Free Dating Site    

A janitor from the VA takes home a laptop and loses 26.5 MILLION , Names, Ssnb's, Date of birth's, Wife's info and childerns info....

We a blessed with the worst goverment money can buy... the VA had be reprimanded about security many times over several years...

besides the so sweet ability to unlock your car for you in the event of being locked out. Onstar maintains a complete record of all ignitions. miles driven, speed attained during the trip and can be outfited to map the route from start to finish. Internal GPS locators are standard equipment.In the (near) future when gas rationing becomes mandatory, how convenient it will be for big brother to TURN YOU OFF on certain days, or prescribe strict hours of driving and limits on mileage.
Can't you just see it? you hop in your car, late for work and forgot.... it's no drive day for citizen zy1-334....the sweetly modulated computer voice says "sorry zy1-334 this is your Conserve for Freedom day....it is twenty-three hours and fifty-four minutes until your vehicle will start......any attempt to damage or inactivate the OnStar system will destoy your electrical
system and will result in charges being filed under the Conserve for Freedom Act....have a very nice day!

And when a man sticks a gun in your face, you got two choices. You can die, or you can kill the mother****er. - Sam Elliot as Wade Garrett from the movie "Road House"

I wonder how the 3000 people whose only crime was showing up for work on September 11, 2001 are enjoying their right to privacy?

Since the tragedy of September 11, this administration has
effectively shut down inquiry after inquiry:

In November 2001, energy companies were planning a natural gas
pipeline through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Local citizens,
led by former U.S. Army Ranger Joseph McCormick, asked the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission for a map of the planned pipeline. These
citizens weren't being nosy--they wanted to know if a large new
pipeline for natural gas would be going through their backyards. FERC
denied the citizens' request in the name of national security, even
though this type of information had been public before 9/11. Clearly,
national security concerns are legitimate. But without knowledge of the
pipeline's location, how could these citizens defend their property?
Joseph McCormick put it bluntly: ``There certainly is a balance,'' he
said. ``It's about people's right to use the information of an open
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2005/s072705.htmlsociety to protect their rights.''

In the fall of 2002, the chemical compound perchlorate was found in
the water supply of Aberdeen, Maryland--near the Army's famous Aberdeen
Proving Ground. Perchlorate is a main ingredient of rocket fuel. It
also stunts the metabolism and brain growth of newborns. A group of
citizens organized, and worked with the Army to protect their drinking
water from further contamination. But a few months later, the Army
began censoring maps and information that would help determine which
areas were contaminated, supposedly in the interest of national
security--if citizens could find out where the water was contaminated,
then terrorists could find it too. The head of the citizens' group was
a 20-year army veteran. His water well was only a mile and a half away
from the proving ground. ``It's an abuse of power,'' he said. ``The
government has to be transparent.''

Even Members of Congress have had to subpoena information in order to
do their work. Last October, Congressmen Christopher Shays and Henry
Waxman, the chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Government
Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and
International Relations, asked for an audit of the Development Fund for
Iraq. The copy they received had over 400 items blacked out. They had
so much difficulty obtaining an unredacted report from the Defense
Department that they had to prepare a subpoena. Once they finally
received an unredacted copy, guess what had been blacked out? More than
$218 million in charges from Halliburton. So far, no one has been held
accountable.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2005/s072705.html

PART I: Laws that Provide Public Access to Federal Record
The Administration has narrowed in scope and application each of the landmark laws enacted by Congress to promote "government in the sunshine."

I: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
The Administration has limited the scope of the primary federal law providing the public with a right to information held by the executive branch and has resisted information requests through procedural tactics and delays.

II: Presidential Records Act
The President has issued an executive order undermining the Watergate-era law that makes presidential records available to historians and the public.

III: Federal Advisory Committee Act
The Administration has undercut and evaded the federal law that requires openness and a balance of viewpoints on government advisory bodies.

Part II: Laws that Restrict Access to Public Records
The Administration has reversed steps taken by the Clinton Administration to declassify information and has expanded the capacity of the executive branch to operate in secret.

I: National Security Classification of Government Records
The President has expanded the classification powers of executive agencies, resulting in a dramatic increase in the volume of classified government information.

II: Expanded Protection of "Sensitive Security Information"
The Administration has obtained an expansion of “sensitive security information” to allow the withholding of information about the safety of any mode of transportation.

III: Weakened DHS Disclosure Under the National Environmental Policy Act
The Administration has proposed a directive that would permit the Department of Homeland Security to conceal information about the environmental impacts of its activities.

IV: Expanding Secret Government Operations
The Administration has expanded its authority to conduct law enforcement operations in secret with limited or no judicial oversight through the enactment of new laws such as the USA PATRIOT Act and novel interpretations of existing authorities.

Part III:Congressional Access To Information
The Administration has repeatedly refused to provide members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and congressional commissions with information necessary for meaningful congressional oversight.

I: GAO Authority to Investigate Accountability
The Administration has challenged the authority of the congressional General Accountability Office to review federal records and investigate federal programs.

II: Seven Member Rule
The Administration has challenged the authority of members of the House Government Reform Committee to obtain information on matters within the jurisdiction of the Committee.

III:Witholding Information from Congress
The Administration has frequently withheld information sought by ranking members of congressional committees.

IV:Investigative Commissions
The Administration resisted or delayed providing information to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, the commission created by Congress to investigate the September 11 attacks.

Conclusion
The Bush Administration has systematically sought to limit disclosure of government records while expanding its authority to operate in secret. Taken together, the Administration’s actions represent an unparalleled assault on the principle of open government.

http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/features/secrecy_report/index.asp

Bush Officials Try to Hide Global Warming Facts from Public, Researchers Say

An increasing number of reports are surfacing about how the Bush administration is making it difficult for climate researchers to inform the American public about global warming.

The latest, published April 6 in The Washington Post, says that employees and contractors at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well a U.S. Geological Survey scientist, report that administration officials have chastised them for speaking on policy questions; removed references to global warming from reports, news releases and conference Web sites; investigated news leaks; and at times urged researchers to stop speaking to media.

“There has been a change in how we’re expected to interact with the press,” said Pieter Tans, who measures greenhouse gases linked to global warming and has worked at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., for two decades. Fortunately for the public, he also said he “often ignores the rules.”

Posted 04-06-2006 1:58 PM EDT

http://www.bushsecrecy.org/blogindex.cfm?startrow=1&maxrows=10#261

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) stopped the EPA for several months from warning homeowners about zonolite insulation products, which contain a form of asbestos that poses extremely elevated cancer risks. The OMB suppressed information about a serious cancer problem that posed a risk to millions of American families.

A key provision in a landmark auto safety law passed in the wake of the 2000 Ford/Firestone tire tragedies is supposed to give auto safety regulators and consumers an "early warning" about a dangerous defect and save lives. But the new rule announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will keep important information, such as consumer complaints to manufacturers and warranty claims, secret. That is not what Congress intended.

The Department of Agriculture has refused to give Public Citizen information about how the agency decides if another country’s food inspection system is "equivalent" to U.S. standards. A review of documents that are publicly available shows a sloppy process for determining "equivalency," so full of holes and omissions that U.S. consumers are exposed to increased risk of eating contaminated food imported from other countries.

One of the biggest obstacles to effective regulation and mitigation of hazards, however, is the White House’s obsession with secrecy. This takes the form of distortion of information needed to effectively deal with threats to health and safety; the outright censorship of scientific data generated by regulatory agencies; and the suppression of facts that don’t fit the administration’s political and ideological agenda.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the White House argue why it shouldn't have to disclose documents from Vice President****Cheney's energy task force, conservative New York Times columnist William Safire asks, "Are Republicans out of their collective mind?" Not only is it wrong to ask the High Court "to erect a high barrier to finding out who is advising whom about the public's business behind closed doors," Safire writes, but it also smacks of hypocrisy because Republicans relentlessly criticized the Clinton administration for its executive privilege claims during the Paula Jones saga. Safire calls out President Bush for going "all out to keep his administration's energy deliberations from public scrutiny." And he has some advice for the White House: If "freedom" is the word Bush and Cheney want as the hallmark of their administration, they should begin with freedom of information.

The twelve-year restriction period for the papers of former President Reagan and his Vice President, George H.W. Bush, expired on the same day George W. Bush took office. But instead of permitting the Archives to release approximately 68,000 pages of previously restricted Reagan records that would otherwise have been opened to the public in February 2001, the White House ordered the Archives three times to postpone the release of the materials. Then, on November 1, 2001, President Bush issued an executive order that purports to make fundamental changes in the Presidential Records Act.

Under the executive order, if a former President or Vice President—or even a member of his family—objects to the release of any document on the ground of "executive privilege," the Archives is forbidden to release the document to the public. The same is true if the incumbent President asserts "executive privilege." The effect is to replace the Presidential Records Act’s limited 12-year restriction period with a potentially indefinite limitation on access.

( By the way, how can a "member of the family" invoke executive privilege - since they are not elected to any office ? )

http://www.bushsecrecy.org/page.cfm?PagesID=17&ParentID=1&CategoryID=1

Sadly, such infringements upon newsgatherers' rights are nothing new. One of the most ominous post-Sept. 11 events occurred after The Associated Press began exploring why a package mailed from its Philippines bureau in September 2002 never reached assistant Washington Bureau Chief John Solomon. Federal Express claimed the package was lost, but the AP discovered that the FBI had the package, which contained an unclassified, eight-year-old crime lab report from a terrorism case.

According to the AP, the package was intercepted by the Customs Service and turned over to the FBI without a warrant. It was kept without notice or due process. AP would never even have known about the interference had it not pressed for answers.

The FBI later admitted it acted wrongly and returned the package -- more than nine months after it was first sent. More chilling: the FBI admitted that it kept the package to prevent Solomon from reporting certain contents of the report.

And the restrictions also occurred in the skies. Many television stations could not use news helicopters after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded aircraft immediately after Sept. 11. Even after the FAA began restoring the right to the nation's airspace, the agency's restrictions kept the helicopters out of the sky.

After two months of halted flights for newsgathering and traffic watches, many helicopters returned to the air on a limited basis in early December. A few weeks later, on Dec. 19, 2001, the FAA restored general aviation access to airspace above the nation's 30 largest metropolitan areas.

While restrictions stifled news helicopter flights, they did not apply to student pilots, such as the Florida teenager who died in January 2002 after ramming a stolen plane into the Bank of America building in Tampa. Broadcasters still have not gotten an explanation as to why news helicopters were among the last aircraft to return to the sky.

In Washington, security concerns continue to hamper journalists sporadically more than three years after the attacks. A freelance photographer covering a 2005 presidential inaugural protest for alternative media network Indymedia was hit with pepper spray and had his cameras confiscated before District of Columbia police arrested him as he filmed a group of protestors. Earlier on Inauguration Day, as many as 15 percent of the 1,000 television reporters and cameramen who applied for special credentials to be allowed into a high security zone for the ceremony did not get them, The Associated Press reported. Credentialing was denied to several print journalists who were fingerprinted and photographed and had background checks.

Members of the foreign news media are not eligible for a Department of Homeland Security visa waiver program that allows citizens from 27 "friendly" nations to travel visa-free to the United States for up to 90 days for tourism or business. Journalism is the only profession singled out for visa purposes.

At least 14 foreign journalists have been detained and sent home by U.S. officials since March 2003, according to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) who introduced a bill in September 2004 that would allow foreign reporters into the United States without special journalist visas. The bill never made it out of a House subcommittee and has not been reintroduced.

"The problem is not misinterpretation of the law administered incorrectly by a few immigration agents," Lofgren wrote in an e-mail to the Reporters Committee. "It is with our immigration law that singles out the foreign press, radio, film or other foreign information media."

In May 2003, six French journalists traveling to the United States to cover a video game trade show in California were detained at Los Angeles International Airport and later sent back to France for not having press visas. Instead of obtaining the required "I" visas, the French reporters tried to enter the U.S. only with valid passports.

One year later, British journalist Elena Lappin was also detained upon arriving at Los Angeles International Airport on May 3. Traveling with a valid passport but no visa, Lappin was taken in handcuffs to a detention center after informing U.S. customs officials she was on a freelance assignment for the British daily newspaper The Guardian. Lappin was sent back to London the following day.

http://www.rcfp.org/homefrontconfidential/domestic.html

How can one argue that the government need to access information on people, yet at the same time massively restrict the right of the people to know what government is itself doing ?

How can one argue that the government need to access information on people, yet at the same time massively restrict the right of the people to know what government is itself doing ?

He changes his story, stammers, then gets pissy.

President Bush told a German newspaper his best moment in more than five years in office was catching a big perch in his own lake.

"You know, I've experienced many great moments, and it's hard to name the best," Bush told weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001.

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5-pound perch in my lake," he told the newspaper in an interview published Sunday.

Jeez, you guys should get Jessie Ventura and Hulk Hogan to run next time. Then it would be interesting to see who gets the title. Ding Ding