed to "protecting this hemisphere’s natural resources," and is using the Tropical Forest Conservation Act of 1998 to fund this debt-for-nature swap.
"From the top of the Andes to the Amazon basin, Peru is home to 84 of the 103 types of "life zones" found on Earth, with nine "life zones" in Machu Picchu alone," Taylor said today. "The funds generated will go towards protecting rainforests in Peru, including the Peruvian Amazon. This area is home to dozens of endangered species, such as the jaguar, harpy eagle, the giant river otter, black caiman, and several species of macaws and rare plants such as walking palms and giant water lilies," he said.
The debt swap will generate funds for distribution to local Peruvian conservation groups that will use them to protect 10 tropical rainforest areas covering more than 27.5 million acres within the Peruvian Amazon — about the size of the state of Virginia.
"This strong international partnership marks a key step in protecting a spectacular place that is among the biologically richest on Earth and facing imminent threats," said Peter Seligmann, chairman and CEO of Conservation International.
Threats to these areas include the loss of habitat due to unsustainable logging of hardwoods such as mahogany and cedar, conversion of forest land to agriculture, mining, oil and gas exploration and unsustainable harvesting of nontimber forest products such as Brazil nuts and hearts of palm, the U.S. conservation groups say.
“This agreement provided a perfect opportunity for our organization and our conservation group partners to put our monies where our convictions lie,” said Steve McCormick, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy. “We have long advocated the use of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act as a tool to help protect vital rainforests around the globe, so being able to pitch in to help make this agreement happen is particularly gratifying to me.”
“With this debt-for-nature swap, one of the world’s great biological libraries can be saved for future generations,” said Kathryn Fuller, president of WWF. “We applaud the governments of Peru and the United States for helping protect these places of exceptional wonder and beauty.”
The Peruvian conservation groups may use the funds to establish, restore, protect and maintain parks, protected areas and reserves.
They can improve natural resource management systems and train individuals and organizations involved in conservation efforts. Funding can be used in the development and support of livelihoods for people living in or near these tropical forest in ways that help protect them.
The funds may be used for the restoration, protection, or sustainable use of animal and plant species, and for the research and identification of medicinal uses of tropical forest plant life to treat human diseases, illnesses, and health-related concerns.
Under Secretary Taylor said today's agreement is the second U.S. debt-for-nature swap, and the fifth agreement concluded under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act.
"We are still looking to extend the benefits of the program," said Taylor. "We have already seen agreements with Bangladesh, Belize, El Salvador, and Thailand, we expect to conclude an agreement with the Philippines this year."
Source: http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-26-02.asp
6/27/02
7:19:01 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
ARIZONA WILDFIRES SPARK MANAGEMENT CONTROVERSY
EAGAR, Arizona, June 26, 2002 (ENS) - President George W. Bush visited Arizona on Tuesday to review the devastation caused by a massive wildfire that has scorched almost 375,000 acres outside the resort town of Show Low. The fire has prompted accusations by government officials and environmental groups, each blaming the other for creating the conditions that allowed the devastating blaze to develop.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-26-06.asp
BREAST CANCER CLUSTERS MAY START IN CHILDHOOD
By Cat Lazaroff
BUFFALO, New York, June 26, 2002 (ENS) - Researchers seeking the environmental triggers of breast cancer may need to look far back into a woman's past, suggests a novel study by geographers and epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo (UB). Where a woman lives at birth and puberty may have an impact on her risk of developing breast cancer later, the team concluded.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-26-07.asp
PERU SWAPS DEBT FOR TROPICAL RAINFOREST PROTECTION
WASHINGTON, DC, June 26, 2002 (ENS) - Peru's rare pink river dolphins, jaguars, scarlet macaws, walking palms and giant water lilies will be better protected after an agreement signed today in Washington under which the United States cancelled $14 million in Peruvian debt payments.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-26-02.asp
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 26, 2002
Lost Fuel Rods Prompt Fines
U.S. Approves Vicuna Wool Imports
Dying Trees Release Air Polluting Chemical
Environmentalists Challenge Nevada Land Sale
Grants Support Clean Car Research
Prairie Dogs Need Protection on BLM Lands
Cleanup Begins in Ohio's Little Scioto River
House Subcommittee Supports Efficiency Funding
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-26-09.asp
6/27/02
7:16:48 PM
Dollar slides to brink of free fall
Worldcom scandal: Currencies: Latest Wall Street disaster sends investors all over the world running for cover
by Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent, 27 June 2002
The US dollar yesterday moved to the brink of free fall a nightmare scenario for the world economy after reverberations from the WorldCom scandal triggered panic among investors.
The currency came within a whisker of parity with the euro and crashed through key psychological barriers against the yen and the pound as investors rushed to dump dollar assets.
"This is threatening to become a disorderly market," David Bloom, global economist at HSBC, said. "There's no better way to show a loss of confidence in a country than through its currency."
Speculation mounted that the Federal Reserve would lead the world in a fresh round of interest rates cuts amid fears of a deflationary slump, although it kept rates on hold last night.
The dollar tumbled as much as 1.5 per cent to 99.42 cents to the euro, its weakest level since February 2000, from 97.22 late Tuesday. It fell below 120 yen for the first time despite three interventions by the Bank of Japan overnight to support the US currency. The misery was compounded by confusion over the US's dollar policy and a roller-coaster day on Wall Street.
The Dow gyrated between a 200 point fall and 34 point gain before ending down 6.7 at 9,120.1, while the Nasdaq recovered from 2 per cent fall to end up 5.3 points at 1429.3, still within a whisker of a five-year closing low. In Europe the FTSE 100 fell 100 points to 4,531, above an earlier nine-month low of 4,442.
The US President, George Bush, appeared to imply the administration had abandoned its strong dollar policy. The White House later was forced to insist there had been no policy change after Mr Bush said the currency would "seek its own level based on market forces".
The WorldCom scandal, coming hard on the heels of the Enron collapse and crises at Tyco and Adelphia, is the latest piece of news to undermine the dollar.
Sharp falls on Wall Street and fears about the solidity of the US economy have slowly undermined the dollar over the past few weeks. A dollar collapse is seen as one of the greatest threats to the nascent global economic recovery.
Mark Cliffe, a global economist at ING Financial Markets, said: "If the dollar's decline turns explosive, this could compound the problems of the US asset markets as currency losses raise fears of a massive capital flight out of the US."
Americans have collectively acted as the consumer of last resort through the financial crises of 1997, 1998, 1999 and even during the latest slump, sucking in imports from the rest of the world. More importantly, investors were happy to pour money into US markets to cash in on booming hi-tech industries.
Now, however, outsiders may be deterred from pumping any more money into the US, for fear the cash will simply be squandered. "We thought it was a bubble, but perhaps the whole thing was overstated," Mr Bloom said. "The dollar bull market was just plain wrong."
A dollar crisis would be a major headache for the Fed in its struggle to juggle tumbling markets with signs of a strong economic rebound. There was serious speculation ahead of last night's monetary policy decision that the Fed would cut rates despite figures showing new home sales soared to a record and factory orders increased in May.
Gold rose as much as $6.33, or 2 per cent, to $325.75 an ounce in London. The metal has risen 16 per cent so far this year, its best first-half performance