Smile! The US Sees You Coming
by Tonda MacCharles
High in the sky, down on the ground, agents with high-tech tools guard the borderDETROIT – About 15 meters before a car from Canada reaches the border inspection booth, the screenings begin.A camera snaps your license plate.An electronic card reader mounted on a yellow post scans your car for the presence of any radio-frequency ID cards inside. If there is an enhanced driver's license embedded with biometric information, its unique PIN number is read without you offering it. |
Iran blocks Facebook to stifle opposition activism
by Agence France-Presse
Iran has blocked access to Facebook ahead of June presidential polls, allegedly to prevent supporters of the leading opposition candidate from using the site for his campaign, Ilna news agency said on Saturday.“Access to the Facebook site was prohibited several days ahead of the presidential election,” Ilna, considered close to Iranian reformists, said in reference to the June 12 vote. “According to certain Internet surfers, the site was banned because supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi were using Facebook to better disseminate the candidate’s positions.” |
'Israel won't yield to U.S. demands, won't halt settlement construction'
by Haaertz Service
Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon spoke to Channel 2 on Saturday about the meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, held earlier this week, saying that Israel's government will not allow the U.S. to dictate its policy, and that "settlement construction will not be halted." |
Study: Global warming this century could lead to ‘hundreds of millions’ dead
by Stephen C. Webster
House Energy and Commerce Committee backs 83 percent emissions cut by 2050A new study published in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate warns that global climate change may actually be twice as detrimental as previously predicted, with temperatures climbing by as much as nine degrees by 2100, leading to mass migrations, wars and "hundreds of millions" dead. |
Ventura: I’ll waterboard Hannity into saying Obama best president ever
by Mike Sheehan
After ripping George W. Bush and expressing his desire to waterboard Dick Cheney, former governor Jesse Ventura continues his media storm, this time in a sitdown with Huffington Post.The ex-pro wrestler minced no words, as usual.Americans have changed “in that we have a paranoia that there’s a crazy Arab around every tree,” Ventura told Marcus Baram. “We’re walking on eggshells now, when in reality you have as much chance of running into a terrorist as winning the Powerball.” |
Files on Priest Sex Abuse to Be Opened
by Paul Vitello
Connecticut’s highest court ruled on Friday that thousands of pages of documents from sexual-abuse lawsuits filed against priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport that had been kept sealed for more than a decade must be made public.The 4-to-1 decision by the State Supreme Court was the latest milestone in a seven-year legal fight between the Diocese of Bridgeport and four newspapers: The New York Times, The Hartford Courant, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. |
Federal judge threatens to sanction Obama administration over secrecy
by Stephen C. Webster
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco warned the Obama administration on Friday of severe sanctions if it does not comply with the court’s order to turn over a secret document an Islamic group says proves they were illegally spied upon.The case, Al-Haramain v. Obama (see also: Al-Haramain V. Bush), springs out of a government mistake in which a secret document detailing the wiretapping of calls between attorneys and Saudi charity Al-Haramain was turned over to the charity’s counsel. |
In the Absence of Proof
by Bob Herbert
The options are running out for Troy Davis, a man who has been condemned to death for killing a police officer in Georgia, but whose guilt is seriously in question.It’s bad enough that we still execute people in the United States. It’s absolutely chilling that we’re willing to do it when we’re not even sure we’ve got the right person in our clutches. |
When Did Cowboys Get Wimpy?
by Gail Collins
Out of all the problems we have run into in dealing with the giant hairball that is known as the Bush War on Terror, one of the weirdest is the reaction to President Obama’s plan to close down Guantánamo.In the rank of threats to public safety, putting the Guantánamo inmates in maximum-security prisons in the United States has got to come in way behind, say, making it easy for customers to purchase firearms at gun shows. |
Concern Mounts Over US Predator Covert Killings
by Tom Baldwin
The CIA is said to have carried out at least 16 Predator strikes in Pakistan during the first four months of this year. America has stepped up the covert targeted killing policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan despite the concern of security experts about its effectiveness and complaints by human rights groups about civilian casualties. |
