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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BEEF JERKEY who wrote (539785)	2/13/2004 10:42:33 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

What a bunch of horsesh-----------..............

To: BEEF JERKEY who wrote (539785)	2/13/2004 10:48:39 AM
From: Johannes Pilch	Respond to of 769670

And here we see desperation bearing the fruit of utter stupidity...

To: BEEF JERKEY who wrote (539785)	2/13/2004 11:09:53 AM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

And THESE are the people you want to entrust all personal information???????MSFT just LOST THE KEY CODE ON THE INTERNET>.......GUESS WHAT RUNS A LOT OF THESE PROGRAMS!?!?!?!?!? Privacy Issue Delays Change in Airport Screening System February 13, 2004 By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - A privacy dispute with airlines has derailed the government's effort to modernize the system used to pick out suspicious passengers at airports, and officials of the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that they would not say when it would be running. Congressional auditors reported Thursday that the plan faces unanswered questions about preventing abuse of the data, guarding privacy and coping with inaccuracies. The report, by the General Accounting Office, was issued as British Airways acknowledged that it had canceled a London-to-Washington flight for the fifth time this year, because of intelligence information about possible terrorist threats. It also canceled a flight from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Responding to the report on the delay, officials of the Department of Homeland Security said that the auditors were largely correct, and that they had been stymied in testing the system because the airlines were afraid to volunteer sample data on passengers for fear of offending their customers. But the officials said parts of the program could be in place by the end of the year. "They are right to point out there are a number of unanswered questions," said Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the department's chief privacy officer. "But that is not to say that they are unanswerable questions." The government has already issued two sets of draft rules, and will issue a third set, officials said. The changes included cutting the length of time that the government would retain the records, to a few days after the last flight of an itinerary is completed; the first proposal was up to 50 years. But privacy advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said the report was a sign that the concept was fatally flawed. The system determines who will be pulled aside for "secondary screening" at airport checkpoints. The program now in use, the Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, was developed in the late 1990's by Northwest Airlines at the behest of the Federal Aviation Administration, which was then in charge of aviation security. The system is operated by the airlines based on their computer records about passengers, and some computers are so old that they cannot store all the letters in a passenger's name. The replacement system, known as CAPPS II, was mandated by Congress, and would be operated by the Department of Homeland Security. Airlines would submit the name, address, telephone number and birth date of each passenger. The department would turn that information over to a commercial database company, which would try to learn whether the name represented a real identity. The company would report back with a numerical score akin to a credit rating but not with any other data on the passenger. The government's aim is to cut the number of people who are now diverted for "secondary screening" to about 4 percent from 14 percent now. Secondary screening generally refers to close use of a metal-detecting wand and a hand search of carry-on bags. Asa Hutchinson, the under secretary for border and transportation security, said Thursday in a news briefing, "Our system right now is not effective." Mr. Hutchinson would not say what intelligence led to the cancellation of the British Airways flights on Thursday, but he said it had been a decision of the British government, based on intelligence that was shared and jointly analyzed. Federal law enforcement and intelligence officials said the intelligence had been similar to information that led to cancellations in early January and early February. The intelligence, they said, included information obtained in interrogations of captured terrorists from Al Qaeda, as well as information from electronic intercepts of communications among Qaeda suspects, and other information that they would not describe. At least some of the information, the officials said, referred to specific threats on specific days against British Airways flights, including direct references to threats against British Airways Flight 223, a midday flight from Heathrow Airport near London to Dulles International Airport near Washington. In a meeting with reporters last week, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the threats of terrorist attacks in December and January had been the most compelling and credible he had seen since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Ridge said he believed that government actions during the last three months, including the request for the cancellation of several international flights, had probably prevented a catastrophic terrorist attack. WHAT A CROCK!!!!!. HOW EASY IS THAT>>>CANCEL FLIGHTS AND THEN SAY WE"VE WON A VICTORY! THEY WILL BE DOING THAT FOR THE NEXT 7 MONTHS!!!! AND THEN YOU'LL FIND OUT YOUR IDENTITY HAS BEEN STOLEN nytimes.com

To: BEEF JERKEY who wrote (539785)	2/13/2004 11:11:53 AM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

and then there's ASHCROFT!!!!! If you get in his way...He'll get every MEDICAL record on you..... these people are DESPERATE..... Ashcroft Defends Subpoenas February 13, 2004 By ERIC LICHTBLAU WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - Attorney General John Ashcroft rebuffed calls from Congressional Democrats and abortion rights groups on Thursday to drop the Justice Department's demands for abortion records from a half-dozen hospitals. Mr. Ashcroft said the records were essential to the department's courtroom defense of a new law banning what he called "the rather horrendous practice of partial-birth abortions." A group of doctors have sued to overturn the law, which was passed by Congress last November and signed by President Bush. They say they have performed medically necessary abortions that would now be banned. Mr. Ashcroft told reporters that "if the central issue in the case, an issue raised by those who brought the case, is medical necessity, we need to look at medical records to find out if indeed there was medical necessity." He refused to say whether he had personally signed off on the subpoenas for the records. The department has subpoenaed at least six hospitals, in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and Ann Arbor, Mich., to obtain medical histories for women who have had abortions in the last three years performed by the doctors now suing the government. A federal judge in Chicago has thrown out a subpoena against Northwestern University Medical Center because he said it was a "significant intrusion" on patient privacy, and hospital administrators in other cities are contesting the demand as well. Government lawyers do not want the names or other identifying information about the women, Mr. Ashcroft said. He said the Justice Department was sensitive to privacy concerns, "and so we took, I believe, every precaution possible" to protect patient confidentiality. But some Democrats in Congress, abortion rights groups and civil liberties advocates condemned the records demand on Thursday and called for Mr. Ashcroft to drop the subpoenas. "It is clear from both federal and state laws that strong privacy restrictions are in place to prevent the kind of intrusive breach of medical privacy that these actions represent," said Representative Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat who has written legislation restricting the public use of medical records. Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of the Bronx, said, "All Americans should have the right to visit their doctor and receive sound medical attention without the fear of Big Brother looking into those records." nytimes.com