FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills

Today's Washington Post reports:

The FBI, which has had trouble keeping track of its guns and laptops, also has a chronic problem paying its phone bills on time, according to audit results released today.

Telephone companies have repeatedly cut off FBI access to wiretaps of alleged terrorists and criminal suspects because of the bureau's failure to pay its bills, the audit found.

The report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also found that more than half of the nearly 1,000 telecommunications bills reviewed by investigators were not paid on time, including one invoice for $66,000 at one unidentified field office.

...

The report identified one case in which an order obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- which covers clandestine wiretaps of terrorism and espionage suspects -- was halted because of "untimely payment."

The FBI says the problem is caused by an outdated financial management system and is working to fix it. The same Post article also points out that an examination of the backgrounds of the 35 employees with access to FBI funds used to pay for expenses for undercover investigations "found that half had personal bankruptcies or other financial problems" and one FBI telecommunications specialist pleaded guilty to "stealing more than $25,000 intended for telephone services."

The article concludes by observing that Congress is still divided over the issue of granting retroactive immunity to telecoms that have engaged in illegal wiretapping for government surveillance programs and that the most recent extensions of the foreign wiretap law from last summer expire at the beginning of February.

Anti-black, anti-gay, and conspiracy rhetoric in Ron Paul newsletters

James Kirchick of The New Republic has gone back and reviewed the content of Ron Paul's newsletters published prior to 1998, and the results are not at all pretty. They contain repeated anti-black and anti-gay bigotry and conspiracy theory rhetoric, much of it under Ron Paul's byline. And the Paul campaign's explanation is weak:

When I asked Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign spokesman, about the newsletters, he said that, over the years, Paul had granted "various levels of approval" to what appeared in his publications--ranging from "no approval" to instances where he "actually wrote it himself." After I read Benton some of the more offensive passages, he said, "A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."

In other words, Paul's campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically--or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point--over the course of decades--he would have done something about it.

You can find numerous excerpts from Ron Paul's past publications here.

DI's Dissent from Darwinism statement analyzed

John Lynch has looked up the backgrounds of the 300 signatories to the Discovery Institute's "Dissent from Darwinism" statement who signed in 2004 (it's now up to 700, which he plans to also examine). He reports on the backgrounds of the individuals who signed, finding that "Chemists, physicists, engineers, bench jockeys, doctors and mathematicians account for over 200 of the 300 signatories" but only five organismal biologists. He also notes that there's also at least one soccer coach and a home-schooling mom in the list.

The comments are worth reading as well.

UPDATE (January 27, 2008): John Lynch has a further post on this statement, and commenter Ken, below, points to his analysis of the religious beliefs of signers at his Open Parachute blog.

UPDATE (May 14, 2008): A YouTube video documents further Discovery Institute deception with regard to this list.

New summary of CMI-AiG dispute from CMI

Creation Ministries International has published a new web page summarizing their dispute with Answers in Genesis, much of which is already familiar to readers of this blog. The summary includes an update of events immediately preceding and subsequent to the attempt at arbitration in Hawaii that occurred last August, and links to supporting documents, several of which are newly made public.

New in this report are two interesting emails from Philip Bell, former deputy CEO of AiG-UK, about what was going on inside AiG after the split from CMI. Bell resigned from AiG in June 2006 and is now head of CMI-UK. The first email is quoted in a letter from Carl Wieland to a CMI supporter in Australia who asked why CMI needed to take legal action against AiG, which includes these two paragraphs:

I am very sorry to say that AiG leaders (on both sides of the Atlantic) have engaged not only in unbiblical/unethical behaviour but in the case of AiG-USA, unlawful too—to the great detriment of their former colleagues and sister ministries in the other former AiG countries, particularly Australia—this is not merely what I have been told by colleagues abroad but rather I have personal knowledge of these things. If anyone contacts AiG-USA to find out what’s going on, they are asked to ‘pick up the phone and talk to us’. This all sounds very reasonable but there is no accountability involved because such words are not recorded and amount to so much gossip—they can be flat out denied if it is deemed expedient. I am afraid to say that I have personally witnessed outright lies (of an incredible kind) involving four individual high-ups in AiG (and in one instance I was asked to give testimony to an independent enquiry; something I took no pleasure in doing). CMI’s response has been to put everything out in the open (not without criticism of some Christian brethren of course, some of whom are upset that this seems to amount to ‘hanging our dirty linen out before the world’. I share their dismay but believe that this has to be, if justice is to be done and the Lord’s name is not to be sullied even more in the long run.

I take no pleasure in having to write these things and I know that I speak for my colleagues in CMI-Australia and around the world when I say that we long to get on with the real work that God has entrusted us with. Speaking for myself, I can honestly say that I have no personal axe to grind with any of the AiG leaders concerned, all of whom I once considered friends and got on with very well. This is not about personal differences but about integrity and honesty—simply put, I left AiG because we had a ministry slogan (which I liked and still like) which said: “We are a Christ-centred, evangelistic ministry dedicated to upholding the Word of God from the very first verse.” I could no longer publicly represent AiG when the actions and words of its representatives were anything but Christ-centred (rather they were/and are often man-centred—pride and an unwillingness to admit fault became the order of the day). Neither could I stomach any longer hearing people talk about upholding God’s truth while I had personally witnessed deceit and even bare faced lies from the same people. I am not their judge and I find it very sobering to even be writing these words (James 4:11-12) but the Scripture also advocates that the Christian is to ‘judge with righteous judgment’. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but it is horrendous when pride prevents people acknowledging sin and they continue to cover their unbiblical/unethical actions in God-speak. Frankly, it appears that there is no fear of the Lord in such people. In spite of my strong feelings, I have continued to pray for AiG to this very day and earnestly desire that there will be a righteous outcome that will not allow God’s name to be sullied before the world.

The second email from Bell discusses a letter sent by Monty White of AiG-UK to supporters about the split (and links to a rebuttal of that Monty White letter) and gives a UK perspective on the AiG/CMI split, and reports that not only Bell but two other AiG-UK staff members, Tim Matthews and Rachel Revell, resigned from AiG-UK over these issues.

Boeing 787 potentially vulnerable to passenger software-based hijacking

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is equipped with systems to provide passengers with on-board Internet access. Unfortunately, the passenger network is also connected to the computer systems that control the plane, as well as communication and navigation systems, which the FAA has complained about in a "special conditions" document that covers issues that are a concern but are not specifically covered by regulations.

Boeing says it has designed a solution that it will be testing shortly, and the FAA says that has to happen before any of these will be allowed to fly.

A Boeing spokesperson claims that the FAA document criticizing the design is misleading because, as Wired reports, "the plane's networks don't completely connect." She goes on in the article to say that there's a combination of physical separation and software-based firewalls. Given the fact that software-based firewalls have themselves had vulnerabilities from time to time, I'd strongly prefer to see complete physical separation.

Andrew Morton's Tom Cruise tell-all

Dlisted has the scoop on Andrew Morton's book on Tom Cruise, to be released on January 15. I would surmise that it will not be published in the UK, which has much stricter libel laws.

Cruise was threatening to sue Morton for this book back in February 2006, before he had even started writing it, because Morton hired gay porn star turned private investigator Paul Baressi, whose allegations of a gay affair with John Travolta were published in the National Enquirer, only to retract them after being sued by Travolta. Photos of Travolta kissing a man on the steps of his private plane during the production of "Hairspray" were widely published in 2006.

L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology consider homosexuality to be a perversion which falls at 1.1 on the tone scale, between fear and anger.

UPDATE (January 12, 2007): Slate reads Morton's book so you don't have to, and reveals that the Tom Cruise of Morton's book is strictly heterosexual.

Notorious major spammer indicted

Alan Ralsky, at one time believed to be the top spammer in the world, has finally been indicted today by a federal grand jury. His home was raided back in 2005, and he's now been charged along with ten other people in "a wide ranging international fraud scheme involving the illegal use of bulk commercial e-mailing." Those indicted include James E. Bragg, 39, of Queen Creek, Arizona.

The indictment alleges that Ralsky's spam gang "tried to send spam" through botnets and engaged in a "pump and dump" stock scam for Chinese companies. The Detroit Free Press's coverage reports: "Prosecutors described Ralsky, 52, of West Bloomfield, as one of the most prolific spammers in the nation. Until 2005, when federal agents raided his home and seized his computers, his operation sent tens of millions of unsolicited email messages daily to Internet subscribers, hawking everything from sexual enhancement drugs, weight loss products and worthless stock, the government said. In the summer of 2005 alone, prosecutors said, his operation generated $3 million."

The DOJ press release is here.

New online atheist newsletter

Octavia, a New Zealand atheist who was formerly an administrator at IIDB until the recent controversies there, has followed through with her proposed creation of a community newsletter for participants of the proliferating atheist and freethought message boards, called Nexus and hosted at the Nontheist Nexus.

I've just started looking at the first issue, and I went directly to the article "Atheist Cop," which was a fascinating read. There's also an excerpt from Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason," some nicely done artwork, some stills from a film being made by one of the board members, an account of a scientist who spent eight months at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, "Sarpedon's Weird Science" with links to interesting recent articles about undersea life, a couple of reviews of "The Golden Compass," a few holiday recipes, and more.

It looks like a great start, and I look forward to reading the rest of this issue and more in the future.

Who's Who in Hell is now online

Warren Allen Smith's massive Who's Who in Hell (2000, Barricade Books) is now online as a wiki, provided by the organization Philosopedia (not yet a 501(c)(3)), which manages a wiki of the same name.

Unfortunately, they're not allowing the public to edit the content. I hope they will at least open it up to registered users in some way. It's also somewhat disappointing that the organization of Who's Who in Hell puts all the entries into 26 wiki pages, one per letter of the alphabet, rather than having a separate entry for each person. My entry on the L page is woefully out of date.

UPDATE: But they're quite responsive... I have a new entry already.

December's Phoenix Housing Stats Update

By now it's barely even newsworthly that December saw another record number of notices of trustee's sales in Maricopa County (3875, which was more than 300 higher than last month's record high, which was almost 100 higher than October's record high, which was roughly 200 higher than August's record high...).

For some extra context and excellent commentary, after looking at the graphs...



...I recommend you check out Mish's Pent Up Housing Demand, and the NYT's Sound of a Bubble Bursting.